0
THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION
THE ISSUE
GEORGE BARON HUBBARD
m ma s
szssanirv CAST
N.
XI) SO YOU 'VP. lost your
nerve, Hi?" The sheriff's
voice was tinned with Ma
licious satisfaction. ''You
brought me all the way up
here to tell me that?"
Dave Wilson fiuslied.
"J wanted you to see t lie
situation as I see it, that 's
all, Mr. Burgess. I know
liow tlie people feel about
that fellow," he jerked
his thumb toward the motionless figure on t lie iron
cot in the corner of the ward "and 1 know they
only want a leader. That's all they're wait in' for.
I don't like the looks of it, and 1 thought you ought
to know."
"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that this is
a decent, law-abiding community," remarked Bur
gess. "Suppose there is a whole lot of bad feeling
against the man, every citizen of the town knows that
he will be tried, convicted and executed. We're
civilized humans here, not savages, Wilson,"
Wilson shrugged.
"Just as civilized as the rest of the country, and
no more. Oh, 1 've seen it, South and West both! 1
know how it works."
"1 suppose you want rue to send a big posse up
here?" said the sheriff ironically.
"Just that. If everybody knows there 's a bunch of
deputies up here, they won't start anything."
"Who? The deputies I" jeered Burgess.' "Just as
likely to as any one else. All right. Wilson. As long
as you don't like to stay alone, I'll send old Bill
Edwards up to keep you company."
"I'm not looking for company, though I 'in likely
to get it," Wilson protested. "Do you know what
would happen tonight if there should be an attempt
to lynch that cuss? Somebody 'd get hurt."
"And you don't want to be the somebody." Burgess
lounged to his feet and moved toward the floor.
"Well, Wilson, you stay right here. You '11 need to
show a little more sand if you're going to be the
next sheriff. You are n't elected yet, you know. And
until you are, I '11 run my own job, and my deputies,
too."
"One moment." Wilson's tone was crisp. "Speak
ing of sand, when we cornered that fellow in Jack
sou's mill, who crawled down into the old tlunie after
him you or I? He dared you to come in and get
him; but you didn't take him up. You might have
had to, if 1 'd given him time to shoot more 'n once.
You needn't say anything more about me bein'
afraid. 1 don't like it." II is level gray eyes held
the shifting gaze of the sheriff until it wavered and
fell.
"Can't you take a joke, Dave? 1 didn't mean
anything." The sheriff laughed with an uneasy as
sumption of good fellowship. "I know you're all
light, and you certainly did a good job when you
gathered that fellow in. But you Ye 'way off about
this lynching business. Why, good Lord, man, look
here! Do you think anything of the kind could
happen in a place like this?"
Wilson's eyes wandered about the perfectly ap
pointed ward, with its white tiles and shining, pol
ished metal work. Through the open doorway, he
could see the nurses in their neat uniforms. Hitting
noiselessly about. From the other end of the corridor
came the muttled click of an elevator door.
The recent gift of a local philanthropist, the hos
pital, though small, was perhaps the most completely
equipped institution of its kind in the state. Kven
Wilson's unimaginative mind was impressed with a
sense of the incongruity of such a setting for the
scene of medieval violence he feared. He grinned
shamefacedly, as he tried to tell himself that the
tiling was impossible, that it could never happen.
"You see?" laughed Burgess. "Your idea's all
nonsense. I '11 send Pierson up at twelve o'clock to
relieve you. In the meantime, forget it. And, Dave,
don't think any more about what I said. We 're both
apt to get too talky these days. 1 don't blame you
for being ambitious; but naturally. 1 want to hang
on to my job, and all this stuff about your running
for sheriff has got on to my nerves. So long!"
He clapped the deputy patronizingly on the shoul
der, and strode off down the corridor. Wilson watched
him until he was out of sight, and then walked slowly
over to the iron col and gazed down upon the prisoner
securely chained to it.
A feeling of disgust and loathing, amounting al
most to physical nausea, swept over him, as he
thought of the brutal and revolting crime that this
man had committed. What a misfortune it was that
the bullet which had so seriously wounded him had
not gone a few inches higher and ended his miserable
life. It would have been so much better for every
one, even for the man on the cot; for there was no
question of his guilt. Nevertheless, now he must be
nursed back to sufficient strength to enable him to
stand trial, a trial that could have but one ending.
All the complicated machinery of the law must be
set in motion for a worthless wretch, who deserved
nothing better than to be shot down ruthlessly, like
the wild beast that he was.
The bandaged form under the blankets stirred
slightly and muttered a curse in delirium. With a
gesture of disgust, the deputy turned on his heel and
walked over to the open window.
The twilight was still luminous with the last light
of the sun. Wilson watched the gold and crimson
of the clouds fade to a dull, depressing gray. Arc
lights were beginning to sputter in the streets of the
town. Everything looked quiet and peaceful; but the
very quiet seemed menacing and fraught with omi
nous meaning.
Tn that little community, there were hundreds of
men, who, like Wilson himself, had hardly paused
to eat or to sleep until the criminal had been cap
tured; men who had hurled threats and curses after
the speeding automobile, as it bore the wounded
captive to the hospital, and then had gathered at the
street corners, talking animatedly among themselves,
only to fall suddenly silent at the approach of a
stranger.
With a quick movement, Wilson turned from the
window, shrugging his huge shoulders, as if to throw
off some irritating burden. The thing was absurd;
it had never happened here; it never could happen.
The popular rage and excitement would find expres
sion and relief in talk and clamor, wearing itself out
by its own very violence.
He was a fool to think that it could be otherwise.
Burgess had done right to laugh at him. And yet,
had not I he sheriff's laughter been a little too hearty?
Still, had Burgess entertained the slightest idea that
there might be any grounds for apprehension, it
would have 'been a perfectly simple matter for him
to send a posse to guard the hospital; or, as sheriff,
he himself could have taken charge of I lie prisoner
and assumed the responsibility. That was really what
he ought to have done.
And then, across Wilson's mind there flashed a
sudden thought that sent the hot blood leaping to
his face, and set him to pacing up and down the
length of the room like-some caged animal. For the
first time, he realized the significance of his position.
Mentioned as a possible candidate for sheriff, in
opposition to Burgess, at the coming fall elections,
he had a large personal following among the hench
men of the local ring, the leaders of which knew that
it would be almost impossible to swing the vote away
from him, should he be nominated.
If a mob did come to the hospital, it would be
largely made up of the workers from the mills and
factories, the coal and iron mines; voters, all of them,
and nearly all his personal friends. If a lynching
were attempted, and he should try to prevent it.
blood would be spilt by him. And he would have
committed the unpardonable political sin, that of
going back on bis friends.
True, there was an element that would applaud his
act and commend him for upholding the law and
preserving the town from the disgrace of mob vio
lence; but that element was not the one which on
election day went in a body to the polls and put
its candidates into office.
Burgess knew this; and Burgess was clever enough
to absent himself and to leave his political rival to
assume the responsibility, and perhaps to work his
own political damnation.
Wilson clenched his hands as he realized that he
was trapped and helpless. Either he must be dere
lict in his duty, false to his oath, or he must shoot
down the men who regarded him as their friend and
leader, and who held his future in their hands. He
was to be made the scapegoat, and forced into a po
sition where he must act the part of a coward, or
else deliberately tire upon men who, since boyhood,
had been his friends and comrades.
He was young and ambit ions; w hy should he ruin
his career to save a worthless wretch who deserved
to hang, and who, in any event, would hang, by due
process of law, in a few months at most?
That he himself stood more than an even chance of
being killed did not, strangely enough, enter into his
calculations. He knew to what unbridled lengths a
body of men, inflamed by rage, and hate, would go;
but the danger to his political career was the thought
uppermost in his mind; and he grew hot with anger
at the trick Burgess had played upon him.
A faint, distant sound set his taut nerves a-quiver,
and he sprang to the window and stared out into the
night; but the noise that had caught his ear Avas
only the cry of a belated teamster, urging his horses
up the steep incline at the top of which the hospital
stood.
With a sigh of relief, the deputy leaned his elbows
on the sill, and tried to collect his thoughts; but his
mind was a seething cauldron of conflicting emotions,
and try as he would, he could see no honorable escape
from the net he now believed Burgess had spread
around him.
Directly in front of the lawns that stretched before
the hospital was a small square or park, formed by
the intersection of several streets, and thickly bor
dered by trees and shrubbery. It was lighted in the
center by a single llaniing arc lamp; but the edges
lay in deep shadow.
The clatter of the wagon died away in the dis
tance ; silence descended; but it was a strange, sinister
silence, and the deputy stirred uneasily and shifted
from one foot to the other. To his overwrought
senses, it seemed that the dusky shadows beneath
the trees were alive with vague, intangible forms,
flitting this way and that, dodging from tree trunk
to tree trunk. He could not see distinctly in the un
certain light; but surely that was not the wind stir
ring the shrubbery?
And then, suddenly, out of the darkness at one
end of the square, emerged a knot of dim figures.
Almost before Wilson realized thai this was no trick
of his imagination, a similar group had appeared
across the way. Others followed, sw iftly and silently,
all moving toward the center of the square. There
seemed no end to them; group followed group in an
unbroken chain. In an incredibly short time, the
whole open space was filled with a swaying, jostling
mass of men. Wilson caught his breath and leaned
farther through the window.
At first, no sound came to his straining ears; but
gradually there arose a low, menacing murmur, a
deep, sullen diapason, that rapidly rose and swelled
louder and louder, until it grew into a hoarse, thun
derous roar.
From the iron cot in the corner came a whining
cry. AYilson glanced over his shoulder. A white
capped nurse was bending over the prisoner, who,
conscious for the first time since his capture, realized
the meaning of that sinister sound without, and was
moaning and weeping in abject terror.
The nurse's face was ghastly white; her eyes di
lated with horror.
"Is there anything we can do?" The words came
from her trembling lips in a choked whisper.
AYilson shook his head.
"No! And don't wait! Get out of here as quick
as you can! They '11 come in a minute."
With one terrified glance at his drawn, set face,
she scurried from the room. Wilson turned to the
window again.
(Continued on Page 16)