IN PRISON
Hiram Mason managed with difficulty to drive the first two miles of forest road—over roots and stumps, through ruts and mud-holes, and with no light but that of a waning moon. When he reached Timber Creek bridge he got down and led the horse on its unsteady floor. Then came, like a dark spot in the pale moonlight, the log school-house, which reminded him that he was running away from his day's work. He stopped at the new log-house of John Buchanan, a Scotch farmer who had been one of his predecessors, and called him up to beg him to take his place. Buchanan, whose knowledge was of the rudimentary kind, had ceased to teach because he had not been able to meet the increased demands of the patrons of the school; it was a sort of consolation to his thwarted ambition to resume the beech-scepter if only for a day.
When Buchanan's house had been left behind, the road passed into an outskirt of small poplars, and then finally shook off this outer fringe of forest and lay straight away over the dead level of the great prairie. By the time the wagon reached this point the dawn was beginning to reveal the landscape, though as yet the world consisted only of masses of shadow interspersed with patches of a somber gray. But the smooth road was sufficiently discernible for Hiram to put the horse into a trot, which afforded no little relief to the impatient Barbara. Up to this time they had traveled in silence, except for the groans and sighs of Mrs. Grayson. But at length Barbara took the lead.
"I can't believe that Tom did that shooting," she said to Mason. "He promised me after supper last night that he would put all hard feelings against George Lockwood out of his mind. Tom is n't the kind of a fellow to play the hypocrite. Oh, I do hope he is innocent!"
"So do I," said Mason.
"To be sure he is," said Mrs. Grayson, with a touch of protest in her voice.
Barbara had detected a note of effort in Hiram's reply, that indicated a prevailing doubt of Tom's innocence, and she did not speak again during the whole ride. When they entered the village, Mason drove first to the sheriff's house, and went in, leaving Barbara and her mother in the wagon. Sheriff Plunkett had not yet had his breakfast. He was a well-built man, of obliging manners, but with a look of superfluous discreetness in his face. Mason explained in few words that the mother and sister of Tom Grayson, who had not seen him since the shooting of Lockwood, were at the door in a wagon and wished to be admitted to the jail. The sheriff regarded Mason awhile in silence; it was his habit to examine the possible results of the simplest action before embarking in it. He presently went upstairs and came down bringing with him the jail keys. Mason drove the wagon to the jail, tied the horse to a tree, and suggested to Mrs. Grayson and Barbara that it would be better for him to go in first. He had a vague fear that there might be something in Tom's situation to shock the feelings of his mother and sister. The sheriff had walked briskly along the wagon track in the middle of the street to avoid the dew-laden grass on either side of the road. When he came to the door of the jail he said in an undertone as he shoved the great iron key into the door:
"Tom's in the dungeon."
"Why did you put him in the dungeon?" asked Mason.
"We always put prisoners accused of murder in there."
"You might put an innocent man in that place," said Mason.
"Well, there ain't much doubt about Tom's being guilty; and anyways the jail's so weak that we have to put anybody accused of murder in the dungeon, where there ain't any outside windows."
By the time he had finished this speech, Plunkett had admitted Mason and himself to the jail and locked the outside door behind them. The prison was divided into two apartments by a hall-way through the middle. The room to the left, as one entered, was called the dungeon; it was without any light except the little that came through at second-hand from the dusky hall by means of a small grating in the door; the hall itself was lighted by a simple grated window at the end farthest from the outside door.
When the sheriff had with difficulty opened the door of the dungeon, he could not see anything inside.
"Tom, come out," he called.
Mason was barely acquainted with Tom, but he was shocked to see the fine-looking fellow in handcuffs as he came to the door, blinking his eyes at the light, and showing a face which wounded pride and anxiety had already begun to make haggard.
"Mr. Mason, I didn't expect to see you," said Tom. "Did you hear anything from mother and Barbara?"
"They're outside," said Mason. "I thought I'd just take your place at home for a few days."
The sheriff had gone along the hall to open the door leading into the room on the side opposite the dungeon. Tom regarded Mason a moment in silence, and presently said with emotion:
"How can I make anybody believe the truth? They'll say that a man who'd kill another would lie about it. I believe I should n't care so much about the danger of being hung, if I could only make a few people know that I did n't kill George Lockwood. I can't make you believe it, but I'm not guilty." As he said this, Tom dropped his eyes from Mason's face, and an expression of discouragement overspread his own.
"You certainly don't seem like a guilty man," said Hiram.
"The worst of it is," said Tom, as they followed the sheriff into the eastern room of the jail, "I can't think, to save my life, who 'twas that could have done the shooting. I don't know of any enemy that Lockwood had, unless you might have called me one. I hated him and talked like a fool about shooting, but I never seriously thought of such a thing."
The eastern room of the wretched little jail was about fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long. In it were confined from time to time ordinary prisoners and occasionally lunatics, without separation on account of character or sex. Fortunately Tom had the jail now to himself.
The sheriff, who in those days was also the jailer, locked Mason and Tom in the eastern room while he opened the outside door and admitted Mrs. Grayson and Barbara to the hall. Then he locked the front door behind them and proceeded to unlock the door of the eastern room. Barbara ran in eagerly and threw her arms about Tom.
"Tell me truly, Tom," she whispered in his ear, "did you do it? Tell me the solemn truth, between you and me."
