III
THE sheriff was riding slowly down the narrow mountain road to the ford over Tug River,—“Jim's Ford” the natives of McDowell had dubbed this crossing far back when the dry ginseng root was a legal tender for all debts public and private southwest, as the crow flies, from the county of Mercer. Whence the name had come, and by reason of what, tradition was silent. No doubt the original Jim had dwelt in this rugged gorge, and by accidental hap had given his name to this rocky ford that lived on and proclaimed him long after the man had passed out into the hands of the Wind.
To the negro miner, seven miles up at the town of Welch, this rugged crossing, studded with great bowlders, was respectfully referred to as “Hell's Gap,”—respectfully, for no other reason than that the negroes were superstitious, and the mammoth gorge, silent as the grave floor, and deep and foggy except in the long summer afternoons, was calculated to conjure every grim phantom set down in the African catalogue.
The sheriff pulled up his “dun” horse suddenly, and threw his leg over the pommel of his saddle. Just below him in the ford of the river was a man wading out into the water,—a tall mountaineer, bare-headed, his dress indicating a rather equal compromise between the barbarity of the village and the barbarity of the mountain. For upper garment he wore the red-fringed hunting shirt of his fathers and his grandfathers and on; and for nether garment, the blue overalls purchased at the country store for a haunch of venison or a bundle of hides. The mountaineer was tall, rugged, and powerful,—a proper inhabitant for such a place.
“Spitler Hamrick,” murmured the sheriff.
“By every limping god! The toughest pine knot in the mountains of McDowell. I wonder what the old wolf is looking for.”
Then he tightened his knee on the pommel of the saddle and a slow smile crept over the features of the sheriff. “By my troth'” he drawled, “it is certain that Spitler is no Vere de Vere. Still, if blue blood ran to back, and bunches of muscles on the shoulders, Spitler's claim to princely lineage would be unquestioned.”
White Carter stopped short, and adjusted his eye-glasses. The mountaineer had gathered up a bundle from the river and was turning to wade ashore. The man did not at once see the sheriff; he was looking down into the water in order to avoid slipping on the smooth stones. When he stepped on to the rocky bank of the river, the sheriff called. At the sound, the mountaineer dropped the bundle and jerked up a Winchester that lay nearby against a bowlder. It was an act after the custom of the mountains. One armed himself first, and observed the “lay of the land” afterwards.
White Carter remained perfectly motionless. “I would n't shoot, Spitler,” he drawled, “it's vulgar.”
The mountaineer dropped the butt of his rifle on the stones, and looked up in astonishment. “Smoky hell!” ejaculated the mountaineer, “it air the sheriff. Smoky hell!” The refrain was a nervous idiom with Spitler Hamrick.
White Carter put his hand into the pocket of his coat, took out a pipe, knocked the ashes from the bowl and began to fill it with great deliberation. This act, remaining after the red man had passed, proclaimed a status of dignified truce.
The play of action faded from Hamrick's face, leaving it stolid, heavy, prodigiously indifferent. It was the mountain's stamp on its minion, the silence, and the abominable indifference of the rugged earth ground into the faces of the men who struggle for life on her stony breast.
“Hot,” observed the sheriff, crowding the bowl of his pipe and thrusting the tobacco down with his broad thumb.
The mountaineer folded his arms over the muzzle of his rifle and leaned upon it heavily.
“Yas,” he responded, “warmish,”
It was the full measure of salutation, and the full measure of introduction to all matters, important or unimportant, on the watershed of the Alleghanies. In the mountains no man hurried with his speech. There was time to be fully understood, and time to answer fully; then what one did afterwards, one was not so likely to regret. In the flat lands men are not so wise, perhaps.
The sheriff struck a match on his saddle skirt, lighted his pipe, and puffed a cloud of blue smoke rings out over the placid ears of the “murky dun.” Presently he took the pipe stem from between his teeth and looked down at the solitary proprietor of Jim's Ford.
“Spitler,” he drawled, “what 's in the bundle?”
“Ye kin look,” responded the mountaineer with prodigious unconcern.
The sheriff replaced his pipe and lapsed into silence for a moment. Then he said:
“Where did you find it, Spitler?”
“I reckin ye saw,” replied the scion of the house of Hamrick.
The guardian of order looked up at the blue sky over the top of his nose glasses. Then he looked down. “Spitler,”—he said softly.
The mountaineer interrupted. “Sheriff,” he growled, “old Spitler Hamrick don't stand no shammackin' round the bush. Smoky hell! He aint never stood it. Things air goin' to be like this: ye kin mosey' down here and git this bundle, air ye kin ride on. But ye can't set on you hoss and jaw. Smoky hell! Ye can't set on you hoss and jaw.”
There was no circumlocution, no trick of equivocation, no shadow of obscurity in the speech of the denizen of Hell's Gap He used words for the purpose of expressing exactly what he believed to be true, and for no other purpose. This the sheriff knew, and others had learned and remembered by certain long glistening scars, covered afterward with the red flannel of their hunting shirts.
White Carter removed his knee from the pommel of his saddle and slipped down to the ground. Here he paused for a moment, knocked the ashes from his pipe and replaced it in his pocket. Then he clambered down the steep bank to the river. The proprietor of Jim's Ford looked on with mighty indifference. The sheriff took up the bundle without a word, returned to his horse, and unbuckling the “throat latch” of his bridle, strapped the bundle to the horn of his saddle. Then he placed his right foot in the stirrup and turned to the mountaineer.
“Spitler,” he drawled, “we found a dead man in Tug the other day. I think this is his coat.”
The mountaineer looked up from the muzzle of his Winchester. “Were there lead in him?” he asked.
The sheriff flung his leg over the saddle and gathered up his bridle from the horse's neck.
“No bullet holes,” he answered.
“Then,” said the giant Hamrick, “he were not killed in the hills.”
IV
IT was the first Monday of July, and the grand inquisitors of the county of McDowell were in laborious session. It was hot in Welch,—so hot that the sheriff had purchased a linen coat and departed for Atlantic City on a ten-dollar excursion, leaving the deputy, Salathiel Jenkins, to swelter with the grand jury. So hot that J. E. B. Huron, prosecuting attorney by selection of the Commonwealth, resorted to expressions not quite profane but nipping close to the border. So hot that the foreman from Charity Fork made continual odious reference to that historic locality over which Lazarus passed in the bosom of Abraham.
The grand jury was a body mightily out of harmony with its inquisitorial affairs, especially on this sweltering Monday when the mercury was mounting heavenward. The members of the grand jury had removed their coats, they had unbuttoned their shirts, they had rolled up their sleeves to the limit over their great brown arms. It was hot—this grand jury. But it was jovial and good-natured, sixteen freeholders of the bailiwick turning aside for a day to bolster up the peace and dignity of the State. The characteristic apparel of the farmer, the hunter, and the miner was on this grand jury, but there were no collars; not even the “biled shirt” of notorious report. If one had spoken of a haberdasher or essayed to enumerate his wares in the land south of Tug River, he would have been regarded as a purveyor of “green furrin jabber,” or been pitied as a hopeless victim of idiot mutterings.
Thus do men hoot the customs of their fellows when in conflict with their own. One looking at this grand jury as an exhibit would have gone away regretting that the chief fad of Delilah had not been handed down in the county of McDowell, just as the jury would have wondered why the funny little man divided his hair in the middle like a woman and wore a tight band around his neck and a stiff breastplate of cloth and starch over his ribs, when he could dress like a Christian, and be comfortable.
At two o'clock the sage body had concluded its inquisition, and was resting ponderously while the foreman. Abe Collister, of Charity Fork, was slowly and with infinite pain affixing his signature to the indictments. It was no small labor for one whose fingers were thick and broad and accustomed to implements little slighter in proportion than the handle of an axe or the stock of a Winchester.
The facial contortions of this good freeholder as he strove in a clerical capacity would have won for him applause and fortune and wide repute in the cast of a comedy. It was Fate's way, better than genius could imitate, but no audience to see.
It is the function of bodies of this sort to be severe, and it is their way to be most amiable. The prosecuting attorney, it was maintained, ought to know what he wanted. He was paid to know. It was his business. If he thought it wise to send in witnesses charging one with a crime, then the charge should be found. This conclusion was a splendid working hypothesis, pregnant with expedition, but not quite in accord with the ideal jus.
So the grand jury rested as the afternoon grew apace, while the scripturian from Charity Fork toiled, and the prosecuting attorney went down to his office in order to “see if there was anything else he wanted.” It was at this hour of lull, that a nervous little man hurried into the office presided over by the industrious daughter of the house of McFadden, and inquired for Mr. Huron. The red genius replied that he was busy. According to this oracle, young Mr. Huron was always busy. His continual status was one of tireless toil,—as continuous as a mortgage, and as tireless as a gas meter.
Just then the prosecuting attorney came out on his way to the grand jury room. The little man rushed up and demanded an immediate audience. The two returned to the private office and closed the door. Here the little man looked at his watch and announced that things would have to be rushed, and launched into the subject. He explained with almost breathless rapidity that he was a detective from New York, representing Loomey's Agency. As he talked, he threw back his coat revealing a badge which Mr. Huron did not stop to examine. He said that he had been working on the case of Brown Hirst; that he had finally discovered that Hirst had been murdered, foully murdered by one Robert Gilmore, president of the Octagon Coal Company; that he had the case tightened around Gilmore beyond the remotest shadow of probability; that Gilmore, it seemed, had by some means learned of the damning evidence gathering against him, and was attempting to fly from the country; that he had left Philadelphia disguised as a cattle drover, and would pass through Chares-ton, West Virginia, at midnight on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, and if he was not then arrested, he would probably escape entirely, or, at the least, subject his trailer to the expense and the tedium of an extradition; hence the detective had hurried to Welch in order to secure an indictment at once and return to Charleston in a position to arrest the man and hold him under a legal warrant that would be valid and unquestioned.
He explained that he must leave at three o'clock in order to reach the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in time, and requested that he be permitted to go at once before the grand-jury, which he had learned was now in session.
The prosecuting attorney listened in astonishment, but he was a man familiar with the startling surprises of criminal investigation, and he set himself to act with the expedition which the matter required. He went at once to the grand jury with the detective, and explained that he had just received information tending to the conclusion that Brown Hirst had been murdered; that the witness with him was John Bartlett, a detective from New York, who had worked up the case and would give full information concerning the facts of the crime. He then added that as Mr. Bartlett would be compelled to leave within the hour, he would return to his office and prepare an indictment for murder. In the meantime the grand jury could determine whether the information was sufficient to sustain the charge, and, if so, the indictment would be ready and Mr. Bartlett could return to Charleston without unnecessary delay.
Then he withdrew, and the grand jury of McDowell, braced by the gust of sudden sensation, straightway forgot how very warm it was and began to put itself into a state of ponderous bovine expectancy.
The witness Bartlett sat down by the table, took out his watch, looked at it anxiously, then snapped the case and returned it to his pocket.
The foreman put down his pen very carefully, mopped his wet face with a great red cotton cloth, and strove to assume the gravity of his position.
“Your name's Bartlett, stranger?” said the scripturian, feeling that it was becoming for him to set the wheels of judicial investigation in motion, but not quite certain of the method. “You are a detective man: and I 'low you know all about this here little trouble?”
The latter part of the query was a stock question with the foreman. All day long, every crime, from homicide to assault and battery, had been dubbed by this arch inquisitor as “this here little trouble.” If there was any big trouble south of Tug River, it was not deemed to be within the purlieus of the lex scripta or the lex non scripta of the county of McDowell.
The detective saw the open opportunity to thrust in his testimony as a narrative, and seized it. He leaned over on the table, assured himself of the attention of the jury, and began to talk.
He told how he had trailed this matter down; how the Octagon Coal Company was financially on the verge of ruin, and it was his theory that Gilmore, as president, had been stealing largely from the company; that Hirst had finally suspected this theft and had summoned Gilmore to McDowell; how the dangerous man had obeyed the summons, had quarrelled with Hirst in the office, finally killed him, and in order to cover the crime had carried the body to the bridge and thrown it over, arranging the evidence to appear like a suicide. He painted in lurid colors the desperate character of this man Gilmore; he pointed out how fearful of arrest the murderer of Hirst was, at that very hour hurrying westward in order, as he believed, to put himself beyond the reach of the law.
The witness talked on glib and shrewdly, and while he talked, the jury, unfamiliar with the rules of evidence, grew indignant and bitter, and fired with a sense of the gigantic outrage.
Presently the door opened and the prosecuting attorney entered with the indictment.
“Are you ready to vote on the matter, gentlemen?” he asked.
The foreman nodded slowly. “I guess we are, Jeb,” he answered.
“Then,” responded the prosecuting attorney, “Mr. Bartlett and myself will withdraw.”
The witness arose and followed Mr Huron out of the jury room.
When the door had closed, the chief inquisitor from Charity Fork picked up the indictment., turned it over curiously in his ponderous hand, and then laid it down on the table with the back up. Then he took up his pen and jabbed it down into the ink pot.
“Boys,” he observed, cheerily, “the Good Book says, 'None shall escape, no not one.' What about this here one?”
“I reckon,” drawled Uriah Coburn, sage and philosopher, and most venerable member from Injun Run, “I reckon the Good Book air right, I reckon we better flop him.”
“Flop” was an accurate idiom in McDowell, and, being translated, meant, “to throw heavily.”
To this the grand jury agreed with many and various methods of assent. So the member from Charity Fork took a new grip on his pen, thrust his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, and slowly and with great labor inscribed on the back of the indictment this legend, big with the injured dignity of the Commonwealth: “A True Bill. Abraham Collister, Foreman.”
V
AT high noon on the following day Salathiel Jenkins, chief deputy of the absent Carter, was a voluble factor in McDowell. He explained with many a dash of color just how “me and Bartlett” had taken the fleeing Gilmore from a midnight train and transported him to the jail at Welch, where he now languished. How brave they had been, how expeditious, and how marvellously successful in each of their desperate moves. Salathiel Jenkins was a young person who considered himself of huge importance to the economy of nature,—an opinion with which the world at large failed to concur. The conservative Carter had expressed it all long ago when he remarked with immense gravity that Salathiel Jenkins was not wise. But the deputy's potential was high, and he talked. He explained that the prisoner had employed legal counsel, with whom he had been in consultation since his arrival in the town. He explained that Mr. Bartlett had advised the prosecuting attorney to force the case to a trial at once in order to avoid an application for bail, and in order to prevent the prisoner from being unduly assisted by any accomplice he might have in the East.
He explained that the evidence against Gilmore was overpowering, that there were witnesses who knew something of the matter, and he had the subpoenas in his pocket.
He explained that John Bartlett was the greatest detective in the Republic, and that the days on earth of Robert Gilmore were growing lamentably short. The self-importance of young Mr. Jenkins gushed and bubbled and expanded until it threatened to bulge his anatomical proportions, and he talked and he talked. He descanted with acrimonious criticism upon the fact that Mr. Huron had asked for time in which to examine the evidence, and that he and the great Bartlett had labored to convince him that the case should be put to trial at once, and that they had had a lot of trouble, but that it was all right now, and when court convened in the morning the case would be called and pushed, and he gloried in the fact that he and Bartlett had assumed large responsibility for this splendid expedition.
It thus came about that the court-room was so crowded on the following morning that the judge as he came down to his bench had literally to elbow his way through. The details of this morning's procedure demonstrated that while the deputy Jenkins had talked he had been telling the truth. After the docket was called, the prosecuting attorney arose and requested that a jury be empanelled for the trial of the case of the State vs. Gilmore.
The judge expressed some surprise at this unusual haste, and intimated that if an objection was urged he would continue the case to a later day of the term. To his surprise, however, counsel for Gilmore replied that he was quite ready for trial.
Whereupon a jury was had and the case ordered to proceed. The opening statement of the prosecuting attorney was frank. It gave the history of the case as he had heard it from Bartlett, admitting freely that he had been unable to investigate the matter personally, but upon his information he was convinced that the prisoner was guilty.
To this the counsel for Gilmore replied that the State was laboring under a stupendous delusion; that Mr. Gilmore was a gentleman of standing, and that it would quickly appear that there was no cause for subjecting his client to the odium of a criminal prosecution.
The spectators were not a little disgusted with the tame proceedings. They had expected a keen and spirited struggle with the startling thrusts and parries of a bitter legal affair. They had hoped to hear the steel grate, and to see the blades dart forward and bend and fly back, as the champion of the State and its enemy strove for some master vantage. They hoped for the fierce interests and the quick sharp thrills incident to the grim fight of a desperate criminal for his liberty and his life, and they were disgusted.
Their strong pugnacious spirit sympathized with Gilmore and damned his counsel. In the picturesque speech of an auditor from “Dog Skin,” “The lawyer was a quitter.”
The case progressed with almost exasperating insipidity.
The prosecuting attorney proceeded with great deliberation, and with the air of one who maintains a thunderbolt in reserve. He proved the death of Brown Hirst by the coroner and others; he introduced the books of the company showing its financial standing; and put in such other matters of unimportant evidence as were easily at hand. To all this the counsel for Gilmore made no objection. To the observer, he was stupidly indifferent.
The prosecuting attorney then placed the detective John Bartlett on the stand. Bartlett explained with great volubility that he was a member of Latency's Detective Agency; that he had learned of the mysterious death of Brown Hirst, and hoping to obtain the reward offered by Hirst's widow, had gone to her and requested permission to investigate the case. He explained that he had learned that the Octagon Coal Company was in desperate financial straits; that the president, Robert Gilmore, who resided in the city of Philadelphia, had been in the county of McDowell on the night of Hirst's death, and from these data he had formulated his theory to the effect that Gilmore had been stealing from the company; that this fact had been discovered by Hirst, and that they had come together in McDowell for the purpose of discussing this matter; that there the two men had quarrelled, and the result was that Hirst had been killed and his body thrown into the river, and the evidence of suicide manufactured by Robert Gilmore.
The detective explained further that being advised that Robert Gilmore intended to leave Philadelphia for St. Louis, and fearing that it was an attempt on the part of the president of the Octagon Coal Company to escape from the country, he had hurried to McDowell and secured an indictment.
Upon cross-examination it at once appeared that this detective had no knowledge of any fact whatever, but was merely speaking from certain conclusions which he was pleased to call his theory. The attorney for the defense moved to strike out the evidence of this witness, which was accordingly done, much to the chagrin of John Bartlett, detective, and Salathiel Jenkins, deputy-in-extraordinary to the sheriff of McDowell.
The prosecuting attorney then proceeded to spring his sensation. He announced to the court that during the night Gilmore had made a confession to Mr. Jenkins, the deputy, and that he desired to have Mr. Jenkins sworn and his testimony introduced. Accordingly the irrepressible Jenkins, by virtue of an oath properly administered, was transformed into a witness for the State of West Virginia.
Before the witness was permitted to launch into his marvellous story of the self-condemnation of Robert Gilmore, the attorney for the defense arose and demanded permission to inquire into the circumstances under which the alleged confession had been obtained. The judge replied that such inquiry was entirely proper, and the attorney for the defense began.
The ways of Providence are without premonition. At the first onslaught of the attorney for Gilmore, the importance of the testimony of Salathiel Jenkins vanished like a New Year's resolution. Yes, he had gone to the prisoner together with John Bartlett; he had explained that he was the deputy sheriff of the county of McDowell; that he was a person of influence; that the prisoner was in grave peril; and that, if a full confession were made, he, Jenkins, would induce the authorities of the law to deal leniently with the prisoner. He was a person of importance, he said, and, in the absence of the sheriff, the first guardian of all the law and order in the county of McDowell; if the prisoner would confess, he, Salathiel Jenkins, could save him from the hangman, and he would do it.
These were the conditions under which the alleged confession was made.
At this point in his narrative, the attorney for the prisoner stopped the witness, and objected to the introduction of the confession as having been improperly obtained. The court very promptly sustained the objection, and directed the witness to stand aside.
The prosecuting attorney arose and asked the court to nolle the indictment and permit the case to be dismissed. The judge reminded him that the case was at trial, and that such action could not now be taken; that the request should have been made before a jury was called; it was now too late, since the control of the cause had passed from the hands of the State.
Young Mr. Huron, prosecuting attorney of the county of McDowell, was lost, rudderless, upon an unknown sea. He arose and explained that he had not had an opportunity to investigate the evidence; that he had not spoken with the witnesses; that he had depended upon John Bartlett and the confession made to Salathiel Jenkins in order to convict the prisoner, and that, failing with these, he had no further evidence to introduce.
The court interrupted this speech of explanation, and reminded the attorney that the State could not urge such excuses; that the prisoner, having been put to the hazard of a defense, was entitled to have his cause legally determined; a nolle prosequi could not now be entered, and the case must proceed.
To this the young attorney, having recovered his composure, replied that the State had nothing more to offer, and resumed his seat.
The counsel for Gilmore at once moved the court to direct a verdict of not guilty, which was accordingly done and the prisoner discharged.
Mystic, and varied, and without premonition are the ways of Providence. When the negro miner went down into the sunless temples of the earth on this Wednesday of July, Salathiel Jenkins was a person of high estate, crowding mightily the orbit of his employer. And when the negro miner came up at evening, this same Salathiel Jenkins was a crestfallen underling, shrinking like a rotten value. The ordeal was frightful. The pride of young Mr. Jenkins had gone through a process of sublimation most excruciating. And yet how abominably indifferent nature was. The books in the office of the sheriff were the same. The trees, the river, and indeed the entire outside world were quite as large as they had been. Only the importance of the deputy had shrunk, and was shrinking. Master of folly! Would it stop short of microscopic? The vice of his yesterday loomed clear-cut like the angles of a wall. He had talked, talked. It was the deadliest error. In the name of that notorious Simon of infantile record, was there no God to save the witless from himself?
The crowd passed out of the court-room, and, sauntering down by the office of the miserable deputy, paused to harpoon him as it drifted by. The weather was fine for scaffold building, it observed. Would the deputy spring the trap in the absence of his chief? it was interested to know. Could he tie a hangman's knot? Would he be pleased to have the gracious assistance of his fellows? And more ingenious proddings, while the weary Jenkins perspired and shrunk, but was silent. This he had learned: like as the great lessons of life by hap learned too late.
And that same night John Bartlett and Robert Gilmore hurrying eastward in a Pullman car on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad remarked with large favorable comment that the ancient doctrine of lex vigilantibus non dormientums subvenit was marvellously true in this practical time.
VI
ON the night of the seventeenth day of July the judge of the criminal court of McDowell walked into the office of the sheriff. He was in no altruistic mood, this jurist. Since his fortunate political affiliations had thrust him into a high estate his dignity sat upon him heavy as a fog. He had been sent for. It was thoughtlessness approaching near to disrespect. When the tall jurist entered, the crowd in the office of White Carter arose.
“Judge,” drawled the sheriff, coming forward, “you must pardon the centurion for taking this liberty with the tribune, but we were holding a secret war council, and presently required the fountain of law. I am sure you won't mind, Judge.”
The fountain of law flung aside his injured feeling with a wave of his slim hand.
“It is all right, Carter,” he observed. “But why the conclave? Good men should be abed.”
“'Day unto day uttereth speech,'” drawled the sheriff, “and night unto night showeth knowledge. And just here the hurt lies. The boys have been crowding the day and shirking the night turn.”
Then he stepped back by his companions and added: “Young Mr. Huron we will overlook as familiar in your honor's forum. The other gentleman is Mr. Hartmyer Belfast, in the secret service of the New York life insurance companies.”
The judge nodded cordially and sat down by the table. The others also resumed their seats, while the sheriff removed his eye-glasses, placed them carefully on the forefinger of his fat right hand, and began to explain.
“While I was absent, I believe, one Robert Gilmore was indicted here and tried for murder, which trial resulted in a verdict of not guilty, the evidence being insufficient to sustain the charge. It now appears that Gilmore did kill Hirst, and that he can now be convicted with the evidence in the possession of Mr. Belfast and myself.”
The judge elevated his eyebrows, but volunteered no comment.
The sheriff continued. “At the time of Hirst's death I was not quite certain that it was suicide. The coat and vest found on the bridge did not correspond to the trousers and shoes of the deceased, which were the ordinary rough articles worn by the miners. There was no explanation for such dress on the part of Hirst. Later I found a miner's coat at Jim's Ford which corresponded to the other clothing of Hirst. This coat had been tied in a bundle and thrown into the river above—probably at the bridge. Stitched in the lining was a pocket book belonging to Brown Hirst containing some money and a draft on New York, together with a memorandum of a number of life insurance policies. These matters led me to believe that Hirst had planned to secure the insurance on his life by arranging a counterfeit suicide, but by some means the plan had failed after the evidence had been prepared and he had come to a violent death, probably by the hand of another.
“But the matter was involved in mystery, and I deemed it best to retain my conclusions until further developments should appear. I wrote to the various companies with which Hirst was insured, explaining the facts which I had determined. They replied that the matter was in the hands of Hartmyer Belfast, their secret agent, and that I would be advised when the investigation was complete.
“A few days since the companies wired me that Mr. Belfast might be expected to appear in my county at any time, and yesterday he called upon me.”
The sheriff moved a little closer to the table, and the drawl seemed to slip out of his speech.
“It can now be shown that Robert Gilmore came to McDowell for the purpose of assisting Hirst to manufacture evidence of a suicide; that he went with him upon the bridge, and after enticing Hirst to the rail of the bridge, suddenly threw him over into the river. The train men can be produced who saw Gilmore when he arrived and when he departed on the night of the murder. All of this evidence has been carefully prepared. In addition, it can be shown that immediately after his trial, for some mysterious reason Gilmore went directly to Philadelphia and arranged for a conference with the widow of Brown Hirst. Of this Mr. Belfast had notice, and, by request of Mrs. Hirst, he was present, concealed in an adjoining room. This conference between Gilmore and Mrs. Hirst was remarkable. The man was deeply affected, and said that he had come to tell her the entire history of his villainy, because he loved her, had loved her always, and now knew that he could never have her. Whereupon he explained that Hirst and himself had planned to rob the insurance companies; that Hirst's marriage to her was part of the scheme, but that he, Gilmore, had grown to love her, and to regret his action in procuring the marriage, and so frightfully had this grown upon him that finally he had killed Hirst.
“He then explained the minute circumstances of the death, adding that he had been tried and acquitted, and would now leave the country, but that something in his bosom would not rest until he had told her the entire truth. So we have now, I judge, a complete case, together with the confession, which, I am told, will be quite proper evidence, and with such a case there can now be nothing in the way of Gilmore's conviction.”
“Nothing at all,” observed the judge, dryly, “except the Constitution of the United States of America.”
The sheriff sat down suddenly and replaced the eye-glasses on his fat nose.
“You mean,” said the prosecuting attorney, “that the prisoner cannot be put twice in jeopardy for the same offense?”
“Unless,” responded the judge, “the judicial machinery in McDowell can be held exempt from the Constitution of the State and the Constitution of the Federal Government, a conclusion,” he added, with prodigious gravity, “in which I should rather hesitate to concur upon a casual hearing. Having been once properly tried for murder, this man cannot be again tried for the same offense.”
“It has been held,” said the prosecuting attorney, “that where the first trial was procured by the fraud of the prisoner, the case did not come within the provisions of the Constitution.”
“True,” replied the judge, “there is an early case in Virginia, and later cases of record, but the fraud must be gross and apparent. What fraud could be shown here? The indictment was properly found, the trial was regular, no suspicion of conspiracy attaches to the officers of the State, nor can it be shown that even misstatements were made, unless a plain conspiracy can be shown on the part of this detective, John Bartlett.” Then he turned to the secret agent of the life insurance companies. “How about this Bartlett?” he asked.
“So far as I can learn,” replied the detective, “Bartlett made no false statements. He is a member of Loomey's Agency in New York. It is true that he called on Mrs. Hirst and requested permission to investigate the case. What he stated to the prosecuting attorney as facts were facts. Of course, his theory was wrong, and his deductions incorrect; but for these, I presume, he could not be held responsible. I have investigated the matter with care, and while it is extremely probable that this trial was shrewdly procured by Gilmore, yet it has been so skilfully handled that no fraudulent proceeding could be shown on the part of Bartlett, although I am quite certain of his villainy.”
The sheriff rubbed his hands with the bland unction of a Hebrew at a “fire sale.”
“Jeb,” he drawled, “I guess you're it. I guess the thing is all over but the shouting.”
“Well,” responded the prosecutor, “I judge there are others. How about the lamented Jenkins, erstwhile representative of the sheriff of McDowell? Is the young man Absalom safe?”
A faint ripple of merriment spread over the fat face of the sheriff. “Boys,” he mused, “it was a keen flim-flam. Let us quietly disperse, and endeavor to live it down.” Then he added wearily. “It may be good to be good, but it is safer to be smooth.”
The judge arose. “Mr. Gilmore has been tried and acquitted,” he observed. “The record is complete. He cannot be held again to answer for this crime, even though he be pleased to proclaim his guilt from the housetops.”
“Then,” said the detective, with the dreary deliberation of one retiring from a failing cause, “this murderer cannot be punished.”
The dreamy blue eyes of White Carter swam listlessly
“Perhaps,” he drawled, “when the gentleman shall have passed the melancholy flood with that grim ferryman whom poets write of unto the Kingdom of Perpetual Night.”
(See Code of West Virginia, Chap, cxxiv., Sec. 14, Chap, cvi., Sec. 25; also Chap. cxxv. See any good text book on Landlord and Tenant. The case also of Martin Admix vs. Smith it al., 25 West Virginia, 579, and casts cited.)
THE GRAZIER
I
THE driller of the Bonnie Mag No. 3 had been keeping his weather eye on the public road all the long summer afternoon; exacting and laborious duties had obtained under the shadow of the oil derrick on this nineteenth day of August, quite sufficient to have distracted the attention of the ordinary man, but through it all the driller had maintained his watch. The pumper, a grimy mortal, who regarded the monster oil company as the sole and omnipotent power of the universe, had marked this apparent anxiety of the driller, and inquired, with some trace of humor, if that gentleman was expecting to see grease gush up out of the road. To which the driller had responded with barbaric profanity that the pumper had been employed to pump, and that he might hold his position by holding his tongue, but not otherwise. A suggestion that banished all levity from the speech of the pumper. Besides, there was a red glint in the eyes of the driller, and the underling of the great oil company appreciated perfectly the full significance of the sign. He had noticed it before on divers eventful occasions, especially on a certain morning when being interrupted by an order of the Circuit Court, the driller had promptly suggested to the deputy sheriff that he might go to the infernal regions with his injunction; and instead of suspending operations until the legal forum could determine the title to the realty, he had complied with his contract by pushing his well through to the Gordon sand.
It was true indeed that the Circuit Court had attached t he body of the driller and bringing him up before its august presence fined him two hundred dollars for contempt, but the old man had paid over the money without the hesitation of a moment and immediately thereafter consigned the Circuit Court to the same heated region originally suggested to the deputy sheriff.
The sun had gone down, and the twilight was beginning to gather on the oil field. The shadows darkened across the long sloping valley, and the great derricks in the half light looked dark and gaunt and threatening like some grim engines of war. It was now difficult to observe the highway from the oil wells far up on the hill side, and the driller, who evidently intended to maintain his surveillance of the county thoroughfare at any cost, stepped out from the shadow of the derrick and began to wipe his hands on the grass; when he had finished he turned to the pumper. “Just keep your eye on that cable,” he said curtly, “I'll be back when you see me coming.” Then he turned and walked slowly down the path to the road.
The soft breath of wind creeping up from the North through the rift in the low hills brought with it no sound, save the dull ceaseless thump of the engines drawing streams of liquid wealth from a thousand narrow arteries leading down into the bosom of the earth. This great industry, not content with changing the civilization, had changed also the very face of the land; two years before this fluttering summer breeze had carried with it the murmur of ripening corn fields, the sweet odor of quiet pasture land where herds of fattening cattle wandered through fields of blue grass. Now, the lands were marked with wagon roads, studded with the rough shanties of the pumpers and the gigantic wooden tanks of the great oil companies; and here and there, like the twisted ugly back of some huge serpent, a black pipe line stretched its interminable length across the broken country. Greed ruled the world, and beauty, like many another gift of nature, was battered out under his hammer.
The oil driller stopped at the road side and leaned his long body on the rail fence. He was a thin, old man, with sharp, emaciated features, his hair and iron-gray beard were matted with oil, and his long arms, bare to the elbow and burned black by the sun, glistened greasy as the piston of his engine. The ancient workman kept his watch in dead silence, and beyond this his face showed no interest. This man belonged to that iron type upon which the world has depended so much for its civilization, that type which no matter where placed toils on in its station like a machine, unquestioning, tireless, reliable as a law. In the rank of their legions it had extended the rule of the Caesars; on the broad decks of the men-of-war it had widened the dominion of Great Britain; and in the mines and mills and forests of America it had reared and maintained and enriched a Republic; growing greater than them all.
Presently in the deepening twilight a huge shadow appeared at the foot of the long hill, and the driller heard distinctly the sound of a horse coming leisurely up the sandy road. As it approached, the indefinite shadow took on a clear and decided outline, until one in the position of the driller could have seen that it was an enormous man, riding a red roan horse. The man was leaning forward, his head down and his hands resting on the pommel of his saddle, while the bridle reins dangled loose in his fingers. When they were opposite, the driller spoke.
“Is that you, Alshire?” he said.
The giant threw bark his great shoulders and stopped his horse with a wrench on the bridle “Morg Gaston!” he announced with some trace of surprise in his voice, then he added, half-apologetically, “what's the good word with you?”
The driller climbed heavily over the big staked-and-ridered fence, “I saw you go down this morning,” he said, “and I have been watching for you back; I want to tell you something.”
Then he came over to the middle of the road and rested his greasy chin on the mane of the red roan.
“Hell of a high horse,” said the driller.
“Seventeen hands,” responded the giant.
The old man ran his eyes slowly over the immense proportions of the traveller, his deep, powerful chest, his broad, thick shoulders and his massive limbs almost grotesquely huge.
“You are not little yourself,” he observed, as though announcing a discovery, “and I am darned glad of it, leastways I was darned glad of it that morning old Ward's rotten derrick blowed down, and you chanced along and lifted her off me. I was pinned under them timbers like a rat.”
The man laughed, but his face in the dark was not merry. The driller extended his close inspection to the horse; when he had finished he stepped back in the road and an expression of intense admiration spread itself over his rugged features.
“By jolly!” he said, “you are a pair to draw to.”
The giant patted the withers of the great horse.
“Cardinal is a good colt,” he replied, “good as they grow.”
The driller stood for some moments gazing almost worshipfully at the pair; then he straightened suddenly and coming up close to the horse rested his arms, wet with petroleum, on the pommel of the saddle.
“Alshire,” he said, lowering his voice, “the Company thinks there is grease under your land. I was up to see the manager last night, and while I was there the engineers came in with the maps, and they all agreed that the head of the pool was about under your farm. You are nigh on to three miles east of the development, but the belt is surely running your way; this here last well that the Company plugged is forty barrels better than the No. 1 five hundred feet west; and I'll tell you another thing, there ain't no more boring in this region until the Company gets its clutches on all this land laying to the east, yours included. My instructions is to make this last one dry, and move over into Ohio.”
The great Alshire bent over and placed his broad hand on the greasy arm of the driller. “I'm obliged to you, Morg,” he said slowly. “I'll lookout.”
“By jolly!” continued the old workman, “you better had, they are a smooth set of divels, and whatever you do, keep your mouth plugged. I ain't never given the Company the double cross before, but I could n't see them skin you, by jolly, I could n't!”
The old driller spoke rapidly, as though half ashamed of his treason, and when he had finished turned and began climbing the high fence.
“Morg,” called the giant. “Morg.”
“That's all right,” answered the driller, as he vanished up the dark hill side, “just keep your mouth plugged; that's all right.”
The giant touched his horse in the flank with his heel and rode on.
Rufus Alshire was a grazier, a business almost exclusively followed in this magnificent grass country. Many years before, his greatgrandfather, an English Tory, had fled into this inland country in order to escape certain unpleasant relations with the colonial government. Here he had builded an enormous log manor-house, and surrounding himself with rather worthless retainers, maintained a sort of baronial existence. Others followed, and after a time the country was cleared and came to be divided into great tracts of pasture land, owned by these powerful families. But the elements of the feudal system, although suffering some modifications, remained. The tenants were, for the most part, born and reared on the stock land, and were almost fixtures.
The descendants of this independent ancestry continued to reside as near to the central part of their estate as possible, and maintained huge residences, rough at times and not quite comfortable perhaps, but always enormous. The nature of the country being especially adapted to the fattening of beef cattle, this industry soon came to be the exclusive business of this powerful people. It was a profitable and supremely independent industry, and gave wide play to the baronial instincts of the Anglo-Saxon; who, even after the golden time of his race had gone out so many hundred years, still loved the open sky, and the blue hills, and the monster oak trees, and hated in his heart with a stubborn bitter spirit of rebellion the least shadow of restraint. He was willing to serve God if need be, but while he lived he would not serve men. In stature the descendants of the long dead Saxon were huge specimens of the race, almost as big of limb as the fabled barbarians of Lygia; powerful men, whom close and intimate relations with the mother nature kept strong and immensely vital to the very evening of life. But withal the hospitality of the Saxon was profligate, his impulses were kindly, and he was quite content to leave the affairs of government and the problems of civilization to other hands, provided the minions of these powers held their feet back from his soil.
The twilight had deepened into night; on the crest of the far-off hills the great oak trees stood outlined against the sky like mighty silent figures waiting for some mystic word that should call them into life.
The rim of the moon was rising slowly from behind the oil field, red like battered brass; the road, covered with shifting light and shadow, stretched across the rolling country like a silver ribbon. The grazier rode slowly, his hands hanging idly at his sides, and his face set with deep thought; from time to time he raised his ponderous right hand and struck it heavily against the tree of his saddle as though to indicate thereby some important decision finally reached, but as often he dropped the hand back to its place.
The important information of the oil driller had added a mighty element to the matters with which he was evidently concerned. The horse, left to his own inclinations, quickened his pace and presently the shadow of a huge house loomed upon the crest of the hill at the roadside. The horse stopped at the gate, and the man. aroused from his reverie, dismounted slowly, and opening the gate led the horse through; as he closed the gate he stopped for a moment and rested his enormous elbow on the latch. “Well,” he said, as though announcing his temporary conclusion to himself, “I'll ship the cattle to-morrow, and I'll see Jerry.”