Jack and Nell protested, but their protests were in vain. The sheriff in explanation vouchsafed only a single word, most contemptuously uttered:
"Fishy!"
In the end, the young pair stood by in mute indignation, while the official search was prosecuted.... They had one consolation in the presence of this outrage: The search would prove its own absurdity.
The issue came on them like a thunderbolt. From somewhere in the pack, the sheriff's groping fingers drew forth an object, which he held up that all might see. It was undoubtedly the bone handle of a large knife. Without a word, the sheriff reached into a pocket of his coat, and brought forth the blade which had been in the dead man's breast. Still without a word, while all looked on in breathless tension, he put blade and haft together. They fitted perfectly.
The sheriff's mouth, under the drooping mustache, twisted in a triumphant grin. An amazed consternation held Jack and Nell silent for the moment in the face of this damning evidence against them. The sheriff moved forward a step, and laid his hand on Jack's shoulder.
"Young feller," he said heavily, "I arrest you in the name of the law, for the murder of Sam Ward, deceased. And don't say anythin'," he added, in paraphrase of the legal formula, "for what you say will be used agin ye."
CHAPTER XVII
The catastrophe that had thus put an end to the honeymoon, drove the unfortunate husband and wife almost to despair. The thing was monstrous, incredible. Nevertheless, it had occurred. Jack raged against the unjust accusation which Dan McGrew had caused to be laid against him; but neither his wrath nor his entreaties were powerful enough to create even a doubt on the part of the public of Kalmak as to his guilt. The evidence against him was, in fact, incontrovertible. His case was made the worse, also, by the absence of any one who could vouch for his character. Given time, he could easily enough summon witnesses in his behalf, though even then the issue might be uncertain. He had no plausible explanation to offer concerning the presence of the knife-handle among his effects. He could only deny all knowledge of how it came there. And such denial was utterly valueless, as Jack himself realized with utter discouragement.
As for Nell, there was only a single thing to mitigate her misery, and of this she was hardly conscious. It was that she herself was not subjected to the indignity of arrest. In this matter, the chivalry of the community worked in her behalf. These men of the Northland were not of a sort to war against women. They left such warfare to a more complex state of civilization.