Good Men and True; and, Hit the Line Hard/Good Men and True/Chapter 15
Chapter XV
"If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged."
"At the envoy's end, I touch!"
"NOW, we must get to work," said Jeff, after hurried mutual explanations. "The natural impulse is to throw the customs house into the river, to link arms and walk up Main Street, five abreast, pushing the policemen off of the curb, raising our feet high and bringing them down ker-smack—hay-foot, straw-foot, right foot, left: now is the time for all good men—and the rest of it. But, perhaps, it wouldn't be wise. We've got to catch Thorpe off his guard—and that may be hard to do"
Wes' pulled him down and whispered in his ear. Jeff's face became radiant.
"And after we have him safe we'll get the others. Let's go down to the bank and steal a boat. Boys, this is Mr. MacGregor. We'll take him with us. Mac, you'd better tie a handkerchief around your head. You'll take cold."
"Ye canna take a man from Mexico without extradeetion papers. It's fair keednappin'," said Mac with a leer.
"So we can't, so we can't," said Jeff pleasantly. "Not live men. Go first. If you don't come quietly"
"Dinna tell me," said the MacGregor scornfully. "Would I no have done as much for you? But let me tell you one thing—and that is that ye are showing small thanks to Thorpe for sparing your life."
"Fudge! I didn't ask him for my life and I owe him no gratitude," said Jeff. "It was a square contract. I was to hang him if I could escape—and I had practically escaped when he agreed to it, except for the mere detail of time. I am doing nothing unfair. Go on!"
"You're right, 'twas a contract—I'll say nae mair," admitted Mac grudgingly, and went up the stair.
Once on the street, however, he paused. "Mr. Bransford, there have been kindly passages atween us. Let me have a word more."
"Well?" said Jeff.
The outlaw sat him down on a crumbling wall. "I value your good opeenion, Mr. Bransford, and I would not have ye judge that fear held me from fightin ye, drop or no drop. 'Twould have done no good to any one and I should certainly have been killed. Men, ye've a grand idee of strategy yourself. I wouldna hae ye think I'm daft enough to throw away my life to no good purpose. But there the case is verra diffrent. There are no thick walls now to muffle the noise: ye canna keel me wi'oot muckle deesturbance, bringin' the police on ye. Thorpe has friends here, verra alert folk—and 'gin he gets wind o' any deesturbance at just this place—ye see! " He wagged his head in slow cunning; he drew in a long breath. "Ho!" he bellowed. "Ho! Murder!"
They pulled him down, fighting savagely
"Damnation!" said Jeff, and sprang at his throat. The others had his arms: they pulled him down, fighting savagely, turned him over, piled on his back, and gagged him. But it was too late. Two policemen were already running down the street. The neighbors, however, kept prudently within doors.
"Jeff, you and Pringle hike for the U. S. A.," gasped Leo. "Get Thorpe, anyhow. I'll tap this devil dumb, and stay here and stand the gaff, to give you a start."
"Hold on! Don't do it," said Beebe. "Let me talk to the policemen. Do you tie Mr. MacGregor up."
"Talk to—why you can't even speak Spanish!" said Pringle.
"You don't know me. Watch!" said Billy.
Without waiting for further remonstrance he went to meet the advancing officers. They halted; there was a short colloquy and, to the amazement of the three friends, they turned amicably back together and passed from sight at the next corner.
"Let me make a suggestion," said Aughinbaugh. "Lug this gentleman back to Jeff's quarters, tie him up tight, and I think I can undertake to keep him while you get your man. As soon as you have Thorpe, see Tillotson's lawyers and let them swear out warrants for the arrest of Patterson and the cabdriver, and then take steps to secure Borrowman and Mr. MacGregor legally. You can have them arrested for kidnapping or illegal detention, and held here until we can get extradition papers. You might send some one—or two, or three—over right away, in case Mr. Borrowman drops in. He might eat me if he found me there alone. For myself, I am not sorry to remain in the background. I have no desire for prominence. You fellows are going back to Rainbow—and you're used to trouble anyway, so it's all very well for you. But I have to stay here and I'm a legal-minded person. This will be a hanging matter for some of 'em before they get done with it. They'll talk like the parrot. I've no desire to make a lot of enemies. There's no knowing how many leading lights may be implicated in this thing when they go to turning state's evidence."
Here he was interrupted by a kick from the gagged prisoner. It was not a vicious kick and evidently meant only to attract attention. They bent over him. He was shaking his head; in the starlight his eyes blazed denial.
"I didn't mean you," said George, respectfully and apologetically. "I'm sure you wouldn't do such a thing. But Borrowman might, and Patterson will be even more likely to betray the others to save his own neck."
The eyes expressed gloomy agreement. At Pringle's urging, Mac consented to walk back down to the underground room. That wily veteran evidently reserved his stubbornness till there was a chance to accomplish something by it. They were binding him to the bed when Billy rejoined them. "Well! Wherever did you learn Spanish, Billy?" said Pringle curiously.
"It wasn't Spanish—not exactly," said that accomplished linguist modestly. "It was a sort of Esperanto. I met them with a cocked revolver in one hand and a roll of bills in the other. They took the bills."
Jeff's sprightly spirits were somewhat dampened. "Whoever would have looked for such stubborn loyalty from this battered old rascal?" he demanded, sighing. "Even Thorpe is not altogether to be despised—or pitied. He had a friend. By Heavens, Mac! I'll take every precaution to hold fast to you—but I find it in my heart to hope you get away in spite of me." He bent over and met the dauntless eyes; he laid his fingers on Mac's hair, almost tenderly. "I'll tell him, old man," he whispered.
He turned away, but after a step or two paused and looked back with an irresolution foreign to his character. He finally came back and sat on the edge of the bed, with his back to the MacGregor. He squeezed his hands between his knees, idly clicking his heels together. His eyes were intent on a crack in the floor: he recited in a dull monotone:
"‘And often after sunset, sir,
When it is bright and fair,
I take my little derringer
And eat my supper there!
The others waited by the door. John Wesley posted George with a sedate and knowing wink. George eyed these movements of Jeff's with grave disapproval.
"How often have I heard you denounce precisely such proceedings as these, as the fatal vice of Hamleting!" he jeered. "Flip up a dollar! Or are you going to favor us with a soliloquy?"
Jeff raised his eyes. "I was just trying to remember an old story," he explained innocently. "My grandfather was a Hudson Bay man, and this story was a John Company tradition when he was a boy. It's about two canny Scots. That's what put me in mind of it, Mac being a Scotchman—and in trouble.
"Their names were Kerr and McKensie. One day Kerr upset his canoe in some rapids and lost everything he had but his clothes and his sheath-knife. But at dark he happened on McKensie's camp, and stayed the night with him. McKensie had a good outfit—canoe, rifle, grub, traps, and a big bundle of furs. He had also a deserved reputation for shrewdness and thrift. And in the night they got to trading.
"When morning came McKensie had the sheath-knife and Kerr had everything else. McKensie would never explain what happened. When asked about it he looked a little dazed. He said, with marked emphasis:
"‘Yon is a verra intelligent pairson!'
"The moral is, You've got to be careful with a Scotchman."
"You get out!" said George indignantly. "Go gather the Judge. I'll tend to Mac."
"All right," said Jeff. "We'll go. But don't say I didn't warn you."
•••••
Judge Thorpe was particularly well pleased with himself. After a prosperous and profitable day and a pleasant evening at his club, he bethought himself of his old relentless enemy, obesity, and made his way to the Turkish baths.
He had been boiled, baked and basted, and now lay swathed in linen on a marble slab, blissfully drowsy, waiting to be curried. He was more than half asleep when the operator came.
When the currying process began, however, the Judge noticed that the hostler seemed anything but an expert. Why had they not sent Gibbons as usual? He opened his eyes, intending remonstrance, but closed them immediately; they were playing tricks on him. A curious thing! The white-tunicked attendant, seen through the curling spirals of steam, looked startlingly like his prisoner in Juarez. The Judge's heart skipped a beat or two and then started with a fearful thumping.
The rubber plied his mitten briskly; the Judge opened his eyes again. Of course the prisoner was safe; the illusion was doubtless the effect of the perspiration on his eyelashes. The billowy vapor parted, the industrious attendant bent impersonally over him with a serene, benevolent look—Good Heavens!
The Judge's heart died horribly within him, his tongue was dry, his bones turned to water and his flesh to a quivering jelly. He cast a beseeching look to the open door. Beyond it, looking idly in, were three men in street clothes. They entered, ranging themselves silently against the wall. They looked amused. Thorpe's lips moved, but no words came.
Jeff Bransford rubbed away assiduously; there was a quizzical glint in his pleasant brown eyes. "My wife, Judge," he said cheerfully, jerking his head to introduce Beebe, "and my two boys, Wes' and Leo. Fine, well-grown boys, aren't they?" He prodded the Judge's ribs with a jocular thumb. "Say, Judge how about that presentiment now?"
•••••
After personally attending the Judge and Patterson to jail, the G. M. A. T. felt that the capture of minor offenders might safely be left to the government. So they routed out Tillotson's lawyers at the unseemly hour of 4 a.m., broke the news gently, and haled them off to jail for consultation with Tillotson.
Congratulation and explanation was over: the cumbrous machinery of the law was fairly under way (creakingly, despite liberal oiling), and a gorgeous breakfast for all hands was being brought into the jail from a nearby restaurant, when the jailer ushered Aughinbaugh into the presence of the friends in council.
He sauntered in with the most insouciant and complacent air imaginable. El Paso's best cigar was perked up at a jaunty angle from the corner of his mouth; it was plain he was particularly well pleased with himself.
"Hello! where's your prisoner?" said the firm in chorus.
Aughinbaugh removed the cigar and flicked the ash. "Mac? He got away," he said indifferently.
"Got away! " shrieked the senior lawyer. "Gagged, bound hand and foot, tied to the bed—and got away!"
Aughinbaugh surveyed him placidly, and waved his cigar in graceful explanation.
"Yon was a verra intelligent pairson!" said he.
THE END