"Didn't I tell you," he asked, leaning his back against the counter and supporting himself on his two elbows thrust behind him, while one of his legs, ending in a stogy boot, was braced out in front of him, "you can't hang the nephew 'v a rich man in such a dodrotted country as this yer Eelenoys? Dave Sovine's bought off, they say, by an ornery young lawyer un that air Bob McCord." Jake was too prudent to apply any degrading adjectives to a man of Bob's size and renown. "Dave'll light out the day afore the trial with rocks in his pockets, un that air young coward'll git clean off. Where's yer s.p.u.n.k, I'd like to know? 'F you're go'n' to be hornswoggled by lawyers like that air long-legged Abe Lincoln, un skin-flints like ole Seven-percent Tom Grayson, w'y, you _kin_, that's all."

Jake, with his head thrown forward, looked sternly around on the group about him, and they seemed to feel the reproach of his superior aggressiveness. Bijy Grimes was rendered so uneasy by Jake's regard that he shut his mouth; and then, not knowing what better to do, he ventured to ask humbly, "What kin we do about it, Jake?" letting his mouth drop open again in token that he waited for a reply.

"Do?" said Jake contemptuously. "W'y, chain-lightnin', Bijy, what a thing, now, to ax! Show me two dozen, ur even _one_ dozen, men that'll stan' at my back tell the blood runs, un I'll show 'em 't folks can't take a change of venoo out-uh the k-younty that knows all about the rascality into one that don't. I'll show 'em how to buy off witnesses, un I'll l'arn these yer dodrotted lawyers un rich men how to fool wreth the very bone un sinoo uv the land."

Notwithstanding the natural love of these men for a little excitement, they had been rendered somewhat unresponsive by Jake's failures. The most of them thought it best to go to town on the day of the trial and see how it would come out. But at 6 o'clock in the evening of the first day of court, Lew Baker, a farmer from the river valley beyond the Run, rode past the door of the grocery on his way home, and said a collective "Howdy" to the three or four who stood outside. Bijy Grimes, who was one of them, came out toward the middle of the road heading off the traveler.

"h.e.l.lo, Lew! Any nooze about the trial?" he said, dropping his lower jaw from between his fat infantile cheeks and waiting for a reply, while the rest of the group moved up to hearing distance.

"Well, yes," said Baker, pulling up his horse and swinging himself round in the saddle so as to bring the most of his weight on the right stirrup, while he rested his left elbow on his left knee and his right hand on the horse's mane. "I heern tell, jest as I come away, that Dave what-ye-may-call-'im, the witness, had sloped, liker'n not. He hain't been seed aroun' for a right smart while, un they say he's gone off to New Ur_leans_ ur the Injun country. Moscow's stirred up about it."

"Tu-lah!" said Bijy. "They 'low he'll be got off, don't they!"

"They're sh.o.r.e sumpin's fixed, fer the young feller's lawyer hain't soopeenied a derned witness."

"Tu-lah!" said Bijy. "Is that a fack?"

"Sh.o.r.e 's shootin', they say. He's to be got off somehow, I s'pose."

"Tu-laws-a-ma.s.sy!" broke out Bijy; and turning to his fellow-loafers he said, "That'll rile Jake purty consid'able, now won't it?"

It did stir up Jake when he heard of it. He promptly set to work to form a company to descend at once on Moscow and take the case out of the hands of the dodrotted lawyers. He could not at so late an hour get together more than twenty or twenty-five men from Broad Run and the regions within warning distance. Some of these joined him only because they could not endure to have anything very exciting take place in their absence: it would entail the necessity of their hearing for the rest of their lives the account given of the affair by the partic.i.p.ators, who would always value themselves on it. Some of the larger boys, whose aid had been rejected in the previous excursion because they were not accounted mature enough for such public responsibilities, were now admitted: the company would be small, and a boy is better than n.o.body in a pinch. S'manthy's oldest son, a tow-headed fellow of fifteen, was one of these, and he was sent over the hill to warn Zeke Tucker, who was still at Britton's, a mile away from the borders of what was distinctively called "the Run Neighborhood."

The September twilight was already fading when the lad presented himself in front of Zeke Tucker, who sat perched on top of a rail fence for rest and observation after his day's work. Mrs. Britton was making the house over-warm, and Zeke preferred the fresh air.

"I say, Zeke," said the breathless boy, "it's to come off to-night, un I'm a-goin', by hokey!"

"What's to come off to-night?"

"W'y, the hangin'--the hangin' of that young chap Tom down't Moscow; un I'm goin' to take grandad's ole flint-lock."

"Your grandad's ole flint-lock! You might as well take a stick," said Zeke.

"Oh! it'll go off ef you tech it off weth a coal of fire, but I don't 'low I kin find any coal to tech it off weth down thar," and S'manthy's son scratched his head thoughtfully. "But, anyways, it'll look like a gun in the night."

"Yes, un you'll look like a man, I s'pose. But what time's Jake goin'?"

"Twix' ten un 'leven. Donchoo be late."

"You tell Jake not to go, noways, wethout me," said Zeke, hoping by this to delay Jake's start.

XXIV

FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED

Zeke sat restless on the fence until S'manthy's boy, exultant that his manhood was to be recognized by his admission to the band, had gone out of sight in the direction of the grocery. Then Zeke sprang from the fence and started, as fast as legs could carry, along an old Indian trail, hoping by this disused and in some places obstructed short cut across the prairie to save a mile of the eight-miles' journey to Bob McCord's cabin. Bob was already abed when Zeke, badly blown by his rapid walking, knocked at the door.

"Who's there?" called Bob, emerging from his first heavy sleep.

"It's me--Zeke Tucker! Git up, quick, Bob! Jake Hogan's off at ten 'r 'leven, un it's nigh onto that a'ready." And Zeke impatiently rattled the door of the cabin, the latch-string of which had been drawn in to lock it.

Bob came down on the floor with a thump, and his few clothes were soon pulled on; then he came out and stood in the fresh air, on the "b.u.t.t-cut" of a tulip-tree, or "flowering poplar," which, to compensate for the descent of the hill-side, had been laid against the bottom log of his cabin for a front-door step. Zeke explained to him how urgent the case was.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ZEKE AND S'MANTHY'S OLDEST SON.]

"Baub! don't you go 'n' go off down to Moscow to-night," called Mrs.

McCord. "They hain't no airthly use in your botherin' yourself so much about other folkses business. You'd orter stay'n' look arter your own wife un childern." It was Mrs. McCord's invariable habit to object, in her plaintive and impotent fashion, to everything her husband proposed to do. She had not the slightest expectation that he would remain at home in consequence of anything she might say, nor did she care that he should; but she had a vocation to hold in check his thriftless propensities. This she tried to do by protests uttered indiscriminately against all his outgoings and his incomings, his downsittings and his uprisings.

"We ain't got no hoss," said Bob, replying to Zeke, and paying no heed to his wife. "Mrs. Grayson un Barb'ry 've gone un gone to town weth ole Blaze, so's to be weth Tom airly in the mornin'. What on yerth to do I don't noways see." Bob was standing with his fists in his pockets, looking off anxiously toward the horizon.

"Can't you git b.u.t.ts's?" said Zeke.

"Thunder! No! b.u.t.tses un Graysons don't hitch. b.u.t.ts don't speak to none uv'em, un he hates Tom the wust, fer throwin' rocks at his geese when they got into the medder, un dauggin' his haugs out-uh the corn. They'd a leetle rather Tom'd be lynched un not. By blazes! I've _got_ to git one of b.u.t.ts's hosses right straight off. Buchanan's hoss is lame, un they hain't nary nuther one to be got this side uv Albaugh's, and that's too fur away. You go down to the branch un wait fer me, un I'll git b.u.t.ts's little wagon. I 'low they'll be hoppin' mad 'f they fine out what I got it fer, but I've got to git it, 'f I have to steal it. They hain't no two ways about it."

"I don't think you'd ortuh go off that a-way, Baub," began Mrs. McCord again. "Un me more 'n half sick. I've been feelin' kind-uh slarruppy like fer two 'r three days. Un them air taters is to be dug, un Mely's gone away. You 'n' Zeke Tucker 'll make a purty fist uv it a-lickin' all Broad Run, now, wonch yeh? Wha' choo got to do weth Jake--"

But Bob did not hear the rest of it, nor was it ever uttered indeed. For Mrs. McCord, when she found that her husband had gone, did not think it worth while to finish her lamentations; she only drew a sigh of complacent long-suffering and submission to fate, and went to sleep.

Hardened sinner that he was, Big Bob felt a little twinge of shame as he made his way rapidly to b.u.t.ts's house. His wife's set speech about being more than half sick, often as he had heard it, and little as he had ever heeded it, had now made a sufficient lodgment in his consciousness to suggest a way out of his difficulty; but it was a way which a loafer of the superior sort, such as Bob, might feel ashamed to take, knowing that such a scheme as he was concocting would be an outrage on all the sacred principles of good neighborhood--an outrage only to be justified by military necessity. All the way to b.u.t.ts's, hurried as he was, his hands were ramming his trousers-pockets, after his fashion of groping there for a solution of his difficulties. It was the carrying over into other affairs the habitual research which the hunter makes for bullets, caps, patching, or jack-knife to meet the exigencies of the forest.

Arrived at the unpainted, new frame-house, which, being two feet longer and one foot broader than any other in the neighborhood, was the particular pride of the b.u.t.ts family, he noted that all the lights were out, and after hesitating whether to capture the horse by stealth or by strategy, he went to the front door and rapped. The head of the proprietor came out of one of the lower windows with an abrupt "Who's there?" spoken with that irritation a weary man is p.r.o.ne to express when awakened from his first nap to attend to some one else's wants.

"I say, Mr. b.u.t.ts," said Bob, pushing his hands harder against the bottoms of his pockets, "kin I git the loan uv one uv your hosses un your leetle wagon to fetch the doctor? My ole woman's purty bad; been sick ever sence the sun was 'n 'our high, un we can't git nothin' to do no good."

"What seems to be the matter?" said b.u.t.ts, wishing to postpone an unpleasant decision.

Bob hesitated a moment: lying is a dangerous business unless it is carried on with circ.u.mspection. "Blamed 'f I know jest _what_ it is. I suspicion it's the _dys_pepsy."

The name of dyspepsia was new to the country at that day, though the complaint was ancient enough, no doubt. Just what _dys_pepsy might be Bob did not know, but he hit on it as the vaguest term he could recall and one that had a threatening sound. It would not have served his purpose to have repeated Mrs. McCord's diagnosis of her own case, that she was "feelin' kind-uh slarruppy like." "Whatever 'tis, she don't think she kin git through till mornin' 'thout I git a doctor."

"Well, I doan know. The sorrel's lame; un I don't like to let the bay colt go noways, he's sech a sperrited critter."

b.u.t.ts drew his head in at this point to consult with Mrs. b.u.t.ts as to how he could evade lending the cherished bay colt.

"Looky h-yer, Mr. McCord," presently called Mrs. b.u.t.ts, keeping her nightcapped head well out of sight as she spoke, "you don't want no doctor nohow." Mrs. b.u.t.ts had come by virtue of superior credulity to hold the position of neighborhood doctress, and she was not friendly to regular physicians. "You jest take along with you a bottle of my new medicine, 't I call the 'Scatter Misery,' It's made out-uh roots an'

yarbs, an' it's the best thing I know fer mos' every kind of complaint.

It's good insides an' outsides. You rub the Scatter Misery onto the outsides un give her a swaller now un then insides. It'll fetch 'er 'roun' in an hour or two."

Bob felt himself fairly entangled in his own intrigue, but he gave his great fists another push into his trousers-pockets and said:

"I'm much obleeged, Mrs. b.u.t.ts, but my ole woman tole me ez I wuzn't to come back 'thout a doctor; un ef you hain't got no critter you kin len'

me, I mus' be a-gittin' 'long down to Albaugh's mighty quick. That's a powerful ways off, though. I wish I'd gone there straight un not come over h-yer."

This last was uttered in a tone of plaintive disappointment as Bob turned away, walking slowly and giving the family council time to change its mind.