The Under Dog Part 7

"What became of Bud Tilden?" I asked.

"Oh, he got it in the neck for robbin' the mails, just's I told you he would. Peached on himself like a d---- fool and give everything dead away. He left for Kansas this morning. Judge give him twenty years."

He is still in the lock-step at Leavenworth prison. He has kept it up now for two years. His hair is short, his figure bent, his step sluggish. The law is slowly making an animal of him--that wise, righteous law which is no respecter of persons.

III

"ELEVEN MONTHS AND TEN DAYS"

It was a feeble old man of seventy-two this time who sat facing the jury, an old man with bent back, scant gray hair, and wistful, pleading eyes.

He had been arrested in the mountains of Kentucky and had been brought to Covington for trial, chained to another outlaw, one of those "moons.h.i.+ners" who rob the great distilleries of part of their profits and the richest and most humane Government on earth of part of its revenue.

For eleven months and ten days he had been penned up in one of the steel cages of Covington jail.

I recognized him the moment I saw him.

He was the old fellow who spoke to me from between the bars of his den on my visit the week before to the inferno--the day I found Samanthy North and her baby--and who told me then he was charged with "sellin'"

and that he "reckoned" he was the oldest of all the prisoners about him.

He had on the same suit of coa.r.s.e, homespun clothes--the trousers hiked up toward one shoulder from the strain of a single suspender; the waistcoat held by one b.u.t.ton; the s.h.i.+rt open at the neck, showing the wrinkled throat, wrinkled as an old saddle-bag, and brown, hairy chest.

Pie still carried his big slouch hat, dust-begrimed and frayed at the edges. It hung over one knee now, a red cotton handkerchief tucked under its brim. He was superst.i.tious about it, no doubt; he would wear it when he walked out a free man, and wanted it always within reach. Hooked in its band was a trout-fly, a red ibis, some souvenir, perhaps, of the cool woods that he loved, and which brought back to him the clearer the happy, careless days which might never be his again.

The trout-fly settled all doubts in my mind as to his origin and his ident.i.ty. He was not a "moons.h.i.+ner"; he was my old trout fisherman, Jonathan Gordon, come back to life, even to his streaming, unkempt beard, leathery skin, thin, peaked nose, and deep, searching eyes. That the daisies which Jonathan loved were at that very moment blooming over his grave up in his New Hamps.h.i.+re hills, and had been for years back, made no difference to me. I could not be mistaken. The feeble old man sitting within ten feet of me, fidgeting about in his chair, the glare of the big windows flooding his face with light, his long legs tucked under him, his bony hands clasped together, the scanty gray hair adrift over his forehead, his slouch hat hooked over his knee, was my own Jonathan come back to life. His dog, George, too, was somewhere within reach, and so were his fis.h.i.+ng-pole and creel, with its leather shoulder-band polished like a razor-strop. You who read this never saw Jonathan, perhaps, but you can easily carry his picture in your mind by remembering some one of the other old fellows you used to see on Sunday mornings. .h.i.tching their horses to the fence outside of the country church, or sauntering through the woods with a fish-pole over their shoulders and a creel by their sides, or with their heads together on the porch of some cross-roads store, bartering eggs and b.u.t.ter for cotton cloth and brown sugar. All these simple-minded, open-aired, out-of-doors old fellows, with the bark on them, are very much alike.

The only difference between the two men lay in the expression of the two faces. Jonathan always looked straight at you when he talked, so that you could fathom his eyes as you would fathom a deep pool that mirrored the stars. This old man's eyes wavered from one to another, lighting first on the jury, then on the buzzard of a District Attorney, and then on the Judge, with whom rested the freedom which meant life or which meant imprisonment: at his age--death. This wavering look was the look of a dog who had been an outcast for weeks, or who had been shut up with a chain about his throat; one who had received only kicks and cuffs for pats of tenderness--a cringing, pleading look ready to crouch beneath some fresh cruelty.

This look, as the trial went on and the buzzard of an attorney flapped out his denunciations, deepened to an expression of abject fear. In trying to answer the questions hurled at him, he would stroke his parched throat mechanically with his long fingers as if to help the syllables free themselves. In listening to the witnesses he would curve his body forward, one skinny hand cupped behind his ear, his jaw dropping slowly, revealing the white line of the lips above the straggling beard. Now and then as he searched the eyes of the jury there would flash out from his own the same baffled, anxious look that comes into dear old Joe Jefferson's face when he stops half-way up the mountain and peers anxiously into the eyes of the gnomes who have stolen out of the darkness and are grouping themselves silently about him--a look expressing one moment his desire to please and the next his anxiety to escape.

There was no doubt about the old man's crime, not the slightest. It had been only the tweedledum and tweedledee of the law that had saved him the first time. They would not serve him now. The evidence was too conclusive, the facts too plain. The "deadwood," as such evidence is called by the initiated, lay in heaps--more than enough to send him to State prison for the balance of his natural life. The buzzard of a District Attorney who had first scented out his body with an indictment, and who all these eleven months and ten days had sat with folded wings and hunched-up shoulders, waiting for his final meal--I had begun to dislike him in the Bud Tilden trial, but I hated him now (a foolish, illogical prejudice, for he was only doing his duty as he saw it)--had full control of all the "deadwood"; had it with him, in fact. There were not only some teaspoonfuls of the identical whiskey which this law-breaker had sold, all in an eight-ounce vial properly corked and labelled, but there was also the identical silver dime which had been paid for it. One of the jury was smelling this whiskey when I entered the court-room; another was fingering the dime. It was a good dime, and bore the stamp of the best and greatest nation on the earth. On one side was the head of the G.o.ddess of Liberty and on the other was the wreath of plenty: some stalks of corn and the bursting heads of wheat, with one or two ivy leaves twisted together, suggesting honor and glory and achievement. The "deadwood"--the evidence--was all right. All that remained was for the buzzard to flap his wings once or twice in a speech; then the jury would hold a short consultation, a few words would follow from the presiding Judge, and the carca.s.s would be ready for the official undertaker, the prison Warden.

How wonderful the system, how mighty the results!

One is often filled with admiration and astonishment at the perfect working of this mighty engine, the law. Properly adjusted, it rests on the bedplate of equal rights to all men; is set in motion by the hot breath of the people--superheated often by popular clamor; is kept safe by the valve of a grand jury; is governed in its speed by the wise and prudent Judge, and regulated in its output by a jury of twelve men.

Sometimes in the application of its force this machine, being man-made, like all machines, and thus without a soul, gets out of order, loosens a cog or bolt perhaps, throwing the mechanism "out of gear," as it is called. When this happens, the engine resting on its bed-plate still keeps its foundation, but some lesser part, the loom or lathe or driving-wheel, which is another way of saying the arrest, the trial or the conviction, goes awry. Sometimes the power-belt is purposely thrown off, the machinery stopped, and a consultation takes place, resulting in a disagreement or a new trial. When the machine is started again, it is started more carefully, with the first experience remembered. Sometimes the rightful material--the criminal, or the material from which the criminal is made--to feed this loom or lathe or driving-wheel, is replaced by some unsuitable material like the girl whose hair became entangled in a flying-belt and whose body was s.n.a.t.c.hed up and whirled mercilessly about. Only then is the engine working on its bed-plate brought to a standstill. The steam of the boiler, the breath of the people, keeps up, but it is withheld from the engine until the mistake can be rectified and the girl rescued. The law of mercy, the divine law, now a.s.serts itself. This law, being the law of G.o.d, is higher than the law of man. Some of those who believe in the man-law and who stand over the mangled body of the victim, or who sit beside her bed, bringing her slowly back to life, affirm that the girl was careless and deserved her fate. Others, who believe in the G.o.d-law, maintain that the engine is run not to kill but to protect, not to maim but to educate, and that the fault lies in the wrong application of the force, not in the force itself.

So it was with this old man. Eleven months and ten days before this day of his second trial (eleven months and three days when I first saw him), a flying-belt set in motion up in his own mountain-home had caught and crushed him. To-day he was still in the maw of the machinery, his courage gone, his spirit broken, his heart torn. The group about his body, not being a sympathetic group, were insisting that the engine could do no wrong; that the victim was not a victim at all, but lawful material to be ground up. This theory was sustained by the District Attorney. Every day he must have fresh materials. The engine must run.

The machinery must be fed.

And his record?

Ah, how often is this so in the law!--his record must be kept good.

After the whiskey had been held up to the light and the dime fingered, the old man's attorney--a young lawyer from the old man's own town, a smooth-faced young fellow who had the gentle look of a hospital nurse and who was doing his best to bring the broken body back to life and freedom--put the victim on the stand.

"Tell the jury exactly how it all happened," he said, "and in your own way, just as you told it to me."

"I'll try, sir; I'll do my best." It was Rip's voice, only fainter. He tugged at his collar as if to breathe the easier, cleared his throat and began again. "I ain't never been in a place like this but once before, and I hope you'll forgive me if I make any mistakes," and he looked about the room, a flickering, half-burnt-out smile trembling on his lips.

"Well, I got a piece of land 'bout two miles back of my place that belongs to my wife, and I ain't never fenced it in, for I ain't never had no time somehow to cut the timber to do it, she's been so sickly lately. 'Bout a year ago I was goin' 'long toward Hi Stephens's mill a-lookin' for muskrats when I heard some feller's axe a-workin' away, and I says to Hi, 'Hi, ain't that choppin' goin' on on the wife's land?'

and he said it was, and that Luke Shanders and his boys had been drawin' out cross-ties for the new railroad; thought I knowed it.

"Well, I kep' 'long up and come on Luke jes's he was throwin' the las'

stick onto his wagon. He kinder started when he see me, jumped on and begin to drive off. I says to him, 'Luke,' I says, 'I ain't got no objection to you havin' a load of wood; there's plenty of it; but it don't seem right for you to take it 'thout askin', 'specially since the wife's kind o' peaked and it's her land and not yourn.' He hauled the team back on their hind legs, and he says:

"'When I see fit to ask you or your old woman's leave to cut timber on my own land, I will. Me and Lawyer Fillmore has been a-lookin' into them deeds, and this timber is mine;' and he driv off.

"I come along home and studied 'bout it a bit, and me and the wife talked it over. We didn't want to make no fuss, but we knowed he was alyin', but that ain't no unusual thing for Luke Shanders.

"Well, the nex' mornin' I got into Pondville 'bout eight o'clock and set a-waitin' till Lawyer Fillmore come in. He looked kind o' shamefaced when he see me, and I says, 'What's this Luke Shanders's been a-tellin'

me 'bout your sayin' my wife's timberland is hisn?'

"Then he began 'splainin' that the 'riginal lines was drawed wrong and that old man Shanders's land, Luke's father, run to the brook and took in all the white oak on the wife's lot and----"

The buzzard sprang to his feet and shrieked out:

"Your Honor, I object to this rigmarole. Tell the jury right away"--and he faced the prisoner--"what you know about this gla.s.s of whiskey. Get right down to the facts; we're not cutting cross-ties in this court."

The old man caught his breath, placed his fingers suddenly to his lips as if to choke back the forbidden words, and, in an apologetic voice, murmured:

"I'm gettin' there's fast's I kin, sir, 'deed I am; I ain't hidin'

nothin'."

He wasn't. Anyone could see it in his face.

"Better let him go on in his own way," remarked the Judge, indifferently. His Honor was looking over some papers, and the monotonous tones of the witness diverted attention. Most of the jury, too, had already lost interest in the story. One of the younger members had settled himself in his chair, thrust his hands into his pockets, stretched out his legs, and had shut his eyes as if to take a nap.

Nothing so far had implicated either the whiskey or the dime; when it did he would wake up.

The old man turned a grateful glance toward the Judge, leaned forward in his chair, and with bent head looked about him on the floor as if trying to pick up the lost end of his story. The young attorney, in an encouraging tone, helped him find it with a question:

"When did you next see Mr. Fillmore and Luke Shanders?"

"When the trial come off," answered the old man, raising his head again.

"Course we couldn't lose the land. 'Twarn't worth much till the new railroad come through; then the oak come handy for cross-ties. That's what set Fillmore and Luke Shanders onto it.

"When the case was tried, the Judge seed they couldn't bring no 'riginal deed 'cept one showin' that Luke Shanders and Fillmore was partners in the steal, and the Judge 'lowed they'd have to pay for the timber they cut and hauled away.

"They went round then a-sayin' they'd get even, though wife and I 'lowed we'd take anything reasonable for what hurt they done us. And that went on till one day 'bout a year ago Luke come into my place and said he and Lawyer Fillmore would be over the next day; that they was tired o'

fightin', and that if I was willin' to settle they was.

"One o' the new Gov'ment dep'ties was sittin' in my room at the time. He was goin' 'long up to town-court, he said, and had jest drapped in to pa.s.s the time o' day. There he is sittin' over there," and he pointed to his captor.