Sevier entered, Craig and his stool-pigeon next. Treadwell followed and drew the window to behind him.
CHAPTER XLVII
WITH HIS BACK TO THE WALL
In the wide, lamp-lighted room into which this weird quartette had so startlingly entered, before the capacious fireplace two men had been sitting smoking—Judge Allen and his friend Governor Eveland. At the sudden apparition both had turned sharply toward the window—two strangely dissimilar figures: the Judge slight and spare and scholarly, his pale, finely-chiselled features tinged in the glow; the other deep-chested and powerful, of herculean mould, with a rugged face made almost patriarchal by the long grey beard which swept his chest: both countenances for the instant curiously alike in their expression of shocked surprise.
The Judge arose abruptly from his chair, his gaze shifting from the masked figure in striped clothes to Craig's face, eagerly alight and triumphant. He had no welcome for this summary entrance.
"Who is responsible for this intrusion?" he asked coldly.
Craig laughed. "I am responsible," he said. "I have business with you both. For some time, as you are aware, I have been debarred from such pursuits. However, I am now myself again, and free to pick up lost threads. Hence my call to-night."
"It can wait a more opportune time." The Judge spoke with asperity. "Moreover, I must ask you to remember that I have servants to announce my guests."
"Apologies may be in order later," Craig returned, "if my errand does not justify itself. My business with you is to inform you that you and your friends have been giving countenance to a man whom the law is tracking down—a convict who escaped from prison in the next state some months ago. You see him before you." He looked at the Governor, who had neither moved nor spoken—he had small liking for Cameron Craig. "My business with you, Governor Eveland, is to demand that you call upon the local authorities to arrest this jailbird, pending his extradition to your own jurisdiction. I have brought with me, under my personal surety, an inmate of the penitentiary"—he pointed to Paddy the Brick—"who was this criminal's cellmate and who has identified him."