THE PRICE

BY

FRANCIS LYNDE

AUTHOR OFTHE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN, ETC. 

[Illustration]

NEW YORKGROSSET & DUNLAPPUBLISHERS

Published by Arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons

COPYRIGHT, 1911, BYCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published May, 1911

[Illustration]

To

MR. LATHROP BROCKWAY BULLENE

SOLE FRIEND OF MY BOYHOOD, WHO WILL RECALL BETTERTHAN ANY THE YOUTHFUL MORAL AND SOCIAL SEED-TIMEWHICH 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 onlyAmerican city without trolleys, sky-scrapers, or fast trains--was ityesterday? or the day before?--there was a dingy, cobwebbed café in anarcade off Camp Street which was well-beloved of newspaperdom;particularly of that wing of the force whose activities begin late andend in the small hours. 

"Chaudière's, " it was called, though I know not if that were the name ofthe round-faced, round-bodied little Marseillais who took toll at thedesk. But all men knew the fame of its gumbo and its stuffed crabs, andthat its claret was neither very bad nor very dear. And if the wallswere dingy and the odors from the grille pungent and penetrating attimes, there went with the white-sanded floor, and the marble-toppedtables for two, an Old-World air of recreative comfort which is rarernow, 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 theCrescent City; and it was at Chaudière's again that he was sharing afarewell supper with Bainbridge, of the _Louisianian_. Six weeks laybetween that and this; forty-odd days of discouragement and failuresuperadded upon other similar days and weeks and months. The breakfast, he remembered, had been garnished with certain green sprigs of hope; butat the supper-table he ate like a barbarian in arrears to his appetiteand the garnishings were the bitter herbs of humiliation and defeat. 

Without meaning to, Bainbridge had been strewing the path with freshthorns for the defeated one. He had just been billeted for a run downthe Central American coast to write up the banana trade for his paper, and he was boyishly jubilant over the assignment, which promised to be azestful pleasure trip. Chancing upon Griswold in the first flush of hiselation, he had dragged the New Yorker around to Chaudière's to playsecond knife and fork at a small parting feast. Not that it had requiredmuch persuasion. Griswold had fasted for twenty-four hours, and he wouldhave broken bread thankfully with an enemy. And if Bainbridge were not afriend in a purist's definition of the term, he was at least a friendlyacquaintance. 

Until the twenty-four-hour fast was in some measure atoned for, theburden of the table-talk fell upon Bainbridge, who lifted and carried itgenerously on the strength of his windfall. But no topic can beimmortal; and when the vacation under pay had been threshed out in allits anticipatory details it occurred to the host that his guest was lessthan usually responsive; a fault not to be lightly condoned under thejoyous circumstances. Wherefore he protested. 

"What's the matter with you to-night, Kenneth, old man? You're more thancommonly grumpy, it seems to me; and that's needless. "

Griswold took the last roll from the joint bread-plate and buttered itmethodically. 

"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 saysomething a little less carefully polarized. You don't have a chance tocongratulate lucky people every day. "

Griswold looked up with a smile that was almost ill-natured, and quotedcynically: "'Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall haveabundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even thatwhich 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 orpistoled you or tried to poison you! An innocent by-stander might sayyou envied me. "

"I do, " rejoined Griswold gravely. "I envy any man who can earn enoughmoney to pay for three meals a day and a place to sleep in. "

"Oh, cat's foot!--anybody can do that, " asserted Bainbridge, with theair of one to whom the struggle for existence has been a mere athlete'spractice run. 

"I know; that is your theory. But the facts disprove it. I can't, forone. "

"Oh, yes, you could, if you'd side-track some of your own theories andcome 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 andsensitive skin of the type. A red flush of anger crept up under theclosely 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, oronly my misfortune, that I can do nothing but write books for which Ican't find a publisher? Or that the work of a hack-writer is quite asimpossible for me as mine is for him?"

Bainbridge scoffed openly; but he was good-natured enough to make amendswhen he saw that Griswold was moved. 

"I take it all back, " he said. "I suppose the book-chicken has come homeagain to roost, and a returned manuscript accounts for anything. Butseriously, Kenneth, you ought to get down to bed-rock facts. Nobody buta crazy phenomenon can find a publisher for his first book, nowadays, unless he has had some sort of an introduction in the magazines or thenewspapers. You haven't had that; so far as I know, you haven't triedfor it. "

"Oh, yes, I have--tried and failed. It isn't in me to do the salablething, and there isn't a magazine editor in the country who doesn't knowit 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 fromhere 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 areall wrong when a man with a vital message to his kind can't get todeliver 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. "Youcouldn't keep your peculiar views muzzled even when you were writing abit of a pot-boiler on sugar-planting. Which brings us back to the oldcontention: you drop your fool socialistic fad and write a book that areputable 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 thelast piece of bread. 

"It doesn't need fumigating; if I could consider it seriously it oughtrather 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, andit's mine to be radical. "

"What would you have?" demanded the man on the conservative side of thetable. "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, whenthere is no peace, " was the quick retort. "I, and my kind, can remodelit, and some day, when the burden has grown too heavy to be borne, wewill. The aristocracy of rank, birth, feudal tyranny went down in fireand blood in France a century ago: the aristocracy of money will go downhere, when the time is ripe. "

"That is good anarchy, but mighty bad ethics. I didn't know you hadreached that stage of the disease, Kenneth. "

"Call it what you please; names don't change facts. Listen"--Griswoldleaned upon the table; his eyes grew hard and the blue in them becamemetallic--"For more than a month I have tramped the streets of thiscursed city begging--yes, that is the word--begging for work of any kindthat would suffice to keep body and soul together; and for more thanhalf of that time I have lived on one meal a day. That is what we havecome to; we of the submerged majority. And that isn't all. Thewage-worker himself, when he is fortunate enough to find a chance toearn his crust, is but a serf; a chattel among the other possessions ofsome fellow man who has acquired him in the plutocratic redistributionof the earth and the fulness thereof. "

Bainbridge applauded in dumb show. 

"Turn it loose and ease the soul-sickness, old man, " he saidindulgently. "I know things haven't been coming your way, lately. Whatis 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 usunderstand that might is right; that he who has may hold--if he can. Theanswer is simple: there is enough and to spare for all, and it belongsto all; to him who sows the seed and waters it, as well as to him whoreaps the harvest. That is a violent remedy, you will say. So be it: itis the only one that will cure the epidemic of greed. There is analternative, but it is only theoretical. "

"And that?"

"It may be summed up in seven words: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor asthyself. ' When the man who employs--and rules--uses the power that moneygives him to succor his fellow man, the revolution will be indefinitelypostponed. 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 ateleven. But in passing I'll venture a little prophecy. You're down onyour luck now, and a bit hot-hearted in consequence; but some day youwill strike it right and come out on top. When you do, you'll be a hardmaster; 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 thetable. 

"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 littlefortune-telling stunt. But before we shake hands, let's get back toconcrete 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 yourhospitality. For that length of time I presume I shall continue toconform to what we have been taught to believe is the immutable order ofthings. After that----"

He paused, and Bainbridge put the question. "Well, after that; whatthen?"

"Then, if the chance to earn it is still denied me, and I amsufficiently hungry, I shall stretch forth my hand and take what Ineed. "

Bainbridge fished in his pocket and took out a ten-dollar bank-note. "Dothat 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 youparaphrasers 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 thefirst slow revolutions of her propeller when Bainbridge turned the keyin the door of the stuffy little state-room to which he had beendirected, and went on deck. 

The lines had been cast off and the ship was falling by imperceptibleinches away from her broadside berth at the fruit wharf. Bainbridgeheard the distance-softened clang of a gong; the tremulous murmur of thescrew became more pronounced, and the vessel forged ahead until thecurrent caught the outward-swinging prow. Five minutes later the_Adelantado_ had circled majestically in mid-stream and was passing thelights of the city in review as she steamed at half-speed down theriver. 

Bainbridge had no mind to go back to the stuffy state-room, late as itwas. Instead, he lighted a fresh cigar and found a chair on the portside aft where he could sit and watch the lights wheel past in orderlyprocession as the fruit steamer swept around the great crescent whichgives New Orleans its unofficial name. 

While the comfortable feeling of elation, born of his unexpected bit ofgood fortune, was still uppermost to lend complacency to hisreflections, he yet found room for a compassionate underthought havingfor its object the man from whom he had lately parted. He was honestlysorry for Griswold; sorry, but not actually apprehensive. He had knownthe defeated one in New York, and was not unused to his rebelliousoutbursts against the accepted order of things. Granting that histheories were incendiary and crudely subversive of all the civilizedconventions, Griswold the man was nothing worse than an impressionableenthusiast; a victim of the auto-suggestion which seizes upon those whodwell too persistently upon the wrongs of the wronged. 

So ran Bainbridge's epitomizing of the proletary's case; and he knewthat his opinion was shared with complete unanimity by all who had knownGriswold in Printing House Square. To a man they agreed in calling himUtopian, altruistic, visionary. What milder epithets should be appliedto one who, with sufficient literary talent--not to say genius--to makehimself a working name in the ordinary way, must needs run amuck amongthe theories and write a novel with a purpose? a novel, moreover, inwhich the purpose so overshadowed the story as to make the book a merepreachment. 

As a matter of course, the publishers would have nothing to do with thebook. Bainbridge remembered, with considerable satisfaction, that he hadconfidently predicted its failure, and had given Griswold plentiful goodadvice while it was in process of writing. But Griswold, being quite asobstinate as he was impressionable, had refused to profit by theadvice, and now the consequences of his stubbornness were upon him. Hehad said truly that his literary gift was novelistic and nothing else;and here he was, stranded and desperate, with the moribund book on hishands, 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 invinciblepride had kept him from accepting a friendly stop-gap in his extremity. Yet he smiled in spite of the regretful thought. It was amusing tofigure Griswold, who, as long as his modest patrimony had lasted hadbeen most emphatically a man not of the people, posing as an anarchistand up in arms against the well-to-do world. None the less, he was to bepitied. 

"Poor beggar! he is in the doldrums just now, and it isn't quite fair tohold him responsible for what he says or thinks--or for what he thinkshe thinks, " said the reporter, letting the thought slip into speech. "Just the same, I wish I had made him take that ten-dollar bill. Itmight have-- Why, hello, Broffin! How are you, old man? Where thedickens did you drop from?"

It was the inevitable steamer acquaintance who is always at hand toprove the trite narrowness of the world, and Bainbridge kicked a chairinto comradely place for him. 

Broffin, heavy-browed and clean-shaven save for a thick mustache thathid the hard-bitted mouth, replaced the chair to suit himself and satdown. In appearance he was a cross between a steamboat captain on avacation, and an up-river plantation overseer recovering from his annualpleasure trip to the city. But his reply to Bainbridge's query provedthat he was neither. 

"I didn't drop; I walked. More than that, I kept step with you all theway from Chaudière's to the levee. You'd be dead easy game for anamateur. "

"You'll get yourself disliked, the first thing you know, " saidBainbridge, laughing. "Can't you ever forget that you are in theman-hunting business?"

"Yes; just as often, and for just as long, as you can forget that youare in the news-hunting business. "

"Tally!" said Bainbridge, and he laughed again. After which they sat insilence until the _Adelantado_ doubled the bend in the great river andthe last outposts of the city's lights disappeared, leaving only asoftened glow in the upper air to temper the velvety blackness of theApril night. The steamer had passed Chalmette when Broffin said:

"Speaking of Chaudière's reminds me: who was that fellow you weretelling good-by as you came out of the café? His face was as familiar asa ship's figure-head, but I couldn't place him. "

The question coupled in automatically with the reporter's train ofthought; hence he answered it rather more fully and freely than he mighthave at another time and under other conditions. From establishingGriswold's identity for his fellow passenger, he slipped by easy stagesinto the story of the proletary's ups and downs, climaxing it with avivid little word-painting of the farewell supper at Chaudière's. 

"To hear him talk, you would size him up for a bloody-minded nihilist ofthe thirty-third degree, ready and honing to sweep the existing order ofthings into the farthest hence, " he added. "But in reality he is one ofthe finest fellows in the world, gone a fraction morbid over theeconomic side of the social problem. He has a heart of gold, as I happento know. He used to spend a good bit of his time in the backwater, andyou 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 withcheerful dogmatism. "You're thinking of the crooks it turns out, 'whichit is your nature to. ' But Griswold wasn't looking for the crooks; hewas eternally and everlastingly breaking his heart over the soddenmiseries. One night he stumbled into a cellar somewhere down in the EastSide lower levels, looking for a fellow he had been trying to find workfor; a crippled 'longshoreman. When he got into the place he found theman stiff and cold, the woman with the death rattle in her throat, and atwo-year-old baby creeping back and forth between the dead father andthe dying mother--starvation, you know, straight from the shoulder. Theysay 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 andpass on. But Griswold isn't built that way. He jumped into the breachlike a man and tried to save the mother. It was too late, and when thewoman died he took the child to his own eight-by-ten attic and nursedand fed it until the missionary people took it off his hands. He didthat, mind you, when he was living on two meals a day, himself; and I'mputting 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 ofremorse for having told Griswold's story to a stranger, he changed thesubject with an abrupt question. 

"Where are you headed for, Broffin?"

The man who might have passed for a steamboat captain or a plantationoverseer, and was neither, chuckled dryly. 

"You don't expect me to give it away to you, and you a newspaper man, doyou? But I will--seeing you can't get it on the wires. I'm going down toGuatemala after Mortsen. "

"The Crescent Bank defaulter? By Jove! you've found him at last, haveyou?"

The detective nodded. "It takes a good while, sometimes, but I don'tfall down very often when there's enough money in it to make the gameworth the candle. I've been two years, off and on, trying to locateMortsen: and now that I've found him, he is where he can't beextradited. All the same, I'll bet you five to one he goes back with mein the next steamer--what? Have a new smoke. No? Then let's go and turnin; 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 fruitsteamer _Adelantado_ for the banana coast, or, more specifically, in theforenoon of the second day, the unimpetuous routine of the businessquarter of New Orleans was rudely disturbed by the shock of a genuinesensation. 

To shatter at a single blow the most venerable of the routineprecedents, the sensational thing chose for its colliding point withorderly system one of the oldest and most conservative of the city'sbanks: the Bayou State Security. At ten o'clock, following the precisehabit of half a lifetime, Mr. Andrew Galbraith, president of the BayouState, entered his private room in the rear of the main bankingapartment, opened his desk, and addressed himself to the business of theday. Punctually at ten-five, the stenographer, whose desk was in theanteroom, brought in the mail; five minutes later the cashier enteredfor his morning conference with his superior; and at half-past the hourthe president was left alone to read his correspondence. 

Being a man whose mental processes were all serious, and whose hobby wasmethod, Mr. Galbraith had established a custom of giving himself aquiet half-hour of inviolable seclusion in which to read and considerhis mail. During this sacred interval the stenographer, standing guardin the outer office, had instructions to deny his chief to callers ofany and every degree. Wherefore, when, at twenty minutes to eleven, thedoor of the private office opened to admit a stranger, the president wasjustly annoyed. 

"Well, sir; what now?" he demanded, impatiently, taking the intruder'smeasure in a swift glance shot from beneath his bushy white eyebrows. 

The unannounced visitor was a young man of rather prepossessingappearance, a trifle tall for his breadth of shoulder, fair, with blueeyes and a curling reddish beard and mustache, the former trimmed to apoint. So much the president was able to note in the appraisiveglance--and to remember afterward. 

The caller made no reply to the curt question. He had turned and wasclosing the door. There was a quiet insistence in the act that was likethe flick of a whip to Mr. Galbraith's irritation. 

"If you have business with me, you'll have to excuse me for a fewminutes, " he protested, still more impatiently. "Be good enough to takea 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 ifhe had failed to hear it. Ordinarily Mr. Andrew Galbraith's temper wasequable enough; the age-cooled temper of a methodical gentleman whoselong upper lip was in itself an advertisement of self-control. But sucha deliberate infraction of his rules, coupled with the stony impudenceof 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-pushhe found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver, and so was fainto fall back into his chair, gasping. 

"Ah-h-h!" he stammered. And when the words could be managed: "So that'sit, is it?--you're a robber!"

"No, " said the invader of the presidential privacies calmly, speakingfor the first time since his incoming. "I am not a robber, save in yourown 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 callfor help, I shall shoot you. "

"You--you'd murder me?" The president's large-jointed hands wereclutching the arms of the pivot-chair, and he was fighting manfully forcourage and presence of mind to cope with the terrifying emergency. 

"Not willingly, I assure you: I have as great a regard for human life asyou have--but no more. You would kill me this moment in self-defence, ifyou could: I shall most certainly kill you if you attempt to give analarm. On the other hand, if you prove reasonable and obedient your lifeis not in danger. It is merely a question of money, and if you areamenable 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. "Irefuse to listen to them. I'll not have anything to do with you. Goaway!"

The young man's smile showed his teeth, but it also proved that he wasnot wholly devoid of the sense of humor. 

"Keep your temper, Mr. Galbraith, " he advised coolly. "The moment ismine, and I say you shall listen first and obey afterward. Otherwise youdie. Which is it to be? Choose quickly--time is precious. "

The president yielded the first point, that of the receptive ear; butgrudgingly 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 ampoor, and I stand for my necessity, which is higher than any man-madelaw or custom. You have more money than you can possibly use in anylegitimate personal channels: I have not the price of the next meal, already twenty-four hours overdue. I came here this morning with my lifein my hand to invite you to share with me a portion of that which isyours 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 Imake myself sufficiently explicit?"

Andrew Galbraith glanced furtively at the paper-weight clock on hisdesk. It was nearly eleven, and MacFarland would surely come in on thestroke of the hour. If he could only fend off the catastrophe for a fewminutes, until help should come. He searched in his pockets and drewforth a handful of coins. 

"You say you are hungry: I'm na that well off that I canna remember thetime 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 hisperturbation. "Take this, now, and be off wi' you, and we'll say no moreabout it. "

The invader of privacies glanced at the clock in his turn and shook hishead. 

"You are merely trying to gain time, and you know it, Mr. Galbraith. Mystake in this game is much more than a handful of charity silver; and Idon't do you the injustice to believe that you hold your life socheaply; 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 notabandon the struggle for delay. 

"What's your price, then?" he demanded, as one who may possibly considera 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 penand fill out a check payable to your own order for one hundred thousanddollars, and do it now. If that door opens before we have concluded, youare a dead man!"

At this Andrew Galbraith saw that the end was nigh and gathered himselffor a final effort at time-killing. It was absurd; he had no suchbalance to his personal credit; such a check would not be honored; itwould be an overdraft, and the teller would very properly-- In the midstof his vehement protests the stranger sprang out of his chair, steppedback a pace and raised his weapon. 

"Mr. Galbraith, you are juggling with your life! Write that check whilethere is yet time!"

A sound of subdued voices came from the anteroom, and the beleagueredold man stole a swift upward glance at the face of his persecutor. Therewas no mercy in the fierce blue eyes glaring down upon him; neithercompassion nor compunction, but rather madness and fell murder. Thesummons 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 oneother second. 

"You will not? Then may God have mercy----"

The hammer of the levelled pistol clicked. Andrew Galbraith shut hiseyes and made a blind grasp for pen and check-book. His hands wereshaking as with a palsy, but the fear of death steadied them suddenlywhen he came to write. 

"Indorse it!" was the next command. The voices had ceased beyond thepartition, and the dead silence was relieved only by the laboredstrokes of the president's pen and the tap-tap of the typewriter in theadjacent anteroom. 

The check was written and indorsed, and under the menace of the revolverAndrew Galbraith was trying to give it to the robber. But the robberwould not take it. 

"No, I don't want your paper: come with me to your paying teller and getme the money. Make what explanation you see fit; but remember--if hehesitates, you die. "

They left the private office together, the younger man a short half-stepin the rear, with his pistol-bearing hand thrust under his coat. MacFarland, the stenographer, was at his desk in the corner of theanteroom. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the unwonted thing, thepresident's forthfaring with a stranger who had somehow gained access tothe private room during the sacred half-hour, would have made him lookup and wonder. But this was the hundredth time, and Andrew Galbraith'sanxious glance aside was wasted upon MacFarland's back. 

Still the president did not despair. In the public lobby there would bemore eyes to see, and perhaps some that would understand. Mr. Galbraithtook a firmer hold upon his self-possession and trusted that some happychance might yet intervene to save him. 

But chance did not intervene. There was a goodly number of customers inthe public space, but not one of the half-dozen or more who nodded tothe president or passed the time of day with him saw the eye-appealwhich was the only one he dared to make. On the short walk around to thepaying teller's window, the robber kept even step with his victim, andtry as he would, Andrew Galbraith could not summon the courage to forgetthe pistol muzzle menacing him in its coat-covered ambush. 

At the paying wicket there was only one customer, instead of the groupthe president had hoped to find; a sweet-faced young woman in a modesttravelling hat and a gray coat. She was getting a draft cashed, and whenshe saw them she would have stood aside. It was the robber whoanticipated her intention and forbade it with a courteous gesture;whereat she turned again to the window to conclude her small transactionwith the teller. 

The few moments which followed were terribly trying ones for thegray-haired president of the Bayou State Security. None the less, hisbrain was busy with the chanceful possibilities. Failing all else, hewas determined to give the teller a warning signal, come what might. Itwas a duty owed to society no less than to the bank and to himself. Buton the pinnacle of resolution, at the instant when, with the robber athis elbow, he stepped to the window and presented the check, AndrewGalbraith felt the gentle pressure of the pistol muzzle against hisside; nay, more; he fancied he could feel the cold chill of the metalstrike through and through him. 

So it came about that the fine resolution had quite evaporated when hesaid, with what composure there was in him: "You'll please give mecurrency for that, Johnson. "

The teller glanced at the check and then at his superior; not tooinquisitively, since it was not his business to question the president'scommands. 

"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; theremainder in the largest denominations, put up in a package. "

The teller counted out the one thousand in small notes quickly; but hehad to leave the cage and go to the vault for the huge remainder. Thiswas the crucial moment of peril for the robber, and the president, stealing a glance at the face of his persecutor, saw the blue eyesblazing 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 cagewith the bulky packet of money-paper. 

"You needn't open it, " said the young man at the president's elbow. "Thebank's count is good enough for me. " And when the window wicket had beenunlatched and the money passed out, he stuffed the loose billscarelessly into his pocket, put the package containing the ninety-ninethousand dollars under his arm, nodded to the president, backed swiftlyto the street door and vanished. 

Then it was that Mr. Andrew Galbraith suddenly found speech, openinghis thin lips and pouring forth a torrent of incoherence which presentlygot itself translated into a vengeful hue and cry; and New Orleans theunimpetuous had its sensation ready-made. 

IV

_IO TRIUMPHE!_

If Kenneth Griswold, backing out of the street door of the Bayou StateSecurity and vanishing with his booty, had been nothing more than aprofessional "strong-arm man, " he would probably have been taken andjailed within the hour, if only for the reason that his desperate castfor fortune included no well-wrought-out plan of escape. But since hewas at once both wiser and less cunning than the practised bank robber, he threw his pursuers off the scent by an expedient in which artlessnessand daring quite beyond the gifts of the journeyman criminal playedequal parts. 

Once safely in the street, with a thousand dollars in his pocket and thepacket of bank-notes under his arm, he was seized by an impulse to dosome extravagant thing to celebrate his success. It had proved to besuch a simple matter, after all: one bold stroke; a tussle, happilybloodless, with the plutocratic dragon whose hold upon his treasure wasso easily broken; and presto! the hungry proletary had become himself apower 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, followedinstantly by another which was much more to the immediate purpose. Hewas hungry: there was a restaurant next door to the bank. Withoutthinking overmuch of the risk he ran, and perhaps not at all of theaudacious subtlety of such an expedient at such a critical moment, hewent in, sat down at one of the small marble-topped tables, and calmlyordered breakfast. 

Since hunger is a lusty special pleader, making itself heard above anypulpit drum of the higher faculties, it is quite probable that Griswolddwelt 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 wasbegun. But at this, not to appear suspiciously incurious, he put on themask of indifferent interest and asked the waiter concerning the uproar. 

The serving man did not know what had happened, but he would go and findout, if M'sieu' so desired. "M'sieu'" said breakfast first, by allmeans, and information afterward. Both came in due season; and thehungry one ate while he listened. 

Transmuted into the broken English of the Gascon serving man, the storyof 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'!" Andupon this theme excited volubility descanted at large. The bank had beensurrounded by a gang of desperate men, with every exit guarded, whilethe leader, a masked giant armed to the teeth, had compelled thepresident at the muzzle of a pistol to pay a ransom of fifty--onehundred--five hundred thousand dollars! With the money in hand the ganghad vanished, the masked giant firing the pistol at M'sieu' thepresident as he went. Cross-examined, the waiter could not affirmpositively as to the shot. But as for the remaining details there couldbe no doubt. 

Griswold ordered a second cup of coffee, and while the waiter wasbringing it, conscience--not the newly acquired conscience, but theconventional--bent its bow and sped its final arrow. It was suddenlybrought home to the enthusiast with sharp emphasis that to all civilizedmankind, save and excepting those few chosen ones who shared hispeculiar convictions, he was a common thief, a bandit, an outlaw. Publicopinion, potential or expressed, is at best but an intangible thing. Butfor a few tumultuous seconds Griswold writhed under the ban of it as ifit had been a whip of scorpions. Then he smiled to think how strong thebonds of custom had grown; and at the smile conscience flung away itsempty quiver. 

Now it was over, however, the enthusiast was rather grateful for thechastening. It served to remind him afresh of his mission. This moneywhich he had just wrested from the claws of the plutocratic dragon mustbe held as a sacred trust; it must be devoted scrupulously to the causeof the down-trodden and the oppressed. Precisely how it was to beapplied he had not yet determined; but that could be decided later. 

Meanwhile, it was very evident that the dragon did not intend to acceptdefeat without a struggle, and Griswold set his wits at work upon theproblem 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 raceis actually begun. "I suppose the other fellow, the real robber, wouldhave figured himself safely out of it--or would have thought hehad--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 eyesand went into the inventive trance of the literary craftsman--"thekeynote must be originality; I must do that which the other fellow wouldnever think of doing. "

On the strength of that decision he ventured to order a third cup ofcoffee, and before it had cooled he had outlined a plan, basing it upona further cross-questioning of the Gascon waiter. The man had been tothe street door again, and by this time the sidewalk excitement hadsubsided sufficiently to make room for an approach to the truth. Thestory of an armed band surrounding the bank had been a canard. There hadbeen but one man concerned in the robbery, and the sidewalk gossip wasbeginning to describe him with discomforting accuracy. 

Griswold paid his score and went out boldly and with studiednonchalance. He reasoned that, notwithstanding the growing accuracy ofthe street report, he was still in no immediate danger so long as heremained in such close proximity to the bank. It was safe to assume thatthis was one of the things the professional "strong-arm man" would notdo. But it was also evident that he must speedily lose his identity ifhe hoped to escape; and the lost identity must leave no clew to itself. 

Griswold smiled when he remembered how, in fiction of the felon-catchingsort, and in real life, for that matter, the law-breaker always didleave a clew for the pursuers. Thereupon arose a determination todemonstrate practically that it was quite as possible to create aninerrant fugitive as to conceive an infallible detective. Joining thepassers-by on the sidewalk, he made his way leisurely to Canal Street, and thence diagonally through the old French quarter toward the FrenchMarket. In a narrow alley giving upon the levee he finally found what hewas 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 footwhen Griswold entered. 

"No; a hair-cut. " The customer produced a silver half-dollar. "Gosomewhere and get me a cigar to smoke while you are doing it. Get a goodone, if you have to go to Canal Street, " he added, climbing into therickety chair. 

The fat negro shuffled out, scenting tips. The moment he was out ofsight, Griswold took up the scissors and began to hack awkwardly at hisbeard and mustache; awkwardly, but swiftly and with well-consideredpurpose. The result was a fairly complete metamorphosis easily wrought. In place of the trim beard and curling mustache there was a roughstubble, stiff and uneven, like that on the face of a man who hadneglected to shave for a week or two. 

"There, I think that will answer, " he told himself, standing back beforethe cracked looking-glass to get the general effect. "And it is decentlyoriginal. The professional cracksman would probably have shaved, whereupon the first amateur detective he met would reconstruct the beardon the sunburned lines. Now for a pawnbroker; and the more avaricious hehappens to be, the better he will serve the purpose. "

He went to the door and looked up and down the alley. The negro was notyet in sight, and Griswold walked rapidly away in the direction oppositeto that taken by the obliging barber. 

A pawnbroker's shop of the kind required was not far to seek in thatlocality, and when it was found, Griswold drove a hard bargain with thePortuguese Jew behind the counter. The pledge he offered was the suit hewas wearing, and the bargaining concluded in an exchange of the stillserviceable business suit for a pair of butternut trousers, asecond-hand coat too short in the sleeves, a flannel shirt, a cap, and ared handkerchief; these and a sum of ready money, the smallness of whichhe deplored piteously before he would consent to accept it. 

The effect of the haggling was exactly what Griswold had prefigured. ThePortuguese, most suspicious of his tribe, suspecting everything but thetruth, flatly accused his customer of having stolen the pledge. And whenGriswold departed without denying the charge, suspicion becameconviction, and the pledged clothing, which might otherwise have giventhe police the needed clew, was carefully hidden away against a timewhen the Jew's apprehensions should be quieted. 

Having thus disguised himself, Griswold made the transformationartistically complete by walking a few squares in the dust of a loadedcotton float on the levee. Then he made a tramp's bundle of themanuscript of the moribund book, the pistol, and the money in the redhandkerchief; and having surveyed himself with some satisfaction in thebar mirror of a riverside pot-house, a daring impulse to test hisdisguise by going back to the restaurant where he had breakfasted seizedand bore him up-town. 

The experiment was an unqualified success. The proprietor of thebank-neighboring café not only failed to recognize him; he was drivenforth with revilings in idiomatic French and broken English. 

"_Bête!_ Go back on da levee w'ere you belong to go. I'll been kippingdis café for zhentlemen! _Scélérat!_ Go!"

Griswold went out, smiling between his teeth. 

"That settles the question of identification and present safety, " heassured himself exultantly. Then: "I believe I could walk into theBayou State Security and not be recognized. "

As before, the daring impulse was irresistible, and he gave place to iton the spur of the moment. Fouling a five-dollar bill in the mud of thegutter, he went boldly into the bank and asked the paying teller to givehim 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 grewto 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 haveonly to choose my route and go in peace. How and where are the onlyremaining questions to be answered. "

V

THE _BELLE JULIE_

For an hour or more after his return to the river front, Griswold idledup and down the levee; and the end of the interval found him stillundecided as to the manner and direction of his flight--to say nothingof the choice of a destination, which was even more evasive than theother and more immediately pressing decision. 

It was somewhere in the midst of the reflective hour that the elatetriumph of success began to give place to the inevitable reaction. Thepartition which stands upon the narrow dividing line between vagrancyand crime is but a paper wall, and any hot-hearted insurrectionary maybreak through it at will. But to accept the conditions of vagrancy onemust first embrace the loathsome thing itself. Griswold remembered theglimpse he had had of himself in the bar mirror of the pot-house, andthe chains of his transformed identity began to gall him. It was tolittle purpose that he girded at his compunctions, telling himself thathe was only playing a necessary part; that one needs must when the devildrives. Custom, habit, convention, or whatever it may be whichdifferentiates between the law-abiding and the lawless, would have itssay; and from railing bitterly against the social conditions which madehis act at once a necessity and a crime, he began to feel a pricklingdisgust for the subterfuges to which the crime had driven him. 

Moreover, there was a growing fear that he might not always be able toplay consistently the double rôle whose lines were already becomingintricate and confusing. To be true to his ideals, he must continue tobe in utter sincerity Griswold the brother-loving. That said itself. Buton the other hand, to escape the consequences of his act, he must holdhimself in instant readiness to be in savage earnest what a common thiefwould be in similar straits; a thing of duplicity and double meaningsand ferocity, alert to turn and slay at any moment in the battle ofself-preservation. 

He had thought that the supreme crisis was passed when, earlier in theday, he had pawned the last of his keepsakes for the money to buy therevolver. But he had yet to learn that there is no supreme crisis in thehuman span, save that which ends it; that all the wayfaring duels withfate are inconclusive; conflicts critical enough at the moment, butlacking finality, and likely to be renewed indefinitely if one livesbeyond them. 

He was confronting another of the false climaxes in the hour of aimlesswanderings on the river front. More than once he was tempted to buy backhis lost identity at any price. Never before had he realized what aprecious possession is the fearlessness of innocency; weighed againstit, the thick packet of bank-notes in the tramp's bundle, and all thatit might stand for, were as air-blown bubbles to refined gold. Yet hewould not go back; he could not go back. To restore the money would bemore than a confession of failure; it would be an abject recantation--aflat denial of every article of his latest social creed, and a plungeinto primordial chaos in the matter of theories, out of which he couldemerge only as a criminal in fact. 

When the conflict of indetermination became altogether insupportable, heput it aside with the resolution which was the strong thread in theloosely twisted warp of his character and forced himself to thinkconcretely toward a solution of the problem of flight. The possession ofthe money made all things possible--in any field save thetheoretical--and the choice of dwelling or hiding-places seemedinfinite. 

His first thought had been to go back to New York. But there the risk ofdetection would be greater than elsewhere, and he decided that there wasno good reason why he should incur it. Besides, he argued, there wereother fields in which the sociological studies could be pursued underconditions more favorable than those to be found in a great city. In hismind's eye he saw himself domiciled in some thriving interior town, working and studying among people who were not unindividualized by anartificial environment. In such a community theory and practice might gohand in hand; he could know and be known; and the money at his commandwould be vastly more of a moulding and controlling influence than itcould possibly be in the smallest of circles in New York. The picture, struck out upon the instant, pleased him, and having sufficientlyidealized it, he adopted it enthusiastically as an inspiration, leavingthe mere geographical detail to arrange itself as chance, or subsequentevents, might determine. 

That part of the problem disposed of, there yet remained the choice of aline of flight; and it was a small thing that finally decided the mannerof his going. For the third time in the hour of aimless wanderings hefound himself loitering opposite the berth of the _Belle Julie_, anup-river steamboat whose bell gave sonorous warning of the approachingmoment of departure. Toiling roustabouts, trailing in and out like anendless procession of human ants, were hurrying the last of the cargoaboard. Griswold stood to look on. The toilers were negroes, most ofthem, but with here and there among the blacks and yellows a paler faceso begrimed with sweat and dust as to be scarcely distinguishable fromthe majority. The sight moved Griswold, as thankless toil always did;and he fell to contrasting the hard lot of the laborers with that of thegroup of passengers looking on idly from the comfortable shade of thesaloon-deck awning. Griswold's thought vocalized itself in compassionatemusings. 

"Poor devils! They've been told that they are freemen, and perhaps theybelieve it. But surely no slave of the Toulon galleys was ever inbitterer bondage. .. . Free?--yes, free to toil and sweat, to bearburdens and to be driven like cattle under the yoke! Oh, goodLord!--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 likea crushed pack-animal under a load too heavy for him. Griswold wasbeside him in a moment. The man could not rise, and Griswold dragged himnot 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 forbreath 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 fora 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 holein the ground. But I kind o' thought I'd like to be planted 'longsidethe 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 tohis sympathies. His compassion went straight to the mark, as it was sureto 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 thirtydollars, I reckon; and that's more money than I've seen sence the womandied. "

Griswold hastily counted out a hundred dollars from his pocket fund andthrust the money into the man's hand. 

"Take that and change places with me, " he commanded, slipping on themask of gruffness again. "Pay your fare on the train, and I'll take yourjob on the boat. Don't be a fool!" he added, when the man put his facein his hands and began to choke. "It's a fair enough exchange, and I'llget 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 heshouldered 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 ithis first care to find a safe hiding-place for the tramp's bundle inthe knotted handkerchief. That done, he stepped into the line again, andbecame the sick man's substitute in fact. 

Inured to hard living as he was, the substitute roustabout had made nomore than a half-dozen rounds between the levee and the cargo-deck ofthe _Belle Julie_ before he was glad to note that the steamer's ladingwas all but completed. It was toil of the shrewdest, and he drew breathof blessed relief when the last man staggered up the plank with hisburden. The bell was clanging its final summons, and the slowlyrevolving paddle-wheels were taking the strain from the mooring lines. Being near the bow line Griswold was one of the two who sprang ashore atthe mate's bidding to cast off. He was backing the hawser out of thelast of its half-hitches when a carriage was driven rapidly down to thestage and two tardy passengers hurried aboard. The mate bawled from hisstation on the hurricane-deck. 

"Now, then! Take a turn on that spring line out there and get themtrunks aboard! Lively!"

The larger of the two trunks fell to the late recruit; and when he hadset it down at the door of the designated state-room, he didhalf-absently what John Gavitt might have done without blame: read thetacked-on card, which bore the owner's name and address, written in afirm round hand: "Charlotte Farnham, Wahaska, Minnesota. "

"Thank you, " said a musical voice at his elbow. "May I trouble you toput it inside?"

Griswold wheeled as if the mild-toned request had been a blow, and wasproperly ashamed. But when he saw the speaker, consternation promptlyslew all the other emotions. For the owner of the tagged trunk was theyoung woman to whom, an hour or so earlier, he had given place at thepaying teller's wicket in the Bayou State Security. 

She saw his confusion, charged it to the card-reading at which she hadsurprised him, and smiled. Then he met her gaze fairly and became saneagain 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 greatthankfulness throbbing in his heart and an inchoate resolve shapingitself in his brain. 

Late that night, when the _Belle Julie_ was well on her way up the greatriver, he flung himself down upon the sacked coffee on the engine-roomguard to snatch a little rest between landings, and the resolve becamesufficiently 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 ofWahaska. "

Now Griswold the social rebel was, before all things else, Griswold theimaginative literary craftsman; and no sooner was the question of hisultimate destination settled thus arbitrarily than he began to prefigurethe place and its probable lacks and havings. This process brought himby easy stages to pleasant idealizings of Miss Charlotte Farnham, whowas, thus far, the only tangible thing connected with thedestination-dream. A little farther along her personality laid hold ofhim and the idealizings became purely literary. 

"She is a magnificently strong type!" was his summing up of her, madewhile he was lying flat on his back and staring absently at the flittingshadows among the deck beams overhead. "Her face is as readable as onlythe face of a woman instinctively good and pure in heart can be. Any manwho can put her between the covers of a book may put anything else hepleases in it and snap his fingers at the world. If I am going to livein the same town with her, I ought to jot her down on paper before Ilose the keen edge of the first impression. "

He considered it for a moment, and then got up and went in search of apencil and a scrap of paper. The dozing night clerk gave him both, witha sleepy malediction thrown in; and he went back to the engine-room andscribbled his word-picture by the light of the swinging incandescent. 

"Character-study: Young woman of the type Western Creole; not thedaughter of aliens, but born in the West, of parents who have migratedfrom one of the older States. (I'll hazard that much as a guess. )

"_Detail_: Titian blonde, with hair like spun bronze; the complexionwhich neither freckles nor tans; cool gray eyes with underdepths in themthat no man but her lover may ever quite fathom; a figure which wouldbe statuesque if it were not altogether human and womanly; features castin the Puritan mould, with the lines of character well emphasized; lipsthat would be passionate but for--no, lips that _will_ be passionatewhen the hour and the man arrive. A soul strong in the strength oftransparent 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 storyin 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 hereand a phrase there with a craftsman's fidelity to the exactnesses. Thenhe shook his head regretfully and tore the scrap of paper into tinysquares, scattering them upon the brown flood surging past theengine-room gangway. 

"It won't do, " he confessed reluctantly, as one who sacrifices goodliterary material to a stern sense of the fitness of things. "It isnothing less than a cold-blooded sacrilege. I can't make copy of her ifI write no more while the world stands. "

VI

THE DECK-HAND

Charlotte Farnham's friends--their number was the number of those whohad seen her grow from childhood to maiden--and womanhood--commonlyidentified her for inquiring strangers as "good old Doctor Bertie's'only, '" adding, men and women alike, that she was as well-balanced andsensible as she was good to look upon. 

As Griswold had guessed, she stood but a single remove from an Americanlineage much older than the America of the Middle West. Her father hadbeen a country physician in New Hampshire, migrating to the dry wintersof Minnesota for his young wife's health. The migration had been toolong postponed to save the mother's life; but it had made a beautifulwoman of the daughter, dowering her with the luxuriant physical charmwhich is the proof that transplantation to fresher soil is not lessbeneficial to human- than to plant-kind. 

She had been spending the winter at Pass Christian with her aunt, whowas an invalid; and it was for the invalid's sake that she had decidedto make the return journey by river. Patient little Miss Gilman was theleast querulous of sufferers, but she was always very ill on a railwaytrain. Hence Charlotte, who was at once physician, nurse, mentor, anddutiful kinswoman to the frail little lady who looked old enough to beher grandmother, had chosen the longer, but less trying, route to thefar North. 

So it had come about that their state-rooms had been taken on the _BelleJulie_; and on the morning of the second day out from New Orleans, MissGilman was so far from being travel-sick that she was able to sit withCharlotte in the shade of the hurricane-deck aft, and to enjoy, withwhat quavering enthusiasm there was in her, the matchless scenery of thelower Mississippi. 

At Baton Rouge the New Orleans papers came aboard, and Miss Farnhambought a copy of the _Louisianian_. As a matter of course, thefirst-page leader was a circumstantial account of the daring robbery ofthe Bayou State Security, garnished with startling head-lines. Charlotteread it, half-absently at first, and a second time with interestawakened and a quickening of the pulse when she realized that she hadactually been a witness of the final act in the near-tragedy. Her littlegasp 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!" commentedMiss Gilman. 

"Yes; but that wasn't what made me gasp. The paper says: 'A young ladywas 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 ofdeprecation. "To think of it! Why, child, if anything had happened, aterrible murder might have been committed right there before your veryface and eyes! Dear, dear; whatever are we coming to!"

Charlotte the well-balanced, smiled at the purely personal limitationsof her aunt's point of view. 

"It is very dreadful, of course; but it is no worse just because Ihappened to be there. Yet it seems ridiculously incredible. I can hardlybelieve it, even now. "

"Incredible? How?"

"Why, there wasn't anything about it to suggest a robbery. Now that Iknow, I remember that the old gentleman did seem anxious or worried, orat least, not quite comfortable some way; but the young man was smilingpleasantly, and he looked like anything rather than a desperatecriminal. 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 wouldtrust almost instinctively. "

Miss Gilman's New England conservatism, unweakened by her long residencein the West, took the alarm at once. 

"Did you notice him particularly, Charlotte? Would you recognize him ifyou 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 yourfather's draft and letter of identification, could they?"

Charlotte was mystified. "I should suppose they could, if they wantedto. But why? What if they could?"

"My dear child; don't you see? They are sure to catch the robber, sooneror later, and if they know how to find you, you might be dragged intocourt as a witness!"

Miss Farnham was not less averse to publicity than the conventionalitiesdemanded, but she had, or believed she had, very clear and well-definedideas of her own touching her duty in any matter involving a plainquestion of right and wrong. 

"I shouldn't wait to be dragged, " she asserted quietly. "It would be asimple duty to go willingly. The first thing I thought of was that Iought to write at once to Mr. Galbraith, giving him my address. "

Thereupon issued discussion. Miss Gilman's opinion upon such a momentousquestion--a question involving an apparent conflict between theproprieties 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 athousand eye-witnesses could do no more. At the end of the argument theconservative one had extorted a conditional promise from her niece. Thematter should remain in abeyance until the question of conscientiousobligation 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 fieldthe scene in the bank recurred again and again until presently it becamea haunting annoyance. To banish it finally she went to her state-roomand got a book for herself and a magazine for her aunt. 

An hour later, when Miss Gilman had finished cutting the leaves of themagazine, and was deep in the last instalment of the current serial, Charlotte let her book slip from her fingers and gave herself to thepassive enjoyment of the slowly passing panorama which is the chiefcharm of inland voyaging. 

It was a delectable day, sweet-scented with the mingled perfume of rosesand jasmine and chinaberry trees wafted from the open-air conservatoriessurrounding the plantation mansions on either bank. The majestic onrushof the steamer, the rhythmic drumbeat of the machinery, the alternatingcrash and pause of the great paddle-wheels, the unhasting backward sweepof the brown flood, all these were in harmony with the sensuous languorof time and place. 

For the moment Charlotte Farnham yielded in pure delight to the spell ofthe encompassments, fancying she could deny her lineage and look uponthis sylvan Southland world through the eyes of those to whom it wasthe birthland. Then the haunting scene in the New Orleans bank returnedto disenchant her; and after striving vainly to put it aside, shereopened her book. But by this time the story had lost its hold uponher, and when she had read a page or two with only the vaguest possiblenotion of what it was all about, she gave up in despair and let therelentless recollection have its will of her. 

From where she was sitting she could see the steamer's yawl swingingfrom its tackle at the stern-staff; and after many minutes it was slowlyborne in upon her that the ropes were working loose. When it becameevident 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 thecaptain. But before she had taken the first step a man came aft to makethe loosened tackle fast, and she stood back to let him pass. 

It was Griswold. Up to that moment he had thrown himself so zealouslyinto the impersonation of his latest rôle as to be able to standindifferently well in the shoes of the man whom he had supplanted. Butat this crisis the machinery of dissimulation slipped a cog. Where theordinary deck-hand would have gone about his errand heedless of thepresence of the two women passengers, the proxy John Wesley Gavitt mustneeds take off his cap and apologize for passing in front of them. 

Something half familiar in his manner of doing it attracted Charlotte'sattention, and her eyes followed him as he went on and hoisted the yawlinto place. When he came back she had a fair sight of his face and hereyes met his. In the single swift glance half-formed suspicion becameundoubted certainty; she looked again and her heart gave a great boundand then seemed suddenly to forget its office. While he was passing sheclung to the back of her chair and forebore to cry out or otherwise toadvertise her emotion. But when the strain was off she sank into herseat and closed her eyes to grapple with the unnerving discovery. It wasuseless to try to escape from the dismaying fact. The stubble-beardeddeck-hand with the manners of a gentleman was most unmistakably a laterreincarnation of the pleasantly smiling young man who had courteouslymade way for her at the teller's wicket in the Bayou State Security; whohad smiled and given place to her while he was holding his pistol aimedat 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 theless, she was a woman. And when she saw what was before her, conscienceturned traitor and fled away to give place to an uprush of hesitantdoubts born of the sharp trial of the moment. 

She decided at once that there could be no question as to her duty. Ofall those who were seeking the escaping bank robber, it was doubtful ifany would recognize him as she had; and if she should hold her peace hewould escape, perhaps to commit other crimes for which she could thenjustly be held accountable. 

But, on the other hand, how could she bring herself to the point ofgiving him over to the vengeance of the law--just vengeance, to be sure, but cruel because it must inevitably crush out whatever spark ofpenitence or good intention there might be remaining in him? What didshe know of his temptations? of the chain of circumstances which haddragged him down into the company of the desperately criminal? Some suchcompelling influence there must have been, she reasoned, since a childmight see that he was no hardened felon. It was a painful conflict, butin the end the Puritan conscience triumphed and turned mercy out ofdoors. Her duty was plain; she had no right to argue the question ofculpability. 

She got upon her feet, steadying herself by the back of the chair. Shefelt that she could not trust herself if she once admitted the thin edgeof the wedge of delay. The simple and straightforward thing to do was togo immediately to the captain and tell him of her discovery, but sheshrank from the thought of what must follow. They would seize him: hehad 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 wouldhave to stand forth as his accuser. 

It was too shocking, and she caught at the suggestion of an alternativewith a gasp of relief. She might write to President Galbraith, givingsuch a description of the deck-hand as would enable the officers toidentify him without her personal help. It was like dealing the man atreacherous blow in the back, but she thought it would be kinder. 

"Aunt Fanny, " she began, with her face averted, "I promised you Iwouldn't write to Mr. Galbraith until after we reached home--until I hadtold papa. I have been thinking about it since, and I--I think it mustbe done at once. "

Now Miss Gilman's conscience was also of the Puritan cast, and justicehad been given time to make its claim paramount to that of theconventional proprieties. Hence the invalid yielded the point withoutreopening 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 dreadfulthing for you to have to do. "

"It _is_ very dreadful, " said Charlotte, with a much deeper meaning inthe words than her aunt suspected. Nevertheless, she went away quicklyand locked herself in her state room to write the fateful letter whichshould set the machinery of the law in motion and deliver the robberdeck-hand up to justice. 

VII

GOLD OF TOLOSA

In yielding to the impulse which had prompted him to change places withthe broken-down deck-hand, Griswold had assumed that there was littlerisk and at least an even chance that the substitution would never bediscovered. He knew that the river steamboats were manned by picked-upcrews, usually assembled at the last moment, and that it was more thanprobable that the _Belle Julie's_ officers had not yet had time toindividualize the units of the main-deck squad. Therefore, he might takethe name and place of the disabled Gavitt with measurable safety. 

But apart from this, he was not unwilling to add another chapter to hisexperience among the toilers. He had been told that the life of aroustabout on the Western rivers was the most dismal of all the gropingsin the social underworld, and he was the more eager to endure itshardships as a participant. Being an enthusiast, he had early laid downthe foundation principle that one must see and feel and suffer if onewould write convincingly. 

As to the experience, he immediately found himself in a fair way toacquire 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 havingspecialized himself in any way to M'Grath, the bullying chief mate, hefancied he was singled out as the vessel into which the man might emptythe vials of his wrath without fear of reprisals. Curses, notloud--since a generation of travellers has arisen to whom profanity, however picturesque, is objectionable--but deep and corrosive; contumelyand abuse; tongue-lashings that stung like the flick of a whip; and nowand then, at a night landing when there were no upper-deck peoplelooking on to be shocked, blows. All these slave-drivings, or at leasthis share of them, Griswold endured as became a man who had voluntarilyput himself in the way of them. But they were hardening. Griswold foughtmanfully against the brutalizing effect of them, but with only partialsuccess. Because of them, he was sure that his theories in thecompassionate warp and woof of them must always afterward be shotthrough with flame-colored threads of fiery resentment reaching backthrough M'Grath to every master who wielded the whip of power; the powerof the man who has, over the man who has not. 

In such a lurid light it was only natural that the ethical perspectiveshould be still further distorted; that any lingering doubt of thejustice of his late rebellion against the accepted order of thingsshould be banished by the persecutions of the bullying mate. It is easyto postulate a storm-driven world when the personal horizon is dark andlowering; easy, also, to justify the past by the present. Fromtheorizing never so resolutely upon the rights of man in the abstract torobbing a bank is a broad step, and given an opportunity to reflect uponit calmly after the fact, even such an imaginative enthusiast asGriswold might have reconsidered. But the hasty plunge into theunderdepth of roustabout life was like the brine bath of the blacksmithto heated steel; it served to temper him afresh. 

Fortunately he was not altogether unequal to the physical test, severeas 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 thefine-grained fibre in which quality counts for more than quantity. Lacking something in mass, the lack was more than compensated by thealertness and endurance which had made him at once the best man with thefoils and the safest oar in the boat in his college days. None the less, the first night out of New Orleans, with its uncounted plantationlandings, had tried him keenly, and he was thankful when the second daybrought fewer stopping places and longer rest intervals. 

It was in one of the resting intervals that he had been sent aft toresecure the loosened tackle of the suspended small boat. He had comeupon Miss Farnham and her aunt unexpectedly, and so was off his guard. But in any event, he argued, he should have obeyed the instinctiveimpulse to excuse himself. He knew that the apology was a confessionthat he was a masquerader in some sort, and he had felt the steady gazeof 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 swiftchange in her face betokening some sudden emotion, and the recollectionof it troubled him. 

What if this clear-eyed young person had recognized him? He knew thatthe New Orleans papers had come aboard; he had seen the folded copy ofthe _Louisianian_ in the invalid's lap. Consequently, Miss Farnham knewof the robbery, and the incidents were fresh in her mind. What would shedo if she had penetrated his disguise?

The query had its answer when he recalled his written estimate of hercharacter scribbled a few hours earlier by the light of the engine-roomincandescent. If her face were not merely a fair mask of theconscientious probity it stood for, she would denounce him withouthesitation. 

He tried to make himself doubt it, but the effort recoiled upon him. Already, in his imaginings, she was beginning to assume thecharacteristics of an ideal; and the ideal character with which he hadendowed her would be true to itself at any cost; it would be quitesexless and just before it would be womanly and merciful. At least hehoped it would. Ideals are much too precious to be shattered recklesslyby mere personal considerations; and he told himself, in a fine glow ofartistic self-effacement, that he should be sorry to purchase even sogreat 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 notnecessarily incompatible with a just regard for the commonplacerealities. In the aftermath of the fine artistic glow, Griswold foundhimself straightway wrestling with the problem of present safety. IfMiss Farnham had recognized him, his chances of escape had suddenlynarrowed down to flight, immediate and speedy. He must leave the _BelleJulie_ at the next landing and endeavor to make his way north bywagon-road or rail, or by some later boat. 

The emergency called for swift action, and his determination to leavethe steamer was taken at once. While he was weighing the manifestdangers of a daylight desertion against the equally manifest hazard ofwaiting for darkness, the whistle was blown for a landing and heconcluded not to wait. If Miss Farnham had identified him she woulddoubtless lose no time in giving the alarm. She might even now be inconference with the captain, he thought. 

Griswold had a shock of genuine terror at this point in his reflectionsand his skin prickled as at the touch of something loathsome. Up to thatmoment he had suffered none of the pains of the hunted fugitive; but heknew 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 thetrack, he would never again know what it was to be wholly free from theterror 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 thepaddle-wheels and the rattling clangor of the gang-plank winch arousedhim to action and he shook off the creeping numbness and ran aft torummage under the cargo on the engine-room guards for his preciousbundle. When his hand reached the place where it should have been, theblood surged to his brain and set up a clamorous dinning in his earslike the roaring of a cataract. The niche between the coffee sacks wasempty. 

VIII

THE CHAIN-GANG

While Griswold was grappling afresh with the problem of escape, andplanning to desert the _Belle Julie_ at the next landing, CharlotteFarnham was sitting behind the locked door of her state-room with awriting pad on her knee over which for many minutes the suspended penmerely hovered. She had fancied that her resolve, once fairly taken, would not stumble over a simple matter of detail. But when she had trieda dozen times to begin the letter to Mr. Galbraith, the simplicitiesvanished and complexity stood in their room. 

Try as she might to put the sham deck-hand into his proper place as animpersonal unit of a class with which society is at war, he perverselyrefused to surrender his individuality. At the end of every fresh effortshe was confronted by the inexorable summing-up: in a world of phantomsthere were only two real persons; a man who had sinned, and a woman whowas about to make him pay the penalty. 

It was all very well to reason about it, and to say that he ought to bemade to pay the penalty; but that did not make it any less shocking thatshe, Charlotte Farnham, should be the one to set the retributivemachinery in motion. Yet she knew she had the thing to do, and so, aftermany ineffectual attempts, the letter was written and sealed andaddressed, and she went out to mail it at the clerk's office. 

As it chanced, the engines of the steamer were slowing for a landingwhen she latched her state-room door, and by the time she had walked thelength of the saloon the office was closed and the clerk had gone belowwith his way-bills. It was an added hardship to have to wait, and sheknew well enough that delay would speedily reopen the entire vexedquestion of responsibility. But there was nothing else to be done. Shetold herself that she could not begin to breathe freely again until theletter was out of her hands and safely beyond recall. 

The doors giving upon the forward saloon-deck were open, and she heardthe harsh voice of the mate exploding in sharp commands as the steamerlost way and edged slowly up to the river bank. A moment later she wasoutside, leaning on the rail and looking down upon the crew groupedabout the inboard end of the uptilted landing-stage. He was there; theman for whose destiny accident and the conventional sense of duty hadmade her responsible; and as she looked she had a fleeting glimpse ofhis face. 

It was curiously haggard and woe-begone; so sorrowfully changed that foran instant she almost doubted his identity. The sudden transformationadded fresh questionings, and she began to ask herself thoughtfullywhat had brought it about. Had he recognized her and divined herintention? But if that were the explanation, why had he not made hisescape? Why was he waiting for her to point him out to the officers ofthe steamer?

The queries swept her out into a deeper sea of perplexity. What if hewere already repentant? In that event, the result of her dutiful serviceto society would doubtless be to drive him back into impenitence anddespair. For a little time she clung desperately to her purpose, hardening her heart and shutting her ears to the clamant appeal of thereawakened sentiment of commiseration. Then the man turned slowly andlooked up at her as if the finger of her thought had touched him. Therewas no sign of recognition in his eyes; and she constrained herself togaze down upon him coldly. But when the _Belle Julie's_ bow touched thebank, and the waiting crew melted suddenly into a tenuous line ofburden-bearers, she fled through the deserted saloon to her state-roomand hid the fatal letter under the pillows in her berth. 

Another hour had elapsed. It was nearly noon, and the stewards hadbridged the spaces in the row of square saloon-tables and were layingthe cloth for the mid-day meal. Charlotte opened her door guardedly, asone fearing to face prying eyes, and finding the coast clear, slippedout to rejoin her aunt under the awning abaft the paddle-box. MissGilman shut her finger into the magazine to keep her place and looked upin mild surprise. 

"Where have you been?" she asked. "Has it taken you all this time towrite to the bank people?"

Charlotte's answer satisfied the strict letter of the inquiry, though itslew 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 peaceas best she might with her conscience for having told the half-truth. Itwas characteristic of the inward monitor that even in such a trivialmatter 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 theletter is not yet mailed. " And, since the natural inference was thatthere had been no opportunity to mail it, the conscientious littleconfession 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 pointlesslyaround the New Orleans bank robbery, and Miss Farnham took no part in ituntil Captain Mayfield spoke of the reward of ten thousand dollars whichhad been offered for the apprehension of the robber. The fact touchedher upon the ethical side, and she said:

"That is something that always seems so dreadfully barbarous; to set amoney 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 thepolice business oftener than anything else, I guess. A detective willwork mighty hard nowadays for ten thousand dollars. "

"Yes, I suppose so; but it is barbarous, " Charlotte persisted. "It is anopen appeal to the lowest motive in human nature--cupidity. "

The bluff riverman nodded a qualified approval, but a loquacious littlegentleman across the table felt called upon to protest. 

"But, my dear Miss Farnham, would you have us all turn thief-catchersfor the mere honor of the thing?"

"For the love of justice, or not at all, I should say, " was thestraightforward return blow. "If I should see somebody picking yourpocket, ought I to weigh the chances of your offering a reward beforetelling you of it?"

"Oh, no; of course not. But this is entirely different. A richcorporation has been robbed, and it says to the thief-catchers--and toeverybody, for that matter--Here are ten thousand dollars if you willfind us the robber. For myself, I confess that the reward would be thedetermining factor. If I knew where Mr. Galbraith's 'hold-up' is to befound, 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 wentdumb in the presence of a new and more terrible phase of herentanglement. She might call the reward blood money, and refuseabsolutely to touch it, but who, outside of her own little circle, wouldknow or believe that she had refused? And if all the remainder of theworld knew and should exonerate her, would not the wretched man himselfalways believe that she had sold him for a price?

The benumbing thought left her tongue-tied and miserable; and after thetable-dispersal she sought out the captain to ask a question. 

"Do you know the law in Louisiana, Captain Mayfield?" she began, withmore embarrassment than the simple inquiry would account for. "This manwho robbed the Bayou State Security yesterday; what is the penalty forhis crime?"

The captain shook his head. "I don't know: being only a riverman, I'mnot 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 andcame back at the captain's call. 

"The penalty?" he said, when the query had been repeated to him; "thatwould depend upon a good many things that could only be brought out atthe trial. But under the circumstances--threatening to shoot thepresident, and all that, you know--I should say it would go pretty hardwith 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 anobservant man in the field of river stages and other natural phenomena, but not otherwise, did not remark Miss Farnham's sigh which was morethan half a sob. 

"Twenty years!" she shuddered; "it might as well be for life. He wouldbe nearly fifty years old, if he lived through it. "

It did not occur to the captain to wonder how Miss Farnham came to knowanything about the bank robber's age, but he spoke to the conditionalphrase in her comment. 

"Yes; if he lives through it: that's a mighty big 'if' down here in thelevee country. Twenty years of the chain-gang would be about the same asa life sentence to most white men, I judge. "

Charlotte turned away quickly; and when she could trust herself in thepresence of her aunt, she led the way back to the shade of theafter-deck awning and tried, for her own sake, to talk about some of themany things that had gone to make up the sum of their daily life beforethis black cloud of perplexity had settled down. It was a dismayingfailure; and when the invalid said she would go and lie down for awhile, Charlotte was thankful and went once more to lock herself and hertrouble in her state-room. 

That evening, after dinner, she went forward with some of the otherpassengers to the railed promenade which was the common eveningrendezvous. The _Belle Julie_ had tied up at a small town on the westernbank of the great river, and the ant procession of roustabouts was inmotion, going laden up the swing-stage and returning empty by thefoot-plank. Left to herself for a moment, Charlotte faced the rail andagain 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 heaviestloads, and staring stonily at the back of his file leader in the endlessround; a picture of misery and despair, Charlotte thought, and she wasturning away with the dangerous rebellion against the conventionsswelling again in her heart when Captain Mayfield joined her. 

"I just wanted to show you, " he said; and he pointed out a gang of menrepairing a slip in the levee embankment below the town landing. It wasa squad of prisoners in chains. The figures of the convicts were struckout sharply against the dark background of undergrowth, and thereflection of the sunset glow on the river lighted up their sullen facesand burnished the use-worn links in their leg-fetters. 

"The chain-gang;" said the captain, briefly. "That's about where thefellow that robbed the Bayou State Security will bring up, if they catchhim. He'll have to be mighty tough and well-seasoned if he lives toworry through twenty years of that, don't you think?"

But Miss Farnham could not answer; and even the unobservant captain ofriver 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 stepwas the mailing of the letter to Mr. Galbraith. Many times during theevening she wrought herself up to the plunging point, only to recoil onthe very brink; and when at length she gave up the struggle and went tobed, the sealed letter was still under her pillow. 

Now it is a well-accepted truism that an exasperated sense of duty, likeremorse and grief, fights best in the night-watches. It was of no availto protest that her intention was still unshaken. Conscience urged thatdelay was little less culpable than refusal, since every hour gave thecriminal an added chance of escape. The logic was unanswerable, andtrembling lest the implacable inward monitor should presently insistupon the immediate revealment of the fugitive's identity to CaptainMayfield, she got up and dressed hurriedly, meaning to end the agonyonce for all by giving the letter to the night clerk. 

But once again the chapter of accidents intervened. While she wasunbolting her door, the mellow roar of the whistle and the jangling ofthe engine-room bells warned her that the _Belle Julie_ was approachinga landing. Remembering the cause of her earliest failure, she ranquickly to the office, only to find it deserted and the door locked. 

This time, however, she determined not to be diverted. Going back to thestate-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. Theminutes dragged leaden-winged; and to sit quietly in the silence andsolitude of the great saloon became a nerve-racking impossibility. Whenit went past endurance, she rose and stepped out upon thepromenade-deck. 

The electric search-light eye on the hurricane-deck was just over herhead, and its great white cone seemed to hiss as it poured its dazzlingflood of fictitious noonday upon the shelving river bank and thesleeping hamlet beyond. The furnace doors were open, and the red glareof the fires quickened the darkness under the beam of the electric intolurid life. Out of the dusky underglow came the freight-carriers, givingbirth to a file of grotesque shadow monsters as they swung up the plankinto the field of the search-light. 

The stopping-place was an unimportant one, and a few minutes sufficedfor the unloading of the small consignment of freight. The mate had lefthis outlook upon the hurricane-deck and was down among the men, hastening them with harsh commands and epithets which owed theirmildness to the presence of the silent onlooker beneath the electric. 

The foot-plank had been drawn in, the steam winch was clattering, andthe landing-stage had begun to come aboard, when the two men whose dutyit was to cast off ran out on the tilting stage and dropped from itsshore end. One of them fell clumsily, tried to rise, and sank back intothe shadow; but the other scrambled up the steep bank and loosened thehalf-hitches in the wet hawser. With the slackening of the line thesteamer began to move out into the stream, and the man at themooring-post looked around to see what had become of his companion. 

"Get a move on youse!" bellowed the mate; but instead of obeying, theman ran back and went on his knees beside the huddled figure in theshadow. 

At this point the watcher on the promenade-deck began vaguely tounderstand that the first man was disabled in some way, and that theother was trying to lift him. While she looked, the engine-room bellsjangled and the wheels began to turn. The mate forgot her and swore outof a full heart. 

She put her fingers in her ears to shut out the clamor of abusiveprofanity; but the man on the bank paid no attention to the richlyemphasized command to come aboard. Instead, he ran swiftly to themooring-post, took a double turn of the trailing hawser around it andstood by until the straining line snubbed the steamer's bow to theshore. Then, deftly casting off again, he darted back to the disabledman, hoisted him bodily to the high guard, and clambered aboardhimself, all this while M'Grath was brushing the impeding crew aside toget at him. 

Charlotte saw every move of the quick-witted salvage in the doing, andwanted to cry out in sheer enthusiasm when it was done. Then, in thelight from the furnace doors, she saw the face of the chief actor: itwas the face of the man with the stubble beard. 

The night was summer warm, but she shrank back and shivered as if a coldwind had breathed upon her. Why must he make it still harder for her byposing as the defender of the wretched negro? She would look on nolonger; she would. .. . The harsh voice of the mate, dominating the noiseof the machinery and the churning of the paddle-wheels, drew herirresistibly 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 menfell back out of his reach. All but one: the stubble-bearded white manwas facing him fearlessly, and he appeared to be trying to explain. 

Griswold was trying to explain, but the bullying first officer would notlet him. It was a small matter: with the money gone, and the probabilitythat capture and arrest were deferred only from landing to landing, alittle abuse, more or less, counted as nothing. But he was grimlydetermined to keep M'Grath from laying violent hands upon the negro whohad 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 manalone. He couldn't help it. Do you suppose he sprained an anklepurposely to give you a chance to curse him out?"

The mate's reply was a brutal kick at the crippled negro. Griswold camecloser. 

"Don't try that again!" he warned, angrily. "If you've got to take itout on somebody, I'm your man. "

This was mutiny, and M'Grath's remedy for that distemper was everheroic. In a flash his big fist shot out and the crew looked to see itslighter champion go backward into the river at the impact. But the blowdid not land. Griswold saw it coming and swerved the necessarybody-breadth. The result was a demonstration of a simple theorem indynamics. M'Grath reeled under the impetus of his own unresisted effort, stumbled forward against the low edge-line bulwark, clawed wildly at thefickle air and dropped overboard like a stone. 

At the splashing plunge Griswold saw, planned, and acted in the sameinstant. The _Belle Julie_ was forging ahead at full speed, and if themate did not drown at once, the projecting paddle-wheel would batter thelife out of him as he passed under it. 

Clearing the intervening obstacles in a hurdler's leap, Griswold racedaft on the outer edge of the guards and jumped overboard in time tograpple the drowning man when he was within a few feet of the churningwheel. The struggle was short but fierce. Griswold got a strangling armaround the big man's neck and strove to sink with him so that the wheelmight pass over them. He was only partly successful. The mate wasterror-crazed and fought blindly. There was no time for trick orstratagem, and when the thunder of the wheel roared overhead, Griswoldfelt the jar of a blow and the mate's struggles ceased abruptly. Agasping moment later the worst was over and the rescuer had his headout; was swimming gallantly in the wake of the steamer, supporting theunconscious M'Grath and shouting lustily for help. 

The help came quickly. The alarm had been promptly given, and the nightpilot was a man for an emergency. Before the little-used yawl could belowered, the steamer had swept a wide circle in mid-stream and thesearch-light picked up the castaways. From that to placing the _BelleJulie_ so that the two bits of human flotsam could be hauled in over thebows was but a skilful hand's-turn of rudder-work, accomplished ascleverly as if the great steamboat had been a power-driven launch to besteered by a touch of the tiller. 

All this Charlotte saw. She was looking on when the two men were draggedaboard, the big Irishman still unconscious, and the rescuer in the finalditch of exhaustion--breathless, sodden, reeling with weariness. 

And afterward, when the _Belle Julie's_ prow was once more turned to thenorth, Miss Farnham had no thought of stopping at the clerk's officewhen she flew back to her state-room with the letter to Mr. Galbraithhidden in her bosom and clutched tightly as if she were afraid it mightcry out its accusing secret of its own accord. 

X

QUICKSANDS

On the morning following the rescue of the mate, Charlotte Farnham awokewith the conviction that she had been miraculously saved from incurringthe penalties dealt out to those who rush blindly into the thick ofthings without due thought and careful consideration. 

In the light of a new day it seemed almost incredible that, only a fewhours earlier, she could have been so rash as to assume that there wasno possibility of a mistake; that she had been on the verge of sending apossibly 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 andthe man she had seen in the bank were one and the same? Yesterday shehad thought that she could; but to-day she was equally sure that shecould not. 

But the Puritan conscience was not to be entirely silenced. Reason sitsin a higher seat than that occupied by the senses, and reason arguedthat a man who would forgive his enemy, and instantly risk his life inproof of the forgiveness, could not be a desperate criminal. Consciencepointed out the alternative. A little careful investigation wouldremove the doubt--or confirm it. Somebody on the boat must know thedeck-hand, or know enough about him to establish his real identity. 

Naturally, Charlotte thought first of Captain Mayfield; and whenbreakfast was over, and she had settled her aunt in the invalid's chairunder the shade of the after-awning, she went on her quest. 

The captain was on the port promenade, forward, and he was about tolight his after-breakfast cigar. But he threw the match away when MissFarnham came out and took the chair he placed for her. 

"Please smoke if you want to, " she said, noting the clipped cigar; "Idon't mind it in the least. "

"Thank you, " said the master of the _Belle Julie_, shifting his chair toleeward 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 tookher dead mother's place in a home which would otherwise have held nowelcome 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 anotherdelectable day, and the _Belle Julie_ was still churning the brown floodin the majestic reaches of the lower river. Down on the fore-deck theroustabouts were singing. It was some old-time plantation melody, andCharlotte could not catch the words; but the blending harmony, rich inthe altogether inimitable timbre of the African song-voice, rose abovethe throbbing of the engines and the splash of the paddles. 

"They are happy, those men?" said Charlotte, turning suddenly upon thesilent 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 cansing. "

The captain smiled good-naturedly. 

"It is a pretty hard life, " he admitted. "But they're in a class bythemselves. 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'venever slept in a better one. "

Miss Farnham shook her head thoughtfully. "Isn't that putting themterribly low in the scale of humanity? Surely there must be some amongthem who are capable of better things. " She was trying desperately hardto lead up to the stubble-bearded man, and it was the most difficulttask she had ever set herself. 

"Not among the black boys, I'm afraid. Now and then a white man driftsinto 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 findsomething 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 betterrecommendation than that, Captain Mayfield?"

"You mean that sick hobo who went into the river after M'Grath lastnight? 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 curiouslyfrom 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 shippedwith 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 saiddoubtfully. "Two men, the white man and a negro, went ashore to untiethe boat. They both jumped from the stage while it was going up, and itwas the white man who untied the rope alone. After the boat began toswing away from the bank, he saw that the other man was hurt and went tohelp 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 manran 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, andclimbed 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 wasstanding 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 thepaddle-wheel, and the man he had tried to strike was jumping in afterhim. 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 theywere picked up. Mr. M'Grath was unconscious, and the other man was tooweak 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 ofthe white death. 

"I think that must have been a mistake, " she ventured. "He doesn't lookat all like a tuberculosis patient. "

Again the captain was curious. 

"How could you tell, at that distance and in the night?" he askedquizzically. 

Embarrassment quickly flung down a handful of obstacles in Charlotte'spath, but she picked her way among them. 

"I saw him yesterday morning quite close, and I looked at himbecause--because I thought I had seen him somewhere before. Do you knowanything 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 thereand everywhere. This fellow's name is Gavitt--John Wesley Gavitt--on theclerk'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?" askedCharlotte, 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 hopenow lay in the fixing of the exact time of the man Gavitt's enlistmentin the _Belle Julie's_ crew, and there appeared to be only one way ofdetermining this. 

"Does anybody know--could anybody tell just when this particular man washired, Captain Mayfield?" she asked. 

"Not unless Mac happens to remember. No, hold on; I recollect now; itwas 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 prettypassenger was cross-examining him so closely, he did not betray it. 

"It was about noon; I believe. Two or three of the black boys hadskipped out at the last minute, as they always do, and we wereshort-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 anhour would have given the robber time enough to disguise himself andreach the steamer. But since the captain did not seem altogetherpositive 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 tobe heroically accurate when his sympathies were appealed to by a winsomeyoung woman in evident distress; and while he would cheerfully havesworn that it was eleven o'clock or one o'clock when John Gavitt cameaboard, if he had known certainly which statement would relieve her, herquery left him no hint to steer by. 

So he said: "Oh, I say, 'about noon, ' but it might have been an hour ortwo 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'llgo below and dig into him for you myself, if you say so. "

"Not for the world!" she protested, aghast at the bare suggestion; andfor fear it might be repeated in some less evadable form, she made anexcuse of her duty and ran away to her aunt. 

Later in the day, when she had sought in vain for some other, thissuggestion of Captain Mayfield's came back. While there was the smallestchance 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 thematter, if she could. 

But how? If Captain Mayfield could not remember the exact time of JohnGavitt's enrolment as a member of the _Belle Julie's_ crew, it was morethan probable that no one else could; no one but the man himself. It wasat this point that the captain's suggestion returned to strike fire likesteel upon reluctant flint. Could she go to the length of questioningGavitt? If she should, would he tell her the truth? And if he shouldtell the truth, would it make the distressing duty any easier? Noteasier, she concluded, but possibly less puzzling. 

Thus far the suggestion: but without the help of some third person, shedid not see how it could be carried out. She could neither go to him norsummon him; and the alternative of taking the captain into herconfidence was rejected at once as being too hazardous. For the captainmight not scruple to take the matter into his own hands withoutceremony, sending the suspected man back to New Orleans to establish hisinnocence--if he could. 

Charlotte worried over the wretched entanglement all day, and was sodistrait and absent-minded that her aunt remarked it, naming it malariaand prescribing quinine. Whereat Charlotte dissembled and put on a maskof cheerfulness, keeping it on until after the evening meal and heraunt's early retiring. But when she was released, she was glad enough togo out on the promenade just forward of the starboard paddle-box, wherethere were no after-dinner loungers, to be alone with her problem andfree to plunge once more into its intricacies. 

It was possibly ten minutes later, while she stood leaning against astanchion and watching the lights of a distant town rise out of thewatery horizon ahead, that chance, the final arbiter in so many humaninvolvements, led her quickly into the valley of decision. She heard aman's step on the steeply pitched stair leading down from thehurricane-deck. Before she could turn away he was confronting her; theman whose name on the _Belle Julie's_ crew roster was John WesleyGavitt. 

XI

THE ANARCHIST

Griswold's appearance was less fortuitous than it seemed to be. As areward of merit for having saved the mate's life, he had been told offto serve temporarily as man-of-all-work for the day pilot, who chancedto be without a steersman. His watch in the pilot-house was over, and hewas on his way to the crew's quarters below when he stumbled upon MissFarnham. Mindful of his earlier slip, he passed her as if she had beeninvisible. 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, " shefaltered; and he wheeled obediently and faced her. 

Followed a pause, inevitable, but none the less awkward for the one whowas responsible. Griswold felt, rather than saw, her embarrassment, andwas generous enough to try to help her. 

"I think I know what you wish to say: you are quite at liberty to sayit, " he offered, when the pause had grown into an obstacle which sheseemed 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 _BelleJulie_?"

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 asI am now. Is that sufficiently definite?"

"It is. I thought perhaps--I had hoped--Oh, for goodness' sake, why didyou do it?" she burst out, no longer able to fence with the weapons ofindirectness. 

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'ssake?--but, of course, you haven't. "

"No, " she admitted. 

"Well, I have; I was hungry that morning; very hungry. I know thisdoesn't excuse the thing--to you. But perhaps it may help to explainit. "

"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 towork, or even to beg, rather than steal. I was willing to work; I wasnot willing to beg. I know it is all wrong from your point of view; butI should be sorry to have you think that I did what _I_ believed to bewrong. "

"Surely you must know it is wrong?"

"Pardon me, but I can't admit that. If I could, you would be relieved ofwhat is doubtless a very painful duty. I should surrender myself atonce. "

"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 weneedn't go into it. I confess that my method was unconventional; alittle more summary than that of the usurers and the strictly legalrobbers, but quite as defensible. For they rob the poor and thehelpless, while I merely dispossessed one rich corporation of a portionof its exactions from the many. "

"Then you are not sorry? I saw you yesterday afternoon and hoped youwere. "

He laughed unpleasantly. "I was sorry, then, and I am now; for the samereason. 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 allright, so far as the ownership is concerned; but I am still self-centredenough 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 notionof redistributing it fairly among those who need it most; but that wasall. "

"But you must have returned it in the end. You could never have beencontent to keep it. "

"Do you think so?" he rejoined. "I think I could have been quite contentto keep it. But that is past; it is gone, and I couldn't return it if Iwanted 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. Ishouldn't have made restitution in any event. Let me tell you what Idid. I had a weapon, as you have read. I tied it up with the money in ahandkerchief. There was always the chance of their catching me, and Ihad made up my mind that my last free act would be to drop the bundleinto 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; butyou will pardon me if I say it was wrong?"

"Wrong!" she burst out. "Is it generous to say that to me? Are you soindifferent yourself that you think every one else is indifferent, too?"

He smiled under cover of the darkness, and the joy of finding that hisideal was not going to be shattered was much greater than any thought ofthe price he must pay to preserve it. When she paused, he had hisanswer ready. 

"I know you are not indifferent; you couldn't be. But you must be trueto 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 moreconvenient season the unnerving reflection that she was actuallydiscussing the ways and means of it with him. "It seemed to be thesimplest thing to do. But then I saw what would happen; that I should beobliged----"

Again he stopped her with a gesture. 

"I understand. We must guard against that at all hazards. You must notbe 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 ofthem. But since you can't go to Captain Mayfield, what will you do? Whathad 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, andsend it. All you need to say is that the man who robbed the Bayou StateSecurity is escaping on the _Belle Julie_; that he is disguised as adeck-hand, and that his name on the steamer's books is John WesleyGavitt. 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 payno attention to an anonymous letter. And, besides, it seems so--socowardly. "

"They will telegraph to every river landing ahead of us within an hourafter your letter reaches New Orleans; you needn't doubt that. And thesuppression of your name isn't cowardly; it is merely a justifiable bitof self-protection. It is your duty to give the alarm; but when you havedone that, your responsibility ceases. There are plenty of people whocan identify me if I am taken back to New Orleans. You don't want to besummoned as a witness, and you needn't be. "

She saw the direct, man-like wisdom of all this, and was quick toappreciate his delicate tact in effacing the question of the rewardwithout even referring to it. But his stoicism was almost appalling. 

"It is very shocking!" she murmured; "only you don't seem to realize itat all. "

"Don't I? You must remember that I have been arguing from your point ofview. My own is quite unchanged. It is your duty to do what you mustdo; it is my affair to avert the consequences to myself, if I canmanage 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 beyondthat I make no promises. My parole will be at an end when the officersappear, 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 lastnight, and still----"

He finished the sentence for her. --"And still be a common robber ofbanks, and the like. I fancy it is a bit puzzling--from your point ofview. Sometime, perhaps, we shall all understand things better than wedo now, but to that time, and beyond it, I shall be your grateful debtorfor 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 towrite as he had suggested. An hour later she gave the newly writtenletter to the night clerk; and the thing was done. 

During the remainder of the slow up-river voyage to St. Louis, CharlotteFarnham lived as one who has fired the fuse of a dynamite charge and ismomently braced for the shock of the explosion. Each morning she assuredherself that the strange man who could be a self-confessed felon onemoment 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 tolook on for fear she should see him arrested and taken away. 

And while the _Belle Julie_ put landing after landing astern and thevoyage grew older, Griswold, too, began to feel the pangs of suspense. Though he had no thought of breaking his promise, the dread of captureand trial and punishment grew until it became a threatening cloud toobscure all horizons. It was to no purpose that he called himself hardnames and strove to rise superior to the overshadowing threat. It wasthere, and it would not be ignored. And when he faced it fairly a newdread arose in his heart; the fear that his fear might end by making hima 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 havereached New Orleans in time to have procured Griswold's arrest at anyone of a score of landings south of Memphis. When the spires of theTennessee metropolis disappeared to the southward, he began to be afraidthat her resolution had failed, and to bewail his broken ideal. 

He had no means of knowing that she had given her letter to the nightclerk within the hour of their interview on the saloon-deck promenade;nor did he, or any one else, know that it had lain unnoticed andoverlooked on the clerk's desk until the _Belle Julie_ reached Cairo. Such, however, was the pregnant fact; and to this purely accidentaldelay Griswold owed his first sight of the chief city of Missouri lyingdim and shadowy under its mantle of coal smoke. 

The _Belle Julie_ made her landing in the early evening, and Charlottewas busy up to the last moment getting her own and her aunt's belongingsready for the transfer to the upper river steamer on which they were tocomplete their journey to Minnesota. Hence, it was not until the _BelleJulie_ was edging her way up to the stone-paved levee that Charlottebroke 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 ofthe deck-hands were dropping from the shore end to trail the bow line upthe paved slope to the nearest mooring-ring. There was an electricarc-light opposite the steamer's berth, and Charlotte shaded her eyeswith her hands to follow the motions of the two bent figures under thedripping hawser. 

One of the men was wearing a cap, and there was a small bundle hangingat his belt. She recognized him at once. At the mooring-ring he was theone who stooped to make the line fast, and the other, a negro, stoodaside. At that moment the landing-stage fell, and in the confusion ofdebarkation which promptly followed, the thrilling bit of by-play at themooring-ring passed unnoted by all save the silent watcher on thesaloon-deck. 

While the man in the cap was still on his knees, two men stole from theshadow of the nearest freight pyramid and flung themselves upon him. Hefought fiercely for a moment, and though he was more than doublyoutweighted, rose to his feet, striking out viciously and dragging hisassailants up with him. In the struggle the bundle dropped from hisbelt, and Charlotte saw him kick it aside. The waiting negro caught itdeftly and vanished among the freight pyramids; whereupon one of theattacking pair wrenched himself out of the three-man scuffle and dartedaway in pursuit. 

This left but a single antagonist for the fugitive, and Charlotte'ssympathies deserted her convictions for the moment. But while she wasbiting her lip to keep from crying out, the fugitive stepped back andheld out his hands; and she saw the gleam of polished metal reflectingthe glare of the arc-light when the officer snapped the handcuffs uponhis wrists. 

It was with a distinct sense of culpability oppressing her that she wentback to her aunt, and she was careful not to let the invalid see herface. Fortunately, there was a thing to be done, and the transfer to theother steamer came opportunely to help her to re-establish the balanceof things distorted. 

She was sorry, but, after all, the man had only himself to blame. Nonethe less, the wish that some one else might have been his betrayer waspromising to grow later into remorseful and lasting regret when, withher aunt, she left the _Belle Julie_, and walked up the levee to goaboard the _Star of the North_. 

XII

MOSES ICHTHYOPHAGUS

After suffering all the pangs of those who lose between the touch andthe clutch, Griswold had found the red-handkerchief bundle preciselywhere it had been hidden; namely, buried safely in the deck-load ofsacked coffee on the engine-room guard. 

It came to light in the final half-hour of the voyage, when he and hismates were transferring the coffee to the main-deck, forward. It had notbeen disturbed; and what had happened was obvious enough, after thefact. After its hiding, arm's-length deep, in a cranny between thesacks, 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 theemotions which had thrilled him when he found himself standing on thesidewalk in front of the Bayou State Security with the block ofbank-notes under his arm. Once more he was on fair fighting terms withthe world, and the star of hope, which had gone out like a candle in agust 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 theSt. Louis landing, the prospect of coming to blows, man-fashion, withthe enemy, was not wholly unwelcome. With all of his incompletenessesthis young rebel of life was no coward. If the New Orleans thief-takerswere 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 eagerimpatience 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 themoney in his possession was to give the enemy the chance of winning atone stroke both the victory and the spoils, he made a confederate of thenegro whose part he had taken in the quarrel with M'Grath. The man wasgrateful and loyal according to his gifts; and Griswold's need was toopressing to stick at any trifle of unintelligence. 

"Mose, you'll go ashore with me on the spring line, " he said, when hehad 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'remaking fast, I'm going to drop it, and you must get it and run away. Doyou 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 foran hour or two. If I don't turn up before you get tired, pitch the thinginto the river and go about your business. How much money does thecaptain 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 overyonder got it in de crap-game, same as turrers. "

Griswold put a twenty-dollar bill into the black palm, and when the crapvictim made out the figure of it by the glow of the furnace fires, hiseyes 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 ableto 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 everknown. But it won't hurt you if you don't meddle with it. Keep your witsabout 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 toit. The bow men paid out slack, and Griswold and the black, droppingfrom the swinging stage, trailed the end of the wet hawser up to thenearest mooring-ring. Though haste in making fast is the spring-lineman's first duty, Griswold took a fraction of a second to look aroundhim. The mooring-ring lay fair in the mock noonday of electric light, and there was no cover near it save a tarpaulined pyramid of sugarbarrels. Up the levee slope the way was open to the one-sidedriver-fronting street; and beyond the tarpaulin-covered sugar were morefreight pyramids, with shadowy alleys between them. 

Satisfied with what he saw, Griswold bade the negro keep watch and kneltto knot the hawser in the ring. The line was water-soaked and stiff, andin the momentary struggle with it his caution relaxed its eyehold on thepyramid 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 twoman-catchers tried to do their job quietly. But Griswold would not haveit so, and he was up and had twisted himself free when a blow from aclubbed pistol drove him back to his knees. Half stunned by theclubbing, he still made shift to spring afoot again, to drop hishandkerchief bundle and kick it aside, and to close with his assailantswhile the negro was snatching up the treasure and darting away among thefreight pyramids. After that he had but one thought; to keep the twoplain-clothes men busy until the negro had made his escape. Even thisproved to be a forlorn hope, since the smaller of the two instantlybroke away to give chase, while the other stepped back, spun his weaponin air, and levelled it. 

Rage-blinded as he was, Griswold knew that the levelled pistol meantsurrender or death. In the fine battle-frenzy of the moment he was onthe verge of accepting the alternative. Life and the love of it weremerged in a fierce desire to rush Berserk-mad upon the weapon and theman behind it, and his muscles were hardening for the spring when hechanced to look past the levelled weapon to the _Belle Julie_; to thesaloon-deck guard where a solitary, gray-coated figure stood clinging toa 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 whichwould be the lesser of two evils for him would brim a life-long cup oftrembling for the woman whose duty it had been to betray him, and hethrust out his wrists for the manacles. 

Quite naturally, the upflash of self-abnegation gave birth to renewedhope; and when his captor had handcuffed him and was walking him towarda closed carriage drawn up before the nearest saloon in theriver-fronting street, he ventured to ask what he was wanted for. 

"You'll find that out soon enough, " was the curt reply, and nothing morewas said until the carriage was reached and the door had been jerkedopen. "Get in!" commanded the majesty of the law, and when the door wasslammed upon the captive, the plain-clothes man turned to the driver, alittle 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 thethin, piping voice gave him fresh courage. Through the open window ofthe carriage he saw his captor glance at his watch and begin animpatient sentry-beat up and down under the electric transparencyadvertising the particular brand of whiskey specialized by the saloon. He was evidently waiting for his colleague to bring in the negro, andtime pressed. 

While he looked, Griswold was conscious of a curious change creepinginto heart and brain. From typifying himself as an escaping criminal thepsychological objective was slowly but surely becoming the subjective. He _was_ a criminal. The conclusion brought no self-accusation, noprickings of conscience. On the contrary, it swept the ground clear ofall the ethical obstructions, leaving only a vast subtlety andfurtiveness, 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 thechances of a cautious opening of the carriage door, a tiger spring tothe pavement, and a battering out of the man's brains with thehandcuffs. There were few passers: it might be done. 

It was not because it was too cold-blooded that he put the suggestionaside. It was rather because the man-catcher himself suggested anotherexpedient. The spring evening was raw and chilly, and the open doors ofthe saloon volleyed light and warmth and a beckoning invitation. Griswold's gift, prostituted to the service of the changed point ofview, bade him read in the red face, the loose lip, and the bibulouseyes the temptation that was gripping the plain-clothes man. "Wait, "whispered the colorless inner voice; "wait, and be ready when he goes into get the drink he has promised himself he will never again be weakenough to take while he is on duty. It won't be long. "

Griswold waited. By a careful contortion of the manacled hands, whichseemed suddenly to have become endowed with the crafty deftness of thehands of a pickpocket, he found his working capital in a pocket of theshort-sleeved coat. It had been diminished only by the hundred dollarsput into John Gavitt's hands, and the twenty he had given the negro. Hewished 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 acompact roll and put the remainder back into the inner pocket. 

It was only a minute or two after this that the red-faced man'simpatience blossomed into the thirst that will not be denied, and hewent 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. "Slughim 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'thurt you if he wanted to. Come down here!"

The little Irishman clambered down from his box reluctantly, with thereins looped over his arm. When he peered in at the open window of thecarriage the big man had passed beyond the swinging screens of thesaloon 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 venturedto 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 openingany door of temptation for a brother man. But the new Griswold had nocompunctions. 

"It's two hundred dollars to you if you can get me away from here beforethat red-faced drunkard comes back. Have a runaway--anything! Here's themoney!"

For a single timorous instant the cabman hesitated. Then he took theroll of money and crammed it into his pocket without looking at it. Before Griswold could brace himself there was a quick _whish_ of thewhip, a piping cry from the driver, and the horses sprang away at areckless gallop, with the little Irishman hanging to the reins andshouting feebly like a faint-hearted Automedon. 

Griswold caught a passing glimpse of the red-faced man wiping his lipsin the doorway of the saloon as the carriage bounded forward; and whenthe critical instant came, he was careful to fall out on the riverwardside of the vehicle. It was a desperate expedient, since he could notwait to choose the favorable moment, and the handcuffs made himpractically helpless. Chance saved the clumsy escape from resulting in aspeedy recapture. When he tumbled out of the lurching carriage he washurled violently against something that figured as a wall of solidmasonry and was half stunned by the concussion. None the less, he hadwit enough to lie motionless in the shadow of the wall, and the hue andcry, augmented by this time to a yelling mob, swept past withoutdiscovering him. 

When it was safe to do so, he sat up and felt for broken bones. Therewere none; and he looked about him. The wall of masonry resolved itselfinto a cargo of brick piled on the levee side of the street, and obeyingthe primary impulse of a fugitive, he quickly put the sheltering bulk ofit between himself and the lighted thoroughfare. 

The next step had to be resolutely thought out. How was he to get rid ofthe handcuffs? Any policeman would have a key, and there were doubtlessplenty of locksmiths in St. Louis. But both of these sources ofassistance were out of the question. Whom, then? The answer came in oneword--M'Grath. On a day when the up-river voyage was no more than fairlybegun, one of the negroes in the crew had procured a bottle of badwhiskey. To pacify him the mate had put him in irons, using two pairs ofhandcuffs for the purpose. Therefore, M'Grath must have a key. 

But would M'Grath do it? That remained to be seen; and since hesitationwas no part of Griswold's equipment, he covered the fetters as well ashe could with a scrap of bagging, and walked boldly down the levee andaboard the _Belle Julie_, falling into line with the returning file ofroustabouts. 

The mate was at the heel of the foot-plank, and he saw at once what thescrap of sacking was meant to hide. 

"Hello, there, Gavitt!" he called, not less gruffly than of yore, butwithout the customary imprecation; "What are ye doing with thim thingson?"

Griswold told a straight story, concealing nothing: not even thedetective's refusal to tell him what he was arrested for. 

M'Grath was smiling grimly when the tale was finished. "And did he letye 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 adrink. While he was gone, the horses ran away and I got out, " saidGriswold, still adhering to the exact facts. 

"Ye'd ought to find that cabby and buy him a seegyar, " was the mate'scomment. "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; pegalong afther me. You did be doing me a good turn wan black night, andI'm not forgetting it. "

He led the way up to his quarters in the texas, and telling Griswold towait, 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 maybethe key to 'em will fit yours, " he went on, adding: "What's become avMose?"

Again Griswold told the exact truth. 

"The last I saw of him he was making a run for it up the levee, with oneof the plain-clothes men chasing him. "

M'Grath found his handcuffs and tried the key in those upon Griswold'swrists. It fitted. 

"Now ye're fut- and hand-loose, I'll say to ye what I wouldn't say to acripple. 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 knownme. 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 downopposite. 

"Because ye fished me out o' the river whin ye had good cause to lave mebe, I'll tell ye a thing or two for the good av yer soul. Thing numberwan is that ye're not Gavitt; ye're no more like him than I am. Let thatgo, an' come to thing number two; ye've been up to some deviltry. How doI know? Because, at the last landing below this a little man comesaboard 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 tinfeet from the engine-room guards. I saw 'im. "

Griswold nodded and said, "I was wondering how they came to place me soeasily. This fellow knew I would be one of the two to carry out thespring 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. Hesaid he was a friend av yours, and didn't care to be speaking to yewhile 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 grownout of a breakfast deliberately eaten in a café next door to the BayouState Security. 

"What would I do but finish my job on the _Julie_?" he said, pushing thetheory to its logical conclusion. 

The mate shook his head. "Ye needn't do that; the cops might be comingdown 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 adeck-hand's wages for the trip. 

"Take this, and I'll be getting it back from the clerk. It might not begood 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 beforeye 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 ofa good farm for the privilege of standing up to you on a bit of greengrass with nobody looking on. I take it all back. You say you haven'tforgotten: neither will I forget, and maybe my turn will come again, some day. "

"Go along with you, " growled the rough-tongued Irishman, whose verykindness had a tang of brutality in it. "If you're coming across thenaygur, Mose, anywhere, sind him back and tell him I'll see that he getsreal money f'r helping us unload. Off with ye, now, whilst they'recatching up with yer runaway cab. "

Griswold went leisurely, as befitted his theory, and upon reaching thelevee, turned aside among the freight pyramids in search of hisconfederate. Now that there was time to recall the facts he feared thatthe negro had been taken. He had secured but a few yards' start in therace, and his pursuer was a white man, able to back speed withintelligence. Griswold had a sickening fit of despair when hecontemplated the possibility of failure with the goal almost in sight;and the reaction, when he stumbled upon the negro skulking in theshadows 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 whenGriswold 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 Icouldn' recconize my ol' mammy! Tek dishyer cunjah-bag o' yourn 'fo' Igwine drap hit. Hit's des been _bu'nin'_ my han's ev' sense I done tukout wid it!"

Griswold took the handkerchief bundle, and the mere touch of it put newlife 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 dest'arin' off strips up de levee after turrer fellah. "

"What other fellow?"

The negro laughed and did a double shuffle at the mere recollection ofit. 

"Hi-yah! Turrer fellah is de fellah what done tuk my job. Hit was desdis-a-way: when I t'ink dat white man gwine catch me, sho_ly_, I desdrap 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 golak he gwine shek 'um plum off; yas, sah!"

Griswold suffered another lapse into the humanities when he saw the listof participants in his act growing steadily with each freshcomplication, and he said, "I'm sorry for that, Mose. "

"Nev' you min' 'bout dat, Cap'm. Dat boy he been doin' somepin to mekhim 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 Ipromised you. "

"T'ank you, suh; t'ank you kin'ly Cap'm. You-all's des de whites' whiteman 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 boatand help get the cargo out of her. "

"Reckon I ain't gwine back to de _Julie_: no, suh. Dat'd be gittin' richtoo fas' for dis niggeh. Good-night, Cap'm Gravitt; an' t'ank youkin'ly, suh. "

Griswold went his way musing upon the little object-lesson afforded bythe negro's determination. Here was a fellow man who was one of thefeeblest of the under dogs in the great social fight; and with moneyenough in hand to give him at least a breathing interval, his highestambition was a mess of fried fish. 

The object-lesson was suggestive, if not specially encouraging, andGriswold made a mental note of it for further study when the question ofpresent safety should be more satisfactorily answered. 

XIII

GRISWOLD EMERGENT

Half an hour or such a matter after the hue-and-cry runaway from thecurb in front of the saloon two doors above, Mr. Abram Sonneschein, dealer in second-hand clothing and sweat-shop bargains, saw a possiblecustomer drifting across the street, and made ready the grappling hooksof commercial enterprise. 

The drifter was apparently a passenger from some lately arrivedsteamboat; but even to the trained eye of so acute an observer as Mr. Sonneschein he presented difficulties in the way of classification. Onlytemporarily, however. The long-tailed coat and the wide-brimmed, softfelt hat were the insignia of the down-river, back-country planter, andthe merchant drew his conclusions accordingly. 

"My, my! Rachel, " he remarked to his helpmate behind the counter. "Seedis chay from de backvoods across der street coming! Maype ve could sellhim 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 thedrifter, with a detaining finger hooked persuasively into a buttonholeof the long-tailed coat. 

So much for the grappling. But the possible customer was not to belanded so easily. Twice and yet once again he broke away from thedetaining finger; and when at last he finally allowed himself to bedrawn into the garish, ill-smelling little shop, he proved to bediscouragingly 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, "butthere isn't any hurry. I reckon I'll wait a spell and look around andsee what kind of fashions they're wearing now. "

This was a tacit acknowledgment that he had money to spend, and theeager merchant redoubled his efforts. His perseverance was rewarded, atlength, and when the ship of bargain and sale was bowling merrily alongbefore a fair breeze of suggestion, Mr. Sonneschein interlarded hissolicitations with an account of the recent miscarriage of justice infront of the near-at-hand saloon. 

The customer listened with apparent incuriosity, as one whom thesedoings in the city world touched but remotely; but the two or threequestions he asked were nicely calculated to bring out the moreimportant facts. The detectives had cautiously kept their own counsel asto the details of their quest. Mr. Sonneschein had gossiped with thepoliceman on the beat, and the policeman had talked with the red-facedman who had come alone in the cab, and had taken an unofficial drinkwith the roundsman before going down to the steamboat landing. He andhis "partner" were from New Orleans, and they were after a man who waswanted for big money: that was all he would tell the roundsman. 

"I suppose they've caught him again long before this, " said the hesitantcustomer, trying on a coat which might have been modelled upon a mantwice his size, and surveying himself in the shop looking-glass whileMr. Sonneschein lovingly smoothed the lapels into place and gathered agenerous 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 theprospective purchaser. 

"Not much dey didn't! Dem dedectifs iss too schmart for dot. Dey don'tgive it avay when somepody else might got der rewards. How you like dotschplendit coat, now?"

"Seems tolerable big, doesn't it?" said the customer, whose speech stillfitted his part to the final drawl. "Suppose we try something else. Sothere is a reward, is there?"

Mr. Sonneschein took the reward for granted and expressed a devout wishthat he might be able to finger it. Whereupon the customer said hewished _he_ might; and here the topic died a natural death and thebusiness 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 fromthe Sonneschein emporium. Nevertheless, he appeared to be well satisfiedwith his acquisitions, bearing himself as a purchaser who has by nomeans had the worse in the bargaining. At the first street corner heinquired his way of a policeman and was directed cityward. A squarefarther on he selected a barber's shop of cleanly promise, went in, tossed his newly acquired hand-bag to the porter, and took the firstvacant chair. 

"A hair-cut, a clean shave--not too close, and a bath afterward, " washis laconic order; and a modest tip facilitated things and provided thelittle luxuries. 

An hour later no one who had known him bearded and unkempt would haverecognized the clean-shaven, athletic-looking young man who ran down thesteps of the barber's shop and went swinging along on his way up-town. But the transformation was still incomplete. Reaching the retaildistrict, he strolled purposefully up one street and down another, passing many brilliantly lighted shops until he found one exactly to hisliking. A courteous salesman caught him up at the door, and led the wayto the designated departments. 

By this time Mr. Sonneschein's hesitant and countrified customer hadundergone a complete metamorphosis. No longer reluctant and hard toplease, he passed rapidly from counter to counter, making his selectionswith man-like celerity and certainty and bargaining not at all. When hewas quite through, there was enough to furnish a generous travellingwardrobe; a head-to-foot change of garmentings with a surplus to filltwo lordly suit-cases; so he bought the suit-cases also, and had themtaken 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 andtrademarks which declared it St. Louis-bought. These tags, together withthe Gavitt and the Sonneschein costumes, were crowded into theSonneschein hand-bag, with the soiled red handkerchief to keep themcompany; and he was carrying this hand-bag when he reappeared to thewaiting salesman. 

"I see you have steam heat, " he remarked. "Is your boiler-roomaccessible?"

"Yes, sir; it's in the basement, " was the reply, and the courteous clerkwondered if his liberal customer were thinking of adding the heatingplant to his purchases. 

Griswold saw the wonder and smiled. "No; I don't want to buy it, " heexplained, 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 theyear round, and it's as well to be on the safe side. May I trouble youto show me the way?"

"Certainly, " said the salesman, wondering no more; and when he had ledthe way to the boiler-room, and had seen his customer thrust thehand-bag well back among the coals in the furnace, he thought it aworthy precaution and one which, if generally practiced, wouldconsiderably accelerate the clothing trade. 

All traces of the deck-hand Gavitt, and of the Sonnescheinplanter-customer having been thus obliterated, there remained only thepaying 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? Ican't lave me harrses. "

The driver's excuse instantly tied the knot of recognition, and the manwho 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 sivinchilder hangin' to um. Get in, sorr, and I'll have you at the Chouteauin t'ree shakes av a dead lamb's tail. "

The little cabman was better than his word, but on the short drive tothe hotel he found time to work out a small problem, not entirely to hissatisfaction, but to at least a partial conclusion. 

"'Tis the divil's own self he is, and there's nothing left av him butthim eyes and that scar on his forrud, and his manner of spakin'. Butthim I'd swear to if I'd live to be as old as Father M'Guinness--resthis sowl. "

XIV

PHILISTIA

All things considered, it was the Griswold of the college-graduatedays--the days of the slender patrimony which had capitalized theliterary beginning--who presented himself at the counter of the HotelChouteau 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 anattentive bell-boy to relieve him of his two suit-cases. 

The clerk, a rotund little man with a promising bald spot and apermanent smile, had appraised his latest guest in the moment ofbook-signing, and the result was a small triumph for the Olive Streetfurnishing house. Next to the genuinely tailor-made stands the qualityof verisimilitude; and the keynote of the clerk's greeting wasrespectful affability. 

"Glad to have you with us, Mr. Griswold. Would you like a room, or asuite?"

Griswold was sufficiently human to roll the long-submerged courtesyprefix as a sweet morsel under his tongue. With a day to spare he mighthave 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 sweepthe corners in their search for him, was only a place to put behindhim. So he said: "Neither; if I have time to get my supper and catch atrain. Have you a railway guide?"

"There is one in the writing-room. But possibly I can tell you what youwish to know. Which way are you going?"

Without stopping to think of the critical happenings which hadintervened since the forming of the impulsive resolution fixing hisdestination, Griswold named the chosen field for the hazard of freshfortunes, and its direction. 

"North; to a town in Minnesota called Wahaska. Do you happen to know theplace?"

"I know it very well, indeed; southern Minnesota is my oldstamping-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 havebeen given the impression that it is a quiet little place out of thebeaten track, where a man might spend a summer without having to shareit 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, youknow, and some New Orleans people have built a resort house. Iunderstand it does a pretty fair business in the season. "

Having assured himself that the New Orleans leaf in his book ofexperience was safely turned and securely pasted down, Griswold wasnettled to find that the mere mention of the name sent creeping littlechills of apprehension trickling up and down his spine. But innatestubbornness 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 andbusy enough so that a hundred-room resort house doesn't make it asouvenir town. It's a nice little city; modern, progressive, andbusiness-like; trolleys, electric lights, and some manufacturing. Goodpeople, 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 ateleven-thirty; but you can get into the sleeper any time after eighto'clock. "

The guest had crossed the lobby to the café, and the clerk was stilldallying with the memories stirred up by the mention of his boyhoodhome, when a little man with weak eyes and a face that out-caricaturedall the caricatures of the Irish, sidled up to the registry desk. Theround-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 ofnames on the guest-book, blinking as if the writing or the glare of thelights on the page dazzled him. 

"I drove him, and he did be overpaying me, I think. What was ye sayinghis 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 countingthe coins in his pocket by the sense of touch. Then: "Would yez bewriting 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 beento confession?" laughed the clerk. Nevertheless, he wrote the name andaddress on a card for the petitioner. 

"Thank ye, sorr; thank ye kindly. Whin a man has a wife and sivinchilder hangin' to um--" but here the singsong voice of the portercalling the Burlington westbound silenced all other sounds and the clerkheard no more. 

Seated at a well-appointed table in the Chouteau café, Griswold hadample time to overtake himself in the race reconstructive, and for themoment the point of view became frankly Philistine. The luxurious hotel, with its air of invincible respectability; the snowy napery, the cutglass, the shaded lights, the deferential service; all these appealedirresistibly to the epicurean in him. It was as if he had come suddenlyto his own again after an undeserved season of deprivation, and theeffect of it was to push the hardships and perils of the preceding weeksand 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 thefuture. That future, with all its opportunities for the realizing ofideals, was now safely assured. He could go whither he pleased and dowhat 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 ofpossibilities, and he gave himself a broad credit mark for perseveringin the resolution which held him steadfastly to the modest, workadayplan struck out in the beginning. Apart from Miss Farnham's recognitionof him on the _Belle Julie_--a recognition which, he persuaded himself, would never carry over from Gavitt the deck-hand to Griswold the studentand benefactor of his kind--there was nothing to fear; no reason why heshould not make Wahaska his workshop. 

In this minor city of the clerk's describing he would find theenvironment most favorable for a re-writing of his book and for arenewal of his studies. Here, too, he might hope to become byunostentatious degrees the beneficent god-in-the-car of his worthierambition, raising the fallen, succoring the helpless, and fighting thebattles 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; andthe conclusion of the whole matter should be a triumphant demonstrationto her by their refutable logic of good deeds and a life well-lived thatin his case, at least, the end justified the means. 

Just here, however, there was an unresolved discord in the imaginativetheme. It was struck by the reflection that since he could never takeher fully into his confidence her approval would always lack the seal ofcompleteness. She knew the masquerading deck-hand, and what he had done;and she would know Griswold the benefactor, and what he meant to do. Butuntil she could link the two together, there could be no demonstration. Though he should build the bastion of good deeds mountain high, it couldnever figure as a bastion to her unless she might come to know what itwas designed to defend. 

Having a sensitive ear for the imaginative harmonies, the unresolveddiscord annoyed him. The effort to eliminate it brought him face to facewith a blunt demand, a query that was almost psychic in its clear-cutdistinctness. Why did these forecastings of the future always lead himup to the closed door of this young woman's approval and leave himthere?

For one whose experience had all been bought on a rising market, Griswold was singularly heart-whole and normal in his attitude towardwomen. Beautiful women he had met before, among them a few who had lentthemselves facilely to the idealizing process; but in each instance itwas the artistic temperament, and not the heart, that was touched andinspired. Was Charlotte Farnham going to prove the exception? Since hecould ask the question calmly and with no perceptible quickening of thepulses, he concluded that she was not. Nevertheless----

The train of reflective thought was broken abruptly by the seating oftwo other supper guests at his table; a big-framed man in the grizzledfifties, and a young woman who looked as if she might have stepped themoment before out of the fitting-rooms of the most famous of Parisiandressmakers. 

Griswold's supper was served, and for a time he made shift to ignore thecouple at the other end of the table. Then an overheard word, the nameof the town which he had chosen as his future abiding place, made himsuddenly observant. 

It was the young woman who had named Wahaska, and he saw now that hisfirst impression had been at fault; she was not overdressed. Also he sawthat she was piquantly pretty; a bravura type, slightly suggesting theRialto 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 andelemental shrewdness, the man had bequeathed no single feature to thealertly beautiful daughter; yet the resemblance was unmistakable. Griswold did not listen designedly, but he could not help overhearingmuch of the talk at the other end of the table. From it he gathered thatthe young woman was lately returned from some Florida winter resort;that her father had met her by appointment in St. Louis; and that thetwo were going on together; perhaps to Wahaska, since that was theplace-name oftenest on the lips of the daughter. 

Griswold was only moderately interested. The deliberately orderedsupper, enticing in anticipation, had fallen short of the zestfulpromise in the fact. It came to him with a little shock that at leastone part of him, the civilized appetite, had become debased by theplunge 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 maybe ready to crowd in. He was fighting off the evil shapes while helistened; otherwise his interest might have been more acute. 

It was at this point that the apex of Philistine contentment was passedand the reaction set in. He had been spending strength and vitalityrecklessly and the accounting was at hand. The descent began when hetook himself sharply to task for the high-priced supper. What right hadhe to order costly food that he could not eat when the price of thissingle meal would feed a family for a week?

After that, nothing that the obsequious and attentive waiter could bringproved tempting enough to recall the vanished appetite. Never havingknown what it was to be sick, Griswold disregarded the warning, drank acup of strong coffee, and went out to the lobby to get a cigar, leavinghis table companions in the midst of their meal. To his surprise andchagrin the carefully selected "perfecto" made him dizzy and faint, bringing a disquieting recurrence of the vertigo which had seized himwhile 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 tothe train and get to bed. "

He went about it listlessly, with a curious buzzing in his ears and acertain dimness of sight which was quite disconcerting; and when a cabwas summoned he was glad enough to let a respectfully sympathetic porterlend him a shoulder to the sidewalk. 

The drive in the open air was sufficiently tonic to help him through thedetails of ticket-buying and embarkation; and afterward sleep came soquickly that he did not know when the Pullman porter drew the curtainsto adjust the screen in the window at his feet, though he did awakedrowsily later on at the sound of voices in the aisle, awoke to realizevaguely that his two table companions of the Hotel Chouteau café were tobe his fellow travellers in the Pullman. 

The train was made up ready to leave, and the locomotive was filling thegreat train-shed with stertorous hissings, when a red-faced man slippedthrough the gates to saunter over to the Pullman and to peckinquisitively at the porter. 

"Much of a load to-night, George?"

"No, sah; mighty light: four young ladies goin' up to de school inFaribault, Mistah Grierson and his daughter, and a gentleman from deChouteau. "

"A gentleman from the Chouteau? When did he come down?"

The porter knew the calling of the red-faced man only by intuition; butGriswold's tip was warming in his pocket and he lied at random and ongeneral principles. 

"Been heah all de evenin'; come down right early afte' suppeh, and wentto 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 mightbe----"

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 hiscarpet-covered step, and climbed aboard. 

XV

THE GOTHS AND VANDALS

In the day of its beginnings, Wahaska was a minor trading-post on thenorth-western frontier, and an outfitting station for the hunters andtrappers of the upper Mississippi and Minnesota lake region. 

Later, it became the market town of a wheat-growing district, and afoundation of modest prosperity was laid by well-to-do farmersgravitating to their county seat to give their children the benefit of agraded school. Later still came the passing of the wheat, a re-peoplingof the farms by a fresh influx of home-seekers from the Old World, andthe birth, in Wahaska and elsewhere, of the industrial era. 

Jasper Grierson was a product of the wheat-growing period. The son ofone of the earliest of the New-York-State homesteaders in the wheatbelt, he came of age in the year of the Civil War draft, and wasunpatriotic enough, some said, to dodge conscription, or the chance ofit, by throwing up his hostler's job in a Wahaska livery stable andvanishing into the dim limbo of the Farther West. Also, tradition addedthat he was well-spared by most; that he was ill-spared, indeed, by onlyone, and that one a woman. 

After the westward vanishing, Wahaska saw him no more until he returnedin his vigorous prime, a veteran soldier of fortune upon whom thegoddess had poured a golden shower out of some cornucopia of theColorado mines. Although rumor, occasionally naming him during the yearsof absence, had never mentioned a wife, he was accompanied by adaughter, a dark-eyed, red-lipped young woman, a rather striking beautyof a type unfamiliar to Wahaska and owing nothing, it would seem, to thegrim, gray-wolf Jasper. 

With the return to his birthplace, Jasper Grierson began a campaign, theplanning of which had tided him over many an obstacle in the road tofortune. It had given him the keenest thrill of joy of which a franklysordid nature is capable to descend upon his native town rich enough tobuy and sell any round dozen of the well-to-do farmers; and when he hadlooked about him he settled down to the attainment of his heart'sdesire, which was to have the casting vote in the business affairs ofthe community which had once known him as a helper in a livery stable. 

Losing sight of the irresistible energy and momentum of wealth aswealth, men said that fortune favored him from the outset. It was only ahalf-truth, but it sufficed to account for what was really a campaign ofconquest. Grierson's touch was Midas-like, turning all things to gold;and even in Wahaska there were Mammon worshippers enough to hail him asa public benefactor whose wealth and enterprise would shortly make ofthe overgrown village a town, and of the town a thriving city. 

Since the time was ripe, Wahaska did presently burst itsswaddling-bands. Commercial enterprise is sheep-like; where one leads, others will follow; and the mere following breeds success, if only bythe sheer impetus of the massed forward movement. Jasper Grierson wasthe man of the hour, but the price paid for leadership by the led is aptto be high. When Wahaska became a city, with a charter and a bondeddebt, electric lights, water-works, and a trolley system, Grierson'sinterest predominated in every considerable business venture in it, saveand excepting the Raymer Foundry and Machine Works. 

He was the president of one bank, and the principal stockholder in theother, which was practically an allied institution; he was the soleowner of the grain elevator, the saw- and planing-mills, the boxfactory, and a dozen smaller industries in which his name did notappear. Also, it was his money, or rather his skill as a promoter, whichhad transformed the Wahaska & Pineboro Railroad from a logging switch, built to serve the saw-mill, into an important and independentconnecting link in the great lake region system. 

In each of these commercial or industrial chariots the returned nativesat in the driver's seat; and those who remembered him as a loutishyoung farmhand overlooked the educative results of continued success andmarvelled 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 youngVandal, with a passion for overturning all the well-settled traditions. At first her attitude toward Wahaska and the Wahaskans had been serenelytolerant; the tolerance of the barbarian who neither understands, norsympathizes with, the homely virtues and the customs which have grownout of them. Then resentment awoke, and with it a soaring ambition toreconstruct the social fabric of the countrified town upon a model ofher 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 imposingred brick mansion on the sloping shore of Lake Minnedaska, named it--orsuffered her to name it--"Mereside, " had an artist of parts up fromChicago to design the decorations and superintend the furnishings, had alandscape gardener from Philadelphia to lay out the grounds, and, whenall was in readiness, gave a house-warming to which the invitations werein some sense mandatory, since by that time he had a finger in nearlyevery commercial and industrial pie in Wahaska. 

After the house-warming, which was a social event quite withoutprecedent in Wahaskan annals, Miss Grierson's leadership was tacitlyacknowledged by a majority of the ex-farmers' wives and daughters, though they still discussed her with more or less frankness in thesewing-circles and at neighborhood tea-drinkings. Crystallized intoaccusation, there was little to be urged against her save that she waspretty and rich, and that her leaning toward modernity was sometimes alittle startling. But being human, the missionary seamstresses and thetea-drinkers made the most of these drawbacks, whetting criticism to acutting edge now and then with curious speculations about Margery'smother, and wondering why Jasper Grierson or the daughter nevermentioned her. 

Meanwhile, the big house on the lake front continued to set the socialpace. Afternoon teas began to supersede the sewing-circles; not a few ofthe imitators attained to the formal dignity of visiting cards with"Wednesdays" or "Thursdays" appearing in neat script in the lowerleft-hand corner; and in some of the more advanced households theprincipal meal of the day drifted from its noontide anchorage tounwonted moorings among the evening hours--greatly to the distress ofthe men, for whom even hot weather was no longer an excuse for appearingin shirt-sleeves. 

For these innovations Miss Grierson was indirectly, though not lessintentionally, responsible; and her satisfaction was in just proportionto the results attained. But in spite of these successes there werestill obstacles to be surmounted. From the first there had been aperverse minority refusing stubbornly to bow the head in the houseof--Grierson. The Farnhams were of it, and the Raymers, with a followingof a few of the families called "old" as age is reckoned in the MiddleWest. The men of this minority were slow to admit the omnipotence ofJasper Grierson's money, and the women were still slower to accept MissGrierson on terms of social equality. 

At the house-warming this minority had been represented only byvariously worded regrets. At a reception, given to mark the closing ofMereside, socially, on the eve of Miss Margery's departure for thewinter in Florida, the regrets were still polite and still unanimous. Miss Margery laughed defiantly and set her white teeth on a determinedresolution 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'scoffee. 

"You know everybody, and everybody's business, poppa: who is thetreasurer of St. John's?" she inquired. 

"How should I know?" grumbled the magnate, whose familiarity with churchaffairs was limited to certain writings of a legal nature concerning thePresbyterian house of worship upon which he held a mortgage. 

"You ought to know, " asserted Miss Margery, with some asperity. "Isn'tit Mr. Edward Raymer?"

Jasper Grierson frowned thoughtfully into space. "Why, yes; come tothink of it, I guess he is the man. Anyway, he's one of their--what doyou 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 dollarspayable to his order. "

Jasper Grierson's laugh was suggestive of the noise made by a rustydoor-hinge. The tilting of the golden cornucopia had made him a ruthlessmoney-grubber, but he never questioned his daughter's demands. 

"Going in for the real old simon-pure, blue-ribbon brand ofrespectability this time, ain't you Madgie?" he chuckled; but he wrotethe check on the spot. 

Two hours later, Miss Grierson's cutter, driven by herself, paraded inMain Street to the delight of any eye æsthetic. The clean-limbed, high-bred Kentuckian, the steel-shod, tulip-bodied vehicle, and thefaultlessly arrayed young woman tucked in among the costly fur lap robeswere three parts of a harmonious whole; and more than one pair of eyeslooked, and turned to look again; with envy if they were young eyes andfeminine; with frank admiration if they were any age and masculine. ForMiss Grierson, panoplied for conquest, was the latest reincarnation ofthe woman who has been turning men's heads and quickening the blood intheir veins since that antediluvian morning when the sons of God saw thedaughters of men that they were fair. 

Miss Margery drove daily in good weather, but on this crisp Januarymorning her outing had an objective other than the spectacular. When theclean-limbed Kentuckian had measured the length of Main Street, he wassent 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 officedoor; and a moment later he was at the curb, bareheaded, offering tohelp 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-intimacyat least, that he had been sure she knew him in the same way--as indeedshe 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 ofimpulsiveness. "Do you know, I was really afraid I might have tointroduce myself? I----"

The interruption was of Raymer's making. One of his employees appearingopportunely, he sent the man to the horse's head, and once more held outhis hands to Miss Grierson. 

"You must come in and get warm, " he insisted. "I am sure you have foundit very cold driving this morning. Let me help you. "

She made a driver's hitch in the reins and let him lift her to thesidewalk. The ease with which he did it gave her a pleasant littlethrill of the sort that comes with the realization of a thing hoped for. When she was not too busy with the social triumphs, strength, manlystrength, was a passion with Miss Grierson. 

Raymer held the office door open for her, and in the grimy little denwhich had been his father's before him, placed a chair for her at thedesk-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 inSt. 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 aplan of the sittings?"

She protested prettily that it wasn't at all necessary; that anyassignment agreeable to him and least subversive of the rights andpreferences of others would be quite satisfactory. But he got out theblue-print plan and dusted it, and in the putting together of heads overit many miles in the gap of unacquaintance were safely and swiftly flungto 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 makeout 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 tothe velvety eyes with the half-abashed query in them. Miss Grierson'seyes were her most effective weapon. With them she could look anything, from daggers drawn to kisses. Just now the look was of child-likebeseeching, but Raymer withstood it--or thought he did. 

"It is more than twice as much as we get for the best locations, " hedemurred. "Wait a minute and I'll write you a check for the differenceand 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 youput the difference in the missionary box, or in the--in the rector'ssalary?--as a little donation from us, you know?"

Then Edward Raymer found that he had not withstood the eye-attack and hesurrendered at discretion, compromising on a receipt for the pew-rent. Thus the small matter of business was concluded; but Miss Margery wasnot yet ready to go. From St. John's and its affairs official she passeddeftly to the junior warden of St. John's and his affairs personal. Wasthe machine works the place where they made steam-engines and things?And did the sign, "No Admittance, " on the doors mean that no visitorswere allowed? If not, she would so much like to----

Raymer smiled and put himself once more at her service, this time asguide and megaphonist. It was all very noisy and grimy, but if shecared 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 passedthrough the clamorous machine-shop and had reached the comparativelyquiet foundry. One of Miss Margery's gifts was the ability to become forthe moment an active and sympathetic sharer in any one's enthusiasms. Inthe foundry she looked and listened, and was unsophisticated only to thedegree that invites explanation. It was a master-stroke of finesse. Aman is never so transparent as when he forgets himself in his owntrade-talk; and Raymer was unrolling himself as a scroll for MissGrierson to read as she ran. 

"And you say that is one of the columns for poppa's new block?" sheasked, while they stood to watch the workmen drawing a pattern out ofthe sand of the mould. 

"No; that is the pattern: that is wood, and it is used to make the printin the sand into which the melted iron is poured. This part of the mouldthey are lifting with the crane is called the 'cope, ' and the lower halfis the 'drag. ' When they have drawn the patterns, they will lock the twohalves together and the mould will be ready for the pouring. You oughtto come some afternoon while we are pouring; it would interest you ifyou'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 agoI was thinking that you were the one bit of redeeming color in ourrather commonplace picture. "

She let him look into what she wished him to believe were the veryultimate depths of the velvety eyes when she said: "You shouldn'tflatter, Mr. Raymer. For one thing, you don't do it easily; and foranother, it's disappointing. "

They were passing out of the foundry on their way back to the office andhe held the weighted door open for her. 

"A bit of honest praise isn't flattery, " he protested. "But supposing itwere a mere compliment--why should you find it disappointing?"

"Because one has to have anchors of some sort; anchors in sincerity andstraightforwardness, in the honesty of purpose that will say, '_No-no!_'and slap the best-beloved baby's hands, if that's what is needed. Thatis your proper rôle, Mr. Raymer, and you must never hesitate to takeit. "

It was the one small lapse from the strict conventionalities, but itsufficed to cut out all the middle distances. The tour of the workswhich had begun in passing acquaintance ended in friendship, preciselyas Miss Grierson had meant it should; and when Raymer was tucking herinto the cutter and wrapping her in the fur robes, she added thefinishing touch, or rather the touch for which all the other toucheshad been the preliminaries. 

"I'm so glad I had the courage to come and see you this morning. We havebeen dreadfully remiss in church matters, but I am going to try to makeup 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 foreverything. Good-by. "

Raymer watched her as she drove away, noted her skilful handling of thefiery Kentuckian and her straight seat in the flying cutter, and thesmile which a day or two earlier might have been mildly satirical wasnow openly approbative. 

"She is a shrewd little strategist, " was his comment; "but all the sameshe 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 herbatteries upon the Farnhams. They were Methodists, and having learnedthat the doctor's hobby was a struggling mission work in Pottery Flat, Margery called the paternal check-book again into service, and thecutter drew up before the doctor's office in Main Street. 

"Good-morning, doctor, " she began cheerfully, bursting in upon the headof the First-Church board of administrators as a charming embodiment ofyouthful enthusiasm, "I'm running errands for poppa this morning. Mr. Rodney was telling us about that little First-Church mission in PotteryFlat, and poppa wanted to help. But we are not Methodists, you know, andhe was afraid--that is, he didn't quite know how you might----"

It was an exceedingly clever bit of acting, and the good doctorcapitulated at once, discrediting, for the first time in his life, theintuition 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 ofthe piece of money-paper. "I appreciate it the more because I know youmust have a great many other calls upon your charity. We've been wantingto put a trained worker in charge of that mission for I don't know howlong, 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, DoctorFarnham. "

"I shouldn't be a good Methodist if I didn't, " laughed the doctor. Thenhe remembered the Mereside reception and the regrets, and was moved tomake amends. "I'm sorry we couldn't be neighborly last night; but mysister-in-law is very frail, and Charlotte doesn't go out much. They areboth getting ready to go to Pass Christian, but I'm sure they'll callbefore they go South. "

"I shall be ever so glad to welcome them, " purred Miss Margery, "and Ido hope they will come before I leave. I'm going to Palm Beach nextweek, 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 Raymersheld aloof; and the Oswalds and the Barrs relinquished the new publiclibrary project when it became noised about that Jasper Grierson and hisdaughter were moving in it. 

Miss Margery possessed her soul in patience up to the final day of herhome staying, and the explosion might have been indefinitely postponedif, on that last day, the Raymers, mother and daughter, had notpointedly taken pains to avoid her at the _lingerie_ counter inThorwalden's. It was as the match to the fuse, and when Miss Griersonleft the department store there were red spots in her cheeks and thedark eyes were flashing. 

"They think I'm a jay!" she said, with a snap of the white teeth. "Theyneed a lesson, and they're going to get it before I leave. I'm not goingto sing small all the time!"

It was surely the goddess of discord who ordained that the blow shouldbe struck while the iron was hot. Five minutes after the rebuff inThorwalden's, Miss Grierson met Raymer as he was coming out of theFarmers' and Merchants' Bank. There was an exchange of commonplaces, butin 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 paymentof triumph might have been discharged on the spot by Raymer'sblundering attempt at disavowal. 

"Why, Miss Margery! I don't know--that is--er--really, you must bemistaken, I'm sure!"

"I am not mistaken, and I'd like to know, " she persisted, looking himhardily in the eyes. "It must be something I have been doing, and if Ican 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 hersmile emphasized her opinion of Miss Grierson. 

"The mere fact of her saying such a thing to you ought to be asufficient 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 doit, and----"

"Precisely. And Miss Grierson shouldn't have done it. It is because shecan do such things that a few of us think she wouldn't be a pleasantperson 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 theatmosphere in which she lives and moves and has her being. If it weren'tfor her father's money, she would be--well, it is rather hard to sayjust what she would be. But she always makes me think of the bonanzapeople--the pick and shovel one day and a million the next. I believeshe is a frank little savage, at heart. "

"I don't, " the brother contended, doggedly. "She may be a trifle new andfresh for Wahaska, but she is clever and bright, and honest enough toignore a social code which makes a mock of sincerity and a virtue ofhypocrisy. 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 nerveand 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 himand Charlotte!"

The daughter laughed. 

"I should say there is room for a regiment to march between them, as itis. Miss Gilman took particular pains to let him know what train theywere leaving on, and I happen to know he never went near the station totell them good-by. "

XVI

GOOD SAMARITANS

Since she had undertaken to show Wahaska precisely how to deport itselfin the conventional field, Miss Grierson took a maid and a chaperon withher when she went to Florida. But when she returned in April, the maidhad been left behind to marry the gamekeeper of one of the millionaireestates on Lake Worth, and little Miss Matthews, the ex-seamstresschaperon, had been dropped off in Illinois to visit relatives. 

This is how it chanced that Margery, unwilling to set the Wahaskans abad 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 whichseated the Griersons at Griswold's table in the Hotel Chouteau café, andafterward made them his fellow travellers in the north-boundsleeping-car _Anita_. 

When Jasper Grierson travelled alone he was democratic enough to besatisfied with a section in the body of the car. But when Margery'stastes 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, whenthey came back from the late dining-car breakfast. "You ought to dosomething about it. " Miss Margery was at the moment fresh from "FloridaSpecials" and the solid-Pullman vestibuled luxuries of eastern wintertravel. 

Jasper Grierson's smile was a capitalistic acquirement, and some of hisfellow-townsmen described it as "cast-iron. " But for his daughter it wasalways indulgent. 

"I don't own the railroad yet, Madgie; you'll have to give me a littlemore time, " he pleaded, clipping the tip from a black cigar of heroicproportions and reaching for the box of safety matches. 

"I'll begin now, if you are going to smoke that dreadful thing in thisstuffy little den, " was the unfilial retort; and the daughter found amagazine and exchanged the drawing-room with its threat of asphyxiationfor a seat in the body of the car. 

For a little while the magazine, or rather the pictures in it, sufficedfor a time-killer. Farther along, the panorama of eastern Iowa unrollingitself beside the path of the train served as an alternative to thepictured pages. When both the book and the out-door prospect palled uponher, Miss Margery tried to interest herself in her immediatesurroundings. 

The material was not promising. Two old ladies dozing in the sectiondiagonally across the aisle, four school-girls munching chocolates andrestlessly shifting from seat to seat in the farther half of the car, and the conductor methodically making out his reports in the sectionopposite, summed up the human interest, or at least the visible part ofit. Half-way down the car one of the sections was still curtained andbulkheaded; and when Miss Grierson curled up in her seat and closed hereyes she was wondering vaguely why the porter had left this one sectionundisturbed in the morning scene-shifting. 

The northward-flying train was crossing a river, and the dining-carwaiter was crying the luncheon summons, when Margery awoke to realizethe comforting fact that she had successfully slept the forenoon away. With the eye-opening came a recurrence of the last-remembered wakingthought--the wonder why the curtained section was still undisturbed. When she was leaving the _Anita_ with her father, the explanationsuggested itself: of course, the occupant of the middle section must beill. 

Luncheon over, there was nothing to remind her of the probable invalidin Number Six until late in the afternoon when, looking through the opendoor of the drawing-room, she saw the porter carrying a glass of waterto the invisible sufferer. Quite suddenly her interest became acute. Whowas the sick one? and why was he, or she, travelling without anattendant?

With Margery Grierson, to question was to ascertain; and the Pullmanconductor, once more checking his diagrams in Section Eleven, offeredthe readiest means of enlightenment. A few minutes later Margeryrejoined her father in the private compartment. 

"Do you remember the nice-looking young man who sat at the table with usin 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 nimbleboxer's return blow. 

"I thought he paid a whole lot more attention to you than he did to hissupper. 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 andcalled 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 thefather. 

"I've been thinking, " was the slow response. "Of course, there is achance that he has friends in Wahaska, and that some one will be at thetrain 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 theregulations won't let him. "

"Well?" said the father again, this time with a more decided upwardinflection. Then he added: "You've made up your mind what you're goingto do: say it. "

Margery's decision was announced crisply. "There is no hospital to sendhim to--which is Wahaska's shame. Maybe he will be met and taken care ofby his friends: if he is, well and good; if he isn't, we'll put him inthe carriage and take him home with us. "

The cast-iron smile with the indulgent attachment wrinkled frostily uponJasper Grierson's heavy face. 

"The Good Samaritan act, eh? I've known you a long time, Madgie, but Inever 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 ofexecutive ability little inferior to her father's; did boast of it whenthe occasion offered; and by the time the whistle was sounding forWahaska, all the arrangements had been made for the provisional rescueof the sick man in Lower Six. 

At the station a single inquiry served to give the Good Samaritanintention the right of way. There were no friends to meet Lower Six; butthe Grierson carriage was waiting, with the coachman and a Meresidegardener for bearers. From that to putting the sick man to bed in one ofthe guest-chambers of the lake-fronting mansion at the opposite end ofthe 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 atthe nameless one's bedside, and was telephoning the college infirmaryfor 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 verysick 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 Ihaven'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, " hesaid concisely. 

"There is almost nothing to tell. He was sick and out of his head, andhis ticket read to Wahaska. No one on the train seemed to know anythingabout him; and he couldn't tell us anything himself. So when we foundthere was no one to meet him at the station, we put him into thecarriage and brought him home. There didn't seem to be anything else todo. "

A shrewd smile flickered for an instant in the kindly eyes of Wahaska'sbest-beloved physician. 

"Almost any one else would have found plenty of other things to do--ornot to do, " was his comment. "Are you prepared to go on, Miss Margery?"

"Taking care of him until he is able to take care ofhimself?--certainly, " was the quick reply. 

"Then I'll tell you that it is likely to be a long siege, and probably apretty serious one. I can't tell positively without the microscope, butI'm calling it malaria, with complications. There seems to be a generalbreak-down, as if he had been overworking or starving himself. You'llneed help. "

"I know; I've just been 'phoning the college, but they can't spareanybody 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 andkind and inflexible and even brutal, by turns. I wonder if we couldn'tget Sven Oleson? The Raymers had him when Edward was down with typhoid, and he was a treasure when we could make him understand what waswanted. "

There were fine little lines coming and going between Miss Margery'sstraight black brows. "We needn't do it by halves, doctor, " she saiddecisively. "If it would be better to wire St. Paul or Minneapolis andget a trained nurse----"

"--You'd stand the extra expense, of course, " laughed the doctor. "Youare all the world's good angel when you set out to be, Miss Margery. Butit won't be necessary; Oleson will, do, if I can get him. And I'll sendhim or somebody else before bedtime. Meanwhile, there's nothing to dobut to keep your patient quiet; and he'll do that for himself for a fewhours. I gave him a bit of an anodyne before I came down. "

Margery went to the outer door with her kindly counsellor, playing thepart 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 toWinona, and they should have left St. Louis this morning. " Then, tomatch the neighborly interest: "You are looking extremely well, MissMargery. Your few weeks in Florida were pleasant ones, I know. "

"Yes; they were pleasant. But I'm always well. Has poppa been workinghimself to death while I've been away?"

There was the faintest glimmer of an amused smile in the doctor's eyeswhen he said: "No, not quite, I guess. He has been out here with themasons and carpenters who are building the stables, every fine day, Ithink, and that was by way of being a recreation for him. "

Margery nodded brightly. "I thought perhaps he would do that if I wentaway. But I mustn't keep you. Be sure and telephone me about Sven. I'llsend the cart after him if you tell me to. "

The doctor promised; and after he was gone, she went slowly up-stairsand let herself softly into the room of shaded lights. The sick man wasresting quietly, and he did not stir when she crossed to the bed andlaid a cool palm on his forehead. 

"You poor castaway!" she murmured. "I wonder who you are, and to whomyou belong? I suppose somebody has got to be mean and sneaky and findout. Would you rather it would be I than some one else who might careeven less than I do?"

The sleeping man opened unseeing eyes and closed them again heavily. "Ifound the money, _Carlotta mia_; you didn't know that, did you?" hemuttered; and then the narcotic seized and held him again. 

His clothes were on a chair, and when she had carried them to a lightthat could be shaded completely from the bed and its occupant, shesearched the pockets one by one. It was a little surprising to find allbut two of them quite empty; no cards, no letters, no pen, pencil, pocket-knife, or purse; nothing but a handkerchief, and in one pocket ofthe waistcoat a small roll of paper money, a few coins and two smallkeys. 

She held the coat up to the electric and examined it closely; theworkmanship, the trimmings. It was not tailor-made, she decided, and byall the little signs and tokens it was quite new. And the same was trueof the other garments. But there was no tag or trade-mark on any of themto show where they came from. 

Failing to find the necessary clew to the castaway's identity in thispreliminary search, she went on resolutely, dragging the two suit-casesover to the lighted corner and unlocking them with the keys taken fromthe 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 andunused, but apparently no scrap of writing or hint of a name. With alittle sigh of bafflement she took the last tightly rolled bundle ofclothing from the suit-case. While she was lifting it a pistol fell out. 

In times past, Jasper Grierson's daughter had known weapons and theirfaults and excellences. "That places him--a little, " she mused, puttingthe pistol aside after she had glanced at it: "He's from the East; hedoesn't know a gun from a piece of common hardware. "

Further search in the tightly rolled bundle was rewarded by thediscovery of a typewritten book manuscript, unsigned, and with it anoblong packet wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. She slippedthe string and removed the wrapping. The brick-shaped packet proved tobe a thick block of bank-notes held together by heavy rubber bandssnapped over the ends. 

While the little ormolu clock on the dressing-case was whirring softlyand chiming the hour she stared at the money-block as if the sight of ithad fascinated her. Then she sprang up and flew to the door, not toescape, but to turn the key noiselessly in the lock. Secure againstinterruption, she pulled the rubber bands from the packet. The block wasbuilt up in layers, each layer banded with a paper slip on which wasprinted in red the name of the certifying bank and the amount. "BayouState Security, $5, 000. " There were twenty of these layers in all, nineteen of them unbroken. But through the printed figures on thetwentieth a pen-stroke had been drawn, and underneath was written"$4, 000. "

Quite coolly and methodically Margery Grierson verified the bank's countas indicated by the paper bands. There were one hundred thousanddollars, lacking the one thousand taken from the broken packet. Thecounting completed, she replaced the rubber bands and the brown-paperwrapping. Then she repacked the suit-cases, arranging the contents asnearly as might be just as she had found them, locking the cases andreturning the keys to the waistcoat pocket from which she had takenthem. 

When all was done, she tiptoed across to the bed, with the brown-paperpacket under her arm. The sick man stirred uneasily and began to mutteragain. She bent to catch the words, and when she heard, the light ofunderstanding leaped swiftly into the dark eyes. For the mumbled wordswere 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 storywhen Mr. Matthew Broffin, chief of the New Orleans branch of a notabledetective agency, returned from Guatemala with the forger Mortsen as histravelling companion. 

Broffin was a successful man in his calling. Beginning as a deputymarshal in the "moonshining" districts of Kentucky and Tennessee, he hadshifted first to the Secret Service, and later to the more highlyspecialized ranks of the private agencies. With nothing very spectacularto his credit, he had earned repute as a follower of long trails, and asan 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 thecase of the bank robbery a few days after his return from CentralAmerica. As a matter of fact, there was an express-company case waitingwhich promised more money. But emulation counts for something, even inthe thief-catching field; and since two members of his own staff hadfired and missed their mark in St. Louis, there was a blunder to beretrieved. 

Reasoning logically upon the new problem, Broffin did not at once try totake up the chase at the point to which it had been carried by the twowho had failed. Since the man had disappeared, the first necessity wasthe establishing of his true identity, and for a week Broffin devotedhimself to the task of disentangling the two personalities: that of thedecently dressed, parlor-anarchist bank-raider, and that of the man whofigured in the anonymous letter as Gavitt, the deck-hand. 

At the end of the week two facts were sufficiently apparent. The firstwas that there had been a real John Gavitt, a consumptive roustabout onthe New Orleans river-front; a person easily traceable up to the time ofhis disappearance on or about the day of the robbery, and whosedescription, gathered from those who had known him well, tallied not atall with the best obtainable word-picture of the bank-robber. Fact thesecond was a corollary of the first: by some means the robber hadcontrived to change places with Gavitt; to take his place in the _BelleJulie's_ crew and to assume his name. 

Broffin called this step in the outworking of his problem an incidentclosed when he had wired the post-master of the little Iowa river townfrom which the true Gavitt had migrated, and had received the expectedreply. John Wesley Gavitt had reached home two days after the date ofthe bank robbery, had died within the week, and had been buried besidehis wife. 

The next step was purely constructive; an attempt to build, upon thedescription given by President Galbraith and the teller Johnson, alikeness which would fit some notorious "strong-arm man" known to thecriminal records and the rogues' galleries. Broffin was not greatlydisappointed 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 littleoffice 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 asure-enough 'strong-arm man' wouldn't do. "

It was to Bainbridge, sitting at the desk's end and turning the leavesof 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 Mortsencapture. 

"He did one of the different things when he worked his way out of herein a deck crew, " suggested Bainbridge. "The real thug wouldn't have doneanything 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 hegot up to go. 

"Well, I'm glad it's your job and not mine, " he said, by way ofleave-taking. "If your guess is right, it's like looking for thetraditional needle in the haystack. "

"Ump, " said Broffin; and for a good hour after the reporter had gone hesat slowly swinging in the creaking office chair, smoking pipe afterpipe and thinking. 

At the end of the reflective revery he closed his desk, locked hisoffice, and went once more to the bank. It was the hour of the noonlull, and Johnson, the paying teller, was free to talk. 

"I hope I'll get through bothering you, some day, Mr. Johnson, " Broffinbegan. "But when I get stuck, I have to come to you. What Mr. Galbraithdon't remember would crowd a dictionary. "

The teller made good-natured apologies for his chief. "Mr. Galbraith wasa good bit upset, naturally. It was a pretty bad wrench for a man of hisage. "

"Sure, it was; and he's feeling it yet. That's why I'm letting him alonewhen I can. Just go once more carefully over the part of it that yousaw, 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 ofbusiness accuracy. 

"You'd make a good witness, Mr. Johnson, " was Broffin's comment. "Youcan tell the same story twice, hand-running, which is more than mostfolks 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 acredit letter. "

Broffin pulled thoughtfully at his drooping mustaches. He wasrearranging the pieces on the mental chess-board. He had not yet askedeither of the questions he had come to ask. Without knowing the scienceeven by name, he was still enough of a psychologist to prepare the wayby leading the mind of the witness cleverly over the details of its ownmemory picture. 

"You say the hold-up made way for the lady here at the window: you sawhim do it?"

"Yes. "

"Did any sign of recognition pass between them--anything to make youthink that they might be acquainted with each other?"

This was one of the two critical questions, and the teller took time toconsider. 

"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 Iam 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 spokeand stepped back. "

"Then they might have been acquainted, you think?" Broffin said, addingquickly: "Don't let the fact that she afterward tried to set the dogs onhim twist your judgment any. She might have known the man, and still beunwilling, afterward, to shield the criminal. "

Again Johnson took time to be accurate. 

"I'll admit that my impression at the time was that they wereacquainted, " he averred, at the end of the ends. "Of course you can'tbank much on that. He might have said to a perfect stranger, 'Afteryou, ' or whatever it was that he did say; and she would acknowledge thecourtesy with the nod and the smile--any well-bred woman would. But youcan take it for what it is worth; my thought at the moment was that theyhad met before; casually, perhaps, as people meet on trains or inhotels; that there was at least recognition on both sides. "

Broffin was nodding slowly. It was not often that he made a confidant ofa witness, even in the smaller details of a case, but he evidentlyconsidered the helpful teller an exception. 

"I've been working around to that notion myself, by the smalls, as thecat eat the grind-rock, " he said. "I said to myself, Would he, with thebig pull-off still trembling on the edge--would he have held back for awoman 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 thesociable game. Now one other little thing: you counted him out thesingle 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, ' oranything 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 havingarrived for the putting of the second critical question, he planted itfairly. "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. Galbraithtells me he gave the alarm as quick as he could draw his breath. Howmuch 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 thebank--perhaps a dozen or more--standing around waiting their turns atthe different wickets. I should say that every single one of them made arush for the doors, and I remember thinking at the time that the fellowcouldn't possibly get away. "

"Yet he did get away; made his drop-out so neatly that none of therushers 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 thesame story. The sidewalk wasn't crowded at the time: we are on the sunnyside of the street, and as you see now, the crowd is on the other sidein the shade. Yet the fellow had vanished before the nimblest one ofthem got to the doors. "

Broffin drew a deep breath and nodded slowly. The added details werefitting the new theory to a nicety. In conversation with the presidenthe had previously marked the fact that the robber had claimed to bestarving. 

"Thank you, Mr. Johnson; I reckon that's all for this time, " he said tothe teller, and a minute later he was buying a cigar of the littleGascon proprietor of the restaurant next door to the bank. 

"You have an excellent memory, I've been told, Monsieur Pouillard, " hesaid, at the lighting of the cigar. "Do you recollect the day of thebank robbery next door pretty well?"

The Gascon shrugged amiably. "_Vraiment_, M'sieu' Broffin; it ees notpossib' 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 wasvery droll; he was of the cold blood. When Victor, _le garçon_, wouldhave brought news of the _émeute_, he had said, breakfast first, and thenews afterward. 

Questioned in his turn, the serving-man corroborated his employer'sparticulars and was able to add a few of his own. The young man wasfair, with blue eyes and a reddish beard and mustaches. The mustacheswere untrimmed, but the beard was clipped to a point, _à les moeurs desétudiants des Beaux Arts_. The waiter had once served tables in a Pariscafé, and he seldom lost an opportunity of advertising the fact. Pressedto account for his accurate memory picture of a chance patron, heconfessed naïvely; the tip had been princely and the young man was oneto mark and to remember--and to serve again. 

Broffin left the restaurant with one more link in the chain neatlyforged. There was an excellent reason why none of the first-aid pursuershad been able to catch a glimpse of the "strong-arm man. " He had merelystepped from the bank entrance to Monsieur Pouillard's. Between the cafébreakfast and the departure of the _Belle Julie_ there lay an hour and aquarter. In that interval he could easily perfect his simple disguise. Broffin was not specially interested in the incidental minutiæ. It wasthe identity of the man with the untrimmed mustaches and the pointedbeard that must be established. 

After another week of patient groping, Broffin was obliged to confessthat the problem of identification was too difficult to be solved onconventional lines. It presented no point of attack. With neither a namenor a pictured face for reference, inquiry was crippled at the veryoutset. None of the many boarding- and rooming-houses he visited hadlost a lodger answering the verbal description of the missing man. Veryreluctantly, for bull-dog tenacity was the detective's rulingcharacteristic, he was forced to the conclusion that the only untriedsolution lay in Teller Johnson's unfortified impression that the chancemeeting at his wicket was not the first meeting between the robber andthe young woman with the draft to be cashed. 

It was the slenderest of threads, and Broffin realized sweatingly howdifficult it might be to follow. Assuming that there had been a previousmeeting or meetings, or rather the passing acquaintance which was allthat the young woman's later betrayal of the man made conceivable, wouldthe writer of the accusing letter be willing to add to her burden ofresponsibility by giving the true name and standing of the man whosereal identity--if she knew it--she had been careful to conceal in theunsigned note to Mr. Galbraith? Broffin read the note again--"adeck-hand, whose name on the mate's book is John Wesley Gavitt, " was thedescription she had given. It might, or it might not, be anequivocation; but the longer Broffin dwelt upon it the more he leanedtoward the conclusion to which his theory and the few known factspointed. The young woman knew the man in his proper person; she had beenreluctant to betray him--that, he decided, was sufficiently proved bythe lapse of time intervening between the date of her note and itspostmark date; having finally decided to give him up, she had told onlywhat was absolutely necessary, leaving him free to conceal his real nameand identity if he would--and could. 

Having come thus far on the road to convincement, Broffin knew what hehad to do and set about the doing of it methodically. A telegram to theclerk of the _Belle Julie_ served to place the steamer in the lowerriver; and boarding a night train he planned to reach Vicksburg in timeto intercept the witnesses whose evidence would determine roughly howmany hundreds or thousands of miles he could safely cut out of thezigzag journeyings to which the following up of the hypothetical clewwould lead. 

For, cost what it might, he was determined to find the writer of theunsigned letter. 

XVIII

THE ZWEIBUND

On his second visit to the sick man lodged in the padded luxuries of oneof the guest-rooms at Mereside, made on the morning following theGrierson home-coming, Dr. Farnham found the hospital status established, with the good-natured Swede installed as nurse, the bells muffled, andMiss Margery playing the part of Sister Superior and dressing it, fromthe 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 Englishtrap horse, parading down Main Street and smiling greetings toeverybody. 

By one of the chances which he was willing to call fortunate, EdwardRaymer was at the curb to help her down from her high seat in the trapwhen 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 Ishould get in line to tell you how glad we are to have you back, " hesaid, with his eyes shining. 

"Are you, really? You are not half as glad as I am to be back. There isno place like home, you know. "

"There isn't, and there oughtn't to be, " was his quick response. "I'vebeen hoping you'd come to look upon Wahaska as your home, and now I knowyou do. "

"Why shouldn't I?" she laughed, and she was reaching for a paper-wrappedpackage on the trap seat when he got it for her. 

"You are going somewhere?--may I carry it for you?" he asked; but sheshook her head and took it from him. 

"Only into the bank, " she explained; and she was beginning to tell himhe must come to Mereside when the sick-man episode obtruded itself, andthe invitation was broken in the midst, very prettily, very effectively. 

"I know, " Raymer said, in instant sympathy. "You have your hands fulljust now. Will you let me say that it's the finest thing I ever heardof--your taking that poor fellow home and caring for him?"

Gertrude Raymer had once said in her brother's hearing that MissGrierson's color would be charming if it were only natural. Looking intoMiss Grierson's eyes Raymer saw the refutation of the slander in thesuffusing wave of generous embarrassment deepening in warm tints on theperfect neck and cheek. 

"Oh, dear me!" she said in pathetic protest; "is it all over town sosoon? I'm afraid we are still dreadfully 'country' in Wahaska, Mr. Raymer. Please cut it down to the bare, commonplace facts whenever youhave 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, MissMargery?" and, like the doctor again, he received the same answer, "Ihaven't the smallest notion of an idea. But that doesn't make theslightest difference, " she went on. "He is a fellow human being, sickand helpless. That ought to be enough for any of us to know. "

Raymer stood watching her as she tripped lightly into the bank, and whenhe went to catch his car the conservative minority had lost whatevercountenance or support he had ever given it. 

"She's pure gold when you dig down through the little top layer ofharmless 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 sureearn what's coming to it. "

True to her latest characterization of herself, Margery had a nod and apleasant smile for the young men behind the brass grilles as she passedon her way to the president's room in the rear. She found her father athis desk, thoughtfully munching the unburned half of one of the hugecigars, 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 hadgiven the better part of the forenoon, replied without looking up: "Goand tell Murray; he'll fix you out, " and it was not until after she hadgone that it occurred to him to wonder what use she was going to make ofa private box in the safety vault--a wonder that had lost itself in amultiplicity of other things before he saw her again. 

 * * * * *

For a week after his unmarked arrival in Wahaska, the castaway in theupper room at Mereside made hard work of it, giving the good littledoctor with the kindly eyes and the straight-line Puritan lips a ratheranxious 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 tomake the welcoming an excuse for finding out the particulars in thecastaway episode. But neither faith nor good works seemed to have anyeffect on the rebellious minority, and at the end of the week Raymeronce more had the pleasure of lifting Miss Grierson from the high trapat the door of the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank, and of exchanging a fewwords with her before she went in to see her father. 

As on any other business day, President Grierson was solidly planted inhis heavy arm-chair before a desk well littered with work. He noddedabsently to his daughter as she entered, and knowing that the nod meantthat he would come to the surface of things--her surface--when hecould, she turned aside to the window and waited. 

Though she had seen him develop day by day in less than three of thethirty-odd years of his Western exile, her father offered a constantsuccession of surprises to her. When she opened the door toretrospection, which was not often, she remembered that the man who hadstumbled upon the rich quartz vein in Yellow Dog Gulch could scarcelysign his name legibly to the papers recording his claim; that in thosedays there was no prophecy of the ambitious present in the man, halfdrunkard and half outlaw, whose name in the Yellow Dog district had beena synonym for--but these were unpleasant memories, and Margery rarelyindulged them. 

Just now she put them aside by turning her back upon the window andtaking credit for the tasteful and luxurious appointments of the privateoffice, with its soft-piled rug and heavy mahogany furnishings. Herfather was careless of such things; totally indifferent to them inbusiness hours; but she saw to it that his surroundings kept pace withthe march of prosperity. Here in Wahaska, as elsewhere, a littlejudicious display counted for much, even if there were a few bigotedpersons who affected to despise it. 

She was in the midst of a meditated attack upon the steamshiplithographs on the walls--sole remaining landmarks of the ante-Griersonperiod--when her father wheeled in his pivot-chair and questioned herwith 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 bigdesk. He reached mechanically for his check-book, but she smiled andstopped him. "No; it isn't money, this time: it's something that moneycan'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 otherfoot. "

"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 youngfools, nowadays; he ain't content to bet on a sure thing and grow withhis capital. He wants to widen out and build and put in new machineryand cut a bigger dash generally. Thinks he's been too slow and sure. "

"Are you going to stake him?" Margery waged relentless war with herbirthright inclination to lapse into the speech of the mining-camps, butshe 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 himout. "

Margery was turning the leaves of an illustrated prospectus of an Idahoirrigation company, and was apparently much more deeply interested inthe electrotyped pictures than in the fortunes of Mr. Edward Raymer. Andwhen she went on, she ignored the obliterative business suggestion andremained 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 tohave much use for me, I guess. It's a stand-off, so far as likings go. Ioffered to reincorporate his outfit for him six months ago, and told himI'd take fifty-one per cent of the reorganization stock myself; but hewouldn't talk about it. Said what little he had was his own, and heproposed 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 moneyfrom the bank and put up the stock of his close corporation ascollateral. It's safe enough, but I don't believe I'll do it. "

The chatelaine of Mereside laid the prospectus aside and came abruptlyto the point. 

"I want you to do it, " she said, decisively. 

"The devil you do!" Then, with the dry door-hinge chuckle: "It was awaste 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 thearm-chair. 

"Tell me now; you don't need to beat any of the bushes with me, littlegirl. 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 himunder obligations to you--the heavier the better. His mother and sisterhave 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 aguffaw. 

"I thought maybe that was the game. But it won't work with him; not fora single minute. "

"Why won't it?"

"Because he ain't the man to go to his women-folks when he gets into hotwater. He'll keep it to himself; and they'll go on bluffing you, same asever. "

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 veryoften that I can give you a business tip, but this is one of the timeswhen I can. When John Raymer died, he left an undivided half of hisestate to his wife, the other half to be shared equally by the twochildren. At the present moment, every dollar the entire family has isinvested 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 briefmemorandum. 

"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 hotwater, as you call it, and then, when I say the word, you'll reach inand pull him out. "

"Oh, that's the how of it, is it? All right; anything you say goes as itlays. But I'm going to make one condition, this time: you'll have tokeep cases on the game yourself, and say when. I can't be botheredkeeping the run of your society tea-parties. "

"I don't want you to. Don't be late for dinner: we are going to theRodneys' for the evening. "

When she was gone, the president selected another of the overgrowncigars from a box in the desk drawer, lighted it, and tilted back in thebig arm-chair to envelop himself in a cloud of smoke. It was his singleexpensive habit--the never-empty box of Brobdingnagian cigars in thedrawer--and the indulgence helped him to push the Yellow-Dog period intoa remoter past. 

After a time the smoke cloud became articulate, rumbling forthchucklings and Elizabethan oaths, mingling with musings idiomatic andprofane. "By God, I believe she thought she was fooling me--I do, for afact! 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. Ifshe'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 atthe Farmers' and Merchants' Bank the following morning, he was treadingupon air. For in his mind's eye there was a fair picture of a great andsuccessful industry to be built upon the substantial extension of creditpromised 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 anexplosion, Griswold remembered cloudily the supper of tasteless coursesat the Hotel Chouteau, still less distinctly, a drive through thestreets to a great, echoing railway station, a glare of lights toopainful to be borne, and, last of all, an overpowering wearinessshutting down upon him like a sudden closing in of darkness become thickand stifling. 

Afterward there were vague impressions, momentary breaches in the wallof inclosing darkness when he had realized that he was curiouslyhelpless, and that he was still on the train going somewhere, though hecould not remember where. In one of these intervals a woman had stoodbeside him, and he seemed to remember that she had put her cool hand onhis forehead. 

Of the transition from the train to the bed in the upper room atMereside, he recalled nothing, though the personalities of twostrangers, the doctor and the nurse, obtruded themselves frequently inthe later phases of the troubled dream, like figures in a shadowpantomime. Also, that suggestion of the presence of the woman with thecool palm became self-repeating; and finally, when completeconsciousness returned, the dream impression was still so sharplydefined that he was not surprised to find her standing at his bedside. 

He did not recognize her. The memory of his supper companions of theHotel Chouteau café was deeply buried under the dream débris, and thepresent moment was full of mild bewilderment. Yet the friendliness inher 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 thedoor of the returned consciousness, she smiled and shook her head andforbade him. 

"No, you mustn't talk, " she said, with gentle authority. "It's thedoctor's orders. By and by, when you are stronger, you may ask all thequestions you please; but not now. "

He wagged his head on the pillow. "Can't I even ask where I am?" hebegged. 

"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 butto get well as fast and as comfortably as you can. "

Her voice was even more remindful than her face of that elusive pastwhich ought to be remembered, and he closed his eyes to try to recallit. When he opened them again, she was gone and her place was taken byone of the figures of the dream; a man with a thick mop of fair hair anda face of blank good-nature, and whose store of English seemed to becomprised in a single sentence: "_Ja, ja_; Hae bane poorty vell, t'ankyo'. "

Later in the day the doctor came; and when the professional requirementswere satisfied, Griswold learned the bare facts of his succoring. It wascharacteristic of the Griswold of other days that the immense obligationunder which the Griersons had placed him made him gasp and perspireafresh. 

"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 ofyour problem. Miss Margery is an only child, and if she sees fit to turnMereside into a temporary hospital, he is abundantly able to indulgeher. "

"Then I am indebted to the daughter, alone?"

"Entirely, I should say. "

Griswold looked long and earnestly at the face of his professionaladviser. 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 itjust 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 willnot probe too deeply into motives; you will take the deed as thesufficient exponent of the prompting behind it. If I say so much, youwill understand that I am not impugning Miss Grierson's motives. Thereare 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 filledit promptly. "Griswold--Kenneth Griswold. Do you mean to say that youhaven't known my name, doctor?"

"We have not. We took the Good Samaritan's privilege and ransacked yourbelongings--Miss Margery and I--thinking that there might be relativesor friends who should be notified. "

"And you found nothing?" queried the sick man, a cold fear gripping athis heart. 

"Absolutely nothing to tell us who you were; no cards, letters, ormemoranda of any kind. The conclusion was obvious: some one had takenadvantage of your illness on the train and had picked your pockets. "

Griswold moistened his lips and swallowed hard. "There were twosuit-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 typewrittenbook manuscript bearing no signature. "

Griswold turned his face away and shut his eyes. Once more his stake inthe 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 thepapers you speak of?"

Griswold was too feeble to prevaricate successfully. 

"There was money in the package, " he said, leaving the physician toinfer what he pleased. 

"Ah; then you were robbed. It's a pity we didn't know it at the time. Itis 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, withencouraging kindliness. "The one loss that couldn't have been retrievedis 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 magnificentconstitution and fine recuperative powers; otherwise we should haveburied you within a week of your arrival. "

It was not until after the doctor had gone that Griswold was able toface the new misfortune with anything like a sober measure ofequanimity. Imaginative to the degree which facilely transforms thesuppositional into the real, he was still singularly free fromsuperstition. Nevertheless, all the legends clustering about theproverbial slipperiness of ill-gotten gains paraded themselvesinsistently. It was only by the supremest effort of will that he couldpush them aside and address himself to the practical matter of gettingwell. That was the first thing to be considered; with or without money, he must relieve the Griersons of their self-assumed burden at theearliest possible moment. 

This was the thought with which he sank into the first natural sleep ofconvalescence. But during the days which followed, Margery was able tomodify it without dulling the keen edge of his obligation. What perfecthospitality could do was done, without ostentation, with the exactdegree of spontaneity which made it appear as a service rendered to akinsman. It was one of the gifts of the daughter of men to be able toignore all the middle distances between an introduction and afriendship; 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?" hesaid to Margery, on the first of the sunning days when she had come toperch in the window-seat opposite his chair. 

"It's propinquity, " she laughed. "You haven't seen any other woman fordays and weeks. Wait until you are strong enough to come down to one ofmy 'evenings. '"

"No, it isn't propinquity, " he denied. 

"Then it's the unaccustomed. You are from the well-behaved East. Thereare some people even here in Wahaska who will tell you that I have neverproperly 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 recoveringrapidly, Mr. Kenneth; don't you think so? Or was that only a littlereturn of the fever?"

He brushed the bit of mockery aside. "I want to be serious to-day--ifyou'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 feverwoods and saw you standing by the bed?"

"We didn't 'meet, ' in the accepted meaning of the word. My father and Ihappened 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 indestiny?"

She nodded brightly. "Sometimes I do; when it brings things out the wayI want them to come out. "

"I've often wondered, " he went on musingly. "Think of it: somewhere backin the past you took the first step in a path which was to lead you tothat late supper in the Chouteau. Somewhere in my past I took the firststep 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 cannever 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 theman farther down. Forget it, and tell me what you want to know aboutWahaska. "

"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 HerbertC. Farnham. "

"_Doctor Farnham?_--not Miss Char----" He bit the name in two in themiddle, but the mischief was done. 

"Yes; Charlotte's father, " was the calm reply. Then: "Where did you meetMiss Farnham?"

"I haven't met her, " he protested instantly; "she--she doesn't know mefrom Adam. But I have seen her, and I happened to learn her name and herhome 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 ofdeduction into their proper holes. Her involuntary guest did not knowthe father; therefore he must have seen the daughter while she was awayfrom home. Charlotte Farnham had been South, at Pass Christian, anddoubtless in New Orleans. The convalescent had also been in New Orleans, as his money packet with its Bayou State Security labels sufficientlytestified. 

Miss Grierson got up to draw one of the window shades. It had becomeimperative that she should have time to think and an excuse for hidingher face from the eyes which seemed to be trying masterfully to read herinmost thoughts. 

"You think it is strange that I should know Miss Farnham's name andaddress without having met her?" Griswold asked, when the pause hadbecome a keen agony. 

Miss Grierson's rejoinder was flippant. "Oh, no; she is pretty enough toaccount for a stranger thing than that. "

"She is more than pretty, " said Griswold, impulsively; "she has thebeauty 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 afternoonof the same day, Miss Grierson's trap was halted before the door of thetemporary quarters of the Wahaska Public Library. Raymer saw the trapand crossed the street, remembering--what he would otherwise haveforgotten--that his sister had asked him to get a book on orchids. 

Miss Margery was in the reference room, wading absently through thenewspaper files. She nodded brightly when Raymer entered--and was not inthe least dust-blinded by the library card in his hand. 

"You are just in time to help me, " she told him. "Do you remember thestory of that daring bank robbery in New Orleans a few weeks ago?--theone in which a man made the president draw a check and get it cashed forhim?"

Raymer did remember it, chiefly because he had talked about it at thetime with Jasper Grierson, and had wondered curiously how the presidentof the Farmers' and Merchants' would deport himself under likeconditions. 

"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 theyturned the file of the _Pioneer Press_ until they came to the numbercontaining the Associated Press story of the crime. It was fairlycircumstantial; 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 fromthe 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 amatter apparently quite irrelevant. 

"Didn't I see Miss Farnham's return noticed in the _Wahaskan_ the otherday?"

With Charlotte's father a daily visitor at Mereside, it seemedincredible that Miss Grierson had not heard of the daughter'shome-coming. But Raymer answered in good faith. 

"You may have seen it some time ago. She and Miss Gilman have been homefor 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 agood boat. I've been told that the table is simply impossible on some ofthem. "

"So it is. But they came up as far as St. Louis on one of the AnchorLines--the _Belle Julie_--and even Miss Gilman admits that theaccommodations 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 orchidbook. When he looked in again on his way to the street, Miss Griersonhad gone, leaving the file of the _Pioneer Press_ open on the readingdesk. Almost involuntarily he glanced at the first-page headings, thrilling to a little shock of surprise when one of them proved to bethe caption of another Associated Press despatch giving a twenty-linestory of the capture and second escape of the Bayou State Securityrobber on the levee at St. Louis. 

The reading of the bit of stale news impressed him curiously. Why hadMiss Margery interested herself in the details of the New Orleans bankrobbery? Why--with no apparent special reason--should she haveremembered it at all? or remembering it, have known where to look forthe two newspaper references?

Raymer left the library speculating vaguely on the unaccountabletangents at which the feminine mind could now and then fly off from thewell-defined circle of the conventionally usual. On rare occasions hismother or Gertrude did it, and he had long since learned the folly oftrying to reduce the small problem to terms of known quantitiesmasculine. 

"Just the same, I'd like to know why, this time, " he said to himself, ashe crossed the street to the Manufacturers' Club. "Miss Grierson isn'tat 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 idlycontented when Margery was with him, and vaguely dissatisfied when shewas not; Griswold was permitted to go below stairs, where he met, forthe first time since the Grierson roof had given him shelter, the masterof Mereside. 

The little visit to Jasper Grierson's library was not prolonged beyondthe invalid's strength; but notwithstanding its brevity there were inertcurrents of antagonism evolved which Margery, present and endeavoring toserve as a lightning-arrester, could neither ground nor turn aside. 

For Griswold there was an immediate recrudescence of the unfavorablefirst impression gained at the Hotel Chouteau supper-table. He recalledhis 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 therecord. 

Thus the convalescent debtor to the Grierson hospitality. And as for theWahaskan money lord, it is to be presumed that he saw nothing more thana hollow-eyed, impractical story-writer (he had been told of themanuscript found in Griswold's hand-baggage), who chanced to beMargery's latest and least accountable fad. 

Griswold took away from the rather constrained ice-breaking in thebanker's library a renewed resolve to cut his obligation to JasperGrierson as short as possible. How he should begin again the mordantstruggle for existence was still an unsolved problem. Of theone-thousand-dollar spending fund there remained something less thanhalf: for a few weeks or months he could live and pay his way; but afterthat. .. . Curiously enough, the alternative of another attack upon theplutocratic dragon did not suggest itself. That, he told himself, was anexperiment tried and found wanting. But in any event, he must notoutstay his welcome at Mereside; and with this thought in mind he creptdown-stairs daily after the library episode, and would give Margery nopeace because she would not let him go abroad in the town. 

"Not to-day, but to-morrow, " she said, finally, when there was no longerany good reason for denying him. "Wait until to-morrow, and if it's afine 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'--whatshall I say; patient, or guest, or--friend?" she laughed, garbling thequotation 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 apeach and can't wait until it ripens. But if you must have a reason whyI won't drive you this afternoon, you may. We are going to have a tinylittle social function at Mereside this evening, and I want you to befresh and rested for it. "

"Oh, my dear Miss Margery!" protested the convalescent, reluctant to hisfinger-tips; "not to meet your friends! I am only your poor charitypatient, and----"

"That will do, " she declared, tyrannizing over him with a fineaffectation of austere hostess-ship. "_I_ say you are to comedown-stairs this evening to meet a few of our friends. And you willcome. "

"Certainly, I shall come, if you wish it, " he assented, rememberingafresh his immense obligation; and when the time was ripe he madehimself presentable and felt his way down the dimly lighted librarystair, being minded to slip into the social pool by the route whichpromised the smallest splash and the fewest ripples. 

It was a stirring of the Philistine in him that led him to prefigureweariness and banality in the prospect. Without in the least suspectingit, Griswold was a Brahmin of the severest sect on his social side;easily disposed to hold aloof and to criticise, and, as a manEastern-bred, serenely assured that nothing truly acceptable in thesocial sense could come out of the Nazareth of the West. 

For this cause he was properly humiliated when he entered the spaciousdouble drawing-rooms and found them so comfortably crowded by a throngof conventionally clothed and conventionally behaved guests that he wasimmediately able to lose himself--and any lingering trace ofself-consciousness--in a company which, if appearances were to betrusted, was Western only by reason of Wahaska's location on the map. Indeed, the sudden and necessary rearrangement of the pieces on theprefigured chess-board was almost embarrassing; and Margery's greetingand welcome brought a grateful sense of relief and a certain recovery ofself-possession for which, a few minutes earlier, he had thought therecould be no possible Wahaskan demand. 

"Thank you so much for coming down, and for resolving heroically not tobe bored, " she began brightly. "And now that you've made your littleconcession, I'll make mine. I sha'n't ask anything at all ofyou"--piling the cushions in the corner of a wide window-seat and makinghim sit down; "you are just to be an invalid this evening, you know, andyou needn't meet any more people than you want to. "

When she had patted the pillows into place and was gone to welcome stilllater comers, Griswold had a chance to look around him. The readjustingmechanism was still at work. Beyond question it was all very different, strikingly different, from his forecastings. A young woman was at thepiano, with a young man whose clothes fitted him and who was in nowiseconscious of them, turning the music for her. There was a pleasant humof conversation; the lights were not glaring; the furnishings were notin bad taste--on the contrary, they were in exceedingly good taste. Griswold smiled when he remembered that he had been looking forward tosomething suggesting a cross between a neighborhood tea-drinking and achurch social. He was agreeably disappointed to find that the keynotewas distinctly well-mannered, passably urban, undeniably conventional. 

And the charming young hostess. .. . From his corner of the window-seatGriswold had a comprehensive view of the two great rooms, and beyondthem through a pillared opening to the candle-lighted dining-room wherethe refreshments were served. Though the rooms were well filled, therewas but a single personality pervading them for the eager student oftypes. Admitting that there were other women more beautiful, Griswold, groping always for the fitting figure and the apt phrase, told himselfthat Miss Grierson's crowning gift was an acute sense of the eternalharmonies; she was always "in character. "

Hitherto he had known her only as his benefactress and the thoughtfulcaretaker for his comfort. But now, at this first sight of her in thebroader social field, she shone upon and dazzled him. Admitting that thelater charm might be subtly sensuous--he refused to analyze it tooclosely--it was undeniable that it warmed him to a newer and a strongerlife; that he could bask in its generous glow like some hibernatingthing of the wild answering to the first thrilling of the spring-tide. True, Miss Grierson bore little resemblance to any ideal of his pastimaginings. She might even be the _Aspasia_ to Charlotte Farnham's_Saint Cecilia_. But even so, was not the daughter of Axiochus wellbeloved of men and of heroes?

It was some little time afterward, and Jasper Grierson, stalking like agrim and rather unwilling master of ceremonies among his guests, hadgruffly introduced three or four of the men, when Griswold gladly maderoom in the window-seat for his transformed and glorified mistress ofthe fitnesses. As had happened more than once before, her nearnessintoxicated him; and while he made sure now that the charm was at leastpartly physical, its appeal was none the less irresistible. 

"Are you dreadfully tired?" she asked; adding quickly: "You mustn't letus make a martyr of you. It's your privilege to disappear whenever youfeel like it. "

"Indeed, I'm not at all tired, " he protested. "It is all very comfortingand homelike; so vastly--" he hesitated, seeking thoughtfully for theword which should convey his meaning without laying him open to thecharge of patronizing superciliousness, and she supplied it promptly. 

"So different from what you were expecting; I know. You have beenthinking of us as barbarians--outer barbarians, perhaps--and you findthat we are only harmless provincials. But really, you know, we areimproving. 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 sitaround the edges of the room behaving ourselves just as hard as ever wecould, and boring one another to extinction. I'm afraid some of them doit 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 howyou wrought it, only I mustn't keep you from your duties. "

She laughed joyously, with a little toss of the shapely head which wasfar more expressive than many words. 

"I haven't any duties; I have taught them to amuse themselves. And theyare doing it very creditably, don't you think?"

"They are getting along, " he admitted. "But tell me: how did you goabout it?"

"It was simple enough. When we came here we found a lot of good peoplewho had fallen into the bad habit of boring one another, and a few whohadn't; but the few held themselves aloof. We opened our house to themany, and tried to show them that a church sewing-circle isn't preciselythe acme of social enjoyment. That is all. "

Griswold saw in his mind's eye a sharply etched picture of the rise andprogress of a village magnate cleanly struck out in the two tersesentences, and his respect for his companion in the wide window-seatincreased 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 aswell admit that I am shamelessly Epicurean by nature, and an asceticonly when the necessities drive. "

"I know, " she assented, with quick appreciation. "An author has to beboth, 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 notmake use of it. Instead, she let him look as deeply as he pleased intothe velvety eyes when she said: "It is given to some of us to see and tounderstand 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 dounderstand. "

"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 expecttoo many other gifts of the gods along with the one priceless gift ofperfect sympathy. "

"When I find the one priceless gift, I shall confidently expect to findeverything else, " he asserted, still held a willing prisoner by thebewitching eyes. 

She laughed softly. "You'll be disappointed. The gift you demand willpreclude 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 writtenbut the one book, and I have never been able to find a publisher forit. "

"But you are not going to give up?"

"No; I am going to rewrite the book and try again--and yet again, ifneedful. It is my message to mankind, and I mean to deliver it. "

"Bravo!" she applauded, clapping her hands in a little burst ofenthusiasm which, if it were not real, was at least an excellentsimulation. "It is only the weak ones who say, 'I hope. ' For the trulystrong hearts there is only the one battle-cry, 'I will!' When you getblue and discouraged you must come to me and let me cheer you. Cheeringpeople 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 bookwhile he was fighting his way back to consciousness and life. If theyhad been alone together, he would have asked her. The bare possibilityset all the springs of the author's vanity upbubbling within him. Thereand then he promised himself that she should hear the rewriting of thebook, chapter by chapter. But what he said was out of a deeper, andworthier, underthought. 

"You have many missions, Miss Margery: some of them you choose, and someare chosen for you. "

"No, " she denied; "nobody has ever chosen for me. "

"That may be true, without making me a false prophet. Sometimes when wethink we are choosing for ourselves, chance chooses for us; oftener thannot, I believe. "

She turned on him quickly, and for a single swiftly passing instant thevelvety eyes were deep wells of soberness with an indefinable underdepthof sorrow in them. Griswold had a sudden conviction that for the firsttime in his knowing of her he was looking into the soul of the realMargery Grierson. 

"What you call 'chance' may possibly have a bigger and better name, " shesaid, gravely. "Had you ever thought of that?"

"Give it any name you please, so long as you admit that it is somethingbeyond our control, " he conceded. 

As had happened more than once before, she seemed to be able to read hisinmost thought. 

"You are thinking of the chain of incidents that brought you here? It isonly 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 youwould have found your way to this house--to a seat on these cushions. Icould tell you more, but my prophetic soul warns me that AgathaSeverance is protesting to Mr. Wamble that she can't _possibly_ play theparticular song he is asking for without the music. I'm going toconvince her that she can. "

Some little time after this, Raymer, who had been one of the menintroduced by Jasper Grierson, turned up again in the invalid's corner. 

"Sit down, won't you?" said Griswold, making a move to share thecushions with the young ironmaster; and it was thus that the door to afriendship was opened. Farther on, when they had gotten safely beyondthe commonplaces, Raymer suggested the smoking-room and a cigar, andGriswold went willingly. 

"I was wondering if you were like me in that, Mr. Raymer, " he said. "Inever 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 thenative. "That is Miss Margery's try-out. She has taught us thepotentialities that lie in a cup of tea well brewed and skilfullysweetened. "

From that on, the path to better acquaintance was the easiest ofshort-cuts, even as the mild cigar which Raymer found in his pocket-casepaved the way for a return of the smoker's zest in the convalescent. Without calling himself a reformer, the young ironmaster proved to be apractical sociologist. Wherefore, when Griswold presently mounted hisown sociological hobby, he was promptly invited to visit the RaymerFoundry and Machine Works, to the end that he might have some of histheories of the universal oppression of wage-earners charitablymodified. 

"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 Ido claim that we are on a present-day, living footing. So far as the menunderstand 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 theseconditions can be maintained after we double our capacity and get in alot 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 backto the drawing-rooms before he said: "Yes; I caught the fever along withthe rest of them a few weeks ago, and I'm already beginning to wish thatI hadn't. "

"You are afraid of the market?"

"N-no; times are good, and the market--our market, at least--is dailygrowing 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 moneydevil, 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 confidenceswere postponed. 

"I'm keeping you up, when I daresay you ought to be in bed, " heprotested; but Griswold held him long enough to ask for a suggestion ina small matter of his own. 

Now that he was able to be about, he was most anxious to relieve MissGrierson and her father of the charge and care of one whose obligationto them was already more than mountain-high: did Raymer happen to knowof some quiet household where the obligated one could find lodging and asimple table?

Raymer, taking time to think of it, did know. Mrs. Holcomb, the widow ofhis father's bookkeeper, owned her own house in Shawnee Street. It wasnot a boarding-house. The widow rented rooms to two of Mr. Grierson'sbank clerks, and she was looking for another desirable lodger. Quitepossibly 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 handswith the ironmaster at the foot of the stairs; and that was the thoughtwhich he took to bed with him after Raymer had gone to make his adieuxto the small person who, in Griswold's reckoning, owned the kindest ofthe kind hearts. 

XXI

BROFFIN'S EQUATION

Having Clerk Maurice's telegram to time the overtaking approach, Broffinfound the _Belle Julie_ backing and filling for her berth at theVicksburg landing when, after a hasty Vicksburg breakfast, he hadhimself 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, justturning out of his bunk in the texas. 

"I took it for granted you'd be along, " was Maurice's greeting. "Whatbank 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_ JohnGavitt. "

"No; he merely took Gavitt's place and name. Tell me all you know abouthim. "

"I don't know anything about him, except that he was fool enough to pullBuck M'Grath out of the river just after M'Grath had tried to bump himover the bows. "

This was a new little side-light on the characteristics of the man whowas wanted. Broffin pulled gently at the thread of narrative until hehad all the particulars of the humane mutiny and the near-tragedy inwhich it had terminated. 

"Stuck to him and kept him from drowning till you could pick 'em up, didhe--what?" was his commentary on the story. "Then what happened?"

"Oh, nothing much--or nothing very different. Of course, Mac favored thefellow all he could, after that; gave him the light end of it when therewas any light end. But he didn't get his chance to even up right untilwe got to St. Louis. "

Here, apparently, was another overlooked item in the list of things tobe 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 Macinto his confidence--a little--and told him he wanted to make a run forit as soon as we hit the levee at St. Louis. He hadn't got his pay; wealways 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 thisconjuncture the process was sufficiently simple. With a hundred thousanddollars in his possession, the make-believe deck-hand would not befoolish enough to run even a hypothetical risk for the sake of savingthe 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, Iknow 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 thefellow who called himself Gavitt was anything but the 'roustie' he waspassing himself off for? You didn't know of his having any talk with anyof 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 whileafter dusk in the evening. I was up here in the texas, getting ready togo to supper. Gavitt--we may as well keep on calling him that tillyou've found another name for him--Gavitt had been cubbing for thepilot. I saw him go across the hurricane-deck and down the companion tothe saloon-deck guards; and a minute later I heard him talking tosomebody--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 ofwheels he has. But I noticed that they talked for quite a little while;because, when I finished dressing and went below, he was just leavingher. "

Broffin rose up from the bunk on which he had been sitting and laid aheavy hand on Maurice's shoulder. "You ain't going to tell me that youdidn'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 clerkreluctantly. "I was due at the second table, and I didn't go as farforward as the stanchion she was holding on to. All I can tell you isthat 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 ofdisappointment. 

"Maurice, I've got to find that young woman if I have to chase herhalf-way round the globe, and it's tough luck to figure out that if youhadn't been in such a blazing hell of a hurry to get your supper thatnight, I might be able to catch up with her in the next forty-eighthours or so. But what's done is done, and can't be helped. Chase out andget your passenger list for that trip. We'll take the women as theycome, and when you've helped me cull out the names of the ones you'resure 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 muchmemory-wringing Maurice was able to give the detective leave to cancelten of the seventeen names in the women's list, the remaining sevenincluding all the might-have-beens who could possibly be fitted intothe clerk's recollection of the woman he had seen clinging to thesaloon-deck stanchion after her interview with the deck-hand. 

To these seven names were appended the addresses given in the steamer'sregistry record, though as to these Maurice admitted that the patrons ofthe boats were not always careful to comply with the regulation whichrequired the giving of the home address. 

"About as often as not they write down the name of the last place theystopped at, " he asserted; and Broffin swore again. 

"Which means that I may have to pound my ear eight or ten thousand mileson the varnished cars for nothing, " he growled. "Well, there ain't anyrest for the wicked, I reckon. Now tell me where I can find this manBuck M'Grath, and I'll fade away. "

M'Grath was on duty, superintending the loading and unloading of theVicksburg freight quotas; but when Broffin tapped him on the shoulderand showed his badge, the second mate was called in and M'Grath stoodaside with his unwelcome interrupter. 

There were difficulties from the outset. A man-driver himself, the chiefmate shared with the sheerest outcast in his crew a hearty hatred forthe man-catchers all and singular; and in the present instance hissympathies were with the fugitive from justice, on general principlesfirst, and for good and sufficient personal reasons afterward. Then, too, Broffin was hardly at his best. At the thought of what this manM'Grath could tell him, and was gruffly refusing to tell him, he losthis temper. 

"You're edgin' up pretty close to the law, yourself, by what you'rekeeping back, " he told the mate finally. "Sooner or later, I'm going torun this gentleman-roustie of yours down, anyhow, and it'll be healthierfor 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 wasexplosively profane. 

"Then I'll tell you. He was the 'strong-arm' man that held up thepresident of the Bayou State Security and made his get-away with ahundred 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 inthe proceeds as an accessory after the fact. My men nabbed him on thelevee at St. Louis, and when he euchred them he carried away a pair ofhandcuffs that somebody had to help him get shut of. He came back to theboat, 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 ofyours 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 hisgratitude. 

"Well, then, I did be taking the bracelets off av 'm. Now make the mostav 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 skippedwith him, from that day to this? I have not; nor would I be knowing 'mif I did see 'm. Anything else yez'd like to know? If there is, ye'll betaking ut on the tip av my fisht!" And he went back to his work, oozingprofanity at every pore. 

Thrown back upon the one remaining expedient, Broffin went ashore andbecame a student of railroad time-tables. Passing the incidents of thestubborn chase in review after many days, he wondered that it had notoccurred to him to question Captain Mayfield. But that the captain wouldknow anything at all about any particular bit of human driftwood in theever-changing deck crew seemed easily incredible; and there was no goodangel of clairvoyance to tell him that the captain had once been madethe half-confidant of a distressed young woman who was anxious to beboth just and merciful. 

It was while he was waiting for the departure of the first northboundtrain that he planned the search for the young woman, arranging thenames of the seven might-have-beens in the order of accessibility asindicated by the addresses given in the _Belle Julie's_ register. Inthis arrangement Miss Charlotte Farnham's name stood as Number Three;the two names outranking hers being assigned respectively to TerreHaute, Indiana, and Baldwin, Kansas. 

In his after-rememberings, Broffin swore softly under the droopingmustaches when he recalled how, in that morning waiting at Vicksburg, hehad hesitated and changed his mind many times before deciding upon thefirst three zigzags of the search. Terre Haute, Baldwin, and Wahaska layroughly at the three extremities of a great triangle whose sides, measured in hours of railroad travel, were nearly equal. Failing atTerre Haute, the nearest point, he could reach either of the tworemaining vertices of the triangle with fairly equal facility; and itwas surely an ironical fate that led him to decide finally upon theKansas town as the second choice. 

Some twenty-odd hours after leaving Vicksburg, Broffin the tirelessfound himself in Terre Haute. Here failure had at least the comfort offinality. The Miss Heffelfinger of his list, whom he found andinterviewed within an hour of his arrival, was a teacher of German whosedifficulties with the English language immediately eliminated her fromthe diminishing equation. Broffin got away from the voluble littleBerliner as expeditiously as possible and hastened back to the railwaystation. Kansas came next in his itinerary, and a westbound train wasdue to leave in a few minutes. 

It was here again that fate mocked him. Arriving at the station, hefound that the westbound train was an hour late; also, that within thehour there would be a fast train to the north, with good connections forWahaska. Once more he stumbled and fell into the valley of indecision. Adozen times during the forty-five minutes of grace he was on the pointof changing his route; nay, more; at the last minute, when the callerhad announced the northern train, he took a gambler's chance and spun acoin--heads for the north and tails for the west. The twirlinghalf-dollar slipped from his fingers and rolled under one of thestationary seats in the waiting-room. Broffin got down on his hands andknees to grope for it, and while he was groping the chance to take thenorthbound "Limited" was lost. Moreover, when he finally found the coinit was standing upright in a crack in the floor. 

Having now no alternative to distract him, he held to his original planand was soon speeding westward toward the Kansan experiment-station. Fortwo full days of twenty-four hours each he fought as only a determinedman and a good traveller could fight to cover a distance which shouldhave been traversed in something less than half of the time. Washouts, blocked tracks, missed connections, all these got in the way; and it wasnot until late in the afternoon of the third day out from Terre Hautethat he was set down at the small station which serves the needs of theKansas university town. 

Having had himself conveyed quickly to the university, which was givenas 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 inmaking him the victim of so many delays. Miss Sanborn, it appeared, hadbeen fitting herself at the denominational school to go out as amissionary. And some twelve hours before his arrival she had started onher long journey to the antipodes, going by way of San Francisco and thePacific Mail. 

Another man might have taken the more easily reached addresses in thelist, leaving the appalling world-tour for the last. But the doggednesswhich had hitherto been Broffin's best bid for genius in his professionasserted itself as a ruling passion. Twenty minutes after having beengiven his body-blow by the dean of the theological school he hadexamined some specimens of Miss Sanborn's handwriting, had compared themwith the unsigned letter, and was back at the little railroad stationburning the wires to Kansas City in an attempt to find out the exactsailing date of the missionary's steamer from San Francisco. 

When the answer came he found that his margin of time was something ofthe narrowest, but it was still a margin. By taking the first overlandtrain which could be reached and boarded, he might, barring more of theill-luck, arrive at San Francisco in time to overtake the young womanwhose handwriting was so like, and yet in some respects quite strikinglyunlike, 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 exhausteditself in the middle passage, ill-luck held aloof, and Broffin'soverland train was promptly on time when it rolled into its terminal atOakland. An hour later he had crossed the bay and was in communicationwith the steamship people. Though it was within a few hours of the Chinasteamer's sailing date, Miss Sanborn had not yet made her appearance, and once more, though the subject this time was wholly innocent, Broffinswore fluently. 

Notwithstanding, after all these intermediate buffetings, it was onlythe ultimate disappointment which was reserved for the man who had cometwo thousand miles out of his way for a five-minute talk with a youngwoman. Almost at the last moment he found her, and in the same momentwas made to realize that the similarity in handwriting was only asimilarity. Miss Sanborn had been a passenger on the _Belle Julie_, boarding the steamboat at New Orleans and debarking at St. Louis. Butshe had known nothing of the Bayou State Security robbery until she hadread of it in the newspapers; and one glance into the steadfast blueeyes that met his without flinching convinced Broffin that once more hehad fired and missed. 

Number Two in the list of seven being thus laboriously eliminated, Broffin, to be utterly consistent, should have boarded the first trainfor Minnesota. But inasmuch as three of the remaining five addresseswere west of the Missouri River, he sacrificed consistency tocommon-sense, halting at a little town in the Colorado mountains, againat Pueblo, and a third time at Hastings, Nebraska only to find at eachstopping-place that the ultimate disappointment had preceded and waswaiting for him. 

With his list cancelled down to two names, he resumed the eastwardflight from the Nebraska town and was again beset by the devil ofindecision. The two place-names remaining were Wahaska and a smallcoal-mining town in southern Iowa. Measuring again by railroad hours, hefound that the Iowa town was the nearer; but, on the other hand, therewere good connections from Omaha to Wahaska, and a rather poor one tothe coal mines. Once more Broffin took the gambler's chance, spinningthe coin in his hat, heads for Iowa and tails for Minnesota. It cameheads; and the following day recorded the sixth in the string offailures. 

Leaving What Cheer in the caboose of a coal train, with only the train'screw for company, and a hard bench for a bed, the man-hunter was alreadythrilling to the exultant view-halloo in the chase. By the light of theflickering caboose lamp he drew his pencil through the Iowa failure. Theone uncancelled name was now something more than a chance; it was acertainty. 

"I've got you for fair, girlie, this time!" he triumphed, and since hedid it audibly, the coal-train conductor laughed and wanted to be toldthe 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 whomhe had never seen. "I know how it goes: seen a picture of one once on abill-board, and I'd 'a' gone plum to Californy after her if I hadn'tbeen too danged busy to take a lay-off. "

Landing in Wahaska the next evening, Broffin's first request at thehotel 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, andafter 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 invitinglyopen. Yet he denied himself until the clerk, busy at the moment withother guests, should be at liberty. 

"I see there's a Doctor Farnham here, " he said, when his time came. "Iwas wondering if he was the man I met up with down in New Orleans lastwinter. "

The clerk shook his head. 

"I guess not. Doctor Bertie hasn't taken a vacation since the oldestinhabitant can remember. "

"H'm; that's funny, " mused the detective, as one nonplussed. "The name'sjust as familiar as an old song. Is your Doctor Farnham a sort of oldishman?"

"He's elderly, yes; old enough to have a grown daughter. " Then the clerklaughed. "Perhaps you've got things tangled. Perhaps you 'met up' withMiss Charlotte. She was down on the Gulf Coast last winter. "

"Not me, " said Broffin, matching the ice-breaking laugh. And then heregistered for a room and passed on into the café, deferring to theappetite which, for the first time in nearly four tedious weeks, he feltjustified in indulging to the untroubled limit. 

Having, by the slow but sure process of elimination, finally reduced hisequation to its lowest terms, Broffin put the past four weeks and theirfailures behind him, and prepared to draw the net which he hoped wouldentangle the lost identity of the bank robber. After a good night'ssleep in a real bed, he awoke refreshed and alert, breakfasted with anopen mind, and presently went about the net-drawing methodically andwith every contingency carefully provided for. 

The first step was to assure himself beyond question that Miss Farnhamwas the writer of the unsigned letter. This step he was able, by a pieceof great good fortune, to take almost immediately. A bit of morninggossip with the obliging clerk of the Winnebago House developed the factthat Dr. Farnham's daughter had once taught in the free kindergartenwhich was one of the charitable out-reachings of the Wahaska PublicLibrary. Two blocks east and one south: Broffin walked them promptly, made himself known to the librarian as a visitor interested inkindergarten work, and was cheerfully shown the records. When he turnedto the pages signed "Charlotte Farnham" the last doubt vanished andassurance was made sure. The anonymous letter writer was found. 

It was just here that Matthew Broffin fell under the limitations of histrade. Though the detective in real life is as little as may be like theInspector Buckets and the Javerts of fiction, certain characteristicspersist. Broffin thought he knew the worth of boldness; where it was amere matter of snapping the handcuffs upon some desperate criminal, theboldness was not wanting. But now, when he found himself face to facewith the straightforward expedient, the craft limitations bound him. Instantly he thought of a dozen good reasons why he should make hasteslowly; and he recognized in none of them the craftsman's slant towardindirection--the tradition of the trade which discounts thestraightforward attack and puts a premium upon the methods of thedeer-stalker. 

Sooner or later, of course, the attack must be made. But only anapprentice, he told himself, would be foolish enough to make it withoutmapping out all the hazards of the ground over which it must be made. Ina word, he must "place" Miss Farnham precisely; make a careful study ofthe young woman and her environment, to the end that every thread ofadvantage should be in his hands when he should finally force her to aconfession. For by now the assumption that she knew the mysterious bankrobber was no longer hypothetical in Broffin's mind: it had grown tothe dimensions of a conviction. 

Wahaska was not difficult of approach on its gossiping side. Though itowned a charter and called itself a city, it was still in thecountry-town stage which favors a wide distribution of news with thepersonal note emphasized. Broffin, conveying the impression that he wasa Louisiana lumberman on a vacation, approved himself as a goodlistener, and little more was needed. In a week he had traced the socialoutlines of the town as one finds the accent of a painting; in afortnight he had grouped the Griersons, the Raymers, the Oswalds, theBarrs, and the Farnhams in their various interrelations, business andotherwise. 

With the patient curiosity of his tribe he suffered no detail, howevertrivial, to escape its jotting down. To familiarize himself with thegoings and comings of one young woman, he made the acquaintance of anentire town. He knew Jasper Grierson's ambition, and its fruitage in thepractical ownership of Wahaska. He knew that Edward Raymer had borrowedmoney from Grierson's bank--and was likely to be unable to pay it whenhis notes fell due. He had heard it whispered that there had once been alove affair between young Raymer and Miss Farnham, and that it had beenbroken off by Raymer's infatuation for Margery Grierson. Also, last andleast 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 upon the train, taken to the great house on the lake shore and nursed backto life as Miss Grierson's latest defiance of the conventions. 

It should have been a memorable day for Matthew Broffin when he had thissick man pointed out to him as Miss Grierson's companion in the hightrap--which was also one of Miss Margery's bids for criticism in a townwhere the family carryall was still a feature. But Broffin wassufficiently human to see only a very beautiful young woman sittingcorrectly erect on the slanting driving-seat and holding the reins overa high-stepping horse which, he was told, had cost Jasper Grierson everycent of a thousand dollars. To be sure, he saw the man, as one sees avanishing figure in a kaleidoscope. But there was nothing in theclean-shaven face of the gaunt, and as yet rather haggard, convalescentto 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 havingpaved the way--took a favorable opportunity of announcing his intentionof leaving Mereside. It figured as a grateful disappointment to him--oneof the many she was constantly giving him--that Margery placed noobstacles in the way of the intention. On the contrary, she approved theplan. 

"I know how you feel, " she said, nodding complete comprehension. "Youwant to have a place that you can call your own; a place where you cango and come as you please and settle down to work. You _are_ going towork, aren't you?--on the book, I mean?"

Griswold replaced in its proper niche the volume he had been reading. Itwas Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, and he had been wondering by whatironical 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 bedone in such scraps and parings of time as I can save from somebread-and-butter occupation. One must eat to live, you know. "

She was sitting on the arm of one of the big library lounging-chairs andlooking up at him with a smile that was suspiciously innocent andchildlike. 

"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 helpme to find a place; possibly in the machine works as an underbookkeeper, or something of that sort. Not that I know very much aboutany really useful occupation, when it comes to that; but I suppose I canlearn. "

Again he surprised the lurking smile in the velvety eyes, but this timeit was half-mischievous. 

"We have a college here in Wahaska, and you might get a place on thefaculty, " she suggested; adding: "As an instructor in philosophy, forexample. "

"Philosophy? that is the one thing in the world that I know leastabout. "

"In theory, perhaps, " she conceded, laughing openly at him now. "But inpractice you are perfect, Mr. Griswold. Hasn't anybody ever told youthat before?"

"No; and you don't mean it. You are merely taking a base advantage of asick man and making fun of me. I don't mind: I'm in a heavenly temperthis 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 anotherlittle 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 onthe sun-warmed veranda while he waited. He had already forgotten whatshe had said about the object of the drive--the proving of thephilosophic charge against him--and was looking forward with keenlypleasurable anticipations to another outing with her, the second forthat day. It had come to this, now; to admitting frankly the charm whichhe was still calling sensuous, and which, in the moments of insightrecurring, as often as they can be borne, to the imaginative, andvouchsafed now and then even to the wayfaring, he was still disposed tocharacterize as an appeal to that which was least worthy in him. 

Latterly, however, he had begun to question himself more acutely as tothe exact justice of this attitude; and while he was sunning himself onthe veranda and listening for the hoof-beats of the big trap horse onthe stable approach, he was doing it again. In those graver analyticalmoments he had called Margery a preternaturally clever little barbarian, setting his own immense obligation to her aside in deference to what heassumed to be the immutable realities. In the sun-warming excursion cameanother of those precious moments of insight; a moment in which he wasgiven a sobering glimpse of the deathless Philistine within. Who was heto be setting his machine-made ideals above the living, breathing, humanfact whose very limitations and shortcomings might figure as angelicvirtues when weighed in any balance save that of the Philistinic ego?

To admit the query was to admit a doubtful distrust of all the chartedanchorages; those sure holding-grounds which he had once believed to bethe very bottoming of facts assured and incontestible. From his loungingseat the trees on the lawn framed a noble vista of lakescape andcrescent-curved beach drive, the latter with its water-facing row ofmodest mansions, the homes of Wahaska's well-to-do elect. At the end ofthe crescent he could see the chimneys of the Raymer house rising abovea groving of young maples; and nearer at hand the substantial, two-storied frame house which Miss Grierson had pointed out to him asthe home of the kindly Doctor Bertie. When he found himself drifting, his thoughts reverted automatically to Charlotte Farnham. There, ifanywhere, lay the touchstone of truth and the verities; there, he toldhimself, was at least one life into which the doubtful distrust of theanchorages had never come. 

Passing easily from Miss Farnham the ideal to Miss Farnham theflesh-and-blood reality, he was moved to wonder mildly why the fatewhich had brought him twice into critically intimate relations with herwas now denying him even a chance meeting. For a week or more he hadbeen going out daily; sometimes with Miss Grierson in the trap, butoftener afoot and alone. The walking excursions had led him mostfrequently up and down the lakeside drive, but the doctor's house stoodwell back in its enclosure, and there was much shrubbery. Once he hadheard her voice: she was reading aloud to some one on the vine-screenedporch. And once again in passing, he had caught a glimpse of a shapelyarm with the loose sleeve falling away from it as it was thrust upwardthrough the porch greenery to pluck a bud from the crimson rambleradding its graceful mass to the clambering vines. It was ratherdisappointing, but he was not impatient. In the fulness of time thedestiny which had twice intervened would intervene again. He was ascertain of it as he was of the day-to-day renewal of his strength andvitality; and he could afford to wait. For, whatever else might happenin a mutable world, neither an ideal nor its embodiment may sufferchange. 

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 whosemost alluring charm was her many-sided changefulness. 

"What? no trap yet? Thorsen is outliving his usefulness; he is gettingslower and pokier every added day he lives!" the voice was saying, witha faintly acid quality in it that Griswold had seldom heard. Then, as ifshe had marked his preoccupied gaze and divined its object: "You musthave a little more patience, Mr. Griswold. All things come to him whowaits. When you have left Mereside finally, Doctor Bertie will some timetake you home to dinner with him. "

For his own peace of mind, Griswold hastily assured himself that it wasonly the wildest of chance shots. Since the day when he had admittedthat 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?" heasked, curiously. 

"You were not thinking of Doctor Bertie; you were thinking of DoctorBertie's 'only', " was the laughing contradiction; and Griswold was gladthat the coming of the man with the trap saved him from the necessity offalling any farther into what might easily prove to be a dangerouspitfall. Later on, while he was mechanically lifting his hat inrecognition of the many salutations acknowledged by his companion intheir triumphal progress down Main Street, he was still thankful andstill puzzling over the almost uncanny coincidence. It was not the firsttime that Miss Grierson had seemed able to read his inmost thoughts. 

The short afternoon drive paused at the curb in front of JasperGrierson's bank, and, as on former occasions, Margery lightly scornedthe convalescent's up-stretched arms and sprang unhelped to thepavement. But now her mood was sweetly indulgent and she softened therefusal. "By and by, after you are quite well and strong again, " shesaid; and when a horse-holding boy had been found, she led the way intothe bank. 

It was Griswold's first visit to the Farmers' and Merchants', and whilehis companion was speaking to the cashier he was absently contrastingits rather showy interior with the severe plainness of the Bayou StateSecurity; contrasting, and congratulating himself upon the gift of theartistic memory which enabled him to recall with vivid accuracy all thelittle details of the New Orleans banking house--this notwithstandingthe good excuse the observing eye might have had for wandering. 

A moment later he found himself bringing up the rear of a procession ofthree, led by a young woman with a bunch of keys at her girdle. Theprocession halted for the opening of a massive gate in the steel grilleat the rear of the public lobby; after which, with the gate latchingitself automatically behind him, Griswold found himself in the gratedcorridor facing the safety deposit vaults. 

"Number three-forty-five-A, please, " his companion was saying to theyoung woman custodian, and he stood aside and admired the workmanship ofthe complicated time-locks while the two entered the electric-lightedvault and jointly opened one of the multitude of small safes. When MissGrierson came out, she was carrying a small, japanned document box underher arm, and her eyes were shining with a soft light that was new to theman who was waiting in the corridor. "Come with me to one of thecoupon-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 ofthe little mahogany-lined cells set apart for the use of thesafe-holders, saw her press the button which switched the lights on, andmechanically obeyed her signal to close the door. When their completeprivacy was assured, she put the japanned box on the tiny table andmotioned him to one of the two chairs. 

"Do you know why I have brought you here?" she asked, when he wassitting within arm's-reach of the small black box. 

"How should I?" he said. "You take me where you please, and when youplease, and I ask no questions. I am too well contented to be with youto care very much about the whys and wherefores. "

"Oh, how nicely you say it!" she commended, with the frank little laughwhich he had come to know and to seek to provoke. She was standingagainst the opposite cell wall with her shoulders squared and her handsbehind her: the pose, whether intentional or natural, was dramaticallyperfect and altogether bewitching. "I was born to be your fairygodmother, I think, " she went on joyously. "Tell me; when you boughtyour ticket to Wahaska that night in St. Louis, were you meaning to comehere 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 ina 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 wereat your worst--thinking we owed it to you and your friends, if you hadany. "

"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 gonethrough the grips on the train. "

"And you let it go at that? Why didn't you tell me, so that we might atleast try to find the thief?"

He had quite lost sight of the black box on the table by this time, andwas consumed with curiosity to know why she had brought him to such aplace to reproach him for his lack of confidence. 

"How often are we able to tell the exact 'why' of anything?" he answeredevasively. "Perhaps I didn't wish to trouble you--you who had alreadytroubled 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 withdelight. 

"I told you I was going to prove that you are a philosopher!" sheexulted. "Sour old Diogenes himself couldn't have been more superblyindifferent 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 packetwithin, the electric bulb suspended over the table seemed to grow blackand the mahogany walls of the tiny room to spin dizzily. Then, with aclick that he fancied he could hear, the buzzing mental machinerystopped and reversed itself. A cold sweat, clammy and sickening, startedout on him when he realized that the reversal had made him once againthe crafty, cornered criminal, ready to fight or fly--or to slay, if alife stood in the way of escape. Without knowing what he did, he closedthe box and got upon his feet, eying her with a growing ferocity that hecould neither banish nor control. 

"I see: you were a little beforehand with the doctor, " he said, and hestrove to say it naturally; to keep the malignant devil that waswhispering in his ear from dictating the tone as well as the words. 

"I was, indeed; several days beforehand, " she boasted, still joyouslyexultant. 

"You--you opened the package?" he went on, once more pushing theimportunate 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 demonat his ear was assuring him that she must know it--she must also knowthat she was confronting a great peril; the peril of one who voluntarilyshuts himself into a trap with the fear-maddened wild thing for whichthe trap was baited and set. He was steadying himself with a hand on thetable when he said: "Well, you opened the package; what did you findout?"

"What did I find out?" He heard her half-hesitant repetition of hisquery, and for one flitting instant he made sure that he saw the fear ofdeath in the wide-open eyes that were lifted to his. But the nextinstant 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 ofmoney; and you can imagine that I tied it up again, quickly, and didn'tlose any more time than I could help in putting it away in the safestplace I could think of. Every day since you began to get well, I've beenexpecting you to say something about it; but as long as you wouldn't, Iwouldn't. "

Slowly the blood came back into the saner channels, and the whisperingdemon at his ear grew less articulate. Was she telling the truth? Couldit be possible that she had not opened the packet far enough to see andread the damning evidence of the printed bank-slips which, in a verybravado of carelessness, as he now remembered, he had neglected toremove and destroy? He was searching the dark eyes for the naked soulbehind them when he ventured again. 

"You--you and your father--must have thought it very singular that asick man should be knocking about the country with so much money carriedcarelessly in a suit-case?"

"My father knows nothing about it; nor does any one else. And it wasn'tmy place to gossip or to wonder. I found it, and I took care of it foryou. Are you glad, or sorry?"

He took the necessary forward step and stood before her. And his answerwas no answer at all. 

"Miss Grierson--Margery--are you telling me the truth?--all of it?" hedemanded, seeking once again to pinion the soul which lay beyond thedeepest 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, mygood friend; no woman ever tells a man the whole truth when she can helpit. 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 hadtaken him in as her guest; forgot, in the mad joy of the reactionarymoment, everything that he should have remembered--saw nothing, thoughtof nothing save the flushed face with its glorious eyes and temptinglips: the eyes and lips of the daughter of men. 

She broke away from him hotly after he had taken the flushed facebetween his hands and kissed her; broke away to drop into the chair atthe other side of the table, hiding the flashing eyes and the burningcheeks and the quivering lips in the crook of a round arm which maderoom for itself on the narrow table by pushing the japanned money-boxoff the opposite edge. 

It was the normal Griswold who picked up the box and put it in the otherchair, gravely and methodically. Then he stood before her again withhis back to the wall, waiting for what every gentle drop of blood in hisveins was telling him he richly deserved. His punishment was long incoming; so long that when he made sure she was crying, he began toinvite it. 

"Say it, " he suggested gently, "you needn't spare me at all. The onlyexcuse I could offer would only make the offence still greater. "

She looked up quickly and the dark eyes were swimming. But whether thetears 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 wasfurtively 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 autumnnightfall. And then, with a childlike appeal in the wonderful eyes: "Ithink 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 yourloving-kindness and compassion, Miss Grierson. Then you should call thecustodian and turn me out. "

"But afterward, " she persisted pathetically. "There must be anafterward?"

"I am leaving Mereside this evening, " he reminded her. "It will be foryou 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 thetable. 

"You have made me wish there hadn't been any money, " she lamented, witha sorrowful little catch in her voice that stabbed him like a knife. "Ihaven'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 fullheart. 

"If you would only say you are sorry, " she went on sadly, groping onlyhalf-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 walland his hands behind him. 

"I ought to be decent enough to lie to you and say that I am, " hereturned, hardily. "I know you can't understand; you are too good andinnocent to understand. I'm ashamed; that is, the civilized part of meis ashamed; but that is all. Knowing that he ought to be in the dust atyour feet, the brutal other-man is unrepentant and riotously jubilantbecause, 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 thecustodian opened the door, Miss Grierson was her poiseful self again. 

"Number three-forty-five-A is Mr. Kenneth Griswold's box, now, " sheannounced briefly. "Please register it in his name, and then help him toput it away and lock it up. "

Griswold went through the motions with the key-bearing young womanhalf-absently. By this time he was fathoms deep in the reactionaryundertow. Must the recovered treasure always transform itself into amillstone to drag him down into some new and untried depth ofdegradation? Thrice he had given it up for lost, and in each instanceits reappearance had been the signal for a relapse into primitivebarbarism, for a plunge into the moral under-depths out of which he hadeach time emerged distinctively and definitely the loser. Was it to bealways thus? Could it be even remotely possible that in a candidlymaterial world there could still be standing-room for the myths andportents and superstitious traditions?

He was trying to persuade himself that there could not be standing-roomwhen he rejoined Margery--herself the best imaginable refutation of theold-wives' tales--at the gate in the great steel grille. Man-like, hewas ready to be forgiven and comforted; and there was at least oblivionin her charming little shudder as the custodian shot the bolts of thegate to let them out. 

"_Br-r-r!_" she shivered, "I can never stand here and look at the freepeople out there without fancying myself in a prison. It must be adreadful thing to be shut away behind bolts and bars, forgotten byeverybody, and yet yourself unable to forget. Do you ever have suchfoolish thoughts, Mr. Griswold?"

For one poignant second fear leaped alive again and he called himself nobetter than a lost man. But the eyes that were lifted to his were theeyes of a questioning child, so guilelessly innocent that he immediatelysuffered another relapse into the pit of self-despisings. 

"You have made me your poor prisoner, Miss Grierson, " he said, speakingto his own thought rather than to her question. And when they reachedthe sidewalk and the trap: "May I bid you good-by here and go to my ownplace?"

"Of course not!" she protested. "Mr. Raymer is coming to dinner to-nightand he will drive you over to Mrs. Holcomb's afterward, if you reallythink you must go. "

And for the first time in their comings and goings she let him lift herto the high driving-seat. 

XXIII

CONVERGING ROADS

Matthew Broffin had been two weeks and half of a third an unobtrusivespy upon the collective activities of the Wahaskan social group whichincluded the Farnhams before he decided that nothing more could begained by further delay. 

By this time he knew all there was to be known about Miss Farnham; thehouses she visited, the somewhat limited circle of her intimates and thevastly wider one of her acquaintances, her comings and goings in thetown, her preference for church dissipations over the other sort, andfor croquet over lawn tennis. 

Also, he had a more minute knowledge which would have terrified her ifshe had suspected that any strange man was keeping an accuratelytabulated note-book record of her waking employments. He knew at whathour she breakfasted, what time in the forenoons she spent upon herChautauqua readings, how much of her day was given to the care of herinvalid 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 napin her room, Miss Charlotte was usually alone in the living-rooms ofthe two-storied house in Lake Boulevard: practically so for four daysout of the seven; actually so on Wednesdays and Fridays when HildaLarsen, the Swedish maid of all work, had her afternoons off. 

Having his own private superstition about Friday, Broffin chose aWednesday afternoon for his call at the house on the lake front. It wasa resplendent day of the early summer which, in the Minnesota latitudes, springs, Minerva-like, full-grown from the nodding head of the wintryJove of the north. In the doctor's front yard the grass was vividlygreen, gladioli and jonquils bordered the path with a bravery of color, and the buds of the clambering rose on the porch trellis were swellingto burst their calyxes. 

Broffin turned in from the sidewalk and closed the gate noiselesslybehind him. If he saw the bravery of colors in the path borders it wasonly with the outward eye. There was a faint stir on the porch, as ofsome one parting the leafy screen to look out, but he neither quickenedhis pace nor slowed it. While he had been three doors away in thelake-fronting street, a small pocket binocular had assured him that theyoung woman he was going to call upon was sitting in a porch rockerbehind the clambering rose, reading a book. 

She had risen to meet him by the time he had mounted the steps, and heknew that her first glance was appraisive. He had confidently countedupon being mistaken for a strange patient in search of the doctor, andhe was not disappointed. 

"You are looking for Doctor Farnham?" she began. "He is at hisoffice--201 Main Street. "

Broffin was digging in his pocket for a card. It was not often that hewas constrained to introduce himself formally, and for an awkward secondor two the search was unrewarded. When he finally found the bit ofpasteboard he was explaining verbally. 

"I know well enough where your father's office is, but you are the one Iwanted to see, " he said; and he gave her the round-cornered card withits 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 wentwith it were not thrown away upon him. But the other signs; the pressingof the even teeth upon the lower lip and the coming and going of threestraight lines between the half-closed eyes were not so favorable. 

"Will you come into the house, Mr. ----" she had to look at the cardagain to get the name--"Mr. Broffin?" she asked. 

"Thank you, Miss; it's plenty good enough out here for me if it is foryou, " he returned, beginning to fear that the common civilities weregiving 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 andknocked the book from its resting-place on the railing. 

"It is no matter, " she said, when he would have gone outside to recoverthe book; but he knew from that moment that whatever advantage a fairbeginning may give was gone beyond recall. 

"I guess we can take it for granted that you know what I want, MissFarnham, " he began abruptly, when he had shifted his chair to face herrocker. "Something like three months ago, or thereabouts, you went intoa bank in New Orleans to get a draft cashed. While you were at thepaying teller's window a robbery was committed, and you saw it done andsaw the man that did it. I've come to get you to tell me the man'sname. "

If he had thought to carry the defences by direct assault he was quicklymade to realize that it could not be done. Miss Farnham'sself-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 tothat a little later. The name you gave was John Wesley Gavitt, and youknew that wasn't his right name, didn't you?"

She made the sign of assent without thinking that it might imply theknowing 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: "Itdid 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 hadnabbed him, as you probably read in the papers the next morning. He'sloose yet, and most naturally he ain't signing his name 'Gavitt' anymore whatever. I've come all the way from New Orleans, and a whole heapfarther, 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 tohis own in the matter of self-assurance. "In the first place, he spoketo you in the bank, and you answered him. Isn't that so?"

She nodded, but the firm lips remained closed where the lips of anotherwoman might have opened to repeat what had been said at the teller'swicket. 

"Then, afterwards, on the boat, before you sent the letter, you talkedwith him. It was one evening, just at dusk, on the starboard promenadeof the saloon-deck: he was comin' down from the pilot-house and youstopped him. That was when he told you what his name was on thesteamboat's books, wasn't it?--what?"

She nodded again. "You know so much, it is surprising that you don'tknow 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--hisreal name, " he insisted. "That's what I've come here for. "

In spite of her inexperience, which, in Mr. Broffin's field, was no lessthan total, Charlotte Farnham had imagination, and with it a womanlyzest for the matching of wits with a man whose chief occupation was themeasuring 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 atouch of coldness in her voice. "If you were careless enough to let himescape you at St. Louis, you shouldn't come to me. I might say veryjustly 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 awoman lay in an appeal to her fears. 

"I don't know what made you write this letter, in the first place, " hesaid, taking the well-thumbed paper from his coat pocket; "but I knowwell enough now why you didn't sign it, and why you didn't put the man'sreal name in it. You--you and him--fixed it up between you so that youcould say to yourself afterwards what you've just said to me--that you'ddone your duty. But you haven't finished doin' your duty, yet. The lawsays----"

"I know very well what the law says, " was her baffling rejoinder; "Ihave taken the trouble to find out since I came home. I am not hidingyour criminal. "

Broffin was trying to gain a little ease by tilting his chair. But thehouse wall was too close behind him. 

"People will say that you are helpin' to hide him as long as you won'ttell his real name--what?" he grated. 

"You still think I could tell you that, if I chose?" she said, wilfullymisleading him, or at least allowing him to mislead himself. 

"I don't think anything about it: I _know_! You'd met him somewherebefore that day in the bank--before you knew he was goin' to turngentleman 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, andin self-defence, Broffin had to grope on the floor for his hat and standup, too. 

"I think my aunt is calling and I shall have to go in, " she said, calmlydismissing him. "You'll excuse me, I am sure, Mr. Broffin. "

"In just one second, Miss Farnham. Ain't you goin' to tell me thatfellow's name?"

"No. "

"Wait a minute. I'm an officer of the law, and I could arrest you andtake you to New Orleans on what evidence I've got. How aboutthat?--what?"

There was good fighting blood on the Farnham side, notwithstanding thekindly Doctor Bertie's peaceful avocation, and the calm gray eyes thatmet Broffin's were militantly angry when the retort came. 

"If I had a brother, Mr. Broffin, he would be able to answer you betterthan I can!" she flamed out. "Let me pass, please!"

It was not often that Broffin lost his head or his temper, but both weregone when he struck back. 

"That'll be all right, too!" he broke out harshly, blocking the way toforce her to listen to him. "You think you've bluffed me, don'tyou?--what? Let me tell you: some fine day this duck whose name isn'tGavitt will turn up here--to see you; then I'll nab him. If you find outwhere he is, and write to him not to come, it'll be all the same; he'llcome anyway, and when he does come, I'll get him!"

When Miss Farnham had gone in and there was nothing left for him to dobut to compass his own disappearance, Broffin went away, telling himselfwith many embellishments that for once in his professional career he hadmade an ass of himself. He had made a sorry botch of a measurably simpledetail, to say nothing of letting his temper push him into the finalfoolish boast which might easily defeat him. 

None the less, he was able to set some few gains over against the onecritical loss--if one may be said to lose what he has never had. Failingto learn the true name and place of the Bayou State Security robber, hetold himself that he had established beyond question the correctness ofhis hypothesis. The doctor's daughter knew the man; she had known himbefore the robbery; she was willing to be his accomplice to the extentof her ability. There was only one explanation of this attitude. InBroffin'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 asaccomplished that the man would sooner or later come to Wahaska. Thedetective's knowledge of masculine human nature was as profoundly acuteas the requirements of his calling demanded. With a woman like MissFarnham for the lure, he could be morally certain that his man wouldsome 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 itscalendar placing, chanced to be three weeks to a day after Griswold hadleft Mereside to settle himself studiously in two quiet upper rooms inthe Widow Holcomb's house in upper Shawnee Street. 

That it was also a day of other coincidences will appear in the castingup of the items on the page of events. 

For one thing, it marked the formal opening of the De Soto Inn for thesummer season; the De Soto being the resort hotel spoken of by the clerkof the Hotel Chouteau in the little ante-dinner talk which had givenGriswold his first outline sketch of Wahaska. For another, the specialtrain from the far South arriving at noon and bearing the firstdetachment of the Inn's guests, had for one of its Pullman passengers anelderly gentleman with a strongly marked Scottish face; a gentleman withthe bushy white eyebrows of age, the long upper lip of caution, thedrooping eyelid of irascibility, and the bearing of a man of routine; inother words, Mr. Andrew Galbraith, faring northward on his customarysummer vacation, which--the fates intervening--he had this timedetermined to spend at the Wahaskan resort. 

For a third item, it was at three o'clock of this same Wednesday thatRaymer came out of Jasper Grierson's bank with his head down and a cloudon his brow; the cloud dating back to an interview just closed, a shortand rather brittle conference with the bank's president held in JasperGrierson's private room, with the president sitting at ease in his hugearm-chair and his visitor standing, quite destitute of ease, at thedesk-end. 

A little farther along, this third item dovetailed with a fourth andfifth. Raymer, dropping into a friend's office to use the telephone, chanced upon a crossed wire. He had called up Mrs. Holcomb, and while hewas waiting for the widow to summon Griswold from his up-stairs den, there was a confused skirling of bells and Raymer, innocentlyeavesdropping, overheard part of a conversation between two well-knownvoices; namely, the voices of Miss Charlotte Farnham and her father. Thetalk was neither confidential, nor of any special significance. MissFarnham was explaining that she had heard the bell, but could not answerpromptly because she had had a caller; and the doctor was telling herthat it was no matter--that he merely wanted to let her know that he wasgoing to bring a dinner guest, the guest prospective being his latepatient, Mr. Kenneth Griswold. 

The mention of Griswold's name reminded Raymer of his own affair, and hebecame suddenly anxious to have the connection with the Widow Holcomb'shouse renewed. When the crossed wire was plugged out, Griswold was readyand waiting. 

"I was afraid you might be out somewhere, and I want to have a pow-wowwith 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 promptassent came: "All right; thank you. I'll be with you in a pair ofminutes. "

Raymer's horse was only a short half-square away, hitched in front ofthe Winnebago House, and he went to get it. But at the instant ofunhitching, Miss Grierson's trap was driven up and the untying of knotspaused while he stepped from the curb to stand at the wheel of themodish equipage. 

"You are getting to be as bad as all the others, " was the greeting hegot from the high driving-seat. "You haven't been at Mereside for anage--only once since the night you took Mr. Griswold away from us. Bythe way, what has become of Mr. Griswold? He doesn't show himself inpublic 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 theclouds after a little. " And then, before he could stop it, out came thebit of unchartered information: "I understand he dines at DoctorBertie's to-night. "

The young iron-founder was looking up into the eyes of beguiling when hesaid this, and, being a mere man, he wondered what made them flash andthen grow suddenly fathomless and brooding. 

"When you see him, tell him that we are still on earth over atMereside, " said the magnate's daughter pertly; and a moment later Raymerwas free to keep his appointment with Griswold. 

All in all, the little interruption had consumed no more than fiveminutes, but the time interval was sufficient to form another link inthe chain of Wednesday incidents. For, as Raymer was turning out of MainStreet into Shawnee, he narrowly missed running over a heavy-set manwith a dark face and drooping mustaches; a pedestrian whosepreoccupation seemed so great as to make him quite oblivious to streetcrossings and passing vehicles until Raymer pulled his horse back intothe shafts and shouted. 

When the man looked up, Raymer recognized him as the stranger from theSouth who was stopping at the Winnebago House and who gave himself outas a Louisiana lumberman open to conviction on the subject of Minnesotapine lands as an investment. But he had no means of knowing thatBroffin's momentary preoccupation was chargeable to a fruitlessinterview lately concluded; or that in driving away to the house threesquares up the street he was bridging the narrow gap between aman-hunter and his quarry--a gap which had suddenly grown into a chasmfor the man-hunter himself. 

One more small coincidence will serve to total the items on theWednesday page. If Broffin had not stopped to look after the man who hadso nearly run him down, he might not have been crossing Main Street infront of the Winnebago at the precise instant when Miss Grierson, withyoung Dahlgren in the second seat of the trap, came around the squareand pulled up to let her horse drink at the public fountain. 

"Who is that Bitter-Creekish-looking man crossing over to the WinnebagoHouse?" asked Miss Grierson of her seatmate, indicating Broffin with awave of the whip, and skilfully making the query sound like the voicingof the idlest curiosity. 

"Fellow named Broffin, from Louisiana, " said Dahlgren, who, as assistanteditor of the _Daily Wahaskan_, knew everybody. "Says he's in the lumberbusiness down there, but, 'I doubt it, ' said the carpenter, and shed abitter tear. "

"Why do you doubt it?" queried Miss Grierson, neatly flicking a fly fromthe horse's back with the tip of the whiplash. 

"Oh, on general principles, I guess. You wouldn't say he had any of theear-marks of a business man. "

"What kind of ear-marks has he got?" persisted Miss Grierson--merely tomake talk, as Dahlgren decided. 

"I don't know. We were talking about him around at the club the othernight, and Sheffield--he's from Kentucky, you know--thought heremembered the name as the name of a 'moonshine' raider he'd heard ofdown in his home State. "

"A moonshine raider? What is that?" By this time Miss Margery'scuriosity was less inert than it had been, or had seemed to be, atfirst. 

"A deputy marshal, you know; a sort of Government policeman anddetective rolled into one. He looks it, don't you think?"

Miss Grierson did not say what she thought, then, or later, when she setDahlgren down at the door of his newspaper office in Sioux Avenue. Butstill later, two hours later, in fact, she gave a brief audience in theMereside library to a small, barefooted boy whose occupation wassufficiently indicated by the bundle of evening papers hugged under onearm. 

"Well, Johnnie; what did you find out?" she asked. 

"Ain't had time, " said the boy. "But he ain't no milyunairelumber-shooter, I'll bet a nickel. I sold him a pape' jes' now, down byDutchie's lumber yard, and I ast him what kind o' lumber that was in thepile by the gate. He didn't know, no more'n a goat. "

Miss Margery filliped a coin in the air and the newsboy caught itdexterously. 

"That will do nicely for a beginning, Johnnie, " she said sweetly. "Comeand see me every once in a while, and perhaps there'll be more littlewhite 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 ofindependence in Mrs. Holcomb's second-floor front, Griswold foundhimself entering upon a new world--a world corresponding with gratifyingfidelity to that prefigured future which he had struck out in the wakinghours of his first night on the main-deck of the _Belle Julie_. 

Wahaska, as a fortunate field for the post-graduate course inExperimental Humanity, was all that his fancy had pictured it. It wasneither so small as to scant the variety of subjects, nor so large as topreclude the possibility of grasping them in their entirety. In strictaccord with the forecast, it promised to afford the writing craftsman'shappy medium in surroundings: it would reproduce, in miniature, perhaps, but none the less in just proportions, the social problems of the widerworld; and for a writer's seclusion the village quiet of upper ShawneeStreet was all that could be desired. 

When he came to go about in the town, as he did daily after the pleasantoccupation 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 NewYorker, as an author in search of health, or local color or environmentor 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 andbeneficiary--which last, he surmised, was his best passport to the goodgraces 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 creditedto Margery. Beyond a hint to Raymer, he had told no one of thecomfortable assurance against want lying snugly secure in the smallstrong-box in the Farmers' and Merchants' safety vault, and he wasreasonably certain that Raymer could not have passed the hint so fastand 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 starvedsoul of a proletary. Not in any period of the past had he so fullyunderstood that an acute appreciation of the wrongs of the race is nobar to an equally acute hungering and thirsting after the commonplaceflesh-pots, or to a very primitive and soul-satisfying enjoyment of thesame when they were to be had. Nevertheless, the reaction intoself-indulgence proved to be only temporary. God had been good to him, enabling him to realize in miraculous fulfilment the ideal environmentand opportunity: therefore he would do his part, proclaiming the holywar and fighting, single-handed if need be, the battle of the weakagainst the strong. 

So ran the renewed determination, dusted off and re-pedestaled aftermany days. As to the manner of conducting the war against inequality andthe crime of plutocracy, the plan of campaign had been sufficientlyindicated in that white-hot moment of high resolves on the cargo-deck ofthe _Belle Julie_. For the propaganda, there was his book; for thedemonstration, he would put the sacred fund into some industry where theweight of it would give him the casting vote in all questions involvingthe rights of the workers. It was absurdly simple, and he wondered thatnone of the sociological reformers whose books he had read hadanticipated him in the discovery of such an obviously logical point ofattack. 

With the re-writing of the book fairly begun, he was already lookingabout for the practical opportunity when the growing friendship withEdward Raymer promised to offer an opening exactly fulfilling theexperimental requirements. Raymer had over-enlarged his plant and wasneeding more capital. So much Griswold had gathered from the talk of thestreet; and some of Raymer's half-confidences had led him to suspectthat the need was, or was likely to become, imperative. It was only thefiner quality of friendship that had hitherto kept him from offeringhelp before it was asked, and thus far he had contented himself withhinting to Raymer that he had money to invest. From every point of viewa partnership with the young iron-founder promised to afford the goldenopportunity. 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 Wednesdayafternoon when Raymer called him over the telephone and made theappointment for a meeting at the house in Shawnee Street. 

"Your 'pair of minutes' must have found something to grow upon, " laughedthe patient waiter, when Raymer, finding Mrs. Holcomb's front door open, had climbed the stair to the newly established literary workshop. "I'vehad time to smoke a pipe and write a complete paragraph since you calledup. "

Raymer flung himself into a chair at the desk-end and reached for a pipein the curiously carved rack which had been one of Griswold's smallextravagances in the refurnishing. 

"Yes, " he said; "Margery Grierson drove up while I was unhitching, and Ihad to stop and talk to her. Which reminds me: she says you're givingMereside 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 anyman's good friend; and pretty soon you'll be meeting people who willlift their eyebrows when you speak of her. You mustn't make her pay forthat. "

"I'm not likely to, " was the sober rejoinder. "My debt to Miss Griersonis 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 fatherout 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 hissubject like a man with a sore into which salt has been freshly rubbed. "That old timber-wolf wouldn't spare his best friend--allowing thatanybody could be his friend. By Jove! he's making me sweat blood, allright!"

"How is that?" asked Griswold. 

"I've been on the edge of telling you two or three times, but next to aquitter I do hate the fellow who puts his fingers into a trap and thensquawks when the trap nips him. Grierson has got me down and he is aboutto cut my throat, Griswold. "

"Tell me about it, " said the one who had been patiently waiting to betold. 

"It begins back a piece, but I'll brief it for you. I suppose you'vebeen told how Grierson came here a few years ago with a wad of money anda 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'town or control wouldn't make much of a town by itself. A year ago hetried to get a finger into my little pie. He wanted to reorganize theRaymer Foundry and Machine Works, and offered to furnish the additionalcapital and take fifty-one per cent of the reorganization stock. Naturally, I couldn't see it. My father had left the plant as anundivided legacy to my mother, my sister, and myself; and while wehaven't been getting rich out of it, we've managed to hold our own andto 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 alongwith other people. Before the snow was off the ground we had hit thecapacity 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, allright. But in the money matter I simply played the fool and let Griersoncinch me. As I've told you more than once, I'm an engineer and nofinance 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 thesurplus earnings, piecemeal. I told Grierson that I should need a yearor 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 afool. There was no definite time limit mentioned. I was to give mypersonal notes and put up the family stock as collateral. A day or twolater, when I went around to close the deal, the trap was standing wideopen for me and a baby might have seen it. Grierson said he had proposedthe loan to his directors, and that they had kicked on taking the stockas 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 anyintrinsic difference. Stock collateral or property collateral, the bankwould have us by the throat until the debt should be paid. But you knowhow women are: my mother would about as soon sign her own death warrantas to put her name on a mortgage; so there we were--blocked. Griersonwas as smooth as oil; said he wanted to help me out, and was willing tostretch 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 meremodification 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 anextension of credit on accommodation paper, and Grierson, as president, was at liberty to grant it if he saw fit. He offered to take my paperwithout an endorser if I would cover his personal risk with my stockcollateral, assigning it, not to the bank, but to him. I fell for itlike a woolly sheep. The stock transfers were made, and I signed a notefor one hundred thousand dollars, due in sixty days; Grierson explainingthat two months was the bank's usual limit on accommodation paper--whichis true enough--but giving me to understand that a renewal and anextension 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 dueto-morrow; and, as I happened to be uptown this afternoon, I thought Iwould drop in and pay the discount and renew the paper. To tell thetruth, I'd been getting more nervous the more I thought of it; and Ididn't dare let it go to the final moment. Grierson shot me through theheart. He gave me a cock-and-bull story about some bank examiner'sprotest, 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 outevery 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 borrowingmoney on accommodation paper knew that it was likely to be called in onthe 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 mecold and clammy, sitting back in his big chair and staring up at methrough 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 wouldhave died rather than do for myself--I begged like a dog. But I might aswell have gone outside and butted my head against the brick wall of thebank. "

Griswold forgot his own real, though possibly indirect, obligation toJasper Grierson. 

"That is where you made a mistake: you should have told him to go tohell with his money!" was his acrid comment. And then: "How near can youcome to lifting this note to-morrow, Raymer?"

"'Near' isn't the word. Possibly I might sweep the corners and gather uptwelve or fifteen thousand dollars. "

"That will do, " said the querist, shortly. "Make it ten thousand, andI'll contribute the remaining ninety. "

Raymer sprang out of his chair as if its padded arms had been suddenlyturned into high-voltage electrodes. 

"You will?--you'll do that for me, Griswold?" he said, with a queerstridency in his voice that made the word-craftsman, always on the watchfor apt similes, think of a choked chicken. But Raymer was swallowinghard and trying to go on. "By Jove--it's the most generous thing I everheard of!--but I can't let you do it. I haven't a thing in the world tooffer you but the stock, and that may not be worth the paper it isprinted 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 aSocialist are you, Raymer?"

The young ironmaster sat down, gasping a little at the sudden wrenchingaside of the subject. 

"Why, I don't know; enough to want every man to have a square deal, Iguess. "

"Including the men in your shops?"

"Putting them first, " was the prompt correction. "It was my father'spolicy, 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 ofprofit-sharing. "

Griswold's eyes were lighting up with the altruistic fires. 

"Once in awhile, Raymer, a thing happens so fortuitously as to fairlycompel a belief in the higher powers that our fathers included in theword 'Providence', " he said, almost solemnly. "You have describedexactly an industrial situation which seems to me to offer a solution ofthe whole vexed question of master and man, and to be a seed-sowingwhich is bound to be followed by an abundant and most humanizingharvest. Ever since I began to study, even in a haphazard way, thesocial system under which we sweat and groan, I've wanted in on a joblike 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 timeafter 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 werenot unpleasantly electrified. 

"If I had only myself to consider, I shouldn't keep you waiting asecond, " he returned, heartily. "But it may take a little time topersuade my mother and sister. If they could only know you"--then, forgetting the crossed wire and his late overhearings--"why can't youcome out to dinner with me to-night?"

"For the only reason that would make me refuse; I have a previousbidding. But I'll be glad to go some other day. There is no hurry aboutthis business matter; take all the time you need--after you have madeMr. Grierson take his claws out of you. "

Raymer had filled the borrowed pipe again and was pulling at itreflectively. "About this partnership; what would be your notion?" heasked. 

"The simplest way is always the best. Increase your capital stock andlet me in for as much as my ninety thousand dollars will buy, " said theeasily satisfied investor. "We'll let it go at that until you've hadtime 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 thebones in it. "But there is one thing I'm going to ask you, and youmustn't take offense: this ninety thousand; could you afford to loseit?--or is it your whole stake in the game?"

Griswold's smile was the ironmaster's assurance that he had notoffended. 

"It is practically my entire stake--and I can very well afford to loseit in the way I have indicated. You may call that a paradox, if youlike, but both halves of it are true. "

"Then there is one other thing you ought to know, and I'm going to tellit 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 wasopened. "

Griswold was smiling again. "Why should I know that, particularly?" heasked. 

"Because it is rumored that Jasper Grierson has been quietly absorbingthe stock and bonds of the road, and if he means to remove me from themap----"

"I see, " was the reply. "In that case you'll need a partner even worsethan you do now. You can't scare me off that way. Shall I look for youat ten to-morrow?"

"At ten to the minute, " said the rescued plunger; and he wentdown-stairs so full of mingled thankfulness and triumph that he mistookDoctor 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 hismistake. 

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 hadclimbed the stair of literary aspirations to give the convalescent hisdinner bidding. 

Griswold had accepted gratefully on the spur of the moment; and it wasnot until after Raymer had come and gone that sober second thought beganto point out the risk he would run in meeting Charlotte Farnham face toface under conditions which would give her the best conceivableopportunity to recognize him, if recognition were possible. 

The more he thought of it, the more he regretted his haste in consentingto incur the risk. Reflectively weighing the chances for and against, hemade sure that in characterizing the young woman whose life-thread hadbeen so strangely tangled with his own he had not overrated herintelligence. Giving heredity its due, with the keen-witted littlephysician for her father she could scarcely fail to measure up to thestandard of those whose gifts are apperceptive. For many days she hadhad ample opportunity to familiarize herself with all the littleidentifying individualities of the deck-hand: reasoning from cause toeffect, it might be assumed that her crushing responsibility had drivenher to make use of it. Having recognized him once, under conditions farless favorable than those he was about to hazard, was it not more thanprobable that she would be able to do it again?

Griswold took a final look at himself in his dressing-case mirror beforegoing to keep his evening appointment at the doctor's down-town office. It was comfortably reassuring. So far as he could determine, there waslittle in the clean-shaven, square-shouldered, correctly garmented youngfellow who faced him in the mirror to suggest either the bearded outcastof New Orleans or the unkempt and toil-soddened roustabout of the _BelleJulie_. If only she had not made him speak to her: he had a sharpconviction that the greatest of all the hazards lay in the chance thatshe might remember his voice. 

He found the cheery little doctor waiting for him when he had walked thefew 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 thecorrect garmenting: "Regalia, heh? Hasn't Miss Grierson told you thatWahaska is still hopelessly unable to live up to the dress-coat andstanding collar? I'm sure she must have. But never mind; climb into thebuggy and we'll let old Bucephalus take us around to see if theneighbors have brought in anything good to eat. "

The drive was a short one, and it ended at the gate through whichMatthew Broffin had preceded by only a few hours the man whose eventualappearance at the Farnham home he had so confidently predicted. As atmany another odd moment when there had been nothing better to do, Broffin was once more shadowing the house in which, first or last, heexpected to trap his amateur MacHeath; and when the buggy was halted atthe carriage step he was near enough to mark and recognize the doctor'scompanion. 

"Not this time, " he muttered, sourly, when the two had passed togetherup the gravelled path and the host was fitting his latch-key to thefront door. "It's only the sick man that writes books. I wonder whatsort 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, hada nerve-tingling shiver of apprehension when the latch yielded with aclick and he found himself under the hall lantern formally shaking handswith the statuesque young woman of the many imaginings. It gave him acurious thrill of mingled terror and joy to find her absolutelyunchanged. Having, for his own part, lived through so many experiencessince that final glimpse of her standing on the saloon-deck guards ofthe _Belle Julie_ at St. Louis, the distance in time seemed almostimmeasurable. 

"You are very welcome to Home Nook, Mr. Griswold; we have been hearingabout you for many weeks, " she was saying when he had relinquished thefirm 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; allWahaska has been talking about you, you know, and wondering how it cameto acquire you. "

"It hasn't acquired anything very valuable, " was the guest's modestdisclaimer, its readiness arising out of a grateful easing of strainsnow that the actual face-to-face ordeal had safely passed itsintroductory stage. "And you mustn't say a word against your charminglittle city, Miss Farnham, " he went on. "It is the friendliest, mosthospitable----"

The doctor's daughter was interrupting with an enthusiastic show ofapplause. 

"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 moreas you can think of. She has never admitted for a single moment thatWahaska can be compared with any one of a dozen New Hampshire villagesshe could name. "

In the progress to the cozy, home-like dining-room, Griswold foundhimself at once in an atmosphere of genuine comfort and refinement; therefinement which speaks of generations of good breeding chastened andpurified by the limitations of a slender purse; in the present instancethe purse of the good little doctor whose attempted charity in thematter of his own fee was fresh in the mind of the castaway. Griswoldhad the writing craftsman's ingathering eye: he saw that the furnishingswere 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 threestreets away on the lake front was strikingly apparent; as cleanlymarked as that between Margery Grierson and the sweetly serene andconventional young person who was introducing him to her aunt across thesmall oval dining-table. 

So far, all was going well. Griswold, with a pleasant word for the fraillittle woman opposite and a retort in kind now and then for the doctor'sraillery, still had time to be narrowly observant of the signs andomens. But a little later, when the Swedish maid was serving the meatcourse, he had his first warning shock. Through the bouillon and thefish the doctor had borne the brunt of the table-talk, joking the gueston his humiliating descent from Mereside and the luxuries to a countrydoctor's table, and laughing at Griswold's half-hearted attempts todecry the luxuries. What word or phrase or trick of speech it was thatserved to stir the sleeping memories, Griswold could not guess; but itbecame suddenly apparent that the memories were stirring. In the midstof a half-uttered direction to the serving-maid, Miss Farnham stoppedabruptly, and Griswold could feel her gaze, wide-eyed andhalf-terrified, seemingly fixed upon him. 

It was all over in the turning of a leaf: there had been no break inthe doctor's genial raillery, and the breathless little pause at theother end of the table was only momentary. But Griswold fancied thatthere was a subtle change in the daughter's attitude toward him datingfrom the moment of interruptions. 

Farther along, he decided that the change was in himself, and was merelythe outcropping of the morbid vein which persists, with more or lesscontinuity, in all the temperamental workings of the human mind. Whenthe dinner was over and there was an adjournment to the sitting-room, little Miss Gilman presently found her reading-glasses and a book; andthe doctor, in the act of filling two long-stemmed pipes for his guestand himself, was called away professionally. Griswold saw himselfconfronting the really crucial stage of the ordeal, and prudence waswarning him that it would be safer to make his adieux and to go with hishost. It was partly Miss Farnham's protest, but more his owndetermination to prove the bridge of peril to the uttermost, that madehim stay. 

Miss Gilman, least obtrusive of chaperones, had been peacefully nappingfor a good half-hour in her low rocker under the reading-lamp, and thepictures in a thick quarto of Gulf Coast views had pleasantly filled theinterval for the two who were awake, when Griswold finally assuredhimself that the danger of recognition was a danger past. As a mentalanalyst he knew that the opening of each fresh door in the house ofpresent familiarity was automatically closing other doors opening uponthe past; and it came to him with a little flush of the seer'sexaltation that once again his prefigurings were finding their exactfulfilment. In a spirit of artistic daring he yielded to a suddenimpulse, as one crossing the flimsiest of bridges may run and leap toprove that his theory of safety-stresses is a sufficient guarantee ofhis own immunity. 

"You were speaking of first impressions of places, " he said, while theywere still turning the leaves of the picture-book. "Are you a believerin the absolute correctness of first impressions?"

"I don't know, " was the thoughtful reply; but its after-word was moredefinite: "As to places, I'm not sure that the first impression alwayspersists; in a few instances I am quite certain it hasn't. I didn't likethe Gulf Coast at all, at first; it seemed so foreign and different andunhomelike. As to people, however----"

She paused, and Griswold entered the breach hardily. 

"As to people, you are less easily converted from the originalprejudice--or prepossession. So am I. I have learned to place the utmostconfidence in the first impression. In my own case it is invariablycorrect, and if for any reason whatever I suffer any latercharacterization to take its place, I am always the loser. "

She was regarding him curiously over the big book which still lay openbetween them. 

"Is that a part of the writing gift?" she asked. 

"No, not specially; most people have it in some more or less workablequantity, though for many it expresses itself only in a vague attractionor repulsion. "

"I've had that feeling, " she answered quickly. 

"I know, " he affirmed. "There have been times when, with everyreasonable fibre in you urging you to believe the evil, a still strongerimpulse has made you believe in the good. "

"How can you know that?" she asked; and again he saw in the expressiveeyes the flying signals of indeterminate perplexity and apprehension. 

Resolutely he pressed the hazardous experiment to its logicalconclusion. Once for all, he must know if this young woman with thesympathetic voice and the goddess-like pose could, even undersuggestion, be led to link up the past with the present. 

"It is my trade to know, " he said quietly, closing the book of views andlaying it aside. "There have been moments in your life when you wouldhave given much to be able to decide a question of duty or expediencyentirely irrespective of your impressions. Isn't that so?"

For one flitting instant he thought he had gone too far. In the hardydetermination to win all or lose all, he had been holding her eyessteadily, as the sure mirror in which he should be able to read hissentence, of acquittal or of condemnation. This time there was nomistaking the sudden widening of the pupils to betray the equally suddenawakening of womanly terror. 

"Don't be afraid, " he began, and he had come thus far on the road toopen confession when he saw that she was not looking at him; she waslooking past him toward one of the windows giving upon the porch. "Whatis it?" he demanded, turning to look with her. 

"It was a man--he was looking in at the window!" she returned in lowtones. "I thought I saw him once before; but this time I am certain!"

Griswold sprang from his chair and a moment later was letting himselfout noiselessly through the hall door. There was nothing stirring on theporch. The windless night was starlit and crystal clear, and the silencewas profound. As soon as the glare of the house lights was out of hiseyes, Griswold made a quick circuit of the porch. Not satisfied withthis, he widened the circle to take in the front yard, realizing as hedid it that a dozen men might easily play hide-and-seek with a singlesearcher in the shrubbery. He was still groping among the bushes, andMiss Farnham had come to the front door, when the doctor's buggyappeared under the street lights and was halted at the homehitching-post. 

"Hello, Mr. Griswold; is that you?" called the cheery one, when he saw abareheaded 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 forherself. 

"I saw him twice, " she insisted; "once while we were at dinner, andagain just now. The first time I thought I might be mistaken, but thistime----"

Griswold was laughing silently and inwardly deriding his gifts when, under cover of the doctor's return, he made decent acknowledgments forbenefits bestowed and took his departure. On the pleasant summer-nightwalk to upper Shawnee Street he was congratulating himself upon the nowquite complete fulfilment of the wishing prophecy. Miss Farnham wasgoing to prove to be all that the most critical maker of studies fromlife could ask in a model; a supremely perfect original for thecharacter of _Fidelia_ in the book. Moreover, she would be histouchstone for the truths and verities; even as Margery Grierson might, if she were forgiving enough to let by-gones be by-gones, hold themirror up to Nature and the pure humanities. Moreover, again, whateverslight danger there might have been in a possibility of recognition wasa danger outlived. If the first meeting had not stirred the sleepingmemories in Miss Farnham, subsequent ones would serve only to widen thegulf between forgetfulness and recollection by just such distances asthe Wahaskan Griswold should traverse in leaving behind him thedeck-hand of the _Belle Julie_. 

Thus the complacent, musing upper thought in the mind and on the lips ofthe proletary as he wended his way through the quiet and well-nighdeserted streets to the older part of the town. How much it might havebeen modified if he had known that the man whose face Miss Farnham hadseen at the window was silently tracking him through the tree-shadowedstreets is a matter for conjecture. Also, it is to be presumed thatmuch, if not all, of the complacency would have vanished if he couldhave been an unseen listener in the Farnham sitting-room, dating fromthe time when little Miss Gilman pattered off to bed, leaving the fatherand daughter sitting together under the reading-lamp. 

At first their talk was entirely of the window apparition; the daughterinsisting upon its reality, and the father trying to push it over intothe limbo of things imagined. Driven finally to give all the reasons forher belief in the realities, Charlotte related the incident of theafternoon. 

"You may remember that I told you over the 'phone that I had a callerthis 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 aman--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 shouldhave come to me first, " he said, frowning a little at the invasion ofhis home. "It was about that bank robbery, I suppose?"

"Yes; he thought I could tell him the man's real name. It seems thatthey 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, youremember. This Mr. Broffin wouldn't believe that I couldn't tell him thereal name, and along toward the last he grew quite angry andthreatening. He insisted upon it that I knew the robber--that I hadknown him before the crime was committed; and he intimated prettybroadly that I am still in communication with him. Of course, it is allvery absurd; but it is also very annoying to think that somebody isspying 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 ourwindows this evening. "

By this time the good Doctor Bertie had become the indignant DoctorBertie. 

"We can't have that at all!" he said incisively. "You did your wholeduty in that bank matter; and it was a good deal more than most youngwomen would have done. I'm not going to have you persecuted andharassed--not one minute! Where is this fellow stopping?"

The daughter shook her head. "I don't know. He gave me his card, but ithas 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 timein low tones and with eyes downcast. "This Mr. Griswold: tell me all youknow about him, father. "

"I don't know much of anything more than--thanks to Miss Grierson--allthe town knows. They brought him here sick--she and her father--as Itold you. That was some little time before you came home; perhaps whileyou were still on the way up the river. They didn't know who he was; andoddly enough, there wasn't anything in his clothes or luggage to tellthem. I know that to be a fact because, at Miss Margery's request, Ihelped her overhaul his belongings. Afterward, in a talk with him, Ilearned that he had been robbed on the train; or at least, that was thesupposition. He said there was money in one of the suit-cases, and wedidn't find any. "

"He is an author, they say; I don't seem to recall his name in any of myreading. "

The doctor laughed good-naturedly. "Perhaps he is only one of thewould-be's; I don't think it has got much farther than the hankering, asyet. There was a book manuscript in one of his valises, and I read alittle of it. It was pretty poor stuff, I thought. But what was yourother shock?"

"It was at the dinner-table; when you were joking him about thecome-down from Mereside to us. Something he said--I couldn't remember, aminute afterward, just what it was--was spoken exactly in the voice, andwith the same little trick of conciseness, as something that was said tome that never-to-be-forgotten evening on the saloon-deck promenade ofthe _Belle Julie_ . .. Said by the man whose name was _not_ John WesleyGavitt. "

"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 ontelling myself so all the evening. I had to, father; for that once atthe table wasn't the only time. Every few minutes he would say somethingto bring back that haunting half-recollection. It is only a coincidence, of course; it couldn't be anything else. But when he went away Icouldn't help hoping that he would do one of two things; stay awayaltogether, or come often enough so that--oh, it's all nonsense, all ofit: what difference can it make, to him or to me!"

"No difference at all. " Doctor Bertie's membership was in that largeconfraternity of fathers whose blindness on the side of sentiment wheretheir own daughters are concerned has become proverbial. 

It was after he had taken up the latest copy of the _Lancet_ and wasbeginning to bury himself in the editorials, that Charlotte reopened thethreshed-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 holdupon what a certain great London physician was saying through thecolumns of the English medical journal. 

But afterward, long after Charlotte had gone up to her room, heremembered, with a curious little start of half-awakened puzzlement, that some one, no longer ago than the yesterday, had told him that youngGriswold was rich--or if not rich, at least "well-fixed. "

XXVI

PITFALLS

What arguments Edward Raymer used to convince his mother and sister thatGriswold as a participating partner was better than Jasper Griersonfiguring as the man in possession, the Wahaskan gossips were unable toguess. But the fact remained. Within a week from the day when Raymer, angrily jubilant, had rescued his imperilled stock, it was prettygenerally known that Kenneth Griswold, the writing-man, had become thefourth member in the close corporation of the Raymer Foundry and MachineWorks, and Wahaska was eagerly earning Broffin's contemptuouscharacterization of it by discussing the business affair in all itspossible and probable bearings upon the Raymers, the Griersons, and thenewly elected directory of the Pineboro Railroad. 

Of all this buzzing of the gossip bees the person most acutely concernedheard little or nothing. Griswold's intimation to Raymer that he wishedonly to be a silent partner had been made in good faith; and beyond afew purely perfunctory visits to the plant across the railroad tracks, made because Raymer had insisted that he go over the books and learn forhimself the exact condition of the business into which he had put hismoney, Griswold took no more than an advisory part in the industrialactivities. To Raymer's urgings there was always the same answer: thewriting 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 hadgrown fertile for the plough, and a new book, borrowing nothing from theold save the sociological background, was already under way. Diggingdeeply in the inspirational field, Griswold speedily became oblivious tomost of his encompassments; to all of them, indeed, save those whichbore directly upon the beloved task. Among these, he counted thefrequent afternoon visits to Mereside, and the scarcely less frequentevenings spent in the Farnham home. Again in harmony with the laterprefigurings, he was using each of the young women as a foil for theother in the outworking of his plot; and he welcomed it as a sign ofgrowth that the story in its new form was acquiring verisimilitude andbecoming gratefully, and at times, he persuaded himself, quite vividly, human. 

When he got well into the swing of it and was turning out a chapterevery three or four days, he fell easily into the habit of slipping thelast instalment into his pocket when he went to Mereside. MargeryGrierson was adding generously to his immense obligation to her; hopingonly to find a friendly listener, he found a helpful collaborator. Morethan once, when his own imagination was at fault, she was able to opennew vistas in the humanities for him, apparently drawing upon a reserveof intuitive conclusions compared with which his own hard-bought storeof experimental knowledge was almost puerile. 

"I wish you would tell me the secret of your marvellous cleverness!" heexclaimed, on one of the June afternoons when he had been reading to herin the cool half-shadows of the Mereside library. "You are only a childin years: how can you know with such miraculous certainty what otherpeople would think and do under conditions about which you can'tpossibly know anything experimentally? It's beyond me!"

"There are many things beyond you yet, dear boy; many, many things, " washer laughing rejoinder; from which it will be inferred that the episodein the Farmers' and Merchants' burglar-proof had become an episodeforgotten--or at least forgiven. "You know men--a little; but when itcomes to the women . .. Well, if I didn't keep continually nagging atyou, your two heroines--with neither of whom you are really inlove--would degenerate into rag dolls. They would, actually. "

"That's true; I can see it clearly enough when you point it out, " headmitted, putting his craftsman pride underfoot, as he was alwaysobliged to do in these talks with her. "I should be discouraged if youdidn't keep on telling me that the story, as a story, is good. "

"It _is_ good; it is a big story, " she asserted, with kindlingenthusiasm. "The plot, so far as you have gone with it, is fine; andthat is where you leave me away behind. I don't see how you could everthink 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 arethere, and I know in reason that he must be a type. But I have never metthe man himself; and I am sure I shall be scared silly if I ever do meethim. Think of being shut up in any little corner of the world with a manwho has convinced himself that he can commit any crime in the calendarso 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 bedefined 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 thepretty chin and a flash of the dark eyes which an instant before hadbeen slumbrous wells of studious abstraction. "But your _Fleming_ isgoing to prove the contrary; it may not be what you want him to do, butit will be what he will insist upon doing before you get through withhim. 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 ownmiserable 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 hada single shred of humanity about her, I should suspect you of meaning tofall in love with her, farther along--to the humiliation and despair ofpoor _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 inhumanlyworldly and insincere. " Then, with an abruptness that was like a slap inthe face: "If you didn't spend so many evenings at Doctor Bertie's, youwould 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 oftruth with the brackish waters of sheer worldliness. Then he saw howinadequate it would be; how utterly impossible it was to meet thischarmingly vindictive young person upon any grounds save those of herown choosing. 

"That is the first really unkind thing I have ever heard you say, " wasthe mild reproach which was all that the reactionary second thoughtwould 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 thecourage of your convictions. What you are thinking is that I am aspiteful 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 youare a little inclined to be unfair to Miss Charlotte. "

"Am I? Let us see if I am. I accuse her of nothing but a slavishdevotion to custom and the conventions. What did she say when you readher the chapter before this one: where _Fidelia_ goes down to thedining-room at midnight and finds _Fleming_ breaking into thesilver-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, " shepersisted. 

"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-breakingis a crime. You don't dare tell me what she said. "

Griswold did it, with a firm convincement that he was thereby breaking asacred confidence. But the alluring lips and eyes were irresistible whenhe was fairly within their influence. 

"I merely suggested the scene as something that might be done, " heexplained. "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 lettingyour _Fidelia_ do it is the one redeeming thing you have done in yourdrawing of her. Just the same, with all your ingenuity you leave onewith the firm conviction that she will never, under any circumstances, do such an unconventional thing again; never, never, never! And that isa false note. "

"Why is it?"

"Because it leaves out the common sex-factor; the one that is sharedalike 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 oldMother Eve. Being a mere man, you can't understand that, so you neglectto put it into your women. "

"But I can't let that stand, " he objected. "You must allow the idealsome little latitude. _Fidelia_ was not inconsistent, either in strivingwith _Fleming_, or in betraying him. "

Miss Grierson's perfect shoulders twitched in a little shrug ofimpatience. 

"Not that time, maybe; with _Fleming_ standing by to tell her that shemust be true to herself at whatever cost to him. But the next time--ifshe should happen to fall in love with the gentleman who was breakinginto her father's house-safe. .. . " She laughed in sheer mockery andmisquoted 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 casualtieswon'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 bleedssawdust, if the spirit moves you. "

Miss Grierson had been curled up like a comfortable kitten in the depthsof a great lounging chair--her favorite attitude while he was reading toher. 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 asavage hereafter. He is a good man, like other good men, with the singledifference that he thinks he isn't bound by the traditions. He believeshe can commit what the traditionary people call a crime without payingthe penalties. He can't: nobody can. "

Griswold's smile was the superior smile of the writing craftsman. "Thatis merely a matter of invention, " he asserted. "He can escape thepenalties 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 somefoundation in fact. Let that go: we'll suppose him clever enough to makehis escape and to outwit or outfight his enemies. I don't say hecouldn't do it successfully; but I do say that, with the hazardsconfronting him at every turn, he will find the real criminal in himgrowing and possessing him, making him think things and do things of theutter depravity of which he has never had any doubt. "

While she was speaking Griswold could feel the change she was describingstealing over him like a nightmare, and when she stopped he passed hishand 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 knowthat? Ask yourself. You admit the existence of the good and the bad, andordinarily you choose the good and shudder at the bad: tell me--haven'tthere been times when the most horrible crimes were possible toyou?--times when, with the littlest tipping of the balance, you couldhave killed somebody? You needn't answer: I know you have looked overthat brink, because I have looked over it myself, more than once. And, sooner or later, _Fleming_ will find himself looking over it--with allthe horrors of the penalties pushing and shoving at him to tumble himinto the gulf. "

Griswold did not reply. He was gathering up the scattered pages of hismanuscript and replacing them in order. When he spoke again it was of amatter entirely irrelevant. 

"I had an odd experience the other evening, " he said. "I had been diningwith the Raymers and was walking back to Shawnee Street. A littlenewsboy named Johnnie Fergus turned up from somewhere at one of thestreet crossings and tried to sell me a paper--at eleven o'clock atnight! I bought one and joked him about being out so late; and from thaton I couldn't get rid of him. He went all the way home with me, talkinga 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 thewindows. 

"Nothing that I know of, " she said. "He is a bright boy--too bright forhis own good, I'm afraid. But I can explain--a little. Johnnie has takena violent fancy to you for some reason, and he has fallen into theboyish habit of weaving all sorts of romances around you. I think hereads 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 sofar as to describe the man. Oh, I can assure you Johnnie has animagination; I've tested it in other ways. "

"I should think so!" said the man who also had an imagination, andshortly afterward he took his leave. 

An hour later the same afternoon, Broffin, from his post of observationon the Winnebago porch, saw the writing-man cross the street and enter ahardware shop. Having nothing better to do, he, too, crossed the streetand, in passing, looked into the open door of Simmons & Kleifurt's. Whathe saw brought him back at the end of a reflective stroll around thepublic square. When he entered the shop the clerk was putting aformidable array of weapons back into their show-case niches. Broffinlounged up and began to handle the pistols. 

"If I knew enough about guns to be able to tell 'em apart, I might buyone, " he said half-humorously. And then: "You must've been having amighty 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 thesenew-fashioned automatics. Said he wanted something that would be quickand 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 hewas 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, withthe half-humorous grin still lurking under the drooping mustaches. "Automatic thirty-twos, eh? Well, _I_ ain't goin' to try to hold yourMr. --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 againand went back to the hotel to smoke another of the reflective cigars inthe porch chair which had come to be his by right of frequent andlong-continued occupancy. 

XXVII

IN THE SHADOWS

Not counting the vague and rather pointless disturbment which hadculminated in the purchase of a pair of pistols, Griswold had left theMereside library considerably shaken, not in his convictions, to besure, 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 ofself-assurance. 

This was coming to be the net result of a better acquaintance withCharlotte Farnham; a growth in the grace of self-containment, and in ajust appreciation of the mighty power that lies in propinquity--thepropinquity of an inspiring ideal. Miss Farnham was never enthusiastic;that, perhaps, would be asking too much of an ideal; but what she lackedin warmth was made up in cool sanity, backed by a moral sense thatseemed never to waver. Unerringly she placed her finger upon the humanweaknesses in his book-people, and unfalteringly she bade him reformthem. 

For his _Fidelia_, as he described her, she exhibited a gentleaffection, tempered by a compassionate pity for her weaknesses andwaverings; an attitude, he fatuously told himself, forced upon herbecause her own standards were so much higher than any he coulddelineate or conceive. For _Joan_ there was also compassion, but it wasmildly contemptuous. 

"If I did not know that you are incapable of doing such a thing, I mightwonder 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 mayhave a place in a book. But you must not commit the unpardonable sin ofmaking 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 greatgood?" he pleaded in extenuation. 

Her answer was rather disconcerting. 

"Life is full of just such temptations; the temptation to bargain withexpediency. We can only pray blindly to be delivered in the hour oftrial. "

They were sitting together on the vine-sheltered porch, and the streetelectrics with the lamplight from the sitting-room windows served merelyto temper the velvety gloom of the summer night. He would have givenmuch to be able to see her face, but the darkness came between. 

"That opens the door to the larger question which is always asking forits answer, " he said, letting the thought that was uppermost slip intospeech. "At its very best, life is a compromise, not necessarilybetween good and evil, but between the thing possible and the thingimpossible. It is not until we are strong enough to break the shacklingsof the traditions that we are free to drive the best obtainable bargainwith destiny. "

As at other times, he was once more yielding to the impulse which wasalways prompting him to apply the acid test to the pure gold of theideal. Heretofore the test had revealed no trace of earthly alloy; butnow the result filled him with vague dismay. 

"So you have said many times before, " she rejoined, and her voice was asthe 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 youwere right; that life is full of these bitter compromises which we areforced 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 asit should be. "

Griswold could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. He toldhimself fiercely that he would never believe, without the convincementof fact, that the ideal could step down from its pedestal. 

"You are meaning to be kind to me now, at the expense of yourconvictions, Miss Charlotte, " he protested warmly. 

"No, " she denied gravely. "Listen, and you shall judge. Once, only ashort time ago, I was brought face to face with one of these terriblecompromises. In a single instant, and by no fault of my own, thedreadful shears of fate were thrust into my hands, and conscience--whatI have been taught to call the Christian conscience--told me that withthem 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 raisethe 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 inthose few moments. I had thought that there could be no possiblequestion between simple right and wrong, but almost in his first wordthe man convinced me that, whatever I might think or the world mightsay, _his_ conscience had fully and freely acquitted him. And he provedit; proved it so that I can never doubt it as long as I live. He made medo 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 thesaying completely colorless. 

"Yes. "

"And he was taken?"

"He was; but he made his escape again, almost at once. He is still afree man. "

Instantly the primitive instinct of self-preservation, the instinct ofthe hunted fugitive, sprang alert in the listener. 

"How can you be sure of that?" he asked, and in his own ears his voicesounded like the clang of an alarm bell. 

Again a silence fell, surcharged, this one, with all the old frightfulpossibilities. Once more the loathsome fever quickened the pulses of theman at bay, and the curious needle-like prickling of the skin came tosignal the return of the homicidal fear-frenzy. The reaction to thenormal racked him like the passing of a mortal sickness when hisaccusing angel said in her most matter-of-fact tone:

"I know he is free; I have it on the best possible authority. Thedetectives who are searching for him have been here to see me--or, atleast, one of them has. "

The hunted one laid hold of the partial reprieve with a mighty grip anddrew 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 cangive it again. It is very annoying. "

"It is an outrage!" declared the listener warmly. And afterward, withonly the proper friendly emphasis: "I hope it is an annoyance past. "

His companion leaned forward in her chair and cautiously parted theleafy vine screen. 

"Look across the street--under those trees at the water's edge: do yousee him?"

Griswold looked and was reasonably sure that he could make out theshadowy 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 ideathat I am in communication with the man he is searching for, and he wasbrutal enough to tell me so. What he expects to accomplish by keeping anabsurd watch upon our house and dogging everybody who comes and goes, Ican't imagine. "

"You have told your father?" said Griswold, anxious to learn how farthis new alarm fire had spread. 

"Certainly; and he has made his protest. But it doesn't do any good; theman keeps on spying, as you see. But we have wandered a long way fromyour book. I've been trying to prove to you that I am not fit tocriticise it. "

"No; you mustn't mistake me. I haven't been coming to you forcriticism, " was Griswold's rather incoherent reply; and when the talkthreatened to lapse into the commonplaces, he took his leave. Oddlyenough, as he thought, when he was unlatching the gate and had shiftedone of the newly purchased automatic pistols from his hip pocket to anoutside pocket of the light top-coat he was wearing, the shadowy figureunder the lake-shading trees had disappeared. 

It was only a few minutes after the lingering dinner guest had gone whenthe doctor came out on the porch, bringing his long-stemmed pipe for abedtime whiff in the open air. 

"You are losing your beauty sleep, little girl, " he said, dropping intothe chair lately occupied by the guest. "Did you find out anything moreto-night?"

The daughter did not reply at once, and when she did there was a note offreshly summoned hardihood in her voice. 

"We were both mistaken, " she affirmed. "Coincidences are always likelyto be misleading. I am sorry I told you about them. He has certainlybeen a present help in time of need to Edward. "

"How did you reach your conclusion?" inquired the pipe smoker, upon whomthe coincidences were still actively exerting their influence. 

"It came out in the talk this evening. He has been rather ridiculouslyputting me upon a pedestal, trying to make me fit an ideal character inhis book, I think. To prove to him that I am only human, I told him thestory of what happened on the _Belle Julie_. And, to cap the climax, Ipointed out our friend Mr. Broffin, who was on guard again--asusual--and told him who the house watcher was and what he wanted. Itdidn't affect him any more than it would any friend of the family. Hewas interested in the story as a story, and--and in its bearing upon meas a--as a life-experience. But that was all. "

"You may be right; you probably are right, " was the father's commentafter a thoughtful whiff or two had intervened. "Just the same, I'velooked up the dates in my case book: if your Gavitt man, escaping fromthe officers in St. Louis, had taken the first train for Wahaska, hewould have reached here at precisely the same moment that the sick Mr. Griswold did. Also, he would have been careful to remove all the littletags and telltales from his brand-new clothes--which was what Mr. Griswold very evidently had done. Also, again, the amount of money whichMr. Griswold has put into the Raymer capital stock tallies to within tenthousand dollars of the amount your Gavitt fellow walked away with inNew Orleans. Also, number three, Mr. Griswold acted very much like a manwho had lost all he had in the world when I told him that Miss Griersonand 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 MissGrierson could be safely eliminated from the equation. Unhappily, shecan't be. "

"I don't care!" came from the depths of the porch rocking-chair. "Ifthis miserable detective arrests him and appeals to me, I shall simplyrefuse to know anything about it! I wish you'd tell this man Broffin sowhen you meet him again. "

As before, the good little doctor had recourse to his pipe, and it wasnot until his daughter got up to go in that he said gently: "One otherword, Charlie, girl: are you altogether sure that the wish isn't fatherto the thought--about Griswold?"

"Don't be absurd, papa!" she said scornfully, passing swiftly behind hischair to reach the door; and with that answer he was obliged to becontent. 

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 inperspective, took to the woods. 

In the moment of lost temper, when he had threatened angrily to play anindefinite waiting game, prolonging it until his man should walk intothe trap, nothing had really been farther from his intentions. As amatter of fact, there were the best of business reasons why he shouldnot waste another day in following, or attempting to follow, the coldtrail. Other cases were pressing, and his daily mail from the NewOrleans head-quarters brought urgings impatient and importunate; and onthe third day following the sleeveless interview with the doctor'sdaughter he had paid his bill at the Winnebago House and had packed hisgrip for the southward flight by the afternoon train. 

Twenty minutes before train-time a telegram from the New Orleans officehad reopened the closed and crossed-off account of the Bayou StateSecurity robbery. It was a bare line in answer to his own wire advisingthe office that he was about to return, but its significance was out ofall proportion to its length. "B. S. S. Man is in your town. Importantletter to-day's mail, " was all it said, but that was sufficient. Broffinhad promptly told the clerk of the Winnebago that he had changed hismind, and forty-eight hours afterward he had the letter. 

Like the telegram, the mail communication was significant butinconclusive. One Patrick Sheehan, a St. Louis cab driver, dying, hadmade confession to his priest. For a bribe of two hundred dollars he hadaided and abetted the escape of a criminal on a day and datecorresponding to the mid-April arrival of the steamer _Belle Julie_ atSt. Louis. Afterward he had driven the man to an up-town hotel (name notgiven) and had obtained from the clerk the man's name and destination. In his letter enclosing the confession the priest went on to say thatthe penitent had evidently had a severe struggle with his conscience. Amistaken sense of gratitude to the man who had bribed him had led him totear off and destroy the upper half of the card given him by the up-townhotel clerk, and with the reminder gone he could not recall the man'sname. But the destination address, "Wahaska, Minnesota, " had beenpreserved, and the torn portion of the card bearing it was submittedwith the confession. 

With this new clue for an incentive, Broffin had immediately put hisnose to the cold trail again. All other things apart, the torn cardconclusively proved the correctness of the obstinately maintainedhypothesis. If the robber had really chosen Wahaska for hishiding-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 thedetective, and he was not entirely unprepared for the eye-opening shockwhich came when he began to suspect that Griswold, the writing-man, wasthe man he was looking for. 

The premonitory symptoms of the shock had manifested themselves when hebegan to note the regularity of Griswold's visits to the house in LakeBoulevard. Then came the pistol-buying episode, closely following aninvestment of money possible only to a capitalist--or a robber. Broffinworked quickly after this, tracing Griswold's record back to itsWahaskan beginnings and shadowing his man so faithfully that at any hourof the day or night he could have clapped the arresting hand upon hisshoulder. Still he hesitated. Once, in his Secret Service days, he hadarrested the wrong man, and the smart of the prosecution for falseimprisonment would rankle as long as he lived. 

This was why he took to the woods on the afternoon of the second dayfollowing Griswold's pistol purchase. He felt himself growingshort-sighted from the very nearness of things. The single necessity nowwas for absolute and unshakable identification. To establish this, threewitnesses, and three only, could be called upon. Of the three, two hadfailed signally--Miss Farnham because she had her own reasons forblocking the game, and President Galbraith. .. . That was another chapterin the book of failure. Broffin had learned that the president wasstopping at the De Soto Inn, and he had manoeuvred to bring Mr. Galbraith face to face with Griswold in the Grierson bank on the dayafter the pistol-buying. To his astonishment and disgust the presidenthad shaken his head irritably, adding a rebuke. "Na, na, man; your trademakes ye over-suspeecious. That's Mr. Griswold, the writer-man and afriend 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 wasbearded like a tyke?"

With two of the three eye-witnesses refusing to testify, there remainedonly Johnson, the paying teller of the Bayou State Security. Broffin wasconsidering the advisability of wiring for Johnson when he passed thelast of the houses on the lakeside drive and struck into the countryroad which led by cool and shaded forest windings to the resort hotel atthe head of the southern bay. If Johnson should fail--and in view of thefact that President Galbraith had failed it was a possibility to bereckoned with--there remained only two doubtful expedients. With PatrickSheehan's confession to point the way it might be possible to trace thetransformed deck-hand from his final interview with McGrath on the_Belle Julie_ step by step to his appearance, sick and delirious, inWahaska twenty-four hours later. This was one of the expedients. Theother was to take the long chance by clapping the handcuffs uponGriswold in some moment of unpreparedness. It was a well-worn trick, and it did not always succeed in surprising the admission of guiltnecessary to make it hold good. And if it should not hold good, theremight be consequences. As we have noted, Broffin had once clapped thehandcuffs 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 thelake-enclosing forest when he heard the rattle of wheels and thehoof-beats of a horse. Presently the vehicle overtook and passed him. Itwas Miss Grierson's trap, drawn by the big English trap-horse, with MissGrierson herself holding the reins and Raymer lounging comfortably inthe spare seat. 

The sight of the pair moved Broffin to speech apostrophic--when the twowere out of earshot. "You're the little lady I'd like to back into acorner, " he muttered. "What you know about this business--and wouldn'ttell, not if you was gettin' the third degree for it--would tie up allthe broken strings in a hurry. How do I know you didn't help him to getout of St. Louis? How do I know that the whole blame sick play wasn't aplant from start to finish?" He stopped and struck viciously at aroadside weed with the switch he had cut. It was a new idea, an ideawith promise; and when he went on, the reflective excursion had become ajourney with a purpose. Chance had been good to him now and then in hishard-working career: perhaps it would be good to him again. Having letone woman put a stumbling-block in his way, perhaps it was going toeven things up by making another woman remove it. 

Half an hour later Broffin had followed the huge hoof-prints of thegreat English trap-horse to the driveway portal of the De Soto groundswhere they were lost on the pebbled carriage approach. Strolling onthrough the grounds into the lake-fronting lobby of the Inn, he was soonable to account for Raymer. The young iron-founder was evidently onbusiness bent. He was sitting in the lobby with a man whom Broffinrecognized as the master car builder of the Pineboro Railroad, and thetwo were discussing mechanical details over a thick file of blue-printsspread out on Raymer's knees. The smile under Broffin's droopingmustaches was a grin of instant comprehension. Miss Grierson, drivingRaymer's way, had picked up the iron-founder and brought him along tothe business appointment. It was a way she had--when the candidate forthe spare seat in the trap happened to be young and good-looking. 

Having placed Raymer, Broffin went in search of Miss Grierson. He foundher on the broad veranda, alone, and for the moment unoccupied. How tomake the attack so direct and so overwhelming that it could not bewithstood was the only remaining question; and Broffin had answered itto his own satisfaction, and was advancing through an open French windowdirectly behind Miss Grierson's chair to put the answer into effect, when the opportunity was snatched away. Raymer, with his roll ofblue-prints under his arm and his business with the master car builderapparently concluded, came down the veranda and took the chair next toMiss Grierson's. 

Broffin dropped back into the writing-room alcove for which the openFrench window was the outlet and sat down to bide his time, taking carethat the chair which he noiselessly placed for himself should be out ofsight from the veranda, but not out of earshot. It seemed very unlikelythat the two young people who were enjoying the Minnedaskan view wouldsay anything worth listening to; but the ex-harrier of moonshine-makerswas 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 ofSt. John's. Broffin surmised that they were waiting for the trap to bebrought around from the hotel stables, though why there should be adelay was not so evident. But in any event his opportunity was lostunless he could contrive to isolate the young woman again. It was whilehe was groping for the compassing means that Raymer said:

"It's a shame to make you wait this way, Miss Madge. McMurtry said hehad an appointment with Mr. Galbraith for three o'clock, and he had togo and keep it. But he ought to be down again by this time. Don't waitfor 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. "Tomake you tie up your own horse in town and then to leave you strandedaway out here three miles from nowhere! I think I see myself doing sucha thing! Besides, I haven't a thing to do but to wait. "

Broffin shifted the extinct cigar he was chewing from one corner of hismouth 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 silkpetticoats and the click of small heels on the hardwood floor. Broffincould not forbear the peering peep around the sheltering windowdraperies. Miss Grierson had left her seat and was pacing a slow marchup and down before Raymer's chair, apparently for Raymer's benefit. Thewatcher behind the window draperies drew back quickly when she made theturn to face his way, arguing sapiently that whatever significance theirfurther talk might hold would be carefully and thoughtfully neutralizedif Miss Grierson should see him. That she had not seen him became a factsufficiently well-assured when she sat down again and began to speak ofGriswold. 

"How is the new partnership going, by this time, " she asked, after themanner of one who re-winnows the chaff of the commonplaces in the hopeof finding grain enough for the immediate need. 

"So far as Griswold is concerned, you wouldn't notice that there is apartnership, " laughed the iron-founder. "I can't make him galvanize anatom of interest in his investment. All I can get out of him is, 'Don'tbother me; I'm busy. '"

"Mr. Griswold is in a class by himself, don't you think?" was thequestioning comment. 

"He is all kinds of a good fellow; that's all I know, and all I ask toknow, " answered Raymer loyally. 

"I believe that--now, " said his companion, with the faintest possibleemphasis upon the time-word. 

Broffin marked the emphasis, and the pause that preceded it, and leanedforward to miss no word. 

"Meaning that there was a time when you didn't believe it?" Raymerasked. 

"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 ifit were the most trivial. "Do you remember one day in the library, whenyou found me looking over the files of the newspapers for the story ofthe 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, " shewent 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 thepaying teller's window, and how the robber escaped on a river steamboatand was recognized by somebody and was arrested at St. Louis?"

"Yes; I remember it all very clearly. Also I recollect how the secondnewspaper notice told how he escaped from the officers at St. Louis. Wasn't there something about a young woman being mixed up in it someway?"

"There was: _she_ was the one who recognized the robber disguised as adeck-hand on the boat. "

Raymer seemed to have forgotten his impatience for a renewal of theinterview with the Pineboro Railroad master car builder. 

"I don't seem to recall any mention of that in the newspapers, " he saidhalf-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 adraft cashed at the teller's window when the robbery was committed. Thebank people didn't know her, so she must have been travelling. You seeit'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 dayin April. It was the very day on which poppa met me on my way back fromFlorida, and we took the eleven-thirty train north that night. Youhaven't forgotten that Mr. Griswold was a passenger on that same train?"

"But, goodness gracious, Miss Margery! any number of people werepassengers on that train. You surely wouldn't----"

"Hush!" she said, and through the lace window hangings Broffin saw herlift a warning finger. "What I am telling you, Mr. Raymer, is in thestrictest confidence; we mustn't let a breath of it get out. But thatwasn't all. Mr. Griswold was dreadfully sick, and, of course, hecouldn't tell us anything about himself. But while he was delirious hewas always muttering something about money, money; money that he hadlost 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 Iransacked his suit-cases for cards or letters or something that wouldtell us who he was and where he came from. _There wasn't the littlestthing!_"

"And that was when you began to suspect?" queried Raymer. 

"That was when the suspicion began to torture me. I fought it; oh, youdon'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 wasterrible!"

"I should say so, " was Raymer's sympathetic comment. "How did you get itstraightened out, at last?"

"It hasn't been altogether straightened out until just lately--withinthe past few days, " she went on gravely. "After he began to get well, Imade him talk to me--about himself, you know. There didn't seem to beanything 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 toanybody 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 thereminiscent vein. 

"Kenneth went to college without ever having known what it was to lackanything in reason that money could buy. A little while after he wasgraduated his father died. "

"Leaving Kenneth poor, I suppose; he has intimated as much to me, onceor twice, " said Raymer. 

"Leaving him awfully poor. He wanted to learn to write, and for a longtime he stayed on in New York, living just any old way, and having adreadfully hard time of it, I imagine, though he would never say muchabout that part of it. He says he was studying the under-dog, and he hastold 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 tenementwhere 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 hisknees and his head tightly clamped between his hands. He was striving, as the dying strive for breath, to remember. Where had he heard thisself-same story of the man who had fought some sort of a studying fightin the back-water of the New York slums? In every detail it came back tohim like the recurring scenes of a vivid dream; but the key-notes oftime, place, and the man's identity were gone; lost beyond any power ofthe groping mentality to recall them. 

"That is why he thinks he is a Socialist, " Miss Grierson was going onevenly. "I've been wondering if you knew these things, and I've wantedto tell you. I've thought it might help you to understand him better ifyou knew something of what he has been through. But we were talkingabout my dreadful suspicion. It persisted, you know, right along througheverything. 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 himto 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 justmade talk, like any two freshly introduced people would, and that wasall 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 anotherproof that was even more convincing. Do you happen to know who the youngwoman 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 wasCharlotte Farnham. "

"What!" ejaculated Raymer. But he was not more deeply moved than was theman behind the window curtains. If Broffin's dead cigar had not beenalready reduced to shapeless inutility, Miss Grierson's coolannouncement, carrying with it the assurance that his secret was nosecret, would have settled it. 

"It's so, " she was adding calmly. "I found out. She and her aunt werepassengers on the _Belle Julie_; that was the boat the robber escapedon, you remember. Doctor Bertie told me that. And she was the youngwoman who was having the draft cashed in the Bayou State Security. Howdo I know? Because her father bought the draft at poppa's bank, and inthe course of time it came back with the Bayou State Security's datedpaying 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 mildlyboastful 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 wasdisguised as a deck-hand, sees Mr. Griswold pretty nearly every day. "

Raymer nodded. Though he would not have admitted it under torture, theentire matter figured somewhat as a mountain constructed out of a rathersmall mole-hill to a man for whom the subtleties lay in a regionunexplored. He wondered that the clear-minded little "social climber, "as his sister called her, had ever bothered her nimble brain about suchan 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, andpleasanter, to be a theoretical leveller than a practical one. "

"That is another thing I have never been quite able to understand, " saidthe iron-founder. "You say his father left him poor: where did he gethis money?"

"Why, don't you know?" was the innocent query. And then, with a prettyaffectation of embarrassment, real or perfectly simulated: "If he hasn'ttold 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 LadyJezebel, ' 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 littlesecret with you. He has been reading bits of his new book to me, andpshaw! a blind person could tell! I asked him once if he could guesshow much the author of 'My Lady Jezebel' had been paid, and he said, with the most perfectly transparent carelessness: 'Oh, about a hundredthousand, I suppose. '"

"Tally!" said Raymer, laughing. "Griswold has put an even ninetythousand into my little egg-basket out at the plant. But, of course youknew 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 gosmash, he won't feel the loss quite so fiercely. I have a friend over inWisconsin; he is a laboratory professor in mechanics, and he writesbooks on the side. He says a book is a pure gamble. If you win, you havethat much more money to throw to the dicky-birds. If you lose, you'vemerely drawn the usual blank. "

Miss Grierson did not reply, and for a little while they were bothsilent. Then Raymer said:

"I wonder if McMurtry doesn't think I've dropped out on him. I guess I'dbetter go and see. Don't wait any longer on my motions, unless you wantto, Miss Margery. "

When Raymer had gone, the opportunity which Broffin had so lately cravedwas his. Miss Grierson was left alone on the big veranda, and he hadonly to step out and confront her. Instead, he got up quietly and wentback through the lobby with his head down and his hands in his pockets, and the surviving bit of the dead cigar disappeared between his strongteeth and became a cud of chagrin. There had been a goal in sight, butMiss Grierson had beat him to it. 

And the winner of the small handicap? For the time it took Raymer todisappear she sat perfectly still, in the attitude of one who stiflesall the other senses that the listening ear may hear and strike the noteof warning or of relief. A group of young people, returning from asteam-launch circuit of the upper lake, came up the steps to disperseitself with pleasant human clatterings on the veranda; but in spite ofthe distractions the listening ear caught the sound for which it wasstraining. With a deep breath-drawing that was almost a sob, MissGrierson sprang up, stole a swift confirming glance at the empty chairbehind the window hangings, and crossed the veranda to stand with onearm around a supporting pillar. And since the battle was fought and won, and the friendly pillar gave its stay and shelter, the velvety eyesfilled suddenly and the ripe red lips were trembling like the lips of afrightened child. 

XXIX

ALL THAT A MAN HATH

For four entire days after Margery Grierson had driven home the nail ofthe elemental verities in her frank criticism of the new book, andCharlotte Farnham had clinched it, Wahaska's public places saw nothingof Griswold; and Mrs. Holcomb, motherly soul, was driven to expostulatescoldingly with her second-floor front who was pushing the penfeverishly from dawn to the small hours, and evidently--in the kindlywidow's phrase--burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. 

Out of this candle-burning frenzy the toiler emerged in the afternoon ofthe fifth day, a little pallid and tremulous from the overstrain, butwith a thick packet of fresh manuscript to bulge in his pocket when hemade his way, blinking at the unwonted sunlight of out-of-doors, to thegreat house at the lake's edge. 

Margery was waiting for him when he rang the bell: he guessed itgratefully, and she confirmed it. 

"Of course, " she said, with the bewitching little grimace which could bemade to mean so much or so little. "Isn't this your afternoon? Whyshouldn't I be waiting for you?" Then, with a swiftly sympatheticglance for the pale face and the tired eyes: "You've been overworkingagain. Let's sit out here on the porch where we can have what little airthere is. There must be a storm brewing; it's positively breathless inthe house. "

Griswold was glad enough to acquiesce; glad and restfully happy andmildly intoxicated with her beauty and the loving rudeness with whichshe pushed him into the easiest of the great lounging chairs and tookthe sheaf of manuscript away from him, declaring that she meant to readit herself. 

"It will wear you out, " he objected, fishing for the denial which wouldgive the precious fillip to the craftsman vanity. 

The denial came promptly. 

"Foolish!" she said; "as if anything you have written could make anybodytired!" And then, with the mocking after-touch he had come to know sowell, 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, " hecountered feebly. "But I warn you beforehand: there is a frightful lotof it. I have rewritten it from the beginning. "

"So much the better, " she affirmed. "You've been doling it out to me inlittle morsels, and I've been aching to get it all at one bite. " And shebegan to read. 

It was the first time he had had any of his own work read to him, andthe experience was a pure luxury; at once the keenest and the mostsensuous enjoyment he had ever known. Marvelling, as he was always movedto marvel, at her bright mind and clever wit and clear insight, he wasdriven to the superlatives again to find words to describe her reading. Artistically, and as with the gifted sympathy of a born actress, sheseemed able to breathe the very atmosphere of the story. None of hissubtle nuances were lost; there was never an emphasis misplaced. Betterstill, 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 sureapprehension of his meaning that he could almost fancy that she wasreading from his mind instead of following the manuscript. 

When it was over; and he could not tell whether the interval should bemeasured by minutes or hours; the return to the realities--the hotafternoon, the tree-shaded veranda, the lake dimpling like a sheet ofmolten metal under the sun-glare--was almost painful. 

"It is wonderful--simply wonderful!" he said, drawing a deep breath; andthen, 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 actressin you, Margery, girl?"

"No, " she said shortly; and, dismissing that phase of the subject in thesingle word: "Let's talk about the story. You have bettered itimmensely. What made you do it?"

"I don't know; some convincement that it was all wrong and out ofdrawing as it stood, I suppose. "

"Who gave you the convincement? Miss Farnham?"

His answer was meant to be truthful, but beauty of the intoxicating sortis the most mordant of solvents for truth in the abstract. 

"No; you did. "

"But she told you something, " she persisted. "Otherwise, you could neverhave made _Fidelia_ all over again, as you have in this rewriting. "

"Maybe she did, " he admitted. "But that doesn't matter. You think I havebettered the story, and I know I have. And I know where I got theinspiration 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 makingof a great novelist in you. It may take years and years, and--and I'mafraid you'll always have to be helped; but if you can only get theright kind of help. .. . " She looked away, out across the lake where afitful breeze was turning the molten-metal dimples into laughingwavelets. Then, with one of her sudden topic-wrenchings: "Speaking ofhelp, reminds me. Why didn't you tell me you had gone into the foundrybusiness with Edward Raymer?"

"Because it didn't occur to me that you would care to know, I guess, " heanswered unsuspectingly. "As a matter of fact, I had almost forgottenit myself. "

"Was it a good investment?" she asked guilelessly. 

"Yes; that is, I presume it was. I didn't think much about that part ofit. "

"What did you think about?"

It was just here that he awoke to the realization that he could hardlyafford to give Jasper Grierson's daughter the real reason for theinvestment. So he prevaricated, knowing well enough that he had lessthan no chance in an evasive duel with her. 

"Raymer had been adding to his plant, and he lacked capital, " he saidguardedly. "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 theworld to know. "

Griswold straightened himself in his chair and the work-weariness becamea thing of the past. With the fairly evident fact staring him in theface from day to day, it had never occurred to him that his friend andbusiness partner might also be his fellow-prisoner in the house of thewitcheries. The sudden convincement stung a little, the all-monopolizingselfishness of the craftsman carrying easily over into the field ofsentiment. Yet it was clean friendship for Raymer, no less than for thedaughter 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 alluringsoftness. "You may as well tell me. Mr. Raymer had borrowed money atpoppa's bank. What was the matter? Did he have to pay it back--all atonce?"

There seemed to be no further opening for evasion. "Yes; I think thatwas 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'ssolicitude, Griswold expected something in the nature of an outburst. What he got was a transfixing glance of the passionate sort, quick withopen-eyed admiration. 

"And you just tossed your money into the breach as if you had millionsof it, and by now you've almost forgotten that you did it!" sheexclaimed. "Kenneth, dear, there are times when you are so heavenly goodthat I can hardly believe it. Are there any more men like you over onyour side of the world?"

At another time he might have smiled at the boyish frankness of thequestion. But it was a better motive than the analyst's that promptedhis answer. 

"Plenty of them, Margery, girl; too many for the good of the race. Youmustn't try to make a hero out of me. Once in a while I get a glimpse ofthe real Kenneth Griswold--you are giving me one just now--and it'ssickening. For a moment I was meanly jealous; jealous of Raymer. It wasonly the writing part of me, I hope, but----"

He stopped because she had suddenly turned her back on him and waslooking out over the lake again. When she spoke, she went back to thebusiness affair. 

"When you invest money you ought to look after it, " she saidmagisterially. "You are a Socialist, aren't you? How do you know thatyour money isn't being used to oppress somebody?"

"Oh, I do know that much, " was the investor's protest. "Raymer is a goodboss--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 seeminclined to make trouble. "

Again she fell silent, and he saw the brooding look come into the darkeyes. It was evident that something he had said had started a train ofthought--and the thoughts were not altogether pleasant ones. Analyzingagain, he fancied he could picture the inward struggle to break awayfrom the unpleasantnesses, and he shook hands enthusiastically with hisown gift of insight when she looked up suddenly and said: "See! thebreeze is freshening out on the water. You are fagged and tired andneeding 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 beyondthe lawn landing-stage. He cared little for the water, but theinvitation pointed to a delightful prolongation of the basking processwhich had come to be one of the chief luxuries of the Meresideafternoons. 

"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 timethan it would take another woman--_Fidelia_, for example--to make up hermind what she wanted to wear. "

He waited; and when she came down, a few minutes later, crisply boyishin the nattiest of yachting costumes, he wondered how she could appearin so many different characters, fitting each in succession andcontriving 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 upto get the artistic effect of the shapely little figure backgroundedagainst 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 youare. "

"Why shouldn't you, if you feel like it? Of course, I'd know you didn'tmean 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 alllike to be sugared a little now and then; and there's one thing youmust always remember: a woman's dressing-glass can't talk. Are youready? Open the window screen and drop the manuscript inside. It will besafe until we come back, and the _Clytie_ might be tempted to throw coldwater on it if we should take it along. She's a wet little boat in asea. "

This for the outsetting: light-hearted badinage, a fair summerafternoon, a zephyrish breeze coming in tiny cat's-paws out of thenorth-west, and a cloudless sky. At the landing-stage Griswold madehimself useful, paying out the sea-line of the movable mooring buoy andhauling on the shore-line until the handsome little craft lay at theirfeet. Strictly under orders he made sail on the little ship, and whenthe captain had taken her place at the tiller he shoved off. 

For a little time the breeze was lightly baffling, and Griswoldconfessed that if he had been at the helm they would have goneingloriously aground. But the small person in the correct yachtingcostume was an adept in boat handling, as she seemed to be in everythingelse; and when the sandy bottom was fairly yellowing under the_Clytie's_ counter, there was a quick juggling of the tiller, a defthaul at the sheet, and the big main-sail filled slowly to the ripplingsong of the little seas splitting themselves upon the catboat's sharpcut-water. 

Once clear of the shallow bay, the helmswoman laid the course up thelake; and Griswold, luxuriously lazy now that the working strain wasoff, stretched himself comfortably on the cockpit cushions which he hadrummaged out of the cuddy cabin, and asked permission to light his pipe. The permission given and the pipe filled and lighted, he pillowed hishead in his clasped hands and a great contentment, flowing into all theinterstices and levelling all the inequalities, lapped him in itssoothing flood. When the pipe had gone out there was joy enough left inthe pure relaxation; in that and in the contemplation throughhalf-closed eyelids of the pretty picture made by the tiller maidenbraced in the stern-sheets, her shining hair breeze-blown and flyingfree under the captivating little yachting hat, and her eyes dancing. .. . 

Under such conditions a reflective analyst might conceivably wrench theswitch aside in front of the jogging train of thought to send it down ashaded street to the lake-fronting house framed in shrubbery; to thehouse and to the serene young house-mistress who had voluntarily steppedfrom her goddess pedestal to become a flesh-and-blood woman to be lovedand cherished. He knew that Charlotte Farnham's readjustment of theirrelations had in no wise modified her opinion of the _Joans_, or of themen who were weak enough or besotted enough to be taken in the nets ofbeguiling. .. . What would she think of him if she could see him lying atMargery Grierson's feet, frankly and joyously revelling in thetriumphantly human charm of one of the _Joans_, and wishing with all hisheart--for the time being, at least--that there were no such things ina world of effort as the higher ideals or any shackling requirement tolive up to them?

He was still playing whimsically with the query when he was made torealize that the murmuring rush of water under the catboat's forefoothad changed into a series of resounding thumps; that the wind wasrising, and that the summer afternoon sky had become suddenly overcast. The pretty tiller maiden was pushing the helm down with her foot andhauling in briskly on the sheet when he sat up. 

"What's this we're coming to?" he asked, thinking less of the changedweather 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 andspreading like a great gray dust curtain from horizon to zenith. Withthe sun blotted out, a brazen light filled all the upper air, and in theheart of the cloud fleecy masses of vapor were writhing and twistinglike 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 toshut off the down-lake view, but though its forested bluffs and abruptheadland were uncomfortably close at hand, a bit of skilfulmanoeuvring would put it to windward. Beyond the island he could seethe breeze-blown smoke trail of the summer-resort hotel's steam launchevidently making for its home port at full speed. 

"There's a good bunch of wind in that cloud, " he said, springing to helphis companion with the slatting main-sail. "Hadn't we better lie upunder 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 beensuccessfully reduced to its smallest area and hoisted home again beforethe trees on the western shore began to bow and churn in the precursorblasts of the coming storm. 

"It will hit us in less than a minute: how about weathering thatisland?" he asked. 

"We've _got_ to weather it, " was the instant decision; "we can't goaround. " Then, the catboat still hanging in the wind's eye: "Help me gether over. "

Together they held the shortened sail off at an angle, and slowly, veryslowly, the boat's bow fell off toward the island. Griswold was enoughof a sailor to know that it was the thing to do, but there was aperilously narrow margin. The storm squall was already tearing acrossfrom the western shore, blackening the water ahead of it and picking upa small tidal wave as it came. If it should strike them before they wereready for it, it meant one of two things: a capsize, or an instantdriving 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 windwardto throw his weight on the careening gunwale, the helmswoman had pouncedupon the tiller and was standing knee-deep in the water pouring over thesubmerged lee rail to pay out and steer and miss the island headland bya shearing hand's-breadth. 

The worst was over in a moment, and under the lee of the small islandthere was a brief respite for pumping and bailing. The girl's black eyeswere shining with excitement and fearless daring, and Griswold wouldhave given much for time and leisure in which to catch and fix thefleeting inspiration of the instant. But there was little space for theartistic 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 inthe cockpit when the island withdrew its friendly shelter and the_Clytie_, going free and sailed as Griswold had never seen a catboatsailed before, wallowed out into the smother. 

For a little time there was not much to choose between drowning andbeing hammered to death by the leaping plunges and alightings of thefrail cockle-shell which seemed to be blown bodily from crest to crestof the short, high-pitched seas. The wind, heavily rain-laden, came infurious gusts, flattening the reefed canvas until the bunt of the saildragged in the trough. Griswold climbed high on the weather rail, leaning far out to help hold the balance between the heaving seas andthe pounding blasts. In the momentary lulls he had flitting glimpses ofthe far-away town shore, with the storm-torn waste of watersintervening. With the wind veering more and more to the west, it was afair run to the shelter of the home bay. But Margery was laying thecourse far to the right, though to do it she was holding the catboatcockpit-deep in the smother and taking the chance of a capsize withevery 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?" hesuggested, and he had to shout it into the pink ear nearest to him tomake himself heard above the roaring of the wind and the crashingplunges of the boat. 

She shook her head and made an impatient little gesture with her elbowtoward the storm-lashed raceway over the bows. Griswold winked the sprayout of his eyes and looked. At first he saw nothing but the wild wasteof whitecaps, but at the next attempt he made out the hotel steamlaunch, half-way to the entrance of the southern bay and a little toleeward of the _Clytie's_ course. The small steamer was evidently nosea-boat, and with more courage than seamanship, its steersman wasdriving straight for the Inn bay without regard for the direction of thewind 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 tosee which way the wind is blowing. "

"She's pitching pretty badly, " Griswold called back. "If he only hadsense enough to ease off a little. .. . " Suddenly he became aware of thefiner heroism of his companion. He knew now why she had refused to takeshelter under the lee of the island, and why she was holding the catboatdown to the edge of peril to keep the windward advantage of the laboringsteamer. "Margery, girl, you're a darling!" he shouted. "Take all thechances you want to and I'm with you, if we go to the bottom!"

She nodded complete intelligence and took in another inch of thestraining main-sheet. 

"If Halverson loses his nerve they're going to need help, and need itbefore the _Osprey_ can get out to them, " she prophesied. 

Griswold looked again, this time over the catboat's counter, and saw abig schooner, close-reefed, hauling out from a little bay on the northshore. The launch's plight had evidently impressed others with thenecessity of doing something. The need was sufficiently urgent. Onceagain the Swedish man of machinery in charge of the craft in peril wasinching his helm up in a vain endeavor to hold the course, and thelittle steamer was rolling almost funnel under. Griswold forgot that hiscompanion was a woman and swore rabidly. 

"Look at the fool!" he yelled. "He's trying to come about! If he getsinto the trough----"

The thing was done almost as he spoke. A wilder squall than any of thepreceding ones caught the upper works of the launch and heeled herspitefully. At the critical instant the steersman lost his head andspun the wheel, and it was all over. With a heaving plunge and a muffledexplosion the launch was gone. 

Once again Griswold was given to see the stuff Margery Grierson was madeof in the finer warp and woof of her. 

"That's for us, " she said calmly; and then: "Help me get another inch ortwo on this sheet. We don't want to let those people on the _Osprey_ doall of the heroic things. "

Together they held the catboat down to its work, sending it rippingthrough the crested waves and fighting sturdily for every foot of theprecious windward advantage. None the less, it was the big schooner, thrashing down the wind with every square yard of its reefed canvasdrawing, which was first at the scene of disaster. Through the rain andspume they could see the schooner's crew picking up the shipwreckedpassengers, who were clinging to life-belts, broken bulkheads, andanything that would float. So swiftly was the rescue effected that therescuer had luffed and filled and was tearing on its way down the lakeagain when the close-hauled _Clytie_ came up with the first of thefloating wreckage. The tiller maiden's dark eyes were shining again, butthis time their brightness was of tears. 

"Oh, boy, boy!" she cried, with a little heart-broken catch in hervoice; "some of them must have gone down with her! Can you believe thatthe _Osprey_ got them all?" And then, with the sweet lips trembling: "Idid my best, Kenneth; my very best: and--it wasn't--good enough!"

She was putting the catboat up into the wind, and Griswold stumbledforward 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 outof reach. Hold her there--steady--steady!" He had thrown himself flat, face down, on the half-deck forward and was clutching at something inthe heaving seas. "I've got him!" he cried, and a moment later he wasworking his way aft, holding the man's face out of water. 

It asked for their united strength to get the gray-haired, heavy-bodiedvictim of the capsize over the _Clytie's_ rail. They had to bring thelife-belt too; the old man's fingers were sunk into it with a dying gripthat could not be broken. At first Griswold was too much preoccupied andshocked to recognize the drawn face with its hard-lined mouth and longupper lip. When he did recognize it the gripping fear was at hisheart--the fear that makes a cruel coward of the hunted thing in allnature. 

What might have happened if he had been alone; if Margery, taking herplace at the tiller and busying herself swiftly in getting the catboatunder way again, had not been looking on; he dared not think. And thatother frightful thought he put away, fighting against it madly as acondemned man might push the cup of hemlock from his lips. Forciblybreaking the drowned one's hold upon the life-belt, he fell to workenergetically, resorting to the first-aid expedients for the reviving ofthe drowned as he had learned them in his boyhood. Once, only, he flunga 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 nota murderer!--he's coming back! he's breathing again!"

A little later he was able to leave off the first-aid arm-pumpings andchest-pressings; to straighten the limp and sprawling limbs, and to diveinto the cuddy cabin, under Margery's directions, for blankets and rugs. When all was done that could be done, and he had propped theblanket-swathed body with the cushions so that the crash and plunge ofthe pitching catboat would be minimized for the sufferer, he went aft tosit beside the helmswoman, who was getting the final wave-leap of speedout of the little vessel. 

"He is alive?" she asked. 

"Yes; and that is about all that can be said. He isn't drowned; but heis old, and the shock has gone pretty near to snapping the thread. "

"Of course, you remember him?" she said, looking away across the leapingwaters. 

Griswold, with his heart on fire with generous emotions, felt the coldhand 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 catboatwas rushing in long plunges through the entrance to the Wahaskan arm ofthe 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 wassafely made, Miss Grierson took command and issued her orders briskly. 

"Four of you carry Mr. Galbraith up to the house, and you, Thorsen, putBaldur into the two-wheeled trap and be ready to go for Doctor Farnhamwhen I tell you where you can find him. Johnnie Fergus, you come hereand 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 ofthe rescued one opened slowly to fix a stony gaze upon the face of theman who was bending over him. What the thin lips were muttering Griswoldheard, and so did one other. "So it's you, is it, ye murdering blue-eyeddeevil?" And then: "Eh, man, man, but I'm sick!"

Griswold walked with Margery at the tail of the little procession as itwound 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 werebeginning to break away in the west, when Griswold, obeying Margery'surging to go home and change his clothes, turned his back upon Meresideand his face toward a future of thickening doubts and unnervingpossibilities. 

Once more he found himself wrestling with the keeper of the gate, theangel of the flaming sword set to drive him forth among the outcasts. One by one the confidently imagined safeguards were crumbling. He hadbeen traced to Wahaska--so much could be read between the lines ofCharlotte Farnham's story; if Margery's newsboy protégé was to bebelieved, he was watched and followed. And now, after havingsuccessfully passed the ordeal of a face-to-face meeting andhand-shaking with Andrew Galbraith, chance or destiny or the powers ofdarkness had intervened, and a danger met and vanquished had beensuddenly brought to life again, armed and menacing. 

Griswold had not deceived himself, nor had he allowed Margery's apparentconvincement to deceive him. The old man's mind had not been wanderingin the eye-opening moment of consciousness regained. On the contrary, what he had failed to do under ordinary and conventional conditions hadbecome instantly possible when the plunge into the dark shadow hadbrushed away all the artificial becloudings of the memory page. Whataction he would take when he should recover was as easy to prefigure asit was, for the present at least, a matter negligible. The dismayingthing was that the broad earth seemed too narrow to hide in; thatinvention itself became the clumsiest of blunderers when, it was giventhe simple task of losing a single individual among the millions ofunrelated human atoms. 

Thus the threat of the peril which might be called the physical. Butbeyond this there was another, and, for a man of temperament, a stillmore ominous foreshadowing of evil to come. Of some subtle, deep-seatedchange in himself he had long been conscious. Again and again it hadmanifested itself in those moments of craven fear and ruthless, murderous promptings, when kindliness, gratitude, love, all thehumanizing motives, had turned suddenly to frenzied hatred, and theprimitive savage had leaped up, fiercely raging with the blood-lust. 

Here, again, he suffered loss, and was conscious of it. The point ofview was changed, and still changing. Something, a thing indefinable, but none the less real, had gone out of him. Once, in the heart of athick darkness of squalor and misery, he had seen a great light and thename of it was love for his kind. But now the light was waning, and inits 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 thebale-fires. But the breaker of traditions was of those who, having onceseen the light, must follow where it leads or violate a primal law ofbeing. Some vague sense of this was stirring the dying embers for theproletary 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 andchange, Griswold sat at his writing-table with his head in his hands, thinking in monotonous circles. As in those other stressful moments, theimportunate devil was at his ear; now mocking him for not having leftthe drowned enemy as he was; now whispering the dreadful hope that ageand the shock and the drowning might still re-erect the barrier ofsafety. The eyes of the recusant grew hot and a loathsome fever ransluggishly through his veins when he realized the depths to which he haddescended; that he, once the brother-loving, could coldly weigh thechance of life and death for another and be unable to find in any cornerof 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 notremember two minutes after she had gone down. But to make a fourth withthe motherly widow and her two bank clerks at the cheerful dinner-tablewas a thing beyond him. Somewhat later he heard the two young men comeupstairs, and, still further along, go down again. They were socialsouls, his two fellow lodgers; kindly young fellows with boyish facesand honest eyes: Griswold wondered if they would still look up to himand defer to him as the older man of broader culture if they couldknow. .. . 

The tiny chiming clock on his dressing-case in the adjoining bedroom hadtinkled forth its ten tapping hammer strokes when the man sitting in thedark heard the pounding of hoofs and the rattling of buggy wheels in thequiet street. He was absently awaking to the fact that the vehicle hadstopped 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 ahard-pressed breaker of the traditions at such a moment an unannouncedvisitor, coming up in the dark, could mean but one thing. Griswoldsilently opened a drawer in the writing-table and groped for the mate tothe quick-firing pistol which, after the change of wet clothing, he hadput aside to dry. 

The visitor came heavily upstairs, and Griswold, swinging his chair toface the open door, saw the shadowy bulking of the man as he camethrough the upper hall. When the bulk filled the doorway it was coveredby 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 closingsoftly. Then Griswold said: "No; I'm not asleep. Come in. Shall I lightthe gas?"

"Not for me, " returned the bedtime visitor, entering and groping for thechair at the desk-end, into which, when he had placed it, he droppedwearily. "I want to smoke, " he went on. "Have you got a cigar--no, notthe pipe; I want something that I can chew on. "

A cigar was found, in the drawer which had so lately furnished theweapon, and by the flare of the match in Raymer's fingers Griswold saw aface haggard with anxiety. In the kindlier days it had been one of hisredeeming characteristics that he could never dwell long upon his ownharassments 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 flatincrease of twenty per cent in wages to-morrow morning, and declare forthe 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 newmen needed. We've always had the open shop, as you know, and it was allright so long as we were too small for the unions to scrap about. Butnow we get the Iron Workers' ultimatum: we can do as we please aboutthe profit-sharing; but the flat increase must go on the pay-rolls, andthe shop must be run as a closed shop. "

If the god of mischance had chosen the moment it could not have beenmore opportune for the fire-lighting of malevolence. Griswold'sswing-chair righted itself with a click, and Bainbridge's prophecy thata hot-hearted proletary was likely to become the hardest of mastersbecame a prediction fulfilled. 

"We'll see them in hell, first, Raymer! Isn't that the way you feelabout it?"

"Partly, " allowed the smoker. "But it can hardly be disposed of thateasily, Kenneth. A good third of the men are our old standbys; men whowere in the shops under my father. Some pretty powerful influence hasbeen brought to bear upon them to swing them against us. I don't knowwhat it is, but I do know this: every second man we have hired latelyhas turned out to be either a loud-mouthed agitator or a silent mixer oftrouble medicine. "

"Let the causes go for the present, " said Griswold shortly. "We'retalking about the men, now. The ungrateful beggars are merely provingthat it isn't in human nature to meet justice and fairness and generousliberality half-way. If they want a fight, give it to them. Hit firstand hit hard; that's the way to do. Shut up the plant and make it alock-out. "

"I was afraid you might say something like that in the first heat ofit, " said the young ironmaster. "It's a stout fighting word, and Iguess, under the skin, you're a stout fighting man, Kenneth--which I'mnot. Where are your convictions about the man-to-man obligations? We'vegot to take them into the account, haven't we?"

"Damn the convictions!" snapped Griswold viciously. "If I've been givingyou the impression that I'm an impracticable theorist, forget it. Thesefellows want a fight: I say give them a fight--all they want of it and alittle more for good measure. "

Raymer did not reply at once. This latest Griswold was puzzling him, andwith the puzzlement there went sorrowful regret; the regret that hasbeen the recanter's portion in all the ages. When he spoke it was out ofthe heart of common sense and sanity. 

"I know how you feel about it; I had a little attack of the same sortthis afternoon when the grievance committee dropped down on me. Butfacts are pretty stubborn things, and they've got us foul. We havetwenty thousand dollars' worth of work for the Pineboro road on the shoptracks, and the trouble-makers have picked their opportunity. If wecan't turn out this work, we'll lose the Pineboro's business, which, asI have told you, is a pretty big slice of our business. Under suchconditions I don't dare to pull down a fight which may not only shut usup 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 hisvoice, 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 notto fight, of course, that settles it. Now we can come down to thecauses. 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. " Thetilting chair squeaked again, and he went on: "If I'm going to show youhow you can dodge this fight, I'll have to knock down a door or twofirst. If I blunder in where I'm not wanted, you can kick me out. Thereis one way in which you can cure all this trouble-sickness withoutresorting to surgery and blood-letting. "

"Name it, " said Raymer eagerly. 

"I will; but first I'll have to break over into the personalities. Haveyou made up your mind that you are going to marry Margery Grierson?"

Raymer laughed silently, leaning his head back on the cushion of thelazy-chair until his cigar stood upright. 

"That's a nice way to biff a man in the dark!" he chuckled. "But ifyou're in earnest I'll tell you the straightforward truth: I don'tknow. "

"Why don't you know?" If there were a scowl to go with the query, Raymercould not see it. 

"I'll be frank with you again, Kenneth. What little sentiment there isin me leans pretty heavily that way. You have been with her a good bitand you know her--know how she appeals to any man with a drop of redblood in him. But I'm twenty-eight years old and well past the timewhen the young man's fancy lightly turns--and all that. I can't ignorethe--the--well, the proprieties, you might say, though that isn'texactly the word. "

"You mean that Margery Grierson doesn't measure up to the requirementsof the Wahaskan Four Hundred?" There was satirical scorn in theobservation, 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 afamily, you have to look at all sides of the thing. The father, as weall know, is a cold-blooded old werewolf; the mother nobody knowsanything 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'mtempted to shut my eyes and take the high dive, anyway--at the risk ofsplashing a lot of good people who would doubtless be properlyscandalized. "

By this time Griswold was gripping the arms of his chair savagely andotherwise trying to hold himself down; but this, too, Raymer could notknow. 

"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 onlywaiting for you to speak?"

"That's a horrible question to ask a man, Kenneth--even in the dark. IfI say yes to it, it can't sound any other way than boastful and--andcaddish. Yet I honestly believe that-- Oh, hang it all! can't you seehow 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 shoptrouble for you, Raymer. When you can go to Jasper Grierson and tell himyou are going to marry his daughter, the trouble will be as good ascured. "

For a little time Raymer was speechless. Then he burst out. 

"Well, I'll be-- Jove, Griswold, you don't lack much of being ascold-blooded as the old buccaneer himself! What makes you think he isstirring up the trouble?"

"It doesn't require any special thought. He wanted to freeze you out alittle while back, and you balked him. Now he has come back at youanother way. "

"I wonder!" said the iron-founder musingly; and then: "I more than halfbelieve you are right. But if you are, do you realize what you areproposing?"

"I am not proposing anything; I am merely suggesting. But you needn'tput in the factor of doubt. This labor trouble that is threatening tosmash you is Jasper Grierson's reply to the move you made when you letme in and choked him off. He is reaching for you. "

Again Raymer held his peace and the atmosphere of the room grew pungentwith 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 theposition of the poor devil who would be damned if he did and be damnedif he didn't. You have succeeded in fixing it so that I _can't_ askMargery Grierson to be my wife, however much I'd like to. "

"That isn't the point, " insisted Griswold half-savagely. "How you mayfeel about it, or what your people may say, is purely secondary. Thething 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 beputting 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 anyfather--better, perhaps. As God hears me, Raymer, I'm going to see to itthat she gets a square deal. "

"In other words, if she has made up her clever little mind that shewants 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 meyet. 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 mygoose at Doctor Bertie's; that you and Charlotte are just about as goodas 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 littlegarden-patch, Kenneth. If you think I'm going to stand still and see youput a wedding ring on Charlotte Farnham's finger when I know you'd liketo 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, " hesuggested mildly. And then: "If you were not so badly torn up over thisshop trouble, you'd see that I'm trying to give you the entire field. Ishall probably leave town to-morrow, and I merely wanted to do you, orMiss 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 itglowed 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 tellme that you are going away, leaving me bucked and gagged by this laboroutfit 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 hangon to it; and I have pointed out the easy way to salvage the industrialship. 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 notthe 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 youmy word that neither Miss Margery nor Miss Charlotte are in any wayconcerned 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'vebeen a brother to me, Griswold, and I shall never forget that. But if Ineeded your help in the money pinch, I'm needing it worse now. I'll dothe right thing by Margery; I think I've been meaning to, all along; ifI haven't, it's only because this whole town has been fixing up a matchbetween Charlotte and me ever since we were school kids together--youknow how a fellow gets into the way of taking a thing like that forgranted merely because everybody else does?"

"Yes; I know. "

"Well, I guess it isn't a heart-breaker on either side. If Charlottecares, she doesn't take the trouble to show it. Just the same, on theother hand, I've got a shred or two of decency left, Kenneth. I'm notgoing to marry myself out of this fight with Jasper Grierson--not in amillion years. Stay over and help me see it through; and when we winout, I promise you I'll do the square thing. "

By no means could Edward Raymer know that he had set the whisperingdevil at work again at the ear of the man who was rocking gently in thedesk-chair. But the demon was busily suggesting, and the man waslistening. Was there not more than an even chance that Andrew Galbraithwould die, after all? He was old, with the life-reserves spent and theweight of the years upon him. And if he should not die, there was stilla chance that days might elapse before he would be able to gatherhimself sufficiently to remember and to raise the hue and cry. Griswoldput a hot hand across the corner of the table and felt for Raymer's coolone. 

"There's only one other way, Edward; and that is to fight like thedevil, " he said, speaking as one who has weighed and measured anddecided. "What do you say?"

"If you will stay, " Raymer began, hesitantly. 

"I'll stay--as long as I can. " Then, with the note of harshnessreturning: "We'll make the fight, and we'll give these muckers of yoursall they are looking for. Shut the plant doors to-morrow morning andmake it a lock-out. I'll be over bright and early and we'll place abunch of wire orders in the cities for strike-breakers. That will bringthem to time. "

Raymer got up slowly and felt in the dark for his hat. 

"Strike-breakers!" he groaned. "Griswold, it would make my father turnover in his coffin if he could know that we've come to that! But I guessyou'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? Allright; good-night. "

And he turned to grope his way to the door and through the dark upperhall and down the stair. 

XXXI

NARROWING WALLS

When Griswold had reached across the corner of his writing-table in theunlighted study to strike hands with Edward Raymer upon the promise tostay and help, it is conceivable that he gave the impelling motive itsjust due. To step aside was to become a fugitive, leaving a fugitive'splain trail and half-confession of guilt behind him to direct thepursuit. To stay and face the crisis coldly was equally out of thequestion for a man of temperament. The call to action came as a draughtof fiery wine to the overspent and he accepted in a sudden upsurge ofself-centring that took nothing into the account save the welcomeexcitement of a conflict. 

It was with rather more than less of the self-centring that he joinedthe conference with Raymer and the shop bosses in the offices of theplant the following morning. Having slept upon the quarrel, Raymer wason the conciliatory hand, and four of the five department foremen werewith him. In the early hours of the forenoon a compromise was stillpossible. The prompt closing of the shops had had its effect, and adeputation of the older workmen came to plead for arbitration and apeaceful settlement of the trouble. Raymer, who had evidently beentaking counsel with his womankind, would have consented to thisproposal, but Griswold fought it and finally carried his point. "Nocompromise" was the answer sent back to the locked-out workmen, and withit went the ultimatum, which Griswold himself snapped out at the leaderof the conciliators: "Tell your committee that it is unconditionalsurrender, 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 headsdrew their pay-envelopes and went away. Then Griswold proceeded to makethe breach impassable by calling upon the sheriff for a guard ofdeputies. Raymer shook his head gloomily when the thrower of firebrandssent 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 prophesyingthat nobody will weaken when it comes to the pay-roll test thisafternoon. "

"Because we have taken steps to protect our property?" rasped thefighting partner. 

"Because we have taken the step which serves notice upon them that weconsider them criminals, at least in intention. You'd resent ityourself, Griswold. If anybody should pull the law on you before you haddone anything to deserve it, I'm much mistaken if you wouldn't----"

"Oh, hell!" was the biting interruption; and Raymer could not know uponwhat inward fires he had unwittingly flung a handful of inflammables. 

It was during the paying-off interval in the afternoon that Broffinstrolled across the railroad tracks, and, after listening to one or twoof the incendiary speeches at the storm-centre mass meeting in front ofMcGuire's, went on past the potteries to the Raymer plant. 

Several things had happened since the afternoon when he had sat behindthe sheltering window curtain in the writing-room of the summer-resorthotel listening to Miss Grierson's story. For one, Teller Johnson, ofthe Bayou State Security, had pleaded his inability to leave his postunless ordered to do so by the president: the cashier was sick and thebank was short-handed. For another, there had been a peppery protestentered by the good Doctor Bertie--transformed for the moment into anexasperated Doctor Bertie. If Broffin did not quit his annoyingespionage upon the house in Lake Boulevard, and upon the visitorsthereto, there was going to be trouble, and he, Doctor Bertie, would bethe trouble-maker. For a third untoward thing, he had found that Wahaskaas a community was beginning to look a little askance at him. Thevillage consciousness which had made it so easy for him to find out allhe wished to know about everybody was turning against him, and now, asit seemed, everybody was wishing to know more than he cared to tellabout the past, present, and future concerns of one Matthew Broffin: inshort, he was becoming a suspicious character. 

Broffin the pertinacious, again with an unlighted cigar between histeeth, was ruminating thoughtfully over these things when he came insight of the closed gates and smokeless chimneys of the Foundry andMachine Works. Once more the scent had grown cold. Miss Grierson's storyhad seemed to clear Griswold--if anything short of a court acquittalcould clear him; and in the peppery interview Doctor Farnham had toldhim plainly that, if Mr. Griswold were the object of his attentions, hewas barking up the wrong tree; that Miss Farnham would, if necessary, gointo court and testify that Mr. Griswold was not the man whom she hadseen in the Bayou State Security. Also, Griswold was doing something forhimself. It was he who had pulled Mr. Galbraith out of the lake littlebetter than a dead man, and had brought him to life again; and now hewas taking an active part in the foundry fight--about the last thingthat might be expected of a man dodging the police. 

In spite of all these buffetings the man from Tennessee was onlybruised; not beaten. It is possible to be convinced without evidence; tobelieve without being able to prove. Also, convincement may grow intocertainty as the evidence to support it becomes altogether incertitude. Broffin was as sure now that Griswold was his man as he was of his ownpresent inability to prove it. Which is to say that he had discountedMiss Farnham's refusal to help, and President Galbraith's refusal toremember; was discounting Miss Grierson's skilfully told story, andGriswold's breaking of all the criminal precedents by staying on inWahaska after he had been warned. For Broffin made no doubt that thewarning had been given, either by Miss Farnham or by Miss Grierson--orboth. 

"All the same, he'll make a miss-go, sooner or later, " the pertinaciousone was saying to himself as he strolled past the Raymer plant with akeen eye for the barred gates, the lounging guards in the yard, and thesober-faced workmen coming and going at the pay-office. "If he can carrya steady head through what's comin' to him here, he's a better man thanI've been stacking him up to be. "

Coming even with the grouping around the office door, Broffin sat downon a discarded cylinder casting, chewed his dry smoke, whittled a stick, and kept an open ear for the sidewalk talk. It was angrily vindictivefor the greater part, with the new member of the Raymer company for atarget. Now and then it was threatening. If the company should attemptto 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 apaste diamond in his shirt bosom, came to join the shifting group on theoffice sidewalk. Broffin marked him as one of the inflammatory speakershe had seen and heard on the dry-goods-box rostrum in front ofMcGuire's, and had since been trying to place. The nearer view turnedup 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 manwith a "pull. " Broffin remembered the "pull" because it had once got inhis way when he was trying to bag Clancy for a violation of the revenuelaws. 

Instantly the detective began to speculate upon the chance that hadbrought the Chicago ward bully into a village labor fight, and since itwas his business to put two and two together, he was not long in findingthe answer to his own query. Clancy had come because he had been hiredto come. Assuming this much, the remainder was easy. The town gossipshad supplied all the major facts of the Raymer-Grierson checkmate, andBroffin saw a great light. It was not labor and capital that were atodds; it was competition and monopoly. And monopoly, invoking the aid ofthe 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 maystill be a man of like passions--and generous prepossessions--with othermen. For the time Broffin's Anglo-Saxon heritage, the love of fair play, made him forget the limitations of his trade. "By grapples, the oldswine!" he was muttering to himself as he made a slow circuit of theplant enclosure. "Somebody ought to tell them two young ducks whatthey're up against. For a picayune, I'd do it, myself. Huh!--and thelittle black-eyed girl playin' fast an' loose with both of 'em at oncewhile the old money-octippus eats 'em alive!"

Thus Broffin, circling the Raymer works by way of the four enclosingstreets; and when his back was turned the man called Clancy pointed himout to the group of discontents. 

"D'ye see that felly doublin' the fence corner? Ye're a fine lot of jaysup 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 seehim sittin' there on that castin'? Th' bosses put him there to keeptricks on ye. If ye have the nerve of a bunch of hoboes, ye'll watch yerchances 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 andshipwreck, it found itself the scene of an angry conflict betweencapital and labor. 

Reports varied as to the origin of the trouble. Among the retiredfarmers, who still called Raymer "Eddie" and spoke of him as "JohnRaymer's boy, " it was the generally expressed opinion that he was bothtoo young and too easy-going to be a successful industry captain in thelarger field he had lately entered. In the workingmen's quarter, whichlay principally beyond the railroad tracks, public opinion was lesslenient and the young ironmaster, figuring hitherto only as a good bosswith a few unnecessary college ideas, was denounced as a "kid-glove"reformer who made his profit-sharing fad an excuse for advancing hisfavorites, and who was accordingly to be "brought to time" by the stronghand of the organization. 

It was a crude surprise, both to the West Side and to "Pottery Flat, " tofind the new book-writing partner not only taking an active part in thefight, but apparently directing the capitalistic hostilities with ahigh hand. Quite early in the forenoon it was known on the street thatGriswold had taken the field with Raymer; that the lock-out was hisreply to the strike notice; and that it was at his suggestion that adozen deputies had been sworn in to guard the Raymer plant--the ironworks lying just outside of the corporation lines. A little later camethe news that he had sent a counter ultimatum to the representatives ofthe labor forces sitting in permanence in their hall over McGuire'ssaloon. From two o'clock until five the offices of the plant would beopen, and all former employees would be paid in full and discharged. Those who failed to make application between the hours named would notbe taken back on any terms. 

From two to five in the afternoon Wahaska, figuratively speaking, heldits breath. At half-past three, young Dahlgren, of the _Daily Wahaskan_, spoiled a good story for his own paper by spreading the report that mostof the men had sullenly drawn their pay, but as yet not a man of themhad signed on for further employment. At four o'clock the _DailyWahaskan's_ windows bore a bulletin to the effect that a massindignation 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 menwere swearing that the plant would be picketed and that scabs would bedealt with as traitors and enemies. 

It was between half-past four and five that Miss Grierson, driving inthe basket phaeton, made her appearance on the streets, evoking theusual ripple of comment among the gossipers on the Winnebago porch asshe tooled her clean-limbed little Morgan to a stop in front of theFarmers' and Merchants' Bank. 

Since it was long past the closing hours, the curtains were drawn in thebank doors and street-facing windows. But there was a side entrance, andwhen she tapped on the glass of the door an obsequious janitor madehaste to admit her. "Yo' paw's busy, right now, Miss Mahg'ry, " the negrosaid; but she ignored the hint and went straight to the door of theprivate room, entering without warning. 

As the janitor had intimated, her father was not alone. In the chair atthe desk-end sat a man florid of face, hard-eyed and gross-bodied. Hishat was on the back of his head, and clamped between his teeth under thebristling mustaches he held one of Jasper Grierson's fat black cigars. The conference paused when the door opened; but when Margery crossed theroom and perched herself on the deep seat of the farthest window, itwent on in guarded tones at a silent signal from the banker to hisvisitor. 

There was a trade journal lying in the window-seat, and Miss Griersontook it up to become idly immersed in a study of the advertisingpictures. If she listened to the low-toned talk it was onlymechanically, one would say. Yet there was a quickening of the breathnow and again, and a pressing of the white teeth upon the ripe lowerlip, as she turned the pages of the advertising supplement; these, though only detached sentences of the talk drifted across to herwindow-seat. 

"You're fixed to put the entire responsibility for the ruction over ontothe other side of the house?" was one of the overheard sentences: it washer 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, mostlikely, and if they're ours, somebody'll pay for 'em. " A little fartheralong it was her father who said: "You've got to quit this running tome. Keep to your own side of the fence. Murray's got his orders, andhe'll pay the bills. If anything breaks loose, I won't know you. Getthat?" "I'm on, " said the red-faced man; and shortly afterward he tookhis leave. 

When the door had closed behind the man who looked like a ward heeler ora walking delegate, and who had been both, and many other and morequestionable things, by turns, Jasper Grierson swung his huge chair toface the window. 

"Well?" he said, "how's Galbraith coming along?"

"There is no change, " was the sober rejoinder. "He is still lying in ahalf-stupor, just as he was last night and this morning. Doctor Farnhamshakes his head and won't say anything. "

"You mustn't let him die, " warned the man in the big chair, halfjocularly. "There's too much money in him. "

The smouldering fires in the daughter's eyes leaped up at theprovocation lurking in the grim brutality; but they were dying downagain when she put the trade journal aside and said: "I didn't come hereto tell you about Mr. Galbraith. I came to give you notice that it istime 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-partystake 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 Igave you the word. "

The president of the Farmers' and Merchants' tilted his chair to thelounging angle and laughed; a slow gurgling laugh that spread from lipto eye and thence abroad through his great frame until he shook like agrotesque incarnation of the god of mirth. 

"I was to turn around and help him out of the hole, was I? Oh, no; Iguess not, " he denied. "It's business now, little girl, and thetea-fights are barred. I'll give you a check for that span o' blacks youwere 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 ofyours--if that's what you mean. "

Again the sudden lightning glowed in Margery Grierson's eyes, but, asbefore, the flash was only momentary. There was passion enough in bloodand 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 youwouldn't come out o' that pool with the hook in your mouth. But youmight as well pull loose, even if it does hurt a little. Raymer andGriswold have got to come under. "

She looked across at him steadily and again there was a struggle, shortand sharp, between the leaping passions and the indomitable will. Yetshe 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?" sheasked. 

Jasper Grierson fanned away the nimbus of cigar smoke with which he hadsurrounded himself and stared gloomily at her through the rift. 

"Who said anything about hating?" he derided. "That's a fool woman'snotion. This is business, and there ain't any such thing as hate inbusiness. Raymer's iron-shop happens to be in the road of a biggerthing, 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 despiseit all!"

"Oh, no, you don't, " he contradicted, falling back into the half-jocularvein. "You're a pretty good spender, yourself, Madgie. If you didn'thave plenty of money to eat and drink and wear and breathe----"

"I hate it!" she said coldly. Then she dragged the talk back to thechannel it was leaving. "I ought to have broken in sooner; I might haveknown what you would do. You are responsible for this labor trouble theyare having over at the iron works. Don't bother to deny it; I know. Thatwas your 'heeler'--the man you had here when I came. You don't play fairwith many people: don't you think you'd better make an exception of me?"

Grierson was mouthing his cigar again and the smoky nimbus wasthickening to its customary density when he said: "You're nothing but aspoiled baby, Madge. If you'd cry for the moon, you'd think you ought tohave it. I've said my say, and that's all there is to it. Trot alonghome and 'tend to your tea-parties: that's your part of the game. I canplay my hand alone. "

She slipped out of the window-seat and crossed the room quickly to standbefore him. 

"I'll go, when you have answered one question, " she said, the suppressedpassions finding their way into her voice. "I've asked for bread andyou've given me a stone. I've said 'please' to you, and you slapped mefor 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-tonedrejoinder. 

"Don't you? Then I'll tell you. You have been pinching this town for thelion's share ever since we came here--shaking it down as you used toshake down the"--she broke off short, and again the indomitable will gotthe better of the seething passions. "We'll let the by-gones go, andcome down to the present. What if some of the things you are doing hereand 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 ofthis disgraceful piece of buccaneering, telling how you tried first tosqueeze him through the bank loan, and when that failed, how you bribedhis workmen to make trouble?"

"You go to Randolph and try it, " said the gray wolf, jeeringly. "In thefirst place, he wouldn't believe it--coming from you. He wouldn't forgetthat you're my daughter, however much you are trying to forget it. Inthe next place he'd want proof--damned good proof--if he was going tomake a fight on me. He'd know that one of two things would happen; if hefailed to get me, I'd get him. "

The daughter who had asked for bread and had been given a stone put herface in her hands and moved toward the door. But at the last moment sheturned again like a spiteful little tiger-cat at bay. 

"You think I can't prove it? That is where you fall down. I can convinceMr. Randolph if I choose to try. And that isn't all: I can tell him howyou have planned to sell Mr. Galbraith a tract of 'virgin' pine that hasbeen culled over for the best timber at least three times in the pastfive years!"

Jasper Grierson started from his chair and made a quick clutch intosmoky space. "Madge--you little devil!" he gritted. 

But the grasping hands closed upon nothing, and the sound of the closingdoor was his only answer. 

 * * * * *

When she had unhitched the little Morgan and had driven away from thebank, Miss Grierson did a thing unprecedented in any of her formergrapplings with a crisis--she hesitated. Twice she drove down SiouxAvenue with the apparent intention of stopping at the _Daily Wahaskan_building, and twice she went on past with no more than an irresoluteglance for the upper windows beyond which lay the editorial rooms andthe office of Mr. Carter Randolph, the owner of the newspaper. But onthe third circuit of the square, decision had evidently come to its ownagain. Turning the mare into Main Street, she drove quickly to theWinnebago House and drew up at the carriage step. A bell-boy ran out tohold the horse, but she shook her head and called him to the wheel ofthe phaeton to slip a coin into his hand and to give him a briefmessage. 

Two minutes after the boy's disappearance, Broffin came out and touchedhis 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, areyou 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 thesmile in the inquiring eyes. 

"How curious!" she commented. 

Broffin's smile became a grin of triumph. "There's a heap o' curiousthings in this little old world, " he volunteered. "What?"

"But none quite so singular as this, " she averred. Then she laughedsoftly. "You see, it resolves itself into a question ofveracity--between you and Mr. Andrew Galbraith. You say you are not, andhe says you are. Which am I to believe?"

Broffin did some pretty swift thinking. There had been times when hehad fancied that Miss Grierson, rather than Miss Farnham, might be thekey to his problem. There was one chance in a thousand that she mightinadvertently put the key into his hands if he should play his cardsskilfully, and he took the chance. 

"You can call it a mistake of mine, if you like, " he yielded; and shenodded brightly. 

"That is better; now we can go on comfortably. Are you too busy to takea little commission from me?"

"Maybe not. What is it?" He was looking for a trap, and would not commithimself too broadly. 

"There are two things that I wish to know definitely. Of course, youhave heard about the accident on the lake? Mr. Galbraith is at ourhouse, and he is very ill--out of his head most of the time. He iscontinually trying to tell some one whom he calls 'MacFarland' to becareful. Do you know any one of that name?"

Broffin put a foot on the phaeton step and a hand on the dash. Therewere loungers on the hotel porch and it was not necessary for them tohear. 

"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 becareful 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' onbuying some pine lands up north. "

"I know that much. Go on. "

"And he has sent MacFarland up to verify the boundary records on thecounty 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 bethe lands which Mr. Galbraith is talking of buying. I want evidence ofthis--in black and white. Can you telegraph to some one in Duluth?"

Broffin permitted himself a small sigh of relief. He thought he had seenthe 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 keephis mouth shut. "

She nodded approvingly. 

"Do it; and tell your messenger that time is precious and expensedoesn't count. That is the first half of your commission. Come a littlecloser and I'll tell you the second half. "

Broffin bent his head and she whispered the remainder of hisinstructions. When she had finished he looked up and wagged his headapprehendingly. 

"Yes; I see what you mean--and it's none o' my business what you meanit for, " he answered. "I'll get the evidence, if there is any. "

"It must be like the other; in black and white, " she stipulated. "Andyou needn't say 'if. ' Look for a red-faced man with stiff mustaches anda 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 jurybusiness about it, is there?" he questioned; adding: "I know yourman--saw him this afternoon over at the plant. He's goin' to be a toughcustomer to handle unless I can tell him there ain't goin' to be anycome-back in the courts. "

Miss Grierson was opening her purse and she passed a yellow-backedbank-note to her newest confederate. 

"Your retainer, " she explained. "And about the red-faced man: we sha'n'ttake him into court. But I'd rather you wouldn't buy him, if you canhelp it. Can't you get him like this, some way?"--she held up a thumband 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, MissGrierson, " 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 turnup some things that'll feaze you. You know that old sayin' aboutsleepin' dogs?"

Miss Grierson was gathering the reins over the little Morgan's back andher black eyes snapped. 

"This is one time when we are going to kick the dogs and make them wakeup, " she returned. "Good-by, Mr. Broffin. "

XXXIII

GATES OF BRASS

It was an hour beyond the normal quitting time on the day of ultimatumsand counter-threatenings, the small office force had gone home, and thenight squad of deputies had come to relieve the day guard. Griswoldclosed the spare desk in the manager's room and twirled his chair toface Raymer. 

"We may as well go and get something to eat, " he suggested. "There willbe 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 anew 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: "Whatwe'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 callingyou a benevolent Socialist, and my only fear was that you might sometime want to reorganize things and turn the plant into a little sectionof 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 theirminds, " 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 ofsilence. Each was busy with his own thoughts, and it was not until afterthe coffee had been served that Griswold leaned across the table to callRaymer's attention to a man who was finishing his meal in a distantcorner of the dining-room, a swarthy-faced man who drank his coffee withthe meat course to the unpleasant detriment of a pair of long droopingmustaches. 

"Wait a minute before you look around, and then tell me who that fellowis 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 gavehimself 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 somethinglike that. They're beginning to say now that he isn't a lumberman atall--just why, I don't know. "

Griswold's right hand stole softly to his hip pocket. The touch wasreassuring. But a little while after, when he was leaving thedining-room with Raymer, he dropped behind and made a quick transfer ofsomething from the hip pocket to the side pocket of his coat. His handwas still in the coat pocket when he parted from the young iron-founderon 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 motherand 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 intocourt and ask for a receiver. Good-night. "

Though he had not betrayed it, Griswold was fiercely impatient to getaway. One tremendous question had been dominating all others from theearliest moment of the morning awakening, and all day long it had fedupon doubtings and uncertainty. Would Andrew Galbraith recover from theeffects of the drowning accident? At first, he thought he would go tohis room and telephone to Margery. But before he had reached the foot ofShawnee Street he had changed his mind. What he wanted to say couldscarcely be trusted to the wires. 

Twice before he reached the gate of the Grierson lawn he fancied he wasfollowed, and twice he stepped behind the nearest shade-tree andtightened his grip upon the thing in his right-hand pocket. But bothtimes the rearward sidewalk showed itself empty. Since false alarms mayhave, for the moment, all the shock of the real, he found that his handswere trembling when he came to unlatch the Grierson gate, and it madehim vindictively self-scornful. Also, it gave him a momentary glimpseinto another and hitherto unmeasured depth in the valley of stumblings. In the passing of the glimpse he was made to realize that it is thecoward who kills; and kills because he is a coward. 

He had traversed the stone-flagged approach and climbed the steps of thebroad veranda to reach for the bell-push when he heard his name calledsoftly in the voice that he had come to know in all of its manymodulations. The call came from the depths of one of the great wickerlounging-chairs half-hidden in the veranda shadows. In a moment he hadplaced another of the chairs for himself, dropping into it wearily. 

"How did you know it was I?" he asked, when he could trust himself tospeak. 

"I saw you at the gate, " she returned. "Are you just up from the IronWorks?"

"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 untilwe 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, " shecorrected. 

"It's no use, " he said, answering her thought. "There is nothing in meto appeal to. "

"There was yesterday, or the day before, " she suggested. 

"Perhaps. But yesterday was yesterday, and to-day is to-day. As I toldRaymer 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 totell 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 didyesterday evening was to wire St. Paul for two trained nurses; andto-day he telegraphed Chicago for Doctor Holworthy, who chargestwenty-five dollars a minute for mere office consultations. "

"Humph!" said Griswold, "money needn't cut any figure. " And then, aftera 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 breezerustling the leaves of the lawn oaks and the lapping of tiny waves onthe lake beach. At the end of it, Griswold got up and groped for hishat. 

"I'm going home, " he said. "It has been a pretty strenuous day, andthere is another one coming. But before I go I want you to promise meone thing. Will you let me know immediately, by 'phone or messenger, ifMr. Galbraith takes a turn for the better?"

"Certainly, " she said; and she let him say good-night and get as far asthe steps before she called him back. 

"There was another thing, " she began, with the sober gravity that hecould never be sure was not one of her many poses, and not the leastalluring one. "Do you believe in God, Kenneth?"

The query took him altogether by surprise, but he made shift to answerit with becoming seriousness. 

"I suppose I do. Why?"

"It is a time to pray to Him, " she said softly; "to pray very earnestlythat 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 himto the steps. "I've had a hard day, too, Kenneth, boy, and I--I guess ithas 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 neverwholly fathom. 

"Why don't you do it?" he demanded. 

"I? oh, God doesn't know me; and, besides, I thought--oh, well, itdoesn'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 attemptshould be made to start the plant with imported workmen was amplyfulfilled during the militant week which followed the opening ofhostilities. 

The appearance of the first detachment of strike-breakers, a trampishcrew gathered up hastily by the employment agencies in the cities inresponse 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'strain only a badly frightened and cowed half-dozen won through thepersuading, jeering, threatening picket line to the offices of theplant. 

Other days followed in which the scenes of the first were repeated--withthe difference that each succeeding day saw the inevitable increase oflawlessness. From taunts and abuse the insurrectionaries passed easilyto violence. Street fights, when the trampish place-takers came in anyconsiderable numbers, were of daily occurrence, and the tale of thewounded grew like the returns from a battle. By the middle of the weekRaymer and Griswold were asking for a sheriff's posse to maintain peacein the neighborhood of the plant; and were getting their first definitehint that some one higher up was playing the game of politics againstthem. 

"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 camethe hint. "You can take it as a word from a friend that this privatescrap of yours with your men is making everybody pretty tired. First andlast, it's only a question of whether you'll pay out a little moremoney, or a little less money, not to a lot of imported hoboes, but tocertain citizens of Red Earth County, "--to which was addedsignificantly--"citizens with votes. "

"In other words, Mr. Bradford, you've got your orders from the menhigher up, have you?" rasped Griswold, who was by this time lost to allsense of expediency. 

"I don't have to reply to any such charge as that, " said the chief peaceofficer, turning back to his desk; and so the brittle little conferenceended. 

"All of which means that we shall lose the plant guard of deputies thatBradford has been maintaining, " commented Raymer, as they weredescending the Court House stairs; and again his prediction came true. Later in the day the guard was withdrawn; and Griswold, savagelyreluctant, was forced to make a concession repeatedly urged and arguedfor by the older men among the strikers, namely, that the guarding ofthe company's property be entrusted to a picked squad of theex-employees themselves. 

During these days of turmoil and rioting the transformed idealist passedthrough many stages of the journey down a certain dark and mephiticvalley not of amelioration. With the bitter industrial conflict to feedit, a slow fire within him ate its way into all the foundations, and asthe fair superstructure of character settled, the moral perpendicularsand planes of projection became more and more distorted. Fairness wasgone, and in its place stood angry resentment, ready to rend and tear. Pity and ruth were going: the daily report from Margery told of thelessening chance of life for Andrew Galbraith, and the stirrings evokedwere neither regretful nor compassionate. On the contrary, he knew verywell that the news of Galbraith's death would be a relief for which, inhis heart of hearts, he was secretly thirsting. 

It was at the close of the week of tumult that the dreadful beckoningcame. One of the two trained nurses installed at Mereside had beencalled away to the bedside of a sick father. Another had been wired forimmediately, but between the going and the coming a night wouldintervene. So much Griswold got from Margery over the Iron Workstelephone late in the afternoon of a day thickly besprinkled with thesidewalk waylayings and riotings. When he reached his Shawnee Streetlodgings at nine o'clock that night he found Miss Grierson's phaetonstanding at the curb. 

"Get in, " she said, briefly, making room for him in the basket seat. Andwhen the mare had been given the word to go: "I hope you are not tootired 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 himtalk all the way across town to the college campus; compelled him, andfound 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 hadseen Miss Farnham twice since the trouble began; she was frankly agreedwith Raymer's mother and sister; they all wanted peace, and they wereall against him. She led him on, and meanwhile they encountered onefailure after another in the nurse-hunting. The town clock was strikingthe quarter-past ten when Miss Grierson confessed that she had exhaustedthe list of possibilities. 

"I must go back at once, " she declared. "Miss Davidson--the daynurse--has been on duty constantly since six this morning, and I'm notgoing 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 Iwill, " she said calmly. And then, as if to forestall the possiblerefusal: "It is merely to sit in the next room and to go in and give himhis medicine at half-hour intervals. Either of us can do that much for apoor old man who is making his last stand in the fight for his life. "

Three days earlier, nay, one day earlier, Griswold might have recoiledin 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 nightwatch with her. One question he permitted himself, and it was not askeduntil after they had reached the darkened mansion on the lake's edge andwere 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 theouter 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 largerbottle was to be given in tea-spoonful doses on the even hour, and thatin the smaller, ten drops in a little water, on the alternatinghalf-hours. 

"It's his heart chiefly, now, " she explained, "and this drop-medicine isfor 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. Whenyou are tired, come and tap at the door of my room and I'll take whatyou leave. "

While she was speaking the softly chiming clock in the lower hall struckthe half-hour. "I'll help you give him the first dose, " she went on; andhe stood by and watched her as she dropped the heart-stimulant into aspoon and diluted it with a little water. "Come, " she said; and theywent together into the adjoining room. 

Griswold had been hardening himself deliberately to look unmoved uponwhat the shaded electric night-light in the farther room should reveal:it was nothing more terrible than the sight of a drawn face, half-hiddenin the pillows; a face in which life and death still fought for themastery as they had fought on that other day when life, unhelped, wouldhave 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 areDoctor Bertie's orders, " she said, when they had withdrawn to the outerroom. And then: "Good-night, for a little while. Don't hesitate to callme 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 himselfinto the nearest chair and covered his face with his hands. 

 * * * * *

The quarter-hour passed, and after the three mellow strokes had diedaway the silence grew slowly maddening. When inaction was no longerbearable, Griswold sprang up and went to stand at the open window. Thesummer night was hot and breathless. In the north-west a storm cloud wascreeping up into the sky, and he watched its black shadow climbing likea terrifying threat of doom out of the illimitable and blotting out thestars one by one. .. . "For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquietethhimself in vain. .. . " Out of a childhood which seemed very far away andunreal the words of the Psalmist came to ring in his ears like themuffled tolling of a passing-bell. So it must be soon for all theliving; and whether a little sooner or a little later, what could itmatter? A breath more or less to be drawn; a longer or shorterfluttering of the feeble heart; that was all. 

The clock struck eleven, and mechanically he poured out the dose fromthe larger bottle and gave it to the sick man. When it was done he leftthe 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 deepwindow-seat he was gasping for breath. It was going to be harder than hehad thought it would, though now that the time had come he realized thathe had been subconsciously planning for it, preparing for it. And themeans which had been thrust into his hands could scarcely have beensimpler. He had only to sit still and do nothing--and no one would everknow. He took up the small phial and held it to the light: ten drops, orforty drops; they would neither be missed, nor counted if they shouldremain. 

The single chiming stroke of the quarter-past struck while he wasputting the bottle down, and he started as if the mellow cadence hadbeen a pistol shot. For fifteen minutes longer he could live andbreathe and be as other men are; and after that. .. . He saw himselflooking back upon the normal world from the new view-point, as hefancied Cain might have looked back after the mark had been set upon hisbrow. Would it really make the hideous, monstrous difference that allmen seemed to think it did? He would know, presently, when the revocableshould 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 minutesdragged! He leaned his head against the window jamb and closed his eyes, striving fiercely to drive forth the thronging thoughts; to make hismind a blank. Gradually the effort succeeded. He was conscious of adull, throbbing, soothing pulse beating slow measures in his temples, and a curious roaring as of distant cataracts in his ears; and afterthat, nothing. 

 * * * * *

A tempestuous thunder shower was lashing the trees on the lawn when heawoke with a start and found Margery bending over him to close thewindow. With every nerve a needle to prick him alive he dragged out hiswatch. It was a quarter-past two. Miserably, wretchedly he pulledhimself together and stood up to face her, putting his hands on hershoulders to make her look up at him. 

"Margery, girl; do you know what I have done?--Oh, my God! I am amurderer--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--Heknows 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 whata cruel strain you've been under all these bad days. And there was noharm 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 andstretch out on the hall lounge. I'll run down and send you home as soonas it stops raining. "

XXXV

MARGERY'S ANSWER

"Well, it has come at last, " said Raymer, passing a newly opened letterof the morning delivery over to Griswold. "The railroad people aretaking their work away from us. I've been looking for that in everymail. "

Griswold glanced at the letter and handed it back. The burden of thenight of horrors was still lying heavily upon him, and his only commentwas a questioning, "Well?"

"I've been thinking, " was the reply. "I know Atherton, the new presidentof the Pineboro, pretty well; suppose I should run over to St. Paul andsee him--make it a personal plea. We have enough of the hoboes now torun half-gangs; and perhaps, if I could make Atherton believe that weare going to win----"

"You couldn't, " Griswold interrupted, shortly. "And, besides, you havetold me yourself that Atherton is only a figurehead. Grierson's theman. "

At this, Raymer let go again. 

"What's the use?" he said dejectedly. "We're down, and everything we domerely prolongs the agony. Do you know that they tried to burn the plantlast night?"

"No; I hadn't heard. "

"They did. It was just before the thunder storm. They had everythingfixed; a pile of kindlings laid in the corner back of the machine-shopannex and the whole thing saturated with kerosene. "

"Well, why didn't they do it?" queried Griswold, half-heartedly. Afterthe heavens have fallen, no mere terrestrial cataclysm can evoke athrill. 

"That's a mystery. Something happened; just what, the watchman who hadthe machine-shop beat couldn't tell. He says there was a flash of lightbright enough to blind him, and then a scrap of some kind. When he gotout of the shop and around to the place, there was no one there; nothingbut 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 theconclusion which had been thrusting itself upon him since the earlymorning hour when he had picked his way among the sidewalk pools fromMereside to upper Shawnee Street. 

"You can still save yourself, Edward, " he said, still with the colorlessnote in his voice. And he added: "You know the way. "

Raymer jerked his head out of his desk and swung around in thepivot-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 asI said I should, but not until this fight is settled, one way or theother!"

Griswold did not retort in kind. 

"The condition has already expired by limitation; the fight is as goodas settled now, " he said, placably. "We are only making a hopelessbluff. We can hold our forty or fifty tramp workmen just as long as wepay their board over in town, and don't ask them to report for work. Butthe 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 gloomydecision. 

"Not without a miracle, " Griswold admitted. "And the day of miracles ispast. "

Thus the idealist, out of a depth of wretchedness and self-exprobrationhitherto unplumbed. But if he could have had even a momentary gift oftelepathic vision he might have seen a miracle at that moment in thepreliminary stage of its outworking. 

The time was half-past nine; the place a grotto-like summer-house on theMereside lawn. The miracle workers were two: Margery Grierson, radiantin the daintiest of morning house-gowns, and the man who had taken herretainer. Miss Grierson was curiously examining a photographic print:the pictured scene was a well-littered foundry yard with buildingsforming an angle in the near background. Against the buildings a pile ofshavings with kindlings showed quite clearly; and, stooping to ignitethe pile, was a man who had evidently looked up at, or just before, theinstant of camera-snapping. There was no mistaking the identity of theman. He had a round, pig-jowl face; his bristling mustaches stood outstiffly 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 yetto 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?" shesaid coolly. "What did he do?"

"Dropped things and jumped for the camera. But the flash had blindedhim, and, besides, the camera had been moved. I let him have a foot tofall over, and he took it; after which I made a bluff at tryin' to holdhim. Lordy gracious! new ropes wouldn't 'a' held him, then. I'll bethe'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 reportcirculating 'round that Raymer and Griswold was goin' to put some o' theringleaders in jail, if they had to _make_ a case against 'em. Clancyhad 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 theseprints?" 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 inthere. That part of it was a cinch. Your governor ought to fire that manMurray. He was payin' Clancy in checks!"

Again Miss Grierson nodded. 

"About the other matter?" she inquired. "Have you heard from yourmessenger?"

Broffin produced another envelope. It had been through the mails andbore the Duluth postmark. 

"Affidavits was the best we could do there, " he said. "My man worked itto go with MacFarland as the driver of the rig. They saw some mightyfine timber, but it happened to be on the wrong side of the St. LouisCounty line. He's a tolerably careful man, and he verified thelandmarks. "

"Affidavits will do, " was the even-toned rejoinder. Then: "These papersare all in duplicate?"

"Everything in pairs--just as you ordered. "

Miss Grierson took an embroidered chamois-skin money-book from her bosomand began to open it. Broffin raised his hand. 

"Not any more, " he objected. "You overpaid me that first evening infront 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 thousandhad yet to be tested. 

"Just a minute, Miss Grierson, " he begged. "I've done you right in thisbusiness, haven't I?"

"You have. "

"I said I didn't want any more money, and I don't. But there's one otherthing. 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 wastellin' Mr. Raymer a little story that was partly true and partly madeup--what?"

"And when you were sitting behind the window curtains listening, " shelaughed. "Yes; I knew it then. What about it?"

"I've been wonderin' as I set here, if there was anything on the topside 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 asto suspect a lady of fibbing. "

He shook his head. "I wish you'd tell me, Miss Grierson. I'm in prettybad 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--ifthat will do any good. Every word of the story about Mr. Griswold--thestory that you overheard, you know--was true; every single word of it. Do you suppose I should have dared to embroider it the least littlebit--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 thesummer-house where he had carefully laid it at the beginning of theinterview. 

"You've got me down, " he confessed, with a good-natured grin. "The manthat plays a winnin' hand against you has got to get up before sun inthe morning and hold _all_ trumps, Miss Grierson--to say nothin' ofbeing 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 forthe 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 payingteller, was next in rank to the cashier. If he should be the one to cometo Wahaska. .. . 

"If you haven't anything else for me to do, I reckon I'll be going, " hesaid, hastily, and forthwith made his escape. The telegraph office was agood ten minutes' walk from the lake front, and in the light of whatMiss Grierson had just told him, the minutes were precious. 

Something less than a half-hour after Broffin's hurried departure, MissGrierson, coated and gauntleted, came down the Mereside carriage stepsto take the reins of the big trap horse from Thorsen's hands. Contraryto her usual custom, she avoided Main Street and drove around past thecollege grounds to come by quieter thoroughfares to the industrialdistrict beyond the railroad tracks. 

For the first time in a riotous week, Pottery Flat was outwardlypeaceful and its narrow streets were practically empty. Just what thisportended, Margery did not know; but she found out when she turned intothe street upon which the Raymer property fronted. Smoke was pouringfrom the tall central stack of the plant, and it had evidently provokeda sudden and wrathful gathering of the clans. The sidewalks were filledwith angry workmen, and an excited argument was going forward at one ofthe barred gates between the locked-out men and a watchman inside of theyard. 

The crowd let the trap pass without hindrance. However coldly LakeBoulevard and upper Shawnee Street might regard Miss Grierson, there wasno enmity in the glances of the Flat dwellers--and for good reasons. Inwant, Miss Margery had poured largesse out of a liberal hand; and insickness she had many times proved herself the veritable good angel thatsome people called her. 

It was one of the strikers who offered to hold the big Englishman whenthe magnate's daughter sprang from the trap at the office door, and forthe young fellow who offered she had a smile and a pleasant word. "Iwouldn't trouble you to do that, Malcolm; but if you'll lead him alongto 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 seemedto know where to find what she sought; and when Raymer took his face outof his desk, she was standing on the threshold of the open door andsmiling across at him. 

"May I come in?" she asked; and when he fairly bubbled over in theeffort to make her understand how welcome she was: "No; I mustn't sitdown, because if I do, I shall stay too long--and this is a businesscall. Where is Mr. Griswold?"

"He went up-town a little while ago, and I wish to goodness he'd comeback. You'd think, to look out of the windows, that we were due to havebattle and murder and sudden death, wouldn't you? It's all because wehave put a little fire under one battery of boilers. They tried to burnus out last night, and I'm going to carry steam enough for the firepumps, 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 itwith me. " She took a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of herdriving-coat and laid it on the desk before him. "I'm going to ask youto 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 situationby three o'clock, you are to open it--you and Mr. Griswold--and read thecontents. Then you will know exactly what to do, and how to go aboutit. "

Her lip was trembling when she got through, and he saw it. 

"What have you done, Margery?" he asked gently. "If it is something thathurts you----"

"Don't!" she pleaded; "you mu-mustn't break my nerve just at the timewhen 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 hisback against it. 

"I don't know what you have done, but I can guess, " he said, lost now toeverything save the intoxicating joy of the barrier-breakers. "You havea 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 itcontains, I'm going to ask you one question in spite of yourprohibition; and I'm going to ask it now because, afterward, I maynot--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 smilelurking in the depths of the alluring eyes. And her lips were nolonger tremulous when she said: "Oh, no, you don't; I know just howyou feel; you are excited, and--and impulsive, and there's a sort ofgetting-ready-to-be-grateful feeling roaming around in you, and allthat. If I were as mean as some people think I am, I might takeadvantage of all this, mightn't I? But I sha'n't. Won't you open thedoor and let me go? It's _very_ important. "

"Heavens, Margery! don't make a joke of it!" he burst out. "Can't yousee 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 youare 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 andfor my own I should still say no--a thousand times no! Now will you openthe 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 thatway?--after a while?" he pleaded. 

He had opened the door a little way, and she slipped past him. But inthe corridor she turned and laughed at him again. 

"I am going to cure you--you, personally, as well as the sicksituation--Mr. Raymer, " she said flippantly. Then, mimicking him as aspoiled child might have done: "I might possibly learn to--think ofyou--in that way--after a while. But I could never, never, _never_ learnto 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 andapparently satisfactory telephone conversation with his agent in Duluthat the moment when the door of his private room opened and his daughterentered. 

As on a former occasion, she went to sit in the window until the way tofree speech should be open, and she could not well help hearing theclosing words of the long-distance conference. 

"You sit tight in the boat; that's all you've got to do, " her father wassaying. "Keep the young fellow with you as long as you can; the otherman is too sick to talk business, right now. When you can't hold theyoung 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 brackettedtelephone-set aside when Margery crossed the room swiftly and placed anenvelope, the counterpart of the one left with Raymer, on the desk. 

"There is your notice to quit, " she said calmly. "You threw me down andgave 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 wolfwas of a different mettle. He let the envelope lie untouched until afterhe had pulled out a drawer in the desk, found his box of cigars, and hadleisurely selected and lighted one of the fat black monstrosities. Whenhe tore the envelope across, the photographic print fell out, and hestudied it carefully for many seconds before he read the accompanyingdocuments. For a little time after he had tossed the papers aside therewas 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 togive 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 sealedenvelope in Mr. Raymer's safe. If you haven't taken your hands off ofMr. Raymer's throat by three o'clock this afternoon, the envelope willbe opened. "

Jasper Grierson's teeth met in the marrow of the fat cigar. Equallywithout heat and without restraint, he stripped her of all that waswomanly, pouring out upon her a flood of foul epithets and vile namesgarnished with bitter, brutal oaths. She shrank from the crude andsavage upbraidings as if the words had been hot irons to touch the bareflesh, but at the end of it she was still facing him hardily. 

"Calling me bad names doesn't change anything, " she pointed out, andher tone reflected something of his own elemental contempt for theeuphemisms. "You have five hours in which to make Mr. Raymer understandthat you have stopped trying to smash him. Wouldn't it be better tobegin 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 chairhe took up the papers again and reread them thoughtfully. 

"You had a spotter working this up, I suppose: who is he, and where ishe?" 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 toface 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 labortrouble, and let Mr. Raymer settle with his men on a basis of good-willand 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 anArab. "

Grierson's shaggy brows met in a reflective frown, and when he spoke thebestial temper was rising again. 

"When this is all over, and you've gone to live with Raymer, I'll killhim, " 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 asfor taking it out on Mr. Raymer, you'd better wait until I go 'to livewith him, ' as you put it. Besides, this isn't Yellow Dog Gulch. Theyhang people here. "

"You little she-devil! If you push me into this thing, you'd better getRaymer, 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 somedecent 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 struckback. 

"Oho! So that's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? You sold me out to buyin with him!"

"You may put it that way, if you like; I don't care. " She was drawing onher driving-gloves methodically and working the fingers into place, andthere were sullen fires in the brooding eyes. 

"I've been thinking it was the other one--the book-writer, " said thefather. Then, without warning: "He's a damned crook. "

The daughter went on smoothing the wrinkles out of the fingers of hergloves. "What makes you think so?" she inquired, with indifference, realor skilfully assumed. 

"He's got too much money to be straight. I've been keeping cases onhim. "

"Never mind Mr. Griswold, " she interposed. "He is my friend, and Isuppose 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 themselvesout, 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 hestopped her with a blunt-pointed arrow of contempt. 

"I suppose you've fixed it up to marry that college-sharp dub so thathis 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'tcounting on that, were you?" And having fired this final shot ofcontradiction she departed. 

After Miss Grierson had driven home from the bank between ten and elevenin the morning, an admiring public saw her no more until just beforebank-closing hours in the afternoon. Broffin was among those who madeobeisance to her as she passed down Main Street in the basket phaetonbetween half-past two and three; and a minute later he abandoned hischair on the hotel porch to keep the phaeton in view and to mark itsroute. 

"It's Raymer, all right, and not the other one, " he mused when thelittle vehicle had gone rocketing over the railroad crossing to take theturn toward the Iron Works. "The iron-man is the duck she's tryin' tohelp out of the labor-rookus. She was over there this morning, and she'sgoin' there again, right now. "

As the phaeton sped along through the over-crossing suburb there weresigns of an armistice apparent, even before the battle-field wasreached. Pottery Flat was populated again, and the groups of men bunchedon the street corners were arguing peacefully. Miss Grierson pulled upat one of the corners and beckoned to the young iron-moulder who hadoffered 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 mostmen did, on a plane of perfect equality and frankness. "We was hoodooedto beat the band, and Mr. Raymer's got us, comin' and goin'. Therewasn'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' tobe a mix-up. "

Miss Grierson drove on, and at the Iron Works there were more of thepeaceful indications. The gates were open, and a switching-engine fromthe railroad yards was pushing in a car-load of furnace coal. By all thesigns the trouble flood was abating. 

Raymer saw her when she drove under his window and calmly made ahitching-post of the clerk who went out to see what she wanted. A momentlater she came down the corridor to stand in the open doorway of themanager's room. 

"I'm back again, " she said, and her manner was that of the daintysoubrette with whom the audience falls helplessly in love at firstsight. 

"No, you're not, " Raymer denied; "you won't be until you come in and sitdown. "

She entered to take the chair he was placing for her, and the soubrettemanner 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 hasbecome 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 puzzledand bewildered. "Some sort of a miracle has been wrought, " he said. "Alittle while ago a committee came to talk over terms of surrender. Itseems 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 hiscuriosity broke bounds. "I can't understand it. How did you work themiracle?"

"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. "Whatdifference does it make so long as you are out of the deep water and ina place where you can wade ashore? You _can_ wade ashore now, can'tyou?"

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 pinneda telegram less than an hour old. 

She read the letter first. It was a curt announcement of the withdrawalof 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 ofrelief. It had been worse than she had thought, and it was now betterthan 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 stillkeen-edged, but he beat it back manfully. 

"I wish you wouldn't hurry, " he said hospitably. He was searching thechangeful 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 athome, and----"

"Oh, yes; how is Mr. Galbraith getting along? He has been having apretty 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. Thecashier 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 caredfor; but I'd like to come and see you, if I may?" he said, when he hadgone with her through the outer office and the moment of leave-takinghad arrived. 

"Why not?" she asked frankly. "You have always been welcome, and youalways 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 thismorning--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 thembetter. "

"Shall I?" she said, with a ghost of a smile. "Perhaps you areright--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 anothermatter. 

"I'm a little worried about Kenneth, " he told her. "He came down thismorning looking positively wretched, but he wouldn't admit that he wassick. 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 beforeyou 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 somekind. I never saw a person change as he has in the past week or so. Youknow 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 killsomebody--in this squabble of ours, you know. He has been goingarmed--which was excusable enough, under the circumstances--and nightbefore last, when we were walking up-town together, I had all I could doto keep him from taking a pot-shot at a fellow who, he thought, wasfollowing us. I don't know but I'm taking all sorts of an unfairadvantage 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 hercarefully. 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 letme. "

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'llfind a great happiness lying in wait for you, Edward, dear. " And thenshe spoke to the Morgan mare and distance came between. 

As once before, in the earlier hours of the same day, Miss Grierson tookthe roundabout way between the Raymer plant and Mereside, making thecircuit which took her through the college grounds and brought her outat the head of upper Shawnee Street. The Widow Holcomb was sitting onher front porch, placidly crocheting, when the phaeton drew up at thecurb. 

"Mr. Griswold, " said the phaeton's occupant. "May I trouble you to tellhim that I'd like to speak to him a moment?"

Mrs. Holcomb, friend of the Raymers, the Farnhams, and the Oswalds, andown cousin to the Barrs, was of the perverse minority; and, apart fromthis, she had her own opinion of a young woman who would wait at thedoor of a young man's boarding-house and take him off for a night driveto goodness only knew where, and from which he did not return untilgoodness only knew when. So there was no stitch missed in the crochetingwhen she said, stiffly: "Mr. Griswold isn't in. He hasn't been homesince morning. "

Miss Grierson drove on, and the most casual observer might have remarkedthe strained tightening of the lips and the two red spots which came andwent in the damask-peach cheeks. But it was not until she had reachedMereside, and had gained the shelter of the deserted library, thatspeech came. 

"O pitiful Christ!" she sobbed, dropping into a chair and hiding herface in the crook of her arm; "he's done it at last!--he's trying tohide, and that's what they've been waiting for! _And I don't know whereto look!_"

But Matthew Broffin, tilting lazily in his chair on the down-town hotelporch, knew very well where to look, and he was watching the one outletof 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 againfrom Chicago for a second consultation with Doctor Farnham, AndrewGalbraith owed his life during the two days following his return toconsciousness to the unremitting care and devotion of one person. 

Seconding the efforts of the physicians, and skilfully directing thoseof the nurses, Margery threw herself into the vicarious struggle withthe generous self-sacrifice which counts neither cost nor loss; and onthe third day she had her reward. Her involuntary guest and charge wasdistinctly better, and again, so the two doctors declared, the balancewas inclining slightly toward recovery. 

It was in the afternoon of this third day, when she had been reading tohim, at his own request, the sayings of the Man on the Mount, that hereferred for the first time to the details of the accident which had sonearly blotted him out. Upon his asking, she related the few and simplefacts of the rescue, modestly minimizing her own part in it, and givingher companion in the catboat full credit. 

"The writer-man, " he said thoughtfully, when she had finished tellinghim how Griswold had worked over him in the boat, and how he would notgive 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 lookout 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, sickand helpless, one day last spring, and--well, there isn't any hospitalhere in Wahaska, you know, so we took him in and helped him get over thefever, 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 whosesiller has never bought him anything like the love you're spending onhim. You're everybody's good angel, I'm thinking, Maggie, lassie. "Though he did not realize it, his sickness was bringing him day by daynearer to his far-away boyhood in the Inverness-shire hills, and it waseasy to slip into the speech of the mother-tongue. Then, after a longpause, he went on: "He wasna wearing a beard, a red beard trimmed downto 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 himrepeating softly the words which she had just read to him. "But if yeforgive not men . .. Neither will your Father forgive. .. . " And again, "Judge not that ye be not judged. " When he turned back to her there werenew lines of suffering in the gray old face. 

"I'm sore beset, child; sore beset, " he sighed. "You were telling methat 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 rememberyou asked me one day who he was, and I tell 't ye he was a specialofficer 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 solong 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 theclavers 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 thebig-jointed hand on the coverlet and pressed it softly to her flushedcheek, and he understood. 

"I thought so; I was afraid so, " he said, slowly. "You say you haveknown him a long time: it canna have been long enough, bairnie. "

"But it is, " she insisted, loyally. "I know him better than he knowshimself; oh, very much better. "

"Ye know the good in him, maybe; there's good in all men, I'm thinkingnow, 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 upsidedown. "

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, " hecommented; and after another interval: "What must be, must be. We spokeof this man Broffin: I must see him before Johnson comes. Can ye get himfor me, Maggie, child?"

She nodded and went down-stairs to the telephone, returning almostimmediately. 

"I was fortunate enough to catch him at the hotel. He will be here in afew minutes, " was the word she brought; and Galbraith thanked her withhis eyes. 

"When he comes, ye'll let me see him alone--just for a few minutes, " hebegged; and beyond that he said no more. 

It was after the click of the gate latch had announced Broffin's arrivalthat 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 uponthe instruments of the small house-telephone-set mounted upon the wallbeside the door. 

"Mr. Broffin is here, and I'll send him up, " she said. "But you mustn'tlet 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 repeatthe caution. Andrew Galbraith's eyes were closed in weariness, and hedid not see that she was standing with her back to the wall while sheadmonished him, or that, when she had gone to send the visitor up, theear-piece of the house-telephone-set had been detached from its hook andleft dangling by its wire cord. 

Miss Grierson went on into the library after she had met the detectiveat the door and had told him how to find the up stairs room. When thesound of a cautiously closed door told her that Broffin had entered thesick-room, she snatched the receiver of the library house 'phone fromits hook and held it to her ear. For a little time keen anxiety wroteits sign manual in the knitted brows and the tightly pressed lips. Thenshe smiled and the dark eyes grew softly radiant. "The dear old saint!"she whispered; "the dear, _dear_ old saint!" And when Broffin came downa few minutes later, she went to open the hall door for him, serenelydemure 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?" sheasked. 

"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 allthe doctors in creation have thrown up their hands. I've seen it. Whatdoes 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 totake up the cigar he had hidden on his arrival. 

"So Galbraith's out of it, lock, stock and barrel, " he muttered, as hestrode thoughtfully townward. "I reckoned it'd be that-a-way, as soon asI heard the story o' that shipwreck. And now I ain't so blamed sure thatit's Raymer a-holdin' the fort in them pretty black eyes. The old mantalked like a man that had just been honeyfugled and talked over andprimed plum' up to the muzzle. Why the blue blazes can't she take heriron-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 'Friscoin that bond business, and take the first train! Sure, I'll go--but notto-day; oh, no, by grapples; not this day!"

It was possibly an hour beyond Broffin's visit when Margery, havingsuccessfully read the sick man to sleep, tiptoed out of the room andwent below stairs to shut herself into the hall telephone closet. Thenumber 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 foryou. "

"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--orunhappy--possessor of the 'artistic temperament' and that accounts foranything and everything. I'd forgotten that for a few minutes, youknow. "

"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 ofit. 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 wassuffered to find its way into her voice when she said: "What makes youthink that?"

"Oh, a lot of little things. I was over at the house last night, andthere is some sort of a tea-pot tempest going on; I couldn't make outjust what. But from the way things shaped up, I gathered that our friendwas 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 theimpatient accent was unconcealed. 

"I promised; but this morning Doctor Bertie called me up to say that itwas all right; that I needn't trouble myself. "

"And I needn't have troubled you, " said the voice at the Meresidetransmitter. "Excuse _me_, as Hank Billingsly used to say when hehappened to shoot the wrong man. Come over when you feel like it--andhave time. You mustn't forget that you owe me two calls. Good-by. "

After Margery Grierson had let herself out of the stifling little closetunder the hall stair, she went into the darkened library and sat for along time staring at the cold hearth. It was a crooked world, and justnow it was a sharply cruel one. There was much to be read between thelines of the short telephone talk with Edward Raymer. The trap wassprung and its jaws were closing; and in his extremity Kenneth Griswoldwas turning, not to the woman who had condoned and shielded and paid thecostly price, but to the other. 

"Dear God!" she said softly, when the prolonged stare had brought thequick-springing tears to her eyes; "and I--_I_ could have kept himsafe!"

XXXVIII

THE PENDULUM-SWING

To a man seeking only to escape from himself, all roads are equal andall destinations likely to prove uniformly disappointing. Turning hisback upon the Iron Works in the day of defeat, with no very clear ideaof what he should do or where he should go, Griswold pushed through thestrikers' picket lines, and, avoiding the militant suburb, drifted byway of sundry outlying residence streets and a country road to the highground back of the city. 

In deserting Raymer he was actuated by no motive of disloyalty. On thecontrary, so much of the motive as had any bearing upon his relationswith the young iron-founder sprang from a generous impulse to freeRaymer from an incubus. If it were the curse of the Midas-touch to turnall things to gold, it seemed to be his own peculiar curse to turn thegold to dross; to leave behind him a train of disaster, defeat, andtragic depravity. The plunge into the labor conflict had merely servedto afford another striking example of his inability to break the evilspell, and Raymer could well spare him. 

On the long tramp to the hills the events of the past few monthsmarshalled themselves in accusing review. No human being, save one, ofall those with whom he had come in contact since the day ofdragon-bearding in the New Orleans bank had escaped the contaminatingtouch, and each in turn had suffered loss. The man Gavitt had given hisname and identity; the mate of the _Belle Julie_ had sacrificed whatlittle respect he may have had for law and order by becoming, potentially, at least, a criminal accessory. The little Irish cab-driverhad sold himself for a price; and the negro deck-hand had earned hismess of fried fish. The single exception was Charlotte Farnham, and hetold himself that she had escaped only because she had done her duty asshe saw it. 

And as the bedeviling thing had begun, so it had continued, losing noneof its potency for evil. In the little world of Wahaska, which was tohave been the theatre of Utopian demonstration, the curse had persisted. The money, used with the loftiest intentions, had served only as a meansto an end, and the end had proved to be the rearing of an apparentlyimpassable wall of bitter antagonism between master and men. And thesecret of the money's origin and acquisition, which was to have been soeasily cast aside and ignored, had become a soul-sickness incurable andeven contagious. Griswold was beginning to suspect that it had attackedMargery Grierson; that it had subconsciously, if not otherwise, thrustitself into Charlotte Farnham's life; and the night of horror so latelypast had shown him into what depths it could plunge its wretchedguardian and slave. 

Now that the plunge had been taken and he had been made to understandthat he must henceforth reckon with a base and cowardly under-self whichwould not stop short of the most heinous crime, he told himself that hemust have time to think--to plan. 

Caring nothing for its roughness, and scarcely noting the direction inwhich it was leading him, he followed the country road in its windingdescent into a valley forest of oaks. After an hour of aimless trampinghe began to have occasional near-hand glimpses of the lake; and a littlefarther along he came out upon the main-travelled road leading to thesummer-resort hotel at the head of De Soto Bay. 

Still without any definite purpose in mind he pushed on, and uponreaching the hotel he went in and registered for a room. The luncheonhour was past, but not even the long tramp had given him an appetite. Choosing the quietest corner of the lake-facing veranda he tried tosmoke; but the tobacco had lost its flavor, and a longing for completersolitude drove him to his room. Here he drew the window shades and laydown, deliberately wishing that he might fall asleep and wake in someless poignant world; and since the week of strife had been cuttingdeeply into the nights, the first half of the wish presently came true. While the poignancies were still asserting themselves acutely, sleepstole upon him, and when he awoke it was evening and a cheerful clamorin the dining-room beneath told him that it was dinner-time. 

It is a trite saying that many a gulf, seemingly impassable, has beensafely bridged in sleep. Bathed, refreshed and with the tramping stainsremoved, Griswold went down to dinner with the lost appetite regained. Aleisurely hour spent in the restorative atmosphere of the well-filleddining-room added its uplift, and at the end of it the troublesomeperplexities and paradoxes had withdrawn--at least far enough so thatthey could be held in the artistic perspective. Afterward, during thecigar-smoking on the cool veranda, he struck out his plan. In themorning he would send in town to Mrs. Holcomb for a few necessaries, andtelephone to Raymer. After which, he would try what a fallow day or twowould do for him; an interval in which he could weigh and measure andthink, and possibly recover the lost sense of proportion. 

As the plan was conceived, so it was carried out. Early on the followingday he sent a note to Mrs. Holcomb by one of the Inn employees; but thecopy of the _Daily Wahaskan_ laid beside his breakfast plate made itunnecessary to telephone Raymer. The paper had a full account of thesudden ending of the lock-out and the resumption of work in the Raymerplant, and he read it with a curious stirring of self-compassion. As hehad reasoned it out, there was only one way in which the result couldhave been attained so quickly. Had Raymer taken that way, in spite ofhis wrathful rejection of the suggestion? Doubtless he had; and on theheels of that conclusion came a sense of deprivation that was fairlyappalling, and the healthy breakfast appetite vanished. Griswold knewwhat it meant, or he thought he did. Margery Grierson was gone out ofhis life--gone beyond recall. 

After that, there was all the better reason why he should grapple withhimself 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 thelake shore forests or drifting about in one of the hotel skiffs, andreturning to the Inn only to eat and sleep when hunger or wearinessconstrained him. On the whole, the discipline was good. He flatteredhimself that the sense of proportion was returning slowly, and with itsome saner impulses. Truly, it had been his misfortune to be obliged tocompromise with evil to some extent, and to involve others, but was notthat rather due to the ineradicable faults of an imperfect social systemthan to any basic defect in his own theories? And was not the sameimperfect social system partly responsible for the _quasi_-criminalattitude which had been forced upon him? He was willing to believe it;willing, also, to believe that he could rise above the constrainingforces 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 overhearthe hotel clerk telling the man whose room was across the corridor fromhis own that Andrew Galbraith still had a fighting chance for life. Inthe pleasant glow of the high resolve the news awakened none of themurderous promptings, but rather the generous hope that it might betrue. 

It was late in the afternoon of this third day, upon his return from along pull in the borrowed skiff around the group of islands in the upperand unfrequented part of the lake, that he found a note awaiting him. Itwas from Miss Farnham, and its brevity, no less than its urgency, stirred him apprehensively, bringing a suggestive return of the furtivefierceness which he promptly fought down. "I must see you before eighto'clock this evening. It is of the last importance, " was the wording ofthe note; and the heavy underscoring of the "last, " and a certaintremulous characteristic in the handwriting, stressed the urgency. 

Griswold thrust the note into his pocket and made his preparations to goto town, still fighting down the furtive malevolence which was unnervinghim; fighting also an unshakable premonition that his hour had come. Once, before the Inn brake was ready to make its evening trip to Wahaskaand the railway station, the premonition gripped him so benumbingly thathe was sorely tempted. There was another railroad fourteen miles to thewestward; a line running a fast day-train to the north with connectionsfor Winnipeg. One of the Inn guests was driving over to catch this fasttrain at a country crossing, and there was a spare seat in the hiredcarry-all. Griswold considered the alternative for the length of time ittook the hotel porter to put the departing guest's luggage into thewaiting vehicle. Then he turned his back and let the chance escape. Theissue was fairly defined. To become a fugitive now was to plead guiltyas charged--to open the door to chaos. 

It was still quite early in the evening when the Inn conveyance set himdown at the door of his lodgings in upper Shawnee Street. To thecare-taking widow, who would have prepared a late dinner for him, heexplained that he was going out again almost at once; and taking timeonly for a bath and a change, he set forth on the cross-town walk. Itlacked something less than a half-hour of the time limit set in MissFarnham's note, but he attached no special importance to that. He knewthat the doctor's dinner-hour was early, and that in any event he couldchoose his own time for an evening call. 

It nettled him angrily to find that the premonition of coming disasterwas still with him when he crossed the Court House square and came intothe main street a few doors from the Winnebago entrance. Attacking froma fresh vantage-ground it was warning him that the town hotel was thestopping-place of the man Broffin, and that he was taking an unnecessaryhazard in passing it. Brushing the warning aside, he went on defiantly, and just before he came within identifying range of the loungers on thehotel porch an omnibus backed to the curb to deliver its complement ofpassengers from the lately met northbound train. 

Griswold walked on until he was stopped by the sidewalk-blocking groupof freshly arrived travellers pausing to identify their luggage as itwas handed down from the top of the omnibus. Alertly watchful, hequickly recognized Broffin among the porch loungers, and saw him leavehis tilted chair to saunter toward the steps. Then the fateful thinghappened. One of the luggage-sorters, a clean-limbed, handsome youngfellow with boyish eyes and a good-natured grin, wheeled suddenly andgripped him. 

"Why, Griswold, old man!--well, I'll be dogged! Who on the face of theearth would ever have thought of finding you here? So this is where youcame up, after the long, deep, McGinty dive, is it?" Then to one of hisfellow travellers: "Hold on a minute, Johnson; I want you to shake handswith 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_, turningup at the climaxing instant to prove the crowded condition of anover-narrow world, much as Matthew Broffin had once turned up on theafter-deck of the coastwise steamer _Adelantado_ to prove it to him. 

While Griswold, with every nerve on edge, was acknowledging theintroduction which he could by no means avoid, Broffin drew nearer. Fromthe porch steps he could both see and hear. Bainbridge, cheerfullyloquacious, continued to do most of the talking. He was telling Griswoldof the streak of good luck which had snatched him out of a reporter'sberth in the South to make him night editor of one of the St. Pauldailies. Johnson was merely an onlooker. Broffin's eyes searched theteller'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 thenewspaper man. Broffin, whose ears were skilfully attuned to all thetone variations in the voice of evasion, thought he detected a quaver ofanxious impatience in the half-absent query. 

"Yes; I was going on through to-night, but Johnson, here, stumped me tostop over. He said I might be able to get a news story out of his sickpresident, " Bainbridge rattled on. "Ever meet Mr. Galbraith? He is thebank president who was held up last spring, you remember; fine oldScotch gentleman of the Walter-Scott brand. "

"When did you leave New Orleans?" Griswold asked; and now Broffin madesure he distinguished the note of anxiety. 

"Two days back: missed a connection on account of high water in theOhio. Might have stayed another twelve hours in the good old levee townif we'd only known, eh, Johnson?" And then again to Griswold: "Rememberthat supper we had at Chaudière's, the night I was leaving for thebanana coast? By George! come to think of it, I believe that was thelast time we forgathered in the--Say, Kenneth, what have you done withyour beard?"

Something clicked in Broffin's brain; then the wheels of the presentslipped into gear with those of the past and the entire train moved onsmoothly. The final doubt was cleared away. Griswold was the man whosestory Bainbridge had told under the after-deck awning of theoutward-bound fruit steamer; and the story in all its essentials was thesame that Miss Grierson had told on the veranda of the De Soto. Broffinknew now why there had always been a haunting suggestion of familiarityin Griswold's face for him. He had seen and marked the "bloody-mindednihilist" of Bainbridge's story when the two were saying good-by on thebanquette in front of Chaudière's. 

Broffin's right hand went swiftly to an inside pocket of his coat andwhen it was withdrawn a pair of handcuffs, oiled to noiselessness, camewith it. Deftly the man-catcher worked them open, using only the fingersof 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 withJohnson 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 Broffinwas concealing in the hand which had made the quick pocket-dive. He knewthat the crucial moment had come; and, as many times before, the savagefear-mania was gripping him. In the cold vise-nip of it he had becomeonce more the cornered wild beast. 

After the introduction to Johnson his hand had gone mechanically to hiscoat pocket. The demon at his ear was whispering "kill! kill!" and hisfingers sought and found the weapon. While he was listening with theoutward ear to Bainbridge's cheerful reminiscences, the little minutiæwere arranging themselves: he saw where Broffin would step, and wascareful to mark that none of the by-standers would be in range. He wouldwait until there could be no possibility of missing; then he wouldfire--from the pocket. 

It was Johnson who broke the spell. While Bainbridge was insisting thatGriswold should come in and make a social third at the hoteldinner-table, the teller picked up his hand-bag and mounted the steps. Griswold's brain fell into halves. With one of them he was makingexcuses to the newspaper man; with the other he saw Broffin stop Johnsonand draw him aside. 

What the detective was saying was only too plainly evident. Johnsonwheeled short to face the sidewalk group, and Griswold could feel inevery fibre of him the searching scrutiny to which he was beingsubjected. When he stole a glance at the pair on the porch, Johnson wasshaking his head slowly; and he did it again after a second thoughtfulstare. 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, youknow, and I couldn't do that. .. . No, I don't want to hear yourcorroborative evidence; it might make me see a resemblance where thereis none. Wait until Mr. Galbraith recovers: he's your man. "

Griswold hardly knew how he made shift to get away from Bainbridgefinally; but when it was done, and he was crossing the little triangularpark which filled the angle between the business squares and thelake-fronting residence streets, he was sweating profusely, and thedeparting 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 itsmagazine, 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 ahammer he beat the weapon into shapeless inutility and flung it away. 

"God knows whom I shall be tempted to kill, next!" he groaned; and thetrembling fit was still unnerving him when he went on to keep theappointment made by Charlotte Farnham. 

XXXIX

DUST AND ASHES

A full moon, blood-red from the smoke of forest fires far to theeastward, was rising over the Wahaska Hills when Griswold unlatched thegate of the Farnham enclosure and passed quickly up the walk. 

Since the summoning note had stressed the urgencies, he was notsurprised to find the writer of it awaiting his coming on thevine-shadowed porch. In his welcoming there was a curious mingling ofconstraint and impatience, and he was moved to marvel. Miss Farnham'soutlook upon life, the point of view of the ideally well-balanced, wasuniformly poiseful and self-contained, and he was wondering if somefresh entanglement were threatening when she motioned him to a seat andplaced her own chair so that the light from the sitting-room windowswould 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 ofthe 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 Isent for you to come. "

"No, not definitely. "

"I was hoping you would know; it would make it easier for me. You owe mesomething, Mr. Griswold. "

"I owe you a great deal, " he admitted, warmly. "It is hardly putting ittoo strong to say that you have made some part of my work possible whichwould otherwise have been impossible. "

"I didn't mean that, " she dissented, with a touch of cool scorn. "I haveno especial ambition to figure as a character, however admirable, in abook. Your obligation doesn't lie in the literary field; it is real--andpersonal. You have done me a great injustice, and it seems to have beencarefully 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 toWahaska--but now I know better. You came here, in goodness knows whatspirit of reckless bravado, because it was my home; and you made thedecision apparently without any consideration for me; without anythought of the embarrassments and difficulties in which it might involveme. "

Truly, the heavens had fallen and the solid earth was reeling! Griswoldlay back in the deep lounging-chair and fought manfully to retain somelittle hold upon the anchorings. Could this be his ideal; the woman whomhe had set so high above all others in the scale of heroicfaultlessness and sublime devotion to principle? And was she so much aslave of the conventional as to be able to tell him coldly that she hadrecognized him again, and that her chief concern was the embarrassmentit was causing her? Before he could gather the words for any adequaterejoinder, 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 myfather. You have drawn Edward Raymer into the entanglement and helpedhim with the stolen money. In every way you have sought to make it moreand more impossible for me to give information against you--and you havesucceeded. I can't do it now, without facing a scandal that would neverdie in a small place like this, and without bringing trouble and ruinupon a family of our nearest friends. And that is why I sent for youto-day; and why I say you owe me something. "

Griswold was sitting up again, and he had recovered some small measureof self-possession. 

"I certainly owe you many apologies, at least, " he said, ironically. "Ihave really been doing you a great injustice, Miss Farnham--a very graveinjustice, though not exactly of the kind you mention. I think I havebeen misapprehending you from the beginning. How long have you known meas the man who is wanted in New Orleans?"

"A long time; though I tried not to believe it at first. It seemedincredible that the man I had spoken to on the _Belle Julie_ would comehere and put me in such a false position. "

"Good heavens!" he broke out; "is your position all you have beenthinking of? Is that the only reason why you haven't set the dogs onme?"

"It is the chief reason why I couldn't afford to do anything more than Ihave done. Goodness knows, I have tried in every way to warn you, evento pointing out the man who is shadowing you. To do it, I have had todeceive my father. I have been hoping that you would understand and goaway. "

"Wait a minute, " he commanded. "Let me get it straight; you stillbelieve that the thing I did was a criminal thing?"

"We needn't go into that part of it again, " she returned, with a sort ofplacid impatience. "Once I thought that there might be some way in whichyou had justified yourself to yourself, but now----"

"That isn't the point, " he interrupted roughly. "What I want to know isthis: Do you still believe it is a crime?"

"Of course, it is a crime; I know it, you know it, all the world knowsit. "

Again he sat back and took time to gather up a few of the scatteredshards and fragments. When he spoke it was to say: "I think the debt ison the other side, Miss Charlotte; I think you owe me something. Youprobably won't understand when I say that you have robbed me of a veryprecious thing--my faith in the ultimate goodness of a good woman. Youbelieve--you have always believed--that I am a criminal; and yet youhave been weak enough to let expediency seal your lips. I am truer to mycode than you are to yours, as you shall see if the day ever comes whenI shall be convinced that I did wrong. But that is neither here northere. 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 Griersontelegraph to New Orleans for some one of the bank officials. Yesterday Ilearned that the man who is coming is the teller who waited on me andwho gave you the money. As soon as I heard that, I began to try to findyou. "

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 canidentify you, and the detective will give him the opportunity. That isdoubtless what he is waiting for. "

"And you would suggest that I make a run for it? Is that why you sentfor me?"

"It is. You are tempting fate by staying; and, notwithstanding what youhave said, I still insist that you owe me something. There is a fasttrain west at ten o'clock. If you need ready money----"

Griswold laughed. It had gone beyond the tragic and was fast lapsinginto comedy, farce. 

"We are each of us appearing in a new rôle to-night, Miss Farnham, " hesaid, with sardonic humor; "I as the hunted criminal, and you as theequally culpable accessory after the fact. If I run away, what shall bedone with the--the 'swag, ' the bulk of which, as you know, is tied up inRaymer's business?"

"I have thought of that, " she returned calmly, "and that is anotherreason why you shouldn't let them take you. Right or wrong, you haveincurred a fresh responsibility in your dealings with Mr. Raymer; andEdward, 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 hisfinancial 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 EdwardRaymer, I shall never forgive you as long as I live! It is your affairto secure Edward against loss in the money matter--your own individualresponsibility, 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 youwould be a fitting heroine in a story in which the hero should be a manwho might need to borrow a conscience. It's quite the other way around. "

"We needn't quarrel, " she said, retreating again behind the barrier ofcold reserve. "I suppose I have given you the right to say disagreeablethings to me, if you choose to assert it. But we are wasting time whichmay 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 borrowany more trouble, either on your own account, or on Raymer's. By themerest chance, I met Johnson, the teller you speak of, a few minutes agoat 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 outto him, and again he failed to identify me. But the other day, after Ihad pulled him out of the lake, he remembered. I've been waiting to seewhat 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 personalservice 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 itis; and it is what you are doing, Miss Farnham. I, the criminal, saythis 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 youhaven't, you have wronged yourself and have made me the poorer by athing that----"

"Stop!" she cried, standing up to face him. "Do you mean to tell me thatyou are ungrateful enough to----"

"No; ingratitude isn't quite the word. I'm just sorry; with the sorrowyou 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 itisn't anywhere. You have hurt me, and you have hurt yourself; but thereis still a chance for you. When I am gone, go to the telephone and callBroffin at the Winnebago House. You can tell him that he will find me atmy rooms. Good-by. "

He was half-way to the foot of Lakeview Avenue, striding along moodilywith his head down and his hands behind him, when he collided violentlywith Raymer going in the opposite direction. The shock was so unexpectedthat Griswold would have been knocked down if the muscular youngiron-founder had not caught him promptly. At the saving instant camemutual recognition. 

"Hello, there!" said Raymer. "You are the very man I've been lookingfor. Charlotte wants to see you. "

"Not now she doesn't, " was the rather grim contradiction. "I have justleft 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'tyou?"

Raymer looked away. 

"I don't know just how you'd like to have me answer that, Kenneth. Howmuch 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'vegot to know. "

"Well?" snapped Griswold. 

"She--she turned me down, Kenneth; got up and walked all over me. That'sa 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 gravenaïveté. "And, yes, I guess she meant it. But that reminds me. She knewI was looking for you and she gave me a note--let me see, I've got ithere somewhere; oh, yes, here it is--gilt monogram and all. "

Griswold took the note and pocketed it without comment and withoutlooking 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 stoppedand opened the monogrammed envelope. The enclosure was a single sheet ofperfumed note-paper upon which, without date, address or signature waswritten the line:

"Mr. Galbraith is better--and he is grateful. "

XL

APPLES OF ISTAKHAR

The swinging arc-light suspended above the street-crossing sputtered anddied down to a dull red dot of incandescence as Griswold returnedMargery's note to his pocket and walked on. 

There are crises in which the chief contention looms so large as toleave no room for the ordinary mental processes. Griswold saw nosignificance in the broken line of Margery's message. The one tremendousrevelation--the knowledge that the dross-creating curse had finallyfallen upon the woman whose convictions should have saved her--wasblotting out all the subtler perceptive faculties; and for the time thestruggle with the submerging wave of disappointment and disheartenmentwas bitter. 

He was two squares beyond the crossing of the broken-circuitedarc-light, and was still following the curve of the lakeside boulevard, when he came to the surface of the submerging wave long enough torealize that he had entered Jasper Grierson's portion of the water-frontdrive. The great house, dark as to its westward gables save for thelighted upper windows marking the sick-room and its antechamber, loomedin massive solidity among its sheltering oaks; and the moon, which hadnow topped the hills and the crimsoning smoke haze, was bathingland- and lake-scape in a flood of silver light, whitening the pale yellowsands of the beach and etching fantastic leaf-traceries on the gravel ofthe 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 forand secured his property right-of-way through to the lake's margin. Griswold turned aside and sat down on one of the benches. Thedisappointment was growing less keen. He was beginning to understandthat he had made no allowance for the eternal feminine in the idealized_Fidelia_--for the feminine and the straitly human. But thedisheartenment remained. Should he stay and fight it out? Or should hetake pity upon the poor prisoner of the conventions and seek to postponethe day of reckoning by flight?

He had not fitted the answer to either of these sharp-pointed querieswhen a pair of light-fingered hands came from behind to clap themselvesupon his eyes, and a well-known voice said, "Guess. "

"Margery!" he said; and she laughed with the joyous unconstraint of ahappy child and came around to sit by him. 

"I was doing time out on the veranda, and I saw you down here in themoonlight, 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 returnedmusingly. And then: "Yes; perhaps I did lose something. Don't ask mewhat 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 thatI wanted to marry her?"

"You did"--calmly. 

"Then, for pity's sake, let me take it out, quick. If I were the lastman on earth, Miss Farnham wouldn't marry me; and if she were the lastwoman, I think I'd go drown myself in the lake!"

The young woman of the many metamorphoses was laughing again, and thistime 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 ofperson who would laugh at a funeral. I'm down under the hoofs of thehorses, at last, Margery, girl. Before you came, I was wondering if thegame were at all worth the candle. "

Her mood changed in the twinkling of an eye. "The battle is over, andwon, " 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 havethought 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 nightwhen I found the money in your suit-case. What a silly, silly thing itwas for you to do--to leave the Bayou State Security slips on thepackages!"

"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 wouldtrace you here, and I hurried; oh, I _hurried_! I made up my mind thatbefore the struggle came, all Wahaska should know you, not as a bankrobber, 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 shadowedhim--or had Johnnie Fergus do it for me. I knew he'd try Miss Farnhamfirst, and there was only one hope there--that she might fall in lovewith you and so refuse to give you away. She did, didn't she?"

"Most emphatically, she did not, " he denied. "You have greatly misjudgedMiss Farnham. The reason--the only reason--why she did not tell Broffinwhat he wanted to know was a purely conventional one. She did not wantto 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 shewent on: "With Miss Farnham out of it--and I knew she must be out ofit, since Broffin didn't strike--there was still Mr. Galbraith. Youdidn'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 neverknow you again as the man who held him up. Listen: he sent for Broffinthis afternoon, and gave him a new commission--something about bonds inCalifornia. And he told him he must go on the first train!"

Once more the castaway was running the gamut of the fiercely varyingemotions. 

"Let me understand, " he said. "You knew I had taken the money, and yetyou 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 speakof--do they? That's the way you are writing it down in your book, isn'tit?" Then, with a low laugh that sounded some unfathomed depth of lovingabandonment: "It was a game; and I played it--played it for all I wasworth, and won. You are free; free as the air, Kenneth, boy. If Broffinshould come here this minute and put his hand on your shoulder, youcould 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 drewher 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 wouldhave slipped out of his arms--"Believe me, Margery; there has never beenany one else--not for a moment. But I thought it was Raymer, and foryour 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. Hefelt her quick little nod and went on. 

"Since you know the one decent thing, you must know all the horriblethings, 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 untilthe time came, you couldn't have done it. And, besides, I am to blame. Iplanned it--planned it purposely: I didn't even hope to find a nursewhen we were supposed to be looking for one. I knew how you felt, and Iwanted to make you show yourself that you didn't really hate him badenough to let him die. But I don't care; it doesn't matter--nothingmatters, now. "

"Wait, " he said. "There was murder in my heart that night, and it wasthere again this evening--just a little while ago. Miss Farnham andGalbraith were not the only ones I had to fear; there was another; theteller who got here from New Orleans on the seven-forty-five train. Youdidn't know about him, did you? He came, and an old newspaper friend ofmine was with him. I stumbled upon them on the sidewalk in front of theWinnebago House; and Broffin was there, too. We were introduced, theteller and I, and Broffin was so sure he had me that he got hishandcuffs out and was opening them. "

Margery shuddered and hid her face again. "And I--I didn't know!" shegasped. 

"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 whoI was. I had a pistol in my pocket, and it was aimed at Broffin. If hehad 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 smashedthe 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 bankvault----"

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 doit--meaning to. There! and I said that wild horses should never drag itout of me!"

Again he said, "Wait, " and covered the shining head on his shoulder witha caressing hand. "It wasn't love, then, little girl; that's what itbreaks 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 thetime, and that was what made me cry. But now it's--it's different, isn'tit, boy? now you--are----"

"You have heard it all, Margery. You know what I thought I was, and whatI 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 everyliving 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 stolenall the money in the world, and had killed a dozen men to make yourget-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 willnever, _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 acrooked drop of blood in you! Don't I know? You persuaded yourself thatyou had a right to take this money; perhaps you did have; _I_ don't sayyou didn't. When I see anything I want, I reach out and take it, if Ican--and I guess most people would, if they dared. But you aredifferent; you are _good_. Some day all these dreadful things that havecome tagging along after the fact will rise up and gnash their teeth atyou 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 thingssensible and tangible, the deserted driveway, and the plashing of thelittle waves on the sands, the staring moonlight and the stencilledshadows of the oaks, were forgotten in the great soul-healing silencethat wrapped them about and enveloped them. 

"Margery, " he began, when the interval of thoughtful heart-searching haddone its illuminative work, "what would you say if I should tell youthat your 'some day' has already come?"

She started as if he had thrust a knife into her. Then she slipped outof 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, solet it be. '"

"But think a moment, girl; if one has done wrong, there must beatonement. That is the higher law--the highest law--and no man mayevade 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: myfather and I have agreed to disagree, and he has turned over to me a lotof money that he took from--that was once my mother's brother's share inthe Colorado gold claims. What is mine is yours. We can pay back themoney. 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 theystill 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 endof 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 tomarry a convict! Think of it--even if Galbraith were willing towithdraw, the law wouldn't let him, and I'd get the limit; anything fromseven years to fifteen or more. Oh, my God, no! I can't pay the price! Ican't give you up!"

She put her arms around his neck and drew his head down and kissed himon the lips. "I'll wait . .. Oh, boy, boy! I'll wait! But I can neitherpush 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 iswhat you must think of; that is my last word: 'Whatsoever seemethgood. '" 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 wasundisturbed save by the spattering tinkle of the lawn sprinklers in thefront yards, and the low voices of the out-door people taking the airand the moonlight on the porches, Griswold fared homeward, the bloodpounding in his veins and the fine wine of life mounting headily to hisbrain. 

After all the dubious stumblings he had come to the end of the road, tofind awaiting him the great accusation and the great reward. By theunanswerable logic of results, in its effect upon others and uponhimself, his deed had proved itself a crime. Right or wrong in thehighest of the ethical fields, the accepted social order had proveditself strong enough to make its own laws and to prescribe thefar-reaching penalties for their infraction. Under these laws he stoodconvicted. Never again, save through the gate of atonement, could he bereinstated as a soldier in the ranks of the conventionally righteous. True, the devotion of a loving woman, aided by a train of circumstancesstrikingly fortuitous and little short of miraculous, had averted thefinal price-paying in penal retribution. But the fact remained. He wasa felon. 

Into this gaping wound which might otherwise have slain him had beenpoured the wine and oil of a great love; a love so clean and pure in itsown well-springs that it could perceive no wrong in its object; couldmeasure no act of loyal devotion by any standard save that of its owngreatness. This love asked nothing but what he chose to give. It wouldaccept him either as he was, or as he ought to be. The place he shouldelect to occupy would be its place; his standards its standards. 

Just here the reasoning angel opened a door and thrust him out upon theedge of a precipice and left him to look down into the abyss of thebetrayers--the pit of those whose gift and curse it is to be thepace-setters. In a flash of revealment it was shown him that with thegreat love had come a great responsibility. Where he should lead, Margery would follow, unshrinkingly, unquestioningly; never askingwhether the path led up or down; asking only that his path might behers. Instantly he was face to face with a fanged choice whichthreatened to tear his heart out and trample upon it; and again herecorded his decision, confirming it with an oath. The price was toogreat; the upward path too steep; the self-denial it entailed toosacrificial. 

"We have but one life to live, and we'll live it together, Margery, girl, for better or for worse, " was his apostrophic declaration, madewhile 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-frontinghalf 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 hadwondered how the careful widow had come to leave it so, and why the halllamp was not lighted. From the turn at the stair-head he felt his way tothe door of his study. Like the one below, it was wide open; but someone had drawn the window shades and the interior of the room was as darkas a cavern. 

Once, in the novel-writing, following the lead of many worthypredecessors, Griswold had made much of the "sixth" sense; the subtleand indefinable prescience which warns its possessor of invisibledanger. No such warning was vouchsafed him when he leaned across the endof the writing-table, turned on the gas, and held a lighted match overthe chimney of the working-lamp. It was while he was still bending overthe table, with both hands occupied, that he looked aside. In his ownpivot-chair, covering him with the mate to the weapon he had smashed andthrown away, sat the man who had opened the two doors and drawn thewindow shades and otherwise prepared the trap. 

"You bought a couple o' these little playthings, Mr. Griswold, " said theman, quietly. "Keep your hands right where they are, and tell me inwhich pocket you've got the other one. "

Griswold laughed, and there was a sudden snapping of invisible bonds. Hedismissed instantly the thought that Charlotte Farnham had taken him athis word; and if she had not, there was nothing to fear. 

"I threw the other one away a little while ago, " he said. "Reach yourfree 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 haddropped into the chair at the table's end: "I reckon you know what I'mhere for. "

"I know that you are holding that gun of mine at an exceedinglyuncomfortable angle--for me, " was the cool rejoinder. "I've always had asqueamish 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 boxyou've got in Mr. Grierson's bank. "

Griswold took his bunch of keys from his pocket, slipped the one thatwas asked for from the ring, and gave it to his captor. 

"Of course, I'm surrendering it under protest, " he said. "You haven'tyet told me who you are, or what you are holding me up for. "

Broffin waved the formalities aside with a pistol-pointed gesture. "Wecan 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 questionis: 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 upthe president of the Bayou State Security Bank last spring and made aget-away with a hundred thousand--what?"

"All right; you say so--prove it. " Griswold had taken a cigar from theopen box on the writing-table and was calmly lighting it. There wasnothing to be nervous about. "I'm waiting, " he went on, placidly, whenthe cigar was going. "If you are an officer, you probably have awarrant, 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 thecrime?"

"No. "

"Well, somebody did, I suppose. Bring on your witnesses. If anybody canidentify me as the man you are after, I'll go with you--without therequisition. That's fair, isn't it?"

"I know you're the man, and you know it, too, damned well!" snappedBroffin, angered into bandying words with his obstinate capture. 

"That is neither here nor there; I am not affirming or denying. It isfor 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 knowthat you can't prove your case. "

"Why can't I?"

"Just because you can't, " Griswold went on, argumentatively. "I know thefacts of this robbery you speak of; a great many people know them. Thenewspaper accounts said at the time that there were three persons whocould certainly identify the robber: the president, the paying teller, and a young woman. It so happens that all three of these people are atpresent in Wahaska. At different times you have appealed to each ofthem, 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 betweenyou--have hoodooed the whole bunch!" he rasped. "But when I get you intocourt, 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'ta leg to stand on. This is America, and you can't arrest me without awarrant. And if you could, what would you do with me without the supportof 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-boxbeside it. Then he sat in grim silence for a full minute, toying idlywith a pair of handcuffs which he had taken from his pocket. 

"By the eternal grapples!" he said, at length, half to himself, "I've agood 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 Orleanswho wouldn't ask for anything better than the chance to defend me--atyour expense!"

Broffin dropped the manacles into his pocket and sat back in theswing-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 whowas the first to break the straitened silence. 

"You are a game fighter, Mr. Broffin, " he said, "and I'm enough of ascrapper myself to be sorry for you. Try one of these smokes--you'llfind them fairly good--and excuse me for a few minutes. I want to writea letter which, if you are going down-town, perhaps you'll be goodenough to mail for me. "

He pushed the open box of cigars across to the detective, and draggedthe lounging-chair around to the other side of the table. There wasstationery at hand, and he wrote rapidly for a few minutes, coveringthree pages of the manuscript sheets before he stopped. When the letterwas 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, relightingthe cigar which had been suffered to go out, he went into the adjoiningbedroom. When he came back, he had put on a light top-coat and a softhat, and was carrying a small hand-bag. 

"I'm your man, Mr. Broffin, " he said quietly. "I'll go with you--andplead guilty as charged. "

 * * * * *

Wahaska, the village-conscious, had its nine-days' wonder displayed forit in inch-type head-lines when the _Daily Wahaskan_, rehearsing thestory of the New Orleans bank robbery, told of the voluntary surrenderof the robber, and of his deportation to the southern city to standtrial for his offence. 

Some few there were who took exceptions to Editor Randolph's editorialin the same issue, commenting on the surrender, and pleading for asuspension of judgment on the ground that much might still be hoped forfrom a man who had retraced a broad step in the downward path byvoluntarily accepting the penalty. Those who objected to the editorialwere of the perverse minority. The intimation was made that the plea hadbeen inspired--a hint basing itself upon the fact that Miss Grierson hadbeen seen visiting the office of the _Wahaskan_ after the departure ofthe detective, Matthew Broffin, with his prisoner. 

The sensational incident, however, had been forgotten long before acertain evening, three weeks later, when the Grierson carriage conveyedthe convalescent president of the Bayou State Security from the Griersonmansion to the southbound train. Andrew Galbraith was not alone in thecarriage, and possibly there were those in the sleeping-car who mistookthe dark-eyed and strikingly beautiful young woman, who took leave ofhim only after he was comfortably settled in his section, for hisdaughter. But the whispered words of leave-taking were rather those of aconfidante than a kinswoman. 

"I'll arrange the Raymer matter as you suggest, " she said, "and if I hadeven a speaking acquaintance with God, I'd pray for you the longest dayI live, Uncle Andrew. And about the trial: I'm going to leave it allwith you; I've g-got to leave it with you! Just remember that I shallbleed little drops of blood for every day the judge gives him, and thatthe only way he can be helped is by a short sentence. He wouldn't take apardon: he--he wants to pay, you know. Good-night, and good-by!" And sheput her strong young arms around Andrew Galbraith's neck and kissed him, thereby convincing the family party in Lower Seven that she was not onlythe old man's daughter, but a very affectionate one, at that. 

 * * * * *

The little-changing seasons of central Louisiana had measured twocomplete rounds on the yearly dial of Time's unremitting and unhastingclock when the best hired carriage that Baton Rouge could afford drewup before the entrance to the State's Prison and waited. Precisely onthe stroke of twelve, a man for whom the prison rules had lately beenrelaxed sufficiently to allow his hair to grow, came out, looked abouthim as one dazed, and assaulted the closed door of the carriage as if hemeant to tear it from its hinges. 

"Oh, boy, boy!" came from the one who had waited; and then the carriagedoor yielded, opened, closed with a crash, and the negro driver cluckedto his horses. 

They were half-way to the railroad station, and she was trying topersuade him that there would be months and years in which to make upfor the loveless blank, before sane speech found its opportunity. Andeven then there were interruptions. 

"I knew you'd be here; no, they didn't tell me, but I knew it--I wouldhave staked my life on it, Margery, girl, " he said, in the first lucidinterval. 

"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 wereopen, the negro driver grinned and confided a remark to his horses. Thenthe transgressor began again. 

"Where are you taking me, Margery?--not that it makes any manner ofdifference. "

"We are going by train to New Orleans, and this--this--very--evening weare to be married, in Mr. Galbraith's house. And Uncle Andrew is goingto give the bride away. It's all arranged. "

"And after?"

"Afterward, we are going away--I don't know where. I just told dear oldSaint 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 thebook, 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, acrossto the levee and beyond it to the farther shore of the great river, andhis eyes were the eyes of a man who has seen of the travail of his souland is satisfied. 

"I shall never write that book, little girl. That story, and all themistakes that were going to the making of it, lie on the other sideof--the Price. But one day, please God, there shall be another and aworthier one. "

"Yes--please God, " she said; and the dark eyes were shining softly. 

THE END

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HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated. 

A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is violently madelove to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique situationcomplicates 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 forbig financial stakes and women flourish on the profits--or repudiate themethods. 

CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles Battell Loomis. Illustrated by FlorenceScovel Shinn and others. 

A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans at home andabroad, 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 thebest solutions of them. A book every girl and woman should possess. 

THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. Illustrated. Handsomely coloredwrapper. 

A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to aid him duringthe days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction by the lovelyeyes of a Frenchwoman. 

THE RAMRODDERS. By Holman Day. Frontispiece by Harold Matthews Brett. 

A clever, timely story that will make politicians think and will makewomen realize the part that politics play--even in their romances. 

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=The Master's Violin=

By MYRTLE REED

[Illustration]

A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old Germanvirtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents totake as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude fortechnique, 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 thetragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has livedlife in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, abeautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heartand home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessonsthat life has to give--and his soul awakens. 

Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized ordiscussed. 

 * * * * *

If you have not read "LAVENDER AND OLD LACE" by the same author, youhave a double pleasure in store--for these two books show Myrtle Reed inher most delightful, fascinating vein--indeed they may be considered asmasterpieces of compelling interest. 

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=The Prodigal Judge=

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By VAUGHAN KESTER

This great novel--probably the most popular book in this countryto-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 genialwayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet withthat suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humorpeculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals--veryexalted ones--but honors them in the breach rather than in theobservance. 

Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is SolomonMahaffy--fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublimecapacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings littleHannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end ofthe story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesquevices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placingall her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of thisdelightful old vagabond. 

The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional charactersas surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinitedelight, while this story of Mr. Kester's is one of the finest examplesof American literary craftmanship. 

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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, andshe subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheeramusement. 

THE MAGNET. By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. 

The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on ayacht, 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 oflove, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart isstronger 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 aScotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her petlead 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. Asequel to "Jan Vedder's Wife. "

JOHN WARD, PREACHER. By Margaret Deland. 

The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is apowerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautifulwife to his own narrow creed. 

THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service Illustrated by MaynardDixon. 

One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of themost accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to theYukon. The love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original. 

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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 wealthyNew York family involving the happiness of a beautiful young girl. 

TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White Illustrated by HowardChandler 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 forlove. 

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 arekidnapped from a wealthy home and appear many years after showing theeffects 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 lovewith an American man. There are ties that bind her to someone in her ownhome, 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 ayoung man who had been impressed into English service during theRevolution. 

THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe. 

A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishmanof title. Developments of a startling character and a clever untanglingof 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 sentimentalstenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in amisunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. A story with a laugh on every page. 

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THE SILENT CALL. By Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated with scenes from theplay. 

The hero of this story is the Squaw Man's son. He has been taken toEngland, but spurns conventional life for the sake of the untamed Westand 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 fragrantin sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as full of mystery and racialtroubles 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 thetoils 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'slaughable experience because he's late, a young woman's excursion intothe stock market, etc. 

OLD LADY NUMBER 31. By Louise Forsslund. 

A heart-warming story of American rural life, telling of the adventuresof an old couple in an old folk's home, their sunny philosophicalacceptance 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 forthought. A young couple begin life in humble circumstances and rise inworldly matters until the husband is enormously rich--the wife in themost aristocratic European society--but at the price of their happiness. 

THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service Illustrated by MaynardDixon. 

One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of themost accurate and picturesque descriptions of the stampede of goldseekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in the narrative isstrikingly original. 

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WHEN A MAN MARRIES. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. Illustrated by HarrisonFisher and Mayo Bunker. 

A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a visitis due from his Aunt Selina, an elderly lady having ideas about thingsquite apart from the Bohemian set in which her nephew is a shininglight. The way in which matters are temporarily adjusted forms the motifof 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 andsocial life in Washington. He attains power in politics, and a youngwoman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his educationin social amenities. 

"DOC. " GORDON. By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman. Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. 

Against the familiar background of American town life, the authorportrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery. "Doc. "Gordon, the one physician of the place, Dr. Elliot, his assistant, abeautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter are all involved inthe plot. A novel of great interest. 

HOLY ORDERS. By Marie Corelli. 

A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with societypeople, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful financiers andothers, each presenting vital problems to this man "in holyorders"--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 lowlybirth, but gifted with a beautiful voice. 

The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, andthe viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one. 

THE FORTUNES OF FIFI. By Molly Elliot Seawell. Illustrated by T. DeThulstrup. 

A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon. Fifi, aglad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a thirdrate 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. Petersburgin the reign of Peter the Great, and then to New Orleans. 

The hero is a French Soldier of Fortune, and the princess, whohesitates--but you must read the story to know how she that hesitatesmay be lost and yet saved. 

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=B. M. Bower's Novels=

Thrilling Western Romances

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Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated

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CHIP, OF THE FLYING U

A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and DellaWhitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. CecilGrantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is veryamusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher. 

THE HAPPY FAMILY

A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteenjovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we findAnanias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many livelyand exciting adventures. 

HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT

A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easternerswho exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montanaranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, andthe effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities. 

THE RANGE DWELLERS

Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spiritedaction, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Julietcourtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dullpage. 

THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS

A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among thecowboys of the West, in search of "local color" for a new novel. "Bud"Thurston learns many a lesson while following "the lure of the dimtrails" but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love. 

THE LONESOME TRAIL

"Weary" Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional citylife palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with theatmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large browneyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story. 

THE LONG SHADOW

A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life of amountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game oflife fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start tofinish. 

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THE NOVELS OF=WINSTON CHURCHILL=

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Skillful in plot, dramatic in episode, powerful and original in climax. 

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MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. By A. I. Keller and Kinneys. 

A New England state is under the political domination of a railway andMr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes the moment when the cause of the peopleagainst 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 shrewdcommon sense of the New England girl, plays no small part in thesituation as well as in the life of the young attorney who stands sounflinchingly for clean politics. 

THE CROSSING. Illus. By S. Adamson and L. Baylis. 

Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie and the British fleet in theharbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, theexpedition of Clark and his handful of dauntless followers in Illinois, the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and thetreasonable schemes builded against Washington and the FederalGovernment. 

CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn. 

A deft blending of love and politics distinguishes this book. The authorhas taken for his hero a New Englander, a crude man of the tannery, whorose to political prominence by his own powers, and then surrendered allfor the love of a woman. 

It is a sermon on civic righteousness, and a love story of a deepmotive. 

THE CELEBRITY. An Episode. 

An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalitiesbetween a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman of the most blatanttype. The story is adorned with some character sketches more living thanpen work. It is the purest, keenest fun--no such piece of humor hasappeared 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 splendidpower and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that areinspiring. The several scenes in the book in which Abraham Lincolnfigures must be read in their entirety for they give a picture of thatgreat, magnetic, lovable man, which has been drawn with evidentaffection and exceptional success. 

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GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST. , NEW YORK

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THE NOVELS OF=GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON=

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GRAUSTARK. 

A story of love behind a throne, telling how a young American met alovely 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 stirringlittle principality--Graustark--to visit her friend the princess, andthere has a romantic affair of her own. 

BREWSTER'S MILLIONS. 

A young man is required to spend _one_ million dollars in one year inorder to inherit _seven_. How he does it forms the basis of a livelystory. 

CASTLE CRANEYCROW. 

The story revolves round the abduction of a young American woman, herimprisonment in an old castle and the adventures created through herrescue. 

COWARDICE COURT. 

An amusing social feud in the Adirondacks in which an English girl istempted into being a traitor by a romantic young American, forms theplot. 

THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW. 

The story centers about the adopted daughter of the town marshal in awestern village. Her parentage is shrouded in mystery, and the storyconcerns 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 hostileMusselmen. Romantic love making amid amusing situations and excitingadventures. 

NEDRA. 

A young couple elope from Chicago to go to London traveling as brotherand sister. They are shipwrecked and a strange mix-up occurs on accountof it. 

THE SHERRODS. 

The scene is the Middle West and centers around a man who leads a doublelife. A most enthralling novel. 

TRUXTON KING. 

A handsome good natured young fellow ranges on the earth looking forromantic adventures and is finally enmeshed in most complicatedintrigues in Graustark. 

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GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST. , NEW YORK

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=LOUIS TRACY'S=

CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES

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=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. =

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CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. 

A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeurwhose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery. 

THE STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson. 

A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinatingofficer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas. 

THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. 

Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands ofcannibals, 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 aburied treasure. A thrilling mystery develops. 

THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 

The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells withexciting 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 particularsof 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 apretty 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 verypretty love story added. The hero and heroine, are the only survivors ofa wreck, and have many thrilling adventures on their desert island. 

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_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_

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GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST. , NEW YORK

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THE NOVELS OF=STEWART EDWARD WHITE=

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THE RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lajaren A. Hiller

The romance of the son of "The Riverman. " The young college hero goesinto the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft" and comes into theromance 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 theranch, 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 whoblazed 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 Hillshas a hard time of it, but "wins out" in more ways than one. 

CONJUROR'S HOUSE. Illustrated Theatrical Edition. Dramatized under thetitle of "The Call of the North. "

"Conjuror's House" is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor isthe absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride onthis forbidden land. 

THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated. 

The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and their life istreated could only belong to one who is in love with the forest and openair. 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 betweenhonesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on theother. 

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 instinctof the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story. 

THE WESTERNERS. 

A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the best Americannovels. It portrays the life of the new West as no other book has donein recent years. 

THE MYSTERY. In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams Withillustrations by Will Crawford. 

The disappearance of three successive crews from the stout ship"Laughing Lass" in mid-Pacific, is a mystery weird and inscrutable. Inthe solution, there is a story of the most exciting voyage that man everundertook. 

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GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST. , NEW YORK

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Transcriber's notes:

Page 337: missing closing quote fixed (". .. Or a silent mixer of troublemedicine. "")

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 ofhyphenation and spelling have been retained.