There passed before his mental vision a panorama of the events of the night.He smiled as he inaudibly voiced the name they had given him, the right to which he had not seen fit to deny."The Oskaloosa Kid." The boy smiled again as be felt the 'swag' hard and lumpy in his pockets.It had given him prestige here that he could not have gained by any other means; but he mistook the nature of the interest which his display of stolen wealth had aroused.He thought that the men now looked upon him as a fellow criminal to be accepted into the fraternity through achievement; whereas they suf-fered him to remain solely in the hope of transferring his loot to their own pockets.
It is true that he puzzled them.Even The Sky Pilot, the most astute and intelligent of them all, was at a loss to fathom The Oskaloosa Kid.Innocence and unsophisti-cation flaunted their banners in almost every act and speech of The Oskaloosa Kid.The youth reminded him in some ways of members of a Sunday school which had flourished in the dim vistas of his past when, as an or-dained minister of the Gospel, he had earned the so-briquet which now identified him.But the concrete evidence of the valuable loot comported not with The Sky Pilot's idea of a Sunday school boy's lark.The young fellow was, unquestionably, a thief; but that he had ever before consorted with thieves his speech and manners belied.
"He's got me," murmured The Sky Pilot; "but he's got the stuff on him, too; and all I want is to get it off of him without a painful operation.Tomorrow'll do," and he shifted his position and fell asleep.
Dopey Charlie and The General did not, however, follow the example of their chief.They remained very wide awake, a little apart from the others, where their low whispers could not be overheard.
"You better do it," urged The General, in a soft, in-sinuating voice."You're pretty slick with the toad stab-ber, an' any way one more or less won't count.""We can go to Sout' America on dat stuff an' live like gents," muttered Dopey Charlie."I'm goin' to cut out de Hop an' buy a farm an' a ottymobeel and--""Come out of it," admonished The General."If we're lucky we'll get as far as Cincinnati, get a stew on and get pinched.Den one of us'll hang an' de other get stir fer life."The General was a weasel faced person of almost any age between thirty-five and sixty.Sometimes he could have passed for a hundred and ten.He had won his military title as a boy in the famous march of Coxey's army on Washington, or, rather, the title had been con-ferred upon him in later years as a merited reward of service.The General, profiting by the precepts of his erstwhile companions in arms, had never soiled his mil-itary escutcheon by labor, nor had he ever risen to the higher planes of criminality.Rather as a mediocre pick-pocket and a timorous confidence man had he eked out a meager existence, amply punctuated by seasons of straight bumming and intervals spent as the guest of various inhospitably hospitable states.Now, for the first time in his life, The General faced the possibility of a serious charge; and his terror made him what he never before had been, a dangerous criminal.
"You're a cheerful guy," commented Dopey Charlie;"but you may be right at dat.Dey can't hang a guy any higher fer two 'an they can fer one an' dat's no pipe;so wots de use.Wait till I take a shot--it'll be easier,"and he drew a small, worn case from an inside pocket, bared his arm to the elbow and injected enough mor-phine to have killed a dozen normal men.
From a pile of mouldy hay across the barn the youth, heavy eyed but sleepless, watched the two through half closed lids.A qualm of disgust sent a sudden shudder through his slight frame.For the first time he almost re-gretted having embarked upon a life of crime.He had seen that the two men were conversing together earn-estly, though he could over-hear nothing they said, and that he had been the subject of their nocturnal colloquy, for several times a glance or a nod in his direction as-sured him of this.And so he lay watching them--not that he was afraid, he kept reassuring himself, but through curiosity.Why should he be afraid? Was it not a well known truth that there was honor among thieves?
But the longer he watched the heavier grew his lids.
Several times they closed to be dragged open again only by painful effort.Finally came a time that they remained closed and the young chest rose and fell in the regular breathing of slumber.
The two ragged, rat-hearted creatures rose silently and picked their way, half-crouched, among the sleepers sprawled between them and The Oskaloosa Kid.In the hand of Dopey Charlie gleamed a bit of shiny steel and in his heart were fear and greed.The fear was engend-ered by the belief that the youth might be an amateur detective.Dopey Charlie had had one experience of such and he knew that it was easily possible for them to blunder upon evidence which the most experienced of operatives might pass over unnoticed, and the loot bulg-ing pockets furnished a sufficient greed motive in them-selves.
Beside the boy kneeled the man with the knife.He did not raise his hand and strike a sudden, haphazard blow.Instead he placed the point carefully, though lightly, above the victim's heart, and then, suddenly, bore his weight upon the blade.
Abigail Prim always had been a thorn in the flesh of her stepmother--a well-meaning, unimaginative, ambitious, and rather common woman.Coming into the Prim home as house-keeper shortly after the death of Abigail's mother, the second Mrs.Prim had from the first looked upon Abigail principally as an obstacle to be overcome.
She had tried to 'do right by her'; but she had never given the child what a child most needs and most craves--love and understanding.Not loving Abigail, the house-keeper could, naturally, not give her love; and as for understanding her one might as reasonably have ex-pected an adding machine to understand higher mathe-matics.
