“Come with me, Billy; I must wash up. I’ve had a dusty drive up Spring Mountain; you know the roads aren’t watered up there.”
Billy looked the Doctor over and wondered. He was not subtle enough to suspect the Doctor’s purpose. “Golly! I’d hate to have to wash as much as a doctor,” he exclaimed, as they stepped into the exquisitely appointed lavatory. “You look now like you’d just had a Turkish bath. But I’m glad of the chance for myself.” He surely did look better when the two came out and crossed to the big dining-room; though there was a tell-tale streak around his neck, and his crown lock stood stiff and divided.
At first he could not eat with relish, his mind was so distracted with admiration of the magnificent room, and impatient to get his worrying secret off his heart and conscience. But his wise host ordered so artfully, and filled the intervals of waiting with such delightful stories and anecdotes, explanations of the decorations, funny facts or conjectures concerning the hotel and guests, that before he knew it, Billy had, he told his mother afterward, referring to his stomach, “loaded her up to the guards, ’nough to make you ’shamed of me, mother.”
When they entered the Sheriff’s office again it was two o’clock. He was there, and gave Billy a private audience far more graciously than he would have done had not Doctor Carter’s presence been voucher for the importance of the matter. When the boy repeated his story, less confidently, less dramatically than before, yet not needing the Doctor’s comment to prove its value, the Sheriff drew a long breath and emphasized it with a blow of his fist on the table.
“That’s the gang we’ve been hunting through five counties. Boy, you’ve done what the State’s been trying a long time to do. The reward’s a good lump; if we bag the game you shall have your share.”
Billy looked on wide-eyed, as the Doctor said with a puzzling smile, “And, Sheriff, if I don’t think you divide fair with my friend here, you’ve got me to deal with next election. See?”
“All right, Doc,” the other replied a bit gruffly; “suppose we catch ’em before we fight about the divvy.”
It took a very short time to gather the posse, instruct it, and set out for the mountain. The Sheriff gave Billy an old hat and bade him to a seat behind the swift horses; and Billy obeyed, feeling a strange elation as they set out. It was just like a story. Could it be he, plain Billy Bennett, that was assisting the State to find long-sought-for criminals? The horses flew, yet Billy thought they would never arrive at the turn in the road where they would leave them. He felt as if in some unknown way the man at the hut would surely know of their coming, would hide, destroy, perhaps carry off all that would convict him, and the other, the big man,-- Oh, would they never be there?