“Why, my dear,” answered my client, “I wish to save Mr. Allen the inconvenience, not to say the humiliation, of being brought East in custody and strapped with a pair of handcuffs. Let him take a shooting trip to the great Northwest until the real criminal is caught.”
“Well, Fenelon,” replied Mrs. Cooke, unable to repress a smile, “one might as well try to argue with a turn-stile or a weather-vane. I wash my hands of it.”
But Mr. Trevor, who was both a self-made man and a Western politician, was far from being satisfied. He turned to me with a sweep of the arm he had doubtless learned in the Ohio State Senate.
“Mr. Crocker,” he cried, “are you, as attorney of this district, going to aid and abet in the escape of a fugitive from justice?”
“Mr. Trevor,” said I, “I will take the course in this matter which seems fit to me, and without advice from any one.”
He wheeled on Farrar, repeated the question, and got a like answer.
Brought to bay for a time, he glared savagely around him while groping for further arguments.
But at this point the Four appeared on the scene, much the worse for thickets, and clamoring for luncheon. They had five small fish between them which they wanted Miss Thorn to cook.