The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 61: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MAN WHO MUST BE HANGED. 55 there, and I thought if we didn’t take him along he’d be sure to peach, so I bullied him and he went. He’d no more look cross-eyed at a sheriff than a rabbit would bite a hound. “ But I’ve been reading some in your books, and there’s no doubt about it; if he can’t prove he didn’t want to run he’s a murderer. If a man once gets into jail, he’s about gone. That’s what the law is for, isn’t it? To hustle a jail-bird out of the world as quick as possible? That’s your business, incidentally.” He turned on the district attorney. ‘‘ How did you feel when I told you Pinhead was inno- cent?”’ McRae started; he had felt disappoint- ed and chagrined. He would not answer the boy. ‘““Won’t you tell me your own storye Just as it happened?” he asked.. Lord made his little gesture of defiance; that is, with two fingers he tossed the hair out of his eyes. Then he folded his arms again. “What makes you fight me so? I’d give anything to find you not guilty.” Lord’s nerve failed. him. He had been picking up and pressing a metal ruler lke the neck of a violin be had found on the desk. His hand shook suddenly like grass in a wind, and he dropped the ruler. “Go on; trust me!” urged McRae. There was a dawn of hope in Lord’s eyes. He began. McRae’s had narrowed to slits. As he followed the story, with his keen head, now and then he would make a note on a scrap of paper. The room was very quiet. -That end of the city was overrun by squirrels. One of these little beasts ran along a window- ledge’ and paused outside the district at- torney’s window. It could not be stall, but palpitated with the joy of living. Now, the squirrels, introduced as park pets, had become nuisances in town, and the janitor at the criminal court had or- ders to shoot them on sight. This one was not long for sunshine and wind, the pleas- ure of food filched from city fruit-stands, the palpitant joy of movement, the delight of hoarding property against cold days, the bliss of mating and parenthood. In spite of its death-sentence, it was all joy as it looked, bright-eyed, into McRae’s window and watched Lord tell his story. Finally, m an ecstasy of superabundant vitality, it leaped through a wide space of air to another window-sill. More fortu- nate than the men condemned in that place, it would die but once. What a man suffers, the price of having a deathless soul entangled in mere flesh and blood— Lord finished his story. He did not look at McRae, in whose power he was, but at the sky. From imside, the dirty river, the slum street, were invisible. He could see the ledge where that clean, wild thing had been, and beyond that, blue sky, without smoke because it was Sunday, and crossed by white clouds shot through with sunlight. Lord resumed: ““T have told you the exact truth. You know as well as I do that I am not a mur- derer. I liked that sheriff, I never wished him harm. And as a matter of fact, I was not in the conspiracy. But I took advan- tage of it. I ran away. I am guilty of breaking jail.” “Since you came and surrendered,” re- sponded McRae, “and since the charge against you originally was malicious, as it appears, you would not be prosecuted for that.” Little beads of sweat stood on his fore- head. He had seized on this minor issue to evade the question that met him. There was silence a while. At last the district attorney looked at Lord. His clean- cut, righteous face was perfectly composed. He spoke. ' “Tam sorry.” Lord smiled, faintly and grimly. Then he threw the lock of hair off his forehead and folded his arms. Just these things he would do at his final trial; just this way he would take his doom. McRae began again. “You see, according to the law, it would be necessary for you to show that you were not in the conspiracy. You were breaking the law, so the burden of proof is on you.” Lord shrugged his shoulders. ‘“Oh, you needn’t argue the question. Save your speech for the jury.” oO comicbooks CO