THE WARDEN'S COMING
At ten o'clock in the morning, the day after Andy Bishop was fitted into
Tessibel's straw tick, a covered runabout wound its way along the lower
boulevard running to Glenwood. Two men were seated in it, solemn,
dark-browed men, with dull eyes and heavy faces. The man holding the
reins was heavy set, square shouldered, and more sternly visaged than
his companion. Some one had said of Howard Burnett, that the Powers, in
setting him up, had used steel cables for his muscles and iron for his
bones; and surely there was a grim grip to his jaw that presaged evil to
those opposing him.
"Devilish queer," he muttered, after a long silence, "how that little
dwarf ever disappeared the way he has, isn't it, Todd?"
"Not so strange after all," protested Todd. "Andy Bishop could crawl
into a rabbit hole and still give the rabbit room to sleep."
"That's true, too, but you'd think his deformity would prevent his
getting very far.... Now wouldn't you?"
"Well, I don't know about that, either." The speaker struck a match
under the lapel of his coat, and cupping the tiny flame in his hand,
held it up to the dead cigar in his mouth, and added between puffs,
"Human nature's a funny thing!... Now Andy's got a kind a pleasin' way
with him ... even if he is deformed, ... and he's got a peach of a
voice. Why, he speaks as soft as a woman.... I wouldn't want him to ask
me to do anything I was set against if I didn't want to do it."
"Rotten rubbish!" spat out Burnett. "I don't give a tinker's damn about
his voice. It's up to me to run the dwarf to earth, and I'm goin' to do
it."
After a very long silence, Todd turned to Burnett.
"But what does get me is why the five thousand Waldstricker's put up,
ain't been bait to catch Bishop before this," he said ruminatively.
"Well, it hain't, that's evident," growled Burnett, setting his teeth.
As a rabbit lifts its head, frightened at unusual sights and sounds, so
Jake Brewer lifted a startled face as Howard Burnett pulled up his horse
suddenly at the squatter's side. The warden stopped the man's progress
by lifting his hand.
"Say, you, wait a minute there," he added to his imperative gesture.
Jake paused, curious and attentive.
"Haven't seen a dwarf, anywhere, named Bishop, have you?" Burnett shot
forth, leaning toward Brewer.
The squatter shook his head. "There be some Bishops round here," he
retorted surlily, "but there ain't no dwarf as I know of by that name."
"Where's the road leadin' down to that row of shacks by the lake?"
demanded Burnett. "Ain't there a lot of squatters living there?"
Brewer assented by a wag of his head.
"No end of 'em," said he, "but there ain't no very easy way gettin' down
with a horse.... Still, mebbe ye could.... Might tie yer wagon an' walk
down."
"Who're you?" shouted the warden, gruffly.
Jake cringed as if the questioner had struck him.
"Jake Brewer," was the unsteady response.
"What's your business?"
"I ain't got no real business," replied the other apologetically. "I
fishes an' hunts an' things like that."
"A squatter--eh?"
"Yep, I air a squatter all right," Jake admitted, "but I air a decent
man, an' allers been decent. I don't do nothin' I hadn't ought to."
"Who's sayin' you do?" snapped Burnett. "Now, I want to ask you a few
questions. I'm from Auburn Prison, and if you lie to me, I'll put you
where the dogs won't bite you.... Do you get me?"
Jake's jaw dropped, but he stood still, and looked at the officer
anxiously.
"Yep, I get ye," he returned submissively, "an' I ain't a goin' to lie
to ye nuther.... What do ye want?"
Burnett's fierce eyes bent a compelling glance on the man in the road.
"How many squatters 're living down by the lake?" he demanded harshly.
Brewer thought a minute.
"I calc'late mebbe there air fifty, mebbe a hundred," he answered. "I
ain't never counted 'em, mister."
Jake moved on a little, but the warden stopped him peremptorily.
"Any jail birds down there?" he thrust at him.
Brewer made a negative gesture.
"Not's I know of," he stammered.
"Ain't nobody down there been in jail? Anybody ever been to Auburn?"
Jake's crooked fingers mounted from his hair line to the back of his
skull, lifting the soft cap partly from his head. Then he scratched his
chin thoughtfully.
"Well, there ain't no guilty man down there," he said, at last. "There
air Orn Skinner--"
Burnett gave an exultant cry.
"My God, I'd forgotten he came from this part of the country! So
Skinner's here among this set of squatters, eh? What luck! I'll bet--"
"Ye won't find no dwarf in Skinner's shanty," expostulated Brewer with
conviction.
"That's up to me to find out!" growled the warden. "Where does Skinner
live? Near here?"
Brewer's fingers directed south.
"First turn to the left, 'bout a mile ahead," he pointed out. "Skinner's
shack air close to the lake. A hedge and lots of flowers air growin'
'round it."
Burnett tightened his lines, chirruped to the horse, and drove on, the
squatter staring open-mouthed after him.
* * * * *
The summer sun bathed the hillside and warmed the Skinner shanty.
Tessibel's hedge lifted its green head upward as if to catch the golden
rays. The flower beds rimmed the hut like a bewildering, gorgeous
rainbow. Everything belonging to Tess seemed at absolute peace with
itself and the world.
Orn Skinner, his head sunken between the two humps on his shoulders, was
lazily whittling a stick when the sound of a horse's hoofs in the lane
near Young's barn arrested his attention. It was the one sound the
squatter expected that day, yet dreaded. Furtively, he leaned back near
the partly open door.
"Some 'un's coming, Tess," he warned.
Evidently, the fisherman did not expect an answer, for he straightened
up once more and proceeded to whittle. The pitter-patter of the trotting
horse, and the clatter of the wheels upon the flinty road, broke rudely
upon the familiar little noises of the quiet summer morning. One
sidewise glance satisfied Orn that the men in the vehicle were from
Auburn prison. He stopped whittling but a moment when Burnett drew up.
"Hello, Orn," called the officer, stentorian-voiced.
"Hello," and the squatter made a polite salute with his stick.
Burnett tossed the reins to the man at his side and climbed to the
ground, advancing toward the fisherman.
"This your hut, Skinner?" he interrogated.
Orn Skinner's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He endeavored to
speak, but apprehension and dread had apparently paralyzed his vocal
organs. He hadn't fully realized until that moment how desperate the
venture to which he had committed himself and Tess. Between Andy Bishop
and this formidable giant from Auburn was but the brave little daughter
inside the hut. Would she be able to carry through the hazardous task
she'd undertaken?
"You remember me, don't you, Skinner?"
It took several seconds before the fisherman could clear his throat
enough to speak.
"Yep," he succeeded at length in muttering. "I remember ye all right....
Ye air Burnett from Auburn, ain't ye?... What do ye want around here?"
Suddenly there came to the powerful officer a wild desire to throttle
the heavy-headed squatter. He had a feeling that this man knew more than
he could be forced to tell, perhaps.
"Better hold a civil tongue in your head, old fellow," he threatened,
"if you know what's best for you."
Orn lifted one great shoulder.
"Ye ain't got nothin' on me, Burnett," he snarled defiantly, "but I know
ye wouldn't be comin' 'round here if ye didn't have somethin' to come
fer."
The warden shoved his grim face so close to the speaker's that he drew
back, intimidated.
"Sure, I come for something," snorted Burnett, viciously.
"Then peel it off," answered Skinner, deep in his throat. "I air
listenin'."
He was bending so far back now that his shaggy head rested against the
shanty boards. Burnett was piercing him with a strange, mesmeric gaze.
"Where's Andy Bishop?" boomed like thunder from the warden.
That name, though he knew his questioner's errand, so suddenly falling
on Orn's ears, congealed his blood and knotted his muscles with fear.
"Andy Bishop?" he echoed irresolutely. "Andy Bishop? Who air Andy
Bishop?"
Burnett lifted a huge fist, but dropped it again. The time hadn't
arrived to punch from Skinner the knowledge he wanted. Later, perhaps--
"Now none of that, Skinner," he barked savagely. "None of that, you
hump-backed brute. You know perfectly well who I mean, and you know
where the dwarf is, and we want him and we want him quick.... He made
his getaway from Auburn.... Now give him up, see?"
Second by second, and minute by minute, Orn Skinner was gathering his
courage and strength. All through his life he had been used to brutal
officials like Burnett; so swallowing hard, he raised his great gray
head and looked straight into the other's dark face.
"If ye mean that little dwarf who were up to Auburn when I were there, I
don't know nothin' about him," he said. "I ain't never heard he come
from this end of the lake."
The warden's fist knotted once more.
"You're a liar, Skinner," he scraped from his throat. "Now look here! I
know confounded well you know where he is. If you don't want me to hand
you trouble by the bushel, you'd better cough up that little dwarf. Get
me? Eh?"
The fingers holding the broad-bladed knife sank to the fisherman's knee,
and for a moment the stick Orn had been cutting poised in the air. Then
a slow, broad smile showed his discolored teeth.
"It air the truth I been tellin' you," he declared deliberately. "I
don't know nothin' about Bishop, an' I don't want to know nothin'.... Ye
ain't got anything on me, Burnett. I air a livin' here peaceful with my
kid."
"Well, I'm goin' to search your shanty, anyhow," Burnett growled
menacingly, his under jaw sticking out like a bull dog's.
"Well, search it, I ain't carin'," consented Orn. "But my kid air sick
in there, an' I don't want ye to scare her."
Without waiting for further parley, Burnett, like an enraged lion,
bounded to the shanty threshold and one long stride took him well on his
way across the kitchen. Suddenly he stopped, staring straight ahead of
him, as if some shining spectre from another world had appeared in his
path.