The Rose in the Ring Part 18

"Aw, but you don't mind giving me things you've stole. I'm different, am I? I'm not as good as she is, am I? Well, say, lemme tell you one thing: Ruby Noakes ain't going to hook up with a sneak thief."

"Ernie," said d.i.c.k, going very white and speaking very slowly, "you sometimes make me wish you'd 'a' died that time."

"I wish I had! Then they'd 'a' hung you."

"I was only nine," murmured d.i.c.k, trying to put his arm around his brother, only to have it struck away with violence.

"And I was only four," scoffed the other. "Say, let's see that ring."

d.i.c.k produced the sapphire. It was most unusual in him to carry the smallest part of his gains on his person. The circ.u.mstance struck Ernie at once.

"So you _were_ going to give it to her," snapped he.

"She wouldn't take it if I were fool enough to offer it," said d.i.c.k quietly, dropping the ring into his brother's hand. It immediately found a new resting place in the latter's pocket.

"Maybe the other one will take it from me," he grinned.

"You'd better not try it, Braddock would kick you to death."

"Everybody wants to kick me," whined the other, taking a new turn.

"But, say, he didn't offer to kick me last night when I told him she'd been out walking with that guy. I seen 'em--I seen 'em sneaking in. I told Brad. I bet he raised thunder with 'em."

d.i.c.k was looking out past the stand in the direction of the big tents.

"I'm not so sure," he said dryly. "I see Brad and Christine and the guy you mean talking over there by the entrance. They seem to be in a specially good humor."

Ernie sprang forward, his eyes dilated. He stared for a full minute without blinking. Then his grip on d.i.c.k's arm suddenly relaxed.

"Oh, G.o.d, how I wish I was straight and handsome like him!" he cried brokenly.

d.i.c.k did not look down, but he knew that the tears were standing in the boy's eyes.

"Don't think about it, Ernie," he began.

Ernie shook off his hand and angrily rubbed his eyes with his bony knuckles. He sobbed twice, and then burst forth in a shrill tirade of abuse. Quivering with ungovernable rage, he called d.i.c.k every vile name he could lay his proficient tongue to.

Poor d.i.c.k offered up no word of protest, no sign of resentment. When Ernie stopped for sheer exhaustion, not only of his lung power but in the matter of epithets, the tall martyr took his hands out of his pockets, stretched himself lazily, and announced, as if it were expected of him as a duty:

"Well, the crowd is beginning to gather at the ticket-wagon. I guess I'd better be strolling among 'em, Ernie. So long."

Ernie looked up eagerly, his mood changing like a flash.

"Good luck, d.i.c.k," he said, his eyes sparkling.

CHAPTER VIII

AN INVITATION TO SUPPER

That same night Artful d.i.c.k Cronk had a long conversation with Thomas Braddock. David was the princ.i.p.al subject of discussion. The airy scalawag was not long in getting to the bottom of the fugitive's history, so far as it could be obtained from the rather disconnected utterances of the convivial Thomas. They had come upon each other in a bar-room, but d.i.c.k had succeeded in getting the showman away from the place before he reached the maudlin stage. The day's business had been good. Braddock was cheerful, almost optimistic in consequence. He vociferously thanked his lucky sun, not his stars. Convinced that this was an uncommonly clever bit of paraphrasing, he repeated it at least a dozen times with great unction, always appending a careful explanation so that d.i.c.k would be sure to catch the point--or, you might say, the twist.

"If we only had suns.h.i.+ne like this," he announced with a comprehensive wave of his hand, regardless of the fact that it was ten o'clock at night, "I'd clear a million dollars this season. We've got nearly fifteen hundred dollars in that tent to-night, d.i.c.k. Twenty-one hundred on the day. A week of this beautiful suns.h.i.+ne and we'd be doing three thousand a day. I'd make old Barnum look like a two-spot. Did you ever see more beautiful suns.h.i.+ne, d.i.c.k? Now, did you?"

"That's not the sun, Brad," said d.i.c.k, removing his pipe from his lips.

"That's a canvasman with a torch." They had arrived at the lot.

Braddock swore a mighty oath, and with jovial good-humor chucked d.i.c.k in the ribs, not very gently, it may be supposed. d.i.c.k, with responsive good-humor, seized the opportunity to deliver a resounding thump on Braddock's back, almost knocking the breath out of him. If one could have looked into the brain of the grinning pickpocket, he might have detected a vast regret that policy made it inadvisable to thump the showman on the jaw instead of the back. He had the satisfaction, however, of hearing the other cough violently for some little time.

"Don't be so rough," growled Braddock, taking a fresh cigar from his pocket to replace the one that had been expelled by the force of the blow.

"Excuse me," apologized d.i.c.k promptly. "Say," he went on, without waiting for or expecting forgiveness, "tell me something about this new clown of yours."

Whereupon Braddock lowered his voice and told him as much as he knew of the story. They sat on a wagon tongue at some distance from where the men were tearing down the menagerie tent. d.i.c.k Cronk puffed his pipe thoughtfully during the recital. One might have imagined that he was not listening.

"I don't believe he killed him," said he at the end of the story.

"Neither do I," said Braddock. "But it won't hurt to let him think that we're all still a leetle bit doubtful."

"I heard all about the murder in Staunton. The sheriff was trying to head the kid off if he came through that county. We were expectin' to see him landed in jail any day. They had bloodhounds after him, I hear." d.i.c.k Cronk's body quivered in a sharp spasm of dread.

"Say, d.i.c.k, listen here," said Braddock, leaning closer and dropping his voice to a half-whisper. "I've been wantin' you to turn up ever since he joined us. What will you say when I tell you he's got more 'n two thousand dollars with him?"

d.i.c.k started. "What!"

"He has. I've seen it. He's lousy with it."

"Well, he came by it honestly," said d.i.c.k after a moment.

"How do you know?" demanded the other insinuatingly.

"Honest men are so blamed scarce, Brad, that I can always tell one when I see him."

Braddock rolled his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and back again before venturing the next remark.

"It would be no trick at all to get it away from him."

d.i.c.k Cronk looked at his averted face. "What do you mean?"

"Think of what a haul it would be."

"I suppose you want me to lift the pile. Is that it?"

"Not unless we come to a thorough understanding beforehand," said Braddock quickly. "It's my plan, so I get the bulk of it, understand that."

"I do the job and you get the stuff," sneered d.i.c.k, still looking at his companion. Braddock felt that look and moved uncomfortably.

"It's too much money to let get away," he explained somewhat irrelevantly.