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I've got much more important things to think about." Bewilderment, rage, and despair were written upon the face of the captain. "Ranson!" he roared. "Is this a pose, or are you mad? Can't you understand that you came very near to being hanged for murder and that you are in great danger of going to jail for theft?
After filling a disreputable pipe with tobacco crumbs he leaned a little forward, then in lowered tones, from which every trace of mountain dialect had abruptly departed he said: "By gad, Brent, an episode that gives a man a new sensation a new thrill, in a world of threadbare ones is worth a king's ranson. I've seen the beauties of Occident and Orient but until now "
Ranson came into the army at the time of the Spanish war because it promised a new form of excitement, and because everybody else he knew had gone into it too. As the son of his father he was made an adjutant-general of volunteers with the rank of captain, and unloaded on the staff of a Southern brigadier, who was slated never to leave Charleston.
The Army returned her affection without the jealousy of the father, and with much more than his effusiveness. But when Lieutenant Ranson arrived from the Philippines, the affections of Mary Cahill became less generously distributed, and her heart fluttered hourly between trouble and joy.
"Yes, going to jail," retorted Ranson. "You'll look nice behind the bars, won't you? Your daughter will be proud of you in a striped suit. Don't talk nonsense. You're going to run and hide some place, somewhere, where Mary and I can come and pay you a visit. Say Canada. No, not Canada. I'd rather visit you in jail than in a Montreal hotel. Say Tangier, or Buenos Ayres, or Paris.
Ranson was engaged, but that, if he cared to wait, perhaps he would see him later on. He said he would wait, and was shown into a stuffy little room, furnished with ancient deed-boxes and a very large, old leather-covered sofa that took up half the place. Here he sat for a while, staring at a square of dirty glass which gave what light was available, and reflecting upon things in general.
After a pause he said: "Oh, he takes his chances." "Of course he does," cried Crosby, encouragingly. "He takes the chance of being shot by the passengers, and of being caught by the posse and lynched, but this man's got away with it now six times in the last year. And I say that takes nerve." "Why, for fifty dollars " laughed Ranson.
"O Tump Pack," he called loudly, "you kain't git away from me! If you roll bones in Hooker's Bend, you'll have to divide your winnings with the county." Dawson winked a chill eye at the crowd in general. "But hit's out o' date, Mr. Bobbs," the old gray-headed minister, Parson Ranson, was pleading.
"Do you think the colonel should parade the band and give you a serenade?" For a moment Ranson stared at her dully, and then his sense of proportion returned to him. He threw back his head and laughed with her joyfully. From verandas, barracks, and headquarters, the four hundred pairs of eyes noted this evidence of heartlessness with varied emotions.
So a while later, for the porter told him that it was no use to go to see lawyers too early, he sallied forth, and after much search discovered the queer spot called the Poultry, also the offices of Messrs. Ranson, Richards and Son. Here he gave his name to a clerk, who thrust a very oily head out of a kind of mahogany box, and was told that Mr.
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