The interior of Mike Callahan's livery barn was typical of a small prairie town. Rows of horse-stalls ran down either side of it, from one end to the other. At the far end sliding doors opened out upon an enclosure, round which were the sheds sheltering a widely varied collection of rigs and buggies. Also here there was further accommodation for horses. Just inside the main barn, to the left, the American Irishman had two small rooms. The one at the front, with its window on Main Street, was his office. Behind this, dependent for light upon a window at the side of the building, was a harness-room crowded with saddles and harness of every description, also a bunk on which Mike usually slept when he kept the barn open at night.
It was late at night now, about midnight on the day following Peter McSwain's momentous effort with Steve Mason. Four men were gathered together in profound council in Mike's harness-room. The atmosphere of the place was poisonous. A horse blanket obscured the window, and the door was shut and locked, although the barn itself was closed for the night, and there was small enough chance of intrusion. Still, every precaution had been taken to avoid any such contingency.
A single guttering candle stuck in the neck of a black bottle illumined the intent faces of the men. Gordon was sitting at a small table with a sheet of paper in front of him and a small morocco-bound book beside it. Silas Mallinsbee and Peter McSwain were sitting upon Mike Callahan's emergency bunk, while the owner of it contented himself with an upturned bucket near the door. Cigar-smoke clouded the room and left the atmosphere choking, but all of them seemed quite impervious to its inconvenience.
For awhile there was no other sound than the rustle of the leaves of Gordon's book and the scratching of the indifferent pen he had borrowed from Mike. Then, after what seemed interminable minutes, he looked up from his task with a transparent smile.
"It's all right," he said in a low, thrilling tone. "I guess we've got the game in our hands. He's used the governor's code."
"You can read it?" demanded Peter quickly, leaning forward with a stiff, tense motion.
"Is it what we guessed?" inquired Mike, with a sigh of relief.
Mallinsbee alone offered no comment.
Gordon nodded in answer to each inquiry. He was reading what he had written over to himself.
Then he turned sharply to Peter.
"For goodness' sake give me a cigar. I need something to keep me from shouting."
His tone, and the expression of his eyes were full of excitement.
"It's the greatest luck ever," he went on, while Peter produced a cigar and passed it across to him. "This feller's in direct communication with the governor. You see, this code is the private one. I had it as the dad's secretary. The manager had it, and, of course, my father. No one else. So it's just about certain this thing was an important matter for Slosson to be allowed to use it. Now I'd never heard of this Slosson before, so that it's also evident he's one of my father's secret agents. A matter which further proves the affair's importance."
He lit his cigar and puffed at it leisurely as he contemplated his paper with even greater satisfaction.
"This is addressed direct to the old man, which—makes our work doubly easy," he went on. "Also the nature of the message helps us. If it had been to our manager it would have been more difficult to work out my plans."
He raised the paper so that the candlelight fell full upon it.
"This is the transcript. 'Occipud, New York'—that's my father," he added in parenthesis.
"'Have bought in Snake's Fall, working on instructions. Buffalo Point crowd out for a heavy graft. Utterly unscrupulous lot, offering impossible deal. Have turned them down on grounds provided for in your instructions. Snake's Fall everything you require. Would suggest you come up here incognito, if possibly convenient. There are other propositions in coal worth a deep consideration. Coal deposits here the greatest in the country. Must come an enormous boom. Will send word later on this matter. Am sending letter covering operations. I think it will be urgent that you visit this place shortly in interests of boom as well as the coal.—SLOSSON.'"
Gordon looked round at the faces of his companions in silent triumph. And in each case he encountered a keen expectancy. As yet his fellow conspirators were rather in the dark. The significance of that transcript was not yet sufficiently clear.
"What comes next?" inquired Mallinsbee in his calm, direct fashion.
The others simply waited for enlightenment.
Gordon chuckled softly.
"Now we know we can get at Slosson's messages and my father's messages to him, and, having the code book, by a miracle of good luck, in my possession, the rest is easy. First, Peter must get a copy of my father's reply to this. Meanwhile I shall send an urgent message to my father in Slosson's name tocome up here at once. The answer to that must never reach Slosson. Get me, Peter? You've got that boy Steve where you need him. You must hold him there and pay his price. I'll promise him he'll come to no harm. When my father finds out things I'll guarantee to pacify him. This way we'll get my father here, I'll promise you. And when he does get here the fun 'll begin—as we have arranged. That clear? Mike's got his work marked out. You yours, Peter. Mr. Mallinsbee and I will do the rest. Peter, you did a great act laying hands on this message. It was worth double the price. The whole game is now in our hands."
Gordon folded up the paper and placed it inside the code book, which he carefully returned to his pocket.
Mike rubbed his hands.
"Say, it's sure a great play," he said gleefully.
"And seein' you're his son the risk don't amount to pea-shucks," nodded the perspiring hotel proprietor.
"You can be quite easy on that score," laughed Gordon. "I can promise you this: it won't be the old dad's fault, when this is over, if you don't find yourselves gathered around a mighty convivial board somewhere in New York—at his expense. You know my father as a pretty bright financier. I don't guess you know him as the sportsman I do."
Mallinsbee suddenly bestirred himself and removed his cigar.
"I kind o' wish he weren't your father, Gordon, boy," he said bluntly. "It sort of seems tough to me."
Gordon's eyes shot a whimsical smile across at Hazel's father.
"I'd hate to have any other, Mr. Mallinsbee," he said. "Maybe I know how you're feeling about it. But I tell you right here, if my father knew I had this opportunity and didn't take it, he'd turn his face to the wall and never own me as his son again. You're reckoning that for a son to do his father down sort of puts that son on a level with David Slosson or any other low down tough. Maybe it does. But I just think my father the bulliest feller on earth, and I love him mighty hard. I love him so well that I'd hate to give him a moment's pain. I tell you frankly that it would pain him if I didn't take this opportunity. It would pain him far more than anything we intend to do to him—when we get him here."
He rose from his seat and his good-natured smile swept over the faces of his companions.
"How do you say, gentlemen? Our work's done for to-night. Are we for bed?"
The people of Snake's Fall were in the throes of that artificial excitement which ever accompanies the prospect of immediate and flowing wealth in a community which has been feverishly striving with a negative result.
Nor was this excitement a healthy or agreeable wave of emotion. It was aggressive and vulgar. It was hectoring and full of a blatant self-advertisement. Men who had never done better for themselves than a third-rate hotel, or who had never used anything more luxurious than a street car for locomotion in their ordinary daily life, now talked largely of Plaza hotels and automobiles, of real estate corners and bank balances. They sought by every subterfuge to exercise the dominance of their own personalities in the affairs of the place, only that they might the further enhance their individual advantage. Schemes for building and trading were in everybody's minds, and money, so long held tight under the pressure of doubt, now began to flow in one incessant stream towards the coffers of the already established traders.
Every boom city is more or less alike, and Snake's Fall was no variation to the rule. Gambling commenced in deadly earnest, and the sharpers, with the eye of the vulture for carrion, descended upon the place. How word had reached them would have been impossible to tell. Then came the accompaniment of loose houses, and every other evil which seems to settle upon such places like a pestilential cloud.
To Gordon, looking on and waiting, it was all a matter of the keenest interest, not untinged with a certain wholesome-minded disgust, and when he sometimes spoke of it in the little family circle at the ranch, or to the worldly-wise Mike Callahan in his barn, his talk was never without a hint of real regret.
"It makes a feller feel kind of squeamish watching these folks," he observed to Mike, as they sat smoking in the latter's harness-room one afternoon. "You see, if I didn't know the whole game was lying in the palm of my hand I'd just simply sicken at the sordidness of it. We can't feel that way, though. We're worse than them. They're just dead in earnest to beat the game by the accepted rules of it, which don't debar general crookedness. We're out to win by sheer piracy. Makes you laugh, doesn't it? Makes it a good play."
Mike was older, and had been brought up in a hard school.
"Feelin's don't count one way or the other, I guess," he replied contemptuously. "When it comes to takin' the dollars out of the other feller's pocket I'm allus ready and willin'. You can allus help him out after you beat him. Private charity after the deal is a sort of liqueur after a good dinner."
"Charity?" Gordon laughed.
"Well, maybe you got another name for it," retorted Mike indifferently.
"Several," laughed Gordon. "Rob a man and give him something back needs another name."
"They call it 'charity' in the newspapers when them philanthropists hand back part of the wad they've collected from a deluded public—anyway. It don't seem different to me." Mike's tone was sharply argumentative.
"It isn't different," agreed Gordon. "They're both a salve to conscience. The only thing is that public charity of the latter nature has the advantage of personal advertisement. I'm learning things, Mike. I'm learning that the moment you get groping for dollars, you've just tied up into a sack all the goodness and virtue handed out to you by the Creator and—drowned it."
Though Gordon was never able to carry any sort of conviction on these matters with Mike, his occasional regrets found a cordial sympathy in Hazel Mallinsbee. She watched him very closely during the days of waiting for the maturity of his schemes. She knew the impulse which had inspired him. She understood it thoroughly. It was humor, and she liked him all the better for it. She realized to the full all the depth of love Gordon possessed for his father, an affection which was not one whit the less for the fact that to all intents and purposes his object was the highway robbery of that parent.
It was something of a paradox, but one which she perfectly understood. She felt that it was a case of two strong personalities opposed to each other in friendly rivalry. Gordon had propounded his beliefs to a man of great capacity whose convictions were opposed. Opportunity had served the younger man, who now intended to drive his point home ruthlessly, with a deep, kindly humor lying behind his every act. She could imagine, though she had never seen James Carbhoy, these two men, big and strong and kindly, sitting opposite each other, smoking luxuriously when it was all over, discussing the whole situation in the friendliest possible spirit.
Her father offered little comment. Curiously enough, this man, who had so much at stake, deep in his heart did not approve of the whole thing. It was not that he possessed ordinary scruples. Had the conspiracy been opposed to anybody but Gordon's father he would have been heart and soul in the affair. He would have reveled in the daring of the trick which Gordon intended to carry out. As it was, he was old-fashioned enough to see some sort of heinous ingratitude and offense in the fact of a son pitted piratically against his father.
However, he, like his daughter, watched closely for every sign this son of his father gave. But while Hazel watched with sympathy and real understanding, he saw only with the searching eyes of the observer who is seeking the manner of man with whom he is dealing.
Once only, during the days of waiting and comparative inaction, he gave vent to his disapproval, and even then his manner was purely that of regret.
They were sitting together in the evening sunlight on the veranda of the ranch.
"Gordon, boy," he said in his deep, rumbling voice, after a long, thoughtful pause; "if I had a son, which I guess I haven't, it would hurt like sin to think he'd act towards me same as you're doing to your father."
His remark did not bring forth an immediate reply. When, however, it finally came, accompanied as it was by twinkling, mischievous blue eyes, and a smile of infinite amusement, Hazel, who was standing in the doorway of the house, fully understood, although it left her father unconvinced.
"If you were my father, I guess you wouldn't hate it a—little bit," Gordon said cheerfully. Then his eyes wandered in Hazel's direction, and presently came back again to her father's face. "Maybe I'll live many a long year yet, and if I do I can tell you right here that perhaps there'll only be one greater moment in my life, than the moment in which we win out on this scheme. I just want you to remember, all through, that I love my old dad with all that's in me. Same as Hazel loves you."
From that moment Gordon heard no further protest throughout all the preparations that had to be made. Silas Mallinsbee cheerfully acquiesced in all that was demanded of him. Furthermore, he tacitly acknowledged Gordon's absolute leadership.
Under that leadership much had to be done of a subtle, secret nature. The impression had to be created that the Buffalo Point interests had completely abandoned the game. It was an anxious time—anxious and watchful. David Slosson was kept under close surveillance by the four conspirators, and, to this end, Gordon and Silas Mallinsbee spent most of their time in Snake's Fall, which further added to the impression that their interests had been abandoned.
Having succeeded in bribing Steve Mason, the telegraph operator, in the first place, Peter McSwain further bought him body and soul over to their interests. Mallinsbee's purse was wide open for all such contingencies, and Steve was left with the comfortable feeling that, whatever happened, he had made sufficient money to throw up his job before any crash came, and clear out to safety with a capital he could never have honestly made out of his work.
Thus Gordon had been enabled at last to dispatch his urgent code message to his father, purporting as it did to come from David Slosson. It was an irresistible demand for the Union Grayling and Ukataw Railroad President's immediate presence in Snake's Fall. It had been made as strong as David Slosson would have dared to make it. Nor, when the answer to it arrived, would it ever reach the agent. Nothing was forgotten. Every detail had been prepared for with a forethought almost incredible in a man of Gordon's temperament and experience.
It was late evening the second day after the dispatching of Gordon's urgent message. He had not long returned home to the ranch with Hazel's father from a day amidst the excitement reigning in Snake's Fall. Hazel was in the house clearing away supper and generally superintending her domestic affairs. Silas Mallinsbee was round at the corrals in consultation with his ranch foreman. Gordon was alone on the veranda smoking and gazing thoughtfully out at the wonderful ruddy sunset.
For him there was none of the peace which prevailed over the scene that spread out before him. How could there be? Every moment of the two days which had intervened since the dispatching of his message had been fraught with tense, nervous doubt. Every plan he had made depended on the answer to that message, and he felt that the time-limit for the answer's arrival had been reached. It must come now within a few hours. He felt that he must get it to-morrow morning or never. And when it came what—what then? Would it be the reply he desired, or an uncompromising negative? He felt that the whole thing depended upon the relations between his father and his agent. He was inclined to think, from the very nature of the work his father had intrusted to Slosson, that those relations were of the greatest confidence. He hoped it was so, but he could not be absolutely sure. Therefore the strain of waiting was hard to bear.
While his busy thoughts teemed through his brain, and his unappreciative gaze roamed over the purpling of the distant hills, his ears, rendered unusually acute in the deep evening calm, suddenly caught the faint, distant rumble of a vehicle moving over the trail.
His quick eyes turned alertly. There was only one trail, and that was the road to Snake's Fall. The alertness of his eyes communicated itself to his body. He moved off the veranda and gazed down the trail, of which he now obtained a clear view. A team and buggy were approaching at a rapid rate, and, even at that distance, he fancied he recognized it as the one of Mike Callahan's which he had himself driven.
A wave of excitement swept over him. Could it be that——?
He went back to the veranda. The impulse to summon Mallinsbee was hard to resist. But he forced himself to calmness.
Five minutes later Mike Callahan drove up, and his team stood drooping and sweating.
"Say," he cried, in aggrieved fashion, "it jest set me whoopin' mad when that wire-tappin' operator fell into my barn with his blamed message, twenty minutes after you an' Mallinsbee had left. Look at the time of it. It had buzzed over the wire ha'f an hour before you went." Then he began to grin, and a keen light shone in his Irish eyes. "But when I see who it was from I guessed I'd need to get busy. 'Tain't in your fancy code. It's jest as plain as my face. Read it. The game's up to us. Guess it's our move next."
But Gordon was paying no attention to the Irishman. He was reading the brief message which at last set all his doubts at rest.
"Arrive Snake's Fall noon seventeenth."
It was addressed to Slosson, but there was no signature.
"That's to-morrow." Gordon's eyes lit. Then a shadow of doubt crossed his smiling face. "It's dead safe Steve hasn't sent a copy to Slosson?"
Mike grinned.
"Steve don't draw his wad till—we're sure."
"No."
At that moment Mallinsbee appeared round the angle of the building. Gordon's face was wreathed in smiles as he turned to him.
"We get to work—to-night," he said.
Mallinsbee nodded, without a sign of the other's excitement.
"So I guessed when I see Mike's team. Peter wise?"
"Yep." The Irishman's spirits had risen to a great pitch. "I put him wise."
"Splendid. He's got everything ready?"
Gordon was thinking rapidly.
"Better send your team round to the barn," said Mallinsbee, with that thoughtful care he had for all animals. "Then come inside and get some supper."
Mike prepared to drive round to the barn.
"I see the rack in his yard," he grinned.
"Good."
Then Gordon laughed. The last care had been banished. Now it was action. Now? Ah, now he was perfectly happy.
The night was intensely still. The last revelers in Snake's Fall had betaken themselves to their drunken slumbers. The only lights remaining were the glow of a small cluster of red lamps just outside the town at the eastern end of it, and the peeping lights behind the curtained windows of the houses to which these belonged. There was no need to question the nature of these houses. In the West they are to be found on the fringe of every young town that offers the prospect of prosperity.
There was a single light burning in the hall of McSwain's hotel. This was as usual, and would burn all night. For the rest, the house was in darkness. The last guest had retired to rest a full hour or more.
The stillness was profound. The very profundity of it was only increased by the occasional long-drawn dole of the prairie coyote, foraging somewhere out in the distance for its benighted prey.
The shadowed outbuildings behind the hotel remained for a long time as quiet as the rest of the world. The horses in the barn were sleeping peacefully. The fowls and turkeys and geese which populated the yard in daylight were as profoundly steeped with sleep as the rest of the feathered world. Even the two aged husky dogs, set there on the presumption of keeping guard, were composed for the night.
But after awhile sounds began to emanate from the dark barn. With the first sound a dog-chain rattled, and immediately a low voice spoke. After that the dog-chain remained still. Next came the sound of hoofs on the hard sand floor of the barn. They were hasty, but swiftly passing. The last sound was heard as two horses emerged upon the open, each led by a shadowy figure quite unrecognizable in the velvety darkness of the starlit night.
The horses moved across towards the vague outline of a large hayrack which stood mounted in the running gear of a dismantled wagon, and the figures leading them began at once to hook them up in place. While this was happening two other figures were loading the rack with hay from the corral near by, in which stood a half-cut haystack. Their work seemed to be more intricate than the usual process of loading a hayrack. There seemed to be a sort of wide and long cage in the bottom of the rack, and the hay needed careful placing to leave the interior of this free, while yet surrounding it completely and rendering it absolutely obscured.
In less than half an hour the work was completed, and the four men gathered together and conversed in low voices.
After this a fresh movement took place. The group broke up, and each moved off as though to carry out affairs already agreed upon. One man mounted the rack and took up his position for driving the team. Another stood near the rear of the wagon and remained waiting, whilst the other two moved towards the hotel.
These latter parted as they neared the building. One of them entered it through the back door, and as he came within the radiance of the solitary oil-lamp it became apparent that his face was completely masked. He moved stealthily forward, listening for any unwelcome sound, mounted the staircase, and was immediately swallowed up by the darkness of the corridor above.
Meanwhile his companion had taken another route. He had moved along the building to the left of the back door. His objective was the iron fire-escape which went up to the gallery outside the upper windows.
He found it almost at the end of the building, and began the ascent. In a few moments he was at the top, and, moving along the narrow iron gallery, he counted the windows as he passed them. At the fifth window he paused and examined it. The blind inside was withdrawn, and he ran over in his mind the various details which had been given him. He knew that the latch inside had been carefully removed.
He tried the window cautiously. It moved easily to his pressure, and a smile stole over his masked features when he remembered that ample grease had been placed in its slipway. It was good to think that these contingencies had been so carefully provided for.
The window was sufficiently open. The process had been entirely soundless, but he bent down and listened intently. Far away, somewhere inside, he could hear the sound of deep breathing. He made his next move quickly and stealthily. One leg was raised and thrust through the opening, and, bending his great body nearly double, he made his way into the room beyond.
Pausing for a few moments to assure himself that the sleeper in the adjoining room had not been disturbed, he next made his way towards the door, aided by the light of a silent sulphur match. He quickly withdrew the bolt, and was immediately joined by the man who had entered the hotel through the back door.
Now he turned his attention to the room itself. Yes, everything was as he had been told. It was a largish room, and a small archway, hung with heavy curtains, divided it from another. The portion he had entered was furnished as a parlor, and beyond the curtains was the bedroom. Signing to his companion to remain where he was, he moved swiftly and silently to the heavy drawn curtains. For a second he listened to the breathing beyond; then he parted them and vanished within.
David Slosson awoke out of a heavy sleep with a sudden nightmarish start. He thought some one was calling him, shouting his name aloud in a terrified voice.
But now he was wide awake in the pitch-dark room: no sound broke the silence. He was on his back, and he made to turn over on to his side. Instantly something cold and hard encountered his cheek and a whispering voice broke the silence.
"One word and you're a dead man!" said the voice. "Just keep quite still and don't speak, and you won't come to any harm."
David Slosson was no fool, nor was he a coward, but, amongst his other many experiences on the fringe of civilization, he had learned the power of a gun held right. He knew that his cheek had encountered the cold muzzle of a gun. Shocked and startled and helpless as he was, he remained perfectly still and silent, awaiting developments.
They came swiftly. The curtains parted and a man, completely masked and clad in the ordinary prairie kit of the West, and bearing a lighted lamp in his hand, entered the room. His first assailant, holding the gun only inches from his head, Slosson could not properly discern. Out of the corners of his eyes he was aware that his face was masked like that of the other, but that was all.
The newcomer set the lamp down on a table and advanced to the other side of the bed. Instantly he produced a strap, enwrapped in the folds of a thick towel.
Slosson realized what was about to happen, and contemplated resistance.
As though his thoughts had been read the man with the gun spoke again—
"Only one sound an' I'll blow your brains to glory. Ther' ain't no help around that you ken get in time. So don't worry any."
The threat of the gun was irresistible, and Slosson yielded.
The second man forced the strap gag into his mouth and buckled it tightly behind his victim's head. This done, the agent's hands were lashed fast with a rope. Then the gun was withdrawn and the wretched agent was assisted into his clothes, after the pockets had been searched for weapons.
In a quarter of an hour the whole transaction was completed, and, with hands securely fastened behind his back and the gag in his mouth fixed cruelly firmly, David Slosson stood ready to follow his captors.
During all that time he had used his eyes and all his intelligence to discover the identity of his assailants, but without avail. Even their great size afforded him no enlightenment, with their entire faces hidden under the enveloping masks.
In silence the light was extinguished. In silence they left the room and proceeded down the stairs. In silence they came to the waiting hayrack outside. Here Slosson beheld the other two masked figures, one on the wagon, and the other waiting at the rear of it. But he was given no further chance of observation. His captors seized him bodily and lifted him into the cage beneath the hay, while one of the men got in with him and now secured his feet.
After that more hay was thrown into the vehicle, till it looked like an ordinary farmer's rack, and then the horses started off, and the prisoner knew that, for some inexplicable reason, he had been kidnaped.
Mrs. Carbhoy had been concerned all day. When she was concerned about anything her temper generally gave way to a condition which her youthful daughter was pleased to describe as "gritty." Whether it really described her mother's mood or not mattered little. It certainly expressed Gracie's understanding of it.
To-day nothing the child did was right. She had called her physical culture instructress a "cat" that morning, only because she had been afraid to enter into a more drastic physical argument with her. For that her "gritty" mother had deprived her of candy for the day. She had refused to do anything right at her subsequent dancing lesson, in consequence, and for that she had had her week's pocket-money stopped. Then at lunch she had willfully broken the peace by upsetting a glass of ice-water upon the glass-covered table, and incidentally had broken the glass. For this she was confined to her school-room for the rest of the day, and was only allowed to appear before her disturbed mother at her nine-o'clock bed hour.
When a very indignant Gracie appeared before her mother to fulfill her final duty of kissing her "good-night," that individual was more "gritty" than ever. She was in the act of opening a bulky letter addressed to her in a familiar handwriting. Gracie knew at once from whom it came. Instantly the imp of mischief stirred in her bosom.
"What nursing home will you send Gordon to when he gets back?" she inquired blandly.
Her mother eyed her coldly while she drew out the sheets of letter-paper. She pointed to a wall bell.
"Ring that bell," she ordered sharply.
Gracie obeyed, wondering what was to be the consequence of her fresh effort. She had not long to wait. Her mother's maid entered.
"Tell Huxton to pack Miss Gracie's trunks ready for Tuxedo. She will leave for Vernor Court by the midday express. Her governesses will accompany her."
The maid retired. In an instant all hope had fled, and Gracie was reduced to hasty penitence.
"Please, momma, don't send me out to the country. I'm sorry for what I've done to-day, real sorry—but I've just had the fidgets all day, what with pop going away and—and that silly Gordon never coming near us, or—or anything. True, momma, I won't be naughty ever again. 'Deed I won't. Oh, say you won't send me off by myself," she urged, coming coaxingly to her mother's side. "There's Jacky Molyneux going to take me a run in his automobile to-morrow afternoon, and we're going to Garden City, and he always gives me heaps of ice-cream. Oh, momma, don't send me off to that dreadful Tuxedo."
At all times Mrs. Carbhoy was easily cajoled, and just now she was feeling so miserable and lonely since her husband had been called away on urgent business, she knew not where. Then here was another of Gordon's troublesome letters in her lap. So in her trouble she yielded to her only remaining belonging. But she forthwith sat her long-legged daughter on a footstool at her feet, and as penance made her listen to the reading of the letter which had just arrived. Somehow, in view of the previous letters from her son, Mrs. Carbhoy felt it to be impossible to face this new one without support, even if that support were only that of her wholly inadequate thirteen-year-old daughter.
"DEAREST MUM:
"Since Cain got busy shooting up his brother Abel, since Delilah became a slave to the tonsorial art and practiced on Samson, since Jael turned her carpentering stunts to considerable account by hammering tacks into poor Sisera's head, right through the long ages down to the record-breaking achievements of the champion prevaricator Ananias, I guess the crookedness of human nature has progressed until it has reached the pitch of a fine art, such as is practiced by legislators, diplomats and New York police officers.
"This is a sweeping statement, but I contend it is none the less true.
"I'd say that in examining the facts we need to study the real meaning of 'crookedness.' We must locate its cause as well as effect. Now 'crookedness' is the divergence from a straight line, which some fool man spent a lifetime in discovering was the shortest route from one given point to another. No doubt that fellow thought he was making some discovery, but it kind of seems to me any chump outside the bug-house and not under the influence of drink would know it without having to spend even a summer vacation finding it out, and, anyway, I don't guess it's worth shouting about.
"I guess it's up to us to track this straight line down in its application to ethics. That buzzy-headed discoverer also says a line is length without breadth. Consequently, I argue that a straight line is just 'nothing,' anyway. Then when a mush-headed dreamer starts right out to walk the straight line of life it's a million to one chance he'll break his fool neck, or do some other positively ridiculous stunt that's liable to terminate what ought to have been a promising career. I submit, from the foregoing arguments, the straight line of ethical virtue is just a vision, a dream, an hallucination, a nightmare. It's one of those things the whole world loves to sit around on Sundays and yarn about, and just as many folks would hate to practice, anyway. And this is as sure as you'll find the only bit of glass on the road when you're automobiling if you don't just happen to be toting a spare tyre.
"Seeing that you can't everlastingly keep trying to walk on 'nothing' without disastrous consequences, and, further, seeing the days of miracles have died with many other privileges which our ancestors enjoyed, such as being burned at the stake and painting up our bodies in fancy colors, it is natural, even a necessity, that 'crookedness' should have come into its own.
"Let's start right in at the first chapter of a man's life. It'll point the whole argument without anything else. It's ingrained even in the youngest kid to resort to subterfuge. Subterfuge is merely the most innocent form in a crook's thesis. Maybe a kid, lying in its cradle, with only a few days of knowledge to work on, don't know the finer points he'll learn later. But he knows what he wants, and is going to get it. He's going to get the other feller where he wants him, and then force him to do his bidding. It's his first effort in 'crookedness' when he finds the straight line of virtue is just a most uncomfortable nightmare. How does he do it?
"I guess it's this way. He needs his food. He guesses his gasoline tank needs filling. He don't guess he's going to lie around with a sort of mean draught blowing pneumonia through his vitals. He just waits around awhile to see if any one's yearning to pump up his infantile tyre, and when he finds there's nothing doing, why, he starts right in to make his first fall off the straight line of virtue. You see, the straight line says that kid's tank needs filling only at stated intervals. The said kid don't see it that way, so he turns himself into a human megaphone, scares the household cat into a dozen fits, starts up a canine chorus in the neighboring backyards, makes his father yearn to shoot up the feller that wrote the marriage service, sets the local police officer tracking down a murder that was never committed, and maybe, if he only keeps things humming long enough, sets all the State legal machinery working overtime to have his parents incarcerated for keeping an insanitary nuisance on the premises.
"See the crookedness of that kid? The moment he finds himself duly inflated with milk he lies low. Do you get the lesson of it? It's plumb simple. That kid wanted something. He didn't care a cuss for regulations. He just laid right there and said, 'Away with 'em!' He was thirsty, or hungry, or greedy. Maybe he was all three. Anyway, he wanted, and set about getting what he wanted the only way he knew. All of which illustrates the fact that when human nature demands satisfaction no laws or regulations are going to stand in the way. And that's just life from the day we're born.
"From the foregoing remarks you may incline to the belief that I have set out willfully to outrage every moral and human law. This is not quite the case. I am merely giving you the benefit of my observations, and also, since I am merely another human unit in the perfectly ridiculous collection of bipeds which go to make up the alleged superior races of this world, I must fall into line with the rest.
"If Abel gets in my way I must 'out' him. If I can manufacture a down cushion out of old Samson's hair to make my lot more comfortable, I'm just going to get the best pair of shears and get busy. If I'm going to collect amusement from studding that chump Sisera's head with tacks, why, it's up to me to avoid delay that way. And as for Ananias, he seems to me to have been a long way ahead of his time. They'd have had his monument set up in every public office in the country to-day. He'd have been the emblem of every trading corporation I know, and his effigy would have served as the coat-of-arms for the whole of the present-day creation.
"I trust you are keeping well, and the responsibility of guiding the development of our Gracie is showing no sign of undermining your constitution. Gracie is really a good girl, if a little impetuous. I notice, however, that impetuosity gives way before the responsibilities of life. So far she is quite young. I'm hoping good results when she gets responsibility.
"Give my best love to the old Dad, and tell him that he must be careful of his health in such a desperate heat as New York provides in summer time. I think a month's vacation in the hills would be excellent for him at this time of year. I am looking forward to the time when I shall see him again.
"You might tell him I hope to fulfill my mission under schedule time. If you do not hear from me again you will know I am working overtime on the interests in which I left New York.
"Your loving son,"GORDON.
"P.S.—It occurs to me I have not told you all the news I would have liked to tell you. But two pieces occur to me at the moment. First, that achievement in life demands not the fostering of the gentler human emotions, but their outraging. Also, no man has the right to abandon honesty until dishonesty pays him better.
"G."
The mother's sigh was a deep expression of her hopeless feelings as she finished the last word of her son's postscript.
Gracie watched her out of the corners of her eyes.
"What's the matter, momma?" she inquired.
Her mother broke down weakly.
"They haven't found a trace of him yet. They can't locate how these letters are mailed. They can't just find a thing. And all the time these letters come along, and—and they get worse and worse. It's no good, Gracie; the poor boy's just crazy. Sure as sure. It's the heat, or—or drink, or strain, or—maybe he's starving. Anyway, he's gone, and we'll never see our Gordon again—not in his right mind. And now your poor father's gone, too. Goodness knows where. I'll—yes, I'll have to set the inquiry people to find him, too, if—if I don't hear from him soon. To—to think I'd have lived to see the day when——"
"I don't guess Gordon's in any sort of trouble, momma," cried Gracie, displaying an unexpected sympathy for her distracted parent. Then she smiled that wise little superior smile of youth which made her strong features almost pretty. "And I'm sure he's not—crazy. Say, mom, just don't think anything more about it. And I'd sort of keep all those letters—if they're like that. You never told me the others. May I read them? I never would have believed Gordon could have written like that—never. You see, Gordon's not very bright—is he?"
Snake's Fall was in that sensitive state when the least jar or news of a startling nature was calculated to upset it, and start its tide of human emotions bubbling and surging like a shallow stream whose course has been obstructed by the sudden fall of a bowlder into its bed.
Early the following morning just such a metaphorical bowlder fell right into the middle of the Snake's Fall stream. The news flew through the little town, now so crowded with its overflowing population of speculators, with that celerity which vital news ever attains in small, and even large places. It was on everybody's lips before the breakfast tables were cleared. And, in a matter of seconds, from the moment of its penetration to the individual, minds were searching not only the meaning, but the effect it would have upon the general situation, and their own personal affairs in particular.
David Slosson, the agent of the Union Grayling and Ukataw Railroad, had defected in the night! He had gone—bolted—leaving his bill unpaid at McSwain's hotel!
For a while a sort of paralysis seized upon the population. It was staggered. No trains had passed through in the night. Not even a local freight train. How had he gone? But most of all—why?
The next bit of news that came through was that Peter's best team had been stolen from the barn, also an empty hay-rack. This was mystifying, until it became known that Peter's buggy was laid up at Mike Callahan's barn, undergoing repairs. The hayrack was the only vehicle available. But what about saddle horses for a rapid bolt? Curiously enough it was discovered that Peter's saddle horses were out grazing. Besides, the story added that the man had taken his baggage with him. Not a thing had been left behind, and baggage like his could not have been carried on a saddle horse.
The story grew as it traveled. It was the snowball over again. It was said that Peter had been robbed of a large amount of money which he kept in his safe. Also his cash register had been emptied. An added item was that Peter himself had been knifed, and had been found in a dying condition. In fact every conceivable variation of the facts were flung abroad for the benefit of credulous ears. Consequently the tide of curious, and startled, and interested news-seekers set in the direction of Peter's hotel at an early hour.
Then it was that something of the real facts were discovered. And, in consequence, those who had participated in Slosson's land deals, and had received deposit money, congratulated themselves. While those who had not so profited felt like "kicking" themselves for their want of enterprise.
Peter stormed through his house the whole morning. He was like a very hot and angry lion in a cage far too small for it. His story, as he told it in the office, was superlative in furious adjectives.
"I tell you fellows," he cried, at a group of wondering-eyed boarders in his establishment, "I ha'f suspected he was a blamed crook from the first moment I got my eyeballs onto him. The feller that 'll bilk his board bill is come mighty low, sirs. So mighty low you wouldn't find a well deep enough for him. He had the best rooms in the house at four an' a ha'f dollars a day all in, an' I ain't see a fi' cent piece of his money, cep' you ken count the land deposit he paid me. I just been right through his rooms, an' he ain't left a thing, not a valise, nor a grip. Not even a soot of pyjamas, or a soap tablet. He's sure cleared right out fer good, and we ain't goin' to see him round again," he finished up gloomily.
Then his fire broke out again.
"But that ain't what I'm grievin' most, I guess. Ther's allus skunks around till a place gets civilized up, an' their bokay ain't pleasant. But he's a hoss thief, too. There's my team. You know that team of mine, Mr. Davison," he went on, turning to the drug storekeeper who had dropped in to hear his friend's news. "You've drove behind 'em many a time. They got a three-minute gait between 'em which 'ud show dust to any team around these parts. That team was worth two thousand dollars, sirs, and was matched to an inch, and a shade of color. Say, if I get across his tracks, an' Sheriff Richardson is out after him with a posse, I'm goin' to get a shot in before the United States Authorities waste public money feeding him in penitentiary. I'm feelin' that mad I can't eat, an' I don't guess I'd know how to hand a decent answer to a Methodist minister if he came along. If I don't get news of that team I'm just going to start and break something. I don't figure if he'd burned this shack right over my head I'd have felt as mad as I do losin' that dandy team."
When questioned as to how the man had got away his answer came sharply.
"How? Why, what was there to stop him, sir? I tell you right here we ain't been accustomed to deal with his kind in Snake's. The folk around this layout, till this coal boom started, has all been decent citizens." He glared with hot eyes upon the men about him, who were nearly all speculators attracted by that very coal boom. "There's that darned fire-escape out back, right down from his room, an' what man has ever locked his barn in these parts? Psha!" he cried, in violent disgust. "I've had that team three years, and I've never so much as had a lock put to the barn."
So it went on all the morning. Peter's fury was one of the sights of the township for that day. He was never without an audience which flowed and ebbed like a tide, stimulated by curiosity, self-interest, and the natural satisfaction of witnessing another's troubles which is so much an instinct of human nature.
And beneath every other emotion which the agent's sudden defection aroused was a wave of almost pitiful meanness. The dreams of the last week and more had received a set back. In many minds the boom city was tottering. The crowding hopes of avarice and self-interest had suddenly received a douche of cold water. What, these speculators asked themselves, and each other, did the incident portend, what had the future in store?
So keen was the interest worked up about Peter McSwain's house that every other consideration for the time being was forgotten. Party after party visited Slosson's late quarters with a feeling of conviction that some trifling clew had been overlooked, and, by some happy chance, the luck and glory of having discovered it might fall to their lot. But it was all of no avail. The room was absolutely empty of all trace of its recent occupant, as only an hotel room can become.
With the excitement the daily west-bound passenger train was forgotten, and by the time it was signaled in, the little depot was almost deserted. There were one or two rigs backed up to it on the town side, and perhaps a dozen townspeople were present. But the usual gathering was nowhere about.
Amongst the few present were Hazel Mallinsbee and Gordon. They had driven up in a democrat wagon with a particularly fine team, and having backed the vehicle up to the boarded platform, they stood talking earnestly and quite unnoticed. Hazel was dressed in an ordinary suit that possessed nothing startling in its atmosphere of smartness. Her skirt was of some rather hard material, evidently for hard wear, and the upper part of her costume was a white lawn shirtwaist under a short jacket which matched her skirt. Her head was adorned by her customary prairie hat, which, in Gordon's eyes, became her so admirably.
Gordon was holding up a picture for the girl's closest inspection.
"Say, it's sheer bull-headed luck I got this with me," he was saying. "I found it amongst my old papers and things when I left New York, and I sort of brought it along as a 'mascot.' The old dad's older than that now, but you can't mistake him. It's a bully likeness. Get it into your mind anyway, and then keep it with you."
Hazel gazed admiringly at the portrait of the man who claimed Gordon as his son. For the moment she forgot the purpose in hand.
"Isn't he just splendid?" she exclaimed. "You're—you're the image of him. Why, say, it seems the unkindest thing ever to—to play him up."
Gordon laughed.
"Don't worry that way. We're going to give him the time of his life." Then he glanced swiftly about him, and noted the emptiness of the depot. "I guess Peter's keeping the folks busy. He's a bright feller. I surely guess he's working overtime. Now you get things fixed right, Hazel. The train's coming along."
The girl nodded.
"You can trust me."
"Right." Gordon sighed. "I'll make tracks then. But I'll be around handy to see you don't make a mistake."
He left the depot and disappeared. Hazel stood studying the picture in her hand, and alternating her attention with the incoming train. She was in a happy mood. The excitement of her share in Gordon's plot was thrilling through her veins, and the thought that she was going to meet his father, the great multi-millionaire, left her almost beside herself with delighted interest.
She wondered how much she would find him like Gordon. No, she thought softly, he could never be really like Gordon. That was impossible. A multi-millionaire could never have his son's frank enthusiasm for life in all its turns and twistings of moral impulse. Gordon faced life with a defiant "don't care." That glorious spirit of youth and moral health. His father, for all his physical resemblance, would be a hard, stern, keen-eyed man, with all experience behind him. Then she remembered Gordon's injunctions.
"Be just yourself," he had said. Then he had added, with a laugh, "If you do that you'll have the dear old boy at your feet long before the day's had time to get cool."
It was rather nice Gordon talking that way, and the smile which accompanied her recollection was frankly delighted. Anyway she would soon know all about it, for the train was already rumbling its way in.