Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/379

 "Careful. Anything you say can be used against you Scanlon," warned Younger.

"Then use it!" challenged Scanlon brazenly. "Do you think I don't know what I'm up against? It'll be the chair for me, but I'll take this double-crossing ——— with me. If they'll only let me hear his death yell first, I'll bump off to sweet music."

The next moment, however, Scanlon's air of bravado was abandoned for one of chastened earnestness, as he said:

"But one last word, Harrington; and not for me either—for Old Two Blades. John thinks he's right all the time. He figured some moral statute of limitations must have run against what was done back yonder about the survey. He figured he was God A'mighty's silent partner—and not so damn silent either."

Harrington, who had been listening with both interest and amazement, relieved himself of a quick gesture of contempt; for in those jail days of his he had come to hold John Boland as personally culpable—more culpable than anybody else, besides accusing him of a colossal cruelty to his own daughter.

"All the same, Harrington," answered Scanlon to that gesture, "old J. B. has never looked crooked to himself."

"I'll make him look crooked—even to himself," Harrington flamed out.

But by this time the officers had completed the formality of releasing one man and incarcerating two, and Jailor White came up to shake hands with Henry, who thanked him for his courtesies which had been numerous. Then Harrington turned toward the Court-