THE CAPTURE.
_O, the mockery of pity!
Weep with fragrant handkerchief,
In pompous luxury of grief,
Selfish, hollow-hearted city?_
_O these money-getting times!
What's a heart for? What's a hand,
But to seize and shake the land,
Till it tremble for its crimes?_
Midnight, and the mighty trees knock their naked arms together, and
creak and cry wildly in the wind. In Forty-nine's cabin, by a flickering
log-fire, Carrie sits alone. The wind howls horribly, the door creaks,
and the fire snaps wickedly; the wind roars--now the roar of a far-off
sea, and now it smites the cabin in shocks, and sifts and shakes the
snow through the shingle. The girl draws her tattered blanket tighter
about her, and sits a little closer to the fire. Now there is a sudden,
savage gust of wind, wilder, fiercer than before, and a sheet of snow
sifts in through a crack in the door, and dances over the floor.
"What a storm!" exclaims the girl, as she rises up, looks about, and
then takes the blanket from her shoulders and stuffs it in the crack by
the door.
She listens, looks about again, and then, going up to the little glass
tacked beside the fire-place, carefully arranges her splendid hair that
droops down over her shoulders in the careless, perfect fashion of
Evangeline.
"Heaven help any one who is out in this storm to-night!"
Then she takes another stick from the corner and places it on the fire.
"Forty-nine will be here soon, and Johnny; Johnny with news about
him--about poor John Logan."
She shakes her head and clasps her hands.
"It is nearly half a year since that night. They can't take him--they
dare not take him. They are hunting him--hunting him in this
storm--hunting him as if he were a wild beast. He hides with the cattle
in the sheds, with the very hogs in their pens. They come upon him
there; he starts from his sleep and dashes away, while they follow, and
track him by the blood of his feet in the snow. Oh, how terrible it is!
I must not think of it; I will go mad."
She turns to the door and listens. She draws back the ragged curtains
from the window and tries to look out into the storm. She can hear and
see nothing, and she walks back again to the fire. "I must set them
their supper." As she says this, she goes to a little cupboard and takes
a piece of bread, puts it on a plate and sets it on the table. Then she
places two plates and two cups of water. "They will be here soon, and
they must have their suppers. Oh, that grocery!" She shudders as she
says this. "And Johnny will bring me news of him--of John Logan. What's
that?"
She springs to the door, lifts the latch, and Stumps steals in, brushing
the snow from his neck and shoulders. He has a club in his hand, and
looks back and about him as he shuts the door.
"Oh, sister, its awful! I tell you its too awful!"
"Brother--brother! What has happened? What is awful? What is it,
Johnny? And he, John Logan?"
"He's been there!" The boy shivers and points in a half-frightened
manner toward the little hill. "Yes, he has; he's been up on the hill by
his mother's grave; and he's been to 'Squire Field's house--yes, he has;
and he couldn't get in, for they had a big dog tied to the gate, and now
they have got another dog tied to the gate. Yes, and they tracked him
all around by the blood in the snow!"
"Oh brother! don't, don't!"
"Don't be afraid, sister; he has gone away now. Oh, if he would only go
away and stay away--far away, and they couldn't catch him, I'd be just
as glad as I could be! Yes, I would; so help me, I would."
"And he has been up there, and in this storm!"
She speaks this to herself, as she goes to the window and attempts to
look out.
"Poor, poor John Logan!" sighs the boy. "I wish his mother was alive; I
do, so help me. She was a good woman, she was; she didn't sick Bose on
me, she didn't."
As the boy says this he stands his club in the corner, and looks with
his sister for a moment sadly into the fire, and then suddenly says:
"I'm hungry. Sister, ain't you got something to eat. Forty-nine, he's
down to the grocery, and Phin Emens he's down to the grocery, too, and
he swears awfully about John Logan, and he says it's the Injun that's in
him that makes him so bad. Do you think it's the Injun that's in him,
sister?"
As the boy says this, the girl turns silently to the little table and
pushes it toward him.
"There, Johnny, that's all there is. You must leave some for
Forty-nine."
"Poor, poor John Logan!"
He eats greedily for a moment, then stops suddenly and looks into the
fire.
Carrie, also looking into the fire, murmurs:
"And Sylvia Fields let them tie a dog there to keep him away! I would
have killed that dog first. If John Logan should come here, I would open
that door--I would open that door to him!"--There is a dark and
terrified face at the window--"And I would give him bread to eat, and
let him sit by this fire and get warm!"
"And I would, too--so help me, I would!" The boy pushes back his bread,
and rises and goes up to his sister. "Yes, I would. I don't care what
Phin Emens, or anybody says; for his mother didn't sick 'Bose' at me,
she didn't!"
The pale and pitiful face at the window begins to brighten. There is
snow in the long matted black locks that fall to his shoulders. For
nearly half a year this man has fled from his fellow-man, a hunted
grizzly, a hunted tiger of the jungle.
What wonder that his step is stealthy as he lifts the latch and enters?
What wonder that his eyes have an uncommon glare as he looks around,
looks back over his shoulder as he shuts the door noiselessly behind
him? What wonder that his clothes hang in shreds about him, and his feet
and legs are bound in thongs; that his arms are almost bare; that his
bloodless face is half hidden in black and shaggy beard?
"Carrie, I have come to you. Yours is the only door that will open to me
now."
"John Logan!" She starts; the boy, too, utters a low, stifled cry. Then
they draw near the miserable man. For they are bred of the woods, and
have nerves of iron, and they know the need and the power of silence,
too.
"_You_ here, John Logan?" Carrie whispers, with a shudder.
"Ay, I am here--starving, dying!"
The boy takes up the bread he had dropped, and places it on the table
before Logan. The hunted outcast sits down wearily and begins to eat
with the greediness of a starved beast. The girl timidly brushes the
snow from his hair, and takes a pin from her breast and begins to pin up
a great rent in his shirt that shows his naked shoulder.
The boy is glad and full of heart, and of indescribable delight that he
has given his bread to the starving man. He stands up, brightly, with
his back to the fire for a moment, and then goes back and brushes off
the snow from the man's matted hair, then back to the fire.
"I'm awful glad to see you eat, Mr. John Logan," says Stumps; "I wish
there was more, I do," and he rocks on his foot and wags his head from
shoulder to shoulder gleefully. "It ain't much--it ain't much, Mr. John
Logan; but it is all there is."
"All there is, and they were eating it." The man says this aside to
himself, and he hides his face for a moment, as if he would conceal a
tear. Then, after a time he seems to recover himself, and he lays the
bread down on the table, tenderly, silently, carefully indeed, as if it
were the most delicate and precious thing on earth. Then, lifting his
face, looks at them with an effort to be cheerful, and says:
"I--I forgot; I--I am not hungry. I have had my dinner. I--I, oh yes; I
have been eating a great deal. Oh, no, no, no; I'm not hungry--not
hungry!"
As the man says this he rises and stands between the others at the fire.
He puts his hands over their heads, and looks alternately in their
uplifted faces. There is a long silence. "Carrie, they have tied a dog
to that door, over yonder."
"There is no dog tied to this door, John Logan."
Low and tender with love, yet very firm and earnest is her voice. And
her eyes are lifted to his. He looks down into her soul, and there is an
understanding between them. There is a conversation of the eyes too
refined for words; too subtle, too sweet, too swift for words.
They stand together but a moment there, soul flowing into soul and
tiding forth, and to and fro; but it was as if they had talked together
for hours. He leans his head, kisses her lifted and unresisting lips,
and says, "God bless you," and that is all.
It is her first kiss, the imprint, the mint-mark on this virgin gold.
This maiden of a moment since, is a woman now.
"Do you know that they are after you?" The girl says this in a sort of
wild whisper, as she looks toward the door.
"Do I know that they are after me? Father in Heaven, who should know it
better than I?" The man throws up his arms, and totters back and falls
into a seat from very weakness. "Do I know that they are after me? For
more than half a year I have fled; night and day, and day and night I
have fled, hidden away; starting up at midnight from down among the
cattle, where I had crept to keep warm; and then on, on and on, out into
the snow, the storm, over the frozen ground, to the deep canyon and dark
woods, where, naked and bleeding, I disputed with the bear for his bed
in the hollow tree."
The boy springs to the door. Is it the storm that is tugging and
rattling at the latch?
But the girl seems to see, to heed, to hear only John Logan. She
clutches his hand in both her own and covers it with kisses and with
tears.
"John Logan, I pity you! I--I--" she had almost said, "I love you."
"Thank Heaven! Thank Heaven for one true heart, and one true hand when
all the world is against me! Carrie, I could die now content. The
bitterness of my heart passes away, and the wild, mad nature that made
me an Ishmaelite, with every man's hand against me, and my hand against
all, is gone. I am another being. I could die now content;" and he bows
his head.
"But you must not, you shall not die! You must go--go far away; why
hover about this place?"
"I do not know. But yonder lies the only being who ever befriended me;
and somehow I get lonesome when I get far away from her grave. And I go
round and round, like the sun around the world, and come back to where I
started from."
"But you must go--go far away--go now."
"Do you know what you are saying? I was never outside of this. All would
be strange. I would be lost, lost there. And then, do you not imagine
they are waiting for me there--everywhere? Look at my face! This tinge
of Indian blood, that all men abhor and fear, and call treacherous and
bloody. Across my brow at my birth was drawn a brand that marks me
forever--a brand--a brand as if it were the brand of Cain."
The man bows his head, and turns away.
Slowly and timidly Carrie approaches him, and she lays her hand on his
arm and looks in his face. The boy still watches by the door.
"But you will fly from here?"
His arm drops over her hair, down to her shoulder, and he draws her to
his breast, as she looks up tenderly in his face, and pleads:
"You will go now--at once? For you will die here."
"Ah, I will die here." He says this with a calm and dogged
determination. "Carrie, I have one wish, one request--only one. I know
you are weak and helpless yourself, and can't do much, and I ought not
to ask you to do anything."
Stumps has left the door as he hears the man mention that there is
something to be done, and stands by their side.
"Whatever it is you ask, John Logan, we will do it--we will do it."
The girl says this with a firmness that convinces him that it will be
done.
"We will do it! we will do it! so help me, we will do it!" blubbers
Stumps.
"What is it, John Logan, we can do?"
"I will not fly from here." He looks down tenderly into their faces.
Then he lifts his face. It is dark and terrible, and his lips are set
with resolution. "I will die here. It may be to-night, it may be
to-morrow. It may be as I turn to go out at that door they will send
their bullets through my heart; it may be while I kneel in the snow at
my mother's grave. But, sooner or later, it will come--it will come!"
"But please, John Logan, what is it we can do?"
Her voice is tremulous, and her eyes stream with tears.
"Carrie, I am a man--a strong man--and ought not to ask anything of a
helpless girl. But I have no other friend. I have had no friends. All
the days of my life have been dark and lonely. And now I am about to
die, Carrie, I want you to see that I am buried by my mother yonder. I
am so weary, and I could rest there. And then she, poor broken-hearted
mother, she might not be so lonesome then. Do you promise?"
"I do promise!" and the boy echoes this scarcely audible but determined
answer.
"Thank you--thank you! And now good night. I must be going, lest I draw
suspicion on you. Good night, good night; God bless you, Carrie!"
He presses her to his heart, hastily embraces her, and tearing himself
away, stoops and kisses the boy as he passes to the door. Drawing his
tattered shirt closer about his shoulders, and turning his face as if to
conceal his emotion, he lays his hand upon the latch to suddenly dart
forth.
Two dark figures pass the window, and in a moment more the latch-string
is clutched by a rough, unsteady hand from without.
"Here, here!" cries the girl, as she springs back to the dingy curtain
that divides off a portion of the cabin into a bed-room. "Here! in here!
Quick! quick!" as she draws the curtain aside, and lets it fall over the
retreating fugitive. Forty-nine and Gar Dosson enter. The former is
drunk, and therefore dignified and silent. His companion is drunk, and
therefore garrulous and familiar. Wine floats a man's real nature nearly
to the surface.
Forty-nine lifts his hat, bows politely and respectfully to the
children, brushes his hat with his elbow as he meanders across the floor
to the peg in the wall, but cannot quite trust himself to speak.
"Hullo, Carats!" cries Gar Dosson, as he chucks her under the chin.
"Knowed I was coming, didn't you? Got yourself fixed up. Pretty, ain't
she?" and he winks a blood-shot eye toward Stumps. "And when is it going
to be my Carats? Pretty soon, now, eh?" and he walks, or rather totters,
aside.
"Umph! I have got 'em again, Carrie. Fly around and get us something to
eat. Fly around, Carrie, fly around! Oh, I've got the shakes again!"
groans Forty-nine.
"Poor old boy!" and she brushes the snow from his beard and his tattered
coat. "Why, Forty-nine, you're shaking like a leaf."
"He's drunk--that's what's the matter with him." Gar Dosson growls this
out between his teeth as he sets his gun in the corner.
"He's not drunk! Its the ager!" retorts Stumps fiercely.
Gar Dosson, glaring at the boy, steadies himself on his right leg, and
diving deep in his left hand pocket, draws forth a large bill or poster.
With both hands he manages to spread this out, and swaggering up to the
wall near the window he hangs it on two pegs that are there to receive
coats or hats.
"Look at that!" and he crookedly points with his crooked fingers at the
large letters, and reads: "One thousand dollars (hic) dollars reward
for the capture of John Logan! What do you say to that, Carats? That's a
fine fellow to have for a lover, now, ain't it?--a waluable lover, now,
ain't it? Worth a thousand dollars! Oh, don't I wish he was a-hanging
around here now! Wouldn't I sell him, and get a thousand dollars, eh?
Yes, I would. I just want that thousand dollars. And I'm the man that's
going to get it, too! Eh, old Blossom-nose?" Forty-nine jerks back his
dignified head as the bully gesticulates violently.
"You will, will you? Well, may-be you will (hic), but if you get a cent
of that money (hic) for catching that man you don't enter that door
again; no, you don't lift that latch-string again as long as old
Forty-nine has a fist to lift!" and he thrusts his doubled hand hard
into the boaster's face.
"Good for you!" cries Carrie. "Dear, good, brave old Forty-nine; I like
you--I love you!" and the girl embraces him, while the boy flourishes
his club at the back of the bully.
"No, don't you hit a man when he's down, sah," continues Forty-nine.
"That's the true doctrine of a gentleman--the true doctrine of a
gentleman, sah." He flourishes his hand, totters forward, totters back,
and hesitates--"The true doctrine of a gentleman, sah. The little horse
in the horse-race, sah--the bottom dog in the dog-fight, sah. The--"
And the poor old man totters back and falls helplessly in the great,
home-made chair near the corner, where stands the gun. His head is under
water.
"The true doctrines of a gentleman," snaps Dosson; and he throws out a
big hand toward the drooping head. "Old Blossom-nose!" Then turning to
Carrie. "The sheriff's a coming; he gave me that 'ere bill--yes, he did.
He's down to the grocery, now. He's going around to all the cabins, and
a-swearing 'em in a book, that they don't know nothing about John Logan.
The sheriff, he's a comin' here, Carats, right off."
There is a rift in the curtain, and the pitiful face of the fugitive
peers forth.
"The sheriff coming here!" He turns, feels the wall, and tries the logs
with his hands. Not a door, not a window. Solid as the solid earth.
"Coming here? But what is he coming here for?" demands Carrie.
"Coming here to find out what you know about John Logan. Oh, he's close
after him."
"Close after me!" gasps Logan. The man feels for something to lay hand
upon by which to defend himself. "I will not be taken alive; I will die
here!" He clutches at last, above the bed, a gun. "Saved, saved!" He
holds it tenderly, as if a child, or something dearly loved. He takes it
to the light and looks at the lock; he blows in the barrel; he
mournfully shakes his head. "It is not loaded! Well, no matter; I can
but die," and he clubs the gun and prepares for mortal battle.
"Oh, come, Carats," cries Gar Dosson, "let's have a little frolic before
the sheriff comes--a kiss, eh? Come, my beauty!"
The rough man has all this time been stealing up, as nearly as he could
to the girl, and now throws his arm about her neck.
"Shall I brain him--be a murderer, indeed?"
All the Indian is again aroused, and John Logan seems more terrible, and
more determined to save her than to defend his own life.
"Stand back!" shouts the Girl to Dosson. She attempts to throw him off,
but his powerful arm is about her neck. "Forty-nine! Help!" but the old
man is unconscious. John Logan is about to start from his corner.
"Take that, you brute! and that!" and Stumps whirls his club and
thunders against the ribs of the ruffian.
"You devil! you brat! what do you mean?"
Mad with disappointment and pain, he throws the girl from him, and turns
upon the boy. He clutches him by the back of the neck as he starts to
escape, and bears him to the ground.
"Look 'ere, do you know what I'm going to do with you? I'm going to
break your back across my knee! yes, I am!" and he glares about
terribly.
Carrie shrinks back to the side of Forty-nine.
"Oh! Help! He will murder him! He will kill him!"
"No, I won't murder you, you brat, but I'll chuck you out in that snow
and let you cool off, while I have your sister all to myself. Come here;
give me your ear!" and the great, strong ruffian seizes his ear and
fairly carries him along by it toward the door. "Give me your ear!"
"Oh, sister, sister! He will kill me!" howls Stumps.
"Forty-nine! save us! We will be murdered!"
"Come, I say, give me your ear!" thunders the brute, as he fairly draws
the boy still toward the door.
"Stop that, or die!"
The frenzied girl, failing to arouse Forty-nine, has caught up the gun
from the corner, and brought the muzzle to the ruffian's breast. He
totters back, and throws up his arms.
"Go back there and sit down, or I will kill you!"
"Give me your ear! Come!" roars Stumps. It is now his turn. "Give me
your ear!" He reaches up and takes that red organ in his hand, and
nearly wrenches it from the brute's head, as he leads him back, with
many twists and gyrations, slowly to a low seat at the other side of the
cabin.
Still holding the gun in level, and in dangerous proximity to the man's
breast, Carrie cries:
"Now if you attempt to move you are a dead man!" "Give me your ear!" and
Stumps wrenches it again, as he sits the man firmly on his low stool,
with his red face making mad distortions from the pain. "John Logan,
come!" calls the girl. "No, don't you start, Gar Dosson. Don't you lift
a finger; if you do, you die!"
The curtains are parted, and John Logan starts forth. "Go, go! There's
not a moment to lose. The sheriff will be here; they are coming! Quick!
Go at once! I hear--I hear them coming!"
The man springs to the door; the latch is lifted; a moment more and he
will be free--safe, at least for the night. Out into the friendly
darkness, where man and beast, where pursuer and pursued, are equal, and
equally helpless.
There is a crushing of snow, a stamping of feet, and one, two, three,
four, five--five forms hurriedly pass the window. The latch is lifted,
and as John Logan again darts back under cover, the party, brushing the
snow from their coats and grizzled beards, hastily enter the cabin.
"Fly around, Carrie, fly around! fix yourself up!" The fresh gust of
wind and storm from the door just opened, fans the glimmering spark of
consciousness into sudden flame, and Forty-nine springs up, perfectly
erect, perfectly dignified. "Fly around, Carrie, fly around; fix
yourself up. The sheriff is coming--fly around!"
The girl drops the gun in the corner where she had found it, and stands
before Forty-nine, smoothing down her apron, and letting her eyes fall
on the floor timidly and in a childlike way, as if these little hands of
hers had never known a harder task than their present employment of
smoothing down her apron.
Dosson springs up before the sheriff. He rubs his eyes, and he looks
about as if he had just been startled from some bad, ugly dream. He
wonders, indeed, if he has seen John Logan at all. Again he rubs his
eyes, and then, looking at his knuckle, says, in a deep, guttural
fashion, to himself, "Jim-jams, by gol! I thought I'd seed John Logan!"
"Ah, Forty-nine," says the sheriff, "sorry to disturb you, and your
Miss; and good evening to you, sir; and good evening to you;" and the
honest sheriff bows to each, and brushes the snow from his fur cap as he
speaks.
Gar Dosson advances to his partner, Phin Emens, who has just entered,
with that stealthy old tiger-step so familiar to them both, and laying
his hand on his shoulder, they move aside.
"Then it's not the jim-jams," mutters he. "I've not got 'em, then."
He stops, pinches himself, looks at his hands, and mutters to himself.
Then he lifts his hand to his ear.
"Look at it again!" Phin Emens looks at the ear. "It's red, ain't it?
Oh, it feels red; it feels like fire. Then I've not got 'em, and he is
here. Hist! Come here! We want that thousand dollars all to ourselves."
He plucks his companion further to one side. They talk and gesticulate
together, while now and then a big red rough hand is thrust out savagely
toward the curtain.
"Sorry indeed to disturb you, Miss," observes the sheriff; "but you see,
I've been searching and swearing of 'em all, and its only fair to serve
all alike."
"He is not here. Upon the honor of a gentleman, he is not here," says
Forty-nine, emphatically.
"He is here!" howls Dosson; and the tremendous man, with the tremendous
voice and tremendous manner, bolts up before the sheriff. "He is here;
and I, as an honest man am going to earn a thousand dollars, for the
sake of justice. I have found him--found him all by myself; and these
fellers can't have no hand in my find." And he holds up John Logan's
cap, which had been knocked from his head in his hasty retreat to cover,
and he rolls his red eyes toward the bed, takes a step in that
direction, reaches a hand, lays hold of the curtain, and is about to
dash it aside.
"John Logan is there!" shouts Dosson, and again the curtain is clutched.
Does he dream of what is beyond? If he could only see the panting,
breathless wretch that leans there eagerly, with lifted gun, ready to
brain him--waiting, waiting for him to come, even wishing that he only
would come--he would start back with terror to the other side.
"He is here! I have found him! Come!"
Carrie, springing forward from her posture of anxiety and terror, grasps
a powder horn from over the mantel piece, jerks out the stopple with her
teeth, and holding it over the fire, cries, with desperation:
"Do it, if you dare! This horn is full of powder, and if any man here
dares to move that curtain, I'll blow you all into burning hell!" The
man loosens his hold on the curtain, and totters back. He is sober
enough to know how terrible is the situation, and he knows her well
enough to believe she will do precisely what she says she will do. "Yes,
I will! We will all go to the next world together; and now let us see
who is best ready to die!"
"Bravo!" shouts Forty-nine.
The sheriff and his men have been moving back slowly from the inspired
girl, standing there by the door of death.
Gar Dosson at last steals around by the sheriff. "But he is here, Mr.
Sheriff," he says. "I tell you he is here in this house. There! For here
is his cap. I found it. I found him, and I want him and I want that
thousand dollars. Search!"
"And I tell you he is not here!" cries the girl, "and you shall not
search, 'less--"
And the horn is lifted menacingly over the fire. "Won't you take my
word?"
"You shall take _my_ word!" shouts Dosson.
"I will take your single word, Miss, against a thousand such men."
And the sheriff puts on his cap, turns, and is about to go.
"But he is here! The thousand dollars, Mr. Sheriff!" cries Dosson.
"Miss, officers sometimes have duties that are more unpleasant to them
than to the parties most concerned. You say he is not here?"
"He is not here, Mr. Sheriff--he is not here!" cries Carrie.
The sheriff twists his cap on his head. "And you will be sworn, as the
others were?" says the sheriff. "So much the better; and that will be
quite satisfactory. Ah, here is the Bible at hand."
And he takes from the little shelf the tattered book. The girl stands
still as stone, with the engine of death in her hand. The officer bows,
smiles, reaches the book with his left hand, lays his cap on the table,
and lifts his right hand in the air. Her little fingers reach out
firmly, fearlessly, and rest on the book. Her eyes are looking straight
into his.
"It may be my duty, Miss, to search the house, after what that 'un has
said, and, Miss, I expect it is my duty. But, Miss, I is not the man to
expose you before a man as might like to see you exposed. And then that
poor devil that come back here, Miss, on bleeding feet--crawling back
here on his hands and knees, to die by his mother's grave."
The voice is tremulous; the hand that is raised in the air comes down.
Then lifting it again he says resolutely, "Swear, Miss!"
All are looking--leaning--with the profoundest interest. There is a dark
strange face peering through a rift in the half-opened curtain. "God
bless her! God bless her! She can, and she will!" mutters Forty-nine.
"She can't!" cries Dosson. "She believes the book and, by gol, she
can't!" The man says this over his shoulder, and in a husky whisper as
the girl seems to pause.
"Hold your hand on the book, and swear as I shall tell you," says the
sheriff.
She only holds more firmly to the book; her eyes are fixed more steadily
on his.
"Say it as I say it. I do solemnly swear--"
"I do solemnly swear--"
"That John Logan--"
"That John Logan--"
"Is not here."
"Is--"
"Is _here_!" The curtain is thrown back, and the fugitive dashes into
their midst. The book falls from the sheriff's hand, and there is a
murmur of amazement.
"God bless you, my girl!" And there is the stillness of a Sabbath
morning over all. "God bless you; and God will reward you for this, for
I cannot. You have made me another being, Carrie. I have lost my life,
but you have saved my soul!" and turning cheerfully to the sheriff he
reaches his hands. "Now, sir, I am ready."