“Yes, I know you,” answered the clerk, “and whatever you do is all right. You’d better go with him quietly,” he added, turning to Phil, “for it won’t do you any good to make a kick.”
“But what am I arrested for?” cried Phil, with one more despairing effort to solve this horrible mystery. “Of what crime am I accused, and who is my accuser?”
“It is not my business to say,” replied the officer, “but under the circumstances I don’t mind telling you that the charge is an attempt at felonious assault, and that the complainant’s name is Goldollar.”
“Oh!” gasped Phil, as this light was thrown upon the situation. And then, eagerly, “But I can explain all that in a minute.”
“Not here,” said the officer; “this is neither the time nor the place. You must come with me, and at once too,” he added, sternly, as he glanced at the little group of curious spectators gathering in the hotel office. “Now don’t try to resist or make a scene, for it won’t do the slightest good, and will only get you into further trouble.”
So Phil Ryder went out into the night a friendless prisoner in a strange city, leaving his travelling-bag, rifle, and overcoat behind him, the clerk remarking significantly that he would take good care of them until they should be called for.
No word was spoken between the officer and his prisoner as they passed through the brilliantly lighted streets until they finally reached the police station, and the latter stood before the sergeant’s desk, behind which that functionary was prepared, pen in hand, to enter a record of this case in his blotter. Then a torrent of words sprang to Phil’s lips. He told his story with such evident honesty and pleading anguish of soul that even the grizzled sergeant, accustomed as he was to scenes of this kind, was moved by it. “It does seem hard,” he said, when Phil paused, more for want of breath than anything else, “that a young gent like you should be compelled to pass a night in the cooler. If you had any one to go on your bail now, we might get the justice to give you a private examination, late as it is, and perhaps he’d accept a bond for the night.”
“But I haven’t. I don’t know a soul in the city,” answered Phil, despondently. “How much do you think the bail would be?” he asked, with a sudden inspiration.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe not more than a hundred or so.”
“I have that much right here with me!” cried Phil, eagerly, “and I’d gladly give every cent of it rather than pass a night in a cell. That would be too awful, and it doesn’t seem as though I could bear it.”