Vandemark's Folly Part 30

Well, as I looked about among the governor's working people, as I have said, I saw a head taller than the rest, the big form of Pitt Bushyager. He was looking at me with that daredevil smile of his, the handsomest man there, with his curling brown mustache and goatee; and nodded at me as the judge got into the carriage in the back seat with Mrs. Stone, and Virginia came up in her pretty pink silk, with the Paisley shawl around her shoulders, to be helped up into the front seat with me. The satchel of money was placed under the seat where the judge could feel it with his feet.

We drove off in that silence which comes with the drowsiness that follows excitement, especially along toward morning. The night was dark and still. Virginia's presence reminded me of those days of happiness wher we drove into Iowa alone together; but I was not happy I had lived with this girl in my dreams ever since, and now I faced the wrench of giving her up; for I repeated in my own mind over and over again that she would never think of me with such big bugs as Bob Wade s.h.i.+ning around her.

The Judge and Mrs. Stone were talking together now, and I heard references to the money. Then I began to turn over in my slow mind the fact, known to me alone, that there was a man at the Wade farm who was one of a band of thieves, and who knew about our having the money. If he really was connected with the Bunker boys, what was more likely than that he had ways of pa.s.sing the word along to some of them who might be waiting to rob us on our way home? But the crime that I was sure had been committed back along the road the spring before had been horse-stealing. I wondered whether or not the business of outlawry was not specialized, so that some stole horses, others robbed banks, others were highwaymen, and the like.

All this time Virginia seemed to be snuggling up a little closer. Maybe Pitt Bushyager and his brothers were just plain horse-thieves, and nothing else. Perhaps they were just hired to help drive in the horses; but why, then, did Pitt have two animals in Monterey Centre when I saw him there the morning I arrived?

6

Jim Boyd's light buggy had got far ahead of us, out of hearing, and the lumber wagons, with the bulk of the crowd, were far in the rear. We were alone. As we came to a road which wound off to the south toward where there was a settlement of Hoosiers who had made a trail to the Wade place, I turned off and followed it, knowing that when I got to the Hoosier settlement, I should find a road into the Centre. It was a mistake made a-purpose, done on that instinct which protects the man who feels that he may be trailed. I was on an unexpected path to any one waiting for us. Finally Virginia spoke to me.

"How is our farm?" she asked.

Now I had not forgotten how she had been kissed by Bob Wade, and probably, while I was outside sulking, by a dozen others. By instinct again--the instinct of a jealous boy--I started in to punish her.

"All right," I said surlily.

"What crops have you planted?" she went on.

"About ten acres of wheat," I said, "and the rest of my breaking in corn and oats. You see, I have to put in all the time I can in breaking."

"How is the white heifer?" she asked, inquiring as to one of my cattle that she had petted a lot.

"She has a calf," said I.

"Oh, has she? How I wish I could see it! What color is it?"

"Spotted."

There followed a long silence, during which we went farther and farther off the road.

"Jake," said the judge, "whose house is that we just pa.s.sed?"

"It's that new Irishman's," said I. "Mike Cosgrove, ain't that his name?"

"Well, then," said the judge, "we're off the road. Stop!"

"Yes," I said, "I made the wrong turn back there. It's only a little farther."

The judge was plainly put out about this. He even wanted to go back to the regular road again, and when I explained that we would soon reach a trail which would lead right into the Centre, he still persisted.

"If we were to be robbed on this out-of-the-way road," said he, "it would look funny."

"It would look funnier," I said, "if we were to go back and then get robbed. Any one waiting to rob us would be on the regular road, wouldn't they?"

So I stubbornly drove on, the judge grumbling all the while for a mile or so. Then he and Mrs. Stone began talking in a low tone, under the cover of which Virginia resumed her conversation with me.

"You are a stubborn Dutchman," said she. To which I saw no need of making any reply.

"You seemed to have a good time," she said, presently.

"I didn't," said I. "I'm n.o.body by the side of such people as Bob Wade.

I wasn't even invited. I'm just paid to come along with the judge to protect the county's money. You'll never see me again at any of your grand kissing parties."

"It was the first I ever went to," said she; "but you seemed to know what to do pretty well--you and Kittie Fleming."

This stumped me for a while, and we drove on in silence.

"I didn't kiss her," I said.

"It looked like it," said Virginia.

"She kissed me," I protested.

"You seemed to like it," she insisted.

"I didn't!" I said, mad all over. "And I quit just as soon as the kissing began."

"You ought to have stayed," she said stiffly. "The fun was just beginning when you flounced out."

And then came one of the interesting events of this eventful night. We turned into the main road to Monterey Centre, just where Duncan McAlpine's barn now stands, and I thought I saw down in the hollow where it was still dark, though the light was beginning to dawn in the east, a clump of dark objects like cattle or horses--or hors.e.m.e.n. As I looked, they moved into the road as if to stop us. I drew my pistol, fired it over their heads, and they scattered. Then, I was scared still more, by a sound as of a cavalry or a battery of artillery coming behind us. It was three loads of people on the hayracks, who had overtaken us on account of our having gone by the roundabout way; coming at a keen gallop down the hill to have the credit of pa.s.sing a fancy carriage.

They pa.s.sed us like a tornado; shouting as they went by, asking what I had shot at, and telling us to hurry up so as to get home by breakfast time. The hors.e.m.e.n ahead, whatever might have been their plans, did not seem to care to argue matters with so large a force, and rode off in several directions, while I pressed close to the rear of the last hayrack. Thus we drove into Monterey Centre.

"What did you shoot for?" asked the judge as we stopped at his house.

"I wanted to warn a lot of men on horseback that were heading us off, that there'd be trouble if they tried to stop us," I answered.

"d.a.m.ned foolishness," said the judge. "Well, come in and let's have a bite to eat."

7

Virginia was staying with them the rest of the night; but as I helped her out, feeling in her stiffness that she was offended with me, I insisted that I would go on home. The judge, who had been ready to abuse me a moment before, now took hold of me and forced me into the house. As we went in carrying the satchel, he lifted it up on the table.

"We may as well take a look at it," said he.

Mrs. Stone and Virginia and I all stood by the table as he unsnapped the catch and opened the bag. It was full almost to the top.

"That ain't the way I packed that money!" said the judge.

His hands trembled as he pulled the contents out. It was full of the bags and wrappers in which the money had been packed, according to the judge's tell; but there was no money in the wrappers, and the bags were full, not of coins, but of common salt. That was what made it so heavy; and that was what always made it such a mystery: for all the salt used in Monterey County then was common barrel salt. It was the same kind, whether it was got from the barrel from which the farmer salted his cattle, or from the supply in the kitchen of the dweller in the town.

There was no clue in it. It was just salt! We all cried out in surprise, not understanding that we were looking at the thing which was to be fought over until either Judge Stone or Governor Wade was destroyed.

"I am ruined!" Judge Stone fell back into a chair groaning. Then he jumped to his feet. "They've taken it out while we were at the party!"

he shouted. "The d.a.m.ned, canting, sniveling old thief! No wonder he's got money! He probably stole it where he came from! Jake, we've got to go back and make him give this money back--come on!"

"Make who give it back?" I asked.