Part 7 (2/2)
It was still only a scant hour since daybreak. Heavy, low-hanging clouds in the east, gray with threatening rain, cut off any warmth there might have been in the rising sun and sharpened the raw wind to a knifelike edge. The man on the truck was too engrossed with the thoughts that shook his plump shoulders in regularly recurring, silent chuckles, and a ludicrously doleful effort to shut off with upturned collar the draft from the back of his neck, to hear the boy's approaching footsteps. He started guiltily to his feet in the very middle of a spasmodic upheaval, to stand and stare questioningly at the big figure whose fingers had plucked tentatively at his elbow, until a sudden, delighted recognition flooded his face. Then he reached out one pudgy hand with eager cordiality.
”Why, greetings--greetings!” he exclaimed. ”Didn't quite recognize you with your--er--decoration.” His eyes dwelt in frank inquisitiveness upon the ragged red bruise across Young Denny's chin. ”You're the member who stood near the door last night, aren't you--the one who didn't join to any marked degree in the general jubilee?”
Young Denny's big, hard hand closed over the outstretched pudgy white one. He grinned a little and slowly nodded his head.
”Thought so,” the man in brown rambled blithely on, ”and glad to see you again. Glad of a chance to speak to you! I wanted most mightily to ask you a few pertinent questions last night, but it hardly seemed a fitting occasion.”
He tapped Young Denny's arm with a stubby forefinger, one eyelid drooping quizzically.
”_Entre nous_--just 'twixt thee and me,” he went on, ”and not for publication, was this Jeddy Conway, as you knew him, all that your eminent citizenry would lead a poor gullible stranger to believe, or was he just a small-sized edition of the full-blown crook he happens to be at the present stage of developments? Not that it makes any difference here,” he tapped the big notebook under his arm, ”but I'm just curious, a little, because the Jed The Red whom I happen to know is so crooked nowadays that his own manager is afraid to place a bet on him half the time. See?”
Denny smiled comprehendingly. He s.h.i.+fted his big body to a more comfortable and far less awkward position.
”I see,” he agreed.
Somehow, where it would have been an utter impossibility to have spoken lightly to him the night before, he found it very easy now to understand and meet half way the frivolity of the fat, grinning man before him.
”Well, when he left town about eight years ago, his going was just a trifle hasty. He--he took about everything there was in the cash-drawer of Benson's store with him--except maybe a lead slug or two--and there are some who think he only overlooked those.”
The gurgle of sheer delight that broke from the lips of the man in brown was spontaneously contagious.
”Just about as your servant had it figured out last night,” he fairly chirped. Then he slipped one hand through the crook of Denny's elbow.
”I guess I'll have to take a chance on you. It's too good to keep all to myself.” He led the way back to the empty truck. ”And you ought to be safe, too, for judging from the sentiments that were expressed after you left last night, you--er--don't run very strong with this community, either.”
Again he paused, his eyelid c.o.c.ked in comical suggestion. Instead of narrowing ominously, as they might have twelve hours before, Denny's own eyes lighted appreciatively at the statement. He even waited an instant while he pondered with mock gravity.
”I reckon,” he drawled finally, ”that I'll have to confess that I've never been what you might call a general favorite.”
The newspaper man's head lifted a little. He flashed a covertly surprised glance at the boy's sharp profile. It was far from being the sort of an answer that he had expected.
”No, you certainly are not,” he emphasized, and then he opened the flat notebook with almost loving care across his knees.
Young Denny, with the first glimpse he caught of that very first page, comprehended in one illuminating flash the cause of those m.u.f.fled chuckles which had convulsed that rounded back when he turned the corner of the station-shed a moment before; he even remembered that half-veiled mirth in the eyes of the man who had sat balanced upon the desk in the Tavern office the night before and understood that, too.
For the hurriedly penciled sketch, which completely filled the first page of the notebook, needed no explanation--not even that of the single line of writing beneath it, which read:
”I always said he'd make the best of 'em hustle--yes, sir, the very best of 'em!”
It was a picture of Judge Maynard--the Judge Maynard whom Young Denny knew best of all--unctuous of lip and furtively calculating of eye.
For all the haste of its creation it was marvelously perfect in detail, and as he stared the corners of the boy's lips began to twitch until his teeth showed white beneath. The fat man grinned with him.
”Get it, do you?” he chuckled. ”Get it, eh?”
And with the big-shouldered figure leaning eagerly nearer he turned through page after page to the end.
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