The Bail Jumper Part 24

Burton excused himself to Miss McKay as soon as he could. He walked to the stables, and, finding himself un.o.bserved, plunged down into the deep gulley. Here he strode on and on, his mind at first in a turmoil of confusion. Gradually the exercise calmed his brain and he was able to think more clearly. And the clearer he saw his position the less he liked it. Two courses were possible; to disappear and try again to lose himself, probably by taking up a homestead far back from the centres of civilization; or to make a clean breast of the whole thing to Kate. But what would she think of him when she knew the truth? Suppose she believed in his innocence, of which he had every confidence, would her att.i.tude change when she knew him to be a fugitive from the law-an innocent man who lacked the moral courage to prove his innocence or accept the inevitable? That afternoon he had felt that he could tell her all; that night he knew that he could tell her nothing.

And yet the idea of unexplained disappearance was unbearable to him. He felt that he owed it to his friends here, whose home had been such an oasis to him in his desert of bad fortune, to relieve their minds of any doubt as to his personal safety. He now remembered that this thought had not occurred to him when he fled from Plainville, and the blood slowly mounted to his forehead. But he would not repeat that cruelty; whatever came he would have an interview with Mr. McKay.

He returned to the house. The cowboys were still absent, and Kate, after searching for him in vain, had gone riding alone. He found Mr. McKay still on the kitchen porch, and floundered into his task.

"I have come, Mr. McKay, to tell you that I must leave here, at once. I have just heard-that is, I have just had information which makes it imperative that I leave without an hour's delay. The heavy end of the harvest is over. I hope you will get along without trouble. Good-bye."

"But, boy, hang it, there's somethin' wrong about this. Bad news?"

"Yes, news that takes me away, and any news that forces me to leave your home is bad news."

"But you will come back, Ray? You'll be back when your troubles-when things is straightened up with you?"

"I don't know."

The farmer sat back in his chair and drew deeply at his pipe for a full minute, his eyes slightly elevated and his brow knit in thought. When he spoke the words came slowly, as though each had been chosen after deliberation.

"Waal, Ray, if your affairs take yuh away from here, tain't my affairs tah hold yuh back. But Ah thought of talkin' kind of confidential with yuh one of these days, an' it may as well be now. Ah've held down this claim fer twenty-one years, boy, an' Ah reckon Ah've about attained my majority. An' Ah notice Ah don't climb a cayuse or handle a pitchfork quite as spry as Ah once did. Ah've been lookin' fer some one to take part of the load offa me, an' when Ah saw how you knew farm work, an'

how yuh shaped intuh the collar, Ah kind a' figured Ah'd found my man at last. Ah reckon my plans has kinda been upset again."

"I am sure I appreciate what you have suggested," said Ray. "If things shape up so-but the fact is, I can promise nothing, say nothing-at present. Some day, perhaps. And now, good-bye, and say good-bye to Kate."

"I'm thinkin' it would sound better from your lips. But there's a little money comin' to yuh."

"I had forgotten that," said Burton, quite truthfully. "I suppose it may come in handy."

The old man walked to his desk and took out a pocket-book, from which he drew a number of bills. These he placed in Burton's hand, who, with a word of thanks, shoved them in his pocket without counting.

"Ah calculated yuh'd rather have bills than a cheque," said the old man, and there was something in his voice which made Ray feel that after all he had disguised very little from his employer.

The two men's hands met in a moment's firm grasp, and the next Burton knew he was tramping down the road he had first seen that summer evening six weeks before.

Once fairly on the road Burton began to cast about for some definite plan of action. He determined he would walk into town and there ascertain where homestead lands were available. Then he would go to the nearest Dominion Lands Office and file on a quarter section away in some remote region, where there would be little chance of his ident.i.ty being discovered. Here he would commence life anew, under a new name, as he felt it would not be safe to file as Raymond Burton, and here he would hope in the years to come to outgrow and outlive the tragedy of his young life.

A friendly haystack loomed through the gathering dusk, and Burton slept in its shelter until morning. He awoke stiff and hungry, and half regretted his refusal to accept Mr. McKay's offer of a horse and saddle.

But he remembered a farmhouse a few miles along the road, and there he was given breakfast. He pressed on vigorously through the day, and before another nightfall turned in at Zeb Ensley's shack. The Englishman was watering his horses at the well, but he looked up and recognised his visitor of a few weeks previous.

"h.e.l.lo, Ray!" he called, cheerily. "On your way back to town? I suppose Mr. McKay's work is advanced sufficiently to let you go, although, upon my word, I confess I thought you'd likely become a permanent part of his organisation. Especially," he added, with a sly twinkle in his eye, "especially as I happen to have met that young daughter of his."

"Well, it didn't work out that way, Mr. Ensley, although she's as fine a girl--"

"Mr. Ensley only visits here on Sundays," interrupted the other. "The gentleman in charge is known as Zeb. But let us get these plugs in and then we'll see what the cook can do for us. Fried eggs, I expect, with warmed potatoes and dried apples, table d'hote." He was unbuckling the horses' harness as he spoke, and presently slipped it from their backs and turned them loose for the night.

Once inside the shanty Burton discovered that "the cook" was Ensley himself. But no time was wasted in conventions, and in a few minutes a plain but appetising supper was on the table. "Come, dig in," was the host's invitation, and there was a lull in the conversation as the hungry men plied the viands.

"So you've left McKay's," said Ensley, after the first insistent demands of appet.i.te had been satisfied. "Where are you bound for now-back East?"

"No, I think of taking up a homestead, as soon as I can get a map showing open land, and learn where I may make application."

"Good!" said the Englishman, with genuine enthusiasm. "I'm always glad to see bright fellows taking to the homesteads. Most fathers think they do their boys a favour when they coop them up in an office or a shop, but I tell you where this country wants its bright men, some of them, at any rate, is out on the sod. There is a mob of little interests growing up, each with its little coterie of promoters and parasites, but the big industry here will always be agriculture, and it is the big industry that needs the big brains. Besides, where is the life of town or city that a free man would accept in exchange for a hundred and sixty acres to grow in? I always have an eye for the homestead openings, and perhaps you can get all the information you want right here."

After the meal was over Ensley spread a number of maps but recently issued by the Department of the Interior on the table, and enlightened Burton on the details of the regulations. "Now here," he said, "is a fine stretch of land, of which I have first hand knowledge, as I cross it every fall when I take a few days off for goose shooting. There's no better soil in the West. It's about sixty miles from here, and nearly a hundred miles from a railway, but they're building new lines through this country as fast as they can buy the labour and the steel, and you are sure to have a road near by in a few years. Now it's a little early for goose hunting, but the ducks are at their best, and there is a chance of a few chicken. Suppose we hitch up to-morrow and make a trip out there to look over the land?"

"Oh, I couldn't permit you to go to so much trouble, Mr.-Zeb."

"No permission needed," laughed the other. "It's my buckboard and my horses, and you ride with me if you will. We leave in the morning at seven. There's no time to lose," he continued, consulting the contents of a large envelope, "as these lands are to be opened for entry exactly eight days from to-morrow, and you'd better be at the land office at least a couple of days ahead. I shouldn't wonder but there's men-and women too, maybe-lined up there waiting now, but most of them are eager to file on the land closer in. They haven't been out that far, and they don't know what they're missing. Now there'll be a ten dollar fee to pay-you have a little money?" Burton nodded. "Very well. If you're short, say so. There'll be some other expenses too. You'll have to line up before the door of the land office and stay there night and day to hold your place. Caterers will bring you food if you are willing to pay for the service, and you can perhaps hire a man to stand in your place part of the time, but be sure he's honest, or he may give it up to someone else. Then, of course, you have a little land to break each year, and certain improvements to make in the way of building a house or the like, and in three years if you can show that you have lived on the property six months in each twelve and complied with the other regulations you will receive from the Government a certificate of t.i.tle to the property."

They talked about many details in connection with homestead life, talked, indeed, long after they were in bed, while a coyote howled to his mate across the plain and a waxing moon slanted its soft light through the single square window of the shanty.

Five days later Burton walked down the street to the Land Office. At first he thought there must be a riot or disturbance of some sort in front of the buildings, but on arrival found that the crowd was genial and orderly, and arranged in single file in the form of a half circle before the building. Where the end of the half circle came back to the curb the line extended along the sidewalk. Burton walked slowly the length of the line, looking curiously into the faces of these patient waiters; men of all nationalities, Canadian, American, British Islanders, German, Russian, French, Austrian, Pole, Italian, Hungarian, Scandinavian, Chinamen-here they were gathered from the corners of the globe and waiting patiently through night and day, through heat and cold, through wind and rain, through any trial and any hazard for the G.o.d-sent privilege, born of a new country, of calling the land beneath their feet their own. There were tired faces there, faces where the cheek bones stood rugged under a tawny skin and the eyes glowed under deep foreheads-faces of men from the ballast gang and the sewer gang, from the tie camp and the grading camp-men who had sweat hard in the hot sun for the few dollars necessary to stake them to home and t.i.tle of their own. Here and there a woman was seen in the line, seated on soap box or suit case, complacently knitting or engaged with her fancy work.

But they were all good-natured. This human material, combustible as powder, seemed as innocent as dry sand. And Burton learned that their good nature and their complacence was due to one fact only-their confidence that whatever was done would be done in conformity with the law and with absolute fairness to all concerned. Once shake that confidence, and you have dropped the spark into what you thought was sand!

Presently he reached the end of the line, and it was not until then that he realised that he was a part of this organisation, a link in this chain which stretched resolute and immovable along the street. Strange soldiers of fortune they were; men and women who feared neither the wilderness nor the hards.h.i.+ps of the pioneer; volunteers who marched out to the sunset to wrest an existence from the unknown. Fit sires and mothers these for the race that shall answer the questions of the next century!

Burton seated himself on the curb beside the last of the line. A Chinaman advanced with a basket of sandwiches and a pot of tea. Burton satisfied his hunger and thirst and paid the modest bill. A news-vendor sold him a magazine, and he sat down to while away the time until the doors should be opened and those at the head of the column should file in to register on the land of their choice.

The day waned and night settled in. Burton began to feel the need of a blanket, and hired a boy to buy him one at a store. A street lamp burned overhead and he bought an evening newspaper. Its touch seemed strange to his fingers-it was so long since he had handled a newspaper fresh from the press. He glanced over the black headlines, but found little of interest. What were the papers talking about, anyway? In the last two months he had fallen entirely out of touch with what is called the events of the world. In a company of well read men he would have seemed ignorant. And yet in his heart he felt that these last few weeks had brought him closer to life, closer to the real things of the world, than ever he had been before.

He turned over the inside pages idly until his eye, attracted by a familiar word, fell on a paragraph in an obscure corner. In a moment his attention was rivetted to the item, as he read:

"Plainville. The first a.s.size Court to be held in the town of Plainville will open on Monday. The docket will be a light one, consisting only of minor cases. The princ.i.p.al local interest centres about a charge against Raymond Burton of stealing $2,000 from the safe of his employer, one of the leading merchants of this place. The employer himself was so satisfied of Burton's innocence that he went his bail, but the young man has completely disappeared, and the confiding employer seems likely to forfeit his bond. The stolen money, however, was recovered, having been found in Burton's trunk by a detective engaged on the case."

He read the paragraph again and again. The words seemed to burn into his brain. Here was a dispatch, evidently sent through the regular news channels, and no doubt appearing in every daily paper in the country, a despatch that branded him not only as a thief-the words suggested no question as to his guilt-but as a fugitive from justice and a bail jumper. It placed him in the light of a criminal, and Gardiner in that of a martyr. It was thrown broadcast to the world. He was beginning to learn the awful truth that publicity has more terrors than the penitentiary. If one could go to jail quietly, without any fuss, without any crowds, without cameras or photographs or reporters or newspapers, and return in the same way, it might be bearable. But this-this was worse than any sentence within the province of the Court. What would the public think? What would his friends think? What would _she_ think? What _could_ she think?

Burton sat and pondered, gazing down the long street and seeing only his own checkered career. Where would not this thing follow him? He had thought himself safe at McKay's; he had fled from the farmer's home like a frightened child from a whipping. He had thought to lose himself on a homestead; on the very threshold of his hew life the tale of his shame was thrust in his face. From somewhere a sentence came into his mind.

"Be sure your sin will find you out." But he had not sinned. That was the rub. He was innocent-yes, as innocent as the thoughtless correspondent who sent that despatch. But stay; does an innocent man jump his bail? Something seemed to say to Burton that at that moment an innocent man becomes a guilty one. And the load of his guilt seemed mounting up. He had left Gardiner to pay the price of his unfaithfulness. There was no evading that, although he had not thought of it in that light before. In the eyes of the world he was already a criminal. And yet to go back-what would that avail? Every evidence-every circ.u.mstance, was against him. To go back would simply be to have the Court confirm the sentence already pa.s.sed by public opinion.

He gazed down the long street into the darkness. Presently a red light showed at the end, a trifle to the left, where it glowed in narrow streaks through the ranks of the telephone poles. It grew quickly in volume, and Burton at first thought it was a fire; but soon he knew it to be the rising moon. The scene stirred something in his memory; some vague recollection of the past. And then it burst upon him, and he saw again the sun setting through the stately elms at Crotton's Crossing; the blood, and the bars. And then behind it all rose that quiet, thoughtful face which guarded the end of every avenue of his thought.

He put his head between his hands and wept.

A man who had sat down beside him, but after him, having arrived late that evening, straightened up and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Wot's the matter, hold chap?" he asked in a low voice, that their sleeping neighbours might not hear. "Wot's the matter? Got a pine, or somethink, or are you 'omesick?"

In the dim light Burton could not distinguish the face, but the voice he would have known anywhere.

"London!" he cried, as he threw his arms about the astonished boy and hugged him like a child.

Then were a few moments of golden silence; then a few words of explanation.

When they spoke of home Burton's first question was for Miss Vane.

"Hi left 'er with a 'eavy 'eart," said Wilfred, "but still 'oping. Ho, Hi sy, 'ere is somethink she sent you."

The boy produced his little pocket-book and Burton struck a match, for the shop lights were off and the street was in partial darkness.

Presently the lad located a little torn piece of printed paper.