Part 14 (1/2)

And read it the clerk did, in monotonous singsong. Graham sat clinching his fists and his teeth, and looking straight at Frost as the reading was finished. The latter, uneasily s.h.i.+fting in his chair, still looked anywhere else around the room.

”Do you wish to say anything, Graham?” asked the mayor, in answer to the appeal in d.i.c.k's eyes.

”I do, sir. That statement is a lie almost from beginning to end. I had no quarrel, no words with Mr. Morrow that Sunday evening--never spoke to him at all. It was Frost himself who was with him at the mill before supper. As to the rest of the evening I know nothing of what happened.

When I got home, and put up the horse and buggy, it must have been long after ten. Then I found the east door of the mill was open, and went in and found everything dark and quiet; came out and locked the door (but never went into the office), and took the key up to the mill-house, and hung it up on the hook in the hall. I supposed Mr. Morrow was asleep in bed. Then I went home and burned some old letters and papers and packed some things in my bag. I was going away for good--I've told the doctor and the minister why--they know well enough--and I called Frost; he owed me twenty dollars, and I needed it, and woke him up, if he was asleep, and asked him for it, and the very money he gave me was in those five-dollar bills. I never burned my overalls. I _did_ lose my handkerchief somewhere about the house that night, and never missed it until I was gone; and I never had my revolver until just before I took my bag and started, and never knew until days afterwards--way up the Northern Pacific--that one of the chambers was emptied. As for the murder, I never heard of it until I was arrested.”

”Mr. Frost,” said the mayor, ”you made no mention in your evidence of paying money to the prisoner.”

”Certainly not,” said Frost, promptly, but his eyes glittered, and his face was white as a sheet. ”Nothing of the kind happened. That money came direct from the mill safe.”

”How do you know?”

”Well--of course--I don't know that; but it is my belief.”

”Mr. Frost, there was no mention in your testimony of a violent altercation between yourself and the late Mr. Morrow at the mill that evening after Graham came in town with the ladies. Why did you omit that?”

He was livid now, and the strong, white hands were twitching nervously.

All eyes were fastened upon him as he stood confronting the mayor, his back towards the hallway, where, in grim silence, stood Mr. Morrow.

”I know of no such altercation,” he stammered.

”Were you ever accused of being a deserter from the army?”

Every one saw the nervous start he gave, but, though haggard and wild, he stuck to his false colors.

”Never, sir.”

”That's a lie,” said a deep voice out in the hall, and at the unconventional interruption there was a general stir. Men leaned forward and craned their necks to peer behind Mr. Morrow, who stood there immovable.

”Order, gentlemen, if you please,” said Mr. Lowrie.

”Then how and where did you know Sam Morrow, as you convinced his father you did?”

”I?--out in Arizona, where I was mining.”

”Why did you not fulfil your promise, as you said you could and would?”

”I couldn't. That was what made the old man down on me. I did believe last winter I could find Sam and get him home, but I could not bear to tell the old man he was killed with General Custer.”

”That's another lie!” came from the hallway, and, brus.h.i.+ng past Mr.

Morrow's squat figure, there strode into the room a tall, bronzed-faced, soldierly fellow in the undress uniform of a sergeant of cavalry.

Men sprang to their feet and fairly shouted. Old Doctor Green threw his arms about the soldier's neck in the excess of his joy. There was a rush forward from the post-office doorway to greet him, a cry of ”Sam Morrow!” and then another cry--a yell--a scurry and crash at the kitchen entrance. ”Quick! Head him off! Catch him!” were the cries, and then came a dash into the open air.

With a spring like that of a panther Frost had leaped into the unguarded kitchen, thence to the fence beyond, and now was running like a deer through the quiet village street towards the railway. A hundred men were in pursuit in a moment, and in that open country there was no shelter for skulking criminal, no lair in which he could hide till night. In half an hour, exhausted, half dead with terror and despair, the wretched man was dragged back, and now, limp and dejected, cowered in the presence of his accusers.