Page:The Shame of the Cities.djvu/97

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THE SHAME OF THE CITIES

heelers were all about him, but Clarke faced him.

“Yes, Doc Ames, I’m after you,” he said. “I’ve been in this town for seventeen years, and all that time you’ve been a moral leper. I hear you were rotten during the ten years before that. Now I’m going to put you where all contagious things are put—where you cannot contaminate anybody else.”

The trial of Gardner came on. Efforts had been made to persuade him to surrender the mayor, but the young man was paid $15,000 “to stand pat,” and he went to trial and conviction silent. Other trials followed fast—Norbeck’s, Fred Ames’s, Chief of Detectives King’s. Witnesses who were out of the State were needed, and true testimony from women. There was no county money for extradition, so the grand jurors paid these costs also. They had Meix followed from Michigan down to Mexico and back to Idaho, where they got him, and he was presented in court one day at the trial of Norbeck, who had “steered” him out of town. Norbeck thought Meix was a thousand miles away, and had been bold before. At the sight of him in court he started to his feet, and that night ran away. The jury spent more money in his pursuit, and they caught him. He confessed, but his evidence was