“| Placed

WHEN I see this phrase in a crime report,
I often wonder what dramatic action, what
bit of tense drama culminated when the
accused was given that fateful intimation
that the next step was—gaol. Five words—
but how ominous they can be. Sometimes
they have signalized in some dryasdust
report the end of weeks or months of weari-
some chase—perhaps across a continent or
an ocean. Many times of course they only
relate to some minor theft case. Still, how-
ever, the same phrase. [Vd like to tell you
about one of these instances.

About ten or twelve years ago there was
stationed in one of the smaller Kootenay
towns a Provincial Police constable, A. J.
Smith was his name —a quiet, steady,
methodical individual. Now if he had been
one of those “pulp magazine” police heroes
he would have been full of fire and ambition.
He would have chased around the country
on his chestnut mare, six gun in hand, rid-
ding the district of everything from cut-
throats to cockroaches. But not our Cons-
table Smith. Nearing middle age, slowing
a little in his gait, he was, however, the law
in his town.

One summer afternoon his telephone
rang. An excited voice told him that a man
had been shot. The killer had gone back to
his farm and the neighbours waited for the
next step. Smith took it. He ambled out to
his police car and drove to the scene. A
few miles out of town he came upon an
excited group of farmers, clustered around
a figure lying in the road. He got the story.
An altercation had developed between the
deceased and a farmer named Jesse Mans-
field. Mansfield had secured a rifle and, re
turning to the scene, shot his neighbour, and
then returned to his farm.

Without pause, the policeman walked up
to Mansfield’s farm and knocked at the
door. A frightened woman answered the
door.

ELDER LOGGING CO.

Him Under Arrest

By THE OLD TIMER

“Ts your husband at home, Mrs. Mans-
field?” queried the constable.

“No,” quavered the woman, “he went up
into the pasture.”

Up towards the pasture the khaki clad
figure sauntered and in the distance he spied
a figure on the sky line—rifle under arm.
The figure was stationary and Smith stead-
ily approached. When he was about a hun-
dred yards from his quarry the lone figure
called out.

“Don’t come any nearer, Smith, or I'll
finish you like I finished that ————”

Unperturbed, Smith still approached.
Again the voice: “This is your last chance,
Smith—don’t take another step.” Smith
could see the rifle was up at the man’s
shoulder.

There was a slight wind blowing and
Smith cupped his hand to his ear and called:
“What’s that you say—I can’t hear you” —
but steadily walked on.

Now he was within fifty feet—now

thirty. The bluff couldn’t last much longer.
But the indomitable figure in khaki walking
relentlessly forward had made just the im-
pression intended. The rifle was slowly
lowered, and in the next few steps Smith
was alongside his quarry.

“What's the matter with you, Mans-
field?” asked the constable in a somewhat
solicitous tone. And quietly and evenly re-
marked, “You'd better let me have that
gun.” He removed it from the man’s nerve-
less fingers. Back they walked side by side
to the ranch house. The prisoner said good-
bye to his wife and was driven off to the
local lockup.

Mansfield was subsequently tried, found
insane and committed to an institution for
the criminally insane.

And the usual crime report was submitted
and the time-honored phrase employed “I
placed him under arrest’—yes, you never
can tell just what there is between the lines.

R.R. No. 2, Victoria, B.C.

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Page Forty-Six

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