Tregarvon still saw no way of keeping the judge out of it, and he held himself absolved from his promise by the sheer impossibility of doing what Richardia had begged him to do. The captive, wrist-bound with a turn or two of cord, was sitting hunched upon the edge of Rucker’s cot-bed. It was Carfax who picked up the lantern and flashed its light into the man’s face. “By Jove!” he exclaimed; “Morgan McNabb!” and Rucker nodded.
Judge Birrell sat upon the spare coil of rope and wiped his face with his handkerchief. His hands were trembling and he was breathing hard, but the smart run from the disabled automobile might have accounted for these disturbances. When he spoke to the prisoner his tone was sternly accusing.
“So it’s you, is it, Mo’gan McNabb?—turnin’ yo-uh teeth upon the hand that’s been feedin’ you? By the Lord Harry, you make me mighty sorry that I once saved you from going to the penitentiary, where you belong! Now, then, open yo-uh mouth and tell these gentlemen why you come heah dynamitin’ thei-uh machinery!”
The mountaineer’s lips were drawn back in a doglike snarl.
“I’ll see ’em damned befo’ I’ll open my haid to ’em, now, Judge Birrell! Lookee at this yere,” and he wrenched his tied hands around so that the judge might see.
“You don’t like the rope?” said the judge evenly. “Listen to me, Mo’gan; you McNabbs have lived on Westwood land, father and son, for fo’ generations, and you’ll open yo-uh head to me, suh! What quarrel have you got with the owneh of the Ocoee property? Ansuh me, if you don’t want anotheh tu’n o’ that rope taken around yo-uh neck, suh!”
The answer was as prompt as it was disconcerting. “I allow I got thess the same sort o’ quarrel ez you have, judge. Didn’t they-all steal the Ocoee f’om you in the first place?”
“That’s neithuh heah nor there!” was the stern rejoinder. “Would you give these gentlemen to understand that I am yo-uh principal in these scandalous outrages? See heah, Mo’gan, we all know that you haven’t been actin’ on yo-uh own responsibility. Who has been puttin’ you up to all these deviltries?”
“If you don’t know, I reckon I ain’t a-goin’ to be the one to tell you,” said the prisoner, relapsing into his former attitude of sullenness. Then, as if upon a second thought: “You ask Miss Dick, judge; I allow she knows.”
The little pause of consternation which this statement precipitated was broken by an exclamation from Rucker.