Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: The resemblance . . . transformed itself slowly into thebreath-cutting reality, and I was staring up . . . into the face ofCummings.]
BRANDED
BY
FRANCIS LYNDE
AUTHOR OF
THE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN, THE CITY OF NUMBERED DAYS, ETC.
FRONTISPIECE BY
ARTHUR E. BECHER
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS ---------- NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published April, 1918
Reprinted April, 1918
To the one who, more clearly than any other, can best understand and appreciate the motive for its writing, this book is affectionately inscribed by
THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE HEATING OF THE IRON II. THE SEARING TOUCH III. IN THE NAME OF THE LAW IV. SCARS V. THE DOWNWARD PATH VI. A GOOD SAMARITAN VII. THE PLUNGE VIII. WESTWARD IX. THE CUP OF TREMBLING X. THE PLAIN-CLOTHES MAN XI. NUMBER 3126 XII. A CAST FOR FORTUNE XIII. FOR THE SINEWS OF WAR XIV. PAPER WALLS XV. THE BROKEN WAGON XVI. IN THE OPEN XVII. ALADDIN'S LAMP XVIII. "THE WOMAN . . . WHOSE HANDS ARE AS BANDS" XIX. A RECKONING AND A HOLD-UP XX. BROKEN FAITH XXI. THE END OF A HONEYMOON XXII. A WOMAN'S LOVE XXIII. SKIES OF BRASS XXIV. RESTORATION XXV. THE MOUNTAIN'S TOP
BRANDED
I
The Heating of the Iron
It was not until the evening when old John Runnels, who had been thetown marshal in my school days, and was now chief of police under thenew city charter, came into the dingy little private banking room toarrest me that I began to realize, though only in a sort of dumb anddazed fashion, how much my promise to Agatha Geddis might be going tocost me.
But even if the full meaning of the promise had been grasped at thetime when my word was given, it is an open question if the earlierrecognition of the possible consequences would have made anydifference. Before we go any farther, let it be clearly understoodthat there was no sentiment involved; at least, no sentimentalsentiment. Years before, I, like most of the other town boys of myage, had taken my turn as Agatha's fetcher and carrier; but that wasonly a passing spasm--a gust of the calf-love which stirs up momentarywhirlwinds in youthful hearts. The real reason for the promise-makinglay deeper. Abel Geddis had been crabbedly kind to me, helping methrough my final year in the High School after my father died, andtaking me into his private bank the week after I was graduated. AndAgatha was Abel Geddis's daughter.
Over and above the daughterhood, she was by far the prettiest girl inGlendale, with a beauty of the luscious type; eyes that could toll aman over the edge of a bluff and lips that had a trick of quiveringlike a hurt baby's when she was begging for something she was afraidshe wasn't going to get. All through the school years she had been oneof my classmates, and a majority of the town boys were foolish abouther, partly because she had a way of twisting them around her fingers;partly, perhaps, because her father was the rich man of the communityand the president of the Farmers' Bank.
She had sent for me to come up to the big house on the hill the nightbefore this other night of old John Runnels's call. I went, taking itas a matter of course that she wished to talk to me about the troubleat the bank, and saying to myself that I was going to be iron and steeland adamant; this when I might have known that I should be only puttyin her hands. She met me on the porch, and made me sit with my back tothe window, which was open, while she faced me, sitting in the hammockwhere the house lights fell fairly upon her and I could get the fullbenefit of the honeying eyes and baby lips as she talked.
She had begun by saying in catchy little murmurings that I knew betterthan any one else what it was going to mean to her--to all of them--ifher father's crookedness (she called it his "mistake") in using thedepositors' money for his own speculations should be published abroad;and I did. She was engaged to young Wheeland, son of the coppermagnate Wheeland, of New York, and the wedding date was set. Blackruin was staring them all in the face, she said, and I could save them,if I only would. What would be shouted from the housetops as apenitentiary offense in the president of the bank would be condoned asa mere error in judgment on the part of a hired bookkeeper.
If I would only consent to let the directors think that I was the onewho had passed upon and accepted the mining-stock collateral--which hadtaken the place in the bank's vault of the good, hard money of thedepositors--well, I could see how easily the dreadful crisis would betided over; and besides earning the undying gratitude of the family,her father would stand by me and I would lose nothing in the end.
For one little minute she almost made me believe what she didn'tbelieve herself--that the crime wasn't a crime. Her father, "oureminent and public-spirited fellow-citizen, the Hon. Abel Geddis," toquote the editor of the Glendale _Daily Courier_, was desperatelyinvolved. For months he had been throwing good money after bad in aWestern gold mine; not only his own money, but the bank's as well. Atthe long last the half-dozen sleepy directors, three of them retiredfarmers and the other three local merchants, had awakened to the factthat there was something wrong. They didn't know fully, as yet, justwhat they were in for; Geddis's part of the bookkeeping was in ahorrible muddle owing to his efforts to hide the defalcation. But theyknew enough to be certain that somebody had been skating upon thin iceand had broken through.
"You can't help seeing just how it is, Herbert," Agatha had pleaded,with the soulful look in her pretty eyes and the baby lips all in atremble. "If the faintest breath of this gets out, VanBruce Wheelandwill have to know, and then everything will come to an end and I shallwant to go and drown myself in the river. You are young and strong andbrave, and you can live down a--an error of judgment"--she kept oncalling it that, as if the words had been put into her mouth; as theyprobably had. "Promise me, Herbert, won't you?--for--for the sake ofthe old times when you used to carry my books to school, and I--I----"
What was the use? Every man is privileged to be a fool once in awhile, and a young man sometimes twice in a while. I promised her thatI would shoulder the load, or at least find some way out for herfather; and when she asked me how it could be done, I was besottedenough to explain how the mining-stock business had really passedthrough my hands--as it had in a purely routine way--and telling her inso many words that everything would be all right for her father whenthe investigating committee should come to overhaul the books and thesecurities.
When I got up to go, she went to the front steps with me, and at thelast yearning minute a warm tear had splashed on the back of my hand.At that I kissed her and told her not to worry another minute. Andthis brings me back to that other evening just twenty-four hours later;I in the bank, with the accusing account books spread out under theelectric light on the high desk, and old John Runnels, looking never awhit less the good-natured, easy-going town marshal in hisbrass-buttoned uniform and gilt-banded cap, stumbling over thethreshold as he let himself in at the side door which had been left onthe latch.
I had started, half-guiltily, I suppose, when the door opened; andRunnels, who had known me and my people ever since my father had movedin from the farm to give us children the advantage of the town school,shook his grizzled head sorrowfully.
"I'd ruther take a lickin' than to say it, but I reckon you'll have tocome along with me, Bertie," he began soberly, laying a big-knuckledhand on my shoulder. "It all came out in the meetin' to-day, and thed'rectors 're sayin' that you hadn't ort to be allowed to run loose anylonger."
The high desk stool was where I could grab at it, and it saved me fromtumbling over backward.
"Go with you?" I gasped. "You mean to--to _jail_?"<
br />
Runnels nodded. "Jest for to-night. I reckon you'll be bailed, comemornin'--if that blamed security comp'ny that's on your bond don't kickup too big a fight about it."
"Hold on--wait a minute," I begged. "There is nothing criminal againstme, Uncle John. Mr. Geddis will tell you that. I----"
The big hand slipped from my shoulder and became a cautionary signal toflag me down.
"You mustn't tell me nothin' about it, Bertie; I don't want to have totake the stand and testify against your father's boy. Besides, itain't no kind o' use. You done it yourself when you was up at AbelGeddis's house las' night. Two of the d'rectors, Tom Fitch and old manWithers, was settin' behind the window curtains in the front roomwhilst you was talkin' to Miss Agathy on the porch. You know, better'nI do, what they heard you say."
For a second the familiar interior of the bank went black for me. Iwas young in those days; much too young to know that human nature inthe lump is neither all saint nor all devil; that a man may be a secondfather to you for years, and then turn and hold your head under wateruntil you drown when he is fighting for himself. It had been a trap,deliberately set and baited with Agatha. I remembered now that she hadnot spoken loud enough to be overheard; while I, with my back to theopen window, had talked in ordinary tones. Fitch and Withers had heardme say that the investigating committee would find nothing against AbelGeddis, and they had naturally taken it as a confession of my own guilt.
I remember that I went quite methodically about putting things awaywhile Runnels waited, though every move was dumbly mechanical.Something seemed to have died inside of me, and I suppose thepsychologists would say that it was the subconscious Bert Weyburn whoput the books in the vault, locked the iron door, set the high desk inorder, and turned off all the lights save the one we always left turnedon in front of the vault.
Afterward, when we were in the street together, and Runnels was walkingme around the square to the police station, the dead thing inside of mecame alive. It had gone to sleep a pretty decent young fellow, with asoft spot in his heart for his fellow men, and a boy's belief in theultimate goodness of all women. It awoke a raging devil. It was all Icould do to keep from throttling unsuspecting John Runnels as wetramped along side by side. I could have done it. I had inherited myfather's well-knit frame and serviceable muscles, and all through myoffice experience I had kept myself fit with long walks and a few bitsof home-made gymnastic apparatus in my room at Mrs. Thompson's. Andthe new-born devil was ready with the suggestion.
I have been glad many times since that old John never knew; glad thatthe frenzied curses that came boiling up out of that inner hell werewordless. I contrived to hold in while Runnels was hurrying me throughthe station office and past the sleepy sergeant at the desk. But whenthe cell door had opened and closed for me, and old John's heavyfootsteps were no longer echoing in the iron-floored corridor, thenewly hatched devil broke loose and I made a pretty bad night of it.
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