Page:The Californian volume 1 issue 1.djvu/34

 ing the Frazer River excitement, and left a wife and three children behind him.”

“What became of his wife?” asked the first speaker.

“She went back to Missouri,” answered anoth- er citizen, edging forward, “and my wife got a letter from her a week ago, saying she and Pe- terson were together again and doing first-rate. Peterson did have a rough time of it, you bet, when he was here. I hope, for his sake, her temper’s something better’n it was a few years back.”

This forgery (for the letter was a bogus one) became a strand in the rope, and the last com- bination against the luckless victim of fate was as keenly diabolical as the first.

“Well, that ain’t the question,” said the tall man, facing the crowd; “the real question is, whether such a slippery customer as ‘Chaparral George’ is to be let loose on the community again. If he’s left to the law, he'll escape as sure’s you're all standing there, and if robbers and murderers are to be let go free, on one pre- tense and another, I think it’s about time for honest men to emigrate. Ain’t I right?”

There was an almost unanimous cry of “You bet,” and the crowd gathered closer about the speaker.

“*Tain’t the way it used to be,” resumed this self-constituted Brutus of Montezuma. “In the early days there wasn’t so much law, and a blamed sight more justice. If this town had any sand, or really wanted to see justice done, ‘Chaparral George’ wouldn’t last through the night.”

“An’ how d’ye know we hevn’t the sand?” in- quired a rough looking man on the outskirts of the crowd. “How d’ye know we don’t want to see justice done?”

“I don’t say so—direct. But the crowd that hangs back don’t hang men. There’s plain talk; but a man with half an eye can see that it’s the only kind of talk that'll bring honest men to their senses.”

For an instant there was a deathlike still- ness in that crowd, and every man looked at his neighbor. The decision as expressed by those side glances was unanimous, and sealed the doom of the man who was charged with the crimes of “Chaparral George,” as effectually as if the hangman’s rope was already around his neck. Very little more was said, and the crowd quietly dispersed, each man well know- ing that when they again assembled it would be for a terrible purpose.

The jail where Peterson was confined had formerly been used as a warehouse and was built of brick, the windows being heavily barred and further secured by thick sheet-iron shutters.

The main entrance in front was also strongly secured, the iron doors being double-locked and cross - barred, but presenting the easiest means of admission for an assaulting party. It was to this door that a crowd of about fifty masked men came at midnight of the day on which Peterson was arrested, and that unfortunate man was aroused from his slumber by the heavy knocking of the leader of the mob. He heard the Deputy Sheriff ask what was wanted, and the gruff reply of the leader demanding the keys of the jail. The officer refused the request, and advised the men to desist and let the law take its course.

“We'll give you three minutes to pass out that key and unbar the door,” answered the leader.

“You'll waste your time, then,” was the w/¢z- matum of the jailer.

A silence, that weighed like lead upon the heart of the hapless prisoner, was broken pres- ently by a horribly ominous crash. An instant’s interval, and then another, followed immediate- ly by still another. It was the reverberation of iron actively wielded by a pair of strong arms against iron, inert but firm—a sixteen-pound sledge beating remorselessly upon the lock of the jaildoor. The steady clanging of the sledge echoed through the building and came to the ears of Peterson like a death-knell, filling his soul at first with a nameless horror, all the more terrible as he realized that he could not by any possible chance escape. Then, as he lay there listening to the regular beating of that metallic death-drum, a strange calm came over him—a resignation such as men, bereft of every hope, sustain their starved ambition upon. His whole miserable life passed in review before him, and, comparing his unfortunate career with what he had, in his earlier years, regarded as the ultimate reward of men who had lived a life as nearly approaching rectitude as their knowledge of good and evil would allow, he did not regret the grave possibilities instinctive- ly dawning upon his mind, that this night was to be his last on earth. And still that relent- less hammer fell with a ceaseless purpose upon the lock of the jail door; but not more relent- less than the weight of misfortune that had con- tinually beaten him back whenever he strove with superhuman energy to press forward in the race of life.

Clang—crash! Clang—crash!

How monotonous the awful sounds became as they were repeated at quick intervals, one echo scarcely dying away before another was born! And should he, Roger Peterson, a mere human foot-ball, kicked and buffeted through life as he had been, seek to further prolong