man half smiled.
"We seen The Oskaloosa Kid this evenin'," volunteered one of thenewcomers.
"You did?" exclaimed the girl. "Where?"
"He'd just pulled off a job in Oakdale an' had his pockets bulgin' widsparklers an' kale. We was follerin' him an' when we seen your light uphere we t'ought it was him."
The Oskaloosa Kid shrank closer to Bridge. At last he recognized thevoice of the speaker. While he had known that the two were of The SkyPilot's band he had not been sure of the identity of either; but now itwas borne in upon him that at least one of them was the last person onearth he cared to be cooped up in a small, unlighted room with, and amoment later when one of the two rolled a 'smoke' and lighted it he sawin the flare of the flame the features of both Dopey Charlie and TheGeneral. The Oskaloosa Kid gasped once more for the thousandth time thatnight.
It had been Dopey Charlie who lighted the cigaret and in the briefillumination his friend The General had grasped the opportunity to scanthe features of the other members of the party. Schooled by long yearsof repression he betrayed none of the surprise or elation he felt whenhe recognized the features of The Oskaloosa Kid.
If The General was elated The Oskaloosa Kid was at once relieved andterrified. Relieved by ocular proof that he was not a murderer andterrified by the immediate presence of the two who had sought his life.
His cigaret drawing well Dopey Charlie resumed: "This Oskaloosa Kid's abad actor," he volunteered. "The little shrimp tried to croak me; buthe only creased my ribs. I'd like to lay my mits on him. I'll bet therewon't be no more Oskaloosa Kid when I get done wit him."
The boy drew Bridge's ear down toward his own lips. "Let's go," he said."I don't hear anything more downstairs, or maybe we could get out onthis roof and slide down the porch pillars."
Bridge laid a strong, warm hand on the small, cold one of his newfriend.
"Don't worry, Kid," he said. "I'm for you."
The two other men turned quickly in the direction of the speaker.
"Is de Kid here?" asked Dopey Charlie.
"He is, my degenerate friend," replied Bridge; "and furthermore he'sgoing to stay here and be perfectly safe. Do you grasp me?"
"Who are you?" asked The General.
"That is a long story," replied Bridge; "but if you chance to recallDink and Crumb you may also be able to visualize one Billy Burke andBilly Byrne and his side partner, Bridge. Yes? Well, I am the sidepartner."
Before the yeggman could make reply the girl spoke up quickly. "This mancannot be The Oskaloosa Kid," she said. "It was The Oskaloosa Kid whothrew me from the car."
"How do you know he ain't?" queried The General. "Youse was knockedout when these guys picks you up. It's so dark in here you couldn'treco'nize no one. How do you know this here bird ain't The OskaloosaKid, eh?"
"I have heard both these men speak," replied the girl; "their voiceswere not those of any men I have known. If one of them is The OskaloosaKid then there must be two men called that. Strike a match and you willsee that you are mistaken."
The General fumbled in an inside pocket for a package of matchescarefully wrapped against possible damage by rain. Presently he struckone and held the light in the direction of The Kid's face while he andthe girl and Dopey Charlie leaned forward to scrutinize the youth'sfeatures.
"It's him all right," said Dopey Charlie.
"You bet it is," seconded The General.
"Why he's only a boy," ejaculated the girl. "The one who threw me fromthe machine was a man."
"Well, this one said he was The Oskaloosa Kid," persisted The General.
"An' he shot me up," growled Dopey Charlie.
"It's too bad he didn't kill you," remarked Bridge pleasantly. "You'rea thief and probably a murderer into the bargain--you tried to kill thisboy just before he shot you."
"Well wot's he?" demanded Dopey Charlie. "He's a thief--he said hewas--look in his pockets--they're crammed wid swag, an' he's a gun-man,too, or he wouldn't be packin' a gat. I guess he ain't got nothin' onme."
The darkness hid the scarlet flush which mounted to the boy's cheeks--sohot that he thought it must surely glow redly through the night. Hewaited in dumb misery for Bridge to demand the proof of his guilt.Earlier in the evening he had flaunted the evidence of his crime in thefaces of the six hobos; but now he suddenly felt a great shame that hisnew found friend should believe him a house-breaker.
But Bridge did not ask for any substantiation of Charlie's charges,he merely warned the two yeggmen that they would have to leave the boyalone and in the morning, when the storm had passed and daylight hadlessened the unknown danger which lurked below-stairs, betake themselvesupon their way.
"And while we're here together in this room you two must sit over nearthe window," he concluded. "You've tried to kill the boy once to-night;but you're not going to try it again--I'm taking care of him now."
"You gotta crust, bo," observed Dopey Charlie, belligerently. "I guessme an' The General'll sit where we damn please, an' youse can take itfrom me on the side that we're goin' to have ours out of The Kid's haul.If you tink you're goin' to cop the whole cheese you got another tinkcomin'."
"You are banking," replied Bridge, "on the well known fact that I nevercarry a gun; but you fail to perceive, owing to the Stygian gloom whichsurrounds us, that I have the Kid's automatic in my gun hand and thatthe business end of it is carefully aiming in your direction."
"Cheese it," The General advised his companion; and the two removedthemselves to the opposite side of the apartment, where they whispered,grumblingly, to one another.
The girl, the boy, and Bridge waited as patiently as they could forthe coming of the dawn, talking of the events of the night and planningagainst the future. Bridge advised the girl to return at once to herfather; but this she resolutely refused to do, admitting with utmostcandor that she lacked the courage to face her friends even though herfather might still believe in her.
The youth begged that he might accompany Bridge upon the road, pleadingthat his mother was dead and that he could not return home after hisescapade. And Bridge could not find it in his heart to refuse him, forthe man realized that the boyish waif possessed a subtile attraction, asforceful as it was inexplicable. Not since he had followed the open roadin company with Billy Byrne had Bridge met one with whom he might careto 'Pal' before The Kid crossed his path on the dark and storm sweptpike south of Oakdale.
In Byrne, mucker, pugilist, and MAN, Bridge had found a physical andmoral counterpart of himself, for the slender Bridge was muscled asa Greek god, while the stocky Byrne, metamorphosed by the fire of awoman's love, possessed all the chivalry of the care free tramp whosevagabondage had never succeeded in submerging the evidences of hiscultural birthright.
In the youth Bridge found an intellectual equal with the added charmof a physical dependent. The man did not attempt to fathom the evidentappeal of the other's tacitly acknowledged cowardice; he merely knewthat he would not have had the youth otherwise if he could havechanged him. Ordinarily he accepted male cowardice with the resignationof surfeited disgust; but in the case of The Oskaloosa Kid he realized acertain artless charm which but tended to strengthen his liking for theyouth, so brazen and unaffected was the boy's admission of his terror ofboth the real and the unreal menaces of this night of horror.
That the girl also was well bred was quite evident to Bridge, while boththe girl and the youth realized the refinement of the strange companionand protector which Fate had ordered for them, while they also sawin one another social counterparts of themselves. Thus, as the nightdragged its slow course, the three came to trust each other moreentirely and to speculate upon the strange train of circumstances whichhad brought them thus remarkably together--the thief, the murderer'saccomplice, and the vagabond.
It was during a period of thoughtful silence when the night was darkestjust before the dawn and the rain had settled to a dismal drizzleunrelieved by lightning or by thunder that the five occupants of theroom were suddenly startled by a strange patteri
ng sound from thefloor below. It was as the questioning fall of a child's feet upon theuncarpeted boards in the room beneath them. Frozen to silent rigidity,the five sat straining every faculty to catch the minutest sound fromthe black void where the dead man lay, and as they listened therecame up to them, mingled with the inexplicable footsteps, the hollowreverberation from the dank cellar--the hideous dragging of thechain behind the nameless horror which had haunted them through theinterminable eons
The Oakdale Affair Page 10