The Duke Of Chimney ButteOgden, George W. (George Washington)
General
The Duke Of Chimney Butte
Ogden, George W. (George Washington)
Badlands (S.D. and Neb.) -- Fiction; Cowboys -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Western stories
Going home was off for perhaps several days. Lambert gave his little
satchel to the police to lock in the safe. The sheriff's reply came back
like a pitched ball. Hold Kerr, he requested the police; requisition
would be made for him. He instructed Lambert to wait till the papers
came, and bring the fugitive home.
Kerr got in telegraphic touch with a lawyer in the home county. Morning
showed a considerable change of temperature in the frontier financier.
He announced that, acting on legal advice, he would waive extradition.
Lambert telegraphed the sheriff the news, requesting that he meet him at
Glendora and relieve him of his charge.
Lambert prepared for the home-going by buying another revolver, and a
pair of handcuffs for attaching his prisoner comfortably and securely to
the arm of the seat. The little black bag gave him no worry. It wasn't
half the trouble to watch money, when you didn't look as if you had any,
as a man who had swindled people out of it and wanted to hide his face.
The police joked Lambert about the size of his bag when they gave it
back to him as he was starting with his prisoner for the train.
"What have you got in that alligator, Sheriff, that you're so careful
not to set it down and forget it?" the chief asked him.
"Sixteen thousand dollars," said Lambert, modestly, opening it and
flashing its contents before their eyes.
CHAPTER XXV
"WHEN SHE WAKES UP"
It was mid-afternoon of a bright autumn day when Lambert approached
Glendora with Kerr chained to the seat beside him. As the train rapidly
cut down the last few miles, Lambert noted a change in his prisoner's
demeanor. Up to that time his carriage had been melancholy and morose,
as that of a man who saw no gleam of hope ahead of him. He had spoken
but seldom during the journey, asking no favors except that of being
allowed to send a telegram to Grace from Omaha.
Lambert had granted that request readily, seeing nothing amiss in Kerr's
desire to have his daughter meet him and lighten as much as she could
his load of disgrace. Kerr said he wanted her to go with him to the
county seat and arrange bond.
"I'll never look through the bars of a jail in my home county," he said.
That was his one burst of rebellion, his one boast, his one approach to
a discussion of his serious situation, all the way.
Now as they drew almost within sight of Glendora, Kerr became fidgety
and nervous. His face was strained and anxious, as if he dreaded
stepping off the train into sight of the people who had known him so
long as a man of consequence in that community.
Lambert began to have his own worries about this time. He regretted the
kindness he had shown Kerr in permitting him to send that telegram to
Grace. She might try to deliver him on bail of another kind. Kerr's
nervous anxiety would seem to indicate that he expected something to
happen at Glendora. It hadn't occurred to Lambert before that this might
be possible. It seemed a foolish oversight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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