He crossed the floor, followed by Mr. Magee, and stood by the woman's chair. She looked up, her eyes heavy with sleep, her appearance more tawdry than ever in that faint light.
"Madam," remarked the professor, with the air of a judge trying a case, "your daughter has to-night made her escape from this place with a large sum of money earnestly desired by the prosecuting attorney of Reuton county. In the name of the law, I command you to tell me her destination, and what she proposes to do with that package of greenbacks."
The woman blinked stupidly in the dusk.
"She ain't my daughter," she replied, and Mr. Magee's heart leaped up. "I can tell you that much. I keep a boarding-house in Reuton and Miss—the girl you speak about—has been my boarder for three years. She brought me up here as a sort of chaperon, though I don't see as I'm old enough for that yet. You don't get nothing else out of me—except that she is a perfectly lovely young woman, and your money couldn't be safer with the president of the United States."
The puzzled professor of Comparative Literature caressed his bald head thoughtfully. "I—er—" he remarked. Mr. Magee could have embraced this faded woman for her news. He looked at his watch. It was twelve-twenty.
"The siege is over," he cried. "I shall not attempt to direct your actions any longer. Mr. Peters, will you please go down to the village and bring back Mr. Quimby and—the coroner?"
"The coroner!" The mayor of Reuton jumped to his feet. "I don't want to be in on any inquest scene. Come on, Max, let's get out of here."
Bland stood up, his face was white and worried, his gay plumage no longer set the tone for his mood.
"I think I'll go, too," he announced, looking hopefully at Magee.
"I'm no longer your jailer," Magee said. "Professor, these gentlemen are your witnesses Do you wish to detain them?"
"See here," cried the mayor angrily, "there ain't no question but that you can find me in Reuton any time you want me. At the little room on Main Street—anybody can tell you my hours—the door's always open to any reformer that has the nerve to climb the stairs. Look me up there. I'll make it interesting for you."
"I certainly shall," the professor replied. "And very soon. Until then you may go when and where you please."
"Thanks," sneered the mayor. "I'll expect you. I'll be ready. I've had to get ready to answer your kind before. You think you got me, eh? Well, you're a fool to think that. As for Drayton, the pup, the yellow-streaked pup—I'll talk to Mister Drayton when I get back to Reuton."
"Before you go, Bland," remarked Magee, smiling, "I want to ask about Arabella. Where did you get her?"
"Some of it happened to a friend of mine," the ex-haberdasher answered, "a friend that keeps a clothing store. I got this suit there. I changed the story, here and there. He didn't write her no note, though he thought seriously of it. And he didn't run away and hide. The last I seen of him he was testing the effect of the heart-balm on sale behind the swinging doors."
Mr. Magee laughed, but over the long lean face of Bland not the ghost of a smile flitted. He was frightened, through and through.
"You're a fine bunch," sneered Mr. Max. "Reformers, eh? Well, you'll get what the rest of 'em always got. We'll tie you up in knots and leave you on the door-step of some orphan asylum before we're through with you."
"Come on, Lou," said Cargan. "Drayton's a smart guy, Doc. Where's his proof? Eloped with the bundle of dry goods this young man's taken a fancy to. And even if he had the money—I've been up against this many a time. You're wasting your talents, Doc. Good night! Come on, boys."
The three stamped out through the dining-room, and from the window Mr. Magee watched them disappear down the road that stretched to Asquewan Falls.
Mr. Magee turned back from the window to the dim interior of the hotel office. He who had come to Baldpate Inn to court loneliness had never felt so lonely in his life. For he had lost sight of her—in the great Reuton station of his imagination she had slipped from his dreams—to go where he could not follow, even in thought. He felt as he knew this great bare room must feel each fall when the last laugh died away down the mountain, and the gloom of winter descended from drab skies.
Selecting a log of the hermit's cutting from the stock beside the hearth, Mr. Magee tossed it on the fire. There followed a shower of sparks and a flood of red light in the room. Through this light Kendrick advanced to Magee's side, and the first of the Baldpate hermits saw that the man's face was lined by care, that his eyes were tired even under the new light in them, that his mouth was twisted bitterly.
"Poor devil," thought Magee.
Kendrick drew up chairs for himself and Magee, and they sat down. Behind them the bulky Mrs. Norton dozed, dreaming perhaps of her Reuton boarding-house, while Miss Thornhill and the professor talked intermittently in low tones. The ranks at Baldpate were thinning rapidly; before long the place must settle back with a sigh in the cold, to wait for its first summer girl.
"Mr. Magee," said Kendrick nervously, "you have become involved in an unkind, a tragic story. I do not mean the affair of the bribe—I refer to the matter between Hayden and myself. Before Peters comes back with—the men he went for—I should like to tell you some of the facts of that story."
"If you had rather not—" began Magee.
"No," replied Kendrick, "I prefer that you should know. It was you who took the pistol from—his hand. I do not believe that even I can tell you all that was in Hayden's mind when he went into that other room and closed the door. It seems to me preposterous that a man of his sort should take his life under the circumstances I feel, somehow, that there is a part of the story even I do not know. But let that be."
He bowed his head in his hands.
"Ever since I came into this room," he went on, "the eyes of a pompous little man have been following me about. They have constantly recalled to me the nightmare of my life. You have noticed, no doubt, the pictures of the admiral that decorate these walls?"
"I have," replied Magee. He gazed curiously at the nearest of the portraits. How persistently this almost mythical starched man wove in and out of the melodrama at Baldpate Inn.
"Well," continued Kendrick, "the admiral's eyes haunt me. Perhaps you know that he plays a game—a game of solitaire. I have good reason to remember that game. It is a silly inconsequential game. You would scarcely believe that it once sent a man to hell."
He stopped.
"I am beginning in the middle of my story," he apologized. "Let me go back. Six years ago I was hardly the man you see now—I was at least twenty years younger. Hayden and I worked together in the office of the Suburban Railway. We had been close friends at college—I believed in him and trusted him, although I knew he had certain weaknesses. I was a happy man. I had risen rapidly, I was young, the future was lying golden before me—and I was engaged. The daughter of Henry Thornhill, our employer—the girl you have met here at Baldpate—had promised to be my wife. Hayden had also been a suitor, but when our engagement was announced he came to me like a man, and I thought his words were sincere.
"One day Hayden told me of a chance we might take which would make us rich. It was not—altogether within the law. But it was the sort of thing that other men were doing constantly, and Hayden assured me that as he had arranged matters it was absolutely safe. My great sin is that I agreed we should take the chance—a sin for which I have paid, Mr. Magee, over and over."
Again he paused, and gazed steadily at the fire. Again Magee noted the gray at his temples, the aftermath of fevers in his cheeks.
"We—took the chance," he went on. "For a time everything went well. Then—one blustering March night—Hayden came to me and told me we were certain to be caught. Some of his plans had gone awry. I trusted him fully at the time, you understand—he was the man with whom I had sat on the window-seat of my room at college, settling the question of immortality, and all the other great questions young men settle at such times. I have at this moment no doubt that he was quite truthful when he said we were in danger of arrest. We arranged to meet the next night at the Argots Club and decide on what we should do.
"We met—in the library of the club. Hayden came in to me from the card-room adjoining, where he had been watching the admiral doddering over his eternal game. The old man had become a fixture at the club, like Parker down at the door, or the great chandelier in the hall. No one paid any attention to him; when he tried to talk to the younger men about his game they fled as from a pestilence. Well, as I say, Hayden came to meet me, and just at that moment the admiral finished his game and went out. We were alone in the library.
"Hayden told me he had thought the matter over carefully. There was nothing to do but to clear out of Reuton forever. But why, he argued, should we both go? Why wreck two lives? It would be far better, he told me, for one to assume the guilt of both and go away. I can see him now—how funny and white his face looked in that half-lighted room—how his hands trembled. I was far the calmer of the two.
"I agreed to his plan. Hayden led the way into the room where the admiral had been playing. We went up to the table, over which the green-shaded light still burned. On it lay two decks of cards, face up. Hayden picked up the nearest deck, and shuffled it nervously. His face—God, it was like the snow out there on the mountain."
Kendrick closed his eyes, and Magee gazed at him in silent pity.
"He held out the deck," went on the exile softly, "he told me to draw. He said if the card was black, he'd clear out. 'But if it's red, David,' he said, 'why—you—got to go.' I held my breath, and drew. It was a full minute before I dared look at the card in my hand. Then I turned it over and it was—red—a measly little red two-spot. I don't suppose a man ever realizes all at once what such a moment means. I remember that I was much cooler than Hayden. It was I who had to brace him up. I—I even tried to joke with him. But his face was like death. He hardly spoke at all at first, and then suddenly he became horribly talkative. I left him—talking wildly—I left Reuton. I left the girl to whom I was engaged."
To break the silence that followed, Mr. Magee leaned forward and stirred the logs.
"I don't want to bore you," Kendrick said, trying to smile. "I went to a little town in South America. There was no treaty of extradition there—nor anything else civilized and decent. I smoked cigarettes and drank what passed for rum, on the balcony of an impossible hotel, and otherwise groped about for the path that leads to the devil. After a year, I wrote to Hayden. He answered, urging me to stay away. He intimated that the thing we had done was on my shoulders. I was ashamed, frightfully unhappy. I didn't dare write to—her. I had disgraced her. I asked Hayden about her, and he wrote back that she was shortly to marry him. After that I didn't want to come back to Reuton. I wanted most—to die.
"The years crept by on the balcony of that impossible hotel. Six of them. The first in bitter memories, memories of a red card that danced fiendishly before my eyes when I closed them—the last in a fierce biting desire to come back to the world I had left. At last, a few months ago, I wrote to another college friend of mine, Drayton, and told him the whole story. I did not know that he had been elected prosecutor in Reuton. He answered with a kind pitying letter—and finally I knew the horrible truth. Nothing had ever happened. The thing we had done had never been discovered. Hayden had lied. He had even lied about his engagement to Myra Thornhill. There, he had made a reality out of what was simply his great desire.
"You can imagine my feelings. Six years in a tomb, a comic opera sort of tomb, where a silly surf was forever pounding, and foolish palms kept waving. Six years—for nothing. Six years, while Hayden, guiltier than I, stayed behind to enjoy the good things of life, to plead for the girl whose lover he had banished.
"I lost no time in coming north. Three days ago I entered Drayton's office. I was ready and willing that the wrong Hayden and I had done should be made public. Drayton informed me that legally there had been no crime, that Hayden had straightened things out in time, that we had defrauded no one. And he told me that for whatever sin I had committed he thought I had more than atoned down there in that town that God forgot. I think I had. He explained to me about the trap he had laid for Hayden up here at Baldpate Inn. I begged to help. What happened after, you know as well as I."
"Yes, I think I do," agreed Mr. Magee softly.
"I have told you the whole story," Kendrick replied, "and yet it seems to me that still it is not all told. Why should Hayden have killed himself? He had lied to me, it is true, but life was always sweet to him, and it hardly seems to me that he was the sort to die simply because his falsehood was discovered. Was there some other act of cruelty—some side to the story of which we are none of us aware? I wonder."
He was silent a moment.
"Anyhow, I have told you all I know," he said. "Shall I tell it also to the coroner? Or shall we allow Hayden's suicide to pass as the result of his implication in this attempt at bribery? I ask your advice, Mr. Magee."
"My advice," returned Magee, "is that you befuddle no pompous little village doctor with the complication of this unhappy tale. No, let the story be that Hayden killed himself as the toils closed in on him—the toils of the law that punishes the bribe giver—now and then and occasionally. Mr. Kendrick, you have my deepest sympathy. Is it too much for me to hope"—he glanced across the room to where Myra Thornhill sat beside the professor—"that the best of your life is yet to come—that out of the wreck this man made of it you may yet be happy?"
Kendrick smiled.
"You are very kind," he said. "Twice we have met and battled in the snow, and I do not hold it against you that both times you were the victor. Life in a tropic town, Mr. Magee, is not exactly a muscle-building experience. Once I might have given the whole proceeding a different turn. Yes, Miss Thornhill has waited for me—all these years—waited, believing. It is a loyalty of which I can not speak without—you understand. She knows why I went away—why I stayed away. She is still ready to marry me. I shall go again into the Suburban office and try to lift the road from the muck into which it has fallen. Yes, it is not too much for me to hope—and for you in your kindness—that a great happiness is still for me."
"Believe me, I'm glad," replied Magee with youthful enthusiasm, holding out his hand. "I'm sorry I spoiled your little game up here, but—"
"I understand," smiled Kendrick. "I think none the less of you for what you have done. And who knows? It may turn out to have been the wisest course after all."
Ah, would it? Mr. Magee walked to the window, pondering on the odd tangle of events that had not yet been completely straightened out. Certainly her eyes were an honest blue as well as a beautiful—but who was she? Where was she? The great figure of Mrs. Norton stirred restlessly near at hand; the puffed lids of her eyes opened.
"Mr. Magee," she said, when she had made out his figure by the window, "you've been a true friend, as I might say, to a couple of mad females who ought to have been at home by their own firesides, and I'm going to ask one more favor of you. Find out when the next train goes to Reuton, and see that I'm at the station an hour or two before it pulls out."
"I'll do that, Mrs. Norton," smiled Magee. "By the way, is Norton the name?"
"Yes," answered the woman, "that's my name. Of course, it ain't hers. I can't tell that."
"No matter," said Mr. Magee, "she'll probably change it soon. Can't you tell me something about her—just a tiny bit of information. Just a picture of where she is now, and what she's doing with that small fortune I gave her."
"Where is she now?" repeated Mrs. Norton. "She's home and in bed in my second floor front, unless she's gone clear crazy. And that's where I wish I was this minute—in bed—though it's a question in my mind if I'll ever be able to sleep again, what with the uproar and confusion my house is probably in by this time, leaving it in charge of a scatter-brained girl. Norton always used to say if you want a thing done right, do it yourself, and though he didn't always live up to the sentiment, letting me do most things he wanted done right, there was a lot of truth in his words. I certainly must get back to Reuton, just as quick as the railroad will take me."
"Why did you come?" prodded Mr. Magee. "Why did you leave your house on this strange mission?"
"The Lord knows," replied the woman. "I certainly never intended to, but she begged and pleaded, and the first thing I knew, I was on a train. She has winning ways, that girl—maybe you've noticed?"
"I have," assented Billy Magee.
"I thought so. No, Mr. Magee, I can't tell you nothing about her. I ain't allowed to—even you that has been so kind. She made me promise. 'He'll know soon enough,' she kept saying. But I will tell you, as I told you before, there's no occasion to worry about her—unless you was to think was she held up and murdered with all that money on her, the brave little dear. If you was considering offering yourself for the job of changing her name, Mr. Magee, I say go in and do it. It sure is time she settled down and gave up this—this—gave it all up before something awful happens to her. You won't forget—the very next train, Mr. Magee?"
"The very next," Magee agreed.
In through the dining-room door stamped Quimby, grave of face, dazed at being roused from sleep, and with him an important little man whose duty it was to investigate at Upper Asquewan Falls such things as had happened that night at Baldpate. Even from his slumber he rose with the air of a judge and the manner of a Sherlock Holmes. For an hour he asked questions, and in the end he prepared to go in a seemingly satisfied state of mind.
Quimby's face was very awed when he came down-stairs after a visit to the room above.
"Poor fellow!" he said to Magee. "I'm sorry—he was so young." For such as Quimby carry no feud beyond the gates. He went over and took Kendrick's hand.
"I never had a chance," he said, "to thank you for all you tried to do for me and my invention."
"And it came to nothing in the end?" Kendrick asked.
"Nothing," Quimby answered. "I—I had to creep back to Baldpate Mountain finally—broke and discouraged. I have been here ever since. All my blue prints, all my models—they're locked away forever in a chest up in the attic."
"Not forever, Quimby," Kendrick replied. "I always did believe in your invention—I believe in it still. When I get back into the harness—I'm sure I can do something for you."
Quimby shook his head. He looked to be half asleep.
"It don't seem possible," he said. "No—it's all been buried so long—all the hope—all the plans—it don't seem possible it could ever come to life again."
"But it can, and it will," cried Kendrick. "I'm going to lay a stretch of track in Reuton with your joints. That's all you need—they'll have to use 'em then. We'll force the Civic into it. We can do it, Quimby—we surely can."
Quimby rubbed his hand across his eyes.
"You'll lay a stretch of track—" he repeated. "That's great news to me, Mr. Kendrick. I—I can't thank you now." His voice was husky. "I'll come back and take care of—him," he said, jerking his head toward the room up-stairs. "I got to go now—this minute—I got to go and tell my wife. I got to tell her what you've said."
At four in the morning Baldpate Inn, wrapped in the arms of winter, had all the rare gaiety and charm of a baseball bleechers on Christmas Eve. Looking gloomily out the window, Mr. Magee heard behind him the steps on the stairs and the low cautions of Quimby, and two men he had brought from the village, who were carrying something down to the dark carriage that waited outside. He did not look round. It was a picture he wished to avoid.
So this was the end—the end of his two and a half days of solitude—the end of his light-hearted exile on Baldpate Mountain. He thought of Bland, lean and white of face, gay of garb, fleeing through the night, his Arabella fiction disowned in the real tragedy that had followed. He thought of Cargan and Max, also fleeing, wrathful, sneering, by Bland's side. He thought of Hayden, jolting down the mountain in that black wagon. So it ended.
So it ended—most preposterous end—with William Hallowell Magee madly, desperately, in love. By the gods—in love! In love with a fair gay-hearted girl for whom he had fought, and stolen, and snapped his fingers at the law as it blinked at him in the person of Professor Bolton. Billy Magee, the calm, the unsusceptible, who wrote of a popular cupid but had always steered clear of his shots. In love with a girl whose name he did not know; whose motives were mostly in the fog. And he had come up here—to be alone.
For the first time in many hours he thought of New York, of the fellows at the club, of what they would say when the jocund news came that Billy Magee had gone mad on a mountainside, He thought of Helen Faulkner, haughty, unperturbed, bred to hold herself above the swift catastrophies of the world. He could see the arch of her patrician eyebrows, the shrug of her exquisite shoulders, when young Williams hastened up the avenue and poured into her ear the merry story. Well—so be it. He had never cared for her. In her superiority he had found a challenge, in her icy indifference a trap, that lured him on to try his hand at winning her. But he had never for a moment caught a glimmering of what it was really to care—to care as he cared now for the girl who had gone from him—somewhere—down the mountain.
Quimby dragged into the room, the strain of a rather wild night in Upper Asquewan Falls in his eyes.
"Jake Peters asked me to tell you he ain't coming back," he said. "Mis' Quimby is getting breakfast for you down at our house. You better pack up now and start down, I reckon. Your train goes at half past six."
Mrs. Norton jumped up, proclaiming that she must be aboard that train at any cost. Miss Thornhill, the professor and Kendrick ascended the stairs, and in a moment Magee followed.
He stepped softly into number seven, for the tragedy of the rooms was still in the air. Vague shapes seemed to flit about him as he lighted a candle. They whispered in his ear that this was to have been the scene of achievement; that here he was to have written the book that should make his place secure. Ah, well, fate had decreed it otherwise. It had set plump in his path the melodrama he had come up to Baldpate to avoid. Ironic fate, she must be laughing now in the sleeve of her kimono. Feeling about in the shadows Magee gathered his things together, put them in his bags, and with a last look at number seven, closed the door forever on its many excitements.
A shivering group awaited him at the foot of the stair. Mrs. Norton's hat was on at an angle even the most imaginative milliner could not have approved. The professor looked older than ever; even Miss Thornhill seemed a little less statuesque and handsome in the dusk. Quimby led the way to the door, they passed through it, and Mr. Magee locked it after them with the key Hal Bentley had blithely given him on Forty-fourth Street, New York.
So Baldpate Inn dropped back into the silence to slumber and to wait. To wait for the magic of muslin, the lilt of waltzes, the tinkle of laughter, the rhythm of the rockers of the fleet on its verandas, the formal tread of the admiral's boots across its polished floors, the clink of dimes in the pockets of its bell-boys. For a few brief hours strange figures had replaced the unromantic Quimby in its rooms, they had come to talk of money and of love, to plot and scheme, and as they came in the dark and moved most swiftly in the dark, so in the dark they went away, and Baldpate's startling winter drama took reluctantly its final curtain.
Down the snowy road the five followed Quimby's lead; Mr. Magee picturing in fancy one who had fled along this path but a short time before; the others busy with many thoughts, not the least of which was of Mrs. Quimby's breakfast. At the door of the kitchen she met them, maternal, concerned, eager to pamper and to serve, just as Mr. Magee remembered her on that night that now seemed so long ago. He smiled down into her eyes, and he had an engaging smile, even at four-thirty in the morning.
"Well, Mrs. Quimby," he cried, "here is the prodigal straight from that old husk of an inn. And believe me, he's pretty anxious to sit down to some food that woman, starter of all the trouble since the world began, had a hand in."
"Come right in, all of you," chirruped Mrs. Quimby, ushering them into a pleasant odor of cookery. "Take off your things and sit down. Breakfast's most ready. My land, I guess you must be pretty nigh starved to death. Quimby told me who was cooking for you, and I says to Quimby: 'What,' I says, 'that no account woman-hater messing round at a woman's job, like that,' I says. 'Heaven pity the people at the inn,' I says. 'Mr. Peters may be able to amuse them with stories of how Cleopatra whiled away the quiet Egyptian evenings,' I says, 'and he may be able to throw a little new light on Helen of Troy, who would object to having it thrown if she was alive and the lady I think her, but,' I says, 'when it comes to cooking, I guess he stands about where you do, Quimby.' You see, Quimby's repertory consists of coffee and soup, and sometimes it's hard to tell which he means for which."
"So Mr. Peters has taken you in on the secret of the book he is writing against your sex?" remarked Billy Magee.
"Not exactly that," Mrs. Quimby answered, brushing back a wisp of gray hair, "but he's discussed it in my presence, ignoring me at the time. You see, he comes down here and reads his latest chapters to Quimby o' nights, and I've caught quite a lot of it on my way between the cook-stove and the sink."
"I ain't no judge of books," remarked Mrs. Norton from a comfortable rocking-chair, "but I'll bet that one's the limit."
"You're right, ma'am," Mrs. Quimby told her. "I ain't saying that some of it ain't real pretty worded, but that's just to hide the falsehood underneath. My land, the lies there is in that book! You don't need to know much about history to know that Jake Peters has made it over to fit his argument, and that he ain't made it over so well but what the old seams show here and there, and the place where the braid was is plain as daylight."
After ten more minutes of bustle, Mrs. Quimby announced that they could sit down, and they were not slow to accept the invitation. The breakfast she served them moved Mr. Magee to remark:
"I want to know where I stand as a judge of character. On the first night I saw Mrs. Quimby, without tasting a morsel of food cooked by her, I said she was the best cook in the county."
The professor looked up from his griddle cakes.
"Why limit it to the county?" he asked. "I should say you were too parsimonious in your judgment."
Mrs. Quimby, detecting in the old man's words a compliment, flushed an even deeper red as she bent above the stove. Under the benign influence of the food and the woman's cheery personality, the spirits of the crowd rose. Baldpate Inn was in the past, its doors locked, its seven keys scattered through the dawn. Mrs. Quimby, as she continued to press food upon them, spoke with interest of the events that had come to pass at the inn.
"It's so seldom anything really happens around here," she said, "I just been hungering for news of the strange goings-on up there. And I must say Quimby ain't been none too newsy on the subject. I threatened to come up and join in the proceedings myself, especially when I heard about the book-writing cook Providence had sent you."
"You would have found us on the porch with outstretched arms," Mr. Magee assured her.
It was on Kendrick that Mrs. Quimby showered her attentions, and when the group rose to seek the station, amid a consultation of watches that recalled the commuter who rises at dawn to play tag with a flippant train, Mr. Magee heard her say to the railroad man in a heartfelt aside:
"I don't know as I can ever thank you enough, Mr. Kendrick, for putting new hope into Quimby. You'll never understand what it means, when you've given up, and your life seems all done and wasted, to hear that there's a chance left."
"Won't I?" replied Kendrick warmly. "Mrs. Quimby, it will make me a very happy man to give your husband his chance."
The first streaks of dawn were in the sky when the hermits of Baldpate filed through the gate into the road, waving good-by to Quimby and his wife, who stood in their dooryard for the farewell. Down through sleepy little Asquewan Falls they paraded, meeting here and there a tired man with a lunch basket in his hand, who stepped to one side and frankly stared while the odd procession passed.
In the station Mr. Magee encountered an old friend—he of the mop of ginger-colored hair. The man who had complained of the slowness of the village gazed with wide eyes at Magee.
"I figured," he said, "that you'd come this way again. Well, I must say you've put a little life into this place. If I'd known when I saw you here the other night all the exciting things you had up your sleeve, I'd a-gone right up to Baldpate with you."
"But I hadn't anything up my sleeve," protested Magee.
"Maybe," replied the agent, winking. "There's some pretty giddy stories going round about the carryings-on up at Baldpate. Shots fired, and strange lights flashing—dog-gone it, the only thing that's happened here in years, and I wasn't in on it. I certainly wish you'd put me wise to it."
"By the way," inquired Magee, "did you notice the passengers from here on the ten-thirty train last night?"
"Ten-thirty," repeated the agent. "Say, what sort of hours do you think I keep? A man has to get some sleep, even if he does work for a railroad. I wasn't here at ten-thirty last night. Young Cal Hunt was on duty then. He's home and in bed now."
No help there. Into the night the girl and the two hundred thousand had fled together, and Mr. Magee could only wait, and wonder, as to the meaning of that flight.
Two drooping figures entered the station—the mayor and his faithful lieutenant, Max. The dignity of the former had faded like a flower, and the same withered simile might have been applied with equal force to the accustomed jauntiness of Lou.
"Good morning," said Mr. Magee in greeting. "Taking an early train, too, eh? Have a pleasant night?"
"Young man," replied Cargan, "if you've ever put up at a hotel in a town the size of this, called the Commercial House, you know that last question has just one answer—manslaughter. I heard a minister say once that all drummers are bound for hell. If they are, it'll be a pleasant change for 'em."
Mr. Max delved beneath his overcoat, and brought forth the materials for a cigarette, which he rolled between yellow fingers.
"If I was a drummer," he said dolefully, "one breakfast—was that what they called it, Jim?—one breakfast like we just passed through would drive me into the awful habit of reading one of these here books ofDrummers' Yarns."
"Sorry," smiled Magee. "We had an excellent breakfast at Mrs. Quimby's. Really, you should have stayed. By the way, where is Bland?"
"Got shaky in the knees," said Cargan. "Afraid of the reformers. Ain't had much experience in these things, or he'd know he might just as well tremble at the approach of a blue-bottle fly. We put him on a train going the other direction from Reuton early this morning. He thinks he'd better seek his fortune elsewhere." He leaned in heavy confidence toward Magee. "Say, young fellow," he whispered, "put me wise. That little sleight of hand game you worked last night had me dizzy. Where's the coin? Where's the girl? What's the game? Take the boodle and welcome—it ain't mine—but put me next to what's doing, so I'll know how my instalment of this serial story ought to read."
"Mr. Cargan," replied Magee, "you know as much about that girl as I do. She asked me to get her the money, and I did."
"But what's your place in the game?"
"A looker-on in Athens," returned Magee. "Translated, a guy who had bumped into a cyclone and was sitting tight waiting for it to blow over. I—I took a fancy to her, as you might put it. She wanted the money. I got it for her."
"A pretty fairy story, my boy," the mayor commented.
"Absolutely true," smiled Magee.
"What do you think of that for an explanation, Lou," inquired Cargan, "she asked him for the money and he gave it to her?"
Mr. Max leered.
"Say, a Broadway chorus would be pleased to meet you, Magee," he commented.
"Don't tell any of your chorus friends about me," replied Magee. "I might not always prove so complacent. Every man has his moments of falling for romance. Even you probably fell once—and what a fall was there."
"Can the romance stuff," pleaded Max. "This chilly railway station wasn't meant for such giddy language."
Wasn't it? Mr. Magee looked around at the dingy walls, at the soiled time-cards, at the disreputable stove. No place for romance? It was here he had seen her first, in the dusk, weeping bitterly over the seemingly hopeless task in which he was destined to serve her. No place for romance—and here had begun his life's romance. The blue blithe sailor still stood at attention in the "See the World" poster. Magee winked at him. He knew about it all, he knew, he knew—he knew how alluring she had looked in the blue corduroy suit, the bit of cambric pressed agonizingly to her face. Verily, even the sailor of the posters saw the world and all its glories.
The agent leaned his face against the bars.
"Your train," he called, "is crossing the Main Street trestle."
They filed out upon the platform, Mr. Magee carrying Mrs. Norton's luggage amid her effusive thanks. On the platform waited a stranger equipped for travel. It was Mr. Max who made the great discovery.
"By the Lord Harry," he cried, "it's the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain."
And so it was, his beard gone, his hair clumsily hacked, his body garbed in the height of an old and ludicrous fashion, his face set bravely toward the cities once more.
"Yes," he said, "I walked the floor, thinking it all over. I knew it would happen, and it has. The winters are hard, and the sight of you—it was too much. The excitement, the talk—it did for me, did for my oath. So I'm going back to her—back to Brooklyn for Christmas."
"A merry one to you," growled Cargan.
"Maybe," replied Mr. Peters. "Very likely, if she's feeling that way. I hope so. I ain't giving up the hermit job altogether—I'll come back in the summers, to my post-card business. There's money in it, if it's handled right. But I've spent my last winter on that lonesome hill."
"As author to author," asked Magee, "how about your book?"
"There won't be any mention of that," the hermit predicted, "in Brooklyn. I've packed it away. Maybe I can work on it summers, if she doesn't come up here with me and insist on running my hermit business for me. I hope she won't, it would sort of put a crimp in it—but if she wants to I won't refuse. And maybe that book'll never get done. Sometimes as I've sat in my shack at night and read, it's come to me that all the greatest works since the world began have been those that never got finished."
The Reuton train roared up to them through the gray morning, and paused impatiently at Upper Asquewan Falls. Aboard it clambered the hermits, amateur and professional. Mr. Magee, from the platform, waved good-by to the agent standing forlorn in the station door. He watched the building until it was only a blur in the dawn. A kindly feeling for it was in his heart. After all, it had been in the waiting-room—
The village of Upper Asquewan Falls gave a correct imitation of snow upon the desert's dusty face, and was no more. Bidding a reluctant good-by to up-state romance, Mr. Magee entered the solitary day coach which, with a smoker, made up the local to Reuton. He spent a few moments adjusting Mrs. Norton to her new environment, and listened to her voluble expressions of joy in the fact that her boarding-house loomed ahead. Then he started for the smoker. On his way he paused at the seat occupied by the ex-hermit of Baldpate, and fixed his eyes on the pale blue necktie Mr. Peters had resurrected for his return to the world of men.
"Pretty, ain't it?" remarked the hermit, seeing whither Mr. Magee's gaze drifted. "She picked it. I didn't exactly like it when she first gave it to me, but I see my mistake now. I'm wearing it home as a sort of a white flag of truce. Or almost white. Do you know, Mr. Magee, I'm somewhat nervous about what I'll say when I come into her presence again—about my inaugural address, you might put it. What would be your conversation on such an occasion? If you'd been away from a wife for five years, what would you say when you drifted back?"
"That would depend," replied Magee, "on the amount of time she allowed me for my speech."
"You've hit the nail on the head," replied Mr. Peters admiringly. "She's quick. She's like lightning. She won't give me any time if she can help it. That's why I'd like to have a wonderful speech all ready—something that would hold her spellbound and tongue-tied until I finished. It would take a literary classic to do that."
"What you want," laughed Magee, "is a speech with the punch."
"Exactly," agreed Mr. Peters. "I guess I won't go over to Brooklyn the minute I hit New York. I guess I'll study the lights along the big street, and brush elbows with the world a bit, before I reveal myself to her. Maybe if I took in a few shows—but don't think I won't go to her. My mind is made up. And I guess she'll be glad to see me, too. In her way. I got to fix it with her, though, to come back to my post-card trade in the summers. I wonder what she'll say to that. Maybe she could stay at the inn under an assumed name while I was hermiting up at the shack."
He laughed softly.
"It'd be funny, wouldn't it," he said. "Her sitting on the veranda watching me sell post-cards to the ladies, and listening to the various stories of how a lost love has blighted my life, and so forth. Yes, it'd be real funny—only Ellen never had much sense of humor. That was always her great trouble. If you ever marry, Mr. Magee, and I suppose you will, take my advice. Marry a sense of humor first, and a woman incidental-like."
Mr. Magee promised to bear this counsel in mind, and went forward into the smoking-car. Long rows of red plush seats, unoccupied save for the mayor and Max, greeted his eye. He strolled to where they sat, about half-way down the car, and lighted an after-breakfast cigar.
Max slouched in the unresponsive company of a cigarette on one side of the car; across the aisle the mayor of Reuton leaned heavily above a card-table placed between two seats. He was playing solitaire. Mr. Magee wondered whether this was merely a display of bravado against scheming reformers, or whether Mr. Cargan found in it real diversion. Curious, he slid into the place across the table from the mayor.
"Napoleon," he remarked lightly, "whiled away many a dull hour with cards, I believe."
Clumsily the mayor shuffled the cards. He flung them down one by one on the polished surface of the table rudely, as though they were reform votes he was counting. His thick lips were tightly closed, his big hands hovered with unaccustomed uncertainty over the pasteboards.
"Quit your kidding," he replied. "I don't believe cards was invented in Nap's day. Was they? It's a shame a fellow can't have a little admiration for a great leader like Nap without all you funny boys jollying him about it. That boy sure knew how to handle the voters. I've read a lot about him, and I like his style."
"You let history alone," snarled Mr. Max, across the aisle, "or it'll repeat itself and another guy I know'll go to the island."
"If you mean me," returned Cargan, "forget it. There ain't no St. Helena in my future." He winked at Magee. "Lou's a little peevish this morning," he said. "Had a bad night."
He busied himself with the cards. Mr. Magee looked on, only half interested. Then, suddenly, his interest grew. He watched the mayor build, in two piles; he saw that the deck from which he built was thick. A weird suspicion shot across his mind.
"Tell me," he asked, "is this the admiral's game of solitaire?"
"Exactly what I was going to ask," said a voice. Magee looked up. Kendrick had come in, and stood now above the table. His tired eyes were upon it, fascinated; his lips twitched strangely.
"Yes," answered the mayor, "this is the admiral's game. You'd hardly expect me to know it, would you? I don't hang out at the swell clubs where the admiral does. They won't have me there. But once I took the admiral on a public service board with me—one time when I wanted a lot of dignity and no brains pretty bad—and he sort of come back by teaching me his game in the long dull hours when we had nothing to do but serve the public. The thing gets a hold on you, somehow. Let's see—now the spade—now the heart."
Kendrick leaned closer. His breath came with a noisy quickness that brought the fact of his breathing insistently to Magee's mind.
"I never knew—how it was played," he said.
Something told Mr. Magee that he ought to rise and drag Kendrick away from that table. Why? He did not know. Still, it ought to be done. But the look in Kendrick's eyes showed clearly that the proverbial wild horses could not do it then.
"Tell me how it's played," went on Kendrick, trying to be calm.
"You must be getting old," replied the mayor. "The admiral told me the young men at his club never took any interest in his game. 'Solitaire,' he says to me, 'is an old man's trade.' It's a great game, Mr. Kendrick."
"A great game," repeated Kendrick, "yes, it's a great game." His tone was dull. "I want to know how it's played," he said again.
"The six of clubs," reflected the mayor, throwing down another card. "Say, she's going fine now. There ain't much to it. You use two decks, exactly alike—shuffle 'em together—the eight of hearts—the jack of—say, that's great—you lay the cards down here, just as they come—like this—"
He paused. His huge hand held a giddy pasteboard. A troubled look was on his face. Then he smiled happily, and went on in triumph.
"And then you build, Mr. Kendrick," he said. "The reds and the blacks. You build the blacks on the left, and the reds on the right—do you get me? Then—say, what's the matter?"
For Kendrick had swayed and almost fallen on the admiral's game—the game that had once sent a man to hell.
"Go on," he said, bracing. "Nothing's the matter. Go on. Build, damn it, build!"
The mayor looked at him a moment in surprise, then continued.
"Now the king," he muttered, "now the ace. We're on the home stretch, going strong. There, it's finished. It's come out right. A great game, I tell you."
He leaned back. Kendrick's fever-yellowed face was like a bronze mask. His eyes were fiercely on the table and the two decks of cards that lay there.
"And when you've finished," he pointed. "When you've finished—"
Mr. Cargan picked up the deck on the left.
"All black," he said, "when the game comes out right."
"And the other?" Kendrick persisted softly. He pointed to the remaining deck. A terrible smile of understanding drew his thin lips taut. "And the other, Mr. Cargan?"
"Red," replied Cargan. "What else could it be? All red."
He picked it up and shuffled through it to prove his point. Kendrick turned like a drunken man and staggered back down the aisle. Magee rose and hurried after him. At the door he turned, and the look on his face caused Magee to shudder.
"You heard?" he said helplessly. "My God! It's funny, isn't it?" He laughed hysterically, and drawing out his handkerchief, passed it across his forehead. "A pleasant thing to think about—a pleasant thing to remember."
Professor Bolton pushed open the smoker door.
"I thought I'd join you," he began. "Why, David, what is it? What's the matter?"
"Nothing," replied Kendrick wildly. "There's nothing the matter. Let me—by—please." He crossed the swaying platform and disappeared into the other car.
For a moment the professor and Magee gazed after him, and then without a word moved down the car to join Cargan and Max. Magee's mind was dazed by the tragedy he had witnessed. "A pleasant thing to think about—" He did not envy Kendrick his thoughts.
The mayor of Reuton had pushed aside the cards and lighted a huge cigar.
"Well, Doc," he remarked jocosely, "how's trade? Sold any new schemes for renovating the world to the up-state rubes? I should think this would be sort of an off-season for the reform business. Peace on earth, good will toward men—that ain't exactly a good advertisement for the reformers, is it?"
"It's an excellent one," replied Professor Bolton. "The first essential of good will toward men is not to rob and debauch them."
"Oh, well, Doc, don't let's argue the matter," replied Cargan easily. "I ain't in the humor for it, anyhow. You got your beliefs, and I got my beliefs. And that ain't no reason why we should not smoke a couple of good cigars together. Have one?"
"Thanks. I—" reluctantly the old man took a gay-banded Havana from the mayor's huge fist. "You're very kind."
"I suppose it's sort of a blow to you," the mayor went on, "that your plans up there on the mountain went all to smash. It ought to teach you a lesson, Doc. There ain't nothing to the reform gag."
The train slowed down at a small yellow station. Mr. Magee peered out the window. "Hooperstown," he read, "Reuton—10 miles." He saw Mr. Max get up and leave the car.
"Not a thing to it, Doc," Cargan repeated, "Your bunch has tried to get me before. You've shouted from the housetops that you had the goods on me. What's always happened?"
"Your own creatures have acquitted you," replied the professor, from a cloud of Cargan cigar smoke.
"Fair-minded men decided that I hadn't done wrong. I tell you, Doc, there's dishonest graft, and I'm against that always. And there's honest graft—the rightful perquisites of a high office. That's the trouble with you church politicians. You can't see the difference between the two."
"I'm not a church politician," protested the professor. "I'm bitterly opposed to the lily-white crowd who continually rant against the thing they don't understand. I'm practical, as practical as you, and when—"
Noiselessly Mr. Max slid up to the group, and stood silent, his eyes wide, his yellow face pitiful, the fear of a dog about to be whipped in his every feature.
"Jim," he cried, "Jim! You got to get me out of this. You got to stand by me."
"Why, what's the matter, Lou?" asked the mayor in surprise.
"Matter enough," whined Max. "Do you know what's happened? Well, I'll tell—"
Mr. Max was thrust aside, and replaced by a train newsboy. Mr. Magee felt that he should always remember that boy, his straw colored hair, his freckled beaming face, his lips with their fresh perpetual smile.
"All the morning papers, gents," proclaimed the boy. "Get theReuton Star. All about the bribery."
He held up the paper. It's huge black head-lines looked dull and old and soggy. But the story they told was new and live and startling.
"The Mayor Trapped," shrilled the head-lines. "Attempt to Pass Big Bribe at Baldpate Inn Foiled by Star Reporter. Hayden of the Suburban Commits Suicide to Avoid Disgrace."
"Give me a paper, boy," said the mayor. "Yes—aStar." His voice was even, his face unmoved. He took the sheet and studied it, with an easy smile. Clinging in fear to his side, Max read, too. At length Mr. Cargan spoke, looking up at Magee.
"So," he remarked. "So—reporters, eh? You and your lady friend? Reporters for this lying sheet—theStar?"
Mr. Magee smiled up from his own copy of the paper.
"Not I," he answered. "But my lady friend—yes. It seems she was just that. AStarreporter you can call her, and tell no lie, Mr. Mayor."
It was a good story—the story which the mayor, Max, the professor and Magee read with varying emotions there in the smoking-car. The girl had served her employers well, and Mr. Magee, as he read, felt a thrill of pride in her. Evidently the employers had felt that same thrill. For in the captions under the pictures, in the head-lines, and in a first-page editorial, none of which the girl had written, theStarspoke admiringly of its woman reporter who had done a man's work—who had gone to Baldpate Inn and had brought back a gigantic bribe fund "alone and unaided".
"Indeed?" smiled Mr. Magee to himself.
In the editorial on that first page the triumphant cry of theStararose to shatter its fellows in the heavens. At last, said the editor, the long campaign which his paper alone of all the Reuton papers had waged against a corrupt city administration was brought to a successful close. The victory was won. How had this been accomplished? Into theStaroffice had come rumors, a few days back, of the proposed payment of a big bribe at the inn on Baldpate Mountain. The paper had decided that one of its representatives must be on the ground. It had debated long whom to send. Miss Evelyn Rhodes, its well-known special writer, had got the tip in question; she had pleaded to go to the inn. The editor, considering her sex, had sternly refused. Then gradually he had been brought to see the wisdom of sending a girl rather than a man. The sex of the former would put the guilty parties under surveillance off guard. So Miss Rhodes was despatched to the inn. Here was her story. It convicted Cargan beyond a doubt. The very money offered as a bribe was now in the hands of theStareditor, and would be turned over to Prosecutor Drayton at his request. All this under the disquieting title "Prison Stripes for the Mayor".
The girl's story told how, with one companion, she had gone to Upper Asquewan Falls. There was no mention of the station waiting-room, nor of the tears shed therein on a certain evening, Mr. Magee noted. She had reached the inn on the morning of the day when the combination was to be phoned. Bland was already there, shortly after came the mayor and Max.
"You got to get me out of this," Magee heard Max pleading over Cargan's shoulder.
"Keep still!" replied the mayor roughly. He was reading his copy of theStarwith keen interest now.
"I've done your dirty work for years," whined Max. "Who puts on the rubber shoes and sneaks up dark alleys hunting votes among the garbage, while you do the Old Glory stunt on Main Street? I do. You got to get me out of this. It may mean jail. I couldn't stand that. I'd die."
A horrible parody of a man's real fear was in his face. The mayor shook himself as though he would be rid forever of the coward hanging on his arm.
"Hush up, can't you?" he said. "I'll see you through."
"You got to," Lou Max wailed.
Miss Rhodes' story went on to tell how Hayden refused to phone the combination; how the mayor and Max dynamited the safe and secured the precious package, only to lose it in another moment to a still different contingent at the inn; how Hayden had come, of his suicide when he found that his actions were in danger of exposure—"a bitter smile for Kendrick in that" reflected Magee—and how finally, through a strange series of accidents, the money came into the hands of the writer for theStar. These accidents were not given in detail.
"An amusing feature of the whole affair," said Miss Evelyn Rhodes, "was the presence at the inn of Mr. William Hallowell Magee, the New York writer of light fiction, who had come there to escape the distractions of a great city, and to work in the solitude, and who immediately on his arrival became involved in the surprising drama of Baldpate."
"I'm an amusing feature," reflected Magee.
"Mr. Magee," continued Miss Rhodes, "will doubtless be one of the state's chief witnesses when the case against Cargan comes to trial, as will also Professor Thaddeus Bolton, holder of the Crandall Chair of Comparative Literature at Reuton University, and Mr. David Kendrick, formerly of the Suburban, but who retired six years ago to take up his residence abroad. The latter two went to the inn to represent Prosecutor Drayton, and made every effort in their power to secure the package of money from the reporter for theStar, not knowing her connection with the affair."
"Well, Mr. Magee?" asked Professor Bolton, laying down the paper which he had been perusing at a distance of about an inch from his nose.
"Once again, Professor," laughed Magee, "reporters have entered your life."
The old man sighed.
"It was very kind of her," he said, "not to mention that I was the person who compared blondes of the peroxide variety with suffragettes. Others will not be so kind. The matter will be resurrected and used against me at the trial, I'm sure. A plucky girl, Mr. Magee—a very plucky girl. How times do change. When I was young, girls of her age would scarcely have thought of venturing forth into the highways on such perilous missions. I congratulate you. You showed unusual perception. You deserve a great reward—the young lady's favor, let us say."
"You got to get me out of this," Max was still telling the mayor.
"For God's sake," cried Cargan, "shut up and let me think." He sat for a moment staring at one place, his face still lacking all emotion, but his eyes a trifle narrower than before. "You haven't got me yet," he cried, standing up. "By the eternal, I'll fight to the last ditch, and I'll win. I'll show Drayton he can't play this game on me. I'll show theStar. That dirty sheet has hounded me for years. I'll put it out of business. And I'll send the reformers howling into the alleys, sick of the fuss they started themselves."
"Perhaps," said Professor Bolton. "But only after the fight of your life, Cargan."
"I'm ready for it," cried Cargan. "I ain't down and out yet. But to think—a woman—a little bit of a girl I could have put in my pocket—it's all a big joke. I'll beat them—I'll show them—the game's far from played out—I'll win—and—if—I—don't—"
He crumbled suddenly into his seat, his eyes on that unpleasant line about "Prison Stripes for the Mayor". For an instant it seemed as though his fight was irrevocably lost, and he knew it. Lines of age appeared to creep from out the fat folds of his face, and stand mockingly there. He looked a beaten man.
"If I don't," he stammered pitifully, "well, they sent him to an island at the end. The reformers got Napoleon at the last. I won't be alone in that."
At this unexpected sight of weakness in his hero, Mr. Max set up a renewed babble of fear at his side. The train was in the Reuton suburbs now. At a neat little station it slowed down to a stop, and a florid policeman entered the smoking-car. Cargan looked up.
"Hello, Dan," he said. His voice was lifeless; the old-time ring was gone.
The policeman removed his helmet and shifted it nervously.
"I thought I'd tell you, Mr. Cargan," he said "I thought I'd warn you. You'd better get off here. There's a big crowd in the station at Reuton. They're waiting for you, sir; they've heard you're on this train. This lying newspaper, Mr. Cargan, it's been telling tales—I guess you know about that. There's a big mob. You better get off here, sir, and go down-town on a car."
If the mighty Cargan had looked limp and beaten for a moment he looked that way no more. He stood up, and his head seemed almost to touch the roof of the car. Over that big patrolman he towered; his eyes were cold and hard again; his lips curved in the smile of the master.
"And why," he bellowed, "should I get off here? Tell me that, Dan."
"Well, sir," replied the embarrassed copper, "they're ugly. There's no telling what they might do. It's a bad mob—this newspaper has stirred 'em up."
"Ugly, are they?" sneered Cargan. "Ever seen the bunch I would go out of my way for, Dan?"
"I meant it all right, sir," said Dan. "As a friend to a man who's been a friend to me. No, I never saw you afraid of any bunch yet, but this—"
"This," replied Cargan, "is the same old bunch. The same lily-livered crowd that I've seen in the streets since I laid the first paving stone under 'em myself in '91. Afraid of them? Hell! I'd walk through an ant hill as scared as I would through that mob. Thanks for telling me, Dan, but Jim Cargan won't be in the mollycoddle class for a century or two yet."
"Yes, sir," said the patrolman admiringly. He hurried out of the car, and the mayor turned to find Lou Max pale and fearful by his side.
"What ails you now?" he asked.
"I'm afraid," cried Max. "Did you hear what he said? A mob. I saw a mob once. Never again for me." He tried to smile, to pass it off as a pleasant jest, but he had to wet his lips with his tongue before he could go on. "Come on, Jim. Get off here. Don't be a fool."
The train began to move.
"Get off yourself, you coward," sneered Cargan. "Oh, I know you. It doesn't take much to make your stomach shrink. Get off."
Max eagerly seized his hat and bag.
"I will, if you don't mind," he said. "See you later at Charlie's." And in a flash of tawdry attire, he was gone.
The mayor of Reuton no longer sat limp in his seat. That brief moment of seeming surrender was put behind forever. He walked the aisle of the car, fire in his eyes, battle in his heart.
"So they're waiting for me, eh?" he said aloud. "Waiting for Jim Cargan. Now ain't it nice of them to come and meet their mayor?"
Mr. Magee and the professor went into the day coach for their baggage. Mrs. Norton motioned to the former.
"Well," she said, "you know now, I suppose. And it didn't do you no harm to wait. I sure am glad this to-do is all over, and that child is safe. And I hope you'll remember what I said. It ain't no work for a woman, no how, what with the shooting and the late hours."
"Your words," said Mr. Magee, "are engraven on my heart." He proceeded to gather her baggage with his own, and was thus engaged when Kendrick came up. The shadow of his discovery in the smoking-car an hour before still haunted his sunken eyes, but his lips were half smiling with the new joy of living that had come to him.
"Mr. Magee," he began, "I hardly need mention that the terrible thing which happened—in there—is between you and me—and the man who's dead. No one must know. Least of all, the girl who is to become my wife—it would embitter her whole life—as it has mine."
"Don't say that," Magee pleaded. "You will forget in time, I'm sure. And you may trust me—I had forgotten already." And indeed he had, on the instant when his eyes fell upon theReuton Star.
Miss Thornhill approached, her dark smiling eyes on Magee. Kendrick looked at her proudly, and spoke suddenly, determinedly:
"You're right, I will forget. She shall help me."
"Mr. Magee," said the girl, "I'm so pleased at the splendid end to your impulsive philanthropy. I just knew the adventure couldn't have anything but a happy ending—it was so full of youth and faith and—and charity or its synonym. This mustn't be good-by. You must come and see me—come and see us—all."
"I shall be happy to," answered Magee sincerely. "It will always be a matter of regret to me that I was not able to serve you—also—on Baldpate Mountain. But out of it you come with something more precious than fine gold, and that shall be my consolation."
"Let it be," smiled Myra Thornhill, "as it is surely mine. Good-by."
"And good luck," whispered Magee, as he took Kendrick's hand.
Over his shoulder, as he passed to the platform, he saw them look into each other's eyes, and he felt that the memory of the admiral's game would in time cease to haunt David Kendrick.
A shadow had fallen upon the train—the shadow of the huge Reuton station. In the half-light on the platform Mr. Magee encountered the mayor of Reuton. Above the lessening roar of the train there sounded ahead of them the voices of men in turmoil and riot. Mr. Cargan turned upon Magee a face as placid and dispassionate as that of one who enters an apple orchard in May.
"The boys," he smiled grimly, "welcoming me home."
Then the train came to a stop, and Mr. Magee looked down into a great array of faces, and heard for the first time the low unceasing rumble of an angry mob. Afterward he marveled at that constant guttural roar, how it went on and on, humming like a tune, never stopping, disconnected quite from the occasional shrill or heavy voices that rang out in distinguishable words. The mayor looked coolly down into those upturned faces, he listened a moment to the rumble of a thousand throats, then he took off his derby with satiric politeness.
"Glad to see one and all!" he cried.
And now above the mutterings angry words could be heard, "That's him," "That's two-hundred-thousand-dollar Cargan," "How's the weather on Baldpate?" and other sarcastic flings. Then a fashion of derisive cat-calls came and went. After which, here and there, voices spoke of ropes, of tar and feathers. And still the mayor smiled as one for whom the orchard gate swung open in May.
A squad of policemen, who had entered the car from the rear, forced their way out on to the platform.
"Want us to see you through the crowd, Mr. Cargan?" the lieutenant asked.
New hoots and cries ascended to the station rafters. "Who pays the police?" "We do." "Who owns 'em?" "Cargan." Thus question and answer were bandied back and forth. Again a voice demanded in strident tones the ignominious tar and feathers.
Jim Cargan had not risen from the slums to be master of his town without a keen sense of the theatric. He ordered the police back into the car. "And stay there," he demanded. The lieutenant demurred. One look from the mayor sent him scurrying. Mr. Cargan took from his pocket a big cigar, and calmly lighted it.
"Some of them guys out there," he remarked to Magee, "belong to the Sunday-school crowd. Pretty actions for them—pillars of the church howling like beasts."
And still, like that of beasts, the mutter of the mob went on, now in an undertone, now louder, and still that voice that first had plead for tar and feathers plead still—for feathers and tar. And here a group preferred the rope.
And toward them, with the bland smile of a child on his great face, his cigar tilted at one angle, his derby at another, the mayor of Reuton walked unflinchingly.
The roar became mad, defiant. But Cargan stepped forward boldly. Now he reached the leaders of the mob. He pushed his way in among them, smiling but determined. They closed in on him. A little man got firmly in his path. He took the little man by the shoulders and stood him aside with some friendly word. And now he was past ten rows or more of them on his way through, and the crowd began to scurry away. They scampered like ants, clawing at one another's backs to make a path.
And so finally, between two rows of them, the mayor of Reuton went his way triumphantly. Somewhere, on the edge of the crowd, an admiring voice spoke. "Hello, Jim!" The mayor waved his hand. The rumble of their voices ceased at last. Jim Cargan was still master of the city.
"Say what you will," remarked Mr. Magee to the professor as they stood together on the platform of the car, "there goes a man."
He did not wait to hear the professor's answer. For he saw the girl of the Upper Asquewan station, standing on a baggage truck far to the left of the mob, wave to him over their heads. Eagerly he fought his way to her side. It was a hard fight, the crowd would not part for him as it had parted for the man who owned the city.