CHAPTER III
AND AN OLD FRIEND HELPS
Bessie gasped in sheer terror, and for a moment she couldn't open her mouth. Farmer Weeks, his weather-beaten face twisted into a grin of malice and dislike, stood looking down at her, his bony hand gripping her wrist. Even had it been in Bessie's mind to run away, she could not have done it. And, as a matter of fact, the shock of hearing his voice, of seeing him, and, above all, of being accused of such a thing, had deprived her for the moment of the use of her legs as well as of the power of speech.
Then, while Farmer Weeks lifted his voice again, calling for a policeman, Bessie got a vivid and sharp lesson in the interest a city crowd can be induced to take in anything out of the ordinary, no matter how trifling. The pavement where they stood was densely crowded already. Now more people seemed to spring up from nowhere at all, and they were surrounded by a ring of people who pressed against one another, calling curious questions, all trying to get into the front rank to see whatever was to be seen.
"Gosh all hemlock!" Farmer Weeks confided to the crowd. "They told me to look out fer them scalawags when I come to town, but I swan I didn't expect to see a gal like that tryin' to lift my wallet. No, sir! But they got to get up pretty early in the mornin' to fool me—they have that!"
Even in her fright, Bessie divined at once what the old rascal was trying to do. He was playing the part of the green and unsuspicious countryman, the farmer on a trip, usually the easy prey of sharpers of all sorts, and he was doing it for a purpose—to win the sympathy of the crowd. In her new clothes Bessie looked enough like a city girl to pass for one easily, while Farmer Weeks wore old-fashioned clothes of rusty black, a slouch hat, and a colored handkerchief knotted about his neck in place of a scarf. He carried an old-fashioned cotton umbrella; too, a huge affair—a regular "bumbleshoot," and he was dressed to play the part.
"Hey, mister, gimme a nickel an' I'll call a cop for you!" volunteered a small, sharp-faced boy, with a bundle of papers under his arm. Somehow he had managed to squirm through the crowd.
Weeks looked at him reproachfully.
"You call a constable—an' I'll give you the nickel when you come back with him," he said.
In spite of her deplorable situation, Bessie wanted to laugh. It was so like Farmer Weeks, the miser, to be unwilling to risk even five cents without being sure that he would get value for his money! The boy darted off, and Bessie heard half a dozen of the crowd make remarks applauding the good sense of her supposed victim.
"Ain't it too bad?" said Weeks tolerantly to the crowd, as he waited for a policeman, still clutching Bessie's hand tightly. "Who'd ever think a pretty young gal like her would try to rob an old man—hey?"
"Never can tell, Pop," said a keen-eyed youth, who was standing near. His eyes darted nervously about from one face to another. "Them as you wouldn't suspect naturally is the worst, as a rule—it's so easy for them to make a get-away."
Then the crowd gave way suddenly for a man in a blue uniform, but Bessie, still unable to say anything, saw at once it was not a policeman. But it was not until he was quite close to her that she recognized him with a little thrill of joy. And at the same moment he recognized her, too, as well as Farmer Weeks. It was Tom Norris, the friendly train conductor who had helped Zara and herself to escape to Pine Bridge, and out of the state in which Hedgeville was situated.
"Come, come; what's this?" asked the train conductor sharply. "Let go of that girl's arm, you Weeks!"
"What business is it of your'n!" asked Weeks, angrily.
"You let her go," said Norris, with determination, "or I'll pretty soon show you what business it is of mine—I'll knock you down, white hair and all! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, pickin' on the girl this way!"
He advanced, threateningly, and none of the crowd undertook to protect Weeks from his obvious anger. Norris was a big, strong man, and, for all his kindly ways, it was evident that he could fight well if he saw any reason for doing it. And now, it was plain, he thought the reason was excellent, and he was entirely ready to back up what he had to say with his sturdy fists. Weeks saw that plainly, and he had reason to fear the burly conductor. Quickly he released Bessie's wrist, and a moment later Norris would have had her out of the crush had not the arrival of another man in uniform created a diversion. This time it really was a policeman, and he came at the heels of the newsboy who had run after him.
"Here's yer cop, mister! Now gimme the nickel!" said the boy shrilly to the farmer.
"Run along! I never promised you no nickel," said Farmer Weeks, looking nervously at Norris. But at that the crowd, which had been disposed to side with him, transferred its sympathies suddenly to the cheated newsboy, who was pouring out a stream of angry words, the while he clung to Weeks' arm, demanding his money.
Weeks soon saw that he had better not try to save a nickel, much as he valued it, and, reluctantly enough, he drew a purse from his trousers pocket and gave the boy his money, counting out five pennies.
"Here, here; what's all this fuss about?" asked the policeman. He was responsible for keeping order on his post, and before Weeks could answer his question he drove the crowd away with sharp orders to move on and be quick about it. Then he turned back to the farmer, Bessie, and the conductor, who had taken Bessie's hand.
"Now then, whose pocket was picked? Yours, young lady?"
"No, consarn ye, mine!" said Farmer Weeks, angrily, as he heard the question. "And she done it, too—she's a slick one, she is! An' this fresh railroad man here was tryin' to help her get away. Like as not they work together, an' he was fixin' to have her give him half of what she got."
Norris smiled at the policeman.
"You know me, Mike," he said. "Think I'm in that sort of business?"
"Begorra, an' I know ye're not!" said the policeman, indignantly. "Talk straight, now, you old rube, an' tell me what it is you're tryin' to say. What sort of a charge ye're after makin'?"
"She put her hand in my pocket—an' she stole my wallet," said Farmer Weeks. "She's got it in her pocket now—her right-hand pocket!"
"How do you know that?" asked the policeman, sharply.
"How—why shouldn't I know? Look and see for yourself—"
But there was no need. Bessie herself, tears in her eyes, plunged her hand into the pocket Weeks had named—and, to her consternation, the wallet came out in her hand. She stared at it in stupefaction.
"I don't know how it got there! I never saw it before!" she exclaimed.
"H'm! This looks pretty bad, Tom," said the policeman. "Is this young lady a friend of yours?"
"She is that," said Tom, stoutly. "And I'll go bail for her anywhere. She never picked that old scalawag's pocket. I know him well, Mike, and I've never known any good of him. He never rides on my train without tryin' to beat the company out of the fare—uses every old trick you ever heard of. Many's the time I've had to threaten to put him off between stations before he'd fork over the money."
But Mike, the policeman, looked doubtful, as well he might, and there was a gleam of evil triumph in the farmer's eyes.
"Listen here!" said Tom, suddenly. "He says that's his wallet, and he's makin' enough fuss for it to have a thousand dollars inside. But when he paid the boy he took a purse from his pocket to get the money."
"That's right. I seen him myself," said Mike, still scratching his head. "I'll just have a look inside that pocket-book."
"Ye will not—that's my property!" said Farmer Weeks, reaching quickly for the wallet.
But Mike was too quick for him, and in a moment he had opened the wallet, and could see that it was empty, except for a few torn pieces of paper, evidently put in it to stuff it out, and deceive people into thinking that it contained a wad of bills.
"What sort of game are yez tryin' to put up on us here?" demanded the policeman, angrily. "Here, take yer book—"
"She's as much guilty of theft as if there had been a hundred dollars in it," said Farmer Weeks, recovering from his dismay at the exposure of the trick. "You arrest her or I'll—"
"What will yez do, ye spalpeen?" said the policeman. "If ye get gay wid me I'll run yez in—and don't be afther forgettin' that, either!"
As he spoke he turned, angrily, to observe a small boy who was tugging at his sleeve.
"Say, mister, say," begged the boy, "listen here a minute, will yer? I seen the old guy slip his purse into her pocket. She never took it."
Tom's eyes, as he heard, lighted up.
"By Gad, Mike, that's what he did!" he exclaimed. "Did you hear how ready he was to tell just which pocket she had it in? How'd he have known that—unless he put it there, eh?"
"It's a lie!" stormed Farmer Weeks. "Here, are you going to lock that girl up as a thief or not?"
"Indade and I'm not," said the officer, warmly. "Drop her wrist—quick!"
He stepped forward as he spoke, and Weeks, seeing by the gleam in the Irishman's eye that he had gone too far, quickly released Bessie. As she moved away from him he stood still, red-eyed and trembling with rage.
"An' what's more, you old scalawag," said the policeman, "I'm going to run you in. Maybe you never heard tell of perjury, but it's worse than pickin' pockets, let me tell you."
His heavy hand dropped to Weeks' shoulder, but he was too slow. With a yell of fright the old farmer, displaying an agility with which no one would have been ready to credit him, turned and dove headlong through the crowd.
The policeman started to give chase, but Tom Norris restrained him. He was laughing heartily.
"What's the use? Let him be, Mike," he said. "My, but it was as good as a play to see you handle him. Gosh! Watch the old beggar run, will you?"
Indeed, Weeks was running as fast as he could, and, even as they watched him, he disappeared inside the station.
"That's a good riddance. Maybe he'll go home and stay there," said the conductor. "He won't try his dirty tricks on you again," he added, turning to Bessie. "If he does, you'll have a friend in Mike, here."
"True for you, Tom Norris!" said the policeman. "I'm glad ye turned up, boy. Ye saved me from makin' a fool of meself, I'm thinkin'. The old omadhoun! To think he'd put up a job like that on a slip of a girl, and him ould enough to be her father—or her grandfather!"
"Well, I've helped you out again, haven't I?" said Tom Norris. "Are you living here in the city now? Suppose you tell me why old Weeks is so mean to you, now that we've the time."
"I will, and gladly," said Bessie. "But I haven't so very much time. Can you walk with me as I go home?"
So, with Tom Norris to look after her, Bessie began her trip back to the Mercer house, and, on the way, she told him the story of her flight from Hedgeville, and the adventures that had happened since its beginning.
"I suppose I was foolish to go after Jake Hoover that way," she concluded, "but I thought I might be able to help. I didn't like to see him following Mr. Jamieson that way, when he was trying to be so nice to us."
"Maybe you were foolish," said Tom. "But don't let it worry you too much. You meant well, and I guess there's lots of us are foolish without having as good an excuse as that."
"Oh, there's Mr. Jamieson now!" cried Bessie, suddenly spying the young lawyer on the other side of the street. "I think I'd better tell him what's happened, don't you, Mr. Norris?"
"I do indeed. Stay here, I'll run over. The young fellow with the brown suit, is it?"
Bessie nodded, and Tom Norris ran across the street and was back in a moment with Jamieson, who was mightily surprised to see Bessie, whom he had left only a short time before at the Mercer house. He frowned very thoughtfully as he heard her story.
"I'm not going to scold you for taking such a risk," he said. "I really didn't think, either, that it was you they would try to harm. I thought your friend Zara was the only one who was in danger."
"I suppose they'd try to get hold of Miss Bessie here, though," said the conductor, "because they'd think she'd be a good witness, perhaps, if there was any business in court. I don't know much about the law, except I think it's a good thing to keep clear of."
"You bet it is," said Jamieson, with a laugh.
"That's fine talk, from a lawyer!" smiled Tom Norris. "Ain't it your business to get people into lawsuits?"
"Not a bit of it!" said Jamieson. "A good lawyer keeps his clients out of court. He saves money for them that way, and they run less risk of being beaten. The biggest cases I have never get into court at all. It's only the shyster lawyers, like Isaac Brack, who are always going to court, whether there's any real reason for it or not."
"Brack!" said Tom. "Why, say, I know him! And, what's more, this man Weeks does, too. Brack's his lawyer. I heard that a long time ago. Brack gets about half the cases against the railroad, too. Whenever there's a little accident, Brack hunts up the people who might have been hurt, and tries to get damages for them. Only, if he wins a case for them, he keeps most of the money—and if they lose he charges them enough so that he comes out ahead, anyhow."
"That's the fellow," Jamieson said. "We'll get him disbarred sooner or later, too. He's a bad egg. I'm glad to know I've got to fight him in this case. If this young Hoover was following me, I'll bet Brack had something to do with it."
"He was certainly following you," said Bessie. "Whenever you turned around he got behind a tree or something, so that you wouldn't see him."
"He needn't have been so careful. He might have walked right next to me all the way into town, and I'd never have suspected him. As it happened, I wasn't going anywhere this morning—anywhere in particular, I mean. It wouldn't have made any difference if Brack had known just what I was doing. But I'm mighty glad to know that he is trying to spy on me, Bessie. In the next few days I'm apt to do some things I wouldn't want him to know about at all, and now that I'm warned I'll be able to keep my eyes and my ears open, and I guess Brack and his spies will have some trouble in getting on to anything I choose to keep hidden from them."
"That's the stuff!" approved Tom. "I told Miss Bessie here she'd done all right. She meant well, even if she did run a foolish risk. And there's no harm done."
"Well, we'd better hurry home," said Jamieson. "I don't want them to be worried about you, Bessie, so I'll take you home in a taxicab."
The cab took them swiftly toward the Mercer house. When they were still two or three blocks away Jamieson started and pointed out a man on the sidewalk to Bessie.
"There's Brack now!" he exclaimed. "See, Bessie? That little man, with the eyeglasses. He's up to some mischief. I wonder what he's doing out this way?"
When they arrived, Eleanor Mercer, her eyes showing that she was worried, was waiting for them on the porch.
"Oh, I'm so glad you're here!" she exclaimed.
"I'm so sorry if you were worried about me, Miss Eleanor," said Bessie, remorsefully.
"I wasn't, though," said Eleanor. "It's Zara! She's upstairs, crying her eyes out and she won't answer me when I try to get her to tell me what's wrong. You'd better see her, Bessie."