Part 48 (1/2)

”Presumably you wish to punish all those guilty of the conspiracy that ended in Senator Goebel's death,” went on the mountain man in a hard voice. ”I say presumably, because the Commonwealth has heretofore appeared to discriminate among the accused.”

The attorney bridled. ”As to Governor Goebel's death,” he a.s.serted heatedly, and in the very employment of the widely different t.i.tles the two men proclaimed their ant.i.thesis of political creed and opinion, ”my record speaks for itself. My sincerity needs no defence.”

”That you can prove. Saul Fulton is under indictment in your court. He forfeited his bond and went to South America with or without your knowledge. He has come back, and I am prepared to direct your deputy sheriff to his hiding place. If he got away without your knowledge you ought to be glad to have this news. If you winked at his going, I mean to put you on record.”

Boone Wellver had not seated himself. He still stood, with a stony face out of which the eyes burned unnaturally, and the Commonwealth's attorney took a step forward, his own cheeks grown livid with anger, so that the two men stood close and eye-to-eye.

”In this fas.h.i.+on I permit no man to address me,” said the prosecutor, with his voice hard-schooled to evenness. ”You have come to my house to insult me, and I order you to leave it.”

For a moment Boone remained motionless. Between him and the man across from him swam spots of red; then words came with a coldly affronting yet quiet ferocity:

”I am not surprised, but I've done what decency demanded. I ... gave you your chance ... and you repudiated it ... like the charlatan you are.

This man shall die ... but it was your duty and your right ... to know first.”

He turned on his heel and opened the door, and the man in the smoking jacket gazed after him in amazement. Evidently, the truculent visitor was not himself, and there was no virtue in quarrelling with a temporary madman. Boone knew only that he had invoked the law and the law had rebuffed him. He could not see that his reception, however just his mission, was inevitable since he had invited it with insult.

Back at his room he found another guest awaiting him. It was Joe Gregory, who had also come from the hills. Boone had reached that point at which surprise ends, and to this man, who was a kinsman and a deputy sheriff in Marlin County, he gave as cursory a greeting as though he had come only from the next street.

But Joe's grave face, in which character and sense spoke from every strongly drawn lineament, was disturbed, and he went without preamble to his point. Down there in the hills trouble was brewing, and among both Gregories and Carrs a restive feeling stirred. Fellows walked with chips on their shoulders as though each side were seeking to invite from the other some overt act of truce-breaking. Joe had sought to a.n.a.lyze the causes of this seemingly chance rebirth of long-quiet animosities. He had learned of Saul's return, but Saul was lying low and most men did not know of his presence. It must be, then, that from his hiding place that intriguer was inciting a spirit of truculence in the Carrs to which the Gregories were automatically responding. If that went on it meant the breaking out of the ”war” afresh--and a renewal of bloodshed. The bearer of tidings ended his narrative with an appeal based on strong trust.

”Boone, thar's jest one man kin quiet our boys down and stop 'em short of mortal mischief, I reckon. They all trusts _you_.”

”Will they all follow me?”

”Straight inter h.e.l.l, they will!”

”And yet you think”--Boone looked full into the direct eyes of the other with a glint of challenge in his own--”yet you think I ought to quiet them instead of leading them?”

”Leading them which way, Boone? Whatever ther rest aims at, you an' me, we stan's fer law and peace, don't we? That's what you've always drilled into me, like gospel.”

To his astonishment Joe had, for answer, a mirthless, almost derisive, laugh--a laugh that was barked.

”So far we've stood for that, and what have we gained?” Boone's mood, which had been all day seething like the imprisoned fire-flood of a volcano, burst now in lava-flow through the ruptured crater of repression. ”Asa abided by the law seven years and more ago--didn't he?

Well, he's rotted in a cell ever since! Saul Fulton played with the law and the law played with him and paid him Judas money and made him rich!

You say they'll follow me. Then, before G.o.d in heaven, I'll lead them to a cleansing by fire! When we finish the job, those murderers and perjurers will be done for once and for all!”

”And you,” the deputy sheriff reminded him soberly, ”you'll be plumb ruint.”

”I'm ruined now.”

It was not a handsome room in which the two men stood, and Boone had taken it with a provident eye to its cheapness, but it was in a hotel stone-built in the times of long ago, and from the days of Henry Clay and John C. Breckinridge to the time when Goebel died there history had had birth between those heavy walls.

In the cheaply furnished bedroom whose paper was faded, the observant eyes of Joe Gregory had caught one detail that struck his simple interest, even in the surge of weightier tides.

A ma.s.sive silver photograph frame lay face downward on the table as though it had been inadvertently over-turned.