Part 43

The Marshal strode away, leaving Vicious Lucius to the mercy of the women. Harry Squires was nowhere in sight. Mr. Crow looked about in some alarm. His speed noticeably decreased. Fumbling in his coat pocket, he found his police whistle and proceeded to blow a shrill blast upon it. A few moments passed, and then Harry came hurrying around the corner of the house.

"Where have you been, dern you?"

"I've been in the house chatting with Mrs. Fry," said the reporter.

"Is she conscious? Is she able to talk?"

"She certainly is. Come on. She wants to see you."

Harry Squires grasped his arm and led him toward the kitchen door. Mrs. Fry herself admitted them. She looked most formidable.

"Did my daughter Elfaretta ask you to come here and interfere with my private affairs, Anderson Crow?" she demanded.

"I am not supposed to answer questions like that, Mrs. Fry," said Anderson with dignity. "I am pleased to inform you, however, that I have succeeded in arrestin' your husband, an' I intend to see to it that he is locked up fer--"

"Oh, my goodness!" groaned the gigantic lady, dropping suddenly into a chair and lowering her face into her apron.

The Marshal looked at her in astonishment.

"You have got to release Vicious Lucius at once," said Harry Squires sternly. "We can't afford to wreck this poor little woman's life."

"Little--what's that you said?" stammered the Marshal, still gazing at the ponderous bulk in the chair.

"You heard what I said--wreck this poor but proud lady's life. Speak up, Mrs. Fry. Tell the good Marshal all about it."

Whereupon the woebegone Mrs. Fry lifted her head and her voice in lamentation.

"I knew it couldn't last. I might 'a' knowed something would turn up to spoil it. It was too much to expect. Oh, if you only wouldn't lock him up, Mr. Crow! What will people say when they find out you was able to arrest him single-handed, without a gang o' men to help you? Oh, oh, oh!"

Mr. Squires interposed a suggestion just as she was on the verge of sobs.

"I dare say we could stage a perfectly realistic struggle between Mr. Fry and Mr. Crow. Mr. Fry could trip Mr. Crow up--all in play, you know; and then I could rush in and grab Mr. Fry from behind while he was letting on as though he was kicking Mr. Crow in the face. The spectators would--"

"I won't be a party to any such monkey business!" exclaimed the Marshal in some heat. "What do you take me for? If I arrest Lucius Fry, I'll jest simply pick him up by the coat-collar and--"

"That's just it," cried Mrs. Fry. "He wouldn't fight back, and how would I feel if you carried him off to jail as if he was a lunch-basket? And I was beginning to feel so proud and happy. I was getting so I could look those cats in the face, all because my husband was the best little daredevil in the Gully. They used to pity me. Now they are so jealous of me they don't know what to do. They'd give anything if they had a husband like Lucius--little as he is. My, how they envy me, and how I have been looking down on all of 'em the last six months! And here you arrest him as easy as if he was a little girl, when I been telling everybody there wasn't anybody living that could take my man to jail. Oh, I--I wish I'd never been born!"

* * * * *

Anderson Crow was puzzled. He pulled at his whiskers in the most helpless way, and stared wide-eyed.

"But--but ain't you afraid to live with him?" he mumbled. "Ain't you afraid he'll lick you to death sometime when he's in one of--"

"He couldn't lick me if I was chloroformed," blurted out Mrs. Fry, arising suddenly. She bared a huge right arm. "See that? Well, that's as big as his leg. Don't you ever get it in your head that I can't lick Lucius Fry. That ain't the point. I can do it, but I wouldn't do it for anything on earth. I want to be proud of him, and I want these other women to feel sorry for me because I've got a man for a husband, and not a rabbit. Where is he, Mr. Crow?"

"He's out there waitin' fer me to take him to jail--that is, he said he'd wait. Course, if you won't make any affidavit ag'inst him, I--I guess there's no sense in me lockin' him up. I was doin' it as a--er--as a sort of favour to him, anyhow. He seemed to be afraid he'd kill some of them women that hang around him."

"I just thought he'd act that way. I won't make any charge against him. I want him to stay just the way he is--a fine, upstanding brutal sort of feller. You go out there an' tell him to come in here. I want to go down on my knees again and forgive him."

The Marshal hesitated. He was between two fires. He couldn't very well oblige both of them. Lucius unquestionably was eager to go to jail for reasons of his own, and Mrs. Fry was just as eager that he should remain at large. The Marshal scratched his head.

"I feel kinder sorry fer him," he mused. "Like as not, one of them women will git so foolish over him that her husband will take it into his head to get a divorce, an'--" He paused in confusion.

"Go on--go on!" pleaded Mrs. Fry, her eyes sparkling.