Then when Jake was pretty well mollified, the brother-in-law adjourned himself and Jake to the grocery, where he treated the crowd, and in much more vague and non-committal terms let all the citizens that resorted thither understand that Sheriff Plunkett was their friend, and that Pete Markham was the friend of the rich men and the lawyers. But he took pains to leave the impression that Tom would certainly meet his deserts at the hands of the court, for the sheriff desired to avoid the embarrassment of a mob if he could.
The sweetness of Jake Hogan's spirit had been curdled by his disappointment and reverses, but these overtures from the sheriff to him as a high-contracting power were very flattering and assuring. When, a little later, the startling intelligence reached that center of social and intellectual activity, the Broad Run grocery, that Dave Sovine had been bought off, Broad Run was aroused, and Jake Hogan left off sulking in his tent and resumed his activity in public affairs.
"Didn't I tell you," he asked, leaning his back against the counter and supporting himself on his two elbows thrust behind him, while one of his legs, ending in a stogy boot, was braced out in front of him, "you can't hang the nephew 'v a rich man in such a dodrotted country as this yer Eelenoys? Dave Sovine's bought off, they say, by an ornery young lawyer un that air Bob McCord." Jake was too prudent to apply any degrading adjectives to a man of Bob's size and renown. "Dave'll light out the day afore the trial with rocks in his pockets, un that air young coward'll git clean off. Where's yer spunk, I'd like to know? 'F you're go'n' to be hornswoggled by lawyers like that air long-legged Abe Lincoln, un skin-flints like ole Seven-percent Tom Grayson, w'y, you kin, that's all."
Jake, with his head thrown forward, looked sternly around on the group about him, and they seemed to feel the reproach of his superior aggressiveness. Bijy Grimes was rendered so uneasy by Jake's regard that he shut his mouth; and then, not knowing what better to do, he ventured to ask humbly, "What kin we do about it, Jake?" letting his mouth drop open again in token that he waited for a reply.
"Do?" said Jake contemptuously. "W'y, chain-lightnin', Bijy, what a thing, now, to ax! Show me two dozen, ur even one dozen, men that'll stan' at my back tell the blood runs, un I'll show 'em 't folks can't take a change of venoo out-uh the k-younty that knows all about the rascality into one that don't. I'll show 'em how to buy off witnesses, un I'll l'arn these yer dodrotted lawyers un rich men how to fool wreth the very bone un sinoo uv the land."
Notwithstanding the natural love of these men for a little excitement, they had been rendered somewhat unresponsive by Jake's failures. The most of them thought it best to go to town on the day of the trial and see how it would come out. But at 6 o'clock in the evening of the first day of court, Lew Baker, a farmer from the river valley beyond the Run, rode past the door of the grocery on his way home, and said a collective "Howdy" to the three or four who stood outside. Bijy Grimes, who was one of them, came out toward the middle of the road heading off the traveler.
"Hello, Lew! Any nooze about the trial?" he said, dropping his lower jaw from between his fat infantile cheeks and waiting for a reply, while the rest of the group moved up to hearing distance.
"Well, yes," said Baker, pulling up his horse and swinging himself round in the saddle so as to bring the most of his weight on the right stirrup, while he rested his left elbow on his left knee and his right hand on the horse's mane. "I heern tell, jest as I come away, that Dave what-ye-may-call-'im, the witness, had sloped, liker'n not. He hain't been seed aroun' for a right smart while, un they say he's gone off to New Urleans ur the Injun country. Moscow's stirred up about it."
"Tu-lah!" said Bijy. "They 'low he'll be got off, don't they!"
"They're shore sumpin's fixed, fer the young feller's lawyer hain't soopeenied a derned witness."