Branded

  II

  The Searing Touch

  Out of the first twenty-four hours, when my little raft ofrespectability and good report was going to pieces under me, I havebrought one heart-mellowing recollection. In the morning it was oldJohn Runnels himself who brought me my cell breakfast, and he did it tospare me the shame of being served by the police-station turnkey. Pastthat, he sat on the edge of the iron cot and talked to me while I triedto eat.

  "They was aimin' to telegraph the sheriff and have you railroaded slapup to the county seat las' night, but I told 'em nary," he confided."I wasn't allowin' to have 'em jerk you out of your home town beforeyou'd had a chance to pick a lawyer and talk to your friends; nosir-ee, I wasn't."

  "I guess I haven't any friends any more," I was still bitter enough tosay. And then: "Tell me, if you can, Uncle John, just what the chargeagainst me is."

  "I reckon you know a heap better'n I do, Bertie," was his soberrejoinder, "but I can tell you what I heard. They say you've beentakin' the bank's money to put into a gold mine somewheres out yonderin the Rocky Mountains."

  "Who swore out the warrant for my arrest?"

  "Ab Withers."

  Abner Withers, town miser, note-shaver and skinflint, was the one manon the board of directors of the bank whom I had always most cordiallydetested. Back in my childhood, before my father had got upon hisfeet, Withers had planned to foreclose a mortgage on the home farm,making the hampering of my father so that he could not pay the debt apart of the plan. More than once I had half suspected that he was inwith Geddis on the mining deal, but I had no proof of this.

  "You say they were getting ready to railroad me out of town last night:I suppose they will do it to-day, won't they?"

  "Not if I can help it, Bertie. I'm goin' to try to hold you here tillyou've had time to kind of straighten yourself around and ketch up withthe procession. I don't know what in Sam Hill you wanted to go andbu'st yourself up for, this way, but I'm owin' it to Amos Weyburn deadto help his boy get some sort of a fair show for his white alley. Youask me anything in reason, and I'll do it."

  I considered the most necessary requirements hastily. My mother andsister were absent on a visit to a distant relative in the far-awaySaskatchewan wheat country, and I thanked God for that. It wasaltogether unlikely that they would see any of the home newspapers, forsome time, at least, and any anxiety on that score might be dismissed,or at all events postponed. The most pressing need was for a lawyer,and since lawyers do not serve without fees, I was glad to rememberthat my savings, which were still reposing in Abel Geddis's bank vault,would enable me to pay as I went.

  By this time, in bitter revulsion from gratitude to fierce enmity, Iwas determined to defend myself tooth and nail. At one stroke AbelGeddis had cancelled all my obligations to him. At the very momentwhen I was promising his daughter to help cover up his criminality, hehad been deliberately plotting to make me his scapegoat.

  "I need a lawyer, of course," I told Runnels; and then I made the firstand worst of a long series of wretched mistakes. "Send word to CyWhitredge and tell him I'd like to see him."

  If anybody had asked me five minutes after Runnels went away why I hadchosen Cyrus Whitredge to be my counsel I doubt if I could have offeredany justifiable reason. Whitredge was known throughout our end of theState as a criminal lawyer, shrewd, unscrupulous, and with a reputationbuilt up entirely upon his singular success in defeating the ends ofjustice. Before a jury of farmers and small merchants, such as I waslikely to have, I had prejudiced my case at the very outset.

  I was completely and thoroughly convinced of this a little later whenWhitredge came to see me. He was a lean man, leather-faced, and withan eye like that of a fish. To my consternation and keendisheartenment he assumed my guilt from the moment the cell door waslocked upon him and he had seated himself upon the iron-framed cot tonurse a knee in the locked fingers of his bony hands.

  "You've got the wrong idea of things, altogether, Weyburn," hecriticised, after I had tried to tell him that I was being made to holdthe bag for some one else; and his use of the bare surname, when he hadknown me from boyhood, cut me like a knife. "You can't expect me to doanything for you unless you are entirely frank with me. As yourcounsel, I've got to know the facts; and you gain absolutely nothing byinsisting to me that you are not guilty."

  There was more of it; a good bit more in which I stubbornly asserted myinnocence while Whitredge used every trick and wile known to his craftto entrap me into admitting that I was guilty, in the act if not in theintention.

  "You can't deny--you don't deny--that you knew these mining sharps,Hempstead and Lesherton, pretty intimately, that you saw themfrequently and talked with them in the way of business, and that youknew all about the capitalization scheme they were trying to put over,"was Whitredge's summing up of the situation. "You'll have to loosenup, Weyburn, if you expect to get any help. I'll come around againthis afternoon, and maybe by that time you will have taken a tumble toyourself."

  He got up, rattled the door for the turnkey, and then wheeled upon mewith a sharp question.

  "I take it you've got a little ready money hid away somewhere, haven'tyou?" he demanded.

  I told him I had; but when I added that my savings were all in the bankhe swore impatiently.

  "That will mean an order from the court before you can even pay yourcounsel's retainer--always providing your account hasn't already beenattached to apply on the shortage," he snapped; and at that thecorridor officer came to let him out and he went away.

  Having lived in Glendale practically all my life, I had a good right toexpect that at least a few of my friends would rally to my support inthe time of trouble. They came, possibly a half-dozen of them in all,between Whitredge's visit and old John Runnels's bringing of my dinnerat one o'clock.

  Who they were, and what they said to me, are matters which shall beburled in the deepest pit of oblivion I can find or dig. For the bestof them, in the turning of a single leaf in the lifebook, I hadapparently become an outcast, a pariah. One and all, they had alreadytried and condemned me unheard, and though there were clammy-handedoffers of assistance they were purely perfunctory, as I could see, andthere was never a man of them all to say heartily, "Bert Weyburn, Idon't believe it of you." It wasn't the fault of any of these coldcomfort bringers that the milk of human kindness didn't turn to vinegarin me that day, or that I did not drink the cup of bitterness andisolation to the very dregs.

  I know now, of course, that I was boyishly hot-hearted and unfair; thatI was too young and inexperienced to make allowances for that deathlesstrait in human nature--in all animate nature--which prompts the well torecoil instinctively from the pest-stricken. Later on--but I needn'tanticipate.

  It was along in the latter part of the afternoon, and beforeWhitredge's return, that Agatha came. Her appearance in my cell was atotal surprise. I was standing at the little grated window when Iheard footsteps in the corridor. I thought it was Whitredge comingback, and was morose enough not to turn or look around until after thedoor had opened and clanged shut again. Then I wheeled to find myselflooking straight into the man-melting eyes.

  "Oh, Herbert!" she gasped; and with that she dropped upon the cot andput her face in her hands.

  If only the women wouldn't weep at us how vastly different this worldwould be! All day long I had been praying that I might some time havethe chance to hold a mirror up to Agatha Geddis; a mirror that wouldreflect her soul and show her what a mean and shriveled thing it was.But what I did was to sit beside her and put my arm around her and tryto comfort her as I might have comforted my sister.

  When her sobbing fit had subsided and she began to talk I found outwhat she had come for--or I thought I did. It was all a miserablemistake--so she protested--and Abner Withers was the responsible one.It was he who had insisted that I should be arrested and prosecuted;and, thus far, her father had not been able to make him listen toreason. But it would come out all right in the end, if I would only bepa
tient and wait. Mr. Whitredge had been up to the house to see herfather, and they had had a long talk. Among other things, she hadheard her father say that he would bear all the expenses, meaning--Isupposed--that he would see to it that Whitredge did not lose his fee.

  I have more than once had professional mesmerists try to hypnotize me,without success. But there is little doubt that Agatha Geddis turnedthe trick for me that afternoon in the steel cell of the Glendalepolice station. As she talked, my heart grew putty-soft again. Asbefore, she dwelt upon the terrible consequences, the awful disgrace,the wreck of her happiness, and all that; and once more I promised herthat I would stand by her. Even after she had gone I told myself thatsince the worst had already happened, it would be cowardly and unmanlyto turn back.

  Later, when the reaction came, it is more than likely that I swung backto the other extreme, writing Agatha Geddis down in the book of bitterremembrances as a cold-blooded, plotting fiend in woman's form. Shewas not that. It may be said that, at this earlier period, she wasmerely a loosely bound fagot of evil potentialities. Doubtless thethreatened cataclysm appeared sufficiently terrifying to her, and shewas willing to use any means that might offer to avert it. But it maybe conceded, in bare justice, that in this stage of her development shewas nothing worse than a self-centered young egoist, immature, andstruggling, quite without malice, to make things come her way.

  It was quite late in the afternoon when Whitredge made his second visitto my cell, and this time his attitude was entirely different. Also,he dropped the curt use of my surname.

  "We're going to ignore the question of your culpability for thepresent, Bert, and wrestle with the plain facts of the case," was theway he began on me. "From what you said this morning, I was led toinfer that you had some notion of trying to shift the responsibility toMr. Geddis. I won't say that something couldn't be done along thatline; not to do you any good, you understand, but to do other folks alot of harm. You could probably roil the water and stir up the mudpretty badly for all concerned. But in the outcome, and before a jury,you'd be likely to get the hot end of it. I'll be frank with you. IfI were in your shoes, I'd rather have Geddis for me than against me.He has money and influence, and you are a young man without either."

  "You are trying to advise me to plead guilty?" I asked.

  "Oh, of course, the formal plea in court would be 'Not guilty.' I'mmerely advising you not to make the fight vindictive. If you don't,I'm inclined to believe that Geddis will stand by you and you'll getoff easy."

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I would fight to the lastgasp before I would suffer myself to be tried and condemned for a crimeof which I was innocent. Then the distorted sense of honor got in itswork again. Agatha Geddis's visit was still recent enough to make mebelieve that I owed her something.

  "You'll have to get me out of it in some way," I returned. "I can'tafford to be convicted."

  "Abel Geddis has been a pretty good friend of yours in the past, Bert,"the lawyer suggested. "You don't want to forget that."

  "I'm not forgetting it, and I'm giving him all the credit that is duehim. But you can't blame me for thinking a little of my mother andsister, and myself. You know what a prison sentence means to a man,better than I do. I couldn't stand for that."

  Whitredge stroked his long chin and looked past me out of the littlegrated window.

  "We'd hope for the best, of course," he returned. "If we can make itappear as an error in judgment"--there was that cursed phraseagain--"without any real criminal intention, and if we can prove thatyou didn't reap any monetary benefit from the transfer of the miningstock, there is good reason to hope that the court may be lenient. DoI understand that you are giving me a free hand in the case, Bert?"

  "I don't see that there is anything else for me to do," I said,half-doubtfully; and as he was going I asked him about the question ofbail.

  "I have waived the preliminary examination for you--merely to save youthe humiliation of appearing in a justice's court in Glendale," was theevasive reply.

  "But without the examination I shan't have a chance to offer bail,shall I?"

  Whitredge shook his head. "The guaranty company that is on your bondbeat us to it, I'm sorry to say. They sent their attorney over fromCincinnati last night, and he is here now, prepared to refuse thecompany's consent in the matter of ball. That is another reason why,acting for you, I have waived the preliminary. Without the guarantycompany's assent to the arrangement it would be useless for us to offersureties, though Geddis and two or three others have expressed theirwillingness to sign for you."

  "Then what am I to expect?"

  "Nothing worse than a little delay. Court is in session, and you willbe taken to Jefferson. If the grand jury finds a true bill againstyou, the cause will probably be tried at the present term of court.There need be nothing humiliating or embarrassing for you here inGlendale. Sam Jorkins will take you over to Jefferson on the midnighttrain, and you needn't see any of the home-town folks unless you wantto."

  Remembering the clammy handshakings of the forenoon, I thought I shouldnever again want to see anybody that I knew. And thus I made thesecond of the miserable blunders which led to all that followed.

  "Let it be that way," I said. "If Jorkins will go with me up to Mrs.Thompson's so that I can get a few things and pack a grip----"

  "Oh, of course," said Whitredge, readily enough. "I'll have a carriageto take you to the train, and it can drive around by yourboarding-house. But you mustn't try to run away. I suppose youwouldn't do anything like that, would you?--even if you had a goodchance?"

  I turned upon him as quick as a flash.

  "Do you mean that you're trying to give me a hint that I'd better runaway?" I demanded.

  He took a step toward the cell door and I had a fleeting impressionthat he was listening to determine whether or not there was any one inthe corridor. When he faced me again he was frowning reprovingly.

  "I am a member of the bar in good standing," he reminded me stiffly."If you knew the first letter of the legal alphabet you'd know that Icouldn't advise a client to run away."

  "Damn the legal alphabet!" I broke out hotly. "You're a man, CyWhitredge; and I'm another man and in trouble. Can't you drop theprofessional cant for half a minute and talk straight?"

  At this he shook his head again.

  "It would prejudice your case mighty badly--that is, if you should tryit and not succeed. On the other hand--but no; I won't say anotherword. Your best friend wouldn't advise you to make such a break.Besides, you have no money, and you couldn't get very far without it.I shouldn't even think of it, if I were you. Dwelling on a thing likethat sometimes gives it a chance to get hold of you. But this is allfoolishness, of course. You are going to Jefferson, and you'll takeyour medicine like a man if you have to. That's all, I believe, forthe present. Keep a stiff upper lip, and if anybody comes to see you,don't talk too much. I'll be over at the county seat in a day or two,and we'll thresh it out some more."

  After Runnels had brought me my supper, and I had nothing to do but towait for the constable and train-time, I did the very thing thatWhitredge had advised me not to do; I couldn't get it out of my mindthat freedom at any price was now the most desirable thing on earth--inthe universe, for that matter. It was facilely easy to picture afuture in some far distant corner of the country where I might beginall over again and make good. Other men had done it. Every once in awhile I had read in the newspapers the story of some fellow who hadeluded his fate, deserved or otherwise, years before and had lived andbuilded anew and in a fashion to win the applause of all men.

  Because I had lived in a small town the better part of my life, I hadthe mistaken notion that the world is very wide and that there must beno end of safe hiding-places for the man who needs to seek one. Fromthat to imagining the possible details was only a series of steps, eachone carrying me a little nearer to the brink of decision. As I havesaid, I had money of my own in the bank vault; muc
h more than enough tobribe easy-going Sam Jorkins, the constable who, as Whitredge had said,was to take me to Jefferson. I weighed and measured all the chancesand hazards, and there were only two for which I could not provide inadvance. There was a possibility that Geddis might be staying late inthe bank; and if he were not, there was the other possibility that hemight have changed the combination on the vault lock since my arrest.

  The more I thought about it, the more fiercely the escape notiongripped me. Whitredge's talk had made it perfectly plain that the bestI could hope for in a court trial would be a light sentence. Astrain-time drew near, the obsession pushed reason and all the scruplesaside. If I could only persuade Jorkins to let me go to the bank onthe drive to the station----

  The town clock in the tower of the new city hall was striking elevenwhen good old John Runnels and the constable came for me. At the finalmoment I was telling myself feverishly that it would be of no use forme to try to bribe honest Sam Jorkins; that this was the fatal weaknessin my plan of escape. Hence, I could have shouted for joy when Runnelsunlocked the cell door and turned me over, not to Jorkins, but to astranger; a hard-faced man roughly dressed, and with the scar of aknife slash across his right cheek.

  "This is Bill Simmons, a deputy from Jefferson, Bertie; come to takeyou over to the county ja--to the sheriff's office," said Runnels."I've told him he ain't goin' to have no use for them handcuffs he'sbrought along."

  "That may be," growled the sheriff's messenger. "All the same, I ain'ttakin' no chances--not me!" and with that he whipped the manacles fromhis pocket. But Runnels intervened quickly.

  "Nary!--not here in my shop, you don't, Simmons," he said. "For twocents I'd go along with Bertie, myself, if only to see to it that hegets a fair show. You treat him right and white, or I'll fire you out,warrant or no warrant!"

  When we reached the street I said I wanted to go around by way of myboarding-house for a change of clothing.

  "That's all been 'tended to," said the surly deputy, with a jerk of histhumb toward a suitcase in the seat beside the driver of the hackcarriage. "You get in and keep quiet; that's all you've got to do."

  After this he said nothing and made no further move until we werejouncing along on our way to the railroad station. Then, withoutwarning, he turned upon me suddenly and tried to snap the hand-cuffs onmy wrists.

  It was all I was waiting for; something to pull the trigger. In aflash the savage, which, in the best of us, lies but skin-deep underthe veneer of habit and the civilized conventions, leaped alive. Therewas a fierce grapple in the interior of the darkened carriage--fiercebut silent--and the blood sang in my veins when I found that I was morethan a match for the scar-faced deputy. With fingers to throat Ichoked him into submission, and when I had taken his pistol andhand-cuffed him with his own manacles, the step that made me a criminalin fact had been overpassed.

  "One yip out of you, and you get a bullet out of your own gun!" Iwarned him; and then I got speech with the driver, a squat, thicksetIrishman, whose face and brogue were both strange to me.

  "Drive to the Farmers' Bank--side door--and be quick about it!" Icalled to him over the lowered window-sash.

  "I'm hired to go to the train. Who's payin' me for the side-trip?" hequeried impatiently.

  "I am," I snapped; adding: "There's money in it for you if you put thewhip on."

  He obeyed the order with what might have seemed suspicious readiness,if I had been cool enough to consider it, and a minute or two later thehack ground its wheels against the curb at the side door of the bankbuilding. With the pistol at his ribs I pushed the deputy out ahead ofme. My keys were still in my pocket--Runnels hadn't searched me foranything--and I opened the door and entered, driving Simmons a step inadvance.

  The bank was untenanted, as I knew it would be if Geddis should not bethere, since we had never employed a night watchman. At that time ofnight there was nothing stirring in the town, and in the midnightsilence the ticking of the clock on the wall over Abel Geddis's deskcrashed into the stillness like the blows of a hammer. I made thedeputy sit down under the vault light while I worked the combination.The lock had not been changed, and the door opened at the first trial.

  Again pushing Simmons ahead of me, I entered the vault. It was afairly modern structure; Geddis had had it rebuilt within the year; andit was electric-lighted and large enough to serve the double purpose ofa bank strong-room and a safety deposit. Shoving the deputy into acorner I opened the cash-box and took out the exact amount of mysavings, neither more nor less. Simmons stretched his neck and leeredat me with an evil grin.

  "You're the fine little crook, all right enough," he remarked. "Theywas sayin' over at Jefferson that you was a Sunday-schoolsup'rintendent, or somethin' o' that sort. Them kind is always theflyest."

  It struck me suddenly that he was taking his defeat pretty easily, butthere was no time for a nice weighing of other men's motives.

  "I'm fly enough to give you what's coming to you," I said; and withthat I snapped off the electric light, darted out, slammed the vaultdoor and shot the bolts. For a few hours at least, during the latterpart of which he might have to breathe rather bad air, the deputy wasan obstruction removed.

  My hurriedly formed plan of escape would probably have made aprofessional criminal weep; but it was the only one I could think of onthe spur of the moment. In the next county, at a distance ofthirty-odd miles, there was another railroad. If I could succeed inbribing the Irish hack-driver, I might be far on my way before the bankvault would be opened and the alarm given.

  The Irishman took my money readily enough and offered no objectionswhen I told him what I wished to do. Also, he claimed to be familiarwith the cross-country road to Vilasville, saying that he could set medown in the village before daylight. Oddly enough, he made no commenton the absence of the deputy, and seemed quite as willing to haul onepassenger as two. With my liberal bribe for a stimulant he whipped uphis horses, and in a few minutes we were out of town and rollingsmoothly along the intercounty pike.

  For a time the sudden break with all the well-behaved traditions keptme awake and in a fever heat of excitement. But along in the smallhours the monotonous _clack-clack_ of the horses' hoofs on thelimestone pike and the steady rumbling of the wheels quieted me.Reflecting that I had had little sleep the night before, and that theway ahead would be perilous enough to ask for sharpened faculties and awell-rested body, I braced myself in a corner of the carriage andclosed my eyes.

  When I awakened, after what seemed like only the shortest hand-space ofdreamless oblivion, a misty dawn was breaking and the carriage wasstopped in a town street and in front of a brick building with barredwindows. While I was blinking and rubbing my eyes in astoundment, abig, bearded man whose face was strangely familiar opened the door andwhipped the captured pistol from the seat.

  "This was one time when the longest way 'round was the shortest wayhome," chuckled the big pistol-snatcher quizzically. And then: "Old AbWithers seems to know you better than most of us do, Bert. He told meI'd better not risk you on the train with just one Glendale constable;that I'd better send a rig and two deputies after you, if I wanted tomake sure o' seein' you. What have you done with Simmons?"

  I told him briefly.

  "All right," he said. "Climb down out o' that and come on in. Thejig's up."

  It was not until I was standing on the sidewalk beside the giganticsheriff, with the Irishman grinning at me from his seat in the hack,that I realized fully what had happened. Instead of taking me toVilasville, the driver, who was Simmons's partner and fellow deputy,had changed his route while I was asleep and brought me to the countyseat.