Off bounded one of the detectives; the other lingered, sucking the cut in his hand. He didn’t know much about wild life, poor man. This was a kind of stealing he had never seen before—the only kind that interested Hervey Willetts. The only thing that interested him—freedom. As long as the squirrel has teeth to bite, he will bite.
You cannot tame a squirrel.
CHAPTER XXVI
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN
But they caught him, and caged him. They found him in the camp of railroad workers near Clover Valley where he had spent a week or so of happy days. And they left nothing undone. They investigated the histories of that rough and ready crew, for they were after the man higher up, the “master mind” in back of the robbery.
They unearthed the fact that one of them, Nebraska Ned, had been a sailor and had deserted his ship to assist in a revolution in South America. It was then that Hervey made a most momentous decision. He abandoned Montana quite suddenly and chose South America as the future theatre of his adventurous career.
No master mind was discovered, not even the true master mind, Harlem Hinkey. He was not implicated and he neglected to uphold the chivalrous honor of Harlem by coming forward as the originator of the prank which had such a grave sequel. In the hearing in court, Hervey never mentioned his name. And there you have Hervey Willetts. You may take your choice between the “million dollar theatre” and South America.
There was a pathos about the quiet resignation, the poise and fairness in face of all, which Mr. Walton presented in that memorable scene at the hearing. I like Mr. Walton, good man that he was. He sat, a tall, gaunt figure, one lanky limb across the other, and listened without any outward show of humiliation. His tired gray eyes, edged by crow’s-foot wrinkles singularly deep, rested tolerantly on the prim young man, Horton Manners, who was having his day in court with a vengeance.
And Hervey, too, looked upon the young treasurer musician with interest, with dismay indeed, for he recognized in him the very same young man into whose lap he had stumbled on the train coming home after his triumphal season at helpless Temple Camp. Horton Manners looked down from his throne on the witness box, gazing through Hervey rather than at him, and adjusted his horn spectacles in a way that no one should do who is under fifty years old. He held one lapel of his coat and this simple posture, so common with his elders, gave him somehow the absurd look of an experienced business man of about twenty-two years.
He was not in the least embarrassed. He testified that he was treasurer of the Farrelton Band and confessed that he played a small harp. If he had said that he played a drum nobody would have believed him. He said that he had lived in Farrelton but a short while and made his home with his married sister. Then, on invitation of the likely looking young man representing the prosecutor, he told how Hervey had mentioned on the train that he was going to Montana and that he was going to “collop” the money to get there.
“And when did you next see him?”