"Post No Bills."
Of course every one in Tinkletown knew, and had known for the matter of a week or more, that Mort Fryback's bulldog was "lost, strayed or stolen," but this was the first glaring intimation that Mort had also lost his mind. In the first place, Mike—as he was familiarly known to every inhabitant—wasn't worth more than a dollar and a half when he was in his prime, and that, according to recollection, must have been at least twelve or fifteen years prior to his unexplained disappearance. In the second place, it was pretty generally understood that Mike—recently Marmaduke—had surreptitiously taken a dose of prussic acid in a shed back of Kepsal's blacksmith shop and was now enjoying a state of perfect rejuvenation in the happy hunting ground.
Mr. Alf Reesling, the town drunkard, after having scanned four of the notices on his way to the post office, informed a group of citizens in front of Brubaker's drugstore that Anderson Crow would do almost anything to get his name into print. Alf and the town marshal had had one of their periodical "fallings out," and, for the moment at least, the former was inclined to bitterness.
"To begin with," explained Alf, "there ain't a dog in this town that's worth stealin', to say nothin' of three dollars. You can't tell me that Mort Fryback would give three dollars to get that dog back, not even if he was alive—which he ain't, if you c'n believe Bill Kepsal. No, sir; it's just because Anderson wants to see his name in print, that's what it is. I bet if you was to ask Mort if he has agreed to pay—how much is it all told?—twenty-eight dollars—if he has agreed to pay all that money for nothin', he'd order you out of his store."
"Mrs. Fryback told my wife a couple of weeks ago that Marmaduke was a prize bull, and she wouldn't take a hundred dollars for him," said Newt Spratt. "Seems that she had somebody look up his pedigree, and he turns out to be a stepson or something like that of a dog that won first prize at a bench show—whatever that is—in New York City."
"Ever since that actress woman was here last fall,—that friend of Harry Squires, I mean,—every derned dog in town has turned out to be related some way or other to a thoroughbred animal in some other city," said Alf. "Why, even that mangy shepherd dog of Deacon Rank's—accordin' to Mrs. Rank—is a direct descendant of two of the finest Boston terriers that ever came out of Boston. She told me so herself, but, of course, I couldn't ask how he happened to look so much like a shepherd dog and so little like his parents, 'cause there's no use makin' poor Mrs. Rank any more miserable than she already is—she certainly don't get any fun out of life, livin' with the deacon from one year's end to the other. Yes, sir; just because that actress woman paraded around here for a month or so last fall with a French poodle, is no reason, far as I can see, why all the women in town should begin puttin' leashes on their dogs and washin' 'em and trimmin' 'em and tying red ribbons around their necks—yes, and around some of their tails, too. I'll never forget that stub-tail dog of Angie Nixon's going around with a blue bow stickin' straight up behind him, and lookin' as though he'd lost something and got dizzy looking for it. And Mort's dog, Mike—poor old Mike,—why, he got so he'd go down to Hawkins' undertakin' shop every time he could get a minute off and bark till Lem would let him in, and then he'd lay down in a corner and go to sleep, and Lem always swore the poor dog was as mad as a hornet when he woke up and found he was still alive."
"What puzzles me is why Mort Fryback's offerin' this reward, and all that, if he knows the dog is dead. It costs money to have bills like this printed at the Banner office." So spoke Elmer Pratt, the photographer. "Wasn't he present at the obsequies?"
"No, he wasn't," said Alf. "He claims now that he don't know anything about it, and, besides, Bill Kepsal says he'll beat the head off of anybody that says Mike passed away on his premises—including Mort. So naturally Mort denies it. He told me yesterday he would deny it even if he had both of his legs; but what chance, says he, has a one-legged man got with big Bill Kepsal?"
"Here comes Anderson now," said Mr. Spratt, his gaze fixed on an approaching figure.
It was zero weather in northern New York State, and the ancient Marshal of Tinkletown was garbed accordingly. The expansive collar of his brass-buttoned ulster was turned up, completely obscuring the ear-flaps and part of the coonskin cap he was wearing. An enormous pair of arctics covered his feet; his grey and red mittens were of the homemade variety; a muffler of the same material enveloped his gaunt neck, knotted loosely under his chin in such a way as to leave his whiskers free not only to the wind but to the vicissitudes of conversation as well. The emblem of authority, a bright silver star, gleamed on the breast of his ulster.
He stopped when he reached the group huddled in front of the drugstore, and glared accusingly at Alf Reesling.
"I thought I told you to keep off the streets," he said ominously. "Didn't I tell you yesterday I'd run you in if I caught you drunk in the streets again?"
"Yes, you did," replied Alf, in a justifiably bellicose manner; "but I still stick to what I said to you at first when you said that to me."
"What was that?"
"I said you couldn't ketch me even if I was dead drunk and unconscious in the gutter, that's what I said."
"For two cents, I'd show you," said Anderson.
"Well, go ahead. Just add two cents to what you claim I already owe you, and go ahead with your runnin' me in. But before you do it, lemme warn you I'll sue you for false arrest, and then where'll you be? I got five witnesses right here that'll swear I ain't drunk now and haven't been in twenty-three years."
"That shows just how drunk you are," said Anderson triumphantly. "Far as I can see, there are only four men here."
"Don't you call yourself a man?"
"What say?"
"I mean I got five witnesses includin' you, that's what I mean. I'm gettin' sick of you all the time tellin' me I been drinkin' again, when you know I ain't touched a drop since 1896. Why, dog-gone you, Andy Crow, if it wasn't for me an' the way you keep on talkin' about juggin' me, you wouldn't have any excuse at all fer bein' town marshal. You—"
"That'll do now," interrupted Anderson severely. "You have said them very words to me a thousand times, Alf Reesling, and—Who's that coming out of the post office?"
The group gradually turned to look up the street. Tinkletown is a slow place. Its inhabitants do everything with a deliberation that suggests the profoundest ennui. For example, a gentleman of Tinkletown rarely raised his hat on meeting a lady. He invariably started to do so, but as the ladies of the place were in the habit of moving with more celerity than the gentlemen, he failed on most occasions to complete the undertaking. What's the sense of takin' your hat off to a woman, he would argue, if she's already got past you? So far as anybody knew, there wasn't a woman in town with an eye in the back of her head.
"Looks like a stranger," said Newt Spratt.
"It certainly does," agreed Anderson. "Yes, I'm right," he added an instant later.
The object of interest was crossing the street in the direction of the Grand View Hotel. The group watched him with mild interest. In front of the two-story frame building that seemed to stagger, or at least to shrink, under the weight of its own importance, the stranger—a man—paused to glance at one of the placards heralding the misfortune and at the same time the far from parsimonious regard of the lady who had been despoiled of a fashionable bulldog. Having perused the singularly comprehensive notice, he deliberately tore it down, folded it with some care, and stuck it into his overcoat pocket. Then he entered the Grand View Hotel.
"Well, I'll be ding-blasted!" exclaimed Marshal Crow.
Mr. Reesling's animosity gave way to civic pride. "By jingo, Anderson," he cried, "if you want any help arrestin' that scoundrel, call on me! Comin' around here defacin' things like that—he ought to go to jail."
Elmer K. Pratt, the photographer, voiced a time-tried but fruitless criticism. "If you'd paste 'em up instead of tackin' 'em up, people couldn't take 'em down like that. I've told you—"
"If you got any complaints to make about me, Elmer, you'd better make 'em to the town board and not to Alf Reesling and Newt Spratt," interrupted Marshal Crow testily. "Besides I do paste 'em up when I run out of tacks."
He started off toward the Grand View, his head erect, his whiskers bristling with indignation.
"Shall we go with you, Anderson?" inquired Alf.
"'Tain't necessary," replied the Marshal, "but you might go over and wait for me in front of the hotel."
"If you need any help, just holler," said Alf.
Entering the office of the Grand View Hotel, Marshal Crow looked around for the despoiler. Save for the presence of the proprietress, Mrs. Bloomer, relict of the founder of the hostelry, the room was quite empty. Mrs. Bloomer, however, filled it rather snugly. She was a large person, and she had a cold in the head which made her feel even larger. She was now engaged in sweeping the floor.
"Mornin', Jennie," was Anderson's greeting. "Where's the feller that's stoppin' here?"
Mrs. Bloomer had the sniffles. "He's gone up to his room," she said. Then after another sniffle: "Why?"
"I want to see him."
"Well his room's at the head of the stairs, to your right."
Anderson twisted his whiskers in momentary perplexity.
"Might be better if you asked him to come down."
"Ask him yourself," she said. "I don't want to see him."
Marshal Crow made a mental reservation to yank Mrs. Bloomer up before Justice Robb the next time she left the garbage can standing on the sidewalk overnight.
He hesitated about going up to the guest's bedroom. It wasn't quite the legal thing to do. The more he thought of it, the longer he hesitated. In fact, while he was about it, he thought he would draw a chair up to the big sheet-iron stove and sit down.
"Won't you take off your overcoat and goloshes?" inquired the landlady, but in a far from hospitable manner.
"How long has this feller been here?" demanded Anderson, moving his left foot a little, but not quite far enough to avoid the broom.
"Last night."
"Um-m! What's his name and where's he from?"
"Go and look at the register, and then you'll know as much as I do. It's a public register. Nothing secret about it."
Anderson got up suddenly. "I guess I'll go look while you're sweepin' around here."
The register on the little counter in the corner revealed the name of a single arrival below the flowing Spencerian hand of Willie Spence, the clerk, head waiter, porter and bell-boy of the Grand View Hotel. Willie, because of his proficiency as a chirographer, always wrote the date line in the register. He was strong on flourishes, but somewhat feeble in spelling. Any one with half an eye could see that there was something wrong with a date line that read: "Febury 25nd 1919." The lone guest's name, written in a tight "running" hand with total disregard for the elementary formation of letters, might have been almost anything that occupied less than two inches of space. Even his place of residence was a matter of doubt.
The Marshal put on his spectacles and studied the signature. As far as he could make out, the man's name was something like "Winnumnn Millmmmln." It was a name that baffled him. The longer he studied it, the worse it became.
"Seems to me, Jennie, if I was runnin' this hotel, I'd have Willie Spence register for the guests, and save 'em the trouble."
"Can't you make it out?"
"Course I can," he replied promptly. "It's as plain as day to me, but I'll bet you a good cigar you can't make it out."
She fell into the trap. "All right, I take you up. It's Mr. & Mrs. George F. Fox."
Mr. Crow stared at her for a second or two. Then he recovered himself. "You're right," he said. "What kind of a cigar do you smoke, Jennie?"
As he had feared, she promptly named the highest-priced cigar she had in stock, a three-for-a-quarter brand, and then coolly announced that if he'd leave a dime on the show case, she'd get it.
"Got his wife with him, I see," remarked Anderson.
"Yep," said Mrs. Bloomer.
"What's his business?"
"I asked him last night," said she, pausing in her work to fix Anderson with a rather penetrating look. "He said he was a trained elephant."
"A—a what?"
"A trained elephant."
"You don't say so!"
"And his wife is a snake-charmer," she added uneasily.
Anderson blinked rapidly. "Well, of all the—But what on earth's he doing here in Tinkletown?"
"I didn't ask any more questions after that," said she, with a furtive glance up the stairway. "I'd give a good deal to know what they've got in them big black valises they brought with 'em. Three times as big as regular valises, with brass trimmin's. I hope she aint got any reptiles in 'em."
Marshal Crow took that instant to consult the office clock. "By ginger!" he exclaimed, with some sprightliness. "I got to be movin' along. I'm follerin' up a clue in that dog case."
Mrs. Bloomer's anxious gaze was bent on a dark corner back of the stairway.
"I do hope, if she has got any snakes in them valises, she won't let 'em get loose and go crawlin' all over the place. I——"
Mr. Crow sent a quick, searching look about the office as he strode toward the door.
"Ain't you going up to his room?" inquired Mrs. Bloomer.
"Not just now," replied Anderson, and closed the door quickly behind him.
Alf Reesling and his companions were waiting impatiently on the sidewalk. They were actively disappointed when the Marshal emerged empty-handed.
"Was he too much fer you?" was Alf's scathing inquiry.
"How many times have I got to tell you, Alf, that I'm able to deduce these cases without your assistance? Now, this is a big case, and you leave it to me to handle. When I get ready to act, you'll hear something that will make your hair stand on end. Hold on, Newt! Don't ask any questions. Don't——"
"I wasn't going to ask any questions," snapped Newt. "I was going to tell you something."
"You was, eh? Well, what was you going to tell me?"
"Mort Fryback went by here a couple of minutes ago an' he says for you to come into his store right away."
Anderson frowned. "I bet he's confessed."
"Who? Him? What's he got to confess?" demanded Alf.
"Never mind, never mind," said the Marshal quickly. "I'll step in and see him now."
Leaving his "reserves" standing in front of the Grand View, Mr. Crow hurried into Fryback's hardware store.
Mort was pacing—or, strictly speaking, stumping—back and forth behind the cutlery counter. His brow was corrugated with anxiety. The instant he saw the Marshal he uttered an exclamation that might have been construed as either relief, dismay or wrath. It was, as a matter of fact, inarticulate and therefore extremely difficult to classify. Anderson, however, deduced it as dismay. Mr. Fryback came out from behind the counter, stumped over to the stove, in which there was a crackling fire and, after opening the isinglass door, squirted a mouthful of tobacco juice upon the coals. Whereupon it became possible for him to articulate.
"I been lookin' everywhere fer you," said he, somewhat breathlessly. "Where you been?"
"'Tendin' to business," retorted Anderson. "What's the matter?"
Mr. Fryback took the precaution to ascertain that there were no listeners in the store. "Somebody—some woman, you c'n bet on that—told my wife last night that I poisoned old Mike."
"Well, you did, didn't you?"
"Of course I did. That is, I hired Charlie Brubaker to do it. But she says I did it with my own hands, and—my gosh, Anderson, I never went through such a night in my life as last night." He mopped his brow. "You'd think I was a murderer. Course, I denied it. I swore he wasn't dead, and that I'd increase the reward to a hundred dollars just to show her. What I want you to do, right away, is to have a new set of bills printed, offerin' a hundred dollars reward for that dog, instead of three. It's the only chance I've got of ever being able to live in my own house again."
The Marshal eyed him reflectively. "If you could get her to agree to let you offer the reward for Mike, dead or alive—"
"She wants him alive, and no other way."
"Can't you buy her off?"
Mr. Fryback groaned. "I could—" he began dismally, and then fell to chewing with great vigour.
"What would it cost?" inquired Anderson, feelingly.
"An automobile," replied Mr. Fryback, after opening and closing the stove-door once more. "It would be cheaper, you see, to offer a hundred dollars for Mike," he explained, ingenuously.
"It certainly would," agreed the Marshal, "seein' as you wouldn't have to pay fer anything except the printin' of the notices. If you wanted to show how much you think of your wife, and how anxious you are to please her, you could go as high as a thousand dollars, Mort."
"Would you, reely, Anderson?"
"Sure. She could lord it over all these women—includin' my wife—who've been sayin' Mike wasn't worth fifty cents and didn't have a pedigree any longer than his tail. Why, if she wanted to go on lyin' about the value of that old dog, she could tell people she had been offered a thousand dollars for Marmyduke by a well-known dog collector in New York."
"That might please her," reflected Mort. "Course, this thing has already cost me quite a lot of money, outside the printin'. I've had to give Bill Kepsal a receipt in full fer what he owes me, and that young Brubaker's been in twice to price base-burner stoves. He says if he c'n get a good one fer ten dollars he'll take it, and his heart seems to be set on that seventy-dollar Regal over yonder. I'm in an awful fix, Anderson."
"Well, you can't say I didn't advise you to let Mike die a natural death."
"I wish to goodness I had," lamented Mort.
The door opened at that juncture, and in walked a man and a woman. The former was carrying a square black "valise," inadequately described by Mrs. Bloomer as twice the natural size. As a matter of fact, it was more like a half-grown trunk, to quote no less an authority than the town marshal.
The proprietor of the hardware store was, at a glance, qualified to pass an opinion on the personal appearance of the two strangers. His companion's attention, however, was devoted so earnestly to the big black "valise," that he couldn't have told, for the life of him, whether the customers were young or old, black or white. His fascinated gaze was riveted upon the object the man deposited carefully on the floor near the door.
"You are a locksmith, I perceive," remarked the strange man, addressing Mort. "I'd like to have you see if you can open this box for me. We've lost or mislaid the key."
"What fer sort of a lock is it?" asked Mort, approaching.
"Hold on, Mort!" called out Mr. Crow. "Don't monkey with that trunk."
"Hold on, Mort!" called out Mr. Crow. "Don't monkey with that trunk"
The two strangers turned on him.
"Well, who the deuce have we here?" said the man, with some acerbity.
"Oh, what a nice old policeman!" cried the lady, fixing the Marshal with a pair of intensely blue eyes. Mr. Crow looked at her in amazement. Could any one as pretty, as dainty and as refined-looking as she be engaged in the awful business of charming snakes?
"Before we go any further, mister, I've got to know what's inside that box," said Anderson firmly.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded the other. "There's nothing in it that need excite the law, my good man."
"This is our town marshal, Anderson Crow," explained Mort Fryback.
"I might have known it," said the stranger. "I've heard a good deal about Mr. Crow. Well, what's the answer?"
"That's what I want to know," snapped Anderson. "What is the answer? What kind are they? And how many have you got?"
The stranger was on the point of exploding with indignation when his fair companion intervened.
"Leave it to me, George dear. You always fly into such a temper. If you'd only let me attend to the small things, while you look out for the big ones, we'd get along so much better. Wouldn't we, Mr. Crow?"
She appealed to Mr. Crow so abruptly and so sweetly that he said he guessed so before he could check himself.
"If you will stay here until we find a key that will fit, Mr. Crow, you will see with your own eyes what will make them pop out of your head."
"Mort, you keep away from that box, I say!" commanded Anderson, now sure of his ground. "Do you want to get bit?"
"Oh, dear me, they won't bite you!" cried the young lady. "I promise you they are most amiable. I have been handling them for several weeks and—"
Her husband interrupted her. He revealed symptoms of increasing annoyance.
"See here, let's get busy and open this thing. They've got to be fed, you know,—and it's all damned poppycock discussing the matter any longer."
Marshal Crow held up his hand as if stopping traffic in Main Street.
"You are in the presence of the law, Mr. Wolf," he began. The young woman giggled. He glared at her.
"My name is Fox," said the young man, curtly.
"That don't make any difference," retorted the Marshal. "Mine's Crow, and I represent the law. You—"
"How delicious!" said Mrs. Fox. "So like that cunning poem of Guy Wetmore Carryl's. You know it, of course, Mr. Crow?"
She declaimed:
"'I blush to add that when the bird
Took in the situation
He said one brief, emphatic word,
Unfit for publication.
The fox was greatly startled, but
He only sighed and answered "tut"'"
"Don't be silly, Bess," said her husband. "This is no time to recite poetry."
"I don't see any sense in it, anyhow," said Marshal Crow.
Mr. Fryback emerged from behind the cutlery counter, whither he had repaired in some haste when it became evident that Mrs. Fox was likely to remain for some time. He was wiping his lips with the back of his hand, and what very recently might have been mistaken for a prodigious swelling in his cheek had strangely subsided.
"Why shouldn't I fit a key to that lock, Andy?" he demanded, rather hotly. "What right have you got to interfere with my business?"
The Marshal's lips parted to utter a sharp retort, but the words failed to issue. Young Mrs. Fox suddenly stooped over and peered intently at several heretofore unnoticed holes at one end of the black box. These holes, about an inch in diameter, formed a horizontal row. Much to Mr. Crow's alarm, the young lady pulled off her glove and stuck a finger into one of the little apertures and apparently wriggled it without fear or trepidation. Almost instantly there was an ominous rustling inside the box. Withdrawing her finger, she called out:
"Please look!"
The invitation was unnecessary. Mr. Crow was looking for all he was worth.
"Good gracious, ma'am!" he gasped. "Don't stir 'em up like that. Next thing they'll crawl out of them holes and—"
"Why, you poor old goose!" she said, but not disrespectfully. "They're much too large to crawl through these holes. I wish I could catch hold of one of their tails and—Look!" She held her finger close to the hole and a long, thin black tongue darted through and began to writhe about in a most malevolent manner.
"For gosh sake!" exclaimed the Marshal, retreating a couple of steps. This sudden action on his part brought a venomous oath from Mr. Fryback, and an instant apology as well.
"You'd cuss, too," explained the blasphemer to the lady, "if a clumsy elephant, stepped on the only good foot you've got."
"If you think I'm the one that claims to be an elephant—" began Anderson.
"Cootchy, cootchy, cootchy," cooed the lady, addressing the row of holes. Whereupon the rustling in the interior of the devilish box increased to a turmoil. The two citizens of Tinkletown stared wide-eyed at the three little circles, and their eyes grew wider as they saw that one of them was now completely stopped up by a dark, ugly object that bore resemblance to nothing they had ever seen before—a wet, shiny thing that was alive and quivering.
The unnatural Mrs. Fox promptly poked her finger through the hole and rubbed the snout of what must have been a full-sized boa-constrictor. Instantly to their horror, the black obstruction, went through a process of splitting, and several deadly fangs were revealed. Once more the wriggling black tongue darted out to caress the lady's unprotected finger.
"Oh, you darling!" cried the lady. "Please, Mr. Locksmith, see if you can't find a key that will fit the lock."
Marshal Crow dragged his friend toward the door.
"Did you see it?" he whispered hoarsely.
Before Mort could answer, the door flew open and in rushed Mrs. Bloomer, bareheaded and in a great state of agitation.
"For heaven's sake, Anderson, hurry up and come with me," she cried. "Bring a pistol—and, Mort, you get a couple of axes and a pitchfork or two. My God, something awful is loose in one of them rooms upstairs! The most terrible racket is going on in there. I—Oh, there you are!" She caught sight of her lodgers. "Arrest them, Anderson! Lock them up at once. They're dangerous people. They oughtn't to be running at large. Oh, that awful thing! It sounds like it was twenty feet long, and it's thrashing all over the room. Oh, my God! What a scare I've had! Oh, you needn't look at me innocent like that, you two. You're in for it, or my name ain't Jennie Bloomer. Call a posse, Anderson, and surround the hotel. Thank Heaven, the door of that room is locked, but goodness knows how soon it will be crawlin' through the transom."
At that instant she discovered that her skirt was almost touching the big black box on the floor. Emitting a sharp squeal, she gave an elephantine leap to the shelter of Anderson's arms, almost bowling him over.
"God knows what she's got in that valise," she whimpered.
Mr. Fox put on an exceedingly bold front. Realizing that he was cornered, he adopted a lightly boastful air.
"What we've got in this valise, as you call it, madam, is worth more than your whole blamed hotel."
"Keep away from that valise," warned Anderson Crow, addressing Mr. Fox. "Give me time to think. Somethin's got to be done, and right away. I can't take any chances of these terrible things gettin' loose an' drivin' our citizens out of town."
"The first thing you got to do, Anderson Crow," shouted Mrs. Bloomer, "is to capture the reptile that's loose in my hotel. That's what you got to do." She turned upon the pretty Mrs. Fox. "Snake charmer! That's a nice business for a woman to be in. Don't come near me."
"I am not thinking of coming near you, you old rip!" said Mrs. Fox, losing her temper in a very womanly fashion.
"None o' that, now—none o' that," warned the town marshal. "Keep a civil tongue in your head, young woman."
"Why, you long-whiskered old—" began the lady, but her husband spared the Marshal a whirlwind of revelations by taking her arm and leading her to the rear of the store, where for some minutes they were in close and earnest conference.
"The thing to do," said Mort Fryback, "is to take this box down to the crick an' drop it in, all locked and everything. That will put an end to the cussed things, better'n any other way I know."
A furious commotion took place inside the box, preventing further discussion on the part of the retreating observers. It was as if a dozen huge and powerful serpents were exerting every effort to escape.
The voice of Mrs. Fox, clear as a bell, assailed them from behind.
"They're hungry, poor things," she cried. "Perfectly ravenous."
"That settles it," said Marshal Crow. "We've got to git rid of 'em if we have to set fire to your store, Mort. They're terrible when they haven't been fed fer a long time. Swaller pigs an' sheep—and children whole, they say."
Mr. Fox approached. He was now very polite and ingratiating.
"Permit me," he observed, "to offer a solution. If you will give me a bunch of keys, my friend, I will remove the case to my room and open it—if possible. No harm will come to anybody, and in one hour or so, my wife and I will be on our way. My automobile is in your local garage, Mr. Hawk, and we can be ready to start as soon as we have fed and aired the—er—shall we say contents?"
"You arrest him, Anderson," cried Mrs. Bloomer. "Hold him till I estimate the damage that's been done to my property. He's got to pay fer that before he can get out of this town."
"I guess you'd better step over to the calaboose with me, mister," said Anderson firmly. "And you too, ma'am. This here lady prefers charges against you, an' it's my duty to—"
"What is the charge, madam?" demanded Mr. Fox, lighting a cigarette.
"Never mind," said the Marshal; "we'll attend to that later."
Mr. Fryback put in a word at this point. "Yes, but who's going to take charge of this here box? It can't stay here in my place. First thing you know the derned things will gnaw a hole in the side and git out."
"If it is not too far, Mr. Officer, I should be happy to carry the box over to the lock-up—unless, of course, some one else will volunteer. I see quite a number of citizens looking in through the window. Doubtless some of them might—"
"How long after a man's been on a bad spree is he likely to think he sees snakes?" demanded Anderson, struck with an idea.
"The time varies," replied Mr. Fox, rather startled.
"Alf ain't been tight in a good many years," mused the Marshal. "I guess it would be safe to let him carry 'em. Don't you think so, Mort?"
"Him and Newt Spratt," said Mort. "Newt's always braggin' about not being afraid of anything."
"Well, perhaps it would be just as well not to tell 'em what's in this here box," said Anderson. He turned to the pair of strangers. "Only they ain't going to carry it to the calaboose. They're going to carry it to the crick, an' throw it in."
The young woman uttered a cry of dismay, and her husband uttered something distinctly out of place, for Mrs. Bloomer again told him he ought to be ashamed of himself.
After a few whispered words in the ear of the distracted young woman, Mr. Fox turned to the others.
"I'll tell you what we'll do, gentlemen," said he, and then added, with a polite bow to the corpulent Mrs. Bloomer, "and ladies. Mrs. Fox and I had planned giving a little exhibition at the hotel, but that now seems to be out of the question. Kindly bear in mind that we are not visiting your little city on pleasure bent. We are here strictly for business. As a rule we do not make one-night stands. But we have been attracted to your charming city almost against our will—although, I may add, it was at the earnest invitation of one of your most important denizens—I should say citizens. You will agree, I am sure, that it would hardly pay us to visit a place like this unless we were reasonably assured of something in the way of pecuniary benefits. You may not know it, gentlemen, but we have had a bona-fide offer of one hundred dollars—and that isn't to be sneezed at, is it? We—Please bear with me, Mr. Hawk. I shall not detain you—"
"My name is Mr. Crow," snapped Anderson.
"Sorry," apologized Fox. "I fear I confused you with the celebrated Hawkshaw, the detective."
Mr. Crow turned purple.
"That's what Harry Squires, the reporter on the Banner, calls him most of the time," volunteered Mort Fryback. "That, an' Shellback Holmes."
"Such is fame," said Mr. Fox agreeably. "Well, to get right down to cases, Mrs. Fox and I propose that you allow us to give our little exhibition in the Town Hall,—if you have one—and—"
"Not much!" roared Anderson. "I've had enough of this talk. I'm going to take action at once." He flung open the front door and addressed the group in front of the store, now increased to nearly a score, including several scattered women and children—and Ed Higgins' dog. "I call on all you men to assist me in surrounding the Grand View Hotel. There is dangerous work ahead, and I want only the bravest,—wait a second, Newt, don't go away,—and most determined men in town to volunteer. Here, Mort, you hand out some axes, an' pitchforks, an' crowbars, an'—"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, George," cried Mrs. Fox frantically, "don't let them do it. Stop them!"
But the stranger motioned for her to be silent.
Some time was spent in explaining the situation to the posse, and in stationing a group of the hardiest men beneath certain windows of the second floor back. During this arrangement of forces, three of the bravest men in Tinkletown had to go to the post office for some very important letters, and two more rushed over to see that they came back.
Anderson Crow marshalled a dozen or more able-bodied conscripts in Main Street, preparatory to a frontal attack on the suite at the head of the stairway. He had commandeered a double-barreled shotgun belonging to Bill Kepsal, and with this he proposed to "shoot the daylights" out of the serpent through the transom if it hadn't crawled under the bed where he couldn't "get a bead on it."
In the meantime, Mr. Fox had carried the big black box out of Fryback's store, and his wife was now standing guard over it on the porch of the Grand View Hotel.
His wife was now standing guard over it on the porch of the Grand View Hotel
Marshal Crow was issuing commands right and left, and the squad, augmented by a step-ladder from the hardware shop, was about to enter the hotel, when Mrs. Fox uttered an excited little shriek, and then these desolating words:
"Oh, George, I've found it! I've got the key. It was away down in my muff."
Before any action could be taken to restrain the impetuous young woman, she was inserting the key in the lock!
Those nearest her collided violently with those farther away, and in less time than it takes to mention it, there was no one within a radius of fifty feet—except a new arrival on the scene.
To the intense horror of Mort Fryback, his wife emerged from the Grand View Hotel and entered the danger zone.
"Hey, Maude!" he bellowed. "Keep away from that! For the love of—" He clapped his hand over his eyes. Mrs. Fryback had reached the side of the eager Mrs. Fox just as that lady lifted the lid of the box.
Now, Mrs. Fryback was Mort's third wife; according to longevity statistics, she was much too young to die. As a matter of fact, she was little more than a bride. That probably accounts for the brand-new mink coat and muff she was sporting. Moreover, it accounts for Mort's surprising mendacity and even more amazing humility in relation to the taking-off of Mike. No doubt in similar circumstances, he would have told his second wife, who died when she was pretty well along in years, that he'd show her who was boss in his home, and if she didn't like what he did to Mike, she could lump it. But, alas, between a vacillating young wife who has you under her thumb and a constant old one who has been thoroughly squashed under yours for a great many years, there is a world of difference.
Others who stared in horror at the picture on the porch, groaned audibly as young Mrs. Fox looked up into the face of the unsuspecting victim and smiled. Thus encouraged, young Mrs. Fryback, disdaining death, smiled in return and stooped over to look into the depths of that unspeakable box. Instead of starting back in alarm, she uttered a shrill little cry of delight, and dropping to her knees plunged both hands into the nest of wriggling horrors!
Lucius Fry, who had hastily set up the step-ladder, and was now balancing himself somewhat precariously at the top of it, let out a lugubrious howl.
"She's a goner!" he announced.
The two young women had their heads close together and were conversing. Marshal Crow, armed with the double barreled shotgun, began a cautious circuitous advance, his finger on the trigger.
He stopped short when about twenty feet from the women, and spasmodically pulled the trigger. There is no telling what might have happened if the gun had been loaded.
Mr. Fox had deliberately overturned the box and—out scampered three sprightly Boston terrier puppies!
Ten minutes later all but one of Mort Fryback's farming utensils were back in stock. The missing implement, a hatchet, was furtively on its way to the barber-shop of one Ebenezer January, coloured.
Mr. and Mrs. Fryback, Marshal Crow and the amiable Foxes discussed the "points" of the frolicsome puppies in the rear of the hardware store.
"I just adore this one, Mrs. Fox," said Mrs. Fryback, pointing to a rugged little rascal who was patiently gnawing at Mr. Fryback's peg-leg. "Do you really recommend him as the best of the lot, Mr. Fox?" she inquired, turning her shining eyes upon the gentleman.
"Absolutely," said Mr. Fox. "Wouldn't you say so, Mr. Crow?"
"Ab-so-lutely," said Anderson.
"Then I'll take him," said Mort's wife, and Mort not only sighed but wiped a fine coat of moisture from his brow. "One hundred dollars is the very least you will take?"
"The very least, Mrs. Fryback. He is a thoroughbred, you know. My kennels are famous, as you doubtless noted in my advertisement in Town and Country—and I can personally guarantee every pup that comes out of them. In your letter to me, Mrs. Fryback, you stated that only the best I had on hand would be considered. The mother of these puppies has a pedigree a yard long, and the father, as I mentioned before, is Stubbs the Twelfth. Nothing more need be said. The mother, Bonnie Bridget, you have just seen. Stubbs the Twelfth belongs to a millionaire in Albany. Allow me to congratulate you, madam,"—extending his hand,—"on having secured one of the finest dogs in America. And you also, Mr. Fryback, on having a wife who is such a discriminating judge of thoroughbreds."
Mr. Fryback looked a trifle startled, but said nothing.
"If you ever come to our town, Mr. Crow, I hope you will look us up," broke in Mr. Fox. "Our place is about two miles out in the country. By the way, has Mrs. Crow a good dog—I mean one that she can be proud of?"
"She has a thoroughbred setter," said Marshal Crow, compressing his lips.
"A hundred dollars is a lot of money fer a dog," murmured Mr. Fryback. He met his wife's eye for a second and then added: "But, of course, my wife has just lost one that was worth a thousand dollars, so—I guess it ain't so much, after all."
"Marmaduke was a really wonderful dog, Mrs. Fox," vouchsafed Mort's wife, assuming a sad and pensive expression.
"I am sure he must have been," said Mrs. Fox.
"One hundred dollars is very cheap, sir, for a thoroughbred Boston terrier in these days," said Mr. Fox. "Isn't that so, Mr. Crow?"
"Cheap as dirt," said Anderson.
"Mortimer, will you please give Mr. Fox the money?" said Mrs. Fryback. "And, by the way, Mr. Crow, I hope you take down all those reward notices at once. I wouldn't know what to do with Marmaduke now, even if some one did bring him back to me."
"I know what I'd order you to do with him," said Anderson, meeting Mort's melancholy gaze at last.
"What, may I inquire?"
"I'd order you to bury him," said the town marshal, speaking in his capacity as chairman of the Board of Health.
Mrs. Fryback looked at him steadily for a second or two, and then slowly closed an eye.
SHADES OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN!
It wasn't often that Marshal Crow acknowledged that he was in a quandary. When he did find himself in that rare state of mind, he invariably went to Harry Squires, the editor of the Banner, for counsel—but never for advice. He had in the course of a protracted career as preserver of the peace and dignity of Tinkletown, found himself confronted by seemingly unsolvable mysteries, but he always had succeeded in unravelling them, one way or another, to his own complete satisfaction. Only the grossest impudence on the part of the present chronicler would permit the tiniest implication to creep into this or any other chapter of his remarkable history that might lead the reader to suspect that he did not solve them to the complete satisfaction of any one else. So, quite obviously, the point is not one to be debated.
Now, as nearly every one knows, Tinkletown is a temperance place. There is no saloon there,—unless, of course, one chooses to be rather nasty about Brubaker's Drugstore. Away back in the Seventies,—soon after the Civil War, in fact,—an enterprising but misguided individual attempted to establish a bar-room at the corner of Main and Sickle Streets. He opened the Sunlight Bar and for one whole day and night revelled in the conviction that he had found a silver mine. The male population of Tinkletown, augmented by a swarm of would-be inebriates from all the farms within a radius of ten miles, flocked to the Sunlight Bar and proceeded to get gloriously and collectively drunk on the contents of the two kegs of lager beer that constituted an experimental stock in trade.
The next morning the women of Tinkletown started in to put the Sunlight Bar out of business. They did not, as you may suspect, hurl stones at the place, neither did they feloniously enter and wreak destruction with axes, hatchets and hoe-handles. Not a bit of it. They were peaceful, law-abiding women, not sanguinary amazons. What they did was perfectly simple.
It is possible, even probable, that they were the pioneer "pickets" of our benighted land. At any rate, bright and early on the second day of the Sunlight Bar, the ladies of Tinkletown brought their knitting and their sewing down to the corner of Main and Sickle streets and sat themselves down in front of the shrinking "silver mine." They came with rocking-chairs, and camp-chairs, and milk-stools, and benches, too, and instead of chanting a doleful lay, they chattered in a blithe and merry fashion. There was no going behind the fact, however, that these smiling, complacent women formed the Death Watch that was to witness the swift, inevitable finish of the Sunlight Bar.
These smiling, complacent women formed the Death Watch that was to witness the swift, inevitable finish of the Sunlight Bar
They came in relays, and they stayed until the lights went out in the desolate house of cheer. The next day they were on hand again, and the next, and still the next. Fortunately for them, but most unluckily for the proprietor of the Sunlight Bar, the month was August: they could freeze him out, but he couldn't freeze them out.
Sheepish husbands and sons passed them by, usually on the opposite sidewalk, but not one of them had the hardihood to extend a helping hand to the expiring saloon. At the end of a week, the Sunlight Bar drew its last breath. It died of starvation. The only mourner at its bier was the bewildered saloon-keeper, who engaged a dray to haul the remains to Boggs City, the County seat, and it was he who said, as far back as 1870, that he was in favour of taking the vote away from the men and giving it exclusively to the women.
Tinkletown, according to the sage observations of Uncle Dad Simms, was rarely affected by the unsettling problems of the present day. This talk about "labour unrest" was ridiculous, he said. If the remainder of the world was anything like Tinkletown, labour didn't do much except rest. It was getting so that if a workin'-man had very far to walk to "git" to his job, he had to step along purty lively if he wanted to arrive there in plenty of time to eat his lunch and start back home again. And as for "this here prohibition question," he didn't take any stock in it at all. Tinkletown had got along without liquor for more than a hundred years and he guessed it could get along for another century or two without much trouble, especially as it was only ten miles to Boggs City where you could get all you wanted to drink any day in the week. Besides, he argued, loudly and most violently, being so deaf that he had to strain his own throat in order to hear himself, there wasn't anybody in Tinkletown except Alf Reesling that ever wanted a drink, and even Alf wouldn't take it when you offered it to him.
But in spite of Uncle Dad's sage conclusions, it was this very prohibition question that was disturbing Anderson Crow. He sauntered into the Banner office late one afternoon in May and planked himself down in a chair beside the editor's desk. There was a troubled look in his eyes, which gave way to vexation after he had made three or four fruitless efforts to divert the writer's attention from the sheet of "copy paper" on which he was scribbling furiously.
"How do you spell beverage, Anderson?" inquired Mr. Squires abruptly.
"What kind of beverage?" demanded Mr. Crow.
"Any kind, just so it's intoxicating. Never mind, I'll take a chance and spell it the easiest way. That's the way the dictionary spells it, so I guess it's all right. Well, sir, what's on your mind?—besides your hat, I mean. You look worried."
"I am worried. Have you any idee as to the size of the apple crop in this neighbourhood last summer and fall, Harry?"
"Not the least."
"Well, sir, it was the biggest we've had since 1902, 'specially the fall pickin."
"What's the idea? Do you want me to put something in the Banner about Bramble County's bumper crop of pippins?"
"No. I just want to ask you if there's anything in this new prohibition amendment against apple cider?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Well, do you know it's impossible to buy a good eatin' or cookin' apple in this town today, Harry Squires?"
"You don't say so! In spite of the big crop last fall?"
"You could buy all you wanted last week, by the bushel or peck or barrel,—finest, juiciest apples you ever laid your eyes on."
"Well, I don't like apples anyway, so it doesn't mean much in my life."
Anderson was silent for a moment or two, contemplating his foot with singular intentness.
"Was you ever drunk on hard cider?" he inquired at last,—transferring his gaze to the rapidly moving hand that held the pencil.
The reporter jabbed a period,—or "full stop," as they call it in a certain form of literature,—in the middle of a sentence, and looked up with sudden interest.
"Yes," he said, with considerable force. "I'll never forget it. You can get tighter on hard cider than anything else I know of."
"Well, there you are," exclaimed the Marshal, banging his gnarled fist on the arm of the chair. "And as far as I c'n make out, there ain't no law ag'inst cider stayin' in the barrel long enough to get good and hard, an' what's more, there ain't no law ag'ainst sellin' cider, hard or sweet, is there?"
"I get your point, Anderson. And I also get your deductions concerning the mysterious disappearance of all the apples in Tinkletown. Apparently we are to have a shortage of dried apples this year, with an overflow of hard cider instead. By George, it's interesting, to say the least. Looks as though an apple orchard is likely to prove more valuable than a gold mine, doesn't it?"
"Yes, sir! 'Specially if you've got trees that bear in the fall. Fall apples make the best cider. They ain't so mushy. And as fer the feller that owns a cider-press, why, dog-gone it, he ought to be as rich as Crowsis."
"I seem to recall that you have a cider-press on your farm on Crow's Mountain,—and a whacking good orchard, too. Are you thinking of resigning as Marshal of Tinkletown?"
"What say?"
"I see you're not," went on Harry. "Of course you understand you can't very well manufacture hard cider and sell it and still retain your untarnished reputation as a defender of the law."
"I'm not figurin' on makin' hard cider," said Anderson, with some irritation. "You don't make hard cider, Harry. It makes itself. All you do is to rack the apple juice off into a barrel, or something, with a little yeast added, and then leave it to do the work. It ferments an' then, if you want to, you rack it off again an' bottle it an'—well, gee whiz, how tight you c'n get on it if you ain't got sense enough to let it alone. But I ain't thinkin' about what I'm goin' to do, 'cause I ain't to do anything but make applebutter out of my orchard,—an' maybe a little cider-vinegar fer home consumption. What's worryin' me is what to do about all these other people around here. If they all take to makin' cider this fall,—or even sooner,—an' if they bottle or cask it proper,—we'll have enough hard cider in this township to give the whole state of New York the delirium trimmins."
"I don't see that you can do anything, Anderson," said Squires, leaning back in his chair and puffing at his pipe. "You can't keep people from making cider, you know. And you can't keep 'em from drinking it. Besides, who's going to take the trouble to ascertain whether it contains one-half of one percent alcohol? What interests me more than anything else is the possibility of this township becoming 'wet' in spite of itself,—an' to my certain knowledge, it has been up to now the barrenest desert on God's green earth."
"People are so all-fired contrary," Anderson complained. "For the last fifty years the citizens of this town and its suburbs have been so dead set ag'inst liquor that if a man went up to Boggs City an' got a little tipsy he had to run all the way home so's he'd be out of breath when he got there. Nobody ever kept a bottle of whiskey in his house, 'cause nobody wanted it an' it would only be in the way. But now look at 'em! The minute the Government says they can't have it, they begin movin' things around in their cellars so's to make room fer the barrels they're going to put in. An' any day you want to drive out in the country you c'n see farmers an' hired men treatin' the apple-trees as if they was the tenderest plants a-growin'. I heard this mornin' that Henry Wimpelmeyer is to put in a cider-press at his tanyard, an' old man Smock's turnin' his grist mill into an apple-mill. An' everybody is hoardin' apples, Harry. It beats the Dutch."
"It's up to you to frustrate their nefarious schemes, Mr. Hawkshaw. The fair name of the Commonwealth must be preserved. I use the word advisedly. It sounds a great deal better than 'pickled.' Now, do you want me to begin a campaign in the Banner against the indiscriminate and mendacious hardening of apple-cider, or am I to leave the situation entirely in your hands?"
Marshal Crow arose. The fire of determination was in his ancient eye.
"You leave it to me," said he, and strode majestically from the room.
Encountering Deacon Rank in front of the Banner office, he chanced this somewhat offensive remark:
"Say, Deacon, what's this I hear about you?"
The deacon looked distinctly uneasy.
"You can always hear a lot of things about me that aren't true," he said.
"I ain't so sure about that," said Anderson, eyeing him narrowly. "Hold on! What's your hurry?"
"I—I got to step in here and pay my subscription to the Banner," said the deacon.
"Well, that's something nobody'll believe when they hear about it," said Anderson. "It'll be mighty hard fer the proprieter of the Banner to believe it after all these years."
"Times have been so dog-goned hard fer the last couple of years, I ain't really been able to—"
"Too bad about you," broke in Anderson scornfully.
"Everything costs so much in these days," protested the deacon. "I ain't had a new suit of clothes fer seven or eight years. Can't afford 'em. My wife was sayin' only last night she needed a new hat,—somethin' she can wear all the year round,—but goodness knows this ain't no time to be thinkin' of hats. She—"
"She ain't had a new hat fer ten years," interrupted Anderson. "No wonder the pore woman's ashamed to go to church."
"What's that? Who says she's ashamed to go to church? Anybody that says my wife's ashamed to go to church is a—is a—well, he tells a story, that's all."
"Well, why don't she go to church?"
"'Tain't because she's ashamed of her hat, let me tell you that, Anderson Crow. It's a fine hat an' it's just as good as new. She's tryin' to save it, that's what she's tryin' to do. She knows it's got to last her five or six years more, an' how in tarnation can she make it last that long if she wears it all the time? Use a little common sense, can't you? Besides, I'll thank you not to stick your nose in my family affairs any—"
"What's that you got in your pocket?" demanded Anderson, indicating the bulging sides of the deacon's overcoat.
"None of your business!"
"Now, don't you get hot. I ask you again, civil as possible,—what you got in your pocket?"
"I'm a respectable, tax-paying, church-going citizen of this here town, and I won't put up with any of your cussed insinuations," snapped the deacon. "You act as if I'd stole something. You—"
"I ain't accusin' you of stealin' anything. I'm only accusin' you of havin' something in your pocket. No harm in that, is there?"
The deacon hesitated for a minute. Then he made a determined effort to temporize.
"And what's more," he said, "my wife's hat's comin' back into style before long, anyhow. It's just as I keep on tellin' her. The styles kinder go in circles, an' if she waits long enough they'll get back to the kind she's wearin', and then she'll be the first woman in Tinkletown to have the very up-to-datest style in hats,—'way ahead of anybody else,—and it will be as good as new, too, you bet, after the way she's been savin' it."
"Now I know why you got your pockets stuffed full of things,—eggs, maybe, or hick'ry nuts, or—whatever it is you got in 'em. It's because you're tryin' to save a piece of wrappin' paper or a bag, or the wear and tear on a basket. No wonder you got so much money you don't know how to spend it."
"And as for me gettin' a new suit of clothes," pursued the deacon, doggedly, "if times don't get better the chances are I'll have to be buried in the suit I got on this minute. I never knowed times to be so hard—"
The marshal interrupted him. "You go in an' pay up what you owe fer the Banner an' I'll wait here till you come out."
Deacon Rank appeared to reflect. "Come to think of it, I guess I'll stop in on my way back from the post office. Ten or fifteen minutes—"
He stopped short, a fixed intent look in his sharp little eyes. His gaze was directed past Anderson's head at some object down the street. Then, quite abruptly and without even the ceremony of a hasty "good-bye," he bolted into the Banner office, slamming the door in the marshal's face.
"Well, I'll be dog-goned!" burst from the lips of the astonished Mr. Crow. "I never knowed him to change his mind so quick as that in all my life,—or so often. What the dickens—"
Indignation succeeded wonder at this instant, cutting off his audible reflections. Snapping his jaws together, he laid a resolute hand on the doorknob. Just as he turned it and was on the point of stamping in after the deacon, his eye fell upon an approaching figure—the figure of a woman. If it had not been for the hat she was wearing, he would have failed to recognize her at once. But there was no mistaking the hat.
"Hi!" called out the wearer of the too familiar object. Marshal Crow let go of the door knob and stared at the lady in sheer stupefaction.
Mrs. Rank's well-preserved hat was perched rakishly at a perilous angle over one ear. A subsequent shifting to an even more precarious position over the other ear, as the result of a swift, inaccurate sweep of the lady's hand, created an instant impression that it was attached to her drab, disordered hair by means of a new-fangled but absolutely dependable magnet. Never before had Marshal Crow seen that ancient hat so much as the fraction of an inch out of "plumb" with the bridge of Mrs. Rank's undeviating nose.
She approached airily. Her forlorn little person was erect, even soldierly. Indeed, if anything, she was a shade too erect at times. At such times she appeared to be in some danger of completely forgetting her equilibrium. She stepped high, as the saying is, and without her usual precision. In a word, the meek and retiring wife of Deacon Rank was hilariously drunk!
Pedestrians, far and near, stopped stockstill in their tracks to gaze open-mouthed at the jaunty drudge; storekeepers peered wide-eyed and incredulous from windows and doors. If you suddenly had asked any one of them when the world was coming to an end, he would have replied without the slightest hesitation.
She bore down upon the petrified Mr. Crow.
"Is zat you, An'erson?" she inquired, coming to an uncertain stop at the foot of the steps. Where—oh, where! was the subdued, timorous voice of Sister Rank? Whose—oh, whose! were the shrill and fearless tones that issued forth from the lips of the deacon's wife?
"For the Lord's sake, Lucy,—wha—what ails you?" gasped the horrified marshal.
"Nothing ails me, An'erson. Nev' fel' better'n all my lipe—life. Where's my hush—hushban'?"
She brandished her right hand, and clutched in her fingers an implement that caused Anderson's eyes to almost start from his head.
"What's that you got in your hand?" he cried out.
"Thish? Thass a hashet. Don't you know whass a hashet is?"
"I—I know it's a hatchet. Lucy,—but, fer heaven's sake, what are you goin' to do with it?"
"I'm going to cut th' deacon's head off wiz it," she replied blandly.
"What!"
"Yes, shir; thass what I'm goin' cut off. Right smack off, An'erson,—and you can't stop me, unnerstan', An'erson. I been wannin' cuttiz 'ead off f'r twenny-fi' year. I—"
"Hey! Stop wavin' that thing around like that, Lucy Rank!"
"You needen be 'fraid, An'erson. I woulden hurt you fer whole United States. Where's my hussam, An'erson?"
Marshal Crow looked hopelessly at the well-scattered witnesses who were taking in the scene from a respectful distance. Obviously it was his duty to do something. Not that he really felt that the deacon's head should not be cut off by his long-suffering wife, but that it was hardly the proper thing for her to do it in public. Virtually every man in Tinkletown had declared, at one time or another, that Mrs. Rank ought to slit the old skinflint's throat, or poison him, or set fire to him, or something of the sort, but, even though he agreed with them, the fact still remained that Marshal Crow considered it his duty to protect the deacon in this amazing crisis.
"Gimme that hatchet, Lucy Rank," he commanded, with authority. "You ain't yourself, an' you know it. You gimme that hatchet an' then lemme take you home an' put you to bed. You'll be all right in the mornin', an—"
"Didden my hussam go in the Blammer ossif minute ago?" she demanded, fixing a baleful glare upon the closed door.
"See here, Lucy, you been drinkin'. You're full as a goat. You gimme that—"
"An'erson Crow, are you tryin' inshult me?" she demanded, drawing herself up. "Wha' you mean sayin' I'm dunk,—drump? You know I never touched dropper anything. I'm the bes' frien' your wife's got innis town an' she—who's 'at lookin' out zat winner? Zat my hussam?"
Before the marshal could interfere, she blazed away at one of the windows in the Banner office. There was a crash of glass. She was now empty-handed but the startled guardian of the peace was slow to realize it. He was still trying to convince himself that it was the gentle, long-suffering Mrs. Rank who stood before him.
Suddenly, to his intense dismay, she threw her arms around his neck and began to weep—and wail.
"I—I—love my hussam,—I love my hussam,—an' I didden mean cuttiz 'ead off—I didden—I didden, An'erson. My hussam's dead. My hussam's head's all off,—an' I love my hussam—I love my hussam."
The door flew open and Harry Squires strode forth.
"What the devil does this mean—My God! Mrs. Rank! Wha—what's the matter with her, Anderson?"
The marshal gazed past him into the office. His eyes were charged with apprehension.
"Where—where's the deacon's head?" he gulped.
The editor did not hear him. He had eyes and ears only for the mumbling creature who dangled limply from the marshal's neck; her face was hidden but her hat was very much in evidence. It was bobbing up and down on the back of her head.
"Let's get her into the office," he exclaimed. "This is dreadful, Anderson,—shocking!"
A moment later the door closed behind the trio,—and a key was turned in the lock. This was the signal for a general advance of all observers. Headed by Mr. Hawkins, the undertaker, they swarmed up the steps and crowded about the windows. The thoughtful Mr. Squires, however, conducted Mrs. Rank to the composing-room and the crowd was cheated.
Bill Smith, the printer, looked up from his case and pied half of the leading editorial. He proved to be a printer of the old school. After a soft, envious whistle he remarked:
"My God, I'd give a month's pay for one like that," and any one who has ever come in contact with an old-time printer will know precisely what he meant.
"Oh, my poor b'loved hussam," murmured Mrs. Rank. "My poor b'loved hussam whass I have endured f'r twenty-fi' years wiz aller Chrissen forcitude of—where is my poor hussam?"
She swept the floor with a hazy, uncertain look. Not observing anything that looked like a head, she turned a bleary, accusing eye upon Bill Smith, the printer, and there is no telling what she might have said to him if Harry Squires had not intervened.
"Sit down here, Mrs. Rank,—do. Your husband is all right. He was here a few minutes ago, and—which way did he go, Bill?"
"Out," said Bill laconically, jerking his head in the direction of an open window at the rear.
"Didden—didden I cuttiz 'ead off?" demanded Mrs. Rank.
"Not so's you'd notice it," said Bill.
"Well, 'en, whose 'ead did I c'off?"
"Nobody's, my dear lady," said Squires, soothingly. "Everything's all right,—quite all right. Please—"
"Where's my hashet? Gimme my hashet. I insiss on my hashet. I gotter cuttiz 'ead off. Never ress in my grave till I cuttiz 'ead off."
Presently they succeeded in quieting her. She sat limply in an arm-chair, brought from the front office, and stared pathetically up into the faces of the three perspiring men.
"Can you beat it?" spoke Harry Squires to the beaddled marshal.
"Where do you suppose she got it?" muttered Anderson, helplessly. "Maybe she had a toothache or something and took a little brandy—"
"Not a bit of it," said Harry. "She's been hitting old man Rank's stock of hard cider, that's what she's been doing."
"Impossible! He's our leadin' church-member. He ain't got any hard cider. He's dead-set ag'inst intoxicatin' liquors. I've heard him say it a hundred times."
"Well, just ask her," was Harry's rejoinder.
Mr. Crow drew a stool up beside the unfortunate lady and sat down.
"What have you been drinking, Lucy?" he asked gently, patting her hand.
"You're a liar," said Mrs. Rank, quite distinctly. This was an additional shock to Anderson. The amazing potency of strong drink was here being exemplified as never before in the history of Time. A sober Lucy Rank would no more have called any one a liar than she would have cursed her Maker. Such an expression from the lips of the meek and down-trodden martyr was unbelievable,—and the way she said it! Not even Pat Murphy, the coal-wagon driver, with all his years of practice, could have said it with greater distinctness,—not even Pat who possessed the masculine right to amplify the behest with expletives not supposed to be uttered except in the presence of his own sex.
"She'll be swearing next," said Bill Smith, after a short silence. "I couldn't stand that," he went on, taking his coat from a peg in the wall.
Mr. Squires took the lady in hand.
"If you will just be patient for a little while, Mrs. Rank, Bill will go out and find your husband and bring him here at once. In the meantime, I will see that your hatchet is sharpened up, and put in first-class order for the sacrifice. Go on, Bill. Fetch the lady's husband." He winked at the departing Bill. "We've got to humour her," he said in an aside to Anderson. "These hard-cider jags are the worst in the world. The saying is that a quart of hard cider would start a free-for-all fight in heaven. Excuse me, Mrs. Rank, while I fix your nice new hat for you. It isn't on quite straight—and it's such a pretty hat, isn't it?"
Mrs. Rank squinted at him for a moment in doubtful surprise, and then smiled.
"My hussam tol' you to shay that," said she, shaking her finger at him.
"Not at all,—not at all! I've always said it, haven't I, Anderson? Say yes, you old goat!" (He whispered the last, and the marshal responded nobly.) "Now, while we are waiting for Mr. Rank, perhaps you will tell us just why you want to cut his head off today. What has the old villain been up to lately?"
She composed herself for the recital. The two men looked down at her with pity in their eyes.
"He d'sherted me today,—abon—abonimably d'sherted me. For'n Missionary S'ciety met safternoon at our house. All ladies in S'ciety met our house. Deac'n tol' me be generous—givvem all the r'fressmens they wanted. He went down shellar an' got some zat shider he p'up lash Marsh. He said he wanted to shee whezzer it was any good." She paused, her brow wrinkled in thought. "Lesh see—where was I?"
"In the parlour?" supplied Anderson, helpfully.
She shook her head impatiently. "I mean where was I talkin' 'bout? Oh, yesh,—'bout shider. When Woman For'n Missinary S'ciety come I givvem shider,—lots shider. No harm in shider, An'erson,—so don' look like that. Deacon shays baby could drink barrel shider an—and sho on an' sho forth. Well, For'n Missinary S'ciety all havin' splennid time,—singin' 'n' prayin' 'n' sho on 'n' sho forth, an'—an' sho on 'n' sho forth. Then your wife, An'erson, she jumps up 'n' shays we gotter have shong-shervice,—reg'ler shong shervice. She—"
"My wife?" exclaimed Anderson. "Was Eva Crow there?"
"Shert'nly. Never sho happy 'n' her life. Couldn't b'lieve my eyes 'n' ears. And Sister Jones too,—your bosh's wife, Misser Squires. Say, d'you ever know she could shing bass? Well, she can, all right. She c'n shing bass an' tenor'n ev'thing else, she can. She—"
"Where—where are they now?" demanded Anderson, with a wild look at Harry.
"Who? The Woman For'n Missionary S'ciety?"
"Yes. For heaven's sake, don't tell me they're loose on the street!"
"Not mush! Promished me they wait till I capshered my hussam, deader 'live, an' bring 'im 'ome. Didden I tell you my hussam desherted me? He desherted all of us—all of For'n Missinary S'ciety. I gotter bring 'im back, deader 'live. Wannim to lead in shong shervice. My hussam's got loudes' voice in town. Leads shingin' in chursh 'n' prayer meetin' 'n' ever 'where else. Loudes' voice in town, thass what he is. Prays loudes' of anybody, too. All ladies waitin' up my house f'r loudes voice in town to lead 'em in shacred shong. Muss have somebody with loud voice to lead 'em. Lass I heard of 'em they was all shingin' differen' shongs. Loudes' voice—lou'st voich—lou—"
She slumbered.
The marshal and the editor looked at each other.
"Well, she's safe for the time being," said the latter, wiping his wet forehead.
"An' so's the deacon," added Anderson. "See here, Harry, I got to hustle up to the deacon's house an' see what c'n be done with them women. My lordy! The town will be disgraced if they get out on the street an'—why, like as not, they'll start a parade or somethin'. You stay here an' watch her, an' I'll—"
"No, you don't, my friend," broke in Harry gruffly. "You get her out of this office as quickly as you can."
"Are you afraid to be left alone with that pore, helpless little woman?" demanded Anderson. "I'll take her hatchet away with me, if that's what you're afraid of."
"If you'd been attending to your job as a good, competent official of this benighted town, the poor, helpless little woman wouldn't be in the condition she's in now. You—"
"Hold on there! What do you mean by that?"
"I mean this, Mr. Shellback Holmes. A dozen people in this town have been buying up apples and grinding them and making cider of them as fast as they could cask it ever since last January. Making it right under your nose, and this is the first you've seen of it. There's enough hard cider in Tinkletown at this minute to pickle an army. See those bottles over there under Bill's stool? Well, old Deacon Rank left 'em there because he was afraid he'd bust 'em when he made his exit through that window. He told Bill Smith he could keep them, if he would assume his indebtedness to this office,—two dollars and a quarter,—and he also told Bill that he could guarantee that it was good stuff! We've got visible proof of it here, and we also know how the damned old rascal went about testing the quality of his wares. He has tried it out on the most highly respected ladies in town, that's what he's done,—and why? Because it was the cheapest way to do it. He didn't have to waste more than a quart on the whole bunch of 'em. Sure fire stuff! And there are barrels of it in this town, Mr. Shellback Holmes, waiting to be converted into song. Now, the first thing you've got to do is to take this unfortunate result of prohibition home and put her to bed."
Anderson sat down heavily.
"My sakes, Harry,—I—I—why, this is turrible! My wife drunk, an'—an'—Mrs. Jones, an' Mrs. Nixon, an'—"
"Yes, sir," said Harry heartlessly; "they probably are lit up like the sunny side of the moon, and what's more, my friend, if they do take it into their poor, beaddled heads to go out and paint the town, there won't be any stopping 'em. Hold on! Didn't you hear what I said about the case in hand? You take her home, do you hear?"
"But—how am I to get her home? I—I can't carry her through the streets," groaned the harassed marshal.
"Hire an automobile, or a delivery-wagon, or—what say?"
"I was just sayin' that maybe I could get Lem Hawkins to loan me his hearse."
Mr. Squires put his hand over his mouth and looked away. When he turned back to the unhappy official, his voice was gentler.
"You leave her to me, old fellow. I'll take care of her. She can stay here till after dark and I'll see that she gets home all right."
"By gosh, Harry, you're a real friend. I—I won't ferget this,—no, sir, never!"
"What are you going to do first?"
"I'm goin' to get my wife out of that den of iniquity and take her home!" said Anderson resolutely.
"Whether she's willing,—or not?"
"Don't you worry. I got that all thought out. If she won't let me take her home, I'll let on as if I'm full and then she'll insist on takin' me home."
With that he was gone.
The crowd in front of the Banner office now numbered at least a hundred. Mr. Crow stopped at the top of the steps and swiftly ran his eye over the excited throng. He was thinking hard and quite rapidly—for him. All the while the crowd was shouting questions at him, he was deliberately counting noses. Suddenly he held up his hand. There was instant, expectant silence.
"All husbands who possess wives in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society kindly step forward. Make way there, you people,—let 'em through. This way, Newt,—an' you, Alf,—come on, Elmer K.,—I said 'wives,' Mrs. Fry, not husbands. All husbands please congregate in the alley back of the Banner office an' wait fer instructions. Don't ask questions. Just do as I tell you. Hey, you kids! Run over an' tell Mort Fryback an' Ed Higgins an' Situate M. Jones I want 'em right away,—an' George Brubaker. Tell him to lock up his store if he has to, but to come at once. Now, you women keep back! This is fer men only."
In due time a troubled, anxious group of men sallied forth from the alley back of the Banner office, and, headed by Anderson Crow, marched resolutely down Sickle Street to Maple and advanced upon the house of Deacon Rank.
The song service was in full blast. The men stopped at the bottom of the yard and listened with sinking hearts.
"That's my wife," said Elmer K. Pratt, the photographer, a bleak look in his eyes. "She knows that tune by heart."
"Which tune?" asked Mort Fryback, cocking his ear.
"Why, the one she's singin'," said Elmer. "Now listen,—it goes this way." He hummed a few bars of 'The Rosary.' "Don't you get it? There! Why, you must be deef. I can't hear anything else."
"The only one I can make out is 'Tipperary.' Is that the one she's singin'?"
"Certainly not. I said it goes this way. That's somebody else you hear, Mort."
"Hear that?" cried Ed Higgins excitedly. "That's 'Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt!' My wife's favourite. My Lord, Anderson, what's to be done?"
"Keep still!" ordered Anderson. "I'm tryin' to see if I c'n make out my wife's singin'!"
"Well, we got to do somethin'," groaned Newt Spratt, whose wife was organist in the Pond Road Church. "She'll bust that piano all to smash if she keeps on like that."
"Come on, gentlemen," said Anderson, compressing his lips. "Remember now, every man selects his own wife. Every—"
"Wait a minute, Anderson," pleaded George Brubacker. "It'll take more than me to manage my wife if she gets stubborn."
"It ain't our fault if you married a woman twice as big as you are," was the marshal's stern rejoinder. "Now, remember the plan. We're just droppin' in to surprise 'em, to sort of join in the service. Don't fer the land's sake, let 'em see we're uneasy about 'em. We got to use diplomacy. Look pleasant, ever'body,—look happy. Now, then,—forward march! Laugh, dern you, Alf!"
Once more they advanced, chatting volubly, and with faces supposed to be wholly free from anxiety. The merest glance, however, would have penetrated the mask of unconcern. Every man's eye belied his lips.
"I make a motion that we tar an' feather Deacon Rank," said Newt Spratt, as the foremost neared the porch.
Anderson halted them abruptly.
"I want to warn you men right now, that I'm going to search all the cellars in town tomorrow, so you might as well be prepared to empty all your cider into Smock's Crick. You don't need to say you ain't got any on hand. I've been investigatin' for several weeks, an' I want to tell you right here an' now that I've got every cask an' every bottle of hard cider in Tinkletown spotted. I know what's become of every derned apple that was raised in this township last year."
Dead silence followed this heroic speech. Citizens looked at each other, and Situate M. Jones might have been heard to mutter something about "an all-seeing Providence."
Ed Higgins lamely explained that he had "put up a little for vinegar," but Anderson merely smiled.
The front door of the house flew open and several of the first ladies of Tinkletown crowded into view. An invisible choir was singing the Doxology.
"Hello, boys!" called out Mrs. Jones, cheerily. "Come right in! Where's zat nice old deacon?"
"Been waiting for him for nawful long time," said Mrs. Pratt. "Couldn't wait any louder,—I mean longer."
"You had it right the first time," said her husband.
"Just in time for Doxology," called out Mrs. Jones. "Then we're all going down town to hol' open-air temp-rance meet-meeting."
Late that evening, Marshal Crow mounted the steps leading to Dr. Brown's office and rang the bell. He rang it five or six times without getting any response. Then he opened the door and walked in. The doctor was out. On a table inside the door lay the slate on which people left word for him to come to their houses as soon as he returned. The Marshal put on his glasses and took up the pencil to write. One side of the slate was already filled with hurried scribbling. He squinted and with difficulty made out that Dr. Brown was wanted immediately at the homes of Situate M. Jones, Abbie Nixon, Newton Spratt, Mort Fryback, Professor Rank, Rev. Maltby and Joseph P. Singer. He sighed and shook his head sadly. Then he moistened a finger and erased the second name on the list, that of Mrs. Abbie Nixon.
"Husbands first," he muttered in justification of his action in substituting the following line:
"Come at once. A. Crow, Marshal of Tinkletown."
Compunction prevailed, however. He wrote the word "over" at the bottom and, turning the slate over, cleared his conscience by jotting down Mrs. Nixon's "call" at the top of the reverse side. Replacing it on the table, he went away. Virtue was its own reward in this instance at least, for the worthy marshal neglected to put the slate down as he had found it. Mrs. Nixon's "call" alone was visible.
He set out to find Harry Squires. That urbane gentleman was smoking his reportorial corn-cob in the rear of Lamson's store. Except for Lamson's clerk, who had seized the rare opportunity to delve uninterruptedly into the mysteries of the latest "Nick Carter," the store was empty. The usual habitues were absent.
"Did you get her home?" inquired Anderson in a low, cautious tone.
"I did," said Harry.
"See anything of the deacon?"
"No; but Bill Smith did. Bill saw him down at the crick an hour or so ago, knocking in the heads of three or four barrels. Do you know what I've been thinking, Anderson? If somebody would only empty a barrel or so of olive oil into Smock's Crick before morning, we'd have the foundation for the largest supply of French dressing ever created in the history of the world."
Mr. Crow looked scandalized. "Good gosh, Harry, ain't we had enough scandal in this here town today without addin' anything French to it?"
The only moral to be attached to this story lies in the brief statement that Mrs. Crow's indisposition, slight in duration though it was, so occupied Mr. Crow's attention that by the time he was ready to begin his search the second night after the song service, there wasn't so much as a pint of hard cider to be found in Tinkletown. This condition was due in a large measure, no doubt, to the fact that Smock's Creek is an unusually swift little stream. It might even be called turbulent.
"JAKE MILLER HANGS HIMSELF"
"Have you heard the latest news?" inquired Newt Spratt, speaking in a hushed voice. He addressed Uncle Dad Simms, the town's oldest inhabitant, whom he met face to face at the corner of Main and Sickle streets one fine morning in May. Now any one in Tinkletown would tell you that it was the sheerest folly to address Uncle Dad in a hushed voice. Mr. Spratt knew this as well as he knew his own name, so it should be easy to understand that the "news" was of a somewhat awe-inspiring nature. Ordinarily Newt was a loud-mouthed, jovial soul; you could hear him farther and usually longer than any other male citizen in Tinkletown. But now, he spoke in a hushed voice.
Uncle Dad put his hand up to his left ear and said "Hey?" This seemed to bring Mr. Spratt to his senses. He started violently, stared hard for a moment at the octogenarian, and then strode off down Main street, shaking his head as much as to say, "There must be something the matter with me. Nobody ever speaks to him unless he has to."
And Uncle Dad, after gazing for a long time at the retreating figure, resumed his shuffling progress up Main street, pleasantly satisfied that Newt had gone to the trouble to tell him it was a nice day.
Although it would not have occurred to Newt, in his dismal state of mind, to look upon the day as a nice one, nevertheless it was. The sun was shining brightly, (but without Newt's knowledge), and the air was soft and balmy and laden with the perfume of spring. Birds were twittering in the new green foliage of the trees, but Newt heard them not; dogs frisked in the sunshine, wagging their tongues and tails, but Newt saw them not; hens cackled, horses whinnied, children laughed, and all the world was set to music, but Newt was not a happy man.
He was not a happy man for the simple reason that everybody else in town had heard the "news" long before it reached him. For half-an-hour or more he had been putting that same old question to every one he met; indeed, he even went out of his way five or six blocks to ring the front door bell at the home of William Grimes, night watchman at Smock's Warehouse, rousing him from a sound sleep in order to impart the "news" to him, only to have Bill call him a lot of hard names while making it clear that he had heard it before going to bed for the day.
The more Newt thought of it, the more he realized that it was his duty to go back and look up Uncle Dad Simms, even though it meant yelling his head off when he found him; it was a moral certainty that the only person in Tinkletown who hadn't heard it was Uncle Dad,—and he would take a lot of telling.
The Weekly Banner would not be out till the following day; for at least twenty hours Uncle Dad would remain in the densest ignorance of the sensation that had turned Tinkletown completely upside down. Somebody ought to tell him. Somebody ought to tell poor old Uncle Dad Simms, that was all there was about it.
Moved by a sharp thrill of benevolence, Mr. Spratt retraced his steps, an eager look in his eyes. He found the old man standing in the broad, open door of Bill Kepsal's blacksmith shop. The blacksmith's assistant was banging away with might and main at his anvil, and Uncle Dad wore a pleased, satisfied smile on his thin old lips. He always said he loved to stand there and listen to the faint, faraway music of the hammer on the anvil, so different from the hammers and anvils they used to have when he was a boy,—when they were so blamed noisy you couldn't hear yourself think.
Newt took him by the arm and led him away. He was going to tell him the "news," but he wasn't going to tell it to him there. The only place to tell Uncle Dad anything was over in the Town Hall, provided it was unoccupied, and thither he conducted the expectant old man. As they mounted the steps leading to the Hall, Uncle Dad's pleased expression developed into something distinctly audible—something resembling a cackle of joy. Mr. Spratt favoured him with a sharp, apprehensive glance.
"Are they goin' to hold the inquest as soon as all this?" shouted Uncle Dad, putting his lips as close as possible to Newt's ear.
Newt stopped in his tracks.
"Have you heard it?" he bellowed.
"What say?"
"I say, have you heard it?"
"Speak up! Speak up!" complained Uncle Dad. "You needn't be afraid of him hearin' you, Newt. He's been dead for six or eight hours."
"My God!" groaned Newt.
For the second time that morning he left Uncle Dad high and dry, and started swiftly homeward. There was the possible, but remote chance that his wife hadn't heard the news,—and if she had heard it, she'd hear from him! He'd let her know what kind of a wife she was!
Never, within memory, had he failed to be the first person in Tinkletown to hear the news, and here he was on this stupendous occasion, the last of them all. And why? Because he had taken that one morning to perform a peculiarly arduous and intensive bit of hard work up in the attic of his wife's house. He had chosen the attic because Mrs. Spratt rather vehemently had refused to let him use the parlour, or even the kitchen. And all the time that he was up in the attic, working his head off trying to teach his new fox terrier pup how to stand on its hind legs and jump over a broom stick, this startling piece of news was sweeping from one end of Tinkletown to the other.
Never, said Newt firmly, as he hurried homeward by the back streets,—never would he do another day's work in his life, if this was to be the result of honest toil. And what's more, he hadn't even received a single word of praise from his wife when he descended from the attic and triumphantly told her what he had accomplished,—he and the pup between them—after three hours of solid, painstaking endeavour.
Mrs. Spratt had merely said: "If you could learn that pup how to split firewood or milk a cow or repair the picket fence or something like that, you might be worth your salt, Newt Spratt. As it is, you ain't."
As Newt turned gloomily into the alley leading up to his back gate, he espied the Marshal of Tinkletown, Anderson Crow, leisurely approaching from the opposite direction. Mr. Crow, on catching sight of Newt, hastily removed something from his mouth and held it behind his back. Perceiving that it was nobody but Newt Spratt, he restored the object to his lips and began puffing away at it,—but not until he had sent a furtive glance over his shoulder.
"What you doin' back here?" inquired Newt, somewhat offensively, as the two drew closer together. "Lookin' fer clues?"
Anderson again removed the corn-cob pipe, spat accurately over the hand with which he shielded his straggling chin whiskers, and remarked:
"Do you see anything wrong with this here pipe, Newt?" he asked, gazing rather pensively at the object.
"I don't see anything wrong with it," said Newt. "Still, I think you're mighty sensible not to smoke it any place except in an alley. Why don't you get a new one? They only cost ten cents. If you got a new one once in a while,—say once a year,—your wife wouldn't order you out of the house every time you light it."
"She don't order me out of the house when I light it," retorted Anderson. "'Cause why? 'Cause I never light it till I get two or three blocks away from home."
The subject apparently being exhausted, the two alley-farers lapsed into characteristic silence. Mr. Spratt leaned rather wearily against his own back fence, while Mr. Crow accepted the support of a telephone pole. Presently the former started to say something about the weather, but got no farther than the first two or three words when an astounding conjecture caused him to break off abruptly. He glanced at the old marshal, swallowed hard a couple of times, and then hopefully ventured the time-honoured question:
"Anything new, Anderson?"
The marshal responded with a slow, almost imperceptible shake of the head. He was gazing reflectively at a couple of English sparrows perched on one of the telephone wires some distance down the line.
Newt experienced a sudden, overwhelming joy. Caution, however, and a certain fear that he might be mistaken, advised him to go slow. There remained the possibility that Anderson might be capable of simulation.
"Where's the body?" he inquired, casually.
Marshal Crow's gaze deserted the sparrows and fixed itself on Newt's ear.
"The what?"
His companion exhaled a tremendous breath of satisfaction. Life was suddenly worth living. The Marshal of Tinkletown had not heard the "news." The marshal, himself!
"Well, by Gosh!" exclaimed the revivified Mr. Spratt. "Where have you been at?"
"That's my business," snapped Anderson.
"All I got to say is that you ought to be attendin' to it, if it's your business," said Newt loftily. "You're the marshal of this here town, ain't you? And everybody in town knows that Jake Miller is dead except you. You're a fine marshal." There was withering scorn in Newt's voice. He even manifested an inclination to walk off and leave the marshal without further enlightenment.
Anderson made a valiant effort to conceal his astonishment. Assuming a more or less indifferent air, he calmly remarked:
"I knowed Jake was a little under the weather, but I didn't think it was serious? When did he die?"
"He didn't die," said Newt. "He hung himself."
"What's that?" gasped Anderson, his jaw sagging.
"Hung himself some time last night," went on Newt joyously. "From a rafter in Ed Higgins's livery stable. With a clothesline. Kicked a step-ladder out from under himself. Why, even Uncle Dad Simms has heard about it. Ed found him when he went out to—wait a second! I'm goin' your way. What's the rush? He's been dead six or eight hours. He can't escape. He's down in Hawkins's undertaking place. Hey! You dropped your pipe. Don't you want it any—"
"If you're goin' my way, you'll have to run," called out Marshal Crow as he unlimbered his long legs and made for the mouth of the alley. He was not running, but Newt, being an undersized individual, had no other means of keeping up with him unless he obeyed the sardonic behest. For ten or fifteen rods, Mr. Spratt jogged faithfully at the heels of the leader, and then suddenly remembered that it was a long way to Hawkins's Undertaking Emporium in Sickle street,—at least an eighth of a mile as the crow flies,—and as he already had had a hard day's work, he slowed down to a walk and then to a standstill. He concluded to wait till some one came along in a wagon or an automobile. There wasn't any use wasting his valuable breath in running. Much better to save it for future use. In the meantime, by standing perfectly still, he could ruminate to his heart's content.
Marshal Crow's long strides soon carried him to the corner of Maple Street, where he made a sharp turn to the right, shooting a swift look over his shoulder as he did so. His late companion was leaning against a tree. Satisfied that he had completely thrown Mr. Spratt off the trail, Anderson took a short cut through Justice of the Peace Robb's front and back yards and eventually emerged into Main Street, where he slackened his pace to a dignified saunter.
He caught sight of Alf Reesling, the reformed town drunkard, holding conversation from the sidewalk with some one in a second story window of Mrs. Judy O'Ryan's boarding house, half a block away.
"Hello!" shouted Alf, discovering the marshal. "Here he comes now. Where you been all morning, Andy? I been huntin' everywhere for you. Something horrible has happened. I just stopped to tell Judy about it."
The marshal stopped, and gazed upon Alf with mild interest. He nodded carelessly to Mrs. O'Ryan in the upstairs window, and addressed the following significant remark to Alf:
"I guess I've got Jake's motive purty well established, Alf. You needn't ask me what I've unearthed, because I won't tell you. It's a nice day, ain't it, Judy?"
Before Mrs. O'Ryan could affirm or deny this polite bit of information, Alf cried out:
"You don't mean to say you know about it?"
"The rain yesterday and day before has brought your lilacs out splendid, Judy," said Anderson, ignoring him.
"I was up to your house before eight o'clock, and your wife said you'd gone out in the country to practise your new Decoration Day speech, Anderson. How in thunder did you find out about Jake?"
Marshal Crow turned upon the speaker with some severity. "See here, Alf, are you tryin' to act like Newt Spratt?"
That was a deadly insult to Alf.
"What do you mean?" he demanded hotly.
"Nothin'—except that Newt had the same kind of an idee in his head that you seem to have got into yours. Next time you see Newt you tell him I been laughin' myself almost sick over the way I fooled him,—the blamed iggoramus." Having planted a seed that was intended to bear the fruit of justification, the venerable marshal decided that now was the time to prepare himself against anything further in the shape of surprise. So he linked arms with Alf and started off down the street.
"Now, see here, Alf," he began, somewhat sternly. "I won't stand for any beatin' about the bush from you. You got to tell me the whole truth an' nothin' but the truth, and if your story hangs together and agrees with what I've already worked out,—I'll see that you get fair treatment and—"
Alf stopped short. "What in sassafras are you talkin' about? What story?"
"Begin at the beginnin' and tell me where you was last night, and early this morning, and where and when you last saw Jake Miller."
The marshal's manner was decidedly accusative, although tempered by sadness. Something in his voice betrayed a great and illy concealed regret that this life-long friend had got himself so seriously entangled in the Jacob Miller affair.
"Where was I last night and this morning?" repeated the astonished Alf.
"Percisely," said Anderson, tightening his grip on Alf's arm.
"In bed," said Alf succinctly.
"Come, now," warned the marshal; "none of that. I want the truth out of you. When did you last see Jake Miller,—and what was he doing?"
"I saw him about half an hour ago, and he wasn't doin' anything."
"I mean, before he came to his untimely end."
"I don't know what you're drivin' at, but if it gives you any satisfaction I c'n say that the last time I saw him alive was yesterday afternoon about four o'clock. He was unloadin' some baled hay over at Ed's feed-yard and—that's all."
"How was he actin'?"
"He was actin' like a man unloadin' hay."
"Did he appear to have anything on his mind? I mean anything more than usual?"
"Couldn't say."
"Did he look pale or upset-like?"
"I kinder thought,—afterwards,—that he did look a leetle pale. Sort of as if he'd eat something that didn't agree with him."
"I see. Well, go on."
"Go on what?"
"Tellin' me. Where did you next see him?"
"Oh, there was a lot of people saw him after I did. Why don't you ask them?"
"Answer my question."
"I didn't see him again until about half past seven this morning. He was hangin' from a rafter in Ed's stable. My God, it was awful! I know I'll dream about Jake for the next hundred years."
"Did he have a rope around his neck?"
"No, he didn't." Anderson started. This was an unexpected reply.
"Well,—er, what did he have around his neck?"
"A halter strap."
"You—you're sure about that?"
"Positive."
"I see. So far your story jibes with the facts. Now, answer me this question. When and where did you help Jake Miller write that note of farewell?"
"What?" gasped Alf.
"You heard me."
"I didn't help him write any note."
"You didn't?"
"Nobody helped him write it."
"How do you know that, sir?"
"Do you mean to tell me that Jake left a farewell note?"
"I'm not sayin' whether he did or not. You don't mean to claim that he didn't leave one, do you?"
"If he did, nobody that I know of has laid eyes on it."
Anderson smiled mysteriously. "Well, we'll drop that feature of the case temporarily. You was quite a friend of Jake Miller's, wasn't you?"
"Off and on," said Alf. "Same as you was," he added, quickly.
"What reason did he ever give you for wantin' to take his own life? Think carefully, now,—and nothing but the truth, mind you?"
"The only thing I ever heard him say that sounded suspicious was when he told a crowd of us at Lamson's one night that if this here prohibition went into effect he'd like to have some one telegraph his sister in Buffalo, so's she could come on and claim his remains."
"But he wasn't a drinkin' man, Alf, and you know it."
"I know, but he always said he was lookin' forward to the day when he could afford to get as drunk as he sometimes thought he'd like to be. He was a droll sort of a cuss, Jake was. He claimed he'd been savin' up his appetite and his money for nearly three years so's he could see which would last the longest in a finish fight."
"Was you present when he was cut down?"
"I was."
"Aha! That's what I'm tryin' to get at. Who cut the rope?"
"It wasn't a rope,—it was a hitchin' strap. An' nobody cut it, come to think of it. It was a perfectly good strap, so two or three of us held Jake's body up so's Ed Higgins could untie it from the rafter."
"And then what?"
"Old man Hawkins and Doc Brown said he'd been dead five or six hours."
"I see. What did Doc say he died of?"
Alf stared at him in amazement. "He died of being hung to a rafter."
Marshal Crow cleared his throat, and was ominously silent for fifteen or twenty paces. When he next spoke it was with the deepest gravity. There was a dark significance in the look he fixed upon Alf.
"Is there any proof that Jake Miller wasn't dead long before he was strung up to that rafter?"
"What's that?" gasped Alf, once more coming to a sudden stop.
"It's a matter I can't discuss with anybody at present," said Anderson, curtly.
"Have—have you deduced something important, Anderson?" implored Alf, eagerly. "Is there evidence of foul play?"
"That's my business," said Anderson. "Come on. Don't stand there with your mouth open like that. He's still over at Hawkins's place, is he? I been workin' on the quiet all by myself since early this morning, an' I don't know just what's been happening around here for the last couple of hours."
"He was there the last I heard of him," said Alf.
"Well, you've given a purty good account of yourself, Alf, an' unless something turns up to change my present opinion, you are free to come an' go as you please."
"See here, you blamed old hayseed, what do you mean by actin' as if I had anything to do with Jake Mil—"
"You don't know what you're doing when you're drunk, Alf Reesling."
"But I ain't been drunk for twenty-five years, you blamed old—"
"That remains to be seen," interrupted Anderson sternly. "Now don't talk any more. I want to think."
Having obtained certain desirable facts in connection with the taking-off of Jacob Miller, Marshal Crow ventured boldly, confidently, into the business section of the town. He was now in a position to discuss the occurrence with equanimity,—in fact, with indifference. Moreover, he could account for his physical absence from the centre of the stage, so to speak, by reminding all would-be critics that he was mentally on the job long before Ed Higgins made the gruesome discovery. In other words, it served his purpose to "lie low" and observe from well-calculated obscurity the progress of events.
Now, Tinkletown had not experienced the shock and thrill of suicide in a great many years. Sundry citizens had met death in an accidental way, and others had suddenly died of old age, but no one had intentionally shuffled off since Jasper Wiggins succeeded in completing a hitherto unsuccessful life by pulling the trigger of a single-barrelled shotgun with his big toe, back in the fall of '83.
The horrendous act of Jacob Miller, therefore, created a sensation.
Tinkletown was agog with excitement and awe. Everybody was talking about Jake. He was, by all odds, the most important man in town. Alive, he had been perhaps the least important.
He was the sort of citizen you always think of last when trying to take a mental census of the people you know by sight.
Once, and only once, had Jake seen his name in the columns of the Weekly Banner, and he was so impressed that he cut the article out of the paper and pasted it under the sweat-band of his best hat. It happened to be the obituary notice of a farmer bearing the same name, but that made no difference to Jake; he was vicariously honoured by having his name in print,—and in rather large type at that.
And now he was to have at least half a page in the Banner, with his name in huge black letters, double column, something like this: