The Prodigal Judge Part 27

"Wait a minute--" he said, and pa.s.sed his purse to Norton.

"Cover his money, sir," he added briefly.

"Thank you, my horses have run away with most of my cash," explained Norton.

"Your shot!" said Carrington shortly, to the outlaw.

Murrell taking careful aim, fired, clipping the center.

As soon as the result was known, Carrington raised his rifle; his bullet, truer than his opponent's, drove out the center. Murrell turned on him with an oath.

"You shoot well, but a board stuck against a tree is no test for a man's nerve," he said insolently.

Carrington was charging his piece.

"I only know of one other kind of target," he observed coolly.

"Yes--a living target!" cried Murrell.

The crowd opened from right to left. Betty's face grew white, and uttering a smothered cry she started to descend from the carriage, but the judge rested his hand on her arm.

"No, my dear young, lady, our friend is quite able to care for himself."

Carrington shook the priming into the pan of Hannibal's ancient weapon.

"I am ready for that, too," he said. There was a slow smile on his lips, but his eyes, black and burning, looked the captain through and through.

"Another time--" said Murrell, scowling.

"Any time," answered Carrington indifferently.

CHAPTER XVI. THE PORTAL OF HOPE

"This--" the speaker was judge Price; "this is the place for me: They are a warm-hearted people, sir; a prosperous people, and a patriotic people with an unstinted love of country. A people full of rugged virtues engaged in carving a great state out of the indulgent bosom of Nature. I like the size of their whisky gla.s.ses; I like the stuff that goes into them; I despise a section that separates its gallons into too many gla.s.ses. Show me a community that does that, and I'll show you a community rapidly tending toward a low scale of living. I'd like to hang out my s.h.i.+ngle here and practise law."

The judge and Mr. Mahaffy were camped in the woods between Boggs' and Raleigh. Betty had carried Hannibal off to spend the night at Belle Plain, Carrington had disappeared with Charley Norton; but the judge and Mahaffy had lingered in the meadow until the last refreshment booth struck its colors to the twilight, and they had not lingered in vain.

The judge threw himself at full length on the ground, and Mahaffy dropped at his side. About them, in the ruddy glow of their camp-fire, rose the dark wall of the forest.

"I crave opportunity, Solomon--the indors.e.m.e.nt of my own cla.s.s. I feel that I shall have it here," resumed the judge pensively.

But Mahaffy was sad in his joy, sober in his incipientent drunkenness.

The same handsome treatment which the judge commended, had been as freely tendered him, yet he saw the end of all such hospitality. This was the worm in the bud. The judge, however, was an eager idealist; he still dreamed of Utopia, he still believed in millenniums. Mahaffy didn't and couldn't. Memory was the scarecrow in the garden of his hopes--you could wear out your welcome anywhere. In the end the world reckoned your cost, and unless you were prepared to make some sort of return for its bounty, the cold shoulder came to be your portion instead of the warm handclasp.

"Hannibal has found friends among people of the first importance. I have made it my business to inquire into their standing, and I find that young lady is heiress to a cool half million. Think of that, Solomon--think of that! I never saw anything more beautiful than her manifestation of regard for my protege--"

"And you made it your business, Mr. Price, to do your very d.a.m.nedest to ruin his chances," said Mahaffy, with sudden heat.

"I ruin his chances?--I, sir? I consider that I helped his chances immeasurably."

"All right, then, you helped his chances--only you didn't, Price!"

"Am I to understand, Solomon, that you regard my interest in the boy as harmful?" inquired the judge, in a tone of shocked surprise.

"I regard it as a calamity," said Mahaffy, with cruel candor.

"And how about you, Solomon?"

"Equally a calamity. Mr. Price, you don't seem able to grasp just what we look like!"

"The mind's the only measure of the man, Solomon. If anybody can talk to me and be unaware that they are conversing with a gentleman, all I can say is their experience has been as pitiable as their intelligence is meager. But it hurts me when you intimate that I stand in the way of the boy's opportunity."

"Price, what do you; suppose we look like--you and I?"

"In a general way, Solomon, I am conscious that our appeal is to the brain rather than the eye," answered the judge, with dignity.

"I reckon even you couldn't do a much lower trick than use the boy as a stepping-stone," pursued Mahaffy.

"I don't see how you have the heart to charge me with such a purpose--I don't indeed, Solomon." The judge spoke with deep feeling; he was really hurt.

"Well, you let the boy have his chance, and don't you stick in your broken oar," cried Mahaffy fiercely.

The judge rolled over on his back, and stared up at the heavens.

"This is a new aspect of your versatile nature, Solomon. Must I regard you as a personally emanc.i.p.ated moral influence, not committed to the straight and narrow path yourself, but still close enough to it to keep my feet from straying?" he at length demanded.

Mahaffy having spoken his mind, preserved a stony silence.

The judge got up and replenished the camp-fire, which had burnt low, then squatting before it, he peered into the flames.

"You'll not deny, Solomon, that Miss Malroy exhibited a real affection for Hannibal?" he began.

"Now don't you try to borrow money of her, Price," said Mahaffy, returning to the attack.

"Solomon--Solomon--how can you?"

"That'll be your next move. Now let her alone; let Hannibal have his luck as it comes to him."

"You seem to forget, sir, that I still bear the name of gentleman!" said the judge.

Mahaffy gave way to acid merriment.

"Well, see that you are not tempted to forget that," he observed.

"If I didn't know your sterling qualities, Solomon, and pay homage to 'em, I might be tempted to take offense," said the judge.