And his hand sought the other’s shoulder. But Bryan avoided his touch.
“Nay,” he said thickly. “Let be, lad. I’m an old man, an’—an’ draw fast to homeward. I’ll soon be in a good place, God grant—an’ out o’ reach o’ all yore laws an’ contraptions. Let be, lad. Yu’ve played h—l wi’ me, amongst yu’.”
The words of rough condolence died in the Sergeant’s throat. He saw, through misty eyes, the poor old derelict, fuddled with whiskey and sorrow, go shambling on his way with bowed gray head. And the sight was more than he could stand. With a few strides he overtook the aged Hiram and, in spite of his feeble resistance, gently, but firmly, turned him around.
“I’ve been a-figurin’ this business out—right since we come in from Cherry Creek,” he said huskily. “Yu’re comin’ along with us on th’ train to-night, Dad, when we take them prisoners down. An’ I’m a-goin’ to get yu’ into a certain place that I know of, where yu’ll be looked after good for th’ rest o’ yore days—Father Rouleau’s Home for the aged an’ infirm. Besides—I want yu’ somewheres handy when that case comes off.”
CHAPTER XI
“My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time—
To let the punishment fit the crime;
The punishment fit the crime.”
—The Mikado
The three rustlers were tried at the following Criminal Assizes held about two months later.
Fisk, obtaining money from some unknown source, was the only one of the trio represented by counsel, retaining that eminent criminal lawyer—Denis Ryan—to defend him. Robbins’ craven heart failing him at the eleventh hour, he pleaded guilty to all charges, and threw himself unreservedly upon the mercy of the Court. Shorty, actuated more by motives of spite against Big George, whom he still firmly believed to have betrayed him, entered a similar plea. Brooding over his former accomplice’s imaginary perfidy during his past two months in the guardroom awaiting trial, the one thought—to “get even” with his enemy—had gradually become an obsession, which finally culminated in a deliberate intention to reverse his original plea on arraignment.
These two totally unexpected occurrences combined to render Fisk’s case hopeless. His counsel, with characteristic ability, put up a brilliant and spirited defense for his huge, ill-favored client; but it was a forlorn hope, and he knew it long before the jury returned with their verdict of “Guilty.”
One of the most decisive factors in the case had been the evidence of the old Indian—“Roll-in-the-Mud”—who, examined through an interpreter, stated that Fisk had approached him with an offer of a five-dollar bill and one of Tucker’s best colts, in return for his help in driving the bunch of horses at night up the difficult bush trail in the Ghost River district.