Picturegoer (1922)

38 THE PICTUREGOE-R JUNE 1922 " 'Cessory after the fact. We'd get him I " said the Sheriff's officer. " Aw my ! " sighed Hutch. ' " I never seen nothin' like women. Soon as anythin' happens there they set to snivellin' till you can't hear yerself speak. I dun no ! " She lifted the coarse apron to her eyes and wiped away a tear. Ort shrugged his shoulders and turned out of the yard into the tumbled village street. Snivellin' women ! " he growled. " Makes yer tired ! " The bank, and its banker, Hiram. Joy, were Willow Bend's most proud possessions. The bank was all shine and glitter and cleanliness, and Hutch felt none too appropriate with his feet on its marble. The interview had got to be short. I heard what your missus said you said, Hiram," he murmured. " Course I haven't the health some fellers have. It's my back. I had it put out twentyfive year ago through fallin' off a scaffold. It holds me back a lot. Now, if you could put in some men to work that ranch o' yourn and let me be overseer— somethin' I needn't do a lot at " It's a one-man job or not at all," said Hiram Joy. " The place has been left so long alone that it wouldn't pay a staff. But one man with his coat off — at first — could knock a tidy little balance in this bank here out of that ranch if he went in meaning it, Ort." " Ah 1 " said Hutch. " You see, Hiram, it's my back. It don't give a feller a fair chance." When he was gone, Hiram Joy turned to his chief cashier. " Scaffold fiddlesticks ! " he snprted. " He never got up enough energy to climb a scaffold. How could he fall off what he's never been on ? " Down the little rambling street went Hutch, and through the willow bushes to the river. There he stood a moment to watch the half-past three steamer go down from the town up the stream. If it hadn't been for the •half-past three steamer to watch, poor old Hutch would have had nothing at all to do. He watched it every day. The steamer gone, he settled as comfortably as he could on the river bank and dropped the line into the water. Then he slept. He nearly always slept. He nearly always slept an hour. He slept an hour now. And when he opened his eyes and commenced the inspection, it was to find that although he had not had a bite in the hour, the fish in the river had. The worm was gone and the line was empty. " My word ! " said Hutch. He turned to the bait can, and, turning, kicked it over. " My word ! "he repeated. " Things do go wrong in a heap once they start. Lost a fish and kicked over the bait, and nearly found work — all in one day. My word ! " He dropped the rod by his side and looked around and found a piece of stick with which to poke. Then, without moving, he began to poke, where the ground was softest and easiest. He poked a good while without finding worms, and in ten minutes was on the verge of giving in and sleeping another hour, on the chance that the worms would come up without being dug for. But he did not give in. He had by that time dug up the corner of an old sack, and something about it arrested his attention. Something about it seemed as if it might become interesting a little later. He kept on f ^ digging. And in a few moments he had dug up a sack, and was opening it on %•> his knee, after first looking \ carefully around to see that ' he was unobserved. Not an ' \ ordinary sack by any means. A sack containing something square and hard. And when he got it out at last he found the something square and hard to be a cashbox. And when he opened it. . . . " My word ! " said Hutch again. There might not have been a lot of things that Ort Hutchins knew, but he knew a hundred thousand dollars when he saw them. He counted them. Thousanddollar bills. A hundred of them ! He — Ort Hutchins — a hundred thousand dollars — a hundred thou. . . . " Glory ! " said Hutch. As he had always been more or less like a man stunned, he was now rather like a man stunned back to consciousness. He stared in the utterest bewilderment at the money in his hand, thinking over and over again, " Hundred thousand dollars — me — old Hutch — me — hundred thousand dollars. . . . ! " But sufficiently wide-awake to realities to keep his eyes about him for possible watchers. And when he heard footsteps coming, slow footsteps firsthand then hurried footsteps after, he was quick to thrust back sack and money and cash-box into the hole from which they had come and cover them quickly with the rough earth. The slow footsteps were those of his eldest daughter Ellen and Tom Gunnison, son of old Tom Gunnison, the graspingest old grasper in all Willow Bend, and then some miles abroad. " Oh ! " said Hutch to himself. " That's how the wind's blowin', eh ? " Ellen and Tom stopped at a little distance, and the hurried footsteps caught up. The hurried footsteps were those of old Tom Gunnison himself. " I thought so ! " cried old Tom, waving his fist. " I thought so, my lad ! Runnin' around with that nogood loafer's girl, what ? But that'll