"Hugo Danner."
"Oh—old Danner's boy, eh?"
Hugo did not like the tone in which they referred to his father. He made no reply.
"Can you tell us anything about these ruins?"
"What ruins?"
They pointed to his fort. Hugo was hurt. "Those aren't ruins. I built that fort. It's to fight Indians in."
The pair ignored his answer and started toward the fort. Hugo did not protest. They surveyed its weighty walls and its relatively new roof.
"Looks recent," Smith said.
"This child has evidently renovated it. But it must have stood here for thousands of years."
"It didn't. I made it—mostly last week."
They noticed him again. Whitaker simpered. "Don't lie, young man."
Hugo was sad. "I'm not lying. I made it. You see—I'm strong." It was as if he had pronounced his own damnation.
"Tut, tut." Smith interrupted his survey. "Did you find it?"
"I built it."
"I said"—the professor spoke with increasing annoyance—"I said not to tell me stories any longer. It's important, young man, that we know just how you found this dolmen and in what condition."
"It isn't a dolly—whatever you said—it's a fort and I built it and I'm not lying."
The professor, in the interests of science, made a grave mistake. He seized Hugo by the arms and shook him. "Now, see here, young man, I'll have no more of your impertinent lip. Tell me just what you've done to harm this noble monument to another race, or, I swear, I'll slap you properly." The professor had no children. He tried, at the same time, another tack, which insulted Hugo further. "If you do, I'll give you a penny—to keep."
Hugo wrenched himself free with an ease that startled Smith. His face was dark, almost black. He spoke slowly, as if he was trying to piece words into sense. "You—both of you—you go away from here and leave me or I'll break your two rotten old necks."
Whitaker moved toward him, and Smith interceded. "We better leave him—and come back later." He was still frightened by the strength in Hugo's arms. "The child is mad. He may have hydrophobia. He might bite." The men moved away hastily. Hugo watched them climb the wall. When they reached the top, he called gently. They wheeled.
And Hugo, sobbing, tears streaming from his face, leaped into his fort. Rocks vomited themselves from it—huge rocks that no man could budge. Walls toppled and crashed. The men began to move. Hugo looked up. He chose a stone that weighed more than a hundred pounds.
"Hey!" he said. "I'm not a liar!" The rock arched through the air and Professors Whitaker and Smith escaped death by a scant margin. Hugo lay in the wreck of the first thing his hands had built, and wept.
After a little while he sprang to his feet and chased the retreating professors. When he suddenly appeared in front of them, they were stricken dumb. "Don't tell any one about that or about me," he said. "If you do—I'll break down your house just like I broke mine. Don't even tell my family. They know it, anyhow."
He leaped. Toward them—over them. The forest hid him. Whitaker wiped clammy perspiration from his brow. "What was it, Smith?"
"A demon. We can't mention it," he repeated, thinking of the warning. "We can't speak of it anyway. They'll never believe us."
Extremely dark of hair, of eyes and skin, moderately tall, and shaped with that compact, breath-taking symmetry that the male figure sometimes assumes, a brilliantly devised, aggressive head topping his broad shoulders, graceful, a man vehemently alive, a man with the promise of a young God. Hugo at eighteen. His emotions ran through his eyes like hot steel in a dark mould. People avoided those eyes; they contained a statement from which ordinary souls shrank.
His skin glowed and sweated into a shiny red-brown. His voice was deep and alluring. During twelve long and fierce years he had fought to know and control himself. Indian Creek had forgotten the terrible child.
Hugo's life at that time revolved less about himself than it had during his first years. That was both natural and fortunate. If his classmates in school and the older people of the town had not discounted his early physical precocity, even his splendid vitality might not have been sufficient to prevent him from becoming moody and melancholy.
But when with the passage of time he tossed no more bullies, carried no more barrels of temptation, built no more fortresses, and grew so handsome that the matrons of Indian Creek as well as the adolescent girls in high school followed him with wayward glances, when the men found him a gay and comprehending companion for any sport or adventure, when his teachers observed that his intelligence was often embarrassingly acute, when he played on three teams and was elected an officer in his classes each year, then that half of Hugo which was purely mundane and human dominated him and made him happy.
His adolescence, his emotions, were no different from those of any young man of his age and character. If his ultimate ambitions followed another trajectory, he postponed the evidence of it. Hugo was in love with Anna Blake, the girl who had attracted him when he was six. The residents of Indian Creek knew it. Her family received his calls with the winking tolerance which the middle class grants to young passion. And she was warm and tender and flirtatious and shy according to the policies that she had learned from custom.
The active part of Hugo did not doubt that he would marry her after he had graduated from the college in Indian Creek, that they would settle somewhere near by, and that they would raise a number of children. His subconscious thoughts made reservations that he, in moments when he was intimate with himself, would admit frankly. It made him a little ashamed of himself to see that on one night he would sit with Anna and kiss her ardently until his body ached, and on another he would deliberately plan to desert her. His idealism at that time was very great and untried and it did not occur to him that all men are so deliberately calculating in the love they disguise as absolute.
Anna had grown into a very attractive woman. Her figure was rounded and tall. Her hair was darker than the waxy curls of her childhood, and a vital gleam had come into it. Her eyes were still as blue and her voice, shorn of its faltering youngness, was sweet and clear. She was undoubtedly the prettiest girl in high school and the logical sweet-heart for Hugo Danner. A flower ready to be plucked, at eighteen.
When Hugo reached his senior year, that readiness became almost an impatience. Girls married at an early age in Indian Creek. She looked down the corridor of time during which he would be in college, she felt the pressure of his still slumbering passion, and she sensed his superiority over most of the town boys. Only a very narrow critic would call her resultant tactics dishonourable. They were too intensely human and too clearly born of social and biological necessity.
She had let him kiss her when they were sixteen. And afterwards, before she went to sleep, she sighed rapturously at the memory of his warm, firm lips, his strong, rough arms. Hugo had gone home through the dizzily spinning dusk, through the wind-strummed trees and the fragrant fields, his breath deep in his chest, his eyes hot and somewhat understanding.
Gradually Anna increased that license. She knew and she did not know what she was doing. She played a long game in which she said: "If our love is consummated too soon, the social loss will be balanced by a speedier marriage, because Hugo is honourable; but that will never happen." Two years after that first kiss, when they were floating on the narrow river in a canoe, Hugo unfastened her blouse and exposed the creamy beauty of her bosom to the soft moonlight and she did not protest. That night he nearly possessed her, and after that night he learned through her unspoken, voluptuous suggestion all the technique of love-making this side of consummation.
When, finally, he called one night at her house and found that she was alone and that her parents and her brother would not return until the next day, they looked at each other with a shining agreement. He turned the lights out and they sat on the couch in the darkness, listening to the passing of people on the sidewalk outside. He undressed her. He whispered halting, passionate phrases. He asked her if she was afraid and let himself be laughed away from his own conscience. Then he took her and loved her.
Afterwards, going home again in the gloom of late night, he looked up at the stars and they stood still. He realized that a certain path of life had been followed to its conclusion. He felt initiated into the adult world. And it had been so simple, so natural, so sweet.... He threw a great stone into the river and laughed and walked on, after a while.
Through the summer that followed, Hugo and Anna ran the course of their affair. They loved each other violently and incessantly and with no other evil consequence than to invite the open "humphs" of village gossips and to involve him in several serious talks with her father. Their courtship was given the benefit of conventional doubt, however, and their innocence was hotly if covertly protested by the Blakes. Mrs. Danner coldly ignored every fragment of insinuation. She hoped that Hugo and Anna would announce their engagement and she hinted that hope. Hugo himself was excited and absorbed. Occasionally he thought he was sterile, with an inclination to be pleased rather than concerned if it was true.
He added tenderness to his characteristics. And he loved Anna too much. Toward the end of that summer she lost weight and became irritable. They quarrelled once and then again. The criteria for his physical conduct being vague in his mind, Hugo could not gauge it correctly. And he did not realize that the very ardour of his relation with her was abnormal. Her family decided to send her away, believing the opposite of the truth responsible for her nervousness and weakness. A week before she left, Hugo himself tired of his excesses.
One evening, dressing for a last passionate rendezvous, he looked in his mirror as he tied his scarf and saw that he was frowning. Studying the frown, he perceived with a shock what made it. He did not want to see Anna, to take her out, to kiss and rumple and clasp her, to return thinking of her, feeling her, sweet and smelling like her. It annoyed him. It bored him. He went through it uneasily and quarrelled again. Two days later she departed.
He acted his loss well and she did not show her relief until she sat on the train, tired, shattered, and uninterested in Hugo and in life. Then she cried. But Hugo was through. They exchanged insincere letters. He looked forward to college in the fall. Then he received a letter from Anna saying that she was going to marry a man she had met and known for three weeks. It was a broken, gasping, apologetic letter. Every one was outraged at Anna and astounded that Hugo bore the shock so courageously.
The upshot of that summer was to fill his mind with fetid memories, which abated slowly, to make him disgusted with himself and tired of Indian Creek. He decided to go to a different college, one far away from the scene of his painful youth and his disillusioned maturity. He chose Webster University because of the greatness of its name. If Abednego Danner was hurt at his son's defection from his own college, he said nothing. And Mrs. Danner, grown more silent and reserved, yielded to her son's unexpected decision.
Hugo packed his bags one September afternoon, with a feeling of dreaminess. He bade farewell to his family. He boarded the train. His mind was opaque. The spark burning in it was one of dawning adventure buried in a mass of detail. He had never been far from his native soil. Now he was going to see cities and people who were almost foreign, in the sophisticated East. But all he could dwell on was a swift cinema of a defeated little boy, a strong man who could never be strong, a surfeited love, a truant and dimly comprehensible blonde girl, a muddy street and a red station, a clapboard house, a sonorous church with hushed puppets in the pews, fudge parties, boats on the little river, cold winter, and ice over the mountains, and a fortress where once upon a time he had felt mightier than the universe.
The short branch line to which Hugo changed brought him to the fringe of the campus. The cars were full of boys, so many of them that he was embarrassed. They all appeared to know each other, and no one spoke to him. His dreams on the train were culminated. He had decided to become a great athlete. With his mind's eye, he played the football he would play—and the baseball. Ninety-yard runs, homers hit over the fence into oblivion. Seeing the boys and feeling their lack of notice of him redoubled the force of that decision. Then he stepped on to the station platform and stood facing the campus. He could not escape a rush of reverence and of awe; it was so wide, so green and beautiful. Far away towered the giant arches of the stadium. Near by were the sharp Gothic points of the chapel and the graduate college. Between them a score or more of buildings rambled in and out through the trees.
"Hey!"
Hugo turned a little self-consciously. A youth in a white shirt and white trousers was beckoning to him. "Freshman, aren't you?"
"Yes. My name's Danner. Hugo Danner."
"I'm Lefty Foresman. Chuck!" A second student separated himself from the bustle of baggage and young men. "Here's a freshman."
Hugo waited with some embarrassment. He wondered why they wanted a freshman. Lefty introduced Chuck and then said: "Are you strong, freshman?"
For an instant he was stunned. Had they heard, guessed? Then he realized it was impossible. They wanted him to work. They were going to haze him. "Sure," he said.
"Then get this trunk and I'll show you where to take it."
Hugo was handed a baggage check. He found the official and located the trunk. Tentatively he tested its weight, as if he were a normally husky youth about to undertake its transportation. He felt pleased that his strength was going to be tried so accidentally and in such short order. Lefty and Chuck heaved the trunk on his back. "Can you carry it?" they asked.
"Sure."
"Don't be too sure. It's a long way."
Peering from beneath the trunk under which he bent with a fair assumption of human weakness, Hugo had his first close glimpse of Webster. They passed under a huge arch and down a street lined with elms. Students were everywhere, carrying books and furniture, moving in wheelbarrows and moving by means of the backs of other freshmen. The two who led him were talking and he listened as he plodded.
"Saw Marcia just before I left the lake—took her out one night—and got all over the place with her—and then came down—she's coming to the first prom with me—and Marj to the second—got to get some beer in—we'll buzz out and see if old Snorenson has made any wine this summer. Hello, Eddie—glad to see you back—I've elected the dean's physics, though, God knows, I'll never get a first in them and I need it for a key. That damn Frosh we picked up sure must have been a porter—hey, freshmen! Want a rest?"
"No, thanks."
"Went down to the field this afternoon—looks all right to me. The team, that is. Billings is going to quarter it now—and me after that—hope to Christ I make it—they're going to have Scapper and Dwan back at Yale and we've got a lot of work to do. Frosh! You don't need to drag that all the way in one yank. Put it down, will you?"
"I'm not tired. I don't need a rest."
"Well, you know best—but you ought to be tired. I would. Where do you come from?"
"Colorado."
"Huh! People go to Colorado. Never heard of any one coming from there before. Whereabouts?"
"Indian Creek."
"Oh." There was a pause. "You aren't an Indian, are you?" It was asked bluntly.
"Scotch Presbyterian for twenty generations."
"Well, when you get through here, you'll be full of Scotch and emptied of the Presbyterianism. Put the trunk down."
Their talk of women, of classes, of football, excited Hugo. He was not quite as amazed to find that Lefty Foresman was one of the candidates for the football team as he might have been later when he knew how many students attended the university and how few, relatively, were athletes. He decided at once that he liked Lefty. The sophistication of his talk was unfamiliar to Hugo; much of it he could not understand and only guessed. He wanted Lefty to notice him. When he was told to put the trunk down, he did not obey. Instead, with precision and ease, he swung it up on his shoulder, held it with one hand and said in an unflustered tone: "I'm not tired, honestly. Where do we go from here?"
"Great howling Jesus!" Lefty said, "what have we here? Hey! Put that trunk down." There was excitement in his voice. "Say, guy, do that again."
Hugo did it. Lefty squeezed his biceps and grew pale. Those muscles in action lost their feel of flesh and became like stone. Lefty said: "Say, boy, can you play football?"
"Sure," Hugo said.
"Well, you leave that trunk with Chuck, here, and come with me."
Hugo did as he had been ordered and they walked side by side to the gymnasium. Hugo had once seen a small gymnasium, ill equipped and badly lighted, and it had appealed mightily to him. Now he stood in a prodigious vaulted room with a shimmering floor, a circular balcony, a varied array of apparatus. His hands clenched. Lefty quit him for a moment and came back with a man who wore knickers. "Mr. Woodman, this is—what the hell's your name?"
"Danner. Hugo Danner."
"Mr. Woodman is football coach."
Hugo took the man's hand. Lefty excused himself. Mr. Woodman said: "Young Foresman said you played football."
"Just on a high-school team in Colorado."
"Said you were husky. Go in my office and ask Fitzsimmons to give you a gym suit. Come out when you're ready."
Hugo undressed and put on the suit. Fitzsimmons, the trainer, looked at him with warm admiration. "You're sure built, son."
"Yeah. That's luck, isn't it?"
Then Hugo was taken to another office. Woodman asked him a number of questions about his weight, his health, his past medical history. He listened to Hugo's heart and then led him to a scale. Hugo had lied about his weight.
"I thought you said one hundred and sixty, Mr. Danner?"
The scales showed two hundred and eleven, but it was impossible for a man of his size and build to weigh that much. Hugo had lied deliberately, hoping that he could avoid the embarrassment of being weighed. "I did, Mr. Woodman. You see—my weight is a sort of freak. I don't show it—no one would believe it—and yet there it is." He did not go into the details of his construction from a plasm new to biology.
"Huh!" Mr. Woodman said. Together they walked out on the floor of the gymnasium. Woodman called to one of the figures on the track who was making slow, plodding circuits. "Hey, Nellie! Take this bird up and pace him for a lap. Make it fast."
A little smile came at the corners of Hugo's mouth. Several of the men in the gymnasium stopped work to watch the trial of what was evidently a new candidate. "Ready?" Woodman said, and the runners crouched side by side. "Set? Go!"
Nelson, one of the best sprinters Webster had had for years, dashed forward. He had covered thirty feet when he heard a voice almost in his ear. "Faster, old man."
Nelson increased. "Faster, boy, I'm passing you." The words were spoken quietly, calmly. A rage filled Nelson. He let every ounce of his strength into his limbs and skimmed the canvas. Half a lap. Hugo ran at his side and Nelson could not lead him. The remaining half was not a race. Hugo finished thirty feet in the lead.
Woodman, standing on the floor, wiped his forehead and bawled: "That the best you can do, Nellie?"
"Yes, sir."
"What in hell have you been doing to yourself?"
Nelson drew a sobbing breath. "I—haven't—done—a thing. Time—that man. He's—faster than the intercollegiate mark."
Woodman, still dubious, made Hugo run against time. And Hugo, eager to make an impression and unguided by a human runner, broke the world's record for the distance around the track by a second and three-fifths. The watch in Woodman's hands trembled.
"Hey!" he said, uncertain of his voice, "come down here, will you?"
Hugo descended the spiral iron staircase. He was breathing with ease. Woodman stared at him. "Lessee you jump."
Hugo was familiar with the distances for jumping made in track meets. He was careful not to overdo his effort. His running jump was twenty-eight feet, and his standing jump was eleven feet and some inches. Woodman's face ran water. His eyes gleamed. "Danner," he said, "where did you get that way?"
"What way?"
"I mean—what have you done all your life?"
"Nothing. Gone to school."
"Two hundred and eleven pounds," Woodman muttered, "run like an Olympic champ—jump like a kangaroo—how's your kicking?"
"All right, I guess."
"Passing?"
"All right, I guess."
"Come on outside. Hey, Fitz! Bring a ball."
An hour later Fitzsimmons found Woodman sitting in his office. Beside him was a bottle of whisky which he kept to revive wounded gladiators. "Fitz," said Woodman, looking at the trainer with dazed eyes, "did you see what I saw?"
"Yes, I did, Woodie."
"Tell me about it."
Fitzsimmons scratched his greying head. "Well, Woodie, I seen a young man—"
"Saw, Fitz."
"I saw a young man come into the gym an' undress. He looked like an oiled steam engine. I saw him go and knock hell out of three track records without even losing his breath. Then I seen him go out on the field an' kick a football from one end to the other an' pass it back. That's whatIseen."
Woodman nodded his head. "So did I. But I don't believe it, do you?"
"I do. That's the man you—an' all the other coaches—have been wantin' to see. The perfect athlete. Better in everything than the best man at any one thing. Just a freak, Woodie—but, God Almighty, how New Haven an' Colgate are goin' to feel it these next years!"
"Mebbe he's dumb, Fitz."
"Mebbe. Mebbe not."
"Find out."
Fitz wasted no time. He telephoned to the registrar's office. "Mr. H. Danner," said the voice of a secretary, "passed his examinations with the highest honours and was admitted among the first ten."
"He passed his entrance exams among the first ten," Fitzsimmons repeated.
"God!" said Woodman, "it's the millennium!" And he took a drink.
Late in the afternoon of that day Hugo found his room in Thompson Dormitory. He unpacked his carpet-bag and his straw suitcase. He checked in his mind the things that he had done. It seemed a great deal for one day—a complete alteration of his life. He had seen the dean and arranged his classes: trigonometry, English, French, Latin, biology, physics, economics, hygiene. With a pencil and a ruler he made a schedule, which he pinned on the second-hand desk he had bought.
Then he checked his furniture: a desk, two chairs, a bed, bed-clothes, a rug, sheets and blankets, towels. He hung his clothes in the closet. For a while he looked at them attentively. They were not like the clothes of the other students. He could not quite perceive the difference, but he felt it, and it made him uncomfortable. The room to which he had been assigned was pleasant. It looked over the rolling campus on two sides, and both windows were framed in the leaves of nodding ivy.
It was growing dark. From a dormitory near by came the music of a banjo. Presently the player sang and other voices joined with him. A warm and golden sun touched the high clouds with lingering fire. Voices cried out, young and vigorous. Hugo sighed. He was going to be happy at Webster. His greatness was going to be born here.
At that time Woodman called informally on Chuck and Lefty. They were in a heated argument over the decorative arrangement of various liquor bottles when he knocked. "Come in!" they shouted in unison.
"Hello!"
"Oh, Woodie. Come in. Sit down. Want a drink—you're not in training?"
"No, thanks. Had one. And it would be a damn sight better if you birds didn't keep the stuff around."
"It's Chuck's." Lefty grinned.
"All right. I came to see about that bird you brought to me—Danner."
"Was he any good?"
Woodman hesitated. "Fellows, if I told you how good he was, you wouldn't believe me. He's so good—I'm scared of him."
"Whaddaya mean?"
"Just that. He gave Nellie thirty feet in a lap on the track."
"Great God!"
"He jumped twenty-eight and eleven feet—running and standing. He kicked half a dozen punts for eighty and ninety yards and he passed the same distance."
Lefty sat down on the window seat. His voice was hoarse. "That—can't be done, Woodie."
"I know it. But he did it. But that isn't what makes me frightened. How much do you think he weighs?"
"One fifty-five—or thereabouts."
Woodie shook his head. "No, Lefty, he weighs two hundred and eleven."
"Two eleven! He can't, Woodie. There's something wrong with your scales."
"Not a thing."
The two students stared at each other and then at the coach. They were able to grasp the facts intellectually, but they could not penetrate the reactions of their emotions. At last Lefty said: "But that isn't—well—it isn't human, Woodie."
"That's why I'm scared. Something has happened to this bird. He has a disease of some kind—that has toughened him. Like Pott's disease, that turns you to stone. But you wouldn't think it. There's not a trace of anything on the surface. I'm having a blood test made soon. Wait till to-morrow when you see him in action. It'll terrify you. Because you'll have the same damned weird feeling I have—that he isn't doing one tenth of what he can do—that he's really just playing with us all. By God, if I was a bit superstitious, I'd throw up my job and get as much distance between me and that bird as I could. I'm telling you simply to prepare you. There's something mighty funny about him, and the sooner we find out, the better."
Mr. Woodman left the dormitory. Lefty and Chuck stared at each other for the space of a minute, and then, with one accord, they went together to the registrar's office. There they found Hugo's address on the campus, and in a few minutes they were at his door.
"Come in," Hugo said. He smiled when he saw Lefty and Chuck. "Want some more trunks moved?"
"Maybe—later." They sat down, eying Hugo speculatively. Lefty acted as spokesman. "Listen here, guy, we've just seen Woodie and he says you're phenomenal—so much so that it isn't right."
Hugo reddened. He had feared that his exhibition was exaggerated by his eagerness to impress the coach. He said nothing and Lefty continued: "You're going to be here for four years and you're going to love this place. You're going to be willing to die for it. All the rest of your life the fact that you went to old Webster is going to make a difference. But there's one thing that Webster insists on—and that's fair play. And honesty—and courage. You've come from a little town in the West and you're a stranger here. Understand, this is all in a spirit of friendship. So far—we like you. We want you to be one of us. To belong. You have a lot to learn and a long way to go. I'm being frank because I want to like you. For instance, Chuck here is a millionaire. My old man is no dead stick in the Blue Book. Things like that will be different from what you've known before. But the important thing is to be a square shooter. Don't be angry. Do you understand?"
Hugo walked to the window and looked out into the thickened gloom. He had caught the worry, the repression, in Lefty's voice. The youth, his merry blue eyes suddenly grave, his poised self abnormally disturbed, had suggested a criticism of some sort. What was it? Hugo was hurt and a little frightened. Would his college life be a repetition of Indian Creek? Would the athletes and the others in college of his own age fear and detest him—because he was superior? Was that what they meant? He did not know. He was loath to offend Lefty and Chuck. But there seemed no alternative to the risk. No one had talked to him in that way for a long time. He sat on his bed. "Fellows," he said tersely, "I don't think I know what you're driving at. Will you tell me?"
The roommates fidgeted. They did not know exactly, either. They had come to fathom the abnormality in Hugo. Chuck lit a cigarette. Lefty smiled with an assumed ease. "Why—nothing, Danner. You see—well—I'm quarterback of the football team. And you'll probably be on it this year—we haven't adopted the new idea of keeping freshmen off the varsity. Just wanted to tell you those—well—those principles."
Hugo knew he had not been answered. He felt, too, that he would never in his life give away his secret. The defences surrounding it had been too immutably fixed. His joy at knowing that he had been accepted so soon as a logical candidate for the football team was tempered by this questioning. "I have principles, fellows."
"Good." Lefty rose. "Guess we'll be going. By the way, Woodie said you smashed a couple of track records to-day. Where'd you learn?"
"Nowhere."
"How come, then?"
"Just—natural."
Lefty summoned his will. "Sure it isn't—well—unhealthy. Woodie says there are a couple of diseases that make you—well—get tough—like stone."
Hugo realized the purpose of the visit. "Then—be sure I haven't any diseases. My father had an M.D." He smiled awkwardly. "Ever since I was a kid, I've been stronger than most people. And I probably have a little edge still. Just an accident, that's all. Is that what you were wondering about?"
Lefty smiled with instant relief. "Yes, it is. And I'm glad you take it that way. Listen—why don't you come over to the Inn and take dinner with Chuck and me? Let commons go for to-night. What say?"
At eleven Hugo wound his alarm clock and set it for seven. He yawned and smiled. All during supper he had listened to the glories of Webster and the advantages of belonging to the Psi Delta fraternity, to descriptions of parties and to episodes with girls. Lefty and Chuck had embraced him in their circle. They had made suggestions about what he should wear and whom he should know; they had posted him on the behaviour best suited for each of his professors. They liked him and he liked them, immensely. They were the finest fellows in the world. Webster was a magnificent university. And he was going to be one of its most glorious sons.
He undressed and went to bed. In a moment he slept, drawing in deep, swift breaths. His face was smiling and his arm was extended, whether to ward off shadows or to embrace a new treasure could not be told. In the bright sunshine of morning his alarm jangled and he woke to begin his career as an undergraduate.
From the day of his arrival Webster University felt the presence of Hugo Danner. Classes, football practice, hazing, fraternity scouting began on that morning with a feverish and good-natured hurly-burly that, for a time, completely bewildered him. Hugo participated in everything. He went to the classroom with pleasure. It was never difficult for him to learn and never easier than in those first few weeks. The professors he had known (and he reluctantly included his own father) were dry-as-dust individuals who had none of the humanities. And at least some of the professors at Webster were brilliant, urbane, capable of all understanding. Their lectures were like tonic to Hugo.
The number of his friends grew with amazing rapidity. It seemed that he could not cross the campus without being hailed by a member of the football team and presented to another student. The Psi Deltas saw to it that he met the entire personnel of their chapter at Webster. Other fraternities looked at him with covetous eyes, but Lefty Foresman, who was chairman of the membership committee, let it be known that the Psi Deltas had marked Hugo for their own. And no one refused their bid.
On the second Monday after college opened, Hugo went to the class elections and found to his astonishment that he received twenty-eight votes for president. A boy from a large preparatory school was elected, but twenty-eight votes spoke well for the reputation he had gained in that short time. On that day, too, he learned the class customs. Freshmen had to wear black caps, black shoes and socks and ties. They were not allowed to walk on the grass or to ride bicycles. The ancient cannon in the center of the class square was defended annually by the sophomores, and its theft was always attempted by the freshmen. No entering class had stolen it in eight years. Those things amused Hugo. They gave him an intimate feeling of belonging to his school. He wrote to his parents about them.
Dean Aiken, the newly elected president of the freshman class, approached Hugo on the matter of the cannon. "We want a gang of good husky boys to pull it up some night and take it away. Are you with us?"
"Sure."
Left to his own considerations, Hugo recalled his promise and walked across the campus with the object of studying the cannon. It was a medium-sized piece of Revolutionary War vintage. It stood directly in the rear of Webster Hall, and while Hugo regarded it, he noticed that two sophomores remained in the vicinity. He knew that guard, changed every two hours, would be on duty day and night until Christmas was safely passed. Well, the cannon was secure. It couldn't be rolled away. The theft of it would require first a free-for-all with the sophomores and after a definite victory a mob assault of the gun. Hugo walked closer to it.
"Off the grass, freshman!"
He wheeled obediently. One of the guards approached him. "Get off the grass and stay off and don't look at that cannon with longing. It isn't healthy for young freshmen."
Hugo grinned. "All right, fella. But you better keep a double guard on that thing while I want it."
Two nights later, during a heavy rain that had begun after the fall of dark, Hugo clad himself in a slicker and moved vaguely into the night. Presently he reached the cannon yard, and in the shelter of an arch he saw the sophomore guards. They smoked cigarettes, and one of them sang softly. Day and night a pair of conscripted sentries kept watchful eyes on the gun. A shout from either of them would bring the whole class tumbling from its slumber in a very few moments. Hugo moved out of their vision. The campus was empty.
He rounded Webster Hall, the mud sucking softly under his feet and the rain dampening his face. From beneath his coat he took a flare and lighted the fuse. He heard the two sophomores running toward it in the thick murk. When they were very close, he stepped on to the stone flagging, looked up into the cloudy sky, gathered himself, and leaped over the three stories of Webster Hall. He landed with a loud thud ten feet from the cannon. When the sophomores returned, after extinguishing the flare, their cherished symbol of authority had vanished.
There was din on the campus. First the loud cries of two voices. Then the screech of raised windows, the babble of more voices, and the rush of feet that came with new gusts of rain. Flash-lights pierced the gloom. Where the cannon had been, a hundred and then two hundred figures gathered, swirled, organized search-parties, built a fire. Dawn came, and the cannon was still missing. The clouds lifted. In the wan light some one pointed up. There, on the roof of Webster Hall, with the numerals of the freshman class painted on its muzzle, was the old weapon. Arms stretched. An angry, incredulous hum waxed to a steady pitch and waned as the sophomores dispersed.
In the morning, theory ran rife. The freshmen were tight-lipped, pretending knowledge where they had none, exulting secretly. Dean Aiken was kidnapped at noon and given a third degree, which extorted no information. The theft of the cannon and its elevation to the roof of the hall entered the annals of Webster legend. And Hugo, watching the laborious task of its removal from the roof, seemed merely as pleased and as mystified as the other freshmen.
So the autumn commenced. The first football game was played and Hugo made a touchdown. He made another in the second game. They took him to New York in November for the dinner that was to celebrate the entrance of a new chapter to Psi Delta.
His fraternity had hired a private car. As soon as the college towers vanished, the entertainment committee took over the party. Glasses were filled with whisky and passed by a Negro porter. Hugo took his with a feeling of nervousness and of excited anticipation. The coach had given him permission to break training—advised it, in fact. And Hugo had never tasted liquor. He watched the others, holding his glass gingerly. They swallowed their drinks, took more. The effect did not seem to be great. He smelled the whisky, and the smell revolted him.
"Drink up, Danner!"
"Never use the stuff. I'm afraid it'll throw me."
"Not you. Come on! Bottoms up!"
It ran into his throat, hot and steaming. He swallowed a thousand needles and knew the warmth of it in his stomach. They gave another glass to him and then a third. Some of the brothers were playing cards. Hugo watched them. He perceived that his feet were loose on their ankles and that his shoulders lurched. It would not do to lose control of himself, he thought. For another man, it might be safe. Not for him. He repeated the thought inanely. Some one took his arm.
"Nice work in the game last week. Pretty."
"Thanks."
"Woodie says you're the best man on the team. Glad you went Psi Delt. Best house on the campus. Great school, Webster. You'll love it."
"Sure," Hugo said.
The railroad coach was twisting and writhing peculiarly. Hugo suddenly wanted to be in the air. He hastened to the platform of the car and stood on it, squinting his eyes at the countryside. When they reached the Grand Central Terminal he was cured of his faintness. They rode to the theatre in an omnibus and saw the matinée of a musical show. Hugo had never realized that so many pretty girls could be gathered together in one place. Their scant, glittering costumes flashed in his face. He wanted them. Between the acts the fraternity repaired in a body to the lavatory and drank whisky from bottles.
Hugo began to feel that he was living at last. He was among men, sophisticated men, and learning to be like them. Nothing like thecamaraderie, the show, the liquor, in Indian Creek. He was wearing the suit that Lefty Foresman had chosen for him. He felt well dressed, cool, capable. He was intensely well disposed toward his companions. When the show was over, he stood in the bright lights, momentarily depressed by the disappearance of the long file of girls. Then he shouldered among his companions and went out of the theatre riotously.
Two long tables were drawn up at the Raven, a restaurant famous for its roast meats, its beer, and its lack of scruples about the behaviour of its guests. The Psi Deltas took their places at the tables. The dining-room they occupied was private. Hugo saw as if in a dream the long rows of silverware, the dishes of celery and olives, and the ranks of shining glasses. They sat. Waiters wound their way among them. There was a song. The toastmaster, a New York executive who had graduated from Webster twenty years before, understood the temper of his charge. He was witty, ribald, genial.
He made a speech, but not too long a speech. He called on the president of a bank, who rose totteringly and undid the toastmaster's good offices by making too long a speech. Its reiterated "dear old Websters" were finally lost in the ring and tinkle of glassware and cutlery.
At the end of the long meal Hugo realized that his being had undergone change. Objects approached and receded before his vision. The voice of the man sitting beside him came to his ears as if through water. His mind continually turned upon itself in a sort of infatuated examination. His attention could not be held even on his own words. He decided that he was feverish. Then some one said: "Well, Danner, how do you like being drunk?"
"Drunk?"
"Sure. You aren't going to tell me you're sober, are you?"
When the speaker had gone, Hugo realized that it was Chuck. There had been no feeling of recognition. "I'm drunk!" he said.
"Some one give Danner a drink. He has illusions."
"Drunk! Why, this man isn't drunk. It's monstrous. He has a weakened spine, that's all."
"I'm drunk," Hugo repeated. He knew then what it was to be drunk. The toastmaster was rising again. Hugo saw it dimly.
"Fellows!" A fork banged on a glass. "Fellows!" There was a slow increase in silence. "Fellows! It's eleven o'clock now. And I have a surprise for you."
"Surprise! Hey, guys, shut up for the surprise!"
"Fellows! What I was going to say is this: the girls from the show we saw this afternoon are coming over here—all thirty of 'em. We're going up to my house for a real party. And the lid'll be off. Anything goes—only anybody that fights gets thrown out straight off without an argument. Are you on?"
The announcement was greeted by a stunned quiet which grew into a bellow of approval. Plates and glasses were thrown on the floor. Lefty leaped on to the table and performed a dance. The proprietor came in, looked, and left hastily, and then the girls arrived.
They came through the door, after a moment of reluctant hesitation, like a flood of brightly colored water. They sat down in the laps of the boys, on chairs, on the edge of the disarrayed tables. They were served with innumerable drinks as rapidly as the liquor could be brought. They were working, that night, for the ten dollars promised to each one. But they were working with college boys, which was a rest from the stream of affluent and paunchy males who made their usual escort. Their gaiety was better than assumed.
Hugo had never seen such a party or dreamed of one. His vision was cleared instantly of its cobwebs. He saw three boys seize one girl and turn her heels over head. A piano was moved in. She jumped up and started dancing on the table. Then there was a voice at his side.
"Hello, good-looking. I could use that drink if you can spare it."
Hugo looked at the girl. She had brown hair that had been curled. Her lips and cheeks were heavily rouged and the corners of her mouth turned down in a sort of petulance or fatigue. But she was pretty. And her body, showing whitely above her evening dress, was creamy and warm. He gave the drink to her. She sat in his lap.
"Gosh," he whispered. She laughed.
"I saw her first," some one said, pulling at the girl's arm.
"Go 'way," Hugo shouted. He pushed the other from them. "What's your name?"
"Bessie. What's yours?"
"Hugo."
The girl accepted two glasses from a waiter. They drained them, looking at each other over the rims. "Got any money, Hugo?"
Hugo had. He carried on his person the total of his cash assets. Some fifty dollars. "Sure. I have fifty dollars," he answered.
He felt her red lips against his ear. "Let's you and me duck this party and have a little one of our own. I've got an apartment not far from here."
He could hear the pounding of his heart. "Let's."
They moved unostentatiously from the room. Outside, in the hall, she took his hand. They ran to the front door.
There was the echo of bedlam in his whirling mind when they walked through the almost deserted street. She called to a taxi and they were driven for several blocks. At a cheap dance hall they took a table and drank more liquor. When his head was turned, she narrowed her eyes and calculated the effect of the alcohol against the dwindling of his purse. They danced.
"Gee, you're a swell dancer."
"So are you, Bessie."
"Still wanna go home with Bessie?"
"Mmmm."
"Let's go."
Another taxi ride. The lights seethed past him. A dark house and three flights of rickety stairs. The gritty sound of a key in a lock. A little room with a table, a bed, two chairs, a gas-light turned low, a disheveled profusion of female garments.
"Here we are. Sit down."
Hugo looked at her tensely. He laughed then, with a harsh sound. She flew into his arms, returning his searching caresses with startling frankness. Presently they moved across the room. He could hear the noises on the street at long, hot intervals.
Hugo opened his eyes and the light smote them with pain. He raised his head wonderingly. His stomach crawled with a foul nausea. He saw the dirty room. Bessie was not in it. He staggered to the wash-bowl and was sick. He noticed then that her clothes were missing. The fact impressed him as one that should have significance. He rubbed his head and eyes. Then he thought accurately. He crossed the room and felt in his trousers pockets. The money was gone.
At first it did not seem like a catastrophe. He could telegraph to his father for more money. Then he realized that he was in New York, without a ticket back to the campus, separated from his friends, and not knowing the address of the toastmaster. He could not find his fraternity brothers and he could not get back to school without more money. Moreover, he was sick.
He dressed with miserable slowness and went down to the street. Served him right. He had been a fool. He shrugged. A sharp wind blew out of a bright sky.
Maybe, he thought, he should walk back to Webster. It was only eighty miles and that distance could be negotiated in less than two hours by him. But that was unwise. People would see his progress. He sat down in Madison Square Park and looked at the Flatiron Building with a leisurely eye. A fire engine surged up the street. A man came to collect the trash in a green can. A tramp lay down and was ousted by a policeman.
By and by he realized that he was hungry. A little man with darting eyes took a seat beside him. He regarded Hugo at short intervals. At length he said. "You got a dime for a cup of coffee?" His words were blurred by accent.
"No. I came here from school last night and my money was stolen."
"Ah," there was a tinge of discouragement in the other's voice. "And hungry, perhaps?"
"A little."
"Me—I am also hungry. I have not eaten since two days."
That impressed Hugo as a shameful and intolerable circumstance. "Let's go over there"—he indicated a small restaurant—"and eat. Then I'll promise to send the money by mail. At least, we'll be fed that way."
"We will be thrown to the street on our faces."
"Not I. Nobody throws me on my face. And I'll look out for you."
They crossed the thoroughfare and entered the restaurant. The little man ordered a quantity of food, and Hugo, looking guiltily at the waiter, duplicated the order. They became distantly acquainted during the filched repast. The little man's name was Izzie. He sold second-hand rugs. But he was out of work. Eventually they finished. The waiter brought the check. He was a large man, whose jowls and hips and shoulders were heavily weighted with muscle.
Hugo stood up. "Listen, fellow," he began placidly, "my friend and I haven't a cent between us. I'm Hugo Danner, from Webster University, and I'll mail you the price of this feed to-morrow. I'll write down my name and—"
He got no further. The waiter spoke in a thick voice. "So! One of them guys, eh? Tryin' to get away with it when I'm here, huh? Well, I tell you how you're gonna pay. You're gonna pay this check with a bloody mush, see?" His fist doubled and drew back. Hugo did not shift his position. The fist came forward, but an arm like stone blocked it. Hugo's free hand barely flicked to the waiter's jaw. He rolled under the table. "Come on," he said, but Izzie had already vanished through the door.
Hugo walked hurriedly up the street and turned a corner. A hand tugged at his coat. He turned and was confronted by Izzie. "I seen you through the window. Jeest, guy, you kin box. Say, I know where you kin clean up—if you got the nerve."
"Clean up? Where?"
"Come on. We better get out of here anyhow."
They made their way toward the river. The city changed character on the other side of the elevated railroad, and presently they were walking through a dirty, evil-smelling, congested neighborhood.
"Where are we going, Izzie?"
"Wait a minute, Mr. Danner."
"What's the idea?"
"You wait."
Another series of dirty blocks. Then they came to a bulky building that spread a canopy over the sidewalk. "Here," Izzie said, and pointed.
His finger indicated a sign, which Hugo read twice. It said: "Battling Ole Swenson will meet all comers in this gymnasium at three this afternoon and eight to-night. Fifty dollars will be given to any man, black or white, who can stay three rounds with him, and one hundred dollars cash money to the man who knocks out Battling Ole Swenson, the Terror of the Docks."
"See," Izzie said, rubbing his hands excitedly, "mebbe you could do it."
A light dawned on Hugo. He smiled. "I can," he replied. "What time is it?"
"Two o'clock."
"Well, let's go."
They entered the lobby of the "gymnasium." "Mr. Epstein," Izzie called, "I gotta fighter for the Swede."
Mr. Epstein was a pale fat man who ignored the handicap of the dank cigar in his mouth and roared when he spoke. He glanced at Hugo and then addressed Izzie. "Where is he?"
"There."
Epstein looked at Hugo and then was shaken by laughter. "There, you says, and there I looks and what do I see but a pink young angel face that Ole would swallow without chewing."
Hugo said: "I don't think so. I'm willing to try."
Epstein scowled. "Run away from here, kid, before you get hurt. Ole would laugh at you. This isn't easy money. It takes a man to get a look at it."
Izzie stamped impatiently. "I tell you, Mr. Epstein, I seen this boy fight. He's the goods. He can beat your Ole. I bet he can." His voice caught and he glanced nervously at Hugo. "I bet ten dollars he can."
"How much?" Epstein bellowed.
"Well—say twenty dollars."
"How much?"
"Fifty dollars. It's all I got, Epstein."
"All right—go in and sign up and leave your wad. Kid," he turned to Hugo, "you may think you're husky, but Ole is a killer. He's six nine in his socks and he weighs two hundred and eighty. He'll mash you."
"I don't think so," Hugo repeated.
"Well, you'll be meat. We'll put you second on the list. And the lights'll go out fast enough for yuh."
Hugo followed Izzie and reached him in time to see a fifty-dollar bill peeled from a roll which was extracted with great intricacy from Izzie's clothes. "I thought you hadn't eaten for two days!"
"It's God's truth," Izzie answered uneasily. "I was savin' this dough—an' it's lucky, too, isn't it?"
Hugo did not know whether to laugh or to be angry. He said: "And you'd have let me take a poke in the jaw from that waiter. You're a hell of a guy, Izzie."
Izzie moved his eyes rapidly. "I ain't so bad. I'm bettin' on you, ain't I? An' I got you a chancet at the Swede, didn't I?"
"How'd you know that waiter couldn't kill me?"
"Well—he didn't. Anyhow, what's a poke in the jaw to a square meal, eh?"
"When the other fellow gets the poke and you get the meal. All right, Izzie. I wish I thought Ole was going to lick me."
Hugo wrote his name under a printed statement to the effect that the fight managers were not responsible for the results of the combat. The man who led him to a dressing-room was filled with sympathy and advice. He told Hugo that one glance at Ole would discourage his reckless avarice. But Hugo paid no attention. The room was dirty. It smelled of sweat and rubber sneakers. He sat there for half an hour, reading a newspaper. Outside, somewhere, he could hear the mumble of a gathering crowd, punctuated by the voices of candy and peanut-hawkers.
At last they brought some clothes to him. A pair of trunks that flapped over his loins, ill-fitting canvas shoes, a musty bath robe. When the door of his room opened, the noise of the crowd was louder. Finally it was hushed. He heard the announcer. It was like the voice of a minister coming through the stained windows of a church. It rose and fell. Then the distant note of the gong. After that the crowd called steadily, sometimes in loud rage and sometimes almost in a whisper.
Finally they brought Ole's first victim into Hugo's cell. He was a man with the physique of a bull. His face was cut and his eyes were darkening. One of the men heaving his stretcher looked at Hugo.
"Better beat it, kid, while you can still do it on your own feet. You ain't even got the reach for Ole. He's a grizzly, bo. He'll just about kill you."
Hugo tightened his belt and swung the electric light back and forth with a slow-moving fist. Another man expertly strapped his fists with adhesive tape.
"When do I go out?" Hugo asked.
"You mean, when do you get knocked out?" the second laughed.
"Fight?"
"Well, if you're determined to get croaked, you do it now."
In the arena it was dazzling. A bank of noisy people rose on all sides of him. Hugo walked down the aisle and clambered into the ring. Ole was one of the largest men he had ever seen in his life. There was no doubt of his six feet nine inches and his two hundred and eighty pounds. Hugo imagined that the man was not a scientific fighter. A bruiser. Well, he knew nothing of fighting, either.
A man in his shirt sleeves stood up in the ring and bellowed, "The next contestant for the reward of fifty dollars to stay three rounds with battling Ole and one hundred dollars to knock him out is Mr. H. Smith." They cheered. It was a nasty sound, filled with the lust for blood. Hugo realized that he was excited. His knees wabbled when he rose and his hand trembled as he took the monstrous paw of the Swede and saw his unpleasant smile. Hugo's heart was pounding. For one instant he felt weak and human before Battling Ole. He whispered to himself: "Quit it, you fool; you know better; you can't even be hurt." It did not make him any more quiet.
Then they were sitting face to face. A bell rang. The hall became silent as the mountainous Swede lumbered from his corner. He towered over Hugo, who stood up and went out to meet him like David approaching Goliath. To the crowd the spectacle was laughable. There was jeering before they met. "Where's your mamma?" "Got your bottle, baby?" "Put the poor little bastard back in his carriage." "What's this—a fight or a freak show?" Laughter.
It was like cold water to Hugo. His face set. He looked at Ole. The Swede's fist moved back like the piston of a great engine into which steam has been let slowly. Then it came forward. Hugo, trained to see and act in keeping with his gigantic strength, dodged easily. "Atta boy!" "One for Johnny-dear!" The fist went back and came again and again, as if that piston, gathering speed, had broken loose and was flailing through the screaming air. Hugo dodged like a beam of light, and the murderous weapon never touched him. The spectators began to applaud his speed. He could beat the Swede's fist every time. "Run him, kiddo!" "It's only three rounds."
The bell. Ole was panting. As he sat in his corner, his coal-scuttle gloves dangling, he cursed in his native tongue. Too little to hit. Bell. The second round was the same. Hugo never attempted to touch the Swede. Only to avoid him. And the man worked like a Trojan. Sweat seethed over his big, blank face. His small eyes sharpened to points. He brought his whole carcass flinging through the air after his fist. But every blow ended in a sickening wrench that missed the target. The crowd grew more excited. During the interval between the second and third rounds there was betting on the outcome. Three to one that Ole would connect and murder the boy. Four to one. One to five that Hugo would win fifty dollars before he died beneath the trip-hammer.
The third round opened. The crowd suddenly tired of the sport. A shrill female voice reached Hugo's cold, concentrated mind: "Keep on running, yellow baby!"
So. They wanted a killing. They called him yellow. The Swede was on him, elephantine, sweating, sucking great, rumbling breaths of air, swinging his fists. Hugo studied the motion. That fist to that side, up, down, now!
Like hail they began to land upon the Swede. Bewilderingly, everywhere. No hope of guarding. Every blow smashed, stung, ached. No chance to swing back. Cover up. His arms went over his face. He felt rivets drive into his kidneys. He reached out and clinched. They rocked in each other's arms. Dazed by that bitter onslaught of lightning blows, Ole thought only to lock Hugo in his arms and crush him. When they clinched, the crowd, grown instantly hysterical, sank back in despair. It was over. Ole could break the little man's back. They saw his arms spring into knots. Jesus! Hugo's fist shot between their chests and Ole was thrown violently backward. Impossible. He lunged back, crimson to kill, one hand guarding his jaw. "Easy, now, for the love of God, easy," Hugo said to himself. There. On the hand at the chin. Hugo's gloves went out. Lift him! It connected. The Swede left the floor and crumpled slowly, with a series of bumping sounds. And how the hyenas yelled!
They crowded into his dressing-room afterwards. Epstein came to his side before he had dressed. "Come out and have a mug of suds, kid. That was the sweetest fight I ever hope to live to see. I can sign you up for a fortune right now. I can make you champ in two years."
"No, thanks," Hugo said.
The man persisted. He talked earnestly. He handed Hugo a hundred-dollar bill. Hugo finished his dressing. Izzie wormed his way in. "Fifty dollars I won yet! Didn't I tole you, Mr. Epstein!"
"Come here, Izzie!"
The little man ran to shake Hugo's hand, but it was extended for another reason. "I want that fifty you won," he said unsmilingly. "When a bird tracks along for a free feed and lets another guy fight for him and has a roll big enough to stop up a rainspout, he owes money. That lunch will set you back just exactly what you won on me."
There was laughter in the room. Izzie whimpered. "Ain't you got a hundred all ready that I got for you? Ain't it enough that you got it? Ain't I got a wife wit' kids yet?"
"No, it ain't, yet." Hugo snapped the fingers of his extended hand. The other hand doubled significantly. Izzie gave him the money. He was almost in tears. The others guffawed.
"Wait up, bo. Give us your address if you ever change your mind. You can pick up a nice livin' in this game."
"No, thanks. All I needed was railroad fare. Thank you, gentlemen—and—good-by."
No one undertook to hinder Hugo's departure.