denied it. There has been so much cattle stealing here of late that our
people living on the border finally got together and determined to stop
every drove going up into the mountains that wasn't accompanied by
somebody that we knew was all right. This afternoon one of my men
reported a little bunch of about a hundred steers on the road, and I
stopped it. These two men were driving the cattle. I inquired if the
cattle belonged to them and they replied that they were not the owners,
but that they had been hired to take the drove over into Maryland. I did
not know the men, and as they met my inquiries with oaths and
imprecations, I was suspicious of them. I demanded the name of the owner
who had hired them to drive the cattle. They said it was none of my
damned business and went on. I raised the county. We overtook them,
turned their cattle into a field, and brought them back until we could
find out who the drove belonged to. On the road we met Bowers."
He turned and indicated the man who was working with the rope halter.
I knew the man. He was a cattle shipper, somewhat involved in debt, but
who managed to buy and sell and somehow keep his head above water.
"He told us the truth. Yesterday evening he had gone over on the
Stone-Coal to look at Daniel Coopman's cattle. He had heard that some
grazer from your county, Abner, was on the way up to buy the cattle for
stockers. He wanted to get in ahead of your man, so he left home that
evening and got to Coopman's place about sundown. He took a short cut on
foot over the hill, and when he came out he saw a man on the opposite
ridge where the road runs, ride away. The man seemed to have been
sitting on his horse looking down into the little valley where Coopman's
house stands. Bowers went down to the house, but Coopman was not there.
The door was open, and Bowers says the house looked as though Coopman
had just gone out of it and might come back any moment. There was no one
about, because Coopman's wife had gone on a visit to her daughter, over
the mountains, and the old man was alone.
"Bowers thought Coopman was out showing the cattle to the man whom he
had just seen ride off, so he went out to the pasture field to look for
him. He could not find him and he could not find the cattle. He came
back to the house to wait until Coopman should come in. He sat down on
the porch. As he sat there he noticed that the porch had been scrubbed
and was still wet. He looked at it and saw that it had been scrubbed
only at one place before the door. This seemed to him a little peculiar,
and he wondered why Coopman had scrubbed his porch only in one place. He
got up and as he went toward the door he saw that the jamb of the door
was splintered at a point about half-way up. He examined this splintered
place and presently discovered that it was a bullet hole.
"This alarmed him, and he went out into the yard. There he saw a wagon
track leading away from the house toward the road. In the weeds he found
Coopman's watch. He picked it up and put it into his pocket. It was a
big silver watch, with Coopman's name on it, and attached to it was a
buckskin string. He followed the track to the gate, where it entered the
road. He discovered then that the cattle had also passed through this
gate. It was now night. Bowers went back, got Coopman's saddle horse out
of the stable, rode him home, and followed the track of the cattle this
morning, but he saw no trace of the drove until we met him."
"What did Shifflet and Twiggs say to this story?" inquired Abner.
"They did not hear it," answered Ward; "Bowers did not talk before them.
He rode aside with us when we met him."
"Did Shifflet and Twiggs know Bowers?" said Abner.
"I don't know," replied Ward; "their talk was so foul when we stopped
the drove that we had to tie their mouths up."
"Is that all?" said Abner.
Ward swore a great oath.
"No!" he said. "Do you think we would hang men on that? From what Bowers
told us, we thought Shifflet and Twiggs had killed Daniel Coopman and
driven off his cattle; but we wanted to be certain of it, so we set out
to discover what they had done with Coopman's body after they had killed
him and what they had done with the wagon. We followed the trail of the
drove down to the Valley River. No wagon had crossed, but on the other
side we found that a wagon and a drove of cattle had turned out of the
road and gone along the basin of the river for about a mile through the
woods. And there in a bend of the river we found where these devils had
camped.
"There had been a great fire of logs very near to the river, but none of
the ashes of this fire remained. From a circular space some twelve feet
in diameter the ashes had all been shoveled off, the marks of the shovel
being distinct. In the center of the place where this fire had burned
the ground had been scraped clean, but near the edges there were some
traces of cinders and the ground was blackened. In the river at this
point, just opposite the remains of the fire, was a natural washout or
hole. We made a raft of logs, cut a pole with a fork on the end and
dragged the river. We found most of the wagon iron, all showing the
effect of fire. Then we fastened a tin bucket to a pole and fished the
washout. We brought up cinders, buttons, buckles and pieces of bone."
Ward paused.
"That settled it, and we came back here to swing the devils up."
My uncle had listened very carefully, and now he spoke.
"What did the man pay Twiggs and Shifflet?" said my uncle. "Did they
tell you that when you stopped the drove?"
"Now that," answered Ward, "was another piece of damning evidence. When
we searched the men we found a pocketbook on Shifflet with a hundred and
fifteen dollars and some odd cents. It was Daniel Coopman's pocketbook,
because there was an old tax receipt in it that had slipped down between
the leather and the lining.
"We asked Shifflet where he got it, and he said that the fifteen dollars
and the change was his own money and that the hundred had been paid to
him by the man who had hired them to drive the cattle. He explained his
possession of the pocketbook by saying that this man had the money in
it, and when he went to pay them he said that they might just as well
take it, too."
"Who was this man?" said Abner.
"They will not tell who he was."
"Why not?"
"Now, Abner," cried Ward, "why not, indeed! Because there never was any
such man. The story is a lie out of the whole cloth. The proof is all
dead against them."
"Well," replied my uncle, "what circumstantial evidence proves, depends
a good deal on how you get started. It is a somewhat dangerous road to
the truth, because all the sign-boards have a curious trick of pointing
in the direction that you are going. Now a man will never realize this
unless he turns around and starts back, then he will see, to his
amazement, that the signboards have also turned. But as long as his
face is set one certain way, it is of no use to talk to him, he won't
listen to you; and if he sees you going the other way, he will call you
a fool!"
"There is only one way in this case," said Ward.
"There are always two ways in every case," replied Abner, "that the
suspected person is either guilty or innocent. You have started upon the
theory that Shifflet and Twiggs are guilty. Now, suppose you had started
the other way, what then?"
"Well," said Ward, "what then?"
"This, then," continued Abner. "You stop Shifflet and Twiggs on the road
with Daniel Coopman's cattle, and they tell you that a man has hired
them to drive this drove into Maryland. You believe that and start out
to find the man. You find Bowers!"
Bowers went deadly white.
"For God's sake, Abner!" he said.
But my uncle was merciless and he drove in the conclusion.
"What then?"
There was no answer, but the faces of the men about my uncle turned
toward the man whose trembling hands fingered the rope that he was
preparing for another.
"But the things we found, Abner?" said Ward.
"What do they prove," continued my uncle, "now that the signboards are
turned? That somebody killed Daniel Coopman and drove off his cattle,
and afterward destroyed the body and the wagon in which it was hauled
away. . . . But who did that? . . . The men who were driving Daniel
Coopman's cattle, or the man who was riding Daniel Coopman's horse, and
carrying Daniel Coopman's watch in his pocket?"
Ward's face was a study in expression.
"Ah!" cried Abner. "Remember that the signboards have turned about. And
what do they point to if we read them on the way we are going now? The
man who killed Coopman was afraid to be found with the cattle, so he
hired Twiggs and Shifflet to drive them into Maryland for him and
follows on another road."
"But his story, Abner?" said Ward.
"And what of it?" replied my uncle. "He is taken and he must explain how
he comes by the horse that he rides, and the watch that he carries, and
he must find the criminal. Well, he tells you a tale to fit the facts
that you will find when you go back to look, and he gives you Shifflet
and Twiggs to hang."
I never saw a man in more mortal terror than Jacob Bowers. He sat in his
saddle like a man bewildered.
"My God!" he said, and again he repeated it, and again.
And he had cause for that terror on him. My uncle was stern and
ruthless. The pendulum had swung the other way, and the lawless monster
that Bowers had allied was now turning on himself. He saw it and his
joints were unhinged with fear.
A voice crashed out of the ring of desperate men, uttering the changed
opinion.
"By God!" it cried, "we've got the right man now!"
And one caught the rope out of Bowers' hand.
But my Uncle Abner rode in on them.
"Are you sure about that?" he said.
"Sure!" they echoed. "You have shown it yourself, Abner."
"No," replied my uncle, "I have not shown it. I have shown merely
whither circumstantial evidence leads us when we go hotfoot after a
theory. Bowers says that there was a man on the hill above Daniel
Coopman's house, and this man will know that he did not kill Daniel
Coopman and that his story is the truth."
They laughed in my uncle's face.
"Do you believe that there was any such person?"
My uncle seemed to increase in stature, and his voice became big and
dominant.
"I do," he said, "because I am the man!"
They had got their lesson, and we rode out with Shifflet and Twiggs to a
legal trial.
FOOTNOTE:
[C] Reprinted from "Uncle Abner." Copyright, 1918, by D. Appleton and
Company.
[Illustration]
III.--Tad Sheldon, Second-Class Scout[D]
_By John Fleming Wilson_
_A good many Scout stories have been published,
hundreds of them surely, maybe a thousand, or
more, in the last nine years. But the first Scout
story published in the United States was "Tad
Sheldon, Second-Class Scout." It appeared first in
the "Saturday Evening Post." The author has
written a good many stories, Scout and otherwise,
since then, but none better, I think, than this,
and I count it good fortune indeed that I am able
to include it in this volume of short stories for
boys._--THE EDITOR.
"THERE is no har-rm in the story, though it speaks ill for us big people
with Misther to our names," said Chief Engineer Mickey O'Rourke,
balancing his coffee cup between his two scarred hands. "Ye remimber the
lasht toime I was on leave--and I wint down to Yaquina Bay with Captain
Tyler on his tin gas schooner, thinkin' to mesilf it was a holiday--and
all the fun I had was insthructin' the gasoline engineer in the
mysteries of how to expriss one's sintimints without injurin' the
skipper's feelin's? Well, I landed in the bay and walked about in the
woods, which is foine for the smell of thim which is like fresh tar; and
one afternoon I find two legs and small feet stickin' out of a hole
under a stump. I pulled on the two feet and the legs came out and at the
end of thim a bhoy, mad with rage and dirt in his eyes.
"'Ye have spoiled me fun!' says he, lookin' at me very fierce.
"'Do yez dig yer fun out of the ground like coal?' I demands.
"'I'm investigating the habits of squirrels,' says he. 'I must find out
how a squirrel turns round in his hole. Does he turn a summersault or
stick his tail between his ears and go over backward?'
"'He turns inside out, like an ould sock,' I informs him, and he scorns
me natural history. On the strength of mutual language we get
acquainted. He is Tad Sheldon, the eldest son of Surfman No. 1 of the
life-saving crew. He is fourteen years ould. Me bould Tad has troubles
of his own, consisting of five other youngsters who are his gang. 'We
are preparing to inter the ranks of the Bhoy Scouts,' he tells me,
settin' be the side of the squirrel-hole. 'We are all tenderfeet and we
can't get enlisted with the rest of the bhoys in the United States
because each scout must have a dollar in the bank and between the six of
us we have only one dollar and six bits and that's in me mother's apron
pocket and in no bank at all.'
"'Explain,' says I.
"''Tis this way,' says me young sprig. 'All the bhoys in the country of
America have joined the scouts, which is an army of felleys that know
the woods and about animals and how to light a fire, and know the law.'
"'Stop!' I orders. 'No one knows the law without gold in one hand and a
book in the other. If ye knew the law ye would have yer dollar.'
"''Tis the scouts' law,' says he. 'It tells ye to obey yer superiors and
be fair to animals and kind to people ye care little for. Ye must know
how to take care of yourself anywhere and be ready whin the country
needs ye.'
"'And ye need a dollar?' I asks. 'Thin, why not work for it and stop
pokin' yer nose down squirrel-holes, where there is neither profit nor
wages?'
"'Because I'm to be the patrol-leader and I must know more than me men,'
he retorts.
"Now, ye remimber I had in me pocket three pay checks, besides the money
of Mr. Lof, the second engineer, which I had got for him and was
carryin' about to send to him by the first friend I saw. So I took off
me cap and pulled out one of the checks and said: 'Me bould boy, go down
to the town and get the cash for this. Bring it back to me and I'll give
ye a dollar; and thin ye can become a scout.'
"The lad looked at me and then at the governmint check. He shook his
head till the dirt rolled into his ears, for he was still full of the
clods he had rubbed into himself in the hole. 'I can't take a dollar
from a man in the service,' he says. 'I must earn it.'
"'The Governmint's money is clane,' I rebukes him. 'I'm ould and me legs
ends just above me feet, so that I walk with difficulty. 'Tis worth a
dollar to get the coin without trampin'.'
"'I will earn it from somebody not in the service,' says me bould boy,
with great firmness.
"'I'm no surfman, thank Hivin!' I remarks. 'I'm in the establishmint and
look down on ye.'
"'If I'd known ye were a lighthouse man I'd have taken all ye had at
first,' he retorts. 'But ye have made me a fair offer and I forgive ye.
My father works for his living.'
"'Well,' says I seein' that it was poor fortune to be quarrelin' with a
slip of a kid, 'do yez want the dollar or not?'
"And at that we got down to fact and he explained that this scout
business was most important. It appeared that the other five bhoys
depinded on him to extricate thim from their difficulties and set them
all up as scouts, with uniforms and knives and a knowledge of wild
animals and how to build a fire in a bucket of watther. We debated the
thing back and forth till the sun dropped behind the trees and the could
air came up from the ground and stuck me with needles of rheumatism.
"The lad was a good lad, and he made plain to me why his dollar was
har-rd to get. He had thought of savin' the life of a summer visitor,
but the law read that he must save life anyhow, without lookin' for pay.
'And we can't all save lives,' he mourns; 'for some of the kids is too
young.'
"'But ye must earn money, ye scut,' I says. 'Ye're fourteen and whin I
was that age I was me mother's support and joy. I made four shillin's a
wake mixin' plaster for a tile-layer.'
"'I work,' he responds dolefully. 'But it goes to me mother to put with
the savings in the bank against the time me father will be drowned, and
leave us without support, for ye must know that we life-savers get no
pensions.'
"'I niver hear-ed of a life-saver bein' drowned,' I remarks. 'But it may
be, for I see ye are of an exthra-ordinary family and anything may come
to such. How many are there of yez?'
"'There are six of us childher, all gur-rls but mesilf,' says he, with
rage in his voice. 'And Carson--he was No. 4--broke his hip in a wreck
last year and died of the bruise and left five, which the crew is
lookin' after. Young Carson is one of me gang and makes a dollar and
four bits a week deliverin' clams to the summer folks. Ye see he can't
save a dollar for the bank.' And we got up and discussed the matther
going down the hill toward the town. Before we parted Tad tould me where
he lived.
"'I'd call on yer father and mother,' says I, 'if I cud be sure they
would appreciate the honor. 'Tis a comedown for an officer in the
lighthouse establishmint to inter the door of a surfman.'
"'Me father has a kind heart and is good to the ould,' he answers me.
'We live beyond the station, on the bluff.'
"With that we went our ways and I ate an imminse meal in the hotel with
the dishes all spread out before me--and a pretty gur-rl behind me
shoulder to point out the best of thim. Thin I walked out and started
for the house of me bould Tad.
"I found thim all seated in the parlor excipt the missus, who was mixin'
bread in the kitchen. I introduced mesilf, and Sheldon, who had No. 1 on
his sleeve, offered me a pipe, which I took. I came down to business,
houldin' me cap full of checks and money on me lap. 'Yer bould bhoy
wants to be a scout and lacks a dollar,' I says. 'I like his looks,
though I discovered him in a hole under a tree. He won't take me money
and scorns me and the establishmint.'
"'He must earn it,' he answers, scowlin' over his pipe.
"'But I'll spind it,' I insists, peerin' at the bhoy out of the tail of
me eye. 'If yer town weren't dhry I'd have given it to the saloon man
for the good of the family he hasn't got. So why bilge at a single
dollar?'
"''Tis the scouts' law,' puts in me bould Tad. 'I must make it
honestly.' And he settled his head between his hands and gazed
reproachfully at the clane floor. So I saved me money and sat till eight
o'clock exchangin' complimints with Misther Sheldon. Thin the bell rang
on the hill beyond the station and he pulled his cap off the dresser,
kissed his wife and the five gur-rls and wint out to his watch and a
good sleep. While he was gone I stood in the doorway and Missus Sheldon
tould me of the little Carsons and how Missus Carson had sworn niver to
marry again excipt in the life-saving service. 'She says the Governmint
took away her husband and her support,' says the good lady, 'and she'll
touch no money excipt Governmint checks, being used to thim and Uncle
Sam owin' her the livin' he took away.'
"'With five childher she shud look up and marry one of the men in the
establishment,' I informs her. 'They are good husbands and make money.'
"'Though a widow, she has pride,' she responds sharply; and I left, with
young Tad follerin' at me heels till I let him overtake me and whisper:
'If ye'd buy some clams off of young Carson it wud help the widow.'
"'I am starved for clams,' I whispers back like a base conspirator for
the hand of the lovely gur-rl in the castle. 'Show me the house of me
bould Carson.' He pointed to a light through the thin woods.
"They thought I was crazy whin I returned to the hotel with a hundred
pounds of clams dripping down me back. 'I dug thim with me own hands
this night,' I tould the man in the office. 'Cook thim all for me
breakfast.'
"'Ye're a miracle of strength and endurance under watther,' says he;
'for 'tis now high tide and the surf is heavy.'
"'I found their tracks in the road and followed thim to their lair,' I
retorts. 'Do I get thim for breakfast?'
"And in the mor-rin', whin I was that full of clams that I needed a
shell instead of a weskit, I walked on the beach with the admirin'
crowds of summer tourists and lovely women. It was fine weather and the
little ones were barefooted and the old ones bareheaded, and the wind
was gentle, and the life-savers were polishin' their boat in full view
of the wondherin' throng; and I thought of this ould tub out here on the
ind of a chain and pitied thim all. Thin I sthrolled around the point to
the bay and found me bould Tad dhrillin' his gang in an ould skiff, with
home-made oars in their little fists and Tad sthandin' in the
stern-sheets, with a huge steerin' sweep between his arms and much loud
language in his mouth. When I appeared they looked at me and Tad swung
his boat up to the beach and invited me in. 'We will show you a dhrill
ye will remimber,' says he, very polite. And with my steppin' in he
thrust the skiff off and the bhoys rowed with tremenjous strength. We
wint along a full three knots an hour, till he yelled another ordher and
the bhoys dropped their oars and jumped over to one side; and I found
mesilf undher the boat, with me mouth full of salt watther and ropes.
Whin I saw the sun again me bould Tad says to me with disapprobation:
'Ye aren't experienced in capsize dhrill.'
"'In the establishment we use boats to keep us out of the watther,' I
responds, hunting for the papers out of me cap. 'The newspapers are full
of rebukes for thim that rock boats to their own peril.'
"With that they all felt ashamed and picked up me papers and grunted at
each other, tryin' to blame somebody else. And when I had me checks and
me papers all safe again I smiled on thim and me bould Tad took heart.
''Tis not to tip the boat over,' says he, 'but to get it back on an even
keel after a sea's capsized her--that is the point of the dhrill.' And
we pulled ashore to dhry.
"Whiles we were sittin' on the sand drainin' the watther out of our
shoes a small, brassy launch came down the bay, with many men and women
on her little decks. Me bould Tad looked at her with half-shut eyes and
snorted. 'Some day it will be the life-saving crew that must bring those
ninnies back to their homes,' he says. 'The Pacific is nothing to fool
with in a gasoline launch. 'Tis betther to be safe and buy your fish.'
And we watched the launch chug by and out on the bar and to sea. I
learned that she was the _Gladys_ by name and fetched tourists to the
fishing grounds, nine miles down the coast.
"All the bhoys were respictful to me excipt young Carson, who recognized
in me bould Mickey the man who had asked for a hundredweight of clams.
He stared at me superciliously and refused to have speech with me, bein'
ashamed, if I can judge of his youthful thoughts, of bein' in the same
company with a fool.
"But I discovered that the gang was all bent on becomin' what they
called second-class scouts, which they made plain to me was betther by
one than a tenderfoot. But they niver mintioned the lackings of the
dollar, bein' gintlemin. They wanted to know of me whether I thought
that boatmanship and knowledge of sailing would be accipted be the
powers instid of wisdom as to bird-tracks and intimacy with wild animals
and bugs. And the heart of me opened, the youth of me came back; and I
spoke to thim as one lad to another, with riference to me years in a
steamer and the need of hard hands and a hard head.
"The ind of it was that they rolled across the sand to me side and we
all lay belly down over a chart, which me bould Tad had procured after
the manner of bhoys, and they explained to me how they knew the coast
for twelve miles each side of Yaquina Bay, with the tides and currents
all plain in their heads. And I was surprised at what the young scuts
knew--God save thim!
"At noon the visitors suddenly stopped lookin' at the scenery and
hastened away with hunger in their eyes. The crew ran the surfboat back
into the station and the bhoys drew their skiff up out of har-rm's way;
and I wint back to me hotel and more clams. On the steps I found young
Carson, grinning like a cat.
"'Ye don't have to eat thim shell fish,' says he, lookin' away. 'Gimme
the sack of thim and I'll peddle thim to the tourists and bring ye the
money.'
"'Whisht and away with ye!' I commanded. 'Who are you to be dictatin'
the diet of yer betthers?' And he fled, without glancin' behind him.
"There was some remar-rks passed upon me wet clothes, but I tould the
clerk in the office that me duty often called me to get drippin' soaked
and went into the dinin'-room with a stiff neck under me proud chin.
There were but few in the place and the gur-rl stood by me shoulder to
pilot me through the various coorses infor-rmed me that the most of the
guests were out on the _Gladys_ fishin'. 'And the most of thim will have
little appetite for their dinners,' she mused gently, thereby rebukin'
me for a second helpin' of the fresh meat.
"In the afternoon I sthrolled out on the beach again, but saw little. A
heavy fog was rowlin' from the nor'ard and the breeze before it was
chill and damp as a widow's bed. I walked for me health for an hour and
then ran to kape war-rm. At the ind of my spurt I was amazed to find
mesilf exactly at the hotel steps. I wint in and laid me down be the
fire and slept. I woke to hear a woman wailin'.