“Sure thing! He was leading the rush—ahead of ’em all. This is the chap you told me to follow in the afternoon.”
The judge came down the steps and stared into my face.
“It’s the right one—the ringleader,” he said.
I knew that she was listening above. She must be listening! And other folks were flocking outside in the street; that fusillade had been a signal as effective as a general fire alarm.
“Look here,” I cried, full of panic, seeing the position I was in, suddenly become the scapegoat of the whole affair. “I have done nothing wrong. I rushed up here to warn you—”
“You rushed up, all right,” declared the detective. “Do you think you hicks could hold a mass-meeting down in that orchard and fool me as to what you were planning to do? I was ready for you. What’s orders, Judge?”
“Take him to the lock-up!”
God of the innocent! I’ll never forget how that sounded. It was as if somebody had hit me on the heart with a hammer. There is some sort of dignity about a real prison! But that little, red, wooden coop in our village where an occasional drunk was cast in or some lousy hobo harbored—it had always seemed to me and to others such a shameful place—to leave such a badge of utter discredit on the person who had been lodged there!
“I’ll never go in there! I’ll die first,” I wailed.
I was telling the bitter truth as I felt it.