Part 16 (1/2)

Justice laughed. ”What he isn't going to do to you when he catches you won't be worth doing,” he said.

Absalom began to look apprehensive. ”I'm afraid to go back,” he said.

”What are you afraid of, if you didn't do it?” asked Justice.

”Pa wouldn't believe me,” said Absalom nervously.

”Oh, I guess he'll believe you all right,” I said soothingly.

”You go with me,” begged Absalom, eyeing us both beseechingly. ”He'll believe you. He never believes me.”

”Maybe we had better,” said I. ”He can stay here with you the rest of the night and we'll drive over the first thing in the morning.”

The next morning bright and early found us again on the scene of the fire. Early as we were, we found Elijah b.u.t.ts poking in the ashes of his cotton crop with a wrathful countenance. When he saw us coming he strode to meet us and without a word laid hold of Absalom's collar. His expression was like that of a fox who has caught his goose after many hours of waiting.

”I've got you, you rascal,” he sputtered, shaking Absalom until his teeth chattered. ”Where did you find him?” he demanded of Justice.

”In my bunk,” replied Justice, laying a hand on Mr. b.u.t.ts' arm and trying to separate him from his son. ”He had been there all evening, and knew nothing about the fire. He didn't do it.”

”Didn't do it!” shouted Mr. b.u.t.ts. ”Don't tell me he didn't do it. Of course he did it! Who else did?”

We weren't prepared to answer.

”I'm sure Absalom didn't do it, Mr. b.u.t.ts,” said Justice earnestly. ”I'd stake a whole lot on it.”

”Well, I wouldn't, you can better believe!” answered Mr. b.u.t.ts. ”He did it, and I'm going to take it out of him.” He began to march Absalom off toward the house, urging him along with a box on the ear that nearly felled him to the ground.

Justice did it so quickly that I never will be able to tell just what it was, but in a minute there stood Elijah b.u.t.ts rubbing his wrist and wearing the most surprised look I ever saw on the face of a man, and there sat Absalom on the ground half a dozen yards away.

”Beat it back to our shack, Absalom,” called Justice. ”I guess the climate's a little too hot around here for you just yet.”

Absalom needed no second bidding. He sped down the road away from his paternal mansion as if the whole German army was after him.

”When you can treat your son like a human being he'll come back,” said Justice to Mr. b.u.t.ts.

”He don't need to come back,” said Mr. b.u.t.ts sourly, but with fury carefully toned down. Justice's use of an uncanny j.a.panese wrestling trick to wrench Absalom out of his vise-like grasp had created a vast respect in him. He wasn't quite sure what Justice was going to do next, and eyed him warily for a possible attack in the rear. ”He don't need to come back,” he mumbled stubbornly, ”until he either says he did it and takes what's coming to him, or finds out who did do it.” Growling to himself he went toward the house and we drove off to overtake Absalom.

”Daggers and dirks!” exclaimed Justice. ”Old b.u.t.ts sure is some knotty piece of timber to drive screws into!”

It was a rather dejected trio that Sandhelo, frisking in the morning air, carried back to the house. Justice, I could see, was trying to figure out by calculus the probable result of having jiu-jitsu-ed the president of the school board; I was sorry for Absalom and Absalom was sorry for himself. Once I caught him looking at me pleadingly.

”_You_ don't think I done it?” he asked anxiously.

”Not for a minute!” I answered heartily, smiling into his eyes.

He looked down, in a shame-faced way, and then he suddenly put his arm around my neck. ”I'm sorry I treated you so horrid,” he murmured. Think of it! Absalom, the bully, the one-time bane of my existence, the fly in the ointment, riding down the road with his arm around my neck, and me standing up for him against the world! Don't things turn out queerly, though? Who would ever have thought it possible, six months ago?

Absalom and I had quite a few long talks in the days that followed. He confided to me his hatred of lessons and his ambition to raise horses.

Father let him help him as much as he liked, and promised him a job on the place any time he wanted it. Absalom seemed utterly transformed. He fooled around the horses day and night and showed a knack of handling them that proved beyond a doubt that he had chosen his profession wisely.