V
Buckshot John dragged himself across the floor to the table. His face was white and drawn, and his fingers still twitched spasmodically. He breathed quickly in short, fierce gasps, as if he had been running a race, and his heart was bumping against his ribs.
"I got it!" he whispered hoarsely. "I got it straight from headquarters! Handwriting and voices and people right here in the room! Right here, I tell you! I heard 'em!" He shuddered and passed his sleeve across his eyes.
"Voices?" queried Gilmore, with some surprise. "Why, they never come unless the communication is important."
"It was important!" whispered Moran. "I've got to talk to you—got to tell you something. You'd help a man to square himself and go clean when his time comes, wouldn't you?"
There was a note of piteous entreaty in his voice. The Great Gilmore returned that lead with admirable tact and compassion. He spoke of the broad creed of the brotherhood of man—it was a portion of one of his old lectures, and very beautifully worded. Buckshot John listened to those soul-compelling sentiments with glistening eyes.
"I know you're on the level!" he said huskily. "They didn't need to tell me! I've seen things to-night, aye, and I've heard 'em too! No faker could have brought me word like that! It ain't possible! This was real! And now I'm going to tell you something no living soul knows but me!"
He stepped quickly to the door, threw it open, and looked out into the night. Then, closing the door silently, he tiptoed back to the table. Leaning down, he whispered the words into Gilmore's ear.
"I'm going to tell you where to find the money and stuff that me and Bad Jake Kennedy hid up in the Cedars country fifteen years ago—pretty near two hundred thousand in paper, and a whole handful of diamonds that Jake and me picked out of rings and things. I never knew what to do with it till to-night, and now I've got it straight! I'm going to give it back to the owners!"
It was on the tip of the doctor's tongue to ask to be excused, but he caught the expression on Buckshot John's face and checked the impulse. The convict wanted to talk; his heart was open at last, and the truth would come now. Time enough to put in the fancy touches when the well of information had gushed itself dry.
In a whispering stream the confession poured out, one crime tripping upon the heels of the next. Buckshot John was making a clean breast of it and sparing himself in nothing. As he talked, the knuckles of his right hand showed white as he gripped the pocket Bible.
While he told the story, the doctor jotted down notes and directions. It was not until the hiding-place had been described, and the route thereto carefully mapped out, that Moran drew a long breath, and Gilmore played his last trump. He suggested sending the proper authorities.
"No!" whispered Moran fiercely. "No! I was warned! Why couldn't you do it? It's asking a lot, but—"
"But you know nothing of me," urged Gilmore. "I might—"
"There's been them here to-night that do know you!" said the convict earnestly. "You're good enough for me. Bad Jake told me I had to send the right man, and that's you!"
The doctor closed his eyes for several seconds, and Buckshot John bowed his head reverently. When he looked up again, the Great Gilmore's face was radiant with an expression of high resolve.
"It is a heavy task, my friend," he said gently. "Yet I am not sure that I do not owe it to humanity—owe it to you. All men are brothers."
"And you'll do it?" begged the convict.
The Great Gilmore rose to his feet and extended both hands. No audience of one ever saw a finer bit of acting.
"If I die trying!" he said simply.
Buckshot John crushed the long, slender fingers, but he could not drive the smile from Gilmore's lips.
"You don't know what you've done for me!" he said brokenly. "This thing has been driving me almost crazy ever since I've been trying to be—different. Once I thought thirty years would pay for everything. I feel better already. I—I got a kind of a lightness in here."
He touched his breast. The rattle of wheels sounded from the road.
"And you'll come back just as soon as you get the stuff into safe hands?" asked the convict. "You'll help me figure out some way to divide it square among the owners?"
"I will," said Gilmore solemnly, and it was as if he had taken an oath. "Just as soon as I get it in safe hands."
Convict John Moran, No. 1113, stood in front of the bunk-house and listened to a wagon creaking away into the darkness. His pale gray eyes were fixed on the stars, and his heavy shoulders were thrown back as if freed from a burden.
"Go to sleep, John," said the captain kindly.
"Aye!" said Buckshot John. "I will sleep to-night!"
He lifted the latch and entered the dimly lighted room where his fellow prisoners were preparing for bed. He was smiling when he stepped into the rays from the lanterns.
"What's the matter, John?" asked one of the older men. "You been out there a prayin' again?"
"No, Tom," said Moran, and at the sound of his voice every man in the room peered at him through the shadows. "No—but I've found what I've been praying for."
There was a short silence, broken by a sneer from a youngster who was serving his first penitentiary sentence.
"And what have you found, old-timer? That money that Bad Jake and you got away with?"
"I've found peace," said Buckshot John softly. "That's it—peace!"