LIGHT DAWNS UPON THE SITUATION.
On leaving Rodman the sheriff was decidedly perplexed. His prisoner's
honest face had made a decided impression upon him, and he had great
confidence in his mother's judgment concerning such cases, though he was
careful never to admit this to her. At the same time all the circumstances
pointed so strongly to the lad's guilt that, as he reviewed them there
hardly seemed a doubt of it. It is a peculiarity of sheriffs and jailers
to regard a prisoner as guilty until he has been proved innocent.
Nevertheless this sheriff gave his mother permission to visit Rod as
often as she liked; only charging her to lock the corridor-door both upon
entering and leaving the jail. So the dear old lady again toiled up the
steep stairway, this time laden with books and papers. She found the tired
lad stretched on his hard pallet and fast asleep, so she tiptoed softly
away again without wakening him.
While the young prisoner was thus forgetting his troubles, and storing up
new strength with which to meet them, the sheriff was scouring the village
and its vicinity for traces of any stranger who might be the train robber.
But strangers were scarce in Center that day and the only one he could
hear of was the reporter who had interviewed him that morning. He had gone
directly to the telegraph office where he had sent off the despatch of
which he had spoken, to the New York paper he claimed to represent. In it
he had requested an answer to be sent to Millbank, and he had subsequently
engaged a livery team with which he declared his intention of driving to
that place.
Center, though not on the New York and Western railway, was on another
that approached the former more closely at this point than at any other.
To facilitate an exchange of freight a short connecting link had been
built by both roads between Center and Millbank. Over this no regular
trains were run, but all the transfer business was conducted by specials
controlled by operators at either end of the branch. Consequently the few
travellers between the two places waited until a train happened along or,
if they were in a hurry, engaged a team as the reporter had done.
Soon after noon the owner of Juniper, the stolen horse, accompanied by the
thick-headed young farm hand from whom the animal had been taken, appeared
at the jail in answer to the sheriff's request for his presence. These
visitors were at once taken to Rod's cell, where the young prisoner
greatly refreshed by his nap, sat reading one of the books left by the
dear old lady. His face lighted with a glad recognition at sight of
Juniper's owner, and at the same moment that gentleman exclaimed:
"Why, sheriff, this can't be the horse-thief! I know this lad. That is
I engaged him not long since to bring that very horse up here to my
brother's place where I am now visiting. You remember me, don't you,
young man?"
"Of course I do so, sir, and I am ever so glad to see some one who knew me
before all these horrid happenings. Now if you will only make that fellow
explain why he said I was the one who threatened to shoot him, and stole
Juniper from him, when he knows he never set eyes on me before I was
arrested, I shall be ever so much obliged."
"How is this, sir?" inquired the gentleman, turning sharply upon the young
farm hand behind him. "Didn't you tell me you were willing to take oath
that the lad whom you caused to be arrested and the horse-thief were one
and the same person?"
"Y-e-e-s, s-i-r," hesitated the thick head.
"Are you willing to swear to the same thing now?"
"N-n-o, your honor,--that is, not hexactly. Someway he don't look the same
now as he did then."
"Then you don't think he is the person who took the horse from you?"
"No, sir, I can't rightly say as I do now, seeing as the man with the
pistols was bigger every way than this one. If 'e 'adn't been 'e wouldn't
got the 'orse so heasy, I can tell you, sir. Besides it was so hearly that
the light was dim an' I didn't see 'is face good anyway. But when we
caught him 'e 'ad the 'orse an' the bag an' the pistols."
"When you caught who?"
"The 'orse-thief. I mean this young man."
"And you recognized him then?"
"Yes, sir, I knowed 'im by the bag, an' the 'orse."
"But you say he was a much larger man than this one."
"Oh, yes, sir! He was more 'n six foot an' as big across the shoulders as
two of 'im."
Rod could not help smiling at this, as he recalled the slight figure of
the train robber who had appropriated Juniper to his own use.
"This is evidently a badly-mixed case of mistaken identity," said the
gentleman, turning to the sheriff, "and I most certainly shall not prefer
any charge against this lad. Why, in connection with that same horse he
recently performed one of the pluckiest actions I ever heard of." Here the
speaker narrated the story of Rod's struggle with Juniper in utter
darkness and within the narrow limits of a closed box-car.
At its conclusion, the sheriff who was a great admirer of personal
bravery, extended his hand to Rod, saying: "I believe you to be the honest
lad you claim to be, and an almighty plucky one as well. As such I want to
shake hands with you. I must also state that as this gentleman refuses to
enter a complaint against you I can no longer hold you prisoner. In fact I
am somewhat doubtful whether I have done right in detaining you as long as
I have without a warrant. Still, I want you to remain with us a few hours
more, or until the arrival of certain parties for whom I have sent to come
and identify the train robber."
"Meaning me?" asked Rod, with a smile. He could afford to smile now. In
fact he was inclined to laugh and shout for joy over the favorable turn
his fortunes appeared to be taking.
"Yes, meaning you," replied the sheriff good-humoredly. "And to show how
fully persuaded I am that you are the train robber, I hereby invite you to
accompany us down-stairs in the full exercise of your freedom and become
the honored guest of my dear mother for whom you recently performed so
kindly a service. She told me of that at the time, and I am aware now,
that I have not really doubted that you were what you claimed to be, since
she recognized you as the one who then befriended her. I tell you, lad,
it always pays in one way or another, to extend a helping hand to
grandfathers and grandmothers, and to remember that we shall probably
be in need of like assistance ourselves some day."