He had meant to remain close enough to the track to reach it if he heard the train whistle, but this light lured him like a marsh-fire, through briars and over deceptive distances. At last it grew steady and Mr. Copewell went forward at an encouraged trot. A rise of ground confronted him. He rushed across it as though he were charging Fate’s artillery. He did not know that the ridge was in reality the brush-cloaked edge of a steep river-bank, any more than he knew that the light he sought was on the opposite side of the stream. He became apprised of both facts, however, a half-second later, when the ground dropped out from under him and he found himself floundering in cold, deep water.
Handicapped by the weight of his clothes, he made the bank after two or three highly problematical minutes, arriving in the unbeautiful condition of a drenched rat. The ascent of the sticky acclivity contributed a coating of mud. As he turned miserably back he heard the approaching rumble of an express locomotive. Mr. Copewell broke wildly through the thicket toward his fire, half a mile away.
Neither his exterior nor his rate of speed accorded with that staid dignity which should characterize a man going to meet his fair young bride. Mr. Copewell, however, had lost his sense of proportion. He did not care. What he wanted was to get there.
The sound of the oncoming train grew louder. Mr. Copewell attained a higher rate of speed. The sweat poured into his bulging eyes. The rumble grew, gathering into a crescendo, then dropped down the scale of sound with diminuendo. He knew the train had passed. It had not stopped. It had not hesitated. The engineer was getting a good forty-five miles an hour out of his boilers!
As a capstone to his arch of misfortune an outcropping root caught Mr. Copewell’s toe and threw him headlong into a deep cut. It began to look as though, in the question of his marriage, the nays had it. A very definite pain in the chest and shoulder told him that something had broken. He staggered to his feet and went more slowly. A torment in one ankle retarded him—also, there was no further need of hurrying. At the fire he discerned the peacefully recumbent figure of Mr. Connors, his head pillowed on the suit-case.
“Why in —— didn’t you stop that train?” bawled Mr. Copewell in futile frenzy.
“It’s like dis, pal,” confided Mr. Rat Connors placidly. “I just gets t’rowed offen one dangler, see? I ain’t goin’ ter take chances stoppin’ no fliers in places like dis. It ain’t healt’y. Meself, I knows w’en I gets plenty.”
“Didn’t you agree to do it?” screamed Mr. Copewell, choking and sputtering like a cataleptic maniac.
“Sure,” smiled Mr. Connors, “but I loses me noive, see?” He did not add that he had accomplished his real object when he had rifled the suit-case and that his promise had been purely strategic.
Mr. Copewell sank down by the fire. Perhaps it was the shock of the wetting and a broken clavicle. Perhaps it was despair and pain combined. The blood in his temples seemed to be cascading into his eyeballs and flooding his sight with red. Slowly Mr. Copewell crumpled forward in a senseless heap on the stone-ballasted right of way.
Mr. Connors, rolling a cigarette, was startled by the collapse of hisvis-à-vis. He rose and went over to investigate. He studied the face and its pallor impressed him. Mr. Rat Connors stood indicted for several dozen felonies. More cities claimed him living than ever claimed Homer dead. The fact that he was at large was sufficient evidence of his criminal efficiency. Yet at times he felt that a career of great promise was seriously handicapped by a tendency toward softheartedness.
Now his hands played over the prostrate body as deftly as though the fingers were experimenting with the combination of a safe. The diagnosis told him that a rib and a collar bone were broken. There might be also other breakages, but these two were patent on a cursory inventory.
“Now if dat ain’t ——,” snarled Mr. Connors, “I’ll eat a goat!”
He sat down and brooded bitterly. He had been booted off a train and had dropped into the company of a stranger. By virtue of helplessness, this stranger became an enforced trust upon the unwilling hands of Mr. Connors until he could be turned over to some one else. Mutual misfortune created a certain tie of brotherhood. Mr. Connors scorned the quitter who abandoned even a chance pal in a state of wounded disability. Every profession has its ethics. There was, however, no ethical objection to robbing the invalid’s pockets. Mr. Connors was a socialist. This man had money. Mr. Connors had none. It was equitable that the extremes of wealth and poverty be leveled. Profound thinkers have enunciated this principle.
Mr. Connors bent over and proceeded to carry into effect the socialistic propaganda by the simple device of searching every pocket. Mr. Copewell had drawn his check that day with a view to meeting the requirements of honeymooning—and honeymooning is an expensive pastime. The eyes of Mr. Rat Connors bulged and glittered in the firelight as he counted bills and made transfers. Then Mr. Connors dragged the prostrate figure farther back into the shadow and arranged it as comfortably as possible on the grass. After that he piled fresh sticks on the blaze.
“Now I’ve got ter find some hoosier ter look after dis guinea,” soliloquized the unwilling custodian. “Gee, but it’s —— to be soft-hearted!” He paused and felt through his coat the thick wad of bills in his pocket. “An’ say, Rat, me son,” he added with deep sorrow, “wid a bun like dat yer could beat it ter de North Pole, too!”
Mr. Connors struck off at random into the night, singing mournfully as he went:
“Jay Gould’s daughter, afore she died,Done signed a paper so de bums can’t ride.”
“Jay Gould’s daughter, afore she died,Done signed a paper so de bums can’t ride.”
“Jay Gould’s daughter, afore she died,Done signed a paper so de bums can’t ride.”
“Jay Gould’s daughter, afore she died,
Done signed a paper so de bums can’t ride.”
The Honorable Alexander Hamilton Burrow had been something like two hours in Jaffa Junction. Two hours in Jaffa Junction is more than sufficient for any man. For the Hon. Alexander the night held nothing save the melancholy prospect of seeing a friend abandon himself to the emotional insanity of marriage. For marriage Mr. Burrow had no tolerance. For women he had a supreme contempt. When the train which should have borne his friend whisked through and brought no Copewell, the best man became testy.
Mr. Burrow reflected that this development left him to take charge of an unclaimed lady, whom he did not want. He found the idea disconcerting. Decidedly he must devise some escape. Then an inspirational idea dawned. He would rush up to her Pullman when it arrived. He would shout warningly, “On your way! Your lunatic didn’t come!” That ought to solve the situation very nicely. First, though, he would call up Mercerville and find out what had happened.
Calling up Mercerville from Jaffa Junction proved an undertaking of such magnitude that Mr. Burrow’s grouch ripened slowly into misanthropy before it was accomplished. The telephone exchange, instead of being central in location, seemed to have been placed on the principle of an eruptive hospital in far-away isolation. When at last he got Copewell’s lodgings it was to learn that Copewell had left on the west-bound express.
As the Honorable Mr. Burrow came down the stairs of the telephone exchange the shriek of a train whistle smote discordantly on his ears. The motor proved balky and required a singular amount of cranking. The cranking required a superlative amount of profanity. Altogether the series of petty annoyances spelled delay. The station was quite a distance away and Mr. Burrow proceeded to desecrate the speed-limit, rehearsing as he went, “On your way, young woman! He didn’t come!”
And Miss Asheton, alighting on the station platform, was startled to find it empty. She had expected it to be filled with the welcoming presence of Mr. Copewell.
Her alarm was at once dissipated, however, by the glare of acetylene headlights whirling around the curve of the road some distance away.
The mad speed of the approaching car indicated that it was her own private reception-committee. She set down her suit-case and waited.
“Captain” McDonald also saw the automobile headlights. He knew that automobiles were not indigenous to Jaffa Junction. This one could mean only that Miss Asheton was being properly and enthusiastically met.
A moment later the best man alighted at the station and looked regretfully after the train. He had been too late. Mr. Burrow had not considered the possible effect on Miss Asheton of his contemplated bluntness. It had not mattered. Mr. Burrow had the military mind. The military mind can not pause to consider the feelings of the enemy. Decimation is painful to an army but desirable to the attacking general. The military mind sees and pursues one object. Mr. Burrow’s one object was to rid himself of a superfluous young female. It was the same thing that makes some warriors slay prisoners rather than be burdened with them on the march.
For an appreciable space of time the Hon. Alexander Hamilton Burrow eyed Miss Asheton with icy politeness. She looked back at him inquiringly. There was nothing ardent in the tableau.
“I take it you are the bride-elect?” hazarded the Hon. Alexander.
“Yes.” The man had no idea the monosyllable could be so short. Her voice was so musical that it was altogether too short.
“I’m A. H. Burrow. I’m the best man.”
“Yes, but where is Lewis?” Miss Asheton put the question with a pardonable eagerness. Conversely, her voice conveyed an entire absence of interest in the best man.
“All the weddings I have ever attended,” said Mr. Burrow sententiously, “were marred by some slight hitch or omission. At this one the missing detail seems to be the bridegroom.” Having spoken, he awaited her hysterics.
It happened that Miss Asheton was not the hysterical sort. She merely looked at Mr. Burrow, and Mr. Burrow suddenly felt himself grow microscopic. Also, he was puzzled. This young woman had planned to elope with Mr. Lewis Copewell. That indicated that she must consider Mr. Lewis Copewell a desirable possession. He had just announced, with studied bluntness, that she could not have Mr. Copewell. Why did she not take the cue and weep? He regarded it as axiomatic that women and children cry for what they want.
Yet here before him, in the full glare of the acetylene lamps, she stood eying him like an offended young goddess, precisely as though he were responsible and she meant to punish him. Mr. Burrow had not arranged his battle-front to receive that type of enemy. It dawned upon him that this was a very brave young woman and, although he admitted it reluctantly, a very beautiful young woman.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” she suggested icily, “you might explain more fully. On the whole, I think I have the right to understand.”
Mr. Burrow shrugged his shoulders.
“My dear Miss Asheton,” he began with weak defiance, yet feeling that she had put him on the defensive, “might I remind you that this is not my funer—that is to say, my wedding? All I can learn is that he left Mercerville, and didnotarrive here. The question which now suggests itself to me, is this: What are the functions of a best man when there is no marriage?”
The young woman turned away and marched scornfully toward the far end of the platform. It was revealed to Mr. Burrow that if all women could walk like that, and take punishment like that, there would be no room in the world for woman-haters. His objections to marriage could not apply to a union with a deity!
He turned and went over very humbly. “Miss Asheton——” he began.
The girl wheeled with her chin in the air and an angry gleam flashed through the mortified tearfulness of her eyes.
“Will you kindly go away?” she said in a peremptory voice. “I want to think.”
Mr. Burrow skulked back, crestfallen. He sat dismally on the step of his automobile and fanned himself with his cap. He was very busy hating himself.
Afterward she came over, walking very straight, and halted rigidly before him.
“Will you be good enough to take me to a telephone?” she asked.
Mr. Burrow rose with a new alacrity and put out his hand to assist her. She drew carefully away from his touch and opened the tonneau door for herself. Into Mr. Burrow’s self-hatred crept a note of self-pity.
“Won’t you—won’t you sit in front?” he timidly suggested. “It will be easier to talk.”
“It’s not necessary to talk,” the young lady informed him.
The run to the telephone exchange was made in heavy and depressing silence.
“Can’t get Mercerville any more before to-morrow,” enlightened the operator briefly. “Line’s in trouble—somethin’s just busted.”
“Any trains out to-night?” demanded Mr. Burrow.
“All out. Long way out. Nothin’ doin’ until ten-thirty to-morrow mornin’.” Mr. Burrow thought it inconceivably strange that any one could be facetious at such a time.
“Where’s the telegraph operator?” he inquired coldly.
“Gone to the country. Office closed till to-morrow.”
“I suppose there is some sort of hotel,” suggested the even voice of the girl at his elbow. “If you will take me there I sha’n’t trouble you any farther.”
“But—but——” began Mr. Burrow, then he began again. “But—but——”
The girl threw up her head. She even managed to laugh a little. “Yes?” she questioned sweetly. “You’ve said that four times.”
“But—but——” stammered Mr. Burrow again. The Hon. Alexander was usually regarded as a loquacious man.
“I suppose some day—when I get the perspective on it, it will all be rather humorous,” mused Miss Asheton. “It would make a good farce, wouldn’t it? Only now it doesn’t seem exactly funny.”
Mr. Burrow gave up the problem of articulation. He raised the hood of the car and adjusted something. When he came back he appeared to have regained the power of speech.
“Wait a minute,” he said. His hands were greasy, so he procured a bunch of waste from the tool-box and carefully wiped each digit. Having accomplished this task to his satisfaction, he boldly returned and thrust his right out to Miss Asheton.
“I know,” he said, “that I don’t deserve quarter, but you are the gamest sport I ever saw and I want to be able to tell my grandchildren that I once shook hands with you. After which,” he added, “I am going down on my marrow-bones and make my most contrite obeisances.”
Miss Asheton did not this time repudiate the amenities. She smiled forgiveness.
“Why were you so atrociously horrid?” she asked, as though the psychology of his behavior mildly piqued her interest.
“You see, I was a woman-hater,” he explained.
“Oh, are you? How interesting!”
“I am not!” hotly denied Mr. Burrow.
“But you just said——”
“I just said Iwas. There’s a big difference between saying you were something and saying you are something. Life is a matter of tenses.”
“Oh!”
“Do you know what a woman-hater is?” inquired Mr. Burrow, as the car nosed its way deliberately along Jaffa Junction’s principal esplanade.
“Certainly,” replied Miss Asheton. “It’s a man who thinks he’s a little wiser than other men, and who is, in fact——” she hesitated politely, “—who may be mistaken.”
“It’s a man,” savagely supplemented Mr. Burrow, “who’s such a blank-dashed fool that he glories in his folly! Until ten minutes ago I was one of them.”
Miss Asheton said nothing. It occurred to the Honorable Alexander that she might be thinking of Lewis Copewell. The thought filled him with hot indignation. Who was Lewis Copewell that a goddess, playing truant from Olympus, should trouble her decorative head about him? Thinking of the decorative head, Mr. Burrow turned in his seat to contemplate it. The car veered into the ditch but without casualty. Houses sit along Jaffa Junction’s thoroughfares as Chinese beads are strung—at extended intervals. Illumination is yet in the future. The ways are dark.
Besides, ran Mr. Burrow’s train of thought, if Lewis Copewell wanted her, why wasn’t he on hand to claim her? If he, the Honorable Alexander Hamilton Burrow, was to be dragged scores of miles to act as a human dead-letter office for unclaimed girls, surely he was justified in taking possession in his own distinguished person. The circumstances emancipated him from any Quixotic ideas of loyalty to Lewis Copewell. He turned again to the passenger in the tonneau.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll ditch your car if you keep turning around?” quietly inquired Miss Asheton.
“It’s quite probable,” acknowledged Mr. Burrow. “Perhaps it would be safer for you to sit in front. I’m effervescing with repartee—scintillating with epigram. You need to be amused. It will take your thoughts off of your temporary annoyances and prevent brooding. Brooding is bad.”
“Possibly even that wouldn’t distract my mind,” she ventured.
“Then run the car,” suggested the Honorable Alexander, surrendering his place. “The more you have to do just now, the better for you. The less I have to do, the better I can talk.”
Miss Asheton took the wheel.
The arrangement gave Mr. Burrow the opportunity to study her profile as she watched the road. It occurred to Mr. Burrow that he had hitherto lost much out of life by neglecting to study profiles. Then came the realization that after all this was the only profile in the world.
“Now,” began that gentleman cheerfully, “this little hitch in your plans is not really so fatal as it seems.”
“It’s funny that he didn’t get off the train,” said the girl.
“Yes, it’s so funny that there’s no use trying to explain it,” Mr. Burrow assured her.
“And I don’t know what to do,” she continued.
“I have a perfectly rational and logical plan,” confided her escort. “One, in fact, which I regard as an improvement on the original.”
“What is it?” This somewhat doubtfully. Miss Asheton saw no fault with the previous arrangement.
“Now you came here to get married, didn’t you?”
“That,” she admitted, “was the idea, but——”
“Never give up a purpose,” interrupted Mr. Burrow with a note of steadfast resolve. “You came to get married. Do it!”
“But,” her voice trembled just a little, “but I can’t. How can I?”
“Nothing simpler. Just do as I say.”
She turned her face from the wheel and gazed at him in wonderment. “How? I was on hand.I’mready—but where’s Lewis?”
“You came here to get married,” insistently repeated Mr. Burrow. “You passed up a trip to Europe and left aunty waiting in Mercerville. I came here to get you married, and passed up a Ninth Ward meeting in Mercerville. That weddingmusttake place!”
Her eyes gazed out at the road, under brows wrinkled with bewilderment.
Mr. Burrow looked at her a moment in silence, then spoke with great impressiveness.
“A woman owes it to herself to marry the best man obtainable. I am, in my official capacity, the best man. Marry me. I am very much at your service, and it may not be irrelevant to add that I love you.”
The immediate effect of this announcement was that the girl at the wheel threw on the brakes and stopped the car with a jolt which almost sent her suitor carroming through the windshield. Next she turned and sat staring at Mr. Burrow, with an expression of absolute and paralyzed incredulity.
Mr. Burrow felt that he had failed to make himself quite clear. “I concede that it’s a trifle abrupt,” he acknowledged, “but I am essentially a man of action. Some dilatory fools might take a month to discover that without you life is a superfluous by-product.” The Honorable Alexander thought contemptuously of Mr. Copewell. “It is enough for me to see you. Besides, Europe yawns for you, and it’s bad luck to postpone a marriage. Possibly when you know me you’ll like me. If you don’t, I’ll remodel myself according to your specifications.” Phraseology notwithstanding, there was sincerity in Mr. Burrow’s voice.
“It’s very good of you,” said the girl at last, speaking a trifle vaguely. “Your courteous proposal seems to cover every possible point—except one. The one is Lewis Copewell. Really, you know, I didn’t just come here to get married at random!” She started the machine forward again.
“I assure you there’s nothing random about me!” argued the Honorable Alexander with dignity.
She shook her head. “In matrimonial matters,” she told him, “one can’t eliminate the element of personal preference. I still prefer Lewis.”
Mr. Burrows sighed. Even deities, it seemed, had undiscriminating tastes. “This is the hotel,” he said wearily.
The girl looked at the uninviting facade of the building indicated. It suggested the kennel of a dog in very modest circumstances.
“This—a hotel!” she exclaimed.
“Yes,” said the man. “It isn’t a very good hotel. The County Judge lives on the next square. He can perform the marriage ceremony, you know, and his house is much nicer. Shall we go on?”
“We will get out here,” said Miss Asheton firmly.
Though it was midnight, it chanced that the hotel office was not completely deserted. Through the open door struggled the yellow glimmer of a coal-oil lamp, and its reek hung offensively on the sultriness. Two drummers, with loosened neck-bands and hanging suspenders, were beguiling the heavy hours with a deck of greasy cards. Dozing in dishabille, sat mine host, his chair propped on two legs against the wall and his snore proclaiming him in the shadow. The arrival of a beautiful woman and a man in motor-togs brought the drummers to their feet with an exclamation which aroused the innkeeper.
That worthy rubbed his eyes and began in a wheezing voice: “I’m afraid it’s goin’ ter be kinder onhandy to take keer of you folks. The house is mighty nigh full up.”
Before Mr. Burrow could reply, one of the drummers rose chivalrously to the occasion.
“The gent and his wife can take my room, if Mr. Sellers, here, don’t mind my doubling up with him.” The drummer had been marooned an entire day in Jaffa Junction. For a glimpse of that face at the breakfast table he would gladly have slept on the roof. Mr. Burrow cleared his throat, but before he could find words, Mr. Sellers graciously declared that he would be much pleased to oblige.
Then, while Miss Asheton stood painfully impersonating the aurora borealis, the Honorable Alexander Hamilton Burrow astounded her with these composed words: “I am sure you gentlemen are both very kind, but if you will pardon me a moment I will consult with—er—with my wife.”
Since the space of the hotel office was limited in scope to something like ten by twenty feet, partly preëmpted by a cigar-counter, the two drummers exchanged glances and rose, with innate delicacy, disappearing into the street. Mine host, prompted by the same latent courtesy, disappeared up the stairs.
Then Miss Asheton turned a whitely angry face on the Honorable Alexander. She could hardly have confronted him more belligerently had she really been his spouse.
“How dared you!”
“My dear young lady,” expostulated Mr. Burrow humbly, “you don’t know Jaffa Junction. You arrive unchaperoned. If I had corrected our Calvinistic host, he would have turned us both out like pariahs.”
“Will you please drive me to Mercerville?”
“Certainly. Direct or—via the County Judge’s?”
“Direct—and fast!” said Miss Asheton with decision.
“Please consider,” urged the Honorable Alexander. “It is now past midnight. Mercerville is ten hours away either by motor or train. It will be a trifle difficult to explain to aunty.”
“It will be a trifle difficult in any event,” sighed Miss Asheton.
“On the contrary. I should not feel called upon to make any explanation whatsoever as to the movements of myself and my wife.” Mr. Burrow spoke with some hauteur.
The young woman ignored the suggestion. “We will go on,” she said.
“The roads are very bad, and one tire is a little weak.”
“We will go on.”
“You are spoiling the most improved elopement that was ever devised,” sighed the Honorable Alexander mournfully. “It breaks my heart to witness such iconoclasm.”
“We will go on,” murmured Miss Asheton mechanically.
One hour and a half later, as the car turned a sharp curve, there came a loud report, a sudden jolt and a long-suffering sigh from Mr. Burrow.
“That,” he said in a voice of deep resignation, “was the rear, left-hand tire, and I should say that as a blow-out there was some class to it.”
When Mr. Rat Connors dropped out of sight over the railroad embankment his ideas of procedure had been somewhat vague. In the United States were some eighty million people. It seemed a fair sporting proposition, and one worth a small bet, that out of that number at least a single individual must have residence in this neighborhood. If he sought hard enough he might find that habitation. Himself, he would have preferred a night’s lodging under the broad and starry skies to a quest of the sort he had undertaken. But the other gentlemen was “in bad” and the tenets of Mr. Rat Connors’ primitive knighthood precluded the possibility of “leavin’ him lay” suffering and unsuccored.
The search was, for a while, futile. The timbered hills stretched unbroken in lines of ragged shadow. It was a knob country, surrendered, even in the narrow valleys, to the crawfish and the crow, save for a few scattered cabin-dwellers who cultivated peach orchards on the sterile slopes of the hills. But at last Mr. Connors came upon a sort of trail which seemed to be the poor relation to a road. Mr. Connors set his feet therein and trudged on with what comfort and companionship he could derive from Jay Gould’s Daughter personified in song.
At last he came upon a point where, through a gap in the timber-line, he saw a dilapidated and almost shapeless bulk etched darkly against the star-punctured sky. Now, disclaiming any intention to speak with aspersion of Mr. Connors, it must be said that his profession made his habits largely nocturnal. Men who operate in darkness share with the cat the power to use their eyes where the honest householder would find himself blind.
To Mr. Connors the well-nigh shapeless mass defined itself into a building, and the erect projection at its top into a modest steeple, proclaiming it a “meeting-house.” A church on a hill, in the middle of the night, offers little encouragement to a man seeking living aid. Toppling smudges of lighter gray flanked its walls, telling of men and women who slept in the enclosure, but these men and women were all dead. The smudges were their gravestones.
The eyes of Mr. Connors went farther back, penetrating the darkness, and discovered a second and more indistinct pile. That might be the parsonage! Mr. Connors halted for reflection. Churches were establishments distinctly out of his line. Parsons were gentlemen engaged in a different, even a hostile, profession. On the other hand, churchmen might be expected to lend an attentive ear to tales of distress.
Mr. Rat Connors turned into the churchyard, shivering instinctively as he passed among the graves. Mr. Connors was a simple soul easily awed by the Great Phenomenon of death. No lights shone from the windows or doors of the house in the rear. At this hour honest folk slept, in that vicinity. Before the house hung a rickety gate, and Mr. Connors had his hand on the latch, when his entire plan of campaign underwent sudden revision.
He had intended entering the gate, proceeding up the grass-grown walk and hammering at the front door. Instead, he went fleetly up the fence, paused on its top only long enough to grasp an over-arching branch, then swung himself precipitately into a convenient tree.
The cause of this sudden change of itinerary remained below, since it is the wise dispensation of Providence that dogs can not climb trees. The Cause, however, in his sudden heat and passion, did not seem willing to admit that Providence had acted wisely in the matter. He gave evidence of a desire to pursue Mr. Connors into the upper branches. It was clear that the Cause was given to violent and hasty prejudices and that Mr. Connors had aroused such a prejudice.
The dog squatted below and leaped into the air. When he alighted he leaped again. Mr. Connors, straddling a limb, the strength of which was not guaranteed, was ready to admit without cavil that the animal was jumping some. The brute seemed gifted with an almost Rooseveltian strenuousness and sincerity. Even in his moments of resting between efforts there was a grim determination in his pose which indicated his intention of remaining until Mr. Connors came down.
For a time he was silent, save for an occasional snarl; then he sent his voice echoing belligerently across the hills. Lord Byron says, “’tis sweet to hear the honest watch-dog’s bay.” Lord Byron was, no doubt, quite sincere in the assertion. It all depends on the point of view. It is safe to assume that Lord B. did not compose that line while clinging to a bending tree-limb with the honest watch-dog baying at the exact spot upon which he would fall if the branch broke.
Something must be done. The force of habit is strong. So often had Mr. Connors found it necessary to cover his movements with a cloak of silence when approaching a dwelling-house in the night time that it did not occur to him for some minutes to shout for help from within. Then he remembered that this time he was not on burglary bent. He lifted his voice in competition with that of the dog and shouted madly.
At last the door of the house opened and a timid female voice inquired who was calling and why he was calling.
“It’s me,” explained Mr. Connors from his perch in the tree. The explanation was candid yet it seemed insufficient.
“Who are you and what are you doing up my tree?” demanded the voice a shade more boldly.
“Is dis your tree?” apologized Mr. Connors with some irony. “I didn’t get no time to ask whose tree it was.”
“What are you doing up there?”
“Ask your dawg,” replied Mr. Connors. “He put me here.”
From the dog came a growl which entirely corroborated Mr. Connors on the point in question.
The slit of light in the door remained just wide enough to permit a shawl-wrapped head to protrude. The dog fell silent. He appeared to recognize that his was now a thinking part, but he relaxed nothing in vigilance of pose. As the parley proceeded he squatted below, ominously alert, a beast couchant waiting his cue to take again the center of the stage. There was a painful pause.
“Say,” suggested Mr. Connors at last, “if you’re skeered ter talk ter me, send out some of the men-folks. I ain’t dangerous. I won’t hurt ’em.”
“The men-folks are all away,” replied the voice, growing timid once more, “and I guess you had better stay where you are till they get home.”
“When are you lookin’ fer ’em back?” inquired Mr. Connors courteously. The branch was made of hard wood and it was a very knotty bit of timber; the length of time he might be required to occupy it was interesting.
The rustic mind runs to loquacity. The woman found herself explaining in more detail than the circumstances required.
“My husband is the minister. My son is the justice of the peace. They have both gone up the river, but the boat is due at the landing in an hour or so—unless it is late. You might as well wait a while and see them.”
Mr. Connors groaned from the depths of his soul. In an hour or so, unless the boat was late!
“Lady,” pleaded Mr. Connors in his most ingratiating voice, “I come here lookin’ fer a doctor, see? W’en a guy goes ter git a doctor, it ain’t right ter butt in an’ stop him. Dat’s de way it looks ter a man up a tree, lady.”
The woman ventured no opinion. She merely closed the door.
“Lady!” shouted Mr. Connors in his most humble and winning manner. “Lady!”
The door opened again.
“Well, what is it?”
“Lady, I come here to git help fer a guy dat’s lyin’ on de railroad track wid a busted slat. He ain’t got nobody ter look after him. If you keeps me up here dere ain’t no tellin’ what’ll happen ter de pore afflicted feller.”
“A man with a busted what?” inquired the lady suspiciously.
“A busted slat,” repeated Mr. Connors. “Dis guy falls down a clift and caves in a few spare-ribs. Dat’s on de level, lady. I ain’t kiddin’ wid yer.”
“You mean the man is wounded?”
“Dat’s it. He’s all in an’ down an’ out.”
“Where—where is this person?” The minister’s wife put the question with preliminary symptoms of relenting. If some one were genuinely in distress, she must probe the facts.
“Right up de railroad about three-quarters of a mile from here.”
The lady was considering. While she did so the beast below made a sound as if licking his chops with the relish of keen anticipation.
“When my husband and son come home,” ruled the woman at last, “they will investigate your story. Of course they may not get home to-night—the boat is usually a few hours late.”
Once more Mr. Connors groaned.
“Meanwhile,” added the lady, “I’ll call off the dog. You can vamoose.”
“T’anks, lady.” Mr. Connors voice was eager.
“But,” continued the warning voice, “the dog will be about all evening, and if you come back——”
“Mecome back, lady!” Mr. Connors’ voice trembled with emotion. “Ferget it! Dis is me farewell appearance!”
The lady opened the door a little wider.
“Fido,” she commanded, “come here! Here, Fido! That’s a good little doggie!”
Thirty seconds later Mr. Connors dropped to the ground and disappeared.
Mr. Lewis Copewell resumed consciousness to find himself apparently deserted. With the reawakening of his mental activities came a renewed horror of the situation which engulfed him. He must find a telephone. He struggled to his feet, but while he slept his injuries had been multiplying and his joints stiffening. He breathed with difficulty. Also, he could not walk. One ankle had swollen until his shoe bound it like a vise, and when he stepped forward he fell, with nauseating pain, to the broken rocks.
The following is a true capitulation of the casualties suffered by Mr. Copewell: one broken collar bone; one broken rib; one sprained ankle. Mr. Copewell was not a man of flimsy courage. In order to send a single reassuring word to the lady he loved, he would gladly have waded through blood, but one can not wade successfully through blood on one foot. He could not even walk along a railroad track on one foot. He tried hopping and found it, on the whole, an unsatisfactory means of locomotion. Then Mr. Copewell crawled back to his suit-case and sat down again in despair.
Mr. Lewis Copewell was not astonished that his chance companion should, as it seemed, have abandoned him in his adversity. His meeting with Mr. Connors had been merely casual. Finding himself converted without warning from a voyager bound for the Enchanted Isles where a beauteous maiden awaited him into a wrecked and battered derelict, his course had drifted across that of a second derelict. The second derelict had stood by for a time and offered him some slight aid, then had drifted on, abandoning him to the mercy of winds and tides.
As Mr. Copewell’s harrowed mind dwelt on the analogy of his shipwrecked life he realized that instead of being a friend this black-haired youth was in fact his Nemesis, his evil genius. In the waste places of the sea float dangerous, half-sunken craft that menace the traffic of the ocean lanes. Good ships bear down on these submerged hulks and yawning holes are driven into seaworthy prows. Such a drifting peril was the black-haired youth.
But for him the train would have gone on uninterruptedly to Jaffa Junction, and the hope-laden argosy of Mr. Copewell’s existence would have made its happy port! But for this creature’s perfidy, Mr. Copewell himself would have remained by his fire and flagged the eastern train, at least establishing communication with the civilized world. So he might have snatched victory out of defeat. But now! Now there loomed before him only the ignominy and bitterness of a life spoiled in the making.
In all maritime law it is meet and proper, when a sea-faring man encounters a drifting derelict, to destroy it. Mr. Copewell wished whole-heartedly for an opportunity to dispose of Mr. Connors. Yet, even as he brooded vengefully, Mr. Connors was parleying in his behalf with a clergyman’s wife, while a clergyman’s dog, of unchristian temper, licked his fangs beneath.
Having, by soft speech, won his way out of that parlous plight, Mr. Connors was still wearily trudging the abandoned roads of the vicinity in search of succor. His own state of mind was not joyous. Thanks to Mr. Copewell’s wedding funds the financial phase of the case had been satisfactorily adjusted, but he was still anchored by responsibility until the man whom Fate had thrust upon him could be transferred to other and competent hands. And he was anchored, too close for safety, to the reform-infested city of Mercerville.
With these drear reflections he tramped along until he came upon another road. It seemed a somewhat more traveled way than the one he had left. Possibly it was the almost abandoned stage-road which in ancient days had linked Perryville with the east.
Mr. Connors extracted from his pocket a five-cent piece. Prior to the rifling of Mr. Copewell’s wallet it had been the only buffer between himself and destitution. He could go but one way at once. Heads should guide him east, tails west. Tails it was.
A turn in the highway brought him upon quick discovery. Confronting him at some distance glared twin eyes of bright light, throwing broad, luminous shafts along the road. “Oh, me mother!” ejaculated Mr. Connors in astonishment. “If it ain’t a benzine-buggy!”
Caution being the very soul-breath of Mr. Rat Connors’ policy, he did not approach the stationary motor-car conspicuously by the center of the road. Instead, he dropped into the deep shadow of over-hanging trees and made his way forward with the noiselessness of an Indian on a war-trail. He meant to see what manner of person piloted the car before he presented his demand for first aid to the injured. He advanced on his toes.
The automobile was empty. One of its tail-lights had been removed and placed on the ground. There it blinked, lighting the work of a solitary man who knelt on a folded robe, swearing—also mending a punctured tire. This man was coatless, smeared with grease, covered with dust and panting laboriously. His profanity was voluminous and capable as he struggled with the task of replacing an outer casing on a jacked-up wheel.
Mr. Connors did not at once emerge from the shadow. He knew that this car could not possibly proceed until that tire was replaced and inflated. He meant to ask a favor, and asking a favor carried with it a certain obligation to reciprocate. Mr. Connors had an idea that pumping up the tire of an automobile which looked like a baby battle-ship would involve a distasteful element of manual labor. The evening was hot and, on the whole, it might be as well not to interrupt this gentleman until he was through.
It pleased Mr. Connors to discover, after a careful reconnoiter, that the gentleman was absolutely alone. If he proved obdurate, and a gun-play became necessary, one man would cause less trouble than several. The frayed condition of the gentleman’s temper indicated that he might prove obdurate.
Mr. Connors cautiously drew his “cannister” from his pocket and tested trigger and hammer. If the lone wayfarer quietly accepted the charge of the “guy wid de busted slat” there need be no friction. If he lacked that large sympathy which should make him a willing rescuer, then he must have philanthropy thrust upon him. Mr. Connors meant to thrust it with the pistol. So he gave thanks that this was not a party, nor a couple, but only an unaccompanied chauffeur.
When the injured man should be safely stowed in the tonneau the trusteeship of Mr. Connors would terminate.
Then what? Life has its business exigencies even for those of us who are not materialists. Men who tour in motor-cars may be assumed to carry money. Why not first impress the gentleman into service and then relieve him of his valuables? Why should the doctrine of socialism apply as to the man who lay wounded and not as to this one who drove an automobile?
The man in the road rose with a sigh of relief. He stretched himself, adjusted the pump and bent to his labor again. Mr. Connors sat watching. At last that too was done. The lone motorist put away his tools and turned wearily. Apparently the sight of the car fatigued him.
As he did this Mr. Connors stepped out of the shadow and placed the muzzle of his revolver in impressive juxtaposition with the gentleman’s face. The gentleman had fancied himself alone. The discovery that he had been mistaken surprised him. It startled him.
“Let’s see you stretch your arms up high,” suggested Mr. Connors. The gentleman obligingly and promptly followed the suggestion.
“What is this, if I may ask?” he inquired. “Highway robbery?”
“Some of it is,” Mr. Connors assured him pleasantly, “an’ some of it’s ambulance service.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you,” admitted the traveler.
“Dat’s all right. You will foller me in about t’ree minutes,” replied Mr. Connors. “But before dat let’s see w’at youse got in yer clothes.”