THE IMPRACTICAL MANBY ELLIOTT FLOWERAuthor of “Policeman Flynn,” etc.WITH PICTURES BY F. R. GRUGER“IAM sorry to inform you,” said Shackelford, the lawyer, “that you have been to some trouble and expense to secure a bit of worthless paper. This—” and he held up the document he had been examining—“is about as valuable as a copy of a last week’s newspaper.”It is possible that Shackelford really regretted the necessity of conveying this unpleasant information to Peter J. Connorton, Cyrus Talbot, and Samuel D. Peyton; but, if so, his looks belied him, for he smiled very much as if he found something gratifying in the situation.Connorton was the first to recover from the shock.“Then it’s a swindle!” he declared hotly. “We’ll get that fellow Hartley! He’s a crook! We’ll make him—”“Oh, no,” interrupted Shackelford, quietly, “it’s no swindle. According to your own story, you prepared the paper yourself and paid him for his signature to it.”“We paid him twenty-five thousand dollars for his patent,” asserted Connorton.“But you didn’t get the patent,” returned Shackelford. “He has assigned to you, for a consideration of twenty-five thousand dollars, all his rights, title, and interest in something or other; but the assignment doesn’t clearly show what. There are a thousand things that it might be, but nothing that it definitely and positively is. Very likely he doesn’t know this, but very likely somebody will tell him. Anyhow, you’ve got to get clear and unquestioned title before you can do anything with the patent without danger of unpleasant consequences.”Deeper gloom settled upon the faces of the three, and especially upon the face of Connorton, who was primarily responsible for their present predicament.“What would you advise?” asked Connorton at last.“Well,” returned the lawyer, after a moment of thought, “you’d better find him. As near as I can make out, he had no thought of tricking you.”“Oh, no, I don’t believe he had,” confessed Connorton. “I spoke hastily when I charged that. He’s too impractical for anything of the sort.”“Much too impractical, I should say,” added Talbot, and Peyton nodded approval.“In that case,” pursued the lawyer, “you can still clinch the deal easily and quickly—if you get to him first. I see nothing particularly disturbing in the situation, except the possibility that somebody whoispractical may get hold of him before you do, or that he may learn in some other way of the value of his invention. Do you know where he is?”“No,” answered Connorton. “That’s the trouble.”“Not so troublesome as it might be,” returned the lawyer. “He is not trying to hide, if we are correct in our surmise, and his eccentricities of dress and deportment would attract attention to him anywhere. I have a young man here in the office who will get track of him in no time, if you have nothing better to suggest.”They had nothing better to suggest, so Myron Paulson was called in, given a description of Ira Hartley, together with such information as to his associates and haunts as it was possible to give, and sent in quest of news of him.“Meanwhile,” observed the lawyer, “I’ll prepare something for his signature, when we find him, that will have no loopholes in it.”IRAHARTLEY, as the lawyer had said, was not a hard man to trace. He was tall and slim, wore a flaring bow tie, a wide-brimmed slouch hat, clothes that hung loosely upon his spare frame, and smoked cigarettes in a long reed holder. Add to that some eccentricities of speech and manner, and it will be readily apparent that he was not likely to be forgotten by those he encountered.Paulson learned in brief time that he had gone to Detroit. No one knew for what purpose, whether he intended to remain there or go elsewhere, or, in fact, anything about it, except the bare fact that he had left for Detroit. Certain of his acquaintances understood that it was in connection with some great and long-cherished plan that was suddenly made financially possible; but they had no idea of the nature of the plan.Paulson, of course, would follow at once, and Connorton regretfully decided to go with him. Connorton, being large and slow, fond of ease and of good things to eat, disliked to have the routine of his life disturbed; but he blamed himself for their very unpleasant predicament, and, aside from his own financial interest in the affair, he was desirous to do everything possible to protect his associates and secure to them the promised profit. Besides, he knew Hartley, and Paulson did not; so it might easily happen that his presence would be helpful, if not absolutely necessary, when the inventor should be overtaken.The lawyer prepared the necessary papers, as far as he could with the information at hand; but he was not altogether satisfied. The inventor alone could supply some minor points that he would like to incorporate in them; so he suggested that they bring Hartley back, if possible.“If you can’t do that,” he instructed, “get his signature, properly witnessed and acknowledged, to the assignment of patent, and let it go at that. I could clinch it a little tighter if I could have a talk with him, but it isn’t really necessary.”“Suppose something should happen to him before we get it?” suggested Connorton.“You’d lose the patent,” returned the lawyer, calmly. “Title to that still rests in him, and it would naturally go to his heirs if anything should happen to him before it is legally transferred to you.”“Guardian to a lost lunatic!” grumbled Connorton. “A nice job!”Still grumbling, he left with Paulson for Detroit. He had no idea of acting in any other than an advisory capacity during the search, of course. He was on hand to take charge of the negotiations at the proper time; but until that time should arrive he purposed remaining in some convenient hotel while Paulson did the scouting. Fortunately, owing to the inventor’s striking personality, Paulson’s task was not difficult.“Gone to Toronto,” was the report he made to Connorton, a few hours after their arrival in Detroit. “Stopped at the Cadillac, but left there yesterday.”“Sure it was Hartley?” queried Connorton.“No doubt about it,” replied Paulson. “Everybody remembers him, for he hired a cab, put the cabby inside, and did the driving himself—said he wanted to see something of the town.”“That was Hartley, all right,” Connorton admitted, dislodging himself regretfully from the comfortable lobby chair he was occupying, “and I suppose we’ll have to hustle along after him. I don’t see why he has to be so infernally restless, though.”Again, at Toronto, Connorton had reason to complain of Hartley’s restlessness. His name was on the register of the King Edward Hotel when they arrived there; but he had lingered no longer than in Detroit, and they were still a day behind him.“Sure it was our Hartley?” asked Connorton.“No doubt about it,” Paulson replied. “He showed up here with a dunnage bag instead of a trunk, and they took him for an immigrant and were going to throw him out.”“Must be our man,” agreed Connorton. “That’s just the kind of fool thing he’d do.”“Made some trouble at the bar,” added Paulson, “by insisting that they should put the seltzer and lemon-peel in his highball glass first and add the whisky afterward—said it improved the flavor to have a highball made that way.”“That’s Hartley,” asserted Connorton, positively. “Where did he go from here?”“North Bay.”“Where’s that?”“About two hundred and fifty miles due north.”Connorton became suddenly perturbed, not to say excited. “Great Scott!” he exclaimed,“he’s heading for the wilderness!”Connorton was sufficiently troubled now to forget temporarily his love of ease. He could imagine nothing that would take Hartley to that region except some crazy hunting or mining scheme, both of which had elements of danger. Wherefore they must follow quickly, no matter how unpleasant the outlook.But Hartley was not at North Bay, and had not stopped there. That was easily settled, for it was not so large a place that a man of his personality could possibly escape observation.“More uncertain than a flea!” grumbled Connorton. “Probably dropped off somewhere down the line.”“Or went on up the line,” suggested Paulson. “Perhaps the ticket-man will know.”The ticket-man did. They would have saved time if they had asked him in the first place instead of making their inquiries at the hotel.“Sure I saw that sombrero-covered toothpick,” said the ticket-man. “He asked me if this was the open season for Indians and moose.”“That’s Hartley,” sighed Connorton. “He’s as likely to shoot one as the other. What did he do then?”“Bought a mackinaw that would dazzle your eyes and a ticket to Temagami and went on with the train—said the Indians were too tame for real sport here. I couldn’t see what he wanted of a mackinaw in summer, but he said he liked the color scheme.”“What’s Temagami?” asked Connorton.“Temagami Forest Reserve.”“I knew it,” groaned Connorton. “Headed for the wilderness!”IRAHARTLEYlay stretched in front of a camp-fire on the shore of Lake Wausauksinagami. It had been necessary to cover two portages and three lakes to reach this spot; but it certainly gave him the seclusion that he sought. No human habitation marred the shore-line of the lake, although another camp-fire, seen faintly between two of the many islands, showed that he was not in sole possession. The other camp, however, was several miles away, so he was quite alone, except for Joe Lightfoot, his Indian guide; and supreme content was reflected in face and pose.True, he had not caught many fish, owing to his own inexpertness with rod and line rather than to any lack of fish to be caught; but this was a matter of indifference to him. He had promised himself this outing long before. He had no particular reason for wanting it, except that he had heard so much of the joys of life in the open that he had resolved to try it as soon as opportunity offered; but that was enough for one of his whimsically impulsive nature, and an increasing desire to try it had influenced him to some extent in closing with Connorton in the matter of his invention. He liked to be alone; and surely one could ask for nothing better in such circumstances than an Indian guide who spoke tersely when he spoke at all.The Indian, having cleaned up after supper, squatted with his pipe a little distance from the fire. Back of him was the shelter-tent under which Hartley slept, and back of that lay the forest. On the other side of the fire, the lake shimmered in the moonlight and the water rippled soothingly on the shore. So restfully beautiful was the scene that it affected the spirits of both white man and red, and they smoked in silence for some time.“Joe,” remarked Hartley at last, “this fosters a tranquillity that makes me think I’d like to live here all the time. I’ve never seen or felt anything just like it.”A part of this comment was beyond Joe, but he caught the main idea. “Spoil quick,” he suggested.“Yes, that’s true, too,” admitted Hartley. “The white man certainly does spoil nature wherever he settles. I suppose I’d build a cabin first, which wouldn’t be so bad; then I’d think I had to have a bungalow, which would be crowding things a little; next I’d want a two-story house and a steam-launch, and after that I’d put in a telephone and move back to the city. Yes, you’re right, Joe: no white man could settle here without spoiling it. But it just suits my humor now. If anybody comes to disturb us, Joe, do me the favor of throwing him into the lake.”Joe, being a man of few words, merely grinned, but a moment later he held up his hand for silence.“Canoe coming,” he announced.“Nonsense!” returned Hartley, after vainly trying to catch some sound other than that of the rippling water and the rustling leaves.“Canoe coming,” repeated Joe, positively.A few minutes later even Hartley’s ears caught the swish of a paddle; and far out on the lake a black spot could be seen in the silvery path of the moonlight on the water.“You’re right, Joe, as usual,” he conceded; “but,” he added whimsically, “don’t forget your duty—into the water he goes! I will not be disturbed!”In brief time a canoe, containing three men and a larger stock of supplies than Connorton had thought it possible to get into so small a space, shot plainly into view. Connorton himself, anxious and uncomfortable, occupied a position on some boxes and bags amidships; Paulson was in the bow, and the guide, Jim Redfeather, was in the stern.A shelving rock, which ended abruptly in deep water a few feet from shore, offered the best landing-place for a heavily laden canoe, and the Indian brought it alongside that point.Hartley sauntered wearily down to meet his unexpected and unwelcome guests.“My goodness, Hartley!” exclaimed Connorton, the moment he saw the inventor, “I’m glad we’ve found you at last! We’ve had a devil of a time doing it.”“If it was so difficult,” murmured Hartley, “why didn’t you give it up?”“Too important,” replied Connorton. “Help me out, and I’ll tell you about it. I’m pretty near done up.”With some difficulty, the large man was transferred from the canoe to the rock, and, to one who knew him in the city, he was certainly an extraordinary spectacle. He was dirty, disheveled, and badly sunburned, having acquired dirt on the portages and blisters on the water. Moreover, the khaki suit that he wore was too small, the derby hat seemed sadly out of place, and his position in the canoe had so cramped him that he walked like a cripple.“Had to sleep under the stars last night,” he complained, after introducing Paulson. “Thought we’d locate you the first day, but you’d gone farther than we expected. Never had such an experience! But that fire looks good to me,” he added. “Let’s get next to it and come down to business.”Hartley laid a detaining hand on his arm. “I’m not in the humor for business to-night,” he objected. “Let us look out over the moonlit lake—”“Damn the lake!” exploded Connorton. “I’ve had enough of it. Let’s get down to business. It will take but a few minutes to explain—”“To-morrow,” insisted Hartley. “I may be in the humor for business to-morrow; but to-night I must insist—”Now, whether Joe had taken Hartley’s whimsical instructions to “throw him into the lake” seriously or not never will be known, for the Indian is not loquacious; but it is a fact that, assisting in unloading the canoe, he bumped into Connorton at this moment, and Connorton, being close to the outer edge of the shelving rock, went backward into the water with a loud splash.He came up spluttering and floundering like an animated bag of meal, and Hartley and Paulson quickly pulled him back on the rock. Then they rushed him to the fire.“Got a change of clothing, Mr. Connorton?” asked Hartley, solicitously.“Change of clothing!” sputtered Connorton. “Change of clothinghere! Why don’t you ask me if I’ve got a dress suit?”“Too bad!” commented Hartley. “I haven’t anything extra either, and it wouldn’t fit you if I had. But you’ll be all right in a blanket, I guess. Just get those wet clothes off now.”Connorton objected. His undraped figure was something to cause laughter rather than command respect, and he had no desire to make any more of a spectacle of himself than he was already. But Hartley was insistent, Paulson urged, and the combination of wet clothing and chill night air made him shiver. So he presently found himself posing under protest as a large and rather flabby cherub.It was not dignified. Even when Hartley draped a blanket over him, it was not dignified. He was quite sure the apparently stolid Indians were chuckling inwardly, and he distinctly heard Joe refer to him as Big Splash. If he had onlyknown it, Joe had thus christened him and always thereafter thus referred to him. He did not know it, but, even so, it would have delighted his soul to take an ax to Joe. Never before had he had so murderous an impulse.There could now be no serious discussion of business before morning, of course. A large, fleshy man, attired in nothing but a blanket, is not exactly in a situation to talk business to advantage. He is too much of a joke. Hartley frankly treated him as a joke, although Paulson was respectful and sympathetic.“I am sure,” said Hartley, “that you will feel better to-morrow for your bath to-night. Just stick your little pink tootsies up to the fire—”“Shut up!” exploded Connorton.“Oh, that’s no way to talk to your host,” complained Hartley. “It has a tendency to make a man peevish; and you don’t want me to be peevish, do you?”Connorton did not; and he realized that it would be the part of wisdom to hold his temper in check. “I beg your pardon, Hartley,” he said. “It’s not your fault, of course, but I’ve endured such unspeakable horrors during the last few days that my nerves are all on edge.”“That’s better,” commended Hartley. “You shall have a nice highball for that; and then we’ll tuck you in your little bed and sing you to sleep.”BIGSPLASH, as Joe called him, was awakened in the morning by the sound of a big splash, and he shuddered. It made him think of the great splash of the night before. Looking out from under the canvas, however, he discovered that this splash was made by Hartley, who was enjoying an early swim.Connorton’s clothes, still damp, hung from the branch of a tree near at hand, but he did not wait to put them on. He recalled the fact that he had a very deep and special interest in the life of Hartley, and Hartley was recklessly splashing about beyond the end of the shelving rock, where the water was deep. Wherefore, wrapping his blanket about him, Connorton hurried down to the rock and pleaded with the inventor to come out.“What for?” asked Hartley.“You might drown,” replied Connorton. “I can’t swim, so I couldn’t help you.”“Bosh!” returned Hartley. “This is fine! Better come in yourself and get freshened up for the day.”But Connorton would not, and neither would he abandon his station on the rock, even to dress, until Hartley came out. He could at least summon the guides to the rescue if the foolhardy man should be in danger. So he stood there, looking more like a distressed Indian squaw than a white man, until Hartley left the water.“He needs me,” reflected Hartley; “he needs me very, very much! Else why this anxiety for my safety? And,” he added whimsically, “I can see much sport ahead, whatever his purpose may be.”Connorton did not lose much time in throwing light—at least some light—upon this purpose.“I want you to go back with me at once—to-day,” he said, when they were at breakfast.“Oh, you want me to go back with you,” repeated Hartley. “Why?”“Well, there’s a little something wrong with the assignment of patent,” explained Connorton, “and I want to get it fixed up.”“Couldn’t that wait until I returned?” asked Hartley.“Why, yes, it could,” admitted Connorton, “but there was a risk. If anything happened to you, you know, it might be serious.”“Yes,” agreed Hartley, “it would be serious.”“To us, I mean,” explained Connorton.“Oh, to you!” commented Hartley. “Why not to me?”“Why, it would naturally be serious to you, of course,” returned Connorton; “but that’s your own lookout.”“True, quite true,” rejoined Hartley. “But this is business, you know,” he added, “and I never discuss business in the morning. It makes me nervous.”“Oh, thunder!” expostulated Connorton.“Really quite nervous, I assure you,” insisted Hartley. “I’m hardly responsible for what I do when I’m annoyed that way.”“Now, look here,” urged Connorton in desperation,“I want to go back now—just as soon as we can get ready—and I’ll give you five hundred to go with me.”“But this is morning,” objected Hartley, “and I never discuss business in the morning.”“A thousand,” added Connorton.“Makes me nervous—quite irresponsible,” murmured Hartley, rising.Very deliberately he walked down to the shelving rock, across it, and stepped, clothes and all, into ten feet of water.“Help! Help!” screamed Connorton, rushing to the rock. “Save him!”The two guides and Paulson came down and tried to pull the inventor out, but he objected.“Take him away!” he gurgled, as his head bobbed up out of the water and almost immediately disappeared again.“Save him! Save him!” cried Connorton, frantically jumping up and down on the rock.“Big Splash make crazy man!” commented Joe.“Better this than him!” gurgled Hartley, again coming up. “Take him away!”Joe unemotionally prodded Connorton in the stomach, whereupon that gentleman grunted, doubled over, and backed away. Joe prodded him again and again, thus driving him back to the tent. Then Hartley permitted himself to be pulled out of the water; but it was some time before he would let Connorton come near him.“You see what you’ve done!” he said reproachfully, when he finally did consent to resume intercourse with his visitor. “I warned you, too. Now we can’t talk business before to-morrow.”“Oh, come!” expostulated Connorton.“Not until to-morrow,” insisted Hartley. “You’ve got me all upset for to-day.”Connorton hesitated; but he was desperate now, so at last he drew from his pocket the assignment of patent, somewhat blurred by contact with the water. Even if the notarial seal were lacking, it would make things a little safer if he could get that signed.“Just put your name to that,” he urged, “and I won’t say another word about business until to-morrow.”Hartley’s only reply was to start again for the lake.“Come back! Come back!” cried Connorton. “I won’t mention business again to-day.”Hartley returned and stretched himself out in the sun to let his clothes dry.“We’ll stay in camp to-day?” suggested Connorton, hopefully.“Wouldn’t do at all!” replied Hartley. “We must fish, if only as an excuse for coming.”Pursuant to this idea, Hartley presently set out with Joe. Connorton, after a little hesitation, followed with the other guide, leaving Paulson in camp. Connorton felt that he could not rest easy unless he had this reckless man directly under his observation all the time; and the reckless man was not unmindful of this espionage.“Joe,” said the reckless man, when he saw that Connorton was following, “we won’t do much fishing to-day, but we’ll have some sport, just the same. The fish are here all the time, but Connorton isn’t. And Connorton, Joe, is afraid something is going to happen to me. That being the case, let us enjoy ourselves! Let us lead him afar on land and sea, and tramp him over portages, and make him miss his dinner, and give him a real good time generally. Of course, Joe, it is downright cruel to make a man like Connorton miss a meal, but let us be downright cruel! Proceed, Joe!”Joe proceeded, and that he acted up to his instructions was proved by the many and bitter things that Connorton said about “that crazy inventor” in the course of the day—the hardest day of his life, he afterward asserted.But Hartley was not satisfied. “I think, Joe,” he complained, as they were returning to camp in the late afternoon, “that this is beginning to pall a little on Big Splash. Too much work and too little excitement. He needs a thrill, Joe, to revive his interest in the proceedings. Let us give him the thrill. Let us alarm him. Let us make him think that he is going to lose little Willie, the human prize! I have several thrills in mind, Joe, but let us begin mildly. Will you oblige me by rocking the boat, so to speak. Not too much, you know, for I have no wish to go into the drink again, and that’s what would probably happen if I tried to do it myself.”Joe replied with a grunt, as usual; but presently the canoe began to take a most erratic course and to betray alarmingsymptoms of crankiness. The Indian seemed to be doing his utmost to steady it, and several times prevented an upset by throwing his weight in just the right direction; but the more he strove the worse it rocked.Connorton was frantic. He lost his head completely as he saw the apparent danger of Hartley, and screamed and shouted and swore as his own guide paddled up, to be on hand in case they capsized.“Make him go splash once more?” suggested Joe, as the other canoe came near.“No,” returned Hartley, magnanimously. “He has had his bath, and we will not be so cruel as to insist upon another just now.”“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” screamed Connorton. He had already suffered so much that he felt that he could watch Hartley drown with actual joy; but he could not lose half a million dollars in that spirit.“Yes, stop it, Joe,” instructed Hartley. “It is time to give him another diversion. Don’t you suppose we could get lost, Joe? He is a rather stout person, and he impresses me as a man who needs exercise. I think he rides in an automobile too much when at home. A nice, long walk through the forest, where it is not too easy going, would do him a world of good; and it might take his mind off business matters if we happened to get lost. Try it, Joe. He’ll follow, for he’s fearful that something may happen to little Willie.”The Indian made for a portage, and, arriving there, left the canoe on the shore and plunged into the forest.Connorton and his guide followed, of course. Connorton had great difficulty in following, for a stout man with flabby muscles is at a disadvantage in the forest; but he followed. A man will follow half a million dollars a long, long way and over all sorts of obstructions. And there was plenty to tax temper, muscle, and wind. Joe saw to that. Joe was glad to see to it; he would willingly have seen to it without pay, and might even have paid for the privilege of seeing to it, if that were necessary.“Better get lost now, Joe,” Hartley finally suggested.Joe immediately began to show signs of bewilderment. He stopped and looked about him anxiously. He started in one direction, retraced his steps, and tried another. He came back a second time and made another new start.Connorton’s guide, Jim, interpreted this correctly without half trying. He knew that he was not lost, that he could not possibly be lost in that locality, but that he was going through all the motions of being lost. There was, therefore, some reason for it. Jim may or may not have guessed the reason, but he played up to Joe’s lead.“What’s the matter?” asked Connorton, anxiously, as he noticed these strange actions.“Him lost,” replied Jim.“Lost!” exclaimed Connorton. “A guide lost! Well, that’s a good joke! How about you?”“Me lost too,” replied the Indian, imperturbably. “Sit down and let Joe find way out.” And he seated himself placidly on a log.“You lost, too!” cried Connorton in consternation. “Good Lord! Lost in an impenetrable forest, with two fool Indians and a crazy man! Oh, if I ever get out of here alive there isn’t money enough in the world to bring me back! Here!” he thundered at the placid Jim, “what you loafing there for? Get up and help Joe find a way out! Hustle, too! I’ll bet we starve to death,” he added gloomily to himself. “I’m starving already.”Late that evening two stolid Indian guides and two very weary white men got back to the camp, where Paulson was anxiously waiting for them. One of the white men, although weary, seemed to be quite happy, even going so far as to release an occasional chuckle. The other was exhausted almost to the point of collapse, and nothing but groans were heard from him.“Do you know, Connorton,” remarked the first white man, as they left their respective canoes and walked slowly toward the camp-fire, “I don’t believe you think any more of money than I do of my life—really, I don’t.”Connorton had not the spirit to reply.SUPPER, although lacking the viands that would have appealed to Connorton in more favorable circumstances, tasted unusually good to him that evening; and he was disposed to give thanks that he was still alive rather than complain of what he had suffered. But he had acquired a great fear of Hartley’s impulsive vagaries.“May I speak briefly of business?” he asked, as they sat by the fire.“To-morrow,” returned Hartley.“If you would permit me,” urged Connorton, “I think I could make the matter clear to you in a very few minutes.”“It is really quite important, Mr. Hartley,” put in Paulson, “and I would suggest that you let Mr. Connorton explain.”The inventor frowned, and looked down at the shelving rock.“No, no,” expostulated Connorton, hastily; “don’t do that again, Hartley! Keep away from the lake! I won’t say a word without your permission.”“Oh, very well,” agreed Hartley. “I’ve been pretty badly upset to-day. You have annoyed me persistently—ruffled my artistic temperament. Indeed, I have been strongly tempted, Mr. Connorton, to let Joe take you out and drown you, as he wished to do. Joe doesn’t like to be disturbed any more than I do; and it is so easy for a man to be accidentally drowned up here, especially a man who can’t swim.”Connorton’s eyes reflected a sudden great fear, and his face became white.“However,” pursued Hartley, calmly, “you don’t know any better, so I shall try to forgive you. I shall even permit you to speak briefly—very briefly—of business, for we might as well get that out of the way, I suppose. But don’t let Joe hear you.”Connorton assured himself that Joe was beyond earshot, and then produced the assignment of patent. “It’s a trifle,” he explained, “a mere formality.”“Ah, yes,” returned Hartley; “you followed me into the wilderness for a trifle.”“Well, it’s rather important, of course,” admitted Connorton.“An important trifle!” commented Hartley, whereat Connorton became somewhat flustered.“If you will permit me,” put in Paulson, coming to his principal’s relief, “I think I can make the whole thing clear in a few words.”“Go ahead!” said Hartley; “but be careful. Joe has his eye on you, too.”Paulson was not so disturbed as Connorton had been; but his smile was not that of a man who was wholly at his ease.“The assignment that you gave Mr. Connorton,” he explained, “is not valid; that is, it does not clearly and certainly transfer the rights that both you and he thought it did. Now, all he wants is to have those rights definitely and surely transferred to him, and he has brought along a paper for you to sign that will make the purpose clear. It should be acknowledged before a notary, but it will put the matter in a little better shape if you sign it anyhow. Then we can have an entirely new assignment properly executed when we get back.”“That’s the whole story, is it?” queried Hartley, reaching for the paper.“Yes.”“It merely clinches a sale already made,” urged Paulson.Hartley took a fountain-pen from his pocket, uncapped it, shook it to get it flowing freely, and then laid it down.“Isn’t that moonlight beautiful?” he asked.“Yes, yes,” returned Connorton, impatiently, “it’s fine, very fine, indeed.” He waited then for Hartley’s wandering attention to return to the pen and paper; but Hartley continued to gaze dreamily over the lake until Connorton, in desperation, finally reminded him that they were neglecting the business in hand.“Of course,” admitted Hartley. “Business and moonlight don’t mix, and the moonlight effect, Connorton, is never twice alike. I suppose you never noticed that, but it’s so. A moonlight effect once gone is lost forever, whereas it’s my experience that you can’t lose business at all. It is for us, therefore, to make the most of moonlight.”“Look here!” exclaimed the exasperated Connorton. “Cut out this foolishness, and I’ll make the bonus two thousand.”“Foolishness?” repeated Hartley.“Yes, foolishness,” insisted Connorton.“How absurd and unreasonable you are!” complained Hartley.“Why, you’re the one that’s foolish—bringing business up here into the woods where a man ought never even to think of it. I’m strictly in harmony with the surroundings—dreamy, impractical, erratic—but you are not. You’re a prosaic mortal, Connorton, and you’re very, very foolish to be here.”Connorton was surprised and troubled.“However,” resumed Hartley, again picking up the pen, “I believe you said two thousand.”“I did,” returned Connorton, encouraged. “I’ll add two thousand to what I’ve already paid you for your patent if you’ll sign that paper now, and go back with me to-morrow and put the whole matter in legal and binding shape.”“Two thousand!” mused Hartley, idly toying with the pen. “That’s a good deal of money, Connorton.”“It is,” agreed Connorton, hopeful but anxious.“It is so much,” said Hartley, capping the pen and putting it away, “that I don’t believe I’ll sign.”“What!” cried Connorton, in dismay.“Let’s enjoy the moonlight!” suggested Hartley.“But—but—”“If you exasperate me, Connorton,” threatened Hartley, “I shall do something desperate!”Connorton, discouraged, decided to let him alone until morning, when he would make one last attempt to induce him to listen to reason. He turned in with that idea in mind, dreamed of it, and had it still in mind when he was roughly awakened at daylight.“Get up!” ordered Hartley. “We’ll be starting in half an hour.”“Starting!” exclaimed Connorton. “Where to?”“Temagami—Toronto—home. Hustle, now!”CONNORTONfound the situation extremely bewildering. So did Paulson. They had understood Hartley to have rejected emphatically their proposition the night before; and now that incomprehensible person was doing precisely what they most wanted him to do.For some time neither dared ask any questions, lest the least suggestion of surprise should lead him to change his mind: but curiosity finally overcame Connorton’s caution.“What’s the reason for this?” he queried.“For what?” returned Hartley.“This change of plan.”“There’s been no change of plan,” asserted Hartley. “I refused to sign the paper you showed me, but I didn’t say I wouldn’t go back with you. Might as well go back as to have you bothering around up here anyway. You’re too great a responsibility, Connorton; I feel that I must get you out of Joe’s reach. Any other proposition to make this morning?”“No-o,” replied Connorton, doubtfully, “I think not.”“Oh, very well,” acquiesced Hartley, cheerfully. “I guess I’ll let you go with Joe to-day.”“No, no, no!” objected Connorton, in alarm; “I won’t go with that bloodthirsty savage.”“Oh, he won’t hurt you,” urged Hartley, reassuringly; “I’ve told him he mustn’t.”“I won’t go with him,” insisted Connorton. “He tried to murder me the first night I was here.”“Oh, very well,” agreed Hartley, resignedly. “I’ll take Joe’s canoe and paddle you myself.”Let me draw a veil over the return trip to Temagami Inn, lifting the edge of it slightly to give a general idea of what happened.Connorton, with many misgivings, set out in Joe’s canoe with Hartley, simply because he was afraid to raise a second objection to any arrangement that whimsical gentleman might make.Hartley knew no more about managing a canoe than he did about managing an aëroplane, and the best that he could do was to propel it in erratic circles, occasionally placing himself, his freight, and his passenger in jeopardy when he shifted his paddle from one side to the other. Connorton was helpless because he was compelled to assume a reclining position on top of the camp equipment, and he was angered because the Indians so far departed from their usual imperturbability as to respond to his screams for help with grins and grunts that plainly indicated amusement. Afraid to sit up, and expecting every minute to be rolled into the water, he could only plead with Hartley to return to shore, which Hartley was quite unable to do, and with the Indians to come and get them, which the Indians finally did.A fresh start was then made, Paulson being put in the canoe with Joe, and Hartley and Connorton going with Jim, the other guide. Paulson was not altogether pleased with this arrangement; but he presently discovered that he was far better off than Connorton. For Hartley developed the most astonishing vagaries and a clumsiness that was equal to that of a bear cub. Three times during that memorable trip he tipped Connorton into the water. That he also went in did not help matters in any particular, so far as Connorton was concerned, for that close-figuring business man had but slightly less interest in the inventor’s life than he had in his own.Moreover, on the portages Hartley loaded Connorton up with pots and pans until he resembled an itinerant tinsmith, and on one occasion he tripped him up—quite accidentally, of course—at the highest point of the divide between two lakes, and then added insult to injury by apologizing profusely as he jangled down the incline. He wandered away at noon, when they stopped for lunch, and it was only after an hour’s search that he was found in deep thought in a deep thicket. He was devising a harness, he said, that would enable a man to carry a larger camp equipment than was now possible; and he insisted upon harnessing Connorton up with a rope by way of experiment.But Temagami Inn was reached at last. Connorton never was so utterly weary in his life. The physical strain of that day had been considerable, but the mental strain had been far greater. He had several times thought his chance of life slim and his chance for that half-million even slimmer. But Temagami Inn revived his hopes. Much of the camp impedimenta with which they had set out had been lost during the thrilling adventures of that day, but their “civilized clothes,” as Hartley designated them, had been left at Temagami Inn. So Connorton, feeling properly dressed once more, regained much of his confidence and composure.Hartley, too, was more quiescent now. In fact, he seemed rather depressed by the return to conventional surroundings, and answered only in monosyllables when any one spoke to him. Just before retiring, however, he drew Connorton to one side.“Any new proposition to make this evening, Connorton?” he asked.“No-o, I think not,” replied Connorton, feeling that the game was more nearly in his own hands now than at any time since he had set forth in pursuit of the inventor.“Oh, very well,” returned Hartley, who then went immediately to his room.Connorton was a bit uneasy, fearing that some new vagary might send Hartley away in the night; but he joined them at breakfast in the morning. Moreover, he still seemed unaccountably depressed and spiritless. He was as tractable now as he had been intractable before, acquiescing indifferently in all suggestions made. On the steamer he sat gloomily apart from the others; at Temagami Station he let Paulson make all the arrangements.“Tamed at last,” reflected Connorton; “but he’ll bear watching, just the same.”Still, only twice on the way to Toronto did he occasion his companions any uneasiness. Once was at North Bay, where he betrayed a desire to take the through train west—said he would rather like to see what Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver looked like. However, Connorton and Paulson, each clinging affectionately to an arm, managed to get him back into the car.The other time was when, just as they were leaving a station, they suddenly discovered that he was missing. Connorton was for pulling the bell-cord and stopping the train; but Paulson feared that might get them into trouble and advised an appeal to the conductor first.“That elongated bottle of gloom!” exclaimed the conductor. “Why, he swung upon the engine just as we were leaving the last station. I’m thinking of having him arrested at the next stop.”That would not do, of course. They did not want him on the engine, which they regarded as a dangerous place, but neither did they want him arrested. Connorton squared it with the conductor, explaining that the man was slightly demented, and promising to get him back in the coach and tie him down at the first opportunity. Then, at the next stop, he argued and pleaded with Hartley, but only when the conductor and engineer both ordered him back into the coach did that erratic gentleman consent to return to it.He was resentful then, said everybody was in a conspiracy to make his life miserable, and it was some time before he would even speak to Connorton. But he caused them no further trouble during the trip.
THE IMPRACTICAL MANBY ELLIOTT FLOWERAuthor of “Policeman Flynn,” etc.WITH PICTURES BY F. R. GRUGER
BY ELLIOTT FLOWER
Author of “Policeman Flynn,” etc.
WITH PICTURES BY F. R. GRUGER
“IAM sorry to inform you,” said Shackelford, the lawyer, “that you have been to some trouble and expense to secure a bit of worthless paper. This—” and he held up the document he had been examining—“is about as valuable as a copy of a last week’s newspaper.”
It is possible that Shackelford really regretted the necessity of conveying this unpleasant information to Peter J. Connorton, Cyrus Talbot, and Samuel D. Peyton; but, if so, his looks belied him, for he smiled very much as if he found something gratifying in the situation.
Connorton was the first to recover from the shock.
“Then it’s a swindle!” he declared hotly. “We’ll get that fellow Hartley! He’s a crook! We’ll make him—”
“Oh, no,” interrupted Shackelford, quietly, “it’s no swindle. According to your own story, you prepared the paper yourself and paid him for his signature to it.”
“We paid him twenty-five thousand dollars for his patent,” asserted Connorton.
“But you didn’t get the patent,” returned Shackelford. “He has assigned to you, for a consideration of twenty-five thousand dollars, all his rights, title, and interest in something or other; but the assignment doesn’t clearly show what. There are a thousand things that it might be, but nothing that it definitely and positively is. Very likely he doesn’t know this, but very likely somebody will tell him. Anyhow, you’ve got to get clear and unquestioned title before you can do anything with the patent without danger of unpleasant consequences.”
Deeper gloom settled upon the faces of the three, and especially upon the face of Connorton, who was primarily responsible for their present predicament.
“What would you advise?” asked Connorton at last.
“Well,” returned the lawyer, after a moment of thought, “you’d better find him. As near as I can make out, he had no thought of tricking you.”
“Oh, no, I don’t believe he had,” confessed Connorton. “I spoke hastily when I charged that. He’s too impractical for anything of the sort.”
“Much too impractical, I should say,” added Talbot, and Peyton nodded approval.
“In that case,” pursued the lawyer, “you can still clinch the deal easily and quickly—if you get to him first. I see nothing particularly disturbing in the situation, except the possibility that somebody whoispractical may get hold of him before you do, or that he may learn in some other way of the value of his invention. Do you know where he is?”
“No,” answered Connorton. “That’s the trouble.”
“Not so troublesome as it might be,” returned the lawyer. “He is not trying to hide, if we are correct in our surmise, and his eccentricities of dress and deportment would attract attention to him anywhere. I have a young man here in the office who will get track of him in no time, if you have nothing better to suggest.”
They had nothing better to suggest, so Myron Paulson was called in, given a description of Ira Hartley, together with such information as to his associates and haunts as it was possible to give, and sent in quest of news of him.
“Meanwhile,” observed the lawyer, “I’ll prepare something for his signature, when we find him, that will have no loopholes in it.”
IRAHARTLEY, as the lawyer had said, was not a hard man to trace. He was tall and slim, wore a flaring bow tie, a wide-brimmed slouch hat, clothes that hung loosely upon his spare frame, and smoked cigarettes in a long reed holder. Add to that some eccentricities of speech and manner, and it will be readily apparent that he was not likely to be forgotten by those he encountered.
Paulson learned in brief time that he had gone to Detroit. No one knew for what purpose, whether he intended to remain there or go elsewhere, or, in fact, anything about it, except the bare fact that he had left for Detroit. Certain of his acquaintances understood that it was in connection with some great and long-cherished plan that was suddenly made financially possible; but they had no idea of the nature of the plan.
Paulson, of course, would follow at once, and Connorton regretfully decided to go with him. Connorton, being large and slow, fond of ease and of good things to eat, disliked to have the routine of his life disturbed; but he blamed himself for their very unpleasant predicament, and, aside from his own financial interest in the affair, he was desirous to do everything possible to protect his associates and secure to them the promised profit. Besides, he knew Hartley, and Paulson did not; so it might easily happen that his presence would be helpful, if not absolutely necessary, when the inventor should be overtaken.
The lawyer prepared the necessary papers, as far as he could with the information at hand; but he was not altogether satisfied. The inventor alone could supply some minor points that he would like to incorporate in them; so he suggested that they bring Hartley back, if possible.
“If you can’t do that,” he instructed, “get his signature, properly witnessed and acknowledged, to the assignment of patent, and let it go at that. I could clinch it a little tighter if I could have a talk with him, but it isn’t really necessary.”
“Suppose something should happen to him before we get it?” suggested Connorton.
“You’d lose the patent,” returned the lawyer, calmly. “Title to that still rests in him, and it would naturally go to his heirs if anything should happen to him before it is legally transferred to you.”
“Guardian to a lost lunatic!” grumbled Connorton. “A nice job!”
Still grumbling, he left with Paulson for Detroit. He had no idea of acting in any other than an advisory capacity during the search, of course. He was on hand to take charge of the negotiations at the proper time; but until that time should arrive he purposed remaining in some convenient hotel while Paulson did the scouting. Fortunately, owing to the inventor’s striking personality, Paulson’s task was not difficult.
“Gone to Toronto,” was the report he made to Connorton, a few hours after their arrival in Detroit. “Stopped at the Cadillac, but left there yesterday.”
“Sure it was Hartley?” queried Connorton.
“No doubt about it,” replied Paulson. “Everybody remembers him, for he hired a cab, put the cabby inside, and did the driving himself—said he wanted to see something of the town.”
“That was Hartley, all right,” Connorton admitted, dislodging himself regretfully from the comfortable lobby chair he was occupying, “and I suppose we’ll have to hustle along after him. I don’t see why he has to be so infernally restless, though.”
Again, at Toronto, Connorton had reason to complain of Hartley’s restlessness. His name was on the register of the King Edward Hotel when they arrived there; but he had lingered no longer than in Detroit, and they were still a day behind him.
“Sure it was our Hartley?” asked Connorton.
“No doubt about it,” Paulson replied. “He showed up here with a dunnage bag instead of a trunk, and they took him for an immigrant and were going to throw him out.”
“Must be our man,” agreed Connorton. “That’s just the kind of fool thing he’d do.”
“Made some trouble at the bar,” added Paulson, “by insisting that they should put the seltzer and lemon-peel in his highball glass first and add the whisky afterward—said it improved the flavor to have a highball made that way.”
“That’s Hartley,” asserted Connorton, positively. “Where did he go from here?”
“North Bay.”
“Where’s that?”
“About two hundred and fifty miles due north.”
Connorton became suddenly perturbed, not to say excited. “Great Scott!” he exclaimed,“he’s heading for the wilderness!”
Connorton was sufficiently troubled now to forget temporarily his love of ease. He could imagine nothing that would take Hartley to that region except some crazy hunting or mining scheme, both of which had elements of danger. Wherefore they must follow quickly, no matter how unpleasant the outlook.
But Hartley was not at North Bay, and had not stopped there. That was easily settled, for it was not so large a place that a man of his personality could possibly escape observation.
“More uncertain than a flea!” grumbled Connorton. “Probably dropped off somewhere down the line.”
“Or went on up the line,” suggested Paulson. “Perhaps the ticket-man will know.”
The ticket-man did. They would have saved time if they had asked him in the first place instead of making their inquiries at the hotel.
“Sure I saw that sombrero-covered toothpick,” said the ticket-man. “He asked me if this was the open season for Indians and moose.”
“That’s Hartley,” sighed Connorton. “He’s as likely to shoot one as the other. What did he do then?”
“Bought a mackinaw that would dazzle your eyes and a ticket to Temagami and went on with the train—said the Indians were too tame for real sport here. I couldn’t see what he wanted of a mackinaw in summer, but he said he liked the color scheme.”
“What’s Temagami?” asked Connorton.
“Temagami Forest Reserve.”
“I knew it,” groaned Connorton. “Headed for the wilderness!”
IRAHARTLEYlay stretched in front of a camp-fire on the shore of Lake Wausauksinagami. It had been necessary to cover two portages and three lakes to reach this spot; but it certainly gave him the seclusion that he sought. No human habitation marred the shore-line of the lake, although another camp-fire, seen faintly between two of the many islands, showed that he was not in sole possession. The other camp, however, was several miles away, so he was quite alone, except for Joe Lightfoot, his Indian guide; and supreme content was reflected in face and pose.
True, he had not caught many fish, owing to his own inexpertness with rod and line rather than to any lack of fish to be caught; but this was a matter of indifference to him. He had promised himself this outing long before. He had no particular reason for wanting it, except that he had heard so much of the joys of life in the open that he had resolved to try it as soon as opportunity offered; but that was enough for one of his whimsically impulsive nature, and an increasing desire to try it had influenced him to some extent in closing with Connorton in the matter of his invention. He liked to be alone; and surely one could ask for nothing better in such circumstances than an Indian guide who spoke tersely when he spoke at all.
The Indian, having cleaned up after supper, squatted with his pipe a little distance from the fire. Back of him was the shelter-tent under which Hartley slept, and back of that lay the forest. On the other side of the fire, the lake shimmered in the moonlight and the water rippled soothingly on the shore. So restfully beautiful was the scene that it affected the spirits of both white man and red, and they smoked in silence for some time.
“Joe,” remarked Hartley at last, “this fosters a tranquillity that makes me think I’d like to live here all the time. I’ve never seen or felt anything just like it.”
A part of this comment was beyond Joe, but he caught the main idea. “Spoil quick,” he suggested.
“Yes, that’s true, too,” admitted Hartley. “The white man certainly does spoil nature wherever he settles. I suppose I’d build a cabin first, which wouldn’t be so bad; then I’d think I had to have a bungalow, which would be crowding things a little; next I’d want a two-story house and a steam-launch, and after that I’d put in a telephone and move back to the city. Yes, you’re right, Joe: no white man could settle here without spoiling it. But it just suits my humor now. If anybody comes to disturb us, Joe, do me the favor of throwing him into the lake.”
Joe, being a man of few words, merely grinned, but a moment later he held up his hand for silence.
“Canoe coming,” he announced.
“Nonsense!” returned Hartley, after vainly trying to catch some sound other than that of the rippling water and the rustling leaves.
“Canoe coming,” repeated Joe, positively.
A few minutes later even Hartley’s ears caught the swish of a paddle; and far out on the lake a black spot could be seen in the silvery path of the moonlight on the water.
“You’re right, Joe, as usual,” he conceded; “but,” he added whimsically, “don’t forget your duty—into the water he goes! I will not be disturbed!”
In brief time a canoe, containing three men and a larger stock of supplies than Connorton had thought it possible to get into so small a space, shot plainly into view. Connorton himself, anxious and uncomfortable, occupied a position on some boxes and bags amidships; Paulson was in the bow, and the guide, Jim Redfeather, was in the stern.
A shelving rock, which ended abruptly in deep water a few feet from shore, offered the best landing-place for a heavily laden canoe, and the Indian brought it alongside that point.
Hartley sauntered wearily down to meet his unexpected and unwelcome guests.
“My goodness, Hartley!” exclaimed Connorton, the moment he saw the inventor, “I’m glad we’ve found you at last! We’ve had a devil of a time doing it.”
“If it was so difficult,” murmured Hartley, “why didn’t you give it up?”
“Too important,” replied Connorton. “Help me out, and I’ll tell you about it. I’m pretty near done up.”
With some difficulty, the large man was transferred from the canoe to the rock, and, to one who knew him in the city, he was certainly an extraordinary spectacle. He was dirty, disheveled, and badly sunburned, having acquired dirt on the portages and blisters on the water. Moreover, the khaki suit that he wore was too small, the derby hat seemed sadly out of place, and his position in the canoe had so cramped him that he walked like a cripple.
“Had to sleep under the stars last night,” he complained, after introducing Paulson. “Thought we’d locate you the first day, but you’d gone farther than we expected. Never had such an experience! But that fire looks good to me,” he added. “Let’s get next to it and come down to business.”
Hartley laid a detaining hand on his arm. “I’m not in the humor for business to-night,” he objected. “Let us look out over the moonlit lake—”
“Damn the lake!” exploded Connorton. “I’ve had enough of it. Let’s get down to business. It will take but a few minutes to explain—”
“To-morrow,” insisted Hartley. “I may be in the humor for business to-morrow; but to-night I must insist—”
Now, whether Joe had taken Hartley’s whimsical instructions to “throw him into the lake” seriously or not never will be known, for the Indian is not loquacious; but it is a fact that, assisting in unloading the canoe, he bumped into Connorton at this moment, and Connorton, being close to the outer edge of the shelving rock, went backward into the water with a loud splash.
He came up spluttering and floundering like an animated bag of meal, and Hartley and Paulson quickly pulled him back on the rock. Then they rushed him to the fire.
“Got a change of clothing, Mr. Connorton?” asked Hartley, solicitously.
“Change of clothing!” sputtered Connorton. “Change of clothinghere! Why don’t you ask me if I’ve got a dress suit?”
“Too bad!” commented Hartley. “I haven’t anything extra either, and it wouldn’t fit you if I had. But you’ll be all right in a blanket, I guess. Just get those wet clothes off now.”
Connorton objected. His undraped figure was something to cause laughter rather than command respect, and he had no desire to make any more of a spectacle of himself than he was already. But Hartley was insistent, Paulson urged, and the combination of wet clothing and chill night air made him shiver. So he presently found himself posing under protest as a large and rather flabby cherub.
It was not dignified. Even when Hartley draped a blanket over him, it was not dignified. He was quite sure the apparently stolid Indians were chuckling inwardly, and he distinctly heard Joe refer to him as Big Splash. If he had onlyknown it, Joe had thus christened him and always thereafter thus referred to him. He did not know it, but, even so, it would have delighted his soul to take an ax to Joe. Never before had he had so murderous an impulse.
There could now be no serious discussion of business before morning, of course. A large, fleshy man, attired in nothing but a blanket, is not exactly in a situation to talk business to advantage. He is too much of a joke. Hartley frankly treated him as a joke, although Paulson was respectful and sympathetic.
“I am sure,” said Hartley, “that you will feel better to-morrow for your bath to-night. Just stick your little pink tootsies up to the fire—”
“Shut up!” exploded Connorton.
“Oh, that’s no way to talk to your host,” complained Hartley. “It has a tendency to make a man peevish; and you don’t want me to be peevish, do you?”
Connorton did not; and he realized that it would be the part of wisdom to hold his temper in check. “I beg your pardon, Hartley,” he said. “It’s not your fault, of course, but I’ve endured such unspeakable horrors during the last few days that my nerves are all on edge.”
“That’s better,” commended Hartley. “You shall have a nice highball for that; and then we’ll tuck you in your little bed and sing you to sleep.”
BIGSPLASH, as Joe called him, was awakened in the morning by the sound of a big splash, and he shuddered. It made him think of the great splash of the night before. Looking out from under the canvas, however, he discovered that this splash was made by Hartley, who was enjoying an early swim.
Connorton’s clothes, still damp, hung from the branch of a tree near at hand, but he did not wait to put them on. He recalled the fact that he had a very deep and special interest in the life of Hartley, and Hartley was recklessly splashing about beyond the end of the shelving rock, where the water was deep. Wherefore, wrapping his blanket about him, Connorton hurried down to the rock and pleaded with the inventor to come out.
“What for?” asked Hartley.
“You might drown,” replied Connorton. “I can’t swim, so I couldn’t help you.”
“Bosh!” returned Hartley. “This is fine! Better come in yourself and get freshened up for the day.”
But Connorton would not, and neither would he abandon his station on the rock, even to dress, until Hartley came out. He could at least summon the guides to the rescue if the foolhardy man should be in danger. So he stood there, looking more like a distressed Indian squaw than a white man, until Hartley left the water.
“He needs me,” reflected Hartley; “he needs me very, very much! Else why this anxiety for my safety? And,” he added whimsically, “I can see much sport ahead, whatever his purpose may be.”
Connorton did not lose much time in throwing light—at least some light—upon this purpose.
“I want you to go back with me at once—to-day,” he said, when they were at breakfast.
“Oh, you want me to go back with you,” repeated Hartley. “Why?”
“Well, there’s a little something wrong with the assignment of patent,” explained Connorton, “and I want to get it fixed up.”
“Couldn’t that wait until I returned?” asked Hartley.
“Why, yes, it could,” admitted Connorton, “but there was a risk. If anything happened to you, you know, it might be serious.”
“Yes,” agreed Hartley, “it would be serious.”
“To us, I mean,” explained Connorton.
“Oh, to you!” commented Hartley. “Why not to me?”
“Why, it would naturally be serious to you, of course,” returned Connorton; “but that’s your own lookout.”
“True, quite true,” rejoined Hartley. “But this is business, you know,” he added, “and I never discuss business in the morning. It makes me nervous.”
“Oh, thunder!” expostulated Connorton.
“Really quite nervous, I assure you,” insisted Hartley. “I’m hardly responsible for what I do when I’m annoyed that way.”
“Now, look here,” urged Connorton in desperation,“I want to go back now—just as soon as we can get ready—and I’ll give you five hundred to go with me.”
“But this is morning,” objected Hartley, “and I never discuss business in the morning.”
“A thousand,” added Connorton.
“Makes me nervous—quite irresponsible,” murmured Hartley, rising.
Very deliberately he walked down to the shelving rock, across it, and stepped, clothes and all, into ten feet of water.
“Help! Help!” screamed Connorton, rushing to the rock. “Save him!”
The two guides and Paulson came down and tried to pull the inventor out, but he objected.
“Take him away!” he gurgled, as his head bobbed up out of the water and almost immediately disappeared again.
“Save him! Save him!” cried Connorton, frantically jumping up and down on the rock.
“Big Splash make crazy man!” commented Joe.
“Better this than him!” gurgled Hartley, again coming up. “Take him away!”
Joe unemotionally prodded Connorton in the stomach, whereupon that gentleman grunted, doubled over, and backed away. Joe prodded him again and again, thus driving him back to the tent. Then Hartley permitted himself to be pulled out of the water; but it was some time before he would let Connorton come near him.
“You see what you’ve done!” he said reproachfully, when he finally did consent to resume intercourse with his visitor. “I warned you, too. Now we can’t talk business before to-morrow.”
“Oh, come!” expostulated Connorton.
“Not until to-morrow,” insisted Hartley. “You’ve got me all upset for to-day.”
Connorton hesitated; but he was desperate now, so at last he drew from his pocket the assignment of patent, somewhat blurred by contact with the water. Even if the notarial seal were lacking, it would make things a little safer if he could get that signed.
“Just put your name to that,” he urged, “and I won’t say another word about business until to-morrow.”
Hartley’s only reply was to start again for the lake.
“Come back! Come back!” cried Connorton. “I won’t mention business again to-day.”
Hartley returned and stretched himself out in the sun to let his clothes dry.
“We’ll stay in camp to-day?” suggested Connorton, hopefully.
“Wouldn’t do at all!” replied Hartley. “We must fish, if only as an excuse for coming.”
Pursuant to this idea, Hartley presently set out with Joe. Connorton, after a little hesitation, followed with the other guide, leaving Paulson in camp. Connorton felt that he could not rest easy unless he had this reckless man directly under his observation all the time; and the reckless man was not unmindful of this espionage.
“Joe,” said the reckless man, when he saw that Connorton was following, “we won’t do much fishing to-day, but we’ll have some sport, just the same. The fish are here all the time, but Connorton isn’t. And Connorton, Joe, is afraid something is going to happen to me. That being the case, let us enjoy ourselves! Let us lead him afar on land and sea, and tramp him over portages, and make him miss his dinner, and give him a real good time generally. Of course, Joe, it is downright cruel to make a man like Connorton miss a meal, but let us be downright cruel! Proceed, Joe!”
Joe proceeded, and that he acted up to his instructions was proved by the many and bitter things that Connorton said about “that crazy inventor” in the course of the day—the hardest day of his life, he afterward asserted.
But Hartley was not satisfied. “I think, Joe,” he complained, as they were returning to camp in the late afternoon, “that this is beginning to pall a little on Big Splash. Too much work and too little excitement. He needs a thrill, Joe, to revive his interest in the proceedings. Let us give him the thrill. Let us alarm him. Let us make him think that he is going to lose little Willie, the human prize! I have several thrills in mind, Joe, but let us begin mildly. Will you oblige me by rocking the boat, so to speak. Not too much, you know, for I have no wish to go into the drink again, and that’s what would probably happen if I tried to do it myself.”
Joe replied with a grunt, as usual; but presently the canoe began to take a most erratic course and to betray alarmingsymptoms of crankiness. The Indian seemed to be doing his utmost to steady it, and several times prevented an upset by throwing his weight in just the right direction; but the more he strove the worse it rocked.
Connorton was frantic. He lost his head completely as he saw the apparent danger of Hartley, and screamed and shouted and swore as his own guide paddled up, to be on hand in case they capsized.
“Make him go splash once more?” suggested Joe, as the other canoe came near.
“No,” returned Hartley, magnanimously. “He has had his bath, and we will not be so cruel as to insist upon another just now.”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” screamed Connorton. He had already suffered so much that he felt that he could watch Hartley drown with actual joy; but he could not lose half a million dollars in that spirit.
“Yes, stop it, Joe,” instructed Hartley. “It is time to give him another diversion. Don’t you suppose we could get lost, Joe? He is a rather stout person, and he impresses me as a man who needs exercise. I think he rides in an automobile too much when at home. A nice, long walk through the forest, where it is not too easy going, would do him a world of good; and it might take his mind off business matters if we happened to get lost. Try it, Joe. He’ll follow, for he’s fearful that something may happen to little Willie.”
The Indian made for a portage, and, arriving there, left the canoe on the shore and plunged into the forest.
Connorton and his guide followed, of course. Connorton had great difficulty in following, for a stout man with flabby muscles is at a disadvantage in the forest; but he followed. A man will follow half a million dollars a long, long way and over all sorts of obstructions. And there was plenty to tax temper, muscle, and wind. Joe saw to that. Joe was glad to see to it; he would willingly have seen to it without pay, and might even have paid for the privilege of seeing to it, if that were necessary.
“Better get lost now, Joe,” Hartley finally suggested.
Joe immediately began to show signs of bewilderment. He stopped and looked about him anxiously. He started in one direction, retraced his steps, and tried another. He came back a second time and made another new start.
Connorton’s guide, Jim, interpreted this correctly without half trying. He knew that he was not lost, that he could not possibly be lost in that locality, but that he was going through all the motions of being lost. There was, therefore, some reason for it. Jim may or may not have guessed the reason, but he played up to Joe’s lead.
“What’s the matter?” asked Connorton, anxiously, as he noticed these strange actions.
“Him lost,” replied Jim.
“Lost!” exclaimed Connorton. “A guide lost! Well, that’s a good joke! How about you?”
“Me lost too,” replied the Indian, imperturbably. “Sit down and let Joe find way out.” And he seated himself placidly on a log.
“You lost, too!” cried Connorton in consternation. “Good Lord! Lost in an impenetrable forest, with two fool Indians and a crazy man! Oh, if I ever get out of here alive there isn’t money enough in the world to bring me back! Here!” he thundered at the placid Jim, “what you loafing there for? Get up and help Joe find a way out! Hustle, too! I’ll bet we starve to death,” he added gloomily to himself. “I’m starving already.”
Late that evening two stolid Indian guides and two very weary white men got back to the camp, where Paulson was anxiously waiting for them. One of the white men, although weary, seemed to be quite happy, even going so far as to release an occasional chuckle. The other was exhausted almost to the point of collapse, and nothing but groans were heard from him.
“Do you know, Connorton,” remarked the first white man, as they left their respective canoes and walked slowly toward the camp-fire, “I don’t believe you think any more of money than I do of my life—really, I don’t.”
Connorton had not the spirit to reply.
SUPPER, although lacking the viands that would have appealed to Connorton in more favorable circumstances, tasted unusually good to him that evening; and he was disposed to give thanks that he was still alive rather than complain of what he had suffered. But he had acquired a great fear of Hartley’s impulsive vagaries.
“May I speak briefly of business?” he asked, as they sat by the fire.
“To-morrow,” returned Hartley.
“If you would permit me,” urged Connorton, “I think I could make the matter clear to you in a very few minutes.”
“It is really quite important, Mr. Hartley,” put in Paulson, “and I would suggest that you let Mr. Connorton explain.”
The inventor frowned, and looked down at the shelving rock.
“No, no,” expostulated Connorton, hastily; “don’t do that again, Hartley! Keep away from the lake! I won’t say a word without your permission.”
“Oh, very well,” agreed Hartley. “I’ve been pretty badly upset to-day. You have annoyed me persistently—ruffled my artistic temperament. Indeed, I have been strongly tempted, Mr. Connorton, to let Joe take you out and drown you, as he wished to do. Joe doesn’t like to be disturbed any more than I do; and it is so easy for a man to be accidentally drowned up here, especially a man who can’t swim.”
Connorton’s eyes reflected a sudden great fear, and his face became white.
“However,” pursued Hartley, calmly, “you don’t know any better, so I shall try to forgive you. I shall even permit you to speak briefly—very briefly—of business, for we might as well get that out of the way, I suppose. But don’t let Joe hear you.”
Connorton assured himself that Joe was beyond earshot, and then produced the assignment of patent. “It’s a trifle,” he explained, “a mere formality.”
“Ah, yes,” returned Hartley; “you followed me into the wilderness for a trifle.”
“Well, it’s rather important, of course,” admitted Connorton.
“An important trifle!” commented Hartley, whereat Connorton became somewhat flustered.
“If you will permit me,” put in Paulson, coming to his principal’s relief, “I think I can make the whole thing clear in a few words.”
“Go ahead!” said Hartley; “but be careful. Joe has his eye on you, too.”
Paulson was not so disturbed as Connorton had been; but his smile was not that of a man who was wholly at his ease.
“The assignment that you gave Mr. Connorton,” he explained, “is not valid; that is, it does not clearly and certainly transfer the rights that both you and he thought it did. Now, all he wants is to have those rights definitely and surely transferred to him, and he has brought along a paper for you to sign that will make the purpose clear. It should be acknowledged before a notary, but it will put the matter in a little better shape if you sign it anyhow. Then we can have an entirely new assignment properly executed when we get back.”
“That’s the whole story, is it?” queried Hartley, reaching for the paper.
“Yes.”
“It merely clinches a sale already made,” urged Paulson.
Hartley took a fountain-pen from his pocket, uncapped it, shook it to get it flowing freely, and then laid it down.
“Isn’t that moonlight beautiful?” he asked.
“Yes, yes,” returned Connorton, impatiently, “it’s fine, very fine, indeed.” He waited then for Hartley’s wandering attention to return to the pen and paper; but Hartley continued to gaze dreamily over the lake until Connorton, in desperation, finally reminded him that they were neglecting the business in hand.
“Of course,” admitted Hartley. “Business and moonlight don’t mix, and the moonlight effect, Connorton, is never twice alike. I suppose you never noticed that, but it’s so. A moonlight effect once gone is lost forever, whereas it’s my experience that you can’t lose business at all. It is for us, therefore, to make the most of moonlight.”
“Look here!” exclaimed the exasperated Connorton. “Cut out this foolishness, and I’ll make the bonus two thousand.”
“Foolishness?” repeated Hartley.
“Yes, foolishness,” insisted Connorton.
“How absurd and unreasonable you are!” complained Hartley.“Why, you’re the one that’s foolish—bringing business up here into the woods where a man ought never even to think of it. I’m strictly in harmony with the surroundings—dreamy, impractical, erratic—but you are not. You’re a prosaic mortal, Connorton, and you’re very, very foolish to be here.”
Connorton was surprised and troubled.
“However,” resumed Hartley, again picking up the pen, “I believe you said two thousand.”
“I did,” returned Connorton, encouraged. “I’ll add two thousand to what I’ve already paid you for your patent if you’ll sign that paper now, and go back with me to-morrow and put the whole matter in legal and binding shape.”
“Two thousand!” mused Hartley, idly toying with the pen. “That’s a good deal of money, Connorton.”
“It is,” agreed Connorton, hopeful but anxious.
“It is so much,” said Hartley, capping the pen and putting it away, “that I don’t believe I’ll sign.”
“What!” cried Connorton, in dismay.
“Let’s enjoy the moonlight!” suggested Hartley.
“But—but—”
“If you exasperate me, Connorton,” threatened Hartley, “I shall do something desperate!”
Connorton, discouraged, decided to let him alone until morning, when he would make one last attempt to induce him to listen to reason. He turned in with that idea in mind, dreamed of it, and had it still in mind when he was roughly awakened at daylight.
“Get up!” ordered Hartley. “We’ll be starting in half an hour.”
“Starting!” exclaimed Connorton. “Where to?”
“Temagami—Toronto—home. Hustle, now!”
CONNORTONfound the situation extremely bewildering. So did Paulson. They had understood Hartley to have rejected emphatically their proposition the night before; and now that incomprehensible person was doing precisely what they most wanted him to do.
For some time neither dared ask any questions, lest the least suggestion of surprise should lead him to change his mind: but curiosity finally overcame Connorton’s caution.
“What’s the reason for this?” he queried.
“For what?” returned Hartley.
“This change of plan.”
“There’s been no change of plan,” asserted Hartley. “I refused to sign the paper you showed me, but I didn’t say I wouldn’t go back with you. Might as well go back as to have you bothering around up here anyway. You’re too great a responsibility, Connorton; I feel that I must get you out of Joe’s reach. Any other proposition to make this morning?”
“No-o,” replied Connorton, doubtfully, “I think not.”
“Oh, very well,” acquiesced Hartley, cheerfully. “I guess I’ll let you go with Joe to-day.”
“No, no, no!” objected Connorton, in alarm; “I won’t go with that bloodthirsty savage.”
“Oh, he won’t hurt you,” urged Hartley, reassuringly; “I’ve told him he mustn’t.”
“I won’t go with him,” insisted Connorton. “He tried to murder me the first night I was here.”
“Oh, very well,” agreed Hartley, resignedly. “I’ll take Joe’s canoe and paddle you myself.”
Let me draw a veil over the return trip to Temagami Inn, lifting the edge of it slightly to give a general idea of what happened.
Connorton, with many misgivings, set out in Joe’s canoe with Hartley, simply because he was afraid to raise a second objection to any arrangement that whimsical gentleman might make.
Hartley knew no more about managing a canoe than he did about managing an aëroplane, and the best that he could do was to propel it in erratic circles, occasionally placing himself, his freight, and his passenger in jeopardy when he shifted his paddle from one side to the other. Connorton was helpless because he was compelled to assume a reclining position on top of the camp equipment, and he was angered because the Indians so far departed from their usual imperturbability as to respond to his screams for help with grins and grunts that plainly indicated amusement. Afraid to sit up, and expecting every minute to be rolled into the water, he could only plead with Hartley to return to shore, which Hartley was quite unable to do, and with the Indians to come and get them, which the Indians finally did.
A fresh start was then made, Paulson being put in the canoe with Joe, and Hartley and Connorton going with Jim, the other guide. Paulson was not altogether pleased with this arrangement; but he presently discovered that he was far better off than Connorton. For Hartley developed the most astonishing vagaries and a clumsiness that was equal to that of a bear cub. Three times during that memorable trip he tipped Connorton into the water. That he also went in did not help matters in any particular, so far as Connorton was concerned, for that close-figuring business man had but slightly less interest in the inventor’s life than he had in his own.
Moreover, on the portages Hartley loaded Connorton up with pots and pans until he resembled an itinerant tinsmith, and on one occasion he tripped him up—quite accidentally, of course—at the highest point of the divide between two lakes, and then added insult to injury by apologizing profusely as he jangled down the incline. He wandered away at noon, when they stopped for lunch, and it was only after an hour’s search that he was found in deep thought in a deep thicket. He was devising a harness, he said, that would enable a man to carry a larger camp equipment than was now possible; and he insisted upon harnessing Connorton up with a rope by way of experiment.
But Temagami Inn was reached at last. Connorton never was so utterly weary in his life. The physical strain of that day had been considerable, but the mental strain had been far greater. He had several times thought his chance of life slim and his chance for that half-million even slimmer. But Temagami Inn revived his hopes. Much of the camp impedimenta with which they had set out had been lost during the thrilling adventures of that day, but their “civilized clothes,” as Hartley designated them, had been left at Temagami Inn. So Connorton, feeling properly dressed once more, regained much of his confidence and composure.
Hartley, too, was more quiescent now. In fact, he seemed rather depressed by the return to conventional surroundings, and answered only in monosyllables when any one spoke to him. Just before retiring, however, he drew Connorton to one side.
“Any new proposition to make this evening, Connorton?” he asked.
“No-o, I think not,” replied Connorton, feeling that the game was more nearly in his own hands now than at any time since he had set forth in pursuit of the inventor.
“Oh, very well,” returned Hartley, who then went immediately to his room.
Connorton was a bit uneasy, fearing that some new vagary might send Hartley away in the night; but he joined them at breakfast in the morning. Moreover, he still seemed unaccountably depressed and spiritless. He was as tractable now as he had been intractable before, acquiescing indifferently in all suggestions made. On the steamer he sat gloomily apart from the others; at Temagami Station he let Paulson make all the arrangements.
“Tamed at last,” reflected Connorton; “but he’ll bear watching, just the same.”
Still, only twice on the way to Toronto did he occasion his companions any uneasiness. Once was at North Bay, where he betrayed a desire to take the through train west—said he would rather like to see what Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver looked like. However, Connorton and Paulson, each clinging affectionately to an arm, managed to get him back into the car.
The other time was when, just as they were leaving a station, they suddenly discovered that he was missing. Connorton was for pulling the bell-cord and stopping the train; but Paulson feared that might get them into trouble and advised an appeal to the conductor first.
“That elongated bottle of gloom!” exclaimed the conductor. “Why, he swung upon the engine just as we were leaving the last station. I’m thinking of having him arrested at the next stop.”
That would not do, of course. They did not want him on the engine, which they regarded as a dangerous place, but neither did they want him arrested. Connorton squared it with the conductor, explaining that the man was slightly demented, and promising to get him back in the coach and tie him down at the first opportunity. Then, at the next stop, he argued and pleaded with Hartley, but only when the conductor and engineer both ordered him back into the coach did that erratic gentleman consent to return to it.He was resentful then, said everybody was in a conspiracy to make his life miserable, and it was some time before he would even speak to Connorton. But he caused them no further trouble during the trip.