Sentence in each case was deferred until three days later, when the prisoners were taken to court again. Big George and Shorty, whose previous criminal records told heavily against them, were very severely dealt with by a judge whose lack of sympathy with stock rustlers was proverbial. The former, proven to be the ringleader and instigator of the crimes, received a sentence of ten years’ penal servitude; the latter, seven. Scotty, being that it was, as far as could be ascertained, his first offense, and who, furthermore, was adjudged to have been the tool of Fisk and Shorty, drew the comparatively lenient sentence of four years.
The two first named took the announcement of their punishment with the silent, dogged indifference of men to whom durance vile was no new thing; but Scotty burst out into loud lamentations and weeping as the prisoners were quickly ushered downstairs to the court cells underneath.
Filled with pardonable elation at the successful termination of his cases, Benton left the courthouse and leisurely betook his way back to the Post. All the genial bonhomie that his many-sided nature could command now asserted itself, and he strolled along, humming a cheery lilt, his heart merry within him. Still in this enviable frame of mind, he departed later in the day for his detachment.
That night, standing on a corner of the main street in Sabbano, idly smoking and watching the faint reflection of a far-distant prairie fire, he heard himself hailed and, turning, greeted a man who sauntered slowly across the street to him with a familiarity that bespoke long acquaintance.
“Hello, Charley,” he said. “What’s blown you into this jerkwater burg?”
The other struck a match and relit his cigar before replying, disclosing a gaunt, lined, intellectual face with a grim mouth, which was somewhat accentuated by a close-cropped, grizzled military mustache.
“Case,” he answered laconically. “Say, Ellis, where’s Churchill? He’s stationed here, isn’t he?”
Benton nodded. “Yes,” he said; “but he’s been in the Post, now, for three days—waitin’ for a case of his to come off at Supreme Court. He was there when I came away this afternoon. Why? What d’you want him for?”
“M-m! Oh, nothing in particular,” his companion mumbled. “Just wondered where he was, that’s all.”
The newcomer deserves a more especial mention, for his history was a sad, though not an uncommon one. Charles Musgrave, M.D., had begun life as a clever young house-surgeon attached to a famous London hospital. Possessing extraordinary daring ability, inspired by a genuine love for his profession, he gradually obtained a reputation that caused him to be regarded as one of the foremost exponents of surgery of his day. Then it was—unluckily for him—at the zenith of his fame, that he became enamored of lovely Blanche Farrel—then a nurse in St. John’s Hospital.