CHAPTER IX
Jim rapped on the door of Zaanan Frame’s office. At the last minute he had been of two minds whether he should go in or pass on about his business. The sound of his own knuckles on the panel decided him.
“Come in,” called Zaanan’s voice.
Jim entered and saw the old justice sitting behind his desk, a sheep-bound volume propped up before him. Over the top of this a pair of sharp blue eyes shaded by bushy eyebrows, each of which would have gladdened the heart of an ambitious young roan could he have had it for a mustache, peered at Jim.
“Huh!” snorted Zaanan.
“You’ve made it pretty evident,” Jim said, stiffly, “that you don’t like me. I can’t say I have felt any uncontrollable affection for you—”
“Whoa there!” said Zaanan, closing his book, Tiffany’s Justices’ Guide, which he maintained to be the greatest contribution to human knowledge, especially of the law, since Moses received the tablets of stone. “Young feller, if you hain’t too young to learn, lemme tell you it’s possible to ketch more flies with maple sugar than you kin with stummick bitters. Jest smooth down the hair along your back and don’t go walkin’ round me stiff-legged like a dog lookin’ for a fight.” Zaanan’s eyes twinkled. “Now, then, set and onbosom yourself.”
“I’ve come to see you, Judge, because I have been assured that friend or enemy can trust you—”
“The Widder Stickney’s been flappin’ her wings and cacklin’,” observed Zaanan. “Um! I figgered you’d be to see me—or else you wouldn’t. Gittin’ ready to kick out, but you need a wall to lean against, eh?”
“Kick out? What makes you think I’m getting ready to kick out? And at whom?”
“‘Whom,’” quoted Zaanan. “I’ve heard of that there word. It’s grammar, hain’t it, but I dun’no’s I ever expected to hear it spoke in Diversity. How’s the meals to the widder’s?”
“Very good, indeed,” said Jim, nonplussed.
“You hain’t the only boarder, I hear tell.”
“No; Miss Ducharme is there, too.”
“I want to know,” said Zaanan, his eyes twinkling again. “Makes it pleasanter, I calc’late—you two young folks together.”
“I think Miss Ducharme could bear up under the blow if I were to board some place else.”
“Um!” said Zaanan. “Mill hain’t runnin’ very good, I hear.”
“That’s what I came to see you about—that and other things.”
“Good mill, hain’t it? New machines? Ought to run, hadn’t it?”
“It ought to and it’s going to. But, Judge, it looks a lot as if somebody didn’t want it to.”
“Um! That might mean consid’able and it might mean nothin’. Accordin’ to my notion one of the easiest ways of givin’ information is to think up words that mean what you want to tell and then to say ’em. Beatin’ round the bush may scare up a rabbit, but you hain’t huntin’ rabbits. Eh?”
“Well, then, somebody has been tampering with our machinery to make it break down. Somebody has been driving nails into our logs to dull our saws. Whoever it is has made us shut down five hours in the last three days.”
“You figger somebody’s doin’ it deliberate?”
“Yes.”
“Got any proof?”
Jim laid before the old man such evidence as he had, but it was sufficient. Zaanan wagged his head.
“Calc’late there hain’t no doubt of it. Suspect anybody special?”
“I haven’t any suspicion who is working the mischief, but I have an idea he isn’t doing it for himself.”
“Somebody’s hirin’ him to do it, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Who might it be?”
“There are only two interests who would have any motive in breaking me. One is the organization of clothespin manufacturers. I’m in a fight with them now because they wanted to run my business. The other is the Diversity Hardwood Company.”
“Hum! I figgered from what Welliver said a spell back that he wasn’t tickled to death with you and your doin’s. You hain’t a bit afraid who you’re suspicious of, be you?”
“I’ve got to be suspicious of everybody—and I’m going to be till I know who can be trusted.”
“Kind of suspected me a mite, eh? Figgered I was tarred with the Welliver and Moran stick?”
“I got to thinking pretty hard when I saw you with them the morning after my row with Welliver. You seemed to be pretty good friends.”
“Calc’late we be. Knowed ’em a long time.”
“Judge, you don’t need any more to show you I’ve a bad situation to deal with. I came to you—I don’t just know why I came to you. On impulse, I expect.”
“Sudden Jim,” said Zaanan, with a chuckle.
“You’ve heard that, eh?”
“Yes. You was sayin’ you come to me on impulse. Must ’a’ figgered I’d be some use to you. Nobody’d climb a greased pole if ’twa’n’t for the five-dollar bill tacked on top of it. Was you wantin’ advice or money or the loan of my shot-gun?”
“I think,” said Jim, slowly, “that what brought me here was a vague sort of hope of finding a friend. When a fellow’s up against a fight he feels lonesome. He likes to know there’s somebody besides himself to depend on. I had no reason to expect it—quite the contrary, perhaps. Anyhow, I believe you could help me with this particular problem if you wanted to.”
“Young feller, a justice of the peace has a heap of duties, some set down in the statutes and some that just come nat’ral. I’ve been justice more ’n thirty year, and I calc’late them duties that no legislature ever thought up is the most important. F’r instance, I married Kitty Fox and Pliny Hearter. That was consid’able of a transaction; but it was consid’able more of one to git ’em back to lovin’ and trustin’ after they’d started runnin’ round for a lawyer to git ’em a divorce. The law don’t give me the right to do quite a stretch of the meddlin’ I do; but it sort of appertains to this here office, and I do it. You don’t want nothin’ of me that’s printed in law-books. So far’s bein’ your friend—why, I hain’t makin’ no sich agreements. Friends hain’t made by writin’ out contracts to that effect. I hain’t seen enough of you to git to yearnin’ over you. But I’ll ease your mind some on one p’int—I hain’t actively concerned to do you no harm. Also, I hain’t got no prejudices ag’in you.”
Jim shrugged his shoulders. “It was a ridiculous sort of notion for me to come like this, without any idea what I wanted. I need help, but what kind of help I don’t know. Anyhow, I’m glad you’re not with the enemy, whoever they are.”
“You mentioned names—on suspicion. One of the onhealthiest habits a man ever got into. I’ve knowed folks to die of it. You’ve figgered out for yourself who’s after your pelt, and why. But you hain’t got no more proof than ol’ man Simpkins had when he wanted me to git leetle Georgie Reed up before me for stealin’ melons. The ol’ man missed a big melon—next day Georgie was bein’ doctored for stummick-ache. ’Twa’n’t out of reason. It was evidence I was willin’ to weigh and pass on in private. I calc’late Georgie et that melon. But as a court of law I couldn’t do nothin’ but declare Simpkins ’u’d have to show plainer proofs. That’s your fix. But, young feller, if I was you I calc’late I’d kinder keep my specs wiped clean and I wouldn’t let my hair grow down over my ears to speak of. G’-by.”
Jim was astonished. Never had he been thus bruskly dismissed. He strode out of the office; but a sense of humor came to his rescue. He turned and bade the old justice good afternoon. Zaanan did not appear to hear.
Zaanan turned the pages of Tiffany’s Justices’ Guide for fifteen minutes after Jim’s departure. Then he raised his voice in a call for Dolf Springer. Dolf, it happened, was whittling on Zaanan’s doorstep. It was his custom to do so during Zaanan’s office hours, for Dolf desired greatly to be useful to the dictator of Diversity County’s politics. Dolf’s ambition carried him so high as to make him covet the office of pathmaster. Therefore he lay in wait for opportunities to serve Zaanan.
“Perty busy, Dolf?” Zaanan asked. “Time all took up to-day?”
“Got a while to spare, Judge.”
“Think of takin’ a drive, Dolf? Eh? Was that what you was plannin’ on?”
“I was goin’ out for a spell.”
“Um! What direction, Dolf? Didn’t happen to be goin’ out the River Road, did you?”
“That’s exactly where I was goin’. Had a errant out that way.”
“Take you far, Dolf? So far you couldn’t git back to-night?”
“It might, Judge.”
“Wa’n’t goin’ far’s Gilder’s, was you—up back of the Company’s Camp Three?”
“Goin’ a leetle past there, Judge.”
“Um! Know Gilders?”
“Calc’late to.”
“If you was to see him, Dolf, d’ you figger on stoppin’ for a chat? And if you do, what be you goin’ to talk about?”
“I’d mention I hadn’t seen him for a long spell.”
“To be sure.”
“And I’d mention I seen you to-day.”
“Uh-huh. S’pose it would occur to you to say somethin’ to the effect that it looked like business was pickin’ up and stirrin’ times was comin’? Eh? And that fellers with an ax to grind had better git out the grindstone? Eh?”
“Come to think of it, I guess I’d make some sich observation.”
“And would you kind of speak about the new clothespin-mill? And allude to how the whistle’s always tootin’ for it to shut down on account of somethin’ bustin’?”
“It ’u’d be int’restin’ news to Gilders.”
“’Twouldn’t be any more ’n nat’ral for you to wonder what was the cause of it? Eh? Might suggest that somebody up his way could explain it. ’Twouldn’t be s’rprisin’, would it?”
“Likely to be so,” said Dolf.
“G’-by, Dolf,” said Zaanan.
“G’-by, Judge,” said Dolf.
In ten minutes Dolf was driving a livery rig out the River Road. A twelve-mile ride lay before him, and he did not lag. Some hours later he stopped, tied his horse to a tree by the roadside and plunged into the woods—jack-pine, scrub-oak, underbrush. Fifteen minutes’ scrambling brought him to an insignificant clearing with a log shanty in the middle of it. He stopped cautiously and looked about. Then he called: “Steve! Hey, Steve Gilders!”
A man, perhaps forty-five years old, stood by the shanty door. A moment before the space had been empty. He did not seem to come to that spot from anywhere, but simply to be there all at once. He was what our grandmothers would have called a “fine figger” of a man. Upward of six feet two inches he was, and handsome of feature. The handsomeness was marred by a somberness, a sternness of demeanor.
The admiration he excited was chilled by the rifle he carried under his arm—and the manner in which he carried it. It explained why Dolf had taken the precaution to call before he ventured near.
“What’s wanted?” inquired Gilders.
“Zaanan Frame sent me.”
The man’s face relaxed. “Then you’re welcome. Come in.”
Dolf followed him. “Zaanan sent a message, but I can’t make head or tail to it,” he said.
“Probably ’twa’n’t intended you should,” said Gilders.
“Anyhow,” Dolf said, “Zaanan he told me to come a-drivin’ out here and say to you that fellers with a ax to grind had better git their grindstone out; and that business was pickin’ up and stirrin’ times was ahead; and that the new clothespin-mill was havin’ trouble with its machinery and somebody up this here way might be able to explain what was the matter. Don’t seem like much of a message to drive twelve miles to deliver.”
“Huh! Goin’ right back?”
“Zaanan acted like he wanted me to stay till mornin’.”
“Git your hoss then. You kin sleep here.”
Dolf went obediently after his animal. Steve Gilders shut his eyes and smiled. It was a peculiar thing to see. Somehow it was not reassuring, but exceedingly sinister. He had read Zaanan’s message correctly. He knew what to do.
When Dolf came back Gilders was gone, nor did Dolf see his host again that night. But that worried Dolf very little. Indeed, it must be said he slept more comfortably for Gilders’s absence.
At sunrise Gilders appeared out of the woods, strode lithely into the shanty, laboriously wrote a letter to Zaanan—which he sealed carefully—and delivered it to Dolf.
“I calc’late you’d better make tracks for town,” he said.
Dolf did not argue the matter.