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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19462-8.txt b/19462-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac8c4c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/19462-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14101 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price, by Francis Lynde + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Price + +Author: Francis Lynde + +Release Date: October 4, 2006 [EBook #19462] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE *** + + + + +Produced by Sam Whitehead, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE PRICE + +BY + +FRANCIS LYNDE + +AUTHOR OF +THE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN, ETC. + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +GROSSET & DUNLAP +PUBLISHERS + +Published by Arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons + + +COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +Published May, 1911 + +[Illustration] + + +To + +MR. LATHROP BROCKWAY BULLENE + +SOLE FRIEND OF MY BOYHOOD, WHO WILL RECALL BETTER +THAN ANY THE YOUTHFUL MORAL AND SOCIAL SEED-TIME +WHICH HAS LED TO THIS LATER HARVESTING OF CONCLUSION, +THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. AT CHAUDIÈRE'S 1 + + II. SPINDRIFT 9 + + III. THE RIGHT OF MIGHT 16 + + IV. _IO TRIUMPHE!_ 26 + + V. THE _BELLE JULIE_ 34 + + VI. THE DECK-HAND 44 + + VII. GOLD OF TOLOSA 53 + + VIII. THE CHAIN-GANG 59 + + IX. THE MIDDLE WATCH 68 + + X. QUICKSANDS 75 + + XI. THE ANARCHIST 84 + + XII. MOSES ICHTHYOPHAGUS 94 + + XIII. GRISWOLD EMERGENT 110 + + XIV. PHILISTIA 116 + + XV. THE GOTHS AND VANDALS 126 + + XVI. GOOD SAMARITANS 143 + + XVII. GROPINGS 154 + + XVIII. THE ZWEIBUND 165 + + XIX. LOSS AND GAIN 175 + + XX. THE CONVALESCENT 187 + + XXI. BROFFIN'S EQUATION 201 + + XXII. IN THE BURGLAR-PROOF 218 + + XXIII. CONVERGING ROADS 234 + + XXIV. THE FORWARD LIGHT 248 + + XXV. THE BRIDGE OF JEHENNAM 260 + + XXVI. PITFALLS 274 + + XXVII. IN THE SHADOWS 286 + + XXVIII. BROKEN LINKS 295 + + XXIX. ALL THAT A MAN HATH 312 + + XXX. THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES 332 + + XXXI. NARROWING WALLS 347 + + XXXII. THE LION'S SHARE 354 + + XXXIII. GATES OF BRASS 368 + + XXXIV. THE ABYSS 375 + + XXXV. MARGERY'S ANSWER 384 + + XXXVI. THE GRAY WOLF 396 + + XXXVII. THE QUALITY OF MERCY 408 + +XXXVIII. THE PENDULUM-SWING 416 + + XXXIX. DUST AND ASHES 428 + + XL. APPLES OF ISTAKHAR 438 + + XLI. THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 448 + + + + +THE PRICE + +I + +AT CHAUDIÈRE'S + + +In the days when New Orleans still claimed distinction as the only +American city without trolleys, sky-scrapers, or fast trains--was it +yesterday? or the day before?--there was a dingy, cobwebbed café in an +arcade off Camp Street which was well-beloved of newspaperdom; +particularly of that wing of the force whose activities begin late and +end in the small hours. + +"Chaudière's," it was called, though I know not if that were the name of +the round-faced, round-bodied little Marseillais who took toll at the +desk. But all men knew the fame of its gumbo and its stuffed crabs, and +that its claret was neither very bad nor very dear. And if the walls +were dingy and the odors from the grille pungent and penetrating at +times, there went with the white-sanded floor, and the marble-topped +tables for two, an Old-World air of recreative comfort which is rarer +now, even in New Orleans, than it was yesterday or the day before. + +It was at Chaudière's that Griswold had eaten his first breakfast in the +Crescent City; and it was at Chaudière's again that he was sharing a +farewell supper with Bainbridge, of the _Louisianian_. Six weeks lay +between that and this; forty-odd days of discouragement and failure +superadded upon other similar days and weeks and months. The breakfast, +he remembered, had been garnished with certain green sprigs of hope; but +at the supper-table he ate like a barbarian in arrears to his appetite +and the garnishings were the bitter herbs of humiliation and defeat. + +Without meaning to, Bainbridge had been strewing the path with fresh +thorns for the defeated one. He had just been billeted for a run down +the Central American coast to write up the banana trade for his paper, +and he was boyishly jubilant over the assignment, which promised to be a +zestful pleasure trip. Chancing upon Griswold in the first flush of his +elation, he had dragged the New Yorker around to Chaudière's to play +second knife and fork at a small parting feast. Not that it had required +much persuasion. Griswold had fasted for twenty-four hours, and he would +have broken bread thankfully with an enemy. And if Bainbridge were not a +friend in a purist's definition of the term, he was at least a friendly +acquaintance. + +Until the twenty-four-hour fast was in some measure atoned for, the +burden of the table-talk fell upon Bainbridge, who lifted and carried it +generously on the strength of his windfall. But no topic can be +immortal; and when the vacation under pay had been threshed out in all +its anticipatory details it occurred to the host that his guest was less +than usually responsive; a fault not to be lightly condoned under the +joyous circumstances. Wherefore he protested. + +"What's the matter with you to-night, Kenneth, old man? You're more than +commonly grumpy, it seems to me; and that's needless." + +Griswold took the last roll from the joint bread-plate and buttered it +methodically. + +"Am I?" he said. "Perhaps it is because I am more than commonly hungry. +But go on with your joy-talk: I'm listening." + +"That's comforting, as far as it goes; but I should think you might say +something a little less carefully polarized. You don't have a chance to +congratulate lucky people every day." + +Griswold looked up with a smile that was almost ill-natured, and quoted +cynically: "'Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have +abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that +which he hath.'" + +Bainbridge's laugh was tolerant enough to take the edge from his retort. + +"That's a pretty thing to fling at a man who never knifed you or +pistoled you or tried to poison you! An innocent by-stander might say +you envied me." + +"I do," rejoined Griswold gravely. "I envy any man who can earn enough +money to pay for three meals a day and a place to sleep in." + +"Oh, cat's foot!--anybody can do that," asserted Bainbridge, with the +air of one to whom the struggle for existence has been a mere athlete's +practice run. + +"I know; that is your theory. But the facts disprove it. I can't, for +one." + +"Oh, yes, you could, if you'd side-track some of your own theories and +come down to sawing wood like the rest of us. But you won't do that." + +Griswold was a fair man, with reddish hair and beard and the quick and +sensitive skin of the type. A red flush of anger crept up under the +closely cropped beard, and his eyes were bright. + +"That is not true, and you know it, Bainbridge," he contradicted, +speaking slowly lest his temper should break bounds. "Is it my fault, or +only my misfortune, that I can do nothing but write books for which I +can't find a publisher? Or that the work of a hack-writer is quite as +impossible for me as mine is for him?" + +Bainbridge scoffed openly; but he was good-natured enough to make amends +when he saw that Griswold was moved. + +"I take it all back," he said. "I suppose the book-chicken has come home +again to roost, and a returned manuscript accounts for anything. But +seriously, Kenneth, you ought to get down to bed-rock facts. Nobody but +a crazy phenomenon can find a publisher for his first book, nowadays, +unless he has had some sort of an introduction in the magazines or the +newspapers. You haven't had that; so far as I know, you haven't tried +for it." + +"Oh, yes, I have--tried and failed. It isn't in me to do the salable +thing, and there isn't a magazine editor in the country who doesn't know +it by this time. They've been decent about it. Horton was kind enough. +He covered two pages of a letter telling me why the stuff I sent from +here might fit one of the reviews and why it wouldn't fit his magazine. +But that is beside the mark. I tell you, Bainbridge, the conditions are +all wrong when a man with a vital message to his kind can't get to +deliver it to the people who want to hear it." + +Bainbridge ordered the small coffees and found his cigar case. + +"That is about what I suspected," he commented impatiently. "You +couldn't keep your peculiar views muzzled even when you were writing a +bit of a pot-boiler on sugar-planting. Which brings us back to the old +contention: you drop your fool socialistic fad and write a book that a +reputable publisher can bring out without committing commercial suicide, +and you'll stand some show. Light up and fumigate that idea awhile." + +Griswold took the proffered cigar half-absently, as he had taken the +last piece of bread. + +"It doesn't need fumigating; if I could consider it seriously it ought +rather to be burnt with fire. You march in the ranks of the well-fed, +Bainbridge, and it is your _métier_ to be conservative. I don't, and +it's mine to be radical." + +"What would you have?" demanded the man on the conservative side of the +table. "The world is as it is, and you can't remodel it." + +"There is where you make the mistake common to those who cry Peace, when +there is no peace," was the quick retort. "I, and my kind, can remodel +it, and some day, when the burden has grown too heavy to be borne, we +will. The aristocracy of rank, birth, feudal tyranny went down in fire +and blood in France a century ago: the aristocracy of money will go down +here, when the time is ripe." + +"That is good anarchy, but mighty bad ethics. I didn't know you had +reached that stage of the disease, Kenneth." + +"Call it what you please; names don't change facts. Listen"--Griswold +leaned upon the table; his eyes grew hard and the blue in them became +metallic--"For more than a month I have tramped the streets of this +cursed city begging--yes, that is the word--begging for work of any kind +that would suffice to keep body and soul together; and for more than +half of that time I have lived on one meal a day. That is what we have +come to; we of the submerged majority. And that isn't all. The +wage-worker himself, when he is fortunate enough to find a chance to +earn his crust, is but a serf; a chattel among the other possessions of +some fellow man who has acquired him in the plutocratic redistribution +of the earth and the fulness thereof." + +Bainbridge applauded in dumb show. + +"Turn it loose and ease the soul-sickness, old man," he said +indulgently. "I know things haven't been coming your way, lately. What +is your remedy?" + +Griswold was fairly started now, and ridicule was as fuel to the flame. + +"The money-gatherers have set us the example. They have made us +understand that might is right; that he who has may hold--if he can. The +answer is simple: there is enough and to spare for all, and it belongs +to all; to him who sows the seed and waters it, as well as to him who +reaps the harvest. That is a violent remedy, you will say. So be it: it +is the only one that will cure the epidemic of greed. There is an +alternative, but it is only theoretical." + +"And that?" + +"It may be summed up in seven words: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as +thyself.' When the man who employs--and rules--uses the power that money +gives him to succor his fellow man, the revolution will be indefinitely +postponed. But as I say, it's only a theory." + +Bainbridge glanced at his watch. + +"I must be going," he said. "The _Adelantado_ drops down the river at +eleven. But in passing I'll venture a little prophecy. You're down on +your luck now, and a bit hot-hearted in consequence; but some day you +will strike it right and come out on top. When you do, you'll be a hard +master; tattoo that on your arm somewhere so you'll be reminded of it." + +Griswold had risen with his entertainer, and he put his hands on the +table. + +"God do so to me, and more, if I am, Bainbridge," he said soberly. + +"That's all right: when the time comes, you just remember my little +fortune-telling stunt. But before we shake hands, let's get back to +concrete things for a minute or two. How are you fixed for the present, +and what are you going to do for the future?" + +Griswold's smile was not pleasant to look at. + +"I am 'fixed' to run twenty-four hours longer, thanks to your +hospitality. For that length of time I presume I shall continue to +conform to what we have been taught to believe is the immutable order of +things. After that----" + +He paused, and Bainbridge put the question. "Well, after that; what +then?" + +"Then, if the chance to earn it is still denied me, and I am +sufficiently hungry, I shall stretch forth my hand and take what I +need." + +Bainbridge fished in his pocket and took out a ten-dollar bank-note. "Do +that first," he said, offering Griswold the money. + +The proletary smiled and shook his head. + +"No; not to keep from going hungry--not even to oblige you, Bainbridge. +It is quite possible that I shall end by becoming a robber, as you +paraphrasers would put it, but I sha'n't begin on my friends. +Good-night, and a safe voyage to you." + + + + +II + +SPINDRIFT + + +The fruit steamer _Adelantado_, outward bound, was shuddering to the +first slow revolutions of her propeller when Bainbridge turned the key +in the door of the stuffy little state-room to which he had been +directed, and went on deck. + +The lines had been cast off and the ship was falling by imperceptible +inches away from her broadside berth at the fruit wharf. Bainbridge +heard the distance-softened clang of a gong; the tremulous murmur of the +screw became more pronounced, and the vessel forged ahead until the +current caught the outward-swinging prow. Five minutes later the +_Adelantado_ had circled majestically in mid-stream and was passing the +lights of the city in review as she steamed at half-speed down the +river. + +Bainbridge had no mind to go back to the stuffy state-room, late as it +was. Instead, he lighted a fresh cigar and found a chair on the port +side aft where he could sit and watch the lights wheel past in orderly +procession as the fruit steamer swept around the great crescent which +gives New Orleans its unofficial name. + +While the comfortable feeling of elation, born of his unexpected bit of +good fortune, was still uppermost to lend complacency to his +reflections, he yet found room for a compassionate underthought having +for its object the man from whom he had lately parted. He was honestly +sorry for Griswold; sorry, but not actually apprehensive. He had known +the defeated one in New York, and was not unused to his rebellious +outbursts against the accepted order of things. Granting that his +theories were incendiary and crudely subversive of all the civilized +conventions, Griswold the man was nothing worse than an impressionable +enthusiast; a victim of the auto-suggestion which seizes upon those who +dwell too persistently upon the wrongs of the wronged. + +So ran Bainbridge's epitomizing of the proletary's case; and he knew +that his opinion was shared with complete unanimity by all who had known +Griswold in Printing House Square. To a man they agreed in calling him +Utopian, altruistic, visionary. What milder epithets should be applied +to one who, with sufficient literary talent--not to say genius--to make +himself a working name in the ordinary way, must needs run amuck among +the theories and write a novel with a purpose? a novel, moreover, in +which the purpose so overshadowed the story as to make the book a mere +preachment. + +As a matter of course, the publishers would have nothing to do with the +book. Bainbridge remembered, with considerable satisfaction, that he had +confidently predicted its failure, and had given Griswold plentiful good +advice while it was in process of writing. But Griswold, being quite as +obstinate as he was impressionable, had refused to profit by the +advice, and now the consequences of his stubbornness were upon him. He +had said truly that his literary gift was novelistic and nothing else; +and here he was, stranded and desperate, with the moribund book on his +hands, and with no chance to write another even if he were so minded, +since one can not write fasting. + +Thus Bainbridge reflected, and was sorry that Griswold's invincible +pride had kept him from accepting a friendly stop-gap in his extremity. +Yet he smiled in spite of the regretful thought. It was amusing to +figure Griswold, who, as long as his modest patrimony had lasted had +been most emphatically a man not of the people, posing as an anarchist +and up in arms against the well-to-do world. None the less, he was to be +pitied. + +"Poor beggar! he is in the doldrums just now, and it isn't quite fair to +hold him responsible for what he says or thinks--or for what he thinks +he thinks," said the reporter, letting the thought slip into speech. +"Just the same, I wish I had made him take that ten-dollar bill. It +might have-- Why, hello, Broffin! How are you, old man? Where the +dickens did you drop from?" + +It was the inevitable steamer acquaintance who is always at hand to +prove the trite narrowness of the world, and Bainbridge kicked a chair +into comradely place for him. + +Broffin, heavy-browed and clean-shaven save for a thick mustache that +hid the hard-bitted mouth, replaced the chair to suit himself and sat +down. In appearance he was a cross between a steamboat captain on a +vacation, and an up-river plantation overseer recovering from his annual +pleasure trip to the city. But his reply to Bainbridge's query proved +that he was neither. + +"I didn't drop; I walked. More than that, I kept step with you all the +way from Chaudière's to the levee. You'd be dead easy game for an +amateur." + +"You'll get yourself disliked, the first thing you know," said +Bainbridge, laughing. "Can't you ever forget that you are in the +man-hunting business?" + +"Yes; just as often, and for just as long, as you can forget that you +are in the news-hunting business." + +"Tally!" said Bainbridge, and he laughed again. After which they sat in +silence until the _Adelantado_ doubled the bend in the great river and +the last outposts of the city's lights disappeared, leaving only a +softened glow in the upper air to temper the velvety blackness of the +April night. The steamer had passed Chalmette when Broffin said: + +"Speaking of Chaudière's reminds me: who was that fellow you were +telling good-by as you came out of the café? His face was as familiar as +a ship's figure-head, but I couldn't place him." + +The question coupled in automatically with the reporter's train of +thought; hence he answered it rather more fully and freely than he might +have at another time and under other conditions. From establishing +Griswold's identity for his fellow passenger, he slipped by easy stages +into the story of the proletary's ups and downs, climaxing it with a +vivid little word-painting of the farewell supper at Chaudière's. + +"To hear him talk, you would size him up for a bloody-minded nihilist of +the thirty-third degree, ready and honing to sweep the existing order of +things into the farthest hence," he added. "But in reality he is one of +the finest fellows in the world, gone a fraction morbid over the +economic side of the social problem. He has a heart of gold, as I happen +to know. He used to spend a good bit of his time in the backwater, and +you know what the backwater of a big city will do to a man." + +"I couldn't hold my job if I didn't," was the reply. + +"That means that you know only half of it," Bainbridge asserted with +cheerful dogmatism. "You're thinking of the crooks it turns out, 'which +it is your nature to.' But Griswold wasn't looking for the crooks; he +was eternally and everlastingly breaking his heart over the sodden +miseries. One night he stumbled into a cellar somewhere down in the East +Side lower levels, looking for a fellow he had been trying to find work +for; a crippled 'longshoreman. When he got into the place he found the +man stiff and cold, the woman with the death rattle in her throat, and a +two-year-old baby creeping back and forth between the dead father and +the dying mother--starvation, you know, straight from the shoulder. They +say it doesn't happen; but it does." + +"Of course it does!" growled the listener. "_I_ know." + +"We all know; and most of us drop a little something into the hat and +pass on. But Griswold isn't built that way. He jumped into the breach +like a man and tried to save the mother. It was too late, and when the +woman died he took the child to his own eight-by-ten attic and nursed +and fed it until the missionary people took it off his hands. He did +that, mind you, when he was living on two meals a day, himself; and I'm +putting it up that he went shy on one of them to buy milk for that kid." + +"Holy Smoke!--and he calls himself an anarchist?" was the gruff comment. +"It's a howling pity there ain't a lot more just like him--what?" + +"That is what I say," Bainbridge agreed. Then, with a sudden twinge of +remorse for having told Griswold's story to a stranger, he changed the +subject with an abrupt question. + +"Where are you headed for, Broffin?" + +The man who might have passed for a steamboat captain or a plantation +overseer, and was neither, chuckled dryly. + +"You don't expect me to give it away to you, and you a newspaper man, do +you? But I will--seeing you can't get it on the wires. I'm going down to +Guatemala after Mortsen." + +"The Crescent Bank defaulter? By Jove! you've found him at last, have +you?" + +The detective nodded. "It takes a good while, sometimes, but I don't +fall down very often when there's enough money in it to make the game +worth the candle. I've been two years, off and on, trying to locate +Mortsen: and now that I've found him, he is where he can't be +extradited. All the same, I'll bet you five to one he goes back with me +in the next steamer--what? Have a new smoke. No? Then let's go and turn +in; it's getting late in the night." + + + + +III + +THE RIGHT OF MIGHT + + +Two days after the supper at Chaudière's and the clearing of the fruit +steamer _Adelantado_ for the banana coast, or, more specifically, in the +forenoon of the second day, the unimpetuous routine of the business +quarter of New Orleans was rudely disturbed by the shock of a genuine +sensation. + +To shatter at a single blow the most venerable of the routine +precedents, the sensational thing chose for its colliding point with +orderly system one of the oldest and most conservative of the city's +banks: the Bayou State Security. At ten o'clock, following the precise +habit of half a lifetime, Mr. Andrew Galbraith, president of the Bayou +State, entered his private room in the rear of the main banking +apartment, opened his desk, and addressed himself to the business of the +day. Punctually at ten-five, the stenographer, whose desk was in the +anteroom, brought in the mail; five minutes later the cashier entered +for his morning conference with his superior; and at half-past the hour +the president was left alone to read his correspondence. + +Being a man whose mental processes were all serious, and whose hobby was +method, Mr. Galbraith had established a custom of giving himself a +quiet half-hour of inviolable seclusion in which to read and consider +his mail. During this sacred interval the stenographer, standing guard +in the outer office, had instructions to deny his chief to callers of +any and every degree. Wherefore, when, at twenty minutes to eleven, the +door of the private office opened to admit a stranger, the president was +justly annoyed. + +"Well, sir; what now?" he demanded, impatiently, taking the intruder's +measure in a swift glance shot from beneath his bushy white eyebrows. + +The unannounced visitor was a young man of rather prepossessing +appearance, a trifle tall for his breadth of shoulder, fair, with blue +eyes and a curling reddish beard and mustache, the former trimmed to a +point. So much the president was able to note in the appraisive +glance--and to remember afterward. + +The caller made no reply to the curt question. He had turned and was +closing the door. There was a quiet insistence in the act that was like +the flick of a whip to Mr. Galbraith's irritation. + +"If you have business with me, you'll have to excuse me for a few +minutes," he protested, still more impatiently. "Be good enough to take +a seat in the anteroom until I ring. MacFarland should have told you." + +The young man drew up a chair and sat down, ignoring the request as if +he had failed to hear it. Ordinarily Mr. Andrew Galbraith's temper was +equable enough; the age-cooled temper of a methodical gentleman whose +long upper lip was in itself an advertisement of self-control. But such +a deliberate infraction of his rules, coupled with the stony impudence +of the visitor, made him spring up angrily to ring for the watchman. + +The intruder was too quick for him. When his hand sought the bell-push +he found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver, and so was fain +to fall back into his chair, gasping. + +"Ah-h-h!" he stammered. And when the words could be managed: "So that's +it, is it?--you're a robber!" + +"No," said the invader of the presidential privacies calmly, speaking +for the first time since his incoming. "I am not a robber, save in your +own very limited definition of the word. I am merely a poor man, Mr. +Galbraith--one of the uncounted thousands--and I want money. If you call +for help, I shall shoot you." + +"You--you'd murder me?" The president's large-jointed hands were +clutching the arms of the pivot-chair, and he was fighting manfully for +courage and presence of mind to cope with the terrifying emergency. + +"Not willingly, I assure you: I have as great a regard for human life as +you have--but no more. You would kill me this moment in self-defence, if +you could: I shall most certainly kill you if you attempt to give an +alarm. On the other hand, if you prove reasonable and obedient your life +is not in danger. It is merely a question of money, and if you are +amenable to reason----" + +"If I'm--but I'm not amenable to your reasons!" blustered the president, +recovering a little from the first shock of terrified astoundment. "I +refuse to listen to them. I'll not have anything to do with you. Go +away!" + +The young man's smile showed his teeth, but it also proved that he was +not wholly devoid of the sense of humor. + +"Keep your temper, Mr. Galbraith," he advised coolly. "The moment is +mine, and I say you shall listen first and obey afterward. Otherwise you +die. Which is it to be? Choose quickly--time is precious." + +The president yielded the first point, that of the receptive ear; but +grudgingly and as one under strict compulsion. + +"Well, well, then; out with it. What have you to say for yourself?" + +"This: You are rich: you represent the existing order of things. I am +poor, and I stand for my necessity, which is higher than any man-made +law or custom. You have more money than you can possibly use in any +legitimate personal channels: I have not the price of the next meal, +already twenty-four hours overdue. I came here this morning with my life +in my hand to invite you to share with me a portion of that which is +yours chiefly by the right of possession. If you do it, well and good: +if not, there will be a new president of the Bayou State Security. Do I +make myself sufficiently explicit?" + +Andrew Galbraith glanced furtively at the paper-weight clock on his +desk. It was nearly eleven, and MacFarland would surely come in on the +stroke of the hour. If he could only fend off the catastrophe for a few +minutes, until help should come. He searched in his pockets and drew +forth a handful of coins. + +"You say you are hungry: I'm na that well off that I canna remember the +time when I knew what it was to be on short commons, mysel'," he said; +and the unconscious lapse into the mother idiom was a measure of his +perturbation. "Take this, now, and be off wi' you, and we'll say no more +about it." + +The invader of privacies glanced at the clock in his turn and shook his +head. + +"You are merely trying to gain time, and you know it, Mr. Galbraith. My +stake in this game is much more than a handful of charity silver; and I +don't do you the injustice to believe that you hold your life so +cheaply; you who have so much money and, at best, so few years to live." + +The president put the little heap of coins on the desk, but he did not +abandon the struggle for delay. + +"What's your price, then?" he demanded, as one who may possibly consider +a compromise. + +"One hundred thousand dollars--in cash." + +"But man! ye're clean daft! Do ye think I have----" + +"I am not here to argue," was the incisive interruption. "Take your pen +and fill out a check payable to your own order for one hundred thousand +dollars, and do it now. If that door opens before we have concluded, you +are a dead man!" + +At this Andrew Galbraith saw that the end was nigh and gathered himself +for a final effort at time-killing. It was absurd; he had no such +balance to his personal credit; such a check would not be honored; it +would be an overdraft, and the teller would very properly-- In the midst +of his vehement protests the stranger sprang out of his chair, stepped +back a pace and raised his weapon. + +"Mr. Galbraith, you are juggling with your life! Write that check while +there is yet time!" + +A sound of subdued voices came from the anteroom, and the beleaguered +old man stole a swift upward glance at the face of his persecutor. There +was no mercy in the fierce blue eyes glaring down upon him; neither +compassion nor compunction, but rather madness and fell murder. The +summons came once again. + +"Do it quickly, I say, before we are interrupted. Do you hear?" + +Truly, the president both heard and understood; yet he hesitated one +other second. + +"You will not? Then may God have mercy----" + +The hammer of the levelled pistol clicked. Andrew Galbraith shut his +eyes and made a blind grasp for pen and check-book. His hands were +shaking as with a palsy, but the fear of death steadied them suddenly +when he came to write. + +"Indorse it!" was the next command. The voices had ceased beyond the +partition, and the dead silence was relieved only by the labored +strokes of the president's pen and the tap-tap of the typewriter in the +adjacent anteroom. + +The check was written and indorsed, and under the menace of the revolver +Andrew Galbraith was trying to give it to the robber. But the robber +would not take it. + +"No, I don't want your paper: come with me to your paying teller and get +me the money. Make what explanation you see fit; but remember--if he +hesitates, you die." + +They left the private office together, the younger man a short half-step +in the rear, with his pistol-bearing hand thrust under his coat. +MacFarland, the stenographer, was at his desk in the corner of the +anteroom. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the unwonted thing, the +president's forthfaring with a stranger who had somehow gained access to +the private room during the sacred half-hour, would have made him look +up and wonder. But this was the hundredth time, and Andrew Galbraith's +anxious glance aside was wasted upon MacFarland's back. + +Still the president did not despair. In the public lobby there would be +more eyes to see, and perhaps some that would understand. Mr. Galbraith +took a firmer hold upon his self-possession and trusted that some happy +chance might yet intervene to save him. + +But chance did not intervene. There was a goodly number of customers in +the public space, but not one of the half-dozen or more who nodded to +the president or passed the time of day with him saw the eye-appeal +which was the only one he dared to make. On the short walk around to the +paying teller's window, the robber kept even step with his victim, and +try as he would, Andrew Galbraith could not summon the courage to forget +the pistol muzzle menacing him in its coat-covered ambush. + +At the paying wicket there was only one customer, instead of the group +the president had hoped to find; a sweet-faced young woman in a modest +travelling hat and a gray coat. She was getting a draft cashed, and when +she saw them she would have stood aside. It was the robber who +anticipated her intention and forbade it with a courteous gesture; +whereat she turned again to the window to conclude her small transaction +with the teller. + +The few moments which followed were terribly trying ones for the +gray-haired president of the Bayou State Security. None the less, his +brain was busy with the chanceful possibilities. Failing all else, he +was determined to give the teller a warning signal, come what might. It +was a duty owed to society no less than to the bank and to himself. But +on the pinnacle of resolution, at the instant when, with the robber at +his elbow, he stepped to the window and presented the check, Andrew +Galbraith felt the gentle pressure of the pistol muzzle against his +side; nay, more; he fancied he could feel the cold chill of the metal +strike through and through him. + +So it came about that the fine resolution had quite evaporated when he +said, with what composure there was in him: "You'll please give me +currency for that, Johnson." + +The teller glanced at the check and then at his superior; not too +inquisitively, since it was not his business to question the president's +commands. + +"How will you have it?" he asked; and it was the stranger at Mr. +Galbraith's elbow who answered. + +"One thousand in fives, tens, and twenties, loose, if you please; the +remainder in the largest denominations, put up in a package." + +The teller counted out the one thousand in small notes quickly; but he +had to leave the cage and go to the vault for the huge remainder. This +was the crucial moment of peril for the robber, and the president, +stealing a glance at the face of his persecutor, saw the blue eyes +blazing with excitement. + +"It is your time to pray, Mr. Galbraith," said the spoiler in low tones. +"If you have given your man the signal----" + +But the signal had not been given. The teller was re-entering the cage +with the bulky packet of money-paper. + +"You needn't open it," said the young man at the president's elbow. "The +bank's count is good enough for me." And when the window wicket had been +unlatched and the money passed out, he stuffed the loose bills +carelessly into his pocket, put the package containing the ninety-nine +thousand dollars under his arm, nodded to the president, backed swiftly +to the street door and vanished. + +Then it was that Mr. Andrew Galbraith suddenly found speech, opening +his thin lips and pouring forth a torrent of incoherence which presently +got itself translated into a vengeful hue and cry; and New Orleans the +unimpetuous had its sensation ready-made. + + + + +IV + +_IO TRIUMPHE!_ + + +If Kenneth Griswold, backing out of the street door of the Bayou State +Security and vanishing with his booty, had been nothing more than a +professional "strong-arm man," he would probably have been taken and +jailed within the hour, if only for the reason that his desperate cast +for fortune included no well-wrought-out plan of escape. But since he +was at once both wiser and less cunning than the practised bank robber, +he threw his pursuers off the scent by an expedient in which artlessness +and daring quite beyond the gifts of the journeyman criminal played +equal parts. + +Once safely in the street, with a thousand dollars in his pocket and the +packet of bank-notes under his arm, he was seized by an impulse to do +some extravagant thing to celebrate his success. It had proved to be +such a simple matter, after all: one bold stroke; a tussle, happily +bloodless, with the plutocratic dragon whose hold upon his treasure was +so easily broken; and presto! the hungry proletary had become himself a +power in the world, strong to do good or evil, as the gods might direct. + +This was the prompting to exultation as it might have been set in words; +but in Griswold's thought it was but a swift suggestion, followed +instantly by another which was much more to the immediate purpose. He +was hungry: there was a restaurant next door to the bank. Without +thinking overmuch of the risk he ran, and perhaps not at all of the +audacious subtlety of such an expedient at such a critical moment, he +went in, sat down at one of the small marble-topped tables, and calmly +ordered breakfast. + +Since hunger is a lusty special pleader, making itself heard above any +pulpit drum of the higher faculties, it is quite probable that Griswold +dwelt less upon what he had done than upon what he was about to eat, +until the hue and cry in the street reminded him that the chase was +begun. But at this, not to appear suspiciously incurious, he put on the +mask of indifferent interest and asked the waiter concerning the uproar. + +The serving man did not know what had happened, but he would go and find +out, if M'sieu' so desired. "M'sieu'" said breakfast first, by all +means, and information afterward. Both came in due season; and the +hungry one ate while he listened. + +Transmuted into the broken English of the Gascon serving man, the story +of the robbery lost nothing in its sensational features. + +"Ah! w'at you t'ink, M'sieu'? De bank on de nex' do' is been rob'!" And +upon this theme excited volubility descanted at large. The bank had been +surrounded by a gang of desperate men, with every exit guarded, while +the leader, a masked giant armed to the teeth, had compelled the +president at the muzzle of a pistol to pay a ransom of fifty--one +hundred--five hundred thousand dollars! With the money in hand the gang +had vanished, the masked giant firing the pistol at M'sieu' the +president as he went. Cross-examined, the waiter could not affirm +positively as to the shot. But as for the remaining details there could +be no doubt. + +Griswold ordered a second cup of coffee, and while the waiter was +bringing it, conscience--not the newly acquired conscience, but the +conventional--bent its bow and sped its final arrow. It was suddenly +brought home to the enthusiast with sharp emphasis that to all civilized +mankind, save and excepting those few chosen ones who shared his +peculiar convictions, he was a common thief, a bandit, an outlaw. Public +opinion, potential or expressed, is at best but an intangible thing. But +for a few tumultuous seconds Griswold writhed under the ban of it as if +it had been a whip of scorpions. Then he smiled to think how strong the +bonds of custom had grown; and at the smile conscience flung away its +empty quiver. + +Now it was over, however, the enthusiast was rather grateful for the +chastening. It served to remind him afresh of his mission. This money +which he had just wrested from the claws of the plutocratic dragon must +be held as a sacred trust; it must be devoted scrupulously to the cause +of the down-trodden and the oppressed. Precisely how it was to be +applied he had not yet determined; but that could be decided later. + +Meanwhile, it was very evident that the dragon did not intend to accept +defeat without a struggle, and Griswold set his wits at work upon the +problem of escape. + +"It's a little queer that I hadn't thought of that part of it before," +he mused, sipping his coffee as one who need not hasten until the race +is actually begun. "I suppose the other fellow, the real robber, would +have figured himself safely out of it--or would have thought he +had--before he made the break. Since I did not, I've got it to do now, +and there isn't much time to throw away. Let me see--" he shut his eyes +and went into the inventive trance of the literary craftsman--"the +keynote must be originality; I must do that which the other fellow would +never think of doing." + +On the strength of that decision he ventured to order a third cup of +coffee, and before it had cooled he had outlined a plan, basing it upon +a further cross-questioning of the Gascon waiter. The man had been to +the street door again, and by this time the sidewalk excitement had +subsided sufficiently to make room for an approach to the truth. The +story of an armed band surrounding the bank had been a canard. There had +been but one man concerned in the robbery, and the sidewalk gossip was +beginning to describe him with discomforting accuracy. + +Griswold paid his score and went out boldly and with studied +nonchalance. He reasoned that, notwithstanding the growing accuracy of +the street report, he was still in no immediate danger so long as he +remained in such close proximity to the bank. It was safe to assume that +this was one of the things the professional "strong-arm man" would not +do. But it was also evident that he must speedily lose his identity if +he hoped to escape; and the lost identity must leave no clew to itself. + +Griswold smiled when he remembered how, in fiction of the felon-catching +sort, and in real life, for that matter, the law-breaker always did +leave a clew for the pursuers. Thereupon arose a determination to +demonstrate practically that it was quite as possible to create an +inerrant fugitive as to conceive an infallible detective. Joining the +passers-by on the sidewalk, he made his way leisurely to Canal Street, +and thence diagonally through the old French quarter toward the French +Market. In a narrow alley giving upon the levee he finally found what he +was looking for; a dingy sailors' barber's shop. The barber was a negro, +fat, unctuous and sleepy-looking; and he was alone. + +"Yes, sah; shave, boss?" asked the negro, bowing and scraping a foot +when Griswold entered. + +"No; a hair-cut." The customer produced a silver half-dollar. "Go +somewhere and get me a cigar to smoke while you are doing it. Get a good +one, if you have to go to Canal Street," he added, climbing into the +rickety chair. + +The fat negro shuffled out, scenting tips. The moment he was out of +sight, Griswold took up the scissors and began to hack awkwardly at his +beard and mustache; awkwardly, but swiftly and with well-considered +purpose. The result was a fairly complete metamorphosis easily wrought. +In place of the trim beard and curling mustache there was a rough +stubble, stiff and uneven, like that on the face of a man who had +neglected to shave for a week or two. + +"There, I think that will answer," he told himself, standing back before +the cracked looking-glass to get the general effect. "And it is decently +original. The professional cracksman would probably have shaved, +whereupon the first amateur detective he met would reconstruct the beard +on the sunburned lines. Now for a pawnbroker; and the more avaricious he +happens to be, the better he will serve the purpose." + +He went to the door and looked up and down the alley. The negro was not +yet in sight, and Griswold walked rapidly away in the direction opposite +to that taken by the obliging barber. + +A pawnbroker's shop of the kind required was not far to seek in that +locality, and when it was found, Griswold drove a hard bargain with the +Portuguese Jew behind the counter. The pledge he offered was the suit he +was wearing, and the bargaining concluded in an exchange of the still +serviceable business suit for a pair of butternut trousers, a +second-hand coat too short in the sleeves, a flannel shirt, a cap, and a +red handkerchief; these and a sum of ready money, the smallness of which +he deplored piteously before he would consent to accept it. + +The effect of the haggling was exactly what Griswold had prefigured. The +Portuguese, most suspicious of his tribe, suspecting everything but the +truth, flatly accused his customer of having stolen the pledge. And when +Griswold departed without denying the charge, suspicion became +conviction, and the pledged clothing, which might otherwise have given +the police the needed clew, was carefully hidden away against a time +when the Jew's apprehensions should be quieted. + +Having thus disguised himself, Griswold made the transformation +artistically complete by walking a few squares in the dust of a loaded +cotton float on the levee. Then he made a tramp's bundle of the +manuscript of the moribund book, the pistol, and the money in the red +handkerchief; and having surveyed himself with some satisfaction in the +bar mirror of a riverside pot-house, a daring impulse to test his +disguise by going back to the restaurant where he had breakfasted seized +and bore him up-town. + +The experiment was an unqualified success. The proprietor of the +bank-neighboring café not only failed to recognize him; he was driven +forth with revilings in idiomatic French and broken English. + +"_Bête!_ Go back on da levee w'ere you belong to go. I'll been kipping +dis café for zhentlemen! _Scélérat!_ Go!" + +Griswold went out, smiling between his teeth. + +"That settles the question of identification and present safety," he +assured himself exultantly. Then: "I believe I could walk into the +Bayou State Security and not be recognized." + +As before, the daring impulse was irresistible, and he gave place to it +on the spur of the moment. Fouling a five-dollar bill in the mud of the +gutter, he went boldly into the bank and asked the paying teller to give +him silver for it. The teller sniffed at the money, scowled at the man, +and turned back to his cash-book without a word. Griswold's smile grew +to an inward laugh when he reached the street. + +"The dragon may have teeth and claws, but it can neither see nor smell," +he said, contemptuously, turning his steps riverward again. "Now I have +only to choose my route and go in peace. How and where are the only +remaining questions to be answered." + + + + +V + +THE _BELLE JULIE_ + + +For an hour or more after his return to the river front, Griswold idled +up and down the levee; and the end of the interval found him still +undecided as to the manner and direction of his flight--to say nothing +of the choice of a destination, which was even more evasive than the +other and more immediately pressing decision. + +It was somewhere in the midst of the reflective hour that the elate +triumph of success began to give place to the inevitable reaction. The +partition which stands upon the narrow dividing line between vagrancy +and crime is but a paper wall, and any hot-hearted insurrectionary may +break through it at will. But to accept the conditions of vagrancy one +must first embrace the loathsome thing itself. Griswold remembered the +glimpse he had had of himself in the bar mirror of the pot-house, and +the chains of his transformed identity began to gall him. It was to +little purpose that he girded at his compunctions, telling himself that +he was only playing a necessary part; that one needs must when the devil +drives. Custom, habit, convention, or whatever it may be which +differentiates between the law-abiding and the lawless, would have its +say; and from railing bitterly against the social conditions which made +his act at once a necessity and a crime, he began to feel a prickling +disgust for the subterfuges to which the crime had driven him. + +Moreover, there was a growing fear that he might not always be able to +play consistently the double rôle whose lines were already becoming +intricate and confusing. To be true to his ideals, he must continue to +be in utter sincerity Griswold the brother-loving. That said itself. But +on the other hand, to escape the consequences of his act, he must hold +himself in instant readiness to be in savage earnest what a common thief +would be in similar straits; a thing of duplicity and double meanings +and ferocity, alert to turn and slay at any moment in the battle of +self-preservation. + +He had thought that the supreme crisis was passed when, earlier in the +day, he had pawned the last of his keepsakes for the money to buy the +revolver. But he had yet to learn that there is no supreme crisis in the +human span, save that which ends it; that all the wayfaring duels with +fate are inconclusive; conflicts critical enough at the moment, but +lacking finality, and likely to be renewed indefinitely if one lives +beyond them. + +He was confronting another of the false climaxes in the hour of aimless +wanderings on the river front. More than once he was tempted to buy back +his lost identity at any price. Never before had he realized what a +precious possession is the fearlessness of innocency; weighed against +it, the thick packet of bank-notes in the tramp's bundle, and all that +it might stand for, were as air-blown bubbles to refined gold. Yet he +would not go back; he could not go back. To restore the money would be +more than a confession of failure; it would be an abject recantation--a +flat denial of every article of his latest social creed, and a plunge +into primordial chaos in the matter of theories, out of which he could +emerge only as a criminal in fact. + +When the conflict of indetermination became altogether insupportable, he +put it aside with the resolution which was the strong thread in the +loosely twisted warp of his character and forced himself to think +concretely toward a solution of the problem of flight. The possession of +the money made all things possible--in any field save the +theoretical--and the choice of dwelling or hiding-places seemed +infinite. + +His first thought had been to go back to New York. But there the risk of +detection would be greater than elsewhere, and he decided that there was +no good reason why he should incur it. Besides, he argued, there were +other fields in which the sociological studies could be pursued under +conditions more favorable than those to be found in a great city. In his +mind's eye he saw himself domiciled in some thriving interior town, +working and studying among people who were not unindividualized by an +artificial environment. In such a community theory and practice might go +hand in hand; he could know and be known; and the money at his command +would be vastly more of a moulding and controlling influence than it +could possibly be in the smallest of circles in New York. The picture, +struck out upon the instant, pleased him, and having sufficiently +idealized it, he adopted it enthusiastically as an inspiration, leaving +the mere geographical detail to arrange itself as chance, or subsequent +events, might determine. + +That part of the problem disposed of, there yet remained the choice of a +line of flight; and it was a small thing that finally decided the manner +of his going. For the third time in the hour of aimless wanderings he +found himself loitering opposite the berth of the _Belle Julie_, an +up-river steamboat whose bell gave sonorous warning of the approaching +moment of departure. Toiling roustabouts, trailing in and out like an +endless procession of human ants, were hurrying the last of the cargo +aboard. Griswold stood to look on. The toilers were negroes, most of +them, but with here and there among the blacks and yellows a paler face +so begrimed with sweat and dust as to be scarcely distinguishable from +the majority. The sight moved Griswold, as thankless toil always did; +and he fell to contrasting the hard lot of the laborers with that of the +group of passengers looking on idly from the comfortable shade of the +saloon-deck awning. Griswold's thought vocalized itself in compassionate +musings. + +"Poor devils! They've been told that they are freemen, and perhaps they +believe it. But surely no slave of the Toulon galleys was ever in +bitterer bondage.... Free?--yes, free to toil and sweat, to bear +burdens and to be driven like cattle under the yoke! Oh, good +Lord!--look at that!" + +The ant procession had attacked the final tier of boxes in the lading, +and one of the burden-bearers, a white man, had stumbled and fallen like +a crushed pack-animal under a load too heavy for him. Griswold was +beside him in a moment. The man could not rise, and Griswold dragged him +not untenderly out of the way of the others. + +"Why didn't you stand from under and let it drop?" he demanded gruffly, +as an offset to the womanish tenderness; but when the man gasped for +breath and groaned, he took another tone: "Where are you hurt?" + +The crushed one sat up and spat blood. + +"I don't know: inside, somewheres. I been dyin' on my feet any time for +a year or two back." + +"Consumption?" queried Griswold, briefly. + +"I reckon so." + +"Then you have no earthly business in a deck crew. Don't you know that?" + +The man's smile was a ghastly face-wrinkling. + +"Reckon I hain't got any business anywheres--out'n a horspital or a hole +in the ground. But I kind o' thought I'd like to be planted 'longside +the woman and the childer, if I could make out some way to git there." + +"Where?" + +The consumptive named a small river town in Iowa. + +"And you were going to work your passage on the boat?" + +"I was allowin' to try for it. But I reckon I'm done up, now." + +In Griswold impulse was the dominant chord always struck by an appeal to +his sympathies. His compassion went straight to the mark, as it was sure +to do when his pockets were not empty. + +"What is the fare by rail to your town?" he inquired. + +"I don't know: I never asked. Somewheres between twenty and thirty +dollars, I reckon; and that's more money than I've seen sence the woman +died." + +Griswold hastily counted out a hundred dollars from his pocket fund and +thrust the money into the man's hand. + +"Take that and change places with me," he commanded, slipping on the +mask of gruffness again. "Pay your fare on the train, and I'll take your +job on the boat. Don't be a fool!" he added, when the man put his face +in his hands and began to choke. "It's a fair enough exchange, and I'll +get as much out of it one way as you will the other. What is your name? +I may have to borrow it." + +"Gavitt--John Wesley Gavitt." + +"All right; off with you," said the liberator, curtly; and with that he +shouldered the sick man's load and fell into line in the ant procession. + +Once on board the steamer, he followed his file-leader aft and made it +his first care to find a safe hiding-place for the tramp's bundle in +the knotted handkerchief. That done, he stepped into the line again, and +became the sick man's substitute in fact. + +Inured to hard living as he was, the substitute roustabout had made no +more than a half-dozen rounds between the levee and the cargo-deck of +the _Belle Julie_ before he was glad to note that the steamer's lading +was all but completed. It was toil of the shrewdest, and he drew breath +of blessed relief when the last man staggered up the plank with his +burden. The bell was clanging its final summons, and the slowly +revolving paddle-wheels were taking the strain from the mooring lines. +Being near the bow line Griswold was one of the two who sprang ashore at +the mate's bidding to cast off. He was backing the hawser out of the +last of its half-hitches when a carriage was driven rapidly down to the +stage and two tardy passengers hurried aboard. The mate bawled from his +station on the hurricane-deck. + +"Now, then! Take a turn on that spring line out there and get them +trunks aboard! Lively!" + +The larger of the two trunks fell to the late recruit; and when he had +set it down at the door of the designated state-room, he did +half-absently what John Gavitt might have done without blame: read the +tacked-on card, which bore the owner's name and address, written in a +firm round hand: "Charlotte Farnham, Wahaska, Minnesota." + +"Thank you," said a musical voice at his elbow. "May I trouble you to +put it inside?" + +Griswold wheeled as if the mild-toned request had been a blow, and was +properly ashamed. But when he saw the speaker, consternation promptly +slew all the other emotions. For the owner of the tagged trunk was the +young woman to whom, an hour or so earlier, he had given place at the +paying teller's wicket in the Bayou State Security. + +She saw his confusion, charged it to the card-reading at which she had +surprised him, and smiled. Then he met her gaze fairly and became sane +again when he was assured that she did not recognize him: became sane, +and whipped off his cap, and dragged the trunk into the state-room. +After which he went to his place on the lower deck with a great +thankfulness throbbing in his heart and an inchoate resolve shaping +itself in his brain. + +Late that night, when the _Belle Julie_ was well on her way up the great +river, he flung himself down upon the sacked coffee on the engine-room +guard to snatch a little rest between landings, and the resolve became +sufficiently cosmic to formulate itself in words. + +"I'll call it an oracle," he mused. "One place is as good as another, +just so it is inconsequent enough. And I am sure I've never heard of +Wahaska." + +Now Griswold the social rebel was, before all things else, Griswold the +imaginative literary craftsman; and no sooner was the question of his +ultimate destination settled thus arbitrarily than he began to prefigure +the place and its probable lacks and havings. This process brought him +by easy stages to pleasant idealizings of Miss Charlotte Farnham, who +was, thus far, the only tangible thing connected with the +destination-dream. A little farther along her personality laid hold of +him and the idealizings became purely literary. + +"She is a magnificently strong type!" was his summing up of her, made +while he was lying flat on his back and staring absently at the flitting +shadows among the deck beams overhead. "Her face is as readable as only +the face of a woman instinctively good and pure in heart can be. Any man +who can put her between the covers of a book may put anything else he +pleases in it and snap his fingers at the world. If I am going to live +in the same town with her, I ought to jot her down on paper before I +lose the keen edge of the first impression." + +He considered it for a moment, and then got up and went in search of a +pencil and a scrap of paper. The dozing night clerk gave him both, with +a sleepy malediction thrown in; and he went back to the engine-room and +scribbled his word-picture by the light of the swinging incandescent. + +"Character-study: Young woman of the type Western Creole; not the +daughter of aliens, but born in the West, of parents who have migrated +from one of the older States. (I'll hazard that much as a guess.) + +"_Detail_: Titian blonde, with hair like spun bronze; the complexion +which neither freckles nor tans; cool gray eyes with underdepths in them +that no man but her lover may ever quite fathom; a figure which would +be statuesque if it were not altogether human and womanly; features cast +in the Puritan mould, with the lines of character well emphasized; lips +that would be passionate but for--no, lips that _will_ be passionate +when the hour and the man arrive. A soul strong in the strength of +transparent purity, which would send her to the stake for a principle, +or to the Isle of Lepers with her lover. A typical heroine for a story +in which the hero is a man who might need to borrow a conscience." + +He read it over thoughtfully when it was finished, changing a word here +and a phrase there with a craftsman's fidelity to the exactnesses. Then +he shook his head regretfully and tore the scrap of paper into tiny +squares, scattering them upon the brown flood surging past the +engine-room gangway. + +"It won't do," he confessed reluctantly, as one who sacrifices good +literary material to a stern sense of the fitness of things. "It is +nothing less than a cold-blooded sacrilege. I can't make copy of her if +I write no more while the world stands." + + + + +VI + +THE DECK-HAND + + +Charlotte Farnham's friends--their number was the number of those who +had seen her grow from childhood to maiden--and womanhood--commonly +identified her for inquiring strangers as "good old Doctor Bertie's +'only,'" adding, men and women alike, that she was as well-balanced and +sensible as she was good to look upon. + +As Griswold had guessed, she stood but a single remove from an American +lineage much older than the America of the Middle West. Her father had +been a country physician in New Hampshire, migrating to the dry winters +of Minnesota for his young wife's health. The migration had been too +long postponed to save the mother's life; but it had made a beautiful +woman of the daughter, dowering her with the luxuriant physical charm +which is the proof that transplantation to fresher soil is not less +beneficial to human- than to plant-kind. + +She had been spending the winter at Pass Christian with her aunt, who +was an invalid; and it was for the invalid's sake that she had decided +to make the return journey by river. Patient little Miss Gilman was the +least querulous of sufferers, but she was always very ill on a railway +train. Hence Charlotte, who was at once physician, nurse, mentor, and +dutiful kinswoman to the frail little lady who looked old enough to be +her grandmother, had chosen the longer, but less trying, route to the +far North. + +So it had come about that their state-rooms had been taken on the _Belle +Julie_; and on the morning of the second day out from New Orleans, Miss +Gilman was so far from being travel-sick that she was able to sit with +Charlotte in the shade of the hurricane-deck aft, and to enjoy, with +what quavering enthusiasm there was in her, the matchless scenery of the +lower Mississippi. + +At Baton Rouge the New Orleans papers came aboard, and Miss Farnham +bought a copy of the _Louisianian_. As a matter of course, the +first-page leader was a circumstantial account of the daring robbery of +the Bayou State Security, garnished with startling head-lines. Charlotte +read it, half-absently at first, and a second time with interest +awakened and a quickening of the pulse when she realized that she had +actually been a witness of the final act in the near-tragedy. Her little +gasp of belated horror brought a query from the invalid. + +"What is it, Charlie, dear?" + +For answer, Charlotte read the newspaper story of the robbery, +head-lines and all. + +"For pity's sake! in broad daylight! How shockingly bold!" commented +Miss Gilman. + +"Yes; but that wasn't what made me gasp. The paper says: 'A young lady +was at the teller's window when the robber came up with Mr. +Galbraith--' Aunt Fanny, _I_ was the 'young lady'!" + +"You? horrors!" ejaculated the invalid, holding up wasted hands of +deprecation. "To think of it! Why, child, if anything had happened, a +terrible murder might have been committed right there before your very +face and eyes! Dear, dear; whatever are we coming to!" + +Charlotte the well-balanced, smiled at the purely personal limitations +of her aunt's point of view. + +"It is very dreadful, of course; but it is no worse just because I +happened to be there. Yet it seems ridiculously incredible. I can hardly +believe it, even now." + +"Incredible? How?" + +"Why, there wasn't anything about it to suggest a robbery. Now that I +know, I remember that the old gentleman did seem anxious or worried, or +at least, not quite comfortable some way; but the young man was smiling +pleasantly, and he looked like anything rather than a desperate +criminal. I can close my eyes and see him, just as I saw him yesterday. +He had a good face, Aunt Fanny; it was the face of a man whom one would +trust almost instinctively." + +Miss Gilman's New England conservatism, unweakened by her long residence +in the West, took the alarm at once. + +"Did you notice him particularly, Charlotte? Would you recognize him if +you should see him again?" she asked anxiously. + +"Yes; I am quite sure I should." + +"But no one in the bank knew you. They couldn't trace you by your +father's draft and letter of identification, could they?" + +Charlotte was mystified. "I should suppose they could, if they wanted +to. But why? What if they could?" + +"My dear child; don't you see? They are sure to catch the robber, sooner +or later, and if they know how to find you, you might be dragged into +court as a witness!" + +Miss Farnham was not less averse to publicity than the conventionalities +demanded, but she had, or believed she had, very clear and well-defined +ideas of her own touching her duty in any matter involving a plain +question of right and wrong. + +"I shouldn't wait to be dragged," she asserted quietly. "It would be a +simple duty to go willingly. The first thing I thought of was that I +ought to write at once to Mr. Galbraith, giving him my address." + +Thereupon issued discussion. Miss Gilman's opinion upon such a momentous +question--a question involving an apparent conflict between the +proprieties and an act of simple justice--leaned heavily toward silence. +There could be no possible need for Charlotte's interference. Mr. +Galbraith and the teller would be able to identify the robber, and a +thousand eye-witnesses could do no more. At the end of the argument the +conservative one had extorted a conditional promise from her niece. The +matter should remain in abeyance until the question of conscientious +obligation had been submitted to Charlotte's father and decided by him. + +Being by nature and inclination averse to shacklings, verbal or other, +Charlotte gave the promise reluctantly, and the subject was dismissed. +Not from the younger woman's thoughts, however. In the reflective field +the scene in the bank recurred again and again until presently it became +a haunting annoyance. To banish it finally she went to her state-room +and got a book for herself and a magazine for her aunt. + +An hour later, when Miss Gilman had finished cutting the leaves of the +magazine, and was deep in the last instalment of the current serial, +Charlotte let her book slip from her fingers and gave herself to the +passive enjoyment of the slowly passing panorama which is the chief +charm of inland voyaging. + +It was a delectable day, sweet-scented with the mingled perfume of roses +and jasmine and chinaberry trees wafted from the open-air conservatories +surrounding the plantation mansions on either bank. The majestic onrush +of the steamer, the rhythmic drumbeat of the machinery, the alternating +crash and pause of the great paddle-wheels, the unhasting backward sweep +of the brown flood, all these were in harmony with the sensuous languor +of time and place. + +For the moment Charlotte Farnham yielded in pure delight to the spell of +the encompassments, fancying she could deny her lineage and look upon +this sylvan Southland world through the eyes of those to whom it was +the birthland. Then the haunting scene in the New Orleans bank returned +to disenchant her; and after striving vainly to put it aside, she +reopened her book. But by this time the story had lost its hold upon +her, and when she had read a page or two with only the vaguest possible +notion of what it was all about, she gave up in despair and let the +relentless recollection have its will of her. + +From where she was sitting she could see the steamer's yawl swinging +from its tackle at the stern-staff; and after many minutes it was slowly +borne in upon her that the ropes were working loose. When it became +evident that the boat would shortly fall into the river and go adrift, +she got up and put the book aside, meaning to go forward and tell the +captain. But before she had taken the first step a man came aft to make +the loosened tackle fast, and she stood back to let him pass. + +It was Griswold. Up to that moment he had thrown himself so zealously +into the impersonation of his latest rôle as to be able to stand +indifferently well in the shoes of the man whom he had supplanted. But +at this crisis the machinery of dissimulation slipped a cog. Where the +ordinary deck-hand would have gone about his errand heedless of the +presence of the two women passengers, the proxy John Wesley Gavitt must +needs take off his cap and apologize for passing in front of them. + +Something half familiar in his manner of doing it attracted Charlotte's +attention, and her eyes followed him as he went on and hoisted the yawl +into place. When he came back she had a fair sight of his face and her +eyes met his. In the single swift glance half-formed suspicion became +undoubted certainty; she looked again and her heart gave a great bound +and then seemed suddenly to forget its office. While he was passing she +clung to the back of her chair and forebore to cry out or otherwise to +advertise her emotion. But when the strain was off she sank into her +seat and closed her eyes to grapple with the unnerving discovery. It was +useless to try to escape from the dismaying fact. The stubble-bearded +deck-hand with the manners of a gentleman was most unmistakably a later +reincarnation of the pleasantly smiling young man who had courteously +made way for her at the teller's wicket in the Bayou State Security; who +had smiled and given place to her while he was holding his pistol aimed +at President Galbraith. + +It was said of Charlotte Farnham that she was sensible beyond her years, +and withal strong and straightforward in honesty of purpose. None the +less, she was a woman. And when she saw what was before her, conscience +turned traitor and fled away to give place to an uprush of hesitant +doubts born of the sharp trial of the moment. + +She decided at once that there could be no question as to her duty. Of +all those who were seeking the escaping bank robber, it was doubtful if +any would recognize him as she had; and if she should hold her peace he +would escape, perhaps to commit other crimes for which she could then +justly be held accountable. + +But, on the other hand, how could she bring herself to the point of +giving him over to the vengeance of the law--just vengeance, to be sure, +but cruel because it must inevitably crush out whatever spark of +penitence or good intention there might be remaining in him? What did +she know of his temptations? of the chain of circumstances which had +dragged him down into the company of the desperately criminal? Some such +compelling influence there must have been, she reasoned, since a child +might see that he was no hardened felon. It was a painful conflict, but +in the end the Puritan conscience triumphed and turned mercy out of +doors. Her duty was plain; she had no right to argue the question of +culpability. + +She got upon her feet, steadying herself by the back of the chair. She +felt that she could not trust herself if she once admitted the thin edge +of the wedge of delay. The simple and straightforward thing to do was to +go immediately to the captain and tell him of her discovery, but she +shrank from the thought of what must follow. They would seize him: he +had proved that he was a desperate man, and there would be a struggle. +And when the struggle was over they would bring him to her and she would +have to stand forth as his accuser. + +It was too shocking, and she caught at the suggestion of an alternative +with a gasp of relief. She might write to President Galbraith, giving +such a description of the deck-hand as would enable the officers to +identify him without her personal help. It was like dealing the man a +treacherous blow in the back, but she thought it would be kinder. + +"Aunt Fanny," she began, with her face averted, "I promised you I +wouldn't write to Mr. Galbraith until after we reached home--until I had +told papa. I have been thinking about it since, and I--I think it must +be done at once." + +Now Miss Gilman's conscience was also of the Puritan cast, and justice +had been given time to make its claim paramount to that of the +conventional proprieties. Hence the invalid yielded the point without +reopening the argument. + +"I don't know but you are right, after all, Charlie, dear," she said. +"I've been thinking it over, too. But it seems like a very dreadful +thing for you to have to do." + +"It _is_ very dreadful," said Charlotte, with a much deeper meaning in +the words than her aunt suspected. Nevertheless, she went away quickly +and locked herself in her state room to write the fateful letter which +should set the machinery of the law in motion and deliver the robber +deck-hand up to justice. + + + + +VII + +GOLD OF TOLOSA + + +In yielding to the impulse which had prompted him to change places with +the broken-down deck-hand, Griswold had assumed that there was little +risk and at least an even chance that the substitution would never be +discovered. He knew that the river steamboats were manned by picked-up +crews, usually assembled at the last moment, and that it was more than +probable that the _Belle Julie's_ officers had not yet had time to +individualize the units of the main-deck squad. Therefore, he might take +the name and place of the disabled Gavitt with measurable safety. + +But apart from this, he was not unwilling to add another chapter to his +experience among the toilers. He had been told that the life of a +roustabout on the Western rivers was the most dismal of all the gropings +in the social underworld, and he was the more eager to endure its +hardships as a participant. Being an enthusiast, he had early laid down +the foundation principle that one must see and feel and suffer if one +would write convincingly. + +As to the experience, he immediately found himself in a fair way to +acquire it in great abundance. From the moment of his enlistment in the +_Belle Julie's_ crew it was heaped upon him unstintingly; good measure, +pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Without having +specialized himself in any way to M'Grath, the bullying chief mate, he +fancied he was singled out as the vessel into which the man might empty +the vials of his wrath without fear of reprisals. Curses, not +loud--since a generation of travellers has arisen to whom profanity, +however picturesque, is objectionable--but deep and corrosive; contumely +and abuse; tongue-lashings that stung like the flick of a whip; and now +and then, at a night landing when there were no upper-deck people +looking on to be shocked, blows. All these slave-drivings, or at least +his share of them, Griswold endured as became a man who had voluntarily +put himself in the way of them. But they were hardening. Griswold fought +manfully against the brutalizing effect of them, but with only partial +success. Because of them, he was sure that his theories in the +compassionate warp and woof of them must always afterward be shot +through with flame-colored threads of fiery resentment reaching back +through M'Grath to every master who wielded the whip of power; the power +of the man who has, over the man who has not. + +In such a lurid light it was only natural that the ethical perspective +should be still further distorted; that any lingering doubt of the +justice of his late rebellion against the accepted order of things +should be banished by the persecutions of the bullying mate. It is easy +to postulate a storm-driven world when the personal horizon is dark and +lowering; easy, also, to justify the past by the present. From +theorizing never so resolutely upon the rights of man in the abstract to +robbing a bank is a broad step, and given an opportunity to reflect upon +it calmly after the fact, even such an imaginative enthusiast as +Griswold might have reconsidered. But the hasty plunge into the +underdepth of roustabout life was like the brine bath of the blacksmith +to heated steel; it served to temper him afresh. + +Fortunately he was not altogether unequal to the physical test, severe +as it was. With all of his later privations, he had lived a clean life; +and his college training in athletics stood him in good stead. +Physically, as intellectually, the material in him was of the +fine-grained fibre in which quality counts for more than quantity. +Lacking something in mass, the lack was more than compensated by the +alertness and endurance which had made him at once the best man with the +foils and the safest oar in the boat in his college days. None the less, +the first night out of New Orleans, with its uncounted plantation +landings, had tried him keenly, and he was thankful when the second day +brought fewer stopping places and longer rest intervals. + +It was in one of the resting intervals that he had been sent aft to +resecure the loosened tackle of the suspended small boat. He had come +upon Miss Farnham and her aunt unexpectedly, and so was off his guard. +But in any event, he argued, he should have obeyed the instinctive +impulse to excuse himself. He knew that the apology was a confession +that he was a masquerader in some sort, and he had felt the steady gaze +of the young woman's eyes while he was at work on the loosened tackle. +Later, when he passed her on his way forward he had seen the swift +change in her face betokening some sudden emotion, and the recollection +of it troubled him. + +What if this clear-eyed young person had recognized him? He knew that +the New Orleans papers had come aboard; he had seen the folded copy of +the _Louisianian_ in the invalid's lap. Consequently, Miss Farnham knew +of the robbery, and the incidents were fresh in her mind. What would she +do if she had penetrated his disguise? + +The query had its answer when he recalled his written estimate of her +character scribbled a few hours earlier by the light of the engine-room +incandescent. If her face were not merely a fair mask of the +conscientious probity it stood for, she would denounce him without +hesitation. + +He tried to make himself doubt it, but the effort recoiled upon him. +Already, in his imaginings, she was beginning to assume the +characteristics of an ideal; and the ideal character with which he had +endowed her would be true to itself at any cost; it would be quite +sexless and just before it would be womanly and merciful. At least he +hoped it would. Ideals are much too precious to be shattered recklessly +by mere personal considerations; and he told himself, in a fine glow of +artistic self-effacement, that he should be sorry to purchase even so +great a boon as his liberty at the price of the broken ideal. + +But the burning of sweet incense in the temple of the ideals is not +necessarily incompatible with a just regard for the commonplace +realities. In the aftermath of the fine artistic glow, Griswold found +himself straightway wrestling with the problem of present safety. If +Miss Farnham had recognized him, his chances of escape had suddenly +narrowed down to flight, immediate and speedy. He must leave the _Belle +Julie_ at the next landing and endeavor to make his way north by +wagon-road or rail, or by some later boat. + +The emergency called for swift action, and his determination to leave +the steamer was taken at once. While he was weighing the manifest +dangers of a daylight desertion against the equally manifest hazard of +waiting for darkness, the whistle was blown for a landing and he +concluded not to wait. If Miss Farnham had identified him she would +doubtless lose no time in giving the alarm. She might even now be in +conference with the captain, he thought. + +Griswold had a shock of genuine terror at this point in his reflections +and his skin prickled as at the touch of something loathsome. Up to that +moment he had suffered none of the pains of the hunted fugitive; but he +knew now that he had fairly entered the gates of the outlaw's inferno; +that however cunningly he might cast about to throw his pursuers off the +track, he would never again know what it was to be wholly free from the +terror of the arrow that flieth by day. + +The force of the Scriptural simile came to him with startling emphasis, +bringing on a return of the prickling dismay. The stopping of the +paddle-wheels and the rattling clangor of the gang-plank winch aroused +him to action and he shook off the creeping numbness and ran aft to +rummage under the cargo on the engine-room guards for his precious +bundle. When his hand reached the place where it should have been, the +blood surged to his brain and set up a clamorous dinning in his ears +like the roaring of a cataract. The niche between the coffee sacks was +empty. + + + + +VIII + +THE CHAIN-GANG + + +While Griswold was grappling afresh with the problem of escape, and +planning to desert the _Belle Julie_ at the next landing, Charlotte +Farnham was sitting behind the locked door of her state-room with a +writing pad on her knee over which for many minutes the suspended pen +merely hovered. She had fancied that her resolve, once fairly taken, +would not stumble over a simple matter of detail. But when she had tried +a dozen times to begin the letter to Mr. Galbraith, the simplicities +vanished and complexity stood in their room. + +Try as she might to put the sham deck-hand into his proper place as an +impersonal unit of a class with which society is at war, he perversely +refused to surrender his individuality. At the end of every fresh effort +she was confronted by the inexorable summing-up: in a world of phantoms +there were only two real persons; a man who had sinned, and a woman who +was about to make him pay the penalty. + +It was all very well to reason about it, and to say that he ought to be +made to pay the penalty; but that did not make it any less shocking that +she, Charlotte Farnham, should be the one to set the retributive +machinery in motion. Yet she knew she had the thing to do, and so, after +many ineffectual attempts, the letter was written and sealed and +addressed, and she went out to mail it at the clerk's office. + +As it chanced, the engines of the steamer were slowing for a landing +when she latched her state-room door, and by the time she had walked the +length of the saloon the office was closed and the clerk had gone below +with his way-bills. It was an added hardship to have to wait, and she +knew well enough that delay would speedily reopen the entire vexed +question of responsibility. But there was nothing else to be done. She +told herself that she could not begin to breathe freely again until the +letter was out of her hands and safely beyond recall. + +The doors giving upon the forward saloon-deck were open, and she heard +the harsh voice of the mate exploding in sharp commands as the steamer +lost way and edged slowly up to the river bank. A moment later she was +outside, leaning on the rail and looking down upon the crew grouped +about the inboard end of the uptilted landing-stage. He was there; the +man for whose destiny accident and the conventional sense of duty had +made her responsible; and as she looked she had a fleeting glimpse of +his face. + +It was curiously haggard and woe-begone; so sorrowfully changed that for +an instant she almost doubted his identity. The sudden transformation +added fresh questionings, and she began to ask herself thoughtfully +what had brought it about. Had he recognized her and divined her +intention? But if that were the explanation, why had he not made his +escape? Why was he waiting for her to point him out to the officers of +the steamer? + +The queries swept her out into a deeper sea of perplexity. What if he +were already repentant? In that event, the result of her dutiful service +to society would doubtless be to drive him back into impenitence and +despair. For a little time she clung desperately to her purpose, +hardening her heart and shutting her ears to the clamant appeal of the +reawakened sentiment of commiseration. Then the man turned slowly and +looked up at her as if the finger of her thought had touched him. There +was no sign of recognition in his eyes; and she constrained herself to +gaze down upon him coldly. But when the _Belle Julie's_ bow touched the +bank, and the waiting crew melted suddenly into a tenuous line of +burden-bearers, she fled through the deserted saloon to her state-room +and hid the fatal letter under the pillows in her berth. + +Another hour had elapsed. It was nearly noon, and the stewards had +bridged the spaces in the row of square saloon-tables and were laying +the cloth for the mid-day meal. Charlotte opened her door guardedly, as +one fearing to face prying eyes, and finding the coast clear, slipped +out to rejoin her aunt under the awning abaft the paddle-box. Miss +Gilman shut her finger into the magazine to keep her place and looked up +in mild surprise. + +"Where have you been?" she asked. "Has it taken you all this time to +write to the bank people?" + +Charlotte's answer satisfied the strict letter of the inquiry, though it +slew the spirit. + +"I wrote the letter quite awhile ago. I have been lying down, since." + +The invalid reopened the magazine, and Charlotte was left to make peace +as best she might with her conscience for having told the half-truth. It +was characteristic of the inward monitor that even in such a trivial +matter it refused to be coerced. Accordingly, a little while afterward, +when Charlotte took her aunt's arm to lead her to the table, she said: + +"I told you I had written to Mr. Galbraith, and so I have. But the +letter is not yet mailed." And, since the natural inference was that +there had been no opportunity to mail it, the conscientious little +confession went as wide of the mark as if it had never been made. + +At the captain's end of the long table the talk rippled pointlessly +around the New Orleans bank robbery, and Miss Farnham took no part in it +until Captain Mayfield spoke of the reward of ten thousand dollars which +had been offered for the apprehension of the robber. The fact touched +her upon the ethical side, and she said: + +"That is something that always seems so dreadfully barbarous; to set a +money price on the head of a human being." + +The captain laughed. + +"'Tis sort o' Middle-Aged, when you come to think of it. But it does the +police business oftener than anything else, I guess. A detective will +work mighty hard nowadays for ten thousand dollars." + +"Yes, I suppose so; but it is barbarous," Charlotte persisted. "It is an +open appeal to the lowest motive in human nature--cupidity." + +The bluff riverman nodded a qualified approval, but a loquacious little +gentleman across the table felt called upon to protest. + +"But, my dear Miss Farnham, would you have us all turn thief-catchers +for the mere honor of the thing?" + +"For the love of justice, or not at all, I should say," was the +straightforward return blow. "If I should see somebody picking your +pocket, ought I to weigh the chances of your offering a reward before +telling you of it?" + +"Oh, no; of course not. But this is entirely different. A rich +corporation has been robbed, and it says to the thief-catchers--and to +everybody, for that matter--Here are ten thousand dollars if you will +find us the robber. For myself, I confess that the reward would be the +determining factor. If I knew where Mr. Galbraith's 'hold-up' is to be +found, I should certainly go out of my way to earn the money." + +Miss Farnham's sense of the fitness of things was plainly affronted. + +"Do you mean to say that you would accept the reward, Mr. Latrobe?" + +"Most certainly I should; any one would." + +The frank avowal stood for public opinion. Charlotte knew it and went +dumb in the presence of a new and more terrible phase of her +entanglement. She might call the reward blood money, and refuse +absolutely to touch it, but who, outside of her own little circle, would +know or believe that she had refused? And if all the remainder of the +world knew and should exonerate her, would not the wretched man himself +always believe that she had sold him for a price? + +The benumbing thought left her tongue-tied and miserable; and after the +table-dispersal she sought out the captain to ask a question. + +"Do you know the law in Louisiana, Captain Mayfield?" she began, with +more embarrassment than the simple inquiry would account for. "This man +who robbed the Bayou State Security yesterday; what is the penalty for +his crime?" + +The captain shook his head. "I don't know: being only a riverman, I'm +not even a sea-lawyer. But maybe Mr. Latrobe could tell you. _Oh_, Mr. +Latrobe!" + +The loquacious one was on his way forward to smoke, but he turned and +came back at the captain's call. + +"The penalty?" he said, when the query had been repeated to him; "that +would depend upon a good many things that could only be brought out at +the trial. But under the circumstances--threatening to shoot the +president, and all that, you know--I should say it would go pretty hard +with him. He'll probably get the full limit of the law." + +"And that is?" persisted Charlotte, determined to know the worst. + +"In Louisiana, twenty years, I believe." + +"Thank you; that is what I wished to find out." + +The little man bowed and went his way; and Captain Mayfield, who was an +observant man in the field of river stages and other natural phenomena, +but not otherwise, did not remark Miss Farnham's sigh which was more +than half a sob. + +"Twenty years!" she shuddered; "it might as well be for life. He would +be nearly fifty years old, if he lived through it." + +It did not occur to the captain to wonder how Miss Farnham came to know +anything about the bank robber's age, but he spoke to the conditional +phrase in her comment. + +"Yes; if he lives through it: that's a mighty big 'if' down here in the +levee country. Twenty years of the chain-gang would be about the same as +a life sentence to most white men, I judge." + +Charlotte turned away quickly; and when she could trust herself in the +presence of her aunt, she led the way back to the shade of the +after-deck awning and tried, for her own sake, to talk about some of the +many things that had gone to make up the sum of their daily life before +this black cloud of perplexity had settled down. It was a dismaying +failure; and when the invalid said she would go and lie down for awhile, +Charlotte was thankful and went once more to lock herself and her +trouble in her state-room. + +That evening, after dinner, she went forward with some of the other +passengers to the railed promenade which was the common evening +rendezvous. The _Belle Julie_ had tied up at a small town on the western +bank of the great river, and the ant procession of roustabouts was in +motion, going laden up the swing-stage and returning empty by the +foot-plank. Left to herself for a moment, Charlotte faced the rail and +again sought to single out the man whose fate she must decide. + +She distinguished him presently; a grimy, perspiring unit in the crew, +tramping back and forth mechanically, staggering under the heaviest +loads, and staring stonily at the back of his file leader in the endless +round; a picture of misery and despair, Charlotte thought, and she was +turning away with the dangerous rebellion against the conventions +swelling again in her heart when Captain Mayfield joined her. + +"I just wanted to show you," he said; and he pointed out a gang of men +repairing a slip in the levee embankment below the town landing. It was +a squad of prisoners in chains. The figures of the convicts were struck +out sharply against the dark background of undergrowth, and the +reflection of the sunset glow on the river lighted up their sullen faces +and burnished the use-worn links in their leg-fetters. + +"The chain-gang;" said the captain, briefly. "That's about where the +fellow that robbed the Bayou State Security will bring up, if they catch +him. He'll have to be mighty tough and well-seasoned if he lives to +worry through twenty years of that, don't you think?" + +But Miss Farnham could not answer; and even the unobservant captain of +river boats saw that she was moved and was sorry he had spoken. + + + + +IX + +THE MIDDLE WATCH + + +In any path of performance there is but one step which is irrevocable, +namely, the final one, and in Charlotte Farnham's besetment this step +was the mailing of the letter to Mr. Galbraith. Many times during the +evening she wrought herself up to the plunging point, only to recoil on +the very brink; and when at length she gave up the struggle and went to +bed, the sealed letter was still under her pillow. + +Now it is a well-accepted truism that an exasperated sense of duty, like +remorse and grief, fights best in the night-watches. It was of no avail +to protest that her intention was still unshaken. Conscience urged that +delay was little less culpable than refusal, since every hour gave the +criminal an added chance of escape. The logic was unanswerable, and +trembling lest the implacable inward monitor should presently insist +upon the immediate revealment of the fugitive's identity to Captain +Mayfield, she got up and dressed hurriedly, meaning to end the agony +once for all by giving the letter to the night clerk. + +But once again the chapter of accidents intervened. While she was +unbolting her door, the mellow roar of the whistle and the jangling of +the engine-room bells warned her that the _Belle Julie_ was approaching +a landing. Remembering the cause of her earliest failure, she ran +quickly to the office, only to find it deserted and the door locked. + +This time, however, she determined not to be diverted. Going back to the +state-room for a wrap she returned to wait for the clerk's reappearance. +This final pause soon proved to be the severest trial of all. The +minutes dragged leaden-winged; and to sit quietly in the silence and +solitude of the great saloon became a nerve-racking impossibility. When +it went past endurance, she rose and stepped out upon the +promenade-deck. + +The electric search-light eye on the hurricane-deck was just over her +head, and its great white cone seemed to hiss as it poured its dazzling +flood of fictitious noonday upon the shelving river bank and the +sleeping hamlet beyond. The furnace doors were open, and the red glare +of the fires quickened the darkness under the beam of the electric into +lurid life. Out of the dusky underglow came the freight-carriers, giving +birth to a file of grotesque shadow monsters as they swung up the plank +into the field of the search-light. + +The stopping-place was an unimportant one, and a few minutes sufficed +for the unloading of the small consignment of freight. The mate had left +his outlook upon the hurricane-deck and was down among the men, +hastening them with harsh commands and epithets which owed their +mildness to the presence of the silent onlooker beneath the electric. + +The foot-plank had been drawn in, the steam winch was clattering, and +the landing-stage had begun to come aboard, when the two men whose duty +it was to cast off ran out on the tilting stage and dropped from its +shore end. One of them fell clumsily, tried to rise, and sank back into +the shadow; but the other scrambled up the steep bank and loosened the +half-hitches in the wet hawser. With the slackening of the line the +steamer began to move out into the stream, and the man at the +mooring-post looked around to see what had become of his companion. + +"Get a move on youse!" bellowed the mate; but instead of obeying, the +man ran back and went on his knees beside the huddled figure in the +shadow. + +At this point the watcher on the promenade-deck began vaguely to +understand that the first man was disabled in some way, and that the +other was trying to lift him. While she looked, the engine-room bells +jangled and the wheels began to turn. The mate forgot her and swore out +of a full heart. + +She put her fingers in her ears to shut out the clamor of abusive +profanity; but the man on the bank paid no attention to the richly +emphasized command to come aboard. Instead, he ran swiftly to the +mooring-post, took a double turn of the trailing hawser around it and +stood by until the straining line snubbed the steamer's bow to the +shore. Then, deftly casting off again, he darted back to the disabled +man, hoisted him bodily to the high guard, and clambered aboard +himself, all this while M'Grath was brushing the impeding crew aside to +get at him. + +Charlotte saw every move of the quick-witted salvage in the doing, and +wanted to cry out in sheer enthusiasm when it was done. Then, in the +light from the furnace doors, she saw the face of the chief actor: it +was the face of the man with the stubble beard. + +The night was summer warm, but she shrank back and shivered as if a cold +wind had breathed upon her. Why must he make it still harder for her by +posing as the defender of the wretched negro? She would look on no +longer; she would.... The harsh voice of the mate, dominating the noise +of the machinery and the churning of the paddle-wheels, drew her +irresistibly to the rail. She could not hear what M'Grath was saying, +but she could read hot wrath in his gestures, and in the way the men +fell back out of his reach. All but one: the stubble-bearded white man +was facing him fearlessly, and he appeared to be trying to explain. + +Griswold was trying to explain, but the bullying first officer would not +let him. It was a small matter: with the money gone, and the probability +that capture and arrest were deferred only from landing to landing, a +little abuse, more or less, counted as nothing. But he was grimly +determined to keep M'Grath from laying violent hands upon the negro who +had twisted his ankle in jumping from the uptilted landing-stage. + +"No; this is one time when you don't skin anybody alive!" he retorted, +when a break in the stream of abuse gave him a chance. "You let the man +alone. He couldn't help it. Do you suppose he sprained an ankle +purposely to give you a chance to curse him out?" + +The mate's reply was a brutal kick at the crippled negro. Griswold came +closer. + +"Don't try that again!" he warned, angrily. "If you've got to take it +out on somebody, I'm your man." + +This was mutiny, and M'Grath's remedy for that distemper was ever +heroic. In a flash his big fist shot out and the crew looked to see its +lighter champion go backward into the river at the impact. But the blow +did not land. Griswold saw it coming and swerved the necessary +body-breadth. The result was a demonstration of a simple theorem in +dynamics. M'Grath reeled under the impetus of his own unresisted effort, +stumbled forward against the low edge-line bulwark, clawed wildly at the +fickle air and dropped overboard like a stone. + +At the splashing plunge Griswold saw, planned, and acted in the same +instant. The _Belle Julie_ was forging ahead at full speed, and if the +mate did not drown at once, the projecting paddle-wheel would batter the +life out of him as he passed under it. + +Clearing the intervening obstacles in a hurdler's leap, Griswold raced +aft on the outer edge of the guards and jumped overboard in time to +grapple the drowning man when he was within a few feet of the churning +wheel. The struggle was short but fierce. Griswold got a strangling arm +around the big man's neck and strove to sink with him so that the wheel +might pass over them. He was only partly successful. The mate was +terror-crazed and fought blindly. There was no time for trick or +stratagem, and when the thunder of the wheel roared overhead, Griswold +felt the jar of a blow and the mate's struggles ceased abruptly. A +gasping moment later the worst was over and the rescuer had his head +out; was swimming gallantly in the wake of the steamer, supporting the +unconscious M'Grath and shouting lustily for help. + +The help came quickly. The alarm had been promptly given, and the night +pilot was a man for an emergency. Before the little-used yawl could be +lowered, the steamer had swept a wide circle in mid-stream and the +search-light picked up the castaways. From that to placing the _Belle +Julie_ so that the two bits of human flotsam could be hauled in over the +bows was but a skilful hand's-turn of rudder-work, accomplished as +cleverly as if the great steamboat had been a power-driven launch to be +steered by a touch of the tiller. + +All this Charlotte saw. She was looking on when the two men were dragged +aboard, the big Irishman still unconscious, and the rescuer in the final +ditch of exhaustion--breathless, sodden, reeling with weariness. + +And afterward, when the _Belle Julie's_ prow was once more turned to the +north, Miss Farnham had no thought of stopping at the clerk's office +when she flew back to her state-room with the letter to Mr. Galbraith +hidden in her bosom and clutched tightly as if she were afraid it might +cry out its accusing secret of its own accord. + + + + +X + +QUICKSANDS + + +On the morning following the rescue of the mate, Charlotte Farnham awoke +with the conviction that she had been miraculously saved from incurring +the penalties dealt out to those who rush blindly into the thick of +things without due thought and careful consideration. + +In the light of a new day it seemed almost incredible that, only a few +hours earlier, she could have been so rash as to assume that there was +no possibility of a mistake; that she had been on the verge of sending a +possibly innocent man to answer as he could for the sins of the guilty. + +Who could be sure? Could she go into court and swear that this man and +the man she had seen in the bank were one and the same? Yesterday she +had thought that she could; but to-day she was equally sure that she +could not. + +But the Puritan conscience was not to be entirely silenced. Reason sits +in a higher seat than that occupied by the senses, and reason argued +that a man who would forgive his enemy, and instantly risk his life in +proof of the forgiveness, could not be a desperate criminal. Conscience +pointed out the alternative. A little careful investigation would +remove the doubt--or confirm it. Somebody on the boat must know the +deck-hand, or know enough about him to establish his real identity. + +Naturally, Charlotte thought first of Captain Mayfield; and when +breakfast was over, and she had settled her aunt in the invalid's chair +under the shade of the after-awning, she went on her quest. + +The captain was on the port promenade, forward, and he was about to +light his after-breakfast cigar. But he threw the match away when Miss +Farnham came out and took the chair he placed for her. + +"Please smoke if you want to," she said, noting the clipped cigar; "I +don't mind it in the least." + +"Thank you," said the master of the _Belle Julie_, shifting his chair to +leeward and finding another match. He had grown daughters of his own, +and Miss Farnham reminded him of the one who lived in St. Louis and took +her dead mother's place in a home which would otherwise have held no +welcome for a grizzled old river-sailor. + +For a time Miss Farnham seemed to have forgotten what she came to say, +and the ash grew longer on the captain's cigar. It was another +delectable day, and the _Belle Julie_ was still churning the brown flood +in the majestic reaches of the lower river. Down on the fore-deck the +roustabouts were singing. It was some old-time plantation melody, and +Charlotte could not catch the words; but the blending harmony, rich in +the altogether inimitable timbre of the African song-voice, rose above +the throbbing of the engines and the splash of the paddles. + +"They are happy, those men?" said Charlotte, turning suddenly upon the +silent old riverman at her side. + +"The nigger 'rousties,' you mean?--oh, yes. I guess so." + +"But it is such a hard life," she protested. "I don't see how they can +sing." + +The captain smiled good-naturedly. + +"It is a pretty hard life," he admitted. "But they're in a class by +themselves. You couldn't hire a river nigger to do anything else. Then, +again, a man doesn't miss what he's never had. They get a plenty to eat, +and the soft side of a cargo pile makes a pretty good bed, if you've +never slept in a better one." + +Miss Farnham shook her head thoughtfully. "Isn't that putting them +terribly low in the scale of humanity? Surely there must be some among +them who are capable of better things." She was trying desperately hard +to lead up to the stubble-bearded man, and it was the most difficult +task she had ever set herself. + +"Not among the black boys, I'm afraid. Now and then a white man drifts +into a crew, but that's a different matter." + +"Better or worse?" she queried. + +"Worse, usually. It's a pretty poor stick of a white man that can't find +something better than 'rousting' on a steamboat." + +Here was her chance, and she took it courageously. + +"Haven't you one man in the _Belle Julie's_ crew who has earned a better +recommendation than that, Captain Mayfield?" + +"You mean that sick hobo who went into the river after M'Grath last +night? I didn't know that story had got back to the ladies' cabin." + +"It hasn't. But I know it because I was looking on. I couldn't sleep, +and I had gone out to see them make a night landing. Why do you call him +'the sick hobo'?" + +The captain was paying strict attention now, looking at her curiously +from beneath the grizzled eyebrows. But he saw only the classic profile. + +"That's what he is--or at least, what he let on to be when he shipped +with us," he replied. Then: "You say you saw it: tell me what happened." + +"I am not sure that I quite understood the beginning of it," she said +doubtfully. "Two men, the white man and a negro, went ashore to untie +the boat. They both jumped from the stage while it was going up, and it +was the white man who untied the rope alone. After the boat began to +swing away from the bank, he saw that the other man was hurt and went to +help him. Mr. M'Grath was angry and he shouted at them to come aboard. +With the boat going away from the shore, they couldn't; so the white man +ran and tied the rope again. Am I getting it awfully mixed up?" + +"Not at all," said the captain. "What happened then?" + +"The white man lifted the negro to the deck, untied the rope again, and +climbed on just as the boat was swinging away the second time. Mr. +M'Grath was furious. He fought his way to where the white man was +standing over the hurt negro and struck at him. The next thing I knew, +Mr. M'Grath was overboard and right down here in front of the +paddle-wheel, and the man he had tried to strike was jumping in after +him. I thought they would both be ground to death under the wheel." + +"Is that all?" + +"All but the rescue. The pilot turned the _Belle Julie_ around and they +were picked up. Mr. M'Grath was unconscious, and the other man was too +weak to stand up." + +Captain Mayfield nodded. "He was sick when he came to us: consumption, +Mac said." + +Miss Farnham was a doctor's daughter, and she had seen many victims of +the white death. + +"I think that must have been a mistake," she ventured. "He doesn't look +at all like a tuberculosis patient." + +Again the captain was curious. + +"How could you tell, at that distance and in the night?" he asked +quizzically. + +Embarrassment quickly flung down a handful of obstacles in Charlotte's +path, but she picked her way among them. + +"I saw him yesterday morning quite close, and I looked at him +because--because I thought I had seen him somewhere before. Do you know +anything about him, Captain Mayfield?--who he is, I mean?" + +"Not any more than I do about the rest of them. They're driftwood, +mostly, you understand. We pick them up and drop them, here and there +and everywhere. This fellow's name is Gavitt--John Wesley Gavitt--on the +clerk's book. Mac said he was a sick hobo, working his way to St. +Louis." + +"How long before the beginning of a voyage do you hire the crew?" asked +Charlotte, trying not to seem too pointedly interested. + +"Oh, they string along all through the loading for two or three days, +and from that right up to the last minute." + +It was discouraging, and she was on the point of giving up. Her one hope +now lay in the fixing of the exact time of the man Gavitt's enlistment +in the _Belle Julie's_ crew, and there appeared to be only one way of +determining this. + +"Does anybody know--could anybody tell just when this particular man was +hired, Captain Mayfield?" she asked. + +"Not unless Mac happens to remember. No, hold on; I recollect now; it +was the day we left New Orleans--day before yesterday, that was." + +"In the morning?" + +If the good-natured captain was beginning to wonder why his pretty +passenger was cross-examining him so closely, he did not betray it. + +"It was about noon; I believe. Two or three of the black boys had +skipped out at the last minute, as they always do, and we were +short-handed. Mac said the fellow didn't look as if he could stand much, +but he took him anyhow." + +Once more the slender thread of investigation lay broken in her hands. +The robbery had been committed at or very near eleven o'clock, and an +hour would have given the robber time enough to disguise himself and +reach the steamer. But since the captain did not seem altogether +positive as to the exact hour, she tried again. + +"Please try to remember exactly, Captain Mayfield," she pleaded. "I +_must_ find out, if I can--for reasons which I can't explain to any one. +Was it just at noon?" + +Now this veteran master of packet boats was the last man in the world to +be heroically accurate when his sympathies were appealed to by a winsome +young woman in evident distress; and while he would cheerfully have +sworn that it was eleven o'clock or one o'clock when John Gavitt came +aboard, if he had known certainly which statement would relieve her, her +query left him no hint to steer by. + +So he said: "Oh, I say, 'about noon,' but it might have been an hour or +two before, or any time after, till we cleared. But we'll find out. +We'll have the fellow up here and put him on the witness stand. Or I'll +go below and dig into him for you myself, if you say so." + +"Not for the world!" she protested, aghast at the bare suggestion; and +for fear it might be repeated in some less evadable form, she made an +excuse of her duty and ran away to her aunt. + +Later in the day, when she had sought in vain for some other, this +suggestion of Captain Mayfield's came back. While there was the smallest +chance that she had been mistaken, she dared not send the letter to Mr. +Galbraith; yet it was clearly her duty to get at the truth of the +matter, if she could. + +But how? If Captain Mayfield could not remember the exact time of John +Gavitt's enrolment as a member of the _Belle Julie's_ crew, it was more +than probable that no one else could; no one but the man himself. It was +at this point that the captain's suggestion returned to strike fire like +steel upon reluctant flint. Could she go to the length of questioning +Gavitt? If she should, would he tell her the truth? And if he should +tell the truth, would it make the distressing duty any easier? Not +easier, she concluded, but possibly less puzzling. + +Thus far the suggestion: but without the help of some third person, she +did not see how it could be carried out. She could neither go to him nor +summon him; and the alternative of taking the captain into her +confidence was rejected at once as being too hazardous. For the captain +might not scruple to take the matter into his own hands without +ceremony, sending the suspected man back to New Orleans to establish his +innocence--if he could. + +Charlotte worried over the wretched entanglement all day, and was so +distrait and absent-minded that her aunt remarked it, naming it malaria +and prescribing quinine. Whereat Charlotte dissembled and put on a mask +of cheerfulness, keeping it on until after the evening meal and her +aunt's early retiring. But when she was released, she was glad enough to +go out on the promenade just forward of the starboard paddle-box, where +there were no after-dinner loungers, to be alone with her problem and +free to plunge once more into its intricacies. + +It was possibly ten minutes later, while she stood leaning against a +stanchion and watching the lights of a distant town rise out of the +watery horizon ahead, that chance, the final arbiter in so many human +involvements, led her quickly into the valley of decision. She heard a +man's step on the steeply pitched stair leading down from the +hurricane-deck. Before she could turn away he was confronting her; the +man whose name on the _Belle Julie's_ crew roster was John Wesley +Gavitt. + + + + +XI + +THE ANARCHIST + + +Griswold's appearance was less fortuitous than it seemed to be. As a +reward of merit for having saved the mate's life, he had been told off +to serve temporarily as man-of-all-work for the day pilot, who chanced +to be without a steersman. His watch in the pilot-house was over, and he +was on his way to the crew's quarters below when he stumbled upon Miss +Farnham. Mindful of his earlier slip, he passed her as if she had been +invisible. She let him go until her opportunity was all but lost; then, +plucking courage out of the heart of desperation, she spoke. + +"One moment, if you please; I--I want to ask you something," she +faltered; and he wheeled obediently and faced her. + +Followed a pause, inevitable, but none the less awkward for the one who +was responsible. Griswold felt, rather than saw, her embarrassment, and +was generous enough to try to help her. + +"I think I know what you wish to say: you are quite at liberty to say +it," he offered, when the pause had grown into an obstacle which she +seemed powerless to surmount. + +"Do you? I have been hoping you wouldn't," was the quick rejoinder. +Then: "Will you tell me at what time you joined the crew of the _Belle +Julie_?" + +The question did not surprise him, nor did he attempt to evade it. + +"Between twelve and one o'clock, the day before yesterday." + +"Will you tell me where you were at eleven o'clock that day?" + +"Yes, if you ask me." + +"I do ask you." + +"I was in a certain business building in New Orleans, as near to you as +I am now. Is that sufficiently definite?" + +"It is. I thought perhaps--I had hoped--Oh, for goodness' sake, why did +you do it?" she burst out, no longer able to fence with the weapons of +indirectness. + +He answered her frankly. + +"It was the old story of one man's over-plenty and another man's need. +Have you ever known what it means to go hungry for sheer poverty's +sake?--but, of course, you haven't." + +"No," she admitted. + +"Well, I have; I was hungry that morning; very hungry. I know this +doesn't excuse the thing--to you. But perhaps it may help to explain +it." + +"I think I can understand--a little. But surely----" + +He stopped her with a quick little gesture. + +"I know what you are going to say: that I should have been willing to +work, or even to beg, rather than steal. I was willing to work; I was +not willing to beg. I know it is all wrong from your point of view; but +I should be sorry to have you think that I did what _I_ believed to be +wrong." + +"Surely you must know it is wrong?" + +"Pardon me, but I can't admit that. If I could, you would be relieved of +what is doubtless a very painful duty. I should surrender myself at +once." + +"But think of it; if you are right, every one else must be wrong!" + +"No; not quite every one. But that is a very large question, and we +needn't go into it. I confess that my method was unconventional; a +little more summary than that of the usurers and the strictly legal +robbers, but quite as defensible. For they rob the poor and the +helpless, while I merely dispossessed one rich corporation of a portion +of its exactions from the many." + +"Then you are not sorry? I saw you yesterday afternoon and hoped you +were." + +He laughed unpleasantly. "I was sorry, then, and I am now; for the same +reason. I have lost the money." + +"Lost it?" she gasped, "How?" + +"I had hidden it, and I suppose some one else has found it. It is all +right, so far as the ownership is concerned; but I am still self-centred +enough to be chagrined about it." + +"But that is nothing!" she protested, with sharp regret in her voice; +"now you can never return it!" + +"I didn't intend to," he assured her, gravely. "I did have some notion +of redistributing it fairly among those who need it most; but that was +all." + +"But you must have returned it in the end. You could never have been +content to keep it." + +"Do you think so?" he rejoined. "I think I could have been quite content +to keep it. But that is past; it is gone, and I couldn't return it if I +wanted to." + +"No," she acquiesced; "and that makes it all the harder." + +"For you to do what you must do? But you mustn't think of that. I +shouldn't have made restitution in any event. Let me tell you what I +did. I had a weapon, as you have read. I tied it up with the money in a +handkerchief. There was always the chance of their catching me, and I +had made up my mind that my last free act would be to drop the bundle +into the river. So you see you need not hesitate on that score." + +"Then you know what it is that I must do?" + +"Assuredly. I knew it yesterday, when I saw that you had recognized me. +It was very merciful in you to reprieve me, even for a few hours; but +you will pardon me if I say it was wrong?" + +"Wrong!" she burst out. "Is it generous to say that to me? Are you so +indifferent yourself that you think every one else is indifferent, too?" + +He smiled under cover of the darkness, and the joy of finding that his +ideal was not going to be shattered was much greater than any thought of +the price he must pay to preserve it. When she paused, he had his +answer ready. + +"I know you are not indifferent; you couldn't be. But you must be true +to yourself, at whatever cost. Will you go to Captain Mayfield now?" + +She hesitated. + +"I thought of doing that, at first," she began, postponing to a more +convenient season the unnerving reflection that she was actually +discussing the ways and means of it with him. "It seemed to be the +simplest thing to do. But then I saw what would happen; that I should be +obliged----" + +Again he stopped her with a gesture. + +"I understand. We must guard against that at all hazards. You must not +be dragged into it, you know, even remotely." + +"How can you think of such things at such a time?" she queried. + +"I should be unworthy to stand here talking to you if I didn't think of +them. But since you can't go to Captain Mayfield, what will you do? What +had you thought of doing?" + +"I wrote a letter to--to Mr. Galbraith," she confessed. + +"And you have not sent it?" + +"No. If I had, I shouldn't have spoken to you." + +"To be sure. I suppose you signed the letter?" + +"Certainly." + +"That was a mistake. You must rewrite it, leaving out your name, and +send it. All you need to say is that the man who robbed the Bayou State +Security is escaping on the _Belle Julie_; that he is disguised as a +deck-hand, and that his name on the steamer's books is John Wesley +Gavitt. That will be amply sufficient." + +"But that isn't your name," she asserted. + +"No; but that doesn't matter. It is the name that will find me." + +She was silent for a moment. Then: "Why mustn't I sign it? They will pay +no attention to an anonymous letter. And, besides, it seems so--so +cowardly." + +"They will telegraph to every river landing ahead of us within an hour +after your letter reaches New Orleans; you needn't doubt that. And the +suppression of your name isn't cowardly; it is merely a justifiable bit +of self-protection. It is your duty to give the alarm; but when you have +done that, your responsibility ceases. There are plenty of people who +can identify me if I am taken back to New Orleans. You don't want to be +summoned as a witness, and you needn't be." + +She saw the direct, man-like wisdom of all this, and was quick to +appreciate his delicate tact in effacing the question of the reward +without even referring to it. But his stoicism was almost appalling. + +"It is very shocking!" she murmured; "only you don't seem to realize it +at all." + +"Don't I? You must remember that I have been arguing from your point of +view. My own is quite unchanged. It is your duty to do what you must +do; it is my affair to avert the consequences to myself, if I can +manage it without taking an unfair advantage of your frankness." + +"What will you do?" + +"It would be bad faith now for me to try to run away from the steamer, +as I meant to do. So far, you have bound me by your candor. But beyond +that I make no promises. My parole will be at an end when the officers +appear, and I shall do what I can to dodge, or to escape if I am taken. +Is that fair?" + +"It is more than fair: I can't understand." + +"What is it that you can't understand?" + +"How you can do this; how you can do such things as the one you did last +night, and still----" + +He finished the sentence for her.--"And still be a common robber of +banks, and the like. I fancy it is a bit puzzling--from your point of +view. Sometime, perhaps, we shall all understand things better than we +do now, but to that time, and beyond it, I shall be your grateful debtor +for what you have done to-night. May I go now?" + +She gave him leave, and when he was gone, she went to her state-room to +write as he had suggested. An hour later she gave the newly written +letter to the night clerk; and the thing was done. + +During the remainder of the slow up-river voyage to St. Louis, Charlotte +Farnham lived as one who has fired the fuse of a dynamite charge and is +momently braced for the shock of the explosion. Each morning she assured +herself that the strange man who could be a self-confessed felon one +moment and a chivalrous gentleman the next was still a member of the +_Belle Julie's_ crew; but she became a coward of landings, not daring to +look on for fear she should see him arrested and taken away. + +And while the _Belle Julie_ put landing after landing astern and the +voyage grew older, Griswold, too, began to feel the pangs of suspense. +Though he had no thought of breaking his promise, the dread of capture +and trial and punishment grew until it became a threatening cloud to +obscure all horizons. It was to no purpose that he called himself hard +names and strove to rise superior to the overshadowing threat. It was +there, and it would not be ignored. And when he faced it fairly a new +dread arose in his heart; the fear that his fear might end by making him +a criminal in fact--a savage to slay and die rather than be taken alive. + +In the ordinary course of things, Miss Farnham's letter should have +reached New Orleans in time to have procured Griswold's arrest at any +one of a score of landings south of Memphis. When the spires of the +Tennessee metropolis disappeared to the southward, he began to be afraid +that her resolution had failed, and to bewail his broken ideal. + +He had no means of knowing that she had given her letter to the night +clerk within the hour of their interview on the saloon-deck promenade; +nor did he, or any one else, know that it had lain unnoticed and +overlooked on the clerk's desk until the _Belle Julie_ reached Cairo. +Such, however, was the pregnant fact; and to this purely accidental +delay Griswold owed his first sight of the chief city of Missouri lying +dim and shadowy under its mantle of coal smoke. + +The _Belle Julie_ made her landing in the early evening, and Charlotte +was busy up to the last moment getting her own and her aunt's belongings +ready for the transfer to the upper river steamer on which they were to +complete their journey to Minnesota. Hence, it was not until the _Belle +Julie_ was edging her way up to the stone-paved levee that Charlotte +broke her self-imposed rule and slipped out upon the port promenade. + +The swing-stage was poised in the air ready to be lowered, and two of +the deck-hands were dropping from the shore end to trail the bow line up +the paved slope to the nearest mooring-ring. There was an electric +arc-light opposite the steamer's berth, and Charlotte shaded her eyes +with her hands to follow the motions of the two bent figures under the +dripping hawser. + +One of the men was wearing a cap, and there was a small bundle hanging +at his belt. She recognized him at once. At the mooring-ring he was the +one who stooped to make the line fast, and the other, a negro, stood +aside. At that moment the landing-stage fell, and in the confusion of +debarkation which promptly followed, the thrilling bit of by-play at the +mooring-ring passed unnoted by all save the silent watcher on the +saloon-deck. + +While the man in the cap was still on his knees, two men stole from the +shadow of the nearest freight pyramid and flung themselves upon him. He +fought fiercely for a moment, and though he was more than doubly +outweighted, rose to his feet, striking out viciously and dragging his +assailants up with him. In the struggle the bundle dropped from his +belt, and Charlotte saw him kick it aside. The waiting negro caught it +deftly and vanished among the freight pyramids; whereupon one of the +attacking pair wrenched himself out of the three-man scuffle and darted +away in pursuit. + +This left but a single antagonist for the fugitive, and Charlotte's +sympathies deserted her convictions for the moment. But while she was +biting her lip to keep from crying out, the fugitive stepped back and +held out his hands; and she saw the gleam of polished metal reflecting +the glare of the arc-light when the officer snapped the handcuffs upon +his wrists. + +It was with a distinct sense of culpability oppressing her that she went +back to her aunt, and she was careful not to let the invalid see her +face. Fortunately, there was a thing to be done, and the transfer to the +other steamer came opportunely to help her to re-establish the balance +of things distorted. + +She was sorry, but, after all, the man had only himself to blame. None +the less, the wish that some one else might have been his betrayer was +promising to grow later into remorseful and lasting regret when, with +her aunt, she left the _Belle Julie_, and walked up the levee to go +aboard the _Star of the North_. + + + + +XII + +MOSES ICHTHYOPHAGUS + + +After suffering all the pangs of those who lose between the touch and +the clutch, Griswold had found the red-handkerchief bundle precisely +where it had been hidden; namely, buried safely in the deck-load of +sacked coffee on the engine-room guard. + +It came to light in the final half-hour of the voyage, when he and his +mates were transferring the coffee to the main-deck, forward. It had not +been disturbed; and what had happened was obvious enough, after the +fact. After its hiding, arm's-length deep, in a cranny between the +sacks, some sudden jar of the boat had slightly shifted the cargo, +closing one cranny and opening another. + +With the money once more in his possession he had a swift return of the +emotions which had thrilled him when he found himself standing on the +sidewalk in front of the Bayou State Security with the block of +bank-notes under his arm. Once more he was on fair fighting terms with +the world, and the star of hope, which had gone out like a candle in a +gust of wind at the discovery of his loss, swung high in the firmament, +shining all the more brightly for its long occultation. + +As to the battle for the keeping which was probably awaiting him at the +St. Louis landing, the prospect of coming to blows, man-fashion, with +the enemy, was not wholly unwelcome. With all of his incompletenesses +this young rebel of life was no coward. If the New Orleans thief-takers +were waiting for him in the shadows of the great city's landing-place, +so be it; he would try to give them their money's worth: and an eager +impatience to be at it got into his blood. + +The few necessary preliminaries were arranged while the _Belle Julie_ +was backing and filling for the landing. Since to be taken with the +money in his possession was to give the enemy the chance of winning at +one stroke both the victory and the spoils, he made a confederate of the +negro whose part he had taken in the quarrel with M'Grath. The man was +grateful and loyal according to his gifts; and Griswold's need was too +pressing to stick at any trifle of unintelligence. + +"Mose, you'll go ashore with me on the spring line," he said, when he +had found his man at the heel of the landing-stage. + +"Yes, suh, Mars' Gravitt; dat's me, sholy." + +"All right. You see this bundle. If anybody tackles me while we're +making fast, I'm going to drop it, and you must get it and run away. Do +you understand?" + +The negro eyed the bundle suspiciously. + +"Ain't no dinnymite, 'r nothin' er that sawt in hit, is dey, Cap'm?" + +"No." + +"Whut-all mus' I do when I's done tuk out wid hit?" + +"Get away, first; then keep out of sight and hang around the levee for +an hour or two. If I don't turn up before you get tired, pitch the thing +into the river and go about your business. How much money does the +captain owe you?" + +"Cap'm Mayfiel'? Shuh! he don't owe me nothin'. I done draw de las' +picayune dat was comin' to me yistiday--an' dat yaller nigger over +yonder got it in de crap-game, same as turrers." + +Griswold put a twenty-dollar bill into the black palm, and when the crap +victim made out the figure of it by the glow of the furnace fires, his +eyes bulged. "Gorra-mighty!" he gasped; and would have given it back. + +"No, keep it; it's yours. Do exactly as I have told you, and if I'm able +to keep my date with you, I'll double it. But if I don't show up, +remember--the bundle goes into the river just as it is. If you open it, +it'll conjure you worse than any Obi-man you ever heard of." + +"No, _suh_! I ain't gwine open hit, Cap'm--not if dey's cunjah in hit; +no, suh!" + +"Well, there is--the worst kind of conjure this old world has ever +known. But it won't hurt you if you don't meddle with it. Keep your wits +about you and be ready to grab it and run. Here we go." + +The pilot had found his wharfage and was edging the _Belle Julie_ up to +it. The bow men paid out slack, and Griswold and the black, dropping +from the swinging stage, trailed the end of the wet hawser up to the +nearest mooring-ring. Though haste in making fast is the spring-line +man's first duty, Griswold took a fraction of a second to look around +him. The mooring-ring lay fair in the mock noonday of electric light, +and there was no cover near it save a tarpaulined pyramid of sugar +barrels. Up the levee slope the way was open to the one-sided +river-fronting street; and beyond the tarpaulin-covered sugar were more +freight pyramids, with shadowy alleys between them. + +Satisfied with what he saw, Griswold bade the negro keep watch and knelt +to knot the hawser in the ring. The line was water-soaked and stiff, and +in the momentary struggle with it his caution relaxed its eyehold on the +pyramid of sugar barrels. The lapse was hardly more than a glance aside, +but it sufficed. While the negro sentinel was stammering, "L-l-lookout, +Mars' Cap'm!" the trap was sprung. + +In deference to the up-coming passengers from the _Belle Julie_, the two +man-catchers tried to do their job quietly. But Griswold would not have +it so, and he was up and had twisted himself free when a blow from a +clubbed pistol drove him back to his knees. Half stunned by the +clubbing, he still made shift to spring afoot again, to drop his +handkerchief bundle and kick it aside, and to close with his assailants +while the negro was snatching up the treasure and darting away among the +freight pyramids. After that he had but one thought; to keep the two +plain-clothes men busy until the negro had made his escape. Even this +proved to be a forlorn hope, since the smaller of the two instantly +broke away to give chase, while the other stepped back, spun his weapon +in air, and levelled it. + +Rage-blinded as he was, Griswold knew that the levelled pistol meant +surrender or death. In the fine battle-frenzy of the moment he was on +the verge of accepting the alternative. Life and the love of it were +merged in a fierce desire to rush Berserk-mad upon the weapon and the +man behind it, and his muscles were hardening for the spring when he +chanced to look past the levelled weapon to the _Belle Julie_; to the +saloon-deck guard where a solitary, gray-coated figure stood clinging to +a stanchion and looking on with what agonies of soul none might know. +Like a flash of revealing light it came to him that the death which +would be the lesser of two evils for him would brim a life-long cup of +trembling for the woman whose duty it had been to betray him, and he +thrust out his wrists for the manacles. + +Quite naturally, the upflash of self-abnegation gave birth to renewed +hope; and when his captor had handcuffed him and was walking him toward +a closed carriage drawn up before the nearest saloon in the +river-fronting street, he ventured to ask what he was wanted for. + +"You'll find that out soon enough," was the curt reply, and nothing more +was said until the carriage was reached and the door had been jerked +open. "Get in!" commanded the majesty of the law, and when the door was +slammed upon the captive, the plain-clothes man turned to the driver, a +little wizened Irishman with a face like a shrivelled winter apple. +"What time does that New Orleans fast train pull out?" + +Griswold heard the reply: "Sivin-forty-five, sorr," and something in the +thin, piping voice gave him fresh courage. Through the open window of +the carriage he saw his captor glance at his watch and begin an +impatient sentry-beat up and down under the electric transparency +advertising the particular brand of whiskey specialized by the saloon. +He was evidently waiting for his colleague to bring in the negro, and +time pressed. + +While he looked, Griswold was conscious of a curious change creeping +into heart and brain. From typifying himself as an escaping criminal the +psychological objective was slowly but surely becoming the subjective. +He _was_ a criminal. The conclusion brought no self-accusation, no +prickings of conscience. On the contrary, it swept the ground clear of +all the ethical obstructions, leaving only a vast subtlety and +furtiveness, the sly ferocity of the trapped animal. + +Through half of the sentry-beat the big man's back was turned: +Griswold's eyes measured the distance, and the new subtlety weighed the +chances of a cautious opening of the carriage door, a tiger spring to +the pavement, and a battering out of the man's brains with the +handcuffs. There were few passers: it might be done. + +It was not because it was too cold-blooded that he put the suggestion +aside. It was rather because the man-catcher himself suggested another +expedient. The spring evening was raw and chilly, and the open doors of +the saloon volleyed light and warmth and a beckoning invitation. +Griswold's gift, prostituted to the service of the changed point of +view, bade him read in the red face, the loose lip, and the bibulous +eyes the temptation that was gripping the plain-clothes man. "Wait," +whispered the colorless inner voice; "wait, and be ready when he goes in +to get the drink he has promised himself he will never again be weak +enough to take while he is on duty. It won't be long." + +Griswold waited. By a careful contortion of the manacled hands, which +seemed suddenly to have become endowed with the crafty deftness of the +hands of a pickpocket, he found his working capital in a pocket of the +short-sleeved coat. It had been diminished only by the hundred dollars +put into John Gavitt's hands, and the twenty he had given the negro. He +wished he might have had a glimpse of the little Irish cabman's face. +Since he had not, he made two hundred dollars of the money into a +compact roll and put the remainder back into the inner pocket. + +It was only a minute or two after this that the red-faced man's +impatience blossomed into the thirst that will not be denied, and he +went into the saloon to get a drink, first putting the cabman on guard. + +"Get down here and keep an eye on this dicky-bird," he ordered. "Slug +him if he tries to make a break." + +But the cabman hung back. + +"I'm no fightin' man, sorr; an', besides, I don't dare lave me harrses," +he objected. But the officer broke in angrily. + +"What the devil are you afraid of? He's got the clamps on, and couldn't +hurt you if he wanted to. Come down here!" + +The little Irishman clambered down from his box reluctantly, with the +reins looped over his arm. When he peered in at the open window of the +carriage the big man had passed beyond the swinging screens of the +saloon entrance and Griswold seized his opportunity quickly. + +"What's your job worth, my man?" he whispered. + +The cabman snatched a swift glance over his shoulder before he ventured +to answer. + +"Don't yez be timptin' a poor man wid a wife an' sivin childer hangin' +to um--don't yez do it, sorr!" + +Griswold, the brother-keeping, would have thought twice before opening +any door of temptation for a brother man. But the new Griswold had no +compunctions. + +"It's two hundred dollars to you if you can get me away from here before +that red-faced drunkard comes back. Have a runaway--anything! Here's the +money!" + +For a single timorous instant the cabman hesitated. Then he took the +roll of money and crammed it into his pocket without looking at it. +Before Griswold could brace himself there was a quick _whish_ of the +whip, a piping cry from the driver, and the horses sprang away at a +reckless gallop, with the little Irishman hanging to the reins and +shouting feebly like a faint-hearted Automedon. + +Griswold caught a passing glimpse of the red-faced man wiping his lips +in the doorway of the saloon as the carriage bounded forward; and when +the critical instant came, he was careful to fall out on the riverward +side of the vehicle. It was a desperate expedient, since he could not +wait to choose the favorable moment, and the handcuffs made him +practically helpless. Chance saved the clumsy escape from resulting in a +speedy recapture. When he tumbled out of the lurching carriage he was +hurled violently against something that figured as a wall of solid +masonry and was half stunned by the concussion. None the less, he had +wit enough to lie motionless in the shadow of the wall, and the hue and +cry, augmented by this time to a yelling mob, swept past without +discovering him. + +When it was safe to do so, he sat up and felt for broken bones. There +were none; and he looked about him. The wall of masonry resolved itself +into a cargo of brick piled on the levee side of the street, and obeying +the primary impulse of a fugitive, he quickly put the sheltering bulk of +it between himself and the lighted thoroughfare. + +The next step had to be resolutely thought out. How was he to get rid of +the handcuffs? Any policeman would have a key, and there were doubtless +plenty of locksmiths in St. Louis. But both of these sources of +assistance were out of the question. Whom, then? The answer came in one +word--M'Grath. On a day when the up-river voyage was no more than fairly +begun, one of the negroes in the crew had procured a bottle of bad +whiskey. To pacify him the mate had put him in irons, using two pairs of +handcuffs for the purpose. Therefore, M'Grath must have a key. + +But would M'Grath do it? That remained to be seen; and since hesitation +was no part of Griswold's equipment, he covered the fetters as well as +he could with a scrap of bagging, and walked boldly down the levee and +aboard the _Belle Julie_, falling into line with the returning file of +roustabouts. + +The mate was at the heel of the foot-plank, and he saw at once what the +scrap of sacking was meant to hide. + +"Hello, there, Gavitt!" he called, not less gruffly than of yore, but +without the customary imprecation; "What are ye doing with thim things +on?" + +Griswold told a straight story, concealing nothing: not even the +detective's refusal to tell him what he was arrested for. + +M'Grath was smiling grimly when the tale was finished. "And did he let +ye come back to collect yer day-pay, then?" he asked, ironically. + +"Hardly. He shoved me into a cab and then went into a saloon to get a +drink. While he was gone, the horses ran away and I got out," said +Griswold, still adhering to the exact facts. + +"Ye'd ought to find that cabby and buy him a seegyar," was the mate's +comment. "So ye legged it, did ye?" + +"Yes; when I got a show. But I can't get these things off." + +This time M'Grath's smile was a grin. + +"I'll bet ye can't. They ain't made f'r to come off. Never mind; peg +along afther me. You did be doing me a good turn wan black night, and +I'm not forgetting it." + +He led the way up to his quarters in the texas, and telling Griswold to +wait, went down on his knees to rummage in the locker beneath the berth. + +"I've got a couple o' pair av thim things in here, somewhere, and maybe +the key to 'em will fit yours," he went on, adding: "What's become av +Mose?" + +Again Griswold told the exact truth. + +"The last I saw of him he was making a run for it up the levee, with one +of the plain-clothes men chasing him." + +M'Grath found his handcuffs and tried the key in those upon Griswold's +wrists. It fitted. + +"Now ye're fut- and hand-loose, I'll say to ye what I wouldn't say to a +cripple. If ye've been telling me the truth, 'tis only the half av it. +What have ye been doing, Gavitt?" + +Griswold smiled. "Toting cargo on the _Belle Julie_, since you've known +me. You'd swear to that, wouldn't you?" + +"But before that?" + +"Loafing around New Orleans for a month or two." + +The big mate pushed him to a seat on the after berth and sat down +opposite. + +"Because ye fished me out o' the river whin ye had good cause to lave me +be, I'll tell ye a thing or two for the good av yer soul. Thing number +wan is that ye're not Gavitt; ye're no more like him than I am. Let that +go, an' come to thing number two; ye've been up to some deviltry. How do +I know? Because, at the last landing below this a little man comes +aboard an' spots you. Is that all? It is not. Whin the _Belle Julie_ +swings in, he's the first man off, making a clane jump av a good tin +feet from the engine-room guards. I saw 'im." + +Griswold nodded and said, "I was wondering how they came to place me so +easily. This fellow knew I would be one of the two to carry out the +spring line?" + +"He did, f'r I told him." + +"Meaning to get me pulled?" + +"Meaning nothing but wanting to be rid av the bothering little man. He +said he was a friend av yours, and didn't care to be speaking to ye +while ye was mixing with the naygurs. But that's all over and gone. +What'll ye be doing next?" + +Griswold took a leaf out of the past. Safety in a former peril had grown +out of a breakfast deliberately eaten in a café next door to the Bayou +State Security. + +"What would I do but finish my job on the _Julie_?" he said, pushing the +theory to its logical conclusion. + +The mate shook his head. "Ye needn't do that; the cops might be coming +down here and running you in again. How much pay have ye drawn?" + +"Not any." + +M'Grath took a greasy wallet from his pocket and counted out a +deck-hand's wages for the trip. + +"Take this, and I'll be getting it back from the clerk. It might not be +good f'r ye to show up at the office. Where's yer hat?" + +"It was lost in the shuffle out yonder at the mooring-ring." + +The mate found an old one of his own, together with a long-tailed coat, +much the worse for wear. + +"Do you be taking these. They'll not be so likely to pick you up before +ye can get up-town if ye look a little less like a hobo." + +Griswold suffered a sudden return to the meliorating humanities. + +"I've been calling you all the hard names I could lay tongue to, +M'Grath, and there have been times when I would have given the price of +a good farm for the privilege of standing up to you on a bit of green +grass with nobody looking on. I take it all back. You say you haven't +forgotten: neither will I forget, and maybe my turn will come again, +some day." + +"Go along with you," growled the rough-tongued Irishman, whose very +kindness had a tang of brutality in it. "If you're coming across the +naygur, Mose, anywhere, sind him back and tell him I'll see that he gets +real money f'r helping us unload. Off with ye, now, whilst they're +catching up with yer runaway cab." + +Griswold went leisurely, as befitted his theory, and upon reaching the +levee, turned aside among the freight pyramids in search of his +confederate. Now that there was time to recall the facts he feared that +the negro had been taken. He had secured but a few yards' start in the +race, and his pursuer was a white man, able to back speed with +intelligence. Griswold had a sickening fit of despair when he +contemplated the possibility of failure with the goal almost in sight; +and the reaction, when he stumbled upon the negro skulking in the +shadows of a lumber cargo, was sharp enough to make him faint and dizzy. + +The negro did not recognize him at first and was about to run away when +Griswold shook off the benumbing weakness and called out. + +"T'ank de good Lawd! is dat you-all, Cap'm Gravitt? I's dat shuck up I +couldn' recconize my ol' mammy! Tek dishyer cunjah-bag o' yourn 'fo' I +gwine drap hit. Hit's des been _bu'nin'_ my han's ev' sense I done tuk +out wid it!" + +Griswold took the handkerchief bundle, and the mere touch of it put new +life into him. + +"Where is the fellow who was chasing you, Mose?" he asked. + +"I's nev' gwine tell you dat; no, suh. Las' time I seed him, he's des +t'arin' off strips up de levee after turrer fellah." + +"What other fellow?" + +The negro laughed and did a double shuffle at the mere recollection of +it. + +"Hi-yah! Turrer fellah is de fellah what done tuk my job. Hit was des +dis-a-way: when I t'ink dat white man gwine catch me, sho_ly_, I des +drap down in de darkes' cawneh I kin fin'; dat's what I done, yas, suh. +He des keep on agoin', _spat, spat, spat_, an' when he come out front de +_Gineral Jackson_ over yondeh, one dem boys what's wukkin' on her, _he_ +tuk out, an' dat white man des tu'n hisself loose an' mek his laigs go +lak he gwine shek 'um plum off; yas, sah!" + +Griswold suffered another lapse into the humanities when he saw the list +of participants in his act growing steadily with each fresh +complication, and he said, "I'm sorry for that, Mose." + +"Nev' you min' 'bout dat, Cap'm. Dat boy he been doin' somepin to mek +him touchous, 'less'n he nev' tuk out dat-a-way, no, suh!" + +"Maybe so. Well, we can't help it now. Here is the other twenty I +promised you." + +"T'ank you, suh; t'ank you kin'ly Cap'm. You-all's des de whites' white +man ev' I knowned. You sholy is." + +"What are you going to do with yourself, now?" Griswold inquired. + +"Who, me? I's gwine up yondeh to dat resteraw an' git me de bigges' +mess o' fried fish I kin hol'--dat's me; yas, suh." + +"M'Grath says he'll pay you levee wages if you'll come back to the boat +and help get the cargo out of her." + +"Reckon I ain't gwine back to de _Julie_: no, suh. Dat'd be gittin' rich +too fas' for dis niggeh. Good-night, Cap'm Gravitt; an' t'ank you +kin'ly, suh." + +Griswold went his way musing upon the little object-lesson afforded by +the negro's determination. Here was a fellow man who was one of the +feeblest of the under dogs in the great social fight; and with money +enough in hand to give him at least a breathing interval, his highest +ambition was a mess of fried fish. + +The object-lesson was suggestive, if not specially encouraging, and +Griswold made a mental note of it for further study when the question of +present safety should be more satisfactorily answered. + + + + +XIII + +GRISWOLD EMERGENT + + +Half an hour or such a matter after the hue-and-cry runaway from the +curb in front of the saloon two doors above, Mr. Abram Sonneschein, +dealer in second-hand clothing and sweat-shop bargains, saw a possible +customer drifting across the street, and made ready the grappling hooks +of commercial enterprise. + +The drifter was apparently a passenger from some lately arrived +steamboat; but even to the trained eye of so acute an observer as Mr. +Sonneschein he presented difficulties in the way of classification. Only +temporarily, however. The long-tailed coat and the wide-brimmed, soft +felt hat were the insignia of the down-river, back-country planter, and +the merchant drew his conclusions accordingly. + +"My, my! Rachel," he remarked to his helpmate behind the counter. "See +dis chay from de backvoods across der street coming! Maype ve could sell +him some odder t'ings to go vit dot coat, ain'd it? Come right in, +_mein_ frient; dis is der blace you vas looking for," this last to the +drifter, with a detaining finger hooked persuasively into a buttonhole +of the long-tailed coat. + +So much for the grappling. But the possible customer was not to be +landed so easily. Twice and yet once again he broke away from the +detaining finger; and when at last he finally allowed himself to be +drawn into the garish, ill-smelling little shop, he proved to be +discouragingly indifferent and hard to please in the matter of prices, +hanging back and taking refuge in countrified reticence when Mr. +Sonneschein's eloquence grew pathetically pressing. + +"I did think maybe I'd buy me a suit of clothes," he admitted, finally, +drawling the words to make his speech fit the countrified rôle, "but +there isn't any hurry. I reckon I'll wait a spell and look around and +see what kind of fashions they're wearing now." + +This was a tacit acknowledgment that he had money to spend, and the +eager merchant redoubled his efforts. His perseverance was rewarded, at +length, and when the ship of bargain and sale was bowling merrily along +before a fair breeze of suggestion, Mr. Sonneschein interlarded his +solicitations with an account of the recent miscarriage of justice in +front of the near-at-hand saloon. + +The customer listened with apparent incuriosity, as one whom these +doings in the city world touched but remotely; but the two or three +questions he asked were nicely calculated to bring out the more +important facts. The detectives had cautiously kept their own counsel as +to the details of their quest. Mr. Sonneschein had gossiped with the +policeman on the beat, and the policeman had talked with the red-faced +man who had come alone in the cab, and had taken an unofficial drink +with the roundsman before going down to the steamboat landing. He and +his "partner" were from New Orleans, and they were after a man who was +wanted for big money: that was all he would tell the roundsman. + +"I suppose they've caught him again long before this," said the hesitant +customer, trying on a coat which might have been modelled upon a man +twice his size, and surveying himself in the shop looking-glass while +Mr. Sonneschein lovingly smoothed the lapels into place and gathered a +generous handful of the surplus material at the back. + +"I don't know if dey have--ain'd dot der elegantist fit in der vorld, +now. See, Rachel; ain'd dot schplendit?" + +"They didn't happen to mention the fellow's name, did they?" asked the +prospective purchaser. + +"Not much dey didn't! Dem dedectifs iss too schmart for dot. Dey don't +give it avay when somepody else might got der rewards. How you like dot +schplendit coat, now?" + +"Seems tolerable big, doesn't it?" said the customer, whose speech still +fitted his part to the final drawl. "Suppose we try something else. So +there is a reward, is there?" + +Mr. Sonneschein took the reward for granted and expressed a devout wish +that he might be able to finger it. Whereupon the customer said he +wished _he_ might; and here the topic died a natural death and the +business of buying and selling went on without further interruption. + +There was little suggestion of the tramp roustabout, and still less, +perhaps, of the gentleman, about the person who presently emerged from +the Sonneschein emporium. Nevertheless, he appeared to be well satisfied +with his acquisitions, bearing himself as a purchaser who has by no +means had the worse in the bargaining. At the first street corner he +inquired his way of a policeman and was directed cityward. A square +farther on he selected a barber's shop of cleanly promise, went in, +tossed his newly acquired hand-bag to the porter, and took the first +vacant chair. + +"A hair-cut, a clean shave--not too close, and a bath afterward," was +his laconic order; and a modest tip facilitated things and provided the +little luxuries. + +An hour later no one who had known him bearded and unkempt would have +recognized the clean-shaven, athletic-looking young man who ran down the +steps of the barber's shop and went swinging along on his way up-town. +But the transformation was still incomplete. Reaching the retail +district, he strolled purposefully up one street and down another, +passing many brilliantly lighted shops until he found one exactly to his +liking. A courteous salesman caught him up at the door, and led the way +to the designated departments. + +By this time Mr. Sonneschein's hesitant and countrified customer had +undergone a complete metamorphosis. No longer reluctant and hard to +please, he passed rapidly from counter to counter, making his selections +with man-like celerity and certainty and bargaining not at all. When he +was quite through, there was enough to furnish a generous travelling +wardrobe; a head-to-foot change of garmentings with a surplus to fill +two lordly suit-cases; so he bought the suit-cases also, and had them +taken with his other purchases, to the dressing-room. + +Here, in quiet and great comfort, he made his second change of clothing, +first carefully removing from each garment all the little tags and +trademarks which declared it St. Louis-bought. These tags, together with +the Gavitt and the Sonneschein costumes, were crowded into the +Sonneschein hand-bag, with the soiled red handkerchief to keep them +company; and he was carrying this hand-bag when he reappeared to the +waiting salesman. + +"I see you have steam heat," he remarked. "Is your boiler-room +accessible?" + +"Yes, sir; it's in the basement," was the reply, and the courteous clerk +wondered if his liberal customer were thinking of adding the heating +plant to his purchases. + +Griswold saw the wonder and smiled. "No; I don't want to buy it," he +explained, with the exact touch of familiarity which bridges all chasms. +"But I'm just up from the coast, where they have a good bit of fever the +year round, and it's as well to be on the safe side. May I trouble you +to show me the way?" + +"Certainly," said the salesman, wondering no more; and when he had led +the way to the boiler-room, and had seen his customer thrust the +hand-bag well back among the coals in the furnace, he thought it a +worthy precaution and one which, if generally practiced, would +considerably accelerate the clothing trade. + +All traces of the deck-hand Gavitt, and of the Sonneschein +planter-customer having been thus obliterated, there remained only the +paying of his bill and the summoning of a cab. Oddly enough, the cab, +when it came, proved to be a four-wheeler driven by a little, +wizen-faced man whose thin, high-pitched voice was singularly familiar. + +"The Hotel Chouteau?--yis, sorr. Will you plaze hand me thim grips? I +can't lave me harrses." + +The driver's excuse instantly tied the knot of recognition, and the man +who had just cremated his former identities swore softly. + +"Beg your pardon, sorr; was ye spakin' to me?" + +"No; I was merely remarking that the world isn't as big as it might be." + +"Faith, then, it's full big enough for a man wid a wife and sivin +childer hangin' to um. Get in, sorr, and I'll have you at the Chouteau +in t'ree shakes av a dead lamb's tail." + +The little cabman was better than his word, but on the short drive to +the hotel he found time to work out a small problem, not entirely to his +satisfaction, but to at least a partial conclusion. + +"'Tis the divil's own self he is, and there's nothing left av him but +thim eyes and that scar on his forrud, and his manner of spakin'. But +thim I'd swear to if I'd live to be as old as Father M'Guinness--rest +his sowl." + + + + +XIV + +PHILISTIA + + +All things considered, it was the Griswold of the college-graduate +days--the days of the slender patrimony which had capitalized the +literary beginning--who presented himself at the counter of the Hotel +Chouteau at half-past nine o'clock on the evening of the _Belle Julie's_ +arrival at St. Louis, wrote his name in the guest-book, and permitted an +attentive bell-boy to relieve him of his two suit-cases. + +The clerk, a rotund little man with a promising bald spot and a +permanent smile, had appraised his latest guest in the moment of +book-signing, and the result was a small triumph for the Olive Street +furnishing house. Next to the genuinely tailor-made stands the quality +of verisimilitude; and the keynote of the clerk's greeting was +respectful affability. + +"Glad to have you with us, Mr. Griswold. Would you like a room, or a +suite?" + +Griswold was sufficiently human to roll the long-submerged courtesy +prefix as a sweet morsel under his tongue. With a day to spare he might +have clinched the clerk's respect by taking a suite; the more luxurious, +the better. But St. Louis, with at least two men in it who would sweep +the corners in their search for him, was only a place to put behind +him. So he said: "Neither; if I have time to get my supper and catch a +train. Have you a railway guide?" + +"There is one in the writing-room. But possibly I can tell you what you +wish to know. Which way are you going?" + +Without stopping to think of the critical happenings which had +intervened since the forming of the impulsive resolution fixing his +destination, Griswold named the chosen field for the hazard of fresh +fortunes, and its direction. + +"North; to a town in Minnesota called Wahaska. Do you happen to know the +place?" + +"I know it very well, indeed; southern Minnesota is my old +stamping-ground. Are you acquainted in Wahaska?--but I know you are not, +or you wouldn't pronounce it 'Wayhaska'." + +"You are quite right; I know next to nothing about the town. But I have +been given the impression that it is a quiet little place out of the +beaten track, where a man might spend a summer without having to share +it with a lot of other city runaways of his kind." + +The clerk smiled and shook his head. + +"You might have done that a few years ago, but there's a fine lake, you +know, and some New Orleans people have built a resort house. I +understand it does a pretty fair business in the season." + +Having assured himself that the New Orleans leaf in his book of +experience was safely turned and securely pasted down, Griswold was +nettled to find that the mere mention of the name sent creeping little +chills of apprehension trickling up and down his spine. But innate +stubbornness scoffed at the warning; derided and craved further details. + +"How large a place is it?" + +"Oh, four or five thousand, I should say; possibly more: big enough and +busy enough so that a hundred-room resort house doesn't make it a +souvenir town. It's a nice little city; modern, progressive, and +business-like; trolleys, electric lights, and some manufacturing. Good +people, too. _Front!_ Check the gentleman's grips and show him the café. +I'm sorry we can't give you dinner, but the dining-room closes at nine." + +"Plenty of time, is there?" Griswold asked. + +"Oh, yes; didn't I tell you? Your train leaves the Terminal at +eleven-thirty; but you can get into the sleeper any time after eight +o'clock." + +The guest had crossed the lobby to the café, and the clerk was still +dallying with the memories stirred up by the mention of his boyhood +home, when a little man with weak eyes and a face that out-caricatured +all the caricatures of the Irish, sidled up to the registry desk. The +round-bodied clerk knew him and spoke in terms of accommodation. + +"What is it, Patsy?" + +"The young gentleman ye was spakin' to: is he gone?" + +"He is in the café, getting his supper. What did you want of him?" + +The weak-eyed little man was running a slow finger down the list of +names on the guest-book, blinking as if the writing or the glare of the +lights on the page dazzled him. + +"I drove him, and he did be overpaying me, I think. What was ye saying +his name would be?" + +"It's right there, under your finger: Kenneth Griswold, New York." + +"Um. And I wondher, now, where does he be living, whin he's at home?" + +"I don't know; New York, I suppose, since he registers from there." + +"And does he be staying here f'r awhile?" + +"No; he is on his way to Minnesota." + +"Um." A long pause followed in which the cabman appeared to be counting +the coins in his pocket by the sense of touch. Then: "Would yez be +writing that down for me on a bit av paper, Misther Edwards?--his name, +and the name av the place where he does be going, I mane?" + +"So you can write to him and refund the over-payment after you've been +to confession?" laughed the clerk. Nevertheless, he wrote the name and +address on a card for the petitioner. + +"Thank ye, sorr; thank ye kindly. Whin a man has a wife and sivin +childer hangin' to um--" but here the singsong voice of the porter +calling the Burlington westbound silenced all other sounds and the clerk +heard no more. + +Seated at a well-appointed table in the Chouteau café, Griswold had +ample time to overtake himself in the race reconstructive, and for the +moment the point of view became frankly Philistine. The luxurious hotel, +with its air of invincible respectability; the snowy napery, the cut +glass, the shaded lights, the deferential service; all these appealed +irresistibly to the epicurean in him. It was as if he had come suddenly +to his own again after an undeserved season of deprivation, and the +effect of it was to push the hardships and perils of the preceding weeks +and months into a far-away past. + +He ordered his supper deliberately, and while he waited for its serving, +imagination cleared the stage and set the scenes for the drama of the +future. That future, with all its opportunities for the realizing of +ideals, was now safely assured. He could go whither he pleased and do +what seemed right in his own eyes, and there was none to say him nay. + +It was good to be able to pick and choose in a whole worldful of +possibilities, and he gave himself a broad credit mark for persevering +in the resolution which held him steadfastly to the modest, workaday +plan struck out in the beginning. Apart from Miss Farnham's recognition +of him on the _Belle Julie_--a recognition which, he persuaded himself, +would never carry over from Gavitt the deck-hand to Griswold the student +and benefactor of his kind--there was nothing to fear; no reason why he +should not make Wahaska his workshop. + +In this minor city of the clerk's describing he would find the +environment most favorable for a re-writing of his book and for a +renewal of his studies. Here, too, he might hope to become by +unostentatious degrees the beneficent god-in-the-car of his worthier +ambition, raising the fallen, succoring the helpless, and fighting the +battles of the oppressed. + +Farther along, when she should have quite forgotten the _Belle Julie's_ +deck-hand, he would meet Miss Farnham on an equal social footing; and +the conclusion of the whole matter should be a triumphant demonstration +to her by their refutable logic of good deeds and a life well-lived that +in his case, at least, the end justified the means. + +Just here, however, there was an unresolved discord in the imaginative +theme. It was struck by the reflection that since he could never take +her fully into his confidence her approval would always lack the seal of +completeness. She knew the masquerading deck-hand, and what he had done; +and she would know Griswold the benefactor, and what he meant to do. But +until she could link the two together, there could be no demonstration. +Though he should build the bastion of good deeds mountain high, it could +never figure as a bastion to her unless she might come to know what it +was designed to defend. + +Having a sensitive ear for the imaginative harmonies, the unresolved +discord annoyed him. The effort to eliminate it brought him face to face +with a blunt demand, a query that was almost psychic in its clear-cut +distinctness. Why did these forecastings of the future always lead him +up to the closed door of this young woman's approval and leave him +there? + +For one whose experience had all been bought on a rising market, +Griswold was singularly heart-whole and normal in his attitude toward +women. Beautiful women he had met before, among them a few who had lent +themselves facilely to the idealizing process; but in each instance it +was the artistic temperament, and not the heart, that was touched and +inspired. Was Charlotte Farnham going to prove the exception? Since he +could ask the question calmly and with no perceptible quickening of the +pulses, he concluded that she was not. Nevertheless---- + +The train of reflective thought was broken abruptly by the seating of +two other supper guests at his table; a big-framed man in the grizzled +fifties, and a young woman who looked as if she might have stepped the +moment before out of the fitting-rooms of the most famous of Parisian +dressmakers. + +Griswold's supper was served, and for a time he made shift to ignore the +couple at the other end of the table. Then an overheard word, the name +of the town which he had chosen as his future abiding place, made him +suddenly observant. + +It was the young woman who had named Wahaska, and he saw now that his +first impression had been at fault; she was not overdressed. Also he saw +that she was piquantly pretty; a bravura type, slightly suggesting the +Rialto at its best, perhaps, but equally suggestive of sophistication, +travel, and a serene disregard of chaperonage. + +The young woman's companion was undeniably her father. Gray, +heavy-browed, and with a face that was a life-mask of crude strength and +elemental shrewdness, the man had bequeathed no single feature to the +alertly beautiful daughter; yet the resemblance was unmistakable. +Griswold did not listen designedly, but he could not help overhearing +much of the talk at the other end of the table. From it he gathered that +the young woman was lately returned from some Florida winter resort; +that her father had met her by appointment in St. Louis; and that the +two were going on together; perhaps to Wahaska, since that was the +place-name oftenest on the lips of the daughter. + +Griswold was only moderately interested. The deliberately ordered +supper, enticing in anticipation, had fallen short of the zestful +promise in the fact. It came to him with a little shock that at least +one part of him, the civilized appetite, had become debased by the +plunge into the deck-hand depths, and he fought the suggestion fiercely. +It was an article in his creed that environment is always subjective, +and when one opens the door to an exception a host of ominous shapes may +be ready to crowd in. He was fighting off the evil shapes while he +listened; otherwise his interest might have been more acute. + +It was at this point that the apex of Philistine contentment was passed +and the reaction set in. He had been spending strength and vitality +recklessly and the accounting was at hand. The descent began when he +took himself sharply to task for the high-priced supper. What right had +he to order costly food that he could not eat when the price of this +single meal would feed a family for a week? + +After that, nothing that the obsequious and attentive waiter could bring +proved tempting enough to recall the vanished appetite. Never having +known what it was to be sick, Griswold disregarded the warning, drank a +cup of strong coffee, and went out to the lobby to get a cigar, leaving +his table companions in the midst of their meal. To his surprise and +chagrin the carefully selected "perfecto" made him dizzy and faint, +bringing a disquieting recurrence of the vertigo which had seized him +while he was searching for his negro treasure-bearer on the levee. + +"I've had an overdose of excitement, I guess," he said to himself, +flinging the cigar away. "The best thing for me to do is to go down to +the train and get to bed." + +He went about it listlessly, with a curious buzzing in his ears and a +certain dimness of sight which was quite disconcerting; and when a cab +was summoned he was glad enough to let a respectfully sympathetic porter +lend him a shoulder to the sidewalk. + +The drive in the open air was sufficiently tonic to help him through the +details of ticket-buying and embarkation; and afterward sleep came so +quickly that he did not know when the Pullman porter drew the curtains +to adjust the screen in the window at his feet, though he did awake +drowsily later on at the sound of voices in the aisle, awoke to realize +vaguely that his two table companions of the Hotel Chouteau café were to +be his fellow travellers in the Pullman. + +The train was made up ready to leave, and the locomotive was filling the +great train-shed with stertorous hissings, when a red-faced man slipped +through the gates to saunter over to the Pullman and to peck +inquisitively at the porter. + +"Much of a load to-night, George?" + +"No, sah; mighty light: four young ladies goin' up to de school in +Faribault, Mistah Grierson and his daughter, and a gentleman from de +Chouteau." + +"A gentleman from the Chouteau? When did he come down?" + +The porter knew the calling of the red-faced man only by intuition; but +Griswold's tip was warming in his pocket and he lied at random and on +general principles. + +"Been heah all de evenin'; come down right early afte' suppeh, and went +to baid like he was sick or tarr'd or somethin'." + +"What sort of a looking man is he?" + +"Little, smooth-faced, narr'-chisted gentleman; look like he might +be----" + +But the train was moving out and the red-faced man had turned away. +Whereupon the porter broke his simile in the midst, picked up his +carpet-covered step, and climbed aboard. + + + + +XV + +THE GOTHS AND VANDALS + + +In the day of its beginnings, Wahaska was a minor trading-post on the +north-western frontier, and an outfitting station for the hunters and +trappers of the upper Mississippi and Minnesota lake region. + +Later, it became the market town of a wheat-growing district, and a +foundation of modest prosperity was laid by well-to-do farmers +gravitating to their county seat to give their children the benefit of a +graded school. Later still came the passing of the wheat, a re-peopling +of the farms by a fresh influx of home-seekers from the Old World, and +the birth, in Wahaska and elsewhere, of the industrial era. + +Jasper Grierson was a product of the wheat-growing period. The son of +one of the earliest of the New-York-State homesteaders in the wheat +belt, he came of age in the year of the Civil War draft, and was +unpatriotic enough, some said, to dodge conscription, or the chance of +it, by throwing up his hostler's job in a Wahaska livery stable and +vanishing into the dim limbo of the Farther West. Also, tradition added +that he was well-spared by most; that he was ill-spared, indeed, by only +one, and that one a woman. + +After the westward vanishing, Wahaska saw him no more until he returned +in his vigorous prime, a veteran soldier of fortune upon whom the +goddess had poured a golden shower out of some cornucopia of the +Colorado mines. Although rumor, occasionally naming him during the years +of absence, had never mentioned a wife, he was accompanied by a +daughter, a dark-eyed, red-lipped young woman, a rather striking beauty +of a type unfamiliar to Wahaska and owing nothing, it would seem, to the +grim, gray-wolf Jasper. + +With the return to his birthplace, Jasper Grierson began a campaign, the +planning of which had tided him over many an obstacle in the road to +fortune. It had given him the keenest thrill of joy of which a frankly +sordid nature is capable to descend upon his native town rich enough to +buy and sell any round dozen of the well-to-do farmers; and when he had +looked about him he settled down to the attainment of his heart's +desire, which was to have the casting vote in the business affairs of +the community which had once known him as a helper in a livery stable. + +Losing sight of the irresistible energy and momentum of wealth as +wealth, men said that fortune favored him from the outset. It was only a +half-truth, but it sufficed to account for what was really a campaign of +conquest. Grierson's touch was Midas-like, turning all things to gold; +and even in Wahaska there were Mammon worshippers enough to hail him as +a public benefactor whose wealth and enterprise would shortly make of +the overgrown village a town, and of the town a thriving city. + +Since the time was ripe, Wahaska did presently burst its +swaddling-bands. Commercial enterprise is sheep-like; where one leads, +others will follow; and the mere following breeds success, if only by +the sheer impetus of the massed forward movement. Jasper Grierson was +the man of the hour, but the price paid for leadership by the led is apt +to be high. When Wahaska became a city, with a charter and a bonded +debt, electric lights, water-works, and a trolley system, Grierson's +interest predominated in every considerable business venture in it, save +and excepting the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works. + +He was the president of one bank, and the principal stockholder in the +other, which was practically an allied institution; he was the sole +owner of the grain elevator, the saw- and planing-mills, the box +factory, and a dozen smaller industries in which his name did not +appear. Also, it was his money, or rather his skill as a promoter, which +had transformed the Wahaska & Pineboro Railroad from a logging switch, +built to serve the saw-mill, into an important and independent +connecting link in the great lake region system. + +In each of these commercial or industrial chariots the returned native +sat in the driver's seat; and those who remembered him as a loutish +young farmhand overlooked the educative results of continued success and +marvelled at his gifts, wondering how and where he had acquired them. + +While the father was thus gratifying a purely Gothic lust for conquest, +the daughter figured, in at least one small circle, as a beautiful young +Vandal, with a passion for overturning all the well-settled traditions. +At first her attitude toward Wahaska and the Wahaskans had been serenely +tolerant; the tolerance of the barbarian who neither understands, nor +sympathizes with, the homely virtues and the customs which have grown +out of them. Then resentment awoke, and with it a soaring ambition to +reconstruct the social fabric of the countrified town upon a model of +her own devising. + +In this charitable undertaking she was aided and abetted by her father, +who indulgently paid the bills. At her instigation he built an imposing +red brick mansion on the sloping shore of Lake Minnedaska, named it--or +suffered her to name it--"Mereside," had an artist of parts up from +Chicago to design the decorations and superintend the furnishings, had a +landscape gardener from Philadelphia to lay out the grounds, and, when +all was in readiness, gave a house-warming to which the invitations were +in some sense mandatory, since by that time he had a finger in nearly +every commercial and industrial pie in Wahaska. + +After the house-warming, which was a social event quite without +precedent in Wahaskan annals, Miss Grierson's leadership was tacitly +acknowledged by a majority of the ex-farmers' wives and daughters, +though they still discussed her with more or less frankness in the +sewing-circles and at neighborhood tea-drinkings. Crystallized into +accusation, there was little to be urged against her save that she was +pretty and rich, and that her leaning toward modernity was sometimes a +little startling. But being human, the missionary seamstresses and the +tea-drinkers made the most of these drawbacks, whetting criticism to a +cutting edge now and then with curious speculations about Margery's +mother, and wondering why Jasper Grierson or the daughter never +mentioned her. + +Meanwhile, the big house on the lake front continued to set the social +pace. Afternoon teas began to supersede the sewing-circles; not a few of +the imitators attained to the formal dignity of visiting cards with +"Wednesdays" or "Thursdays" appearing in neat script in the lower +left-hand corner; and in some of the more advanced households the +principal meal of the day drifted from its noontide anchorage to +unwonted moorings among the evening hours--greatly to the distress of +the men, for whom even hot weather was no longer an excuse for appearing +in shirt-sleeves. + +For these innovations Miss Grierson was indirectly, though not less +intentionally, responsible; and her satisfaction was in just proportion +to the results attained. But in spite of these successes there were +still obstacles to be surmounted. From the first there had been a +perverse minority refusing stubbornly to bow the head in the house +of--Grierson. The Farnhams were of it, and the Raymers, with a following +of a few of the families called "old" as age is reckoned in the Middle +West. The men of this minority were slow to admit the omnipotence of +Jasper Grierson's money, and the women were still slower to accept Miss +Grierson on terms of social equality. + +At the house-warming this minority had been represented only by +variously worded regrets. At a reception, given to mark the closing of +Mereside, socially, on the eve of Miss Margery's departure for the +winter in Florida, the regrets were still polite and still unanimous. +Miss Margery laughed defiantly and set her white teeth on a determined +resolution to reduce this inner citadel of conservatism at all costs. +Accordingly, she opened the campaign on the morning after the reception; +began it at the breakfast-table when she was pouring her father's +coffee. + +"You know everybody, and everybody's business, poppa: who is the +treasurer of St. John's?" she inquired. + +"How should I know?" grumbled the magnate, whose familiarity with church +affairs was limited to certain writings of a legal nature concerning the +Presbyterian house of worship upon which he held a mortgage. + +"You ought to know," asserted Miss Margery, with some asperity. "Isn't +it Mr. Edward Raymer?" + +Jasper Grierson frowned thoughtfully into space. "Why, yes; come to +think of it, I guess he is the man. Anyway, he's one of their--what do +you call 'em--trustees?" + +"Wardens," corrected Margery. + +"Yes, that's it; I knew it was something connected with a penitentiary. +What do you want of him?" + +"Nothing much of him: but I want a check for five hundred dollars +payable to his order." + +Jasper Grierson's laugh was suggestive of the noise made by a rusty +door-hinge. The tilting of the golden cornucopia had made him a ruthless +money-grubber, but he never questioned his daughter's demands. + +"Going in for the real old simon-pure, blue-ribbon brand of +respectability this time, ain't you Madgie?" he chuckled; but he wrote +the check on the spot. + +Two hours later, Miss Grierson's cutter, driven by herself, paraded in +Main Street to the delight of any eye æsthetic. The clean-limbed, +high-bred Kentuckian, the steel-shod, tulip-bodied vehicle, and the +faultlessly arrayed young woman tucked in among the costly fur lap robes +were three parts of a harmonious whole; and more than one pair of eyes +looked, and turned to look again; with envy if they were young eyes and +feminine; with frank admiration if they were any age and masculine. For +Miss Grierson, panoplied for conquest, was the latest reincarnation of +the woman who has been turning men's heads and quickening the blood in +their veins since that antediluvian morning when the sons of God saw the +daughters of men that they were fair. + +Miss Margery drove daily in good weather, but on this crisp January +morning her outing had an objective other than the spectacular. When the +clean-limbed Kentuckian had measured the length of Main Street, he was +sent on across the railroad tracks into the industrial half of the town, +and was finally halted in front of the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works. + +Raymer was at his desk when the smart equipage drew up before the office +door; and a moment later he was at the curb, bareheaded, offering to +help the daughter of men out of the robe wrappings. + +"Perhaps I'd better not get out," she said. "Duke doesn't stand well. +Can I see Mr. Edward Raymer for a minute or two?" + +Raymer bowed and blushed a little. He knew her so well, by eye-intimacy +at least, that he had been sure she knew him in the same way--as indeed +she did. + +"I--that is my name. What can I do for you, Miss Grierson?" + +"Oh, _thank_ you," she burst out, with exactly the proper shade of +impulsiveness. "Do you know, I was really afraid I might have to +introduce myself? I----" + +The interruption was of Raymer's making. One of his employees appearing +opportunely, he sent the man to the horse's head, and once more held out +his hands to Miss Grierson. + +"You must come in and get warm," he insisted. "I am sure you have found +it very cold driving this morning. Let me help you." + +She made a driver's hitch in the reins and let him lift her to the +sidewalk. The ease with which he did it gave her a pleasant little +thrill of the sort that comes with the realization of a thing hoped for. +When she was not too busy with the social triumphs, strength, manly +strength, was a passion with Miss Grierson. + +Raymer held the office door open for her, and in the grimy little den +which had been his father's before him, placed a chair for her at the +desk-end. + +"Now you can tell me in comfort what I can do for you," he said, +bridging the interruption. + +"Oh, it's only a little thing. I came to see you about renting a pew in +St. John's; that is our church, you know." + +Raymer did not know, but he was politic enough not to say so. + +"I am quite at your service," he hastened to say. "Shall I show you a +plan of the sittings?" + +She protested prettily that it wasn't at all necessary; that any +assignment agreeable to him and least subversive of the rights and +preferences of others would be quite satisfactory. But he got out the +blue-print plan and dusted it, and in the putting together of heads over +it many miles in the gap of unacquaintance were safely and swiftly flung +to the rear. + +When the sittings were finally decided upon she opened her purse. + +"It is so good of you to take time from your business to wait on me," +she told him; and then, in naïve confusion: "I--I asked poppa to make +out a check, but I don't know whether it is big enough." + +Raymer took the order to pay, glanced at the amount, and from that to +the velvety eyes with the half-abashed query in them. Miss Grierson's +eyes were her most effective weapon. With them she could look anything, +from daggers drawn to kisses. Just now the look was of child-like +beseeching, but Raymer withstood it--or thought he did. + +"It is more than twice as much as we get for the best locations," he +demurred. "Wait a minute and I'll write you a check for the difference +and give you a receipt." + +But at the word she was on her feet in an eager flutter of protest. + +"Oh, please don't!" she pleaded. "If it is really too much, can't you +put the difference in the missionary box, or in the--in the rector's +salary?--as a little donation from us, you know?" + +Then Edward Raymer found that he had not withstood the eye-attack and he +surrendered at discretion, compromising on a receipt for the pew-rent. +Thus the small matter of business was concluded; but Miss Margery was +not yet ready to go. From St. John's and its affairs official she passed +deftly to the junior warden of St. John's and his affairs personal. Was +the machine works the place where they made steam-engines and things? +And did the sign, "No Admittance," on the doors mean that no visitors +were allowed? If not, she would so much like to---- + +Raymer smiled and put himself once more at her service, this time as +guide and megaphonist. It was all very noisy and grimy, but if she +cared to go through the works he would be glad to go with her. + +He did not know how glad he was going to be until they had passed +through the clamorous machine-shop and had reached the comparatively +quiet foundry. One of Miss Margery's gifts was the ability to become for +the moment an active and sympathetic sharer in any one's enthusiasms. In +the foundry she looked and listened, and was unsophisticated only to the +degree that invites explanation. It was a master-stroke of finesse. A +man is never so transparent as when he forgets himself in his own +trade-talk; and Raymer was unrolling himself as a scroll for Miss +Grierson to read as she ran. + +"And you say that is one of the columns for poppa's new block?" she +asked, while they stood to watch the workmen drawing a pattern out of +the sand of the mould. + +"No; that is the pattern: that is wood, and it is used to make the print +in the sand into which the melted iron is poured. This part of the mould +they are lifting with the crane is called the 'cope,' and the lower half +is the 'drag.' When they have drawn the patterns, they will lock the two +halves together and the mould will be ready for the pouring. You ought +to come some afternoon while we are pouring; it would interest you if +you've never seen it." + +"Oh, may I? I shall remember that, when I come back from Florida." + +"You are going away?" he said quickly. + +"Yes; for a few weeks." + +"Wahaska will miss you." + +"Will it? I wish I could believe that, Mr. Raymer. But I don't know. +Sometimes----" + +"You mustn't doubt it for a moment. When you drove up a few minutes ago +I was thinking that you were the one bit of redeeming color in our +rather commonplace picture." + +She let him look into what she wished him to believe were the very +ultimate depths of the velvety eyes when she said: "You shouldn't +flatter, Mr. Raymer. For one thing, you don't do it easily; and for +another, it's disappointing." + +They were passing out of the foundry on their way back to the office and +he held the weighted door open for her. + +"A bit of honest praise isn't flattery," he protested. "But supposing it +were a mere compliment--why should you find it disappointing?" + +"Because one has to have anchors of some sort; anchors in sincerity and +straightforwardness, in the honesty of purpose that will say, '_No-no!_' +and slap the best-beloved baby's hands, if that's what is needed. That +is your proper rôle, Mr. Raymer, and you must never hesitate to take +it." + +It was the one small lapse from the strict conventionalities, but it +sufficed to cut out all the middle distances. The tour of the works +which had begun in passing acquaintance ended in friendship, precisely +as Miss Grierson had meant it should; and when Raymer was tucking her +into the cutter and wrapping her in the fur robes, she added the +finishing touch, or rather the touch for which all the other touches +had been the preliminaries. + +"I'm so glad I had the courage to come and see you this morning. We have +been dreadfully remiss in church matters, but I am going to try to make +up for it in the future. I'm sorry you couldn't come to us last evening. +Please tell your mother and sister that I _do_ hope we'll meet, +sometime. I should so dearly love to know them. Thank you so much for +everything. Good-by." + +Raymer watched her as she drove away, noted her skilful handling of the +fiery Kentuckian and her straight seat in the flying cutter, and the +smile which a day or two earlier might have been mildly satirical was +now openly approbative. + +"She is a shrewd little strategist," was his comment; "but all the same +she is a mighty pretty girl, and as good and sensible as she is shrewd. +I wonder why mother and Gertrude haven't called on her?" + +Having thus mined the Raymer outworks, Miss Grierson next turned her +batteries upon the Farnhams. They were Methodists, and having learned +that the doctor's hobby was a struggling mission work in Pottery Flat, +Margery called the paternal check-book again into service, and the +cutter drew up before the doctor's office in Main Street. + +"Good-morning, doctor," she began cheerfully, bursting in upon the head +of the First-Church board of administrators as a charming embodiment of +youthful enthusiasm, "I'm running errands for poppa this morning. Mr. +Rodney was telling us about that little First-Church mission in Pottery +Flat, and poppa wanted to help. But we are not Methodists, you know, and +he was afraid--that is, he didn't quite know how you might----" + +It was an exceedingly clever bit of acting, and the good doctor +capitulated at once, discrediting, for the first time in his life, the +intuition of his home womankind. + +"Now that is very thoughtful and kind of you, Miss Margery," he said, +wiping his glasses and looking a second time at the generous figure of +the piece of money-paper. "I appreciate it the more because I know you +must have a great many other calls upon your charity. We've been wanting +to put a trained worker in charge of that mission for I don't know how +long, and this gift of yours makes it possible." + +"The kindness is in allowing us to help," murmured the small diplomat. +"You'll let me know when more is needed? Promise me that, Doctor +Farnham." + +"I shouldn't be a good Methodist if I didn't," laughed the doctor. Then +he remembered the Mereside reception and the regrets, and was moved to +make amends. "I'm sorry we couldn't be neighborly last night; but my +sister-in-law is very frail, and Charlotte doesn't go out much. They are +both getting ready to go to Pass Christian, but I'm sure they'll call +before they go South." + +"I shall be ever so glad to welcome them," purred Miss Margery, "and I +do hope they will come before I leave. I'm going to Palm Beach next +week, you know." + +"I'll tell them," volunteered the doctor. "They'll find time to run in, +I'm sure." + +But for some reason the vicarious promise was not kept; and the Raymers +held aloof; and the Oswalds and the Barrs relinquished the new public +library project when it became noised about that Jasper Grierson and his +daughter were moving in it. + +Miss Margery possessed her soul in patience up to the final day of her +home staying, and the explosion might have been indefinitely postponed +if, on that last day, the Raymers, mother and daughter, had not +pointedly taken pains to avoid her at the _lingerie_ counter in +Thorwalden's. It was as the match to the fuse, and when Miss Grierson +left the department store there were red spots in her cheeks and the +dark eyes were flashing. + +"They think I'm a jay!" she said, with a snap of the white teeth. "They +need a lesson, and they're going to get it before I leave. I'm not going +to sing small all the time!" + +It was surely the goddess of discord who ordained that the blow should +be struck while the iron was hot. Five minutes after the rebuff in +Thorwalden's, Miss Grierson met Raymer as he was coming out of the +Farmers' and Merchants' Bank. There was an exchange of commonplaces, but +in the midst of it Miss Margery broke off abruptly to say: "Mr. Raymer, +please tell me what I have done to offend your mother and sister." + +If she had been in the mood to compromise, half of the deferred payment +of triumph might have been discharged on the spot by Raymer's +blundering attempt at disavowal. + +"Why, Miss Margery! I don't know--that is--er--really, you must be +mistaken, I'm sure!" + +"I am not mistaken, and I'd like to know," she persisted, looking him +hardily in the eyes. "It must be something I have been doing, and if I +can find out what it is, I'll reform." + +Raymer got away as soon as he could; and when the opportunity offered, +was besotted enough to repeat the question to his mother and sister. +Mrs. Raymer was a large and placid matron of the immovable type, and her +smile emphasized her opinion of Miss Grierson. + +"The mere fact of her saying such a thing to you ought to be a +sufficient answer, I should think," was her mild retort. + +"I don't see why," Raymer objected. + +"What would you think if Gertrude did such a thing?" + +"Oh, well; that is different. In the first place Gertrude wouldn't do +it, and----" + +"Precisely. And Miss Grierson shouldn't have done it. It is because she +can do such things that a few of us think she wouldn't be a pleasant +person to know, socially." + +"But why?" insisted Raymer, with masculine obtuseness. + +It was his sister who undertook to make the reason plain to him. + +"It isn't anything she does, or doesn't do, particularly; it is the +atmosphere in which she lives and moves and has her being. If it weren't +for her father's money, she would be--well, it is rather hard to say +just what she would be. But she always makes me think of the bonanza +people--the pick and shovel one day and a million the next. I believe +she is a frank little savage, at heart." + +"I don't," the brother contended, doggedly. "She may be a trifle new and +fresh for Wahaska, but she is clever and bright, and honest enough to +ignore a social code which makes a mock of sincerity and a virtue of +hypocrisy. I like her all the better for the way she flared out at me. +There isn't one young woman in a thousand who would have had the nerve +and the courage to do it." + +"Or the impudence," added Mrs. Raymer, when her son had left the room. +Then: "I do hope Edward isn't going to let that girl come between him +and Charlotte!" + +The daughter laughed. + +"I should say there is room for a regiment to march between them, as it +is. Miss Gilman took particular pains to let him know what train they +were leaving on, and I happen to know he never went near the station to +tell them good-by." + + + + +XVI + +GOOD SAMARITANS + + +Since she had undertaken to show Wahaska precisely how to deport itself +in the conventional field, Miss Grierson took a maid and a chaperon with +her when she went to Florida. But when she returned in April, the maid +had been left behind to marry the gamekeeper of one of the millionaire +estates on Lake Worth, and little Miss Matthews, the ex-seamstress +chaperon, had been dropped off in Illinois to visit relatives. + +This is how it chanced that Margery, unwilling to set the Wahaskans a +bad example, had telegraphed her father to meet her in St. Louis. Also, +it shall account as it may for the far-reaching stroke of fate which +seated the Griersons at Griswold's table in the Hotel Chouteau café, and +afterward made them his fellow travellers in the north-bound +sleeping-car _Anita_. + +When Jasper Grierson travelled alone he was democratic enough to be +satisfied with a section in the body of the car. But when Margery's +tastes were to be consulted, the drawing-room was none too good. Indeed, +as it transpired on the journey northward from St. Louis, the _Anita's_ +drawing-room proved to be not good enough. + +"It is simply a crude insult, the way they wear out their old, +broken-down cars on us up here!" she was protesting to her father, when +they came back from the late dining-car breakfast. "You ought to do +something about it." Miss Margery was at the moment fresh from "Florida +Specials" and the solid-Pullman vestibuled luxuries of eastern winter +travel. + +Jasper Grierson's smile was a capitalistic acquirement, and some of his +fellow-townsmen described it as "cast-iron." But for his daughter it was +always indulgent. + +"I don't own the railroad yet, Madgie; you'll have to give me a little +more time," he pleaded, clipping the tip from a black cigar of heroic +proportions and reaching for the box of safety matches. + +"I'll begin now, if you are going to smoke that dreadful thing in this +stuffy little den," was the unfilial retort; and the daughter found a +magazine and exchanged the drawing-room with its threat of asphyxiation +for a seat in the body of the car. + +For a little while the magazine, or rather the pictures in it, sufficed +for a time-killer. Farther along, the panorama of eastern Iowa unrolling +itself beside the path of the train served as an alternative to the +pictured pages. When both the book and the out-door prospect palled upon +her, Miss Margery tried to interest herself in her immediate +surroundings. + +The material was not promising. Two old ladies dozing in the section +diagonally across the aisle, four school-girls munching chocolates and +restlessly shifting from seat to seat in the farther half of the car, +and the conductor methodically making out his reports in the section +opposite, summed up the human interest, or at least the visible part of +it. Half-way down the car one of the sections was still curtained and +bulkheaded; and when Miss Grierson curled up in her seat and closed her +eyes she was wondering vaguely why the porter had left this one section +undisturbed in the morning scene-shifting. + +The northward-flying train was crossing a river, and the dining-car +waiter was crying the luncheon summons, when Margery awoke to realize +the comforting fact that she had successfully slept the forenoon away. +With the eye-opening came a recurrence of the last-remembered waking +thought--the wonder why the curtained section was still undisturbed. +When she was leaving the _Anita_ with her father, the explanation +suggested itself: of course, the occupant of the middle section must be +ill. + +Luncheon over, there was nothing to remind her of the probable invalid +in Number Six until late in the afternoon when, looking through the open +door of the drawing-room, she saw the porter carrying a glass of water +to the invisible sufferer. Quite suddenly her interest became acute. Who +was the sick one? and why was he, or she, travelling without an +attendant? + +With Margery Grierson, to question was to ascertain; and the Pullman +conductor, once more checking his diagrams in Section Eleven, offered +the readiest means of enlightenment. A few minutes later Margery +rejoined her father in the private compartment. + +"Do you remember the nice-looking young man who sat at the table with us +in the Chouteau last night?" she began abruptly. + +The gray-wolf Jasper nodded. He had an excellent memory for faces. + +"What did you think of him?" The query followed the nod like a nimble +boxer's return blow. + +"I thought he paid a whole lot more attention to you than he did to his +supper. Why?" + +"He is on this car; sick with a fever of some kind, and out of his head. +He is going to Wahaska." + +"How do you know it's the same one?" + +"I made the conductor take me to see him. He talked to me in Italian and +called me '_Carlotta mia_.'" + +"Humph! he didn't look like a dago." + +"He isn't; it's just because he is delirious." + +There was a long pause, broken finally by a curt "Well?" from the +father. + +"I've been thinking," was the slow response. "Of course, there is a +chance that he has friends in Wahaska, and that some one will be at the +train to meet him. But it is only a chance." + +"Why doesn't the conductor telegraph ahead and find out?" + +"He doesn't know the man's name. I tried to get him to look for a card, +or to break into the suit-cases under the berth, but he says the +regulations won't let him." + +"Well?" said the father again, this time with a more decided upward +inflection. Then he added: "You've made up your mind what you're going +to do: say it." + +Margery's decision was announced crisply. "There is no hospital to send +him to--which is Wahaska's shame. Maybe he will be met and taken care of +by his friends: if he is, well and good; if he isn't, we'll put him in +the carriage and take him home with us." + +The cast-iron smile with the indulgent attachment wrinkled frostily upon +Jasper Grierson's heavy face. + +"The Good Samaritan act, eh? I've known you a long time, Madgie, but I +never can tell when you're going to break out in a brand-new spot. +Didn't lose any of your unexpectedness in Florida, did you?" + +Miss Margery tossed her pretty head, and the dark eyes snapped. + +"Somebody in the family has to think of something besides making money," +she retorted. "Please lend me your pencil; I want to do some wiring." + +All other gifts apart, Miss Grierson could boast of a degree of +executive ability little inferior to her father's; did boast of it when +the occasion offered; and by the time the whistle was sounding for +Wahaska, all the arrangements had been made for the provisional rescue +of the sick man in Lower Six. + +At the station a single inquiry served to give the Good Samaritan +intention the right of way. There were no friends to meet Lower Six; but +the Grierson carriage was waiting, with the coachman and a Mereside +gardener for bearers. From that to putting the sick man to bed in one of +the guest-chambers of the lake-fronting mansion at the opposite end of +the town was a mere bit of routine for one so capable as Miss Grierson; +and twenty minutes after the successful transfer, she had Dr. Farnham at +the nameless one's bedside, and was telephoning the college infirmary +for a nurse. + +Naturally, there were explanations to be made when the doctor came down. +To her first anxious question the answer came gravely: "You have a very +sick man on your hands, Miss Margery." Then the inevitable: "Who is he?" + +She spread her hands in a pretty affectation of embarrassment. + +"What will you think of me, Doctor Farnham, when I tell you that I +haven't the littlest atom of an idea?" + +Charlotte's father was a small man, with kindly eyes and the firm, +straight-lined mouth of his Puritan forebears. "Tell me about it," he +said concisely. + +"There is almost nothing to tell. He was sick and out of his head, and +his ticket read to Wahaska. No one on the train seemed to know anything +about him; and he couldn't tell us anything himself. So when we found +there was no one to meet him at the station, we put him into the +carriage and brought him home. There didn't seem to be anything else to +do." + +A shrewd smile flickered for an instant in the kindly eyes of Wahaska's +best-beloved physician. + +"Almost any one else would have found plenty of other things to do--or +not to do," was his comment. "Are you prepared to go on, Miss Margery?" + +"Taking care of him until he is able to take care of +himself?--certainly," was the quick reply. + +"Then I'll tell you that it is likely to be a long siege, and probably a +pretty serious one. I can't tell positively without the microscope, but +I'm calling it malaria, with complications. There seems to be a general +break-down, as if he had been overworking or starving himself. You'll +need help." + +"I know; I've just been 'phoning the college, but they can't spare +anybody out of the infirmary. Find me some one, doctor." + +Dr. Farnham took time to think. + +"Let me see: you'll need a good, strong fellow who can be patient and +kind and inflexible and even brutal, by turns. I wonder if we couldn't +get Sven Oleson? The Raymers had him when Edward was down with typhoid, +and he was a treasure when we could make him understand what was +wanted." + +There were fine little lines coming and going between Miss Margery's +straight black brows. "We needn't do it by halves, doctor," she said +decisively. "If it would be better to wire St. Paul or Minneapolis and +get a trained nurse----" + +"--You'd stand the extra expense, of course," laughed the doctor. "You +are all the world's good angel when you set out to be, Miss Margery. But +it won't be necessary; Oleson will do, if I can get him. And I'll send +him or somebody else before bedtime. Meanwhile, there's nothing to do +but to keep your patient quiet; and he'll do that for himself for a few +hours. I gave him a bit of an anodyne before I came down." + +Margery went to the outer door with her kindly counsellor, playing the +part of the gracious hostess as one who is, or who means to be, +precisely letter-perfect. + +"It will soon be time for your daughter and Miss Gilman to come home, +won't it, doctor?" she asked. + +"Yes. I had a letter from Charlotte to-day. They are coming by boat to +Winona, and they should have left St. Louis this morning." Then, to +match the neighborly interest: "You are looking extremely well, Miss +Margery. Your few weeks in Florida were pleasant ones, I know." + +"Yes; they were pleasant. But I'm always well. Has poppa been working +himself to death while I've been away?" + +There was the faintest glimmer of an amused smile in the doctor's eyes +when he said: "No, not quite, I guess. He has been out here with the +masons and carpenters who are building the stables, every fine day, I +think, and that was by way of being a recreation for him." + +Margery nodded brightly. "I thought perhaps he would do that if I went +away. But I mustn't keep you. Be sure and telephone me about Sven. I'll +send the cart after him if you tell me to." + +The doctor promised; and after he was gone, she went slowly up-stairs +and let herself softly into the room of shaded lights. The sick man was +resting quietly, and he did not stir when she crossed to the bed and +laid a cool palm on his forehead. + +"You poor castaway!" she murmured. "I wonder who you are, and to whom +you belong? I suppose somebody has got to be mean and sneaky and find +out. Would you rather it would be I than some one else who might care +even less than I do?" + +The sleeping man opened unseeing eyes and closed them again heavily. "I +found the money, _Carlotta mia_; you didn't know that, did you?" he +muttered; and then the narcotic seized and held him again. + +His clothes were on a chair, and when she had carried them to a light +that could be shaded completely from the bed and its occupant, she +searched the pockets one by one. It was a little surprising to find all +but two of them quite empty; no cards, no letters, no pen, pencil, +pocket-knife, or purse; nothing but a handkerchief, and in one pocket of +the waistcoat a small roll of paper money, a few coins and two small +keys. + +She held the coat up to the electric and examined it closely; the +workmanship, the trimmings. It was not tailor-made, she decided, and by +all the little signs and tokens it was quite new. And the same was true +of the other garments. But there was no tag or trade-mark on any of them +to show where they came from. + +Failing to find the necessary clew to the castaway's identity in this +preliminary search, she went on resolutely, dragging the two suit-cases +over to the lighted corner and unlocking them with the keys taken from +the pocket of the waistcoat. + +The first yielded nothing but clothing, all new and evidently unworn. +The second held more clothing, a man's toilet appliances, also new and +unused, but apparently no scrap of writing or hint of a name. With a +little sigh of bafflement she took the last tightly rolled bundle of +clothing from the suit-case. While she was lifting it a pistol fell out. + +In times past, Jasper Grierson's daughter had known weapons and their +faults and excellences. "That places him--a little," she mused, putting +the pistol aside after she had glanced at it: "He's from the East; he +doesn't know a gun from a piece of common hardware." + +Further search in the tightly rolled bundle was rewarded by the +discovery of a typewritten book manuscript, unsigned, and with it an +oblong packet wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. She slipped +the string and removed the wrapping. The brick-shaped packet proved to +be a thick block of bank-notes held together by heavy rubber bands +snapped over the ends. + +While the little ormolu clock on the dressing-case was whirring softly +and chiming the hour she stared at the money-block as if the sight of it +had fascinated her. Then she sprang up and flew to the door, not to +escape, but to turn the key noiselessly in the lock. Secure against +interruption, she pulled the rubber bands from the packet. The block was +built up in layers, each layer banded with a paper slip on which was +printed in red the name of the certifying bank and the amount. "Bayou +State Security, $5,000." There were twenty of these layers in all, +nineteen of them unbroken. But through the printed figures on the +twentieth a pen-stroke had been drawn, and underneath was written +"$4,000." + +Quite coolly and methodically Margery Grierson verified the bank's count +as indicated by the paper bands. There were one hundred thousand +dollars, lacking the one thousand taken from the broken packet. The +counting completed, she replaced the rubber bands and the brown-paper +wrapping. Then she repacked the suit-cases, arranging the contents as +nearly as might be just as she had found them, locking the cases and +returning the keys to the waistcoat pocket from which she had taken +them. + +When all was done, she tiptoed across to the bed, with the brown-paper +packet under her arm. The sick man stirred uneasily and began to mutter +again. She bent to catch the words, and when she heard, the light of +understanding leaped swiftly into the dark eyes. For the mumbled words +were the echo of a fierce threat: "Sign it: sign it _now_, or, by God, +I'll shoot to kill!" + + + + +XVII + +GROPINGS + + +The robbery of the Bayou State Security Bank was already an old story +when Mr. Matthew Broffin, chief of the New Orleans branch of a notable +detective agency, returned from Guatemala with the forger Mortsen as his +travelling companion. + +Broffin was a successful man in his calling. Beginning as a deputy +marshal in the "moonshining" districts of Kentucky and Tennessee, he had +shifted first to the Secret Service, and later to the more highly +specialized ranks of the private agencies. With nothing very spectacular +to his credit, he had earned repute as a follower of long trails, and as +an acute unraveller of tangled clews. Hence, his docket was never empty. + +It was not altogether for the sake of the reward that he took over the +case of the bank robbery a few days after his return from Central +America. As a matter of fact, there was an express-company case waiting +which promised more money. But emulation counts for something, even in +the thief-catching field; and since two members of his own staff had +fired and missed their mark in St. Louis, there was a blunder to be +retrieved. + +Reasoning logically upon the new problem, Broffin did not at once try to +take up the chase at the point to which it had been carried by the two +who had failed. Since the man had disappeared, the first necessity was +the establishing of his true identity, and for a week Broffin devoted +himself to the task of disentangling the two personalities: that of the +decently dressed, parlor-anarchist bank-raider, and that of the man who +figured in the anonymous letter as Gavitt, the deck-hand. + +At the end of the week two facts were sufficiently apparent. The first +was that there had been a real John Gavitt, a consumptive roustabout on +the New Orleans river-front; a person easily traceable up to the time of +his disappearance on or about the day of the robbery, and whose +description, gathered from those who had known him well, tallied not at +all with the best obtainable word-picture of the bank-robber. Fact the +second was a corollary of the first: by some means the robber had +contrived to change places with Gavitt; to take his place in the _Belle +Julie's_ crew and to assume his name. + +Broffin called this step in the outworking of his problem an incident +closed when he had wired the post-master of the little Iowa river town +from which the true Gavitt had migrated, and had received the expected +reply. John Wesley Gavitt had reached home two days after the date of +the bank robbery, had died within the week, and had been buried beside +his wife. + +The next step was purely constructive; an attempt to build, upon the +description given by President Galbraith and the teller Johnson, a +likeness which would fit some notorious "strong-arm man" known to the +criminal records and the rogues' galleries. Broffin was not greatly +disappointed when the effort failed. + +"It's just about as I've been putting it up, all along," he mused, +lighting his pipe and filling with a fragrant cloud the cramped little +office in which he did his research work. "The fellow ain't a crook; +he's an amateur, and this is his first break. That being the lay-out, +he's liable to do all the things, the different kinds of things, that a +sure-enough 'strong-arm man' wouldn't do." + +It was to Bainbridge, sitting at the desk's end and turning the leaves +of a rogues'-gallery reprint, that the musing conclusion was directed. +The reporter was freshly returned from his jaunt to the banana coast, +and he had climbed Broffin's stair to get the story of the Mortsen +capture. + +"He did one of the different things when he worked his way out of here +in a deck crew," suggested Bainbridge. "The real thug wouldn't have done +anything so honestly toilsome as that." + +"Hardly," Broffin acquiesced. "There was about one chance in a thousand, +and on that chance I've been looking for a picture that would fit him. +There ain't any." + +The reporter was glancing over his notes of the Mortsen story, and he +got up to go. + +"Well, I'm glad it's your job and not mine," he said, by way of +leave-taking. "If your guess is right, it's like looking for the +traditional needle in the haystack." + +"Ump," said Broffin; and for a good hour after the reporter had gone he +sat slowly swinging in the creaking office chair, smoking pipe after +pipe and thinking. + +At the end of the reflective revery he closed his desk, locked his +office, and went once more to the bank. It was the hour of the noon +lull, and Johnson, the paying teller, was free to talk. + +"I hope I'll get through bothering you, some day, Mr. Johnson," Broffin +began. "But when I get stuck, I have to come to you. What Mr. Galbraith +don't remember would crowd a dictionary." + +The teller made good-natured apologies for his chief. "Mr. Galbraith was +a good bit upset, naturally. It was a pretty bad wrench for a man of his +age." + +"Sure, it was; and he's feeling it yet. That's why I'm letting him alone +when I can. Just go once more carefully over the part of it that you +saw, won't you?" + +Johnson retold the story of the cashing of the president's check, +circumstantially, and with the exactness of a man trained in a school of +business accuracy. + +"You'd make a good witness, Mr. Johnson," was Broffin's comment. "You +can tell the same story twice, hand-running, which is more than most +folks can do. Would you know the young woman if you'd see her again?" + +"Hardly, I think." + +"You say she was cashing a draft: how was she identified?" + +"She had credentials from her home bank, with her signature attested." + +"Of course, she didn't surrender her letter of identification?" + +"No; we don't require it when the letter is a general one and not a +credit letter." + +Broffin pulled thoughtfully at his drooping mustaches. He was +rearranging the pieces on the mental chess-board. He had not yet asked +either of the questions he had come to ask. Without knowing the science +even by name, he was still enough of a psychologist to prepare the way +by leading the mind of the witness cleverly over the details of its own +memory picture. + +"You say the hold-up made way for the lady here at the window: you saw +him do it?" + +"Yes." + +"Did any sign of recognition pass between them--anything to make you +think that they might be acquainted with each other?" + +This was one of the two critical questions, and the teller took time to +consider. + +"It's pretty hard to tag that with a definite 'yes' or 'no,'" he said, +when the memory-searching moment had passed. "He spoke to her; of that I +am quite sure, though I didn't hear what he said. She nodded and smiled. +She had a beautiful face, and I remember how it lighted up when he spoke +and stepped back." + +"Then they might have been acquainted, you think?" Broffin said, adding +quickly: "Don't let the fact that she afterward tried to set the dogs on +him twist your judgment any. She might have known the man, and still be +unwilling, afterward, to shield the criminal." + +Again Johnson took time to be accurate. + +"I'll admit that my impression at the time was that they were +acquainted," he averred, at the end of the ends. "Of course you can't +bank much on that. He might have said to a perfect stranger, 'After +you,' or whatever it was that he did say; and she would acknowledge the +courtesy with the nod and the smile--any well-bred woman would. But you +can take it for what it is worth; my thought at the moment was that they +had met before; casually, perhaps, as people meet on trains or in +hotels; that there was at least recognition on both sides." + +Broffin was nodding slowly. It was not often that he made a confidant of +a witness, even in the smaller details of a case, but he evidently +considered the helpful teller an exception. + +"I've been working around to that notion myself, by the smalls, as the +cat eat the grind-rock," he said. "I said to myself, Would he, with the +big pull-off still trembling on the edge--would he have held back for a +woman he didn't know? And if he _did_ know her, it would be a good, +chunky reason why he shouldn't crowd in and take his turn: he'd _have_ +to make good or lose whatever little ante he'd been putting up in the +sociable game. Now one other little thing: you counted him out the +single thousand in small bills first, you said: then what happened?" + +"Then I went to the vault." + +"And when you came back, the young woman was gone?" + +"Oh, yes; she went while Mr. Galbraith was handing me his check." + +"She left before you started for the vault?" + +"Yes." + +"You didn't notice whether she said 'Good-by' or 'Thank you,' or +anything like that, I reckon?" + +"No." + +"But she might have, and you not see it?" + +"Yes; she might have." + +"All right; then we'll go on," Broffin continued, and the time having +arrived for the putting of the second critical question, he planted it +fairly. "You opened the wicket and passed the money out to the hold-up. +He took it and backed to the door--this nearest door. Mr. Galbraith +tells me he gave the alarm as quick as he could draw his breath. How +much time did the fellow have before somebody went after him?" + +Johnson's answer was gratifyingly prompt. + +"You might say, no time at all. There were a number of people in the +bank--perhaps a dozen or more--standing around waiting their turns at +the different wickets. I should say that every single one of them made a +rush for the doors, and I remember thinking at the time that the fellow +couldn't possibly get away." + +"Yet he did get away; made his drop-out so neatly that none of the +rushers got to the doors soon enough to catch a sight of him?" + +"That is the curious fact. Not a man of them saw him. They all told the +same story. The sidewalk wasn't crowded at the time: we are on the sunny +side of the street, and as you see now, the crowd is on the other side +in the shade. Yet the fellow had vanished before the nimblest one of +them got to the doors." + +Broffin drew a deep breath and nodded slowly. The added details were +fitting the new theory to a nicety. In conversation with the president +he had previously marked the fact that the robber had claimed to be +starving. + +"Thank you, Mr. Johnson; I reckon that's all for this time," he said to +the teller, and a minute later he was buying a cigar of the little +Gascon proprietor of the restaurant next door to the bank. + +"You have an excellent memory, I've been told, Monsieur Pouillard," he +said, at the lighting of the cigar. "Do you recollect the day of the +bank robbery next door pretty well?" + +The Gascon shrugged amiably. "_Vraiment_, M'sieu' Broffin; it ees not +possib' that one forgets." + +"It was rather late for breakfast, and not quite late enough for lunch: +were you feeding many people just then?" + +"H-onlee one; he is yo'ng man w'at don' nevveh come on my 'otel biffo'. +He is sit on dat secon' table; _oui_!" + +Broffin pushed the probe of inquiry a little deeper. How did M. +Pouillard happen to remember? _Mais_, it was because the young man was +very droll; he was of the cold blood. When Victor, _le garçon_, would +have brought news of the _émeute_, he had said, breakfast first, and the +news afterward. + +Questioned in his turn, the serving-man corroborated his employer's +particulars and was able to add a few of his own. The young man was +fair, with blue eyes and a reddish beard and mustaches. The mustaches +were untrimmed, but the beard was clipped to a point, _à les moeurs des +étudiants des Beaux Arts_. The waiter had once served tables in a Paris +café, and he seldom lost an opportunity of advertising the fact. Pressed +to account for his accurate memory picture of a chance patron, he +confessed naïvely; the tip had been princely and the young man was one +to mark and to remember--and to serve again. + +Broffin left the restaurant with one more link in the chain neatly +forged. There was an excellent reason why none of the first-aid pursuers +had been able to catch a glimpse of the "strong-arm man." He had merely +stepped from the bank entrance to Monsieur Pouillard's. Between the café +breakfast and the departure of the _Belle Julie_ there lay an hour and a +quarter. In that interval he could easily perfect his simple disguise. +Broffin was not specially interested in the incidental minutiæ. It was +the identity of the man with the untrimmed mustaches and the pointed +beard that must be established. + +After another week of patient groping, Broffin was obliged to confess +that the problem of identification was too difficult to be solved on +conventional lines. It presented no point of attack. With neither a name +nor a pictured face for reference, inquiry was crippled at the very +outset. None of the many boarding- and rooming-houses he visited had +lost a lodger answering the verbal description of the missing man. Very +reluctantly, for bull-dog tenacity was the detective's ruling +characteristic, he was forced to the conclusion that the only untried +solution lay in Teller Johnson's unfortified impression that the chance +meeting at his wicket was not the first meeting between the robber and +the young woman with the draft to be cashed. + +It was the slenderest of threads, and Broffin realized sweatingly how +difficult it might be to follow. Assuming that there had been a previous +meeting or meetings, or rather the passing acquaintance which was all +that the young woman's later betrayal of the man made conceivable, would +the writer of the accusing letter be willing to add to her burden of +responsibility by giving the true name and standing of the man whose +real identity--if she knew it--she had been careful to conceal in the +unsigned note to Mr. Galbraith? Broffin read the note again--"a +deck-hand, whose name on the mate's book is John Wesley Gavitt," was the +description she had given. It might, or it might not, be an +equivocation; but the longer Broffin dwelt upon it the more he leaned +toward the conclusion to which his theory and the few known facts +pointed. The young woman knew the man in his proper person; she had been +reluctant to betray him--that, he decided, was sufficiently proved by +the lapse of time intervening between the date of her note and its +postmark date; having finally decided to give him up, she had told only +what was absolutely necessary, leaving him free to conceal his real name +and identity if he would--and could. + +Having come thus far on the road to convincement, Broffin knew what he +had to do and set about the doing of it methodically. A telegram to the +clerk of the _Belle Julie_ served to place the steamer in the lower +river; and boarding a night train he planned to reach Vicksburg in time +to intercept the witnesses whose evidence would determine roughly how +many hundreds or thousands of miles he could safely cut out of the +zigzag journeyings to which the following up of the hypothetical clew +would lead. + +For, cost what it might, he was determined to find the writer of the +unsigned letter. + + + + +XVIII + +THE ZWEIBUND + + +On his second visit to the sick man lodged in the padded luxuries of one +of the guest-rooms at Mereside, made on the morning following the +Grierson home-coming, Dr. Farnham found the hospital status established, +with the good-natured Swede installed as nurse, the bells muffled, and +Miss Margery playing the part of Sister Superior and dressing it, from +the dainty, felt-soled slippers to the smooth banding of her hair. + +An hour later, however, it was the Margery of the Wahaskan Renaissance, +joyously clad and radiant, who was holding the reins over a big English +trap horse, parading down Main Street and smiling greetings to +everybody. + +By one of the chances which he was willing to call fortunate, Edward +Raymer was at the curb to help her down from her high seat in the trap +when she pulled the big horse to a stand in front of her father's bank. + +"I'm the luckiest man in Red Earth County; I was just wondering when I +should get in line to tell you how glad we are to have you back," he +said, with his eyes shining. + +"Are you, really? You are not half as glad as I am to be back. There is +no place like home, you know." + +"There isn't, and there oughtn't to be," was his quick response. "I've +been hoping you'd come to look upon Wahaska as your home, and now I know +you do." + +"Why shouldn't I?" she laughed, and she was reaching for a paper-wrapped +package on the trap seat when he got it for her. + +"You are going somewhere?--may I carry it for you?" he asked; but she +shook her head and took it from him. + +"Only into the bank," she explained; and she was beginning to tell him +he must come to Mereside when the sick-man episode obtruded itself, and +the invitation was broken in the midst, very prettily, very effectively. + +"I know," Raymer said, in instant sympathy. "You have your hands full +just now. Will you let me say that it's the finest thing I ever heard +of--your taking that poor fellow home and caring for him?" + +Gertrude Raymer had once said in her brother's hearing that Miss +Grierson's color would be charming if it were only natural. Looking into +Miss Grierson's eyes Raymer saw the refutation of the slander in the +suffusing wave of generous embarrassment deepening in warm tints on the +perfect neck and cheek. + +"Oh, dear me!" she said in pathetic protest; "is it all over town so +soon? I'm afraid we are still dreadfully 'country' in Wahaska, Mr. +Raymer. Please cut it down to the bare, commonplace facts whenever you +have a chance, won't you? The poor man was sick, and nobody knew him, +and somebody _had_ to take care of him." + +Like the doctor, Raymer asked the inevitable question, "Who is he, Miss +Margery?" and, like the doctor again, he received the same answer, "I +haven't the smallest notion of an idea. But that doesn't make the +slightest difference," she went on. "He is a fellow human being, sick +and helpless. That ought to be enough for any of us to know." + +Raymer stood watching her as she tripped lightly into the bank, and when +he went to catch his car the conservative minority had lost whatever +countenance or support he had ever given it. + +"She's pure gold when you dig down through the little top layer of +harmless scheming for the social Grand-Viziership," he told himself, +tingling with the exultant thrills of the discoverer of buried treasure. +"If all Wahaska doesn't open its doors to her after this, it'll sure +earn what's coming to it." + +True to her latest characterization of herself, Margery had a nod and a +pleasant smile for the young men behind the brass grilles as she passed +on her way to the president's room in the rear. She found her father at +his desk, thoughtfully munching the unburned half of one of the huge +cigars, and named her errand. + +"I want a safety-deposit box big enough to hold this," she said briefly, +exhibiting the paper-wrapped packet. + +Jasper Grierson, deeply immersed in a matter of business to which he had +given the better part of the forenoon, replied without looking up: "Go +and tell Murray; he'll fix you out," and it was not until after she had +gone that it occurred to him to wonder what use she was going to make of +a private box in the safety vault--a wonder that had lost itself in a +multiplicity of other things before he saw her again. + + * * * * * + +For a week after his unmarked arrival in Wahaska, the castaway in the +upper room at Mereside made hard work of it, giving the good little +doctor with the kindly eyes and the straight-line Puritan lips a rather +anxious fight to gain the upper hand of the still unnamed malady. + +During the week there were many callers at the lake-fronting mansion; +some coming frankly to welcome the returned house-mistress, others to +make the welcoming an excuse for finding out the particulars in the +castaway episode. But neither faith nor good works seemed to have any +effect on the rebellious minority, and at the end of the week Raymer +once more had the pleasure of lifting Miss Grierson from the high trap +at the door of the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank, and of exchanging a few +words with her before she went in to see her father. + +As on any other business day, President Grierson was solidly planted in +his heavy arm-chair before a desk well littered with work. He nodded +absently to his daughter as she entered, and knowing that the nod meant +that he would come to the surface of things--her surface--when he +could, she turned aside to the window and waited. + +Though she had seen him develop day by day in less than three of the +thirty-odd years of his Western exile, her father offered a constant +succession of surprises to her. When she opened the door to +retrospection, which was not often, she remembered that the man who had +stumbled upon the rich quartz vein in Yellow Dog Gulch could scarcely +sign his name legibly to the papers recording his claim; that in those +days there was no prophecy of the ambitious present in the man, half +drunkard and half outlaw, whose name in the Yellow Dog district had been +a synonym for--but these were unpleasant memories, and Margery rarely +indulged them. + +Just now she put them aside by turning her back upon the window and +taking credit for the tasteful and luxurious appointments of the private +office, with its soft-piled rug and heavy mahogany furnishings. Her +father was careless of such things; totally indifferent to them in +business hours; but she saw to it that his surroundings kept pace with +the march of prosperity. Here in Wahaska, as elsewhere, a little +judicious display counted for much, even if there were a few bigoted +persons who affected to despise it. + +She was in the midst of a meditated attack upon the steamship +lithographs on the walls--sole remaining landmarks of the ante-Grierson +period--when her father wheeled in his pivot-chair and questioned her +with a lift of his shaggy eyebrows. + +"Want to see me, Madgie?" + +"Just a moment." She crossed the room and stood at the end of the big +desk. He reached mechanically for his check-book, but she smiled and +stopped him. "No; it isn't money, this time: it's something that money +can't buy. I met Mr. Edward Raymer at the front door a few minutes ago; +does he have an account with you?" + +"Yes." + +"Is it an accommodation to the bank, or to him?" + +Jasper Grierson's laugh was grimly contemptuous. + +"The bank isn't making anything out of him. The shoe is on the other +foot." + +"Do you mean that he is a borrower?" + +"Not yet; but he wants to be. He was in to see me about it just now." + +"What is the matter? Isn't he making money with his plant?" + +"Oh, yes; his business is good enough. But he's like all the other young +fools, nowadays; he ain't content to bet on a sure thing and grow with +his capital. He wants to widen out and build and put in new machinery +and cut a bigger dash generally. Thinks he's been too slow and sure." + +"Are you going to stake him?" Margery waged relentless war with her +birthright inclination to lapse into the speech of the mining-camps, but +she stumbled now and then in talking to her father. + +"I don't know; I guess not. Somehow, I've never had much use for him; +and, besides, I've had another plan in mind." + +"And that was?" + +"To organize another company and build a plant big enough to run him +out." + +Margery was turning the leaves of an illustrated prospectus of an Idaho +irrigation company, and was apparently much more deeply interested in +the electrotyped pictures than in the fortunes of Mr. Edward Raymer. And +when she went on, she ignored the obliterative business suggestion and +remained in the narrower channel of the personalities. + +"Why haven't you any use for him?" + +"Oh, I don't know: because, until just lately, he has never seemed to +have much use for me, I guess. It's a stand-off, so far as likings go. I +offered to reincorporate his outfit for him six months ago, and told him +I'd take fifty-one per cent of the reorganization stock myself; but he +wouldn't talk about it. Said what little he had was his own, and he +proposed to keep it." + +"But now he is willing to let you help him?" + +"Not much; he don't look at it in that light. He wants to borrow money +from the bank and put up the stock of his close corporation as +collateral. It's safe enough, but I don't believe I'll do it." + +The chatelaine of Mereside laid the prospectus aside and came abruptly +to the point. + +"I want you to do it," she said, decisively. + +"The devil you do!" Then, with the dry door-hinge chuckle: "It was a +waste of good money to put in the ice plant while you're here, Madgie. +What's in the wind, now?" + +"Maybe I'll tell you--sometime." + +The president chuckled again and tilted to the comfortable angle in the +arm-chair. + +"Tell me now; you don't need to beat any of the bushes with me, little +girl. If you say the word, I'll pinch him for you." + +"I didn't say that I wanted him pinched. But I do want you to put him +under obligations to you--the heavier the better. His mother and sister +have gone out of their way to snub me, and I want to play even." + +Grierson wagged his huge head, and this time the chuckle grew to a +guffaw. + +"I thought maybe that was the game. But it won't work with him; not for +a single minute." + +"Why won't it?" + +"Because he ain't the man to go to his women-folks when he gets into hot +water. He'll keep it to himself; and they'll go on bluffing you, same as +ever." + +Miss Grierson pulled on her gauntlets and made ready to go, leisurely, +as befitted her pose. + +"That is where you are mistaken," she objected, coolly. "It isn't very +often that I can give you a business tip, but this is one of the times +when I can. When John Raymer died, he left an undivided half of his +estate to his wife, the other half to be shared equally by the two +children. At the present moment, every dollar the entire family has is +invested in the iron plant. So, you see, I know what I am doing." + +Jasper Grierson turned the leaf of a calendar-pad and made a brief +memorandum. + +"I _savez_: I'll break the three-cornered syndicate for you." + +"You will do nothing of the kind," asserted the radiant daughter of men, +with serene assurance. "You will let Mr. Raymer get himself into hot +water, as you call it, and then, when I say the word, you'll reach in +and pull him out." + +"Oh, that's the how of it, is it? All right; anything you say goes as it +lays. But I'm going to make one condition, this time: you'll have to +keep cases on the game yourself, and say when. I can't be bothered +keeping the run of your society tea-parties." + +"I don't want you to. Don't be late for dinner: we are going to the +Rodneys' for the evening." + +When she was gone, the president selected another of the overgrown +cigars from a box in the desk drawer, lighted it, and tilted back in the +big arm-chair to envelop himself in a cloud of smoke. It was his single +expensive habit--the never-empty box of Brobdingnagian cigars in the +drawer--and the indulgence helped him to push the Yellow-Dog period into +a remoter past. + +After a time the smoke cloud became articulate, rumbling forth +chucklings and Elizabethan oaths, mingling with musings idiomatic and +profane. "By God, I believe she thought she was fooling me--I do, for a +fact! But it's too thin. Of course, she wants to make the women kow-tow, +but that ain't all there is to it--not by a jugful. But it's all right: +she plays her own hand, and she's bully good and able to play it. If +she's after Raymer's scalp, he might as well get ready to wear a wig, +right now. I'll back her to win, every time." + +Accordingly, when Mr. Edward Raymer came out of the president's room at +the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank the following morning, he was treading +upon air. For in his mind's eye there was a fair picture of a great and +successful industry to be built upon the substantial extension of credit +promised by the capitalist whose presence chamber he had just quitted. + + + + +XIX + +LOSS AND GAIN + + +Striving feebly as one who gathers up the shards and fragments after an +explosion, Griswold remembered cloudily the supper of tasteless courses +at the Hotel Chouteau, still less distinctly, a drive through the +streets to a great, echoing railway station, a glare of lights too +painful to be borne, and, last of all, an overpowering weariness +shutting down upon him like a sudden closing in of darkness become thick +and stifling. + +Afterward there were vague impressions, momentary breaches in the wall +of inclosing darkness when he had realized that he was curiously +helpless, and that he was still on the train going somewhere, though he +could not remember where. In one of these intervals a woman had stood +beside him, and he seemed to remember that she had put her cool hand on +his forehead. + +Of the transition from the train to the bed in the upper room at +Mereside, he recalled nothing, though the personalities of two +strangers, the doctor and the nurse, obtruded themselves frequently in +the later phases of the troubled dream, like figures in a shadow +pantomime. Also, that suggestion of the presence of the woman with the +cool palm became self-repeating; and finally, when complete +consciousness returned, the dream impression was still so sharply +defined that he was not surprised to find her standing at his bedside. + +He did not recognize her. The memory of his supper companions of the +Hotel Chouteau café was deeply buried under the dream débris, and the +present moment was full of mild bewilderment. Yet the friendliness in +her eyes seemed to shine out of some past which ought to be remembered. + +Before he could frame any of the queries which came thronging to the +door of the returned consciousness, she smiled and shook her head and +forbade him. + +"No, you mustn't talk," she said, with gentle authority. "It's the +doctor's orders. By and by, when you are stronger, you may ask all the +questions you please; but not now." + +He wagged his head on the pillow. "Can't I even ask where I am?" he +begged. + +"Since you have asked, I'll tell you that much. You are in Wahaska, +Minnesota, in the house of your friends; and you have nothing to do but +to get well as fast and as comfortably as you can." + +Her voice was even more remindful than her face of that elusive past +which ought to be remembered, and he closed his eyes to try to recall +it. When he opened them again, she was gone and her place was taken by +one of the figures of the dream; a man with a thick mop of fair hair and +a face of blank good-nature, and whose store of English seemed to be +comprised in a single sentence: "_Ja, ja_; Hae bane poorty vell, t'ank +yo'." + +Later in the day the doctor came; and when the professional requirements +were satisfied, Griswold learned the bare facts of his succoring. It was +characteristic of the Griswold of other days that the immense obligation +under which the Griersons had placed him made him gasp and perspire +afresh. + +"Who ever heard of such a thing, doctor?" he protested weakly. And then: +"How am I ever going to repay them?" + +Dr. Farnham was crisply explicit. "You may leave Mr. Grierson out of +your problem. Miss Margery is an only child, and if she sees fit to turn +Mereside into a temporary hospital, he is abundantly able to indulge +her." + +"Then I am indebted to the daughter, alone?" + +"Entirely, I should say." + +Griswold looked long and earnestly at the face of his professional +adviser. It was a good face, clearly lined, benevolent; and, above all, +trustworthy. + +"Tell me one thing more, doctor, if you can. What was the motive? Was it +just heavenly good-heartedness?--or----" + +The doctor's smile was the least possible shade wintry. + +"When you have lived a few years longer in this world of ours, you will +not probe too deeply into motives; you will take the deed as the +sufficient exponent of the prompting behind it. If I say so much, you +will understand that I am not impugning Miss Grierson's motives. There +are times when she is the good angel of everybody in sight." + +"And this is one of the times?" persisted the analyst. + +"We shall say that this is one of the times: say it and stick to it, +Mr.----" + +The pause after the courtesy title was significant, and Griswold filled +it promptly. "Griswold--Kenneth Griswold. Do you mean to say that you +haven't known my name, doctor?" + +"We have not. We took the Good Samaritan's privilege and ransacked your +belongings--Miss Margery and I--thinking that there might be relatives +or friends who should be notified." + +"And you found nothing?" queried the sick man, a cold fear gripping at +his heart. + +"Absolutely nothing to tell us who you were; no cards, letters, or +memoranda of any kind. The conclusion was obvious: some one had taken +advantage of your illness on the train and had picked your pockets." + +Griswold moistened his lips and swallowed hard. "There were two +suit-cases: were they lost?" + +"No; they are here." + +"And you found nothing in them?" + +"Nothing but clothing and your toilet tools, a pistol, and a typewritten +book manuscript bearing no signature." + +Griswold turned his face away and shut his eyes. Once more his stake in +the game of life was gone. + +"There was another package of--of papers in one of the grips," he said, +faintly; "quite a large package wrapped in brown paper." + +"Valuables?" queried the doctor, sympathetically curious. + +"Y-yes; rather valuable." + +"We found nothing but the manuscript. Could any one else make use of the +papers you speak of?" + +Griswold was too feeble to prevaricate successfully. + +"There was money in the package," he said, leaving the physician to +infer what he pleased. + +"Ah; then you were robbed. It's a pity we didn't know it at the time. It +is pretty late to begin looking for the thief now, I'm afraid." + +"Quite too late," said Griswold monotonously. + +The doctor rose to go. + +"Don't let the material loss depress you, Mr. Griswold," he said, with +encouraging kindliness. "The one loss that couldn't have been retrieved +is a danger past for you now, I'm glad to say. Be cheerful and patient, +and we'll soon have you a sound man again. You have a magnificent +constitution and fine recuperative powers; otherwise we should have +buried you within a week of your arrival." + +It was not until after the doctor had gone that Griswold was able to +face the new misfortune with anything like a sober measure of +equanimity. Imaginative to the degree which facilely transforms the +suppositional into the real, he was still singularly free from +superstition. Nevertheless, all the legends clustering about the +proverbial slipperiness of ill-gotten gains paraded themselves +insistently. It was only by the supremest effort of will that he could +push them aside and address himself to the practical matter of getting +well. That was the first thing to be considered; with or without money, +he must relieve the Griersons of their self-assumed burden at the +earliest possible moment. + +This was the thought with which he sank into the first natural sleep of +convalescence. But during the days which followed, Margery was able to +modify it without dulling the keen edge of his obligation. What perfect +hospitality could do was done, without ostentation, with the exact +degree of spontaneity which made it appear as a service rendered to a +kinsman. It was one of the gifts of the daughter of men to be able to +ignore all the middle distances between an introduction and a +friendship; and by the time Griswold was strong enough to let the big, +gentle Swede plant him in a Morris chair in the sun-warmed bay-window, +the friendship was a fact accomplished. + +"Do you know, you're the most wonderful person I have ever known?" he +said to Margery, on the first of the sunning days when she had come to +perch in the window-seat opposite his chair. + +"It's propinquity," she laughed. "You haven't seen any other woman for +days and weeks. Wait until you are strong enough to come down to one of +my 'evenings.'" + +"No, it isn't propinquity," he denied. + +"Then it's the unaccustomed. You are from the well-behaved East. There +are some people even here in Wahaska who will tell you that I have never +properly learned how to behave." + +"Your looking-glass will tell you why they say that," he said gravely. + +Her smile showed the perfect rows of white teeth. "You are recovering +rapidly, Mr. Kenneth; don't you think so? Or was that only a little +return of the fever?" + +He brushed the bit of mockery aside. "I want to be serious to-day--if +you'll let me. There are a lot of things I'd like to know." + +"About Wahaska?" + +"About you, first. Where did we meet?--before I came out of the fever +woods and saw you standing by the bed?" + +"We didn't 'meet,' in the accepted meaning of the word. My father and I +happened to sit at your table one evening in the Hotel Chouteau, in St. +Louis." + +"Ah; I knew there was a day back of the other days. Do you believe in +destiny?" + +She nodded brightly. "Sometimes I do; when it brings things out the way +I want them to come out." + +"I've often wondered," he went on musingly. "Think of it: somewhere back +in the past you took the first step in a path which was to lead you to +that late supper in the Chouteau. Somewhere in my past I took the first +step in the crooked trail that was to lead me there." + +"Well?" she encouraged. + +"The paths crossed--and I am your poor debtor," he finished. "I can +never hope to repay you and your father for what you have done." + +"Oh, yes you can," she asserted lightly. "You can pass it along to the +man farther down. Forget it, and tell me what you want to know about +Wahaska." + +"First, I'd like to know my doctor's name." + +"The idea!" she exclaimed. "Hasn't there been anybody to introduce you? +He is Wahaska's best-beloved 'Doctor Bertie'; otherwise Doctor Herbert +C. Farnham." + +"_Doctor Farnham?_--not Miss Char----" He bit the name in two in the +middle, but the mischief was done. + +"Yes; Charlotte's father," was the calm reply. Then: "Where did you meet +Miss Farnham?" + +"I haven't met her," he protested instantly; "she--she doesn't know me +from Adam. But I have seen her, and I happened to learn her name and her +home address." + +Miss Margery's pretty face took on an expression of polite disinterest, +but behind the mask the active brain was busily fitting the pegs of +deduction into their proper holes. Her involuntary guest did not know +the father; therefore he must have seen the daughter while she was away +from home. Charlotte Farnham had been South, at Pass Christian, and +doubtless in New Orleans. The convalescent had also been in New Orleans, +as his money packet with its Bayou State Security labels sufficiently +testified. + +Miss Grierson got up to draw one of the window shades. It had become +imperative that she should have time to think and an excuse for hiding +her face from the eyes which seemed to be trying masterfully to read her +inmost thoughts. + +"You think it is strange that I should know Miss Farnham's name and +address without having met her?" Griswold asked, when the pause had +become a keen agony. + +Miss Grierson's rejoinder was flippant. "Oh, no; she is pretty enough to +account for a stranger thing than that." + +"She is more than pretty," said Griswold, impulsively; "she has the +beauty of those who have high ideals, and live up to them." + +"I thought you said you didn't know her," was the swift retort. + +"I said I hadn't met her, and that she doesn't know me." + +"Oh," said the small fitter of deduction pegs; and afterward she talked, +and made the convalescent talk, pointedly of other things. + +This occurred in the forenoon of a pleasant day in May. In the afternoon +of the same day, Miss Grierson's trap was halted before the door of the +temporary quarters of the Wahaska Public Library. Raymer saw the trap +and crossed the street, remembering--what he would otherwise have +forgotten--that his sister had asked him to get a book on orchids. + +Miss Margery was in the reference room, wading absently through the +newspaper files. She nodded brightly when Raymer entered--and was not in +the least dust-blinded by the library card in his hand. + +"You are just in time to help me," she told him. "Do you remember the +story of that daring bank robbery in New Orleans a few weeks ago?--the +one in which a man made the president draw a check and get it cashed for +him?" + +Raymer did remember it, chiefly because he had talked about it at the +time with Jasper Grierson, and had wondered curiously how the president +of the Farmers' and Merchants' would deport himself under like +conditions. + +"Do you remember the date?" she asked. + +Since it was tied to his first business interview with Grierson _père_, +Raymer was able to recall the date, approximately, and together they +turned the file of the _Pioneer Press_ until they came to the number +containing the Associated Press story of the crime. It was fairly +circumstantial; the young woman at the teller's window figured in it, +and there was a sketchy description of the robber. + +"If you should meet the man face to face, would you recognise him from +the description?" she flashed up at Raymer. + +"Not in a thousand years," he confessed. "Would you?" + +"No; not from the description," she admitted. Then she passed to a +matter apparently quite irrelevant. + +"Didn't I see Miss Farnham's return noticed in the _Wahaskan_ the other +day?" + +With Charlotte's father a daily visitor at Mereside, it seemed +incredible that Miss Grierson had not heard of the daughter's +home-coming. But Raymer answered in good faith. + +"You may have seen it some time ago. She and Miss Gilman have been home +for three or four weeks." + +"Somebody said they were coming up the river by boat; did they?" + +"Yes, all the way from New Orleans." + +"That must have been delightful, if they were fortunate enough to get a +good boat. I've been told that the table is simply impossible on some of +them." + +"So it is. But they came up as far as St. Louis on one of the Anchor +Lines--the _Belle Julie_--and even Miss Gilman admits that the +accommodations were excellent." + +She nodded absently and began to turn the leaves of the newspaper file. +Raymer took it as his dismissal and went to the desk to get the orchid +book. When he looked in again on his way to the street, Miss Grierson +had gone, leaving the file of the _Pioneer Press_ open on the reading +desk. Almost involuntarily he glanced at the first-page headings, +thrilling to a little shock of surprise when one of them proved to be +the caption of another Associated Press despatch giving a twenty-line +story of the capture and second escape of the Bayou State Security +robber on the levee at St. Louis. + +The reading of the bit of stale news impressed him curiously. Why had +Miss Margery interested herself in the details of the New Orleans bank +robbery? Why--with no apparent special reason--should she have +remembered it at all? or remembering it, have known where to look for +the two newspaper references? + +Raymer left the library speculating vaguely on the unaccountable +tangents at which the feminine mind could now and then fly off from the +well-defined circle of the conventionally usual. On rare occasions his +mother or Gertrude did it, and he had long since learned the folly of +trying to reduce the small problem to terms of known quantities +masculine. + +"Just the same, I'd like to know why, this time," he said to himself, as +he crossed the street to the Manufacturers' Club. "Miss Grierson isn't +at all the person to do things without an object." + + + + +XX + +THE CONVALESCENT + + +After a few more days in the Morris chair; days during which he was idly +contented when Margery was with him, and vaguely dissatisfied when she +was not; Griswold was permitted to go below stairs, where he met, for +the first time since the Grierson roof had given him shelter, the master +of Mereside. + +The little visit to Jasper Grierson's library was not prolonged beyond +the invalid's strength; but notwithstanding its brevity there were inert +currents of antagonism evolved which Margery, present and endeavoring to +serve as a lightning-arrester, could neither ground nor turn aside. + +For Griswold there was an immediate recrudescence of the unfavorable +first impression gained at the Hotel Chouteau supper-table. He recalled +his own descriptive formula struck out as a tag for the hard-faced, +heavy-browed man at the end of the café table--"crudely strong, +elementally shrewd, with a touch, or more than a touch, of the savage: +the gray-wolf type"--and he found no present reason for changing the +record. + +Thus the convalescent debtor to the Grierson hospitality. And as for the +Wahaskan money lord, it is to be presumed that he saw nothing more than +a hollow-eyed, impractical story-writer (he had been told of the +manuscript found in Griswold's hand-baggage), who chanced to be +Margery's latest and least accountable fad. + +Griswold took away from the rather constrained ice-breaking in the +banker's library a renewed resolve to cut his obligation to Jasper +Grierson as short as possible. How he should begin again the mordant +struggle for existence was still an unsolved problem. Of the +one-thousand-dollar spending fund there remained something less than +half: for a few weeks or months he could live and pay his way; but after +that.... Curiously enough, the alternative of another attack upon the +plutocratic dragon did not suggest itself. That, he told himself, was an +experiment tried and found wanting. But in any event, he must not +outstay his welcome at Mereside; and with this thought in mind he crept +down-stairs daily after the library episode, and would give Margery no +peace because she would not let him go abroad in the town. + +"Not to-day, but to-morrow," she said, finally, when there was no longer +any good reason for denying him. "Wait until to-morrow, and if it's a +fine day, I'll drive you in the trap." + +"But why not to-day?" he complained. + +"'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless'--what +shall I say; patient, or guest, or--friend?" she laughed, garbling the +quotation to fit the occasion. + +"Shakespeare said 'child,'" he suggested mildly. + +"And so shall I," she gibed--but the gibe itself was almost a caress. +"Sometimes you remind me of an impatient boy who has been promised a +peach and can't wait until it ripens. But if you must have a reason why +I won't drive you this afternoon, you may. We are going to have a tiny +little social function at Mereside this evening, and I want you to be +fresh and rested for it." + +"Oh, my dear Miss Margery!" protested the convalescent, reluctant to his +finger-tips; "not to meet your friends! I am only your poor charity +patient, and----" + +"That will do," she declared, tyrannizing over him with a fine +affectation of austere hostess-ship. "_I_ say you are to come +down-stairs this evening to meet a few of our friends. And you will +come." + +"Certainly, I shall come, if you wish it," he assented, remembering +afresh his immense obligation; and when the time was ripe he made +himself presentable and felt his way down the dimly lighted library +stair, being minded to slip into the social pool by the route which +promised the smallest splash and the fewest ripples. + +It was a stirring of the Philistine in him that led him to prefigure +weariness and banality in the prospect. Without in the least suspecting +it, Griswold was a Brahmin of the severest sect on his social side; +easily disposed to hold aloof and to criticise, and, as a man +Eastern-bred, serenely assured that nothing truly acceptable in the +social sense could come out of the Nazareth of the West. + +For this cause he was properly humiliated when he entered the spacious +double drawing-rooms and found them so comfortably crowded by a throng +of conventionally clothed and conventionally behaved guests that he was +immediately able to lose himself--and any lingering trace of +self-consciousness--in a company which, if appearances were to be +trusted, was Western only by reason of Wahaska's location on the map. +Indeed, the sudden and necessary rearrangement of the pieces on the +prefigured chess-board was almost embarrassing; and Margery's greeting +and welcome brought a grateful sense of relief and a certain recovery of +self-possession for which, a few minutes earlier, he had thought there +could be no possible Wahaskan demand. + +"Thank you so much for coming down, and for resolving heroically not to +be bored," she began brightly. "And now that you've made your little +concession, I'll make mine. I sha'n't ask anything at all of +you"--piling the cushions in the corner of a wide window-seat and making +him sit down; "you are just to be an invalid this evening, you know, and +you needn't meet any more people than you want to." + +When she had patted the pillows into place and was gone to welcome still +later comers, Griswold had a chance to look around him. The readjusting +mechanism was still at work. Beyond question it was all very different, +strikingly different, from his forecastings. A young woman was at the +piano, with a young man whose clothes fitted him and who was in nowise +conscious of them, turning the music for her. There was a pleasant hum +of conversation; the lights were not glaring; the furnishings were not +in bad taste--on the contrary, they were in exceedingly good taste. +Griswold smiled when he remembered that he had been looking forward to +something suggesting a cross between a neighborhood tea-drinking and a +church social. He was agreeably disappointed to find that the keynote +was distinctly well-mannered, passably urban, undeniably conventional. + +And the charming young hostess.... From his corner of the window-seat +Griswold had a comprehensive view of the two great rooms, and beyond +them through a pillared opening to the candle-lighted dining-room where +the refreshments were served. Though the rooms were well filled, there +was but a single personality pervading them for the eager student of +types. Admitting that there were other women more beautiful, Griswold, +groping always for the fitting figure and the apt phrase, told himself +that Miss Grierson's crowning gift was an acute sense of the eternal +harmonies; she was always "in character." + +Hitherto he had known her only as his benefactress and the thoughtful +caretaker for his comfort. But now, at this first sight of her in the +broader social field, she shone upon and dazzled him. Admitting that the +later charm might be subtly sensuous--he refused to analyze it too +closely--it was undeniable that it warmed him to a newer and a stronger +life; that he could bask in its generous glow like some hibernating +thing of the wild answering to the first thrilling of the spring-tide. +True, Miss Grierson bore little resemblance to any ideal of his past +imaginings. She might even be the _Aspasia_ to Charlotte Farnham's +_Saint Cecilia_. But even so, was not the daughter of Axiochus well +beloved of men and of heroes? + +It was some little time afterward, and Jasper Grierson, stalking like a +grim and rather unwilling master of ceremonies among his guests, had +gruffly introduced three or four of the men, when Griswold gladly made +room in the window-seat for his transformed and glorified mistress of +the fitnesses. As had happened more than once before, her nearness +intoxicated him; and while he made sure now that the charm was at least +partly physical, its appeal was none the less irresistible. + +"Are you dreadfully tired?" she asked; adding quickly: "You mustn't let +us make a martyr of you. It's your privilege to disappear whenever you +feel like it." + +"Indeed, I'm not at all tired," he protested. "It is all very comforting +and homelike; so vastly--" he hesitated, seeking thoughtfully for the +word which should convey his meaning without laying him open to the +charge of patronizing superciliousness, and she supplied it promptly. + +"So different from what you were expecting; I know. You have been +thinking of us as barbarians--outer barbarians, perhaps--and you find +that we are only harmless provincials. But really, you know, we are +improving. I wish you could have known Wahaska as it used to be." + +"Before you took it in hand?" he suggested. "I can imagine it." + +"Can you? I don't have to imagine it--I can remember: how we used to sit +around the edges of the room behaving ourselves just as hard as ever we +could, and boring one another to extinction. I'm afraid some of them do +it yet, sometimes; but I won't let them do it here." + +Once more Griswold let his gaze go at large through the stately rooms. +He understood now. His prefigurings had not been so wide of the mark, +after all. He had merely reckoned without his hostess. + +"It is a miracle," he said, giving her full credit. "I'd like to ask how +you wrought it, only I mustn't keep you from your duties." + +She laughed joyously, with a little toss of the shapely head which was +far more expressive than many words. + +"I haven't any duties; I have taught them to amuse themselves. And they +are doing it very creditably, don't you think?" + +"They are getting along," he admitted. "But tell me: how did you go +about it?" + +"It was simple enough. When we came here we found a lot of good people +who had fallen into the bad habit of boring one another, and a few who +hadn't; but the few held themselves aloof. We opened our house to the +many, and tried to show them that a church sewing-circle isn't precisely +the acme of social enjoyment. That is all." + +Griswold saw in his mind's eye a sharply etched picture of the rise and +progress of a village magnate cleanly struck out in the two terse +sentences, and his respect for his companion in the wide window-seat +increased in just proportion. Verily, Miss Margery had imagination. + +"It is all very grateful and delightful to me," he confessed, at length. +"I have been out of the social running for a long time, but I may as +well admit that I am shamelessly Epicurean by nature, and an ascetic +only when the necessities drive." + +"I know," she assented, with quick appreciation. "An author has to be +both, hasn't he?--keen to enjoy, and well hardened to endure." + +He turned upon her squarely. + +"Where did you ever learn how to say such things as that?" he demanded. + +It was an opening for mockery and good-natured raillery, but she did not +make use of it. Instead, she let him look as deeply as he pleased into +the velvety eyes when she said: "It is given to some of us to see and to +understand where others have to learn slowly, letter by letter. Surely, +your own gift has told you that, Mr. Griswold?" + +"It has," he acknowledged. "But I have found few who really do +understand." + +"Which is to say that you haven't yet found your other self, isn't it? +Perhaps that will come, too, if you'll only be patient--and not expect +too many other gifts of the gods along with the one priceless gift of +perfect sympathy." + +"When I find the one priceless gift, I shall confidently expect to find +everything else," he asserted, still held a willing prisoner by the +bewitching eyes. + +She laughed softly. "You'll be disappointed. The gift you demand will +preclude some of the others; as the others would certainly preclude it. +How can you be an author and not understand that?" + +"I am not an author, I am sorry to say," he objected. "I have written +but the one book, and I have never been able to find a publisher for +it." + +"But you are not going to give up?" + +"No; I am going to rewrite the book and try again--and yet again, if +needful. It is my message to mankind, and I mean to deliver it." + +"Bravo!" she applauded, clapping her hands in a little burst of +enthusiasm which, if it were not real, was at least an excellent +simulation. "It is only the weak ones who say, 'I hope.' For the truly +strong hearts there is only the one battle-cry, 'I will!' When you get +blue and discouraged you must come to me and let me cheer you. Cheering +people is _my_ mission, if I have any." + +Griswold's pale face flushed and the blood sang liltingly in his veins. +He wondered if she had been tempted to read the manuscript of the book +while he was fighting his way back to consciousness and life. If they +had been alone together, he would have asked her. The bare possibility +set all the springs of the author's vanity upbubbling within him. There +and then he promised himself that she should hear the rewriting of the +book, chapter by chapter. But what he said was out of a deeper, and +worthier, underthought. + +"You have many missions, Miss Margery: some of them you choose, and some +are chosen for you." + +"No," she denied; "nobody has ever chosen for me." + +"That may be true, without making me a false prophet. Sometimes when we +think we are choosing for ourselves, chance chooses for us; oftener than +not, I believe." + +She turned on him quickly, and for a single swiftly passing instant the +velvety eyes were deep wells of soberness with an indefinable underdepth +of sorrow in them. Griswold had a sudden conviction that for the first +time in his knowing of her he was looking into the soul of the real +Margery Grierson. + +"What you call 'chance' may possibly have a bigger and better name," she +said, gravely. "Had you ever thought of that?" + +"Give it any name you please, so long as you admit that it is something +beyond our control," he conceded. + +As had happened more than once before, she seemed to be able to read his +inmost thought. + +"You are thinking of the chain of incidents that brought you here? It is +only the details that have 'happened.' You meant to come to Wahaska; +you were carrying out a definite purpose of your own that night in St. +Louis when you took your ticket. And coming here, sooner or later you +would have found your way to this house--to a seat on these cushions. I +could tell you more, but my prophetic soul warns me that Agatha +Severance is protesting to Mr. Wamble that she can't _possibly_ play the +particular song he is asking for without the music. I'm going to +convince her that she can." + +Some little time after this, Raymer, who had been one of the men +introduced by Jasper Grierson, turned up again in the invalid's corner. + +"Sit down, won't you?" said Griswold, making a move to share the +cushions with the young ironmaster; and it was thus that the door to a +friendship was opened. Farther on, when they had gotten safely beyond +the commonplaces, Raymer suggested the smoking-room and a cigar, and +Griswold went willingly. + +"I was wondering if you were like me in that, Mr. Raymer," he said. "I +never feel properly acquainted with a man until I have smoked with him." + +"Or with a woman until she has made a cup of tea for you?" laughed the +native. "That is Miss Margery's try-out. She has taught us the +potentialities that lie in a cup of tea well brewed and skilfully +sweetened." + +From that on, the path to better acquaintance was the easiest of +short-cuts, even as the mild cigar which Raymer found in his pocket-case +paved the way for a return of the smoker's zest in the convalescent. +Without calling himself a reformer, the young ironmaster proved to be a +practical sociologist. Wherefore, when Griswold presently mounted his +own sociological hobby, he was promptly invited to visit the Raymer +Foundry and Machine Works, to the end that he might have some of his +theories of the universal oppression of wage-earners charitably +modified. + +"Of course, I don't deny that we're a long way from the Millennium, +yet," was Raymer's summing up of the conditions in his own plant. "But I +do claim that we are on a present-day, living footing. So far as the men +understand loyalty, they are loyal; partly to my father's memory; +partly, I hope, to me. We have never had a strike or an approach to one, +or a disagreement that could not be adjusted amicably. Whether these +conditions can be maintained after we double our capacity and get in a +lot of new blood, I can't say. But I hope they can." + +"You are enlarging?" said Griswold. + +Raymer waited until the only other man in the smoking-den had gone back +to the drawing-rooms before he said: "Yes; I caught the fever along with +the rest of them a few weeks ago, and I'm already beginning to wish that +I hadn't." + +"You are afraid of the market?" + +"N-no; times are good, and the market--our market, at least--is daily +growing stronger. It is rather a matter of finances. I am an engineer, +as my father was before me. When it comes to wrestling with the money +devil, I'm outclassed from the start." + +"There are a good many more of us in the same boat," said Griswold, +leaving an opening for further confidences if Raymer chose to make them. +But the young ironmaster was looking at his watch, and the confidences +were postponed. + +"I'm keeping you up, when I daresay you ought to be in bed," he +protested; but Griswold held him long enough to ask for a suggestion in +a small matter of his own. + +Now that he was able to be about, he was most anxious to relieve Miss +Grierson and her father of the charge and care of one whose obligation +to them was already more than mountain-high: did Raymer happen to know +of some quiet household where the obligated one could find lodging and a +simple table? + +Raymer, taking time to think of it, did know. Mrs. Holcomb, the widow of +his father's bookkeeper, owned her own house in Shawnee Street. It was +not a boarding-house. The widow rented rooms to two of Mr. Grierson's +bank clerks, and she was looking for another desirable lodger. Quite +possibly she would be willing to board the extra lodger. Raymer, +himself, would go and see her about it. + +"It is an exceedingly kind-hearted community this home town of yours, +Mr. Raymer," was the convalescent's leave-taking, when he shook hands +with the ironmaster at the foot of the stairs; and that was the thought +which he took to bed with him after Raymer had gone to make his adieux +to the small person who, in Griswold's reckoning, owned the kindest of +the kind hearts. + + + + +XXI + +BROFFIN'S EQUATION + + +Having Clerk Maurice's telegram to time the overtaking approach, Broffin +found the _Belle Julie_ backing and filling for her berth at the +Vicksburg landing when, after a hasty Vicksburg breakfast, he had +himself driven to the river front. + +Going aboard as soon as the swing stage was lowered, he found Maurice, +with whom he had something more than a speaking acquaintance, just +turning out of his bunk in the texas. + +"I took it for granted you'd be along," was Maurice's greeting. "What +bank robber are we running away with now?" + +Broffin grinned. + +"I'm still after the one you took on in the place of John Gavitt." + +"Humph!" said the clerk, sleepily; "I thought that one _was_ John +Gavitt." + +"No; he merely took Gavitt's place and name. Tell me all you know about +him." + +"I don't know anything about him, except that he was fool enough to pull +Buck M'Grath out of the river just after M'Grath had tried to bump him +over the bows." + +This was a new little side-light on the characteristics of the man who +was wanted. Broffin pulled gently at the thread of narrative until he +had all the particulars of the humane mutiny and the near-tragedy in +which it had terminated. + +"Stuck to him and kept him from drowning till you could pick 'em up, did +he--what?" was his commentary on the story. "Then what happened?" + +"Oh, nothing much--or nothing very different. Of course, Mac favored the +fellow all he could, after that; gave him the light end of it when there +was any light end. But he didn't get his chance to even up right until +we got to St. Louis." + +Here, apparently, was another overlooked item in the list of things to +be considered, and Broffin grappled for it. + +"How was that?" he asked. + +"I don't know for a certainty. But I put it up that the fellow took Mac +into his confidence--a little--and told him he wanted to make a run for +it as soon as we hit the levee at St. Louis. He hadn't got his pay; we +always hold the 'rousties'' money back till we're unloaded, if we can; +so Mac advanced it, or claimed that he did." + +It was Broffin's business to put two and two together, and at this +conjuncture the process was sufficiently simple. With a hundred thousand +dollars in his possession, the make-believe deck-hand would not be +foolish enough to run even a hypothetical risk for the sake of saving +the bit of wage-money. Broffin's next query seemed wholly irrelevant. + +"Do you carry any nippers or handcuffs on the _Belle Julie_, Maurice?" +he asked. + +"Yes; I believe Mac has an odd pair or so in his dunnage; in fact, I +know he has. I've seen him use 'em on an obstreperous nigger." + +From the handcuffs Broffin went off at another tangent. + +"Of course, so far as you know, nobody on the boat suspected that the +fellow who called himself Gavitt was anything but the 'roustie' he was +passing himself off for? You didn't know of his having any talk with any +of the upper-deck people?" + +"Only once," said the day-clerk, promptly. + +"When was that?" + +"It was one day just after the 'man-overboard' incident, a little while +after dusk in the evening. I was up here in the texas, getting ready to +go to supper. Gavitt--we may as well keep on calling him that till +you've found another name for him--Gavitt had been cubbing for the +pilot. I saw him go across the hurricane-deck and down the companion to +the saloon-deck guards; and a minute later I heard him talking to +somebody--a woman--on the guards below." + +"You didn't hear what was said?" + +"I didn't pay any attention. Passengers, women passengers especially, +often do that--pull up a 'roustie' and pry into him to see what sort of +wheels he has. But I noticed that they talked for quite a little while; +because, when I finished dressing and went below, he was just leaving +her." + +Broffin rose up from the bunk on which he had been sitting and laid a +heavy hand on Maurice's shoulder. "You ain't going to tell me that you +didn't find out who the woman was, Clarence--what?" he said anxiously. + +"That's just what I've got to tell you, Matt," returned the clerk +reluctantly. "I was due at the second table, and I didn't go as far +forward as the stanchion she was holding on to. All I can tell you is +that she was one of the half-dozen or so younger women we had on board; +I could guess at that much." + +Broffin's oath was not of anger; it was a mere upbubbling of +disappointment. + +"Maurice, I've got to find that young woman if I have to chase her +half-way round the globe, and it's tough luck to figure out that if you +hadn't been in such a blazing hell of a hurry to get your supper that +night, I might be able to catch up with her in the next forty-eight +hours or so. But what's done is done, and can't be helped. Chase out and +get your passenger list for that trip. We'll take the women as they +come, and when you've helped me cull out the names of the ones you're +sure it wasn't, I'll screw my nut and quit buzzing at you." + +The clerk went below and returned almost immediately with the list. +Together they went over it carefully, and by dint of much +memory-wringing Maurice was able to give the detective leave to cancel +ten of the seventeen names in the women's list, the remaining seven +including all the might-have-beens who could possibly be fitted into +the clerk's recollection of the woman he had seen clinging to the +saloon-deck stanchion after her interview with the deck-hand. + +To these seven names were appended the addresses given in the steamer's +registry record, though as to these Maurice admitted that the patrons of +the boats were not always careful to comply with the regulation which +required the giving of the home address. + +"About as often as not they write down the name of the last place they +stopped at," he asserted; and Broffin swore again. + +"Which means that I may have to pound my ear eight or ten thousand miles +on the varnished cars for nothing," he growled. "Well, there ain't any +rest for the wicked, I reckon. Now tell me where I can find this man +Buck M'Grath, and I'll fade away." + +M'Grath was on duty, superintending the loading and unloading of the +Vicksburg freight quotas; but when Broffin tapped him on the shoulder +and showed his badge, the second mate was called in and M'Grath stood +aside with his unwelcome interrupter. + +There were difficulties from the outset. A man-driver himself, the chief +mate shared with the sheerest outcast in his crew a hearty hatred for +the man-catchers all and singular; and in the present instance his +sympathies were with the fugitive from justice, on general principles +first, and for good and sufficient personal reasons afterward. Then, +too, Broffin was hardly at his best. At the thought of what this man +M'Grath could tell him, and was gruffly refusing to tell him, he lost +his temper. + +"You're edgin' up pretty close to the law, yourself, by what you're +keeping back," he told the mate finally. "Sooner or later, I'm going to +run this gentleman-roustie of yours down, anyhow, and it'll be healthier +for you to help than to hinder. Do you know what he's wanted for?" + +M'Grath did not know, and his enlargement upon the simple negative was +explosively profane. + +"Then I'll tell you. He was the 'strong-arm' man that held up the +president of the Bayou State Security and made his get-away with a +hundred thousand. Now will you come across?" + +"No!" rasped the Irishman--and again there were embellishments. + +"All right. When I catch up with him, you'll fall in for your share in +the proceeds as an accessory after the fact. My men nabbed him on the +levee at St. Louis, and when he euchred them he carried away a pair of +handcuffs that somebody had to help him get shut of. He came back to the +boat, and you are the man who took the handcuffs off!" + +"'Tis a scrimshankin' lie, and ye can't prove ut!" said M'Grath. + +"Maybe not; but there's one thing I can prove. This side-partner of +yours didn't get his pay before he went ashore with the spring-line; +_but you drew it for him afterwards!_" + +M'Grath was cruelly cornered, but he still had the courage of his +gratitude. + +"Well, then, I did be taking the bracelets off av 'm. Now make the most +av ut, and be damned to you! Did I know what he'd been doing? I did not. +Do I know where he wint? I do not. Have I seen the naygur that skipped +with him, from that day to this? I have not; nor would I be knowing 'm +if I did see 'm. Anything else yez'd like to know? If there is, ye'll be +taking ut on the tip av my fisht!" And he went back to his work, oozing +profanity at every pore. + +Thrown back upon the one remaining expedient, Broffin went ashore and +became a student of railroad time-tables. Passing the incidents of the +stubborn chase in review after many days, he wondered that it had not +occurred to him to question Captain Mayfield. But that the captain would +know anything at all about any particular bit of human driftwood in the +ever-changing deck crew seemed easily incredible; and there was no good +angel of clairvoyance to tell him that the captain had once been made +the half-confidant of a distressed young woman who was anxious to be +both just and merciful. + +It was while he was waiting for the departure of the first northbound +train that he planned the search for the young woman, arranging the +names of the seven might-have-beens in the order of accessibility as +indicated by the addresses given in the _Belle Julie's_ register. In +this arrangement Miss Charlotte Farnham's name stood as Number Three; +the two names outranking hers being assigned respectively to Terre +Haute, Indiana, and Baldwin, Kansas. + +In his after-rememberings, Broffin swore softly under the drooping +mustaches when he recalled how, in that morning waiting at Vicksburg, he +had hesitated and changed his mind many times before deciding upon the +first three zigzags of the search. Terre Haute, Baldwin, and Wahaska lay +roughly at the three extremities of a great triangle whose sides, +measured in hours of railroad travel, were nearly equal. Failing at +Terre Haute, the nearest point, he could reach either of the two +remaining vertices of the triangle with fairly equal facility; and it +was surely an ironical fate that led him to decide finally upon the +Kansas town as the second choice. + +Some twenty-odd hours after leaving Vicksburg, Broffin the tireless +found himself in Terre Haute. Here failure had at least the comfort of +finality. The Miss Heffelfinger of his list, whom he found and +interviewed within an hour of his arrival, was a teacher of German whose +difficulties with the English language immediately eliminated her from +the diminishing equation. Broffin got away from the voluble little +Berliner as expeditiously as possible and hastened back to the railway +station. Kansas came next in his itinerary, and a westbound train was +due to leave in a few minutes. + +It was here again that fate mocked him. Arriving at the station, he +found that the westbound train was an hour late; also, that within the +hour there would be a fast train to the north, with good connections for +Wahaska. Once more he stumbled and fell into the valley of indecision. A +dozen times during the forty-five minutes of grace he was on the point +of changing his route; nay, more; at the last minute, when the caller +had announced the northern train, he took a gambler's chance and spun a +coin--heads for the north and tails for the west. The twirling +half-dollar slipped from his fingers and rolled under one of the +stationary seats in the waiting-room. Broffin got down on his hands and +knees to grope for it, and while he was groping the chance to take the +northbound "Limited" was lost. Moreover, when he finally found the coin +it was standing upright in a crack in the floor. + +Having now no alternative to distract him, he held to his original plan +and was soon speeding westward toward the Kansan experiment-station. For +two full days of twenty-four hours each he fought as only a determined +man and a good traveller could fight to cover a distance which should +have been traversed in something less than half of the time. Washouts, +blocked tracks, missed connections, all these got in the way; and it was +not until late in the afternoon of the third day out from Terre Haute +that he was set down at the small station which serves the needs of the +Kansas university town. + +Having had himself conveyed quickly to the university, which was given +as the address of the Miss Sanborn whose name stood second in his list, +he learned how shrewd a blow his implacable ill-luck had dealt him in +making him the victim of so many delays. Miss Sanborn, it appeared, had +been fitting herself at the denominational school to go out as a +missionary. And some twelve hours before his arrival she had started on +her long journey to the antipodes, going by way of San Francisco and the +Pacific Mail. + +Another man might have taken the more easily reached addresses in the +list, leaving the appalling world-tour for the last. But the doggedness +which had hitherto been Broffin's best bid for genius in his profession +asserted itself as a ruling passion. Twenty minutes after having been +given his body-blow by the dean of the theological school he had +examined some specimens of Miss Sanborn's handwriting, had compared them +with the unsigned letter, and was back at the little railroad station +burning the wires to Kansas City in an attempt to find out the exact +sailing date of the missionary's steamer from San Francisco. + +When the answer came he found that his margin of time was something of +the narrowest, but it was still a margin. By taking the first overland +train which could be reached and boarded, he might, barring more of the +ill-luck, arrive at San Francisco in time to overtake the young woman +whose handwriting was so like, and yet in some respects quite strikingly +unlike, that of the writer of the letter to Mr. Galbraith. + +Under such conditions the long journey to the Pacific Coast was begun, +continued, and, in due course of time, ended. As if it had exhausted +itself in the middle passage, ill-luck held aloof, and Broffin's +overland train was promptly on time when it rolled into its terminal at +Oakland. An hour later he had crossed the bay and was in communication +with the steamship people. Though it was within a few hours of the China +steamer's sailing date, Miss Sanborn had not yet made her appearance, +and once more, though the subject this time was wholly innocent, Broffin +swore fluently. + +Notwithstanding, after all these intermediate buffetings, it was only +the ultimate disappointment which was reserved for the man who had come +two thousand miles out of his way for a five-minute talk with a young +woman. Almost at the last moment he found her, and in the same moment +was made to realize that the similarity in handwriting was only a +similarity. Miss Sanborn had been a passenger on the _Belle Julie_, +boarding the steamboat at New Orleans and debarking at St. Louis. But +she had known nothing of the Bayou State Security robbery until she had +read of it in the newspapers; and one glance into the steadfast blue +eyes that met his without flinching convinced Broffin that once more he +had fired and missed. + +Number Two in the list of seven being thus laboriously eliminated, +Broffin, to be utterly consistent, should have boarded the first train +for Minnesota. But inasmuch as three of the remaining five addresses +were west of the Missouri River, he sacrificed consistency to +common-sense, halting at a little town in the Colorado mountains, again +at Pueblo, and a third time at Hastings, Nebraska only to find at each +stopping-place that the ultimate disappointment had preceded and was +waiting for him. + +With his list cancelled down to two names, he resumed the eastward +flight from the Nebraska town and was again beset by the devil of +indecision. The two place-names remaining were Wahaska and a small +coal-mining town in southern Iowa. Measuring again by railroad hours, he +found that the Iowa town was the nearer; but, on the other hand, there +were good connections from Omaha to Wahaska, and a rather poor one to +the coal mines. Once more Broffin took the gambler's chance, spinning +the coin in his hat, heads for Iowa and tails for Minnesota. It came +heads; and the following day recorded the sixth in the string of +failures. + +Leaving What Cheer in the caboose of a coal train, with only the train's +crew for company, and a hard bench for a bed, the man-hunter was already +thrilling to the exultant view-halloo in the chase. By the light of the +flickering caboose lamp he drew his pencil through the Iowa failure. The +one uncancelled name was now something more than a chance; it was a +certainty. + +"I've got you for fair, girlie, this time!" he triumphed, and since he +did it audibly, the coal-train conductor laughed and wanted to be told +the color of her eyes and hair. + +"Got 'em pretty bad, ain't you, pardner?" he commented, when Broffin, +loose-tongued in his elation, confessed that he was chasing a woman whom +he had never seen. "I know how it goes: seen a picture of one once on a +bill-board, and I'd 'a' gone plum to Californy after her if I hadn't +been too danged busy to take a lay-off." + +Landing in Wahaska the next evening, Broffin's first request at the +hotel counter was for the directory. Running an eager finger down the +"F's" he came to the name. It was the only Farnham in the list, and +after it he read: "Dr. Herbert C., office 8 to 10, 2 to 4, 201 Main St., +res. 16 Lake Boulevard." + +Broffin had a traveller's appetite, and the café doors were invitingly +open. Yet he denied himself until the clerk, busy at the moment with +other guests, should be at liberty. + +"I see there's a Doctor Farnham here," he said, when his time came. "I +was wondering if he was the man I met up with down in New Orleans last +winter." + +The clerk shook his head. + +"I guess not. Doctor Bertie hasn't taken a vacation since the oldest +inhabitant can remember." + +"H'm; that's funny," mused the detective, as one nonplussed. "The name's +just as familiar as an old song. Is your Doctor Farnham a sort of oldish +man?" + +"He's elderly, yes; old enough to have a grown daughter." Then the clerk +laughed. "Perhaps you've got things tangled. Perhaps you 'met up' with +Miss Charlotte. She was down on the Gulf Coast last winter." + +"Not me," said Broffin, matching the ice-breaking laugh. And then he +registered for a room and passed on into the café, deferring to the +appetite which, for the first time in nearly four tedious weeks, he felt +justified in indulging to the untroubled limit. + +Having, by the slow but sure process of elimination, finally reduced his +equation to its lowest terms, Broffin put the past four weeks and their +failures behind him, and prepared to draw the net which he hoped would +entangle the lost identity of the bank robber. After a good night's +sleep in a real bed, he awoke refreshed and alert, breakfasted with an +open mind, and presently went about the net-drawing methodically and +with every contingency carefully provided for. + +The first step was to assure himself beyond question that Miss Farnham +was the writer of the unsigned letter. This step he was able, by a piece +of great good fortune, to take almost immediately. A bit of morning +gossip with the obliging clerk of the Winnebago House developed the fact +that Dr. Farnham's daughter had once taught in the free kindergarten +which was one of the charitable out-reachings of the Wahaska Public +Library. Two blocks east and one south: Broffin walked them promptly, +made himself known to the librarian as a visitor interested in +kindergarten work, and was cheerfully shown the records. When he turned +to the pages signed "Charlotte Farnham" the last doubt vanished and +assurance was made sure. The anonymous letter writer was found. + +It was just here that Matthew Broffin fell under the limitations of his +trade. Though the detective in real life is as little as may be like the +Inspector Buckets and the Javerts of fiction, certain characteristics +persist. Broffin thought he knew the worth of boldness; where it was a +mere matter of snapping the handcuffs upon some desperate criminal, the +boldness was not wanting. But now, when he found himself face to face +with the straightforward expedient, the craft limitations bound him. +Instantly he thought of a dozen good reasons why he should make haste +slowly; and he recognized in none of them the craftsman's slant toward +indirection--the tradition of the trade which discounts the +straightforward attack and puts a premium upon the methods of the +deer-stalker. + +Sooner or later, of course, the attack must be made. But only an +apprentice, he told himself, would be foolish enough to make it without +mapping out all the hazards of the ground over which it must be made. In +a word, he must "place" Miss Farnham precisely; make a careful study of +the young woman and her environment, to the end that every thread of +advantage should be in his hands when he should finally force her to a +confession. For by now the assumption that she knew the mysterious bank +robber was no longer hypothetical in Broffin's mind: it had grown to +the dimensions of a conviction. + +Wahaska was not difficult of approach on its gossiping side. Though it +owned a charter and called itself a city, it was still in the +country-town stage which favors a wide distribution of news with the +personal note emphasized. Broffin, conveying the impression that he was +a Louisiana lumberman on a vacation, approved himself as a good +listener, and little more was needed. In a week he had traced the social +outlines of the town as one finds the accent of a painting; in a +fortnight he had grouped the Griersons, the Raymers, the Oswalds, the +Barrs, and the Farnhams in their various interrelations, business and +otherwise. + +With the patient curiosity of his tribe he suffered no detail, however +trivial, to escape its jotting down. To familiarize himself with the +goings and comings of one young woman, he made the acquaintance of an +entire town. He knew Jasper Grierson's ambition, and its fruitage in the +practical ownership of Wahaska. He knew that Edward Raymer had borrowed +money from Grierson's bank--and was likely to be unable to pay it when +his notes fell due. He had heard it whispered that there had once been a +love affair between young Raymer and Miss Farnham, and that it had been +broken off by Raymer's infatuation for Margery Grierson. Also, last and +least important of all the gossiping details, as it seemed at the time, +he learned that the bewitching Miss Grierson was a creature of fads; +that within the past month or two she had returned from a Florida trip, +bringing with her a sick man, a total stranger, who had been picked up +on the train, taken to the great house on the lake shore and nursed back +to life as Miss Grierson's latest defiance of the conventions. + +It should have been a memorable day for Matthew Broffin when he had this +sick man pointed out to him as Miss Grierson's companion in the high +trap--which was also one of Miss Margery's bids for criticism in a town +where the family carryall was still a feature. But Broffin was +sufficiently human to see only a very beautiful young woman sitting +correctly erect on the slanting driving-seat and holding the reins over +a high-stepping horse which, he was told, had cost Jasper Grierson every +cent of a thousand dollars. To be sure, he saw the man, as one sees a +vanishing figure in a kaleidoscope. But there was nothing in the +clean-shaven face of the gaunt, and as yet rather haggard, convalescent +to evoke the faintest thrill of interest--or of memory. + + + + +XXII + +IN THE BURGLAR-PROOF + + +A week and a day after the opening of new vistas at Miss Grierson's +"evening," Griswold--Raymer's intercession with the Widow Holcomb having +paved the way--took a favorable opportunity of announcing his intention +of leaving Mereside. It figured as a grateful disappointment to him--one +of the many she was constantly giving him--that Margery placed no +obstacles in the way of the intention. On the contrary, she approved the +plan. + +"I know how you feel," she said, nodding complete comprehension. "You +want to have a place that you can call your own; a place where you can +go and come as you please and settle down to work. You _are_ going to +work, aren't you?--on the book, I mean?" + +Griswold replaced in its proper niche the volume he had been reading. It +was Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, and he had been wondering by what +ironical chance it had found a place in the banker's library. + +"Yes; that is what I mean to do," he returned. "But it will have to be +done in such scraps and parings of time as I can save from some +bread-and-butter occupation. One must eat to live, you know." + +She was sitting on the arm of one of the big library lounging-chairs and +looking up at him with a smile that was suspiciously innocent and +childlike. + +"You mean that you will have to work for your living?" she asked. + +"Exactly." + +"What were you thinking of doing?" + +"I don't know," he confessed. "I have been hoping that Raymer might help +me to find a place; possibly in the machine works as an under +bookkeeper, or something of that sort. Not that I know very much about +any really useful occupation, when it comes to that; but I suppose I can +learn." + +Again he surprised the lurking smile in the velvety eyes, but this time +it was half-mischievous. + +"We have a college here in Wahaska, and you might get a place on the +faculty," she suggested; adding: "As an instructor in philosophy, for +example." + +"Philosophy? that is the one thing in the world that I know least +about." + +"In theory, perhaps," she conceded, laughing openly at him now. "But in +practice you are perfect, Mr. Griswold. Hasn't anybody ever told you +that before?" + +"No; and you don't mean it. You are merely taking a base advantage of a +sick man and making fun of me. I don't mind: I'm in a heavenly temper +this afternoon." + +"Oh, but I do mean it, honestly," she averred. "You are a philosopher, +really and truly, and I can prove it. Do you feel equal to another +little drive down-town?" + +"Being a philosopher, I ought to be equal to anything," he postulated; +and he went up-stairs to get a street coat and his hat. + +She had disappeared when he came down again, and he went out to sit on +the sun-warmed veranda while he waited. He had already forgotten what +she had said about the object of the drive--the proving of the +philosophic charge against him--and was looking forward with keenly +pleasurable anticipations to another outing with her, the second for +that day. It had come to this, now; to admitting frankly the charm which +he was still calling sensuous, and which, in the moments of insight +recurring, as often as they can be borne, to the imaginative, and +vouchsafed now and then even to the wayfaring, he was still disposed to +characterize as an appeal to that which was least worthy in him. + +Latterly, however, he had begun to question himself more acutely as to +the exact justice of this attitude; and while he was sunning himself on +the veranda and listening for the hoof-beats of the big trap horse on +the stable approach, he was doing it again. In those graver analytical +moments he had called Margery a preternaturally clever little barbarian, +setting his own immense obligation to her aside in deference to what he +assumed to be the immutable realities. In the sun-warming excursion came +another of those precious moments of insight; a moment in which he was +given a sobering glimpse of the deathless Philistine within. Who was he +to be setting his machine-made ideals above the living, breathing, human +fact whose very limitations and shortcomings might figure as angelic +virtues when weighed in any balance save that of the Philistinic ego? + +To admit the query was to admit a doubtful distrust of all the charted +anchorages; those sure holding-grounds which he had once believed to be +the very bottoming of facts assured and incontestible. From his lounging +seat the trees on the lawn framed a noble vista of lakescape and +crescent-curved beach drive, the latter with its water-facing row of +modest mansions, the homes of Wahaska's well-to-do elect. At the end of +the crescent he could see the chimneys of the Raymer house rising above +a groving of young maples; and nearer at hand the substantial, +two-storied frame house which Miss Grierson had pointed out to him as +the home of the kindly Doctor Bertie. When he found himself drifting, +his thoughts reverted automatically to Charlotte Farnham. There, if +anywhere, lay the touchstone of truth and the verities; there, he told +himself, was at least one life into which the doubtful distrust of the +anchorages had never come. + +Passing easily from Miss Farnham the ideal to Miss Farnham the +flesh-and-blood reality, he was moved to wonder mildly why the fate +which had brought him twice into critically intimate relations with her +was now denying him even a chance meeting. For a week or more he had +been going out daily; sometimes with Miss Grierson in the trap, but +oftener afoot and alone. The walking excursions had led him most +frequently up and down the lakeside drive, but the doctor's house stood +well back in its enclosure, and there was much shrubbery. Once he had +heard her voice: she was reading aloud to some one on the vine-screened +porch. And once again in passing, he had caught a glimpse of a shapely +arm with the loose sleeve falling away from it as it was thrust upward +through the porch greenery to pluck a bud from the crimson rambler +adding its graceful mass to the clambering vines. It was rather +disappointing, but he was not impatient. In the fulness of time the +destiny which had twice intervened would intervene again. He was as +certain of it as he was of the day-to-day renewal of his strength and +vitality; and he could afford to wait. For, whatever else might happen +in a mutable world, neither an ideal nor its embodiment may suffer +change. + +As if to add the touch of definitiveness to the presumptive conclusion, +a voice broke in upon his revery; the voice of the young woman whose +most alluring charm was her many-sided changefulness. + +"What? no trap yet? Thorsen is outliving his usefulness; he is getting +slower and pokier every added day he lives!" the voice was saying, with +a faintly acid quality in it that Griswold had seldom heard. Then, as if +she had marked his preoccupied gaze and divined its object: "You must +have a little more patience, Mr. Griswold. All things come to him who +waits. When you have left Mereside finally, Doctor Bertie will some time +take you home to dinner with him." + +For his own peace of mind, Griswold hastily assured himself that it was +only the wildest of chance shots. Since the day when he had admitted +that he knew Miss Farnham's name without knowing Miss Farnham in person, +the doctor's daughter had never been mentioned between them. + +"How did you happen to guess that I was thinking of the good doctor?" he +asked, curiously. + +"You were not thinking of Doctor Bertie; you were thinking of Doctor +Bertie's 'only'," was the laughing contradiction; and Griswold was glad +that the coming of the man with the trap saved him from the necessity of +falling any farther into what might easily prove to be a dangerous +pitfall. Later on, while he was mechanically lifting his hat in +recognition of the many salutations acknowledged by his companion in +their triumphal progress down Main Street, he was still thankful and +still puzzling over the almost uncanny coincidence. It was not the first +time that Miss Grierson had seemed able to read his inmost thoughts. + +The short afternoon drive paused at the curb in front of Jasper +Grierson's bank, and, as on former occasions, Margery lightly scorned +the convalescent's up-stretched arms and sprang unhelped to the +pavement. But now her mood was sweetly indulgent and she softened the +refusal. "By and by, after you are quite well and strong again," she +said; and when a horse-holding boy had been found, she led the way into +the bank. + +It was Griswold's first visit to the Farmers' and Merchants', and while +his companion was speaking to the cashier he was absently contrasting +its rather showy interior with the severe plainness of the Bayou State +Security; contrasting, and congratulating himself upon the gift of the +artistic memory which enabled him to recall with vivid accuracy all the +little details of the New Orleans banking house--this notwithstanding +the good excuse the observing eye might have had for wandering. + +A moment later he found himself bringing up the rear of a procession of +three, led by a young woman with a bunch of keys at her girdle. The +procession halted for the opening of a massive gate in the steel grille +at the rear of the public lobby; after which, with the gate latching +itself automatically behind him, Griswold found himself in the grated +corridor facing the safety deposit vaults. + +"Number three-forty-five-A, please," his companion was saying to the +young woman custodian, and he stood aside and admired the workmanship of +the complicated time-locks while the two entered the electric-lighted +vault and jointly opened one of the multitude of small safes. When Miss +Grierson came out, she was carrying a small, japanned document box under +her arm, and her eyes were shining with a soft light that was new to the +man who was waiting in the corridor. "Come with me to one of the +coupon-rooms," she said; and then to the custodian: "You needn't stay; +I'll ring when we want to be let out." + +Griswold followed in mild bewilderment when she turned aside to one of +the little mahogany-lined cells set apart for the use of the +safe-holders, saw her press the button which switched the lights on, and +mechanically obeyed her signal to close the door. When their complete +privacy was assured, she put the japanned box on the tiny table and +motioned him to one of the two chairs. + +"Do you know why I have brought you here?" she asked, when he was +sitting within arm's-reach of the small black box. + +"How should I?" he said. "You take me where you please, and when you +please, and I ask no questions. I am too well contented to be with you +to care very much about the whys and wherefores." + +"Oh, how nicely you say it!" she commended, with the frank little laugh +which he had come to know and to seek to provoke. She was standing +against the opposite cell wall with her shoulders squared and her hands +behind her: the pose, whether intentional or natural, was dramatically +perfect and altogether bewitching. "I was born to be your fairy +godmother, I think," she went on joyously. "Tell me; when you bought +your ticket to Wahaska that night in St. Louis, were you meaning to come +here to find work?--the bread-and-butter work?" + +"No," he admitted; "I had money, then." + +"What became of it?" + +"I don't know. I suppose it was stolen from me on the train. It was in +a package in one of my suit-cases; and Doctor Farnham said----" + +"I know; he told you that we had searched your suit-cases when you were +at your worst--thinking we owed it to you and your friends, if you had +any." + +"Yes; that is what he told me." + +"Also, he told you that we didn't find any money?" + +"Yes; he told me that, too. We agreed that somebody must have gone +through the grips on the train." + +"And you let it go at that? Why didn't you tell me, so that we might at +least try to find the thief?" + +He had quite lost sight of the black box on the table by this time, and +was consumed with curiosity to know why she had brought him to such a +place to reproach him for his lack of confidence. + +"How often are we able to tell the exact 'why' of anything?" he answered +evasively. "Perhaps I didn't wish to trouble you--you who had already +troubled yourself so generously in behalf of an unknown castaway." + +"So you just let the money go?" + +"So I just let it go." + +She was laughing again and the bedazzling eyes were dancing with +delight. + +"I told you I was going to prove that you are a philosopher!" she +exulted. "Sour old Diogenes himself couldn't have been more superbly +indifferent to the goods the gods provide. Open that box on the table, +please." + +He did it half-absently: at the first sight of the brown-paper packet +within, the electric bulb suspended over the table seemed to grow black +and the mahogany walls of the tiny room to spin dizzily. Then, with a +click that he fancied he could hear, the buzzing mental machinery +stopped and reversed itself. A cold sweat, clammy and sickening, started +out on him when he realized that the reversal had made him once again +the crafty, cornered criminal, ready to fight or fly--or to slay, if a +life stood in the way of escape. Without knowing what he did, he closed +the box and got upon his feet, eying her with a growing ferocity that he +could neither banish nor control. + +"I see: you were a little beforehand with the doctor," he said, and he +strove to say it naturally; to keep the malignant devil that was +whispering in his ear from dictating the tone as well as the words. + +"I was, indeed; several days beforehand," she boasted, still joyously +exultant. + +"You--you opened the package?" he went on, once more pushing the +importunate devil aside. + +"Naturally. How else would I have known that it was worth locking up?" + +Her coolness astounded him. If she knew the whole truth--and the demon +at his ear was assuring him that she must know it--she must also know +that she was confronting a great peril; the peril of one who voluntarily +shuts himself into a trap with the fear-maddened wild thing for which +the trap was baited and set. He was steadying himself with a hand on the +table when he said: "Well, you opened the package; what did you find +out?" + +"What did I find out?" He heard her half-hesitant repetition of his +query, and for one flitting instant he made sure that he saw the fear of +death in the wide-open eyes that were lifted to his. But the next +instant the eyes were laughing at him, and she was going on confidently. +"Of course, as soon as I untied the string I saw it was money--a lot of +money; and you can imagine that I tied it up again, quickly, and didn't +lose any more time than I could help in putting it away in the safest +place I could think of. Every day since you began to get well, I've been +expecting you to say something about it; but as long as you wouldn't, I +wouldn't." + +Slowly the blood came back into the saner channels, and the whispering +demon at his ear grew less articulate. Was she telling the truth? Could +it be possible that she had not opened the packet far enough to see and +read the damning evidence of the printed bank-slips which, in a very +bravado of carelessness, as he now remembered, he had neglected to +remove and destroy? He was searching the dark eyes for the naked soul +behind them when he ventured again. + +"You--you and your father--must have thought it very singular that a +sick man should be knocking about the country with so much money carried +carelessly in a suit-case?" + +"My father knows nothing about it; nor does any one else. And it wasn't +my place to gossip or to wonder. I found it, and I took care of it for +you. Are you glad, or sorry?" + +He took the necessary forward step and stood before her. And his answer +was no answer at all. + +"Miss Grierson--Margery--are you telling me the truth?--all of it?" he +demanded, seeking once again to pinion the soul which lay beyond the +deepest depth of the limpid eyes. + +Her laugh was as cheerful as a bird song. + +"Telling you the truth? How could you suspect me of such a thing! No, my +good friend; no woman ever tells a man the whole truth when she can help +it. I didn't find your money, and I didn't lock it up in poppa's vault: +I am merely playing a part in a deep and diabolical plot to----" + +Griswold forgot that he was her poor beneficiary; forgot that she had +taken him in as her guest; forgot, in the mad joy of the reactionary +moment, everything that he should have remembered--saw nothing, thought +of nothing save the flushed face with its glorious eyes and tempting +lips: the eyes and lips of the daughter of men. + +She broke away from him hotly after he had taken the flushed face +between his hands and kissed her; broke away to drop into the chair at +the other side of the table, hiding the flashing eyes and the burning +cheeks and the quivering lips in the crook of a round arm which made +room for itself on the narrow table by pushing the japanned money-box +off the opposite edge. + +It was the normal Griswold who picked up the box and put it in the other +chair, gravely and methodically. Then he stood before her again with +his back to the wall, waiting for what every gentle drop of blood in his +veins was telling him he richly deserved. His punishment was long in +coming; so long that when he made sure she was crying, he began to +invite it. + +"Say it," he suggested gently, "you needn't spare me at all. The only +excuse I could offer would only make the offence still greater." + +She looked up quickly and the dark eyes were swimming. But whether the +tears were of anger or only of outraged generosity, he could not tell. + +"Then there was an excuse?" she flashed up at him. + +"No," he denied, as one who finds the second thought the worthier; +"there was no excuse." + +She had found a filmy bit of lace-bordered linen at her belt and was +furtively wiping her lips with it. + +"I thought perhaps you might be able to--to invent one of some sort," +she said, and her tone was as colorless as the gray skies of an autumn +nightfall. And then, with a childlike appeal in the wonderful eyes: "I +think you will have to help me a little--out of your broader experience, +you know. What ought I to do?" + +His reply came hot from the refining-fire of self-abasement. + +"You should write me down as one who wasn't worthy of your +loving-kindness and compassion, Miss Grierson. Then you should call the +custodian and turn me out." + +"But afterward," she persisted pathetically. "There must be an +afterward?" + +"I am leaving Mereside this evening," he reminded her. "It will be for +you to say whether its doors shall ever open to me again." + +She took the thin safety-deposit key from her glove and laid it on the +table. + +"You have made me wish there hadn't been any money," she lamented, with +a sorrowful little catch in her voice that stabbed him like a knife. "I +haven't so many friends that I can afford to lose them recklessly, Mr. +Griswold." + +"Damn the money!" he exploded; and the malediction came out of a full +heart. + +"If you would only say you are sorry," she went on sadly, groping only +half-purposefully for the bell-push which would summon the custodian. +"You are sorry, aren't you?" + +Unconsciously he had taken her former pose, with his back to the wall +and his hands behind him. + +"I ought to be decent enough to lie to you and say that I am," he +returned, hardily. "I know you can't understand; you are too good and +innocent to understand. I'm ashamed; that is, the civilized part of me +is ashamed; but that is all. Knowing that he ought to be in the dust at +your feet, the brutal other-man is unrepentant and riotously jubilant +because, for a brief second or two, he was able to break away and----" + +Her fingers had found the bell-push and were pressing it. When the +custodian opened the door, Miss Grierson was her poiseful self again. + +"Number three-forty-five-A is Mr. Kenneth Griswold's box, now," she +announced briefly. "Please register it in his name, and then help him to +put it away and lock it up." + +Griswold went through the motions with the key-bearing young woman +half-absently. By this time he was fathoms deep in the reactionary +undertow. Must the recovered treasure always transform itself into a +millstone to drag him down into some new and untried depth of +degradation? Thrice he had given it up for lost, and in each instance +its reappearance had been the signal for a relapse into primitive +barbarism, for a plunge into the moral under-depths out of which he had +each time emerged distinctively and definitely the loser. Was it to be +always thus? Could it be even remotely possible that in a candidly +material world there could still be standing-room for the myths and +portents and superstitious traditions? + +He was trying to persuade himself that there could not be standing-room +when he rejoined Margery--herself the best imaginable refutation of the +old-wives' tales--at the gate in the great steel grille. Man-like, he +was ready to be forgiven and comforted; and there was at least oblivion +in her charming little shudder as the custodian shot the bolts of the +gate to let them out. + +"_Br-r-r!_" she shivered, "I can never stand here and look at the free +people out there without fancying myself in a prison. It must be a +dreadful thing to be shut away behind bolts and bars, forgotten by +everybody, and yet yourself unable to forget. Do you ever have such +foolish thoughts, Mr. Griswold?" + +For one poignant second fear leaped alive again and he called himself no +better than a lost man. But the eyes that were lifted to his were the +eyes of a questioning child, so guilelessly innocent that he immediately +suffered another relapse into the pit of self-despisings. + +"You have made me your poor prisoner, Miss Grierson," he said, speaking +to his own thought rather than to her question. And when they reached +the sidewalk and the trap: "May I bid you good-by here and go to my own +place?" + +"Of course not!" she protested. "Mr. Raymer is coming to dinner to-night +and he will drive you over to Mrs. Holcomb's afterward, if you really +think you must go." + +And for the first time in their comings and goings she let him lift her +to the high driving-seat. + + + + +XXIII + +CONVERGING ROADS + + +Matthew Broffin had been two weeks and half of a third an unobtrusive +spy upon the collective activities of the Wahaskan social group which +included the Farnhams before he decided that nothing more could be +gained by further delay. + +By this time he knew all there was to be known about Miss Farnham; the +houses she visited, the somewhat limited circle of her intimates and the +vastly wider one of her acquaintances, her comings and goings in the +town, her preference for church dissipations over the other sort, and +for croquet over lawn tennis. + +Also, he had a more minute knowledge which would have terrified her if +she had suspected that any strange man was keeping an accurately +tabulated note-book record of her waking employments. He knew at what +hour she breakfasted, what time in the forenoons she spent upon her +Chautauqua readings, how much of her day was given to the care of her +invalid aunt, and, most important item of all, how, in the afternoons, +when her father was at his town office and the invalid was taking a nap +in her room, Miss Charlotte was usually alone in the living-rooms of +the two-storied house in Lake Boulevard: practically so for four days +out of the seven; actually so on Wednesdays and Fridays when Hilda +Larsen, the Swedish maid of all work, had her afternoons off. + +Having his own private superstition about Friday, Broffin chose a +Wednesday afternoon for his call at the house on the lake front. It was +a resplendent day of the early summer which, in the Minnesota latitudes, +springs, Minerva-like, full-grown from the nodding head of the wintry +Jove of the north. In the doctor's front yard the grass was vividly +green, gladioli and jonquils bordered the path with a bravery of color, +and the buds of the clambering rose on the porch trellis were swelling +to burst their calyxes. + +Broffin turned in from the sidewalk and closed the gate noiselessly +behind him. If he saw the bravery of colors in the path borders it was +only with the outward eye. There was a faint stir on the porch, as of +some one parting the leafy screen to look out, but he neither quickened +his pace nor slowed it. While he had been three doors away in the +lake-fronting street, a small pocket binocular had assured him that the +young woman he was going to call upon was sitting in a porch rocker +behind the clambering rose, reading a book. + +She had risen to meet him by the time he had mounted the steps, and he +knew that her first glance was appraisive. He had confidently counted +upon being mistaken for a strange patient in search of the doctor, and +he was not disappointed. + +"You are looking for Doctor Farnham?" she began. "He is at his +office--201 Main Street." + +Broffin was digging in his pocket for a card. It was not often that he +was constrained to introduce himself formally, and for an awkward second +or two the search was unrewarded. When he finally found the bit of +pasteboard he was explaining verbally. + +"I know well enough where your father's office is, but you are the one I +wanted to see," he said; and he gave her the round-cornered card with +its blazonment of his name and employment. + +He was watching her narrowly when she read the name and its underline, +and the quick indrawing of the breath and the little shudder that went +with it were not thrown away upon him. But the other signs; the pressing +of the even teeth upon the lower lip and the coming and going of three +straight lines between the half-closed eyes were not so favorable. + +"Will you come into the house, Mr.----" she had to look at the card +again to get the name--"Mr. Broffin?" she asked. + +"Thank you, Miss; it's plenty good enough out here for me if it is for +you," he returned, beginning to fear that the common civilities were +giving her time to get behind her defences. + +She made way for him on the porch and pointed to a chair, which he took, +damning himself morosely when he caught his foot in the porch rug and +knocked the book from its resting-place on the railing. + +"It is no matter," she said, when he would have gone outside to recover +the book; but he knew from that moment that whatever advantage a fair +beginning may give was gone beyond recall. + +"I guess we can take it for granted that you know what I want, Miss +Farnham," he began abruptly, when he had shifted his chair to face her +rocker. "Something like three months ago, or thereabouts, you went into +a bank in New Orleans to get a draft cashed. While you were at the +paying teller's window a robbery was committed, and you saw it done and +saw the man that did it. I've come to get you to tell me the man's +name." + +If he had thought to carry the defences by direct assault he was quickly +made to realize that it could not be done. Miss Farnham's +self-possession was quietly convincing when she said: + +"I have told it once, in a letter to Mr. Galbraith." + +Broffin nodded. "Yes; in a letter that you didn't sign: we'll come to +that a little later. The name you gave was John Wesley Gavitt, and you +knew that wasn't his right name, didn't you?" + +She made the sign of assent without thinking that it might imply the +knowing of more. + +"It was the name under which he was enrolled in the _Belle Julie's_ +crew, and it was sufficient to identify him," she countered; adding: "It +did identify him. The officers found him and arrested him at St. Louis." + +"Yes; and he made his get-away in about fifteen minutes after they had +nabbed him, as you probably read in the papers the next morning. He's +loose yet, and most naturally he ain't signing his name 'Gavitt' any +more whatever. I've come all the way from New Orleans, and a whole heap +farther, to get you to tell me his real name, Miss Farnham." + +"Why do you think I can tell you?" was the undisturbed query. + +"A lot of little things," said the detective, who was slowly coming to +his own in the matter of self-assurance. "In the first place, he spoke +to you in the bank, and you answered him. Isn't that so?" + +She nodded, but the firm lips remained closed where the lips of another +woman might have opened to repeat what had been said at the teller's +wicket. + +"Then, afterwards, on the boat, before you sent the letter, you talked +with him. It was one evening, just at dusk, on the starboard promenade +of the saloon-deck: he was comin' down from the pilot-house and you +stopped him. That was when he told you what his name was on the +steamboat's books, wasn't it?--what?" + +She nodded again. "You know so much, it is surprising that you don't +know it all, Mr. Broffin," she commented, with gentle sarcasm. + +"The one thing I don't know is the thing you're goin' to tell me--his +real name," he insisted. "That's what I've come here for." + +In spite of her inexperience, which, in Mr. Broffin's field, was no less +than total, Charlotte Farnham had imagination, and with it a womanly +zest for the matching of wits with a man whose chief occupation was the +measuring of his own wit against the subtle cleverness of criminals. +Therefore she accepted the challenge. + +"I did my whole duty at the time, Mr. Broffin," she demurred, with a +touch of coldness in her voice. "If you were careless enough to let him +escape you at St. Louis, you shouldn't come to me. I might say very +justly that it was never any affair of mine." + +Matthew Broffin's gifts were subtle only in his dealings with other men; +but he was shrewd enough to know that his last and best chance with a +woman lay in an appeal to her fears. + +"I don't know what made you write this letter, in the first place," he +said, taking the well-thumbed paper from his coat pocket; "but I know +well enough now why you didn't sign it, and why you didn't put the man's +real name in it. You--you and him--fixed it up between you so that you +could say to yourself afterwards what you've just said to me--that you'd +done your duty. But you haven't finished doin' your duty, yet. The law +says----" + +"I know very well what the law says," was her baffling rejoinder; "I +have taken the trouble to find out since I came home. I am not hiding +your criminal." + +Broffin was trying to gain a little ease by tilting his chair. But the +house wall was too close behind him. + +"People will say that you are helpin' to hide him as long as you won't +tell his real name--what?" he grated. + +"You still think I could tell you that, if I chose?" she said, wilfully +misleading him, or at least allowing him to mislead himself. + +"I don't think anything about it: I _know_! You'd met him somewhere +before that day in the bank--before you knew he was goin' to turn +gentleman hold-up. That's why you don't want to give up his real name." + +She had risen in answer to the distant chatter of an electric bell, and +in self-defence, Broffin had to grope on the floor for his hat and stand +up, too. + +"I think my aunt is calling and I shall have to go in," she said, calmly +dismissing him. "You'll excuse me, I am sure, Mr. Broffin." + +"In just one second, Miss Farnham. Ain't you goin' to tell me that +fellow's name?" + +"No." + +"Wait a minute. I'm an officer of the law, and I could arrest you and +take you to New Orleans on what evidence I've got. How about +that?--what?" + +There was good fighting blood on the Farnham side, notwithstanding the +kindly Doctor Bertie's peaceful avocation, and the calm gray eyes that +met Broffin's were militantly angry when the retort came. + +"If I had a brother, Mr. Broffin, he would be able to answer you better +than I can!" she flamed out. "Let me pass, please!" + +It was not often that Broffin lost his head or his temper, but both were +gone when he struck back. + +"That'll be all right, too!" he broke out harshly, blocking the way to +force her to listen to him. "You think you've bluffed me, don't +you?--what? Let me tell you: some fine day this duck whose name isn't +Gavitt will turn up here--to see you; then I'll nab him. If you find out +where he is, and write to him not to come, it'll be all the same; he'll +come anyway, and when he does come, I'll get him!" + +When Miss Farnham had gone in and there was nothing left for him to do +but to compass his own disappearance, Broffin went away, telling himself +with many embellishments that for once in his professional career he had +made an ass of himself. He had made a sorry botch of a measurably simple +detail, to say nothing of letting his temper push him into the final +foolish boast which might easily defeat him. + +None the less, he was able to set some few gains over against the one +critical loss--if one may be said to lose what he has never had. Failing +to learn the true name and place of the Bayou State Security robber, he +told himself that he had established beyond question the correctness of +his hypothesis. The doctor's daughter knew the man; she had known him +before the robbery; she was willing to be his accomplice to the extent +of her ability. There was only one explanation of this attitude. In +Broffin's wording of it, Miss Farnham was "gone on him," if not openly, +at least to such an extent as to make her anxious to shield him. + +That being the case, Broffin set it down as a fact as good as +accomplished that the man would sooner or later come to Wahaska. The +detective's knowledge of masculine human nature was as profoundly acute +as the requirements of his calling demanded. With a woman like Miss +Farnham for the lure, he could be morally certain that his man would +some time fling caution, or even a written prohibition, to the winds, +and walk into the trap. + +This misfire of Broffin's happened upon a Wednesday, which, in its +calendar placing, chanced to be three weeks to a day after Griswold had +left Mereside to settle himself studiously in two quiet upper rooms in +the Widow Holcomb's house in upper Shawnee Street. + +That it was also a day of other coincidences will appear in the casting +up of the items on the page of events. + +For one thing, it marked the formal opening of the De Soto Inn for the +summer season; the De Soto being the resort hotel spoken of by the clerk +of the Hotel Chouteau in the little ante-dinner talk which had given +Griswold his first outline sketch of Wahaska. For another, the special +train from the far South arriving at noon and bearing the first +detachment of the Inn's guests, had for one of its Pullman passengers an +elderly gentleman with a strongly marked Scottish face; a gentleman with +the bushy white eyebrows of age, the long upper lip of caution, the +drooping eyelid of irascibility, and the bearing of a man of routine; in +other words, Mr. Andrew Galbraith, faring northward on his customary +summer vacation, which--the fates intervening--he had this time +determined to spend at the Wahaskan resort. + +For a third item, it was at three o'clock of this same Wednesday that +Raymer came out of Jasper Grierson's bank with his head down and a cloud +on his brow; the cloud dating back to an interview just closed, a short +and rather brittle conference with the bank's president held in Jasper +Grierson's private room, with the president sitting at ease in his huge +arm-chair and his visitor standing, quite destitute of ease, at the +desk-end. + +A little farther along, this third item dovetailed with a fourth and +fifth. Raymer, dropping into a friend's office to use the telephone, +chanced upon a crossed wire. He had called up Mrs. Holcomb, and while he +was waiting for the widow to summon Griswold from his up-stairs den, +there was a confused skirling of bells and Raymer, innocently +eavesdropping, overheard part of a conversation between two well-known +voices; namely, the voices of Miss Charlotte Farnham and her father. The +talk was neither confidential, nor of any special significance. Miss +Farnham was explaining that she had heard the bell, but could not answer +promptly because she had had a caller; and the doctor was telling her +that it was no matter--that he merely wanted to let her know that he was +going to bring a dinner guest, the guest prospective being his late +patient, Mr. Kenneth Griswold. + +The mention of Griswold's name reminded Raymer of his own affair, and he +became suddenly anxious to have the connection with the Widow Holcomb's +house renewed. When the crossed wire was plugged out, Griswold was ready +and waiting. + +"I was afraid you might be out somewhere, and I want to have a pow-wow +with you," said Raymer, when the reassuring voice came over the wire. +"Can you give me a little time if I drive around?" And when the prompt +assent came: "All right; thank you. I'll be with you in a pair of +minutes." + +Raymer's horse was only a short half-square away, hitched in front of +the Winnebago House, and he went to get it. But at the instant of +unhitching, Miss Grierson's trap was driven up and the untying of knots +paused while he stepped from the curb to stand at the wheel of the +modish equipage. + +"You are getting to be as bad as all the others," was the greeting he +got from the high driving-seat. "You haven't been at Mereside for an +age--only once since the night you took Mr. Griswold away from us. By +the way, what has become of Mr. Griswold? He doesn't show himself in +public much oftener than you do." + +"I think he has been getting to work on his writing," said Raymer, +good-naturedly apologizing for his friend. "He'll come down out of the +clouds after a little." And then, before he could stop it, out came the +bit of unchartered information: "I understand he dines at Doctor +Bertie's to-night." + +The young iron-founder was looking up into the eyes of beguiling when he +said this, and, being a mere man, he wondered what made them flash and +then grow suddenly fathomless and brooding. + +"When you see him, tell him that we are still on earth over at +Mereside," said the magnate's daughter pertly; and a moment later Raymer +was free to keep his appointment with Griswold. + +All in all, the little interruption had consumed no more than five +minutes, but the time interval was sufficient to form another link in +the chain of Wednesday incidents. For, as Raymer was turning out of Main +Street into Shawnee, he narrowly missed running over a heavy-set man +with a dark face and drooping mustaches; a pedestrian whose +preoccupation seemed so great as to make him quite oblivious to street +crossings and passing vehicles until Raymer pulled his horse back into +the shafts and shouted. + +When the man looked up, Raymer recognized him as the stranger from the +South who was stopping at the Winnebago House and who gave himself out +as a Louisiana lumberman open to conviction on the subject of Minnesota +pine lands as an investment. But he had no means of knowing that +Broffin's momentary preoccupation was chargeable to a fruitless +interview lately concluded; or that in driving away to the house three +squares up the street he was bridging the narrow gap between a +man-hunter and his quarry--a gap which had suddenly grown into a chasm +for the man-hunter himself. + +One more small coincidence will serve to total the items on the +Wednesday page. If Broffin had not stopped to look after the man who had +so nearly run him down, he might not have been crossing Main Street in +front of the Winnebago at the precise instant when Miss Grierson, with +young Dahlgren in the second seat of the trap, came around the square +and pulled up to let her horse drink at the public fountain. + +"Who is that Bitter-Creekish-looking man crossing over to the Winnebago +House?" asked Miss Grierson of her seatmate, indicating Broffin with a +wave of the whip, and skilfully making the query sound like the voicing +of the idlest curiosity. + +"Fellow named Broffin, from Louisiana," said Dahlgren, who, as assistant +editor of the _Daily Wahaskan_, knew everybody. "Says he's in the lumber +business down there, but, 'I doubt it,' said the carpenter, and shed a +bitter tear." + +"Why do you doubt it?" queried Miss Grierson, neatly flicking a fly from +the horse's back with the tip of the whiplash. + +"Oh, on general principles, I guess. You wouldn't say he had any of the +ear-marks of a business man." + +"What kind of ear-marks has he got?" persisted Miss Grierson--merely to +make talk, as Dahlgren decided. + +"I don't know. We were talking about him around at the club the other +night, and Sheffield--he's from Kentucky, you know--thought he +remembered the name as the name of a 'moonshine' raider he'd heard of +down in his home State." + +"A moonshine raider? What is that?" By this time Miss Margery's +curiosity was less inert than it had been, or had seemed to be, at +first. + +"A deputy marshal, you know; a sort of Government policeman and +detective rolled into one. He looks it, don't you think?" + +Miss Grierson did not say what she thought, then, or later, when she set +Dahlgren down at the door of his newspaper office in Sioux Avenue. But +still later, two hours later, in fact, she gave a brief audience in the +Mereside library to a small, barefooted boy whose occupation was +sufficiently indicated by the bundle of evening papers hugged under one +arm. + +"Well, Johnnie; what did you find out?" she asked. + +"Ain't had time," said the boy. "But he ain't no milyunaire +lumber-shooter, I'll bet a nickel. I sold him a pape' jes' now, down by +Dutchie's lumber yard, and I ast him what kind o' lumber that was in the +pile by the gate. He didn't know, no more'n a goat." + +Miss Margery filliped a coin in the air and the newsboy caught it +dexterously. + +"That will do nicely for a beginning, Johnnie," she said sweetly. "Come +and see me every once in a while, and perhaps there'll be more little +white cart-wheels for you. Only don't tell; and don't let him catch you. +That's all." + + + + +XXIV + +THE FORWARD LIGHT + + +During the days which followed his setting up of the standard of +independence in Mrs. Holcomb's second-floor front, Griswold found +himself entering upon a new world--a world corresponding with gratifying +fidelity to that prefigured future which he had struck out in the waking +hours of his first night on the main-deck of the _Belle Julie_. + +Wahaska, as a fortunate field for the post-graduate course in +Experimental Humanity, was all that his fancy had pictured it. It was +neither so small as to scant the variety of subjects, nor so large as to +preclude the possibility of grasping them in their entirety. In strict +accord with the forecast, it promised to afford the writing craftsman's +happy medium in surroundings: it would reproduce, in miniature, perhaps, +but none the less in just proportions, the social problems of the wider +world; and for a writer's seclusion the village quiet of upper Shawnee +Street was all that could be desired. + +When he came to go about in the town, as he did daily after the pleasant +occupation of refurnishing his study and bed-room was a pleasure past, +he found that in some mysterious manner his fame had preceded him. +Everybody seemed to know who he was; to be able to place him as a New +Yorker, as an author in search of health, or local color or environment +or some other technical quality not to be found in the crowded cities; +to be able to place him, also, as Miss Margery Grierson's friend and +beneficiary--which last, he surmised, was his best passport to the good +graces of his fellow-townsmen. + +Coincidently he discovered that, in the same mysterious manner, +everybody seemed to know that he was, in the Wahaskan phrase, +"well-fixed." Here, again, he guessed that something might be credited +to Margery. Beyond a hint to Raymer, he had told no one of the +comfortable assurance against want lying snugly secure in the small +strong-box in the Farmers' and Merchants' safety vault, and he was +reasonably certain that Raymer could not have passed the hint so fast +and so far as the town-wide limits to which the fact of the "well-fixed" +phrase had spread. + +All this was very nourishing, not to say stimulating, to the starved +soul of a proletary. Not in any period of the past had he so fully +understood that an acute appreciation of the wrongs of the race is no +bar to an equally acute hungering and thirsting after the commonplace +flesh-pots, or to a very primitive and soul-satisfying enjoyment of the +same when they were to be had. Nevertheless, the reaction into +self-indulgence proved to be only temporary. God had been good to him, +enabling him to realize in miraculous fulfilment the ideal environment +and opportunity: therefore he would do his part, proclaiming the holy +war and fighting, single-handed if need be, the battle of the weak +against the strong. + +So ran the renewed determination, dusted off and re-pedestaled after +many days. As to the manner of conducting the war against inequality and +the crime of plutocracy, the plan of campaign had been sufficiently +indicated in that white-hot moment of high resolves on the cargo-deck of +the _Belle Julie_. For the propaganda, there was his book; for the +demonstration, he would put the sacred fund into some industry where the +weight of it would give him the casting vote in all questions involving +the rights of the workers. It was absurdly simple, and he wondered that +none of the sociological reformers whose books he had read had +anticipated him in the discovery of such an obviously logical point of +attack. + +With the re-writing of the book fairly begun, he was already looking +about for the practical opportunity when the growing friendship with +Edward Raymer promised to offer an opening exactly fulfilling the +experimental requirements. Raymer had over-enlarged his plant and was +needing more capital. So much Griswold had gathered from the talk of the +street; and some of Raymer's half-confidences had led him to suspect +that the need was, or was likely to become, imperative. It was only the +finer quality of friendship that had hitherto kept him from offering +help before it was asked, and thus far he had contented himself with +hinting to Raymer that he had money to invest. From every point of view +a partnership with the young iron-founder promised to afford the golden +opportunity. The industry was comparatively small and self-contained; +and Raymer was himself openly committed to the cause of uplifting. +Griswold waited patiently; he was still waiting on the Wednesday +afternoon when Raymer called him over the telephone and made the +appointment for a meeting at the house in Shawnee Street. + +"Your 'pair of minutes' must have found something to grow upon," laughed +the patient waiter, when Raymer, finding Mrs. Holcomb's front door open, +had climbed the stair to the newly established literary workshop. "I've +had time to smoke a pipe and write a complete paragraph since you called +up." + +Raymer flung himself into a chair at the desk-end and reached for a pipe +in the curiously carved rack which had been one of Griswold's small +extravagances in the refurnishing. + +"Yes," he said; "Margery Grierson drove up while I was unhitching, and I +had to stop and talk to her. Which reminds me: she says you're giving +Mereside the go-by since you set up for yourself. Are you?" + +"Not intentionally," Griswold denied; and he let it stand at that. + +"I shouldn't, if I were you," Raymer advised. "Margery Grierson is any +man's good friend; and pretty soon you'll be meeting people who will +lift their eyebrows when you speak of her. You mustn't make her pay for +that." + +"I'm not likely to," was the sober rejoinder. "My debt to Miss Grierson +is a pretty big one, Raymer; bigger than you suspect, I imagine." + +"I'm glad to hear you put the debt where it belongs, leaving her father +out of it. You don't owe him anything; not even a cup of cold water. +There's a latter-day buccaneer for you!" he went on, warming to his +subject like a man with a sore into which salt has been freshly rubbed. +"That old timber-wolf wouldn't spare his best friend--allowing that +anybody could be his friend. By Jove! he's making me sweat blood, all +right!" + +"How is that?" asked Griswold. + +"I've been on the edge of telling you two or three times, but next to a +quitter I do hate the fellow who puts his fingers into a trap and then +squawks when the trap nips him. Grierson has got me down and he is about +to cut my throat, Griswold." + +"Tell me about it," said the one who had been patiently waiting to be +told. + +"It begins back a piece, but I'll brief it for you. I suppose you've +been told how Grierson came here a few years ago with a wad of money and +a large and healthy ambition to own the town?" + +Griswold nodded. + +"Well, he has come pretty close to making a go of it. What he doesn't +own or control wouldn't make much of a town by itself. A year ago he +tried to get a finger into my little pie. He wanted to reorganize the +Raymer Foundry and Machine Works, and offered to furnish the additional +capital and take fifty-one per cent of the reorganization stock. +Naturally, I couldn't see it. My father had left the plant as an +undivided legacy to my mother, my sister, and myself; and while we +haven't been getting rich out of it, we've managed to hold our own and +to grow a little. Don't let me bore you." + +"You couldn't do that if you should try. Go on." + +"This spring Wahaska began to feel the boost of the big crop year. +Everything was on the upward slant, and I thought we ought to move along +with other people. Before the snow was off the ground we had hit the +capacity limit in the old plant and the only thing to do was to enlarge. +I borrowed the money at Grierson's bank and did it." + +"And you can't make the enlarged plant pay?" + +"Oh, yes, it's paying very well, indeed; we're earning dividends, all +right. But in the money matter I simply played the fool and let Grierson +cinch me. As I've told you more than once, I'm an engineer and no +finance shark. My borrow at the bank was one hundred thousand dollars, +and there was a verbal understanding that it was to be repaid out of the +surplus earnings, piecemeal. I told Grierson that I should need a year +or more, and he didn't object." + +"This was all in conversation?" said Griswold: "no writing?" + +Raymer made a wry face. + +"Don't rub it in. I'm admitting that I was all the different kinds of a +fool. There was no definite time limit mentioned. I was to give my +personal notes and put up the family stock as collateral. A day or two +later, when I went around to close the deal, the trap was standing wide +open for me and a baby might have seen it. Grierson said he had proposed +the loan to his directors, and that they had kicked on taking the stock +as collateral. He said they wanted a mortgage on the plant." + +Griswold nodded. "Which brought on more talk," he suggested. + +"Which brought on a good bit more talk. Really, it didn't make any +intrinsic difference. Stock collateral or property collateral, the bank +would have us by the throat until the debt should be paid. But you know +how women are: my mother would about as soon sign her own death warrant +as to put her name on a mortgage; so there we were--blocked. Grierson +was as smooth as oil; said he wanted to help me out, and was willing to +stretch his authority to do it. Then he sprung the trap." + +"Having got you just where he wanted you," put in the listener. + +"Yes; having got me down. The new proposition was apparently a mere +modification of the first one. I was an accredited customer of the bank, +like other business men of the town, and as such I could ask for an +extension of credit on accommodation paper, and Grierson, as president, +was at liberty to grant it if he saw fit. He offered to take my paper +without an endorser if I would cover his personal risk with my stock +collateral, assigning it, not to the bank, but to him. I fell for it +like a woolly sheep. The stock transfers were made, and I signed a note +for one hundred thousand dollars, due in sixty days; Grierson explaining +that two months was the bank's usual limit on accommodation paper--which +is true enough--but giving me to understand that a renewal and an +extension of time would be merely a matter of routine." + +Griswold was shaking his head sympathetically. "I can guess the rest," +he said. "Grierson is preparing to swallow you whole." + +"He has as good as done it," was the dejected reply. "The note falls due +to-morrow; and, as I happened to be uptown this afternoon, I thought I +would drop in and pay the discount and renew the paper. To tell the +truth, I'd been getting more nervous the more I thought of it; and I +didn't dare let it go to the final moment. Grierson shot me through the +heart. He gave me a cock-and-bull story about some bank examiner's +protest, and told me I must be prepared to take up the paper to-morrow. +He knew perfectly well that he had me by the throat. I had checked out +every dollar of the loan, and a good bit of our own balance in addition, +paying the building and material bills." + +"Of course you reminded him of his agreement?" + +"Sure; and he sawed me off short: said that any business man borrowing +money on accommodation paper knew that it was likely to be called in on +the expiration date; that an extension is really a new transaction, +which the bank is at liberty to refuse to enter. Oh, he gave it to me +cold and clammy, sitting back in his big chair and staring up at me +through the smoke of a fat black cigar while he did it!" + +"And then?" prompted Griswold. + +"Then I remembered the mother and sister, Kenneth, and did what I would +have died rather than do for myself--I begged like a dog. But I might as +well have gone outside and butted my head against the brick wall of the +bank." + +Griswold forgot his own real, though possibly indirect, obligation to +Jasper Grierson. + +"That is where you made a mistake: you should have told him to go to +hell with his money!" was his acrid comment. And then: "How near can you +come to lifting this note to-morrow, Raymer?" + +"'Near' isn't the word. Possibly I might sweep the corners and gather up +twelve or fifteen thousand dollars." + +"That will do," said the querist, shortly. "Make it ten thousand, and +I'll contribute the remaining ninety." + +Raymer sprang out of his chair as if its padded arms had been suddenly +turned into high-voltage electrodes. + +"You will?--you'll do that for me, Griswold?" he said, with a queer +stridency in his voice that made the word-craftsman, always on the watch +for apt similes, think of a choked chicken. But Raymer was swallowing +hard and trying to go on. "By Jove--it's the most generous thing I ever +heard of!--but I can't let you do it. I haven't a thing in the world to +offer you but the stock, and that may not be worth the paper it is +printed on if Jasper Grierson has made up his mind to break me." + +"Sit down again and let us thresh it out," said Griswold. "How much of a +Socialist are you, Raymer?" + +The young ironmaster sat down, gasping a little at the sudden wrenching +aside of the subject. + +"Why, I don't know; enough to want every man to have a square deal, I +guess." + +"Including the men in your shops?" + +"Putting them first," was the prompt correction. "It was my father's +policy, and it has been mine. We have never had any labor troubles." + +"You pay fair wages?" + +"We do better than that. A year ago, I introduced a modified plan of +profit-sharing." + +Griswold's eyes were lighting up with the altruistic fires. + +"Once in awhile, Raymer, a thing happens so fortuitously as to fairly +compel a belief in the higher powers that our fathers included in the +word 'Providence'," he said, almost solemnly. "You have described +exactly an industrial situation which seems to me to offer a solution of +the whole vexed question of master and man, and to be a seed-sowing +which is bound to be followed by an abundant and most humanizing +harvest. Ever since I began to study, even in a haphazard way, the +social system under which we sweat and groan, I've wanted in on a job +like yours. I still want in. Will you take me as a silent partner, +Raymer? I'm not making it a condition, mind you: come here any time +after ten o'clock to-morrow, and you'll find the money waiting for you. +But I do hope you won't turn me down." + +Raymer was gripping the arms of his chair again, but this time they were +not unpleasantly electrified. + +"If I had only myself to consider, I shouldn't keep you waiting a +second," he returned, heartily. "But it may take a little time to +persuade my mother and sister. If they could only know you"--then, +forgetting the crossed wire and his late overhearings--"why can't you +come out to dinner with me to-night?" + +"For the only reason that would make me refuse; I have a previous +bidding. But I'll be glad to go some other day. There is no hurry about +this business matter; take all the time you need--after you have made +Mr. Grierson take his claws out of you." + +Raymer had filled the borrowed pipe again and was pulling at it +reflectively. "About this partnership; what would be your notion?" he +asked. + +"The simplest way is always the best. Increase your capital stock and +let me in for as much as my ninety thousand dollars will buy," said the +easily satisfied investor. "We'll let it go at that until you've had +time to think it over, and talk it over with your mother and sister." + +The iron-founder got up and reached for his hat. + +"You are certainly the friend in need, Griswold, if ever there was one," +he said, gripping the hand of leave-taking as if he would crack the +bones in it. "But there is one thing I'm going to ask you, and you +mustn't take offense: this ninety thousand; could you afford to lose +it?--or is it your whole stake in the game?" + +Griswold's smile was the ironmaster's assurance that he had not +offended. + +"It is practically my entire stake--and I can very well afford to lose +it in the way I have indicated. You may call that a paradox, if you +like, but both halves of it are true." + +"Then there is one other thing you ought to know, and I'm going to tell +it now," Raymer went on. "We do a general foundry and machine business, +but a good fifty per cent of our profit comes from the Wahaska & +Pineboro Railroad repair work, which we have had ever since the road was +opened." + +Griswold was smiling again. "Why should I know that, particularly?" he +asked. + +"Because it is rumored that Jasper Grierson has been quietly absorbing +the stock and bonds of the road, and if he means to remove me from the +map----" + +"I see," was the reply. "In that case you'll need a partner even worse +than you do now. You can't scare me off that way. Shall I look for you +at ten to-morrow?" + +"At ten to the minute," said the rescued plunger; and he went +down-stairs so full of mingled thankfulness and triumph that he mistook +Doctor Farnham's horse for his own at the hitching-post two doors away, +and was about to get into the doctor's buggy before he discovered his +mistake. + + + + +XXV + +THE BRIDGE OF JEHENNAM + + +Doctor Farnham had been about to make his daily call upon old Mrs. +Breda, two doors up the street from the Widow Holcomb's, when he had +climbed the stair of literary aspirations to give the convalescent his +dinner bidding. + +Griswold had accepted gratefully on the spur of the moment; and it was +not until after Raymer had come and gone that sober second thought began +to point out the risk he would run in meeting Charlotte Farnham face to +face under conditions which would give her the best conceivable +opportunity to recognize him, if recognition were possible. + +The more he thought of it, the more he regretted his haste in consenting +to incur the risk. Reflectively weighing the chances for and against, he +made sure that in characterizing the young woman whose life-thread had +been so strangely tangled with his own he had not overrated her +intelligence. Giving heredity its due, with the keen-witted little +physician for her father she could scarcely fail to measure up to the +standard of those whose gifts are apperceptive. For many days she had +had ample opportunity to familiarize herself with all the little +identifying individualities of the deck-hand: reasoning from cause to +effect, it might be assumed that her crushing responsibility had driven +her to make use of it. Having recognized him once, under conditions far +less favorable than those he was about to hazard, was it not more than +probable that she would be able to do it again? + +Griswold took a final look at himself in his dressing-case mirror before +going to keep his evening appointment at the doctor's down-town office. +It was comfortably reassuring. So far as he could determine, there was +little in the clean-shaven, square-shouldered, correctly garmented young +fellow who faced him in the mirror to suggest either the bearded outcast +of New Orleans or the unkempt and toil-soddened roustabout of the _Belle +Julie_. If only she had not made him speak to her: he had a sharp +conviction that the greatest of all the hazards lay in the chance that +she might remember his voice. + +He found the cheery little doctor waiting for him when he had walked the +few squares to the Main Street office. + +"I was beginning to be afraid you were going to be fashionably late," +said the potential host; and then, with a humorous glance for the +correct garmenting: "Regalia, heh? Hasn't Miss Grierson told you that +Wahaska is still hopelessly unable to live up to the dress-coat and +standing collar? I'm sure she must have. But never mind; climb into the +buggy and we'll let old Bucephalus take us around to see if the +neighbors have brought in anything good to eat." + +The drive was a short one, and it ended at the gate through which +Matthew Broffin had preceded by only a few hours the man whose eventual +appearance at the Farnham home he had so confidently predicted. As at +many another odd moment when there had been nothing better to do, +Broffin was once more shadowing the house in which, first or last, he +expected to trap his amateur MacHeath; and when the buggy was halted at +the carriage step he was near enough to mark and recognize the doctor's +companion. + +"Not this time," he muttered, sourly, when the two had passed together +up the gravelled path and the host was fitting his latch-key to the +front door. "It's only the sick man that writes books. I wonder what +sort of a book he thinks he's going to write in this inforgotten, +turkey-trodden, come-along village of the Reuben yaps!" + +Griswold, waiting on the porch while Doctor Farnham fitted his key, had +a nerve-tingling shiver of apprehension when the latch yielded with a +click and he found himself under the hall lantern formally shaking hands +with the statuesque young woman of the many imaginings. It gave him a +curious thrill of mingled terror and joy to find her absolutely +unchanged. Having, for his own part, lived through so many experiences +since that final glimpse of her standing on the saloon-deck guards of +the _Belle Julie_ at St. Louis, the distance in time seemed almost +immeasurable. + +"You are very welcome to Home Nook, Mr. Griswold; we have been hearing +about you for many weeks," she was saying when he had relinquished the +firm hand and was hanging his coat and hat on the hall-rack. And then, +with a half-embarrassed laugh: "I am afraid we are dreadful gossips; all +Wahaska has been talking about you, you know, and wondering how it came +to acquire you." + +"It hasn't acquired anything very valuable," was the guest's modest +disclaimer, its readiness arising out of a grateful easing of strains +now that the actual face-to-face ordeal had safely passed its +introductory stage. "And you mustn't say a word against your charming +little city, Miss Farnham," he went on. "It is the friendliest, most +hospitable----" + +The doctor's daughter was interrupting with an enthusiastic show of +applause. + +"Come on out to dinner, both of you," she urged; and then to Griswold: +"I want you to say all those nice things to Aunt Fanny, and as many more +as you can think of. She has never admitted for a single moment that +Wahaska can be compared with any one of a dozen New Hampshire villages +she could name." + +In the progress to the cozy, home-like dining-room, Griswold found +himself at once in an atmosphere of genuine comfort and refinement; the +refinement which speaks of generations of good breeding chastened and +purified by the limitations of a slender purse; in the present instance +the purse of the good little doctor whose attempted charity in the +matter of his own fee was fresh in the mind of the castaway. Griswold +had the writing craftsman's ingathering eye: he saw that the furnishings +were frugally well-worn, that the sitting-room rug was country-woven, +and that the spotless dining-room napery was soft and pliable with age. +The contrast between the Farnham home and the ornate mansion three +streets away on the lake front was strikingly apparent; as cleanly +marked as that between Margery Grierson and the sweetly serene and +conventional young person who was introducing him to her aunt across the +small oval dining-table. + +So far, all was going well. Griswold, with a pleasant word for the frail +little woman opposite and a retort in kind now and then for the doctor's +raillery, still had time to be narrowly observant of the signs and +omens. But a little later, when the Swedish maid was serving the meat +course, he had his first warning shock. Through the bouillon and the +fish the doctor had borne the brunt of the table-talk, joking the guest +on his humiliating descent from Mereside and the luxuries to a country +doctor's table, and laughing at Griswold's half-hearted attempts to +decry the luxuries. What word or phrase or trick of speech it was that +served to stir the sleeping memories, Griswold could not guess; but it +became suddenly apparent that the memories were stirring. In the midst +of a half-uttered direction to the serving-maid, Miss Farnham stopped +abruptly, and Griswold could feel her gaze, wide-eyed and +half-terrified, seemingly fixed upon him. + +It was all over in the turning of a leaf: there had been no break in +the doctor's genial raillery, and the breathless little pause at the +other end of the table was only momentary. But Griswold fancied that +there was a subtle change in the daughter's attitude toward him dating +from the moment of interruptions. + +Farther along, he decided that the change was in himself, and was merely +the outcropping of the morbid vein which persists, with more or less +continuity, in all the temperamental workings of the human mind. When +the dinner was over and there was an adjournment to the sitting-room, +little Miss Gilman presently found her reading-glasses and a book; and +the doctor, in the act of filling two long-stemmed pipes for his guest +and himself, was called away professionally. Griswold saw himself +confronting the really crucial stage of the ordeal, and prudence was +warning him that it would be safer to make his adieux and to go with his +host. It was partly Miss Farnham's protest, but more his own +determination to prove the bridge of peril to the uttermost, that made +him stay. + +Miss Gilman, least obtrusive of chaperones, had been peacefully napping +for a good half-hour in her low rocker under the reading-lamp, and the +pictures in a thick quarto of Gulf Coast views had pleasantly filled the +interval for the two who were awake, when Griswold finally assured +himself that the danger of recognition was a danger past. As a mental +analyst he knew that the opening of each fresh door in the house of +present familiarity was automatically closing other doors opening upon +the past; and it came to him with a little flush of the seer's +exaltation that once again his prefigurings were finding their exact +fulfilment. In a spirit of artistic daring he yielded to a sudden +impulse, as one crossing the flimsiest of bridges may run and leap to +prove that his theory of safety-stresses is a sufficient guarantee of +his own immunity. + +"You were speaking of first impressions of places," he said, while they +were still turning the leaves of the picture-book. "Are you a believer +in the absolute correctness of first impressions?" + +"I don't know," was the thoughtful reply; but its after-word was more +definite: "As to places, I'm not sure that the first impression always +persists; in a few instances I am quite certain it hasn't. I didn't like +the Gulf Coast at all, at first; it seemed so foreign and different and +unhomelike. As to people, however----" + +She paused, and Griswold entered the breach hardily. + +"As to people, you are less easily converted from the original +prejudice--or prepossession. So am I. I have learned to place the utmost +confidence in the first impression. In my own case it is invariably +correct, and if for any reason whatever I suffer any later +characterization to take its place, I am always the loser." + +She was regarding him curiously over the big book which still lay open +between them. + +"Is that a part of the writing gift?" she asked. + +"No, not specially; most people have it in some more or less workable +quantity, though for many it expresses itself only in a vague attraction +or repulsion." + +"I've had that feeling," she answered quickly. + +"I know," he affirmed. "There have been times when, with every +reasonable fibre in you urging you to believe the evil, a still stronger +impulse has made you believe in the good." + +"How can you know that?" she asked; and again he saw in the expressive +eyes the flying signals of indeterminate perplexity and apprehension. + +Resolutely he pressed the hazardous experiment to its logical +conclusion. Once for all, he must know if this young woman with the +sympathetic voice and the goddess-like pose could, even under +suggestion, be led to link up the past with the present. + +"It is my trade to know," he said quietly, closing the book of views and +laying it aside. "There have been moments in your life when you would +have given much to be able to decide a question of duty or expediency +entirely irrespective of your impressions. Isn't that so?" + +For one flitting instant he thought he had gone too far. In the hardy +determination to win all or lose all, he had been holding her eyes +steadily, as the sure mirror in which he should be able to read his +sentence, of acquittal or of condemnation. This time there was no +mistaking the sudden widening of the pupils to betray the equally sudden +awakening of womanly terror. + +"Don't be afraid," he began, and he had come thus far on the road to +open confession when he saw that she was not looking at him; she was +looking past him toward one of the windows giving upon the porch. "What +is it?" he demanded, turning to look with her. + +"It was a man--he was looking in at the window!" she returned in low +tones. "I thought I saw him once before; but this time I am certain!" + +Griswold sprang from his chair and a moment later was letting himself +out noiselessly through the hall door. There was nothing stirring on the +porch. The windless night was starlit and crystal clear, and the silence +was profound. As soon as the glare of the house lights was out of his +eyes, Griswold made a quick circuit of the porch. Not satisfied with +this, he widened the circle to take in the front yard, realizing as he +did it that a dozen men might easily play hide-and-seek with a single +searcher in the shrubbery. He was still groping among the bushes, and +Miss Farnham had come to the front door, when the doctor's buggy +appeared under the street lights and was halted at the home +hitching-post. + +"Hello, Mr. Griswold; is that you?" called the cheery one, when he saw a +bareheaded man beating the covers in his front yard. + +Griswold met his host at the gate and walked up the path with him. + +"Miss Charlotte thought she saw some one at one of the front windows," +he explained; and a moment afterward the daughter was telling it for +herself. + +"I saw him twice," she insisted; "once while we were at dinner, and +again just now. The first time I thought I might be mistaken, but this +time----" + +Griswold was laughing silently and inwardly deriding his gifts when, +under cover of the doctor's return, he made decent acknowledgments for +benefits bestowed and took his departure. On the pleasant summer-night +walk to upper Shawnee Street he was congratulating himself upon the now +quite complete fulfilment of the wishing prophecy. Miss Farnham was +going to prove to be all that the most critical maker of studies from +life could ask in a model; a supremely perfect original for the +character of _Fidelia_ in the book. Moreover, she would be his +touchstone for the truths and verities; even as Margery Grierson might, +if she were forgiving enough to let by-gones be by-gones, hold the +mirror up to Nature and the pure humanities. Moreover, again, whatever +slight danger there might have been in a possibility of recognition was +a danger outlived. If the first meeting had not stirred the sleeping +memories in Miss Farnham, subsequent ones would serve only to widen the +gulf between forgetfulness and recollection by just such distances as +the Wahaskan Griswold should traverse in leaving behind him the +deck-hand of the _Belle Julie_. + +Thus the complacent, musing upper thought in the mind and on the lips of +the proletary as he wended his way through the quiet and well-nigh +deserted streets to the older part of the town. How much it might have +been modified if he had known that the man whose face Miss Farnham had +seen at the window was silently tracking him through the tree-shadowed +streets is a matter for conjecture. Also, it is to be presumed that +much, if not all, of the complacency would have vanished if he could +have been an unseen listener in the Farnham sitting-room, dating from +the time when little Miss Gilman pattered off to bed, leaving the father +and daughter sitting together under the reading-lamp. + +At first their talk was entirely of the window apparition; the daughter +insisting upon its reality, and the father trying to push it over into +the limbo of things imagined. Driven finally to give all the reasons for +her belief in the realities, Charlotte related the incident of the +afternoon. + +"You may remember that I told you over the 'phone that I had a caller +this afternoon," she began. + +The doctor did remember it, and said so. + +"You can imagine how frightened I was when I tell you that it was a +man--a detective from New Orleans who has, or at least who says he has, +been travelling thousands of miles to find me." + +Doctor Bertie was tickling his bearded chin thoughtfully. "He should +have come to me first," he said, frowning a little at the invasion of +his home. "It was about that bank robbery, I suppose?" + +"Yes; he thought I could tell him the man's real name. It seems that +they have no identity clew to work upon. I knew at the time that +'Gavitt' was an assumed name; the man as good as told me so, you +remember. This Mr. Broffin wouldn't believe that I couldn't tell him the +real name, and along toward the last he grew quite angry and +threatening. He insisted upon it that I knew the robber--that I had +known him before the crime was committed; and he intimated pretty +broadly that I am still in communication with him. Of course, it is all +very absurd; but it is also very annoying to think that somebody is +spying upon you all the time. I didn't want to speak of it before Mr. +Griswold; but it was this detective who came twice to look in at our +windows this evening." + +By this time the good Doctor Bertie had become the indignant Doctor +Bertie. + +"We can't have that at all!" he said incisively. "You did your whole +duty in that bank matter; and it was a good deal more than most young +women would have done. I'm not going to have you persecuted and +harassed--not one minute! Where is this fellow stopping?" + +The daughter shook her head. "I don't know. He gave me his card, but it +has the New Orleans address only." + +"Give it to me and I'll look him up to-morrow." + +The card changed hands, and for a few minutes neither of them spoke. +Then the daughter began again. + +"I've had another shock this evening, too," she said, speaking this time +in low tones and with eyes downcast. "This Mr. Griswold: tell me all you +know about him, father." + +"I don't know much of anything more than--thanks to Miss Grierson--all +the town knows. They brought him here sick--she and her father--as I +told you. That was some little time before you came home; perhaps while +you were still on the way up the river. They didn't know who he was; and +oddly enough, there wasn't anything in his clothes or luggage to tell +them. I know that to be a fact because, at Miss Margery's request, I +helped her overhaul his belongings. Afterward, in a talk with him, I +learned that he had been robbed on the train; or at least, that was the +supposition. He said there was money in one of the suit-cases, and we +didn't find any." + +"He is an author, they say; I don't seem to recall his name in any of my +reading." + +The doctor laughed good-naturedly. "Perhaps he is only one of the +would-be's; I don't think it has got much farther than the hankering, as +yet. There was a book manuscript in one of his valises, and I read a +little of it. It was pretty poor stuff, I thought. But what was your +other shock?" + +"It was at the dinner-table; when you were joking him about the +come-down from Mereside to us. Something he said--I couldn't remember, a +minute afterward, just what it was--was spoken exactly in the voice, and +with the same little trick of conciseness, as something that was said to +me that never-to-be-forgotten evening on the saloon-deck promenade of +the _Belle Julie_ ... said by the man whose name was _not_ John Wesley +Gavitt." + +"Oh, my dear girl!" was the father's instant protest; "that couldn't be, +you know!" + +"I know it couldn't," was the fair-minded rejoinder. "And I kept on +telling myself so all the evening. I had to, father; for that once at +the table wasn't the only time. Every few minutes he would say something +to bring back that haunting half-recollection. It is only a coincidence, +of course; it couldn't be anything else. But when he went away I +couldn't help hoping that he would do one of two things; stay away +altogether, or come often enough so that--oh, it's all nonsense, all of +it: what difference can it make, to him or to me!" + +"No difference at all." Doctor Bertie's membership was in that large +confraternity of fathers whose blindness on the side of sentiment where +their own daughters are concerned has become proverbial. + +It was after he had taken up the latest copy of the _Lancet_ and was +beginning to bury himself in the editorials, that Charlotte reopened the +threshed-out subject with a belated query. + +"Did I understand you to say that he had lost all of his money?" + +"Yes; practically all of it," said the father, without losing his hold +upon what a certain great London physician was saying through the +columns of the English medical journal. + +But afterward, long after Charlotte had gone up to her room, he +remembered, with a curious little start of half-awakened puzzlement, +that some one, no longer ago than the yesterday, had told him that young +Griswold was rich--or if not rich, at least "well-fixed." + + + + +XXVI + +PITFALLS + + +What arguments Edward Raymer used to convince his mother and sister that +Griswold as a participating partner was better than Jasper Grierson +figuring as the man in possession, the Wahaskan gossips were unable to +guess. But the fact remained. Within a week from the day when Raymer, +angrily jubilant, had rescued his imperilled stock, it was pretty +generally known that Kenneth Griswold, the writing-man, had become the +fourth member in the close corporation of the Raymer Foundry and Machine +Works, and Wahaska was eagerly earning Broffin's contemptuous +characterization of it by discussing the business affair in all its +possible and probable bearings upon the Raymers, the Griersons, and the +newly elected directory of the Pineboro Railroad. + +Of all this buzzing of the gossip bees the person most acutely concerned +heard little or nothing. Griswold's intimation to Raymer that he wished +only to be a silent partner had been made in good faith; and beyond a +few purely perfunctory visits to the plant across the railroad tracks, +made because Raymer had insisted that he go over the books and learn for +himself the exact condition of the business into which he had put his +money, Griswold took no more than an advisory part in the industrial +activities. To Raymer's urgings there was always the same answer: the +writing fit was on him and he had no time. + +Taken for what it was worth, the writing excuse was sufficiently valid. +In the fallow period of the slow convalescence the imaginative field had +grown fertile for the plough, and a new book, borrowing nothing from the +old save the sociological background, was already under way. Digging +deeply in the inspirational field, Griswold speedily became oblivious to +most of his encompassments; to all of them, indeed, save those which +bore directly upon the beloved task. Among these, he counted the +frequent afternoon visits to Mereside, and the scarcely less frequent +evenings spent in the Farnham home. Again in harmony with the later +prefigurings, he was using each of the young women as a foil for the +other in the outworking of his plot; and he welcomed it as a sign of +growth that the story in its new form was acquiring verisimilitude and +becoming gratefully, and at times, he persuaded himself, quite vividly, +human. + +When he got well into the swing of it and was turning out a chapter +every three or four days, he fell easily into the habit of slipping the +last instalment into his pocket when he went to Mereside. Margery +Grierson was adding generously to his immense obligation to her; hoping +only to find a friendly listener, he found a helpful collaborator. More +than once, when his own imagination was at fault, she was able to open +new vistas in the humanities for him, apparently drawing upon a reserve +of intuitive conclusions compared with which his own hard-bought store +of experimental knowledge was almost puerile. + +"I wish you would tell me the secret of your marvellous cleverness!" he +exclaimed, on one of the June afternoons when he had been reading to her +in the cool half-shadows of the Mereside library. "You are only a child +in years: how can you know with such miraculous certainty what other +people would think and do under conditions about which you can't +possibly know anything experimentally? It's beyond me!" + +"There are many things beyond you yet, dear boy; many, many things," was +her laughing rejoinder; from which it will be inferred that the episode +in the Farmers' and Merchants' burglar-proof had become an episode +forgotten--or at least forgiven. "You know men--a little; but when it +comes to the women ... well, if I didn't keep continually nagging at +you, your two heroines--with neither of whom you are really in +love--would degenerate into rag dolls. They would, actually." + +"That's true; I can see it clearly enough when you point it out," he +admitted, putting his craftsman pride underfoot, as he was always +obliged to do in these talks with her. "I should be discouraged if you +didn't keep on telling me that the story, as a story, is good." + +"It _is_ good; it is a big story," she asserted, with kindling +enthusiasm. "The plot, so far as you have gone with it, is fine; and +that is where you leave me away behind. I don't see how you could ever +think it out. And the character-drawing is fine, too, some of it. Your +_Fleming_ is as far beyond me as your _Fidelia_ seems to be beyond you." + +"_Fleming_ is human in every drop of his blood," he boasted. + +"I don't doubt it for a moment; all the little ear-marks of humanity are +there, and I know in reason that he must be a type. But I have never met +the man himself; and I am sure I shall be scared silly if I ever do meet +him. Think of being shut up in any little corner of the world with a man +who has convinced himself that he can commit any crime in the calendar +so long as he believes the particular one he chooses isn't a crime!" + +"Crime, so-called, is like everything else in this world; a thing to be +defined strictly by the motive and the point of view," said Griswold, +mounting his hobby with joyous alacrity. + +"I know; that is what you say"--this with an adorable uptilt of the +pretty chin and a flash of the dark eyes which an instant before had +been slumbrous wells of studious abstraction. "But your _Fleming_ is +going to prove the contrary; it may not be what you want him to do, but +it will be what he will insist upon doing before you get through with +him. You have already indicated it in the story, unconsciously, perhaps. +When _Fidelia_ surprises him, _Fleming_ is almost ready to kill her; +not in defense of the principle he has set up, but to save his own +miserable life." + +"That is a part of his humanity," insisted the craftsman stubbornly. +"You don't know _Fleming_ yet. Have you ever met _Fidelia_?" + +"Not as you have drawn her--no. She is too unutterably fine. If she had +a single shred of humanity about her, I should suspect you of meaning to +fall in love with her, farther along--to the humiliation and despair of +poor _Joan_, who, as you say, is a mere daughter of men." + +"But how about _Joan_?" he fretted. "Is she out of drawing, too?" + +"Yes; you are distorting her the other way--making her too inhumanly +worldly and insincere." Then, with an abruptness that was like a slap in +the face: "If you didn't spend so many evenings at Doctor Bertie's, you +would get both _Fidelia_ and _Joan_ in better drawing." + +He flushed and drew himself up, with the stabbed _amour propre_ +prompting him to make some stinging retort contrasting the wells of +truth with the brackish waters of sheer worldliness. Then he saw how +inadequate it would be; how utterly impossible it was to meet this +charmingly vindictive young person upon any grounds save those of her +own choosing. + +"That is the first really unkind thing I have ever heard you say," was +the mild reproach which was all that the reactionary second thought +would sanction. + +"Unkind to whom?--to you, or to Miss Farnham?" + +"Ask yourself," he countered weakly; and she laughed at him. + +"There is another of your failings, Kenneth. You haven't always the +courage of your convictions. What you are thinking is that I am a +spiteful little cat. Why don't you say it out loud, like a man?" + +"Because I'm not thinking it," he denied, adding: "But I do think you +are a little inclined to be unfair to Miss Charlotte." + +"Am I? Let us see if I am. I accuse her of nothing but a slavish +devotion to custom and the conventions. What did she say when you read +her the chapter before this one: where _Fidelia_ goes down to the +dining-room at midnight and finds _Fleming_ breaking into the +silver-safe where the money is hidden?" + +"I'm not reading the story to her," he admitted, and again she laughed. + +"But you do talk it over with her; you couldn't help doing that," she +persisted. + +"Sometimes," he allowed. + +"Well, what did she say when you came to that part where _Fidelia_ makes +_Fleming_ sit down while she tries to convince him that house-breaking +is a crime. You don't dare tell me what she said." + +Griswold did it, with a firm convincement that he was thereby breaking a +sacred confidence. But the alluring lips and eyes were irresistible when +he was fairly within their influence. + +"I merely suggested the scene as something that might be done," he +explained. "She did not approve of it. Her objection was that the +_Fidelias_ in real life don't do such things." + +"They don't," was Miss Margery's flippant agreement. "And your letting +your _Fidelia_ do it is the one redeeming thing you have done in your +drawing of her. Just the same, with all your ingenuity you leave one +with the firm conviction that she will never, under any circumstances, +do such an unconventional thing again; never, never, never! And that is +a false note." + +"Why is it?" + +"Because it leaves out the common sex-factor; the one that is shared +alike by the _Fidelias_ and the _Joans_ and all the rest of us." + +"And that is----" + +"Just plain, every-day inconsistency--our dearest heritage from good old +Mother Eve. Being a mere man, you can't understand that, so you neglect +to put it into your women." + +"But I can't let that stand," he objected. "You must allow the ideal +some little latitude. _Fidelia_ was not inconsistent, either in striving +with _Fleming_, or in betraying him." + +Miss Grierson's perfect shoulders twitched in a little shrug of +impatience. + +"Not that time, maybe; with _Fleming_ standing by to tell her that she +must be true to herself at whatever cost to him. But the next time--if +she should happen to fall in love with the gentleman who was breaking +into her father's house-safe...." She laughed in sheer mockery and +misquoted a couplet from Riley for him: + + "'There, little boy, don't cry; + I have broken your doll, I know!'" + +"Break some more of them if you can," he urged. "A few more casualties +won't make any difference." + +"There is only the boy-doll left; and I don't like to break boy-dolls." + +"_Fleming_, you mean? I give you leave. Hammer him until he bleeds +sawdust, if the spirit moves you." + +Miss Grierson had been curled up like a comfortable kitten in the depths +of a great lounging chair--her favorite attitude while he was reading to +her. But now she sat up and locked her fingers over one knee. + +"I said a little while ago that I'd never met _Fleming_, and I haven't. +But I like him, and I'm sorry to see him putting himself in for such a +savage hereafter. He is a good man, like other good men, with the single +difference that he thinks he isn't bound by the traditions. He believes +he can commit what the traditionary people call a crime without paying +the penalties. He can't: nobody can." + +Griswold's smile was the superior smile of the writing craftsman. "That +is merely a matter of invention," he asserted. "He can escape the +penalties if he is smart enough." + +"You mistake me," she interposed. "I don't mean the physical penalties; +though as to these the old saying that murder will out must have some +foundation in fact. Let that go: we'll suppose him clever enough to make +his escape and to outwit or outfight his enemies. I don't say he +couldn't do it successfully; but I do say that, with the hazards +confronting him at every turn, he will find the real criminal in him +growing and possessing him, making him think things and do things of the +utter depravity of which he has never had any doubt." + +While she was speaking Griswold could feel the change she was describing +stealing over him like a nightmare, and when she stopped he passed his +hand over his eyes as one awaking from a vaguely terrifying dream. + +"You mean that there is a real criminal in every man?" he questioned, +and the question seemed to say itself of its own volition. + +"In every man and in every woman: how can you be a writer and not know +that? Ask yourself. You admit the existence of the good and the bad, and +ordinarily you choose the good and shudder at the bad: tell me--haven't +there been times when the most horrible crimes were possible to +you?--times when, with the littlest tipping of the balance, you could +have killed somebody? You needn't answer: I know you have looked over +that brink, because I have looked over it myself, more than once. And, +sooner or later, _Fleming_ will find himself looking over it--with all +the horrors of the penalties pushing and shoving at him to tumble him +into the gulf." + +Griswold did not reply. He was gathering up the scattered pages of his +manuscript and replacing them in order. When he spoke again it was of a +matter entirely irrelevant. + +"I had an odd experience the other evening," he said. "I had been dining +with the Raymers and was walking back to Shawnee Street. A little +newsboy named Johnnie Fergus turned up from somewhere at one of the +street crossings and tried to sell me a paper--at eleven o'clock at +night! I bought one and joked him about being out so late; and from that +on I couldn't get rid of him. He went all the way home with me, talking +a blue streak and acting as if he were afraid of something or somebody. +I remembered afterward that he is the boy who takes care of your boat. +Is there anything wrong with him?" + +Miss Grierson had left her chair and had gone to stand at one of the +windows. + +"Nothing that I know of," she said. "He is a bright boy--too bright for +his own good, I'm afraid. But I can explain--a little. Johnnie has taken +a violent fancy to you for some reason, and he has fallen into the +boyish habit of weaving all sorts of romances around you. I think he +reads too many exciting stories and tries to make you the hero of them. +He told me the other day that he was sure somebody was 'spotting' you." + +Griswold looked up quickly. Miss Grierson was still facing the window, +and he was glad that she had not seen his nervous start. + +"'Spotting' me?" he laughed. "Where did he get that idea?" + +"How should I know? But he had made himself believe it; he even went so +far as to describe the man. Oh, I can assure you Johnnie has an +imagination; I've tested it in other ways." + +"I should think so!" said the man who also had an imagination, and +shortly afterward he took his leave. + +An hour later the same afternoon, Broffin, from his post of observation +on the Winnebago porch, saw the writing-man cross the street and enter a +hardware shop. Having nothing better to do, he, too, crossed the street +and, in passing, looked into the open door of Simmons & Kleifurt's. What +he saw brought him back at the end of a reflective stroll around the +public square. When he entered the shop the clerk was putting a +formidable array of weapons back into their show-case niches. Broffin +lounged up and began to handle the pistols. + +"If I knew enough about guns to be able to tell 'em apart, I might buy +one," he said half-humorously. And then: "You must've been having a +mighty particular customer--to get so many of 'em out." + +"It was Mr. Griswold, Mr. Ed. Raymer's new partner," said the clerk. +"And he _was_ pretty particular; wouldn't have anything but these +new-fashioned automatics. Said he wanted something that would be quick +and sure, and I guess he's got it--I sold him two of 'em." + +Broffin played with the stock long enough to convince the clerk that he +was only a counter lounger with no intention of buying. "Took two of +'em, did he?--for fear one might make him sick, I reckon," he said, with +the half-humorous grin still lurking under the drooping mustaches. +"Automatic thirty-twos, eh? Well, _I_ ain't goin' to try to hold your +Mr.--Griscom, did you call him?--up none after this. He might git me." + +Whereupon, having found out what he wanted to know, he lounged out again +and went back to the hotel to smoke another of the reflective cigars in +the porch chair which had come to be his by right of frequent and +long-continued occupancy. + + + + +XXVII + +IN THE SHADOWS + + +Not counting the vague and rather pointless disturbment which had +culminated in the purchase of a pair of pistols, Griswold had left the +Mereside library considerably shaken, not in his convictions, to be +sure, but in his confidence in his own powers of imaginative analysis. +For this cause it required a longer after-dinner stay at the Farnhams' +than he had been allowing himself, to re-establish the norm of +self-assurance. + +This was coming to be the net result of a better acquaintance with +Charlotte Farnham; a growth in the grace of self-containment, and in a +just appreciation of the mighty power that lies in propinquity--the +propinquity of an inspiring ideal. Miss Farnham was never enthusiastic; +that, perhaps, would be asking too much of an ideal; but what she lacked +in warmth was made up in cool sanity, backed by a moral sense that +seemed never to waver. Unerringly she placed her finger upon the human +weaknesses in his book-people, and unfalteringly she bade him reform +them. + +For his _Fidelia_, as he described her, she exhibited a gentle +affection, tempered by a compassionate pity for her weaknesses and +waverings; an attitude, he fatuously told himself, forced upon her +because her own standards were so much higher than any he could +delineate or conceive. For _Joan_ there was also compassion, but it was +mildly contemptuous. + +"If I did not know that you are incapable of doing such a thing, I might +wonder if you are not drawing your _Joan_ from the life, Mr. Griswold," +she said, a little coldly, on this same evening of rehabilitations. +"Since such characters are to be found in real life, I suppose they may +have a place in a book. But you must not commit the unpardonable sin of +making your readers condone the evil in her for the sake of the good." + +"May we not sometimes condone a little evil for the sake of a great +good?" he pleaded in extenuation. + +Her answer was rather disconcerting. + +"Life is full of just such temptations; the temptation to bargain with +expediency. We can only pray blindly to be delivered in the hour of +trial." + +They were sitting together on the vine-sheltered porch, and the street +electrics with the lamplight from the sitting-room windows served merely +to temper the velvety gloom of the summer night. He would have given +much to be able to see her face, but the darkness came between. + +"That opens the door to the larger question which is always asking for +its answer," he said, letting the thought that was uppermost slip into +speech. "At its very best, life is a compromise, not necessarily +between good and evil, but between the thing possible and the thing +impossible. It is not until we are strong enough to break the shacklings +of the traditions that we are free to drive the best obtainable bargain +with destiny." + +As at other times, he was once more yielding to the impulse which was +always prompting him to apply the acid test to the pure gold of the +ideal. Heretofore the test had revealed no trace of earthly alloy; but +now the result filled him with vague dismay. + +"So you have said many times before," she rejoined, and her voice was as +the voice of one groping in the dark. "I--I have a confession to make, +Mr. Griswold: I have held out against you, knowing all the time that you +were right; that life is full of these bitter compromises which we are +forced to accept. Please forget what I have said about your _Fidelia_ +and--and your _Joan_. You are trying to make them human, and that is as +it should be." + +Griswold could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. He told +himself fiercely that he would never believe, without the convincement +of fact, that the ideal could step down from its pedestal. + +"You are meaning to be kind to me now, at the expense of your +convictions, Miss Charlotte," he protested warmly. + +"No," she denied gravely. "Listen, and you shall judge. Once, only a +short time ago, I was brought face to face with one of these terrible +compromises. In a single instant, and by no fault of my own, the +dreadful shears of fate were thrust into my hands, and conscience--what +I have been taught to call the Christian conscience--told me that with +them I must snip the thread of a man's life. Are you listening?" + +His lips were dry and he had to moisten them before he could say: "Yes, +go on; I am listening." + +"The man was a criminal and he was a fugitive from justice. +Conscience--_my_ conscience--insisted that it was my plain duty to raise +the hue and cry. For a long time I couldn't do it; and then----" + +He waited until the silence had grown unbearable before he prompted her. +"And then?" + +"And then chance threw us together. A new world was opened to me in +those few moments. I had thought that there could be no possible +question between simple right and wrong, but almost in his first word +the man convinced me that, whatever I might think or the world might +say, _his_ conscience had fully and freely acquitted him. And he proved +it; proved it so that I can never doubt it as long as I live. He made me +do what _my_ conscience had been telling me I ought to do--just as your +_Fleming_ makes _Fidelia_ do." + +"You denounced him?" he said, and he strove desperately to make the +saying completely colorless. + +"Yes." + +"And he was taken?" + +"He was; but he made his escape again, almost at once. He is still a +free man." + +Instantly the primitive instinct of self-preservation, the instinct of +the hunted fugitive, sprang alert in the listener. + +"How can you be sure of that?" he asked, and in his own ears his voice +sounded like the clang of an alarm bell. + +Again a silence fell, surcharged, this one, with all the old frightful +possibilities. Once more the loathsome fever quickened the pulses of the +man at bay, and the curious needle-like prickling of the skin came to +signal the return of the homicidal fear-frenzy. The reaction to the +normal racked him like the passing of a mortal sickness when his +accusing angel said in her most matter-of-fact tone: + +"I know he is free; I have it on the best possible authority. The +detectives who are searching for him have been here to see me--or, at +least, one of them has." + +The hunted one laid hold of the partial reprieve with a mighty grip and +drew himself out of the reactionary whirlpool. + +"To see you? Why should they trouble you?" + +"On general man-hunting principles, I suppose," was the calm reply. +"Since I gave the necessary information once, they seem to think I can +give it again. It is very annoying." + +"It is an outrage!" declared the listener warmly. And afterward, with +only the proper friendly emphasis: "I hope it is an annoyance past." + +His companion leaned forward in her chair and cautiously parted the +leafy vine screen. + +"Look across the street--under those trees at the water's edge: do you +see him?" + +Griswold looked and was reasonably sure that he could make out the +shadowy figure of a man leaning against one of the trees. + +"That is my shadow," she said, lowering her voice; "Mr. Matthew Broffin, +of the Colburne Detective Agency, in New Orleans. He has a foolish idea +that I am in communication with the man he is searching for, and he was +brutal enough to tell me so. What he expects to accomplish by keeping an +absurd watch upon our house and dogging everybody who comes and goes, I +can't imagine." + +"You have told your father?" said Griswold, anxious to learn how far +this new alarm fire had spread. + +"Certainly; and he has made his protest. But it doesn't do any good; the +man keeps on spying, as you see. But we have wandered a long way from +your book. I've been trying to prove to you that I am not fit to +criticise it." + +"No; you mustn't mistake me. I haven't been coming to you for +criticism," was Griswold's rather incoherent reply; and when the talk +threatened to lapse into the commonplaces, he took his leave. Oddly +enough, as he thought, when he was unlatching the gate and had shifted +one of the newly purchased automatic pistols from his hip pocket to an +outside pocket of the light top-coat he was wearing, the shadowy figure +under the lake-shading trees had disappeared. + +It was only a few minutes after the lingering dinner guest had gone when +the doctor came out on the porch, bringing his long-stemmed pipe for a +bedtime whiff in the open air. + +"You are losing your beauty sleep, little girl," he said, dropping into +the chair lately occupied by the guest. "Did you find out anything more +to-night?" + +The daughter did not reply at once, and when she did there was a note of +freshly summoned hardihood in her voice. + +"We were both mistaken," she affirmed. "Coincidences are always likely +to be misleading. I am sorry I told you about them. He has certainly +been a present help in time of need to Edward." + +"How did you reach your conclusion?" inquired the pipe smoker, upon whom +the coincidences were still actively exerting their influence. + +"It came out in the talk this evening. He has been rather ridiculously +putting me upon a pedestal, trying to make me fit an ideal character in +his book, I think. To prove to him that I am only human, I told him the +story of what happened on the _Belle Julie_. And, to cap the climax, I +pointed out our friend Mr. Broffin, who was on guard again--as +usual--and told him who the house watcher was and what he wanted. It +didn't affect him any more than it would any friend of the family. He +was interested in the story as a story, and--and in its bearing upon me +as a--as a life-experience. But that was all." + +"You may be right; you probably are right," was the father's comment +after a thoughtful whiff or two had intervened. "Just the same, I've +looked up the dates in my case book: if your Gavitt man, escaping from +the officers in St. Louis, had taken the first train for Wahaska, he +would have reached here at precisely the same moment that the sick Mr. +Griswold did. Also, he would have been careful to remove all the little +tags and telltales from his brand-new clothes--which was what Mr. +Griswold very evidently had done. Also, again, the amount of money which +Mr. Griswold has put into the Raymer capital stock tallies to within ten +thousand dollars of the amount your Gavitt fellow walked away with in +New Orleans. Also, number three, Mr. Griswold acted very much like a man +who had lost all he had in the world when I told him that Miss Grierson +and I had found no money in his suit-cases; and----" + +"That is the weak link in your chain, isn't it?" objected the daughter. +"You remember he told me on the boat that he had lost the money?" + +Again the father took counsel of the long-stemmed pipe. + +"It might be," he said, after a reflective pause. "It would be, if Miss +Grierson could be safely eliminated from the equation. Unhappily, she +can't be." + +"I don't care!" came from the depths of the porch rocking-chair. "If +this miserable detective arrests him and appeals to me, I shall simply +refuse to know anything about it! I wish you'd tell this man Broffin so +when you meet him again." + +As before, the good little doctor had recourse to his pipe, and it was +not until his daughter got up to go in that he said gently: "One other +word, Charlie, girl: are you altogether sure that the wish isn't father +to the thought--about Griswold?" + +"Don't be absurd, papa!" she said scornfully, passing swiftly behind his +chair to reach the door; and with that answer he was obliged to be +content. + + + + +XXVIII + +BROKEN LINKS + + +It was on the second day after the pistol-buying incident in Simmons & +Kleifurt's that Broffin, wishful for solitude and a chance to think in +perspective, took to the woods. + +In the moment of lost temper, when he had threatened angrily to play an +indefinite waiting game, prolonging it until his man should walk into +the trap, nothing had really been farther from his intentions. As a +matter of fact, there were the best of business reasons why he should +not waste another day in following, or attempting to follow, the cold +trail. Other cases were pressing, and his daily mail from the New +Orleans head-quarters brought urgings impatient and importunate; and on +the third day following the sleeveless interview with the doctor's +daughter he had paid his bill at the Winnebago House and had packed his +grip for the southward flight by the afternoon train. + +Twenty minutes before train-time a telegram from the New Orleans office +had reopened the closed and crossed-off account of the Bayou State +Security robbery. It was a bare line in answer to his own wire advising +the office that he was about to return, but its significance was out of +all proportion to its length. "B. S. S. man is in your town. Important +letter to-day's mail," was all it said, but that was sufficient. Broffin +had promptly told the clerk of the Winnebago that he had changed his +mind, and forty-eight hours afterward he had the letter. + +Like the telegram, the mail communication was significant but +inconclusive. One Patrick Sheehan, a St. Louis cab driver, dying, had +made confession to his priest. For a bribe of two hundred dollars he had +aided and abetted the escape of a criminal on a day and date +corresponding to the mid-April arrival of the steamer _Belle Julie_ at +St. Louis. Afterward he had driven the man to an up-town hotel (name not +given) and had obtained from the clerk the man's name and destination. +In his letter enclosing the confession the priest went on to say that +the penitent had evidently had a severe struggle with his conscience. A +mistaken sense of gratitude to the man who had bribed him had led him to +tear off and destroy the upper half of the card given him by the up-town +hotel clerk, and with the reminder gone he could not recall the man's +name. But the destination address, "Wahaska, Minnesota," had been +preserved, and the torn portion of the card bearing it was submitted +with the confession. + +With this new clue for an incentive, Broffin had immediately put his +nose to the cold trail again. All other things apart, the torn card +conclusively proved the correctness of the obstinately maintained +hypothesis. If the robber had really chosen Wahaska for his +hiding-place, he had done so merely because it was Miss Farnham's home. +The boldness of the thing appealed instantly to a like quality in the +detective, and he was not entirely unprepared for the eye-opening shock +which came when he began to suspect that Griswold, the writing-man, was +the man he was looking for. + +The premonitory symptoms of the shock had manifested themselves when he +began to note the regularity of Griswold's visits to the house in Lake +Boulevard. Then came the pistol-buying episode, closely following an +investment of money possible only to a capitalist--or a robber. Broffin +worked quickly after this, tracing Griswold's record back to its +Wahaskan beginnings and shadowing his man so faithfully that at any hour +of the day or night he could have clapped the arresting hand upon his +shoulder. Still he hesitated. Once, in his Secret Service days, he had +arrested the wrong man, and the smart of the prosecution for false +imprisonment would rankle as long as he lived. + +This was why he took to the woods on the afternoon of the second day +following Griswold's pistol purchase. He felt himself growing +short-sighted from the very nearness of things. The single necessity now +was for absolute and unshakable identification. To establish this, three +witnesses, and three only, could be called upon. Of the three, two had +failed signally--Miss Farnham because she had her own reasons for +blocking the game, and President Galbraith.... That was another chapter +in the book of failure. Broffin had learned that the president was +stopping at the De Soto Inn, and he had manoeuvred to bring Mr. +Galbraith face to face with Griswold in the Grierson bank on the day +after the pistol-buying. To his astonishment and disgust the president +had shaken his head irritably, adding a rebuke. "Na, na, man; your trade +makes ye over-suspeecious. That's Mr. Griswold, the writer-man and a +friend of the Griersons. Miss Madgie was telling me about him last week. +He's no more like the robber than you are. Haven't I told ye the man was +bearded like a tyke?" + +With two of the three eye-witnesses refusing to testify, there remained +only Johnson, the paying teller of the Bayou State Security. Broffin was +considering the advisability of wiring for Johnson when he passed the +last of the houses on the lakeside drive and struck into the country +road which led by cool and shaded forest windings to the resort hotel at +the head of the southern bay. If Johnson should fail--and in view of the +fact that President Galbraith had failed it was a possibility to be +reckoned with--there remained only two doubtful expedients. With Patrick +Sheehan's confession to point the way it might be possible to trace the +transformed deck-hand from his final interview with McGrath on the +_Belle Julie_ step by step to his appearance, sick and delirious, in +Wahaska twenty-four hours later. This was one of the expedients. The +other was to take the long chance by clapping the handcuffs upon +Griswold in some moment of unpreparedness. It was a well-worn trick, +and it did not always succeed in surprising the admission of guilt +necessary to make it hold good. And if it should not hold good, there +might be consequences. As we have noted, Broffin had once clapped the +handcuffs on the wrong man. + +Chewing an extinct cigar and ruminating thoughtfully over his problem, +Broffin had followed the windings of the country road well into the +lake-enclosing forest when he heard the rattle of wheels and the +hoof-beats of a horse. Presently the vehicle overtook and passed him. It +was Miss Grierson's trap, drawn by the big English trap-horse, with Miss +Grierson herself holding the reins and Raymer lounging comfortably in +the spare seat. + +The sight of the pair moved Broffin to speech apostrophic--when the two +were out of earshot. "You're the little lady I'd like to back into a +corner," he muttered. "What you know about this business--and wouldn't +tell, not if you was gettin' the third degree for it--would tie up all +the broken strings in a hurry. How do I know you didn't help him to get +out of St. Louis? How do I know that the whole blame sick play wasn't a +plant from start to finish?" He stopped and struck viciously at a +roadside weed with the switch he had cut. It was a new idea, an idea +with promise; and when he went on, the reflective excursion had become a +journey with a purpose. Chance had been good to him now and then in his +hard-working career: perhaps it would be good to him again. Having let +one woman put a stumbling-block in his way, perhaps it was going to +even things up by making another woman remove it. + +Half an hour later Broffin had followed the huge hoof-prints of the +great English trap-horse to the driveway portal of the De Soto grounds +where they were lost on the pebbled carriage approach. Strolling on +through the grounds into the lake-fronting lobby of the Inn, he was soon +able to account for Raymer. The young iron-founder was evidently on +business bent. He was sitting in the lobby with a man whom Broffin +recognized as the master car builder of the Pineboro Railroad, and the +two were discussing mechanical details over a thick file of blue-prints +spread out on Raymer's knees. The smile under Broffin's drooping +mustaches was a grin of instant comprehension. Miss Grierson, driving +Raymer's way, had picked up the iron-founder and brought him along to +the business appointment. It was a way she had--when the candidate for +the spare seat in the trap happened to be young and good-looking. + +Having placed Raymer, Broffin went in search of Miss Grierson. He found +her on the broad veranda, alone, and for the moment unoccupied. How to +make the attack so direct and so overwhelming that it could not be +withstood was the only remaining question; and Broffin had answered it +to his own satisfaction, and was advancing through an open French window +directly behind Miss Grierson's chair to put the answer into effect, +when the opportunity was snatched away. Raymer, with his roll of +blue-prints under his arm and his business with the master car builder +apparently concluded, came down the veranda and took the chair next to +Miss Grierson's. + +Broffin dropped back into the writing-room alcove for which the open +French window was the outlet and sat down to bide his time, taking care +that the chair which he noiselessly placed for himself should be out of +sight from the veranda, but not out of earshot. It seemed very unlikely +that the two young people who were enjoying the Minnedaskan view would +say anything worth listening to; but the ex-harrier of moonshine-makers +was of those who discount all chances. + +For a time nothing happened. The two on the veranda talked of the view, +of the coming regatta, of the latest lawn social given by the Guild of +St. John's. Broffin surmised that they were waiting for the trap to be +brought around from the hotel stables, though why there should be a +delay was not so evident. But in any event his opportunity was lost +unless he could contrive to isolate the young woman again. It was while +he was groping for the compassing means that Raymer said: + +"It's a shame to make you wait this way, Miss Madge. McMurtry said he +had an appointment with Mr. Galbraith for three o'clock, and he had to +go and keep it. But he ought to be down again by this time. Don't wait +for me if you want to go back to town. I can get a lift from somebody." + +"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" was the good-natured retort. "To +make you tie up your own horse in town and then to leave you stranded +away out here three miles from nowhere! I think I see myself doing such +a thing! Besides, I haven't a thing to do but to wait." + +Broffin shifted the extinct cigar he was chewing from one corner of his +mouth to the other and pulled his soft hat lower over his eyes. He, too, +could wait. There was a little stir on the veranda; a rustling of silk +petticoats and the click of small heels on the hardwood floor. Broffin +could not forbear the peering peep around the sheltering window +draperies. Miss Grierson had left her seat and was pacing a slow march +up and down before Raymer's chair, apparently for Raymer's benefit. The +watcher behind the window draperies drew back quickly when she made the +turn to face his way, arguing sapiently that whatever significance their +further talk might hold would be carefully and thoughtfully neutralized +if Miss Grierson should see him. That she had not seen him became a fact +sufficiently well-assured when she sat down again and began to speak of +Griswold. + +"How is the new partnership going, by this time," she asked, after the +manner of one who re-winnows the chaff of the commonplaces in the hope +of finding grain enough for the immediate need. + +"So far as Griswold is concerned, you wouldn't notice that there is a +partnership," laughed the iron-founder. "I can't make him galvanize an +atom of interest in his investment. All I can get out of him is, 'Don't +bother me; I'm busy.'" + +"Mr. Griswold is in a class by himself, don't you think?" was the +questioning comment. + +"He is all kinds of a good fellow; that's all I know, and all I ask to +know," answered Raymer loyally. + +"I believe that--now," said his companion, with the faintest possible +emphasis upon the time-word. + +Broffin marked the emphasis, and the pause that preceded it, and leaned +forward to miss no word. + +"Meaning that there was a time when you didn't believe it?" Raymer +asked. + +"Meaning that there was a time when he had me scared half to death," +confessed the one who seemed always to say the confidential thing as if +it were the most trivial. "Do you remember one day in the library, when +you found me looking over the files of the newspapers for the story of +the robbery of the Bayou State Security Bank in New Orleans?" + +Raymer remembered it very well, and admitted it. + +"That was the time when the dreadful idea was scaring me stiff," she +went on. "You remember the story, don't you? how the president--our Mr. +Galbraith here--was held up at the point of a pistol and marched to the +paying teller's window, and how the robber escaped on a river steamboat +and was recognized by somebody and was arrested at St. Louis?" + +"Yes; I remember it all very clearly. Also I recollect how the second +newspaper notice told how he escaped from the officers at St. Louis. +Wasn't there something about a young woman being mixed up in it some +way?" + +"There was: _she_ was the one who recognized the robber disguised as a +deck-hand on the boat." + +Raymer seemed to have forgotten his impatience for a renewal of the +interview with the Pineboro Railroad master car builder. + +"I don't seem to recall any mention of that in the newspapers," he said +half-doubtfully. + +"The newspaper reporters didn't put two and two together, but I did," +asserted the sharer of confidences. "There was a young woman getting a +draft cashed at the teller's window when the robbery was committed. The +bank people didn't know her, so she must have been travelling. You see +it's simple enough when you put your mind to it." + +"But you haven't told me how you were scared," Raymer suggested. + +"I'm coming to that. This escape we read about happened on a certain day +in April. It was the very day on which poppa met me on my way back from +Florida, and we took the eleven-thirty train north that night. You +haven't forgotten that Mr. Griswold was a passenger on that same train?" + +"But, goodness gracious, Miss Margery! any number of people were +passengers on that train. You surely wouldn't----" + +"Hush!" she said, and through the lace window hangings Broffin saw her +lift a warning finger. "What I am telling you, Mr. Raymer, is in the +strictest confidence; we mustn't let a breath of it get out. But that +wasn't all. Mr. Griswold was dreadfully sick, and, of course, he +couldn't tell us anything about himself. But while he was delirious he +was always muttering something about money, money; money that he had +lost and couldn't find, or money that he had found and couldn't lose. +Then when we thought he couldn't possibly get well, Doctor Bertie and I +ransacked his suit-cases for cards or letters or something that would +tell us who he was and where he came from. _There wasn't the littlest +thing!_" + +"And that was when you began to suspect?" queried Raymer. + +"That was when the suspicion began to torture me. I fought it; oh, you +don't know how hard I fought it! There he was, lying sick and helpless; +utterly unable to do a thing or say a word in his own defence; and yet, +if he were the robber, of course, we should have to give him up. It was +terrible!" + +"I should say so," was Raymer's sympathetic comment. "How did you get it +straightened out, at last?" + +"It hasn't been altogether straightened out until just lately--within +the past few days," she went on gravely. "After he began to get well, I +made him talk to me--about himself, you know. There didn't seem to be +anything to conceal. At different times he told me all about his home, +and his mother, whom he barely remembers, and the big-hearted, +open-handed father who made money so easily in his profession--he was +_the_ Griswold, the great architect, you know--that he gave it away to +anybody who wanted it--but I suppose he has told you all this?" + +"No; at least, not very much of it." + +Miss Grierson went on smoothly, falling sympathetically into the +reminiscent vein. + +"Kenneth went to college without ever having known what it was to lack +anything in reason that money could buy. A little while after he was +graduated his father died." + +"Leaving Kenneth poor, I suppose; he has intimated as much to me, once +or twice," said Raymer. + +"Leaving him awfully poor. He wanted to learn to write, and for a long +time he stayed on in New York, living just any old way, and having a +dreadfully hard time of it, I imagine, though he would never say much +about that part of it. He says he was studying the under-dog, and he has +told me some of the most harrowing things he has seen and been through: +one of them had a little child in it--a baby that he found in a tenement +where the father and mother had both died of starvation ... think of it! +And he took the baby away and fed it and kept it...." + +Broffin, sitting behind the window draperies, had his elbows on his +knees and his head tightly clamped between his hands. He was striving, +as the dying strive for breath, to remember. Where had he heard this +self-same story of the man who had fought some sort of a studying fight +in the back-water of the New York slums? In every detail it came back to +him like the recurring scenes of a vivid dream; but the key-notes of +time, place, and the man's identity were gone; lost beyond any power of +the groping mentality to recall them. + +"That is why he thinks he is a Socialist," Miss Grierson was going on +evenly. "I've been wondering if you knew these things, and I've wanted +to tell you. I've thought it might help you to understand him better if +you knew something of what he has been through. But we were talking +about my dreadful suspicion. It persisted, you know, right along through +everything. At last, I felt that I just _must_ know, at whatever cost. +One day when we were driving, I brought him here and--and introduced him +to Mr. Galbraith. I was so scared that I could taste it--but I did it!" + +Raymer laughed. "Of course, nothing came of it?" + +"Nothing at all; and the reaction pretty nearly made me faint. They just +made talk, like any two freshly introduced people would, and that was +all there was of it. You'd say that was proof enough, wouldn't you? +Surely Mr. Galbraith would recognize the man who robbed him?" + +"Certainly; there couldn't be any doubt of that." + +"That's what I said. And then, right out of a clear sky, came another +proof that was even more convincing. Do you happen to know who the young +woman was who discovered the bank robber on the steamboat?" + +"I? How should I know?" + +"I didn't know but she had told you," was the demure rejoinder. "It was +Charlotte Farnham." + +"What!" ejaculated Raymer. But he was not more deeply moved than was the +man behind the window curtains. If Broffin's dead cigar had not been +already reduced to shapeless inutility, Miss Grierson's cool +announcement, carrying with it the assurance that his secret was no +secret, would have settled it. + +"It's so," she was adding calmly. "I found out. She and her aunt were +passengers on the _Belle Julie_; that was the boat the robber escaped +on, you remember. Doctor Bertie told me that. And she was the young +woman who was having the draft cashed in the Bayou State Security. How +do I know? Because her father bought the draft at poppa's bank, and in +the course of time it came back with the Bayou State Security's dated +paying stamp on it. See how easy it was!" + +Raymer's laugh was not altogether mirthful. + +"You are a witch," he said. "Is there anything that you don't know?" + +"Not so very many things that I really need to know," was the mildly +boastful retort. "But you see, now, how foolish my suspicions were. Mr. +Galbraith meets Mr. Griswold just as he would any other nice young man; +and Charlotte Farnham, who recognized the robber even when he was +disguised as a deck-hand, sees Mr. Griswold pretty nearly every day." + +Raymer nodded. Though he would not have admitted it under torture, the +entire matter figured somewhat as a mountain constructed out of a rather +small mole-hill to a man for whom the subtleties lay in a region +unexplored. He wondered that the clear-minded little "social climber," +as his sister called her, had ever bothered her nimble brain about such +an abstruse and far-fetched question of identities. + +"You said, a few minutes ago, that Griswold calls himself a Socialist. +That isn't quite the word. He is a sociologist." + +Miss Grierson ignored the nice distinction in names. + +"Socialism goes with being poor, doesn't it?" she remarked. "Since Mr. +Griswold's ship has come in, I suppose he finds it easier, and +pleasanter, to be a theoretical leveller than a practical one." + +"That is another thing I have never been quite able to understand," said +the iron-founder. "You say his father left him poor: where did he get +his money?" + +"Why, don't you know?" was the innocent query. And then, with a pretty +affectation of embarrassment, real or perfectly simulated: "If he hasn't +told you, I mustn't." + +"Of course, I don't want to pry," said Raymer, loyal again. + +"I can give you a hint, and that is all. Don't you remember 'My Lady +Jezebel,' the unsigned novel that made such a hit last summer?" + +"Why, bless goodness, yes! Did he write that?" + +"He has never admitted it in so many words. But I'll divide a little +secret with you. He has been reading bits of his new book to me, and +pshaw! a blind person could tell! I asked him once if he could guess +how much the author of 'My Lady Jezebel' had been paid, and he said, +with the most perfectly transparent carelessness: 'Oh, about a hundred +thousand, I suppose.'" + +"Tally!" said Raymer, laughing. "Griswold has put an even ninety +thousand into my little egg-basket out at the plant. But, of course you +knew that, everybody in Wahaska knows it by this time." + +"Yes; I knew it." + +"I'm glad it's book money," Raymer went on. "If we should happen to go +smash, he won't feel the loss quite so fiercely. I have a friend over in +Wisconsin; he is a laboratory professor in mechanics, and he writes +books on the side. He says a book is a pure gamble. If you win, you have +that much more money to throw to the dicky-birds. If you lose, you've +merely drawn the usual blank." + +Miss Grierson did not reply, and for a little while they were both +silent. Then Raymer said: + +"I wonder if McMurtry doesn't think I've dropped out on him. I guess I'd +better go and see. Don't wait any longer on my motions, unless you want +to, Miss Margery." + +When Raymer had gone, the opportunity which Broffin had so lately craved +was his. Miss Grierson was left alone on the big veranda, and he had +only to step out and confront her. Instead, he got up quietly and went +back through the lobby with his head down and his hands in his pockets, +and the surviving bit of the dead cigar disappeared between his strong +teeth and became a cud of chagrin. There had been a goal in sight, but +Miss Grierson had beat him to it. + +And the winner of the small handicap? For the time it took Raymer to +disappear she sat perfectly still, in the attitude of one who stifles +all the other senses that the listening ear may hear and strike the note +of warning or of relief. A group of young people, returning from a +steam-launch circuit of the upper lake, came up the steps to disperse +itself with pleasant human clatterings on the veranda; but in spite of +the distractions the listening ear caught the sound for which it was +straining. With a deep breath-drawing that was almost a sob, Miss +Grierson sprang up, stole a swift confirming glance at the empty chair +behind the window hangings, and crossed the veranda to stand with one +arm around a supporting pillar. And since the battle was fought and won, +and the friendly pillar gave its stay and shelter, the velvety eyes +filled suddenly and the ripe red lips were trembling like the lips of a +frightened child. + + + + +XXIX + +ALL THAT A MAN HATH + + +For four entire days after Margery Grierson had driven home the nail of +the elemental verities in her frank criticism of the new book, and +Charlotte Farnham had clinched it, Wahaska's public places saw nothing +of Griswold; and Mrs. Holcomb, motherly soul, was driven to expostulate +scoldingly with her second-floor front who was pushing the pen +feverishly from dawn to the small hours, and evidently--in the kindly +widow's phrase--burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. + +Out of this candle-burning frenzy the toiler emerged in the afternoon of +the fifth day, a little pallid and tremulous from the overstrain, but +with a thick packet of fresh manuscript to bulge in his pocket when he +made his way, blinking at the unwonted sunlight of out-of-doors, to the +great house at the lake's edge. + +Margery was waiting for him when he rang the bell: he guessed it +gratefully, and she confirmed it. + +"Of course," she said, with the bewitching little grimace which could be +made to mean so much or so little. "Isn't this your afternoon? Why +shouldn't I be waiting for you?" Then, with a swiftly sympathetic +glance for the pale face and the tired eyes: "You've been overworking +again. Let's sit out here on the porch where we can have what little air +there is. There must be a storm brewing; it's positively breathless in +the house." + +Griswold was glad enough to acquiesce; glad and restfully happy and +mildly intoxicated with her beauty and the loving rudeness with which +she pushed him into the easiest of the great lounging chairs and took +the sheaf of manuscript away from him, declaring that she meant to read +it herself. + +"It will wear you out," he objected, fishing for the denial which would +give the precious fillip to the craftsman vanity. + +The denial came promptly. + +"Foolish!" she said; "as if anything you have written could make anybody +tired!" And then, with the mocking after-touch he had come to know so +well, and to look for: "Is that what you wanted me to say?" + +"You are the spice of life and your name should have been Variety," he +countered feebly. "But I warn you beforehand: there is a frightful lot +of it. I have rewritten it from the beginning." + +"So much the better," she affirmed. "You've been doling it out to me in +little morsels, and I've been aching to get it all at one bite." And she +began to read. + +It was the first time he had had any of his own work read to him, and +the experience was a pure luxury; at once the keenest and the most +sensuous enjoyment he had ever known. Marvelling, as he was always moved +to marvel, at her bright mind and clever wit and clear insight, he was +driven to the superlatives again to find words to describe her reading. +Artistically, and as with the gifted sympathy of a born actress, she +seemed able to breathe the very atmosphere of the story. None of his +subtle nuances were lost; there was never an emphasis misplaced. Better +still, the impersonation was perfect. By turns she became himself, +_Joan_, _Fidelia_, _Fleming_, or one of the subsidiary characters, +speaking the parts, rather than reading them, with such a sure +apprehension of his meaning that he could almost fancy that she was +reading from his mind instead of following the manuscript. + +When it was over; and he could not tell whether the interval should be +measured by minutes or hours; the return to the realities--the hot +afternoon, the tree-shaded veranda, the lake dimpling like a sheet of +molten metal under the sun-glare--was almost painful. + +"It is wonderful--simply wonderful!" he said, drawing a deep breath; and +then, with a flush of honest confusion to drive away the work pallor: +"Of course, you know I don't mean the story; I meant your reading of it. +Hasn't any one ever told you that you have the making of a great actress +in you, Margery, girl?" + +"No," she said shortly; and, dismissing that phase of the subject in the +single word: "Let's talk about the story. You have bettered it +immensely. What made you do it?" + +"I don't know; some convincement that it was all wrong and out of +drawing as it stood, I suppose." + +"Who gave you the convincement? Miss Farnham?" + +His answer was meant to be truthful, but beauty of the intoxicating sort +is the most mordant of solvents for truth in the abstract. + +"No; you did." + +"But she told you something," she persisted. "Otherwise, you could never +have made _Fidelia_ all over again, as you have in this rewriting." + +"Maybe she did," he admitted. "But that doesn't matter. You think I have +bettered the story, and I know I have. And I know where I got the +inspiration to do it." + +She was smiling across at him, level-eyed. + +"Let me pass it back to you, dear boy," she said. "You have the making +of a great novelist in you. It may take years and years, and--and I'm +afraid you'll always have to be helped; but if you can only get the +right kind of help...." She looked away, out across the lake where a +fitful breeze was turning the molten-metal dimples into laughing +wavelets. Then, with one of her sudden topic-wrenchings: "Speaking of +help, reminds me. Why didn't you tell me you had gone into the foundry +business with Edward Raymer?" + +"Because it didn't occur to me that you would care to know, I guess," he +answered unsuspectingly. "As a matter of fact, I had almost forgotten +it myself." + +"Was it a good investment?" she asked guilelessly. + +"Yes; that is, I presume it was. I didn't think much about that part of +it." + +"What did you think about?" + +It was just here that he awoke to the realization that he could hardly +afford to give Jasper Grierson's daughter the real reason for the +investment. So he prevaricated, knowing well enough that he had less +than no chance in an evasive duel with her. + +"Raymer had been adding to his plant, and he lacked capital," he said +guardedly. "I had the money, and it was lying idle." + +"Mr. Raymer didn't ask you for help?" + +"No; it was my own offer." + +"But he did tell you that he was in trouble?" + +"Y-yes," hesitantly. + +"What kind of trouble was it, Kenneth? I have the best right in the +world to know." + +Griswold straightened himself in his chair and the work-weariness became +a thing of the past. With the fairly evident fact staring him in the +face from day to day, it had never occurred to him that his friend and +business partner might also be his fellow-prisoner in the house of the +witcheries. The sudden convincement stung a little, the all-monopolizing +selfishness of the craftsman carrying easily over into the field of +sentiment. Yet it was clean friendship for Raymer, no less than for the +daughter of desire, that prompted him to say: + +"You can't have a right to know anything that will distress you." + +"Foolish!" she chided--and this time the epithet had lost its alluring +softness. "You may as well tell me. Mr. Raymer had borrowed money at +poppa's bank. What was the matter? Did he have to pay it back--all at +once?" + +There seemed to be no further opening for evasion. "Yes; I think that +was the way of it," he answered. + +Arguing wholly from the newly made discovery, or postulated discovery, +of Raymer's state and standing as an object of Miss Grierson's +solicitude, Griswold expected something in the nature of an outburst. +What he got was a transfixing glance of the passionate sort, quick with +open-eyed admiration. + +"And you just tossed your money into the breach as if you had millions +of it, and by now you've almost forgotten that you did it!" she +exclaimed. "Kenneth, dear, there are times when you are so heavenly good +that I can hardly believe it. Are there any more men like you over on +your side of the world?" + +At another time he might have smiled at the boyish frankness of the +question. But it was a better motive than the analyst's that prompted +his answer. + +"Plenty of them, Margery, girl; too many for the good of the race. You +mustn't try to make a hero out of me. Once in a while I get a glimpse of +the real Kenneth Griswold--you are giving me one just now--and it's +sickening. For a moment I was meanly jealous; jealous of Raymer. It was +only the writing part of me, I hope, but----" + +He stopped because she had suddenly turned her back on him and was +looking out over the lake again. When she spoke, she went back to the +business affair. + +"When you invest money you ought to look after it," she said +magisterially. "You are a Socialist, aren't you? How do you know that +your money isn't being used to oppress somebody?" + +"Oh, I do know that much," was the investor's protest. "Raymer is a good +boss--too good for the crowd he is trying to brother, I'm afraid." + +"What makes you say that?" + +"A word or two that he has dropped, now and then. When he branched out, +he had to increase his force accordingly. Some of the new men seem +inclined to make trouble." + +Again she fell silent, and he saw the brooding look come into the dark +eyes. It was evident that something he had said had started a train of +thought--and the thoughts were not altogether pleasant ones. Analyzing +again, he fancied he could picture the inward struggle to break away +from the unpleasantnesses, and he shook hands enthusiastically with his +own gift of insight when she looked up suddenly and said: "See! the +breeze is freshening out on the water. You are fagged and tired and +needing a bracer. Let's go and do a turn on the lake in the _Clytie_." + +From where he was sitting Griswold could see the trim little catboat, +resplendent in polished brass and mahogany, riding at its buoy beyond +the lawn landing-stage. He cared little for the water, but the +invitation pointed to a delightful prolongation of the basking process +which had come to be one of the chief luxuries of the Mereside +afternoons. + +"I'm not much of a sailor," he began; but she cut him off. + +"You'll do to pull and haul. Wait for me; I'll be ready in less time +than it would take another woman--_Fidelia_, for example--to make up her +mind what she wanted to wear." + +He waited; and when she came down, a few minutes later, crisply boyish +in the nattiest of yachting costumes, he wondered how she could appear +in so many different characters, fitting each in succession and +contriving always to make the latest transformation, while it lasted, +the one in which she figured as the most enticingly adorable. + +"Did you look in the glass before you came down?" he asked, standing up +to get the artistic effect of the shapely little figure backgrounded +against the dull reds of the house wall. + +"Naturally," she laughed. "Why, please? Is my face dirty?" + +He ignored the flippancy. + +"If you did, I don't need to tell you how irresistibly dazzling you +are." + +"Why shouldn't you, if you feel like it? Of course, I'd know you didn't +mean it. If you were describing me to somebody else, or in the book, +you'd say, 'Um, yes; rather fetching; pretty enough to--' But we all +like to be sugared a little now and then; and there's one thing you +must always remember: a woman's dressing-glass can't talk. Are you +ready? Open the window screen and drop the manuscript inside. It will be +safe until we come back, and the _Clytie_ might be tempted to throw cold +water on it if we should take it along. She's a wet little boat in a +sea." + +This for the outsetting: light-hearted badinage, a fair summer +afternoon, a zephyrish breeze coming in tiny cat's-paws out of the +north-west, and a cloudless sky. At the landing-stage Griswold made +himself useful, paying out the sea-line of the movable mooring buoy and +hauling on the shore-line until the handsome little craft lay at their +feet. Strictly under orders he made sail on the little ship, and when +the captain had taken her place at the tiller he shoved off. + +For a little time the breeze was lightly baffling, and Griswold +confessed that if he had been at the helm they would have gone +ingloriously aground. But the small person in the correct yachting +costume was an adept in boat handling, as she seemed to be in everything +else; and when the sandy bottom was fairly yellowing under the +_Clytie's_ counter, there was a quick juggling of the tiller, a deft +haul at the sheet, and the big main-sail filled slowly to the rippling +song of the little seas splitting themselves upon the catboat's sharp +cut-water. + +Once clear of the shallow bay, the helmswoman laid the course up the +lake; and Griswold, luxuriously lazy now that the working strain was +off, stretched himself comfortably on the cockpit cushions which he had +rummaged out of the cuddy cabin, and asked permission to light his pipe. +The permission given and the pipe filled and lighted, he pillowed his +head in his clasped hands and a great contentment, flowing into all the +interstices and levelling all the inequalities, lapped him in its +soothing flood. When the pipe had gone out there was joy enough left in +the pure relaxation; in that and in the contemplation through +half-closed eyelids of the pretty picture made by the tiller maiden +braced in the stern-sheets, her shining hair breeze-blown and flying +free under the captivating little yachting hat, and her eyes dancing.... + +Under such conditions a reflective analyst might conceivably wrench the +switch aside in front of the jogging train of thought to send it down a +shaded street to the lake-fronting house framed in shrubbery; to the +house and to the serene young house-mistress who had voluntarily stepped +from her goddess pedestal to become a flesh-and-blood woman to be loved +and cherished. He knew that Charlotte Farnham's readjustment of their +relations had in no wise modified her opinion of the _Joans_, or of the +men who were weak enough or besotted enough to be taken in the nets of +beguiling.... What would she think of him if she could see him lying at +Margery Grierson's feet, frankly and joyously revelling in the +triumphantly human charm of one of the _Joans_, and wishing with all his +heart--for the time being, at least--that there were no such things in +a world of effort as the higher ideals or any shackling requirement to +live up to them? + +He was still playing whimsically with the query when he was made to +realize that the murmuring rush of water under the catboat's forefoot +had changed into a series of resounding thumps; that the wind was +rising, and that the summer afternoon sky had become suddenly overcast. +The pretty tiller maiden was pushing the helm down with her foot and +hauling in briskly on the sheet when he sat up. + +"What's this we're coming to?" he asked, thinking less of the changed +weather conditions than of the charming picture she made in action. + +"Weather," she said shortly. "Look behind you." + +He looked and saw a huge storm cloud rising out of the north-west and +spreading like a great gray dust curtain from horizon to zenith. With +the sun blotted out, a brazen light filled all the upper air, and in the +heart of the cloud fleecy masses of vapor were writhing and twisting +like formless giants in battle. + +Quickly he measured the hazards. The _Clytie_ was fairly in mid-lake, +with plenty of sea room to leeward. There was an intervening island to +shut off the down-lake view, but though its forested bluffs and abrupt +headland were uncomfortably close at hand, a bit of skilful +manoeuvring would put it to windward. Beyond the island he could see +the breeze-blown smoke trail of the summer-resort hotel's steam launch +evidently making for its home port at full speed. + +"There's a good bunch of wind in that cloud," he said, springing to help +his companion with the slatting main-sail. "Hadn't we better lie up +under the island and let it blow over?" + +"No," she snapped. "We'll have to reef, and be quick about it. Help me!" + +He helped with the reefing, and the great main-sail had been +successfully reduced to its smallest area and hoisted home again before +the trees on the western shore began to bow and churn in the precursor +blasts of the coming storm. + +"It will hit us in less than a minute: how about weathering that +island?" he asked. + +"We've _got_ to weather it," was the instant decision; "we can't go +around." Then, the catboat still hanging in the wind's eye: "Help me get +her over." + +Together they held the shortened sail off at an angle, and slowly, very +slowly, the boat's bow fell off toward the island. Griswold was enough +of a sailor to know that it was the thing to do, but there was a +perilously narrow margin. The storm squall was already tearing across +from the western shore, blackening the water ahead of it and picking up +a small tidal wave as it came. If it should strike them before they were +ready for it, it meant one of two things: a capsize, or an instant +driving of the catboat upon the hazard of the island head. + +The crisis was upon them almost as soon as its threat could be measured. +Of the two, it was the young woman who met it with skilful purpose. +While the man could only scramble, choked and half-blinded, to windward +to throw his weight on the careening gunwale, the helmswoman had pounced +upon the tiller and was standing knee-deep in the water pouring over the +submerged lee rail to pay out and steer and miss the island headland by +a shearing hand's-breadth. + +The worst was over in a moment, and under the lee of the small island +there was a brief respite for pumping and bailing. The girl's black eyes +were shining with excitement and fearless daring, and Griswold would +have given much for time and leisure in which to catch and fix the +fleeting inspiration of the instant. But there was little space for the +artistic appreciation. + +"Hurry!" she cried; "we'll have to take it again in a minute or two!" +and there was still a bucketing of the shipped sea to thrash about in +the cockpit when the island withdrew its friendly shelter and the +_Clytie_, going free and sailed as Griswold had never seen a catboat +sailed before, wallowed out into the smother. + +For a little time there was not much to choose between drowning and +being hammered to death by the leaping plunges and alightings of the +frail cockle-shell which seemed to be blown bodily from crest to crest +of the short, high-pitched seas. The wind, heavily rain-laden, came in +furious gusts, flattening the reefed canvas until the bunt of the sail +dragged in the trough. Griswold climbed high on the weather rail, +leaning far out to help hold the balance between the heaving seas and +the pounding blasts. In the momentary lulls he had flitting glimpses of +the far-away town shore, with the storm-torn waste of waters +intervening. With the wind veering more and more to the west, it was a +fair run to the shelter of the home bay. But Margery was laying the +course far to the right, though to do it she was holding the catboat +cockpit-deep in the smother and taking the chance of a capsize with +every recurring gust. Griswold edged his way aft as far as he dared. + +"Hadn't you better let her fall off a little more and run for it?" he +suggested, and he had to shout it into the pink ear nearest to him to +make himself heard above the roaring of the wind and the crashing +plunges of the boat. + +She shook her head and made an impatient little gesture with her elbow +toward the storm-lashed raceway over the bows. Griswold winked the spray +out of his eyes and looked. At first he saw nothing but the wild waste +of whitecaps, but at the next attempt he made out the hotel steam +launch, half-way to the entrance of the southern bay and a little to +leeward of the _Clytie's_ course. The small steamer was evidently no +sea-boat, and with more courage than seamanship, its steersman was +driving straight for the Inn bay without regard for the direction of the +wind and the seas. + +"That's Ole Halverson!" cried the tiller maiden with scorn in her voice. +"He thinks because he happens to have a steam engine he needn't look to +see which way the wind is blowing." + +"She's pitching pretty badly," Griswold called back. "If he only had +sense enough to ease off a little...." Suddenly he became aware of the +finer heroism of his companion. He knew now why she had refused to take +shelter under the lee of the island, and why she was holding the catboat +down to the edge of peril to keep the windward advantage of the laboring +steamer. "Margery, girl, you're a darling!" he shouted. "Take all the +chances you want to and I'm with you, if we go to the bottom!" + +She nodded complete intelligence and took in another inch of the +straining main-sheet. + +"If Halverson loses his nerve they're going to need help, and need it +before the _Osprey_ can get out to them," she prophesied. + +Griswold looked again, this time over the catboat's counter, and saw a +big schooner, close-reefed, hauling out from a little bay on the north +shore. The launch's plight had evidently impressed others with the +necessity of doing something. The need was sufficiently urgent. Once +again the Swedish man of machinery in charge of the craft in peril was +inching his helm up in a vain endeavor to hold the course, and the +little steamer was rolling almost funnel under. Griswold forgot that his +companion was a woman and swore rabidly. + +"Look at the fool!" he yelled. "He's trying to come about! If he gets +into the trough----" + +The thing was done almost as he spoke. A wilder squall than any of the +preceding ones caught the upper works of the launch and heeled her +spitefully. At the critical instant the steersman lost his head and +spun the wheel, and it was all over. With a heaving plunge and a muffled +explosion the launch was gone. + +Once again Griswold was given to see the stuff Margery Grierson was made +of in the finer warp and woof of her. + +"That's for us," she said calmly; and then: "Help me get another inch or +two on this sheet. We don't want to let those people on the _Osprey_ do +all of the heroic things." + +Together they held the catboat down to its work, sending it ripping +through the crested waves and fighting sturdily for every foot of the +precious windward advantage. None the less, it was the big schooner, +thrashing down the wind with every square yard of its reefed canvas +drawing, which was first at the scene of disaster. Through the rain and +spume they could see the schooner's crew picking up the shipwrecked +passengers, who were clinging to life-belts, broken bulkheads, and +anything that would float. So swiftly was the rescue effected that the +rescuer had luffed and filled and was tearing on its way down the lake +again when the close-hauled _Clytie_ came up with the first of the +floating wreckage. The tiller maiden's dark eyes were shining again, but +this time their brightness was of tears. + +"Oh, boy, boy!" she cried, with a little heart-broken catch in her +voice; "some of them must have gone down with her! Can you believe that +the _Osprey_ got them all?" And then, with the sweet lips trembling: "I +did my best, Kenneth; my very best: and--it wasn't--good enough!" + +She was putting the catboat up into the wind, and Griswold stumbled +forward to get the broader outlook. Suddenly he called back to her. + +"Port!--port your helm hard! there's a man in a life-belt--he's just out +of reach. Hold her there--steady--steady!" He had thrown himself flat, +face down, on the half-deck forward and was clutching at something in +the heaving seas. "I've got him!" he cried, and a moment later he was +working his way aft, holding the man's face out of water. + +It asked for their united strength to get the gray-haired, heavy-bodied +victim of the capsize over the _Clytie's_ rail. They had to bring the +life-belt too; the old man's fingers were sunk into it with a dying grip +that could not be broken. At first Griswold was too much preoccupied and +shocked to recognize the drawn face with its hard-lined mouth and long +upper lip. When he did recognize it the gripping fear was at his +heart--the fear that makes a cruel coward of the hunted thing in all +nature. + +What might have happened if he had been alone; if Margery, taking her +place at the tiller and busying herself swiftly in getting the catboat +under way again, had not been looking on; he dared not think. And that +other frightful thought he put away, fighting against it madly as a +condemned man might push the cup of hemlock from his lips. Forcibly +breaking the drowned one's hold upon the life-belt, he fell to work +energetically, resorting to the first-aid expedients for the reviving of +the drowned as he had learned them in his boyhood. Once, only, he flung +a word over his shoulder at Margery as he fought for the old man's life. +"Make for the nearest landing where we can get a doctor!" he commanded; +and then, in a passion of gratitude: "O God, I thank thee that I am not +a murderer!--he's coming back! he's breathing again!" + +A little later he was able to leave off the first-aid arm-pumpings and +chest-pressings; to straighten the limp and sprawling limbs, and to dive +into the cuddy cabin, under Margery's directions, for blankets and rugs. +When all was done that could be done, and he had propped the +blanket-swathed body with the cushions so that the crash and plunge of +the pitching catboat would be minimized for the sufferer, he went aft to +sit beside the helmswoman, who was getting the final wave-leap of speed +out of the little vessel. + +"He is alive?" she asked. + +"Yes; and that is about all that can be said. He isn't drowned; but he +is old, and the shock has gone pretty near to snapping the thread." + +"Of course, you remember him?" she said, looking away across the leaping +waters. + +Griswold, with his heart on fire with generous emotions, felt the cold +hand gripping him again. + +"He is the old gentleman you introduced me to at the Inn the other day: +Galbraith; is that the name?" + +"Yes," she rejoined, still looking away; "that is the name." + +Griswold fell silent for the time; but a little later, when the catboat +was rushing in long plunges through the entrance to the Wahaskan arm of +the lake, he said: "You are going to take him to Mereside?" + +"Yes. He is a friend of poppa's. And, anyway, it's the nearest place, +and you said there was no time to lose." + +There were anxious watchers on the Mereside landing-stage: the gardener, +the stable-man, Thorsen, and three or four others. When the landing was +safely made, Miss Grierson took command and issued her orders briskly. + +"Four of you carry Mr. Galbraith up to the house, and you, Thorsen, put +Baldur into the two-wheeled trap and be ready to go for Doctor Farnham +when I tell you where you can find him. Johnnie Fergus, you come here +and take care of the _Clytie_; you know how to furl down and moor her." + +Griswold helped the bearers lift the blanketed figure out of the +_Clytie's_ cockpit, and while he was doing it, the steel-gray eyes of +the rescued one opened slowly to fix a stony gaze upon the face of the +man who was bending over him. What the thin lips were muttering Griswold +heard, and so did one other. "So it's you, is it, ye murdering blue-eyed +deevil?" And then: "Eh, man, man, but I'm sick!" + +Griswold walked with Margery at the tail of the little procession as it +wound its way up the path to the great house. + +"You heard what he said?" he inquired craftily. + +"Yes: he is out of his head, and no wonder," she said soberly. Then: +"You must go home and change at once; you are drenched to the skin. +Don't wait to come in. I'll take care of your manuscript." + + + + +XXX + +THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES + + +The cyclonic summer storm had blown itself out, and the clouds were +beginning to break away in the west, when Griswold, obeying Margery's +urging to go home and change his clothes, turned his back upon Mereside +and his face toward a future of thickening doubts and unnerving +possibilities. + +Once more he found himself wrestling with the keeper of the gate, the +angel of the flaming sword set to drive him forth among the outcasts. +One by one the confidently imagined safeguards were crumbling. He had +been traced to Wahaska--so much could be read between the lines of +Charlotte Farnham's story; if Margery's newsboy protégé was to be +believed, he was watched and followed. And now, after having +successfully passed the ordeal of a face-to-face meeting and +hand-shaking with Andrew Galbraith, chance or destiny or the powers of +darkness had intervened, and a danger met and vanquished had been +suddenly brought to life again, armed and menacing. + +Griswold had not deceived himself, nor had he allowed Margery's apparent +convincement to deceive him. The old man's mind had not been wandering +in the eye-opening moment of consciousness regained. On the contrary, +what he had failed to do under ordinary and conventional conditions had +become instantly possible when the plunge into the dark shadow had +brushed away all the artificial becloudings of the memory page. What +action he would take when he should recover was as easy to prefigure as +it was, for the present at least, a matter negligible. The dismaying +thing was that the broad earth seemed too narrow to hide in; that +invention itself became the clumsiest of blunderers when, it was given +the simple task of losing a single individual among the millions of +unrelated human atoms. + +Thus the threat of the peril which might be called the physical. But +beyond this there was another, and, for a man of temperament, a still +more ominous foreshadowing of evil to come. Of some subtle, deep-seated +change in himself he had long been conscious. Again and again it had +manifested itself in those moments of craven fear and ruthless, +murderous promptings, when kindliness, gratitude, love, all the +humanizing motives, had turned suddenly to frenzied hatred, and the +primitive savage had leaped up, fiercely raging with the blood-lust. + +Here, again, he suffered loss, and was conscious of it. The point of +view was changed, and still changing. Something, a thing indefinable, +but none the less real, had gone out of him. Once, in the heart of a +thick darkness of squalor and misery, he had seen a great light and the +name of it was love for his kind. But now the light was waning, and in +its room a bale-fire was beckoning. There be those, fat, well-nurtured, +and complacent souls faring ever along the main-travelled roads of life, +who need no guiding lamp and will never see the glimmer of the +bale-fires. But the breaker of traditions was of those who, having once +seen the light, must follow where it leads or violate a primal law of +being. Some vague sense of this was stirring the dying embers for the +proletary as he was climbing the hill to the street of quiet entrances; +but he pushed the saving thought aside and chose to call it fanaticism. +He had drawn the line and he would hew to it. + +For a long time after he had reached his room, and had had his bath and +change, Griswold sat at his writing-table with his head in his hands, +thinking in monotonous circles. As in those other stressful moments, the +importunate devil was at his ear; now mocking him for not having left +the drowned enemy as he was; now whispering the dreadful hope that age +and the shock and the drowning might still re-erect the barrier of +safety. The eyes of the recusant grew hot and a loathsome fever ran +sluggishly through his veins when he realized the depths to which he had +descended; that he, once the brother-loving, could coldly weigh the +chance of life and death for another and be unable to find in any corner +of his heart the hope that life might prevail. + +He was still sitting, miserably reflective, in the dark, when Mrs. +Holcomb came up to call him to dinner. What excuse he made he could not +remember two minutes after she had gone down. But to make a fourth with +the motherly widow and her two bank clerks at the cheerful dinner-table +was a thing beyond him. Somewhat later he heard the two young men come +upstairs, and, still further along, go down again. They were social +souls, his two fellow lodgers; kindly young fellows with boyish faces +and honest eyes: Griswold wondered if they would still look up to him +and defer to him as the older man of broader culture if they could +know.... + +The tiny chiming clock on his dressing-case in the adjoining bedroom had +tinkled forth its ten tapping hammer strokes when the man sitting in the +dark heard the pounding of hoofs and the rattling of buggy wheels in the +quiet street. He was absently awaking to the fact that the vehicle had +stopped at his own door when he heard voices, the widow's and another, +in the lower hall, and then a man's footsteps on the stair. To a +hard-pressed breaker of the traditions at such a moment an unannounced +visitor, coming up in the dark, could mean but one thing. Griswold +silently opened a drawer in the writing-table and groped for the mate to +the quick-firing pistol which, after the change of wet clothing, he had +put aside to dry. + +The visitor came heavily upstairs, and Griswold, swinging his chair to +face the open door, saw the shadowy bulking of the man as he came +through the upper hall. When the bulk filled the doorway it was covered +by the pistol held low, and Griswold's finger was pressing the trigger. + +"Asleep, old man?" said the intruder in Raymer's well-known voice. + +There was a sound like a gasping sob, and another as of a drawer closing +softly. Then Griswold said: "No; I'm not asleep. Come in. Shall I light +the gas?" + +"Not for me," returned the bedtime visitor, entering and groping for the +chair at the desk-end, into which, when he had placed it, he dropped +wearily. "I want to smoke," he went on. "Have you got a cigar--no, not +the pipe; I want something that I can chew on." + +A cigar was found, in the drawer which had so lately furnished the +weapon, and by the flare of the match in Raymer's fingers Griswold saw a +face haggard with anxiety. In the kindlier days it had been one of his +redeeming characteristics that he could never dwell long upon his own +harassments when another's troubles were brought to him. + +"What is the matter, Edward?" he asked. + +"A mix-up with the labor unions. It's been brewing for some little time, +but I didn't want to worry you with it. Unless we announce a flat +increase of twenty per cent in wages to-morrow morning, and declare for +the closed shop, the men will go out on us at noon. I've seen it coming. +It began with the enlarging of the plant and the taking on of the new +men needed. We've always had the open shop, as you know, and it was all +right so long as we were too small for the unions to scrap about. But +now we get the Iron Workers' ultimatum: we can do as we please about +the profit-sharing; but the flat increase must go on the pay-rolls, and +the shop must be run as a closed shop." + +If the god of mischance had chosen the moment it could not have been +more opportune for the fire-lighting of malevolence. Griswold's +swing-chair righted itself with a click, and Bainbridge's prophecy that +a hot-hearted proletary was likely to become the hardest of masters +became a prediction fulfilled. + +"We'll see them in hell, first, Raymer! Isn't that the way you feel +about it?" + +"Partly," allowed the smoker. "But it can hardly be disposed of that +easily, Kenneth. A good third of the men are our old standbys; men who +were in the shops under my father. Some pretty powerful influence has +been brought to bear upon them to swing them against us. I don't know +what it is, but I do know this: every second man we have hired lately +has turned out to be either a loud-mouthed agitator or a silent mixer of +trouble medicine." + +"Let the causes go for the present," said Griswold shortly. "We're +talking about the men, now. The ungrateful beggars are merely proving +that it isn't in human nature to meet justice and fairness and generous +liberality half-way. If they want a fight, give it to them. Hit first +and hit hard; that's the way to do. Shut up the plant and make it a +lock-out." + +"I was afraid you might say something like that in the first heat of +it," said the young ironmaster. "It's a stout fighting word, and I +guess, under the skin, you're a stout fighting man, Kenneth--which I'm +not. Where are your convictions about the man-to-man obligations? We've +got to take them into the account, haven't we?" + +"Damn the convictions!" snapped Griswold viciously. "If I've been giving +you the impression that I'm an impracticable theorist, forget it. These +fellows want a fight: I say give them a fight--all they want of it and a +little more for good measure." + +Raymer did not reply at once. This latest Griswold was puzzling him, and +with the puzzlement there went sorrowful regret; the regret that has +been the recanter's portion in all the ages. When he spoke it was out of +the heart of common sense and sanity. + +"I know how you feel about it; I had a little attack of the same sort +this afternoon when the grievance committee dropped down on me. But +facts are pretty stubborn things, and they've got us foul. We have +twenty thousand dollars' worth of work for the Pineboro road on the shop +tracks, and the trouble-makers have picked their opportunity. If we +can't turn out this work, we'll lose the Pineboro's business, which, as +I have told you, is a pretty big slice of our business. Under such +conditions I don't dare to pull down a fight which may not only shut us +up for an indefinite time, but might even go far enough to smash us." + +Griswold took his turn of silence, rocking gently in the tilting chair. +When the delayed rejoinder came, the harshness had gone out of his +voice, but there was a cynical hardness to take its place. + +"It's your affair; not mine," he said. "If you've made up your mind not +to fight, of course, that settles it. Now we can come down to the +causes. You've been stabbed in the back. Do you know who's doing it?" + +"The Federated Iron Workers, I suppose." + +"Not in a thousand years! They are only the means to an end." The +tilting chair squeaked again, and he went on: "If I'm going to show you +how you can dodge this fight, I'll have to knock down a door or two +first. If I blunder in where I'm not wanted, you can kick me out. There +is one way in which you can cure all this trouble-sickness without +resorting to surgery and blood-letting." + +"Name it," said Raymer eagerly. + +"I will; but first I'll have to break over into the personalities. Have +you made up your mind that you are going to marry Margery Grierson?" + +Raymer laughed silently, leaning his head back on the cushion of the +lazy-chair until his cigar stood upright. + +"That's a nice way to biff a man in the dark!" he chuckled. "But if +you're in earnest I'll tell you the straightforward truth: I don't +know." + +"Why don't you know?" If there were a scowl to go with the query, Raymer +could not see it. + +"I'll be frank with you again, Kenneth. What little sentiment there is +in me leans pretty heavily that way. You have been with her a good bit +and you know her--know how she appeals to any man with a drop of red +blood in him. But I'm twenty-eight years old and well past the time +when the young man's fancy lightly turns--and all that. I can't ignore +the--the--well, the proprieties, you might say, though that isn't +exactly the word." + +"You mean that Margery Grierson doesn't measure up to the requirements +of the Wahaskan Four Hundred?" There was satirical scorn in the +observation, but Raymer did not perceive it. + +"Oh, I don't know as you would put it quite that baldly," he protested. +"But you see, when it comes to marrying and settling down and raising a +family, you have to look at all sides of the thing. The father, as we +all know, is a cold-blooded old werewolf; the mother nobody knows +anything about save that--happily, in all probability--she isn't living. +And there you are. Yet I won't deny that there are times when I'm +tempted to shut my eyes and take the high dive, anyway--at the risk of +splashing a lot of good people who would doubtless be properly +scandalized." + +By this time Griswold was gripping the arms of his chair savagely and +otherwise trying to hold himself down; but this, too, Raymer could not +know. + +"You have reason to believe that it rests wholly with you, I suppose?" +came from the tilting chair after a little pause. "Miss Grierson is only +waiting for you to speak?" + +"That's a horrible question to ask a man, Kenneth--even in the dark. If +I say yes to it, it can't sound any other way than boastful and--and +caddish. Yet I honestly believe that-- Oh, hang it all! can't you see +how impossible you're making it, old man?" + +"Not impossible; only a trifle difficult," was the qualifying rejoinder. +"It is easier from this on. That is the peaceful way out of the shop +trouble for you, Raymer. When you can go to Jasper Grierson and tell him +you are going to marry his daughter, the trouble will be as good as +cured." + +For a little time Raymer was speechless. Then he burst out. + +"Well, I'll be-- Jove, Griswold, you don't lack much of being as +cold-blooded as the old buccaneer himself! What makes you think he is +stirring up the trouble?" + +"It doesn't require any special thought. He wanted to freeze you out a +little while back, and you balked him. Now he has come back at you +another way." + +"I wonder!" said the iron-founder musingly; and then: "I more than half +believe you are right. But if you are, do you realize what you are +proposing?" + +"I am not proposing anything; I am merely suggesting. But you needn't +put in the factor of doubt. This labor trouble that is threatening to +smash you is Jasper Grierson's reply to the move you made when you let +me in and choked him off. He is reaching for you." + +Again Raymer held his peace and the atmosphere of the room grew pungent +with tobacco smoke. + +"I'm feeling a good bit like a yellow dog, Kenneth," he said, at length. +"After what I've admitted and what you've said, I'm left in the +position of the poor devil who would be damned if he did and be damned +if he didn't. You have succeeded in fixing it so that I _can't_ ask +Margery Grierson to be my wife, however much I'd like to." + +"That isn't the point," insisted Griswold half-savagely. "How you may +feel about it, or what your people may say, is purely secondary. The +thing to be considered is, what will happen to Miss Grierson?" + +"Oh, the devil! if you put it that way----" + +"I am putting it precisely that way." + +"Why, see here, old man; if you were Madge's brother, you couldn't be +putting the screws on any harder! What's got into you to-night?" + +Griswold was inexorable. + +"Miss Grierson hasn't any brother, and she might as well not have any +father--better, perhaps. As God hears me, Raymer, I'm going to see to it +that she gets a square deal." + +"In other words, if she has made up her clever little mind that she +wants to be Mrs. Ed. Raymer----" + +"That is it, exactly." + +"By George! I believe you are in love with her, yourself!" + +"I am," was the cool reply. + +"Well, of all the-- Say, Griswold, you're a three-cornered puzzle to me +yet. I don't know what the other three-fourths of the town is saying, +but my fourth of it has it put up that you've everlastingly cooked my +goose at Doctor Bertie's; that you and Charlotte are just about as good +as engaged. Perhaps you'll tell me that it isn't true." + +"It isn't--yet." + +"But it may be, later on? Now you are getting over into my little +garden-patch, Kenneth. If you think I'm going to stand still and see you +put a wedding ring on Charlotte Farnham's finger when I know you'd like +to be putting it on Madge Grierson's----" + +Griswold's low laugh came as an easing of stresses. + +"You can't very well marry both of them, yourself, you know," he +suggested mildly. And then: "If you were not so badly torn up over this +shop trouble, you'd see that I'm trying to give you the entire field. I +shall probably leave town to-morrow, and I merely wanted to do you, or +Miss Grierson, or both of you, a small kindness by way of leave-taking." + +"Leave town?" echoed the iron-founder. "Where are you going?" + +"I don't know yet." + +"But you are coming back?" + +"No." + +Once more Raymer puffed at the shortened cigar until the end of it +glowed like a small distress signal in the dark. + +"Tell me," he broke out finally: "has Margery Grierson turned you down?" + +"No." + +"Then Charlotte has?" + +"No." + +"Confound it all! can't you say anything but 'No'? Do you mean to tell +me that you are going away, leaving me bucked and gagged by this labor +outfit to live or die as I may? Great Scott, man! if my money's gone, +yours goes with it!" + +"You are freely welcome to the money, Edward--if you can manage to hang +on to it; and I have pointed out the easy way to salvage the industrial +ship. Can't you give me your blessing and let me go in peace?" + +The blessing was not withheld, but neither was it given. + +"I came here with my own back-load of trouble, but it seems that I'm not +the only camel in the caravan," said the young ironmaster, thoughtfully. +"What is it, Kenneth? anything you can unload on me?" + +"You wouldn't understand," was the gentle evasion. "I can only give you +my word that neither Miss Margery nor Miss Charlotte are in any way +concerned in it." + +"And you don't want to draw your money out of the plant?" + +"No. For your sake I wish I had more to put in." + +Once again Raymer took refuge in silence. After a time he said: "You've +been a brother to me, Griswold, and I shall never forget that. But if I +needed your help in the money pinch, I'm needing it worse now. I'll do +the right thing by Margery; I think I've been meaning to, all along; if +I haven't, it's only because this whole town has been fixing up a match +between Charlotte and me ever since we were school kids together--you +know how a fellow gets into the way of taking a thing like that for +granted merely because everybody else does?" + +"Yes; I know." + +"Well, I guess it isn't a heart-breaker on either side. If Charlotte +cares, she doesn't take the trouble to show it. Just the same, on the +other hand, I've got a shred or two of decency left, Kenneth. I'm not +going to marry myself out of this fight with Jasper Grierson--not in a +million years. Stay over and help me see it through; and when we win +out, I promise you I'll do the square thing." + +By no means could Edward Raymer know that he had set the whispering +devil at work again at the ear of the man who was rocking gently in the +desk-chair. But the demon was busily suggesting, and the man was +listening. Was there not more than an even chance that Andrew Galbraith +would die, after all? He was old, with the life-reserves spent and the +weight of the years upon him. And if he should not die, there was still +a chance that days might elapse before he would be able to gather +himself sufficiently to remember and to raise the hue and cry. Griswold +put a hot hand across the corner of the table and felt for Raymer's cool +one. + +"There's only one other way, Edward; and that is to fight like the +devil," he said, speaking as one who has weighed and measured and +decided. "What do you say?" + +"If you will stay," Raymer began, hesitantly. + +"I'll stay--as long as I can." Then, with the note of harshness +returning: "We'll make the fight, and we'll give these muckers of yours +all they are looking for. Shut the plant doors to-morrow morning and +make it a lock-out. I'll be over bright and early and we'll place a +bunch of wire orders in the cities for strike-breakers. That will bring +them to time." + +Raymer got up slowly and felt in the dark for his hat. + +"Strike-breakers!" he groaned. "Griswold, it would make my father turn +over in his coffin if he could know that we've come to that! But I guess +you're right. Everybody says I'm too soft-hearted to be a master of men. +Well, I must be getting home. To-morrow morning, at the plant? All +right; good-night." + +And he turned to grope his way to the door and through the dark upper +hall and down the stair. + + + + +XXXI + +NARROWING WALLS + + +When Griswold had reached across the corner of his writing-table in the +unlighted study to strike hands with Edward Raymer upon the promise to +stay and help, it is conceivable that he gave the impelling motive its +just due. To step aside was to become a fugitive, leaving a fugitive's +plain trail and half-confession of guilt behind him to direct the +pursuit. To stay and face the crisis coldly was equally out of the +question for a man of temperament. The call to action came as a draught +of fiery wine to the overspent and he accepted in a sudden upsurge of +self-centring that took nothing into the account save the welcome +excitement of a conflict. + +It was with rather more than less of the self-centring that he joined +the conference with Raymer and the shop bosses in the offices of the +plant the following morning. Having slept upon the quarrel, Raymer was +on the conciliatory hand, and four of the five department foremen were +with him. In the early hours of the forenoon a compromise was still +possible. The prompt closing of the shops had had its effect, and a +deputation of the older workmen came to plead for arbitration and a +peaceful settlement of the trouble. Raymer, who had evidently been +taking counsel with his womankind, would have consented to this +proposal, but Griswold fought it and finally carried his point. "No +compromise" was the answer sent back to the locked-out workmen, and with +it went the ultimatum, which Griswold himself snapped out at the leader +of the conciliators: "Tell your committee that it is unconditional +surrender, and it must be made before five o'clock this afternoon. +Otherwise, not a man of you can come back on any terms." + +At the hurling of this firebrand, three of the five department heads +drew their pay-envelopes and went away. Then Griswold proceeded to make +the breach impassable by calling upon the sheriff for a guard of +deputies. Raymer shook his head gloomily when the thrower of firebrands +sent the 'phone message to the sheriff's office. + +"That settles it beyond any hope of a patch-up," he said sorrowfully. +"If we hadn't declared war before, we've done it now. I'm prophesying +that nobody will weaken when it comes to the pay-roll test this +afternoon." + +"Because we have taken steps to protect our property?" rasped the +fighting partner. + +"Because we have taken the step which serves notice upon them that we +consider them criminals, at least in intention. You'd resent it +yourself, Griswold. If anybody should pull the law on you before you had +done anything to deserve it, I'm much mistaken if you wouldn't----" + +"Oh, hell!" was the biting interruption; and Raymer could not know upon +what inward fires he had unwittingly flung a handful of inflammables. + +It was during the paying-off interval in the afternoon that Broffin +strolled across the railroad tracks, and, after listening to one or two +of the incendiary speeches at the storm-centre mass meeting in front of +McGuire's, went on past the potteries to the Raymer plant. + +Several things had happened since the afternoon when he had sat behind +the sheltering window curtain in the writing-room of the summer-resort +hotel listening to Miss Grierson's story. For one, Teller Johnson, of +the Bayou State Security, had pleaded his inability to leave his post +unless ordered to do so by the president: the cashier was sick and the +bank was short-handed. For another, there had been a peppery protest +entered by the good Doctor Bertie--transformed for the moment into an +exasperated Doctor Bertie. If Broffin did not quit his annoying +espionage upon the house in Lake Boulevard, and upon the visitors +thereto, there was going to be trouble, and he, Doctor Bertie, would be +the trouble-maker. For a third untoward thing, he had found that Wahaska +as a community was beginning to look a little askance at him. The +village consciousness which had made it so easy for him to find out all +he wished to know about everybody was turning against him, and now, as +it seemed, everybody was wishing to know more than he cared to tell +about the past, present, and future concerns of one Matthew Broffin: in +short, he was becoming a suspicious character. + +Broffin the pertinacious, again with an unlighted cigar between his +teeth, was ruminating thoughtfully over these things when he came in +sight of the closed gates and smokeless chimneys of the Foundry and +Machine Works. Once more the scent had grown cold. Miss Grierson's story +had seemed to clear Griswold--if anything short of a court acquittal +could clear him; and in the peppery interview Doctor Farnham had told +him plainly that, if Mr. Griswold were the object of his attentions, he +was barking up the wrong tree; that Miss Farnham would, if necessary, go +into court and testify that Mr. Griswold was not the man whom she had +seen in the Bayou State Security. Also, Griswold was doing something for +himself. It was he who had pulled Mr. Galbraith out of the lake little +better than a dead man, and had brought him to life again; and now he +was taking an active part in the foundry fight--about the last thing +that might be expected of a man dodging the police. + +In spite of all these buffetings the man from Tennessee was only +bruised; not beaten. It is possible to be convinced without evidence; to +believe without being able to prove. Also, convincement may grow into +certainty as the evidence to support it becomes altogether incertitude. +Broffin was as sure now that Griswold was his man as he was of his own +present inability to prove it. Which is to say that he had discounted +Miss Farnham's refusal to help, and President Galbraith's refusal to +remember; was discounting Miss Grierson's skilfully told story, and +Griswold's breaking of all the criminal precedents by staying on in +Wahaska after he had been warned. For Broffin made no doubt that the +warning had been given, either by Miss Farnham or by Miss Grierson--or +both. + +"All the same, he'll make a miss-go, sooner or later," the pertinacious +one was saying to himself as he strolled past the Raymer plant with a +keen eye for the barred gates, the lounging guards in the yard, and the +sober-faced workmen coming and going at the pay-office. "If he can carry +a steady head through what's comin' to him here, he's a better man than +I've been stacking him up to be." + +Coming even with the grouping around the office door, Broffin sat down +on a discarded cylinder casting, chewed his dry smoke, whittled a stick, +and kept an open ear for the sidewalk talk. It was angrily vindictive +for the greater part, with the new member of the Raymer company for a +target. Now and then it was threatening. If the company should attempt +to bring in foreign labor there would be blood on the moon. + +Later, a big, red-faced man with his hat on the back of his head and a +paste diamond in his shirt bosom, came to join the shifting group on the +office sidewalk. Broffin marked him as one of the inflammatory speakers +he had seen and heard on the dry-goods-box rostrum in front of +McGuire's, and had since been trying to place. The nearer view turned +up the proper page in the mental note-book. The man's name was Clancy; +he was a Chicago ward-worker, sham labor leader, demagogue; a bad man +with a "pull." Broffin remembered the "pull" because it had once got in +his way when he was trying to bag Clancy for a violation of the revenue +laws. + +Instantly the detective began to speculate upon the chance that had +brought the Chicago ward bully into a village labor fight, and since it +was his business to put two and two together, he was not long in finding +the answer to his own query. Clancy had come because he had been hired +to come. Assuming this much, the remainder was easy. The town gossips +had supplied all the major facts of the Raymer-Grierson checkmate, and +Broffin saw a great light. It was not labor and capital that were at +odds; it was competition and monopoly. And monopoly, invoking the aid of +the Clancys, stood to win in a canter. + +Broffin dropped the stick he had been whittling and got up to move away. +Though some imaginative persons would have it otherwise, a detective may +still be a man of like passions--and generous prepossessions--with other +men. For the time Broffin's Anglo-Saxon heritage, the love of fair play, +made him forget the limitations of his trade. "By grapples, the old +swine!" he was muttering to himself as he made a slow circuit of the +plant enclosure. "Somebody ought to tell them two young ducks what +they're up against. For a picayune, I'd do it, myself. Huh!--and the +little black-eyed girl playin' fast an' loose with both of 'em at once +while the old money-octippus eats 'em alive!" + +Thus Broffin, circling the Raymer works by way of the four enclosing +streets; and when his back was turned the man called Clancy pointed him +out to the group of discontents. + +"D'ye see that felly doublin' the fence corner? Ye're a fine lot of jays +up here in th' backwoods! Do I know him? Full well I do! An' that shows, +ye what honest workin'men has got to come to, these days. Didn't ye see +him sittin' there on that castin'? Th' bosses put him there to keep +tricks on ye. If ye have the nerve of a bunch of hoboes, ye'll watch yer +chances and step on him like a cockroach. He's a Pinkerton!" + + + + +XXXII + +THE LION'S SHARE + + +Wahaska, microcosmic and village-conscious in spite of its city charter, +was duly thrilled and excited when, on the day following the storm and +shipwreck, it found itself the scene of an angry conflict between +capital and labor. + +Reports varied as to the origin of the trouble. Among the retired +farmers, who still called Raymer "Eddie" and spoke of him as "John +Raymer's boy," it was the generally expressed opinion that he was both +too young and too easy-going to be a successful industry captain in the +larger field he had lately entered. In the workingmen's quarter, which +lay principally beyond the railroad tracks, public opinion was less +lenient and the young ironmaster, figuring hitherto only as a good boss +with a few unnecessary college ideas, was denounced as a "kid-glove" +reformer who made his profit-sharing fad an excuse for advancing his +favorites, and who was accordingly to be "brought to time" by the strong +hand of the organization. + +It was a crude surprise, both to the West Side and to "Pottery Flat," to +find the new book-writing partner not only taking an active part in the +fight, but apparently directing the capitalistic hostilities with a +high hand. Quite early in the forenoon it was known on the street that +Griswold had taken the field with Raymer; that the lock-out was his +reply to the strike notice; and that it was at his suggestion that a +dozen deputies had been sworn in to guard the Raymer plant--the iron +works lying just outside of the corporation lines. A little later came +the news that he had sent a counter ultimatum to the representatives of +the labor forces sitting in permanence in their hall over McGuire's +saloon. From two o'clock until five the offices of the plant would be +open, and all former employees would be paid in full and discharged. +Those who failed to make application between the hours named would not +be taken back on any terms. + +From two to five in the afternoon Wahaska, figuratively speaking, held +its breath. At half-past three, young Dahlgren, of the _Daily Wahaskan_, +spoiled a good story for his own paper by spreading the report that most +of the men had sullenly drawn their pay, but as yet not a man of them +had signed on for further employment. At four o'clock the _Daily +Wahaskan's_ windows bore a bulletin to the effect that a mass +indignation meeting was in progress in front of the Pottery Flat saloon; +and at half-past four it was whispered about that war had been declared. +Raymer and Griswold were telegraphing for strike-breakers; and the men +were swearing that the plant would be picketed and that scabs would be +dealt with as traitors and enemies. + +It was between half-past four and five that Miss Grierson, driving in +the basket phaeton, made her appearance on the streets, evoking the +usual ripple of comment among the gossipers on the Winnebago porch as +she tooled her clean-limbed little Morgan to a stop in front of the +Farmers' and Merchants' Bank. + +Since it was long past the closing hours, the curtains were drawn in the +bank doors and street-facing windows. But there was a side entrance, and +when she tapped on the glass of the door an obsequious janitor made +haste to admit her. "Yo' paw's busy, right now, Miss Mahg'ry," the negro +said; but she ignored the hint and went straight to the door of the +private room, entering without warning. + +As the janitor had intimated, her father was not alone. In the chair at +the desk-end sat a man florid of face, hard-eyed and gross-bodied. His +hat was on the back of his head, and clamped between his teeth under the +bristling mustaches he held one of Jasper Grierson's fat black cigars. +The conference paused when the door opened; but when Margery crossed the +room and perched herself on the deep seat of the farthest window, it +went on in guarded tones at a silent signal from the banker to his +visitor. + +There was a trade journal lying in the window-seat, and Miss Grierson +took it up to become idly immersed in a study of the advertising +pictures. If she listened to the low-toned talk it was only +mechanically, one would say. Yet there was a quickening of the breath +now and again, and a pressing of the white teeth upon the ripe lower +lip, as she turned the pages of the advertising supplement; these, +though only detached sentences of the talk drifted across to her +window-seat. + +"You're fixed to put the entire responsibility for the ruction over onto +the other side of the house?" was one of the overheard sentences: it was +her father's query, and she also heard the answer. "We're goin' to put +'em in bad, don't you forget it. There'll be some broken heads, most +likely, and if they're ours, somebody'll pay for 'em." A little farther +along it was her father who said: "You've got to quit this running to +me. Keep to your own side of the fence. Murray's got his orders, and +he'll pay the bills. If anything breaks loose, I won't know you. Get +that?" "I'm on," said the red-faced man; and shortly afterward he took +his leave. + +When the door had closed behind the man who looked like a ward heeler or +a walking delegate, and who had been both, and many other and more +questionable things, by turns, Jasper Grierson swung his huge chair to +face the window. + +"Well?" he said, "how's Galbraith coming along?" + +"There is no change," was the sober rejoinder. "He is still lying in a +half-stupor, just as he was last night and this morning. Doctor Farnham +shakes his head and won't say anything." + +"You mustn't let him die," warned the man in the big chair, half +jocularly. "There's too much money in him." + +The smouldering fires in the daughter's eyes leaped up at the +provocation lurking in the grim brutality; but they were dying down +again when she put the trade journal aside and said: "I didn't come here +to tell you about Mr. Galbraith. I came to give you notice that it is +time to quit." + +"Time to quit what?" + +"You know. When I asked you to put Mr. Raymer under obligations to you, +I said I'd tell you when it was time to stop." + +Jasper Grierson sat back in his chair and chuckled. + +"Lord love you!" he said, "I'd clean forgot that you had a tea-party +stake in that game, Madgie; I had, for a fact!" + +"Well, it is time to remember it," was the cool reply. + +"What was I to remember?" + +"That you were to turn around and help him out of his trouble when I +gave you the word." + +The president of the Farmers' and Merchants' tilted his chair to the +lounging angle and laughed; a slow gurgling laugh that spread from lip +to eye and thence abroad through his great frame until he shook like a +grotesque incarnation of the god of mirth. + +"I was to turn around and help him out of the hole, was I? Oh, no; I +guess not," he denied. "It's business now, little girl, and the +tea-fights are barred. I'll give you a check for that span o' blacks you +were looking at, and we'll call it square." + +"Does that mean that you intend to go on until you have smashed him?" +she asked, quietly ignoring the putative bribe. + +"I'm going to put him out of business--him and that other fool friend of +yours--if that's what you mean." + +Again the sudden lightning glowed in Margery Grierson's eyes, but, as +before, the flash was only momentary. There was passion enough in blood +and brain, but there was also a will, and the will was the stronger. + +"Please!" she besought him. + +"Please what?" + +"Please ruin somebody else, and let Mr.----let these two go!" + +Grierson's laugh this time was brutally sardonic. + +"So you're caught at last, are you, girlie? I was wondering if you +wouldn't come out o' that pool with the hook in your mouth. But you +might as well pull loose, even if it does hurt a little. Raymer and +Griswold have got to come under." + +She looked across at him steadily and again there was a struggle, short +and sharp, between the leaping passions and the indomitable will. Yet +she could speak softly. + +"That is your last word, is it?" + +"You can call it that, if you like: yes." + +"What is the reason? Why do you hate these two so desperately?" she +asked. + +Jasper Grierson fanned away the nimbus of cigar smoke with which he had +surrounded himself and stared gloomily at her through the rift. + +"Who said anything about hating?" he derided. "That's a fool woman's +notion. This is business, and there ain't any such thing as hate in +business. Raymer's iron-shop happens to be in the road of a bigger +thing, and it's got to move out; that's all." + +She nodded slowly. "I thought so," she said, half-absently: "and the +'bigger thing' has some more money in it for you. Oh, how I do despise +it all!" + +"Oh, no, you don't," he contradicted, falling back into the half-jocular +vein. "You're a pretty good spender, yourself, Madgie. If you didn't +have plenty of money to eat and drink and wear and breathe----" + +"I hate it!" she said coldly. Then she dragged the talk back to the +channel it was leaving. "I ought to have broken in sooner; I might have +known what you would do. You are responsible for this labor trouble they +are having over at the iron works. Don't bother to deny it; I know. That +was your 'heeler'--the man you had here when I came. You don't play fair +with many people: don't you think you'd better make an exception of me?" + +Grierson was mouthing his cigar again and the smoky nimbus was +thickening to its customary density when he said: "You're nothing but a +spoiled baby, Madge. If you'd cry for the moon, you'd think you ought to +have it. I've said my say, and that's all there is to it. Trot along +home and 'tend to your tea-parties: that's your part of the game. I can +play my hand alone." + +She slipped out of the window-seat and crossed the room quickly to stand +before him. + +"I'll go, when you have answered one question," she said, the suppressed +passions finding their way into her voice. "I've asked for bread and +you've given me a stone. I've said 'please' to you, and you slapped me +for it. Do you think you can afford to shove me over to the other side?" + +"I don't know what you're driving at, now," was the even-toned +rejoinder. + +"Don't you? Then I'll tell you. You have been pinching this town for the +lion's share ever since we came here--shaking it down as you used to +shake down the"--she broke off short, and again the indomitable will got +the better of the seething passions. "We'll let the by-gones go, and +come down to the present. What if some of the things you are doing here +and now should get into print?" + +"For instance?" he suggested, when she paused. + +"This Raymer affair, for one thing. You don't own the _Wahaskan_--yet: +supposing it should come out to-morrow morning with the true story of +this disgraceful piece of buccaneering, telling how you tried first to +squeeze him through the bank loan, and when that failed, how you bribed +his workmen to make trouble?" + +"You go to Randolph and try it," said the gray wolf, jeeringly. "In the +first place, he wouldn't believe it--coming from you. He wouldn't forget +that you're my daughter, however much you are trying to forget it. In +the next place he'd want proof--damned good proof--if he was going to +make a fight on me. He'd know that one of two things would happen; if he +failed to get me, I'd get him." + +The daughter who had asked for bread and had been given a stone put her +face in her hands and moved toward the door. But at the last moment she +turned again like a spiteful little tiger-cat at bay. + +"You think I can't prove it? That is where you fall down. I can convince +Mr. Randolph if I choose to try. And that isn't all: I can tell him how +you have planned to sell Mr. Galbraith a tract of 'virgin' pine that has +been culled over for the best timber at least three times in the past +five years!" + +Jasper Grierson started from his chair and made a quick clutch into +smoky space. "Madge--you little devil!" he gritted. + +But the grasping hands closed upon nothing, and the sound of the closing +door was his only answer. + + * * * * * + +When she had unhitched the little Morgan and had driven away from the +bank, Miss Grierson did a thing unprecedented in any of her former +grapplings with a crisis--she hesitated. Twice she drove down Sioux +Avenue with the apparent intention of stopping at the _Daily Wahaskan_ +building, and twice she went on past with no more than an irresolute +glance for the upper windows beyond which lay the editorial rooms and +the office of Mr. Carter Randolph, the owner of the newspaper. But on +the third circuit of the square, decision had evidently come to its own +again. Turning the mare into Main Street, she drove quickly to the +Winnebago House and drew up at the carriage step. A bell-boy ran out to +hold the horse, but she shook her head and called him to the wheel of +the phaeton to slip a coin into his hand and to give him a brief +message. + +Two minutes after the boy's disappearance, Broffin came out and touched +his hat to the trim little person in the basket seat. + +"You wanted to see me, Miss Grierson?" he said, shelving his surprise, +if he had any. + +"Yes. You are Mr. Matthew Broffin, of the Colburne Detective Agency, are +you not?" she asked, sweetly. + +Broffin took the privilege of the accused and lied promptly. + +"Not that anybody ever heard of, I reckon," he denied, matching the +smile in the inquiring eyes. + +"How curious!" she commented. + +Broffin's smile became a grin of triumph. "There's a heap o' curious +things in this little old world," he volunteered. "What?" + +"But none quite so singular as this," she averred. Then she laughed +softly. "You see, it resolves itself into a question of +veracity--between you and Mr. Andrew Galbraith. You say you are not, and +he says you are. Which am I to believe?" + +Broffin did some pretty swift thinking. There had been times when he +had fancied that Miss Grierson, rather than Miss Farnham, might be the +key to his problem. There was one chance in a thousand that she might +inadvertently put the key into his hands if he should play his cards +skilfully, and he took the chance. + +"You can call it a mistake of mine, if you like," he yielded; and she +nodded brightly. + +"That is better; now we can go on comfortably. Are you too busy to take +a little commission from me?" + +"Maybe not. What is it?" He was looking for a trap, and would not commit +himself too broadly. + +"There are two things that I wish to know definitely. Of course, you +have heard about the accident on the lake? Mr. Galbraith is at our +house, and he is very ill--out of his head most of the time. He is +continually trying to tell some one whom he calls 'MacFarland' to be +careful. Do you know any one of that name?" + +Broffin put a foot on the phaeton step and a hand on the dash. There +were loungers on the hotel porch and it was not necessary for them to +hear. + +"Yes; MacFarland is his confidential man in the bank," he returned. + +"Oh; that explains it. But what is it that Mr. Galbraith wants him to be +careful about?" + +Again Broffin thought quickly. If he should tell the plain truth.... +"Tell me one thing, Miss Grierson," he said bluntly. "Am I doin' +business with you, or with your father?" + +"Most emphatically, with me, Mr. Broffin." + +"All right; everything goes, then. Mr. Galbraith has been figurin' on +buying some pine lands up north." + +"I know that much. Go on." + +"And he has sent MacFarland up to verify the boundary records on the +county survey." + +"To Duluth?" + +Broffin nodded. + +"I thought so," she affirmed. And then: "The records are all right, Mr. +Broffin; but the lands which Mr. MacFarland will be shown will not be +the lands which Mr. Galbraith is talking of buying. I want evidence of +this--in black and white. Can you telegraph to some one in Duluth?" + +Broffin permitted himself a small sigh of relief. He thought he had seen +the trap; that she was going to try to get him away from Wahaska. + +"I can do better than that," he offered. "I can send a man from St. +Paul; a good safe man who will do just what he is told to do--and keep +his mouth shut." + +She nodded approvingly. + +"Do it; and tell your messenger that time is precious and expense +doesn't count. That is the first half of your commission. Come a little +closer and I'll tell you the second half." + +Broffin bent his head and she whispered the remainder of his +instructions. When she had finished he looked up and wagged his head +apprehendingly. + +"Yes; I see what you mean--and it's none o' my business what you mean +it for," he answered. "I'll get the evidence, if there is any." + +"It must be like the other; in black and white," she stipulated. "And +you needn't say 'if.' Look for a red-faced man with stiff mustaches and +a big make-believe diamond in his shirt-front, and make him tell you." + +Broffin wagged his head again. "There ain't goin' to be any grand jury +business about it, is there?" he questioned; adding: "I know your +man--saw him this afternoon over at the plant. He's goin' to be a tough +customer to handle unless I can tell him there ain't goin' to be any +come-back in the courts." + +Miss Grierson was opening her purse and she passed a yellow-backed +bank-note to her newest confederate. + +"Your retainer," she explained. "And about the red-faced man: we sha'n't +take him into court. But I'd rather you wouldn't buy him, if you can +help it. Can't you get him like this, some way?"--she held up a thumb +and finger tightly pressed together. + +Broffin's grin this time was wholly of appreciation. + +"You're the right kind--the kind that leads trumps all the while, Miss +Grierson," he told her. Then he did the manly thing. "I'll go into this, +just as you say--what? But it's only fair to warn you that it may turn +up some things that'll feaze you. You know that old sayin' about +sleepin' dogs?" + +Miss Grierson was gathering the reins over the little Morgan's back and +her black eyes snapped. + +"This is one time when we are going to kick the dogs and make them wake +up," she returned. "Good-by, Mr. Broffin." + + + + +XXXIII + +GATES OF BRASS + + +It was an hour beyond the normal quitting time on the day of ultimatums +and counter-threatenings, the small office force had gone home, and the +night squad of deputies had come to relieve the day guard. Griswold +closed the spare desk in the manager's room and twirled his chair to +face Raymer. + +"We may as well go and get something to eat," he suggested. "There will +be nothing doing to-night." + +Raymer began to put his desk in order. + +"No, not to-night. The trouble will begin when we try to start up with a +new force. Call it a weakness if you like, but I dread it, Kenneth." + +Griswold's smile was a mere baring of the teeth. "That's all right, Ned; +you do the dreading and I'll do the fighting," he said; adding: "What +we've had to-day has merely whetted my appetite." + +The man of peace shook his head dejectedly. + +"I can't understand it," he protested. "Up to last night I was calling +you a benevolent Socialist, and my only fear was that you might some +time want to reorganize things and turn the plant into a little section +of Utopia. Now you are out-heroding Herod on the other side." + +Griswold got up and crushed his soft hat upon his head. + +"Only fools and dead folk are denied the privilege of changing their +minds," he returned. "Let's go up to the Winnebago and feed." + +The dinner to which they sat down a little later was a small feast of +silence. Each was busy with his own thoughts, and it was not until after +the coffee had been served that Griswold leaned across the table to call +Raymer's attention to a man who was finishing his meal in a distant +corner of the dining-room, a swarthy-faced man who drank his coffee with +the meat course to the unpleasant detriment of a pair of long drooping +mustaches. + +"Wait a minute before you look around, and then tell me who that fellow +is over on the right--the man with the black mustaches," he directed. + +Raymer looked and shook his head. + +"He's a new-comer--comparatively; somebody at the club said he gave +himself out for a lumberman from Louisiana." + +Griswold was nodding slowly. "His name?" he asked. + +"I can't remember. It's an odd name; Boffin, or Giffin, or something +like that. They're beginning to say now that he isn't a lumberman at +all--just why, I don't know." + +Griswold's right hand stole softly to his hip pocket. The touch was +reassuring. But a little while after, when he was leaving the +dining-room with Raymer, he dropped behind and made a quick transfer of +something from the hip pocket to the side pocket of his coat. His hand +was still in the coat pocket when he parted from the young iron-founder +on the sidewalk. + +"You'll be going home, I suppose?" he said. + +Raymer made a wry face. + +"Yes; and I wish to gracious you were the one who had to face my mother +and sister. They're all for peace, you know--peace at any old price." + +Griswold laughed. + +"Tell them we're going to have peace if we are obliged to fight for it. +And don't let them swing you. If we back down now we may as well go into +court and ask for a receiver. Good-night." + +Though he had not betrayed it, Griswold was fiercely impatient to get +away. One tremendous question had been dominating all others from the +earliest moment of the morning awakening, and all day long it had fed +upon doubtings and uncertainty. Would Andrew Galbraith recover from the +effects of the drowning accident? At first, he thought he would go to +his room and telephone to Margery. But before he had reached the foot of +Shawnee Street he had changed his mind. What he wanted to say could +scarcely be trusted to the wires. + +Twice before he reached the gate of the Grierson lawn he fancied he was +followed, and twice he stepped behind the nearest shade-tree and +tightened his grip upon the thing in his right-hand pocket. But both +times the rearward sidewalk showed itself empty. Since false alarms may +have, for the moment, all the shock of the real, he found that his hands +were trembling when he came to unlatch the Grierson gate, and it made +him vindictively self-scornful. Also, it gave him a momentary glimpse +into another and hitherto unmeasured depth in the valley of stumblings. +In the passing of the glimpse he was made to realize that it is the +coward who kills; and kills because he is a coward. + +He had traversed the stone-flagged approach and climbed the steps of the +broad veranda to reach for the bell-push when he heard his name called +softly in the voice that he had come to know in all of its many +modulations. The call came from the depths of one of the great wicker +lounging-chairs half-hidden in the veranda shadows. In a moment he had +placed another of the chairs for himself, dropping into it wearily. + +"How did you know it was I?" he asked, when he could trust himself to +speak. + +"I saw you at the gate," she returned. "Are you just up from the Iron +Works?" + +"I have been to dinner since we came up-town--Raymer and I." + +A pause, and then: "The men are still holding out?" + +"We are holding out. The plant is closed, and it will stay closed until +we can get another force of workmen." + +"There will be lots of suffering," she ventured. + +"Inevitably. But they have brought it upon themselves." + +"Not the ones who will suffer the most--the women and children," she +corrected. + +"It's no use," he said, answering her thought. "There is nothing in me +to appeal to." + +"There was yesterday, or the day before," she suggested. + +"Perhaps. But yesterday was yesterday, and to-day is to-day. As I told +Raymer a little while ago, I've changed my mind." + +"About the rights of the down-trodden?" + +"About all things under the sun." + +"No," she denied, "you only think you have. But you didn't come here to +tell me that?" + +"No; I came to ask a single question. How is Mr. Galbraith?" + +"He is a very sick man." + +Another pause, for which the questioner was responsible. + +"You mean that there is a chance that he may not recover?" + +"More than a chance, I'm afraid. The first thing Doctor Bertie did +yesterday evening was to wire St. Paul for two trained nurses; and +to-day he telegraphed Chicago for Doctor Holworthy, who charges +twenty-five dollars a minute for mere office consultations." + +"Humph!" said Griswold, "money needn't cut any figure." And then, after +a moment of silence: "I did my best; you know I did my best?" + +Her answer puzzled him a little. + +"I could almost find it in my heart to hate you if you hadn't." + +"But you know I did." + +"Yes; I know you did." + +Silence again, broken only by the whispering of the summer night breeze +rustling the leaves of the lawn oaks and the lapping of tiny waves on +the lake beach. At the end of it, Griswold got up and groped for his +hat. + +"I'm going home," he said. "It has been a pretty strenuous day, and +there is another one coming. But before I go I want you to promise me +one thing. Will you let me know immediately, by 'phone or messenger, if +Mr. Galbraith takes a turn for the better?" + +"Certainly," she said; and she let him say good-night and get as far as +the steps before she called him back. + +"There was another thing," she began, with the sober gravity that he +could never be sure was not one of her many poses, and not the least +alluring one. "Do you believe in God, Kenneth?" + +The query took him altogether by surprise, but he made shift to answer +it with becoming seriousness. + +"I suppose I do. Why?" + +"It is a time to pray to Him," she said softly; "to pray very earnestly +that Mr. Galbraith's life may be spared." + +He could not let that stand. + +"Why should I concern myself, specially?" he asked; adding: "Of course, +I'm sorry, and all that, but----" + +"Never mind," she interposed, and she left her chair to walk beside him +to the steps. "I've had a hard day, too, Kenneth, boy, and I--I guess it +has got on my nerves. But, all the same, you ought to do it, you know." + +He stopped and looked down into the eyes whose depths he could never +wholly fathom. + +"Why don't you do it?" he demanded. + +"I? oh, God doesn't know me; and, besides, I thought--oh, well, it +doesn't matter what I thought. Good-night." + +And before he could return the leave-taking word, she was gone. + + + + +XXXIV + +THE ABYSS + + +Raymer's prediction that the real trouble would begin when the attempt +should be made to start the plant with imported workmen was amply +fulfilled during the militant week which followed the opening of +hostilities. + +The appearance of the first detachment of strike-breakers, a trampish +crew gathered up hastily by the employment agencies in the cities in +response to Griswold's telegrams, was the signal for active resistance. +Promptly the Iron Works plant and the approaches to it were picketed, +and of the twenty-five or thirty men who came in on the first day's +train only a badly frightened and cowed half-dozen won through the +persuading, jeering, threatening picket line to the offices of the +plant. + +Other days followed in which the scenes of the first were repeated--with +the difference that each succeeding day saw the inevitable increase of +lawlessness. From taunts and abuse the insurrectionaries passed easily +to violence. Street fights, when the trampish place-takers came in any +considerable numbers, were of daily occurrence, and the tale of the +wounded grew like the returns from a battle. By the middle of the week +Raymer and Griswold were asking for a sheriff's posse to maintain peace +in the neighborhood of the plant; and were getting their first definite +hint that some one higher up was playing the game of politics against +them. + +"No, gentlemen; I've done all that the law requires and a little more," +was the sheriff's response to the plea for better protection. Then came +the hint. "You can take it as a word from a friend that this private +scrap of yours with your men is making everybody pretty tired. First and +last, it's only a question of whether you'll pay out a little more +money, or a little less money, not to a lot of imported hoboes, but to +certain citizens of Red Earth County,"--to which was added +significantly--"citizens with votes." + +"In other words, Mr. Bradford, you've got your orders from the men +higher up, have you?" rasped Griswold, who was by this time lost to all +sense of expediency. + +"I don't have to reply to any such charge as that," said the chief peace +officer, turning back to his desk; and so the brittle little conference +ended. + +"All of which means that we shall lose the plant guard of deputies that +Bradford has been maintaining," commented Raymer, as they were +descending the Court House stairs; and again his prediction came true. +Later in the day the guard was withdrawn; and Griswold, savagely +reluctant, was forced to make a concession repeatedly urged and argued +for by the older men among the strikers, namely, that the guarding of +the company's property be entrusted to a picked squad of the +ex-employees themselves. + +During these days of turmoil and rioting the transformed idealist passed +through many stages of the journey down a certain dark and mephitic +valley not of amelioration. With the bitter industrial conflict to feed +it, a slow fire within him ate its way into all the foundations, and as +the fair superstructure of character settled, the moral perpendiculars +and planes of projection became more and more distorted. Fairness was +gone, and in its place stood angry resentment, ready to rend and tear. +Pity and ruth were going: the daily report from Margery told of the +lessening chance of life for Andrew Galbraith, and the stirrings evoked +were neither regretful nor compassionate. On the contrary, he knew very +well that the news of Galbraith's death would be a relief for which, in +his heart of hearts, he was secretly thirsting. + +It was at the close of the week of tumult that the dreadful beckoning +came. One of the two trained nurses installed at Mereside had been +called away to the bedside of a sick father. Another had been wired for +immediately, but between the going and the coming a night would +intervene. So much Griswold got from Margery over the Iron Works +telephone late in the afternoon of a day thickly besprinkled with the +sidewalk waylayings and riotings. When he reached his Shawnee Street +lodgings at nine o'clock that night he found Miss Grierson's phaeton +standing at the curb. + +"Get in," she said, briefly, making room for him in the basket seat. And +when the mare had been given the word to go: "I hope you are not too +tired to chaperon me. I've got to drive over to the college infirmary. +We simply _must_ have another nurse for to-night." + +He denied the weariness--most untruthfully--and after that, she made him +talk all the way across town to the college campus; compelled him, and +found him absently irresponsive. Oh, yes; the fight was still going on: +No, they would never give in to the demands of the strikers: Yes, he had +seen Miss Farnham twice since the trouble began; she was frankly agreed +with Raymer's mother and sister; they all wanted peace, and they were +all against him. She led him on, and meanwhile they encountered one +failure after another in the nurse-hunting. The town clock was striking +the quarter-past ten when Miss Grierson confessed that she had exhausted +the list of possibilities. + +"I must go back at once," she declared. "Miss Davidson--the day +nurse--has been on duty constantly since six this morning, and I'm not +going to let her kill herself." + +"But you haven't been able to find anybody. Who will relieve her?" + +Then came the thunderbolt--and beyond it the beckoning. "You and I +will," she said calmly. And then, as if to forestall the possible +refusal: "It is merely to sit in the next room and to go in and give him +his medicine at half-hour intervals. Either of us can do that much for a +poor old man who is making his last stand in the fight for his life." + +Three days earlier, nay, one day earlier, Griswold might have recoiled +in horror from the suggestion that thrust itself into heart and brain. +But now he merely pushed the unspeakable prompting into the background. +Of course, he would go; and, equally of course, he would share the night +watch with her. One question he permitted himself, and it was not asked +until after they had reached the darkened mansion on the lake's edge and +were mounting the stair to the sick-room. Was Mr. Galbraith conscious? +Could he recognize any one? + +"No," was the low-voiced response; and presently they had reached the +outer room of shaded lights, and the sleepy day nurse had been released, +and Margery was explaining the medicines to her watch sharer. + +It was a simple matter, as she had said; the medicine from the larger +bottle was to be given in tea-spoonful doses on the even hour, and that +in the smaller, ten drops in a little water, on the alternating +half-hours. + +"It's his heart chiefly, now," she explained, "and this drop-medicine is +for that. If you should forget to give it--but I know you won't forget. +There are books in the hall case, and you can sit in here and read. When +you are tired, come and tap at the door of my room and I'll take what +you leave." + +While she was speaking the softly chiming clock in the lower hall struck +the half-hour. "I'll help you give him the first dose," she went on; and +he stood by and watched her as she dropped the heart-stimulant into a +spoon and diluted it with a little water. "Come," she said; and they +went together into the adjoining room. + +Griswold had been hardening himself deliberately to look unmoved upon +what the shaded electric night-light in the farther room should reveal: +it was nothing more terrible than the sight of a drawn face, half-hidden +in the pillows; a face in which life and death still fought for the +mastery as they had fought on that other day when life, unhelped, would +have been the loser. + +The small service was quickly rendered. Griswold lifted the sick man, +and his companion, deft and steady-handed, administered the stimulant. + +"Ten drops; no more and no less; exactly on the half-hour: those are +Doctor Bertie's orders," she said, when they had withdrawn to the outer +room. And then: "Good-night, for a little while. Don't hesitate to call +me when you've had enough." + +For so long as he could distinguish her light step in the corridor, +Griswold stood motionless as she had left him. Then he flung himself +into the nearest chair and covered his face with his hands. + + * * * * * + +The quarter-hour passed, and after the three mellow strokes had died +away the silence grew slowly maddening. When inaction was no longer +bearable, Griswold sprang up and went to stand at the open window. The +summer night was hot and breathless. In the north-west a storm cloud was +creeping up into the sky, and he watched its black shadow climbing like +a terrifying threat of doom out of the illimitable and blotting out the +stars one by one.... "For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth +himself in vain...." Out of a childhood which seemed very far away and +unreal the words of the Psalmist came to ring in his ears like the +muffled tolling of a passing-bell. So it must be soon for all the +living; and whether a little sooner or a little later, what could it +matter? A breath more or less to be drawn; a longer or shorter +fluttering of the feeble heart; that was all. + +The clock struck eleven, and mechanically he poured out the dose from +the larger bottle and gave it to the sick man. When it was done he left +the bedside and the inner room quickly and went back to the open window. +The air was thick and stifling, and when he sat down in the deep +window-seat he was gasping for breath. It was going to be harder than he +had thought it would, though now that the time had come he realized that +he had been subconsciously planning for it, preparing for it. And the +means which had been thrust into his hands could scarcely have been +simpler. He had only to sit still and do nothing--and no one would ever +know. He took up the small phial and held it to the light: ten drops, or +forty drops; they would neither be missed, nor counted if they should +remain. + +The single chiming stroke of the quarter-past struck while he was +putting the bottle down, and he started as if the mellow cadence had +been a pistol shot. For fifteen minutes longer he could live and +breathe and be as other men are; and after that.... He saw himself +looking back upon the normal world from the new view-point, as he +fancied Cain might have looked back after the mark had been set upon his +brow. Would it really make the hideous, monstrous difference that all +men seemed to think it did? He would know, presently, when the revocable +should have become the irrevocable. He heard the sick man stir feebly, +and then the sound of his slow, labored breathing made itself felt, +rather than heard, in the crushing, stifling silence. How the minutes +dragged! He leaned his head against the window jamb and closed his eyes, +striving fiercely to drive forth the thronging thoughts; to make his +mind a blank. Gradually the effort succeeded. He was conscious of a +dull, throbbing, soothing pulse beating slow measures in his temples, +and a curious roaring as of distant cataracts in his ears; and after +that, nothing. + + * * * * * + +A tempestuous thunder shower was lashing the trees on the lawn when he +awoke with a start and found Margery bending over him to close the +window. With every nerve a needle to prick him alive he dragged out his +watch. It was a quarter-past two. Miserably, wretchedly he pulled +himself together and stood up to face her, putting his hands on her +shoulders to make her look up at him. + +"Margery, girl; do you know what I have done?--Oh, my God! I am a +murderer--a murderer at last!" + +She turned her face away quickly. + +"Oh, no, no, boy!--not meaning to be!" she murmured. + +"What is the difference?" he demanded harshly. And then: "God knows--He +knows whether I meant it or not." + +She looked up again, and, as once or twice before in his knowing of her, +he saw the dark eyes swimming. + +"It was too hard; I shouldn't have asked it of you, Kenneth. I knew what +a cruel strain you've been under all these bad days. And there was no +harm done. I--I have been here a long time--ever since half-past eleven; +and I've been giving Mr. Galbraith his medicine. Now go down-stairs and +stretch out on the hall lounge. I'll run down and send you home as soon +as it stops raining." + + + + +XXXV + +MARGERY'S ANSWER + + +"Well, it has come at last," said Raymer, passing a newly opened letter +of the morning delivery over to Griswold. "The railroad people are +taking their work away from us. I've been looking for that in every +mail." + +Griswold glanced at the letter and handed it back. The burden of the +night of horrors was still lying heavily upon him, and his only comment +was a questioning, "Well?" + +"I've been thinking," was the reply. "I know Atherton, the new president +of the Pineboro, pretty well; suppose I should run over to St. Paul and +see him--make it a personal plea. We have enough of the hoboes now to +run half-gangs; and perhaps, if I could make Atherton believe that we +are going to win----" + +"You couldn't," Griswold interrupted, shortly. "And, besides, you have +told me yourself that Atherton is only a figurehead. Grierson's the +man." + +At this, Raymer let go again. + +"What's the use?" he said dejectedly. "We're down, and everything we do +merely prolongs the agony. Do you know that they tried to burn the plant +last night?" + +"No; I hadn't heard." + +"They did. It was just before the thunder storm. They had everything +fixed; a pile of kindlings laid in the corner back of the machine-shop +annex and the whole thing saturated with kerosene." + +"Well, why didn't they do it?" queried Griswold, half-heartedly. After +the heavens have fallen, no mere terrestrial cataclysm can evoke a +thrill. + +"That's a mystery. Something happened; just what, the watchman who had +the machine-shop beat couldn't tell. He says there was a flash of light +bright enough to blind him, and then a scrap of some kind. When he got +out of the shop and around to the place, there was no one there; nothing +but the pile of kindlings." + +Griswold took up the letter from the railway people and read it again. +When he faced it down on Raymer's desk, he had closed with the +conclusion which had been thrusting itself upon him since the early +morning hour when he had picked his way among the sidewalk pools from +Mereside to upper Shawnee Street. + +"You can still save yourself, Edward," he said, still with the colorless +note in his voice. And he added: "You know the way." + +Raymer jerked his head out of his desk and swung around in the +pivot-chair. + +"See here, Griswold; the less said about that at this stage of the game, +the better it will be for both of us!" he exploded. "I'm going to do as +I said I should, but not until this fight is settled, one way or the +other!" + +Griswold did not retort in kind. + +"The condition has already expired by limitation; the fight is as good +as settled now," he said, placably. "We are only making a hopeless +bluff. We can hold our forty or fifty tramp workmen just as long as we +pay their board over in town, and don't ask them to report for work. But +the day the shop whistle is blown, four out of every five will vanish. +We both know that." + +"Then there is nothing for it but a receivership," was Raymer's gloomy +decision. + +"Not without a miracle," Griswold admitted. "And the day of miracles is +past." + +Thus the idealist, out of a depth of wretchedness and self-exprobration +hitherto unplumbed. But if he could have had even a momentary gift of +telepathic vision he might have seen a miracle at that moment in the +preliminary stage of its outworking. + +The time was half-past nine; the place a grotto-like summer-house on the +Mereside lawn. The miracle workers were two: Margery Grierson, radiant +in the daintiest of morning house-gowns, and the man who had taken her +retainer. Miss Grierson was curiously examining a photographic print: +the pictured scene was a well-littered foundry yard with buildings +forming an angle in the near background. Against the buildings a pile of +shavings with kindlings showed quite clearly; and, stooping to ignite +the pile, was a man who had evidently looked up at, or just before, the +instant of camera-snapping. There was no mistaking the identity of the +man. He had a round, pig-jowl face; his bristling mustaches stood out +stiffly as if in sudden horror; and his hat was on the back of his head. + +"It ain't very good," Broffin apologized. "The sun ain't high enough yet +to make a clear print. But you said 'hurry,' and I reckon it will do." + +Miss Grierson nodded. "You caught him in the very act, didn't you?" she +said coolly. "What did he do?" + +"Dropped things and jumped for the camera. But the flash had blinded +him, and, besides, the camera had been moved. I let him have a foot to +fall over, and he took it; after which I made a bluff at tryin' to hold +him. Lordy gracious! new ropes wouldn't 'a' held him, then. I'll bet +he's runnin' yet--what?" + +"What did he hope to accomplish by setting fire to the works?" + +"It was a frame-up to capture public sympathy. There's been a report +circulating 'round that Raymer and Griswold was goin' to put some o' the +ringleaders in jail, if they had to _make_ a case against 'em. Clancy +had it figured out that the fire'd be charged up to the owners, +themselves." + +Miss Grierson was still examining the picture. "You made two of these +prints?" she asked. + +"Yes; here's the other one--and the film." + +"And you have the papers to make them effective?" + +Broffin handed her a large envelope, unsealed. "You'll find 'em in +there. That part of it was a cinch. Your governor ought to fire that man +Murray. He was payin' Clancy in checks!" + +Again Miss Grierson nodded. + +"About the other matter?" she inquired. "Have you heard from your +messenger?" + +Broffin produced another envelope. It had been through the mails and +bore the Duluth postmark. + +"Affidavits was the best we could do there," he said. "My man worked it +to go with MacFarland as the driver of the rig. They saw some mighty +fine timber, but it happened to be on the wrong side of the St. Louis +County line. He's a tolerably careful man, and he verified the +landmarks." + +"Affidavits will do," was the even-toned rejoinder. Then: "These papers +are all in duplicate?" + +"Everything in pairs--just as you ordered." + +Miss Grierson took an embroidered chamois-skin money-book from her bosom +and began to open it. Broffin raised his hand. + +"Not any more," he objected. "You overpaid me that first evening in +front of the Winnebago." + +"You needn't hesitate," she urged. "It's my own money." + +"I've had a-plenty." + +"Enough so that we can call it square?" + +"Yes, and more than enough." + +"Then I can only thank you," she said, rising. + +He knew that he was being dismissed, but the one chance in a thousand +had yet to be tested. + +"Just a minute, Miss Grierson," he begged. "I've done you right in this +business, haven't I?" + +"You have." + +"I said I didn't want any more money, and I don't. But there's one other +thing. Do you know what I'm here in this little jay town of yours for?" + +"Yes; I have known it for a long time." + +"I thought so. You knew it that day out at the De Soto, when you was +tellin' Mr. Raymer a little story that was partly true and partly made +up--what?" + +"And when you were sitting behind the window curtains listening," she +laughed. "Yes; I knew it then. What about it?" + +"I've been wonderin' as I set here, if there was anything on the top +side of God's green earth that'd persuade you to tell me how much o' +that story was made up." + +She was smiling deliciously when she said: "You are from the South, Mr. +Broffin, and I didn't suppose a Southerner could be so unchivalrous as +to suspect a lady of fibbing." + +He shook his head. "I wish you'd tell me, Miss Grierson. I'm in pretty +bad on this thing, and if----" + +"I can tell you what to do, if that will help you." + +"It might," he allowed. + +"Go away and take some other commission. It's a cold trail, Mr. +Broffin." + +"But you won't say that Griswold isn't the man?" + +"It is not for me to say. But Miss Farnham says he isn't, and Mr. +Galbraith--you tried him, didn't you? What more do you want?" + +"I want _you_ to say he isn't; then I'll go away." + +"You may put me in jail for contempt of court, if you like," she jested. +"I refuse to testify. But I will tell you what you asked to know--if +that will do any good. Every word of the story about Mr. Griswold--the +story that you overheard, you know--was true; every single word of it. +Do you suppose I should have dared to embroider it the least little +bit--with you sitting right there at my back?" + +"But you did think for a while that he might be the man--what?" + +"Yes; I did think so--for a while." + +Broffin got up and took a half-burned cigar from the ledge of the +summer-house where he had carefully laid it at the beginning of the +interview. + +"You've got me down," he confessed, with a good-natured grin. "The man +that plays a winnin' hand against you has got to get up before sun in +the morning and hold _all_ trumps, Miss Grierson--to say nothin' of +being a mighty good bluffer, on the side." Then he switched suddenly. +"How's Mr. Galbraith this morning?" + +"He is very low, but he is conscious again. He has asked us to wire for +the cashier of his bank to come up." + +Broffin's eyes narrowed. + +"The cashier is sick and can't come," he said. + +"Well, some one in authority will come, I suppose." + +Once more Broffin was thinking in terms of speed. Johnson, the paying +teller, was next in rank to the cashier. If he should be the one to come +to Wahaska.... + +"If you haven't anything else for me to do, I reckon I'll be going," he +said, hastily, and forthwith made his escape. The telegraph office was a +good ten minutes' walk from the lake front, and in the light of what +Miss Grierson had just told him, the minutes were precious. + +Something less than a half-hour after Broffin's hurried departure, Miss +Grierson, coated and gauntleted, came down the Mereside carriage steps +to take the reins of the big trap horse from Thorsen's hands. Contrary +to her usual custom, she avoided Main Street and drove around past the +college grounds to come by quieter thoroughfares to the industrial +district beyond the railroad tracks. + +For the first time in a riotous week, Pottery Flat was outwardly +peaceful and its narrow streets were practically empty. Just what this +portended, Margery did not know; but she found out when she turned into +the street upon which the Raymer property fronted. Smoke was pouring +from the tall central stack of the plant, and it had evidently provoked +a sudden and wrathful gathering of the clans. The sidewalks were filled +with angry workmen, and an excited argument was going forward at one of +the barred gates between the locked-out men and a watchman inside of the +yard. + +The crowd let the trap pass without hindrance. However coldly Lake +Boulevard and upper Shawnee Street might regard Miss Grierson, there was +no enmity in the glances of the Flat dwellers--and for good reasons. In +want, Miss Margery had poured largesse out of a liberal hand; and in +sickness she had many times proved herself the veritable good angel that +some people called her. + +It was one of the strikers who offered to hold the big Englishman when +the magnate's daughter sprang from the trap at the office door, and for +the young fellow who offered she had a smile and a pleasant word. "I +wouldn't trouble you to do that, Malcolm; but if you'll lead him along +to that post and hitch him, I'll be much obliged," she said. + +Though it was the first time she had been in the new offices, she seemed +to know where to find what she sought; and when Raymer took his face out +of his desk, she was standing on the threshold of the open door and +smiling across at him. + +"May I come in?" she asked; and when he fairly bubbled over in the +effort to make her understand how welcome she was: "No; I mustn't sit +down, because if I do, I shall stay too long--and this is a business +call. Where is Mr. Griswold?" + +"He went up-town a little while ago, and I wish to goodness he'd come +back. You'd think, to look out of the windows, that we were due to have +battle and murder and sudden death, wouldn't you? It's all because we +have put a little fire under one battery of boilers. They tried to burn +us out last night, and I'm going to carry steam enough for the fire +pumps, if the heavens fall." + +"You have been having a great deal of trouble, haven't you?" she said, +sympathetically. "I'm sorry, and I've come to help you cure it." + +Raymer shook his head despondently. + +"I'm afraid it has gone past the curing point," he said. + +"Oh, no, it hasn't. I have discovered the remedy and I've brought it +with me." She took a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of her +driving-coat and laid it on the desk before him. "I'm going to ask you +to lock that up in your office safe for a little while, just as it is," +she went on. "If there are no signs of improvement in the sick situation +by three o'clock, you are to open it--you and Mr. Griswold--and read the +contents. Then you will know exactly what to do, and how to go about +it." + +Her lip was trembling when she got through, and he saw it. + +"What have you done, Margery?" he asked gently. "If it is something that +hurts you----" + +"Don't!" she pleaded; "you mu-mustn't break my nerve just at the time +when I'm going to need every shred of it. Do as I say, and please, +_please_ don't ask any questions!" + +She was going then, but he got before her and shut the door and put his +back against it. + +"I don't know what you have done, but I can guess," he said, lost now to +everything save the intoxicating joy of the barrier-breakers. "You have +a heart of gold, Margery, and I----" + +"Please don't," she said, trying to stop him; but he would not listen. + +"No; before that envelope is opened, before I can possibly know what it +contains, I'm going to ask you one question in spite of your +prohibition; and I'm going to ask it now because, afterward, I may +not--you may not--that is, perhaps it won't be possible for me to ask, +or for you to listen. I love you, Margery; I----" + +She was looking up at him with the faintest shadow of a smile +lurking in the depths of the alluring eyes. And her lips were no +longer tremulous when she said: "Oh, no, you don't; I know just how +you feel; you are excited, and--and impulsive, and there's a sort of +getting-ready-to-be-grateful feeling roaming around in you, and all +that. If I were as mean as some people think I am, I might take +advantage of all this, mightn't I? But I sha'n't. Won't you open the +door and let me go? It's _very_ important." + +"Heavens, Margery! don't make a joke of it!" he burst out. "Can't you +see that I mean it? Girl, girl, I want you--I need you!" + +This time she laughed outright. Then she grew suddenly grave. + +"My dear friend, you don't know what you are saying. The gate that you +are trying to break down opens upon nothing but misery and wretchedness. +If I loved you as a woman ought to love her lover, for your sake and +for my own I should still say no--a thousand times no! Now will you open +the door and let me go?" + +He turned and fumbled for the door-knob like a man in a daze. + +"Don't you--don't you think you might learn to--to think of me in that +way?--after a while?" he pleaded. + +He had opened the door a little way, and she slipped past him. But in +the corridor she turned and laughed at him again. + +"I am going to cure you--you, personally, as well as the sick +situation--Mr. Raymer," she said flippantly. Then, mimicking him as a +spoiled child might have done: "I might possibly learn to--think of +you--in that way--after a while. But I could never, never, _never_ learn +to love your mother and your sister." + +And with that spiteful thrust she left him. + + + + +XXXVI + +THE GRAY WOLF + + +As it chanced, Jasper Grierson was in the act of concluding a long and +apparently satisfactory telephone conversation with his agent in Duluth +at the moment when the door of his private room opened and his daughter +entered. + +As on a former occasion, she went to sit in the window until the way to +free speech should be open, and she could not well help hearing the +closing words of the long-distance conference. + +"You sit tight in the boat; that's all you've got to do," her father was +saying. "Keep the young fellow with you as long as you can; the other +man is too sick to talk business, right now. When you can't hold the +young one any longer, let me know. We'll play the hand out as it lays. +Get that? I say, we'll play the hand out as it lays." + +He had hung the receiver on its hook and was pushing the bracketted +telephone-set aside when Margery crossed the room swiftly and placed an +envelope, the counterpart of the one left with Raymer, on the desk. + +"There is your notice to quit," she said calmly. "You threw me down and +gave me the double-cross the other day, and now I've come back at you." + +Another man might have hastened to meet the crisis. But the gray wolf +was of a different mettle. He let the envelope lie untouched until after +he had pulled out a drawer in the desk, found his box of cigars, and had +leisurely selected and lighted one of the fat black monstrosities. When +he tore the envelope across, the photographic print fell out, and he +studied it carefully for many seconds before he read the accompanying +documents. For a little time after he had tossed the papers aside there +was a silence that bit. Then he said, slowly: + +"So that's your raise, is it? Where does the game stand, right now?" + +"You stand to lose." + +Again the biting silence; and then: "You don't think I'm fool enough to +give you back your ammunition so that you can use it on me, do you?" + +"Those papers and that picture are copies: the originals are in a sealed +envelope in Mr. Raymer's safe. If you haven't taken your hands off of +Mr. Raymer's throat by three o'clock this afternoon, the envelope will +be opened." + +Jasper Grierson's teeth met in the marrow of the fat cigar. Equally +without heat and without restraint, he stripped her of all that was +womanly, pouring out upon her a flood of foul epithets and vile names +garnished with bitter, brutal oaths. She shrank from the crude and +savage upbraidings as if the words had been hot irons to touch the bare +flesh, but at the end of it she was still facing him hardily. + +"Calling me bad names doesn't change anything," she pointed out, and +her tone reflected something of his own elemental contempt for the +euphemisms. "You have five hours in which to make Mr. Raymer understand +that you have stopped trying to smash him. Wouldn't it be better to +begin on that? You can curse me out any time, you know." + +Jasper Grierson's rage fit, or the mud-volcano manifestation of it, +passed as suddenly as it had broken out. Swinging heavily in his chair +he took up the papers again and reread them thoughtfully. + +"You had a spotter working this up, I suppose: who is he, and where is +he?" he demanded. + +"That is my affair. He was a high-priced man and he did his work well. +You can see that for yourself." + +Once more the papers were tossed aside and the big chair swung slowly to +face the situation. + +"Let's see what you want: show up your hand." + +"I have shown it. Take the prop of your backing from behind this labor +trouble, and let Mr. Raymer settle with his men on a basis of good-will +and fair dealing." + +"Is that all?" + +"No. You must cancel this pine-land deal. You have broken bread with Mr. +Galbraith as a friend, and I'm not going to let you be worse than an +Arab." + +Grierson's shaggy brows met in a reflective frown, and when he spoke the +bestial temper was rising again. + +"When this is all over, and you've gone to live with Raymer, I'll kill +him," he said, with an out-thrust of the hard jaw; adding: "You know me, +Madge." + +"I thought I did," was the swift retort. "But it was a mistake. And as +for taking it out on Mr. Raymer, you'd better wait until I go 'to live +with him,' as you put it. Besides, this isn't Yellow Dog Gulch. They +hang people here." + +"You little she-devil! If you push me into this thing, you'd better get +Raymer, or somebody, to take you in. You'll be out in the street!" + +"I have thought of that, too," she said, coolly; "about quitting you. +I'm sick of it all--the getting and the spending and the crookedness. +I'd put the money--yours and mine--in a pile and set fire to it, if some +decent man would give me a calico dress and a chance to cook for two." + +"Raymer, for instance?" the father cut in, in heavy mockery. + +"Mr. Raymer has asked me to marry him, if you care to know," she struck +back. + +"Oho! So that's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? You sold me out to buy +in with him!" + +"You may put it that way, if you like; I don't care." She was drawing on +her driving-gloves methodically and working the fingers into place, and +there were sullen fires in the brooding eyes. + +"I've been thinking it was the other one--the book-writer," said the +father. Then, without warning: "He's a damned crook." + +The daughter went on smoothing the wrinkles out of the fingers of her +gloves. "What makes you think so?" she inquired, with indifference, real +or skilfully assumed. + +"He's got too much money to be straight. I've been keeping cases on +him." + +"Never mind Mr. Griswold," she interposed. "He is my friend, and I +suppose that is enough to make you hate him. About this other matter: +ten minutes before three o'clock this afternoon I shall go back to Mr. +Raymer. If he tells me that his troubles are straightening themselves +out, I'll get the papers." + +"You'll bring 'em here to me?" + +"Some day; after I'm sure that you have broken off the deal with Mr. +Galbraith." + +Jasper Grierson let his daughter get as far as the door before he +stopped her with a blunt-pointed arrow of contempt. + +"I suppose you've fixed it up to marry that college-sharp dub so that +his mother and sister can rub it into you right?" he sneered. + +"You can suppose again," she returned, shortly. "If I should marry him, +it would be out of pure spite to those women." + +"If?" + +"Yes, 'if.' Because, when he asked me, I told him No. You weren't +counting on that, were you?" And having fired this final shot of +contradiction she departed. + +After Miss Grierson had driven home from the bank between ten and eleven +in the morning, an admiring public saw her no more until just before +bank-closing hours in the afternoon. Broffin was among those who made +obeisance to her as she passed down Main Street in the basket phaeton +between half-past two and three; and a minute later he abandoned his +chair on the hotel porch to keep the phaeton in view and to mark its +route. + +"It's Raymer, all right, and not the other one," he mused when the +little vehicle had gone rocketing over the railroad crossing to take the +turn toward the Iron Works. "The iron-man is the duck she's tryin' to +help out of the labor-rookus. She was over there this morning, and she's +goin' there again, right now." + +As the phaeton sped along through the over-crossing suburb there were +signs of an armistice apparent, even before the battle-field was +reached. Pottery Flat was populated again, and the groups of men bunched +on the street corners were arguing peacefully. Miss Grierson pulled up +at one of the corners and beckoned to the young iron-moulder who had +offered to be her horse-holder on the morning visit. + +"Anything new, Malcolm?" she asked. + +"You bet your sweet life!" said the young moulder, meeting her, as most +men did, on a plane of perfect equality and frankness. "We was hoodooed +to beat the band, and Mr. Raymer's got us, comin' and goin'. There +wasn't no orders from the big Federation, at all; and that crooked guy, +Clancy, was a fake!" + +"He has gone?" she said. + +"He'd better be. If he shows himself 'round here again, there's goin' to +be a mix-up." + +Miss Grierson drove on, and at the Iron Works there were more of the +peaceful indications. The gates were open, and a switching-engine from +the railroad yards was pushing in a car-load of furnace coal. By all the +signs the trouble flood was abating. + +Raymer saw her when she drove under his window and calmly made a +hitching-post of the clerk who went out to see what she wanted. A moment +later she came down the corridor to stand in the open doorway of the +manager's room. + +"I'm back again," she said, and her manner was that of the dainty +soubrette with whom the audience falls helplessly in love at first +sight. + +"No, you're not," Raymer denied; "you won't be until you come in and sit +down." + +She entered to take the chair he was placing for her, and the soubrette +manner fell away from her like a garment flung aside. + +"You are still alone?" she asked. + +"Yes; Griswold hasn't shown up since morning. I don't know what has +become of him." + +"And the labor trouble: is that going to be settled?" + +He looked away and ran his fingers through his hair as one still puzzled +and bewildered. "Some sort of a miracle has been wrought," he said. "A +little while ago a committee came to talk over terms of surrender. It +seems that the whole thing was the result of a--of a mistake." + +"Yes," she returned quietly, "it was just that--a mistake." And then: +"You are going to take them back?" + +"Certainly. The plant will start up again in the morning." Then his +curiosity broke bounds. "I can't understand it. How did you work the +miracle?" + +"Perhaps I didn't work it." + +"I know well enough you did, in some way." + +She dismissed the matter with a toss of the pretty head. "What +difference does it make so long as you are out of the deep water and in +a place where you can wade ashore? You _can_ wade ashore now, can't +you?" + +He nodded. "This morning I should have said that we couldn't; but now--" +he reached over to his desk and handed her a letter to which was pinned +a telegram less than an hour old. + +She read the letter first. It was a curt announcement of the withdrawal +of the Pineboro Railroad's repair work. The telegram was still briefer: +"Disregard my letter of yesterday"; this, and the signature, "Atherton." +The small plotter returned the correspondence with a little sigh of +relief. It had been worse than she had thought, and it was now better +than she had dared hope. + +"I must be going," she said, rising. "If you will give me my envelope?" + +He crossed to the safe and got it for her. His curiosity was still +keen-edged, but he beat it back manfully. + +"I wish you wouldn't hurry," he said hospitably. He was searching the +changeful eyes for the warrant to say more, but he could not find it. + +"Yes, I really must," she insisted. "You know we have a sick man at +home, and----" + +"Oh, yes; how is Mr. Galbraith getting along? He has been having a +pretty hard time of it, hasn't he?" + +"Very hard. It is still doubtful if his life can be saved." + +"He is conscious?" + +"He has been to-day." + +"And he understands his condition?" + +"Perfectly. He had us wire for some of his bank people this morning. The +cashier can't come, but he is sending a Mr. Johnson--the paying teller, +I believe he is." + +"Poor old man!" said Raymer, and his sympathy was real. + +She was moving toward the door, and he went with her. + +"I know you are not entertaining now--with Mr. Galbraith to be cared +for; but I'd like to come and see you, if I may?" he said, when he had +gone with her through the outer office and the moment of leave-taking +had arrived. + +"Why not?" she asked frankly. "You have always been welcome, and you +always will be." + +He hesitated, and a blond man's flush crept up under his honest eyes. +"I've been hoping all day that you didn't really mean what you said this +morning--about my mother and sister, you know," he ventured. + +"Yes," she affirmed relentlessly; "I did mean it." + +"But some day you will change your mind--when you come to know them +better." + +"Shall I?" she said, with a ghost of a smile. "Perhaps you are +right--when I come to know them better." + +He was obliged to let it go at that; but when they reached the phaeton, +and the horse-holding clerk had been relieved, he spoke of another +matter. + +"I'm a little worried about Kenneth," he told her. "He came down this +morning looking positively wretched, but he wouldn't admit that he was +sick. Have you seen much of him lately?" + +"Not very much"--guardedly. "Did you say he had gone home?" + +"I don't know where he has gone. He left here about half an hour before +you came, and I haven't seen him since." + +"And you are worried because he doesn't look well?" + +"Not altogether on that account. I'm afraid he is in deep water of some +kind. I never saw a person change as he has in the past week or so. You +know him pretty well, and what a big heart he has?" + +She nodded, half-mechanically. + +"Well, there have been times lately when I've been afraid he'd kill +somebody--in this squabble of ours, you know. He has been going +armed--which was excusable enough, under the circumstances--and night +before last, when we were walking up-town together, I had all I could do +to keep him from taking a pot-shot at a fellow who, he thought, was +following us. I don't know but I'm taking all sorts of an unfair +advantage of him, telling you this behind his back, but----" + +"No; I'm glad you have told me. Maybe I can help." + +He put her into the low basket seat, and tucked the dust-robe around her +carefully. While he was doing it he looked up into her face and said: +"I'd love you awfully hard for what you have done to-day--if you'd let +me." + +It was like her to smile straight into his eyes when she answered him. + +"When you can say that--in just that way--to the right woman, you'll +find a great happiness lying in wait for you, Edward, dear." And then +she spoke to the Morgan mare and distance came between. + +As once before, in the earlier hours of the same day, Miss Grierson took +the roundabout way between the Raymer plant and Mereside, making the +circuit which took her through the college grounds and brought her out +at the head of upper Shawnee Street. The Widow Holcomb was sitting on +her front porch, placidly crocheting, when the phaeton drew up at the +curb. + +"Mr. Griswold," said the phaeton's occupant. "May I trouble you to tell +him that I'd like to speak to him a moment?" + +Mrs. Holcomb, friend of the Raymers, the Farnhams, and the Oswalds, and +own cousin to the Barrs, was of the perverse minority; and, apart from +this, she had her own opinion of a young woman who would wait at the +door of a young man's boarding-house and take him off for a night drive +to goodness only knew where, and from which he did not return until +goodness only knew when. So there was no stitch missed in the crocheting +when she said, stiffly: "Mr. Griswold isn't in. He hasn't been home +since morning." + +Miss Grierson drove on, and the most casual observer might have remarked +the strained tightening of the lips and the two red spots which came and +went in the damask-peach cheeks. But it was not until she had reached +Mereside, and had gained the shelter of the deserted library, that +speech came. + +"O pitiful Christ!" she sobbed, dropping into a chair and hiding her +face in the crook of her arm; "he's done it at last!--he's trying to +hide, and that's what they've been waiting for! _And I don't know where +to look!_" + +But Matthew Broffin, tilting lazily in his chair on the down-town hotel +porch, knew very well where to look, and he was watching the one outlet +of the hiding-place as an alert, though outwardly disregardful, +house-cat watches a mouse's hole. + + + + +XXXVII + +THE QUALITY OF MERCY + + +On no less an authority than that of the great doctor who came again +from Chicago for a second consultation with Doctor Farnham, Andrew +Galbraith owed his life during the two days following his return to +consciousness to the unremitting care and devotion of one person. + +Seconding the efforts of the physicians, and skilfully directing those +of the nurses, Margery threw herself into the vicarious struggle with +the generous self-sacrifice which counts neither cost nor loss; and on +the third day she had her reward. Her involuntary guest and charge was +distinctly better, and again, so the two doctors declared, the balance +was inclining slightly toward recovery. + +It was in the afternoon of this third day, when she had been reading to +him, at his own request, the sayings of the Man on the Mount, that he +referred for the first time to the details of the accident which had so +nearly blotted him out. Upon his asking, she related the few and simple +facts of the rescue, modestly minimizing her own part in it, and giving +her companion in the catboat full credit. + +"The writer-man," he said thoughtfully, when she had finished telling +him how Griswold had worked over him in the boat, and how he would not +give up. "I remember; you fetched him out to the hotel with you one day: +no, you needna fear I'll be forgetting him." Then, with a shrewd look +out of the steel-gray eyes: "How long have you been knowing him, Maggie, +child?" + +"Oh, for quite a long time," she hastened to say. "He came here, sick +and helpless, one day last spring, and--well, there isn't any hospital +here in Wahaska, you know, so we took him in and helped him get over the +fever, or whatever it was. This was his room while he stayed with us." + +Andrew Galbraith wagged his head on the pillow. + +"I know," he said. "And ye're doing it again for a poor auld man whose +siller has never bought him anything like the love you're spending on +him. You're everybody's good angel, I'm thinking, Maggie, lassie." +Though he did not realize it, his sickness was bringing him day by day +nearer to his far-away boyhood in the Inverness-shire hills, and it was +easy to slip into the speech of the mother-tongue. Then, after a long +pause, he went on: "He wasna wearing a beard, a red beard trimmed down +to a spike--this writer-man, when ye found him, was he?" + +She shook her head. "No; I have never seen him with a beard." + +The sick man turned his face to the wall, and after a time she heard him +repeating softly the words which she had just read to him. "But if ye +forgive not men ... neither will your Father forgive...." And again, +"Judge not that ye be not judged." When he turned back to her there were +new lines of suffering in the gray old face. + +"I'm sore beset, child; sore beset," he sighed. "You were telling me +that MacFarland and Johnson will be here to-night?" + +"Yes; they should both reach Wahaska this evening." + +Another pause, and at the end of it: "That man Broffin: you'll remember +you asked me one day who he was, and I tell 't ye he was a special +officer for the bank. Is he still here?" + +"He is; I saw him on the street this morning." + +Again Andrew Galbraith turned his face away, and he was quiet for so +long a time that she thought he had fallen asleep. But he had not. + +"You're thinking something of the writer-man, lassie? Don't mind the +clavers of an auld man who never had a chick or child of his ain." + +Her answer was such as a child might have made. She lifted the +big-jointed hand on the coverlet and pressed it softly to her flushed +cheek, and he understood. + +"I thought so; I was afraid so," he said, slowly. "You say you have +known him a long time: it canna have been long enough, bairnie." + +"But it is," she insisted, loyally. "I know him better than he knows +himself; oh, very much better." + +"Ye know the good in him, maybe; there's good in all men, I'm thinking +now, though there was a time when I didna believe it." + +"I know the good and the bad--and the bad is only the good turned upside +down." + +Again the sick man wagged his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. + +"Ye're a loving lassie, Maggie, and that's a' there is to it," he +commented; and after another interval: "What must be, must be. We spoke +of this man Broffin: I must see him before Johnson comes. Can ye get him +for me, Maggie, child?" + +She nodded and went down-stairs to the telephone, returning almost +immediately. + +"I was fortunate enough to catch him at the hotel. He will be here in a +few minutes," was the word she brought; and Galbraith thanked her with +his eyes. + +"When he comes, ye'll let me see him alone--just for a few minutes," he +begged; and beyond that he said no more. + +It was after the click of the gate latch had announced Broffin's arrival +that Margery drew the shades to shut out the glare of the afternoon sun, +lowering the one at the bed's head so that the light no longer fell upon +the instruments of the small house-telephone-set mounted upon the wall +beside the door. + +"Mr. Broffin is here, and I'll send him up," she said. "But you mustn't +let him stay long, and you mustn't try to talk too much." + +The sick man promised, and as she was going away she turned to repeat +the caution. Andrew Galbraith's eyes were closed in weariness, and he +did not see that she was standing with her back to the wall while she +admonished him, or that, when she had gone to send the visitor up, the +ear-piece of the house-telephone-set had been detached from its hook and +left dangling by its wire cord. + +Miss Grierson went on into the library after she had met the detective +at the door and had told him how to find the up stairs room. When the +sound of a cautiously closed door told her that Broffin had entered the +sick-room, she snatched the receiver of the library house 'phone from +its hook and held it to her ear. For a little time keen anxiety wrote +its sign manual in the knitted brows and the tightly pressed lips. Then +she smiled and the dark eyes grew softly radiant. "The dear old saint!" +she whispered; "the dear, _dear_ old saint!" And when Broffin came down +a few minutes later, she went to open the hall door for him, serenely +demure and with honey on her tongue, as befitted the rôle of +"everybody's good angel." + +"Did you find him worse than you feared, or better than you hoped?" she +asked. + +"He's mighty near the edge, I should say--what? But you never can tell. +Some of these old fellows can claw back to the top o' the hill after all +the doctors in creation have thrown up their hands. I've seen it. What +does Doc Farnham say?" + +"What he always says; 'while there's life, there's hope.'" + +Broffin nodded and went his way down the walk, stopping at the gate to +take up the cigar he had hidden on his arrival. + +"So Galbraith's out of it, lock, stock and barrel," he muttered, as he +strode thoughtfully townward. "I reckoned it'd be that-a-way, as soon as +I heard the story o' that shipwreck. And now I ain't so blamed sure that +it's Raymer a-holdin' the fort in them pretty black eyes. The old man +talked like a man that had just been honeyfugled and talked over and +primed plum' up to the muzzle. Why the blue blazes can't she take her +iron-moulder fellow and be satisfied? She can't swing to _both_ of 'em. +Ump!--the old man wanted me to skip out on a wild-goose chase to 'Frisco +in that bond business, and take the first train! Sure, I'll go--but not +to-day; oh, no, by grapples; not this day!" + +It was possibly an hour beyond Broffin's visit when Margery, having +successfully read the sick man to sleep, tiptoed out of the room and +went below stairs to shut herself into the hall telephone closet. The +number she asked for was that of the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works, +and Raymer, himself, answered the call. + +"Are you awfully busy?" she asked. + +"Up to my chin--yes. But that doesn't count if I can do anything for +you." + +"Have you heard anything yet from Mr.--from our friend?" + +"Not a word. But I'm not worrying any more now." + +"Why aren't you?" + +"Because I've been remembering that he is the happy--or +unhappy--possessor of the 'artistic temperament' and that accounts for +anything and everything. I'd forgotten that for a few minutes, you +know." + +"Well?" she said, with the faintest possible accent of impatience. + +"He has gone off somewhere to plug away on that book of his; I'm sure of +it. And he hasn't gone very far. I'm inclined to believe that Mrs. +Holcomb knows where he is--only she won't tell. And somebody else knows, +too." + +"Who is the somebody else?" + +Though the wire was in a measure public, Raymer risked a single word. + +"Charlotte." + +None of the sudden passion that leaped into Margery Grierson's eyes was +suffered to find its way into her voice when she said: "What makes you +think that?" + +"Oh, a lot of little things. I was over at the house last night, and +there is some sort of a tea-pot tempest going on; I couldn't make out +just what. But from the way things shaped up, I gathered that our friend +was wanted in Lake Boulevard, and wanted bad--for some reason or other. +I had to promise that I'd try to dig him up, before I got away." + +"Well?" went the questioning word over the wires, and this time the +impatient accent was unconcealed. + +"I promised; but this morning Doctor Bertie called me up to say that it +was all right; that I needn't trouble myself." + +"And I needn't have troubled you," said the voice at the Mereside +transmitter. "Excuse _me_, as Hank Billingsly used to say when he +happened to shoot the wrong man. Come over when you feel like it--and +have time. You mustn't forget that you owe me two calls. Good-by." + +After Margery Grierson had let herself out of the stifling little closet +under the hall stair, she went into the darkened library and sat for a +long time staring at the cold hearth. It was a crooked world, and just +now it was a sharply cruel one. There was much to be read between the +lines of the short telephone talk with Edward Raymer. The trap was +sprung and its jaws were closing; and in his extremity Kenneth Griswold +was turning, not to the woman who had condoned and shielded and paid the +costly price, but to the other. + +"Dear God!" she said softly, when the prolonged stare had brought the +quick-springing tears to her eyes; "and I--_I_ could have kept him +safe!" + + + + +XXXVIII + +THE PENDULUM-SWING + + +To a man seeking only to escape from himself, all roads are equal and +all destinations likely to prove uniformly disappointing. Turning his +back upon the Iron Works in the day of defeat, with no very clear idea +of what he should do or where he should go, Griswold pushed through the +strikers' picket lines, and, avoiding the militant suburb, drifted by +way of sundry outlying residence streets and a country road to the high +ground back of the city. + +In deserting Raymer he was actuated by no motive of disloyalty. On the +contrary, so much of the motive as had any bearing upon his relations +with the young iron-founder sprang from a generous impulse to free +Raymer from an incubus. If it were the curse of the Midas-touch to turn +all things to gold, it seemed to be his own peculiar curse to turn the +gold to dross; to leave behind him a train of disaster, defeat, and +tragic depravity. The plunge into the labor conflict had merely served +to afford another striking example of his inability to break the evil +spell, and Raymer could well spare him. + +On the long tramp to the hills the events of the past few months +marshalled themselves in accusing review. No human being, save one, of +all those with whom he had come in contact since the day of +dragon-bearding in the New Orleans bank had escaped the contaminating +touch, and each in turn had suffered loss. The man Gavitt had given his +name and identity; the mate of the _Belle Julie_ had sacrificed what +little respect he may have had for law and order by becoming, +potentially, at least, a criminal accessory. The little Irish cab-driver +had sold himself for a price; and the negro deck-hand had earned his +mess of fried fish. The single exception was Charlotte Farnham, and he +told himself that she had escaped only because she had done her duty as +she saw it. + +And as the bedeviling thing had begun, so it had continued, losing none +of its potency for evil. In the little world of Wahaska, which was to +have been the theatre of Utopian demonstration, the curse had persisted. +The money, used with the loftiest intentions, had served only as a means +to an end, and the end had proved to be the rearing of an apparently +impassable wall of bitter antagonism between master and men. And the +secret of the money's origin and acquisition, which was to have been so +easily cast aside and ignored, had become a soul-sickness incurable and +even contagious. Griswold was beginning to suspect that it had attacked +Margery Grierson; that it had subconsciously, if not otherwise, thrust +itself into Charlotte Farnham's life; and the night of horror so lately +past had shown him into what depths it could plunge its wretched +guardian and slave. + +Now that the plunge had been taken and he had been made to understand +that he must henceforth reckon with a base and cowardly under-self which +would not stop short of the most heinous crime, he told himself that he +must have time to think--to plan. + +Caring nothing for its roughness, and scarcely noting the direction in +which it was leading him, he followed the country road in its winding +descent into a valley forest of oaks. After an hour of aimless tramping +he began to have occasional near-hand glimpses of the lake; and a little +farther along he came out upon the main-travelled road leading to the +summer-resort hotel at the head of De Soto Bay. + +Still without any definite purpose in mind he pushed on, and upon +reaching the hotel he went in and registered for a room. The luncheon +hour was past, but not even the long tramp had given him an appetite. +Choosing the quietest corner of the lake-facing veranda he tried to +smoke; but the tobacco had lost its flavor, and a longing for completer +solitude drove him to his room. Here he drew the window shades and lay +down, deliberately wishing that he might fall asleep and wake in some +less poignant world; and since the week of strife had been cutting +deeply into the nights, the first half of the wish presently came true. +While the poignancies were still asserting themselves acutely, sleep +stole upon him, and when he awoke it was evening and a cheerful clamor +in the dining-room beneath told him that it was dinner-time. + +It is a trite saying that many a gulf, seemingly impassable, has been +safely bridged in sleep. Bathed, refreshed and with the tramping stains +removed, Griswold went down to dinner with the lost appetite regained. A +leisurely hour spent in the restorative atmosphere of the well-filled +dining-room added its uplift, and at the end of it the troublesome +perplexities and paradoxes had withdrawn--at least far enough so that +they could be held in the artistic perspective. Afterward, during the +cigar-smoking on the cool veranda, he struck out his plan. In the +morning he would send in town to Mrs. Holcomb for a few necessaries, and +telephone to Raymer. After which, he would try what a fallow day or two +would do for him; an interval in which he could weigh and measure and +think, and possibly recover the lost sense of proportion. + +As the plan was conceived, so it was carried out. Early on the following +day he sent a note to Mrs. Holcomb by one of the Inn employees; but the +copy of the _Daily Wahaskan_ laid beside his breakfast plate made it +unnecessary to telephone Raymer. The paper had a full account of the +sudden ending of the lock-out and the resumption of work in the Raymer +plant, and he read it with a curious stirring of self-compassion. As he +had reasoned it out, there was only one way in which the result could +have been attained so quickly. Had Raymer taken that way, in spite of +his wrathful rejection of the suggestion? Doubtless he had; and on the +heels of that conclusion came a sense of deprivation that was fairly +appalling, and the healthy breakfast appetite vanished. Griswold knew +what it meant, or he thought he did. Margery Grierson was gone out of +his life--gone beyond recall. + +After that, there was all the better reason why he should grapple with +himself in the fallow interval; and for two complete days he was lost, +even to the small world of the summer resort, tramping for hours in the +lake shore forests or drifting about in one of the hotel skiffs, and +returning to the Inn only to eat and sleep when hunger or weariness +constrained him. On the whole, the discipline was good. He flattered +himself that the sense of proportion was returning slowly, and with it +some saner impulses. Truly, it had been his misfortune to be obliged to +compromise with evil to some extent, and to involve others, but was not +that rather due to the ineradicable faults of an imperfect social system +than to any basic defect in his own theories? And was not the same +imperfect social system partly responsible for the _quasi_-criminal +attitude which had been forced upon him? He was willing to believe it; +willing, also, to believe that he could rise above the constraining +forces and be the man he wished to be. That he could so rise was proved, +he decided, on the morning of the third day, when he chanced to overhear +the hotel clerk telling the man whose room was across the corridor from +his own that Andrew Galbraith still had a fighting chance for life. In +the pleasant glow of the high resolve the news awakened none of the +murderous promptings, but rather the generous hope that it might be +true. + +It was late in the afternoon of this third day, upon his return from a +long pull in the borrowed skiff around the group of islands in the upper +and unfrequented part of the lake, that he found a note awaiting him. It +was from Miss Farnham, and its brevity, no less than its urgency, +stirred him apprehensively, bringing a suggestive return of the furtive +fierceness which he promptly fought down. "I must see you before eight +o'clock this evening. It is of the last importance," was the wording of +the note; and the heavy underscoring of the "last," and a certain +tremulous characteristic in the handwriting, stressed the urgency. + +Griswold thrust the note into his pocket and made his preparations to go +to town, still fighting down the furtive malevolence which was unnerving +him; fighting also an unshakable premonition that his hour had come. +Once, before the Inn brake was ready to make its evening trip to Wahaska +and the railway station, the premonition gripped him so benumbingly that +he was sorely tempted. There was another railroad fourteen miles to the +westward; a line running a fast day-train to the north with connections +for Winnipeg. One of the Inn guests was driving over to catch this fast +train at a country crossing, and there was a spare seat in the hired +carry-all. Griswold considered the alternative for the length of time it +took the hotel porter to put the departing guest's luggage into the +waiting vehicle. Then he turned his back and let the chance escape. The +issue was fairly defined. To become a fugitive now was to plead guilty +as charged--to open the door to chaos. + +It was still quite early in the evening when the Inn conveyance set him +down at the door of his lodgings in upper Shawnee Street. To the +care-taking widow, who would have prepared a late dinner for him, he +explained that he was going out again almost at once; and taking time +only for a bath and a change, he set forth on the cross-town walk. It +lacked something less than a half-hour of the time limit set in Miss +Farnham's note, but he attached no special importance to that. He knew +that the doctor's dinner-hour was early, and that in any event he could +choose his own time for an evening call. + +It nettled him angrily to find that the premonition of coming disaster +was still with him when he crossed the Court House square and came into +the main street a few doors from the Winnebago entrance. Attacking from +a fresh vantage-ground it was warning him that the town hotel was the +stopping-place of the man Broffin, and that he was taking an unnecessary +hazard in passing it. Brushing the warning aside, he went on defiantly, +and just before he came within identifying range of the loungers on the +hotel porch an omnibus backed to the curb to deliver its complement of +passengers from the lately met northbound train. + +Griswold walked on until he was stopped by the sidewalk-blocking group +of freshly arrived travellers pausing to identify their luggage as it +was handed down from the top of the omnibus. Alertly watchful, he +quickly recognized Broffin among the porch loungers, and saw him leave +his tilted chair to saunter toward the steps. Then the fateful thing +happened. One of the luggage-sorters, a clean-limbed, handsome young +fellow with boyish eyes and a good-natured grin, wheeled suddenly and +gripped him. + +"Why, Griswold, old man!--well, I'll be dogged! Who on the face of the +earth would ever have thought of finding you here? So this is where you +came up, after the long, deep, McGinty dive, is it?" Then to one of his +fellow travellers: "Hold on a minute, Johnson; I want you to shake hands +with an old newspaper pal of mine from New York, Mr. Kenneth Griswold. +Kenneth, this is Mr. Beverly Johnson, of the Bayou State Security Bank, +in New Orleans." + +Thus Bainbridge, sometime star reporter for the _Louisianian_, turning +up at the climaxing instant to prove the crowded condition of an +over-narrow world, much as Matthew Broffin had once turned up on the +after-deck of the coastwise steamer _Adelantado_ to prove it to him. + +While Griswold, with every nerve on edge, was acknowledging the +introduction which he could by no means avoid, Broffin drew nearer. From +the porch steps he could both see and hear. Bainbridge, cheerfully +loquacious, continued to do most of the talking. He was telling Griswold +of the streak of good luck which had snatched him out of a reporter's +berth in the South to make him night editor of one of the St. Paul +dailies. Johnson was merely an onlooker. Broffin's eyes searched the +teller's face. Thus far it was a blank--a rather bored blank. + +"And you are on your way to St. Paul now?" Griswold said to the +newspaper man. Broffin, whose ears were skilfully attuned to all the +tone variations in the voice of evasion, thought he detected a quaver of +anxious impatience in the half-absent query. + +"Yes; I was going on through to-night, but Johnson, here, stumped me to +stop over. He said I might be able to get a news story out of his sick +president," Bainbridge rattled on. "Ever meet Mr. Galbraith? He is the +bank president who was held up last spring, you remember; fine old +Scotch gentleman of the Walter-Scott brand." + +"When did you leave New Orleans?" Griswold asked; and now Broffin made +sure he distinguished the note of anxiety. + +"Two days back: missed a connection on account of high water in the +Ohio. Might have stayed another twelve hours in the good old levee town +if we'd only known, eh, Johnson?" And then again to Griswold: "Remember +that supper we had at Chaudière's, the night I was leaving for the +banana coast? By George! come to think of it, I believe that was the +last time we forgathered in the--Say, Kenneth, what have you done with +your beard?" + +Something clicked in Broffin's brain; then the wheels of the present +slipped into gear with those of the past and the entire train moved on +smoothly. The final doubt was cleared away. Griswold was the man whose +story Bainbridge had told under the after-deck awning of the +outward-bound fruit steamer; and the story in all its essentials was the +same that Miss Grierson had told on the veranda of the De Soto. Broffin +knew now why there had always been a haunting suggestion of familiarity +in Griswold's face for him. He had seen and marked the "bloody-minded +nihilist" of Bainbridge's story when the two were saying good-by on the +banquette in front of Chaudière's. + +Broffin's right hand went swiftly to an inside pocket of his coat and +when it was withdrawn a pair of handcuffs, oiled to noiselessness, came +with it. Deftly the man-catcher worked them open, using only the fingers +of one hand, and never taking his eyes from the trio on the sidewalk. +One last step remained: if he could only manage to get speech with +Johnson first---- + +During the trying interval Griswold had been fully alive to his peril. +He had seen the swift hand-passing, and he knew what it was that Broffin +was concealing in the hand which had made the quick pocket-dive. He knew +that the crucial moment had come; and, as many times before, the savage +fear-mania was gripping him. In the cold vise-nip of it he had become +once more the cornered wild beast. + +After the introduction to Johnson his hand had gone mechanically to his +coat pocket. The demon at his ear was whispering "kill! kill!" and his +fingers sought and found the weapon. While he was listening with the +outward ear to Bainbridge's cheerful reminiscences, the little minutiæ +were arranging themselves: he saw where Broffin would step, and was +careful to mark that none of the by-standers would be in range. He would +wait until there could be no possibility of missing; then he would +fire--from the pocket. + +It was Johnson who broke the spell. While Bainbridge was insisting that +Griswold should come in and make a social third at the hotel +dinner-table, the teller picked up his hand-bag and mounted the steps. +Griswold's brain fell into halves. With one of them he was making +excuses to the newspaper man; with the other he saw Broffin stop Johnson +and draw him aside. + +What the detective was saying was only too plainly evident. Johnson +wheeled short to face the sidewalk group, and Griswold could feel in +every fibre of him the searching scrutiny to which he was being +subjected. When he stole a glance at the pair on the porch, Johnson was +shaking his head slowly; and he did it again after a second thoughtful +stare. Griswold, missing completely now what Bainbridge was saying, +overheard the teller's low-toned rejoinder to the detective's urgings: +"It's no use, Mr. Broffin; I'd have to swear positively to it, you +know, and I couldn't do that.... No, I don't want to hear your +corroborative evidence; it might make me see a resemblance where there +is none. Wait until Mr. Galbraith recovers: he's your man." + +Griswold hardly knew how he made shift to get away from Bainbridge +finally; but when it was done, and he was crossing the little triangular +park which filled the angle between the business squares and the +lake-fronting residence streets, he was sweating profusely, and the +departing fear-mania was leaving him weak and tremulous. + +Passing the stone-basined fountain in the middle of the park he stopped, +jerked the pistol from his pocket, spilled the cartridges from its +magazine, and stooped to grope for a loose stone in the walk-border. +With the fountain base for an anvil and the loosened border stone for a +hammer he beat the weapon into shapeless inutility and flung it away. + +"God knows whom I shall be tempted to kill, next!" he groaned; and the +trembling fit was still unnerving him when he went on to keep the +appointment made by Charlotte Farnham. + + + + +XXXIX + +DUST AND ASHES + + +A full moon, blood-red from the smoke of forest fires far to the +eastward, was rising over the Wahaska Hills when Griswold unlatched the +gate of the Farnham enclosure and passed quickly up the walk. + +Since the summoning note had stressed the urgencies, he was not +surprised to find the writer of it awaiting his coming on the +vine-shadowed porch. In his welcoming there was a curious mingling of +constraint and impatience, and he was moved to marvel. Miss Farnham's +outlook upon life, the point of view of the ideally well-balanced, was +uniformly poiseful and self-contained, and he was wondering if some +fresh entanglement were threatening when she motioned him to a seat and +placed her own chair so that the light from the sitting-room windows +would leave her in the shadow. + +"You had my note?" she began. + +"Yes. It came while I was away from the hotel, and the regular trip of +the Inn brake was the first conveyance I could catch. Am I late?" + +Her reply was qualified. "That remains to be seen." + +There was a hesitant pause, and then she went on: "Do you know why I +sent for you to come." + +"No, not definitely." + +"I was hoping you would know; it would make it easier for me. You owe me +something, Mr. Griswold." + +"I owe you a great deal," he admitted, warmly. "It is hardly putting it +too strong to say that you have made some part of my work possible which +would otherwise have been impossible." + +"I didn't mean that," she dissented, with a touch of cool scorn. "I have +no especial ambition to figure as a character, however admirable, in a +book. Your obligation doesn't lie in the literary field; it is real--and +personal. You have done me a great injustice, and it seems to have been +carefully premeditated." + +The blow was so sudden and so calmly driven home that Griswold gasped. + +"An injustice?--to you?" he protested; but she would not let him go on. + +"Yes. At first, I thought it was only a coincidence--your coming to +Wahaska--but now I know better. You came here, in goodness knows what +spirit of reckless bravado, because it was my home; and you made the +decision apparently without any consideration for me; without any +thought of the embarrassments and difficulties in which it might involve +me." + +Truly, the heavens had fallen and the solid earth was reeling! Griswold +lay back in the deep lounging-chair and fought manfully to retain some +little hold upon the anchorings. Could this be his ideal; the woman whom +he had set so high above all others in the scale of heroic +faultlessness and sublime devotion to principle? And was she so much a +slave of the conventional as to be able to tell him coldly that she had +recognized him again, and that her chief concern was the embarrassment +it was causing her? Before he could gather the words for any adequate +rejoinder, she was going on pointedly: + +"You have done everything you could to make the involvement complete. +You have made friends of my friends, and you came here as a friend of my +father. You have drawn Edward Raymer into the entanglement and helped +him with the stolen money. In every way you have sought to make it more +and more impossible for me to give information against you--and you have +succeeded. I can't do it now, without facing a scandal that would never +die in a small place like this, and without bringing trouble and ruin +upon a family of our nearest friends. And that is why I sent for you +to-day; and why I say you owe me something." + +Griswold was sitting up again, and he had recovered some small measure +of self-possession. + +"I certainly owe you many apologies, at least," he said, ironically. "I +have really been doing you a great injustice, Miss Farnham--a very grave +injustice, though not exactly of the kind you mention. I think I have +been misapprehending you from the beginning. How long have you known me +as the man who is wanted in New Orleans?" + +"A long time; though I tried not to believe it at first. It seemed +incredible that the man I had spoken to on the _Belle Julie_ would come +here and put me in such a false position." + +"Good heavens!" he broke out; "is your position all you have been +thinking of? Is that the only reason why you haven't set the dogs on +me?" + +"It is the chief reason why I couldn't afford to do anything more than I +have done. Goodness knows, I have tried in every way to warn you, even +to pointing out the man who is shadowing you. To do it, I have had to +deceive my father. I have been hoping that you would understand and go +away." + +"Wait a minute," he commanded. "Let me get it straight; you still +believe that the thing I did was a criminal thing?" + +"We needn't go into that part of it again," she returned, with a sort of +placid impatience. "Once I thought that there might be some way in which +you had justified yourself to yourself, but now----" + +"That isn't the point," he interrupted roughly. "What I want to know is +this: Do you still believe it is a crime?" + +"Of course, it is a crime; I know it, you know it, all the world knows +it." + +Again he sat back and took time to gather up a few of the scattered +shards and fragments. When he spoke it was to say: "I think the debt is +on the other side, Miss Charlotte; I think you owe me something. You +probably won't understand when I say that you have robbed me of a very +precious thing--my faith in the ultimate goodness of a good woman. You +believe--you have always believed--that I am a criminal; and yet you +have been weak enough to let expediency seal your lips. I am truer to my +code than you are to yours, as you shall see if the day ever comes when +I shall be convinced that I did wrong. But that is neither here nor +there. You sent for me: what is it that you want me to do?" + +"I want to give you one more chance to disappoint the Wahaska gossips," +she replied, entirely unmoved, as it seemed, by his harsh arraignment. +"Do you know why this man Broffin is still waiting?" + +"I can guess. He is taking a long chance on the chapter of accidents." + +"Not altogether. Three days ago, Mr. Galbraith had Miss Grierson +telegraph to New Orleans for some one of the bank officials. Yesterday I +learned that the man who is coming is the teller who waited on me and +who gave you the money. As soon as I heard that, I began to try to find +you." + +Griswold did not tell her that the danger she feared was a danger past. + +"Go on," he prompted. + +"You are no longer safe in Wahaska," she asserted. "The teller can +identify you, and the detective will give him the opportunity. That is +doubtless what he is waiting for." + +"And you would suggest that I make a run for it? Is that why you sent +for me?" + +"It is. You are tempting fate by staying; and, notwithstanding what you +have said, I still insist that you owe me something. There is a fast +train west at ten o'clock. If you need ready money----" + +Griswold laughed. It had gone beyond the tragic and was fast lapsing +into comedy, farce. + +"We are each of us appearing in a new rôle to-night, Miss Farnham," he +said, with sardonic humor; "I as the hunted criminal, and you as the +equally culpable accessory after the fact. If I run away, what shall be +done with the--the 'swag,' the bulk of which, as you know, is tied up in +Raymer's business?" + +"I have thought of that," she returned calmly, "and that is another +reason why you shouldn't let them take you. Right or wrong, you have +incurred a fresh responsibility in your dealings with Mr. Raymer; and +Edward, who is perfectly innocent, must be protected in some way." + +It was not in human nature to resist the temptation to strike back. + +"I have told Raymer how he can most successfully underwrite his +financial risk," he said, with malice intentional. + +"How?" + +"By marrying Miss Grierson." + +He had touched the springs of anger at last. + +"That woman!" she broke out. And then: "If you have said that to Edward +Raymer, I shall never forgive you as long as I live! It is your affair +to secure Edward against loss in the money matter--your own individual +responsibility, Mr. Griswold. He accepted the money in good faith, +and----" + +Again Griswold gave place to the caustic humor and finished for her. + +"--And, though it is stolen money, it must not be taken away from him. +Once, when I was even more foolish than I am now, I said of you that you +would be a fitting heroine in a story in which the hero should be a man +who might need to borrow a conscience. It's quite the other way around." + +"We needn't quarrel," she said, retreating again behind the barrier of +cold reserve. "I suppose I have given you the right to say disagreeable +things to me, if you choose to assert it. But we are wasting time which +may be very precious. Will you go away, as I have suggested?" + +He found his hat and got upon his feet rather unsteadily. + +"I don't know; possibly I shall. But in any event, you needn't borrow +any more trouble, either on your own account, or on Raymer's. By the +merest chance, I met Johnson, the teller you speak of, a few minutes ago +at the Winnebago House and was introduced to him. He didn't know me, +then, or later, when Broffin was telling him that he ought to know me. +Hence, the matter rests as it did before--between you and Mr. +Galbraith." + +"Mr. Galbraith?" + +"Yes. That was a danger past, too, a short time ago. I met him, +socially, and he didn't recognize me. Afterward, Broffin pointed me out +to him, and again he failed to identify me. But the other day, after I +had pulled him out of the lake, he remembered. I've been waiting to see +what he will do." + +"He will do nothing. You saved his life." + +Griswold shook his head. + +"I am still man enough to hope that he won't let the bit of personal +service make him compound a felony." + +"Why do you call it that?" she demanded. + +"Because, from his point of view, and yours, that is precisely what it +is; and it is what you are doing, Miss Farnham. I, the criminal, say +this to you. You should have given me up the moment you recognized me. +That is your creed, and you should have lived up to it. Since you +haven't, you have wronged yourself and have made me the poorer by a +thing that----" + +"Stop!" she cried, standing up to face him. "Do you mean to tell me that +you are ungrateful enough to----" + +"No; ingratitude isn't quite the word. I'm just sorry; with the sorrow +you have when you look for something that you have a right to expect, +and find that it isn't there; that it has never been there; that it +isn't anywhere. You have hurt me, and you have hurt yourself; but there +is still a chance for you. When I am gone, go to the telephone and call +Broffin at the Winnebago House. You can tell him that he will find me at +my rooms. Good-by." + +He was half-way to the foot of Lakeview Avenue, striding along moodily +with his head down and his hands behind him, when he collided violently +with Raymer going in the opposite direction. The shock was so unexpected +that Griswold would have been knocked down if the muscular young +iron-founder had not caught him promptly. At the saving instant came +mutual recognition. + +"Hello, there!" said Raymer. "You are the very man I've been looking +for. Charlotte wants to see you." + +"Not now she doesn't," was the rather grim contradiction. "I have just +left her." + +"Oh." + +There was a pause, and then Griswold cut in morosely. + +"So you did take my way out of the labor trouble, after all, didn't +you?" + +Raymer looked away. + +"I don't know just how you'd like to have me answer that, Kenneth. How +much or how little do you know of what happened?" + +"Nothing at all"--shortly. + +"Well, it was Margery who wrought the miracle, of course. I don't know, +yet, just how she did it; but it was done, and done right." + +"And you have asked her to marry you?" + +"Suffering Scott! how you do come at a man! Yes, I asked her, if you've +got to know." + +"Well?" snapped Griswold. + +"She--she turned me down, Kenneth; got up and walked all over me. That's +a horrible thing to make me say, but it's the truth." + +"I don't understand it, Raymer. Was it the No that means No?" + +"I don't understand it either," returned the iron-founder, with grave +naïveté. "And, yes, I guess she meant it. But that reminds me. She knew +I was looking for you and she gave me a note--let me see, I've got it +here somewhere; oh, yes, here it is--gilt monogram and all." + +Griswold took the note and pocketed it without comment and without +looking at it. + +"Were you going to Doctor Bertie's?" he asked. + +"I was. Have you any objection?" + +"Not the least in the world. It's a good place for you to go just now, +and I guess you are the right man for the place. Good-night." + +At the next corner where there was an electric light, Griswold stopped +and opened the monogrammed envelope. The enclosure was a single sheet of +perfumed note-paper upon which, without date, address or signature was +written the line: + +"Mr. Galbraith is better--and he is grateful." + + + + +XL + +APPLES OF ISTAKHAR + + +The swinging arc-light suspended above the street-crossing sputtered and +died down to a dull red dot of incandescence as Griswold returned +Margery's note to his pocket and walked on. + +There are crises in which the chief contention looms so large as to +leave no room for the ordinary mental processes. Griswold saw no +significance in the broken line of Margery's message. The one tremendous +revelation--the knowledge that the dross-creating curse had finally +fallen upon the woman whose convictions should have saved her--was +blotting out all the subtler perceptive faculties; and for the time the +struggle with the submerging wave of disappointment and disheartenment +was bitter. + +He was two squares beyond the crossing of the broken-circuited +arc-light, and was still following the curve of the lakeside boulevard, +when he came to the surface of the submerging wave long enough to +realize that he had entered Jasper Grierson's portion of the water-front +drive. The great house, dark as to its westward gables save for the +lighted upper windows marking the sick-room and its antechamber, loomed +in massive solidity among its sheltering oaks; and the moon, which had +now topped the hills and the crimsoning smoke haze, was bathing +land- and lake-scape in a flood of silver light, whitening the pale yellow +sands of the beach and etching fantastic leaf-traceries on the gravel of +the boulevarded driveway. + +There was no enclosing fence on the Mereside border of the boulevard, +and under the nearest of the lawn oaks there were rustic park seats, +Jasper Grierson's single concession to the public when he had fought for +and secured his property right-of-way through to the lake's margin. +Griswold turned aside and sat down on one of the benches. The +disappointment was growing less keen. He was beginning to understand +that he had made no allowance for the eternal feminine in the idealized +_Fidelia_--for the feminine and the straitly human. But the +disheartenment remained. Should he stay and fight it out? Or should he +take pity upon the poor prisoner of the conventions and seek to postpone +the day of reckoning by flight? + +He had not fitted the answer to either of these sharp-pointed queries +when a pair of light-fingered hands came from behind to clap themselves +upon his eyes, and a well-known voice said, "Guess." + +"Margery!" he said; and she laughed with the joyous unconstraint of a +happy child and came around to sit by him. + +"I was doing time out on the veranda, and I saw you down here in the +moonlight, looking as if you had lost something," she explained, adding: +"Have you?" + +"I don't know; can you lose that which you've never had?" he returned +musingly. And then: "Yes; perhaps I did lose something. Don't ask me +what it is. I hardly know, myself." + +"You have just come from Doctor Bertie's?" she inquired. + +"Yes." + +"And Charlotte doesn't want to marry you?" + +"Heavens and earth!" he exploded. "Who put the idea into your head that +I wanted to marry her?" + +"You did"--calmly. + +"Then, for pity's sake, let me take it out, quick. If I were the last +man on earth, Miss Farnham wouldn't marry me; and if she were the last +woman, I think I'd go drown myself in the lake!" + +The young woman of the many metamorphoses was laughing again, and this +time the laugh was a letter-perfect imitation of a school-girl giggle. + +"My!" she said. "How dreadfully hard she must have sat on you!" + +"Please don't laugh," he pleaded; "unless you are the heartless kind of +person who would laugh at a funeral. I'm down under the hoofs of the +horses, at last, Margery, girl. Before you came, I was wondering if the +game were at all worth the candle." + +Her mood changed in the twinkling of an eye. "The battle is over, and +won," she said, speaking softly. "Didn't you know that?" And then: "Oh, +boy, boy! but it has been a desperate fight! Time and again I have +thought you were gone, in spite of all I could do!" + +"You thought--I was gone? Then you know?" + +"Of course I know; I have known ever since the first night; the night +when I found the money in your suit-case. What a silly, silly thing it +was for you to do--to leave the Bayou State Security slips on the +packages!" + +"But you said----" + +"No, I didn't say; I merely let you believe that I didn't see them. +After that, I knew it would be only a question of time until they would +trace you here, and I hurried; oh, I _hurried_! I made up my mind that +before the struggle came, all Wahaska should know you, not as a bank +robber, but as you are, and I made it come out just that way. Then Mr. +Broffin turned up, and the fight was on. He shadowed you, and I shadowed +him--or had Johnnie Fergus do it for me. I knew he'd try Miss Farnham +first, and there was only one hope there--that she might fall in love +with you and so refuse to give you away. She did, didn't she?" + +"Most emphatically, she did not," he denied. "You have greatly misjudged +Miss Farnham. The reason--the only reason--why she did not tell Broffin +what he wanted to know was a purely conventional one. She did not want +to be the most-talked-of woman in Wahaska." + +His companion's laugh was not pleasant. + +"I'd rather be a spiteful little cat, which is what she once called me, +than to be moth-eaten on the inside, like that!" she commented. Then she +went on: "With Miss Farnham out of it--and I knew she must be out of +it, since Broffin didn't strike--there was still Mr. Galbraith. You +didn't know why I was so anxious to have you get acquainted with him, +but you know now. And it worked. When Broffin asked him to identify you, +he couldn't--or wouldn't. Then came that unlucky drowning accident." + +Griswold nodded slowly. "Yes, Mr. Galbraith knows me now." + +"He doesn't!" she exulted. "He is a dear old saint, and he will never +know you again as the man who held him up. Listen: he sent for Broffin +this afternoon, and gave him a new commission--something about bonds in +California. And he told him he must go on the first train!" + +Once more the castaway was running the gamut of the fiercely varying +emotions. + +"Let me understand," he said. "You knew I had taken the money, and yet +you did all these things to pull me out and make the hold-up a success. +Where was your moral sense, all this time, little girl?" + +She made a charming little mouth at him. + +"I am _Joan_, and the _Joans_ don't have any moral senses--to speak +of--do they? That's the way you are writing it down in your book, isn't +it?" Then, with a low laugh that sounded some unfathomed depth of loving +abandonment: "It was a game; and I played it--played it for all I was +worth, and won. You are free; free as the air, Kenneth, boy. If Broffin +should come here this minute and put his hand on your shoulder, you +could look up and laugh in his face. Are you glad--or sorry?" + +His answer was the answer of the man who was, for the time being, +neither the moralist nor the criminal. With a swift out-reaching he drew +her to him, crushed her in his arms, covered her face with kisses. + +"I am glad--glad that I am your lover," he whispered, passionately. +"God, girl! but you are a woman to die for! No, not yet"--when she would +have slipped out of his arms--"Believe me, Margery; there has never been +any one else--not for a moment. But I thought it was Raymer, and for +your sake and his I could have stepped aside; I did try to step aside. +That is the one decent thing I have done in all this devilish business. +Are you listening?" + +She had stopped struggling, and was hiding her face on his shoulder. He +felt her quick little nod and went on. + +"Since you know the one decent thing, you must know all the horrible +things, too. A dozen times I have been a murderer in heart, and once ... +you know: I meant to let Galbraith die, that night." + +She looked up quickly. + +"No, boy, I'll never believe that--never! If you had stayed awake until +the time came, you couldn't have done it. And, besides, I am to blame. I +planned it--planned it purposely: I didn't even hope to find a nurse +when we were supposed to be looking for one. I knew how you felt, and I +wanted to make you show yourself that you didn't really hate him bad +enough to let him die. But I don't care; it doesn't matter--nothing +matters, now." + +"Wait," he said. "There was murder in my heart that night, and it was +there again this evening--just a little while ago. Miss Farnham and +Galbraith were not the only ones I had to fear; there was another; the +teller who got here from New Orleans on the seven-forty-five train. You +didn't know about him, did you? He came, and an old newspaper friend of +mine was with him. I stumbled upon them on the sidewalk in front of the +Winnebago House; and Broffin was there, too. We were introduced, the +teller and I, and Broffin was so sure he had me that he got his +handcuffs out and was opening them." + +Margery shuddered and hid her face again. "And I--I didn't know!" she +gasped. + +"Luck was with me again," he continued. "Johnson didn't remember me; +refused to do so even when Broffin stopped him and tried to tell him who +I was. I had a pistol in my pocket, and it was aimed at Broffin. If he +had made a move to take me, I should certainly have killed him." + +She sat up suddenly. + +"Give me that pistol, Kenneth--give it to me _now_!" + +"I can't," he confessed, shamefacedly. "When it was all over, I smashed +the pistol with a stone and threw it away." + +She drew a long breath, "Is that all?" she asked. + +"All but one thing; the worst of them all ... that day in the bank +vault----" + +The daughter of men buried her face on his shoulder again at that. +"Don't!" she begged. "You couldn't help it, boy; I made you do +it--meaning to. There! and I said that wild horses should never drag it +out of me!" + +Again he said, "Wait," and covered the shining head on his shoulder with +a caressing hand. "It wasn't love, then, little girl; that's what it +breaks my heart to tell you: it was just madness. And it wasn't clean; +you've got to know that, too." + +She nodded her head violently. "I know," she murmured; "I knew it at the +time, and that was what made me cry. But now it's--it's different, isn't +it, boy? now you--are----" + +"You have heard it all, Margery. You know what I thought I was, and what +I have turned out to be. I'm afraid I am just a common crook, after all; +there doesn't seem to be standing-room anywhere else for me. But every +living fibre of me, the good and the bad, loves you--loves you!" + +"What do I care for anything else?" she flashed back. "You are you, +Kenneth, dear; that is all I know, and all I care for. If you had stolen +all the money in the world, and had killed a dozen men to make your +get-away, it would be just the same. Only----" + +"Only what?" he demanded jealously. + +"It would be just the same to me; but--but.... Oh, boy, dear! it will +never, _never_ be the same to you!" + +"I--I don't understand," he stammered. + +"Some day you will. You call yourself a crook: man, man! there isn't a +crooked drop of blood in you! Don't I know? You persuaded yourself that +you had a right to take this money; perhaps you did have; _I_ don't say +you didn't. When I see anything I want, I reach out and take it, if I +can--and I guess most people would, if they dared. But you are +different; you are _good_. Some day all these dreadful things that have +come tagging along after the fact will rise up and gnash their teeth at +you and tell you that it was a _sin_, a _crime_. And then--oh, boy, +dear! then I shall lose you!" + +Very gently he took her in his arms again; and for a time all things +sensible and tangible, the deserted driveway, and the plashing of the +little waves on the sands, the staring moonlight and the stencilled +shadows of the oaks, were forgotten in the great soul-healing silence +that wrapped them about and enveloped them. + +"Margery," he began, when the interval of thoughtful heart-searching had +done its illuminative work, "what would you say if I should tell you +that your 'some day' has already come?" + +She started as if he had thrust a knife into her. Then she slipped out +of his arms and caught up his hand to press it against her cheek. + +"I should say, 'Whatsoever seemeth good in the eyes of my dear lord, so +let it be.'" + +"But think a moment, girl; if one has done wrong, there must be +atonement. That is the higher law--the highest law--and no man may +evade it. Do you know what that would mean for me?" + +"It is the Price, boy, dear; I don't ask you to pay it. Listen: my +father and I have agreed to disagree, and he has turned over to me a lot +of money that he took from--that was once my mother's brother's share in +the Colorado gold claims. What is mine is yours. We can pay back the +money. Will that do?" + +He was shaking his head slowly. "No," he said, "I think it wouldn't do." + +"I was afraid it wouldn't," she sighed, "but I had to try. Are they +still gnashing their teeth at you?--the dreadful things, I mean?" + +He did not answer in words, but she knew, and held her peace. At the end +of the ends he sprang up suddenly and drew her to her feet. + +"I can't do it, Margery, girl! I can't ask you to wait--and afterward to +marry a convict! Think of it--even if Galbraith were willing to +withdraw, the law wouldn't let him, and I'd get the limit; anything from +seven years to fifteen or more. Oh, my God, no! I can't pay the price! I +can't give you up!" + +She put her arms around his neck and drew his head down and kissed him +on the lips. "I'll wait ... oh, boy, boy! I'll wait! But I can neither +push you over the edge nor hold you back. Only don't think of me; +please, _please_ don't think of me!--'Whatsoever seemeth good'--that is +what you must think of; that is my last word: 'Whatsoever seemeth +good.'" And she pushed him from her and fled. + + + + +XLI + +THE DESERT AND THE SOWN + + +Through streets in which the village quiet of the summer night was +undisturbed save by the spattering tinkle of the lawn sprinklers in the +front yards, and the low voices of the out-door people taking the air +and the moonlight on the porches, Griswold fared homeward, the blood +pounding in his veins and the fine wine of life mounting headily to his +brain. + +After all the dubious stumblings he had come to the end of the road, to +find awaiting him the great accusation and the great reward. By the +unanswerable logic of results, in its effect upon others and upon +himself, his deed had proved itself a crime. Right or wrong in the +highest of the ethical fields, the accepted social order had proved +itself strong enough to make its own laws and to prescribe the +far-reaching penalties for their infraction. Under these laws he stood +convicted. Never again, save through the gate of atonement, could he be +reinstated as a soldier in the ranks of the conventionally righteous. +True, the devotion of a loving woman, aided by a train of circumstances +strikingly fortuitous and little short of miraculous, had averted the +final price-paying in penal retribution. But the fact remained. He was +a felon. + +Into this gaping wound which might otherwise have slain him had been +poured the wine and oil of a great love; a love so clean and pure in its +own well-springs that it could perceive no wrong in its object; could +measure no act of loyal devotion by any standard save that of its own +greatness. This love asked nothing but what he chose to give. It would +accept him either as he was, or as he ought to be. The place he should +elect to occupy would be its place; his standards its standards. + +Just here the reasoning angel opened a door and thrust him out upon the +edge of a precipice and left him to look down into the abyss of the +betrayers--the pit of those whose gift and curse it is to be the +pace-setters. In a flash of revealment it was shown him that with the +great love had come a great responsibility. Where he should lead, +Margery would follow, unshrinkingly, unquestioningly; never asking +whether the path led up or down; asking only that his path might be +hers. Instantly he was face to face with a fanged choice which +threatened to tear his heart out and trample upon it; and again he +recorded his decision, confirming it with an oath. The price was too +great; the upward path too steep; the self-denial it entailed too +sacrificial. + +"We have but one life to live, and we'll live it together, Margery, +girl, for better or for worse," was his apostrophic declaration, made +while he was turning into Shawnee Street a few doors from his lodgings; +and a minute later he was opening the Widow Holcomb's gate. + +The house was dark and apparently deserted as to its street-fronting +half when he let himself in at the gate and ran quickly up the steps. +The front door was open, and he remembered afterward that he had +wondered how the careful widow had come to leave it so, and why the hall +lamp was not lighted. From the turn at the stair-head he felt his way to +the door of his study. Like the one below, it was wide open; but some +one had drawn the window shades and the interior of the room was as dark +as a cavern. + +Once, in the novel-writing, following the lead of many worthy +predecessors, Griswold had made much of the "sixth" sense; the subtle +and indefinable prescience which warns its possessor of invisible +danger. No such warning was vouchsafed him when he leaned across the end +of the writing-table, turned on the gas, and held a lighted match over +the chimney of the working-lamp. It was while he was still bending over +the table, with both hands occupied, that he looked aside. In his own +pivot-chair, covering him with the mate to the weapon he had smashed and +thrown away, sat the man who had opened the two doors and drawn the +window shades and otherwise prepared the trap. + +"You bought a couple o' these little playthings, Mr. Griswold," said the +man, quietly. "Keep your hands right where they are, and tell me in +which pocket you've got the other one." + +Griswold laughed, and there was a sudden snapping of invisible bonds. He +dismissed instantly the thought that Charlotte Farnham had taken him at +his word; and if she had not, there was nothing to fear. + +"I threw the other one away a little while ago," he said. "Reach your +free hand over and feel my pockets." + +Broffin acted upon the suggestion promptly. + +"You ain't got it on you, anyway," he conceded; and when Griswold had +dropped into the chair at the table's end: "I reckon you know what I'm +here for." + +"I know that you are holding that gun of mine at an exceedingly +uncomfortable angle--for me," was the cool rejoinder. "I've always had a +squeamish horror of being shot in the stomach." + +The detective's grin was appreciative. + +"You've got a good cold nerve, anyway," he commented. "I've been puttin' +it up that when the time came, you'd throw a fit o' some sort--what? +Since you're clothed in your right mind, we'll get down to business. +First, I'll ask you to hand over the key to that safety-deposit box +you've got in Mr. Grierson's bank." + +Griswold took his bunch of keys from his pocket, slipped the one that +was asked for from the ring, and gave it to his captor. + +"Of course, I'm surrendering it under protest," he said. "You haven't +yet told me who you are, or what you are holding me up for." + +Broffin waved the formalities aside with a pistol-pointed gesture. "We +can skip all that. I've got you dead to rights, after so long a time, +and I'm goin' to take you back to New Orleans with me. The only question +is: do you go easy, or hard?" + +"I don't go either way until you show your authority." + +"I don't need any authority. You're the parlor-anarchist that held up +the president of the Bayou State Security Bank last spring and made a +get-away with a hundred thousand--what?" + +"All right; you say so--prove it." Griswold had taken a cigar from the +open box on the writing-table and was calmly lighting it. There was +nothing to be nervous about. "I'm waiting," he went on, placidly, when +the cigar was going. "If you are an officer, you probably have a +warrant, or a requisition, or something of that sort. Show it up." + +"I don't need any papers to take you," was the barked-out retort. +Broffin had more than once found himself confronting similar dead walls, +and he knew the worth of a bold play. + +"Oh, yes, you do. You accuse me of a crime: did you see me commit the +crime?" + +"No." + +"Well, somebody did, I suppose. Bring on your witnesses. If anybody can +identify me as the man you are after, I'll go with you--without the +requisition. That's fair, isn't it?" + +"I know you're the man, and you know it, too, damned well!" snapped +Broffin, angered into bandying words with his obstinate capture. + +"That is neither here nor there; I am not affirming or denying. It is +for you to prove your case, if you can. And, listen, Mr. Broffin: +perhaps it will save your time and mine if I add that I happen to know +that you can't prove your case." + +"Why can't I?" + +"Just because you can't," Griswold went on, argumentatively. "I know the +facts of this robbery you speak of; a great many people know them. The +newspaper accounts said at the time that there were three persons who +could certainly identify the robber: the president, the paying teller, +and a young woman. It so happens that all three of these people are at +present in Wahaska. At different times you have appealed to each of +them, and in each instance you have been turned down. Isn't that true?" + +Broffin glanced up, scowling. + +"It's true enough that you--you and the little black-eyed girl between +you--have hoodooed the whole bunch!" he rasped. "But when I get you into +court, you'll find out that there are others." + +Griswold smiled good-naturedly. "That is a bold, bad bluff, Mr. Broffin, +and nobody knows it any better than you do," he countered. "You haven't +a leg to stand on. This is America, and you can't arrest me without a +warrant. And if you could, what would you do with me without the support +of at least one of your three witnesses? Nothing--nothing at all." + +Broffin laid the pistol on the table, and put the key of the safety-box +beside it. Then he sat in grim silence for a full minute, toying idly +with a pair of handcuffs which he had taken from his pocket. + +"By the eternal grapples!" he said, at length, half to himself, "I've a +good mind to do it anyway--and take the chances." + +As quick as a flash Griswold thrust out his hands. + +"Put them on!" he snapped. "There are a hundred lawyers in New Orleans +who wouldn't ask for anything better than the chance to defend me--at +your expense!" + +Broffin dropped the manacles into his pocket and sat back in the +swing-chair. "You win," he said shortly; and the battle was over. + +For a little time no word was spoken. Griswold smoked on placidly, +seemingly forgetful of the detective's presence. Yet he was the one who +was the first to break the straitened silence. + +"You are a game fighter, Mr. Broffin," he said, "and I'm enough of a +scrapper myself to be sorry for you. Try one of these smokes--you'll +find them fairly good--and excuse me for a few minutes. I want to write +a letter which, if you are going down-town, perhaps you'll be good +enough to mail for me." + +He pushed the open box of cigars across to the detective, and dragged +the lounging-chair around to the other side of the table. There was +stationery at hand, and he wrote rapidly for a few minutes, covering +three pages of the manuscript sheets before he stopped. When the letter +was enclosed, addressed, and stamped, he tossed it across to Broffin, +face up. The detective saw the address, "Miss Margery Grierson," and, +putting the letter into his pocket, got up to go. + +"Just one minute more, if you please," said Griswold, and, relighting +the cigar which had been suffered to go out, he went into the adjoining +bedroom. When he came back, he had put on a light top-coat and a soft +hat, and was carrying a small hand-bag. + +"I'm your man, Mr. Broffin," he said quietly. "I'll go with you--and +plead guilty as charged." + + * * * * * + +Wahaska, the village-conscious, had its nine-days' wonder displayed for +it in inch-type head-lines when the _Daily Wahaskan_, rehearsing the +story of the New Orleans bank robbery, told of the voluntary surrender +of the robber, and of his deportation to the southern city to stand +trial for his offence. + +Some few there were who took exceptions to Editor Randolph's editorial +in the same issue, commenting on the surrender, and pleading for a +suspension of judgment on the ground that much might still be hoped for +from a man who had retraced a broad step in the downward path by +voluntarily accepting the penalty. Those who objected to the editorial +were of the perverse minority. The intimation was made that the plea had +been inspired--a hint basing itself upon the fact that Miss Grierson had +been seen visiting the office of the _Wahaskan_ after the departure of +the detective, Matthew Broffin, with his prisoner. + +The sensational incident, however, had been forgotten long before a +certain evening, three weeks later, when the Grierson carriage conveyed +the convalescent president of the Bayou State Security from the Grierson +mansion to the southbound train. Andrew Galbraith was not alone in the +carriage, and possibly there were those in the sleeping-car who mistook +the dark-eyed and strikingly beautiful young woman, who took leave of +him only after he was comfortably settled in his section, for his +daughter. But the whispered words of leave-taking were rather those of a +confidante than a kinswoman. + +"I'll arrange the Raymer matter as you suggest," she said, "and if I had +even a speaking acquaintance with God, I'd pray for you the longest day +I live, Uncle Andrew. And about the trial: I'm going to leave it all +with you; I've g-got to leave it with you! Just remember that I shall +bleed little drops of blood for every day the judge gives him, and that +the only way he can be helped is by a short sentence. He wouldn't take a +pardon: he--he wants to pay, you know. Good-night, and good-by!" And she +put her strong young arms around Andrew Galbraith's neck and kissed him, +thereby convincing the family party in Lower Seven that she was not only +the old man's daughter, but a very affectionate one, at that. + + * * * * * + +The little-changing seasons of central Louisiana had measured two +complete rounds on the yearly dial of Time's unremitting and unhasting +clock when the best hired carriage that Baton Rouge could afford drew +up before the entrance to the State's Prison and waited. Precisely on +the stroke of twelve, a man for whom the prison rules had lately been +relaxed sufficiently to allow his hair to grow, came out, looked about +him as one dazed, and assaulted the closed door of the carriage as if he +meant to tear it from its hinges. + +"Oh, boy, boy!" came from the one who had waited; and then the carriage +door yielded, opened, closed with a crash, and the negro driver clucked +to his horses. + +They were half-way to the railroad station, and she was trying to +persuade him that there would be months and years in which to make up +for the loveless blank, before sane speech found its opportunity. And +even then there were interruptions. + +"I knew you'd be here; no, they didn't tell me, but I knew it--I would +have staked my life on it, Margery, girl," he said, in the first lucid +interval. + +"And you--you've paid the Price, haven't you, Kenneth? but, oh, boy, +dear! I've paid it, too! Don't you believe me?" + +There was another interruption, and because the carriage windows were +open, the negro driver grinned and confided a remark to his horses. Then +the transgressor began again. + +"Where are you taking me, Margery?--not that it makes any manner of +difference." + +"We are going by train to New Orleans, and this--this--very--evening we +are to be married, in Mr. Galbraith's house. And Uncle Andrew is going +to give the bride away. It's all arranged." + +"And after?" + +"Afterward, we are going away--I don't know where. I just told dear old +Saint Andrew to buy the tickets to anywhere he thought would be nice, +and we'd go. I don't care where it is--do you? And when we get there, +I'll buy you a pen and some ink and paper, and you'll go on writing the +book, just as if nothing had happened. Say you will, boy, dear; _please_ +say you will! And then I'll know that--the price--wasn't--too great." + +He was looking out of the carriage window when he answered her, across +to the levee and beyond it to the farther shore of the great river, and +his eyes were the eyes of a man who has seen of the travail of his soul +and is satisfied. + +"I shall never write that book, little girl. That story, and all the +mistakes that were going to the making of it, lie on the other side +of--the Price. But one day, please God, there shall be another and a +worthier one." + +"Yes--please God," she said; and the dark eyes were shining softly. + + +THE END + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TITLES SELECTED FROM +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated. + +A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently made +love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situation +complicates the romance. + + +THE GAMBLERS. By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow. Illustrated by C. E. +Chambers. + +A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men play for +big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits--or repudiate the +methods. + + +CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis. Illustrated by Florence +Scovel Shinn and others. + +A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans at home and +abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of relaxation. + + +THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox. + +Clever, original presentations of present day social problems and the +best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess. + + +THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. Illustrated. Handsomely colored +wrapper. + +A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him during +the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovely +eyes of a Frenchwoman. + + +THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett. + +A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will make +women realize the part that politics play--even in their romances. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +=The Master's Violin= + +By MYRTLE REED + +[Illustration] + +A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German +virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to +take as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for +technique, but not the soul of the artist. The youth has led the happy, +careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, +with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the +tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived +life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a +beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart +and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons +that life has to give--and his soul awakens. + +Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized or +discussed. + + * * * * * + +If you have not read "LAVENDER AND OLD LACE" by the same author, you +have a double pleasure in store--for these two books show Myrtle Reed in +her most delightful, fascinating vein--indeed they may be considered as +masterpieces of compelling interest. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK + + +=The Prodigal Judge= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +By VAUGHAN KESTER + +This great novel--probably the most popular book in this country +to-day--is as human as a story from the pen of that great master of +"immortal laughter and immortal tears," Charles Dickens. + +The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial +wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with +that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor +peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals--very +exalted ones--but honors them in the breach rather than in the +observance. + +Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon +Mahaffy--fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublime +capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little +Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of +the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque +vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing +all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of this +delightful old vagabond. + +The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters +as surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinite +delight, while this story of Mr. Kester's is one of the finest examples +of American literary craftmanship. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TITLES SELECTED FROM +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS. By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by C. +Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch. + +Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and +she subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer +amusement. + + +THE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. + +The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a +yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls. + + +THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham. + +A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of +love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is +stronger than worldly success. + + +SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett. + +A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a +Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet +lead the young mistress into another romance. + + +SHEILA VEDDER. By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher. + +A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, +strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as heroine. A +sequel to "Jan Vedder's Wife." + + +JOHN WARD, PREACHER. By Margaret Deland. + +The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a +powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful +wife to his own narrow creed. + + +THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon. + +One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the +Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TITLES SELECTED FROM +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +THE SECOND WIFE. By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated by W. W. Fawcett. +Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four colors and gold. + +An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in a wealthy +New York family involving the happiness of a beautiful young girl. + + +TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White Illustrated by Howard +Chandler Christy. + +An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town, +with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes a great sacrifice for +love. + + +FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING. By Grace Miller White. + +Frontispiece and wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws. + +Another story of "the storm country." Two beautiful children are +kidnapped from a wealthy home and appear many years after showing the +effects of a deep, malicious scheme behind their disappearance. + + +THE LIGHTED MATCH. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R. F. +Schabelitz. + +A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and falls in love +with an American man. There are ties that bind her to someone in her own +home, and the great plot revolves round her efforts to work her way out. + + +MAUD BAXTER. By C. C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a +young man who had been impressed into English service during the +Revolution. + + +THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman +of title. Developments of a startling character and a clever untangling +of affairs hold the reader's interest. + + +THE PURPLE STOCKINGS. By Edward Salisbury Field Illustrated in colors; +marginal illustrations. + +A young New York business man, his pretty sweetheart, his sentimental +stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in a +misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. +A story with a laugh on every page. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TITLES SELECTED FROM +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +THE SILENT CALL. By Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated with scenes from the +play. + +The hero of this story is the Squaw Man's son. He has been taken to +England, but spurns conventional life for the sake of the untamed West +and a girl's pretty face. + + +JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER. By George W. Cable. + +A story of the pretty women and spirited men of the South. As fragrant +in sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as full of mystery and racial +troubles as any romance of "after the war" days. + + +MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES. By E. W. Hornung. + +This engaging rascal is found helping a young cricket player out of the +toils of a money shark. Novel in plot, thrilling and amusing. + + +FORTY MINUTES LATE. By F. Hopkinson Smith. Illustrated by S. M. Chase. + +Delightfully human stories of every day happenings; of a lecturer's +laughable experience because he's late, a young woman's excursion into +the stock market, etc. + + +OLD LADY NUMBER 31. By Louise Forsslund. + +A heart-warming story of American rural life, telling of the adventures +of an old couple in an old folk's home, their sunny philosophical +acceptance of misfortune and ultimate prosperity. + + +THE HUSBAND'S STORY. By David Graham Phillips. + +A story that has given all Europe as well as all America much food for +thought. A young couple begin life in humble circumstances and rise in +worldly matters until the husband is enormously rich--the wife in the +most aristocratic European society--but at the price of their happiness. + + +THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon. + +One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque descriptions of the stampede of gold +seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is +strikingly original. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +A FEW OF +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S +Great Books at Little Prices + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +WHEN A MAN MARRIES. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. Illustrated by Harrison +Fisher and Mayo Bunker. + +A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a visit +is due from his Aunt Selina, an elderly lady having ideas about things +quite apart from the Bohemian set in which her nephew is a shining +light. The way in which matters are temporarily adjusted forms the motif +of the story. + +A farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "Seven Days". + + +THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG. By David Graham Phillips. +Illustrated. + +A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and +social life in Washington. He attains power in politics, and a young +woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his education +in social amenities. + + +"DOC." GORDON. By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman. Illustrated by Frank T. +Merrill. + +Against the familiar background of American town life, the author +portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery. "Doc." +Gordon, the one physician of the place, Dr. Elliot, his assistant, a +beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter are all involved in +the plot. A novel of great interest. + + +HOLY ORDERS. By Marie Corelli. + +A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with society +people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful financiers and +others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in holy +orders"--problems that we are now struggling with in America. + + +KATRINE. By Elinor Macartney Lane. With frontispiece. + +Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly +birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice. + +The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and +the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one. + + +THE FORTUNES OF FIFI. By Molly Elliot Seawell. Illustrated by T. de +Thulstrup. + +A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon. Fifi, a +glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third +rate Parisian theatre. A story as dainty as a Watteau painting. + + +SHE THAT HESITATES. By Harris Dickson. Illustrated by C. W. Relyea. + +The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St. Petersburg +in the reign of Peter the Great, and then to New Orleans. + +The hero is a French Soldier of Fortune, and the princess, who +hesitates--but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates +may be lost and yet saved. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=B. M. Bower's Novels= + +Thrilling Western Romances + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +CHIP, OF THE FLYING U + +A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della +Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil +Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very +amusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher. + + +THE HAPPY FAMILY + +A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen +jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we find +Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many lively +and exciting adventures. + + +HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT + +A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners +who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana +ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and +the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities. + + +THE RANGE DWELLERS + +Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited +action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet +courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull +page. + + +THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS + +A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the +cowboys of the West, in search of "local color" for a new novel. "Bud" +Thurston learns many a lesson while following "the lure of the dim +trails" but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love. + + +THE LONESOME TRAIL + +"Weary" Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city +life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the +atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown +eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story. + + +THE LONG SHADOW + +A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life of a +mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of +life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to +finish. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +THE NOVELS OF +=WINSTON CHURCHILL= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Skillful in plot, dramatic in episode, powerful and original in climax. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A. I. Keller and Kinneys. + +A New England state is under the political domination of a railway and +Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes the moment when the cause of the people +against corporation greed is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, +to further his own interest in a political way, by taking up this cause. + +The daughter of the railway president, with the sunny humor and shrewd +common sense of the New England girl, plays no small part in the +situation as well as in the life of the young attorney who stands so +unflinchingly for clean politics. + + +THE CROSSING. Illus. by S. Adamson and L. Baylis. + +Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie and the British fleet in the +harbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the +expedition of Clark and his handful of dauntless followers in Illinois, +the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +treasonable schemes builded against Washington and the Federal +Government. + + +CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn. + +A deft blending of love and politics distinguishes this book. The author +has taken for his hero a New Englander, a crude man of the tannery, who +rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then surrendered all +for the love of a woman. + +It is a sermon on civic righteousness, and a love story of a deep +motive. + + +THE CELEBRITY. An Episode. + +An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities +between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman of the most blatant +type. The story is adorned with some character sketches more living than +pen work. It is the purest, keenest fun--no such piece of humor has +appeared for years: it is American to the core. + + +THE CRISIS. Illus. by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with splendid +power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that are +inspiring. The several scenes in the book in which Abraham Lincoln +figures must be read in their entirety for they give a picture of that +great, magnetic, lovable man, which has been drawn with evident +affection and exceptional success. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +THE NOVELS OF +=GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +GRAUSTARK. + +A story of love behind a throne, telling how a young American met a +lovely girl and followed her to a new and strange country. A thrilling, +dashing narrative. + + +BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK. + +Beverly is a bewitching American girl who has gone to that stirring +little principality--Graustark--to visit her friend the princess, and +there has a romantic affair of her own. + + +BREWSTER'S MILLIONS. + +A young man is required to spend _one_ million dollars in one year in +order to inherit _seven_. How he does it forms the basis of a lively +story. + + +CASTLE CRANEYCROW. + +The story revolves round the abduction of a young American woman, her +imprisonment in an old castle and the adventures created through her +rescue. + + +COWARDICE COURT. + +An amusing social feud in the Adirondacks in which an English girl is +tempted into being a traitor by a romantic young American, forms the +plot. + + +THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW. + +The story centers about the adopted daughter of the town marshal in a +western village. Her parentage is shrouded in mystery, and the story +concerns the secret that deviously works to the surface. + + +THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S. + +The hero meets a princess in a far-away island among fanatically hostile +Musselmen. Romantic love making amid amusing situations and exciting +adventures. + + +NEDRA. + +A young couple elope from Chicago to go to London traveling as brother +and sister. They are shipwrecked and a strange mix-up occurs on account +of it. + + +THE SHERRODS. + +The scene is the Middle West and centers around a man who leads a double +life. A most enthralling novel. + + +TRUXTON KING. + +A handsome good natured young fellow ranges on the earth looking for +romantic adventures and is finally enmeshed in most complicated +intrigues in Graustark. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=LOUIS TRACY'S= + +CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur +whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery. + + +THE STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson. + +A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating +officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas. + + +THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. + +Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of +cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance. + + +THE MESSAGE. Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase. + +A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a +buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops. + + +THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. + +The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with +exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants. + + +THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE. With illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg. + +The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars +of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba. + + +A SON OF THE IMMORTALS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a +pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne. + + +THE WINGS OF THE MORNING. + +A sort of Robinson Crusoe _redivivus_ with modern settings and a very +pretty love story added. The hero and heroine, are the only survivors of +a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures on their desert island. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +THE NOVELS OF +=STEWART EDWARD WHITE= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +THE RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lajaren A. Hiller + +The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes +into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft" and comes into the +romance of his life. + + +ARIZONA NIGHTS. Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth. + +A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life of the +ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece. + + +THE BLAZED TRAIL. With illustrations by Thomas Fogarty. + +A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who +blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines. + + +THE CLAIM JUMPERS. A Romance. + +The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the Black Hills +has a hard time of it, but "wins out" in more ways than one. + + +CONJUROR'S HOUSE. Illustrated Theatrical Edition. Dramatized under the +title of "The Call of the North." + +"Conjuror's House" is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor is +the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride on +this forbidden land. + + +THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated. + +The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and their life is +treated could only belong to one who is in love with the forest and open +air. Based on fact. + + +THE RIVERMAN. Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood + +The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between +honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the +other. + + +THE SILENT PLACES. Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin. + +The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine devotion, +and masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian and the instinct +of the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story. + + +THE WESTERNERS. + +A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the best American +novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no other book has done +in recent years. + + +THE MYSTERY. In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams With +illustrations by Will Crawford. + +The disappearance of three successive crews from the stout ship +"Laughing Lass" in mid-Pacific, is a mystery weird and inscrutable. In +the solution, there is a story of the most exciting voyage that man ever +undertook. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +Transcriber's notes: + +Page 337: missing closing quote fixed ("... or a silent mixer of trouble +medicine."") + +Page 434: opening quote moved to before long dash at start of paragraph +(""--And, though it is stolen money ...") + +To reflect the character of this book all other instances of +hyphenation and spelling have been retained. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price, by Francis Lynde + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE *** + +***** This file should be named 19462-8.txt or 19462-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/6/19462/ + +Produced by Sam Whitehead, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Price + +Author: Francis Lynde + +Release Date: October 4, 2006 [EBook #19462] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE *** + + + + +Produced by Sam Whitehead, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="bbox"> +<b>Transcriber's note:</b><br /> +Printing errors have been corrected throughout. A list of corrections is included at the end of +this text. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 332px;"> + <img src="images/price1-5.jpg" width="332" height="500" + alt="Cover of The Price, by Francis Lynde" + title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 368px;"> + <img src="images/price2-5.jpg" width="368" height="600" + alt="Title page: The Price, by Francis Lynde. Author of the Taming of Red Butte Western, etc. + New York; Grosset and Dunlap Publishers. + Published by Arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons" + title="" /> +</div> + +<h1>THE PRICE</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>FRANCIS LYNDE</h2> + +<hr style="width: 10%;" /> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1911, by</span><br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</p> +<hr style="width: 10%;" /> +<p class="center">Published May, 1911</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 175px;"> + <img src="images/price3-5.jpg" width="175" height="200" + alt="Crest of The Scribner Press" + title="" /> +</div> + +<h4>To</h4> + +<h4>MR. LATHROP BROCKWAY BULLENE</h4> + +<h5><span class="smcap">sole friend of my boyhood, who will recall better<br /> +than any the youthful moral and social seed-time<br /> +which has led to this later harvesting of conclusion,<br /> +this book is affectionately inscribed.</span></h5> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdrsc">chapter</td> + <td class="tdlsc"> </td> + <td class="tdrsc">page</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">I.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#I">At Chaudière's</a></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">II.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#II">Spindrift</a></td> + <td class="tdr">9</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">III.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#III">The Right of Might</a></td> + <td class="tdr">16</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">IV.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#IV"><i>Io Triumphe!</i></a></td> + <td class="tdr">26</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">V.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#V">The <i>Belle Julie</i></a></td> + <td class="tdr">34</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VI.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#VI">The Deck-Hand</a></td> + <td class="tdr">44</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#VII">Gold of Tolosa</a></td> + <td class="tdr">53</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VIII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#VIII">The Chain-Gang</a></td> + <td class="tdr">59</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">IX.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#IX">The Middle Watch</a></td> + <td class="tdr">68</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">X.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#X">Quicksands</a></td> + <td class="tdr">75</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XI.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XI">The Anarchist</a></td> + <td class="tdr">84</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XII">Moses Ichthyophagus</a></td> + <td class="tdr">94</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XIII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XIII">Griswold Emergent</a></td> + <td class="tdr">110</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XIV.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XIV">Philistia</a></td> + <td class="tdr">116</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XV.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XV">The Goths and Vandals</a></td> + <td class="tdr">126</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XVI.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XVI">Good Samaritans</a></td> + <td class="tdr">143</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XVII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XVII">Gropings</a></td> + <td class="tdr">154</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XVIII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XVIII">The Zweibund</a></td> + <td class="tdr">165</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XIX.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XIX">Loss and Gain</a></td> + <td class="tdr">175</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XX.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XX">The Convalescent</a></td> + <td class="tdr">187</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXI.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXI">Broffin's Equation</a></td> + <td class="tdr">201</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXII">In the Burglar-Proof</a></td> + <td class="tdr">218</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXIII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXIII">Converging Roads</a></td> + <td class="tdr">234</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXIV.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXIV">The Forward Light</a></td> + <td class="tdr">248</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXV.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXV">The Bridge of Jehennam</a></td> + <td class="tdr">260</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXVI.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXVI">Pitfalls</a></td> + <td class="tdr">274</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXVII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXVII">In the Shadows</a></td> + <td class="tdr">286</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXVIII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXVIII">Broken Links</a></td> + <td class="tdr">295</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXIX.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXIX">All That a Man Hath</a></td> + <td class="tdr">312</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXX.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXX">The Valley of Dry Bones</a></td> + <td class="tdr">332</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXXI.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXXI">Narrowing Walls</a></td> + <td class="tdr">347</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXXII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXXII">The Lion's Share</a></td> + <td class="tdr">354</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXXIII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXXIII">Gates of Brass</a></td> + <td class="tdr">368</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXXIV.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXXIV">The Abyss</a></td> + <td class="tdr">375</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXXV.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXXV">Margery's Answer</a></td> + <td class="tdr">384</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXXVI.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXXVI">The Gray Wolf</a></td> + <td class="tdr">396</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXXVII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXXVII">The Quality of Mercy</a></td> + <td class="tdr">408</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXXVIII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXXVIII">The Pendulum-Swing</a></td> + <td class="tdr">416</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XXXIX.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XXXIX">Dust and Ashes</a></td> + <td class="tdr">428</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XL.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XL">Apples of Istakhar</a></td> + <td class="tdr">438</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">XLI.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#XLI">The Desert and the Sown</a></td> + <td class="tdr">448</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="THE_PRICE" id="THE_PRICE"></a>THE PRICE</h2> + +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>AT CHAUDIÈRE'S</h3> + + +<p>In the days when New Orleans still claimed distinction as the only +American city without trolleys, sky-scrapers, or fast trains—was it +yesterday? or the day before?—there was a dingy, cobwebbed café in an +arcade off Camp Street which was well-beloved of newspaperdom; +particularly of that wing of the force whose activities begin late and +end in the small hours.</p> + +<p>"Chaudière's," it was called, though I know not if that were the name of +the round-faced, round-bodied little Marseillais who took toll at the +desk. But all men knew the fame of its gumbo and its stuffed crabs, and +that its claret was neither very bad nor very dear. And if the walls +were dingy and the odors from the grille pungent and penetrating at +times, there went with the white-sanded floor, and the marble-topped +tables for two, an Old-World air of recreative comfort which is rarer +now, even in New Orleans, than it was yesterday or the day before.</p> + +<p>It was at Chaudière's that Griswold had eaten his first breakfast in the +Crescent City; and it was at Chaudière's again that he was sharing a +farewell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> supper with Bainbridge, of the <i>Louisianian</i>. Six weeks lay +between that and this; forty-odd days of discouragement and failure +superadded upon other similar days and weeks and months. The breakfast, +he remembered, had been garnished with certain green sprigs of hope; but +at the supper-table he ate like a barbarian in arrears to his appetite +and the garnishings were the bitter herbs of humiliation and defeat.</p> + +<p>Without meaning to, Bainbridge had been strewing the path with fresh +thorns for the defeated one. He had just been billeted for a run down +the Central American coast to write up the banana trade for his paper, +and he was boyishly jubilant over the assignment, which promised to be a +zestful pleasure trip. Chancing upon Griswold in the first flush of his +elation, he had dragged the New Yorker around to Chaudière's to play +second knife and fork at a small parting feast. Not that it had required +much persuasion. Griswold had fasted for twenty-four hours, and he would +have broken bread thankfully with an enemy. And if Bainbridge were not a +friend in a purist's definition of the term, he was at least a friendly +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>Until the twenty-four-hour fast was in some measure atoned for, the +burden of the table-talk fell upon Bainbridge, who lifted and carried it +generously on the strength of his windfall. But no topic can be +immortal; and when the vacation under pay had been threshed out in all +its anticipatory details it occurred to the host that his guest was less +than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> usually responsive; a fault not to be lightly condoned under the +joyous circumstances. Wherefore he protested.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you to-night, Kenneth, old man? You're more than +commonly grumpy, it seems to me; and that's needless."</p> + +<p>Griswold took the last roll from the joint bread-plate and buttered it +methodically.</p> + +<p>"Am I?" he said. "Perhaps it is because I am more than commonly hungry. +But go on with your joy-talk: I'm listening."</p> + +<p>"That's comforting, as far as it goes; but I should think you might say +something a little less carefully polarized. You don't have a chance to +congratulate lucky people every day."</p> + +<p>Griswold looked up with a smile that was almost ill-natured, and quoted +cynically: "'Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have +abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that +which he hath.'"</p> + +<p>Bainbridge's laugh was tolerant enough to take the edge from his retort.</p> + +<p>"That's a pretty thing to fling at a man who never knifed you or +pistoled you or tried to poison you! An innocent by-stander might say +you envied me."</p> + +<p>"I do," rejoined Griswold gravely. "I envy any man who can earn enough +money to pay for three meals a day and a place to sleep in."</p> + +<p>"Oh, cat's foot!—anybody can do that," asserted Bainbridge, with the +air of one to whom the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> struggle for existence has been a mere athlete's +practice run.</p> + +<p>"I know; that is your theory. But the facts disprove it. I can't, for +one."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you could, if you'd side-track some of your own theories and +come down to sawing wood like the rest of us. But you won't do that."</p> + +<p>Griswold was a fair man, with reddish hair and beard and the quick and +sensitive skin of the type. A red flush of anger crept up under the +closely cropped beard, and his eyes were bright.</p> + +<p>"That is not true, and you know it, Bainbridge," he contradicted, +speaking slowly lest his temper should break bounds. "Is it my fault, or +only my misfortune, that I can do nothing but write books for which I +can't find a publisher? Or that the work of a hack-writer is quite as +impossible for me as mine is for him?"</p> + +<p>Bainbridge scoffed openly; but he was good-natured enough to make amends +when he saw that Griswold was moved.</p> + +<p>"I take it all back," he said. "I suppose the book-chicken has come home +again to roost, and a returned manuscript accounts for anything. But +seriously, Kenneth, you ought to get down to bed-rock facts. Nobody but +a crazy phenomenon can find a publisher for his first book, nowadays, +unless he has had some sort of an introduction in the magazines or the +newspapers. You haven't had that; so far as I know, you haven't tried +for it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I have—tried and failed. It isn't in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> me to do the salable +thing, and there isn't a magazine editor in the country who doesn't know +it by this time. They've been decent about it. Horton was kind enough. +He covered two pages of a letter telling me why the stuff I sent from +here might fit one of the reviews and why it wouldn't fit his magazine. +But that is beside the mark. I tell you, Bainbridge, the conditions are +all wrong when a man with a vital message to his kind can't get to +deliver it to the people who want to hear it."</p> + +<p>Bainbridge ordered the small coffees and found his cigar case.</p> + +<p>"That is about what I suspected," he commented impatiently. "You +couldn't keep your peculiar views muzzled even when you were writing a +bit of a pot-boiler on sugar-planting. Which brings us back to the old +contention: you drop your fool socialistic fad and write a book that a +reputable publisher can bring out without committing commercial suicide, +and you'll stand some show. Light up and fumigate that idea awhile."</p> + +<p>Griswold took the proffered cigar half-absently, as he had taken the +last piece of bread.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't need fumigating; if I could consider it seriously it ought +rather to be burnt with fire. You march in the ranks of the well-fed, +Bainbridge, and it is your <i>métier</i> to be conservative. I don't, and +it's mine to be radical."</p> + +<p>"What would you have?" demanded the man on the conservative side of the +table. "The world is as it is, and you can't remodel it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There is where you make the mistake common to those who cry Peace, when +there is no peace," was the quick retort. "I, and my kind, can remodel +it, and some day, when the burden has grown too heavy to be borne, we +will. The aristocracy of rank, birth, feudal tyranny went down in fire +and blood in France a century ago: the aristocracy of money will go down +here, when the time is ripe."</p> + +<p>"That is good anarchy, but mighty bad ethics. I didn't know you had +reached that stage of the disease, Kenneth."</p> + +<p>"Call it what you please; names don't change facts. Listen"—Griswold +leaned upon the table; his eyes grew hard and the blue in them became +metallic—"For more than a month I have tramped the streets of this +cursed city begging—yes, that is the word—begging for work of any kind +that would suffice to keep body and soul together; and for more than +half of that time I have lived on one meal a day. That is what we have +come to; we of the submerged majority. And that isn't all. The +wage-worker himself, when he is fortunate enough to find a chance to +earn his crust, is but a serf; a chattel among the other possessions of +some fellow man who has acquired him in the plutocratic redistribution +of the earth and the fulness thereof."</p> + +<p>Bainbridge applauded in dumb show.</p> + +<p>"Turn it loose and ease the soul-sickness, old man," he said +indulgently. "I know things haven't been coming your way, lately. What +is your remedy?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>Griswold was fairly started now, and ridicule was as fuel to the flame.</p> + +<p>"The money-gatherers have set us the example. They have made us +understand that might is right; that he who has may hold—if he can. The +answer is simple: there is enough and to spare for all, and it belongs +to all; to him who sows the seed and waters it, as well as to him who +reaps the harvest. That is a violent remedy, you will say. So be it: it +is the only one that will cure the epidemic of greed. There is an +alternative, but it is only theoretical."</p> + +<p>"And that?"</p> + +<p>"It may be summed up in seven words: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as +thyself.' When the man who employs—and rules—uses the power that money +gives him to succor his fellow man, the revolution will be indefinitely +postponed. But as I say, it's only a theory."</p> + +<p>Bainbridge glanced at his watch.</p> + +<p>"I must be going," he said. "The <i>Adelantado</i> drops down the river at +eleven. But in passing I'll venture a little prophecy. You're down on +your luck now, and a bit hot-hearted in consequence; but some day you +will strike it right and come out on top. When you do, you'll be a hard +master; tattoo that on your arm somewhere so you'll be reminded of it."</p> + +<p>Griswold had risen with his entertainer, and he put his hands on the +table.</p> + +<p>"God do so to me, and more, if I am, Bainbridge," he said soberly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's all right: when the time comes, you just remember my little +fortune-telling stunt. But before we shake hands, let's get back to +concrete things for a minute or two. How are you fixed for the present, +and what are you going to do for the future?"</p> + +<p>Griswold's smile was not pleasant to look at.</p> + +<p>"I am 'fixed' to run twenty-four hours longer, thanks to your +hospitality. For that length of time I presume I shall continue to +conform to what we have been taught to believe is the immutable order of +things. After that——"</p> + +<p>He paused, and Bainbridge put the question. "Well, after that; what +then?"</p> + +<p>"Then, if the chance to earn it is still denied me, and I am +sufficiently hungry, I shall stretch forth my hand and take what I +need."</p> + +<p>Bainbridge fished in his pocket and took out a ten-dollar bank-note. "Do +that first," he said, offering Griswold the money.</p> + +<p>The proletary smiled and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No; not to keep from going hungry—not even to oblige you, Bainbridge. +It is quite possible that I shall end by becoming a robber, as you +paraphrasers would put it, but I sha'n't begin on my friends. +Good-night, and a safe voyage to you."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>SPINDRIFT</h3> + + +<p>The fruit steamer <i>Adelantado</i>, outward bound, was shuddering to the +first slow revolutions of her propeller when Bainbridge turned the key +in the door of the stuffy little state-room to which he had been +directed, and went on deck.</p> + +<p>The lines had been cast off and the ship was falling by imperceptible +inches away from her broadside berth at the fruit wharf. Bainbridge +heard the distance-softened clang of a gong; the tremulous murmur of the +screw became more pronounced, and the vessel forged ahead until the +current caught the outward-swinging prow. Five minutes later the +<i>Adelantado</i> had circled majestically in mid-stream and was passing the +lights of the city in review as she steamed at half-speed down the +river.</p> + +<p>Bainbridge had no mind to go back to the stuffy state-room, late as it +was. Instead, he lighted a fresh cigar and found a chair on the port +side aft where he could sit and watch the lights wheel past in orderly +procession as the fruit steamer swept around the great crescent which +gives New Orleans its unofficial name.</p> + +<p>While the comfortable feeling of elation, born of his unexpected bit of +good fortune, was still uppermost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> to lend complacency to his +reflections, he yet found room for a compassionate underthought having +for its object the man from whom he had lately parted. He was honestly +sorry for Griswold; sorry, but not actually apprehensive. He had known +the defeated one in New York, and was not unused to his rebellious +outbursts against the accepted order of things. Granting that his +theories were incendiary and crudely subversive of all the civilized +conventions, Griswold the man was nothing worse than an impressionable +enthusiast; a victim of the auto-suggestion which seizes upon those who +dwell too persistently upon the wrongs of the wronged.</p> + +<p>So ran Bainbridge's epitomizing of the proletary's case; and he knew +that his opinion was shared with complete unanimity by all who had known +Griswold in Printing House Square. To a man they agreed in calling him +Utopian, altruistic, visionary. What milder epithets should be applied +to one who, with sufficient literary talent—not to say genius—to make +himself a working name in the ordinary way, must needs run amuck among +the theories and write a novel with a purpose? a novel, moreover, in +which the purpose so overshadowed the story as to make the book a mere +preachment.</p> + +<p>As a matter of course, the publishers would have nothing to do with the +book. Bainbridge remembered, with considerable satisfaction, that he had +confidently predicted its failure, and had given Griswold plentiful good +advice while it was in process of writing. But Griswold, being quite as +obstinate as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> he was impressionable, had refused to profit by the +advice, and now the consequences of his stubbornness were upon him. He +had said truly that his literary gift was novelistic and nothing else; +and here he was, stranded and desperate, with the moribund book on his +hands, and with no chance to write another even if he were so minded, +since one can not write fasting.</p> + +<p>Thus Bainbridge reflected, and was sorry that Griswold's invincible +pride had kept him from accepting a friendly stop-gap in his extremity. +Yet he smiled in spite of the regretful thought. It was amusing to +figure Griswold, who, as long as his modest patrimony had lasted had +been most emphatically a man not of the people, posing as an anarchist +and up in arms against the well-to-do world. None the less, he was to be +pitied.</p> + +<p>"Poor beggar! he is in the doldrums just now, and it isn't quite fair to +hold him responsible for what he says or thinks—or for what he thinks +he thinks," said the reporter, letting the thought slip into speech. +"Just the same, I wish I had made him take that ten-dollar bill. It +might have— Why, hello, Broffin! How are you, old man? Where the +dickens did you drop from?"</p> + +<p>It was the inevitable steamer acquaintance who is always at hand to +prove the trite narrowness of the world, and Bainbridge kicked a chair +into comradely place for him.</p> + +<p>Broffin, heavy-browed and clean-shaven save for a thick mustache that +hid the hard-bitted mouth, replaced the chair to suit himself and sat +down. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> appearance he was a cross between a steamboat captain on a +vacation, and an up-river plantation overseer recovering from his annual +pleasure trip to the city. But his reply to Bainbridge's query proved +that he was neither.</p> + +<p>"I didn't drop; I walked. More than that, I kept step with you all the +way from Chaudière's to the levee. You'd be dead easy game for an +amateur."</p> + +<p>"You'll get yourself disliked, the first thing you know," said +Bainbridge, laughing. "Can't you ever forget that you are in the +man-hunting business?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; just as often, and for just as long, as you can forget that you +are in the news-hunting business."</p> + +<p>"Tally!" said Bainbridge, and he laughed again. After which they sat in +silence until the <i>Adelantado</i> doubled the bend in the great river and +the last outposts of the city's lights disappeared, leaving only a +softened glow in the upper air to temper the velvety blackness of the +April night. The steamer had passed Chalmette when Broffin said:</p> + +<p>"Speaking of Chaudière's reminds me: who was that fellow you were +telling good-by as you came out of the café? His face was as familiar as +a ship's figure-head, but I couldn't place him."</p> + +<p>The question coupled in automatically with the reporter's train of +thought; hence he answered it rather more fully and freely than he might +have at another time and under other conditions. From establishing +Griswold's identity for his fellow passenger, he slipped by easy stages +into the story of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> proletary's ups and downs, climaxing it with a +vivid little word-painting of the farewell supper at Chaudière's.</p> + +<p>"To hear him talk, you would size him up for a bloody-minded nihilist of +the thirty-third degree, ready and honing to sweep the existing order of +things into the farthest hence," he added. "But in reality he is one of +the finest fellows in the world, gone a fraction morbid over the +economic side of the social problem. He has a heart of gold, as I happen +to know. He used to spend a good bit of his time in the backwater, and +you know what the backwater of a big city will do to a man."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't hold my job if I didn't," was the reply.</p> + +<p>"That means that you know only half of it," Bainbridge asserted with +cheerful dogmatism. "You're thinking of the crooks it turns out, 'which +it is your nature to.' But Griswold wasn't looking for the crooks; he +was eternally and everlastingly breaking his heart over the sodden +miseries. One night he stumbled into a cellar somewhere down in the East +Side lower levels, looking for a fellow he had been trying to find work +for; a crippled 'longshoreman. When he got into the place he found the +man stiff and cold, the woman with the death rattle in her throat, and a +two-year-old baby creeping back and forth between the dead father and +the dying mother—starvation, you know, straight from the shoulder. They +say it doesn't happen; but it does."</p> + +<p>"Of course it does!" growled the listener. "<i>I</i> know."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We all know; and most of us drop a little something into the hat and +pass on. But Griswold isn't built that way. He jumped into the breach +like a man and tried to save the mother. It was too late, and when the +woman died he took the child to his own eight-by-ten attic and nursed +and fed it until the missionary people took it off his hands. He did +that, mind you, when he was living on two meals a day, himself; and I'm +putting it up that he went shy on one of them to buy milk for that kid."</p> + +<p>"Holy Smoke!—and he calls himself an anarchist?" was the gruff comment. +"It's a howling pity there ain't a lot more just like him—what?"</p> + +<p>"That is what I say," Bainbridge agreed. Then, with a sudden twinge of +remorse for having told Griswold's story to a stranger, he changed the +subject with an abrupt question.</p> + +<p>"Where are you headed for, Broffin?"</p> + +<p>The man who might have passed for a steamboat captain or a plantation +overseer, and was neither, chuckled dryly.</p> + +<p>"You don't expect me to give it away to you, and you a newspaper man, do +you? But I will—seeing you can't get it on the wires. I'm going down to +Guatemala after Mortsen."</p> + +<p>"The Crescent Bank defaulter? By Jove! you've found him at last, have +you?"</p> + +<p>The detective nodded. "It takes a good while, sometimes, but I don't +fall down very often when there's enough money in it to make the game +worth the candle. I've been two years, off and on, trying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> to locate +Mortsen: and now that I've found him, he is where he can't be +extradited. All the same, I'll bet you five to one he goes back with me +in the next steamer—what? Have a new smoke. No? Then let's go and turn +in; it's getting late in the night."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>THE RIGHT OF MIGHT</h3> + + +<p>Two days after the supper at Chaudière's and the clearing of the fruit +steamer <i>Adelantado</i> for the banana coast, or, more specifically, in the +forenoon of the second day, the unimpetuous routine of the business +quarter of New Orleans was rudely disturbed by the shock of a genuine +sensation.</p> + +<p>To shatter at a single blow the most venerable of the routine +precedents, the sensational thing chose for its colliding point with +orderly system one of the oldest and most conservative of the city's +banks: the Bayou State Security. At ten o'clock, following the precise +habit of half a lifetime, Mr. Andrew Galbraith, president of the Bayou +State, entered his private room in the rear of the main banking +apartment, opened his desk, and addressed himself to the business of the +day. Punctually at ten-five, the stenographer, whose desk was in the +anteroom, brought in the mail; five minutes later the cashier entered +for his morning conference with his superior; and at half-past the hour +the president was left alone to read his correspondence.</p> + +<p>Being a man whose mental processes were all serious, and whose hobby was +method, Mr. Galbraith had established a custom of giving himself a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +quiet half-hour of inviolable seclusion in which to read and consider +his mail. During this sacred interval the stenographer, standing guard +in the outer office, had instructions to deny his chief to callers of +any and every degree. Wherefore, when, at twenty minutes to eleven, the +door of the private office opened to admit a stranger, the president was +justly annoyed.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir; what now?" he demanded, impatiently, taking the intruder's +measure in a swift glance shot from beneath his bushy white eyebrows.</p> + +<p>The unannounced visitor was a young man of rather prepossessing +appearance, a trifle tall for his breadth of shoulder, fair, with blue +eyes and a curling reddish beard and mustache, the former trimmed to a +point. So much the president was able to note in the appraisive +glance—and to remember afterward.</p> + +<p>The caller made no reply to the curt question. He had turned and was +closing the door. There was a quiet insistence in the act that was like +the flick of a whip to Mr. Galbraith's irritation.</p> + +<p>"If you have business with me, you'll have to excuse me for a few +minutes," he protested, still more impatiently. "Be good enough to take +a seat in the anteroom until I ring. MacFarland should have told you."</p> + +<p>The young man drew up a chair and sat down, ignoring the request as if +he had failed to hear it. Ordinarily Mr. Andrew Galbraith's temper was +equable enough; the age-cooled temper of a methodical gentleman whose +long upper lip was in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> itself an advertisement of self-control. But such +a deliberate infraction of his rules, coupled with the stony impudence +of the visitor, made him spring up angrily to ring for the watchman.</p> + +<p>The intruder was too quick for him. When his hand sought the bell-push +he found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver, and so was fain +to fall back into his chair, gasping.</p> + +<p>"Ah-h-h!" he stammered. And when the words could be managed: "So that's +it, is it?—you're a robber!"</p> + +<p>"No," said the invader of the presidential privacies calmly, speaking +for the first time since his incoming. "I am not a robber, save in your +own very limited definition of the word. I am merely a poor man, Mr. +Galbraith—one of the uncounted thousands—and I want money. If you call +for help, I shall shoot you."</p> + +<p>"You—you'd murder me?" The president's large-jointed hands were +clutching the arms of the pivot-chair, and he was fighting manfully for +courage and presence of mind to cope with the terrifying emergency.</p> + +<p>"Not willingly, I assure you: I have as great a regard for human life as +you have—but no more. You would kill me this moment in self-defence, if +you could: I shall most certainly kill you if you attempt to give an +alarm. On the other hand, if you prove reasonable and obedient your life +is not in danger. It is merely a question of money, and if you are +amenable to reason——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If I'm—but I'm not amenable to your reasons!" blustered the president, +recovering a little from the first shock of terrified astoundment. "I +refuse to listen to them. I'll not have anything to do with you. Go +away!"</p> + +<p>The young man's smile showed his teeth, but it also proved that he was +not wholly devoid of the sense of humor.</p> + +<p>"Keep your temper, Mr. Galbraith," he advised coolly. "The moment is +mine, and I say you shall listen first and obey afterward. Otherwise you +die. Which is it to be? Choose quickly—time is precious."</p> + +<p>The president yielded the first point, that of the receptive ear; but +grudgingly and as one under strict compulsion.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, then; out with it. What have you to say for yourself?"</p> + +<p>"This: You are rich: you represent the existing order of things. I am +poor, and I stand for my necessity, which is higher than any man-made +law or custom. You have more money than you can possibly use in any +legitimate personal channels: I have not the price of the next meal, +already twenty-four hours overdue. I came here this morning with my life +in my hand to invite you to share with me a portion of that which is +yours chiefly by the right of possession. If you do it, well and good: +if not, there will be a new president of the Bayou State Security. Do I +make myself sufficiently explicit?"</p> + +<p>Andrew Galbraith glanced furtively at the paper-weight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> clock on his +desk. It was nearly eleven, and MacFarland would surely come in on the +stroke of the hour. If he could only fend off the catastrophe for a few +minutes, until help should come. He searched in his pockets and drew +forth a handful of coins.</p> + +<p>"You say you are hungry: I'm na that well off that I canna remember the +time when I knew what it was to be on short commons, mysel'," he said; +and the unconscious lapse into the mother idiom was a measure of his +perturbation. "Take this, now, and be off wi' you, and we'll say no more +about it."</p> + +<p>The invader of privacies glanced at the clock in his turn and shook his +head.</p> + +<p>"You are merely trying to gain time, and you know it, Mr. Galbraith. My +stake in this game is much more than a handful of charity silver; and I +don't do you the injustice to believe that you hold your life so +cheaply; you who have so much money and, at best, so few years to live."</p> + +<p>The president put the little heap of coins on the desk, but he did not +abandon the struggle for delay.</p> + +<p>"What's your price, then?" he demanded, as one who may possibly consider +a compromise.</p> + +<p>"One hundred thousand dollars—in cash."</p> + +<p>"But man! ye're clean daft! Do ye think I have——"</p> + +<p>"I am not here to argue," was the incisive interruption. "Take your pen +and fill out a check payable to your own order for one hundred thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +dollars, and do it now. If that door opens before we have concluded, you +are a dead man!"</p> + +<p>At this Andrew Galbraith saw that the end was nigh and gathered himself +for a final effort at time-killing. It was absurd; he had no such +balance to his personal credit; such a check would not be honored; it +would be an overdraft, and the teller would very properly— In the midst +of his vehement protests the stranger sprang out of his chair, stepped +back a pace and raised his weapon.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Galbraith, you are juggling with your life! Write that check while +there is yet time!"</p> + +<p>A sound of subdued voices came from the anteroom, and the beleaguered +old man stole a swift upward glance at the face of his persecutor. There +was no mercy in the fierce blue eyes glaring down upon him; neither +compassion nor compunction, but rather madness and fell murder. The +summons came once again.</p> + +<p>"Do it quickly, I say, before we are interrupted. Do you hear?"</p> + +<p>Truly, the president both heard and understood; yet he hesitated one +other second.</p> + +<p>"You will not? Then may God have mercy——"</p> + +<p>The hammer of the levelled pistol clicked. Andrew Galbraith shut his +eyes and made a blind grasp for pen and check-book. His hands were +shaking as with a palsy, but the fear of death steadied them suddenly +when he came to write.</p> + +<p>"Indorse it!" was the next command. The voices had ceased beyond the +partition, and the dead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> silence was relieved only by the labored +strokes of the president's pen and the tap-tap of the typewriter in the +adjacent anteroom.</p> + +<p>The check was written and indorsed, and under the menace of the revolver +Andrew Galbraith was trying to give it to the robber. But the robber +would not take it.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't want your paper: come with me to your paying teller and get +me the money. Make what explanation you see fit; but remember—if he +hesitates, you die."</p> + +<p>They left the private office together, the younger man a short half-step +in the rear, with his pistol-bearing hand thrust under his coat. +MacFarland, the stenographer, was at his desk in the corner of the +anteroom. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the unwonted thing, the +president's forthfaring with a stranger who had somehow gained access to +the private room during the sacred half-hour, would have made him look +up and wonder. But this was the hundredth time, and Andrew Galbraith's +anxious glance aside was wasted upon MacFarland's back.</p> + +<p>Still the president did not despair. In the public lobby there would be +more eyes to see, and perhaps some that would understand. Mr. Galbraith +took a firmer hold upon his self-possession and trusted that some happy +chance might yet intervene to save him.</p> + +<p>But chance did not intervene. There was a goodly number of customers in +the public space, but not one of the half-dozen or more who nodded to +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> president or passed the time of day with him saw the eye-appeal +which was the only one he dared to make. On the short walk around to the +paying teller's window, the robber kept even step with his victim, and +try as he would, Andrew Galbraith could not summon the courage to forget +the pistol muzzle menacing him in its coat-covered ambush.</p> + +<p>At the paying wicket there was only one customer, instead of the group +the president had hoped to find; a sweet-faced young woman in a modest +travelling hat and a gray coat. She was getting a draft cashed, and when +she saw them she would have stood aside. It was the robber who +anticipated her intention and forbade it with a courteous gesture; +whereat she turned again to the window to conclude her small transaction +with the teller.</p> + +<p>The few moments which followed were terribly trying ones for the +gray-haired president of the Bayou State Security. None the less, his +brain was busy with the chanceful possibilities. Failing all else, he +was determined to give the teller a warning signal, come what might. It +was a duty owed to society no less than to the bank and to himself. But +on the pinnacle of resolution, at the instant when, with the robber at +his elbow, he stepped to the window and presented the check, Andrew +Galbraith felt the gentle pressure of the pistol muzzle against his +side; nay, more; he fancied he could feel the cold chill of the metal +strike through and through him.</p> + +<p>So it came about that the fine resolution had quite evaporated when he +said, with what composure there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> was in him: "You'll please give me +currency for that, Johnson."</p> + +<p>The teller glanced at the check and then at his superior; not too +inquisitively, since it was not his business to question the president's +commands.</p> + +<p>"How will you have it?" he asked; and it was the stranger at Mr. +Galbraith's elbow who answered.</p> + +<p>"One thousand in fives, tens, and twenties, loose, if you please; the +remainder in the largest denominations, put up in a package."</p> + +<p>The teller counted out the one thousand in small notes quickly; but he +had to leave the cage and go to the vault for the huge remainder. This +was the crucial moment of peril for the robber, and the president, +stealing a glance at the face of his persecutor, saw the blue eyes +blazing with excitement.</p> + +<p>"It is your time to pray, Mr. Galbraith," said the spoiler in low tones. +"If you have given your man the signal——"</p> + +<p>But the signal had not been given. The teller was re-entering the cage +with the bulky packet of money-paper.</p> + +<p>"You needn't open it," said the young man at the president's elbow. "The +bank's count is good enough for me." And when the window wicket had been +unlatched and the money passed out, he stuffed the loose bills +carelessly into his pocket, put the package containing the ninety-nine +thousand dollars under his arm, nodded to the president, backed swiftly +to the street door and vanished.</p> + +<p>Then it was that Mr. Andrew Galbraith suddenly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> found speech, opening +his thin lips and pouring forth a torrent of incoherence which presently +got itself translated into a vengeful hue and cry; and New Orleans the +unimpetuous had its sensation ready-made.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<h3><i>IO TRIUMPHE!</i></h3> + + +<p>If Kenneth Griswold, backing out of the street door of the Bayou State +Security and vanishing with his booty, had been nothing more than a +professional "strong-arm man," he would probably have been taken and +jailed within the hour, if only for the reason that his desperate cast +for fortune included no well-wrought-out plan of escape. But since he +was at once both wiser and less cunning than the practised bank robber, +he threw his pursuers off the scent by an expedient in which artlessness +and daring quite beyond the gifts of the journeyman criminal played +equal parts.</p> + +<p>Once safely in the street, with a thousand dollars in his pocket and the +packet of bank-notes under his arm, he was seized by an impulse to do +some extravagant thing to celebrate his success. It had proved to be +such a simple matter, after all: one bold stroke; a tussle, happily +bloodless, with the plutocratic dragon whose hold upon his treasure was +so easily broken; and presto! the hungry proletary had become himself a +power in the world, strong to do good or evil, as the gods might direct.</p> + +<p>This was the prompting to exultation as it might have been set in words; +but in Griswold's thought it was but a swift suggestion, followed +instantly by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> another which was much more to the immediate purpose. He +was hungry: there was a restaurant next door to the bank. Without +thinking overmuch of the risk he ran, and perhaps not at all of the +audacious subtlety of such an expedient at such a critical moment, he +went in, sat down at one of the small marble-topped tables, and calmly +ordered breakfast.</p> + +<p>Since hunger is a lusty special pleader, making itself heard above any +pulpit drum of the higher faculties, it is quite probable that Griswold +dwelt less upon what he had done than upon what he was about to eat, +until the hue and cry in the street reminded him that the chase was +begun. But at this, not to appear suspiciously incurious, he put on the +mask of indifferent interest and asked the waiter concerning the uproar.</p> + +<p>The serving man did not know what had happened, but he would go and find +out, if M'sieu' so desired. "M'sieu'" said breakfast first, by all +means, and information afterward. Both came in due season; and the +hungry one ate while he listened.</p> + +<p>Transmuted into the broken English of the Gascon serving man, the story +of the robbery lost nothing in its sensational features.</p> + +<p>"Ah! w'at you t'ink, M'sieu'? De bank on de nex' do' is been rob'!" And +upon this theme excited volubility descanted at large. The bank had been +surrounded by a gang of desperate men, with every exit guarded, while +the leader, a masked giant armed to the teeth, had compelled the +president at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> muzzle of a pistol to pay a ransom of fifty—one +hundred—five hundred thousand dollars! With the money in hand the gang +had vanished, the masked giant firing the pistol at M'sieu' the +president as he went. Cross-examined, the waiter could not affirm +positively as to the shot. But as for the remaining details there could +be no doubt.</p> + +<p>Griswold ordered a second cup of coffee, and while the waiter was +bringing it, conscience—not the newly acquired conscience, but the +conventional—bent its bow and sped its final arrow. It was suddenly +brought home to the enthusiast with sharp emphasis that to all civilized +mankind, save and excepting those few chosen ones who shared his +peculiar convictions, he was a common thief, a bandit, an outlaw. Public +opinion, potential or expressed, is at best but an intangible thing. But +for a few tumultuous seconds Griswold writhed under the ban of it as if +it had been a whip of scorpions. Then he smiled to think how strong the +bonds of custom had grown; and at the smile conscience flung away its +empty quiver.</p> + +<p>Now it was over, however, the enthusiast was rather grateful for the +chastening. It served to remind him afresh of his mission. This money +which he had just wrested from the claws of the plutocratic dragon must +be held as a sacred trust; it must be devoted scrupulously to the cause +of the down-trodden and the oppressed. Precisely how it was to be +applied he had not yet determined; but that could be decided later.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>Meanwhile, it was very evident that the dragon did not intend to accept +defeat without a struggle, and Griswold set his wits at work upon the +problem of escape.</p> + +<p>"It's a little queer that I hadn't thought of that part of it before," +he mused, sipping his coffee as one who need not hasten until the race +is actually begun. "I suppose the other fellow, the real robber, would +have figured himself safely out of it—or would have thought he +had—before he made the break. Since I did not, I've got it to do now, +and there isn't much time to throw away. Let me see—" he shut his eyes +and went into the inventive trance of the literary craftsman—"the +keynote must be originality; I must do that which the other fellow would +never think of doing."</p> + +<p>On the strength of that decision he ventured to order a third cup of +coffee, and before it had cooled he had outlined a plan, basing it upon +a further cross-questioning of the Gascon waiter. The man had been to +the street door again, and by this time the sidewalk excitement had +subsided sufficiently to make room for an approach to the truth. The +story of an armed band surrounding the bank had been a canard. There had +been but one man concerned in the robbery, and the sidewalk gossip was +beginning to describe him with discomforting accuracy.</p> + +<p>Griswold paid his score and went out boldly and with studied +nonchalance. He reasoned that, notwithstanding the growing accuracy of +the street report,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> he was still in no immediate danger so long as he +remained in such close proximity to the bank. It was safe to assume that +this was one of the things the professional "strong-arm man" would not +do. But it was also evident that he must speedily lose his identity if +he hoped to escape; and the lost identity must leave no clew to itself.</p> + +<p>Griswold smiled when he remembered how, in fiction of the felon-catching +sort, and in real life, for that matter, the law-breaker always did +leave a clew for the pursuers. Thereupon arose a determination to +demonstrate practically that it was quite as possible to create an +inerrant fugitive as to conceive an infallible detective. Joining the +passers-by on the sidewalk, he made his way leisurely to Canal Street, +and thence diagonally through the old French quarter toward the French +Market. In a narrow alley giving upon the levee he finally found what he +was looking for; a dingy sailors' barber's shop. The barber was a negro, +fat, unctuous and sleepy-looking; and he was alone.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sah; shave, boss?" asked the negro, bowing and scraping a foot +when Griswold entered.</p> + +<p>"No; a hair-cut." The customer produced a silver half-dollar. "Go +somewhere and get me a cigar to smoke while you are doing it. Get a good +one, if you have to go to Canal Street," he added, climbing into the +rickety chair.</p> + +<p>The fat negro shuffled out, scenting tips. The moment he was out of +sight, Griswold took up the scissors and began to hack awkwardly at his +beard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> and mustache; awkwardly, but swiftly and with well-considered +purpose. The result was a fairly complete metamorphosis easily wrought. +In place of the trim beard and curling mustache there was a rough +stubble, stiff and uneven, like that on the face of a man who had +neglected to shave for a week or two.</p> + +<p>"There, I think that will answer," he told himself, standing back before +the cracked looking-glass to get the general effect. "And it is decently +original. The professional cracksman would probably have shaved, +whereupon the first amateur detective he met would reconstruct the beard +on the sunburned lines. Now for a pawnbroker; and the more avaricious he +happens to be, the better he will serve the purpose."</p> + +<p>He went to the door and looked up and down the alley. The negro was not +yet in sight, and Griswold walked rapidly away in the direction opposite +to that taken by the obliging barber.</p> + +<p>A pawnbroker's shop of the kind required was not far to seek in that +locality, and when it was found, Griswold drove a hard bargain with the +Portuguese Jew behind the counter. The pledge he offered was the suit he +was wearing, and the bargaining concluded in an exchange of the still +serviceable business suit for a pair of butternut trousers, a +second-hand coat too short in the sleeves, a flannel shirt, a cap, and a +red handkerchief; these and a sum of ready money, the smallness of which +he deplored piteously before he would consent to accept it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>The effect of the haggling was exactly what Griswold had prefigured. The +Portuguese, most suspicious of his tribe, suspecting everything but the +truth, flatly accused his customer of having stolen the pledge. And when +Griswold departed without denying the charge, suspicion became +conviction, and the pledged clothing, which might otherwise have given +the police the needed clew, was carefully hidden away against a time +when the Jew's apprehensions should be quieted.</p> + +<p>Having thus disguised himself, Griswold made the transformation +artistically complete by walking a few squares in the dust of a loaded +cotton float on the levee. Then he made a tramp's bundle of the +manuscript of the moribund book, the pistol, and the money in the red +handkerchief; and having surveyed himself with some satisfaction in the +bar mirror of a riverside pot-house, a daring impulse to test his +disguise by going back to the restaurant where he had breakfasted seized +and bore him up-town.</p> + +<p>The experiment was an unqualified success. The proprietor of the +bank-neighboring café not only failed to recognize him; he was driven +forth with revilings in idiomatic French and broken English.</p> + +<p>"<i>Bête!</i> Go back on da levee w'ere you belong to go. I'll been kipping +dis café for zhentlemen! <i>Scélérat!</i> Go!"</p> + +<p>Griswold went out, smiling between his teeth.</p> + +<p>"That settles the question of identification and present safety," he +assured himself exultantly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> Then: "I believe I could walk into the +Bayou State Security and not be recognized."</p> + +<p>As before, the daring impulse was irresistible, and he gave place to it +on the spur of the moment. Fouling a five-dollar bill in the mud of the +gutter, he went boldly into the bank and asked the paying teller to give +him silver for it. The teller sniffed at the money, scowled at the man, +and turned back to his cash-book without a word. Griswold's smile grew +to an inward laugh when he reached the street.</p> + +<p>"The dragon may have teeth and claws, but it can neither see nor smell," +he said, contemptuously, turning his steps riverward again. "Now I have +only to choose my route and go in peace. How and where are the only +remaining questions to be answered."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<h3>THE <i>BELLE JULIE</i></h3> + + +<p>For an hour or more after his return to the river front, Griswold idled +up and down the levee; and the end of the interval found him still +undecided as to the manner and direction of his flight—to say nothing +of the choice of a destination, which was even more evasive than the +other and more immediately pressing decision.</p> + +<p>It was somewhere in the midst of the reflective hour that the elate +triumph of success began to give place to the inevitable reaction. The +partition which stands upon the narrow dividing line between vagrancy +and crime is but a paper wall, and any hot-hearted insurrectionary may +break through it at will. But to accept the conditions of vagrancy one +must first embrace the loathsome thing itself. Griswold remembered the +glimpse he had had of himself in the bar mirror of the pot-house, and +the chains of his transformed identity began to gall him. It was to +little purpose that he girded at his compunctions, telling himself that +he was only playing a necessary part; that one needs must when the devil +drives. Custom, habit, convention, or whatever it may be which +differentiates between the law-abiding and the lawless, would have its +say; and from railing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> bitterly against the social conditions which made +his act at once a necessity and a crime, he began to feel a prickling +disgust for the subterfuges to which the crime had driven him.</p> + +<p>Moreover, there was a growing fear that he might not always be able to +play consistently the double rôle whose lines were already becoming +intricate and confusing. To be true to his ideals, he must continue to +be in utter sincerity Griswold the brother-loving. That said itself. But +on the other hand, to escape the consequences of his act, he must hold +himself in instant readiness to be in savage earnest what a common thief +would be in similar straits; a thing of duplicity and double meanings +and ferocity, alert to turn and slay at any moment in the battle of +self-preservation.</p> + +<p>He had thought that the supreme crisis was passed when, earlier in the +day, he had pawned the last of his keepsakes for the money to buy the +revolver. But he had yet to learn that there is no supreme crisis in the +human span, save that which ends it; that all the wayfaring duels with +fate are inconclusive; conflicts critical enough at the moment, but +lacking finality, and likely to be renewed indefinitely if one lives +beyond them.</p> + +<p>He was confronting another of the false climaxes in the hour of aimless +wanderings on the river front. More than once he was tempted to buy back +his lost identity at any price. Never before had he realized what a +precious possession is the fearlessness of innocency; weighed against +it, the thick packet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> of bank-notes in the tramp's bundle, and all that +it might stand for, were as air-blown bubbles to refined gold. Yet he +would not go back; he could not go back. To restore the money would be +more than a confession of failure; it would be an abject recantation—a +flat denial of every article of his latest social creed, and a plunge +into primordial chaos in the matter of theories, out of which he could +emerge only as a criminal in fact.</p> + +<p>When the conflict of indetermination became altogether insupportable, he +put it aside with the resolution which was the strong thread in the +loosely twisted warp of his character and forced himself to think +concretely toward a solution of the problem of flight. The possession of +the money made all things possible—in any field save the +theoretical—and the choice of dwelling or hiding-places seemed +infinite.</p> + +<p>His first thought had been to go back to New York. But there the risk of +detection would be greater than elsewhere, and he decided that there was +no good reason why he should incur it. Besides, he argued, there were +other fields in which the sociological studies could be pursued under +conditions more favorable than those to be found in a great city. In his +mind's eye he saw himself domiciled in some thriving interior town, +working and studying among people who were not unindividualized by an +artificial environment. In such a community theory and practice might go +hand in hand; he could know and be known; and the money at his command<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +would be vastly more of a moulding and controlling influence than it +could possibly be in the smallest of circles in New York. The picture, +struck out upon the instant, pleased him, and having sufficiently +idealized it, he adopted it enthusiastically as an inspiration, leaving +the mere geographical detail to arrange itself as chance, or subsequent +events, might determine.</p> + +<p>That part of the problem disposed of, there yet remained the choice of a +line of flight; and it was a small thing that finally decided the manner +of his going. For the third time in the hour of aimless wanderings he +found himself loitering opposite the berth of the <i>Belle Julie</i>, an +up-river steamboat whose bell gave sonorous warning of the approaching +moment of departure. Toiling roustabouts, trailing in and out like an +endless procession of human ants, were hurrying the last of the cargo +aboard. Griswold stood to look on. The toilers were negroes, most of +them, but with here and there among the blacks and yellows a paler face +so begrimed with sweat and dust as to be scarcely distinguishable from +the majority. The sight moved Griswold, as thankless toil always did; +and he fell to contrasting the hard lot of the laborers with that of the +group of passengers looking on idly from the comfortable shade of the +saloon-deck awning. Griswold's thought vocalized itself in compassionate +musings.</p> + +<p>"Poor devils! They've been told that they are freemen, and perhaps they +believe it. But surely no slave of the Toulon galleys was ever in +bitterer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> bondage.... Free?—yes, free to toil and sweat, to bear +burdens and to be driven like cattle under the yoke! Oh, good +Lord!—look at that!"</p> + +<p>The ant procession had attacked the final tier of boxes in the lading, +and one of the burden-bearers, a white man, had stumbled and fallen like +a crushed pack-animal under a load too heavy for him. Griswold was +beside him in a moment. The man could not rise, and Griswold dragged him +not untenderly out of the way of the others.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you stand from under and let it drop?" he demanded gruffly, +as an offset to the womanish tenderness; but when the man gasped for +breath and groaned, he took another tone: "Where are you hurt?"</p> + +<p>The crushed one sat up and spat blood.</p> + +<p>"I don't know: inside, somewheres. I been dyin' on my feet any time for +a year or two back."</p> + +<p>"Consumption?" queried Griswold, briefly.</p> + +<p>"I reckon so."</p> + +<p>"Then you have no earthly business in a deck crew. Don't you know that?"</p> + +<p>The man's smile was a ghastly face-wrinkling.</p> + +<p>"Reckon I hain't got any business anywheres—out'n a horspital or a hole +in the ground. But I kind o' thought I'd like to be planted 'longside +the woman and the childer, if I could make out some way to git there."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>The consumptive named a small river town in Iowa.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And you were going to work your passage on the boat?"</p> + +<p>"I was allowin' to try for it. But I reckon I'm done up, now."</p> + +<p>In Griswold impulse was the dominant chord always struck by an appeal to +his sympathies. His compassion went straight to the mark, as it was sure +to do when his pockets were not empty.</p> + +<p>"What is the fare by rail to your town?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"I don't know: I never asked. Somewheres between twenty and thirty +dollars, I reckon; and that's more money than I've seen sence the woman +died."</p> + +<p>Griswold hastily counted out a hundred dollars from his pocket fund and +thrust the money into the man's hand.</p> + +<p>"Take that and change places with me," he commanded, slipping on the +mask of gruffness again. "Pay your fare on the train, and I'll take your +job on the boat. Don't be a fool!" he added, when the man put his face +in his hands and began to choke. "It's a fair enough exchange, and I'll +get as much out of it one way as you will the other. What is your name? +I may have to borrow it."</p> + +<p>"Gavitt—John Wesley Gavitt."</p> + +<p>"All right; off with you," said the liberator, curtly; and with that he +shouldered the sick man's load and fell into line in the ant procession.</p> + +<p>Once on board the steamer, he followed his file-leader aft and made it +his first care to find a safe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> hiding-place for the tramp's bundle in +the knotted handkerchief. That done, he stepped into the line again, and +became the sick man's substitute in fact.</p> + +<p>Inured to hard living as he was, the substitute roustabout had made no +more than a half-dozen rounds between the levee and the cargo-deck of +the <i>Belle Julie</i> before he was glad to note that the steamer's lading +was all but completed. It was toil of the shrewdest, and he drew breath +of blessed relief when the last man staggered up the plank with his +burden. The bell was clanging its final summons, and the slowly +revolving paddle-wheels were taking the strain from the mooring lines. +Being near the bow line Griswold was one of the two who sprang ashore at +the mate's bidding to cast off. He was backing the hawser out of the +last of its half-hitches when a carriage was driven rapidly down to the +stage and two tardy passengers hurried aboard. The mate bawled from his +station on the hurricane-deck.</p> + +<p>"Now, then! Take a turn on that spring line out there and get them +trunks aboard! Lively!"</p> + +<p>The larger of the two trunks fell to the late recruit; and when he had +set it down at the door of the designated state-room, he did +half-absently what John Gavitt might have done without blame: read the +tacked-on card, which bore the owner's name and address, written in a +firm round hand: "Charlotte Farnham, Wahaska, Minnesota."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said a musical voice at his elbow. "May I trouble you to +put it inside?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p>Griswold wheeled as if the mild-toned request had been a blow, and was +properly ashamed. But when he saw the speaker, consternation promptly +slew all the other emotions. For the owner of the tagged trunk was the +young woman to whom, an hour or so earlier, he had given place at the +paying teller's wicket in the Bayou State Security.</p> + +<p>She saw his confusion, charged it to the card-reading at which she had +surprised him, and smiled. Then he met her gaze fairly and became sane +again when he was assured that she did not recognize him: became sane, +and whipped off his cap, and dragged the trunk into the state-room. +After which he went to his place on the lower deck with a great +thankfulness throbbing in his heart and an inchoate resolve shaping +itself in his brain.</p> + +<p>Late that night, when the <i>Belle Julie</i> was well on her way up the great +river, he flung himself down upon the sacked coffee on the engine-room +guard to snatch a little rest between landings, and the resolve became +sufficiently cosmic to formulate itself in words.</p> + +<p>"I'll call it an oracle," he mused. "One place is as good as another, +just so it is inconsequent enough. And I am sure I've never heard of +Wahaska."</p> + +<p>Now Griswold the social rebel was, before all things else, Griswold the +imaginative literary craftsman; and no sooner was the question of his +ultimate destination settled thus arbitrarily than he began to prefigure +the place and its probable lacks and havings. This process brought him +by easy stages to pleasant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> idealizings of Miss Charlotte Farnham, who +was, thus far, the only tangible thing connected with the +destination-dream. A little farther along her personality laid hold of +him and the idealizings became purely literary.</p> + +<p>"She is a magnificently strong type!" was his summing up of her, made +while he was lying flat on his back and staring absently at the flitting +shadows among the deck beams overhead. "Her face is as readable as only +the face of a woman instinctively good and pure in heart can be. Any man +who can put her between the covers of a book may put anything else he +pleases in it and snap his fingers at the world. If I am going to live +in the same town with her, I ought to jot her down on paper before I +lose the keen edge of the first impression."</p> + +<p>He considered it for a moment, and then got up and went in search of a +pencil and a scrap of paper. The dozing night clerk gave him both, with +a sleepy malediction thrown in; and he went back to the engine-room and +scribbled his word-picture by the light of the swinging incandescent.</p> + +<p>"Character-study: Young woman of the type Western Creole; not the +daughter of aliens, but born in the West, of parents who have migrated +from one of the older States. (I'll hazard that much as a guess.)</p> + +<p>"<i>Detail</i>: Titian blonde, with hair like spun bronze; the complexion +which neither freckles nor tans; cool gray eyes with underdepths in them +that no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> man but her lover may ever quite fathom; a figure which would +be statuesque if it were not altogether human and womanly; features cast +in the Puritan mould, with the lines of character well emphasized; lips +that would be passionate but for—no, lips that <i>will</i> be passionate +when the hour and the man arrive. A soul strong in the strength of +transparent purity, which would send her to the stake for a principle, +or to the Isle of Lepers with her lover. A typical heroine for a story +in which the hero is a man who might need to borrow a conscience."</p> + +<p>He read it over thoughtfully when it was finished, changing a word here +and a phrase there with a craftsman's fidelity to the exactnesses. Then +he shook his head regretfully and tore the scrap of paper into tiny +squares, scattering them upon the brown flood surging past the +engine-room gangway.</p> + +<p>"It won't do," he confessed reluctantly, as one who sacrifices good +literary material to a stern sense of the fitness of things. "It is +nothing less than a cold-blooded sacrilege. I can't make copy of her if +I write no more while the world stands."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<h3>THE DECK-HAND</h3> + + +<p>Charlotte Farnham's friends—their number was the number of those who +had seen her grow from childhood to maiden—and womanhood—commonly +identified her for inquiring strangers as "good old Doctor Bertie's +'only,'" adding, men and women alike, that she was as well-balanced and +sensible as she was good to look upon.</p> + +<p>As Griswold had guessed, she stood but a single remove from an American +lineage much older than the America of the Middle West. Her father had +been a country physician in New Hampshire, migrating to the dry winters +of Minnesota for his young wife's health. The migration had been too +long postponed to save the mother's life; but it had made a beautiful +woman of the daughter, dowering her with the luxuriant physical charm +which is the proof that transplantation to fresher soil is not less +beneficial to human- than to plant-kind.</p> + +<p>She had been spending the winter at Pass Christian with her aunt, who +was an invalid; and it was for the invalid's sake that she had decided +to make the return journey by river. Patient little Miss Gilman was the +least querulous of sufferers, but she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> always very ill on a railway +train. Hence Charlotte, who was at once physician, nurse, mentor, and +dutiful kinswoman to the frail little lady who looked old enough to be +her grandmother, had chosen the longer, but less trying, route to the +far North.</p> + +<p>So it had come about that their state-rooms had been taken on the <i>Belle +Julie</i>; and on the morning of the second day out from New Orleans, Miss +Gilman was so far from being travel-sick that she was able to sit with +Charlotte in the shade of the hurricane-deck aft, and to enjoy, with +what quavering enthusiasm there was in her, the matchless scenery of the +lower Mississippi.</p> + +<p>At Baton Rouge the New Orleans papers came aboard, and Miss Farnham +bought a copy of the <i>Louisianian</i>. As a matter of course, the +first-page leader was a circumstantial account of the daring robbery of +the Bayou State Security, garnished with startling head-lines. Charlotte +read it, half-absently at first, and a second time with interest +awakened and a quickening of the pulse when she realized that she had +actually been a witness of the final act in the near-tragedy. Her little +gasp of belated horror brought a query from the invalid.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Charlie, dear?"</p> + +<p>For answer, Charlotte read the newspaper story of the robbery, +head-lines and all.</p> + +<p>"For pity's sake! in broad daylight! How shockingly bold!" commented +Miss Gilman.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but that wasn't what made me gasp. The paper says: 'A young lady +was at the teller's window<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> when the robber came up with Mr. +Galbraith—' Aunt Fanny, <i>I</i> was the 'young lady'!"</p> + +<p>"You? horrors!" ejaculated the invalid, holding up wasted hands of +deprecation. "To think of it! Why, child, if anything had happened, a +terrible murder might have been committed right there before your very +face and eyes! Dear, dear; whatever are we coming to!"</p> + +<p>Charlotte the well-balanced, smiled at the purely personal limitations +of her aunt's point of view.</p> + +<p>"It is very dreadful, of course; but it is no worse just because I +happened to be there. Yet it seems ridiculously incredible. I can hardly +believe it, even now."</p> + +<p>"Incredible? How?"</p> + +<p>"Why, there wasn't anything about it to suggest a robbery. Now that I +know, I remember that the old gentleman did seem anxious or worried, or +at least, not quite comfortable some way; but the young man was smiling +pleasantly, and he looked like anything rather than a desperate +criminal. I can close my eyes and see him, just as I saw him yesterday. +He had a good face, Aunt Fanny; it was the face of a man whom one would +trust almost instinctively."</p> + +<p>Miss Gilman's New England conservatism, unweakened by her long residence +in the West, took the alarm at once.</p> + +<p>"Did you notice him particularly, Charlotte? Would you recognize him if +you should see him again?" she asked anxiously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes; I am quite sure I should."</p> + +<p>"But no one in the bank knew you. They couldn't trace you by your +father's draft and letter of identification, could they?"</p> + +<p>Charlotte was mystified. "I should suppose they could, if they wanted +to. But why? What if they could?"</p> + +<p>"My dear child; don't you see? They are sure to catch the robber, sooner +or later, and if they know how to find you, you might be dragged into +court as a witness!"</p> + +<p>Miss Farnham was not less averse to publicity than the conventionalities +demanded, but she had, or believed she had, very clear and well-defined +ideas of her own touching her duty in any matter involving a plain +question of right and wrong.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't wait to be dragged," she asserted quietly. "It would be a +simple duty to go willingly. The first thing I thought of was that I +ought to write at once to Mr. Galbraith, giving him my address."</p> + +<p>Thereupon issued discussion. Miss Gilman's opinion upon such a momentous +question—a question involving an apparent conflict between the +proprieties and an act of simple justice—leaned heavily toward silence. +There could be no possible need for Charlotte's interference. Mr. +Galbraith and the teller would be able to identify the robber, and a +thousand eye-witnesses could do no more. At the end of the argument the +conservative one had extorted a conditional promise from her niece. The +matter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> should remain in abeyance until the question of conscientious +obligation had been submitted to Charlotte's father and decided by him.</p> + +<p>Being by nature and inclination averse to shacklings, verbal or other, +Charlotte gave the promise reluctantly, and the subject was dismissed. +Not from the younger woman's thoughts, however. In the reflective field +the scene in the bank recurred again and again until presently it became +a haunting annoyance. To banish it finally she went to her state-room +and got a book for herself and a magazine for her aunt.</p> + +<p>An hour later, when Miss Gilman had finished cutting the leaves of the +magazine, and was deep in the last instalment of the current serial, +Charlotte let her book slip from her fingers and gave herself to the +passive enjoyment of the slowly passing panorama which is the chief +charm of inland voyaging.</p> + +<p>It was a delectable day, sweet-scented with the mingled perfume of roses +and jasmine and chinaberry trees wafted from the open-air conservatories +surrounding the plantation mansions on either bank. The majestic onrush +of the steamer, the rhythmic drumbeat of the machinery, the alternating +crash and pause of the great paddle-wheels, the unhasting backward sweep +of the brown flood, all these were in harmony with the sensuous languor +of time and place.</p> + +<p>For the moment Charlotte Farnham yielded in pure delight to the spell of +the encompassments, fancying she could deny her lineage and look upon +this sylvan Southland world through the eyes of those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> to whom it was +the birthland. Then the haunting scene in the New Orleans bank returned +to disenchant her; and after striving vainly to put it aside, she +reopened her book. But by this time the story had lost its hold upon +her, and when she had read a page or two with only the vaguest possible +notion of what it was all about, she gave up in despair and let the +relentless recollection have its will of her.</p> + +<p>From where she was sitting she could see the steamer's yawl swinging +from its tackle at the stern-staff; and after many minutes it was slowly +borne in upon her that the ropes were working loose. When it became +evident that the boat would shortly fall into the river and go adrift, +she got up and put the book aside, meaning to go forward and tell the +captain. But before she had taken the first step a man came aft to make +the loosened tackle fast, and she stood back to let him pass.</p> + +<p>It was Griswold. Up to that moment he had thrown himself so zealously +into the impersonation of his latest rôle as to be able to stand +indifferently well in the shoes of the man whom he had supplanted. But +at this crisis the machinery of dissimulation slipped a cog. Where the +ordinary deck-hand would have gone about his errand heedless of the +presence of the two women passengers, the proxy John Wesley Gavitt must +needs take off his cap and apologize for passing in front of them.</p> + +<p>Something half familiar in his manner of doing it attracted Charlotte's +attention, and her eyes followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> him as he went on and hoisted the yawl +into place. When he came back she had a fair sight of his face and her +eyes met his. In the single swift glance half-formed suspicion became +undoubted certainty; she looked again and her heart gave a great bound +and then seemed suddenly to forget its office. While he was passing she +clung to the back of her chair and forebore to cry out or otherwise to +advertise her emotion. But when the strain was off she sank into her +seat and closed her eyes to grapple with the unnerving discovery. It was +useless to try to escape from the dismaying fact. The stubble-bearded +deck-hand with the manners of a gentleman was most unmistakably a later +reincarnation of the pleasantly smiling young man who had courteously +made way for her at the teller's wicket in the Bayou State Security; who +had smiled and given place to her while he was holding his pistol aimed +at President Galbraith.</p> + +<p>It was said of Charlotte Farnham that she was sensible beyond her years, +and withal strong and straightforward in honesty of purpose. None the +less, she was a woman. And when she saw what was before her, conscience +turned traitor and fled away to give place to an uprush of hesitant +doubts born of the sharp trial of the moment.</p> + +<p>She decided at once that there could be no question as to her duty. Of +all those who were seeking the escaping bank robber, it was doubtful if +any would recognize him as she had; and if she should hold her peace he +would escape, perhaps to commit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> other crimes for which she could then +justly be held accountable.</p> + +<p>But, on the other hand, how could she bring herself to the point of +giving him over to the vengeance of the law—just vengeance, to be sure, +but cruel because it must inevitably crush out whatever spark of +penitence or good intention there might be remaining in him? What did +she know of his temptations? of the chain of circumstances which had +dragged him down into the company of the desperately criminal? Some such +compelling influence there must have been, she reasoned, since a child +might see that he was no hardened felon. It was a painful conflict, but +in the end the Puritan conscience triumphed and turned mercy out of +doors. Her duty was plain; she had no right to argue the question of +culpability.</p> + +<p>She got upon her feet, steadying herself by the back of the chair. She +felt that she could not trust herself if she once admitted the thin edge +of the wedge of delay. The simple and straightforward thing to do was to +go immediately to the captain and tell him of her discovery, but she +shrank from the thought of what must follow. They would seize him: he +had proved that he was a desperate man, and there would be a struggle. +And when the struggle was over they would bring him to her and she would +have to stand forth as his accuser.</p> + +<p>It was too shocking, and she caught at the suggestion of an alternative +with a gasp of relief. She might write to President Galbraith, giving +such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> description of the deck-hand as would enable the officers to +identify him without her personal help. It was like dealing the man a +treacherous blow in the back, but she thought it would be kinder.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Fanny," she began, with her face averted, "I promised you I +wouldn't write to Mr. Galbraith until after we reached home—until I had +told papa. I have been thinking about it since, and I—I think it must +be done at once."</p> + +<p>Now Miss Gilman's conscience was also of the Puritan cast, and justice +had been given time to make its claim paramount to that of the +conventional proprieties. Hence the invalid yielded the point without +reopening the argument.</p> + +<p>"I don't know but you are right, after all, Charlie, dear," she said. +"I've been thinking it over, too. But it seems like a very dreadful +thing for you to have to do."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> very dreadful," said Charlotte, with a much deeper meaning in +the words than her aunt suspected. Nevertheless, she went away quickly +and locked herself in her state room to write the fateful letter which +should set the machinery of the law in motion and deliver the robber +deck-hand up to justice.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<h3>GOLD OF TOLOSA</h3> + + +<p>In yielding to the impulse which had prompted him to change places with +the broken-down deck-hand, Griswold had assumed that there was little +risk and at least an even chance that the substitution would never be +discovered. He knew that the river steamboats were manned by picked-up +crews, usually assembled at the last moment, and that it was more than +probable that the <i>Belle Julie's</i> officers had not yet had time to +individualize the units of the main-deck squad. Therefore, he might take +the name and place of the disabled Gavitt with measurable safety.</p> + +<p>But apart from this, he was not unwilling to add another chapter to his +experience among the toilers. He had been told that the life of a +roustabout on the Western rivers was the most dismal of all the gropings +in the social underworld, and he was the more eager to endure its +hardships as a participant. Being an enthusiast, he had early laid down +the foundation principle that one must see and feel and suffer if one +would write convincingly.</p> + +<p>As to the experience, he immediately found himself in a fair way to +acquire it in great abundance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> From the moment of his enlistment in the +<i>Belle Julie's</i> crew it was heaped upon him unstintingly; good measure, +pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Without having +specialized himself in any way to M'Grath, the bullying chief mate, he +fancied he was singled out as the vessel into which the man might empty +the vials of his wrath without fear of reprisals. Curses, not +loud—since a generation of travellers has arisen to whom profanity, +however picturesque, is objectionable—but deep and corrosive; contumely +and abuse; tongue-lashings that stung like the flick of a whip; and now +and then, at a night landing when there were no upper-deck people +looking on to be shocked, blows. All these slave-drivings, or at least +his share of them, Griswold endured as became a man who had voluntarily +put himself in the way of them. But they were hardening. Griswold fought +manfully against the brutalizing effect of them, but with only partial +success. Because of them, he was sure that his theories in the +compassionate warp and woof of them must always afterward be shot +through with flame-colored threads of fiery resentment reaching back +through M'Grath to every master who wielded the whip of power; the power +of the man who has, over the man who has not.</p> + +<p>In such a lurid light it was only natural that the ethical perspective +should be still further distorted; that any lingering doubt of the +justice of his late rebellion against the accepted order of things +should be banished by the persecutions of the bullying mate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> It is easy +to postulate a storm-driven world when the personal horizon is dark and +lowering; easy, also, to justify the past by the present. From +theorizing never so resolutely upon the rights of man in the abstract to +robbing a bank is a broad step, and given an opportunity to reflect upon +it calmly after the fact, even such an imaginative enthusiast as +Griswold might have reconsidered. But the hasty plunge into the +underdepth of roustabout life was like the brine bath of the blacksmith +to heated steel; it served to temper him afresh.</p> + +<p>Fortunately he was not altogether unequal to the physical test, severe +as it was. With all of his later privations, he had lived a clean life; +and his college training in athletics stood him in good stead. +Physically, as intellectually, the material in him was of the +fine-grained fibre in which quality counts for more than quantity. +Lacking something in mass, the lack was more than compensated by the +alertness and endurance which had made him at once the best man with the +foils and the safest oar in the boat in his college days. None the less, +the first night out of New Orleans, with its uncounted plantation +landings, had tried him keenly, and he was thankful when the second day +brought fewer stopping places and longer rest intervals.</p> + +<p>It was in one of the resting intervals that he had been sent aft to +resecure the loosened tackle of the suspended small boat. He had come +upon Miss Farnham and her aunt unexpectedly, and so was off his guard. +But in any event, he argued, he should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> have obeyed the instinctive +impulse to excuse himself. He knew that the apology was a confession +that he was a masquerader in some sort, and he had felt the steady gaze +of the young woman's eyes while he was at work on the loosened tackle. +Later, when he passed her on his way forward he had seen the swift +change in her face betokening some sudden emotion, and the recollection +of it troubled him.</p> + +<p>What if this clear-eyed young person had recognized him? He knew that +the New Orleans papers had come aboard; he had seen the folded copy of +the <i>Louisianian</i> in the invalid's lap. Consequently, Miss Farnham knew +of the robbery, and the incidents were fresh in her mind. What would she +do if she had penetrated his disguise?</p> + +<p>The query had its answer when he recalled his written estimate of her +character scribbled a few hours earlier by the light of the engine-room +incandescent. If her face were not merely a fair mask of the +conscientious probity it stood for, she would denounce him without +hesitation.</p> + +<p>He tried to make himself doubt it, but the effort recoiled upon him. +Already, in his imaginings, she was beginning to assume the +characteristics of an ideal; and the ideal character with which he had +endowed her would be true to itself at any cost; it would be quite +sexless and just before it would be womanly and merciful. At least he +hoped it would. Ideals are much too precious to be shattered recklessly +by mere personal considerations; and he told himself, in a fine glow of +artistic self-effacement, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> he should be sorry to purchase even so +great a boon as his liberty at the price of the broken ideal.</p> + +<p>But the burning of sweet incense in the temple of the ideals is not +necessarily incompatible with a just regard for the commonplace +realities. In the aftermath of the fine artistic glow, Griswold found +himself straightway wrestling with the problem of present safety. If +Miss Farnham had recognized him, his chances of escape had suddenly +narrowed down to flight, immediate and speedy. He must leave the <i>Belle +Julie</i> at the next landing and endeavor to make his way north by +wagon-road or rail, or by some later boat.</p> + +<p>The emergency called for swift action, and his determination to leave +the steamer was taken at once. While he was weighing the manifest +dangers of a daylight desertion against the equally manifest hazard of +waiting for darkness, the whistle was blown for a landing and he +concluded not to wait. If Miss Farnham had identified him she would +doubtless lose no time in giving the alarm. She might even now be in +conference with the captain, he thought.</p> + +<p>Griswold had a shock of genuine terror at this point in his reflections +and his skin prickled as at the touch of something loathsome. Up to that +moment he had suffered none of the pains of the hunted fugitive; but he +knew now that he had fairly entered the gates of the outlaw's inferno; +that however cunningly he might cast about to throw his pursuers off the +track, he would never again know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> what it was to be wholly free from the +terror of the arrow that flieth by day.</p> + +<p>The force of the Scriptural simile came to him with startling emphasis, +bringing on a return of the prickling dismay. The stopping of the +paddle-wheels and the rattling clangor of the gang-plank winch aroused +him to action and he shook off the creeping numbness and ran aft to +rummage under the cargo on the engine-room guards for his precious +bundle. When his hand reached the place where it should have been, the +blood surged to his brain and set up a clamorous dinning in his ears +like the roaring of a cataract. The niche between the coffee sacks was +empty.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE CHAIN-GANG</h3> + + +<p>While Griswold was grappling afresh with the problem of escape, and +planning to desert the <i>Belle Julie</i> at the next landing, Charlotte +Farnham was sitting behind the locked door of her state-room with a +writing pad on her knee over which for many minutes the suspended pen +merely hovered. She had fancied that her resolve, once fairly taken, +would not stumble over a simple matter of detail. But when she had tried +a dozen times to begin the letter to Mr. Galbraith, the simplicities +vanished and complexity stood in their room.</p> + +<p>Try as she might to put the sham deck-hand into his proper place as an +impersonal unit of a class with which society is at war, he perversely +refused to surrender his individuality. At the end of every fresh effort +she was confronted by the inexorable summing-up: in a world of phantoms +there were only two real persons; a man who had sinned, and a woman who +was about to make him pay the penalty.</p> + +<p>It was all very well to reason about it, and to say that he ought to be +made to pay the penalty; but that did not make it any less shocking that +she, Charlotte Farnham, should be the one to set the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> retributive +machinery in motion. Yet she knew she had the thing to do, and so, after +many ineffectual attempts, the letter was written and sealed and +addressed, and she went out to mail it at the clerk's office.</p> + +<p>As it chanced, the engines of the steamer were slowing for a landing +when she latched her state-room door, and by the time she had walked the +length of the saloon the office was closed and the clerk had gone below +with his way-bills. It was an added hardship to have to wait, and she +knew well enough that delay would speedily reopen the entire vexed +question of responsibility. But there was nothing else to be done. She +told herself that she could not begin to breathe freely again until the +letter was out of her hands and safely beyond recall.</p> + +<p>The doors giving upon the forward saloon-deck were open, and she heard +the harsh voice of the mate exploding in sharp commands as the steamer +lost way and edged slowly up to the river bank. A moment later she was +outside, leaning on the rail and looking down upon the crew grouped +about the inboard end of the uptilted landing-stage. He was there; the +man for whose destiny accident and the conventional sense of duty had +made her responsible; and as she looked she had a fleeting glimpse of +his face.</p> + +<p>It was curiously haggard and woe-begone; so sorrowfully changed that for +an instant she almost doubted his identity. The sudden transformation +added fresh questionings, and she began to ask herself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> thoughtfully +what had brought it about. Had he recognized her and divined her +intention? But if that were the explanation, why had he not made his +escape? Why was he waiting for her to point him out to the officers of +the steamer?</p> + +<p>The queries swept her out into a deeper sea of perplexity. What if he +were already repentant? In that event, the result of her dutiful service +to society would doubtless be to drive him back into impenitence and +despair. For a little time she clung desperately to her purpose, +hardening her heart and shutting her ears to the clamant appeal of the +reawakened sentiment of commiseration. Then the man turned slowly and +looked up at her as if the finger of her thought had touched him. There +was no sign of recognition in his eyes; and she constrained herself to +gaze down upon him coldly. But when the <i>Belle Julie's</i> bow touched the +bank, and the waiting crew melted suddenly into a tenuous line of +burden-bearers, she fled through the deserted saloon to her state-room +and hid the fatal letter under the pillows in her berth.</p> + +<p>Another hour had elapsed. It was nearly noon, and the stewards had +bridged the spaces in the row of square saloon-tables and were laying +the cloth for the mid-day meal. Charlotte opened her door guardedly, as +one fearing to face prying eyes, and finding the coast clear, slipped +out to rejoin her aunt under the awning abaft the paddle-box. Miss +Gilman shut her finger into the magazine to keep her place and looked up +in mild surprise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Where have you been?" she asked. "Has it taken you all this time to +write to the bank people?"</p> + +<p>Charlotte's answer satisfied the strict letter of the inquiry, though it +slew the spirit.</p> + +<p>"I wrote the letter quite awhile ago. I have been lying down, since."</p> + +<p>The invalid reopened the magazine, and Charlotte was left to make peace +as best she might with her conscience for having told the half-truth. It +was characteristic of the inward monitor that even in such a trivial +matter it refused to be coerced. Accordingly, a little while afterward, +when Charlotte took her aunt's arm to lead her to the table, she said:</p> + +<p>"I told you I had written to Mr. Galbraith, and so I have. But the +letter is not yet mailed." And, since the natural inference was that +there had been no opportunity to mail it, the conscientious little +confession went as wide of the mark as if it had never been made.</p> + +<p>At the captain's end of the long table the talk rippled pointlessly +around the New Orleans bank robbery, and Miss Farnham took no part in it +until Captain Mayfield spoke of the reward of ten thousand dollars which +had been offered for the apprehension of the robber. The fact touched +her upon the ethical side, and she said:</p> + +<p>"That is something that always seems so dreadfully barbarous; to set a +money price on the head of a human being."</p> + +<p>The captain laughed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Tis sort o' Middle-Aged, when you come to think of it. But it does the +police business oftener than anything else, I guess. A detective will +work mighty hard nowadays for ten thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so; but it is barbarous," Charlotte persisted. "It is an +open appeal to the lowest motive in human nature—cupidity."</p> + +<p>The bluff riverman nodded a qualified approval, but a loquacious little +gentleman across the table felt called upon to protest.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Miss Farnham, would you have us all turn thief-catchers +for the mere honor of the thing?"</p> + +<p>"For the love of justice, or not at all, I should say," was the +straightforward return blow. "If I should see somebody picking your +pocket, ought I to weigh the chances of your offering a reward before +telling you of it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; of course not. But this is entirely different. A rich +corporation has been robbed, and it says to the thief-catchers—and to +everybody, for that matter—Here are ten thousand dollars if you will +find us the robber. For myself, I confess that the reward would be the +determining factor. If I knew where Mr. Galbraith's 'hold-up' is to be +found, I should certainly go out of my way to earn the money."</p> + +<p>Miss Farnham's sense of the fitness of things was plainly affronted.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say that you would accept the reward, Mr. Latrobe?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Most certainly I should; any one would."</p> + +<p>The frank avowal stood for public opinion. Charlotte knew it and went +dumb in the presence of a new and more terrible phase of her +entanglement. She might call the reward blood money, and refuse +absolutely to touch it, but who, outside of her own little circle, would +know or believe that she had refused? And if all the remainder of the +world knew and should exonerate her, would not the wretched man himself +always believe that she had sold him for a price?</p> + +<p>The benumbing thought left her tongue-tied and miserable; and after the +table-dispersal she sought out the captain to ask a question.</p> + +<p>"Do you know the law in Louisiana, Captain Mayfield?" she began, with +more embarrassment than the simple inquiry would account for. "This man +who robbed the Bayou State Security yesterday; what is the penalty for +his crime?"</p> + +<p>The captain shook his head. "I don't know: being only a riverman, I'm +not even a sea-lawyer. But maybe Mr. Latrobe could tell you. <i>Oh</i>, Mr. +Latrobe!"</p> + +<p>The loquacious one was on his way forward to smoke, but he turned and +came back at the captain's call.</p> + +<p>"The penalty?" he said, when the query had been repeated to him; "that +would depend upon a good many things that could only be brought out at +the trial. But under the circumstances—threatening to shoot the +president, and all that, you know—I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> should say it would go pretty hard +with him. He'll probably get the full limit of the law."</p> + +<p>"And that is?" persisted Charlotte, determined to know the worst.</p> + +<p>"In Louisiana, twenty years, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Thank you; that is what I wished to find out."</p> + +<p>The little man bowed and went his way; and Captain Mayfield, who was an +observant man in the field of river stages and other natural phenomena, +but not otherwise, did not remark Miss Farnham's sigh which was more +than half a sob.</p> + +<p>"Twenty years!" she shuddered; "it might as well be for life. He would +be nearly fifty years old, if he lived through it."</p> + +<p>It did not occur to the captain to wonder how Miss Farnham came to know +anything about the bank robber's age, but he spoke to the conditional +phrase in her comment.</p> + +<p>"Yes; if he lives through it: that's a mighty big 'if' down here in the +levee country. Twenty years of the chain-gang would be about the same as +a life sentence to most white men, I judge."</p> + +<p>Charlotte turned away quickly; and when she could trust herself in the +presence of her aunt, she led the way back to the shade of the +after-deck awning and tried, for her own sake, to talk about some of the +many things that had gone to make up the sum of their daily life before +this black cloud of perplexity had settled down. It was a dismaying +failure; and when the invalid said she would go and lie down for awhile, +Charlotte was thankful and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> went once more to lock herself and her +trouble in her state-room.</p> + +<p>That evening, after dinner, she went forward with some of the other +passengers to the railed promenade which was the common evening +rendezvous. The <i>Belle Julie</i> had tied up at a small town on the western +bank of the great river, and the ant procession of roustabouts was in +motion, going laden up the swing-stage and returning empty by the +foot-plank. Left to herself for a moment, Charlotte faced the rail and +again sought to single out the man whose fate she must decide.</p> + +<p>She distinguished him presently; a grimy, perspiring unit in the crew, +tramping back and forth mechanically, staggering under the heaviest +loads, and staring stonily at the back of his file leader in the endless +round; a picture of misery and despair, Charlotte thought, and she was +turning away with the dangerous rebellion against the conventions +swelling again in her heart when Captain Mayfield joined her.</p> + +<p>"I just wanted to show you," he said; and he pointed out a gang of men +repairing a slip in the levee embankment below the town landing. It was +a squad of prisoners in chains. The figures of the convicts were struck +out sharply against the dark background of undergrowth, and the +reflection of the sunset glow on the river lighted up their sullen faces +and burnished the use-worn links in their leg-fetters.</p> + +<p>"The chain-gang;" said the captain, briefly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> "That's about where the +fellow that robbed the Bayou State Security will bring up, if they catch +him. He'll have to be mighty tough and well-seasoned if he lives to +worry through twenty years of that, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>But Miss Farnham could not answer; and even the unobservant captain of +river boats saw that she was moved and was sorry he had spoken.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + +<h3>THE MIDDLE WATCH</h3> + + +<p>In any path of performance there is but one step which is irrevocable, +namely, the final one, and in Charlotte Farnham's besetment this step +was the mailing of the letter to Mr. Galbraith. Many times during the +evening she wrought herself up to the plunging point, only to recoil on +the very brink; and when at length she gave up the struggle and went to +bed, the sealed letter was still under her pillow.</p> + +<p>Now it is a well-accepted truism that an exasperated sense of duty, like +remorse and grief, fights best in the night-watches. It was of no avail +to protest that her intention was still unshaken. Conscience urged that +delay was little less culpable than refusal, since every hour gave the +criminal an added chance of escape. The logic was unanswerable, and +trembling lest the implacable inward monitor should presently insist +upon the immediate revealment of the fugitive's identity to Captain +Mayfield, she got up and dressed hurriedly, meaning to end the agony +once for all by giving the letter to the night clerk.</p> + +<p>But once again the chapter of accidents intervened. While she was +unbolting her door, the mellow roar of the whistle and the jangling of +the engine-room<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> bells warned her that the <i>Belle Julie</i> was approaching +a landing. Remembering the cause of her earliest failure, she ran +quickly to the office, only to find it deserted and the door locked.</p> + +<p>This time, however, she determined not to be diverted. Going back to the +state-room for a wrap she returned to wait for the clerk's reappearance. +This final pause soon proved to be the severest trial of all. The +minutes dragged leaden-winged; and to sit quietly in the silence and +solitude of the great saloon became a nerve-racking impossibility. When +it went past endurance, she rose and stepped out upon the +promenade-deck.</p> + +<p>The electric search-light eye on the hurricane-deck was just over her +head, and its great white cone seemed to hiss as it poured its dazzling +flood of fictitious noonday upon the shelving river bank and the +sleeping hamlet beyond. The furnace doors were open, and the red glare +of the fires quickened the darkness under the beam of the electric into +lurid life. Out of the dusky underglow came the freight-carriers, giving +birth to a file of grotesque shadow monsters as they swung up the plank +into the field of the search-light.</p> + +<p>The stopping-place was an unimportant one, and a few minutes sufficed +for the unloading of the small consignment of freight. The mate had left +his outlook upon the hurricane-deck and was down among the men, +hastening them with harsh commands and epithets which owed their +mildness to the presence of the silent onlooker beneath the electric.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<p>The foot-plank had been drawn in, the steam winch was clattering, and +the landing-stage had begun to come aboard, when the two men whose duty +it was to cast off ran out on the tilting stage and dropped from its +shore end. One of them fell clumsily, tried to rise, and sank back into +the shadow; but the other scrambled up the steep bank and loosened the +half-hitches in the wet hawser. With the slackening of the line the +steamer began to move out into the stream, and the man at the +mooring-post looked around to see what had become of his companion.</p> + +<p>"Get a move on youse!" bellowed the mate; but instead of obeying, the +man ran back and went on his knees beside the huddled figure in the +shadow.</p> + +<p>At this point the watcher on the promenade-deck began vaguely to +understand that the first man was disabled in some way, and that the +other was trying to lift him. While she looked, the engine-room bells +jangled and the wheels began to turn. The mate forgot her and swore out +of a full heart.</p> + +<p>She put her fingers in her ears to shut out the clamor of abusive +profanity; but the man on the bank paid no attention to the richly +emphasized command to come aboard. Instead, he ran swiftly to the +mooring-post, took a double turn of the trailing hawser around it and +stood by until the straining line snubbed the steamer's bow to the +shore. Then, deftly casting off again, he darted back to the disabled +man, hoisted him bodily to the high guard, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> clambered aboard +himself, all this while M'Grath was brushing the impeding crew aside to +get at him.</p> + +<p>Charlotte saw every move of the quick-witted salvage in the doing, and +wanted to cry out in sheer enthusiasm when it was done. Then, in the +light from the furnace doors, she saw the face of the chief actor: it +was the face of the man with the stubble beard.</p> + +<p>The night was summer warm, but she shrank back and shivered as if a cold +wind had breathed upon her. Why must he make it still harder for her by +posing as the defender of the wretched negro? She would look on no +longer; she would.... The harsh voice of the mate, dominating the noise +of the machinery and the churning of the paddle-wheels, drew her +irresistibly to the rail. She could not hear what M'Grath was saying, +but she could read hot wrath in his gestures, and in the way the men +fell back out of his reach. All but one: the stubble-bearded white man +was facing him fearlessly, and he appeared to be trying to explain.</p> + +<p>Griswold was trying to explain, but the bullying first officer would not +let him. It was a small matter: with the money gone, and the probability +that capture and arrest were deferred only from landing to landing, a +little abuse, more or less, counted as nothing. But he was grimly +determined to keep M'Grath from laying violent hands upon the negro who +had twisted his ankle in jumping from the uptilted landing-stage.</p> + +<p>"No; this is one time when you don't skin anybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> alive!" he retorted, +when a break in the stream of abuse gave him a chance. "You let the man +alone. He couldn't help it. Do you suppose he sprained an ankle +purposely to give you a chance to curse him out?"</p> + +<p>The mate's reply was a brutal kick at the crippled negro. Griswold came +closer.</p> + +<p>"Don't try that again!" he warned, angrily. "If you've got to take it +out on somebody, I'm your man."</p> + +<p>This was mutiny, and M'Grath's remedy for that distemper was ever +heroic. In a flash his big fist shot out and the crew looked to see its +lighter champion go backward into the river at the impact. But the blow +did not land. Griswold saw it coming and swerved the necessary +body-breadth. The result was a demonstration of a simple theorem in +dynamics. M'Grath reeled under the impetus of his own unresisted effort, +stumbled forward against the low edge-line bulwark, clawed wildly at the +fickle air and dropped overboard like a stone.</p> + +<p>At the splashing plunge Griswold saw, planned, and acted in the same +instant. The <i>Belle Julie</i> was forging ahead at full speed, and if the +mate did not drown at once, the projecting paddle-wheel would batter the +life out of him as he passed under it.</p> + +<p>Clearing the intervening obstacles in a hurdler's leap, Griswold raced +aft on the outer edge of the guards and jumped overboard in time to +grapple the drowning man when he was within a few feet of the churning +wheel. The struggle was short but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> fierce. Griswold got a strangling arm +around the big man's neck and strove to sink with him so that the wheel +might pass over them. He was only partly successful. The mate was +terror-crazed and fought blindly. There was no time for trick or +stratagem, and when the thunder of the wheel roared overhead, Griswold +felt the jar of a blow and the mate's struggles ceased abruptly. A +gasping moment later the worst was over and the rescuer had his head +out; was swimming gallantly in the wake of the steamer, supporting the +unconscious M'Grath and shouting lustily for help.</p> + +<p>The help came quickly. The alarm had been promptly given, and the night +pilot was a man for an emergency. Before the little-used yawl could be +lowered, the steamer had swept a wide circle in mid-stream and the +search-light picked up the castaways. From that to placing the <i>Belle +Julie</i> so that the two bits of human flotsam could be hauled in over the +bows was but a skilful hand's-turn of rudder-work, accomplished as +cleverly as if the great steamboat had been a power-driven launch to be +steered by a touch of the tiller.</p> + +<p>All this Charlotte saw. She was looking on when the two men were dragged +aboard, the big Irishman still unconscious, and the rescuer in the final +ditch of exhaustion—breathless, sodden, reeling with weariness.</p> + +<p>And afterward, when the <i>Belle Julie's</i> prow was once more turned to the +north, Miss Farnham had no thought of stopping at the clerk's office +when she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> flew back to her state-room with the letter to Mr. Galbraith +hidden in her bosom and clutched tightly as if she were afraid it might +cry out its accusing secret of its own accord.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + +<h3>QUICKSANDS</h3> + + +<p>On the morning following the rescue of the mate, Charlotte Farnham awoke +with the conviction that she had been miraculously saved from incurring +the penalties dealt out to those who rush blindly into the thick of +things without due thought and careful consideration.</p> + +<p>In the light of a new day it seemed almost incredible that, only a few +hours earlier, she could have been so rash as to assume that there was +no possibility of a mistake; that she had been on the verge of sending a +possibly innocent man to answer as he could for the sins of the guilty.</p> + +<p>Who could be sure? Could she go into court and swear that this man and +the man she had seen in the bank were one and the same? Yesterday she +had thought that she could; but to-day she was equally sure that she +could not.</p> + +<p>But the Puritan conscience was not to be entirely silenced. Reason sits +in a higher seat than that occupied by the senses, and reason argued +that a man who would forgive his enemy, and instantly risk his life in +proof of the forgiveness, could not be a desperate criminal. Conscience +pointed out the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> alternative. A little careful investigation would +remove the doubt—or confirm it. Somebody on the boat must know the +deck-hand, or know enough about him to establish his real identity.</p> + +<p>Naturally, Charlotte thought first of Captain Mayfield; and when +breakfast was over, and she had settled her aunt in the invalid's chair +under the shade of the after-awning, she went on her quest.</p> + +<p>The captain was on the port promenade, forward, and he was about to +light his after-breakfast cigar. But he threw the match away when Miss +Farnham came out and took the chair he placed for her.</p> + +<p>"Please smoke if you want to," she said, noting the clipped cigar; "I +don't mind it in the least."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said the master of the <i>Belle Julie</i>, shifting his chair to +leeward and finding another match. He had grown daughters of his own, +and Miss Farnham reminded him of the one who lived in St. Louis and took +her dead mother's place in a home which would otherwise have held no +welcome for a grizzled old river-sailor.</p> + +<p>For a time Miss Farnham seemed to have forgotten what she came to say, +and the ash grew longer on the captain's cigar. It was another +delectable day, and the <i>Belle Julie</i> was still churning the brown flood +in the majestic reaches of the lower river. Down on the fore-deck the +roustabouts were singing. It was some old-time plantation melody, and +Charlotte could not catch the words; but the blending harmony, rich in +the altogether inimitable timbre of the African song-voice, rose above<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +the throbbing of the engines and the splash of the paddles.</p> + +<p>"They are happy, those men?" said Charlotte, turning suddenly upon the +silent old riverman at her side.</p> + +<p>"The nigger 'rousties,' you mean?—oh, yes. I guess so."</p> + +<p>"But it is such a hard life," she protested. "I don't see how they can +sing."</p> + +<p>The captain smiled good-naturedly.</p> + +<p>"It is a pretty hard life," he admitted. "But they're in a class by +themselves. You couldn't hire a river nigger to do anything else. Then, +again, a man doesn't miss what he's never had. They get a plenty to eat, +and the soft side of a cargo pile makes a pretty good bed, if you've +never slept in a better one."</p> + +<p>Miss Farnham shook her head thoughtfully. "Isn't that putting them +terribly low in the scale of humanity? Surely there must be some among +them who are capable of better things." She was trying desperately hard +to lead up to the stubble-bearded man, and it was the most difficult +task she had ever set herself.</p> + +<p>"Not among the black boys, I'm afraid. Now and then a white man drifts +into a crew, but that's a different matter."</p> + +<p>"Better or worse?" she queried.</p> + +<p>"Worse, usually. It's a pretty poor stick of a white man that can't find +something better than 'rousting' on a steamboat."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>Here was her chance, and she took it courageously.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you one man in the <i>Belle Julie's</i> crew who has earned a better +recommendation than that, Captain Mayfield?"</p> + +<p>"You mean that sick hobo who went into the river after M'Grath last +night? I didn't know that story had got back to the ladies' cabin."</p> + +<p>"It hasn't. But I know it because I was looking on. I couldn't sleep, +and I had gone out to see them make a night landing. Why do you call him +'the sick hobo'?"</p> + +<p>The captain was paying strict attention now, looking at her curiously +from beneath the grizzled eyebrows. But he saw only the classic profile.</p> + +<p>"That's what he is—or at least, what he let on to be when he shipped +with us," he replied. Then: "You say you saw it: tell me what happened."</p> + +<p>"I am not sure that I quite understood the beginning of it," she said +doubtfully. "Two men, the white man and a negro, went ashore to untie +the boat. They both jumped from the stage while it was going up, and it +was the white man who untied the rope alone. After the boat began to +swing away from the bank, he saw that the other man was hurt and went to +help him. Mr. M'Grath was angry and he shouted at them to come aboard. +With the boat going away from the shore, they couldn't; so the white man +ran and tied the rope again. Am I getting it awfully mixed up?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said the captain. "What happened then?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The white man lifted the negro to the deck, untied the rope again, and +climbed on just as the boat was swinging away the second time. Mr. +M'Grath was furious. He fought his way to where the white man was +standing over the hurt negro and struck at him. The next thing I knew, +Mr. M'Grath was overboard and right down here in front of the +paddle-wheel, and the man he had tried to strike was jumping in after +him. I thought they would both be ground to death under the wheel."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?"</p> + +<p>"All but the rescue. The pilot turned the <i>Belle Julie</i> around and they +were picked up. Mr. M'Grath was unconscious, and the other man was too +weak to stand up."</p> + +<p>Captain Mayfield nodded. "He was sick when he came to us: consumption, +Mac said."</p> + +<p>Miss Farnham was a doctor's daughter, and she had seen many victims of +the white death.</p> + +<p>"I think that must have been a mistake," she ventured. "He doesn't look +at all like a tuberculosis patient."</p> + +<p>Again the captain was curious.</p> + +<p>"How could you tell, at that distance and in the night?" he asked +quizzically.</p> + +<p>Embarrassment quickly flung down a handful of obstacles in Charlotte's +path, but she picked her way among them.</p> + +<p>"I saw him yesterday morning quite close, and I looked at him +because—because I thought I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> seen him somewhere before. Do you know +anything about him, Captain Mayfield?—who he is, I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Not any more than I do about the rest of them. They're driftwood, +mostly, you understand. We pick them up and drop them, here and there +and everywhere. This fellow's name is Gavitt—John Wesley Gavitt—on the +clerk's book. Mac said he was a sick hobo, working his way to St. +Louis."</p> + +<p>"How long before the beginning of a voyage do you hire the crew?" asked +Charlotte, trying not to seem too pointedly interested.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they string along all through the loading for two or three days, +and from that right up to the last minute."</p> + +<p>It was discouraging, and she was on the point of giving up. Her one hope +now lay in the fixing of the exact time of the man Gavitt's enlistment +in the <i>Belle Julie's</i> crew, and there appeared to be only one way of +determining this.</p> + +<p>"Does anybody know—could anybody tell just when this particular man was +hired, Captain Mayfield?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Not unless Mac happens to remember. No, hold on; I recollect now; it +was the day we left New Orleans—day before yesterday, that was."</p> + +<p>"In the morning?"</p> + +<p>If the good-natured captain was beginning to wonder why his pretty +passenger was cross-examining him so closely, he did not betray it.</p> + +<p>"It was about noon; I believe. Two or three of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> the black boys had +skipped out at the last minute, as they always do, and we were +short-handed. Mac said the fellow didn't look as if he could stand much, +but he took him anyhow."</p> + +<p>Once more the slender thread of investigation lay broken in her hands. +The robbery had been committed at or very near eleven o'clock, and an +hour would have given the robber time enough to disguise himself and +reach the steamer. But since the captain did not seem altogether +positive as to the exact hour, she tried again.</p> + +<p>"Please try to remember exactly, Captain Mayfield," she pleaded. "I +<i>must</i> find out, if I can—for reasons which I can't explain to any one. +Was it just at noon?"</p> + +<p>Now this veteran master of packet boats was the last man in the world to +be heroically accurate when his sympathies were appealed to by a winsome +young woman in evident distress; and while he would cheerfully have +sworn that it was eleven o'clock or one o'clock when John Gavitt came +aboard, if he had known certainly which statement would relieve her, her +query left him no hint to steer by.</p> + +<p>So he said: "Oh, I say, 'about noon,' but it might have been an hour or +two before, or any time after, till we cleared. But we'll find out. +We'll have the fellow up here and put him on the witness stand. Or I'll +go below and dig into him for you myself, if you say so."</p> + +<p>"Not for the world!" she protested, aghast at the bare suggestion; and +for fear it might be repeated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> in some less evadable form, she made an +excuse of her duty and ran away to her aunt.</p> + +<p>Later in the day, when she had sought in vain for some other, this +suggestion of Captain Mayfield's came back. While there was the smallest +chance that she had been mistaken, she dared not send the letter to Mr. +Galbraith; yet it was clearly her duty to get at the truth of the +matter, if she could.</p> + +<p>But how? If Captain Mayfield could not remember the exact time of John +Gavitt's enrolment as a member of the <i>Belle Julie's</i> crew, it was more +than probable that no one else could; no one but the man himself. It was +at this point that the captain's suggestion returned to strike fire like +steel upon reluctant flint. Could she go to the length of questioning +Gavitt? If she should, would he tell her the truth? And if he should +tell the truth, would it make the distressing duty any easier? Not +easier, she concluded, but possibly less puzzling.</p> + +<p>Thus far the suggestion: but without the help of some third person, she +did not see how it could be carried out. She could neither go to him nor +summon him; and the alternative of taking the captain into her +confidence was rejected at once as being too hazardous. For the captain +might not scruple to take the matter into his own hands without +ceremony, sending the suspected man back to New Orleans to establish his +innocence—if he could.</p> + +<p>Charlotte worried over the wretched entanglement all day, and was so +distrait and absent-minded that her aunt remarked it, naming it malaria +and prescribing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> quinine. Whereat Charlotte dissembled and put on a mask +of cheerfulness, keeping it on until after the evening meal and her +aunt's early retiring. But when she was released, she was glad enough to +go out on the promenade just forward of the starboard paddle-box, where +there were no after-dinner loungers, to be alone with her problem and +free to plunge once more into its intricacies.</p> + +<p>It was possibly ten minutes later, while she stood leaning against a +stanchion and watching the lights of a distant town rise out of the +watery horizon ahead, that chance, the final arbiter in so many human +involvements, led her quickly into the valley of decision. She heard a +man's step on the steeply pitched stair leading down from the +hurricane-deck. Before she could turn away he was confronting her; the +man whose name on the <i>Belle Julie's</i> crew roster was John Wesley +Gavitt.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> + +<h3>THE ANARCHIST</h3> + + +<p>Griswold's appearance was less fortuitous than it seemed to be. As a +reward of merit for having saved the mate's life, he had been told off +to serve temporarily as man-of-all-work for the day pilot, who chanced +to be without a steersman. His watch in the pilot-house was over, and he +was on his way to the crew's quarters below when he stumbled upon Miss +Farnham. Mindful of his earlier slip, he passed her as if she had been +invisible. She let him go until her opportunity was all but lost; then, +plucking courage out of the heart of desperation, she spoke.</p> + +<p>"One moment, if you please; I—I want to ask you something," she +faltered; and he wheeled obediently and faced her.</p> + +<p>Followed a pause, inevitable, but none the less awkward for the one who +was responsible. Griswold felt, rather than saw, her embarrassment, and +was generous enough to try to help her.</p> + +<p>"I think I know what you wish to say: you are quite at liberty to say +it," he offered, when the pause had grown into an obstacle which she +seemed powerless to surmount.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you? I have been hoping you wouldn't," was the quick rejoinder. +Then: "Will you tell me at what time you joined the crew of the <i>Belle +Julie</i>?"</p> + +<p>The question did not surprise him, nor did he attempt to evade it.</p> + +<p>"Between twelve and one o'clock, the day before yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me where you were at eleven o'clock that day?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you ask me."</p> + +<p>"I do ask you."</p> + +<p>"I was in a certain business building in New Orleans, as near to you as +I am now. Is that sufficiently definite?"</p> + +<p>"It is. I thought perhaps—I had hoped—Oh, for goodness' sake, why did +you do it?" she burst out, no longer able to fence with the weapons of +indirectness.</p> + +<p>He answered her frankly.</p> + +<p>"It was the old story of one man's over-plenty and another man's need. +Have you ever known what it means to go hungry for sheer poverty's +sake?—but, of course, you haven't."</p> + +<p>"No," she admitted.</p> + +<p>"Well, I have; I was hungry that morning; very hungry. I know this +doesn't excuse the thing—to you. But perhaps it may help to explain +it."</p> + +<p>"I think I can understand—a little. But surely——"</p> + +<p>He stopped her with a quick little gesture.</p> + +<p>"I know what you are going to say: that I should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> have been willing to +work, or even to beg, rather than steal. I was willing to work; I was +not willing to beg. I know it is all wrong from your point of view; but +I should be sorry to have you think that I did what <i>I</i> believed to be +wrong."</p> + +<p>"Surely you must know it is wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, but I can't admit that. If I could, you would be relieved of +what is doubtless a very painful duty. I should surrender myself at +once."</p> + +<p>"But think of it; if you are right, every one else must be wrong!"</p> + +<p>"No; not quite every one. But that is a very large question, and we +needn't go into it. I confess that my method was unconventional; a +little more summary than that of the usurers and the strictly legal +robbers, but quite as defensible. For they rob the poor and the +helpless, while I merely dispossessed one rich corporation of a portion +of its exactions from the many."</p> + +<p>"Then you are not sorry? I saw you yesterday afternoon and hoped you +were."</p> + +<p>He laughed unpleasantly. "I was sorry, then, and I am now; for the same +reason. I have lost the money."</p> + +<p>"Lost it?" she gasped, "How?"</p> + +<p>"I had hidden it, and I suppose some one else has found it. It is all +right, so far as the ownership is concerned; but I am still self-centred +enough to be chagrined about it."</p> + +<p>"But that is nothing!" she protested, with sharp regret in her voice; +"now you can never return it!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I didn't intend to," he assured her, gravely. "I did have some notion +of redistributing it fairly among those who need it most; but that was +all."</p> + +<p>"But you must have returned it in the end. You could never have been +content to keep it."</p> + +<p>"Do you think so?" he rejoined. "I think I could have been quite content +to keep it. But that is past; it is gone, and I couldn't return it if I +wanted to."</p> + +<p>"No," she acquiesced; "and that makes it all the harder."</p> + +<p>"For you to do what you must do? But you mustn't think of that. I +shouldn't have made restitution in any event. Let me tell you what I +did. I had a weapon, as you have read. I tied it up with the money in a +handkerchief. There was always the chance of their catching me, and I +had made up my mind that my last free act would be to drop the bundle +into the river. So you see you need not hesitate on that score."</p> + +<p>"Then you know what it is that I must do?"</p> + +<p>"Assuredly. I knew it yesterday, when I saw that you had recognized me. +It was very merciful in you to reprieve me, even for a few hours; but +you will pardon me if I say it was wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Wrong!" she burst out. "Is it generous to say that to me? Are you so +indifferent yourself that you think every one else is indifferent, too?"</p> + +<p>He smiled under cover of the darkness, and the joy of finding that his +ideal was not going to be shattered was much greater than any thought of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> price he must pay to preserve it. When she paused, he had his +answer ready.</p> + +<p>"I know you are not indifferent; you couldn't be. But you must be true +to yourself, at whatever cost. Will you go to Captain Mayfield now?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated.</p> + +<p>"I thought of doing that, at first," she began, postponing to a more +convenient season the unnerving reflection that she was actually +discussing the ways and means of it with him. "It seemed to be the +simplest thing to do. But then I saw what would happen; that I should be +obliged——"</p> + +<p>Again he stopped her with a gesture.</p> + +<p>"I understand. We must guard against that at all hazards. You must not +be dragged into it, you know, even remotely."</p> + +<p>"How can you think of such things at such a time?" she queried.</p> + +<p>"I should be unworthy to stand here talking to you if I didn't think of +them. But since you can't go to Captain Mayfield, what will you do? What +had you thought of doing?"</p> + +<p>"I wrote a letter to—to Mr. Galbraith," she confessed.</p> + +<p>"And you have not sent it?"</p> + +<p>"No. If I had, I shouldn't have spoken to you."</p> + +<p>"To be sure. I suppose you signed the letter?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"That was a mistake. You must rewrite it, leaving out your name, and +send it. All you need to say is that the man who robbed the Bayou State<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +Security is escaping on the <i>Belle Julie</i>; that he is disguised as a +deck-hand, and that his name on the steamer's books is John Wesley +Gavitt. That will be amply sufficient."</p> + +<p>"But that isn't your name," she asserted.</p> + +<p>"No; but that doesn't matter. It is the name that will find me."</p> + +<p>She was silent for a moment. Then: "Why mustn't I sign it? They will pay +no attention to an anonymous letter. And, besides, it seems so—so +cowardly."</p> + +<p>"They will telegraph to every river landing ahead of us within an hour +after your letter reaches New Orleans; you needn't doubt that. And the +suppression of your name isn't cowardly; it is merely a justifiable bit +of self-protection. It is your duty to give the alarm; but when you have +done that, your responsibility ceases. There are plenty of people who +can identify me if I am taken back to New Orleans. You don't want to be +summoned as a witness, and you needn't be."</p> + +<p>She saw the direct, man-like wisdom of all this, and was quick to +appreciate his delicate tact in effacing the question of the reward +without even referring to it. But his stoicism was almost appalling.</p> + +<p>"It is very shocking!" she murmured; "only you don't seem to realize it +at all."</p> + +<p>"Don't I? You must remember that I have been arguing from your point of +view. My own is quite unchanged. It is your duty to do what you must +do;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> it is my affair to avert the consequences to myself, if I can +manage it without taking an unfair advantage of your frankness."</p> + +<p>"What will you do?"</p> + +<p>"It would be bad faith now for me to try to run away from the steamer, +as I meant to do. So far, you have bound me by your candor. But beyond +that I make no promises. My parole will be at an end when the officers +appear, and I shall do what I can to dodge, or to escape if I am taken. +Is that fair?"</p> + +<p>"It is more than fair: I can't understand."</p> + +<p>"What is it that you can't understand?"</p> + +<p>"How you can do this; how you can do such things as the one you did last +night, and still——"</p> + +<p>He finished the sentence for her.—"And still be a common robber of +banks, and the like. I fancy it is a bit puzzling—from your point of +view. Sometime, perhaps, we shall all understand things better than we +do now, but to that time, and beyond it, I shall be your grateful debtor +for what you have done to-night. May I go now?"</p> + +<p>She gave him leave, and when he was gone, she went to her state-room to +write as he had suggested. An hour later she gave the newly written +letter to the night clerk; and the thing was done.</p> + +<p>During the remainder of the slow up-river voyage to St. Louis, Charlotte +Farnham lived as one who has fired the fuse of a dynamite charge and is +momently braced for the shock of the explosion. Each morning she assured +herself that the strange man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> who could be a self-confessed felon one +moment and a chivalrous gentleman the next was still a member of the +<i>Belle Julie's</i> crew; but she became a coward of landings, not daring to +look on for fear she should see him arrested and taken away.</p> + +<p>And while the <i>Belle Julie</i> put landing after landing astern and the +voyage grew older, Griswold, too, began to feel the pangs of suspense. +Though he had no thought of breaking his promise, the dread of capture +and trial and punishment grew until it became a threatening cloud to +obscure all horizons. It was to no purpose that he called himself hard +names and strove to rise superior to the overshadowing threat. It was +there, and it would not be ignored. And when he faced it fairly a new +dread arose in his heart; the fear that his fear might end by making him +a criminal in fact—a savage to slay and die rather than be taken alive.</p> + +<p>In the ordinary course of things, Miss Farnham's letter should have +reached New Orleans in time to have procured Griswold's arrest at any +one of a score of landings south of Memphis. When the spires of the +Tennessee metropolis disappeared to the southward, he began to be afraid +that her resolution had failed, and to bewail his broken ideal.</p> + +<p>He had no means of knowing that she had given her letter to the night +clerk within the hour of their interview on the saloon-deck promenade; +nor did he, or any one else, know that it had lain unnoticed and +overlooked on the clerk's desk until the <i>Belle Julie</i> reached Cairo. +Such, however, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> the pregnant fact; and to this purely accidental +delay Griswold owed his first sight of the chief city of Missouri lying +dim and shadowy under its mantle of coal smoke.</p> + +<p>The <i>Belle Julie</i> made her landing in the early evening, and Charlotte +was busy up to the last moment getting her own and her aunt's belongings +ready for the transfer to the upper river steamer on which they were to +complete their journey to Minnesota. Hence, it was not until the <i>Belle +Julie</i> was edging her way up to the stone-paved levee that Charlotte +broke her self-imposed rule and slipped out upon the port promenade.</p> + +<p>The swing-stage was poised in the air ready to be lowered, and two of +the deck-hands were dropping from the shore end to trail the bow line up +the paved slope to the nearest mooring-ring. There was an electric +arc-light opposite the steamer's berth, and Charlotte shaded her eyes +with her hands to follow the motions of the two bent figures under the +dripping hawser.</p> + +<p>One of the men was wearing a cap, and there was a small bundle hanging +at his belt. She recognized him at once. At the mooring-ring he was the +one who stooped to make the line fast, and the other, a negro, stood +aside. At that moment the landing-stage fell, and in the confusion of +debarkation which promptly followed, the thrilling bit of by-play at the +mooring-ring passed unnoted by all save the silent watcher on the +saloon-deck.</p> + +<p>While the man in the cap was still on his knees,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> two men stole from the +shadow of the nearest freight pyramid and flung themselves upon him. He +fought fiercely for a moment, and though he was more than doubly +outweighted, rose to his feet, striking out viciously and dragging his +assailants up with him. In the struggle the bundle dropped from his +belt, and Charlotte saw him kick it aside. The waiting negro caught it +deftly and vanished among the freight pyramids; whereupon one of the +attacking pair wrenched himself out of the three-man scuffle and darted +away in pursuit.</p> + +<p>This left but a single antagonist for the fugitive, and Charlotte's +sympathies deserted her convictions for the moment. But while she was +biting her lip to keep from crying out, the fugitive stepped back and +held out his hands; and she saw the gleam of polished metal reflecting +the glare of the arc-light when the officer snapped the handcuffs upon +his wrists.</p> + +<p>It was with a distinct sense of culpability oppressing her that she went +back to her aunt, and she was careful not to let the invalid see her +face. Fortunately, there was a thing to be done, and the transfer to the +other steamer came opportunely to help her to re-establish the balance +of things distorted.</p> + +<p>She was sorry, but, after all, the man had only himself to blame. None +the less, the wish that some one else might have been his betrayer was +promising to grow later into remorseful and lasting regret when, with +her aunt, she left the <i>Belle Julie</i>, and walked up the levee to go +aboard the <i>Star of the North</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + +<h3>MOSES ICHTHYOPHAGUS</h3> + + +<p>After suffering all the pangs of those who lose between the touch and +the clutch, Griswold had found the red-handkerchief bundle precisely +where it had been hidden; namely, buried safely in the deck-load of +sacked coffee on the engine-room guard.</p> + +<p>It came to light in the final half-hour of the voyage, when he and his +mates were transferring the coffee to the main-deck, forward. It had not +been disturbed; and what had happened was obvious enough, after the +fact. After its hiding, arm's-length deep, in a cranny between the +sacks, some sudden jar of the boat had slightly shifted the cargo, +closing one cranny and opening another.</p> + +<p>With the money once more in his possession he had a swift return of the +emotions which had thrilled him when he found himself standing on the +sidewalk in front of the Bayou State Security with the block of +bank-notes under his arm. Once more he was on fair fighting terms with +the world, and the star of hope, which had gone out like a candle in a +gust of wind at the discovery of his loss, swung high in the firmament, +shining all the more brightly for its long occultation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>As to the battle for the keeping which was probably awaiting him at the +St. Louis landing, the prospect of coming to blows, man-fashion, with +the enemy, was not wholly unwelcome. With all of his incompletenesses +this young rebel of life was no coward. If the New Orleans thief-takers +were waiting for him in the shadows of the great city's landing-place, +so be it; he would try to give them their money's worth: and an eager +impatience to be at it got into his blood.</p> + +<p>The few necessary preliminaries were arranged while the <i>Belle Julie</i> +was backing and filling for the landing. Since to be taken with the +money in his possession was to give the enemy the chance of winning at +one stroke both the victory and the spoils, he made a confederate of the +negro whose part he had taken in the quarrel with M'Grath. The man was +grateful and loyal according to his gifts; and Griswold's need was too +pressing to stick at any trifle of unintelligence.</p> + +<p>"Mose, you'll go ashore with me on the spring line," he said, when he +had found his man at the heel of the landing-stage.</p> + +<p>"Yes, suh, Mars' Gravitt; dat's me, sholy."</p> + +<p>"All right. You see this bundle. If anybody tackles me while we're +making fast, I'm going to drop it, and you must get it and run away. Do +you understand?"</p> + +<p>The negro eyed the bundle suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"Ain't no dinnymite, 'r nothin' er that sawt in hit, is dey, Cap'm?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Whut-all mus' I do when I's done tuk out wid hit?"</p> + +<p>"Get away, first; then keep out of sight and hang around the levee for +an hour or two. If I don't turn up before you get tired, pitch the thing +into the river and go about your business. How much money does the +captain owe you?"</p> + +<p>"Cap'm Mayfiel'? Shuh! he don't owe me nothin'. I done draw de las' +picayune dat was comin' to me yistiday—an' dat yaller nigger over +yonder got it in de crap-game, same as turrers."</p> + +<p>Griswold put a twenty-dollar bill into the black palm, and when the crap +victim made out the figure of it by the glow of the furnace fires, his +eyes bulged. "Gorra-mighty!" he gasped; and would have given it back.</p> + +<p>"No, keep it; it's yours. Do exactly as I have told you, and if I'm able +to keep my date with you, I'll double it. But if I don't show up, +remember—the bundle goes into the river just as it is. If you open it, +it'll conjure you worse than any Obi-man you ever heard of."</p> + +<p>"No, <i>suh</i>! I ain't gwine open hit, Cap'm—not if dey's cunjah in hit; +no, suh!"</p> + +<p>"Well, there is—the worst kind of conjure this old world has ever +known. But it won't hurt you if you don't meddle with it. Keep your wits +about you and be ready to grab it and run. Here we go."</p> + +<p>The pilot had found his wharfage and was edging the <i>Belle Julie</i> up to +it. The bow men paid out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> slack, and Griswold and the black, dropping +from the swinging stage, trailed the end of the wet hawser up to the +nearest mooring-ring. Though haste in making fast is the spring-line +man's first duty, Griswold took a fraction of a second to look around +him. The mooring-ring lay fair in the mock noonday of electric light, +and there was no cover near it save a tarpaulined pyramid of sugar +barrels. Up the levee slope the way was open to the one-sided +river-fronting street; and beyond the tarpaulin-covered sugar were more +freight pyramids, with shadowy alleys between them.</p> + +<p>Satisfied with what he saw, Griswold bade the negro keep watch and knelt +to knot the hawser in the ring. The line was water-soaked and stiff, and +in the momentary struggle with it his caution relaxed its eyehold on the +pyramid of sugar barrels. The lapse was hardly more than a glance aside, +but it sufficed. While the negro sentinel was stammering, "L-l-lookout, +Mars' Cap'm!" the trap was sprung.</p> + +<p>In deference to the up-coming passengers from the <i>Belle Julie</i>, the two +man-catchers tried to do their job quietly. But Griswold would not have +it so, and he was up and had twisted himself free when a blow from a +clubbed pistol drove him back to his knees. Half stunned by the +clubbing, he still made shift to spring afoot again, to drop his +handkerchief bundle and kick it aside, and to close with his assailants +while the negro was snatching up the treasure and darting away among the +freight pyramids.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> After that he had but one thought; to keep the two +plain-clothes men busy until the negro had made his escape. Even this +proved to be a forlorn hope, since the smaller of the two instantly +broke away to give chase, while the other stepped back, spun his weapon +in air, and levelled it.</p> + +<p>Rage-blinded as he was, Griswold knew that the levelled pistol meant +surrender or death. In the fine battle-frenzy of the moment he was on +the verge of accepting the alternative. Life and the love of it were +merged in a fierce desire to rush Berserk-mad upon the weapon and the +man behind it, and his muscles were hardening for the spring when he +chanced to look past the levelled weapon to the <i>Belle Julie</i>; to the +saloon-deck guard where a solitary, gray-coated figure stood clinging to +a stanchion and looking on with what agonies of soul none might know. +Like a flash of revealing light it came to him that the death which +would be the lesser of two evils for him would brim a life-long cup of +trembling for the woman whose duty it had been to betray him, and he +thrust out his wrists for the manacles.</p> + +<p>Quite naturally, the upflash of self-abnegation gave birth to renewed +hope; and when his captor had handcuffed him and was walking him toward +a closed carriage drawn up before the nearest saloon in the +river-fronting street, he ventured to ask what he was wanted for.</p> + +<p>"You'll find that out soon enough," was the curt reply, and nothing more +was said until the carriage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> was reached and the door had been jerked +open. "Get in!" commanded the majesty of the law, and when the door was +slammed upon the captive, the plain-clothes man turned to the driver, a +little wizened Irishman with a face like a shrivelled winter apple. +"What time does that New Orleans fast train pull out?"</p> + +<p>Griswold heard the reply: "Sivin-forty-five, sorr," and something in the +thin, piping voice gave him fresh courage. Through the open window of +the carriage he saw his captor glance at his watch and begin an +impatient sentry-beat up and down under the electric transparency +advertising the particular brand of whiskey specialized by the saloon. +He was evidently waiting for his colleague to bring in the negro, and +time pressed.</p> + +<p>While he looked, Griswold was conscious of a curious change creeping +into heart and brain. From typifying himself as an escaping criminal the +psychological objective was slowly but surely becoming the subjective. +He <i>was</i> a criminal. The conclusion brought no self-accusation, no +prickings of conscience. On the contrary, it swept the ground clear of +all the ethical obstructions, leaving only a vast subtlety and +furtiveness, the sly ferocity of the trapped animal.</p> + +<p>Through half of the sentry-beat the big man's back was turned: +Griswold's eyes measured the distance, and the new subtlety weighed the +chances of a cautious opening of the carriage door, a tiger spring to +the pavement, and a battering out of the man's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> brains with the +handcuffs. There were few passers: it might be done.</p> + +<p>It was not because it was too cold-blooded that he put the suggestion +aside. It was rather because the man-catcher himself suggested another +expedient. The spring evening was raw and chilly, and the open doors of +the saloon volleyed light and warmth and a beckoning invitation. +Griswold's gift, prostituted to the service of the changed point of +view, bade him read in the red face, the loose lip, and the bibulous +eyes the temptation that was gripping the plain-clothes man. "Wait," +whispered the colorless inner voice; "wait, and be ready when he goes in +to get the drink he has promised himself he will never again be weak +enough to take while he is on duty. It won't be long."</p> + +<p>Griswold waited. By a careful contortion of the manacled hands, which +seemed suddenly to have become endowed with the crafty deftness of the +hands of a pickpocket, he found his working capital in a pocket of the +short-sleeved coat. It had been diminished only by the hundred dollars +put into John Gavitt's hands, and the twenty he had given the negro. He +wished he might have had a glimpse of the little Irish cabman's face. +Since he had not, he made two hundred dollars of the money into a +compact roll and put the remainder back into the inner pocket.</p> + +<p>It was only a minute or two after this that the red-faced man's +impatience blossomed into the thirst that will not be denied, and he +went into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> saloon to get a drink, first putting the cabman on guard.</p> + +<p>"Get down here and keep an eye on this dicky-bird," he ordered. "Slug +him if he tries to make a break."</p> + +<p>But the cabman hung back.</p> + +<p>"I'm no fightin' man, sorr; an', besides, I don't dare lave me harrses," +he objected. But the officer broke in angrily.</p> + +<p>"What the devil are you afraid of? He's got the clamps on, and couldn't +hurt you if he wanted to. Come down here!"</p> + +<p>The little Irishman clambered down from his box reluctantly, with the +reins looped over his arm. When he peered in at the open window of the +carriage the big man had passed beyond the swinging screens of the +saloon entrance and Griswold seized his opportunity quickly.</p> + +<p>"What's your job worth, my man?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>The cabman snatched a swift glance over his shoulder before he ventured +to answer.</p> + +<p>"Don't yez be timptin' a poor man wid a wife an' sivin childer hangin' +to um—don't yez do it, sorr!"</p> + +<p>Griswold, the brother-keeping, would have thought twice before opening +any door of temptation for a brother man. But the new Griswold had no +compunctions.</p> + +<p>"It's two hundred dollars to you if you can get me away from here before +that red-faced drunkard comes back. Have a runaway—anything! Here's the +money!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>For a single timorous instant the cabman hesitated. Then he took the +roll of money and crammed it into his pocket without looking at it. +Before Griswold could brace himself there was a quick <i>whish</i> of the +whip, a piping cry from the driver, and the horses sprang away at a +reckless gallop, with the little Irishman hanging to the reins and +shouting feebly like a faint-hearted Automedon.</p> + +<p>Griswold caught a passing glimpse of the red-faced man wiping his lips +in the doorway of the saloon as the carriage bounded forward; and when +the critical instant came, he was careful to fall out on the riverward +side of the vehicle. It was a desperate expedient, since he could not +wait to choose the favorable moment, and the handcuffs made him +practically helpless. Chance saved the clumsy escape from resulting in a +speedy recapture. When he tumbled out of the lurching carriage he was +hurled violently against something that figured as a wall of solid +masonry and was half stunned by the concussion. None the less, he had +wit enough to lie motionless in the shadow of the wall, and the hue and +cry, augmented by this time to a yelling mob, swept past without +discovering him.</p> + +<p>When it was safe to do so, he sat up and felt for broken bones. There +were none; and he looked about him. The wall of masonry resolved itself +into a cargo of brick piled on the levee side of the street, and obeying +the primary impulse of a fugitive, he quickly put the sheltering bulk of +it between himself and the lighted thoroughfare.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>The next step had to be resolutely thought out. How was he to get rid of +the handcuffs? Any policeman would have a key, and there were doubtless +plenty of locksmiths in St. Louis. But both of these sources of +assistance were out of the question. Whom, then? The answer came in one +word—M'Grath. On a day when the up-river voyage was no more than fairly +begun, one of the negroes in the crew had procured a bottle of bad +whiskey. To pacify him the mate had put him in irons, using two pairs of +handcuffs for the purpose. Therefore, M'Grath must have a key.</p> + +<p>But would M'Grath do it? That remained to be seen; and since hesitation +was no part of Griswold's equipment, he covered the fetters as well as +he could with a scrap of bagging, and walked boldly down the levee and +aboard the <i>Belle Julie</i>, falling into line with the returning file of +roustabouts.</p> + +<p>The mate was at the heel of the foot-plank, and he saw at once what the +scrap of sacking was meant to hide.</p> + +<p>"Hello, there, Gavitt!" he called, not less gruffly than of yore, but +without the customary imprecation; "What are ye doing with thim things +on?"</p> + +<p>Griswold told a straight story, concealing nothing: not even the +detective's refusal to tell him what he was arrested for.</p> + +<p>M'Grath was smiling grimly when the tale was finished. "And did he let +ye come back to collect yer day-pay, then?" he asked, ironically.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hardly. He shoved me into a cab and then went into a saloon to get a +drink. While he was gone, the horses ran away and I got out," said +Griswold, still adhering to the exact facts.</p> + +<p>"Ye'd ought to find that cabby and buy him a seegyar," was the mate's +comment. "So ye legged it, did ye?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; when I got a show. But I can't get these things off."</p> + +<p>This time M'Grath's smile was a grin.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet ye can't. They ain't made f'r to come off. Never mind; peg +along afther me. You did be doing me a good turn wan black night, and +I'm not forgetting it."</p> + +<p>He led the way up to his quarters in the texas, and telling Griswold to +wait, went down on his knees to rummage in the locker beneath the berth.</p> + +<p>"I've got a couple o' pair av thim things in here, somewhere, and maybe +the key to 'em will fit yours," he went on, adding: "What's become av +Mose?"</p> + +<p>Again Griswold told the exact truth.</p> + +<p>"The last I saw of him he was making a run for it up the levee, with one +of the plain-clothes men chasing him."</p> + +<p>M'Grath found his handcuffs and tried the key in those upon Griswold's +wrists. It fitted.</p> + +<p>"Now ye're fut- and hand-loose, I'll say to ye what I wouldn't say to a +cripple. If ye've been telling me the truth, 'tis only the half av it. +What have ye been doing, Gavitt?"</p> + +<p>Griswold smiled. "Toting cargo on the <i>Belle Julie</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> since you've known +me. You'd swear to that, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"But before that?"</p> + +<p>"Loafing around New Orleans for a month or two."</p> + +<p>The big mate pushed him to a seat on the after berth and sat down +opposite.</p> + +<p>"Because ye fished me out o' the river whin ye had good cause to lave me +be, I'll tell ye a thing or two for the good av yer soul. Thing number +wan is that ye're not Gavitt; ye're no more like him than I am. Let that +go, an' come to thing number two; ye've been up to some deviltry. How do +I know? Because, at the last landing below this a little man comes +aboard an' spots you. Is that all? It is not. Whin the <i>Belle Julie</i> +swings in, he's the first man off, making a clane jump av a good tin +feet from the engine-room guards. I saw 'im."</p> + +<p>Griswold nodded and said, "I was wondering how they came to place me so +easily. This fellow knew I would be one of the two to carry out the +spring line?"</p> + +<p>"He did, f'r I told him."</p> + +<p>"Meaning to get me pulled?"</p> + +<p>"Meaning nothing but wanting to be rid av the bothering little man. He +said he was a friend av yours, and didn't care to be speaking to ye +while ye was mixing with the naygurs. But that's all over and gone. +What'll ye be doing next?"</p> + +<p>Griswold took a leaf out of the past. Safety in a former peril had grown +out of a breakfast deliberately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> eaten in a café next door to the Bayou +State Security.</p> + +<p>"What would I do but finish my job on the <i>Julie</i>?" he said, pushing the +theory to its logical conclusion.</p> + +<p>The mate shook his head. "Ye needn't do that; the cops might be coming +down here and running you in again. How much pay have ye drawn?"</p> + +<p>"Not any."</p> + +<p>M'Grath took a greasy wallet from his pocket and counted out a +deck-hand's wages for the trip.</p> + +<p>"Take this, and I'll be getting it back from the clerk. It might not be +good f'r ye to show up at the office. Where's yer hat?"</p> + +<p>"It was lost in the shuffle out yonder at the mooring-ring."</p> + +<p>The mate found an old one of his own, together with a long-tailed coat, +much the worse for wear.</p> + +<p>"Do you be taking these. They'll not be so likely to pick you up before +ye can get up-town if ye look a little less like a hobo."</p> + +<p>Griswold suffered a sudden return to the meliorating humanities.</p> + +<p>"I've been calling you all the hard names I could lay tongue to, +M'Grath, and there have been times when I would have given the price of +a good farm for the privilege of standing up to you on a bit of green +grass with nobody looking on. I take it all back. You say you haven't +forgotten: neither will I forget, and maybe my turn will come again, +some day."</p> + +<p>"Go along with you," growled the rough-tongued<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> Irishman, whose very +kindness had a tang of brutality in it. "If you're coming across the +naygur, Mose, anywhere, sind him back and tell him I'll see that he gets +real money f'r helping us unload. Off with ye, now, whilst they're +catching up with yer runaway cab."</p> + +<p>Griswold went leisurely, as befitted his theory, and upon reaching the +levee, turned aside among the freight pyramids in search of his +confederate. Now that there was time to recall the facts he feared that +the negro had been taken. He had secured but a few yards' start in the +race, and his pursuer was a white man, able to back speed with +intelligence. Griswold had a sickening fit of despair when he +contemplated the possibility of failure with the goal almost in sight; +and the reaction, when he stumbled upon the negro skulking in the +shadows of a lumber cargo, was sharp enough to make him faint and dizzy.</p> + +<p>The negro did not recognize him at first and was about to run away when +Griswold shook off the benumbing weakness and called out.</p> + +<p>"T'ank de good Lawd! is dat you-all, Cap'm Gravitt? I's dat shuck up I +couldn' recconize my ol' mammy! Tek dishyer cunjah-bag o' yourn 'fo' I +gwine drap hit. Hit's des been <i>bu'nin'</i> my han's ev' sense I done tuk +out wid it!"</p> + +<p>Griswold took the handkerchief bundle, and the mere touch of it put new +life into him.</p> + +<p>"Where is the fellow who was chasing you, Mose?" he asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I's nev' gwine tell you dat; no, suh. Las' time I seed him, he's des +t'arin' off strips up de levee after turrer fellah."</p> + +<p>"What other fellow?"</p> + +<p>The negro laughed and did a double shuffle at the mere recollection of +it.</p> + +<p>"Hi-yah! Turrer fellah is de fellah what done tuk my job. Hit was des +dis-a-way: when I t'ink dat white man gwine catch me, sho<i>ly</i>, I des +drap down in de darkes' cawneh I kin fin'; dat's what I done, yas, suh. +He des keep on agoin', <i>spat, spat, spat</i>, an' when he come out front de +<i>Gineral Jackson</i> over yondeh, one dem boys what's wukkin' on her, <i>he</i> +tuk out, an' dat white man des tu'n hisself loose an' mek his laigs go +lak he gwine shek 'um plum off; yas, sah!"</p> + +<p>Griswold suffered another lapse into the humanities when he saw the list +of participants in his act growing steadily with each fresh +complication, and he said, "I'm sorry for that, Mose."</p> + +<p>"Nev' you min' 'bout dat, Cap'm. Dat boy he been doin' somepin to mek +him touchous, 'less'n he nev' tuk out dat-a-way, no, suh!"</p> + +<p>"Maybe so. Well, we can't help it now. Here is the other twenty I +promised you."</p> + +<p>"T'ank you, suh; t'ank you kin'ly Cap'm. You-all's des de whites' white +man ev' I knowned. You sholy is."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with yourself, now?" Griswold inquired.</p> + +<p>"Who, me? I's gwine up yondeh to dat resteraw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> an' git me de bigges' +mess o' fried fish I kin hol'—dat's me; yas, suh."</p> + +<p>"M'Grath says he'll pay you levee wages if you'll come back to the boat +and help get the cargo out of her."</p> + +<p>"Reckon I ain't gwine back to de <i>Julie</i>: no, suh. Dat'd be gittin' rich +too fas' for dis niggeh. Good-night, Cap'm Gravitt; an' t'ank you +kin'ly, suh."</p> + +<p>Griswold went his way musing upon the little object-lesson afforded by +the negro's determination. Here was a fellow man who was one of the +feeblest of the under dogs in the great social fight; and with money +enough in hand to give him at least a breathing interval, his highest +ambition was a mess of fried fish.</p> + +<p>The object-lesson was suggestive, if not specially encouraging, and +Griswold made a mental note of it for further study when the question of +present safety should be more satisfactorily answered.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> + +<h3>GRISWOLD EMERGENT</h3> + + +<p>Half an hour or such a matter after the hue-and-cry runaway from the +curb in front of the saloon two doors above, Mr. Abram Sonneschein, +dealer in second-hand clothing and sweat-shop bargains, saw a possible +customer drifting across the street, and made ready the grappling hooks +of commercial enterprise.</p> + +<p>The drifter was apparently a passenger from some lately arrived +steamboat; but even to the trained eye of so acute an observer as Mr. +Sonneschein he presented difficulties in the way of classification. Only +temporarily, however. The long-tailed coat and the wide-brimmed, soft +felt hat were the insignia of the down-river, back-country planter, and +the merchant drew his conclusions accordingly.</p> + +<p>"My, my! Rachel," he remarked to his helpmate behind the counter. "See +dis chay from de backvoods across der street coming! Maype ve could sell +him some odder t'ings to go vit dot coat, ain'd it? Come right in, +<i>mein</i> frient; dis is der blace you vas looking for," this last to the +drifter, with a detaining finger hooked persuasively into a buttonhole +of the long-tailed coat.</p> + +<p>So much for the grappling. But the possible customer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> was not to be +landed so easily. Twice and yet once again he broke away from the +detaining finger; and when at last he finally allowed himself to be +drawn into the garish, ill-smelling little shop, he proved to be +discouragingly indifferent and hard to please in the matter of prices, +hanging back and taking refuge in countrified reticence when Mr. +Sonneschein's eloquence grew pathetically pressing.</p> + +<p>"I did think maybe I'd buy me a suit of clothes," he admitted, finally, +drawling the words to make his speech fit the countrified rôle, "but +there isn't any hurry. I reckon I'll wait a spell and look around and +see what kind of fashions they're wearing now."</p> + +<p>This was a tacit acknowledgment that he had money to spend, and the +eager merchant redoubled his efforts. His perseverance was rewarded, at +length, and when the ship of bargain and sale was bowling merrily along +before a fair breeze of suggestion, Mr. Sonneschein interlarded his +solicitations with an account of the recent miscarriage of justice in +front of the near-at-hand saloon.</p> + +<p>The customer listened with apparent incuriosity, as one whom these +doings in the city world touched but remotely; but the two or three +questions he asked were nicely calculated to bring out the more +important facts. The detectives had cautiously kept their own counsel as +to the details of their quest. Mr. Sonneschein had gossiped with the +policeman on the beat, and the policeman had talked with the red-faced +man who had come alone in the cab, and had taken an unofficial drink +with the roundsman before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> going down to the steamboat landing. He and +his "partner" were from New Orleans, and they were after a man who was +wanted for big money: that was all he would tell the roundsman.</p> + +<p>"I suppose they've caught him again long before this," said the hesitant +customer, trying on a coat which might have been modelled upon a man +twice his size, and surveying himself in the shop looking-glass while +Mr. Sonneschein lovingly smoothed the lapels into place and gathered a +generous handful of the surplus material at the back.</p> + +<p>"I don't know if dey have—ain'd dot der elegantist fit in der vorld, +now. See, Rachel; ain'd dot schplendit?"</p> + +<p>"They didn't happen to mention the fellow's name, did they?" asked the +prospective purchaser.</p> + +<p>"Not much dey didn't! Dem dedectifs iss too schmart for dot. Dey don't +give it avay when somepody else might got der rewards. How you like dot +schplendit coat, now?"</p> + +<p>"Seems tolerable big, doesn't it?" said the customer, whose speech still +fitted his part to the final drawl. "Suppose we try something else. So +there is a reward, is there?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Sonneschein took the reward for granted and expressed a devout wish +that he might be able to finger it. Whereupon the customer said he +wished <i>he</i> might; and here the topic died a natural death and the +business of buying and selling went on without further interruption.</p> + +<p>There was little suggestion of the tramp roustabout,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> and still less, +perhaps, of the gentleman, about the person who presently emerged from +the Sonneschein emporium. Nevertheless, he appeared to be well satisfied +with his acquisitions, bearing himself as a purchaser who has by no +means had the worse in the bargaining. At the first street corner he +inquired his way of a policeman and was directed cityward. A square +farther on he selected a barber's shop of cleanly promise, went in, +tossed his newly acquired hand-bag to the porter, and took the first +vacant chair.</p> + +<p>"A hair-cut, a clean shave—not too close, and a bath afterward," was +his laconic order; and a modest tip facilitated things and provided the +little luxuries.</p> + +<p>An hour later no one who had known him bearded and unkempt would have +recognized the clean-shaven, athletic-looking young man who ran down the +steps of the barber's shop and went swinging along on his way up-town. +But the transformation was still incomplete. Reaching the retail +district, he strolled purposefully up one street and down another, +passing many brilliantly lighted shops until he found one exactly to his +liking. A courteous salesman caught him up at the door, and led the way +to the designated departments.</p> + +<p>By this time Mr. Sonneschein's hesitant and countrified customer had +undergone a complete metamorphosis. No longer reluctant and hard to +please, he passed rapidly from counter to counter, making his selections +with man-like celerity and certainty and bargaining not at all. When he +was quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> through, there was enough to furnish a generous travelling +wardrobe; a head-to-foot change of garmentings with a surplus to fill +two lordly suit-cases; so he bought the suit-cases also, and had them +taken with his other purchases, to the dressing-room.</p> + +<p>Here, in quiet and great comfort, he made his second change of clothing, +first carefully removing from each garment all the little tags and +trademarks which declared it St. Louis-bought. These tags, together with +the Gavitt and the Sonneschein costumes, were crowded into the +Sonneschein hand-bag, with the soiled red handkerchief to keep them +company; and he was carrying this hand-bag when he reappeared to the +waiting salesman.</p> + +<p>"I see you have steam heat," he remarked. "Is your boiler-room +accessible?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; it's in the basement," was the reply, and the courteous clerk +wondered if his liberal customer were thinking of adding the heating +plant to his purchases.</p> + +<p>Griswold saw the wonder and smiled. "No; I don't want to buy it," he +explained, with the exact touch of familiarity which bridges all chasms. +"But I'm just up from the coast, where they have a good bit of fever the +year round, and it's as well to be on the safe side. May I trouble you +to show me the way?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said the salesman, wondering no more; and when he had led +the way to the boiler-room, and had seen his customer thrust the +hand-bag well back among the coals in the furnace, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> thought it a +worthy precaution and one which, if generally practiced, would +considerably accelerate the clothing trade.</p> + +<p>All traces of the deck-hand Gavitt, and of the Sonneschein +planter-customer having been thus obliterated, there remained only the +paying of his bill and the summoning of a cab. Oddly enough, the cab, +when it came, proved to be a four-wheeler driven by a little, +wizen-faced man whose thin, high-pitched voice was singularly familiar.</p> + +<p>"The Hotel Chouteau?—yis, sorr. Will you plaze hand me thim grips? I +can't lave me harrses."</p> + +<p>The driver's excuse instantly tied the knot of recognition, and the man +who had just cremated his former identities swore softly.</p> + +<p>"Beg your pardon, sorr; was ye spakin' to me?"</p> + +<p>"No; I was merely remarking that the world isn't as big as it might be."</p> + +<p>"Faith, then, it's full big enough for a man wid a wife and sivin +childer hangin' to um. Get in, sorr, and I'll have you at the Chouteau +in t'ree shakes av a dead lamb's tail."</p> + +<p>The little cabman was better than his word, but on the short drive to +the hotel he found time to work out a small problem, not entirely to his +satisfaction, but to at least a partial conclusion.</p> + +<p>"'Tis the divil's own self he is, and there's nothing left av him but +thim eyes and that scar on his forrud, and his manner of spakin'. But +thim I'd swear to if I'd live to be as old as Father M'Guinness—rest +his sowl."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> + +<h3>PHILISTIA</h3> + + +<p>All things considered, it was the Griswold of the college-graduate +days—the days of the slender patrimony which had capitalized the +literary beginning—who presented himself at the counter of the Hotel +Chouteau at half-past nine o'clock on the evening of the <i>Belle Julie's</i> +arrival at St. Louis, wrote his name in the guest-book, and permitted an +attentive bell-boy to relieve him of his two suit-cases.</p> + +<p>The clerk, a rotund little man with a promising bald spot and a +permanent smile, had appraised his latest guest in the moment of +book-signing, and the result was a small triumph for the Olive Street +furnishing house. Next to the genuinely tailor-made stands the quality +of verisimilitude; and the keynote of the clerk's greeting was +respectful affability.</p> + +<p>"Glad to have you with us, Mr. Griswold. Would you like a room, or a +suite?"</p> + +<p>Griswold was sufficiently human to roll the long-submerged courtesy +prefix as a sweet morsel under his tongue. With a day to spare he might +have clinched the clerk's respect by taking a suite; the more luxurious, +the better. But St. Louis, with at least two men in it who would sweep +the corners in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> their search for him, was only a place to put behind +him. So he said: "Neither; if I have time to get my supper and catch a +train. Have you a railway guide?"</p> + +<p>"There is one in the writing-room. But possibly I can tell you what you +wish to know. Which way are you going?"</p> + +<p>Without stopping to think of the critical happenings which had +intervened since the forming of the impulsive resolution fixing his +destination, Griswold named the chosen field for the hazard of fresh +fortunes, and its direction.</p> + +<p>"North; to a town in Minnesota called Wahaska. Do you happen to know the +place?"</p> + +<p>"I know it very well, indeed; southern Minnesota is my old +stamping-ground. Are you acquainted in Wahaska?—but I know you are not, +or you wouldn't pronounce it 'Wayhaska'."</p> + +<p>"You are quite right; I know next to nothing about the town. But I have +been given the impression that it is a quiet little place out of the +beaten track, where a man might spend a summer without having to share +it with a lot of other city runaways of his kind."</p> + +<p>The clerk smiled and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"You might have done that a few years ago, but there's a fine lake, you +know, and some New Orleans people have built a resort house. I +understand it does a pretty fair business in the season."</p> + +<p>Having assured himself that the New Orleans leaf in his book of +experience was safely turned and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> securely pasted down, Griswold was +nettled to find that the mere mention of the name sent creeping little +chills of apprehension trickling up and down his spine. But innate +stubbornness scoffed at the warning; derided and craved further details.</p> + +<p>"How large a place is it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, four or five thousand, I should say; possibly more: big enough and +busy enough so that a hundred-room resort house doesn't make it a +souvenir town. It's a nice little city; modern, progressive, and +business-like; trolleys, electric lights, and some manufacturing. Good +people, too. <i>Front!</i> Check the gentleman's grips and show him the café. +I'm sorry we can't give you dinner, but the dining-room closes at nine."</p> + +<p>"Plenty of time, is there?" Griswold asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; didn't I tell you? Your train leaves the Terminal at +eleven-thirty; but you can get into the sleeper any time after eight +o'clock."</p> + +<p>The guest had crossed the lobby to the café, and the clerk was still +dallying with the memories stirred up by the mention of his boyhood +home, when a little man with weak eyes and a face that out-caricatured +all the caricatures of the Irish, sidled up to the registry desk. The +round-bodied clerk knew him and spoke in terms of accommodation.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Patsy?"</p> + +<p>"The young gentleman ye was spakin' to: is he gone?"</p> + +<p>"He is in the café, getting his supper. What did you want of him?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<p>The weak-eyed little man was running a slow finger down the list of +names on the guest-book, blinking as if the writing or the glare of the +lights on the page dazzled him.</p> + +<p>"I drove him, and he did be overpaying me, I think. What was ye saying +his name would be?"</p> + +<p>"It's right there, under your finger: Kenneth Griswold, New York."</p> + +<p>"Um. And I wondher, now, where does he be living, whin he's at home?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; New York, I suppose, since he registers from there."</p> + +<p>"And does he be staying here f'r awhile?"</p> + +<p>"No; he is on his way to Minnesota."</p> + +<p>"Um." A long pause followed in which the cabman appeared to be counting +the coins in his pocket by the sense of touch. Then: "Would yez be +writing that down for me on a bit av paper, Misther Edwards?—his name, +and the name av the place where he does be going, I mane?"</p> + +<p>"So you can write to him and refund the over-payment after you've been +to confession?" laughed the clerk. Nevertheless, he wrote the name and +address on a card for the petitioner.</p> + +<p>"Thank ye, sorr; thank ye kindly. Whin a man has a wife and sivin +childer hangin' to um—" but here the singsong voice of the porter +calling the Burlington westbound silenced all other sounds and the clerk +heard no more.</p> + +<p>Seated at a well-appointed table in the Chouteau café, Griswold had +ample time to overtake himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> in the race reconstructive, and for the +moment the point of view became frankly Philistine. The luxurious hotel, +with its air of invincible respectability; the snowy napery, the cut +glass, the shaded lights, the deferential service; all these appealed +irresistibly to the epicurean in him. It was as if he had come suddenly +to his own again after an undeserved season of deprivation, and the +effect of it was to push the hardships and perils of the preceding weeks +and months into a far-away past.</p> + +<p>He ordered his supper deliberately, and while he waited for its serving, +imagination cleared the stage and set the scenes for the drama of the +future. That future, with all its opportunities for the realizing of +ideals, was now safely assured. He could go whither he pleased and do +what seemed right in his own eyes, and there was none to say him nay.</p> + +<p>It was good to be able to pick and choose in a whole worldful of +possibilities, and he gave himself a broad credit mark for persevering +in the resolution which held him steadfastly to the modest, workaday +plan struck out in the beginning. Apart from Miss Farnham's recognition +of him on the <i>Belle Julie</i>—a recognition which, he persuaded himself, +would never carry over from Gavitt the deck-hand to Griswold the student +and benefactor of his kind—there was nothing to fear; no reason why he +should not make Wahaska his workshop.</p> + +<p>In this minor city of the clerk's describing he would find the +environment most favorable for a re-writing of his book and for a +renewal of his studies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> Here, too, he might hope to become by +unostentatious degrees the beneficent god-in-the-car of his worthier +ambition, raising the fallen, succoring the helpless, and fighting the +battles of the oppressed.</p> + +<p>Farther along, when she should have quite forgotten the <i>Belle Julie's</i> +deck-hand, he would meet Miss Farnham on an equal social footing; and +the conclusion of the whole matter should be a triumphant demonstration +to her by their refutable logic of good deeds and a life well-lived that +in his case, at least, the end justified the means.</p> + +<p>Just here, however, there was an unresolved discord in the imaginative +theme. It was struck by the reflection that since he could never take +her fully into his confidence her approval would always lack the seal of +completeness. She knew the masquerading deck-hand, and what he had done; +and she would know Griswold the benefactor, and what he meant to do. But +until she could link the two together, there could be no demonstration. +Though he should build the bastion of good deeds mountain high, it could +never figure as a bastion to her unless she might come to know what it +was designed to defend.</p> + +<p>Having a sensitive ear for the imaginative harmonies, the unresolved +discord annoyed him. The effort to eliminate it brought him face to face +with a blunt demand, a query that was almost psychic in its clear-cut +distinctness. Why did these forecastings of the future always lead him +up to the closed door of this young woman's approval and leave him +there?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>For one whose experience had all been bought on a rising market, +Griswold was singularly heart-whole and normal in his attitude toward +women. Beautiful women he had met before, among them a few who had lent +themselves facilely to the idealizing process; but in each instance it +was the artistic temperament, and not the heart, that was touched and +inspired. Was Charlotte Farnham going to prove the exception? Since he +could ask the question calmly and with no perceptible quickening of the +pulses, he concluded that she was not. Nevertheless——</p> + +<p>The train of reflective thought was broken abruptly by the seating of +two other supper guests at his table; a big-framed man in the grizzled +fifties, and a young woman who looked as if she might have stepped the +moment before out of the fitting-rooms of the most famous of Parisian +dressmakers.</p> + +<p>Griswold's supper was served, and for a time he made shift to ignore the +couple at the other end of the table. Then an overheard word, the name +of the town which he had chosen as his future abiding place, made him +suddenly observant.</p> + +<p>It was the young woman who had named Wahaska, and he saw now that his +first impression had been at fault; she was not overdressed. Also he saw +that she was piquantly pretty; a bravura type, slightly suggesting the +Rialto at its best, perhaps, but equally suggestive of sophistication, +travel, and a serene disregard of chaperonage.</p> + +<p>The young woman's companion was undeniably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> her father. Gray, +heavy-browed, and with a face that was a life-mask of crude strength and +elemental shrewdness, the man had bequeathed no single feature to the +alertly beautiful daughter; yet the resemblance was unmistakable. +Griswold did not listen designedly, but he could not help overhearing +much of the talk at the other end of the table. From it he gathered that +the young woman was lately returned from some Florida winter resort; +that her father had met her by appointment in St. Louis; and that the +two were going on together; perhaps to Wahaska, since that was the +place-name oftenest on the lips of the daughter.</p> + +<p>Griswold was only moderately interested. The deliberately ordered +supper, enticing in anticipation, had fallen short of the zestful +promise in the fact. It came to him with a little shock that at least +one part of him, the civilized appetite, had become debased by the +plunge into the deck-hand depths, and he fought the suggestion fiercely. +It was an article in his creed that environment is always subjective, +and when one opens the door to an exception a host of ominous shapes may +be ready to crowd in. He was fighting off the evil shapes while he +listened; otherwise his interest might have been more acute.</p> + +<p>It was at this point that the apex of Philistine contentment was passed +and the reaction set in. He had been spending strength and vitality +recklessly and the accounting was at hand. The descent began when he +took himself sharply to task for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> high-priced supper. What right had +he to order costly food that he could not eat when the price of this +single meal would feed a family for a week?</p> + +<p>After that, nothing that the obsequious and attentive waiter could bring +proved tempting enough to recall the vanished appetite. Never having +known what it was to be sick, Griswold disregarded the warning, drank a +cup of strong coffee, and went out to the lobby to get a cigar, leaving +his table companions in the midst of their meal. To his surprise and +chagrin the carefully selected "perfecto" made him dizzy and faint, +bringing a disquieting recurrence of the vertigo which had seized him +while he was searching for his negro treasure-bearer on the levee.</p> + +<p>"I've had an overdose of excitement, I guess," he said to himself, +flinging the cigar away. "The best thing for me to do is to go down to +the train and get to bed."</p> + +<p>He went about it listlessly, with a curious buzzing in his ears and a +certain dimness of sight which was quite disconcerting; and when a cab +was summoned he was glad enough to let a respectfully sympathetic porter +lend him a shoulder to the sidewalk.</p> + +<p>The drive in the open air was sufficiently tonic to help him through the +details of ticket-buying and embarkation; and afterward sleep came so +quickly that he did not know when the Pullman porter drew the curtains +to adjust the screen in the window at his feet, though he did awake +drowsily later on at the sound of voices in the aisle, awoke to realize<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +vaguely that his two table companions of the Hotel Chouteau café were to +be his fellow travellers in the Pullman.</p> + +<p>The train was made up ready to leave, and the locomotive was filling the +great train-shed with stertorous hissings, when a red-faced man slipped +through the gates to saunter over to the Pullman and to peck +inquisitively at the porter.</p> + +<p>"Much of a load to-night, George?"</p> + +<p>"No, sah; mighty light: four young ladies goin' up to de school in +Faribault, Mistah Grierson and his daughter, and a gentleman from de +Chouteau."</p> + +<p>"A gentleman from the Chouteau? When did he come down?"</p> + +<p>The porter knew the calling of the red-faced man only by intuition; but +Griswold's tip was warming in his pocket and he lied at random and on +general principles.</p> + +<p>"Been heah all de evenin'; come down right early afte' suppeh, and went +to baid like he was sick or tarr'd or somethin'."</p> + +<p>"What sort of a looking man is he?"</p> + +<p>"Little, smooth-faced, narr'-chisted gentleman; look like he might +be——"</p> + +<p>But the train was moving out and the red-faced man had turned away. +Whereupon the porter broke his simile in the midst, picked up his +carpet-covered step, and climbed aboard.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2> + +<h3>THE GOTHS AND VANDALS</h3> + + +<p>In the day of its beginnings, Wahaska was a minor trading-post on the +north-western frontier, and an outfitting station for the hunters and +trappers of the upper Mississippi and Minnesota lake region.</p> + +<p>Later, it became the market town of a wheat-growing district, and a +foundation of modest prosperity was laid by well-to-do farmers +gravitating to their county seat to give their children the benefit of a +graded school. Later still came the passing of the wheat, a re-peopling +of the farms by a fresh influx of home-seekers from the Old World, and +the birth, in Wahaska and elsewhere, of the industrial era.</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson was a product of the wheat-growing period. The son of +one of the earliest of the New-York-State homesteaders in the wheat +belt, he came of age in the year of the Civil War draft, and was +unpatriotic enough, some said, to dodge conscription, or the chance of +it, by throwing up his hostler's job in a Wahaska livery stable and +vanishing into the dim limbo of the Farther West. Also, tradition added +that he was well-spared by most; that he was ill-spared, indeed, by only +one, and that one a woman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + +<p>After the westward vanishing, Wahaska saw him no more until he returned +in his vigorous prime, a veteran soldier of fortune upon whom the +goddess had poured a golden shower out of some cornucopia of the +Colorado mines. Although rumor, occasionally naming him during the years +of absence, had never mentioned a wife, he was accompanied by a +daughter, a dark-eyed, red-lipped young woman, a rather striking beauty +of a type unfamiliar to Wahaska and owing nothing, it would seem, to the +grim, gray-wolf Jasper.</p> + +<p>With the return to his birthplace, Jasper Grierson began a campaign, the +planning of which had tided him over many an obstacle in the road to +fortune. It had given him the keenest thrill of joy of which a frankly +sordid nature is capable to descend upon his native town rich enough to +buy and sell any round dozen of the well-to-do farmers; and when he had +looked about him he settled down to the attainment of his heart's +desire, which was to have the casting vote in the business affairs of +the community which had once known him as a helper in a livery stable.</p> + +<p>Losing sight of the irresistible energy and momentum of wealth as +wealth, men said that fortune favored him from the outset. It was only a +half-truth, but it sufficed to account for what was really a campaign of +conquest. Grierson's touch was Midas-like, turning all things to gold; +and even in Wahaska there were Mammon worshippers enough to hail him as +a public benefactor whose wealth and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> enterprise would shortly make of +the overgrown village a town, and of the town a thriving city.</p> + +<p>Since the time was ripe, Wahaska did presently burst its +swaddling-bands. Commercial enterprise is sheep-like; where one leads, +others will follow; and the mere following breeds success, if only by +the sheer impetus of the massed forward movement. Jasper Grierson was +the man of the hour, but the price paid for leadership by the led is apt +to be high. When Wahaska became a city, with a charter and a bonded +debt, electric lights, water-works, and a trolley system, Grierson's +interest predominated in every considerable business venture in it, save +and excepting the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works.</p> + +<p>He was the president of one bank, and the principal stockholder in the +other, which was practically an allied institution; he was the sole +owner of the grain elevator, the saw- and planing-mills, the box +factory, and a dozen smaller industries in which his name did not +appear. Also, it was his money, or rather his skill as a promoter, which +had transformed the Wahaska & Pineboro Railroad from a logging switch, +built to serve the saw-mill, into an important and independent +connecting link in the great lake region system.</p> + +<p>In each of these commercial or industrial chariots the returned native +sat in the driver's seat; and those who remembered him as a loutish +young farmhand overlooked the educative results of continued success and +marvelled at his gifts, wondering how and where he had acquired them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> + +<p>While the father was thus gratifying a purely Gothic lust for conquest, +the daughter figured, in at least one small circle, as a beautiful young +Vandal, with a passion for overturning all the well-settled traditions. +At first her attitude toward Wahaska and the Wahaskans had been serenely +tolerant; the tolerance of the barbarian who neither understands, nor +sympathizes with, the homely virtues and the customs which have grown +out of them. Then resentment awoke, and with it a soaring ambition to +reconstruct the social fabric of the countrified town upon a model of +her own devising.</p> + +<p>In this charitable undertaking she was aided and abetted by her father, +who indulgently paid the bills. At her instigation he built an imposing +red brick mansion on the sloping shore of Lake Minnedaska, named it—or +suffered her to name it—"Mereside," had an artist of parts up from +Chicago to design the decorations and superintend the furnishings, had a +landscape gardener from Philadelphia to lay out the grounds, and, when +all was in readiness, gave a house-warming to which the invitations were +in some sense mandatory, since by that time he had a finger in nearly +every commercial and industrial pie in Wahaska.</p> + +<p>After the house-warming, which was a social event quite without +precedent in Wahaskan annals, Miss Grierson's leadership was tacitly +acknowledged by a majority of the ex-farmers' wives and daughters, +though they still discussed her with more or less frankness in the +sewing-circles and at neighborhood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> tea-drinkings. Crystallized into +accusation, there was little to be urged against her save that she was +pretty and rich, and that her leaning toward modernity was sometimes a +little startling. But being human, the missionary seamstresses and the +tea-drinkers made the most of these drawbacks, whetting criticism to a +cutting edge now and then with curious speculations about Margery's +mother, and wondering why Jasper Grierson or the daughter never +mentioned her.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the big house on the lake front continued to set the social +pace. Afternoon teas began to supersede the sewing-circles; not a few of +the imitators attained to the formal dignity of visiting cards with +"Wednesdays" or "Thursdays" appearing in neat script in the lower +left-hand corner; and in some of the more advanced households the +principal meal of the day drifted from its noontide anchorage to +unwonted moorings among the evening hours—greatly to the distress of +the men, for whom even hot weather was no longer an excuse for appearing +in shirt-sleeves.</p> + +<p>For these innovations Miss Grierson was indirectly, though not less +intentionally, responsible; and her satisfaction was in just proportion +to the results attained. But in spite of these successes there were +still obstacles to be surmounted. From the first there had been a +perverse minority refusing stubbornly to bow the head in the house +of—Grierson. The Farnhams were of it, and the Raymers, with a following +of a few of the families called "old" as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> age is reckoned in the Middle +West. The men of this minority were slow to admit the omnipotence of +Jasper Grierson's money, and the women were still slower to accept Miss +Grierson on terms of social equality.</p> + +<p>At the house-warming this minority had been represented only by +variously worded regrets. At a reception, given to mark the closing of +Mereside, socially, on the eve of Miss Margery's departure for the +winter in Florida, the regrets were still polite and still unanimous. +Miss Margery laughed defiantly and set her white teeth on a determined +resolution to reduce this inner citadel of conservatism at all costs. +Accordingly, she opened the campaign on the morning after the reception; +began it at the breakfast-table when she was pouring her father's +coffee.</p> + +<p>"You know everybody, and everybody's business, poppa: who is the +treasurer of St. John's?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"How should I know?" grumbled the magnate, whose familiarity with church +affairs was limited to certain writings of a legal nature concerning the +Presbyterian house of worship upon which he held a mortgage.</p> + +<p>"You ought to know," asserted Miss Margery, with some asperity. "Isn't +it Mr. Edward Raymer?"</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson frowned thoughtfully into space. "Why, yes; come to +think of it, I guess he is the man. Anyway, he's one of their—what do +you call 'em—trustees?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wardens," corrected Margery.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's it; I knew it was something connected with a penitentiary. +What do you want of him?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing much of him: but I want a check for five hundred dollars +payable to his order."</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson's laugh was suggestive of the noise made by a rusty +door-hinge. The tilting of the golden cornucopia had made him a ruthless +money-grubber, but he never questioned his daughter's demands.</p> + +<p>"Going in for the real old simon-pure, blue-ribbon brand of +respectability this time, ain't you Madgie?" he chuckled; but he wrote +the check on the spot.</p> + +<p>Two hours later, Miss Grierson's cutter, driven by herself, paraded in +Main Street to the delight of any eye æsthetic. The clean-limbed, +high-bred Kentuckian, the steel-shod, tulip-bodied vehicle, and the +faultlessly arrayed young woman tucked in among the costly fur lap robes +were three parts of a harmonious whole; and more than one pair of eyes +looked, and turned to look again; with envy if they were young eyes and +feminine; with frank admiration if they were any age and masculine. For +Miss Grierson, panoplied for conquest, was the latest reincarnation of +the woman who has been turning men's heads and quickening the blood in +their veins since that antediluvian morning when the sons of God saw the +daughters of men that they were fair.</p> + +<p>Miss Margery drove daily in good weather, but on this crisp January +morning her outing had an objective other than the spectacular. When the +clean-limbed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> Kentuckian had measured the length of Main Street, he was +sent on across the railroad tracks into the industrial half of the town, +and was finally halted in front of the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works.</p> + +<p>Raymer was at his desk when the smart equipage drew up before the office +door; and a moment later he was at the curb, bareheaded, offering to +help the daughter of men out of the robe wrappings.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I'd better not get out," she said. "Duke doesn't stand well. +Can I see Mr. Edward Raymer for a minute or two?"</p> + +<p>Raymer bowed and blushed a little. He knew her so well, by eye-intimacy +at least, that he had been sure she knew him in the same way—as indeed +she did.</p> + +<p>"I—that is my name. What can I do for you, Miss Grierson?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>thank</i> you," she burst out, with exactly the proper shade of +impulsiveness. "Do you know, I was really afraid I might have to +introduce myself? I——"</p> + +<p>The interruption was of Raymer's making. One of his employees appearing +opportunely, he sent the man to the horse's head, and once more held out +his hands to Miss Grierson.</p> + +<p>"You must come in and get warm," he insisted. "I am sure you have found +it very cold driving this morning. Let me help you."</p> + +<p>She made a driver's hitch in the reins and let him lift her to the +sidewalk. The ease with which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> did it gave her a pleasant little +thrill of the sort that comes with the realization of a thing hoped for. +When she was not too busy with the social triumphs, strength, manly +strength, was a passion with Miss Grierson.</p> + +<p>Raymer held the office door open for her, and in the grimy little den +which had been his father's before him, placed a chair for her at the +desk-end.</p> + +<p>"Now you can tell me in comfort what I can do for you," he said, +bridging the interruption.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's only a little thing. I came to see you about renting a pew in +St. John's; that is our church, you know."</p> + +<p>Raymer did not know, but he was politic enough not to say so.</p> + +<p>"I am quite at your service," he hastened to say. "Shall I show you a +plan of the sittings?"</p> + +<p>She protested prettily that it wasn't at all necessary; that any +assignment agreeable to him and least subversive of the rights and +preferences of others would be quite satisfactory. But he got out the +blue-print plan and dusted it, and in the putting together of heads over +it many miles in the gap of unacquaintance were safely and swiftly flung +to the rear.</p> + +<p>When the sittings were finally decided upon she opened her purse.</p> + +<p>"It is so good of you to take time from your business to wait on me," +she told him; and then, in naïve confusion: "I—I asked poppa to make +out a check, but I don't know whether it is big enough."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>Raymer took the order to pay, glanced at the amount, and from that to +the velvety eyes with the half-abashed query in them. Miss Grierson's +eyes were her most effective weapon. With them she could look anything, +from daggers drawn to kisses. Just now the look was of child-like +beseeching, but Raymer withstood it—or thought he did.</p> + +<p>"It is more than twice as much as we get for the best locations," he +demurred. "Wait a minute and I'll write you a check for the difference +and give you a receipt."</p> + +<p>But at the word she was on her feet in an eager flutter of protest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, please don't!" she pleaded. "If it is really too much, can't you +put the difference in the missionary box, or in the—in the rector's +salary?—as a little donation from us, you know?"</p> + +<p>Then Edward Raymer found that he had not withstood the eye-attack and he +surrendered at discretion, compromising on a receipt for the pew-rent. +Thus the small matter of business was concluded; but Miss Margery was +not yet ready to go. From St. John's and its affairs official she passed +deftly to the junior warden of St. John's and his affairs personal. Was +the machine works the place where they made steam-engines and things? +And did the sign, "No Admittance," on the doors mean that no visitors +were allowed? If not, she would so much like to——</p> + +<p>Raymer smiled and put himself once more at her service, this time as +guide and megaphonist. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> all very noisy and grimy, but if she +cared to go through the works he would be glad to go with her.</p> + +<p>He did not know how glad he was going to be until they had passed +through the clamorous machine-shop and had reached the comparatively +quiet foundry. One of Miss Margery's gifts was the ability to become for +the moment an active and sympathetic sharer in any one's enthusiasms. In +the foundry she looked and listened, and was unsophisticated only to the +degree that invites explanation. It was a master-stroke of finesse. A +man is never so transparent as when he forgets himself in his own +trade-talk; and Raymer was unrolling himself as a scroll for Miss +Grierson to read as she ran.</p> + +<p>"And you say that is one of the columns for poppa's new block?" she +asked, while they stood to watch the workmen drawing a pattern out of +the sand of the mould.</p> + +<p>"No; that is the pattern: that is wood, and it is used to make the print +in the sand into which the melted iron is poured. This part of the mould +they are lifting with the crane is called the 'cope,' and the lower half +is the 'drag.' When they have drawn the patterns, they will lock the two +halves together and the mould will be ready for the pouring. You ought +to come some afternoon while we are pouring; it would interest you if +you've never seen it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, may I? I shall remember that, when I come back from Florida."</p> + +<p>"You are going away?" he said quickly.</p> + +<p>"Yes; for a few weeks."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wahaska will miss you."</p> + +<p>"Will it? I wish I could believe that, Mr. Raymer. But I don't know. +Sometimes——"</p> + +<p>"You mustn't doubt it for a moment. When you drove up a few minutes ago +I was thinking that you were the one bit of redeeming color in our +rather commonplace picture."</p> + +<p>She let him look into what she wished him to believe were the very +ultimate depths of the velvety eyes when she said: "You shouldn't +flatter, Mr. Raymer. For one thing, you don't do it easily; and for +another, it's disappointing."</p> + +<p>They were passing out of the foundry on their way back to the office and +he held the weighted door open for her.</p> + +<p>"A bit of honest praise isn't flattery," he protested. "But supposing it +were a mere compliment—why should you find it disappointing?"</p> + +<p>"Because one has to have anchors of some sort; anchors in sincerity and +straightforwardness, in the honesty of purpose that will say, '<i>No-no!</i>' +and slap the best-beloved baby's hands, if that's what is needed. That +is your proper rôle, Mr. Raymer, and you must never hesitate to take +it."</p> + +<p>It was the one small lapse from the strict conventionalities, but it +sufficed to cut out all the middle distances. The tour of the works +which had begun in passing acquaintance ended in friendship, precisely +as Miss Grierson had meant it should; and when Raymer was tucking her +into the cutter and wrapping her in the fur robes, she added the +finishing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> touch, or rather the touch for which all the other touches +had been the preliminaries.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad I had the courage to come and see you this morning. We have +been dreadfully remiss in church matters, but I am going to try to make +up for it in the future. I'm sorry you couldn't come to us last evening. +Please tell your mother and sister that I <i>do</i> hope we'll meet, +sometime. I should so dearly love to know them. Thank you so much for +everything. Good-by."</p> + +<p>Raymer watched her as she drove away, noted her skilful handling of the +fiery Kentuckian and her straight seat in the flying cutter, and the +smile which a day or two earlier might have been mildly satirical was +now openly approbative.</p> + +<p>"She is a shrewd little strategist," was his comment; "but all the same +she is a mighty pretty girl, and as good and sensible as she is shrewd. +I wonder why mother and Gertrude haven't called on her?"</p> + +<p>Having thus mined the Raymer outworks, Miss Grierson next turned her +batteries upon the Farnhams. They were Methodists, and having learned +that the doctor's hobby was a struggling mission work in Pottery Flat, +Margery called the paternal check-book again into service, and the +cutter drew up before the doctor's office in Main Street.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, doctor," she began cheerfully, bursting in upon the head +of the First-Church board of administrators as a charming embodiment of +youthful enthusiasm, "I'm running errands for poppa this morning. Mr. +Rodney was telling us about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> that little First-Church mission in Pottery +Flat, and poppa wanted to help. But we are not Methodists, you know, and +he was afraid—that is, he didn't quite know how you might——"</p> + +<p>It was an exceedingly clever bit of acting, and the good doctor +capitulated at once, discrediting, for the first time in his life, the +intuition of his home womankind.</p> + +<p>"Now that is very thoughtful and kind of you, Miss Margery," he said, +wiping his glasses and looking a second time at the generous figure of +the piece of money-paper. "I appreciate it the more because I know you +must have a great many other calls upon your charity. We've been wanting +to put a trained worker in charge of that mission for I don't know how +long, and this gift of yours makes it possible."</p> + +<p>"The kindness is in allowing us to help," murmured the small diplomat. +"You'll let me know when more is needed? Promise me that, Doctor +Farnham."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't be a good Methodist if I didn't," laughed the doctor. Then +he remembered the Mereside reception and the regrets, and was moved to +make amends. "I'm sorry we couldn't be neighborly last night; but my +sister-in-law is very frail, and Charlotte doesn't go out much. They are +both getting ready to go to Pass Christian, but I'm sure they'll call +before they go South."</p> + +<p>"I shall be ever so glad to welcome them," purred Miss Margery, "and I +do hope they will come before I leave. I'm going to Palm Beach next +week, you know."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll tell them," volunteered the doctor. "They'll find time to run in, +I'm sure."</p> + +<p>But for some reason the vicarious promise was not kept; and the Raymers +held aloof; and the Oswalds and the Barrs relinquished the new public +library project when it became noised about that Jasper Grierson and his +daughter were moving in it.</p> + +<p>Miss Margery possessed her soul in patience up to the final day of her +home staying, and the explosion might have been indefinitely postponed +if, on that last day, the Raymers, mother and daughter, had not +pointedly taken pains to avoid her at the <i>lingerie</i> counter in +Thorwalden's. It was as the match to the fuse, and when Miss Grierson +left the department store there were red spots in her cheeks and the +dark eyes were flashing.</p> + +<p>"They think I'm a jay!" she said, with a snap of the white teeth. "They +need a lesson, and they're going to get it before I leave. I'm not going +to sing small all the time!"</p> + +<p>It was surely the goddess of discord who ordained that the blow should +be struck while the iron was hot. Five minutes after the rebuff in +Thorwalden's, Miss Grierson met Raymer as he was coming out of the +Farmers' and Merchants' Bank. There was an exchange of commonplaces, but in the midst of it Miss Margery broke off abruptly to say: "Mr. Raymer, +please tell me what I have done to offend your mother and sister."</p> + +<p>If she had been in the mood to compromise, half of the deferred payment +of triumph might have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> discharged on the spot by Raymer's +blundering attempt at disavowal.</p> + +<p>"Why, Miss Margery! I don't know—that is—er—really, you must be +mistaken, I'm sure!"</p> + +<p>"I am not mistaken, and I'd like to know," she persisted, looking him +hardily in the eyes. "It must be something I have been doing, and if I +can find out what it is, I'll reform."</p> + +<p>Raymer got away as soon as he could; and when the opportunity offered, +was besotted enough to repeat the question to his mother and sister. +Mrs. Raymer was a large and placid matron of the immovable type, and her +smile emphasized her opinion of Miss Grierson.</p> + +<p>"The mere fact of her saying such a thing to you ought to be a +sufficient answer, I should think," was her mild retort.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why," Raymer objected.</p> + +<p>"What would you think if Gertrude did such a thing?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well; that is different. In the first place Gertrude wouldn't do +it, and——"</p> + +<p>"Precisely. And Miss Grierson shouldn't have done it. It is because she +can do such things that a few of us think she wouldn't be a pleasant +person to know, socially."</p> + +<p>"But why?" insisted Raymer, with masculine obtuseness.</p> + +<p>It was his sister who undertook to make the reason plain to him.</p> + +<p>"It isn't anything she does, or doesn't do, particularly;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> it is the +atmosphere in which she lives and moves and has her being. If it weren't +for her father's money, she would be—well, it is rather hard to say +just what she would be. But she always makes me think of the bonanza +people—the pick and shovel one day and a million the next. I believe +she is a frank little savage, at heart."</p> + +<p>"I don't," the brother contended, doggedly. "She may be a trifle new and +fresh for Wahaska, but she is clever and bright, and honest enough to +ignore a social code which makes a mock of sincerity and a virtue of +hypocrisy. I like her all the better for the way she flared out at me. +There isn't one young woman in a thousand who would have had the nerve +and the courage to do it."</p> + +<p>"Or the impudence," added Mrs. Raymer, when her son had left the room. +Then: "I do hope Edward isn't going to let that girl come between him +and Charlotte!"</p> + +<p>The daughter laughed.</p> + +<p>"I should say there is room for a regiment to march between them, as it +is. Miss Gilman took particular pains to let him know what train they +were leaving on, and I happen to know he never went near the station to +tell them good-by."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> + +<h3>GOOD SAMARITANS</h3> + + +<p>Since she had undertaken to show Wahaska precisely how to deport itself +in the conventional field, Miss Grierson took a maid and a chaperon with +her when she went to Florida. But when she returned in April, the maid +had been left behind to marry the gamekeeper of one of the millionaire +estates on Lake Worth, and little Miss Matthews, the ex-seamstress +chaperon, had been dropped off in Illinois to visit relatives.</p> + +<p>This is how it chanced that Margery, unwilling to set the Wahaskans a +bad example, had telegraphed her father to meet her in St. Louis. Also, +it shall account as it may for the far-reaching stroke of fate which +seated the Griersons at Griswold's table in the Hotel Chouteau café, and +afterward made them his fellow travellers in the north-bound +sleeping-car <i>Anita</i>.</p> + +<p>When Jasper Grierson travelled alone he was democratic enough to be +satisfied with a section in the body of the car. But when Margery's +tastes were to be consulted, the drawing-room was none too good. Indeed, +as it transpired on the journey northward from St. Louis, the <i>Anita's</i> +drawing-room proved to be not good enough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is simply a crude insult, the way they wear out their old, +broken-down cars on us up here!" she was protesting to her father, when +they came back from the late dining-car breakfast. "You ought to do +something about it." Miss Margery was at the moment fresh from "Florida +Specials" and the solid-Pullman vestibuled luxuries of eastern winter +travel.</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson's smile was a capitalistic acquirement, and some of his +fellow-townsmen described it as "cast-iron." But for his daughter it was +always indulgent.</p> + +<p>"I don't own the railroad yet, Madgie; you'll have to give me a little +more time," he pleaded, clipping the tip from a black cigar of heroic +proportions and reaching for the box of safety matches.</p> + +<p>"I'll begin now, if you are going to smoke that dreadful thing in this +stuffy little den," was the unfilial retort; and the daughter found a +magazine and exchanged the drawing-room with its threat of asphyxiation +for a seat in the body of the car.</p> + +<p>For a little while the magazine, or rather the pictures in it, sufficed +for a time-killer. Farther along, the panorama of eastern Iowa unrolling +itself beside the path of the train served as an alternative to the +pictured pages. When both the book and the out-door prospect palled upon +her, Miss Margery tried to interest herself in her immediate +surroundings.</p> + +<p>The material was not promising. Two old ladies dozing in the section +diagonally across the aisle, four school-girls munching chocolates and +restlessly shifting from seat to seat in the farther half of the car,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +and the conductor methodically making out his reports in the section +opposite, summed up the human interest, or at least the visible part of +it. Half-way down the car one of the sections was still curtained and +bulkheaded; and when Miss Grierson curled up in her seat and closed her +eyes she was wondering vaguely why the porter had left this one section +undisturbed in the morning scene-shifting.</p> + +<p>The northward-flying train was crossing a river, and the dining-car +waiter was crying the luncheon summons, when Margery awoke to realize +the comforting fact that she had successfully slept the forenoon away. +With the eye-opening came a recurrence of the last-remembered waking +thought—the wonder why the curtained section was still undisturbed. +When she was leaving the <i>Anita</i> with her father, the explanation +suggested itself: of course, the occupant of the middle section must be +ill.</p> + +<p>Luncheon over, there was nothing to remind her of the probable invalid +in Number Six until late in the afternoon when, looking through the open +door of the drawing-room, she saw the porter carrying a glass of water +to the invisible sufferer. Quite suddenly her interest became acute. Who +was the sick one? and why was he, or she, travelling without an +attendant?</p> + +<p>With Margery Grierson, to question was to ascertain; and the Pullman +conductor, once more checking his diagrams in Section Eleven, offered +the readiest means of enlightenment. A few minutes later Margery +rejoined her father in the private compartment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you remember the nice-looking young man who sat at the table with us +in the Chouteau last night?" she began abruptly.</p> + +<p>The gray-wolf Jasper nodded. He had an excellent memory for faces.</p> + +<p>"What did you think of him?" The query followed the nod like a nimble +boxer's return blow.</p> + +<p>"I thought he paid a whole lot more attention to you than he did to his +supper. Why?"</p> + +<p>"He is on this car; sick with a fever of some kind, and out of his head. +He is going to Wahaska."</p> + +<p>"How do you know it's the same one?"</p> + +<p>"I made the conductor take me to see him. He talked to me in Italian and +called me '<i>Carlotta mia</i>.'"</p> + +<p>"Humph! he didn't look like a dago."</p> + +<p>"He isn't; it's just because he is delirious."</p> + +<p>There was a long pause, broken finally by a curt "Well?" from the +father.</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking," was the slow response. "Of course, there is a +chance that he has friends in Wahaska, and that some one will be at the +train to meet him. But it is only a chance."</p> + +<p>"Why doesn't the conductor telegraph ahead and find out?"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't know the man's name. I tried to get him to look for a card, +or to break into the suit-cases under the berth, but he says the +regulations won't let him."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said the father again, this time with a more decided upward +inflection. Then he added:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> "You've made up your mind what you're going +to do: say it."</p> + +<p>Margery's decision was announced crisply. "There is no hospital to send +him to—which is Wahaska's shame. Maybe he will be met and taken care of +by his friends: if he is, well and good; if he isn't, we'll put him in +the carriage and take him home with us."</p> + +<p>The cast-iron smile with the indulgent attachment wrinkled frostily upon +Jasper Grierson's heavy face.</p> + +<p>"The Good Samaritan act, eh? I've known you a long time, Madgie, but I +never can tell when you're going to break out in a brand-new spot. +Didn't lose any of your unexpectedness in Florida, did you?"</p> + +<p>Miss Margery tossed her pretty head, and the dark eyes snapped.</p> + +<p>"Somebody in the family has to think of something besides making money," +she retorted. "Please lend me your pencil; I want to do some wiring."</p> + +<p>All other gifts apart, Miss Grierson could boast of a degree of +executive ability little inferior to her father's; did boast of it when +the occasion offered; and by the time the whistle was sounding for +Wahaska, all the arrangements had been made for the provisional rescue +of the sick man in Lower Six.</p> + +<p>At the station a single inquiry served to give the Good Samaritan +intention the right of way. There were no friends to meet Lower Six; but +the Grierson carriage was waiting, with the coachman and a Mereside +gardener for bearers. From that to putting the sick man to bed in one of +the guest-chambers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> of the lake-fronting mansion at the opposite end of +the town was a mere bit of routine for one so capable as Miss Grierson; +and twenty minutes after the successful transfer, she had Dr. Farnham at +the nameless one's bedside, and was telephoning the college infirmary +for a nurse.</p> + +<p>Naturally, there were explanations to be made when the doctor came down. +To her first anxious question the answer came gravely: "You have a very +sick man on your hands, Miss Margery." Then the inevitable: "Who is he?"</p> + +<p>She spread her hands in a pretty affectation of embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"What will you think of me, Doctor Farnham, when I tell you that I +haven't the littlest atom of an idea?"</p> + +<p>Charlotte's father was a small man, with kindly eyes and the firm, +straight-lined mouth of his Puritan forebears. "Tell me about it," he +said concisely.</p> + +<p>"There is almost nothing to tell. He was sick and out of his head, and +his ticket read to Wahaska. No one on the train seemed to know anything +about him; and he couldn't tell us anything himself. So when we found +there was no one to meet him at the station, we put him into the +carriage and brought him home. There didn't seem to be anything else to +do."</p> + +<p>A shrewd smile flickered for an instant in the kindly eyes of Wahaska's +best-beloved physician.</p> + +<p>"Almost any one else would have found plenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> of other things to do—or +not to do," was his comment. "Are you prepared to go on, Miss Margery?"</p> + +<p>"Taking care of him until he is able to take care of +himself?—certainly," was the quick reply.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll tell you that it is likely to be a long siege, and probably a +pretty serious one. I can't tell positively without the microscope, but +I'm calling it malaria, with complications. There seems to be a general +break-down, as if he had been overworking or starving himself. You'll +need help."</p> + +<p>"I know; I've just been 'phoning the college, but they can't spare +anybody out of the infirmary. Find me some one, doctor."</p> + +<p>Dr. Farnham took time to think.</p> + +<p>"Let me see: you'll need a good, strong fellow who can be patient and +kind and inflexible and even brutal, by turns. I wonder if we couldn't +get Sven Oleson? The Raymers had him when Edward was down with typhoid, +and he was a treasure when we could make him understand what was +wanted."</p> + +<p>There were fine little lines coming and going between Miss Margery's +straight black brows. "We needn't do it by halves, doctor," she said +decisively. "If it would be better to wire St. Paul or Minneapolis and +get a trained nurse——"</p> + +<p>"—You'd stand the extra expense, of course," laughed the doctor. "You +are all the world's good angel when you set out to be, Miss Margery. But +it won't be necessary; Oleson will do, if I can get him. And I'll send +him or somebody else before bedtime. Meanwhile, there's nothing to do +but to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> keep your patient quiet; and he'll do that for himself for a few +hours. I gave him a bit of an anodyne before I came down."</p> + +<p>Margery went to the outer door with her kindly counsellor, playing the +part of the gracious hostess as one who is, or who means to be, +precisely letter-perfect.</p> + +<p>"It will soon be time for your daughter and Miss Gilman to come home, +won't it, doctor?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I had a letter from Charlotte to-day. They are coming by boat to +Winona, and they should have left St. Louis this morning." Then, to +match the neighborly interest: "You are looking extremely well, Miss +Margery. Your few weeks in Florida were pleasant ones, I know."</p> + +<p>"Yes; they were pleasant. But I'm always well. Has poppa been working +himself to death while I've been away?"</p> + +<p>There was the faintest glimmer of an amused smile in the doctor's eyes +when he said: "No, not quite, I guess. He has been out here with the +masons and carpenters who are building the stables, every fine day, I +think, and that was by way of being a recreation for him."</p> + +<p>Margery nodded brightly. "I thought perhaps he would do that if I went +away. But I mustn't keep you. Be sure and telephone me about Sven. I'll +send the cart after him if you tell me to."</p> + +<p>The doctor promised; and after he was gone, she went slowly up-stairs +and let herself softly into the room of shaded lights. The sick man was +resting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> quietly, and he did not stir when she crossed to the bed and +laid a cool palm on his forehead.</p> + +<p>"You poor castaway!" she murmured. "I wonder who you are, and to whom +you belong? I suppose somebody has got to be mean and sneaky and find +out. Would you rather it would be I than some one else who might care +even less than I do?"</p> + +<p>The sleeping man opened unseeing eyes and closed them again heavily. "I +found the money, <i>Carlotta mia</i>; you didn't know that, did you?" he +muttered; and then the narcotic seized and held him again.</p> + +<p>His clothes were on a chair, and when she had carried them to a light +that could be shaded completely from the bed and its occupant, she +searched the pockets one by one. It was a little surprising to find all +but two of them quite empty; no cards, no letters, no pen, pencil, +pocket-knife, or purse; nothing but a handkerchief, and in one pocket of +the waistcoat a small roll of paper money, a few coins and two small +keys.</p> + +<p>She held the coat up to the electric and examined it closely; the +workmanship, the trimmings. It was not tailor-made, she decided, and by +all the little signs and tokens it was quite new. And the same was true +of the other garments. But there was no tag or trade-mark on any of them +to show where they came from.</p> + +<p>Failing to find the necessary clew to the castaway's identity in this +preliminary search, she went on resolutely, dragging the two suit-cases +over to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> lighted corner and unlocking them with the keys taken from +the pocket of the waistcoat.</p> + +<p>The first yielded nothing but clothing, all new and evidently unworn. +The second held more clothing, a man's toilet appliances, also new and +unused, but apparently no scrap of writing or hint of a name. With a +little sigh of bafflement she took the last tightly rolled bundle of +clothing from the suit-case. While she was lifting it a pistol fell out.</p> + +<p>In times past, Jasper Grierson's daughter had known weapons and their +faults and excellences. "That places him—a little," she mused, putting +the pistol aside after she had glanced at it: "He's from the East; he +doesn't know a gun from a piece of common hardware."</p> + +<p>Further search in the tightly rolled bundle was rewarded by the +discovery of a typewritten book manuscript, unsigned, and with it an +oblong packet wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. She slipped +the string and removed the wrapping. The brick-shaped packet proved to +be a thick block of bank-notes held together by heavy rubber bands +snapped over the ends.</p> + +<p>While the little ormolu clock on the dressing-case was whirring softly +and chiming the hour she stared at the money-block as if the sight of it +had fascinated her. Then she sprang up and flew to the door, not to +escape, but to turn the key noiselessly in the lock. Secure against +interruption, she pulled the rubber bands from the packet. The block was +built up in layers, each layer banded with a paper slip on which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> was +printed in red the name of the certifying bank and the amount. "Bayou +State Security, $5,000." There were twenty of these layers in all, +nineteen of them unbroken. But through the printed figures on the +twentieth a pen-stroke had been drawn, and underneath was written +"$4,000."</p> + +<p>Quite coolly and methodically Margery Grierson verified the bank's count +as indicated by the paper bands. There were one hundred thousand +dollars, lacking the one thousand taken from the broken packet. The +counting completed, she replaced the rubber bands and the brown-paper +wrapping. Then she repacked the suit-cases, arranging the contents as +nearly as might be just as she had found them, locking the cases and +returning the keys to the waistcoat pocket from which she had taken +them.</p> + +<p>When all was done, she tiptoed across to the bed, with the brown-paper +packet under her arm. The sick man stirred uneasily and began to mutter +again. She bent to catch the words, and when she heard, the light of +understanding leaped swiftly into the dark eyes. For the mumbled words +were the echo of a fierce threat: "Sign it: sign it <i>now</i>, or, by God, +I'll shoot to kill!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2> + +<h3>GROPINGS</h3> + + +<p>The robbery of the Bayou State Security Bank was already an old story +when Mr. Matthew Broffin, chief of the New Orleans branch of a notable +detective agency, returned from Guatemala with the forger Mortsen as his +travelling companion.</p> + +<p>Broffin was a successful man in his calling. Beginning as a deputy +marshal in the "moonshining" districts of Kentucky and Tennessee, he had +shifted first to the Secret Service, and later to the more highly +specialized ranks of the private agencies. With nothing very spectacular +to his credit, he had earned repute as a follower of long trails, and as +an acute unraveller of tangled clews. Hence, his docket was never empty.</p> + +<p>It was not altogether for the sake of the reward that he took over the +case of the bank robbery a few days after his return from Central +America. As a matter of fact, there was an express-company case waiting +which promised more money. But emulation counts for something, even in +the thief-catching field; and since two members of his own staff had +fired and missed their mark in St. Louis, there was a blunder to be +retrieved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p>Reasoning logically upon the new problem, Broffin did not at once try to +take up the chase at the point to which it had been carried by the two +who had failed. Since the man had disappeared, the first necessity was +the establishing of his true identity, and for a week Broffin devoted +himself to the task of disentangling the two personalities: that of the +decently dressed, parlor-anarchist bank-raider, and that of the man who +figured in the anonymous letter as Gavitt, the deck-hand.</p> + +<p>At the end of the week two facts were sufficiently apparent. The first +was that there had been a real John Gavitt, a consumptive roustabout on +the New Orleans river-front; a person easily traceable up to the time of +his disappearance on or about the day of the robbery, and whose +description, gathered from those who had known him well, tallied not at +all with the best obtainable word-picture of the bank-robber. Fact the +second was a corollary of the first: by some means the robber had +contrived to change places with Gavitt; to take his place in the <i>Belle +Julie's</i> crew and to assume his name.</p> + +<p>Broffin called this step in the outworking of his problem an incident +closed when he had wired the post-master of the little Iowa river town +from which the true Gavitt had migrated, and had received the expected +reply. John Wesley Gavitt had reached home two days after the date of +the bank robbery, had died within the week, and had been buried beside +his wife.</p> + +<p>The next step was purely constructive; an attempt to build, upon the +description given by President<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> Galbraith and the teller Johnson, a +likeness which would fit some notorious "strong-arm man" known to the +criminal records and the rogues' galleries. Broffin was not greatly +disappointed when the effort failed.</p> + +<p>"It's just about as I've been putting it up, all along," he mused, +lighting his pipe and filling with a fragrant cloud the cramped little +office in which he did his research work. "The fellow ain't a crook; +he's an amateur, and this is his first break. That being the lay-out, +he's liable to do all the things, the different kinds of things, that a +sure-enough 'strong-arm man' wouldn't do."</p> + +<p>It was to Bainbridge, sitting at the desk's end and turning the leaves +of a rogues'-gallery reprint, that the musing conclusion was directed. +The reporter was freshly returned from his jaunt to the banana coast, +and he had climbed Broffin's stair to get the story of the Mortsen +capture.</p> + +<p>"He did one of the different things when he worked his way out of here +in a deck crew," suggested Bainbridge. "The real thug wouldn't have done +anything so honestly toilsome as that."</p> + +<p>"Hardly," Broffin acquiesced. "There was about one chance in a thousand, +and on that chance I've been looking for a picture that would fit him. +There ain't any."</p> + +<p>The reporter was glancing over his notes of the Mortsen story, and he +got up to go.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm glad it's your job and not mine," he said, by way of +leave-taking. "If your guess is right,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> it's like looking for the +traditional needle in the haystack."</p> + +<p>"Ump," said Broffin; and for a good hour after the reporter had gone he +sat slowly swinging in the creaking office chair, smoking pipe after +pipe and thinking.</p> + +<p>At the end of the reflective revery he closed his desk, locked his +office, and went once more to the bank. It was the hour of the noon +lull, and Johnson, the paying teller, was free to talk.</p> + +<p>"I hope I'll get through bothering you, some day, Mr. Johnson," Broffin +began. "But when I get stuck, I have to come to you. What Mr. Galbraith +don't remember would crowd a dictionary."</p> + +<p>The teller made good-natured apologies for his chief. "Mr. Galbraith was +a good bit upset, naturally. It was a pretty bad wrench for a man of his +age."</p> + +<p>"Sure, it was; and he's feeling it yet. That's why I'm letting him alone +when I can. Just go once more carefully over the part of it that you +saw, won't you?"</p> + +<p>Johnson retold the story of the cashing of the president's check, +circumstantially, and with the exactness of a man trained in a school of +business accuracy.</p> + +<p>"You'd make a good witness, Mr. Johnson," was Broffin's comment. "You +can tell the same story twice, hand-running, which is more than most +folks can do. Would you know the young woman if you'd see her again?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly, I think."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You say she was cashing a draft: how was she identified?"</p> + +<p>"She had credentials from her home bank, with her signature attested."</p> + +<p>"Of course, she didn't surrender her letter of identification?"</p> + +<p>"No; we don't require it when the letter is a general one and not a +credit letter."</p> + +<p>Broffin pulled thoughtfully at his drooping mustaches. He was +rearranging the pieces on the mental chess-board. He had not yet asked +either of the questions he had come to ask. Without knowing the science +even by name, he was still enough of a psychologist to prepare the way +by leading the mind of the witness cleverly over the details of its own +memory picture.</p> + +<p>"You say the hold-up made way for the lady here at the window: you saw +him do it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Did any sign of recognition pass between them—anything to make you +think that they might be acquainted with each other?"</p> + +<p>This was one of the two critical questions, and the teller took time to +consider.</p> + +<p>"It's pretty hard to tag that with a definite 'yes' or 'no,'" he said, +when the memory-searching moment had passed. "He spoke to her; of that I +am quite sure, though I didn't hear what he said. She nodded and smiled. +She had a beautiful face, and I remember how it lighted up when he spoke +and stepped back."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then they might have been acquainted, you think?" Broffin said, adding +quickly: "Don't let the fact that she afterward tried to set the dogs on +him twist your judgment any. She might have known the man, and still be +unwilling, afterward, to shield the criminal."</p> + +<p>Again Johnson took time to be accurate.</p> + +<p>"I'll admit that my impression at the time was that they were +acquainted," he averred, at the end of the ends. "Of course you can't +bank much on that. He might have said to a perfect stranger, 'After +you,' or whatever it was that he did say; and she would acknowledge the +courtesy with the nod and the smile—any well-bred woman would. But you +can take it for what it is worth; my thought at the moment was that they +had met before; casually, perhaps, as people meet on trains or in +hotels; that there was at least recognition on both sides."</p> + +<p>Broffin was nodding slowly. It was not often that he made a confidant of +a witness, even in the smaller details of a case, but he evidently +considered the helpful teller an exception.</p> + +<p>"I've been working around to that notion myself, by the smalls, as the +cat eat the grind-rock," he said. "I said to myself, Would he, with the +big pull-off still trembling on the edge—would he have held back for a +woman he didn't know? And if he <i>did</i> know her, it would be a good, +chunky reason why he shouldn't crowd in and take his turn: he'd <i>have</i> +to make good or lose whatever little ante he'd been putting up in the +sociable game. Now one other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> little thing: you counted him out the +single thousand in small bills first, you said: then what happened?"</p> + +<p>"Then I went to the vault."</p> + +<p>"And when you came back, the young woman was gone?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; she went while Mr. Galbraith was handing me his check."</p> + +<p>"She left before you started for the vault?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You didn't notice whether she said 'Good-by' or 'Thank you,' or +anything like that, I reckon?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"But she might have, and you not see it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; she might have."</p> + +<p>"All right; then we'll go on," Broffin continued, and the time having +arrived for the putting of the second critical question, he planted it +fairly. "You opened the wicket and passed the money out to the hold-up. +He took it and backed to the door—this nearest door. Mr. Galbraith +tells me he gave the alarm as quick as he could draw his breath. How +much time did the fellow have before somebody went after him?"</p> + +<p>Johnson's answer was gratifyingly prompt.</p> + +<p>"You might say, no time at all. There were a number of people in the +bank—perhaps a dozen or more—standing around waiting their turns at +the different wickets. I should say that every single one of them made a +rush for the doors, and I remember thinking at the time that the fellow +couldn't possibly get away."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yet he did get away; made his drop-out so neatly that none of the +rushers got to the doors soon enough to catch a sight of him?"</p> + +<p>"That is the curious fact. Not a man of them saw him. They all told the +same story. The sidewalk wasn't crowded at the time: we are on the sunny +side of the street, and as you see now, the crowd is on the other side +in the shade. Yet the fellow had vanished before the nimblest one of +them got to the doors."</p> + +<p>Broffin drew a deep breath and nodded slowly. The added details were +fitting the new theory to a nicety. In conversation with the president +he had previously marked the fact that the robber had claimed to be +starving.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Johnson; I reckon that's all for this time," he said to +the teller, and a minute later he was buying a cigar of the little +Gascon proprietor of the restaurant next door to the bank.</p> + +<p>"You have an excellent memory, I've been told, Monsieur Pouillard," he +said, at the lighting of the cigar. "Do you recollect the day of the +bank robbery next door pretty well?"</p> + +<p>The Gascon shrugged amiably. "<i>Vraiment</i>, M'sieu' Broffin; it ees not +possib' that one forgets."</p> + +<p>"It was rather late for breakfast, and not quite late enough for lunch: +were you feeding many people just then?"</p> + +<p>"H-onlee one; he is yo'ng man w'at don' nevveh come on my 'otel biffo'. +He is sit on dat secon' table; <i>oui</i>!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>Broffin pushed the probe of inquiry a little deeper. How did M. +Pouillard happen to remember? <i>Mais</i>, it was because the young man was +very droll; he was of the cold blood. When Victor, <i>le garçon</i>, would +have brought news of the <i>émeute</i>, he had said, breakfast first, and the +news afterward.</p> + +<p>Questioned in his turn, the serving-man corroborated his employer's +particulars and was able to add a few of his own. The young man was +fair, with blue eyes and a reddish beard and mustaches. The mustaches +were untrimmed, but the beard was clipped to a point, <i>à les moeurs des +étudiants des Beaux Arts</i>. The waiter had once served tables in a Paris +café, and he seldom lost an opportunity of advertising the fact. Pressed +to account for his accurate memory picture of a chance patron, he +confessed naïvely; the tip had been princely and the young man was one +to mark and to remember—and to serve again.</p> + +<p>Broffin left the restaurant with one more link in the chain neatly +forged. There was an excellent reason why none of the first-aid pursuers +had been able to catch a glimpse of the "strong-arm man." He had merely +stepped from the bank entrance to Monsieur Pouillard's. Between the café +breakfast and the departure of the <i>Belle Julie</i> there lay an hour and a +quarter. In that interval he could easily perfect his simple disguise. +Broffin was not specially interested in the incidental minutiæ. It was +the identity of the man with the untrimmed mustaches and the pointed +beard that must be established.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>After another week of patient groping, Broffin was obliged to confess +that the problem of identification was too difficult to be solved on +conventional lines. It presented no point of attack. With neither a name +nor a pictured face for reference, inquiry was crippled at the very +outset. None of the many boarding- and rooming-houses he visited had +lost a lodger answering the verbal description of the missing man. Very +reluctantly, for bull-dog tenacity was the detective's ruling +characteristic, he was forced to the conclusion that the only untried +solution lay in Teller Johnson's unfortified impression that the chance +meeting at his wicket was not the first meeting between the robber and +the young woman with the draft to be cashed.</p> + +<p>It was the slenderest of threads, and Broffin realized sweatingly how +difficult it might be to follow. Assuming that there had been a previous +meeting or meetings, or rather the passing acquaintance which was all +that the young woman's later betrayal of the man made conceivable, would +the writer of the accusing letter be willing to add to her burden of +responsibility by giving the true name and standing of the man whose +real identity—if she knew it—she had been careful to conceal in the +unsigned note to Mr. Galbraith? Broffin read the note again—"a +deck-hand, whose name on the mate's book is John Wesley Gavitt," was the +description she had given. It might, or it might not, be an +equivocation; but the longer Broffin dwelt upon it the more he leaned +toward the conclusion to which his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> theory and the few known facts +pointed. The young woman knew the man in his proper person; she had been +reluctant to betray him—that, he decided, was sufficiently proved by +the lapse of time intervening between the date of her note and its +postmark date; having finally decided to give him up, she had told only +what was absolutely necessary, leaving him free to conceal his real name +and identity if he would—and could.</p> + +<p>Having come thus far on the road to convincement, Broffin knew what he +had to do and set about the doing of it methodically. A telegram to the +clerk of the <i>Belle Julie</i> served to place the steamer in the lower +river; and boarding a night train he planned to reach Vicksburg in time +to intercept the witnesses whose evidence would determine roughly how +many hundreds or thousands of miles he could safely cut out of the +zigzag journeyings to which the following up of the hypothetical clew +would lead.</p> + +<p>For, cost what it might, he was determined to find the writer of the +unsigned letter.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE ZWEIBUND</h3> + + +<p>On his second visit to the sick man lodged in the padded luxuries of one +of the guest-rooms at Mereside, made on the morning following the +Grierson home-coming, Dr. Farnham found the hospital status established, +with the good-natured Swede installed as nurse, the bells muffled, and +Miss Margery playing the part of Sister Superior and dressing it, from +the dainty, felt-soled slippers to the smooth banding of her hair.</p> + +<p>An hour later, however, it was the Margery of the Wahaskan Renaissance, +joyously clad and radiant, who was holding the reins over a big English +trap horse, parading down Main Street and smiling greetings to +everybody.</p> + +<p>By one of the chances which he was willing to call fortunate, Edward +Raymer was at the curb to help her down from her high seat in the trap +when she pulled the big horse to a stand in front of her father's bank.</p> + +<p>"I'm the luckiest man in Red Earth County; I was just wondering when I +should get in line to tell you how glad we are to have you back," he +said, with his eyes shining.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are you, really? You are not half as glad as I am to be back. There is +no place like home, you know."</p> + +<p>"There isn't, and there oughtn't to be," was his quick response. "I've +been hoping you'd come to look upon Wahaska as your home, and now I know +you do."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I?" she laughed, and she was reaching for a paper-wrapped +package on the trap seat when he got it for her.</p> + +<p>"You are going somewhere?—may I carry it for you?" he asked; but she +shook her head and took it from him.</p> + +<p>"Only into the bank," she explained; and she was beginning to tell him +he must come to Mereside when the sick-man episode obtruded itself, and +the invitation was broken in the midst, very prettily, very effectively.</p> + +<p>"I know," Raymer said, in instant sympathy. "You have your hands full +just now. Will you let me say that it's the finest thing I ever heard +of—your taking that poor fellow home and caring for him?"</p> + +<p>Gertrude Raymer had once said in her brother's hearing that Miss +Grierson's color would be charming if it were only natural. Looking into +Miss Grierson's eyes Raymer saw the refutation of the slander in the +suffusing wave of generous embarrassment deepening in warm tints on the +perfect neck and cheek.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear me!" she said in pathetic protest; "is it all over town so +soon? I'm afraid we are still dreadfully 'country' in Wahaska, Mr. +Raymer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> Please cut it down to the bare, commonplace facts whenever you +have a chance, won't you? The poor man was sick, and nobody knew him, +and somebody <i>had</i> to take care of him."</p> + +<p>Like the doctor, Raymer asked the inevitable question, "Who is he, Miss +Margery?" and, like the doctor again, he received the same answer, "I +haven't the smallest notion of an idea. But that doesn't make the +slightest difference," she went on. "He is a fellow human being, sick +and helpless. That ought to be enough for any of us to know."</p> + +<p>Raymer stood watching her as she tripped lightly into the bank, and when +he went to catch his car the conservative minority had lost whatever +countenance or support he had ever given it.</p> + +<p>"She's pure gold when you dig down through the little top layer of +harmless scheming for the social Grand-Viziership," he told himself, +tingling with the exultant thrills of the discoverer of buried treasure. +"If all Wahaska doesn't open its doors to her after this, it'll sure +earn what's coming to it."</p> + +<p>True to her latest characterization of herself, Margery had a nod and a +pleasant smile for the young men behind the brass grilles as she passed +on her way to the president's room in the rear. She found her father at +his desk, thoughtfully munching the unburned half of one of the huge +cigars, and named her errand.</p> + +<p>"I want a safety-deposit box big enough to hold this," she said briefly, +exhibiting the paper-wrapped packet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson, deeply immersed in a matter of business to which he had +given the better part of the forenoon, replied without looking up: "Go +and tell Murray; he'll fix you out," and it was not until after she had +gone that it occurred to him to wonder what use she was going to make of +a private box in the safety vault—a wonder that had lost itself in a +multiplicity of other things before he saw her again.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For a week after his unmarked arrival in Wahaska, the castaway in the +upper room at Mereside made hard work of it, giving the good little +doctor with the kindly eyes and the straight-line Puritan lips a rather +anxious fight to gain the upper hand of the still unnamed malady.</p> + +<p>During the week there were many callers at the lake-fronting mansion; +some coming frankly to welcome the returned house-mistress, others to +make the welcoming an excuse for finding out the particulars in the +castaway episode. But neither faith nor good works seemed to have any +effect on the rebellious minority, and at the end of the week Raymer +once more had the pleasure of lifting Miss Grierson from the high trap +at the door of the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank, and of exchanging a few +words with her before she went in to see her father.</p> + +<p>As on any other business day, President Grierson was solidly planted in +his heavy arm-chair before a desk well littered with work. He nodded +absently to his daughter as she entered, and knowing that the nod meant +that he would come to the surface<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> of things—her surface—when he +could, she turned aside to the window and waited.</p> + +<p>Though she had seen him develop day by day in less than three of the +thirty-odd years of his Western exile, her father offered a constant +succession of surprises to her. When she opened the door to +retrospection, which was not often, she remembered that the man who had +stumbled upon the rich quartz vein in Yellow Dog Gulch could scarcely +sign his name legibly to the papers recording his claim; that in those +days there was no prophecy of the ambitious present in the man, half +drunkard and half outlaw, whose name in the Yellow Dog district had been +a synonym for—but these were unpleasant memories, and Margery rarely +indulged them.</p> + +<p>Just now she put them aside by turning her back upon the window and +taking credit for the tasteful and luxurious appointments of the private +office, with its soft-piled rug and heavy mahogany furnishings. Her +father was careless of such things; totally indifferent to them in +business hours; but she saw to it that his surroundings kept pace with +the march of prosperity. Here in Wahaska, as elsewhere, a little +judicious display counted for much, even if there were a few bigoted +persons who affected to despise it.</p> + +<p>She was in the midst of a meditated attack upon the steamship +lithographs on the walls—sole remaining landmarks of the ante-Grierson +period—when her father wheeled in his pivot-chair and questioned her +with a lift of his shaggy eyebrows.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Want to see me, Madgie?"</p> + +<p>"Just a moment." She crossed the room and stood at the end of the big +desk. He reached mechanically for his check-book, but she smiled and +stopped him. "No; it isn't money, this time: it's something that money +can't buy. I met Mr. Edward Raymer at the front door a few minutes ago; +does he have an account with you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Is it an accommodation to the bank, or to him?"</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson's laugh was grimly contemptuous.</p> + +<p>"The bank isn't making anything out of him. The shoe is on the other +foot."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that he is a borrower?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet; but he wants to be. He was in to see me about it just now."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter? Isn't he making money with his plant?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; his business is good enough. But he's like all the other young +fools, nowadays; he ain't content to bet on a sure thing and grow with +his capital. He wants to widen out and build and put in new machinery +and cut a bigger dash generally. Thinks he's been too slow and sure."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to stake him?" Margery waged relentless war with her +birthright inclination to lapse into the speech of the mining-camps, but +she stumbled now and then in talking to her father.</p> + +<p>"I don't know; I guess not. Somehow, I've never had much use for him; +and, besides, I've had another plan in mind."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And that was?"</p> + +<p>"To organize another company and build a plant big enough to run him +out."</p> + +<p>Margery was turning the leaves of an illustrated prospectus of an Idaho +irrigation company, and was apparently much more deeply interested in +the electrotyped pictures than in the fortunes of Mr. Edward Raymer. And +when she went on, she ignored the obliterative business suggestion and +remained in the narrower channel of the personalities.</p> + +<p>"Why haven't you any use for him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know: because, until just lately, he has never seemed to +have much use for me, I guess. It's a stand-off, so far as likings go. I +offered to reincorporate his outfit for him six months ago, and told him +I'd take fifty-one per cent of the reorganization stock myself; but he +wouldn't talk about it. Said what little he had was his own, and he +proposed to keep it."</p> + +<p>"But now he is willing to let you help him?"</p> + +<p>"Not much; he don't look at it in that light. He wants to borrow money +from the bank and put up the stock of his close corporation as +collateral. It's safe enough, but I don't believe I'll do it."</p> + +<p>The chatelaine of Mereside laid the prospectus aside and came abruptly +to the point.</p> + +<p>"I want you to do it," she said, decisively.</p> + +<p>"The devil you do!" Then, with the dry door-hinge chuckle: "It was a +waste of good money to put in the ice plant while you're here, Madgie. +What's in the wind, now?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Maybe I'll tell you—sometime."</p> + +<p>The president chuckled again and tilted to the comfortable angle in the +arm-chair.</p> + +<p>"Tell me now; you don't need to beat any of the bushes with me, little +girl. If you say the word, I'll pinch him for you."</p> + +<p>"I didn't say that I wanted him pinched. But I do want you to put him +under obligations to you—the heavier the better. His mother and sister +have gone out of their way to snub me, and I want to play even."</p> + +<p>Grierson wagged his huge head, and this time the chuckle grew to a +guffaw.</p> + +<p>"I thought maybe that was the game. But it won't work with him; not for +a single minute."</p> + +<p>"Why won't it?"</p> + +<p>"Because he ain't the man to go to his women-folks when he gets into hot +water. He'll keep it to himself; and they'll go on bluffing you, same as +ever."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson pulled on her gauntlets and made ready to go, leisurely, +as befitted her pose.</p> + +<p>"That is where you are mistaken," she objected, coolly. "It isn't very +often that I can give you a business tip, but this is one of the times +when I can. When John Raymer died, he left an undivided half of his +estate to his wife, the other half to be shared equally by the two +children. At the present moment, every dollar the entire family has is +invested in the iron plant. So, you see, I know what I am doing."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson turned the leaf of a calendar-pad and made a brief +memorandum.</p> + +<p>"I <i>savez</i>: I'll break the three-cornered syndicate for you."</p> + +<p>"You will do nothing of the kind," asserted the radiant daughter of men, +with serene assurance. "You will let Mr. Raymer get himself into hot +water, as you call it, and then, when I say the word, you'll reach in +and pull him out."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's the how of it, is it? All right; anything you say goes as it +lays. But I'm going to make one condition, this time: you'll have to +keep cases on the game yourself, and say when. I can't be bothered +keeping the run of your society tea-parties."</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to. Don't be late for dinner: we are going to the +Rodneys' for the evening."</p> + +<p>When she was gone, the president selected another of the overgrown +cigars from a box in the desk drawer, lighted it, and tilted back in the +big arm-chair to envelop himself in a cloud of smoke. It was his single +expensive habit—the never-empty box of Brobdingnagian cigars in the +drawer—and the indulgence helped him to push the Yellow-Dog period into +a remoter past.</p> + +<p>After a time the smoke cloud became articulate, rumbling forth +chucklings and Elizabethan oaths, mingling with musings idiomatic and +profane. "By God, I believe she thought she was fooling me—I do, for a +fact! But it's too thin. Of course, she wants to make the women kow-tow, +but that ain't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> all there is to it—not by a jugful. But it's all right: +she plays her own hand, and she's bully good and able to play it. If +she's after Raymer's scalp, he might as well get ready to wear a wig, +right now. I'll back her to win, every time."</p> + +<p>Accordingly, when Mr. Edward Raymer came out of the president's room at +the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank the following morning, he was treading +upon air. For in his mind's eye there was a fair picture of a great and +successful industry to be built upon the substantial extension of credit +promised by the capitalist whose presence chamber he had just quitted.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2> + +<h3>LOSS AND GAIN</h3> + + +<p>Striving feebly as one who gathers up the shards and fragments after an +explosion, Griswold remembered cloudily the supper of tasteless courses +at the Hotel Chouteau, still less distinctly, a drive through the +streets to a great, echoing railway station, a glare of lights too +painful to be borne, and, last of all, an overpowering weariness +shutting down upon him like a sudden closing in of darkness become thick +and stifling.</p> + +<p>Afterward there were vague impressions, momentary breaches in the wall +of inclosing darkness when he had realized that he was curiously +helpless, and that he was still on the train going somewhere, though he +could not remember where. In one of these intervals a woman had stood +beside him, and he seemed to remember that she had put her cool hand on +his forehead.</p> + +<p>Of the transition from the train to the bed in the upper room at +Mereside, he recalled nothing, though the personalities of two +strangers, the doctor and the nurse, obtruded themselves frequently in +the later phases of the troubled dream, like figures in a shadow +pantomime. Also, that suggestion of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> presence of the woman with the +cool palm became self-repeating; and finally, when complete +consciousness returned, the dream impression was still so sharply +defined that he was not surprised to find her standing at his bedside.</p> + +<p>He did not recognize her. The memory of his supper companions of the +Hotel Chouteau café was deeply buried under the dream débris, and the +present moment was full of mild bewilderment. Yet the friendliness in +her eyes seemed to shine out of some past which ought to be remembered.</p> + +<p>Before he could frame any of the queries which came thronging to the +door of the returned consciousness, she smiled and shook her head and +forbade him.</p> + +<p>"No, you mustn't talk," she said, with gentle authority. "It's the +doctor's orders. By and by, when you are stronger, you may ask all the +questions you please; but not now."</p> + +<p>He wagged his head on the pillow. "Can't I even ask where I am?" he +begged.</p> + +<p>"Since you have asked, I'll tell you that much. You are in Wahaska, +Minnesota, in the house of your friends; and you have nothing to do but +to get well as fast and as comfortably as you can."</p> + +<p>Her voice was even more remindful than her face of that elusive past +which ought to be remembered, and he closed his eyes to try to recall +it. When he opened them again, she was gone and her place was taken by +one of the figures of the dream; a man with a thick mop of fair hair and +a face of blank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> good-nature, and whose store of English seemed to be +comprised in a single sentence: "<i>Ja, ja</i>; Hae bane poorty vell, t'ank +yo'."</p> + +<p>Later in the day the doctor came; and when the professional requirements +were satisfied, Griswold learned the bare facts of his succoring. It was +characteristic of the Griswold of other days that the immense obligation +under which the Griersons had placed him made him gasp and perspire +afresh.</p> + +<p>"Who ever heard of such a thing, doctor?" he protested weakly. And then: +"How am I ever going to repay them?"</p> + +<p>Dr. Farnham was crisply explicit. "You may leave Mr. Grierson out of +your problem. Miss Margery is an only child, and if she sees fit to turn +Mereside into a temporary hospital, he is abundantly able to indulge +her."</p> + +<p>"Then I am indebted to the daughter, alone?"</p> + +<p>"Entirely, I should say."</p> + +<p>Griswold looked long and earnestly at the face of his professional +adviser. It was a good face, clearly lined, benevolent; and, above all, +trustworthy.</p> + +<p>"Tell me one thing more, doctor, if you can. What was the motive? Was it +just heavenly good-heartedness?—or——"</p> + +<p>The doctor's smile was the least possible shade wintry.</p> + +<p>"When you have lived a few years longer in this world of ours, you will +not probe too deeply into motives; you will take the deed as the +sufficient exponent of the prompting behind it. If I say so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> much, you +will understand that I am not impugning Miss Grierson's motives. There +are times when she is the good angel of everybody in sight."</p> + +<p>"And this is one of the times?" persisted the analyst.</p> + +<p>"We shall say that this is one of the times: say it and stick to it, +Mr.——"</p> + +<p>The pause after the courtesy title was significant, and Griswold filled +it promptly. "Griswold—Kenneth Griswold. Do you mean to say that you +haven't known my name, doctor?"</p> + +<p>"We have not. We took the Good Samaritan's privilege and ransacked your +belongings—Miss Margery and I—thinking that there might be relatives +or friends who should be notified."</p> + +<p>"And you found nothing?" queried the sick man, a cold fear gripping at +his heart.</p> + +<p>"Absolutely nothing to tell us who you were; no cards, letters, or +memoranda of any kind. The conclusion was obvious: some one had taken +advantage of your illness on the train and had picked your pockets."</p> + +<p>Griswold moistened his lips and swallowed hard. "There were two +suit-cases: were they lost?"</p> + +<p>"No; they are here."</p> + +<p>"And you found nothing in them?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing but clothing and your toilet tools, a pistol, and a typewritten +book manuscript bearing no signature."</p> + +<p>Griswold turned his face away and shut his eyes. Once more his stake in +the game of life was gone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There was another package of—of papers in one of the grips," he said, +faintly; "quite a large package wrapped in brown paper."</p> + +<p>"Valuables?" queried the doctor, sympathetically curious.</p> + +<p>"Y-yes; rather valuable."</p> + +<p>"We found nothing but the manuscript. Could any one else make use of the +papers you speak of?"</p> + +<p>Griswold was too feeble to prevaricate successfully.</p> + +<p>"There was money in the package," he said, leaving the physician to +infer what he pleased.</p> + +<p>"Ah; then you were robbed. It's a pity we didn't know it at the time. It +is pretty late to begin looking for the thief now, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"Quite too late," said Griswold monotonously.</p> + +<p>The doctor rose to go.</p> + +<p>"Don't let the material loss depress you, Mr. Griswold," he said, with +encouraging kindliness. "The one loss that couldn't have been retrieved +is a danger past for you now, I'm glad to say. Be cheerful and patient, +and we'll soon have you a sound man again. You have a magnificent +constitution and fine recuperative powers; otherwise we should have +buried you within a week of your arrival."</p> + +<p>It was not until after the doctor had gone that Griswold was able to +face the new misfortune with anything like a sober measure of +equanimity. Imaginative to the degree which facilely transforms the +suppositional into the real, he was still singularly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> free from +superstition. Nevertheless, all the legends clustering about the +proverbial slipperiness of ill-gotten gains paraded themselves +insistently. It was only by the supremest effort of will that he could +push them aside and address himself to the practical matter of getting +well. That was the first thing to be considered; with or without money, +he must relieve the Griersons of their self-assumed burden at the +earliest possible moment.</p> + +<p>This was the thought with which he sank into the first natural sleep of +convalescence. But during the days which followed, Margery was able to +modify it without dulling the keen edge of his obligation. What perfect +hospitality could do was done, without ostentation, with the exact +degree of spontaneity which made it appear as a service rendered to a +kinsman. It was one of the gifts of the daughter of men to be able to +ignore all the middle distances between an introduction and a +friendship; and by the time Griswold was strong enough to let the big, +gentle Swede plant him in a Morris chair in the sun-warmed bay-window, +the friendship was a fact accomplished.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, you're the most wonderful person I have ever known?" he +said to Margery, on the first of the sunning days when she had come to +perch in the window-seat opposite his chair.</p> + +<p>"It's propinquity," she laughed. "You haven't seen any other woman for +days and weeks. Wait until you are strong enough to come down to one of +my 'evenings.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, it isn't propinquity," he denied.</p> + +<p>"Then it's the unaccustomed. You are from the well-behaved East. There +are some people even here in Wahaska who will tell you that I have never +properly learned how to behave."</p> + +<p>"Your looking-glass will tell you why they say that," he said gravely.</p> + +<p>Her smile showed the perfect rows of white teeth. "You are recovering +rapidly, Mr. Kenneth; don't you think so? Or was that only a little +return of the fever?"</p> + +<p>He brushed the bit of mockery aside. "I want to be serious to-day—if +you'll let me. There are a lot of things I'd like to know."</p> + +<p>"About Wahaska?"</p> + +<p>"About you, first. Where did we meet?—before I came out of the fever +woods and saw you standing by the bed?"</p> + +<p>"We didn't 'meet,' in the accepted meaning of the word. My father and I +happened to sit at your table one evening in the Hotel Chouteau, in St. +Louis."</p> + +<p>"Ah; I knew there was a day back of the other days. Do you believe in +destiny?"</p> + +<p>She nodded brightly. "Sometimes I do; when it brings things out the way +I want them to come out."</p> + +<p>"I've often wondered," he went on musingly. "Think of it: somewhere back +in the past you took the first step in a path which was to lead you to +that late supper in the Chouteau. Somewhere in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> my past I took the first +step in the crooked trail that was to lead me there."</p> + +<p>"Well?" she encouraged.</p> + +<p>"The paths crossed—and I am your poor debtor," he finished. "I can +never hope to repay you and your father for what you have done."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes you can," she asserted lightly. "You can pass it along to the +man farther down. Forget it, and tell me what you want to know about +Wahaska."</p> + +<p>"First, I'd like to know my doctor's name."</p> + +<p>"The idea!" she exclaimed. "Hasn't there been anybody to introduce you? +He is Wahaska's best-beloved 'Doctor Bertie'; otherwise Doctor Herbert +C. Farnham."</p> + +<p>"<i>Doctor Farnham?</i>—not Miss Char——" He bit the name in two in the +middle, but the mischief was done.</p> + +<p>"Yes; Charlotte's father," was the calm reply. Then: "Where did you meet +Miss Farnham?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't met her," he protested instantly; "she—she doesn't know me +from Adam. But I have seen her, and I happened to learn her name and her +home address."</p> + +<p>Miss Margery's pretty face took on an expression of polite disinterest, +but behind the mask the active brain was busily fitting the pegs of +deduction into their proper holes. Her involuntary guest did not know +the father; therefore he must have seen the daughter while she was away +from home. Charlotte Farnham had been South, at Pass Christian,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> and +doubtless in New Orleans. The convalescent had also been in New Orleans, +as his money packet with its Bayou State Security labels sufficiently +testified.</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson got up to draw one of the window shades. It had become +imperative that she should have time to think and an excuse for hiding +her face from the eyes which seemed to be trying masterfully to read her +inmost thoughts.</p> + +<p>"You think it is strange that I should know Miss Farnham's name and +address without having met her?" Griswold asked, when the pause had +become a keen agony.</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson's rejoinder was flippant. "Oh, no; she is pretty enough to +account for a stranger thing than that."</p> + +<p>"She is more than pretty," said Griswold, impulsively; "she has the +beauty of those who have high ideals, and live up to them."</p> + +<p>"I thought you said you didn't know her," was the swift retort.</p> + +<p>"I said I hadn't met her, and that she doesn't know me."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said the small fitter of deduction pegs; and afterward she talked, +and made the convalescent talk, pointedly of other things.</p> + +<p>This occurred in the forenoon of a pleasant day in May. In the afternoon +of the same day, Miss Grierson's trap was halted before the door of the +temporary quarters of the Wahaska Public Library. Raymer saw the trap +and crossed the street,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> remembering—what he would otherwise have +forgotten—that his sister had asked him to get a book on orchids.</p> + +<p>Miss Margery was in the reference room, wading absently through the +newspaper files. She nodded brightly when Raymer entered—and was not in +the least dust-blinded by the library card in his hand.</p> + +<p>"You are just in time to help me," she told him. "Do you remember the +story of that daring bank robbery in New Orleans a few weeks ago?—the +one in which a man made the president draw a check and get it cashed for +him?"</p> + +<p>Raymer did remember it, chiefly because he had talked about it at the +time with Jasper Grierson, and had wondered curiously how the president +of the Farmers' and Merchants' would deport himself under like +conditions.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember the date?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Since it was tied to his first business interview with Grierson <i>père</i>, +Raymer was able to recall the date, approximately, and together they +turned the file of the <i>Pioneer Press</i> until they came to the number +containing the Associated Press story of the crime. It was fairly +circumstantial; the young woman at the teller's window figured in it, +and there was a sketchy description of the robber.</p> + +<p>"If you should meet the man face to face, would you recognise him from +the description?" she flashed up at Raymer.</p> + +<p>"Not in a thousand years," he confessed. "Would you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No; not from the description," she admitted. Then she passed to a +matter apparently quite irrelevant.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I see Miss Farnham's return noticed in the <i>Wahaskan</i> the other +day?"</p> + +<p>With Charlotte's father a daily visitor at Mereside, it seemed +incredible that Miss Grierson had not heard of the daughter's +home-coming. But Raymer answered in good faith.</p> + +<p>"You may have seen it some time ago. She and Miss Gilman have been home +for three or four weeks."</p> + +<p>"Somebody said they were coming up the river by boat; did they?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, all the way from New Orleans."</p> + +<p>"That must have been delightful, if they were fortunate enough to get a +good boat. I've been told that the table is simply impossible on some of +them."</p> + +<p>"So it is. But they came up as far as St. Louis on one of the Anchor +Lines—the <i>Belle Julie</i>—and even Miss Gilman admits that the +accommodations were excellent."</p> + +<p>She nodded absently and began to turn the leaves of the newspaper file. +Raymer took it as his dismissal and went to the desk to get the orchid +book. When he looked in again on his way to the street, Miss Grierson +had gone, leaving the file of the <i>Pioneer Press</i> open on the reading +desk. Almost involuntarily he glanced at the first-page headings, +thrilling to a little shock of surprise when one of them proved to be +the caption of another Associated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> Press despatch giving a twenty-line +story of the capture and second escape of the Bayou State Security +robber on the levee at St. Louis.</p> + +<p>The reading of the bit of stale news impressed him curiously. Why had +Miss Margery interested herself in the details of the New Orleans bank +robbery? Why—with no apparent special reason—should she have +remembered it at all? or remembering it, have known where to look for +the two newspaper references?</p> + +<p>Raymer left the library speculating vaguely on the unaccountable +tangents at which the feminine mind could now and then fly off from the +well-defined circle of the conventionally usual. On rare occasions his +mother or Gertrude did it, and he had long since learned the folly of +trying to reduce the small problem to terms of known quantities +masculine.</p> + +<p>"Just the same, I'd like to know why, this time," he said to himself, as +he crossed the street to the Manufacturers' Club. "Miss Grierson isn't +at all the person to do things without an object."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2> + +<h3>THE CONVALESCENT</h3> + + +<p>After a few more days in the Morris chair; days during which he was idly +contented when Margery was with him, and vaguely dissatisfied when she +was not; Griswold was permitted to go below stairs, where he met, for +the first time since the Grierson roof had given him shelter, the master +of Mereside.</p> + +<p>The little visit to Jasper Grierson's library was not prolonged beyond +the invalid's strength; but notwithstanding its brevity there were inert +currents of antagonism evolved which Margery, present and endeavoring to +serve as a lightning-arrester, could neither ground nor turn aside.</p> + +<p>For Griswold there was an immediate recrudescence of the unfavorable +first impression gained at the Hotel Chouteau supper-table. He recalled +his own descriptive formula struck out as a tag for the hard-faced, +heavy-browed man at the end of the café table—"crudely strong, +elementally shrewd, with a touch, or more than a touch, of the savage: +the gray-wolf type"—and he found no present reason for changing the +record.</p> + +<p>Thus the convalescent debtor to the Grierson hospitality. And as for the +Wahaskan money lord, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> is to be presumed that he saw nothing more than +a hollow-eyed, impractical story-writer (he had been told of the +manuscript found in Griswold's hand-baggage), who chanced to be +Margery's latest and least accountable fad.</p> + +<p>Griswold took away from the rather constrained ice-breaking in the +banker's library a renewed resolve to cut his obligation to Jasper +Grierson as short as possible. How he should begin again the mordant +struggle for existence was still an unsolved problem. Of the +one-thousand-dollar spending fund there remained something less than +half: for a few weeks or months he could live and pay his way; but after +that.... Curiously enough, the alternative of another attack upon the +plutocratic dragon did not suggest itself. That, he told himself, was an +experiment tried and found wanting. But in any event, he must not +outstay his welcome at Mereside; and with this thought in mind he crept +down-stairs daily after the library episode, and would give Margery no +peace because she would not let him go abroad in the town.</p> + +<p>"Not to-day, but to-morrow," she said, finally, when there was no longer +any good reason for denying him. "Wait until to-morrow, and if it's a +fine day, I'll drive you in the trap."</p> + +<p>"But why not to-day?" he complained.</p> + +<p>"'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless'—what +shall I say; patient, or guest, or—friend?" she laughed, garbling the +quotation to fit the occasion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Shakespeare said 'child,'" he suggested mildly.</p> + +<p>"And so shall I," she gibed—but the gibe itself was almost a caress. +"Sometimes you remind me of an impatient boy who has been promised a +peach and can't wait until it ripens. But if you must have a reason why +I won't drive you this afternoon, you may. We are going to have a tiny +little social function at Mereside this evening, and I want you to be +fresh and rested for it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear Miss Margery!" protested the convalescent, reluctant to his +finger-tips; "not to meet your friends! I am only your poor charity +patient, and——"</p> + +<p>"That will do," she declared, tyrannizing over him with a fine +affectation of austere hostess-ship. "<i>I</i> say you are to come +down-stairs this evening to meet a few of our friends. And you will +come."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, I shall come, if you wish it," he assented, remembering +afresh his immense obligation; and when the time was ripe he made +himself presentable and felt his way down the dimly lighted library +stair, being minded to slip into the social pool by the route which +promised the smallest splash and the fewest ripples.</p> + +<p>It was a stirring of the Philistine in him that led him to prefigure +weariness and banality in the prospect. Without in the least suspecting +it, Griswold was a Brahmin of the severest sect on his social side; +easily disposed to hold aloof and to criticise, and, as a man +Eastern-bred, serenely assured that nothing truly acceptable in the +social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> sense could come out of the Nazareth of the West.</p> + +<p>For this cause he was properly humiliated when he entered the spacious +double drawing-rooms and found them so comfortably crowded by a throng +of conventionally clothed and conventionally behaved guests that he was +immediately able to lose himself—and any lingering trace of +self-consciousness—in a company which, if appearances were to be +trusted, was Western only by reason of Wahaska's location on the map. +Indeed, the sudden and necessary rearrangement of the pieces on the +prefigured chess-board was almost embarrassing; and Margery's greeting +and welcome brought a grateful sense of relief and a certain recovery of +self-possession for which, a few minutes earlier, he had thought there +could be no possible Wahaskan demand.</p> + +<p>"Thank you so much for coming down, and for resolving heroically not to +be bored," she began brightly. "And now that you've made your little +concession, I'll make mine. I sha'n't ask anything at all of +you"—piling the cushions in the corner of a wide window-seat and making +him sit down; "you are just to be an invalid this evening, you know, and +you needn't meet any more people than you want to."</p> + +<p>When she had patted the pillows into place and was gone to welcome still +later comers, Griswold had a chance to look around him. The readjusting +mechanism was still at work. Beyond question it was all very different, +strikingly different, from his forecastings. A young woman was at the +piano,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> with a young man whose clothes fitted him and who was in nowise +conscious of them, turning the music for her. There was a pleasant hum +of conversation; the lights were not glaring; the furnishings were not +in bad taste—on the contrary, they were in exceedingly good taste. +Griswold smiled when he remembered that he had been looking forward to +something suggesting a cross between a neighborhood tea-drinking and a +church social. He was agreeably disappointed to find that the keynote +was distinctly well-mannered, passably urban, undeniably conventional.</p> + +<p>And the charming young hostess.... From his corner of the window-seat +Griswold had a comprehensive view of the two great rooms, and beyond +them through a pillared opening to the candle-lighted dining-room where +the refreshments were served. Though the rooms were well filled, there +was but a single personality pervading them for the eager student of +types. Admitting that there were other women more beautiful, Griswold, +groping always for the fitting figure and the apt phrase, told himself +that Miss Grierson's crowning gift was an acute sense of the eternal +harmonies; she was always "in character."</p> + +<p>Hitherto he had known her only as his benefactress and the thoughtful +caretaker for his comfort. But now, at this first sight of her in the +broader social field, she shone upon and dazzled him. Admitting that the +later charm might be subtly sensuous—he refused to analyze it too +closely—it was undeniable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> that it warmed him to a newer and a stronger +life; that he could bask in its generous glow like some hibernating +thing of the wild answering to the first thrilling of the spring-tide. +True, Miss Grierson bore little resemblance to any ideal of his past +imaginings. She might even be the <i>Aspasia</i> to Charlotte Farnham's +<i>Saint Cecilia</i>. But even so, was not the daughter of Axiochus well +beloved of men and of heroes?</p> + +<p>It was some little time afterward, and Jasper Grierson, stalking like a +grim and rather unwilling master of ceremonies among his guests, had +gruffly introduced three or four of the men, when Griswold gladly made +room in the window-seat for his transformed and glorified mistress of +the fitnesses. As had happened more than once before, her nearness +intoxicated him; and while he made sure now that the charm was at least +partly physical, its appeal was none the less irresistible.</p> + +<p>"Are you dreadfully tired?" she asked; adding quickly: "You mustn't let +us make a martyr of you. It's your privilege to disappear whenever you +feel like it."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I'm not at all tired," he protested. "It is all very comforting +and homelike; so vastly—" he hesitated, seeking thoughtfully for the +word which should convey his meaning without laying him open to the +charge of patronizing superciliousness, and she supplied it promptly.</p> + +<p>"So different from what you were expecting; I know. You have been +thinking of us as barbarians—outer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> barbarians, perhaps—and you find +that we are only harmless provincials. But really, you know, we are +improving. I wish you could have known Wahaska as it used to be."</p> + +<p>"Before you took it in hand?" he suggested. "I can imagine it."</p> + +<p>"Can you? I don't have to imagine it—I can remember: how we used to sit +around the edges of the room behaving ourselves just as hard as ever we +could, and boring one another to extinction. I'm afraid some of them do +it yet, sometimes; but I won't let them do it here."</p> + +<p>Once more Griswold let his gaze go at large through the stately rooms. +He understood now. His prefigurings had not been so wide of the mark, +after all. He had merely reckoned without his hostess.</p> + +<p>"It is a miracle," he said, giving her full credit. "I'd like to ask how +you wrought it, only I mustn't keep you from your duties."</p> + +<p>She laughed joyously, with a little toss of the shapely head which was +far more expressive than many words.</p> + +<p>"I haven't any duties; I have taught them to amuse themselves. And they +are doing it very creditably, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>"They are getting along," he admitted. "But tell me: how did you go +about it?"</p> + +<p>"It was simple enough. When we came here we found a lot of good people +who had fallen into the bad habit of boring one another, and a few who +hadn't; but the few held themselves aloof. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> opened our house to the +many, and tried to show them that a church sewing-circle isn't precisely +the acme of social enjoyment. That is all."</p> + +<p>Griswold saw in his mind's eye a sharply etched picture of the rise and +progress of a village magnate cleanly struck out in the two terse +sentences, and his respect for his companion in the wide window-seat +increased in just proportion. Verily, Miss Margery had imagination.</p> + +<p>"It is all very grateful and delightful to me," he confessed, at length. +"I have been out of the social running for a long time, but I may as +well admit that I am shamelessly Epicurean by nature, and an ascetic +only when the necessities drive."</p> + +<p>"I know," she assented, with quick appreciation. "An author has to be +both, hasn't he?—keen to enjoy, and well hardened to endure."</p> + +<p>He turned upon her squarely.</p> + +<p>"Where did you ever learn how to say such things as that?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>It was an opening for mockery and good-natured raillery, but she did not +make use of it. Instead, she let him look as deeply as he pleased into +the velvety eyes when she said: "It is given to some of us to see and to +understand where others have to learn slowly, letter by letter. Surely, +your own gift has told you that, Mr. Griswold?"</p> + +<p>"It has," he acknowledged. "But I have found few who really do +understand."</p> + +<p>"Which is to say that you haven't yet found your other self, isn't it? +Perhaps that will come, too,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> if you'll only be patient—and not expect +too many other gifts of the gods along with the one priceless gift of +perfect sympathy."</p> + +<p>"When I find the one priceless gift, I shall confidently expect to find +everything else," he asserted, still held a willing prisoner by the +bewitching eyes.</p> + +<p>She laughed softly. "You'll be disappointed. The gift you demand will +preclude some of the others; as the others would certainly preclude it. +How can you be an author and not understand that?"</p> + +<p>"I am not an author, I am sorry to say," he objected. "I have written +but the one book, and I have never been able to find a publisher for +it."</p> + +<p>"But you are not going to give up?"</p> + +<p>"No; I am going to rewrite the book and try again—and yet again, if +needful. It is my message to mankind, and I mean to deliver it."</p> + +<p>"Bravo!" she applauded, clapping her hands in a little burst of +enthusiasm which, if it were not real, was at least an excellent +simulation. "It is only the weak ones who say, 'I hope.' For the truly +strong hearts there is only the one battle-cry, 'I will!' When you get +blue and discouraged you must come to me and let me cheer you. Cheering +people is <i>my</i> mission, if I have any."</p> + +<p>Griswold's pale face flushed and the blood sang liltingly in his veins. +He wondered if she had been tempted to read the manuscript of the book +while he was fighting his way back to consciousness and life. If they +had been alone together, he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> have asked her. The bare possibility +set all the springs of the author's vanity upbubbling within him. There +and then he promised himself that she should hear the rewriting of the +book, chapter by chapter. But what he said was out of a deeper, and +worthier, underthought.</p> + +<p>"You have many missions, Miss Margery: some of them you choose, and some +are chosen for you."</p> + +<p>"No," she denied; "nobody has ever chosen for me."</p> + +<p>"That may be true, without making me a false prophet. Sometimes when we +think we are choosing for ourselves, chance chooses for us; oftener than +not, I believe."</p> + +<p>She turned on him quickly, and for a single swiftly passing instant the +velvety eyes were deep wells of soberness with an indefinable underdepth +of sorrow in them. Griswold had a sudden conviction that for the first +time in his knowing of her he was looking into the soul of the real +Margery Grierson.</p> + +<p>"What you call 'chance' may possibly have a bigger and better name," she +said, gravely. "Had you ever thought of that?"</p> + +<p>"Give it any name you please, so long as you admit that it is something +beyond our control," he conceded.</p> + +<p>As had happened more than once before, she seemed to be able to read his +inmost thought.</p> + +<p>"You are thinking of the chain of incidents that brought you here? It is +only the details that have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> 'happened.' You meant to come to Wahaska; +you were carrying out a definite purpose of your own that night in St. +Louis when you took your ticket. And coming here, sooner or later you +would have found your way to this house—to a seat on these cushions. I +could tell you more, but my prophetic soul warns me that Agatha +Severance is protesting to Mr. Wamble that she can't <i>possibly</i> play the +particular song he is asking for without the music. I'm going to +convince her that she can."</p> + +<p>Some little time after this, Raymer, who had been one of the men +introduced by Jasper Grierson, turned up again in the invalid's corner.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, won't you?" said Griswold, making a move to share the +cushions with the young ironmaster; and it was thus that the door to a +friendship was opened. Farther on, when they had gotten safely beyond +the commonplaces, Raymer suggested the smoking-room and a cigar, and +Griswold went willingly.</p> + +<p>"I was wondering if you were like me in that, Mr. Raymer," he said. "I +never feel properly acquainted with a man until I have smoked with him."</p> + +<p>"Or with a woman until she has made a cup of tea for you?" laughed the +native. "That is Miss Margery's try-out. She has taught us the +potentialities that lie in a cup of tea well brewed and skilfully +sweetened."</p> + +<p>From that on, the path to better acquaintance was the easiest of +short-cuts, even as the mild cigar which Raymer found in his pocket-case +paved the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> way for a return of the smoker's zest in the convalescent. +Without calling himself a reformer, the young ironmaster proved to be a +practical sociologist. Wherefore, when Griswold presently mounted his +own sociological hobby, he was promptly invited to visit the Raymer +Foundry and Machine Works, to the end that he might have some of his +theories of the universal oppression of wage-earners charitably +modified.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I don't deny that we're a long way from the Millennium, +yet," was Raymer's summing up of the conditions in his own plant. "But I +do claim that we are on a present-day, living footing. So far as the men +understand loyalty, they are loyal; partly to my father's memory; +partly, I hope, to me. We have never had a strike or an approach to one, +or a disagreement that could not be adjusted amicably. Whether these +conditions can be maintained after we double our capacity and get in a +lot of new blood, I can't say. But I hope they can."</p> + +<p>"You are enlarging?" said Griswold.</p> + +<p>Raymer waited until the only other man in the smoking-den had gone back +to the drawing-rooms before he said: "Yes; I caught the fever along with +the rest of them a few weeks ago, and I'm already beginning to wish that +I hadn't."</p> + +<p>"You are afraid of the market?"</p> + +<p>"N-no; times are good, and the market—our market, at least—is daily +growing stronger. It is rather a matter of finances. I am an engineer, +as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> my father was before me. When it comes to wrestling with the money +devil, I'm outclassed from the start."</p> + +<p>"There are a good many more of us in the same boat," said Griswold, +leaving an opening for further confidences if Raymer chose to make them. +But the young ironmaster was looking at his watch, and the confidences +were postponed.</p> + +<p>"I'm keeping you up, when I daresay you ought to be in bed," he +protested; but Griswold held him long enough to ask for a suggestion in +a small matter of his own.</p> + +<p>Now that he was able to be about, he was most anxious to relieve Miss +Grierson and her father of the charge and care of one whose obligation +to them was already more than mountain-high: did Raymer happen to know +of some quiet household where the obligated one could find lodging and a +simple table?</p> + +<p>Raymer, taking time to think of it, did know. Mrs. Holcomb, the widow of +his father's bookkeeper, owned her own house in Shawnee Street. It was +not a boarding-house. The widow rented rooms to two of Mr. Grierson's +bank clerks, and she was looking for another desirable lodger. Quite +possibly she would be willing to board the extra lodger. Raymer, +himself, would go and see her about it.</p> + +<p>"It is an exceedingly kind-hearted community this home town of yours, +Mr. Raymer," was the convalescent's leave-taking, when he shook hands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +with the ironmaster at the foot of the stairs; and that was the thought +which he took to bed with him after Raymer had gone to make his adieux +to the small person who, in Griswold's reckoning, owned the kindest of +the kind hearts.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2> + +<h3>BROFFIN'S EQUATION</h3> + + +<p>Having Clerk Maurice's telegram to time the overtaking approach, Broffin +found the <i>Belle Julie</i> backing and filling for her berth at the +Vicksburg landing when, after a hasty Vicksburg breakfast, he had +himself driven to the river front.</p> + +<p>Going aboard as soon as the swing stage was lowered, he found Maurice, +with whom he had something more than a speaking acquaintance, just +turning out of his bunk in the texas.</p> + +<p>"I took it for granted you'd be along," was Maurice's greeting. "What +bank robber are we running away with now?"</p> + +<p>Broffin grinned.</p> + +<p>"I'm still after the one you took on in the place of John Gavitt."</p> + +<p>"Humph!" said the clerk, sleepily; "I thought that one <i>was</i> John +Gavitt."</p> + +<p>"No; he merely took Gavitt's place and name. Tell me all you know about +him."</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything about him, except that he was fool enough to pull +Buck M'Grath out of the river just after M'Grath had tried to bump him +over the bows."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>This was a new little side-light on the characteristics of the man who +was wanted. Broffin pulled gently at the thread of narrative until he +had all the particulars of the humane mutiny and the near-tragedy in +which it had terminated.</p> + +<p>"Stuck to him and kept him from drowning till you could pick 'em up, did +he—what?" was his commentary on the story. "Then what happened?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing much—or nothing very different. Of course, Mac favored the +fellow all he could, after that; gave him the light end of it when there +was any light end. But he didn't get his chance to even up right until +we got to St. Louis."</p> + +<p>Here, apparently, was another overlooked item in the list of things to +be considered, and Broffin grappled for it.</p> + +<p>"How was that?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know for a certainty. But I put it up that the fellow took Mac +into his confidence—a little—and told him he wanted to make a run for +it as soon as we hit the levee at St. Louis. He hadn't got his pay; we +always hold the 'rousties'' money back till we're unloaded, if we can; +so Mac advanced it, or claimed that he did."</p> + +<p>It was Broffin's business to put two and two together, and at this +conjuncture the process was sufficiently simple. With a hundred thousand +dollars in his possession, the make-believe deck-hand would not be +foolish enough to run even a hypothetical risk for the sake of saving +the bit of wage-money. Broffin's next query seemed wholly irrelevant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you carry any nippers or handcuffs on the <i>Belle Julie</i>, Maurice?" +he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I believe Mac has an odd pair or so in his dunnage; in fact, I +know he has. I've seen him use 'em on an obstreperous nigger."</p> + +<p>From the handcuffs Broffin went off at another tangent.</p> + +<p>"Of course, so far as you know, nobody on the boat suspected that the +fellow who called himself Gavitt was anything but the 'roustie' he was +passing himself off for? You didn't know of his having any talk with any +of the upper-deck people?"</p> + +<p>"Only once," said the day-clerk, promptly.</p> + +<p>"When was that?"</p> + +<p>"It was one day just after the 'man-overboard' incident, a little while +after dusk in the evening. I was up here in the texas, getting ready to +go to supper. Gavitt—we may as well keep on calling him that till +you've found another name for him—Gavitt had been cubbing for the +pilot. I saw him go across the hurricane-deck and down the companion to +the saloon-deck guards; and a minute later I heard him talking to +somebody—a woman—on the guards below."</p> + +<p>"You didn't hear what was said?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't pay any attention. Passengers, women passengers especially, +often do that—pull up a 'roustie' and pry into him to see what sort of +wheels he has. But I noticed that they talked for quite a little while; +because, when I finished dressing and went below, he was just leaving +her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + +<p>Broffin rose up from the bunk on which he had been sitting and laid a +heavy hand on Maurice's shoulder. "You ain't going to tell me that you +didn't find out who the woman was, Clarence—what?" he said anxiously.</p> + +<p>"That's just what I've got to tell you, Matt," returned the clerk +reluctantly. "I was due at the second table, and I didn't go as far +forward as the stanchion she was holding on to. All I can tell you is +that she was one of the half-dozen or so younger women we had on board; +I could guess at that much."</p> + +<p>Broffin's oath was not of anger; it was a mere upbubbling of +disappointment.</p> + +<p>"Maurice, I've got to find that young woman if I have to chase her +half-way round the globe, and it's tough luck to figure out that if you +hadn't been in such a blazing hell of a hurry to get your supper that +night, I might be able to catch up with her in the next forty-eight +hours or so. But what's done is done, and can't be helped. Chase out and +get your passenger list for that trip. We'll take the women as they +come, and when you've helped me cull out the names of the ones you're +sure it wasn't, I'll screw my nut and quit buzzing at you."</p> + +<p>The clerk went below and returned almost immediately with the list. +Together they went over it carefully, and by dint of much +memory-wringing Maurice was able to give the detective leave to cancel +ten of the seventeen names in the women's list, the remaining seven +including all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> might-have-beens who could possibly be fitted into +the clerk's recollection of the woman he had seen clinging to the +saloon-deck stanchion after her interview with the deck-hand.</p> + +<p>To these seven names were appended the addresses given in the steamer's +registry record, though as to these Maurice admitted that the patrons of +the boats were not always careful to comply with the regulation which +required the giving of the home address.</p> + +<p>"About as often as not they write down the name of the last place they +stopped at," he asserted; and Broffin swore again.</p> + +<p>"Which means that I may have to pound my ear eight or ten thousand miles +on the varnished cars for nothing," he growled. "Well, there ain't any +rest for the wicked, I reckon. Now tell me where I can find this man +Buck M'Grath, and I'll fade away."</p> + +<p>M'Grath was on duty, superintending the loading and unloading of the +Vicksburg freight quotas; but when Broffin tapped him on the shoulder +and showed his badge, the second mate was called in and M'Grath stood +aside with his unwelcome interrupter.</p> + +<p>There were difficulties from the outset. A man-driver himself, the chief +mate shared with the sheerest outcast in his crew a hearty hatred for +the man-catchers all and singular; and in the present instance his +sympathies were with the fugitive from justice, on general principles +first, and for good and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> sufficient personal reasons afterward. Then, +too, Broffin was hardly at his best. At the thought of what this man +M'Grath could tell him, and was gruffly refusing to tell him, he lost +his temper.</p> + +<p>"You're edgin' up pretty close to the law, yourself, by what you're +keeping back," he told the mate finally. "Sooner or later, I'm going to +run this gentleman-roustie of yours down, anyhow, and it'll be healthier +for you to help than to hinder. Do you know what he's wanted for?"</p> + +<p>M'Grath did not know, and his enlargement upon the simple negative was +explosively profane.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll tell you. He was the 'strong-arm' man that held up the +president of the Bayou State Security and made his get-away with a +hundred thousand. Now will you come across?"</p> + +<p>"No!" rasped the Irishman—and again there were embellishments.</p> + +<p>"All right. When I catch up with him, you'll fall in for your share in +the proceeds as an accessory after the fact. My men nabbed him on the +levee at St. Louis, and when he euchred them he carried away a pair of +handcuffs that somebody had to help him get shut of. He came back to the +boat, and you are the man who took the handcuffs off!"</p> + +<p>"'Tis a scrimshankin' lie, and ye can't prove ut!" said M'Grath.</p> + +<p>"Maybe not; but there's one thing I can prove. This side-partner of +yours didn't get his pay before he went ashore with the spring-line; +<i>but you drew it for him afterwards!</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<p>M'Grath was cruelly cornered, but he still had the courage of his +gratitude.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I did be taking the bracelets off av 'm. Now make the most +av ut, and be damned to you! Did I know what he'd been doing? I did not. +Do I know where he wint? I do not. Have I seen the naygur that skipped +with him, from that day to this? I have not; nor would I be knowing 'm +if I did see 'm. Anything else yez'd like to know? If there is, ye'll be +taking ut on the tip av my fisht!" And he went back to his work, oozing +profanity at every pore.</p> + +<p>Thrown back upon the one remaining expedient, Broffin went ashore and +became a student of railroad time-tables. Passing the incidents of the +stubborn chase in review after many days, he wondered that it had not +occurred to him to question Captain Mayfield. But that the captain would +know anything at all about any particular bit of human driftwood in the +ever-changing deck crew seemed easily incredible; and there was no good +angel of clairvoyance to tell him that the captain had once been made +the half-confidant of a distressed young woman who was anxious to be +both just and merciful.</p> + +<p>It was while he was waiting for the departure of the first northbound +train that he planned the search for the young woman, arranging the +names of the seven might-have-beens in the order of accessibility as +indicated by the addresses given in the <i>Belle Julie's</i> register. In +this arrangement Miss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> Charlotte Farnham's name stood as Number Three; +the two names outranking hers being assigned respectively to Terre +Haute, Indiana, and Baldwin, Kansas.</p> + +<p>In his after-rememberings, Broffin swore softly under the drooping +mustaches when he recalled how, in that morning waiting at Vicksburg, he +had hesitated and changed his mind many times before deciding upon the +first three zigzags of the search. Terre Haute, Baldwin, and Wahaska lay +roughly at the three extremities of a great triangle whose sides, +measured in hours of railroad travel, were nearly equal. Failing at +Terre Haute, the nearest point, he could reach either of the two +remaining vertices of the triangle with fairly equal facility; and it +was surely an ironical fate that led him to decide finally upon the +Kansas town as the second choice.</p> + +<p>Some twenty-odd hours after leaving Vicksburg, Broffin the tireless +found himself in Terre Haute. Here failure had at least the comfort of +finality. The Miss Heffelfinger of his list, whom he found and +interviewed within an hour of his arrival, was a teacher of German whose +difficulties with the English language immediately eliminated her from +the diminishing equation. Broffin got away from the voluble little +Berliner as expeditiously as possible and hastened back to the railway +station. Kansas came next in his itinerary, and a westbound train was +due to leave in a few minutes.</p> + +<p>It was here again that fate mocked him. Arriving at the station, he +found that the westbound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> train was an hour late; also, that within the +hour there would be a fast train to the north, with good connections for +Wahaska. Once more he stumbled and fell into the valley of indecision. A +dozen times during the forty-five minutes of grace he was on the point +of changing his route; nay, more; at the last minute, when the caller +had announced the northern train, he took a gambler's chance and spun a +coin—heads for the north and tails for the west. The twirling +half-dollar slipped from his fingers and rolled under one of the +stationary seats in the waiting-room. Broffin got down on his hands and +knees to grope for it, and while he was groping the chance to take the +northbound "Limited" was lost. Moreover, when he finally found the coin +it was standing upright in a crack in the floor.</p> + +<p>Having now no alternative to distract him, he held to his original plan +and was soon speeding westward toward the Kansan experiment-station. For +two full days of twenty-four hours each he fought as only a determined +man and a good traveller could fight to cover a distance which should +have been traversed in something less than half of the time. Washouts, +blocked tracks, missed connections, all these got in the way; and it was +not until late in the afternoon of the third day out from Terre Haute +that he was set down at the small station which serves the needs of the +Kansas university town.</p> + +<p>Having had himself conveyed quickly to the university, which was given +as the address of the Miss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> Sanborn whose name stood second in his list, +he learned how shrewd a blow his implacable ill-luck had dealt him in +making him the victim of so many delays. Miss Sanborn, it appeared, had +been fitting herself at the denominational school to go out as a +missionary. And some twelve hours before his arrival she had started on +her long journey to the antipodes, going by way of San Francisco and the +Pacific Mail.</p> + +<p>Another man might have taken the more easily reached addresses in the +list, leaving the appalling world-tour for the last. But the doggedness +which had hitherto been Broffin's best bid for genius in his profession +asserted itself as a ruling passion. Twenty minutes after having been +given his body-blow by the dean of the theological school he had +examined some specimens of Miss Sanborn's handwriting, had compared them +with the unsigned letter, and was back at the little railroad station +burning the wires to Kansas City in an attempt to find out the exact +sailing date of the missionary's steamer from San Francisco.</p> + +<p>When the answer came he found that his margin of time was something of +the narrowest, but it was still a margin. By taking the first overland +train which could be reached and boarded, he might, barring more of the +ill-luck, arrive at San Francisco in time to overtake the young woman +whose handwriting was so like, and yet in some respects quite strikingly +unlike, that of the writer of the letter to Mr. Galbraith.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>Under such conditions the long journey to the Pacific Coast was begun, +continued, and, in due course of time, ended. As if it had exhausted +itself in the middle passage, ill-luck held aloof, and Broffin's +overland train was promptly on time when it rolled into its terminal at +Oakland. An hour later he had crossed the bay and was in communication +with the steamship people. Though it was within a few hours of the China +steamer's sailing date, Miss Sanborn had not yet made her appearance, +and once more, though the subject this time was wholly innocent, Broffin +swore fluently.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding, after all these intermediate buffetings, it was only +the ultimate disappointment which was reserved for the man who had come +two thousand miles out of his way for a five-minute talk with a young +woman. Almost at the last moment he found her, and in the same moment +was made to realize that the similarity in handwriting was only a +similarity. Miss Sanborn had been a passenger on the <i>Belle Julie</i>, +boarding the steamboat at New Orleans and debarking at St. Louis. But +she had known nothing of the Bayou State Security robbery until she had +read of it in the newspapers; and one glance into the steadfast blue +eyes that met his without flinching convinced Broffin that once more he +had fired and missed.</p> + +<p>Number Two in the list of seven being thus laboriously eliminated, +Broffin, to be utterly consistent, should have boarded the first train +for Minnesota. But inasmuch as three of the remaining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> five addresses +were west of the Missouri River, he sacrificed consistency to +common-sense, halting at a little town in the Colorado mountains, again +at Pueblo, and a third time at Hastings, Nebraska only to find at each +stopping-place that the ultimate disappointment had preceded and was +waiting for him.</p> + +<p>With his list cancelled down to two names, he resumed the eastward +flight from the Nebraska town and was again beset by the devil of +indecision. The two place-names remaining were Wahaska and a small +coal-mining town in southern Iowa. Measuring again by railroad hours, he +found that the Iowa town was the nearer; but, on the other hand, there +were good connections from Omaha to Wahaska, and a rather poor one to +the coal mines. Once more Broffin took the gambler's chance, spinning +the coin in his hat, heads for Iowa and tails for Minnesota. It came +heads; and the following day recorded the sixth in the string of +failures.</p> + +<p>Leaving What Cheer in the caboose of a coal train, with only the train's +crew for company, and a hard bench for a bed, the man-hunter was already +thrilling to the exultant view-halloo in the chase. By the light of the +flickering caboose lamp he drew his pencil through the Iowa failure. The +one uncancelled name was now something more than a chance; it was a +certainty.</p> + +<p>"I've got you for fair, girlie, this time!" he triumphed, and since he +did it audibly, the coal-train conductor laughed and wanted to be told +the color of her eyes and hair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Got 'em pretty bad, ain't you, pardner?" he commented, when Broffin, +loose-tongued in his elation, confessed that he was chasing a woman whom +he had never seen. "I know how it goes: seen a picture of one once on a +bill-board, and I'd 'a' gone plum to Californy after her if I hadn't +been too danged busy to take a lay-off."</p> + +<p>Landing in Wahaska the next evening, Broffin's first request at the +hotel counter was for the directory. Running an eager finger down the +"F's" he came to the name. It was the only Farnham in the list, and +after it he read: "Dr. Herbert C., office 8 to 10, 2 to 4, 201 Main St., +res. 16 Lake Boulevard."</p> + +<p>Broffin had a traveller's appetite, and the café doors were invitingly +open. Yet he denied himself until the clerk, busy at the moment with +other guests, should be at liberty.</p> + +<p>"I see there's a Doctor Farnham here," he said, when his time came. "I +was wondering if he was the man I met up with down in New Orleans last +winter."</p> + +<p>The clerk shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I guess not. Doctor Bertie hasn't taken a vacation since the oldest +inhabitant can remember."</p> + +<p>"H'm; that's funny," mused the detective, as one nonplussed. "The name's +just as familiar as an old song. Is your Doctor Farnham a sort of oldish +man?"</p> + +<p>"He's elderly, yes; old enough to have a grown daughter." Then the clerk +laughed. "Perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> you've got things tangled. Perhaps you 'met up' with +Miss Charlotte. She was down on the Gulf Coast last winter."</p> + +<p>"Not me," said Broffin, matching the ice-breaking laugh. And then he +registered for a room and passed on into the café, deferring to the +appetite which, for the first time in nearly four tedious weeks, he felt +justified in indulging to the untroubled limit.</p> + +<p>Having, by the slow but sure process of elimination, finally reduced his +equation to its lowest terms, Broffin put the past four weeks and their +failures behind him, and prepared to draw the net which he hoped would +entangle the lost identity of the bank robber. After a good night's +sleep in a real bed, he awoke refreshed and alert, breakfasted with an +open mind, and presently went about the net-drawing methodically and +with every contingency carefully provided for.</p> + +<p>The first step was to assure himself beyond question that Miss Farnham +was the writer of the unsigned letter. This step he was able, by a piece +of great good fortune, to take almost immediately. A bit of morning +gossip with the obliging clerk of the Winnebago House developed the fact +that Dr. Farnham's daughter had once taught in the free kindergarten +which was one of the charitable out-reachings of the Wahaska Public +Library. Two blocks east and one south: Broffin walked them promptly, +made himself known to the librarian as a visitor interested in +kindergarten work, and was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> cheerfully shown the records. When he turned +to the pages signed "Charlotte Farnham" the last doubt vanished and +assurance was made sure. The anonymous letter writer was found.</p> + +<p>It was just here that Matthew Broffin fell under the limitations of his +trade. Though the detective in real life is as little as may be like the +Inspector Buckets and the Javerts of fiction, certain characteristics +persist. Broffin thought he knew the worth of boldness; where it was a +mere matter of snapping the handcuffs upon some desperate criminal, the +boldness was not wanting. But now, when he found himself face to face +with the straightforward expedient, the craft limitations bound him. +Instantly he thought of a dozen good reasons why he should make haste +slowly; and he recognized in none of them the craftsman's slant toward +indirection—the tradition of the trade which discounts the +straightforward attack and puts a premium upon the methods of the +deer-stalker.</p> + +<p>Sooner or later, of course, the attack must be made. But only an +apprentice, he told himself, would be foolish enough to make it without +mapping out all the hazards of the ground over which it must be made. In +a word, he must "place" Miss Farnham precisely; make a careful study of +the young woman and her environment, to the end that every thread of +advantage should be in his hands when he should finally force her to a +confession. For by now the assumption that she knew the mysterious bank +robber was no longer hypothetical in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> Broffin's mind: it had grown to +the dimensions of a conviction.</p> + +<p>Wahaska was not difficult of approach on its gossiping side. Though it +owned a charter and called itself a city, it was still in the +country-town stage which favors a wide distribution of news with the +personal note emphasized. Broffin, conveying the impression that he was +a Louisiana lumberman on a vacation, approved himself as a good +listener, and little more was needed. In a week he had traced the social +outlines of the town as one finds the accent of a painting; in a +fortnight he had grouped the Griersons, the Raymers, the Oswalds, the +Barrs, and the Farnhams in their various interrelations, business and +otherwise.</p> + +<p>With the patient curiosity of his tribe he suffered no detail, however +trivial, to escape its jotting down. To familiarize himself with the +goings and comings of one young woman, he made the acquaintance of an +entire town. He knew Jasper Grierson's ambition, and its fruitage in the +practical ownership of Wahaska. He knew that Edward Raymer had borrowed +money from Grierson's bank—and was likely to be unable to pay it when +his notes fell due. He had heard it whispered that there had once been a +love affair between young Raymer and Miss Farnham, and that it had been +broken off by Raymer's infatuation for Margery Grierson. Also, last and +least important of all the gossiping details, as it seemed at the time, +he learned that the bewitching Miss Grierson was a creature of fads; +that within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> the past month or two she had returned from a Florida trip, +bringing with her a sick man, a total stranger, who had been picked up +on the train, taken to the great house on the lake shore and nursed back +to life as Miss Grierson's latest defiance of the conventions.</p> + +<p>It should have been a memorable day for Matthew Broffin when he had this +sick man pointed out to him as Miss Grierson's companion in the high +trap—which was also one of Miss Margery's bids for criticism in a town +where the family carryall was still a feature. But Broffin was +sufficiently human to see only a very beautiful young woman sitting +correctly erect on the slanting driving-seat and holding the reins over +a high-stepping horse which, he was told, had cost Jasper Grierson every +cent of a thousand dollars. To be sure, he saw the man, as one sees a +vanishing figure in a kaleidoscope. But there was nothing in the +clean-shaven face of the gaunt, and as yet rather haggard, convalescent +to evoke the faintest thrill of interest—or of memory.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2> + +<h3>IN THE BURGLAR-PROOF</h3> + + +<p>A week and a day after the opening of new vistas at Miss Grierson's +"evening," Griswold—Raymer's intercession with the Widow Holcomb having +paved the way—took a favorable opportunity of announcing his intention +of leaving Mereside. It figured as a grateful disappointment to him—one +of the many she was constantly giving him—that Margery placed no +obstacles in the way of the intention. On the contrary, she approved the +plan.</p> + +<p>"I know how you feel," she said, nodding complete comprehension. "You +want to have a place that you can call your own; a place where you can +go and come as you please and settle down to work. You <i>are</i> going to +work, aren't you?—on the book, I mean?"</p> + +<p>Griswold replaced in its proper niche the volume he had been reading. It +was Adam Smith's <i>Wealth of Nations</i>, and he had been wondering by what +ironical chance it had found a place in the banker's library.</p> + +<p>"Yes; that is what I mean to do," he returned. "But it will have to be +done in such scraps and parings of time as I can save from some +bread-and-butter occupation. One must eat to live, you know."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + +<p>She was sitting on the arm of one of the big library lounging-chairs and +looking up at him with a smile that was suspiciously innocent and +childlike.</p> + +<p>"You mean that you will have to work for your living?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>"What were you thinking of doing?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he confessed. "I have been hoping that Raymer might help +me to find a place; possibly in the machine works as an under +bookkeeper, or something of that sort. Not that I know very much about +any really useful occupation, when it comes to that; but I suppose I can +learn."</p> + +<p>Again he surprised the lurking smile in the velvety eyes, but this time +it was half-mischievous.</p> + +<p>"We have a college here in Wahaska, and you might get a place on the +faculty," she suggested; adding: "As an instructor in philosophy, for +example."</p> + +<p>"Philosophy? that is the one thing in the world that I know least +about."</p> + +<p>"In theory, perhaps," she conceded, laughing openly at him now. "But in +practice you are perfect, Mr. Griswold. Hasn't anybody ever told you +that before?"</p> + +<p>"No; and you don't mean it. You are merely taking a base advantage of a +sick man and making fun of me. I don't mind: I'm in a heavenly temper +this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I do mean it, honestly," she averred. "You are a philosopher, +really and truly, and I can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> prove it. Do you feel equal to another +little drive down-town?"</p> + +<p>"Being a philosopher, I ought to be equal to anything," he postulated; +and he went up-stairs to get a street coat and his hat.</p> + +<p>She had disappeared when he came down again, and he went out to sit on +the sun-warmed veranda while he waited. He had already forgotten what +she had said about the object of the drive—the proving of the +philosophic charge against him—and was looking forward with keenly +pleasurable anticipations to another outing with her, the second for +that day. It had come to this, now; to admitting frankly the charm which +he was still calling sensuous, and which, in the moments of insight +recurring, as often as they can be borne, to the imaginative, and +vouchsafed now and then even to the wayfaring, he was still disposed to +characterize as an appeal to that which was least worthy in him.</p> + +<p>Latterly, however, he had begun to question himself more acutely as to +the exact justice of this attitude; and while he was sunning himself on +the veranda and listening for the hoof-beats of the big trap horse on +the stable approach, he was doing it again. In those graver analytical +moments he had called Margery a preternaturally clever little barbarian, +setting his own immense obligation to her aside in deference to what he +assumed to be the immutable realities. In the sun-warming excursion came +another of those precious moments of insight; a moment in which he was +given a sobering glimpse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> of the deathless Philistine within. Who was he +to be setting his machine-made ideals above the living, breathing, human +fact whose very limitations and shortcomings might figure as angelic +virtues when weighed in any balance save that of the Philistinic ego?</p> + +<p>To admit the query was to admit a doubtful distrust of all the charted +anchorages; those sure holding-grounds which he had once believed to be +the very bottoming of facts assured and incontestible. From his lounging +seat the trees on the lawn framed a noble vista of lakescape and +crescent-curved beach drive, the latter with its water-facing row of +modest mansions, the homes of Wahaska's well-to-do elect. At the end of +the crescent he could see the chimneys of the Raymer house rising above +a groving of young maples; and nearer at hand the substantial, +two-storied frame house which Miss Grierson had pointed out to him as +the home of the kindly Doctor Bertie. When he found himself drifting, +his thoughts reverted automatically to Charlotte Farnham. There, if +anywhere, lay the touchstone of truth and the verities; there, he told +himself, was at least one life into which the doubtful distrust of the +anchorages had never come.</p> + +<p>Passing easily from Miss Farnham the ideal to Miss Farnham the +flesh-and-blood reality, he was moved to wonder mildly why the fate +which had brought him twice into critically intimate relations with her +was now denying him even a chance meeting. For a week or more he had +been going out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> daily; sometimes with Miss Grierson in the trap, but +oftener afoot and alone. The walking excursions had led him most +frequently up and down the lakeside drive, but the doctor's house stood +well back in its enclosure, and there was much shrubbery. Once he had +heard her voice: she was reading aloud to some one on the vine-screened +porch. And once again in passing, he had caught a glimpse of a shapely +arm with the loose sleeve falling away from it as it was thrust upward +through the porch greenery to pluck a bud from the crimson rambler +adding its graceful mass to the clambering vines. It was rather +disappointing, but he was not impatient. In the fulness of time the +destiny which had twice intervened would intervene again. He was as +certain of it as he was of the day-to-day renewal of his strength and +vitality; and he could afford to wait. For, whatever else might happen +in a mutable world, neither an ideal nor its embodiment may suffer +change.</p> + +<p>As if to add the touch of definitiveness to the presumptive conclusion, +a voice broke in upon his revery; the voice of the young woman whose +most alluring charm was her many-sided changefulness.</p> + +<p>"What? no trap yet? Thorsen is outliving his usefulness; he is getting +slower and pokier every added day he lives!" the voice was saying, with +a faintly acid quality in it that Griswold had seldom heard. Then, as if +she had marked his preoccupied gaze and divined its object: "You must +have a little more patience, Mr. Griswold. All things come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> to him who +waits. When you have left Mereside finally, Doctor Bertie will some time +take you home to dinner with him."</p> + +<p>For his own peace of mind, Griswold hastily assured himself that it was +only the wildest of chance shots. Since the day when he had admitted +that he knew Miss Farnham's name without knowing Miss Farnham in person, +the doctor's daughter had never been mentioned between them.</p> + +<p>"How did you happen to guess that I was thinking of the good doctor?" he +asked, curiously.</p> + +<p>"You were not thinking of Doctor Bertie; you were thinking of Doctor +Bertie's 'only'," was the laughing contradiction; and Griswold was glad +that the coming of the man with the trap saved him from the necessity of +falling any farther into what might easily prove to be a dangerous +pitfall. Later on, while he was mechanically lifting his hat in +recognition of the many salutations acknowledged by his companion in +their triumphal progress down Main Street, he was still thankful and +still puzzling over the almost uncanny coincidence. It was not the first +time that Miss Grierson had seemed able to read his inmost thoughts.</p> + +<p>The short afternoon drive paused at the curb in front of Jasper +Grierson's bank, and, as on former occasions, Margery lightly scorned +the convalescent's up-stretched arms and sprang unhelped to the +pavement. But now her mood was sweetly indulgent and she softened the +refusal. "By and by, after you are quite well and strong again," she +said; and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> a horse-holding boy had been found, she led the way into +the bank.</p> + +<p>It was Griswold's first visit to the Farmers' and Merchants', and while +his companion was speaking to the cashier he was absently contrasting +its rather showy interior with the severe plainness of the Bayou State +Security; contrasting, and congratulating himself upon the gift of the +artistic memory which enabled him to recall with vivid accuracy all the +little details of the New Orleans banking house—this notwithstanding +the good excuse the observing eye might have had for wandering.</p> + +<p>A moment later he found himself bringing up the rear of a procession of +three, led by a young woman with a bunch of keys at her girdle. The +procession halted for the opening of a massive gate in the steel grille +at the rear of the public lobby; after which, with the gate latching +itself automatically behind him, Griswold found himself in the grated +corridor facing the safety deposit vaults.</p> + +<p>"Number three-forty-five-A, please," his companion was saying to the +young woman custodian, and he stood aside and admired the workmanship of +the complicated time-locks while the two entered the electric-lighted +vault and jointly opened one of the multitude of small safes. When Miss +Grierson came out, she was carrying a small, japanned document box under +her arm, and her eyes were shining with a soft light that was new to the +man who was waiting in the corridor. "Come with me to one of the +coupon-rooms," she said; and then to the custodian:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> "You needn't stay; +I'll ring when we want to be let out."</p> + +<p>Griswold followed in mild bewilderment when she turned aside to one of +the little mahogany-lined cells set apart for the use of the +safe-holders, saw her press the button which switched the lights on, and +mechanically obeyed her signal to close the door. When their complete +privacy was assured, she put the japanned box on the tiny table and +motioned him to one of the two chairs.</p> + +<p>"Do you know why I have brought you here?" she asked, when he was +sitting within arm's-reach of the small black box.</p> + +<p>"How should I?" he said. "You take me where you please, and when you +please, and I ask no questions. I am too well contented to be with you +to care very much about the whys and wherefores."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how nicely you say it!" she commended, with the frank little laugh +which he had come to know and to seek to provoke. She was standing +against the opposite cell wall with her shoulders squared and her hands +behind her: the pose, whether intentional or natural, was dramatically +perfect and altogether bewitching. "I was born to be your fairy +godmother, I think," she went on joyously. "Tell me; when you bought +your ticket to Wahaska that night in St. Louis, were you meaning to come +here to find work?—the bread-and-butter work?"</p> + +<p>"No," he admitted; "I had money, then."</p> + +<p>"What became of it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I suppose it was stolen from me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> on the train. It was in +a package in one of my suit-cases; and Doctor Farnham said——"</p> + +<p>"I know; he told you that we had searched your suit-cases when you were +at your worst—thinking we owed it to you and your friends, if you had +any."</p> + +<p>"Yes; that is what he told me."</p> + +<p>"Also, he told you that we didn't find any money?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; he told me that, too. We agreed that somebody must have gone +through the grips on the train."</p> + +<p>"And you let it go at that? Why didn't you tell me, so that we might at +least try to find the thief?"</p> + +<p>He had quite lost sight of the black box on the table by this time, and +was consumed with curiosity to know why she had brought him to such a +place to reproach him for his lack of confidence.</p> + +<p>"How often are we able to tell the exact 'why' of anything?" he answered +evasively. "Perhaps I didn't wish to trouble you—you who had already +troubled yourself so generously in behalf of an unknown castaway."</p> + +<p>"So you just let the money go?"</p> + +<p>"So I just let it go."</p> + +<p>She was laughing again and the bedazzling eyes were dancing with +delight.</p> + +<p>"I told you I was going to prove that you are a philosopher!" she +exulted. "Sour old Diogenes himself couldn't have been more superbly +indifferent to the goods the gods provide. Open that box on the table, +please."</p> + +<p>He did it half-absently: at the first sight of the brown-paper packet +within, the electric bulb suspended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> over the table seemed to grow black +and the mahogany walls of the tiny room to spin dizzily. Then, with a +click that he fancied he could hear, the buzzing mental machinery +stopped and reversed itself. A cold sweat, clammy and sickening, started +out on him when he realized that the reversal had made him once again +the crafty, cornered criminal, ready to fight or fly—or to slay, if a +life stood in the way of escape. Without knowing what he did, he closed +the box and got upon his feet, eying her with a growing ferocity that he +could neither banish nor control.</p> + +<p>"I see: you were a little beforehand with the doctor," he said, and he +strove to say it naturally; to keep the malignant devil that was +whispering in his ear from dictating the tone as well as the words.</p> + +<p>"I was, indeed; several days beforehand," she boasted, still joyously +exultant.</p> + +<p>"You—you opened the package?" he went on, once more pushing the +importunate devil aside.</p> + +<p>"Naturally. How else would I have known that it was worth locking up?"</p> + +<p>Her coolness astounded him. If she knew the whole truth—and the demon +at his ear was assuring him that she must know it—she must also know +that she was confronting a great peril; the peril of one who voluntarily +shuts himself into a trap with the fear-maddened wild thing for which +the trap was baited and set. He was steadying himself with a hand on the +table when he said: "Well, you opened the package; what did you find +out?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What did I find out?" He heard her half-hesitant repetition of his +query, and for one flitting instant he made sure that he saw the fear of +death in the wide-open eyes that were lifted to his. But the next +instant the eyes were laughing at him, and she was going on confidently. +"Of course, as soon as I untied the string I saw it was money—a lot of +money; and you can imagine that I tied it up again, quickly, and didn't +lose any more time than I could help in putting it away in the safest +place I could think of. Every day since you began to get well, I've been +expecting you to say something about it; but as long as you wouldn't, I +wouldn't."</p> + +<p>Slowly the blood came back into the saner channels, and the whispering +demon at his ear grew less articulate. Was she telling the truth? Could +it be possible that she had not opened the packet far enough to see and +read the damning evidence of the printed bank-slips which, in a very +bravado of carelessness, as he now remembered, he had neglected to +remove and destroy? He was searching the dark eyes for the naked soul +behind them when he ventured again.</p> + +<p>"You—you and your father—must have thought it very singular that a +sick man should be knocking about the country with so much money carried +carelessly in a suit-case?"</p> + +<p>"My father knows nothing about it; nor does any one else. And it wasn't +my place to gossip or to wonder. I found it, and I took care of it for +you. Are you glad, or sorry?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + +<p>He took the necessary forward step and stood before her. And his answer +was no answer at all.</p> + +<p>"Miss Grierson—Margery—are you telling me the truth?—all of it?" he +demanded, seeking once again to pinion the soul which lay beyond the +deepest depth of the limpid eyes.</p> + +<p>Her laugh was as cheerful as a bird song.</p> + +<p>"Telling you the truth? How could you suspect me of such a thing! No, my +good friend; no woman ever tells a man the whole truth when she can help +it. I didn't find your money, and I didn't lock it up in poppa's vault: +I am merely playing a part in a deep and diabolical plot to——"</p> + +<p>Griswold forgot that he was her poor beneficiary; forgot that she had +taken him in as her guest; forgot, in the mad joy of the reactionary +moment, everything that he should have remembered—saw nothing, thought +of nothing save the flushed face with its glorious eyes and tempting +lips: the eyes and lips of the daughter of men.</p> + +<p>She broke away from him hotly after he had taken the flushed face +between his hands and kissed her; broke away to drop into the chair at +the other side of the table, hiding the flashing eyes and the burning +cheeks and the quivering lips in the crook of a round arm which made +room for itself on the narrow table by pushing the japanned money-box +off the opposite edge.</p> + +<p>It was the normal Griswold who picked up the box and put it in the other +chair, gravely and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> methodically. Then he stood before her again with +his back to the wall, waiting for what every gentle drop of blood in his +veins was telling him he richly deserved. His punishment was long in +coming; so long that when he made sure she was crying, he began to +invite it.</p> + +<p>"Say it," he suggested gently, "you needn't spare me at all. The only +excuse I could offer would only make the offence still greater."</p> + +<p>She looked up quickly and the dark eyes were swimming. But whether the +tears were of anger or only of outraged generosity, he could not tell.</p> + +<p>"Then there was an excuse?" she flashed up at him.</p> + +<p>"No," he denied, as one who finds the second thought the worthier; +"there was no excuse."</p> + +<p>She had found a filmy bit of lace-bordered linen at her belt and was +furtively wiping her lips with it.</p> + +<p>"I thought perhaps you might be able to—to invent one of some sort," +she said, and her tone was as colorless as the gray skies of an autumn +nightfall. And then, with a childlike appeal in the wonderful eyes: "I +think you will have to help me a little—out of your broader experience, +you know. What ought I to do?"</p> + +<p>His reply came hot from the refining-fire of self-abasement.</p> + +<p>"You should write me down as one who wasn't worthy of your +loving-kindness and compassion, Miss Grierson. Then you should call the +custodian and turn me out."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But afterward," she persisted pathetically. "There must be an +afterward?"</p> + +<p>"I am leaving Mereside this evening," he reminded her. "It will be for +you to say whether its doors shall ever open to me again."</p> + +<p>She took the thin safety-deposit key from her glove and laid it on the +table.</p> + +<p>"You have made me wish there hadn't been any money," she lamented, with +a sorrowful little catch in her voice that stabbed him like a knife. "I +haven't so many friends that I can afford to lose them recklessly, Mr. +Griswold."</p> + +<p>"Damn the money!" he exploded; and the malediction came out of a full +heart.</p> + +<p>"If you would only say you are sorry," she went on sadly, groping only +half-purposefully for the bell-push which would summon the custodian. +"You are sorry, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>Unconsciously he had taken her former pose, with his back to the wall +and his hands behind him.</p> + +<p>"I ought to be decent enough to lie to you and say that I am," he +returned, hardily. "I know you can't understand; you are too good and +innocent to understand. I'm ashamed; that is, the civilized part of me +is ashamed; but that is all. Knowing that he ought to be in the dust at +your feet, the brutal other-man is unrepentant and riotously jubilant +because, for a brief second or two, he was able to break away and——"</p> + +<p>Her fingers had found the bell-push and were pressing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> it. When the +custodian opened the door, Miss Grierson was her poiseful self again.</p> + +<p>"Number three-forty-five-A is Mr. Kenneth Griswold's box, now," she +announced briefly. "Please register it in his name, and then help him to +put it away and lock it up."</p> + +<p>Griswold went through the motions with the key-bearing young woman +half-absently. By this time he was fathoms deep in the reactionary +undertow. Must the recovered treasure always transform itself into a +millstone to drag him down into some new and untried depth of +degradation? Thrice he had given it up for lost, and in each instance +its reappearance had been the signal for a relapse into primitive +barbarism, for a plunge into the moral under-depths out of which he had +each time emerged distinctively and definitely the loser. Was it to be +always thus? Could it be even remotely possible that in a candidly +material world there could still be standing-room for the myths and +portents and superstitious traditions?</p> + +<p>He was trying to persuade himself that there could not be standing-room +when he rejoined Margery—herself the best imaginable refutation of the +old-wives' tales—at the gate in the great steel grille. Man-like, he +was ready to be forgiven and comforted; and there was at least oblivion +in her charming little shudder as the custodian shot the bolts of the +gate to let them out.</p> + +<p>"<i>Br-r-r!</i>" she shivered, "I can never stand here and look at the free +people out there without fancying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> myself in a prison. It must be a +dreadful thing to be shut away behind bolts and bars, forgotten by +everybody, and yet yourself unable to forget. Do you ever have such +foolish thoughts, Mr. Griswold?"</p> + +<p>For one poignant second fear leaped alive again and he called himself no +better than a lost man. But the eyes that were lifted to his were the +eyes of a questioning child, so guilelessly innocent that he immediately +suffered another relapse into the pit of self-despisings.</p> + +<p>"You have made me your poor prisoner, Miss Grierson," he said, speaking +to his own thought rather than to her question. And when they reached +the sidewalk and the trap: "May I bid you good-by here and go to my own +place?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not!" she protested. "Mr. Raymer is coming to dinner to-night +and he will drive you over to Mrs. Holcomb's afterward, if you really +think you must go."</p> + +<p>And for the first time in their comings and goings she let him lift her +to the high driving-seat.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2> + +<h3>CONVERGING ROADS</h3> + + +<p>Matthew Broffin had been two weeks and half of a third an unobtrusive +spy upon the collective activities of the Wahaskan social group which +included the Farnhams before he decided that nothing more could be +gained by further delay.</p> + +<p>By this time he knew all there was to be known about Miss Farnham; the +houses she visited, the somewhat limited circle of her intimates and the +vastly wider one of her acquaintances, her comings and goings in the +town, her preference for church dissipations over the other sort, and +for croquet over lawn tennis.</p> + +<p>Also, he had a more minute knowledge which would have terrified her if +she had suspected that any strange man was keeping an accurately +tabulated note-book record of her waking employments. He knew at what +hour she breakfasted, what time in the forenoons she spent upon her +Chautauqua readings, how much of her day was given to the care of her +invalid aunt, and, most important item of all, how, in the afternoons, +when her father was at his town office and the invalid was taking a nap +in her room, Miss Charlotte was usually alone in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> the living-rooms of +the two-storied house in Lake Boulevard: practically so for four days +out of the seven; actually so on Wednesdays and Fridays when Hilda +Larsen, the Swedish maid of all work, had her afternoons off.</p> + +<p>Having his own private superstition about Friday, Broffin chose a +Wednesday afternoon for his call at the house on the lake front. It was +a resplendent day of the early summer which, in the Minnesota latitudes, +springs, Minerva-like, full-grown from the nodding head of the wintry +Jove of the north. In the doctor's front yard the grass was vividly +green, gladioli and jonquils bordered the path with a bravery of color, +and the buds of the clambering rose on the porch trellis were swelling +to burst their calyxes.</p> + +<p>Broffin turned in from the sidewalk and closed the gate noiselessly +behind him. If he saw the bravery of colors in the path borders it was +only with the outward eye. There was a faint stir on the porch, as of +some one parting the leafy screen to look out, but he neither quickened +his pace nor slowed it. While he had been three doors away in the +lake-fronting street, a small pocket binocular had assured him that the +young woman he was going to call upon was sitting in a porch rocker +behind the clambering rose, reading a book.</p> + +<p>She had risen to meet him by the time he had mounted the steps, and he +knew that her first glance was appraisive. He had confidently counted +upon being mistaken for a strange patient in search of the doctor, and +he was not disappointed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are looking for Doctor Farnham?" she began. "He is at his +office—201 Main Street."</p> + +<p>Broffin was digging in his pocket for a card. It was not often that he +was constrained to introduce himself formally, and for an awkward second +or two the search was unrewarded. When he finally found the bit of +pasteboard he was explaining verbally.</p> + +<p>"I know well enough where your father's office is, but you are the one I +wanted to see," he said; and he gave her the round-cornered card with +its blazonment of his name and employment.</p> + +<p>He was watching her narrowly when she read the name and its underline, +and the quick indrawing of the breath and the little shudder that went +with it were not thrown away upon him. But the other signs; the pressing +of the even teeth upon the lower lip and the coming and going of three +straight lines between the half-closed eyes were not so favorable.</p> + +<p>"Will you come into the house, Mr.——" she had to look at the card +again to get the name—"Mr. Broffin?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Miss; it's plenty good enough out here for me if it is for +you," he returned, beginning to fear that the common civilities were +giving her time to get behind her defences.</p> + +<p>She made way for him on the porch and pointed to a chair, which he took, +damning himself morosely when he caught his foot in the porch rug and +knocked the book from its resting-place on the railing.</p> + +<p>"It is no matter," she said, when he would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> gone outside to recover +the book; but he knew from that moment that whatever advantage a fair +beginning may give was gone beyond recall.</p> + +<p>"I guess we can take it for granted that you know what I want, Miss +Farnham," he began abruptly, when he had shifted his chair to face her +rocker. "Something like three months ago, or thereabouts, you went into +a bank in New Orleans to get a draft cashed. While you were at the +paying teller's window a robbery was committed, and you saw it done and +saw the man that did it. I've come to get you to tell me the man's +name."</p> + +<p>If he had thought to carry the defences by direct assault he was quickly +made to realize that it could not be done. Miss Farnham's +self-possession was quietly convincing when she said:</p> + +<p>"I have told it once, in a letter to Mr. Galbraith."</p> + +<p>Broffin nodded. "Yes; in a letter that you didn't sign: we'll come to +that a little later. The name you gave was John Wesley Gavitt, and you +knew that wasn't his right name, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>She made the sign of assent without thinking that it might imply the +knowing of more.</p> + +<p>"It was the name under which he was enrolled in the <i>Belle Julie's</i> +crew, and it was sufficient to identify him," she countered; adding: "It +did identify him. The officers found him and arrested him at St. Louis."</p> + +<p>"Yes; and he made his get-away in about fifteen minutes after they had +nabbed him, as you probably read in the papers the next morning. He's +loose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> yet, and most naturally he ain't signing his name 'Gavitt' any +more whatever. I've come all the way from New Orleans, and a whole heap +farther, to get you to tell me his real name, Miss Farnham."</p> + +<p>"Why do you think I can tell you?" was the undisturbed query.</p> + +<p>"A lot of little things," said the detective, who was slowly coming to +his own in the matter of self-assurance. "In the first place, he spoke +to you in the bank, and you answered him. Isn't that so?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, but the firm lips remained closed where the lips of another +woman might have opened to repeat what had been said at the teller's +wicket.</p> + +<p>"Then, afterwards, on the boat, before you sent the letter, you talked +with him. It was one evening, just at dusk, on the starboard promenade +of the saloon-deck: he was comin' down from the pilot-house and you +stopped him. That was when he told you what his name was on the +steamboat's books, wasn't it?—what?"</p> + +<p>She nodded again. "You know so much, it is surprising that you don't +know it all, Mr. Broffin," she commented, with gentle sarcasm.</p> + +<p>"The one thing I don't know is the thing you're goin' to tell me—his +real name," he insisted. "That's what I've come here for."</p> + +<p>In spite of her inexperience, which, in Mr. Broffin's field, was no less +than total, Charlotte Farnham had imagination, and with it a womanly +zest for the matching of wits with a man whose chief occupation was the +measuring of his own wit against the subtle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> cleverness of criminals. +Therefore she accepted the challenge.</p> + +<p>"I did my whole duty at the time, Mr. Broffin," she demurred, with a +touch of coldness in her voice. "If you were careless enough to let him +escape you at St. Louis, you shouldn't come to me. I might say very +justly that it was never any affair of mine."</p> + +<p>Matthew Broffin's gifts were subtle only in his dealings with other men; +but he was shrewd enough to know that his last and best chance with a +woman lay in an appeal to her fears.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what made you write this letter, in the first place," he +said, taking the well-thumbed paper from his coat pocket; "but I know +well enough now why you didn't sign it, and why you didn't put the man's +real name in it. You—you and him—fixed it up between you so that you +could say to yourself afterwards what you've just said to me—that you'd +done your duty. But you haven't finished doin' your duty, yet. The law +says——"</p> + +<p>"I know very well what the law says," was her baffling rejoinder; "I +have taken the trouble to find out since I came home. I am not hiding +your criminal."</p> + +<p>Broffin was trying to gain a little ease by tilting his chair. But the +house wall was too close behind him.</p> + +<p>"People will say that you are helpin' to hide him as long as you won't +tell his real name—what?" he grated.</p> + +<p>"You still think I could tell you that, if I chose?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> she said, wilfully +misleading him, or at least allowing him to mislead himself.</p> + +<p>"I don't think anything about it: I <i>know</i>! You'd met him somewhere +before that day in the bank—before you knew he was goin' to turn +gentleman hold-up. That's why you don't want to give up his real name."</p> + +<p>She had risen in answer to the distant chatter of an electric bell, and +in self-defence, Broffin had to grope on the floor for his hat and stand +up, too.</p> + +<p>"I think my aunt is calling and I shall have to go in," she said, calmly +dismissing him. "You'll excuse me, I am sure, Mr. Broffin."</p> + +<p>"In just one second, Miss Farnham. Ain't you goin' to tell me that +fellow's name?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute. I'm an officer of the law, and I could arrest you and +take you to New Orleans on what evidence I've got. How about +that?—what?"</p> + +<p>There was good fighting blood on the Farnham side, notwithstanding the +kindly Doctor Bertie's peaceful avocation, and the calm gray eyes that +met Broffin's were militantly angry when the retort came.</p> + +<p>"If I had a brother, Mr. Broffin, he would be able to answer you better +than I can!" she flamed out. "Let me pass, please!"</p> + +<p>It was not often that Broffin lost his head or his temper, but both were +gone when he struck back.</p> + +<p>"That'll be all right, too!" he broke out harshly, blocking the way to +force her to listen to him. "You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> think you've bluffed me, don't +you?—what? Let me tell you: some fine day this duck whose name isn't +Gavitt will turn up here—to see you; then I'll nab him. If you find out +where he is, and write to him not to come, it'll be all the same; he'll +come anyway, and when he does come, I'll get him!"</p> + +<p>When Miss Farnham had gone in and there was nothing left for him to do +but to compass his own disappearance, Broffin went away, telling himself +with many embellishments that for once in his professional career he had +made an ass of himself. He had made a sorry botch of a measurably simple +detail, to say nothing of letting his temper push him into the final +foolish boast which might easily defeat him.</p> + +<p>None the less, he was able to set some few gains over against the one +critical loss—if one may be said to lose what he has never had. Failing +to learn the true name and place of the Bayou State Security robber, he +told himself that he had established beyond question the correctness of +his hypothesis. The doctor's daughter knew the man; she had known him +before the robbery; she was willing to be his accomplice to the extent +of her ability. There was only one explanation of this attitude. In +Broffin's wording of it, Miss Farnham was "gone on him," if not openly, +at least to such an extent as to make her anxious to shield him.</p> + +<p>That being the case, Broffin set it down as a fact as good as +accomplished that the man would sooner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> or later come to Wahaska. The +detective's knowledge of masculine human nature was as profoundly acute +as the requirements of his calling demanded. With a woman like Miss +Farnham for the lure, he could be morally certain that his man would +some time fling caution, or even a written prohibition, to the winds, +and walk into the trap.</p> + +<p>This misfire of Broffin's happened upon a Wednesday, which, in its +calendar placing, chanced to be three weeks to a day after Griswold had +left Mereside to settle himself studiously in two quiet upper rooms in +the Widow Holcomb's house in upper Shawnee Street.</p> + +<p>That it was also a day of other coincidences will appear in the casting +up of the items on the page of events.</p> + +<p>For one thing, it marked the formal opening of the De Soto Inn for the +summer season; the De Soto being the resort hotel spoken of by the clerk +of the Hotel Chouteau in the little ante-dinner talk which had given +Griswold his first outline sketch of Wahaska. For another, the special +train from the far South arriving at noon and bearing the first +detachment of the Inn's guests, had for one of its Pullman passengers an +elderly gentleman with a strongly marked Scottish face; a gentleman with +the bushy white eyebrows of age, the long upper lip of caution, the +drooping eyelid of irascibility, and the bearing of a man of routine; in +other words, Mr. Andrew Galbraith, faring northward on his customary +summer vacation, which—the fates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> intervening—he had this time +determined to spend at the Wahaskan resort.</p> + +<p>For a third item, it was at three o'clock of this same Wednesday that +Raymer came out of Jasper Grierson's bank with his head down and a cloud +on his brow; the cloud dating back to an interview just closed, a short +and rather brittle conference with the bank's president held in Jasper +Grierson's private room, with the president sitting at ease in his huge +arm-chair and his visitor standing, quite destitute of ease, at the +desk-end.</p> + +<p>A little farther along, this third item dovetailed with a fourth and +fifth. Raymer, dropping into a friend's office to use the telephone, +chanced upon a crossed wire. He had called up Mrs. Holcomb, and while he +was waiting for the widow to summon Griswold from his up-stairs den, +there was a confused skirling of bells and Raymer, innocently +eavesdropping, overheard part of a conversation between two well-known +voices; namely, the voices of Miss Charlotte Farnham and her father. The +talk was neither confidential, nor of any special significance. Miss +Farnham was explaining that she had heard the bell, but could not answer +promptly because she had had a caller; and the doctor was telling her +that it was no matter—that he merely wanted to let her know that he was +going to bring a dinner guest, the guest prospective being his late +patient, Mr. Kenneth Griswold.</p> + +<p>The mention of Griswold's name reminded Raymer of his own affair, and he +became suddenly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> anxious to have the connection with the Widow Holcomb's +house renewed. When the crossed wire was plugged out, Griswold was ready +and waiting.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid you might be out somewhere, and I want to have a pow-wow +with you," said Raymer, when the reassuring voice came over the wire. +"Can you give me a little time if I drive around?" And when the prompt +assent came: "All right; thank you. I'll be with you in a pair of +minutes."</p> + +<p>Raymer's horse was only a short half-square away, hitched in front of +the Winnebago House, and he went to get it. But at the instant of +unhitching, Miss Grierson's trap was driven up and the untying of knots +paused while he stepped from the curb to stand at the wheel of the +modish equipage.</p> + +<p>"You are getting to be as bad as all the others," was the greeting he +got from the high driving-seat. "You haven't been at Mereside for an +age—only once since the night you took Mr. Griswold away from us. By +the way, what has become of Mr. Griswold? He doesn't show himself in +public much oftener than you do."</p> + +<p>"I think he has been getting to work on his writing," said Raymer, +good-naturedly apologizing for his friend. "He'll come down out of the +clouds after a little." And then, before he could stop it, out came the +bit of unchartered information: "I understand he dines at Doctor +Bertie's to-night."</p> + +<p>The young iron-founder was looking up into the eyes of beguiling when he +said this, and, being a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> mere man, he wondered what made them flash and +then grow suddenly fathomless and brooding.</p> + +<p>"When you see him, tell him that we are still on earth over at +Mereside," said the magnate's daughter pertly; and a moment later Raymer +was free to keep his appointment with Griswold.</p> + +<p>All in all, the little interruption had consumed no more than five +minutes, but the time interval was sufficient to form another link in +the chain of Wednesday incidents. For, as Raymer was turning out of Main +Street into Shawnee, he narrowly missed running over a heavy-set man +with a dark face and drooping mustaches; a pedestrian whose +preoccupation seemed so great as to make him quite oblivious to street +crossings and passing vehicles until Raymer pulled his horse back into +the shafts and shouted.</p> + +<p>When the man looked up, Raymer recognized him as the stranger from the +South who was stopping at the Winnebago House and who gave himself out +as a Louisiana lumberman open to conviction on the subject of Minnesota +pine lands as an investment. But he had no means of knowing that +Broffin's momentary preoccupation was chargeable to a fruitless +interview lately concluded; or that in driving away to the house three +squares up the street he was bridging the narrow gap between a +man-hunter and his quarry—a gap which had suddenly grown into a chasm +for the man-hunter himself.</p> + +<p>One more small coincidence will serve to total the items on the +Wednesday page. If Broffin had not stopped to look after the man who had +so nearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> run him down, he might not have been crossing Main Street in +front of the Winnebago at the precise instant when Miss Grierson, with +young Dahlgren in the second seat of the trap, came around the square +and pulled up to let her horse drink at the public fountain.</p> + +<p>"Who is that Bitter-Creekish-looking man crossing over to the Winnebago +House?" asked Miss Grierson of her seatmate, indicating Broffin with a +wave of the whip, and skilfully making the query sound like the voicing +of the idlest curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Fellow named Broffin, from Louisiana," said Dahlgren, who, as assistant +editor of the <i>Daily Wahaskan</i>, knew everybody. "Says he's in the lumber +business down there, but, 'I doubt it,' said the carpenter, and shed a +bitter tear."</p> + +<p>"Why do you doubt it?" queried Miss Grierson, neatly flicking a fly from +the horse's back with the tip of the whiplash.</p> + +<p>"Oh, on general principles, I guess. You wouldn't say he had any of the +ear-marks of a business man."</p> + +<p>"What kind of ear-marks has he got?" persisted Miss Grierson—merely to +make talk, as Dahlgren decided.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. We were talking about him around at the club the other +night, and Sheffield—he's from Kentucky, you know—thought he +remembered the name as the name of a 'moonshine' raider he'd heard of +down in his home State."</p> + +<p>"A moonshine raider? What is that?" By this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> time Miss Margery's +curiosity was less inert than it had been, or had seemed to be, at +first.</p> + +<p>"A deputy marshal, you know; a sort of Government policeman and +detective rolled into one. He looks it, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson did not say what she thought, then, or later, when she set +Dahlgren down at the door of his newspaper office in Sioux Avenue. But +still later, two hours later, in fact, she gave a brief audience in the +Mereside library to a small, barefooted boy whose occupation was +sufficiently indicated by the bundle of evening papers hugged under one +arm.</p> + +<p>"Well, Johnnie; what did you find out?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Ain't had time," said the boy. "But he ain't no milyunaire +lumber-shooter, I'll bet a nickel. I sold him a pape' jes' now, down by +Dutchie's lumber yard, and I ast him what kind o' lumber that was in the +pile by the gate. He didn't know, no more'n a goat."</p> + +<p>Miss Margery filliped a coin in the air and the newsboy caught it +dexterously.</p> + +<p>"That will do nicely for a beginning, Johnnie," she said sweetly. "Come +and see me every once in a while, and perhaps there'll be more little +white cart-wheels for you. Only don't tell; and don't let him catch you. +That's all."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2> + +<h3>THE FORWARD LIGHT</h3> + + +<p>During the days which followed his setting up of the standard of +independence in Mrs. Holcomb's second-floor front, Griswold found +himself entering upon a new world—a world corresponding with gratifying +fidelity to that prefigured future which he had struck out in the waking +hours of his first night on the main-deck of the <i>Belle Julie</i>.</p> + +<p>Wahaska, as a fortunate field for the post-graduate course in +Experimental Humanity, was all that his fancy had pictured it. It was +neither so small as to scant the variety of subjects, nor so large as to +preclude the possibility of grasping them in their entirety. In strict +accord with the forecast, it promised to afford the writing craftsman's +happy medium in surroundings: it would reproduce, in miniature, perhaps, +but none the less in just proportions, the social problems of the wider +world; and for a writer's seclusion the village quiet of upper Shawnee +Street was all that could be desired.</p> + +<p>When he came to go about in the town, as he did daily after the pleasant +occupation of refurnishing his study and bed-room was a pleasure past, +he found that in some mysterious manner his fame had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> preceded him. +Everybody seemed to know who he was; to be able to place him as a New +Yorker, as an author in search of health, or local color or environment +or some other technical quality not to be found in the crowded cities; +to be able to place him, also, as Miss Margery Grierson's friend and +beneficiary—which last, he surmised, was his best passport to the good +graces of his fellow-townsmen.</p> + +<p>Coincidently he discovered that, in the same mysterious manner, +everybody seemed to know that he was, in the Wahaskan phrase, +"well-fixed." Here, again, he guessed that something might be credited +to Margery. Beyond a hint to Raymer, he had told no one of the +comfortable assurance against want lying snugly secure in the small +strong-box in the Farmers' and Merchants' safety vault, and he was +reasonably certain that Raymer could not have passed the hint so fast +and so far as the town-wide limits to which the fact of the "well-fixed" +phrase had spread.</p> + +<p>All this was very nourishing, not to say stimulating, to the starved +soul of a proletary. Not in any period of the past had he so fully +understood that an acute appreciation of the wrongs of the race is no +bar to an equally acute hungering and thirsting after the commonplace +flesh-pots, or to a very primitive and soul-satisfying enjoyment of the +same when they were to be had. Nevertheless, the reaction into +self-indulgence proved to be only temporary. God had been good to him, +enabling him to realize in miraculous fulfilment the ideal environment +and opportunity:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> therefore he would do his part, proclaiming the holy +war and fighting, single-handed if need be, the battle of the weak +against the strong.</p> + +<p>So ran the renewed determination, dusted off and re-pedestaled after +many days. As to the manner of conducting the war against inequality and +the crime of plutocracy, the plan of campaign had been sufficiently +indicated in that white-hot moment of high resolves on the cargo-deck of +the <i>Belle Julie</i>. For the propaganda, there was his book; for the +demonstration, he would put the sacred fund into some industry where the +weight of it would give him the casting vote in all questions involving +the rights of the workers. It was absurdly simple, and he wondered that +none of the sociological reformers whose books he had read had +anticipated him in the discovery of such an obviously logical point of +attack.</p> + +<p>With the re-writing of the book fairly begun, he was already looking +about for the practical opportunity when the growing friendship with +Edward Raymer promised to offer an opening exactly fulfilling the +experimental requirements. Raymer had over-enlarged his plant and was +needing more capital. So much Griswold had gathered from the talk of the +street; and some of Raymer's half-confidences had led him to suspect +that the need was, or was likely to become, imperative. It was only the +finer quality of friendship that had hitherto kept him from offering +help before it was asked, and thus far he had contented himself with +hinting to Raymer that he had money to invest. From every point of view<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +a partnership with the young iron-founder promised to afford the golden +opportunity. The industry was comparatively small and self-contained; +and Raymer was himself openly committed to the cause of uplifting. +Griswold waited patiently; he was still waiting on the Wednesday +afternoon when Raymer called him over the telephone and made the +appointment for a meeting at the house in Shawnee Street.</p> + +<p>"Your 'pair of minutes' must have found something to grow upon," laughed +the patient waiter, when Raymer, finding Mrs. Holcomb's front door open, +had climbed the stair to the newly established literary workshop. "I've +had time to smoke a pipe and write a complete paragraph since you called +up."</p> + +<p>Raymer flung himself into a chair at the desk-end and reached for a pipe +in the curiously carved rack which had been one of Griswold's small +extravagances in the refurnishing.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said; "Margery Grierson drove up while I was unhitching, and I +had to stop and talk to her. Which reminds me: she says you're giving +Mereside the go-by since you set up for yourself. Are you?"</p> + +<p>"Not intentionally," Griswold denied; and he let it stand at that.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't, if I were you," Raymer advised. "Margery Grierson is any +man's good friend; and pretty soon you'll be meeting people who will +lift their eyebrows when you speak of her. You mustn't make her pay for +that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm not likely to," was the sober rejoinder. "My debt to Miss Grierson +is a pretty big one, Raymer; bigger than you suspect, I imagine."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to hear you put the debt where it belongs, leaving her father +out of it. You don't owe him anything; not even a cup of cold water. +There's a latter-day buccaneer for you!" he went on, warming to his +subject like a man with a sore into which salt has been freshly rubbed. +"That old timber-wolf wouldn't spare his best friend—allowing that +anybody could be his friend. By Jove! he's making me sweat blood, all +right!"</p> + +<p>"How is that?" asked Griswold.</p> + +<p>"I've been on the edge of telling you two or three times, but next to a +quitter I do hate the fellow who puts his fingers into a trap and then +squawks when the trap nips him. Grierson has got me down and he is about +to cut my throat, Griswold."</p> + +<p>"Tell me about it," said the one who had been patiently waiting to be +told.</p> + +<p>"It begins back a piece, but I'll brief it for you. I suppose you've +been told how Grierson came here a few years ago with a wad of money and +a large and healthy ambition to own the town?"</p> + +<p>Griswold nodded.</p> + +<p>"Well, he has come pretty close to making a go of it. What he doesn't +own or control wouldn't make much of a town by itself. A year ago he +tried to get a finger into my little pie. He wanted to reorganize the +Raymer Foundry and Machine Works, and offered to furnish the additional +capital and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> take fifty-one per cent of the reorganization stock. +Naturally, I couldn't see it. My father had left the plant as an +undivided legacy to my mother, my sister, and myself; and while we +haven't been getting rich out of it, we've managed to hold our own and +to grow a little. Don't let me bore you."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't do that if you should try. Go on."</p> + +<p>"This spring Wahaska began to feel the boost of the big crop year. +Everything was on the upward slant, and I thought we ought to move along +with other people. Before the snow was off the ground we had hit the +capacity limit in the old plant and the only thing to do was to enlarge. +I borrowed the money at Grierson's bank and did it."</p> + +<p>"And you can't make the enlarged plant pay?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, it's paying very well, indeed; we're earning dividends, all +right. But in the money matter I simply played the fool and let Grierson +cinch me. As I've told you more than once, I'm an engineer and no +finance shark. My borrow at the bank was one hundred thousand dollars, +and there was a verbal understanding that it was to be repaid out of the +surplus earnings, piecemeal. I told Grierson that I should need a year +or more, and he didn't object."</p> + +<p>"This was all in conversation?" said Griswold: "no writing?"</p> + +<p>Raymer made a wry face.</p> + +<p>"Don't rub it in. I'm admitting that I was all the different kinds of a +fool. There was no definite time limit mentioned. I was to give my +personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> notes and put up the family stock as collateral. A day or two +later, when I went around to close the deal, the trap was standing wide +open for me and a baby might have seen it. Grierson said he had proposed +the loan to his directors, and that they had kicked on taking the stock +as collateral. He said they wanted a mortgage on the plant."</p> + +<p>Griswold nodded. "Which brought on more talk," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"Which brought on a good bit more talk. Really, it didn't make any +intrinsic difference. Stock collateral or property collateral, the bank +would have us by the throat until the debt should be paid. But you know +how women are: my mother would about as soon sign her own death warrant +as to put her name on a mortgage; so there we were—blocked. Grierson +was as smooth as oil; said he wanted to help me out, and was willing to +stretch his authority to do it. Then he sprung the trap."</p> + +<p>"Having got you just where he wanted you," put in the listener.</p> + +<p>"Yes; having got me down. The new proposition was apparently a mere +modification of the first one. I was an accredited customer of the bank, +like other business men of the town, and as such I could ask for an +extension of credit on accommodation paper, and Grierson, as president, +was at liberty to grant it if he saw fit. He offered to take my paper +without an endorser if I would cover his personal risk with my stock +collateral, assigning it, not to the bank, but to him. I fell for it +like a woolly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> sheep. The stock transfers were made, and I signed a note +for one hundred thousand dollars, due in sixty days; Grierson explaining +that two months was the bank's usual limit on accommodation paper—which +is true enough—but giving me to understand that a renewal and an +extension of time would be merely a matter of routine."</p> + +<p>Griswold was shaking his head sympathetically. "I can guess the rest," +he said. "Grierson is preparing to swallow you whole."</p> + +<p>"He has as good as done it," was the dejected reply. "The note falls due +to-morrow; and, as I happened to be uptown this afternoon, I thought I +would drop in and pay the discount and renew the paper. To tell the +truth, I'd been getting more nervous the more I thought of it; and I +didn't dare let it go to the final moment. Grierson shot me through the +heart. He gave me a cock-and-bull story about some bank examiner's +protest, and told me I must be prepared to take up the paper to-morrow. +He knew perfectly well that he had me by the throat. I had checked out +every dollar of the loan, and a good bit of our own balance in addition, +paying the building and material bills."</p> + +<p>"Of course you reminded him of his agreement?"</p> + +<p>"Sure; and he sawed me off short: said that any business man borrowing +money on accommodation paper knew that it was likely to be called in on +the expiration date; that an extension is really a new transaction, +which the bank is at liberty to refuse to enter. Oh, he gave it to me +cold and clammy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> sitting back in his big chair and staring up at me +through the smoke of a fat black cigar while he did it!"</p> + +<p>"And then?" prompted Griswold.</p> + +<p>"Then I remembered the mother and sister, Kenneth, and did what I would +have died rather than do for myself—I begged like a dog. But I might as +well have gone outside and butted my head against the brick wall of the +bank."</p> + +<p>Griswold forgot his own real, though possibly indirect, obligation to +Jasper Grierson.</p> + +<p>"That is where you made a mistake: you should have told him to go to +hell with his money!" was his acrid comment. And then: "How near can you +come to lifting this note to-morrow, Raymer?"</p> + +<p>"'Near' isn't the word. Possibly I might sweep the corners and gather up +twelve or fifteen thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"That will do," said the querist, shortly. "Make it ten thousand, and +I'll contribute the remaining ninety."</p> + +<p>Raymer sprang out of his chair as if its padded arms had been suddenly +turned into high-voltage electrodes.</p> + +<p>"You will?—you'll do that for me, Griswold?" he said, with a queer +stridency in his voice that made the word-craftsman, always on the watch +for apt similes, think of a choked chicken. But Raymer was swallowing +hard and trying to go on. "By Jove—it's the most generous thing I ever +heard of!—but I can't let you do it. I haven't a thing in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> the world to +offer you but the stock, and that may not be worth the paper it is +printed on if Jasper Grierson has made up his mind to break me."</p> + +<p>"Sit down again and let us thresh it out," said Griswold. "How much of a +Socialist are you, Raymer?"</p> + +<p>The young ironmaster sat down, gasping a little at the sudden wrenching +aside of the subject.</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't know; enough to want every man to have a square deal, I +guess."</p> + +<p>"Including the men in your shops?"</p> + +<p>"Putting them first," was the prompt correction. "It was my father's +policy, and it has been mine. We have never had any labor troubles."</p> + +<p>"You pay fair wages?"</p> + +<p>"We do better than that. A year ago, I introduced a modified plan of +profit-sharing."</p> + +<p>Griswold's eyes were lighting up with the altruistic fires.</p> + +<p>"Once in awhile, Raymer, a thing happens so fortuitously as to fairly +compel a belief in the higher powers that our fathers included in the +word 'Providence'," he said, almost solemnly. "You have described +exactly an industrial situation which seems to me to offer a solution of +the whole vexed question of master and man, and to be a seed-sowing +which is bound to be followed by an abundant and most humanizing +harvest. Ever since I began to study, even in a haphazard way, the +social system under which we sweat and groan, I've wanted in on a job +like yours. I still want in. Will you take me as a silent partner, +Raymer? I'm not making it a condition,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> mind you: come here any time +after ten o'clock to-morrow, and you'll find the money waiting for you. +But I do hope you won't turn me down."</p> + +<p>Raymer was gripping the arms of his chair again, but this time they were +not unpleasantly electrified.</p> + +<p>"If I had only myself to consider, I shouldn't keep you waiting a +second," he returned, heartily. "But it may take a little time to +persuade my mother and sister. If they could only know you"—then, +forgetting the crossed wire and his late overhearings—"why can't you +come out to dinner with me to-night?"</p> + +<p>"For the only reason that would make me refuse; I have a previous +bidding. But I'll be glad to go some other day. There is no hurry about +this business matter; take all the time you need—after you have made +Mr. Grierson take his claws out of you."</p> + +<p>Raymer had filled the borrowed pipe again and was pulling at it +reflectively. "About this partnership; what would be your notion?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"The simplest way is always the best. Increase your capital stock and +let me in for as much as my ninety thousand dollars will buy," said the +easily satisfied investor. "We'll let it go at that until you've had +time to think it over, and talk it over with your mother and sister."</p> + +<p>The iron-founder got up and reached for his hat.</p> + +<p>"You are certainly the friend in need, Griswold, if ever there was one," +he said, gripping the hand of leave-taking as if he would crack the +bones in it. "But there is one thing I'm going to ask you, and you +mustn't take offense: this ninety thousand;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> could you afford to lose +it?—or is it your whole stake in the game?"</p> + +<p>Griswold's smile was the ironmaster's assurance that he had not +offended.</p> + +<p>"It is practically my entire stake—and I can very well afford to lose +it in the way I have indicated. You may call that a paradox, if you +like, but both halves of it are true."</p> + +<p>"Then there is one other thing you ought to know, and I'm going to tell +it now," Raymer went on. "We do a general foundry and machine business, +but a good fifty per cent of our profit comes from the Wahaska & +Pineboro Railroad repair work, which we have had ever since the road was +opened."</p> + +<p>Griswold was smiling again. "Why should I know that, particularly?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"Because it is rumored that Jasper Grierson has been quietly absorbing +the stock and bonds of the road, and if he means to remove me from the +map——"</p> + +<p>"I see," was the reply. "In that case you'll need a partner even worse +than you do now. You can't scare me off that way. Shall I look for you +at ten to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"At ten to the minute," said the rescued plunger; and he went +down-stairs so full of mingled thankfulness and triumph that he mistook +Doctor Farnham's horse for his own at the hitching-post two doors away, +and was about to get into the doctor's buggy before he discovered his +mistake.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV</h2> + +<h3>THE BRIDGE OF JEHENNAM</h3> + + +<p>Doctor Farnham had been about to make his daily call upon old Mrs. +Breda, two doors up the street from the Widow Holcomb's, when he had +climbed the stair of literary aspirations to give the convalescent his +dinner bidding.</p> + +<p>Griswold had accepted gratefully on the spur of the moment; and it was +not until after Raymer had come and gone that sober second thought began +to point out the risk he would run in meeting Charlotte Farnham face to +face under conditions which would give her the best conceivable +opportunity to recognize him, if recognition were possible.</p> + +<p>The more he thought of it, the more he regretted his haste in consenting +to incur the risk. Reflectively weighing the chances for and against, he +made sure that in characterizing the young woman whose life-thread had +been so strangely tangled with his own he had not overrated her +intelligence. Giving heredity its due, with the keen-witted little +physician for her father she could scarcely fail to measure up to the +standard of those whose gifts are apperceptive. For many days she had +had ample opportunity to familiarize herself with all the little +identifying individualities of the deck-hand: reasoning from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> cause to +effect, it might be assumed that her crushing responsibility had driven +her to make use of it. Having recognized him once, under conditions far +less favorable than those he was about to hazard, was it not more than +probable that she would be able to do it again?</p> + +<p>Griswold took a final look at himself in his dressing-case mirror before +going to keep his evening appointment at the doctor's down-town office. +It was comfortably reassuring. So far as he could determine, there was +little in the clean-shaven, square-shouldered, correctly garmented young +fellow who faced him in the mirror to suggest either the bearded outcast +of New Orleans or the unkempt and toil-soddened roustabout of the <i>Belle +Julie</i>. If only she had not made him speak to her: he had a sharp +conviction that the greatest of all the hazards lay in the chance that +she might remember his voice.</p> + +<p>He found the cheery little doctor waiting for him when he had walked the +few squares to the Main Street office.</p> + +<p>"I was beginning to be afraid you were going to be fashionably late," +said the potential host; and then, with a humorous glance for the +correct garmenting: "Regalia, heh? Hasn't Miss Grierson told you that +Wahaska is still hopelessly unable to live up to the dress-coat and +standing collar? I'm sure she must have. But never mind; climb into the +buggy and we'll let old Bucephalus take us around to see if the +neighbors have brought in anything good to eat."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + +<p>The drive was a short one, and it ended at the gate through which +Matthew Broffin had preceded by only a few hours the man whose eventual +appearance at the Farnham home he had so confidently predicted. As at +many another odd moment when there had been nothing better to do, +Broffin was once more shadowing the house in which, first or last, he +expected to trap his amateur MacHeath; and when the buggy was halted at +the carriage step he was near enough to mark and recognize the doctor's +companion.</p> + +<p>"Not this time," he muttered, sourly, when the two had passed together +up the gravelled path and the host was fitting his latch-key to the +front door. "It's only the sick man that writes books. I wonder what +sort of a book he thinks he's going to write in this inforgotten, +turkey-trodden, come-along village of the Reuben yaps!"</p> + +<p>Griswold, waiting on the porch while Doctor Farnham fitted his key, had +a nerve-tingling shiver of apprehension when the latch yielded with a +click and he found himself under the hall lantern formally shaking hands +with the statuesque young woman of the many imaginings. It gave him a +curious thrill of mingled terror and joy to find her absolutely +unchanged. Having, for his own part, lived through so many experiences +since that final glimpse of her standing on the saloon-deck guards of +the <i>Belle Julie</i> at St. Louis, the distance in time seemed almost +immeasurable.</p> + +<p>"You are very welcome to Home Nook, Mr. Griswold;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> we have been hearing +about you for many weeks," she was saying when he had relinquished the +firm hand and was hanging his coat and hat on the hall-rack. And then, +with a half-embarrassed laugh: "I am afraid we are dreadful gossips; all +Wahaska has been talking about you, you know, and wondering how it came +to acquire you."</p> + +<p>"It hasn't acquired anything very valuable," was the guest's modest +disclaimer, its readiness arising out of a grateful easing of strains +now that the actual face-to-face ordeal had safely passed its +introductory stage. "And you mustn't say a word against your charming +little city, Miss Farnham," he went on. "It is the friendliest, most +hospitable——"</p> + +<p>The doctor's daughter was interrupting with an enthusiastic show of +applause.</p> + +<p>"Come on out to dinner, both of you," she urged; and then to Griswold: +"I want you to say all those nice things to Aunt Fanny, and as many more +as you can think of. She has never admitted for a single moment that +Wahaska can be compared with any one of a dozen New Hampshire villages +she could name."</p> + +<p>In the progress to the cozy, home-like dining-room, Griswold found +himself at once in an atmosphere of genuine comfort and refinement; the +refinement which speaks of generations of good breeding chastened and +purified by the limitations of a slender purse; in the present instance +the purse of the good little doctor whose attempted charity in the +matter of his own fee was fresh in the mind of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> castaway. Griswold +had the writing craftsman's ingathering eye: he saw that the furnishings +were frugally well-worn, that the sitting-room rug was country-woven, +and that the spotless dining-room napery was soft and pliable with age. +The contrast between the Farnham home and the ornate mansion three +streets away on the lake front was strikingly apparent; as cleanly +marked as that between Margery Grierson and the sweetly serene and +conventional young person who was introducing him to her aunt across the +small oval dining-table.</p> + +<p>So far, all was going well. Griswold, with a pleasant word for the frail +little woman opposite and a retort in kind now and then for the doctor's +raillery, still had time to be narrowly observant of the signs and +omens. But a little later, when the Swedish maid was serving the meat +course, he had his first warning shock. Through the bouillon and the +fish the doctor had borne the brunt of the table-talk, joking the guest +on his humiliating descent from Mereside and the luxuries to a country +doctor's table, and laughing at Griswold's half-hearted attempts to +decry the luxuries. What word or phrase or trick of speech it was that +served to stir the sleeping memories, Griswold could not guess; but it +became suddenly apparent that the memories were stirring. In the midst +of a half-uttered direction to the serving-maid, Miss Farnham stopped +abruptly, and Griswold could feel her gaze, wide-eyed and +half-terrified, seemingly fixed upon him.</p> + +<p>It was all over in the turning of a leaf: there had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> been no break in +the doctor's genial raillery, and the breathless little pause at the +other end of the table was only momentary. But Griswold fancied that +there was a subtle change in the daughter's attitude toward him dating +from the moment of interruptions.</p> + +<p>Farther along, he decided that the change was in himself, and was merely +the outcropping of the morbid vein which persists, with more or less +continuity, in all the temperamental workings of the human mind. When +the dinner was over and there was an adjournment to the sitting-room, +little Miss Gilman presently found her reading-glasses and a book; and +the doctor, in the act of filling two long-stemmed pipes for his guest +and himself, was called away professionally. Griswold saw himself +confronting the really crucial stage of the ordeal, and prudence was +warning him that it would be safer to make his adieux and to go with his +host. It was partly Miss Farnham's protest, but more his own +determination to prove the bridge of peril to the uttermost, that made +him stay.</p> + +<p>Miss Gilman, least obtrusive of chaperones, had been peacefully napping +for a good half-hour in her low rocker under the reading-lamp, and the +pictures in a thick quarto of Gulf Coast views had pleasantly filled the +interval for the two who were awake, when Griswold finally assured +himself that the danger of recognition was a danger past. As a mental +analyst he knew that the opening of each fresh door in the house of +present familiarity was automatically closing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> other doors opening upon +the past; and it came to him with a little flush of the seer's +exaltation that once again his prefigurings were finding their exact +fulfilment. In a spirit of artistic daring he yielded to a sudden +impulse, as one crossing the flimsiest of bridges may run and leap to +prove that his theory of safety-stresses is a sufficient guarantee of +his own immunity.</p> + +<p>"You were speaking of first impressions of places," he said, while they +were still turning the leaves of the picture-book. "Are you a believer +in the absolute correctness of first impressions?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," was the thoughtful reply; but its after-word was more +definite: "As to places, I'm not sure that the first impression always +persists; in a few instances I am quite certain it hasn't. I didn't like +the Gulf Coast at all, at first; it seemed so foreign and different and +unhomelike. As to people, however——"</p> + +<p>She paused, and Griswold entered the breach hardily.</p> + +<p>"As to people, you are less easily converted from the original +prejudice—or prepossession. So am I. I have learned to place the utmost +confidence in the first impression. In my own case it is invariably +correct, and if for any reason whatever I suffer any later +characterization to take its place, I am always the loser."</p> + +<p>She was regarding him curiously over the big book which still lay open +between them.</p> + +<p>"Is that a part of the writing gift?" she asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, not specially; most people have it in some more or less workable +quantity, though for many it expresses itself only in a vague attraction +or repulsion."</p> + +<p>"I've had that feeling," she answered quickly.</p> + +<p>"I know," he affirmed. "There have been times when, with every +reasonable fibre in you urging you to believe the evil, a still stronger +impulse has made you believe in the good."</p> + +<p>"How can you know that?" she asked; and again he saw in the expressive +eyes the flying signals of indeterminate perplexity and apprehension.</p> + +<p>Resolutely he pressed the hazardous experiment to its logical +conclusion. Once for all, he must know if this young woman with the +sympathetic voice and the goddess-like pose could, even under +suggestion, be led to link up the past with the present.</p> + +<p>"It is my trade to know," he said quietly, closing the book of views and +laying it aside. "There have been moments in your life when you would +have given much to be able to decide a question of duty or expediency +entirely irrespective of your impressions. Isn't that so?"</p> + +<p>For one flitting instant he thought he had gone too far. In the hardy +determination to win all or lose all, he had been holding her eyes +steadily, as the sure mirror in which he should be able to read his +sentence, of acquittal or of condemnation. This time there was no +mistaking the sudden widening of the pupils to betray the equally sudden +awakening of womanly terror.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid," he began, and he had come thus far on the road to +open confession when he saw that she was not looking at him; she was +looking past him toward one of the windows giving upon the porch. "What +is it?" he demanded, turning to look with her.</p> + +<p>"It was a man—he was looking in at the window!" she returned in low +tones. "I thought I saw him once before; but this time I am certain!"</p> + +<p>Griswold sprang from his chair and a moment later was letting himself +out noiselessly through the hall door. There was nothing stirring on the +porch. The windless night was starlit and crystal clear, and the silence +was profound. As soon as the glare of the house lights was out of his +eyes, Griswold made a quick circuit of the porch. Not satisfied with +this, he widened the circle to take in the front yard, realizing as he +did it that a dozen men might easily play hide-and-seek with a single +searcher in the shrubbery. He was still groping among the bushes, and +Miss Farnham had come to the front door, when the doctor's buggy +appeared under the street lights and was halted at the home +hitching-post.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Mr. Griswold; is that you?" called the cheery one, when he saw a +bareheaded man beating the covers in his front yard.</p> + +<p>Griswold met his host at the gate and walked up the path with him.</p> + +<p>"Miss Charlotte thought she saw some one at one of the front windows," +he explained; and a moment afterward the daughter was telling it for +herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I saw him twice," she insisted; "once while we were at dinner, and +again just now. The first time I thought I might be mistaken, but this +time——"</p> + +<p>Griswold was laughing silently and inwardly deriding his gifts when, +under cover of the doctor's return, he made decent acknowledgments for +benefits bestowed and took his departure. On the pleasant summer-night +walk to upper Shawnee Street he was congratulating himself upon the now +quite complete fulfilment of the wishing prophecy. Miss Farnham was +going to prove to be all that the most critical maker of studies from +life could ask in a model; a supremely perfect original for the +character of <i>Fidelia</i> in the book. Moreover, she would be his +touchstone for the truths and verities; even as Margery Grierson might, +if she were forgiving enough to let by-gones be by-gones, hold the +mirror up to Nature and the pure humanities. Moreover, again, whatever +slight danger there might have been in a possibility of recognition was +a danger outlived. If the first meeting had not stirred the sleeping +memories in Miss Farnham, subsequent ones would serve only to widen the +gulf between forgetfulness and recollection by just such distances as +the Wahaskan Griswold should traverse in leaving behind him the +deck-hand of the <i>Belle Julie</i>.</p> + +<p>Thus the complacent, musing upper thought in the mind and on the lips of +the proletary as he wended his way through the quiet and well-nigh +deserted streets to the older part of the town. How much it might have +been modified if he had known that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> man whose face Miss Farnham had +seen at the window was silently tracking him through the tree-shadowed +streets is a matter for conjecture. Also, it is to be presumed that +much, if not all, of the complacency would have vanished if he could +have been an unseen listener in the Farnham sitting-room, dating from +the time when little Miss Gilman pattered off to bed, leaving the father +and daughter sitting together under the reading-lamp.</p> + +<p>At first their talk was entirely of the window apparition; the daughter +insisting upon its reality, and the father trying to push it over into +the limbo of things imagined. Driven finally to give all the reasons for +her belief in the realities, Charlotte related the incident of the +afternoon.</p> + +<p>"You may remember that I told you over the 'phone that I had a caller +this afternoon," she began.</p> + +<p>The doctor did remember it, and said so.</p> + +<p>"You can imagine how frightened I was when I tell you that it was a +man—a detective from New Orleans who has, or at least who says he has, +been travelling thousands of miles to find me."</p> + +<p>Doctor Bertie was tickling his bearded chin thoughtfully. "He should +have come to me first," he said, frowning a little at the invasion of +his home. "It was about that bank robbery, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; he thought I could tell him the man's real name. It seems that +they have no identity clew to work upon. I knew at the time that +'Gavitt' was an assumed name; the man as good as told me so,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> you +remember. This Mr. Broffin wouldn't believe that I couldn't tell him the +real name, and along toward the last he grew quite angry and +threatening. He insisted upon it that I knew the robber—that I had +known him before the crime was committed; and he intimated pretty +broadly that I am still in communication with him. Of course, it is all +very absurd; but it is also very annoying to think that somebody is +spying upon you all the time. I didn't want to speak of it before Mr. +Griswold; but it was this detective who came twice to look in at our +windows this evening."</p> + +<p>By this time the good Doctor Bertie had become the indignant Doctor +Bertie.</p> + +<p>"We can't have that at all!" he said incisively. "You did your whole +duty in that bank matter; and it was a good deal more than most young +women would have done. I'm not going to have you persecuted and +harassed—not one minute! Where is this fellow stopping?"</p> + +<p>The daughter shook her head. "I don't know. He gave me his card, but it +has the New Orleans address only."</p> + +<p>"Give it to me and I'll look him up to-morrow."</p> + +<p>The card changed hands, and for a few minutes neither of them spoke. +Then the daughter began again.</p> + +<p>"I've had another shock this evening, too," she said, speaking this time +in low tones and with eyes downcast. "This Mr. Griswold: tell me all you +know about him, father."</p> + +<p>"I don't know much of anything more than—thanks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> to Miss Grierson—all +the town knows. They brought him here sick—she and her father—as I +told you. That was some little time before you came home; perhaps while +you were still on the way up the river. They didn't know who he was; and +oddly enough, there wasn't anything in his clothes or luggage to tell +them. I know that to be a fact because, at Miss Margery's request, I +helped her overhaul his belongings. Afterward, in a talk with him, I +learned that he had been robbed on the train; or at least, that was the +supposition. He said there was money in one of the suit-cases, and we +didn't find any."</p> + +<p>"He is an author, they say; I don't seem to recall his name in any of my +reading."</p> + +<p>The doctor laughed good-naturedly. "Perhaps he is only one of the +would-be's; I don't think it has got much farther than the hankering, as +yet. There was a book manuscript in one of his valises, and I read a +little of it. It was pretty poor stuff, I thought. But what was your +other shock?"</p> + +<p>"It was at the dinner-table; when you were joking him about the +come-down from Mereside to us. Something he said—I couldn't remember, a +minute afterward, just what it was—was spoken exactly in the voice, and +with the same little trick of conciseness, as something that was said to +me that never-to-be-forgotten evening on the saloon-deck promenade of +the <i>Belle Julie</i> ... said by the man whose name was <i>not</i> John Wesley +Gavitt."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear girl!" was the father's instant protest; "that couldn't be, +you know!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know it couldn't," was the fair-minded rejoinder. "And I kept on +telling myself so all the evening. I had to, father; for that once at +the table wasn't the only time. Every few minutes he would say something +to bring back that haunting half-recollection. It is only a coincidence, +of course; it couldn't be anything else. But when he went away I +couldn't help hoping that he would do one of two things; stay away +altogether, or come often enough so that—oh, it's all nonsense, all of +it: what difference can it make, to him or to me!"</p> + +<p>"No difference at all." Doctor Bertie's membership was in that large +confraternity of fathers whose blindness on the side of sentiment where +their own daughters are concerned has become proverbial.</p> + +<p>It was after he had taken up the latest copy of the <i>Lancet</i> and was +beginning to bury himself in the editorials, that Charlotte reopened the +threshed-out subject with a belated query.</p> + +<p>"Did I understand you to say that he had lost all of his money?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; practically all of it," said the father, without losing his hold +upon what a certain great London physician was saying through the +columns of the English medical journal.</p> + +<p>But afterward, long after Charlotte had gone up to her room, he +remembered, with a curious little start of half-awakened puzzlement, +that some one, no longer ago than the yesterday, had told him that young +Griswold was rich—or if not rich, at least "well-fixed."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI</h2> + +<h3>PITFALLS</h3> + + +<p>What arguments Edward Raymer used to convince his mother and sister that +Griswold as a participating partner was better than Jasper Grierson +figuring as the man in possession, the Wahaskan gossips were unable to +guess. But the fact remained. Within a week from the day when Raymer, +angrily jubilant, had rescued his imperilled stock, it was pretty +generally known that Kenneth Griswold, the writing-man, had become the +fourth member in the close corporation of the Raymer Foundry and Machine +Works, and Wahaska was eagerly earning Broffin's contemptuous +characterization of it by discussing the business affair in all its +possible and probable bearings upon the Raymers, the Griersons, and the +newly elected directory of the Pineboro Railroad.</p> + +<p>Of all this buzzing of the gossip bees the person most acutely concerned +heard little or nothing. Griswold's intimation to Raymer that he wished +only to be a silent partner had been made in good faith; and beyond a +few purely perfunctory visits to the plant across the railroad tracks, +made because Raymer had insisted that he go over the books and learn for +himself the exact condition of the business<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> into which he had put his +money, Griswold took no more than an advisory part in the industrial +activities. To Raymer's urgings there was always the same answer: the +writing fit was on him and he had no time.</p> + +<p>Taken for what it was worth, the writing excuse was sufficiently valid. +In the fallow period of the slow convalescence the imaginative field had +grown fertile for the plough, and a new book, borrowing nothing from the +old save the sociological background, was already under way. Digging +deeply in the inspirational field, Griswold speedily became oblivious to +most of his encompassments; to all of them, indeed, save those which +bore directly upon the beloved task. Among these, he counted the +frequent afternoon visits to Mereside, and the scarcely less frequent +evenings spent in the Farnham home. Again in harmony with the later +prefigurings, he was using each of the young women as a foil for the +other in the outworking of his plot; and he welcomed it as a sign of +growth that the story in its new form was acquiring verisimilitude and +becoming gratefully, and at times, he persuaded himself, quite vividly, +human.</p> + +<p>When he got well into the swing of it and was turning out a chapter +every three or four days, he fell easily into the habit of slipping the +last instalment into his pocket when he went to Mereside. Margery +Grierson was adding generously to his immense obligation to her; hoping +only to find a friendly listener, he found a helpful collaborator.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> More +than once, when his own imagination was at fault, she was able to open +new vistas in the humanities for him, apparently drawing upon a reserve +of intuitive conclusions compared with which his own hard-bought store +of experimental knowledge was almost puerile.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would tell me the secret of your marvellous cleverness!" he +exclaimed, on one of the June afternoons when he had been reading to her +in the cool half-shadows of the Mereside library. "You are only a child +in years: how can you know with such miraculous certainty what other +people would think and do under conditions about which you can't +possibly know anything experimentally? It's beyond me!"</p> + +<p>"There are many things beyond you yet, dear boy; many, many things," was +her laughing rejoinder; from which it will be inferred that the episode +in the Farmers' and Merchants' burglar-proof had become an episode +forgotten—or at least forgiven. "You know men—a little; but when it +comes to the women ... well, if I didn't keep continually nagging at +you, your two heroines—with neither of whom you are really in +love—would degenerate into rag dolls. They would, actually."</p> + +<p>"That's true; I can see it clearly enough when you point it out," he +admitted, putting his craftsman pride underfoot, as he was always +obliged to do in these talks with her. "I should be discouraged if you +didn't keep on telling me that the story, as a story, is good."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> good; it is a big story," she asserted, with kindling +enthusiasm. "The plot, so far as you have gone with it, is fine; and +that is where you leave me away behind. I don't see how you could ever +think it out. And the character-drawing is fine, too, some of it. Your +<i>Fleming</i> is as far beyond me as your <i>Fidelia</i> seems to be beyond you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Fleming</i> is human in every drop of his blood," he boasted.</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt it for a moment; all the little ear-marks of humanity are +there, and I know in reason that he must be a type. But I have never met +the man himself; and I am sure I shall be scared silly if I ever do meet +him. Think of being shut up in any little corner of the world with a man +who has convinced himself that he can commit any crime in the calendar +so long as he believes the particular one he chooses isn't a crime!"</p> + +<p>"Crime, so-called, is like everything else in this world; a thing to be +defined strictly by the motive and the point of view," said Griswold, +mounting his hobby with joyous alacrity.</p> + +<p>"I know; that is what you say"—this with an adorable uptilt of the +pretty chin and a flash of the dark eyes which an instant before had +been slumbrous wells of studious abstraction. "But your <i>Fleming</i> is +going to prove the contrary; it may not be what you want him to do, but +it will be what he will insist upon doing before you get through with +him. You have already indicated it in the story, unconsciously, perhaps. +When <i>Fidelia</i> surprises him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> <i>Fleming</i> is almost ready to kill her; +not in defense of the principle he has set up, but to save his own +miserable life."</p> + +<p>"That is a part of his humanity," insisted the craftsman stubbornly. +"You don't know <i>Fleming</i> yet. Have you ever met <i>Fidelia</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Not as you have drawn her—no. She is too unutterably fine. If she had +a single shred of humanity about her, I should suspect you of meaning to +fall in love with her, farther along—to the humiliation and despair of +poor <i>Joan</i>, who, as you say, is a mere daughter of men."</p> + +<p>"But how about <i>Joan</i>?" he fretted. "Is she out of drawing, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; you are distorting her the other way—making her too inhumanly +worldly and insincere." Then, with an abruptness that was like a slap in +the face: "If you didn't spend so many evenings at Doctor Bertie's, you +would get both <i>Fidelia</i> and <i>Joan</i> in better drawing."</p> + +<p>He flushed and drew himself up, with the stabbed <i>amour propre</i> +prompting him to make some stinging retort contrasting the wells of +truth with the brackish waters of sheer worldliness. Then he saw how +inadequate it would be; how utterly impossible it was to meet this +charmingly vindictive young person upon any grounds save those of her +own choosing.</p> + +<p>"That is the first really unkind thing I have ever heard you say," was +the mild reproach which was all that the reactionary second thought +would sanction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Unkind to whom?—to you, or to Miss Farnham?"</p> + +<p>"Ask yourself," he countered weakly; and she laughed at him.</p> + +<p>"There is another of your failings, Kenneth. You haven't always the +courage of your convictions. What you are thinking is that I am a +spiteful little cat. Why don't you say it out loud, like a man?"</p> + +<p>"Because I'm not thinking it," he denied, adding: "But I do think you +are a little inclined to be unfair to Miss Charlotte."</p> + +<p>"Am I? Let us see if I am. I accuse her of nothing but a slavish +devotion to custom and the conventions. What did she say when you read +her the chapter before this one: where <i>Fidelia</i> goes down to the +dining-room at midnight and finds <i>Fleming</i> breaking into the +silver-safe where the money is hidden?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not reading the story to her," he admitted, and again she laughed.</p> + +<p>"But you do talk it over with her; you couldn't help doing that," she +persisted.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," he allowed.</p> + +<p>"Well, what did she say when you came to that part where <i>Fidelia</i> makes +<i>Fleming</i> sit down while she tries to convince him that house-breaking +is a crime. You don't dare tell me what she said."</p> + +<p>Griswold did it, with a firm convincement that he was thereby breaking a +sacred confidence. But the alluring lips and eyes were irresistible when +he was fairly within their influence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I merely suggested the scene as something that might be done," he +explained. "She did not approve of it. Her objection was that the +<i>Fidelias</i> in real life don't do such things."</p> + +<p>"They don't," was Miss Margery's flippant agreement. "And your letting +your <i>Fidelia</i> do it is the one redeeming thing you have done in your +drawing of her. Just the same, with all your ingenuity you leave one +with the firm conviction that she will never, under any circumstances, +do such an unconventional thing again; never, never, never! And that is +a false note."</p> + +<p>"Why is it?"</p> + +<p>"Because it leaves out the common sex-factor; the one that is shared +alike by the <i>Fidelias</i> and the <i>Joans</i> and all the rest of us."</p> + +<p>"And that is——"</p> + +<p>"Just plain, every-day inconsistency—our dearest heritage from good old +Mother Eve. Being a mere man, you can't understand that, so you neglect +to put it into your women."</p> + +<p>"But I can't let that stand," he objected. "You must allow the ideal +some little latitude. <i>Fidelia</i> was not inconsistent, either in striving +with <i>Fleming</i>, or in betraying him."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson's perfect shoulders twitched in a little shrug of +impatience.</p> + +<p>"Not that time, maybe; with <i>Fleming</i> standing by to tell her that she +must be true to herself at whatever cost to him. But the next time—if +she should happen to fall in love with the gentleman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> who was breaking +into her father's house-safe...." She laughed in sheer mockery and +misquoted a couplet from Riley for him:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'There, little boy, don't cry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have broken your doll, I know!'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Break some more of them if you can," he urged. "A few more casualties +won't make any difference."</p> + +<p>"There is only the boy-doll left; and I don't like to break boy-dolls."</p> + +<p>"<i>Fleming</i>, you mean? I give you leave. Hammer him until he bleeds +sawdust, if the spirit moves you."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson had been curled up like a comfortable kitten in the depths +of a great lounging chair—her favorite attitude while he was reading to +her. But now she sat up and locked her fingers over one knee.</p> + +<p>"I said a little while ago that I'd never met <i>Fleming</i>, and I haven't. +But I like him, and I'm sorry to see him putting himself in for such a +savage hereafter. He is a good man, like other good men, with the single +difference that he thinks he isn't bound by the traditions. He believes +he can commit what the traditionary people call a crime without paying +the penalties. He can't: nobody can."</p> + +<p>Griswold's smile was the superior smile of the writing craftsman. "That +is merely a matter of invention," he asserted. "He can escape the +penalties if he is smart enough."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You mistake me," she interposed. "I don't mean the physical penalties; +though as to these the old saying that murder will out must have some +foundation in fact. Let that go: we'll suppose him clever enough to make +his escape and to outwit or outfight his enemies. I don't say he +couldn't do it successfully; but I do say that, with the hazards +confronting him at every turn, he will find the real criminal in him +growing and possessing him, making him think things and do things of the +utter depravity of which he has never had any doubt."</p> + +<p>While she was speaking Griswold could feel the change she was describing +stealing over him like a nightmare, and when she stopped he passed his +hand over his eyes as one awaking from a vaguely terrifying dream.</p> + +<p>"You mean that there is a real criminal in every man?" he questioned, +and the question seemed to say itself of its own volition.</p> + +<p>"In every man and in every woman: how can you be a writer and not know +that? Ask yourself. You admit the existence of the good and the bad, and +ordinarily you choose the good and shudder at the bad: tell me—haven't +there been times when the most horrible crimes were possible to +you?—times when, with the littlest tipping of the balance, you could +have killed somebody? You needn't answer: I know you have looked over +that brink, because I have looked over it myself, more than once. And, +sooner or later, <i>Fleming</i> will find himself looking over it—with all +the horrors of the penalties pushing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> and shoving at him to tumble him +into the gulf."</p> + +<p>Griswold did not reply. He was gathering up the scattered pages of his +manuscript and replacing them in order. When he spoke again it was of a +matter entirely irrelevant.</p> + +<p>"I had an odd experience the other evening," he said. "I had been dining +with the Raymers and was walking back to Shawnee Street. A little +newsboy named Johnnie Fergus turned up from somewhere at one of the +street crossings and tried to sell me a paper—at eleven o'clock at +night! I bought one and joked him about being out so late; and from that +on I couldn't get rid of him. He went all the way home with me, talking +a blue streak and acting as if he were afraid of something or somebody. +I remembered afterward that he is the boy who takes care of your boat. +Is there anything wrong with him?"</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson had left her chair and had gone to stand at one of the +windows.</p> + +<p>"Nothing that I know of," she said. "He is a bright boy—too bright for +his own good, I'm afraid. But I can explain—a little. Johnnie has taken +a violent fancy to you for some reason, and he has fallen into the +boyish habit of weaving all sorts of romances around you. I think he +reads too many exciting stories and tries to make you the hero of them. +He told me the other day that he was sure somebody was 'spotting' you."</p> + +<p>Griswold looked up quickly. Miss Grierson was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> still facing the window, +and he was glad that she had not seen his nervous start.</p> + +<p>"'Spotting' me?" he laughed. "Where did he get that idea?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know? But he had made himself believe it; he even went so +far as to describe the man. Oh, I can assure you Johnnie has an +imagination; I've tested it in other ways."</p> + +<p>"I should think so!" said the man who also had an imagination, and +shortly afterward he took his leave.</p> + +<p>An hour later the same afternoon, Broffin, from his post of observation +on the Winnebago porch, saw the writing-man cross the street and enter a +hardware shop. Having nothing better to do, he, too, crossed the street +and, in passing, looked into the open door of Simmons & Kleifurt's. What +he saw brought him back at the end of a reflective stroll around the +public square. When he entered the shop the clerk was putting a +formidable array of weapons back into their show-case niches. Broffin +lounged up and began to handle the pistols.</p> + +<p>"If I knew enough about guns to be able to tell 'em apart, I might buy +one," he said half-humorously. And then: "You must've been having a +mighty particular customer—to get so many of 'em out."</p> + +<p>"It was Mr. Griswold, Mr. Ed. Raymer's new partner," said the clerk. +"And he <i>was</i> pretty particular; wouldn't have anything but these +new-fashioned automatics. Said he wanted something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> that would be quick +and sure, and I guess he's got it—I sold him two of 'em."</p> + +<p>Broffin played with the stock long enough to convince the clerk that he +was only a counter lounger with no intention of buying. "Took two of +'em, did he?—for fear one might make him sick, I reckon," he said, with +the half-humorous grin still lurking under the drooping mustaches. +"Automatic thirty-twos, eh? Well, <i>I</i> ain't goin' to try to hold your +Mr.—Griscom, did you call him?—up none after this. He might git me."</p> + +<p>Whereupon, having found out what he wanted to know, he lounged out again +and went back to the hotel to smoke another of the reflective cigars in +the porch chair which had come to be his by right of frequent and +long-continued occupancy.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII</h2> + +<h3>IN THE SHADOWS</h3> + + +<p>Not counting the vague and rather pointless disturbment which had +culminated in the purchase of a pair of pistols, Griswold had left the +Mereside library considerably shaken, not in his convictions, to be +sure, but in his confidence in his own powers of imaginative analysis. +For this cause it required a longer after-dinner stay at the Farnhams' +than he had been allowing himself, to re-establish the norm of +self-assurance.</p> + +<p>This was coming to be the net result of a better acquaintance with +Charlotte Farnham; a growth in the grace of self-containment, and in a +just appreciation of the mighty power that lies in propinquity—the +propinquity of an inspiring ideal. Miss Farnham was never enthusiastic; +that, perhaps, would be asking too much of an ideal; but what she lacked +in warmth was made up in cool sanity, backed by a moral sense that +seemed never to waver. Unerringly she placed her finger upon the human +weaknesses in his book-people, and unfalteringly she bade him reform +them.</p> + +<p>For his <i>Fidelia</i>, as he described her, she exhibited a gentle +affection, tempered by a compassionate pity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> for her weaknesses and +waverings; an attitude, he fatuously told himself, forced upon her +because her own standards were so much higher than any he could +delineate or conceive. For <i>Joan</i> there was also compassion, but it was +mildly contemptuous.</p> + +<p>"If I did not know that you are incapable of doing such a thing, I might +wonder if you are not drawing your <i>Joan</i> from the life, Mr. Griswold," +she said, a little coldly, on this same evening of rehabilitations. +"Since such characters are to be found in real life, I suppose they may +have a place in a book. But you must not commit the unpardonable sin of +making your readers condone the evil in her for the sake of the good."</p> + +<p>"May we not sometimes condone a little evil for the sake of a great +good?" he pleaded in extenuation.</p> + +<p>Her answer was rather disconcerting.</p> + +<p>"Life is full of just such temptations; the temptation to bargain with +expediency. We can only pray blindly to be delivered in the hour of +trial."</p> + +<p>They were sitting together on the vine-sheltered porch, and the street +electrics with the lamplight from the sitting-room windows served merely +to temper the velvety gloom of the summer night. He would have given +much to be able to see her face, but the darkness came between.</p> + +<p>"That opens the door to the larger question which is always asking for +its answer," he said, letting the thought that was uppermost slip into +speech. "At its very best, life is a compromise, not necessarily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +between good and evil, but between the thing possible and the thing +impossible. It is not until we are strong enough to break the shacklings +of the traditions that we are free to drive the best obtainable bargain +with destiny."</p> + +<p>As at other times, he was once more yielding to the impulse which was +always prompting him to apply the acid test to the pure gold of the +ideal. Heretofore the test had revealed no trace of earthly alloy; but +now the result filled him with vague dismay.</p> + +<p>"So you have said many times before," she rejoined, and her voice was as +the voice of one groping in the dark. "I—I have a confession to make, +Mr. Griswold: I have held out against you, knowing all the time that you +were right; that life is full of these bitter compromises which we are +forced to accept. Please forget what I have said about your <i>Fidelia</i> +and—and your <i>Joan</i>. You are trying to make them human, and that is as +it should be."</p> + +<p>Griswold could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. He told +himself fiercely that he would never believe, without the convincement +of fact, that the ideal could step down from its pedestal.</p> + +<p>"You are meaning to be kind to me now, at the expense of your +convictions, Miss Charlotte," he protested warmly.</p> + +<p>"No," she denied gravely. "Listen, and you shall judge. Once, only a +short time ago, I was brought face to face with one of these terrible +compromises. In a single instant, and by no fault of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> my own, the +dreadful shears of fate were thrust into my hands, and conscience—what +I have been taught to call the Christian conscience—told me that with +them I must snip the thread of a man's life. Are you listening?"</p> + +<p>His lips were dry and he had to moisten them before he could say: "Yes, +go on; I am listening."</p> + +<p>"The man was a criminal and he was a fugitive from justice. +Conscience—<i>my</i> conscience—insisted that it was my plain duty to raise +the hue and cry. For a long time I couldn't do it; and then——"</p> + +<p>He waited until the silence had grown unbearable before he prompted her. +"And then?"</p> + +<p>"And then chance threw us together. A new world was opened to me in +those few moments. I had thought that there could be no possible +question between simple right and wrong, but almost in his first word +the man convinced me that, whatever I might think or the world might +say, <i>his</i> conscience had fully and freely acquitted him. And he proved +it; proved it so that I can never doubt it as long as I live. He made me +do what <i>my</i> conscience had been telling me I ought to do—just as your +<i>Fleming</i> makes <i>Fidelia</i> do."</p> + +<p>"You denounced him?" he said, and he strove desperately to make the +saying completely colorless.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And he was taken?"</p> + +<p>"He was; but he made his escape again, almost at once. He is still a +free man."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> + +<p>Instantly the primitive instinct of self-preservation, the instinct of +the hunted fugitive, sprang alert in the listener.</p> + +<p>"How can you be sure of that?" he asked, and in his own ears his voice +sounded like the clang of an alarm bell.</p> + +<p>Again a silence fell, surcharged, this one, with all the old frightful +possibilities. Once more the loathsome fever quickened the pulses of the +man at bay, and the curious needle-like prickling of the skin came to +signal the return of the homicidal fear-frenzy. The reaction to the +normal racked him like the passing of a mortal sickness when his +accusing angel said in her most matter-of-fact tone:</p> + +<p>"I know he is free; I have it on the best possible authority. The +detectives who are searching for him have been here to see me—or, at +least, one of them has."</p> + +<p>The hunted one laid hold of the partial reprieve with a mighty grip and +drew himself out of the reactionary whirlpool.</p> + +<p>"To see you? Why should they trouble you?"</p> + +<p>"On general man-hunting principles, I suppose," was the calm reply. +"Since I gave the necessary information once, they seem to think I can +give it again. It is very annoying."</p> + +<p>"It is an outrage!" declared the listener warmly. And afterward, with +only the proper friendly emphasis: "I hope it is an annoyance past."</p> + +<p>His companion leaned forward in her chair and cautiously parted the +leafy vine screen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Look across the street—under those trees at the water's edge: do you +see him?"</p> + +<p>Griswold looked and was reasonably sure that he could make out the +shadowy figure of a man leaning against one of the trees.</p> + +<p>"That is my shadow," she said, lowering her voice; "Mr. Matthew Broffin, +of the Colburne Detective Agency, in New Orleans. He has a foolish idea +that I am in communication with the man he is searching for, and he was +brutal enough to tell me so. What he expects to accomplish by keeping an +absurd watch upon our house and dogging everybody who comes and goes, I +can't imagine."</p> + +<p>"You have told your father?" said Griswold, anxious to learn how far +this new alarm fire had spread.</p> + +<p>"Certainly; and he has made his protest. But it doesn't do any good; the +man keeps on spying, as you see. But we have wandered a long way from +your book. I've been trying to prove to you that I am not fit to +criticise it."</p> + +<p>"No; you mustn't mistake me. I haven't been coming to you for +criticism," was Griswold's rather incoherent reply; and when the talk +threatened to lapse into the commonplaces, he took his leave. Oddly +enough, as he thought, when he was unlatching the gate and had shifted +one of the newly purchased automatic pistols from his hip pocket to an +outside pocket of the light top-coat he was wearing, the shadowy figure +under the lake-shading trees had disappeared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was only a few minutes after the lingering dinner guest had gone when +the doctor came out on the porch, bringing his long-stemmed pipe for a +bedtime whiff in the open air.</p> + +<p>"You are losing your beauty sleep, little girl," he said, dropping into +the chair lately occupied by the guest. "Did you find out anything more +to-night?"</p> + +<p>The daughter did not reply at once, and when she did there was a note of +freshly summoned hardihood in her voice.</p> + +<p>"We were both mistaken," she affirmed. "Coincidences are always likely +to be misleading. I am sorry I told you about them. He has certainly +been a present help in time of need to Edward."</p> + +<p>"How did you reach your conclusion?" inquired the pipe smoker, upon whom +the coincidences were still actively exerting their influence.</p> + +<p>"It came out in the talk this evening. He has been rather ridiculously +putting me upon a pedestal, trying to make me fit an ideal character in +his book, I think. To prove to him that I am only human, I told him the +story of what happened on the <i>Belle Julie</i>. And, to cap the climax, I +pointed out our friend Mr. Broffin, who was on guard again—as +usual—and told him who the house watcher was and what he wanted. It +didn't affect him any more than it would any friend of the family. He +was interested in the story as a story, and—and in its bearing upon me +as a—as a life-experience. But that was all."</p> + +<p>"You may be right; you probably are right," was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> the father's comment +after a thoughtful whiff or two had intervened. "Just the same, I've +looked up the dates in my case book: if your Gavitt man, escaping from +the officers in St. Louis, had taken the first train for Wahaska, he +would have reached here at precisely the same moment that the sick Mr. +Griswold did. Also, he would have been careful to remove all the little +tags and telltales from his brand-new clothes—which was what Mr. +Griswold very evidently had done. Also, again, the amount of money which +Mr. Griswold has put into the Raymer capital stock tallies to within ten +thousand dollars of the amount your Gavitt fellow walked away with in +New Orleans. Also, number three, Mr. Griswold acted very much like a man +who had lost all he had in the world when I told him that Miss Grierson +and I had found no money in his suit-cases; and——"</p> + +<p>"That is the weak link in your chain, isn't it?" objected the daughter. +"You remember he told me on the boat that he had lost the money?"</p> + +<p>Again the father took counsel of the long-stemmed pipe.</p> + +<p>"It might be," he said, after a reflective pause. "It would be, if Miss +Grierson could be safely eliminated from the equation. Unhappily, she +can't be."</p> + +<p>"I don't care!" came from the depths of the porch rocking-chair. "If +this miserable detective arrests him and appeals to me, I shall simply +refuse to know anything about it! I wish you'd tell this man Broffin so +when you meet him again."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + +<p>As before, the good little doctor had recourse to his pipe, and it was +not until his daughter got up to go in that he said gently: "One other +word, Charlie, girl: are you altogether sure that the wish isn't father +to the thought—about Griswold?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be absurd, papa!" she said scornfully, passing swiftly behind his +chair to reach the door; and with that answer he was obliged to be +content.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>BROKEN LINKS</h3> + + +<p>It was on the second day after the pistol-buying incident in Simmons & +Kleifurt's that Broffin, wishful for solitude and a chance to think in +perspective, took to the woods.</p> + +<p>In the moment of lost temper, when he had threatened angrily to play an +indefinite waiting game, prolonging it until his man should walk into +the trap, nothing had really been farther from his intentions. As a +matter of fact, there were the best of business reasons why he should +not waste another day in following, or attempting to follow, the cold +trail. Other cases were pressing, and his daily mail from the New +Orleans head-quarters brought urgings impatient and importunate; and on +the third day following the sleeveless interview with the doctor's +daughter he had paid his bill at the Winnebago House and had packed his +grip for the southward flight by the afternoon train.</p> + +<p>Twenty minutes before train-time a telegram from the New Orleans office +had reopened the closed and crossed-off account of the Bayou State +Security robbery. It was a bare line in answer to his own wire advising +the office that he was about to return,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> but its significance was out of +all proportion to its length. "B. S. S. man is in your town. Important +letter to-day's mail," was all it said, but that was sufficient. Broffin +had promptly told the clerk of the Winnebago that he had changed his +mind, and forty-eight hours afterward he had the letter.</p> + +<p>Like the telegram, the mail communication was significant but +inconclusive. One Patrick Sheehan, a St. Louis cab driver, dying, had +made confession to his priest. For a bribe of two hundred dollars he had +aided and abetted the escape of a criminal on a day and date +corresponding to the mid-April arrival of the steamer <i>Belle Julie</i> at +St. Louis. Afterward he had driven the man to an up-town hotel (name not +given) and had obtained from the clerk the man's name and destination. +In his letter enclosing the confession the priest went on to say that +the penitent had evidently had a severe struggle with his conscience. A +mistaken sense of gratitude to the man who had bribed him had led him to +tear off and destroy the upper half of the card given him by the up-town +hotel clerk, and with the reminder gone he could not recall the man's +name. But the destination address, "Wahaska, Minnesota," had been +preserved, and the torn portion of the card bearing it was submitted +with the confession.</p> + +<p>With this new clue for an incentive, Broffin had immediately put his +nose to the cold trail again. All other things apart, the torn card +conclusively proved the correctness of the obstinately maintained +hypothesis. If the robber had really chosen Wahaska for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> his +hiding-place, he had done so merely because it was Miss Farnham's home. +The boldness of the thing appealed instantly to a like quality in the +detective, and he was not entirely unprepared for the eye-opening shock +which came when he began to suspect that Griswold, the writing-man, was +the man he was looking for.</p> + +<p>The premonitory symptoms of the shock had manifested themselves when he +began to note the regularity of Griswold's visits to the house in Lake +Boulevard. Then came the pistol-buying episode, closely following an +investment of money possible only to a capitalist—or a robber. Broffin +worked quickly after this, tracing Griswold's record back to its +Wahaskan beginnings and shadowing his man so faithfully that at any hour +of the day or night he could have clapped the arresting hand upon his +shoulder. Still he hesitated. Once, in his Secret Service days, he had +arrested the wrong man, and the smart of the prosecution for false +imprisonment would rankle as long as he lived.</p> + +<p>This was why he took to the woods on the afternoon of the second day +following Griswold's pistol purchase. He felt himself growing +short-sighted from the very nearness of things. The single necessity now +was for absolute and unshakable identification. To establish this, three +witnesses, and three only, could be called upon. Of the three, two had +failed signally—Miss Farnham because she had her own reasons for +blocking the game, and President Galbraith.... That was another chapter +in the book of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> failure. Broffin had learned that the president was +stopping at the De Soto Inn, and he had manœuvred to bring Mr. +Galbraith face to face with Griswold in the Grierson bank on the day +after the pistol-buying. To his astonishment and disgust the president +had shaken his head irritably, adding a rebuke. "Na, na, man; your trade +makes ye over-suspeecious. That's Mr. Griswold, the writer-man and a +friend of the Griersons. Miss Madgie was telling me about him last week. +He's no more like the robber than you are. Haven't I told ye the man was +bearded like a tyke?"</p> + +<p>With two of the three eye-witnesses refusing to testify, there remained +only Johnson, the paying teller of the Bayou State Security. Broffin was +considering the advisability of wiring for Johnson when he passed the +last of the houses on the lakeside drive and struck into the country +road which led by cool and shaded forest windings to the resort hotel at +the head of the southern bay. If Johnson should fail—and in view of the +fact that President Galbraith had failed it was a possibility to be +reckoned with—there remained only two doubtful expedients. With Patrick +Sheehan's confession to point the way it might be possible to trace the +transformed deck-hand from his final interview with McGrath on the +<i>Belle Julie</i>step by step to his appearance, sick and delirious, in +Wahaska twenty-four hours later. This was one of the expedients. The +other was to take the long chance by clapping the handcuffs upon +Griswold in some moment of unpreparedness. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> was a well-worn trick, +and it did not always succeed in surprising the admission of guilt +necessary to make it hold good. And if it should not hold good, there +might be consequences. As we have noted, Broffin had once clapped the +handcuffs on the wrong man.</p> + +<p>Chewing an extinct cigar and ruminating thoughtfully over his problem, +Broffin had followed the windings of the country road well into the +lake-enclosing forest when he heard the rattle of wheels and the +hoof-beats of a horse. Presently the vehicle overtook and passed him. It +was Miss Grierson's trap, drawn by the big English trap-horse, with Miss +Grierson herself holding the reins and Raymer lounging comfortably in +the spare seat.</p> + +<p>The sight of the pair moved Broffin to speech apostrophic—when the two +were out of earshot. "You're the little lady I'd like to back into a +corner," he muttered. "What you know about this business—and wouldn't +tell, not if you was gettin' the third degree for it—would tie up all +the broken strings in a hurry. How do I know you didn't help him to get +out of St. Louis? How do I know that the whole blame sick play wasn't a +plant from start to finish?" He stopped and struck viciously at a +roadside weed with the switch he had cut. It was a new idea, an idea +with promise; and when he went on, the reflective excursion had become a +journey with a purpose. Chance had been good to him now and then in his +hard-working career: perhaps it would be good to him again. Having let +one woman put a stumbling-block in his way, perhaps it was going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> to +even things up by making another woman remove it.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later Broffin had followed the huge hoof-prints of the +great English trap-horse to the driveway portal of the De Soto grounds +where they were lost on the pebbled carriage approach. Strolling on +through the grounds into the lake-fronting lobby of the Inn, he was soon +able to account for Raymer. The young iron-founder was evidently on +business bent. He was sitting in the lobby with a man whom Broffin +recognized as the master car builder of the Pineboro Railroad, and the +two were discussing mechanical details over a thick file of blue-prints +spread out on Raymer's knees. The smile under Broffin's drooping +mustaches was a grin of instant comprehension. Miss Grierson, driving +Raymer's way, had picked up the iron-founder and brought him along to +the business appointment. It was a way she had—when the candidate for +the spare seat in the trap happened to be young and good-looking.</p> + +<p>Having placed Raymer, Broffin went in search of Miss Grierson. He found +her on the broad veranda, alone, and for the moment unoccupied. How to +make the attack so direct and so overwhelming that it could not be +withstood was the only remaining question; and Broffin had answered it +to his own satisfaction, and was advancing through an open French window +directly behind Miss Grierson's chair to put the answer into effect, +when the opportunity was snatched away. Raymer, with his roll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> of +blue-prints under his arm and his business with the master car builder +apparently concluded, came down the veranda and took the chair next to +Miss Grierson's.</p> + +<p>Broffin dropped back into the writing-room alcove for which the open +French window was the outlet and sat down to bide his time, taking care +that the chair which he noiselessly placed for himself should be out of +sight from the veranda, but not out of earshot. It seemed very unlikely +that the two young people who were enjoying the Minnedaskan view would +say anything worth listening to; but the ex-harrier of moonshine-makers +was of those who discount all chances.</p> + +<p>For a time nothing happened. The two on the veranda talked of the view, +of the coming regatta, of the latest lawn social given by the Guild of +St. John's. Broffin surmised that they were waiting for the trap to be +brought around from the hotel stables, though why there should be a +delay was not so evident. But in any event his opportunity was lost +unless he could contrive to isolate the young woman again. It was while +he was groping for the compassing means that Raymer said:</p> + +<p>"It's a shame to make you wait this way, Miss Madge. McMurtry said he +had an appointment with Mr. Galbraith for three o'clock, and he had to +go and keep it. But he ought to be down again by this time. Don't wait +for me if you want to go back to town. I can get a lift from somebody."</p> + +<p>"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> good-natured retort. "To +make you tie up your own horse in town and then to leave you stranded +away out here three miles from nowhere! I think I see myself doing such +a thing! Besides, I haven't a thing to do but to wait."</p> + +<p>Broffin shifted the extinct cigar he was chewing from one corner of his +mouth to the other and pulled his soft hat lower over his eyes. He, too, +could wait. There was a little stir on the veranda; a rustling of silk +petticoats and the click of small heels on the hardwood floor. Broffin +could not forbear the peering peep around the sheltering window +draperies. Miss Grierson had left her seat and was pacing a slow march +up and down before Raymer's chair, apparently for Raymer's benefit. The +watcher behind the window draperies drew back quickly when she made the +turn to face his way, arguing sapiently that whatever significance their +further talk might hold would be carefully and thoughtfully neutralized +if Miss Grierson should see him. That she had not seen him became a fact +sufficiently well-assured when she sat down again and began to speak of +Griswold.</p> + +<p>"How is the new partnership going, by this time," she asked, after the +manner of one who re-winnows the chaff of the commonplaces in the hope +of finding grain enough for the immediate need.</p> + +<p>"So far as Griswold is concerned, you wouldn't notice that there is a +partnership," laughed the iron-founder. "I can't make him galvanize an +atom of interest in his investment. All I can get out of him is, 'Don't +bother me; I'm busy.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mr. Griswold is in a class by himself, don't you think?" was the +questioning comment.</p> + +<p>"He is all kinds of a good fellow; that's all I know, and all I ask to +know," answered Raymer loyally.</p> + +<p>"I believe that—now," said his companion, with the faintest possible +emphasis upon the time-word.</p> + +<p>Broffin marked the emphasis, and the pause that preceded it, and leaned +forward to miss no word.</p> + +<p>"Meaning that there was a time when you didn't believe it?" Raymer +asked.</p> + +<p>"Meaning that there was a time when he had me scared half to death," +confessed the one who seemed always to say the confidential thing as if +it were the most trivial. "Do you remember one day in the library, when +you found me looking over the files of the newspapers for the story of +the robbery of the Bayou State Security Bank in New Orleans?"</p> + +<p>Raymer remembered it very well, and admitted it.</p> + +<p>"That was the time when the dreadful idea was scaring me stiff," she +went on. "You remember the story, don't you? how the president—our Mr. +Galbraith here—was held up at the point of a pistol and marched to the +paying teller's window, and how the robber escaped on a river steamboat +and was recognized by somebody and was arrested at St. Louis?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I remember it all very clearly. Also I recollect how the second +newspaper notice told how he escaped from the officers at St. Louis. +Wasn't there something about a young woman being mixed up in it some +way?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There was: <i>she</i> was the one who recognized the robber disguised as a +deck-hand on the boat."</p> + +<p>Raymer seemed to have forgotten his impatience for a renewal of the +interview with the Pineboro Railroad master car builder.</p> + +<p>"I don't seem to recall any mention of that in the newspapers," he said +half-doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"The newspaper reporters didn't put two and two together, but I did," +asserted the sharer of confidences. "There was a young woman getting a +draft cashed at the teller's window when the robbery was committed. The +bank people didn't know her, so she must have been travelling. You see +it's simple enough when you put your mind to it."</p> + +<p>"But you haven't told me how you were scared," Raymer suggested.</p> + +<p>"I'm coming to that. This escape we read about happened on a certain day +in April. It was the very day on which poppa met me on my way back from +Florida, and we took the eleven-thirty train north that night. You +haven't forgotten that Mr. Griswold was a passenger on that same train?"</p> + +<p>"But, goodness gracious, Miss Margery! any number of people were +passengers on that train. You surely wouldn't——"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" she said, and through the lace window hangings Broffin saw her +lift a warning finger. "What I am telling you, Mr. Raymer, is in the +strictest confidence; we mustn't let a breath of it get out. But that +wasn't all. Mr. Griswold was dreadfully sick, and, of course, he +couldn't tell us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> anything about himself. But while he was delirious he +was always muttering something about money, money; money that he had +lost and couldn't find, or money that he had found and couldn't lose. +Then when we thought he couldn't possibly get well, Doctor Bertie and I +ransacked his suit-cases for cards or letters or something that would +tell us who he was and where he came from. <i>There wasn't the littlest +thing!</i>"</p> + +<p>"And that was when you began to suspect?" queried Raymer.</p> + +<p>"That was when the suspicion began to torture me. I fought it; oh, you +don't know how hard I fought it! There he was, lying sick and helpless; +utterly unable to do a thing or say a word in his own defence; and yet, +if he were the robber, of course, we should have to give him up. It was +terrible!"</p> + +<p>"I should say so," was Raymer's sympathetic comment. "How did you get it +straightened out, at last?"</p> + +<p>"It hasn't been altogether straightened out until just lately—within +the past few days," she went on gravely. "After he began to get well, I +made him talk to me—about himself, you know. There didn't seem to be +anything to conceal. At different times he told me all about his home, +and his mother, whom he barely remembers, and the big-hearted, +open-handed father who made money so easily in his profession—he was +<i>the</i> Griswold, the great architect, you know—that he gave it away to +anybody who wanted it—but I suppose he has told you all this?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No; at least, not very much of it."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson went on smoothly, falling sympathetically into the +reminiscent vein.</p> + +<p>"Kenneth went to college without ever having known what it was to lack +anything in reason that money could buy. A little while after he was +graduated his father died."</p> + +<p>"Leaving Kenneth poor, I suppose; he has intimated as much to me, once +or twice," said Raymer.</p> + +<p>"Leaving him awfully poor. He wanted to learn to write, and for a long +time he stayed on in New York, living just any old way, and having a +dreadfully hard time of it, I imagine, though he would never say much +about that part of it. He says he was studying the under-dog, and he has +told me some of the most harrowing things he has seen and been through: +one of them had a little child in it—a baby that he found in a tenement +where the father and mother had both died of starvation ... think of it! +And he took the baby away and fed it and kept it...."</p> + +<p>Broffin, sitting behind the window draperies, had his elbows on his +knees and his head tightly clamped between his hands. He was striving, +as the dying strive for breath, to remember. Where had he heard this +self-same story of the man who had fought some sort of a studying fight +in the back-water of the New York slums? In every detail it came back to +him like the recurring scenes of a vivid dream; but the key-notes of +time, place, and the man's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> identity were gone; lost beyond any power of +the groping mentality to recall them.</p> + +<p>"That is why he thinks he is a Socialist," Miss Grierson was going on +evenly. "I've been wondering if you knew these things, and I've wanted +to tell you. I've thought it might help you to understand him better if +you knew something of what he has been through. But we were talking +about my dreadful suspicion. It persisted, you know, right along through +everything. At last, I felt that I just <i>must</i> know, at whatever cost. +One day when we were driving, I brought him here and—and introduced him +to Mr. Galbraith. I was so scared that I could taste it—but I did it!"</p> + +<p>Raymer laughed. "Of course, nothing came of it?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all; and the reaction pretty nearly made me faint. They just +made talk, like any two freshly introduced people would, and that was +all there was of it. You'd say that was proof enough, wouldn't you? +Surely Mr. Galbraith would recognize the man who robbed him?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly; there couldn't be any doubt of that."</p> + +<p>"That's what I said. And then, right out of a clear sky, came another +proof that was even more convincing. Do you happen to know who the young +woman was who discovered the bank robber on the steamboat?"</p> + +<p>"I? How should I know?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know but she had told you," was the demure rejoinder. "It was +Charlotte Farnham."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What!" ejaculated Raymer. But he was not more deeply moved than was the +man behind the window curtains. If Broffin's dead cigar had not been +already reduced to shapeless inutility, Miss Grierson's cool +announcement, carrying with it the assurance that his secret was no +secret, would have settled it.</p> + +<p>"It's so," she was adding calmly. "I found out. She and her aunt were +passengers on the <i>Belle Julie</i>; that was the boat the robber escaped +on, you remember. Doctor Bertie told me that. And she was the young +woman who was having the draft cashed in the Bayou State Security. How +do I know? Because her father bought the draft at poppa's bank, and in +the course of time it came back with the Bayou State Security's dated +paying stamp on it. See how easy it was!"</p> + +<p>Raymer's laugh was not altogether mirthful.</p> + +<p>"You are a witch," he said. "Is there anything that you don't know?"</p> + +<p>"Not so very many things that I really need to know," was the mildly +boastful retort. "But you see, now, how foolish my suspicions were. Mr. +Galbraith meets Mr. Griswold just as he would any other nice young man; +and Charlotte Farnham, who recognized the robber even when he was +disguised as a deck-hand, sees Mr. Griswold pretty nearly every day."</p> + +<p>Raymer nodded. Though he would not have admitted it under torture, the +entire matter figured somewhat as a mountain constructed out of a rather +small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> mole-hill to a man for whom the subtleties lay in a region +unexplored. He wondered that the clear-minded little "social climber," +as his sister called her, had ever bothered her nimble brain about such +an abstruse and far-fetched question of identities.</p> + +<p>"You said, a few minutes ago, that Griswold calls himself a Socialist. +That isn't quite the word. He is a sociologist."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson ignored the nice distinction in names.</p> + +<p>"Socialism goes with being poor, doesn't it?" she remarked. "Since Mr. +Griswold's ship has come in, I suppose he finds it easier, and +pleasanter, to be a theoretical leveller than a practical one."</p> + +<p>"That is another thing I have never been quite able to understand," said +the iron-founder. "You say his father left him poor: where did he get +his money?"</p> + +<p>"Why, don't you know?" was the innocent query. And then, with a pretty +affectation of embarrassment, real or perfectly simulated: "If he hasn't +told you, I mustn't."</p> + +<p>"Of course, I don't want to pry," said Raymer, loyal again.</p> + +<p>"I can give you a hint, and that is all. Don't you remember 'My Lady +Jezebel,' the unsigned novel that made such a hit last summer?"</p> + +<p>"Why, bless goodness, yes! Did he write that?"</p> + +<p>"He has never admitted it in so many words. But I'll divide a little +secret with you. He has been reading bits of his new book to me, and +pshaw! a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> blind person could tell! I asked him once if he could guess +how much the author of 'My Lady Jezebel' had been paid, and he said, +with the most perfectly transparent carelessness: 'Oh, about a hundred +thousand, I suppose.'"</p> + +<p>"Tally!" said Raymer, laughing. "Griswold has put an even ninety +thousand into my little egg-basket out at the plant. But, of course you +knew that, everybody in Wahaska knows it by this time."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I knew it."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad it's book money," Raymer went on. "If we should happen to go +smash, he won't feel the loss quite so fiercely. I have a friend over in +Wisconsin; he is a laboratory professor in mechanics, and he writes +books on the side. He says a book is a pure gamble. If you win, you have +that much more money to throw to the dicky-birds. If you lose, you've +merely drawn the usual blank."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson did not reply, and for a little while they were both +silent. Then Raymer said:</p> + +<p>"I wonder if McMurtry doesn't think I've dropped out on him. I guess I'd +better go and see. Don't wait any longer on my motions, unless you want +to, Miss Margery."</p> + +<p>When Raymer had gone, the opportunity which Broffin had so lately craved +was his. Miss Grierson was left alone on the big veranda, and he had +only to step out and confront her. Instead, he got up quietly and went +back through the lobby with his head down and his hands in his pockets, +and the surviving bit of the dead cigar disappeared between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> his strong +teeth and became a cud of chagrin. There had been a goal in sight, but +Miss Grierson had beat him to it.</p> + +<p>And the winner of the small handicap? For the time it took Raymer to +disappear she sat perfectly still, in the attitude of one who stifles +all the other senses that the listening ear may hear and strike the note +of warning or of relief. A group of young people, returning from a +steam-launch circuit of the upper lake, came up the steps to disperse +itself with pleasant human clatterings on the veranda; but in spite of +the distractions the listening ear caught the sound for which it was +straining. With a deep breath-drawing that was almost a sob, Miss +Grierson sprang up, stole a swift confirming glance at the empty chair +behind the window hangings, and crossed the veranda to stand with one +arm around a supporting pillar. And since the battle was fought and won, +and the friendly pillar gave its stay and shelter, the velvety eyes +filled suddenly and the ripe red lips were trembling like the lips of a +frightened child.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX</h2> + +<h3>ALL THAT A MAN HATH</h3> + + +<p>For four entire days after Margery Grierson had driven home the nail of +the elemental verities in her frank criticism of the new book, and +Charlotte Farnham had clinched it, Wahaska's public places saw nothing +of Griswold; and Mrs. Holcomb, motherly soul, was driven to expostulate +scoldingly with her second-floor front who was pushing the pen +feverishly from dawn to the small hours, and evidently—in the kindly +widow's phrase—burning the candle at both ends and in the middle.</p> + +<p>Out of this candle-burning frenzy the toiler emerged in the afternoon of +the fifth day, a little pallid and tremulous from the overstrain, but +with a thick packet of fresh manuscript to bulge in his pocket when he +made his way, blinking at the unwonted sunlight of out-of-doors, to the +great house at the lake's edge.</p> + +<p>Margery was waiting for him when he rang the bell: he guessed it +gratefully, and she confirmed it.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she said, with the bewitching little grimace which could be +made to mean so much or so little. "Isn't this your afternoon? Why +shouldn't I be waiting for you?" Then, with a swiftly sympathetic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> +glance for the pale face and the tired eyes: "You've been overworking +again. Let's sit out here on the porch where we can have what little air +there is. There must be a storm brewing; it's positively breathless in +the house."</p> + +<p>Griswold was glad enough to acquiesce; glad and restfully happy and +mildly intoxicated with her beauty and the loving rudeness with which +she pushed him into the easiest of the great lounging chairs and took +the sheaf of manuscript away from him, declaring that she meant to read +it herself.</p> + +<p>"It will wear you out," he objected, fishing for the denial which would +give the precious fillip to the craftsman vanity.</p> + +<p>The denial came promptly.</p> + +<p>"Foolish!" she said; "as if anything you have written could make anybody +tired!" And then, with the mocking after-touch he had come to know so +well, and to look for: "Is that what you wanted me to say?"</p> + +<p>"You are the spice of life and your name should have been Variety," he +countered feebly. "But I warn you beforehand: there is a frightful lot +of it. I have rewritten it from the beginning."</p> + +<p>"So much the better," she affirmed. "You've been doling it out to me in +little morsels, and I've been aching to get it all at one bite." And she +began to read.</p> + +<p>It was the first time he had had any of his own work read to him, and +the experience was a pure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> luxury; at once the keenest and the most +sensuous enjoyment he had ever known. Marvelling, as he was always moved +to marvel, at her bright mind and clever wit and clear insight, he was +driven to the superlatives again to find words to describe her reading. +Artistically, and as with the gifted sympathy of a born actress, she +seemed able to breathe the very atmosphere of the story. None of his +subtle nuances were lost; there was never an emphasis misplaced. Better +still, the impersonation was perfect. By turns she became himself, +<i>Joan</i>, <i>Fidelia</i>, <i>Fleming</i>, or one of the subsidiary characters, +speaking the parts, rather than reading them, with such a sure +apprehension of his meaning that he could almost fancy that she was +reading from his mind instead of following the manuscript.</p> + +<p>When it was over; and he could not tell whether the interval should be +measured by minutes or hours; the return to the realities—the hot +afternoon, the tree-shaded veranda, the lake dimpling like a sheet of +molten metal under the sun-glare—was almost painful.</p> + +<p>"It is wonderful—simply wonderful!" he said, drawing a deep breath; and +then, with a flush of honest confusion to drive away the work pallor: +"Of course, you know I don't mean the story; I meant your reading of it. +Hasn't any one ever told you that you have the making of a great actress +in you, Margery, girl?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said shortly; and, dismissing that phase of the subject in the +single word: "Let's talk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> about the story. You have bettered it +immensely. What made you do it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; some convincement that it was all wrong and out of +drawing as it stood, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Who gave you the convincement? Miss Farnham?"</p> + +<p>His answer was meant to be truthful, but beauty of the intoxicating sort +is the most mordant of solvents for truth in the abstract.</p> + +<p>"No; you did."</p> + +<p>"But she told you something," she persisted. "Otherwise, you could never +have made <i>Fidelia</i> all over again, as you have in this rewriting."</p> + +<p>"Maybe she did," he admitted. "But that doesn't matter. You think I have +bettered the story, and I know I have. And I know where I got the +inspiration to do it."</p> + +<p>She was smiling across at him, level-eyed.</p> + +<p>"Let me pass it back to you, dear boy," she said. "You have the making +of a great novelist in you. It may take years and years, and—and I'm +afraid you'll always have to be helped; but if you can only get the +right kind of help...." She looked away, out across the lake where a +fitful breeze was turning the molten-metal dimples into laughing +wavelets. Then, with one of her sudden topic-wrenchings: "Speaking of +help, reminds me. Why didn't you tell me you had gone into the foundry +business with Edward Raymer?"</p> + +<p>"Because it didn't occur to me that you would care to know, I guess," he +answered unsuspectingly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> "As a matter of fact, I had almost forgotten +it myself."</p> + +<p>"Was it a good investment?" she asked guilelessly.</p> + +<p>"Yes; that is, I presume it was. I didn't think much about that part of +it."</p> + +<p>"What did you think about?"</p> + +<p>It was just here that he awoke to the realization that he could hardly +afford to give Jasper Grierson's daughter the real reason for the +investment. So he prevaricated, knowing well enough that he had less +than no chance in an evasive duel with her.</p> + +<p>"Raymer had been adding to his plant, and he lacked capital," he said +guardedly. "I had the money, and it was lying idle."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Raymer didn't ask you for help?"</p> + +<p>"No; it was my own offer."</p> + +<p>"But he did tell you that he was in trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Y-yes," hesitantly.</p> + +<p>"What kind of trouble was it, Kenneth? I have the best right in the +world to know."</p> + +<p>Griswold straightened himself in his chair and the work-weariness became +a thing of the past. With the fairly evident fact staring him in the +face from day to day, it had never occurred to him that his friend and +business partner might also be his fellow-prisoner in the house of the +witcheries. The sudden convincement stung a little, the all-monopolizing +selfishness of the craftsman carrying easily over into the field of +sentiment. Yet it was clean friendship for Raymer, no less than for the +daughter of desire, that prompted him to say:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You can't have a right to know anything that will distress you."</p> + +<p>"Foolish!" she chided—and this time the epithet had lost its alluring +softness. "You may as well tell me. Mr. Raymer had borrowed money at +poppa's bank. What was the matter? Did he have to pay it back—all at +once?"</p> + +<p>There seemed to be no further opening for evasion. "Yes; I think that +was the way of it," he answered.</p> + +<p>Arguing wholly from the newly made discovery, or postulated discovery, +of Raymer's state and standing as an object of Miss Grierson's +solicitude, Griswold expected something in the nature of an outburst. +What he got was a transfixing glance of the passionate sort, quick with +open-eyed admiration.</p> + +<p>"And you just tossed your money into the breach as if you had millions +of it, and by now you've almost forgotten that you did it!" she +exclaimed. "Kenneth, dear, there are times when you are so heavenly good +that I can hardly believe it. Are there any more men like you over on +your side of the world?"</p> + +<p>At another time he might have smiled at the boyish frankness of the +question. But it was a better motive than the analyst's that prompted +his answer.</p> + +<p>"Plenty of them, Margery, girl; too many for the good of the race. You +mustn't try to make a hero out of me. Once in a while I get a glimpse of +the real Kenneth Griswold—you are giving me one just now—and it's +sickening. For a moment I was meanly jealous; jealous of Raymer. It was +only the writing part of me, I hope, but——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> + +<p>He stopped because she had suddenly turned her back on him and was +looking out over the lake again. When she spoke, she went back to the +business affair.</p> + +<p>"When you invest money you ought to look after it," she said +magisterially. "You are a Socialist, aren't you? How do you know that +your money isn't being used to oppress somebody?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do know that much," was the investor's protest. "Raymer is a good +boss—too good for the crowd he is trying to brother, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"What makes you say that?"</p> + +<p>"A word or two that he has dropped, now and then. When he branched out, +he had to increase his force accordingly. Some of the new men seem +inclined to make trouble."</p> + +<p>Again she fell silent, and he saw the brooding look come into the dark +eyes. It was evident that something he had said had started a train of +thought—and the thoughts were not altogether pleasant ones. Analyzing +again, he fancied he could picture the inward struggle to break away +from the unpleasantnesses, and he shook hands enthusiastically with his +own gift of insight when she looked up suddenly and said: "See! the +breeze is freshening out on the water. You are fagged and tired and +needing a bracer. Let's go and do a turn on the lake in the <i>Clytie</i>."</p> + +<p>From where he was sitting Griswold could see the trim little catboat, +resplendent in polished brass and mahogany, riding at its buoy beyond +the lawn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> landing-stage. He cared little for the water, but the +invitation pointed to a delightful prolongation of the basking process +which had come to be one of the chief luxuries of the Mereside +afternoons.</p> + +<p>"I'm not much of a sailor," he began; but she cut him off.</p> + +<p>"You'll do to pull and haul. Wait for me; I'll be ready in less time +than it would take another woman—<i>Fidelia</i>, for example—to make up her +mind what she wanted to wear."</p> + +<p>He waited; and when she came down, a few minutes later, crisply boyish +in the nattiest of yachting costumes, he wondered how she could appear +in so many different characters, fitting each in succession and +contriving always to make the latest transformation, while it lasted, +the one in which she figured as the most enticingly adorable.</p> + +<p>"Did you look in the glass before you came down?" he asked, standing up +to get the artistic effect of the shapely little figure backgrounded +against the dull reds of the house wall.</p> + +<p>"Naturally," she laughed. "Why, please? Is my face dirty?"</p> + +<p>He ignored the flippancy.</p> + +<p>"If you did, I don't need to tell you how irresistibly dazzling you +are."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't you, if you feel like it? Of course, I'd know you didn't +mean it. If you were describing me to somebody else, or in the book, +you'd say, 'Um, yes; rather fetching; pretty enough to—' But we all +like to be sugared a little now and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> then; and there's one thing you +must always remember: a woman's dressing-glass can't talk. Are you +ready? Open the window screen and drop the manuscript inside. It will be +safe until we come back, and the <i>Clytie</i> might be tempted to throw cold +water on it if we should take it along. She's a wet little boat in a +sea."</p> + +<p>This for the outsetting: light-hearted badinage, a fair summer +afternoon, a zephyrish breeze coming in tiny cat's-paws out of the +north-west, and a cloudless sky. At the landing-stage Griswold made +himself useful, paying out the sea-line of the movable mooring buoy and +hauling on the shore-line until the handsome little craft lay at their +feet. Strictly under orders he made sail on the little ship, and when +the captain had taken her place at the tiller he shoved off.</p> + +<p>For a little time the breeze was lightly baffling, and Griswold +confessed that if he had been at the helm they would have gone +ingloriously aground. But the small person in the correct yachting +costume was an adept in boat handling, as she seemed to be in everything +else; and when the sandy bottom was fairly yellowing under the +<i>Clytie's</i> counter, there was a quick juggling of the tiller, a deft +haul at the sheet, and the big main-sail filled slowly to the rippling +song of the little seas splitting themselves upon the catboat's sharp +cut-water.</p> + +<p>Once clear of the shallow bay, the helmswoman laid the course up the +lake; and Griswold, luxuriously lazy now that the working strain was +off,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> stretched himself comfortably on the cockpit cushions which he had +rummaged out of the cuddy cabin, and asked permission to light his pipe. +The permission given and the pipe filled and lighted, he pillowed his +head in his clasped hands and a great contentment, flowing into all the +interstices and levelling all the inequalities, lapped him in its +soothing flood. When the pipe had gone out there was joy enough left in +the pure relaxation; in that and in the contemplation through +half-closed eyelids of the pretty picture made by the tiller maiden +braced in the stern-sheets, her shining hair breeze-blown and flying +free under the captivating little yachting hat, and her eyes dancing....</p> + +<p>Under such conditions a reflective analyst might conceivably wrench the +switch aside in front of the jogging train of thought to send it down a +shaded street to the lake-fronting house framed in shrubbery; to the +house and to the serene young house-mistress who had voluntarily stepped +from her goddess pedestal to become a flesh-and-blood woman to be loved +and cherished. He knew that Charlotte Farnham's readjustment of their +relations had in no wise modified her opinion of the <i>Joans</i>, or of the +men who were weak enough or besotted enough to be taken in the nets of +beguiling.... What would she think of him if she could see him lying at +Margery Grierson's feet, frankly and joyously revelling in the +triumphantly human charm of one of the <i>Joans</i>, and wishing with all his +heart—for the time being, at least—that there were no such things in +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> world of effort as the higher ideals or any shackling requirement to +live up to them?</p> + +<p>He was still playing whimsically with the query when he was made to +realize that the murmuring rush of water under the catboat's forefoot +had changed into a series of resounding thumps; that the wind was +rising, and that the summer afternoon sky had become suddenly overcast. +The pretty tiller maiden was pushing the helm down with her foot and +hauling in briskly on the sheet when he sat up.</p> + +<p>"What's this we're coming to?" he asked, thinking less of the changed +weather conditions than of the charming picture she made in action.</p> + +<p>"Weather," she said shortly. "Look behind you."</p> + +<p>He looked and saw a huge storm cloud rising out of the north-west and +spreading like a great gray dust curtain from horizon to zenith. With +the sun blotted out, a brazen light filled all the upper air, and in the +heart of the cloud fleecy masses of vapor were writhing and twisting +like formless giants in battle.</p> + +<p>Quickly he measured the hazards. The <i>Clytie</i> was fairly in mid-lake, +with plenty of sea room to leeward. There was an intervening island to +shut off the down-lake view, but though its forested bluffs and abrupt +headland were uncomfortably close at hand, a bit of skilful +manœuvring would put it to windward. Beyond the island he could see +the breeze-blown smoke trail of the summer-resort hotel's steam launch +evidently making for its home port at full speed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There's a good bunch of wind in that cloud," he said, springing to help +his companion with the slatting main-sail. "Hadn't we better lie up +under the island and let it blow over?"</p> + +<p>"No," she snapped. "We'll have to reef, and be quick about it. Help me!"</p> + +<p>He helped with the reefing, and the great main-sail had been +successfully reduced to its smallest area and hoisted home again before +the trees on the western shore began to bow and churn in the precursor +blasts of the coming storm.</p> + +<p>"It will hit us in less than a minute: how about weathering that +island?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"We've <i>got</i> to weather it," was the instant decision; "we can't go +around." Then, the catboat still hanging in the wind's eye: "Help me get +her over."</p> + +<p>Together they held the shortened sail off at an angle, and slowly, very +slowly, the boat's bow fell off toward the island. Griswold was enough +of a sailor to know that it was the thing to do, but there was a +perilously narrow margin. The storm squall was already tearing across +from the western shore, blackening the water ahead of it and picking up +a small tidal wave as it came. If it should strike them before they were +ready for it, it meant one of two things: a capsize, or an instant +driving of the catboat upon the hazard of the island head.</p> + +<p>The crisis was upon them almost as soon as its threat could be measured. +Of the two, it was the young woman who met it with skilful purpose. +While the man could only scramble, choked and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> half-blinded, to windward +to throw his weight on the careening gunwale, the helmswoman had pounced +upon the tiller and was standing knee-deep in the water pouring over the +submerged lee rail to pay out and steer and miss the island headland by +a shearing hand's-breadth.</p> + +<p>The worst was over in a moment, and under the lee of the small island +there was a brief respite for pumping and bailing. The girl's black eyes +were shining with excitement and fearless daring, and Griswold would +have given much for time and leisure in which to catch and fix the +fleeting inspiration of the instant. But there was little space for the +artistic appreciation.</p> + +<p>"Hurry!" she cried; "we'll have to take it again in a minute or two!" +and there was still a bucketing of the shipped sea to thrash about in +the cockpit when the island withdrew its friendly shelter and the +<i>Clytie</i>, going free and sailed as Griswold had never seen a catboat +sailed before, wallowed out into the smother.</p> + +<p>For a little time there was not much to choose between drowning and +being hammered to death by the leaping plunges and alightings of the +frail cockle-shell which seemed to be blown bodily from crest to crest +of the short, high-pitched seas. The wind, heavily rain-laden, came in +furious gusts, flattening the reefed canvas until the bunt of the sail +dragged in the trough. Griswold climbed high on the weather rail, +leaning far out to help hold the balance between the heaving seas and +the pounding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> blasts. In the momentary lulls he had flitting glimpses of +the far-away town shore, with the storm-torn waste of waters +intervening. With the wind veering more and more to the west, it was a +fair run to the shelter of the home bay. But Margery was laying the +course far to the right, though to do it she was holding the catboat +cockpit-deep in the smother and taking the chance of a capsize with +every recurring gust. Griswold edged his way aft as far as he dared.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't you better let her fall off a little more and run for it?" he +suggested, and he had to shout it into the pink ear nearest to him to +make himself heard above the roaring of the wind and the crashing +plunges of the boat.</p> + +<p>She shook her head and made an impatient little gesture with her elbow +toward the storm-lashed raceway over the bows. Griswold winked the spray +out of his eyes and looked. At first he saw nothing but the wild waste +of whitecaps, but at the next attempt he made out the hotel steam +launch, half-way to the entrance of the southern bay and a little to +leeward of the <i>Clytie's</i> course. The small steamer was evidently no +sea-boat, and with more courage than seamanship, its steersman was +driving straight for the Inn bay without regard for the direction of the +wind and the seas.</p> + +<p>"That's Ole Halverson!" cried the tiller maiden with scorn in her voice. +"He thinks because he happens to have a steam engine he needn't look to +see which way the wind is blowing."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She's pitching pretty badly," Griswold called back. "If he only had +sense enough to ease off a little...." Suddenly he became aware of the +finer heroism of his companion. He knew now why she had refused to take +shelter under the lee of the island, and why she was holding the catboat +down to the edge of peril to keep the windward advantage of the laboring +steamer. "Margery, girl, you're a darling!" he shouted. "Take all the +chances you want to and I'm with you, if we go to the bottom!"</p> + +<p>She nodded complete intelligence and took in another inch of the +straining main-sheet.</p> + +<p>"If Halverson loses his nerve they're going to need help, and need it +before the <i>Osprey</i> can get out to them," she prophesied.</p> + +<p>Griswold looked again, this time over the catboat's counter, and saw a +big schooner, close-reefed, hauling out from a little bay on the north +shore. The launch's plight had evidently impressed others with the +necessity of doing something. The need was sufficiently urgent. Once +again the Swedish man of machinery in charge of the craft in peril was +inching his helm up in a vain endeavor to hold the course, and the +little steamer was rolling almost funnel under. Griswold forgot that his +companion was a woman and swore rabidly.</p> + +<p>"Look at the fool!" he yelled. "He's trying to come about! If he gets +into the trough——"</p> + +<p>The thing was done almost as he spoke. A wilder squall than any of the +preceding ones caught the upper works of the launch and heeled her +spitefully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> At the critical instant the steersman lost his head and +spun the wheel, and it was all over. With a heaving plunge and a muffled +explosion the launch was gone.</p> + +<p>Once again Griswold was given to see the stuff Margery Grierson was made +of in the finer warp and woof of her.</p> + +<p>"That's for us," she said calmly; and then: "Help me get another inch or +two on this sheet. We don't want to let those people on the <i>Osprey</i> do +all of the heroic things."</p> + +<p>Together they held the catboat down to its work, sending it ripping +through the crested waves and fighting sturdily for every foot of the +precious windward advantage. None the less, it was the big schooner, +thrashing down the wind with every square yard of its reefed canvas +drawing, which was first at the scene of disaster. Through the rain and +spume they could see the schooner's crew picking up the shipwrecked +passengers, who were clinging to life-belts, broken bulkheads, and +anything that would float. So swiftly was the rescue effected that the +rescuer had luffed and filled and was tearing on its way down the lake +again when the close-hauled <i>Clytie</i> came up with the first of the +floating wreckage. The tiller maiden's dark eyes were shining again, but +this time their brightness was of tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, boy, boy!" she cried, with a little heart-broken catch in her +voice; "some of them must have gone down with her! Can you believe that +the <i>Osprey</i> got them all?" And then, with the sweet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> lips trembling: "I +did my best, Kenneth; my very best: and—it wasn't—good enough!"</p> + +<p>She was putting the catboat up into the wind, and Griswold stumbled +forward to get the broader outlook. Suddenly he called back to her.</p> + +<p>"Port!—port your helm hard! there's a man in a life-belt—he's just out +of reach. Hold her there—steady—steady!" He had thrown himself flat, +face down, on the half-deck forward and was clutching at something in +the heaving seas. "I've got him!" he cried, and a moment later he was +working his way aft, holding the man's face out of water.</p> + +<p>It asked for their united strength to get the gray-haired, heavy-bodied +victim of the capsize over the <i>Clytie's</i> rail. They had to bring the +life-belt too; the old man's fingers were sunk into it with a dying grip +that could not be broken. At first Griswold was too much preoccupied and +shocked to recognize the drawn face with its hard-lined mouth and long +upper lip. When he did recognize it the gripping fear was at his +heart—the fear that makes a cruel coward of the hunted thing in all +nature.</p> + +<p>What might have happened if he had been alone; if Margery, taking her +place at the tiller and busying herself swiftly in getting the catboat +under way again, had not been looking on; he dared not think. And that +other frightful thought he put away, fighting against it madly as a +condemned man might push the cup of hemlock from his lips. Forcibly +breaking the drowned one's hold upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> life-belt, he fell to work +energetically, resorting to the first-aid expedients for the reviving of +the drowned as he had learned them in his boyhood. Once, only, he flung +a word over his shoulder at Margery as he fought for the old man's life. +"Make for the nearest landing where we can get a doctor!" he commanded; +and then, in a passion of gratitude: "O God, I thank thee that I am not +a murderer!—he's coming back! he's breathing again!"</p> + +<p>A little later he was able to leave off the first-aid arm-pumpings and +chest-pressings; to straighten the limp and sprawling limbs, and to dive +into the cuddy cabin, under Margery's directions, for blankets and rugs. +When all was done that could be done, and he had propped the +blanket-swathed body with the cushions so that the crash and plunge of +the pitching catboat would be minimized for the sufferer, he went aft to +sit beside the helmswoman, who was getting the final wave-leap of speed +out of the little vessel.</p> + +<p>"He is alive?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes; and that is about all that can be said. He isn't drowned; but he +is old, and the shock has gone pretty near to snapping the thread."</p> + +<p>"Of course, you remember him?" she said, looking away across the leaping +waters.</p> + +<p>Griswold, with his heart on fire with generous emotions, felt the cold +hand gripping him again.</p> + +<p>"He is the old gentleman you introduced me to at the Inn the other day: +Galbraith; is that the name?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," she rejoined, still looking away; "that is the name."</p> + +<p>Griswold fell silent for the time; but a little later, when the catboat +was rushing in long plunges through the entrance to the Wahaskan arm of +the lake, he said: "You are going to take him to Mereside?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He is a friend of poppa's. And, anyway, it's the nearest place, +and you said there was no time to lose."</p> + +<p>There were anxious watchers on the Mereside landing-stage: the gardener, +the stable-man, Thorsen, and three or four others. When the landing was +safely made, Miss Grierson took command and issued her orders briskly.</p> + +<p>"Four of you carry Mr. Galbraith up to the house, and you, Thorsen, put +Baldur into the two-wheeled trap and be ready to go for Doctor Farnham +when I tell you where you can find him. Johnnie Fergus, you come here +and take care of the <i>Clytie</i>; you know how to furl down and moor her."</p> + +<p>Griswold helped the bearers lift the blanketed figure out of the +<i>Clytie's</i> cockpit, and while he was doing it, the steel-gray eyes of +the rescued one opened slowly to fix a stony gaze upon the face of the +man who was bending over him. What the thin lips were muttering Griswold +heard, and so did one other. "So it's you, is it, ye murdering blue-eyed +deevil?" And then: "Eh, man, man, but I'm sick!"</p> + +<p>Griswold walked with Margery at the tail of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> little procession as it +wound its way up the path to the great house.</p> + +<p>"You heard what he said?" he inquired craftily.</p> + +<p>"Yes: he is out of his head, and no wonder," she said soberly. Then: +"You must go home and change at once; you are drenched to the skin. +Don't wait to come in. I'll take care of your manuscript."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX</h2> + +<h3>THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES</h3> + + +<p>The cyclonic summer storm had blown itself out, and the clouds were +beginning to break away in the west, when Griswold, obeying Margery's +urging to go home and change his clothes, turned his back upon Mereside +and his face toward a future of thickening doubts and unnerving +possibilities.</p> + +<p>Once more he found himself wrestling with the keeper of the gate, the +angel of the flaming sword set to drive him forth among the outcasts. +One by one the confidently imagined safeguards were crumbling. He had +been traced to Wahaska—so much could be read between the lines of +Charlotte Farnham's story; if Margery's newsboy protégé was to be +believed, he was watched and followed. And now, after having +successfully passed the ordeal of a face-to-face meeting and +hand-shaking with Andrew Galbraith, chance or destiny or the powers of +darkness had intervened, and a danger met and vanquished had been +suddenly brought to life again, armed and menacing.</p> + +<p>Griswold had not deceived himself, nor had he allowed Margery's apparent +convincement to deceive him. The old man's mind had not been wandering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> +in the eye-opening moment of consciousness regained. On the contrary, +what he had failed to do under ordinary and conventional conditions had +become instantly possible when the plunge into the dark shadow had +brushed away all the artificial becloudings of the memory page. What +action he would take when he should recover was as easy to prefigure as +it was, for the present at least, a matter negligible. The dismaying +thing was that the broad earth seemed too narrow to hide in; that +invention itself became the clumsiest of blunderers when, it was given +the simple task of losing a single individual among the millions of +unrelated human atoms.</p> + +<p>Thus the threat of the peril which might be called the physical. But +beyond this there was another, and, for a man of temperament, a still +more ominous foreshadowing of evil to come. Of some subtle, deep-seated +change in himself he had long been conscious. Again and again it had +manifested itself in those moments of craven fear and ruthless, +murderous promptings, when kindliness, gratitude, love, all the +humanizing motives, had turned suddenly to frenzied hatred, and the +primitive savage had leaped up, fiercely raging with the blood-lust.</p> + +<p>Here, again, he suffered loss, and was conscious of it. The point of +view was changed, and still changing. Something, a thing indefinable, +but none the less real, had gone out of him. Once, in the heart of a +thick darkness of squalor and misery, he had seen a great light and the +name of it was love for his kind. But now the light was waning, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> in +its room a bale-fire was beckoning. There be those, fat, well-nurtured, +and complacent souls faring ever along the main-travelled roads of life, +who need no guiding lamp and will never see the glimmer of the +bale-fires. But the breaker of traditions was of those who, having once +seen the light, must follow where it leads or violate a primal law of +being. Some vague sense of this was stirring the dying embers for the +proletary as he was climbing the hill to the street of quiet entrances; +but he pushed the saving thought aside and chose to call it fanaticism. +He had drawn the line and he would hew to it.</p> + +<p>For a long time after he had reached his room, and had had his bath and +change, Griswold sat at his writing-table with his head in his hands, +thinking in monotonous circles. As in those other stressful moments, the +importunate devil was at his ear; now mocking him for not having left +the drowned enemy as he was; now whispering the dreadful hope that age +and the shock and the drowning might still re-erect the barrier of +safety. The eyes of the recusant grew hot and a loathsome fever ran +sluggishly through his veins when he realized the depths to which he had +descended; that he, once the brother-loving, could coldly weigh the +chance of life and death for another and be unable to find in any corner +of his heart the hope that life might prevail.</p> + +<p>He was still sitting, miserably reflective, in the dark, when Mrs. +Holcomb came up to call him to dinner. What excuse he made he could not +remember two minutes after she had gone down.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> But to make a fourth with +the motherly widow and her two bank clerks at the cheerful dinner-table +was a thing beyond him. Somewhat later he heard the two young men come +upstairs, and, still further along, go down again. They were social +souls, his two fellow lodgers; kindly young fellows with boyish faces +and honest eyes: Griswold wondered if they would still look up to him +and defer to him as the older man of broader culture if they could +know....</p> + +<p>The tiny chiming clock on his dressing-case in the adjoining bedroom had +tinkled forth its ten tapping hammer strokes when the man sitting in the +dark heard the pounding of hoofs and the rattling of buggy wheels in the +quiet street. He was absently awaking to the fact that the vehicle had +stopped at his own door when he heard voices, the widow's and another, +in the lower hall, and then a man's footsteps on the stair. To a +hard-pressed breaker of the traditions at such a moment an unannounced +visitor, coming up in the dark, could mean but one thing. Griswold +silently opened a drawer in the writing-table and groped for the mate to +the quick-firing pistol which, after the change of wet clothing, he had +put aside to dry.</p> + +<p>The visitor came heavily upstairs, and Griswold, swinging his chair to +face the open door, saw the shadowy bulking of the man as he came +through the upper hall. When the bulk filled the doorway it was covered +by the pistol held low, and Griswold's finger was pressing the trigger.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Asleep, old man?" said the intruder in Raymer's well-known voice.</p> + +<p>There was a sound like a gasping sob, and another as of a drawer closing +softly. Then Griswold said: "No; I'm not asleep. Come in. Shall I light +the gas?"</p> + +<p>"Not for me," returned the bedtime visitor, entering and groping for the +chair at the desk-end, into which, when he had placed it, he dropped +wearily. "I want to smoke," he went on. "Have you got a cigar—no, not +the pipe; I want something that I can chew on."</p> + +<p>A cigar was found, in the drawer which had so lately furnished the +weapon, and by the flare of the match in Raymer's fingers Griswold saw a +face haggard with anxiety. In the kindlier days it had been one of his +redeeming characteristics that he could never dwell long upon his own +harassments when another's troubles were brought to him.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, Edward?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"A mix-up with the labor unions. It's been brewing for some little time, +but I didn't want to worry you with it. Unless we announce a flat +increase of twenty per cent in wages to-morrow morning, and declare for +the closed shop, the men will go out on us at noon. I've seen it coming. +It began with the enlarging of the plant and the taking on of the new +men needed. We've always had the open shop, as you know, and it was all +right so long as we were too small for the unions to scrap about. But +now we get the Iron Workers' ultimatum:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> we can do as we please about +the profit-sharing; but the flat increase must go on the pay-rolls, and +the shop must be run as a closed shop."</p> + +<p>If the god of mischance had chosen the moment it could not have been +more opportune for the fire-lighting of malevolence. Griswold's +swing-chair righted itself with a click, and Bainbridge's prophecy that +a hot-hearted proletary was likely to become the hardest of masters +became a prediction fulfilled.</p> + +<p>"We'll see them in hell, first, Raymer! Isn't that the way you feel +about it?"</p> + +<p>"Partly," allowed the smoker. "But it can hardly be disposed of that +easily, Kenneth. A good third of the men are our old standbys; men who +were in the shops under my father. Some pretty powerful influence has +been brought to bear upon them to swing them against us. I don't know +what it is, but I do know this: every second man we have hired lately +has turned out to be either a loud-mouthed agitator or a silent mixer of +trouble medicine."</p> + +<p>"Let the causes go for the present," said Griswold shortly. "We're +talking about the men, now. The ungrateful beggars are merely proving +that it isn't in human nature to meet justice and fairness and generous +liberality half-way. If they want a fight, give it to them. Hit first +and hit hard; that's the way to do. Shut up the plant and make it a +lock-out."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid you might say something like that in the first heat of +it," said the young ironmaster. "It's a stout fighting word, and I +guess, under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> skin, you're a stout fighting man, Kenneth—which I'm +not. Where are your convictions about the man-to-man obligations? We've +got to take them into the account, haven't we?"</p> + +<p>"Damn the convictions!" snapped Griswold viciously. "If I've been giving +you the impression that I'm an impracticable theorist, forget it. These +fellows want a fight: I say give them a fight—all they want of it and a +little more for good measure."</p> + +<p>Raymer did not reply at once. This latest Griswold was puzzling him, and +with the puzzlement there went sorrowful regret; the regret that has +been the recanter's portion in all the ages. When he spoke it was out of +the heart of common sense and sanity.</p> + +<p>"I know how you feel about it; I had a little attack of the same sort +this afternoon when the grievance committee dropped down on me. But +facts are pretty stubborn things, and they've got us foul. We have +twenty thousand dollars' worth of work for the Pineboro road on the shop +tracks, and the trouble-makers have picked their opportunity. If we +can't turn out this work, we'll lose the Pineboro's business, which, as +I have told you, is a pretty big slice of our business. Under such +conditions I don't dare to pull down a fight which may not only shut us +up for an indefinite time, but might even go far enough to smash us."</p> + +<p>Griswold took his turn of silence, rocking gently in the tilting chair. +When the delayed rejoinder came, the harshness had gone out of his +voice, but there was a cynical hardness to take its place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's your affair; not mine," he said. "If you've made up your mind not +to fight, of course, that settles it. Now we can come down to the +causes. You've been stabbed in the back. Do you know who's doing it?"</p> + +<p>"The Federated Iron Workers, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Not in a thousand years! They are only the means to an end." The +tilting chair squeaked again, and he went on: "If I'm going to show you +how you can dodge this fight, I'll have to knock down a door or two +first. If I blunder in where I'm not wanted, you can kick me out. There +is one way in which you can cure all this trouble-sickness without +resorting to surgery and blood-letting."</p> + +<p>"Name it," said Raymer eagerly.</p> + +<p>"I will; but first I'll have to break over into the personalities. Have +you made up your mind that you are going to marry Margery Grierson?"</p> + +<p>Raymer laughed silently, leaning his head back on the cushion of the +lazy-chair until his cigar stood upright.</p> + +<p>"That's a nice way to biff a man in the dark!" he chuckled. "But if +you're in earnest I'll tell you the straightforward truth: I don't +know."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you know?" If there were a scowl to go with the query, Raymer +could not see it.</p> + +<p>"I'll be frank with you again, Kenneth. What little sentiment there is +in me leans pretty heavily that way. You have been with her a good bit +and you know her—know how she appeals to any man with a drop of red +blood in him. But I'm twenty-eight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> years old and well past the time +when the young man's fancy lightly turns—and all that. I can't ignore +the—the—well, the proprieties, you might say, though that isn't +exactly the word."</p> + +<p>"You mean that Margery Grierson doesn't measure up to the requirements +of the Wahaskan Four Hundred?" There was satirical scorn in the +observation, but Raymer did not perceive it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know as you would put it quite that baldly," he protested. +"But you see, when it comes to marrying and settling down and raising a +family, you have to look at all sides of the thing. The father, as we +all know, is a cold-blooded old werewolf; the mother nobody knows +anything about save that—happily, in all probability—she isn't living. +And there you are. Yet I won't deny that there are times when I'm +tempted to shut my eyes and take the high dive, anyway—at the risk of +splashing a lot of good people who would doubtless be properly +scandalized."</p> + +<p>By this time Griswold was gripping the arms of his chair savagely and +otherwise trying to hold himself down; but this, too, Raymer could not +know.</p> + +<p>"You have reason to believe that it rests wholly with you, I suppose?" +came from the tilting chair after a little pause. "Miss Grierson is only +waiting for you to speak?"</p> + +<p>"That's a horrible question to ask a man, Kenneth—even in the dark. If +I say yes to it, it can't sound any other way than boastful and—and +caddish. Yet I honestly believe that— Oh, hang it all!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> can't you see +how impossible you're making it, old man?"</p> + +<p>"Not impossible; only a trifle difficult," was the qualifying rejoinder. +"It is easier from this on. That is the peaceful way out of the shop +trouble for you, Raymer. When you can go to Jasper Grierson and tell him +you are going to marry his daughter, the trouble will be as good as +cured."</p> + +<p>For a little time Raymer was speechless. Then he burst out.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be— Jove, Griswold, you don't lack much of being as +cold-blooded as the old buccaneer himself! What makes you think he is +stirring up the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't require any special thought. He wanted to freeze you out a +little while back, and you balked him. Now he has come back at you +another way."</p> + +<p>"I wonder!" said the iron-founder musingly; and then: "I more than half +believe you are right. But if you are, do you realize what you are +proposing?"</p> + +<p>"I am not proposing anything; I am merely suggesting. But you needn't +put in the factor of doubt. This labor trouble that is threatening to +smash you is Jasper Grierson's reply to the move you made when you let +me in and choked him off. He is reaching for you."</p> + +<p>Again Raymer held his peace and the atmosphere of the room grew pungent +with tobacco smoke.</p> + +<p>"I'm feeling a good bit like a yellow dog, Kenneth," he said, at length. +"After what I've admitted and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> what you've said, I'm left in the +position of the poor devil who would be damned if he did and be damned +if he didn't. You have succeeded in fixing it so that I <i>can't</i> ask +Margery Grierson to be my wife, however much I'd like to."</p> + +<p>"That isn't the point," insisted Griswold half-savagely. "How you may +feel about it, or what your people may say, is purely secondary. The +thing to be considered is, what will happen to Miss Grierson?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the devil! if you put it that way——"</p> + +<p>"I am putting it precisely that way."</p> + +<p>"Why, see here, old man; if you were Madge's brother, you couldn't be +putting the screws on any harder! What's got into you to-night?"</p> + +<p>Griswold was inexorable.</p> + +<p>"Miss Grierson hasn't any brother, and she might as well not have any +father—better, perhaps. As God hears me, Raymer, I'm going to see to it +that she gets a square deal."</p> + +<p>"In other words, if she has made up her clever little mind that she +wants to be Mrs. Ed. Raymer——"</p> + +<p>"That is it, exactly."</p> + +<p>"By George! I believe you are in love with her, yourself!"</p> + +<p>"I am," was the cool reply.</p> + +<p>"Well, of all the— Say, Griswold, you're a three-cornered puzzle to me +yet. I don't know what the other three-fourths of the town is saying, +but my fourth of it has it put up that you've everlastingly cooked my +goose at Doctor Bertie's; that you and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> Charlotte are just about as good +as engaged. Perhaps you'll tell me that it isn't true."</p> + +<p>"It isn't—yet."</p> + +<p>"But it may be, later on? Now you are getting over into my little +garden-patch, Kenneth. If you think I'm going to stand still and see you +put a wedding ring on Charlotte Farnham's finger when I know you'd like +to be putting it on Madge Grierson's——"</p> + +<p>Griswold's low laugh came as an easing of stresses.</p> + +<p>"You can't very well marry both of them, yourself, you know," he +suggested mildly. And then: "If you were not so badly torn up over this +shop trouble, you'd see that I'm trying to give you the entire field. I +shall probably leave town to-morrow, and I merely wanted to do you, or +Miss Grierson, or both of you, a small kindness by way of leave-taking."</p> + +<p>"Leave town?" echoed the iron-founder. "Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know yet."</p> + +<p>"But you are coming back?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Once more Raymer puffed at the shortened cigar until the end of it +glowed like a small distress signal in the dark.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," he broke out finally: "has Margery Grierson turned you down?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then Charlotte has?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Confound it all! can't you say anything but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> 'No'? Do you mean to tell +me that you are going away, leaving me bucked and gagged by this labor +outfit to live or die as I may? Great Scott, man! if my money's gone, +yours goes with it!"</p> + +<p>"You are freely welcome to the money, Edward—if you can manage to hang +on to it; and I have pointed out the easy way to salvage the industrial +ship. Can't you give me your blessing and let me go in peace?"</p> + +<p>The blessing was not withheld, but neither was it given.</p> + +<p>"I came here with my own back-load of trouble, but it seems that I'm not +the only camel in the caravan," said the young ironmaster, thoughtfully. +"What is it, Kenneth? anything you can unload on me?"</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't understand," was the gentle evasion. "I can only give you +my word that neither Miss Margery nor Miss Charlotte are in any way +concerned in it."</p> + +<p>"And you don't want to draw your money out of the plant?"</p> + +<p>"No. For your sake I wish I had more to put in."</p> + +<p>Once again Raymer took refuge in silence. After a time he said: "You've +been a brother to me, Griswold, and I shall never forget that. But if I +needed your help in the money pinch, I'm needing it worse now. I'll do +the right thing by Margery; I think I've been meaning to, all along; if +I haven't, it's only because this whole town has been fixing up a match +between Charlotte and me ever since we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> were school kids together—you +know how a fellow gets into the way of taking a thing like that for +granted merely because everybody else does?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I know."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess it isn't a heart-breaker on either side. If Charlotte +cares, she doesn't take the trouble to show it. Just the same, on the +other hand, I've got a shred or two of decency left, Kenneth. I'm not +going to marry myself out of this fight with Jasper Grierson—not in a +million years. Stay over and help me see it through; and when we win +out, I promise you I'll do the square thing."</p> + +<p>By no means could Edward Raymer know that he had set the whispering +devil at work again at the ear of the man who was rocking gently in the +desk-chair. But the demon was busily suggesting, and the man was +listening. Was there not more than an even chance that Andrew Galbraith +would die, after all? He was old, with the life-reserves spent and the +weight of the years upon him. And if he should not die, there was still +a chance that days might elapse before he would be able to gather +himself sufficiently to remember and to raise the hue and cry. Griswold +put a hot hand across the corner of the table and felt for Raymer's cool +one.</p> + +<p>"There's only one other way, Edward; and that is to fight like the +devil," he said, speaking as one who has weighed and measured and +decided. "What do you say?"</p> + +<p>"If you will stay," Raymer began, hesitantly.</p> + +<p>"I'll stay—as long as I can." Then, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> note of harshness +returning: "We'll make the fight, and we'll give these muckers of yours +all they are looking for. Shut the plant doors to-morrow morning and +make it a lock-out. I'll be over bright and early and we'll place a +bunch of wire orders in the cities for strike-breakers. That will bring +them to time."</p> + +<p>Raymer got up slowly and felt in the dark for his hat.</p> + +<p>"Strike-breakers!" he groaned. "Griswold, it would make my father turn +over in his coffin if he could know that we've come to that! But I guess +you're right. Everybody says I'm too soft-hearted to be a master of men. +Well, I must be getting home. To-morrow morning, at the plant? All +right; good-night."</p> + +<p>And he turned to grope his way to the door and through the dark upper +hall and down the stair.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI</h2> + +<h3>NARROWING WALLS</h3> + + +<p>When Griswold had reached across the corner of his writing-table in the +unlighted study to strike hands with Edward Raymer upon the promise to +stay and help, it is conceivable that he gave the impelling motive its +just due. To step aside was to become a fugitive, leaving a fugitive's +plain trail and half-confession of guilt behind him to direct the +pursuit. To stay and face the crisis coldly was equally out of the +question for a man of temperament. The call to action came as a draught +of fiery wine to the overspent and he accepted in a sudden upsurge of +self-centring that took nothing into the account save the welcome +excitement of a conflict.</p> + +<p>It was with rather more than less of the self-centring that he joined +the conference with Raymer and the shop bosses in the offices of the +plant the following morning. Having slept upon the quarrel, Raymer was +on the conciliatory hand, and four of the five department foremen were +with him. In the early hours of the forenoon a compromise was still +possible. The prompt closing of the shops had had its effect, and a +deputation of the older workmen came to plead for arbitration and a +peaceful settlement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> of the trouble. Raymer, who had evidently been +taking counsel with his womankind, would have consented to this +proposal, but Griswold fought it and finally carried his point. "No +compromise" was the answer sent back to the locked-out workmen, and with +it went the ultimatum, which Griswold himself snapped out at the leader +of the conciliators: "Tell your committee that it is unconditional +surrender, and it must be made before five o'clock this afternoon. +Otherwise, not a man of you can come back on any terms."</p> + +<p>At the hurling of this firebrand, three of the five department heads +drew their pay-envelopes and went away. Then Griswold proceeded to make +the breach impassable by calling upon the sheriff for a guard of +deputies. Raymer shook his head gloomily when the thrower of firebrands +sent the 'phone message to the sheriff's office.</p> + +<p>"That settles it beyond any hope of a patch-up," he said sorrowfully. +"If we hadn't declared war before, we've done it now. I'm prophesying +that nobody will weaken when it comes to the pay-roll test this +afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Because we have taken steps to protect our property?" rasped the +fighting partner.</p> + +<p>"Because we have taken the step which serves notice upon them that we +consider them criminals, at least in intention. You'd resent it +yourself, Griswold. If anybody should pull the law on you before you had +done anything to deserve it, I'm much mistaken if you wouldn't——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, hell!" was the biting interruption; and Raymer could not know upon +what inward fires he had unwittingly flung a handful of inflammables.</p> + +<p>It was during the paying-off interval in the afternoon that Broffin +strolled across the railroad tracks, and, after listening to one or two +of the incendiary speeches at the storm-centre mass meeting in front of +McGuire's, went on past the potteries to the Raymer plant.</p> + +<p>Several things had happened since the afternoon when he had sat behind +the sheltering window curtain in the writing-room of the summer-resort +hotel listening to Miss Grierson's story. For one, Teller Johnson, of +the Bayou State Security, had pleaded his inability to leave his post +unless ordered to do so by the president: the cashier was sick and the +bank was short-handed. For another, there had been a peppery protest +entered by the good Doctor Bertie—transformed for the moment into an +exasperated Doctor Bertie. If Broffin did not quit his annoying +espionage upon the house in Lake Boulevard, and upon the visitors +thereto, there was going to be trouble, and he, Doctor Bertie, would be +the trouble-maker. For a third untoward thing, he had found that Wahaska +as a community was beginning to look a little askance at him. The +village consciousness which had made it so easy for him to find out all +he wished to know about everybody was turning against him, and now, as +it seemed, everybody was wishing to know more than he cared to tell +about the past, present, and future concerns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> of one Matthew Broffin: in +short, he was becoming a suspicious character.</p> + +<p>Broffin the pertinacious, again with an unlighted cigar between his +teeth, was ruminating thoughtfully over these things when he came in +sight of the closed gates and smokeless chimneys of the Foundry and +Machine Works. Once more the scent had grown cold. Miss Grierson's story +had seemed to clear Griswold—if anything short of a court acquittal +could clear him; and in the peppery interview Doctor Farnham had told +him plainly that, if Mr. Griswold were the object of his attentions, he +was barking up the wrong tree; that Miss Farnham would, if necessary, go +into court and testify that Mr. Griswold was not the man whom she had +seen in the Bayou State Security. Also, Griswold was doing something for +himself. It was he who had pulled Mr. Galbraith out of the lake little +better than a dead man, and had brought him to life again; and now he +was taking an active part in the foundry fight—about the last thing +that might be expected of a man dodging the police.</p> + +<p>In spite of all these buffetings the man from Tennessee was only +bruised; not beaten. It is possible to be convinced without evidence; to +believe without being able to prove. Also, convincement may grow into +certainty as the evidence to support it becomes altogether incertitude. +Broffin was as sure now that Griswold was his man as he was of his own +present inability to prove it. Which is to say that he had discounted +Miss Farnham's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> refusal to help, and President Galbraith's refusal to +remember; was discounting Miss Grierson's skilfully told story, and +Griswold's breaking of all the criminal precedents by staying on in +Wahaska after he had been warned. For Broffin made no doubt that the +warning had been given, either by Miss Farnham or by Miss Grierson—or +both.</p> + +<p>"All the same, he'll make a miss-go, sooner or later," the pertinacious +one was saying to himself as he strolled past the Raymer plant with a +keen eye for the barred gates, the lounging guards in the yard, and the +sober-faced workmen coming and going at the pay-office. "If he can carry +a steady head through what's comin' to him here, he's a better man than +I've been stacking him up to be."</p> + +<p>Coming even with the grouping around the office door, Broffin sat down +on a discarded cylinder casting, chewed his dry smoke, whittled a stick, +and kept an open ear for the sidewalk talk. It was angrily vindictive +for the greater part, with the new member of the Raymer company for a +target. Now and then it was threatening. If the company should attempt +to bring in foreign labor there would be blood on the moon.</p> + +<p>Later, a big, red-faced man with his hat on the back of his head and a +paste diamond in his shirt bosom, came to join the shifting group on the +office sidewalk. Broffin marked him as one of the inflammatory speakers +he had seen and heard on the dry-goods-box rostrum in front of +McGuire's, and had since been trying to place. The nearer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> view turned +up the proper page in the mental note-book. The man's name was Clancy; +he was a Chicago ward-worker, sham labor leader, demagogue; a bad man +with a "pull." Broffin remembered the "pull" because it had once got in +his way when he was trying to bag Clancy for a violation of the revenue +laws.</p> + +<p>Instantly the detective began to speculate upon the chance that had +brought the Chicago ward bully into a village labor fight, and since it +was his business to put two and two together, he was not long in finding +the answer to his own query. Clancy had come because he had been hired +to come. Assuming this much, the remainder was easy. The town gossips +had supplied all the major facts of the Raymer-Grierson checkmate, and +Broffin saw a great light. It was not labor and capital that were at +odds; it was competition and monopoly. And monopoly, invoking the aid of +the Clancys, stood to win in a canter.</p> + +<p>Broffin dropped the stick he had been whittling and got up to move away. +Though some imaginative persons would have it otherwise, a detective may +still be a man of like passions—and generous prepossessions—with other +men. For the time Broffin's Anglo-Saxon heritage, the love of fair play, +made him forget the limitations of his trade. "By grapples, the old +swine!" he was muttering to himself as he made a slow circuit of the +plant enclosure. "Somebody ought to tell them two young ducks what +they're up against. For a picayune, I'd do it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> myself. Huh!—and the +little black-eyed girl playin' fast an' loose with both of 'em at once +while the old money-octippus eats 'em alive!"</p> + +<p>Thus Broffin, circling the Raymer works by way of the four enclosing +streets; and when his back was turned the man called Clancy pointed him +out to the group of discontents.</p> + +<p>"D'ye see that felly doublin' the fence corner? Ye're a fine lot of jays +up here in th' backwoods! Do I know him? Full well I do! An' that shows, +ye what honest workin'men has got to come to, these days. Didn't ye see +him sittin' there on that castin'? Th' bosses put him there to keep +tricks on ye. If ye have the nerve of a bunch of hoboes, ye'll watch yer +chances and step on him like a cockroach. He's a Pinkerton!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII</h2> + +<h3>THE LION'S SHARE</h3> + + +<p>Wahaska, microcosmic and village-conscious in spite of its city charter, +was duly thrilled and excited when, on the day following the storm and +shipwreck, it found itself the scene of an angry conflict between +capital and labor.</p> + +<p>Reports varied as to the origin of the trouble. Among the retired +farmers, who still called Raymer "Eddie" and spoke of him as "John +Raymer's boy," it was the generally expressed opinion that he was both +too young and too easy-going to be a successful industry captain in the +larger field he had lately entered. In the workingmen's quarter, which +lay principally beyond the railroad tracks, public opinion was less +lenient and the young ironmaster, figuring hitherto only as a good boss +with a few unnecessary college ideas, was denounced as a "kid-glove" +reformer who made his profit-sharing fad an excuse for advancing his +favorites, and who was accordingly to be "brought to time" by the strong +hand of the organization.</p> + +<p>It was a crude surprise, both to the West Side and to "Pottery Flat," to +find the new book-writing partner not only taking an active part in the +fight,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> but apparently directing the capitalistic hostilities with a +high hand. Quite early in the forenoon it was known on the street that +Griswold had taken the field with Raymer; that the lock-out was his +reply to the strike notice; and that it was at his suggestion that a +dozen deputies had been sworn in to guard the Raymer plant—the iron +works lying just outside of the corporation lines. A little later came +the news that he had sent a counter ultimatum to the representatives of +the labor forces sitting in permanence in their hall over McGuire's +saloon. From two o'clock until five the offices of the plant would be +open, and all former employees would be paid in full and discharged. +Those who failed to make application between the hours named would not +be taken back on any terms.</p> + +<p>From two to five in the afternoon Wahaska, figuratively speaking, held +its breath. At half-past three, young Dahlgren, of the <i>Daily Wahaskan</i>, +spoiled a good story for his own paper by spreading the report that most +of the men had sullenly drawn their pay, but as yet not a man of them +had signed on for further employment. At four o'clock the <i>Daily +Wahaskan's</i> windows bore a bulletin to the effect that a mass +indignation meeting was in progress in front of the Pottery Flat saloon; +and at half-past four it was whispered about that war had been declared. +Raymer and Griswold were telegraphing for strike-breakers; and the men +were swearing that the plant would be picketed and that scabs would be +dealt with as traitors and enemies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was between half-past four and five that Miss Grierson, driving in +the basket phaeton, made her appearance on the streets, evoking the +usual ripple of comment among the gossipers on the Winnebago porch as +she tooled her clean-limbed little Morgan to a stop in front of the +Farmers' and Merchants' Bank.</p> + +<p>Since it was long past the closing hours, the curtains were drawn in the +bank doors and street-facing windows. But there was a side entrance, and +when she tapped on the glass of the door an obsequious janitor made +haste to admit her. "Yo' paw's busy, right now, Miss Mahg'ry," the negro +said; but she ignored the hint and went straight to the door of the +private room, entering without warning.</p> + +<p>As the janitor had intimated, her father was not alone. In the chair at +the desk-end sat a man florid of face, hard-eyed and gross-bodied. His +hat was on the back of his head, and clamped between his teeth under the +bristling mustaches he held one of Jasper Grierson's fat black cigars. +The conference paused when the door opened; but when Margery crossed the +room and perched herself on the deep seat of the farthest window, it +went on in guarded tones at a silent signal from the banker to his +visitor.</p> + +<p>There was a trade journal lying in the window-seat, and Miss Grierson +took it up to become idly immersed in a study of the advertising +pictures. If she listened to the low-toned talk it was only +mechanically, one would say. Yet there was a quickening of the breath +now and again, and a pressing of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> the white teeth upon the ripe lower +lip, as she turned the pages of the advertising supplement; these, +though only detached sentences of the talk drifted across to her +window-seat.</p> + +<p>"You're fixed to put the entire responsibility for the ruction over onto +the other side of the house?" was one of the overheard sentences: it was +her father's query, and she also heard the answer. "We're goin' to put +'em in bad, don't you forget it. There'll be some broken heads, most +likely, and if they're ours, somebody'll pay for 'em." A little farther +along it was her father who said: "You've got to quit this running to +me. Keep to your own side of the fence. Murray's got his orders, and +he'll pay the bills. If anything breaks loose, I won't know you. Get +that?" "I'm on," said the red-faced man; and shortly afterward he took +his leave.</p> + +<p>When the door had closed behind the man who looked like a ward heeler or +a walking delegate, and who had been both, and many other and more +questionable things, by turns, Jasper Grierson swung his huge chair to +face the window.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he said, "how's Galbraith coming along?"</p> + +<p>"There is no change," was the sober rejoinder. "He is still lying in a +half-stupor, just as he was last night and this morning. Doctor Farnham +shakes his head and won't say anything."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't let him die," warned the man in the big chair, half +jocularly. "There's too much money in him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p> + +<p>The smouldering fires in the daughter's eyes leaped up at the +provocation lurking in the grim brutality; but they were dying down +again when she put the trade journal aside and said: "I didn't come here +to tell you about Mr. Galbraith. I came to give you notice that it is +time to quit."</p> + +<p>"Time to quit what?"</p> + +<p>"You know. When I asked you to put Mr. Raymer under obligations to you, +I said I'd tell you when it was time to stop."</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson sat back in his chair and chuckled.</p> + +<p>"Lord love you!" he said, "I'd clean forgot that you had a tea-party +stake in that game, Madgie; I had, for a fact!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it is time to remember it," was the cool reply.</p> + +<p>"What was I to remember?"</p> + +<p>"That you were to turn around and help him out of his trouble when I +gave you the word."</p> + +<p>The president of the Farmers' and Merchants' tilted his chair to the +lounging angle and laughed; a slow gurgling laugh that spread from lip +to eye and thence abroad through his great frame until he shook like a +grotesque incarnation of the god of mirth.</p> + +<p>"I was to turn around and help him out of the hole, was I? Oh, no; I +guess not," he denied. "It's business now, little girl, and the +tea-fights are barred. I'll give you a check for that span o' blacks you +were looking at, and we'll call it square."</p> + +<p>"Does that mean that you intend to go on until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> you have smashed him?" +she asked, quietly ignoring the putative bribe.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to put him out of business—him and that other fool friend of +yours—if that's what you mean."</p> + +<p>Again the sudden lightning glowed in Margery Grierson's eyes, but, as +before, the flash was only momentary. There was passion enough in blood +and brain, but there was also a will, and the will was the stronger.</p> + +<p>"Please!" she besought him.</p> + +<p>"Please what?"</p> + +<p>"Please ruin somebody else, and let Mr.——let these two go!"</p> + +<p>Grierson's laugh this time was brutally sardonic.</p> + +<p>"So you're caught at last, are you, girlie? I was wondering if you +wouldn't come out o' that pool with the hook in your mouth. But you +might as well pull loose, even if it does hurt a little. Raymer and +Griswold have got to come under."</p> + +<p>She looked across at him steadily and again there was a struggle, short +and sharp, between the leaping passions and the indomitable will. Yet +she could speak softly.</p> + +<p>"That is your last word, is it?"</p> + +<p>"You can call it that, if you like: yes."</p> + +<p>"What is the reason? Why do you hate these two so desperately?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson fanned away the nimbus of cigar smoke with which he had +surrounded himself and stared gloomily at her through the rift.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who said anything about hating?" he derided. "That's a fool woman's +notion. This is business, and there ain't any such thing as hate in +business. Raymer's iron-shop happens to be in the road of a bigger +thing, and it's got to move out; that's all."</p> + +<p>She nodded slowly. "I thought so," she said, half-absently: "and the +'bigger thing' has some more money in it for you. Oh, how I do despise +it all!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you don't," he contradicted, falling back into the half-jocular +vein. "You're a pretty good spender, yourself, Madgie. If you didn't +have plenty of money to eat and drink and wear and breathe——"</p> + +<p>"I hate it!" she said coldly. Then she dragged the talk back to the +channel it was leaving. "I ought to have broken in sooner; I might have +known what you would do. You are responsible for this labor trouble they +are having over at the iron works. Don't bother to deny it; I know. That +was your 'heeler'—the man you had here when I came. You don't play fair +with many people: don't you think you'd better make an exception of me?"</p> + +<p>Grierson was mouthing his cigar again and the smoky nimbus was +thickening to its customary density when he said: "You're nothing but a +spoiled baby, Madge. If you'd cry for the moon, you'd think you ought to +have it. I've said my say, and that's all there is to it. Trot along +home and 'tend to your tea-parties: that's your part of the game. I can +play my hand alone."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p> + +<p>She slipped out of the window-seat and crossed the room quickly to stand +before him.</p> + +<p>"I'll go, when you have answered one question," she said, the suppressed +passions finding their way into her voice. "I've asked for bread and +you've given me a stone. I've said 'please' to you, and you slapped me +for it. Do you think you can afford to shove me over to the other side?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you're driving at, now," was the even-toned +rejoinder.</p> + +<p>"Don't you? Then I'll tell you. You have been pinching this town for the +lion's share ever since we came here—shaking it down as you used to +shake down the"—she broke off short, and again the indomitable will got +the better of the seething passions. "We'll let the by-gones go, and +come down to the present. What if some of the things you are doing here +and now should get into print?"</p> + +<p>"For instance?" he suggested, when she paused.</p> + +<p>"This Raymer affair, for one thing. You don't own the <i>Wahaskan</i>—yet: +supposing it should come out to-morrow morning with the true story of +this disgraceful piece of buccaneering, telling how you tried first to +squeeze him through the bank loan, and when that failed, how you bribed +his workmen to make trouble?"</p> + +<p>"You go to Randolph and try it," said the gray wolf, jeeringly. "In the +first place, he wouldn't believe it—coming from you. He wouldn't forget +that you're my daughter, however much you are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> trying to forget it. In +the next place he'd want proof—damned good proof—if he was going to +make a fight on me. He'd know that one of two things would happen; if he +failed to get me, I'd get him."</p> + +<p>The daughter who had asked for bread and had been given a stone put her +face in her hands and moved toward the door. But at the last moment she +turned again like a spiteful little tiger-cat at bay.</p> + +<p>"You think I can't prove it? That is where you fall down. I can convince +Mr. Randolph if I choose to try. And that isn't all: I can tell him how +you have planned to sell Mr. Galbraith a tract of 'virgin' pine that has +been culled over for the best timber at least three times in the past +five years!"</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson started from his chair and made a quick clutch into +smoky space. "Madge—you little devil!" he gritted.</p> + +<p>But the grasping hands closed upon nothing, and the sound of the closing +door was his only answer.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When she had unhitched the little Morgan and had driven away from the +bank, Miss Grierson did a thing unprecedented in any of her former +grapplings with a crisis—she hesitated. Twice she drove down Sioux +Avenue with the apparent intention of stopping at the <i>Daily Wahaskan</i> +building, and twice she went on past with no more than an irresolute +glance for the upper windows beyond which lay the editorial rooms and +the office of Mr. Carter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> Randolph, the owner of the newspaper. But on +the third circuit of the square, decision had evidently come to its own +again. Turning the mare into Main Street, she drove quickly to the +Winnebago House and drew up at the carriage step. A bell-boy ran out to +hold the horse, but she shook her head and called him to the wheel of +the phaeton to slip a coin into his hand and to give him a brief +message.</p> + +<p>Two minutes after the boy's disappearance, Broffin came out and touched +his hat to the trim little person in the basket seat.</p> + +<p>"You wanted to see me, Miss Grierson?" he said, shelving his surprise, +if he had any.</p> + +<p>"Yes. You are Mr. Matthew Broffin, of the Colburne Detective Agency, are +you not?" she asked, sweetly.</p> + +<p>Broffin took the privilege of the accused and lied promptly.</p> + +<p>"Not that anybody ever heard of, I reckon," he denied, matching the +smile in the inquiring eyes.</p> + +<p>"How curious!" she commented.</p> + +<p>Broffin's smile became a grin of triumph. "There's a heap o' curious +things in this little old world," he volunteered. "What?"</p> + +<p>"But none quite so singular as this," she averred. Then she laughed +softly. "You see, it resolves itself into a question of +veracity—between you and Mr. Andrew Galbraith. You say you are not, and +he says you are. Which am I to believe?"</p> + +<p>Broffin did some pretty swift thinking. There had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> been times when he +had fancied that Miss Grierson, rather than Miss Farnham, might be the +key to his problem. There was one chance in a thousand that she might +inadvertently put the key into his hands if he should play his cards +skilfully, and he took the chance.</p> + +<p>"You can call it a mistake of mine, if you like," he yielded; and she +nodded brightly.</p> + +<p>"That is better; now we can go on comfortably. Are you too busy to take +a little commission from me?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe not. What is it?" He was looking for a trap, and would not commit +himself too broadly.</p> + +<p>"There are two things that I wish to know definitely. Of course, you +have heard about the accident on the lake? Mr. Galbraith is at our +house, and he is very ill—out of his head most of the time. He is +continually trying to tell some one whom he calls 'MacFarland' to be +careful. Do you know any one of that name?"</p> + +<p>Broffin put a foot on the phaeton step and a hand on the dash. There +were loungers on the hotel porch and it was not necessary for them to +hear.</p> + +<p>"Yes; MacFarland is his confidential man in the bank," he returned.</p> + +<p>"Oh; that explains it. But what is it that Mr. Galbraith wants him to be +careful about?"</p> + +<p>Again Broffin thought quickly. If he should tell the plain truth.... +"Tell me one thing, Miss Grierson," he said bluntly. "Am I doin' +business with you, or with your father?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Most emphatically, with me, Mr. Broffin."</p> + +<p>"All right; everything goes, then. Mr. Galbraith has been figurin' on +buying some pine lands up north."</p> + +<p>"I know that much. Go on."</p> + +<p>"And he has sent MacFarland up to verify the boundary records on the +county survey."</p> + +<p>"To Duluth?"</p> + +<p>Broffin nodded.</p> + +<p>"I thought so," she affirmed. And then: "The records are all right, Mr. +Broffin; but the lands which Mr. MacFarland will be shown will not be +the lands which Mr. Galbraith is talking of buying. I want evidence of +this—in black and white. Can you telegraph to some one in Duluth?"</p> + +<p>Broffin permitted himself a small sigh of relief. He thought he had seen +the trap; that she was going to try to get him away from Wahaska.</p> + +<p>"I can do better than that," he offered. "I can send a man from St. +Paul; a good safe man who will do just what he is told to do—and keep +his mouth shut."</p> + +<p>She nodded approvingly.</p> + +<p>"Do it; and tell your messenger that time is precious and expense +doesn't count. That is the first half of your commission. Come a little +closer and I'll tell you the second half."</p> + +<p>Broffin bent his head and she whispered the remainder of his +instructions. When she had finished he looked up and wagged his head +apprehendingly.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I see what you mean—and it's none o'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> my business what you mean +it for," he answered. "I'll get the evidence, if there is any."</p> + +<p>"It must be like the other; in black and white," she stipulated. "And +you needn't say 'if.' Look for a red-faced man with stiff mustaches and +a big make-believe diamond in his shirt-front, and make him tell you."</p> + +<p>Broffin wagged his head again. "There ain't goin' to be any grand jury +business about it, is there?" he questioned; adding: "I know your +man—saw him this afternoon over at the plant. He's goin' to be a tough +customer to handle unless I can tell him there ain't goin' to be any +come-back in the courts."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson was opening her purse and she passed a yellow-backed +bank-note to her newest confederate.</p> + +<p>"Your retainer," she explained. "And about the red-faced man: we sha'n't +take him into court. But I'd rather you wouldn't buy him, if you can +help it. Can't you get him like this, some way?"—she held up a thumb +and finger tightly pressed together.</p> + +<p>Broffin's grin this time was wholly of appreciation.</p> + +<p>"You're the right kind—the kind that leads trumps all the while, Miss +Grierson," he told her. Then he did the manly thing. "I'll go into this, +just as you say—what? But it's only fair to warn you that it may turn +up some things that'll feaze you. You know that old sayin' about +sleepin' dogs?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Grierson was gathering the reins over the little Morgan's back and +her black eyes snapped.</p> + +<p>"This is one time when we are going to kick the dogs and make them wake +up," she returned. "Good-by, Mr. Broffin."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII</h2> + +<h3>GATES OF BRASS</h3> + + +<p>It was an hour beyond the normal quitting time on the day of ultimatums +and counter-threatenings, the small office force had gone home, and the +night squad of deputies had come to relieve the day guard. Griswold +closed the spare desk in the manager's room and twirled his chair to +face Raymer.</p> + +<p>"We may as well go and get something to eat," he suggested. "There will +be nothing doing to-night."</p> + +<p>Raymer began to put his desk in order.</p> + +<p>"No, not to-night. The trouble will begin when we try to start up with a +new force. Call it a weakness if you like, but I dread it, Kenneth."</p> + +<p>Griswold's smile was a mere baring of the teeth. "That's all right, Ned; +you do the dreading and I'll do the fighting," he said; adding: "What +we've had to-day has merely whetted my appetite."</p> + +<p>The man of peace shook his head dejectedly.</p> + +<p>"I can't understand it," he protested. "Up to last night I was calling +you a benevolent Socialist, and my only fear was that you might some +time want to reorganize things and turn the plant into a little section +of Utopia. Now you are out-heroding Herod on the other side."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> + +<p>Griswold got up and crushed his soft hat upon his head.</p> + +<p>"Only fools and dead folk are denied the privilege of changing their +minds," he returned. "Let's go up to the Winnebago and feed."</p> + +<p>The dinner to which they sat down a little later was a small feast of +silence. Each was busy with his own thoughts, and it was not until after +the coffee had been served that Griswold leaned across the table to call +Raymer's attention to a man who was finishing his meal in a distant +corner of the dining-room, a swarthy-faced man who drank his coffee with +the meat course to the unpleasant detriment of a pair of long drooping +mustaches.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute before you look around, and then tell me who that fellow +is over on the right—the man with the black mustaches," he directed.</p> + +<p>Raymer looked and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"He's a new-comer—comparatively; somebody at the club said he gave +himself out for a lumberman from Louisiana."</p> + +<p>Griswold was nodding slowly. "His name?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I can't remember. It's an odd name; Boffin, or Giffin, or something +like that. They're beginning to say now that he isn't a lumberman at +all—just why, I don't know."</p> + +<p>Griswold's right hand stole softly to his hip pocket. The touch was +reassuring. But a little while after, when he was leaving the +dining-room with Raymer, he dropped behind and made a quick transfer of +something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> from the hip pocket to the side pocket of his coat. His hand +was still in the coat pocket when he parted from the young iron-founder +on the sidewalk.</p> + +<p>"You'll be going home, I suppose?" he said.</p> + +<p>Raymer made a wry face.</p> + +<p>"Yes; and I wish to gracious you were the one who had to face my mother +and sister. They're all for peace, you know—peace at any old price."</p> + +<p>Griswold laughed.</p> + +<p>"Tell them we're going to have peace if we are obliged to fight for it. +And don't let them swing you. If we back down now we may as well go into +court and ask for a receiver. Good-night."</p> + +<p>Though he had not betrayed it, Griswold was fiercely impatient to get +away. One tremendous question had been dominating all others from the +earliest moment of the morning awakening, and all day long it had fed +upon doubtings and uncertainty. Would Andrew Galbraith recover from the +effects of the drowning accident? At first, he thought he would go to +his room and telephone to Margery. But before he had reached the foot of +Shawnee Street he had changed his mind. What he wanted to say could +scarcely be trusted to the wires.</p> + +<p>Twice before he reached the gate of the Grierson lawn he fancied he was +followed, and twice he stepped behind the nearest shade-tree and +tightened his grip upon the thing in his right-hand pocket. But both +times the rearward sidewalk showed itself empty. Since false alarms may +have, for the moment, all the shock of the real, he found that his hands +were trembling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> when he came to unlatch the Grierson gate, and it made +him vindictively self-scornful. Also, it gave him a momentary glimpse +into another and hitherto unmeasured depth in the valley of stumblings. +In the passing of the glimpse he was made to realize that it is the +coward who kills; and kills because he is a coward.</p> + +<p>He had traversed the stone-flagged approach and climbed the steps of the +broad veranda to reach for the bell-push when he heard his name called +softly in the voice that he had come to know in all of its many +modulations. The call came from the depths of one of the great wicker +lounging-chairs half-hidden in the veranda shadows. In a moment he had +placed another of the chairs for himself, dropping into it wearily.</p> + +<p>"How did you know it was I?" he asked, when he could trust himself to +speak.</p> + +<p>"I saw you at the gate," she returned. "Are you just up from the Iron +Works?"</p> + +<p>"I have been to dinner since we came up-town—Raymer and I."</p> + +<p>A pause, and then: "The men are still holding out?"</p> + +<p>"We are holding out. The plant is closed, and it will stay closed until +we can get another force of workmen."</p> + +<p>"There will be lots of suffering," she ventured.</p> + +<p>"Inevitably. But they have brought it upon themselves."</p> + +<p>"Not the ones who will suffer the most—the women and children," she +corrected.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's no use," he said, answering her thought. "There is nothing in me +to appeal to."</p> + +<p>"There was yesterday, or the day before," she suggested.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. But yesterday was yesterday, and to-day is to-day. As I told +Raymer a little while ago, I've changed my mind."</p> + +<p>"About the rights of the down-trodden?"</p> + +<p>"About all things under the sun."</p> + +<p>"No," she denied, "you only think you have. But you didn't come here to +tell me that?"</p> + +<p>"No; I came to ask a single question. How is Mr. Galbraith?"</p> + +<p>"He is a very sick man."</p> + +<p>Another pause, for which the questioner was responsible.</p> + +<p>"You mean that there is a chance that he may not recover?"</p> + +<p>"More than a chance, I'm afraid. The first thing Doctor Bertie did +yesterday evening was to wire St. Paul for two trained nurses; and +to-day he telegraphed Chicago for Doctor Holworthy, who charges +twenty-five dollars a minute for mere office consultations."</p> + +<p>"Humph!" said Griswold, "money needn't cut any figure." And then, after +a moment of silence: "I did my best; you know I did my best?"</p> + +<p>Her answer puzzled him a little.</p> + +<p>"I could almost find it in my heart to hate you if you hadn't."</p> + +<p>"But you know I did."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes; I know you did."</p> + +<p>Silence again, broken only by the whispering of the summer night breeze +rustling the leaves of the lawn oaks and the lapping of tiny waves on +the lake beach. At the end of it, Griswold got up and groped for his +hat.</p> + +<p>"I'm going home," he said. "It has been a pretty strenuous day, and +there is another one coming. But before I go I want you to promise me +one thing. Will you let me know immediately, by 'phone or messenger, if +Mr. Galbraith takes a turn for the better?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly," she said; and she let him say good-night and get as far as +the steps before she called him back.</p> + +<p>"There was another thing," she began, with the sober gravity that he +could never be sure was not one of her many poses, and not the least +alluring one. "Do you believe in God, Kenneth?"</p> + +<p>The query took him altogether by surprise, but he made shift to answer +it with becoming seriousness.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I do. Why?"</p> + +<p>"It is a time to pray to Him," she said softly; "to pray very earnestly +that Mr. Galbraith's life may be spared."</p> + +<p>He could not let that stand.</p> + +<p>"Why should I concern myself, specially?" he asked; adding: "Of course, +I'm sorry, and all that, but——"</p> + +<p>"Never mind," she interposed, and she left her chair to walk beside him +to the steps. "I've had a hard day, too, Kenneth, boy, and I—I guess it +has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> got on my nerves. But, all the same, you ought to do it, you know."</p> + +<p>He stopped and looked down into the eyes whose depths he could never +wholly fathom.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you do it?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"I? oh, God doesn't know me; and, besides, I thought—oh, well, it +doesn't matter what I thought. Good-night."</p> + +<p>And before he could return the leave-taking word, she was gone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV</h2> + +<h3>THE ABYSS</h3> + + +<p>Raymer's prediction that the real trouble would begin when the attempt +should be made to start the plant with imported workmen was amply +fulfilled during the militant week which followed the opening of +hostilities.</p> + +<p>The appearance of the first detachment of strike-breakers, a trampish +crew gathered up hastily by the employment agencies in the cities in +response to Griswold's telegrams, was the signal for active resistance. +Promptly the Iron Works plant and the approaches to it were picketed, +and of the twenty-five or thirty men who came in on the first day's +train only a badly frightened and cowed half-dozen won through the +persuading, jeering, threatening picket line to the offices of the +plant.</p> + +<p>Other days followed in which the scenes of the first were repeated—with +the difference that each succeeding day saw the inevitable increase of +lawlessness. From taunts and abuse the insurrectionaries passed easily +to violence. Street fights, when the trampish place-takers came in any +considerable numbers, were of daily occurrence, and the tale of the +wounded grew like the returns from a battle. By the middle of the week +Raymer and Griswold were asking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> for a sheriff's posse to maintain peace +in the neighborhood of the plant; and were getting their first definite +hint that some one higher up was playing the game of politics against +them.</p> + +<p>"No, gentlemen; I've done all that the law requires and a little more," +was the sheriff's response to the plea for better protection. Then came +the hint. "You can take it as a word from a friend that this private +scrap of yours with your men is making everybody pretty tired. First and +last, it's only a question of whether you'll pay out a little more +money, or a little less money, not to a lot of imported hoboes, but to +certain citizens of Red Earth County,"—to which was added +significantly—"citizens with votes."</p> + +<p>"In other words, Mr. Bradford, you've got your orders from the men +higher up, have you?" rasped Griswold, who was by this time lost to all +sense of expediency.</p> + +<p>"I don't have to reply to any such charge as that," said the chief peace +officer, turning back to his desk; and so the brittle little conference +ended.</p> + +<p>"All of which means that we shall lose the plant guard of deputies that +Bradford has been maintaining," commented Raymer, as they were +descending the Court House stairs; and again his prediction came true. +Later in the day the guard was withdrawn; and Griswold, savagely +reluctant, was forced to make a concession repeatedly urged and argued +for by the older men among the strikers, namely, that the guarding of +the company's property be entrusted to a picked squad of the +ex-employees themselves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span></p> + +<p>During these days of turmoil and rioting the transformed idealist passed +through many stages of the journey down a certain dark and mephitic +valley not of amelioration. With the bitter industrial conflict to feed +it, a slow fire within him ate its way into all the foundations, and as +the fair superstructure of character settled, the moral perpendiculars +and planes of projection became more and more distorted. Fairness was +gone, and in its place stood angry resentment, ready to rend and tear. +Pity and ruth were going: the daily report from Margery told of the +lessening chance of life for Andrew Galbraith, and the stirrings evoked +were neither regretful nor compassionate. On the contrary, he knew very +well that the news of Galbraith's death would be a relief for which, in +his heart of hearts, he was secretly thirsting.</p> + +<p>It was at the close of the week of tumult that the dreadful beckoning +came. One of the two trained nurses installed at Mereside had been +called away to the bedside of a sick father. Another had been wired for +immediately, but between the going and the coming a night would +intervene. So much Griswold got from Margery over the Iron Works +telephone late in the afternoon of a day thickly besprinkled with the +sidewalk waylayings and riotings. When he reached his Shawnee Street +lodgings at nine o'clock that night he found Miss Grierson's phaeton +standing at the curb.</p> + +<p>"Get in," she said, briefly, making room for him in the basket seat. And +when the mare had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> given the word to go: "I hope you are not too +tired to chaperon me. I've got to drive over to the college infirmary. +We simply <i>must</i> have another nurse for to-night."</p> + +<p>He denied the weariness—most untruthfully—and after that, she made him +talk all the way across town to the college campus; compelled him, and +found him absently irresponsive. Oh, yes; the fight was still going on: +No, they would never give in to the demands of the strikers: Yes, he had +seen Miss Farnham twice since the trouble began; she was frankly agreed +with Raymer's mother and sister; they all wanted peace, and they were +all against him. She led him on, and meanwhile they encountered one +failure after another in the nurse-hunting. The town clock was striking +the quarter-past ten when Miss Grierson confessed that she had exhausted +the list of possibilities.</p> + +<p>"I must go back at once," she declared. "Miss Davidson—the day +nurse—has been on duty constantly since six this morning, and I'm not +going to let her kill herself."</p> + +<p>"But you haven't been able to find anybody. Who will relieve her?"</p> + +<p>Then came the thunderbolt—and beyond it the beckoning. "You and I +will," she said calmly. And then, as if to forestall the possible +refusal: "It is merely to sit in the next room and to go in and give him +his medicine at half-hour intervals. Either of us can do that much for a +poor old man who is making his last stand in the fight for his life."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> + +<p>Three days earlier, nay, one day earlier, Griswold might have recoiled +in horror from the suggestion that thrust itself into heart and brain. +But now he merely pushed the unspeakable prompting into the background. +Of course, he would go; and, equally of course, he would share the night +watch with her. One question he permitted himself, and it was not asked +until after they had reached the darkened mansion on the lake's edge and +were mounting the stair to the sick-room. Was Mr. Galbraith conscious? +Could he recognize any one?</p> + +<p>"No," was the low-voiced response; and presently they had reached the +outer room of shaded lights, and the sleepy day nurse had been released, +and Margery was explaining the medicines to her watch sharer.</p> + +<p>It was a simple matter, as she had said; the medicine from the larger +bottle was to be given in tea-spoonful doses on the even hour, and that +in the smaller, ten drops in a little water, on the alternating +half-hours.</p> + +<p>"It's his heart chiefly, now," she explained, "and this drop-medicine is +for that. If you should forget to give it—but I know you won't forget. +There are books in the hall case, and you can sit in here and read. When +you are tired, come and tap at the door of my room and I'll take what +you leave."</p> + +<p>While she was speaking the softly chiming clock in the lower hall struck +the half-hour. "I'll help you give him the first dose," she went on; and +he stood by and watched her as she dropped the heart-stimulant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> into a +spoon and diluted it with a little water. "Come," she said; and they +went together into the adjoining room.</p> + +<p>Griswold had been hardening himself deliberately to look unmoved upon +what the shaded electric night-light in the farther room should reveal: +it was nothing more terrible than the sight of a drawn face, half-hidden +in the pillows; a face in which life and death still fought for the +mastery as they had fought on that other day when life, unhelped, would +have been the loser.</p> + +<p>The small service was quickly rendered. Griswold lifted the sick man, +and his companion, deft and steady-handed, administered the stimulant.</p> + +<p>"Ten drops; no more and no less; exactly on the half-hour: those are +Doctor Bertie's orders," she said, when they had withdrawn to the outer +room. And then: "Good-night, for a little while. Don't hesitate to call +me when you've had enough."</p> + +<p>For so long as he could distinguish her light step in the corridor, +Griswold stood motionless as she had left him. Then he flung himself +into the nearest chair and covered his face with his hands.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The quarter-hour passed, and after the three mellow strokes had died +away the silence grew slowly maddening. When inaction was no longer +bearable, Griswold sprang up and went to stand at the open window. The +summer night was hot and breathless. In the north-west a storm cloud was +creeping up into the sky, and he watched its black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> shadow climbing like +a terrifying threat of doom out of the illimitable and blotting out the +stars one by one.... "For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth +himself in vain...." Out of a childhood which seemed very far away and +unreal the words of the Psalmist came to ring in his ears like the +muffled tolling of a passing-bell. So it must be soon for all the +living; and whether a little sooner or a little later, what could it +matter? A breath more or less to be drawn; a longer or shorter +fluttering of the feeble heart; that was all.</p> + +<p>The clock struck eleven, and mechanically he poured out the dose from +the larger bottle and gave it to the sick man. When it was done he left +the bedside and the inner room quickly and went back to the open window. +The air was thick and stifling, and when he sat down in the deep +window-seat he was gasping for breath. It was going to be harder than he +had thought it would, though now that the time had come he realized that +he had been subconsciously planning for it, preparing for it. And the +means which had been thrust into his hands could scarcely have been +simpler. He had only to sit still and do nothing—and no one would ever +know. He took up the small phial and held it to the light: ten drops, or +forty drops; they would neither be missed, nor counted if they should +remain.</p> + +<p>The single chiming stroke of the quarter-past struck while he was +putting the bottle down, and he started as if the mellow cadence had +been a pistol shot. For fifteen minutes longer he could live and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> +breathe and be as other men are; and after that.... He saw himself +looking back upon the normal world from the new view-point, as he +fancied Cain might have looked back after the mark had been set upon his +brow. Would it really make the hideous, monstrous difference that all +men seemed to think it did? He would know, presently, when the revocable +should have become the irrevocable. He heard the sick man stir feebly, +and then the sound of his slow, labored breathing made itself felt, +rather than heard, in the crushing, stifling silence. How the minutes +dragged! He leaned his head against the window jamb and closed his eyes, +striving fiercely to drive forth the thronging thoughts; to make his +mind a blank. Gradually the effort succeeded. He was conscious of a +dull, throbbing, soothing pulse beating slow measures in his temples, +and a curious roaring as of distant cataracts in his ears; and after +that, nothing.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A tempestuous thunder shower was lashing the trees on the lawn when he +awoke with a start and found Margery bending over him to close the +window. With every nerve a needle to prick him alive he dragged out his +watch. It was a quarter-past two. Miserably, wretchedly he pulled +himself together and stood up to face her, putting his hands on her +shoulders to make her look up at him.</p> + +<p>"Margery, girl; do you know what I have done?—Oh, my God! I am a +murderer—a murderer at last!"</p> + +<p>She turned her face away quickly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no, boy!—not meaning to be!" she murmured.</p> + +<p>"What is the difference?" he demanded harshly. And then: "God knows—He +knows whether I meant it or not."</p> + +<p>She looked up again, and, as once or twice before in his knowing of her, +he saw the dark eyes swimming.</p> + +<p>"It was too hard; I shouldn't have asked it of you, Kenneth. I knew what +a cruel strain you've been under all these bad days. And there was no +harm done. I—I have been here a long time—ever since half-past eleven; +and I've been giving Mr. Galbraith his medicine. Now go down-stairs and +stretch out on the hall lounge. I'll run down and send you home as soon +as it stops raining."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>XXXV</h2> + +<h3>MARGERY'S ANSWER</h3> + + +<p>"Well, it has come at last," said Raymer, passing a newly opened letter +of the morning delivery over to Griswold. "The railroad people are +taking their work away from us. I've been looking for that in every +mail."</p> + +<p>Griswold glanced at the letter and handed it back. The burden of the +night of horrors was still lying heavily upon him, and his only comment +was a questioning, "Well?"</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking," was the reply. "I know Atherton, the new president +of the Pineboro, pretty well; suppose I should run over to St. Paul and +see him—make it a personal plea. We have enough of the hoboes now to +run half-gangs; and perhaps, if I could make Atherton believe that we +are going to win——"</p> + +<p>"You couldn't," Griswold interrupted, shortly. "And, besides, you have +told me yourself that Atherton is only a figurehead. Grierson's the +man."</p> + +<p>At this, Raymer let go again.</p> + +<p>"What's the use?" he said dejectedly. "We're down, and everything we do +merely prolongs the agony. Do you know that they tried to burn the plant +last night?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No; I hadn't heard."</p> + +<p>"They did. It was just before the thunder storm. They had everything +fixed; a pile of kindlings laid in the corner back of the machine-shop +annex and the whole thing saturated with kerosene."</p> + +<p>"Well, why didn't they do it?" queried Griswold, half-heartedly. After +the heavens have fallen, no mere terrestrial cataclysm can evoke a +thrill.</p> + +<p>"That's a mystery. Something happened; just what, the watchman who had +the machine-shop beat couldn't tell. He says there was a flash of light +bright enough to blind him, and then a scrap of some kind. When he got +out of the shop and around to the place, there was no one there; nothing +but the pile of kindlings."</p> + +<p>Griswold took up the letter from the railway people and read it again. +When he faced it down on Raymer's desk, he had closed with the +conclusion which had been thrusting itself upon him since the early +morning hour when he had picked his way among the sidewalk pools from +Mereside to upper Shawnee Street.</p> + +<p>"You can still save yourself, Edward," he said, still with the colorless +note in his voice. And he added: "You know the way."</p> + +<p>Raymer jerked his head out of his desk and swung around in the +pivot-chair.</p> + +<p>"See here, Griswold; the less said about that at this stage of the game, +the better it will be for both of us!" he exploded. "I'm going to do as +I said I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> should, but not until this fight is settled, one way or the +other!"</p> + +<p>Griswold did not retort in kind.</p> + +<p>"The condition has already expired by limitation; the fight is as good +as settled now," he said, placably. "We are only making a hopeless +bluff. We can hold our forty or fifty tramp workmen just as long as we +pay their board over in town, and don't ask them to report for work. But +the day the shop whistle is blown, four out of every five will vanish. +We both know that."</p> + +<p>"Then there is nothing for it but a receivership," was Raymer's gloomy +decision.</p> + +<p>"Not without a miracle," Griswold admitted. "And the day of miracles is +past."</p> + +<p>Thus the idealist, out of a depth of wretchedness and self-exprobration +hitherto unplumbed. But if he could have had even a momentary gift of +telepathic vision he might have seen a miracle at that moment in the +preliminary stage of its outworking.</p> + +<p>The time was half-past nine; the place a grotto-like summer-house on the +Mereside lawn. The miracle workers were two: Margery Grierson, radiant +in the daintiest of morning house-gowns, and the man who had taken her +retainer. Miss Grierson was curiously examining a photographic print: +the pictured scene was a well-littered foundry yard with buildings +forming an angle in the near background. Against the buildings a pile of +shavings with kindlings showed quite clearly; and, stooping to ignite +the pile, was a man who had evidently looked up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> at, or just before, the +instant of camera-snapping. There was no mistaking the identity of the +man. He had a round, pig-jowl face; his bristling mustaches stood out +stiffly as if in sudden horror; and his hat was on the back of his head.</p> + +<p>"It ain't very good," Broffin apologized. "The sun ain't high enough yet +to make a clear print. But you said 'hurry,' and I reckon it will do."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson nodded. "You caught him in the very act, didn't you?" she +said coolly. "What did he do?"</p> + +<p>"Dropped things and jumped for the camera. But the flash had blinded +him, and, besides, the camera had been moved. I let him have a foot to +fall over, and he took it; after which I made a bluff at tryin' to hold +him. Lordy gracious! new ropes wouldn't 'a' held him, then. I'll bet +he's runnin' yet—what?"</p> + +<p>"What did he hope to accomplish by setting fire to the works?"</p> + +<p>"It was a frame-up to capture public sympathy. There's been a report +circulating 'round that Raymer and Griswold was goin' to put some o' the +ringleaders in jail, if they had to <i>make</i> a case against 'em. Clancy +had it figured out that the fire'd be charged up to the owners, +themselves."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson was still examining the picture. "You made two of these +prints?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes; here's the other one—and the film."</p> + +<p>"And you have the papers to make them effective?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p> + +<p>Broffin handed her a large envelope, unsealed. "You'll find 'em in +there. That part of it was a cinch. Your governor ought to fire that man +Murray. He was payin' Clancy in checks!"</p> + +<p>Again Miss Grierson nodded.</p> + +<p>"About the other matter?" she inquired. "Have you heard from your +messenger?"</p> + +<p>Broffin produced another envelope. It had been through the mails and +bore the Duluth postmark.</p> + +<p>"Affidavits was the best we could do there," he said. "My man worked it +to go with MacFarland as the driver of the rig. They saw some mighty +fine timber, but it happened to be on the wrong side of the St. Louis +County line. He's a tolerably careful man, and he verified the +landmarks."</p> + +<p>"Affidavits will do," was the even-toned rejoinder. Then: "These papers +are all in duplicate?"</p> + +<p>"Everything in pairs—just as you ordered."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson took an embroidered chamois-skin money-book from her bosom +and began to open it. Broffin raised his hand.</p> + +<p>"Not any more," he objected. "You overpaid me that first evening in +front of the Winnebago."</p> + +<p>"You needn't hesitate," she urged. "It's my own money."</p> + +<p>"I've had a-plenty."</p> + +<p>"Enough so that we can call it square?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and more than enough."</p> + +<p>"Then I can only thank you," she said, rising.</p> + +<p>He knew that he was being dismissed, but the one chance in a thousand +had yet to be tested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Just a minute, Miss Grierson," he begged. "I've done you right in this +business, haven't I?"</p> + +<p>"You have."</p> + +<p>"I said I didn't want any more money, and I don't. But there's one other +thing. Do you know what I'm here in this little jay town of yours for?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I have known it for a long time."</p> + +<p>"I thought so. You knew it that day out at the De Soto, when you was +tellin' Mr. Raymer a little story that was partly true and partly made +up—what?"</p> + +<p>"And when you were sitting behind the window curtains listening," she +laughed. "Yes; I knew it then. What about it?"</p> + +<p>"I've been wonderin' as I set here, if there was anything on the top +side of God's green earth that'd persuade you to tell me how much o' +that story was made up."</p> + +<p>She was smiling deliciously when she said: "You are from the South, Mr. +Broffin, and I didn't suppose a Southerner could be so unchivalrous as +to suspect a lady of fibbing."</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I wish you'd tell me, Miss Grierson. I'm in pretty +bad on this thing, and if——"</p> + +<p>"I can tell you what to do, if that will help you."</p> + +<p>"It might," he allowed.</p> + +<p>"Go away and take some other commission. It's a cold trail, Mr. +Broffin."</p> + +<p>"But you won't say that Griswold isn't the man?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is not for me to say. But Miss Farnham says he isn't, and Mr. +Galbraith—you tried him, didn't you? What more do you want?"</p> + +<p>"I want <i>you</i> to say he isn't; then I'll go away."</p> + +<p>"You may put me in jail for contempt of court, if you like," she jested. +"I refuse to testify. But I will tell you what you asked to know—if +that will do any good. Every word of the story about Mr. Griswold—the +story that you overheard, you know—was true; every single word of it. +Do you suppose I should have dared to embroider it the least little +bit—with you sitting right there at my back?"</p> + +<p>"But you did think for a while that he might be the man—what?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I did think so—for a while."</p> + +<p>Broffin got up and took a half-burned cigar from the ledge of the +summer-house where he had carefully laid it at the beginning of the +interview.</p> + +<p>"You've got me down," he confessed, with a good-natured grin. "The man +that plays a winnin' hand against you has got to get up before sun in +the morning and hold <i>all</i> trumps, Miss Grierson—to say nothin' of +being a mighty good bluffer, on the side." Then he switched suddenly. +"How's Mr. Galbraith this morning?"</p> + +<p>"He is very low, but he is conscious again. He has asked us to wire for +the cashier of his bank to come up."</p> + +<p>Broffin's eyes narrowed.</p> + +<p>"The cashier is sick and can't come," he said.</p> + +<p>"Well, some one in authority will come, I suppose."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p> + +<p>Once more Broffin was thinking in terms of speed. Johnson, the paying +teller, was next in rank to the cashier. If he should be the one to come +to Wahaska....</p> + +<p>"If you haven't anything else for me to do, I reckon I'll be going," he +said, hastily, and forthwith made his escape. The telegraph office was a +good ten minutes' walk from the lake front, and in the light of what +Miss Grierson had just told him, the minutes were precious.</p> + +<p>Something less than a half-hour after Broffin's hurried departure, Miss +Grierson, coated and gauntleted, came down the Mereside carriage steps +to take the reins of the big trap horse from Thorsen's hands. Contrary +to her usual custom, she avoided Main Street and drove around past the +college grounds to come by quieter thoroughfares to the industrial +district beyond the railroad tracks.</p> + +<p>For the first time in a riotous week, Pottery Flat was outwardly +peaceful and its narrow streets were practically empty. Just what this +portended, Margery did not know; but she found out when she turned into +the street upon which the Raymer property fronted. Smoke was pouring +from the tall central stack of the plant, and it had evidently provoked +a sudden and wrathful gathering of the clans. The sidewalks were filled +with angry workmen, and an excited argument was going forward at one of +the barred gates between the locked-out men and a watchman inside of the +yard.</p> + +<p>The crowd let the trap pass without hindrance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> However coldly Lake +Boulevard and upper Shawnee Street might regard Miss Grierson, there was +no enmity in the glances of the Flat dwellers—and for good reasons. In +want, Miss Margery had poured largesse out of a liberal hand; and in +sickness she had many times proved herself the veritable good angel that +some people called her.</p> + +<p>It was one of the strikers who offered to hold the big Englishman when +the magnate's daughter sprang from the trap at the office door, and for +the young fellow who offered she had a smile and a pleasant word. "I +wouldn't trouble you to do that, Malcolm; but if you'll lead him along +to that post and hitch him, I'll be much obliged," she said.</p> + +<p>Though it was the first time she had been in the new offices, she seemed +to know where to find what she sought; and when Raymer took his face out +of his desk, she was standing on the threshold of the open door and +smiling across at him.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?" she asked; and when he fairly bubbled over in the +effort to make her understand how welcome she was: "No; I mustn't sit +down, because if I do, I shall stay too long—and this is a business +call. Where is Mr. Griswold?"</p> + +<p>"He went up-town a little while ago, and I wish to goodness he'd come +back. You'd think, to look out of the windows, that we were due to have +battle and murder and sudden death, wouldn't you? It's all because we +have put a little fire under one battery of boilers. They tried to burn +us out last night,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> and I'm going to carry steam enough for the fire +pumps, if the heavens fall."</p> + +<p>"You have been having a great deal of trouble, haven't you?" she said, +sympathetically. "I'm sorry, and I've come to help you cure it."</p> + +<p>Raymer shook his head despondently.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it has gone past the curing point," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, it hasn't. I have discovered the remedy and I've brought it +with me." She took a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of her +driving-coat and laid it on the desk before him. "I'm going to ask you +to lock that up in your office safe for a little while, just as it is," +she went on. "If there are no signs of improvement in the sick situation +by three o'clock, you are to open it—you and Mr. Griswold—and read the +contents. Then you will know exactly what to do, and how to go about +it."</p> + +<p>Her lip was trembling when she got through, and he saw it.</p> + +<p>"What have you done, Margery?" he asked gently. "If it is something that +hurts you——"</p> + +<p>"Don't!" she pleaded; "you mu-mustn't break my nerve just at the time +when I'm going to need every shred of it. Do as I say, and please, +<i>please</i> don't ask any questions!"</p> + +<p>She was going then, but he got before her and shut the door and put his +back against it.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you have done, but I can guess," he said, lost now to +everything save the intoxicating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> joy of the barrier-breakers. "You have +a heart of gold, Margery, and I——"</p> + +<p>"Please don't," she said, trying to stop him; but he would not listen.</p> + +<p>"No; before that envelope is opened, before I can possibly know what it +contains, I'm going to ask you one question in spite of your +prohibition; and I'm going to ask it now because, afterward, I may +not—you may not—that is, perhaps it won't be possible for me to ask, +or for you to listen. I love you, Margery; I——"</p> + +<p>She was looking up at him with the faintest shadow of a smile lurking in +the depths of the alluring eyes. And her lips were no longer tremulous +when she said: "Oh, no, you don't; I know just how you feel; you are +excited, and—and impulsive, and there's a sort of +getting-ready-to-be-grateful feeling roaming around in you, and all +that. If I were as mean as some people think I am, I might take +advantage of all this, mightn't I? But I sha'n't. Won't you open the +door and let me go? It's <i>very</i> important."</p> + +<p>"Heavens, Margery! don't make a joke of it!" he burst out. "Can't you +see that I mean it? Girl, girl, I want you—I need you!"</p> + +<p>This time she laughed outright. Then she grew suddenly grave.</p> + +<p>"My dear friend, you don't know what you are saying. The gate that you +are trying to break down opens upon nothing but misery and wretchedness. +If I loved you as a woman ought to love her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> lover, for your sake and +for my own I should still say no—a thousand times no! Now will you open +the door and let me go?"</p> + +<p>He turned and fumbled for the door-knob like a man in a daze.</p> + +<p>"Don't you—don't you think you might learn to—to think of me in that +way?—after a while?" he pleaded.</p> + +<p>He had opened the door a little way, and she slipped past him. But in +the corridor she turned and laughed at him again.</p> + +<p>"I am going to cure you—you, personally, as well as the sick +situation—Mr. Raymer," she said flippantly. Then, mimicking him as a +spoiled child might have done: "I might possibly learn to—think of +you—in that way—after a while. But I could never, never, <i>never</i> learn +to love your mother and your sister."</p> + +<p>And with that spiteful thrust she left him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI</h2> + +<h3>THE GRAY WOLF</h3> + + +<p>As it chanced, Jasper Grierson was in the act of concluding a long and +apparently satisfactory telephone conversation with his agent in Duluth +at the moment when the door of his private room opened and his daughter +entered.</p> + +<p>As on a former occasion, she went to sit in the window until the way to +free speech should be open, and she could not well help hearing the +closing words of the long-distance conference.</p> + +<p>"You sit tight in the boat; that's all you've got to do," her father was +saying. "Keep the young fellow with you as long as you can; the other +man is too sick to talk business, right now. When you can't hold the +young one any longer, let me know. We'll play the hand out as it lays. +Get that? I say, we'll play the hand out as it lays."</p> + +<p>He had hung the receiver on its hook and was pushing the bracketted +telephone-set aside when Margery crossed the room swiftly and placed an +envelope, the counterpart of the one left with Raymer, on the desk.</p> + +<p>"There is your notice to quit," she said calmly. "You threw me down and +gave me the double-cross the other day, and now I've come back at you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another man might have hastened to meet the crisis. But the gray wolf +was of a different mettle. He let the envelope lie untouched until after +he had pulled out a drawer in the desk, found his box of cigars, and had +leisurely selected and lighted one of the fat black monstrosities. When +he tore the envelope across, the photographic print fell out, and he +studied it carefully for many seconds before he read the accompanying +documents. For a little time after he had tossed the papers aside there +was a silence that bit. Then he said, slowly:</p> + +<p>"So that's your raise, is it? Where does the game stand, right now?"</p> + +<p>"You stand to lose."</p> + +<p>Again the biting silence; and then: "You don't think I'm fool enough to +give you back your ammunition so that you can use it on me, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Those papers and that picture are copies: the originals are in a sealed +envelope in Mr. Raymer's safe. If you haven't taken your hands off of +Mr. Raymer's throat by three o'clock this afternoon, the envelope will +be opened."</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson's teeth met in the marrow of the fat cigar. Equally +without heat and without restraint, he stripped her of all that was +womanly, pouring out upon her a flood of foul epithets and vile names +garnished with bitter, brutal oaths. She shrank from the crude and +savage upbraidings as if the words had been hot irons to touch the bare +flesh, but at the end of it she was still facing him hardily.</p> + +<p>"Calling me bad names doesn't change anything,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> she pointed out, and +her tone reflected something of his own elemental contempt for the +euphemisms. "You have five hours in which to make Mr. Raymer understand +that you have stopped trying to smash him. Wouldn't it be better to +begin on that? You can curse me out any time, you know."</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson's rage fit, or the mud-volcano manifestation of it, +passed as suddenly as it had broken out. Swinging heavily in his chair +he took up the papers again and reread them thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"You had a spotter working this up, I suppose: who is he, and where is +he?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"That is my affair. He was a high-priced man and he did his work well. +You can see that for yourself."</p> + +<p>Once more the papers were tossed aside and the big chair swung slowly to +face the situation.</p> + +<p>"Let's see what you want: show up your hand."</p> + +<p>"I have shown it. Take the prop of your backing from behind this labor +trouble, and let Mr. Raymer settle with his men on a basis of good-will +and fair dealing."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?"</p> + +<p>"No. You must cancel this pine-land deal. You have broken bread with Mr. +Galbraith as a friend, and I'm not going to let you be worse than an +Arab."</p> + +<p>Grierson's shaggy brows met in a reflective frown, and when he spoke the +bestial temper was rising again.</p> + +<p>"When this is all over, and you've gone to live<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> with Raymer, I'll kill +him," he said, with an out-thrust of the hard jaw; adding: "You know me, +Madge."</p> + +<p>"I thought I did," was the swift retort. "But it was a mistake. And as +for taking it out on Mr. Raymer, you'd better wait until I go 'to live +with him,' as you put it. Besides, this isn't Yellow Dog Gulch. They +hang people here."</p> + +<p>"You little she-devil! If you push me into this thing, you'd better get +Raymer, or somebody, to take you in. You'll be out in the street!"</p> + +<p>"I have thought of that, too," she said, coolly; "about quitting you. +I'm sick of it all—the getting and the spending and the crookedness. +I'd put the money—yours and mine—in a pile and set fire to it, if some +decent man would give me a calico dress and a chance to cook for two."</p> + +<p>"Raymer, for instance?" the father cut in, in heavy mockery.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Raymer has asked me to marry him, if you care to know," she struck +back.</p> + +<p>"Oho! So that's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? You sold me out to buy +in with him!"</p> + +<p>"You may put it that way, if you like; I don't care." She was drawing on +her driving-gloves methodically and working the fingers into place, and +there were sullen fires in the brooding eyes.</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking it was the other one—the book-writer," said the +father. Then, without warning: "He's a damned crook."</p> + +<p>The daughter went on smoothing the wrinkles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> out of the fingers of her +gloves. "What makes you think so?" she inquired, with indifference, real +or skilfully assumed.</p> + +<p>"He's got too much money to be straight. I've been keeping cases on +him."</p> + +<p>"Never mind Mr. Griswold," she interposed. "He is my friend, and I +suppose that is enough to make you hate him. About this other matter: +ten minutes before three o'clock this afternoon I shall go back to Mr. +Raymer. If he tells me that his troubles are straightening themselves +out, I'll get the papers."</p> + +<p>"You'll bring 'em here to me?"</p> + +<p>"Some day; after I'm sure that you have broken off the deal with Mr. +Galbraith."</p> + +<p>Jasper Grierson let his daughter get as far as the door before he +stopped her with a blunt-pointed arrow of contempt.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you've fixed it up to marry that college-sharp dub so that +his mother and sister can rub it into you right?" he sneered.</p> + +<p>"You can suppose again," she returned, shortly. "If I should marry him, +it would be out of pure spite to those women."</p> + +<p>"If?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, 'if.' Because, when he asked me, I told him No. You weren't +counting on that, were you?" And having fired this final shot of +contradiction she departed.</p> + +<p>After Miss Grierson had driven home from the bank between ten and eleven +in the morning, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> admiring public saw her no more until just before +bank-closing hours in the afternoon. Broffin was among those who made +obeisance to her as she passed down Main Street in the basket phaeton +between half-past two and three; and a minute later he abandoned his +chair on the hotel porch to keep the phaeton in view and to mark its +route.</p> + +<p>"It's Raymer, all right, and not the other one," he mused when the +little vehicle had gone rocketing over the railroad crossing to take the +turn toward the Iron Works. "The iron-man is the duck she's tryin' to +help out of the labor-rookus. She was over there this morning, and she's +goin' there again, right now."</p> + +<p>As the phaeton sped along through the over-crossing suburb there were +signs of an armistice apparent, even before the battle-field was +reached. Pottery Flat was populated again, and the groups of men bunched +on the street corners were arguing peacefully. Miss Grierson pulled up +at one of the corners and beckoned to the young iron-moulder who had +offered to be her horse-holder on the morning visit.</p> + +<p>"Anything new, Malcolm?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"You bet your sweet life!" said the young moulder, meeting her, as most +men did, on a plane of perfect equality and frankness. "We was hoodooed +to beat the band, and Mr. Raymer's got us, comin' and goin'. There +wasn't no orders from the big Federation, at all; and that crooked guy, +Clancy, was a fake!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He has gone?" she said.</p> + +<p>"He'd better be. If he shows himself 'round here again, there's goin' to +be a mix-up."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson drove on, and at the Iron Works there were more of the +peaceful indications. The gates were open, and a switching-engine from +the railroad yards was pushing in a car-load of furnace coal. By all the +signs the trouble flood was abating.</p> + +<p>Raymer saw her when she drove under his window and calmly made a +hitching-post of the clerk who went out to see what she wanted. A moment +later she came down the corridor to stand in the open doorway of the +manager's room.</p> + +<p>"I'm back again," she said, and her manner was that of the dainty +soubrette with whom the audience falls helplessly in love at first +sight.</p> + +<p>"No, you're not," Raymer denied; "you won't be until you come in and sit +down."</p> + +<p>She entered to take the chair he was placing for her, and the soubrette +manner fell away from her like a garment flung aside.</p> + +<p>"You are still alone?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes; Griswold hasn't shown up since morning. I don't know what has +become of him."</p> + +<p>"And the labor trouble: is that going to be settled?"</p> + +<p>He looked away and ran his fingers through his hair as one still puzzled +and bewildered. "Some sort of a miracle has been wrought," he said. "A +little while ago a committee came to talk over terms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> of surrender. It +seems that the whole thing was the result of a—of a mistake."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she returned quietly, "it was just that—a mistake." And then: +"You are going to take them back?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. The plant will start up again in the morning." Then his +curiosity broke bounds. "I can't understand it. How did you work the +miracle?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I didn't work it."</p> + +<p>"I know well enough you did, in some way."</p> + +<p>She dismissed the matter with a toss of the pretty head. "What +difference does it make so long as you are out of the deep water and in +a place where you can wade ashore? You <i>can</i> wade ashore now, can't +you?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "This morning I should have said that we couldn't; but now—" +he reached over to his desk and handed her a letter to which was pinned +a telegram less than an hour old.</p> + +<p>She read the letter first. It was a curt announcement of the withdrawal +of the Pineboro Railroad's repair work. The telegram was still briefer: +"Disregard my letter of yesterday"; this, and the signature, "Atherton." +The small plotter returned the correspondence with a little sigh of +relief. It had been worse than she had thought, and it was now better +than she had dared hope.</p> + +<p>"I must be going," she said, rising. "If you will give me my envelope?"</p> + +<p>He crossed to the safe and got it for her. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> curiosity was still +keen-edged, but he beat it back manfully.</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't hurry," he said hospitably. He was searching the +changeful eyes for the warrant to say more, but he could not find it.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I really must," she insisted. "You know we have a sick man at +home, and——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; how is Mr. Galbraith getting along? He has been having a +pretty hard time of it, hasn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Very hard. It is still doubtful if his life can be saved."</p> + +<p>"He is conscious?"</p> + +<p>"He has been to-day."</p> + +<p>"And he understands his condition?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly. He had us wire for some of his bank people this morning. The +cashier can't come, but he is sending a Mr. Johnson—the paying teller, +I believe he is."</p> + +<p>"Poor old man!" said Raymer, and his sympathy was real.</p> + +<p>She was moving toward the door, and he went with her.</p> + +<p>"I know you are not entertaining now—with Mr. Galbraith to be cared +for; but I'd like to come and see you, if I may?" he said, when he had +gone with her through the outer office and the moment of leave-taking +had arrived.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" she asked frankly. "You have always been welcome, and you +always will be."</p> + +<p>He hesitated, and a blond man's flush crept up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> under his honest eyes. +"I've been hoping all day that you didn't really mean what you said this +morning—about my mother and sister, you know," he ventured.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she affirmed relentlessly; "I did mean it."</p> + +<p>"But some day you will change your mind—when you come to know them +better."</p> + +<p>"Shall I?" she said, with a ghost of a smile. "Perhaps you are +right—when I come to know them better."</p> + +<p>He was obliged to let it go at that; but when they reached the phaeton, +and the horse-holding clerk had been relieved, he spoke of another +matter.</p> + +<p>"I'm a little worried about Kenneth," he told her. "He came down this +morning looking positively wretched, but he wouldn't admit that he was +sick. Have you seen much of him lately?"</p> + +<p>"Not very much"—guardedly. "Did you say he had gone home?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know where he has gone. He left here about half an hour before +you came, and I haven't seen him since."</p> + +<p>"And you are worried because he doesn't look well?"</p> + +<p>"Not altogether on that account. I'm afraid he is in deep water of some +kind. I never saw a person change as he has in the past week or so. You +know him pretty well, and what a big heart he has?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, half-mechanically.</p> + +<p>"Well, there have been times lately when I've<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> been afraid he'd kill +somebody—in this squabble of ours, you know. He has been going +armed—which was excusable enough, under the circumstances—and night +before last, when we were walking up-town together, I had all I could do +to keep him from taking a pot-shot at a fellow who, he thought, was +following us. I don't know but I'm taking all sorts of an unfair +advantage of him, telling you this behind his back, but——"</p> + +<p>"No; I'm glad you have told me. Maybe I can help."</p> + +<p>He put her into the low basket seat, and tucked the dust-robe around her +carefully. While he was doing it he looked up into her face and said: +"I'd love you awfully hard for what you have done to-day—if you'd let +me."</p> + +<p>It was like her to smile straight into his eyes when she answered him.</p> + +<p>"When you can say that—in just that way—to the right woman, you'll +find a great happiness lying in wait for you, Edward, dear." And then +she spoke to the Morgan mare and distance came between.</p> + +<p>As once before, in the earlier hours of the same day, Miss Grierson took +the roundabout way between the Raymer plant and Mereside, making the +circuit which took her through the college grounds and brought her out +at the head of upper Shawnee Street. The Widow Holcomb was sitting on +her front porch, placidly crocheting, when the phaeton drew up at the +curb.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Griswold," said the phaeton's occupant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> "May I trouble you to tell +him that I'd like to speak to him a moment?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Holcomb, friend of the Raymers, the Farnhams, and the Oswalds, and +own cousin to the Barrs, was of the perverse minority; and, apart from +this, she had her own opinion of a young woman who would wait at the +door of a young man's boarding-house and take him off for a night drive +to goodness only knew where, and from which he did not return until +goodness only knew when. So there was no stitch missed in the crocheting +when she said, stiffly: "Mr. Griswold isn't in. He hasn't been home +since morning."</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson drove on, and the most casual observer might have remarked +the strained tightening of the lips and the two red spots which came and +went in the damask-peach cheeks. But it was not until she had reached +Mereside, and had gained the shelter of the deserted library, that +speech came.</p> + +<p>"O pitiful Christ!" she sobbed, dropping into a chair and hiding her +face in the crook of her arm; "he's done it at last!—he's trying to +hide, and that's what they've been waiting for! <i>And I don't know where +to look!</i>"</p> + +<p>But Matthew Broffin, tilting lazily in his chair on the down-town hotel +porch, knew very well where to look, and he was watching the one outlet +of the hiding-place as an alert, though outwardly disregardful, +house-cat watches a mouse's hole.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>XXXVII</h2> + +<h3>THE QUALITY OF MERCY</h3> + + +<p>On no less an authority than that of the great doctor who came again +from Chicago for a second consultation with Doctor Farnham, Andrew +Galbraith owed his life during the two days following his return to +consciousness to the unremitting care and devotion of one person.</p> + +<p>Seconding the efforts of the physicians, and skilfully directing those +of the nurses, Margery threw herself into the vicarious struggle with +the generous self-sacrifice which counts neither cost nor loss; and on +the third day she had her reward. Her involuntary guest and charge was +distinctly better, and again, so the two doctors declared, the balance +was inclining slightly toward recovery.</p> + +<p>It was in the afternoon of this third day, when she had been reading to +him, at his own request, the sayings of the Man on the Mount, that he +referred for the first time to the details of the accident which had so +nearly blotted him out. Upon his asking, she related the few and simple +facts of the rescue, modestly minimizing her own part in it, and giving +her companion in the catboat full credit.</p> + +<p>"The writer-man," he said thoughtfully, when she had finished telling +him how Griswold had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> worked over him in the boat, and how he would not +give up. "I remember; you fetched him out to the hotel with you one day: +no, you needna fear I'll be forgetting him." Then, with a shrewd look +out of the steel-gray eyes: "How long have you been knowing him, Maggie, +child?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, for quite a long time," she hastened to say. "He came here, sick +and helpless, one day last spring, and—well, there isn't any hospital +here in Wahaska, you know, so we took him in and helped him get over the +fever, or whatever it was. This was his room while he stayed with us."</p> + +<p>Andrew Galbraith wagged his head on the pillow.</p> + +<p>"I know," he said. "And ye're doing it again for a poor auld man whose +siller has never bought him anything like the love you're spending on +him. You're everybody's good angel, I'm thinking, Maggie, lassie." +Though he did not realize it, his sickness was bringing him day by day +nearer to his far-away boyhood in the Inverness-shire hills, and it was +easy to slip into the speech of the mother-tongue. Then, after a long +pause, he went on: "He wasna wearing a beard, a red beard trimmed down +to a spike—this writer-man, when ye found him, was he?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No; I have never seen him with a beard."</p> + +<p>The sick man turned his face to the wall, and after a time she heard him +repeating softly the words which she had just read to him. "But if ye +forgive not men ... neither will your Father forgive...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> And again, +"Judge not that ye be not judged." When he turned back to her there were +new lines of suffering in the gray old face.</p> + +<p>"I'm sore beset, child; sore beset," he sighed. "You were telling me +that MacFarland and Johnson will be here to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; they should both reach Wahaska this evening."</p> + +<p>Another pause, and at the end of it: "That man Broffin: you'll remember +you asked me one day who he was, and I tell 't ye he was a special +officer for the bank. Is he still here?"</p> + +<p>"He is; I saw him on the street this morning."</p> + +<p>Again Andrew Galbraith turned his face away, and he was quiet for so +long a time that she thought he had fallen asleep. But he had not.</p> + +<p>"You're thinking something of the writer-man, lassie? Don't mind the +clavers of an auld man who never had a chick or child of his ain."</p> + +<p>Her answer was such as a child might have made. She lifted the +big-jointed hand on the coverlet and pressed it softly to her flushed +cheek, and he understood.</p> + +<p>"I thought so; I was afraid so," he said, slowly. "You say you have +known him a long time: it canna have been long enough, bairnie."</p> + +<p>"But it is," she insisted, loyally. "I know him better than he knows +himself; oh, very much better."</p> + +<p>"Ye know the good in him, maybe; there's good in all men, I'm thinking +now, though there was a time when I didna believe it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know the good and the bad—and the bad is only the good turned upside +down."</p> + +<p>Again the sick man wagged his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Ye're a loving lassie, Maggie, and that's a' there is to it," he +commented; and after another interval: "What must be, must be. We spoke +of this man Broffin: I must see him before Johnson comes. Can ye get him +for me, Maggie, child?"</p> + +<p>She nodded and went down-stairs to the telephone, returning almost +immediately.</p> + +<p>"I was fortunate enough to catch him at the hotel. He will be here in a +few minutes," was the word she brought; and Galbraith thanked her with +his eyes.</p> + +<p>"When he comes, ye'll let me see him alone—just for a few minutes," he +begged; and beyond that he said no more.</p> + +<p>It was after the click of the gate latch had announced Broffin's arrival +that Margery drew the shades to shut out the glare of the afternoon sun, +lowering the one at the bed's head so that the light no longer fell upon +the instruments of the small house-telephone-set mounted upon the wall +beside the door.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Broffin is here, and I'll send him up," she said. "But you mustn't +let him stay long, and you mustn't try to talk too much."</p> + +<p>The sick man promised, and as she was going away she turned to repeat +the caution. Andrew Galbraith's eyes were closed in weariness, and he +did not see that she was standing with her back to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> the wall while she +admonished him, or that, when she had gone to send the visitor up, the +ear-piece of the house-telephone-set had been detached from its hook and +left dangling by its wire cord.</p> + +<p>Miss Grierson went on into the library after she had met the detective +at the door and had told him how to find the up stairs room. When the +sound of a cautiously closed door told her that Broffin had entered the +sick-room, she snatched the receiver of the library house 'phone from +its hook and held it to her ear. For a little time keen anxiety wrote +its sign manual in the knitted brows and the tightly pressed lips. Then +she smiled and the dark eyes grew softly radiant. "The dear old saint!" +she whispered; "the dear, <i>dear</i> old saint!" And when Broffin came down +a few minutes later, she went to open the hall door for him, serenely +demure and with honey on her tongue, as befitted the rôle of +"everybody's good angel."</p> + +<p>"Did you find him worse than you feared, or better than you hoped?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"He's mighty near the edge, I should say—what? But you never can tell. +Some of these old fellows can claw back to the top o' the hill after all +the doctors in creation have thrown up their hands. I've seen it. What +does Doc Farnham say?"</p> + +<p>"What he always says; 'while there's life, there's hope.'"</p> + +<p>Broffin nodded and went his way down the walk, stopping at the gate to +take up the cigar he had hidden on his arrival.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p> + +<p>"So Galbraith's out of it, lock, stock and barrel," he muttered, as he +strode thoughtfully townward. "I reckoned it'd be that-a-way, as soon as +I heard the story o' that shipwreck. And now I ain't so blamed sure that +it's Raymer a-holdin' the fort in them pretty black eyes. The old man +talked like a man that had just been honeyfugled and talked over and +primed plum' up to the muzzle. Why the blue blazes can't she take her +iron-moulder fellow and be satisfied? She can't swing to <i>both</i> of 'em. +Ump!—the old man wanted me to skip out on a wild-goose chase to 'Frisco +in that bond business, and take the first train! Sure, I'll go—but not +to-day; oh, no, by grapples; not this day!"</p> + +<p>It was possibly an hour beyond Broffin's visit when Margery, having +successfully read the sick man to sleep, tiptoed out of the room and +went below stairs to shut herself into the hall telephone closet. The +number she asked for was that of the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works, +and Raymer, himself, answered the call.</p> + +<p>"Are you awfully busy?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Up to my chin—yes. But that doesn't count if I can do anything for +you."</p> + +<p>"Have you heard anything yet from Mr.—from our friend?"</p> + +<p>"Not a word. But I'm not worrying any more now."</p> + +<p>"Why aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Because I've been remembering that he is the happy—or +unhappy—possessor of the 'artistic temperament'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> and that accounts for +anything and everything. I'd forgotten that for a few minutes, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Well?" she said, with the faintest possible accent of impatience.</p> + +<p>"He has gone off somewhere to plug away on that book of his; I'm sure of +it. And he hasn't gone very far. I'm inclined to believe that Mrs. +Holcomb knows where he is—only she won't tell. And somebody else knows, +too."</p> + +<p>"Who is the somebody else?"</p> + +<p>Though the wire was in a measure public, Raymer risked a single word.</p> + +<p>"Charlotte."</p> + +<p>None of the sudden passion that leaped into Margery Grierson's eyes was +suffered to find its way into her voice when she said: "What makes you +think that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a lot of little things. I was over at the house last night, and +there is some sort of a tea-pot tempest going on; I couldn't make out +just what. But from the way things shaped up, I gathered that our friend +was wanted in Lake Boulevard, and wanted bad—for some reason or other. +I had to promise that I'd try to dig him up, before I got away."</p> + +<p>"Well?" went the questioning word over the wires, and this time the +impatient accent was unconcealed.</p> + +<p>"I promised; but this morning Doctor Bertie called me up to say that it +was all right; that I needn't trouble myself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And I needn't have troubled you," said the voice at the Mereside +transmitter. "Excuse <i>me</i>, as Hank Billingsly used to say when he +happened to shoot the wrong man. Come over when you feel like it—and +have time. You mustn't forget that you owe me two calls. Good-by."</p> + +<p>After Margery Grierson had let herself out of the stifling little closet +under the hall stair, she went into the darkened library and sat for a +long time staring at the cold hearth. It was a crooked world, and just +now it was a sharply cruel one. There was much to be read between the +lines of the short telephone talk with Edward Raymer. The trap was +sprung and its jaws were closing; and in his extremity Kenneth Griswold +was turning, not to the woman who had condoned and shielded and paid the +costly price, but to the other.</p> + +<p>"Dear God!" she said softly, when the prolonged stare had brought the +quick-springing tears to her eyes; "and I—<i>I</i> could have kept him +safe!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>XXXVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE PENDULUM-SWING</h3> + + +<p>To a man seeking only to escape from himself, all roads are equal and +all destinations likely to prove uniformly disappointing. Turning his +back upon the Iron Works in the day of defeat, with no very clear idea +of what he should do or where he should go, Griswold pushed through the +strikers' picket lines, and, avoiding the militant suburb, drifted by +way of sundry outlying residence streets and a country road to the high +ground back of the city.</p> + +<p>In deserting Raymer he was actuated by no motive of disloyalty. On the +contrary, so much of the motive as had any bearing upon his relations +with the young iron-founder sprang from a generous impulse to free +Raymer from an incubus. If it were the curse of the Midas-touch to turn +all things to gold, it seemed to be his own peculiar curse to turn the +gold to dross; to leave behind him a train of disaster, defeat, and +tragic depravity. The plunge into the labor conflict had merely served +to afford another striking example of his inability to break the evil +spell, and Raymer could well spare him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p> + +<p>On the long tramp to the hills the events of the past few months +marshalled themselves in accusing review. No human being, save one, of +all those with whom he had come in contact since the day of +dragon-bearding in the New Orleans bank had escaped the contaminating +touch, and each in turn had suffered loss. The man Gavitt had given his +name and identity; the mate of the <i>Belle Julie</i> had sacrificed what +little respect he may have had for law and order by becoming, +potentially, at least, a criminal accessory. The little Irish cab-driver +had sold himself for a price; and the negro deck-hand had earned his +mess of fried fish. The single exception was Charlotte Farnham, and he +told himself that she had escaped only because she had done her duty as +she saw it.</p> + +<p>And as the bedeviling thing had begun, so it had continued, losing none +of its potency for evil. In the little world of Wahaska, which was to +have been the theatre of Utopian demonstration, the curse had persisted. +The money, used with the loftiest intentions, had served only as a means +to an end, and the end had proved to be the rearing of an apparently +impassable wall of bitter antagonism between master and men. And the +secret of the money's origin and acquisition, which was to have been so +easily cast aside and ignored, had become a soul-sickness incurable and +even contagious. Griswold was beginning to suspect that it had attacked +Margery Grierson; that it had subconsciously, if not otherwise, thrust +itself into Charlotte Farnham's life; and the night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> of horror so lately +past had shown him into what depths it could plunge its wretched +guardian and slave.</p> + +<p>Now that the plunge had been taken and he had been made to understand +that he must henceforth reckon with a base and cowardly under-self which +would not stop short of the most heinous crime, he told himself that he +must have time to think—to plan.</p> + +<p>Caring nothing for its roughness, and scarcely noting the direction in +which it was leading him, he followed the country road in its winding +descent into a valley forest of oaks. After an hour of aimless tramping +he began to have occasional near-hand glimpses of the lake; and a little +farther along he came out upon the main-travelled road leading to the +summer-resort hotel at the head of De Soto Bay.</p> + +<p>Still without any definite purpose in mind he pushed on, and upon +reaching the hotel he went in and registered for a room. The luncheon +hour was past, but not even the long tramp had given him an appetite. +Choosing the quietest corner of the lake-facing veranda he tried to +smoke; but the tobacco had lost its flavor, and a longing for completer +solitude drove him to his room. Here he drew the window shades and lay +down, deliberately wishing that he might fall asleep and wake in some +less poignant world; and since the week of strife had been cutting +deeply into the nights, the first half of the wish presently came true. +While the poignancies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> were still asserting themselves acutely, sleep +stole upon him, and when he awoke it was evening and a cheerful clamor +in the dining-room beneath told him that it was dinner-time.</p> + +<p>It is a trite saying that many a gulf, seemingly impassable, has been +safely bridged in sleep. Bathed, refreshed and with the tramping stains +removed, Griswold went down to dinner with the lost appetite regained. A +leisurely hour spent in the restorative atmosphere of the well-filled +dining-room added its uplift, and at the end of it the troublesome +perplexities and paradoxes had withdrawn—at least far enough so that +they could be held in the artistic perspective. Afterward, during the +cigar-smoking on the cool veranda, he struck out his plan. In the +morning he would send in town to Mrs. Holcomb for a few necessaries, and +telephone to Raymer. After which, he would try what a fallow day or two +would do for him; an interval in which he could weigh and measure and +think, and possibly recover the lost sense of proportion.</p> + +<p>As the plan was conceived, so it was carried out. Early on the following +day he sent a note to Mrs. Holcomb by one of the Inn employees; but the +copy of the <i>Daily Wahaskan</i> laid beside his breakfast plate made it +unnecessary to telephone Raymer. The paper had a full account of the +sudden ending of the lock-out and the resumption of work in the Raymer +plant, and he read it with a curious stirring of self-compassion. As he +had reasoned it out, there was only one way in which the result could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> +have been attained so quickly. Had Raymer taken that way, in spite of +his wrathful rejection of the suggestion? Doubtless he had; and on the +heels of that conclusion came a sense of deprivation that was fairly +appalling, and the healthy breakfast appetite vanished. Griswold knew +what it meant, or he thought he did. Margery Grierson was gone out of +his life—gone beyond recall.</p> + +<p>After that, there was all the better reason why he should grapple with +himself in the fallow interval; and for two complete days he was lost, +even to the small world of the summer resort, tramping for hours in the +lake shore forests or drifting about in one of the hotel skiffs, and +returning to the Inn only to eat and sleep when hunger or weariness +constrained him. On the whole, the discipline was good. He flattered +himself that the sense of proportion was returning slowly, and with it +some saner impulses. Truly, it had been his misfortune to be obliged to +compromise with evil to some extent, and to involve others, but was not +that rather due to the ineradicable faults of an imperfect social system +than to any basic defect in his own theories? And was not the same +imperfect social system partly responsible for the <i>quasi</i>-criminal +attitude which had been forced upon him? He was willing to believe it; +willing, also, to believe that he could rise above the constraining +forces and be the man he wished to be. That he could so rise was proved, +he decided, on the morning of the third day, when he chanced to overhear +the hotel clerk telling the man whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> room was across the corridor from +his own that Andrew Galbraith still had a fighting chance for life. In +the pleasant glow of the high resolve the news awakened none of the +murderous promptings, but rather the generous hope that it might be +true.</p> + +<p>It was late in the afternoon of this third day, upon his return from a +long pull in the borrowed skiff around the group of islands in the upper +and unfrequented part of the lake, that he found a note awaiting him. It +was from Miss Farnham, and its brevity, no less than its urgency, +stirred him apprehensively, bringing a suggestive return of the furtive +fierceness which he promptly fought down. "I must see you before eight +o'clock this evening. It is of the last importance," was the wording of +the note; and the heavy underscoring of the "last," and a certain +tremulous characteristic in the handwriting, stressed the urgency.</p> + +<p>Griswold thrust the note into his pocket and made his preparations to go +to town, still fighting down the furtive malevolence which was unnerving +him; fighting also an unshakable premonition that his hour had come. +Once, before the Inn brake was ready to make its evening trip to Wahaska +and the railway station, the premonition gripped him so benumbingly that +he was sorely tempted. There was another railroad fourteen miles to the +westward; a line running a fast day-train to the north with connections +for Winnipeg. One of the Inn guests was driving over to catch this fast +train at a country crossing, and there was a spare seat in the hired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> +carry-all. Griswold considered the alternative for the length of time it +took the hotel porter to put the departing guest's luggage into the +waiting vehicle. Then he turned his back and let the chance escape. The +issue was fairly defined. To become a fugitive now was to plead guilty +as charged—to open the door to chaos.</p> + +<p>It was still quite early in the evening when the Inn conveyance set him +down at the door of his lodgings in upper Shawnee Street. To the +care-taking widow, who would have prepared a late dinner for him, he +explained that he was going out again almost at once; and taking time +only for a bath and a change, he set forth on the cross-town walk. It +lacked something less than a half-hour of the time limit set in Miss +Farnham's note, but he attached no special importance to that. He knew +that the doctor's dinner-hour was early, and that in any event he could +choose his own time for an evening call.</p> + +<p>It nettled him angrily to find that the premonition of coming disaster +was still with him when he crossed the Court House square and came into +the main street a few doors from the Winnebago entrance. Attacking from +a fresh vantage-ground it was warning him that the town hotel was the +stopping-place of the man Broffin, and that he was taking an unnecessary +hazard in passing it. Brushing the warning aside, he went on defiantly, +and just before he came within identifying range of the loungers on the +hotel porch an omnibus backed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> the curb to deliver its complement of +passengers from the lately met northbound train.</p> + +<p>Griswold walked on until he was stopped by the sidewalk-blocking group +of freshly arrived travellers pausing to identify their luggage as it +was handed down from the top of the omnibus. Alertly watchful, he +quickly recognized Broffin among the porch loungers, and saw him leave +his tilted chair to saunter toward the steps. Then the fateful thing +happened. One of the luggage-sorters, a clean-limbed, handsome young +fellow with boyish eyes and a good-natured grin, wheeled suddenly and +gripped him.</p> + +<p>"Why, Griswold, old man!—well, I'll be dogged! Who on the face of the +earth would ever have thought of finding you here? So this is where you +came up, after the long, deep, McGinty dive, is it?" Then to one of his +fellow travellers: "Hold on a minute, Johnson; I want you to shake hands +with an old newspaper pal of mine from New York, Mr. Kenneth Griswold. +Kenneth, this is Mr. Beverly Johnson, of the Bayou State Security Bank, +in New Orleans."</p> + +<p>Thus Bainbridge, sometime star reporter for the <i>Louisianian</i>, turning +up at the climaxing instant to prove the crowded condition of an +over-narrow world, much as Matthew Broffin had once turned up on the +after-deck of the coastwise steamer <i>Adelantado</i> to prove it to him.</p> + +<p>While Griswold, with every nerve on edge, was acknowledging the +introduction which he could by no means avoid, Broffin drew nearer. From +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> porch steps he could both see and hear. Bainbridge, cheerfully +loquacious, continued to do most of the talking. He was telling Griswold +of the streak of good luck which had snatched him out of a reporter's +berth in the South to make him night editor of one of the St. Paul +dailies. Johnson was merely an onlooker. Broffin's eyes searched the +teller's face. Thus far it was a blank—a rather bored blank.</p> + +<p>"And you are on your way to St. Paul now?" Griswold said to the +newspaper man. Broffin, whose ears were skilfully attuned to all the +tone variations in the voice of evasion, thought he detected a quaver of +anxious impatience in the half-absent query.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I was going on through to-night, but Johnson, here, stumped me to +stop over. He said I might be able to get a news story out of his sick +president," Bainbridge rattled on. "Ever meet Mr. Galbraith? He is the +bank president who was held up last spring, you remember; fine old +Scotch gentleman of the Walter-Scott brand."</p> + +<p>"When did you leave New Orleans?" Griswold asked; and now Broffin made +sure he distinguished the note of anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Two days back: missed a connection on account of high water in the +Ohio. Might have stayed another twelve hours in the good old levee town +if we'd only known, eh, Johnson?" And then again to Griswold: "Remember +that supper we had at Chaudière's, the night I was leaving for the +banana coast? By George! come to think of it, I believe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> that was the +last time we forgathered in the—Say, Kenneth, what have you done with +your beard?"</p> + +<p>Something clicked in Broffin's brain; then the wheels of the present +slipped into gear with those of the past and the entire train moved on +smoothly. The final doubt was cleared away. Griswold was the man whose +story Bainbridge had told under the after-deck awning of the +outward-bound fruit steamer; and the story in all its essentials was the +same that Miss Grierson had told on the veranda of the De Soto. Broffin +knew now why there had always been a haunting suggestion of familiarity +in Griswold's face for him. He had seen and marked the "bloody-minded +nihilist" of Bainbridge's story when the two were saying good-by on the +banquette in front of Chaudière's.</p> + +<p>Broffin's right hand went swiftly to an inside pocket of his coat and +when it was withdrawn a pair of handcuffs, oiled to noiselessness, came +with it. Deftly the man-catcher worked them open, using only the fingers +of one hand, and never taking his eyes from the trio on the sidewalk. +One last step remained: if he could only manage to get speech with +Johnson first——</p> + +<p>During the trying interval Griswold had been fully alive to his peril. +He had seen the swift hand-passing, and he knew what it was that Broffin +was concealing in the hand which had made the quick pocket-dive. He knew +that the crucial moment had come; and, as many times before, the savage +fear-mania was gripping him. In the cold vise-nip of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> it he had become +once more the cornered wild beast.</p> + +<p>After the introduction to Johnson his hand had gone mechanically to his +coat pocket. The demon at his ear was whispering "kill! kill!" and his +fingers sought and found the weapon. While he was listening with the +outward ear to Bainbridge's cheerful reminiscences, the little minutiæ +were arranging themselves: he saw where Broffin would step, and was +careful to mark that none of the by-standers would be in range. He would +wait until there could be no possibility of missing; then he would +fire—from the pocket.</p> + +<p>It was Johnson who broke the spell. While Bainbridge was insisting that +Griswold should come in and make a social third at the hotel +dinner-table, the teller picked up his hand-bag and mounted the steps. +Griswold's brain fell into halves. With one of them he was making +excuses to the newspaper man; with the other he saw Broffin stop Johnson +and draw him aside.</p> + +<p>What the detective was saying was only too plainly evident. Johnson +wheeled short to face the sidewalk group, and Griswold could feel in +every fibre of him the searching scrutiny to which he was being +subjected. When he stole a glance at the pair on the porch, Johnson was +shaking his head slowly; and he did it again after a second thoughtful +stare. Griswold, missing completely now what Bainbridge was saying, +overheard the teller's low-toned rejoinder to the detective's urgings: +"It's no use, Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> Broffin; I'd have to swear positively to it, you +know, and I couldn't do that.... No, I don't want to hear your +corroborative evidence; it might make me see a resemblance where there +is none. Wait until Mr. Galbraith recovers: he's your man."</p> + +<p>Griswold hardly knew how he made shift to get away from Bainbridge +finally; but when it was done, and he was crossing the little triangular +park which filled the angle between the business squares and the +lake-fronting residence streets, he was sweating profusely, and the +departing fear-mania was leaving him weak and tremulous.</p> + +<p>Passing the stone-basined fountain in the middle of the park he stopped, +jerked the pistol from his pocket, spilled the cartridges from its +magazine, and stooped to grope for a loose stone in the walk-border. +With the fountain base for an anvil and the loosened border stone for a +hammer he beat the weapon into shapeless inutility and flung it away.</p> + +<p>"God knows whom I shall be tempted to kill, next!" he groaned; and the +trembling fit was still unnerving him when he went on to keep the +appointment made by Charlotte Farnham.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a>XXXIX</h2> + +<h3>DUST AND ASHES</h3> + + +<p>A full moon, blood-red from the smoke of forest fires far to the +eastward, was rising over the Wahaska Hills when Griswold unlatched the +gate of the Farnham enclosure and passed quickly up the walk.</p> + +<p>Since the summoning note had stressed the urgencies, he was not +surprised to find the writer of it awaiting his coming on the +vine-shadowed porch. In his welcoming there was a curious mingling of +constraint and impatience, and he was moved to marvel. Miss Farnham's +outlook upon life, the point of view of the ideally well-balanced, was +uniformly poiseful and self-contained, and he was wondering if some +fresh entanglement were threatening when she motioned him to a seat and +placed her own chair so that the light from the sitting-room windows +would leave her in the shadow.</p> + +<p>"You had my note?" she began.</p> + +<p>"Yes. It came while I was away from the hotel, and the regular trip of +the Inn brake was the first conveyance I could catch. Am I late?"</p> + +<p>Her reply was qualified. "That remains to be seen."</p> + +<p>There was a hesitant pause, and then she went on: "Do you know why I +sent for you to come."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, not definitely."</p> + +<p>"I was hoping you would know; it would make it easier for me. You owe me +something, Mr. Griswold."</p> + +<p>"I owe you a great deal," he admitted, warmly. "It is hardly putting it +too strong to say that you have made some part of my work possible which +would otherwise have been impossible."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that," she dissented, with a touch of cool scorn. "I have +no especial ambition to figure as a character, however admirable, in a +book. Your obligation doesn't lie in the literary field; it is real—and +personal. You have done me a great injustice, and it seems to have been +carefully premeditated."</p> + +<p>The blow was so sudden and so calmly driven home that Griswold gasped.</p> + +<p>"An injustice?—to you?" he protested; but she would not let him go on.</p> + +<p>"Yes. At first, I thought it was only a coincidence—your coming to +Wahaska—but now I know better. You came here, in goodness knows what +spirit of reckless bravado, because it was my home; and you made the +decision apparently without any consideration for me; without any +thought of the embarrassments and difficulties in which it might involve +me."</p> + +<p>Truly, the heavens had fallen and the solid earth was reeling! Griswold +lay back in the deep lounging-chair and fought manfully to retain some +little hold upon the anchorings. Could this be his ideal; the woman whom +he had set so high above all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> others in the scale of heroic +faultlessness and sublime devotion to principle? And was she so much a +slave of the conventional as to be able to tell him coldly that she had +recognized him again, and that her chief concern was the embarrassment +it was causing her? Before he could gather the words for any adequate +rejoinder, she was going on pointedly:</p> + +<p>"You have done everything you could to make the involvement complete. +You have made friends of my friends, and you came here as a friend of my +father. You have drawn Edward Raymer into the entanglement and helped +him with the stolen money. In every way you have sought to make it more +and more impossible for me to give information against you—and you have +succeeded. I can't do it now, without facing a scandal that would never +die in a small place like this, and without bringing trouble and ruin +upon a family of our nearest friends. And that is why I sent for you +to-day; and why I say you owe me something."</p> + +<p>Griswold was sitting up again, and he had recovered some small measure +of self-possession.</p> + +<p>"I certainly owe you many apologies, at least," he said, ironically. "I +have really been doing you a great injustice, Miss Farnham—a very grave +injustice, though not exactly of the kind you mention. I think I have +been misapprehending you from the beginning. How long have you known me +as the man who is wanted in New Orleans?"</p> + +<p>"A long time; though I tried not to believe it at first. It seemed +incredible that the man I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> spoken to on the <i>Belle Julie</i> would come +here and put me in such a false position."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" he broke out; "is your position all you have been +thinking of? Is that the only reason why you haven't set the dogs on +me?"</p> + +<p>"It is the chief reason why I couldn't afford to do anything more than I +have done. Goodness knows, I have tried in every way to warn you, even +to pointing out the man who is shadowing you. To do it, I have had to +deceive my father. I have been hoping that you would understand and go +away."</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute," he commanded. "Let me get it straight; you still +believe that the thing I did was a criminal thing?"</p> + +<p>"We needn't go into that part of it again," she returned, with a sort of +placid impatience. "Once I thought that there might be some way in which +you had justified yourself to yourself, but now——"</p> + +<p>"That isn't the point," he interrupted roughly. "What I want to know is +this: Do you still believe it is a crime?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, it is a crime; I know it, you know it, all the world knows +it."</p> + +<p>Again he sat back and took time to gather up a few of the scattered +shards and fragments. When he spoke it was to say: "I think the debt is +on the other side, Miss Charlotte; I think you owe me something. You +probably won't understand when I say that you have robbed me of a very +precious thing—my faith in the ultimate goodness of a good woman. You +believe—you have always believed—that I am a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> criminal; and yet you +have been weak enough to let expediency seal your lips. I am truer to my +code than you are to yours, as you shall see if the day ever comes when +I shall be convinced that I did wrong. But that is neither here nor +there. You sent for me: what is it that you want me to do?"</p> + +<p>"I want to give you one more chance to disappoint the Wahaska gossips," +she replied, entirely unmoved, as it seemed, by his harsh arraignment. +"Do you know why this man Broffin is still waiting?"</p> + +<p>"I can guess. He is taking a long chance on the chapter of accidents."</p> + +<p>"Not altogether. Three days ago, Mr. Galbraith had Miss Grierson +telegraph to New Orleans for some one of the bank officials. Yesterday I +learned that the man who is coming is the teller who waited on me and +who gave you the money. As soon as I heard that, I began to try to find +you."</p> + +<p>Griswold did not tell her that the danger she feared was a danger past.</p> + +<p>"Go on," he prompted.</p> + +<p>"You are no longer safe in Wahaska," she asserted. "The teller can +identify you, and the detective will give him the opportunity. That is +doubtless what he is waiting for."</p> + +<p>"And you would suggest that I make a run for it? Is that why you sent +for me?"</p> + +<p>"It is. You are tempting fate by staying; and, notwithstanding what you +have said, I still insist that you owe me something. There is a fast +train west at ten o'clock. If you need ready money——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span></p> + +<p>Griswold laughed. It had gone beyond the tragic and was fast lapsing +into comedy, farce.</p> + +<p>"We are each of us appearing in a new rôle to-night, Miss Farnham," he +said, with sardonic humor; "I as the hunted criminal, and you as the +equally culpable accessory after the fact. If I run away, what shall be +done with the—the 'swag,' the bulk of which, as you know, is tied up in +Raymer's business?"</p> + +<p>"I have thought of that," she returned calmly, "and that is another +reason why you shouldn't let them take you. Right or wrong, you have +incurred a fresh responsibility in your dealings with Mr. Raymer; and +Edward, who is perfectly innocent, must be protected in some way."</p> + +<p>It was not in human nature to resist the temptation to strike back.</p> + +<p>"I have told Raymer how he can most successfully underwrite his +financial risk," he said, with malice intentional.</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"By marrying Miss Grierson."</p> + +<p>He had touched the springs of anger at last.</p> + +<p>"That woman!" she broke out. And then: "If you have said that to Edward +Raymer, I shall never forgive you as long as I live! It is your affair +to secure Edward against loss in the money matter—your own individual +responsibility, Mr. Griswold. He accepted the money in good faith, +and——"</p> + +<p>Again Griswold gave place to the caustic humor and finished for her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p> + +<p>"—And, +though it is stolen money, it must not be taken away from him. +Once, when I was even more foolish than I am now, I said of you that you +would be a fitting heroine in a story in which the hero should be a man +who might need to borrow a conscience. It's quite the other way around."</p> + +<p>"We needn't quarrel," she said, retreating again behind the barrier of +cold reserve. "I suppose I have given you the right to say disagreeable +things to me, if you choose to assert it. But we are wasting time which +may be very precious. Will you go away, as I have suggested?"</p> + +<p>He found his hat and got upon his feet rather unsteadily.</p> + +<p>"I don't know; possibly I shall. But in any event, you needn't borrow +any more trouble, either on your own account, or on Raymer's. By the +merest chance, I met Johnson, the teller you speak of, a few minutes ago +at the Winnebago House and was introduced to him. He didn't know me, +then, or later, when Broffin was telling him that he ought to know me. +Hence, the matter rests as it did before—between you and Mr. +Galbraith."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Galbraith?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. That was a danger past, too, a short time ago. I met him, +socially, and he didn't recognize me. Afterward, Broffin pointed me out +to him, and again he failed to identify me. But the other day, after I +had pulled him out of the lake, he remembered. I've been waiting to see +what he will do."</p> + +<p>"He will do nothing. You saved his life."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p> + +<p>Griswold shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I am still man enough to hope that he won't let the bit of personal +service make him compound a felony."</p> + +<p>"Why do you call it that?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Because, from his point of view, and yours, that is precisely what it +is; and it is what you are doing, Miss Farnham. I, the criminal, say +this to you. You should have given me up the moment you recognized me. +That is your creed, and you should have lived up to it. Since you +haven't, you have wronged yourself and have made me the poorer by a +thing that——"</p> + +<p>"Stop!" she cried, standing up to face him. "Do you mean to tell me that +you are ungrateful enough to——"</p> + +<p>"No; ingratitude isn't quite the word. I'm just sorry; with the sorrow +you have when you look for something that you have a right to expect, +and find that it isn't there; that it has never been there; that it +isn't anywhere. You have hurt me, and you have hurt yourself; but there +is still a chance for you. When I am gone, go to the telephone and call +Broffin at the Winnebago House. You can tell him that he will find me at +my rooms. Good-by."</p> + +<p>He was half-way to the foot of Lakeview Avenue, striding along moodily +with his head down and his hands behind him, when he collided violently +with Raymer going in the opposite direction. The shock was so unexpected +that Griswold would have been knocked down if the muscular young +iron-founder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> had not caught him promptly. At the saving instant came +mutual recognition.</p> + +<p>"Hello, there!" said Raymer. "You are the very man I've been looking +for. Charlotte wants to see you."</p> + +<p>"Not now she doesn't," was the rather grim contradiction. "I have just +left her."</p> + +<p>"Oh."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, and then Griswold cut in morosely.</p> + +<p>"So you did take my way out of the labor trouble, after all, didn't +you?"</p> + +<p>Raymer looked away.</p> + +<p>"I don't know just how you'd like to have me answer that, Kenneth. How +much or how little do you know of what happened?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all"—shortly.</p> + +<p>"Well, it was Margery who wrought the miracle, of course. I don't know, +yet, just how she did it; but it was done, and done right."</p> + +<p>"And you have asked her to marry you?"</p> + +<p>"Suffering Scott! how you do come at a man! Yes, I asked her, if you've +got to know."</p> + +<p>"Well?" snapped Griswold.</p> + +<p>"She—she turned me down, Kenneth; got up and walked all over me. That's +a horrible thing to make me say, but it's the truth."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand it, Raymer. Was it the No that means No?"</p> + +<p>"I don't understand it either," returned the iron-founder, with grave +naïveté. "And, yes, I guess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> she meant it. But that reminds me. She knew +I was looking for you and she gave me a note—let me see, I've got it +here somewhere; oh, yes, here it is—gilt monogram and all."</p> + +<p>Griswold took the note and pocketed it without comment and without +looking at it.</p> + +<p>"Were you going to Doctor Bertie's?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I was. Have you any objection?"</p> + +<p>"Not the least in the world. It's a good place for you to go just now, +and I guess you are the right man for the place. Good-night."</p> + +<p>At the next corner where there was an electric light, Griswold stopped +and opened the monogrammed envelope. The enclosure was a single sheet of +perfumed note-paper upon which, without date, address or signature was +written the line:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Galbraith is better—and he is grateful."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XL" id="XL"></a>XL</h2> + +<h3>APPLES OF ISTAKHAR</h3> + + +<p>The swinging arc-light suspended above the street-crossing sputtered and +died down to a dull red dot of incandescence as Griswold returned +Margery's note to his pocket and walked on.</p> + +<p>There are crises in which the chief contention looms so large as to +leave no room for the ordinary mental processes. Griswold saw no +significance in the broken line of Margery's message. The one tremendous +revelation—the knowledge that the dross-creating curse had finally +fallen upon the woman whose convictions should have saved her—was +blotting out all the subtler perceptive faculties; and for the time the +struggle with the submerging wave of disappointment and disheartenment +was bitter.</p> + +<p>He was two squares beyond the crossing of the broken-circuited +arc-light, and was still following the curve of the lakeside boulevard, +when he came to the surface of the submerging wave long enough to +realize that he had entered Jasper Grierson's portion of the water-front +drive. The great house, dark as to its westward gables save for the +lighted upper windows marking the sick-room and its antechamber, loomed +in massive solidity among its sheltering oaks; and the moon, which had +now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> topped the hills and the crimsoning smoke haze, was bathing land- +and lake-scape in a flood of silver light, whitening the pale yellow +sands of the beach and etching fantastic leaf-traceries on the gravel of +the boulevarded driveway.</p> + +<p>There was no enclosing fence on the Mereside border of the boulevard, +and under the nearest of the lawn oaks there were rustic park seats, +Jasper Grierson's single concession to the public when he had fought for +and secured his property right-of-way through to the lake's margin. +Griswold turned aside and sat down on one of the benches. The +disappointment was growing less keen. He was beginning to understand +that he had made no allowance for the eternal feminine in the idealized +<i>Fidelia</i>—for the feminine and the straitly human. But the +disheartenment remained. Should he stay and fight it out? Or should he +take pity upon the poor prisoner of the conventions and seek to postpone +the day of reckoning by flight?</p> + +<p>He had not fitted the answer to either of these sharp-pointed queries +when a pair of light-fingered hands came from behind to clap themselves +upon his eyes, and a well-known voice said, "Guess."</p> + +<p>"Margery!" he said; and she laughed with the joyous unconstraint of a +happy child and came around to sit by him.</p> + +<p>"I was doing time out on the veranda, and I saw you down here in the +moonlight, looking as if you had lost something," she explained, adding: +"Have you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know; can you lose that which you've never had?" he returned +musingly. And then: "Yes; perhaps I did lose something. Don't ask me +what it is. I hardly know, myself."</p> + +<p>"You have just come from Doctor Bertie's?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And Charlotte doesn't want to marry you?"</p> + +<p>"Heavens and earth!" he exploded. "Who put the idea into your head that +I wanted to marry her?"</p> + +<p>"You did"—calmly.</p> + +<p>"Then, for pity's sake, let me take it out, quick. If I were the last +man on earth, Miss Farnham wouldn't marry me; and if she were the last +woman, I think I'd go drown myself in the lake!"</p> + +<p>The young woman of the many metamorphoses was laughing again, and this +time the laugh was a letter-perfect imitation of a school-girl giggle.</p> + +<p>"My!" she said. "How dreadfully hard she must have sat on you!"</p> + +<p>"Please don't laugh," he pleaded; "unless you are the heartless kind of +person who would laugh at a funeral. I'm down under the hoofs of the +horses, at last, Margery, girl. Before you came, I was wondering if the +game were at all worth the candle."</p> + +<p>Her mood changed in the twinkling of an eye. "The battle is over, and +won," she said, speaking softly. "Didn't you know that?" And then: "Oh, +boy, boy! but it has been a desperate fight! Time and again I have +thought you were gone, in spite of all I could do!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You thought—I was gone? Then you know?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I know; I have known ever since the first night; the night +when I found the money in your suit-case. What a silly, silly thing it +was for you to do—to leave the Bayou State Security slips on the +packages!"</p> + +<p>"But you said——"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't say; I merely let you believe that I didn't see them. +After that, I knew it would be only a question of time until they would +trace you here, and I hurried; oh, I <i>hurried</i>! I made up my mind that +before the struggle came, all Wahaska should know you, not as a bank +robber, but as you are, and I made it come out just that way. Then Mr. +Broffin turned up, and the fight was on. He shadowed you, and I shadowed +him—or had Johnnie Fergus do it for me. I knew he'd try Miss Farnham +first, and there was only one hope there—that she might fall in love +with you and so refuse to give you away. She did, didn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Most emphatically, she did not," he denied. "You have greatly misjudged +Miss Farnham. The reason—the only reason—why she did not tell Broffin +what he wanted to know was a purely conventional one. She did not want +to be the most-talked-of woman in Wahaska."</p> + +<p>His companion's laugh was not pleasant.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather be a spiteful little cat, which is what she once called me, +than to be moth-eaten on the inside, like that!" she commented. Then she +went on: "With Miss Farnham out of it—and I knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> she must be out of +it, since Broffin didn't strike—there was still Mr. Galbraith. You +didn't know why I was so anxious to have you get acquainted with him, +but you know now. And it worked. When Broffin asked him to identify you, +he couldn't—or wouldn't. Then came that unlucky drowning accident."</p> + +<p>Griswold nodded slowly. "Yes, Mr. Galbraith knows me now."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't!" she exulted. "He is a dear old saint, and he will never +know you again as the man who held him up. Listen: he sent for Broffin +this afternoon, and gave him a new commission—something about bonds in +California. And he told him he must go on the first train!"</p> + +<p>Once more the castaway was running the gamut of the fiercely varying +emotions.</p> + +<p>"Let me understand," he said. "You knew I had taken the money, and yet +you did all these things to pull me out and make the hold-up a success. +Where was your moral sense, all this time, little girl?"</p> + +<p>She made a charming little mouth at him.</p> + +<p>"I am <i>Joan</i>, and the <i>Joans</i> don't have any moral senses—to speak +of—do they? That's the way you are writing it down in your book, isn't +it?" Then, with a low laugh that sounded some unfathomed depth of loving +abandonment: "It was a game; and I played it—played it for all I was +worth, and won. You are free; free as the air, Kenneth, boy. If Broffin +should come here this minute and put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> his hand on your shoulder, you +could look up and laugh in his face. Are you glad—or sorry?"</p> + +<p>His answer was the answer of the man who was, for the time being, +neither the moralist nor the criminal. With a swift out-reaching he drew +her to him, crushed her in his arms, covered her face with kisses.</p> + +<p>"I am glad—glad that I am your lover," he whispered, passionately. +"God, girl! but you are a woman to die for! No, not yet"—when she would +have slipped out of his arms—"Believe me, Margery; there has never been +any one else—not for a moment. But I thought it was Raymer, and for +your sake and his I could have stepped aside; I did try to step aside. +That is the one decent thing I have done in all this devilish business. +Are you listening?"</p> + +<p>She had stopped struggling, and was hiding her face on his shoulder. He +felt her quick little nod and went on.</p> + +<p>"Since you know the one decent thing, you must know all the horrible +things, too. A dozen times I have been a murderer in heart, and once ... +you know: I meant to let Galbraith die, that night."</p> + +<p>She looked up quickly.</p> + +<p>"No, boy, I'll never believe that—never! If you had stayed awake until +the time came, you couldn't have done it. And, besides, I am to blame. I +planned it—planned it purposely: I didn't even hope to find a nurse +when we were supposed to be looking for one. I knew how you felt, and I +wanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> to make you show yourself that you didn't really hate him bad +enough to let him die. But I don't care; it doesn't matter—nothing +matters, now."</p> + +<p>"Wait," he said. "There was murder in my heart that night, and it was +there again this evening—just a little while ago. Miss Farnham and +Galbraith were not the only ones I had to fear; there was another; the +teller who got here from New Orleans on the seven-forty-five train. You +didn't know about him, did you? He came, and an old newspaper friend of +mine was with him. I stumbled upon them on the sidewalk in front of the +Winnebago House; and Broffin was there, too. We were introduced, the +teller and I, and Broffin was so sure he had me that he got his +handcuffs out and was opening them."</p> + +<p>Margery shuddered and hid her face again. "And I—I didn't know!" she +gasped.</p> + +<p>"Luck was with me again," he continued. "Johnson didn't remember me; +refused to do so even when Broffin stopped him and tried to tell him who +I was. I had a pistol in my pocket, and it was aimed at Broffin. If he +had made a move to take me, I should certainly have killed him."</p> + +<p>She sat up suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Give me that pistol, Kenneth—give it to me <i>now</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I can't," he confessed, shamefacedly. "When it was all over, I smashed +the pistol with a stone and threw it away."</p> + +<p>She drew a long breath, "Is that all?" she asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All but one thing; the worst of them all ... that day in the bank +vault——"</p> + +<p>The daughter of men buried her face on his shoulder again at that. +"Don't!" she begged. "You couldn't help it, boy; I made you do +it—meaning to. There! and I said that wild horses should never drag it +out of me!"</p> + +<p>Again he said, "Wait," and covered the shining head on his shoulder with +a caressing hand. "It wasn't love, then, little girl; that's what it +breaks my heart to tell you: it was just madness. And it wasn't clean; +you've got to know that, too."</p> + +<p>She nodded her head violently. "I know," she murmured; "I knew it at the +time, and that was what made me cry. But now it's—it's different, isn't +it, boy? now you—are——"</p> + +<p>"You have heard it all, Margery. You know what I thought I was, and what +I have turned out to be. I'm afraid I am just a common crook, after all; +there doesn't seem to be standing-room anywhere else for me. But every +living fibre of me, the good and the bad, loves you—loves you!"</p> + +<p>"What do I care for anything else?" she flashed back. "You are you, +Kenneth, dear; that is all I know, and all I care for. If you had stolen +all the money in the world, and had killed a dozen men to make your +get-away, it would be just the same. Only——"</p> + +<p>"Only what?" he demanded jealously.</p> + +<p>"It would be just the same to me; but—but.... Oh, boy, dear! it will +never, <i>never</i> be the same to you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I—I don't understand," he stammered.</p> + +<p>"Some day you will. You call yourself a crook: man, man! there isn't a +crooked drop of blood in you! Don't I know? You persuaded yourself that +you had a right to take this money; perhaps you did have; <i>I</i> don't say +you didn't. When I see anything I want, I reach out and take it, if I +can—and I guess most people would, if they dared. But you are +different; you are <i>good</i>. Some day all these dreadful things that have +come tagging along after the fact will rise up and gnash their teeth at +you and tell you that it was a <i>sin</i>, a <i>crime</i>. And then—oh, boy, +dear! then I shall lose you!"</p> + +<p>Very gently he took her in his arms again; and for a time all things +sensible and tangible, the deserted driveway, and the plashing of the +little waves on the sands, the staring moonlight and the stencilled +shadows of the oaks, were forgotten in the great soul-healing silence +that wrapped them about and enveloped them.</p> + +<p>"Margery," he began, when the interval of thoughtful heart-searching had +done its illuminative work, "what would you say if I should tell you +that your 'some day' has already come?"</p> + +<p>She started as if he had thrust a knife into her. Then she slipped out +of his arms and caught up his hand to press it against her cheek.</p> + +<p>"I should say, 'Whatsoever seemeth good in the eyes of my dear lord, so +let it be.'"</p> + +<p>"But think a moment, girl; if one has done wrong, there must be +atonement. That is the higher law—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> highest law—and no man may +evade it. Do you know what that would mean for me?"</p> + +<p>"It is the Price, boy, dear; I don't ask you to pay it. Listen: my +father and I have agreed to disagree, and he has turned over to me a lot +of money that he took from—that was once my mother's brother's share in +the Colorado gold claims. What is mine is yours. We can pay back the +money. Will that do?"</p> + +<p>He was shaking his head slowly. "No," he said, "I think it wouldn't do."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid it wouldn't," she sighed, "but I had to try. Are they +still gnashing their teeth at you?—the dreadful things, I mean?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer in words, but she knew, and held her peace. At the end +of the ends he sprang up suddenly and drew her to her feet.</p> + +<p>"I can't do it, Margery, girl! I can't ask you to wait—and afterward to +marry a convict! Think of it—even if Galbraith were willing to +withdraw, the law wouldn't let him, and I'd get the limit; anything from +seven years to fifteen or more. Oh, my God, no! I can't pay the price! I +can't give you up!"</p> + +<p>She put her arms around his neck and drew his head down and kissed him +on the lips. "I'll wait ... oh, boy, boy! I'll wait! But I can neither +push you over the edge nor hold you back. Only don't think of me; +please, <i>please</i> don't think of me!—'Whatsoever seemeth good'—that is +what you must think of; that is my last word: 'Whatsoever seemeth +good.'" And she pushed him from her and fled.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XLI" id="XLI"></a>XLI</h2> + +<h3>THE DESERT AND THE SOWN</h3> + + +<p>Through streets in which the village quiet of the summer night was +undisturbed save by the spattering tinkle of the lawn sprinklers in the +front yards, and the low voices of the out-door people taking the air +and the moonlight on the porches, Griswold fared homeward, the blood +pounding in his veins and the fine wine of life mounting headily to his +brain.</p> + +<p>After all the dubious stumblings he had come to the end of the road, to +find awaiting him the great accusation and the great reward. By the +unanswerable logic of results, in its effect upon others and upon +himself, his deed had proved itself a crime. Right or wrong in the +highest of the ethical fields, the accepted social order had proved +itself strong enough to make its own laws and to prescribe the +far-reaching penalties for their infraction. Under these laws he stood +convicted. Never again, save through the gate of atonement, could he be +reinstated as a soldier in the ranks of the conventionally righteous. +True, the devotion of a loving woman, aided by a train of circumstances +strikingly fortuitous and little short of miraculous, had averted the +final price-paying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> in penal retribution. But the fact remained. He was +a felon.</p> + +<p>Into this gaping wound which might otherwise have slain him had been +poured the wine and oil of a great love; a love so clean and pure in its +own well-springs that it could perceive no wrong in its object; could +measure no act of loyal devotion by any standard save that of its own +greatness. This love asked nothing but what he chose to give. It would +accept him either as he was, or as he ought to be. The place he should +elect to occupy would be its place; his standards its standards.</p> + +<p>Just here the reasoning angel opened a door and thrust him out upon the +edge of a precipice and left him to look down into the abyss of the +betrayers—the pit of those whose gift and curse it is to be the +pace-setters. In a flash of revealment it was shown him that with the +great love had come a great responsibility. Where he should lead, +Margery would follow, unshrinkingly, unquestioningly; never asking +whether the path led up or down; asking only that his path might be +hers. Instantly he was face to face with a fanged choice which +threatened to tear his heart out and trample upon it; and again he +recorded his decision, confirming it with an oath. The price was too +great; the upward path too steep; the self-denial it entailed too +sacrificial.</p> + +<p>"We have but one life to live, and we'll live it together, Margery, +girl, for better or for worse," was his apostrophic declaration, made +while he was turning into Shawnee Street a few doors from his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> lodgings; +and a minute later he was opening the Widow Holcomb's gate.</p> + +<p>The house was dark and apparently deserted as to its street-fronting +half when he let himself in at the gate and ran quickly up the steps. +The front door was open, and he remembered afterward that he had +wondered how the careful widow had come to leave it so, and why the hall +lamp was not lighted. From the turn at the stair-head he felt his way to +the door of his study. Like the one below, it was wide open; but some +one had drawn the window shades and the interior of the room was as dark +as a cavern.</p> + +<p>Once, in the novel-writing, following the lead of many worthy +predecessors, Griswold had made much of the "sixth" sense; the subtle +and indefinable prescience which warns its possessor of invisible +danger. No such warning was vouchsafed him when he leaned across the end +of the writing-table, turned on the gas, and held a lighted match over +the chimney of the working-lamp. It was while he was still bending over +the table, with both hands occupied, that he looked aside. In his own +pivot-chair, covering him with the mate to the weapon he had smashed and +thrown away, sat the man who had opened the two doors and drawn the +window shades and otherwise prepared the trap.</p> + +<p>"You bought a couple o' these little playthings, Mr. Griswold," said the +man, quietly. "Keep your hands right where they are, and tell me in +which pocket you've got the other one."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span></p> + +<p>Griswold laughed, and there was a sudden snapping of invisible bonds. He +dismissed instantly the thought that Charlotte Farnham had taken him at +his word; and if she had not, there was nothing to fear.</p> + +<p>"I threw the other one away a little while ago," he said. "Reach your +free hand over and feel my pockets."</p> + +<p>Broffin acted upon the suggestion promptly.</p> + +<p>"You ain't got it on you, anyway," he conceded; and when Griswold had +dropped into the chair at the table's end: "I reckon you know what I'm +here for."</p> + +<p>"I know that you are holding that gun of mine at an exceedingly +uncomfortable angle—for me," was the cool rejoinder. "I've always had a +squeamish horror of being shot in the stomach."</p> + +<p>The detective's grin was appreciative.</p> + +<p>"You've got a good cold nerve, anyway," he commented. "I've been puttin' +it up that when the time came, you'd throw a fit o' some sort—what? +Since you're clothed in your right mind, we'll get down to business. +First, I'll ask you to hand over the key to that safety-deposit box +you've got in Mr. Grierson's bank."</p> + +<p>Griswold took his bunch of keys from his pocket, slipped the one that +was asked for from the ring, and gave it to his captor.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I'm surrendering it under protest," he said. "You haven't +yet told me who you are, or what you are holding me up for."</p> + +<p>Broffin waved the formalities aside with a pistol-pointed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> gesture. "We +can skip all that. I've got you dead to rights, after so long a time, +and I'm goin' to take you back to New Orleans with me. The only question +is: do you go easy, or hard?"</p> + +<p>"I don't go either way until you show your authority."</p> + +<p>"I don't need any authority. You're the parlor-anarchist that held up +the president of the Bayou State Security Bank last spring and made a +get-away with a hundred thousand—what?"</p> + +<p>"All right; you say so—prove it." Griswold had taken a cigar from the +open box on the writing-table and was calmly lighting it. There was +nothing to be nervous about. "I'm waiting," he went on, placidly, when +the cigar was going. "If you are an officer, you probably have a +warrant, or a requisition, or something of that sort. Show it up."</p> + +<p>"I don't need any papers to take you," was the barked-out retort. +Broffin had more than once found himself confronting similar dead walls, +and he knew the worth of a bold play.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you do. You accuse me of a crime: did you see me commit the +crime?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well, somebody did, I suppose. Bring on your witnesses. If anybody can +identify me as the man you are after, I'll go with you—without the +requisition. That's fair, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I know you're the man, and you know it, too, damned well!" snapped +Broffin, angered into bandying words with his obstinate capture.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That is neither here nor there; I am not affirming or denying. It is +for you to prove your case, if you can. And, listen, Mr. Broffin: +perhaps it will save your time and mine if I add that I happen to know +that you can't prove your case."</p> + +<p>"Why can't I?"</p> + +<p>"Just because you can't," Griswold went on, argumentatively. "I know the +facts of this robbery you speak of; a great many people know them. The +newspaper accounts said at the time that there were three persons who +could certainly identify the robber: the president, the paying teller, +and a young woman. It so happens that all three of these people are at +present in Wahaska. At different times you have appealed to each of +them, and in each instance you have been turned down. Isn't that true?"</p> + +<p>Broffin glanced up, scowling.</p> + +<p>"It's true enough that you—you and the little black-eyed girl between +you—have hoodooed the whole bunch!" he rasped. "But when I get you into +court, you'll find out that there are others."</p> + +<p>Griswold smiled good-naturedly. "That is a bold, bad bluff, Mr. Broffin, +and nobody knows it any better than you do," he countered. "You haven't +a leg to stand on. This is America, and you can't arrest me without a +warrant. And if you could, what would you do with me without the support +of at least one of your three witnesses? Nothing—nothing at all."</p> + +<p>Broffin laid the pistol on the table, and put the key<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> of the safety-box +beside it. Then he sat in grim silence for a full minute, toying idly +with a pair of handcuffs which he had taken from his pocket.</p> + +<p>"By the eternal grapples!" he said, at length, half to himself, "I've a +good mind to do it anyway—and take the chances."</p> + +<p>As quick as a flash Griswold thrust out his hands.</p> + +<p>"Put them on!" he snapped. "There are a hundred lawyers in New Orleans +who wouldn't ask for anything better than the chance to defend me—at +your expense!"</p> + +<p>Broffin dropped the manacles into his pocket and sat back in the +swing-chair. "You win," he said shortly; and the battle was over.</p> + +<p>For a little time no word was spoken. Griswold smoked on placidly, +seemingly forgetful of the detective's presence. Yet he was the one who +was the first to break the straitened silence.</p> + +<p>"You are a game fighter, Mr. Broffin," he said, "and I'm enough of a +scrapper myself to be sorry for you. Try one of these smokes—you'll +find them fairly good—and excuse me for a few minutes. I want to write +a letter which, if you are going down-town, perhaps you'll be good +enough to mail for me."</p> + +<p>He pushed the open box of cigars across to the detective, and dragged +the lounging-chair around to the other side of the table. There was +stationery at hand, and he wrote rapidly for a few minutes, covering +three pages of the manuscript sheets before he stopped. When the letter +was enclosed, addressed, and stamped, he tossed it across to Broffin,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> +face up. The detective saw the address, "Miss Margery Grierson," and, +putting the letter into his pocket, got up to go.</p> + +<p>"Just one minute more, if you please," said Griswold, and, relighting +the cigar which had been suffered to go out, he went into the adjoining +bedroom. When he came back, he had put on a light top-coat and a soft +hat, and was carrying a small hand-bag.</p> + +<p>"I'm your man, Mr. Broffin," he said quietly. "I'll go with you—and +plead guilty as charged."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Wahaska, the village-conscious, had its nine-days' wonder displayed for +it in inch-type head-lines when the <i>Daily Wahaskan</i>, rehearsing the +story of the New Orleans bank robbery, told of the voluntary surrender +of the robber, and of his deportation to the southern city to stand +trial for his offence.</p> + +<p>Some few there were who took exceptions to Editor Randolph's editorial +in the same issue, commenting on the surrender, and pleading for a +suspension of judgment on the ground that much might still be hoped for +from a man who had retraced a broad step in the downward path by +voluntarily accepting the penalty. Those who objected to the editorial +were of the perverse minority. The intimation was made that the plea had +been inspired—a hint basing itself upon the fact that Miss Grierson had +been seen visiting the office of the <i>Wahaskan</i> after the departure of +the detective, Matthew Broffin, with his prisoner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span></p> + +<p>The sensational incident, however, had been forgotten long before a +certain evening, three weeks later, when the Grierson carriage conveyed +the convalescent president of the Bayou State Security from the Grierson +mansion to the southbound train. Andrew Galbraith was not alone in the +carriage, and possibly there were those in the sleeping-car who mistook +the dark-eyed and strikingly beautiful young woman, who took leave of +him only after he was comfortably settled in his section, for his +daughter. But the whispered words of leave-taking were rather those of a +confidante than a kinswoman.</p> + +<p>"I'll arrange the Raymer matter as you suggest," she said, "and if I had +even a speaking acquaintance with God, I'd pray for you the longest day +I live, Uncle Andrew. And about the trial: I'm going to leave it all +with you; I've g-got to leave it with you! Just remember that I shall +bleed little drops of blood for every day the judge gives him, and that +the only way he can be helped is by a short sentence. He wouldn't take a +pardon: he—he wants to pay, you know. Good-night, and good-by!" And she +put her strong young arms around Andrew Galbraith's neck and kissed him, +thereby convincing the family party in Lower Seven that she was not only +the old man's daughter, but a very affectionate one, at that.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The little-changing seasons of central Louisiana had measured two +complete rounds on the yearly dial of Time's unremitting and unhasting +clock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> when the best hired carriage that Baton Rouge could afford drew +up before the entrance to the State's Prison and waited. Precisely on +the stroke of twelve, a man for whom the prison rules had lately been +relaxed sufficiently to allow his hair to grow, came out, looked about +him as one dazed, and assaulted the closed door of the carriage as if he +meant to tear it from its hinges.</p> + +<p>"Oh, boy, boy!" came from the one who had waited; and then the carriage +door yielded, opened, closed with a crash, and the negro driver clucked +to his horses.</p> + +<p>They were half-way to the railroad station, and she was trying to +persuade him that there would be months and years in which to make up +for the loveless blank, before sane speech found its opportunity. And +even then there were interruptions.</p> + +<p>"I knew you'd be here; no, they didn't tell me, but I knew it—I would +have staked my life on it, Margery, girl," he said, in the first lucid +interval.</p> + +<p>"And you—you've paid the Price, haven't you, Kenneth? but, oh, boy, +dear! I've paid it, too! Don't you believe me?"</p> + +<p>There was another interruption, and because the carriage windows were +open, the negro driver grinned and confided a remark to his horses. Then +the transgressor began again.</p> + +<p>"Where are you taking me, Margery?—not that it makes any manner of +difference."</p> + +<p>"We are going by train to New Orleans, and this—this—very—evening we +are to be married, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> Mr. Galbraith's house. And Uncle Andrew is going +to give the bride away. It's all arranged."</p> + +<p>"And after?"</p> + +<p>"Afterward, we are going away—I don't know where. I just told dear old +Saint Andrew to buy the tickets to anywhere he thought would be nice, +and we'd go. I don't care where it is—do you? And when we get there, +I'll buy you a pen and some ink and paper, and you'll go on writing the +book, just as if nothing had happened. Say you will, boy, dear; <i>please</i> +say you will! And then I'll know that—the price—wasn't—too great."</p> + +<p>He was looking out of the carriage window when he answered her, across +to the levee and beyond it to the farther shore of the great river, and +his eyes were the eyes of a man who has seen of the travail of his soul +and is satisfied.</p> + +<p>"I shall never write that book, little girl. That story, and all the +mistakes that were going to the making of it, lie on the other side +of—the Price. But one day, please God, there shall be another and a +worthier one."</p> + +<p>"Yes—please God," she said; and the dark eyes were shining softly.</p> + +<div class="padding"> +<h3>THE END</h3> +</div> + + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">TITLES SELECTED FROM</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.</b></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently made +love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situation +complicates the romance.</span></p> + +<p>THE GAMBLERS. By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow. Illustrated by C. E. +Chambers.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men play for +big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits—or repudiate the +methods.</span></p> + +<p>CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis. Illustrated by Florence +Scovel Shinn and others.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans at home and +abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of relaxation.</span></p> + +<p>THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Clever, original presentations of present day social problems and the +best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess.</span></p> + +<p>THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. Illustrated. Handsomely colored +wrapper.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him during +the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovely +eyes of a Frenchwoman.</span></p> + +<p>THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will make +women realize the part that politics play—even in their romances.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</i></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;"><b>The Master's Violin</b></span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">By MYRTLE REED</span></p> + +<blockquote> + <div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/price4-5.jpg" width="112" height="150" + alt="Drawing of the book 'The Master's Violin'" + title="" /> + </div> + +<p>A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German +virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to +take as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for +technique, but not the soul of the artist. The youth has led the happy, +careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, +with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the +tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived +life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a +beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart +and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons +that life has to give—and his soul awakens.</p> + +<p>Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized or +discussed.</p> + +<hr style='width: 30%;' /> + +<p>If you have not read "<span class="smcap">Lavender and Old Lace</span>" by the same author, you +have a double pleasure in store—for these two books show Myrtle Reed in +her most delightful, fascinating vein—indeed they may be considered as +masterpieces of compelling interest.</p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</i></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK</span></p> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;"><b>The Prodigal Judge</b></span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">By VAUGHAN KESTER</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>This great novel—probably the most popular book in this country +to-day—is as human as a story from the pen of that great master of +"immortal laughter and immortal tears," Charles Dickens.</p> + +<p>The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial +wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with +that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor +peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals—very +exalted ones—but honors them in the breach rather than in the +observance.</p> + +<p>Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon +Mahaffy—fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublime +capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little +Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of +the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque +vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing +all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of this +delightful old vagabond.</p> + +<p>The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters +as surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinite +delight, while this story of Mr. Kester's is one of the finest examples +of American literary craftmanship.</p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</i></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">TITLES SELECTED FROM</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list</b></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS. By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by C. +Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and +she subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer +amusement.</span></p> + +<p>THE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a +yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls.</span></p> + +<p>THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of +love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is +stronger than worldly success.</span></p> + +<p>SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a +Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet +lead the young mistress into another romance.</span></p> + +<p>SHEILA VEDDER. By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, +strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as heroine. A +sequel to "Jan Vedder's Wife."</span></p> + +<p>JOHN WARD, PREACHER. By Margaret Deland.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a +powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful +wife to his own narrow creed.</span></p> + +<p>THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the +Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</i></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">TITLES SELECTED FROM</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.</b></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>THE SECOND WIFE. By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated by W. W. Fawcett. +Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four colors and gold.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in a wealthy +New York family involving the happiness of a beautiful young girl.</span></p> + +<p>TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White Illustrated by Howard +Chandler Christy.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town, +with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes a great sacrifice for +love.</span></p> + +<p>FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING. By Grace Miller White.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Frontispiece and wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Another story of "the storm country." Two beautiful children are +kidnapped from a wealthy home and appear many years after showing the +effects of a deep, malicious scheme behind their disappearance.</span></p> + +<p>THE LIGHTED MATCH. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R. F. +Schabelitz.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and falls in love +with an American man. There are ties that bind her to someone in her own +home, and the great plot revolves round her efforts to work her way out.</span></p> + +<p>MAUD BAXTER. By C. C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a +young man who had been impressed into English service during the +Revolution.</span></p> + +<p>THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman +of title. Developments of a startling character and a clever untangling +of affairs hold the reader's interest.</span></p> + +<p>THE PURPLE STOCKINGS. By Edward Salisbury Field Illustrated in colors; +marginal illustrations.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A young New York business man, his pretty sweetheart, his sentimental +stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in a +misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. +A story with a laugh on every page.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</i></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">TITLES SELECTED FROM</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.</b></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>THE SILENT CALL. By Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated with scenes from the +play.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The hero of this story is the Squaw Man's son. He has been taken to +England, but spurns conventional life for the sake of the untamed West +and a girl's pretty face.</span></p> + +<p>JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER. By George W. Cable.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A story of the pretty women and spirited men of the South. As fragrant +in sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as full of mystery and racial +troubles as any romance of "after the war" days.</span></p> + +<p>MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES. By E. W. Hornung.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">This engaging rascal is found helping a young cricket player out of the +toils of a money shark. Novel in plot, thrilling and amusing.</span></p> + +<p>FORTY MINUTES LATE. By F. Hopkinson Smith. Illustrated by S. M. Chase.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Delightfully human stories of every day happenings; of a lecturer's +laughable experience because he's late, a young woman's excursion into +the stock market, etc.</span></p> + +<p>OLD LADY NUMBER 31. By Louise Forsslund.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A heart-warming story of American rural life, telling of the adventures +of an old couple in an old folk's home, their sunny philosophical +acceptance of misfortune and ultimate prosperity.</span></p> + +<p>THE HUSBAND'S STORY. By David Graham Phillips.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A story that has given all Europe as well as all America much food for +thought. A young couple begin life in humble circumstances and rise in +worldly matters until the husband is enormously rich—the wife in the +most aristocratic European society—but at the price of their happiness.</span></p> + +<p>THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque descriptions of the stampede of gold +seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is +strikingly original.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</i></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">A FEW OF</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 150%;">GROSSET & DUNLAP'S</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;">Great Books at Little Prices</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>WHEN A MAN MARRIES. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. Illustrated by Harrison +Fisher and Mayo Bunker.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a visit +is due from his Aunt Selina, an elderly lady having ideas about things +quite apart from the Bohemian set in which her nephew is a shining +light. The way in which matters are temporarily adjusted forms the motif +of the story.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "Seven Days".</span></p> + +<p>THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG. By David Graham Phillips. +Illustrated.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and +social life in Washington. He attains power in politics, and a young +woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his education +in social amenities.</span></p> + +<p>"DOC." GORDON. By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman. Illustrated by Frank T. +Merrill.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Against the familiar background of American town life, the author +portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery. "Doc." +Gordon, the one physician of the place, Dr. Elliot, his assistant, a +beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter are all involved in +the plot. A novel of great interest.</span></p> + +<p>HOLY ORDERS. By Marie Corelli.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with society +people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful financiers and +others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in holy +orders"—problems that we are now struggling with in America.</span></p> + +<p>KATRINE. By Elinor Macartney Lane. With frontispiece.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly +birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and +the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one.</span></p> + +<p>THE FORTUNES OF FIFI. By Molly Elliot Seawell. Illustrated by T. de +Thulstrup.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon. Fifi, a +glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third +rate Parisian theatre. A story as dainty as a Watteau painting.</span></p> + +<p>SHE THAT HESITATES. By Harris Dickson. Illustrated by C. W. Relyea.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St. Petersburg +in the reign of Peter the Great, and then to New Orleans.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The hero is a French Soldier of Fortune, and the princess, who +hesitates—but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates +may be lost and yet saved.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;"><b>B. M. Bower's Novels</b></span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 150%;">Thrilling Western Romances</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>CHIP, OF THE FLYING U</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della +Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil +Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very +amusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher.</span></p> + +<p>THE HAPPY FAMILY</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen +jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we find +Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many lively +and exciting adventures.</span></p> + +<p>HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners +who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana +ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and +the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities.</span></p> + +<p>THE RANGE DWELLERS</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited +action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet +courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull +page.</span></p> + +<p>THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the +cowboys of the West, in search of "local color" for a new novel. "Bud" +Thurston learns many a lesson while following "the lure of the dim +trails" but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love.</span></p> + +<p>THE LONESOME TRAIL</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Weary" Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city +life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the +atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown +eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story.</span></p> + +<p>THE LONG SHADOW</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life of a +mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of +life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to +finish.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center">Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">THE NOVELS OF</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;"><b>WINSTON CHURCHILL</b></span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center">Skillful in plot, dramatic in episode, powerful and original in climax.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A. I. Keller and Kinneys.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A New England state is under the political domination of a railway and +Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes the moment when the cause of the people +against corporation greed is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, +to further his own interest in a political way, by taking up this cause.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The daughter of the railway president, with the sunny humor and shrewd +common sense of the New England girl, plays no small part in the +situation as well as in the life of the young attorney who stands so +unflinchingly for clean politics.</span></p> + +<p>THE CROSSING. Illus. by S. Adamson and L. Baylis.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie and the British fleet in the +harbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the +expedition of Clark and his handful of dauntless followers in Illinois, +the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +treasonable schemes builded against Washington and the Federal +Government.</span></p> + +<p>CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A deft blending of love and politics distinguishes this book. The author +has taken for his hero a New Englander, a crude man of the tannery, who +rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then surrendered all +for the love of a woman.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">It is a sermon on civic righteousness, and a love story of a deep +motive.</span></p> + +<p>THE CELEBRITY. An Episode.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities +between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman of the most blatant +type. The story is adorned with some character sketches more living than +pen work. It is the purest, keenest fun—no such piece of humor has +appeared for years: it is American to the core.</span></p> + +<p>THE CRISIS. Illus. by Howard Chandler Christy.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with splendid +power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that are +inspiring. The several scenes in the book in which Abraham Lincoln +figures must be read in their entirety for they give a picture of that +great, magnetic, lovable man, which has been drawn with evident +affection and exceptional success.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">THE NOVELS OF</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;"><b>GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON</b></span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>GRAUSTARK.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A story of love behind a throne, telling how a young American met a +lovely girl and followed her to a new and strange country. A thrilling, +dashing narrative.</span></p> + +<p>BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Beverly is a bewitching American girl who has gone to that stirring +little principality—Graustark—to visit her friend the princess, and +there has a romantic affair of her own.</span></p> + +<p>BREWSTER'S MILLIONS.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A young man is required to spend <i>one</i> million dollars in one year in +order to inherit <i>seven</i>. How he does it forms the basis of a lively +story.</span></p> + +<p>CASTLE CRANEYCROW.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The story revolves round the abduction of a young American woman, her +imprisonment in an old castle and the adventures created through her +rescue.</span></p> + +<p>COWARDICE COURT.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">An amusing social feud in the Adirondacks in which an English girl is +tempted into being a traitor by a romantic young American, forms the +plot.</span></p> + +<p>THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The story centers about the adopted daughter of the town marshal in a +western village. Her parentage is shrouded in mystery, and the story +concerns the secret that deviously works to the surface.</span></p> + +<p>THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The hero meets a princess in a far-away island among fanatically hostile +Musselmen. Romantic love making amid amusing situations and exciting +adventures.</span></p> + +<p>NEDRA.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A young couple elope from Chicago to go to London traveling as brother +and sister. They are shipwrecked and a strange mix-up occurs on account +of it.</span></p> + +<p>THE SHERRODS.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The scene is the Middle West and centers around a man who leads a double +life. A most enthralling novel.</span></p> + +<p>TRUXTON KING.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A handsome good natured young fellow ranges on the earth looking for +romantic adventures and is finally enmeshed in most complicated +intrigues in Graustark.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;"><b>LOUIS TRACY'S</b></span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.</b></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur +whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery.</span></p> + +<p>THE STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating +officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas.</span></p> + +<p>THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of +cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance.</span></p> + +<p>THE MESSAGE. Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a +buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops.</span></p> + +<p>THE PILLAR OF LIGHT.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with +exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants.</span></p> + +<p>THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE. With illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars +of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba.</span></p> + +<p>A SON OF THE IMMORTALS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a +pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne.</span></p> + +<p>THE WINGS OF THE MORNING.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A sort of Robinson Crusoe <i>redivivus</i> with modern settings and a very +pretty love story added. The hero and heroine, are the only survivors of +a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures on their desert island.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</i></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 120%;">THE NOVELS OF</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 200%;"><b>STEWART EDWARD WHITE</b></span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<blockquote> +<p>THE RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lajaren A. Hiller</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes +into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft" and comes into the +romance of his life.</span></p> + +<p>ARIZONA NIGHTS. Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life of the +ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece.</span></p> + +<p>THE BLAZED TRAIL. With illustrations by Thomas Fogarty.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who +blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines.</span></p> + +<p>THE CLAIM JUMPERS. A Romance.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the Black Hills +has a hard time of it, but "wins out" in more ways than one.</span></p> + +<p>CONJUROR'S HOUSE. Illustrated Theatrical Edition. Dramatized under the +title of "The Call of the North."</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Conjuror's House" is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor is +the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride on +this forbidden land.</span></p> + +<p>THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and their life is +treated could only belong to one who is in love with the forest and open +air. Based on fact.</span></p> + +<p>THE RIVERMAN. Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between +honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the +other.</span></p> + +<p>THE SILENT PLACES. Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine devotion, +and masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian and the instinct +of the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story.</span></p> + +<p>THE WESTERNERS.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the best American +novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no other book has done +in recent years.</span></p> + +<p>THE MYSTERY. In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams With +illustrations by Will Crawford.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The disappearance of three successive crews from the stout ship +"Laughing Lass" in mid-Pacific, is a mystery weird and inscrutable. In +the solution, there is a story of the most exciting voyage that man ever +undertook.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West</span> 26th <span class="smcap">St., New York</span></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<div class="padding"> +</div> + +<p class="bbox"> +<b>Transcriber's notes:</b><br /><br /> + +Page 337: missing closing quote fixed ("... or a silent mixer of trouble +medicine."")<br /><br /> + + +Page 434: opening quote moved to before long dash at start of paragraph +(""—And, though it is stolen money ...")<br /><br /> + +To reflect the character of this book all other instances of +hyphenation and spelling have been retained.</p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price, by Francis Lynde + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE *** + +***** This file should be named 19462-h.htm or 19462-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/6/19462/ + +Produced by Sam Whitehead, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Price + +Author: Francis Lynde + +Release Date: October 4, 2006 [EBook #19462] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE *** + + + + +Produced by Sam Whitehead, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE PRICE + +BY + +FRANCIS LYNDE + +AUTHOR OF +THE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN, ETC. + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +GROSSET & DUNLAP +PUBLISHERS + +Published by Arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons + + +COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +Published May, 1911 + +[Illustration] + + +To + +MR. LATHROP BROCKWAY BULLENE + +SOLE FRIEND OF MY BOYHOOD, WHO WILL RECALL BETTER +THAN ANY THE YOUTHFUL MORAL AND SOCIAL SEED-TIME +WHICH HAS LED TO THIS LATER HARVESTING OF CONCLUSION, +THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. AT CHAUDIERE'S 1 + + II. SPINDRIFT 9 + + III. THE RIGHT OF MIGHT 16 + + IV. _IO TRIUMPHE!_ 26 + + V. THE _BELLE JULIE_ 34 + + VI. THE DECK-HAND 44 + + VII. GOLD OF TOLOSA 53 + + VIII. THE CHAIN-GANG 59 + + IX. THE MIDDLE WATCH 68 + + X. QUICKSANDS 75 + + XI. THE ANARCHIST 84 + + XII. MOSES ICHTHYOPHAGUS 94 + + XIII. GRISWOLD EMERGENT 110 + + XIV. PHILISTIA 116 + + XV. THE GOTHS AND VANDALS 126 + + XVI. GOOD SAMARITANS 143 + + XVII. GROPINGS 154 + + XVIII. THE ZWEIBUND 165 + + XIX. LOSS AND GAIN 175 + + XX. THE CONVALESCENT 187 + + XXI. BROFFIN'S EQUATION 201 + + XXII. IN THE BURGLAR-PROOF 218 + + XXIII. CONVERGING ROADS 234 + + XXIV. THE FORWARD LIGHT 248 + + XXV. THE BRIDGE OF JEHENNAM 260 + + XXVI. PITFALLS 274 + + XXVII. IN THE SHADOWS 286 + + XXVIII. BROKEN LINKS 295 + + XXIX. ALL THAT A MAN HATH 312 + + XXX. THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES 332 + + XXXI. NARROWING WALLS 347 + + XXXII. THE LION'S SHARE 354 + + XXXIII. GATES OF BRASS 368 + + XXXIV. THE ABYSS 375 + + XXXV. MARGERY'S ANSWER 384 + + XXXVI. THE GRAY WOLF 396 + + XXXVII. THE QUALITY OF MERCY 408 + +XXXVIII. THE PENDULUM-SWING 416 + + XXXIX. DUST AND ASHES 428 + + XL. APPLES OF ISTAKHAR 438 + + XLI. THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 448 + + + + +THE PRICE + +I + +AT CHAUDIERE'S + + +In the days when New Orleans still claimed distinction as the only +American city without trolleys, sky-scrapers, or fast trains--was it +yesterday? or the day before?--there was a dingy, cobwebbed cafe in an +arcade off Camp Street which was well-beloved of newspaperdom; +particularly of that wing of the force whose activities begin late and +end in the small hours. + +"Chaudiere's," it was called, though I know not if that were the name of +the round-faced, round-bodied little Marseillais who took toll at the +desk. But all men knew the fame of its gumbo and its stuffed crabs, and +that its claret was neither very bad nor very dear. And if the walls +were dingy and the odors from the grille pungent and penetrating at +times, there went with the white-sanded floor, and the marble-topped +tables for two, an Old-World air of recreative comfort which is rarer +now, even in New Orleans, than it was yesterday or the day before. + +It was at Chaudiere's that Griswold had eaten his first breakfast in the +Crescent City; and it was at Chaudiere's again that he was sharing a +farewell supper with Bainbridge, of the _Louisianian_. Six weeks lay +between that and this; forty-odd days of discouragement and failure +superadded upon other similar days and weeks and months. The breakfast, +he remembered, had been garnished with certain green sprigs of hope; but +at the supper-table he ate like a barbarian in arrears to his appetite +and the garnishings were the bitter herbs of humiliation and defeat. + +Without meaning to, Bainbridge had been strewing the path with fresh +thorns for the defeated one. He had just been billeted for a run down +the Central American coast to write up the banana trade for his paper, +and he was boyishly jubilant over the assignment, which promised to be a +zestful pleasure trip. Chancing upon Griswold in the first flush of his +elation, he had dragged the New Yorker around to Chaudiere's to play +second knife and fork at a small parting feast. Not that it had required +much persuasion. Griswold had fasted for twenty-four hours, and he would +have broken bread thankfully with an enemy. And if Bainbridge were not a +friend in a purist's definition of the term, he was at least a friendly +acquaintance. + +Until the twenty-four-hour fast was in some measure atoned for, the +burden of the table-talk fell upon Bainbridge, who lifted and carried it +generously on the strength of his windfall. But no topic can be +immortal; and when the vacation under pay had been threshed out in all +its anticipatory details it occurred to the host that his guest was less +than usually responsive; a fault not to be lightly condoned under the +joyous circumstances. Wherefore he protested. + +"What's the matter with you to-night, Kenneth, old man? You're more than +commonly grumpy, it seems to me; and that's needless." + +Griswold took the last roll from the joint bread-plate and buttered it +methodically. + +"Am I?" he said. "Perhaps it is because I am more than commonly hungry. +But go on with your joy-talk: I'm listening." + +"That's comforting, as far as it goes; but I should think you might say +something a little less carefully polarized. You don't have a chance to +congratulate lucky people every day." + +Griswold looked up with a smile that was almost ill-natured, and quoted +cynically: "'Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have +abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that +which he hath.'" + +Bainbridge's laugh was tolerant enough to take the edge from his retort. + +"That's a pretty thing to fling at a man who never knifed you or +pistoled you or tried to poison you! An innocent by-stander might say +you envied me." + +"I do," rejoined Griswold gravely. "I envy any man who can earn enough +money to pay for three meals a day and a place to sleep in." + +"Oh, cat's foot!--anybody can do that," asserted Bainbridge, with the +air of one to whom the struggle for existence has been a mere athlete's +practice run. + +"I know; that is your theory. But the facts disprove it. I can't, for +one." + +"Oh, yes, you could, if you'd side-track some of your own theories and +come down to sawing wood like the rest of us. But you won't do that." + +Griswold was a fair man, with reddish hair and beard and the quick and +sensitive skin of the type. A red flush of anger crept up under the +closely cropped beard, and his eyes were bright. + +"That is not true, and you know it, Bainbridge," he contradicted, +speaking slowly lest his temper should break bounds. "Is it my fault, or +only my misfortune, that I can do nothing but write books for which I +can't find a publisher? Or that the work of a hack-writer is quite as +impossible for me as mine is for him?" + +Bainbridge scoffed openly; but he was good-natured enough to make amends +when he saw that Griswold was moved. + +"I take it all back," he said. "I suppose the book-chicken has come home +again to roost, and a returned manuscript accounts for anything. But +seriously, Kenneth, you ought to get down to bed-rock facts. Nobody but +a crazy phenomenon can find a publisher for his first book, nowadays, +unless he has had some sort of an introduction in the magazines or the +newspapers. You haven't had that; so far as I know, you haven't tried +for it." + +"Oh, yes, I have--tried and failed. It isn't in me to do the salable +thing, and there isn't a magazine editor in the country who doesn't know +it by this time. They've been decent about it. Horton was kind enough. +He covered two pages of a letter telling me why the stuff I sent from +here might fit one of the reviews and why it wouldn't fit his magazine. +But that is beside the mark. I tell you, Bainbridge, the conditions are +all wrong when a man with a vital message to his kind can't get to +deliver it to the people who want to hear it." + +Bainbridge ordered the small coffees and found his cigar case. + +"That is about what I suspected," he commented impatiently. "You +couldn't keep your peculiar views muzzled even when you were writing a +bit of a pot-boiler on sugar-planting. Which brings us back to the old +contention: you drop your fool socialistic fad and write a book that a +reputable publisher can bring out without committing commercial suicide, +and you'll stand some show. Light up and fumigate that idea awhile." + +Griswold took the proffered cigar half-absently, as he had taken the +last piece of bread. + +"It doesn't need fumigating; if I could consider it seriously it ought +rather to be burnt with fire. You march in the ranks of the well-fed, +Bainbridge, and it is your _metier_ to be conservative. I don't, and +it's mine to be radical." + +"What would you have?" demanded the man on the conservative side of the +table. "The world is as it is, and you can't remodel it." + +"There is where you make the mistake common to those who cry Peace, when +there is no peace," was the quick retort. "I, and my kind, can remodel +it, and some day, when the burden has grown too heavy to be borne, we +will. The aristocracy of rank, birth, feudal tyranny went down in fire +and blood in France a century ago: the aristocracy of money will go down +here, when the time is ripe." + +"That is good anarchy, but mighty bad ethics. I didn't know you had +reached that stage of the disease, Kenneth." + +"Call it what you please; names don't change facts. Listen"--Griswold +leaned upon the table; his eyes grew hard and the blue in them became +metallic--"For more than a month I have tramped the streets of this +cursed city begging--yes, that is the word--begging for work of any kind +that would suffice to keep body and soul together; and for more than +half of that time I have lived on one meal a day. That is what we have +come to; we of the submerged majority. And that isn't all. The +wage-worker himself, when he is fortunate enough to find a chance to +earn his crust, is but a serf; a chattel among the other possessions of +some fellow man who has acquired him in the plutocratic redistribution +of the earth and the fulness thereof." + +Bainbridge applauded in dumb show. + +"Turn it loose and ease the soul-sickness, old man," he said +indulgently. "I know things haven't been coming your way, lately. What +is your remedy?" + +Griswold was fairly started now, and ridicule was as fuel to the flame. + +"The money-gatherers have set us the example. They have made us +understand that might is right; that he who has may hold--if he can. The +answer is simple: there is enough and to spare for all, and it belongs +to all; to him who sows the seed and waters it, as well as to him who +reaps the harvest. That is a violent remedy, you will say. So be it: it +is the only one that will cure the epidemic of greed. There is an +alternative, but it is only theoretical." + +"And that?" + +"It may be summed up in seven words: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as +thyself.' When the man who employs--and rules--uses the power that money +gives him to succor his fellow man, the revolution will be indefinitely +postponed. But as I say, it's only a theory." + +Bainbridge glanced at his watch. + +"I must be going," he said. "The _Adelantado_ drops down the river at +eleven. But in passing I'll venture a little prophecy. You're down on +your luck now, and a bit hot-hearted in consequence; but some day you +will strike it right and come out on top. When you do, you'll be a hard +master; tattoo that on your arm somewhere so you'll be reminded of it." + +Griswold had risen with his entertainer, and he put his hands on the +table. + +"God do so to me, and more, if I am, Bainbridge," he said soberly. + +"That's all right: when the time comes, you just remember my little +fortune-telling stunt. But before we shake hands, let's get back to +concrete things for a minute or two. How are you fixed for the present, +and what are you going to do for the future?" + +Griswold's smile was not pleasant to look at. + +"I am 'fixed' to run twenty-four hours longer, thanks to your +hospitality. For that length of time I presume I shall continue to +conform to what we have been taught to believe is the immutable order of +things. After that----" + +He paused, and Bainbridge put the question. "Well, after that; what +then?" + +"Then, if the chance to earn it is still denied me, and I am +sufficiently hungry, I shall stretch forth my hand and take what I +need." + +Bainbridge fished in his pocket and took out a ten-dollar bank-note. "Do +that first," he said, offering Griswold the money. + +The proletary smiled and shook his head. + +"No; not to keep from going hungry--not even to oblige you, Bainbridge. +It is quite possible that I shall end by becoming a robber, as you +paraphrasers would put it, but I sha'n't begin on my friends. +Good-night, and a safe voyage to you." + + + + +II + +SPINDRIFT + + +The fruit steamer _Adelantado_, outward bound, was shuddering to the +first slow revolutions of her propeller when Bainbridge turned the key +in the door of the stuffy little state-room to which he had been +directed, and went on deck. + +The lines had been cast off and the ship was falling by imperceptible +inches away from her broadside berth at the fruit wharf. Bainbridge +heard the distance-softened clang of a gong; the tremulous murmur of the +screw became more pronounced, and the vessel forged ahead until the +current caught the outward-swinging prow. Five minutes later the +_Adelantado_ had circled majestically in mid-stream and was passing the +lights of the city in review as she steamed at half-speed down the +river. + +Bainbridge had no mind to go back to the stuffy state-room, late as it +was. Instead, he lighted a fresh cigar and found a chair on the port +side aft where he could sit and watch the lights wheel past in orderly +procession as the fruit steamer swept around the great crescent which +gives New Orleans its unofficial name. + +While the comfortable feeling of elation, born of his unexpected bit of +good fortune, was still uppermost to lend complacency to his +reflections, he yet found room for a compassionate underthought having +for its object the man from whom he had lately parted. He was honestly +sorry for Griswold; sorry, but not actually apprehensive. He had known +the defeated one in New York, and was not unused to his rebellious +outbursts against the accepted order of things. Granting that his +theories were incendiary and crudely subversive of all the civilized +conventions, Griswold the man was nothing worse than an impressionable +enthusiast; a victim of the auto-suggestion which seizes upon those who +dwell too persistently upon the wrongs of the wronged. + +So ran Bainbridge's epitomizing of the proletary's case; and he knew +that his opinion was shared with complete unanimity by all who had known +Griswold in Printing House Square. To a man they agreed in calling him +Utopian, altruistic, visionary. What milder epithets should be applied +to one who, with sufficient literary talent--not to say genius--to make +himself a working name in the ordinary way, must needs run amuck among +the theories and write a novel with a purpose? a novel, moreover, in +which the purpose so overshadowed the story as to make the book a mere +preachment. + +As a matter of course, the publishers would have nothing to do with the +book. Bainbridge remembered, with considerable satisfaction, that he had +confidently predicted its failure, and had given Griswold plentiful good +advice while it was in process of writing. But Griswold, being quite as +obstinate as he was impressionable, had refused to profit by the +advice, and now the consequences of his stubbornness were upon him. He +had said truly that his literary gift was novelistic and nothing else; +and here he was, stranded and desperate, with the moribund book on his +hands, and with no chance to write another even if he were so minded, +since one can not write fasting. + +Thus Bainbridge reflected, and was sorry that Griswold's invincible +pride had kept him from accepting a friendly stop-gap in his extremity. +Yet he smiled in spite of the regretful thought. It was amusing to +figure Griswold, who, as long as his modest patrimony had lasted had +been most emphatically a man not of the people, posing as an anarchist +and up in arms against the well-to-do world. None the less, he was to be +pitied. + +"Poor beggar! he is in the doldrums just now, and it isn't quite fair to +hold him responsible for what he says or thinks--or for what he thinks +he thinks," said the reporter, letting the thought slip into speech. +"Just the same, I wish I had made him take that ten-dollar bill. It +might have-- Why, hello, Broffin! How are you, old man? Where the +dickens did you drop from?" + +It was the inevitable steamer acquaintance who is always at hand to +prove the trite narrowness of the world, and Bainbridge kicked a chair +into comradely place for him. + +Broffin, heavy-browed and clean-shaven save for a thick mustache that +hid the hard-bitted mouth, replaced the chair to suit himself and sat +down. In appearance he was a cross between a steamboat captain on a +vacation, and an up-river plantation overseer recovering from his annual +pleasure trip to the city. But his reply to Bainbridge's query proved +that he was neither. + +"I didn't drop; I walked. More than that, I kept step with you all the +way from Chaudiere's to the levee. You'd be dead easy game for an +amateur." + +"You'll get yourself disliked, the first thing you know," said +Bainbridge, laughing. "Can't you ever forget that you are in the +man-hunting business?" + +"Yes; just as often, and for just as long, as you can forget that you +are in the news-hunting business." + +"Tally!" said Bainbridge, and he laughed again. After which they sat in +silence until the _Adelantado_ doubled the bend in the great river and +the last outposts of the city's lights disappeared, leaving only a +softened glow in the upper air to temper the velvety blackness of the +April night. The steamer had passed Chalmette when Broffin said: + +"Speaking of Chaudiere's reminds me: who was that fellow you were +telling good-by as you came out of the cafe? His face was as familiar as +a ship's figure-head, but I couldn't place him." + +The question coupled in automatically with the reporter's train of +thought; hence he answered it rather more fully and freely than he might +have at another time and under other conditions. From establishing +Griswold's identity for his fellow passenger, he slipped by easy stages +into the story of the proletary's ups and downs, climaxing it with a +vivid little word-painting of the farewell supper at Chaudiere's. + +"To hear him talk, you would size him up for a bloody-minded nihilist of +the thirty-third degree, ready and honing to sweep the existing order of +things into the farthest hence," he added. "But in reality he is one of +the finest fellows in the world, gone a fraction morbid over the +economic side of the social problem. He has a heart of gold, as I happen +to know. He used to spend a good bit of his time in the backwater, and +you know what the backwater of a big city will do to a man." + +"I couldn't hold my job if I didn't," was the reply. + +"That means that you know only half of it," Bainbridge asserted with +cheerful dogmatism. "You're thinking of the crooks it turns out, 'which +it is your nature to.' But Griswold wasn't looking for the crooks; he +was eternally and everlastingly breaking his heart over the sodden +miseries. One night he stumbled into a cellar somewhere down in the East +Side lower levels, looking for a fellow he had been trying to find work +for; a crippled 'longshoreman. When he got into the place he found the +man stiff and cold, the woman with the death rattle in her throat, and a +two-year-old baby creeping back and forth between the dead father and +the dying mother--starvation, you know, straight from the shoulder. They +say it doesn't happen; but it does." + +"Of course it does!" growled the listener. "_I_ know." + +"We all know; and most of us drop a little something into the hat and +pass on. But Griswold isn't built that way. He jumped into the breach +like a man and tried to save the mother. It was too late, and when the +woman died he took the child to his own eight-by-ten attic and nursed +and fed it until the missionary people took it off his hands. He did +that, mind you, when he was living on two meals a day, himself; and I'm +putting it up that he went shy on one of them to buy milk for that kid." + +"Holy Smoke!--and he calls himself an anarchist?" was the gruff comment. +"It's a howling pity there ain't a lot more just like him--what?" + +"That is what I say," Bainbridge agreed. Then, with a sudden twinge of +remorse for having told Griswold's story to a stranger, he changed the +subject with an abrupt question. + +"Where are you headed for, Broffin?" + +The man who might have passed for a steamboat captain or a plantation +overseer, and was neither, chuckled dryly. + +"You don't expect me to give it away to you, and you a newspaper man, do +you? But I will--seeing you can't get it on the wires. I'm going down to +Guatemala after Mortsen." + +"The Crescent Bank defaulter? By Jove! you've found him at last, have +you?" + +The detective nodded. "It takes a good while, sometimes, but I don't +fall down very often when there's enough money in it to make the game +worth the candle. I've been two years, off and on, trying to locate +Mortsen: and now that I've found him, he is where he can't be +extradited. All the same, I'll bet you five to one he goes back with me +in the next steamer--what? Have a new smoke. No? Then let's go and turn +in; it's getting late in the night." + + + + +III + +THE RIGHT OF MIGHT + + +Two days after the supper at Chaudiere's and the clearing of the fruit +steamer _Adelantado_ for the banana coast, or, more specifically, in the +forenoon of the second day, the unimpetuous routine of the business +quarter of New Orleans was rudely disturbed by the shock of a genuine +sensation. + +To shatter at a single blow the most venerable of the routine +precedents, the sensational thing chose for its colliding point with +orderly system one of the oldest and most conservative of the city's +banks: the Bayou State Security. At ten o'clock, following the precise +habit of half a lifetime, Mr. Andrew Galbraith, president of the Bayou +State, entered his private room in the rear of the main banking +apartment, opened his desk, and addressed himself to the business of the +day. Punctually at ten-five, the stenographer, whose desk was in the +anteroom, brought in the mail; five minutes later the cashier entered +for his morning conference with his superior; and at half-past the hour +the president was left alone to read his correspondence. + +Being a man whose mental processes were all serious, and whose hobby was +method, Mr. Galbraith had established a custom of giving himself a +quiet half-hour of inviolable seclusion in which to read and consider +his mail. During this sacred interval the stenographer, standing guard +in the outer office, had instructions to deny his chief to callers of +any and every degree. Wherefore, when, at twenty minutes to eleven, the +door of the private office opened to admit a stranger, the president was +justly annoyed. + +"Well, sir; what now?" he demanded, impatiently, taking the intruder's +measure in a swift glance shot from beneath his bushy white eyebrows. + +The unannounced visitor was a young man of rather prepossessing +appearance, a trifle tall for his breadth of shoulder, fair, with blue +eyes and a curling reddish beard and mustache, the former trimmed to a +point. So much the president was able to note in the appraisive +glance--and to remember afterward. + +The caller made no reply to the curt question. He had turned and was +closing the door. There was a quiet insistence in the act that was like +the flick of a whip to Mr. Galbraith's irritation. + +"If you have business with me, you'll have to excuse me for a few +minutes," he protested, still more impatiently. "Be good enough to take +a seat in the anteroom until I ring. MacFarland should have told you." + +The young man drew up a chair and sat down, ignoring the request as if +he had failed to hear it. Ordinarily Mr. Andrew Galbraith's temper was +equable enough; the age-cooled temper of a methodical gentleman whose +long upper lip was in itself an advertisement of self-control. But such +a deliberate infraction of his rules, coupled with the stony impudence +of the visitor, made him spring up angrily to ring for the watchman. + +The intruder was too quick for him. When his hand sought the bell-push +he found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver, and so was fain +to fall back into his chair, gasping. + +"Ah-h-h!" he stammered. And when the words could be managed: "So that's +it, is it?--you're a robber!" + +"No," said the invader of the presidential privacies calmly, speaking +for the first time since his incoming. "I am not a robber, save in your +own very limited definition of the word. I am merely a poor man, Mr. +Galbraith--one of the uncounted thousands--and I want money. If you call +for help, I shall shoot you." + +"You--you'd murder me?" The president's large-jointed hands were +clutching the arms of the pivot-chair, and he was fighting manfully for +courage and presence of mind to cope with the terrifying emergency. + +"Not willingly, I assure you: I have as great a regard for human life as +you have--but no more. You would kill me this moment in self-defence, if +you could: I shall most certainly kill you if you attempt to give an +alarm. On the other hand, if you prove reasonable and obedient your life +is not in danger. It is merely a question of money, and if you are +amenable to reason----" + +"If I'm--but I'm not amenable to your reasons!" blustered the president, +recovering a little from the first shock of terrified astoundment. "I +refuse to listen to them. I'll not have anything to do with you. Go +away!" + +The young man's smile showed his teeth, but it also proved that he was +not wholly devoid of the sense of humor. + +"Keep your temper, Mr. Galbraith," he advised coolly. "The moment is +mine, and I say you shall listen first and obey afterward. Otherwise you +die. Which is it to be? Choose quickly--time is precious." + +The president yielded the first point, that of the receptive ear; but +grudgingly and as one under strict compulsion. + +"Well, well, then; out with it. What have you to say for yourself?" + +"This: You are rich: you represent the existing order of things. I am +poor, and I stand for my necessity, which is higher than any man-made +law or custom. You have more money than you can possibly use in any +legitimate personal channels: I have not the price of the next meal, +already twenty-four hours overdue. I came here this morning with my life +in my hand to invite you to share with me a portion of that which is +yours chiefly by the right of possession. If you do it, well and good: +if not, there will be a new president of the Bayou State Security. Do I +make myself sufficiently explicit?" + +Andrew Galbraith glanced furtively at the paper-weight clock on his +desk. It was nearly eleven, and MacFarland would surely come in on the +stroke of the hour. If he could only fend off the catastrophe for a few +minutes, until help should come. He searched in his pockets and drew +forth a handful of coins. + +"You say you are hungry: I'm na that well off that I canna remember the +time when I knew what it was to be on short commons, mysel'," he said; +and the unconscious lapse into the mother idiom was a measure of his +perturbation. "Take this, now, and be off wi' you, and we'll say no more +about it." + +The invader of privacies glanced at the clock in his turn and shook his +head. + +"You are merely trying to gain time, and you know it, Mr. Galbraith. My +stake in this game is much more than a handful of charity silver; and I +don't do you the injustice to believe that you hold your life so +cheaply; you who have so much money and, at best, so few years to live." + +The president put the little heap of coins on the desk, but he did not +abandon the struggle for delay. + +"What's your price, then?" he demanded, as one who may possibly consider +a compromise. + +"One hundred thousand dollars--in cash." + +"But man! ye're clean daft! Do ye think I have----" + +"I am not here to argue," was the incisive interruption. "Take your pen +and fill out a check payable to your own order for one hundred thousand +dollars, and do it now. If that door opens before we have concluded, you +are a dead man!" + +At this Andrew Galbraith saw that the end was nigh and gathered himself +for a final effort at time-killing. It was absurd; he had no such +balance to his personal credit; such a check would not be honored; it +would be an overdraft, and the teller would very properly-- In the midst +of his vehement protests the stranger sprang out of his chair, stepped +back a pace and raised his weapon. + +"Mr. Galbraith, you are juggling with your life! Write that check while +there is yet time!" + +A sound of subdued voices came from the anteroom, and the beleaguered +old man stole a swift upward glance at the face of his persecutor. There +was no mercy in the fierce blue eyes glaring down upon him; neither +compassion nor compunction, but rather madness and fell murder. The +summons came once again. + +"Do it quickly, I say, before we are interrupted. Do you hear?" + +Truly, the president both heard and understood; yet he hesitated one +other second. + +"You will not? Then may God have mercy----" + +The hammer of the levelled pistol clicked. Andrew Galbraith shut his +eyes and made a blind grasp for pen and check-book. His hands were +shaking as with a palsy, but the fear of death steadied them suddenly +when he came to write. + +"Indorse it!" was the next command. The voices had ceased beyond the +partition, and the dead silence was relieved only by the labored +strokes of the president's pen and the tap-tap of the typewriter in the +adjacent anteroom. + +The check was written and indorsed, and under the menace of the revolver +Andrew Galbraith was trying to give it to the robber. But the robber +would not take it. + +"No, I don't want your paper: come with me to your paying teller and get +me the money. Make what explanation you see fit; but remember--if he +hesitates, you die." + +They left the private office together, the younger man a short half-step +in the rear, with his pistol-bearing hand thrust under his coat. +MacFarland, the stenographer, was at his desk in the corner of the +anteroom. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the unwonted thing, the +president's forthfaring with a stranger who had somehow gained access to +the private room during the sacred half-hour, would have made him look +up and wonder. But this was the hundredth time, and Andrew Galbraith's +anxious glance aside was wasted upon MacFarland's back. + +Still the president did not despair. In the public lobby there would be +more eyes to see, and perhaps some that would understand. Mr. Galbraith +took a firmer hold upon his self-possession and trusted that some happy +chance might yet intervene to save him. + +But chance did not intervene. There was a goodly number of customers in +the public space, but not one of the half-dozen or more who nodded to +the president or passed the time of day with him saw the eye-appeal +which was the only one he dared to make. On the short walk around to the +paying teller's window, the robber kept even step with his victim, and +try as he would, Andrew Galbraith could not summon the courage to forget +the pistol muzzle menacing him in its coat-covered ambush. + +At the paying wicket there was only one customer, instead of the group +the president had hoped to find; a sweet-faced young woman in a modest +travelling hat and a gray coat. She was getting a draft cashed, and when +she saw them she would have stood aside. It was the robber who +anticipated her intention and forbade it with a courteous gesture; +whereat she turned again to the window to conclude her small transaction +with the teller. + +The few moments which followed were terribly trying ones for the +gray-haired president of the Bayou State Security. None the less, his +brain was busy with the chanceful possibilities. Failing all else, he +was determined to give the teller a warning signal, come what might. It +was a duty owed to society no less than to the bank and to himself. But +on the pinnacle of resolution, at the instant when, with the robber at +his elbow, he stepped to the window and presented the check, Andrew +Galbraith felt the gentle pressure of the pistol muzzle against his +side; nay, more; he fancied he could feel the cold chill of the metal +strike through and through him. + +So it came about that the fine resolution had quite evaporated when he +said, with what composure there was in him: "You'll please give me +currency for that, Johnson." + +The teller glanced at the check and then at his superior; not too +inquisitively, since it was not his business to question the president's +commands. + +"How will you have it?" he asked; and it was the stranger at Mr. +Galbraith's elbow who answered. + +"One thousand in fives, tens, and twenties, loose, if you please; the +remainder in the largest denominations, put up in a package." + +The teller counted out the one thousand in small notes quickly; but he +had to leave the cage and go to the vault for the huge remainder. This +was the crucial moment of peril for the robber, and the president, +stealing a glance at the face of his persecutor, saw the blue eyes +blazing with excitement. + +"It is your time to pray, Mr. Galbraith," said the spoiler in low tones. +"If you have given your man the signal----" + +But the signal had not been given. The teller was re-entering the cage +with the bulky packet of money-paper. + +"You needn't open it," said the young man at the president's elbow. "The +bank's count is good enough for me." And when the window wicket had been +unlatched and the money passed out, he stuffed the loose bills +carelessly into his pocket, put the package containing the ninety-nine +thousand dollars under his arm, nodded to the president, backed swiftly +to the street door and vanished. + +Then it was that Mr. Andrew Galbraith suddenly found speech, opening +his thin lips and pouring forth a torrent of incoherence which presently +got itself translated into a vengeful hue and cry; and New Orleans the +unimpetuous had its sensation ready-made. + + + + +IV + +_IO TRIUMPHE!_ + + +If Kenneth Griswold, backing out of the street door of the Bayou State +Security and vanishing with his booty, had been nothing more than a +professional "strong-arm man," he would probably have been taken and +jailed within the hour, if only for the reason that his desperate cast +for fortune included no well-wrought-out plan of escape. But since he +was at once both wiser and less cunning than the practised bank robber, +he threw his pursuers off the scent by an expedient in which artlessness +and daring quite beyond the gifts of the journeyman criminal played +equal parts. + +Once safely in the street, with a thousand dollars in his pocket and the +packet of bank-notes under his arm, he was seized by an impulse to do +some extravagant thing to celebrate his success. It had proved to be +such a simple matter, after all: one bold stroke; a tussle, happily +bloodless, with the plutocratic dragon whose hold upon his treasure was +so easily broken; and presto! the hungry proletary had become himself a +power in the world, strong to do good or evil, as the gods might direct. + +This was the prompting to exultation as it might have been set in words; +but in Griswold's thought it was but a swift suggestion, followed +instantly by another which was much more to the immediate purpose. He +was hungry: there was a restaurant next door to the bank. Without +thinking overmuch of the risk he ran, and perhaps not at all of the +audacious subtlety of such an expedient at such a critical moment, he +went in, sat down at one of the small marble-topped tables, and calmly +ordered breakfast. + +Since hunger is a lusty special pleader, making itself heard above any +pulpit drum of the higher faculties, it is quite probable that Griswold +dwelt less upon what he had done than upon what he was about to eat, +until the hue and cry in the street reminded him that the chase was +begun. But at this, not to appear suspiciously incurious, he put on the +mask of indifferent interest and asked the waiter concerning the uproar. + +The serving man did not know what had happened, but he would go and find +out, if M'sieu' so desired. "M'sieu'" said breakfast first, by all +means, and information afterward. Both came in due season; and the +hungry one ate while he listened. + +Transmuted into the broken English of the Gascon serving man, the story +of the robbery lost nothing in its sensational features. + +"Ah! w'at you t'ink, M'sieu'? De bank on de nex' do' is been rob'!" And +upon this theme excited volubility descanted at large. The bank had been +surrounded by a gang of desperate men, with every exit guarded, while +the leader, a masked giant armed to the teeth, had compelled the +president at the muzzle of a pistol to pay a ransom of fifty--one +hundred--five hundred thousand dollars! With the money in hand the gang +had vanished, the masked giant firing the pistol at M'sieu' the +president as he went. Cross-examined, the waiter could not affirm +positively as to the shot. But as for the remaining details there could +be no doubt. + +Griswold ordered a second cup of coffee, and while the waiter was +bringing it, conscience--not the newly acquired conscience, but the +conventional--bent its bow and sped its final arrow. It was suddenly +brought home to the enthusiast with sharp emphasis that to all civilized +mankind, save and excepting those few chosen ones who shared his +peculiar convictions, he was a common thief, a bandit, an outlaw. Public +opinion, potential or expressed, is at best but an intangible thing. But +for a few tumultuous seconds Griswold writhed under the ban of it as if +it had been a whip of scorpions. Then he smiled to think how strong the +bonds of custom had grown; and at the smile conscience flung away its +empty quiver. + +Now it was over, however, the enthusiast was rather grateful for the +chastening. It served to remind him afresh of his mission. This money +which he had just wrested from the claws of the plutocratic dragon must +be held as a sacred trust; it must be devoted scrupulously to the cause +of the down-trodden and the oppressed. Precisely how it was to be +applied he had not yet determined; but that could be decided later. + +Meanwhile, it was very evident that the dragon did not intend to accept +defeat without a struggle, and Griswold set his wits at work upon the +problem of escape. + +"It's a little queer that I hadn't thought of that part of it before," +he mused, sipping his coffee as one who need not hasten until the race +is actually begun. "I suppose the other fellow, the real robber, would +have figured himself safely out of it--or would have thought he +had--before he made the break. Since I did not, I've got it to do now, +and there isn't much time to throw away. Let me see--" he shut his eyes +and went into the inventive trance of the literary craftsman--"the +keynote must be originality; I must do that which the other fellow would +never think of doing." + +On the strength of that decision he ventured to order a third cup of +coffee, and before it had cooled he had outlined a plan, basing it upon +a further cross-questioning of the Gascon waiter. The man had been to +the street door again, and by this time the sidewalk excitement had +subsided sufficiently to make room for an approach to the truth. The +story of an armed band surrounding the bank had been a canard. There had +been but one man concerned in the robbery, and the sidewalk gossip was +beginning to describe him with discomforting accuracy. + +Griswold paid his score and went out boldly and with studied +nonchalance. He reasoned that, notwithstanding the growing accuracy of +the street report, he was still in no immediate danger so long as he +remained in such close proximity to the bank. It was safe to assume that +this was one of the things the professional "strong-arm man" would not +do. But it was also evident that he must speedily lose his identity if +he hoped to escape; and the lost identity must leave no clew to itself. + +Griswold smiled when he remembered how, in fiction of the felon-catching +sort, and in real life, for that matter, the law-breaker always did +leave a clew for the pursuers. Thereupon arose a determination to +demonstrate practically that it was quite as possible to create an +inerrant fugitive as to conceive an infallible detective. Joining the +passers-by on the sidewalk, he made his way leisurely to Canal Street, +and thence diagonally through the old French quarter toward the French +Market. In a narrow alley giving upon the levee he finally found what he +was looking for; a dingy sailors' barber's shop. The barber was a negro, +fat, unctuous and sleepy-looking; and he was alone. + +"Yes, sah; shave, boss?" asked the negro, bowing and scraping a foot +when Griswold entered. + +"No; a hair-cut." The customer produced a silver half-dollar. "Go +somewhere and get me a cigar to smoke while you are doing it. Get a good +one, if you have to go to Canal Street," he added, climbing into the +rickety chair. + +The fat negro shuffled out, scenting tips. The moment he was out of +sight, Griswold took up the scissors and began to hack awkwardly at his +beard and mustache; awkwardly, but swiftly and with well-considered +purpose. The result was a fairly complete metamorphosis easily wrought. +In place of the trim beard and curling mustache there was a rough +stubble, stiff and uneven, like that on the face of a man who had +neglected to shave for a week or two. + +"There, I think that will answer," he told himself, standing back before +the cracked looking-glass to get the general effect. "And it is decently +original. The professional cracksman would probably have shaved, +whereupon the first amateur detective he met would reconstruct the beard +on the sunburned lines. Now for a pawnbroker; and the more avaricious he +happens to be, the better he will serve the purpose." + +He went to the door and looked up and down the alley. The negro was not +yet in sight, and Griswold walked rapidly away in the direction opposite +to that taken by the obliging barber. + +A pawnbroker's shop of the kind required was not far to seek in that +locality, and when it was found, Griswold drove a hard bargain with the +Portuguese Jew behind the counter. The pledge he offered was the suit he +was wearing, and the bargaining concluded in an exchange of the still +serviceable business suit for a pair of butternut trousers, a +second-hand coat too short in the sleeves, a flannel shirt, a cap, and a +red handkerchief; these and a sum of ready money, the smallness of which +he deplored piteously before he would consent to accept it. + +The effect of the haggling was exactly what Griswold had prefigured. The +Portuguese, most suspicious of his tribe, suspecting everything but the +truth, flatly accused his customer of having stolen the pledge. And when +Griswold departed without denying the charge, suspicion became +conviction, and the pledged clothing, which might otherwise have given +the police the needed clew, was carefully hidden away against a time +when the Jew's apprehensions should be quieted. + +Having thus disguised himself, Griswold made the transformation +artistically complete by walking a few squares in the dust of a loaded +cotton float on the levee. Then he made a tramp's bundle of the +manuscript of the moribund book, the pistol, and the money in the red +handkerchief; and having surveyed himself with some satisfaction in the +bar mirror of a riverside pot-house, a daring impulse to test his +disguise by going back to the restaurant where he had breakfasted seized +and bore him up-town. + +The experiment was an unqualified success. The proprietor of the +bank-neighboring cafe not only failed to recognize him; he was driven +forth with revilings in idiomatic French and broken English. + +"_Bete!_ Go back on da levee w'ere you belong to go. I'll been kipping +dis cafe for zhentlemen! _Scelerat!_ Go!" + +Griswold went out, smiling between his teeth. + +"That settles the question of identification and present safety," he +assured himself exultantly. Then: "I believe I could walk into the +Bayou State Security and not be recognized." + +As before, the daring impulse was irresistible, and he gave place to it +on the spur of the moment. Fouling a five-dollar bill in the mud of the +gutter, he went boldly into the bank and asked the paying teller to give +him silver for it. The teller sniffed at the money, scowled at the man, +and turned back to his cash-book without a word. Griswold's smile grew +to an inward laugh when he reached the street. + +"The dragon may have teeth and claws, but it can neither see nor smell," +he said, contemptuously, turning his steps riverward again. "Now I have +only to choose my route and go in peace. How and where are the only +remaining questions to be answered." + + + + +V + +THE _BELLE JULIE_ + + +For an hour or more after his return to the river front, Griswold idled +up and down the levee; and the end of the interval found him still +undecided as to the manner and direction of his flight--to say nothing +of the choice of a destination, which was even more evasive than the +other and more immediately pressing decision. + +It was somewhere in the midst of the reflective hour that the elate +triumph of success began to give place to the inevitable reaction. The +partition which stands upon the narrow dividing line between vagrancy +and crime is but a paper wall, and any hot-hearted insurrectionary may +break through it at will. But to accept the conditions of vagrancy one +must first embrace the loathsome thing itself. Griswold remembered the +glimpse he had had of himself in the bar mirror of the pot-house, and +the chains of his transformed identity began to gall him. It was to +little purpose that he girded at his compunctions, telling himself that +he was only playing a necessary part; that one needs must when the devil +drives. Custom, habit, convention, or whatever it may be which +differentiates between the law-abiding and the lawless, would have its +say; and from railing bitterly against the social conditions which made +his act at once a necessity and a crime, he began to feel a prickling +disgust for the subterfuges to which the crime had driven him. + +Moreover, there was a growing fear that he might not always be able to +play consistently the double role whose lines were already becoming +intricate and confusing. To be true to his ideals, he must continue to +be in utter sincerity Griswold the brother-loving. That said itself. But +on the other hand, to escape the consequences of his act, he must hold +himself in instant readiness to be in savage earnest what a common thief +would be in similar straits; a thing of duplicity and double meanings +and ferocity, alert to turn and slay at any moment in the battle of +self-preservation. + +He had thought that the supreme crisis was passed when, earlier in the +day, he had pawned the last of his keepsakes for the money to buy the +revolver. But he had yet to learn that there is no supreme crisis in the +human span, save that which ends it; that all the wayfaring duels with +fate are inconclusive; conflicts critical enough at the moment, but +lacking finality, and likely to be renewed indefinitely if one lives +beyond them. + +He was confronting another of the false climaxes in the hour of aimless +wanderings on the river front. More than once he was tempted to buy back +his lost identity at any price. Never before had he realized what a +precious possession is the fearlessness of innocency; weighed against +it, the thick packet of bank-notes in the tramp's bundle, and all that +it might stand for, were as air-blown bubbles to refined gold. Yet he +would not go back; he could not go back. To restore the money would be +more than a confession of failure; it would be an abject recantation--a +flat denial of every article of his latest social creed, and a plunge +into primordial chaos in the matter of theories, out of which he could +emerge only as a criminal in fact. + +When the conflict of indetermination became altogether insupportable, he +put it aside with the resolution which was the strong thread in the +loosely twisted warp of his character and forced himself to think +concretely toward a solution of the problem of flight. The possession of +the money made all things possible--in any field save the +theoretical--and the choice of dwelling or hiding-places seemed +infinite. + +His first thought had been to go back to New York. But there the risk of +detection would be greater than elsewhere, and he decided that there was +no good reason why he should incur it. Besides, he argued, there were +other fields in which the sociological studies could be pursued under +conditions more favorable than those to be found in a great city. In his +mind's eye he saw himself domiciled in some thriving interior town, +working and studying among people who were not unindividualized by an +artificial environment. In such a community theory and practice might go +hand in hand; he could know and be known; and the money at his command +would be vastly more of a moulding and controlling influence than it +could possibly be in the smallest of circles in New York. The picture, +struck out upon the instant, pleased him, and having sufficiently +idealized it, he adopted it enthusiastically as an inspiration, leaving +the mere geographical detail to arrange itself as chance, or subsequent +events, might determine. + +That part of the problem disposed of, there yet remained the choice of a +line of flight; and it was a small thing that finally decided the manner +of his going. For the third time in the hour of aimless wanderings he +found himself loitering opposite the berth of the _Belle Julie_, an +up-river steamboat whose bell gave sonorous warning of the approaching +moment of departure. Toiling roustabouts, trailing in and out like an +endless procession of human ants, were hurrying the last of the cargo +aboard. Griswold stood to look on. The toilers were negroes, most of +them, but with here and there among the blacks and yellows a paler face +so begrimed with sweat and dust as to be scarcely distinguishable from +the majority. The sight moved Griswold, as thankless toil always did; +and he fell to contrasting the hard lot of the laborers with that of the +group of passengers looking on idly from the comfortable shade of the +saloon-deck awning. Griswold's thought vocalized itself in compassionate +musings. + +"Poor devils! They've been told that they are freemen, and perhaps they +believe it. But surely no slave of the Toulon galleys was ever in +bitterer bondage.... Free?--yes, free to toil and sweat, to bear +burdens and to be driven like cattle under the yoke! Oh, good +Lord!--look at that!" + +The ant procession had attacked the final tier of boxes in the lading, +and one of the burden-bearers, a white man, had stumbled and fallen like +a crushed pack-animal under a load too heavy for him. Griswold was +beside him in a moment. The man could not rise, and Griswold dragged him +not untenderly out of the way of the others. + +"Why didn't you stand from under and let it drop?" he demanded gruffly, +as an offset to the womanish tenderness; but when the man gasped for +breath and groaned, he took another tone: "Where are you hurt?" + +The crushed one sat up and spat blood. + +"I don't know: inside, somewheres. I been dyin' on my feet any time for +a year or two back." + +"Consumption?" queried Griswold, briefly. + +"I reckon so." + +"Then you have no earthly business in a deck crew. Don't you know that?" + +The man's smile was a ghastly face-wrinkling. + +"Reckon I hain't got any business anywheres--out'n a horspital or a hole +in the ground. But I kind o' thought I'd like to be planted 'longside +the woman and the childer, if I could make out some way to git there." + +"Where?" + +The consumptive named a small river town in Iowa. + +"And you were going to work your passage on the boat?" + +"I was allowin' to try for it. But I reckon I'm done up, now." + +In Griswold impulse was the dominant chord always struck by an appeal to +his sympathies. His compassion went straight to the mark, as it was sure +to do when his pockets were not empty. + +"What is the fare by rail to your town?" he inquired. + +"I don't know: I never asked. Somewheres between twenty and thirty +dollars, I reckon; and that's more money than I've seen sence the woman +died." + +Griswold hastily counted out a hundred dollars from his pocket fund and +thrust the money into the man's hand. + +"Take that and change places with me," he commanded, slipping on the +mask of gruffness again. "Pay your fare on the train, and I'll take your +job on the boat. Don't be a fool!" he added, when the man put his face +in his hands and began to choke. "It's a fair enough exchange, and I'll +get as much out of it one way as you will the other. What is your name? +I may have to borrow it." + +"Gavitt--John Wesley Gavitt." + +"All right; off with you," said the liberator, curtly; and with that he +shouldered the sick man's load and fell into line in the ant procession. + +Once on board the steamer, he followed his file-leader aft and made it +his first care to find a safe hiding-place for the tramp's bundle in +the knotted handkerchief. That done, he stepped into the line again, and +became the sick man's substitute in fact. + +Inured to hard living as he was, the substitute roustabout had made no +more than a half-dozen rounds between the levee and the cargo-deck of +the _Belle Julie_ before he was glad to note that the steamer's lading +was all but completed. It was toil of the shrewdest, and he drew breath +of blessed relief when the last man staggered up the plank with his +burden. The bell was clanging its final summons, and the slowly +revolving paddle-wheels were taking the strain from the mooring lines. +Being near the bow line Griswold was one of the two who sprang ashore at +the mate's bidding to cast off. He was backing the hawser out of the +last of its half-hitches when a carriage was driven rapidly down to the +stage and two tardy passengers hurried aboard. The mate bawled from his +station on the hurricane-deck. + +"Now, then! Take a turn on that spring line out there and get them +trunks aboard! Lively!" + +The larger of the two trunks fell to the late recruit; and when he had +set it down at the door of the designated state-room, he did +half-absently what John Gavitt might have done without blame: read the +tacked-on card, which bore the owner's name and address, written in a +firm round hand: "Charlotte Farnham, Wahaska, Minnesota." + +"Thank you," said a musical voice at his elbow. "May I trouble you to +put it inside?" + +Griswold wheeled as if the mild-toned request had been a blow, and was +properly ashamed. But when he saw the speaker, consternation promptly +slew all the other emotions. For the owner of the tagged trunk was the +young woman to whom, an hour or so earlier, he had given place at the +paying teller's wicket in the Bayou State Security. + +She saw his confusion, charged it to the card-reading at which she had +surprised him, and smiled. Then he met her gaze fairly and became sane +again when he was assured that she did not recognize him: became sane, +and whipped off his cap, and dragged the trunk into the state-room. +After which he went to his place on the lower deck with a great +thankfulness throbbing in his heart and an inchoate resolve shaping +itself in his brain. + +Late that night, when the _Belle Julie_ was well on her way up the great +river, he flung himself down upon the sacked coffee on the engine-room +guard to snatch a little rest between landings, and the resolve became +sufficiently cosmic to formulate itself in words. + +"I'll call it an oracle," he mused. "One place is as good as another, +just so it is inconsequent enough. And I am sure I've never heard of +Wahaska." + +Now Griswold the social rebel was, before all things else, Griswold the +imaginative literary craftsman; and no sooner was the question of his +ultimate destination settled thus arbitrarily than he began to prefigure +the place and its probable lacks and havings. This process brought him +by easy stages to pleasant idealizings of Miss Charlotte Farnham, who +was, thus far, the only tangible thing connected with the +destination-dream. A little farther along her personality laid hold of +him and the idealizings became purely literary. + +"She is a magnificently strong type!" was his summing up of her, made +while he was lying flat on his back and staring absently at the flitting +shadows among the deck beams overhead. "Her face is as readable as only +the face of a woman instinctively good and pure in heart can be. Any man +who can put her between the covers of a book may put anything else he +pleases in it and snap his fingers at the world. If I am going to live +in the same town with her, I ought to jot her down on paper before I +lose the keen edge of the first impression." + +He considered it for a moment, and then got up and went in search of a +pencil and a scrap of paper. The dozing night clerk gave him both, with +a sleepy malediction thrown in; and he went back to the engine-room and +scribbled his word-picture by the light of the swinging incandescent. + +"Character-study: Young woman of the type Western Creole; not the +daughter of aliens, but born in the West, of parents who have migrated +from one of the older States. (I'll hazard that much as a guess.) + +"_Detail_: Titian blonde, with hair like spun bronze; the complexion +which neither freckles nor tans; cool gray eyes with underdepths in them +that no man but her lover may ever quite fathom; a figure which would +be statuesque if it were not altogether human and womanly; features cast +in the Puritan mould, with the lines of character well emphasized; lips +that would be passionate but for--no, lips that _will_ be passionate +when the hour and the man arrive. A soul strong in the strength of +transparent purity, which would send her to the stake for a principle, +or to the Isle of Lepers with her lover. A typical heroine for a story +in which the hero is a man who might need to borrow a conscience." + +He read it over thoughtfully when it was finished, changing a word here +and a phrase there with a craftsman's fidelity to the exactnesses. Then +he shook his head regretfully and tore the scrap of paper into tiny +squares, scattering them upon the brown flood surging past the +engine-room gangway. + +"It won't do," he confessed reluctantly, as one who sacrifices good +literary material to a stern sense of the fitness of things. "It is +nothing less than a cold-blooded sacrilege. I can't make copy of her if +I write no more while the world stands." + + + + +VI + +THE DECK-HAND + + +Charlotte Farnham's friends--their number was the number of those who +had seen her grow from childhood to maiden--and womanhood--commonly +identified her for inquiring strangers as "good old Doctor Bertie's +'only,'" adding, men and women alike, that she was as well-balanced and +sensible as she was good to look upon. + +As Griswold had guessed, she stood but a single remove from an American +lineage much older than the America of the Middle West. Her father had +been a country physician in New Hampshire, migrating to the dry winters +of Minnesota for his young wife's health. The migration had been too +long postponed to save the mother's life; but it had made a beautiful +woman of the daughter, dowering her with the luxuriant physical charm +which is the proof that transplantation to fresher soil is not less +beneficial to human- than to plant-kind. + +She had been spending the winter at Pass Christian with her aunt, who +was an invalid; and it was for the invalid's sake that she had decided +to make the return journey by river. Patient little Miss Gilman was the +least querulous of sufferers, but she was always very ill on a railway +train. Hence Charlotte, who was at once physician, nurse, mentor, and +dutiful kinswoman to the frail little lady who looked old enough to be +her grandmother, had chosen the longer, but less trying, route to the +far North. + +So it had come about that their state-rooms had been taken on the _Belle +Julie_; and on the morning of the second day out from New Orleans, Miss +Gilman was so far from being travel-sick that she was able to sit with +Charlotte in the shade of the hurricane-deck aft, and to enjoy, with +what quavering enthusiasm there was in her, the matchless scenery of the +lower Mississippi. + +At Baton Rouge the New Orleans papers came aboard, and Miss Farnham +bought a copy of the _Louisianian_. As a matter of course, the +first-page leader was a circumstantial account of the daring robbery of +the Bayou State Security, garnished with startling head-lines. Charlotte +read it, half-absently at first, and a second time with interest +awakened and a quickening of the pulse when she realized that she had +actually been a witness of the final act in the near-tragedy. Her little +gasp of belated horror brought a query from the invalid. + +"What is it, Charlie, dear?" + +For answer, Charlotte read the newspaper story of the robbery, +head-lines and all. + +"For pity's sake! in broad daylight! How shockingly bold!" commented +Miss Gilman. + +"Yes; but that wasn't what made me gasp. The paper says: 'A young lady +was at the teller's window when the robber came up with Mr. +Galbraith--' Aunt Fanny, _I_ was the 'young lady'!" + +"You? horrors!" ejaculated the invalid, holding up wasted hands of +deprecation. "To think of it! Why, child, if anything had happened, a +terrible murder might have been committed right there before your very +face and eyes! Dear, dear; whatever are we coming to!" + +Charlotte the well-balanced, smiled at the purely personal limitations +of her aunt's point of view. + +"It is very dreadful, of course; but it is no worse just because I +happened to be there. Yet it seems ridiculously incredible. I can hardly +believe it, even now." + +"Incredible? How?" + +"Why, there wasn't anything about it to suggest a robbery. Now that I +know, I remember that the old gentleman did seem anxious or worried, or +at least, not quite comfortable some way; but the young man was smiling +pleasantly, and he looked like anything rather than a desperate +criminal. I can close my eyes and see him, just as I saw him yesterday. +He had a good face, Aunt Fanny; it was the face of a man whom one would +trust almost instinctively." + +Miss Gilman's New England conservatism, unweakened by her long residence +in the West, took the alarm at once. + +"Did you notice him particularly, Charlotte? Would you recognize him if +you should see him again?" she asked anxiously. + +"Yes; I am quite sure I should." + +"But no one in the bank knew you. They couldn't trace you by your +father's draft and letter of identification, could they?" + +Charlotte was mystified. "I should suppose they could, if they wanted +to. But why? What if they could?" + +"My dear child; don't you see? They are sure to catch the robber, sooner +or later, and if they know how to find you, you might be dragged into +court as a witness!" + +Miss Farnham was not less averse to publicity than the conventionalities +demanded, but she had, or believed she had, very clear and well-defined +ideas of her own touching her duty in any matter involving a plain +question of right and wrong. + +"I shouldn't wait to be dragged," she asserted quietly. "It would be a +simple duty to go willingly. The first thing I thought of was that I +ought to write at once to Mr. Galbraith, giving him my address." + +Thereupon issued discussion. Miss Gilman's opinion upon such a momentous +question--a question involving an apparent conflict between the +proprieties and an act of simple justice--leaned heavily toward silence. +There could be no possible need for Charlotte's interference. Mr. +Galbraith and the teller would be able to identify the robber, and a +thousand eye-witnesses could do no more. At the end of the argument the +conservative one had extorted a conditional promise from her niece. The +matter should remain in abeyance until the question of conscientious +obligation had been submitted to Charlotte's father and decided by him. + +Being by nature and inclination averse to shacklings, verbal or other, +Charlotte gave the promise reluctantly, and the subject was dismissed. +Not from the younger woman's thoughts, however. In the reflective field +the scene in the bank recurred again and again until presently it became +a haunting annoyance. To banish it finally she went to her state-room +and got a book for herself and a magazine for her aunt. + +An hour later, when Miss Gilman had finished cutting the leaves of the +magazine, and was deep in the last instalment of the current serial, +Charlotte let her book slip from her fingers and gave herself to the +passive enjoyment of the slowly passing panorama which is the chief +charm of inland voyaging. + +It was a delectable day, sweet-scented with the mingled perfume of roses +and jasmine and chinaberry trees wafted from the open-air conservatories +surrounding the plantation mansions on either bank. The majestic onrush +of the steamer, the rhythmic drumbeat of the machinery, the alternating +crash and pause of the great paddle-wheels, the unhasting backward sweep +of the brown flood, all these were in harmony with the sensuous languor +of time and place. + +For the moment Charlotte Farnham yielded in pure delight to the spell of +the encompassments, fancying she could deny her lineage and look upon +this sylvan Southland world through the eyes of those to whom it was +the birthland. Then the haunting scene in the New Orleans bank returned +to disenchant her; and after striving vainly to put it aside, she +reopened her book. But by this time the story had lost its hold upon +her, and when she had read a page or two with only the vaguest possible +notion of what it was all about, she gave up in despair and let the +relentless recollection have its will of her. + +From where she was sitting she could see the steamer's yawl swinging +from its tackle at the stern-staff; and after many minutes it was slowly +borne in upon her that the ropes were working loose. When it became +evident that the boat would shortly fall into the river and go adrift, +she got up and put the book aside, meaning to go forward and tell the +captain. But before she had taken the first step a man came aft to make +the loosened tackle fast, and she stood back to let him pass. + +It was Griswold. Up to that moment he had thrown himself so zealously +into the impersonation of his latest role as to be able to stand +indifferently well in the shoes of the man whom he had supplanted. But +at this crisis the machinery of dissimulation slipped a cog. Where the +ordinary deck-hand would have gone about his errand heedless of the +presence of the two women passengers, the proxy John Wesley Gavitt must +needs take off his cap and apologize for passing in front of them. + +Something half familiar in his manner of doing it attracted Charlotte's +attention, and her eyes followed him as he went on and hoisted the yawl +into place. When he came back she had a fair sight of his face and her +eyes met his. In the single swift glance half-formed suspicion became +undoubted certainty; she looked again and her heart gave a great bound +and then seemed suddenly to forget its office. While he was passing she +clung to the back of her chair and forebore to cry out or otherwise to +advertise her emotion. But when the strain was off she sank into her +seat and closed her eyes to grapple with the unnerving discovery. It was +useless to try to escape from the dismaying fact. The stubble-bearded +deck-hand with the manners of a gentleman was most unmistakably a later +reincarnation of the pleasantly smiling young man who had courteously +made way for her at the teller's wicket in the Bayou State Security; who +had smiled and given place to her while he was holding his pistol aimed +at President Galbraith. + +It was said of Charlotte Farnham that she was sensible beyond her years, +and withal strong and straightforward in honesty of purpose. None the +less, she was a woman. And when she saw what was before her, conscience +turned traitor and fled away to give place to an uprush of hesitant +doubts born of the sharp trial of the moment. + +She decided at once that there could be no question as to her duty. Of +all those who were seeking the escaping bank robber, it was doubtful if +any would recognize him as she had; and if she should hold her peace he +would escape, perhaps to commit other crimes for which she could then +justly be held accountable. + +But, on the other hand, how could she bring herself to the point of +giving him over to the vengeance of the law--just vengeance, to be sure, +but cruel because it must inevitably crush out whatever spark of +penitence or good intention there might be remaining in him? What did +she know of his temptations? of the chain of circumstances which had +dragged him down into the company of the desperately criminal? Some such +compelling influence there must have been, she reasoned, since a child +might see that he was no hardened felon. It was a painful conflict, but +in the end the Puritan conscience triumphed and turned mercy out of +doors. Her duty was plain; she had no right to argue the question of +culpability. + +She got upon her feet, steadying herself by the back of the chair. She +felt that she could not trust herself if she once admitted the thin edge +of the wedge of delay. The simple and straightforward thing to do was to +go immediately to the captain and tell him of her discovery, but she +shrank from the thought of what must follow. They would seize him: he +had proved that he was a desperate man, and there would be a struggle. +And when the struggle was over they would bring him to her and she would +have to stand forth as his accuser. + +It was too shocking, and she caught at the suggestion of an alternative +with a gasp of relief. She might write to President Galbraith, giving +such a description of the deck-hand as would enable the officers to +identify him without her personal help. It was like dealing the man a +treacherous blow in the back, but she thought it would be kinder. + +"Aunt Fanny," she began, with her face averted, "I promised you I +wouldn't write to Mr. Galbraith until after we reached home--until I had +told papa. I have been thinking about it since, and I--I think it must +be done at once." + +Now Miss Gilman's conscience was also of the Puritan cast, and justice +had been given time to make its claim paramount to that of the +conventional proprieties. Hence the invalid yielded the point without +reopening the argument. + +"I don't know but you are right, after all, Charlie, dear," she said. +"I've been thinking it over, too. But it seems like a very dreadful +thing for you to have to do." + +"It _is_ very dreadful," said Charlotte, with a much deeper meaning in +the words than her aunt suspected. Nevertheless, she went away quickly +and locked herself in her state room to write the fateful letter which +should set the machinery of the law in motion and deliver the robber +deck-hand up to justice. + + + + +VII + +GOLD OF TOLOSA + + +In yielding to the impulse which had prompted him to change places with +the broken-down deck-hand, Griswold had assumed that there was little +risk and at least an even chance that the substitution would never be +discovered. He knew that the river steamboats were manned by picked-up +crews, usually assembled at the last moment, and that it was more than +probable that the _Belle Julie's_ officers had not yet had time to +individualize the units of the main-deck squad. Therefore, he might take +the name and place of the disabled Gavitt with measurable safety. + +But apart from this, he was not unwilling to add another chapter to his +experience among the toilers. He had been told that the life of a +roustabout on the Western rivers was the most dismal of all the gropings +in the social underworld, and he was the more eager to endure its +hardships as a participant. Being an enthusiast, he had early laid down +the foundation principle that one must see and feel and suffer if one +would write convincingly. + +As to the experience, he immediately found himself in a fair way to +acquire it in great abundance. From the moment of his enlistment in the +_Belle Julie's_ crew it was heaped upon him unstintingly; good measure, +pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Without having +specialized himself in any way to M'Grath, the bullying chief mate, he +fancied he was singled out as the vessel into which the man might empty +the vials of his wrath without fear of reprisals. Curses, not +loud--since a generation of travellers has arisen to whom profanity, +however picturesque, is objectionable--but deep and corrosive; contumely +and abuse; tongue-lashings that stung like the flick of a whip; and now +and then, at a night landing when there were no upper-deck people +looking on to be shocked, blows. All these slave-drivings, or at least +his share of them, Griswold endured as became a man who had voluntarily +put himself in the way of them. But they were hardening. Griswold fought +manfully against the brutalizing effect of them, but with only partial +success. Because of them, he was sure that his theories in the +compassionate warp and woof of them must always afterward be shot +through with flame-colored threads of fiery resentment reaching back +through M'Grath to every master who wielded the whip of power; the power +of the man who has, over the man who has not. + +In such a lurid light it was only natural that the ethical perspective +should be still further distorted; that any lingering doubt of the +justice of his late rebellion against the accepted order of things +should be banished by the persecutions of the bullying mate. It is easy +to postulate a storm-driven world when the personal horizon is dark and +lowering; easy, also, to justify the past by the present. From +theorizing never so resolutely upon the rights of man in the abstract to +robbing a bank is a broad step, and given an opportunity to reflect upon +it calmly after the fact, even such an imaginative enthusiast as +Griswold might have reconsidered. But the hasty plunge into the +underdepth of roustabout life was like the brine bath of the blacksmith +to heated steel; it served to temper him afresh. + +Fortunately he was not altogether unequal to the physical test, severe +as it was. With all of his later privations, he had lived a clean life; +and his college training in athletics stood him in good stead. +Physically, as intellectually, the material in him was of the +fine-grained fibre in which quality counts for more than quantity. +Lacking something in mass, the lack was more than compensated by the +alertness and endurance which had made him at once the best man with the +foils and the safest oar in the boat in his college days. None the less, +the first night out of New Orleans, with its uncounted plantation +landings, had tried him keenly, and he was thankful when the second day +brought fewer stopping places and longer rest intervals. + +It was in one of the resting intervals that he had been sent aft to +resecure the loosened tackle of the suspended small boat. He had come +upon Miss Farnham and her aunt unexpectedly, and so was off his guard. +But in any event, he argued, he should have obeyed the instinctive +impulse to excuse himself. He knew that the apology was a confession +that he was a masquerader in some sort, and he had felt the steady gaze +of the young woman's eyes while he was at work on the loosened tackle. +Later, when he passed her on his way forward he had seen the swift +change in her face betokening some sudden emotion, and the recollection +of it troubled him. + +What if this clear-eyed young person had recognized him? He knew that +the New Orleans papers had come aboard; he had seen the folded copy of +the _Louisianian_ in the invalid's lap. Consequently, Miss Farnham knew +of the robbery, and the incidents were fresh in her mind. What would she +do if she had penetrated his disguise? + +The query had its answer when he recalled his written estimate of her +character scribbled a few hours earlier by the light of the engine-room +incandescent. If her face were not merely a fair mask of the +conscientious probity it stood for, she would denounce him without +hesitation. + +He tried to make himself doubt it, but the effort recoiled upon him. +Already, in his imaginings, she was beginning to assume the +characteristics of an ideal; and the ideal character with which he had +endowed her would be true to itself at any cost; it would be quite +sexless and just before it would be womanly and merciful. At least he +hoped it would. Ideals are much too precious to be shattered recklessly +by mere personal considerations; and he told himself, in a fine glow of +artistic self-effacement, that he should be sorry to purchase even so +great a boon as his liberty at the price of the broken ideal. + +But the burning of sweet incense in the temple of the ideals is not +necessarily incompatible with a just regard for the commonplace +realities. In the aftermath of the fine artistic glow, Griswold found +himself straightway wrestling with the problem of present safety. If +Miss Farnham had recognized him, his chances of escape had suddenly +narrowed down to flight, immediate and speedy. He must leave the _Belle +Julie_ at the next landing and endeavor to make his way north by +wagon-road or rail, or by some later boat. + +The emergency called for swift action, and his determination to leave +the steamer was taken at once. While he was weighing the manifest +dangers of a daylight desertion against the equally manifest hazard of +waiting for darkness, the whistle was blown for a landing and he +concluded not to wait. If Miss Farnham had identified him she would +doubtless lose no time in giving the alarm. She might even now be in +conference with the captain, he thought. + +Griswold had a shock of genuine terror at this point in his reflections +and his skin prickled as at the touch of something loathsome. Up to that +moment he had suffered none of the pains of the hunted fugitive; but he +knew now that he had fairly entered the gates of the outlaw's inferno; +that however cunningly he might cast about to throw his pursuers off the +track, he would never again know what it was to be wholly free from the +terror of the arrow that flieth by day. + +The force of the Scriptural simile came to him with startling emphasis, +bringing on a return of the prickling dismay. The stopping of the +paddle-wheels and the rattling clangor of the gang-plank winch aroused +him to action and he shook off the creeping numbness and ran aft to +rummage under the cargo on the engine-room guards for his precious +bundle. When his hand reached the place where it should have been, the +blood surged to his brain and set up a clamorous dinning in his ears +like the roaring of a cataract. The niche between the coffee sacks was +empty. + + + + +VIII + +THE CHAIN-GANG + + +While Griswold was grappling afresh with the problem of escape, and +planning to desert the _Belle Julie_ at the next landing, Charlotte +Farnham was sitting behind the locked door of her state-room with a +writing pad on her knee over which for many minutes the suspended pen +merely hovered. She had fancied that her resolve, once fairly taken, +would not stumble over a simple matter of detail. But when she had tried +a dozen times to begin the letter to Mr. Galbraith, the simplicities +vanished and complexity stood in their room. + +Try as she might to put the sham deck-hand into his proper place as an +impersonal unit of a class with which society is at war, he perversely +refused to surrender his individuality. At the end of every fresh effort +she was confronted by the inexorable summing-up: in a world of phantoms +there were only two real persons; a man who had sinned, and a woman who +was about to make him pay the penalty. + +It was all very well to reason about it, and to say that he ought to be +made to pay the penalty; but that did not make it any less shocking that +she, Charlotte Farnham, should be the one to set the retributive +machinery in motion. Yet she knew she had the thing to do, and so, after +many ineffectual attempts, the letter was written and sealed and +addressed, and she went out to mail it at the clerk's office. + +As it chanced, the engines of the steamer were slowing for a landing +when she latched her state-room door, and by the time she had walked the +length of the saloon the office was closed and the clerk had gone below +with his way-bills. It was an added hardship to have to wait, and she +knew well enough that delay would speedily reopen the entire vexed +question of responsibility. But there was nothing else to be done. She +told herself that she could not begin to breathe freely again until the +letter was out of her hands and safely beyond recall. + +The doors giving upon the forward saloon-deck were open, and she heard +the harsh voice of the mate exploding in sharp commands as the steamer +lost way and edged slowly up to the river bank. A moment later she was +outside, leaning on the rail and looking down upon the crew grouped +about the inboard end of the uptilted landing-stage. He was there; the +man for whose destiny accident and the conventional sense of duty had +made her responsible; and as she looked she had a fleeting glimpse of +his face. + +It was curiously haggard and woe-begone; so sorrowfully changed that for +an instant she almost doubted his identity. The sudden transformation +added fresh questionings, and she began to ask herself thoughtfully +what had brought it about. Had he recognized her and divined her +intention? But if that were the explanation, why had he not made his +escape? Why was he waiting for her to point him out to the officers of +the steamer? + +The queries swept her out into a deeper sea of perplexity. What if he +were already repentant? In that event, the result of her dutiful service +to society would doubtless be to drive him back into impenitence and +despair. For a little time she clung desperately to her purpose, +hardening her heart and shutting her ears to the clamant appeal of the +reawakened sentiment of commiseration. Then the man turned slowly and +looked up at her as if the finger of her thought had touched him. There +was no sign of recognition in his eyes; and she constrained herself to +gaze down upon him coldly. But when the _Belle Julie's_ bow touched the +bank, and the waiting crew melted suddenly into a tenuous line of +burden-bearers, she fled through the deserted saloon to her state-room +and hid the fatal letter under the pillows in her berth. + +Another hour had elapsed. It was nearly noon, and the stewards had +bridged the spaces in the row of square saloon-tables and were laying +the cloth for the mid-day meal. Charlotte opened her door guardedly, as +one fearing to face prying eyes, and finding the coast clear, slipped +out to rejoin her aunt under the awning abaft the paddle-box. Miss +Gilman shut her finger into the magazine to keep her place and looked up +in mild surprise. + +"Where have you been?" she asked. "Has it taken you all this time to +write to the bank people?" + +Charlotte's answer satisfied the strict letter of the inquiry, though it +slew the spirit. + +"I wrote the letter quite awhile ago. I have been lying down, since." + +The invalid reopened the magazine, and Charlotte was left to make peace +as best she might with her conscience for having told the half-truth. It +was characteristic of the inward monitor that even in such a trivial +matter it refused to be coerced. Accordingly, a little while afterward, +when Charlotte took her aunt's arm to lead her to the table, she said: + +"I told you I had written to Mr. Galbraith, and so I have. But the +letter is not yet mailed." And, since the natural inference was that +there had been no opportunity to mail it, the conscientious little +confession went as wide of the mark as if it had never been made. + +At the captain's end of the long table the talk rippled pointlessly +around the New Orleans bank robbery, and Miss Farnham took no part in it +until Captain Mayfield spoke of the reward of ten thousand dollars which +had been offered for the apprehension of the robber. The fact touched +her upon the ethical side, and she said: + +"That is something that always seems so dreadfully barbarous; to set a +money price on the head of a human being." + +The captain laughed. + +"'Tis sort o' Middle-Aged, when you come to think of it. But it does the +police business oftener than anything else, I guess. A detective will +work mighty hard nowadays for ten thousand dollars." + +"Yes, I suppose so; but it is barbarous," Charlotte persisted. "It is an +open appeal to the lowest motive in human nature--cupidity." + +The bluff riverman nodded a qualified approval, but a loquacious little +gentleman across the table felt called upon to protest. + +"But, my dear Miss Farnham, would you have us all turn thief-catchers +for the mere honor of the thing?" + +"For the love of justice, or not at all, I should say," was the +straightforward return blow. "If I should see somebody picking your +pocket, ought I to weigh the chances of your offering a reward before +telling you of it?" + +"Oh, no; of course not. But this is entirely different. A rich +corporation has been robbed, and it says to the thief-catchers--and to +everybody, for that matter--Here are ten thousand dollars if you will +find us the robber. For myself, I confess that the reward would be the +determining factor. If I knew where Mr. Galbraith's 'hold-up' is to be +found, I should certainly go out of my way to earn the money." + +Miss Farnham's sense of the fitness of things was plainly affronted. + +"Do you mean to say that you would accept the reward, Mr. Latrobe?" + +"Most certainly I should; any one would." + +The frank avowal stood for public opinion. Charlotte knew it and went +dumb in the presence of a new and more terrible phase of her +entanglement. She might call the reward blood money, and refuse +absolutely to touch it, but who, outside of her own little circle, would +know or believe that she had refused? And if all the remainder of the +world knew and should exonerate her, would not the wretched man himself +always believe that she had sold him for a price? + +The benumbing thought left her tongue-tied and miserable; and after the +table-dispersal she sought out the captain to ask a question. + +"Do you know the law in Louisiana, Captain Mayfield?" she began, with +more embarrassment than the simple inquiry would account for. "This man +who robbed the Bayou State Security yesterday; what is the penalty for +his crime?" + +The captain shook his head. "I don't know: being only a riverman, I'm +not even a sea-lawyer. But maybe Mr. Latrobe could tell you. _Oh_, Mr. +Latrobe!" + +The loquacious one was on his way forward to smoke, but he turned and +came back at the captain's call. + +"The penalty?" he said, when the query had been repeated to him; "that +would depend upon a good many things that could only be brought out at +the trial. But under the circumstances--threatening to shoot the +president, and all that, you know--I should say it would go pretty hard +with him. He'll probably get the full limit of the law." + +"And that is?" persisted Charlotte, determined to know the worst. + +"In Louisiana, twenty years, I believe." + +"Thank you; that is what I wished to find out." + +The little man bowed and went his way; and Captain Mayfield, who was an +observant man in the field of river stages and other natural phenomena, +but not otherwise, did not remark Miss Farnham's sigh which was more +than half a sob. + +"Twenty years!" she shuddered; "it might as well be for life. He would +be nearly fifty years old, if he lived through it." + +It did not occur to the captain to wonder how Miss Farnham came to know +anything about the bank robber's age, but he spoke to the conditional +phrase in her comment. + +"Yes; if he lives through it: that's a mighty big 'if' down here in the +levee country. Twenty years of the chain-gang would be about the same as +a life sentence to most white men, I judge." + +Charlotte turned away quickly; and when she could trust herself in the +presence of her aunt, she led the way back to the shade of the +after-deck awning and tried, for her own sake, to talk about some of the +many things that had gone to make up the sum of their daily life before +this black cloud of perplexity had settled down. It was a dismaying +failure; and when the invalid said she would go and lie down for awhile, +Charlotte was thankful and went once more to lock herself and her +trouble in her state-room. + +That evening, after dinner, she went forward with some of the other +passengers to the railed promenade which was the common evening +rendezvous. The _Belle Julie_ had tied up at a small town on the western +bank of the great river, and the ant procession of roustabouts was in +motion, going laden up the swing-stage and returning empty by the +foot-plank. Left to herself for a moment, Charlotte faced the rail and +again sought to single out the man whose fate she must decide. + +She distinguished him presently; a grimy, perspiring unit in the crew, +tramping back and forth mechanically, staggering under the heaviest +loads, and staring stonily at the back of his file leader in the endless +round; a picture of misery and despair, Charlotte thought, and she was +turning away with the dangerous rebellion against the conventions +swelling again in her heart when Captain Mayfield joined her. + +"I just wanted to show you," he said; and he pointed out a gang of men +repairing a slip in the levee embankment below the town landing. It was +a squad of prisoners in chains. The figures of the convicts were struck +out sharply against the dark background of undergrowth, and the +reflection of the sunset glow on the river lighted up their sullen faces +and burnished the use-worn links in their leg-fetters. + +"The chain-gang;" said the captain, briefly. "That's about where the +fellow that robbed the Bayou State Security will bring up, if they catch +him. He'll have to be mighty tough and well-seasoned if he lives to +worry through twenty years of that, don't you think?" + +But Miss Farnham could not answer; and even the unobservant captain of +river boats saw that she was moved and was sorry he had spoken. + + + + +IX + +THE MIDDLE WATCH + + +In any path of performance there is but one step which is irrevocable, +namely, the final one, and in Charlotte Farnham's besetment this step +was the mailing of the letter to Mr. Galbraith. Many times during the +evening she wrought herself up to the plunging point, only to recoil on +the very brink; and when at length she gave up the struggle and went to +bed, the sealed letter was still under her pillow. + +Now it is a well-accepted truism that an exasperated sense of duty, like +remorse and grief, fights best in the night-watches. It was of no avail +to protest that her intention was still unshaken. Conscience urged that +delay was little less culpable than refusal, since every hour gave the +criminal an added chance of escape. The logic was unanswerable, and +trembling lest the implacable inward monitor should presently insist +upon the immediate revealment of the fugitive's identity to Captain +Mayfield, she got up and dressed hurriedly, meaning to end the agony +once for all by giving the letter to the night clerk. + +But once again the chapter of accidents intervened. While she was +unbolting her door, the mellow roar of the whistle and the jangling of +the engine-room bells warned her that the _Belle Julie_ was approaching +a landing. Remembering the cause of her earliest failure, she ran +quickly to the office, only to find it deserted and the door locked. + +This time, however, she determined not to be diverted. Going back to the +state-room for a wrap she returned to wait for the clerk's reappearance. +This final pause soon proved to be the severest trial of all. The +minutes dragged leaden-winged; and to sit quietly in the silence and +solitude of the great saloon became a nerve-racking impossibility. When +it went past endurance, she rose and stepped out upon the +promenade-deck. + +The electric search-light eye on the hurricane-deck was just over her +head, and its great white cone seemed to hiss as it poured its dazzling +flood of fictitious noonday upon the shelving river bank and the +sleeping hamlet beyond. The furnace doors were open, and the red glare +of the fires quickened the darkness under the beam of the electric into +lurid life. Out of the dusky underglow came the freight-carriers, giving +birth to a file of grotesque shadow monsters as they swung up the plank +into the field of the search-light. + +The stopping-place was an unimportant one, and a few minutes sufficed +for the unloading of the small consignment of freight. The mate had left +his outlook upon the hurricane-deck and was down among the men, +hastening them with harsh commands and epithets which owed their +mildness to the presence of the silent onlooker beneath the electric. + +The foot-plank had been drawn in, the steam winch was clattering, and +the landing-stage had begun to come aboard, when the two men whose duty +it was to cast off ran out on the tilting stage and dropped from its +shore end. One of them fell clumsily, tried to rise, and sank back into +the shadow; but the other scrambled up the steep bank and loosened the +half-hitches in the wet hawser. With the slackening of the line the +steamer began to move out into the stream, and the man at the +mooring-post looked around to see what had become of his companion. + +"Get a move on youse!" bellowed the mate; but instead of obeying, the +man ran back and went on his knees beside the huddled figure in the +shadow. + +At this point the watcher on the promenade-deck began vaguely to +understand that the first man was disabled in some way, and that the +other was trying to lift him. While she looked, the engine-room bells +jangled and the wheels began to turn. The mate forgot her and swore out +of a full heart. + +She put her fingers in her ears to shut out the clamor of abusive +profanity; but the man on the bank paid no attention to the richly +emphasized command to come aboard. Instead, he ran swiftly to the +mooring-post, took a double turn of the trailing hawser around it and +stood by until the straining line snubbed the steamer's bow to the +shore. Then, deftly casting off again, he darted back to the disabled +man, hoisted him bodily to the high guard, and clambered aboard +himself, all this while M'Grath was brushing the impeding crew aside to +get at him. + +Charlotte saw every move of the quick-witted salvage in the doing, and +wanted to cry out in sheer enthusiasm when it was done. Then, in the +light from the furnace doors, she saw the face of the chief actor: it +was the face of the man with the stubble beard. + +The night was summer warm, but she shrank back and shivered as if a cold +wind had breathed upon her. Why must he make it still harder for her by +posing as the defender of the wretched negro? She would look on no +longer; she would.... The harsh voice of the mate, dominating the noise +of the machinery and the churning of the paddle-wheels, drew her +irresistibly to the rail. She could not hear what M'Grath was saying, +but she could read hot wrath in his gestures, and in the way the men +fell back out of his reach. All but one: the stubble-bearded white man +was facing him fearlessly, and he appeared to be trying to explain. + +Griswold was trying to explain, but the bullying first officer would not +let him. It was a small matter: with the money gone, and the probability +that capture and arrest were deferred only from landing to landing, a +little abuse, more or less, counted as nothing. But he was grimly +determined to keep M'Grath from laying violent hands upon the negro who +had twisted his ankle in jumping from the uptilted landing-stage. + +"No; this is one time when you don't skin anybody alive!" he retorted, +when a break in the stream of abuse gave him a chance. "You let the man +alone. He couldn't help it. Do you suppose he sprained an ankle +purposely to give you a chance to curse him out?" + +The mate's reply was a brutal kick at the crippled negro. Griswold came +closer. + +"Don't try that again!" he warned, angrily. "If you've got to take it +out on somebody, I'm your man." + +This was mutiny, and M'Grath's remedy for that distemper was ever +heroic. In a flash his big fist shot out and the crew looked to see its +lighter champion go backward into the river at the impact. But the blow +did not land. Griswold saw it coming and swerved the necessary +body-breadth. The result was a demonstration of a simple theorem in +dynamics. M'Grath reeled under the impetus of his own unresisted effort, +stumbled forward against the low edge-line bulwark, clawed wildly at the +fickle air and dropped overboard like a stone. + +At the splashing plunge Griswold saw, planned, and acted in the same +instant. The _Belle Julie_ was forging ahead at full speed, and if the +mate did not drown at once, the projecting paddle-wheel would batter the +life out of him as he passed under it. + +Clearing the intervening obstacles in a hurdler's leap, Griswold raced +aft on the outer edge of the guards and jumped overboard in time to +grapple the drowning man when he was within a few feet of the churning +wheel. The struggle was short but fierce. Griswold got a strangling arm +around the big man's neck and strove to sink with him so that the wheel +might pass over them. He was only partly successful. The mate was +terror-crazed and fought blindly. There was no time for trick or +stratagem, and when the thunder of the wheel roared overhead, Griswold +felt the jar of a blow and the mate's struggles ceased abruptly. A +gasping moment later the worst was over and the rescuer had his head +out; was swimming gallantly in the wake of the steamer, supporting the +unconscious M'Grath and shouting lustily for help. + +The help came quickly. The alarm had been promptly given, and the night +pilot was a man for an emergency. Before the little-used yawl could be +lowered, the steamer had swept a wide circle in mid-stream and the +search-light picked up the castaways. From that to placing the _Belle +Julie_ so that the two bits of human flotsam could be hauled in over the +bows was but a skilful hand's-turn of rudder-work, accomplished as +cleverly as if the great steamboat had been a power-driven launch to be +steered by a touch of the tiller. + +All this Charlotte saw. She was looking on when the two men were dragged +aboard, the big Irishman still unconscious, and the rescuer in the final +ditch of exhaustion--breathless, sodden, reeling with weariness. + +And afterward, when the _Belle Julie's_ prow was once more turned to the +north, Miss Farnham had no thought of stopping at the clerk's office +when she flew back to her state-room with the letter to Mr. Galbraith +hidden in her bosom and clutched tightly as if she were afraid it might +cry out its accusing secret of its own accord. + + + + +X + +QUICKSANDS + + +On the morning following the rescue of the mate, Charlotte Farnham awoke +with the conviction that she had been miraculously saved from incurring +the penalties dealt out to those who rush blindly into the thick of +things without due thought and careful consideration. + +In the light of a new day it seemed almost incredible that, only a few +hours earlier, she could have been so rash as to assume that there was +no possibility of a mistake; that she had been on the verge of sending a +possibly innocent man to answer as he could for the sins of the guilty. + +Who could be sure? Could she go into court and swear that this man and +the man she had seen in the bank were one and the same? Yesterday she +had thought that she could; but to-day she was equally sure that she +could not. + +But the Puritan conscience was not to be entirely silenced. Reason sits +in a higher seat than that occupied by the senses, and reason argued +that a man who would forgive his enemy, and instantly risk his life in +proof of the forgiveness, could not be a desperate criminal. Conscience +pointed out the alternative. A little careful investigation would +remove the doubt--or confirm it. Somebody on the boat must know the +deck-hand, or know enough about him to establish his real identity. + +Naturally, Charlotte thought first of Captain Mayfield; and when +breakfast was over, and she had settled her aunt in the invalid's chair +under the shade of the after-awning, she went on her quest. + +The captain was on the port promenade, forward, and he was about to +light his after-breakfast cigar. But he threw the match away when Miss +Farnham came out and took the chair he placed for her. + +"Please smoke if you want to," she said, noting the clipped cigar; "I +don't mind it in the least." + +"Thank you," said the master of the _Belle Julie_, shifting his chair to +leeward and finding another match. He had grown daughters of his own, +and Miss Farnham reminded him of the one who lived in St. Louis and took +her dead mother's place in a home which would otherwise have held no +welcome for a grizzled old river-sailor. + +For a time Miss Farnham seemed to have forgotten what she came to say, +and the ash grew longer on the captain's cigar. It was another +delectable day, and the _Belle Julie_ was still churning the brown flood +in the majestic reaches of the lower river. Down on the fore-deck the +roustabouts were singing. It was some old-time plantation melody, and +Charlotte could not catch the words; but the blending harmony, rich in +the altogether inimitable timbre of the African song-voice, rose above +the throbbing of the engines and the splash of the paddles. + +"They are happy, those men?" said Charlotte, turning suddenly upon the +silent old riverman at her side. + +"The nigger 'rousties,' you mean?--oh, yes. I guess so." + +"But it is such a hard life," she protested. "I don't see how they can +sing." + +The captain smiled good-naturedly. + +"It is a pretty hard life," he admitted. "But they're in a class by +themselves. You couldn't hire a river nigger to do anything else. Then, +again, a man doesn't miss what he's never had. They get a plenty to eat, +and the soft side of a cargo pile makes a pretty good bed, if you've +never slept in a better one." + +Miss Farnham shook her head thoughtfully. "Isn't that putting them +terribly low in the scale of humanity? Surely there must be some among +them who are capable of better things." She was trying desperately hard +to lead up to the stubble-bearded man, and it was the most difficult +task she had ever set herself. + +"Not among the black boys, I'm afraid. Now and then a white man drifts +into a crew, but that's a different matter." + +"Better or worse?" she queried. + +"Worse, usually. It's a pretty poor stick of a white man that can't find +something better than 'rousting' on a steamboat." + +Here was her chance, and she took it courageously. + +"Haven't you one man in the _Belle Julie's_ crew who has earned a better +recommendation than that, Captain Mayfield?" + +"You mean that sick hobo who went into the river after M'Grath last +night? I didn't know that story had got back to the ladies' cabin." + +"It hasn't. But I know it because I was looking on. I couldn't sleep, +and I had gone out to see them make a night landing. Why do you call him +'the sick hobo'?" + +The captain was paying strict attention now, looking at her curiously +from beneath the grizzled eyebrows. But he saw only the classic profile. + +"That's what he is--or at least, what he let on to be when he shipped +with us," he replied. Then: "You say you saw it: tell me what happened." + +"I am not sure that I quite understood the beginning of it," she said +doubtfully. "Two men, the white man and a negro, went ashore to untie +the boat. They both jumped from the stage while it was going up, and it +was the white man who untied the rope alone. After the boat began to +swing away from the bank, he saw that the other man was hurt and went to +help him. Mr. M'Grath was angry and he shouted at them to come aboard. +With the boat going away from the shore, they couldn't; so the white man +ran and tied the rope again. Am I getting it awfully mixed up?" + +"Not at all," said the captain. "What happened then?" + +"The white man lifted the negro to the deck, untied the rope again, and +climbed on just as the boat was swinging away the second time. Mr. +M'Grath was furious. He fought his way to where the white man was +standing over the hurt negro and struck at him. The next thing I knew, +Mr. M'Grath was overboard and right down here in front of the +paddle-wheel, and the man he had tried to strike was jumping in after +him. I thought they would both be ground to death under the wheel." + +"Is that all?" + +"All but the rescue. The pilot turned the _Belle Julie_ around and they +were picked up. Mr. M'Grath was unconscious, and the other man was too +weak to stand up." + +Captain Mayfield nodded. "He was sick when he came to us: consumption, +Mac said." + +Miss Farnham was a doctor's daughter, and she had seen many victims of +the white death. + +"I think that must have been a mistake," she ventured. "He doesn't look +at all like a tuberculosis patient." + +Again the captain was curious. + +"How could you tell, at that distance and in the night?" he asked +quizzically. + +Embarrassment quickly flung down a handful of obstacles in Charlotte's +path, but she picked her way among them. + +"I saw him yesterday morning quite close, and I looked at him +because--because I thought I had seen him somewhere before. Do you know +anything about him, Captain Mayfield?--who he is, I mean?" + +"Not any more than I do about the rest of them. They're driftwood, +mostly, you understand. We pick them up and drop them, here and there +and everywhere. This fellow's name is Gavitt--John Wesley Gavitt--on the +clerk's book. Mac said he was a sick hobo, working his way to St. +Louis." + +"How long before the beginning of a voyage do you hire the crew?" asked +Charlotte, trying not to seem too pointedly interested. + +"Oh, they string along all through the loading for two or three days, +and from that right up to the last minute." + +It was discouraging, and she was on the point of giving up. Her one hope +now lay in the fixing of the exact time of the man Gavitt's enlistment +in the _Belle Julie's_ crew, and there appeared to be only one way of +determining this. + +"Does anybody know--could anybody tell just when this particular man was +hired, Captain Mayfield?" she asked. + +"Not unless Mac happens to remember. No, hold on; I recollect now; it +was the day we left New Orleans--day before yesterday, that was." + +"In the morning?" + +If the good-natured captain was beginning to wonder why his pretty +passenger was cross-examining him so closely, he did not betray it. + +"It was about noon; I believe. Two or three of the black boys had +skipped out at the last minute, as they always do, and we were +short-handed. Mac said the fellow didn't look as if he could stand much, +but he took him anyhow." + +Once more the slender thread of investigation lay broken in her hands. +The robbery had been committed at or very near eleven o'clock, and an +hour would have given the robber time enough to disguise himself and +reach the steamer. But since the captain did not seem altogether +positive as to the exact hour, she tried again. + +"Please try to remember exactly, Captain Mayfield," she pleaded. "I +_must_ find out, if I can--for reasons which I can't explain to any one. +Was it just at noon?" + +Now this veteran master of packet boats was the last man in the world to +be heroically accurate when his sympathies were appealed to by a winsome +young woman in evident distress; and while he would cheerfully have +sworn that it was eleven o'clock or one o'clock when John Gavitt came +aboard, if he had known certainly which statement would relieve her, her +query left him no hint to steer by. + +So he said: "Oh, I say, 'about noon,' but it might have been an hour or +two before, or any time after, till we cleared. But we'll find out. +We'll have the fellow up here and put him on the witness stand. Or I'll +go below and dig into him for you myself, if you say so." + +"Not for the world!" she protested, aghast at the bare suggestion; and +for fear it might be repeated in some less evadable form, she made an +excuse of her duty and ran away to her aunt. + +Later in the day, when she had sought in vain for some other, this +suggestion of Captain Mayfield's came back. While there was the smallest +chance that she had been mistaken, she dared not send the letter to Mr. +Galbraith; yet it was clearly her duty to get at the truth of the +matter, if she could. + +But how? If Captain Mayfield could not remember the exact time of John +Gavitt's enrolment as a member of the _Belle Julie's_ crew, it was more +than probable that no one else could; no one but the man himself. It was +at this point that the captain's suggestion returned to strike fire like +steel upon reluctant flint. Could she go to the length of questioning +Gavitt? If she should, would he tell her the truth? And if he should +tell the truth, would it make the distressing duty any easier? Not +easier, she concluded, but possibly less puzzling. + +Thus far the suggestion: but without the help of some third person, she +did not see how it could be carried out. She could neither go to him nor +summon him; and the alternative of taking the captain into her +confidence was rejected at once as being too hazardous. For the captain +might not scruple to take the matter into his own hands without +ceremony, sending the suspected man back to New Orleans to establish his +innocence--if he could. + +Charlotte worried over the wretched entanglement all day, and was so +distrait and absent-minded that her aunt remarked it, naming it malaria +and prescribing quinine. Whereat Charlotte dissembled and put on a mask +of cheerfulness, keeping it on until after the evening meal and her +aunt's early retiring. But when she was released, she was glad enough to +go out on the promenade just forward of the starboard paddle-box, where +there were no after-dinner loungers, to be alone with her problem and +free to plunge once more into its intricacies. + +It was possibly ten minutes later, while she stood leaning against a +stanchion and watching the lights of a distant town rise out of the +watery horizon ahead, that chance, the final arbiter in so many human +involvements, led her quickly into the valley of decision. She heard a +man's step on the steeply pitched stair leading down from the +hurricane-deck. Before she could turn away he was confronting her; the +man whose name on the _Belle Julie's_ crew roster was John Wesley +Gavitt. + + + + +XI + +THE ANARCHIST + + +Griswold's appearance was less fortuitous than it seemed to be. As a +reward of merit for having saved the mate's life, he had been told off +to serve temporarily as man-of-all-work for the day pilot, who chanced +to be without a steersman. His watch in the pilot-house was over, and he +was on his way to the crew's quarters below when he stumbled upon Miss +Farnham. Mindful of his earlier slip, he passed her as if she had been +invisible. She let him go until her opportunity was all but lost; then, +plucking courage out of the heart of desperation, she spoke. + +"One moment, if you please; I--I want to ask you something," she +faltered; and he wheeled obediently and faced her. + +Followed a pause, inevitable, but none the less awkward for the one who +was responsible. Griswold felt, rather than saw, her embarrassment, and +was generous enough to try to help her. + +"I think I know what you wish to say: you are quite at liberty to say +it," he offered, when the pause had grown into an obstacle which she +seemed powerless to surmount. + +"Do you? I have been hoping you wouldn't," was the quick rejoinder. +Then: "Will you tell me at what time you joined the crew of the _Belle +Julie_?" + +The question did not surprise him, nor did he attempt to evade it. + +"Between twelve and one o'clock, the day before yesterday." + +"Will you tell me where you were at eleven o'clock that day?" + +"Yes, if you ask me." + +"I do ask you." + +"I was in a certain business building in New Orleans, as near to you as +I am now. Is that sufficiently definite?" + +"It is. I thought perhaps--I had hoped--Oh, for goodness' sake, why did +you do it?" she burst out, no longer able to fence with the weapons of +indirectness. + +He answered her frankly. + +"It was the old story of one man's over-plenty and another man's need. +Have you ever known what it means to go hungry for sheer poverty's +sake?--but, of course, you haven't." + +"No," she admitted. + +"Well, I have; I was hungry that morning; very hungry. I know this +doesn't excuse the thing--to you. But perhaps it may help to explain +it." + +"I think I can understand--a little. But surely----" + +He stopped her with a quick little gesture. + +"I know what you are going to say: that I should have been willing to +work, or even to beg, rather than steal. I was willing to work; I was +not willing to beg. I know it is all wrong from your point of view; but +I should be sorry to have you think that I did what _I_ believed to be +wrong." + +"Surely you must know it is wrong?" + +"Pardon me, but I can't admit that. If I could, you would be relieved of +what is doubtless a very painful duty. I should surrender myself at +once." + +"But think of it; if you are right, every one else must be wrong!" + +"No; not quite every one. But that is a very large question, and we +needn't go into it. I confess that my method was unconventional; a +little more summary than that of the usurers and the strictly legal +robbers, but quite as defensible. For they rob the poor and the +helpless, while I merely dispossessed one rich corporation of a portion +of its exactions from the many." + +"Then you are not sorry? I saw you yesterday afternoon and hoped you +were." + +He laughed unpleasantly. "I was sorry, then, and I am now; for the same +reason. I have lost the money." + +"Lost it?" she gasped, "How?" + +"I had hidden it, and I suppose some one else has found it. It is all +right, so far as the ownership is concerned; but I am still self-centred +enough to be chagrined about it." + +"But that is nothing!" she protested, with sharp regret in her voice; +"now you can never return it!" + +"I didn't intend to," he assured her, gravely. "I did have some notion +of redistributing it fairly among those who need it most; but that was +all." + +"But you must have returned it in the end. You could never have been +content to keep it." + +"Do you think so?" he rejoined. "I think I could have been quite content +to keep it. But that is past; it is gone, and I couldn't return it if I +wanted to." + +"No," she acquiesced; "and that makes it all the harder." + +"For you to do what you must do? But you mustn't think of that. I +shouldn't have made restitution in any event. Let me tell you what I +did. I had a weapon, as you have read. I tied it up with the money in a +handkerchief. There was always the chance of their catching me, and I +had made up my mind that my last free act would be to drop the bundle +into the river. So you see you need not hesitate on that score." + +"Then you know what it is that I must do?" + +"Assuredly. I knew it yesterday, when I saw that you had recognized me. +It was very merciful in you to reprieve me, even for a few hours; but +you will pardon me if I say it was wrong?" + +"Wrong!" she burst out. "Is it generous to say that to me? Are you so +indifferent yourself that you think every one else is indifferent, too?" + +He smiled under cover of the darkness, and the joy of finding that his +ideal was not going to be shattered was much greater than any thought of +the price he must pay to preserve it. When she paused, he had his +answer ready. + +"I know you are not indifferent; you couldn't be. But you must be true +to yourself, at whatever cost. Will you go to Captain Mayfield now?" + +She hesitated. + +"I thought of doing that, at first," she began, postponing to a more +convenient season the unnerving reflection that she was actually +discussing the ways and means of it with him. "It seemed to be the +simplest thing to do. But then I saw what would happen; that I should be +obliged----" + +Again he stopped her with a gesture. + +"I understand. We must guard against that at all hazards. You must not +be dragged into it, you know, even remotely." + +"How can you think of such things at such a time?" she queried. + +"I should be unworthy to stand here talking to you if I didn't think of +them. But since you can't go to Captain Mayfield, what will you do? What +had you thought of doing?" + +"I wrote a letter to--to Mr. Galbraith," she confessed. + +"And you have not sent it?" + +"No. If I had, I shouldn't have spoken to you." + +"To be sure. I suppose you signed the letter?" + +"Certainly." + +"That was a mistake. You must rewrite it, leaving out your name, and +send it. All you need to say is that the man who robbed the Bayou State +Security is escaping on the _Belle Julie_; that he is disguised as a +deck-hand, and that his name on the steamer's books is John Wesley +Gavitt. That will be amply sufficient." + +"But that isn't your name," she asserted. + +"No; but that doesn't matter. It is the name that will find me." + +She was silent for a moment. Then: "Why mustn't I sign it? They will pay +no attention to an anonymous letter. And, besides, it seems so--so +cowardly." + +"They will telegraph to every river landing ahead of us within an hour +after your letter reaches New Orleans; you needn't doubt that. And the +suppression of your name isn't cowardly; it is merely a justifiable bit +of self-protection. It is your duty to give the alarm; but when you have +done that, your responsibility ceases. There are plenty of people who +can identify me if I am taken back to New Orleans. You don't want to be +summoned as a witness, and you needn't be." + +She saw the direct, man-like wisdom of all this, and was quick to +appreciate his delicate tact in effacing the question of the reward +without even referring to it. But his stoicism was almost appalling. + +"It is very shocking!" she murmured; "only you don't seem to realize it +at all." + +"Don't I? You must remember that I have been arguing from your point of +view. My own is quite unchanged. It is your duty to do what you must +do; it is my affair to avert the consequences to myself, if I can +manage it without taking an unfair advantage of your frankness." + +"What will you do?" + +"It would be bad faith now for me to try to run away from the steamer, +as I meant to do. So far, you have bound me by your candor. But beyond +that I make no promises. My parole will be at an end when the officers +appear, and I shall do what I can to dodge, or to escape if I am taken. +Is that fair?" + +"It is more than fair: I can't understand." + +"What is it that you can't understand?" + +"How you can do this; how you can do such things as the one you did last +night, and still----" + +He finished the sentence for her.--"And still be a common robber of +banks, and the like. I fancy it is a bit puzzling--from your point of +view. Sometime, perhaps, we shall all understand things better than we +do now, but to that time, and beyond it, I shall be your grateful debtor +for what you have done to-night. May I go now?" + +She gave him leave, and when he was gone, she went to her state-room to +write as he had suggested. An hour later she gave the newly written +letter to the night clerk; and the thing was done. + +During the remainder of the slow up-river voyage to St. Louis, Charlotte +Farnham lived as one who has fired the fuse of a dynamite charge and is +momently braced for the shock of the explosion. Each morning she assured +herself that the strange man who could be a self-confessed felon one +moment and a chivalrous gentleman the next was still a member of the +_Belle Julie's_ crew; but she became a coward of landings, not daring to +look on for fear she should see him arrested and taken away. + +And while the _Belle Julie_ put landing after landing astern and the +voyage grew older, Griswold, too, began to feel the pangs of suspense. +Though he had no thought of breaking his promise, the dread of capture +and trial and punishment grew until it became a threatening cloud to +obscure all horizons. It was to no purpose that he called himself hard +names and strove to rise superior to the overshadowing threat. It was +there, and it would not be ignored. And when he faced it fairly a new +dread arose in his heart; the fear that his fear might end by making him +a criminal in fact--a savage to slay and die rather than be taken alive. + +In the ordinary course of things, Miss Farnham's letter should have +reached New Orleans in time to have procured Griswold's arrest at any +one of a score of landings south of Memphis. When the spires of the +Tennessee metropolis disappeared to the southward, he began to be afraid +that her resolution had failed, and to bewail his broken ideal. + +He had no means of knowing that she had given her letter to the night +clerk within the hour of their interview on the saloon-deck promenade; +nor did he, or any one else, know that it had lain unnoticed and +overlooked on the clerk's desk until the _Belle Julie_ reached Cairo. +Such, however, was the pregnant fact; and to this purely accidental +delay Griswold owed his first sight of the chief city of Missouri lying +dim and shadowy under its mantle of coal smoke. + +The _Belle Julie_ made her landing in the early evening, and Charlotte +was busy up to the last moment getting her own and her aunt's belongings +ready for the transfer to the upper river steamer on which they were to +complete their journey to Minnesota. Hence, it was not until the _Belle +Julie_ was edging her way up to the stone-paved levee that Charlotte +broke her self-imposed rule and slipped out upon the port promenade. + +The swing-stage was poised in the air ready to be lowered, and two of +the deck-hands were dropping from the shore end to trail the bow line up +the paved slope to the nearest mooring-ring. There was an electric +arc-light opposite the steamer's berth, and Charlotte shaded her eyes +with her hands to follow the motions of the two bent figures under the +dripping hawser. + +One of the men was wearing a cap, and there was a small bundle hanging +at his belt. She recognized him at once. At the mooring-ring he was the +one who stooped to make the line fast, and the other, a negro, stood +aside. At that moment the landing-stage fell, and in the confusion of +debarkation which promptly followed, the thrilling bit of by-play at the +mooring-ring passed unnoted by all save the silent watcher on the +saloon-deck. + +While the man in the cap was still on his knees, two men stole from the +shadow of the nearest freight pyramid and flung themselves upon him. He +fought fiercely for a moment, and though he was more than doubly +outweighted, rose to his feet, striking out viciously and dragging his +assailants up with him. In the struggle the bundle dropped from his +belt, and Charlotte saw him kick it aside. The waiting negro caught it +deftly and vanished among the freight pyramids; whereupon one of the +attacking pair wrenched himself out of the three-man scuffle and darted +away in pursuit. + +This left but a single antagonist for the fugitive, and Charlotte's +sympathies deserted her convictions for the moment. But while she was +biting her lip to keep from crying out, the fugitive stepped back and +held out his hands; and she saw the gleam of polished metal reflecting +the glare of the arc-light when the officer snapped the handcuffs upon +his wrists. + +It was with a distinct sense of culpability oppressing her that she went +back to her aunt, and she was careful not to let the invalid see her +face. Fortunately, there was a thing to be done, and the transfer to the +other steamer came opportunely to help her to re-establish the balance +of things distorted. + +She was sorry, but, after all, the man had only himself to blame. None +the less, the wish that some one else might have been his betrayer was +promising to grow later into remorseful and lasting regret when, with +her aunt, she left the _Belle Julie_, and walked up the levee to go +aboard the _Star of the North_. + + + + +XII + +MOSES ICHTHYOPHAGUS + + +After suffering all the pangs of those who lose between the touch and +the clutch, Griswold had found the red-handkerchief bundle precisely +where it had been hidden; namely, buried safely in the deck-load of +sacked coffee on the engine-room guard. + +It came to light in the final half-hour of the voyage, when he and his +mates were transferring the coffee to the main-deck, forward. It had not +been disturbed; and what had happened was obvious enough, after the +fact. After its hiding, arm's-length deep, in a cranny between the +sacks, some sudden jar of the boat had slightly shifted the cargo, +closing one cranny and opening another. + +With the money once more in his possession he had a swift return of the +emotions which had thrilled him when he found himself standing on the +sidewalk in front of the Bayou State Security with the block of +bank-notes under his arm. Once more he was on fair fighting terms with +the world, and the star of hope, which had gone out like a candle in a +gust of wind at the discovery of his loss, swung high in the firmament, +shining all the more brightly for its long occultation. + +As to the battle for the keeping which was probably awaiting him at the +St. Louis landing, the prospect of coming to blows, man-fashion, with +the enemy, was not wholly unwelcome. With all of his incompletenesses +this young rebel of life was no coward. If the New Orleans thief-takers +were waiting for him in the shadows of the great city's landing-place, +so be it; he would try to give them their money's worth: and an eager +impatience to be at it got into his blood. + +The few necessary preliminaries were arranged while the _Belle Julie_ +was backing and filling for the landing. Since to be taken with the +money in his possession was to give the enemy the chance of winning at +one stroke both the victory and the spoils, he made a confederate of the +negro whose part he had taken in the quarrel with M'Grath. The man was +grateful and loyal according to his gifts; and Griswold's need was too +pressing to stick at any trifle of unintelligence. + +"Mose, you'll go ashore with me on the spring line," he said, when he +had found his man at the heel of the landing-stage. + +"Yes, suh, Mars' Gravitt; dat's me, sholy." + +"All right. You see this bundle. If anybody tackles me while we're +making fast, I'm going to drop it, and you must get it and run away. Do +you understand?" + +The negro eyed the bundle suspiciously. + +"Ain't no dinnymite, 'r nothin' er that sawt in hit, is dey, Cap'm?" + +"No." + +"Whut-all mus' I do when I's done tuk out wid hit?" + +"Get away, first; then keep out of sight and hang around the levee for +an hour or two. If I don't turn up before you get tired, pitch the thing +into the river and go about your business. How much money does the +captain owe you?" + +"Cap'm Mayfiel'? Shuh! he don't owe me nothin'. I done draw de las' +picayune dat was comin' to me yistiday--an' dat yaller nigger over +yonder got it in de crap-game, same as turrers." + +Griswold put a twenty-dollar bill into the black palm, and when the crap +victim made out the figure of it by the glow of the furnace fires, his +eyes bulged. "Gorra-mighty!" he gasped; and would have given it back. + +"No, keep it; it's yours. Do exactly as I have told you, and if I'm able +to keep my date with you, I'll double it. But if I don't show up, +remember--the bundle goes into the river just as it is. If you open it, +it'll conjure you worse than any Obi-man you ever heard of." + +"No, _suh_! I ain't gwine open hit, Cap'm--not if dey's cunjah in hit; +no, suh!" + +"Well, there is--the worst kind of conjure this old world has ever +known. But it won't hurt you if you don't meddle with it. Keep your wits +about you and be ready to grab it and run. Here we go." + +The pilot had found his wharfage and was edging the _Belle Julie_ up to +it. The bow men paid out slack, and Griswold and the black, dropping +from the swinging stage, trailed the end of the wet hawser up to the +nearest mooring-ring. Though haste in making fast is the spring-line +man's first duty, Griswold took a fraction of a second to look around +him. The mooring-ring lay fair in the mock noonday of electric light, +and there was no cover near it save a tarpaulined pyramid of sugar +barrels. Up the levee slope the way was open to the one-sided +river-fronting street; and beyond the tarpaulin-covered sugar were more +freight pyramids, with shadowy alleys between them. + +Satisfied with what he saw, Griswold bade the negro keep watch and knelt +to knot the hawser in the ring. The line was water-soaked and stiff, and +in the momentary struggle with it his caution relaxed its eyehold on the +pyramid of sugar barrels. The lapse was hardly more than a glance aside, +but it sufficed. While the negro sentinel was stammering, "L-l-lookout, +Mars' Cap'm!" the trap was sprung. + +In deference to the up-coming passengers from the _Belle Julie_, the two +man-catchers tried to do their job quietly. But Griswold would not have +it so, and he was up and had twisted himself free when a blow from a +clubbed pistol drove him back to his knees. Half stunned by the +clubbing, he still made shift to spring afoot again, to drop his +handkerchief bundle and kick it aside, and to close with his assailants +while the negro was snatching up the treasure and darting away among the +freight pyramids. After that he had but one thought; to keep the two +plain-clothes men busy until the negro had made his escape. Even this +proved to be a forlorn hope, since the smaller of the two instantly +broke away to give chase, while the other stepped back, spun his weapon +in air, and levelled it. + +Rage-blinded as he was, Griswold knew that the levelled pistol meant +surrender or death. In the fine battle-frenzy of the moment he was on +the verge of accepting the alternative. Life and the love of it were +merged in a fierce desire to rush Berserk-mad upon the weapon and the +man behind it, and his muscles were hardening for the spring when he +chanced to look past the levelled weapon to the _Belle Julie_; to the +saloon-deck guard where a solitary, gray-coated figure stood clinging to +a stanchion and looking on with what agonies of soul none might know. +Like a flash of revealing light it came to him that the death which +would be the lesser of two evils for him would brim a life-long cup of +trembling for the woman whose duty it had been to betray him, and he +thrust out his wrists for the manacles. + +Quite naturally, the upflash of self-abnegation gave birth to renewed +hope; and when his captor had handcuffed him and was walking him toward +a closed carriage drawn up before the nearest saloon in the +river-fronting street, he ventured to ask what he was wanted for. + +"You'll find that out soon enough," was the curt reply, and nothing more +was said until the carriage was reached and the door had been jerked +open. "Get in!" commanded the majesty of the law, and when the door was +slammed upon the captive, the plain-clothes man turned to the driver, a +little wizened Irishman with a face like a shrivelled winter apple. +"What time does that New Orleans fast train pull out?" + +Griswold heard the reply: "Sivin-forty-five, sorr," and something in the +thin, piping voice gave him fresh courage. Through the open window of +the carriage he saw his captor glance at his watch and begin an +impatient sentry-beat up and down under the electric transparency +advertising the particular brand of whiskey specialized by the saloon. +He was evidently waiting for his colleague to bring in the negro, and +time pressed. + +While he looked, Griswold was conscious of a curious change creeping +into heart and brain. From typifying himself as an escaping criminal the +psychological objective was slowly but surely becoming the subjective. +He _was_ a criminal. The conclusion brought no self-accusation, no +prickings of conscience. On the contrary, it swept the ground clear of +all the ethical obstructions, leaving only a vast subtlety and +furtiveness, the sly ferocity of the trapped animal. + +Through half of the sentry-beat the big man's back was turned: +Griswold's eyes measured the distance, and the new subtlety weighed the +chances of a cautious opening of the carriage door, a tiger spring to +the pavement, and a battering out of the man's brains with the +handcuffs. There were few passers: it might be done. + +It was not because it was too cold-blooded that he put the suggestion +aside. It was rather because the man-catcher himself suggested another +expedient. The spring evening was raw and chilly, and the open doors of +the saloon volleyed light and warmth and a beckoning invitation. +Griswold's gift, prostituted to the service of the changed point of +view, bade him read in the red face, the loose lip, and the bibulous +eyes the temptation that was gripping the plain-clothes man. "Wait," +whispered the colorless inner voice; "wait, and be ready when he goes in +to get the drink he has promised himself he will never again be weak +enough to take while he is on duty. It won't be long." + +Griswold waited. By a careful contortion of the manacled hands, which +seemed suddenly to have become endowed with the crafty deftness of the +hands of a pickpocket, he found his working capital in a pocket of the +short-sleeved coat. It had been diminished only by the hundred dollars +put into John Gavitt's hands, and the twenty he had given the negro. He +wished he might have had a glimpse of the little Irish cabman's face. +Since he had not, he made two hundred dollars of the money into a +compact roll and put the remainder back into the inner pocket. + +It was only a minute or two after this that the red-faced man's +impatience blossomed into the thirst that will not be denied, and he +went into the saloon to get a drink, first putting the cabman on guard. + +"Get down here and keep an eye on this dicky-bird," he ordered. "Slug +him if he tries to make a break." + +But the cabman hung back. + +"I'm no fightin' man, sorr; an', besides, I don't dare lave me harrses," +he objected. But the officer broke in angrily. + +"What the devil are you afraid of? He's got the clamps on, and couldn't +hurt you if he wanted to. Come down here!" + +The little Irishman clambered down from his box reluctantly, with the +reins looped over his arm. When he peered in at the open window of the +carriage the big man had passed beyond the swinging screens of the +saloon entrance and Griswold seized his opportunity quickly. + +"What's your job worth, my man?" he whispered. + +The cabman snatched a swift glance over his shoulder before he ventured +to answer. + +"Don't yez be timptin' a poor man wid a wife an' sivin childer hangin' +to um--don't yez do it, sorr!" + +Griswold, the brother-keeping, would have thought twice before opening +any door of temptation for a brother man. But the new Griswold had no +compunctions. + +"It's two hundred dollars to you if you can get me away from here before +that red-faced drunkard comes back. Have a runaway--anything! Here's the +money!" + +For a single timorous instant the cabman hesitated. Then he took the +roll of money and crammed it into his pocket without looking at it. +Before Griswold could brace himself there was a quick _whish_ of the +whip, a piping cry from the driver, and the horses sprang away at a +reckless gallop, with the little Irishman hanging to the reins and +shouting feebly like a faint-hearted Automedon. + +Griswold caught a passing glimpse of the red-faced man wiping his lips +in the doorway of the saloon as the carriage bounded forward; and when +the critical instant came, he was careful to fall out on the riverward +side of the vehicle. It was a desperate expedient, since he could not +wait to choose the favorable moment, and the handcuffs made him +practically helpless. Chance saved the clumsy escape from resulting in a +speedy recapture. When he tumbled out of the lurching carriage he was +hurled violently against something that figured as a wall of solid +masonry and was half stunned by the concussion. None the less, he had +wit enough to lie motionless in the shadow of the wall, and the hue and +cry, augmented by this time to a yelling mob, swept past without +discovering him. + +When it was safe to do so, he sat up and felt for broken bones. There +were none; and he looked about him. The wall of masonry resolved itself +into a cargo of brick piled on the levee side of the street, and obeying +the primary impulse of a fugitive, he quickly put the sheltering bulk of +it between himself and the lighted thoroughfare. + +The next step had to be resolutely thought out. How was he to get rid of +the handcuffs? Any policeman would have a key, and there were doubtless +plenty of locksmiths in St. Louis. But both of these sources of +assistance were out of the question. Whom, then? The answer came in one +word--M'Grath. On a day when the up-river voyage was no more than fairly +begun, one of the negroes in the crew had procured a bottle of bad +whiskey. To pacify him the mate had put him in irons, using two pairs of +handcuffs for the purpose. Therefore, M'Grath must have a key. + +But would M'Grath do it? That remained to be seen; and since hesitation +was no part of Griswold's equipment, he covered the fetters as well as +he could with a scrap of bagging, and walked boldly down the levee and +aboard the _Belle Julie_, falling into line with the returning file of +roustabouts. + +The mate was at the heel of the foot-plank, and he saw at once what the +scrap of sacking was meant to hide. + +"Hello, there, Gavitt!" he called, not less gruffly than of yore, but +without the customary imprecation; "What are ye doing with thim things +on?" + +Griswold told a straight story, concealing nothing: not even the +detective's refusal to tell him what he was arrested for. + +M'Grath was smiling grimly when the tale was finished. "And did he let +ye come back to collect yer day-pay, then?" he asked, ironically. + +"Hardly. He shoved me into a cab and then went into a saloon to get a +drink. While he was gone, the horses ran away and I got out," said +Griswold, still adhering to the exact facts. + +"Ye'd ought to find that cabby and buy him a seegyar," was the mate's +comment. "So ye legged it, did ye?" + +"Yes; when I got a show. But I can't get these things off." + +This time M'Grath's smile was a grin. + +"I'll bet ye can't. They ain't made f'r to come off. Never mind; peg +along afther me. You did be doing me a good turn wan black night, and +I'm not forgetting it." + +He led the way up to his quarters in the texas, and telling Griswold to +wait, went down on his knees to rummage in the locker beneath the berth. + +"I've got a couple o' pair av thim things in here, somewhere, and maybe +the key to 'em will fit yours," he went on, adding: "What's become av +Mose?" + +Again Griswold told the exact truth. + +"The last I saw of him he was making a run for it up the levee, with one +of the plain-clothes men chasing him." + +M'Grath found his handcuffs and tried the key in those upon Griswold's +wrists. It fitted. + +"Now ye're fut- and hand-loose, I'll say to ye what I wouldn't say to a +cripple. If ye've been telling me the truth, 'tis only the half av it. +What have ye been doing, Gavitt?" + +Griswold smiled. "Toting cargo on the _Belle Julie_, since you've known +me. You'd swear to that, wouldn't you?" + +"But before that?" + +"Loafing around New Orleans for a month or two." + +The big mate pushed him to a seat on the after berth and sat down +opposite. + +"Because ye fished me out o' the river whin ye had good cause to lave me +be, I'll tell ye a thing or two for the good av yer soul. Thing number +wan is that ye're not Gavitt; ye're no more like him than I am. Let that +go, an' come to thing number two; ye've been up to some deviltry. How do +I know? Because, at the last landing below this a little man comes +aboard an' spots you. Is that all? It is not. Whin the _Belle Julie_ +swings in, he's the first man off, making a clane jump av a good tin +feet from the engine-room guards. I saw 'im." + +Griswold nodded and said, "I was wondering how they came to place me so +easily. This fellow knew I would be one of the two to carry out the +spring line?" + +"He did, f'r I told him." + +"Meaning to get me pulled?" + +"Meaning nothing but wanting to be rid av the bothering little man. He +said he was a friend av yours, and didn't care to be speaking to ye +while ye was mixing with the naygurs. But that's all over and gone. +What'll ye be doing next?" + +Griswold took a leaf out of the past. Safety in a former peril had grown +out of a breakfast deliberately eaten in a cafe next door to the Bayou +State Security. + +"What would I do but finish my job on the _Julie_?" he said, pushing the +theory to its logical conclusion. + +The mate shook his head. "Ye needn't do that; the cops might be coming +down here and running you in again. How much pay have ye drawn?" + +"Not any." + +M'Grath took a greasy wallet from his pocket and counted out a +deck-hand's wages for the trip. + +"Take this, and I'll be getting it back from the clerk. It might not be +good f'r ye to show up at the office. Where's yer hat?" + +"It was lost in the shuffle out yonder at the mooring-ring." + +The mate found an old one of his own, together with a long-tailed coat, +much the worse for wear. + +"Do you be taking these. They'll not be so likely to pick you up before +ye can get up-town if ye look a little less like a hobo." + +Griswold suffered a sudden return to the meliorating humanities. + +"I've been calling you all the hard names I could lay tongue to, +M'Grath, and there have been times when I would have given the price of +a good farm for the privilege of standing up to you on a bit of green +grass with nobody looking on. I take it all back. You say you haven't +forgotten: neither will I forget, and maybe my turn will come again, +some day." + +"Go along with you," growled the rough-tongued Irishman, whose very +kindness had a tang of brutality in it. "If you're coming across the +naygur, Mose, anywhere, sind him back and tell him I'll see that he gets +real money f'r helping us unload. Off with ye, now, whilst they're +catching up with yer runaway cab." + +Griswold went leisurely, as befitted his theory, and upon reaching the +levee, turned aside among the freight pyramids in search of his +confederate. Now that there was time to recall the facts he feared that +the negro had been taken. He had secured but a few yards' start in the +race, and his pursuer was a white man, able to back speed with +intelligence. Griswold had a sickening fit of despair when he +contemplated the possibility of failure with the goal almost in sight; +and the reaction, when he stumbled upon the negro skulking in the +shadows of a lumber cargo, was sharp enough to make him faint and dizzy. + +The negro did not recognize him at first and was about to run away when +Griswold shook off the benumbing weakness and called out. + +"T'ank de good Lawd! is dat you-all, Cap'm Gravitt? I's dat shuck up I +couldn' recconize my ol' mammy! Tek dishyer cunjah-bag o' yourn 'fo' I +gwine drap hit. Hit's des been _bu'nin'_ my han's ev' sense I done tuk +out wid it!" + +Griswold took the handkerchief bundle, and the mere touch of it put new +life into him. + +"Where is the fellow who was chasing you, Mose?" he asked. + +"I's nev' gwine tell you dat; no, suh. Las' time I seed him, he's des +t'arin' off strips up de levee after turrer fellah." + +"What other fellow?" + +The negro laughed and did a double shuffle at the mere recollection of +it. + +"Hi-yah! Turrer fellah is de fellah what done tuk my job. Hit was des +dis-a-way: when I t'ink dat white man gwine catch me, sho_ly_, I des +drap down in de darkes' cawneh I kin fin'; dat's what I done, yas, suh. +He des keep on agoin', _spat, spat, spat_, an' when he come out front de +_Gineral Jackson_ over yondeh, one dem boys what's wukkin' on her, _he_ +tuk out, an' dat white man des tu'n hisself loose an' mek his laigs go +lak he gwine shek 'um plum off; yas, sah!" + +Griswold suffered another lapse into the humanities when he saw the list +of participants in his act growing steadily with each fresh +complication, and he said, "I'm sorry for that, Mose." + +"Nev' you min' 'bout dat, Cap'm. Dat boy he been doin' somepin to mek +him touchous, 'less'n he nev' tuk out dat-a-way, no, suh!" + +"Maybe so. Well, we can't help it now. Here is the other twenty I +promised you." + +"T'ank you, suh; t'ank you kin'ly Cap'm. You-all's des de whites' white +man ev' I knowned. You sholy is." + +"What are you going to do with yourself, now?" Griswold inquired. + +"Who, me? I's gwine up yondeh to dat resteraw an' git me de bigges' +mess o' fried fish I kin hol'--dat's me; yas, suh." + +"M'Grath says he'll pay you levee wages if you'll come back to the boat +and help get the cargo out of her." + +"Reckon I ain't gwine back to de _Julie_: no, suh. Dat'd be gittin' rich +too fas' for dis niggeh. Good-night, Cap'm Gravitt; an' t'ank you +kin'ly, suh." + +Griswold went his way musing upon the little object-lesson afforded by +the negro's determination. Here was a fellow man who was one of the +feeblest of the under dogs in the great social fight; and with money +enough in hand to give him at least a breathing interval, his highest +ambition was a mess of fried fish. + +The object-lesson was suggestive, if not specially encouraging, and +Griswold made a mental note of it for further study when the question of +present safety should be more satisfactorily answered. + + + + +XIII + +GRISWOLD EMERGENT + + +Half an hour or such a matter after the hue-and-cry runaway from the +curb in front of the saloon two doors above, Mr. Abram Sonneschein, +dealer in second-hand clothing and sweat-shop bargains, saw a possible +customer drifting across the street, and made ready the grappling hooks +of commercial enterprise. + +The drifter was apparently a passenger from some lately arrived +steamboat; but even to the trained eye of so acute an observer as Mr. +Sonneschein he presented difficulties in the way of classification. Only +temporarily, however. The long-tailed coat and the wide-brimmed, soft +felt hat were the insignia of the down-river, back-country planter, and +the merchant drew his conclusions accordingly. + +"My, my! Rachel," he remarked to his helpmate behind the counter. "See +dis chay from de backvoods across der street coming! Maype ve could sell +him some odder t'ings to go vit dot coat, ain'd it? Come right in, +_mein_ frient; dis is der blace you vas looking for," this last to the +drifter, with a detaining finger hooked persuasively into a buttonhole +of the long-tailed coat. + +So much for the grappling. But the possible customer was not to be +landed so easily. Twice and yet once again he broke away from the +detaining finger; and when at last he finally allowed himself to be +drawn into the garish, ill-smelling little shop, he proved to be +discouragingly indifferent and hard to please in the matter of prices, +hanging back and taking refuge in countrified reticence when Mr. +Sonneschein's eloquence grew pathetically pressing. + +"I did think maybe I'd buy me a suit of clothes," he admitted, finally, +drawling the words to make his speech fit the countrified role, "but +there isn't any hurry. I reckon I'll wait a spell and look around and +see what kind of fashions they're wearing now." + +This was a tacit acknowledgment that he had money to spend, and the +eager merchant redoubled his efforts. His perseverance was rewarded, at +length, and when the ship of bargain and sale was bowling merrily along +before a fair breeze of suggestion, Mr. Sonneschein interlarded his +solicitations with an account of the recent miscarriage of justice in +front of the near-at-hand saloon. + +The customer listened with apparent incuriosity, as one whom these +doings in the city world touched but remotely; but the two or three +questions he asked were nicely calculated to bring out the more +important facts. The detectives had cautiously kept their own counsel as +to the details of their quest. Mr. Sonneschein had gossiped with the +policeman on the beat, and the policeman had talked with the red-faced +man who had come alone in the cab, and had taken an unofficial drink +with the roundsman before going down to the steamboat landing. He and +his "partner" were from New Orleans, and they were after a man who was +wanted for big money: that was all he would tell the roundsman. + +"I suppose they've caught him again long before this," said the hesitant +customer, trying on a coat which might have been modelled upon a man +twice his size, and surveying himself in the shop looking-glass while +Mr. Sonneschein lovingly smoothed the lapels into place and gathered a +generous handful of the surplus material at the back. + +"I don't know if dey have--ain'd dot der elegantist fit in der vorld, +now. See, Rachel; ain'd dot schplendit?" + +"They didn't happen to mention the fellow's name, did they?" asked the +prospective purchaser. + +"Not much dey didn't! Dem dedectifs iss too schmart for dot. Dey don't +give it avay when somepody else might got der rewards. How you like dot +schplendit coat, now?" + +"Seems tolerable big, doesn't it?" said the customer, whose speech still +fitted his part to the final drawl. "Suppose we try something else. So +there is a reward, is there?" + +Mr. Sonneschein took the reward for granted and expressed a devout wish +that he might be able to finger it. Whereupon the customer said he +wished _he_ might; and here the topic died a natural death and the +business of buying and selling went on without further interruption. + +There was little suggestion of the tramp roustabout, and still less, +perhaps, of the gentleman, about the person who presently emerged from +the Sonneschein emporium. Nevertheless, he appeared to be well satisfied +with his acquisitions, bearing himself as a purchaser who has by no +means had the worse in the bargaining. At the first street corner he +inquired his way of a policeman and was directed cityward. A square +farther on he selected a barber's shop of cleanly promise, went in, +tossed his newly acquired hand-bag to the porter, and took the first +vacant chair. + +"A hair-cut, a clean shave--not too close, and a bath afterward," was +his laconic order; and a modest tip facilitated things and provided the +little luxuries. + +An hour later no one who had known him bearded and unkempt would have +recognized the clean-shaven, athletic-looking young man who ran down the +steps of the barber's shop and went swinging along on his way up-town. +But the transformation was still incomplete. Reaching the retail +district, he strolled purposefully up one street and down another, +passing many brilliantly lighted shops until he found one exactly to his +liking. A courteous salesman caught him up at the door, and led the way +to the designated departments. + +By this time Mr. Sonneschein's hesitant and countrified customer had +undergone a complete metamorphosis. No longer reluctant and hard to +please, he passed rapidly from counter to counter, making his selections +with man-like celerity and certainty and bargaining not at all. When he +was quite through, there was enough to furnish a generous travelling +wardrobe; a head-to-foot change of garmentings with a surplus to fill +two lordly suit-cases; so he bought the suit-cases also, and had them +taken with his other purchases, to the dressing-room. + +Here, in quiet and great comfort, he made his second change of clothing, +first carefully removing from each garment all the little tags and +trademarks which declared it St. Louis-bought. These tags, together with +the Gavitt and the Sonneschein costumes, were crowded into the +Sonneschein hand-bag, with the soiled red handkerchief to keep them +company; and he was carrying this hand-bag when he reappeared to the +waiting salesman. + +"I see you have steam heat," he remarked. "Is your boiler-room +accessible?" + +"Yes, sir; it's in the basement," was the reply, and the courteous clerk +wondered if his liberal customer were thinking of adding the heating +plant to his purchases. + +Griswold saw the wonder and smiled. "No; I don't want to buy it," he +explained, with the exact touch of familiarity which bridges all chasms. +"But I'm just up from the coast, where they have a good bit of fever the +year round, and it's as well to be on the safe side. May I trouble you +to show me the way?" + +"Certainly," said the salesman, wondering no more; and when he had led +the way to the boiler-room, and had seen his customer thrust the +hand-bag well back among the coals in the furnace, he thought it a +worthy precaution and one which, if generally practiced, would +considerably accelerate the clothing trade. + +All traces of the deck-hand Gavitt, and of the Sonneschein +planter-customer having been thus obliterated, there remained only the +paying of his bill and the summoning of a cab. Oddly enough, the cab, +when it came, proved to be a four-wheeler driven by a little, +wizen-faced man whose thin, high-pitched voice was singularly familiar. + +"The Hotel Chouteau?--yis, sorr. Will you plaze hand me thim grips? I +can't lave me harrses." + +The driver's excuse instantly tied the knot of recognition, and the man +who had just cremated his former identities swore softly. + +"Beg your pardon, sorr; was ye spakin' to me?" + +"No; I was merely remarking that the world isn't as big as it might be." + +"Faith, then, it's full big enough for a man wid a wife and sivin +childer hangin' to um. Get in, sorr, and I'll have you at the Chouteau +in t'ree shakes av a dead lamb's tail." + +The little cabman was better than his word, but on the short drive to +the hotel he found time to work out a small problem, not entirely to his +satisfaction, but to at least a partial conclusion. + +"'Tis the divil's own self he is, and there's nothing left av him but +thim eyes and that scar on his forrud, and his manner of spakin'. But +thim I'd swear to if I'd live to be as old as Father M'Guinness--rest +his sowl." + + + + +XIV + +PHILISTIA + + +All things considered, it was the Griswold of the college-graduate +days--the days of the slender patrimony which had capitalized the +literary beginning--who presented himself at the counter of the Hotel +Chouteau at half-past nine o'clock on the evening of the _Belle Julie's_ +arrival at St. Louis, wrote his name in the guest-book, and permitted an +attentive bell-boy to relieve him of his two suit-cases. + +The clerk, a rotund little man with a promising bald spot and a +permanent smile, had appraised his latest guest in the moment of +book-signing, and the result was a small triumph for the Olive Street +furnishing house. Next to the genuinely tailor-made stands the quality +of verisimilitude; and the keynote of the clerk's greeting was +respectful affability. + +"Glad to have you with us, Mr. Griswold. Would you like a room, or a +suite?" + +Griswold was sufficiently human to roll the long-submerged courtesy +prefix as a sweet morsel under his tongue. With a day to spare he might +have clinched the clerk's respect by taking a suite; the more luxurious, +the better. But St. Louis, with at least two men in it who would sweep +the corners in their search for him, was only a place to put behind +him. So he said: "Neither; if I have time to get my supper and catch a +train. Have you a railway guide?" + +"There is one in the writing-room. But possibly I can tell you what you +wish to know. Which way are you going?" + +Without stopping to think of the critical happenings which had +intervened since the forming of the impulsive resolution fixing his +destination, Griswold named the chosen field for the hazard of fresh +fortunes, and its direction. + +"North; to a town in Minnesota called Wahaska. Do you happen to know the +place?" + +"I know it very well, indeed; southern Minnesota is my old +stamping-ground. Are you acquainted in Wahaska?--but I know you are not, +or you wouldn't pronounce it 'Wayhaska'." + +"You are quite right; I know next to nothing about the town. But I have +been given the impression that it is a quiet little place out of the +beaten track, where a man might spend a summer without having to share +it with a lot of other city runaways of his kind." + +The clerk smiled and shook his head. + +"You might have done that a few years ago, but there's a fine lake, you +know, and some New Orleans people have built a resort house. I +understand it does a pretty fair business in the season." + +Having assured himself that the New Orleans leaf in his book of +experience was safely turned and securely pasted down, Griswold was +nettled to find that the mere mention of the name sent creeping little +chills of apprehension trickling up and down his spine. But innate +stubbornness scoffed at the warning; derided and craved further details. + +"How large a place is it?" + +"Oh, four or five thousand, I should say; possibly more: big enough and +busy enough so that a hundred-room resort house doesn't make it a +souvenir town. It's a nice little city; modern, progressive, and +business-like; trolleys, electric lights, and some manufacturing. Good +people, too. _Front!_ Check the gentleman's grips and show him the cafe. +I'm sorry we can't give you dinner, but the dining-room closes at nine." + +"Plenty of time, is there?" Griswold asked. + +"Oh, yes; didn't I tell you? Your train leaves the Terminal at +eleven-thirty; but you can get into the sleeper any time after eight +o'clock." + +The guest had crossed the lobby to the cafe, and the clerk was still +dallying with the memories stirred up by the mention of his boyhood +home, when a little man with weak eyes and a face that out-caricatured +all the caricatures of the Irish, sidled up to the registry desk. The +round-bodied clerk knew him and spoke in terms of accommodation. + +"What is it, Patsy?" + +"The young gentleman ye was spakin' to: is he gone?" + +"He is in the cafe, getting his supper. What did you want of him?" + +The weak-eyed little man was running a slow finger down the list of +names on the guest-book, blinking as if the writing or the glare of the +lights on the page dazzled him. + +"I drove him, and he did be overpaying me, I think. What was ye saying +his name would be?" + +"It's right there, under your finger: Kenneth Griswold, New York." + +"Um. And I wondher, now, where does he be living, whin he's at home?" + +"I don't know; New York, I suppose, since he registers from there." + +"And does he be staying here f'r awhile?" + +"No; he is on his way to Minnesota." + +"Um." A long pause followed in which the cabman appeared to be counting +the coins in his pocket by the sense of touch. Then: "Would yez be +writing that down for me on a bit av paper, Misther Edwards?--his name, +and the name av the place where he does be going, I mane?" + +"So you can write to him and refund the over-payment after you've been +to confession?" laughed the clerk. Nevertheless, he wrote the name and +address on a card for the petitioner. + +"Thank ye, sorr; thank ye kindly. Whin a man has a wife and sivin +childer hangin' to um--" but here the singsong voice of the porter +calling the Burlington westbound silenced all other sounds and the clerk +heard no more. + +Seated at a well-appointed table in the Chouteau cafe, Griswold had +ample time to overtake himself in the race reconstructive, and for the +moment the point of view became frankly Philistine. The luxurious hotel, +with its air of invincible respectability; the snowy napery, the cut +glass, the shaded lights, the deferential service; all these appealed +irresistibly to the epicurean in him. It was as if he had come suddenly +to his own again after an undeserved season of deprivation, and the +effect of it was to push the hardships and perils of the preceding weeks +and months into a far-away past. + +He ordered his supper deliberately, and while he waited for its serving, +imagination cleared the stage and set the scenes for the drama of the +future. That future, with all its opportunities for the realizing of +ideals, was now safely assured. He could go whither he pleased and do +what seemed right in his own eyes, and there was none to say him nay. + +It was good to be able to pick and choose in a whole worldful of +possibilities, and he gave himself a broad credit mark for persevering +in the resolution which held him steadfastly to the modest, workaday +plan struck out in the beginning. Apart from Miss Farnham's recognition +of him on the _Belle Julie_--a recognition which, he persuaded himself, +would never carry over from Gavitt the deck-hand to Griswold the student +and benefactor of his kind--there was nothing to fear; no reason why he +should not make Wahaska his workshop. + +In this minor city of the clerk's describing he would find the +environment most favorable for a re-writing of his book and for a +renewal of his studies. Here, too, he might hope to become by +unostentatious degrees the beneficent god-in-the-car of his worthier +ambition, raising the fallen, succoring the helpless, and fighting the +battles of the oppressed. + +Farther along, when she should have quite forgotten the _Belle Julie's_ +deck-hand, he would meet Miss Farnham on an equal social footing; and +the conclusion of the whole matter should be a triumphant demonstration +to her by their refutable logic of good deeds and a life well-lived that +in his case, at least, the end justified the means. + +Just here, however, there was an unresolved discord in the imaginative +theme. It was struck by the reflection that since he could never take +her fully into his confidence her approval would always lack the seal of +completeness. She knew the masquerading deck-hand, and what he had done; +and she would know Griswold the benefactor, and what he meant to do. But +until she could link the two together, there could be no demonstration. +Though he should build the bastion of good deeds mountain high, it could +never figure as a bastion to her unless she might come to know what it +was designed to defend. + +Having a sensitive ear for the imaginative harmonies, the unresolved +discord annoyed him. The effort to eliminate it brought him face to face +with a blunt demand, a query that was almost psychic in its clear-cut +distinctness. Why did these forecastings of the future always lead him +up to the closed door of this young woman's approval and leave him +there? + +For one whose experience had all been bought on a rising market, +Griswold was singularly heart-whole and normal in his attitude toward +women. Beautiful women he had met before, among them a few who had lent +themselves facilely to the idealizing process; but in each instance it +was the artistic temperament, and not the heart, that was touched and +inspired. Was Charlotte Farnham going to prove the exception? Since he +could ask the question calmly and with no perceptible quickening of the +pulses, he concluded that she was not. Nevertheless---- + +The train of reflective thought was broken abruptly by the seating of +two other supper guests at his table; a big-framed man in the grizzled +fifties, and a young woman who looked as if she might have stepped the +moment before out of the fitting-rooms of the most famous of Parisian +dressmakers. + +Griswold's supper was served, and for a time he made shift to ignore the +couple at the other end of the table. Then an overheard word, the name +of the town which he had chosen as his future abiding place, made him +suddenly observant. + +It was the young woman who had named Wahaska, and he saw now that his +first impression had been at fault; she was not overdressed. Also he saw +that she was piquantly pretty; a bravura type, slightly suggesting the +Rialto at its best, perhaps, but equally suggestive of sophistication, +travel, and a serene disregard of chaperonage. + +The young woman's companion was undeniably her father. Gray, +heavy-browed, and with a face that was a life-mask of crude strength and +elemental shrewdness, the man had bequeathed no single feature to the +alertly beautiful daughter; yet the resemblance was unmistakable. +Griswold did not listen designedly, but he could not help overhearing +much of the talk at the other end of the table. From it he gathered that +the young woman was lately returned from some Florida winter resort; +that her father had met her by appointment in St. Louis; and that the +two were going on together; perhaps to Wahaska, since that was the +place-name oftenest on the lips of the daughter. + +Griswold was only moderately interested. The deliberately ordered +supper, enticing in anticipation, had fallen short of the zestful +promise in the fact. It came to him with a little shock that at least +one part of him, the civilized appetite, had become debased by the +plunge into the deck-hand depths, and he fought the suggestion fiercely. +It was an article in his creed that environment is always subjective, +and when one opens the door to an exception a host of ominous shapes may +be ready to crowd in. He was fighting off the evil shapes while he +listened; otherwise his interest might have been more acute. + +It was at this point that the apex of Philistine contentment was passed +and the reaction set in. He had been spending strength and vitality +recklessly and the accounting was at hand. The descent began when he +took himself sharply to task for the high-priced supper. What right had +he to order costly food that he could not eat when the price of this +single meal would feed a family for a week? + +After that, nothing that the obsequious and attentive waiter could bring +proved tempting enough to recall the vanished appetite. Never having +known what it was to be sick, Griswold disregarded the warning, drank a +cup of strong coffee, and went out to the lobby to get a cigar, leaving +his table companions in the midst of their meal. To his surprise and +chagrin the carefully selected "perfecto" made him dizzy and faint, +bringing a disquieting recurrence of the vertigo which had seized him +while he was searching for his negro treasure-bearer on the levee. + +"I've had an overdose of excitement, I guess," he said to himself, +flinging the cigar away. "The best thing for me to do is to go down to +the train and get to bed." + +He went about it listlessly, with a curious buzzing in his ears and a +certain dimness of sight which was quite disconcerting; and when a cab +was summoned he was glad enough to let a respectfully sympathetic porter +lend him a shoulder to the sidewalk. + +The drive in the open air was sufficiently tonic to help him through the +details of ticket-buying and embarkation; and afterward sleep came so +quickly that he did not know when the Pullman porter drew the curtains +to adjust the screen in the window at his feet, though he did awake +drowsily later on at the sound of voices in the aisle, awoke to realize +vaguely that his two table companions of the Hotel Chouteau cafe were to +be his fellow travellers in the Pullman. + +The train was made up ready to leave, and the locomotive was filling the +great train-shed with stertorous hissings, when a red-faced man slipped +through the gates to saunter over to the Pullman and to peck +inquisitively at the porter. + +"Much of a load to-night, George?" + +"No, sah; mighty light: four young ladies goin' up to de school in +Faribault, Mistah Grierson and his daughter, and a gentleman from de +Chouteau." + +"A gentleman from the Chouteau? When did he come down?" + +The porter knew the calling of the red-faced man only by intuition; but +Griswold's tip was warming in his pocket and he lied at random and on +general principles. + +"Been heah all de evenin'; come down right early afte' suppeh, and went +to baid like he was sick or tarr'd or somethin'." + +"What sort of a looking man is he?" + +"Little, smooth-faced, narr'-chisted gentleman; look like he might +be----" + +But the train was moving out and the red-faced man had turned away. +Whereupon the porter broke his simile in the midst, picked up his +carpet-covered step, and climbed aboard. + + + + +XV + +THE GOTHS AND VANDALS + + +In the day of its beginnings, Wahaska was a minor trading-post on the +north-western frontier, and an outfitting station for the hunters and +trappers of the upper Mississippi and Minnesota lake region. + +Later, it became the market town of a wheat-growing district, and a +foundation of modest prosperity was laid by well-to-do farmers +gravitating to their county seat to give their children the benefit of a +graded school. Later still came the passing of the wheat, a re-peopling +of the farms by a fresh influx of home-seekers from the Old World, and +the birth, in Wahaska and elsewhere, of the industrial era. + +Jasper Grierson was a product of the wheat-growing period. The son of +one of the earliest of the New-York-State homesteaders in the wheat +belt, he came of age in the year of the Civil War draft, and was +unpatriotic enough, some said, to dodge conscription, or the chance of +it, by throwing up his hostler's job in a Wahaska livery stable and +vanishing into the dim limbo of the Farther West. Also, tradition added +that he was well-spared by most; that he was ill-spared, indeed, by only +one, and that one a woman. + +After the westward vanishing, Wahaska saw him no more until he returned +in his vigorous prime, a veteran soldier of fortune upon whom the +goddess had poured a golden shower out of some cornucopia of the +Colorado mines. Although rumor, occasionally naming him during the years +of absence, had never mentioned a wife, he was accompanied by a +daughter, a dark-eyed, red-lipped young woman, a rather striking beauty +of a type unfamiliar to Wahaska and owing nothing, it would seem, to the +grim, gray-wolf Jasper. + +With the return to his birthplace, Jasper Grierson began a campaign, the +planning of which had tided him over many an obstacle in the road to +fortune. It had given him the keenest thrill of joy of which a frankly +sordid nature is capable to descend upon his native town rich enough to +buy and sell any round dozen of the well-to-do farmers; and when he had +looked about him he settled down to the attainment of his heart's +desire, which was to have the casting vote in the business affairs of +the community which had once known him as a helper in a livery stable. + +Losing sight of the irresistible energy and momentum of wealth as +wealth, men said that fortune favored him from the outset. It was only a +half-truth, but it sufficed to account for what was really a campaign of +conquest. Grierson's touch was Midas-like, turning all things to gold; +and even in Wahaska there were Mammon worshippers enough to hail him as +a public benefactor whose wealth and enterprise would shortly make of +the overgrown village a town, and of the town a thriving city. + +Since the time was ripe, Wahaska did presently burst its +swaddling-bands. Commercial enterprise is sheep-like; where one leads, +others will follow; and the mere following breeds success, if only by +the sheer impetus of the massed forward movement. Jasper Grierson was +the man of the hour, but the price paid for leadership by the led is apt +to be high. When Wahaska became a city, with a charter and a bonded +debt, electric lights, water-works, and a trolley system, Grierson's +interest predominated in every considerable business venture in it, save +and excepting the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works. + +He was the president of one bank, and the principal stockholder in the +other, which was practically an allied institution; he was the sole +owner of the grain elevator, the saw- and planing-mills, the box +factory, and a dozen smaller industries in which his name did not +appear. Also, it was his money, or rather his skill as a promoter, which +had transformed the Wahaska & Pineboro Railroad from a logging switch, +built to serve the saw-mill, into an important and independent +connecting link in the great lake region system. + +In each of these commercial or industrial chariots the returned native +sat in the driver's seat; and those who remembered him as a loutish +young farmhand overlooked the educative results of continued success and +marvelled at his gifts, wondering how and where he had acquired them. + +While the father was thus gratifying a purely Gothic lust for conquest, +the daughter figured, in at least one small circle, as a beautiful young +Vandal, with a passion for overturning all the well-settled traditions. +At first her attitude toward Wahaska and the Wahaskans had been serenely +tolerant; the tolerance of the barbarian who neither understands, nor +sympathizes with, the homely virtues and the customs which have grown +out of them. Then resentment awoke, and with it a soaring ambition to +reconstruct the social fabric of the countrified town upon a model of +her own devising. + +In this charitable undertaking she was aided and abetted by her father, +who indulgently paid the bills. At her instigation he built an imposing +red brick mansion on the sloping shore of Lake Minnedaska, named it--or +suffered her to name it--"Mereside," had an artist of parts up from +Chicago to design the decorations and superintend the furnishings, had a +landscape gardener from Philadelphia to lay out the grounds, and, when +all was in readiness, gave a house-warming to which the invitations were +in some sense mandatory, since by that time he had a finger in nearly +every commercial and industrial pie in Wahaska. + +After the house-warming, which was a social event quite without +precedent in Wahaskan annals, Miss Grierson's leadership was tacitly +acknowledged by a majority of the ex-farmers' wives and daughters, +though they still discussed her with more or less frankness in the +sewing-circles and at neighborhood tea-drinkings. Crystallized into +accusation, there was little to be urged against her save that she was +pretty and rich, and that her leaning toward modernity was sometimes a +little startling. But being human, the missionary seamstresses and the +tea-drinkers made the most of these drawbacks, whetting criticism to a +cutting edge now and then with curious speculations about Margery's +mother, and wondering why Jasper Grierson or the daughter never +mentioned her. + +Meanwhile, the big house on the lake front continued to set the social +pace. Afternoon teas began to supersede the sewing-circles; not a few of +the imitators attained to the formal dignity of visiting cards with +"Wednesdays" or "Thursdays" appearing in neat script in the lower +left-hand corner; and in some of the more advanced households the +principal meal of the day drifted from its noontide anchorage to +unwonted moorings among the evening hours--greatly to the distress of +the men, for whom even hot weather was no longer an excuse for appearing +in shirt-sleeves. + +For these innovations Miss Grierson was indirectly, though not less +intentionally, responsible; and her satisfaction was in just proportion +to the results attained. But in spite of these successes there were +still obstacles to be surmounted. From the first there had been a +perverse minority refusing stubbornly to bow the head in the house +of--Grierson. The Farnhams were of it, and the Raymers, with a following +of a few of the families called "old" as age is reckoned in the Middle +West. The men of this minority were slow to admit the omnipotence of +Jasper Grierson's money, and the women were still slower to accept Miss +Grierson on terms of social equality. + +At the house-warming this minority had been represented only by +variously worded regrets. At a reception, given to mark the closing of +Mereside, socially, on the eve of Miss Margery's departure for the +winter in Florida, the regrets were still polite and still unanimous. +Miss Margery laughed defiantly and set her white teeth on a determined +resolution to reduce this inner citadel of conservatism at all costs. +Accordingly, she opened the campaign on the morning after the reception; +began it at the breakfast-table when she was pouring her father's +coffee. + +"You know everybody, and everybody's business, poppa: who is the +treasurer of St. John's?" she inquired. + +"How should I know?" grumbled the magnate, whose familiarity with church +affairs was limited to certain writings of a legal nature concerning the +Presbyterian house of worship upon which he held a mortgage. + +"You ought to know," asserted Miss Margery, with some asperity. "Isn't +it Mr. Edward Raymer?" + +Jasper Grierson frowned thoughtfully into space. "Why, yes; come to +think of it, I guess he is the man. Anyway, he's one of their--what do +you call 'em--trustees?" + +"Wardens," corrected Margery. + +"Yes, that's it; I knew it was something connected with a penitentiary. +What do you want of him?" + +"Nothing much of him: but I want a check for five hundred dollars +payable to his order." + +Jasper Grierson's laugh was suggestive of the noise made by a rusty +door-hinge. The tilting of the golden cornucopia had made him a ruthless +money-grubber, but he never questioned his daughter's demands. + +"Going in for the real old simon-pure, blue-ribbon brand of +respectability this time, ain't you Madgie?" he chuckled; but he wrote +the check on the spot. + +Two hours later, Miss Grierson's cutter, driven by herself, paraded in +Main Street to the delight of any eye aesthetic. The clean-limbed, +high-bred Kentuckian, the steel-shod, tulip-bodied vehicle, and the +faultlessly arrayed young woman tucked in among the costly fur lap robes +were three parts of a harmonious whole; and more than one pair of eyes +looked, and turned to look again; with envy if they were young eyes and +feminine; with frank admiration if they were any age and masculine. For +Miss Grierson, panoplied for conquest, was the latest reincarnation of +the woman who has been turning men's heads and quickening the blood in +their veins since that antediluvian morning when the sons of God saw the +daughters of men that they were fair. + +Miss Margery drove daily in good weather, but on this crisp January +morning her outing had an objective other than the spectacular. When the +clean-limbed Kentuckian had measured the length of Main Street, he was +sent on across the railroad tracks into the industrial half of the town, +and was finally halted in front of the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works. + +Raymer was at his desk when the smart equipage drew up before the office +door; and a moment later he was at the curb, bareheaded, offering to +help the daughter of men out of the robe wrappings. + +"Perhaps I'd better not get out," she said. "Duke doesn't stand well. +Can I see Mr. Edward Raymer for a minute or two?" + +Raymer bowed and blushed a little. He knew her so well, by eye-intimacy +at least, that he had been sure she knew him in the same way--as indeed +she did. + +"I--that is my name. What can I do for you, Miss Grierson?" + +"Oh, _thank_ you," she burst out, with exactly the proper shade of +impulsiveness. "Do you know, I was really afraid I might have to +introduce myself? I----" + +The interruption was of Raymer's making. One of his employees appearing +opportunely, he sent the man to the horse's head, and once more held out +his hands to Miss Grierson. + +"You must come in and get warm," he insisted. "I am sure you have found +it very cold driving this morning. Let me help you." + +She made a driver's hitch in the reins and let him lift her to the +sidewalk. The ease with which he did it gave her a pleasant little +thrill of the sort that comes with the realization of a thing hoped for. +When she was not too busy with the social triumphs, strength, manly +strength, was a passion with Miss Grierson. + +Raymer held the office door open for her, and in the grimy little den +which had been his father's before him, placed a chair for her at the +desk-end. + +"Now you can tell me in comfort what I can do for you," he said, +bridging the interruption. + +"Oh, it's only a little thing. I came to see you about renting a pew in +St. John's; that is our church, you know." + +Raymer did not know, but he was politic enough not to say so. + +"I am quite at your service," he hastened to say. "Shall I show you a +plan of the sittings?" + +She protested prettily that it wasn't at all necessary; that any +assignment agreeable to him and least subversive of the rights and +preferences of others would be quite satisfactory. But he got out the +blue-print plan and dusted it, and in the putting together of heads over +it many miles in the gap of unacquaintance were safely and swiftly flung +to the rear. + +When the sittings were finally decided upon she opened her purse. + +"It is so good of you to take time from your business to wait on me," +she told him; and then, in naive confusion: "I--I asked poppa to make +out a check, but I don't know whether it is big enough." + +Raymer took the order to pay, glanced at the amount, and from that to +the velvety eyes with the half-abashed query in them. Miss Grierson's +eyes were her most effective weapon. With them she could look anything, +from daggers drawn to kisses. Just now the look was of child-like +beseeching, but Raymer withstood it--or thought he did. + +"It is more than twice as much as we get for the best locations," he +demurred. "Wait a minute and I'll write you a check for the difference +and give you a receipt." + +But at the word she was on her feet in an eager flutter of protest. + +"Oh, please don't!" she pleaded. "If it is really too much, can't you +put the difference in the missionary box, or in the--in the rector's +salary?--as a little donation from us, you know?" + +Then Edward Raymer found that he had not withstood the eye-attack and he +surrendered at discretion, compromising on a receipt for the pew-rent. +Thus the small matter of business was concluded; but Miss Margery was +not yet ready to go. From St. John's and its affairs official she passed +deftly to the junior warden of St. John's and his affairs personal. Was +the machine works the place where they made steam-engines and things? +And did the sign, "No Admittance," on the doors mean that no visitors +were allowed? If not, she would so much like to---- + +Raymer smiled and put himself once more at her service, this time as +guide and megaphonist. It was all very noisy and grimy, but if she +cared to go through the works he would be glad to go with her. + +He did not know how glad he was going to be until they had passed +through the clamorous machine-shop and had reached the comparatively +quiet foundry. One of Miss Margery's gifts was the ability to become for +the moment an active and sympathetic sharer in any one's enthusiasms. In +the foundry she looked and listened, and was unsophisticated only to the +degree that invites explanation. It was a master-stroke of finesse. A +man is never so transparent as when he forgets himself in his own +trade-talk; and Raymer was unrolling himself as a scroll for Miss +Grierson to read as she ran. + +"And you say that is one of the columns for poppa's new block?" she +asked, while they stood to watch the workmen drawing a pattern out of +the sand of the mould. + +"No; that is the pattern: that is wood, and it is used to make the print +in the sand into which the melted iron is poured. This part of the mould +they are lifting with the crane is called the 'cope,' and the lower half +is the 'drag.' When they have drawn the patterns, they will lock the two +halves together and the mould will be ready for the pouring. You ought +to come some afternoon while we are pouring; it would interest you if +you've never seen it." + +"Oh, may I? I shall remember that, when I come back from Florida." + +"You are going away?" he said quickly. + +"Yes; for a few weeks." + +"Wahaska will miss you." + +"Will it? I wish I could believe that, Mr. Raymer. But I don't know. +Sometimes----" + +"You mustn't doubt it for a moment. When you drove up a few minutes ago +I was thinking that you were the one bit of redeeming color in our +rather commonplace picture." + +She let him look into what she wished him to believe were the very +ultimate depths of the velvety eyes when she said: "You shouldn't +flatter, Mr. Raymer. For one thing, you don't do it easily; and for +another, it's disappointing." + +They were passing out of the foundry on their way back to the office and +he held the weighted door open for her. + +"A bit of honest praise isn't flattery," he protested. "But supposing it +were a mere compliment--why should you find it disappointing?" + +"Because one has to have anchors of some sort; anchors in sincerity and +straightforwardness, in the honesty of purpose that will say, '_No-no!_' +and slap the best-beloved baby's hands, if that's what is needed. That +is your proper role, Mr. Raymer, and you must never hesitate to take +it." + +It was the one small lapse from the strict conventionalities, but it +sufficed to cut out all the middle distances. The tour of the works +which had begun in passing acquaintance ended in friendship, precisely +as Miss Grierson had meant it should; and when Raymer was tucking her +into the cutter and wrapping her in the fur robes, she added the +finishing touch, or rather the touch for which all the other touches +had been the preliminaries. + +"I'm so glad I had the courage to come and see you this morning. We have +been dreadfully remiss in church matters, but I am going to try to make +up for it in the future. I'm sorry you couldn't come to us last evening. +Please tell your mother and sister that I _do_ hope we'll meet, +sometime. I should so dearly love to know them. Thank you so much for +everything. Good-by." + +Raymer watched her as she drove away, noted her skilful handling of the +fiery Kentuckian and her straight seat in the flying cutter, and the +smile which a day or two earlier might have been mildly satirical was +now openly approbative. + +"She is a shrewd little strategist," was his comment; "but all the same +she is a mighty pretty girl, and as good and sensible as she is shrewd. +I wonder why mother and Gertrude haven't called on her?" + +Having thus mined the Raymer outworks, Miss Grierson next turned her +batteries upon the Farnhams. They were Methodists, and having learned +that the doctor's hobby was a struggling mission work in Pottery Flat, +Margery called the paternal check-book again into service, and the +cutter drew up before the doctor's office in Main Street. + +"Good-morning, doctor," she began cheerfully, bursting in upon the head +of the First-Church board of administrators as a charming embodiment of +youthful enthusiasm, "I'm running errands for poppa this morning. Mr. +Rodney was telling us about that little First-Church mission in Pottery +Flat, and poppa wanted to help. But we are not Methodists, you know, and +he was afraid--that is, he didn't quite know how you might----" + +It was an exceedingly clever bit of acting, and the good doctor +capitulated at once, discrediting, for the first time in his life, the +intuition of his home womankind. + +"Now that is very thoughtful and kind of you, Miss Margery," he said, +wiping his glasses and looking a second time at the generous figure of +the piece of money-paper. "I appreciate it the more because I know you +must have a great many other calls upon your charity. We've been wanting +to put a trained worker in charge of that mission for I don't know how +long, and this gift of yours makes it possible." + +"The kindness is in allowing us to help," murmured the small diplomat. +"You'll let me know when more is needed? Promise me that, Doctor +Farnham." + +"I shouldn't be a good Methodist if I didn't," laughed the doctor. Then +he remembered the Mereside reception and the regrets, and was moved to +make amends. "I'm sorry we couldn't be neighborly last night; but my +sister-in-law is very frail, and Charlotte doesn't go out much. They are +both getting ready to go to Pass Christian, but I'm sure they'll call +before they go South." + +"I shall be ever so glad to welcome them," purred Miss Margery, "and I +do hope they will come before I leave. I'm going to Palm Beach next +week, you know." + +"I'll tell them," volunteered the doctor. "They'll find time to run in, +I'm sure." + +But for some reason the vicarious promise was not kept; and the Raymers +held aloof; and the Oswalds and the Barrs relinquished the new public +library project when it became noised about that Jasper Grierson and his +daughter were moving in it. + +Miss Margery possessed her soul in patience up to the final day of her +home staying, and the explosion might have been indefinitely postponed +if, on that last day, the Raymers, mother and daughter, had not +pointedly taken pains to avoid her at the _lingerie_ counter in +Thorwalden's. It was as the match to the fuse, and when Miss Grierson +left the department store there were red spots in her cheeks and the +dark eyes were flashing. + +"They think I'm a jay!" she said, with a snap of the white teeth. "They +need a lesson, and they're going to get it before I leave. I'm not going +to sing small all the time!" + +It was surely the goddess of discord who ordained that the blow should +be struck while the iron was hot. Five minutes after the rebuff in +Thorwalden's, Miss Grierson met Raymer as he was coming out of the +Farmers' and Merchants' Bank. There was an exchange of commonplaces, but +in the midst of it Miss Margery broke off abruptly to say: "Mr. Raymer, +please tell me what I have done to offend your mother and sister." + +If she had been in the mood to compromise, half of the deferred payment +of triumph might have been discharged on the spot by Raymer's +blundering attempt at disavowal. + +"Why, Miss Margery! I don't know--that is--er--really, you must be +mistaken, I'm sure!" + +"I am not mistaken, and I'd like to know," she persisted, looking him +hardily in the eyes. "It must be something I have been doing, and if I +can find out what it is, I'll reform." + +Raymer got away as soon as he could; and when the opportunity offered, +was besotted enough to repeat the question to his mother and sister. +Mrs. Raymer was a large and placid matron of the immovable type, and her +smile emphasized her opinion of Miss Grierson. + +"The mere fact of her saying such a thing to you ought to be a +sufficient answer, I should think," was her mild retort. + +"I don't see why," Raymer objected. + +"What would you think if Gertrude did such a thing?" + +"Oh, well; that is different. In the first place Gertrude wouldn't do +it, and----" + +"Precisely. And Miss Grierson shouldn't have done it. It is because she +can do such things that a few of us think she wouldn't be a pleasant +person to know, socially." + +"But why?" insisted Raymer, with masculine obtuseness. + +It was his sister who undertook to make the reason plain to him. + +"It isn't anything she does, or doesn't do, particularly; it is the +atmosphere in which she lives and moves and has her being. If it weren't +for her father's money, she would be--well, it is rather hard to say +just what she would be. But she always makes me think of the bonanza +people--the pick and shovel one day and a million the next. I believe +she is a frank little savage, at heart." + +"I don't," the brother contended, doggedly. "She may be a trifle new and +fresh for Wahaska, but she is clever and bright, and honest enough to +ignore a social code which makes a mock of sincerity and a virtue of +hypocrisy. I like her all the better for the way she flared out at me. +There isn't one young woman in a thousand who would have had the nerve +and the courage to do it." + +"Or the impudence," added Mrs. Raymer, when her son had left the room. +Then: "I do hope Edward isn't going to let that girl come between him +and Charlotte!" + +The daughter laughed. + +"I should say there is room for a regiment to march between them, as it +is. Miss Gilman took particular pains to let him know what train they +were leaving on, and I happen to know he never went near the station to +tell them good-by." + + + + +XVI + +GOOD SAMARITANS + + +Since she had undertaken to show Wahaska precisely how to deport itself +in the conventional field, Miss Grierson took a maid and a chaperon with +her when she went to Florida. But when she returned in April, the maid +had been left behind to marry the gamekeeper of one of the millionaire +estates on Lake Worth, and little Miss Matthews, the ex-seamstress +chaperon, had been dropped off in Illinois to visit relatives. + +This is how it chanced that Margery, unwilling to set the Wahaskans a +bad example, had telegraphed her father to meet her in St. Louis. Also, +it shall account as it may for the far-reaching stroke of fate which +seated the Griersons at Griswold's table in the Hotel Chouteau cafe, and +afterward made them his fellow travellers in the north-bound +sleeping-car _Anita_. + +When Jasper Grierson travelled alone he was democratic enough to be +satisfied with a section in the body of the car. But when Margery's +tastes were to be consulted, the drawing-room was none too good. Indeed, +as it transpired on the journey northward from St. Louis, the _Anita's_ +drawing-room proved to be not good enough. + +"It is simply a crude insult, the way they wear out their old, +broken-down cars on us up here!" she was protesting to her father, when +they came back from the late dining-car breakfast. "You ought to do +something about it." Miss Margery was at the moment fresh from "Florida +Specials" and the solid-Pullman vestibuled luxuries of eastern winter +travel. + +Jasper Grierson's smile was a capitalistic acquirement, and some of his +fellow-townsmen described it as "cast-iron." But for his daughter it was +always indulgent. + +"I don't own the railroad yet, Madgie; you'll have to give me a little +more time," he pleaded, clipping the tip from a black cigar of heroic +proportions and reaching for the box of safety matches. + +"I'll begin now, if you are going to smoke that dreadful thing in this +stuffy little den," was the unfilial retort; and the daughter found a +magazine and exchanged the drawing-room with its threat of asphyxiation +for a seat in the body of the car. + +For a little while the magazine, or rather the pictures in it, sufficed +for a time-killer. Farther along, the panorama of eastern Iowa unrolling +itself beside the path of the train served as an alternative to the +pictured pages. When both the book and the out-door prospect palled upon +her, Miss Margery tried to interest herself in her immediate +surroundings. + +The material was not promising. Two old ladies dozing in the section +diagonally across the aisle, four school-girls munching chocolates and +restlessly shifting from seat to seat in the farther half of the car, +and the conductor methodically making out his reports in the section +opposite, summed up the human interest, or at least the visible part of +it. Half-way down the car one of the sections was still curtained and +bulkheaded; and when Miss Grierson curled up in her seat and closed her +eyes she was wondering vaguely why the porter had left this one section +undisturbed in the morning scene-shifting. + +The northward-flying train was crossing a river, and the dining-car +waiter was crying the luncheon summons, when Margery awoke to realize +the comforting fact that she had successfully slept the forenoon away. +With the eye-opening came a recurrence of the last-remembered waking +thought--the wonder why the curtained section was still undisturbed. +When she was leaving the _Anita_ with her father, the explanation +suggested itself: of course, the occupant of the middle section must be +ill. + +Luncheon over, there was nothing to remind her of the probable invalid +in Number Six until late in the afternoon when, looking through the open +door of the drawing-room, she saw the porter carrying a glass of water +to the invisible sufferer. Quite suddenly her interest became acute. Who +was the sick one? and why was he, or she, travelling without an +attendant? + +With Margery Grierson, to question was to ascertain; and the Pullman +conductor, once more checking his diagrams in Section Eleven, offered +the readiest means of enlightenment. A few minutes later Margery +rejoined her father in the private compartment. + +"Do you remember the nice-looking young man who sat at the table with us +in the Chouteau last night?" she began abruptly. + +The gray-wolf Jasper nodded. He had an excellent memory for faces. + +"What did you think of him?" The query followed the nod like a nimble +boxer's return blow. + +"I thought he paid a whole lot more attention to you than he did to his +supper. Why?" + +"He is on this car; sick with a fever of some kind, and out of his head. +He is going to Wahaska." + +"How do you know it's the same one?" + +"I made the conductor take me to see him. He talked to me in Italian and +called me '_Carlotta mia_.'" + +"Humph! he didn't look like a dago." + +"He isn't; it's just because he is delirious." + +There was a long pause, broken finally by a curt "Well?" from the +father. + +"I've been thinking," was the slow response. "Of course, there is a +chance that he has friends in Wahaska, and that some one will be at the +train to meet him. But it is only a chance." + +"Why doesn't the conductor telegraph ahead and find out?" + +"He doesn't know the man's name. I tried to get him to look for a card, +or to break into the suit-cases under the berth, but he says the +regulations won't let him." + +"Well?" said the father again, this time with a more decided upward +inflection. Then he added: "You've made up your mind what you're going +to do: say it." + +Margery's decision was announced crisply. "There is no hospital to send +him to--which is Wahaska's shame. Maybe he will be met and taken care of +by his friends: if he is, well and good; if he isn't, we'll put him in +the carriage and take him home with us." + +The cast-iron smile with the indulgent attachment wrinkled frostily upon +Jasper Grierson's heavy face. + +"The Good Samaritan act, eh? I've known you a long time, Madgie, but I +never can tell when you're going to break out in a brand-new spot. +Didn't lose any of your unexpectedness in Florida, did you?" + +Miss Margery tossed her pretty head, and the dark eyes snapped. + +"Somebody in the family has to think of something besides making money," +she retorted. "Please lend me your pencil; I want to do some wiring." + +All other gifts apart, Miss Grierson could boast of a degree of +executive ability little inferior to her father's; did boast of it when +the occasion offered; and by the time the whistle was sounding for +Wahaska, all the arrangements had been made for the provisional rescue +of the sick man in Lower Six. + +At the station a single inquiry served to give the Good Samaritan +intention the right of way. There were no friends to meet Lower Six; but +the Grierson carriage was waiting, with the coachman and a Mereside +gardener for bearers. From that to putting the sick man to bed in one of +the guest-chambers of the lake-fronting mansion at the opposite end of +the town was a mere bit of routine for one so capable as Miss Grierson; +and twenty minutes after the successful transfer, she had Dr. Farnham at +the nameless one's bedside, and was telephoning the college infirmary +for a nurse. + +Naturally, there were explanations to be made when the doctor came down. +To her first anxious question the answer came gravely: "You have a very +sick man on your hands, Miss Margery." Then the inevitable: "Who is he?" + +She spread her hands in a pretty affectation of embarrassment. + +"What will you think of me, Doctor Farnham, when I tell you that I +haven't the littlest atom of an idea?" + +Charlotte's father was a small man, with kindly eyes and the firm, +straight-lined mouth of his Puritan forebears. "Tell me about it," he +said concisely. + +"There is almost nothing to tell. He was sick and out of his head, and +his ticket read to Wahaska. No one on the train seemed to know anything +about him; and he couldn't tell us anything himself. So when we found +there was no one to meet him at the station, we put him into the +carriage and brought him home. There didn't seem to be anything else to +do." + +A shrewd smile flickered for an instant in the kindly eyes of Wahaska's +best-beloved physician. + +"Almost any one else would have found plenty of other things to do--or +not to do," was his comment. "Are you prepared to go on, Miss Margery?" + +"Taking care of him until he is able to take care of +himself?--certainly," was the quick reply. + +"Then I'll tell you that it is likely to be a long siege, and probably a +pretty serious one. I can't tell positively without the microscope, but +I'm calling it malaria, with complications. There seems to be a general +break-down, as if he had been overworking or starving himself. You'll +need help." + +"I know; I've just been 'phoning the college, but they can't spare +anybody out of the infirmary. Find me some one, doctor." + +Dr. Farnham took time to think. + +"Let me see: you'll need a good, strong fellow who can be patient and +kind and inflexible and even brutal, by turns. I wonder if we couldn't +get Sven Oleson? The Raymers had him when Edward was down with typhoid, +and he was a treasure when we could make him understand what was +wanted." + +There were fine little lines coming and going between Miss Margery's +straight black brows. "We needn't do it by halves, doctor," she said +decisively. "If it would be better to wire St. Paul or Minneapolis and +get a trained nurse----" + +"--You'd stand the extra expense, of course," laughed the doctor. "You +are all the world's good angel when you set out to be, Miss Margery. But +it won't be necessary; Oleson will do, if I can get him. And I'll send +him or somebody else before bedtime. Meanwhile, there's nothing to do +but to keep your patient quiet; and he'll do that for himself for a few +hours. I gave him a bit of an anodyne before I came down." + +Margery went to the outer door with her kindly counsellor, playing the +part of the gracious hostess as one who is, or who means to be, +precisely letter-perfect. + +"It will soon be time for your daughter and Miss Gilman to come home, +won't it, doctor?" she asked. + +"Yes. I had a letter from Charlotte to-day. They are coming by boat to +Winona, and they should have left St. Louis this morning." Then, to +match the neighborly interest: "You are looking extremely well, Miss +Margery. Your few weeks in Florida were pleasant ones, I know." + +"Yes; they were pleasant. But I'm always well. Has poppa been working +himself to death while I've been away?" + +There was the faintest glimmer of an amused smile in the doctor's eyes +when he said: "No, not quite, I guess. He has been out here with the +masons and carpenters who are building the stables, every fine day, I +think, and that was by way of being a recreation for him." + +Margery nodded brightly. "I thought perhaps he would do that if I went +away. But I mustn't keep you. Be sure and telephone me about Sven. I'll +send the cart after him if you tell me to." + +The doctor promised; and after he was gone, she went slowly up-stairs +and let herself softly into the room of shaded lights. The sick man was +resting quietly, and he did not stir when she crossed to the bed and +laid a cool palm on his forehead. + +"You poor castaway!" she murmured. "I wonder who you are, and to whom +you belong? I suppose somebody has got to be mean and sneaky and find +out. Would you rather it would be I than some one else who might care +even less than I do?" + +The sleeping man opened unseeing eyes and closed them again heavily. "I +found the money, _Carlotta mia_; you didn't know that, did you?" he +muttered; and then the narcotic seized and held him again. + +His clothes were on a chair, and when she had carried them to a light +that could be shaded completely from the bed and its occupant, she +searched the pockets one by one. It was a little surprising to find all +but two of them quite empty; no cards, no letters, no pen, pencil, +pocket-knife, or purse; nothing but a handkerchief, and in one pocket of +the waistcoat a small roll of paper money, a few coins and two small +keys. + +She held the coat up to the electric and examined it closely; the +workmanship, the trimmings. It was not tailor-made, she decided, and by +all the little signs and tokens it was quite new. And the same was true +of the other garments. But there was no tag or trade-mark on any of them +to show where they came from. + +Failing to find the necessary clew to the castaway's identity in this +preliminary search, she went on resolutely, dragging the two suit-cases +over to the lighted corner and unlocking them with the keys taken from +the pocket of the waistcoat. + +The first yielded nothing but clothing, all new and evidently unworn. +The second held more clothing, a man's toilet appliances, also new and +unused, but apparently no scrap of writing or hint of a name. With a +little sigh of bafflement she took the last tightly rolled bundle of +clothing from the suit-case. While she was lifting it a pistol fell out. + +In times past, Jasper Grierson's daughter had known weapons and their +faults and excellences. "That places him--a little," she mused, putting +the pistol aside after she had glanced at it: "He's from the East; he +doesn't know a gun from a piece of common hardware." + +Further search in the tightly rolled bundle was rewarded by the +discovery of a typewritten book manuscript, unsigned, and with it an +oblong packet wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. She slipped +the string and removed the wrapping. The brick-shaped packet proved to +be a thick block of bank-notes held together by heavy rubber bands +snapped over the ends. + +While the little ormolu clock on the dressing-case was whirring softly +and chiming the hour she stared at the money-block as if the sight of it +had fascinated her. Then she sprang up and flew to the door, not to +escape, but to turn the key noiselessly in the lock. Secure against +interruption, she pulled the rubber bands from the packet. The block was +built up in layers, each layer banded with a paper slip on which was +printed in red the name of the certifying bank and the amount. "Bayou +State Security, $5,000." There were twenty of these layers in all, +nineteen of them unbroken. But through the printed figures on the +twentieth a pen-stroke had been drawn, and underneath was written +"$4,000." + +Quite coolly and methodically Margery Grierson verified the bank's count +as indicated by the paper bands. There were one hundred thousand +dollars, lacking the one thousand taken from the broken packet. The +counting completed, she replaced the rubber bands and the brown-paper +wrapping. Then she repacked the suit-cases, arranging the contents as +nearly as might be just as she had found them, locking the cases and +returning the keys to the waistcoat pocket from which she had taken +them. + +When all was done, she tiptoed across to the bed, with the brown-paper +packet under her arm. The sick man stirred uneasily and began to mutter +again. She bent to catch the words, and when she heard, the light of +understanding leaped swiftly into the dark eyes. For the mumbled words +were the echo of a fierce threat: "Sign it: sign it _now_, or, by God, +I'll shoot to kill!" + + + + +XVII + +GROPINGS + + +The robbery of the Bayou State Security Bank was already an old story +when Mr. Matthew Broffin, chief of the New Orleans branch of a notable +detective agency, returned from Guatemala with the forger Mortsen as his +travelling companion. + +Broffin was a successful man in his calling. Beginning as a deputy +marshal in the "moonshining" districts of Kentucky and Tennessee, he had +shifted first to the Secret Service, and later to the more highly +specialized ranks of the private agencies. With nothing very spectacular +to his credit, he had earned repute as a follower of long trails, and as +an acute unraveller of tangled clews. Hence, his docket was never empty. + +It was not altogether for the sake of the reward that he took over the +case of the bank robbery a few days after his return from Central +America. As a matter of fact, there was an express-company case waiting +which promised more money. But emulation counts for something, even in +the thief-catching field; and since two members of his own staff had +fired and missed their mark in St. Louis, there was a blunder to be +retrieved. + +Reasoning logically upon the new problem, Broffin did not at once try to +take up the chase at the point to which it had been carried by the two +who had failed. Since the man had disappeared, the first necessity was +the establishing of his true identity, and for a week Broffin devoted +himself to the task of disentangling the two personalities: that of the +decently dressed, parlor-anarchist bank-raider, and that of the man who +figured in the anonymous letter as Gavitt, the deck-hand. + +At the end of the week two facts were sufficiently apparent. The first +was that there had been a real John Gavitt, a consumptive roustabout on +the New Orleans river-front; a person easily traceable up to the time of +his disappearance on or about the day of the robbery, and whose +description, gathered from those who had known him well, tallied not at +all with the best obtainable word-picture of the bank-robber. Fact the +second was a corollary of the first: by some means the robber had +contrived to change places with Gavitt; to take his place in the _Belle +Julie's_ crew and to assume his name. + +Broffin called this step in the outworking of his problem an incident +closed when he had wired the post-master of the little Iowa river town +from which the true Gavitt had migrated, and had received the expected +reply. John Wesley Gavitt had reached home two days after the date of +the bank robbery, had died within the week, and had been buried beside +his wife. + +The next step was purely constructive; an attempt to build, upon the +description given by President Galbraith and the teller Johnson, a +likeness which would fit some notorious "strong-arm man" known to the +criminal records and the rogues' galleries. Broffin was not greatly +disappointed when the effort failed. + +"It's just about as I've been putting it up, all along," he mused, +lighting his pipe and filling with a fragrant cloud the cramped little +office in which he did his research work. "The fellow ain't a crook; +he's an amateur, and this is his first break. That being the lay-out, +he's liable to do all the things, the different kinds of things, that a +sure-enough 'strong-arm man' wouldn't do." + +It was to Bainbridge, sitting at the desk's end and turning the leaves +of a rogues'-gallery reprint, that the musing conclusion was directed. +The reporter was freshly returned from his jaunt to the banana coast, +and he had climbed Broffin's stair to get the story of the Mortsen +capture. + +"He did one of the different things when he worked his way out of here +in a deck crew," suggested Bainbridge. "The real thug wouldn't have done +anything so honestly toilsome as that." + +"Hardly," Broffin acquiesced. "There was about one chance in a thousand, +and on that chance I've been looking for a picture that would fit him. +There ain't any." + +The reporter was glancing over his notes of the Mortsen story, and he +got up to go. + +"Well, I'm glad it's your job and not mine," he said, by way of +leave-taking. "If your guess is right, it's like looking for the +traditional needle in the haystack." + +"Ump," said Broffin; and for a good hour after the reporter had gone he +sat slowly swinging in the creaking office chair, smoking pipe after +pipe and thinking. + +At the end of the reflective revery he closed his desk, locked his +office, and went once more to the bank. It was the hour of the noon +lull, and Johnson, the paying teller, was free to talk. + +"I hope I'll get through bothering you, some day, Mr. Johnson," Broffin +began. "But when I get stuck, I have to come to you. What Mr. Galbraith +don't remember would crowd a dictionary." + +The teller made good-natured apologies for his chief. "Mr. Galbraith was +a good bit upset, naturally. It was a pretty bad wrench for a man of his +age." + +"Sure, it was; and he's feeling it yet. That's why I'm letting him alone +when I can. Just go once more carefully over the part of it that you +saw, won't you?" + +Johnson retold the story of the cashing of the president's check, +circumstantially, and with the exactness of a man trained in a school of +business accuracy. + +"You'd make a good witness, Mr. Johnson," was Broffin's comment. "You +can tell the same story twice, hand-running, which is more than most +folks can do. Would you know the young woman if you'd see her again?" + +"Hardly, I think." + +"You say she was cashing a draft: how was she identified?" + +"She had credentials from her home bank, with her signature attested." + +"Of course, she didn't surrender her letter of identification?" + +"No; we don't require it when the letter is a general one and not a +credit letter." + +Broffin pulled thoughtfully at his drooping mustaches. He was +rearranging the pieces on the mental chess-board. He had not yet asked +either of the questions he had come to ask. Without knowing the science +even by name, he was still enough of a psychologist to prepare the way +by leading the mind of the witness cleverly over the details of its own +memory picture. + +"You say the hold-up made way for the lady here at the window: you saw +him do it?" + +"Yes." + +"Did any sign of recognition pass between them--anything to make you +think that they might be acquainted with each other?" + +This was one of the two critical questions, and the teller took time to +consider. + +"It's pretty hard to tag that with a definite 'yes' or 'no,'" he said, +when the memory-searching moment had passed. "He spoke to her; of that I +am quite sure, though I didn't hear what he said. She nodded and smiled. +She had a beautiful face, and I remember how it lighted up when he spoke +and stepped back." + +"Then they might have been acquainted, you think?" Broffin said, adding +quickly: "Don't let the fact that she afterward tried to set the dogs on +him twist your judgment any. She might have known the man, and still be +unwilling, afterward, to shield the criminal." + +Again Johnson took time to be accurate. + +"I'll admit that my impression at the time was that they were +acquainted," he averred, at the end of the ends. "Of course you can't +bank much on that. He might have said to a perfect stranger, 'After +you,' or whatever it was that he did say; and she would acknowledge the +courtesy with the nod and the smile--any well-bred woman would. But you +can take it for what it is worth; my thought at the moment was that they +had met before; casually, perhaps, as people meet on trains or in +hotels; that there was at least recognition on both sides." + +Broffin was nodding slowly. It was not often that he made a confidant of +a witness, even in the smaller details of a case, but he evidently +considered the helpful teller an exception. + +"I've been working around to that notion myself, by the smalls, as the +cat eat the grind-rock," he said. "I said to myself, Would he, with the +big pull-off still trembling on the edge--would he have held back for a +woman he didn't know? And if he _did_ know her, it would be a good, +chunky reason why he shouldn't crowd in and take his turn: he'd _have_ +to make good or lose whatever little ante he'd been putting up in the +sociable game. Now one other little thing: you counted him out the +single thousand in small bills first, you said: then what happened?" + +"Then I went to the vault." + +"And when you came back, the young woman was gone?" + +"Oh, yes; she went while Mr. Galbraith was handing me his check." + +"She left before you started for the vault?" + +"Yes." + +"You didn't notice whether she said 'Good-by' or 'Thank you,' or +anything like that, I reckon?" + +"No." + +"But she might have, and you not see it?" + +"Yes; she might have." + +"All right; then we'll go on," Broffin continued, and the time having +arrived for the putting of the second critical question, he planted it +fairly. "You opened the wicket and passed the money out to the hold-up. +He took it and backed to the door--this nearest door. Mr. Galbraith +tells me he gave the alarm as quick as he could draw his breath. How +much time did the fellow have before somebody went after him?" + +Johnson's answer was gratifyingly prompt. + +"You might say, no time at all. There were a number of people in the +bank--perhaps a dozen or more--standing around waiting their turns at +the different wickets. I should say that every single one of them made a +rush for the doors, and I remember thinking at the time that the fellow +couldn't possibly get away." + +"Yet he did get away; made his drop-out so neatly that none of the +rushers got to the doors soon enough to catch a sight of him?" + +"That is the curious fact. Not a man of them saw him. They all told the +same story. The sidewalk wasn't crowded at the time: we are on the sunny +side of the street, and as you see now, the crowd is on the other side +in the shade. Yet the fellow had vanished before the nimblest one of +them got to the doors." + +Broffin drew a deep breath and nodded slowly. The added details were +fitting the new theory to a nicety. In conversation with the president +he had previously marked the fact that the robber had claimed to be +starving. + +"Thank you, Mr. Johnson; I reckon that's all for this time," he said to +the teller, and a minute later he was buying a cigar of the little +Gascon proprietor of the restaurant next door to the bank. + +"You have an excellent memory, I've been told, Monsieur Pouillard," he +said, at the lighting of the cigar. "Do you recollect the day of the +bank robbery next door pretty well?" + +The Gascon shrugged amiably. "_Vraiment_, M'sieu' Broffin; it ees not +possib' that one forgets." + +"It was rather late for breakfast, and not quite late enough for lunch: +were you feeding many people just then?" + +"H-onlee one; he is yo'ng man w'at don' nevveh come on my 'otel biffo'. +He is sit on dat secon' table; _oui_!" + +Broffin pushed the probe of inquiry a little deeper. How did M. +Pouillard happen to remember? _Mais_, it was because the young man was +very droll; he was of the cold blood. When Victor, _le garcon_, would +have brought news of the _emeute_, he had said, breakfast first, and the +news afterward. + +Questioned in his turn, the serving-man corroborated his employer's +particulars and was able to add a few of his own. The young man was +fair, with blue eyes and a reddish beard and mustaches. The mustaches +were untrimmed, but the beard was clipped to a point, _a les moeurs des +etudiants des Beaux Arts_. The waiter had once served tables in a Paris +cafe, and he seldom lost an opportunity of advertising the fact. Pressed +to account for his accurate memory picture of a chance patron, he +confessed naively; the tip had been princely and the young man was one +to mark and to remember--and to serve again. + +Broffin left the restaurant with one more link in the chain neatly +forged. There was an excellent reason why none of the first-aid pursuers +had been able to catch a glimpse of the "strong-arm man." He had merely +stepped from the bank entrance to Monsieur Pouillard's. Between the cafe +breakfast and the departure of the _Belle Julie_ there lay an hour and a +quarter. In that interval he could easily perfect his simple disguise. +Broffin was not specially interested in the incidental minutiae. It was +the identity of the man with the untrimmed mustaches and the pointed +beard that must be established. + +After another week of patient groping, Broffin was obliged to confess +that the problem of identification was too difficult to be solved on +conventional lines. It presented no point of attack. With neither a name +nor a pictured face for reference, inquiry was crippled at the very +outset. None of the many boarding- and rooming-houses he visited had +lost a lodger answering the verbal description of the missing man. Very +reluctantly, for bull-dog tenacity was the detective's ruling +characteristic, he was forced to the conclusion that the only untried +solution lay in Teller Johnson's unfortified impression that the chance +meeting at his wicket was not the first meeting between the robber and +the young woman with the draft to be cashed. + +It was the slenderest of threads, and Broffin realized sweatingly how +difficult it might be to follow. Assuming that there had been a previous +meeting or meetings, or rather the passing acquaintance which was all +that the young woman's later betrayal of the man made conceivable, would +the writer of the accusing letter be willing to add to her burden of +responsibility by giving the true name and standing of the man whose +real identity--if she knew it--she had been careful to conceal in the +unsigned note to Mr. Galbraith? Broffin read the note again--"a +deck-hand, whose name on the mate's book is John Wesley Gavitt," was the +description she had given. It might, or it might not, be an +equivocation; but the longer Broffin dwelt upon it the more he leaned +toward the conclusion to which his theory and the few known facts +pointed. The young woman knew the man in his proper person; she had been +reluctant to betray him--that, he decided, was sufficiently proved by +the lapse of time intervening between the date of her note and its +postmark date; having finally decided to give him up, she had told only +what was absolutely necessary, leaving him free to conceal his real name +and identity if he would--and could. + +Having come thus far on the road to convincement, Broffin knew what he +had to do and set about the doing of it methodically. A telegram to the +clerk of the _Belle Julie_ served to place the steamer in the lower +river; and boarding a night train he planned to reach Vicksburg in time +to intercept the witnesses whose evidence would determine roughly how +many hundreds or thousands of miles he could safely cut out of the +zigzag journeyings to which the following up of the hypothetical clew +would lead. + +For, cost what it might, he was determined to find the writer of the +unsigned letter. + + + + +XVIII + +THE ZWEIBUND + + +On his second visit to the sick man lodged in the padded luxuries of one +of the guest-rooms at Mereside, made on the morning following the +Grierson home-coming, Dr. Farnham found the hospital status established, +with the good-natured Swede installed as nurse, the bells muffled, and +Miss Margery playing the part of Sister Superior and dressing it, from +the dainty, felt-soled slippers to the smooth banding of her hair. + +An hour later, however, it was the Margery of the Wahaskan Renaissance, +joyously clad and radiant, who was holding the reins over a big English +trap horse, parading down Main Street and smiling greetings to +everybody. + +By one of the chances which he was willing to call fortunate, Edward +Raymer was at the curb to help her down from her high seat in the trap +when she pulled the big horse to a stand in front of her father's bank. + +"I'm the luckiest man in Red Earth County; I was just wondering when I +should get in line to tell you how glad we are to have you back," he +said, with his eyes shining. + +"Are you, really? You are not half as glad as I am to be back. There is +no place like home, you know." + +"There isn't, and there oughtn't to be," was his quick response. "I've +been hoping you'd come to look upon Wahaska as your home, and now I know +you do." + +"Why shouldn't I?" she laughed, and she was reaching for a paper-wrapped +package on the trap seat when he got it for her. + +"You are going somewhere?--may I carry it for you?" he asked; but she +shook her head and took it from him. + +"Only into the bank," she explained; and she was beginning to tell him +he must come to Mereside when the sick-man episode obtruded itself, and +the invitation was broken in the midst, very prettily, very effectively. + +"I know," Raymer said, in instant sympathy. "You have your hands full +just now. Will you let me say that it's the finest thing I ever heard +of--your taking that poor fellow home and caring for him?" + +Gertrude Raymer had once said in her brother's hearing that Miss +Grierson's color would be charming if it were only natural. Looking into +Miss Grierson's eyes Raymer saw the refutation of the slander in the +suffusing wave of generous embarrassment deepening in warm tints on the +perfect neck and cheek. + +"Oh, dear me!" she said in pathetic protest; "is it all over town so +soon? I'm afraid we are still dreadfully 'country' in Wahaska, Mr. +Raymer. Please cut it down to the bare, commonplace facts whenever you +have a chance, won't you? The poor man was sick, and nobody knew him, +and somebody _had_ to take care of him." + +Like the doctor, Raymer asked the inevitable question, "Who is he, Miss +Margery?" and, like the doctor again, he received the same answer, "I +haven't the smallest notion of an idea. But that doesn't make the +slightest difference," she went on. "He is a fellow human being, sick +and helpless. That ought to be enough for any of us to know." + +Raymer stood watching her as she tripped lightly into the bank, and when +he went to catch his car the conservative minority had lost whatever +countenance or support he had ever given it. + +"She's pure gold when you dig down through the little top layer of +harmless scheming for the social Grand-Viziership," he told himself, +tingling with the exultant thrills of the discoverer of buried treasure. +"If all Wahaska doesn't open its doors to her after this, it'll sure +earn what's coming to it." + +True to her latest characterization of herself, Margery had a nod and a +pleasant smile for the young men behind the brass grilles as she passed +on her way to the president's room in the rear. She found her father at +his desk, thoughtfully munching the unburned half of one of the huge +cigars, and named her errand. + +"I want a safety-deposit box big enough to hold this," she said briefly, +exhibiting the paper-wrapped packet. + +Jasper Grierson, deeply immersed in a matter of business to which he had +given the better part of the forenoon, replied without looking up: "Go +and tell Murray; he'll fix you out," and it was not until after she had +gone that it occurred to him to wonder what use she was going to make of +a private box in the safety vault--a wonder that had lost itself in a +multiplicity of other things before he saw her again. + + * * * * * + +For a week after his unmarked arrival in Wahaska, the castaway in the +upper room at Mereside made hard work of it, giving the good little +doctor with the kindly eyes and the straight-line Puritan lips a rather +anxious fight to gain the upper hand of the still unnamed malady. + +During the week there were many callers at the lake-fronting mansion; +some coming frankly to welcome the returned house-mistress, others to +make the welcoming an excuse for finding out the particulars in the +castaway episode. But neither faith nor good works seemed to have any +effect on the rebellious minority, and at the end of the week Raymer +once more had the pleasure of lifting Miss Grierson from the high trap +at the door of the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank, and of exchanging a few +words with her before she went in to see her father. + +As on any other business day, President Grierson was solidly planted in +his heavy arm-chair before a desk well littered with work. He nodded +absently to his daughter as she entered, and knowing that the nod meant +that he would come to the surface of things--her surface--when he +could, she turned aside to the window and waited. + +Though she had seen him develop day by day in less than three of the +thirty-odd years of his Western exile, her father offered a constant +succession of surprises to her. When she opened the door to +retrospection, which was not often, she remembered that the man who had +stumbled upon the rich quartz vein in Yellow Dog Gulch could scarcely +sign his name legibly to the papers recording his claim; that in those +days there was no prophecy of the ambitious present in the man, half +drunkard and half outlaw, whose name in the Yellow Dog district had been +a synonym for--but these were unpleasant memories, and Margery rarely +indulged them. + +Just now she put them aside by turning her back upon the window and +taking credit for the tasteful and luxurious appointments of the private +office, with its soft-piled rug and heavy mahogany furnishings. Her +father was careless of such things; totally indifferent to them in +business hours; but she saw to it that his surroundings kept pace with +the march of prosperity. Here in Wahaska, as elsewhere, a little +judicious display counted for much, even if there were a few bigoted +persons who affected to despise it. + +She was in the midst of a meditated attack upon the steamship +lithographs on the walls--sole remaining landmarks of the ante-Grierson +period--when her father wheeled in his pivot-chair and questioned her +with a lift of his shaggy eyebrows. + +"Want to see me, Madgie?" + +"Just a moment." She crossed the room and stood at the end of the big +desk. He reached mechanically for his check-book, but she smiled and +stopped him. "No; it isn't money, this time: it's something that money +can't buy. I met Mr. Edward Raymer at the front door a few minutes ago; +does he have an account with you?" + +"Yes." + +"Is it an accommodation to the bank, or to him?" + +Jasper Grierson's laugh was grimly contemptuous. + +"The bank isn't making anything out of him. The shoe is on the other +foot." + +"Do you mean that he is a borrower?" + +"Not yet; but he wants to be. He was in to see me about it just now." + +"What is the matter? Isn't he making money with his plant?" + +"Oh, yes; his business is good enough. But he's like all the other young +fools, nowadays; he ain't content to bet on a sure thing and grow with +his capital. He wants to widen out and build and put in new machinery +and cut a bigger dash generally. Thinks he's been too slow and sure." + +"Are you going to stake him?" Margery waged relentless war with her +birthright inclination to lapse into the speech of the mining-camps, but +she stumbled now and then in talking to her father. + +"I don't know; I guess not. Somehow, I've never had much use for him; +and, besides, I've had another plan in mind." + +"And that was?" + +"To organize another company and build a plant big enough to run him +out." + +Margery was turning the leaves of an illustrated prospectus of an Idaho +irrigation company, and was apparently much more deeply interested in +the electrotyped pictures than in the fortunes of Mr. Edward Raymer. And +when she went on, she ignored the obliterative business suggestion and +remained in the narrower channel of the personalities. + +"Why haven't you any use for him?" + +"Oh, I don't know: because, until just lately, he has never seemed to +have much use for me, I guess. It's a stand-off, so far as likings go. I +offered to reincorporate his outfit for him six months ago, and told him +I'd take fifty-one per cent of the reorganization stock myself; but he +wouldn't talk about it. Said what little he had was his own, and he +proposed to keep it." + +"But now he is willing to let you help him?" + +"Not much; he don't look at it in that light. He wants to borrow money +from the bank and put up the stock of his close corporation as +collateral. It's safe enough, but I don't believe I'll do it." + +The chatelaine of Mereside laid the prospectus aside and came abruptly +to the point. + +"I want you to do it," she said, decisively. + +"The devil you do!" Then, with the dry door-hinge chuckle: "It was a +waste of good money to put in the ice plant while you're here, Madgie. +What's in the wind, now?" + +"Maybe I'll tell you--sometime." + +The president chuckled again and tilted to the comfortable angle in the +arm-chair. + +"Tell me now; you don't need to beat any of the bushes with me, little +girl. If you say the word, I'll pinch him for you." + +"I didn't say that I wanted him pinched. But I do want you to put him +under obligations to you--the heavier the better. His mother and sister +have gone out of their way to snub me, and I want to play even." + +Grierson wagged his huge head, and this time the chuckle grew to a +guffaw. + +"I thought maybe that was the game. But it won't work with him; not for +a single minute." + +"Why won't it?" + +"Because he ain't the man to go to his women-folks when he gets into hot +water. He'll keep it to himself; and they'll go on bluffing you, same as +ever." + +Miss Grierson pulled on her gauntlets and made ready to go, leisurely, +as befitted her pose. + +"That is where you are mistaken," she objected, coolly. "It isn't very +often that I can give you a business tip, but this is one of the times +when I can. When John Raymer died, he left an undivided half of his +estate to his wife, the other half to be shared equally by the two +children. At the present moment, every dollar the entire family has is +invested in the iron plant. So, you see, I know what I am doing." + +Jasper Grierson turned the leaf of a calendar-pad and made a brief +memorandum. + +"I _savez_: I'll break the three-cornered syndicate for you." + +"You will do nothing of the kind," asserted the radiant daughter of men, +with serene assurance. "You will let Mr. Raymer get himself into hot +water, as you call it, and then, when I say the word, you'll reach in +and pull him out." + +"Oh, that's the how of it, is it? All right; anything you say goes as it +lays. But I'm going to make one condition, this time: you'll have to +keep cases on the game yourself, and say when. I can't be bothered +keeping the run of your society tea-parties." + +"I don't want you to. Don't be late for dinner: we are going to the +Rodneys' for the evening." + +When she was gone, the president selected another of the overgrown +cigars from a box in the desk drawer, lighted it, and tilted back in the +big arm-chair to envelop himself in a cloud of smoke. It was his single +expensive habit--the never-empty box of Brobdingnagian cigars in the +drawer--and the indulgence helped him to push the Yellow-Dog period into +a remoter past. + +After a time the smoke cloud became articulate, rumbling forth +chucklings and Elizabethan oaths, mingling with musings idiomatic and +profane. "By God, I believe she thought she was fooling me--I do, for a +fact! But it's too thin. Of course, she wants to make the women kow-tow, +but that ain't all there is to it--not by a jugful. But it's all right: +she plays her own hand, and she's bully good and able to play it. If +she's after Raymer's scalp, he might as well get ready to wear a wig, +right now. I'll back her to win, every time." + +Accordingly, when Mr. Edward Raymer came out of the president's room at +the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank the following morning, he was treading +upon air. For in his mind's eye there was a fair picture of a great and +successful industry to be built upon the substantial extension of credit +promised by the capitalist whose presence chamber he had just quitted. + + + + +XIX + +LOSS AND GAIN + + +Striving feebly as one who gathers up the shards and fragments after an +explosion, Griswold remembered cloudily the supper of tasteless courses +at the Hotel Chouteau, still less distinctly, a drive through the +streets to a great, echoing railway station, a glare of lights too +painful to be borne, and, last of all, an overpowering weariness +shutting down upon him like a sudden closing in of darkness become thick +and stifling. + +Afterward there were vague impressions, momentary breaches in the wall +of inclosing darkness when he had realized that he was curiously +helpless, and that he was still on the train going somewhere, though he +could not remember where. In one of these intervals a woman had stood +beside him, and he seemed to remember that she had put her cool hand on +his forehead. + +Of the transition from the train to the bed in the upper room at +Mereside, he recalled nothing, though the personalities of two +strangers, the doctor and the nurse, obtruded themselves frequently in +the later phases of the troubled dream, like figures in a shadow +pantomime. Also, that suggestion of the presence of the woman with the +cool palm became self-repeating; and finally, when complete +consciousness returned, the dream impression was still so sharply +defined that he was not surprised to find her standing at his bedside. + +He did not recognize her. The memory of his supper companions of the +Hotel Chouteau cafe was deeply buried under the dream debris, and the +present moment was full of mild bewilderment. Yet the friendliness in +her eyes seemed to shine out of some past which ought to be remembered. + +Before he could frame any of the queries which came thronging to the +door of the returned consciousness, she smiled and shook her head and +forbade him. + +"No, you mustn't talk," she said, with gentle authority. "It's the +doctor's orders. By and by, when you are stronger, you may ask all the +questions you please; but not now." + +He wagged his head on the pillow. "Can't I even ask where I am?" he +begged. + +"Since you have asked, I'll tell you that much. You are in Wahaska, +Minnesota, in the house of your friends; and you have nothing to do but +to get well as fast and as comfortably as you can." + +Her voice was even more remindful than her face of that elusive past +which ought to be remembered, and he closed his eyes to try to recall +it. When he opened them again, she was gone and her place was taken by +one of the figures of the dream; a man with a thick mop of fair hair and +a face of blank good-nature, and whose store of English seemed to be +comprised in a single sentence: "_Ja, ja_; Hae bane poorty vell, t'ank +yo'." + +Later in the day the doctor came; and when the professional requirements +were satisfied, Griswold learned the bare facts of his succoring. It was +characteristic of the Griswold of other days that the immense obligation +under which the Griersons had placed him made him gasp and perspire +afresh. + +"Who ever heard of such a thing, doctor?" he protested weakly. And then: +"How am I ever going to repay them?" + +Dr. Farnham was crisply explicit. "You may leave Mr. Grierson out of +your problem. Miss Margery is an only child, and if she sees fit to turn +Mereside into a temporary hospital, he is abundantly able to indulge +her." + +"Then I am indebted to the daughter, alone?" + +"Entirely, I should say." + +Griswold looked long and earnestly at the face of his professional +adviser. It was a good face, clearly lined, benevolent; and, above all, +trustworthy. + +"Tell me one thing more, doctor, if you can. What was the motive? Was it +just heavenly good-heartedness?--or----" + +The doctor's smile was the least possible shade wintry. + +"When you have lived a few years longer in this world of ours, you will +not probe too deeply into motives; you will take the deed as the +sufficient exponent of the prompting behind it. If I say so much, you +will understand that I am not impugning Miss Grierson's motives. There +are times when she is the good angel of everybody in sight." + +"And this is one of the times?" persisted the analyst. + +"We shall say that this is one of the times: say it and stick to it, +Mr.----" + +The pause after the courtesy title was significant, and Griswold filled +it promptly. "Griswold--Kenneth Griswold. Do you mean to say that you +haven't known my name, doctor?" + +"We have not. We took the Good Samaritan's privilege and ransacked your +belongings--Miss Margery and I--thinking that there might be relatives +or friends who should be notified." + +"And you found nothing?" queried the sick man, a cold fear gripping at +his heart. + +"Absolutely nothing to tell us who you were; no cards, letters, or +memoranda of any kind. The conclusion was obvious: some one had taken +advantage of your illness on the train and had picked your pockets." + +Griswold moistened his lips and swallowed hard. "There were two +suit-cases: were they lost?" + +"No; they are here." + +"And you found nothing in them?" + +"Nothing but clothing and your toilet tools, a pistol, and a typewritten +book manuscript bearing no signature." + +Griswold turned his face away and shut his eyes. Once more his stake in +the game of life was gone. + +"There was another package of--of papers in one of the grips," he said, +faintly; "quite a large package wrapped in brown paper." + +"Valuables?" queried the doctor, sympathetically curious. + +"Y-yes; rather valuable." + +"We found nothing but the manuscript. Could any one else make use of the +papers you speak of?" + +Griswold was too feeble to prevaricate successfully. + +"There was money in the package," he said, leaving the physician to +infer what he pleased. + +"Ah; then you were robbed. It's a pity we didn't know it at the time. It +is pretty late to begin looking for the thief now, I'm afraid." + +"Quite too late," said Griswold monotonously. + +The doctor rose to go. + +"Don't let the material loss depress you, Mr. Griswold," he said, with +encouraging kindliness. "The one loss that couldn't have been retrieved +is a danger past for you now, I'm glad to say. Be cheerful and patient, +and we'll soon have you a sound man again. You have a magnificent +constitution and fine recuperative powers; otherwise we should have +buried you within a week of your arrival." + +It was not until after the doctor had gone that Griswold was able to +face the new misfortune with anything like a sober measure of +equanimity. Imaginative to the degree which facilely transforms the +suppositional into the real, he was still singularly free from +superstition. Nevertheless, all the legends clustering about the +proverbial slipperiness of ill-gotten gains paraded themselves +insistently. It was only by the supremest effort of will that he could +push them aside and address himself to the practical matter of getting +well. That was the first thing to be considered; with or without money, +he must relieve the Griersons of their self-assumed burden at the +earliest possible moment. + +This was the thought with which he sank into the first natural sleep of +convalescence. But during the days which followed, Margery was able to +modify it without dulling the keen edge of his obligation. What perfect +hospitality could do was done, without ostentation, with the exact +degree of spontaneity which made it appear as a service rendered to a +kinsman. It was one of the gifts of the daughter of men to be able to +ignore all the middle distances between an introduction and a +friendship; and by the time Griswold was strong enough to let the big, +gentle Swede plant him in a Morris chair in the sun-warmed bay-window, +the friendship was a fact accomplished. + +"Do you know, you're the most wonderful person I have ever known?" he +said to Margery, on the first of the sunning days when she had come to +perch in the window-seat opposite his chair. + +"It's propinquity," she laughed. "You haven't seen any other woman for +days and weeks. Wait until you are strong enough to come down to one of +my 'evenings.'" + +"No, it isn't propinquity," he denied. + +"Then it's the unaccustomed. You are from the well-behaved East. There +are some people even here in Wahaska who will tell you that I have never +properly learned how to behave." + +"Your looking-glass will tell you why they say that," he said gravely. + +Her smile showed the perfect rows of white teeth. "You are recovering +rapidly, Mr. Kenneth; don't you think so? Or was that only a little +return of the fever?" + +He brushed the bit of mockery aside. "I want to be serious to-day--if +you'll let me. There are a lot of things I'd like to know." + +"About Wahaska?" + +"About you, first. Where did we meet?--before I came out of the fever +woods and saw you standing by the bed?" + +"We didn't 'meet,' in the accepted meaning of the word. My father and I +happened to sit at your table one evening in the Hotel Chouteau, in St. +Louis." + +"Ah; I knew there was a day back of the other days. Do you believe in +destiny?" + +She nodded brightly. "Sometimes I do; when it brings things out the way +I want them to come out." + +"I've often wondered," he went on musingly. "Think of it: somewhere back +in the past you took the first step in a path which was to lead you to +that late supper in the Chouteau. Somewhere in my past I took the first +step in the crooked trail that was to lead me there." + +"Well?" she encouraged. + +"The paths crossed--and I am your poor debtor," he finished. "I can +never hope to repay you and your father for what you have done." + +"Oh, yes you can," she asserted lightly. "You can pass it along to the +man farther down. Forget it, and tell me what you want to know about +Wahaska." + +"First, I'd like to know my doctor's name." + +"The idea!" she exclaimed. "Hasn't there been anybody to introduce you? +He is Wahaska's best-beloved 'Doctor Bertie'; otherwise Doctor Herbert +C. Farnham." + +"_Doctor Farnham?_--not Miss Char----" He bit the name in two in the +middle, but the mischief was done. + +"Yes; Charlotte's father," was the calm reply. Then: "Where did you meet +Miss Farnham?" + +"I haven't met her," he protested instantly; "she--she doesn't know me +from Adam. But I have seen her, and I happened to learn her name and her +home address." + +Miss Margery's pretty face took on an expression of polite disinterest, +but behind the mask the active brain was busily fitting the pegs of +deduction into their proper holes. Her involuntary guest did not know +the father; therefore he must have seen the daughter while she was away +from home. Charlotte Farnham had been South, at Pass Christian, and +doubtless in New Orleans. The convalescent had also been in New Orleans, +as his money packet with its Bayou State Security labels sufficiently +testified. + +Miss Grierson got up to draw one of the window shades. It had become +imperative that she should have time to think and an excuse for hiding +her face from the eyes which seemed to be trying masterfully to read her +inmost thoughts. + +"You think it is strange that I should know Miss Farnham's name and +address without having met her?" Griswold asked, when the pause had +become a keen agony. + +Miss Grierson's rejoinder was flippant. "Oh, no; she is pretty enough to +account for a stranger thing than that." + +"She is more than pretty," said Griswold, impulsively; "she has the +beauty of those who have high ideals, and live up to them." + +"I thought you said you didn't know her," was the swift retort. + +"I said I hadn't met her, and that she doesn't know me." + +"Oh," said the small fitter of deduction pegs; and afterward she talked, +and made the convalescent talk, pointedly of other things. + +This occurred in the forenoon of a pleasant day in May. In the afternoon +of the same day, Miss Grierson's trap was halted before the door of the +temporary quarters of the Wahaska Public Library. Raymer saw the trap +and crossed the street, remembering--what he would otherwise have +forgotten--that his sister had asked him to get a book on orchids. + +Miss Margery was in the reference room, wading absently through the +newspaper files. She nodded brightly when Raymer entered--and was not in +the least dust-blinded by the library card in his hand. + +"You are just in time to help me," she told him. "Do you remember the +story of that daring bank robbery in New Orleans a few weeks ago?--the +one in which a man made the president draw a check and get it cashed for +him?" + +Raymer did remember it, chiefly because he had talked about it at the +time with Jasper Grierson, and had wondered curiously how the president +of the Farmers' and Merchants' would deport himself under like +conditions. + +"Do you remember the date?" she asked. + +Since it was tied to his first business interview with Grierson _pere_, +Raymer was able to recall the date, approximately, and together they +turned the file of the _Pioneer Press_ until they came to the number +containing the Associated Press story of the crime. It was fairly +circumstantial; the young woman at the teller's window figured in it, +and there was a sketchy description of the robber. + +"If you should meet the man face to face, would you recognise him from +the description?" she flashed up at Raymer. + +"Not in a thousand years," he confessed. "Would you?" + +"No; not from the description," she admitted. Then she passed to a +matter apparently quite irrelevant. + +"Didn't I see Miss Farnham's return noticed in the _Wahaskan_ the other +day?" + +With Charlotte's father a daily visitor at Mereside, it seemed +incredible that Miss Grierson had not heard of the daughter's +home-coming. But Raymer answered in good faith. + +"You may have seen it some time ago. She and Miss Gilman have been home +for three or four weeks." + +"Somebody said they were coming up the river by boat; did they?" + +"Yes, all the way from New Orleans." + +"That must have been delightful, if they were fortunate enough to get a +good boat. I've been told that the table is simply impossible on some of +them." + +"So it is. But they came up as far as St. Louis on one of the Anchor +Lines--the _Belle Julie_--and even Miss Gilman admits that the +accommodations were excellent." + +She nodded absently and began to turn the leaves of the newspaper file. +Raymer took it as his dismissal and went to the desk to get the orchid +book. When he looked in again on his way to the street, Miss Grierson +had gone, leaving the file of the _Pioneer Press_ open on the reading +desk. Almost involuntarily he glanced at the first-page headings, +thrilling to a little shock of surprise when one of them proved to be +the caption of another Associated Press despatch giving a twenty-line +story of the capture and second escape of the Bayou State Security +robber on the levee at St. Louis. + +The reading of the bit of stale news impressed him curiously. Why had +Miss Margery interested herself in the details of the New Orleans bank +robbery? Why--with no apparent special reason--should she have +remembered it at all? or remembering it, have known where to look for +the two newspaper references? + +Raymer left the library speculating vaguely on the unaccountable +tangents at which the feminine mind could now and then fly off from the +well-defined circle of the conventionally usual. On rare occasions his +mother or Gertrude did it, and he had long since learned the folly of +trying to reduce the small problem to terms of known quantities +masculine. + +"Just the same, I'd like to know why, this time," he said to himself, as +he crossed the street to the Manufacturers' Club. "Miss Grierson isn't +at all the person to do things without an object." + + + + +XX + +THE CONVALESCENT + + +After a few more days in the Morris chair; days during which he was idly +contented when Margery was with him, and vaguely dissatisfied when she +was not; Griswold was permitted to go below stairs, where he met, for +the first time since the Grierson roof had given him shelter, the master +of Mereside. + +The little visit to Jasper Grierson's library was not prolonged beyond +the invalid's strength; but notwithstanding its brevity there were inert +currents of antagonism evolved which Margery, present and endeavoring to +serve as a lightning-arrester, could neither ground nor turn aside. + +For Griswold there was an immediate recrudescence of the unfavorable +first impression gained at the Hotel Chouteau supper-table. He recalled +his own descriptive formula struck out as a tag for the hard-faced, +heavy-browed man at the end of the cafe table--"crudely strong, +elementally shrewd, with a touch, or more than a touch, of the savage: +the gray-wolf type"--and he found no present reason for changing the +record. + +Thus the convalescent debtor to the Grierson hospitality. And as for the +Wahaskan money lord, it is to be presumed that he saw nothing more than +a hollow-eyed, impractical story-writer (he had been told of the +manuscript found in Griswold's hand-baggage), who chanced to be +Margery's latest and least accountable fad. + +Griswold took away from the rather constrained ice-breaking in the +banker's library a renewed resolve to cut his obligation to Jasper +Grierson as short as possible. How he should begin again the mordant +struggle for existence was still an unsolved problem. Of the +one-thousand-dollar spending fund there remained something less than +half: for a few weeks or months he could live and pay his way; but after +that.... Curiously enough, the alternative of another attack upon the +plutocratic dragon did not suggest itself. That, he told himself, was an +experiment tried and found wanting. But in any event, he must not +outstay his welcome at Mereside; and with this thought in mind he crept +down-stairs daily after the library episode, and would give Margery no +peace because she would not let him go abroad in the town. + +"Not to-day, but to-morrow," she said, finally, when there was no longer +any good reason for denying him. "Wait until to-morrow, and if it's a +fine day, I'll drive you in the trap." + +"But why not to-day?" he complained. + +"'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless'--what +shall I say; patient, or guest, or--friend?" she laughed, garbling the +quotation to fit the occasion. + +"Shakespeare said 'child,'" he suggested mildly. + +"And so shall I," she gibed--but the gibe itself was almost a caress. +"Sometimes you remind me of an impatient boy who has been promised a +peach and can't wait until it ripens. But if you must have a reason why +I won't drive you this afternoon, you may. We are going to have a tiny +little social function at Mereside this evening, and I want you to be +fresh and rested for it." + +"Oh, my dear Miss Margery!" protested the convalescent, reluctant to his +finger-tips; "not to meet your friends! I am only your poor charity +patient, and----" + +"That will do," she declared, tyrannizing over him with a fine +affectation of austere hostess-ship. "_I_ say you are to come +down-stairs this evening to meet a few of our friends. And you will +come." + +"Certainly, I shall come, if you wish it," he assented, remembering +afresh his immense obligation; and when the time was ripe he made +himself presentable and felt his way down the dimly lighted library +stair, being minded to slip into the social pool by the route which +promised the smallest splash and the fewest ripples. + +It was a stirring of the Philistine in him that led him to prefigure +weariness and banality in the prospect. Without in the least suspecting +it, Griswold was a Brahmin of the severest sect on his social side; +easily disposed to hold aloof and to criticise, and, as a man +Eastern-bred, serenely assured that nothing truly acceptable in the +social sense could come out of the Nazareth of the West. + +For this cause he was properly humiliated when he entered the spacious +double drawing-rooms and found them so comfortably crowded by a throng +of conventionally clothed and conventionally behaved guests that he was +immediately able to lose himself--and any lingering trace of +self-consciousness--in a company which, if appearances were to be +trusted, was Western only by reason of Wahaska's location on the map. +Indeed, the sudden and necessary rearrangement of the pieces on the +prefigured chess-board was almost embarrassing; and Margery's greeting +and welcome brought a grateful sense of relief and a certain recovery of +self-possession for which, a few minutes earlier, he had thought there +could be no possible Wahaskan demand. + +"Thank you so much for coming down, and for resolving heroically not to +be bored," she began brightly. "And now that you've made your little +concession, I'll make mine. I sha'n't ask anything at all of +you"--piling the cushions in the corner of a wide window-seat and making +him sit down; "you are just to be an invalid this evening, you know, and +you needn't meet any more people than you want to." + +When she had patted the pillows into place and was gone to welcome still +later comers, Griswold had a chance to look around him. The readjusting +mechanism was still at work. Beyond question it was all very different, +strikingly different, from his forecastings. A young woman was at the +piano, with a young man whose clothes fitted him and who was in nowise +conscious of them, turning the music for her. There was a pleasant hum +of conversation; the lights were not glaring; the furnishings were not +in bad taste--on the contrary, they were in exceedingly good taste. +Griswold smiled when he remembered that he had been looking forward to +something suggesting a cross between a neighborhood tea-drinking and a +church social. He was agreeably disappointed to find that the keynote +was distinctly well-mannered, passably urban, undeniably conventional. + +And the charming young hostess.... From his corner of the window-seat +Griswold had a comprehensive view of the two great rooms, and beyond +them through a pillared opening to the candle-lighted dining-room where +the refreshments were served. Though the rooms were well filled, there +was but a single personality pervading them for the eager student of +types. Admitting that there were other women more beautiful, Griswold, +groping always for the fitting figure and the apt phrase, told himself +that Miss Grierson's crowning gift was an acute sense of the eternal +harmonies; she was always "in character." + +Hitherto he had known her only as his benefactress and the thoughtful +caretaker for his comfort. But now, at this first sight of her in the +broader social field, she shone upon and dazzled him. Admitting that the +later charm might be subtly sensuous--he refused to analyze it too +closely--it was undeniable that it warmed him to a newer and a stronger +life; that he could bask in its generous glow like some hibernating +thing of the wild answering to the first thrilling of the spring-tide. +True, Miss Grierson bore little resemblance to any ideal of his past +imaginings. She might even be the _Aspasia_ to Charlotte Farnham's +_Saint Cecilia_. But even so, was not the daughter of Axiochus well +beloved of men and of heroes? + +It was some little time afterward, and Jasper Grierson, stalking like a +grim and rather unwilling master of ceremonies among his guests, had +gruffly introduced three or four of the men, when Griswold gladly made +room in the window-seat for his transformed and glorified mistress of +the fitnesses. As had happened more than once before, her nearness +intoxicated him; and while he made sure now that the charm was at least +partly physical, its appeal was none the less irresistible. + +"Are you dreadfully tired?" she asked; adding quickly: "You mustn't let +us make a martyr of you. It's your privilege to disappear whenever you +feel like it." + +"Indeed, I'm not at all tired," he protested. "It is all very comforting +and homelike; so vastly--" he hesitated, seeking thoughtfully for the +word which should convey his meaning without laying him open to the +charge of patronizing superciliousness, and she supplied it promptly. + +"So different from what you were expecting; I know. You have been +thinking of us as barbarians--outer barbarians, perhaps--and you find +that we are only harmless provincials. But really, you know, we are +improving. I wish you could have known Wahaska as it used to be." + +"Before you took it in hand?" he suggested. "I can imagine it." + +"Can you? I don't have to imagine it--I can remember: how we used to sit +around the edges of the room behaving ourselves just as hard as ever we +could, and boring one another to extinction. I'm afraid some of them do +it yet, sometimes; but I won't let them do it here." + +Once more Griswold let his gaze go at large through the stately rooms. +He understood now. His prefigurings had not been so wide of the mark, +after all. He had merely reckoned without his hostess. + +"It is a miracle," he said, giving her full credit. "I'd like to ask how +you wrought it, only I mustn't keep you from your duties." + +She laughed joyously, with a little toss of the shapely head which was +far more expressive than many words. + +"I haven't any duties; I have taught them to amuse themselves. And they +are doing it very creditably, don't you think?" + +"They are getting along," he admitted. "But tell me: how did you go +about it?" + +"It was simple enough. When we came here we found a lot of good people +who had fallen into the bad habit of boring one another, and a few who +hadn't; but the few held themselves aloof. We opened our house to the +many, and tried to show them that a church sewing-circle isn't precisely +the acme of social enjoyment. That is all." + +Griswold saw in his mind's eye a sharply etched picture of the rise and +progress of a village magnate cleanly struck out in the two terse +sentences, and his respect for his companion in the wide window-seat +increased in just proportion. Verily, Miss Margery had imagination. + +"It is all very grateful and delightful to me," he confessed, at length. +"I have been out of the social running for a long time, but I may as +well admit that I am shamelessly Epicurean by nature, and an ascetic +only when the necessities drive." + +"I know," she assented, with quick appreciation. "An author has to be +both, hasn't he?--keen to enjoy, and well hardened to endure." + +He turned upon her squarely. + +"Where did you ever learn how to say such things as that?" he demanded. + +It was an opening for mockery and good-natured raillery, but she did not +make use of it. Instead, she let him look as deeply as he pleased into +the velvety eyes when she said: "It is given to some of us to see and to +understand where others have to learn slowly, letter by letter. Surely, +your own gift has told you that, Mr. Griswold?" + +"It has," he acknowledged. "But I have found few who really do +understand." + +"Which is to say that you haven't yet found your other self, isn't it? +Perhaps that will come, too, if you'll only be patient--and not expect +too many other gifts of the gods along with the one priceless gift of +perfect sympathy." + +"When I find the one priceless gift, I shall confidently expect to find +everything else," he asserted, still held a willing prisoner by the +bewitching eyes. + +She laughed softly. "You'll be disappointed. The gift you demand will +preclude some of the others; as the others would certainly preclude it. +How can you be an author and not understand that?" + +"I am not an author, I am sorry to say," he objected. "I have written +but the one book, and I have never been able to find a publisher for +it." + +"But you are not going to give up?" + +"No; I am going to rewrite the book and try again--and yet again, if +needful. It is my message to mankind, and I mean to deliver it." + +"Bravo!" she applauded, clapping her hands in a little burst of +enthusiasm which, if it were not real, was at least an excellent +simulation. "It is only the weak ones who say, 'I hope.' For the truly +strong hearts there is only the one battle-cry, 'I will!' When you get +blue and discouraged you must come to me and let me cheer you. Cheering +people is _my_ mission, if I have any." + +Griswold's pale face flushed and the blood sang liltingly in his veins. +He wondered if she had been tempted to read the manuscript of the book +while he was fighting his way back to consciousness and life. If they +had been alone together, he would have asked her. The bare possibility +set all the springs of the author's vanity upbubbling within him. There +and then he promised himself that she should hear the rewriting of the +book, chapter by chapter. But what he said was out of a deeper, and +worthier, underthought. + +"You have many missions, Miss Margery: some of them you choose, and some +are chosen for you." + +"No," she denied; "nobody has ever chosen for me." + +"That may be true, without making me a false prophet. Sometimes when we +think we are choosing for ourselves, chance chooses for us; oftener than +not, I believe." + +She turned on him quickly, and for a single swiftly passing instant the +velvety eyes were deep wells of soberness with an indefinable underdepth +of sorrow in them. Griswold had a sudden conviction that for the first +time in his knowing of her he was looking into the soul of the real +Margery Grierson. + +"What you call 'chance' may possibly have a bigger and better name," she +said, gravely. "Had you ever thought of that?" + +"Give it any name you please, so long as you admit that it is something +beyond our control," he conceded. + +As had happened more than once before, she seemed to be able to read his +inmost thought. + +"You are thinking of the chain of incidents that brought you here? It is +only the details that have 'happened.' You meant to come to Wahaska; +you were carrying out a definite purpose of your own that night in St. +Louis when you took your ticket. And coming here, sooner or later you +would have found your way to this house--to a seat on these cushions. I +could tell you more, but my prophetic soul warns me that Agatha +Severance is protesting to Mr. Wamble that she can't _possibly_ play the +particular song he is asking for without the music. I'm going to +convince her that she can." + +Some little time after this, Raymer, who had been one of the men +introduced by Jasper Grierson, turned up again in the invalid's corner. + +"Sit down, won't you?" said Griswold, making a move to share the +cushions with the young ironmaster; and it was thus that the door to a +friendship was opened. Farther on, when they had gotten safely beyond +the commonplaces, Raymer suggested the smoking-room and a cigar, and +Griswold went willingly. + +"I was wondering if you were like me in that, Mr. Raymer," he said. "I +never feel properly acquainted with a man until I have smoked with him." + +"Or with a woman until she has made a cup of tea for you?" laughed the +native. "That is Miss Margery's try-out. She has taught us the +potentialities that lie in a cup of tea well brewed and skilfully +sweetened." + +From that on, the path to better acquaintance was the easiest of +short-cuts, even as the mild cigar which Raymer found in his pocket-case +paved the way for a return of the smoker's zest in the convalescent. +Without calling himself a reformer, the young ironmaster proved to be a +practical sociologist. Wherefore, when Griswold presently mounted his +own sociological hobby, he was promptly invited to visit the Raymer +Foundry and Machine Works, to the end that he might have some of his +theories of the universal oppression of wage-earners charitably +modified. + +"Of course, I don't deny that we're a long way from the Millennium, +yet," was Raymer's summing up of the conditions in his own plant. "But I +do claim that we are on a present-day, living footing. So far as the men +understand loyalty, they are loyal; partly to my father's memory; +partly, I hope, to me. We have never had a strike or an approach to one, +or a disagreement that could not be adjusted amicably. Whether these +conditions can be maintained after we double our capacity and get in a +lot of new blood, I can't say. But I hope they can." + +"You are enlarging?" said Griswold. + +Raymer waited until the only other man in the smoking-den had gone back +to the drawing-rooms before he said: "Yes; I caught the fever along with +the rest of them a few weeks ago, and I'm already beginning to wish that +I hadn't." + +"You are afraid of the market?" + +"N-no; times are good, and the market--our market, at least--is daily +growing stronger. It is rather a matter of finances. I am an engineer, +as my father was before me. When it comes to wrestling with the money +devil, I'm outclassed from the start." + +"There are a good many more of us in the same boat," said Griswold, +leaving an opening for further confidences if Raymer chose to make them. +But the young ironmaster was looking at his watch, and the confidences +were postponed. + +"I'm keeping you up, when I daresay you ought to be in bed," he +protested; but Griswold held him long enough to ask for a suggestion in +a small matter of his own. + +Now that he was able to be about, he was most anxious to relieve Miss +Grierson and her father of the charge and care of one whose obligation +to them was already more than mountain-high: did Raymer happen to know +of some quiet household where the obligated one could find lodging and a +simple table? + +Raymer, taking time to think of it, did know. Mrs. Holcomb, the widow of +his father's bookkeeper, owned her own house in Shawnee Street. It was +not a boarding-house. The widow rented rooms to two of Mr. Grierson's +bank clerks, and she was looking for another desirable lodger. Quite +possibly she would be willing to board the extra lodger. Raymer, +himself, would go and see her about it. + +"It is an exceedingly kind-hearted community this home town of yours, +Mr. Raymer," was the convalescent's leave-taking, when he shook hands +with the ironmaster at the foot of the stairs; and that was the thought +which he took to bed with him after Raymer had gone to make his adieux +to the small person who, in Griswold's reckoning, owned the kindest of +the kind hearts. + + + + +XXI + +BROFFIN'S EQUATION + + +Having Clerk Maurice's telegram to time the overtaking approach, Broffin +found the _Belle Julie_ backing and filling for her berth at the +Vicksburg landing when, after a hasty Vicksburg breakfast, he had +himself driven to the river front. + +Going aboard as soon as the swing stage was lowered, he found Maurice, +with whom he had something more than a speaking acquaintance, just +turning out of his bunk in the texas. + +"I took it for granted you'd be along," was Maurice's greeting. "What +bank robber are we running away with now?" + +Broffin grinned. + +"I'm still after the one you took on in the place of John Gavitt." + +"Humph!" said the clerk, sleepily; "I thought that one _was_ John +Gavitt." + +"No; he merely took Gavitt's place and name. Tell me all you know about +him." + +"I don't know anything about him, except that he was fool enough to pull +Buck M'Grath out of the river just after M'Grath had tried to bump him +over the bows." + +This was a new little side-light on the characteristics of the man who +was wanted. Broffin pulled gently at the thread of narrative until he +had all the particulars of the humane mutiny and the near-tragedy in +which it had terminated. + +"Stuck to him and kept him from drowning till you could pick 'em up, did +he--what?" was his commentary on the story. "Then what happened?" + +"Oh, nothing much--or nothing very different. Of course, Mac favored the +fellow all he could, after that; gave him the light end of it when there +was any light end. But he didn't get his chance to even up right until +we got to St. Louis." + +Here, apparently, was another overlooked item in the list of things to +be considered, and Broffin grappled for it. + +"How was that?" he asked. + +"I don't know for a certainty. But I put it up that the fellow took Mac +into his confidence--a little--and told him he wanted to make a run for +it as soon as we hit the levee at St. Louis. He hadn't got his pay; we +always hold the 'rousties'' money back till we're unloaded, if we can; +so Mac advanced it, or claimed that he did." + +It was Broffin's business to put two and two together, and at this +conjuncture the process was sufficiently simple. With a hundred thousand +dollars in his possession, the make-believe deck-hand would not be +foolish enough to run even a hypothetical risk for the sake of saving +the bit of wage-money. Broffin's next query seemed wholly irrelevant. + +"Do you carry any nippers or handcuffs on the _Belle Julie_, Maurice?" +he asked. + +"Yes; I believe Mac has an odd pair or so in his dunnage; in fact, I +know he has. I've seen him use 'em on an obstreperous nigger." + +From the handcuffs Broffin went off at another tangent. + +"Of course, so far as you know, nobody on the boat suspected that the +fellow who called himself Gavitt was anything but the 'roustie' he was +passing himself off for? You didn't know of his having any talk with any +of the upper-deck people?" + +"Only once," said the day-clerk, promptly. + +"When was that?" + +"It was one day just after the 'man-overboard' incident, a little while +after dusk in the evening. I was up here in the texas, getting ready to +go to supper. Gavitt--we may as well keep on calling him that till +you've found another name for him--Gavitt had been cubbing for the +pilot. I saw him go across the hurricane-deck and down the companion to +the saloon-deck guards; and a minute later I heard him talking to +somebody--a woman--on the guards below." + +"You didn't hear what was said?" + +"I didn't pay any attention. Passengers, women passengers especially, +often do that--pull up a 'roustie' and pry into him to see what sort of +wheels he has. But I noticed that they talked for quite a little while; +because, when I finished dressing and went below, he was just leaving +her." + +Broffin rose up from the bunk on which he had been sitting and laid a +heavy hand on Maurice's shoulder. "You ain't going to tell me that you +didn't find out who the woman was, Clarence--what?" he said anxiously. + +"That's just what I've got to tell you, Matt," returned the clerk +reluctantly. "I was due at the second table, and I didn't go as far +forward as the stanchion she was holding on to. All I can tell you is +that she was one of the half-dozen or so younger women we had on board; +I could guess at that much." + +Broffin's oath was not of anger; it was a mere upbubbling of +disappointment. + +"Maurice, I've got to find that young woman if I have to chase her +half-way round the globe, and it's tough luck to figure out that if you +hadn't been in such a blazing hell of a hurry to get your supper that +night, I might be able to catch up with her in the next forty-eight +hours or so. But what's done is done, and can't be helped. Chase out and +get your passenger list for that trip. We'll take the women as they +come, and when you've helped me cull out the names of the ones you're +sure it wasn't, I'll screw my nut and quit buzzing at you." + +The clerk went below and returned almost immediately with the list. +Together they went over it carefully, and by dint of much +memory-wringing Maurice was able to give the detective leave to cancel +ten of the seventeen names in the women's list, the remaining seven +including all the might-have-beens who could possibly be fitted into +the clerk's recollection of the woman he had seen clinging to the +saloon-deck stanchion after her interview with the deck-hand. + +To these seven names were appended the addresses given in the steamer's +registry record, though as to these Maurice admitted that the patrons of +the boats were not always careful to comply with the regulation which +required the giving of the home address. + +"About as often as not they write down the name of the last place they +stopped at," he asserted; and Broffin swore again. + +"Which means that I may have to pound my ear eight or ten thousand miles +on the varnished cars for nothing," he growled. "Well, there ain't any +rest for the wicked, I reckon. Now tell me where I can find this man +Buck M'Grath, and I'll fade away." + +M'Grath was on duty, superintending the loading and unloading of the +Vicksburg freight quotas; but when Broffin tapped him on the shoulder +and showed his badge, the second mate was called in and M'Grath stood +aside with his unwelcome interrupter. + +There were difficulties from the outset. A man-driver himself, the chief +mate shared with the sheerest outcast in his crew a hearty hatred for +the man-catchers all and singular; and in the present instance his +sympathies were with the fugitive from justice, on general principles +first, and for good and sufficient personal reasons afterward. Then, +too, Broffin was hardly at his best. At the thought of what this man +M'Grath could tell him, and was gruffly refusing to tell him, he lost +his temper. + +"You're edgin' up pretty close to the law, yourself, by what you're +keeping back," he told the mate finally. "Sooner or later, I'm going to +run this gentleman-roustie of yours down, anyhow, and it'll be healthier +for you to help than to hinder. Do you know what he's wanted for?" + +M'Grath did not know, and his enlargement upon the simple negative was +explosively profane. + +"Then I'll tell you. He was the 'strong-arm' man that held up the +president of the Bayou State Security and made his get-away with a +hundred thousand. Now will you come across?" + +"No!" rasped the Irishman--and again there were embellishments. + +"All right. When I catch up with him, you'll fall in for your share in +the proceeds as an accessory after the fact. My men nabbed him on the +levee at St. Louis, and when he euchred them he carried away a pair of +handcuffs that somebody had to help him get shut of. He came back to the +boat, and you are the man who took the handcuffs off!" + +"'Tis a scrimshankin' lie, and ye can't prove ut!" said M'Grath. + +"Maybe not; but there's one thing I can prove. This side-partner of +yours didn't get his pay before he went ashore with the spring-line; +_but you drew it for him afterwards!_" + +M'Grath was cruelly cornered, but he still had the courage of his +gratitude. + +"Well, then, I did be taking the bracelets off av 'm. Now make the most +av ut, and be damned to you! Did I know what he'd been doing? I did not. +Do I know where he wint? I do not. Have I seen the naygur that skipped +with him, from that day to this? I have not; nor would I be knowing 'm +if I did see 'm. Anything else yez'd like to know? If there is, ye'll be +taking ut on the tip av my fisht!" And he went back to his work, oozing +profanity at every pore. + +Thrown back upon the one remaining expedient, Broffin went ashore and +became a student of railroad time-tables. Passing the incidents of the +stubborn chase in review after many days, he wondered that it had not +occurred to him to question Captain Mayfield. But that the captain would +know anything at all about any particular bit of human driftwood in the +ever-changing deck crew seemed easily incredible; and there was no good +angel of clairvoyance to tell him that the captain had once been made +the half-confidant of a distressed young woman who was anxious to be +both just and merciful. + +It was while he was waiting for the departure of the first northbound +train that he planned the search for the young woman, arranging the +names of the seven might-have-beens in the order of accessibility as +indicated by the addresses given in the _Belle Julie's_ register. In +this arrangement Miss Charlotte Farnham's name stood as Number Three; +the two names outranking hers being assigned respectively to Terre +Haute, Indiana, and Baldwin, Kansas. + +In his after-rememberings, Broffin swore softly under the drooping +mustaches when he recalled how, in that morning waiting at Vicksburg, he +had hesitated and changed his mind many times before deciding upon the +first three zigzags of the search. Terre Haute, Baldwin, and Wahaska lay +roughly at the three extremities of a great triangle whose sides, +measured in hours of railroad travel, were nearly equal. Failing at +Terre Haute, the nearest point, he could reach either of the two +remaining vertices of the triangle with fairly equal facility; and it +was surely an ironical fate that led him to decide finally upon the +Kansas town as the second choice. + +Some twenty-odd hours after leaving Vicksburg, Broffin the tireless +found himself in Terre Haute. Here failure had at least the comfort of +finality. The Miss Heffelfinger of his list, whom he found and +interviewed within an hour of his arrival, was a teacher of German whose +difficulties with the English language immediately eliminated her from +the diminishing equation. Broffin got away from the voluble little +Berliner as expeditiously as possible and hastened back to the railway +station. Kansas came next in his itinerary, and a westbound train was +due to leave in a few minutes. + +It was here again that fate mocked him. Arriving at the station, he +found that the westbound train was an hour late; also, that within the +hour there would be a fast train to the north, with good connections for +Wahaska. Once more he stumbled and fell into the valley of indecision. A +dozen times during the forty-five minutes of grace he was on the point +of changing his route; nay, more; at the last minute, when the caller +had announced the northern train, he took a gambler's chance and spun a +coin--heads for the north and tails for the west. The twirling +half-dollar slipped from his fingers and rolled under one of the +stationary seats in the waiting-room. Broffin got down on his hands and +knees to grope for it, and while he was groping the chance to take the +northbound "Limited" was lost. Moreover, when he finally found the coin +it was standing upright in a crack in the floor. + +Having now no alternative to distract him, he held to his original plan +and was soon speeding westward toward the Kansan experiment-station. For +two full days of twenty-four hours each he fought as only a determined +man and a good traveller could fight to cover a distance which should +have been traversed in something less than half of the time. Washouts, +blocked tracks, missed connections, all these got in the way; and it was +not until late in the afternoon of the third day out from Terre Haute +that he was set down at the small station which serves the needs of the +Kansas university town. + +Having had himself conveyed quickly to the university, which was given +as the address of the Miss Sanborn whose name stood second in his list, +he learned how shrewd a blow his implacable ill-luck had dealt him in +making him the victim of so many delays. Miss Sanborn, it appeared, had +been fitting herself at the denominational school to go out as a +missionary. And some twelve hours before his arrival she had started on +her long journey to the antipodes, going by way of San Francisco and the +Pacific Mail. + +Another man might have taken the more easily reached addresses in the +list, leaving the appalling world-tour for the last. But the doggedness +which had hitherto been Broffin's best bid for genius in his profession +asserted itself as a ruling passion. Twenty minutes after having been +given his body-blow by the dean of the theological school he had +examined some specimens of Miss Sanborn's handwriting, had compared them +with the unsigned letter, and was back at the little railroad station +burning the wires to Kansas City in an attempt to find out the exact +sailing date of the missionary's steamer from San Francisco. + +When the answer came he found that his margin of time was something of +the narrowest, but it was still a margin. By taking the first overland +train which could be reached and boarded, he might, barring more of the +ill-luck, arrive at San Francisco in time to overtake the young woman +whose handwriting was so like, and yet in some respects quite strikingly +unlike, that of the writer of the letter to Mr. Galbraith. + +Under such conditions the long journey to the Pacific Coast was begun, +continued, and, in due course of time, ended. As if it had exhausted +itself in the middle passage, ill-luck held aloof, and Broffin's +overland train was promptly on time when it rolled into its terminal at +Oakland. An hour later he had crossed the bay and was in communication +with the steamship people. Though it was within a few hours of the China +steamer's sailing date, Miss Sanborn had not yet made her appearance, +and once more, though the subject this time was wholly innocent, Broffin +swore fluently. + +Notwithstanding, after all these intermediate buffetings, it was only +the ultimate disappointment which was reserved for the man who had come +two thousand miles out of his way for a five-minute talk with a young +woman. Almost at the last moment he found her, and in the same moment +was made to realize that the similarity in handwriting was only a +similarity. Miss Sanborn had been a passenger on the _Belle Julie_, +boarding the steamboat at New Orleans and debarking at St. Louis. But +she had known nothing of the Bayou State Security robbery until she had +read of it in the newspapers; and one glance into the steadfast blue +eyes that met his without flinching convinced Broffin that once more he +had fired and missed. + +Number Two in the list of seven being thus laboriously eliminated, +Broffin, to be utterly consistent, should have boarded the first train +for Minnesota. But inasmuch as three of the remaining five addresses +were west of the Missouri River, he sacrificed consistency to +common-sense, halting at a little town in the Colorado mountains, again +at Pueblo, and a third time at Hastings, Nebraska only to find at each +stopping-place that the ultimate disappointment had preceded and was +waiting for him. + +With his list cancelled down to two names, he resumed the eastward +flight from the Nebraska town and was again beset by the devil of +indecision. The two place-names remaining were Wahaska and a small +coal-mining town in southern Iowa. Measuring again by railroad hours, he +found that the Iowa town was the nearer; but, on the other hand, there +were good connections from Omaha to Wahaska, and a rather poor one to +the coal mines. Once more Broffin took the gambler's chance, spinning +the coin in his hat, heads for Iowa and tails for Minnesota. It came +heads; and the following day recorded the sixth in the string of +failures. + +Leaving What Cheer in the caboose of a coal train, with only the train's +crew for company, and a hard bench for a bed, the man-hunter was already +thrilling to the exultant view-halloo in the chase. By the light of the +flickering caboose lamp he drew his pencil through the Iowa failure. The +one uncancelled name was now something more than a chance; it was a +certainty. + +"I've got you for fair, girlie, this time!" he triumphed, and since he +did it audibly, the coal-train conductor laughed and wanted to be told +the color of her eyes and hair. + +"Got 'em pretty bad, ain't you, pardner?" he commented, when Broffin, +loose-tongued in his elation, confessed that he was chasing a woman whom +he had never seen. "I know how it goes: seen a picture of one once on a +bill-board, and I'd 'a' gone plum to Californy after her if I hadn't +been too danged busy to take a lay-off." + +Landing in Wahaska the next evening, Broffin's first request at the +hotel counter was for the directory. Running an eager finger down the +"F's" he came to the name. It was the only Farnham in the list, and +after it he read: "Dr. Herbert C., office 8 to 10, 2 to 4, 201 Main St., +res. 16 Lake Boulevard." + +Broffin had a traveller's appetite, and the cafe doors were invitingly +open. Yet he denied himself until the clerk, busy at the moment with +other guests, should be at liberty. + +"I see there's a Doctor Farnham here," he said, when his time came. "I +was wondering if he was the man I met up with down in New Orleans last +winter." + +The clerk shook his head. + +"I guess not. Doctor Bertie hasn't taken a vacation since the oldest +inhabitant can remember." + +"H'm; that's funny," mused the detective, as one nonplussed. "The name's +just as familiar as an old song. Is your Doctor Farnham a sort of oldish +man?" + +"He's elderly, yes; old enough to have a grown daughter." Then the clerk +laughed. "Perhaps you've got things tangled. Perhaps you 'met up' with +Miss Charlotte. She was down on the Gulf Coast last winter." + +"Not me," said Broffin, matching the ice-breaking laugh. And then he +registered for a room and passed on into the cafe, deferring to the +appetite which, for the first time in nearly four tedious weeks, he felt +justified in indulging to the untroubled limit. + +Having, by the slow but sure process of elimination, finally reduced his +equation to its lowest terms, Broffin put the past four weeks and their +failures behind him, and prepared to draw the net which he hoped would +entangle the lost identity of the bank robber. After a good night's +sleep in a real bed, he awoke refreshed and alert, breakfasted with an +open mind, and presently went about the net-drawing methodically and +with every contingency carefully provided for. + +The first step was to assure himself beyond question that Miss Farnham +was the writer of the unsigned letter. This step he was able, by a piece +of great good fortune, to take almost immediately. A bit of morning +gossip with the obliging clerk of the Winnebago House developed the fact +that Dr. Farnham's daughter had once taught in the free kindergarten +which was one of the charitable out-reachings of the Wahaska Public +Library. Two blocks east and one south: Broffin walked them promptly, +made himself known to the librarian as a visitor interested in +kindergarten work, and was cheerfully shown the records. When he turned +to the pages signed "Charlotte Farnham" the last doubt vanished and +assurance was made sure. The anonymous letter writer was found. + +It was just here that Matthew Broffin fell under the limitations of his +trade. Though the detective in real life is as little as may be like the +Inspector Buckets and the Javerts of fiction, certain characteristics +persist. Broffin thought he knew the worth of boldness; where it was a +mere matter of snapping the handcuffs upon some desperate criminal, the +boldness was not wanting. But now, when he found himself face to face +with the straightforward expedient, the craft limitations bound him. +Instantly he thought of a dozen good reasons why he should make haste +slowly; and he recognized in none of them the craftsman's slant toward +indirection--the tradition of the trade which discounts the +straightforward attack and puts a premium upon the methods of the +deer-stalker. + +Sooner or later, of course, the attack must be made. But only an +apprentice, he told himself, would be foolish enough to make it without +mapping out all the hazards of the ground over which it must be made. In +a word, he must "place" Miss Farnham precisely; make a careful study of +the young woman and her environment, to the end that every thread of +advantage should be in his hands when he should finally force her to a +confession. For by now the assumption that she knew the mysterious bank +robber was no longer hypothetical in Broffin's mind: it had grown to +the dimensions of a conviction. + +Wahaska was not difficult of approach on its gossiping side. Though it +owned a charter and called itself a city, it was still in the +country-town stage which favors a wide distribution of news with the +personal note emphasized. Broffin, conveying the impression that he was +a Louisiana lumberman on a vacation, approved himself as a good +listener, and little more was needed. In a week he had traced the social +outlines of the town as one finds the accent of a painting; in a +fortnight he had grouped the Griersons, the Raymers, the Oswalds, the +Barrs, and the Farnhams in their various interrelations, business and +otherwise. + +With the patient curiosity of his tribe he suffered no detail, however +trivial, to escape its jotting down. To familiarize himself with the +goings and comings of one young woman, he made the acquaintance of an +entire town. He knew Jasper Grierson's ambition, and its fruitage in the +practical ownership of Wahaska. He knew that Edward Raymer had borrowed +money from Grierson's bank--and was likely to be unable to pay it when +his notes fell due. He had heard it whispered that there had once been a +love affair between young Raymer and Miss Farnham, and that it had been +broken off by Raymer's infatuation for Margery Grierson. Also, last and +least important of all the gossiping details, as it seemed at the time, +he learned that the bewitching Miss Grierson was a creature of fads; +that within the past month or two she had returned from a Florida trip, +bringing with her a sick man, a total stranger, who had been picked up +on the train, taken to the great house on the lake shore and nursed back +to life as Miss Grierson's latest defiance of the conventions. + +It should have been a memorable day for Matthew Broffin when he had this +sick man pointed out to him as Miss Grierson's companion in the high +trap--which was also one of Miss Margery's bids for criticism in a town +where the family carryall was still a feature. But Broffin was +sufficiently human to see only a very beautiful young woman sitting +correctly erect on the slanting driving-seat and holding the reins over +a high-stepping horse which, he was told, had cost Jasper Grierson every +cent of a thousand dollars. To be sure, he saw the man, as one sees a +vanishing figure in a kaleidoscope. But there was nothing in the +clean-shaven face of the gaunt, and as yet rather haggard, convalescent +to evoke the faintest thrill of interest--or of memory. + + + + +XXII + +IN THE BURGLAR-PROOF + + +A week and a day after the opening of new vistas at Miss Grierson's +"evening," Griswold--Raymer's intercession with the Widow Holcomb having +paved the way--took a favorable opportunity of announcing his intention +of leaving Mereside. It figured as a grateful disappointment to him--one +of the many she was constantly giving him--that Margery placed no +obstacles in the way of the intention. On the contrary, she approved the +plan. + +"I know how you feel," she said, nodding complete comprehension. "You +want to have a place that you can call your own; a place where you can +go and come as you please and settle down to work. You _are_ going to +work, aren't you?--on the book, I mean?" + +Griswold replaced in its proper niche the volume he had been reading. It +was Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, and he had been wondering by what +ironical chance it had found a place in the banker's library. + +"Yes; that is what I mean to do," he returned. "But it will have to be +done in such scraps and parings of time as I can save from some +bread-and-butter occupation. One must eat to live, you know." + +She was sitting on the arm of one of the big library lounging-chairs and +looking up at him with a smile that was suspiciously innocent and +childlike. + +"You mean that you will have to work for your living?" she asked. + +"Exactly." + +"What were you thinking of doing?" + +"I don't know," he confessed. "I have been hoping that Raymer might help +me to find a place; possibly in the machine works as an under +bookkeeper, or something of that sort. Not that I know very much about +any really useful occupation, when it comes to that; but I suppose I can +learn." + +Again he surprised the lurking smile in the velvety eyes, but this time +it was half-mischievous. + +"We have a college here in Wahaska, and you might get a place on the +faculty," she suggested; adding: "As an instructor in philosophy, for +example." + +"Philosophy? that is the one thing in the world that I know least +about." + +"In theory, perhaps," she conceded, laughing openly at him now. "But in +practice you are perfect, Mr. Griswold. Hasn't anybody ever told you +that before?" + +"No; and you don't mean it. You are merely taking a base advantage of a +sick man and making fun of me. I don't mind: I'm in a heavenly temper +this afternoon." + +"Oh, but I do mean it, honestly," she averred. "You are a philosopher, +really and truly, and I can prove it. Do you feel equal to another +little drive down-town?" + +"Being a philosopher, I ought to be equal to anything," he postulated; +and he went up-stairs to get a street coat and his hat. + +She had disappeared when he came down again, and he went out to sit on +the sun-warmed veranda while he waited. He had already forgotten what +she had said about the object of the drive--the proving of the +philosophic charge against him--and was looking forward with keenly +pleasurable anticipations to another outing with her, the second for +that day. It had come to this, now; to admitting frankly the charm which +he was still calling sensuous, and which, in the moments of insight +recurring, as often as they can be borne, to the imaginative, and +vouchsafed now and then even to the wayfaring, he was still disposed to +characterize as an appeal to that which was least worthy in him. + +Latterly, however, he had begun to question himself more acutely as to +the exact justice of this attitude; and while he was sunning himself on +the veranda and listening for the hoof-beats of the big trap horse on +the stable approach, he was doing it again. In those graver analytical +moments he had called Margery a preternaturally clever little barbarian, +setting his own immense obligation to her aside in deference to what he +assumed to be the immutable realities. In the sun-warming excursion came +another of those precious moments of insight; a moment in which he was +given a sobering glimpse of the deathless Philistine within. Who was he +to be setting his machine-made ideals above the living, breathing, human +fact whose very limitations and shortcomings might figure as angelic +virtues when weighed in any balance save that of the Philistinic ego? + +To admit the query was to admit a doubtful distrust of all the charted +anchorages; those sure holding-grounds which he had once believed to be +the very bottoming of facts assured and incontestible. From his lounging +seat the trees on the lawn framed a noble vista of lakescape and +crescent-curved beach drive, the latter with its water-facing row of +modest mansions, the homes of Wahaska's well-to-do elect. At the end of +the crescent he could see the chimneys of the Raymer house rising above +a groving of young maples; and nearer at hand the substantial, +two-storied frame house which Miss Grierson had pointed out to him as +the home of the kindly Doctor Bertie. When he found himself drifting, +his thoughts reverted automatically to Charlotte Farnham. There, if +anywhere, lay the touchstone of truth and the verities; there, he told +himself, was at least one life into which the doubtful distrust of the +anchorages had never come. + +Passing easily from Miss Farnham the ideal to Miss Farnham the +flesh-and-blood reality, he was moved to wonder mildly why the fate +which had brought him twice into critically intimate relations with her +was now denying him even a chance meeting. For a week or more he had +been going out daily; sometimes with Miss Grierson in the trap, but +oftener afoot and alone. The walking excursions had led him most +frequently up and down the lakeside drive, but the doctor's house stood +well back in its enclosure, and there was much shrubbery. Once he had +heard her voice: she was reading aloud to some one on the vine-screened +porch. And once again in passing, he had caught a glimpse of a shapely +arm with the loose sleeve falling away from it as it was thrust upward +through the porch greenery to pluck a bud from the crimson rambler +adding its graceful mass to the clambering vines. It was rather +disappointing, but he was not impatient. In the fulness of time the +destiny which had twice intervened would intervene again. He was as +certain of it as he was of the day-to-day renewal of his strength and +vitality; and he could afford to wait. For, whatever else might happen +in a mutable world, neither an ideal nor its embodiment may suffer +change. + +As if to add the touch of definitiveness to the presumptive conclusion, +a voice broke in upon his revery; the voice of the young woman whose +most alluring charm was her many-sided changefulness. + +"What? no trap yet? Thorsen is outliving his usefulness; he is getting +slower and pokier every added day he lives!" the voice was saying, with +a faintly acid quality in it that Griswold had seldom heard. Then, as if +she had marked his preoccupied gaze and divined its object: "You must +have a little more patience, Mr. Griswold. All things come to him who +waits. When you have left Mereside finally, Doctor Bertie will some time +take you home to dinner with him." + +For his own peace of mind, Griswold hastily assured himself that it was +only the wildest of chance shots. Since the day when he had admitted +that he knew Miss Farnham's name without knowing Miss Farnham in person, +the doctor's daughter had never been mentioned between them. + +"How did you happen to guess that I was thinking of the good doctor?" he +asked, curiously. + +"You were not thinking of Doctor Bertie; you were thinking of Doctor +Bertie's 'only'," was the laughing contradiction; and Griswold was glad +that the coming of the man with the trap saved him from the necessity of +falling any farther into what might easily prove to be a dangerous +pitfall. Later on, while he was mechanically lifting his hat in +recognition of the many salutations acknowledged by his companion in +their triumphal progress down Main Street, he was still thankful and +still puzzling over the almost uncanny coincidence. It was not the first +time that Miss Grierson had seemed able to read his inmost thoughts. + +The short afternoon drive paused at the curb in front of Jasper +Grierson's bank, and, as on former occasions, Margery lightly scorned +the convalescent's up-stretched arms and sprang unhelped to the +pavement. But now her mood was sweetly indulgent and she softened the +refusal. "By and by, after you are quite well and strong again," she +said; and when a horse-holding boy had been found, she led the way into +the bank. + +It was Griswold's first visit to the Farmers' and Merchants', and while +his companion was speaking to the cashier he was absently contrasting +its rather showy interior with the severe plainness of the Bayou State +Security; contrasting, and congratulating himself upon the gift of the +artistic memory which enabled him to recall with vivid accuracy all the +little details of the New Orleans banking house--this notwithstanding +the good excuse the observing eye might have had for wandering. + +A moment later he found himself bringing up the rear of a procession of +three, led by a young woman with a bunch of keys at her girdle. The +procession halted for the opening of a massive gate in the steel grille +at the rear of the public lobby; after which, with the gate latching +itself automatically behind him, Griswold found himself in the grated +corridor facing the safety deposit vaults. + +"Number three-forty-five-A, please," his companion was saying to the +young woman custodian, and he stood aside and admired the workmanship of +the complicated time-locks while the two entered the electric-lighted +vault and jointly opened one of the multitude of small safes. When Miss +Grierson came out, she was carrying a small, japanned document box under +her arm, and her eyes were shining with a soft light that was new to the +man who was waiting in the corridor. "Come with me to one of the +coupon-rooms," she said; and then to the custodian: "You needn't stay; +I'll ring when we want to be let out." + +Griswold followed in mild bewilderment when she turned aside to one of +the little mahogany-lined cells set apart for the use of the +safe-holders, saw her press the button which switched the lights on, and +mechanically obeyed her signal to close the door. When their complete +privacy was assured, she put the japanned box on the tiny table and +motioned him to one of the two chairs. + +"Do you know why I have brought you here?" she asked, when he was +sitting within arm's-reach of the small black box. + +"How should I?" he said. "You take me where you please, and when you +please, and I ask no questions. I am too well contented to be with you +to care very much about the whys and wherefores." + +"Oh, how nicely you say it!" she commended, with the frank little laugh +which he had come to know and to seek to provoke. She was standing +against the opposite cell wall with her shoulders squared and her hands +behind her: the pose, whether intentional or natural, was dramatically +perfect and altogether bewitching. "I was born to be your fairy +godmother, I think," she went on joyously. "Tell me; when you bought +your ticket to Wahaska that night in St. Louis, were you meaning to come +here to find work?--the bread-and-butter work?" + +"No," he admitted; "I had money, then." + +"What became of it?" + +"I don't know. I suppose it was stolen from me on the train. It was in +a package in one of my suit-cases; and Doctor Farnham said----" + +"I know; he told you that we had searched your suit-cases when you were +at your worst--thinking we owed it to you and your friends, if you had +any." + +"Yes; that is what he told me." + +"Also, he told you that we didn't find any money?" + +"Yes; he told me that, too. We agreed that somebody must have gone +through the grips on the train." + +"And you let it go at that? Why didn't you tell me, so that we might at +least try to find the thief?" + +He had quite lost sight of the black box on the table by this time, and +was consumed with curiosity to know why she had brought him to such a +place to reproach him for his lack of confidence. + +"How often are we able to tell the exact 'why' of anything?" he answered +evasively. "Perhaps I didn't wish to trouble you--you who had already +troubled yourself so generously in behalf of an unknown castaway." + +"So you just let the money go?" + +"So I just let it go." + +She was laughing again and the bedazzling eyes were dancing with +delight. + +"I told you I was going to prove that you are a philosopher!" she +exulted. "Sour old Diogenes himself couldn't have been more superbly +indifferent to the goods the gods provide. Open that box on the table, +please." + +He did it half-absently: at the first sight of the brown-paper packet +within, the electric bulb suspended over the table seemed to grow black +and the mahogany walls of the tiny room to spin dizzily. Then, with a +click that he fancied he could hear, the buzzing mental machinery +stopped and reversed itself. A cold sweat, clammy and sickening, started +out on him when he realized that the reversal had made him once again +the crafty, cornered criminal, ready to fight or fly--or to slay, if a +life stood in the way of escape. Without knowing what he did, he closed +the box and got upon his feet, eying her with a growing ferocity that he +could neither banish nor control. + +"I see: you were a little beforehand with the doctor," he said, and he +strove to say it naturally; to keep the malignant devil that was +whispering in his ear from dictating the tone as well as the words. + +"I was, indeed; several days beforehand," she boasted, still joyously +exultant. + +"You--you opened the package?" he went on, once more pushing the +importunate devil aside. + +"Naturally. How else would I have known that it was worth locking up?" + +Her coolness astounded him. If she knew the whole truth--and the demon +at his ear was assuring him that she must know it--she must also know +that she was confronting a great peril; the peril of one who voluntarily +shuts himself into a trap with the fear-maddened wild thing for which +the trap was baited and set. He was steadying himself with a hand on the +table when he said: "Well, you opened the package; what did you find +out?" + +"What did I find out?" He heard her half-hesitant repetition of his +query, and for one flitting instant he made sure that he saw the fear of +death in the wide-open eyes that were lifted to his. But the next +instant the eyes were laughing at him, and she was going on confidently. +"Of course, as soon as I untied the string I saw it was money--a lot of +money; and you can imagine that I tied it up again, quickly, and didn't +lose any more time than I could help in putting it away in the safest +place I could think of. Every day since you began to get well, I've been +expecting you to say something about it; but as long as you wouldn't, I +wouldn't." + +Slowly the blood came back into the saner channels, and the whispering +demon at his ear grew less articulate. Was she telling the truth? Could +it be possible that she had not opened the packet far enough to see and +read the damning evidence of the printed bank-slips which, in a very +bravado of carelessness, as he now remembered, he had neglected to +remove and destroy? He was searching the dark eyes for the naked soul +behind them when he ventured again. + +"You--you and your father--must have thought it very singular that a +sick man should be knocking about the country with so much money carried +carelessly in a suit-case?" + +"My father knows nothing about it; nor does any one else. And it wasn't +my place to gossip or to wonder. I found it, and I took care of it for +you. Are you glad, or sorry?" + +He took the necessary forward step and stood before her. And his answer +was no answer at all. + +"Miss Grierson--Margery--are you telling me the truth?--all of it?" he +demanded, seeking once again to pinion the soul which lay beyond the +deepest depth of the limpid eyes. + +Her laugh was as cheerful as a bird song. + +"Telling you the truth? How could you suspect me of such a thing! No, my +good friend; no woman ever tells a man the whole truth when she can help +it. I didn't find your money, and I didn't lock it up in poppa's vault: +I am merely playing a part in a deep and diabolical plot to----" + +Griswold forgot that he was her poor beneficiary; forgot that she had +taken him in as her guest; forgot, in the mad joy of the reactionary +moment, everything that he should have remembered--saw nothing, thought +of nothing save the flushed face with its glorious eyes and tempting +lips: the eyes and lips of the daughter of men. + +She broke away from him hotly after he had taken the flushed face +between his hands and kissed her; broke away to drop into the chair at +the other side of the table, hiding the flashing eyes and the burning +cheeks and the quivering lips in the crook of a round arm which made +room for itself on the narrow table by pushing the japanned money-box +off the opposite edge. + +It was the normal Griswold who picked up the box and put it in the other +chair, gravely and methodically. Then he stood before her again with +his back to the wall, waiting for what every gentle drop of blood in his +veins was telling him he richly deserved. His punishment was long in +coming; so long that when he made sure she was crying, he began to +invite it. + +"Say it," he suggested gently, "you needn't spare me at all. The only +excuse I could offer would only make the offence still greater." + +She looked up quickly and the dark eyes were swimming. But whether the +tears were of anger or only of outraged generosity, he could not tell. + +"Then there was an excuse?" she flashed up at him. + +"No," he denied, as one who finds the second thought the worthier; +"there was no excuse." + +She had found a filmy bit of lace-bordered linen at her belt and was +furtively wiping her lips with it. + +"I thought perhaps you might be able to--to invent one of some sort," +she said, and her tone was as colorless as the gray skies of an autumn +nightfall. And then, with a childlike appeal in the wonderful eyes: "I +think you will have to help me a little--out of your broader experience, +you know. What ought I to do?" + +His reply came hot from the refining-fire of self-abasement. + +"You should write me down as one who wasn't worthy of your +loving-kindness and compassion, Miss Grierson. Then you should call the +custodian and turn me out." + +"But afterward," she persisted pathetically. "There must be an +afterward?" + +"I am leaving Mereside this evening," he reminded her. "It will be for +you to say whether its doors shall ever open to me again." + +She took the thin safety-deposit key from her glove and laid it on the +table. + +"You have made me wish there hadn't been any money," she lamented, with +a sorrowful little catch in her voice that stabbed him like a knife. "I +haven't so many friends that I can afford to lose them recklessly, Mr. +Griswold." + +"Damn the money!" he exploded; and the malediction came out of a full +heart. + +"If you would only say you are sorry," she went on sadly, groping only +half-purposefully for the bell-push which would summon the custodian. +"You are sorry, aren't you?" + +Unconsciously he had taken her former pose, with his back to the wall +and his hands behind him. + +"I ought to be decent enough to lie to you and say that I am," he +returned, hardily. "I know you can't understand; you are too good and +innocent to understand. I'm ashamed; that is, the civilized part of me +is ashamed; but that is all. Knowing that he ought to be in the dust at +your feet, the brutal other-man is unrepentant and riotously jubilant +because, for a brief second or two, he was able to break away and----" + +Her fingers had found the bell-push and were pressing it. When the +custodian opened the door, Miss Grierson was her poiseful self again. + +"Number three-forty-five-A is Mr. Kenneth Griswold's box, now," she +announced briefly. "Please register it in his name, and then help him to +put it away and lock it up." + +Griswold went through the motions with the key-bearing young woman +half-absently. By this time he was fathoms deep in the reactionary +undertow. Must the recovered treasure always transform itself into a +millstone to drag him down into some new and untried depth of +degradation? Thrice he had given it up for lost, and in each instance +its reappearance had been the signal for a relapse into primitive +barbarism, for a plunge into the moral under-depths out of which he had +each time emerged distinctively and definitely the loser. Was it to be +always thus? Could it be even remotely possible that in a candidly +material world there could still be standing-room for the myths and +portents and superstitious traditions? + +He was trying to persuade himself that there could not be standing-room +when he rejoined Margery--herself the best imaginable refutation of the +old-wives' tales--at the gate in the great steel grille. Man-like, he +was ready to be forgiven and comforted; and there was at least oblivion +in her charming little shudder as the custodian shot the bolts of the +gate to let them out. + +"_Br-r-r!_" she shivered, "I can never stand here and look at the free +people out there without fancying myself in a prison. It must be a +dreadful thing to be shut away behind bolts and bars, forgotten by +everybody, and yet yourself unable to forget. Do you ever have such +foolish thoughts, Mr. Griswold?" + +For one poignant second fear leaped alive again and he called himself no +better than a lost man. But the eyes that were lifted to his were the +eyes of a questioning child, so guilelessly innocent that he immediately +suffered another relapse into the pit of self-despisings. + +"You have made me your poor prisoner, Miss Grierson," he said, speaking +to his own thought rather than to her question. And when they reached +the sidewalk and the trap: "May I bid you good-by here and go to my own +place?" + +"Of course not!" she protested. "Mr. Raymer is coming to dinner to-night +and he will drive you over to Mrs. Holcomb's afterward, if you really +think you must go." + +And for the first time in their comings and goings she let him lift her +to the high driving-seat. + + + + +XXIII + +CONVERGING ROADS + + +Matthew Broffin had been two weeks and half of a third an unobtrusive +spy upon the collective activities of the Wahaskan social group which +included the Farnhams before he decided that nothing more could be +gained by further delay. + +By this time he knew all there was to be known about Miss Farnham; the +houses she visited, the somewhat limited circle of her intimates and the +vastly wider one of her acquaintances, her comings and goings in the +town, her preference for church dissipations over the other sort, and +for croquet over lawn tennis. + +Also, he had a more minute knowledge which would have terrified her if +she had suspected that any strange man was keeping an accurately +tabulated note-book record of her waking employments. He knew at what +hour she breakfasted, what time in the forenoons she spent upon her +Chautauqua readings, how much of her day was given to the care of her +invalid aunt, and, most important item of all, how, in the afternoons, +when her father was at his town office and the invalid was taking a nap +in her room, Miss Charlotte was usually alone in the living-rooms of +the two-storied house in Lake Boulevard: practically so for four days +out of the seven; actually so on Wednesdays and Fridays when Hilda +Larsen, the Swedish maid of all work, had her afternoons off. + +Having his own private superstition about Friday, Broffin chose a +Wednesday afternoon for his call at the house on the lake front. It was +a resplendent day of the early summer which, in the Minnesota latitudes, +springs, Minerva-like, full-grown from the nodding head of the wintry +Jove of the north. In the doctor's front yard the grass was vividly +green, gladioli and jonquils bordered the path with a bravery of color, +and the buds of the clambering rose on the porch trellis were swelling +to burst their calyxes. + +Broffin turned in from the sidewalk and closed the gate noiselessly +behind him. If he saw the bravery of colors in the path borders it was +only with the outward eye. There was a faint stir on the porch, as of +some one parting the leafy screen to look out, but he neither quickened +his pace nor slowed it. While he had been three doors away in the +lake-fronting street, a small pocket binocular had assured him that the +young woman he was going to call upon was sitting in a porch rocker +behind the clambering rose, reading a book. + +She had risen to meet him by the time he had mounted the steps, and he +knew that her first glance was appraisive. He had confidently counted +upon being mistaken for a strange patient in search of the doctor, and +he was not disappointed. + +"You are looking for Doctor Farnham?" she began. "He is at his +office--201 Main Street." + +Broffin was digging in his pocket for a card. It was not often that he +was constrained to introduce himself formally, and for an awkward second +or two the search was unrewarded. When he finally found the bit of +pasteboard he was explaining verbally. + +"I know well enough where your father's office is, but you are the one I +wanted to see," he said; and he gave her the round-cornered card with +its blazonment of his name and employment. + +He was watching her narrowly when she read the name and its underline, +and the quick indrawing of the breath and the little shudder that went +with it were not thrown away upon him. But the other signs; the pressing +of the even teeth upon the lower lip and the coming and going of three +straight lines between the half-closed eyes were not so favorable. + +"Will you come into the house, Mr.----" she had to look at the card +again to get the name--"Mr. Broffin?" she asked. + +"Thank you, Miss; it's plenty good enough out here for me if it is for +you," he returned, beginning to fear that the common civilities were +giving her time to get behind her defences. + +She made way for him on the porch and pointed to a chair, which he took, +damning himself morosely when he caught his foot in the porch rug and +knocked the book from its resting-place on the railing. + +"It is no matter," she said, when he would have gone outside to recover +the book; but he knew from that moment that whatever advantage a fair +beginning may give was gone beyond recall. + +"I guess we can take it for granted that you know what I want, Miss +Farnham," he began abruptly, when he had shifted his chair to face her +rocker. "Something like three months ago, or thereabouts, you went into +a bank in New Orleans to get a draft cashed. While you were at the +paying teller's window a robbery was committed, and you saw it done and +saw the man that did it. I've come to get you to tell me the man's +name." + +If he had thought to carry the defences by direct assault he was quickly +made to realize that it could not be done. Miss Farnham's +self-possession was quietly convincing when she said: + +"I have told it once, in a letter to Mr. Galbraith." + +Broffin nodded. "Yes; in a letter that you didn't sign: we'll come to +that a little later. The name you gave was John Wesley Gavitt, and you +knew that wasn't his right name, didn't you?" + +She made the sign of assent without thinking that it might imply the +knowing of more. + +"It was the name under which he was enrolled in the _Belle Julie's_ +crew, and it was sufficient to identify him," she countered; adding: "It +did identify him. The officers found him and arrested him at St. Louis." + +"Yes; and he made his get-away in about fifteen minutes after they had +nabbed him, as you probably read in the papers the next morning. He's +loose yet, and most naturally he ain't signing his name 'Gavitt' any +more whatever. I've come all the way from New Orleans, and a whole heap +farther, to get you to tell me his real name, Miss Farnham." + +"Why do you think I can tell you?" was the undisturbed query. + +"A lot of little things," said the detective, who was slowly coming to +his own in the matter of self-assurance. "In the first place, he spoke +to you in the bank, and you answered him. Isn't that so?" + +She nodded, but the firm lips remained closed where the lips of another +woman might have opened to repeat what had been said at the teller's +wicket. + +"Then, afterwards, on the boat, before you sent the letter, you talked +with him. It was one evening, just at dusk, on the starboard promenade +of the saloon-deck: he was comin' down from the pilot-house and you +stopped him. That was when he told you what his name was on the +steamboat's books, wasn't it?--what?" + +She nodded again. "You know so much, it is surprising that you don't +know it all, Mr. Broffin," she commented, with gentle sarcasm. + +"The one thing I don't know is the thing you're goin' to tell me--his +real name," he insisted. "That's what I've come here for." + +In spite of her inexperience, which, in Mr. Broffin's field, was no less +than total, Charlotte Farnham had imagination, and with it a womanly +zest for the matching of wits with a man whose chief occupation was the +measuring of his own wit against the subtle cleverness of criminals. +Therefore she accepted the challenge. + +"I did my whole duty at the time, Mr. Broffin," she demurred, with a +touch of coldness in her voice. "If you were careless enough to let him +escape you at St. Louis, you shouldn't come to me. I might say very +justly that it was never any affair of mine." + +Matthew Broffin's gifts were subtle only in his dealings with other men; +but he was shrewd enough to know that his last and best chance with a +woman lay in an appeal to her fears. + +"I don't know what made you write this letter, in the first place," he +said, taking the well-thumbed paper from his coat pocket; "but I know +well enough now why you didn't sign it, and why you didn't put the man's +real name in it. You--you and him--fixed it up between you so that you +could say to yourself afterwards what you've just said to me--that you'd +done your duty. But you haven't finished doin' your duty, yet. The law +says----" + +"I know very well what the law says," was her baffling rejoinder; "I +have taken the trouble to find out since I came home. I am not hiding +your criminal." + +Broffin was trying to gain a little ease by tilting his chair. But the +house wall was too close behind him. + +"People will say that you are helpin' to hide him as long as you won't +tell his real name--what?" he grated. + +"You still think I could tell you that, if I chose?" she said, wilfully +misleading him, or at least allowing him to mislead himself. + +"I don't think anything about it: I _know_! You'd met him somewhere +before that day in the bank--before you knew he was goin' to turn +gentleman hold-up. That's why you don't want to give up his real name." + +She had risen in answer to the distant chatter of an electric bell, and +in self-defence, Broffin had to grope on the floor for his hat and stand +up, too. + +"I think my aunt is calling and I shall have to go in," she said, calmly +dismissing him. "You'll excuse me, I am sure, Mr. Broffin." + +"In just one second, Miss Farnham. Ain't you goin' to tell me that +fellow's name?" + +"No." + +"Wait a minute. I'm an officer of the law, and I could arrest you and +take you to New Orleans on what evidence I've got. How about +that?--what?" + +There was good fighting blood on the Farnham side, notwithstanding the +kindly Doctor Bertie's peaceful avocation, and the calm gray eyes that +met Broffin's were militantly angry when the retort came. + +"If I had a brother, Mr. Broffin, he would be able to answer you better +than I can!" she flamed out. "Let me pass, please!" + +It was not often that Broffin lost his head or his temper, but both were +gone when he struck back. + +"That'll be all right, too!" he broke out harshly, blocking the way to +force her to listen to him. "You think you've bluffed me, don't +you?--what? Let me tell you: some fine day this duck whose name isn't +Gavitt will turn up here--to see you; then I'll nab him. If you find out +where he is, and write to him not to come, it'll be all the same; he'll +come anyway, and when he does come, I'll get him!" + +When Miss Farnham had gone in and there was nothing left for him to do +but to compass his own disappearance, Broffin went away, telling himself +with many embellishments that for once in his professional career he had +made an ass of himself. He had made a sorry botch of a measurably simple +detail, to say nothing of letting his temper push him into the final +foolish boast which might easily defeat him. + +None the less, he was able to set some few gains over against the one +critical loss--if one may be said to lose what he has never had. Failing +to learn the true name and place of the Bayou State Security robber, he +told himself that he had established beyond question the correctness of +his hypothesis. The doctor's daughter knew the man; she had known him +before the robbery; she was willing to be his accomplice to the extent +of her ability. There was only one explanation of this attitude. In +Broffin's wording of it, Miss Farnham was "gone on him," if not openly, +at least to such an extent as to make her anxious to shield him. + +That being the case, Broffin set it down as a fact as good as +accomplished that the man would sooner or later come to Wahaska. The +detective's knowledge of masculine human nature was as profoundly acute +as the requirements of his calling demanded. With a woman like Miss +Farnham for the lure, he could be morally certain that his man would +some time fling caution, or even a written prohibition, to the winds, +and walk into the trap. + +This misfire of Broffin's happened upon a Wednesday, which, in its +calendar placing, chanced to be three weeks to a day after Griswold had +left Mereside to settle himself studiously in two quiet upper rooms in +the Widow Holcomb's house in upper Shawnee Street. + +That it was also a day of other coincidences will appear in the casting +up of the items on the page of events. + +For one thing, it marked the formal opening of the De Soto Inn for the +summer season; the De Soto being the resort hotel spoken of by the clerk +of the Hotel Chouteau in the little ante-dinner talk which had given +Griswold his first outline sketch of Wahaska. For another, the special +train from the far South arriving at noon and bearing the first +detachment of the Inn's guests, had for one of its Pullman passengers an +elderly gentleman with a strongly marked Scottish face; a gentleman with +the bushy white eyebrows of age, the long upper lip of caution, the +drooping eyelid of irascibility, and the bearing of a man of routine; in +other words, Mr. Andrew Galbraith, faring northward on his customary +summer vacation, which--the fates intervening--he had this time +determined to spend at the Wahaskan resort. + +For a third item, it was at three o'clock of this same Wednesday that +Raymer came out of Jasper Grierson's bank with his head down and a cloud +on his brow; the cloud dating back to an interview just closed, a short +and rather brittle conference with the bank's president held in Jasper +Grierson's private room, with the president sitting at ease in his huge +arm-chair and his visitor standing, quite destitute of ease, at the +desk-end. + +A little farther along, this third item dovetailed with a fourth and +fifth. Raymer, dropping into a friend's office to use the telephone, +chanced upon a crossed wire. He had called up Mrs. Holcomb, and while he +was waiting for the widow to summon Griswold from his up-stairs den, +there was a confused skirling of bells and Raymer, innocently +eavesdropping, overheard part of a conversation between two well-known +voices; namely, the voices of Miss Charlotte Farnham and her father. The +talk was neither confidential, nor of any special significance. Miss +Farnham was explaining that she had heard the bell, but could not answer +promptly because she had had a caller; and the doctor was telling her +that it was no matter--that he merely wanted to let her know that he was +going to bring a dinner guest, the guest prospective being his late +patient, Mr. Kenneth Griswold. + +The mention of Griswold's name reminded Raymer of his own affair, and he +became suddenly anxious to have the connection with the Widow Holcomb's +house renewed. When the crossed wire was plugged out, Griswold was ready +and waiting. + +"I was afraid you might be out somewhere, and I want to have a pow-wow +with you," said Raymer, when the reassuring voice came over the wire. +"Can you give me a little time if I drive around?" And when the prompt +assent came: "All right; thank you. I'll be with you in a pair of +minutes." + +Raymer's horse was only a short half-square away, hitched in front of +the Winnebago House, and he went to get it. But at the instant of +unhitching, Miss Grierson's trap was driven up and the untying of knots +paused while he stepped from the curb to stand at the wheel of the +modish equipage. + +"You are getting to be as bad as all the others," was the greeting he +got from the high driving-seat. "You haven't been at Mereside for an +age--only once since the night you took Mr. Griswold away from us. By +the way, what has become of Mr. Griswold? He doesn't show himself in +public much oftener than you do." + +"I think he has been getting to work on his writing," said Raymer, +good-naturedly apologizing for his friend. "He'll come down out of the +clouds after a little." And then, before he could stop it, out came the +bit of unchartered information: "I understand he dines at Doctor +Bertie's to-night." + +The young iron-founder was looking up into the eyes of beguiling when he +said this, and, being a mere man, he wondered what made them flash and +then grow suddenly fathomless and brooding. + +"When you see him, tell him that we are still on earth over at +Mereside," said the magnate's daughter pertly; and a moment later Raymer +was free to keep his appointment with Griswold. + +All in all, the little interruption had consumed no more than five +minutes, but the time interval was sufficient to form another link in +the chain of Wednesday incidents. For, as Raymer was turning out of Main +Street into Shawnee, he narrowly missed running over a heavy-set man +with a dark face and drooping mustaches; a pedestrian whose +preoccupation seemed so great as to make him quite oblivious to street +crossings and passing vehicles until Raymer pulled his horse back into +the shafts and shouted. + +When the man looked up, Raymer recognized him as the stranger from the +South who was stopping at the Winnebago House and who gave himself out +as a Louisiana lumberman open to conviction on the subject of Minnesota +pine lands as an investment. But he had no means of knowing that +Broffin's momentary preoccupation was chargeable to a fruitless +interview lately concluded; or that in driving away to the house three +squares up the street he was bridging the narrow gap between a +man-hunter and his quarry--a gap which had suddenly grown into a chasm +for the man-hunter himself. + +One more small coincidence will serve to total the items on the +Wednesday page. If Broffin had not stopped to look after the man who had +so nearly run him down, he might not have been crossing Main Street in +front of the Winnebago at the precise instant when Miss Grierson, with +young Dahlgren in the second seat of the trap, came around the square +and pulled up to let her horse drink at the public fountain. + +"Who is that Bitter-Creekish-looking man crossing over to the Winnebago +House?" asked Miss Grierson of her seatmate, indicating Broffin with a +wave of the whip, and skilfully making the query sound like the voicing +of the idlest curiosity. + +"Fellow named Broffin, from Louisiana," said Dahlgren, who, as assistant +editor of the _Daily Wahaskan_, knew everybody. "Says he's in the lumber +business down there, but, 'I doubt it,' said the carpenter, and shed a +bitter tear." + +"Why do you doubt it?" queried Miss Grierson, neatly flicking a fly from +the horse's back with the tip of the whiplash. + +"Oh, on general principles, I guess. You wouldn't say he had any of the +ear-marks of a business man." + +"What kind of ear-marks has he got?" persisted Miss Grierson--merely to +make talk, as Dahlgren decided. + +"I don't know. We were talking about him around at the club the other +night, and Sheffield--he's from Kentucky, you know--thought he +remembered the name as the name of a 'moonshine' raider he'd heard of +down in his home State." + +"A moonshine raider? What is that?" By this time Miss Margery's +curiosity was less inert than it had been, or had seemed to be, at +first. + +"A deputy marshal, you know; a sort of Government policeman and +detective rolled into one. He looks it, don't you think?" + +Miss Grierson did not say what she thought, then, or later, when she set +Dahlgren down at the door of his newspaper office in Sioux Avenue. But +still later, two hours later, in fact, she gave a brief audience in the +Mereside library to a small, barefooted boy whose occupation was +sufficiently indicated by the bundle of evening papers hugged under one +arm. + +"Well, Johnnie; what did you find out?" she asked. + +"Ain't had time," said the boy. "But he ain't no milyunaire +lumber-shooter, I'll bet a nickel. I sold him a pape' jes' now, down by +Dutchie's lumber yard, and I ast him what kind o' lumber that was in the +pile by the gate. He didn't know, no more'n a goat." + +Miss Margery filliped a coin in the air and the newsboy caught it +dexterously. + +"That will do nicely for a beginning, Johnnie," she said sweetly. "Come +and see me every once in a while, and perhaps there'll be more little +white cart-wheels for you. Only don't tell; and don't let him catch you. +That's all." + + + + +XXIV + +THE FORWARD LIGHT + + +During the days which followed his setting up of the standard of +independence in Mrs. Holcomb's second-floor front, Griswold found +himself entering upon a new world--a world corresponding with gratifying +fidelity to that prefigured future which he had struck out in the waking +hours of his first night on the main-deck of the _Belle Julie_. + +Wahaska, as a fortunate field for the post-graduate course in +Experimental Humanity, was all that his fancy had pictured it. It was +neither so small as to scant the variety of subjects, nor so large as to +preclude the possibility of grasping them in their entirety. In strict +accord with the forecast, it promised to afford the writing craftsman's +happy medium in surroundings: it would reproduce, in miniature, perhaps, +but none the less in just proportions, the social problems of the wider +world; and for a writer's seclusion the village quiet of upper Shawnee +Street was all that could be desired. + +When he came to go about in the town, as he did daily after the pleasant +occupation of refurnishing his study and bed-room was a pleasure past, +he found that in some mysterious manner his fame had preceded him. +Everybody seemed to know who he was; to be able to place him as a New +Yorker, as an author in search of health, or local color or environment +or some other technical quality not to be found in the crowded cities; +to be able to place him, also, as Miss Margery Grierson's friend and +beneficiary--which last, he surmised, was his best passport to the good +graces of his fellow-townsmen. + +Coincidently he discovered that, in the same mysterious manner, +everybody seemed to know that he was, in the Wahaskan phrase, +"well-fixed." Here, again, he guessed that something might be credited +to Margery. Beyond a hint to Raymer, he had told no one of the +comfortable assurance against want lying snugly secure in the small +strong-box in the Farmers' and Merchants' safety vault, and he was +reasonably certain that Raymer could not have passed the hint so fast +and so far as the town-wide limits to which the fact of the "well-fixed" +phrase had spread. + +All this was very nourishing, not to say stimulating, to the starved +soul of a proletary. Not in any period of the past had he so fully +understood that an acute appreciation of the wrongs of the race is no +bar to an equally acute hungering and thirsting after the commonplace +flesh-pots, or to a very primitive and soul-satisfying enjoyment of the +same when they were to be had. Nevertheless, the reaction into +self-indulgence proved to be only temporary. God had been good to him, +enabling him to realize in miraculous fulfilment the ideal environment +and opportunity: therefore he would do his part, proclaiming the holy +war and fighting, single-handed if need be, the battle of the weak +against the strong. + +So ran the renewed determination, dusted off and re-pedestaled after +many days. As to the manner of conducting the war against inequality and +the crime of plutocracy, the plan of campaign had been sufficiently +indicated in that white-hot moment of high resolves on the cargo-deck of +the _Belle Julie_. For the propaganda, there was his book; for the +demonstration, he would put the sacred fund into some industry where the +weight of it would give him the casting vote in all questions involving +the rights of the workers. It was absurdly simple, and he wondered that +none of the sociological reformers whose books he had read had +anticipated him in the discovery of such an obviously logical point of +attack. + +With the re-writing of the book fairly begun, he was already looking +about for the practical opportunity when the growing friendship with +Edward Raymer promised to offer an opening exactly fulfilling the +experimental requirements. Raymer had over-enlarged his plant and was +needing more capital. So much Griswold had gathered from the talk of the +street; and some of Raymer's half-confidences had led him to suspect +that the need was, or was likely to become, imperative. It was only the +finer quality of friendship that had hitherto kept him from offering +help before it was asked, and thus far he had contented himself with +hinting to Raymer that he had money to invest. From every point of view +a partnership with the young iron-founder promised to afford the golden +opportunity. The industry was comparatively small and self-contained; +and Raymer was himself openly committed to the cause of uplifting. +Griswold waited patiently; he was still waiting on the Wednesday +afternoon when Raymer called him over the telephone and made the +appointment for a meeting at the house in Shawnee Street. + +"Your 'pair of minutes' must have found something to grow upon," laughed +the patient waiter, when Raymer, finding Mrs. Holcomb's front door open, +had climbed the stair to the newly established literary workshop. "I've +had time to smoke a pipe and write a complete paragraph since you called +up." + +Raymer flung himself into a chair at the desk-end and reached for a pipe +in the curiously carved rack which had been one of Griswold's small +extravagances in the refurnishing. + +"Yes," he said; "Margery Grierson drove up while I was unhitching, and I +had to stop and talk to her. Which reminds me: she says you're giving +Mereside the go-by since you set up for yourself. Are you?" + +"Not intentionally," Griswold denied; and he let it stand at that. + +"I shouldn't, if I were you," Raymer advised. "Margery Grierson is any +man's good friend; and pretty soon you'll be meeting people who will +lift their eyebrows when you speak of her. You mustn't make her pay for +that." + +"I'm not likely to," was the sober rejoinder. "My debt to Miss Grierson +is a pretty big one, Raymer; bigger than you suspect, I imagine." + +"I'm glad to hear you put the debt where it belongs, leaving her father +out of it. You don't owe him anything; not even a cup of cold water. +There's a latter-day buccaneer for you!" he went on, warming to his +subject like a man with a sore into which salt has been freshly rubbed. +"That old timber-wolf wouldn't spare his best friend--allowing that +anybody could be his friend. By Jove! he's making me sweat blood, all +right!" + +"How is that?" asked Griswold. + +"I've been on the edge of telling you two or three times, but next to a +quitter I do hate the fellow who puts his fingers into a trap and then +squawks when the trap nips him. Grierson has got me down and he is about +to cut my throat, Griswold." + +"Tell me about it," said the one who had been patiently waiting to be +told. + +"It begins back a piece, but I'll brief it for you. I suppose you've +been told how Grierson came here a few years ago with a wad of money and +a large and healthy ambition to own the town?" + +Griswold nodded. + +"Well, he has come pretty close to making a go of it. What he doesn't +own or control wouldn't make much of a town by itself. A year ago he +tried to get a finger into my little pie. He wanted to reorganize the +Raymer Foundry and Machine Works, and offered to furnish the additional +capital and take fifty-one per cent of the reorganization stock. +Naturally, I couldn't see it. My father had left the plant as an +undivided legacy to my mother, my sister, and myself; and while we +haven't been getting rich out of it, we've managed to hold our own and +to grow a little. Don't let me bore you." + +"You couldn't do that if you should try. Go on." + +"This spring Wahaska began to feel the boost of the big crop year. +Everything was on the upward slant, and I thought we ought to move along +with other people. Before the snow was off the ground we had hit the +capacity limit in the old plant and the only thing to do was to enlarge. +I borrowed the money at Grierson's bank and did it." + +"And you can't make the enlarged plant pay?" + +"Oh, yes, it's paying very well, indeed; we're earning dividends, all +right. But in the money matter I simply played the fool and let Grierson +cinch me. As I've told you more than once, I'm an engineer and no +finance shark. My borrow at the bank was one hundred thousand dollars, +and there was a verbal understanding that it was to be repaid out of the +surplus earnings, piecemeal. I told Grierson that I should need a year +or more, and he didn't object." + +"This was all in conversation?" said Griswold: "no writing?" + +Raymer made a wry face. + +"Don't rub it in. I'm admitting that I was all the different kinds of a +fool. There was no definite time limit mentioned. I was to give my +personal notes and put up the family stock as collateral. A day or two +later, when I went around to close the deal, the trap was standing wide +open for me and a baby might have seen it. Grierson said he had proposed +the loan to his directors, and that they had kicked on taking the stock +as collateral. He said they wanted a mortgage on the plant." + +Griswold nodded. "Which brought on more talk," he suggested. + +"Which brought on a good bit more talk. Really, it didn't make any +intrinsic difference. Stock collateral or property collateral, the bank +would have us by the throat until the debt should be paid. But you know +how women are: my mother would about as soon sign her own death warrant +as to put her name on a mortgage; so there we were--blocked. Grierson +was as smooth as oil; said he wanted to help me out, and was willing to +stretch his authority to do it. Then he sprung the trap." + +"Having got you just where he wanted you," put in the listener. + +"Yes; having got me down. The new proposition was apparently a mere +modification of the first one. I was an accredited customer of the bank, +like other business men of the town, and as such I could ask for an +extension of credit on accommodation paper, and Grierson, as president, +was at liberty to grant it if he saw fit. He offered to take my paper +without an endorser if I would cover his personal risk with my stock +collateral, assigning it, not to the bank, but to him. I fell for it +like a woolly sheep. The stock transfers were made, and I signed a note +for one hundred thousand dollars, due in sixty days; Grierson explaining +that two months was the bank's usual limit on accommodation paper--which +is true enough--but giving me to understand that a renewal and an +extension of time would be merely a matter of routine." + +Griswold was shaking his head sympathetically. "I can guess the rest," +he said. "Grierson is preparing to swallow you whole." + +"He has as good as done it," was the dejected reply. "The note falls due +to-morrow; and, as I happened to be uptown this afternoon, I thought I +would drop in and pay the discount and renew the paper. To tell the +truth, I'd been getting more nervous the more I thought of it; and I +didn't dare let it go to the final moment. Grierson shot me through the +heart. He gave me a cock-and-bull story about some bank examiner's +protest, and told me I must be prepared to take up the paper to-morrow. +He knew perfectly well that he had me by the throat. I had checked out +every dollar of the loan, and a good bit of our own balance in addition, +paying the building and material bills." + +"Of course you reminded him of his agreement?" + +"Sure; and he sawed me off short: said that any business man borrowing +money on accommodation paper knew that it was likely to be called in on +the expiration date; that an extension is really a new transaction, +which the bank is at liberty to refuse to enter. Oh, he gave it to me +cold and clammy, sitting back in his big chair and staring up at me +through the smoke of a fat black cigar while he did it!" + +"And then?" prompted Griswold. + +"Then I remembered the mother and sister, Kenneth, and did what I would +have died rather than do for myself--I begged like a dog. But I might as +well have gone outside and butted my head against the brick wall of the +bank." + +Griswold forgot his own real, though possibly indirect, obligation to +Jasper Grierson. + +"That is where you made a mistake: you should have told him to go to +hell with his money!" was his acrid comment. And then: "How near can you +come to lifting this note to-morrow, Raymer?" + +"'Near' isn't the word. Possibly I might sweep the corners and gather up +twelve or fifteen thousand dollars." + +"That will do," said the querist, shortly. "Make it ten thousand, and +I'll contribute the remaining ninety." + +Raymer sprang out of his chair as if its padded arms had been suddenly +turned into high-voltage electrodes. + +"You will?--you'll do that for me, Griswold?" he said, with a queer +stridency in his voice that made the word-craftsman, always on the watch +for apt similes, think of a choked chicken. But Raymer was swallowing +hard and trying to go on. "By Jove--it's the most generous thing I ever +heard of!--but I can't let you do it. I haven't a thing in the world to +offer you but the stock, and that may not be worth the paper it is +printed on if Jasper Grierson has made up his mind to break me." + +"Sit down again and let us thresh it out," said Griswold. "How much of a +Socialist are you, Raymer?" + +The young ironmaster sat down, gasping a little at the sudden wrenching +aside of the subject. + +"Why, I don't know; enough to want every man to have a square deal, I +guess." + +"Including the men in your shops?" + +"Putting them first," was the prompt correction. "It was my father's +policy, and it has been mine. We have never had any labor troubles." + +"You pay fair wages?" + +"We do better than that. A year ago, I introduced a modified plan of +profit-sharing." + +Griswold's eyes were lighting up with the altruistic fires. + +"Once in awhile, Raymer, a thing happens so fortuitously as to fairly +compel a belief in the higher powers that our fathers included in the +word 'Providence'," he said, almost solemnly. "You have described +exactly an industrial situation which seems to me to offer a solution of +the whole vexed question of master and man, and to be a seed-sowing +which is bound to be followed by an abundant and most humanizing +harvest. Ever since I began to study, even in a haphazard way, the +social system under which we sweat and groan, I've wanted in on a job +like yours. I still want in. Will you take me as a silent partner, +Raymer? I'm not making it a condition, mind you: come here any time +after ten o'clock to-morrow, and you'll find the money waiting for you. +But I do hope you won't turn me down." + +Raymer was gripping the arms of his chair again, but this time they were +not unpleasantly electrified. + +"If I had only myself to consider, I shouldn't keep you waiting a +second," he returned, heartily. "But it may take a little time to +persuade my mother and sister. If they could only know you"--then, +forgetting the crossed wire and his late overhearings--"why can't you +come out to dinner with me to-night?" + +"For the only reason that would make me refuse; I have a previous +bidding. But I'll be glad to go some other day. There is no hurry about +this business matter; take all the time you need--after you have made +Mr. Grierson take his claws out of you." + +Raymer had filled the borrowed pipe again and was pulling at it +reflectively. "About this partnership; what would be your notion?" he +asked. + +"The simplest way is always the best. Increase your capital stock and +let me in for as much as my ninety thousand dollars will buy," said the +easily satisfied investor. "We'll let it go at that until you've had +time to think it over, and talk it over with your mother and sister." + +The iron-founder got up and reached for his hat. + +"You are certainly the friend in need, Griswold, if ever there was one," +he said, gripping the hand of leave-taking as if he would crack the +bones in it. "But there is one thing I'm going to ask you, and you +mustn't take offense: this ninety thousand; could you afford to lose +it?--or is it your whole stake in the game?" + +Griswold's smile was the ironmaster's assurance that he had not +offended. + +"It is practically my entire stake--and I can very well afford to lose +it in the way I have indicated. You may call that a paradox, if you +like, but both halves of it are true." + +"Then there is one other thing you ought to know, and I'm going to tell +it now," Raymer went on. "We do a general foundry and machine business, +but a good fifty per cent of our profit comes from the Wahaska & +Pineboro Railroad repair work, which we have had ever since the road was +opened." + +Griswold was smiling again. "Why should I know that, particularly?" he +asked. + +"Because it is rumored that Jasper Grierson has been quietly absorbing +the stock and bonds of the road, and if he means to remove me from the +map----" + +"I see," was the reply. "In that case you'll need a partner even worse +than you do now. You can't scare me off that way. Shall I look for you +at ten to-morrow?" + +"At ten to the minute," said the rescued plunger; and he went +down-stairs so full of mingled thankfulness and triumph that he mistook +Doctor Farnham's horse for his own at the hitching-post two doors away, +and was about to get into the doctor's buggy before he discovered his +mistake. + + + + +XXV + +THE BRIDGE OF JEHENNAM + + +Doctor Farnham had been about to make his daily call upon old Mrs. +Breda, two doors up the street from the Widow Holcomb's, when he had +climbed the stair of literary aspirations to give the convalescent his +dinner bidding. + +Griswold had accepted gratefully on the spur of the moment; and it was +not until after Raymer had come and gone that sober second thought began +to point out the risk he would run in meeting Charlotte Farnham face to +face under conditions which would give her the best conceivable +opportunity to recognize him, if recognition were possible. + +The more he thought of it, the more he regretted his haste in consenting +to incur the risk. Reflectively weighing the chances for and against, he +made sure that in characterizing the young woman whose life-thread had +been so strangely tangled with his own he had not overrated her +intelligence. Giving heredity its due, with the keen-witted little +physician for her father she could scarcely fail to measure up to the +standard of those whose gifts are apperceptive. For many days she had +had ample opportunity to familiarize herself with all the little +identifying individualities of the deck-hand: reasoning from cause to +effect, it might be assumed that her crushing responsibility had driven +her to make use of it. Having recognized him once, under conditions far +less favorable than those he was about to hazard, was it not more than +probable that she would be able to do it again? + +Griswold took a final look at himself in his dressing-case mirror before +going to keep his evening appointment at the doctor's down-town office. +It was comfortably reassuring. So far as he could determine, there was +little in the clean-shaven, square-shouldered, correctly garmented young +fellow who faced him in the mirror to suggest either the bearded outcast +of New Orleans or the unkempt and toil-soddened roustabout of the _Belle +Julie_. If only she had not made him speak to her: he had a sharp +conviction that the greatest of all the hazards lay in the chance that +she might remember his voice. + +He found the cheery little doctor waiting for him when he had walked the +few squares to the Main Street office. + +"I was beginning to be afraid you were going to be fashionably late," +said the potential host; and then, with a humorous glance for the +correct garmenting: "Regalia, heh? Hasn't Miss Grierson told you that +Wahaska is still hopelessly unable to live up to the dress-coat and +standing collar? I'm sure she must have. But never mind; climb into the +buggy and we'll let old Bucephalus take us around to see if the +neighbors have brought in anything good to eat." + +The drive was a short one, and it ended at the gate through which +Matthew Broffin had preceded by only a few hours the man whose eventual +appearance at the Farnham home he had so confidently predicted. As at +many another odd moment when there had been nothing better to do, +Broffin was once more shadowing the house in which, first or last, he +expected to trap his amateur MacHeath; and when the buggy was halted at +the carriage step he was near enough to mark and recognize the doctor's +companion. + +"Not this time," he muttered, sourly, when the two had passed together +up the gravelled path and the host was fitting his latch-key to the +front door. "It's only the sick man that writes books. I wonder what +sort of a book he thinks he's going to write in this inforgotten, +turkey-trodden, come-along village of the Reuben yaps!" + +Griswold, waiting on the porch while Doctor Farnham fitted his key, had +a nerve-tingling shiver of apprehension when the latch yielded with a +click and he found himself under the hall lantern formally shaking hands +with the statuesque young woman of the many imaginings. It gave him a +curious thrill of mingled terror and joy to find her absolutely +unchanged. Having, for his own part, lived through so many experiences +since that final glimpse of her standing on the saloon-deck guards of +the _Belle Julie_ at St. Louis, the distance in time seemed almost +immeasurable. + +"You are very welcome to Home Nook, Mr. Griswold; we have been hearing +about you for many weeks," she was saying when he had relinquished the +firm hand and was hanging his coat and hat on the hall-rack. And then, +with a half-embarrassed laugh: "I am afraid we are dreadful gossips; all +Wahaska has been talking about you, you know, and wondering how it came +to acquire you." + +"It hasn't acquired anything very valuable," was the guest's modest +disclaimer, its readiness arising out of a grateful easing of strains +now that the actual face-to-face ordeal had safely passed its +introductory stage. "And you mustn't say a word against your charming +little city, Miss Farnham," he went on. "It is the friendliest, most +hospitable----" + +The doctor's daughter was interrupting with an enthusiastic show of +applause. + +"Come on out to dinner, both of you," she urged; and then to Griswold: +"I want you to say all those nice things to Aunt Fanny, and as many more +as you can think of. She has never admitted for a single moment that +Wahaska can be compared with any one of a dozen New Hampshire villages +she could name." + +In the progress to the cozy, home-like dining-room, Griswold found +himself at once in an atmosphere of genuine comfort and refinement; the +refinement which speaks of generations of good breeding chastened and +purified by the limitations of a slender purse; in the present instance +the purse of the good little doctor whose attempted charity in the +matter of his own fee was fresh in the mind of the castaway. Griswold +had the writing craftsman's ingathering eye: he saw that the furnishings +were frugally well-worn, that the sitting-room rug was country-woven, +and that the spotless dining-room napery was soft and pliable with age. +The contrast between the Farnham home and the ornate mansion three +streets away on the lake front was strikingly apparent; as cleanly +marked as that between Margery Grierson and the sweetly serene and +conventional young person who was introducing him to her aunt across the +small oval dining-table. + +So far, all was going well. Griswold, with a pleasant word for the frail +little woman opposite and a retort in kind now and then for the doctor's +raillery, still had time to be narrowly observant of the signs and +omens. But a little later, when the Swedish maid was serving the meat +course, he had his first warning shock. Through the bouillon and the +fish the doctor had borne the brunt of the table-talk, joking the guest +on his humiliating descent from Mereside and the luxuries to a country +doctor's table, and laughing at Griswold's half-hearted attempts to +decry the luxuries. What word or phrase or trick of speech it was that +served to stir the sleeping memories, Griswold could not guess; but it +became suddenly apparent that the memories were stirring. In the midst +of a half-uttered direction to the serving-maid, Miss Farnham stopped +abruptly, and Griswold could feel her gaze, wide-eyed and +half-terrified, seemingly fixed upon him. + +It was all over in the turning of a leaf: there had been no break in +the doctor's genial raillery, and the breathless little pause at the +other end of the table was only momentary. But Griswold fancied that +there was a subtle change in the daughter's attitude toward him dating +from the moment of interruptions. + +Farther along, he decided that the change was in himself, and was merely +the outcropping of the morbid vein which persists, with more or less +continuity, in all the temperamental workings of the human mind. When +the dinner was over and there was an adjournment to the sitting-room, +little Miss Gilman presently found her reading-glasses and a book; and +the doctor, in the act of filling two long-stemmed pipes for his guest +and himself, was called away professionally. Griswold saw himself +confronting the really crucial stage of the ordeal, and prudence was +warning him that it would be safer to make his adieux and to go with his +host. It was partly Miss Farnham's protest, but more his own +determination to prove the bridge of peril to the uttermost, that made +him stay. + +Miss Gilman, least obtrusive of chaperones, had been peacefully napping +for a good half-hour in her low rocker under the reading-lamp, and the +pictures in a thick quarto of Gulf Coast views had pleasantly filled the +interval for the two who were awake, when Griswold finally assured +himself that the danger of recognition was a danger past. As a mental +analyst he knew that the opening of each fresh door in the house of +present familiarity was automatically closing other doors opening upon +the past; and it came to him with a little flush of the seer's +exaltation that once again his prefigurings were finding their exact +fulfilment. In a spirit of artistic daring he yielded to a sudden +impulse, as one crossing the flimsiest of bridges may run and leap to +prove that his theory of safety-stresses is a sufficient guarantee of +his own immunity. + +"You were speaking of first impressions of places," he said, while they +were still turning the leaves of the picture-book. "Are you a believer +in the absolute correctness of first impressions?" + +"I don't know," was the thoughtful reply; but its after-word was more +definite: "As to places, I'm not sure that the first impression always +persists; in a few instances I am quite certain it hasn't. I didn't like +the Gulf Coast at all, at first; it seemed so foreign and different and +unhomelike. As to people, however----" + +She paused, and Griswold entered the breach hardily. + +"As to people, you are less easily converted from the original +prejudice--or prepossession. So am I. I have learned to place the utmost +confidence in the first impression. In my own case it is invariably +correct, and if for any reason whatever I suffer any later +characterization to take its place, I am always the loser." + +She was regarding him curiously over the big book which still lay open +between them. + +"Is that a part of the writing gift?" she asked. + +"No, not specially; most people have it in some more or less workable +quantity, though for many it expresses itself only in a vague attraction +or repulsion." + +"I've had that feeling," she answered quickly. + +"I know," he affirmed. "There have been times when, with every +reasonable fibre in you urging you to believe the evil, a still stronger +impulse has made you believe in the good." + +"How can you know that?" she asked; and again he saw in the expressive +eyes the flying signals of indeterminate perplexity and apprehension. + +Resolutely he pressed the hazardous experiment to its logical +conclusion. Once for all, he must know if this young woman with the +sympathetic voice and the goddess-like pose could, even under +suggestion, be led to link up the past with the present. + +"It is my trade to know," he said quietly, closing the book of views and +laying it aside. "There have been moments in your life when you would +have given much to be able to decide a question of duty or expediency +entirely irrespective of your impressions. Isn't that so?" + +For one flitting instant he thought he had gone too far. In the hardy +determination to win all or lose all, he had been holding her eyes +steadily, as the sure mirror in which he should be able to read his +sentence, of acquittal or of condemnation. This time there was no +mistaking the sudden widening of the pupils to betray the equally sudden +awakening of womanly terror. + +"Don't be afraid," he began, and he had come thus far on the road to +open confession when he saw that she was not looking at him; she was +looking past him toward one of the windows giving upon the porch. "What +is it?" he demanded, turning to look with her. + +"It was a man--he was looking in at the window!" she returned in low +tones. "I thought I saw him once before; but this time I am certain!" + +Griswold sprang from his chair and a moment later was letting himself +out noiselessly through the hall door. There was nothing stirring on the +porch. The windless night was starlit and crystal clear, and the silence +was profound. As soon as the glare of the house lights was out of his +eyes, Griswold made a quick circuit of the porch. Not satisfied with +this, he widened the circle to take in the front yard, realizing as he +did it that a dozen men might easily play hide-and-seek with a single +searcher in the shrubbery. He was still groping among the bushes, and +Miss Farnham had come to the front door, when the doctor's buggy +appeared under the street lights and was halted at the home +hitching-post. + +"Hello, Mr. Griswold; is that you?" called the cheery one, when he saw a +bareheaded man beating the covers in his front yard. + +Griswold met his host at the gate and walked up the path with him. + +"Miss Charlotte thought she saw some one at one of the front windows," +he explained; and a moment afterward the daughter was telling it for +herself. + +"I saw him twice," she insisted; "once while we were at dinner, and +again just now. The first time I thought I might be mistaken, but this +time----" + +Griswold was laughing silently and inwardly deriding his gifts when, +under cover of the doctor's return, he made decent acknowledgments for +benefits bestowed and took his departure. On the pleasant summer-night +walk to upper Shawnee Street he was congratulating himself upon the now +quite complete fulfilment of the wishing prophecy. Miss Farnham was +going to prove to be all that the most critical maker of studies from +life could ask in a model; a supremely perfect original for the +character of _Fidelia_ in the book. Moreover, she would be his +touchstone for the truths and verities; even as Margery Grierson might, +if she were forgiving enough to let by-gones be by-gones, hold the +mirror up to Nature and the pure humanities. Moreover, again, whatever +slight danger there might have been in a possibility of recognition was +a danger outlived. If the first meeting had not stirred the sleeping +memories in Miss Farnham, subsequent ones would serve only to widen the +gulf between forgetfulness and recollection by just such distances as +the Wahaskan Griswold should traverse in leaving behind him the +deck-hand of the _Belle Julie_. + +Thus the complacent, musing upper thought in the mind and on the lips of +the proletary as he wended his way through the quiet and well-nigh +deserted streets to the older part of the town. How much it might have +been modified if he had known that the man whose face Miss Farnham had +seen at the window was silently tracking him through the tree-shadowed +streets is a matter for conjecture. Also, it is to be presumed that +much, if not all, of the complacency would have vanished if he could +have been an unseen listener in the Farnham sitting-room, dating from +the time when little Miss Gilman pattered off to bed, leaving the father +and daughter sitting together under the reading-lamp. + +At first their talk was entirely of the window apparition; the daughter +insisting upon its reality, and the father trying to push it over into +the limbo of things imagined. Driven finally to give all the reasons for +her belief in the realities, Charlotte related the incident of the +afternoon. + +"You may remember that I told you over the 'phone that I had a caller +this afternoon," she began. + +The doctor did remember it, and said so. + +"You can imagine how frightened I was when I tell you that it was a +man--a detective from New Orleans who has, or at least who says he has, +been travelling thousands of miles to find me." + +Doctor Bertie was tickling his bearded chin thoughtfully. "He should +have come to me first," he said, frowning a little at the invasion of +his home. "It was about that bank robbery, I suppose?" + +"Yes; he thought I could tell him the man's real name. It seems that +they have no identity clew to work upon. I knew at the time that +'Gavitt' was an assumed name; the man as good as told me so, you +remember. This Mr. Broffin wouldn't believe that I couldn't tell him the +real name, and along toward the last he grew quite angry and +threatening. He insisted upon it that I knew the robber--that I had +known him before the crime was committed; and he intimated pretty +broadly that I am still in communication with him. Of course, it is all +very absurd; but it is also very annoying to think that somebody is +spying upon you all the time. I didn't want to speak of it before Mr. +Griswold; but it was this detective who came twice to look in at our +windows this evening." + +By this time the good Doctor Bertie had become the indignant Doctor +Bertie. + +"We can't have that at all!" he said incisively. "You did your whole +duty in that bank matter; and it was a good deal more than most young +women would have done. I'm not going to have you persecuted and +harassed--not one minute! Where is this fellow stopping?" + +The daughter shook her head. "I don't know. He gave me his card, but it +has the New Orleans address only." + +"Give it to me and I'll look him up to-morrow." + +The card changed hands, and for a few minutes neither of them spoke. +Then the daughter began again. + +"I've had another shock this evening, too," she said, speaking this time +in low tones and with eyes downcast. "This Mr. Griswold: tell me all you +know about him, father." + +"I don't know much of anything more than--thanks to Miss Grierson--all +the town knows. They brought him here sick--she and her father--as I +told you. That was some little time before you came home; perhaps while +you were still on the way up the river. They didn't know who he was; and +oddly enough, there wasn't anything in his clothes or luggage to tell +them. I know that to be a fact because, at Miss Margery's request, I +helped her overhaul his belongings. Afterward, in a talk with him, I +learned that he had been robbed on the train; or at least, that was the +supposition. He said there was money in one of the suit-cases, and we +didn't find any." + +"He is an author, they say; I don't seem to recall his name in any of my +reading." + +The doctor laughed good-naturedly. "Perhaps he is only one of the +would-be's; I don't think it has got much farther than the hankering, as +yet. There was a book manuscript in one of his valises, and I read a +little of it. It was pretty poor stuff, I thought. But what was your +other shock?" + +"It was at the dinner-table; when you were joking him about the +come-down from Mereside to us. Something he said--I couldn't remember, a +minute afterward, just what it was--was spoken exactly in the voice, and +with the same little trick of conciseness, as something that was said to +me that never-to-be-forgotten evening on the saloon-deck promenade of +the _Belle Julie_ ... said by the man whose name was _not_ John Wesley +Gavitt." + +"Oh, my dear girl!" was the father's instant protest; "that couldn't be, +you know!" + +"I know it couldn't," was the fair-minded rejoinder. "And I kept on +telling myself so all the evening. I had to, father; for that once at +the table wasn't the only time. Every few minutes he would say something +to bring back that haunting half-recollection. It is only a coincidence, +of course; it couldn't be anything else. But when he went away I +couldn't help hoping that he would do one of two things; stay away +altogether, or come often enough so that--oh, it's all nonsense, all of +it: what difference can it make, to him or to me!" + +"No difference at all." Doctor Bertie's membership was in that large +confraternity of fathers whose blindness on the side of sentiment where +their own daughters are concerned has become proverbial. + +It was after he had taken up the latest copy of the _Lancet_ and was +beginning to bury himself in the editorials, that Charlotte reopened the +threshed-out subject with a belated query. + +"Did I understand you to say that he had lost all of his money?" + +"Yes; practically all of it," said the father, without losing his hold +upon what a certain great London physician was saying through the +columns of the English medical journal. + +But afterward, long after Charlotte had gone up to her room, he +remembered, with a curious little start of half-awakened puzzlement, +that some one, no longer ago than the yesterday, had told him that young +Griswold was rich--or if not rich, at least "well-fixed." + + + + +XXVI + +PITFALLS + + +What arguments Edward Raymer used to convince his mother and sister that +Griswold as a participating partner was better than Jasper Grierson +figuring as the man in possession, the Wahaskan gossips were unable to +guess. But the fact remained. Within a week from the day when Raymer, +angrily jubilant, had rescued his imperilled stock, it was pretty +generally known that Kenneth Griswold, the writing-man, had become the +fourth member in the close corporation of the Raymer Foundry and Machine +Works, and Wahaska was eagerly earning Broffin's contemptuous +characterization of it by discussing the business affair in all its +possible and probable bearings upon the Raymers, the Griersons, and the +newly elected directory of the Pineboro Railroad. + +Of all this buzzing of the gossip bees the person most acutely concerned +heard little or nothing. Griswold's intimation to Raymer that he wished +only to be a silent partner had been made in good faith; and beyond a +few purely perfunctory visits to the plant across the railroad tracks, +made because Raymer had insisted that he go over the books and learn for +himself the exact condition of the business into which he had put his +money, Griswold took no more than an advisory part in the industrial +activities. To Raymer's urgings there was always the same answer: the +writing fit was on him and he had no time. + +Taken for what it was worth, the writing excuse was sufficiently valid. +In the fallow period of the slow convalescence the imaginative field had +grown fertile for the plough, and a new book, borrowing nothing from the +old save the sociological background, was already under way. Digging +deeply in the inspirational field, Griswold speedily became oblivious to +most of his encompassments; to all of them, indeed, save those which +bore directly upon the beloved task. Among these, he counted the +frequent afternoon visits to Mereside, and the scarcely less frequent +evenings spent in the Farnham home. Again in harmony with the later +prefigurings, he was using each of the young women as a foil for the +other in the outworking of his plot; and he welcomed it as a sign of +growth that the story in its new form was acquiring verisimilitude and +becoming gratefully, and at times, he persuaded himself, quite vividly, +human. + +When he got well into the swing of it and was turning out a chapter +every three or four days, he fell easily into the habit of slipping the +last instalment into his pocket when he went to Mereside. Margery +Grierson was adding generously to his immense obligation to her; hoping +only to find a friendly listener, he found a helpful collaborator. More +than once, when his own imagination was at fault, she was able to open +new vistas in the humanities for him, apparently drawing upon a reserve +of intuitive conclusions compared with which his own hard-bought store +of experimental knowledge was almost puerile. + +"I wish you would tell me the secret of your marvellous cleverness!" he +exclaimed, on one of the June afternoons when he had been reading to her +in the cool half-shadows of the Mereside library. "You are only a child +in years: how can you know with such miraculous certainty what other +people would think and do under conditions about which you can't +possibly know anything experimentally? It's beyond me!" + +"There are many things beyond you yet, dear boy; many, many things," was +her laughing rejoinder; from which it will be inferred that the episode +in the Farmers' and Merchants' burglar-proof had become an episode +forgotten--or at least forgiven. "You know men--a little; but when it +comes to the women ... well, if I didn't keep continually nagging at +you, your two heroines--with neither of whom you are really in +love--would degenerate into rag dolls. They would, actually." + +"That's true; I can see it clearly enough when you point it out," he +admitted, putting his craftsman pride underfoot, as he was always +obliged to do in these talks with her. "I should be discouraged if you +didn't keep on telling me that the story, as a story, is good." + +"It _is_ good; it is a big story," she asserted, with kindling +enthusiasm. "The plot, so far as you have gone with it, is fine; and +that is where you leave me away behind. I don't see how you could ever +think it out. And the character-drawing is fine, too, some of it. Your +_Fleming_ is as far beyond me as your _Fidelia_ seems to be beyond you." + +"_Fleming_ is human in every drop of his blood," he boasted. + +"I don't doubt it for a moment; all the little ear-marks of humanity are +there, and I know in reason that he must be a type. But I have never met +the man himself; and I am sure I shall be scared silly if I ever do meet +him. Think of being shut up in any little corner of the world with a man +who has convinced himself that he can commit any crime in the calendar +so long as he believes the particular one he chooses isn't a crime!" + +"Crime, so-called, is like everything else in this world; a thing to be +defined strictly by the motive and the point of view," said Griswold, +mounting his hobby with joyous alacrity. + +"I know; that is what you say"--this with an adorable uptilt of the +pretty chin and a flash of the dark eyes which an instant before had +been slumbrous wells of studious abstraction. "But your _Fleming_ is +going to prove the contrary; it may not be what you want him to do, but +it will be what he will insist upon doing before you get through with +him. You have already indicated it in the story, unconsciously, perhaps. +When _Fidelia_ surprises him, _Fleming_ is almost ready to kill her; +not in defense of the principle he has set up, but to save his own +miserable life." + +"That is a part of his humanity," insisted the craftsman stubbornly. +"You don't know _Fleming_ yet. Have you ever met _Fidelia_?" + +"Not as you have drawn her--no. She is too unutterably fine. If she had +a single shred of humanity about her, I should suspect you of meaning to +fall in love with her, farther along--to the humiliation and despair of +poor _Joan_, who, as you say, is a mere daughter of men." + +"But how about _Joan_?" he fretted. "Is she out of drawing, too?" + +"Yes; you are distorting her the other way--making her too inhumanly +worldly and insincere." Then, with an abruptness that was like a slap in +the face: "If you didn't spend so many evenings at Doctor Bertie's, you +would get both _Fidelia_ and _Joan_ in better drawing." + +He flushed and drew himself up, with the stabbed _amour propre_ +prompting him to make some stinging retort contrasting the wells of +truth with the brackish waters of sheer worldliness. Then he saw how +inadequate it would be; how utterly impossible it was to meet this +charmingly vindictive young person upon any grounds save those of her +own choosing. + +"That is the first really unkind thing I have ever heard you say," was +the mild reproach which was all that the reactionary second thought +would sanction. + +"Unkind to whom?--to you, or to Miss Farnham?" + +"Ask yourself," he countered weakly; and she laughed at him. + +"There is another of your failings, Kenneth. You haven't always the +courage of your convictions. What you are thinking is that I am a +spiteful little cat. Why don't you say it out loud, like a man?" + +"Because I'm not thinking it," he denied, adding: "But I do think you +are a little inclined to be unfair to Miss Charlotte." + +"Am I? Let us see if I am. I accuse her of nothing but a slavish +devotion to custom and the conventions. What did she say when you read +her the chapter before this one: where _Fidelia_ goes down to the +dining-room at midnight and finds _Fleming_ breaking into the +silver-safe where the money is hidden?" + +"I'm not reading the story to her," he admitted, and again she laughed. + +"But you do talk it over with her; you couldn't help doing that," she +persisted. + +"Sometimes," he allowed. + +"Well, what did she say when you came to that part where _Fidelia_ makes +_Fleming_ sit down while she tries to convince him that house-breaking +is a crime. You don't dare tell me what she said." + +Griswold did it, with a firm convincement that he was thereby breaking a +sacred confidence. But the alluring lips and eyes were irresistible when +he was fairly within their influence. + +"I merely suggested the scene as something that might be done," he +explained. "She did not approve of it. Her objection was that the +_Fidelias_ in real life don't do such things." + +"They don't," was Miss Margery's flippant agreement. "And your letting +your _Fidelia_ do it is the one redeeming thing you have done in your +drawing of her. Just the same, with all your ingenuity you leave one +with the firm conviction that she will never, under any circumstances, +do such an unconventional thing again; never, never, never! And that is +a false note." + +"Why is it?" + +"Because it leaves out the common sex-factor; the one that is shared +alike by the _Fidelias_ and the _Joans_ and all the rest of us." + +"And that is----" + +"Just plain, every-day inconsistency--our dearest heritage from good old +Mother Eve. Being a mere man, you can't understand that, so you neglect +to put it into your women." + +"But I can't let that stand," he objected. "You must allow the ideal +some little latitude. _Fidelia_ was not inconsistent, either in striving +with _Fleming_, or in betraying him." + +Miss Grierson's perfect shoulders twitched in a little shrug of +impatience. + +"Not that time, maybe; with _Fleming_ standing by to tell her that she +must be true to herself at whatever cost to him. But the next time--if +she should happen to fall in love with the gentleman who was breaking +into her father's house-safe...." She laughed in sheer mockery and +misquoted a couplet from Riley for him: + + "'There, little boy, don't cry; + I have broken your doll, I know!'" + +"Break some more of them if you can," he urged. "A few more casualties +won't make any difference." + +"There is only the boy-doll left; and I don't like to break boy-dolls." + +"_Fleming_, you mean? I give you leave. Hammer him until he bleeds +sawdust, if the spirit moves you." + +Miss Grierson had been curled up like a comfortable kitten in the depths +of a great lounging chair--her favorite attitude while he was reading to +her. But now she sat up and locked her fingers over one knee. + +"I said a little while ago that I'd never met _Fleming_, and I haven't. +But I like him, and I'm sorry to see him putting himself in for such a +savage hereafter. He is a good man, like other good men, with the single +difference that he thinks he isn't bound by the traditions. He believes +he can commit what the traditionary people call a crime without paying +the penalties. He can't: nobody can." + +Griswold's smile was the superior smile of the writing craftsman. "That +is merely a matter of invention," he asserted. "He can escape the +penalties if he is smart enough." + +"You mistake me," she interposed. "I don't mean the physical penalties; +though as to these the old saying that murder will out must have some +foundation in fact. Let that go: we'll suppose him clever enough to make +his escape and to outwit or outfight his enemies. I don't say he +couldn't do it successfully; but I do say that, with the hazards +confronting him at every turn, he will find the real criminal in him +growing and possessing him, making him think things and do things of the +utter depravity of which he has never had any doubt." + +While she was speaking Griswold could feel the change she was describing +stealing over him like a nightmare, and when she stopped he passed his +hand over his eyes as one awaking from a vaguely terrifying dream. + +"You mean that there is a real criminal in every man?" he questioned, +and the question seemed to say itself of its own volition. + +"In every man and in every woman: how can you be a writer and not know +that? Ask yourself. You admit the existence of the good and the bad, and +ordinarily you choose the good and shudder at the bad: tell me--haven't +there been times when the most horrible crimes were possible to +you?--times when, with the littlest tipping of the balance, you could +have killed somebody? You needn't answer: I know you have looked over +that brink, because I have looked over it myself, more than once. And, +sooner or later, _Fleming_ will find himself looking over it--with all +the horrors of the penalties pushing and shoving at him to tumble him +into the gulf." + +Griswold did not reply. He was gathering up the scattered pages of his +manuscript and replacing them in order. When he spoke again it was of a +matter entirely irrelevant. + +"I had an odd experience the other evening," he said. "I had been dining +with the Raymers and was walking back to Shawnee Street. A little +newsboy named Johnnie Fergus turned up from somewhere at one of the +street crossings and tried to sell me a paper--at eleven o'clock at +night! I bought one and joked him about being out so late; and from that +on I couldn't get rid of him. He went all the way home with me, talking +a blue streak and acting as if he were afraid of something or somebody. +I remembered afterward that he is the boy who takes care of your boat. +Is there anything wrong with him?" + +Miss Grierson had left her chair and had gone to stand at one of the +windows. + +"Nothing that I know of," she said. "He is a bright boy--too bright for +his own good, I'm afraid. But I can explain--a little. Johnnie has taken +a violent fancy to you for some reason, and he has fallen into the +boyish habit of weaving all sorts of romances around you. I think he +reads too many exciting stories and tries to make you the hero of them. +He told me the other day that he was sure somebody was 'spotting' you." + +Griswold looked up quickly. Miss Grierson was still facing the window, +and he was glad that she had not seen his nervous start. + +"'Spotting' me?" he laughed. "Where did he get that idea?" + +"How should I know? But he had made himself believe it; he even went so +far as to describe the man. Oh, I can assure you Johnnie has an +imagination; I've tested it in other ways." + +"I should think so!" said the man who also had an imagination, and +shortly afterward he took his leave. + +An hour later the same afternoon, Broffin, from his post of observation +on the Winnebago porch, saw the writing-man cross the street and enter a +hardware shop. Having nothing better to do, he, too, crossed the street +and, in passing, looked into the open door of Simmons & Kleifurt's. What +he saw brought him back at the end of a reflective stroll around the +public square. When he entered the shop the clerk was putting a +formidable array of weapons back into their show-case niches. Broffin +lounged up and began to handle the pistols. + +"If I knew enough about guns to be able to tell 'em apart, I might buy +one," he said half-humorously. And then: "You must've been having a +mighty particular customer--to get so many of 'em out." + +"It was Mr. Griswold, Mr. Ed. Raymer's new partner," said the clerk. +"And he _was_ pretty particular; wouldn't have anything but these +new-fashioned automatics. Said he wanted something that would be quick +and sure, and I guess he's got it--I sold him two of 'em." + +Broffin played with the stock long enough to convince the clerk that he +was only a counter lounger with no intention of buying. "Took two of +'em, did he?--for fear one might make him sick, I reckon," he said, with +the half-humorous grin still lurking under the drooping mustaches. +"Automatic thirty-twos, eh? Well, _I_ ain't goin' to try to hold your +Mr.--Griscom, did you call him?--up none after this. He might git me." + +Whereupon, having found out what he wanted to know, he lounged out again +and went back to the hotel to smoke another of the reflective cigars in +the porch chair which had come to be his by right of frequent and +long-continued occupancy. + + + + +XXVII + +IN THE SHADOWS + + +Not counting the vague and rather pointless disturbment which had +culminated in the purchase of a pair of pistols, Griswold had left the +Mereside library considerably shaken, not in his convictions, to be +sure, but in his confidence in his own powers of imaginative analysis. +For this cause it required a longer after-dinner stay at the Farnhams' +than he had been allowing himself, to re-establish the norm of +self-assurance. + +This was coming to be the net result of a better acquaintance with +Charlotte Farnham; a growth in the grace of self-containment, and in a +just appreciation of the mighty power that lies in propinquity--the +propinquity of an inspiring ideal. Miss Farnham was never enthusiastic; +that, perhaps, would be asking too much of an ideal; but what she lacked +in warmth was made up in cool sanity, backed by a moral sense that +seemed never to waver. Unerringly she placed her finger upon the human +weaknesses in his book-people, and unfalteringly she bade him reform +them. + +For his _Fidelia_, as he described her, she exhibited a gentle +affection, tempered by a compassionate pity for her weaknesses and +waverings; an attitude, he fatuously told himself, forced upon her +because her own standards were so much higher than any he could +delineate or conceive. For _Joan_ there was also compassion, but it was +mildly contemptuous. + +"If I did not know that you are incapable of doing such a thing, I might +wonder if you are not drawing your _Joan_ from the life, Mr. Griswold," +she said, a little coldly, on this same evening of rehabilitations. +"Since such characters are to be found in real life, I suppose they may +have a place in a book. But you must not commit the unpardonable sin of +making your readers condone the evil in her for the sake of the good." + +"May we not sometimes condone a little evil for the sake of a great +good?" he pleaded in extenuation. + +Her answer was rather disconcerting. + +"Life is full of just such temptations; the temptation to bargain with +expediency. We can only pray blindly to be delivered in the hour of +trial." + +They were sitting together on the vine-sheltered porch, and the street +electrics with the lamplight from the sitting-room windows served merely +to temper the velvety gloom of the summer night. He would have given +much to be able to see her face, but the darkness came between. + +"That opens the door to the larger question which is always asking for +its answer," he said, letting the thought that was uppermost slip into +speech. "At its very best, life is a compromise, not necessarily +between good and evil, but between the thing possible and the thing +impossible. It is not until we are strong enough to break the shacklings +of the traditions that we are free to drive the best obtainable bargain +with destiny." + +As at other times, he was once more yielding to the impulse which was +always prompting him to apply the acid test to the pure gold of the +ideal. Heretofore the test had revealed no trace of earthly alloy; but +now the result filled him with vague dismay. + +"So you have said many times before," she rejoined, and her voice was as +the voice of one groping in the dark. "I--I have a confession to make, +Mr. Griswold: I have held out against you, knowing all the time that you +were right; that life is full of these bitter compromises which we are +forced to accept. Please forget what I have said about your _Fidelia_ +and--and your _Joan_. You are trying to make them human, and that is as +it should be." + +Griswold could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. He told +himself fiercely that he would never believe, without the convincement +of fact, that the ideal could step down from its pedestal. + +"You are meaning to be kind to me now, at the expense of your +convictions, Miss Charlotte," he protested warmly. + +"No," she denied gravely. "Listen, and you shall judge. Once, only a +short time ago, I was brought face to face with one of these terrible +compromises. In a single instant, and by no fault of my own, the +dreadful shears of fate were thrust into my hands, and conscience--what +I have been taught to call the Christian conscience--told me that with +them I must snip the thread of a man's life. Are you listening?" + +His lips were dry and he had to moisten them before he could say: "Yes, +go on; I am listening." + +"The man was a criminal and he was a fugitive from justice. +Conscience--_my_ conscience--insisted that it was my plain duty to raise +the hue and cry. For a long time I couldn't do it; and then----" + +He waited until the silence had grown unbearable before he prompted her. +"And then?" + +"And then chance threw us together. A new world was opened to me in +those few moments. I had thought that there could be no possible +question between simple right and wrong, but almost in his first word +the man convinced me that, whatever I might think or the world might +say, _his_ conscience had fully and freely acquitted him. And he proved +it; proved it so that I can never doubt it as long as I live. He made me +do what _my_ conscience had been telling me I ought to do--just as your +_Fleming_ makes _Fidelia_ do." + +"You denounced him?" he said, and he strove desperately to make the +saying completely colorless. + +"Yes." + +"And he was taken?" + +"He was; but he made his escape again, almost at once. He is still a +free man." + +Instantly the primitive instinct of self-preservation, the instinct of +the hunted fugitive, sprang alert in the listener. + +"How can you be sure of that?" he asked, and in his own ears his voice +sounded like the clang of an alarm bell. + +Again a silence fell, surcharged, this one, with all the old frightful +possibilities. Once more the loathsome fever quickened the pulses of the +man at bay, and the curious needle-like prickling of the skin came to +signal the return of the homicidal fear-frenzy. The reaction to the +normal racked him like the passing of a mortal sickness when his +accusing angel said in her most matter-of-fact tone: + +"I know he is free; I have it on the best possible authority. The +detectives who are searching for him have been here to see me--or, at +least, one of them has." + +The hunted one laid hold of the partial reprieve with a mighty grip and +drew himself out of the reactionary whirlpool. + +"To see you? Why should they trouble you?" + +"On general man-hunting principles, I suppose," was the calm reply. +"Since I gave the necessary information once, they seem to think I can +give it again. It is very annoying." + +"It is an outrage!" declared the listener warmly. And afterward, with +only the proper friendly emphasis: "I hope it is an annoyance past." + +His companion leaned forward in her chair and cautiously parted the +leafy vine screen. + +"Look across the street--under those trees at the water's edge: do you +see him?" + +Griswold looked and was reasonably sure that he could make out the +shadowy figure of a man leaning against one of the trees. + +"That is my shadow," she said, lowering her voice; "Mr. Matthew Broffin, +of the Colburne Detective Agency, in New Orleans. He has a foolish idea +that I am in communication with the man he is searching for, and he was +brutal enough to tell me so. What he expects to accomplish by keeping an +absurd watch upon our house and dogging everybody who comes and goes, I +can't imagine." + +"You have told your father?" said Griswold, anxious to learn how far +this new alarm fire had spread. + +"Certainly; and he has made his protest. But it doesn't do any good; the +man keeps on spying, as you see. But we have wandered a long way from +your book. I've been trying to prove to you that I am not fit to +criticise it." + +"No; you mustn't mistake me. I haven't been coming to you for +criticism," was Griswold's rather incoherent reply; and when the talk +threatened to lapse into the commonplaces, he took his leave. Oddly +enough, as he thought, when he was unlatching the gate and had shifted +one of the newly purchased automatic pistols from his hip pocket to an +outside pocket of the light top-coat he was wearing, the shadowy figure +under the lake-shading trees had disappeared. + +It was only a few minutes after the lingering dinner guest had gone when +the doctor came out on the porch, bringing his long-stemmed pipe for a +bedtime whiff in the open air. + +"You are losing your beauty sleep, little girl," he said, dropping into +the chair lately occupied by the guest. "Did you find out anything more +to-night?" + +The daughter did not reply at once, and when she did there was a note of +freshly summoned hardihood in her voice. + +"We were both mistaken," she affirmed. "Coincidences are always likely +to be misleading. I am sorry I told you about them. He has certainly +been a present help in time of need to Edward." + +"How did you reach your conclusion?" inquired the pipe smoker, upon whom +the coincidences were still actively exerting their influence. + +"It came out in the talk this evening. He has been rather ridiculously +putting me upon a pedestal, trying to make me fit an ideal character in +his book, I think. To prove to him that I am only human, I told him the +story of what happened on the _Belle Julie_. And, to cap the climax, I +pointed out our friend Mr. Broffin, who was on guard again--as +usual--and told him who the house watcher was and what he wanted. It +didn't affect him any more than it would any friend of the family. He +was interested in the story as a story, and--and in its bearing upon me +as a--as a life-experience. But that was all." + +"You may be right; you probably are right," was the father's comment +after a thoughtful whiff or two had intervened. "Just the same, I've +looked up the dates in my case book: if your Gavitt man, escaping from +the officers in St. Louis, had taken the first train for Wahaska, he +would have reached here at precisely the same moment that the sick Mr. +Griswold did. Also, he would have been careful to remove all the little +tags and telltales from his brand-new clothes--which was what Mr. +Griswold very evidently had done. Also, again, the amount of money which +Mr. Griswold has put into the Raymer capital stock tallies to within ten +thousand dollars of the amount your Gavitt fellow walked away with in +New Orleans. Also, number three, Mr. Griswold acted very much like a man +who had lost all he had in the world when I told him that Miss Grierson +and I had found no money in his suit-cases; and----" + +"That is the weak link in your chain, isn't it?" objected the daughter. +"You remember he told me on the boat that he had lost the money?" + +Again the father took counsel of the long-stemmed pipe. + +"It might be," he said, after a reflective pause. "It would be, if Miss +Grierson could be safely eliminated from the equation. Unhappily, she +can't be." + +"I don't care!" came from the depths of the porch rocking-chair. "If +this miserable detective arrests him and appeals to me, I shall simply +refuse to know anything about it! I wish you'd tell this man Broffin so +when you meet him again." + +As before, the good little doctor had recourse to his pipe, and it was +not until his daughter got up to go in that he said gently: "One other +word, Charlie, girl: are you altogether sure that the wish isn't father +to the thought--about Griswold?" + +"Don't be absurd, papa!" she said scornfully, passing swiftly behind his +chair to reach the door; and with that answer he was obliged to be +content. + + + + +XXVIII + +BROKEN LINKS + + +It was on the second day after the pistol-buying incident in Simmons & +Kleifurt's that Broffin, wishful for solitude and a chance to think in +perspective, took to the woods. + +In the moment of lost temper, when he had threatened angrily to play an +indefinite waiting game, prolonging it until his man should walk into +the trap, nothing had really been farther from his intentions. As a +matter of fact, there were the best of business reasons why he should +not waste another day in following, or attempting to follow, the cold +trail. Other cases were pressing, and his daily mail from the New +Orleans head-quarters brought urgings impatient and importunate; and on +the third day following the sleeveless interview with the doctor's +daughter he had paid his bill at the Winnebago House and had packed his +grip for the southward flight by the afternoon train. + +Twenty minutes before train-time a telegram from the New Orleans office +had reopened the closed and crossed-off account of the Bayou State +Security robbery. It was a bare line in answer to his own wire advising +the office that he was about to return, but its significance was out of +all proportion to its length. "B. S. S. man is in your town. Important +letter to-day's mail," was all it said, but that was sufficient. Broffin +had promptly told the clerk of the Winnebago that he had changed his +mind, and forty-eight hours afterward he had the letter. + +Like the telegram, the mail communication was significant but +inconclusive. One Patrick Sheehan, a St. Louis cab driver, dying, had +made confession to his priest. For a bribe of two hundred dollars he had +aided and abetted the escape of a criminal on a day and date +corresponding to the mid-April arrival of the steamer _Belle Julie_ at +St. Louis. Afterward he had driven the man to an up-town hotel (name not +given) and had obtained from the clerk the man's name and destination. +In his letter enclosing the confession the priest went on to say that +the penitent had evidently had a severe struggle with his conscience. A +mistaken sense of gratitude to the man who had bribed him had led him to +tear off and destroy the upper half of the card given him by the up-town +hotel clerk, and with the reminder gone he could not recall the man's +name. But the destination address, "Wahaska, Minnesota," had been +preserved, and the torn portion of the card bearing it was submitted +with the confession. + +With this new clue for an incentive, Broffin had immediately put his +nose to the cold trail again. All other things apart, the torn card +conclusively proved the correctness of the obstinately maintained +hypothesis. If the robber had really chosen Wahaska for his +hiding-place, he had done so merely because it was Miss Farnham's home. +The boldness of the thing appealed instantly to a like quality in the +detective, and he was not entirely unprepared for the eye-opening shock +which came when he began to suspect that Griswold, the writing-man, was +the man he was looking for. + +The premonitory symptoms of the shock had manifested themselves when he +began to note the regularity of Griswold's visits to the house in Lake +Boulevard. Then came the pistol-buying episode, closely following an +investment of money possible only to a capitalist--or a robber. Broffin +worked quickly after this, tracing Griswold's record back to its +Wahaskan beginnings and shadowing his man so faithfully that at any hour +of the day or night he could have clapped the arresting hand upon his +shoulder. Still he hesitated. Once, in his Secret Service days, he had +arrested the wrong man, and the smart of the prosecution for false +imprisonment would rankle as long as he lived. + +This was why he took to the woods on the afternoon of the second day +following Griswold's pistol purchase. He felt himself growing +short-sighted from the very nearness of things. The single necessity now +was for absolute and unshakable identification. To establish this, three +witnesses, and three only, could be called upon. Of the three, two had +failed signally--Miss Farnham because she had her own reasons for +blocking the game, and President Galbraith.... That was another chapter +in the book of failure. Broffin had learned that the president was +stopping at the De Soto Inn, and he had manoeuvred to bring Mr. +Galbraith face to face with Griswold in the Grierson bank on the day +after the pistol-buying. To his astonishment and disgust the president +had shaken his head irritably, adding a rebuke. "Na, na, man; your trade +makes ye over-suspeecious. That's Mr. Griswold, the writer-man and a +friend of the Griersons. Miss Madgie was telling me about him last week. +He's no more like the robber than you are. Haven't I told ye the man was +bearded like a tyke?" + +With two of the three eye-witnesses refusing to testify, there remained +only Johnson, the paying teller of the Bayou State Security. Broffin was +considering the advisability of wiring for Johnson when he passed the +last of the houses on the lakeside drive and struck into the country +road which led by cool and shaded forest windings to the resort hotel at +the head of the southern bay. If Johnson should fail--and in view of the +fact that President Galbraith had failed it was a possibility to be +reckoned with--there remained only two doubtful expedients. With Patrick +Sheehan's confession to point the way it might be possible to trace the +transformed deck-hand from his final interview with McGrath on the +_Belle Julie_ step by step to his appearance, sick and delirious, in +Wahaska twenty-four hours later. This was one of the expedients. The +other was to take the long chance by clapping the handcuffs upon +Griswold in some moment of unpreparedness. It was a well-worn trick, +and it did not always succeed in surprising the admission of guilt +necessary to make it hold good. And if it should not hold good, there +might be consequences. As we have noted, Broffin had once clapped the +handcuffs on the wrong man. + +Chewing an extinct cigar and ruminating thoughtfully over his problem, +Broffin had followed the windings of the country road well into the +lake-enclosing forest when he heard the rattle of wheels and the +hoof-beats of a horse. Presently the vehicle overtook and passed him. It +was Miss Grierson's trap, drawn by the big English trap-horse, with Miss +Grierson herself holding the reins and Raymer lounging comfortably in +the spare seat. + +The sight of the pair moved Broffin to speech apostrophic--when the two +were out of earshot. "You're the little lady I'd like to back into a +corner," he muttered. "What you know about this business--and wouldn't +tell, not if you was gettin' the third degree for it--would tie up all +the broken strings in a hurry. How do I know you didn't help him to get +out of St. Louis? How do I know that the whole blame sick play wasn't a +plant from start to finish?" He stopped and struck viciously at a +roadside weed with the switch he had cut. It was a new idea, an idea +with promise; and when he went on, the reflective excursion had become a +journey with a purpose. Chance had been good to him now and then in his +hard-working career: perhaps it would be good to him again. Having let +one woman put a stumbling-block in his way, perhaps it was going to +even things up by making another woman remove it. + +Half an hour later Broffin had followed the huge hoof-prints of the +great English trap-horse to the driveway portal of the De Soto grounds +where they were lost on the pebbled carriage approach. Strolling on +through the grounds into the lake-fronting lobby of the Inn, he was soon +able to account for Raymer. The young iron-founder was evidently on +business bent. He was sitting in the lobby with a man whom Broffin +recognized as the master car builder of the Pineboro Railroad, and the +two were discussing mechanical details over a thick file of blue-prints +spread out on Raymer's knees. The smile under Broffin's drooping +mustaches was a grin of instant comprehension. Miss Grierson, driving +Raymer's way, had picked up the iron-founder and brought him along to +the business appointment. It was a way she had--when the candidate for +the spare seat in the trap happened to be young and good-looking. + +Having placed Raymer, Broffin went in search of Miss Grierson. He found +her on the broad veranda, alone, and for the moment unoccupied. How to +make the attack so direct and so overwhelming that it could not be +withstood was the only remaining question; and Broffin had answered it +to his own satisfaction, and was advancing through an open French window +directly behind Miss Grierson's chair to put the answer into effect, +when the opportunity was snatched away. Raymer, with his roll of +blue-prints under his arm and his business with the master car builder +apparently concluded, came down the veranda and took the chair next to +Miss Grierson's. + +Broffin dropped back into the writing-room alcove for which the open +French window was the outlet and sat down to bide his time, taking care +that the chair which he noiselessly placed for himself should be out of +sight from the veranda, but not out of earshot. It seemed very unlikely +that the two young people who were enjoying the Minnedaskan view would +say anything worth listening to; but the ex-harrier of moonshine-makers +was of those who discount all chances. + +For a time nothing happened. The two on the veranda talked of the view, +of the coming regatta, of the latest lawn social given by the Guild of +St. John's. Broffin surmised that they were waiting for the trap to be +brought around from the hotel stables, though why there should be a +delay was not so evident. But in any event his opportunity was lost +unless he could contrive to isolate the young woman again. It was while +he was groping for the compassing means that Raymer said: + +"It's a shame to make you wait this way, Miss Madge. McMurtry said he +had an appointment with Mr. Galbraith for three o'clock, and he had to +go and keep it. But he ought to be down again by this time. Don't wait +for me if you want to go back to town. I can get a lift from somebody." + +"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" was the good-natured retort. "To +make you tie up your own horse in town and then to leave you stranded +away out here three miles from nowhere! I think I see myself doing such +a thing! Besides, I haven't a thing to do but to wait." + +Broffin shifted the extinct cigar he was chewing from one corner of his +mouth to the other and pulled his soft hat lower over his eyes. He, too, +could wait. There was a little stir on the veranda; a rustling of silk +petticoats and the click of small heels on the hardwood floor. Broffin +could not forbear the peering peep around the sheltering window +draperies. Miss Grierson had left her seat and was pacing a slow march +up and down before Raymer's chair, apparently for Raymer's benefit. The +watcher behind the window draperies drew back quickly when she made the +turn to face his way, arguing sapiently that whatever significance their +further talk might hold would be carefully and thoughtfully neutralized +if Miss Grierson should see him. That she had not seen him became a fact +sufficiently well-assured when she sat down again and began to speak of +Griswold. + +"How is the new partnership going, by this time," she asked, after the +manner of one who re-winnows the chaff of the commonplaces in the hope +of finding grain enough for the immediate need. + +"So far as Griswold is concerned, you wouldn't notice that there is a +partnership," laughed the iron-founder. "I can't make him galvanize an +atom of interest in his investment. All I can get out of him is, 'Don't +bother me; I'm busy.'" + +"Mr. Griswold is in a class by himself, don't you think?" was the +questioning comment. + +"He is all kinds of a good fellow; that's all I know, and all I ask to +know," answered Raymer loyally. + +"I believe that--now," said his companion, with the faintest possible +emphasis upon the time-word. + +Broffin marked the emphasis, and the pause that preceded it, and leaned +forward to miss no word. + +"Meaning that there was a time when you didn't believe it?" Raymer +asked. + +"Meaning that there was a time when he had me scared half to death," +confessed the one who seemed always to say the confidential thing as if +it were the most trivial. "Do you remember one day in the library, when +you found me looking over the files of the newspapers for the story of +the robbery of the Bayou State Security Bank in New Orleans?" + +Raymer remembered it very well, and admitted it. + +"That was the time when the dreadful idea was scaring me stiff," she +went on. "You remember the story, don't you? how the president--our Mr. +Galbraith here--was held up at the point of a pistol and marched to the +paying teller's window, and how the robber escaped on a river steamboat +and was recognized by somebody and was arrested at St. Louis?" + +"Yes; I remember it all very clearly. Also I recollect how the second +newspaper notice told how he escaped from the officers at St. Louis. +Wasn't there something about a young woman being mixed up in it some +way?" + +"There was: _she_ was the one who recognized the robber disguised as a +deck-hand on the boat." + +Raymer seemed to have forgotten his impatience for a renewal of the +interview with the Pineboro Railroad master car builder. + +"I don't seem to recall any mention of that in the newspapers," he said +half-doubtfully. + +"The newspaper reporters didn't put two and two together, but I did," +asserted the sharer of confidences. "There was a young woman getting a +draft cashed at the teller's window when the robbery was committed. The +bank people didn't know her, so she must have been travelling. You see +it's simple enough when you put your mind to it." + +"But you haven't told me how you were scared," Raymer suggested. + +"I'm coming to that. This escape we read about happened on a certain day +in April. It was the very day on which poppa met me on my way back from +Florida, and we took the eleven-thirty train north that night. You +haven't forgotten that Mr. Griswold was a passenger on that same train?" + +"But, goodness gracious, Miss Margery! any number of people were +passengers on that train. You surely wouldn't----" + +"Hush!" she said, and through the lace window hangings Broffin saw her +lift a warning finger. "What I am telling you, Mr. Raymer, is in the +strictest confidence; we mustn't let a breath of it get out. But that +wasn't all. Mr. Griswold was dreadfully sick, and, of course, he +couldn't tell us anything about himself. But while he was delirious he +was always muttering something about money, money; money that he had +lost and couldn't find, or money that he had found and couldn't lose. +Then when we thought he couldn't possibly get well, Doctor Bertie and I +ransacked his suit-cases for cards or letters or something that would +tell us who he was and where he came from. _There wasn't the littlest +thing!_" + +"And that was when you began to suspect?" queried Raymer. + +"That was when the suspicion began to torture me. I fought it; oh, you +don't know how hard I fought it! There he was, lying sick and helpless; +utterly unable to do a thing or say a word in his own defence; and yet, +if he were the robber, of course, we should have to give him up. It was +terrible!" + +"I should say so," was Raymer's sympathetic comment. "How did you get it +straightened out, at last?" + +"It hasn't been altogether straightened out until just lately--within +the past few days," she went on gravely. "After he began to get well, I +made him talk to me--about himself, you know. There didn't seem to be +anything to conceal. At different times he told me all about his home, +and his mother, whom he barely remembers, and the big-hearted, +open-handed father who made money so easily in his profession--he was +_the_ Griswold, the great architect, you know--that he gave it away to +anybody who wanted it--but I suppose he has told you all this?" + +"No; at least, not very much of it." + +Miss Grierson went on smoothly, falling sympathetically into the +reminiscent vein. + +"Kenneth went to college without ever having known what it was to lack +anything in reason that money could buy. A little while after he was +graduated his father died." + +"Leaving Kenneth poor, I suppose; he has intimated as much to me, once +or twice," said Raymer. + +"Leaving him awfully poor. He wanted to learn to write, and for a long +time he stayed on in New York, living just any old way, and having a +dreadfully hard time of it, I imagine, though he would never say much +about that part of it. He says he was studying the under-dog, and he has +told me some of the most harrowing things he has seen and been through: +one of them had a little child in it--a baby that he found in a tenement +where the father and mother had both died of starvation ... think of it! +And he took the baby away and fed it and kept it...." + +Broffin, sitting behind the window draperies, had his elbows on his +knees and his head tightly clamped between his hands. He was striving, +as the dying strive for breath, to remember. Where had he heard this +self-same story of the man who had fought some sort of a studying fight +in the back-water of the New York slums? In every detail it came back to +him like the recurring scenes of a vivid dream; but the key-notes of +time, place, and the man's identity were gone; lost beyond any power of +the groping mentality to recall them. + +"That is why he thinks he is a Socialist," Miss Grierson was going on +evenly. "I've been wondering if you knew these things, and I've wanted +to tell you. I've thought it might help you to understand him better if +you knew something of what he has been through. But we were talking +about my dreadful suspicion. It persisted, you know, right along through +everything. At last, I felt that I just _must_ know, at whatever cost. +One day when we were driving, I brought him here and--and introduced him +to Mr. Galbraith. I was so scared that I could taste it--but I did it!" + +Raymer laughed. "Of course, nothing came of it?" + +"Nothing at all; and the reaction pretty nearly made me faint. They just +made talk, like any two freshly introduced people would, and that was +all there was of it. You'd say that was proof enough, wouldn't you? +Surely Mr. Galbraith would recognize the man who robbed him?" + +"Certainly; there couldn't be any doubt of that." + +"That's what I said. And then, right out of a clear sky, came another +proof that was even more convincing. Do you happen to know who the young +woman was who discovered the bank robber on the steamboat?" + +"I? How should I know?" + +"I didn't know but she had told you," was the demure rejoinder. "It was +Charlotte Farnham." + +"What!" ejaculated Raymer. But he was not more deeply moved than was the +man behind the window curtains. If Broffin's dead cigar had not been +already reduced to shapeless inutility, Miss Grierson's cool +announcement, carrying with it the assurance that his secret was no +secret, would have settled it. + +"It's so," she was adding calmly. "I found out. She and her aunt were +passengers on the _Belle Julie_; that was the boat the robber escaped +on, you remember. Doctor Bertie told me that. And she was the young +woman who was having the draft cashed in the Bayou State Security. How +do I know? Because her father bought the draft at poppa's bank, and in +the course of time it came back with the Bayou State Security's dated +paying stamp on it. See how easy it was!" + +Raymer's laugh was not altogether mirthful. + +"You are a witch," he said. "Is there anything that you don't know?" + +"Not so very many things that I really need to know," was the mildly +boastful retort. "But you see, now, how foolish my suspicions were. Mr. +Galbraith meets Mr. Griswold just as he would any other nice young man; +and Charlotte Farnham, who recognized the robber even when he was +disguised as a deck-hand, sees Mr. Griswold pretty nearly every day." + +Raymer nodded. Though he would not have admitted it under torture, the +entire matter figured somewhat as a mountain constructed out of a rather +small mole-hill to a man for whom the subtleties lay in a region +unexplored. He wondered that the clear-minded little "social climber," +as his sister called her, had ever bothered her nimble brain about such +an abstruse and far-fetched question of identities. + +"You said, a few minutes ago, that Griswold calls himself a Socialist. +That isn't quite the word. He is a sociologist." + +Miss Grierson ignored the nice distinction in names. + +"Socialism goes with being poor, doesn't it?" she remarked. "Since Mr. +Griswold's ship has come in, I suppose he finds it easier, and +pleasanter, to be a theoretical leveller than a practical one." + +"That is another thing I have never been quite able to understand," said +the iron-founder. "You say his father left him poor: where did he get +his money?" + +"Why, don't you know?" was the innocent query. And then, with a pretty +affectation of embarrassment, real or perfectly simulated: "If he hasn't +told you, I mustn't." + +"Of course, I don't want to pry," said Raymer, loyal again. + +"I can give you a hint, and that is all. Don't you remember 'My Lady +Jezebel,' the unsigned novel that made such a hit last summer?" + +"Why, bless goodness, yes! Did he write that?" + +"He has never admitted it in so many words. But I'll divide a little +secret with you. He has been reading bits of his new book to me, and +pshaw! a blind person could tell! I asked him once if he could guess +how much the author of 'My Lady Jezebel' had been paid, and he said, +with the most perfectly transparent carelessness: 'Oh, about a hundred +thousand, I suppose.'" + +"Tally!" said Raymer, laughing. "Griswold has put an even ninety +thousand into my little egg-basket out at the plant. But, of course you +knew that, everybody in Wahaska knows it by this time." + +"Yes; I knew it." + +"I'm glad it's book money," Raymer went on. "If we should happen to go +smash, he won't feel the loss quite so fiercely. I have a friend over in +Wisconsin; he is a laboratory professor in mechanics, and he writes +books on the side. He says a book is a pure gamble. If you win, you have +that much more money to throw to the dicky-birds. If you lose, you've +merely drawn the usual blank." + +Miss Grierson did not reply, and for a little while they were both +silent. Then Raymer said: + +"I wonder if McMurtry doesn't think I've dropped out on him. I guess I'd +better go and see. Don't wait any longer on my motions, unless you want +to, Miss Margery." + +When Raymer had gone, the opportunity which Broffin had so lately craved +was his. Miss Grierson was left alone on the big veranda, and he had +only to step out and confront her. Instead, he got up quietly and went +back through the lobby with his head down and his hands in his pockets, +and the surviving bit of the dead cigar disappeared between his strong +teeth and became a cud of chagrin. There had been a goal in sight, but +Miss Grierson had beat him to it. + +And the winner of the small handicap? For the time it took Raymer to +disappear she sat perfectly still, in the attitude of one who stifles +all the other senses that the listening ear may hear and strike the note +of warning or of relief. A group of young people, returning from a +steam-launch circuit of the upper lake, came up the steps to disperse +itself with pleasant human clatterings on the veranda; but in spite of +the distractions the listening ear caught the sound for which it was +straining. With a deep breath-drawing that was almost a sob, Miss +Grierson sprang up, stole a swift confirming glance at the empty chair +behind the window hangings, and crossed the veranda to stand with one +arm around a supporting pillar. And since the battle was fought and won, +and the friendly pillar gave its stay and shelter, the velvety eyes +filled suddenly and the ripe red lips were trembling like the lips of a +frightened child. + + + + +XXIX + +ALL THAT A MAN HATH + + +For four entire days after Margery Grierson had driven home the nail of +the elemental verities in her frank criticism of the new book, and +Charlotte Farnham had clinched it, Wahaska's public places saw nothing +of Griswold; and Mrs. Holcomb, motherly soul, was driven to expostulate +scoldingly with her second-floor front who was pushing the pen +feverishly from dawn to the small hours, and evidently--in the kindly +widow's phrase--burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. + +Out of this candle-burning frenzy the toiler emerged in the afternoon of +the fifth day, a little pallid and tremulous from the overstrain, but +with a thick packet of fresh manuscript to bulge in his pocket when he +made his way, blinking at the unwonted sunlight of out-of-doors, to the +great house at the lake's edge. + +Margery was waiting for him when he rang the bell: he guessed it +gratefully, and she confirmed it. + +"Of course," she said, with the bewitching little grimace which could be +made to mean so much or so little. "Isn't this your afternoon? Why +shouldn't I be waiting for you?" Then, with a swiftly sympathetic +glance for the pale face and the tired eyes: "You've been overworking +again. Let's sit out here on the porch where we can have what little air +there is. There must be a storm brewing; it's positively breathless in +the house." + +Griswold was glad enough to acquiesce; glad and restfully happy and +mildly intoxicated with her beauty and the loving rudeness with which +she pushed him into the easiest of the great lounging chairs and took +the sheaf of manuscript away from him, declaring that she meant to read +it herself. + +"It will wear you out," he objected, fishing for the denial which would +give the precious fillip to the craftsman vanity. + +The denial came promptly. + +"Foolish!" she said; "as if anything you have written could make anybody +tired!" And then, with the mocking after-touch he had come to know so +well, and to look for: "Is that what you wanted me to say?" + +"You are the spice of life and your name should have been Variety," he +countered feebly. "But I warn you beforehand: there is a frightful lot +of it. I have rewritten it from the beginning." + +"So much the better," she affirmed. "You've been doling it out to me in +little morsels, and I've been aching to get it all at one bite." And she +began to read. + +It was the first time he had had any of his own work read to him, and +the experience was a pure luxury; at once the keenest and the most +sensuous enjoyment he had ever known. Marvelling, as he was always moved +to marvel, at her bright mind and clever wit and clear insight, he was +driven to the superlatives again to find words to describe her reading. +Artistically, and as with the gifted sympathy of a born actress, she +seemed able to breathe the very atmosphere of the story. None of his +subtle nuances were lost; there was never an emphasis misplaced. Better +still, the impersonation was perfect. By turns she became himself, +_Joan_, _Fidelia_, _Fleming_, or one of the subsidiary characters, +speaking the parts, rather than reading them, with such a sure +apprehension of his meaning that he could almost fancy that she was +reading from his mind instead of following the manuscript. + +When it was over; and he could not tell whether the interval should be +measured by minutes or hours; the return to the realities--the hot +afternoon, the tree-shaded veranda, the lake dimpling like a sheet of +molten metal under the sun-glare--was almost painful. + +"It is wonderful--simply wonderful!" he said, drawing a deep breath; and +then, with a flush of honest confusion to drive away the work pallor: +"Of course, you know I don't mean the story; I meant your reading of it. +Hasn't any one ever told you that you have the making of a great actress +in you, Margery, girl?" + +"No," she said shortly; and, dismissing that phase of the subject in the +single word: "Let's talk about the story. You have bettered it +immensely. What made you do it?" + +"I don't know; some convincement that it was all wrong and out of +drawing as it stood, I suppose." + +"Who gave you the convincement? Miss Farnham?" + +His answer was meant to be truthful, but beauty of the intoxicating sort +is the most mordant of solvents for truth in the abstract. + +"No; you did." + +"But she told you something," she persisted. "Otherwise, you could never +have made _Fidelia_ all over again, as you have in this rewriting." + +"Maybe she did," he admitted. "But that doesn't matter. You think I have +bettered the story, and I know I have. And I know where I got the +inspiration to do it." + +She was smiling across at him, level-eyed. + +"Let me pass it back to you, dear boy," she said. "You have the making +of a great novelist in you. It may take years and years, and--and I'm +afraid you'll always have to be helped; but if you can only get the +right kind of help...." She looked away, out across the lake where a +fitful breeze was turning the molten-metal dimples into laughing +wavelets. Then, with one of her sudden topic-wrenchings: "Speaking of +help, reminds me. Why didn't you tell me you had gone into the foundry +business with Edward Raymer?" + +"Because it didn't occur to me that you would care to know, I guess," he +answered unsuspectingly. "As a matter of fact, I had almost forgotten +it myself." + +"Was it a good investment?" she asked guilelessly. + +"Yes; that is, I presume it was. I didn't think much about that part of +it." + +"What did you think about?" + +It was just here that he awoke to the realization that he could hardly +afford to give Jasper Grierson's daughter the real reason for the +investment. So he prevaricated, knowing well enough that he had less +than no chance in an evasive duel with her. + +"Raymer had been adding to his plant, and he lacked capital," he said +guardedly. "I had the money, and it was lying idle." + +"Mr. Raymer didn't ask you for help?" + +"No; it was my own offer." + +"But he did tell you that he was in trouble?" + +"Y-yes," hesitantly. + +"What kind of trouble was it, Kenneth? I have the best right in the +world to know." + +Griswold straightened himself in his chair and the work-weariness became +a thing of the past. With the fairly evident fact staring him in the +face from day to day, it had never occurred to him that his friend and +business partner might also be his fellow-prisoner in the house of the +witcheries. The sudden convincement stung a little, the all-monopolizing +selfishness of the craftsman carrying easily over into the field of +sentiment. Yet it was clean friendship for Raymer, no less than for the +daughter of desire, that prompted him to say: + +"You can't have a right to know anything that will distress you." + +"Foolish!" she chided--and this time the epithet had lost its alluring +softness. "You may as well tell me. Mr. Raymer had borrowed money at +poppa's bank. What was the matter? Did he have to pay it back--all at +once?" + +There seemed to be no further opening for evasion. "Yes; I think that +was the way of it," he answered. + +Arguing wholly from the newly made discovery, or postulated discovery, +of Raymer's state and standing as an object of Miss Grierson's +solicitude, Griswold expected something in the nature of an outburst. +What he got was a transfixing glance of the passionate sort, quick with +open-eyed admiration. + +"And you just tossed your money into the breach as if you had millions +of it, and by now you've almost forgotten that you did it!" she +exclaimed. "Kenneth, dear, there are times when you are so heavenly good +that I can hardly believe it. Are there any more men like you over on +your side of the world?" + +At another time he might have smiled at the boyish frankness of the +question. But it was a better motive than the analyst's that prompted +his answer. + +"Plenty of them, Margery, girl; too many for the good of the race. You +mustn't try to make a hero out of me. Once in a while I get a glimpse of +the real Kenneth Griswold--you are giving me one just now--and it's +sickening. For a moment I was meanly jealous; jealous of Raymer. It was +only the writing part of me, I hope, but----" + +He stopped because she had suddenly turned her back on him and was +looking out over the lake again. When she spoke, she went back to the +business affair. + +"When you invest money you ought to look after it," she said +magisterially. "You are a Socialist, aren't you? How do you know that +your money isn't being used to oppress somebody?" + +"Oh, I do know that much," was the investor's protest. "Raymer is a good +boss--too good for the crowd he is trying to brother, I'm afraid." + +"What makes you say that?" + +"A word or two that he has dropped, now and then. When he branched out, +he had to increase his force accordingly. Some of the new men seem +inclined to make trouble." + +Again she fell silent, and he saw the brooding look come into the dark +eyes. It was evident that something he had said had started a train of +thought--and the thoughts were not altogether pleasant ones. Analyzing +again, he fancied he could picture the inward struggle to break away +from the unpleasantnesses, and he shook hands enthusiastically with his +own gift of insight when she looked up suddenly and said: "See! the +breeze is freshening out on the water. You are fagged and tired and +needing a bracer. Let's go and do a turn on the lake in the _Clytie_." + +From where he was sitting Griswold could see the trim little catboat, +resplendent in polished brass and mahogany, riding at its buoy beyond +the lawn landing-stage. He cared little for the water, but the +invitation pointed to a delightful prolongation of the basking process +which had come to be one of the chief luxuries of the Mereside +afternoons. + +"I'm not much of a sailor," he began; but she cut him off. + +"You'll do to pull and haul. Wait for me; I'll be ready in less time +than it would take another woman--_Fidelia_, for example--to make up her +mind what she wanted to wear." + +He waited; and when she came down, a few minutes later, crisply boyish +in the nattiest of yachting costumes, he wondered how she could appear +in so many different characters, fitting each in succession and +contriving always to make the latest transformation, while it lasted, +the one in which she figured as the most enticingly adorable. + +"Did you look in the glass before you came down?" he asked, standing up +to get the artistic effect of the shapely little figure backgrounded +against the dull reds of the house wall. + +"Naturally," she laughed. "Why, please? Is my face dirty?" + +He ignored the flippancy. + +"If you did, I don't need to tell you how irresistibly dazzling you +are." + +"Why shouldn't you, if you feel like it? Of course, I'd know you didn't +mean it. If you were describing me to somebody else, or in the book, +you'd say, 'Um, yes; rather fetching; pretty enough to--' But we all +like to be sugared a little now and then; and there's one thing you +must always remember: a woman's dressing-glass can't talk. Are you +ready? Open the window screen and drop the manuscript inside. It will be +safe until we come back, and the _Clytie_ might be tempted to throw cold +water on it if we should take it along. She's a wet little boat in a +sea." + +This for the outsetting: light-hearted badinage, a fair summer +afternoon, a zephyrish breeze coming in tiny cat's-paws out of the +north-west, and a cloudless sky. At the landing-stage Griswold made +himself useful, paying out the sea-line of the movable mooring buoy and +hauling on the shore-line until the handsome little craft lay at their +feet. Strictly under orders he made sail on the little ship, and when +the captain had taken her place at the tiller he shoved off. + +For a little time the breeze was lightly baffling, and Griswold +confessed that if he had been at the helm they would have gone +ingloriously aground. But the small person in the correct yachting +costume was an adept in boat handling, as she seemed to be in everything +else; and when the sandy bottom was fairly yellowing under the +_Clytie's_ counter, there was a quick juggling of the tiller, a deft +haul at the sheet, and the big main-sail filled slowly to the rippling +song of the little seas splitting themselves upon the catboat's sharp +cut-water. + +Once clear of the shallow bay, the helmswoman laid the course up the +lake; and Griswold, luxuriously lazy now that the working strain was +off, stretched himself comfortably on the cockpit cushions which he had +rummaged out of the cuddy cabin, and asked permission to light his pipe. +The permission given and the pipe filled and lighted, he pillowed his +head in his clasped hands and a great contentment, flowing into all the +interstices and levelling all the inequalities, lapped him in its +soothing flood. When the pipe had gone out there was joy enough left in +the pure relaxation; in that and in the contemplation through +half-closed eyelids of the pretty picture made by the tiller maiden +braced in the stern-sheets, her shining hair breeze-blown and flying +free under the captivating little yachting hat, and her eyes dancing.... + +Under such conditions a reflective analyst might conceivably wrench the +switch aside in front of the jogging train of thought to send it down a +shaded street to the lake-fronting house framed in shrubbery; to the +house and to the serene young house-mistress who had voluntarily stepped +from her goddess pedestal to become a flesh-and-blood woman to be loved +and cherished. He knew that Charlotte Farnham's readjustment of their +relations had in no wise modified her opinion of the _Joans_, or of the +men who were weak enough or besotted enough to be taken in the nets of +beguiling.... What would she think of him if she could see him lying at +Margery Grierson's feet, frankly and joyously revelling in the +triumphantly human charm of one of the _Joans_, and wishing with all his +heart--for the time being, at least--that there were no such things in +a world of effort as the higher ideals or any shackling requirement to +live up to them? + +He was still playing whimsically with the query when he was made to +realize that the murmuring rush of water under the catboat's forefoot +had changed into a series of resounding thumps; that the wind was +rising, and that the summer afternoon sky had become suddenly overcast. +The pretty tiller maiden was pushing the helm down with her foot and +hauling in briskly on the sheet when he sat up. + +"What's this we're coming to?" he asked, thinking less of the changed +weather conditions than of the charming picture she made in action. + +"Weather," she said shortly. "Look behind you." + +He looked and saw a huge storm cloud rising out of the north-west and +spreading like a great gray dust curtain from horizon to zenith. With +the sun blotted out, a brazen light filled all the upper air, and in the +heart of the cloud fleecy masses of vapor were writhing and twisting +like formless giants in battle. + +Quickly he measured the hazards. The _Clytie_ was fairly in mid-lake, +with plenty of sea room to leeward. There was an intervening island to +shut off the down-lake view, but though its forested bluffs and abrupt +headland were uncomfortably close at hand, a bit of skilful +manoeuvring would put it to windward. Beyond the island he could see +the breeze-blown smoke trail of the summer-resort hotel's steam launch +evidently making for its home port at full speed. + +"There's a good bunch of wind in that cloud," he said, springing to help +his companion with the slatting main-sail. "Hadn't we better lie up +under the island and let it blow over?" + +"No," she snapped. "We'll have to reef, and be quick about it. Help me!" + +He helped with the reefing, and the great main-sail had been +successfully reduced to its smallest area and hoisted home again before +the trees on the western shore began to bow and churn in the precursor +blasts of the coming storm. + +"It will hit us in less than a minute: how about weathering that +island?" he asked. + +"We've _got_ to weather it," was the instant decision; "we can't go +around." Then, the catboat still hanging in the wind's eye: "Help me get +her over." + +Together they held the shortened sail off at an angle, and slowly, very +slowly, the boat's bow fell off toward the island. Griswold was enough +of a sailor to know that it was the thing to do, but there was a +perilously narrow margin. The storm squall was already tearing across +from the western shore, blackening the water ahead of it and picking up +a small tidal wave as it came. If it should strike them before they were +ready for it, it meant one of two things: a capsize, or an instant +driving of the catboat upon the hazard of the island head. + +The crisis was upon them almost as soon as its threat could be measured. +Of the two, it was the young woman who met it with skilful purpose. +While the man could only scramble, choked and half-blinded, to windward +to throw his weight on the careening gunwale, the helmswoman had pounced +upon the tiller and was standing knee-deep in the water pouring over the +submerged lee rail to pay out and steer and miss the island headland by +a shearing hand's-breadth. + +The worst was over in a moment, and under the lee of the small island +there was a brief respite for pumping and bailing. The girl's black eyes +were shining with excitement and fearless daring, and Griswold would +have given much for time and leisure in which to catch and fix the +fleeting inspiration of the instant. But there was little space for the +artistic appreciation. + +"Hurry!" she cried; "we'll have to take it again in a minute or two!" +and there was still a bucketing of the shipped sea to thrash about in +the cockpit when the island withdrew its friendly shelter and the +_Clytie_, going free and sailed as Griswold had never seen a catboat +sailed before, wallowed out into the smother. + +For a little time there was not much to choose between drowning and +being hammered to death by the leaping plunges and alightings of the +frail cockle-shell which seemed to be blown bodily from crest to crest +of the short, high-pitched seas. The wind, heavily rain-laden, came in +furious gusts, flattening the reefed canvas until the bunt of the sail +dragged in the trough. Griswold climbed high on the weather rail, +leaning far out to help hold the balance between the heaving seas and +the pounding blasts. In the momentary lulls he had flitting glimpses of +the far-away town shore, with the storm-torn waste of waters +intervening. With the wind veering more and more to the west, it was a +fair run to the shelter of the home bay. But Margery was laying the +course far to the right, though to do it she was holding the catboat +cockpit-deep in the smother and taking the chance of a capsize with +every recurring gust. Griswold edged his way aft as far as he dared. + +"Hadn't you better let her fall off a little more and run for it?" he +suggested, and he had to shout it into the pink ear nearest to him to +make himself heard above the roaring of the wind and the crashing +plunges of the boat. + +She shook her head and made an impatient little gesture with her elbow +toward the storm-lashed raceway over the bows. Griswold winked the spray +out of his eyes and looked. At first he saw nothing but the wild waste +of whitecaps, but at the next attempt he made out the hotel steam +launch, half-way to the entrance of the southern bay and a little to +leeward of the _Clytie's_ course. The small steamer was evidently no +sea-boat, and with more courage than seamanship, its steersman was +driving straight for the Inn bay without regard for the direction of the +wind and the seas. + +"That's Ole Halverson!" cried the tiller maiden with scorn in her voice. +"He thinks because he happens to have a steam engine he needn't look to +see which way the wind is blowing." + +"She's pitching pretty badly," Griswold called back. "If he only had +sense enough to ease off a little...." Suddenly he became aware of the +finer heroism of his companion. He knew now why she had refused to take +shelter under the lee of the island, and why she was holding the catboat +down to the edge of peril to keep the windward advantage of the laboring +steamer. "Margery, girl, you're a darling!" he shouted. "Take all the +chances you want to and I'm with you, if we go to the bottom!" + +She nodded complete intelligence and took in another inch of the +straining main-sheet. + +"If Halverson loses his nerve they're going to need help, and need it +before the _Osprey_ can get out to them," she prophesied. + +Griswold looked again, this time over the catboat's counter, and saw a +big schooner, close-reefed, hauling out from a little bay on the north +shore. The launch's plight had evidently impressed others with the +necessity of doing something. The need was sufficiently urgent. Once +again the Swedish man of machinery in charge of the craft in peril was +inching his helm up in a vain endeavor to hold the course, and the +little steamer was rolling almost funnel under. Griswold forgot that his +companion was a woman and swore rabidly. + +"Look at the fool!" he yelled. "He's trying to come about! If he gets +into the trough----" + +The thing was done almost as he spoke. A wilder squall than any of the +preceding ones caught the upper works of the launch and heeled her +spitefully. At the critical instant the steersman lost his head and +spun the wheel, and it was all over. With a heaving plunge and a muffled +explosion the launch was gone. + +Once again Griswold was given to see the stuff Margery Grierson was made +of in the finer warp and woof of her. + +"That's for us," she said calmly; and then: "Help me get another inch or +two on this sheet. We don't want to let those people on the _Osprey_ do +all of the heroic things." + +Together they held the catboat down to its work, sending it ripping +through the crested waves and fighting sturdily for every foot of the +precious windward advantage. None the less, it was the big schooner, +thrashing down the wind with every square yard of its reefed canvas +drawing, which was first at the scene of disaster. Through the rain and +spume they could see the schooner's crew picking up the shipwrecked +passengers, who were clinging to life-belts, broken bulkheads, and +anything that would float. So swiftly was the rescue effected that the +rescuer had luffed and filled and was tearing on its way down the lake +again when the close-hauled _Clytie_ came up with the first of the +floating wreckage. The tiller maiden's dark eyes were shining again, but +this time their brightness was of tears. + +"Oh, boy, boy!" she cried, with a little heart-broken catch in her +voice; "some of them must have gone down with her! Can you believe that +the _Osprey_ got them all?" And then, with the sweet lips trembling: "I +did my best, Kenneth; my very best: and--it wasn't--good enough!" + +She was putting the catboat up into the wind, and Griswold stumbled +forward to get the broader outlook. Suddenly he called back to her. + +"Port!--port your helm hard! there's a man in a life-belt--he's just out +of reach. Hold her there--steady--steady!" He had thrown himself flat, +face down, on the half-deck forward and was clutching at something in +the heaving seas. "I've got him!" he cried, and a moment later he was +working his way aft, holding the man's face out of water. + +It asked for their united strength to get the gray-haired, heavy-bodied +victim of the capsize over the _Clytie's_ rail. They had to bring the +life-belt too; the old man's fingers were sunk into it with a dying grip +that could not be broken. At first Griswold was too much preoccupied and +shocked to recognize the drawn face with its hard-lined mouth and long +upper lip. When he did recognize it the gripping fear was at his +heart--the fear that makes a cruel coward of the hunted thing in all +nature. + +What might have happened if he had been alone; if Margery, taking her +place at the tiller and busying herself swiftly in getting the catboat +under way again, had not been looking on; he dared not think. And that +other frightful thought he put away, fighting against it madly as a +condemned man might push the cup of hemlock from his lips. Forcibly +breaking the drowned one's hold upon the life-belt, he fell to work +energetically, resorting to the first-aid expedients for the reviving of +the drowned as he had learned them in his boyhood. Once, only, he flung +a word over his shoulder at Margery as he fought for the old man's life. +"Make for the nearest landing where we can get a doctor!" he commanded; +and then, in a passion of gratitude: "O God, I thank thee that I am not +a murderer!--he's coming back! he's breathing again!" + +A little later he was able to leave off the first-aid arm-pumpings and +chest-pressings; to straighten the limp and sprawling limbs, and to dive +into the cuddy cabin, under Margery's directions, for blankets and rugs. +When all was done that could be done, and he had propped the +blanket-swathed body with the cushions so that the crash and plunge of +the pitching catboat would be minimized for the sufferer, he went aft to +sit beside the helmswoman, who was getting the final wave-leap of speed +out of the little vessel. + +"He is alive?" she asked. + +"Yes; and that is about all that can be said. He isn't drowned; but he +is old, and the shock has gone pretty near to snapping the thread." + +"Of course, you remember him?" she said, looking away across the leaping +waters. + +Griswold, with his heart on fire with generous emotions, felt the cold +hand gripping him again. + +"He is the old gentleman you introduced me to at the Inn the other day: +Galbraith; is that the name?" + +"Yes," she rejoined, still looking away; "that is the name." + +Griswold fell silent for the time; but a little later, when the catboat +was rushing in long plunges through the entrance to the Wahaskan arm of +the lake, he said: "You are going to take him to Mereside?" + +"Yes. He is a friend of poppa's. And, anyway, it's the nearest place, +and you said there was no time to lose." + +There were anxious watchers on the Mereside landing-stage: the gardener, +the stable-man, Thorsen, and three or four others. When the landing was +safely made, Miss Grierson took command and issued her orders briskly. + +"Four of you carry Mr. Galbraith up to the house, and you, Thorsen, put +Baldur into the two-wheeled trap and be ready to go for Doctor Farnham +when I tell you where you can find him. Johnnie Fergus, you come here +and take care of the _Clytie_; you know how to furl down and moor her." + +Griswold helped the bearers lift the blanketed figure out of the +_Clytie's_ cockpit, and while he was doing it, the steel-gray eyes of +the rescued one opened slowly to fix a stony gaze upon the face of the +man who was bending over him. What the thin lips were muttering Griswold +heard, and so did one other. "So it's you, is it, ye murdering blue-eyed +deevil?" And then: "Eh, man, man, but I'm sick!" + +Griswold walked with Margery at the tail of the little procession as it +wound its way up the path to the great house. + +"You heard what he said?" he inquired craftily. + +"Yes: he is out of his head, and no wonder," she said soberly. Then: +"You must go home and change at once; you are drenched to the skin. +Don't wait to come in. I'll take care of your manuscript." + + + + +XXX + +THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES + + +The cyclonic summer storm had blown itself out, and the clouds were +beginning to break away in the west, when Griswold, obeying Margery's +urging to go home and change his clothes, turned his back upon Mereside +and his face toward a future of thickening doubts and unnerving +possibilities. + +Once more he found himself wrestling with the keeper of the gate, the +angel of the flaming sword set to drive him forth among the outcasts. +One by one the confidently imagined safeguards were crumbling. He had +been traced to Wahaska--so much could be read between the lines of +Charlotte Farnham's story; if Margery's newsboy protege was to be +believed, he was watched and followed. And now, after having +successfully passed the ordeal of a face-to-face meeting and +hand-shaking with Andrew Galbraith, chance or destiny or the powers of +darkness had intervened, and a danger met and vanquished had been +suddenly brought to life again, armed and menacing. + +Griswold had not deceived himself, nor had he allowed Margery's apparent +convincement to deceive him. The old man's mind had not been wandering +in the eye-opening moment of consciousness regained. On the contrary, +what he had failed to do under ordinary and conventional conditions had +become instantly possible when the plunge into the dark shadow had +brushed away all the artificial becloudings of the memory page. What +action he would take when he should recover was as easy to prefigure as +it was, for the present at least, a matter negligible. The dismaying +thing was that the broad earth seemed too narrow to hide in; that +invention itself became the clumsiest of blunderers when, it was given +the simple task of losing a single individual among the millions of +unrelated human atoms. + +Thus the threat of the peril which might be called the physical. But +beyond this there was another, and, for a man of temperament, a still +more ominous foreshadowing of evil to come. Of some subtle, deep-seated +change in himself he had long been conscious. Again and again it had +manifested itself in those moments of craven fear and ruthless, +murderous promptings, when kindliness, gratitude, love, all the +humanizing motives, had turned suddenly to frenzied hatred, and the +primitive savage had leaped up, fiercely raging with the blood-lust. + +Here, again, he suffered loss, and was conscious of it. The point of +view was changed, and still changing. Something, a thing indefinable, +but none the less real, had gone out of him. Once, in the heart of a +thick darkness of squalor and misery, he had seen a great light and the +name of it was love for his kind. But now the light was waning, and in +its room a bale-fire was beckoning. There be those, fat, well-nurtured, +and complacent souls faring ever along the main-travelled roads of life, +who need no guiding lamp and will never see the glimmer of the +bale-fires. But the breaker of traditions was of those who, having once +seen the light, must follow where it leads or violate a primal law of +being. Some vague sense of this was stirring the dying embers for the +proletary as he was climbing the hill to the street of quiet entrances; +but he pushed the saving thought aside and chose to call it fanaticism. +He had drawn the line and he would hew to it. + +For a long time after he had reached his room, and had had his bath and +change, Griswold sat at his writing-table with his head in his hands, +thinking in monotonous circles. As in those other stressful moments, the +importunate devil was at his ear; now mocking him for not having left +the drowned enemy as he was; now whispering the dreadful hope that age +and the shock and the drowning might still re-erect the barrier of +safety. The eyes of the recusant grew hot and a loathsome fever ran +sluggishly through his veins when he realized the depths to which he had +descended; that he, once the brother-loving, could coldly weigh the +chance of life and death for another and be unable to find in any corner +of his heart the hope that life might prevail. + +He was still sitting, miserably reflective, in the dark, when Mrs. +Holcomb came up to call him to dinner. What excuse he made he could not +remember two minutes after she had gone down. But to make a fourth with +the motherly widow and her two bank clerks at the cheerful dinner-table +was a thing beyond him. Somewhat later he heard the two young men come +upstairs, and, still further along, go down again. They were social +souls, his two fellow lodgers; kindly young fellows with boyish faces +and honest eyes: Griswold wondered if they would still look up to him +and defer to him as the older man of broader culture if they could +know.... + +The tiny chiming clock on his dressing-case in the adjoining bedroom had +tinkled forth its ten tapping hammer strokes when the man sitting in the +dark heard the pounding of hoofs and the rattling of buggy wheels in the +quiet street. He was absently awaking to the fact that the vehicle had +stopped at his own door when he heard voices, the widow's and another, +in the lower hall, and then a man's footsteps on the stair. To a +hard-pressed breaker of the traditions at such a moment an unannounced +visitor, coming up in the dark, could mean but one thing. Griswold +silently opened a drawer in the writing-table and groped for the mate to +the quick-firing pistol which, after the change of wet clothing, he had +put aside to dry. + +The visitor came heavily upstairs, and Griswold, swinging his chair to +face the open door, saw the shadowy bulking of the man as he came +through the upper hall. When the bulk filled the doorway it was covered +by the pistol held low, and Griswold's finger was pressing the trigger. + +"Asleep, old man?" said the intruder in Raymer's well-known voice. + +There was a sound like a gasping sob, and another as of a drawer closing +softly. Then Griswold said: "No; I'm not asleep. Come in. Shall I light +the gas?" + +"Not for me," returned the bedtime visitor, entering and groping for the +chair at the desk-end, into which, when he had placed it, he dropped +wearily. "I want to smoke," he went on. "Have you got a cigar--no, not +the pipe; I want something that I can chew on." + +A cigar was found, in the drawer which had so lately furnished the +weapon, and by the flare of the match in Raymer's fingers Griswold saw a +face haggard with anxiety. In the kindlier days it had been one of his +redeeming characteristics that he could never dwell long upon his own +harassments when another's troubles were brought to him. + +"What is the matter, Edward?" he asked. + +"A mix-up with the labor unions. It's been brewing for some little time, +but I didn't want to worry you with it. Unless we announce a flat +increase of twenty per cent in wages to-morrow morning, and declare for +the closed shop, the men will go out on us at noon. I've seen it coming. +It began with the enlarging of the plant and the taking on of the new +men needed. We've always had the open shop, as you know, and it was all +right so long as we were too small for the unions to scrap about. But +now we get the Iron Workers' ultimatum: we can do as we please about +the profit-sharing; but the flat increase must go on the pay-rolls, and +the shop must be run as a closed shop." + +If the god of mischance had chosen the moment it could not have been +more opportune for the fire-lighting of malevolence. Griswold's +swing-chair righted itself with a click, and Bainbridge's prophecy that +a hot-hearted proletary was likely to become the hardest of masters +became a prediction fulfilled. + +"We'll see them in hell, first, Raymer! Isn't that the way you feel +about it?" + +"Partly," allowed the smoker. "But it can hardly be disposed of that +easily, Kenneth. A good third of the men are our old standbys; men who +were in the shops under my father. Some pretty powerful influence has +been brought to bear upon them to swing them against us. I don't know +what it is, but I do know this: every second man we have hired lately +has turned out to be either a loud-mouthed agitator or a silent mixer of +trouble medicine." + +"Let the causes go for the present," said Griswold shortly. "We're +talking about the men, now. The ungrateful beggars are merely proving +that it isn't in human nature to meet justice and fairness and generous +liberality half-way. If they want a fight, give it to them. Hit first +and hit hard; that's the way to do. Shut up the plant and make it a +lock-out." + +"I was afraid you might say something like that in the first heat of +it," said the young ironmaster. "It's a stout fighting word, and I +guess, under the skin, you're a stout fighting man, Kenneth--which I'm +not. Where are your convictions about the man-to-man obligations? We've +got to take them into the account, haven't we?" + +"Damn the convictions!" snapped Griswold viciously. "If I've been giving +you the impression that I'm an impracticable theorist, forget it. These +fellows want a fight: I say give them a fight--all they want of it and a +little more for good measure." + +Raymer did not reply at once. This latest Griswold was puzzling him, and +with the puzzlement there went sorrowful regret; the regret that has +been the recanter's portion in all the ages. When he spoke it was out of +the heart of common sense and sanity. + +"I know how you feel about it; I had a little attack of the same sort +this afternoon when the grievance committee dropped down on me. But +facts are pretty stubborn things, and they've got us foul. We have +twenty thousand dollars' worth of work for the Pineboro road on the shop +tracks, and the trouble-makers have picked their opportunity. If we +can't turn out this work, we'll lose the Pineboro's business, which, as +I have told you, is a pretty big slice of our business. Under such +conditions I don't dare to pull down a fight which may not only shut us +up for an indefinite time, but might even go far enough to smash us." + +Griswold took his turn of silence, rocking gently in the tilting chair. +When the delayed rejoinder came, the harshness had gone out of his +voice, but there was a cynical hardness to take its place. + +"It's your affair; not mine," he said. "If you've made up your mind not +to fight, of course, that settles it. Now we can come down to the +causes. You've been stabbed in the back. Do you know who's doing it?" + +"The Federated Iron Workers, I suppose." + +"Not in a thousand years! They are only the means to an end." The +tilting chair squeaked again, and he went on: "If I'm going to show you +how you can dodge this fight, I'll have to knock down a door or two +first. If I blunder in where I'm not wanted, you can kick me out. There +is one way in which you can cure all this trouble-sickness without +resorting to surgery and blood-letting." + +"Name it," said Raymer eagerly. + +"I will; but first I'll have to break over into the personalities. Have +you made up your mind that you are going to marry Margery Grierson?" + +Raymer laughed silently, leaning his head back on the cushion of the +lazy-chair until his cigar stood upright. + +"That's a nice way to biff a man in the dark!" he chuckled. "But if +you're in earnest I'll tell you the straightforward truth: I don't +know." + +"Why don't you know?" If there were a scowl to go with the query, Raymer +could not see it. + +"I'll be frank with you again, Kenneth. What little sentiment there is +in me leans pretty heavily that way. You have been with her a good bit +and you know her--know how she appeals to any man with a drop of red +blood in him. But I'm twenty-eight years old and well past the time +when the young man's fancy lightly turns--and all that. I can't ignore +the--the--well, the proprieties, you might say, though that isn't +exactly the word." + +"You mean that Margery Grierson doesn't measure up to the requirements +of the Wahaskan Four Hundred?" There was satirical scorn in the +observation, but Raymer did not perceive it. + +"Oh, I don't know as you would put it quite that baldly," he protested. +"But you see, when it comes to marrying and settling down and raising a +family, you have to look at all sides of the thing. The father, as we +all know, is a cold-blooded old werewolf; the mother nobody knows +anything about save that--happily, in all probability--she isn't living. +And there you are. Yet I won't deny that there are times when I'm +tempted to shut my eyes and take the high dive, anyway--at the risk of +splashing a lot of good people who would doubtless be properly +scandalized." + +By this time Griswold was gripping the arms of his chair savagely and +otherwise trying to hold himself down; but this, too, Raymer could not +know. + +"You have reason to believe that it rests wholly with you, I suppose?" +came from the tilting chair after a little pause. "Miss Grierson is only +waiting for you to speak?" + +"That's a horrible question to ask a man, Kenneth--even in the dark. If +I say yes to it, it can't sound any other way than boastful and--and +caddish. Yet I honestly believe that-- Oh, hang it all! can't you see +how impossible you're making it, old man?" + +"Not impossible; only a trifle difficult," was the qualifying rejoinder. +"It is easier from this on. That is the peaceful way out of the shop +trouble for you, Raymer. When you can go to Jasper Grierson and tell him +you are going to marry his daughter, the trouble will be as good as +cured." + +For a little time Raymer was speechless. Then he burst out. + +"Well, I'll be-- Jove, Griswold, you don't lack much of being as +cold-blooded as the old buccaneer himself! What makes you think he is +stirring up the trouble?" + +"It doesn't require any special thought. He wanted to freeze you out a +little while back, and you balked him. Now he has come back at you +another way." + +"I wonder!" said the iron-founder musingly; and then: "I more than half +believe you are right. But if you are, do you realize what you are +proposing?" + +"I am not proposing anything; I am merely suggesting. But you needn't +put in the factor of doubt. This labor trouble that is threatening to +smash you is Jasper Grierson's reply to the move you made when you let +me in and choked him off. He is reaching for you." + +Again Raymer held his peace and the atmosphere of the room grew pungent +with tobacco smoke. + +"I'm feeling a good bit like a yellow dog, Kenneth," he said, at length. +"After what I've admitted and what you've said, I'm left in the +position of the poor devil who would be damned if he did and be damned +if he didn't. You have succeeded in fixing it so that I _can't_ ask +Margery Grierson to be my wife, however much I'd like to." + +"That isn't the point," insisted Griswold half-savagely. "How you may +feel about it, or what your people may say, is purely secondary. The +thing to be considered is, what will happen to Miss Grierson?" + +"Oh, the devil! if you put it that way----" + +"I am putting it precisely that way." + +"Why, see here, old man; if you were Madge's brother, you couldn't be +putting the screws on any harder! What's got into you to-night?" + +Griswold was inexorable. + +"Miss Grierson hasn't any brother, and she might as well not have any +father--better, perhaps. As God hears me, Raymer, I'm going to see to it +that she gets a square deal." + +"In other words, if she has made up her clever little mind that she +wants to be Mrs. Ed. Raymer----" + +"That is it, exactly." + +"By George! I believe you are in love with her, yourself!" + +"I am," was the cool reply. + +"Well, of all the-- Say, Griswold, you're a three-cornered puzzle to me +yet. I don't know what the other three-fourths of the town is saying, +but my fourth of it has it put up that you've everlastingly cooked my +goose at Doctor Bertie's; that you and Charlotte are just about as good +as engaged. Perhaps you'll tell me that it isn't true." + +"It isn't--yet." + +"But it may be, later on? Now you are getting over into my little +garden-patch, Kenneth. If you think I'm going to stand still and see you +put a wedding ring on Charlotte Farnham's finger when I know you'd like +to be putting it on Madge Grierson's----" + +Griswold's low laugh came as an easing of stresses. + +"You can't very well marry both of them, yourself, you know," he +suggested mildly. And then: "If you were not so badly torn up over this +shop trouble, you'd see that I'm trying to give you the entire field. I +shall probably leave town to-morrow, and I merely wanted to do you, or +Miss Grierson, or both of you, a small kindness by way of leave-taking." + +"Leave town?" echoed the iron-founder. "Where are you going?" + +"I don't know yet." + +"But you are coming back?" + +"No." + +Once more Raymer puffed at the shortened cigar until the end of it +glowed like a small distress signal in the dark. + +"Tell me," he broke out finally: "has Margery Grierson turned you down?" + +"No." + +"Then Charlotte has?" + +"No." + +"Confound it all! can't you say anything but 'No'? Do you mean to tell +me that you are going away, leaving me bucked and gagged by this labor +outfit to live or die as I may? Great Scott, man! if my money's gone, +yours goes with it!" + +"You are freely welcome to the money, Edward--if you can manage to hang +on to it; and I have pointed out the easy way to salvage the industrial +ship. Can't you give me your blessing and let me go in peace?" + +The blessing was not withheld, but neither was it given. + +"I came here with my own back-load of trouble, but it seems that I'm not +the only camel in the caravan," said the young ironmaster, thoughtfully. +"What is it, Kenneth? anything you can unload on me?" + +"You wouldn't understand," was the gentle evasion. "I can only give you +my word that neither Miss Margery nor Miss Charlotte are in any way +concerned in it." + +"And you don't want to draw your money out of the plant?" + +"No. For your sake I wish I had more to put in." + +Once again Raymer took refuge in silence. After a time he said: "You've +been a brother to me, Griswold, and I shall never forget that. But if I +needed your help in the money pinch, I'm needing it worse now. I'll do +the right thing by Margery; I think I've been meaning to, all along; if +I haven't, it's only because this whole town has been fixing up a match +between Charlotte and me ever since we were school kids together--you +know how a fellow gets into the way of taking a thing like that for +granted merely because everybody else does?" + +"Yes; I know." + +"Well, I guess it isn't a heart-breaker on either side. If Charlotte +cares, she doesn't take the trouble to show it. Just the same, on the +other hand, I've got a shred or two of decency left, Kenneth. I'm not +going to marry myself out of this fight with Jasper Grierson--not in a +million years. Stay over and help me see it through; and when we win +out, I promise you I'll do the square thing." + +By no means could Edward Raymer know that he had set the whispering +devil at work again at the ear of the man who was rocking gently in the +desk-chair. But the demon was busily suggesting, and the man was +listening. Was there not more than an even chance that Andrew Galbraith +would die, after all? He was old, with the life-reserves spent and the +weight of the years upon him. And if he should not die, there was still +a chance that days might elapse before he would be able to gather +himself sufficiently to remember and to raise the hue and cry. Griswold +put a hot hand across the corner of the table and felt for Raymer's cool +one. + +"There's only one other way, Edward; and that is to fight like the +devil," he said, speaking as one who has weighed and measured and +decided. "What do you say?" + +"If you will stay," Raymer began, hesitantly. + +"I'll stay--as long as I can." Then, with the note of harshness +returning: "We'll make the fight, and we'll give these muckers of yours +all they are looking for. Shut the plant doors to-morrow morning and +make it a lock-out. I'll be over bright and early and we'll place a +bunch of wire orders in the cities for strike-breakers. That will bring +them to time." + +Raymer got up slowly and felt in the dark for his hat. + +"Strike-breakers!" he groaned. "Griswold, it would make my father turn +over in his coffin if he could know that we've come to that! But I guess +you're right. Everybody says I'm too soft-hearted to be a master of men. +Well, I must be getting home. To-morrow morning, at the plant? All +right; good-night." + +And he turned to grope his way to the door and through the dark upper +hall and down the stair. + + + + +XXXI + +NARROWING WALLS + + +When Griswold had reached across the corner of his writing-table in the +unlighted study to strike hands with Edward Raymer upon the promise to +stay and help, it is conceivable that he gave the impelling motive its +just due. To step aside was to become a fugitive, leaving a fugitive's +plain trail and half-confession of guilt behind him to direct the +pursuit. To stay and face the crisis coldly was equally out of the +question for a man of temperament. The call to action came as a draught +of fiery wine to the overspent and he accepted in a sudden upsurge of +self-centring that took nothing into the account save the welcome +excitement of a conflict. + +It was with rather more than less of the self-centring that he joined +the conference with Raymer and the shop bosses in the offices of the +plant the following morning. Having slept upon the quarrel, Raymer was +on the conciliatory hand, and four of the five department foremen were +with him. In the early hours of the forenoon a compromise was still +possible. The prompt closing of the shops had had its effect, and a +deputation of the older workmen came to plead for arbitration and a +peaceful settlement of the trouble. Raymer, who had evidently been +taking counsel with his womankind, would have consented to this +proposal, but Griswold fought it and finally carried his point. "No +compromise" was the answer sent back to the locked-out workmen, and with +it went the ultimatum, which Griswold himself snapped out at the leader +of the conciliators: "Tell your committee that it is unconditional +surrender, and it must be made before five o'clock this afternoon. +Otherwise, not a man of you can come back on any terms." + +At the hurling of this firebrand, three of the five department heads +drew their pay-envelopes and went away. Then Griswold proceeded to make +the breach impassable by calling upon the sheriff for a guard of +deputies. Raymer shook his head gloomily when the thrower of firebrands +sent the 'phone message to the sheriff's office. + +"That settles it beyond any hope of a patch-up," he said sorrowfully. +"If we hadn't declared war before, we've done it now. I'm prophesying +that nobody will weaken when it comes to the pay-roll test this +afternoon." + +"Because we have taken steps to protect our property?" rasped the +fighting partner. + +"Because we have taken the step which serves notice upon them that we +consider them criminals, at least in intention. You'd resent it +yourself, Griswold. If anybody should pull the law on you before you had +done anything to deserve it, I'm much mistaken if you wouldn't----" + +"Oh, hell!" was the biting interruption; and Raymer could not know upon +what inward fires he had unwittingly flung a handful of inflammables. + +It was during the paying-off interval in the afternoon that Broffin +strolled across the railroad tracks, and, after listening to one or two +of the incendiary speeches at the storm-centre mass meeting in front of +McGuire's, went on past the potteries to the Raymer plant. + +Several things had happened since the afternoon when he had sat behind +the sheltering window curtain in the writing-room of the summer-resort +hotel listening to Miss Grierson's story. For one, Teller Johnson, of +the Bayou State Security, had pleaded his inability to leave his post +unless ordered to do so by the president: the cashier was sick and the +bank was short-handed. For another, there had been a peppery protest +entered by the good Doctor Bertie--transformed for the moment into an +exasperated Doctor Bertie. If Broffin did not quit his annoying +espionage upon the house in Lake Boulevard, and upon the visitors +thereto, there was going to be trouble, and he, Doctor Bertie, would be +the trouble-maker. For a third untoward thing, he had found that Wahaska +as a community was beginning to look a little askance at him. The +village consciousness which had made it so easy for him to find out all +he wished to know about everybody was turning against him, and now, as +it seemed, everybody was wishing to know more than he cared to tell +about the past, present, and future concerns of one Matthew Broffin: in +short, he was becoming a suspicious character. + +Broffin the pertinacious, again with an unlighted cigar between his +teeth, was ruminating thoughtfully over these things when he came in +sight of the closed gates and smokeless chimneys of the Foundry and +Machine Works. Once more the scent had grown cold. Miss Grierson's story +had seemed to clear Griswold--if anything short of a court acquittal +could clear him; and in the peppery interview Doctor Farnham had told +him plainly that, if Mr. Griswold were the object of his attentions, he +was barking up the wrong tree; that Miss Farnham would, if necessary, go +into court and testify that Mr. Griswold was not the man whom she had +seen in the Bayou State Security. Also, Griswold was doing something for +himself. It was he who had pulled Mr. Galbraith out of the lake little +better than a dead man, and had brought him to life again; and now he +was taking an active part in the foundry fight--about the last thing +that might be expected of a man dodging the police. + +In spite of all these buffetings the man from Tennessee was only +bruised; not beaten. It is possible to be convinced without evidence; to +believe without being able to prove. Also, convincement may grow into +certainty as the evidence to support it becomes altogether incertitude. +Broffin was as sure now that Griswold was his man as he was of his own +present inability to prove it. Which is to say that he had discounted +Miss Farnham's refusal to help, and President Galbraith's refusal to +remember; was discounting Miss Grierson's skilfully told story, and +Griswold's breaking of all the criminal precedents by staying on in +Wahaska after he had been warned. For Broffin made no doubt that the +warning had been given, either by Miss Farnham or by Miss Grierson--or +both. + +"All the same, he'll make a miss-go, sooner or later," the pertinacious +one was saying to himself as he strolled past the Raymer plant with a +keen eye for the barred gates, the lounging guards in the yard, and the +sober-faced workmen coming and going at the pay-office. "If he can carry +a steady head through what's comin' to him here, he's a better man than +I've been stacking him up to be." + +Coming even with the grouping around the office door, Broffin sat down +on a discarded cylinder casting, chewed his dry smoke, whittled a stick, +and kept an open ear for the sidewalk talk. It was angrily vindictive +for the greater part, with the new member of the Raymer company for a +target. Now and then it was threatening. If the company should attempt +to bring in foreign labor there would be blood on the moon. + +Later, a big, red-faced man with his hat on the back of his head and a +paste diamond in his shirt bosom, came to join the shifting group on the +office sidewalk. Broffin marked him as one of the inflammatory speakers +he had seen and heard on the dry-goods-box rostrum in front of +McGuire's, and had since been trying to place. The nearer view turned +up the proper page in the mental note-book. The man's name was Clancy; +he was a Chicago ward-worker, sham labor leader, demagogue; a bad man +with a "pull." Broffin remembered the "pull" because it had once got in +his way when he was trying to bag Clancy for a violation of the revenue +laws. + +Instantly the detective began to speculate upon the chance that had +brought the Chicago ward bully into a village labor fight, and since it +was his business to put two and two together, he was not long in finding +the answer to his own query. Clancy had come because he had been hired +to come. Assuming this much, the remainder was easy. The town gossips +had supplied all the major facts of the Raymer-Grierson checkmate, and +Broffin saw a great light. It was not labor and capital that were at +odds; it was competition and monopoly. And monopoly, invoking the aid of +the Clancys, stood to win in a canter. + +Broffin dropped the stick he had been whittling and got up to move away. +Though some imaginative persons would have it otherwise, a detective may +still be a man of like passions--and generous prepossessions--with other +men. For the time Broffin's Anglo-Saxon heritage, the love of fair play, +made him forget the limitations of his trade. "By grapples, the old +swine!" he was muttering to himself as he made a slow circuit of the +plant enclosure. "Somebody ought to tell them two young ducks what +they're up against. For a picayune, I'd do it, myself. Huh!--and the +little black-eyed girl playin' fast an' loose with both of 'em at once +while the old money-octippus eats 'em alive!" + +Thus Broffin, circling the Raymer works by way of the four enclosing +streets; and when his back was turned the man called Clancy pointed him +out to the group of discontents. + +"D'ye see that felly doublin' the fence corner? Ye're a fine lot of jays +up here in th' backwoods! Do I know him? Full well I do! An' that shows, +ye what honest workin'men has got to come to, these days. Didn't ye see +him sittin' there on that castin'? Th' bosses put him there to keep +tricks on ye. If ye have the nerve of a bunch of hoboes, ye'll watch yer +chances and step on him like a cockroach. He's a Pinkerton!" + + + + +XXXII + +THE LION'S SHARE + + +Wahaska, microcosmic and village-conscious in spite of its city charter, +was duly thrilled and excited when, on the day following the storm and +shipwreck, it found itself the scene of an angry conflict between +capital and labor. + +Reports varied as to the origin of the trouble. Among the retired +farmers, who still called Raymer "Eddie" and spoke of him as "John +Raymer's boy," it was the generally expressed opinion that he was both +too young and too easy-going to be a successful industry captain in the +larger field he had lately entered. In the workingmen's quarter, which +lay principally beyond the railroad tracks, public opinion was less +lenient and the young ironmaster, figuring hitherto only as a good boss +with a few unnecessary college ideas, was denounced as a "kid-glove" +reformer who made his profit-sharing fad an excuse for advancing his +favorites, and who was accordingly to be "brought to time" by the strong +hand of the organization. + +It was a crude surprise, both to the West Side and to "Pottery Flat," to +find the new book-writing partner not only taking an active part in the +fight, but apparently directing the capitalistic hostilities with a +high hand. Quite early in the forenoon it was known on the street that +Griswold had taken the field with Raymer; that the lock-out was his +reply to the strike notice; and that it was at his suggestion that a +dozen deputies had been sworn in to guard the Raymer plant--the iron +works lying just outside of the corporation lines. A little later came +the news that he had sent a counter ultimatum to the representatives of +the labor forces sitting in permanence in their hall over McGuire's +saloon. From two o'clock until five the offices of the plant would be +open, and all former employees would be paid in full and discharged. +Those who failed to make application between the hours named would not +be taken back on any terms. + +From two to five in the afternoon Wahaska, figuratively speaking, held +its breath. At half-past three, young Dahlgren, of the _Daily Wahaskan_, +spoiled a good story for his own paper by spreading the report that most +of the men had sullenly drawn their pay, but as yet not a man of them +had signed on for further employment. At four o'clock the _Daily +Wahaskan's_ windows bore a bulletin to the effect that a mass +indignation meeting was in progress in front of the Pottery Flat saloon; +and at half-past four it was whispered about that war had been declared. +Raymer and Griswold were telegraphing for strike-breakers; and the men +were swearing that the plant would be picketed and that scabs would be +dealt with as traitors and enemies. + +It was between half-past four and five that Miss Grierson, driving in +the basket phaeton, made her appearance on the streets, evoking the +usual ripple of comment among the gossipers on the Winnebago porch as +she tooled her clean-limbed little Morgan to a stop in front of the +Farmers' and Merchants' Bank. + +Since it was long past the closing hours, the curtains were drawn in the +bank doors and street-facing windows. But there was a side entrance, and +when she tapped on the glass of the door an obsequious janitor made +haste to admit her. "Yo' paw's busy, right now, Miss Mahg'ry," the negro +said; but she ignored the hint and went straight to the door of the +private room, entering without warning. + +As the janitor had intimated, her father was not alone. In the chair at +the desk-end sat a man florid of face, hard-eyed and gross-bodied. His +hat was on the back of his head, and clamped between his teeth under the +bristling mustaches he held one of Jasper Grierson's fat black cigars. +The conference paused when the door opened; but when Margery crossed the +room and perched herself on the deep seat of the farthest window, it +went on in guarded tones at a silent signal from the banker to his +visitor. + +There was a trade journal lying in the window-seat, and Miss Grierson +took it up to become idly immersed in a study of the advertising +pictures. If she listened to the low-toned talk it was only +mechanically, one would say. Yet there was a quickening of the breath +now and again, and a pressing of the white teeth upon the ripe lower +lip, as she turned the pages of the advertising supplement; these, +though only detached sentences of the talk drifted across to her +window-seat. + +"You're fixed to put the entire responsibility for the ruction over onto +the other side of the house?" was one of the overheard sentences: it was +her father's query, and she also heard the answer. "We're goin' to put +'em in bad, don't you forget it. There'll be some broken heads, most +likely, and if they're ours, somebody'll pay for 'em." A little farther +along it was her father who said: "You've got to quit this running to +me. Keep to your own side of the fence. Murray's got his orders, and +he'll pay the bills. If anything breaks loose, I won't know you. Get +that?" "I'm on," said the red-faced man; and shortly afterward he took +his leave. + +When the door had closed behind the man who looked like a ward heeler or +a walking delegate, and who had been both, and many other and more +questionable things, by turns, Jasper Grierson swung his huge chair to +face the window. + +"Well?" he said, "how's Galbraith coming along?" + +"There is no change," was the sober rejoinder. "He is still lying in a +half-stupor, just as he was last night and this morning. Doctor Farnham +shakes his head and won't say anything." + +"You mustn't let him die," warned the man in the big chair, half +jocularly. "There's too much money in him." + +The smouldering fires in the daughter's eyes leaped up at the +provocation lurking in the grim brutality; but they were dying down +again when she put the trade journal aside and said: "I didn't come here +to tell you about Mr. Galbraith. I came to give you notice that it is +time to quit." + +"Time to quit what?" + +"You know. When I asked you to put Mr. Raymer under obligations to you, +I said I'd tell you when it was time to stop." + +Jasper Grierson sat back in his chair and chuckled. + +"Lord love you!" he said, "I'd clean forgot that you had a tea-party +stake in that game, Madgie; I had, for a fact!" + +"Well, it is time to remember it," was the cool reply. + +"What was I to remember?" + +"That you were to turn around and help him out of his trouble when I +gave you the word." + +The president of the Farmers' and Merchants' tilted his chair to the +lounging angle and laughed; a slow gurgling laugh that spread from lip +to eye and thence abroad through his great frame until he shook like a +grotesque incarnation of the god of mirth. + +"I was to turn around and help him out of the hole, was I? Oh, no; I +guess not," he denied. "It's business now, little girl, and the +tea-fights are barred. I'll give you a check for that span o' blacks you +were looking at, and we'll call it square." + +"Does that mean that you intend to go on until you have smashed him?" +she asked, quietly ignoring the putative bribe. + +"I'm going to put him out of business--him and that other fool friend of +yours--if that's what you mean." + +Again the sudden lightning glowed in Margery Grierson's eyes, but, as +before, the flash was only momentary. There was passion enough in blood +and brain, but there was also a will, and the will was the stronger. + +"Please!" she besought him. + +"Please what?" + +"Please ruin somebody else, and let Mr.----let these two go!" + +Grierson's laugh this time was brutally sardonic. + +"So you're caught at last, are you, girlie? I was wondering if you +wouldn't come out o' that pool with the hook in your mouth. But you +might as well pull loose, even if it does hurt a little. Raymer and +Griswold have got to come under." + +She looked across at him steadily and again there was a struggle, short +and sharp, between the leaping passions and the indomitable will. Yet +she could speak softly. + +"That is your last word, is it?" + +"You can call it that, if you like: yes." + +"What is the reason? Why do you hate these two so desperately?" she +asked. + +Jasper Grierson fanned away the nimbus of cigar smoke with which he had +surrounded himself and stared gloomily at her through the rift. + +"Who said anything about hating?" he derided. "That's a fool woman's +notion. This is business, and there ain't any such thing as hate in +business. Raymer's iron-shop happens to be in the road of a bigger +thing, and it's got to move out; that's all." + +She nodded slowly. "I thought so," she said, half-absently: "and the +'bigger thing' has some more money in it for you. Oh, how I do despise +it all!" + +"Oh, no, you don't," he contradicted, falling back into the half-jocular +vein. "You're a pretty good spender, yourself, Madgie. If you didn't +have plenty of money to eat and drink and wear and breathe----" + +"I hate it!" she said coldly. Then she dragged the talk back to the +channel it was leaving. "I ought to have broken in sooner; I might have +known what you would do. You are responsible for this labor trouble they +are having over at the iron works. Don't bother to deny it; I know. That +was your 'heeler'--the man you had here when I came. You don't play fair +with many people: don't you think you'd better make an exception of me?" + +Grierson was mouthing his cigar again and the smoky nimbus was +thickening to its customary density when he said: "You're nothing but a +spoiled baby, Madge. If you'd cry for the moon, you'd think you ought to +have it. I've said my say, and that's all there is to it. Trot along +home and 'tend to your tea-parties: that's your part of the game. I can +play my hand alone." + +She slipped out of the window-seat and crossed the room quickly to stand +before him. + +"I'll go, when you have answered one question," she said, the suppressed +passions finding their way into her voice. "I've asked for bread and +you've given me a stone. I've said 'please' to you, and you slapped me +for it. Do you think you can afford to shove me over to the other side?" + +"I don't know what you're driving at, now," was the even-toned +rejoinder. + +"Don't you? Then I'll tell you. You have been pinching this town for the +lion's share ever since we came here--shaking it down as you used to +shake down the"--she broke off short, and again the indomitable will got +the better of the seething passions. "We'll let the by-gones go, and +come down to the present. What if some of the things you are doing here +and now should get into print?" + +"For instance?" he suggested, when she paused. + +"This Raymer affair, for one thing. You don't own the _Wahaskan_--yet: +supposing it should come out to-morrow morning with the true story of +this disgraceful piece of buccaneering, telling how you tried first to +squeeze him through the bank loan, and when that failed, how you bribed +his workmen to make trouble?" + +"You go to Randolph and try it," said the gray wolf, jeeringly. "In the +first place, he wouldn't believe it--coming from you. He wouldn't forget +that you're my daughter, however much you are trying to forget it. In +the next place he'd want proof--damned good proof--if he was going to +make a fight on me. He'd know that one of two things would happen; if he +failed to get me, I'd get him." + +The daughter who had asked for bread and had been given a stone put her +face in her hands and moved toward the door. But at the last moment she +turned again like a spiteful little tiger-cat at bay. + +"You think I can't prove it? That is where you fall down. I can convince +Mr. Randolph if I choose to try. And that isn't all: I can tell him how +you have planned to sell Mr. Galbraith a tract of 'virgin' pine that has +been culled over for the best timber at least three times in the past +five years!" + +Jasper Grierson started from his chair and made a quick clutch into +smoky space. "Madge--you little devil!" he gritted. + +But the grasping hands closed upon nothing, and the sound of the closing +door was his only answer. + + * * * * * + +When she had unhitched the little Morgan and had driven away from the +bank, Miss Grierson did a thing unprecedented in any of her former +grapplings with a crisis--she hesitated. Twice she drove down Sioux +Avenue with the apparent intention of stopping at the _Daily Wahaskan_ +building, and twice she went on past with no more than an irresolute +glance for the upper windows beyond which lay the editorial rooms and +the office of Mr. Carter Randolph, the owner of the newspaper. But on +the third circuit of the square, decision had evidently come to its own +again. Turning the mare into Main Street, she drove quickly to the +Winnebago House and drew up at the carriage step. A bell-boy ran out to +hold the horse, but she shook her head and called him to the wheel of +the phaeton to slip a coin into his hand and to give him a brief +message. + +Two minutes after the boy's disappearance, Broffin came out and touched +his hat to the trim little person in the basket seat. + +"You wanted to see me, Miss Grierson?" he said, shelving his surprise, +if he had any. + +"Yes. You are Mr. Matthew Broffin, of the Colburne Detective Agency, are +you not?" she asked, sweetly. + +Broffin took the privilege of the accused and lied promptly. + +"Not that anybody ever heard of, I reckon," he denied, matching the +smile in the inquiring eyes. + +"How curious!" she commented. + +Broffin's smile became a grin of triumph. "There's a heap o' curious +things in this little old world," he volunteered. "What?" + +"But none quite so singular as this," she averred. Then she laughed +softly. "You see, it resolves itself into a question of +veracity--between you and Mr. Andrew Galbraith. You say you are not, and +he says you are. Which am I to believe?" + +Broffin did some pretty swift thinking. There had been times when he +had fancied that Miss Grierson, rather than Miss Farnham, might be the +key to his problem. There was one chance in a thousand that she might +inadvertently put the key into his hands if he should play his cards +skilfully, and he took the chance. + +"You can call it a mistake of mine, if you like," he yielded; and she +nodded brightly. + +"That is better; now we can go on comfortably. Are you too busy to take +a little commission from me?" + +"Maybe not. What is it?" He was looking for a trap, and would not commit +himself too broadly. + +"There are two things that I wish to know definitely. Of course, you +have heard about the accident on the lake? Mr. Galbraith is at our +house, and he is very ill--out of his head most of the time. He is +continually trying to tell some one whom he calls 'MacFarland' to be +careful. Do you know any one of that name?" + +Broffin put a foot on the phaeton step and a hand on the dash. There +were loungers on the hotel porch and it was not necessary for them to +hear. + +"Yes; MacFarland is his confidential man in the bank," he returned. + +"Oh; that explains it. But what is it that Mr. Galbraith wants him to be +careful about?" + +Again Broffin thought quickly. If he should tell the plain truth.... +"Tell me one thing, Miss Grierson," he said bluntly. "Am I doin' +business with you, or with your father?" + +"Most emphatically, with me, Mr. Broffin." + +"All right; everything goes, then. Mr. Galbraith has been figurin' on +buying some pine lands up north." + +"I know that much. Go on." + +"And he has sent MacFarland up to verify the boundary records on the +county survey." + +"To Duluth?" + +Broffin nodded. + +"I thought so," she affirmed. And then: "The records are all right, Mr. +Broffin; but the lands which Mr. MacFarland will be shown will not be +the lands which Mr. Galbraith is talking of buying. I want evidence of +this--in black and white. Can you telegraph to some one in Duluth?" + +Broffin permitted himself a small sigh of relief. He thought he had seen +the trap; that she was going to try to get him away from Wahaska. + +"I can do better than that," he offered. "I can send a man from St. +Paul; a good safe man who will do just what he is told to do--and keep +his mouth shut." + +She nodded approvingly. + +"Do it; and tell your messenger that time is precious and expense +doesn't count. That is the first half of your commission. Come a little +closer and I'll tell you the second half." + +Broffin bent his head and she whispered the remainder of his +instructions. When she had finished he looked up and wagged his head +apprehendingly. + +"Yes; I see what you mean--and it's none o' my business what you mean +it for," he answered. "I'll get the evidence, if there is any." + +"It must be like the other; in black and white," she stipulated. "And +you needn't say 'if.' Look for a red-faced man with stiff mustaches and +a big make-believe diamond in his shirt-front, and make him tell you." + +Broffin wagged his head again. "There ain't goin' to be any grand jury +business about it, is there?" he questioned; adding: "I know your +man--saw him this afternoon over at the plant. He's goin' to be a tough +customer to handle unless I can tell him there ain't goin' to be any +come-back in the courts." + +Miss Grierson was opening her purse and she passed a yellow-backed +bank-note to her newest confederate. + +"Your retainer," she explained. "And about the red-faced man: we sha'n't +take him into court. But I'd rather you wouldn't buy him, if you can +help it. Can't you get him like this, some way?"--she held up a thumb +and finger tightly pressed together. + +Broffin's grin this time was wholly of appreciation. + +"You're the right kind--the kind that leads trumps all the while, Miss +Grierson," he told her. Then he did the manly thing. "I'll go into this, +just as you say--what? But it's only fair to warn you that it may turn +up some things that'll feaze you. You know that old sayin' about +sleepin' dogs?" + +Miss Grierson was gathering the reins over the little Morgan's back and +her black eyes snapped. + +"This is one time when we are going to kick the dogs and make them wake +up," she returned. "Good-by, Mr. Broffin." + + + + +XXXIII + +GATES OF BRASS + + +It was an hour beyond the normal quitting time on the day of ultimatums +and counter-threatenings, the small office force had gone home, and the +night squad of deputies had come to relieve the day guard. Griswold +closed the spare desk in the manager's room and twirled his chair to +face Raymer. + +"We may as well go and get something to eat," he suggested. "There will +be nothing doing to-night." + +Raymer began to put his desk in order. + +"No, not to-night. The trouble will begin when we try to start up with a +new force. Call it a weakness if you like, but I dread it, Kenneth." + +Griswold's smile was a mere baring of the teeth. "That's all right, Ned; +you do the dreading and I'll do the fighting," he said; adding: "What +we've had to-day has merely whetted my appetite." + +The man of peace shook his head dejectedly. + +"I can't understand it," he protested. "Up to last night I was calling +you a benevolent Socialist, and my only fear was that you might some +time want to reorganize things and turn the plant into a little section +of Utopia. Now you are out-heroding Herod on the other side." + +Griswold got up and crushed his soft hat upon his head. + +"Only fools and dead folk are denied the privilege of changing their +minds," he returned. "Let's go up to the Winnebago and feed." + +The dinner to which they sat down a little later was a small feast of +silence. Each was busy with his own thoughts, and it was not until after +the coffee had been served that Griswold leaned across the table to call +Raymer's attention to a man who was finishing his meal in a distant +corner of the dining-room, a swarthy-faced man who drank his coffee with +the meat course to the unpleasant detriment of a pair of long drooping +mustaches. + +"Wait a minute before you look around, and then tell me who that fellow +is over on the right--the man with the black mustaches," he directed. + +Raymer looked and shook his head. + +"He's a new-comer--comparatively; somebody at the club said he gave +himself out for a lumberman from Louisiana." + +Griswold was nodding slowly. "His name?" he asked. + +"I can't remember. It's an odd name; Boffin, or Giffin, or something +like that. They're beginning to say now that he isn't a lumberman at +all--just why, I don't know." + +Griswold's right hand stole softly to his hip pocket. The touch was +reassuring. But a little while after, when he was leaving the +dining-room with Raymer, he dropped behind and made a quick transfer of +something from the hip pocket to the side pocket of his coat. His hand +was still in the coat pocket when he parted from the young iron-founder +on the sidewalk. + +"You'll be going home, I suppose?" he said. + +Raymer made a wry face. + +"Yes; and I wish to gracious you were the one who had to face my mother +and sister. They're all for peace, you know--peace at any old price." + +Griswold laughed. + +"Tell them we're going to have peace if we are obliged to fight for it. +And don't let them swing you. If we back down now we may as well go into +court and ask for a receiver. Good-night." + +Though he had not betrayed it, Griswold was fiercely impatient to get +away. One tremendous question had been dominating all others from the +earliest moment of the morning awakening, and all day long it had fed +upon doubtings and uncertainty. Would Andrew Galbraith recover from the +effects of the drowning accident? At first, he thought he would go to +his room and telephone to Margery. But before he had reached the foot of +Shawnee Street he had changed his mind. What he wanted to say could +scarcely be trusted to the wires. + +Twice before he reached the gate of the Grierson lawn he fancied he was +followed, and twice he stepped behind the nearest shade-tree and +tightened his grip upon the thing in his right-hand pocket. But both +times the rearward sidewalk showed itself empty. Since false alarms may +have, for the moment, all the shock of the real, he found that his hands +were trembling when he came to unlatch the Grierson gate, and it made +him vindictively self-scornful. Also, it gave him a momentary glimpse +into another and hitherto unmeasured depth in the valley of stumblings. +In the passing of the glimpse he was made to realize that it is the +coward who kills; and kills because he is a coward. + +He had traversed the stone-flagged approach and climbed the steps of the +broad veranda to reach for the bell-push when he heard his name called +softly in the voice that he had come to know in all of its many +modulations. The call came from the depths of one of the great wicker +lounging-chairs half-hidden in the veranda shadows. In a moment he had +placed another of the chairs for himself, dropping into it wearily. + +"How did you know it was I?" he asked, when he could trust himself to +speak. + +"I saw you at the gate," she returned. "Are you just up from the Iron +Works?" + +"I have been to dinner since we came up-town--Raymer and I." + +A pause, and then: "The men are still holding out?" + +"We are holding out. The plant is closed, and it will stay closed until +we can get another force of workmen." + +"There will be lots of suffering," she ventured. + +"Inevitably. But they have brought it upon themselves." + +"Not the ones who will suffer the most--the women and children," she +corrected. + +"It's no use," he said, answering her thought. "There is nothing in me +to appeal to." + +"There was yesterday, or the day before," she suggested. + +"Perhaps. But yesterday was yesterday, and to-day is to-day. As I told +Raymer a little while ago, I've changed my mind." + +"About the rights of the down-trodden?" + +"About all things under the sun." + +"No," she denied, "you only think you have. But you didn't come here to +tell me that?" + +"No; I came to ask a single question. How is Mr. Galbraith?" + +"He is a very sick man." + +Another pause, for which the questioner was responsible. + +"You mean that there is a chance that he may not recover?" + +"More than a chance, I'm afraid. The first thing Doctor Bertie did +yesterday evening was to wire St. Paul for two trained nurses; and +to-day he telegraphed Chicago for Doctor Holworthy, who charges +twenty-five dollars a minute for mere office consultations." + +"Humph!" said Griswold, "money needn't cut any figure." And then, after +a moment of silence: "I did my best; you know I did my best?" + +Her answer puzzled him a little. + +"I could almost find it in my heart to hate you if you hadn't." + +"But you know I did." + +"Yes; I know you did." + +Silence again, broken only by the whispering of the summer night breeze +rustling the leaves of the lawn oaks and the lapping of tiny waves on +the lake beach. At the end of it, Griswold got up and groped for his +hat. + +"I'm going home," he said. "It has been a pretty strenuous day, and +there is another one coming. But before I go I want you to promise me +one thing. Will you let me know immediately, by 'phone or messenger, if +Mr. Galbraith takes a turn for the better?" + +"Certainly," she said; and she let him say good-night and get as far as +the steps before she called him back. + +"There was another thing," she began, with the sober gravity that he +could never be sure was not one of her many poses, and not the least +alluring one. "Do you believe in God, Kenneth?" + +The query took him altogether by surprise, but he made shift to answer +it with becoming seriousness. + +"I suppose I do. Why?" + +"It is a time to pray to Him," she said softly; "to pray very earnestly +that Mr. Galbraith's life may be spared." + +He could not let that stand. + +"Why should I concern myself, specially?" he asked; adding: "Of course, +I'm sorry, and all that, but----" + +"Never mind," she interposed, and she left her chair to walk beside him +to the steps. "I've had a hard day, too, Kenneth, boy, and I--I guess it +has got on my nerves. But, all the same, you ought to do it, you know." + +He stopped and looked down into the eyes whose depths he could never +wholly fathom. + +"Why don't you do it?" he demanded. + +"I? oh, God doesn't know me; and, besides, I thought--oh, well, it +doesn't matter what I thought. Good-night." + +And before he could return the leave-taking word, she was gone. + + + + +XXXIV + +THE ABYSS + + +Raymer's prediction that the real trouble would begin when the attempt +should be made to start the plant with imported workmen was amply +fulfilled during the militant week which followed the opening of +hostilities. + +The appearance of the first detachment of strike-breakers, a trampish +crew gathered up hastily by the employment agencies in the cities in +response to Griswold's telegrams, was the signal for active resistance. +Promptly the Iron Works plant and the approaches to it were picketed, +and of the twenty-five or thirty men who came in on the first day's +train only a badly frightened and cowed half-dozen won through the +persuading, jeering, threatening picket line to the offices of the +plant. + +Other days followed in which the scenes of the first were repeated--with +the difference that each succeeding day saw the inevitable increase of +lawlessness. From taunts and abuse the insurrectionaries passed easily +to violence. Street fights, when the trampish place-takers came in any +considerable numbers, were of daily occurrence, and the tale of the +wounded grew like the returns from a battle. By the middle of the week +Raymer and Griswold were asking for a sheriff's posse to maintain peace +in the neighborhood of the plant; and were getting their first definite +hint that some one higher up was playing the game of politics against +them. + +"No, gentlemen; I've done all that the law requires and a little more," +was the sheriff's response to the plea for better protection. Then came +the hint. "You can take it as a word from a friend that this private +scrap of yours with your men is making everybody pretty tired. First and +last, it's only a question of whether you'll pay out a little more +money, or a little less money, not to a lot of imported hoboes, but to +certain citizens of Red Earth County,"--to which was added +significantly--"citizens with votes." + +"In other words, Mr. Bradford, you've got your orders from the men +higher up, have you?" rasped Griswold, who was by this time lost to all +sense of expediency. + +"I don't have to reply to any such charge as that," said the chief peace +officer, turning back to his desk; and so the brittle little conference +ended. + +"All of which means that we shall lose the plant guard of deputies that +Bradford has been maintaining," commented Raymer, as they were +descending the Court House stairs; and again his prediction came true. +Later in the day the guard was withdrawn; and Griswold, savagely +reluctant, was forced to make a concession repeatedly urged and argued +for by the older men among the strikers, namely, that the guarding of +the company's property be entrusted to a picked squad of the +ex-employees themselves. + +During these days of turmoil and rioting the transformed idealist passed +through many stages of the journey down a certain dark and mephitic +valley not of amelioration. With the bitter industrial conflict to feed +it, a slow fire within him ate its way into all the foundations, and as +the fair superstructure of character settled, the moral perpendiculars +and planes of projection became more and more distorted. Fairness was +gone, and in its place stood angry resentment, ready to rend and tear. +Pity and ruth were going: the daily report from Margery told of the +lessening chance of life for Andrew Galbraith, and the stirrings evoked +were neither regretful nor compassionate. On the contrary, he knew very +well that the news of Galbraith's death would be a relief for which, in +his heart of hearts, he was secretly thirsting. + +It was at the close of the week of tumult that the dreadful beckoning +came. One of the two trained nurses installed at Mereside had been +called away to the bedside of a sick father. Another had been wired for +immediately, but between the going and the coming a night would +intervene. So much Griswold got from Margery over the Iron Works +telephone late in the afternoon of a day thickly besprinkled with the +sidewalk waylayings and riotings. When he reached his Shawnee Street +lodgings at nine o'clock that night he found Miss Grierson's phaeton +standing at the curb. + +"Get in," she said, briefly, making room for him in the basket seat. And +when the mare had been given the word to go: "I hope you are not too +tired to chaperon me. I've got to drive over to the college infirmary. +We simply _must_ have another nurse for to-night." + +He denied the weariness--most untruthfully--and after that, she made him +talk all the way across town to the college campus; compelled him, and +found him absently irresponsive. Oh, yes; the fight was still going on: +No, they would never give in to the demands of the strikers: Yes, he had +seen Miss Farnham twice since the trouble began; she was frankly agreed +with Raymer's mother and sister; they all wanted peace, and they were +all against him. She led him on, and meanwhile they encountered one +failure after another in the nurse-hunting. The town clock was striking +the quarter-past ten when Miss Grierson confessed that she had exhausted +the list of possibilities. + +"I must go back at once," she declared. "Miss Davidson--the day +nurse--has been on duty constantly since six this morning, and I'm not +going to let her kill herself." + +"But you haven't been able to find anybody. Who will relieve her?" + +Then came the thunderbolt--and beyond it the beckoning. "You and I +will," she said calmly. And then, as if to forestall the possible +refusal: "It is merely to sit in the next room and to go in and give him +his medicine at half-hour intervals. Either of us can do that much for a +poor old man who is making his last stand in the fight for his life." + +Three days earlier, nay, one day earlier, Griswold might have recoiled +in horror from the suggestion that thrust itself into heart and brain. +But now he merely pushed the unspeakable prompting into the background. +Of course, he would go; and, equally of course, he would share the night +watch with her. One question he permitted himself, and it was not asked +until after they had reached the darkened mansion on the lake's edge and +were mounting the stair to the sick-room. Was Mr. Galbraith conscious? +Could he recognize any one? + +"No," was the low-voiced response; and presently they had reached the +outer room of shaded lights, and the sleepy day nurse had been released, +and Margery was explaining the medicines to her watch sharer. + +It was a simple matter, as she had said; the medicine from the larger +bottle was to be given in tea-spoonful doses on the even hour, and that +in the smaller, ten drops in a little water, on the alternating +half-hours. + +"It's his heart chiefly, now," she explained, "and this drop-medicine is +for that. If you should forget to give it--but I know you won't forget. +There are books in the hall case, and you can sit in here and read. When +you are tired, come and tap at the door of my room and I'll take what +you leave." + +While she was speaking the softly chiming clock in the lower hall struck +the half-hour. "I'll help you give him the first dose," she went on; and +he stood by and watched her as she dropped the heart-stimulant into a +spoon and diluted it with a little water. "Come," she said; and they +went together into the adjoining room. + +Griswold had been hardening himself deliberately to look unmoved upon +what the shaded electric night-light in the farther room should reveal: +it was nothing more terrible than the sight of a drawn face, half-hidden +in the pillows; a face in which life and death still fought for the +mastery as they had fought on that other day when life, unhelped, would +have been the loser. + +The small service was quickly rendered. Griswold lifted the sick man, +and his companion, deft and steady-handed, administered the stimulant. + +"Ten drops; no more and no less; exactly on the half-hour: those are +Doctor Bertie's orders," she said, when they had withdrawn to the outer +room. And then: "Good-night, for a little while. Don't hesitate to call +me when you've had enough." + +For so long as he could distinguish her light step in the corridor, +Griswold stood motionless as she had left him. Then he flung himself +into the nearest chair and covered his face with his hands. + + * * * * * + +The quarter-hour passed, and after the three mellow strokes had died +away the silence grew slowly maddening. When inaction was no longer +bearable, Griswold sprang up and went to stand at the open window. The +summer night was hot and breathless. In the north-west a storm cloud was +creeping up into the sky, and he watched its black shadow climbing like +a terrifying threat of doom out of the illimitable and blotting out the +stars one by one.... "For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth +himself in vain...." Out of a childhood which seemed very far away and +unreal the words of the Psalmist came to ring in his ears like the +muffled tolling of a passing-bell. So it must be soon for all the +living; and whether a little sooner or a little later, what could it +matter? A breath more or less to be drawn; a longer or shorter +fluttering of the feeble heart; that was all. + +The clock struck eleven, and mechanically he poured out the dose from +the larger bottle and gave it to the sick man. When it was done he left +the bedside and the inner room quickly and went back to the open window. +The air was thick and stifling, and when he sat down in the deep +window-seat he was gasping for breath. It was going to be harder than he +had thought it would, though now that the time had come he realized that +he had been subconsciously planning for it, preparing for it. And the +means which had been thrust into his hands could scarcely have been +simpler. He had only to sit still and do nothing--and no one would ever +know. He took up the small phial and held it to the light: ten drops, or +forty drops; they would neither be missed, nor counted if they should +remain. + +The single chiming stroke of the quarter-past struck while he was +putting the bottle down, and he started as if the mellow cadence had +been a pistol shot. For fifteen minutes longer he could live and +breathe and be as other men are; and after that.... He saw himself +looking back upon the normal world from the new view-point, as he +fancied Cain might have looked back after the mark had been set upon his +brow. Would it really make the hideous, monstrous difference that all +men seemed to think it did? He would know, presently, when the revocable +should have become the irrevocable. He heard the sick man stir feebly, +and then the sound of his slow, labored breathing made itself felt, +rather than heard, in the crushing, stifling silence. How the minutes +dragged! He leaned his head against the window jamb and closed his eyes, +striving fiercely to drive forth the thronging thoughts; to make his +mind a blank. Gradually the effort succeeded. He was conscious of a +dull, throbbing, soothing pulse beating slow measures in his temples, +and a curious roaring as of distant cataracts in his ears; and after +that, nothing. + + * * * * * + +A tempestuous thunder shower was lashing the trees on the lawn when he +awoke with a start and found Margery bending over him to close the +window. With every nerve a needle to prick him alive he dragged out his +watch. It was a quarter-past two. Miserably, wretchedly he pulled +himself together and stood up to face her, putting his hands on her +shoulders to make her look up at him. + +"Margery, girl; do you know what I have done?--Oh, my God! I am a +murderer--a murderer at last!" + +She turned her face away quickly. + +"Oh, no, no, boy!--not meaning to be!" she murmured. + +"What is the difference?" he demanded harshly. And then: "God knows--He +knows whether I meant it or not." + +She looked up again, and, as once or twice before in his knowing of her, +he saw the dark eyes swimming. + +"It was too hard; I shouldn't have asked it of you, Kenneth. I knew what +a cruel strain you've been under all these bad days. And there was no +harm done. I--I have been here a long time--ever since half-past eleven; +and I've been giving Mr. Galbraith his medicine. Now go down-stairs and +stretch out on the hall lounge. I'll run down and send you home as soon +as it stops raining." + + + + +XXXV + +MARGERY'S ANSWER + + +"Well, it has come at last," said Raymer, passing a newly opened letter +of the morning delivery over to Griswold. "The railroad people are +taking their work away from us. I've been looking for that in every +mail." + +Griswold glanced at the letter and handed it back. The burden of the +night of horrors was still lying heavily upon him, and his only comment +was a questioning, "Well?" + +"I've been thinking," was the reply. "I know Atherton, the new president +of the Pineboro, pretty well; suppose I should run over to St. Paul and +see him--make it a personal plea. We have enough of the hoboes now to +run half-gangs; and perhaps, if I could make Atherton believe that we +are going to win----" + +"You couldn't," Griswold interrupted, shortly. "And, besides, you have +told me yourself that Atherton is only a figurehead. Grierson's the +man." + +At this, Raymer let go again. + +"What's the use?" he said dejectedly. "We're down, and everything we do +merely prolongs the agony. Do you know that they tried to burn the plant +last night?" + +"No; I hadn't heard." + +"They did. It was just before the thunder storm. They had everything +fixed; a pile of kindlings laid in the corner back of the machine-shop +annex and the whole thing saturated with kerosene." + +"Well, why didn't they do it?" queried Griswold, half-heartedly. After +the heavens have fallen, no mere terrestrial cataclysm can evoke a +thrill. + +"That's a mystery. Something happened; just what, the watchman who had +the machine-shop beat couldn't tell. He says there was a flash of light +bright enough to blind him, and then a scrap of some kind. When he got +out of the shop and around to the place, there was no one there; nothing +but the pile of kindlings." + +Griswold took up the letter from the railway people and read it again. +When he faced it down on Raymer's desk, he had closed with the +conclusion which had been thrusting itself upon him since the early +morning hour when he had picked his way among the sidewalk pools from +Mereside to upper Shawnee Street. + +"You can still save yourself, Edward," he said, still with the colorless +note in his voice. And he added: "You know the way." + +Raymer jerked his head out of his desk and swung around in the +pivot-chair. + +"See here, Griswold; the less said about that at this stage of the game, +the better it will be for both of us!" he exploded. "I'm going to do as +I said I should, but not until this fight is settled, one way or the +other!" + +Griswold did not retort in kind. + +"The condition has already expired by limitation; the fight is as good +as settled now," he said, placably. "We are only making a hopeless +bluff. We can hold our forty or fifty tramp workmen just as long as we +pay their board over in town, and don't ask them to report for work. But +the day the shop whistle is blown, four out of every five will vanish. +We both know that." + +"Then there is nothing for it but a receivership," was Raymer's gloomy +decision. + +"Not without a miracle," Griswold admitted. "And the day of miracles is +past." + +Thus the idealist, out of a depth of wretchedness and self-exprobration +hitherto unplumbed. But if he could have had even a momentary gift of +telepathic vision he might have seen a miracle at that moment in the +preliminary stage of its outworking. + +The time was half-past nine; the place a grotto-like summer-house on the +Mereside lawn. The miracle workers were two: Margery Grierson, radiant +in the daintiest of morning house-gowns, and the man who had taken her +retainer. Miss Grierson was curiously examining a photographic print: +the pictured scene was a well-littered foundry yard with buildings +forming an angle in the near background. Against the buildings a pile of +shavings with kindlings showed quite clearly; and, stooping to ignite +the pile, was a man who had evidently looked up at, or just before, the +instant of camera-snapping. There was no mistaking the identity of the +man. He had a round, pig-jowl face; his bristling mustaches stood out +stiffly as if in sudden horror; and his hat was on the back of his head. + +"It ain't very good," Broffin apologized. "The sun ain't high enough yet +to make a clear print. But you said 'hurry,' and I reckon it will do." + +Miss Grierson nodded. "You caught him in the very act, didn't you?" she +said coolly. "What did he do?" + +"Dropped things and jumped for the camera. But the flash had blinded +him, and, besides, the camera had been moved. I let him have a foot to +fall over, and he took it; after which I made a bluff at tryin' to hold +him. Lordy gracious! new ropes wouldn't 'a' held him, then. I'll bet +he's runnin' yet--what?" + +"What did he hope to accomplish by setting fire to the works?" + +"It was a frame-up to capture public sympathy. There's been a report +circulating 'round that Raymer and Griswold was goin' to put some o' the +ringleaders in jail, if they had to _make_ a case against 'em. Clancy +had it figured out that the fire'd be charged up to the owners, +themselves." + +Miss Grierson was still examining the picture. "You made two of these +prints?" she asked. + +"Yes; here's the other one--and the film." + +"And you have the papers to make them effective?" + +Broffin handed her a large envelope, unsealed. "You'll find 'em in +there. That part of it was a cinch. Your governor ought to fire that man +Murray. He was payin' Clancy in checks!" + +Again Miss Grierson nodded. + +"About the other matter?" she inquired. "Have you heard from your +messenger?" + +Broffin produced another envelope. It had been through the mails and +bore the Duluth postmark. + +"Affidavits was the best we could do there," he said. "My man worked it +to go with MacFarland as the driver of the rig. They saw some mighty +fine timber, but it happened to be on the wrong side of the St. Louis +County line. He's a tolerably careful man, and he verified the +landmarks." + +"Affidavits will do," was the even-toned rejoinder. Then: "These papers +are all in duplicate?" + +"Everything in pairs--just as you ordered." + +Miss Grierson took an embroidered chamois-skin money-book from her bosom +and began to open it. Broffin raised his hand. + +"Not any more," he objected. "You overpaid me that first evening in +front of the Winnebago." + +"You needn't hesitate," she urged. "It's my own money." + +"I've had a-plenty." + +"Enough so that we can call it square?" + +"Yes, and more than enough." + +"Then I can only thank you," she said, rising. + +He knew that he was being dismissed, but the one chance in a thousand +had yet to be tested. + +"Just a minute, Miss Grierson," he begged. "I've done you right in this +business, haven't I?" + +"You have." + +"I said I didn't want any more money, and I don't. But there's one other +thing. Do you know what I'm here in this little jay town of yours for?" + +"Yes; I have known it for a long time." + +"I thought so. You knew it that day out at the De Soto, when you was +tellin' Mr. Raymer a little story that was partly true and partly made +up--what?" + +"And when you were sitting behind the window curtains listening," she +laughed. "Yes; I knew it then. What about it?" + +"I've been wonderin' as I set here, if there was anything on the top +side of God's green earth that'd persuade you to tell me how much o' +that story was made up." + +She was smiling deliciously when she said: "You are from the South, Mr. +Broffin, and I didn't suppose a Southerner could be so unchivalrous as +to suspect a lady of fibbing." + +He shook his head. "I wish you'd tell me, Miss Grierson. I'm in pretty +bad on this thing, and if----" + +"I can tell you what to do, if that will help you." + +"It might," he allowed. + +"Go away and take some other commission. It's a cold trail, Mr. +Broffin." + +"But you won't say that Griswold isn't the man?" + +"It is not for me to say. But Miss Farnham says he isn't, and Mr. +Galbraith--you tried him, didn't you? What more do you want?" + +"I want _you_ to say he isn't; then I'll go away." + +"You may put me in jail for contempt of court, if you like," she jested. +"I refuse to testify. But I will tell you what you asked to know--if +that will do any good. Every word of the story about Mr. Griswold--the +story that you overheard, you know--was true; every single word of it. +Do you suppose I should have dared to embroider it the least little +bit--with you sitting right there at my back?" + +"But you did think for a while that he might be the man--what?" + +"Yes; I did think so--for a while." + +Broffin got up and took a half-burned cigar from the ledge of the +summer-house where he had carefully laid it at the beginning of the +interview. + +"You've got me down," he confessed, with a good-natured grin. "The man +that plays a winnin' hand against you has got to get up before sun in +the morning and hold _all_ trumps, Miss Grierson--to say nothin' of +being a mighty good bluffer, on the side." Then he switched suddenly. +"How's Mr. Galbraith this morning?" + +"He is very low, but he is conscious again. He has asked us to wire for +the cashier of his bank to come up." + +Broffin's eyes narrowed. + +"The cashier is sick and can't come," he said. + +"Well, some one in authority will come, I suppose." + +Once more Broffin was thinking in terms of speed. Johnson, the paying +teller, was next in rank to the cashier. If he should be the one to come +to Wahaska.... + +"If you haven't anything else for me to do, I reckon I'll be going," he +said, hastily, and forthwith made his escape. The telegraph office was a +good ten minutes' walk from the lake front, and in the light of what +Miss Grierson had just told him, the minutes were precious. + +Something less than a half-hour after Broffin's hurried departure, Miss +Grierson, coated and gauntleted, came down the Mereside carriage steps +to take the reins of the big trap horse from Thorsen's hands. Contrary +to her usual custom, she avoided Main Street and drove around past the +college grounds to come by quieter thoroughfares to the industrial +district beyond the railroad tracks. + +For the first time in a riotous week, Pottery Flat was outwardly +peaceful and its narrow streets were practically empty. Just what this +portended, Margery did not know; but she found out when she turned into +the street upon which the Raymer property fronted. Smoke was pouring +from the tall central stack of the plant, and it had evidently provoked +a sudden and wrathful gathering of the clans. The sidewalks were filled +with angry workmen, and an excited argument was going forward at one of +the barred gates between the locked-out men and a watchman inside of the +yard. + +The crowd let the trap pass without hindrance. However coldly Lake +Boulevard and upper Shawnee Street might regard Miss Grierson, there was +no enmity in the glances of the Flat dwellers--and for good reasons. In +want, Miss Margery had poured largesse out of a liberal hand; and in +sickness she had many times proved herself the veritable good angel that +some people called her. + +It was one of the strikers who offered to hold the big Englishman when +the magnate's daughter sprang from the trap at the office door, and for +the young fellow who offered she had a smile and a pleasant word. "I +wouldn't trouble you to do that, Malcolm; but if you'll lead him along +to that post and hitch him, I'll be much obliged," she said. + +Though it was the first time she had been in the new offices, she seemed +to know where to find what she sought; and when Raymer took his face out +of his desk, she was standing on the threshold of the open door and +smiling across at him. + +"May I come in?" she asked; and when he fairly bubbled over in the +effort to make her understand how welcome she was: "No; I mustn't sit +down, because if I do, I shall stay too long--and this is a business +call. Where is Mr. Griswold?" + +"He went up-town a little while ago, and I wish to goodness he'd come +back. You'd think, to look out of the windows, that we were due to have +battle and murder and sudden death, wouldn't you? It's all because we +have put a little fire under one battery of boilers. They tried to burn +us out last night, and I'm going to carry steam enough for the fire +pumps, if the heavens fall." + +"You have been having a great deal of trouble, haven't you?" she said, +sympathetically. "I'm sorry, and I've come to help you cure it." + +Raymer shook his head despondently. + +"I'm afraid it has gone past the curing point," he said. + +"Oh, no, it hasn't. I have discovered the remedy and I've brought it +with me." She took a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of her +driving-coat and laid it on the desk before him. "I'm going to ask you +to lock that up in your office safe for a little while, just as it is," +she went on. "If there are no signs of improvement in the sick situation +by three o'clock, you are to open it--you and Mr. Griswold--and read the +contents. Then you will know exactly what to do, and how to go about +it." + +Her lip was trembling when she got through, and he saw it. + +"What have you done, Margery?" he asked gently. "If it is something that +hurts you----" + +"Don't!" she pleaded; "you mu-mustn't break my nerve just at the time +when I'm going to need every shred of it. Do as I say, and please, +_please_ don't ask any questions!" + +She was going then, but he got before her and shut the door and put his +back against it. + +"I don't know what you have done, but I can guess," he said, lost now to +everything save the intoxicating joy of the barrier-breakers. "You have +a heart of gold, Margery, and I----" + +"Please don't," she said, trying to stop him; but he would not listen. + +"No; before that envelope is opened, before I can possibly know what it +contains, I'm going to ask you one question in spite of your +prohibition; and I'm going to ask it now because, afterward, I may +not--you may not--that is, perhaps it won't be possible for me to ask, +or for you to listen. I love you, Margery; I----" + +She was looking up at him with the faintest shadow of a smile +lurking in the depths of the alluring eyes. And her lips were no +longer tremulous when she said: "Oh, no, you don't; I know just how +you feel; you are excited, and--and impulsive, and there's a sort of +getting-ready-to-be-grateful feeling roaming around in you, and all +that. If I were as mean as some people think I am, I might take +advantage of all this, mightn't I? But I sha'n't. Won't you open the +door and let me go? It's _very_ important." + +"Heavens, Margery! don't make a joke of it!" he burst out. "Can't you +see that I mean it? Girl, girl, I want you--I need you!" + +This time she laughed outright. Then she grew suddenly grave. + +"My dear friend, you don't know what you are saying. The gate that you +are trying to break down opens upon nothing but misery and wretchedness. +If I loved you as a woman ought to love her lover, for your sake and +for my own I should still say no--a thousand times no! Now will you open +the door and let me go?" + +He turned and fumbled for the door-knob like a man in a daze. + +"Don't you--don't you think you might learn to--to think of me in that +way?--after a while?" he pleaded. + +He had opened the door a little way, and she slipped past him. But in +the corridor she turned and laughed at him again. + +"I am going to cure you--you, personally, as well as the sick +situation--Mr. Raymer," she said flippantly. Then, mimicking him as a +spoiled child might have done: "I might possibly learn to--think of +you--in that way--after a while. But I could never, never, _never_ learn +to love your mother and your sister." + +And with that spiteful thrust she left him. + + + + +XXXVI + +THE GRAY WOLF + + +As it chanced, Jasper Grierson was in the act of concluding a long and +apparently satisfactory telephone conversation with his agent in Duluth +at the moment when the door of his private room opened and his daughter +entered. + +As on a former occasion, she went to sit in the window until the way to +free speech should be open, and she could not well help hearing the +closing words of the long-distance conference. + +"You sit tight in the boat; that's all you've got to do," her father was +saying. "Keep the young fellow with you as long as you can; the other +man is too sick to talk business, right now. When you can't hold the +young one any longer, let me know. We'll play the hand out as it lays. +Get that? I say, we'll play the hand out as it lays." + +He had hung the receiver on its hook and was pushing the bracketted +telephone-set aside when Margery crossed the room swiftly and placed an +envelope, the counterpart of the one left with Raymer, on the desk. + +"There is your notice to quit," she said calmly. "You threw me down and +gave me the double-cross the other day, and now I've come back at you." + +Another man might have hastened to meet the crisis. But the gray wolf +was of a different mettle. He let the envelope lie untouched until after +he had pulled out a drawer in the desk, found his box of cigars, and had +leisurely selected and lighted one of the fat black monstrosities. When +he tore the envelope across, the photographic print fell out, and he +studied it carefully for many seconds before he read the accompanying +documents. For a little time after he had tossed the papers aside there +was a silence that bit. Then he said, slowly: + +"So that's your raise, is it? Where does the game stand, right now?" + +"You stand to lose." + +Again the biting silence; and then: "You don't think I'm fool enough to +give you back your ammunition so that you can use it on me, do you?" + +"Those papers and that picture are copies: the originals are in a sealed +envelope in Mr. Raymer's safe. If you haven't taken your hands off of +Mr. Raymer's throat by three o'clock this afternoon, the envelope will +be opened." + +Jasper Grierson's teeth met in the marrow of the fat cigar. Equally +without heat and without restraint, he stripped her of all that was +womanly, pouring out upon her a flood of foul epithets and vile names +garnished with bitter, brutal oaths. She shrank from the crude and +savage upbraidings as if the words had been hot irons to touch the bare +flesh, but at the end of it she was still facing him hardily. + +"Calling me bad names doesn't change anything," she pointed out, and +her tone reflected something of his own elemental contempt for the +euphemisms. "You have five hours in which to make Mr. Raymer understand +that you have stopped trying to smash him. Wouldn't it be better to +begin on that? You can curse me out any time, you know." + +Jasper Grierson's rage fit, or the mud-volcano manifestation of it, +passed as suddenly as it had broken out. Swinging heavily in his chair +he took up the papers again and reread them thoughtfully. + +"You had a spotter working this up, I suppose: who is he, and where is +he?" he demanded. + +"That is my affair. He was a high-priced man and he did his work well. +You can see that for yourself." + +Once more the papers were tossed aside and the big chair swung slowly to +face the situation. + +"Let's see what you want: show up your hand." + +"I have shown it. Take the prop of your backing from behind this labor +trouble, and let Mr. Raymer settle with his men on a basis of good-will +and fair dealing." + +"Is that all?" + +"No. You must cancel this pine-land deal. You have broken bread with Mr. +Galbraith as a friend, and I'm not going to let you be worse than an +Arab." + +Grierson's shaggy brows met in a reflective frown, and when he spoke the +bestial temper was rising again. + +"When this is all over, and you've gone to live with Raymer, I'll kill +him," he said, with an out-thrust of the hard jaw; adding: "You know me, +Madge." + +"I thought I did," was the swift retort. "But it was a mistake. And as +for taking it out on Mr. Raymer, you'd better wait until I go 'to live +with him,' as you put it. Besides, this isn't Yellow Dog Gulch. They +hang people here." + +"You little she-devil! If you push me into this thing, you'd better get +Raymer, or somebody, to take you in. You'll be out in the street!" + +"I have thought of that, too," she said, coolly; "about quitting you. +I'm sick of it all--the getting and the spending and the crookedness. +I'd put the money--yours and mine--in a pile and set fire to it, if some +decent man would give me a calico dress and a chance to cook for two." + +"Raymer, for instance?" the father cut in, in heavy mockery. + +"Mr. Raymer has asked me to marry him, if you care to know," she struck +back. + +"Oho! So that's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? You sold me out to buy +in with him!" + +"You may put it that way, if you like; I don't care." She was drawing on +her driving-gloves methodically and working the fingers into place, and +there were sullen fires in the brooding eyes. + +"I've been thinking it was the other one--the book-writer," said the +father. Then, without warning: "He's a damned crook." + +The daughter went on smoothing the wrinkles out of the fingers of her +gloves. "What makes you think so?" she inquired, with indifference, real +or skilfully assumed. + +"He's got too much money to be straight. I've been keeping cases on +him." + +"Never mind Mr. Griswold," she interposed. "He is my friend, and I +suppose that is enough to make you hate him. About this other matter: +ten minutes before three o'clock this afternoon I shall go back to Mr. +Raymer. If he tells me that his troubles are straightening themselves +out, I'll get the papers." + +"You'll bring 'em here to me?" + +"Some day; after I'm sure that you have broken off the deal with Mr. +Galbraith." + +Jasper Grierson let his daughter get as far as the door before he +stopped her with a blunt-pointed arrow of contempt. + +"I suppose you've fixed it up to marry that college-sharp dub so that +his mother and sister can rub it into you right?" he sneered. + +"You can suppose again," she returned, shortly. "If I should marry him, +it would be out of pure spite to those women." + +"If?" + +"Yes, 'if.' Because, when he asked me, I told him No. You weren't +counting on that, were you?" And having fired this final shot of +contradiction she departed. + +After Miss Grierson had driven home from the bank between ten and eleven +in the morning, an admiring public saw her no more until just before +bank-closing hours in the afternoon. Broffin was among those who made +obeisance to her as she passed down Main Street in the basket phaeton +between half-past two and three; and a minute later he abandoned his +chair on the hotel porch to keep the phaeton in view and to mark its +route. + +"It's Raymer, all right, and not the other one," he mused when the +little vehicle had gone rocketing over the railroad crossing to take the +turn toward the Iron Works. "The iron-man is the duck she's tryin' to +help out of the labor-rookus. She was over there this morning, and she's +goin' there again, right now." + +As the phaeton sped along through the over-crossing suburb there were +signs of an armistice apparent, even before the battle-field was +reached. Pottery Flat was populated again, and the groups of men bunched +on the street corners were arguing peacefully. Miss Grierson pulled up +at one of the corners and beckoned to the young iron-moulder who had +offered to be her horse-holder on the morning visit. + +"Anything new, Malcolm?" she asked. + +"You bet your sweet life!" said the young moulder, meeting her, as most +men did, on a plane of perfect equality and frankness. "We was hoodooed +to beat the band, and Mr. Raymer's got us, comin' and goin'. There +wasn't no orders from the big Federation, at all; and that crooked guy, +Clancy, was a fake!" + +"He has gone?" she said. + +"He'd better be. If he shows himself 'round here again, there's goin' to +be a mix-up." + +Miss Grierson drove on, and at the Iron Works there were more of the +peaceful indications. The gates were open, and a switching-engine from +the railroad yards was pushing in a car-load of furnace coal. By all the +signs the trouble flood was abating. + +Raymer saw her when she drove under his window and calmly made a +hitching-post of the clerk who went out to see what she wanted. A moment +later she came down the corridor to stand in the open doorway of the +manager's room. + +"I'm back again," she said, and her manner was that of the dainty +soubrette with whom the audience falls helplessly in love at first +sight. + +"No, you're not," Raymer denied; "you won't be until you come in and sit +down." + +She entered to take the chair he was placing for her, and the soubrette +manner fell away from her like a garment flung aside. + +"You are still alone?" she asked. + +"Yes; Griswold hasn't shown up since morning. I don't know what has +become of him." + +"And the labor trouble: is that going to be settled?" + +He looked away and ran his fingers through his hair as one still puzzled +and bewildered. "Some sort of a miracle has been wrought," he said. "A +little while ago a committee came to talk over terms of surrender. It +seems that the whole thing was the result of a--of a mistake." + +"Yes," she returned quietly, "it was just that--a mistake." And then: +"You are going to take them back?" + +"Certainly. The plant will start up again in the morning." Then his +curiosity broke bounds. "I can't understand it. How did you work the +miracle?" + +"Perhaps I didn't work it." + +"I know well enough you did, in some way." + +She dismissed the matter with a toss of the pretty head. "What +difference does it make so long as you are out of the deep water and in +a place where you can wade ashore? You _can_ wade ashore now, can't +you?" + +He nodded. "This morning I should have said that we couldn't; but now--" +he reached over to his desk and handed her a letter to which was pinned +a telegram less than an hour old. + +She read the letter first. It was a curt announcement of the withdrawal +of the Pineboro Railroad's repair work. The telegram was still briefer: +"Disregard my letter of yesterday"; this, and the signature, "Atherton." +The small plotter returned the correspondence with a little sigh of +relief. It had been worse than she had thought, and it was now better +than she had dared hope. + +"I must be going," she said, rising. "If you will give me my envelope?" + +He crossed to the safe and got it for her. His curiosity was still +keen-edged, but he beat it back manfully. + +"I wish you wouldn't hurry," he said hospitably. He was searching the +changeful eyes for the warrant to say more, but he could not find it. + +"Yes, I really must," she insisted. "You know we have a sick man at +home, and----" + +"Oh, yes; how is Mr. Galbraith getting along? He has been having a +pretty hard time of it, hasn't he?" + +"Very hard. It is still doubtful if his life can be saved." + +"He is conscious?" + +"He has been to-day." + +"And he understands his condition?" + +"Perfectly. He had us wire for some of his bank people this morning. The +cashier can't come, but he is sending a Mr. Johnson--the paying teller, +I believe he is." + +"Poor old man!" said Raymer, and his sympathy was real. + +She was moving toward the door, and he went with her. + +"I know you are not entertaining now--with Mr. Galbraith to be cared +for; but I'd like to come and see you, if I may?" he said, when he had +gone with her through the outer office and the moment of leave-taking +had arrived. + +"Why not?" she asked frankly. "You have always been welcome, and you +always will be." + +He hesitated, and a blond man's flush crept up under his honest eyes. +"I've been hoping all day that you didn't really mean what you said this +morning--about my mother and sister, you know," he ventured. + +"Yes," she affirmed relentlessly; "I did mean it." + +"But some day you will change your mind--when you come to know them +better." + +"Shall I?" she said, with a ghost of a smile. "Perhaps you are +right--when I come to know them better." + +He was obliged to let it go at that; but when they reached the phaeton, +and the horse-holding clerk had been relieved, he spoke of another +matter. + +"I'm a little worried about Kenneth," he told her. "He came down this +morning looking positively wretched, but he wouldn't admit that he was +sick. Have you seen much of him lately?" + +"Not very much"--guardedly. "Did you say he had gone home?" + +"I don't know where he has gone. He left here about half an hour before +you came, and I haven't seen him since." + +"And you are worried because he doesn't look well?" + +"Not altogether on that account. I'm afraid he is in deep water of some +kind. I never saw a person change as he has in the past week or so. You +know him pretty well, and what a big heart he has?" + +She nodded, half-mechanically. + +"Well, there have been times lately when I've been afraid he'd kill +somebody--in this squabble of ours, you know. He has been going +armed--which was excusable enough, under the circumstances--and night +before last, when we were walking up-town together, I had all I could do +to keep him from taking a pot-shot at a fellow who, he thought, was +following us. I don't know but I'm taking all sorts of an unfair +advantage of him, telling you this behind his back, but----" + +"No; I'm glad you have told me. Maybe I can help." + +He put her into the low basket seat, and tucked the dust-robe around her +carefully. While he was doing it he looked up into her face and said: +"I'd love you awfully hard for what you have done to-day--if you'd let +me." + +It was like her to smile straight into his eyes when she answered him. + +"When you can say that--in just that way--to the right woman, you'll +find a great happiness lying in wait for you, Edward, dear." And then +she spoke to the Morgan mare and distance came between. + +As once before, in the earlier hours of the same day, Miss Grierson took +the roundabout way between the Raymer plant and Mereside, making the +circuit which took her through the college grounds and brought her out +at the head of upper Shawnee Street. The Widow Holcomb was sitting on +her front porch, placidly crocheting, when the phaeton drew up at the +curb. + +"Mr. Griswold," said the phaeton's occupant. "May I trouble you to tell +him that I'd like to speak to him a moment?" + +Mrs. Holcomb, friend of the Raymers, the Farnhams, and the Oswalds, and +own cousin to the Barrs, was of the perverse minority; and, apart from +this, she had her own opinion of a young woman who would wait at the +door of a young man's boarding-house and take him off for a night drive +to goodness only knew where, and from which he did not return until +goodness only knew when. So there was no stitch missed in the crocheting +when she said, stiffly: "Mr. Griswold isn't in. He hasn't been home +since morning." + +Miss Grierson drove on, and the most casual observer might have remarked +the strained tightening of the lips and the two red spots which came and +went in the damask-peach cheeks. But it was not until she had reached +Mereside, and had gained the shelter of the deserted library, that +speech came. + +"O pitiful Christ!" she sobbed, dropping into a chair and hiding her +face in the crook of her arm; "he's done it at last!--he's trying to +hide, and that's what they've been waiting for! _And I don't know where +to look!_" + +But Matthew Broffin, tilting lazily in his chair on the down-town hotel +porch, knew very well where to look, and he was watching the one outlet +of the hiding-place as an alert, though outwardly disregardful, +house-cat watches a mouse's hole. + + + + +XXXVII + +THE QUALITY OF MERCY + + +On no less an authority than that of the great doctor who came again +from Chicago for a second consultation with Doctor Farnham, Andrew +Galbraith owed his life during the two days following his return to +consciousness to the unremitting care and devotion of one person. + +Seconding the efforts of the physicians, and skilfully directing those +of the nurses, Margery threw herself into the vicarious struggle with +the generous self-sacrifice which counts neither cost nor loss; and on +the third day she had her reward. Her involuntary guest and charge was +distinctly better, and again, so the two doctors declared, the balance +was inclining slightly toward recovery. + +It was in the afternoon of this third day, when she had been reading to +him, at his own request, the sayings of the Man on the Mount, that he +referred for the first time to the details of the accident which had so +nearly blotted him out. Upon his asking, she related the few and simple +facts of the rescue, modestly minimizing her own part in it, and giving +her companion in the catboat full credit. + +"The writer-man," he said thoughtfully, when she had finished telling +him how Griswold had worked over him in the boat, and how he would not +give up. "I remember; you fetched him out to the hotel with you one day: +no, you needna fear I'll be forgetting him." Then, with a shrewd look +out of the steel-gray eyes: "How long have you been knowing him, Maggie, +child?" + +"Oh, for quite a long time," she hastened to say. "He came here, sick +and helpless, one day last spring, and--well, there isn't any hospital +here in Wahaska, you know, so we took him in and helped him get over the +fever, or whatever it was. This was his room while he stayed with us." + +Andrew Galbraith wagged his head on the pillow. + +"I know," he said. "And ye're doing it again for a poor auld man whose +siller has never bought him anything like the love you're spending on +him. You're everybody's good angel, I'm thinking, Maggie, lassie." +Though he did not realize it, his sickness was bringing him day by day +nearer to his far-away boyhood in the Inverness-shire hills, and it was +easy to slip into the speech of the mother-tongue. Then, after a long +pause, he went on: "He wasna wearing a beard, a red beard trimmed down +to a spike--this writer-man, when ye found him, was he?" + +She shook her head. "No; I have never seen him with a beard." + +The sick man turned his face to the wall, and after a time she heard him +repeating softly the words which she had just read to him. "But if ye +forgive not men ... neither will your Father forgive...." And again, +"Judge not that ye be not judged." When he turned back to her there were +new lines of suffering in the gray old face. + +"I'm sore beset, child; sore beset," he sighed. "You were telling me +that MacFarland and Johnson will be here to-night?" + +"Yes; they should both reach Wahaska this evening." + +Another pause, and at the end of it: "That man Broffin: you'll remember +you asked me one day who he was, and I tell 't ye he was a special +officer for the bank. Is he still here?" + +"He is; I saw him on the street this morning." + +Again Andrew Galbraith turned his face away, and he was quiet for so +long a time that she thought he had fallen asleep. But he had not. + +"You're thinking something of the writer-man, lassie? Don't mind the +clavers of an auld man who never had a chick or child of his ain." + +Her answer was such as a child might have made. She lifted the +big-jointed hand on the coverlet and pressed it softly to her flushed +cheek, and he understood. + +"I thought so; I was afraid so," he said, slowly. "You say you have +known him a long time: it canna have been long enough, bairnie." + +"But it is," she insisted, loyally. "I know him better than he knows +himself; oh, very much better." + +"Ye know the good in him, maybe; there's good in all men, I'm thinking +now, though there was a time when I didna believe it." + +"I know the good and the bad--and the bad is only the good turned upside +down." + +Again the sick man wagged his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. + +"Ye're a loving lassie, Maggie, and that's a' there is to it," he +commented; and after another interval: "What must be, must be. We spoke +of this man Broffin: I must see him before Johnson comes. Can ye get him +for me, Maggie, child?" + +She nodded and went down-stairs to the telephone, returning almost +immediately. + +"I was fortunate enough to catch him at the hotel. He will be here in a +few minutes," was the word she brought; and Galbraith thanked her with +his eyes. + +"When he comes, ye'll let me see him alone--just for a few minutes," he +begged; and beyond that he said no more. + +It was after the click of the gate latch had announced Broffin's arrival +that Margery drew the shades to shut out the glare of the afternoon sun, +lowering the one at the bed's head so that the light no longer fell upon +the instruments of the small house-telephone-set mounted upon the wall +beside the door. + +"Mr. Broffin is here, and I'll send him up," she said. "But you mustn't +let him stay long, and you mustn't try to talk too much." + +The sick man promised, and as she was going away she turned to repeat +the caution. Andrew Galbraith's eyes were closed in weariness, and he +did not see that she was standing with her back to the wall while she +admonished him, or that, when she had gone to send the visitor up, the +ear-piece of the house-telephone-set had been detached from its hook and +left dangling by its wire cord. + +Miss Grierson went on into the library after she had met the detective +at the door and had told him how to find the up stairs room. When the +sound of a cautiously closed door told her that Broffin had entered the +sick-room, she snatched the receiver of the library house 'phone from +its hook and held it to her ear. For a little time keen anxiety wrote +its sign manual in the knitted brows and the tightly pressed lips. Then +she smiled and the dark eyes grew softly radiant. "The dear old saint!" +she whispered; "the dear, _dear_ old saint!" And when Broffin came down +a few minutes later, she went to open the hall door for him, serenely +demure and with honey on her tongue, as befitted the role of +"everybody's good angel." + +"Did you find him worse than you feared, or better than you hoped?" she +asked. + +"He's mighty near the edge, I should say--what? But you never can tell. +Some of these old fellows can claw back to the top o' the hill after all +the doctors in creation have thrown up their hands. I've seen it. What +does Doc Farnham say?" + +"What he always says; 'while there's life, there's hope.'" + +Broffin nodded and went his way down the walk, stopping at the gate to +take up the cigar he had hidden on his arrival. + +"So Galbraith's out of it, lock, stock and barrel," he muttered, as he +strode thoughtfully townward. "I reckoned it'd be that-a-way, as soon as +I heard the story o' that shipwreck. And now I ain't so blamed sure that +it's Raymer a-holdin' the fort in them pretty black eyes. The old man +talked like a man that had just been honeyfugled and talked over and +primed plum' up to the muzzle. Why the blue blazes can't she take her +iron-moulder fellow and be satisfied? She can't swing to _both_ of 'em. +Ump!--the old man wanted me to skip out on a wild-goose chase to 'Frisco +in that bond business, and take the first train! Sure, I'll go--but not +to-day; oh, no, by grapples; not this day!" + +It was possibly an hour beyond Broffin's visit when Margery, having +successfully read the sick man to sleep, tiptoed out of the room and +went below stairs to shut herself into the hall telephone closet. The +number she asked for was that of the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works, +and Raymer, himself, answered the call. + +"Are you awfully busy?" she asked. + +"Up to my chin--yes. But that doesn't count if I can do anything for +you." + +"Have you heard anything yet from Mr.--from our friend?" + +"Not a word. But I'm not worrying any more now." + +"Why aren't you?" + +"Because I've been remembering that he is the happy--or +unhappy--possessor of the 'artistic temperament' and that accounts for +anything and everything. I'd forgotten that for a few minutes, you +know." + +"Well?" she said, with the faintest possible accent of impatience. + +"He has gone off somewhere to plug away on that book of his; I'm sure of +it. And he hasn't gone very far. I'm inclined to believe that Mrs. +Holcomb knows where he is--only she won't tell. And somebody else knows, +too." + +"Who is the somebody else?" + +Though the wire was in a measure public, Raymer risked a single word. + +"Charlotte." + +None of the sudden passion that leaped into Margery Grierson's eyes was +suffered to find its way into her voice when she said: "What makes you +think that?" + +"Oh, a lot of little things. I was over at the house last night, and +there is some sort of a tea-pot tempest going on; I couldn't make out +just what. But from the way things shaped up, I gathered that our friend +was wanted in Lake Boulevard, and wanted bad--for some reason or other. +I had to promise that I'd try to dig him up, before I got away." + +"Well?" went the questioning word over the wires, and this time the +impatient accent was unconcealed. + +"I promised; but this morning Doctor Bertie called me up to say that it +was all right; that I needn't trouble myself." + +"And I needn't have troubled you," said the voice at the Mereside +transmitter. "Excuse _me_, as Hank Billingsly used to say when he +happened to shoot the wrong man. Come over when you feel like it--and +have time. You mustn't forget that you owe me two calls. Good-by." + +After Margery Grierson had let herself out of the stifling little closet +under the hall stair, she went into the darkened library and sat for a +long time staring at the cold hearth. It was a crooked world, and just +now it was a sharply cruel one. There was much to be read between the +lines of the short telephone talk with Edward Raymer. The trap was +sprung and its jaws were closing; and in his extremity Kenneth Griswold +was turning, not to the woman who had condoned and shielded and paid the +costly price, but to the other. + +"Dear God!" she said softly, when the prolonged stare had brought the +quick-springing tears to her eyes; "and I--_I_ could have kept him +safe!" + + + + +XXXVIII + +THE PENDULUM-SWING + + +To a man seeking only to escape from himself, all roads are equal and +all destinations likely to prove uniformly disappointing. Turning his +back upon the Iron Works in the day of defeat, with no very clear idea +of what he should do or where he should go, Griswold pushed through the +strikers' picket lines, and, avoiding the militant suburb, drifted by +way of sundry outlying residence streets and a country road to the high +ground back of the city. + +In deserting Raymer he was actuated by no motive of disloyalty. On the +contrary, so much of the motive as had any bearing upon his relations +with the young iron-founder sprang from a generous impulse to free +Raymer from an incubus. If it were the curse of the Midas-touch to turn +all things to gold, it seemed to be his own peculiar curse to turn the +gold to dross; to leave behind him a train of disaster, defeat, and +tragic depravity. The plunge into the labor conflict had merely served +to afford another striking example of his inability to break the evil +spell, and Raymer could well spare him. + +On the long tramp to the hills the events of the past few months +marshalled themselves in accusing review. No human being, save one, of +all those with whom he had come in contact since the day of +dragon-bearding in the New Orleans bank had escaped the contaminating +touch, and each in turn had suffered loss. The man Gavitt had given his +name and identity; the mate of the _Belle Julie_ had sacrificed what +little respect he may have had for law and order by becoming, +potentially, at least, a criminal accessory. The little Irish cab-driver +had sold himself for a price; and the negro deck-hand had earned his +mess of fried fish. The single exception was Charlotte Farnham, and he +told himself that she had escaped only because she had done her duty as +she saw it. + +And as the bedeviling thing had begun, so it had continued, losing none +of its potency for evil. In the little world of Wahaska, which was to +have been the theatre of Utopian demonstration, the curse had persisted. +The money, used with the loftiest intentions, had served only as a means +to an end, and the end had proved to be the rearing of an apparently +impassable wall of bitter antagonism between master and men. And the +secret of the money's origin and acquisition, which was to have been so +easily cast aside and ignored, had become a soul-sickness incurable and +even contagious. Griswold was beginning to suspect that it had attacked +Margery Grierson; that it had subconsciously, if not otherwise, thrust +itself into Charlotte Farnham's life; and the night of horror so lately +past had shown him into what depths it could plunge its wretched +guardian and slave. + +Now that the plunge had been taken and he had been made to understand +that he must henceforth reckon with a base and cowardly under-self which +would not stop short of the most heinous crime, he told himself that he +must have time to think--to plan. + +Caring nothing for its roughness, and scarcely noting the direction in +which it was leading him, he followed the country road in its winding +descent into a valley forest of oaks. After an hour of aimless tramping +he began to have occasional near-hand glimpses of the lake; and a little +farther along he came out upon the main-travelled road leading to the +summer-resort hotel at the head of De Soto Bay. + +Still without any definite purpose in mind he pushed on, and upon +reaching the hotel he went in and registered for a room. The luncheon +hour was past, but not even the long tramp had given him an appetite. +Choosing the quietest corner of the lake-facing veranda he tried to +smoke; but the tobacco had lost its flavor, and a longing for completer +solitude drove him to his room. Here he drew the window shades and lay +down, deliberately wishing that he might fall asleep and wake in some +less poignant world; and since the week of strife had been cutting +deeply into the nights, the first half of the wish presently came true. +While the poignancies were still asserting themselves acutely, sleep +stole upon him, and when he awoke it was evening and a cheerful clamor +in the dining-room beneath told him that it was dinner-time. + +It is a trite saying that many a gulf, seemingly impassable, has been +safely bridged in sleep. Bathed, refreshed and with the tramping stains +removed, Griswold went down to dinner with the lost appetite regained. A +leisurely hour spent in the restorative atmosphere of the well-filled +dining-room added its uplift, and at the end of it the troublesome +perplexities and paradoxes had withdrawn--at least far enough so that +they could be held in the artistic perspective. Afterward, during the +cigar-smoking on the cool veranda, he struck out his plan. In the +morning he would send in town to Mrs. Holcomb for a few necessaries, and +telephone to Raymer. After which, he would try what a fallow day or two +would do for him; an interval in which he could weigh and measure and +think, and possibly recover the lost sense of proportion. + +As the plan was conceived, so it was carried out. Early on the following +day he sent a note to Mrs. Holcomb by one of the Inn employees; but the +copy of the _Daily Wahaskan_ laid beside his breakfast plate made it +unnecessary to telephone Raymer. The paper had a full account of the +sudden ending of the lock-out and the resumption of work in the Raymer +plant, and he read it with a curious stirring of self-compassion. As he +had reasoned it out, there was only one way in which the result could +have been attained so quickly. Had Raymer taken that way, in spite of +his wrathful rejection of the suggestion? Doubtless he had; and on the +heels of that conclusion came a sense of deprivation that was fairly +appalling, and the healthy breakfast appetite vanished. Griswold knew +what it meant, or he thought he did. Margery Grierson was gone out of +his life--gone beyond recall. + +After that, there was all the better reason why he should grapple with +himself in the fallow interval; and for two complete days he was lost, +even to the small world of the summer resort, tramping for hours in the +lake shore forests or drifting about in one of the hotel skiffs, and +returning to the Inn only to eat and sleep when hunger or weariness +constrained him. On the whole, the discipline was good. He flattered +himself that the sense of proportion was returning slowly, and with it +some saner impulses. Truly, it had been his misfortune to be obliged to +compromise with evil to some extent, and to involve others, but was not +that rather due to the ineradicable faults of an imperfect social system +than to any basic defect in his own theories? And was not the same +imperfect social system partly responsible for the _quasi_-criminal +attitude which had been forced upon him? He was willing to believe it; +willing, also, to believe that he could rise above the constraining +forces and be the man he wished to be. That he could so rise was proved, +he decided, on the morning of the third day, when he chanced to overhear +the hotel clerk telling the man whose room was across the corridor from +his own that Andrew Galbraith still had a fighting chance for life. In +the pleasant glow of the high resolve the news awakened none of the +murderous promptings, but rather the generous hope that it might be +true. + +It was late in the afternoon of this third day, upon his return from a +long pull in the borrowed skiff around the group of islands in the upper +and unfrequented part of the lake, that he found a note awaiting him. It +was from Miss Farnham, and its brevity, no less than its urgency, +stirred him apprehensively, bringing a suggestive return of the furtive +fierceness which he promptly fought down. "I must see you before eight +o'clock this evening. It is of the last importance," was the wording of +the note; and the heavy underscoring of the "last," and a certain +tremulous characteristic in the handwriting, stressed the urgency. + +Griswold thrust the note into his pocket and made his preparations to go +to town, still fighting down the furtive malevolence which was unnerving +him; fighting also an unshakable premonition that his hour had come. +Once, before the Inn brake was ready to make its evening trip to Wahaska +and the railway station, the premonition gripped him so benumbingly that +he was sorely tempted. There was another railroad fourteen miles to the +westward; a line running a fast day-train to the north with connections +for Winnipeg. One of the Inn guests was driving over to catch this fast +train at a country crossing, and there was a spare seat in the hired +carry-all. Griswold considered the alternative for the length of time it +took the hotel porter to put the departing guest's luggage into the +waiting vehicle. Then he turned his back and let the chance escape. The +issue was fairly defined. To become a fugitive now was to plead guilty +as charged--to open the door to chaos. + +It was still quite early in the evening when the Inn conveyance set him +down at the door of his lodgings in upper Shawnee Street. To the +care-taking widow, who would have prepared a late dinner for him, he +explained that he was going out again almost at once; and taking time +only for a bath and a change, he set forth on the cross-town walk. It +lacked something less than a half-hour of the time limit set in Miss +Farnham's note, but he attached no special importance to that. He knew +that the doctor's dinner-hour was early, and that in any event he could +choose his own time for an evening call. + +It nettled him angrily to find that the premonition of coming disaster +was still with him when he crossed the Court House square and came into +the main street a few doors from the Winnebago entrance. Attacking from +a fresh vantage-ground it was warning him that the town hotel was the +stopping-place of the man Broffin, and that he was taking an unnecessary +hazard in passing it. Brushing the warning aside, he went on defiantly, +and just before he came within identifying range of the loungers on the +hotel porch an omnibus backed to the curb to deliver its complement of +passengers from the lately met northbound train. + +Griswold walked on until he was stopped by the sidewalk-blocking group +of freshly arrived travellers pausing to identify their luggage as it +was handed down from the top of the omnibus. Alertly watchful, he +quickly recognized Broffin among the porch loungers, and saw him leave +his tilted chair to saunter toward the steps. Then the fateful thing +happened. One of the luggage-sorters, a clean-limbed, handsome young +fellow with boyish eyes and a good-natured grin, wheeled suddenly and +gripped him. + +"Why, Griswold, old man!--well, I'll be dogged! Who on the face of the +earth would ever have thought of finding you here? So this is where you +came up, after the long, deep, McGinty dive, is it?" Then to one of his +fellow travellers: "Hold on a minute, Johnson; I want you to shake hands +with an old newspaper pal of mine from New York, Mr. Kenneth Griswold. +Kenneth, this is Mr. Beverly Johnson, of the Bayou State Security Bank, +in New Orleans." + +Thus Bainbridge, sometime star reporter for the _Louisianian_, turning +up at the climaxing instant to prove the crowded condition of an +over-narrow world, much as Matthew Broffin had once turned up on the +after-deck of the coastwise steamer _Adelantado_ to prove it to him. + +While Griswold, with every nerve on edge, was acknowledging the +introduction which he could by no means avoid, Broffin drew nearer. From +the porch steps he could both see and hear. Bainbridge, cheerfully +loquacious, continued to do most of the talking. He was telling Griswold +of the streak of good luck which had snatched him out of a reporter's +berth in the South to make him night editor of one of the St. Paul +dailies. Johnson was merely an onlooker. Broffin's eyes searched the +teller's face. Thus far it was a blank--a rather bored blank. + +"And you are on your way to St. Paul now?" Griswold said to the +newspaper man. Broffin, whose ears were skilfully attuned to all the +tone variations in the voice of evasion, thought he detected a quaver of +anxious impatience in the half-absent query. + +"Yes; I was going on through to-night, but Johnson, here, stumped me to +stop over. He said I might be able to get a news story out of his sick +president," Bainbridge rattled on. "Ever meet Mr. Galbraith? He is the +bank president who was held up last spring, you remember; fine old +Scotch gentleman of the Walter-Scott brand." + +"When did you leave New Orleans?" Griswold asked; and now Broffin made +sure he distinguished the note of anxiety. + +"Two days back: missed a connection on account of high water in the +Ohio. Might have stayed another twelve hours in the good old levee town +if we'd only known, eh, Johnson?" And then again to Griswold: "Remember +that supper we had at Chaudiere's, the night I was leaving for the +banana coast? By George! come to think of it, I believe that was the +last time we forgathered in the--Say, Kenneth, what have you done with +your beard?" + +Something clicked in Broffin's brain; then the wheels of the present +slipped into gear with those of the past and the entire train moved on +smoothly. The final doubt was cleared away. Griswold was the man whose +story Bainbridge had told under the after-deck awning of the +outward-bound fruit steamer; and the story in all its essentials was the +same that Miss Grierson had told on the veranda of the De Soto. Broffin +knew now why there had always been a haunting suggestion of familiarity +in Griswold's face for him. He had seen and marked the "bloody-minded +nihilist" of Bainbridge's story when the two were saying good-by on the +banquette in front of Chaudiere's. + +Broffin's right hand went swiftly to an inside pocket of his coat and +when it was withdrawn a pair of handcuffs, oiled to noiselessness, came +with it. Deftly the man-catcher worked them open, using only the fingers +of one hand, and never taking his eyes from the trio on the sidewalk. +One last step remained: if he could only manage to get speech with +Johnson first---- + +During the trying interval Griswold had been fully alive to his peril. +He had seen the swift hand-passing, and he knew what it was that Broffin +was concealing in the hand which had made the quick pocket-dive. He knew +that the crucial moment had come; and, as many times before, the savage +fear-mania was gripping him. In the cold vise-nip of it he had become +once more the cornered wild beast. + +After the introduction to Johnson his hand had gone mechanically to his +coat pocket. The demon at his ear was whispering "kill! kill!" and his +fingers sought and found the weapon. While he was listening with the +outward ear to Bainbridge's cheerful reminiscences, the little minutiae +were arranging themselves: he saw where Broffin would step, and was +careful to mark that none of the by-standers would be in range. He would +wait until there could be no possibility of missing; then he would +fire--from the pocket. + +It was Johnson who broke the spell. While Bainbridge was insisting that +Griswold should come in and make a social third at the hotel +dinner-table, the teller picked up his hand-bag and mounted the steps. +Griswold's brain fell into halves. With one of them he was making +excuses to the newspaper man; with the other he saw Broffin stop Johnson +and draw him aside. + +What the detective was saying was only too plainly evident. Johnson +wheeled short to face the sidewalk group, and Griswold could feel in +every fibre of him the searching scrutiny to which he was being +subjected. When he stole a glance at the pair on the porch, Johnson was +shaking his head slowly; and he did it again after a second thoughtful +stare. Griswold, missing completely now what Bainbridge was saying, +overheard the teller's low-toned rejoinder to the detective's urgings: +"It's no use, Mr. Broffin; I'd have to swear positively to it, you +know, and I couldn't do that.... No, I don't want to hear your +corroborative evidence; it might make me see a resemblance where there +is none. Wait until Mr. Galbraith recovers: he's your man." + +Griswold hardly knew how he made shift to get away from Bainbridge +finally; but when it was done, and he was crossing the little triangular +park which filled the angle between the business squares and the +lake-fronting residence streets, he was sweating profusely, and the +departing fear-mania was leaving him weak and tremulous. + +Passing the stone-basined fountain in the middle of the park he stopped, +jerked the pistol from his pocket, spilled the cartridges from its +magazine, and stooped to grope for a loose stone in the walk-border. +With the fountain base for an anvil and the loosened border stone for a +hammer he beat the weapon into shapeless inutility and flung it away. + +"God knows whom I shall be tempted to kill, next!" he groaned; and the +trembling fit was still unnerving him when he went on to keep the +appointment made by Charlotte Farnham. + + + + +XXXIX + +DUST AND ASHES + + +A full moon, blood-red from the smoke of forest fires far to the +eastward, was rising over the Wahaska Hills when Griswold unlatched the +gate of the Farnham enclosure and passed quickly up the walk. + +Since the summoning note had stressed the urgencies, he was not +surprised to find the writer of it awaiting his coming on the +vine-shadowed porch. In his welcoming there was a curious mingling of +constraint and impatience, and he was moved to marvel. Miss Farnham's +outlook upon life, the point of view of the ideally well-balanced, was +uniformly poiseful and self-contained, and he was wondering if some +fresh entanglement were threatening when she motioned him to a seat and +placed her own chair so that the light from the sitting-room windows +would leave her in the shadow. + +"You had my note?" she began. + +"Yes. It came while I was away from the hotel, and the regular trip of +the Inn brake was the first conveyance I could catch. Am I late?" + +Her reply was qualified. "That remains to be seen." + +There was a hesitant pause, and then she went on: "Do you know why I +sent for you to come." + +"No, not definitely." + +"I was hoping you would know; it would make it easier for me. You owe me +something, Mr. Griswold." + +"I owe you a great deal," he admitted, warmly. "It is hardly putting it +too strong to say that you have made some part of my work possible which +would otherwise have been impossible." + +"I didn't mean that," she dissented, with a touch of cool scorn. "I have +no especial ambition to figure as a character, however admirable, in a +book. Your obligation doesn't lie in the literary field; it is real--and +personal. You have done me a great injustice, and it seems to have been +carefully premeditated." + +The blow was so sudden and so calmly driven home that Griswold gasped. + +"An injustice?--to you?" he protested; but she would not let him go on. + +"Yes. At first, I thought it was only a coincidence--your coming to +Wahaska--but now I know better. You came here, in goodness knows what +spirit of reckless bravado, because it was my home; and you made the +decision apparently without any consideration for me; without any +thought of the embarrassments and difficulties in which it might involve +me." + +Truly, the heavens had fallen and the solid earth was reeling! Griswold +lay back in the deep lounging-chair and fought manfully to retain some +little hold upon the anchorings. Could this be his ideal; the woman whom +he had set so high above all others in the scale of heroic +faultlessness and sublime devotion to principle? And was she so much a +slave of the conventional as to be able to tell him coldly that she had +recognized him again, and that her chief concern was the embarrassment +it was causing her? Before he could gather the words for any adequate +rejoinder, she was going on pointedly: + +"You have done everything you could to make the involvement complete. +You have made friends of my friends, and you came here as a friend of my +father. You have drawn Edward Raymer into the entanglement and helped +him with the stolen money. In every way you have sought to make it more +and more impossible for me to give information against you--and you have +succeeded. I can't do it now, without facing a scandal that would never +die in a small place like this, and without bringing trouble and ruin +upon a family of our nearest friends. And that is why I sent for you +to-day; and why I say you owe me something." + +Griswold was sitting up again, and he had recovered some small measure +of self-possession. + +"I certainly owe you many apologies, at least," he said, ironically. "I +have really been doing you a great injustice, Miss Farnham--a very grave +injustice, though not exactly of the kind you mention. I think I have +been misapprehending you from the beginning. How long have you known me +as the man who is wanted in New Orleans?" + +"A long time; though I tried not to believe it at first. It seemed +incredible that the man I had spoken to on the _Belle Julie_ would come +here and put me in such a false position." + +"Good heavens!" he broke out; "is your position all you have been +thinking of? Is that the only reason why you haven't set the dogs on +me?" + +"It is the chief reason why I couldn't afford to do anything more than I +have done. Goodness knows, I have tried in every way to warn you, even +to pointing out the man who is shadowing you. To do it, I have had to +deceive my father. I have been hoping that you would understand and go +away." + +"Wait a minute," he commanded. "Let me get it straight; you still +believe that the thing I did was a criminal thing?" + +"We needn't go into that part of it again," she returned, with a sort of +placid impatience. "Once I thought that there might be some way in which +you had justified yourself to yourself, but now----" + +"That isn't the point," he interrupted roughly. "What I want to know is +this: Do you still believe it is a crime?" + +"Of course, it is a crime; I know it, you know it, all the world knows +it." + +Again he sat back and took time to gather up a few of the scattered +shards and fragments. When he spoke it was to say: "I think the debt is +on the other side, Miss Charlotte; I think you owe me something. You +probably won't understand when I say that you have robbed me of a very +precious thing--my faith in the ultimate goodness of a good woman. You +believe--you have always believed--that I am a criminal; and yet you +have been weak enough to let expediency seal your lips. I am truer to my +code than you are to yours, as you shall see if the day ever comes when +I shall be convinced that I did wrong. But that is neither here nor +there. You sent for me: what is it that you want me to do?" + +"I want to give you one more chance to disappoint the Wahaska gossips," +she replied, entirely unmoved, as it seemed, by his harsh arraignment. +"Do you know why this man Broffin is still waiting?" + +"I can guess. He is taking a long chance on the chapter of accidents." + +"Not altogether. Three days ago, Mr. Galbraith had Miss Grierson +telegraph to New Orleans for some one of the bank officials. Yesterday I +learned that the man who is coming is the teller who waited on me and +who gave you the money. As soon as I heard that, I began to try to find +you." + +Griswold did not tell her that the danger she feared was a danger past. + +"Go on," he prompted. + +"You are no longer safe in Wahaska," she asserted. "The teller can +identify you, and the detective will give him the opportunity. That is +doubtless what he is waiting for." + +"And you would suggest that I make a run for it? Is that why you sent +for me?" + +"It is. You are tempting fate by staying; and, notwithstanding what you +have said, I still insist that you owe me something. There is a fast +train west at ten o'clock. If you need ready money----" + +Griswold laughed. It had gone beyond the tragic and was fast lapsing +into comedy, farce. + +"We are each of us appearing in a new role to-night, Miss Farnham," he +said, with sardonic humor; "I as the hunted criminal, and you as the +equally culpable accessory after the fact. If I run away, what shall be +done with the--the 'swag,' the bulk of which, as you know, is tied up in +Raymer's business?" + +"I have thought of that," she returned calmly, "and that is another +reason why you shouldn't let them take you. Right or wrong, you have +incurred a fresh responsibility in your dealings with Mr. Raymer; and +Edward, who is perfectly innocent, must be protected in some way." + +It was not in human nature to resist the temptation to strike back. + +"I have told Raymer how he can most successfully underwrite his +financial risk," he said, with malice intentional. + +"How?" + +"By marrying Miss Grierson." + +He had touched the springs of anger at last. + +"That woman!" she broke out. And then: "If you have said that to Edward +Raymer, I shall never forgive you as long as I live! It is your affair +to secure Edward against loss in the money matter--your own individual +responsibility, Mr. Griswold. He accepted the money in good faith, +and----" + +Again Griswold gave place to the caustic humor and finished for her. + +"--And, though it is stolen money, it must not be taken away from him. +Once, when I was even more foolish than I am now, I said of you that you +would be a fitting heroine in a story in which the hero should be a man +who might need to borrow a conscience. It's quite the other way around." + +"We needn't quarrel," she said, retreating again behind the barrier of +cold reserve. "I suppose I have given you the right to say disagreeable +things to me, if you choose to assert it. But we are wasting time which +may be very precious. Will you go away, as I have suggested?" + +He found his hat and got upon his feet rather unsteadily. + +"I don't know; possibly I shall. But in any event, you needn't borrow +any more trouble, either on your own account, or on Raymer's. By the +merest chance, I met Johnson, the teller you speak of, a few minutes ago +at the Winnebago House and was introduced to him. He didn't know me, +then, or later, when Broffin was telling him that he ought to know me. +Hence, the matter rests as it did before--between you and Mr. +Galbraith." + +"Mr. Galbraith?" + +"Yes. That was a danger past, too, a short time ago. I met him, +socially, and he didn't recognize me. Afterward, Broffin pointed me out +to him, and again he failed to identify me. But the other day, after I +had pulled him out of the lake, he remembered. I've been waiting to see +what he will do." + +"He will do nothing. You saved his life." + +Griswold shook his head. + +"I am still man enough to hope that he won't let the bit of personal +service make him compound a felony." + +"Why do you call it that?" she demanded. + +"Because, from his point of view, and yours, that is precisely what it +is; and it is what you are doing, Miss Farnham. I, the criminal, say +this to you. You should have given me up the moment you recognized me. +That is your creed, and you should have lived up to it. Since you +haven't, you have wronged yourself and have made me the poorer by a +thing that----" + +"Stop!" she cried, standing up to face him. "Do you mean to tell me that +you are ungrateful enough to----" + +"No; ingratitude isn't quite the word. I'm just sorry; with the sorrow +you have when you look for something that you have a right to expect, +and find that it isn't there; that it has never been there; that it +isn't anywhere. You have hurt me, and you have hurt yourself; but there +is still a chance for you. When I am gone, go to the telephone and call +Broffin at the Winnebago House. You can tell him that he will find me at +my rooms. Good-by." + +He was half-way to the foot of Lakeview Avenue, striding along moodily +with his head down and his hands behind him, when he collided violently +with Raymer going in the opposite direction. The shock was so unexpected +that Griswold would have been knocked down if the muscular young +iron-founder had not caught him promptly. At the saving instant came +mutual recognition. + +"Hello, there!" said Raymer. "You are the very man I've been looking +for. Charlotte wants to see you." + +"Not now she doesn't," was the rather grim contradiction. "I have just +left her." + +"Oh." + +There was a pause, and then Griswold cut in morosely. + +"So you did take my way out of the labor trouble, after all, didn't +you?" + +Raymer looked away. + +"I don't know just how you'd like to have me answer that, Kenneth. How +much or how little do you know of what happened?" + +"Nothing at all"--shortly. + +"Well, it was Margery who wrought the miracle, of course. I don't know, +yet, just how she did it; but it was done, and done right." + +"And you have asked her to marry you?" + +"Suffering Scott! how you do come at a man! Yes, I asked her, if you've +got to know." + +"Well?" snapped Griswold. + +"She--she turned me down, Kenneth; got up and walked all over me. That's +a horrible thing to make me say, but it's the truth." + +"I don't understand it, Raymer. Was it the No that means No?" + +"I don't understand it either," returned the iron-founder, with grave +naivete. "And, yes, I guess she meant it. But that reminds me. She knew +I was looking for you and she gave me a note--let me see, I've got it +here somewhere; oh, yes, here it is--gilt monogram and all." + +Griswold took the note and pocketed it without comment and without +looking at it. + +"Were you going to Doctor Bertie's?" he asked. + +"I was. Have you any objection?" + +"Not the least in the world. It's a good place for you to go just now, +and I guess you are the right man for the place. Good-night." + +At the next corner where there was an electric light, Griswold stopped +and opened the monogrammed envelope. The enclosure was a single sheet of +perfumed note-paper upon which, without date, address or signature was +written the line: + +"Mr. Galbraith is better--and he is grateful." + + + + +XL + +APPLES OF ISTAKHAR + + +The swinging arc-light suspended above the street-crossing sputtered and +died down to a dull red dot of incandescence as Griswold returned +Margery's note to his pocket and walked on. + +There are crises in which the chief contention looms so large as to +leave no room for the ordinary mental processes. Griswold saw no +significance in the broken line of Margery's message. The one tremendous +revelation--the knowledge that the dross-creating curse had finally +fallen upon the woman whose convictions should have saved her--was +blotting out all the subtler perceptive faculties; and for the time the +struggle with the submerging wave of disappointment and disheartenment +was bitter. + +He was two squares beyond the crossing of the broken-circuited +arc-light, and was still following the curve of the lakeside boulevard, +when he came to the surface of the submerging wave long enough to +realize that he had entered Jasper Grierson's portion of the water-front +drive. The great house, dark as to its westward gables save for the +lighted upper windows marking the sick-room and its antechamber, loomed +in massive solidity among its sheltering oaks; and the moon, which had +now topped the hills and the crimsoning smoke haze, was bathing +land- and lake-scape in a flood of silver light, whitening the pale yellow +sands of the beach and etching fantastic leaf-traceries on the gravel of +the boulevarded driveway. + +There was no enclosing fence on the Mereside border of the boulevard, +and under the nearest of the lawn oaks there were rustic park seats, +Jasper Grierson's single concession to the public when he had fought for +and secured his property right-of-way through to the lake's margin. +Griswold turned aside and sat down on one of the benches. The +disappointment was growing less keen. He was beginning to understand +that he had made no allowance for the eternal feminine in the idealized +_Fidelia_--for the feminine and the straitly human. But the +disheartenment remained. Should he stay and fight it out? Or should he +take pity upon the poor prisoner of the conventions and seek to postpone +the day of reckoning by flight? + +He had not fitted the answer to either of these sharp-pointed queries +when a pair of light-fingered hands came from behind to clap themselves +upon his eyes, and a well-known voice said, "Guess." + +"Margery!" he said; and she laughed with the joyous unconstraint of a +happy child and came around to sit by him. + +"I was doing time out on the veranda, and I saw you down here in the +moonlight, looking as if you had lost something," she explained, adding: +"Have you?" + +"I don't know; can you lose that which you've never had?" he returned +musingly. And then: "Yes; perhaps I did lose something. Don't ask me +what it is. I hardly know, myself." + +"You have just come from Doctor Bertie's?" she inquired. + +"Yes." + +"And Charlotte doesn't want to marry you?" + +"Heavens and earth!" he exploded. "Who put the idea into your head that +I wanted to marry her?" + +"You did"--calmly. + +"Then, for pity's sake, let me take it out, quick. If I were the last +man on earth, Miss Farnham wouldn't marry me; and if she were the last +woman, I think I'd go drown myself in the lake!" + +The young woman of the many metamorphoses was laughing again, and this +time the laugh was a letter-perfect imitation of a school-girl giggle. + +"My!" she said. "How dreadfully hard she must have sat on you!" + +"Please don't laugh," he pleaded; "unless you are the heartless kind of +person who would laugh at a funeral. I'm down under the hoofs of the +horses, at last, Margery, girl. Before you came, I was wondering if the +game were at all worth the candle." + +Her mood changed in the twinkling of an eye. "The battle is over, and +won," she said, speaking softly. "Didn't you know that?" And then: "Oh, +boy, boy! but it has been a desperate fight! Time and again I have +thought you were gone, in spite of all I could do!" + +"You thought--I was gone? Then you know?" + +"Of course I know; I have known ever since the first night; the night +when I found the money in your suit-case. What a silly, silly thing it +was for you to do--to leave the Bayou State Security slips on the +packages!" + +"But you said----" + +"No, I didn't say; I merely let you believe that I didn't see them. +After that, I knew it would be only a question of time until they would +trace you here, and I hurried; oh, I _hurried_! I made up my mind that +before the struggle came, all Wahaska should know you, not as a bank +robber, but as you are, and I made it come out just that way. Then Mr. +Broffin turned up, and the fight was on. He shadowed you, and I shadowed +him--or had Johnnie Fergus do it for me. I knew he'd try Miss Farnham +first, and there was only one hope there--that she might fall in love +with you and so refuse to give you away. She did, didn't she?" + +"Most emphatically, she did not," he denied. "You have greatly misjudged +Miss Farnham. The reason--the only reason--why she did not tell Broffin +what he wanted to know was a purely conventional one. She did not want +to be the most-talked-of woman in Wahaska." + +His companion's laugh was not pleasant. + +"I'd rather be a spiteful little cat, which is what she once called me, +than to be moth-eaten on the inside, like that!" she commented. Then she +went on: "With Miss Farnham out of it--and I knew she must be out of +it, since Broffin didn't strike--there was still Mr. Galbraith. You +didn't know why I was so anxious to have you get acquainted with him, +but you know now. And it worked. When Broffin asked him to identify you, +he couldn't--or wouldn't. Then came that unlucky drowning accident." + +Griswold nodded slowly. "Yes, Mr. Galbraith knows me now." + +"He doesn't!" she exulted. "He is a dear old saint, and he will never +know you again as the man who held him up. Listen: he sent for Broffin +this afternoon, and gave him a new commission--something about bonds in +California. And he told him he must go on the first train!" + +Once more the castaway was running the gamut of the fiercely varying +emotions. + +"Let me understand," he said. "You knew I had taken the money, and yet +you did all these things to pull me out and make the hold-up a success. +Where was your moral sense, all this time, little girl?" + +She made a charming little mouth at him. + +"I am _Joan_, and the _Joans_ don't have any moral senses--to speak +of--do they? That's the way you are writing it down in your book, isn't +it?" Then, with a low laugh that sounded some unfathomed depth of loving +abandonment: "It was a game; and I played it--played it for all I was +worth, and won. You are free; free as the air, Kenneth, boy. If Broffin +should come here this minute and put his hand on your shoulder, you +could look up and laugh in his face. Are you glad--or sorry?" + +His answer was the answer of the man who was, for the time being, +neither the moralist nor the criminal. With a swift out-reaching he drew +her to him, crushed her in his arms, covered her face with kisses. + +"I am glad--glad that I am your lover," he whispered, passionately. +"God, girl! but you are a woman to die for! No, not yet"--when she would +have slipped out of his arms--"Believe me, Margery; there has never been +any one else--not for a moment. But I thought it was Raymer, and for +your sake and his I could have stepped aside; I did try to step aside. +That is the one decent thing I have done in all this devilish business. +Are you listening?" + +She had stopped struggling, and was hiding her face on his shoulder. He +felt her quick little nod and went on. + +"Since you know the one decent thing, you must know all the horrible +things, too. A dozen times I have been a murderer in heart, and once ... +you know: I meant to let Galbraith die, that night." + +She looked up quickly. + +"No, boy, I'll never believe that--never! If you had stayed awake until +the time came, you couldn't have done it. And, besides, I am to blame. I +planned it--planned it purposely: I didn't even hope to find a nurse +when we were supposed to be looking for one. I knew how you felt, and I +wanted to make you show yourself that you didn't really hate him bad +enough to let him die. But I don't care; it doesn't matter--nothing +matters, now." + +"Wait," he said. "There was murder in my heart that night, and it was +there again this evening--just a little while ago. Miss Farnham and +Galbraith were not the only ones I had to fear; there was another; the +teller who got here from New Orleans on the seven-forty-five train. You +didn't know about him, did you? He came, and an old newspaper friend of +mine was with him. I stumbled upon them on the sidewalk in front of the +Winnebago House; and Broffin was there, too. We were introduced, the +teller and I, and Broffin was so sure he had me that he got his +handcuffs out and was opening them." + +Margery shuddered and hid her face again. "And I--I didn't know!" she +gasped. + +"Luck was with me again," he continued. "Johnson didn't remember me; +refused to do so even when Broffin stopped him and tried to tell him who +I was. I had a pistol in my pocket, and it was aimed at Broffin. If he +had made a move to take me, I should certainly have killed him." + +She sat up suddenly. + +"Give me that pistol, Kenneth--give it to me _now_!" + +"I can't," he confessed, shamefacedly. "When it was all over, I smashed +the pistol with a stone and threw it away." + +She drew a long breath, "Is that all?" she asked. + +"All but one thing; the worst of them all ... that day in the bank +vault----" + +The daughter of men buried her face on his shoulder again at that. +"Don't!" she begged. "You couldn't help it, boy; I made you do +it--meaning to. There! and I said that wild horses should never drag it +out of me!" + +Again he said, "Wait," and covered the shining head on his shoulder with +a caressing hand. "It wasn't love, then, little girl; that's what it +breaks my heart to tell you: it was just madness. And it wasn't clean; +you've got to know that, too." + +She nodded her head violently. "I know," she murmured; "I knew it at the +time, and that was what made me cry. But now it's--it's different, isn't +it, boy? now you--are----" + +"You have heard it all, Margery. You know what I thought I was, and what +I have turned out to be. I'm afraid I am just a common crook, after all; +there doesn't seem to be standing-room anywhere else for me. But every +living fibre of me, the good and the bad, loves you--loves you!" + +"What do I care for anything else?" she flashed back. "You are you, +Kenneth, dear; that is all I know, and all I care for. If you had stolen +all the money in the world, and had killed a dozen men to make your +get-away, it would be just the same. Only----" + +"Only what?" he demanded jealously. + +"It would be just the same to me; but--but.... Oh, boy, dear! it will +never, _never_ be the same to you!" + +"I--I don't understand," he stammered. + +"Some day you will. You call yourself a crook: man, man! there isn't a +crooked drop of blood in you! Don't I know? You persuaded yourself that +you had a right to take this money; perhaps you did have; _I_ don't say +you didn't. When I see anything I want, I reach out and take it, if I +can--and I guess most people would, if they dared. But you are +different; you are _good_. Some day all these dreadful things that have +come tagging along after the fact will rise up and gnash their teeth at +you and tell you that it was a _sin_, a _crime_. And then--oh, boy, +dear! then I shall lose you!" + +Very gently he took her in his arms again; and for a time all things +sensible and tangible, the deserted driveway, and the plashing of the +little waves on the sands, the staring moonlight and the stencilled +shadows of the oaks, were forgotten in the great soul-healing silence +that wrapped them about and enveloped them. + +"Margery," he began, when the interval of thoughtful heart-searching had +done its illuminative work, "what would you say if I should tell you +that your 'some day' has already come?" + +She started as if he had thrust a knife into her. Then she slipped out +of his arms and caught up his hand to press it against her cheek. + +"I should say, 'Whatsoever seemeth good in the eyes of my dear lord, so +let it be.'" + +"But think a moment, girl; if one has done wrong, there must be +atonement. That is the higher law--the highest law--and no man may +evade it. Do you know what that would mean for me?" + +"It is the Price, boy, dear; I don't ask you to pay it. Listen: my +father and I have agreed to disagree, and he has turned over to me a lot +of money that he took from--that was once my mother's brother's share in +the Colorado gold claims. What is mine is yours. We can pay back the +money. Will that do?" + +He was shaking his head slowly. "No," he said, "I think it wouldn't do." + +"I was afraid it wouldn't," she sighed, "but I had to try. Are they +still gnashing their teeth at you?--the dreadful things, I mean?" + +He did not answer in words, but she knew, and held her peace. At the end +of the ends he sprang up suddenly and drew her to her feet. + +"I can't do it, Margery, girl! I can't ask you to wait--and afterward to +marry a convict! Think of it--even if Galbraith were willing to +withdraw, the law wouldn't let him, and I'd get the limit; anything from +seven years to fifteen or more. Oh, my God, no! I can't pay the price! I +can't give you up!" + +She put her arms around his neck and drew his head down and kissed him +on the lips. "I'll wait ... oh, boy, boy! I'll wait! But I can neither +push you over the edge nor hold you back. Only don't think of me; +please, _please_ don't think of me!--'Whatsoever seemeth good'--that is +what you must think of; that is my last word: 'Whatsoever seemeth +good.'" And she pushed him from her and fled. + + + + +XLI + +THE DESERT AND THE SOWN + + +Through streets in which the village quiet of the summer night was +undisturbed save by the spattering tinkle of the lawn sprinklers in the +front yards, and the low voices of the out-door people taking the air +and the moonlight on the porches, Griswold fared homeward, the blood +pounding in his veins and the fine wine of life mounting headily to his +brain. + +After all the dubious stumblings he had come to the end of the road, to +find awaiting him the great accusation and the great reward. By the +unanswerable logic of results, in its effect upon others and upon +himself, his deed had proved itself a crime. Right or wrong in the +highest of the ethical fields, the accepted social order had proved +itself strong enough to make its own laws and to prescribe the +far-reaching penalties for their infraction. Under these laws he stood +convicted. Never again, save through the gate of atonement, could he be +reinstated as a soldier in the ranks of the conventionally righteous. +True, the devotion of a loving woman, aided by a train of circumstances +strikingly fortuitous and little short of miraculous, had averted the +final price-paying in penal retribution. But the fact remained. He was +a felon. + +Into this gaping wound which might otherwise have slain him had been +poured the wine and oil of a great love; a love so clean and pure in its +own well-springs that it could perceive no wrong in its object; could +measure no act of loyal devotion by any standard save that of its own +greatness. This love asked nothing but what he chose to give. It would +accept him either as he was, or as he ought to be. The place he should +elect to occupy would be its place; his standards its standards. + +Just here the reasoning angel opened a door and thrust him out upon the +edge of a precipice and left him to look down into the abyss of the +betrayers--the pit of those whose gift and curse it is to be the +pace-setters. In a flash of revealment it was shown him that with the +great love had come a great responsibility. Where he should lead, +Margery would follow, unshrinkingly, unquestioningly; never asking +whether the path led up or down; asking only that his path might be +hers. Instantly he was face to face with a fanged choice which +threatened to tear his heart out and trample upon it; and again he +recorded his decision, confirming it with an oath. The price was too +great; the upward path too steep; the self-denial it entailed too +sacrificial. + +"We have but one life to live, and we'll live it together, Margery, +girl, for better or for worse," was his apostrophic declaration, made +while he was turning into Shawnee Street a few doors from his lodgings; +and a minute later he was opening the Widow Holcomb's gate. + +The house was dark and apparently deserted as to its street-fronting +half when he let himself in at the gate and ran quickly up the steps. +The front door was open, and he remembered afterward that he had +wondered how the careful widow had come to leave it so, and why the hall +lamp was not lighted. From the turn at the stair-head he felt his way to +the door of his study. Like the one below, it was wide open; but some +one had drawn the window shades and the interior of the room was as dark +as a cavern. + +Once, in the novel-writing, following the lead of many worthy +predecessors, Griswold had made much of the "sixth" sense; the subtle +and indefinable prescience which warns its possessor of invisible +danger. No such warning was vouchsafed him when he leaned across the end +of the writing-table, turned on the gas, and held a lighted match over +the chimney of the working-lamp. It was while he was still bending over +the table, with both hands occupied, that he looked aside. In his own +pivot-chair, covering him with the mate to the weapon he had smashed and +thrown away, sat the man who had opened the two doors and drawn the +window shades and otherwise prepared the trap. + +"You bought a couple o' these little playthings, Mr. Griswold," said the +man, quietly. "Keep your hands right where they are, and tell me in +which pocket you've got the other one." + +Griswold laughed, and there was a sudden snapping of invisible bonds. He +dismissed instantly the thought that Charlotte Farnham had taken him at +his word; and if she had not, there was nothing to fear. + +"I threw the other one away a little while ago," he said. "Reach your +free hand over and feel my pockets." + +Broffin acted upon the suggestion promptly. + +"You ain't got it on you, anyway," he conceded; and when Griswold had +dropped into the chair at the table's end: "I reckon you know what I'm +here for." + +"I know that you are holding that gun of mine at an exceedingly +uncomfortable angle--for me," was the cool rejoinder. "I've always had a +squeamish horror of being shot in the stomach." + +The detective's grin was appreciative. + +"You've got a good cold nerve, anyway," he commented. "I've been puttin' +it up that when the time came, you'd throw a fit o' some sort--what? +Since you're clothed in your right mind, we'll get down to business. +First, I'll ask you to hand over the key to that safety-deposit box +you've got in Mr. Grierson's bank." + +Griswold took his bunch of keys from his pocket, slipped the one that +was asked for from the ring, and gave it to his captor. + +"Of course, I'm surrendering it under protest," he said. "You haven't +yet told me who you are, or what you are holding me up for." + +Broffin waved the formalities aside with a pistol-pointed gesture. "We +can skip all that. I've got you dead to rights, after so long a time, +and I'm goin' to take you back to New Orleans with me. The only question +is: do you go easy, or hard?" + +"I don't go either way until you show your authority." + +"I don't need any authority. You're the parlor-anarchist that held up +the president of the Bayou State Security Bank last spring and made a +get-away with a hundred thousand--what?" + +"All right; you say so--prove it." Griswold had taken a cigar from the +open box on the writing-table and was calmly lighting it. There was +nothing to be nervous about. "I'm waiting," he went on, placidly, when +the cigar was going. "If you are an officer, you probably have a +warrant, or a requisition, or something of that sort. Show it up." + +"I don't need any papers to take you," was the barked-out retort. +Broffin had more than once found himself confronting similar dead walls, +and he knew the worth of a bold play. + +"Oh, yes, you do. You accuse me of a crime: did you see me commit the +crime?" + +"No." + +"Well, somebody did, I suppose. Bring on your witnesses. If anybody can +identify me as the man you are after, I'll go with you--without the +requisition. That's fair, isn't it?" + +"I know you're the man, and you know it, too, damned well!" snapped +Broffin, angered into bandying words with his obstinate capture. + +"That is neither here nor there; I am not affirming or denying. It is +for you to prove your case, if you can. And, listen, Mr. Broffin: +perhaps it will save your time and mine if I add that I happen to know +that you can't prove your case." + +"Why can't I?" + +"Just because you can't," Griswold went on, argumentatively. "I know the +facts of this robbery you speak of; a great many people know them. The +newspaper accounts said at the time that there were three persons who +could certainly identify the robber: the president, the paying teller, +and a young woman. It so happens that all three of these people are at +present in Wahaska. At different times you have appealed to each of +them, and in each instance you have been turned down. Isn't that true?" + +Broffin glanced up, scowling. + +"It's true enough that you--you and the little black-eyed girl between +you--have hoodooed the whole bunch!" he rasped. "But when I get you into +court, you'll find out that there are others." + +Griswold smiled good-naturedly. "That is a bold, bad bluff, Mr. Broffin, +and nobody knows it any better than you do," he countered. "You haven't +a leg to stand on. This is America, and you can't arrest me without a +warrant. And if you could, what would you do with me without the support +of at least one of your three witnesses? Nothing--nothing at all." + +Broffin laid the pistol on the table, and put the key of the safety-box +beside it. Then he sat in grim silence for a full minute, toying idly +with a pair of handcuffs which he had taken from his pocket. + +"By the eternal grapples!" he said, at length, half to himself, "I've a +good mind to do it anyway--and take the chances." + +As quick as a flash Griswold thrust out his hands. + +"Put them on!" he snapped. "There are a hundred lawyers in New Orleans +who wouldn't ask for anything better than the chance to defend me--at +your expense!" + +Broffin dropped the manacles into his pocket and sat back in the +swing-chair. "You win," he said shortly; and the battle was over. + +For a little time no word was spoken. Griswold smoked on placidly, +seemingly forgetful of the detective's presence. Yet he was the one who +was the first to break the straitened silence. + +"You are a game fighter, Mr. Broffin," he said, "and I'm enough of a +scrapper myself to be sorry for you. Try one of these smokes--you'll +find them fairly good--and excuse me for a few minutes. I want to write +a letter which, if you are going down-town, perhaps you'll be good +enough to mail for me." + +He pushed the open box of cigars across to the detective, and dragged +the lounging-chair around to the other side of the table. There was +stationery at hand, and he wrote rapidly for a few minutes, covering +three pages of the manuscript sheets before he stopped. When the letter +was enclosed, addressed, and stamped, he tossed it across to Broffin, +face up. The detective saw the address, "Miss Margery Grierson," and, +putting the letter into his pocket, got up to go. + +"Just one minute more, if you please," said Griswold, and, relighting +the cigar which had been suffered to go out, he went into the adjoining +bedroom. When he came back, he had put on a light top-coat and a soft +hat, and was carrying a small hand-bag. + +"I'm your man, Mr. Broffin," he said quietly. "I'll go with you--and +plead guilty as charged." + + * * * * * + +Wahaska, the village-conscious, had its nine-days' wonder displayed for +it in inch-type head-lines when the _Daily Wahaskan_, rehearsing the +story of the New Orleans bank robbery, told of the voluntary surrender +of the robber, and of his deportation to the southern city to stand +trial for his offence. + +Some few there were who took exceptions to Editor Randolph's editorial +in the same issue, commenting on the surrender, and pleading for a +suspension of judgment on the ground that much might still be hoped for +from a man who had retraced a broad step in the downward path by +voluntarily accepting the penalty. Those who objected to the editorial +were of the perverse minority. The intimation was made that the plea had +been inspired--a hint basing itself upon the fact that Miss Grierson had +been seen visiting the office of the _Wahaskan_ after the departure of +the detective, Matthew Broffin, with his prisoner. + +The sensational incident, however, had been forgotten long before a +certain evening, three weeks later, when the Grierson carriage conveyed +the convalescent president of the Bayou State Security from the Grierson +mansion to the southbound train. Andrew Galbraith was not alone in the +carriage, and possibly there were those in the sleeping-car who mistook +the dark-eyed and strikingly beautiful young woman, who took leave of +him only after he was comfortably settled in his section, for his +daughter. But the whispered words of leave-taking were rather those of a +confidante than a kinswoman. + +"I'll arrange the Raymer matter as you suggest," she said, "and if I had +even a speaking acquaintance with God, I'd pray for you the longest day +I live, Uncle Andrew. And about the trial: I'm going to leave it all +with you; I've g-got to leave it with you! Just remember that I shall +bleed little drops of blood for every day the judge gives him, and that +the only way he can be helped is by a short sentence. He wouldn't take a +pardon: he--he wants to pay, you know. Good-night, and good-by!" And she +put her strong young arms around Andrew Galbraith's neck and kissed him, +thereby convincing the family party in Lower Seven that she was not only +the old man's daughter, but a very affectionate one, at that. + + * * * * * + +The little-changing seasons of central Louisiana had measured two +complete rounds on the yearly dial of Time's unremitting and unhasting +clock when the best hired carriage that Baton Rouge could afford drew +up before the entrance to the State's Prison and waited. Precisely on +the stroke of twelve, a man for whom the prison rules had lately been +relaxed sufficiently to allow his hair to grow, came out, looked about +him as one dazed, and assaulted the closed door of the carriage as if he +meant to tear it from its hinges. + +"Oh, boy, boy!" came from the one who had waited; and then the carriage +door yielded, opened, closed with a crash, and the negro driver clucked +to his horses. + +They were half-way to the railroad station, and she was trying to +persuade him that there would be months and years in which to make up +for the loveless blank, before sane speech found its opportunity. And +even then there were interruptions. + +"I knew you'd be here; no, they didn't tell me, but I knew it--I would +have staked my life on it, Margery, girl," he said, in the first lucid +interval. + +"And you--you've paid the Price, haven't you, Kenneth? but, oh, boy, +dear! I've paid it, too! Don't you believe me?" + +There was another interruption, and because the carriage windows were +open, the negro driver grinned and confided a remark to his horses. Then +the transgressor began again. + +"Where are you taking me, Margery?--not that it makes any manner of +difference." + +"We are going by train to New Orleans, and this--this--very--evening we +are to be married, in Mr. Galbraith's house. And Uncle Andrew is going +to give the bride away. It's all arranged." + +"And after?" + +"Afterward, we are going away--I don't know where. I just told dear old +Saint Andrew to buy the tickets to anywhere he thought would be nice, +and we'd go. I don't care where it is--do you? And when we get there, +I'll buy you a pen and some ink and paper, and you'll go on writing the +book, just as if nothing had happened. Say you will, boy, dear; _please_ +say you will! And then I'll know that--the price--wasn't--too great." + +He was looking out of the carriage window when he answered her, across +to the levee and beyond it to the farther shore of the great river, and +his eyes were the eyes of a man who has seen of the travail of his soul +and is satisfied. + +"I shall never write that book, little girl. That story, and all the +mistakes that were going to the making of it, lie on the other side +of--the Price. But one day, please God, there shall be another and a +worthier one." + +"Yes--please God," she said; and the dark eyes were shining softly. + + +THE END + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TITLES SELECTED FROM +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated. + +A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently made +love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situation +complicates the romance. + + +THE GAMBLERS. By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow. Illustrated by C. E. +Chambers. + +A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men play for +big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits--or repudiate the +methods. + + +CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis. Illustrated by Florence +Scovel Shinn and others. + +A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans at home and +abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of relaxation. + + +THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox. + +Clever, original presentations of present day social problems and the +best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess. + + +THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. Illustrated. Handsomely colored +wrapper. + +A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him during +the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovely +eyes of a Frenchwoman. + + +THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett. + +A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will make +women realize the part that politics play--even in their romances. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +=The Master's Violin= + +By MYRTLE REED + +[Illustration] + +A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German +virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to +take as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for +technique, but not the soul of the artist. The youth has led the happy, +careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, +with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the +tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived +life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a +beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart +and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons +that life has to give--and his soul awakens. + +Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized or +discussed. + + * * * * * + +If you have not read "LAVENDER AND OLD LACE" by the same author, you +have a double pleasure in store--for these two books show Myrtle Reed in +her most delightful, fascinating vein--indeed they may be considered as +masterpieces of compelling interest. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK + + +=The Prodigal Judge= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +By VAUGHAN KESTER + +This great novel--probably the most popular book in this country +to-day--is as human as a story from the pen of that great master of +"immortal laughter and immortal tears," Charles Dickens. + +The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial +wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with +that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor +peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals--very +exalted ones--but honors them in the breach rather than in the +observance. + +Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon +Mahaffy--fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublime +capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little +Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of +the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque +vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing +all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of this +delightful old vagabond. + +The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters +as surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinite +delight, while this story of Mr. Kester's is one of the finest examples +of American literary craftmanship. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TITLES SELECTED FROM +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS. By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by C. +Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch. + +Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and +she subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer +amusement. + + +THE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. + +The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a +yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls. + + +THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham. + +A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of +love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is +stronger than worldly success. + + +SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett. + +A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a +Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet +lead the young mistress into another romance. + + +SHEILA VEDDER. By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher. + +A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, +strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as heroine. A +sequel to "Jan Vedder's Wife." + + +JOHN WARD, PREACHER. By Margaret Deland. + +The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a +powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful +wife to his own narrow creed. + + +THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon. + +One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the +Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TITLES SELECTED FROM +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +THE SECOND WIFE. By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated by W. W. Fawcett. +Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four colors and gold. + +An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in a wealthy +New York family involving the happiness of a beautiful young girl. + + +TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White Illustrated by Howard +Chandler Christy. + +An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town, +with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes a great sacrifice for +love. + + +FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING. By Grace Miller White. + +Frontispiece and wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws. + +Another story of "the storm country." Two beautiful children are +kidnapped from a wealthy home and appear many years after showing the +effects of a deep, malicious scheme behind their disappearance. + + +THE LIGHTED MATCH. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R. F. +Schabelitz. + +A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and falls in love +with an American man. There are ties that bind her to someone in her own +home, and the great plot revolves round her efforts to work her way out. + + +MAUD BAXTER. By C. C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a +young man who had been impressed into English service during the +Revolution. + + +THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe. + +A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman +of title. Developments of a startling character and a clever untangling +of affairs hold the reader's interest. + + +THE PURPLE STOCKINGS. By Edward Salisbury Field Illustrated in colors; +marginal illustrations. + +A young New York business man, his pretty sweetheart, his sentimental +stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in a +misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. +A story with a laugh on every page. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TITLES SELECTED FROM +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +THE SILENT CALL. By Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated with scenes from the +play. + +The hero of this story is the Squaw Man's son. He has been taken to +England, but spurns conventional life for the sake of the untamed West +and a girl's pretty face. + + +JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER. By George W. Cable. + +A story of the pretty women and spirited men of the South. As fragrant +in sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as full of mystery and racial +troubles as any romance of "after the war" days. + + +MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES. By E. W. Hornung. + +This engaging rascal is found helping a young cricket player out of the +toils of a money shark. Novel in plot, thrilling and amusing. + + +FORTY MINUTES LATE. By F. Hopkinson Smith. Illustrated by S. M. Chase. + +Delightfully human stories of every day happenings; of a lecturer's +laughable experience because he's late, a young woman's excursion into +the stock market, etc. + + +OLD LADY NUMBER 31. By Louise Forsslund. + +A heart-warming story of American rural life, telling of the adventures +of an old couple in an old folk's home, their sunny philosophical +acceptance of misfortune and ultimate prosperity. + + +THE HUSBAND'S STORY. By David Graham Phillips. + +A story that has given all Europe as well as all America much food for +thought. A young couple begin life in humble circumstances and rise in +worldly matters until the husband is enormously rich--the wife in the +most aristocratic European society--but at the price of their happiness. + + +THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service Illustrated by Maynard +Dixon. + +One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the +most accurate and picturesque descriptions of the stampede of gold +seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is +strikingly original. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +A FEW OF +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S +Great Books at Little Prices + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +WHEN A MAN MARRIES. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. Illustrated by Harrison +Fisher and Mayo Bunker. + +A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a visit +is due from his Aunt Selina, an elderly lady having ideas about things +quite apart from the Bohemian set in which her nephew is a shining +light. The way in which matters are temporarily adjusted forms the motif +of the story. + +A farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "Seven Days". + + +THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG. By David Graham Phillips. +Illustrated. + +A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and +social life in Washington. He attains power in politics, and a young +woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his education +in social amenities. + + +"DOC." GORDON. By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman. Illustrated by Frank T. +Merrill. + +Against the familiar background of American town life, the author +portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery. "Doc." +Gordon, the one physician of the place, Dr. Elliot, his assistant, a +beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter are all involved in +the plot. A novel of great interest. + + +HOLY ORDERS. By Marie Corelli. + +A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with society +people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful financiers and +others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in holy +orders"--problems that we are now struggling with in America. + + +KATRINE. By Elinor Macartney Lane. With frontispiece. + +Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly +birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice. + +The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and +the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one. + + +THE FORTUNES OF FIFI. By Molly Elliot Seawell. Illustrated by T. de +Thulstrup. + +A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon. Fifi, a +glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third +rate Parisian theatre. A story as dainty as a Watteau painting. + + +SHE THAT HESITATES. By Harris Dickson. Illustrated by C. W. Relyea. + +The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St. Petersburg +in the reign of Peter the Great, and then to New Orleans. + +The hero is a French Soldier of Fortune, and the princess, who +hesitates--but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates +may be lost and yet saved. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=B. M. Bower's Novels= + +Thrilling Western Romances + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +CHIP, OF THE FLYING U + +A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della +Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil +Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very +amusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher. + + +THE HAPPY FAMILY + +A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen +jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we find +Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many lively +and exciting adventures. + + +HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT + +A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners +who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana +ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and +the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities. + + +THE RANGE DWELLERS + +Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited +action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet +courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull +page. + + +THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS + +A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the +cowboys of the West, in search of "local color" for a new novel. "Bud" +Thurston learns many a lesson while following "the lure of the dim +trails" but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love. + + +THE LONESOME TRAIL + +"Weary" Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city +life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the +atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown +eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story. + + +THE LONG SHADOW + +A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life of a +mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of +life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to +finish. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +THE NOVELS OF +=WINSTON CHURCHILL= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Skillful in plot, dramatic in episode, powerful and original in climax. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A. I. Keller and Kinneys. + +A New England state is under the political domination of a railway and +Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes the moment when the cause of the people +against corporation greed is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, +to further his own interest in a political way, by taking up this cause. + +The daughter of the railway president, with the sunny humor and shrewd +common sense of the New England girl, plays no small part in the +situation as well as in the life of the young attorney who stands so +unflinchingly for clean politics. + + +THE CROSSING. Illus. by S. Adamson and L. Baylis. + +Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie and the British fleet in the +harbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the +expedition of Clark and his handful of dauntless followers in Illinois, +the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +treasonable schemes builded against Washington and the Federal +Government. + + +CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn. + +A deft blending of love and politics distinguishes this book. The author +has taken for his hero a New Englander, a crude man of the tannery, who +rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then surrendered all +for the love of a woman. + +It is a sermon on civic righteousness, and a love story of a deep +motive. + + +THE CELEBRITY. An Episode. + +An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities +between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman of the most blatant +type. The story is adorned with some character sketches more living than +pen work. It is the purest, keenest fun--no such piece of humor has +appeared for years: it is American to the core. + + +THE CRISIS. Illus. by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with splendid +power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that are +inspiring. The several scenes in the book in which Abraham Lincoln +figures must be read in their entirety for they give a picture of that +great, magnetic, lovable man, which has been drawn with evident +affection and exceptional success. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +THE NOVELS OF +=GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +GRAUSTARK. + +A story of love behind a throne, telling how a young American met a +lovely girl and followed her to a new and strange country. A thrilling, +dashing narrative. + + +BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK. + +Beverly is a bewitching American girl who has gone to that stirring +little principality--Graustark--to visit her friend the princess, and +there has a romantic affair of her own. + + +BREWSTER'S MILLIONS. + +A young man is required to spend _one_ million dollars in one year in +order to inherit _seven_. How he does it forms the basis of a lively +story. + + +CASTLE CRANEYCROW. + +The story revolves round the abduction of a young American woman, her +imprisonment in an old castle and the adventures created through her +rescue. + + +COWARDICE COURT. + +An amusing social feud in the Adirondacks in which an English girl is +tempted into being a traitor by a romantic young American, forms the +plot. + + +THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW. + +The story centers about the adopted daughter of the town marshal in a +western village. Her parentage is shrouded in mystery, and the story +concerns the secret that deviously works to the surface. + + +THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S. + +The hero meets a princess in a far-away island among fanatically hostile +Musselmen. Romantic love making amid amusing situations and exciting +adventures. + + +NEDRA. + +A young couple elope from Chicago to go to London traveling as brother +and sister. They are shipwrecked and a strange mix-up occurs on account +of it. + + +THE SHERRODS. + +The scene is the Middle West and centers around a man who leads a double +life. A most enthralling novel. + + +TRUXTON KING. + +A handsome good natured young fellow ranges on the earth looking for +romantic adventures and is finally enmeshed in most complicated +intrigues in Graustark. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=LOUIS TRACY'S= + +CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur +whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery. + + +THE STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson. + +A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating +officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas. + + +THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. + +Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of +cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance. + + +THE MESSAGE. Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase. + +A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a +buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops. + + +THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. + +The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with +exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants. + + +THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE. With illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg. + +The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars +of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba. + + +A SON OF THE IMMORTALS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a +pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne. + + +THE WINGS OF THE MORNING. + +A sort of Robinson Crusoe _redivivus_ with modern settings and a very +pretty love story added. The hero and heroine, are the only survivors of +a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures on their desert island. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +THE NOVELS OF +=STEWART EDWARD WHITE= + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +THE RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lajaren A. Hiller + +The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes +into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft" and comes into the +romance of his life. + + +ARIZONA NIGHTS. Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth. + +A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life of the +ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece. + + +THE BLAZED TRAIL. With illustrations by Thomas Fogarty. + +A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who +blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines. + + +THE CLAIM JUMPERS. A Romance. + +The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the Black Hills +has a hard time of it, but "wins out" in more ways than one. + + +CONJUROR'S HOUSE. Illustrated Theatrical Edition. Dramatized under the +title of "The Call of the North." + +"Conjuror's House" is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor is +the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride on +this forbidden land. + + +THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated. + +The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and their life is +treated could only belong to one who is in love with the forest and open +air. Based on fact. + + +THE RIVERMAN. Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood + +The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between +honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the +other. + + +THE SILENT PLACES. Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin. + +The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine devotion, +and masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian and the instinct +of the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story. + + +THE WESTERNERS. + +A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the best American +novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no other book has done +in recent years. + + +THE MYSTERY. In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams With +illustrations by Will Crawford. + +The disappearance of three successive crews from the stout ship +"Laughing Lass" in mid-Pacific, is a mystery weird and inscrutable. In +the solution, there is a story of the most exciting voyage that man ever +undertook. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +Transcriber's notes: + +Page 337: missing closing quote fixed ("... or a silent mixer of trouble +medicine."") + +Page 434: opening quote moved to before long dash at start of paragraph +(""--And, though it is stolen money ...") + +To reflect the character of this book all other instances of +hyphenation and spelling have been retained. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Price, by Francis Lynde + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE *** + +***** This file should be named 19462.txt or 19462.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/6/19462/ + +Produced by Sam Whitehead, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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