FOR three months Billy met has-beens, and third- and fourth-rate
fighters from New York and its environs. He thrashed them all--usually
by the knockout route and finally local sports commenced talking about
him a bit, and he was matched up with second-raters from other cities.
These men he cleaned up as handily as he had the others, so that it was
apparent to fight fandom that the big, quiet “unknown” was a comer;
and pretty soon Professor Cassidy received an offer from another
trainer-manager to match Billy against a real “hope” who stood in the
forefront of hopedom.
This other manager stated that he thought the mill would prove excellent
practice for his man who was having difficulty in finding opponents.
Professor Cassidy thought so too, and grinned for two hours straight
after reading the challenge.
The details of the fight were quickly arranged. In accordance with the
state regulations it was to be a ten round, no decision bout--the weight
of the gloves was prescribed by law.
The name of the “white hope” against whom Billy was to go was sufficient
to draw a fair house, and there were some there who had seen Billy in
other fights and looked for a good mill. When the “coming champion,”
as Billy's opponent was introduced, stepped into the ring he received
a hearty round of applause, whereas there was but a scattered ripple
of handclapping to greet the mucker. It was the first time he ever had
stepped into a ring with a first-rate fighter, and as he saw the huge
muscles of his antagonist and recalled the stories he had heard of
his prowess and science, Billy, for the first time in his life, felt a
tremor of nervousness.
His eyes wandered across the ropes to the sea of faces turned up toward
him, and all of a sudden Billy Byrne went into a blue funk. Professor
Cassidy, shrewd and experienced, saw it even as soon as Billy realized
it--he saw the fading of his high hopes--he saw his castles in Spain
tumbling in ruins about his ears--he saw his huge giant lying prone
within that squared circle as the hand of the referee rose and fell in
cadence to the ticking of seconds that would count his man out.
“Here,” he whispered, “take a swig o' this,” and he pressed a bottle
toward Billy's lips.
Billy shook his head. The stuff had kept him down all his life--he had
sworn never to touch another drop of it, and he never would, whether he
lost this and every other fight he ever fought. He had sworn to leave
it alone for HER sake! And then the gong called him to the center of the
ring.
Billy knew that he was afraid--he thought that he was afraid of the big,
trained fighter who faced him; but Cassidy knew that it was a plain case
of stage fright that had gripped his man. He knew, too, that it would
be enough to defeat Billy's every chance for victory, and after the big
“white hope” had felled Billy twice in the first minute of the first
round Cassidy knew that it was all over but the shouting.
The fans, many of them, were laughing, and yelling derogatory remarks at
Billy.
“Stan' up an' fight, yeh big stiff!” and “Back to de farm fer youse!”
and then, high above the others a shrill voice cried “Coward! Coward!”
The word penetrated Billy's hopeless, muddled brain. Coward! SHE had
called him that once, and then she had changed her mind. Theriere had
thought him a coward, yet as he died he had said that he was the bravest
man he ever had known. Billy recalled the yelling samurai with their
keen swords and terrible spears. He saw the little room in the “palace”
of Oda Yorimoto, and again he faced the brown devils who had hacked
and hewed and stabbed at him that day as he fought to save the woman he
loved. Coward! What was there in this padded ring for a man to fear
who had faced death as Billy had faced it, and without an instant's
consciousness of the meaning of the word fear? What was wrong with him,
and then the shouts and curses and taunts of the crowd smote upon his
ears, and he knew. It was the crowd! Again the heavy fist of the “coming
champion” brought Billy to the mat, and then, before further damage
could be done him, the gong saved him.
It was a surprised and chastened mucker that walked with bent head to
his corner after the first round. The “white hope” was grinning and
confident, and so he returned to the center of the ring for the second
round. During the short interval Billy had thrashed the whole thing out.
The crowd had gotten on his nerves. He was trying to fight the whole
crowd instead of just one man--he would do better in this round; but the
first thing that happened after he faced his opponent sent the fans into
delirious ecstasies of shouting and hooting.
Billy swung his right for his foe's jaw--a terrible blow that would have
ended the fight had it landed--but the man side-stepped it, and Billy's
momentum carried him sprawling upon his face. When he regained his feet
the “white hope” was waiting for him, and Billy went down again to lie
there, quite still, while the hand of the referee marked the seconds:
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Billy opened his eyes. Seven. Billy
sat up. Eight. The meaning of that monotonous count finally percolated
to the mucker's numbed perceptive faculties. He was being counted out!
Nine! Like a flash he was on his feet. He had forgotten the crowd.
Rage--cool, calculating rage possessed him--not the feverish, hysterical
variety that takes its victim's brains away.
They had been counting out the man whom Barbara Harding had once
loved!--the man she had thought the bravest in the world!--they were
making a monkey and a coward of him! He'd show them!
The “white hope” was waiting for him. Billy was scarce off his knees
before the man rushed at him wickedly, a smile playing about his lips.
It was to be the last of that smile, however. Billy met the rush with
his old familiar crouch, and stopped his man with a straight to the
body.
Cassidy saw it and almost smiled. He didn't think that Billy could come
back--but at least he was fighting for a minute in his old form.
The surprised “hope” rushed in to punish his presuming foe. The crowd
was silent. Billy ducked beneath a vicious left swing and put a right to
the side of the “hope's” head that sent the man to his knees. Then came
the gong.
In the third round Billy fought carefully. He had made up his mind that
he would show this bunch of pikers that he knew how to box, so that none
might say that he had won with a lucky punch, for Billy intended to win.
The round was one which might fill with delight the soul of the fan who
knows the finer points of the game. And when it was over, while little
damage had been done on either side, it left no shadow of a doubt in the
minds of those who knew that the unknown fighter was the more skilful
boxer.
Then came the fourth round. Of course there was no question in the minds
of the majority of the spectators as to who would win the fight. The
stranger had merely shown one of those sudden and ephemeral bursts of
form that occasionally are witnessed in every branch of sport; but he
couldn't last against such a man as the “white hope”!--they looked for a
knock-out any minute now. Nor did they look in vain.
Billy was quite satisfied with the work he had done in the preceding
round. Now he would show them another style of fighting! And he did.
From the tap of the gong he rushed his opponent about the ring at will.
He hit him when and where he pleased. The man was absolutely helpless
before him. With left and right hooks Billy rocked the “coming
champion's” head from side to side. He landed upon the swelling optics
of his victim as he listed.
Thrice he rushed him to the ropes, and once the man fell through them
into the laps of the hooting spectators--only now they were not hooting
Billy. Until the gong Billy played with his man as a cat might play with
a mouse; yet not once had he landed a knock-out blow.
“Why didn't you finish him?” cried Professor Cassidy, as Billy returned
to his corner after the round. “You had 'im goin' man--why in the world
didn't yeh finish him?”
“I didn't want to,” said Billy; “not in that round. I'm reserving the
finish for the fifth round, and if you want to win some money you can
take the hunch!”
“Do you mean it?” asked Cassidy.
“Sure,” said Billy. “You might make more by laying that I'd make him
take the count in the first minute of the round--you can place a hundred
of mine on that, if you will, please.”
Cassidy took the hunch, and a moment later as the two men faced each
other he regretted his act, for to his surprise the “white hope” came up
for the fifth round smiling and confident once more.
“Someone's been handin' him an earful,” grumbled Cassidy, “an' it might
be all he needed to take 'im through the first minute of the round, and
maybe the whole round--I've seen that did lots o' times.”
As the two men met the “white hope” was the aggressor. He rushed in
to close quarters aiming a stinging blow at Billy's face, and then to
Cassidy's chagrin and the crowd's wonder, the mucker lowered his guard
and took the wallop full on the jaw. The blow seemed never to jar him
the least. The “hope” swung again, and there stood Billy Byrne, like
a huge bronze statue taking blow after blow that would have put an
ordinary man down for the count.
The fans saw and appreciated the spectacular bravado of the act, and
they went wild. Cheer on cheer rose, hoarse and deafening, to the
rafters. The “white hope” lost his self-control and what little remained
of his short temper, and deliberately struck Billy a foul blow, but
before the referee could interfere the mucker swung another just such
blow as he had missed and fallen with in the second round; but this time
he did not miss--his mighty fist caught the “coming champion” on the
point of the chin, lifted him off his feet and landed him halfway
through the ropes. There he lay while the referee tolled off the count
of ten, and as the official took Billy's hand in his and raised it
aloft in signal that he had won the fight the fickle crowd cheered and
screamed in a delirium of joy.
Cassidy crawled through the ropes and threw his arms around Billy.
“I knew youse could do it, kid!” he screamed. “You're as good as made
now, an' you're de next champ, or I never seen one.”
The following morning the sporting sheets hailed “Sailor” Byrne as the
greatest “white hope” of them all. Flashlights of him filled a quarter
of a page. There were interviews with him. Interviews with the man he
had defeated. Interviews with Cassidy. Interviews with the referee.
Interviews with everybody, and all were agreed that he was the most
likely heavy since Jeffries. Corbett admitted that, while in his prime
he could doubtless have bested the new wonder, he would have found him a
tough customer.
Everyone said that Byrne's future was assured. There was not a man in
sight who could touch him, and none who had seen him fight the night
before but would have staked his last dollar on him in a mill with the
black champion.
Cassidy wired a challenge to the Negro's manager, and received an answer
that was most favorable. The terms were, as usual, rather one-sided
but Cassidy accepted them, and it seemed before noon that a fight was
assured.
Billy was more nearly happy again than he had been since the day he had
renounced Barbara Harding to the man he thought she loved. He read
and re-read the accounts in the papers, and then searching for more
references to himself off the sporting page he ran upon the very name
that had been constantly in his thoughts for all these months--Harding.
Persistent rumor has it that the engagement of the beautiful Miss
Harding to Wm. J. Mallory has been broken. Miss Harding could not be
seen at her father's home up to a late hour last night. Mr. Mallory
refused to discuss the matter, but would not deny the rumor.
There was more, but that was all that Billy Byrne read. The paper
dropped from his hand. Battles and championships faded from his
thoughts. He sat with his eyes bent upon the floor, and his mind was
thousands of miles away across the broad Pacific upon a little island in
the midst of a turbulent stream.
And far uptown another sat with the same paper in her hand. Barbara
Harding was glancing through the sporting sheet in search of the scores
of yesterday's woman's golf tournament. And as she searched her eyes
suddenly became riveted upon the picture of a giant man, and she forgot
about tournaments and low scores. Hastily she searched the heads and
text until she came upon the name--“'Sailor' Byrne!”
Yes! It must be he. Greedily she read and re-read all that had been
written about him. Yes, she, Barbara Harding, scion of an aristocratic
house--ultra-society girl, read and re-read the accounts of a brutal
prize fight.
A half hour later a messenger boy found “Sailor” Byrne the center of
an admiring throng in Professor Cassidy's third-floor gymnasium. With
worshiping eyes taking in his new hero from head to foot the youth
handed Byrne a note.
He stood staring at the heavy weight until he had perused it.
“Any answer?” he asked.
“No answer, kid,” replied Byrne, “that I can't take myself,” and he
tossed a dollar to the worshiping boy.
An hour later Billy Byrne was ascending the broad, white steps that led
to the entrance of Anthony Harding's New York house. The servant who
answered his ring eyed him suspiciously, for Billy Byrne still dressed
like a teamster on holiday. He had no card!
“Tell Miss Harding that Mr. Byrne has come,” he said.
The servant left him standing in the hallway, and started to ascend the
great staircase, but halfway up he met Miss Harding coming down.
“Never mind, Smith,” she said. “I am expecting Mr. Byrne,” and then
seeing that the fellow had not seated her visitor she added, “He is a
very dear friend.” Smith faded quickly from the scene.
“Billy!” cried the girl, rushing toward him with out-stretched hands.
“O Billy, we thought you were dead. How long have you been here? Why
haven't you been to see me?”
Byrne hesitated.
A great, mad hope had been surging through his being since he had read
of the broken engagement and received the girl's note. And now in her
eyes, in her whole attitude, he could read, as unmistakably as though
her lips had formed the words that he had not hoped in vain.
But some strange influence had seemed suddenly to come to work upon
him. Even in the brief moment of his entrance into the magnificence of
Anthony Harding's home he had felt a strange little stricture of the
throat--a choking, half-suffocating sensation.
The attitude of the servant, the splendor of the furnishings, the
stateliness of the great hall, and the apartments opening upon it--all
had whispered to him that he did not “belong.”
And now Barbara, clothed in some wondrous foreign creation, belied by
her very appearance the expression that suffused her eyes.
No, Billy Byrne, the mucker, did not belong there. Nor ever could he
belong, more than Barbara ever could have “belonged” on Grand Avenue.
And Billy Byrne knew it now. His heart went cold. The bottom seemed
suddenly to have dropped out of his life.
Bravely he had battled to forget this wonderful creature, or, rather,
his hopeless love for her--her he could never forget. But the note from
her, and the sight of her had but served to rekindle the old fire within
his breast.
He thought quickly. His own life or happiness did not count. Nothing
counted now but Barbara. He had seen the lovelight in her eyes. He
thanked God that he had realized what it all would have meant, before he
let her see that he had seen it.
“I've been back several months,” he said presently, in answer to her
question; “but I got sense enough to stay where I belong. Gee! Wouldn't
I look great comin' up here buttin' in, wit youse bunch of highlifes?”
Billy slapped his thigh resoundingly and laughed in stentorian tones
that caused the eyebrows of the sensitive Smith on the floor above to
elevate in shocked horror.
“Den dere was de mills. I couldn't break away from me work, could I, to
chase a bunch of skirts?”
Barbara felt a qualm of keen disappointment that Billy had fallen again
into the old dialect that she had all but eradicated during those days
upon distant “Manhattan Island.”
“I wouldn't o' come up atal,” he went on, “if I hadn't o' read in de
poiper how youse an' Mallory had busted. I t'ought I'd breeze in an' see
wot de trouble was.”
His eyes had been averted, mostly, as he talked. Now he swung suddenly
upon her.
“He's on de square, ain't he?” he demanded.
“Yes,” said Barbara. She was not quite sure whether to feel offended, or
not. But the memory of Billy's antecedents came to his rescue. Of course
he didn't know that it was such terribly bad form to broach such a
subject to her, she thought.
“Well, then,” continued the mucker, “wot's up? Mallory's de guy fer
youse. Youse loved him or youse wouldn't have got engaged to him.”
The statement was almost an interrogation.
Barbara nodded affirmatively.
“You see, Billy,” she started, “I have always known Mr. Mallory, and
always thought that I loved him until--until--” There was no answering
light in Billy's eyes--no encouragement for the words that were on
her lips. She halted lamely. “Then,” she went on presently, “we became
engaged after we reached New York. We all thought you dead,” she
concluded simply.
“Do you think as much of him now as you did when you promised to marry
him?” he asked, ignoring her reference to himself and all that it
implied.
Barbara nodded.
“What is at the bottom of this row?” persisted Billy. He had fallen back
into the decent pronunciation that Barbara had taught him, but neither
noticed the change. For a moment he had forgotten that he was playing a
part. Then he recollected.
“Nothing much,” replied the girl. “I couldn't rid myself of the feeling
that they had murdered you, by leaving you back there alone and wounded.
I began to think 'coward' every time I saw Mr. Mallory. I couldn't marry
him, feeling that way toward him, and, Billy, I really never LOVED him
as--as--” Again she stumbled, but the mucker made no attempt to grasp
the opportunity opened before him.
Instead he crossed the library to the telephone. Running through the
book he came presently upon the number he sought. A moment later he had
his connection.
“Is this Mallory?” he asked.
“I'm Byrne--Billy Byrne. De guy dat cracked your puss fer youse on de
Lotus.”
“Dead, hell! Not me. Say, I'm up here at Barbara's.”
“Yes, dat's wot I said. She wants youse to beat it up here's swift as
youse kin beat it.”
Barbara Harding stepped forward. Her eyes were blazing.
“How dare you?” she cried, attempting to seize the telephone from
Billy's grasp.
He turned his huge frame between her and the instrument. “Git a move!”
he shouted into the mouthpiece. “Good-bye!” and he hung up.
Then he turned back toward the angry girl.
“Look here,” he said. “Once youse was strong on de sob stuff wit me,
tellin' me how noble I was, an' all de different tings youse would do
fer me to repay all I done fer youse. Now youse got de chanct.”
“What do you mean?” asked the girl, puzzled. “What can I do for you?”
“Youse kin do dis fer me. When Mallory gits here youse kin tell him dat
de engagement is all on again--see!”
In the wide eyes of the girl Billy read a deeper hurt than he had
dreamed of. He had thought that it would not be difficult for her to
turn back from the vulgar mucker to the polished gentleman. And when he
saw that she was suffering, and guessed that it was because he had tried
to crush her love by brute force he could carry the game no further.
“O Barbara,” he cried, “can't you see that Mallory is your kind--that HE
is a fit mate for you. I have learned since I came into this house a few
minutes ago the unbridgeable chasm that stretches between Billy Byrne,
the mucker, and such as you. Once I aspired; but now I know just as you
must have always known, that a single lifetime is far too short for a
man to cover the distance from Grand Avenue to Riverside Drive.
“I want you to be happy, Barbara, just as I intend to be. Back there in
Chicago there are plenty of girls on Grand Avenue as straight and clean
and fine as they make 'em on Riverside Drive. Girls of my own kind, they
are, and I'm going back there to find the one that God intended for me.
You've taught me what a good girl can do toward making a man of a beast.
You've taught me pride and self-respect. You've taught me so much that
I'd rather that I'd died back there beneath the spears of Oda Iseka's
warriors than live here beneath the sneers and contempt of servants, and
the pity and condescension of your friends.
“I want you to be happy, Barbara, and so I want you to promise me that
you'll marry Billy Mallory. There isn't any man on earth quite good
enough for you; but Mallory comes nearer to it than anyone I know. I've
heard 'em talking about him around town since I came back--and there
isn't a rotten story chalked up against him nowhere, and that's a lot
more than you can say for ninety-nine of a hundred New Yorkers that are
talked about at all.
“And Mallory's a man, too--the kind that every woman ought to have, only
they ain't enough of 'em to go 'round. Do you remember how he stood up
there on the deck of the Lotus and fought fair against my dirty tricks?
He's a man and a gentleman, Barbara--the sort you can be proud of, and
that's the sort you got to have. You see I know you.
“And he fought against those fellows of Yoka in the street of Oda
Iseka's village like a man should fight. There ain't any yellow in him,
Barbara, and he didn't leave me until there seemed no other way, even
in the face of the things I told them to make them go. Don't harbor that
against him--I only wonder that he didn't croak me; your dad wanted to,
and Mallory wouldn't let him.”
“They never told me that,” said Barbara.
The bell rang.
“Here he is now,” said Billy. “Good-bye--I'd rather not see him.
Smith'll let me out the servants' door. Guess that'll make him feel
better. You'll do as I ask, Barbara?”
He had paused at the door, turning toward her as he asked the final
question.
The girl stood facing him. Her eyes were dim with unshed tears. Billy
Byrne swam before them in a hazy mist.
“You'll do as I ask, Barbara!” he repeated, but this time it was a
command.
As Mallory entered the room Barbara heard the door of the servants'
entrance slam behind Billy Byrne.
PART II.
CHAPTER I. THE MURDER TRIAL.
BILLY BYRNE squared his broad shoulders and filled his deep lungs with
the familiar medium which is known as air in Chicago. He was standing
upon the platform of a New York Central train that was pulling into the
La Salle Street Station, and though the young man was far from happy
something in the nature of content pervaded his being, for he was coming
home.
After something more than a year of world wandering and strange
adventure Billy Byrne was coming back to the great West Side and Grand
Avenue.
Now there is not much upon either side or down the center of long and
tortuous Grand Avenue to arouse enthusiasm, nor was Billy particularly
enthusiastic about that more or less squalid thoroughfare.
The thing that exalted Billy was the idea that he was coming back to
SHOW THEM. He had left under a cloud and with a reputation for genuine
toughness and rowdyism that has seen few parallels even in the ungentle
district of his birth and upbringing.
A girl had changed him. She was as far removed from Billy's sphere as
the stars themselves; but Billy had loved her and learned from her, and
in trying to become more as he knew the men of her class were he had
sloughed off much of the uncouthness that had always been a part of him,
and all of the rowdyism. Billy Byrne was no longer the mucker.
He had given her up because he imagined the gulf between Grand Avenue
and Riverside Drive to be unbridgeable; but he still clung to the ideals
she had awakened in him. He still sought to be all that she might wish
him to be, even though he realized that he never should see her again.
Grand Avenue would be the easiest place to forget his sorrow--her he
could never forget. And then, his newly awakened pride urged him back to
the haunts of his former life that he might, as he would put it himself,
show them. He wanted the gang to see that he, Billy Byrne, wasn't afraid
to be decent. He wanted some of the neighbors to realize that he could
work steadily and earn an honest living, and he looked forward with
delight to the pleasure and satisfaction of rubbing it in to some of the
saloon keepers and bartenders who had helped keep him drunk some five
days out of seven, for Billy didn't drink any more.
But most of all he wanted to vindicate himself in the eyes of the
once-hated law. He wanted to clear his record of the unjust charge of
murder which had sent him scurrying out of Chicago over a year before,
that night that Patrolman Stanley Lasky of the Lake Street Station had
tipped him off that Sheehan had implicated him in the murder of old man
Schneider.
Now Billy Byrne had not killed Schneider. He had been nowhere near the
old fellow's saloon at the time of the holdup; but Sheehan, who had been
arrested and charged with the crime, was an old enemy of Billy's, and
Sheehan had seen a chance to divert some of the suspicion from himself
and square accounts with Byrne at the same time.
The new Billy Byrne was ready to accept at face value everything which
seemed to belong in any way to the environment of that exalted realm
where dwelt the girl he loved. Law, order, and justice appeared to Billy
in a new light since he had rubbed elbows with the cultured and refined.
He no longer distrusted or feared them. They would give him what he
sought--a square deal.
It seemed odd to Billy that he should be seeking anything from the law
or its minions. For years he had waged a perpetual battle with both. Now
he was coming back voluntarily to give himself up, with every conviction
that he should be exonerated quickly. Billy, knowing his own innocence,
realizing his own integrity, assumed that others must immediately
appreciate both.
“First,” thought Billy, “I'll go take a look at little old Grand Ave.,
then I'll give myself up. The trial may take a long time, an' if it does
I want to see some of the old bunch first.”
So Billy entered an “L” coach and leaning on the sill of an open
window watched grimy Chicago rattle past until the guard's “Granavenoo”
announced the end of his journey.
Maggie Shane was sitting on the upper step of the long flight of stairs
which lean precariously against the scarred face of the frame residence
upon the second floor front of which the lares and penates of the Shane
family are crowded into three ill-smelling rooms.
It was Saturday and Maggie was off. She sat there rather disconsolate
for there was a dearth of beaux for Maggie, none having arisen to fill
the aching void left by the sudden departure of “Coke” Sheehan since
that worthy gentleman had sought a more salubrious clime--to the
consternation of both Maggie Shane and Mr. Sheehan's bondsmen.
Maggie scowled down upon the frowsy street filled with frowsy women and
frowsy children. She scowled upon the street cars rumbling by with their
frowsy loads. Occasionally she varied the monotony by drawing out her
chewing gum to wondrous lengths, holding one end between a thumb and
finger and the other between her teeth.
Presently Maggie spied a rather pleasing figure sauntering up the
sidewalk upon her side of the street. The man was too far away for
her to recognize his features, but his size and bearing and general
appearance appealed to the lonesome Maggie. She hoped it was someone she
knew, or with whom she might easily become acquainted, for Maggie was
bored to death.
She patted the hair at the back of her head and righted the mop which
hung over one eye. Then she rearranged her skirts and waited. As the man
approached she saw that he was better looking than she had even dared
to hope, and that there was something extremely familiar about his
appearance. It was not, though, until he was almost in front of the
house that he looked up at the girl and she recognized him.
Then Maggie Shane gasped and clutched the handrail at her side.
An instant later the man was past and continuing his way along the
sidewalk.
Maggie Shane glared after him for a minute, then she ran quickly down
the stairs and into a grocery store a few doors west, where she asked if
she might use the telephone.
“Gimme West 2063,” she demanded of the operator, and a moment later: “Is
this Lake Street?”
“Well say, Billy Byrne's back. I just see him.”
“Yes an' never mind who I am; but if youse guys want him he's walkin'
west on Grand Avenoo right now. I just this minute seen him near
Lincoln,” and she smashed the receiver back into its hook.
Billy Byrne thought that he would look in on his mother, not that he
expected to be welcomed even though she might happen to be sober, or
not that he cared to see her; but Billy's whole manner of thought had
altered within the year, and something now seemed to tell him that it
was his duty to do the thing he contemplated. Maybe he might even be of
help to her.
But when he reached the gloomy neighborhood in which his childhood had
been spent it was to learn that his mother was dead and that another
family occupied the tumble-down cottage that had been his home.
If Billy Byrne felt any sorrow because of his mother's death he did
not reveal it outwardly. He owed her nothing but for kicks and cuffs
received, and for the surroundings and influences that had started him
upon a life of crime at an age when most boys are just entering grammar
school.
Really the man was relieved that he had not had to see her, and it was
with a lighter step that he turned back to retrace his way along Grand
Avenue. No one of the few he had met who recognized him had seemed
particularly delighted at his return. The whole affair had been
something of a disappointment. Therefore Billy determined to go at once
to the Lake Street Station and learn the status of the Schneider murder
case. Possibly they had discovered the real murderer, and if that was
the case Billy would be permitted to go his way; but if not then he
could give himself up and ask for a trial, that he might be exonerated.
As he neared Wood Street two men who had been watching his approach
stepped into the doorway of a saloon, and as he passed they stepped out
again behind him. One upon either side they seized him.
Billy turned to remonstrate.
“Come easy now, Byrne,” admonished one of the men, “an' don't make no
fuss.”
“Oh,” said Billy, “it's you, is it? Well, I was just goin' over to the
station to give myself up.”
Both men laughed, skeptically. “We'll just save you the trouble,” said
one of them. “We'll take you over. You might lose your way if you tried
to go alone.”
Billy went along in silence the rest of the way to where the patrol
waited at another corner. He saw there was nothing to be gained by
talking to these detectives; but he found the lieutenant equally
inclined to doubt his intentions. He, too, only laughed when Billy
assured him that he was on his way to the station at the very instant of
arrest.
As the weeks dragged along, and Billy Byrne found no friendly interest
in himself or his desire to live on the square, and no belief in his
protestations that he had had naught to do with the killing of Schneider
he began to have his doubts as to the wisdom of his act.
He also commenced to entertain some of his former opinions of the
police, and of the law of which they are supposed to be the guardians. A
cell-mate told him that the papers had scored the department heavily
for their failure to apprehend the murderer of the inoffensive old
Schneider, and that public opinion had been so aroused that a general
police shakeup had followed.
The result was that the police were keen to fasten the guilt upon
someone--they did not care whom, so long as it was someone who was in
their custody.
“You may not o' done it,” ventured the cell-mate; “but they'll send you
up for it, if they can't hang you. They're goin' to try to get the death
sentence. They hain't got no love for you, Byrne. You caused 'em a lot
o' throuble in your day an' they haven't forgot it. I'd hate to be in
your boots.”
Billy Byrne shrugged. Where were his dreams of justice? They seemed to
have faded back into the old distrust and hatred. He shook himself and
conjured in his mind the vision of a beautiful girl who had believed in
him and trusted him--who had inculcated within him a love for all that
was finest and best in true manhood, for the very things that he had
most hated all the years of his life before she had come into his
existence to alter it and him.
And then Billy would believe again--believe that in the end justice
would triumph and that it would all come out right, just the way he had
pictured it.
With the coming of the last day of the trial Billy found it more and
more difficult to adhere to his regard for law, order, and justice. The
prosecution had shown conclusively that Billy was a hard customer. The
police had brought witnesses who did not hesitate to perjure themselves
in their testimony--testimony which it seemed to Billy the densest of
jurymen could plainly see had been framed up and learned by rote until
it was letter-perfect.
These witnesses could recall with startling accuracy every detail
that had occurred between seventeen minutes after eight and twenty-one
minutes past nine on the night of September 23 over a year before; but
where they had been and what they had done ten minutes earlier or ten
minutes later, or where they were at nine o'clock in the evening last
Friday they couldn't for the lives of them remember.
And Billy was practically without witnesses.
The result was a foregone conclusion. Even Billy had to admit it, and
when the prosecuting attorney demanded the death penalty the prisoner
had an uncanny sensation as of the tightening of a hempen rope about his
neck.
As he waited for the jury to return its verdict Billy sat in his cell
trying to read a newspaper which a kindly guard had given him. But his
eyes persisted in boring through the white paper and the black type to
scenes that were not in any paper. He saw a turbulent river tumbling
through a savage world, and in the swirl of the water lay a little
island. And he saw a man there upon the island, and a girl. The girl was
teaching the man to speak the language of the cultured, and to view life
as people of refinement view it.
She taught him what honor meant among her class, and that it was better
to lose any other possession rather than lose honor. Billy realized that
it had been these lessons that had spurred him on to the mad scheme that
was to end now with the verdict of “Guilty”--he had wished to vindicate
his honor. A hard laugh broke from his lips; but instantly he sobered
and his face softened.
It had been for her sake after all, and what mattered it if they did
send him to the gallows? He had not sacrificed his honor--he had done
his best to assert it. He was innocent. They could kill him but they
couldn't make him guilty. A thousand juries pronouncing him so could not
make it true that he had killed Schneider.
But it would be hard, after all his hopes, after all the plans he had
made to live square, to SHOW THEM. His eyes still boring through the
paper suddenly found themselves attracted by something in the text
before them--a name, Harding.
Billy Byrne shook himself and commenced to read:
The marriage of Barbara, daughter of Anthony Harding, the
multimillionaire, to William Mallory will take place on the twenty-fifth
of June.
The article was dated New York. There was more, but Billy did not
read it. He had read enough. It is true that he had urged her to marry
Mallory; but now, in his lonesomeness and friendlessness, he felt almost
as though she had been untrue to him.
“Come along, Byrne,” a bailiff interrupted his thoughts, “the jury's
reached a verdict.”
The judge was emerging from his chambers as Billy was led into the
courtroom. Presently the jury filed in and took their seats. The foreman
handed the clerk a bit of paper. Even before it was read Billy knew
that he had been found guilty. He did not care any longer, so he told
himself. He hoped that the judge would send him to the gallows. There
was nothing more in life for him now anyway. He wanted to die. But
instead he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary at
Joliet.
This was infinitely worse than death. Billy Byrne was appalled at the
thought of remaining for life within the grim stone walls of a prison.
Once more there swept over him all the old, unreasoning hatred of the
law and all that pertained to it. He would like to close his steel
fingers about the fat neck of the red-faced judge. The smug jurymen
roused within him the lust to kill. Justice! Billy Byrne laughed aloud.
A bailiff rapped for order. One of the jurymen leaned close to a
neighbor and whispered. “A hardened criminal,” he said. “Society will be
safer when he is behind the bars.”
The next day they took Billy aboard a train bound for Joliet. He was
handcuffed to a deputy sheriff. Billy was calm outwardly; but inwardly
he was a raging volcano of hate.
In a certain very beautiful home on Riverside Drive, New York City,
a young lady, comfortably backed by downy pillows, sat in her bed and
alternated her attention between coffee and rolls, and a morning paper.
On the inside of the main sheet a heading claimed her languid attention:
CHICAGO MURDERER GIVEN LIFE SENTENCE. Of late Chicago had aroused in
Barbara Harding a greater proportion of interest than ever it had in the
past, and so it was that she now permitted her eyes to wander casually
down the printed column.
Murderer of harmless old saloon keeper is finally brought to justice.
The notorious West Side rowdy, “Billy” Byrne, apprehended after more
than a year as fugitive from justice, is sent to Joliet for life.
Barbara Harding sat stony-eyed and cold for what seemed many minutes.
Then with a stifled sob she turned and buried her face in the pillows.
The train bearing Billy Byrne and the deputy sheriff toward Joliet had
covered perhaps half the distance between Chicago and Billy's permanent
destination when it occurred to the deputy sheriff that he should like
to go into the smoker and enjoy a cigar.
Now, from the moment that he had been sentenced Billy Byrne's mind had
been centered upon one thought--escape. He knew that there probably
would be not the slightest chance for escape; but nevertheless the idea
was always uppermost in his thoughts.
His whole being revolted, not alone against the injustice which had
sent him into life imprisonment, but at the thought of the long years of
awful monotony which lay ahead of him.
He could not endure them. He would not! The deputy sheriff rose, and
motioning his prisoner ahead of him, started for the smoker. It was two
cars ahead. The train was vestibuled. The first platform they crossed
was tightly enclosed; but at the second Billy saw that a careless porter
had left one of the doors open. The train was slowing down for some
reason--it was going, perhaps, twenty miles an hour.
Billy was the first upon the platform. He was the first to see the open
door. It meant one of two things--a chance to escape, or, death. Even
the latter was to be preferred to life imprisonment.
Billy did not hesitate an instant. Even before the deputy sheriff
realized that the door was open, his prisoner had leaped from the moving
train dragging his guard after him.
CHAPTER II. THE ESCAPE
BYRNE had no time to pick any particular spot to jump for. When he did
jump he might have been directly over a picket fence, or a bottomless
pit--he did not know. Nor did he care.
As it happened he was over neither. The platform chanced to be passing
across a culvert at the instant. Beneath the culvert was a slimy pool.
Into this the two men plunged, alighting unharmed.
Byrne was the first to regain his feet. He dragged the deputy sheriff to
his knees, and before that frightened and astonished officer of the law
could gather his wits together he had been relieved of his revolver and
found himself looking into its cold and business-like muzzle.
Then Billy Byrne waded ashore, prodding the deputy sheriff in the ribs
with cold steel, and warning him to silence. Above the pool stood a
little wood, thick with tangled wildwood. Into this Byrne forced his
prisoner.
When they had come deep enough into the concealment of the foliage to
make discovery from the outside improbable Byrne halted.
“Now say yer prayers,” he commanded. “I'm a-going to croak yeh.”
The deputy sheriff looked up at him in wild-eyed terror.
“My God!” he cried. “I ain't done nothin' to you, Byrne. Haven't I
always been your friend? What've I ever done to you? For God's sake
Byrne you ain't goin' to murder me, are you? They'll get you, sure.”
Billy Byrne let a rather unpleasant smile curl his lips.
“No,” he said, “youse ain't done nothin' to me; but you stand for the
law, damn it, and I'm going to croak everything I meet that stands for
the law. They wanted to send me up for life--me, an innocent man. Your
kind done it--the cops. You ain't no cop; but you're just as rotten. Now
say yer prayers.”
He leveled the revolver at his victim's head. The deputy sheriff slumped
to his knees and tried to embrace Billy Byrne's legs as he pleaded for
his life.
“Cut it out, you poor boob,” admonished Billy. “You've gotta die and if
you was half a man you'd wanna die like one.”
The deputy sheriff slipped to the ground. His terror had overcome him,
leaving him in happy unconsciousness. Byrne stood looking down upon the
man for a moment. His wrist was chained to that of the other, and the
pull of the deputy's body was irritating.
Byrne stooped and placed the muzzle of the revolver back of the man's
ear. “Justice!” he muttered, scornfully, and his finger tightened upon
the trigger.
Then, conjured from nothing, there rose between himself and the
unconscious man beside him the figure of a beautiful girl. Her face was
brave and smiling, and in her eyes was trust and pride--whole worlds of
them. Trust and pride in Billy Byrne.
Billy closed his eyes tight as though in physical pain. He brushed his
hand quickly across his face.
“Gawd!” he muttered. “I can't do it--but I came awful close to it.”
Dropping the revolver into his side pocket he kneeled beside the deputy
sheriff and commenced to go through the man's clothes. After a moment he
came upon what he sought--a key ring confining several keys.
Billy found the one he wished and presently he was free. He still stood
looking at the deputy sheriff.
“I ought to croak you,” he murmured. “I'll never make my get-away if I
don't; but SHE won't let me--God bless her.”
Suddenly a thought came to Billy Byrne. If he could have a start he
might escape. It wouldn't hurt the man any to stay here for a few hours,
or even for a day. Billy removed the deputy's coat and tore it into
strips. With these he bound the man to a tree. Then he fastened a gag in
his mouth.
During the operation the deputy regained consciousness. He looked
questioningly at Billy.
“I decided not to croak you,” explained the young man. “I'm just a-goin'
to leave you here for a while. They'll be lookin' all along the right o'
way in a few hours--it won't be long afore they find you. Now so long,
and take care of yerself, bo,” and Billy Byrne had gone.
A mistake that proved fortunate for Billy Byrne caused the penitentiary
authorities to expect him and his guard by a later train, so no
suspicion was aroused when they failed to come upon the train they
really had started upon. This gave Billy a good two hours' start that he
would not otherwise have had--an opportunity of which he made good use.
Wherefore it was that by the time the authorities awoke to the fact
that something had happened Billy Byrne was fifty miles west of Joliet,
bowling along aboard a fast Santa Fe freight. Shortly after night had
fallen the train crossed the Mississippi. Billy Byrne was hungry and
thirsty, and as the train slowed down and came to a stop out in the
midst of a dark solitude of silent, sweet-smelling country, Billy opened
the door of his box car and dropped lightly to the ground.
So far no one had seen Billy since he had passed from the ken of the
trussed deputy sheriff, and as Billy had no desire to be seen he slipped
over the edge of the embankment into a dry ditch, where he squatted upon
his haunches waiting for the train to depart. The stop out there in the
dark night was one of those mysterious stops which trains are prone to
make, unexplained and doubtless unexplainable by any other than a higher
intelligence which directs the movements of men and rolling stock. There
was no town, and not even a switch light. Presently two staccato blasts
broke from the engine's whistle, there was a progressive jerking at
coupling pins, which started up at the big locomotive and ran rapidly
down the length of the train, there was the squeaking of brake shoes
against wheels, and the train moved slowly forward again upon its
long journey toward the coast, gaining momentum moment by moment until
finally the way-car rolled rapidly past the hidden fugitive and the
freight rumbled away to be swallowed up in the darkness.
When it had gone Billy rose and climbed back upon the track, along which
he plodded in the wake of the departing train. Somewhere a road would
presently cut across the track, and along the road there would be
farmhouses or a village where food and drink might be found.
Billy was penniless, yet he had no doubt but that he should eat when he
had discovered food. He was thinking of this as he walked briskly toward
the west, and what he thought of induced a doubt in his mind as to
whether it was, after all, going to be so easy to steal food.
“Shaw!” he exclaimed, half aloud, “she wouldn't think it wrong for a guy
to swipe a little grub when he was starvin'. It ain't like I was goin'
to stick a guy up for his roll. Sure she wouldn't see nothin' wrong for
me to get something to eat. I ain't got no money. They took it all away
from me, an' I got a right to live--but, somehow, I hate to do it. I
wisht there was some other way. Gee, but she's made a sissy out o' me!
Funny how a feller can change. Why I almost like bein' a sissy,” and
Billy Byrne grinned at the almost inconceivable idea.
Before Billy came to a road he saw a light down in a little depression
at one side of the track. It was not such a light as a lamp shining
beyond a window makes. It rose and fell, winking and flaring close to
the ground.
It looked much like a camp fire, and as Billy drew nearer he saw that
such it was, and he heard a voice, too. Billy approached more carefully.
He must be careful always to see before being seen. The little fire
burned upon the bank of a stream which the track bridged upon a concrete
arch.
Billy dropped once more from the right of way, and climbed a fence into
a thin wood. Through this he approached the camp fire with small chance
of being observed. As he neared it the voice resolved itself into
articulate words, and presently Billy leaned against a tree close behind
the speaker and listened.
There was but a single figure beside the small fire--that of a man
squatting upon his haunches roasting something above the flames. At one
edge of the fire was an empty tin can from which steam arose, and an
aroma that was now and again wafted to Billy's nostrils.
Coffee! My, how good it smelled. Billy's mouth watered. But the
voice--that interested Billy almost as much as the preparations for the
coming meal.
We'll dance a merry saraband from here to drowsy Samarcand.
Along the sea, across the land, the birds are flying South,
And you, my sweet Penelope, out there somewhere you wait for me,
With buds of roses in your hair and kisses on your mouth.
The words took hold of Billy somewhere and made him forget his hunger.
Like a sweet incense which induces pleasant daydreams they were wafted
in upon him through the rich, mellow voice of the solitary camper, and
the lilt of the meter entered his blood.
But the voice. It was the voice of such as Billy Byrne always had
loathed and ridiculed until he had sat at the feet of Barbara Harding
and learned many things, including love. It was the voice of culture
and refinement. Billy strained his eyes through the darkness to have a
closer look at the man. The light of the camp fire fell upon frayed and
bagging clothes, and upon the back of a head covered by a shapeless, and
disreputable soft hat.
Obviously the man was a hobo. The coffee boiling in a discarded tin can
would have been proof positive of this without other evidence; but there
seemed plenty more. Yes, the man was a hobo. Billy continued to stand
listening.
The mountains are all hid in mist, the valley is like amethyst,
The poplar leaves they turn and twist, oh, silver, silver green!
Out there somewhere along the sea a ship is waiting patiently,
While up the beach the bubbles slip with white afloat between.
“Gee!” thought Billy Byrne; “but that's great stuff. I wonder where he
gets it. It makes me want to hike until I find that place he's singin'
about.”
Billy's thoughts were interrupted by a sound in the wood to one side of
him. As he turned his eyes in the direction of the slight noise which
had attracted him he saw two men step quietly out and cross toward the
man at the camp fire.
These, too, were evidently hobos. Doubtless pals of the poetical one.
The latter did not hear them until they were directly behind him. Then
he turned slowly and rose as they halted beside his fire.
“Evenin', bo,” said one of the newcomers.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” replied the camper, “welcome to my humble
home. Have you dined?”
“Naw,” replied the first speaker, “we ain't; but we're goin' to. Now can
the chatter an' duck. There ain't enough fer one here, let alone
three. Beat it!” and the man, who was big and burly, assumed a menacing
attitude and took a truculent step nearer the solitary camper.
The latter was short and slender. The larger man looked as though
he might have eaten him at a single mouthful; but the camper did not
flinch.
“You pain me,” he said. “You induce within me a severe and highly
localized pain, and furthermore I don't like your whiskers.”
With which apparently irrelevant remark he seized the matted beard of
the larger tramp and struck the fellow a quick, sharp blow in the face.
Instantly the fellow's companion was upon him; but the camper retained
his death grip upon the beard of the now yelling bully and continued to
rain blow after blow upon head and face.
Billy Byrne was an interested spectator. He enjoyed a good fight as he
enjoyed little else; but presently when the first tramp succeeded in
tangling his legs about the legs of his chastiser and dragging him to
the ground, and the second tramp seized a heavy stick and ran forward to
dash the man's brains out, Billy thought it time to interfere.
Stepping forward he called aloud as he came: “Cut it out, boes! You
can't pull off any rough stuff like that with this here sweet singer.
Can it! Can it!” as the second tramp raised his stick to strike the now
prostrate camper.
As he spoke Billy Byrne broke into a run, and as the stick fell he
reached the man's side and swung a blow to the tramp's jaw that sent
the fellow spinning backward to the river's brim, where he tottered
drunkenly for a moment and then plunged backward into the shallow water.
Then Billy seized the other attacker by the shoulder and dragged him to
his feet.
“Do you want some, too, you big stiff?” he inquired.
The man spluttered and tried to break away, striking at Billy as he did
so; but a sudden punch, such a punch as Billy Byrne had once handed the
surprised Harlem Hurricane, removed from the mind of the tramp the last
vestige of any thought he might have harbored to do the newcomer bodily
injury, and with it removed all else from the man's mind, temporarily.
As the fellow slumped, unconscious, to the ground, the camper rose to
his feet.
“Some wallop you have concealed in your sleeve, my friend,” he said;
“place it there!” and he extended a slender, shapely hand.
Billy took it and shook it.
“It don't get under the ribs like those verses of yours, though, bo,” he
returned.
“It seems to have insinuated itself beneath this guy's thick skull,”
replied the poetical one, “and it's a cinch my verses, nor any other
would ever get there.”
The tramp who had plumbed the depths of the creek's foot of water and
two feet of soft mud was crawling ashore.
“Whadda YOU want now?” inquired Billy Byrne. “A piece o' soap?”
“I'll get youse yet,” spluttered the moist one through his watery
whiskers.
“Ferget it,” admonished Billy, “an' hit the trail.” He pointed toward
the railroad right of way. “An' you, too, John L,” he added turning
to the other victim of his artistic execution, who was now sitting up.
“Hike!”
Mumbling and growling the two unwashed shuffled away, and were presently
lost to view along the vanishing track.
The solitary camper had returned to his culinary effort, as unruffled
and unconcerned, apparently, as though naught had occurred to disturb
his peaceful solitude.
“Sit down,” he said after a moment, looking up at Billy, “and have a
bite to eat with me. Take that leather easy chair. The Louis Quatorze is
too small and spindle-legged for comfort.” He waved his hand invitingly
toward the sward beside the fire.
For a moment he was entirely absorbed in the roasting fowl impaled upon
a sharp stick which he held in his right hand. Then he presently broke
again into verse.
Around the world and back again; we saw it all. The mist and rain
In England and the hot old plain from Needles to Berdoo.
We kept a-rambling all the time. I rustled grub, he rustled rhyme--
Blind-baggage, hoof it, ride or climb--we always put it through.
“You're a good sort,” he broke off, suddenly. “There ain't many boes
that would have done as much for a fellow.”
“It was two against one,” replied Billy, “an' I don't like them odds.
Besides I like your poetry. Where d'ye get it--make it up?”
“Lord, no,” laughed the other. “If I could do that I wouldn't be
pan-handling. A guy by the name of Henry Herbert Knibbs did them. Great,
ain't they?”
“They sure is. They get me right where I live,” and then, after a pause;
“sure you got enough fer two, bo?”
“I have enough for you, old top,” replied the host, “even if I only had
half as much as I have. Here, take first crack at the ambrosia. Sorry
I have but a single cup; but James has broken the others. James is very
careless. Sometimes I almost feel that I shall have to let him go.”
“Who's James?” asked Billy.
“James? Oh, James is my man,” replied the other.
Billy looked up at his companion quizzically, then he tasted the dark,
thick concoction in the tin can.
“This is coffee,” he announced. “I thought you said it was ambrose.”
“I only wished to see if you would recognize it, my friend,” replied the
poetical one politely. “I am highly complimented that you can guess what
it is from its taste.”
For several minutes the two ate in silence, passing the tin can back and
forth, and slicing--hacking would be more nearly correct--pieces of meat
from the half-roasted fowl. It was Billy who broke the silence.
“I think,” said he, “that you been stringin' me--'bout James and
ambrose.”
The other laughed good-naturedly.
“You are not offended, I hope,” said he. “This is a sad old world, you
know, and we're all looking for amusement. If a guy has no money to buy
it with, he has to manufacture it.”
“Sure, I ain't sore,” Billy assured him. “Say, spiel that part again
'bout Penelope with the kisses on her mouth, an' you can kid me till the
cows come home.”
The camper by the creek did as Billy asked him, while the latter sat
with his eyes upon the fire seeing in the sputtering little flames the
oval face of her who was Penelope to him.
When the verse was completed he reached forth his hand and took the tin
can in his strong fingers, raising it before his face.
“Here's to--to his Knibbs!” he said, and drank, passing the battered
thing over to his new friend.
“Yes,” said the other; “here's to his Knibbs, and--Penelope!”
“Drink hearty,” returned Billy Byrne.
The poetical one drew a sack of tobacco from his hip pocket and a
rumpled package of papers from the pocket of his shirt, extending both
toward Billy.
“Want the makings?” he asked.
“I ain't stuck on sponging,” said Billy; “but maybe I can get even some
day, and I sure do want a smoke. You see I was frisked. I ain't got
nothin'--they didn't leave me a sou markee.”
Billy reached across one end of the fire for the tobacco and cigarette
papers. As he did so the movement bared his wrist, and as the firelight
fell upon it the marks of the steel bracelet showed vividly. In the fall
from the train the metal had bitten into the flesh.
His companion's eyes happened to fall upon the telltale mark. There
was an almost imperceptible raising of the man's eyebrows; but he said
nothing to indicate that he had noticed anything out of the ordinary.
The two smoked on for many minutes without indulging in conversation.
The camper quoted snatches from Service and Kipling, then he came back
to Knibbs, who was evidently his favorite. Billy listened and thought.
“Goin' anywheres in particular?” he asked during a momentary lull in the
recitation.
“Oh, south or west,” replied the other. “Nowhere in particular--any
place suits me just so it isn't north or east.”
“That's me,” said Billy.
“Let's travel double, then,” said the poetical one. “My name's Bridge.”
“And mine's Billy. Here, shake,” and Byrne extended his hand.
“Until one of us gets wearied of the other's company,” said Bridge.
“You're on,” replied Billy. “Let's turn in.”
“Good,” exclaimed Bridge. “I wonder what's keeping James. He should have
been here long since to turn down my bed and fix my bath.”
Billy grinned and rolled over on his side, his head uphill and his feet
toward the fire. A couple of feet away Bridge paralleled him, and in
five minutes both were breathing deeply in healthy slumber.
CHAPTER III. “FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD”
“'WE KEPT a-rambling all the time. I rustled grub, he rustled rhyme,'”
quoted Billy Byrne, sitting up and stretching himself.
His companion roused and came to one elbow. The sun was topping the
scant wood behind them, glinting on the surface of the little creek. A
robin hopped about the sward quite close to them, and from the branch
of a tree a hundred yards away came the sweet piping of a song bird.
Farther off were the distance-subdued noises of an awakening farm. The
lowing of cows, the crowing of a rooster, the yelping of a happy dog
just released from a night of captivity.
Bridge yawned and stretched. Billy rose to his feet and shook himself.
“This is the life,” said Bridge. “Where you going?”
“To rustle grub,” replied Billy. “That's my part o' the sketch.”
The other laughed. “Go to it,” he said. “I hate it. That's the part that
has come nearest making me turn respectable than any other. I hate to
ask for a hand-out.”
Billy shrugged. He'd done worse things than that in his life, and off he
trudged, whistling. He felt happier than he had for many a day. He never
had guessed that the country in the morning could be so beautiful.
Behind him his companion collected the material for a fire, washed
himself in the creek, and set the tin can, filled with water, at the
edge of the kindling, and waited. There was nothing to cook, so it was
useless to light the fire. As he sat there, thinking, his mind reverted
to the red mark upon Billy's wrist, and he made a wry face.
Billy approached the farmhouse from which the sounds of awakening still
emanated. The farmer saw him coming, and ceasing his activities about
the barnyard, leaned across a gate and eyed him, none too hospitably.
“I wanna get something to eat,” explained Billy.
“Got any money to pay for it with?” asked the farmer quickly.
“No,” said Billy; “but me partner an' me are hungry, an' we gotta eat.”
The farmer extended a gnarled forefinger and pointed toward the rear
of the house. Billy looked in the direction thus indicated and espied a
woodpile. He grinned good naturedly.
Without a word he crossed to the corded wood, picked up an ax which was
stuck in a chopping block, and, shedding his coat, went to work. The
farmer resumed his chores. Half an hour later he stopped on his way in
to breakfast and eyed the growing pile that lay beside Billy.
“You don't hev to chop all the wood in the county to get a meal from Jed
Watson,” he said.
“I wanna get enough for me partner, too,” explained Billy.
“Well, yew've chopped enough fer two meals, son,” replied the farmer,
and turning toward the kitchen door, he called: “Here, Maw, fix this boy
up with suthin' t'eat--enough fer a couple of meals fer two on 'em.”
As Billy walked away toward his camp, his arms laden with milk, butter,
eggs, a loaf of bread and some cold meat, he grinned rather contentedly.
“A year or so ago,” he mused, “I'd a stuck 'em up fer this, an' thought
I was smart. Funny how a feller'll change--an' all fer a skirt. A skirt
that belongs to somebody else now, too. Hell! what's the difference,
anyhow? She'd be glad if she knew, an' it makes me feel better to act
like she'd want. That old farmer guy, now. Who'd ever have taken him fer
havin' a heart at all? Wen I seen him first I thought he'd like to sic
the dog on me, an' there he comes along an' tells 'Maw' to pass me a
hand-out like this! Gee! it's a funny world. She used to say that most
everybody was decent if you went at 'em right, an' I guess she knew.
She knew most everything, anyway. Lord, I wish she'd been born on Grand
Ave., or I on Riverside Drive!”
As Billy walked up to his waiting companion, who had touched a match to
the firewood as he sighted the numerous packages in the forager's arms,
he was repeating, over and over, as though the words held him in the
thrall of fascination: “There ain't no sweet Penelope somewhere that's
longing much for me.”
Bridge eyed the packages as Billy deposited them carefully and one at
a time upon the grass beside the fire. The milk was in a clean little
graniteware pail, the eggs had been placed in a paper bag, while the
other articles were wrapped in pieces of newspaper.
As the opening of each revealed its contents, fresh, clean, and
inviting, Bridge closed one eye and cocked the other up at Billy.
“Did he die hard?” he inquired.
“Did who die hard?” demanded the other.
“Why the dog, of course.”
“He ain't dead as I know of,” replied Billy.
“You don't mean to say, my friend, that they let you get away with all
this without sicing the dog on you,” said Bridge.
Billy laughed and explained, and the other was relieved--the red mark
around Billy's wrist persisted in remaining uppermost in Bridge's mind.
When they had eaten they lay back upon the grass and smoked some more of
Bridge's tobacco.
“Well,” inquired Bridge, “what's doing now?”
“Let's be hikin',” said Billy.
Bridge rose and stretched. “'My feet are tired and need a change. Come
on! It's up to you!'” he quoted.
Billy gathered together the food they had not yet eaten, and made two
equal-sized packages of it. He handed one to Bridge.
“We'll divide the pack,” he explained, “and here, drink the rest o' this
milk, I want the pail.”
“What are you going to do with the pail?” asked Bridge.
“Return it,” said Billy. “'Maw' just loaned it to me.”
Bridge elevated his eyebrows a trifle. He had been mistaken, after all.
At the farmhouse the farmer's wife greeted them kindly, thanked Billy
for returning her pail--which, if the truth were known, she had not
expected to see again--and gave them each a handful of thick, light,
golden-brown cookies, the tops of which were encrusted with sugar.
As they walked away Bridge sighed. “Nothing on earth like a good woman,”
he said.
“'Maw,' or 'Penelope'?” asked Billy.
“Either, or both,” replied Bridge. “I have no Penelope, but I did have a
mighty fine 'maw'.”
Billy made no reply. He was thinking of the slovenly, blear-eyed woman
who had brought him into the world. The memory was far from pleasant. He
tried to shake it off.
“'Bridge,'” he said, quite suddenly, and apropos of nothing, in an
effort to change the subject. “That's an odd name. I've heard of Bridges
and Bridger; but I never heard Bridge before.”
“Just a name a fellow gave me once up on the Yukon,” explained Bridge.
“I used to use a few words he'd never heard before, so he called me 'The
Unabridged,' which was too long. The fellows shortened it to 'Bridge'
and it stuck. It has always stuck, and now I haven't any other. I even
think of myself, now, as Bridge. Funny, ain't it?”
“Yes,” agreed Billy, and that was the end of it. He never thought
of asking his companion's true name, any more than Bridge would have
questioned him as to his, or of his past. The ethics of the roadside
fire and the empty tomato tin do not countenance such impertinences.
For several days the two continued their leisurely way toward Kansas
City. Once they rode a few miles on a freight train, but for the most
part they were content to plod joyously along the dusty highways. Billy
continued to “rustle grub,” while Bridge relieved the monotony by an
occasional burst of poetry.
“You know so much of that stuff,” said Billy as they were smoking by
their camp fire one evening, “that I'd think you'd be able to make some
up yourself.”
“I've tried,” admitted Bridge; “but there always seems to be something
lacking in my stuff--it don't get under your belt--the divine afflatus
is not there. I may start out all right, but I always end up where I
didn't expect to go, and where nobody wants to be.”
“'Member any of it?” asked Billy.
“There was one I wrote about a lake where I camped once,” said Bridge,
reminiscently; “but I can only recall one stanza.”
“Let's have it,” urged Billy. “I bet it has Knibbs hangin' to the
ropes.”
Bridge cleared his throat, and recited:
Silver are the ripples,
Solemn are the dunes,
Happy are the fishes,
For they are full of prunes.
He looked up at Billy, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
“How's that?” he asked.
Billy scratched his head.
“It's all right but the last line,” said Billy, candidly. “There is
something wrong with that last line.”
“Yes,” agreed Bridge, “there is.”
“I guess Knibbs is safe for another round at least,” said Billy.
Bridge was eying his companion, noting the broad shoulders, the deep
chest, the mighty forearm and biceps which the other's light cotton
shirt could not conceal.
“It is none of my business,” he said presently; “but from your general
appearance, from bits of idiom you occasionally drop, and from the way
you handled those two boes the night we met I should rather surmise that
at some time or other you had been less than a thousand miles from the
w.k. roped arena.”
“I seen a prize fight once,” admitted Billy.
It was the day before they were due to arrive in Kansas City that Billy
earned a hand-out from a restaurant keeper in a small town by doing some
odd jobs for the man. The food he gave Billy was wrapped in an old copy
of the Kansas City Star. When Billy reached camp he tossed the package
to Bridge, who, in addition to his honorable post as poet laureate, was
also cook. Then Billy walked down to the stream, near-by, that he might
wash away the grime and sweat of honest toil from his hands and face.
As Bridge unwrapped the package and the paper unfolded beneath his eyes
an article caught his attention--just casually at first; but presently
to the exclusion of all else. As he read his eyebrows alternated
between a position of considerable elevation to that of a deep frown.
Occasionally he nodded knowingly. Finally he glanced up at Billy who was
just rising from his ablutions. Hastily Bridge tore from the paper the
article that had attracted his interest, folded it, and stuffed it into
one of his pockets--he had not had time to finish the reading and he
wanted to save the article for a later opportunity for careful perusal.
That evening Bridge sat for a long time scrutinizing Billy through
half-closed lids, and often he found his eyes wandering to the red ring
about the other's wrist; but whatever may have been within his thoughts
he kept to himself.
It was noon when the two sauntered into Kansas City. Billy had a
dollar in his pocket--a whole dollar. He had earned it assisting an
automobilist out of a ditch.
“We'll have a swell feed,” he had confided to Bridge, “an' sleep in a
bed just to learn how much nicer it is sleepin' out under the black sky
and the shiny little stars.”
“You're a profligate, Billy,” said Bridge.
“I dunno what that means,” said Billy; “but if it's something I
shouldn't be I probably am.”
The two went to a rooming-house of which Bridge knew, where they could
get a clean room with a double bed for fifty cents. It was rather a high
price to pay, of course, but Bridge was more or less fastidious, and
he admitted to Billy that he'd rather sleep in the clean dirt of the
roadside than in the breed of dirt one finds in an unclean bed.
At the end of the hall was a washroom, and toward this Bridge made his
way, after removing his coat and throwing it across the foot of the
bed. After he had left the room Billy chanced to notice a folded bit of
newspaper on the floor beneath Bridge's coat. He picked it up to lay
it on the little table which answered the purpose of a dresser when a
single word caught his attention. It was a name: Schneider.
Billy unfolded the clipping and as his eyes took in the heading a
strange expression entered them--a hard, cold gleam such as had not
touched them since the day that he abandoned the deputy sheriff in the
woods midway between Chicago and Joliet.
This is what Billy read:
Billy Byrne, sentenced to life imprisonment in Joliet penitentiary for
the murder of Schneider, the old West Side saloon keeper, hurled himself
from the train that was bearing him to Joliet yesterday, dragging with
him the deputy sheriff to whom he was handcuffed.
The deputy was found a few hours later bound and gagged, lying in the
woods along the Santa Fe, not far from Lemont. He was uninjured. He
says that Byrne got a good start, and doubtless took advantage of it to
return to Chicago, where a man of his stamp could find more numerous and
safer retreats than elsewhere.
There was much more--a detailed account of the crime for the commission
of which Billy had been sentenced, a full and complete description of
Billy, a record of his long years of transgression, and, at last, the
mention of a five-hundred-dollar reward that the authorities had offered
for information that would lead to his arrest.
When Billy had concluded the reading he refolded the paper and placed it
in a pocket of the coat hanging upon the foot of the bed. A moment
later Bridge entered the room. Billy caught himself looking often at
his companion, and always there came to his mind the termination of
the article he had found in Bridge's pocket--the mention of the
five-hundred-dollar reward.
“Five hundred dollars,” thought Billy, “is a lot o' coin. I just wonder
now,” and he let his eyes wander to his companion as though he might
read upon his face the purpose which lay in the man's heart. “He don't
look it; but five hundred dollars is a lot o' coin--fer a bo, and
wotinell did he have that article hid in his clothes fer? That's wot I'd
like to know. I guess it's up to me to blow.”
All the recently acquired content which had been Billy's since he
had come upon the poetic Bridge and the two had made their carefree,
leisurely way along shaded country roadsides, or paused beside cool
brooklets that meandered lazily through sweet-smelling meadows, was
dissipated in the instant that he had realized the nature of the article
his companion had been carrying and hiding from him.
For days no thought of pursuit or capture had arisen to perplex him. He
had seemed such a tiny thing out there amidst the vastness of rolling
hills, of woods, and plain that there had been induced within him an
unconscious assurance that no one could find him even though they might
seek for him.
The idea of meeting a plain clothes man from detective headquarters
around the next bend of a peaceful Missouri road was so preposterous
and incongruous that Billy had found it impossible to give the matter
serious thought.
He never before had been in the country districts of his native land. To
him the United States was all like Chicago or New York or Milwaukee, the
three cities with which he was most familiar. His experience of unurban
localities had been gained amidst the primeval jungles of far-away Yoka.
There had been no detective sergeants there--unquestionably there could
be none here. Detective sergeants were indigenous to the soil that
grew corner saloons and poolrooms, and to none other--as well expect
to discover one of Oda Yorimoto's samurai hiding behind a fire plug
on Michigan Boulevard, as to look for one of those others along a
farm-bordered road.
But here in Kansas City, amidst the noises and odors that meant a large
city, it was different. Here the next man he met might be looking for
him, or if not then the very first policeman they encountered could
arrest him upon a word from Bridge--and Bridge would get five hundred
dollars. Just then Bridge burst forth into poetry:
In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,
Here, pal, is my calloused hand!
Oh, I love each day as a rover may,
Nor seek to understand.
To enjoy is good enough for me;
The gypsy of God am I.
Then here's a hail to--
“Say,” he interrupted himself; “what's the matter with going out now and
wrapping ourselves around that swell feed you were speaking of?”
Billy rose. It didn't seem possible that Bridge could be going to
double-cross him.
In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,
Here, pal, is my calloused hand!
Billy repeated the lines half aloud. They renewed his confidence in
Bridge, somehow.
“Like them?” asked the latter.
“Yes,” said Billy; “s'more of Knibbs?”
“No, Service. Come on, let's go and dine. How about the Midland?” and he
grinned at his little joke as he led the way toward the street.
It was late afternoon. The sun already had set; but it still was too
light for lamps. Bridge led the way toward a certain eating-place of
which he knew where a man might dine well and from a clean platter for
two bits. Billy had been keeping his eyes open for detectives. They
had passed no uniformed police--that would be the crucial test, thought
he--unless Bridge intended tipping off headquarters on the quiet and
having the pinch made at night after Billy had gone to bed.
As they reached the little restaurant, which was in a basement, Bridge
motioned Billy down ahead of him. Just for an instant he, himself,
paused at the head of the stairs and looked about. As he did so a man
stepped from the shadow of a doorway upon the opposite side of the
street.
If Bridge saw him he apparently gave no sign, for he turned slowly and
with deliberate steps followed Billy down into the eating-place.
CHAPTER IV. ON THE TRAIL. AS THEY entered the place Billy, who was
ahead, sought a table; but as he was about to hang up his cap and seat
himself Bridge touched his elbow.
“Let's go to the washroom and clean up a bit,” he said, in a voice that
might be heard by those nearest.
“Why, we just washed before we left our room,” expostulated Billy.
“Shut up and follow me,” Bridge whispered into his ear.
Immediately Billy was all suspicion. His hand flew to the pocket in
which the gun of the deputy sheriff still rested. They would never
take him alive, of that Billy was positive. He wouldn't go back to life
imprisonment, not after he had tasted the sweet freedom of the wide
spaces--such a freedom as the trammeled city cannot offer.
Bridge saw the movement.
“Cut it,” he whispered, “and follow me, as I tell you. I just saw a
Chicago dick across the street. He may not have seen you, but it looked
almighty like it. He'll be down here in about two seconds now. Come
on--we'll beat it through the rear--I know the way.”
Billy Byrne heaved a great sigh of relief. Suddenly he was almost
reconciled to the thought of capture, for in the instant he had realized
that it had not been so much his freedom that he had dreaded to lose as
his faith in the companion in whom he had believed.
Without sign of haste the two walked the length of the room and
disappeared through the doorway leading into the washroom. Before them
was a window opening upon a squalid back yard. The building stood upon
a hillside, so that while the entrance to the eating-place was below the
level of the street in front, its rear was flush with the ground.
Bridge motioned Billy to climb through the window while he shot the bolt
upon the inside of the door leading back into the restaurant. A moment
later he followed the fugitive, and then took the lead.
Down narrow, dirty alleys, and through litter-piled back yards he made
his way, while Billy followed at his heels. Dusk was gathering, and
before they had gone far darkness came.
They neither paused nor spoke until they had left the business portion
of the city behind and were well out of the zone of bright lights.
Bridge was the first to break the silence.
“I suppose you wonder how I knew,” he said.
“No,” replied Billy. “I seen that clipping you got in your pocket--it
fell out on the floor when you took your coat off in the room this
afternoon to go and wash.”
“Oh,” said Bridge, “I see. Well, as far as I'm concerned that's the end
of it--we won't mention it again, old man. I don't need to tell you that
I'm for you.”
“No, not after tonight,” Billy assured him.
They went on again for some little time without speaking, then Billy
said:
“I got two things to tell you. The first is that after I seen that
newspaper article in your clothes I thought you was figurin' on
double-crossin' me an' claimin' the five hun. I ought to of known
better. The other is that I didn't kill Schneider. I wasn't near his
place that night--an' that's straight.”
“I'm glad you told me both,” said Bridge. “I think we'll understand each
other better after this--we're each runnin' away from something. We'll
run together, eh?” and he extended his hand. “In flannel shirt from
earth's clean dirt, here, pal, is my calloused hand!” he quoted,
laughing.
Billy took the other's hand. He noticed that Bridge hadn't said what HE
was running away from. Billy wondered; but asked no questions.
South they went after they had left the city behind, out into the sweet
and silent darkness of the country. During the night they crossed the
line into Kansas, and morning found them in a beautiful, hilly country
to which all thoughts of cities, crime, and police seemed so utterly
foreign that Billy could scarce believe that only a few hours before a
Chicago detective had been less than a hundred feet from him.
The new sun burst upon them as they topped a grassy hill. The
dew-bespangled blades scintillated beneath the gorgeous rays which would
presently sweep them away again into the nothingness from which they had
sprung.
Bridge halted and stretched himself. He threw his head back and let the
warm sun beat down upon his bronzed face.
There's sunshine in the heart of me,
My blood sings in the breeze;
The mountains are a part of me,
I'm fellow to the trees.
My golden youth I'm squandering,
Sun-libertine am I,
A-wandering, a-wandering,
Until the day I die.
And then he stood for minutes drinking in deep breaths of the pure,
sweet air of the new day. Beside him, a head taller, savagely strong,
stood Billy Byrne, his broad shoulders squared, his great chest
expanding as he inhaled.
“It's great, ain't it?” he said, at last. “I never knew the country was
like this, an' I don't know that I ever would have known it if it hadn't
been for those poet guys you're always spouting.
“I always had an idea they was sissy fellows,” he went on; “but a guy
can't be a sissy an' think the thoughts they musta thought to write
stuff that sends the blood chasin' through a feller like he'd had a
drink on an empty stomach.
“I used to think everybody was a sissy who wasn't a tough guy. I was a
tough guy all right, an' I was mighty proud of it. I ain't any more an'
haven't been for a long time; but before I took a tumble to myself I'd
have hated you, Bridge. I'd a-hated your fine talk, an' your poetry, an'
the thing about you that makes you hate to touch a guy for a hand-out.
“I'd a-hated myself if I'd thought that I could ever talk mushy like I
am now. Gee, Bridge, but I was the limit! A girl--a nice girl--called
me a mucker once, an' a coward. I was both; but I had the reputation of
bein' the toughest guy on the West Side, an' I thought I was a man. I
nearly poked her face for her--think of it, Bridge! I nearly did; but
something stopped me--something held my hand from it, an' lately I've
liked to think that maybe what stopped me was something in me that had
always been there--something decent that was really a part of me. I hate
to think that I was such a beast at heart as I acted like all my life
up to that minute. I began to change then. It was mighty slow, an' I'm
still a roughneck; but I'm gettin' on. She helped me most, of course,
an' now you're helpin' me a lot, too--you an' your poetry stuff. If some
dick don't get me I may get to be a human bein' before I die.”
Bridge laughed.
“It IS odd,” he said, “how our viewpoints change with changed
environment and the passing of the years. Time was, Billy, when I'd have
hated you as much as you would have hated me. I don't know that I should
have said hate, for that is not exactly the word. It was more contempt
that I felt for men whom I considered as not belonging upon that
intellectual or social plane to which I considered I had been born.
“I thought of people who moved outside my limited sphere as 'the great
unwashed.' I pitied them, and I honestly believe now that in the bottom
of my heart I considered them of different clay than I, and with souls,
if they possessed such things, about on a par with the souls of sheep
and cows.
“I couldn't have seen the man in you, Billy, then, any more than you
could have seen the man in me. I have learned much since then, though
I still stick to a part of my original articles of faith--I do believe
that all men are not equal; and I know that there are a great many more
with whom I would not pal than there are those with whom I would.
“Because one man speaks better English than another, or has read
more and remembers it, only makes him a better man in that particular
respect. I think none the less of you because you can't quote Browning
or Shakespeare--the thing that counts is that you can appreciate, as I
do, Service and Kipling and Knibbs.
“Now maybe we are both wrong--maybe Knibbs and Kipling and Service
didn't write poetry, and some people will say as much; but whatever it
is it gets you and me in the same way, and so in this respect we are
equals. Which being the case let's see if we can't rustle some grub, and
then find a nice soft spot whereon to pound our respective ears.”
Billy, deciding that he was too sleepy to work for food, invested half
of the capital that was to have furnished the swell feed the night
before in what two bits would purchase from a generous housewife on a
near-by farm, and then, stretching themselves beneath the shade of
a tree sufficiently far from the road that they might not attract
unnecessary observation, they slept until after noon.
But their precaution failed to serve their purpose entirely. A
little before noon two filthy, bearded knights of the road clambered
laboriously over the fence and headed directly for the very tree under
which Billy and Bridge lay sleeping. In the minds of the two was the
same thought that had induced Billy Byrne and the poetic Bridge to seek
this same secluded spot.
There was in the stiff shuffle of the men something rather familiar.
We have seen them before--just for a few minutes it is true; but under
circumstances that impressed some of their characteristics upon us. The
very last we saw of them they were shuffling away in the darkness along
a railroad track, after promising that eventually they would wreak dire
vengeance upon Billy, who had just trounced them.
Now as they came unexpectedly upon the two sleepers they did not
immediately recognize in them the objects of their recent hate. They
just stood looking stupidly down on them, wondering in what way they
might turn their discovery to their own advantage.
Nothing in the raiment either of Billy or Bridge indicated that here was
any particularly rich field for loot, and, too, the athletic figure
of Byrne would rather have discouraged any attempt to roll him without
first handing him the “k.o.”, as the two would have naively put it.
But as they gazed down upon the features of the sleepers the eyes of one
of the tramps narrowed to two ugly slits while those of his companion
went wide in incredulity and surprise.
“Do youse know dem guys?” asked the first, and without waiting for a
reply he went on: “Dem's de guys dat beat us up back dere de udder side
o' K. C. Do youse get 'em?”
“Sure?” asked the other.
“Sure, I'd know dem in a t'ous'n'. Le's hand 'em a couple an' beat it,”
and he stooped to pick up a large stone that lay near at hand.
“Cut it!” whispered the second tramp. “Youse don't know dem guys at all.
Dey may be de guys dat beats us up; but dat big stiff dere is more dan
dat. He's wanted in Chi, an' dere's half a t'ou on 'im.”
“Who put youse jerry to all dat?” inquired the first tramp, skeptically.
“I was in de still wit 'im--he croaked some guy. He's a lifer. On de way
to de pen he pushes dis dick off'n de rattler an' makes his get-away.
Dat peter-boy we meets at Quincy slips me an earful about him. Here's
w'ere we draws down de five hundred if we're cagey.”
“Whaddaya mean, cagey?”
“Why we leaves 'em alone an' goes to de nex' farm an' calls up K. C. an'
tips off de dicks, see?”
“Youse don't tink we'll get any o' dat five hun, do youse, wit de dicks
in on it?”
The other scratched his head.
“No,” he said, rather dubiously, after a moment's deep thought; “dey
don't nobody get nothin' dat de dicks see first; but we'll get even with
dese blokes, annyway.”
“Maybe dey'll pass us a couple bucks,” said the other hopefully. “Dey'd
orter do dat much.”
Detective Sergeant Flannagan of Headquarters, Chicago, slouched in a
chair in the private office of the chief of detectives of Kansas City,
Missouri. Sergeant Flannagan was sore. He would have said as much
himself. He had been sent west to identify a suspect whom the Kansas
City authorities had arrested; but had been unable to do so, and had
been preparing to return to his home city when the brilliant aureola of
an unusual piece of excellent fortune had shone upon him for a
moment, and then faded away through the grimy entrance of a basement
eating-place.
He had been walking along the street the previous evening thinking
of nothing in particular; but with eyes and ears alert as becomes a
successful police officer, when he had espied two men approaching upon
the opposite sidewalk.
There was something familiar in the swing of the giant frame of one of
the men. So, true to years of training, Sergeant Flannagan melted into
the shadows of a store entrance and waited until the two should have
come closer.
They were directly opposite him when the truth flashed upon him--the big
fellow was Billy Byrne, and there was a five-hundred-dollar reward out
for him.
And then the two turned and disappeared down the stairway that led to
the underground restaurant. Sergeant Flannagan saw Byrne's companion
turn and look back just as Flannagan stepped from the doorway to cross
the street after them.
That was the last Sergeant Flannagan had seen either of Billy Byrne or
his companion. The trail had ceased at the open window of the washroom
at the rear of the restaurant, and search as he would be had been unable
to pick it up again.
No one in Kansas City had seen two men that night answering the
descriptions Flannagan had been able to give--at least no one whom
Flannagan could unearth.
Finally he had been forced to take the Kansas City chief into his
confidence, and already a dozen men were scouring such sections of
Kansas City in which it seemed most likely an escaped murderer would
choose to hide.
Flannagan had been out himself for a while; but now he was in to learn
what progress, if any, had been made. He had just learned that three
suspects had been arrested and was waiting to have them paraded before
him.
When the door swung in and the three were escorted into his presence
Sergeant Flannagan gave a snort of disgust, indicative probably not
only of despair; but in a manner registering his private opinion of the
mental horse power and efficiency of the Kansas City sleuths, for of
the three one was a pasty-faced, chestless youth, even then under the
influence of cocaine, another was an old, bewhiskered hobo, while the
third was unquestionably a Chinaman.
Even professional courtesy could scarce restrain Sergeant Flannagan's
desire toward bitter sarcasm, and he was upon the point of launching
forth into a vitriolic arraignment of everything west of Chicago up to
and including, specifically, the Kansas City detective bureau, when the
telephone bell at the chief's desk interrupted him. He had wanted the
chief to hear just what he thought, so he waited.
The chief listened for a few minutes, asked several questions and
then, placing a fat hand over the transmitter, he wheeled about toward
Flannagan.
“Well,” he said, “I guess I got something for you at last. There's a
bo on the wire that says he's just seen your man down near Shawnee. He
wants to know if you'll split the reward with him.”
Flannagan yawned and stretched.
“I suppose,” he said, ironically, “that if I go down there I'll
find he's corraled a nigger,” and he looked sorrowfully at the three
specimens before him.
“I dunno,” said the chief. “This guy says he knows Byrne well, an' that
he's got it in for him. Shall I tell him you'll be down--and split the
reward?”
“Tell him I'll be down and that I'll treat him right,” replied
Flannagan, and after the chief had transmitted the message, and hung up
the receiver: “Where is this here Shawnee, anyhow?”
“I'll send a couple of men along with you. It isn't far across the line,
an' there won't be no trouble in getting back without nobody knowin'
anything about it--if you get him.”
“All right,” said Flannagan, his visions of five hundred already
dwindled to a possible one.
It was but a little past one o'clock that a touring car rolled south out
of Kansas City with Detective Sergeant Flannagan in the front seat with
the driver and two burly representatives of Missouri law in the back.
CHAPTER V. ONE TURN DESERVES ANOTHER
WHEN the two tramps approached the farmhouse at which Billy had
purchased food a few hours before the farmer's wife called the dog that
was asleep in the summer kitchen and took a shotgun down from its hook
beside the door.
From long experience the lady was a reader of character--of hobo
character at least--and she saw nothing in the appearance of either
of these two that inspired even a modicum of confidence. Now the young
fellow who had been there earlier in the day and who, wonder of wonders,
had actually paid for the food she gave him, had been of a different
stamp. His clothing had proclaimed him a tramp, but, thanks to the razor
Bridge always carried, he was clean shaven. His year of total abstinence
had given him clear eyes and a healthy skin. There was a freshness and
vigor in his appearance and carriage that inspired confidence rather
than suspicion.
She had not mistrusted him; but these others she did mistrust. When they
asked to use the telephone she refused and ordered them away, thinking
it but an excuse to enter the house; but they argued the matter,
explaining that they had discovered an escaped murderer hiding
near-by--in fact in her own meadow--and that they wished only to call
up the Kansas City police.
Finally she yielded, but kept the dog by her side and the shotgun in her
hand while the two entered the room and crossed to the telephone upon
the opposite side.
From the conversation which she overheard the woman concluded that,
after all, she had been mistaken, not only about these two, but about
the young man who had come earlier in the day and purchased food from
her, for the description the tramp gave of the fugitive tallied exactly
with that of the young man.
It seemed incredible that so honest looking a man could be a murderer.
The good woman was shocked, and not a little unstrung by the thought
that she had been in the house alone when he had come and that if he had
wished to he could easily have murdered her.
“I hope they get him,” she said, when the tramp had concluded his talk
with Kansas City. “It's awful the carryings on they is nowadays. Why a
body can't never tell who to trust, and I thought him such a nice young
man. And he paid me for what he got, too.”
The dog, bored by the inaction, had wandered back into the summer
kitchen and resumed his broken slumber. One of the tramps was leaning
against the wall talking with the farmer woman. The other was busily
engaged in scratching his right shin with what remained of the heel of
his left shoe. He supported himself with one hand on a small table upon
the top of which was a family Bible.
Quite unexpectedly he lost his balance, the table tipped, he was thrown
still farther over toward it, and all in the flash of an eye tramp,
table, and family Bible crashed to the floor.
With a little cry of alarm the woman rushed forward to gather up the
Holy Book, in her haste forgetting the shotgun and leaving it behind her
leaning against the arm of a chair.
Almost simultaneously the two tramps saw the real cause of her
perturbation. The large book had fallen upon its back, open; and as
several of the leaves turned over before coming to rest their eyes went
wide at what was revealed between.
United States currency in denominations of five, ten, and twenty-dollar
bills lay snugly inserted between the leaves of the Bible. The tramp who
lay on the floor, as yet too surprised to attempt to rise, rolled over
and seized the book as a football player seizes the pigskin after a
fumble, covering it with his body, his arms, and sticking out his elbows
as a further protection to the invaluable thing.
At the first cry of the woman the dog rose, growling, and bounded into
the room. The tramp leaning against the wall saw the brute coming--a
mongrel hound-dog, bristling and savage.
The shotgun stood almost within the man's reach--a step and it was in
his hands. As though sensing the fellow's intentions the dog wheeled
from the tramp upon the floor, toward whom he had leaped, and sprang for
the other ragged scoundrel.
The muzzle of the gun met him halfway. There was a deafening roar. The
dog collapsed to the floor, his chest torn out. Now the woman began to
scream for help; but in an instant both the tramps were upon her choking
her to silence.
One of them ran to the summer kitchen, returning a moment later with
a piece of clothesline, while the other sat astride the victim, his
fingers closed about her throat. Once he released his hold and she
screamed again. Presently she was secured and gagged. Then the two
commenced to rifle the Bible.
Eleven hundred dollars in bills were hidden there, because the woman
and her husband didn't believe in banks--the savings of a lifetime. In
agony, as she regained consciousness, she saw the last of their little
hoard transferred to the pockets of the tramps, and when they had
finished they demanded to know where she kept the rest, loosening her
gag that she might reply.
She told them that that was all the money she had in the world, and
begged them not to take it.
“Youse've got more coin dan dis,” growled one of the men, “an' youse had
better pass it over, or we'll find a way to make youse.”
But still she insisted that that was all. The tramp stepped into the
kitchen. A wood fire was burning in the stove. A pair of pliers lay upon
the window sill. With these he lifted one of the hot stove-hole covers
and returned to the parlor, grinning.
“I guess she'll remember she's got more wen dis begins to woik,” he
said. “Take off her shoes, Dink.”
The other growled an objection.
“Yeh poor boob,” he said. “De dicks'll be here in a little while. We'd
better be makin' our get-away wid w'at we got.”
“Gee!” exclaimed his companion. “I clean forgot all about de dicks,”
and then after a moment's silence during which his evil face underwent
various changes of expression from fear to final relief, he turned an
ugly, crooked grimace upon his companion.
“We got to croak her,” he said. “Dey ain't no udder way. If dey finds
her alive she'll blab sure, an' dey won't be no trouble 'bout gettin' us
or identifyin' us neither.”
The other shrugged.
“Le's beat it,” he whined. “We can't more'n do time fer dis job if we
stop now; but de udder'll mean--” and he made a suggestive circle with a
grimy finger close to his neck.
“No it won't nothin' of de kind,” urged his companion. “I got it all
doped out. We got lots o' time before de dicks are due. We'll croak de
skirt, an' den we'll beat it up de road AN' MEET DE DICKS--see?”
The other was aghast.
“Wen did youse go nuts?” he asked.
“I ain't gone nuts. Wait 'til I gets t'rough. We meets de dicks,
innocent-like; but first we caches de dough in de woods. We tells 'em we
hurried right on to lead 'em to dis Byrne guy, an' wen we gets back here
to de farmhouse an' finds wot's happened here we'll be as flabbergasted
as dey be.”
“Oh, nuts!” exclaimed the other disgustedly. “Youse don't tink youse
can put dat over on any wise guy from Chi, do youse? Who will dey tink
croaked de old woman an' de ki-yi? Will dey tink dey kilt deyreselves?”
“Dey'll tink Byrne an' his pardner croaked 'em, you simp,” replied
Crumb.
Dink scratched his head, and as the possibilities of the scheme filtered
into his dull brain a broad grin bared his yellow teeth.
“You're dere, pal,” he exclaimed, real admiration in his tone. “But
who's goin' to do it?”
“I'll do it,” said Crumb. “Dere ain't no chanct of gettin' in bad for
it, so I jest as soon do the job. Get me a knife, or an ax from de
kitchen--de gat makes too much noise.”
Something awoke Billy Byrne with a start. Faintly, in the back of his
consciousness, the dim suggestion of a loud noise still reverberated. He
sat up and looked about him.
“I wonder what that was?” he mused. “It sounded like the report of a
gun.”
Bridge awoke about the same time, and turned lazily over, raising
himself upon an elbow. He grinned at Billy.
“Good morning,” he said, and then:
Says I, “Then let's be on the float. You certainly have got my goat;
You make me hungry in my throat for seeing things that's new. Out there
somewhere we'll ride the range a-looking for the new and strange; My
feet are tired and need a change. Come on! It's up to you!”
“Come on, then,” agreed Billy, coming to his feet.
As he rose there came, faintly, but distinct, the unmistakable scream
of a frightened woman. From the direction of the farmhouse it came--from
the farmhouse at which Billy had purchased their breakfast.
Without waiting for a repetition of the cry Billy wheeled and broke into
a rapid run in the direction of the little cluster of buildings. Bridge
leaped to his feet and followed him, dropping behind though, for he
had not had the road work that Billy recently had been through in his
training for the battle in which he had defeated the “white hope” that
time in New York when Professor Cassidy had wagered his entire pile upon
him, nor in vain.
Dink searched about the summer kitchen for an ax or hatchet; but failing
to find either rummaged through a table drawer until he came upon a
large carving knife. This would do the job nicely. He thumbed the edge
as he carried it back into the parlor to Crumb.
The poor woman, lying upon the floor, was quite conscious. Her eyes were
wide and rolling in horror. She struggled with her bonds, and tried to
force the gag from her mouth with her tongue; but her every effort was
useless. She had heard every word that had passed between the two men.
She knew that they would carry out the plan they had formulated and that
there was no chance that they would be interrupted in their gruesome
work, for her husband had driven over to a farm beyond Holliday, leaving
before sunrise, and there was little prospect that he would return
before milking time in the evening. The detectives from Kansas City
could not possibly reach the farm until far too late to save her.
She saw Dink return from the summer kitchen with the long knife. She
recalled the day she had bought that knife in town, and the various uses
to which she had put it. That very morning she had sliced some bacon
with it. How distinctly such little things recurred to her at this
frightful moment. And now the hideous creature standing beside her was
going to use it to cut her throat.
She saw Crumb take the knife and feel of the blade, running his thumb
along it. She saw him stoop, his eyes turned down upon hers. He grasped
her chin and forced it upward and back, the better to expose her throat.
Oh, why could she not faint? Why must she suffer all these hideous
preliminaries? Why could she not even close her eyes?
Crumb raised the knife and held the blade close above her bared neck. A
shudder ran through her, and then the door crashed open and a man sprang
into the room. It was Billy Byrne. Through the window he had seen what
was passing in the interior.
His hand fell upon Crumb's collar and jerked him backward from his prey.
Dink seized the shotgun and turned it upon the intruder; but he was too
close. Billy grasped the barrel of the weapon and threw the muzzle up
toward the ceiling as the tramp pulled the trigger. Then he wrenched it
from the man's hands, swung it once above his head and crashed the stock
down upon Dink's skull.
Dink went down and out for the count--for several counts, in fact. Crumb
stumbled to his feet and made a break for the door. In the doorway he
ran full into Bridge, winded, but ready. The latter realizing that the
matted one was attempting to escape, seized a handful of his tangled
beard, and, as he had done upon another occasion, held the tramp's head
in rigid position while he planted a series of blows in the fellow's
face--blows that left Crumb as completely out of battle as was his
mildewed comrade.
“Watch 'em,” said Billy, handing Bridge the shotgun. Then he turned his
attention to the woman. With the carving knife that was to have ended
her life he cut her bonds. Removing the gag from her mouth he lifted
her in his strong arms and carried her to the little horsehair sofa that
stood in one corner of the parlor, laying her upon it very gently.
He was thinking of “Maw” Watson. This woman resembled her just a
little--particularly in her comfortable, motherly expansiveness, and she
had had a kind word and a cheery good-bye for him that morning as he had
departed.
The woman lay upon the sofa, breathing hard, and moaning just a little.
The shock had been almost too much even for her stolid nerves. Presently
she turned her eyes toward Billy.
“You are a good boy,” she said, “and you come just in the nick o' time.
They got all my money. It's in their clothes,” and then a look of terror
overspread her face. For the moment she had forgotten what she had heard
about this man--that he was an escaped convict--a convicted murderer.
Was she any better off now that she had let him know about the money
than she was with the others after they discovered it?
At her words Bridge kneeled and searched the two tramps. He counted the
bills as he removed them from their pockets.
“Eleven hundred?” he asked, and handed the money to Billy.
“Eleven hundred, yes,” breathed the woman, faintly, her eyes
horror-filled and fearful as she gazed upon Billy's face. She didn't
care for the money any more--they could have it all if they would only
let her live.
Billy turned toward her and held the rumpled green mass out.
“Here,” he said; “but that's an awful lot o' coin for a woman to have
about de house--an' her all alone. You ought not to a-done it.”
She took the money in trembling fingers. It seemed incredible that the
man was returning it to her.
“But I knew it,” she said finally.
“Knew what?” asked Billy.
“I knew you was a good boy. They said you was a murderer.”
Billy's brows contracted, and an expression of pain crossed his face.
“How did they come to say that?” he asked.
“I heard them telephonin' to Kansas City to the police,” she replied,
and then she sat bolt upright. “The detectives are on their way here
now,” she almost screamed, “and even if you ARE a murderer I don't care.
I won't stand by and see 'em get you after what you have done for me. I
don't believe you're a murderer anyhow. You're a good boy. My boy would
be about as old and as big as you by now--if he lives. He ran away a
long time ago--maybe you've met him. His name's Eddie--Eddie Shorter. I
ain't heard from him fer years.
“No,” she went on, “I don't believe what they said--you got too good
a face; but if you are a murderer you get out now before they come an'
I'll send 'em on a wild-goose chase in the wrong direction.”
“But these,” said Billy. “We can't leave these here.”
“Tie 'em up and give me the shotgun,” she said. “I'll bet they don't
come any more funny business on me.” She had regained both her composure
and her nerve by this time.
Together Billy and Bridge trussed up the two tramps. An elephant
couldn't have forced the bonds they placed upon them. Then they carried
them down cellar and when they had come up again Mrs. Shorter barred the
cellar door.
“I reckon they won't get out of there very fast,” she said. “And now you
two boys run along. Got any money?” and without waiting for a reply she
counted twenty-five dollars from the roll she had tucked in the front of
her waist and handed them to Billy.
“Nothin' doin',” said he; “but t'anks just the same.”
“You got to take it,” she insisted. “Let me make believe I'm givin' it
to my boy, Eddie--please,” and the tears that came to her eyes proved
far more effective than her generous words.
“Aw, all right,” said Billy. “I'll take it an' pass it along to Eddie if
I ever meet him, eh?”
“Now please hurry,” she urged. “I don't want you to be caught--even if
you are a murderer. I wish you weren't though.”
“I'm not,” said Billy; “but de law says I am an' what de law says,
goes.”
He turned toward the doorway with Bridge, calling a goodbye to the
woman, but as he stepped out upon the veranda the dust of a fast-moving
automobile appeared about a bend in the road a half-mile from the house.
“Too late,” he said, turning to Bridge. “Here they come!”
The woman brushed by them and peered up the road.
“Yes,” she said, “it must be them. Lordy! What'll we do?”
“I'll duck out the back way, that's what I'll do,” said Billy.
“It wouldn't do a mite of good,” said Mrs. Shorter, with a shake of
her head. “They'll telephone every farmer within twenty mile of here in
every direction, an' they'll get you sure. Wait! I got a scheme. Come
with me,” and she turned and bustled through the little parlor, out of a
doorway into something that was half hall and half storeroom. There was
a flight of stairs leading to the upper story, and she waddled up them
as fast as her legs would carry her, motioning the two men to follow
her.
In a rear room was a trapdoor in the ceiling.
“Drag that commode under this,” she told them. “Then climb into the
attic, and close the trapdoor. They won't never find you there.”
Billy pulled the ancient article of furniture beneath the opening,
and in another moment the two men were in the stuffy atmosphere of the
unventilated loft. Beneath them they heard Mrs. Shorter dragging
the commode back to its accustomed place, and then the sound of her
footsteps descending the stair.
Presently there came to them the rattling of a motor without, followed
by the voices of men in the house. For an hour, half asphyxiated by the
closeness of the attic, they waited, and then again they heard the sound
of the running engine, diminishing as the machine drew away.
Shortly after, Mrs. Shorter's voice rose to them from below:
“You ken come down now,” she said, “they've gone.”
When they had descended she led them to the kitchen.
“I got a bite to eat ready for you while they was here,” she explained.
“When you've done you ken hide in the barn 'til dark, an' after that
I'll have my ol' man take you 'cross to Dodson, that's a junction, an'
you'd aughter be able to git away easy enough from there. I told 'em you
started for Olathe--there's where they've gone with the two tramps.
“My, but I did have a time of it! I ain't much good at story-tellin' but
I reckon I told more stories this arternoon than I ever tole before in
all my life. I told 'em that they was two of you, an' that the biggest
one hed red hair, an' the little one was all pock-marked. Then they said
you prob'ly wasn't the man at all, an' my! how they did swear at them
two tramps fer gettin' 'em way out here on a wild-goose chase; but
they're goin' to look fer you jes' the same in Olathe, only they won't
find you there,” and she laughed, a bit nervously though.
It was dusk when Mr. Shorter returned from Holliday, but after he had
heard his wife's story he said that he'd drive “them two byes” all the
way to Mexico, if there wasn't any better plan.
“Dodson's far enough,” Bridge assured him, and late that night the
grateful farmer set them down at their destination.
An hour later they were speeding south on the Missouri Pacific.
Bridge lay back, luxuriously, on the red plush of the smoker seat.
“Some class to us, eh, bo?” asked Billy.
Bridge stretched.
The tide-hounds race far up the shore--the hunt is on! The breakers roar!
Her spars are tipped with gold, and o'er her deck the spray is flung,
The buoys that frolic in the bay, they nod the way, they nod the way!
The hunt is up! I am the prey! The hunter's bow is strung!
CHAPTER VI. “BABY BANDITS”
IT WAS twenty-four hours before Detective Sergeant Flannagan awoke to
the fact that something had been put over on him, and that a Kansas
farmer's wife had done the putting.
He managed to piece it out finally from the narratives of the two
tramps, and when he had returned to the Shorter home and listened to the
contradictory and whole-souled improvisations of Shorter pere and mere
he was convinced.
Whereupon he immediately telegraphed Chicago headquarters and obtained
the necessary authority to proceed upon the trail of the fugitive,
Byrne.
And so it was that Sergeant Flannagan landed in El Paso a few days
later, drawn thither by various pieces of intelligence he had gathered
en route, though with much delay and consequent vexation.
Even after he had quitted the train he was none too sure that he was
upon the right trail though he at once repaired to a telegraph office
and wired his chief that he was hot on the trail of the fugitive.
As a matter of fact he was much hotter than he imagined, for Billy and
Bridge were that very minute not two squares from him, debating as to
the future and the best manner of meeting it before it arrived.
“I think,” said Billy, “that I'll duck across the border. I won't never
be safe in little old U. S., an' with things hoppin' in Mexico the way
they have been for the last few years I orter be able to lose myself
pretty well.
“Now you're all right, ol' top. You don't have to duck nothin' for you
ain't did nothin'. I don't know what you're runnin' away from; but I
know it ain't nothin' the police is worryin' about--I can tell that by
the way you act--so I guess we'll split here. You'd be a boob to cross
if you don't have to, fer if Villa don't get you the Carranzistas will,
unless the Zapatistas nab you first.
“Comin' or goin' some greasy-mugged highbinder's bound to croak you if
you cross, from what little I've heard since we landed in El Paso.
“We'll feed up together tonight, fer the last time. Then I'll pull my
freight.” He was silent for a while, and then: “I hate to do it, bo, fer
you're the whitest guy I ever struck,” which was a great deal for Billy
Byrne of Grand Avenue to say.
Bridge finished rolling a brown paper cigarette before he spoke.
“Your words are pure and unadulterated wisdom, my friend,” he said. “The
chances are scarcely even that two gringo hoboes would last the week
out afoot and broke in Viva Mexico; but it has been many years since I
followed the dictates of wisdom. Therefore I am going with you.”
Billy grinned. He could not conceal his pleasure.
“You're past twenty-one,” he said, “an' dry behind the ears. Let's go
an' eat. There is still some of that twenty-five left.”
Together they entered a saloon which Bridge remembered as permitting
a very large consumption of free lunch upon the purchase of a single
schooner of beer.
There were round tables scattered about the floor in front of the bar,
and after purchasing their beer they carried it to one of these that
stood in a far corner of the room close to a rear door.
Here Bridge sat on guard over the foaming open sesame to food while
Billy crossed to the free lunch counter and appropriated all that a
zealous attendant would permit him to carry off.
When he returned to the table he took a chair with his back to the wall
in conformity to a habit of long standing when, as now, it had stood him
in good stead to be in a position to see the other fellow at least as
soon as the other fellow saw him. The other fellow being more often
than not a large gentleman with a bit of shiny metal pinned to his left
suspender strap.
“That guy's a tight one,” said Billy, jerking his hand in the direction
of the guardian of the free lunch. “I scoops up about a good, square
meal for a canary bird, an' he makes me cough up half of it. Wants to
know if I t'ink I can go into the restaurant business on a fi'-cent
schooner of suds.”
Bridge laughed.
“Well, you didn't do so badly at that,” he said. “I know places where
they'd indict you for grand larceny if you took much more than you have
here.”
“Rotten beer,” commented Billy.
“Always is rotten down here,” replied Bridge. “I sometimes think they
put moth balls in it so it won't spoil.”
Billy looked up and smiled. Then he raised his tall glass before him.
“Here's to,” he started; but he got no further. His eyes traveling
past his companion fell upon the figure of a large man entering the low
doorway.
At the same instant the gentleman's eyes fell upon Billy. Recognition
lit those of each simultaneously. The big man started across the room on
a run, straight toward Billy Byrne.
The latter leaped to his feet. Bridge, guessing what had happened, rose
too.
“Flannagan!” he exclaimed.
The detective was tugging at his revolver, which had stuck in his hip
pocket. Byrne reached for his own weapon. Bridge laid a hand on his arm.
“Not that, Billy!” he cried. “There's a door behind you. Here,” and he
pulled Billy backward toward the doorway in the wall behind them.
Byrne still clung to his schooner of beer, which he had transferred to
his left hand as he sought to draw his gun. Flannagan was close to them.
Bridge opened the door and strove to pull Billy through; but the latter
hesitated just an instant, for he saw that it would be impossible to
close and bar the door, provided it had a bar, before Flannagan would be
against it with his great shoulders.
The policeman was still struggling to disentangle his revolver from the
lining of his pocket. He was bellowing like a bull--yelling at Billy
that he was under arrest. Men at the tables were on their feet. Those at
the bar had turned around as Flannagan started to run across the floor.
Now some of them were moving in the direction of the detective and
his prey, but whether from curiosity or with sinister intentions it is
difficult to say.
One thing, however, is certain--if all the love that was felt for
policemen in general by the men in that room could have been combined
in a single individual it still scarcely would have constituted a grand
passion.
Flannagan felt rather than saw that others were closing in on him,
and then, fortunately for himself, he thought, he managed to draw his
weapon. It was just as Billy was fading through the doorway into the
room beyond. He saw the revolver gleam in the policeman's hand and then
it became evident why Billy had clung so tenaciously to his schooner
of beer. Left-handed and hurriedly he threw it; but even Flannagan must
have been constrained to admit that it was a good shot. It struck the
detective directly in the midst of his features, gave him a nasty cut on
the cheek as it broke and filled his eyes full of beer--and beer never
was intended as an eye wash.
Spluttering and cursing, Flannagan came to a sudden stop, and when he
had wiped the beer from his eyes he found that Billy Byrne had passed
through the doorway and closed the door after him.
The room in which Billy and Bridge found themselves was a small one in
the center of which was a large round table at which were gathered
a half-dozen men at poker. Above the table swung a single arc lamp,
casting a garish light upon the players beneath.
Billy looked quickly about for another exit, only to find that besides
the doorway through which he had entered there was but a single aperture
in the four walls--a small window, heavily barred. The place was a
veritable trap.
At their hurried entrance the men had ceased their play, and one or two
had risen in profane questioning and protest. Billy ignored them. He was
standing with his shoulder against the door trying to secure it against
the detective without; but there was neither bolt nor bar.
Flannagan hurtling against the opposite side exerted his noblest efforts
to force an entrance to the room; but Billy Byrne's great weight held
firm as Gibraltar. His mind revolved various wild plans of escape; but
none bade fair to offer the slightest foothold to hope.
The men at the table were clamoring for an explanation of the
interruption. Two of them were approaching Billy with the avowed
intention of “turning him out,” when he turned his head suddenly toward
them.
“Can de beef, you poor boobs,” he cried. “Dere's a bunch o' dicks out
dere--de joint's been pinched.”
Instantly pandemonium ensued. Cards, chips, and money were swept as
by magic from the board. A dozen dog-eared and filthy magazines and
newspapers were snatched from a hiding place beneath the table, and in
the fraction of a second the room was transformed from a gambling place
to an innocent reading-room.
Billy grinned broadly. Flannagan had ceased his efforts to break down
the door, and was endeavoring to persuade Billy that he might as well
come out quietly and submit to arrest. Byrne had drawn his revolver
again. Now he motioned to Bridge to come to his side.
“Follow me,” he whispered. “Don't move 'til I move--then move sudden.”
Then, turning to the door again, “You big stiff,” he cried, “you
couldn't take a crip to a hospital, let alone takin' Billy Byrne to the
still. Beat it, before I come out an' spread your beezer acrost your
map.”
If Billy had desired to arouse the ire of Detective Sergeant Flannagan
by this little speech he succeeded quite as well as he could have hoped.
Flannagan commenced to growl and threaten, and presently again hurled
himself against the door.