The fires of discontent smouldered throughout the next day. Although many
of the country people had left town, there was more than the usual stir
upon the streets. Idle knots of men strolling about or standing on the
corners neglected their avocations in eager discussion of the events of
the previous evening. There was very general reprehension of the action
of the mob,—so general that it might suggest a wonder as to whence
came its component elements, and an unpleasant feeling that perhaps a
satirical ringleader might be advancing these rebukes, and watching with
secret laughter their effect. Many rumors prevailed, some so fantastic
as to balk the credulity that sought to accept them, and others probable
enough to be a solution of Mink’s disappearance. Some maintained that
he had been liberated by the mob. Others said that at the time of the
onslaught he had been hidden in the cellar with the jailer and the
jailer’s family; and this was again roundly denied, for the cellars were
reported to have been thoroughly searched. It was said, too, that the
prisoner had been gagged, bound securely, and boldly carried forth from
the back door through the crowd in the intense darkness, and that he was
now held in retreat at the sheriff’s house. However it might have been,
that officer received about noonday two or three threatening letters
signed, “The men that elected you.”
He had since been disposed to exonerate himself, and he bore a
troubled, anxious face about the town, and talked in a loud, strained,
remonstrant falsetto. It was through some words which he let fall, in the
perturbation of the discovery that he was liable to be held to account
personally by this unknown and numerous enemy, that it became public
he had applied to Judge Gwinnan, not in his judicial capacity, but for
advice in this emergency, and that it was Gwinnan who had devised the
ruse which had baffled the rescuers.
The curiosity as to Mink’s fate grew so pronounced as the day wore on
that a party of young roughs went openly to the jail and interrogated
the jailer. For that functionary had returned. He showed himself at the
window of his stronghold jauntily enough. He had a jovial expression, a
black mustache that turned cheerfully upward,—for he laughed often and
usually laughed last,—quick brown eyes, and a bushy, unkempt head; he was
unshaven and in his shirt-sleeves. He seemed to care not an atom for the
illogical views of his fellow-citizens.
“I’m appinted by the sher’ff o’ Cherokee County ter keep folks in jail,
an’ by Hokey, I’m a-goin’ ter do it.”
They begged him to let them in; they had come to see him
sociably,—a-visitin’, they protested.
“Can’t git in hyar, ’thout ye steal a horse or kill yer gran’mother,
one.” He shook his keys jocosely at them, and vanished.
At noon, when the train was due at the little station, the mystery was
solved. The jailer was strolling up and down the platform, grave enough
for once in his life, and with apparently no purpose. Asked if he were
going to Glaston he replied, with an effort at his usual manner, “Not in
these clothes, if the court knows itself, an’ it rather think it do!”
It was a day of doubtful moods, of sibilant gusts of wind and intervals
of brooding stillness. There was a pervasive suggestion of moisture in
the air, but as yet no rain. The odor of decaying leaves came from the
woods on the other side of the road. The sunshine was uncertain. White
clouds were silently astir in the upper regions of the atmosphere; among
the distant blue ranges the intervenient valleys could be distinctly
located by the mist rising from them, elusively showing, then veiling
the farther heights, and anon falling like some airy cataract over a
mountain side, seeming to cleave it in twain, and simulating a gap, a
pass, in the impenetrabilities of the massive clifty range. The little
stream that flowed along on the other side of the rails reflected the
vacillating sentiments of the sky: now a cloud driving faster than
its current showed upon its lustrous olive-green surface among the
reflections of the crimson sumach bushes that lined its banks; and now it
glittered in a burst of sunshine and emulated the azure of the changing
heavens. The little town lay at a considerable distance; whether it
hoped to grow up to the depot, or desired the advantages of civilization
without its close contact, one might speculate in vain. Its clustering
roofs were quite distinct among the thinning red and yellow and brown
leaves of the trees.
A number of loungers waited to watch the train pass; for it was only a
short time since the road had been completed, and the engine was still
a mechanical miracle in the estimation of many of the country people,
who came sometimes great distances to see it. Harshaw was going down to
attend the court at Glaston. He was much smarter than usual, although
he wore on his yellow head a soft wide hat, which gave him a certain
highwayman-like aspect. A gay necktie of blue shot silk showed beneath
his yellow beard; his stiffly starched cuffs, already much crumpled,
protruded beneath his coat-sleeves.
“What are you about, my friend? Going to jump the country?” he demanded
of the deputy-sheriff, who was embarrassed, and replied evasively that
he was waiting to see a man. Harshaw turned to greet Gwinnan, who was
also going off, having adjourned the court a few moments too late the
preceding evening and thereby failing to catch the night train. Harshaw
accosted him with a full expression of his large, bluff, familiar
manner. It was received with a certain coolness, which may have been
Gwinnan’s normal social temperature, but Harshaw was keenly alert to
descry significance, and was disposed to refer it to the hasty threat
at the court-house door. Gwinnan’s impassive inexpressiveness gave him
no intimation whether or not it had been repeated, and as the judge
stood looking about the little unpainted wooden depot, all its business
easily to be comprised in the two rooms, Harshaw began to detail to him
how much the road had cost, how it was hoped it would aid in developing
the resources of the country, how it had already begun to conduct itself
like a sure enough grown-up railroad, and had got into law. Suddenly the
two shining parallel rails trembled with a metallic vibration. A distant
roar growing ever nearer and louder impinged upon the air. A cloud of
smoke appeared above the trees, and with a glitter of burnished metal,
a turmoil of sound, a swift gliding rush, the overpowering imperious
presence of the engine gladdened the sight of the simple country folks.
Gwinnan was silent as Harshaw talked, until suddenly that worthy broke
off, “Hello! what’s going on here?”
Some distance up the red clay road from the direction of the town,
a buggy was driven at a furious rate, with the evident intention of
forestalling the departure of the train.
All the loungers saw it. The conductor saw it, and yet he cried out,
“All aboard!” and sprang upon the platform as the train began to move.
The by-standers understood the ruse the next moment. There were two men
in the buggy: one was handcuffed; the other was the sheriff. The deputy
and two guards dragged the prisoner across the platform and upon the
slowly moving train, which forthwith rattled away around the curve at the
greatest speed of which it was capable, leaving the suspected rescuers
gazing blankly at it, and realizing that because of the insecurity of the
county jail Mink was to be lodged in the metropolitan prison of Glaston.
It is said that nothing so expands the mental horizon as the experience
of emotion. In this sense Mink was becoming a wise man. He knew despair
not as a word, a theory, a sentiment, but in its baffled, futile
finality. He had conned all the fine vacillations of suspense. He had
exhausted the delusions of hope.
Only the passion of rage had as yet unsated capacities. As he sat in
the car, shackled, among his guards, he fixed his shining eyes, full
of suppressed ferocity, on Gwinnan’s face, who was absorbed in a book
and heedless of his fellow-travelers. The guards did not notice the
prisoner’s gaze, and after a moment it was diverted for a time. For Mink
had quick enough perceptions and no mean power of deduction. He divined
that his guards and fellow-passengers were in much perturbation lest the
train should be stopped. At every intersection of the country roads with
the track there was a perceptible flurry amongst them, an anxious outlook
to descry mounted and armed men.
He had himself no further expectation of deliverance.
“Nobody’s goin’ ter resk ten year in the Pen’tiary fur rescuin’ me in
broad daylight whar they could be knowed. Ef the mob wanted ter hang me,
though, _they would_,” he said, with the cynicism of the truth.
“Nobody wants ter hang you-uns, Mink, nor hurt ye no-ways. All ye need is
a leetle patience ter wait fur another trial,” said the deputy.
“I ain’t got no mo’ patience,” said Mink drearily.
His fatigued faculties, that had almost sunk into stupor under the
strain of excitement and suspense, roused themselves to take note of the
surroundings. The motion of the train filled him with amaze. He held
his breath to see the fantasies of the flying landscape without. The
panting snorts and leaps of the engine, like some great living monster,
the dull rolling of the wheels, the iterative alternating sound of the
clanking machinery, each registered a new estimate of life upon his
intent, expressive face. His eyes rested on the lamp fixtures shining in
their places as if he beheld enchantment. The tawdry ornamentation, the
paneling of light and dark woods with occasional glimmers of gilding,
the red velvet of the seats, were to his unaccustomed eyes unparalleled
magnificence. He asked no questions. He accepted it all simply, without
comment, without consciousness. His fine head, with its rich coloring of
complexion and eyes and hair, looked as if it might have been painted
upon the panel of maple on which it leaned, he sat so still. His hat lay
on the seat beside him; he was well used now not to wear it. It may have
been because he was innocent, it may have been because he felt no shame,
but the handcuffs on his wrists seemed not more ignominious than a wild
creature’s captivity.
He had been so docile, so unresisting all the morning, that the deputy,
who had grown to like the young fellow in their constrained intercourse,
and valued him far more than a duller and a better man, was disposed to
treat him as gently as was consistent with duty. The guards were jolly
and they joked with him; but he had little to say, and presently they
talked to each other, and looked over their shoulders at the rest of the
company, covertly entertaining themselves with such fragments of the
conversation as the roaring and clangor of the train permitted to be
audible. They noticed after a time that the surroundings had ceased to
interest him, and that he was looking with lowering and surly ferocity at
Judge Gwinnan, intent upon his book.
“Look-a-hyar,” said one of the guards, nudging Mink violently, “ye ’pear
like some wild varmint. Ye look ez keen an’ wicked an’ mean ez a mink.
Quit eyin’ Jedge Gwinnan like that, else I’ll blindfold ye,—sure’s ye
born, I will.”
Mink’s dilated eyes rested upon the unconscious, half-averted face for a
moment longer. Then they turned to the face of the deputy in front of him.
“That thar man,” he said between his set teeth, and for all his voice
was low it was distinct, even in the rumbling and noise of the train,
so charged it was with the emphasis of intention, the definiteness of a
cherished revenge,—“d’ye know what he hev done ter me? He put Pete Rood
on the jury, though he knowed Pete hated me, an’ why. He put the jury in
jail, ’kase they war fools, an’ ’lowed they hed a harnt on the panel,
an’ bein’ jailed conflusticated ’em so they couldn’t find a verdict.
_He_ knows an’ _they_ know Tad’s alive, but I hev got ter bide in jail
fower month longer an’ resk the Pen’tiary agin, account o’ a drownded boy
ez hev run away. An’ when my friends wanted ter take me out’n jail,—God
A’mighty! I didn’t know I hed sech friends,—he goes out’n his way ter
tell the sher’ff how ter flustrate ’em. An’ I war gagged an’ ironed, an’
toted out’n the back door, an’ kep’ at the sher’ff’s house, an’ am tuk
off on the train. ’Twarn’t his business. Ye know thar warn’t ez much ez
that done whenst the lynchers kem fur Tim Jenkins,—_not ter save the
man’s life_.”
“Waal, he hed ter be hung some time, ennyhow,” said the deputy
indisputably.
“What did this hyar Jedge Gwinnan do all this hyar fur?” continued Mink.
“Waal, Mink, he war obleeged ter, by his office. Ye know I don’t hold no
grudge ter ye, yit I’m ’bleeged ter iron ye an’ gyard ye. I couldn’t set
no mo’ store by ye ef ye war my own blood relation,” said the deputy.
“Naw, sir! naw!” exclaimed Mink. “This hyar man have tuk a notion ter
Lethe Sayles,—I seen it; an’ he ’lows I ain’t good enough fur her, an’ he
be doin’ sech ez he kin agin me on account o’ her.”
The deputy sheriff broke into a horse-laugh. The others laughed, too,
more moderately. “Ye air teched in the head, Mink,” one of them remarked.
“Mebbe so,” Mink responded quietly enough, but with a glancing gleam in
his dark eyes. “But I’ll remember what he hev done ter me. An’ I’ll git
even with him fur it. By the Lord, I’ll git even with him fur it. An’ ye
shell see the day.”
He leaned back against the window, with his eyes bright, his lips
curving, tossing his tangled hair with a quick, excited gesture, as if he
saw his revenge an accomplished fact.
Somehow his look impressed the guards.
“Naw, ye won’t,” said one of them. “Ye won’t do nuthin’ like it. Ye air
goin’ ter jail _fower_ month, an’ arter that ter the Pen’tiary _five_
year, an’ time ye git out’n thar ye’ll be so powerful pleased ter be
foot-loose ye’ll mind yer manners the rest o’ yer days, an’ ye will hev
clean furgot Jedge Gwinnan.”
He evidently thought some harshness salutary. Mink made no reply, and
they presently fell to talking together of their town affairs and gossip,
excluding him from the conversation, in which, in truth, he desired to
take no share.