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Title: What's life worth?

Author: Clay Perry

Release date: February 20, 2026 [eBook #77981]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Street & Smith Corporation, 1930

Credits: Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT'S LIFE WORTH? ***


                         What’s Life Worth?

                           By Clay Perry

         It Took a Girl Lawyer to Show Him What Life Was Worth


No one in Big Neck would have given a nickel for the life of the
hard-faced, defiant young man who was arraigned in county court on the
charge of murder of “Big Steve” Laramie, the lumberman.

At least, that was what almost everyone said, when they heard the story
of how he had refused to give any account of himself and his movements
on the night that Laramie was shot, had given a name which was palpably
false, had refused even to have an attorney.

The very name that he gave was a mockery.

“Watts Lifeworth! Watts Lifeworth!” called Clerk Calder, holding the
grand jury indictment in his hands and “calling up” the prisoner at
the bar.

A buzz and a murmur ran through the audience which packed the benches
behind the prisoner’s dock; a rustle and a stir came among the assembled
barristers and court attachés within the inclosure in front of the dock.

It was true, then, that he had assumed a name that had been given him
in derision by the lumberjacks in the camp where he had worked, because
of an expression it was said he was fond of using: “What’s life worth,
anyhow?”

“Watts Lifeworth, what say you now to the indictment charging you with
the murder of Stephen A. Laramie?” demanded the clerk sharply. “Guilty
or not guilty?”

Among the lawyers sat a very young attorney, just recently admitted to
the bar, one whom the rest of the barristers did not take very
seriously, one whom the people of Big Neck considered had gone outside
of the usual conventions to enter the legal profession--because Lawyer
Lee was a woman.

Mary Lee was the only woman lawyer in Big Neck, and the youngest member
of the bar. Those who smiled or sniffed at her and her pretensions at
law were inclined to give more consideration to her youth and a pair of
soft brown eyes and a dimple at the corner of her mouth than to the
years of hard work she had done, working her way through law school,
making her own clothes, caring for her widowed mother until she died,
teaching school between sessions and managing, somehow, to retain
possession of the little cottage which was all her father had left,
except the mortgage on it, when he succumbed, a victim of one of those
terrible accidents which happen in the big woods.

Other barristers were very polite to her, over-polite, in a manner of
extreme condescension which indicated a sort of contempt for her legal
attainments. She had managed to secure only three or four cases since
her admission to the bar and one of these concerned a client whose
interests, at this time, she was anxious to protect.

Bud Harper, an overgrown boy of seventeen, was held as a material
witness in connection with the killing of Steve Laramie. Bud Harper had
seen a man sneaking through the railroad yards, with what looked like a
rifle in his hands, edging toward Steve Laramie’s mansion, on the knoll
above the yards, aloof and in splendid isolation from the rest of Big
Neck. She had managed to get Bud out of jail on bail, going clear to
Hartville to see Judge Thurman and getting the ridiculously high amount
of bail, placed by Justice of the Peace Calder, reduced so that Bud’s
relatives could raise the amount for his freedom.

This was Mary Lee’s humble connection with this case which was a _cause_
célébre_ for Big Neck, because Big Steve Laramie had been the “Pooh Bah”_
of the little Northwoods town.

Other attorneys within the inclosure were there to try cases, minor
cases in comparison to this one, to be sure, but Mary Lee had not even
a case for trial in the county court, nor had she expected one.

One or two criminal lawyers sat restlessly, waiting for the opportunity
which might be offered them when an attorney was assigned to the man
who was charged with the murder. It was considered likely that the
assignment would go to the firm of Walsh & Wilker, and the fee, to be
paid by the county, would be split between the partners, plus such
expenses as they might incur in working on the case.

There was not one of the lawyers there who believed this man anything
but guilty--not one, that is, except Lawyer Mary Lee. And she had not
dared to say that she thought otherwise. It would be considered a
woman’s sentimental weakness for a bold, rather handsome villain such
as this man Watts Lifeworth surely was.

Mary Lee looked at him as he rose to answer the indictment. It was the
second time she had seen him in the month since he had been arrested.
She thought that he had aged a great deal. His face was gray, sharp and
tense--others said hard and bold and defiant.

A month ago, when they had brought him in from the camp, a deputy on
each side of him, his wrists manacled, in a bobbing sleigh drawn by
a pair of work horses, he had seemed as young as the age he had
given--twenty-five.

Erect as an Indian, staring straight ahead of him as the sleigh went
through Main Street, curls of crisp, black hair escaping from beneath a
round, woolen cruiser cap, clapped carelessly on his head by some other
hands than his own, a mackinaw open at the neck, revealing a deep chest,
a strong, brown pillar of a neck rising from the blue, woolen shirt that
was also unbuttoned. A powerful young man who seemed something like a
wild animal captured, one who loved life and freedom--so he had looked.

Now he looked beaten, haggard, sullen, despairing.

“Guilty or not guilty?” echoed the words of the clerk, and all the
little buzzing whispers, shuffling of feet, rustle of clothing and
murmurs were stilled.

“Guilty,” answered the prisoner, in a dull drawl.

Mary Lee caught her breath and her lip in her teeth.

All around her a sort of “Ah!” seemed to rush in unison from the breasts
of those who watched and waited, as if they all said, “I thought so!”

Attorneys looked at one another and smiled knowingly. The prosecuting
attorney and his assistant almost rushed to the judge’s bench and
began talking to Judge Thurman, who was sitting in the criminal
session. Everybody watched Judge Thurman closely. In Big Neck this
white-haired, stern-faced justice was quite disliked. There were some
of the most bitter who declared he was crooked. This was because he
had rendered a decision in the famous case of the Inhabitants of Big
Neck vs. the North Branch Railroad Company, a decision against the
said inhabitants whose petition, headed by Steve Laramie, would have
compelled the railroad company to erect a new station in Big Neck.

Of course, Steve Laramie would have profited most directly by a
favorable decision because he owned the land the railroad would have
had to buy to build the station, but the inhabitants considered
themselves injured also. So the inhabitants watched Judge Thurman for
a show of leniency toward Laramie’s “murderer.”

There had been a few whispers about Big Steve, of late, but these had
died down when he was killed. He was spoken of now as an honest, upright
man, all his sharp practices forgotten since he had been struck down by
a rifle bullet fired through the window of his home.

He had been there alone, his wife being in Hartville visiting a sister.
Even the story about the man whom Laramie had paid five hundred dollars
to leave town, at the time of the government timber contract scandal,
was forgotten. Some said he had done it to protect the man; one or two
doubted it. They noticed that the man’s wife had stayed on in Big Neck
and had seemed to be prosperous--until her welcome wore out and she
left and went to Hartville.

Mary Lee, curiously enough, was thinking about this old story now. She
had been too young to know the people. She had heard it, in part, from
her father and in more detail, much later, from her mother, who had
grown querulous, almost childish, in her latter days and harped on many
disagreeable things.

Mary Lee was thinking, with that probing, prying mind of hers which had
led her to take up the study of law, that the motive which was ascribed
to this man at the bar for killing Steve Laramie was not very strong. To
be sure, he had sneered at the sheriff and his deputies when they had
remonstrated with him for being so casual about the charge against him,
and the sheriff had said: “You are being charged with the murder of an
honest, upright citizen of Big Neck.”

“Steve Laramie!” he was reported to have cried out. “He was no cock-eyed
angel. He was a blackguard!”

And now he pleaded guilty.

The buzzing conference at the bench ended. The prosecutor and his
assistant sat down sulkily. Judge Thurman spoke to the prisoner:

“Watts Lifeworth, do you realize that in pleading guilty to this charge
you give me no alternative save to sentence you to imprisonment for the
remainder of your natural life?”

The prisoner leaned forward a little, his hands gripping the rail of the
dock so hard that his fingers went white.

“No, your honor!” he exploded hoarsely. “I did not know that.”

“You have refused an attorney,” Judge Thurman went on sternly. “Under
the law you are entitled to an attorney, whether you have any funds or
not. The laws of this State are jealous of the rights of all men, even
he who is charged with the unlawful taking of human life. You have
shown by your plea and your reply to my questions that you are ignorant
of the law and not qualified to make your own defense. I am obliged to
protect you against your own ignorance. You are instructed, Mr. Clerk,
to enter a plea of _not guilty_ against this charge, in behalf of the
prisoner, Watts Lifeworth. Mr. Sheriff, will you conduct the prisoner
to the bench.”

Messrs. Walsh & Wilker looked self-conscious, trying not to look so.
Mary Lee looked at the prisoner and wondered why he had pleaded guilty.

“Was it because he thought--that would end it all?” she asked herself.
“It must have been. But when he learned that it meant life imprisonment,
he was startled, horrified. It seems as if he wanted to die.”

Judge Thurman looked down at the prisoner and his thoughts were somewhat
the same as Mary Lee’s. She would have been astonished to know it, for
she considered Judge Thurman’s mind the highest type of legal mind and
she was only a green, young, woman lawyer.

She was thunderstruck to hear her name called by Judge Thurman.

“Will Lawyer Lee please step to the bench?”

She had to struggle to get to her feet. What was it? About Bud Harper?
Her face was pale as she went to the place before the bench where now
stood Watts Lifeworth, the sheriff, the prosecutor and his assistant,
all eyes upon her.

“Attorney Lee,” said Judge Thurman, addressing her, “this prisoner has
expressed a desire to have you assigned as his counsel, to defend him
of the charge of murder. Do you wish to accept the assignment?”

For a moment Mary Lee could not get her breath and she stammered when
she answered:

“Your--your honor, I--I have not consulted with the prisoner! I had no
idea----”

“Perhaps you would like to consult with him before you give your
answer,” suggested Judge Thurman brusquely. “Mr. Sheriff, conduct the
prisoner to the dock and make a place for Lawyer Lee, where she may
speak with him, uninterrupted for a few moments.

“The court is aware,” he continued, speaking again to Mary, “that this
assignment is not an easy one nor is it likely to be a pleasing task,
but it is one which must fall to some one of the members of the bar. In
view of the fact that this man has expressed but one preference, it is
the duty of the court to accede to his wishes in so far as is possible.
You may now retire for consultation. Mr. Clark, will you call up the
next case on the docket, to be considered for the time. We shall return
to the case of Watts Lifeworth in due time.”

The sheriff led Watts Lifeworth away by the arm and placed him again in
the long, narrow inclosure of which he was the sole occupant, such other
persons as were to appear before the court being at liberty on bail. The
sheriff then cleared away chairs and asked a few other attorneys to
move. He set a table near the rail of the dock, a chair beside it. Mary
Lee went and sat down, her knees trembling.

Judge Thurman had his eyes upon her, squinting a little to conceal a
gleam that was in them. He was a student of mankind as well as of laws
and he had learned that there is no more powerful appeal to a woman than
the spectacle of a man, evidently bent upon self-destruction, especially
if he be a young man whose doom is apparently sealed. He knew this is an
age-old law, irrevocably bound up in the mysteries of life and sex.

He had not thought it necessary to inform Mary Lee that the prisoner’s
preference as expressed had been, not for her, personally, but for “the
youngest lawyer you can find, your honor. That’ll be good enough.”

So, as she faced Watts Lifeworth, her face showing the pent-up emotion
that was in her, she seemed to catch in his gray-blue eyes an appeal.
He had asked her to help him.

“Did you guess,” she asked him breathlessly, “that I believe you
innocent of this crime?”

He smiled. It was not with his lips but with his eyes, which alone in
his mask-like face seemed to be alive, capable of showing emotion.

“I suppose,” he said, “a man never can be sure he is guilty ’till after
the trial. But every one seems sure about me.”

There was a biting, ironic touch to his tone and his words. It brought a
rush of blood to her face.

“Why did you plead guilty?” she asked him. “Why are you so anxious to
die? I have heard that your favorite expression is the one from which
you took the name you give, ‘What’s life worth, anyhow?’ What has
happened to you to make you feel this way? Something has happened.”

He turned another of those masked smiles upon her.

“What makes you think I am innocent?” he demanded.

“Because I believe there may be some one who had a more impelling
motive than any which has been suggested for your alleged killing of
Steve Laramie,” she said, keeping her voice low and level with
difficulty, because of a rising, throbbing beat of desperation in
her breast which threatened to get into her throat. “Do you think
life would be worth much to a guilty man if an innocent man dies for
his crime--no matter how badly the innocent man wishes to die?”

A little twist of his lips, then his answer, ironic, almost gibing: “For
the sake of supposing, I’d say it might be worth more to him than mine
is to me. I don’t know what you think you know about this.”

“I haven’t time to tell you now. I’ve got to answer the judge’s
question, whether I shall accept this assignment. Before I can answer
it, I have got to know whether you are going to help me--to help you.
That is all.”

She thought that he breathed a little faster, and that the queer gleam
in his eyes was a trifle warmer. But when he spoke it was flatly, dully,
and the spark of sardonic humor lay in his words:

“Well, if it’s going to be worth anything to you to try to save a
worthless life, sister, I’ll do all I _can_ to help you.”

Lawyer Mary Lee accepted the assignment. Judge Thurman flattered
himself he had known, all along, that she would accept it, but he was
not cynical enough to believe that she did it because of the modest
fee which the county would pay her.

Other lawyers smiled, sidewise, when she announced she had decided
to accept the assignment, but openly they congratulated her, warmly.
Attorney Walsh of the firm of Walsh & Wilker congratulated her with,
“It’s a rather hopeless case, Miss Lee. Not everybody would want to
tackle it.”

Which was as much as to say that he hadn’t cared for the assignment
anyway, and that he pitied her--and for a consideration, a portion
of the fee, he would gladly help her. But Mary Lee asked no one to
help her or to split the fee with her. She was not thinking of the
fee anyway. Lawyer Walsh was the one who was thinking of it. Because
he thought so much of it he, believing the prisoner guilty, would
have done his legal best to prove him innocent. Mary Lee, believing
him innocent, would do a little better than her best, a lot better.
She would have to, for she felt that she was going to have to fight,
first of all, to put some little love of life into the heart of the
hard-faced man who seemed to want to die and have it over with.

That evening she went to the jail and gained admission to consult with
her client. She was allowed to sit with him on a bench in the little,
square, iron-barred room into which his cell opened, a guard beyond a
near-by iron door, his rifle leaning near him, a pistol in a holster
at his belt.

Again she asked the question: “Why is it that you don’t consider life
worth living?”

“Nothing I have ever done,” Watts answered her, in an unexpected burst
of speech, bitter, harsh of tone, accusing, hopeless, “nothing has ever
come right for me yet. When I was five years old I had a little pup
that meant more to me than anything else in the world. I played with
him as if he was a brother. He slept in my crib. One night the house we
lived in caught fire and the pup woke us up. Father and mother got the
kids out but the pup got left inside.

“I knew where he would be and I broke away from my mother and ran back
to get him. He would be under my crib--or in it. Well, my mother went
crazy and ran into the burning house after me. She didn’t come out.
Then my father went in after her--and he didn’t come out. Some one
found me--under the kitchen sink, which I thought was the crib--and
got me out. The pup was burned up, too.”

Mary felt her throat grow tight, her eyes smarting.

“I had a brother and a sister, older than I was,” he went on. “My
sister, whom I thought was an angel, fell for a worthless rascal. I
tried to keep him away from her--and she up and ran away with him. He
mistreated her; she died of consumption before I could find her and
help her.

“That left me my brother. He was ten years older than I was and a hero
to me. He married a girl that was no good--a pretty, flighty girl who
liked men--not a man but men--and on her account he went crooked. Got
mixed up in a deal that meant he’d got to stay crooked or go to State’s
prison. His wife didn’t stick by him. His wife, when I tried to help
him--tried to get her to stay with him and help him--made a fool out of
me and my brother grew to hate me. He was insanely jealous. I was on the
square with him, but he couldn’t believe it. That woman--was crooked.”

He halted abruptly. Another of those little lip-twisting quirks came,
hardly a smile. “The very last thing that I tried to do for some one,”
he said, “it went wrong. Understand that, by this time, it had begun to
seem to me that I wasn’t good for much of anything. I got to be a sort
of drifter. I drifted into one of Laramie’s logging camps, up here. It
was a miserable outfit, bum tools and bad food and wretched bunks. Even
the chains that they had to use to bind the big loads of logs onto the
sleighs were worn and rusted so that they were weak and dangerous. One
day one of ’em did break and the bohunk teamster that was driving,
walking beside the load, hadn’t time to get out of the way.

“I had a chance to save him. I tried to get my peavey under the logs as
they slipped and hold ’em long enough so he could get out of the way. I
tripped on a root and fell and rolled to a safe place myself--but the
logs fell on the teamster and broke both his legs and put him out of
business for the rest of the season. And Laramie was to blame for it,”
he added harshly.

“Then another thing went wrong,” he added. “I said I’d help you all I
can, Miss Lee. I can’t tell you about this. It would make an iron dog
laugh and howl. Nobody would believe it--and if they did--well, what’s
the use? Life isn’t worth anything to me, Miss Lee.”

He was leaning over, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped tightly,
head bent, staring at the floor. Mary Lee, biting her lip, sat a long
time and stared at the floor, too. But she was thinking and thinking
hard.

“Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, think I don’t appreciate what you’re trying
to do for me,” he burst out suddenly. “But don’t, for Heaven’s sake,
try to get me off with--second-degree murder or anything that means my
being locked up for life or any portion of it. I’d rather--it would be
guilty as charged.”

“Or not guilty?” she asked him.

He gave a short, hard laugh. “If you get that verdict,” he said, “I’d
think a miracle had happened for my special benefit. I’m not a man that
would commit suicide,” he added.

Mary Lee went away, thinking hard, knowing that miracles did not happen
to save men from the gallows, except in books, but knowing that she must
find something--somebody.

She would take the train to Hartville, she decided, and see if by any
slender chance she could get on the trail of somebody.

But when she got to her cottage somebody was waiting to see her. It
was a woman whom she never had seen before--a woman dressed in black,
a black veil pinned to her hat, a woman who once had been pretty and
who still tried to keep up the illusion by the use of cosmetics and
much perfume, and who tossed her head in a caricature of what must
have been, once, a fetching gesture.

“Miss Lee,” she said, when she was admitted to the little sitting-room
study where Mary kept her few law books and had her desk, for her home
was her office, “I just heard that Steve Laramie is dead, and I was
told that you are going to defend the man that shot him. I am Ellie
Knowles, that was Ellie Burton. I used to live in Big Neck, years ago.
Your dad and Jim Knowles knew each other. They both worked for Steve
Laramie, at one time. I don’t know whether you ever heard of this, but
Jim did a job for Steve Laramie, once, that he wasn’t paid for. Steve
Laramie promised to pay for it, some time. He promised me he would. He
was going to deed over to me one of those lots that lies just south of
the railroad station.”

Mary Lee stared at the woman, hard. “Ellie Knowles--Jim Knowles,” she
said to herself. “Jim Knowles was paid--he was paid to leave town.
That’s the man my father told me about--and this is the woman my
mother told me about. Why, this is the woman I was going to Hartville
about--to try to get some trace of her! Miracles don’t happen. This
isn’t a miracle--it’s a coincidence. Yes, and it’s natural course of
events, too. She just heard that Steve Laramie was dead? She did not
just hear it; she has known it for quite a long time. But why is she
in black?”

She asked her: “Have you lost some one, recently?”

“My husband,” answered Ellie Knowles, sniffing a little.

“Your husband is dead? Jim Knowles--is dead?”

Ellie nodded, dabbing carefully at her penciled eyebrows with a
black-bordered kerchief.

“So, you see, the lot would come to me,” she explained, apparently
unaware that she was, in a way, contradicting herself, having already
said that it was to be deeded to her by Laramie. “Jim came up to Big
Neck,” she went on, “quite a long time ago to see Steve Laramie about
it. Jim drowned himself, you know,” she added, and with a simper: “He
was a fool! But then, there’s other men have been almost as foolish
over me.

“But what I came to you for was this, Miss Lee. I didn’t want to go to a
man lawyer. You can’t trust ’em. Men are _all_ alike. I know ’em. I know
you must be awful busy, Miss Lee, but I wanted to ask you if you would
find out whether Steve Laramie left anything in his papers or, perhaps
in his will, that would give me a claim on that lot.”

“I am very busy,” Mary said slowly, thinking, thinking hard, thinking
what a harpy this woman was, thinking how callous she seemed about her
husband, simpering that he had killed himself because of her, even
indifferent to the murder of Steve Laramie. “I am very, very busy, but
I’ll do what you ask on one condition.”

“Oh, I’ll pay you the regular fee, of course!” Ellie exclaimed
suspiciously.

“Never mind the fee. I appreciate your coming to me. The condition is a
simple one. To help me--to help you--I shall need a photograph of--your
husband. Have you got one?”

“I should say I have!” giggled Ellie. “Jim, he was always having his
picture took. I don’t know why; he wasn’t such a looker. I’ve probably
got a dozen of ’em lying around in my dresser or my trunk, down to
Hartville.”

“Send me just one, a late one,” Mary Lee instructed, trying not to make
it seem too desperately important and at the same time to impress the
woman with the idea that it was necessary. “Do you wish to have the lot
sold, in case I find it has been deeded or conveyed to you and turned
into cash?”

“No sale!” exclaimed Ellie, rising. “No sale! I want the lot. A
boyfriend of mine who works for the railroad tipped me off to get hold
of it if I could. My boy friend is fireman on the midnight limited.
I’m going back on that train. You can address me at General Delivery,
Hartville, as soon as you find out anything. I know you must be busy.
I hope you can win your case, Miss Lee. Is the man good looking, that
they got for shooting Steve? Well, don’t you trust him, Miss Lee. Take
a tip from me. Men are all alike.”

She was gone. Mary Lee sat and stared at the door.

So, Jim Knowles had been in Big Neck to see Steve Laramie. A “long
time ago”? And Jim Knowles was dead. He had drowned himself. He had
found life not worth living. And Ellie Knowles thought that Steve
Laramie would give her a lot of land upon which the railroad, some
time soon, might want to build a new station for Big Neck.

------

As early as she dared Mary Lee called at the jail, the next morning,
for another interview with her client. He greeted her with a sort of
ironic cheerfulness.

“Good morning, Miss Lee. Is this the day we find out whether or not I am
guilty?”

“The case will not go to trial to-day,” she answered. “It will probably
not be called up again until to-morrow. That means we have got one more
day left to discover whether life is going to be worth living for you.
I want you to try to answer some questions that I shall ask you--and I
want you to remember that I am going to believe everything that you say
to me. So don’t lie to me. If you do not want to answer the questions,
say nothing. The first one is: ‘What is your real name?’”

He shook his head, silently.

“Very well. The next one is: ‘Do you know Ellie Knowles?’”

His face went bloodless.

“Ellie Knowles!” he repeated sharply. “What has she been doing? What has
she told you? Do you mean that she--_has she squealed_?”

“You do not wish to have her brought into this case as a witness?”
inquired Mary Knowles, ignoring his questions, calm and relentless,
now that she had had an answer of a sort that more than satisfied
her.

“No,” he said emphatically, “I don’t want her to get into this. Of
course not. My God! It looks as if I’d even bungled----”

He checked himself, regarded her searchingly and asked in a whisper:
“Has _he_ made--his get-away?”

Mary Lee nodded. “Yes,” she said, “he has made his get-away. It is not
going to be necessary for you to shield him any longer.”

“He’s made his get-away!” mused the prisoner. “Where---- No, I don’t
want to know where, even if you know. Are you sure he is safe? Are you
sure they can’t get him?”

“Before I answered that,” she said, “I want you to tell me where you
were and what you were doing on the night that Steve Laramie was shot.”

Mary Lee recognized an advantage when she had it, and cruel as she felt
she was being toward this desperate and distracted man, she held to her
advantage.

“Believe it or not,” he answered bluntly, “I was on my way, with a
rifle, to Steve Laramie’s house on the night he was shot. What do you
think of that? Are _you_ going to believe me if I say I didn’t shoot
him?”

“But you _didn’t_ shoot him,” she responded. “Did you?”

The look of distress that came into his face told her that she had
roused, at least, some powerful emotion which had broken down his
ability to keep that face a mask.

“No,” he said wearily, “I didn’t shoot Steve Laramie, because, when I
got there, _he was already dead_.”

“Yes,” said Mary Lee.

“You believe that?” he demanded incredulously.

“It would do you no good to tell me lies,” she said. “It wouldn’t even
help you to hang.”

“You wouldn’t advise me to tell that to a jury, would you?” he drawled,
with a suspicion of a quirk to his lips.

Mary Lee did not answer. She was thinking. One thing she was thinking
was that this man had a sense of humor, grim and grisly as it might be,
and there was hope for him.

“You found Steve Laramie already dead,” she repeated, “and did not dare,
of course, to report it--because you had gone to see him, a rifle in
your hands.”

“That’s it,” he said, nodding. “Nobody would have believed I didn’t
shoot him or that I didn’t intend to shoot him, even if the rifle I had
with me had not been fired--and couldn’t be fired because it hadn’t any
firing pin. Can you beat that?” he finished.

“Whose rifle was it?” came her quick question.

“It belonged to the bohunk that got caught under the load of logs. I
told him I wanted to take it to town to get the firing pin fixed so
we could try for a deer in the woods.”

“Where is it now, do you know?”

“I reckon it’s out at camp, ’less some one stole it.”

“You did not intend to shoot Steve Laramie,” she charged swiftly,
“because you knew the rifle could not be fired.”

“I--I could have got it fixed,” he said, seeming to withdraw suddenly
from his mood of eager confidence.

“Not that late at night--and you didn’t get it fixed,” she shot at him.
“You went to see Laramie with a rifle that could not be fired and--you
found him dead. And the rifle that they found lying in the railroad yard
was not the one you carried. It had been fired.”

She rose as if satisfied and ready to go. He rose with her and his face
bore a look of alarm.

“What are you going to do?” he demanded. “Wait! There is something you
haven’t told me. How can you be sure they won’t get the man who left
that rifle?”

“He is dead,” she said simply, and turned and went rapidly toward the
door.

Before she got to the door she stopped and turned and looked at him.
He stood, staring, as still as a statue, his shoulders drooping, his
hands hanging lax by his side. It was the attitude of a man utterly
discouraged, beaten. Mary Lee went slowly back to him.

“You see,” she said softly, “Jim found that life was not worth living.
Now, Jim wouldn’t want you to hang. Think how useless it would be! Why,
even Ellie doesn’t want you to hang.”

“Ellie!” he exclaimed. “She doesn’t know who I am.”

“No,” Mary admitted, “she doesn’t--but she doesn’t want even the
stranger who is charged with shooting Laramie to hang. And I don’t
want you to hang. You are not going to hang.”

Mary Lee’s soul was in her eyes as she looked up at him, begging him
to cling to life. The powerful, mysterious magic which Judge Thurman
had invoked was working. In the dull eyes of Billy Knowles, alias
Watts Lifeworth, there began to flicker a little, warm flame. He drew
in a deep, shuddering breath.

“Mary Lee,” he breathed, one of his hands coming up slowly, just
touching her fingers, holding them as gently as if they were wax, when
they crept into his and clung bravely, “Mary Lee, if my life _could_
be worth anything to somebody else--I have bungled everything. I went
to see Laramie to try to do something for my brother Jim. Jim had been
there--ahead of me. I was too late. Don’t you see that the least I
could do was to try--to cover him? Don’t you see?”

“It is going to mean a lot to me to win this case,” said Mary Lee. “You
_can_ help me.”

“Mary Lee,” he said in a whisper, and his eyes were like lamps newly
lighted, “I’ll spend the rest of my life doing anything you think I
ought to do.”

“That is going to be a long, long time,” Mary Lee said, smiling
tremulously.

And it was.


[Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the April 7, 1930 issue
of _The Popular_ magazine.]



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