IT had seemed to Danny Orlis that the day for Larry's trial would never come; it seemed that it was all an ugly nightmare and he would awaken to find that it had never happened at all—that it was only a dream. But it wasn't a dream. It was grim, dark, reality.
Nobody at Uncle Claude's mentioned the trial to the young woodsman or said anything to him about the fact that he had decided to tell the truth when he took the witness stand. In fact, nobody said anything to him at all. They worked with him in silence. They ate with him in silence—a cruel, heavy silence which seemed to weigh on Danny's heart every waking moment.
It was the hardest three weeks that he had spent in all his life. To think that they had taken him in and had given him a place to live so that he could go to school, and then he rewarded them by being the one whose testimony would send Larry back to the reformatory.
The young woodsman wanted to talk to his aunt and uncle, to tell them how he felt, but they didn't give him the opportunity. They looked past him and around him and acted as though he weren't even there.
Once or twice Danny tried to talk to Larry about Jesus and how much he needed Him now, but his cousin refused to listen.
"You'll pray for me!" Larry retorted bitterly. "A lot of good it'll do to pray for me when you won't do the one thing that would get me out of this whole rotten mess."
Danny bit his lower lip and turned away. He knew that he was doing the right thing—that he couldn't do anything less than tell the truth. But why did the choice have to be so difficult? Why couldn't it be a simple thing of right and wrong? Why did he have to hurt those he loved in order to do the one thing that was right and honorable?
The night before the trial the young woodsman scarcely closed his eyes.
"O God," he prayed over and over again, "help me to have the courage to say the right thing. Be with Larry too, and, Lord Jesus, if it be Your will, help him not to have to go back to the reformatory."
Finally the long, miserable night ended, and they were all in the solemn courtroom. The trial was a short one. The prosecuting attorney briefly told what had happened, put Clarence on the stand to fill in the details, and then called on Danny.
"Yes," the young woodsman said in answer to a question, "Larry was the one who was operating the transmitter."
The trial went on after that, but there was no doubt about the outcome. It was no surprise at all when the judge sentenced Larry to nine months in the reformatory.
Larry's lawyer tried to get him released on bond, but the judge refused harshly.
"This young man has a record of parole violation. Men had to risk their lives to find him and bring him back after he ran away," the judge said. "A boy whom he enticed to go with him almost lost his life. Larry will be confined to the county jail until such time as the sheriff can deliver him to the reformatory."
Danny Orlis sat in the chair without moving while the others filed out. Clarence stopped momentarily and patted him on the shoulder, and he looked up wordlessly. He had sent his own cousin to the reformatory! How could he ever face any of the family again! He sat there, motionless, until the janitor came and tapped him on the arm.
Danny sat without moving while the others filed out.
"You'll have to leave, sonny. I've got to lock up now."
Back home Aunt Lydia was getting supper. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her face was streaked with tears. When Danny stepped into the room, she came over to him quickly.
"Danny," she said so softly that he could scarcely hear her, "I want you to know that neither your Uncle Claude nor I blame you for what happened today."
"I wanted to help Larry," he managed, "but I...I just couldn't lie to do it."
Aunt Lydia went over to the table and sat down. "It's our fault," she said, her voice sounding dull and far away. "We didn't see that Larry was in Sunday school and church. We thought we didn't have time for God. And now this happened, and it's our fault."
Danny said nothing.
"We don't blame either you or Larry," she went on. "Claude has been too busy with his business to have any time for the boys, and I have my bridge clubs and parties to take my time." She sat there for a long while, fingering the tablecloth nervously. "We haven't taken the time to provide the boys with the sort of home they have deserved."
Danny didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say to help ease the pain in her heart.
"Would you go and visit him, Danny?" she asked desperately.
"Certainly, I'll go and see him," Danny told her.
That night the young woodsman knelt beside his bed and prayed for his cousin. He prayed that Larry would have the strength to go through the time he had to spend in the reformatory and come out a better boy and that he might find the Lord Jesus as his personal Saviour before it was too late.
The next day after school Danny started down the hall with his cap and jacket on when several of the fellows called to him.
"Hey, Danny, aren't you going out for baseball tonight?"
"Nope," he told them, stopped for a moment. "I'm going down to see Larry."
"See Larry?" Chet echoed disdainfully. "What do you want to go down and see that jailbird for?"
"He's going to try to convert him, that's what," somebody else echoed. "You remember that you're talking to Dynamite Dan, don't you?"
"I'm going to talk to him about the Lord," the young woodsman said simply.
A couple of the guys snickered.
"And it wouldn't hurt you guys to listen, either," he went on. "According to what the Bible says, you need Christ in the same way that Larry does. If you and Larry were to die without taking Jesus as your Saviour, you'd all go to the very same Hell."
They stood there, their faces turning white. For once Chet had nothing to say. In silence Danny turned and walked toward the door.
It was hard to see Larry sitting there in jail. Danny gulped hard and blinked back the tears that seemed to hang in his eyelashes. His cousin got to his feet the instant he saw him and came to the narrow iron door.
"I didn't think anybody would come to see me," he said brokenly.
Danny shook his head. "We haven't turned against you, Larry," he answered.
The boy in the cell walked to the window and back again. "A guy can surely get his life all messed up, can't he?"
"I'll say we can," Danny told him. "But you know we've always got a way out. We can always turn our lives over to the Lord Jesus and let Him straighten us out. That's what I did, Larry. That's what you need to do."
"I've wished a thousand times that I'd listened to you when you first started talking to me about taking Christ as my Saviour," Larry said seriously, "instead of waiting until now when it's too late."
"But it isn't too late," Danny went on. "God doesn't care what you are or what you've done. If you realize that you're a sinner and need a Saviour and put your whole trust in Jesus to save you from sin, that's all He cares about."
"Do you mean that He'd take a guy like me?" Larry asked, his voice trembling. "Someone who's done what I've done?"
Prayerfully, thankfully, Danny took his New Testament from his pocket and began to leaf through it for the verses he wanted. It would be so much easier for Larry in the reformatory with Jesus by his side. It would be so much easier for him when he got out and came back among his old friends at Iron Mountain.
The young woodsman was happier than he had been in months as he found the place in the Book of John and began to read to his eager, listening cousin: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Danny looked up to see that Larry was listening carefully. "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out," he continued.
Finally both boys knelt as Larry invited the Lord Jesus into his heart.
And then, for the first time, Danny Orlis saw clearly why it was that the Lord had led him to go to school in the Colorado mountain community.
