“Me—I am,” began Gash Tuttle. “I’m the manager. What’s wanted?”
“You are! I ’rest you in the name of the law for runnin’ a skin game!” the constable whooped gleefully—“on a warrant swore out less ’en a hour ago.”
[124]
And with these astounding words he fixed his fingers, grapple-hook fashion, in the collar of the new manager’s coat; so that as Gash Tuttle, obeying a primal impulse, tried to back away from him, the back breadth of the coat bunched forward over his head, giving him the appearance of a fawn-coloured turtle trying to retreat within its own shell. His arms, hampered by sleeves pulled far down over the hands, winnowed the air like saurian flippers, wagging in vain resistance.
Holding him fast, ignoring his muffled and inarticulate protests, the constable addressed the menacing countryman:
“Is this here the one got your money?”
“No, ’tain’t. ’Twas a big ugly feller, with mushtashes; but I reckin this here one must’ve helped. Lemme search him.”
“Hands off the prisoner!” ordered the constable, endeavouring to interpose his bulk between maddened accuser and wriggling captive.
He spoke too late and moved too slowly. The countryman’s gouging hands dived into Mr. Tuttle’s various pockets and were speedily out again in the open; and one of them held money in it—paper and silver.
“Here ’tis!” barked the countryman, exultant now. “This here two-dollar bill is mine—I know it by this here red-ink mark.” He shuffled out the three remaining bills and stared at them a moment in stupefaction, and his yelp [125] of joy turned to a bellow of agonised berserk rage. “I had two hundred and twenty-eight dollars in cash, and here ain’t but seventeen dollars and sixty cents! You derned sharper! Where’s the rest of my mortgage money that yore gang beat me out of?”
He swung a fearsome flail of an arm and full in Gash Tuttle’s chest he landed a blow so well aimed, so vigorous, that by its force the recipient was driven backward out of his coat, leaving the emptied garment in the constable’s clutches; was driven still further back until he tottered on the rear edge of the platform and tumbled off into space, his body tearing away a width of canvas wall and taking it along with him as he disappeared.