I was eager to die in my tracks rather than to have such a foul blot on my name.
The next instant I had sudden revulsion of feeling in regard to that lock-up. In bitter fear, in almost frenzy of apprehension, in default of better retreat, I was quite ready to flee to that loathsome coop.
For I heard my uncle raving in the street!
I never remembered his words; my feelings were too much stirred just then. But the hideous screech of rage in his tones I’ll never forget. I knew he had found out my betrayal of him.
“He is going to kill me,” I told the detective. “It’s about the horse!”
“Yes, I reckon he will peel you if he gets his hands on you,” stated the man, who seemed to know what I was referring to. My uncle was threshing his way through the crowd toward me, making slow progress in the jam. The detective took advantage of that delay and rushed me off, with Constable Nute swinging his key and leading the way. Before I was fairly in my right senses I was in the lock-up alone and my two defenders were on guard outside the door.
My uncle frothed about the place for an hour, circling the little building again and again, plucking at bars and clapboards as a monkey might pick at a gigantic nut which resisted his attempts to get at the juicy meat for which he was hungry.
Never had I thought that I would be thankful to be in jail till then!
Furthermore, my hopes were sustaining me. I was young and trustful, and I was sure that innocence would be victorious. I could not understand how anybody would believe that I was guilty when morning came and I could explain it all. And I resolved to make some of the Skokums speak up in my behalf on threat of exposing the whole gang.
At last my uncle went away, staggering and hiccoughing curses—for he had brought his bottle with him and had been consulting it quite often.