The Purdues finally came ashore, accompanied by two servants, and occupied the opposite end of the bungalow.
Purdue, retired capitalist, undoubtedly affluent, cherubic, in facial appearance jolly, and with a bare pate to which still appended a slightly curling fringe below his hat, laughed with you, but always there came a shrewd glitter in his eyes when trade matters were broached. The itching palm and a penchant for melons yet to be cut were easily a part of his inherited tendency.
Mother Purdue, muchly inclined toward obesity and cynicism, was a human interrogation point. Both children apparently loved the father best and made of him a chum.
The elder married daughter, Mrs. Potter, was Wellesley finished, and a growing replica of the mother. Her mouth had been spoiled at the foolish age by a constant effort to produce dimples in her cheeks, but matrimony and time had been kind and she was now quite sensible. But sister Norma, a thin, frail slip of a girl—the undoubted makings of a beautiful woman—appeared to have arbitrarily rejected the least desirable tendencies of both parents, by the sacrifice of corpulence.
I was busy with final reports and paid little attention to the new arrivals during the week that followed, but Byng, who ate with me usually, said that they were having the time of their lives, and that papa Purdue had evidently forgotten he had stump land for sale. Their boat drew too much water to navigate the river above, and, at Purdue's suggestion, the moonshiner's old flat-bottomed, square-end, scowlike boat was cleaned out, and, after the motor was overhauled, was used by them for frequent trips of inspection to theirproperty above, a tarpaulin being provided to protect them against the sun.
One mid-afternoon Byng rushed excitedly to the bungalow. He had received a telephone message from the station, for me. It was from headquarters:
"Sheriff reports your prisoners broke jail last night. Still at large. Report details of escape, insist on posse, and do what you can to apprehend."
"Didn't I tell ye? Didn't I tell ye?" he repeated, walking about the room. "That damn sheriff is about half-moonshiner himself, and the old jail would fall down if ye looked at it," he added excitedly.
"Where will these fellows strike for, Howard?" I asked, gathering up my writing.
"You know Cracker moonshiners as well as I do, maybe. You know they are like a she-bear, or a fox. The minute they're loose they go back to their hole and cubs. They haven't had any moonshineand their tongues are hanging fer it. I'll bet you them fellers are back to the old still by this time, digging fer some they've hid and getting ready to make more. They jest can't stay away. They think you've gone, an' the sheriff'll let 'em alone. He always has."
"But they escaped last night. They must come thirty or forty miles, so would not have quite time to be there now, would they?" Even as I asked the question I was shedding white duck for my working clothes.
"Yes—that's so, but they'll be there before you can get there. What are you going to do?"
"I think I'll try and beat the moonshiners to it and have things ready for them. As long as you are sure they are going back I think they ought to have a hearty welcome, Howard, don't you?" I asked, putting on high-top boots and yanking my kit from under the bed which I thought was used for the last time.
"Yes, sure, but ye got to take me along," he said, facing me, delighted at the prospect.
"Howard, these men have likely picked up guns and may put up a nasty fight. I will get them by some kind of strategy as I did before. Besides, if I get it, that's why I am paid. You can't be spared so well, for you are at the head of a business, by which a lot of people live. You have guests here to look after, too," I urged.
He stopped at the window and soberly looked out across the river. Then he walked to the other window, gazed over a long field of growing cotton, a verdant green punctuation of a new era, a new life to him and the whole section.
"An' you want me to stay an' let you go up there alone?" he asked in an injured tone, somewhat in the same manner as he had requested me to take him north five years before. I could see Mamma Purdue, out of stays, sound asleep in a steamer chair at the other end of the veranda, with Papa nearby examining critically the latest vital statistics of Wall Street.
"No, siree—ye got to lemme go this time. Do you 'spose I'm going to let any damn Crackermoonshiner get a drop on me with a long John, when I got a gun down here that shoots a dozen times while he's loadin'. Yes, I got guests, but you're the only one I can see now, and I ain't going ter let you enter that swamp with three ag'in' ye. No, sir, ye got to lemme go," he insisted vehemently.
"All right, Howard, get ready," I replied, seeing there was no use to object. "When's flood water? We've got to have it to get up that creek with a boat."
"She floods to-day at five. I know; for my schoonerCanbywill cross the bar then—inbound."
"As we will have less than two hours to get to the creek we must hurry," I said. "But keep mum. If Mamma Purdue hears of it she will think the whole family is going to be kidnapped or murdered," I added, hurrying preparations.
"We'll have to go in that little skiff of your'n. The Purdue man went out with the young wimmen a while ago in the other one."
"Get ready and be down at the mill as soon as you can."
"I'll be there in a jiffy," he said, hurrying away.
As I hastened out, Mamma Purdue's astonishment at my changed appearance suddenly converted a waking yawn into an interrogation, but my intercourse with the visitors had been limited to observation and prevented inquiry.
Byng, again a woodsman in hunting outfit, brought out the oars and helped the little electric motor skiff along. His great arms and back delighted in action, as he lapsed into the silent wildness of a woodsman hunter. He scanned the river banks unceasingly for signs of the skulking moonshiners, and when we rounded the bend and passed the spot where our camp was five years before we exchanged glances. Silence was necessary. When about two miles from the creek we met the flat-bottom boat, close to shore, in charge of the "Purdue man" as Howard called him. The two girls were gathering lilies from over the sides.Howard waved at them and, as we passed closely, warned them not to go ashore at that point.
"Why did you do that?" I queried, for the shore had the usual appearance except that it seemed to still have its full virgin growth of thick gums and other soft woods the loggers did not yet want.
"That's Alligator Island. It's more'n a mile long, and they never cut it over 'cause they said the gum logs were no good, but more'n likely it's something else. I go there hunting, but wear heavy cowhide boots. I can always get a turkey, find a bee tree, and a bear if I want one, an' I've seen bob cats as big as houn' dogs," he told me in a suppressed voice, but never relaxed his scrutiny of grass patches and stumps along the shore on both sides.
After we passed into the creek he held his rifle at full cock and faced ahead, the least movement of the high, slough grass was given a piercing search the whole way up the narrowing creek tothe old still. Evidently the gang hadn't arrived there yet.
But Howard Byng's sixth sense, his knowledge of woodcraft and the natives, especially moonshiners, prompted speed for he "just knew" they would make a "bee line" for the old still. His feverish haste indicated that he felt even more than he voiced. Some uprooted stumps that commanded a good view of the still and the creek, too, would hide us and make a good barricade.
We planted dynamite on both sides of the hole made by my last shot to blow the place up, and we covered the small wires leading to us behind the stumps.
I could see why Byng knew the men would come back. There was plenty of shade and lumber, making reconstruction easy, and daylight inspection revealed that my last shot had not quite demolished their outfit.
Howard insisted on getting out of sight as soon as possible. He acted as though he could see them coming which recalled to my mind his uncannypremonition when working for me as an "axe-man" five years before. He found a place for his rifle and held it full cock, glancing occasionally back of us, to prevent a possible surprise attack from the rear. They must come from the river and the sun being behind us was to our advantage if they came from the direction expected.
It wasn't long before Byng started up like a tiger gathering its feet to spring. I could see nothing at first. The narrow creek we came up was crooked as a corkscrew and was visible but a short distance through high swamp grass. However, I soon saw what made him start and his eyes turn to live coals. Something like a small pole or rifle barrel, that was visible above the grass a half-mile away, moved slowly but surely. Later I could see it was following the meanderings of the creek. Then, as our eyes became accustomed, we could see two of them.
"They've got a boat and are coming up the creek," he whispered between set teeth, the knots again forming on the lower angle of his great jaw.
It may be that he guessed the real truth before I did, and his blood began to surge. Intensely excited, we watched the thin rifle barrels follow the creek slowly, carefully, stealthily. Soon we noticed two more, and could hear the muffled exhaust of a motor. I looked at Byng and saw that he understood. He was again like a wild man, burning for revenge, and he grew worse when the boat rounded the last bend in the creek, revealing three outlaws in the boat in which we saw the Purdue sisters but a short time before. The sun-protecting tarpaulin was torn off, and it was the four supporting uprights that we saw moving above the grass.
They came slowly, suspiciously watching every quarter like wild animals. Byng's fingers moved so nervously about the trigger of his rifle trained upon them that I reached over and touched his shoulder warningly. I was afraid he would kill them, and moonshining, alone, was no cause for that. He held himself in restraint through powerful effort, and awaited signal from me. I couldsee that he had the same sickening thought. What had they done with the two young ladies—his guests?
The comfort and safety of a Southern man's guests comes before his own. They are a part of him and more, and with grace he acknowledges it. Even the Cracker makes you feel instantly what is in his heart. What indignity, what insults, what injury had been visited upon Howard Byng's guests by these outlaws when they took the boat was a matter sure of a reckoning. Without my restraint I am certain he would have shot down each renegade without compunction.
When they vacated the boat and furtively searched for hostile signs I warned him again. Howard was right, the two older men made a "bee-line" for the demolished still, rolled a stump, lifted a rock and eagerly drank from the hiddenjug. The younger one stood amid the wreck cursing the law. He brushed the jug aside, when offered him, and went down into the crater blasted out by my dynamite. He was joined by the older men, evidently planning night covering from the wreck, for the weather began to threaten in the east.
Byng's eyes glowed when I nervously touched the wires to the battery, exploding the planted charge. Dirt and débris shot high in the air as he ran swiftly to the spot where our outlaws were safely buried for the time being.
We dug them out one at a time and secured their hands and feet. They were not hurt, just surface cuts, that bled. Howard worked with the rapidity and fierceness of a demon. I could see he had worked out a plan. Then the two old men begged for whiskey.
"Give it to them; they'll be easier to handle," I suggested.
He gave each the jug and while they drank glared at the younger man, the leader. He lookedat the threatening clouds. It would soon be dark. He sat down where he could see the young leader's face, whose wolfish eyes were balls of animal fire. Howard Byng was the Georgia Cracker again, grim, determined and terrible.
"Eph Bradshaw," he began, with set jaw, "I know you. I never tried to hurt you. I knew you was moonshinin' here but let you alone. You hev hurt me and you hev got ter pay. Them wimmen you put outen that boat were my wimmen. Decent moonshiners nevah hurt wimmen. What did you do with 'em?" he asked, suppressed, but now actually a savage.
Bradshaw looked at the eighteen-inch steel rod I had put between his manacled hands and feet instead of a chain. Finally compelled by Byng's savage sense of injury, he blurted, "They hev our boat; we only tuk ut."
"What did you do with the wimmen?"
Bradshaw's eyes burned fiercer.
"Eph Bradshaw," began Byng, getting up, "if you don't tell what you done with them wimmen,my wimmen, I'll cut yer tongue out and feed your carcass to the dogs and buzzards."
The moonshiner believed that I would protect him as my prisoner. I could not possibly have saved him from Howard Byng, maddened by apprehension that his women folk had been injured or worse. Every corpuscle in his swarthy, rugged body was aflame, his face fiendishly illuminated.
With terrible determination, he took out a hunting knife, opened and dropped it within reach, threw the manacled moonshiner on his back, placed his boot on his neck, then, with his pistol barrel he pried his mouth open, deftly pulling out the outlaw's tongue. Dropping pistol for knife he pressed the keen edge against it and hissed, "Now will yer tell?"
Although savage and game, the moonshiner gave in.
Whatever can be said against appealing to Judge Lynch in the South or elsewhere, one thing stands out on close analysis—that this court isseldom appealed to except for one thing. Womenfolk are sacred and the least disrespect, or violation of their rights, is sufficient cause for the summary taking of life.
Bradshaw knew with whom he had to deal and that Byng would not wait long for his answer. A few seconds and his life would go out forever.
"We just put 'em out," he panted, as soon as he came erect and had regained his breath.
"Where did you put 'em out?" shouted the fiercely burning Howard Byng.
"On the island. We didn't hurt 'em."
"What did you do to the man with 'em?"
Bradshaw lapsed again into sullenness until Byng moved toward him menacingly.
"We threw him in the river because he fit us fur the boat. It's our boat."
"You put two lone wimmen on Alligator Island and not a house fur ten miles, and threw the man in the river 'cause he wanted to take care of 'em?" Byng paused, that he might resist the vengeance that surged within him.
"Eph Bradshaw," said he, solemnly, "I'm going to look fur them wimmen, an' if a hair on their heads is hurt, I'll have yer heart. I'll smash yer skull like I would a snake." The moonshiner shrunk back and shivered.
Byng walked down to the boats. The tide had left them on the mud. He then gazed at the clouding sky as he returned to me.
"I'm goin' to get them wimmen. I wouldn't stay on Alligator Island a night like this for half of Georgia. A rain is cumin' from the northeast and it'll be nasty. You'll have the tide after midnight to let you out with these fellers. You can bring 'em, can't you?"
"Either dead or alive," I replied.
Byng went back to the boats, and tied the oars inside the skiff. Then, as though the boat was a cockleshell, he picked it up from the mud, letting the center seat rest on his shoulders, and started, rifle in hand, down through high swamp grass toward the river, three miles away.
"You'll find me along this side of the islandsomewhere when the tide brings you there," he called back out of the darkness.
I moved my manacled moonshiner to the highest part near their lookout stump, chained the two together, and began a watch that would end with a flood tide, eight or ten hours later. I knew what a northeast rain was like in Georgia—bad lightning and thunder. What would become of Mrs. Potter, little more than a girl with no knowledge of woods, and the frail, nervous Norma, who had been so carefully and lovingly shielded by doting parents. Then I thought of the grief and distress of her mother and father awaiting their return, with neither Byng nor myself there to offer advice and consolation.
I hoped devoutly Byng would find the girls and get them home before any serious shock should result from their exposure. Then I blamed myself for allowing the Purdues to use the moonshiners' boat.
Nothing happened before the flood tide when I got my prisoners in their boat and started. Thestorm was bad, the rain came in sheets. I got alongside the island about three in the morning, when the storm abated somewhat. Hugging the shore closely I found Howard's skiff. It told me the whole story. He had been unsuccessful, those girls had been on the island all night exposed to that fearful storm without shelter, and possibly worse.
I ran in beside the skiff, stopped my motor and listened. I heard nothing but owls that seemed to have a voice in the deadly stillness like human beings in sore distress. I examined the skiff again. It was empty with the exception of the oars. I shouted time and again at the top of my voice, only to be answered by spectral owls. I could not leave my prisoners, so had to await for daybreak, at the first sign of which I took them ashore and chained them to a tree.
I then removed my boots to pour the water out, as they had been full since it began to rain. The prisoners begged for moonshine. They looked pitiful enough, wet to the skin, dirty and bloody.I gave them some, then filled a flask and started. The island was not wide and I went to the lower end and back, shouting repeatedly, without results.
When I did find them at the extreme upper end, Howard Byng presented a sorry spectacle, this wild Cracker man, with eyes bloodshot, clothed only with pants and shirt, for he had given the girls everything else. He had found them in the night, completely prostrated. Mrs. Potter was paralyzed with fear and could only moan, Norma was shocked into hysterics, lying with her head on Mrs. Potter's lap. They were in white summer attire and their soaked clothes clung to their bodies.
At the sight of me and daylight and several swallows of moonshine, Mrs. Potter revived enough to give serious attention to Norma, now in sort of a deathlike coma. By vigorous rubbing and finally a stimulant, she revived. Howard carried her in his arms, talking to her as he would a child, telling her she would "soon be home tomamma," while I steadied Mrs. Potter toward the boat, a half mile away. Until Norma was delivered safely home she was his woman.
At sight of the prisoners Mrs. Potter clung to me and groaned. Howard heard and tried to keep Norma from seeing them, but did not succeed. Her scream would have pierced any man's heart.
Mrs. Potter realized her sister's danger, braced herself, but was unable to do much more than wring her hands, moan and caress the young girl. It was an unpleasant experience, and I never want to go through it again. I know how to handle men, but drenched, starved, hysterical women were a sorry puzzle to me, to say nothing of the three prisoners upon whose delivery my reputation was staked.
Howard's problem was greater—he still held in his arms a slight, nervous child, less than fifteen, paralyzed with fear and exposure, who had again lapsed into a state of coma with attendant convulsions caused by the sight of the authors of her sad plight.
I was not wrong when I anticipated a scene upon our arriving home. I may have been rude to Mrs. Purdue, when she indignantly and weepingly demanded an explanation. I told her there was not a doctor within twenty miles and she had better take care of her children first, and ask for explanations later. Byng did not get off so well. The "Purdue man" finally came in with a bad bump on his head, and a story calculated to excuse his desertion. He had been hit with an oar, for which I felt glad, for I saw cowardice in his face, and I always did hate a deserter.
By the time I got my men in the hands of a marshal, and on the way to Atlanta, matters had straightened out. Mamma and Papa Purdue were quite normal again. Then it was that I thought I detected a subtle change in the atmosphere.
"'Tain't no tarnel use of you talking of going away now," Howard exploded, when I hinted at leaving. "You've stuck your nose in them papers of your'n every minute an' I haven't had even a chance to talk. You got away from me for five years and can never do that ag'in if I have to spend half my time on yer trail," he added, whimsically.
I spent that day with him and learned that his organization and planning were wonderful. Cabins for his men and a store for their wants, standard-gauge tracks built out into the stump land from which a giant crane plucked stumps as you would turnips and dropped them on flat cars. The plant digested stumps with relish, released the turpentineand rosin, and handed the remaining fiber, like overdone corned beef, to the beating engines of the pulp mill. A long row of cotton bales under cover waiting for a favorable market testified impressively to the general efficiency of the management.
"An' when you told me to pull 'em out and boil 'em, I thought you was half joking," Howard would mention every now and then with the glee of a boy getting the point of a joke a day or so late.
As I came through the paper mill his schoonerCanbywas just closing her hatches over a load of paper in rolls for New York. I returned to the bungalow, sat on my end of the veranda smoking, meditating on human probabilities, when Mother Purdue waddled up from somewhere. Perhaps waddle may be an exaggeration, but as I didn't especially want to see her then, it so seemed to me. She appeared to be in an excellent humor and I was wrong in expecting a dose of refined caustic. I offered her a chair, but she preferredthe log edge of the veranda against a post, her feet just reaching the ground.
"Mr. Wood," she began rather impressively, "I wish to apologize for my rudeness when you returned that morning. I was quite beside myself. I never passed such a night and I shudder now when I recall it. But I am indeed sorry I spoke the way I did. I know now that the children might have perished had it not been for you and Mr. Byng, and with utmost gratitude I thank you." Her lips quivered as she finished.
"I had little to do with it. I assisted Mr. Byng all I could." A billow of harnessed adipose tissue was a poor substitute for my meditations.
"Mr. Byng says it was all your work; quite modest of him. He is a wonderful fellow, isn't he?" this time facing me.
"Mr. Byng is remarkable," I agreed, looking down toward the mill.
"What are his antecedents?" she asked.
"Oh, I presume he is of English stock that settledin this country a couple of hundred years ago; his name would indicate that."
"Being such friends, you must have known him long?" she pursued.
I assented without being specific.
"Isn't it too bad he has had no chance for an education?"
"I think that depends on how you define education. His accomplishments indicate a very good education. But if you mean veneer that unfits the young for hard knocks and useful effort, he is not educated."
"I really think you are right, Mr. Wood; the young men of to-day are poorly equipped, being interested only in spending money, and for the worst that goes with it," she lamented acidly. As I did not reply at once she waddled away as she had come.
Next day found the Purdues moving back on their yacht preparing to depart, as their "man" had sufficiently recovered to navigate it. When Papa Purdue came to express his gratitude formy part in the rescue of his daughters, a polite duty, there were the same subtle inquiries regarding Howard Byng. Perhaps Mrs. Potter, who also came alone, was more insistent and extended in her inquiries. She appeared to have a personal interest in Howard. I must confess that inwardly I had no use for her. The mercenary spirit stuck out all too plainly.
But when little Norma came all was different. She was like a breath of fragrance from another world. One instinctively knew she meant what she said. There were no studied words or dollar signs about Norma.
Howard had something on his mind but waited until he had slept on the subject once or twice. Two days later he opened up. A distinct crisis had arrived—he was at the fork of the road, and the doubt as to which way to take was disturbing.
"What do you think of the Purdues?" he began bluntly, when we had finished our breakfast.
"I saw very little of them," I replied. "They were here but a short time and distinctly at a disadvantage,as guests, and more so by reason of the distressing accident to the young ladies. Did he try to sell you his land?"
"Yes—but he didn't get far on that tack. I did jes' as you said and waited for him to do the tackin'. He had worked it out pretty well before he tackled me. He said I had the river north, east was swamp, and south I was blocked. He joined me on the west, and I had to have his land to grow. His price was foolish. I almost laughed in his face. I told him I had enough now to last for years, and that the river at low tide had three feet of water for over a hundred miles up, and that there was stump land all the way."
"Then what?"
"That scotched him for a minute. But he came back, and said he knew there was good water all the time for light draft boats, and he could go above me an' build a plant and do jes' what I was doin' hisself."
"And you agreed?"
"Yes, I told him the river was Governmentwater and anyone could use it. I didn't tell him he couldn't do what I'm doin' 'cause he didn't know how—I jes' talked about sumthin' else."
"But you found him quite a decent old chap even in trade?"
"Yes—I think he knew when he came here that I was the only one that could take turpentine and rosin from a stump, and then make white paper from what's left. He was jes' tryin' me out. An' he didn't say anything till jes' before he left." Howard got up, looked across the river, and then walked to the other window, where he could see the cabins, his cotton field, and the plant working full blast.
"He had changed then?"
"Yes—he said he wanted me to cum to New York and meet his son-in-law, Mr. Potter, a crackerjack young feller I'd like. He said he'd put in the land reasonable, and all the cash we needed to make it a big plant, get another schooner, and build a railroad out to the Atlantic Coast Line and jes' make things hum. He saidwe'd have a big place in New York, sell our stuff at topnotch prices, and get supplies cheaper."
"That seems like a good offer; you must have made quite an impression on him," I ventured.
"Is that what you think?" he asked, eyeing me slowly. I ignored the question.
"Great deal depends on whether you'll like the son-in-law, Potter, and if you could work together. Now one lone man can't make much of a dent in the business world and it might be worth looking into."
"But, Wood, I'm only a Cracker now, used to the country. I don't want to go to New York, and be a cat in a strange garret. I've been there and always want to get away. The buildings are so big, every one is in such a hell of a hurry. I'm actually uneasy there. How would I feel goin' to the Purdues, with my Cracker talk and swamp ways?" appealed Byng, with a note of regret.
"Think they want you to come or they wouldn't ask you. New York people appear cold and mercenary, but once you get close, you find them human,just as warm and hospitable as any. A large city forces them into a mask they don't take off until they are very sure," I explained.
"Yes, I guess so, but I don't understand 'em a bit," he replied with a finality that indicated little chance of his going to New York soon.
I left him in a few days without the matter being referred to again.
Five years went by before I again met Howard Byng. He was at the Waldorf in New York. After parting we had exchanged letters frequently and I advised him as best I could. He employed a college man to instruct him and for two years kept away from New York and other large business centers. Meanwhile his letters improved, indicating a great change for the better. Evidently he wanted to feel sure of himself before again meeting with men of large affairs. Mrs. Potter, seconded by her mother, had scored on a plan conceived when they first met Byng—the firm of Byng and Potter was now a fact and the business had expanded and prospered as expected. And more, a year before I met him again, he hadmarried her sister Norma and sent me her photograph.
She had, as I predicted, developed into a beautiful woman without being plagued by a self-consciousness of the fact. She was real, a superb woman indeed, and Byng was rightfully proud of her. The details of the happy consummation, covering about two years, I do not know, but I have no doubt they were very exciting—to the Potter family. First of all a huge diamond in the rough had to be polished into a gentleman, and a moneymaker, who should conserve the family fortune and add to it.
Norma was carefully educated along broad, democratic lines and carefully taught the true worth of the self-seeking contingent who amble about, and simper their way along. Her marriage to Byng was, necessarily, managed with astuteness, for at no time would anyone have had the temerity to meddle with the workings of Howard Byng's will any more than that of a lion. Undoubtedly the seed of his great love was plantedwhen he carried her in his arms, drenched and convulsive, from Alligator Island. After his marriage I considered his status in life fixed and largely dismissed him from my mind. But it wasn't long before he insisted on seeing me, saying, that, as his godfather, I had certain duties.
He wanted me to go to his home, but as usual I balked at this. I compromised by taking dinner at the hotel with him, together with his wife and the Potters. Potter proved to be a fine fellow. Born to the purple, he nevertheless admired the now handsome, big-hearted, transformed Georgia Cracker. Mrs. Potter had laid down her fat upon the altar of common sense.
Norma surprised me, her photograph doing her an injustice. I could hardly believe that the stately brunette, divinely molded, was the little Norma, who, five years before, I had seen limp and unconscious in the arms of Howard Byng. At that time she appeared to be all legs, arms and a shock of black hair. We spent a delightful evening,mostly recalling the incident that had terminated so happily to all concerned. Norma went home with the Potters and Howard remained to talk with me.
"Wood," he began with frank directness as soon as we were settled, "we want you to name your salary and come with us, we need you. In a short time we will give you an interest."
I started to protest.
"Wait a minute, now, until I tell you. I have talked it over with Potter and he wants you as bad as I do. Again I want to inform you, that whether you accept or not, you are responsible for the fact that I am better than a turpentine Georgia Cracker. Everything I've got I trace to your advice. There's plenty of room and I want you to come. This is no charity matter—you'll be of valuable aid to the business."
I found it difficult to reject his alluring offer without offending him. He pressed me for reasons. I had to tell him that I liked my work, that I was able to view the world from an eminence,my own egotism, perhaps, and that mere business would not satisfy me. Also that prospects for exciting incidents of an international character were good.
"I was afraid you would tell me that. If you cared for money you would have used the process, secret to you and me. You could be rich," he commented, clearly disappointed. "Then you will have to continue your rôle of advisor without pay, for I must have advice from you," he added, resuming his cheerful smile.
"Only too glad, Howard, go ahead."
"I have no fault to find with the progress of my affairs since I saw you last. But again we have arrived where the road forks. Both roads invite. The Georgia Assimulating and Manufacturing plant has been much extended. It owns cotton fields as far as you can see and plenty of stump land, with transportation, and cash surplus instead of debt, but we need rail outlet badly. Existing roads say our freight is not sufficient to support a branch line, so the alternative is to build it ourselves. This will take our surplus andquite a bit of borrowed money. We're making money, but lack of a deep-water harbor hampers us. You see, we have only eight feet of water at flood tide. With a deep-water harbor we could get into the world's markets without breaking bulk, and bring the roads to our own terms on interior shipments. Our bank will underwrite the bonds. They have a man who will take all of them."
"What bank are you with?"
"The Transatlantic. It is big, and has treated us fine," he replied confidently.
"But, you know, it is foreign owned."
"I don't know. It may be, but that is of no interest to us. If they furnish the money we need to finance the railroad connection at a decent rate, and the necessary amount to handle the business while we are paying it off, which they will, then where is our worry to come from? I don't care where the money comes from. The point is, should we take the venture, or go on the way we are now?"
"How much money will it require?" Howardfascinated me with the familiarity of his subject. He looked big enough to accomplish anything humanly possible.
"Well—to build the road and docks, and two deep-water vessels, will call for about a million and a half. We want to own every stick and nail. We now have a half million surplus."
"You will have to borrow a million then?"
"Yes—perhaps a little more."
"You have not met the man the bank will send to take your bonds?"
"No—but the bank is reliable and will make good—at least they must produce him before we start—that's what their underwriting means," he added.
"Howard, you have put up a hard problem. I might introduce the interrogation point and mislead you. I don't pretend to know much of business, especially of big business like yours—mine is looking for deluded men—sometimes women—who try to make violations of the Federal statutes profitable. All I can do is to give you my impression,and what facts I have that may bear on your case. Then you must decide for yourself." He nodded.
"I would like it better if you were hooked up with a straight American bank," I continued. "I mean one of the old-line National banks—but, after all, that may not be important. Perhaps you ought to let 'good enough' alone. You are making more money now than you can possibly spend. However, I can understand the lure of achievement—it's about all the real fun there is in living, without which a man is old at any stage, and would be better off dead and buried."
"That's it! You understand perfectly—make the so-called impossibility yield," he interrupted, his aggressive nose twitching, his eyes dilating with eagerness.
"Howard, there are three crises in the average life. The first one we all know as 'getting started.' This usually happens in the early twenties. You passed yours just after leaving me on the wharf at Savannah. You say you cried and wished youwere dead. Another one comes about ten years later. Its form and length varies with the individual. But for a time it's usually a pretty bad experience. Men not only wish they were dead, but would try suicide were they out-and-out cowards. They believe they will be consumed by the heat and enormity of things over which they have no control. This period is not unlike the refining process of iron ore into good steel, and its formation into a perfect-cutting, useful instrument. It is a process that is melting hot, two thousand degrees and a blast behind it. Then come the blows to make the shape; then the grindstone, and the whet-stone to put on the final polish. There is another period in the late forties that you need not be concerned about now. However, Cleveland is going to be elected—the first Democratic President since the war—and that event may disturb things for a time."
Byng glanced up searchingly. "Go on," said he, abruptly.
"I know you didn't expect a sermon but youmay profit by it now; at least you will recall it afterward, and with some relief, if you follow the trend of affairs logically. When I go after a man I want to know his age the very first thing. You are about thirty now?"
"Yes, just about," there was in his eye a suspicion that I was raving, but that didn't keep me from finishing.
"And your wife is some over twenty—your partner a little older than you."
"Yes."
"You might do well to put up the sign, 'safety first,' though it's a lying thing where generally used. I advise that you trim sail and keep in deep water for a while. No use getting excited at your age. Let the situation be entirely clear when undertaking big financial stunts. Wait until the new President is well seated in his chair. I look for squalls."
"It may be you are right—I will give your advice serious consideration," said he, soberly, but I felt that he was not convinced.
"I don't like to send you home with a wet blanket around you, but you are too big, and have too much courage to shrink from the truth. Be governed by foresight as well as hindsight. Wait and see how the times are going to be before you touch anything requiring big borrowing. So long, boy, I must be going."
"I knew you'd tell me what you thought," he exclaimed, wringing my hand good-bye.
I didn't see Howard Byng for many years after that.
I saw Byng's wife some three years later. I had heard disquieting news of Byng & Potter, now incorporated, but having confidence in Howard's ability to pull through almost anything, I dismissed the matter from my mind, for I was immersed with intensely interesting responsibilities of my own. Eight years' successful work in the Counterfeit Division had laid the foundation. I was now going to Europe in a more confidential capacity even than ambassadors might enjoy! The evening before sailing I was entering my hotel, much preoccupied, when I was plucked anxiously by the sleeve. It took more than a glance to recognize Norma Byng.
"I have been looking for you a long time," shebegan, suppressing her intense excitement. "You—you—I want to see you so badly——"
She actually clung to me as I led her to a secluded spot in the ladies' parlor. Her excitement was unfeigned and I was anxious to learn what had happened to Howard Byng's beautiful wife. Manifestly she was in distress. Firm of step and courageous, she was still comely, but in severely plain attire. There was an absence of deep red in her lips, but the upward curves at the corners of her pretty mouth were there, contradicting the sadness and evident weariness of soul that showed in her eyes.
"Mr. Wood," she began, still struggling for calmness after we were seated, "I have fruitlessly used every means to find you, and to come upon you so unexpectedly quite upsets me. Perhaps—perhaps I was rude. I believe—I know you are big enough to understand," she said, her eyes now devouringly aflame.
I must have looked greatly perplexed, and, before I could formulate a reply, she exclaimed:
"You are the one man Howard trusted implicitly—don't you know—haven't you heard?"
"No, I have heard nothing authentic of him since our dinner party at the Waldorf three years ago," I managed to say.
"Oh, most terrible things have happened since then. Will you—have you time for me to tell you?" she pleaded, her hands clasped imploringly. "Can't we," she added, anxiously glancing over to a spooning couple by the window, "can't we go to some less public place?"
"It is time for dinner; if you will join me I will find a place where we will not be disturbed."
"Oh, I will be so glad! Imusttell someone who will understand and—and maybe you can do something," she added, searching my eyes with a quick glance.
It was early evening and I was able to get my favorite waiter and alcove seat in the dining-room.
"Now, Mrs. Byng——"
"Call me Norma—please do," she interrupted, "Ilike the way you pronounce it, and I crave—I—I want some one to be fatherly to me—do you know, I have lost both my parents in the last three years? I—I am quite alone."
"Well, then, Norma, food both quiets and stimulates. First, let us eat, and while we do, forget yourself, and all of your troubles. Afterward you can tell me your story—I am anxious to hear it. While we dine please relate some of the pleasant, delightful things, those for which you are thankful, that happened since I last saw you." I urged all this solicitously. I could not keep my eyes off the beautiful woman, beautiful indeed, though it was evident she had been through some terrible ordeal—the melting fires which refine, and make perfect.
"I do think your idea is more appropriate," she replied with a faint smile at my evident purpose. "It was like you to suggest it. Howard often told me you did things differently. But isn't it strange I was never asked that before?—and how sensible. Let me see—I will have to think. Perhaps, ungratefullyI have never tried to enumerate them, and I might have done so with pleasure to myself." I didn't interrupt, for she was smiling now. "First of all—well, I should be truly thankful that I have good health."
"Fine!" I exclaimed, "that's worth a million, and there's a hundred thousand women who would pay that for health and another million for your wonderful hair!"
"Perhaps so—then I have gainful employment compelling attention to others' problems which has taught me values in useful effort, brought me a few friends, uninfluenced by mere money. I should have perished without them," she added, yet inclined to revert.
"That's splendid, go ahead," I encouraged, trying to fathom the nature of Byng's disaster.
"And—I have not lost faith in human kind, and still believe the world mostly good."
"That's still greater; you will make yourself happy yet. Nothing beats invoicing our blessings occasionally."
"Then you know, a short time after your visit there came a little girl and the year that followed I could not have been happier, but——" and her lips began to quiver and she looked at me imploringly.
"There you go: remember only pleasant things yet," I cautioned.
"That's so—that's so—well, she was christened Norma, but Howard always called her 'Little Jim'; said that was the kind of a name you would like. At the christening you were named her godfather."
"He honored me——" And recovering from the surprise I continued, "Reproducing our kind is of the greatest use, and naturally yields the greatest pleasure. Of course, you were happy? Does that end your list of benefactions?"
She struggled hard for composure. She was still delightfully unconscious of her physical charms.
"That's all I can think of now, unless, perhaps, that I still love my husband so much that the lureof men, to a lone, and, in a sense, deposed woman, is transparent and childishly laughable. This has enabled me to keep my womanhood as it should be," she added quietly, a soft glow spreading over her face. I was mystified.
"You have some big items on the credit side of the ledger; now for red ink—but, remember, no tears. You are brave and I don't like to see a brave woman cry. Tell me about everything as though it happened to another, and you a mere witness. Something has happened that was a part of your destiny. You will come to look at it that way later."
"Mr. Wood, you are encouraging and helpful. I will try to be brave but you will not think badly of me if I fail—will you?" she pleaded across the table, full, honest, fearless, glorious, but after all, a woman. No one could have resisted her appeal.
"I have thought of my situation so much I hardly know where to begin to make the fearful enormity of it intelligible to you. It involves businessof which I know so little I have never tried to tell it before. No one would understand. I have no confidants. But I knew I would find you some time and somehow I thought it would be such a relief to tell you. I know you will understand!"
"Begin at the middle, anywhere—I'll understand. Take your time; but recollect, this happened to someone else." I insisted, to keep her confident and resolute.
"It appears," she began slowly, "you advised Howard against the bond issue to build the railroad. He took a strong stand against it at first, but father and Mr. Potter finally wore him down and won him over. It was done. This compelled his being in Georgia for almost a year." I nodded.
"A Mr. Ramund was introduced by the bank to take the bonds and he finally came into our homes, welcomed especially by my sister, Mrs. Potter, who was attracted by the glitter of his high position in the financial world. He spoke several languages and was what many would callhandsome and polished. To me he was a male person whose sincerity I doubted, but my sister bowed low and endeavored constantly to throw him in my way. I tolerated him, but soon began to look upon him as a possible source of serious trouble."
"The railroad was built, I take it?" I queried.
"The railroad was built and cost more than expected. Howard was barely at home again when there were ominous signs in the business world that upset him. He was not the same man. Then came fearful and dreadful times. I shudder when I recall them. With the change of administration came the crashing panic. Once, during the negotiations with the bank, he told me you had warned him against large borrowing. You were right. Heavy loans from the bank were called seemingly as though part of a plan to get the property. I believe it was. Through it all Howard was kind and affectionate, except when wild, savage moods came on. He would sometimes look the way he did that morning when he carried meaway from that terrible island in Georgia. In an incredibly short time the bonds were foreclosed and the bank took the plant and all—everything Howard owned. We were absolutely penniless and had to sacrifice our beautiful home for ready funds. I went to mother. Father lost everything also. It killed him, and mother soon followed."
I was shocked at this news but silently awaited her effort to compose herself.
"Howard went to Georgia. At least, he said he was going there," she continued with an effort. "Then the serpent in this Ramund was unmasked. He became boldly insistent."
Norma hesitated. I could see that the real crux of her story was at hand. "Yes?" said I, gently.
"Urged by my sister, I went to his hotel on the representation that he could and would do something to enable Howard to regain control and finally save his property—the result of his life's labors. You can understand how I wanted to help Howard. Mr. Ramund said the hotel parlor was too public, and asked me to his suite. Obsessedby such intense desire to save my husband, and having so little worldly knowledge, I indiscreetly went. After a little talk on the business matter, this man began to offer protestations of love for me, and told me, brazenly, how much more he could do for me than a bankrupt, discredited husband. Insulted, shocked, and stunned into sheer numbness, which he mistook for silent consent, he grasped me bodily, embraced me and kissed me violently before I could recover. Then the door opened and Howard entered—quiet, fierce, determined. It seems in retrospect a part of a play. With wonderfully polite self-control he, as though requesting an ordinary favor, asked me to please run on home.
"What happened after I left I never knew. Fearful of a great tragedy, and with a sense of injury and mortification, I walked all the way. I was actually afraid to go home. When I finally plucked up sufficient courage to do so, I found he had been there and taken little Jim. I have not heard of them since." It was some moments beforeshe could quiet down, after her painful recital.
"The bank is running the plant now?" I asked, turning away from the subject she had voluntarily introduced. I was through with it. I could see the villainy and perfidy behind Ramund's action. I knew what I would have done were I in Howard Byng's place and I afterward learned that he did that very thing.
"Yes—but there is something wrong," she replied. "It does not prosper. My father's entire fortune went along with the crash. Mr. Potter returned to a bank clerkship where he was when he married sister. She blames me, attributing the disaster to my attitude toward Mr. Ramund, raved about my senseless scruples, and still resists all my attempts at reconciliation. She apparently loves only money. So, you see, I am quite alone. Do you—do you think of any possible way to find my husband and child?" she asked in whispered agony. "You know he took little Jim, then only a year old, because—because—he thought me unfit.I am terribly depressed at times for fear they may be dead. I would have found them if living. He may have done something terrible and had to go. I have tried every way within my meager means to find them. Do you think you can help me?" she implored, reaching out her hands toward me.
"I might, but I sail for Europe to-morrow. I am compelled to go." My words sounded brutal to my own ears after such an appeal.
"Isn't there—isn't there something you can suggest?"
I meditated for some minutes. Howard Byng, if not desperate enough to destroy himself and child, would go back to the pine woods of his birth, I reasoned. Finally I said, "I will give you a letter to a friend of mine in the Excise Department, who travels the turpentine country constantly. He might get trace of him. Howard would return there if living."
"That's so. I never thought of that before. As lowly as was his start in life, he never ceasedloving the woods," she recalled, brightening. "How long will you be away?"
Knowing the disappointment the truth would bring to her, I answered ambiguously. "I hardly know. One never can tell, but I hope not very long. Meanwhile keep up a stout heart. Everything straightens out in time. Keep busy, don't brood, be brave." I will never forget how forlorn she looked as she bade me good-bye. If she had known I would be away for several years she would have broken down completely. She felt that I could help her.
I gave her a letter to Charlie Haines, and that was the last I saw of Norma Byng for eight or nine years. Charlie told me that he spent three or four years beating every pine bush in the South without results, and, moreover, that he had somehow lost track of Mrs. Byng. He decided she had married again, as she was too attractive to stay single. Eight or nine years work wonderful changes in any life. It appeared to me that Charlie might be right.
Seemingly some people never observe the fact that the calendar travels on a non-stop schedule, and the longer we live the faster it speeds.
After my talk with Charlie Haines about Norma Byng, I spent another four years in Europe, and by that time we were up to the catastrophe that rocked the world and butchered millions of people.
It caught us short of men in all departments. I was given some odd jobs outside the regular schedule, while we were trying hard to be neutral, and waiting for the Monarch of Death and his cohorts of three-cornered, degenerate minds, to discover they had overlooked another big bet besides Belgium and Italy.
Suddenly I drew a trip to Florida. I was toattach myself to the United States' Court as an ostensible necessity, for the purpose of learning what the Boche were doing toward helping themselves to our cotton, copper and crude rubber in the Gulf by means of undersea cargo carriers, and also, if they were trying to cash in on their mortgage on Mexico.
One morning the judge, hard-headed and practical, called me into his chambers and gave me two warrants to produce dead or alive the body of a certain man in court to answer charges of smuggling tobacco from Cuba, and violating our neutrality. He said the "Paper case," which meant the affidavits, upon which the warrants were based, were altogether regular, but there was a distinctive odor about them that indicated "a nigger in the woodpile." And that meant that if I went slow, it was believed that I would find out something worth while.
The clerk and myself studied elementary geography for a while, and found that the best we could do was to locate the defendant by longitudeand latitude, either on the barren Keys, or on one of the numerous islands nearby. The affidavits appeared to be made by members of the firm of Bulow and Company, in Key West, and thither I went at once.
Bulow and Company were big handlers, wholesale and retail, of heavy hardware, ship chandlery, and spongefishers' supplies. They had a few sponge boats themselves, deep-sea vessels, also docks and tugs. I saw nothing to justify the honorable judge's angle on the case, but took his advice and went slow.
At the hotel in Key West I met Ike Barry, a traveling man in just such a line.
"Been selling the Bulow people for twenty-five years," he informed me. "Always discount. The manager is director in the People's National. The Bulows were German—all dead now. Will take you down and introduce you to present managers—fine people. No—well, I'm going to be here a week or two fishing—see me if I can make you happy—I know what Key West has for breakfast."
I was making no progress in getting a line on the man Canby charged in the warrants. Finally I changed clothes and went down to the waterfront looking for a job as marine engineer, or anything in that line. It may have been an accident that I got on the Bulow wharf first with my license, membership card, and enough letters to convince even a doubting Thomas that I was fit and willing.
I found Scotty in the engine room of a speedy gasoline craft and pried his mouth open with a hard-luck story. This boat was used as sort of scout for trade all the way from the Bermudas and Cuba to Vera Cruz and New Orleans.
Scotty soon showed his Highland Scotch by starting in to brag.
"It'll split the water faster than anything on the Gulf," said he, looking proud, "but I've got to give the Devil his due—there's one boat down here that passes us at our best, like we hadn't cast off yet, and the old man is wild about it—or maybe it's something else that's the real reason."
This was the first information I had receivedregarding Canby. It was his boat that excited Scotty, and I soon had the story and enough geography to locate him.
Scotty walked uptown with me, and before parting said, after swearing me to secrecy, that unless things looked better on the other side he was going back home to take his old place in the Royal Navy, and that if I stuck around awhile I might have his job. In fact, there were some things about his job he didn't like, he informed me, getting more friendly before I left him.
I had to get an order from the superintendent to have the train stop the next morning about midway between Key West and the Everglades. The conductor, a veteran on the road, said he had never stopped there. As far as he knew it was a sort of a Saturday and Sunday rendezvous for spongers and thought that, without an arsenal on my person, I was taking chances. "Queer fish," he added, shaking his head, "but someone there knows something about flowers."
I wondered what he meant.
He let me off at the open back door of a rambling building of many additions, perhaps one hundred and fifty feet long, beginning near the track, and ending with two stories near the water on the Gulf side.
Not a soul was in sight and everything as still as a country church on a weekday. I went through the store stocked with fishermen's supplies, encountering no signs of life, until I emerged at the other end on a wide veranda with a double-canvas roof. Here I saw an old-time darkey standing near the side rail, sharpening an eighteen-inch, murderous-looking knife on a big whetstone held in his palm.
He jerked his head toward me and double-tracked his face from ear to ear, but did not speak. Then I saw a boy of about twelve, with a rifle beside him, a hundred feet away, his bare legs dangling over the pier, which began at the veranda and extended out into the water, terminating at a corrugated warehouse that looked like a daddy-long-legs, in the retreating tide.
The boy glanced at me, then riveted his eyes on a spot in the murky water twenty feet in front of him and seemed to forget my presence. The old darkey silently continued whetting the big knife. There was something in the situation that I didn't understand. Had I struck a crazy house?
But that straight-nosed, clear-featured boy, as alert as a sparrow, was not crazy. Faded khaki pants, puckered above his knees, and a sleeveless garment of the same material pulled down over his head covered a plump, well-developed chest and body, round and sinuous as a minnow.
The negro continued to whet, occasionally trying the edge with his thumb and glancing at the boy, who continued to gaze at the water as though hypnotized.
I moved a little uneasily, clearly unable to understand. I recalled what the conductor had said about flowers and noticed that the space between the veranda and high tide, more than fifty feet, and a hundred feet either side of the narrow pier that passed above it, was a most luxuriant flowergarden, planted in artistic figures. The coral formation threw an arm nearly around the warehouse on the wharf, enclosing several acres of water, protecting it from the fierce tropical Gulf storms. A smart-looking motorboat tugging at its chain completed the scene.
I became fascinated and moved over near the edge of the veranda some distance from the negro, who had stopped work on his knife; the boy's hand moved cautiously toward the rifle, a watchful glitter in his eyes; then raising it to his shoulder, fired at a spot in the water he had been watching. Instantly the waters of the little bay were lashed into a crimson foam. He had shot a bull alligator through his sleeping eye.