A violent altercation arose at this point between the coroner and the lawyer. Carmody insisted on his right to ask any question he saw fit, and Raines retorted that the witness had a right to refuse to incriminate himself.
"You stick to your bread pills and vials," he said to the coroner, "and don't assume a knowledge of the law. You become ridiculous when you do."
"I know my powers," retorted Carmody in high resentment, "and you keep a civil tongue in your head or I'll fine you for contempt. I may not know all the ins and outs of court procedure, but I'm going to see justice done, and I'm going to see that you keep your place."
"You can't steam-roll me," roared Raines.
The argument became so hot that Throop was forced to interfere, and in the excitement and confusion of the moment Busby mad a dash for the door, and would have escaped had not Hanscom intercepted him. The room was instantly in an uproar. Several of Busby's friends leaped to his aid, and for a few minutes it seemed as if the coroner's court had resolved itself into an arena for battling bears. Busby fought desperately, and might have gained his freedom, after all, had not Rawlins taken a hand.
At last Throop came into action. "Stop that!" he shouted, and fetched Busby a blow that ended his struggles for the moment. "Let go of him, Hanscom," he said. "I'll attend to him."
Hanscom and Rawlins fell back, and Throop, placing one huge paw on the outlaw's shoulder, shoved the muzzle of a revolver against his neck.
"Now you calm right down, young man, and remember you're in court and not in a barroom."
Raines, still unsubdued, shouted out, "You take your gun away from that man, you big stiff!"
"Silence!" bellowed Carmody. "I'll have you removed if you utter another word."
"I refuse to take orders from a pill-pusher like you."
"Sheriff, seat that man," commanded Carmody, white with wrath.
Throop, thrusting Busby back into his chair, advanced upon Raines with ponderous menace. "Sit down, you old skunk."
"Don't you touch me!" snarled the lawyer.
"Out you go," said Throop, with a clutch at the defiant man's throat.
Raines reached under his coat-tails for a weapon, but Rawlins caught him from behind, and Throop, throwing his arms around his shoulders in a bearlike hug, carried him to his chair and forced him into it.
"Now will you be quiet?"
The whole room was silent now, silent as death, with a dozen men on their feet with weapons in their hands, waiting to see if Raines would rise.
Breaking this silence, Carmody, lifted by excitement to unusual eloquence, cried out: "Gentlemen, I call upon you to witness that I am in no way exceeding my authority. The dignity of this court must be upheld." He turned to the jury, who were all on end and warlike. "I call upon you to witness the insult which Mr. Raines has put on this court, and unless he apologizes he will be ejected from the room."
Raines saw that he had gone too far, and with a wry face and contemptuous tone of voice muttered an apology which was in spirit an insult, but Carmody accepted the letter of it with a warning that he would brook no further displays of temper.
When the coroner resumed his interrogation of Busby, whose sullen calm had given place to a look of alarm and desperation, he refused to speak one word in answer to questions, and at last Carmody, ordering him to take a seat in the room, called Mrs. Eli Kitsong to the chair.
She was a thin, pale little woman with a nervous twitch on one side of her face, and the excitement through which she had just passed rendered her almost speechless; but she managed to tell the jury that Busby and Watson had fought and that she had warned her son not to run with Hart Busby.
"I knew he'd get him into trouble," she said. "I told Henry not to go with him; but he went away with him in spite of all I could say."
"Did you actually see the fight between Busby and Watson?"
"No, I only heard Ed tell about it."
"Did he say Busby threatened to kill him?"
"Yes, he did, but he laughed and said he was not afraid of a fool kid like him."
Busby was deeply disturbed. He sat staring at the floor, moistening his lips occasionally with the tip of his tongue as the coroner called one after another of his neighbors to testify against him. The feeling that Carmody was on the right track spread through the audience, but Abe insisted that the Kauffmans be called to the stand, and to this Hanscom added:
"I join in that demand. Call Miss McLaren. I want the ownership of these shoes settled once and for all."
In the tone of one making a concession, Carmody said, "Very well. Mr. Sheriff, take Busby out and ask Miss McLaren to step this way."
As the young ruffian was led out Rita sprang up as if to follow him, but Carmody restrained her. "Stay where you are. I want you to confront Miss McLaren."
A stir, a sigh of satisfaction, passed over the room, and every eye was turned toward the door through which Helen must approach. Not one of all the town-folk and few of the country-folk had ever seen her face or heard her voice. To them she was a woman of mystery, and for the most part a woman of dark repute, capable of any enormity. They believed that she had been living a hermit life simply and only for the reason that she had been driven out of the East by the authorities, and most of them believed that the man she was living with was her paramour.
Every preconception of her was of this savage sort, and so when the sheriff reappeared, ushering in a tall, composed, and handsome young woman whose bearing, as well as her features, suggested education and refinement, the audience stared in dumb amazement.
Hanscom and Rawlins both rose to their feet, and Carmody, moved by a somewhat similar respect and admiration, followed their example. He went further; he indicated, with a bow, the chair in which she was to sit, while the jurors with open mouths followed her every movement. They could not believe that this was the same woman they had examined at the previous session of the court.
Hanscom, without considering her costume as designed to produce an impression—he was too loyal for that—exulted in its perfectly obvious effect on the spectators, and glowed with confidence over the outcome.
She looked taller, fairer, and younger in her graceful gown, and her broad hat—which was in sharpest contrast to the sunbonnet which had so long been her disguise—lent a girlish piquancy to her glance. Mrs. Brinkley expressed in one short phrase the change of sentiment which swept almost instantly over the room. "Why, she's a lady!" she gasped.
Carmody, while not so sure the witness's costume was unpremeditated, nevertheless acknowledged its power. He opened his examination with an apology for thus troubling her a second time, and explained that new witnesses and new evidence made it necessary.
She accepted his apology with grave dignity, and in answer to questions by Raines admitted that Kauffman had told her of his clash with Watson over some cattle.
"But he never threatened to shoot Watson. He is not quarrelsome. On the contrary, he is very gentle and patient, and only resented Watson's invasion of our home."
Upon being shown the shoes which Rita Cuneo had worn she sharply answered:
"No, they are not mine. I could not wear them. They are much too small for me."
This answer, though fully expected by Hanscom and the coroner, sent another wave of excitement over the audience, and when Carmody said, almost apologetically, "Miss McLaren, will you kindly try on these shoes?" the women in the room rose from their seats in access of interest, and loud cries of "Down in front!" arose from those behind them.
Seemingly without embarrassment, yet with heightened color, Helen removed one of her shoes—a plain low walking-shoe—and handed it to Carmody, who received it with respectful care and handed it to the foreman of the jury, asking him to make comparison of it with the footprints.
The jurors, two by two, examined, measured, muttered, while the audience waited in growing impatience for their report. Most of the onlookers believed this to be a much more important test than it really was, and when at last t
he foreman returned the shoe, saying, "This ain't the shoe that made the tracks," the courtroom buzzed with pleased comment.
Raines was on his feet. "Mr. Coroner, we demand that the witness try on that other pair of shoes. We are not convinced that she cannot wear them."
Carmody yielded, and the room became very quiet as Helen, with noticeable effort, wedged her foot into the shoe.
"I cannot put it on; it is too small," she said to Carmody, and Rita, who sat near, bent a terrified gaze upon her.
Raines then called out: "She's playing off. Have her stand up."
Hanscom, furious at this indignity, protested that it was not necessary, but Helen rose and, drawing aside the hem of her skirt, calmly offered her foot for inspection.
"I can't possibly walk in it," she said, addressing the jury.
One by one the jury clumsily knelt and examined her foot, then returned to their seats, and when the foreman said, "That never was her shoe," a part of the audience applauded his utterance as conclusive.
"That will do, Miss McLaren," said Carmody; "you may step down." And, turning sharply to where Rita sat with open mouth and dazed glance, he demanded: "Do you know what the court calls your testimony? It's perjury! That's what it is! Do you know what we can do to you? We can shut you up in jail. These shoes are yours. Are you ready to say so now?"
She shrank from him, and her eyes fell.
Raines intervened. "You are intimidating the witness," he protested.
Carmody repeated his question, "Are these your shoes?"
"Yes, sir," she faintly answered; a sigh of relief, a ripple of applause, again interrupted the coroner.
Hanscom rose. "Mr. Coroner, in view of this testimony, I move Miss McLaren be excused from further attendance on this court."
The unmistakable rush of sympathy toward Helen moved Carmody to dramatize the moment. "Miss McLaren," he said, with judicial poise, "I am convinced that you are not a material witness in this case. You are dismissed."
The hearty handclapping of a majority of the auditors followed, and Helen was deeply touched. Her voice was musical with feeling as she said:
"Thank you, sir. I am very grateful. Is my father also excused?"
"Unless the jury wishes to question him."
The jurors conferred, and finally the spokesman said, "I don't think we'll need him."
"Very well, then, you are both free."
Mrs. Brinkley, a round-faced, fresh-complexioned little woman, who had been sitting near the front seat, made a rush for Helen, eager to congratulate her and invite her to dinner. Others, both men and women, followed, and for a time all business was suspended. It was evident that Helen had in very truth been on trial for murder, and that the coroner's dismissal was in effect her acquittal. Hanscom, on the edge of the throng, waited impatiently for an opportunity to present Rawlins. Raines and Kitsong excitedly argued.
Meanwhile the jury and the coroner were in conference, and at last Carmody called for the finding: "We believe that the late Edward Watson came to his death at the hands of one Hart Busby, with Henry Kitsong and Margarita Cuneo knowing to it, and we move that they be held to the grand jury for trial at the next term of court," drawled the foreman and sat down.
No one applauded now, but a murmur of satisfaction passed over the room. Eli and Abe sprang up in excited clamor, and Raines made violent protest against the injustice of the verdict.
"It's all irregular!" he shouted.
Carmody remained firm. "This finding will stand," he said. "The court is adjourned."
Raines immediately made his way to Hanscom and laid a hand on his shoulder. "In that case," he said, "I'll take you into camp. Mr. Sheriff, I have a warrant for this man's arrest."
Hanscom was not entirely surprised, but he resented their haste to humiliate him before the crowd—and before Helen. "Don't do that now," he protested. "Wait an hour or two. Wait till I can get Miss McLaren and her father out of the country. I give you my word I'll not run away."
Carmody, seeing Raines with his hand on the ranger's arm, understood what it meant and hurried over to urge a decent delay. "Let him put the girl on the train," he said.
"I'll give him two hours," said Raines, "and not a minute more."
Hanscom glanced at Helen and was glad of the fact that, being surrounded by her women sympathizers, she had seen and heard nothing of the enemy's new attack upon him.
IX
Helen and the ranger left the room together, and no sooner were they free from the crowd than she turned to him with a smile which expressed affection as well as gratitude.
"How much we owe to you and Dr. Carmody, and what a sorry interruption we've caused in your work."
He protested that the interruption had been entirely a pleasure, but she, while knowing nothing of his impending arrest, was fully aware that he had undergone actual hardship for her sake, and her plan for hurrying away seemed at the moment most ungracious. Yet this, after all, was precisely what she now decided to do.
"Is there time for us to catch that eastbound express?" she asked.
Her words chilled his heart with a quick sense of impending loss, but he looked at his watch. "Yes, if it should happen to be late, as it generally is." Then, forgetting his parole, in a voice which expressed more of his pain than he knew, he said: "I hate to see you go. Can't you wait another day?"
His pleading touched a vibrant spot in her, but she was resolved. "I have an almost insane desire to get away," she hurriedly explained. "I am afraid of this country. Its people scare me!" A quick change in her voice indicated a new thought. "I hope the Kitsongs will not continue in pursuit of you."
"They won't have a chance to do that," he replied, gloomily. "I'm leaving, too. I have resigned."
"Oh no! You mustn't do that."
"I turned in my papers this morning." He suddenly recalled his parole. "I shall soon be free—I hope—to go anywhere and do anything—and I'd like to keep in touch with you—if you'll let me."
She evaded him. "I shall be very sorry if we are the cause of your leaving the service."
"Well, you are—but not in the way you mean. You have made me discontented with myself, that's all, and I'm going to get out of the tall timber and see if I can't do something in the big world. I want to win your respect."
"I respect you now. Your work as a forester seems to me very fine and honorable."
"The work is all right, but I'm leaving it, just the same. I can't see a future in it. Fact is, I begin to long for a home; that lunch in your cabin started me on a new line of thought."
The memory of his visit to her garden in the valley seemed now like a chapter in the story of a far-off community, and she could hardly relate herself to the hermit girl who served the tea, but the forester—whom she recognized as a lover—was becoming every moment nearer, more insistent. A time of reckoning was at hand, and because she could not meet it she was eager to escape—to avoid the giving of pain. His face and voice had become dear—and might grow dearer. Therefore she made no comment on his statement of a desire for a home, and he asked:
"Don't you feel like going back to your garden once more?"
"No," she answered, sharply, "I never want to see the place again. It is repulsive to me."
Again a little silence intervened. "I hate to think of your posies perishing for lack of care," he said, with gentle sadness. "If I can, I'll ride over once in a while and see that they get some water."
His words exerted a magical power. She began to weaken in resolution. It was not an easy thing to sever the connection which had been so strangely established between herself and this good friend, who seemed each moment to be less the simple mountaineer she had once believed him to be. Western he was, forthright and rough hewn, but he had shown himself a man in every emergency—a candid, strong man. Her throat filled with emotion, but she walked beside him in silence.
He had another care on his mind. "You'd better let me round up your household goods," he suggested.
"
Oh no. Let them go; they're not worth the effort."
He insisted. "I don't like to think of any one else having them. It made me hot just to see that girl playing your guitar. I'll have 'em all brought down and stored somewhere. You may want 'em some time."
She was rather glad to find they had reached the door of Carmody's office and that further confidences were impossible, for she was discovering herself to be each moment deeper in his debt and correspondingly less able to withstand his wistful, shy demand.
Mrs. Carmody, a short, fat, excited person, met them in the hall with a cackle of alarm. "I'm awfully glad you've come," she exclaimed. "Your father has been taken with a cramp or something."
Helen paled with apprehension of disaster, for she knew that her father had been keenly suffering all the morning. "Here I am, daddy," she cheerily called, as she entered the room. "It's all right. The inquest is over and we are free to go."
Kauffman, who was lying on a couch in a corner of the office, turned his face and bravely smiled. "I'm glad," he weakly replied. "I was afraid they would call me to the stand again."
Kneeling at his side, she studied his face with anxious care. "Are you worse, daddy? Has your pain increased?"
"Yes, Nellie, it is worse. I fear I am to be very ill."
She took his hand in hers, a pang of remorseful pity wrenching her heart. "Don't say that, daddy," she gently chided. "Keep your good courage." She looked up at the ranger, who stood near with troubled brow. "Mr. Hanscom, will you please find Dr. Carmody and tell him my father needs him?"
With a quick word of assurance he hurried away, and the girl, bending to the care of her stepfather, suffered from a full realization of the fact that he had been brought to this condition by the strength of his devotion to her. "For my sake he exiled himself, for me he has been assaulted, wounded, arrested"—and, looking down upon him in the light of her recovered sense of values, she became very humble.
"Dear old daddy," she wailed, "it's all my fault. What can I do to make amends? You've sacrificed so much for me."
Sick as he was, the old man did his best to comfort her, but she was still sitting on the floor, with head bowed in troubled thought, when Hanscom and Carmody hurried in. Her relief, made manifest by the instant movement with which she gave way to him, was almost childlike.
They of the High Trails Page 29
