“I never thought he’d ha’ shown disrespect fur the law,” gasped Uncle Arad weakly.
“Disrespect!” cried the judge, “I never was so insulted in all my life. That boy will be hung yet, you mark my words!”
“I never thought it of Brandon,” said the farmer, shaking his head.
He seemed quite overcome to think that his nephew had dared defy the law, or its representative. To Uncle Arad the law was a very sacred thing; he always aimed to keep within its pale in his transactions.
“You’ll never be able to do anything with that boy here,” declared “Square” Holt. “A strait jacket is the only thing for him.”
“But if he goes there what’ll be the use o’ my bein’ his guardeen?” queried Arad.
Then he hesitated an instant as a new phase of the situation came to him.
“If Brandon was under lock an’ key—jes’ where I c’d put my han’ on him when I wanted him—I c’d go right erbout this ’ere treasure business, an’ git it fur—fur him,” he thought, yet shivering in his soul at the thought of the wrong he was planning to do his nephew.
“I—I dunno but ye’re right, square,” he said quaveringly. “I—I don’ wanter see th’ boy go right ter perdition, ’fore my very eyes, as ye might say, an’ if ye think the reformin’ influences o’ the institution is what he needs——”
“The best thing in the world for him,” declared the judge, drawing on his driving gloves. “The only thing, I might say, that will keep him out of jail—where he belongs, the young villain!”