"Why should I?" burst out Bob. "Will you kindly explain to me why I should make a chance to talk to you; and why I've been dragged out here in the dead of night?"
"No call to get mad," expostulated the man in rather discouraged tones; "I just thought as how mebbe you was still feeling friendly-like. My mistake. But I reckon you won't be giving me away anyhow?"
During this speech he had slowly produced from his hip pocket a frayed bandana handkerchief; as slowly taken off his hat and mopped his brow.
The removal of the floppy and shady old sombrero exposed to the mingled rays of the fire and the moon the man's full features. Heretofore, Bob had been able to see indistinctly only the meagre facts of a heavy beard and clear eyes.
"George Pollock!" he cried, dropping the revolver and leaping forward with both hands outstretched.
* * *
XI
Pollock took his hands, but stared at him puzzled. "Surely!" he said at last. His clear blue eyes slowly widened and became bigger. "Honest! Didn't you know me! Is that what ailed you, Bobby? I thought you'd done clean gone back on me; and I sure always remembered you for a friend!"
"Know you!" shouted Bob. "Why, you eternal old fool, how should I know you?"
"You might have made a plumb good guess."
"Oh, sure!" said Bob; "easiest thing in the world. Guess that the first shadow you see in the woods is a man you thought was in Mexico."
"Didn't you know I was here?" demanded Pollock earnestly. "Sure pop?"
"How should I know?" asked Bob again.
George Pollock's blue eyes smouldered with anger.
"I'll sure tan that promising nephew of mine!" he threatened; "I've done sent you fifty messages by him. Didn't he never give you none of them?"
"Who; Jack?"
"That's the whelp."
Bob laughed.
"That's a joke," said he; "I've been bunking with him for a year. Nary message!"
"I told Carroll and Martin and one or two more to tell you."
"I guess they're suspicious of any but the mountain people," said Bob. "They're right. How could they know?"
"That's right, they couldn't," agreed George reluctantly. "But I done told them you was my friend. And I thought you'd gone back on me sure."
"Not an inch!" cried Bob, heartily.
George kicked the logs of the fire together, filled the coffee pot at the creek, hung it over the blaze, and squatted on his heels. Bob tossed him a sack of tobacco which he caught.
"Thought you were bound for Mexico," hazarded Bob at length.
"I went," said Pollock shortly, "and I came back."
"Yes," said Bob after a time.
"Homesick," said Pollock; "plain homesick. Wasn't so bad that-a-way at first. I was desp'rit. Took a job punching with a cow outfit near Nogales. Worked myself plumb out every day, and slept hard all night, and woke up in the morning to work myself plumb out again."
He fished a coal from the fire and deftly flipped it atop his pipe bowl. After a dozen deep puffs, he continued:
"Never noticed the country; had nothing to do with the people. All I knew was brands and my bosses. Did good enough cow work, I reckon. For a fact, it was mebbe half a year before I begun to look around. That country is worse than over Panamit way. There's no trees; there's no water; there's no green grass; there's no folks; there's no nothin'! The mountains look like they're made of paper. After about a half year, as I said, I took note of all this, but I didn't care. What the hell difference did it make to me what the country was like? I hadn't no theories to that. I'd left all that back here."
He looked at Bob questioningly, unwilling to approach nearer his tragedy unless it was necessary. Bob nodded.
"Then I begun to dream. Things come to me. I'd see places plain—like the falls at Cascadell—and smell things. For a fact, I smelt azaleas plain and sweet once; and woke up in the damndest alkali desert you ever see. I thought I'd never want to see this country again; the farther I got away, the more things I'd forget. You understand."
Again Bob nodded.
"It wasn't that way. The farther off I got, the more I remembered. So one day I cashed in and come back."
He paused for some time, gazing meditatively on the coffee pot bubbling over the fire.
"It's good to get back!" he resumed at last. "It smells good; it tastes good. For a while that did me well enough.... I used to sneak down nights and look at my old place.... In summer I go back to Jim and the cattle, but it's dangerous these days. The towerists is getting thicker, and you can't trust everybody, even among the mountain folks."
"How many know you are back here?" asked Bob.
"Mighty few; Jim and his family knows, of course, and Tom Carroll and Martin and a few others. They ride up trail to the flat rock sometimes bringing me grub and papers. But it's plumb lonesome. I can't go on livin' this way forever, and I can't leave this yere place. Since I have been living here it seems like—well, I ain't no call as I can see it to desert my wife dead or alive!" he declared stoutly.
"You needn't explain," said Bob.
George Pollock turned to him with sudden relief.
"Well, you know about such things. What am I to do?"
"There are only two courses that I can see," answered Bob, after reflection, "outside the one you're following now. You can give yourself up to the authorities and plead guilty. There's a chance that mitigating circumstances will influence the judge to give you a light sentence; and there's always a possibility of a pardon. When all the details are made known there ought to be a good show for getting off easy."
"What's the other?" demanded Pollock, who had listened with the closest attention.
"The other is simply to go back home."
"They'd arrest me."
"Let them," said Bob. "Plead not guilty, and take your chances on the trial. Their evidence is circumstantial; you don't have to incriminate yourself; I doubt if a jury would agree on convicting you. Have you ever talked with anybody about—about that morning?"
"About me killing Plant?" supplied Pollock tranquilly. "No. A man don't ask about those things."
"Not even to Jim?"
"No. We just sort of took all that for granted."
"Well, that would be all right. Then if they're called on the stand, they can tell nothing. There are at least no witnesses to the deed itself."
"There's you----" suggested George.
Bob brought up short in his train of reasoning.
"But you won't testify agin me?"
"There's no reason why I should be called. Nobody even knows I was out of bed at that time. If my name happens to be mentioned—which isn't at all likely—Auntie Belle or a dozen others will volunteer that I was in bed, like the rest of the town. There's no earthly reason to connect me with it."
"But if you are called?" persisted the mountaineer.
"Then I'll have to tell the truth, of course," said Bob soberly; "it'll be under oath, you know."
Pollock looked at him strangely askant.
"I didn't much look to hear you talk that-a-way," said he.
"George," said Bob, "this will take money. Have you any?"
"I've some," replied the mountaineer sulkily.
"How much?"
"A hundred dollars or so."
"Not enough by a long patch. You must let me help you on this."
"I don't need no help," said Pollock.
"You let me help you once before," Bob reminded him gently, "if it was only to hold a horse."
"By God, that's right!" burst out George Pollock, "and I'm a fool! If they call you on the stand, don't you lie under oath for me! I don't believe you'd do it for yourself; and that's what I'm going to do for myself. I reckon I'll just plead guilty!"
"Don't be in a hurry," Bob warned him. "It isn't a matter to go off half-cock on. Any man would have done what you did. I'd have done it myself. That's why I stood by you. I'm not sure you aren't right to take advantage of what the law can do for you. Plenty do just that
with only the object of acquiring other people's dollars. I don't say it's right in theory; but in this case it may be eternally right in practice. Go slow on deciding."
"You're sure a good friend, Bobby," said Pollock simply.
"Whatever you decide, don't even mention my name to any one," warned Bob. "We don't want to get me connected with the case in any man's mind. Hardly let on you remember to have known me. Don't overdo it though. You'll want a real good lawyer. I'll find out about that. And the money—how'll we fix it?"
George thought for a moment.
"Fix it with Jack," said he at length. "He'll stay put. Tell him not to tell his own father. He won't. He's reliable."
"Sure?"
"Well, I'm risking my neck on it."
"I'll simply tell him the name of the lawyer," decided Bob, "and get him actual cash."
"I'll pay that back—the other I can't," said Pollock with sudden feeling. "Here, have a cup of coffee."
Bob swallowed the hot coffee gratefully. Without speaking further, Pollock arose and led the way. When finally they had reached the open forest above the camp, the mountaineer squeezed Bob's fingers hard.
"Good-bye," said the younger man in a guarded voice. "I won't see you again. Remember, even at best it's a long wait in jail. Think it over before you decide!"
"I'm in jail here," replied Pollock.
Bob walked thoughtfully to camp. He found a fire burning and Elliott afoot.
"Thank God, you're here!" cried that young man; "I was getting scared for you. What's up?"
"You are and I am," replied Bob. "Couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk. Think that bogy-man of yours had got me?"
"I surely began to."
"Nothing doing. I guess I can snooze a little now."
"I can't," complained Elliott. "You've got me good and waked up, confound you!"
Bob kicked off his boots, and without further disrobing rolled himself into his gray blanket. As he was dropping asleep two phrases flashed across his brain. They were: "compounding a felony," and "accessory after the fact."
"Don't feel much like a criminal either," murmured Bob to himself; and after a moment: "Poor devil!"
* * *
XII
Two days later, from the advantage of the rock designated by California John, Elliott reported the agreed signal for their recall. Accordingly, they packed together their belongings and returned to headquarters.
"We're getting short-handed, and several things have come up," said Thorne. "I have work for both of you."
Having dispatched Elliott, Thorne turned to Bob.
"Orde," said he, "I'm going to try you out on a very delicate matter. At the north end lives an old fellow named Samuels. He and his family are living on a place inside the National forests. He took it up years ago, mainly for the timber, but he's one of these hard-headed old coons that's 'agin the Government,' on general principles. He never proved up, and when his attention was called to the fact, he refused to do anything. No reason why not, except that 'he'd always lived there and always would.' You know the kind."
"Ought to—put in two years in the Michigan woods," said Bob.
"Well, as a matter of fact, he gave up the claim to all intents and purposes, but now that the Yellow Pine people are cutting up toward him, he's suddenly come to the notion that the place is worth while. So he's patched up his cabin, and moved in his whole family. We've got to get a relinquishment out of him."
"If he has no right there, why not put him off?" asked Bob.
"Well, in the first place, this Samuels is a hard old citizen with a shotgun; in the second place, he has some shadow of right on which he could make a fight; in the third place, the country up that way doesn't care much for us anyway, and we want to minimize opposition."
"I see," said Bob.
"You'll have to go up and look the ground over, that's all. Do what you think best. Here are all the papers in the matter. You can look them over at your leisure."
Bob tucked the bundle of papers in his cantinas, or pommel bags, and left the office. Amy was rattling the stove in her open-air kitchen, shaking down the ashes preparatory to the fire. Bob stopped to look across at her trim, full figure in its starched blue, immaculate as always.
"Hullo, Colonel!" he called. "How are the legions of darkness and ignorance standing the cannonading these days? Funny paper any new jokes?"
This last was in reference to Amy's habit of reading the Congressional Record in search of speeches or legislation affecting the forests. Bob stoutly maintained, and nobody but Amy disputed him, that she was the only living woman, in or out of captivity, known to read that series of documents.
Amy shook her head, without looking up.
"What's the matter?" asked Bob solicitously. "Nothing wrong with the Hero, nor any of the Assistant Heroes?"
Thus in their banter were designated the President, and such senators as stood behind his policies of conservation.
"Then the villains must have been saying a few triumphant ha! has!" pursued Bob, referring to Fulton, Clark, Heyburn and the rest of the senatorial representatives of the anti-conservationists. "Or is it merely the stove? Let me help."
Amy stood upright, and thrust back her hair.
"Please don't," said she. "I don't feel like joking to-day."
"It is something!" cried Bob. "I do beg your pardon; I didn't realize ... you know I'd like to help, if it's anything I can do."
"It is nothing to do with any of us," said Amy, seating herself for a moment, and letting her hands fall in her lap. "It's just some news that made me feel sorry. Ware came up with the mail a little while ago, and he tells us that George Pollock has suddenly reappeared and is living down at his own place."
"They've arrested him!" cried Bob.
"Not yet; but they will. The sheriff has been notified. Of course, his friends warned him in time; but he won't go. Says he intends to stay."
"Then he'll go to jail."
"And to prison. What chance has a poor fellow like that without money or influence? All he has is his denial."
"Then he denies?" asked Bob eagerly.
"Says he knows nothing about Plant's killing. His wife died that same morning, and he went away because he could not stand it. That's his story; but the evidence is strong against him, poor fellow."
"Do you believe him?" asked Bob.
Amy swung her foot, pondering.
"No," she said at last. "I believe he killed Plant; and I believe he did right! Plant killed his wife and child, and took away all his property. That's what it amounted to."
"There are hardships worked in any administration," Bob pointed out.
Amy looked at him slowly.
"You don't believe that in this case," she pronounced at last.
"Then Pollock will perjure himself," suggested Bob, to try her.
"And if he has friends worth the name, they'll perjure themselves, too!" cried Amy boldly. "They'll establish an alibi, they'll invent a murderer for Plant, they'll do anything for a man as persecuted and hunted as poor George Pollock!"
"Heavens!" returned Bob, genuinely aghast at this wholesale programme. "What would become of morals and honour and law and all the rest of it, if that sort of thing obtained?"
"Law?" Amy caught him up. "Law? It's become foolish. No man lives capable of mastering it so completely that another man cannot find flaws in his best efforts. Reuf and Schmitz are guilty—everybody says so, even themselves. Why aren't they in jail? Because of the law. Don't talk to me of law!"
"But how about ordinary mortals? You can't surely permit a man to lie in a court of justice just because he thinks his friend's cause is just!"
"I don't know anything about it," sighed Amy, as though weary all at once, "except that it isn't right. The law should be a great and wise judge, humane and sympathetic. George Pollock should be able to go to that judge and say: 'I killed Plant, because he had done me an injury for which the perpetrator should suffer death. He was permitted to do this because o
f the deficiency of the law.' And he should be able to say it in all confidence that he would be given justice, eternal justice, and not a thing so warped by obscure and forgotten precedents that it fits nothing but some lawyer's warped notion of logic!"
"Whew!" whistled Bob, "what a lady of theory and erudition it is!"
Amy eyed him doubtfully, then smiled.
"I'm glad you happened along," said she. "I feel better. Now I believe I'll be able to do something with my biscuits."
"I could do justice to some of them," remarked Bob, "and it would be the real thing without any precedents in that line whatever."
"Come around later and you'll have the chance," invited Amy, again addressing herself to the stove.
Still smiling at this wholesale and feminine way of leaping directly to a despotically desired ideal result, Bob took the trail to his own camp. Here he found Jack Pollock poring over an old illustrated paper.
"Hullo, Jack!" he called cheerfully. "Not out on duty, eh?"
"I come in," said Jack, rising to his feet and folding the old paper carefully. He said nothing more, but stood eyeing his colleague gravely.
"You want something of me?" asked Bob.
"No," denied Jack, "I don't know nothing I want of you. But I was told to come and get a piece of paper and maybe some money that a stranger was goin' to leave by our chimbley. It ain't there. You ain't seen it, by any chance?"
"It may have got shoved among some of my things by mistake," replied Bob gravely. "I haven't had a chance of looking. I'm just in from the Basin." At these last words he looked at Jack keenly, but that young man's expression remained inscrutable. "I'll look when I get back," he continued after a moment; "just now I've got to ride over to the mill to see Mr. Welton."
Jack nodded gravely.
"If you find them, leave them by the chimbley," said he. "I'm going to headquarters."
Bob rode to the mill. By the exercise of some diplomacy he brought the conversation to good lawyers without arousing Welton's suspicions that he could have any personal interest in the matter.
The Rules of the Game Page 42