Back to the Woods Page 4

  CHAPTER IV.

  JOHN HENRY'S COUNTRY COP.

  Ahead of me, plodding along the pike under the moonlight, wereBunch and his cadaverous captor, the former bowed in sorrow oranger, probably both, and the latter with head erect, haughty as aRoman conqueror.

  Bunch's make-up was a troubled dream. Over a pair of hand-me-downtrousers, eight sizes too large for him, he wore a three-dollarulster. On his head was an automobile cap, and his face wascovered with a bunch of eelgrass three feet deep. He was surelyall the money.

  As I drew near I could hear Mr. Diggs expatiating on crime ingeneral and housebreaking in particular, and I fancied I could alsohear Bunch boiling and seething within.

  Aunt Martha--a Short, Stout Bundle of Good Nature.]

  "Mr. Buggular," Diggs was saying, "I don't know just what your hometrainin' was as a child, but they's a screw loose somewhere oryou'd a'never been brought to this here harrowful perdickyment,nohow. I s'pose you jest started in nat'rally to be a heenyusmaleyfactor early in life, huh? You needn't to answer if you'reafeared it'll incrimigate you, but I s'pose you took to it when aboy, pickin' pockets or suthin' like that, huh?"

  "Oh, cut it out, you old goat, and don't bother me!" snapped Bunch,just as I joined them.

  "A dangerous maleyfactor," said Diggs to me, as he tightened hisgrip on Bunch's arm; "but they ain't no call for you to assist thecourse of justice, because if the dern critter starts to run I'llpump him chuck full of lead. He's been a'tellin' me he started onthe downward path to predition as a child-stealer."

  "I told you nothing, you old tadpole," shrieked Bunch, unable tocontain himself longer.

  "Very well," said Harmony, soothingly, "they ain't no call for youto say nothin' more that'll incrimigate you before the bar ofJustice. Steady, now, or I'll tap you with this here cane!"

  "Brace up, good old sport; I'll get you out of this in a jiffy," Iwhispered to Bunch at the first opportunity, and he gave me acold-storage look that chased the chills all over me.

  Presently we arrived at the little brick structure whichJiggersville proudly called its calaboose, and after much fumblingof keys, Mr. Diggs opened the jackpot and we all stayed.

  The yap policeman was for taking Bunch right back to the donjoncell in the rear, but with a $5 bill I secured a stay ofproceedings.

  My forehead was damp with perspiration so I took off my hat andlaid it on the bench in the little court room where Bunch satmoodily and with bowed head.

  Then I coaxed the rural Vidocq over in the corner and gave him agame of talk that I thought would warm his heart, but he listenedin dumbness and couldn't see "no sense in believing the maleyfactorwas anythin' more'n a derned cuss, nohow!"

  "I have every reason to believe that we have made a mistake," Isaid to Harmony in a hoarse whisper. "From an envelope dropped bythis party in my house I am lead to believe that he's a respectablegentleman who entered my premises quite by mistake."

  The chin whiskers owned and engineered by Diggs bobbed up and downas he chewed a reflective cud, but he couldn't see the matter in mylight at all.

  I had used all kinds of arguments and was just about to give up indespair when a voice in the doorway caused us both to turn.

  There stood Bunch Jefferson, the real fellow, looking as fresh as adaisy.

  "What's the trouble, John?" he asked, smiling benignly on Diggs.

  While I was talking to the representative of the law, Mr. Slick sawhis opportunity and grabbed it by the hind leg. He had quietlyreached the door, and once outside the sledding was excellent.

  Bunch had his business suit on under the burglar make-up. Itdidn't take him two minutes to work the shine darbies over hishands. He then peeled off the ulster and the tuppeny trousers,and throwing these and the Svengalis over the fence, he was homeagain from the Bad Lands.

  The transformation scene was made complete by the fact that Bunchwas now wearing my hat.

  In answer to Bunch's question, the redoubtable Diggs smiledindulgently and said with pride-choked tones, "A maleyfactor, sir,caught in the meshes of the law and hauled before this here trybuneof Justice by these hands!"

  The eagle eye of Diggs was now triumphantly sighted along the armand over the bony hand to where the criminal was supposed to be,but when the gaze finally rested on an empty bench the expressionof pained surprise on the old man-hunter's map was calculated tomake a hen cackle.

  Diggs rushed over to the bench, turned it upside down, lookedbehind the chairs, and then, emitting a roar that rattled therafters, he hustled back to see if by any chance the prisoner hadlocked himself up in a cell.

  Bunch gave the old geezer the minnehaha and yelled, "Say! you withthe me-ya-ya's on the chin! Did somebody give you the hot-foot andmake a quick exit?"

  Diggs was now in full eruption and heavy showers of Reub lava rosefrom his vocal organs and fell all over the place, while hethrashed around the calaboose in a frenzy of excitement.

  "Maybe you're sending out a general alarm about that human meteorthat passed me on the pike a few minutes ago?" Bunch suggested.

  Diggs turned and eyed him in open-mouthed silence.

  "A mutt with a pink ulster and one of those pancakes on his headlike the drivers of the gasoline carts wear," Bunch suggested.

  "It's him! it's the maleyfactor!" exclaimed Harmony, tightening hisgrip on the night stick; "which way did the derned cuss go?"

  Bunch pointed due south-east, and with a howl of rage Diggs sprangforward and bounced down the pike like a hungry kangaroo on its wayto a lunch counter.

  I began to wrap up my enjoyment and send it forth in short gurglesof merriment until Bunch pressed the button and the scene waschanged to Greenland's Icy Mountains.

  "Funny, isn't it?" he sneered; "regular circus, with yours inhaste, Bunch Jefferson, to do the grand and lofty tumbling! I'mthe Patsy, oh, maybe! It was a fine play, all right, but I didn'texpect you to stack the cards!"

  "On the level, Bunch, believe me, it wasn't my fault," I spluttered.

  "Not your fault," he snapped back; "then I suppose it was mine! Isuppose I fell down the elevator shaft just to please mother, eh?Maybe you think I dropped into the excavation just to pass the timeaway? Have you an idea that I dove down into the earth because Iwanted to get back to the mines? Wasn't your fault, indeed! Maybeyou think I fell in the well simply because I wanted to give animitation of the old oaken bucket, yes?"

  I tried to tell him all about Tacks and the ghost story, but hewouldn't stand for it.

  "You should have been waiting for me on the stairs," he argued,unreasonably, rubbing one of the bruises in his choice collection,"Didn't you catch me early in the evening being chased from pillarto post by everything in the neighborhood that had legs long enoughto run? When I tried to hide in the corner of a farm over there, abull dog came up on rubber shoes and bit his initials on some of mypersonal property before I could crawl through the fence. Everytime I showed up on the pike that human accident that breathes likea man and talks like a rabbit chased me eight miles there and back.The first time I tried to approach the infernal house I fell over agrindstone and signed checks in the gravel with my nose.Hereafter, when you want a burglar, pick somebody your own size.I'm going to hunt a hospital and get sewed together again."

  I put on all steam and tried to square myself, but Bunch only shookhis head and said I was outlawed.

  "You can't run on my race track," he exclaimed as he started forthe depot; "that last race was crooked and you stood in with thedope mixer."

  I watched him down the hill until he disappeared in the station,then, sad at heart, I trudged back to the old homestead that hadcaused all my trouble.

  It was now broad daylight, but nowhere within my line of visioncould I get a peep of the doughty Diggs.

  No doubt he was still cutting across lots trying to head off the"maleyfactor."