“I see, I see.” Carson had risen and with a deep frown on his face stood leaning against the top of his desk. He extended his hand to the officer and said, “I appreciate your telling me all this, Braider, more than I can say.”
“What's the good of my telling you if the news doesn't benefit you?” the sheriff asked. “Carson, I want to see you win. I ain't half a man myself, but I've got two little boys just starting to grow up, and I wish they could be like you—a two-legged bull-dog that clamps his teeth on what's right and won't let loose. Carson, you've got a chance—a bare chance—to get your man out alive.”
“What's that?” Dwight asked, eagerly.
“Why, let me hold the mob in check by promising to arrest Pete, and you get some trusty feller to take him in a buggy to-night through the country to Chattanooga. It would be a ticklish trip, and you want a man that won't get scared at his shadow, for on every road out of Darley, men will be on the lookout, but if you once got him there he would be absolutely safe, for no mob would go out of the State to do work of that sort. Getting a good man is the main thing.”
“I'll do it myself,” Dwight said, firmly. “You?” Garner cried. “That's absurd!”
“I'm the only one who could do it,” Carson declared, “for Pete would not go with any one else.”
“I really believe you are right,” Garner agreed, reluctantly; “but it is a nasty undertaking after all you've been through.”
“By gum!” exclaimed Braider, extending his hand to Dwight. “I hope you will do it. I want to see you complete a darn good all-round job.” > “Well, you are an officer of the law,” Garner observed, with amusement written all over his rugged face, “asking a man to steal your own prisoner.”
“What else can I do that's at all decent?” Braider asked. “Besides, do you fellows know that there never has been any written warrant for Pete's arrest. I started to jail him without any, and old Mrs. Parsons turned him loose. The only time he was put in jail was by Carson himself. By George! as I look at it, Carson, you have every right to take him out of jail, by any hook or crook, since you was responsible for him being there instead of hanging to a limb of a tree. I tell you, my boy, there ain't any law on earth that can touch you. Nobody is prepared to testify against Pete, and if you will get him to Chattanooga and keep him there for a while he can come back here a free man.”
“I have friends there who will look after him,” Dwight said. “I'll start with him to-night.”