Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/24

12. "Warden," he said, "that 'D. & C.' road-bed ain't safe fer a hand-car, half its time." He insinuated: "You know what Purvis is."

He was, in fact, trying to draw out information under the pretense of imparting it. He knew almost nothing of Daneen's case; he had scarcely given it a thought. But Zug's face of suspicion had started the hint of a judicial scandal for him, and he was smoking it out.

"The 'D. & C.' backed Purvis's nomination with twenty thousand," Zug said. "Gave it to us flat, fer the campaign in our distric', the night we put him on the ticket. He 's been doin' their dirty work ever since. There ain't been a cent o' damages collected from 'em in his court since he went on the bench."

"Well," Johns hazarded, "they 'd 've had some damages to pay on that Little Sandy wreck if they had n't hung it on this poor hobo. Him wreck a train!" He lay back and laughed shrilly—venting the pleasure he felt in having caught his scandal. "Why, the poor mutt ain't got spunk enough to derail a jack rabbit."

Zug said suddenly: "I want to see him."

Johns rose with ingratiating alacrity. "He 's in number one."

The warden merely growled: "Tell 'em to bring him in here."

As a politician, he knew, of course, that he could not meddle with any decree of injustice that had been inspired by the great "D. & C." It made the governors; it picked the legislatures; it nominated the supreme