Shorty McCabe | Page 6

gamble that the old woman's right."
"The old man's mighty positive," says I. "Wonder how long it'll be
before we get the returns?"
"Perhaps half an hour," says Leonidas. "He'll have to thrash it all out
with Ase before he starts back. We might as well sit up and wait.
Anyway I want to see which gets the best of it."
"Let's have a smoke, then," says I.
"Why not go along with the old man?" says Leonidas. "If he finds he's
wrong he may come back and lie about it."
Well, it was a fool thing to do, when you think about it, but somehow
Leonidas had a way of lookin' at things that was different from other
folks. He didn't know any more about that there Hen Dorsett than I did,
but he seemed just as keen as if it was all in the family. We had hustled
our clothes on and was sneakin' down the front stairs as easy as we
could when we hears from Homer.
"I heard you dressing," says he, "so I got up, too. I haven't been asleep
yet."
"Then come along with us," says Leonidas. "It'll do you good. We're
only going up the street to find out when it was that the cars struck Hen
Dorsett."
Homer didn't savvy, but he didn't care. Mainly he wanted comp'ny. He
whispered to us to go easy, suspectin' that if we woke up Mother
Bickell she'd want to feed him some more clam fritters. By the time
we'd unlocked the front door though, she was after us, but all she

wanted was to make Homer wrap a shawl around his head to keep out
the night air.
"And don't you dare take it off until you get back," says she. Homer
was glad to get away so easy and said he wouldn't. But he was a sight,
lookin' like a Turk with a sore throat.
The old man had routed Ase Horner out by the time we got there, and
they was havin' it hot and heavy. Ase said it wasn't either November
nor March when he went up after Hen Dorsett, but the middle of
October. He knew because he'd just begun shingling his kitchen and the
line storm came along before he got it finished. More'n that, it was in
'84, for that was the year he ran for sheriff.
"See here, gentlemen," says Leonidas, "isn't it possible to find some
official record of this sad tragedy? You'll excuse us, being strangers,
for takin' a hand, but there don't seem to be much show of our getting
any sleep until this thing is settled. Besides, I'd like to know myself.
Now let's go to the records."
"I'm ready," says Ase. "If this thick-headed old idiot here don't think I
can remember back a few years, why, I'm willing to stay up all night to
show him. Let's go to the County Clerk's and make him open up."
So we started, all five of us, just as the town clock struck twelve. We
hadn't gone more'n a block, though, before we met a whiskered old
relic stumpin' along with a stick in his hand. He was the police force, it
seems. Course, he wanted to know what was up, and when he found out
he was ready to make affidavit that Hen had been killed some time in
August of '81.
"Wa'n't I one of the pall bearers?" says he. "And hadn't I just drawn my
back pension and paid off the mortgage on my place, eh? No use routin'
out the Clerk to ask such a fool question; and anyways, he ain't to home,
come to think of it."
"If you'll permit me to suggest," says Leonidas, "there ought to be all
the evidence needed right in the cemetery."

"Of course there is!" says Ase Horner. "Why didn't we think of that
first off? I'll get a lantern and we'll go up and read the date on the
headstun."
There was six of us lined up for the cemetery, the three natives jawin'
away as to who was right and who wasn't. Every little ways some one
would hear the racket, throw up a window, and chip in. Most of 'em
asked us to wait until they could dress and join the procession. Before
we'd gone half a mile it looked like a torchlight parade. The bigger the
crowd got, the faster the recruits fell in. Folks didn't stop to ask any
questions. They just jumped into their clothes, grabbed lanterns and
piked after us. There was men and women and children, not to mention
a good many dogs. Every one was jabberin' away, some askin' what it
was all about and the rest tryin' to explain. There must have been a
good many