Part 31 (1/2)

”Don't you realize what's going on here?” demanded Selectman Grant, his weapon in the hook of his arm.

”No!” a.s.serted Mr. Harnden.

”I know a blamed sight better! You can't look at this deputy sheriff without turning redder than one of the apples in that fake picture book of yours. You know what you have been doing in this town.”

The selectman's tone was offensively harsh and loud. Mr. Harnden was moved to show a little spirit, having been cornered--and feeling protected by the presence of an officer of the law. ”I have been doing business!”

”Scooping in town orders, you mean!”

”Taking them in the due course of my business, Mr. Selectman. I had a right to do it!”

”And what did you do with those orders?”

”I pa.s.sed them on--still in the course of my business.”

”And you don't know into whose hands they have come?”

”Oh no!”

The selectman stepped close to the carriage and brandished his gun.

”While this town was staggering along, trying to find a way out, only a h.e.l.lion would take and make a club out of those orders and hit us the last and final clip with 'em. You've done it, Harnden! For the sake of the dirty money you've done it. They were letting those orders rest easy till we could get the legislature and have things put into some condition where we'd know what's what. Through your work some land pirate has got hold of those town orders. There isn't a cent in the town treasury. You know it.”

He whirled away from Harnden and shook the gun at the deputy sheriff.

”I sha'n't believe your law, Dowd, till I've been and talked with Squire Hexter.”

”Go and talk! But in the meantime a good lawyer has told me what to do and has given me the doc.u.ments, and I'm not trying the case in your dooryard. I have levied on those oxen and I shall take 'em along.”

”Do you hear that, Harnden? That's what you have done to your town,”

bellowed the infuriated selectman. ”He says there's a law allowing a creditor to levy on the property of any citizen of a town to satisfy a judgment. Judgment has been secured on those town orders. They are jumping on me first.”

”It's what the lawyer told me to do,” insisted the officer. ”'Start with the selectman,' says he. 'That shows the others where they get off.'

Grant, I'm here with the papers and the right to act.” He advanced close to the selectman, waggling admonitory forefinger. ”I've been excusing your feelings. I don't blame you! This is tough. It's the penalty you pay for living in such a town. But I don't propose to stand for any more of that gunplay. Hand it over!”

Grant hesitated. The officer s.n.a.t.c.hed away the gun, broke it down, and pulled out the undischarged sh.e.l.l. He put that into his pocket and shoved the gun under the seat of a wagon. ”You can have this gun back after the war is over. Now to business! You claim that the oxen are exempt because you have no horses. All right! I see you have a dozen cows. I'll take three of those. I'm fair, you see! You're only ent.i.tled to one cow. But keep nine. I'm going to spread the thing around town till I have enough to satisfy this judgment. It's for one hundred and ninety dollars. What say, now? Do you want to pay a fine for obstructing an officer?”

Selectman Grant shook his head. The flame of his rage had died down into sullen rancor. He went along to Harnden's carriage and suddenly nipped that gentleman's nose between toil-calloused index and middle fingers.

”They tell me there's no law against doing this,” he said between his yellow, hard-set teeth, as he twisted at the nose, while Harnden's eyes ran water. ”If there is a law, I hope you'll stay handy by in this town and prosecute while we're heating the tar and getting the feathers ready.”

Sheriff Dowd took advantage of Selectman Grant's preoccupation with Harnden. He gave off orders to his helpers and they lowered the bars of the barnyard and started away with the cows.

There was a general disintegration of the group. Mrs. Grant led the lamenting womenfolk into the house. Mr. Harnden did not really extricate his nose; Grant twisted so violently that he broke his own grip, and his victim laced the whip under the horse's belly and escaped.

Within ten minutes Selectman Grant was whipping his own horse in a direction opposite to that which Harnden had taken. Mr. Grant was hot after law.

Squire Hexter gave him the law, and cold comfort.

”They can do it, Jared. Outsiders can get hold of unpaid town orders and put on the screws if they're that heartless. It isn't done once in a dog's age. But, as I say, it can be done when a creditor is ugly enough.