The Law Of Hemlock Mountain Part 38

They had to bend close to catch his feeble syllables, as he said: "Git paper--write this down."

The preacher obeyed, kneeling on the floor, and though the words were few, their utterance required dragging minutes, punctuated with breaks of silence and gasping.

"Hit warn't John Spurrier--thet kilt Captain Comyn back tha'r in the Philippines.... I knows who done hit----" He broke off there, and the girl closed her hands over her face. "I sought ter kill Spurrier--but I warn't with them--thet attackted him hyar--an' wounded ther woman."

Once more a long hiatus interrupted the recital and then the mangled creature went on: "Hit was ther oil folks thet deevised thet murder scheme."

The preacher was busily writing the record of this death-bed statement and Glory stood pale and distraught.

The words "oil people" were ringing in her ears. What connection could Spurrier have had with them: what enmity could they have had for him?

But out of the confusion of her thoughts another thing stood forth with the sudden glare of revelation. This man might die before he finished and if he could not tell all he knew, he must first tell that which would clear her husband's name. Though that husband had turned his back on her, her duty to him in this matter must take precedence over the rest.

"Joe Givins--" began Colby once more in laborious syllables, but peremptorily the girl halted him.

"Never mind Joe Givins just now," she commanded with as sharp a finality as though to her had been delegated the responsibility of his judgment. "You said you knew who killed Captain Comyn. Who was it?"

The eyes in the wounded and stricken face gazed up at her in mute appeal as a sinner might look at a father confessor, pleading that he be spared the bitterest dregs of his admission.

Glory read that glance and her own delicate features hardened. She leaned forward.

"I brought you in here and succored you," she a.s.serted with a sternness which she could not have commanded in her own behalf.

"You're going before Almighty G.o.d--and unless you answer that question honestly--no prayers shall go with you for forgiveness."

"Glory!" The name broke in shocked horror from the bearded lips of the preacher. "Glory, the mercy of G.o.d hain't ter be interfered with by mortals. Ther man's dying!"

Upon him the young woman wheeled with blazing eyes.

"G.o.d calls on his servants for justice to the living as well as mercy to the dying," she declared. "Sim Colby, who killed Captain Comyn?"

"I done hit," came the unwillingly wrung confession. "My real name's Grant.... Severance aided me.... Thet's why I sought to kill Spurrier.

I deemed he war a huntin' me down."

"Now," ordered the young woman, "what about Joe Givins?"

Again a long pause, then: "Blind Joe Givins--only he ain't no blinder than me--read papers hyar--he diskivered thet Spurrier was atter oil rights--he tipped off ther oil folks--he war their spy all ther time--shammin' ter be blind----" There the speaker struggled to breathe and let his head fall back with the utterance incomplete. Five minutes later he was dead.

"Hit don't seem ter me," said Brother Hawkins a short time later, while Glory still stood in dazed and trance-like wonderment, "es ef what he said kin be true. Why ef hit be, John Spurrier was aimin' ter plunder us hyar all ther time! He was counselin' us ter sell out--an'

he was buyin'. I kain't believe that."

But Glory had drawn back to the wall of the room and into her eyes had come a new expression. The expression of one who must tear aside a veil and know the truth, and who dreads what that truth may be.

She had said that justice, no less than mercy, was G.o.d's command laid upon mortals. She had, almost by the extremity of withholding from Colby his hope of salvation until he spoke, won from him the declaration which would give back to John Spurrier an unsmirched name.

Once Spurrier had said that was his strongest wish in life. But now justice called again: this time justice to her own people and perhaps it meant the unveiling of duplicity in the man she had married.

"Brother Hawkins," she declared in a low but fervent voice, "if it's not true, it's a slander that I can't let stand. If it _is_ true, I must undo the wrong he's sought to do--if I can. Please wait."

Then she was tearing at the bit of paneling that gave access to the secret cabinet, and poring over papers from a broken and rifled strong box.

There was the uncontrovertible record, clear writ, and at length her pale face came up resolutely.

"I don't understand it all yet," she told the preacher. "But he was buying. He bought everything that's been sold this side the ridge. He was seeking to influence the legislature, too. I've got to talk to my father."

It was the next night, when old d.y.k.e Cappeze had ridden back from the county seat, that he sat under the lamp in the room where Sim Colby had died, and on the table before him were spread the papers that had lain unread so long in John Spurrier's secret cabinet.

Across from him sat Glory with her fingers spasmodically clutched and her eyes riveted on his face as he read and studied the doc.u.ments, which at first he had been loath to inspect without the permission of their owner. He had been convinced, however, when Glory had told the story of the dying confession and had appealed to him for counsel.

"By what you tell me," the old lawyer had summarized at the end of her recital, "you forced from this man his admission which cleared John Spurrier of the charge that's been hanging over him. You set out to serve him and refused to be turned aside when Colby balked.... But that confession didn't end there. It went on and besides clearing Jack in that respect it seems to have involved him in another way. You can't use a part of a confession and discard the balance. Perhaps we can serve him as well as others best by going into the whole of the affair."

So now Glory interrupted by no word or question, despite her anxiety to understand and her hoping against hope for a verdict which should leave John Spurrier clean of record.

But if she refrained from breaking in on the study that engrossed her father and wrinkled his parchment-like forehead, she could not help reading the expression of his eyes, the growing sternness and indignation of his stiffening lips--and of drawing the moral that when he spoke his words must be those of condemnation.

The strident song of the katydids came in through the windows and the moon dropped behind the hill crests before d.y.k.e Cappeze spoke, and Brother Hawkins, who was spending the night at that house, smoked alone on the porch, unwilling to intrude on the confidences that these two might wish to exchange.

Finally the lawyer folded the last paper and looked up.

"Do you want the whole truth, little gal?" he inquired bluntly. "How much do you still love this man?"

Glory flushed then paled.

"I guess," she said and her words were very low and soft, "I'll love him so long as I live--though I hate myself for doing it. He wearied of me and forgot me--but I can't do likewise."

Then her chin came up and her voice rang with a quiet finality.

"But I want the truth ... the whole truth without any softening."

"Then as I see it, it's simply this. A war was on between two groups of financiers. American Oil and Gas had held a monopoly and maintained a corrupt control in the legislature that stifled compet.i.tion. That's why the other oil boom failed. The second group was trying to slip up on these corruptionists and gain the control by a campaign of surprise. Jack Spurrier appears to have been the amba.s.sador of that second group--and he seems to have failed."

The wife nodded. Even yet she unconsciously held a brief for his defense.

"So far as you've gone," she reminded her father, "you show him to have been what is commonly called a 'practical business man'--but no worse than the men he fought."

Cappeze bowed his head gravely and his next words came reluctantly.

"So far, yes. Of course he could have done none of the things he did had he not first won the confidence of those poor ignorant folk that are our neighbors and our friends. Of course it was because they believed in him and followed his counsel that they sold their birthrights to men with whom he pretended to have no connection--and yet who took their orders from him."

"Then," Glory started, halted and leaned forward with her hands against her breast and her utterance was the monotone of a voice forced to a hard question: "Then what I feared was true? He lived among us and made friends of us--only to rob us?"

"If by 'us' you mean the mountain people, I fear me that's precisely what he did. I can see no other explanation. Which ever of these two groups won meant to exploit and plunder us."

For a little she made no answer, but the delicate color of her cheeks was gone to an ivory whiteness and the violet eyes were hardening.

"Perhaps we oughtn't to judge him too harshly for these things,"

said the father comfortingly. "The scroll of my bitterness against him is already heavy enough and to spare. He has broken your heart and that's enough for me. As to the rest there are many so-called honorable gentlemen who are no more scrupulous. We demand clean conduct here in these hills," a fierce bitterness came into his words, "but then we are ignorant, backwoods folk! There are many intricate ins and outs to this business and I don't presume to speak with absolute conclusiveness yet."

Outside the katydids sang their prophecies of frost to come and an owl hooted. Glory Spurrier sat staring ahead of her and at last she said aloud, in that tone which one uses when a thought finds expression, unconscious that it has been vocal: "So he won our faith--with his clear eyes and his honest smile--only to swindle and rob us!"