The Steel Horse. Charles Austin Fosdick
appear before it as witnesses.
When Tom Bigden and his cousins, Loren and Ralph Farnsworth, heard of that, they shook in their boots. And well they might; for, as you know, Tom was accessory to some of Matt's violations of the law. More than that, rumor said that the old woman had told all she knew, and that she had even gone so far as to assure the officers of the Irvington Bank that she and her family would not have been half so bad as they were, if one Tom Bigden had not advised and urged them to commit crime.
"It's all over with me, boys," groaned Tom, when one of his school-fellows incidentally remarked in his hearing that he had seen Joe Wayring and his two friends take the train for Irvington that morning to testify before the grand jury. "You know Joe is jealous of me and that he will do anything he can to injure me."
"Well," said Ralph, plunging his hands deep into his pockets and looking thoughtfully at the ground, "what would you do to a fellow who was the means of having you tied to a tree with a fair prospect of a good beating with hickory switches on your bare back? Would you be friendly to him or feel like shielding him from punishment?"
"But I didn't tell Matt to tie Joe Wayring to a tree and thrash him," retorted Tom. "I never thought of such a thing."
"I didn't say you did," replied Ralph. "I said you were the cause of it, and so you were; for you told Matt that you had seen the valises that contained the six thousand stolen dollars in Joe's camp-basket."
"Matt was a fool to believe it," said Loren. "One little camp-basket wouldn't hold both those gripsacks."
"That doesn't alter the facts of the case," answered Ralph. "Matt did believe the story, ridiculous as it was, and Tom's fate is in the hands of a boy whom we have abused and bothered in all possible ways ever since we have been here."
"And we didn't have the slightest reason or excuse for it," added Loren.
"So you're going back on me, are you?" exclaimed Tom.
"Not at all. We are simply telling you the truth."
"Perhaps Joe doesn't know that Tom put it into Matt's head to follow him and his friends to No-Man's Pond," suggested Loren. "I haven't heard a word said about it."
"Neither have I; but that's no proof that Joe doesn't know all about it," answered Ralph.
"Who do you think told him?" asked Tom. "It couldn't have been Matt Coyle, for I told him particularly not to mention my name in Joe's hearing, or drop a hint that would lead him to suspect that Matt had seen me in the Indian Lake country."
"The squatter didn't care that for your injunctions of secrecy," said Ralph, snapping his fingers in the air. "What he said to you during those interviews you held with him ought to convince you that he would just as soon get you into trouble as anybody else. Being a social outcast, Matt believes in making war upon every one who is higher up in the world than he is."
"Well," said Tom, with a sigh of resignation, "if Joe knows as much as you think he does, my chances of getting out of the scrapes I've got into are few and far between. He'll tell everything, and be glad of the chance. I wish from the bottom of my heart that we had never seen or heard of Mount Airy."
"Joe Wayring will tell nothing unless it is forced out of him," said Ralph stoutly; and for the first time in his life Tom did not scowl and double up his fists as he had been in the habit of doing whenever either of his cousins said anything in praise of the boy he hated without a cause. If Joe was as honorable as Ralph seem to think he was, Tom thought he saw a chance to escape punishment for his wrong-doing. "He'll not commit perjury nor even stretch the truth to screen you," continued Ralph, as if he read the thoughts that were passing in Tom's mind. "But he'll not volunteer any evidence; I am sure of that."
If Ralph had been one of Joe Wayring's most intimate friends he could not have read him better. The latter was very much afraid that he would be compelled to say something that would criminate Tom, but to his surprise and relief the members of the grand jury did not seem to know that there was such a fellow in the world as Tom Bigden, for they never once mentioned his name. If the old woman and her boys had tried to throw the blame for their misdeeds upon his shoulders, they hadn't made anything by it. All the jury cared for was to find out just how much Joe and his friends knew about the six thousand dollars that had been stolen from the Irvington Bank; and as the boys knew but little about it, it did not take them long to give their evidence. Finally one of the jurymen said:
"Matt Coyle bothered you a good deal by stealing your canvas canoe and other property, I believe."
Joe replied that that was a fact.
"Would you prosecute him for it, if you had a chance?"
Joe said he never expected to have a chance, because Matt was dead.
"Perhaps he is, and perhaps he isn't," said the juryman, with a laugh. "Matt Coyle is a hard case, if all I hear about him is true, and it sorter runs in my mind that he will turn up again some day, as full of meanness as he ever was."
"You wouldn't think so if you could see Indian River booming as it was on the day we came home," said Joe, earnestly. "It must have been a great deal worse when Matt saw it, but he had the hardihood to face it."
"And went to the bottom," added Roy.
"Would you have the law on him for tying you to a tree and threatening to wallop you with switches?" asked the juryman.
"No sir, I would not," said Joe, truthfully. "All we ask of Matt Coyle or any other tramp is to keep away from us and let us alone."
"Do you believe any one told Matt that you had the bank's money and sent him to No-Man's Pond to whip it out of you?"
"No, I don't."
"Matt's boys stick to it that such is the fact."
"I don't care what Matt's boys say or what they stick to," answered Joe. "You can imagine what the evidence of such fellows as they are amounts to. Folks who will steal are not above lying, are they?"
"That juryman isn't half as smart as he thinks he is," said Roy, when he and his companions had been dismissed with the information that they might start for Mount Airy as soon as they pleased. "I was awfully afraid that his next question would be: 'Did you ever hear that Tom Bigden was accessory to Matt Coyle's assault upon you at No-Man's Pond?' You could not have wiggled out of that corner, Mr. Wayring."
"I didn't wiggle out of any corner," answered Joe. "I made replies to all the questions he asked me, didn't I? That juryman knew his business too well to ask me any such question as that. My answer would have been simply hearsay, and that's not evidence. See the point?"
"Why, didn't Jake Coyle declare in your hearing that Tom Bigden told his father that the money was in your camp-basket?" demanded Arthur.
"Well, what's that but hearsay? Do you expect me to take Jake's word for anything? I didn't hear Tom tell him so."
"No; but you have as good proof as any sensible boy needs that Tom did it. If not, why did Matt fly into such a rage at the mention of his name, and cut Jake's face so unmercifully with that switch?"
"I don't believe that would pass for evidence, although it might lead the jury to put a little more faith in Jake's story and Sam's," answered Joe. "We didn't come here to get Tom into trouble. Didn't they say at the start that all they wanted of us was to tell what we knew about that money? We've done that, and my conscience is clear. I think Tom will take warning and mind what he is about in future."
"I'll bet you he won't," Roy declared. "He'll get you into difficulty of some sort the very first good chance he gets."
"If he does, and I can fasten it on him, I'll give him such a punching that his cousins won't know him when they see him. I'm getting tired of this sort of work, and I'll not put up with it any longer. If Tom will not leave off bothering us of his own accord, I'll make him."
In due time the jury returned a "true bill" against Jake Coyle for burglary. Mr. Haskins had little difficulty in proving that Jake broke the fastenings of his door before he robbed the cellar,