O’Donnell said to Roosevelt, “Doing the Stranglers’ job for them now, are you.” But upon Uncle Bill’s gesture he dropped his rifle readily enough.
Finnegan stood at the focal point, near the fire. He had not relinquished his rifle. After a long interval he said with pathetic bravado, “Hell, a man’s got to die sometime.”
“We are prepared to shoot you down if you offer trouble.” Roosevelt’s teeth flashed—a white rectangle across his weather-darkened face.
Finnegan took his right off the grip of his rifle. He dragged his hand over his face, rubbing hard, as if to scrub his features away. He looked over his shoulder. “Frank …”
Frank O’Donnell gave a haggard little wave from down by his hip to indicate that he meant to stay out of it.
Redhead Finnegan’s head swung heavily from side to side. His darkly matted hair swung back and forth under his hat. Wil caught the hard killer glint in his gaze. The stretching moment was taut with uncertainty.
Uncle Bill said mildly, “Red, maybe you remember how we all saw how that fellow Calamity tried to fight the drop and died for his trouble? I still kind of remember how slippery the ground got underfoot with his blood. Is that a mistake you care to imitate?”
Finnegan brooded more and at the end uttered a deep hollow sigh. “I guess not,” he murmured, and let the rifle slide to the ground.
They searched the two thieves and relieved them of an arsenal. Uncle Bill borrowed Wil’s double-barrel and Wil said, “If you’re going to use that to cover them, be careful with it. The right-hand barrel goes off when you don’t mean it to.”
“If it happens to go off it’ll make more difference to them than to me,” Uncle Bill replied. He turned his head toward Roosevelt. “Now we’ve got them. What’ll we do with them?”
“What do you suggest?”
Cautiously Uncle Bill muttered, “Some might say why not just shoot them down ley fuga?”
“Because we are not murderers,” Roosevelt said. “Wil—your suggestion?”
“Well I suppose they ought to be hanged, sir, but I don’t know.”
“What makes you hesitate?”
“Well Dutch has been a friend of ours and all.”
“And that makes him less guilty than if he were a stranger?”
“Well I guess not, sir.”
“And so?”
“I don’t like the idea of hanging people, Mr. Roosevelt. There’s got to be some kind of difference between us and the Stranglers.”
“Bully. Bully for you. You have grown up a great deal, Wil. You’re absolutely right. Now there’ll be no more talk of shooting or lynching—unless they should be so foolish as to make a break for it. I assume everyone understands me clearly? We’ll take these three in with us and surrender them to the lawfully constituted authorities and they’ll be prosecuted in a court of law.”
“So’s the Stranglers can hang us proper,” said Finnegan.
Roosevelt said, “You have our protection against the Stranglers, Mr. Finnegan.”
That made Finnegan laugh aloud.
Before they lost the light entirely Roosevelt set up his glass-plate camera and had Wil and Uncle Bill take pictures of Roosevelt holding the three boat thieves at rifle-point. The capture of the thieves, Roosevelt said, would make a good chapter for his new book about the West.
Handling the prisoners was not as difficult as Wil had at first feared. O’Donnell did as he was told. Dutch was eager to oblige—anything Roosevelt wanted of him. As for Finnegan he ignored the proceedings; he seemed disgusted with himself.
That evening the temperature dropped to around zero. Wil supervised while the prisoners gathered firewood. It was too cold to tie their hands; they’d have got the frost. Roosevelt took their boots away from them and put the three prisoners on the far side of the fire and told them not to come across it or they’d be shot. The prisoners rolled up in buffalo robes and did not look eager to bolt barefoot through the frozen spiny wilderness, but all the same, by Roosevelt’s decree, the three captors took turns standing night-guard.
That first night Wil watched until midnight, then Roosevelt until daybreak; next night Uncle Bill would take the first watch, then Wil; so forth. In that manner every third night one of them would get to sleep all the way through. Except that Roosevelt never slept very much anyway. He was always reading a book or writing one. Or keeping up with his correspondence with his sister and Miss Carow—for, Wil had learned, that was the name of Roosevelt’s constant correspondent in New York. Miss Edith Carow. Must be a warm and tender romance there, judging by the ever increasing frequency and thickness of the letters they exchanged. Wil wondered what she was like, this Edith Carow.
In the morning they assembled at the roaring bank. Bill Sewall contemplated the heaving froth. “What now?”
“Downriver, old fellow. No choice.”
“Nobody knows where this river goes. Where we are right now—the map says the river’s fifteen miles from here. Nobody has done a survey. It’s guesswork. We could hit a hundred-foot waterfall around any bend.”
“Then keep your ears open, that’s a good chap.” Roosevelt’s grin was luminous.
They headed downstream in both boats. Almost immediately they ran into an enormous ice jam that held them back for hours. All they could do was follow it at its own petty pace. “Maybe we’ll get a warmer thaw,” Wil suggested.
“And maybe if my aunt had wheels she’d be a buckboard,” Uncle Bill said.
Each time they touched shore Frank O’Donnell would think about trying to make a break; sometimes he actually tried. He never got more than three or four paces before a loud word would bring him up short. Dutch Reuter was ashamed of himself and tried nothing. Redhead Finnegan, oddly, seemed remorseful and sad—evidently not because he felt guilty of any crime but because he was disgusted with himself for having got caught.
They made only two miles the first few days. It was icy bitter tedium. Roosevelt had ample opportunity to finish reading his Tolstoy. It was fortunate they had found several books amongst the prisoners’ booty; it seemed Finnegan and his friends had looted a few ranches along the way to their escape, and had come away with several bottles of liquor as well as some magazines and books, of which the most appropriate seemed to be The History of the James Brothers. Roosevelt set about reading it with avid interest. It prompted him to ask Frank O’Donnell if it was true, as mentioned in the trial of the Marquis, that he had actually ridden with Frank and Jesse James. O’Donnell only glared at him without reply.
Roosevelt began to write a letter and Wil was prompted rashly to say, “Writing to your lady friend, sir?”
“My very good lady friend, yes indeed. My sweetheart from years ago, and if you’re not careful, Wil, I shall bore you to tears with exultations about her.”
“Guess you saw her when you went back East last trip?”
“You may recall I broke a bone when I was East? Miss Carow, angel of mercy that she is, helped nurse me back to health. We had an opportunity to rediscover the things we’d seen in each other in the first place. Though between you and me, I can hardly credit that she sees much in a little four-eyed dude like me.”
“What sort of lady is she, sir?”
“Very fine, very lovely—and deserving of far better than the likes of your obedient servant.”
“I don’t believe that, sir. Sounds like you are to be congratulated.”
“That would be premature, old fellow. But I do hope the time will come.” Roosevelt’s lips peeled back from the big teeth. He was in a splendid mood.
Downriver behind the slow-moving ice they had to guard the prisoners every minute; none of the three was to be trusted, and as the days passed Finnegan seemed to revive himself with the aid of rising anger: even more than O’Donnell, Finnegan especially seemed to be on the lookout for a chance to redeem himself by escape or by surprise attack.
They traveled on into the unknown and untested reaches of the river—in all no more than twenty miles as the crow flies, but more like a hundred because of the oxbow bends and double loops of the river.