A private chivalry

When the rumour of the tragedy ran through the clubhouse the small card room on the second floor filled quickly with a curious throng. Some made haste to ease the limp body of the slain to the floor, and others examined the pistol and tried to dig the bullet out of the wainscot. A brother craftsman knelt to unlace the victim’s shoes, but he desisted at a word from one who had thrust his hand into the dead man’s bosom.

“No use doing that now; he’s dead,” said the objector; and at the announcement William Langford sank back into his chair and covered his face with his hands. Whereat the witnesses exchanged significant glances.

“He’s only a boy,” said one under his breath, and there was a touch of commiseration and rough pity in the comment that ran quickly from one to another of those who heard.

Jarvis, busy with pencil and notebook, was among the earliest comers, writing at top speed and asking questions which no one could answer. But the lack of answers was no bar to a very succinct and complete story of the tragedy which grew under the flying pencil.

As his chief had said of him, Jarvis was a reporter first and everything else afterward, and the diploma of that degree is given to the man who can make the most of the visible facts. This is why every good reporter is more than half a detective; and Jarvis saw and noted some things which escaped the more morbid and less investigative curiosity of the others.

Brant stood aside, seeing and hearing, it is to be presumed, but only with the outward eye and ear, if his face were any index. To those who saw him when the light first leaped into the big chandelier overhead, his face was the face of one dazed; but later the shrewd eyes narrowed and the rapture of those who can isolate themselves and think to the mark in any crisis wrote itself in the square-set jaw and compressed lips and far-seeing gaze. What turmoil of soul these crucial minutes measured none knew and none could know, least of all those whom the balder facts of the horror held spellbound; and so it came about that Brant was ignored until he pushed his way through the throng to bend over the boy. What he said was whispered, and it went no farther than to the ear for which it was intended.

“Brace yourself quickly, and don’t let them rattle you,” he commanded. “The police will be here in a minute, and you must deny it and stick to it through thick and thin. Do you understand?”

The boy looked up, and blankness was in his face. “Tell them I didn’t kill him?” he began vaguely; and Brant had no more than time to nod before two officers pushed through the throng and laid hands on the cowering figure in the chair. The boy started to his feet in a sudden panic of awakening, protesting his innocence with such passionate vehemence that Brant’s warning seemed to have been quite unnecessary, and those who looked on wondered at the boy’s hardihood.

“My God, I didn’t do it—as God sees me, I didn’t!” he cried. “Perhaps I might, if he’d given me a chance, but he didn’t; he held a gun on me at first, and then when he laid it on the table I couldn’t——”

The sergeant of police shook him silent and gave him his warning. “Least said’s the soonest minded for you, me b’y. Ivery wurrud ye say’ll be used against ye. Come on wid us.”

“But I say I didn’t!” quavered the boy. “Ask Mr. Brant, there; he was here, and he knows.”

All eyes were turned upon Brant. In the excitement of the moment no one had thought of him as having been a witness to the tragedy. It was known that Harding and young Langford had occupied the card room together, and the earliest comers had supposed, if they thought anything about it, that Brant had merely outrun them in the rush to the scene. Jarvis alone seemed to comprehend the situation, and his pencil flew swiftly in the moment of strained silence following Langford’s appeal. Brant faced the battery of eyes without flinching and stepped forward.

“The boy is right,” he said quietly. “I do know—and I am ready to go with you.”

It was characteristic of time and place that a low buzz of applause greeted the announcement. “That’s Plucky George, every day in the week!” said one who knew him; and at the mention of the name the buzz went around again. But Sergeant McCafferty was not to be so easily turned aside.

“Do I understand that ye surrinder yourself as the murtherer of this man?” he demanded, with a jerk of his thumb toward the limp figure on the floor.

In the hush that followed Jarvis’s pencil paused, and the reporter thought it a measure of Brant’s fortitude that he could smile.

“I am not required to criminate myself before witnesses,” was the reply. “I neither deny nor affirm; but I am ready to go with you and to answer to the charge at the proper time and place.”

He held out his wrists for the handcuffs, but the sergeant ignored the gesture and contented himself with searching his prisoner for weapons.

“You come along wid us quietlike, and there won’t be no use for the darbies,” he said. “Officer Connell, ye’ll bring the b’y.”

But Brant protested quickly. “What for?” he demanded.

“As a matther of discreetion. I know fwhat I’m doing,” retorted the sergeant. “Come on wid you.”

“Not a step till you turn the boy loose,” said Brant firmly; “at least, not peaceably. I appeal to the crowd. You have just as good reasons for arresting every person in this room as you have for taking this young man. You may say he is a witness; but in that case I ask who gave you the authority to arrest witnesses?”

It was a bold stroke and the argument was altogether specious, but Brant knew he could count upon the moral influence of the onlookers, and in this he was not disappointed. A murmur of encouragement answered the appeal, and when the sergeant hesitated Jarvis put in his word.

“You know me, McCafferty,” he said. “I’ll vouch for the young man. He is the son of Judge Langford, and you can find him when you want him.”

The mention of the judge’s name turned the scale, and William Langford was released. Brant looked his thanks, and the reporter nodded. Then the officers moved off with their prisoner, and in the slight confusion Jarvis got speech with Brant.

“Is there anything I can do for you, old man?” he whispered.

“Yes; get the boy into a carriage and send him home.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll do it. Keep a stiff upper lip, and you’ll come out all right.”

The reporter fell back when they reached the street, and a few minutes later Brant was ushered into the presence of the lieutenant on duty at the police station. The officer took his name and entered it in the record; and since the prisoner would answer no other questions, he presently found himself safe behind bolts and bars in the city jail, charged with the murder of James Harding.

There was a cot in the corner of the cell, and when the turnkey left him Brant flung himself down upon it in sheer weariness. He had been up the better part of two nights, and whatever tangle of thought there was asking to be set in order, sleep was more insistent. But the trials of the night were not yet at an end. While he was but dozing, the door bolts clanked and the door swung open to admit Forsyth. Brant would have risen, but the editor prevented him and came to sit on the edge of the cot.

“Don’t disturb yourself,” he made haste to say. “I haven’t come to fight with you. Jarvis has told me all about it, and I just came over to let you know that you have a friend or two left, if you are the biggest fool on record.”

“That was good of you,” Brant rejoined, and he would have been less than human if the editor’s kindness had not touched him. “I was sure you would come, but I wasn’t expecting you to-night.”

“You might have known I’d be with you as soon as I could get away from the desk. I presume you will get your preliminary in the morning?”

“I suppose so; though I don’t know anything about it.”

“It’s safe to count on it, anyway,” Forsyth continued, “and there are two matters to be arranged in the meantime—counsel and bail. Give me a list of your friends, and I’ll go out and hustle for you.”

Brant laughed. “I haven’t reputable friends enough to furnish bail in a case of assault and battery. There are plenty of the other kind, but I don’t mean to call on them—or to let any one else.”

“Oh, pshaw! what difference can it make now? You can’t hope to preserve your incognito through all the publicity of a murder trial.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that; and it makes all the difference in the world to me,” said Brant doggedly. “I want none of their help, and I sha’n’t accept it—that’s all.”

“Well and good,” replied the editor cheerily. “In that event I shall have to see what I can do on my own account.”

“My dear Forsyth, you will do nothing of the kind. The case will come up at the next term of court, and I shall stay right where I am until the sheriff’s deputy comes for me.”

Forsyth did not press the point. The day of reckless shooting affrays had passed its Colorado meridian—in the cities, at least—and a healthy public sentiment was beginning to demand a more stringent interpretation of the law. Moreover, the Plainsman had kept well to the front in the law-and-order movement, and its editor had protested often and vehemently against the laxity of judges and juries in murder cases. For this cause he went not unwillingly from the question of bail to that of counsel.

“Have you made up your mind whom you will have to defend you?” he asked.

“No one,” said Brant.

“Nonsense! And why not, pray?”

“I shall plead my own cause.”

“Be your own lawyer and have a fool for a client, I suppose. But that won’t do at all. I know you have been living in an atmosphere where, as we say, ‘everything goes,’ but you mustn’t bank on mining camp methods in Denver at this late day. The prosecution here won’t leave you a leg to stand on; it can’t, under the present pressure of public sentiment.”

“Nevertheless, I shall plead my own cause,” Brant insisted stubbornly.

“You are not going to be allowed to hang yourself after that fashion. I shall retain the best lawyer I can find, and send him to you early in the morning.”

“If you do I shall send him away again.”

The editor got up to tramp back and forth in the narrow limits of the cell. “What the devil is the matter with you, anyway?” he demanded. “Can’t you see that you are sending yourself straight to the gallows? I tell you, Brant, you don’t realize the change that has been wrought here even in the last few months. The jury that acquitted Steve Basket last spring did what no jury will ever do again in Denver. And if Jarvis tells a straight story, you haven’t a ghost of a show without the best legal help you can get.”

“What you say is all true enough, and I realize it as clearly as you do,” was the calm reply. “But you are talking quite beside the mark. I am here, charged with the murder of James Harding, and I am ready and willing to take what shall befall. I don’t need a lawyer to help me do that, do I?”

Having no doubt of Brant’s guilt, Forsyth made haste to interrupt what he feared might lead to an incriminating confession. “Don’t tell me anything about it,” he broke in quickly. “We are known to be intimate, and it is quite as likely as not I shall be called as a witness against you.”

Brant smiled. “Don’t worry about that. If you should happen to be summoned you must tell the whole truth. I sha’n’t gainsay it by so much as a single word.”

“You are a queer fellow,” was the editor’s comment after a pause. “Most men in your hard case would be catching at straws. Are you quite sure you don’t want counsel?”

“Quite sure.”

“Then is there anything else I can do for you?”

The jailer was returning.

“No, I think not—yes, there is, too. You can keep young Langford’s name out of the papers, if you will.”

Forsyth shook his head. “It is too late to do that now, even if it would have been possible earlier—which it wouldn’t have been, under the circumstances. Is there nothing else?”

“Nothing that I think of.”

“All right. Keep up your nerve, and try to argue yourself into a reasonable frame of mind—about employing counsel, I mean. I’ll see you again in the morning.”