“Well, old-timer,” he said, breezily, “it sure was one grand and wakeful little scrap while it lasted. I was in the gallery, looking at the chows benched up there. And I got a fine view of it. But I couldn’t work my way through the crowd, till after you’d been gathered in. I thought they’d just turned you out of the place; till one of the bulls told me, a few minutes ago, that he’d cooped you. Then I hustled for Judge Brough and came here on the run.”
He talked fast and with easy good-fellowship, undeterred by Fenno’s sour glare. Scarcely had he paused for breath when Joel, ignoring him, turned to the uniformed captain in tremblingly eager appeal.
“Mister,” he pleaded, “my dog got left alone there at that show. He’s li’ble to starve or get lost or stole or hurt, without me to watch out for him. I—I’m kind of—kind of fond of him,” he mumbled shamefacedly; adding in a more normal tone: “I got forty-one dollars in my pocket, here. It’s yourn, if you’ll see he’s looked out for an’ shipped back to the ranch, while I’m servin’ my term. If that ain’t enough, I’ll write a check for—”
“You’ll come around to court with me,” interposed Judge Brough, “and write out a check for five dollars, for your fine. Then you can go and look after your own dog. I’m holding special court for your benefit, my man. Because this nosey reporter friend of mine is pestering me to. Come along. My car’s outside.”
“I—I don’t—I don’t just rightly understand!” sputtered Fenno, incredulous, as ever, that any such golden good luck could sift into his morbid life-lot. “I—”
“Gladden, here, was in the gallery,” explained the judge. “Just as he told you. He saw it all. He gives me his word that you didn’t tackle Mr. Colt, till Colt kicked your collie. Of course, that doesn’t excuse you for breaking the law. But—well, I’m glad it was your collie, and not mine, that was kicked. I’m getting too old to punch my fellow-man. Come along.”
In a trance, Joel Fenno trailed to the car, in the wake of Brough and Gladden. In a trance, he answered the Judge’s few official questions, in Brough’s chambers, back of the deserted courtroom. He paid his fine, and then asked, uncertainly:
“C’n I go, now?”
At Brough’s assenting nod, the old man set forth at a shambling run. Too long Treve had been left there, lonely and unhappy, among that mob of strange dogs and stranger men, and possibly at the mercy of Fraser Colt. He must get back to the collie as fast as a lanky pair of legs could carry him.