BREAKING THE FETTERS.
Don actually staggered, and for some moments he was unable to speak a
word. To the deputy sheriff the boy’s agitation seemed a confession
that he knew all about the matter in question, and so Drew said:
“The hull business has come out, ye see, so you might jest as well tell
the truth about it. Of course your father’ll pertect you, but the other
feller that passed the check over to Freeport will hev to smart.”
“Why, I don’t know anything about a forged check!” exclaimed Don, in a
flutter. “That’s the honest truth, Mr. Drew.”
“Oh, come!” drawled the man. “It ain’t no use to try to squiggle
round it. The check come back to the bank to-day, an’ your father
was straightenin’ out his accounts this forenoon, so he gut holt of
it right off. Reuben Gray, over to Freeport, tuck it, and he sent it
over here by Jeff Lander to git it cashed at the bank, as Jeff was
comin’ over on business. It was jest a happenstance that your father
diskivered it so soon.”
Now Don understood why his father had looked on him with such sad
reproach after discovering the crumpled letter in his waste-basket, and
the boy was horrified by the knowledge that the doctor suspected him of
participating in such a crime. He realized, also, that all this had
come about through his association with an evil companion, against whom
his father had warned him.
Being entirely innocent in regard to the forged check, Don became both
vehement and indignant in his protestations. It was useless for Simeon
Drew to try to coax or frighten a confession from him, and the deputy
sheriff finally gave over the attempt in disgust.
“It would hev bin better for ye if you’d jest told everything ye knowed
about it,” the man declared; “but, anyhow, I’ll hev the other feller
nabbed before night.”
As Don continued on his way home, his brain in a whirl over the affair,
the whole truth came to him like a flash of light. He recalled the
fact that on the evening after the football game at Highland, while he
was talking with Bentley in his father’s office, he had caught Leon
examining Dr. Scott’s check-book and had angrily ordered the fellow to
let it alone.
“He tore a blank check from it then!” palpitated Don. “He is the
forger! He could imitate father’s writing, for he faked up that excuse
for me. He went to Freeport, Thursday, and when he came home he had
lots of money, which he said his aunt had given him for a birthday
present.”
Everything seemed plain enough in a moment, and he understood why it
was suspected that he had known something about the affair. Immediately
he resolved to face Bentley in the matter and force the fellow to
exonorate him. He hurried straight to Leon’s home, but Mrs. Bentley,
a pale-faced, worried-appearing woman, announced that her son had not
appeared since school that afternoon.
As Don was departing he found himself again confronted by Simeon Drew,
who had followed him without his knowledge. The officer looked at him
in a stern, accusing manner that was also full of triumph.
“I kinder jedged you’d hurry to tell t’other feller all about it,” he
said. “Now, you kin see you might as well own up.”
“I’ll never own up to a thing I did not do!” cried Don. “You can’t
make me, either! If Leon Bentley says I had anything to do with that
business, he lies!”
“All right,” grinned the man. “He’ll hev a chanct to tell his story
purty soon. You better go hum and keep still.”
Don went home, fully resolved to find his father and make a full
confession of everything. Unfortunately, Dr. Scott was not there,
having been called on a very serious case, and it was possible that he
might not return until late at night.
Restless and excited, his face flushing and paling by turns, Don found
himself unable to eat much supper, which convinced his aunt that a
serious illness threatened him.
“It’s that dreadful football,” she asserted, positively. “You’re all
worked up over it. I knew it would make you sick, and I told Lyman so.
There’s no sense in you’re staving yourself to pieces morning, noon and
night the way you’ve been doing for the last three weeks.”
Don might have told her everything then, but it was hard enough to have
to tell it to his father, and he thought it useless to distress his
aunt over a matter she could not remedy. After supper he went out into
the village and tried to find Bentley, but it was a long time before
he met any one who could give him any information concerning the young
rascal.
The doctor’s son was not dull, even though he had been deceived by the
crafty Leon, and, in thinking the whole matter over, he was assailed
by a doubt concerning the genuineness of the portion of a letter that
Bentley claimed to have found beneath Renwood’s desk.
“That may have been a forgery, too,” thought Don. “How do I know? I
wish I’d never agreed to do that other business of dropping the letter
to Winston where Sterndale could find it. Oh, I’ve got myself into a
pretty mess, and all because I had anything to do with Bentley. But
Renwood is back of it all! He started it! He is to blame!”
Always he came round to this mental assertion, but now, for the first
time, he found it was not at all satisfying to himself. He was struck
by the thought that in this manner he was trying to shift the blame for
his own weakness on to the shoulders of another, which made him feel
mean and small and more wretched than ever.
Then he thought of his father’s story and of Charlie, who had been
ruined by associating with evil companions, suddenly feeling that the
similarity of his position to that of Charlie when first accused of
stealing was something startling. Charlie had associated with bad boys,
but he had not actually stolen when first charged with theft. Don’s
father had been taught a lesson by that terrible experience, and his
lips had not harshly charged his son with participating in the crime of
forgery, but his eyes had spoken quite as distinctly as words.
“But I’ll not be like Charlie!” the tortured boy mentally cried. “I see
my mistake now, and I’ll have no more to do with Leon Bentley.”
He felt in a pocket of his coat and found a half-consumed package of
cigarettes, which he took out and flung away. Leon’s father and mother
were respectable, hard-working, honest people, and it now began to seem
to Don that somehow all the degraded qualities of the son had developed
under the brain-weakening, conscience-deadening, manhood-destroying
thrall of that opium-tainted creation of evil, the paper-covered
cigarette. Don wondered now that he had ever been tempted to smoke one
of the vile-smelling things, and wondered still more that, having found
neither satisfaction nor pleasure in the first one, he had persisted
in their use; but he was thankful in his heart that the dreadful habit
had not fixed itself firmly upon him, though he tried to assure himself
that he would have broken it at any cost of self-denial and distress.
His heart, however, declared to him that one of his passionate,
impulsive disposition, one who could not control his fiery temper,
would surely have found it hard to break clear from a habit with such
power to fasten itself on its victims and bind them with chains soft as
silk and strong as iron.
With the casting away of those cigarettes a feeling of partial relief
came to him, for it seemed that he had broken the unsuspected bond that
somehow connected him with the unscrupulous fellow he now despised.
As he was wandering about the streets, thinking of this thing and
hoping to run across Bentley, he met Danny Chatterton, who seemed
flushed, excited and in a great hurry.
“Hello, Scott!” called Chatterton, seeing him. “Have you heard the
nun-nun-nun-news?”
“What news?” asked Don.
“Abub-bub-about Bentley.”
Don started. “No. What is it?”
“He’s sus-skipped out.”
“Skipped out? You mean----”
“He’s run away. I don’t nun-nun-know what he’s done, but it’s
sus-something cuc-cuc-crooked, and he’s run for it. He sus-stole
Sus-Skinny Jones’ bicycle and run away on that. Sim Drew has tut-took a
tut-team and put after him. I’m going to the cuc-cuc-cuc-club to tell
the bub-boys. Come on.”
But Don declined to accompany the little fellow, and Danny skipped
away to carry the news to the boys at the club.
Scott turned toward home, for there was no longer any chance that he
would meet Leon on the street that night. His father was still away.
Till nearly ten o’clock he sat up and waited, still determined to
confess everything; but the doctor did not return, and at last Don
crept to bed to spend a wretched night--the night before the football
game.