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He, Ruiz Gregorio, could slip across the river in the dusk when the thing was done, skirt the headquarters camp unseen, and present himself a little later at Señor Frisbie's camp of the track-layers, coming, as it were, direct from Copah, almost upon the heels of Señor Benson. After that, who could connect him with the dead body of a man fished out of a river twenty, fifty, a hundred miles away?
But perhaps the most appalling aspect under which the last messenger can appear is that of a deliberately inflicted judicial death. Such a doom, pronounced upon the greatest sinner that ever lived, must move the pity of his bitterest enemy. The family at Cameron Court formed a Christian household. They received the news of Frisbie's conviction with solemn, compassionate approbation.
The next morning, when his old servant Cuthbert entered the cell as usual, he was frightened at his master's dreadful looks. "Will I call a doctor to your lairdship?" inquired the old man. "No, Cuthbert; I am not ill. I am only suffering for want of rest. I have not been able to sleep since Frisbie's arraignment. He is convicted, you know." "Aye, me laird, I ken a' anent it.
For a time, which lengthened to dragging minutes, the anxious experimenters hung over the tiny field instrument. The sensitive magnet seemed wholly dead. Then, suddenly, it began to tick hesitantly in response to Ford's tapping of the key. "Thank God, the battery is strong enough," he exclaimed. "Now, if there is somebody within hearing at Frisbie's end of the line ..."
The golden youth was the bearer of tidings, but Ford held up his hand for silence: some one was breaking in to reply from Frisbie's Frisbie, himself, as the minimized tickings speedily announced. Ford snipped out his call for help in the fewest possible words: Arm M'Grath's gang and bring it by train to Horse Creek, quick. MacMorroghs are trying to dynamite us in the Nadia.
Williams looked grave; for they were, actually, human! and I suppose they didn't like to be jeered at, and called a swarm of niggers, any more than you or I would. So the journey was accomplished; and the stupendous joke of Frisbie's was achieved. Conceive Mrs. Gingerford's wonder, when she beheld the ark approaching!
It was not until the third day of the week that Adair came ambling into Copah, riding a cart mule from Frisbie's camp. To his sister and his aunt the young man told everything; to his uncle nothing. Between gasps in the speculative frenzy Mr. Colbrith found time to complain bitterly to his nephew of Ford's defection. "It was dastardly!" he shrilled.
Hector removed his great weight from the telegraph counter and the woodwork creaked its relief. What he said was indicative of his frame of mind. "Humph!" he growled. "If we don't get tangled up with Mr. Frisbie's light engine, it's us for a head-ender with the string of empties. Isn't that about it, Mr. Ford?" "That's it, precisely."
The viscount, baffled and dissatisfied, but more determined than ever to marry this tantalizing beauty, left the room and retired to his own chamber. Mr. Frisbie's work was over there, and Mr. Frisbie himself was absent, of course.
"You mean that the time is too short?" said Ford, speaking to Frisbie's emphatic objection. "Too short at both ends," contended the little man with the devilish mustaches and chin beard.
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