The Big-Town Round-Up Part 44

The gray morning broke, and brought with it the steaming smell of prison cooking, the sounds of the caged underworld, the sense of life all around him dwarfed and warped to twisted moral purposes. A warden came with breakfast--a lukewarm, muddy liquid he called coffee and a stew in which potatoes and bits of fat beef bobbed like life buoys--and Clay ate heartily while his cell mate favored him, between gulps, with a monologue on ethics, politics, and the state of society, as these related especially to s.h.i.+ny the Shover. Lindsay was given to understand that the whole world was "on de spud," but the big crooks had fixed the laws so that they could wear diamonds instead of stripes.

Presently a guard climbed the iron stairway with a visitor and led the way along the deck outside the tier of cells where Clay had been put.

"He's in seventy-four, Mr. Durand," the man said as he approached.

"I'll have to beat it. Come back to the office when you're ready."

The ex-pugilist had come to gloat over him. Clay knew it at once. His pupils narrowed.

He was lying on the bed, his supple body stretched at graceful ease.

Not by the lift of an eyelid did he recognize the presence of his enemy.

Durand stood in front of the cell, hands in pockets, the inevitable unlit black cigar in his mouth. On his face was a sneer of malevolent derision.

s.h.i.+ny the Shover bustled forward, all complaisance.

"Pleased to meet youse, Mr. Durand."

The gang politician's insolent eyes went up and down him. "I didn't come to see _you_."

"'S all right. Glad to see youse, anyhow," the counterfeit pa.s.ser went on obsequiously. "Some day, when you've got time I'd like to talk wit'

youse about gettin' some fall money."

"Nothin' doin', s.h.i.+ny. I'm not backin' you," said Jerry coldly.

"You've got to go up the river."

"Youse promised--"

"Aw, what the h.e.l.l's eatin' you?"

s.h.i.+ny's low voice carried a plaintive whine. "If you'd speak to de judge--"

"Forget it." Durand brushed the plea away with a motion of his hand.

"It's your cell pal I've come to take a look at--the one who's goin' to the chair."

With one lithe movement Clay swung down to the floor. He sauntered forward to the grating, his level gaze full on the ward boss.

"s.h.i.+ny, this fellow's rotten," he said evenly and impersonally. "He's not only a crook, but he's a crooked crook. He'd throw down his own brother if it paid him."

Durand's cruel lips laughed. "Your pal's a little worried this mornin', s.h.i.+ny. He ain't slept much. You see the bulls got him right.

It's the death chair for him and no lifeboat in sight."

Clay leaned against the bars negligently. He spoke with a touch of lazy scorn. "See those scars on his face, s.h.i.+ny--the one on the cheek bone and the other above the eye. Ask him where he got 'em and how."

Jerry cursed. He broke into a storm of threats, anger sweeping over him in furious gusts. He had come to make sport of his victim and Lindsay somehow took the upper hand at once. He had this fellow where he wanted him at last. Yet the man's soft voice still carried the note of easy contempt. If the Arizonan was afraid, he gave no least sign of it.

"You'll sing another tune before I'm through with you," the prize-fighter prophesied savagely.

The Westerner turned away and swung back to his upper berth. He knew, what he had before suspected, that Durand was going to "frame" him if he could. That information gained, the man no longer interested him.

Sullenly Jerry left. There was no profit in jeering at Lindsay. He was too entirely master of every situation that confronted him.

Within the hour Clay was wakened from sleep by another guard with word that he was wanted at the office of the warden. He found waiting him there Beatrice and her father. The girl bloomed in that dingy room like a cactus in the desert.

She came toward him with hands extended, in her eyes gifts of friends.h.i.+p and faith.

"Oh, Clay!" she cried.

"Much obliged, little pardner." Her voice went to his heart like water to the thirsty roots of p.r.i.c.kly pears. A warm glow beat through his veins. The doubts that had weighed on him during the night were gone.

Beatrice believed in him. All was well with the world.

He shook hands with Whitford. "Blamed good of you to come, sir."

"Why wouldn't we come?" demanded the mining man bluntly. "We're here to do what we can for you."

Little wells of tears brimmed over Beatrice's lids. "I've been so worried."

"Don't you. It'll be all right." Strangely enough he felt now that it would. Her coming had brought rippling suns.h.i.+ne into a drab world.

"I won't now. I'm going to get evidence for you. Tell us all about it."

"Why, there isn't much to tell that you haven't read in the papers probably. He came a-shootin' and was. .h.i.t by a chair."

"Was it you that hit him?"

"Wouldn't I be justified?" he asked gently.

"But did you?"

For a moment he hesitated, then made up his mind swiftly. "Yes," he told her gravely.

She winced. "You couldn't help it. How did you come to be there?"

"I just dropped in."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

He had burned the bridges behind him and was lying glibly. Why bring Bromfield into it? She was going to marry him in a few days. If her fiance was man enough to come forward and tell the truth he would do so anyhow. It was up to him. Clay was not going to betray him to Beatrice.

"The paper says there was some one with you."

"Sho! Reporters sure enough have lively imaginations."

"Johnnie told me you had an engagement with Mr. Bromfield."

"Did you ever know Johnnie get anything right?"

"And Clarendon says he was with you at Maddock's."