Part 23 (1/2)

CHAPTER XX

The first days of October were at hand, and the court session at which Emerson Mead was to be tried for the murder of Will Whittaker would soon open. The supreme court of the territory was sitting at Santa Fe, and its decision upon the shrievalty would be announced in a few days.

The flames of partisan feeling were already breaking out in Las Plumas. The dividing line of Main street had begun to be drawn, although fitfully as yet, and conveniently forgotten if business called to the other an occupant of either side. But in the matter of mint juleps, c.o.c.ktails, and the swapping of yarns Main street stretched its dusty length between Republicans and Democrats as grim and impa.s.sable as a mountain barrier. On both sides there were meaning glances and significant nods and half-spoken threats of a.s.sault and resistance. The Democrats professed to believe that the Republicans were determined to hold the office of sheriff through the trial of Emerson Mead, whatever should be the decision, in order that they might find some means to end his life should the court discharge him.

The Republicans insisted that the Democrats were planning to seize the office by hook or by crook before the trial should begin in order that they might allow him to escape. And each side declared, with angry eyes and set teeth, that the other should not be allowed to thwart justice, if the streets of Las Plumas had to be paved with dead men.

Judge Harlin sent word to Mead's ranch, asking Nick Ellhorn to come into town as soon as possible, and telegraphed to Tom Tuttle at Santa Fe to return to Las Plumas at once. But it happened that Tom was chasing an escaped criminal in the Gran Quivera country, far from railroads and telegraphs, and that Nick was out on the range and did not receive the message until nearly a week later.

Nick had settled the matter of the Chinaman's queue on his last visit to Las Plumas, two weeks before, but not to his entire satisfaction.

Judge Harlin had refused to conduct his suit for the recovery of the queue against Harry Gillam, the district attorney, and Nick had declared that he would be his own lawyer and get that ”scalp,” if it ”took till he was gray headed.” Secretly, he was glad that Judge Harlin would not take the case, because he had an active animosity against Harry Gillam, mainly because Gillam wore a silk hat, and he thought that, as his own lawyer, he could contrive to cast enough ridicule on the district attorney to set the whole town laughing and make Gillam so angry that he would lose his temper and want to fight.

So he set about preparing his case, with advice and suggestion from Judge Harlin, who, while he did not wish to be openly connected with the matter, was very willing to see Gillam, who was a Republican and the judge's chief professional rival, made a laughing stock and brought to grief. And he knew that the case, with Nick Ellhorn at the helm, would be the funniest thing that had happened in Las Plumas for many a day. Ellhorn's plans began to be whispered about. Presently the whole town was chuckling and smiling in antic.i.p.ation of the fun there would be at the trial. Gillam fidgeted in nervous apprehension for several days; then he put the pig tail in his pocket, hunted up Ellhorn and invited him to have a drink. As they drained their gla.s.ses he exclaimed:

”Oh, by the way, Nick, are you really in earnest about that fool suit you've filed against me?”

”You mean about my Chiny pigtail?” asked Ellhorn.

”About the Chinaman's queue, yes.”

”You bet I am. That blamed thing's cost me a whole heap more'n it's worth to anybody except me and the Chinaman. I reckon he's sold it to me for that five hundred dollars. It's mine, and I mean to have it. I sure reckon I naturalized one heathen when I took that scalp. There's one bias-eyed fan-tanner that won't pull his freight for Chiny as soon as he gets his pockets full of good American money. I reckon I was a public benefactor when I sheared that washee-washee, and I deserve the pig tail as a decoration for my services. No, sir, the scalp's mine, by every count you can mention, and you'll have to give it up.”

”Is the queue all you want?”

”If that's all you've got that belongs to me.”

”Well, then, take it, and stop your jacka.s.sing about the fool thing,”

said Gillam, holding out the queue.

”The h.e.l.l you say!” Nick exclaimed, quite taken aback and much disappointed.

”Yes, here it is. And I call these gentlemen to witness that I offer it to you freely and without any conditions.”

So Nick reluctantly took the braid and gave up his case against Gillam. ”It was just like the blamed whelp,” he complained to Judge Harlin, ”to back down and spoil all the fun, but it's no more than you might expect from a man that wears a stove-pipe.” Harry Gillam was the only man in Las Plumas who wished, or dared to wear a silk hat, and his taste in the matter of headgear gave constant edge to Ellhorn's feeling of contempt and aversion. ”I'm blamed sorry for it,” Nick went on, ”for I sure reckon half the kids in town would have been shyin'

rocks at that plug before the trial was over.”

”I guess he was buffaloed,” he said later, as he finished giving an account of the affair to Emerson Mead. ”It was the meanest sort of a backdown you ever saw, but it just showed the fellow's gait. A man with no more grit than that had better go back east, where he can wear a stove-pipe hat without lookin' like a fool, which he sure is.”

”What made you so determined to have the thing, Nick?” Mead asked, examining the braid.

Nick gave a twist to the ends of his mustache and looked contemplatively at the ceiling. ”Well,” he said slowly, and there were signs of the Irish roll in his voice, ”it was my scalp. I took it, first, and then I was after payin' for it. Sure and I wanted it, Emerson, to remind me not to mix my drinks again. It's my pledge to take whisky straight and beer the next day. And I sure reckon whenever I look at it I'll say to myself, 'Nick, you've been a blooming, blasted, balky, blithering, bildaverous idiot once too often. Don't you do it again.'”

Notwithstanding his feeling about it, Ellhorn went away and forgot the earnest of his future good behavior. Emerson smiled that evening as he saw it trailing its snaky length over the back of a chair and stuffed it in the side pocket of his coat, thinking he would give it to Ellhorn the next time his friend should come to the jail.

Judge Harlin thought Emerson Mead unaccountably despondent about the probable outcome of his trial, and at times even indifferent to his fate. He wondered much why this man, formerly of such buoyant and determined nature, should suddenly collapse, in this weak-kneed fas.h.i.+on, lose all confidence in himself, and seem to care so little what happened to him. The lawyer finally decided that it was all on account of his client's honesty and uprightness of character, which would not allow him, being guilty, to make an effort to prove that he was not, and he lived in daily expectation of an order from Mead to change his plea to guilty. The time was drawing near for the opening of the case when Judge Harlin one day hurried excitedly to the jail for a conference with Mead.

”Emerson,” he said, ”some member of the last grand jury has been leaking, and it has come to my ears that testimony was given there by some one who declared he saw you kill Whittaker. And I've just found out that the other side has got a witness, presumably the same one, who will swear to the same thing.”