He had been boiled, baked and basted, and now lay swathed in linen on a marble slab, blissfully drowsy, waiting to be curried. He was more than half asleep when the operator came.
When the currying process began, however, the Judge noticed that the hostler seemed anything but an expert. Why had they not sent Gibbons as usual? He opened his eyes, intending remonstrance, but closed them immediately; they were playing tricks on him. A curious thing! The white-tunicked attendant, seen through the curling spirals of steam, looked startlingly like his prisoner in Juarez. The Judge’s heart skipped a beat or two and then started with a fearful thumping.
The rubber plied his mitten briskly; the Judge opened his eyes again. Of course the prisoner was safe; the illusion was doubtless the effect of the perspiration on his eyelashes. The billowy vapor parted, the industrious attendant bent impersonally over him with a serene, benevolent look—Good Heavens!
The Judge’s heart died horribly within him, his tongue was dry, his bones turned to water and his flesh to a quivering jelly. He cast a beseeching look to the open door. Beyond it, looking idly in, were three men in street clothes. They entered, ranging themselves silently against the wall. They looked amused. Thorpe’s lips moved, but no words came.
Jeff Bransford rubbed away assiduously; there was a quizzical glint in his pleasant brown eyes. “My wife, Judge,” he said cheerfully, jerking his head to introduce Beebe, “and my two boys, Wes’ and Leo. Fine, well-grown boys, aren’t they?” He prodded the Judge’s ribs with a jocular thumb. “Say, Judge—how about that presentiment now?”
After personally attending the Judge and Patterson to jail, the G. M. A. T. felt that the capture of minor offenders might safely be left to the government. So they routed out Tillotson’s lawyers at the unseemly hour of 4 A.M., broke the news gently, and haled them off to jail for consultation with Tillotson.
Congratulation and explanation was over: the cumbrous machinery of the law was fairly under way (creakingly, despite liberal oiling), and a gorgeous breakfast for all hands was being brought into the jail from a nearby restaurant, when the jailer ushered Aughinbaugh into the presence of the friends in council.
He sauntered in with the most insouciant and complacent air imaginable. El Paso’s best cigar was perked up at a jaunty angle from the corner of his mouth; it was plain he was particularly well pleased with himself.
“Hello! where’s your prisoner?” said the firm in chorus.