“After unsuccessfully searching the main floor of the house, Carson
alleges, he went to the garret, heard voices coming from Miss Ford’s
room, tried the door and found it locked. He knocked, was refused
admittance, according to the story told the sheriff, then, determined to
save the girl from the man, he climbed to the roof of the porch and made
his way to the small window of the great room, from which he saw Miss
Ford and the Nash boy in a compromising position. When he tried to enter
the room through the window Carson alleges that he was brutally
assaulted by young Nash, who, by the way, was boxing champion of the
sophomore class at the A. & M. A smashing blow from young Nash’s fist
sent the farmer crashing through the window, and down the sloping roof
to the ground.
“In the fall, Carson’s left leg was broken above the knee. He was still
unconscious when Dr. John E. Salter, a physician living ten miles from
the Carson farm on the road to the capital, arrived at the deserted
farm, summoned by a mysterious male voice by telephone. The sheriff’s
theory, as well as the doctor’s, is that young Nash, fearful that he had
seriously injured the farmer, summoned medical help before leaving with
the girl.
“A warrant for the arrest of David Nash has been issued by the sheriff,
charging the young student with assault with intent to kill and with
contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The warrant for Miss Ford’s
arrest charges moral delinquency. Since she is a ward of the state until
her eighteenth birthday, she is also liable to arrest on the simple
charge of running away from the farm on which the state orphanage
authorities had placed her for the summer.”
Sally, trembling so that her teeth chattered, watched David as he read
the entire story. His young face became more and more grim as he read.
When he had finished the shameful, hideously untrue account of what had
really been a piece of superb gallantry on his part, he crumpled the
paper slowly between the fingers of his big hand as if that hand were
crushing out the life of the man who had lied so monstrously. Then,
lifting a lid of the big coal range, he thrust the crumpled mass of
paper into the flames.
“But—what are we going to do, David?” Sally whispered, her eyes
searching his grim face piteously. “They’ll send me to the reformatory
if they catch me, and you—you—oh, David! They’ll send you to prison for
years and years! I wish you’d never laid eyes on me! I’d rather die than
have you come to harm through me.”
She sagged against the narrow shelf which served as a kitchen table,
weeping forlornly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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