The Daughter of Anderson Crow

by George Barr McCutcheon

Of course no one would hear to that. As a result, nearly five hundred dollars was voted from the corporation funds to strengthen and modernise the "calaboose." It was the sense of the meeting that a "sweat box" should be installed under Mr. Crow's supervision, and that the marshal's salary should be increased fifty dollars a year. After the adoption of this popular resolution Mr. Crow arose and solemnly informed the people that their faith in him was not misplaced. He threw the meeting into a state of great excitement by announcing that the kidnapers would soon be in the toils once more. In response to eager queries he merely stated that he had a valuable clew, which could not be divulged without detriment to the cause. Everybody went home that night with the assurance that the fugitives would soon be taken. Anderson promised the town board that he would not take them until the jail was repaired.

It was almost a fortnight before Wicker Bonner was able to walk about with crutches. The wound in his leg was an ugly one and healed slowly. His uncle, the Congressman, sent up a surgeon from New York, but that worthy approved of "Doc" Smith's methods, and abruptly left the young man to the care of an excellent nurse, Rosalie Gray. Congressman Bonner's servants came over every day or two with books, newspapers, sweetmeats, and fresh supplies from the city, but it was impossible for them to get any satisfaction from the young man in reply to their inquiries as to when he expected to return to the big house across the river. Bonner was beginning to hate the thought of giving up Rosalie's readings, her ministrations, and the no uncertain development of his own opinions as to her personal attractiveness.

"I don't know when I'll be able to walk, Watkins," he said to the caretaker. "I'm afraid my heart is affected."

Bonner's enforced presence at Anderson Crow's home was the source of extreme annoyance to the young men of the town. "Blootch" Peabody created a frightful scandal by getting boiling drunk toward the end of the week, so great was his dejection. As it was his first real spree, he did not recover from the effect for three days. He then took the pledge, and talked about the evils of strong drink with so much feeling at prayer meeting that the women of the town inaugurated a movement to stop the sale of liquor in the town. As Peabody's drug store was the only place where whiskey could be obtained, "Blootch" soon saw the error of his ways and came down from his pedestal to mend them.

Bonner was a friend in need to Anderson Crow. The two were in consultation half of the time, and the young man's opinions were not to be disregarded. He advanced a theory concerning the motives of the leader in the plot to send Rosalie into an exile from which she was not expected to return. It was his belief that the person who abandoned her as a babe was actuated by the desire to possess a fortune which should have been the child's. The conditions attending the final disposition of this fortune doubtless were such as to make it unwise to destroy the girl's life. The plotter, whatever his or her relation to the child may have been, must have felt that a time might come when the existence of the real heiress would be necessary. Either such a fear was the inspiration or the relationship was so dear that the heart of the arch-plotter was full of love for the innocent victim.

"Who is to say, Miss Gray," said Bonner one night as they sat before the fire, "that the woman who left you with Mr. Crow was not your own mother? Suppose that a vast estate was to be yours in trust after the death of some rich relative, say grandparent. It would naturally mean that some one else resented this bequest, and probably with some justice. The property was to become your own when you attained a certain age, let us say. Don't you see that the day would rob the disinherited person of every hope to retain the fortune? Even a mother might be tempted, for ambitious reasons, to go to extreme measures to secure the fortune for herself. Or she might have been influenced by a will stronger than her own—the will of an unscrupulous man. There are many contingencies, all probable, as you choose to analyse them."

"But why should this person wish to banish me from the country altogether? I am no more dangerous here than I would be anywhere in Europe. And then think of the means they would have employed to get me away from Tinkletown. Have I not been lost to the world for years? Why—"

"True; but I am quite convinced, and I think Mr. Crow agrees with me, that the recent move was made necessary by the demands of one whose heart is not interested, but whose hand wields the sceptre of power over the love which tries to shield you. Any other would have cut off your life at the beginning."

"That's my idee," agreed Anderson solemnly.