Destry Rides Again Read Online Free PDF Page B

decided
     that it was probably foolish to kill a man who would soon have himself in jail again. Clyde Orrin summed up the verdict on
     this point.
    “Prison never makes a gent better; it always makes him worse! He’ll raise the devil before he’s been in Wham a day, and the
     sheriff will be waiting for him with both hands full of irons!”
    This being taken for granted, it was decided at once that all eight of them should leave the town of Wham for a little hunting
     excursion into the mountains. Before they returned, doubtless Destry would be again in the hands of the law!
    This proposal hardly had been concluded before there was a rap at the door of the hotel room in which they were sitting, and
     Chester Bent walked in.
    They looked on him without pleasure, but Chester Bent, leaning on the end of the table, a little out of breath, and hat still
     in hand, smiled on them all.
    “My friends,” said he, “I know you’re surprised to see me here. I wasn’t a member of the jury that called Destry guilty and
     sent him to prison. You know that I was his friend then, and am his friend now, and I suppose that he’ll come to stay at my
     house when he returns. Now, I want to assure you all that I shall do my best to keep Destry from taking any steps that are
     too rash and bold. But I also want to say that I doubt my ability to keep him in order. I hope that you won’t misconstrue
     what I have to say. I give you my word, I’m your friend, as well as his. I’m here to ask how I can serve you, because I take
     it for granted that you all realize that you will be in danger from the instant that Destry arrives this evening!”
    This was putting the cards on the table with a vengeance, and the eight sitters at that table looked on Mr. Bent with a real
     enthusiasm, at once. He was a man worth attention in Wham, by this time. For one thing, he had increased his wealth at least
     six-fold in the time during which unlucky Destry had been in jail. Indeed, it was at about the same time that Destry was taken
     away that Wham received proof of the business talent of Bent by the amount of cash which he had on hand ready for investment;
     and, by placing it well in mines, in the buying of shares in a lumber company that operated in the Crystal range, and by picking
     up random bits of real estate here and there, Chester Bent had now established himself in a position which was hardly second
     to that occupied by any man in the town or the range around it. He had not piled up such a huge fortune as Benjamin Dangerfield,
     to be sure, nor as a few of the great cattle barons and the mining millionaires, but Chester Bent was rich, and he was among
     the few influential men who had to be called in for consultation whenever any important move was made by the controlling spirits
     of the community.
    For all of these reasons, the eight men at the table listened greedily to all that he had to say. Destry, singlehanded, was
     bad enough, if he were even a ghost of his old self. Destry, backed by such a man as this, would be the equivalent of ruin
     to them all.
    They told him with equal frankness that they had determined to withdraw from the town, and he received the suggestion with
     pleasure. He would send them word, he assured them, of the time when it was safe for them to return to Wham!
    That afternoon they left; that evening, Chester Bent was walking up and down the platform of thestation waiting for the westbound train. It drew up, stopped, and half a dozen passengers dismounted; baggage and mails were
     thrown off, train lanterns swung, and the long line of cars started away, the observation platform swaying out of sight at
     high speed around the next curve in another moment.
    But no Harry Destry!
    Then a hand fell lightly on the arm of Bent, a tentative and timid touch, and the young man turned and looked down into a
     face as sickly white as the belly of a frog.
    It was Harry Destry at last, but Bent had to look at him twice before