The Eagles Heart | Page 9

him."
The father lowered his eyes. He knew well that Harry did not ask for him.
"If it wasn't for these suspicious actions, doctor, I'd let him have the full run of the jail yard, but I dassent let him have any liberties. Why, he can go up the side of the cells like a squirrel! He'd go over our wall like a cat--no doubt of it."
The minister spoke with some effort. "I think you misread my son. He is not one to flee from punishment. He has some other idea in his mind."
To Jack Burns alone, plain, plodding, and slow, Harold showed a smiling face. He met him with a boyish word--"Hello, Jack! how goes it?"--and was eager to talk. He reached out and touched him with his hands wistfully. "I'm glad you've come. You're the only friend I've got now, Jack." This was one of the morbid fancies jail life had developed; he thought everybody had turned against him. "Now, I want to tell you something--we're chums, and you mustn't give me away. These fools think I'm going to try to escape, but I ain't. You see, they can't hang me for stabbing that coward, but they'll shut me up for a year or two, and I've got to keep healthy, don't you see? When I get out o' this I strike for the West, don't you see? And I've got to be able to do a day's work. Look at this arm." He stripped his strong white arm for inspection.
In the midst of the excitement attending Harold's arrest, Dot's elopement was temporarily diminished in value, but some shrewd gossip connected the two events and said: "I believe Clint gibed Harry Excell about Dot--I just believe that's what the fight was about."
This being repeated, not as an opinion but as the inside facts in the case, sentiment turned swiftly in Harold's favor. Clinton was shrewd enough to say very little about the quarrel. "I was just givin' him a little guff, and he up and lit into me with a big claspknife." Such was his story constantly repeated.
Fortunately for Harold, the case came to trial early in the autumn session. It was the most dramatic event of the year, and it was seriously suggested that it would be a good thing to hold the trial in the opera house in order that all the townspeople should be able to enjoy it. A cynical young editor made a counter suggestion: "I move we charge one dollar per ticket and apply the funds to buying a fire engine." Naturally, the judge of the district went the calm way of the law, regardless of the town's ferment of interest in the case.
The county attorney appeared for the prosecution, and old Judge Brown and young Bradley Talcott defended Harold.
Bradley knew Harold very well and the boy had a high regard for him. Lawyer Brown believed the boy to be a restless and dangerous spirit, but he said to Bradley:
"I've no doubt the boy was provoked by Clint, who is a worthless bully, but we must face the fact that young Excell bears a bad name. He has been in trouble a great many times, and the prosecution will make much of that. Our business is to show the extent of the provocation, and secondly, to disprove, so far as we can, the popular conception of the youth. I can get nothing out of him which will aid in his defense. He refuses to talk. Unless we can wring the truth out of Slocum on the stand it will go hard with the boy. I wish you'd see what you can do."
Bradley went down to see Harold, and the two spent a couple of hours together. Bradley talked to him in plain and simple words, without any assumption. His voice was kind and sincere, and Harold nearly wept under its music, but he added very little to Bradley's knowledge of the situation.
"He struck me with the whip, and then I--I can't remember much about it, my mind was a kind of a red blur," Harold said at last desperately.
"Why did he strike you with the whip?"
"I told him he was a black-hearted liar."
"What made you say that to him?" persevered Bradley.
"Because that's what he was."
"Did he say something to you which you resented?"
"Yes--he did."
"What was it?"
Right there Harold closed his lips and Bradley took another tack.
"Harry, I want you to tell me something. Did you have anything to do with killing Brownlow's dog?"
"No," replied Harold disdainfully.
"Did you have any hand in the raid on Brownlow's orchard a week later?"
"No; I was at home."
"Did your folks see you during the evening?"
"No; I was with Jack up in the attic, reading."
"You've taken a hand in some of these things--raids--haven't you?"
"Yes, but I never tried to destroy things.