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Page 72
"`Nor then, either,' said I, and taking the bag I slung it with
all my force out of the window. `Now,' said I, `you'll never make
a Mary Jane of yourself while I can help it. If nothing but that
disguise stands between you and a gaol, then to gaol you shall go.'
"That was the way to manage him. I felt my advantage at once.
His supple nature was one which yielded to roughness far more
readily than to entreaty. He flushed with shame, and his eyes
filled with tears. But MacCoy saw my advantage also, and was
determined that I should not pursue it.
"`He's my pard, and you shall not bully him,' he cried.
"`He's my brother, and you shall not ruin him,' said I. `I
believe a spell of prison is the very best way of keeping you
apart, and you shall have it, or it will be no fault of mine.'
"`Oh, you would squeal, would you?' he cried, and in an instant
he whipped out his revolver. I sprang for his hand, but saw that
I was too late, and jumped aside. At the same instant he fired,
and the bullet which would have struck me passed through the heart
of my unfortunate brother.
"He dropped without a groan upon the floor of the compartment,
and MacCoy and I, equally horrified, knelt at each side of him,
trying to bring back some signs of life. MacCoy still held the
loaded revolver in his hand, but his anger against me and my
resentment towards him had both for the moment been swallowed up in
this sudden tragedy. It was he who first realized the situation.
The train was for some reason going very slowly at the moment,
and he saw his opportunity for escape. In an instant he had the
door open, but I was as quick as he, and jumping upon him the two
of us fell off the footboard and rolled in each other's arms down
a steep embankment. At the bottom I struck my head against a
stone, and I remembered nothing more. When I came to myself I was
lying among some low bushes, not far from the railroad track, and
somebody was bathing my head with a wet handkerchief. It was
Sparrow MacCoy.
"`I guess I couldn't leave you,' said he. `I didn't want to
have the blood of two of you on my hands in one day. You loved
your brother, I've no doubt; but you didn't love him a cent more
than I loved him, though you'll say that I took a queer way to show
it. Anyhow, it seems a mighty empty world now that he is gone, and
I don't care a continental whether you give me over to the hangman
or not.'
"He had turned his ankle in the fall, and there we sat, he with
his useless foot, and I with my throbbing head, and we talked and
talked until gradually my bitterness began to soften and to turn
into something like sympathy. What was the use of revenging his
death upon a man who was as much stricken by that death as I was?
And then, as my wits gradually returned, I began to realize also
that I could do nothing against MacCoy which would not recoil upon
my mother and myself. How could we convict him without a full
account of my brother's career being made public--the very thing
which of all others we wished to avoid? It was really as much our
interest as his to cover the matter up, and from being an avenger
of crime I found myself changed to a conspirator against Justice.
The place in which we found ourselves was one of those pheasant
preserves which are so common in the Old Country, and as we groped
our way through it I found myself consulting the slayer of my
brother as to how far it would be possible to hush it up.
"I soon realized from what he said that unless there were some
papers of which we knew nothing in my brother's pockets, there was
really no possible means by which the police could identify him or
learn how he had got there. His ticket was in MacCoy's pocket, and
so was the ticket for some baggage which they had left at the
depot. Like most Americans, he had found it cheaper and easier to
buy an outfit in London than to bring one from New York, so
that all his linen and clothes were new and unmarked. The bag,
containing the dust-cloak, which I had thrown out of the window,
may have fallen among some bramble patch where it is still
concealed, or may have been carried off by some tramp, or may have
come into the possession of the police, who kept the incident to
themselves. Anyhow, I have seen nothing about it in the London
papers. As to the watches, they were a selection from those which
had been intrusted to him for business purposes. It may have been
for the same business purposes that he was taking them to
Manchester, but--well, it's too late to enter into that.
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