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The Snare of the Fowler

It was at the early hour when the morning brings to the earth no warmth and but a dim and grudging light, that a sharp rap summoned von Rittenheim to his cabin door. Three men stood outside in the grayness, their horses tied to trees behind them. To his surprise, Friedrich recognized his guest of the previous evening.

"Ach, my good friend, you did not reach Asheville last night?"

Unconsciously he frowned as he realized that if these men wanted breakfast he would have to confess that there was nothing to eat in the house. At the thought his instinct of hospitality and his pride both suffered.

"Yes, Ah got to Asheville, and Ah've come back—fo' you."

The man entered the cabin and motioned to his companions, who stepped one to each side of the Baron.

"What do you mean?" Von Rittenheim spoke with amazement born of entire lack of understanding. His mind could not compass the treachery of the man to whom he had given his last mouthful.

"Ah mean that Ah'm a United States deputy-marshal, and that Ah 'rest you fo' retailing."

Von Rittenheim started, a motion that caused three hands to seek as many pistol-pockets.

"You mean for selling to you last night that whisky to keep the cold from you?"

"Correct. Of co'se you-all took yo' chances, 'n you struck the wrong man."

Deputy-marshal Wilder chuckled complacently. He had made few captures lately, and he counted on this to look well at headquarters. Besides, he was having less trouble with the "big Dutchy" than he had expected. Indeed, he had prepared his assistants for a hard fight.

"You mistake—I did not str-rike you—yet," said Friedrich, misunderstanding. "But I compr-rehend that you arrest me, and for what."

Von Rittenheim looked at Wilder with so much contempt that the man turned away shamefaced. Still, the justice of his capture appealed to the German, trained in the soldier's school, for it was true that he had transgressed the law, and knowingly. That he should have yielded to the weakness aroused his irritability.

"I am a fool," he ejaculated.

"You-all needn't say anything to incriminate yo'self," said the deputy, more from habit than because the remark was appropriate.

"I go with you."

Von Rittenheim put on his hat. One of the men tinkled a pair of handcuffs in his jacket-pocket, and raised his brows inquiringly at Wilder. The latter nodded, though doubtfully. As he picked himself up from the floor a little later he realized that his doubt was justified. At the mere sight of the irons the Baron had flashed into fury. He flung one man across the table with a violence that brought him several minutes' quiet. The other rolled into a corner, and Wilder fell altogether too near for comfort to the bricks of the fireplace.

As the deputy-marshal rose he felt von Rittenheim's grasp on his throat.

"You understand not," he cried, his usually good English almost unintelligible in his excitement, "You understand not—how, indeed, should you?—that I am a gentleman. When I say I go with you, I go."

Giving him a shake as a final relief to his feelings, he added, imperatively—

"Come, pick up your fr-riends and let us start. You have a horse for me?"

No one was disposed to make another attempt to handcuff the captive, and the little detachment set out, headed by the prisoner, who had much more the appearance of a leader than did any one of the crestfallen group behind him.

The miles passed but slowly, so heavy was the road's deep mud, and it seemed to von Rittenheim that he had been travelling for hours when they crossed the Six Mile Branch that measured but half their journey done. The keen air of the early morning, whose cold was accentuated by a drizzling rain, chilled him to the bone, unfortified by food as he was. He experienced the physical misery that forces to submission men of large build more quickly than those of lighter make.

His mind suffered in sympathy, and his thoughts were of the bitterest. Never had his experience known an act of perfidy like that of Wilder. To have betrayed his hospitality was bad enough—to have lured him on to selling the whisky was the act of a villain. He cursed the chance that had brought the fellow to his door. How had it happened?

The scoundrel had said that he had missed the way, but that was not probable. The county road was plain enough. He must have passed Dr. Morgan, too, who would have set him right.

A pang of suspicion came into his mind. One had betrayed him, why not the other? The Doctor was aware that he had the whisky. He must have stopped Wilder, knowing him to be an officer, and told him about it.

As a matter of fact, the deputy's story was true. In the dusk he had turned into the Baron's road without noticing that he had left the highway. He had passed the Doctor, and had spoken to him, but it was on the State Road, before he had found himself to be out of his way.

Von Rittenheim, faint from lack of food, sick at heart over his position, and filled with disgust at his betrayal, was in a mood to accept any suspicion, and the evil thought grew fat within him. He pondered every word of his conversation with the Morgans, and fancied that he saw indisputable evidence of the Doctor's falseness in his talk about whisky.

The course of affairs in Asheville was brief. Wilder rode beside his prisoner when they came to the town, not because he feared Friedrich's escape, but that he might have the appearance of being in command of the troop. Von Rittenheim was too closely absorbed in his own painful thoughts to pay any attention to this enforced companionship. He dismounted wearily as the squad drew rein before the Federal Building, and followed the deputy-marshal into the commissioner's office.

It was early, but Mr. Weaver was at his desk, for he happened to be pressed with work.

He was a nervous, bustling man, with an expression of acuteness, and a trick of rubbing his head with a circular motion, as if he were trying to effect a tonsure by force of friction. He nodded a recognition of Wilder and his men, and sent a look of surprise at Von Rittenheim, whose appearance was not what was usual in the prisoners brought before him, although his dress seemed to indicate the mountaineer.

"What for?" he asked Wilder, gruffly, when he was at liberty to attend to them.

"Retailing," returned the deputy-marshal, and proceeded to tell a story in which the details of his method of purchasing the liquor were meagre, but the account of the German's resistance to the officers was full.

Baron von Rittenheim pleaded guilty to the charge against him, and listened to the exaggerated tale of the arrest without comment, though with a look of disgust that did not escape Mr. Weaver. Perhaps he knew his man in Wilder. At any rate, a few trenchant questions brought out the fact that Friedrich had resisted only when an attempt was made to handcuff him.

"Really, Wilder," said the commissioner, sharply, "you make me tired. Haven't you got good sense? Do you suppose a fellow like that is going to run away?"

"No knowing what these cussed foreigners won't do," growled Wilder, and added something about being blown up before his prisoner, that brought a frown to Mr. Weaver's brow.

He was puzzled about von Rittenheim, and he felt sure that there was something in the case that was not in evidence; but the man had pleaded guilty, and there was nothing to do but to hold him for the Grand Jury.

"Who'll go on your bond?" he asked, taking up his pen.

"Bond?"

"You must give a justified bond for your appearance before the United States Court in May."

"Oh, I see. I do not know. I have no fr-riends."

"It's only two hundred dollars."

"It might be only two hundred cents, still would it be the same. Yesterday I thought I had fr-riends, but to-day——"

He broke off abruptly, and again Weaver gave a perplexed rub to the top of his head. He opened a door and spoke to a negro boy who passed a waiting life in the anteroom.

"Sam, ask Mr. Gudger to step here, if he's in the building."

Mr. Gudger was a professional bondsman who added this calling to that of real-estate dealer and insurance agent, and interwove the three occupations with some talent and much success.

Von Rittenheim's farm served to secure Gudger against loss, while the mention of its existence caused the commissioner again to rub his head. Why in the world should a man——? He gave up the conundrum in despair, and applied himself to the necessary business.

Friedrich took but a passive part in the transaction, whose detail, with its rapid interchange of technicalities, he did not attempt to understand. His courteous dignity and submission to the justice of the legal procedure told nothing of the caldron of feeling boiling within him at the in-justice that had brought him to a pass where this thing was right.

As he walked away from the Federal Building, his mind began to leave these thoughts and to dwell on the almost equally disagreeable subject of what he should do next. His immediate need was of something to eat. He was sick with hunger, and he found himself even casting a regretful thought after Wilder's quarter of a dollar. His hand had happened to touch it in his pocket during his morning ride, and he had flung it from him as far as he could into the woods beside the road.

"But, no," he thought, "rather would I starve than buy food with that."

He went up Patton Avenue, and eyed the signs on the buildings in the hope of seeing one that would suggest to him some way of making money.

The early morning's rain had turned into snow, that beat into the open place from the north, and drove the loafers from their accustomed haunts. The pavement was whitening rapidly.

"The first of April to-morrow," thought von Rittenheim, disgustedly. "What will happen to those pease that I put into the gr-round last week?"

As he stood, sheltered from the storm by a projecting building, he reflected that it was useless for him to go back into the country. There was no planting to be done as early as this, except that of a few garden vegetables, and he had no seeds to plant even if he went.

He remembered as if it were long ago that he had meant to come to Asheville to-day, and thought with grim humor that after all he had not been obliged to walk.

Yes, he must find some occupation in town that would support him during the month that intervened before the sitting of the court. He knew that the usual sentence for moonshining was "A hundred dollars or three months," and, since he had no money, he must submit to the degradation of imprisonment. May, June, July. That would bring him to August, and it would be time enough then to consider the future.

A von Rittenheim in prison! A shudder went through him with the thought, and a wild desire to avert the evil. If only he had not pledged his farm to that bondsman!

Friedrich's life had not been one to promote business knowledge. At home he had known but little of affairs—in America, nothing. He did not realize that he might have raised on his place ten times the amount of his fine without affecting Mr. Gudger's interests. He thought that his negotiation with that excellent person had put his estate out of his hands for all similar uses. Vaguely he thought that the bondsman would be released when his trial came on, and that at that time the land would be free again, and that perhaps it might be arranged then. But he did not see how, for they would not allow him to go out to do it, and he did not know any one who would take a mortgage on it. And, oh, how sleepy he was—and how hungry—and how the cold bit through him!

He bestirred himself and walked around the square. He was studying the window of a harness-shop which appealed to him as having to do with the subject he knew most about—horses; and he was pondering in what capacity he would offer his services to the proprietor, when he was accosted by a negro boy.

"The boss wants you-all over yonder," he said, grinning affably.

"The—who?" asked the Baron, to whom the appellation was new.

"The boss in the revenue office, Mr. Weaver. He wants you. Ah'm his boy Sam."

Friedrich supposed that some form had been omitted, and returned with docility to the Federal Building. Mr. Weaver nodded pleasantly as he entered.

"This German was brought in here just after you went out, von Rittenheim. I want you to interpret, if you will."

Friedrich's breakfast seemed now more nebulous than ever, but even this hour's tedium came to an end, and Weaver, with a "Thank you," pushed a half-dollar along the table towards him.

"No, no. It is a pleasure, my dear sir," began the Baron, when suddenly he brought his heels together, made his low bow, and took the money. "I thank you, mein Herr. I need it. I will take it."

Mr. Weaver looked at him with the provincial American's amusement at foreigners' ways, mingled with shrewdness.

"By the way, do you mind telling me how you-all got into this scrape?"

The German flushed and tossed back his head. Then he controlled himself, and said, gently—

"But perhaps you have a r-right to know. If you will excuse me for a time, however, I will r-return after a breakfast. I left my house very early this morning."

Weaver noticed the sudden pinched look of faintness that turned von Rittenheim's ruddy face ashy.

"He's missed more than one meal," he thought, but said aloud only, "Any time before two o'clock."

It was not much that the commissioner learned from von Rittenheim after all, for food brought back self-reliance and courage, and he felt that the whole story of his trouble would be an appeal for sympathy that he could not make. However, he told enough to cause Weaver to say under his breath a few condemnatory things about the deputy-marshal, and then he asked—

"What are you going to do?"

"I hope to find some occupation in Asheville until the time of my tr-rial."

"What do you want to do?"

"I care not. I am well, str-rong. I fear not labor."

Mr. Weaver compared with a glance von Rittenheim's figure with his own puny proportions, and said—

"No, I should think not!"

Then he rubbed his head and asked—

"Can you teach?"

"I know not. Never have I done such a thing. I am a soldier."

"That's easily seen. Still, you're a university man."

He touched his forehead just where on Friedrich's the tip of his scar was visible.

"Oh, yes. I was at Heidelberg."

"I suspect you'll do if you-all are willing to try. My boy's fitting for college, and he's getting badly behind in his German. If you'd tackle his instruction for a few weeks, I'm sure it would be of great value to him. Will you do it?"

"If you will accept a novice, I shall be gr-rateful." And again Friedrich made his low bow.

"Then be at my house at five this afternoon, and here's a week's salary in advance. You'll be wanting it, perhaps."

So was Baron von Rittenheim established as Tommy Weaver's tutor, and fortunate he thought himself.

Fortunate he was, in that this engagement secured to him his simple living; but most unlucky in that it left him with too much spare time. Had he worked at a task that occupied seven or eight hours a day, his thoughts would have filtered through the weariness of his body, and been purified thereby. But his leisure was abundant, and he spent it in brooding over his troubles.

To those that had wrung him before was added his present shame. And his shame was embittered by his suspicion of Dr. Morgan. He held Wilder of no account. He was beneath a gentleman's notice. But Dr. Morgan had pretended to be his friend. He dwelt on all his intercourse with him, and weighed every conversation that he remembered. There came to him half a hundred trifling circumstances that seemed to substantiate his distrust.

The lack of his accustomed exercise told on his health. He grew moody and irritable, and daily the wish for revenge grew stronger. Satisfaction was due him, and satisfaction he would have.