CHAPTER XIV
The next morning when Jardine issued early forth from the little blue reception room, where he had tossed sleepless almost throughout the night on the folding cabinet bed, he paused on the verandah, staring in stultified amaze. Not a tent was visible on the square, not a huckster's stand. The great circumference of the Ferris Wheel no longer vexed with its incongruous periphery the august mountain scene which it had framed. Not a spieler's horn could be heard, nor an echo of the brazen melodies of the band; the wooden horses of the merry-go-round seemed to have galloped away in the night. There was not even the mast for the high dive, nor the reservoir that broke the fall of the leaping acrobat. The street fair had vanished, like an exhalation of the night in the beams of the morning sun. Jardine might have doubted his senses, save for the crowds of wondering rustics that wandered dolefully up and down the pavements, disconsolate, disappointed. Now and again groups paused before written notices pasted on the door of the courthouse and of the post office, and at the distance seemed to discuss it, and then moved aimlessly away, making space for other groups on like errands. Another placard was at the main entrance of the hotel, also under frequent consultation by drearily strolling groups of the more prosperous class of country folks. It was of course impossible to decipher it at the distance, but as Jardine moved toward it he was accosted by the duck-like clerk, seated in the office window opening on the verandah.
"Complete surprise, ain't it?" said the clerk jovially. "Jig's up."
"The fair is gone?" asked Jardine futilely.
"Do you see any fair?" quacked the duck. "I don't."
"Isn't it very sudden?" Jardine demanded.
"Liked to broke my neck," declared the clerk hyperbolically. "Left on the morning train."
"What's the reason for it?" Jardine asked, looking again toward the posted notice.
He was experiencing the most intense relief. All the troubles that had infested his consciousness were annihilated. The vanishing of the street fair was like awakening from a nightmare—a deep sense of gratitude contended with a feeling that his troubles had been unreal, overstrained, gratuitous.
"Oh, they give the plain facts—straight goods—honest fellow, that Lloyd. Couldn't pay expenses any longer—only made their transportation in three days. Disbanded show, and lit right out."
He had jumped down on the inner side of the office, then turned anew to the window, as if with a sudden thought.
"That fellow, Captain Ollory—keen to get away—never saw a man so rattled! Here in the office last night they had it out—oneof them had to stay.Hewouldn't—he'd have walked to New York first—said so—perfectly wild!"
Jardine looked for a moment as if he had beheld a Gorgon's face—his own seemed petrified.
"Then that manager—that rascal Lloyd is here yet?" he asked.
The clerk seemed disconcerted.
"Hard phrase, Mr. Jardine." Then he hesitated as if he thought he had said too much. It was no part of his duty as clerk of the Avoca House of Colbury to censor the guests' criticism of each other. "Poor business, but no man could behave more fairly. Lloyd wanted to go, but gave up the preference. Ollory seemed possessed to get away—Haxon, I should say. And there was not money enough for both."
Jardine could hardly control his irritation, the revulsion was so great. He had just been liberated from all his fears and anxieties to find himself suddenly enmeshed anew. It mattered little indeed that the foolish, sordid, futile paraphernalia of the fair had been removed, if the point of danger in divers interpretations, the man himself, remained. As he stood by the window, frowning down in deep absorption at the floor, silent, forbidding of aspect, cold and formal as always, the clerk resumed, somewhat at a loss.
"Lloyd, too, seemed frantic to be off," he said. "He could hardly resign himself."
He laughed a little at the forlorn plight; it had to him its ludicrous suggestions. "'Sent for, but couldn't go,'" he quoted gaily.
Jardine made no answer; he was reflecting that both men had doubtless the best of reasons for quitting the country; he hardly questioned that they were amenable to the Federal law in some measure for conspiring with the distillers for the sale of illicit liquor, and reciprocally profiting thereby through the enterprise of the street fair. The manager was obviously the responsible individual, the principal, and his apprehension would rebound with all its conspicuous derogations upon the personnel of Jardine's own select party. Since one must needs remain, it was a thousand pities that that one could not have been the innocuous Captain Ollory.
He did not speak, and the clerk had an unpleasant fear that he had offended him, for the sake of a phrase, forsooth, in the disparagement of the most absolute stranger, for whom the duck in reality did not care a single quack. He waxed suddenly very genial and confidential, and Jardine, who under other circumstances would have resented the gossip as familiar and intrusive, was an eager listener—absurdly enough he had so much at stake in the personality of this man Lloyd.
"'Twas as good as a play," the clerk laughed, "in the office late last night,—a much better play than any they bill—when they counted out the money—had it in my desk. All couldn't get off. Ollory wanted to leave Wick-Zoo, too, but it seemed the wild man had money of his own. They paid him with a due bill, ha, ha! Ollory wanted to leave the Fat Lady; he said she was too fat to be disturbed—I don't know whether he meant mentally or physically—and Lloyd—he's a funny fellow!—he swore he wouldn't mention such a thing; she was a high-toned lady, if she was a bit stout! He declared he never would run off and leave a part of his company stranded, least of all a woman, and one, by her infirmity, helpless to shift for herself—he'snot a bad egg, Mr. Jardine! When Lloyd saw it must fall between himself and Ollory—Ollory had the money in his paw; he grabbed it as soon as it was laid on the counter, and to do him justice he counted out only the transportation—and Lloyd had the bag to hold, he tried to raise the money for his railroad fare on a personal valuable that he's got. Told him nobody here did pawn-broking. Tried me."
"Why didn't you lend it to him?" exclaimed Jardine suddenly, seeing a way out of the difficulty. It had never occurred to him to pay the man to go, lest he implicate himself in he knew not what—though money was no object in this connection. But it was indeed grievous to perceive a means of extrication so simple, so near, and cast aside.
"Didn't know how valuable valuable might be," the clerk laughed. "Step in here, Mr. Jardine. Show it to you. Left in safe."
It was a thing of which Mr. Jardine would never have believed himself capable as he stepped through the window and addressed himself to appraise a valuable which an unknown man had left in the custody of an hotel safe. But he made up his mind, however worthless the trinket might be, to advance to the clerk the necessary sum, to be loaned through him, without mention of the source whence it came. Anything to be rid of the incubus of the showman!
His face changed as the clerk touched the spring of a small leather case. There, reposing on a bed of faint blue Genoa velvet, so faded as to be near green, was a ring set with a large pigeon's blood ruby; a row of very white diamonds was encrusted into the dull gold of the setting, but the red stone was held up in claws, and was visible throughout.
Jardine had a sudden monition of caution. These were gems of price, doubtless stolen! He could not—he would not involve himself further in such a matter, whatever æsthetic discomforts, whatever mortifying publicity incidents of far less moment might occasion Miss Lucia Laniston. Every throb of his impulse was still. He was once more the cautious man of the world.
"Worth the money?" the clerk queried curiously.
"Worth forty times the money," Jardine calmly responded. If the Avoca House should oblige a guest by lending money on good security it would rid him of his dilemma, and affect him no further. But beyond this he promised himself he would not be urged by his adoring, worshipful reverence for the pellucid aloofness and unapproachableness befitting a young girl, that lent her the dignity and remote charm of a star. There were sordid matters to consider in this world, and the responsibility of trafficking with stolen goods was one of them.
"But look here; these rubies are sometimes what you call doublets, ain't they? Just a sort of veneer of the real thing over glass."
"This is no doublet," said Jardine, taking the gem into his hand. "This is a genuine and very perfect stone of a very rare type—the pigeon's blood ruby."
As he looked at it he was impressed with the antique aspect of the ring; the setting was in gold of several different tints—green, red, yellow in two shades. He had not given much attention to ornaments of this order, but he knew that this method of setting was antiquated, not to say antique. He thought of the incongruity with the sordid little show—the high dive, Wick-Zoo, the Ferris Wheel. More than ever the conviction that the gem was stolen took possession of him. He suffered suddenly a qualm of conscience. He felt that the clerk was of limited experience and needed a warning. He ought not to be suffered unnecessarily to lose his money and involve himself.
"It is so fine, so rare, and so valuable that I am very sure it must be stolen. I don't say by whom, or when."
"Oh, Mr. Jardine," said the clerk, quite self-sufficient. His cheek reddened. He was blushing for the imputation. "Don't you think you are quite a littletoosuspicious?"
"Perhaps—perhaps! At all events you are warned," said Mr. Jardine, as he walked past the safe, around the desk, and out of the office by the door, rather than informally through the window as he had entered.
The clerk looked after him with no very friendly eyes, then he snapped the old ring in its dingy leather case, and locked it in the safe with Mr. Jardine's careful warnings. The value of the jewels ascertained he was prepared to lend the amount of transportation upon it; should he not be repaid he would profit enormously, and he was altogether willing to take the risk that however in the vicissitudes of his life the showman had come by the ring it was honestly owned.
Before the hack started for New Helvetia—it was indeed standing in front of the door—Frank came fuming up into his mother's room, where she, his sister, and his cousin were putting on their hats, preparatory to the journey. The young girls were fresh and bright again in their white dresses, which had, indeed, been sent to the laundry to be pressed and now showed as unwrinkled and perfect as if the stiff linen skirts and dainty little embroidered jackets were donned for the first time. The embroidered frills of their lingerie hats shaded, yet did not shadow, their fair faces, which showed no trace of the fatigue and excitements of yesterday, save that Lucia seemed a bit pale, and her eyes were larger and more appealing than usual. They were putting on their long silk gloves, now and then turning to eye each other from head to foot, for they entertained an enthusiastic mutual admiration, and were wont to point out a hair awry, or a line out of plumb with a serious rebuke, as of sacrilege.
Mrs. Laniston was not ill-pleased to be getting back to New Helvetia, but she regarded the outing as a highly successful break to the monotony. She could not enter into Mr. Jardine's sentiments in reference to the little fair; she had noticed his impatience with its grotesqueness and shortcomings, and in the privacy of the domestic circle had commented adversely. Did he think it was the Paris Exposition? she had demanded sarcastically of her daughter and niece. There is a sort of leniency of judgment peculiarly becoming to the highly bred and highly placed. Mrs. Laniston realised, for example, that the little village hotel was not the finest type of house of entertainment in all the world, but one was fairly comfortable there, and she seemed courteously unaware that there was aught better or more pretentious in New York or London, so long as she was under its hospitable roof. To be easily entertained with the best attainable was an instinct with her, and when Frank, his boyish face red and his scanty frown drawn above vexed and troubled eyes, paused with his hands in his pockets, complaining, "I do declare, that fellow Jardine bullyrags the life out of me," she was predisposed to be her son's partisan, and to discriminate against some ultra-fastidious prejudice of Mr. Jardine's of the sort which, if regarded, would already have destroyed every vestige of pleasure which the humble little outing could afford. She whirled half around from the bureau, where she was standing before the mirror putting on her wide black hat, holding it with one hand, while with the other she thrust a hat pin tentatively back and forth through the structure, seeking to find a steady grip in her masses of grey-blond hair.
"In the name of pity!" she ejaculated, gazing inquiringly at him.
"Ye-es," he whined, "anybody would think I was born yesterday, and couldn't find my way to the hall door there."
"Well, what is it now?" she asked impatiently, with another thrust of the hat pin forceful enough to seem to the uninitiated very dangerous.
"Well," he pushed both hands far down in his pockets and took an aimless step to and fro, his red face overcast and crestfallen with the sense of being thought a fool, and such a realisation of his own immaturity as prevented the recouping satisfaction of a full faith in himself. "I found that that fellow Lloyd would be here a little while waiting for remittances—it seems the whole show came very near being stranded, and, like the captain of a sinking ship, he is the last to leave. Well, it seemed no great absurdity to me, as he is a first-class, all-round professional athlete, such as I am not likely to meet again in a hurry, to ask him to give me a few lessons in boxing. I'mboundto have exercise, and a punchbag is such a lonesome fool!"
Mrs. Laniston evidently did not see the point as yet. The hat adjusted at last, she began to pull on her black silk gloves over her rather bony jewelled fingers, gazing the while into the mirror, to which reflection he addressed his appeal.
"Do you see anything extraordinary in that project?"
"Except the expense of coming from and going to New Helvetia," she replied a little wonderingly. "I always did think the monopoly of that hack line ought to be put down. The charges are extortionate—it is practically impossible to go back and forth as one might like to do in excursions about the country if rates were reasonable."
"Why, that is what I told the fellow—that I could better afford the price of the lessons if he were waiting at New Helvetia, instead of here in Colbury."
"And then?" Mrs. Laniston was very dense; she did not yet perceive the point.
"Then Lloyd inquired as to the hotel rates at New Helvetia, and when he found they were lower at this season than the charges for transient guests at this place he said that he had no objection to going to New Helvetia—that it would be a change for him, and that he was fed up with Colbury."
"See here, Frank, you are developing a gift for oratory. Why don't you come to the point, if thereisany point?" Mrs. Laniston, who herself could hold forth so volubly and with such a flow of well-considered words, admonished him.
"Why, it seemed such an advantageous arrangement; he said, first off, that he could give much better value for the money. He could coach me, too, for the track team—it seems he was once a short-distance sprinter—free of charge. He said we could just run up and down the roads for fun, if they were as good as I said. And then we could have a few bouts with the foils, once in a while—he took a prize for fencing once in an athletic contest—showed me the medal. And I'm getting so fat!" Frank's voice rose to a dreary plaint. "I was perfectly scandalised this morning when I stepped on the public scales on the other side of the square——"
"We understand," murmured Ruth. "Where they weigh the other prize calves."
He looked at her with a little grin of appreciation, but, absorbed in the subject, went on without retort. "I shall be ruled out of every athletic event at college this year. Whereas, if I train down, and have this splendid coach to get me fit I may be able to take my place on the gridiron just as if I hadn't been away; it's only a substitute playing with the Eleven now."
Mrs. Laniston's mind quickly reviewed the situation. So long as athletics did not interfere with scholastic grading, her husband and she had agreed that they were to be encouraged. Frank had neither the tastes nor the application of a student, but he possessed a good mind, and a very sound conscience. Since his parents desired he should have a collegiate education, and take a degree, he read with great diligence, and they sugar-coated the pill by endorsing the college athletics, and giving him all the outdoor sport that was craved by his physique, abounding in vitality and vigour. It was a compact in some sort, unacknowledged, but very definitely appreciated, that he should grind and toil, and assimilate a thousand ideas for which, so far, he had neither use nor liking, and pass his examinations creditably, and that he should be unmolested to play as he would.
"Yes; it seems an excellent arrangement for the purpose. Mr. Jardine is a man of very judicious conclusions, but I can't imagine his objections in this instance."
"Simply threw a fit! I told him that Lloyd and I had signed up a little contract, for I want only to promise to pay for the boxing lessons. I couldn't, out of my allowance, undertake to pay forallthat fellow could teach me—he could teach me something of value for every wink of my eyelids. And Lloyd chimed in, too, and said it was best to have it understood, for we would probably be lonesome, and spend the time playing—with Indian clubs, and dumb-bells, and wrestling—and we had better set down what was to be work, and what was to be pastime."
"Come to the point, Frank! Youarelong-winded!" his mother admonished him. She had sunk into a chair, and, as the two girls were ranged side by side on the sofa, he stood before the family in the guise of a domestic orator, and made a desperate bolt at the main statement of his disclosure.
"Threw a fit! Adjured me not to compromise the dignity of the family!"
There was a feminine chorus of exclamations.
"Crazy, ain't he?" said Frank. "I told him a few lessons in boxing couldn't compromise the dignity of any family that had any dignity. He said I perversely misunderstood him. For a fact he did. Said it was thepersonhe objected to. Emphasisedpersonas if he would like Lloyd better if he went on four feet, like Wick-Zoo, once in a while. I asked him what was the matter with Lloyd. Said that on account of my folly he had had an opportunity to ride with Miss Laniston in the Wheel."
"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Mrs. Laniston.
And the two young ladies grew breathless and round-eyed.
"It was his own fault—he should have called off the event; he could have said that he was waiting for me; his party was not complete. I did not dare suggest this, though. I declare I have had to eat enough humble-pie this morning to destroy my appetite forever." And Frank drew out his handkerchief, and, with a long-suffering air, mopped his shining, roseate, fresh face.
"I think it was very ill-judged in Mr. Jardine to bring the mention of Miss Laniston into the matter," said Mrs. Laniston, her delicate features flushing with irritation.
"In my humble mind that was the only impropriety committed," said Frank. "But of course on account of my youth, and being a sort of standard fool, I did not dare to say so. But I did pluck up enough to state that we could not consider Lloyd's riding in the Wheel with Miss Laniston in any sense except as a convenience to her, to weight the machine, and we could not base any action on any other hypothesis."
"You were very right," said his mother heartily, and Frank, encouraged by this infrequent and unexpected approval, took heart of grace to continue, fetched a long sigh of relief, and once more mopped his face with his handkerchief.
"I said to Jardine that there had been no presumption whatever in the man's conduct, and that the suggestion was offensive to us."
"Very well, indeed," said Mrs. Laniston. She was thinking that Frank, after all, was not so incompetent as a squire of dames, and was realising how the contortion of the circumstances in Jardine's mind would affect George Laniston, should he hear that version.
"But you won't believe that he wouldn't accept the situation. He called me a boy, and of course I had to submit to that. He said the showman had noticed our family at table—he had been offended to observe it. As if, in this free and enlightened country, people should fall on their faces, with their faces in the dust at our august approach. I reminded him that the bullet-eyed man stared at us, and that it waswewho stared at the manager, who is liable to that sort of thing, for he has got the face of a god or an archangel—told me, when I asked him where was his photograph in the show collection, that he had promised Duroc, the painter, not to be taken till his great picture, 'The Last Day,' is finished. Lloyd is the model for the angel Gabriel in that, and he says it's great, though he thinks the horn makes him look like a translated spieler."
"But about Mr. Jardine——"
"Mamma, I think I am the most put-upon fellow that ever lived. That great Jay stopped Lloyd as he passed and told him that I was a minor, and incapable of making a contract—in my presence, mind you;in my presence!"
"Why, Frank!" exclaimed Mrs. Laniston, amazed and offended.
"Oh, he did it in a sort of innocuous way—he's very crafty; said I'd been telling him about the arrangement, and then, as if jocularly reminding me of a disability, said that I was a minor, and the contract invalid. He slicked it over and smoothed it down. I think he could smooth down the Great Smoky Mountains, if he should try his hand on them."
"And what did Mr. Lloyd say?" asked Mrs. Laniston, very seriously annoyed and indignant.
"Really, he seemed the best-bred man of the two. He said he would consider my word as good as my bond—the contract was merely a memorandum, as between us two, determining what exercises should be considered business and be paid for, the rest being merely amusement and voluntary. He passed it off easily, but I felt extremely out of countenance."
"I must say Mr. Jardine takes a good deal on himself," Mrs. Laniston said, holding her head very high, the colour mantling her cheek, "and his standpoint is very unreasonable. That you should not hire the services of an athletic coach, because he took a vacant place beside Miss Laniston, in order to weight the machine and make it safe, there being no one else for the purpose in the party, he being the manager and owner of the apparatus, is more than preposterous. We must take no notice of Mr. Jardine's assumptions that there was anything derogatory in the matter. We will treat the man like any other stranger. And now let us get back to New Helvetia where, thank a merciful providence, there is somebody besides the wearisome Mr. Jardine!"
The approach to New Helvetia ushered Lloyd into a new experience, despite his wide wanderings in many ways. The trails he had followed had not sought seclusion; a full population, showward bent, was the desideratum of his journey's goal hitherto. He had scarcely realised that there was so lonely a region on the face of the earth as the dense and gigantic forests through which the smooth, hard, red clay road led. The scarlet oak, the sumach, and the sourwood on exposed slopes to the north had turned red, and flaunted gorgeously against the blue sky. The foliage of hickory now and again appeared at sudden turns, a clear translucent yellow from trunk to topmost twig. Here and there great grey crags showed through boughs still green and lush, that yet held the summer captive, loath to let it go. There was a stream that kept the road company, as if apart they might be affrighted in the vast unbroken wildernesses, and now it showed a miniature cataract, clear as crystal, fringed with foam, leaping down great broken ledges; and now it brawled, widening into marshy tangles by the wayside; and now it ran over rocks, and flashed and frothed like rapids; and now it showed stretches of smooth golden flow above a bed of gravel, with here and there the sudden silver glinting of a water-break. He watched it with a sort of fascinated revery, unconsciously marking its moods and garnering its spirit. Occasionally a gap in the woods showed the mountains, vast, endless, austere, dominating all the world, and he appreciated that the road was continuously rising by gentle degrees to higher and higher levels. The horses were fleet and strong; the roads only fairly good, for in some localities the rain had converted the red clay into mud of a most tenacious character; elsewhere the downpour had come with such force as to beat the ground hard. Here they bowled swiftly; the driver, evidently, had a monition toward atoning for the interval when they toiled and bogged through the sloughs. There had been a delay at the last moment; a new passenger presented himself who could not be ready to start till one o'clock, and, though Mr. Jardine had protested that he had chartered the hack,—in the phrase of the region,—the driver declared that the orders of the line required him to take up all the custom he could gather before it was necessary to leave town in order to make the run before dark. The episode had greatly irritated Jardine, but he found a certain consolation in the fact that the presence of this representative of the general public, so to speak, exerted a repressive influence on the exuberance of the two young ladies. The incidents that had marked the trip down were not repeated—the pauses to alight and gather wild flowers; the shrieks of delight over some lovely vista of the stream and protestations how dear it would be to wade in the shallow crystal flood, floored with golden gravel and great solid ledges of moss-grown rock; the determination which could not be gainsaid to visit the shaft of a mine, worked for silver, in a primitive way, hard by, where a windlass was in operation. Lucia unexpectedly stepped into the swaying bucket above the abyss of ninety feet, holding her skirts tight about her, and ordered the men to lower her, that she might look into the intersecting tunnel. "I'll bring you luck," she declared. "I'm a mascot!"
"Shure I niver knew till to-day, leddy, that anny o' the fairies had emigrated from Oirland, their native land," said an old Irishman, as she alighted from the bucket, relinquishing, with pretended reluctance, the descent which her aunt with some precipitancy forbade; the compliment in a rich brogue, and the flattering twinkle of the eye had set Jardine wild, but Mrs. Laniston had laughed pleasantly, and had descanted elaborately, after they were in the stage once more, on the national gift of blended blarney and poesy that tips the tongue of an Irishman, of whatever degree, wherever found.
Now all was changed. Strangers were fellow-travellers. Placed with Mrs. Laniston on the back seat of the "hack," the young ladies had relapsed into the inexpressive, sedate demeanour which they assumed so easily when subjected to the gaze of the outside world. It might have been different, thought Jardine, if only Lloyd—who had unluckily acquired a quasi acquaintance—had been added to the family party.
The person who thus reconciled Mr. Jardine to the fact of his creation and appearance on this occasion was himself disposed to take little note of the personnel and conditions of his environment. He was a tall, portly man, with a strong, handsome, rather round, face, a florid complexion, and round, somewhat staring, eyes; middle-aged, soberly dressed, and extremely reticent. Beyond an undeveloped feint of a bow to the assemblage in the hack when he entered the vehicle, he accorded none of them a moment's notice. He had the front seat beside the driver; each of the other two seats held three passengers, Jardine being between Lloyd and Laniston, and controlling the very scanty conversation, taking the word whenever an observation was ventured by either. This line of tactics greatly nettled Frank, who, being unable to appropriately return it in kind, relapsed into a marked silence. Lloyd was apparently not aware of its significance, for he responded pleasantly, though monosyllabically, but indeed Jardine permitted nothing more.
When they reached the foot of the mountain, however, and the driver paused to breathe the horses, the men alighting to lessen the burden for the steep ascent, the stranger, who had presumably been profiting by the platitudes with which Mr. Jardine had beguiled the journey, did not select his company as solace in the long, stiff tramp. On the contrary he attached himself to Lloyd, and together they were soon well in advance of the straining team, while Frank and Jardine walked on either side of the vehicle and talked to the ladies over the high wheels. Here, out of sight and beyond the participation of the mere outsiders, Mr. Jardine was pleased to unbend, and be most affable and entertaining, for he did not include in the scheme of creation such objects as the driver—the mere furniture of life—a stalwart young mountaineer, walking nimbly beside his team, holding the reins in his hand, and calling out admonitions and encouragements. As he could not, afoot, use the brake Frank found occupation and utility in "scotching" the wheels with a big stone, or locking them with the chain, generally used to impede a too rapid descent, whenever the team was halted on the steep acclivity for a few minutes of breathing space.
Lucia, with her quick faculties, was well-fitted for a duplicate mental process. She smiled appropriately when Jardine made his neat little points of mirth, or nodded serious acquiescence, when his remarks seemed of weight. In reality she gave him only the most superficial attention, barely enough to discern the trend of his talk. Her interest was concentrated on the two pedestrians ahead, and once more she wondered how the showman should look such a gentleman. The road curved and doubled in innumerable turns to evade slants impossible to the straining horses. Looking upward one could see it here and there in the breaks of the thinning foliage, suggesting unwound coils of brown ribbon. The wind came fresh and free, laden with the sweet dank odours of the fallen leaves, the exquisite freshness of the mountain heights, and all the bouquet and tang of the wayside herbage. It brought the words of the two pedestrians, now passing them on a higher level, and visible above a mass of broken rock.
"Late in the season to visit the mountain resorts," the elder man observed.
"They are usually closed by this time," Lloyd politely responded.
"I suppose the yellow fever in the South detains their patrons."
Then they both trudged silently on.
The horses were once more urged forward; in their improved speed Jardine and Frank both fell behind. The driver, who had no possibility of comprehending the many finical delicacies which racked Mr. Jardine's prepossessions, kept up the pace till he had passed the two passengers on ahead, and when next he paused in the shade to rest, the stanch team, sweating at every pore, they presently overtook in turn the stationary vehicle, and stoutly marched past, without a word or glance for the occupants.
"Fine water at these springs?" suggested the stranger.
"So I hear, but I am new to the place—never was here before," Lloyd replied.
His fine figure was especially marked, the perfection of strength and symmetry, as he went swinging past, his hands in the pockets of his light fawn-tinted suit, his hat tipped slightly over his eyes, a spray of the jewel-weed, which he had caught up by the wayside, in his buttonhole, keeping step with his portly companion, who was content to pound over the ground anyhow, regardless of grace, as a man of his weight must needs be.
Jardine, all blown, and panting, and eager from his hasty pull after the hack—he and Frank had sought to shorten the distance by a cross-cut through from one curve to another, and hindered by brambles and obstructed by boulders, had found it hard travelling—had noticed, too, the figures on ahead, and had heard the words as the wind wafted to him the casual talk. He had taken off his hat, and was wiping the traces of his exertion from his brow with his fine white cambric handkerchief.
From time to time the elder stranger fixed the eyes of a very close and keen observation on his companion. He was evidently interested, even inquisitive.
"You hardly look as if you need the waters for your health, sir," he said.
"I am particularly fit, just now," said Lloyd. But he made no advances to gratify the curiosity of his new acquaintance. His reserve struck Jardine with a peculiarly sinister suggestion. Did the showman fear this stranger, and why? He remembered his own conclusion, that the street carnival had been involved in the sale of the moonshine whisky and that the manager as representative was personally liable. A new fear fell upon him like a thunderbolt. This stranger was doubtless a detective, an emissary of the revenue department, who was tracking and shadowing this man till he had grounds sufficient for the arrest. And Frank Laniston—the callow fool!—had brought upon him, upon his own family so ill-flavoured and derogatory an association. Nothing had supervened like this—the detective might arrest the creature at any moment, and had the authority to call on him, and Laniston, and the driver as aposse comitatusto assist him in apprehending and securing his prisoner. What else could bring a man of this type here, at this season, an evident stranger to the locality, when the sojourners of the Spa had flitted home, and business was booming in the cities, and only a few old habitués of the place, a mere handful, lingered, extending the summer, to avoid the yellow fever in the South.
As these thoughts surged through Jardine's mind he followed the vehicle with so disordered and exhausted a step, although he was of a stanch, wiry, and tough physique, that Mrs. Laniston called out to him, inviting him to ride for a while, saying there was quite a level stretch of road ahead, and the additional weight would not harass the horses here. He so far collected his faculties as to express his thanks, and protest his comfortable state, and then fell back to contemplate the horrible possibility. Good God! what would people say! In what fantastic guise would they imagine he disposed of himself, to come into such a plight. He, too, kept an eye on the two figures in advance, and he gave strict heed to their words, as in detached fragments they floated back.
Evidently Lloyd thought a counter-query was in order.
"They say the waters have wonderful medicinal qualities. Do you expect to take them?"
"Me—no, no, sir. No, indeed. I am here on a piece of business, important business. Out-of-the-way place."
He seemed not only to Jardine, but to Lloyd, to cast a singularly sharp and wary eye upon the figure at his side. In fact he was obviously scanning the contour of the showman's face for some moments, when he suddenly said:
"If it is not an impertinence, sir, may I ask your motive in visiting New Helvetia?"
"Business, too, in a way," said Lloyd. "I am a coach for that young gentleman beside the hack."
"The classics?" the stranger asked respectfully.
"Oh, Lord, no!" poor Lloyd burst out explosively. "Excuse me, but I'm an athletic coach. He wants to train down for the gridiron—and he needs it, too—going all to fat."
Once more the long keen scrutiny, from which Lloyd visibly winced; his cheeks reddened; his hot, hunted eyes gazed straight ahead; his step flagged. Nevertheless he held his ground and kept his self-control.
"And is this coaching your regular profession?" the inquisitive stranger persisted.
"I have no regular profession," Lloyd hesitated. Then, gathering his nerve with a mighty effort, he boldly risked absolute candour. "I have done many stunts in the athletic line. Performed in circuses and shows; sung a little, too——" with a wry contortion of his perfectly chiselled lips, for he knew what good music is, and he loved it. "But lately I have been trying to make some money on my own account. I have been the manager of a street fair——"
"Oh, fool, fool, fool!" Jardine apostrophised him, between set teeth.
"A good, clean show it was," continued Lloyd, "some unparalleled attractions; finest high dive I ever saw. But we went to pieces here—got stranded—and——"
The wind carried away the words, and as Jardine, still muttering, "Fool—fool," looked up, he saw the tall, portly figure stop short, lean forward, and clutch the manager excitedly by the arm. The next moment the foliage intervened. Suddenly there rose on the air Lloyd's voice, pitched high, in wild agitated exclamations, and the deep, steady, bass tones of the stranger. Then was silence, and the forests received them, and the tourists below saw and heard no more.