CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CUSTER'S IDOL FALLS

Early that same night Mr. Shrimplin, taking Custer with him, had driven out into the country. Their destination was a spot far down the river where catfish were supposed to abound, for Izaak Walton's gentle art was the little lamplighter's favorite recreation. After leaving Mount Hope they jogged along the dusty country road for some two miles, then turning from it into a little-traveled lane they soon came out upon a great sweeping bend of the stream.

"I don't know about this, Custer," said Mr. Shrimplin, with a doubtful shake of the head, as he drew rein. "She's way up. I had no idea she was way up like this; I guess though we can't do no better than to chance it, catfish is a muddy-water fish, anyhow."

He tied wild Bill to a blasted sycamore, and then, while he cut poles from the willow bushes that grew along the bank, Custer built a huge bonfire, by the light of which they presently angled with varying fortunes.

"I reckon not many people but me knows about this fishing-hole!" said Shrimplin, as he cast his baited hook into the water.

"Where did you learn to fish?" asked Custer, thirsting for that wisdom his father was so ready to impart.

"I guess you'd call it a natural gift in my case, son," said the little lamplighter modestly. "I don't know as I deserve no credit; it's like playing the organ or walking on a tight rope, the instinct's got to be there or you'll only lay yourself open to ridicule."

But truth to tell, fishing was no very subtle art as practised by Mr. Shrimplin, he merely spat on his bait before he dropped it into the water. Even Custer knew that every intelligent fisherman did this, you couldn't reasonably hope to catch anything unless you did; yet there seemed to him, when he now thought of it, such a gap between cause and effect that he asked as he warily watched his cork:

"What good does it do to spit on your hook?"

"I've forgot the science of it, Custer," admitted his father after a moment's thought. "But I've always heard old fishermen say you couldn't catch nothing unless you did."

"Did you ever try to?"

"I can't say as I ever did. What would be the use when you know better?" said Mr. Shrimplin, who was strictly orthodox. His cork went under and he landed a flopping shiner on the bank; this he took from his hook and tossed back into the water. "It's a funny thing about shiners!" he said.

"What is?" inquired Custer.

"Why, you always catch 'em when you ain't fishing for 'em. You fish for catfish or sun-dabs, or bass even, if you're using worms, and you catch shiners; mainly, I suppose, because they are no manner of use to you. I reckon if you fished for shiners you wouldn't catch anything,—you couldn't—because there is no more worthless fish that swims! That's why fishing is like life; in fact, you can't do nothing that ain't like life; but I don't know but what catching shiners ain't just a little bit more like life than anything else! You think you're going to make a lot of money out of some job you've got, but it shaves itself down to half by the time it reaches you; or you've got to cough up double what you counted on when it's the other way about; so it works out the same always; you get soaked whether you buy or sell, from the cradle to the grave you're always catching shiners!" While Mr. Shrimplin was still philosophizing big drops of warm spring rain began to splash and patter on the long reach of still water before them. He scrambled to his feet. "We are going to have some weather, Custer!" he said, and they had scarcely time in which to drive Bill under the shelter of a disused hay barracks in an adjacent field, when the storm broke with all its fury. Here they spent the better part of an hour, and when at last the rain ceased they climbed into the cart and turned Bill's head in the direction of home.

"I hope, Custer, that your ma won't be scared; it's getting mighty late," said the senior Shrimplin, and he shook his head as if in pity of a human weakness which his mind grasped, though he could not share in it. "Seems to be that people give way more and more to their fear than they used to; or maybe it is that I ask too much, being naturally nervy myself and not having no nerves, as I may say."

Half an hour later, off in the distance, the lights of Mount Hope became visible to Custer and his father.

"I'd give a good deal for a glass of suds and a cracker right now!" said Mr. Shrimplin, speaking after a long silence. He tilted his head and took a comprehensive survey of the heavens. "Well, we're going to have a fine day for the hanging," he observed, with the manner of a connoisseur.

"Why won't they let no one see it?" demanded Custer.

"It's to be strictly private. I don't know but what that's best; it's some different though from the hangings I'm used to." And Mr. Shrimplin shook his head dubiously as if he wished Custer to understand that after all perhaps he was not so sure it was for the best.

"How were they different?" inquired Custer, sensible that his parent was falling into a reminiscent mood.

"Well, they were more gay for one thing; folks drove in from miles about and brought their lunches and et fried chicken. Sometimes there was hoss racing in the morning, and maybe a shooting scrape or two; fact is, we usually knowed who was to be the next to stretch hemp before the day was over,—it gave you something to look forward to! But pshaw! What can you expect here? Mount Hope ain't educated up to the sort of thing I'm used to! A feller gets his face punched down at Mike Lonigan's or out at the Dutchman's by the tracks, and the whole town talks of it, but no one ever draws a gun; the feller that gets his face punched spits out his teeth and goes on about his business, and that's the end of it except for the talk; but where I've been there'd be murder in about the time it takes to shift a quid!"

And Mr. Shrimplin shifted his own quid to illustrate the uncertainty of human life in those highly favored regions.

"Don't you suppose they'd let you into the jail yard to-morrow if you asked?" said Custer, to whom the hanging on the morrow was a matter of vital and very present interest.

"Well, son, I ain't asked!" rejoined the little lamplighter in a rather startled tone.

"Well, don't you think they'd ought to, seeing that you was one of the witnesses, and found old Mr. McBride before anybody else did?" persisted the boy.

"I won't say but what you might think they'd want me present; but Conklin ain't even suggested it, and if he don't think of it I can't say as I'll have any hard feelings," concluded Mr. Shrimplin magnanimously.

They were about to enter Mount Hope now; to their right they could distinguish the brick slaughter-house which stood on the river bank, and which served conveniently to mark the town's corporate limits on the east. The little lamplighter spoke persuasively to Bill, and the lateness of the hour together with the nearness to his own stable, conspired to make that sagacious beast shuffle forward over the stony road at a very respectable rate of speed. They were fairly abreast of the slaughter-house when Custer suddenly placed his hand on his father's arm.

"Hark!" said the boy.

Mr. Shrimplin drew rein.

"Well, what is it, Custer?" he asked, with all that bland indulgence of manner which was habitual to him in his intercourse with his son.

"Didn't you hear, it sounded like a cry!" said Custer, in an excited whisper.

And instantly a shiver traversed the region of Mr. Shrimplin's spine.

"I guess you was mistaken, son!" he answered rather nervously.

"No, don't you hear it—from down by the crick bank?" cried the boy in the same excited whisper. His father was conscious of the wish that he would select a more normal tone.

"There!" cried Custer.

As he spoke, a cry, faint and wavering, reached Mr. Shrimplin's ears.

"I do seem to hear something—" he admitted.

"What do you suppose it is?" asked the boy, peering off into the gloom.

"I don't know, Custer, and not wishing to be short with you, I don't care a damn!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin, endeavoring to meet the situation with an air of pleasant raillery.

He gathered up his lines as he spoke.

"Why, what are you thinking of?" demanded Custer.

"I was thinking of your ma, Custer!" faltered Mr. Shrimplin weakly. "We been gone longer than we said, it must be after eleven o'clock."

"There!" cried Custer again, as a feeble call for help floated up to them. "It's from down on the crick bank back of the slaughter-house!"

Mr. Shrimplin was knowing a terrible moment of doubt, especially terrible because the doubt was of himself. He was aware that Custer would expect much of him in the present crisis, and he was equally certain that he would not rise to the occasion. If somebody would only come that way! And he listened desperately for the sound of wheels on the road, but all he heard was that oft-repeated call for help that came wailing from the black shadows beyond the slaughter-house. Suddenly Custer answered the call with a reassuring cry.

"Perhaps it's another murder!" he said.

"Oh, my God!" gasped Shrimplin, and there flashed through his mind the horror of that other night.

Custer slipped out of the cart.

"Come on!" he cried.

He was vaguely conscious that his father was not seizing the present opportunity to distinguish himself with any noticeable avidity. He had expected to see that conqueror of bad men and cow-towns, the somewhat ruthless but always manful slayer of one-eye Murphy, descend from his cart with astonishing alacrity, and heedless in his tried courage stride down into the darkness beyond the slaughter-house. But Mr. Shrimplin did nothing of the sort, he made no move to quit his seat. Surely something had gone very wrong with the William Shrimplin of Custer's fancy, the young Bill Shrimplin of Texarcana and similar centers of crime and hardihood.

"Custer—" began Mr. Shrimplin, in a shaking voice. "I am wondering if it wouldn't be best to drive on into town and get a cop—Oh, my God, why don't you quit hollering!"

"Maybe they're killing him now!" cried Custer breathlessly.

He could not yet comprehend his father's attitude in the matter, he could only realize that for some wholly inexplicable reason he was falling far short of his ideal of him; he seemed utterly to have lost his eye for the spectacular possibilities of the moment. Why share the credit with a cop, why ask help of any one!

"You don't need no help, pa!" he said.

"Well, I don't know as I do," replied the little man, but he made no move to leave his cart, his fears glued him to the seat.

"Come on, then!" insisted Custer impatiently.

"Don't you feel afraid, son?" inquired Mr. Shrimplin, with marked solicitude.

"Not with you!"

"Well, I don't know as you need to!" admitted Shrimplin. "But I don't feel quite right—I reckon I feel sort of sick, Custer—sort of—"

"Oh, come on—hurry up!"

"I don't know but I ought to see a doctor first—" faltered Mr. Shrimplin in a hollow tone.

Misery of soul twisted his weak face pathetically.

"Why you act like you was afraid!" said Custer, with withering contempt.

His words cut the elder Shrimplin like a knife; but they did not move him from his seat in the cart.

"You bet I ain't afraid, Custer,—and that's no way for you to speak to your pa, anyhow!"

But what he had intended should be the note of authority was no more than a whine of injury.

"Then why don't you come if you ain't afraid?" insisted the boy angrily.

"I don't know as I rightly know why I don't!" faltered Mr. Shrimplin. "I feel rotten bad all at once."

"You're a coward!" cried the boy in fierce scorn.

Sobs choked his further utterance while the hot tears blinded him on the instant. His idol had turned to clay in his very presence, and in the desolation of that moment he wished that he might be stricken with death, since life held nothing for him longer.

"Custer—" began Shrimplin.

"Why don't you be a man and go down there?" sobbed the boy.

"It's dangerous!" said Mr. Shrimplin.

"Then I'll go!" declared Custer resolutely.

"What—and leave me here alone?" cried the little lamplighter.

For answer Custer ran to the fence; his tears still blinded him and sobs wrenched his little body. Twice he slipped back as he essayed to climb, but a third attempt took him to the topmost rail of the rickety structure.

"Custer!" called his father.

But Custer persisted in the crime of disobedience. He slid down from the top rail and stood among the young pokeberry bushes and ragweed that luxuriated in the foulness of the slaughter-house yard. It was not an especially inviting spot even in broad day, as he knew. Now the moonlight showed him bleached animal bones and grinning animal skulls, while the damp weeds that clung about his bare legs suggested snakes.

"Custer!" cried Mr. Shrimplin again.

But it gained him no response from the boy, who disappeared from before his eyes without a single backward glance; whereat the little lamplighter cursed querulously in the fear-haunted solitude of the road.

Custer descended the steep bank that sloped down to the water's edge. His eyes were fixed on a dense growth of willows and sycamores that lined the shore; it was from a spot within their black shadows that the cries for help seemed to come. Presently he paused.

"Hullo!" he called, peering into the darkness ahead of him.

He listened intently, but this time his cry was unanswered; all he heard was the grunting of some pigs that fed among the offal. The boy shivered and his heart seemed to stop beating.

"Hullo!" he called once more.

"Help!" came the answer.

And Custer stumbled forward. As he neared the black shadows of the willows he could feel his heart sink like lead through all the reaches of his shaking anatomy. He had passed quite beyond the hearing of his father's commands and reproaches, and the wash and rush of the river came up to him out of the silence.

"Hullo!" cried the boy, pausing irresolutely.

Then seemingly from the earth at his very feet came a faint answer to his call, and Custer, forcing his way through a rank growth of weeds and briers, stood on the brink of a deep gully that a small brook had worn for itself on its way to the river below. In the bed of this brook was a dark object that Custer could barely distinguish to be the figure of a man. A bruised and bleeding face was upturned.

"Give me your hand—" gasped the man.

Custer knelt on the bank and grasping a tuft of grass to steady himself extended his free hand.

"Are you hurt bad?" he asked.

"I don't know—" gasped the man, as he endeavored to draw himself up out of the bed of the brook.

But after a moment of fruitless exertion he sank back groaning.

"Go for help!" he said, in a painful whisper. "You are not strong enough for this."

"How did you get here?" asked Custer.

"I fell off the railroad bridge, the current landed me here; where am I, anyhow?"

"At the brick slaughter-house," said Custer.

"I thought so; can't you get some one to help you?"

But Custer, his reasonable curiosity satisfied, was already on his way back to the road. "If only pa has not driven off!" But the senior Shrimplin had not moved from the spot where Custer had left him five minutes before.

"Is that you, son?" he asked, as Custer appeared at the fence.

"Come here, quick!" commanded the boy.

"For what?" inquired Mr. Shrimplin.

"You needn't be afraid, it's only a man who's fallen off the iron bridge. He's down in the bed of the slaughter-house run. I can't get him out alone!"

"I'll bet he's good and drunk!" said the little lamplighter.

"No, he ain't, and he's mighty badly hurt!" said the boy hotly.

"Of course, of course, Custer!" said Mr. Shrimplin. "He'd a been killed though if he hadn't been drunk."

He climbed out of his cart, and clambered over the fence. Something in Custer's manner warned him that any allusions of a jocular nature would prove highly distasteful to his son, and he followed silently as Custer led the way down to the brook.

"Here's where he is!" said the boy halting. "You get down beside him—you're strongest, and I'll stay here and help pull him up while you lift!"

"That's the idea, son!" agreed Mr. Shrimplin genially.

And he slid down into the bed of the brook where he struggled to get the injured man to his feet. The first and immediate result of his effort was that the latter swore fiercely at him, though in a whisper.

"We got to get you out of this, mister!" said the little lamplighter apologetically.

A second attempt was made in which they were aided by Custer from above, and this time the injured man was drawn to the top of the bank, where he collapsed in a heap.

"He's fainted!" said Custer. "Strike a match and see who it is!"

Mr. Shrimplin obeyed, bringing the light close to the bloody and disfigured face.

"Why, it's Marsh Langham!" he cried.



CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

FAITH IS RESTORED

"Custer—" began Mr. Shrimplin, and paused to clear his throat. He was walking beside wild Bill's head while Custer in the cart tried to support Langham, for the latter had not regained consciousness. "Custer, I'm mighty well satisfied with you; I may say that while I always been proud of you, I am prouder this moment than I ever hoped to be! How many boys in Mount Hope, do you think, would have the nerve to do what you just done? I love nerve," concluded Mr. Shrimplin with generous enthusiasm.

But Custer was silent, a sense of bitter shame kept him mute.

"Custer," said his father, in a timidly propitiatory tone, "I hope you ain't feeling stuck-up about this!"

"I wish it had never happened!" The boy spoke in an angry whisper.

"You wish what had never happened, Custer?"

"About you—I mean!"

Shrimplin gave a hollow little laugh.

"Well, and what about me, son—if I may be allowed to ask?"

"I wish you'd gone down to the crick bank like I wanted you to!" rejoined the boy.

Again he felt the hot tears gather, and drew the back of his hand across his eyes. The little lamplighter had been wishing this, too; indeed, it would for ever remain one of the griefs of his life that he had not done so. He wondered miserably if the old faith would ever renew itself. His portion in life was the deadly commonplace, but Custer's belief had given him hours of high fellowship with heroes and warriors; it had also ministered to the bloody-mindedness which lay somewhere back of that quaking fear constitutional with him, and which he could no more control than he could control his hunger or thirst. His blinking eyelids loosed a solitary drop of moisture that slid out to the tip of his hooked nose. But though Mr. Shrimplin's physical equipment was of the slightest for the role in life he would have essayed, nature, which gives the hunted bird and beast feather and fur to blend with the russets and browns of the forest and plain, had not dealt ungenerously with him, since he could believe that a lie long persisted in gathered to itself the very soul and substance of truth. Another hollow little laugh escaped him.

"Lord, Custer, I was foolin'—I am always foolin'! It was my chance to see the stuff that's in you. Well, it's pretty good stuff!" he added artfully.

But Custer was not ready for the reception of this new idea; his father's display of cowardice had seemed only too real to him. Yet the little lamplighter's manner took on confidence as he prepared to establish a few facts as a working basis for their subsequent reconciliation.

"I'd been a little better pleased, son, if you'd gone quicker when you heard them calls Mr. Langham was letting out; you did hang back, you'll remember—it looked like you was depending on me too much; but I got no desire to rub this in. What you done was nervy, and what I might have looked for with the bringing-up I've given you. I shan't mention that you hung back." He shot a glance out of the corners of his bleached blue eyes in Custer's direction. "How many minutes do you suppose you was in getting out of the cart and over the fence? Not more than five, I'd say, and all that time I was sitting there shaking with laughter—just shaking with inward laughter; I asked you not to leave me alone! Well, I always was a joker but I consider that my best joke!"

Custer maintained a stony silence, yet he would have given anything could he have accepted those pleasant fictions his father was seeking to establish in the very habiliments of truth.

"I hoped you'd know how to take a joke, son!" said the little lamplighter in a hurt tone.

"Were you joking, sure enough?" asked Custer doubtingly.

"Is it likely I could have been in earnest?" demanded Shrimplin, hitching up his chin with an air of disdain. "What's my record right here in Mount Hope? Was it Andy Gilmore or Colonel Harbison that found old man McBride when he was murdered in his store?" And the little lamplighter's tone grew more and more indignant as he proceeded. "Maybe you think it was your disgustin' and dirty Uncle Joe? I seem to remember it was Bill Shrimplin, or do I just dream I was there—but I ain't been called a liar, not by no living man—" and he twirled an end of his drooping flaxen mustache between thumb and forefinger. "Facts is facts," he finished.

"Everybody knows you found old Mr. McBride—" said Custer rather eagerly.

"I'm expecting to hear it hinted I didn't!" replied Mr. Shrimplin darkly. "I'm expecting to hear it stated by some natural-born liar that I set in my cart and bellered for help!"

"But you didn't, and nobody says you did," insisted the boy.

"Well, I'm glad you don't have to take my word for it," said Shrimplin. "I'm glad them facts is a matter of official record up to the court-house. I don't know, though, that I care so blame much about being held up as a public character; if I hadn't a reputation out of the common, maybe I wouldn't be misjudged when I stand back to give some one else a chance!"

He laughed with large scorn of the world's littleness.

The epic of William Shrimplin was taking to itself its old high noble strain, and Custer was aware of a sneaking sense of shame that he could have doubted even for an instant; then swiftly the happy consciousness stole in on him that he had been weighed in the balance by this specialist in human courage and had not been found wanting. And his heart waxed large in his thin little body.

They were jogging along Mount Hope's deserted streets when Marshall Langham roused from his stupor.

"Where are you taking me?" he demanded of the boy.

"Home, Mr. Langham—we're almost there now," responded Custer.

"Take me to my father's," said Marshall with an effort, and his head fell over on Custer's small shoulder.

He did not speak again until Bill came to a stand before Judge Langham's gate.

"Are we there?" he asked of the boy.

"Yes—"

"Don't you think we'd better get help?" said Shrimplin.

And Marshall seeming to acquiesce in this, the little lamplighter entered the yard and going to the front door rang the bell. A minute passed, and growing impatient he rang again. There succeeded another interval of waiting in which Shrimplin cocked his head on one side to catch the sound of possible footsteps in the hall.

"He says try the knob," called Custer from the cart.

Doing this, Shrimplin felt the door yield, it was not locked; at the same instant he made this discovery, however, he heard a footfall in the street and so, hurried back to the gate. The new-comer halted when he was abreast of wild Bill, and stared first at the cart and then at Shrimplin.

"Is anything the matter?" he asked.

It was Watt Harbison.

"Young Mr. Langham has fell off the high iron bridge," said the little lamplighter, with a dignity that more than covered his lapse from grammar.

"Why—are you badly hurt, Marsh?" cried Watt going close to the cart.

"I don't know, I'm in most infernal pain," said Langham slowly.

"Do you think we can lift him?" asked Shrimplin. "The judge don't seem to be at home."

"Your boy would better go to my uncle's; Judge Langham may be there," said Watt.

And Custer promptly slid out of the cart and sped off up the street.

Langham met the delay with grim patience. A strange indifference had taken the place of fear, nothing seemed of much moment any more. Presently in his stupor he heard the sound of quick steps, then Colonel Harbison's voice, and a moment later he was aware that the three men had lifted him from the cart and were carrying him along the path toward the house. They entered the hall.

"Take me up-stairs," he said, and without pause his bearers moved forward.

They saw now that his face was pinched and ghastly under the smear of blood that was oozing from an ugly cut on his cheek, and Watt and the colonel exchanged significant glances. When they reached the head of the stairs Custer pushed open the first door; the room thus disclosed was in darkness, and the colonel, with a whispered caution to his companions, released his hold on Langham, and striking a match, stepped into the room where, having found the chandelier, he turned on the gas. As the light flared up, Shrimplin and Watt advanced with their helpless burden. It was the judge's chamber they had entered and it was not untenanted, for there on the bed lay the judge himself.

It was Langham who first saw that recumbent figure. A hoarse inarticulate groan escaped him. He twisted clear of the hands that supported him and by a superhuman effort staggered to his feet, he even took an uncertain step in the direction of the bed, his starting eyes fixed on the spare figure. Then his strength deserted him and with a cry that rose to a shriek, he pitched forward on his face.

The colonel strode past the fallen man to the bedside, where for an instant he stood looking down on a placid face and into open eyes. As his glance wandered he saw that the judge's nerveless fingers still grasped the butt of a revolver.

White-faced he turned away. "Is he dead, Colonel?" asked the little lamplighter in an awe-struck voice. "Was he murdered?" and visions of future notoriety flashed through his mind.

The colonel and Watt exchanged shocked glances.

"Here, Shrimplin, help me with Marsh!" said Watt. "We must get him out of here at once!"

They lifted Langham in their arms and bore him into an adjoining room. As they placed him upon the bed he recovered consciousness and clutched Watt by the sleeve.

"I've been seeing all sorts of things to-night—it began while I lay in that ditch with the pigs rooting about me! Where is my father, can't you find him?" he demanded eagerly.

Watt turned his head away.

"Then that was not a dream—you saw it, too?" said Langham huskily. He dropped back on his pillow. "Dead—Oh, my God!" he whispered, and was a long time silent.

Harbison despatched Shrimplin and Custer in quest of a physician, and he and Watt busied themselves with removing Marshall's wet clothes. When this was done they washed the blood-stains from his face. He did not speak while they were thus occupied; his eyes, wide and staring, were fixed on vacancy. He was seeing only that still figure on the bed in the room adjoining.

There was a brisk step on the stairs and they were joined by Doctor Taylor.

"I declare, Marsh, I am sorry for this. You must have had quite a tumble, how did you manage it?" he said, as he approached the bed.

Langham's eyes lost something of their intentness as they were turned toward the physician, but he did not answer him. The doctor moved a step aside with Colonel Harbison.

"Had he been drinking?" he asked in a low tone.

"I don't know," said the colonel.

"Shrimplin has gone for Mrs. Langham—I think they are here now. Don't let her come up until I have made my examination. Will you see to this?"

And the colonel quitted the room and hurried down-stairs.

As he gained the floor below, Evelyn entered the house.

"How is Marsh, Colonel Harbison?" she asked.

Her face was colorless but her manner was unexcited; her lips even had a smile for the colonel.

"Doctor Taylor is with him, and I trust he will be able to tell you that Marshall's injuries are not serious!" said Harbison gently.

"Where is he? I must go to him—"

"The doctor prefers that you wait until he finishes his examination," said the colonel. He drew her into the library. "Evelyn, I must tell you—you must know that something else—unspeakably dreadful—has happened here to-night!"

"Yes?" The single word was no more than a breath on her full lips.

The colonel hesitated.

"You need not fear to tell me—whatever it is, I—I am prepared for anything—" said Evelyn, with a pause between each word.

"The judge is dead," said Harbison simply. "My poor old friend is dead!"

"Dead—Marshall's father dead!" She looked at him curiously, with a questioning light in her eyes. "You have not told me all, Colonel Harbison!"

"Not told you all—" he repeated.

"How did he die?"

"I think—I fear he shot himself, but of course it may have been the purest accident—"

"It was not an accident—" she cried with a sob. "Oh, don't mind what I am saying!" she added quickly, seeing the look of astonishment on the colonel's face.

"Mrs. Langham may come up if she wishes!" called Doctor Taylor, speaking from the head of the stairs.

Evelyn moved down the hall and paused.

"Does Marsh know?" she asked of the colonel.

"Yes, unfortunately we carried him into his father's room," explained Harbison.

Evelyn went slowly up the stairs. The horror of the situation was beyond words. As she entered the room where Marshall lay, Watt Harbison and the doctor silently withdrew into the hall, closing the door after them; but Langham gave no immediate sign that he was aware of his wife's presence.

"Marsh?" she said softly.

His palpable weakness and his cut and bruised face gave her an instinctive feeling of tenderness for him. At the sound of her voice Langham's heavy lids slid back and he gazed up at her.

"Have they told you?" he asked in an eager whisper.

"Yes," she said, and there was a little space of time when neither spoke.

She drew a chair to his bedside and seated herself. In the next room she could hear Doctor Taylor moving about and now and then an indistinct word when he spoke with Watt Harbison. She imagined the offices they were performing for the dead man. Then a door was softly closed and she heard footsteps as they passed out into the hall.

Evelyn kept her place at the bedside without even altering the position she had first taken, while her glance never for an instant left the haggard face on the pillow. Beyond the open windows the silver light had faded from the sky. At intervals a chill wind rustled the long curtains. This, and her husband's labored breathing were the only sounds in the leaden silence that followed the departure of the two men from the adjoining room. She was conscious of a dreary sense of detachment from all the world, the little circle of which she had been the center seemed to contract until it held only herself. Suddenly Langham turned uneasily on his pillow and glanced toward the window.

"What time is it?" he asked abruptly.

"It must be nearly day," said Evelyn. "How do you feel now, Marsh? Do you suffer?"

He shook his head. His eyes were turned toward the window.

"What day is this?" he asked after a brief silence.

"What day?" repeated Evelyn.

"Yes—the day of the week, I mean?"

"It's Friday."

"They are going to hang John North this morning!" he said, and he regarded her from under his half-closed lids. "I wonder what he is thinking of now?" he added.

"Would the governor do nothing?" she asked in a whisper.

She was white to the lips.

"And the Herbert girl—I wonder what she is thinking of!"

"Hush, Marsh—Oh, hush! I—I can not—I must not think of it!" she cried, and pressed her hands to her eyes convulsively.

"What does it matter to you?" he said grimly.

"Nothing in one way—everything in another!"

"I wish to God I could believe you!" he muttered.

"You may—on my soul, Marsh, you may! It was never what you think—never—never!"

"It doesn't matter now," he said, and turned his face toward the wall.

"Marsh—" she began.

He moved impatiently, and she realized that it was useless to attempt to alter what he had come to believe in absolutely. Beyond the windows the first pale streaks of a spring dawn were visible, but the earth still clothed itself in silence. The moments were racing on to the final act of the pitiless tragedy which involved so many lives.

"Marsh—" Evelyn began again.

"I've been a dog to endure your presence in my house!" he said bitterly.

Evelyn was about to answer him when Doctor Taylor came into the room.

"Is he awake?" he questioned.

Langham gazed up into the doctor's face.

"Will I get well?" he demanded.

"I hope so, Marshall—I can see no reason why a few days of quiet won't see you up and about quite as if nothing had happened."

"Come—I want to know the truth! Do you think I'm hurt internally, is that it?" He sought to raise himself on his elbow but slipped back groaning.

"You have sustained a very severe shock, still—" began the doctor.

"Will I recover?" insisted Langham impatiently.

"Oh, please, Marshall!" cried Evelyn.

"I want to know the truth! If you don't think you can stand it, go out into the hail while I thresh this matter out with Taylor!" But Evelyn did not leave her place at his bedside.

"You must not excite yourself!" said Taylor.

"Humph—if you won't tell me what I wish to know, I'll tell you my opinion; it is that I am not going to recover. I must see Moxlow. Who is down-stairs?"

"Colonel Harbison and his nephew."

"Ask Watt to find Moxlow and bring him here. He's probably at his boarding-house."

He spoke with painful effort, and the doctor glanced uncertainly at Evelyn, who by a slight inclination of the head indicated that she wished her husband's request complied with. Taylor quitted the room.

"Why do you wish to see Moxlow?" Evelyn asked the moment they were alone.

"I want him here; I may wish to tell him something—and I may not, it all depends," he said slowly, as his heavy lids closed over his tired eyes.

It was daylight without, and there was the occasional sound of wheels in the street. Evelyn realized with a sudden sense of shock that unless Marshall's bloodless lips opened to tell his secret, but a few hours of life remained to John North.

A struggle was going on within her, it was a struggle that had never ceased from the instant she first entered the room. One moment she found she could pray that Marshall might speak; and the next terror shook her lest he would, and declare North's innocence and his own guilt. She slipped from his bedside and stealing to the window parted the long curtains with trembling hands. She felt widely separated in spirit from her husband; he seemed strangely indifferent to her; only his bitter sense of injury and hurt remained, his love had become a dead thing, since his very weakness carried him beyond the need of her. She belonged to his full life and there was nothing of tenderness and sympathy that survived. A slight noise caused her to turn from the window. Marshall was endeavoring to draw himself higher on his pillow.

"Here—lift me up—" he gasped, as she ran to his side.

She passed an arm about him and did as he desired.

"That's better—" he panted.

"Shall I call the doctor?"

He shook his head and, as she withdrew her arm, lay back weak and shaken.

"I tell you I am hurt internally!" he said.

"Let me call the doctor!" she entreated.

"What can he do?"

"Marsh, if you believe this—" she began.

"You're thinking of him!" he snarled.

"I am thinking of you, Marsh!"

"He threw you over for the Herbert girl!" he said with an evil ghastly smile. "Do you want to save him for her?"

"You don't need to tell all, Marsh—" she said eagerly.

"That's you!" and he laughed under his breath. "I can't imagine you advocating anything absolutely right! If I tell, I'll make a clean breast of it; if I don't I'll lie with my last breath!"

He was thinking of Joe Montgomery now, as he had thought of him many times since he drew himself up out of that merciless yellow flood into which the handy-man had flung him. Evelyn looked at him wonderingly. His virtues, as well as his vices, were things beyond her comprehension.

The door opened, and Moxlow came into the room. At sight of him, Langham's dull eyes grew brilliant.

"I thought you would never get here!" he said.

"This is too bad, Marsh!" said his law partner sympathizingly, as Evelyn yielded him her place and withdrew to the window again.

"Where's Taylor?" asked Langham abruptly.

"He's had to go to the jail, he was leaving the house as I got here," replied Moxlow.

There was the noise of voices in the hail, one of which was the colonel's, evidently raised in protest, then a clumsy hand was heard fumbling with the knob and the door was thrown open, and Joe Montgomery slouched into the room.

"Boss, you got to see me now!" he cried.

The prosecuting attorney sprang to his feet with an angry exclamation.

"Let him alone—" said Langham weakly.

Montgomery stole to the foot of the bed and stared down on Langham.

"You tell him, boss," nodding his head toward Moxlow. "I put it up to you!" he said.

Langham's glance dwelt for an instant on the handy-man, then it shifted back to Moxlow.

"Stop the execution!" he said, and Moxlow thought his mind wandered. "North didn't kill McBride," Langham went on. "Do you understand me—he is not the guilty man!"

A gray pallor was overspreading his face. It was called there by another presence in that room; an invisible but most potent presence.

"Do you understand me?" he repeated, for he saw that his words had made no impression on Moxlow.

"Go on, boss!" cried Montgomery, in a fever of impatience.

"Do you understand what I am telling you? John North did not kill McBride!" Langham spoke with painful effort. "Joe knows who did—so do I—so did my father—he knew an innocent man had been convicted!"

At mention of the judge, Moxlow started. He bent above Langham.

"Marsh, if John North didn't kill McBride, who did?"

But Langham made no reply. Weak, pallid, and racked by suffering, he lay back on his pillow. Joe leaned forward over the foot of the bed.

"Tell him, boss; it's no odds to you now—tell him quick for God's sake, or it will be too late!" he urged in a fearful voice.

There was a tense silence while they waited for Langham to speak. Moxlow heard the ticking of the clock on the mantel.

"If you have anything to say, Marsh—"

Langham raised himself on his elbows and his lips moved convulsively, but only a dry gasping sound issued from them; he seemed to have lost the power of speech.

"If North didn't kill McBride, who did?" repeated Moxlow.

A mighty effort wrenched Langham, again his lips came together convulsively, and then in a whisper he said:

"I did," and fell back on his pillow.

There was a moment of stillness, and then from behind the long curtains at the window came the sound of hysterical weeping.

Moxlow, utterly dazed by his partner's confession, looked again at the clock on the mantel. Fifteen minutes had passed. It was a quarter after eight. His brows contracted as if he were trying to recall some half forgotten engagement. Suddenly he turned, comprehendingly, to Montgomery.

"My God!—North!" he exclaimed and rushed unceremoniously from the room.



CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE LAST NIGHT IN JAIL

Whether John North slept during his last night in jail the deputy sheriff did not know, for that kindly little man kept his arms folded across his breast and his face to the wall. The night wore itself out, and at last pale indications of the dawn crept into the room. There was the song of the birds and a little later the rumble of an occasional wagon over the paved streets. North stirred and opened his eyes.

"Is it light?" he asked.

"Yes," said the deputy.

The day began with the familiar things that make up the round of life, but North was conscious that he was thus occupying himself for the last time. Then he seated himself and began a letter he had told Brockett he wished to write. Once he paused.

"I will have time for this?" he asked.

"All the time you want, John," said Brockett hastily, as he slipped from the room.

The sun's level rays lifted and slanted into the cell, while North, remote from everything but the memory of Elizabeth's faith and courage, labored to express himself. There was the sound of voices in the yard, but their significance meant nothing to him now. He wrote on without lifting his head. At last the letter was finished and inclosed with a brief note to the general.

The pen dropped from North's fingers and he stood erect, he was aware that men were still speaking below his window, then he heard footfalls in the corridor, and turned toward the door. It was the sheriff and his deputy. Conklin seemed on the verge of collapse, and Brockett's face was drawn and ghastly.

There was a grim pause, and then Conklin, in a voice that was but a shadow of itself, read the death-warrant. When he had finished, North cast a last glance about his cell and passed out of the door between the two men. They walked the length of the corridor, descended the stairs, and entered the jail office. North turned to Conklin.

"I wish to thank you and Brockett for your kindness to me, and if you do not mind I should like to shake hands with you both and say good-by here," for through the office windows he had caught sight of the group of men in the yard.

The sheriff, silent, held out his hand. He dared not trust himself to speak. North looked into his face.

"I am sorry for you," he said.

"My God, you may well be!" gasped Conklin.

North shook hands with Brockett and walked toward the door; but as he neared it, Brockett stepped in front of him and threw it open. As North passed out into the graveled yard, out into the full light of the warm spring day, the sheriff mechanically looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes after eight.



CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

AT IDLE HOUR

From her window Elizabeth saw the gray dawn which ushered in that June day steal over the valley below Idle Hour. Swiftly out of the darkness of the long night grew the accustomed shape of things. Wooded pastures and plowed fields came mysteriously into existence as the light spread, then the sun burst through the curtain of mist which lay along the eastern horizon, and it was day—the day of his death.

Their many failures trooped up out of the past and mocked at her; because of them he must die. They had gone with feverish haste from hope to hope to this dread end! Perhaps she had never really believed before that the day and hour would overtake them; when effort would promise nothing. But now the very sense of tragedy filled that silent morning, and her soul was in fearful companionship with it. A flood of wild imaginings swept her forward, across the little space of time that was left to her lover. Gasping for breath, she struggled with the grim horror that was growing up about him. His awful solitude came to her as a reproach; she should have remained with him to the end! Was there yet time to go back, or would she be too late? When? When? And she asked herself the question she had not dared to ask of her father.

The day showed her the distant roofs of Mount Hope; the day showed her the square brick tower of the court-house—living or dead, John North was in its very shadow. She crouched by the window, her arms resting on the ledge and her eyes fixed on the distant tower. How had the night passed for him—had he slept? And the pity of those lonely hours brought the tears to her burning eyes. She heard her father come slowly down the hall; he paused before her door.

"Elizabeth—dear!" his voice was very gentle.

"Yes, father?"

But she did not change her position at the window.

"Won't you come down-stairs, dear?" he said.

"I can not—" and then she felt the selfishness of her refusal, and added: "I will be down in a moment, I—I have not quite finished dressing—yet!"

John North had thought always of others. In the moment of his supremest agony, he had spoken not at all of himself; by word or look he had added nothing to the sorrow that was crushing her. This had been genuine courage.

"I must remember it always!" she told herself, as she turned away from the window. "I must not be selfish—he would not understand it—"

Her father was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, and the glance he bent on her was keen with anxiety. Perfect understanding existed between them no less now than formerly, but the anguish which had left its impress on that white face removed her beyond any attempted expression of sympathy from him.

At the end of the hail the open door gave a wide vista of well-kept lawns. Elizabeth turned swiftly to this doorway. Her father kept his place at her side, and together they passed from the house out into the warm day. Suddenly the girl paused, and her eager gaze was directed toward Mount Hope—toward him.

"Would it be too late to go to him now?" she asked in a feverish whisper.

A spasm of pain contracted the old general's haggard face, but the question found him mute.

"Would it be too late?" she repeated.

"He would not desire it, Elizabeth," replied her father.

"But would it be too late?" and she rested a shaking hand on his arm.

"You must not ask me that—I don't know."

He tried to meet her glance, which seemed to read his very soul, then her hand dropped at her side and she took a step forward, her head bowed and her face averted.

Again came the thought of North's awful isolation; the thought of that lonely death where love and tenderness had no place; all the ghastly terror of that last moment when he was hurried from this living breathing world! It was a monstrous thing! A thing beyond belief—incredible, unspeakable!

"We can believe in his courage," said her father, "as certainly as we can believe in his innocence."

"Yes—" she gasped.

"That is something. And the day will surely come when the world will think as we think. The truth seems lost now, but not for always!"

"But when he is gone—when he is no longer here—"

The general was silent. North had compelled his respect and faith; for after all, no guilty man could have faced death with so fine a courage. There was more to him than he had ever been willing to admit in his judgment of the man. Whatever his faults, they had been the faults of youth; had the opportunity been given him he would have redeemed himself, would have purged himself of folly. "Some day," the general was thinking, "I will tell her just what my feelings for North have been, how out of disapproval and doubt has come a deep and sincere regard."

The sun swept higher in the heavens, and the gray old man with the strong haggard face, and the girl in whom the girl had died and the woman had been born, walked on; now with dragging steps, when the stupor of despair seized her, now swiftly as her thoughts rushed from horror to horror.

The world, basking in the warmth of that June sun, seemed very peaceful as they looked out across the long reaches of the flat valley, and on to the distant town, with the lazy smoke of its factory chimneys floated above the spires and housetops. But the peace that was breathed out of the great calm heart of nature was not for these two! The girl's sense was only one of fierce rebellion at the injustice which was taking—had taken, perhaps, the life of the man she loved; an injustice that could never make amends—so implacable in its exactions, so impotent in its atonements!

They were nearing the limits of the grounds; back of them, among its trees, loomed the gray stone front of Idle Hour. Her father rested a hand upon Elizabeth's shoulder.

"I will try to be brave, too—as he was always—" she said pausing.

She stood there, a tragic figure, and then turned to her father with pathetic courage. She would take up what was left for her. She had her memories. They were of happiness no less than sorrow, for she had loved much and suffered much.

With a final lingering glance townward, she turned away. Then a startled cry escaped her, and her father looked up.

John North was coming toward them across the lawn.

THE END