“I ruther guess it’s on’y a bit o’ a trot fer my team back t’ jail ye bruck from—sorter like twenty odd mile!” he said, grinning and slapping his hands together in great delight.
“I hope you won’t be in too much of a hurry, Mr. Stebbins. Now, I’m going to ask you as a favor to find out from District Attorney Lane whether or not he wants me. It may be he doesn’t. Do you know?”
“Want ye? Glory and snakes! Sartin, he wants ye!”
“If you don’t mind, sheriff,” I suggested, “I’ll telegraph him. Do you object?”
“Sartin no—no objecshuns!” He seemed to relish his liquor.
“I like your ways, Mr. Stebbins,” I said with a smile, and added, “When we get through telegraphing District Attorney Lane, we’ll have something to eat, and more to drink, too, if you feel like it.”
Then I wrote the following to F. F. Lane: “Sheriff Stebbins claims to have me under arrest here—do you want me?—wire at my expense.”
While Stebbins looked on I signed my name to these words, and soon they were being clicked to their destination. Stebbins’s little eyes were wide open with astonishment and confusion. Presently he asked: “Is this here biznuss a durned bluff, George?”
“We’ll let the district attorney be the judge of that, sheriff,” was my bland reply. “Come—let’s go to the dining-room.”
In the meantime I had sent a messenger boy round town to look up Judge Cushion, my senior counsel in the New Hampshire trial. I wanted him near in case of an emergency. He arrived about the time we finished our meal. He sat with us, and I told him of the fate of the indictments. It was news to him, and I received his warm congratulations with satisfaction. Then I told him of the arrest and of the message I’d sent to District Attorney Lane. He smiled significantly. While telling the judge all this, I took no little delight in watching the various changes which appeared on the sheriff’s face. After waiting an hour, I wrote another message, similar to the first, and sent it to Lane. Another hour passed and still no reply from either. In the meanwhile Sheriff Stebbins was getting more and more nonplussed and uneasy.