Jim rapped on the door of Zaanan Frame’s office. At the last minute he
had been of two minds whether he should go in or pass on about his
business. The sound of his own knuckles on the panel decided him.
“Come in,” called Zaanan’s voice.
Jim entered and saw the old justice sitting behind his desk, a
sheep-bound volume propped up before him. Over the top of this a pair of
sharp blue eyes shaded by bushy eyebrows, each of which would have
gladdened the heart of an ambitious young roan could he have had it for
a mustache, peered at Jim.
“Huh!” snorted Zaanan.
“You’ve made it pretty evident,” Jim said, stiffly, “that you don’t like
me. I can’t say I have felt any uncontrollable affection for you—”
“Whoa there!” said Zaanan, closing his book, Tiffany’s _Justices’
Guide_, which he maintained to be the greatest contribution to human
knowledge, especially of the law, since Moses received the tablets of
stone. “Young feller, if you hain’t too young to learn, lemme tell you
it’s possible to ketch more flies with maple sugar than you kin with
stummick bitters. Jest smooth down the hair along your back and don’t go
walkin’ round me stiff-legged like a dog lookin’ for a fight.” Zaanan’s
eyes twinkled. “Now, then, set and onbosom yourself.”
“I’ve come to see you, Judge, because I have been assured that friend or
enemy can trust you—”
“The Widder Stickney’s been flappin’ her wings and cacklin’,” observed
Zaanan. “Um! I figgered you’d be to see me—or else you wouldn’t.
Gittin’ ready to kick out, but you need a wall to lean against, eh?”
“Kick out? What makes you think I’m getting ready to kick out? And at
whom?”
“‘Whom,’” quoted Zaanan. “I’ve heard of that there word. It’s grammar,
hain’t it, but I dun’no’s I ever expected to hear it spoke in Diversity.
How’s the meals to the widder’s?”
“Very good, indeed,” said Jim, nonplussed.
“You hain’t the only boarder, I hear tell.”
“No; Miss Ducharme is there, too.”
“I want to know,” said Zaanan, his eyes twinkling again. “Makes it
pleasanter, I calc’late—you two young folks together.”
“I think Miss Ducharme could bear up under the blow if I were to board
some place else.”
“Um!” said Zaanan. “Mill hain’t runnin’ very good, I hear.”
“That’s what I came to see you about—that and other things.”
“Good mill, hain’t it? New machines? Ought to run, hadn’t it?”
“It ought to and it’s going to. But, Judge, it looks a lot as if
somebody didn’t want it to.”
“Um! That might mean consid’able and it might mean nothin’. Accordin’ to
my notion one of the easiest ways of givin’ information is to think up
words that mean what you want to tell and then to say ’em. Beatin’ round
the bush may scare up a rabbit, but you hain’t huntin’ rabbits. Eh?”
“Well, then, somebody has been tampering with our machinery to make it
break down. Somebody has been driving nails into our logs to dull our
saws. Whoever it is has made us shut down five hours in the last three
days.”
“You figger somebody’s doin’ it deliberate?”
“Yes.”
“Got any proof?”
Jim laid before the old man such evidence as he had, but it was
sufficient. Zaanan wagged his head.
“Calc’late there hain’t no doubt of it. Suspect anybody special?”
“I haven’t any suspicion who is working the mischief, but I have an idea
he isn’t doing it for himself.”
“Somebody’s hirin’ him to do it, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Who might it be?”
“There are only two interests who would have any motive in breaking me.
One is the organization of clothespin manufacturers. I’m in a fight with
them now because they wanted to run my business. The other is the
Diversity Hardwood Company.”
“Hum! I figgered from what Welliver said a spell back that he wasn’t
tickled to death with you and your doin’s. You hain’t a bit afraid who
you’re suspicious of, be you?”
“I’ve got to be suspicious of everybody—and I’m going to be till I know
who can be trusted.”
“Kind of suspected me a mite, eh? Figgered I was tarred with the
Welliver and Moran stick?”
“I got to thinking pretty hard when I saw you with them the morning
after my row with Welliver. You seemed to be pretty good friends.”
“Calc’late we be. Knowed ’em a long time.”
“Judge, you don’t need any more to show you I’ve a bad situation to deal
with. I came to you—I don’t just know why I came to you. On impulse, I
expect.”
“Sudden Jim,” said Zaanan, with a chuckle.
“You’ve heard that, eh?”
“Yes. You was sayin’ you come to me on impulse. Must ’a’ figgered I’d be
some use to you. Nobody’d climb a greased pole if ’twa’n’t for the
five-dollar bill tacked on top of it. Was you wantin’ advice or money or
the loan of my shot-gun?”
“I think,” said Jim, slowly, “that what brought me here was a vague sort
of hope of finding a friend. When a fellow’s up against a fight he feels
lonesome. He likes to know there’s somebody besides himself to depend
on. I had no reason to expect it—quite the contrary, perhaps. Anyhow, I
believe you could help me with this particular problem if you wanted
to.”
“Young feller, a justice of the peace has a heap of duties, some set
down in the statutes and some that just come nat’ral. I’ve been justice
more ’n thirty year, and I calc’late them duties that no legislature
ever thought up is the most important. F’r instance, I married Kitty Fox
and Pliny Hearter. That was consid’able of a transaction; but it was
consid’able more of one to git ’em back to lovin’ and trustin’ after
they’d started runnin’ round for a lawyer to git ’em a divorce. The law
don’t give me the right to do quite a stretch of the meddlin’ I do; but
it sort of appertains to this here office, and I do it. You don’t want
nothin’ of me that’s printed in law-books. So far’s bein’ your
friend—why, I hain’t makin’ no sich agreements. Friends hain’t made by
writin’ out contracts to that effect. I hain’t seen enough of you to git
to yearnin’ over you. But I’ll ease your mind some on one p’int—I
hain’t actively concerned to do you no harm. Also, I hain’t got no
prejudices ag’in you.”
Jim shrugged his shoulders. “It was a ridiculous sort of notion for me
to come like this, without any idea what I wanted. I need help, but what
kind of help I don’t know. Anyhow, I’m glad you’re not with the enemy,
whoever they are.”
“You mentioned names—on suspicion. One of the onhealthiest habits a man
ever got into. I’ve knowed folks to die of it. You’ve figgered out for
yourself who’s after your pelt, and why. But you hain’t got no more
proof than ol’ man Simpkins had when he wanted me to git leetle Georgie
Reed up before me for stealin’ melons. The ol’ man missed a big
melon—next day Georgie was bein’ doctored for stummick-ache. ’Twa’n’t
out of reason. It was evidence I was willin’ to weigh and pass on in
private. I calc’late Georgie et that melon. But as a court of law I
couldn’t do nothin’ but declare Simpkins ’u’d have to show plainer
proofs. That’s your fix. But, young feller, if I was you I calc’late I’d
kinder keep my specs wiped clean and I wouldn’t let my hair grow down
over my ears to speak of. G’-by.”
Jim was astonished. Never had he been thus bruskly dismissed. He strode
out of the office; but a sense of humor came to his rescue. He turned
and bade the old justice good afternoon. Zaanan did not appear to hear.
Zaanan turned the pages of Tiffany’s _Justices’ Guide_ for fifteen
minutes after Jim’s departure. Then he raised his voice in a call for
Dolf Springer. Dolf, it happened, was whittling on Zaanan’s doorstep. It
was his custom to do so during Zaanan’s office hours, for Dolf desired
greatly to be useful to the dictator of Diversity County’s politics.
Dolf’s ambition carried him so high as to make him covet the office of
pathmaster. Therefore he lay in wait for opportunities to serve Zaanan.
“Perty busy, Dolf?” Zaanan asked. “Time all took up to-day?”
“Got a while to spare, Judge.”
“Think of takin’ a drive, Dolf? Eh? Was that what you was plannin’ on?”
“I was goin’ out for a spell.”
“Um! What direction, Dolf? Didn’t happen to be goin’ out the River Road,
did you?”
“That’s exactly where I was goin’. Had a errant out that way.”
“Take you far, Dolf? So far you couldn’t git back to-night?”
“It might, Judge.”
“Wa’n’t goin’ far’s Gilder’s, was you—up back of the Company’s Camp
Three?”
“Goin’ a leetle past there, Judge.”
“Um! Know Gilders?”
“Calc’late to.”
“If you was to see him, Dolf, d’ you figger on stoppin’ for a chat? And
if you do, what be you goin’ to talk about?”
“I’d mention I hadn’t seen him for a long spell.”
“To be sure.”
“And I’d mention I seen you to-day.”
“Uh-huh. S’pose it would occur to you to say somethin’ to the effect
that it looked like business was pickin’ up and stirrin’ times was
comin’? Eh? And that fellers with an ax to grind had better git out the
grindstone? Eh?”
“Come to think of it, I guess I’d make some sich observation.”
“And would you kind of speak about the new clothespin-mill? And allude
to how the whistle’s always tootin’ for it to shut down on account of
somethin’ bustin’?”
“It ’u’d be int’restin’ news to Gilders.”
“’Twouldn’t be any more ’n nat’ral for you to wonder what was the cause
of it? Eh? Might suggest that somebody up his way could explain it.
’Twouldn’t be s’rprisin’, would it?”
“Likely to be so,” said Dolf.
“G’-by, Dolf,” said Zaanan.
“G’-by, Judge,” said Dolf.
In ten minutes Dolf was driving a livery rig out the River Road. A
twelve-mile ride lay before him, and he did not lag. Some hours later he
stopped, tied his horse to a tree by the roadside and plunged into the
woods—jack-pine, scrub-oak, underbrush. Fifteen minutes’ scrambling
brought him to an insignificant clearing with a log shanty in the middle
of it. He stopped cautiously and looked about. Then he called: “Steve!
Hey, Steve Gilders!”
A man, perhaps forty-five years old, stood by the shanty door. A moment
before the space had been empty. He did not seem to come to that spot
from anywhere, but simply to be there all at once. He was what our
grandmothers would have called a “fine figger” of a man. Upward of six
feet two inches he was, and handsome of feature. The handsomeness was
marred by a somberness, a sternness of demeanor.
The admiration he excited was chilled by the rifle he carried under his
arm—and the manner in which he carried it. It explained why Dolf had
taken the precaution to call before he ventured near.
“What’s wanted?” inquired Gilders.
“Zaanan Frame sent me.”
The man’s face relaxed. “Then you’re welcome. Come in.”
Dolf followed him. “Zaanan sent a message, but I can’t make head or tail
to it,” he said.
“Probably ’twa’n’t intended you should,” said Gilders.
“Anyhow,” Dolf said, “Zaanan he told me to come a-drivin’ out here and
say to you that fellers with a ax to grind had better git their
grindstone out; and that business was pickin’ up and stirrin’ times was
ahead; and that the new clothespin-mill was havin’ trouble with its
machinery and somebody up this here way might be able to explain what
was the matter. Don’t seem like much of a message to drive twelve miles
to deliver.”
“Huh! Goin’ right back?”
“Zaanan acted like he wanted me to stay till mornin’.”
“Git your hoss then. You kin sleep here.”
Dolf went obediently after his animal. Steve Gilders shut his eyes and
smiled. It was a peculiar thing to see. Somehow it was not reassuring,
but exceedingly sinister. He had read Zaanan’s message correctly. He
knew what to do.
When Dolf came back Gilders was gone, nor did Dolf see his host again
that night. But that worried Dolf very little. Indeed, it must be said
he slept more comfortably for Gilders’s absence.
At sunrise Gilders appeared out of the woods, strode lithely into the
shanty, laboriously wrote a letter to Zaanan—which he sealed
carefully—and delivered it to Dolf.
“I calc’late you’d better make tracks for town,” he said.
Dolf did not argue the matter.