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Old Clubfoot's first fatal misadventure was in Siskiyou, where he was caught in a trap and shot by two intrepid men, who stuffed his skin and sent it to San Francisco for exhibition at a fair.
It seemed to arouse me from the lethargy into which I had sunk during all those months of danger and disappointment. It shook me into life. If I was to save him, not a moment was to be lost. Clubfoot would act swiftly, I knew. So must I. But first I must find out what the situation was, the meaning of Clubfoot's presence in Monica's house, of those soldiers in the park.
Clubfoot's mind was extraordinarily alert, however gross and heavy his body might be. He paused for a moment in reflection, his hands crossed upon his great paunch.
He had a hunted look on his face. Monica saw it and it sobered her. They got up in front, and I sat in the body of the car. "Hang on to that!" said Francis, handing me over a leather case. I recognized it at a glance. It was Clubfoot's dispatch-box. Francis was thorough in everything. Once more we dashed out along the desolate country roads. We saw hardly a soul.
Then quite suddenly the light went out, plunging the place into darkness. Instantly the room was in confusion; women screamed; a voice, which I recognized as Clubfoot's, bawled stentorianly for lights ... the moment had come to act. I grabbed a hat and coat from the hall, got into them somehow, and darted to the door.
Called upon by Uncle Frank for his opinion, Bartley hesitated, and then said that, if the horses were his, he would be tempted to go and get them, regardless of consequences. Bartley's stock went up, with Little Jim, right there. Cheyenne turned to Uncle Frank. "I'm ridin' over to Clubfoot's wikiup to-morrow mornin'. I'll git my hosses, or git him. And I'm ridin' alone."
I sat and looked at my plate, my heart too full for words. It was bitter to have dared so much to get this far and then find the path blocked, as it seemed, by an insuperable barrier. They were after me all right: the mention of Clubfoot's name, the swift, stern retribution that had befallen Kore, made that certain and I could do nothing.
"I am waiting!" Clubfoot's voice broke stridently upon the silence. Should I tell him the truth now? It was three minutes to the hour. "Come! The two addresses!" I would keep faith to the last. "Herr Doktor!" I faltered. He dashed the pencil down on the table and sprang to his feet. He caught me by the lapels of my coat and shook me in an iron grip. "The addresses, you dog!" he said.
He had degenerated to a mangy, yellow beast of about 500 pounds weight, with a coat like a wornout doormat, and but for a card labelling him as "Old Reelfoot," and exploiting the prowess of his slayers, his old friends never would have known him. Clubfoot's first reincarnation took place in Ventura, about 600 miles from the scene of his death.
I thought of the comments I had heard on Clubfoot among the customers at Haase's, and I felt that Red Tabs had hit the right nail on the head again. "By the way?" said Red Tabs, as I rose to go, "would you care to see Clubfoot's epitaph? I kept it for you." He handed me a German newspaper the Berliner Tageblatt, I think it was with a paragraph marked in red pencil.
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