Part 68 (1/2)

”Jed!” roared the captain. ”Jed Winslow! Jed!”

Jed lifted his head from his hands. He most decidedly did not wish to see Captain Sam or any one else.

”Jed!” roared the captain again.

Jed accepted the inevitable. ”Here I am,” he groaned, miserably.

The captain did not wait for an invitation to enter. Having ascertained that the owner of the building was within, he pulled the door open and stamped into the kitchen.

”Where are you?” he demanded.

”Here,” replied Jed, without moving.

”Here? Where's here? . . . Oh, you're in there, are you? Hidin'

there in the dark, eh? Afraid to show me your face, I shouldn't wonder. By the gracious king, I should think you would be! What have you got to say to me, eh?”

Apparently Jed had nothing to say. Captain Sam did not wait.

”And you've called yourself my friend!” he sneered savagely.

”Friend--you're a healthy friend, Jed Winslow! What have you got to say to me . . . eh?”

Jed sighed. ”Maybe I'd be better able to say it if I knew what you was talkin' about, Sam,” he observed, drearily.

”Know! I guess likely you know all right. And according to her you've known all along. What do you mean by lettin' me take that-- that state's prison bird into my bank? And lettin' him a.s.sociate with my daughter and--and . . . Oh, by gracious king! When I think that you knew what he was all along, I--I--”

His anger choked off the rest of the sentence. Jed rubbed his eyes and sat up in his chair. For the first time since the captain's entrance he realized a little of what the latter said. Before that he had been conscious only of his own dull, aching, hopeless misery.

”Hum. . . . So you've found out, Sam, have you?” he mused.

”Found out! You bet I've found out! I only wish to the Lord I'd found out months ago, that's all.”

”Hum. . . . Charlie didn't tell you? . . . No-o, no, he couldn't have got back so soon.”

”Back be hanged! I don't know whether he's back or not, blast him.

But I ain't a fool ALL the time, Jed Winslow, not all the time I ain't. And when I came home tonight and found Maud cryin' to herself and no reason for it, so far as I could see, I set out to learn that reason. And I did learn it. She told me the whole yarn, the whole of it. And I saw the scamp's letter. And I dragged out of her that you--you had known all the time what he was, and had never told me a word. . . . Oh, how could you, Jed!

How could you!”

Jed's voice was a trifle less listless as he answered.

”It was told me in confidence, Sam,” he said. ”I COULDN'T tell you. And, as time went along and I began to see what a fine boy Charlie really was, I felt sure 'twould all come out right in the end. And it has, as I see it.”

”WHAT?”

”Yes, it's come out all right. Charlie's gone to fight, same as every decent young feller wants to do. He thinks the world of Maud and she does of him, but he was honorable enough not to ask her while he worked for you, Sam. He wrote the letter after he'd gone so as to make it easier for her to say no, if she felt like sayin'

it. And when he came back from enlistin' he was goin' straight to you to make a clean breast of everything. He's a good boy, Sam.

He's had hard luck and he's been in trouble, but he's all right and I know it. And you know it, too, Sam Hunniwell. Down inside you you know it, too. Why, you've told me a hundred times what a fine chap Charlie Phillips was and how much you thought of him, and--”

Captain Hunniwell interrupted. ”Shut up!” he commanded. ”Don't talk to me that way! Don't you dare to! I did think a lot of him, but that was before I knew what he'd done and where he'd been. Do you cal'late I'll let my daughter marry a man that's been in state's prison?”