Shorty McCabe | Page 7

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 underneath. Before they could untangle we comes up, snakes Homer off the top of the heap, and skiddoos for all we had left in us.
By the time that crowd of jay-hawkers comes boomin' down to Mother Bickell's to view the remains we had the old girl up and settin' at the front window with a light behind her. They asked each other a lot of foolish questions and then concluded to go home.
While things was quietin' down we were making a grand rush to get Homer into bed before he passed in altogether. Neither Leonidas nor me looked for him to last more'n an hour or two after that stunt, and we were thinkin' of taking him back in a box. But after he got his breath he