Shorty McCabe | Page 7

wild guesses, for I heard one old feller in the rear rank
squallin' out: "Remember, neighbors, nothin' rash, now; nothin' rash!"
I couldn't figure out just what they meant by that at the time; but then,
the whole business didn't seem any too sensible, so I didn't bother. On
the way up I'd sort of fell in with the constable. He couldn't get any one
else to listen to him, and as he had a lot of unused conversation on hand
I let him spiel it off at me. Leonidas and Homer were ahead with Ase
Homer and the old duffer that started the row, and the debate was still
goin' on.
When we got to the cemetery Homer dropped out and leaned up against
the gate, sayin' he'd wait there for us. We piled after Ase, who'd made a
dash to get to the headstone first.
"It's right over in this section," says he, wavin' his lantern, "and I want
all of you to come and see that I know what I'm talking about when I
give out dates. I want to show you, by ginger, that I've got a mem'ry
that's better'n any diary ever wrote. Here we are now! Here's the grave
and--well, durn my eyes! Blessed if there's any sign of a headstun
here!"
And there wa'n't, either.

"By jinks!" says the old constable, slappin' his leg. "That's one on me,
boys. Why, Lizzie Dorsett told me only last week that her mother had
the stun took up and sent away to have the name of her second husband
cut on't. Only last week she told me, and here I'd clean forgot it."
"You're an old billy goat!" says Ase Horner.
"There, there!" says Leonidas, soothing him down. "We've all enjoyed
the walk, anyway, and maybe----" But just then he hears something that
makes him prick up his ears. "What's the row back there at the gate?"
he asks. Then, turnin' to me, he says: "Shorty, where's Homer?"
"Down there," says I.
"Then come along on the jump," says he. "If there's any trouble lying
around loose he'll get into it."
Down by the gate we could see lanterns by the dozen and we could
hear all sorts of yells and excitement, so we makes our move on the
double. Just as we fetched the gate some one hollers:
"There he goes! Lynch the villain!"
We sees a couple of long legs strike out, and gets a glimpse of a head
wrapped up in a shawl. It was Homer, all right, and he had the gang
after him. He took a four-foot fence at a hurdle and was streakin' off
through a plowed field into the dark.
"Hi, Fales!" sings out Leonidas. "Come back here, you chump!"
But Homer kept right on. Maybe he didn't hear, and perhaps he was too
scared to stop if he did. All we could do was to get into the free-for-all
with the others.
"What did he do?" yells Leonidas at a sandy-whiskered man who
carried a clothes-line and was shoutin', "Lynch him! Lynch him!"
between jumps.
"Do!" says the man. "Ain't you heard? Why, he choked Mother Bickell

to death and robbed her of seventeen dollars. He's wearin' her shawl
now."
As near as we could make out, the thing happened like this: When the
tail enders came rushin' up with all kinds of wild yarns about robbers
and such, they catches sight of Homer, leanin' up in the shadow of the
gate. Some one holds a lantern up to his face and an old woman spots
the shawl.
"It's Mother Bickell's," says she. "Where did he get it?"
That was enough. They went for Homer like he'd set fire to a
synagogue. Homer tried to tell 'em who he was, and about his heart, but
he talked too slow, or his voice wa'n't strong enough; and when they
began to plan on yankin' him up then and there, without printin' his
picture in the paper, or a trial, he heaves up a yell and lights out for the
boarding-house.
Ten hours before I wouldn't have matched Homer against a one-legged
man, but the way he was gettin' over the ground then was worth the
price of admission. I have done a little track work myself, and Leonidas
didn't show up for any glue-foot, but Homer would have made the tape
ahead of us for any distance under two miles. He'd cleared the crowd
and was back into the road again, travelin' wide and free, with the
shawl streamin' out behind and the nearest avenger two blocks behind
us, when out jumps a Johnny-on-the-spot citizen and gives him the low
tackle. He was a pussy, bald-headed little duffer, this citizen chap, and
not bein' used to blockin' runs he goes down