Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/212

 dangerous of all, the small towns where one man is the chief of police and the whole force rolled into one—blamed officious and inquisitive that man is generally; then keep under cover by day, travel by night, and never go near anything bigger than a hamlet or a farm-house till the worst of the hue and cry has died down? He could strike the coast, work around, say to Gloucester where there are all kinds of chances of shipping on a fishing smack that would keep him out of the world on the Grand Banks for a few months, and when he got back no one would know him. But do any of 'em do that? Not much! They head for Canada—and they get caught." Doctor Kreelmar resorted to his handkerchief quite as unnecessarily as before, and quite as unnecessarily mopped his face.

Varge raised his head and for a long minute the eyes of the two men held each other's. It was Doctor Kreelmar who broke the silence.

"Well, I've got to be jogging along," he said. "Patient sent for me out this way more'n an hour ago. A man breaking out of penitentiary has got pretty considerable hard digging ahead of him, and even if he goes south he doesn't stand much more show than a hen in a tornado unless he's got some money." Doctor Kreelmar puckered up his face into a wry grimace, dove his hand into his pocket and brought out a roll of bills. "I'm a prison official," said he, "and I guess I'm breaking my oath and suborning duty and acting generally like a blame fool, but then most of us act according to the lights we're supplied with—hum! I guess I wouldn't have much of any hesitation in turning this over to an innocent man—what?"