Moosemeadows/Chapter 10
X
WHO'S there! Name yourself!" cried Tom, his voice at once threatening an apprehensive.
It checked me on the threshold. I knew, by its desperate note and hysterical shake, that the old man had a hand on an offensive or defensive weapon of some sort and was keyed up to the pitch required for its most effective use.
"It's Giddy," I said; and then I heard the creak of a board behind me, and turned my head. "That you, Sol?" I asked.
"Sure," replied the voice of the big Maliseet. "Hear somethin' in a hurry, so jump quick. You all by yerself? A'right."
"Yes, I'm alone," I answered. "You'd better hop back to bed, Sol."
By this time, Tom had struck a match and set it to the wick of his candle. He was sitting bolt upright. I stepped across the matted floor, drew up a chair to the side of the bed and sat down, facing him. The flame of the candle grew and burned clear. I saw two pistols of ancient pattern lying on the little night-table beside the candlestick; and, on the patchwork quilt of the bed, a belt-ax; and from beneath the holster protruded the unmistakable butt of a shotgun. I was glad that I had checked at the threshold and given my name.
"You've been out!" exclaimed Tom. "What has happened? Where's Ruben? Where's the dog?"
"Ruben is in the woods, and Lion is outside with the other dogs," I said. "He'll come in when old Glashner comes back, never fear! Yes, I've been out—rather!—and now I know who shot at me. I was a fool not to guess it at first."
"Who?" he whispered, staring.
"I spotted old Ruben down in the kitchen, with a lantern and a basket," I replied. "Lion and I went out after him, and trailed him. We followed him about two miles along the old woodroad, and then into the woods on the left about half a mile, or more, to an encampment. There was a fire, and there was a lean-to of brush and poles with a man in it. He said he would live to rip the guts out of the fellow who'd shot him. That was the shot Stack and I heard, down by the meadow. He talked a good deal about killing people—people already killed and yet to be killed. He asked old Ruben if he hadn't already bumped off a sufficient number to prove that murder was no more to him than pulling a cork. Ruben lay down, and the fire fell low, and I crawled around to the back of the camp. I took a look at the murderer through a hole in the roof. I knew by his bandaged hand that he was the peddler—and by his face who he really is. Then I knew that you had guessed it first, and I understood why you had lost your nerve. It's the face of a devil. Now I believe everything bad I've ever heard of him; and I don't blame the' people for hating the very name of Deblore."
Tom sighed, groaned, nodded his head.
"But what has brought him back?" I continued. "He is looking for that treasure—and blood. Then there must be something in those old rumors, to bring him back after all these years."
"God knows! Is he seriously wounded, d'ye think?"
"I think he has got what's his due at last. He was delirious. He looked that way, though I couldn't see the wound. Below his shoulders somewhere. I guess he has done his last murder; and I just missed being it."
"He is my brother, Giddy. We were never friends, of course, and he robbed me of my inheritance for years. He was bad, 'tis true, but to call in the authorities would be to publish his whole past, and a hundred suspicions, to the world. His past—and mine. I am content to live quietly here. And the name, Giddy. It used to be a proud name—If he is wounded to the death, that will be best. To have him die quietly there in the woods, tended by Ruben Glashner. Ruben was his tool in the old days. If so, that was a blessed shot, whoever fired it. You believe him to be seriously wounded? You think that he is unable to stand?"
"He didn't raise his shoulders once while I was there. But I know that he has survived serious wounds before this. That scar, for instance. When did he get that?"
"Scar?" queried the old man. "I don't remember anything of the kind about Henry, no visible scar. But it is years since I last saw him, more than ten years. I have hoped that he was dead. What manner of scar?"
"A sabre may have done it," I replied. "A devil of a hack, whatever did it. From the right eyebrow up and across to somewhere in front of the left ear. I've seen plenty of bad scars, and bad wounds"
I stopped, gazing at Tom Deblore. Tom stared at me, but I knew that he was seeing something else. His lower jaw was sagged. His nose and forehead and cheekbones were bloodless. I glanced over my shoulder, behind me, but there was nothing terrible to be seen there—nothing but my own shadow on the wall. I brought back my glance to the old man's face. He brought up his jaw and moved his lips, but all I could hear was a mumble.
"What's wrong?" I asked, leaning forward from my chair, "Are you ill? You need something, a drink."
"His eyes?" he whispered, almost breathless with the stress of his emotion. "Blue, like mine?"
"They didn't appear so to me," I answered. "They were black—by lantern-light, at least. Black and deep sunk, but large. He was delirious. He was dark—what I could see of his skin. Swarthy."
The old man fell back on his pillow, with a hand pressed to his heart. He whispered something I did not catch, but I had sense enough to realize what he needed most at the moment and to act quick. I found it in the drawer of his washstand—a bottle half-full of brandy. I poured a stiff shot into him; after which he gasped several times, and then sat up again.
"If that is true, then Heaven help me!" he moaned.
"What?" I asked.
He did not answer my question. Instead, he helped himself to another swig from the bottle. Feeling somewhat done-in myself, I followed his example.
"I'll think of something, by morning," he whispered. "You'd better turn in for a few hours. I'll try to think of something. You think there's nothing to fear from him tonight—that he's in no condition to get about for a few hours?"
"Get about! Not inside a month, even if he had a doctor—if ever. He's done for, in my opinion."
"God grant it! Good night."
Tom Deblore's behavior, his obvious increase of terror, had wrought such confusion in my mind that when I left him I failed to recall the fact that I was in hiding and pretending to be dead. I did not give the spider-haunted tunnel in the pitch of the roof a thought, but went directly to the large chamber that had first been put at my disposal, shook and kicked off the most easily detached articles of apparel and tumbled into bed.
It was ten o'clock when I awoke. The sky was gray, and a thin rain drifted on a misty draught from the east. I found Deblore and Sol and Amy in the kitchen, and the breakfast dishes still on the table. This surprised me, for Tom had once told me that the weather was never bad enough to keep Sol indoors from some job in field or wood or barn. And now the energetic Indian sat beside the stove with a pipe in his mouth, his hands idle in his lap and an expression of puzzled resignation and anxiety on his large, smooth face. Amy moved about with an aimless air, and a facial expression to match her husband's. Tom sat beside a window near the door, peering out past the barns and across the road at the dark, dulled edge of the forest. His hands trembled on a shot-gun which lay across his knees.
"What has happened?" I asked. "What's chased you indoors?"
Three pairs of eyes were turned upon me. Tom's were tragic, desperate, haunted; but he made a show of spirit.
"We weren't chased in!" he cried sharply. Then, his voice fallen flat and low, "We haven't been out—not farther than the barns," he added. He turned his face back to the window. "Can't you see that it's raining?" he asked fretfully. "We don't have to work in the rain. D'ye think I'm a beggar? Dear, heaven! You don't know a damn thing about it! None of you!"
He sounded childish. Worse than that! He sounded insane—crazy with fear. The realization that one brother could be so terrified as this of another was shocking. It was against nature. It had a background of black and crawling shadows that daunted my imagination. But what had pressed him down to this new and lower pit of terror? Was it what I had said about the scar? But why? He did not love Henry.
There was not rain enough to discourage a man of sugar or of salt; but I did not say so. I also refrained from remarking on the presence of the gun in his lap. Both hammers were up; so I thought it wise not to excite him. Fear had evidently unhinged his mind. This was a sickening reflection, for I liked him. I believed him to be honest and kindly. As he peered out through the wet pane, I took an eye-full of the weapon across his knees. It was evidently the same piece that had been under his bolster last night. It was double-barreled and of an ancient model, a muzzle-loader. A copper cap glistened on each nipple, under each cocked hammer. I did not like the look of it. Suppose his insanity suddenly increased to the stage at which he would not know his friends from his enemies? I turned away from him—but not without a mighty effort of will. I felt an unpleasant ghost of sensation between my shoulders, as if I carried a painted bulls-eye there. But I went slowly, with a casual air, over to Sol Bear. I spoke in a low voice.
"What is he afraid of?" I asked.
"I dunno. You told 'im," replied Sol, out of a corner of his mouth.
"He was afraid yesterday."
"Sure."
"But he is more afraid now."
"Sure. Scare to deat'. You scare 'im last night."
"But he had the gun under his bolster when I went into his room."
"Sure. Keep 'im thar all the time for fear someone try to set the barns afire when it's dark."
"But the ax on his bed?"
"Sure, he was scare before, but you scare 'im crazy."
Amy brought the coffee-pot from the stove. I sat down at the cluttered table and drank and ate. Then I lit my pipe and pushed back my chair.
"Didn't old Glashner come home last night?" I asked.
"No, he don't come yet," said Sol. "Damn good t'ing he never come."
"Here he comes now!" exclaimed Deblore. "And alone." He lowered the hammers of his gun softly and stood the weapon against the wall. "But you keep an eye on him, Sol. I'll keep an eye out the window."
"You scared of him?" queried Sol.
"He's a tool," returned the other hurriedly. "He'll do what he's been told to do—if it is as I fear, have every reason to fear."
Suddenly remembering that I was supposed to be dead, I retreated up the back stairs. But I did not go to the place of dust and decay in the pitch of the roof. I felt, without knowing why, that the matter of fooling old Ruben Glashner and his confederate was not now as important as it had been. I felt that the menace to my life had passed. I had seen the killer helpless on his back. And yet the whole affair had become more awesome and mysterious. Tom Deblore's reason was shaken; and I now felt an anxiety more depressing, though nameless, than that which I had experienced when I believed my life to be in deadly peril. I retired to my big bedroom and locked the door. There I sat in a musty armchair for two solid hours, waiting, wondering, harkening to rats in the walls and birds in the chimneys and trying to soothe my nerves with tobacco.
I heard a rapping on the door, and then Tom's voice asking admittance. I unlocked and opened for him.
"He has gone back," exclaimed Tom. "He was dazed. Not a word out of him except when he asked for whisky. Ate without being invited—helped himself—and like a wolf. I gave him whisky, some that I'm not sure about. He didn't even pretend he was deaf. Sort of scared, lost look in his eye. Something has happened. You know the way, Giddy. I'd like to know what's happened. I'd go myself, only I—well, I don't know the way."
"I'll go, with pleasure," I said. "And I'll take Lion. How much of a start has he?"
"He left the kitchen about ten minutes ago."
The sky was still low and gray, the little wind from the east had died out, and the warm rain was still seeping down. Lion and I stepped out briskly. I felt no anxiety now as to my personal safety, for I did not believe old Ruben to be dangerous in daylight; and it was my opinion that the thing now troubling him, the cause of his dazed manner, was the death of his confederate. I believed that Henry Deblore had died of his wound, despite his murderous boast. This had been my first thought when Tom had told me of the change in Ruben; but I had not mentioned it at the time. They were brothers, after all.
Old Glashner could not have made the most of his ten minutes' start: he must have dawdled by the way, for upon rounding a trespassing wedge of alders we beheld him within twenty-five yards of us. He had his back to us and was plodding heavily forward, stooped even more than was usual with him. Over his shoulder showed a rusty pick and a rusty spade. It was evident to me at a glance that he had not heard us. Lion and I backed to the screen of alders and there crouched. When we ventured forth again, he was out of sight beyond a bend in the old road. From that point onward we advanced with proper circumspection. We did not catch sight of him again on the road.
A pick-ax and a spade? They were well worth considering. Could it be that the old man was on his way to the scene of his nocturnal labors in the hardhack? Perhaps he had lost the tools with which he had already delved and prodded. If this were so, did it mean that his confederate, Henry Deblore, was so far recovered as to be able to look after himself for hours at a time? Or did it mean that old Ruben was so heartless, or so eager in his search for treasure that he did not care what became of the wounded man. The first theory struck me as impossible, the second as highly improbable. I was convinced that Henry's wound was serious. From what I had seen in the lean-to shelter, from what I knew of Ruben, and from what I had heard of old Henry Deblore, I judged it to be unlikely that the one-eyed man, the fool and tool, would take any liberties, with the scarred man, the killer, his master, so long as the latter had a spark of life left in him or a gleam in his devilish eyes. But perhaps Ruben was not going treasure-digging. Perhaps the rusty pick and spade were for the excavation of a grave. This explanation of old Ruben's changed manner and dreary equipment still seemed my best bet.
The big dog and I turned off the logging road into the woods at the marks which I had made in the green moss. In due course I gained a view of the little dell in which I had first discovered the fire and rustic shelter of the conspirators. The shelter was still there, but it was now empty. The fire was only a smokeless mound of ashes now, black and gray under the slow rain. The fact that the brushy lean-to was no longer occupied by a blanket-swathed figure disconcerted me for a moment, but a sight of old Ruben Glashner stooped at the near edge of the dead ashes reassured me. The old man was busy, but his motions were slow and feeble. He was picking into the rooty forest loam. He was a dreary figure in a dreary picture, stooped almost double there in the gray rain against a background of drenched ashes and dripping spruces. He did not straighten his back even with the backward swing of the pick-ax.
Lion and I crawled closer to the desolate encampment. Presently I saw what I was looking for, the one feature to complete the cheerless scene to my satisfaction. This was the blanket-swathed figure. It lay in a bed of half-grown bracken within a few yards of where old Ruben picked so wearily at the rooty ground.
"Dead," I whispered. "The killer has made his last kill."
Lion saw and understood. He swept his fine brush from side to side.
The grave-digger's motions became slower and feebler. At last he loosed his hold on the haft of the pick and turned away, leaving the iron in the ground. He moved slowly to the shelter, dragging his feet. His hands were on the small of his back, and he twitched with his efforts to straighten himself. His efforts were only partially successful. Within the shelter he stooped low again, then stood more nearly perpendicular than I had ever seen him. Now he held a large black bottle in his right hand, the clutch of his earthy fingers on its neck. He raised it to his lips, tipped it and threw back his head. The lump in his thin throat twitched convulsively a dozen times or more.
He returned to the pick, jerked it out, swung it and drove it deep. He repeated the performance with undiminished vigor, once, twice, yet a third time; and I began to hope that the grave would be dug within the hour. Then his vigor slackened. He hung over the pick with bowed back. He wrenched and jerked to get it out of the ground. He staggered on the upward swing. He came within an ace of crumpling at the top of the swing. I became impatient. I wanted to go home and change my clothes; but, before that, I was determined to witness the burial of Henry Deblore. I would speed things up, to this end, even if I had to lend a hand with pick and spade. I arose to my feet and stepped forward from the wet cover in which I had crouched. Lion shook himself and followed close.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
The digger had completed his swing and now sagged over the slanted haft. He had been breathing hard and wiggling feebly at the haft when I spoke, but at the first sound of my voice he seemed to cease to breathe. His feeble wriggling motion, evidently intended to bring the pick clear of the earth, also ceased. His head ceased to wobble. He became as a hunched, grotesque figure of wood. I halted and stood waiting, with a hand in my pocket, wondering if he were armed and dangerous. It did not seem likely; and yet it was quite evident that he was contemplating something. I felt no anxiety, however, knowing that I'd have the draw on him if shooting should prove to be the move he was considering. He was certainly considering something, considering it hard. So I stood motionless, wondering and waiting, with the big dog motionless beside me.
At last the old man's head began to move. Nothing stirred but his head, not a muscle of any other part of him. It turned slowly in my direction, bringing his ignoble face slowly into my view. His single eye came to bear on me; and then, with a choking scream, he collapsed and lay still. This recalled to my mind the fact that he believed me to be dead, murdered.
I strode forward, grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and yanked him to his feet. I felt no pity for him. He had planned my murder. I put him on his feet, but his legs were useless. He flopped and again lay humped. I found a kettle of cold tea in the shelter and poured it in his face, soggy leaves and all. He gasped and moaned, but did not open his eye. He whimpered.
"Get up!" I cried. "Get to work, you dirty old sneak! Dig it big enough for two, you murdering old fool. But I'm not dead. I don't need a grave. Get up and get to work; and dig it deep."
He opened his eye.
"You see me," I continued, "alive—but more dangerous than any ghost. Get up, or I'll set Lion on you. He's just waiting for the word."
The big dog growled and curled his upper lip away from his teeth; and Ruben Glashner scrambled to his feet. I looked at him. keeping nothing of what I thought and felt about him from my eyees.
"Have you found the treasure?" I asked, sneering.
He swallowed hard and shook his head.
"Come here," I said, and stepped over to the body in the ferns.
It was covered completely from the feet to the crown of the head.
"Let me see his face," I ordered. "Turn down the blanket."
He obeyed. The eyes of the murderer had not been closed after death. They were wide open, staring, blank. The lower jaw sagged.
"Is it Henry Deblore?" I asked.
"Sure it's Henry," answered Ruben. "He said he was; an' I'd ought to know. We was old friends, Hen an' me. He remembered everythin'."
"He was shot when you two were digging out on the hardhack."
"Sure, but it wasn't much. He was a sick man that night anyhow, but he wouldn't own to it."
"It killed him," I said. "Whoever fired that shot did a good thing; and if there'd been a second bullet for you it would have been better."
"But he was sick already, ain't I told ye! His left arm all swelled an' black. Sick as a dog. Couldn't keep nothin' down but brandy. It was the shot in his left hand done for 'im, from yer own little pistol. But he wouldn't own to it. He said he cured that when he shot yerself down the crick. An' so it had ought to done. Kill the dog that bit ye an' ye don't git hydrophoby." He paused, staring at me with his one eye. He wagged his head. "But ye ain't dead," he continued. "If ye was, he wouldn't of died. But we cal'lated ye was done for, so he held it was the nick in his shoulder—no more'n a scratch—got 'im."
"He was planning some more murders," I said.
"Sure, he was a-plannin' some more," replied Ruben, with a note of admiration in his crazy voice. "Thar was the Jeanbards, an' thar was Tom. The girl found 'im out somehow, an' she must of blabbed to Jules or someone. He reckoned to kill her an' Jules, anyhow. That was him—afeared of nobody nor nothin'. I wish I was like that."
"You poor fool," I said. "If you were like that, if you had even a murderer's courage, you'd be dangerous. It's the insane asylum for you. Get under cover there, and sit down. I'll take a spell at digging."
He turned away and entered the shelter. Lion walked after him; and on second thoughts, so did I. But I would have been a few seconds too late. He snatched a rifle from beneath a blanket on the ground and turned in a flash. But the big dog, having more sense than I had, was in time. He sprang hard and straight. The rifle whanged, a bullet went skyward, and Ruben Glashner struck the ground with the flat of his back. I picked up the rifle and called Lion off. Then I dragged the old man out and set him to work. Lion and I sat in the shelter and watched him pick and dig. I was pitiless. I made no allowance for his insanity. When he begged me for drink, I gave him the bottle from which he had already imbibed freely, which was still half-full. I was not interested in his health. He was welcome to kill himself, either with over-exertion or overindulgence in liquor. I was concerned only with the digging of the grave.
He took a long time about it. He rested frequently, sometimes lying on his face and sometimes on his back. If he lay too long, I sent Lion out to persuade him to resume his labor.
"He is aching for an excuse to kill you," I said, on one of those occasions. "He knows of your attempts to poison him, just as well as I know why you advised me to paddle down to the settlement that morning."
He did not say a word. He resorted frequently to the bottle for strength.
A little later, I told him of my clever work with the fly-leaf from the ancient book and a pen dipped in tincture of iodine. It took him a long time to believe that. He was incredulous. He even made verbal protest, assuring me that it must be a true and correct map because Henry had accepted it as such, and Henry had never been fooled.
At last the grave took him to his elbows, and the bottle was empty. I went over and found him collapsed in the bottom of the hole he had dug. I dragged him out, rolled the dead man in, and set to work with the spade. Having filled the grave level, and scattered the surplus soil, I looked about me for some simple means of concealing it. The chance discovery of a grave in the woods is almost certain to start surmises and rumors and perhaps lead to enquiries. Old Glashner still lay where I had dropped him, unconscious. I gathered large, mossy stones from close at hand and laid them on the spaded earth. But this was not concealment enough. I scattered several spade-fulls of sodden ashes among the stones. Even this did not satisfy me; so I tore down the brush and slender poles of the lean-to and piled them upon the grave. But the brush was wet and would require dry stuff to kindle it to flame. There was plenty of such material around me in the forest—dead branches of spruces and firs, and birch-bark curling to be pulled. But I stepped over for a look at old Glashner before going after it. He opened his one eye at me. His face was flushed and his eye was wild. He sat up, only to lie back again.
"Hen's hard," he said. "He'll work a man to the bone an' then into the grave. He used ter be like that—an' now he's worse. The same, only worse. Thar never was a man in the country, only me, could keep friends with 'im. But he ain't jist the same now as afore he went away."
"He is dead now, and buried, so why worry," I answered.
I went in among the trees to gather kindlings, leaving Lion to keep an eye on the old man. I took the rifle with me. I soon returned with as much dry brush and bark as I could get two arms around. After placing this, I moved old Ruben to a spot at the edge of the dell and in the shelter of a wide-limbed spruce. He was quite off his chump, muttering and mumbling. I had to lift him and carry him. He was hot as fire. I felt his heat through his wet clothes and my own. I was glad to put him down.
The fire was a success. Once the flame from the dry stuff had taken hold, it went with a roar. At first it was all smoke, white smoke thick as oil gushing through and- coiling and crawling straight up into the rain. The rain beat the acrid smell of it back to earth. Old Ruben rolled and muttered where he lay on the moss beside me.
"The house is afire," he gabbled. "The house is afire. Thar goes Tom—an' them injuns—an' good riddance. Hen, ye're the devil himself! Worse'n ye used ter be. Never a word of Holy Scripture now to sweeten it, like in the old days. The money is all we want, Hen, an' we's good as got our hands on it now. An' a man hadn't ought to burn his own brother to death that a-way. It ain't natural—An' the barns, too. D'ye hear the hosses jumpin' an' lashin' out? God's will be done!"
He sank back, exhausted. I scouted around, on the lookout for falling sparks; but the rain took care of the sparks. The fire devoured the brush and poles to white and rusty red ashes and a network of black charcoal. I called to Lion and walked off, with the rifle in the crook of my arm, leaving old Ruben still prostrate and muttering in the partial shelter of the big spruce and the warm rain still dredging down softly and penetratingly. I felt a vast relief. Our enemy was dead, and his grave was hidden, and his poor mad tool was now nothing but a thing to abhor and despise and forget. I felt a vast satisfaction. I had lifted a curse from the old house of Moosemeadows Park.
The big dog halted and looked back through the wet woods several times. At the edge of the logging-road, I, too, paused uncertainly. I turned and looked back. I hesitated.
"If he is insane, then of course he is not to blame," I said.
Lion wagged his tail. If there was ever a thorough good sportsman, it was that dog.
We retraced our steps through the drenching underbrush, under the dripping boughs. We found the old man exactly where we had left him. I found the tea-kettle, and then a little spring at an edge of the dell. I deluged his face and neck with water until he turned over and the nature of his breathing became less desperate. I found a packet of coffee, and other provisions, and empty bottles, in a bag and a basket on the ground where the lean-to had been. I blew and fed a nest of red embers to flame and boiled coffee. I drank of the coffee myself, then poured a good dose of it into the old man, and it seemed to revive him.
He was not an easy thing to carry in one's arms; but I carried him. I laid him down frequently, for a few minutes at a time. I was more than half-way home, and feeling worse than Sinbad during his adventure with the Old Man of the Sea, when Sol Bear suddenly appeared out of the wet dusk. He was relieved to see me. He was even glad, so glad that he said so. When I told him that the man with the scarred head was not only dead, but buried deep, his face lighted as if a ray of sunshine had found it. He relieved me of my burden without a word or look of protest. By industrious questioning, I gathered that Tom had been limp with blue funk ever since my departure, had expressed his fears for my safety as time passed, yet had refused to allow Sol to go to my assistance and yet had been afraid to go himself. He had sat at the window, through all those hours, with the gun across his knees. Sol had never seen anyone in so absolute and prolonged a state of terror. Sol had finally defied him and walked out.
It was long past supper-time when we reached the house, but there was no sign of supper and even the lamp had not been lit. Sol opened the door and cried, "Giddy's a'right an' here he is," and Lion ran into the kitchen with Duster and Spud at his heels. As Sol and I followed the dogs, I said, "We've got old Ruben here, too, and he is just about all in."
I heard Deblore stand his gun against the wall.
"Where's the—the other?" he asked.
"Where he won't do any more harm," I answered.
Just then Amy Bear struck a match and lit the lamp on the table. Sol deposited old Glashner on the floor. I turned to Tom, who was leaning forward in his chair with his eyes fixed on me.
"It is all right," I said. "He was dead when I got there. Ruben dug his grave and I buried him."
Tom's whiskers were working. "Are you sure of that?" he asked. "Dead—that man with the puckered eye-brow and scarred forehead? Will you swear to that?"
"I know a dead man when I see one," I replied. "Don't be a fool! Brace up, for Heaven's sake! He is under three feet of earth and rocks. Go dig him up and take a look, if you don't believe me."
Tom leaned back in his chair, without a word. He sat like that for several minuts, silent and motionless. He sighed like a diver coming up from deep water, reached for the old gun, picked the caps from the nipples and let down the hammers. He threw the caps away, got briskly to his feet and walked over to where Ruben Glashner lay muttering on the floor. As he studied Ruben, I studied him. He looked like a new man. There was not the faintest suggestion of regret in his eyes. They twinkled. He had no cause to love his brother, of course, and evidently plenty of cause to fear him; but it seemed to me that he might have at least assumed an expression of decent gravity.
"Is our clever friend under the weather?" he asked.
"I'll be surprised if he lives till morning," I said. "His mind is gone, anyway. I'm afraid that I was rather hard on him."
"He's drunk, for one thing—the old blackguard," said Tom with a chuckle. "If that's all that ails him, he'll be on his feet again by morning. Drink's a thing he'll never die of."
"He is drunk, sure enough," I answered. "But that is not all. For one thing, he was very nearly scared to death—just as you have been recently. You were in such a rotten funk that you wouldn't leave the house to help me, though you thought I was in deadly peril."
"I'm sorry," he said. "If you realized my relief—If you knew all—When I tell you—but not just now!—you'll understand. But what about our friend here?" He laughed suddenly. "I am thinking of what I put up with from that old fool, just for fear of my neighbors—of those clodhoppers in the settlement. God! Now I would send the old beast packing in a minute, if he were able to walk—and think no more of it than of filling my pipe. Public opinion! Neighbors! Envious, sneaking clodhoppers! If I ever hear any more threats from the settlement I'll hire a brace of police-detectives to watch them. You see, Giddy? Now I realize how little I had to be apprehensive of. Today—this day's hell—has opened my eyes, corrected my values."
"Today? But you were afraid yesterday," I said.
"Naturally—since the moment of hearing of the attempt on your life. I was apprehensive. Call it fear, if you will. But terror!" He turned to Amy, who was at the stove, and requested her to speed up the supper. He indicated the old man on the floor with an airy gesture. "Put him to bed, Sol," he said. "I can afford to be merciful." He walked to the door and looked out. "The rain is over. A breath from the west. Stars will be showing in a few minutes." He returned to the table, rubbing his hands together cheerily.