Part 26

Along the road from the north came a large touring car, swinging from side to side in its speed. Its brilliant headlights illuminated the road far ahead. They picked out The Sky Pilot and Abigail Prim, they found The Oskaloosa Kid climbing a barbed wire fence and then with complaining brakes the car came to a sudden stop. Six men leaped from the machine and rounded up the three they had seen. Another came running toward them. It was Soup Face, so thoroughly terrified that he would gladly have embraced a policeman in uniform, could the latter have offered him protection.

A boy accompanied the newcomers. “There he is!” he screamed, pointing at The Oskaloosa Kid. “There he is! And you've got Miss Prim, too, and when do I get the reward?”

“Shut up!” said one of the men.

“Watch this bunch,” said Burton to one of his lieutenants, “while we go after the rest of them. There are some over by the mill. I can hear them.”

From the woods came a fear-filled scream mingled with the savage growls of a beast.

“It's the bear,” shrilled Willie Case, and ran toward the automobile.

Bridge ran forward to meet Burton. “Get that girl and the kid into your machine and beat it!” he cried. “There's a bear loose here, a regular devil of a bear. You can't do a thing unless you have rifles. Have you?”

“Who are you?” asked the detective.

“He's one of the gang,” yelled Willie Case from the fancied security of the tonneau. “Seize him!” He wanted to add: “My men”; but somehow his nerve failed him at the last moment; however he had the satisfaction of thinking it.

Bridge was placed in the car with Abigail Prim, The Oskaloosa Kid, Soup Face and The Sky Pilot. Burton sent the driver back to assist in guarding them; then he with the remaining three, two of whom were armed with rifles, advanced toward the mill. Beyond it they heard the growling of the bear at a little distance in the wood; but the man no longer made any outcry. From a tree Giova warned them back.

“Come down!” commanded Burton, and sent her back to the car.

The driver turned his spot light upon the wood beyond the mill and presently there came slowly forward into its rays the lumbering bulk of a large bear. The light bewildered him and he paused, growling. His left shoulder was partially exposed.

“Aim for his chest, on the left side,” whispered Burton. The two men raised their rifles. There were two reports in close succession. Beppo fell forward without a sound and then rolled over on his side. Giova covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

“He ver' bad, ugly bear,” she said brokenly; “but he all I have to love.”

Bridge extended a hand and patted her bowed head. In the eyes of The Oskaloosa Kid there glistened something perilously similar to tears.

In the woods back of the mill Burton and his men found the mangled remains of Columbus Blackie, and when they searched the interior of the structure they brought forth the unconscious Dirty Eddie. As the car already was taxed to the limit of its carrying capacity Burton left two of his men to march The Kid and Bridge to the Payson jail, taking the others with him to Oakdale. He was also partially influenced in this decision by the fear that mob violence would be done the principals by Oakdale's outraged citizens. At Payson he stopped long enough at the town jail to arrange for the reception of the two prisoners, to notify the coroner of the death of Columbus Blackie and the whereabouts of his body and to place Dirty Eddie in the hospital. He then telephoned Jonas Prim that his daughter was safe and would be returned to him in less than an hour.

By the time Bridge and The Oskaloosa Kid reached Payson the town was in an uproar. A threatening crowd met them a block from the jail; but Burton's men were armed with rifles which they succeeded in convincing the mob they would use if their prisoners were molested. The telephone, however, had carried the word to Oakdale; so that before Burton arrived there a dozen automobile loads of indignant citizens were racing south toward Payson.

Bridge and The Oskaloosa Kid were hustled into the single cell of the Payson jail. A bench ran along two sides of the room. A single barred window let out upon the yard behind the structure. The floor was littered with papers, and a single electric light bulb relieved the gloom of the unsavory place.

The Oskaloosa Kid sank, trembling, upon one of the hard benches. Bridge rolled a cigaret. At his feet lay a copy of that day's Oakdale Tribune. A face looked up from the printed page into his eyes. He stooped and took up the paper. The entire front page was devoted to the various crimes which had turned peaceful Oakdale inside out in the past twenty four hours. There were reproductions of photographs of John Baggs, Reginald Paynter, Abigail Prim, Jonas Prim, and his wife, with a large cut of the Prim mansion, a star marking the boudoir of the missing daughter of the house. As Bridge examined the various pictures an odd expression entered his eyes--it was a mixture of puzzlement, incredulity, and relief. Tossing the paper aside he turned toward The Oskaloosa Kid. They could hear the sullen murmur of the crowd in front of the jail.

“If they get any booze,” he said, “they'll take us out of here and string us up. If you've got anything to say that would tend to convince them that you did not kill Paynter I advise you to call the guard and tell the truth, for if the mob gets us they might hang us first and listen afterward--a mob is not a nice thing. Beppo was an angel of mercy by comparison with one.”

“Could you convince them that you had no part in any of these crimes?” asked the boy. “I know that you didn't; but could you prove it to a mob?”

“No,” said Bridge. “A mob is not open to reason. If they get us I shall hang, unless someone happens to think of the stake.”

The boy shuddered.

“Will you tell the truth?” asked the man.

“I will go with you,” replied the boy, “and take whatever you get.”

“Why?” asked Bridge.

The youth flushed; but did not reply, for there came from without a sudden augmentation of the murmurings of the mob. Automobile horns screamed out upon the night. The two heard the chugging of motors, the sound of brakes and the greetings of new arrivals. The reinforcements had arrived from Oakdale.

A guard came to the grating of the cell door. “The bunch from Oakdale has come,” he said. “If I was you I'd say my prayers. Old man Baggs is dead. No one never had no use for him while he was alive, but the whole county's het up now over his death. They're bound to get you, an' while I didn't count 'em all I seen about a score o' ropes. They mean business.”