LIGHTNIN', IN HIS FADED G. A. R. UNIFORM ... LISTENED ATTENTIVELY
"Don't you think it's enough?" There was admonition in his manner, but there was a certain gentleness in his voice and a smile of sympathy lurked at the corners of his mouth. It was difficult for Lemuel Townsend, who knew the lovable side of the careless old man, but he was determined to maintain the dignity and the integrity of the law, and he knew that he must remain unbiased, no matter how strong his feeling was that here there had been sad tampering with truth and the finer essences of happiness.
His severity did not touch Bill. His sense of humor, always close to the surface, asserted itself. A gleam that was half derision, half amusement, lighted his eyes as he grinned up at the judge. "Sounded as if there was more the first time."
Marvin again stood before the judge. He knew that Bill had no one to defend him and he had not felt the necessity of offering himself. He just took it for granted that Bill would turn to him in the dilemma and so he took the case in his hands. "I am counsel for the defendant, your Honor," he said, "and he is entering a general denial."
"Are you counsel for the defense?" Townsend's astonishment was evident in his long-drawn inflection. He had not heard of Marvin's admission to the bar. Neither had he seen the young man about lately, and the whole situation puzzled him.
Before Marvin could answer him, Bill was out of his seat, replying for him, "Yes, sir, he is my lawyer."
It was not the judge's way to admit himself baffled. Turning to Thomas, he instructed him to call his witnesses.
Marvin took a seat in front of Bill at the attorneys' table, while Bill on the edge of his chair leaned forward expectantly, his eyes fastened not on Thomas, but upon his wife, who sat with her head bowed and her eyes staring into her lap.
Thomas beckoned to Mrs. Jones, calling her name.
As she arose, Hammond, who sat next to Thomas on the other side of the table from Marvin and Bill, and who had appeared indifferent and bored so far in the proceedings, jumped to his feet, dismay written on every feature, and hastened to whisper in his partner's ear: "Are you crazy? The most dangerous thing you can do, now that old Jones is in court, is to call her to the stand."
Thomas in his vaunted shrewdness had overlooked this possibility, but now that Hammond mentioned it to him he saw what disastrous complications Mrs. Jones's presence on the witness-stand might lead to. Nodding in answer to Hammond's counsel, he again turned to Mrs. Jones, saying, "I don't think it will be necessary for you to testify at all, Mrs. Jones." As she sat down, he smiled at Millie, addressing her, "Miss Buckley, will you take the stand, please?"
Millie had not expected to be called, and as she arose at his summons her face flushed with embarrassment. She stood still momentarily and her eyes met Marvin's for the first time since he had appeared in court. With an angry flash they quickly sought the witness-chair, and, although trembling at the ordeal before her, she made an effort to trip lightly to the stand. As she took her place and was sworn in by the clerk her replies were scarcely audible. Casting frightened glances up through her long lashes at Thomas, she was reassured by a smile. After the preliminary examination as to her adoption by Bill and Mrs. Jones and her residence with them since she was three years old, he began upon the intimate questions which he hoped would weave a web of incriminating evidence against Bill, evidence which would redound to his justification in the part he had played in bringing about the divorce.
"Miss Buckley," he asked, pulling nervously at his cuffs and bringing them down two or three inches below his sleeves, "Mrs. Jones has toiled early and late to provide for the family ever since you can remember, has she not?"
Millie nodded, gazing anxiously at Bill, who, far forward on his chair, was drinking in every word she said. There was a pitiful accusation behind the sadness in the eyes with which he returned her gaze.
As Thomas continued she, like her mother, concentrated her attention on her hands folded tight in her lap.
"Why did you leave home three years ago, Miss Buckley?"
"To earn my living, of course," was the reply, in low, reluctant tones.
"What did you do with your wages?"
Millie hesitated. After taking out barely enough to live on in meager fashion she had sent most of the remainder home, not because either Mrs. Jones or Bill had asked for help, but because she knew how difficult was their living during the long winter months when their only source of income was Bill's pension and the few mountain people who dropped in when passing back and forth and remain overnight and for a meal or so. Had she known that she was to be called as a witness she might even have refused to accompany Mrs. Jones to court, for Bill's derelictions could never outweigh the knowledge that it was he who had saved her from an orphanage. She swallowed the lump in her throat, but even this did not keep back her tears at the thought that her answer might be the betrayal of the old man who had been a father to her through all the years.
Thomas saw her disinclination and understood the condition of mind which prompted it. He knew he must call his persuasive powers to his aid, so he went very close to the witness-stand, and, leaning over her, spoke in his softest tones.
"I am sorry to have to ask these questions, Miss Buckley, because I know how you dread to testify in this case, but it is unavoidable. Will you answer my question? You sent the greater part of your wages home, did you not?" He spoke as if he, too, were distressed.
Millie, falling into the trap, sighed, "Yes, sir."
"And you really left home to earn money in order to help support the Jones family, didn't you?"
Again, overcome by the complications of the situation in which she found herself, she was unable to answer except with a reluctant nod.
"Did you ever see Mrs. Jones's husband drunk?"
As Thomas asked this question he looked toward Bill. Millie did not answer. The tears gathered in her eyes and she wiped them away, burying her face in the handkerchief she held in one of her hands.
Thomas insisted. "You have seen him in that condition hundreds of times, have you not?"
There was a malicious note in his voice this time, as well as in the look he directed at the old man at the table.
Millie caught it, and a slight antagonism crept into her voice as she straightened in her chair, answering, in surprise, "Why, I never counted."
Thomas was deriving a long-desired satisfaction in his prodding of Bill, and it threatened his shrewder self-control. "But he was in the habit of coming home drunk, wasn't he?" There was real glee in the question, but it escaped Millie this time. With a beseeching glance at Thomas, and one which pleaded for forgiveness toward Bill, she said, slowly, "Sometimes."
"And because of the poverty brought about by those bad habits you were obliged to leave—"
Here Millie broke in. Forgetting her embarrassment and the crowded court-room in the realization that words were being put into her mouth, words which fell far short of the truth, she burst out, indignantly: "Why, I never said any such thing! I went away to work because there was no opportunity in Calivada to earn any money, and I thought as long as I was going at all I might just as well go to San Francisco where I could make a salary large enough to take care of myself and to help Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who have been very good to me."
Thomas saw that he had overstepped himself and he groped in his mind for new questions, until a scowl from Hammond reminded him that it might be better to stop rather than to bring out evidence which might turn against them and in favor of Bill. So he dismissed Millie from the stand.
She stood up while Thomas took his place next to Hammond at the table. But Marvin, after a few whispered words with Bill, took Thomas's place by the witness-chair, holding up a detaining hand and calling, "Miss Buckley!"
Millie glared at him, blushed deeply, and walked off the stand. She had not been able to forgive him for his advice to Bill and still held him responsible for Bill's leaving home, as she had felt that if Bill had not been prejudiced against Thomas and Hammond the place would have been sold and they would have all been living together in comfort.
But she did not get very far. As she left the platform Townsend motioned her to return and, submerging his personal friendship for her beneath his judicial duties he exclaimed, severely:
"One moment, Miss Buckley. The counsel for the defense has asked you a question."
Millie turned her back on Marvin as she dropped into the chair again. A smile played on Marvin's lips, but it was a rueful one. To come thus face to face with her in a situation where he was compelled to be her antagonist in order to see that justice was done to his old friend was not a happy ordeal for him.
Townsend knew what was going on between the young people and he felt keenly for them, but it was a part of him to hold to his duty always and not to his own personal biases. His severity did not relax even when Millie pouted: "I don't want to answer his questions! Must I?"
The people in the court-room, interested and amused at the unusual dénouement, went into a peal of laughter which received swift check from the sheriff's gavel. She flushed violently and obeyed Judge Townsend's admonishment that she must answer all of Marvin's questions.
Marvin's first inquiry did not tend to make things any easier for her.
"Who employed you as a stenographer?" he asked. His back was turned to Thomas, but he could feel the latter shifting in his chair.
Finding no mercy in Townsend's manner, she succumbed to the inevitable, snapping, with a toss of her head, "Mr. Thomas!"
"This Mr. Thomas?" Marvin asked.
"Yes," said Millie. There had been nothing in her heart but deepest misery and shame at having to testify against Bill during her examination by Thomas. Now she was fired by a resentment against Marvin, Bill being forced out of the equation. Her answers came in a swift defiance that bespoke a determination to make it as difficult for him as possible. Marvin, seeing at once that she and Mrs. Jones were still plastic in the hands of Thomas and Hammond, was tempted into battle.
"Did Mr. Thomas," he asked, "give you this position because you told him you wanted to be of financial assistance to the Jones family?"
Millie opened her mouth to reply, but Thomas was on his feet at once, objecting to the question.
Facing the judge, Marvin ignored Thomas, saying, "I am quite willing to withdraw it if it is found objectionable, your Honor."
Thomas stepped quickly to Marvin's side. He was a few inches the taller and he glared down at Marvin, who stared back, his jaw set in the resolution to stand firm against the man he knew to be a fraud.
That he was standing on thin ice Thomas knew, and he knew also that bluff was the only feasible strategy to employ against the unforeseen crisis wrought by Bill's sudden and unexpected arrival. "Don't flatter yourself that I mind any question you might ask," he emphasized, "only this one has no bearing on the case."
At this, Townsend sustained the objection. Marvin, resorting to a legal trick, changed the form of the question, for he was bound to prove his point. "Well, Miss Buckley," he asked, "Mr. Thomas has taken an interest in your affairs and given you advice?"
The insinuation was more than Millie could bear calmly. She turned quickly, meeting his eyes in anger as she flashed a significant smile toward Thomas.
"Mr. Thomas has been more than kind to me always. He has given me advice when I had no one else to turn to."
"And you have always followed his advice?"
Following his key, Millie replied, "Always, implicitly, in spite of what others—" and she paused long enough to send a pointed shaft Marvin's way—"have said against him."
Marvin grinned and continued, "Miss Buckley, you have never known Mr. Jones to be cruel or even unkind to his wife, have you?"
An objection from Thomas was overruled, the judge contending that cruelty was one of the grounds in the complaint. As he had forgotten how the question read, he asked the stenographer to repeat it. Millie answered in the negative and Marvin prodded her further, "You have never seen him unkind to any one or anything, have you?"
Gentleness had always been such an ever-present quality in Bill's treatment of Millie that she forgot her anger for the moment and hastened to reply, as she smiled sweetly at Bill, "Daddy has always been most kind to me and every one else."
This was an opportunity to lead her into an admission which might immediately quash all of the grounds of the complaint. Marvin saw it at once and took advantage of it. "Now, Miss Buckley," he argued, "the complaint asks for a divorce on the grounds of drunkenness, failure to provide and cruelty. In all honesty you know that not one of these is the real reason that Mrs. Jones has asked for a divorce, don't you?"
Unused to the ways of the law and its peculiar methods of arriving at conclusions, Millie was perplexed. The only excuse in her mind for the divorce had been that it would bring about the sale of the property and that Mrs. Jones would thereby have sufficient money with which to find Bill, which would mean happiness for the three of them. Had Thomas not intervened with an objection which the judge sustained, she would have given her answer, but as it was she remained silent.
Marvin, determined to prove Bill Jones's simple sweetness, so that he would at least be understood by the world, went to his purpose again.
"Miss Buckley, you know that Mr. Jones loved his wife, loved her devotedly, don't you?" he asked.
Townsend beamed in judicial humor upon Marvin and laughed. "How can she know that? That's not an astute question for a lawyer to ask, and I don't sanction such methods."
The question, however, had brought back a certain softness in Millie's attitude. Forgetting for the moment her dislike of Marvin, she smiled, but to regret it and to efface the smile with a frown.
His examination of Millie had been difficult for Marvin. Into his mind had crowded old memories—happy walks along the cliff in San Francisco, afternoons in Golden Gate Park, and days in the office when he had dared to hope that some day she might learn to care. His heart leaped at the thought of moonlight strolls in the mountain woods and along the shores of the lake. Those were days when she had interested herself in his plans and it all came back to him with desperate force as her unintentional smile awakened a poignant longing within him. A whirlwind of reminiscent emotion caught him in its teeth.
"If it please your Honor," he said, his eyes shining, "there is one thing that a woman does know, and that is whether a man loves her or not! She may believe a man to be a contemptible liar. She may say that she will hate and despise him always, but somehow down in her heart, if he really loves her, she knows it!"
Forgetting that there was such a place as a court-room, or that he was defending a divorce suit against Bill Jones, all he saw was the scorn in the eyes of the girl he loved. All he felt was that he was fighting single-handed against overwhelming odds for his own happiness. He leaned close to the witness-chair and looked into the girl's eyes, and she, seeing in his eyes the thing that she had tried to forget through all the long and sorrowful months, turned away from him, lest she should betray the longing that lurked in her own heart. But Marvin's fervid plea flamed higher and higher and he went on:
"If a woman is a man's ideal—if he would gladly lay down his life for her—she knows it and no matter what she says about him or what anybody else says about him the knowledge that he cares more for her than for anything else in the entire universe must count for something, and I contend, your Honor—"
He got no farther. The whole court-room was in roars of laughter and the sheriff's gavel was knocking loudly on his table. Millie, unable to bear the situation any longer, was sobbing aloud. Townsend arose quickly and, leaning over his desk, shook a warning finger at Marvin.
"Hold on there!" he called, half in humor and half in anger. "Are you trying a divorce case or are you making love?"
The laughter in the court-room began again, but subsided, for there was something in the situation that struck deep into the hearts of the spectators and they knew that, grotesque as it might appear, shattered romance was stalking before them.
Marvin, himself once again, lowered his voice and pleaded, apologetically: "I beg your pardon, your Honor. I did not mean to go so far." Smiling sadly at Millie, he added, "That is all, Miss Buckley."
"I should say it is quite enough!" satirized the judge. "I think we had better get back to business."
Without looking at Marvin, Millie left the stand and took her seat beside her mother. Thomas called Everett Hammond as the next witness.
Hammond, although outwardly nonchalant, was inwardly ill at ease. Marvin's appearance in court followed so closely by Bill's arrival was a contact that puzzled him. Millie's hesitancy as a witness was another feature which he felt was not altogether in favor of the cause of the Golden Gate Land Company. During her testimony he had kept close watch of her mother, who several times wept audibly, burying her face in her handkerchief. He knew that he and Thomas were playing a close game and that the slightest contradiction in his testimony might set Mrs. Jones to thinking in the wrong direction; especially with Bill Jones in the court-room, his eyes divided between the witness-stand and his wife. He assumed an air of bravado as he took the stand, glaring down at Marvin, who was seated not far from him and who was smiling blandly upon him.
Preliminaries over, Thomas launched into Hammond's direct examination. "How long have you known Mr. and Mrs. Jones?" he asked.
"I met them first," Hammond answered, pausing to think, "about seven months ago."
"Kindly tell the court how you happened to meet them."
Hammond, looking at the judge, answered: "I was asked to consider the purchase of a piece of property belonging to Mrs. Jones. I had some other business near by and stopped off at the Joneses' place."
"What was the other business?" was Thomas's next question. He glanced at Marvin, who met his look with straightforward, unswerving eyes, which turned Thomas's attention to his witness.
"The Pacific Railroad," said Hammond, scowling at Marvin, "was being robbed of timber in that locality and they sent me with the sheriff," he nodded toward Blodgett, who flushed at the memory of that embarrassing incident, "to arrest the thief."
"Who was the thief?" There was triumph in Thomas's voice as he asked the question.
"His name is John Marvin."
"Since that time, you have had dealings with Mrs. Jones, have you not?"
"I have, and I have always found her to be an honest and splendid woman." Hammond smiled over at her.
"And Mr. Jones was a source of trouble and great embarrassment to her, wasn't he?"
This time Hammond made Bill the goal of his insulting focus. "Yes, sir, he was! He was shiftless and drinking, cruel and untruthful." With a malicious sneer he added, "Why, to my knowledge, he's the biggest liar in the county!"
All this time, without a word, Bill had been sitting on the edge of his chair, accepting the testimony against him in the same indifferent manner in which he met most of life's difficulties. Hammond's last remark proved to be the first telling blow at his equanimity. It was too much! This Hammond person had called him, Bill Jones, a liar! In Lightnin's code, shrunken and old though he was, there could be but one answer. Calmly and quietly Bill stood up and began to draw his faded blue coat from his bent old shoulders.
CHAPTER XVII
Every eye in the court-room was on Bill. There was even a cheer, which the judge, half out of his chair, failed to reprove. Townsend knew that Bill was sore tried and had been brought to the point where his temper was not an impulse, but a last resort. His personal sympathies were with Lightnin's fistic intent. However, the order of his court must be observed and he signed to Blodgett, who raised his gavel. Before it was necessary to bring it down upon the table Marvin was quickly on his feet. He put a restraining hand on Bill's arm and with the other hand drew the coat back into its place on the bent shoulders.
In amused contempt, Thomas continued his examination.
"Did you ever see Mr. Jones drunk?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, I never saw him any other way." Hammond laughed lightly.
"And you saw him abuse his wife?"
"Yes, sir."
"You heard him tell lies?"
"I did indeed. Why, he broke the law by harboring a fugitive from justice in his house."
Thomas, having brought skilfully to the attention of the court the numerous charges that he hoped would result in securing Mrs. Jones a divorce, dismissed Hammond from the stand.
His experience as a witness had not been a joyous one to Hammond, and he prepared to take quick action on his dismissal, but Marvin had other intentions.
Standing between Hammond and his way of escape, Marvin exclaimed: "I am not through with the witness, Mr. Thomas! I also have some questions to ask him." With a scowl Hammond threw himself back into the chair.
"You say, Mr. Hammond, that you had business dealings with Mrs. Jones? Do you mind telling the court what that business was?"
"Not at all," said Hammond, defiantly. "I purchased three hundred and twenty-nine acres of land, including buildings, from Mrs. Jones for some clients of mine."
"Why didn't you consult Mr. Jones?" asked Marvin.
"Because Mrs. Jones was the sole owner," sneered Hammond.
Marvin looked him in the eye and said, slowly:
"You had seen the records?"
Hammond grunted in acquiescence and Marvin went on, each question bringing his victim nearer to an outburst of temper, which he hoped would lead to the self-contradictions he was sparring for.
"Now you testified that you first met Mr. and Mrs. Jones about seven months ago. Do you remember the exact date?"
"No, I don't recall the exact date. Perhaps you can," he emphasized, with a contemptuous twist of his black mustache. "It was the day I brought the sheriff there with a warrant for your arrest."
Marvin, undaunted by this attempt to slander him, took occasion to give a thrust at Blodgett, who had been glaring at him all through the case. "Possibly the sheriff will remember the date," he said, with a smile, while Blodgett squirmed in his chair. "And you also met Mr. Thomas on that same day, did you not?"
Hammond made no reply. It was his desire to make the court think that he and Thomas had never known each other previous to this transaction. He directed an imploring and searching squint toward Thomas. Receiving no help and seeing trouble in the gray pallor that had spread over Thomas's face, he floundered on, "Yes, I think that was the day I met Raymond Thomas—and Miss Buckley was there, too."
"Are you sure you had never met Miss Buckley or Mr. Thomas before? In his office in San Francisco, for instance?"
Hammond hesitated. He had been in Thomas's office several times while Millie was employed there, and, though he had not met her, it was more than likely that she had seen him. The moment was dangerous.
"No, I don't think I had ever met them before," he said, slowly.
"All right," said Marvin, nodding his head complacently and going closer to the witness-stand.
"Mr. Hammond," he went on, "you have told the court that Mr. Jones was a lawbreaker."
Hammond fairly jumped to this question. "Yes," he flared. "You were a fugitive from justice and Jones was harboring you in his house."
Marvin smiled. "Didn't you just testify that Mrs. Jones was the sole owner of that house? That being so, how could Mr. Jones harbor a fugitive in his house, if he didn't own a house?"
Caught in his own net, Hammond twisted angrily in his chair, reddening as the spectators laughed and the sheriff pounded for order.
"Well, I don't suppose he could," he blurted.
"Then you will withdraw the statement that he broke the law?"
"Yes, I withdraw it," Hammond drawled.
Bill got up smiling from his chair and went over to Marvin, patting him proudly on the shoulder; but a look from the judge and a snarl from Blodgett sent him back again.
Marvin continued. "Now, up to the time you met Mr. Jones you did not know anything about him, did you?"
Hammond shrugged, drawing his mouth into an angry curve. "Of course not, but it didn't take me long to find out about him."
Marvin gave the arm of the witness-chair two angry thumps. "I agree with you there, Mr. Hammond," he said. "Eight hours after you first saw Mr. Jones he was driven from his house and you have never set eyes on him since. Yet you have testified that he is a drunkard, a loafer, a liar, and a lawbreaker!"
Hammond, startled at the swiftness with which Marvin had turned his testimony to profit, shrugged himself into a straight position. "Well, it didn't take me one hour to see what Jones was," he said.
Marvin nodded with half-closed eyes at Hammond and smiled reassuringly at Bill. "You also said he was cruel to his wife?"
Hammond nodded.
"In what way?"
Hammond hesitated, moving uneasily from side to side. "Well," he snarled, "his manner was insulting. He criticized the dress she was wearing before the other guests."
This amused the court-room, which in turn had to be quieted. "And do you think the claim of intolerable cruelty is substantiated by a husband's criticizing his wife's dress?" asked Marvin, smiling.
Thomas arose at once. "I object to that question," he said, his lips twitching and his face livid from disappointment and fear of what was coming next.
"I should think you would!" Marvin said, laughing.
The objection sustained, he went at his witness again. "You testified that Mr. Jones was a drunkard and that you had never seen him sober?"
"I never have," emphasized Hammond, insolently.
Going to the table, Marvin took Bill by the arm, assisted him to his feet and guided him into the middle of the court-room until he stood before the witness-stand. Then he asked of Hammond, motioning with his head toward Bill, "Is he drunk now?"
Bill stood quietly, a quizzical smile half closing his eyes, half opening his mouth.
Hammond, infuriated, swallowed in order to control himself, and then blurted with a disgusted shrug of his shoulders, "I don't know."
Having fulfilled Marvin's intention, Bill took his seat again and the cross-examination was resumed.
"If you don't know whether he is drunk or not now, how did you know the other time when you saw him?"
Hammond gazed fiercely into space, replying, finally, "Oh, it was plain enough then!"
Seeing that Hammond was ruffled and that he was also confused, Marvin felt that the time was now right to bring forth by a few swift, well-put questions the full purpose of Hammond and Thomas in bringing about the divorce between Bill and Mrs. Jones.
"It was not possible for you to get a good title to the property unless Mr. Jones signed the deed?" he asked.
At once Thomas was on his feet, objecting.
On Marvin's explanation that the complaint charged intoxication and that his question had a direct bearing on that point, the judge overruled the objection and Thomas took his seat again.
Not discerning the trap that Marvin had set for him, Hammond turned to the judge and said, in more even tones: "I don't mind answering in the least. The property belonged entirely to Mrs. Jones, but the husband's signature was wanted on the deed."
"And he refused to sign it?" Marvin's question came back.
"Yes," Hammond sneered, "after you told him not to."
Marvin once more challenged Hammond's soul with the searchlight of his own straightforward eye. "Was he drunk then?" he asked.
Hammond paused, then shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I think he was."
"I am not asking you what you think," Marvin remarked. "You said under oath that you never saw him sober. Was he drunk when he refused to sign that deed?"
"Yes, he was!" Hammond reiterated, quickly.
"And you tried to induce him to sign such an important document as that when he was drunk?" Marvin asked the question in a slow, concise tone and looked up at the judge to gather the impression made by Hammond's evident duplicity.
The deep water into which Hammond had walked was making itself felt and he tried to wade toward shore.
"I never tried to get him to sign! He didn't sign it!" he snapped.
"No, he wasn't drunk enough for that! He wasn't drunk at all. He was as sober as he is at this moment!"
"You mean to call me a liar?" Hammond, his red neck swelling over the top of his collar, and his small, close-together black eyes flashing angrily, got up and made a threatening move toward his questioner.
Marvin, although much smaller, did not flinch. "No, I mean to prove it," he answered.
Judge Townsend made a quieting gesture to Hammond, who sat down in the witness-chair again as Marvin went on with his rapid-fire.
"Now you called Mr. Jones a liar, didn't you?"
"Yes," was Hammond's gruff reply. "And everybody who knows him says the same thing!"
"Oh," said Marvin, with a shake of his head. "So you testified that he was a liar because you heard others say so?"
"No," jerked Hammond, "he lied to me."
"What did he tell you that was untrue?"
"Everything," said Hammond.
"Can you repeat one lie that Mr. Jones told you?"
"Oh, he told me so many," was the impatient reply, "I can't recall them. Oh yes," after a pause, "he said he drove a swarm of bees across the plains in the dead of winter."
Bill, who was facing him, and who had not taken his eyes from him, burst into a loud laugh, the whole court-room, even to the judge, following suit, while Marvin raised his voice above the uproar to ask, "Now, how do you know that is a lie?"
"Why, I know the thing is impossible!" Hammond said, contemptuously.
"Why?"
"It's all nonsense," sneered Hammond, with an angry gesture.
"That is precisely what it is, Mr. Hammond, and that is just what Mr. Jones meant it to be! What else did he say?"
"What's the difference?" asked Hammond. "You admit it's all nonsense."
"Not all, Mr. Hammond." Marvin raised his voice and he looked searchingly at the judge. "He said at least one thing that was not nonsense. He said to his wife, 'Mother, these two men are trying to rob you.' Do you remember that, Mr. Hammond? You were all there. Do you remember that he said you and Mr. Thomas were trying to rob Mrs. Jones?"
In order to make his question more impressive, Marvin nodded at Hammond and pointed to Mr. Thomas, and then directed a glance toward Mrs. Jones. Her hands were still folded in her lap and her head bent toward them.
Everett Hammond, his face purple with rage, shouted at Marvin, "I don't propose to sit here and be insulted by a criminal like you!"
Thomas, too, had risen and come forward. Standing on the other side of Marvin and looking down upon him, he exclaimed, with quivering, blue lips: "This is insufferable, your Honor! This gentleman has come here to give disinterested testimony, as a favor, and he is subjected to the insults—"
Judge Townsend interrupted him calmly: "I think the defense has brought out quite clearly that this witness's testimony is not disinterested. This divorce has got to be obtained to give him a deed to the Jones property, hasn't it?"
Thomas grew conciliatory, endeavoring to impress upon the judge that the property sale had nothing to do, at all, with the testimony of Hammond.
"Well, I wouldn't call him exactly disinterested," responded Townsend, with a wise glance.
"Nevertheless, your Honor, I protest against this man's insulting manner," Thomas shouted. "How it is possible for such a person, a person who even now ought to be serving a jail sentence, to be admitted to the bar, I can't see!" He backed to his chair and sat down, taking up a book and slamming it back on the table.
Until now Marvin had been complete master of the situation, but Thomas's last words drove the blood from his face and he grew troubled as he looked up at the judge and then away and out through the window into space. There had been something on his mind, but he had been able to keep it in the background because of Bill's predicament. And now it came to the surface again.
Townsend studied Marvin intently for several moments and then he asked, quietly, "You are an attorney in good standing, are you not?"
At the judge's question, Thomas got up and looked down upon Marvin, in insolent inquiry.
Marvin did not answer at once; then he walked over to the judge's bench and with his head bowed said, "No, your Honor, I am not."
"Do you mean to say that you are not a member of the bar?" There was surprise and injured dignity and at the same time a strong savor of pity in Lem Townsend's voice.
Thomas and Hammond exchanged smiles of triumph, the former advancing to a place by Marvin's side in front of the judge.
The horror in Millie's face told Marvin that her last shred of consideration for him had been torn away.
Bill alone held faith, smiling encouragement at the lad who had been his only friend when his hour was at its worst.
With eyes on the ground, slowly, and in low voice, Marvin explained, "No, I have never been admitted to the bar, your Honor. But Mr. Jones had taken a long journey from the Soldiers' Home, on his own account and at his own expense, to testify in my case. When, without warning, this action for divorce was called, I knew it was a conspiracy." The injustice accorded Bill drew Marvin from himself again. Pointing at Hammond and Thomas, he raised his voice. "I knew that these two conspirators—"
Thomas interrupted him by jumping from his seat and making a menace with his right arm.
"Sit down, Mr. Thomas," Townsend commanded. "I will attend to this. You are making a very serious charge, Mr. Marvin, and if you believe you can substantiate it you will find the courts open to you. In the mean time you must be aware that you had no right whatever to undertake the trial of this case under the guise of being an attorney. You are guilty of a reprehensible act, and if I did not believe there were mitigating circumstances I would punish you most severely for contempt of court." He ordered the stenographer to strike out all of the cross-examination.
"Mr. Thomas," he asked, "have you finished with your witness?"
"If the cross-examination is to be stricken out, I will not take up the court's time with any redirect testimony. We have had enough," Thomas said.
Hammond got up and shook himself as if he were rid of a heavy burden; but as he walked from the stand Marvin made one more plea. "One moment, please, your Honor," he asked. "Before the witness is excused—"
Townsend interrupted him. "You have no standing in this court, young man. If you wish to remain, you may take a seat on the visitors' bench," and he pointed to a vacant seat just outside of the railing.
If there was one person in the court-room who was pleased at that moment, it was Blodgett. He arose, caressing his mustache, and opened the gate.
"This way," he called out, giving an overbearing wave of his hand.
As he came to the gate, Marvin stopped. He was thinking hard. It did not seem right that Bill should be left alone to fight his way with those two keen schemers. He knew that Lem Townsend would look after Lightnin' in so far as he could justifiably do so, but the figure of the lonely old man, smiling complacently in the midst of his trouble, touched Marvin deeply, and he delved into his mind in an effort to find a way to help him.
Then, unexpectedly, Lightnin' solved the problem. Getting to his feet, he stood quietly before the bench, looking up at Townsend with an odd excitement in his eyes.
"Your Honor," he asked, in his usual drawl, "a defendant has the right to plead his own case, ain't he?"
"Yes, he has," Townsend replied, with a nod.
"Well," said Bill, "I guess I'll plead this case myself!"
Marvin hesitated. He had thought of this himself, of course, but had dismissed the idea, not feeling quite sure as to the advisability of it. Now, however, the deed was done. Quickly he put an arm over Bill's shoulder and led him beside the witness-stand, where Hammond still sat. Bill looked up at Townsend and smiled.
"It's all right, Judge," he remarked, with his humorous twinkle. "I was a lawyer once!"
CHAPTER XVIII
The court-room fairly seethed with interest. The crowd was smiling, amused; but, under the surface smile, every face reflected a strong sympathy for the quaint old figure standing there, about to fight his own battle. As Bill turned to conduct his case, Blodgett took Marvin by the arm.
"You come out here!" he commanded, roughly.
Marvin pulled his arm free and appealed to the judge.
"I am a witness for the defense, your Honor," he said.
"Then you may remain where you are," replied Townsend, with a nod. He looked at Lightnin'. "Examine your witness," he directed.
For a moment Lightnin' stood in front of the frowning man in the chair and silently inspected him with humorous interest, from the top of his sleek, pomaded head to the gleaming toes of his immaculate boots.
"Looks kinder all polished up, don't he?" Bill remarked.
The noise of the general laughter and the pounding of the sheriff's gavel seemed to distract Townsend's attention; anyway, he uttered no objection when Marvin slipped from his place among the witnesses and dropped into his former chair directly behind Bill. Looking up at Townsend, Lightnin' resumed:
"The things Marvin asked him were all right, your Honor," he said. Then, with a terse but rather humorous shrug, he addressed Hammond, "Answer 'em!"
"You mean the testimony he has already given will stand?" asked the judge.
"I got a right to ask 'em again, 'ain't I?" questioned Bill.
Townsend nodded. Hammond could much better stand the young and impatient manner of John Marvin than he could the wise humor of Bill. He grew red and shifted in his chair angrily, asking the judge:
"Do I have to go all over that, your Honor?"
"Would your replies be the same?" Townsend's eyes as well as his question begged Hammond for the answer and he was not comfortable. But there was nothing else for him to do, and after a moment's hesitation, in which he lowered his lids to avoid the judge's scrutiny, he replied:
"Certainly."
The cross-examination reinstated, Hammond for the fourth time started to leave the stand. Bill held up his hand and snapped in a determined tone, but with a smile playing among the wrinkles of his face:
"Hold on! I got some more for you!"
His victim threw himself back into the chair with a shrug and a sneer as he gave his head an irate shake.
"Mr. Hammond," Bill went on, "when you went after Mr. Marvin with the sheriff, what was the charge against him?"
Hammond answered, with a ready enthusiasm, "Trespassing on the property of the Pacific Railroad Company."
Bill nodded his head and said:
"Uh, ha."
He assumed an air of wisdom and raised his voice to the pitch that it seldom knew, but to have the floor again after so many months was having its effect upon him and he was taking the task in the same way and with the same glee as if it were the opportunity for telling a good story.
"If he was on their property," he began—then he seemed to forget what it was he was going to ask. He turned to Marvin in whispered conference. The unusual character of his procedure did not affect Lemuel Townsend, who was anxious to give the old man his full chance.
His way evidently made clearer by Marvin's advice, Bill sauntered slowly back to Hammond.
"If he was on the railroad's property, what did you have to do with it?" he asked.
"Oh, that's easy enough!" said Hammond, nonchalantly crossing one leg over the other. "I went at the request of the president of the road."
Bill grinned. "You sold the railroad the land he was trespassing on, didn't you?"
Thomas broke in with an endeavor to show that the question was irrelevant, but Townsend, knowing Bill's natural acumen, felt that the question did have some real connection with the case.
"Mr. Thomas," he said, "you and your witness have been accused of conspiracy. If I were you, I would allow him to answer Mr. Jones."
Thomas knew that he was sparring for his life and he didn't intend to let the question get by if he could help it, so he tried another subterfuge.
"Your Honor," he deplored, his voice hoarse with anger, "I don't propose to defend the witness and myself from such a ridiculous charge at this time. We are not on trial. This is a divorce action." He glared at Marvin, pulling his cuffs angrily, in a way that he had, down over his wrists.
But the judge's opinion was unchanged. "If there is any conspiracy about this action, the court wants to know it. Answer the question."
With an insulting drawl, Hammond did as he was bid.
"I purchased the property for the railroad, acting as their agent."
"Who did you buy it from?" Bill snapped.
"Mr. Thomas."
"When did you buy it?" asked Bill.
"About ten months ago."
Bill's shoulders straightened at Hammond's reply and he drew himself together with a quick shrug, taking a swift step forward and peering into Hammond's face.
"That was three months before you bought mother's place?" he asked.
"Yes," jerked Hammond, sulkily.
"Then, why did you say you had never met him until you met him at the hotel?"
Hammond started, alarm in the quick glance that traveled from Bill to Raymond Thomas. He realized he had overstepped himself. Thinking the better plan would be to brave it out, he bellowed:
"Because I never did!"
Bill smiled at him and said, in his slow, gentle monotone:
"You bought all that land of him and never saw him about it?" He looked up at the judge and laughed. "And he called me a liar!"
Hammond got up, but Bill detained him. "Don't go away," he admonished, with a jaunty toss of his head. "We got some more for you, 'ain't we?" and he looked at Marvin, who smiled in approval. "I've got a good one for him!" Bill went on.
"You know the railroad company leased the waterfall on mother's place and put a power-plant there?"
"I believe they have," said Hammond, impatiently.
"And you know that the railroad pays you more for that lease in a month than you agreed to give mother in a year?"
It was a surprise to Hammond, and evidently to Marvin, too, that Bill should know anything of the details of either the lease of the railroad company or of what payment had been promised to Mrs. Jones. A great light flashed on Marvin—obviously Bill Jones had not been altogether wasting his time during his prolonged disappearance! Hammond, beginning to suspect that Bill knew more than he had been given credit for, decided that ignorance was the best stand to take.
"How should I know the petty details of the railroad's lease?" he said.
"How should you know?" echoed Bill, his voice raised, unwontedly clear and ringing. "Didn't the railroad lease the waterfall from a bum concern called the Golden Gate Land Company? Didn't you, actin' for the Golden Gate Company, put through the deal? Don't you know that the Golden Gate Land Company is controlled by yourself and Raymond Thomas—ain't you and Thomas the whole works o' that—"
Thomas was on his feet with an objection, but the judge had no opportunity to overrule it, for Bill had something to say and he was going to say it. He lifted his voice above that of Thomas, calling out and waving his arms violently in an excitement he had never known before.
"And all your stocks in the name of rummies?"
His eyes twinkled as Marvin came up to him and whispered. Again waving his arms, Bill shouted:
"Dummies, I mean—dummies!"
Thomas had been tried to the point of despair. There was a lump in his throat as he beseeched the judge:
"I protest against this!"
The judge interrupted him. "I am beginning to believe in this plot story."
"Then let him go on," was Bill's agreeable reply.
Hammond jumped up out of his chair and descended from the witness-stand.
"Your Honor," he said, in an angry tone, "I absolutely refuse to submit to this any longer—to stand here and be made to look like a criminal!"
Bill could not withstand the chance for another quip and he smiled at his antagonist. "Well, you look natural," he remarked.
"Do you expect me to stand for this?" Hammond stormed.
"Sit down, if you want to," said Bill, restored to his old nonchalance. "I'm through with you," and he turned his back on Hammond and went over to Marvin.
Thomas, keyed to a high pitch, knew that something must be done at once, for he saw that not only the Jones case was crumbling, but he sensed trouble ahead in his afternoon's venture, so he resorted to Everett Hammond's tactics of placing the matter in an absurd light.
"All this ridiculous testimony," he argued, "has no possible connection with the case in point, but I propose to prove that all the accusations against the witness and myself are not only groundless but absolutely malicious, and I shall do this at the first opportunity."
Unable to stand the situation any longer, he went back and took his seat.
Marvin had sat quiet all through this controversy. Now he forgot the judge's admonition as to his place in the case. He got up, stating to the judge:
"Your Honor, Mr. Thomas will have that opportunity at two o'clock this afternoon, when the Pacific Railroad's action against me comes before the court. At that time I will submit documentary proof that these men control the Golden Gate Land Company and have been buying up all the land wanted by the Pacific Railroad. I will submit to the court twenty cases where the Golden Gate Land Company has swindled innocent farmers out of their property and paid them with worthless stock. I will prove to the court—"
"Just a moment, Mr. Marvin," Townsend stopped him. "It will be most interesting for you to prove your statements at two o'clock; but in the mean time I must warn you again that you are not a party to this divorce action and have no standing as an attorney in this court."
Marvin bowed to the ruling and retired quietly to his seat. He stared calmly at Thomas, seeming to have no fear that he had prematurely revealed his own case and that his opponents might have an opportunity to take advantage of his statements.
"If the defense wishes you for a witness, Mr. Marvin," said Townsend, "you may be sworn."
Bill was on his feet again and, turning to the judge, said: "I don't need no witness! I didn't know nothing about it at all until I got here, but I've been thinking it over ever since and I have made up my mind that mother's right. If mother can prove them things they read," and he nodded toward the clerk, "she could get a divorce, couldn't she?"
Townsend replied in the affirmative. Bill smiled sadly and, glancing at Mrs. Jones, who was crying as if her heart would break, he went on, "Well, I can prove them for her."
"You can prove them?" Townsend asked, in surprise.
"Oh yes," said Bill, with a flash of humor. "I used to be a judge."
He stood still in the middle of the floor and looked into space for a moment. He was a dejected figure as the humor that was his habit left him and he stood there deserted by all but Marvin. But it was not his way to remain an object of pity, either to himself or to anybody else, and with a slight shrug he straightened and looked the judge in the eye. Placing his hand in front of him, he tolled off the first count on the thumb of his right hand.
"Now, first it said," he began didactically, "that I got drunk," and he paused and thought about it, adding, with a nod, "Well, I can prove that! And then it said I was cruel to mother." He took a step forward and bent his shoulders a bit, as if he would look under the brim of his wife's hat and search her soul for the answer to his plea. "Well, I can—no, I can't prove that, 'cause it ain't true, judge, an' I don't believe mother ever said it."
A dramatic hush fell in the court-room. It was suddenly, pathetically clear to Marvin and to many others that, despite his unexpected knowledge on other counts, Bill did not fathom the real reason behind his wife's action for divorce. Plainly he thought she really wanted a divorce, and, in Lightnin's sensitive code, if mother wanted it she should have it.
"An' then it said that I failed to provide," he went on, while the court-room breathed softly, feeling the tug at the old man's heartstrings. "Well, that what's on my mind, judge. I have failed. I never thought anything about it before, and I don't see any chance of providing, now that I do think about it. Mother an' Millie could get along better without me. So you see, mother should get a divorce, judge—" and here Bill for the first time in his life broke down. Tears came into his eyes and he swallowed to keep them back. He hesitated and, with a last brave effort, he dashed in to complete his testimony against himself.
"I'm all right, judge. I can go back to the Home and stay there until"—he hesitated—"until—" and turning quickly away, "that's all, judge."
Before he could get to his seat Mrs. Jones had jumped up from hers and was standing before the judge's desk, wiping the tears from her eyes and sobbing loudly.
"No, please, judge, don't give me a divorce! I don't want one, judge! I can take care of Bill in our old age. They were just telling me lies, judge, and I was a fool not to have seen through it!"
Tears were in Townsend's eyes; also, Margaret Davis was sniffing audibly, and the spectators in the court-room were deeply touched. Thomas and Hammond gave one glance at each other and groaned, while Mrs. Jones rushed to Bill and held one of his hands in both of hers, pleading:
"Bill, I have done you a wrong—a great wrong, and I cannot blame you if you never look at me again, but I didn't mean to, Bill, I didn't mean to! And if you will forgive me and take me back I will try all my life to make up for it! Will you?"
Bill took her hands in his and patted them. His eyes were moist, and they blinked for a moment; then a slow, happy grin spread over his stubbled face.
"That's all right, mother," he said, easily. "Say, did you ever get the six dollars I sent you?"
CHAPTER XIX
Late that afternoon John Marvin and Bill Jones came out of the Reno court-house together and sauntered down the street. There was a gleam of triumph in Marvin's eyes and a deep satisfaction in his manner. Lightnin's grin was equally expressive.
"You better come right back to Calivada with me, John!" he urged.
The triumph left Marvin's eyes and was replaced by a troubled expression.
"No, Bill," he said, quietly, "I don't think it is time for me to go there yet. Mother and Millie may still feel that my part in the whole scheme was not as kindly as it might have been, so I'll just drive over to my cabin and maybe later, perhaps to-morrow morning, come over and join you for a visit of an hour or two. It's a long time, old chap," he said, as he patted Bill on the shoulder, "since you have been home, and I think it is about time you were running along."
Bill knew what was deterring him. Tactfully he said nothing, but smiled. They walked along in silence for a block or two, until in a jeweler's window Bill saw something that appealed to his imagination. He put his hand in his pocket and withdrew it before it touched bottom, realizing that his last dime had gone for a cup of coffee for himself and Zeb at a lunch-counter early that morning. Zeb was waiting for him at the G. A. R. Hall up the street a ways, but he had a duty to perform and it seemed to him that that duty could best be done by the help of the object in the jeweler's window.
"John, will you lend me two dollars?" he asked.
"At your old tricks, Lightnin'? You bet I can lend you two dollars! You sure that's all you want?" Marvin laughed, taking the money from his pocket.
"Plenty," was Bill's brief reply, pocketing the two dollars. They walked to the corner of the street, where they said good-by to each other.
When Bill was satisfied that Marvin's back was well turned he sauntered into the jewelry-shop and up to the counter, where he purchased a sterling-silver ring, washed in gold, with a bright, shining piece of glass set in it.
The clerk in the store smiled at the old man as he pocketed the monstrosity and went happily out of the store.
How to get to Calivada from Reno had not entered his mind. It was a good seventy-five miles, but he knew that some way or other he would get home that night. With his mind made up to that issue, he wandered up the street and joined Zeb, who had been waiting for him all afternoon. The two old men, arm in arm, stood on the street corner and looked about. And just then Rodney Harper and his wife, who were interested spectators in the court-room during the afternoon trial, turned the corner in their machine and stopped to say a good word to Bill.
"What you going to do, Lightnin'?" asked Harper, while his wife beamed at the two odd old souls.
"What you going to do?" was Bill's evasive answer.
"Why, we are motoring back to Calivada, where we have a room at the hotel," said Mrs. Harper.
"Well, then, I guess," said Bill, putting his foot on the step of the automobile, "that's just what me and Zeb is goin' to do."
The Harpers laughed and looked at each other. They were both agreed. Bill and Zeb climbed in and made a strange couple on the back seat of the car as it whirled through the streets of Reno and on up into the hills.
In the mean time the hotel at Calivada, true to its nature, was the scene of a new sensation.
After court that afternoon Margaret Davis and Judge Townsend, leaving Mrs. Jones and Millie to take the train home, went their own way. About eight o'clock that evening they arrived at the hotel, going to the desk where the sleek and dapper new clerk awaited them and came forward to welcome them. "Hello, Mrs. Davis!" he said, extending his hand.
"Good evening," Margaret replied, giggling and looking coyly back at the judge. "Will you give me my key, Mr. Peters?" she asked.
"Sure," he said, taking the key from the rack and handing it to her with a smirk.
"I didn't expect you back to-night." He smiled.
"Well, I wasn't expecting it myself." The annoyance evidenced by the frown on Lemuel Townsend's face immediately changed her tone. With a "Thank you" she turned to go, but the clerk had other plans.
"This has been a wonderful day, Mrs. Davis," he said, as he cast languishing glances at her. Townsend was not at all pleased with the attention Peters was showing her and he turned, asking, unctuously, "See here, have you got a suite?"
Peters stepped back and looked in surprise from one to the other.
"Got what?"
"Got a—?" repeated Townsend, but his question was broken into by Margaret, who exclaimed:
"Oh, Mr. Peters, we would like to see Miss Buckley and Mrs. Jones."
"All right," he said; "I will go up and tell them you are here," and he disappeared up the Nevada stairs.
"But, young man," Townsend was insisting as he put his foot on the first stair, "I want to get a—" he reiterated, but Margaret again placed a restraining hand on his arm. "Wait until he comes down," she simpered.
As the clerk disappeared behind the portières at the top of the stairs, Townsend turned to Margaret, putting his arm about her waist. "What's the matter, dear? Don't you want the clerk to know we are married?" he asked, in injured tones.
"I didn't want you to tell him right before me."
He looked into her eyes. "You are not ashamed of it, are you?"
"No," she drawled, in her usual giggle, "but it is embarrassing to leave here this morning to get rid of number one and come back this evening with number two." Townsend started, removing his arm from her waist. Putting it back, she pouted, "You are not angry, are you, dear?"
Indulgently, but not enthusiastically, he answered, "It is a little jarring to be referred to as number two."
"Oh, I didn't mean that!" she exclaimed, leaning coquettishly on his shoulder. "But I can't bear to have every one staring at us."
"But this isn't a secret marriage, Maggie," said the judge.
At this Margaret drew herself away from him, horror in her opened mouth and widening eyes. "Oh, don't say that!" she protested. "My name is Margaret," adding, sweetly, "I don't mind if they find out about it after we are gone, dear, but let's try to keep them from finding it out to-night."
"All right, my darling, just as you say," and he drew her to him again. Peters reappeared at the stairs.
"Mrs. Jones will be down in a minute," he announced, and was going to say more, but the sight of Margaret locked close in Lemuel Townsend's dignified arms permitted him no further expression than a prolonged and astonished "Oh!" which wrought a quick parting of the loving couple, while Margaret, blushing furiously, hastened to explain: "Judge Townsend is my husband, Mr. Peters. We were married this afternoon."
Peters had been having much of his own way since Mrs. Jones and Millie had retired from the actual management of the hotel, and his authority ran away with him at times, thrusting him into situations in which his assumption brought him quick rebuke. This was one of them. Obsequiously and with an easy laugh he extended a congratulatory hand to Townsend, while he remarked, "Quick work, eh, judge?"
Townsend stood back and withered Peters with a glance that did its full duty from head to foot.
Margaret, kind-hearted, and seeing Peters's embarrassment, hastened to be friendly. "We don't want you to say a word about it to anybody!"
"Oh, I can keep a secret. My congratulations. I hope this one turns out better than the other one did," Peters effused.
Margaret sighed. The judge shuddered. It was the fourth time since they were married that he had been reminded that he was number two.
"If you don't mind," he ordered, severely, "we won't discuss that question."
Margaret, anxious to prevent further repartee on the subject, went up-stairs, calling back, "When Mrs. Jones comes down, will you tell her I will be back in five minutes?"
When she had disappeared Townsend ordered Peters to get up a special supper for four, suggesting that the champagne he had brought with him, and which was in the basket on the floor, be put on ice. Peters disappeared to do his duty, but Townsend followed close behind him, desirous of directing the spreading of a good wedding supper for Mrs. Townsend, Mrs. Jones, and Millie.
He had been gone but a few minutes when Mrs. Jones came down the stairs. She looked around, expecting to find Margaret Davis awaiting her. Not seeing her, she returned to the floor above, when Mr. and Mrs. Harper came bursting in.
"How do you do? Don't you remember us?" Harper called out, as he held forth a welcoming hand.
"Surely!" cried Mrs. Jones. She came quickly down the stairs and shook hands with Harper, kissing his pretty wife.
"We just brought your husband and a friend of his over from Reno," said Harper.
"Oh, where are they?" Mrs. Jones asked, excitedly. She had been waiting all afternoon for Bill and was beginning to fear lest he had decided not to return home.
"Oh, Bill's out there telling his experiences as a lawyer," Harper laughed, and Mrs. Jones joined him, happy to know that Bill was back, the same lovable old boaster as before.
Margaret Townsend, hearing the voices, hurried to join the group, throwing her arms wildly around Mrs. Jones's neck and giggling like a school-girl.
"Who do you think drove me over?" she asked Mrs. Jones, answering herself. "Judge Townsend."
"My, but that was romantic!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones.
"Why, what do you know about it?" Margaret simpered, putting Mrs. Jones from her and looking into her eyes.
The dining-room door opened and Townsend burst in, going to his wife and exercising his new proprietorship by putting his arm about her. She drew away, blushing, and hastened to introduce the Harpers.
Townsend acknowledged the introduction; then he turned to Mrs. Jones. "I'm very glad to see you under more pleasant circumstances, mother," he said.
"Thank you, Lem!" she answered, tears gathering in her eyes. "Oh, what a mean fool I was! But, Lem, I 'ain't heard a word yet about how that fine young man made out—I'm just dyin' to know if John Marvin won his case!"
"Oh, you really haven't heard?" exclaimed Margaret. "I should say he certainly did win his case, my dear!"
"Thomas and Hammond were lucky to keep out of jail," said Townsend. "They gave up this place without a murmur."
"What?" Mrs. Jones gasped.
"Surely you know that the place is yours again?" Harper asked, while they all nodded eager confirmation.
"Ours again?" Mrs. Jones repeated, excitedly.
"Absolutely, my dear!" Margaret hastened to explain. "And the judge and I were married this afternoon!" Irrespective of Mrs. Jones's bewildered gasp, Margaret rushed on: "And, mother, you are to get all the money the railroad pays for the waterfall, and it's an awful lot! The Golden Gate Land Company is a fake concern! To keep out of jail, where they belong, those two sharpers are making restitution at once to Mr. Marvin and to everybody else they can! And now you're going to have supper with us, mother! Mr. and Mrs. Harper are going to join us—and you, too, Millie dear," she added, turning to the girl, who had joined the group and stood there listening, her cheeks flushed with a conflict of emotions.
"Oh!" Millie gasped. "Oh—then what—"
What Millie was going to say was lost in a general chorus of delighted exclamations.
"Oh, Lem," cried Mrs. Jones, "won't you let me do the cooking? I'm just dyin' to get back into that kitchen again!"
"Well, I know what your cooking is like, mother," replied Townsend, smiling; "and if you really want to go out there and cook that supper, I say it would be a crime to stop you!"
"Let's all help!" exclaimed little Mrs. Harper, who looked as if she would not have the faintest idea what to do in a kitchen.
"Fine!" echoed her amused husband. "Come on, folks!"
Mrs. Jones led the way, and they all went out through the dining-room and into the kitchen, bent on making a home of the place for the first time since the new regime went into effect.
CHAPTER XX
The dapper Peters was left alone at his desk, but not for long. In a few minutes the street door opened and Bill Jones, with a certain air about him—one might even say with a certain flourish in his manner—sauntered in. He ambled up to the desk.
"Who might you be?" he asked, casually, his half-shut eyes making an inventory of Peters.
"I'm the manager!" Peters snapped.
"No, you ain't," said Bill, grinning.
"What's the reason I ain't?" inquired Peters.
"Because you're fired," said Bill, calmly, turning his back and putting his hands in his pockets. He gazed slowly around from floor to ceiling, and then at the walls. Peters came from behind the desk and stood close to him.
"Say, Mrs. Jones pulled something like that on me," he said, "but I ain't taking no orders from you people! I take my orders from Mr. Hammond!"
"Is that so?" asked Bill, nonchalantly. Drawing a letter from his pocket, he handed it to the clerk. "Well, here they are!" he said.
Peters opened the letter and read it.
"Well, if I'm fired," he sighed, "I suppose I can go back to my old job."
A stealthy foot on the floor made Bill turn around to greet Zeb, who had put his head in the door.
"Got a segar for me, Bill?" Zeb whispered.
Bill went over to the drawer in the California desk, where he knew there was a box of cigars. He took one, extending it to Zeb. But the latter, looking toward the dining-room, saw Millie coming, and in spite of the fact that he wanted that cigar as desperately as he had ever wanted anything, force of habit sent him scuttling out of the room as he warned Bill, hoarsely, "Look out!"
Bill called him back. "What you 'fraid of? It's only Millie."
"Well," said Zeb, intrepid enough to grab the cigar, but not brave enough to stay, "I'll see you to-morrow, when the women-folks is working. It's safer then."
Millie rushed over and took Bill in her arms, kissing him again and again, while Bill, unused to such demonstration, tried to disengage himself.
"Did you just get here, daddy?" she asked, gazing fondly at him.
"Yes," was his reply, as he sat down in the chair in front of the table.
"Have you seen mother?" she asked, standing very close to him.
Bill, remembering the old days when his return home meant a searching examination as to soberness, grinned, and then he breathed deeply toward her. "I 'ain't had a drink in a month," he informed her.
She laughed and was silent for a moment. Looking down at the floor, she asked, "Did you come alone, daddy?"
"Yes," he answered, slowly scrutinizing her. "Why didn't you speak to John before you left the court to-day?" he asked, after a moment in which he gazed at her intently.
Tears came into her eyes and she leaned her head on his shoulder. "I just couldn't, daddy, that was all."
Bill placed a reassuring hand on her hair.
"Well, it's all right. I fixed it for you," he said, slowly. Millie stepped back aghast, blushing violently. "You did what?"
But Bill was unabashed. "I got him to promise he would come over here and see you." Bill had done no such thing, but the one flaw to a perfect happiness for him was the thought that John Marvin and Millie might not make up.
"You asked him to come over and see me?" Millie asked, in dismay.
"No," said Bill, with a quiet grin; "I just told him you were crazy to see him. You would have lost him if it hadn't been for me. Every girl in Reno is crazy about John, but I got him so he's willing to marry you."
"Oh, daddy, I don't know what I am going to do with you!" Millie was almost in tears and leaned dejectedly on a shoulder indifferent through habit and not will.
"You don't mean to say you asked John Marvin to marry me?" she pouted.
"Sure I did," said Bill, untouched by any thought of having done what was not right. "It was a tough job after the way you treated him," he admonished, dropping into the chair and tipping it back while he clasped his hands behind his head and whistled. "I told him," he went on, "that you had made a fool of yourself, but that most women did that now and then, and not to mind it. After he's been married awhile he'll get used to it. I asked him, if you would own up that you were wrong like mother did, would he give you another chance?" Bill looked up at her, adding, complacently, "'Ain't I done a good piece of business?"
Millie gave one shriek and ran up the stairs. Bill, unmoved by any sense of his own iniquity, followed her to the foot of the staircase, calling after her, "Now, if you beg his pardon when he comes—"
She stopped at the top step and looked back. "Beg his pardon!" she exclaimed, defiantly. "I don't even intend to see him when he comes!"
Bill held out one hand toward her in a deprecating gesture.
"Oh, come along down-stairs again." Taking a little square box from his pocket, he opened it and held it up to view, saying, "If you don't see him, what is he going to do with this?"
"What is it?" she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her anger as she came slowly back down the stairs. Bill showed her his prize in its nest of bright purple velvet. "He got it for you. He sent me out to buy it while he was in court!"
Mildred looked at the thing, and with one long "Oh!" of disgust she turned and went through the door into the dining-room.
Alone once more, Bill walked slowly, going to the desk and looking at the register. Then he went back of the desk, examining familiar objects. Suddenly his eyes rested on the electric-light switchboard. He played with the lights for several seconds, turning them out finally. With a start he grunted, "Now I broke 'em." Pushing the button again, the lights came on, revealing Mrs. Jones, who had tiptoed in from the dining-room when Millie told her Bill was there. When he saw her he came out from behind the desk and she hurried toward him with outstretched arms.
"Are you all right, Bill?" she asked, tenderly. And Bill, smiling, leaned over her and breathed so that she could see that he was all right. But she had been through so much lately and where Bill was concerned there was more tenderness than humor in her attitude.
"Aren't you all tired out, dear?" she asked.
Bill grinned sheepishly. It was a long time since his wife had shown such affection for him. "No," was his quick reply.
But her conscience bade her make sure that he was comfortable. She drew a big arm-chair from the corner and placed it in the center of the room, taking a pillow from the sofa and putting it on the back of the chair. Gently she sat Bill down in it.
He didn't know what to make of it all and he looked up at her, asking, with a chuckle:
"What's the matter, mother, you sick?"
She laughed. "No, Bill, I ain't sick. I'm just thinkin'."
Bill looked straight ahead of him.
She took her rocking-chair and placed it next to him. Clasping one of his hands, she leaned forward.
"You've forgiven me, 'ain't you, Bill?"
"Yep," chirped Bill, without so much as a glance.
Her attempt to make love to Bill was not meeting with the success she had hoped, but she was bound to make up to him for all the sorrow of the last few months, and so she did not notice his apparent indifference.
"Just think," she exclaimed, enthusiastically, "the place is ours again!"
"You mean it's yours again," said Bill, slowly.
"No," She shook her head emphatically. "Ours, after this, Bill."
"All right," Bill replied, again not moving.
Mrs. Jones, seeing that her attempts to be affectionate were falling upon unfertile ground, dropped his hand.
"How did Mr. Marvin manage to get it away from them?" she asked.
For the first time Bill took interest.
"I fixed it," he said, sitting up straight in his chair. "Do you want me to tell you how much money you get out of the waterfall?"
"Yes, Bill. But please say we get it."
"You mean I get half of it?"
Mrs. Jones nodded.
"And you're going to keep it for me?" he went on.
She smiled at him and nodded again.
"How did you know about my getting the place back?" he asked.
"Lem Townsend told me," she informed him. "Did you know that he and Mrs. Davis were married to-day?"
Bill didn't know it, but he didn't intend that his wife should know this. Playing up to form, he smiled indulgently upon her as he stated, glibly, "Yes, I fixed it!"
They smiled wisely upon each other and Mrs. Jones once again took her husband's hand.
"We won't have any more divorce people here, will we, Bill?"
"Then you will have to close up," was his answer.
"I want to close up, Bill." Her voice was full of deep tenderness. "I want to have a home again."
"All right," Bill said, getting up from the chair. Display of affection always embarrassed him. His attitude amused and at the same time hurt Mrs. Jones, so she changed her subject to one that she felt might interest him.
"We are all going to have some supper soon, Bill. I have been cooking it," she said.
Bill patted her tenderly on the hand. "Mother, I found out one thing when I was at the Home. I found that you were a good cook."
She smiled happily, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him. Bill looked at her a moment in surprise; then he laughed.
A shadow crossed her face and she gazed into his eyes. "You don't mind my doing that, do you, Bill?" she asked.
There was a pause for a moment. Bill shifted awkwardly from side to side as he stood up.
"No, I guess I don't," he said.
Mrs. Jones walked toward the dining-room, pausing half-way across the room.
"Bill," she said, glancing down at the floor, "would you kiss me?"
Bill gaped at her in surprise.
"Yes," he said, slowly walking to her. Mrs. Jones saw his hesitation, and, realizing the humor of the situation, laughed heartily.
"Oh, never mind, Bill! You can kiss me later."
"Now, mother, I was going to." He grinned and followed her to the door, but she was through it before he could reach her. He stood still and was about to reopen the door when Marvin burst in, out of breath, but a new radiance in his eyes.
"Why, John," Bill remarked, "I thought you were going over to the cabin!"
"Well, I was," said Marvin. "But I heard about Lem and Mrs. Davis being married, and I knew that everybody would be over there having a good time. I didn't mean to be out of it. Where's your wife?"
"Oh, she's all right. She's cooking supper," Bill replied.
Marvin hesitated a moment. He went to a window and looked out; then he came back, putting his arm through Bill's.
"Is Millie—?"
He could get no farther, for Bill interrupted him.
"Oh yes, she's waiting for you. She's afraid you're not going to forgive her."
"Well, I think I can convince her of my forgiveness," said Marvin.
Delving into his pocket Bill brought forth the ring.
"When you see her just give her this," he said.
Marvin smiled. "Now I know why you borrowed that two dollars this afternoon!"
"Sure! You can find her. She's around some place. After you give it to her come in to the party."
"What party?"
Bill nodded toward the dining-room door. "Lem and his wife are giving a party and we want you to come. But you can't come until you get Millie," said Bill.
Marvin turned and walked toward the stairs, wondering where Millie was. His thought brought his wish, for she parted the curtains and came slowly down. She stopped when she saw him, but there was a look in his eyes that she could not mistake and her heart was beating as it had not done for many months, ever since she and Marvin had walked on the shores of Lake Tahoe many months ago.
"Daddy has told you what I should say to you, hasn't he?" she asked, coming slowly down the stairs. Marvin went half-way up.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Well, I have made a fool of myself and I am ashamed of myself and I beg you to forgive me!"
Pausing on the stairs, she lowered her eyes, coloring deeply. Marvin could not help laughing, and there was a dimple of amusement in Millie's cheek. He put an arm around her and led her down into the lobby.
"I could tell you something better than that to say," he stated, seeing that her eyes were at last answering his, "you might say, for example, 'John, dearest, I know that you love me always,' because that is something a woman must know!"
They both laughed delightedly at this repetition of the words he had used in the court-room.
"And I suppose I should say"—but here Millie turned her head away—"please marry me!"
"Exactly!" Marvin cried. "And my answer is, Yes, Millie—if you will have me!"
Suddenly he remembered the horrible ring Bill had bought. He took it from his pocket, saying, with mock tenderness, "Millie, I want to show you something, and—"
