Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/34

22 At the end of the week, a negro tramp was arrested in Portland, Oregon, after he had boasted in a barroom that he had helped Daneen wreck the train on the bridge across the Little Sandy. He was promptly extradited and brought back for trial—before Judge Purvis. He pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life. And the people of the State dismissed from their minds forever the case of Samuel Daneen.

So it came to pass that Deputy-Sheriff Johns had another prisoner to deliver to the Pen—a big, simply smiling negro who called him "boss" and accepted his escort almost protectingly.

"Don't be in such an all-fired hurry," Johns snarled at him on their way from the county jail to the railway station. "This 's no foot-race."

The negro guffawed whole-heartedly. "All raight, boss," he drawled. "Ah 'm sa'sfied. Don' you tiah yusself none. Mah laigs is jus' kind ah oneasy."

"Yeh," Johns grunted. "Well, they 'll get ust to that in the nex' thirty er forty years."

And the negro chuckled delightedly: "Tha 's raight, boss. Tha 's no lie."

He continued interested, pleased, and happy in all they saw, in everything they did; and when their train was well under way, Johns put into words his conclusions on the man's behavior, by saying: "You 're just darn fool enough to believe these people ain't goin' to keep you in, eh?"

The negro, flattered by this attention from a white