THE ESCAPE
The little county seat awoke in the morning to a strange sight. The
storm had not abated. The wind was still blowing at blizzard rate off
the northwest hills, and fine, icy snow was swirling so thickly through
the cold air that vision was obstructed. Buildings were distinguishable
only as shadows showing faintly through a heavy white veil. The
thermometer had gone many degrees below the zero mark. It was steadily
growing colder. The older inhabitants said it would surely break the
record the coming night.
An immense fire had been built in the sitting-room. Thither Mary and
Louise repaired. Here they were joined by Dale, Langford, and Gordon.
“You should be out at the ranch looking after your poor cattle, Mr.
Langford,” said Mary, smilingly. She could be light-hearted now,—since a
little secret had been whispered to her last night at a tea party where
no tea had been drunk. Langford had gravitated toward her as naturally
as steel to a magnet. He shrugged his big shoulders and laughed a
little.
“The Scribe will do everything that can be done. Honest, now, did you
think this trial could be pulled off without me?”
“But there can be no trial to-day.”
“Why not?”
“Did I dream the court-house burned last night?”
“If you did, we are all dreamers alike.”
“Then how can you hold court?”
“We have gone back to the time when Church and State were one and
inseparable, and court convenes at ten o’clock sharp in the
meeting-house,” he said.
Louise was looking white and miserable.
“You are not contemplating running away, are you?” asked Gordon. “This
is unusual weather—really.”
She looked at him with a pitiful smile.
“I should like to be strong and brave and enduring and capable—like
Mary. You don’t believe it, do you? It’s true, though. But I can’t. I’m
weak and homesick and cold. I ought not to have come. I am not the kind.
You said it, too, you know. I am going home just as soon as this court
is over. I mean it.”
There was no mistaking that. Gordon bowed his head. His face was white.
It had come sooner than he had thought.
All the records of the work of yesterday had been burned. There was
nothing to do but begin at the beginning again. It was discouraging,
uninteresting. But it had to be done. Dale refused positively to
adjourn. The jurymen were all here. So the little frame church was
bargained for. If the fire-bugs had thought to postpone events—to gain
time—by last night’s work, they would find themselves very greatly
mistaken. The church was long and narrow like a country schoolhouse, and
rather roomy considering the size of the town. It had precise
windows—also like a country schoolhouse,—four on the west side, through
which the fine snow was drifting, four opposite. The storm kept few at
home with the exception of the people from across the river. There were
enough staying in the town to fill the room to its utmost limits.
Standing room was at a premium. The entry was crowded. Men not able to
get in ploughed back through the cutting wind and snow only to return
presently to see if the situation had changed any during their brief
absence. So all the work of yesterday was gone over again.
Mingled with the howl and bluster of the wind, and the swirl and swish
of the snow drifting outside during the small hours of last night,
sometimes had been distinguishable the solemn sound of heavy steps
running—likened somewhat to the tramp of troops marching on the
double-quick. To some to whom this sound was borne its meaning was
clear, but others wondered, until daylight made it clear to all. The
sorry day predicted for the cattle had come. The town was full of
cattle. They hugged the south side of the buildings—standing in stolid
patience with drooping heads. Never a structure in the whole town—house
or store or barn or saloon—but was wind-break for some forlorn bunch
huddled together, their faces always turned to the southeast, for the
wind went that way. It was an odd sight. It was also a pitiful one.
Hundreds had run with the wind from the higher range altitude, seeking
the protection of the bluffs. The river only stopped the blind, onward
impetus. The flat where the camps had been might have been a close
corral, so thickly were the animals crowded together, their faces turned
uncompromisingly with the wind.
But the most pathetic part of the situation made itself felt later in
the day when the crying need of food for this vast herd began to be a
serious menace. Starvation stared these hundreds of cattle in the face.
Men felt this grimly. But it was out of the question to attempt to drive
them back to the grass lands in the teeth of the storm. Nothing could be
done that day at least. But during the second night the wind fell away,
the snow ceased. Morning dawned clear, still, and stingingly cold, and
the sun came up with a goodly following of sun-dogs. Then such a sight
greeted the inhabitants of the little town as perhaps they had never
seen before—and yet they had seen many things having to do with cattle.
There was little grass in the town for them, but every little dead spear
that had lived and died in the protection of the sidewalk or in
out-of-the-way corners had been ravenously nipped. Where snow had
drifted over a likely place, it had been pawed aside. Where there had
been some grass, south of town and east, the ground was as naked now as
though it had been peeled. Every bit of straw had been eaten from manure
piles, so that only pawed-over mounds of pulverized dust remained.
Garbage heaps looked as if there had been a general Spring cleaning-up.
And there was nothing more now. Every heap of refuse, every grass plot
had been ransacked—there was nothing left for those hundreds of starving
brutes. Many jurors, held in waiting, begged permission to leave, to
drive their cattle home. Whenever practicable, these requests were
granted. The aggregate loss to the county would be enormous if the
cattle were allowed to remain here many more days. Individual loss would
go hard with many of the small owners. The cattle stupidly made no move
to return to the grass lands of their own volition.
Later in the day, the numbers were somewhat thinned, but things were
happening in the little church room that made men forget—so concentrated
was the interest within those four walls. So close was the pack of
people that the fire roaring in the big stove in the middle of the room
was allowed to sink in smouldering quiet. The heavy air had been
unbearable else. The snow that had been brought in on tramping feet lay
in little melted pools on the rough flooring. Men forgot to eat peanuts
and women forgot to chew their gum—except one or two extremely nervous
ones whose jaws moved the faster under the stimulus of hysteria. Jesse
Black was telling his story.
“Along toward the first of last July, I took a hike out into the Indian
country to buy a few head o’ cattle. I trade considerable with the
half-breeds around Crow Creek and Lower Brule. They’re always for
sellin’ and if it comes to a show-down never haggle much about the
lucre—it all goes for snake-juice anyway. Well, I landed at John Yellow
Wolf’s shanty along about noon and found there was others ahead o’ me.
Yellow Wolf always was a popular cuss. There was Charlie Nightbird, Pete
Monroe, Jesse Big Cloud, and two or three others whose mugs I did not
happen to be onto. After our feed, we all strolled out to the corral.
Yellow Wolf said he had bought a likely little bunch from some English
feller who was skipping the country—starved out and homesick—and hadn’t
put ’em on the range yet. He said J R was the English feller’s brand. I
didn’t suspicion no underhand dealin’s. Yellow Wolf’s always treated me
white before, so I bargained for this here chap and three or four others
and then pulled out for home driving the bunch. They fed at home for a
spell and then I decided to put ’em on the range. On the way I fell in
with Billy Brown here. He was dead set on havin’ the lot to fill in the
chinks of the two carloads he was shippin’, so I up and lets him have
’em. I showed him this here bill-o’-sale from Yellow Wolf and made him
out one from me, and that was all there was to it. He rode on to Velpen,
and I turned on my trail.”
It was a straight story, and apparently damaging for the prosecution. It
corroborated the attestations of other witnesses—many others. It had a
plausible ring to it. Two bills of sale radiated atmospheric legality.
If there had been dirty work, it must have originated with that renegade
half-breed, Yellow Wolf. And Yellow Wolf was dead. He had died while
serving a term in the penitentiary for cattle-rustling. Uncle Sam
himself had set the seal upon him—and now he was dead. This insinuated
charge he could not answer. The finality of it seemed to set its stamp
upon the people gathered there—upon the twelve good men and true, as
well as upon others. Yellow Wolf was dead. George Williston was dead.
Their secrets had died with them. An inscrutable fate had lowered the
veil. Who could pierce it? One might believe, but who could know? And
the law required knowledge.
“We will call Charlie Nightbird,” said Small, complacently.
There was a little waiting silence—a breathless, palpitating silence.
“Is Charlie Nightbird present?” asked Small, casting rather anxious eyes
over the packed, intent faces. Charlie Nightbird was not present. At
least he made no sign of coming forward. The face of the young counsel
for the State was immobile during the brief time they waited for Charlie
Nightbird—whose dark, frozen face was at that moment turned toward the
cold, sparkling sky, and who would never come, not if they waited for
him till the last dread trump of the last dread day.
There was some mistake. Counsel had been misinformed. Nightbird was an
important witness. He had been reported present. Never mind. He was
probably unavoidably detained by the storm. They would call Jesse Big
Cloud and others to corroborate the defendant’s statements—which they
did, and the story was sustained in all its parts, major and minor. Then
the defence rested.
Richard Gordon arose from his chair. His face was white. His lean jaws
were set. His eyes were steel. He was anything but a lover now, this man
Gordon. Yet the slim little court reporter with dark circles of
homesickness under her eyes had never loved him half so well as at this
moment. His voice was clear and deliberate.
“Your honor, I ask permission of the Court to call a witness in direct
testimony. I assure your honor that the State had used all efforts in
its power to obtain the presence of this witness before resting its
case, but had failed and believed at the time that he could not be
produced. The witness is now here and I consider his testimony of the
utmost importance in this case.”
Counsel for the defendant objected strenuously, but the Court granted
the petition. He wanted to hear everything that might throw some light
on the dark places in the evidence.
“I call Mr. George Williston,” said Gordon.
Had the strain crazed him? Louise covered her eyes with her hands. Men
sat as if dazed. And thus, the cynosure of all eyes—stupefied
eyes—Williston of the ravaged Lazy S, thin and worn but calm, natural
and scholarly-looking as of old—walked from the little ante-room at the
side into the light and knowledge of men once more and raised his hand
for the oath. Not until this was taken and he had sat quietly down in
the witness chair did the tension snap. Even then men found it difficult
to focus their attention on the enormous difference this new witness
must make in the case that a few moments before had seemed settled.
Mary sat with shining eyes in the front row of wooden chairs. It was no
wonder she had laughed and been so gay all the dreary yesterday and all
the worse to-day. Louise shot her a look of pure gladness.
Small’s face was ludicrous in its drop-jawed astonishment. The little
lawyer’s face was a study. A look of defiance had crept into the
defendant’s countenance.
The preliminary questions were asked and answered.
“Mr. Williston, you may state where you were and what you saw on the
fourteenth day of July last.”
Williston, the unfortunate gentleman and scholar, the vanquished cowman,
for a brief while the most important man in the cow country, perhaps,
was about to uncover to men’s understanding the dark secret hitherto
obscured by a cloud of supposition and hearsay. He told the story of his
visit to the island, and he told it well. It was enough. Gordon asked no
further questions regarding that event.
“And now, Mr. Williston, you may tell what happened to you on the night
of the thirtieth of last August.”
Williston began to tell the story of the night attack upon the Lazy S,
when the galvanic Small jumped to his feet. The little lawyer touched
him with a light hand.
“Your honor,” he said, smoothly, “I object to that as incompetent,
irrelevant, and immaterial, and not binding on the defendant.”
“Your honor,” interrupted Gordon, with great calmness, “we intend to
show you before we get through that this testimony is competent, and
that it is binding upon the defendant.”
“Was the defendant there?”
“The defendant was there.”
The objection was overruled.
So Williston told briefly but to the point the story of the night attack
upon his home, of the defence by himself and his daughter, and of the
burning of his house and sheds. Then he proceeded:
“Suddenly, some one caught me from behind, my arms were pinioned to my
sides, something was clapped over my mouth. I was flung over a horse and
strapped to the saddle all in less time than it takes to tell it, and
was borne away in company with the man who had overpowered me.”
He paused a moment in his recital. Faces strained with expectancy
devoured him—his every look and word and action. Mary was very pale,
carried thus back to the dread realities of that night in August, and
shuddered, remembering that ghastly galloping. Langford could scarce
restrain himself. He wanted to rip out a blood curdling Sioux war-whoop
on the spot.
“Who was this man, Mr. Williston?” asked Gordon.
“Jesse Black.”
Small was on his feet again, gesticulating wildly. “I object! This is
all a fabrication, put in here to prejudice the minds of the jury
against this defendant. It is a pack of lies, and I move that it be
stricken from the record.”
The little lawyer bowed his head to the storm and shrugged up his
shoulders. Perhaps he wished that he, or his associate—one of the unholy
alliance at least—was where the wicked cease from troubling, on the far
away islands of the deep seas, possibly, or home on the farm. But his
expression told nothing.
“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” expostulated Judge Dale. “Gentlemen! I insist.
This is all out of order.” Only one gentleman was out of order, but that
was the Judge’s way. Gordon had remained provokingly cool under the
tirade.
Again the soft touch. Small fell into his chair. He poured himself a
glass of water from the pitcher standing on the attorneys’ table and
drank a little of it nervously.
“I move,” said the little lawyer, “that all this touching upon the
personal matter of this witness and having to do with his private
quarrels be stricken out of the evidence as not bearing on the case in
question.”
All in vain. The Judge ruled that it did bear on the case, and Williston
picked up the thread of his story.
“We rode and rode hard—it must have been hours; daylight was coming
before we stopped. Our horses were spent I had no idea where we were.
From the formation of the land, I judged we were not far from the river.
We were surrounded by bluffs. I can hardly make you see how cleverly
this little retreat had been planned. It was in a valley—one of a
hundred similar in all essential respects. The gulch at the bottom of
the valley was heavily wooded with scrub-oak, cottonwood, woodbine, and
plum-trees, and this tangle of foliage extended for some distance up the
sides of the hills. In the midst of this underbrush—a most excellent
screen—was a tiny cabin. In this tiny cabin I have lived, a closely
watched prisoner, from that day until I escaped.”
The defendant stirred a little uneasily. Was he thinking of Nightbird
with the dark, frozen face—who had not answered to his call?
“Black left me soon after. He did not unbind me, rather bound me the
tighter. There was no one then to watch me. He deigned to inform me that
he had found it rather inconvenient to kill me after the relief party
rode up, as then there was no absolute surety of his making a clean
get-away, and being caught in the act would be bound to be unpleasant,
very unpleasant just then, so he had altered his plans a little—for the
present. He gave me no hint either that time, nor either of the two
times I saw him subsequently, as to what was to be his ultimate disposal
of me. I could only suppose that after this trial was well over in his
favor, and fear of indictment for arson and murder had blown over—if
blow over it did,—he would then quietly put an end to me. Dead men tell
no tales. The shanty in the gulch did not seem to be much of a
rendezvous for secret meetings. I led a lonely existence. My jailers
were mostly half-breeds—usually Charlie Nightbird. Two or three times
Jake Sanderson was my guard.”
Then from the doorway came a loud, clear, resonant voice, a joyful
voice, a voice whose tones fairly oozed rapture.
“Hellity damn! The Three Bars’s a gettin’ busy, Mouse-hair!”
Judge Dale started. He glared angrily in that direction.
“Remove that man!” he ordered, curtly. He liked Jim, but he could not
brook this crying contempt of court. Jim was removed. He went quietly,
but shaking his head reproachfully.
“I never would ’a’ thought it o’ the Jedge,” he murmured,
disconsolately. “I never would ’a’ thought it.”
There was a movement in the back of the room. A man was making his way
out, slipping along, cat-like, trying to evade attention. Quietly Gordon
motioned to the sheriff and slipped a paper into his hand.
“Look sharp,” he whispered, his steady eyes on the shifty ones of the
sheriff. “If you let him get away, just remember the handwriting on the
wall. It’s our turn now.”
Presently, there was a slight scuffle by the door and two men quietly
left the improvised court-room.
“Day before yesterday, in the afternoon,” continued Williston, “I
managed to knock Nightbird down at the threshold as he was about to
enter. I had secretly worked a cross-beam from the low, unfinished
ceiling. There was nothing else in the room I might use for a weapon.
They were very careful. I think I killed him, your honor and gentlemen
of the jury. I am not sorry. There was no other way. But I would rather
it had been the maker, not the tool. By the time I had made my way back
to the Lazy S, I was too exhausted to go further; so I crawled over to
my neighbors, the Whites, and Mother White made me a shake down. I lay
there, nearly dead, until this morning.”
He leaned back wearily.
Black stood up. He was not lank nor lazy now, nor shuffling. His body
was drawn to its full height. In the instant before the spring, Mary,
who was sitting close to the attorneys’ table, met his glance squarely.
She read there what he was about to do. Only a moment their eyes held
each other’s, but it was time enough for a swift message of
understanding, of utter dislike, and of a determined will to defeat the
man’s purpose, to pass from the accusing brown eyes to the cruel ones of
the defendant.
Quick as a flash, Black seized the chair upon which he had been sitting,
sprang clear of the table and his lawyers, and landed close to Mary’s
side. With his chair as a weapon, he meant to force his way to the
nearest window. Mary’s eyes dilated. Unhesitatingly she seized the
half-emptied glass on the table and dashed the contents of it full into
the prisoner’s face. Blinded, he halted a moment in his mad rush. Mary’s
quick manœuvre made Langford’s opportunity. He grappled with Black. The
crowd went mad with excitement.
The prisoner still retained his chair. When Langford grappled with him,
he attempted to bring it down upon the fair head of his antagonist. Mary
gasped with dread, but Langford grasped the chair with one muscular
hand, wrested it from the desperado’s hold, and threw it to the floor.
The two men locked in a close embrace. Langford’s great strength was
more than sufficient to hold the outlaw until the dazed officers could
do their duty—had he been let alone; but two men, who had been standing
near the door when the prisoner made his unexpected leap for liberty,
had succeeded in worming their way through the excited crowd, and now
suddenly threw themselves upon the ranchman, dragging him back.
“Stand aside or I’ll shoot!”
It was a girl’s voice, clear and firm. Mary had been the first to
realize that Black’s friends, not Langford’s, had joined in the
struggle. She snatched her revolver from her cowboy belt—she had not
been without either since the Lazy S was burned—and cried out her
challenge. Glancing quickly from the gleaming barrel to the determined
face of the young girl, the men let go their hold of Langford and fell
back precipitately.
Instantly, Langford sprang forward, but Black had made good use of his
moment of grace. Swinging his arms to the right and left, he had beaten
his way to the window, when Langford again seized him, but he had the
advantage this time and he tore himself loose, throwing Langford
violently against the window-casing. With his bare, clinched fist, he
shivered the glass and leaped out—into the arms of Jim Munson.
The officers made gallant plunges through the stampeded crowd in their
efforts to get clear of the room to follow the fugitive. But certain men
managed to keep themselves clumsily, but with marvellous adroitness
nevertheless, between the deputies and the doors and windows; so that
several moments elapsed before the outside was finally gained.
Meanwhile, Jim struggled heroically with the outlaw. Black was far
superior to him in weight and strength of limb, but Jim was quick and
tough and daring. Expelled from the court room, he had been watching
through the window. He had seen Mary’s quick action and his Boss’s
splendid attack. He had also seen the little “gun play” and his eyes
glowed in admiration of “Williston’s little girl,” though his generous
heart ached for love of the woman who was not for him. He saw Black
coming. He was ready for him. He grappled with him at once. If the Boss
or the officers would only come now!
When they did come, they found Jim stretched at length on the frozen
ground. He sat up slowly.
“You’re too late, boys,” he said; “the hoss thief was too much for me.
He’s gone.”
It was true. The little street stretched before them still—deserted.
Early twilight was coming on. The biting cold struck them broadside. The
deputies scattered in vain pursuit.