“Will you help me in my case if I do?” he asked.
“I certainly won’t help you if you don’t,” was the reply. “Tell me all; and I will see to it that you have a lawyer when your case comes to trial.”
On the strength of this promise Norton Bixby told his story. It is too long to repeat here, but in substance was as follows:—
After leaving the New York penitentiary he had gone West, and there fallen in with my father, and with him gone to South Dakota, getting my parent to pay the expenses. My father had really fallen over a ravine, and lay at the bottom dead. Bixby had run from the spot in horror, and had never gone near the corpse again.
When he got back to Chicago he noticed my uncle’s arrival at one of the hotels through the newspapers, and he at once called upon him. Then came a letter from Yates, asking him to take a hand in the Bayport robbery; and knowing that Bayport was close to Bend Center, he had concocted the scheme to appear upon the scene as my uncle and guardian. There was not much to be gained by it; but the idea had fascinated him, and he had carried it out as is known.
“I was sure Enos had no intention of coming here,” he finished; “but I was mistaken.”
“It is funny I didn’t get any word from my father during the time you were with him.”
“He said he wasn’t going to write until he had good news. He was afraid of disheartening you.”
“And you never went back to bury him?” I went on, with a quiver in my voice.
“No, I couldn’t. When he went over, he let out a scream that seemed to freeze the very marrow in my bones. For a moment I couldn’t move. At last I looked over the edge of the rocks, and I saw he was all crushed and bruised.”