Tom Strong, Lincoln's Scout Read online

  CHAPTER XIV

  TOM HUNTS WILKES BOOTH--THE END OF THE MURDERER--ANDREW JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES--TOM AND TOWSER GO HOME.

  The assassination of Lincoln was not the only crime that stained thatmemorable night. Secretary-of-State Seward was stabbed in his sick-bedby one of Booth's co-conspirators. Attempts were made upon the lives ofother Cabinet ministers. Many arbitrary arrests had been made during thewar by Secretary Stanton. It had been said that whenever Stanton'slittle bell rang, somebody went to prison. That little bell had littlerest this Saturday. Wholesale arrests were made of suspected Southernsympathizers who might have known something of the hideous conspiracy ofmurder. Stanton put all the grim energy of him into the pursuit of theleading criminals. He was said never to forget anything. One of thethings he had not forgotten was that Tom Strong knew Wilkes Booth bysight. He sent him from Lincoln's bedside, hours before Lincoln died, tojoin a troop of cavalry that was to pursue Booth. The road by which themurderer had left Washington was known. Hard upon his heels rode theavengers of crime. Wherever there was a light in one of the few housesalong the lonely road, often where there was no light, the occupantswere seized, questioned, sometimes sent to Washington under guard,sometimes released and sternly bidden to say nothing of the midnightride. Piecing together scraps of information gathered here and there,studying every crossroad for possible hoof-marks of flight, the silentcommander of the cavalrymen at last convinced himself that he was on thetrail of the quarry. The troops broke into full gallop. A few minutesbefore dawn they reached a small village on the bank of the Potomac,where the fires of a smithy gleamed. They pulled up short as thestartled blacksmith came out of his sooty shed.

  "What are you doing here?" demanded the captain.

  "I've been--I've been--putting on a horseshoe, sir."

  "For what kind of a looking man?"

  "He said his name was Barnard."

  "I beg your pardon, sir," said Tom from his saddle, "but Barnard was thename Wilkes Booth once gave me for his own." At the beginning of theride, Tom had described Booth's appearance to the captain.

  "Was the man pale? Did he have long black hair?"

  "Long black hair," answered the blacksmith, "but his cheeks were red. Heseemed excited. While I was replacing the shoe his horse had cast, hekept drinking brandy from a bottle he carried. He never gave me none ofit," the man added with an injured air.

  "Did he say anything?"

  "Yes, sir. He said I'd hear great news later today, that theSoutherners had won their greatest victory. I asked him where and heswore at me and told me to shut up. But he gave me a silver dollar.Perhaps it's bad. Is it?"

  The blacksmith pulled out of his grimy pocket a dollar and showed it tothe captain.

  "Do you know who that man was?" was the stern command.

  "No, sir, o' course I don't. I s'pose he was Mr. Barnard."

  "He was Judas. He has murdered Abraham Lincoln. And he has given you oneof the forty pieces of silver."

  With wild-eyed horror, the smith started back. He flung the accurseddollar far into the Potomac.

  "God's curse go with it," he cried. "Captain, the man went straight downthe river road. He gave his horse a cut with his whip 'n he yelled'Carry me back to ole Virginny!' and he went off lickety-split. He ain'thalf-an-hour ahead of you."

  No need to command full speed now. Every man was riding hard. Everyhorse was putting his last ounce of strength into his stride. Within anhour, the hounds saw the slinking fox they chased. Booth, abandoning hisexhausted steed, took refuge in a tumble-down barn. A cordon was thrownabout it and he was called on to surrender. The reply was a shot. Tomheard the whiz of the bullet as it tore by him. The cavalry pumped leadinto the barn. Once, twice, thrice they fired. At the first volley, thetrapped murderer had again fired. There was no answer to the second andthird. With reloaded carbines, the troopers charged, burst open thebarred door, and rushed into the rickety shed. A man lay on the earthenfloor, breath and blood struggling together in his gaping mouth. As theygathered about him, the Captain asked:

  "Do you know this man, Captain Strong?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Who is he?"

  "Wilkes Booth, sir."

  The sound of his own name half recalled Booth to life. He looked up atthe boy who stood beside him and recognized him. Ferocious hate filledthe glazing eyes. Then Wilkes Booth went to his eternal doom, hating tothe end.

  "Is he dead?" said the Captain, turning to a major of the medicalservice, who had galloped beside Tom on that fierce ride of theavengers. A big, bearded man knelt beside the body of Wilkes Booth, puthis finger where the pulse had been and laid his hand where the hearthad once beat.

  "He is dead," answered Major Hans Rolf.

  His body was thrust somewhere into the earth he had disgraced or elsewas flung, weighted with stones, into the river, all the flood tides ofwhich could not wash away the black guilt of him. No man knows where thebody of Wilkes Booth was buried.

  * * * * *

  "The king is dead! Long live the king!"

  When Tom rode sadly up Pennsylvania Avenue, with a crape-laden flag athalf-mast over the Capitol, glad for the stern justice that had beendealt out to the murderer he loathed, but bowed down with grief for themurdered President he had loved, Abraham Lincoln was no longer Presidentof the United States. In his stead, our uncrowned king was AndrewJohnson, of Tennessee, a Southern Unionist who had been elected VicePresident when the people chose Lincoln a second time for their ruler.Johnson had been born to grinding poverty in a rough community where"skule-l'arnin'" was not to be had. He was a grown man, earning a scantylivelihood as a village tailor, when his wife taught him to read andwrite. He worked his hard way up in life, became a man of prominence inhis village, in his county, in his State, until he was chosen forLincoln's running-mate as a representative Southern Unionist. He was ofcourse a man of native force, but he sometimes drowned his mind inliquor. That fatal habit pulled him down. He was a failure as aPresident, though thereafter he served his State and his country wellas a United States Senator from Tennessee.

  The White House was changed under its new ruler. John Hay, full of cheerand wit, was abroad as a secretary of legation. Nicolay, his superiorofficer, was a consul in Europe. The Lincoln family had gone Westthrough a sorrowing country, bearing the body of the martyr-President toits burial-place in Springfield, Illinois. For a while some familiarfaces were left. At first, the same Cabinet ministers served the newPresident. For some time, Uncle Moses had to learn no new names as hecarried about the summons to the Cabinet meetings. But the visitors tothe White House had changed mightily. Rough men from Tennessee and theother Border States, some of them diamonds in the rough, swarmed there.Lincoln had never used tobacco. The new-comers both smoked and chewed.Clouds of smoke filled the lower story and giant spittoons lined thecorridors and invaded the public rooms. Gradually the Republican leadersceased to wait upon the President.

  Among the people who left the White House soon after Lincoln left it wasTom Strong. On a bright May morning he walked across the portico, whereTowser was eagerly awaiting him and where Uncle Moses followed him. Unk'Mose lifted his withered black hands and called down blessings on theboy who had been his angel of freedom and had led him out of bondage.

  "De good Lawd bress you, Mas'r Tom. And de good Lawd bress dat darwufless ol' houn' dawg Towser, too. 'Kase Towser, he lubs you, Mas'rTom,--and so duz I," Uncle Moses shyly added.

  The venerable old negro and the white boy shook hands in a long farewellupon the steps of the White House. Then Tom turned away from thehistoric roof that had so long sheltered him and walked to the railroadstation, to take the train for New York. Towser trotted stiffly by hisside, trying at every step to lick his master's hand.

  Tom Strong studied hard at home and then went to Yale, as his fatherhad done before him.

  Towser could not go with him. The laws of Yale forbade it. That is oneof the chief disadvantages of being a dog. Soon
after Tom went to NewHaven, Towser went to heaven. At least, let us hope he did. He deservedto do so. One of the human things about Martin Luther, the stern founderof Protestantism in Germany in the Sixteenth Century, was that he oncesaid to a tiny girl, weeping over the death of her tiny dog: "Do notcry, little maid; for you will find your dog in heaven and he will havea golden tail."

  THE END

  TOWSER "MAY HE REST IN PEACE"]