Miss Dolores Gantry shook the snow from her furs, and with the graceful assurance of a yacht running aslant a craft-swarming harbor, cut into the crowd that surged through the Union Station. She brought up in an empty corner of the iron fence, close beside the exit gate through which passengers were hurrying from the last train that had arrived. Her velvety black eyes flashed an eager glance at the out-pouring stream, perceived a Mackinaw jacket, and turned to make swift comparison of the depot clock and the tiny bracelet watch on her slender wrist.
As she again looked up she met the ardent gaze and ingratiating smile of an elegant young man who was sauntering up the train-platform to the exit gate, fastidiously apart from his fellow passengers. He raised his hat, and at the girl's curt nod of recognition, hastened through the gate for a more intimate greeting.
"My dear Dodie!" he exclaimed, reaching for her hand. "This is a most delightful surprise."
"My dear Laffie!" she mocked, deftly slipping both slender hands into her muff. "I quite agree as to it's being a surprise."
"Then you didn't come down to meet me?"
"You?" she asked, with an irony too fine drawn for his conceit. "Come to meet you?"
"Yes. Didn't you get my note saying that all work on my bridge was stopped by the cold and that I would run down to see you?"
"To see me—plus the world, the flesh, and the devil!"
"Now, Dodie!" he protested, with a smirk on his handsome, richly colored face.
The girl's eyes hardened into black diamonds as she met his assured gaze. "Mr. Brice-Ashton, you will hereafter kindly address me as 'Miss Gantry.' You must be aware that I am nowout."
"Oh, I've no objections, just sowe'renot out," he punned.
She gave him her shoulder, and peered eagerly through the pickets of the iron fence at a train that was backing into the station. Ashton shrugged, lighted a gilt-tipped cigarette, and asked: "Permit me to inquire, Miss Gon-tray, if I'm not the happy man for whom you wait, who is?"
She replied without turning: "How can I tell until I see him? I think it will be the hero. If not, it will be the earl."
"Hero?—earl?" repeated Ashton.
"Yes, whichever one Vievie leaves for me."
"What! Genevieve? Miss Leslie? She's not—Is she really coming home so soon?—when she had such a chance for a gay season in London?"
"Don't give yourself away. The London season is in summer."
"You don't say! Well, in England, then. Why didn't you write me?"
"I'm not running a correspondence-school or news agency, Mr.Brice-Ashton."
"Oh, cut it, Dodie! Post me up, that's a good girl! What I've heard has been so muddled. This hero business, for a starter—what about it? I thought it was an English duke that chartered the steamer to rescue Genevieve."
"No, only the son of a duke,—James Scarbridge, the Right Honorable theEarl of Avondale."
"My ante!"
"It's in the jack-pot, and as good as lost. What chance have you now to win Genevieve,—with a real earl and a real hero in the field?"
"Earlandhero? I thought he was the hero."
"That's one of the jokes on mamma. Earl Jimmy had nothing to do with the rescue ships that Uncle Herbert cabled to search the Mozambique coast. No; Jeems chartered a tramp steamer on his own account, to look for friend Tommy. He found the heroic Thomas and, incidentally, the fair Genevieve—who wasn't soveryfair after weeks of broiling in that East African sun."
"It's wonderful—wonderful! To think that she alone of all aboard her steamer should have survived shipwreck on that savage coast!"
"She didn't survive alone—she couldn't have. That's where Tommy came in. There was another man, but he didn't count for much, I guess. Vievie merely wrote that he died during the second cyclone."
"What an experience!—and for a girl like Genevieve!"
"She, of all girls!" chimed in Dolores enviously. "You remember she never went in for sports of any kind, not even riding. And for her to be flung out that way into the tropical jungles, among lions and crocodiles and snakes and things! Why can't I ever have romantic adventures?"
"You wouldn't give the man a chance to prove himself a hero," objectedAshton. "You'd shoot the lions yourself."
"Iamgood at archery. A bow and arrows, you know, were all that Mr.Blake had."
"Blake?" repeated Ashton in rather a peculiar tone.
"Yes, Tommy the hero, otherwise Mr. Thomas Blake."
"Blake—Thomas Blake?" echoed Ashton.
"I—rather odd—I once—seems to me I once knew a man of that name. You don't happen to know if he's a—that is, what his occupation is, do you?"
Ashton was not the kind of man from whom is expected hesitancy of speech. The girl spared him a swift glance from the out-flocking stream of passengers. His fixed gaze and slack lower jaw betrayed even more uneasiness than had his voice.
"Don't be afraid," she mocked. "He's not a minister; so he couldn't marry her without help, and he's not done it since the rescue."
"Not done it?" repeated Ashton vaguely.
"No. According to mamma's letter, Earl Jimmy outgeneraled the low-browed hero. At Aden he put Vievie on a P. and O. steamer, in the charge of Lady Chetwynd. He and the hero followed in the tramp steamer to England, where he kept friend Thomas at his daddy's ducal castle until Vievie made mamma start home with her. You know mamma streaked it for London, at Uncle Herbert's expense, the moment Vievie cabled from Port Mozambique that she was safe. Uncle Herbert would have sent me, too, but mamma wouldn't have it. Just like her! It was her first chance to do England and crowd in on Vievie's noble friends. She said I might spoil the good impression she hoped to make, because I'm too much of a tomboy."
"But if it's your mother and Genevieve you're waiting for—I understood you to say the earl and that man Blake."
"Oh, they followed on the next steamer. Mamma wired that they are all coming on together from New York."
"Where's Mr. Leslie? Did he go to meet them?"
"He? You should know how busy Uncle Herbert always is. I called by his office for him. He sent out word to go on. He would follow."
"What! after all Genevieve went through, all those hardships and dangers? You'd think that even he—"
"Look I oh, look I there she is now!" cried the girl, pressing close against the fence and waving her handkerchief between the pickets.
"Where? Yes, I see! beside your mother!" exclaimed Ashton, and he lifted his hat on his cane.
The signals won them recognition from the approaching ladies, the younger of whom responded with a quietly upraised hand. Beside her walked a rosy-cheeked blonde young Englishman, while in front a big square-built man thrust the crowd forward ahead of them. They were followed by two maids, a valet, and two porters, with hand luggage.
As the party emerged from the gateway the younger lady leaned forward and spoke in a clear soft voice: "Turn to the left, Tom."
The big man in the lead swerved out of the crowd and across the corner past Miss Gantry, who was advancing with outstretched arms, her eyes sparkling with joyous excitement.
"Vievie!" she half shrieked.
Blake glanced over his shoulder and stopped short at sight of the girls locked in each other's arms. After a moment's fervent embrace, Dolores thrust her cousin out at arm's-length and surveyed her from top to toe with radiant eyes.
"Vievie! Vievie! I really can't believe it! To think you're home again—when we never expected to see you—and you've got almost all the tan off already!"
Genevieve looked up into the vivacious face of the younger girl with an affectionate smile on her delicately curved lips and tears of joy in her hazel eyes.
"Itisgood to be home again, dear!" she murmured. She drew Dolores about to face the big man, who stood looking on with rather a surly expression, in his pale blue eyes. "Tom," she said, "this is my cousin, Miss Gantry. Dolores, Mr. Blake."
"The hee-row!" sighed Dolores, clasping a hand dramatically on her heart.
Blake's strong face lighted with a humorous smile. "Guess I've got to own up to it, Miss Dolores. Anything Jenny—Miss Leslie—says goes."
As he spoke he raised his English steamer cap slightly and extended a square powerful hand. Dolores entrusted her slender fingers to the calloused palm, which closed upon them with utmost gentleness.
"Really, Mr. Blake!" she exclaimed, "I mean it. Youarea hero."
Blake's smile broadened, and as he released her hand, he glanced at her mother, who had drawn a little apart with the Englishman. "Don't let me shut out your mamma and Jimmy."
"Oh, mamma believes that any display of family affection is immodest," she replied. "But duty, you know—duty!"
She whirled about and impressed a loud salute upon the drooping jowl of the stately Mrs. Gantry.
"Dolores!" admonished the dame. "Whenwillyou remember you're no longer a hoyden? Such impetuosity—and before his lordship!"
"Goodness! Is he really?" panted her daughter, surveying the Englishman with candid curiosity.
"Is he really!" Mrs. Gantry was profoundly shocked. "If you weren't out, I'd see that you had at least two more years in a finishing school."
"Horrors! that certainly would finish me. But you forget yourself, mamma. You keep his earlship waiting for his introduction."
The Englishman shot a humorous glance at Blake, and drew out his monocle. He screwed it into his eye and stared blandly at the irrepressible Miss Gantry, while her mother, with some effort, regained a degree of composure. She bowed in a most formal manner.
"The Right Honorable the Earl of Avondale: I present my daughter."
The earl dropped his monocle, raised his cap, and bowed with unaffected grace. Dolores nodded and caught his hand in her vigorous clasp.
"Glad to meet you," she said. "It's rare we meet a real live earl inChicago. Most of 'em are caught in New York, soon as they land."
"It's good of you to say it, Miss Gantry," he replied, tugging at the tip of his little mustache. "I've been over before, you know. Came in disguise. This time I was able to march through New York with colors flying, thanks to your mother and Miss Leslie."
Dolores sent her glance flashing after his, and saw Genevieve responding coldly to the effusive greeting of Ashton. The young man was edging towards the earl. But Genevieve turned to introduce him first to her companion.
"Mr. Blake, Mr. Brice-Ashton."
"I'm sure I'm—pleased to meet you, Mr. Blake," murmured Ashton, his voice breaking slightly as Blake grasped his gloved hand in the bare calloused palm.
"Any friend of Miss Jenny's!" responded Blake with hearty cordiality.But as he released the other's hand, he muttered half to himself,"Ashton?—Ashton? Haven't I met you before, somewhere?"
As Ashton hesitated over his reply, Genevieve spoke for him: "No doubt it's the familiarity of the name, Tom. Mr. Brice-Ashton's father is Mr. George Ashton, the financier."
"What! him?" exclaimed Blake. "But no. It's his face. I remember now.Met him in your father's office."
"In father's office?"
"When I was acting as secretary for your father, Miss Genevieve," Ashton hastened to explain. "You remember, I was in your father's office for a year. That was before I succeeded with my—plans for the Michamac cantilever bridge and went to take charge of the construction as resident engineer."
"Your plans?" muttered Blake incredulously.
"To be sure. I remember now," said Genevieve absently, and she turned to look about, with a perplexed uptilting of her arched brows. "But, Dolores, where is papa?"
"Coming—coming, Viviekins," reassured her cousin, breaking short an animated conversation with the earl. "Don't worry, dear. He'll be along in a few minutes."
Genevieve stepped forward beside Blake to peer at the crowd. Dolores took pity on Ashton, who had edged around, eager for an introduction to the titled stranger.
"Oh, your earlship," she remarked, "this, by the way, is Mr. LaffieBrice-Ashton. I'd like to present him to you, but I'm afraid your RightHonorableness wouldn't take him even as a gift if you knew him as wellas I do."
"Oh, now, Do—Miss Gon-tray!" protested Ashton.
The Englishman bowed formally and adjusted his monocle, oblivious of the hand that Ashton had stripped of its glove.
"Your—your grace—I should say, your lordship," stammered Ashton, hastily dropping his hand, "I'm extremely delighted—honored, I mean—at the unexpected pleasure of meeting your lordship."
"Ah, really?" murmured his lordship.
"Mr. Brice-Ashton's father is one of our most eminent financiers," interposed Mrs. Gantry.
"Ah, really? What luck!" politely exclaimed the Englishman. He stepped past the son of the eminent financier, to address Genevieve in an impulsive, boyish tone, "I say, Miss Leslie, hop up on a suitcase between Tom and me. You'll see over their heads."
"Hold on," said Blake, who was staring towards the outer door. "He's coming now."
"Where? Are you sure, Tom?" asked Genevieve, here eyes radiant.
"Sure, I'm sure," said Blake. "Met your fatheronce. That was enough for me."
"Tom! You'll not-?"
"Enough for me to remember him," he explained with grim humor. "Don't worry. I don't want a row any more than you do."
"Or than he will! He'll not forget that had it not been for you—"
"And Jimmy!"
"Chuck it, old man," put in Lord James. "Miss Leslie knows as well as you do that one or more of the steamers chartered by her father must certainly have sighted your signal flag within a fortnight. I merely had the luck to be first."
"A lot of things can happen inside two weeks, down on the Mozambique coast. Eh, Miss Jenny?" said Blake.
For the moment, forgetful even of her father, Genevieve clasped her gloved hands and gazed upwards over the heads of the rushing multitude at a vision of swampy lagoons, of palm clumps and tangled jungles, of towering cliffs, and hot sand beaches, all aglare with the fierce downbeat of the tropical sun.
A short, stout, gray-haired man burst out of the crowd, jerked off his hat to Mrs. Gantry, and hastened forward, his gray-brown eyes fixed hungrily upon Genevieve. A moment later he had her in his arms. She returned his embrace with fervor yet with a well-bred quietness that drew a nod of approval from Mrs. Gantry.
"So! you're home—at last—my dear!" commented Mr. Leslie, patting his daughter's back with a sallow, vein-corded hand.
"At last, papa! I should have hurried to you at once, in spite of your cables, if you hadn't said you were starting for Arizona."
"Couldn't tell how long I'd be on that trip. Wanted you to enjoy the month in England, since Lady Chetwynd had asked you. But come now. I must see you started home. Cut short one Board meeting. Must be at another within half an hour."
He stepped apart from her and jerked out his watch.
"Yes, papa, only—" She paused and looked at him earnestly. "Did you not receive my telegram, that we had met Mr. Blake and Lord James in New York, and that they were to come on with us?"
"Hey?" snapped Mr. Leslie, his eyes glinting keen and cold below their shaggy brows. First to be transfixed by their glance was young Ashton, who stood toying with the fringe of Dolores' muff. "What's this, sir? What you doing here?"
Ashton gave back a trifle before the older man's irascibility, but answered with easy assurance: "I thought it would do no harm to run down for a few days. All work at Michamac is stopped—frozen up tight."
"It's not the way your father got his start in life—frivolity! Stick to your work all the time—stick!" rejoined Mr. Leslie. He turned and met the monocled stare of the earl. "H'm. This, I suppose, is the gentleman who—"
"My dear Herbert, permit me," interposed Mrs. Gantry. "Ah—the RightHonorable the Earl of Avondale: I have the honor to present—"
"Glad to meet you, sir!" broke in Mr. Leslie, clutching the Englishman's hand in a nervous grip. "Glad of the chance to thank you in person!"
"But, I say, I'm not the right man, y' know," protested Lord James."The small part I had in it is not worth mentioning." He laid a hand onBlake's broad shoulder. "It's my friend Thomas Blake you should thank."
Mr. Leslie stepped back and eyed Blake's impassive face with marked coldness. "Your friend Blake?" he repeated.
"Old friend—camp-mate, chum—all over Western America and SouthAfrica. It's he who's entitled to the credit for the rescue of MissLeslie."
"We'll talk about your part later. You'll, of course, call on us," saidMr. Leslie. He fixed his narrowing eyes on Blake. "H'm. So you're TomBlake—the same one."
"That's no lie," replied Blake dryly.
"You heard me say I'm busy. Have no time to-day. I'll give you an appointment for to-morrow, at my office, ten A. M. sharp."
"Thanks. But you're a bit too previous," said Blake. "I haven't asked for any appointment with you that I know of."
"But, Tom!" exclaimed Genevieve, astonished at the hostility in his tone, "of course you'll go. Papa wishes to thank you for—for all you've done. To-day, you see, he's so very busy."
Blake's hard eyes softened before her appealing glance, only to stare back sullenly at her father.
"I'm not asking any thanks from him, Miss Jenny," he replied.
The girl caught the arm of her father, who stood glowering irritably at Blake. "Papa, I—I don't understand why you and Tom—Couldn't you—won't you please be a little more cordial? Wait! I have it!" She flashed an eager glance at Blake. "Tom, you'll dine with us this evening."
He looked at Lord James, and replied steadily: "Sorry, Miss Jenny. You know I'd like to come. But I've got a previous engagement."
"If I ask you to break it, Tom?"
"Can't do it. I've given my word—worse luck!"
"But I do so wish you and papa to come to an understanding."
"Guess I understand him already; so it's no use to—There now, don't worry. Long as you want me to, I'll accept his polite invitation for to-morrow."
"Ten A.M. sharp!" rasped Mr. Leslie. He drew Genevieve about, and rushed her off, with a curt call to Mrs. Gantry: "Come, Amice. Dolores brought the coupe. I'll put you in. The maids and baggage can follow in my car. Hurry up."
Genevieve was whirled away into the thick of the crowd, with scarcely time for a parting glance at Blake and Lord James. Mrs. Gantry lingered an instant to address the young Englishman:
"Pray do not forget, earl, you are to dine with me."
As Lord James bowed in polite agreement, Ashton, who had been scribbling on one of his cards, held it out. "Pardon me, your lordship. Here's a list of my favorite clubs. Look me up. I'll steer you to all the gay spots in little old Chi."
"Mr. Brice-Ashton is one of our hustling young grain speculators," explained Dolores. "Before he went to Michamac he almost cornered the market in wild oats."
"Now, Miss Dodie!" smirked Ashton. "Wait! I'll do your elbowing."
But the girl was already plunging into the crowd, in the wake of her mother, the maids, and the porters. Ashton hastened after, in a vain attempt to overtake her. Crowds part easier before a pretty, smiling, fashionably dressed girl than before a foppish young man who affects the French mode.
The card with the list of clubs fell from the hand that Lord James raised to screw in his monocle.
"Stow it, Jimmy," growled Blake. "I feel just prime for smashing that fool window."
Lord James slipped the monocle into his pocket, and twisted at the end of his short mustache.
"Don't blame you, old man," he remarked. "Her guv'norwasa bit crusty. Quite a clever girl that—the cousin—eh?"
"Miss Dolores? She sure is a hummer. Doesn't take after her mother; so she's all right," assented Blake. He added eagerly, "Say, Jimmy, she's just the one for you. You're so blondy blonde you need a real brunette to set off your charms."
"Sorry, Tom. Saw too much of some one else coming up to Aden—and before. Shouldn't have to remind you of that."
"Damn the luck!" swore Blake. "Well, we've come to the show-down. She's home now; agreement's off."
"To-morrow," corrected his friend.
"Lord! If only you weren't you! I'd knock you clean out of the running!"
"Rotten luck!" murmured Lord James sympathetically. "Had it been any other girl, now! But having met her before you did—Deuce take it, old man, how could I help it?"
"'T ain't your fault, Jimmy. You know I don't blame you. I don't forget you began to play fair just as soon as you got next to how matters stood between.—how they stood with me."
"Couldn't play the cad, you know. I say, though, it's time we talked it all over again. Give me your trunk check. I'll have my man send your luggage to my hotel. You're to keep on bunking with me."
"No," replied Blake. "It was all right, long as we were travelling. NowI've got to hunt a hallroom and begin scratching gravel."
"But at least until you find a position."
"No. I'm sure of something first pop, if old Grif is in town. You remember, I once told you all about him—M. F. Griffith, my old engineer—man who boosted me from a bum to a transitman. Whitest man that ever was! Last I heard, he'd located here in Chicago as a consulting engineer. He'll give me work, or find it for me; and Mollie—that's Mrs. Grif—she'll board me, if she has to set up a bed in her parlor to do it."
"Oh, if you're set on chucking me," murmured Lord James. "But I'll stay by you till you've looked around. If you don't find your friend, you're to come with me."
"Must think I need a chaperon," rallied Blake in a fond growl. "Well, signal your Man Friday, and we'll run a line to the nearest directory."
Lord James signed to his valet, who stood near, discreetly observant. On the instant the man stepped forward with his master's hand luggage, and reached down to grasp Blake's suitcase, which had been left by one of the porters. But Blake was too quick for him. Catching up the suitcase himself, he swung away through the crowd and up the broad stairway, to the Bureau of Information.
Two minutes later he was copying an address from the city business directory.
"Got his office O.K.," he informed his friend. "Over on Dearborn Street. Next thing's to see if he's in town. Shunt your collar-buttoner, and come on. We can walk over inside ten minutes."
Lord James instructed his valet to take a taxicab to the hotel. He himself proceeded to button up his overcoat from top to bottom and turn up the collar.
"Your balmy native clime!" he gibed, staring ruefully through the depot windows at the whirling snowstorm without. "If I freeze my Grecian nose, you'll have to buy me a wax one."
Blake chuckled. "Remember that night up in the Kootenay when the blizzard struck us and we lost the road?"
"Pleasant time to recall it!" rejoined Lord James, with a shiver. "But come on. I'm keen to meet your Mr. Griffith."
They reached the great office building on Dearborn Street, red-faced and tingling from the whirling drive of the powdery snow. It was so dry with frost that scarcely a flake clung to their coats when they pushed in through the storm doors. The elevator shot them up to the top floor of the building before they could catch their breath in the close, steam-heated atmosphere.
"Whew!" said Blake, stepping out and dropping his suitcase, to shed his English raincoat. "Talk about Mozambique! Guess you know now you're in Hammurica, me lud. All the way from the Pole to Panama in one swing of the street door."
"What was your friend's number?" asked Lord James, eying the doors across the corridor.
"Seventeen-fifteen. Must be down this way," answered Blake.
Catching up his suitcase, he led around to the rear corner of the building. At the end of the side hall they came to a door marked "No. 1715." On the frosted glass below the number there was painted in plain black letters a modest sign:
Blake led the way in and across to the plain table-desk where a young clerk was checking up a surveyor's field book.
"Hello," said Blake. "Mr. Griffith in?"
"Why, yes, he's in. But I think he's busy," replied the clerk, starting to rise. "I'll see. What business?"
"Don't bother, sonny," said Blake. "We'll just step in and sit down."
The clerk stared, but resumed his seat, while Blake crossed to the door marked "Private," and motioned Lord James to follow him in. When they entered, a lank, gray-haired man sat facing them at a table-desk as plain as the clerk's. It was covered with drawings, over which the veteran engineer was poring with such intentness that he failed to perceive his callers.
"Hello! What's up now?" asked Blake in a casual tone. "Going to bridgeBehring Straits?"
"Hey?" demanded the worker, glancing up with an abstracted look.
His dark eyes narrowed as he took in the trim figure of the earl and Blake's English cap and tweeds. But at sight of Blake's face he shoved back his chair and came hurrying around the end of the desk, his thin dry face lighted by a rare smile of friendship. He warily caught the tip of Blake's thick fingers in his bony clasp.
"Well! I'll be—switched!" he croaked. "What you doing here, Tommy?Thought we'd got rid of you for good."
"Guess you'll have to lump it," rejoined Blake. "I'm here with both feet, and I want a job—P-D-Q. First, though, I want you to shake hands with my friend, Jimmy Scarbridge—Hold on! Wait a second."
He drew himself up pompously, and bowed to Lord James in burlesque mimicry of Mrs. Gantry. "Aw, beg pawdon, m'lud. Er—the—aw—Right Hon'able the—aw—Earl of Avondale: I present—aw—Mistah Griffith."
"Chuck it! The original's enough and to spare," cut in his lordship. He turned to Griffith with unaffected cordiality. "Glad to meet one of Tom's other friends, Mr. Griffith."
"The only other," added Blake.
"Then I'm still gladder!" said Lord James, gripping the bony hand ofGriffith. "Don't let Tom chaff you. My name's just Scarbridge—JamesScarbridge."
"Owh, me lud! Himpossible!" gasped Blake. "And your papa a juke!"
At sight of Griffith's upcurving eyebrows, Lord James smiled resignedly and explained: "Quite true—as to His Grace, y'know. But I assure you that even in England I am legally only a commoner. It's only by courtesy—custom, you know—that I'm given my father's second title."
"That's all right, Mr. Scarbridge," assured Griffith, in turn. "Glad to meet you. Have a seat."
While the callers drew up chairs for themselves, he returned to his seat and hauled out a box of good cigars. Blake helped himself and passed the box to Lord James. Griffith took out an old pipe and proceeded to load it with rank Durham.
"Well?" he croaked, as he handed over a match-box. "What's the good word, Tommy?"
"Haven't you heard?" replied Blake. "I'm a hero, the real live article,—T. Blake, C. E. H. E., R. O.—Oh!"
"No joshing, you Injin," admonished Griffith, pausing with a lighted match above the bowl of his pipe.
Lord James gazed reproachfully at the grinning Blake. "He tries to belittle it, Mr. Griffith, but it's quite true. Haven't you seen about it in the press?"
"Too busy over this Arizona dam," said Griffith, jerking his pipe towards the drawings on his desk.
"What dam?" demanded Blake, bending forward, keenly alert.
"Zariba—big Arizona irrigation project. Simple as A, B, C, except the dam itself. That has stumped half a dozen of the best men. Promoters are giving me a try at it now. But I'm beginning to think I've bitten off more 'n I can chew."
"You?" said Blake incredulously.
"Yes, me. When it comes to applying what's in the books, I'm not so worse. You know that, Tommy. But this proposition—Only available dam site is across a stretch of bottomless bog, yet it's got to hold a sixty-five foot head of water."
"Je-ru-salem!" whistled Blake. "Say, you've sure got to give me a shy at that, Grif. It can't be worked out—that's a cinch. Just the same, I'd like to fool with the proposition."
Griffith squinted at the younger engineer through his pipe smoke, and grunted: "Guess I'llhaveto let you try, if you're set on it." He nodded to Lord James. "You know how much use it is bucking against Tommy. The boys used to call him a mule. They were half wrong. That half is bulldog."
"Aw, come off!" put in Blake. "You know it's just because I hate to quit."
"That's straight. You're no quitter. Shouldn't wonder if you held on to this dam problem till you swallowed it."
"Stow the kidding," said Blake, embarrassed.
"I'm giving it to you straight. This dam has made a lot of good ones quit. I'm about ready to quit, myself. But I'll be—switched if I don't think you'll make a go of it, Tommy."
"In your eye!"
"No." Griffith took out his pipe and fixed an earnest gaze on Blake. "I'm not one to slop over. You know that. I can put it all over you in mathematics—in everything that's in the books. So can a hundred or more men in this country. Just the same, there's something—you've got something in you that ain't in the books."
"Whiskey?" suggested Blake, with bitter self-derision.
"Tom!" protested Lord James.
"What's the use of lying about it?" muttered Blake.
"You've no whiskey in you now," rejoined Griffith. "I'm talking about what you are now,—what you've got in your head. It's brains."
"Pickled in alcohol!" added Blake, more bitterly than before.
"That's a lie, and you know it, Tommy. You're not yet on the shelf—not by a long sight."
Blake grinned sardonically at Lord James. "Hear that, Jimmy? Never take the guess of an engineer. They're no good at guessing. It's not in the business."
"Chuck it. You know you've got something worth fighting for now."
"Lots of chance I'll have to win out against you!" Blake's teeth ground together on his unlighted cigar. He jerked it from his mouth and flung it savagely into the wastebasket. But the violent movement discharged the tension of his black humor.
"Lord! what a grouch I am!" he mumbled. "Guess I'm in for a go at the same old thing."
Griffith and Lord James exchanged a quick glance, and the former hastened to reply: "Don't you believe it, Tommy. Don't talk aboutmyguessing. You're steady as a rock, and you're going to keep steady. You're on the Zariba Dam now,—understand?"
"It's a go!" cried Blake, his eyes glowing. "That fixes me. You know my old rule: Not a drop of anything when I'm on a job. Only one thing more, and I'm ready to pitch in. I must get Mollie to put me up."
Griffith looked down, his teeth clenching on the pipe stem. There was a moment's pause. Then he replied in a tone more than ever dry and emotionless: "Guess my last letter didn't reach you. I lost her, a year ago—typhoid."
"God!" murmured Blake. He bent forward and gripped his friend's listless hand.
Griffith winced under the sympathetic clasp, turned his face away, coughed, and rasped out: "Work's the one thing in the world, Tommy. Always believed it. I've proved it this year. Work! Beats whiskey any day for making you forget … I've got rooms here. You'll bunk with me. Pretty fair restaurant down around the corner."
"It's a go," said Blake. He nodded to Lord James. "That lets you out,Jimmy."
"Out in the cold," complained his lordship.
"What! With Mamma Gantry waiting to present you to the upper crust?—I mean, present the crust to you."
"Best part of the pie is under the crust."
"Now, now, none of that, Jimmy boy. You're not the sort to take in the town with a made-in-France thing like that young Ashton."
"Ashton?" queried Griffith. "You don't mean Laffie Ashton?"
"He was down at the depot to give our party the glad hand."
"Your party?" repeated Griffith. He saw Blake wink at Lord James, and thought he understood. "I see. He knows Mr. Scarbridge, eh? It's like him, dropping his work and running down here, when he ought to stick by his bridge."
"His bridge?" asked Blake. "Say, he did blow about having landed the Michamac Bridge. But of course that's all hot air. He didn't even take part in the competition. Besides, you needn't tell me he's anything more than a joke as an engineer."
"Isn't he, though? After you pulled out the last time—after the competition,—he put in plans and got the Michamac Bridge."
"You're joking!" cried Blake. "He got it?—thatgent!"
"You'll remember that all who took part in the competition failed on the long central span," said Griffith.
"No!" contradicted Blake. "Ididn't. I tell you, it was just as I wrote you I'd do. I worked out a new truss modification. I'd have sworn my cantilever was the only one that could span Michamac Strait."
"And then to have your plans lost!" put in Griffith with keen sympathy beneath his dry croak. "Hell! That bridge would have landed you at the top of the ladder in one jump."
"Losing those plans landed me on a brake-beam, after my worst spree ever," muttered Blake.
"Don't wonder," said Griffith. "What gets me, though, is the way this young Ashton, this lily-white lallapaloozer of a kid-glove C. E., came slipping in with his plans less than a month after the contest. I looked up the records."
"What were you doing, digging into that proposition?" demanded Blake.
"What d' you suppose? Ashton was slick enough to get an ironclad contract as Resident Engineer. His bridge plans are a wonder, but he's proved himself N. G. on construction work. Has to be told how to build his own bridge. I'm on as Consulting Engineer."
"You?" growled Blake. "You, working again for H. V. Leslie!"
"Give the devil his due, Tommy. He's sharp as tacks, but if you've got his name to a straightforward contract—"
"After he threw us down on the Q. T. survey?"
Griffith coughed and hesitated. "Well—now—look here, Tommy, you're not the kind to hold a grudge. Anyway, the bridge was turned over to the Coville Construction Company." He turned quickly to Lord James. "Say, what's that about his being in the papers? If it's anything to his credit, put me next, won't you? I couldn't pry it out of him with a crow-bar."
"So you're going to use a Jimmy instead, eh?" countered Blake.
"Right-o, Tammas," said Lord James. "We're going to open up the incident out of hand."
"Lord!" groaned Blake. He rose, flushing with embarrassment, and swung across, to stare at a blueprint in the far corner of the room.
Lord James flicked the ash from his cigar with his little finger, and smiled at Griffith.
"Tom and I had been knocking around quite a bit, you know," he began."Fetched up in South Africa. American engineers in demand on the Rand.Tom was asked to manage a mine."
"He could do it," commented Griffith. "Was two years on a low-grade proposition in Colorado—made it pay dividends. Didn't he suit the Rand people?"
"Better than they suited him, I take it. I left for a run home. Week before I arrived a servant looted the family jewels—heirlooms, all that, you know—chap named Hawkins. Thought I'd play Sherlock Holmes. Learned that my man had booked passage for India. Traced him to Calcutta. Lost two months; found he'd doubled back and gone to the Cape. Cape Town, found he'd booked passage for England under his last alias—Winthrope. Steamer list also showed names of my friend Lady Bayrose, Miss Leslie, and Tom."
"Hey?" ejaculated Griffith, opening his narrowed eyes a line.
"Same time, learned the steamer had been posted as lost, somewhere between Port Natal and Zanzibar."
"Crickey!" gasped Griffith. "Then it was Tom who pulled H. V.'s daughter—Miss Leslie—through that deal! Heard all about it from H. V. himself, when he took me out to Arizona to look over this Zariba Dam proposition. But he didn't name the man. Well, I'll be—switched! Tommy sure did land in High Society that time!"
"They landed in the primitive, so to speak,—he and Miss Leslie andHawkins,—when the cyclone flung them ashore in the swamps."
"Hawkins? Didn't you just say—"
"Rather a grim joke, was it not? Every soul aboard drowned except those three—Tom and Miss Leslie and Hawkins, of all men!"
"Bet Tommy shook your family jewels out of his pockets mighty sudden."
Lord James lost his smile. "He got them, later on, when the fellow—died."
"Died? How?"
"Fever—another cyclone."
"Eh? Well, God's country is good enough for me. Those tropical holes sure are hell. Tommy once wrote me about one of the Central American ports. You. don't ever catch me south of the U. S. This East African proposition, now? Must have been a tough deal even for Tommy."
"They were doing well enough when I found him, both he and Miss Leslie,—skin clothes, poisoned arrows, house in a tree hollow—all that, y'know."
"Well, I'll be—! But that's Tommy, for sure. He's got the kind of brains that get there. If he can't buck through a proposition, he'll triangulate around it. Go on."
"There's not much to tell, I fancy, now that you know he was the man. You're aware that, had it not been for his resourcefulness and courage, Miss Leslie would have perished in that savage land of wild beasts and fever. Yet thereissomething more than you could have heard from her father, something I'm not free to tell about. Wish I was, 'pon my word, I do! Finest thing he ever did,—something evenwewould not have expected of him."
"Dunno 'bout that," qualified Griffith. "There's mighty little I don't expect of him—if only he can cut out the lushing."
Lord James twisted his mustache. "Ever think of him as wearing a dress suit, Mr. Griffith?"
Griffith looked blank. "Tommy?—in a dress suit!"
"There's one in his box. When we landed in England I took him down to Ruthby. Kept him there a month. You'd have been jolly well pleased to see the way he and the guv'nor hit it off."
"Governor?"
"Yes, my pater—father, y' know."
"So he's a governor? Then Tommy was stringing me about the earl and duke business."
"Oh, no, no, indeed, no. The pater is the Duke of Ruthby, seventh in the line, and twenty-first Earl of Avondale; but he's a crack-up jolly old chap, I assure you. Not all our titled people are of the kind you see most of over here in the States."
"But—hold on—if your father is a real duke, then you're not Mr.—"
"Yes, I must insist upon that. Even in England I am only Mr. Scarbridge—legally, y' know. Hope you'll do me the favor of remembering I prefer it that way."
"I'd do a whole lot for any manhecalls his friend," said Griffith, gazing across at Blake's broad back. Lord James glanced at his watch, and rose. "Sorry. Must go."
"Well, if you must," said Griffith. "You know the way here now. Drop in any time you feel like it. Rooms are always open. If I'm busy, I've got a pretty good technical library—if you're interested in engineering,—and some photographs of scenery and construction work. Took 'em myself."
"Thanks. I'll come," responded Lord James. He nodded cordially, and turned to call slangily to Blake: "S' long, bo. I'm on my way."
Blake wheeled about from the wall. "What's this? Not going already?"
"Ah, to be sure. Pressing engagement. Must give Wilton time to attire me—those studied effects—last artistic touches, don't y' know," chaffed the Englishman.
But his banter won no responsive smile from his friend. Blake's face darkened.
"You're not going to see her to-day," he muttered.
"How could you think it, Tom?" reproached the younger man, flushing hotly. "I have it! We'll extend the agreement until noon to-morrow. You have that appointment with her father in the morning."
"That's square! Just like you, Jimmy. Course I knew you'd play fair—It's only my grouch. I remember now. Madam G. gave you a bid to dine with her."
Lord James drew out his monocle, replaced it, and smiled. "Er—quite true; but possibly the daughter may be a compensation."
"Sure," assented Blake, a trifle too eagerly, "You're bound to like Miss Dolores. I sized her up for a mighty fine girl. Not at all like her mamma—handsome, lively young lady—just your style, Jimmy."
"Can't see it, old man. Sorry!" replied his lordship. "Good-day.Good-day, Mr. Griffith."
For half a minute after his titled friend had bowed himself out, Blake stood glowering at the door. The sharp crackle of a blueprint under the thrumming fingers of Griffith caused him to start from his abstraction and cross to the desk, where he dropped heavily into his former seat.
"Well?" demanded Griffith. "Out with it."
"With what?"
"You called him your friend. He's a likely-looking youngster, even if heisthe son of a duke. Same time, there's something in the wind. Cough it up. Haven't happened to smash any heads or windows, have you, while you were—"
"No!" broke in Blake harshly. "It's worse than that, ten times worse!It's—it's Jenny—Miss Leslie!"
Griffith's thin lips puckered in a soundless whistle. "Well, I'll be—!Don't tell me you've gone and—Why, you never cared a rap for girls."
"No, but this time, Grif—It began when I showed her through that Rand mine. Jimmy has told you what followed."
Griffith blinked, and discreetly said nothing as to what lie had heard from Miss Leslie's father. "H'm. I'd like to hear it all, straight from you."
"Can't now. Too long a yarn. I want to tell you about the results. Couldn't do it to any one else," explained Blake, blushing darkly under his thick layer of tropical tan. He sought to beat around the bush. "Well, I proved myself fit to survive in that environment, tough as it was—sort of cave-man's hell. Queer thing, though, Jenny—Miss Leslie—proved fit, too; that is, she did after right at the start. She's got a headpiece, andgrit!"
"Takes after her dad," suggested Griffith.
"Him!"
"As to the brains and grit."
"Not in anything else, though. They're no more alike than garlic and roses."
"Getting poetic, eh?" cackled Griffith.
"Don't laugh, Grif. It's too serious a matter. I'd do anything in the world for her. She's the truest, grittiest girl alive. She told me straight out, there at the last, that she—she loved me."
"Crickey!" ejaculated Griffith. "She told you that?—she?—Miss—"
"Hush! not so loud!" cautioned Blake. Again the color deepened in his bronzed cheeks. His pale eyes shone very blue and soft. "It was when we heard the siren of Jimmy's steamer. She—You'll forget this, Grif? Never whisper a hint of it?"
"Sure! What you take me for?"
"Well, she wouldn't agree to wait. Wanted to be married as soon as we got aboard ship."
"She—!" Griffith lacked breath even for an expletive.
"I agreed. Couldn't help it, with her looking at me that way. Then we went down around through the cleft to the shore, where the boat was pulling in. Well, there was Jimmy in the sternsheets, in a white yachting suit—Me with my hyena pants, and Jenny in her leopard-skin dress!"
"Say, youweredoing the Crusoe business!" cackled Griffith.
"It shook me out of my dream all right, soon as I set eyes on Jimmy. I waded out with—Miss Leslie, and put her into the boat. Told him to hurry her aboard. I cut back to the cleft—the place where we'd been staying."
"Off your head, eh?"
"No. Don't you see? I had to save Jenny. I had proved myself a pretty good cave-man, and she had been living so close to that sort of thing that she had lost her perspective. Wasn't fair to her to let her tie herself up to me till she'd first had a chance to size me up with the men of her class."
"You mean to say you passed up your chance?"
"I'd have been a blackguard to 've let her marry me then!" cried Blake, his eyes flashing angrily. He checked himself, and went on in a monotone: "I waited till Jimmy came back to fetch me. Course I had to explain the situation. Asked him to pull out without me, and send down a boat from Port Mozambique. No go. Finally we fixed it up for me to slip aboard into the forecastle."
"Well, I'll be—switched!" croaked Griffith. "You did that, to escape marrying the daughter of a multi-millionaire!"
"It would have been the same if she'd been poor, Grif. She's a lady, through and through, and I—I love her! God! how I love her!"
"Guess that's no lie," commented Griffith in his dryest tone.
Blake relaxed the grip that seemed to be crushing the arms of his chair.
"Well, I went aboard and kept under cover. Jimmy managed to keep her diverted till we put into Port Mozambique. There I sent a note aft to her, letting on that I had already landed, and swearing that I was going to steer clear of her until after she got back to her father. But I kept aboard, in the forecastle, as Jimmy had made me promise to do. At Aden, Jimmy put her on a P. and O. liner in the care of a friend of his, Lady Chetwynd, who was on her way home to England from India."
"He went along, too; leaving you to shift for yourself, eh?"
"Don't you think it! He had been spending half the time forward with me in that stew-hole of a forecastle. Soon as she was safe, I hiked aft and bunked with him. No; Jimmy's as square as they make 'em. To prove it—he had met Jenny before; greatly taken with her. There on the steamer was the very chance he had been after. But he played fair; didn't try to win her. Told me all about it, right at the first, and we came to an agreement. We were both to steer clear of her over on that side. That's why we stuck close to Ruthby Castle till Jenny sailed for home. No; Jimmy is white. He had invitations to more than one house-party where she was visiting around with Lady Chetwynd and Madam Gantry."
"So neither of you have seen her since there at Aden?"
"Yes, we have. Came on from New York with her and her aunt. They had stopped over when they landed, and we blundered into them before we could dodge."
"And Miss Leslie? You look glum. Guess you got what was coming to you, eh?"
Blake's face clouded. "Haven't seen her apart from her aunt yet. She has been kind but—mighty reserved. I'd give a lot to know whether—" He paused, gripping his chair convulsively. "Just the same, I haven't quit. The agreement with Jimmy is off to-morrow afternoon. She's had plenty of time for comparisons. I'll make my try then."
"Don't fash yourself, Tom. If she's the sort you say, and went as far as you say, she's not likely to throw you over now."
"You don't savvy!" exclaimed Blake. "There on that infernal coast I was the real thing—and the only one, at that. Here I'm just T. Blake, ex-bum, periodic drunkard, all around—"
"Stow that drivel!" ordered Griffith. "What if you were a kid hobo? What are you now?—one of the best engineers in the country; one that's going to make the top in short order. I tell you, you're going to succeed. What's more, Mollie said—"
"Mollie!" repeated Blake softly. "Say, but wasn't she a booster! Had even you beat, hands down. Good Lord, to think that she, of all the little women—! Only thing, typhoid isn't so bad as some things. They don't suffer so much."
"Yes," assented Griffith. "That helps—some—when I get to thinking of it. She went out quietly—wasn't thinking of herself."
"She never did!" put in Blake, "Say, but can't a woman make a heap of difference—when she's the right sort!"
"There was a message for you. She said, almost the last thing: 'Tell Tom not to give up the fight. Tell him,' she said, 'he'll win out, I know he'll win out in the end.'"
"God!" whispered Blake. "She said that?" He bent over and covered his eyes with his hand.
Griffith averted his head and peered at the blueprints on the nearest wall with unseeing eyes. A full minute passed. Keeping his face still averted, he began to tap out the ash and half-smoked tobacco from his pipe.
"H'm—guess you'd better work in a room apart," he remarked in a matter-of-fact tone. "Too much running in and out here. D' you want to start right off?"
"No," muttered Blake. He paused and then straightened to face hisfriend. His eyes were blood-shot but resolute, his face impassive. "No.I'll wait till after to-morrow. Big order on for to-morrow morning.Appointment to meet H. V."
"Hey?"
"He was down at the depot. You can imagine how effusive he wasn't over my saving his daughter. Curse the luck! If only she had had any one else for a father!"
"Now, now, Tommy, don't fly off the handle. You know there are lots of 'em worse than H. V."
"None I'm in so hard with. First place, there's that Q. T. survey."
"That's all smoothed over. He came around all right. Just ask for your pay-check. He'll shell out."
"I'll ask for interest. Ought to have a hundred per cent. I needed the money then mighty bad."
"We all did. Let it slide. He's her father. You can't afford to buck his game."
"I'd do it quick enough if it wasn't for her," rejoined Blake. "That's where he's got me. Lord! if only he and she weren't—!" Blake's teeth clenched on the end of the sentence.
"Now look here, Tommy," protested Griffith. "This isn't like you to hold a grudge. It's true H. V. did us dirt on the survey pay. But he gave in, soon as I got a chance to talk it over with him."
"'Cause he had to have you on the Michamac Bridge, eh?" demanded Blake, his face darkening.
"Stow it! That may be true, but—didn't I tell you he turned the bridge over to the Coville Company?"
"Afraid he'd be found out, eh?"
"Found out? What do you mean?"
"Mean!" repeated Blake, his voice hoarse with passion. He brought his big fist down upon the desk with the thud of a maul. "Mean? Listen here! I didn't write it to you—I couldn't believe it then, even of him. But answer me this, if you can. I was fool enough not to send my plans for the bridge competition to him by registered mail; I was fool enough to hand them in to his secretary without asking a receipt. After the contest, I called for my plans. Clerk told me he couldn't find them; couldn't find any record that they'd been received. I tell you my plans solved that central span problem. Who was it could use my plans?—who were they worth a mint of money to?"
Griffith stared at his friend, his forehead furrowed with an anxious frown. "See here, Tom—this tropical roughing—it must be mighty overtaxing on a man. You didn't happen to have a sunstroke or—"
Blake's scowl relaxed in an ironical grin. "All right, take it that way, if you want to. He let on he thought I was trying to blackmail him."
"Crickey! You don't mean to say you—"
"Didn't get a chance to see him that time. Just sent in a polite note asking for my plans. He sent out word by his private-detective office-boy that if I called again he'd have me run in."
"And now you come back with this dotty pipe-dream that he knows what became of your plans! Take my advice. Think it all you want, if that does you any good; but keep your head closed—keep it closed! First thing he'd do would be to look up the phone number of the nearest asylum."
"I'd like to see him do it," replied Blake. He shook his head dubiously. "That's straight, Grif. I'd like to see him do it. I can't forget he's her father. If only I could be sure he hadn't a finger in the disappearance of those plans—Well, you can guess how I feel about it."
"You're dotty to think it a minute. He's a money-grubber—as sharp as some others. But he wouldn't do a thing like that. Don't you believe it!"
"Wish I'd never thought of it—he's her father. But it's been growing on me. I handed them in to his secretary, that young dude, Ashton."
"Ashton? There you've hit on a probability," argued Griffith. "Of all the heedless, inefficient papa's boys, he takes the cake! He wasn't H. V.'s secretary except in name. Wine, women, sports, and gambling—nothing else under his hat. Always had a mess on his desk. Ten to one, he got your package mixed in the litter, and shoved all together into his wastebasket."
"I'll put it up to him!" growled Blake.
"What's the use? He couldn't remember a matter of business over night, to save him."
"Lord! I sweat blood over those plans! It was hard enough to enter a competition put up by H. V., but it was the chance of a lifetime for me. Why, if only I'd known in time that they were lost, I'd have put in my scratch drawings and won onthem. I tell you, Grif, that truss was something new."
"Oh, no, there's no inventiveness, no brains in your head, oh, no!" rallied Griffith. "Wait till you make good on this Zariba Dam."
"You just bet I'll make a stagger at it!" cried Blake. His eyes shone bright with the joy of work,—and as suddenly clouded with renewed moroseness.
"I'll be working for you, though," he qualified. "I don't take any jobs from H. V. Leslie—not until that matter of the bridge plans is cleared up."