LOUISE GARDNER had asked the clerk of the court to send word to her in the county treasurer's office when Laylander's case came up for hearing. She understood that his counsel had withdrawn, in the light of Tom's apparent complicity in the bank robbery, leaving him undefended against Cal Withers's claim. She had come to the decision, after giving it much thought, to make a plea of continuance for Laylander, a bold intention which she kept to herself. For she believed that Tom would come back.
Whether through oversight or indifference, the clerk did not send for Louise. When she left her work with Maud Kelly at noon, they stopped at the court room to make inquiry about the case. It was in progress that moment, Withers's lawyer on his feet making an argument for judgment, against which the judge seemed to be standing out stubbornly, as his low, precise denials of the points raised expressed.
Louise told Maud that she intended to stop there and hear the end of it. Maud, always savagely hungry, and little interested in Tom Laylander's loss or gain, went on to lunch, while Louise slipped into the court room and down to the front, where she sat, far more conspicuously than she desired, among the empty benches.
It was not an interesting case; everybody in McPacken knew, or believed they knew, how it would end from the first. Besides, it takes something more than a civil suit, even involving a supposed fugitive from justice, to hold people when dinner is ready.
"But that is not the point, Mr. McSweeny," said the judge, patient in the repetition of a thing the wilful attorney was determined to have his way, justice or injustice, law or no law. "You have not made your case, you cannot make your case, without the essential evidence."
"We are unable to produce it, as your honor knows," the attorney returned pettishly. "If we had the note, we certainly would introduce it. We're not holding it out just to give us a chance to stand up here and talk."
"You haven't introduced any evidence, except the testimony of the plaintiff, to prove that the note ever was in existence," said the court.
"It was our opinion that the testimony of a man of my client's standing in this community would be sufficient," the lawyer returned, bitterly sarcastic.
"The court regrets to say that it is not."
"We can summon witnesses to prove the existence of this note, and that it is lost beyond the power of mortal man to produce."
"You should have done so," said the court.
"This defendant, Laylander, is a fugitive from justice. He never had any standing in this community, he wouldn't have any standing in this court if he was here. It is preposterous of your honor, if you will permit me to say so—"
"It seems you have said it without permission, Mr. McSweeny," spaid the court, undisturbed.
"To ask us to produce proof of the existence of this note."
"It is quite reasonable, Mr. McSweeny," the court corrected him, with some show of rising temper. "The note itself is the essential evidence in an action of this character."
"It is a fact just as well established, your honor, that the loss of a note does not release the maker of it from payment."
"That is very true. All the court requires is proof, in the absence of the essential document itself, that such: a note existed; that it was a valid note at the time this action was brought. The court will give you—three days, Mr. McSweeny, to produce such evidence. I make the time short on account of the heavy expense accruing against the attached property. Will that be long enough for you?"
Here the judge looked across the bench with a frown, displeased by the sudden invasion of his quiet room by what seemed a holiday crowd of people, male and female. The city marshal was among them, the president of the bank was there. Maud Kelly had been caught in the sudden current and carried back.
The case of Withers against Laylander seemed to have assumed a sudden importance in the public regard. It was as if the gate of a pasture had been opened, letting out a herd of famished cattle to water. The judge withheld the proceedings while the benches filled speedily with excited, whispering people. The attorney for the plaintiff stood with a frown of annoyance on his face.
"Mr. Sheriff," said the judge, looking around for that dignitary, "Mr. Sheriff,"—a little louder—"let us have quiet."
The sheriff had been dozing at a table near the clerk, his long body slid downward in his chair to bring his head to easy rest on the back of it, his long legs under the table. He came up like a man from a dive, amazement, bewilderment, in his simple face. He rose, rapping the table with his fist. He did not call for order; just looked around with a threat that seemed to command it, and sat down again, well satisfied with himself and the result.
"If your honor please," said a soft, deferential voice up the aisle about midway of the room.
"What is it?" asked the judge, very severe, very much displeased.
The speaker advanced toward the bench, walking on tiptoes, hat under his arm, a big pistol flapping against his thigh. The sheriff rose, leaning forward with hands on the table, the color running out of his face. He was in the aisle with a bound, confronting Tom Laylander, gun thrown down on him, desperate intention in his face.
"Put 'em up!" he commanded.
Laylander raised his hands, dropping his hat. The sheriff leaned far, and drew Tom's pistol out of the holster, breathing easier when he had it clear. He edged around behind Tom, indicating that he was to advance toward the amazed judge.
"Your honor, this is that feller Laylander," the sheriff explained.
People in the room made a stirring among the benches, some of them rising from crouching behind them, standing now, stretching to see.
"We must have order here!" the judge commanded.
Louise started forward as if to protest against this outrageous action on the sheriff's part, as she felt it to be. She did not know where Tom Laylander had been, or what perils he had passed, but the look of weariness in his face told her that it had been far, his dangers many and grave. Her heart seemed to rise and exult for him, walking in the boldness of innocence among those who had accused and slandered him.
She remained standing, unaware of her conspicuous situation, until she saw that attention was being divided between her and the sheriff's prisoner. She believed Tom had not seen her when he passed down the aisle, yet hoped that he had. She wanted him to know that in the face of public distrust and hostility as expressed by Withers's lawyer and the sheriff's action, one in McPacken believed in him and held his interest at heart.
Cal Withers was whispering to his attorney, who leaned over the table to hear. The cowman's spirit seemed uneasy within him; he threw his hand to the place where his gun usually hung, feeling stripped and exposed to the danger of sudden death when he thought of the weapon outside in the sheriff's office. The judge indicated by a movement of his hand that the sheriff was to stand aside.
"You started to address the court; is there something you want to say? Are you Thomas Laylander, defendant in the case now being heard?"
"Yes sir, your honor, I am. I didn't know it was an offense to come into court with a gun on me—I didn't even remember I had it," said Tom, unable to account for his reception in any other way.
"I guess you can put that pistol down, Mr. Sheriff," the judge suggested, rather than ordered.
"I was some distance away," Tom explained. "I got here as soon as I could."
Judson Weaver, president of the bank, came down the aisle, stopped at the sacred little enclosure in which the attorneys' tables stood, standing as if he had something that he desired to say. The court did not appear to notice him, due, perhaps, to the swirl of surprising conjectures revolving on this defendant's remarkable and unlooked for appearance.
"Your attorney has withdrawn from the case," said the judge. "He turned over your retainer to the clerk of this court, who holds it at your order."
"I guess maybe I can get along without a lawyer of that kind, and be better off," said Tom.
"Your case," said the judge, cold and stern, "is at this point: The plaintiff is unable to produce the note upon which the action for recovery rests. As you perhaps understand, the note itself is the best evidence in such an action, but judgment may be allowed on the presentation of evidence to establish the existence of such note, and proof of its validity at the time the suit was instituted. The court has granted the plaintiff three days' time to gather and present such evidence. There the matter for the present rests."
"Yes sir, your honor. I came in just when this lawyer was argin', makin' mention of me in a slanderous way I'll have to call on him to explain. I understood from your reply to that rascal, sir, that the note was lost. I wanted to speak to the court, sir, to state that I've got the note, right here, your honor, sir. There's no use delayin' the case on account of the note bein' missin'. Here it is."
Tom handed the note to the astounded judge. The equally astonished crowd rustled and shifted, creaking the benches in the strain of bringing eyes and ears a few inches closer to the scene of these remarkable proceedings. Louise sprang up, tense, surging hot with protest against Tom's apparent folly in thus surrendering himself into his enemies' hands. Withers's lawyer was up, hand flung out in protesting gesture.
"If that is the note, and it may well be our note, this—this—person having had access to it lately, we protest against alterations and erasures, cancellations or other marks whatever, that would tend to show payment."
"There are no marks on it, Mr. McSweeny, except some notations on the back which may indicate interest payments," said the judge.
The judge sat holding the note before him, looking curiously at Tom Laylander, who had gone back to take his hat from a man and thank him for picking it up. Presently he passed the note, abstractedly, without following the act with his eyes, to Withers's lawyer. Those two immediately went into conference over it, whispering, passing it from hand to hand. Satisfaction settled into their countenances with the quieting of their fears.
Louise sat down again, throbbing and indignant, half scornful of Laylander in spite of her admiration. Why had he been so foolish? Why had he given the note to them? Or perhaps not so foolish, after all. This thought came up to plead for Tom, out of her deep knowledge of his worthiness. Maybe the note was valueless; perhaps it was all the evidence Tom needed to win his case. Withers's lawyer was standing again, the note in his hand.
"Since the defendant is in court, and the note is in evidence, with notations of interest payments by my client, showing that interest was paid on it within the past five years, establishing its validity beyond any and all question; since all these matters and facts are before the court, we ask that the case proceed. Mr. Withers will resume the stand and make formal identification of this note."
"Court is adjourned till two o'clock," said the judge, passing over the lawyer as if he was not, never had been nor ever was expected to be.
The sheriff didn't know just what his own next move was to be in the case of Laylander. He was trying to get the prosecuting attorney's eye, with a view to a warrant. The judge came down from the bench, Banker Weaver went forward to meet him. The crowd pressed Louise along the aisle to the lawyers' enclosure, space sacred no longer to only licensed feet.
"How is this, Laylander? How did you come to have possession of that note?" the judge asked, now in his capacity of perplexed citizen, a state none the less vexing than that of perplexed judge.
"It was among some papers thrown away by the scoundrels that held us up here the other day, sir."
"I see," said the judge. You've been following that gang of bank robbers, have you? You're the man that's been picking them off along the road. I see."
Tom said nothing. He stood hanging his head as if he had been rebuked, his fair hair rumpled, dust gray in his stubble of beard, confusion over him. Louise stood behind him, a yearning in her to call his name, to give him her hands, to say something endearing that would have been incongruously out of place, and made the crowd laugh.
Judson Weaver told the judge of Tom's arrival at the bank with the money. He spared nothing of the obligation that he, and his institution, stood under to Tom Laylander. It was an obligation, he said, that every man in McPacken shared.
The judge listened to the story with growing amazement. The sheriff stood leaning his hands on the table, looking like a giraffe with its feet on a rock, his long neck stretched, his eyes crowded out by the wonder that was so big inside of him that atmospheric pressure seemed insufficient to prevent him from bursting on the spot. He was the most astonished sheriff that ever lived.
"He took the guns off of the one that fell in front of the bank, hopped his horse and rode after them, all so quick we thought he was one of the gang," the banker said.
Tom looked up quickly. Louise strained a little nearer, leaning as if to compel him to feel her presence there.
"There was just a rifle, sir," Tom corrected the banker. "It's down there with his horse. It's a slow horse, sir, but it's an endurin' one."
"It was a remarkable thing for one man to strike out after that gang alone and come back alive," the judge marvelled. "Why didn't you wait for the rest?"
"I was so mortified over them takin' my gun away from me and makin' me help pick up the money I couldn't hardly see,' said Tom. His tone and manner seemed an apology to the sheriff, and everybody in McPacken, for rushing off that way ahead of the posse.
"How he got the money away from them before they split it and scattered, how he ever came back at all, God only knows!" the banker said.
"You've been a pretty badly slandered man in this community, Tom Laylander," the judge said. "There wasn't a soul in this town with brains enough to understand."
"I think there was one—or two," said Tom, attaching the amendment as if to divide public conjecture, it seemed.
Tom spoke softly, as if a deep, a dear and cherished thought had taken wings and escaped out of his mouth in words that he had not meant McPacken to hear. He turned his head a little, with a quick, searching movement, and there was Louise. There was Louise, just at his shoulder, all looking out of her eyes that her tongue could not frame one little word to say.
"Yes," said the wise judge, turning away to leave them a little more alone, "there was one."
Tom was holding her hands, having trouble to force asmile, seeing her twitching lips, the stricken whiteness of her face, the joyful admiration of her eyes, her pride so great that it struggled in her bosom with the constraint of pain.
"Why, Miss Louise!" said Tom. "Why, lambie! Don't you cry!"