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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Egypt Went Broke, by Holman Day
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: When Egypt Went Broke
+
+Author: Holman Day
+
+Release Date: April 13, 2006 [EBook #4733]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN EGYPT WENT BROKE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; John Bickers
+
+
+
+
+
+WHEN EGYPT WENT BROKE
+
+A NOVEL
+
+
+By Holman Day
+
+
+
+
+WHEN EGYPT WENT BROKE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+T. BRITT STARTS TO COLLECT
+
+Tasper Britt arose in the gray dawn, as usual.
+
+Some fishermen, seeking bait, stay up late and "jack" angleworms with
+a bull's-eye light. The big worms are abroad on the soil under cover
+of the darkness. Other fishermen get up early and dig while the dew is
+holding the smaller worms near the surface of the ground; in going after
+worms the shrewd operator makes the job easy for himself.
+
+Tasper Britt--"Twelve-per-cent Britt"--trimmed his slumber at both
+ends--was owl and early bird, both, in his pursuit of the pence of the
+people, and got 'em coming and going.
+
+He was the money boss for the town of Egypt, and those who did not give
+him his per cent nickname called him "Phay-ray-oh"--but behind his back,
+of course. To his face his debt slaves bespoke his favor obsequiously.
+Seeing that nearly every "Egyptian" with collateral owed him money, Mr.
+Britt had no fault to find with his apparent popularity. He did believe,
+complacently, that he was popular. A man who was less sure of himself
+would not have dared to appear out, all at once, with his beard dyed
+purple-black and with a scratch wig to match. Men gasped when they came
+into his office in Britt Block, but men held their faces measurably
+under control even though their diaphragms fluttered; the need of
+renewing a note--paying a bonus for the privilege--helped supplicants
+to hold in any bubbling hilarity. Therefore, Mr. Britt continued to be
+assured that he was pretty generally all right, so far as the folks of
+Egypt were concerned.
+
+Mr. Britt dyed after Hittie died. That was when he was past sixty-five.
+
+It was only the familiar, oft-repeated instance of temperament being
+jounced out of a lifelong rut by a break in wedlock relations.
+
+Hittie was his yoke-mate, pulling hard at his side with wages of food
+and drink. The two of them kept plodding steadily in the dry and rocky
+road all the years, never lifting their eyes to look over into pastures
+forbidden. Perhaps if Hittie had been left with the money, after the
+yoke had been sundered, she would have kicked up her heels in a few
+final capers of consolation, in order to prove to herself, by brief
+experience, how much better consistent sainthood was as a settled state.
+
+In view of such a possibility--and widows are not altogether different
+from widowers--it was hardly fair in the folks of Egypt to twist every
+act of Widower Britt to his discredit and to make him out a renegade of
+a relict. He did go through all the accepted motions as a mourner. He
+took on "something dreadful" at the funeral. He placed in the cemetery
+lot a granite statue of himself, in a frock coat of stone and holding a
+stone plug hat in the hook of the elbow. That statue cost Tasper Britt
+rising sixteen hundred dollars--and after he dyed his beard and bought
+the top piece of hair, the satirists of Egypt were unkind enough to say
+that he had set his stone image out in the graveyard to scare Hittie if
+she tried to arise and spy on his new carryings-on.
+
+Mr. Britt had continued to be a consistent mourner, according to the
+old-fashioned conventions.
+
+When he arose in the dawn of the day with which the tale begins and
+unwound a towel from his jowls--for the new Magnetic Hair Restorer had
+an ambitious way of touching up the pillow-slip with color--he beheld
+a memento, composed of assembled objects, "sacred to the memory of
+Mehitable." In a frame, under glass, on black velvet were these items:
+silver plate from casket, hair switch, tumbler and spoon with which
+the last medicine had been administered, wedding ring and marriage
+certificate; photograph in center. The satirists had their comment for
+that memento--they averred that it was not complete without the two dish
+towels to which Hittie had been limited.
+
+Mr. Britt inspected the memento and sighed; that was before he had
+touched up his beard with a patent dye comb.
+
+After he had set the scratch wig on his glossy poll and had studied
+himself in the mirror he looked more cheerful and pulled a snapshot
+photograph from a bureau drawer, gazed on it and sighed again. It was
+the picture of a girl, a full-length view of a mighty pretty girl whose
+smiling face was backed by an open sunshade. She was in white garb and
+wore no hat.
+
+"Vona," said Mr. Britt, talking out as if the sound of his voice
+fortified his faith, "you're going to see this thing in the right way,
+give you time. I'm starting late--but I'm blasted wide awake from now
+on. I have gone after money, but money ain't everything. I reckon that
+by to-night I can show you honors that you'll share with me--they've
+been waiting for me, and now I'll reach out and take 'em for your sake.
+Hittie didn't know what to do with money--honors would have bothered
+her. But with a girl like you I can grab in and relish living for the
+rest of this life."
+
+Then Mr. Britt went over to the tavern to get his breakfast.
+
+By eating his three meals per day at the tavern he was indulging his new
+sense of liberty. He and Hittie always used to eat in the kitchen--meals
+on the dot, as to time. The tavern was little and dingy, and Egypt was
+off the railroad line, and there were few patrons, and old Files cut his
+steak very close to the critter's horn. But after the years of routine
+at a home table there was a sort of clubman, devil-may-care suggestion
+about this new regime at the tavern; and after his meals Britt sat in
+the tavern office and smoked a cigar. Furthermore, he held a mortgage
+on the tavern and Files was behind on the interest and was eagerly and
+humbly glad to pay his creditor with food. In order to impress a peddler
+or other transient guest the creditor was in the habit of calling in
+Files and ordering him to recook portions.
+
+In his new sense of expansion as a magnate, Tasper Britt took his time
+about eating and allowed men with whom he had dealings to come into the
+dining room and sit down opposite and state their cases.
+
+That morning Ossian Orne came in and sat at the table without asking for
+permission to be admitted to such intimacy. He came with the air of a
+man who was keeping an appointment, and Mr. Britt's manner of greeting
+Orne showed that this was so.
+
+Mr. Orne did not remove the earlapper cap which the nippy February day
+demanded; nor did he shuck off the buffalo coat whose baldness in the
+rear below the waistline suggested the sedentary habits of Mr. Orne.
+He selected a doughnut from the plate at Britt's elbow and munched
+placidly.
+
+Landlord Files, who was bringing ham and eggs to a commercial drummer,
+was amazed by this familiarity and stopped and showed that amazement. He
+was more astonished by what he overheard. Mr. Orne was saying, "As your
+manager, Britt--"
+
+Mr. Britt scowled at Mr. Files, and the latter slap-slupped on his
+slippered way; it was certainly news that Britt had taken on a manager.
+Such a personage must be permitted to be familiar. When Mr. Files looked
+again, Mr. Orne was eating a second doughnut. He was laying down the law
+to a nodding and assenting Mr. Britt on some point, and then he took a
+third doughnut and rose to his feet.
+
+"I'll be back to-night, with full details and further instructions to
+you, Britt," declared Mr. Orne, who was known in the county political
+circles as "Sniffer" Orne. He combined politics with nursery-stock
+canvassing and had a way of his own in getting under the skins of men
+when he went in search of information. "If I ain't back to-night I'll
+report to-morrow. I may have to take a run over into Norway, Vienna, and
+Peru to make sure of how things stand generally."
+
+He trudged out, stooping forward and waddling with the gait of a parrot
+ambling along on a pole; his projecting coat tail and his thin beak
+gave him a sort of avian look. The commercial drummer, overhearing his
+projected itinerary, glanced out of the window as if he expected to
+see Mr. Orne spread wings and fly. But Mr. Orne tucked himself into a
+high-backed sleigh and went jangling off along Egypt's single street.
+
+The stranger, inquiring of Mr. Files, learned that Mr. Orne was not as
+much of a globe-trotter as he sounded.
+
+"It's only the way the Old Sirs named the towns in the ranges about here
+when the land was took up. In this range we have Egypt and them other
+towns you heard him speak of. In the next range below are Jerusalem and
+Damascus and Levant and Purgatory Mills. If them unorganized townships
+to the north of us are ever took up and made towns of, it would be just
+like some whifflehead to name 'em Heaven, Hell, Hooray, and Hackmetack.
+But the name of Egypt fits this town all right," stated Mr. Files,
+disconsolately, and in his perturbation raising his voice.
+
+"Files, don't run down your home town," rasped Mr. Britt.
+
+"What has been run down as far's it can be run can't be run no farther,"
+said the landlord. "And I 'ain't said why the name Egypt fits the town,
+for that matter." Britt's ugly stare was taking the spirit out of the
+landlord's rebelliousness.
+
+"Suppose you do say!" counseled Mr. Britt, menace in his tones. "I've
+got a new and special reason, right now, why I demand that every citizen
+must uphold the good name of our town--especially a citizen in your
+position, first to meet all arriving strangers. Why does the name fit
+this town?" He banged the handle of his knife on the table.
+
+Mr. Britt had reason for the heat which he was displaying and which
+caused the stranger to open his eyes more widely. Mr. Britt was fully
+aware that men called him "Phay-ray-oh" and that his statue in the
+cemetery was called "The Sphinx." He knew that since the town had
+gone on the down grade through debt and the decay of industries the
+inhabitants had begun to call themselves "The Children of Israel,"
+and to say they were trying to make bricks without straw. In fact, an
+itinerant evangelist who called himself "The Light of the World" had
+come to town and was trying to exhort the inhabitants into rebellion
+against conditions, and in his crack-brained hysteria was having some
+success in exciting "The Children" to protest against the domination by
+Tasper Britt.
+
+Mr. Files was not as handy with his tongue as he was with the mallet
+with which he pounded steak. He struggled with an inept reply about
+an old town having a dignified old name. He stuttered and stopped when
+Britt came and stood in front of him, chewing savagely on a toothpick.
+
+"Files, I wasn't intending to make a formal announcement till my
+political manager, Ossian Orne, gets back with reports from the field.
+Not but what I expect that when it is known that I'm willing to accept
+political honor it will be given to me. But when I sit in the next
+legislature of this state as Representative Britt of Egypt, I propose to
+represent a town that ain't slurred at home or abroad. Hereafter, mind
+your tongue and advise others to do the same."
+
+He stamped out. Landlord Files was left standing with an open mouth from
+which no speech issued.
+
+"Emperor, or only a plain king?" inquired the bagman.
+
+"You being a stranger, I can let out some of my feelings," returned Mr.
+Files. "Emperor, you say? He might just as well try to be one as to run
+for the legislature."
+
+The drummer showed interest.
+
+"That's what getting to be a widderer can do to some men," confided the
+landlord. He placed a smutty hand on the table and leaned down. "That
+legislature thing ain't the half of it, mister! He hasn't blacked his
+whiskers and bought that false mane simply so as to get into politics.
+He's trying to court the prettiest girl in this town."
+
+"Aha!" said the drummer. "The old story! Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, is
+doing the job over again with the local Mark Antony!"
+
+"Mebbe," admitted Mr. Files, his fishy gaze revealing that he had no
+personal knowledge of the parties mentioned. "It's the old story, all
+right. Widdereritis, and a bad run of it."
+
+The bagman had a scarfpin in the shape of a horse shoe. His comment was
+in line with his taste in adornment. "Files, old scout, if a colt is put
+to harness so early that he can't get his natural fling in the fields,
+he'll have it at the other end of his life, when he's let run to
+pasture, spavin or no spavin. Why don't Egypt hold off and let Uncle
+What's-his-name enjoy his new hair and hopes?"
+
+"He has known how to collect in the money that's due him," stated
+Mr. Files, "compound interest and all! He was only getting back his
+investments. But he has never put out any of the kind of capital that
+earns liking or respect or love. He has woke up to what he has been
+missing. He's trying to collect what he has never invested. And he can't
+do it, mister! No, sir, he can't!"
+
+The drummer was a young man. He asked a natural question. "Isn't the
+girl willing to be an old man's darling?"
+
+"You might go over to Britt's bank and ask her," suggested Mr. Files,
+crisply. "She's bookkeeper there. But you'd better not let that young
+fellow that's cashier overhear you."
+
+"So that's it? Say, events in Egypt in the near future may make some of
+the mummies here sit up and take notice!"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder a mite," agreed Mr. Files, beginning to gather up the
+dishes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+FIRST COLLECTIONS
+
+That morning Mr. Britt did not dawdle in the hotel office with his
+cigar. He knew perfectly well that he merely had been making a pretense
+of enjoying that sybaritism, putting on his new clubman airs along with
+his dye and his toupee.
+
+Among other curios in the office was a dusty, stuffed alligator, hanging
+from the ceiling over the desk. The jaws were widely agape and Mr.
+Britt always felt an inclination to yawn when he looked alligatorward.
+Therefore, the alligator offended Mr. Britt by suggesting drowsiness
+in the morning; Mr. Britt, up early, and strictly after any worm that
+showed itself along the financial path, resented the feeling of daytime
+sleepiness as heresy. Furthermore, that morning the gaping alligator
+also suggested the countenance of the open-mouthed Files whom Britt
+had just left in the dining room, and Files had been irritating. Britt
+scowled at the alligator, lighted a cigar, and hustled outdoors; he had
+the feeling that the day was to be an important one in his affairs.
+
+Egypt's Pharaoh was able to view considerable of the town from the
+tavern porch. The tavern was an old stage-coach house and was boosted
+high on a hill, according to the pioneer plan of location. The houses of
+the little village straggled down the hill.
+
+The aspect was not uninviting, seen under the charitable cloak of
+February's snow, sun-touched by the freshly risen luminary, the white
+expanses glinting; all the rocks and ledges and the barren shapes were
+covered. But under summer's frank sunlight Egypt was as disheartening a
+spectacle as a racked old horse, ribs and hip bones outthrust, waiting
+for the knacker's offices.
+
+There were men in Egypt--men whose reverses had put them in a
+particularly ugly mood--who said out loud in places where Britt could
+not hear them that the money-grabber could not get much more than
+twelve-per-cent blood out of the nag he had ridden for so long, and
+might as well set knife to neck and put the town out of its misery.
+
+Right behind Britt, as he stood on the porch, was a sheaf of yellowed
+papers nailed to the side of the tavern. Nobody in Egypt bothered to
+look at the papers; all the taxpayers knew what they were; the papers
+were signed by the high sheriff of the county and represented that all
+the real estate of Egypt had been sold over and over for taxes and had
+been bid in by the town as a municipality--and there the matter rested.
+Egypt, in other words, had been trying to lift itself by the bootstraps
+and was not merely still standing on the ground, but was considerably
+sunk in the hole that had been dug by the boot heels while Egypt was
+jumping up and down. Mr. Britt was not troubled by the sight of the
+yellowed papers; he owned mortgages and pulled in profit by the legal
+curiosities known as "Holmes notes"--leeches of particular drawing
+power. Mr. Britt did not own real estate. Egypt, in its financial stress
+and snarl of litigation, was a wonderful operating field for a man with
+loose money and a tight nature.
+
+From far swamps the whack of axes sounded. Mr. Britt knew that men were
+cutting hoop poles and timber for shooks; Egypt earned ready money
+with which to pay interest, getting out shooks and hoop poles. That
+occupation had been the resource of the pioneers, and the descendants
+stuck to the work, knowing how to do it better than anything else. There
+was not enough soil for farming on a real money-making scale. The old
+sheep, so cynics said, were trained to hold the lambs by their tails and
+lower them head downward among the rocks to graze. Poor men usually
+own dogs. But dogs would not live long in Egypt, the cynics went on to
+assert; the dogs ran themselves to death hustling over the town line to
+find dirt enough to bury a bone.
+
+Mr. Britt could see his statue in the cemetery.
+
+Down the street was a one-story brick building, the only brick structure
+in the town. Set into the front of this building was a replica of the
+statue in the cemetery. Britt had secured special rates by ordering two
+statues from the stonecutter. Britt possessed vanity. He had hidden it,
+begrudging the cost of gratifying it. The crust of his nature, hardening
+through the years, had pressed upon that vanity. The statues, his
+refurbished beard, and his rehaired head had relieved the pressure
+somewhat, but the vanity was still sore. In his new mood he was dreading
+a blow on that sore spot. He realized what kind of a grudge he was
+carrying around. A vague sense of an unjust deal in life is more
+dangerous to the possessor than an acute and concrete knowledge of
+specific injury. The vagueness causes it to be correlated to insanity.
+Britt, putting his belated aspirations to the test, hoped that nobody
+would presume to hit on that sore spot. He knew that such an adventure
+might be dangerous for the person or persons who went up against him.
+
+He buttoned his overcoat, settled the cigar rigidly into one corner of
+his mouth, stared with approval at the stone image of himself in the
+facade of Britt Block, and walked to the edge of the porch.
+
+Across the street sat a little building above the door of which was a
+sign inscribed, "Usial Britt, Shoemaker." That it was a dwelling as well
+as a shop was indicated when a bare and hairy arm was thrust from a side
+window and the refuse in a smoking iron spider was dumped upon the
+snow. Simultaneously it was shown that more than one person tenanted the
+building: a man, bareheaded, but with a shaggy mat of roached hair that
+served in lieu of a hat, issued from the door. The wanton luxuriance of
+the hair would have stirred envy in any baldheaded man; but Tasper Britt
+exhibited a passion that was more virulent than envy.
+
+The man who came forth was "Prophet Elias." It was the newcomer, the
+religious fanatic, the exhorter against oppression of the people by
+usury, the fearless declaimer who named Tasper Britt in diatribe and was
+setting the folks by the ears.
+
+The Prophet's morning greeting did not make for amity. He stood straight
+and pointed in turn to the visible statues and then to Tasper Britt, in
+person. "Baal, and the images of Baal!" he shouted. "Stone, all three!"
+
+Then he stepped from the door and spread a prodigiously big umbrella--an
+umbrella striped in dingy colors and of the size of the canopies seen
+over the drivers of delivery wagons. The employment of such a shield
+from the sun in midwinter indicated that the Prophet was rather more
+than eccentric; his garb conveyed the same suggestion. He wore a frayed
+purple robe that hung on his heels when he came striding across the
+street. On a broad band of cloth that once had been white, reaching from
+shoulder to waist, diagonally across his breast, were the words, "The
+Light of the World."
+
+Tasper Britt surveyed him with venomous gaze as he advanced. But Britt
+shifted his stare and put additional venom into the look he gave a
+man who came to the door and stood there, leaning against the jamb and
+surveying the scene with a satisfied grin. There was no need of the name
+"Britt" above his head to proclaim his kinship with the man who stood on
+the tavern porch. The beard of the Britt in the door was gray, and his
+head was bald. But he was Tasper Britt, in looks, as Britt unadorned
+ought to have been. There was something like subtle reproach in his
+sticking to nature as nature had ordained. And the folks of Egypt had
+been having much to say about Usial Britt putting this new touch of
+malice into the long-enduring feud between twin brothers--even though
+he merely went on as he had been going, bald and gray. But because Usial
+had taken to going about in public places wherever Tasper appeared, and
+unobtrusively got as near his brother as possible on those occasions,
+and winked and pointed to himself and suggested "Before using!" the
+malice was apparent.
+
+Usial, in the door, stroked his smooth poll complacently and grinned.
+
+Tasper, on the porch, shook his fist.
+
+Prophet Elias marched close to the porch and struck an attitude. "Hear
+ye! Hath not Job said, 'The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the
+joy of the hypocrite but for a moment'?"
+
+A man who was humped over a sawbuck in a nearby yard straightened up
+and began to pay strict attention. A driver halted a sled loaded with
+unshaved hoop poles, and listened. The commercial drummer came out on
+the porch.
+
+"Look here, you crazy coot, haven't I given you fair warning about
+tongue-whaling me in public?" demanded the man who was pilloried.
+
+"'Behold, all they that are incensed against thee shall be ashamed and
+confounded,'" quoted the Prophet, pounding his fist against the lettered
+breast. "'They shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall
+perish.'"
+
+Mr. Britt leaped off the porch, thrust the Prophet from his path, and
+strode across the street toward the man in the door. The brother did
+not lose his smile. He maintained his placid demeanor even when an angry
+finger slashed through the air close under his nose.
+
+"I never intended to pass speech with you again, you renegade," stormed
+Tasper. "But I'm talking to-day for a town that I propose to represent
+in the legislature, and I won't have it shamed any longer by a lunatic
+that you're harboring."
+
+Usial Britt lifted his eyebrows. "The legislature?" He puckered his lips
+and whistled a few bars of "Hail to the Chief."
+
+Candidate Britt waggled the monitory finger more energetically. "You are
+sheltering and ste'boying on a crazy man who is making the rest of the
+people in this town crazy. If they hadn't grown loony they'd ride him
+out over the line on a rail."
+
+The Prophet had arrived at Britt's shoulder. "'But God has chose the
+foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the
+weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.'"
+
+"I don't guarantee my guest's brains," said the Britt in the door, "but
+I do vouch for the correctness of his memory when it comes to the matter
+of Gospel quotations. And a cracked record doesn't always spoil a good
+tune."
+
+"I'll have him in the lockup as a tramp, or on the poor farm as a
+lunatic."
+
+"You mean, that's where you would have him if the shelter of my roof
+didn't give him legal protection," returned Usial, calm in the face of
+wrath.
+
+"'I was a stranger, and ye took me in,'" declaimed the Prophet.
+
+"And I'm keeping you on," stated the cynical Usial, speaking for his
+brother's benefit, "because you're a self-operating, red-hot gad that
+is helping me torment yon pirate with texts after I had run out of cuss
+words. Go ahead, Prophet! Shoot anything. It's a poor text that will not
+hit him some place."
+
+Obediently, the fanatic began to mouth Holy Writ in orotund. Tasper
+Britt raised his fist. But the devil himself shrinks before The Word.
+Britt did not strike. His face revealed his emotions; he could not bring
+himself to assault this fountain of sacred aphorisms.
+
+He turned and marched away down the middle of the road, stamping hard
+into the snow.
+
+One of the listeners was a man who came bearing a pair of shoes. Usial
+Britt took them from the man's hand. "You can have 'em to-morrow night."
+
+"But there's only a little patch needed--"
+
+"To-morrow night, I said. I've got other business for to-day." He went
+into the house and slammed the door.
+
+The Prophet set his umbrella over his head and went away on the trail of
+Egypt's Pharaoh.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MORE COLLECTIONS
+
+There was a door in the middle of the facade of the low brick building;
+there were two windows on either side of the door. On the left-hand
+windows was painted in black letters, "Egypt Trust Company." On the
+right-hand windows was painted, "T. Britt." There was no legend to
+indicate what the business of T. Britt might be. None was required. The
+mere name carried full information for all Egypt.
+
+Mr. Britt glanced in at the left-hand windows as he approached the door.
+Cashier Frank Vaniman was sweeping out.
+
+When President Britt of the new Egypt Trust company went down to
+a business college in the city in search of a cashier, he quizzed
+candidates in quest of what he termed "foolish notions." Young Mr.
+Vaniman, who had supported himself ever since he was fourteen years old,
+and had done about everything in the ten years since then in the way of
+work, grabbing weeks or months for his schooling when he had a bit of
+money ahead, passed the test very well, according to Mr. Britt's notion.
+Young Mr. Vaniman had secured a business education piecemeal, and was a
+bit late in getting it, but Mr. Britt promptly perceived that the young
+man had not been hung up by stupidity or sloth. So he hired Vaniman,
+finding him a strapping chap without foolish notions.
+
+Vaniman was cashier, receiving teller, paying teller, swept out, tended
+the furnace, and kept the books of the bank until Britt hired Vona
+Harnden for that job. Vona had been teaching school to help out her
+folks, in the prevailing Egyptian famine in finance.
+
+But folks stopped paying taxes, and the town orders by the school
+committee on the treasurer were not honored; therefore, Vona gratefully
+took a place in the bank when Mr. Britt called her into his office one
+day and offered the job to her. He said that the work was getting to
+be too much for Frank. That consideration for hired help impressed Miss
+Harnden and she smiled very sweetly indeed, and Mr. Britt beamed back at
+her in a fashion that entirely disarranged for the rest of the day
+the set look that he creased into his features before his mirror every
+morning. Several clients took advantage of his blandness and renewed
+notes without paying the premium that Britt exacted when he loaned his
+own money as a private venture.
+
+President Britt entered the door, but he did not go into the bank at
+once. He marched along the corridor and unlocked his office and toasted
+himself over the furnace register while he finished his cigar; Vaniman
+was a good fireman and was always down early. Mr. Britt kept his ear
+cocked; he knew well the tap of certain brisk boot heels that sounded in
+the corridor every morning and he timed his movements accordingly.
+
+By being on the alert for sounds, he heard what did not comport with the
+comfort of his office. Prophet Elias was engaged in his regular
+morning tour of duty, picketing T. Britt's domains, giving an hour to
+deliverance of taunting texts before going abroad through the town on
+his mission to the people with texts of comfort; the Prophet carried
+plenty of penetrating, textual ammunition, but he carried poultices for
+the spirit as well.
+
+Mr. Britt heard: "'Will he esteem thy riches? No, not gold, nor all the
+forces of strength.'"
+
+The usurer commented under his breath with remarks that were not
+scriptured. He threw away his cigar and went to a case where he kept
+some law books which contained the statutes that were concerned
+with money and debts and dependence; he had been hunting through the
+legislative acts regarding vagrants and paupers and had been hoping
+to light on some legal twist that would serve him. The Prophet kept on
+proclaiming. But all at once he shifted from taunts about riches. His
+voice was mellow with sincere feeling.
+
+Said the Prophet: "'Behold, thou art fair, my love; thou hast doves'
+eyes within thy locks. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep which came up
+from the washing. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech
+is comely. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.'"
+
+Mr. Britt did not wait in his office for the completion of the
+panegyric. He knew well enough what arriving personage it heralded. He
+hurried out into the corridor and faced the radiant girl who came in
+from the sunshine. Even one who might question the Prophet's tact would
+not have blamed his enthusiasm.
+
+"Vona, you swear out a warrant and I'll have him arrested," stammered
+the employer.
+
+She checked a chirrup of laughter and her smile faded when she opened
+her eyes on Britt's sourness.
+
+"There's a law about hectoring and insulting a female person on the
+street--some kind of a law--and we'll invoke it in this case," Britt
+insisted.
+
+"Why, Mr. Britt, he's only a harmless old man with extremely poor
+judgment about most things, including a girl's looks," she protested.
+
+"Don't you call that gabble an insult to you, walking along and minding
+your own business?" His heat was alarming; he shook his fist to indicate
+the Prophet.
+
+She was unable to restrain her demure smile. "The specifications, sir,
+are overflattering; but I'm sure I don't feel insulted."
+
+In the past Britt had purred paternally in her presence and had stared
+at her in a way that often disconcerted her. Now his expression alarmed
+her. His face grew red. At first she thought he was embarrassed by
+the reflection that he had been terming the Prophet's compliments an
+insult--intimating that she had no claim to such compliments. But Mr.
+Britt did not bother to deal with that phase of the matter. The flame
+was shifted from his face to his eyes; his cheeks grew pale. He tried
+to put his arm about her. She set her gloved hands against the arm and
+pushed it away, fright popping her eyelids wide apart.
+
+"I want to protect you," Britt stuttered. "I don't want any harm or
+trouble to come to you."
+
+He stepped back and gazed at her imploringly. His abashed obedience, his
+promptness in desisting, restored her self-possession immediately. She
+had the air of one who had misunderstood friendly interest. "Oh, Mr.
+Britt, I know you have a kind heart underneath your--I mean that folks
+don't realize how good you are unless they are near to you, as Frank
+and I are. We often speak of it." She hurried on. She opened the door
+admitting to the bank from the corridor and cheerily called her "Good
+morning!" to the cashier as she crossed the threshold.
+
+Mr. Britt stood in his tracks in the corridor after she closed the door.
+He stared at the floor with eyes that saw nothing. He slowly raised
+his hand and set his right index finger upon the toupee and scratched
+meditatively through the mesh--scratched carefully, having accustomed
+himself to handling his boughten hair with cautious touch. He had not
+liked her intonation when she said "Frank and I." He muttered something
+about his feelings. He had never thought of Frank as belonging in Vona's
+calculations. He had never considered even the linking of their names,
+much less their interests.
+
+But Mr. Britt, having made money his idol, could not understand worship
+directed to any other shrine. His face cleared while he pondered. A girl
+who frankly declared at all times that she would do 'most anything to
+help her family out of their troubles was not of a mind to hitch up with
+another pauper--a combination of choreman and cashier--even though
+she had linked their names casually in speech. And Mr. Britt mouthed
+mumblingly some of the sentiments he had put into words that morning
+when he arose. He smoothed down the top piece and looked more at ease.
+He smiled when he reflected on what he would have to say to her after
+Emissary Orne had returned with something in the line of fruits from
+the Promised Land. His self-assurance revived; nevertheless, he tiptoed
+along the corridor and listened at the door of the bank.
+
+The reassuring swish of a broom and their casual chatter--he heard only
+those commonplace sounds!
+
+She was asking Vaniman if he had mislaid her dustcloth.
+
+Vaniman replied in a tone which indicated that the two were at some
+distance from each other. There was no subdued conference--no murmuring
+of mushiness such as a meeting in the morning might be expected to
+elicit in case there was any sort of an understanding between them. Mr.
+Britt tiptoed away from the door and braced back his shoulders and gave
+himself a shake of satisfied confidence, and went serenely into his
+office, plucking a cigar from his vest pocket. By permitting himself to
+smoke again he was breaking the habit of confining himself to one cigar
+after breakfast. But many men in moments of exaltation seek tobacco or
+alcohol.
+
+Mr. Britt felt that he had broken the ice, at any rate. Mr. Britt
+decided that the girl was heart-free and entertained sensible ideas
+about the main chance--and she had had a good word to say about Britt's
+kind heart. Mr. Britt was sure that Frank Vaniman knew his place and was
+keeping it. Therefore, Mr. Britt lighted a fresh cigar and blew visible
+smoke rings and inflated invisible mental bubbles and did not pay any
+more attention to what Prophet Elias was saying outside. And as if the
+Prophet had received a psychological hint that his text shafts were no
+longer penetrating the money king's tough hide, the diminuendo of his
+orotund marked the progress of his departure.
+
+Usually Mr. Britt went across into the bank and hung around after the
+girl arrived. On this morning he stayed in his office. According to his
+notion, his advances to her in the corridor, though he had not intended
+to be so precipitate in the matter, had given her something to think
+about--and he decided to keep away and let her think. If she saw him
+following the usual routine, her thoughts might drop back into routine
+channels.
+
+He thrilled at the memory of her touch on his arm, even though the touch
+had been a thrusting of her hands in self-defense and her eyes had been
+big with fright.
+
+He sat down at his desk and tore the leaf off his pad calendar, starting
+his business day as usual. He looked at the disclosed date and his eyes
+became humid. It was February 14th, the day of St. Valentine. An idea
+came to Mr. Britt. He had been wondering how to approach the question
+with Vona without blurting the thing and making a mess of it. He
+determined to do something that he had not attempted since he had beaued
+Hittie; he set himself to compose a few verses for a valentine--verses
+that would pave the way for a formal declaration of his love and his
+hopes.
+
+The determination indicated that Mr. Britt was having a severe run of
+a second attack of the same malady, and he acknowledged that much to
+himself as he sat there and chewed the soggy end of an extinguished
+cigar and gazed aloft raptly, seeking rhymes.
+
+He made slow progress; his pen trailed as sluggishly as a tracking
+snail--a word at a time. He lost all notion of how the hours were
+slipping past.
+
+A man walked in. He was Stickney, a cattle buyer, and a minor
+stockholder in the bank. Mr. Britt, his eyes filmy with prolonged
+abstraction, hooked his chin over his shoulder and scowled on the
+intruder; a man bringing business into that office that day was an
+intruder, according to Mr. Britt's opinion.
+
+Stickney walked close to the desk and displayed a flash of curiosity
+when Britt laid his forearm over his writing.
+
+"Spring pome, or only a novel?" queried Stickney, genially, figuring
+that such a question was the height of humor when put to a man of Tasper
+Britt's flinty, practical nature.
+
+Mr. Britt, like a person touched smartly by a brad, twitched himself in
+his chair and asked in chilly tone what he could do for Stickney. The
+caller promptly became considerable of an icicle himself. He laid down a
+little sheaf of papers beside the shielding forearm.
+
+"If you'll O. K. them notes for discount, I'll be much obliged, and
+won't take up valuable time."
+
+"We're tightening up on discounts--calling in many loans, too," stated
+President Britt, with financial frigidity.
+
+"I know all about your calling loans, Mr. Britt. Much obliged. It makes
+a crackerjack market for me in the cattle business. They've got to raise
+money, and I'm setting my own prices." Stickney thawed and beamed
+on Britt with a show of fraternal spirit, as if the banker were a
+co-conspirator in the job of shaking down the public. "However, my notes
+there are all good butchers' paper--sound as a pennyroyal hymn! I've got
+to have the cash so as to steal more cattle while the market is as it
+is."
+
+Britt pushed away the notes and seized the opportunity to turn his own
+papers upside down on the desk. "We can't accommodate you at present,
+Stickney."
+
+The customer stepped back and propped his palms on his hips. "I reckon
+I've got to call for an explanation."
+
+"We're not in the habit of explaining the details of our business to
+individuals."
+
+Stickney slipped the leash on his indignation. "'We,' say you? All
+right! 'We' it is. I'm in on that 'we.' I'm a stockholder in the bank.
+What sort of investments are 'we' making that have caused money to be
+so tight here that a regular customer is turned down--and after enough
+loans have been called to make the vault bulge?"
+
+"The report will show," returned Britt, coldly. "I am not called on
+to issue that report in installments every time a stockholder turns in
+here."
+
+The especial stockholder stepped forward and tapped his finger on the
+desk. "I don't say that you are. But now that this subject is opened
+up--"
+
+"The subject is closed, Stickney."
+
+"Now that the subject is opened up," insisted the other man, "I'll make
+mention of what you probably know--that I have regular business 'most
+every day down in Levant at the railroad terminus. And I'm knowing to it
+that regular shipments of specie have been coming to the bank. If that
+specie is in our vaults it ain't sweating off more gold and silver, is
+it, or drawing interest? I know you're a shrewd operator, Britt. I ain't
+doubting but what your plans may be good."
+
+"They are!" President Britt's retort was crisp.
+
+"But when those plans put a crimp into _my_ plans--and me a steady
+customer--I'm opening my mouth to ask questions."
+
+"You--and all other stockholders--will be fully informed by the annual
+report--and will be pleased." Britt's air was one of finality.
+
+"Let me tell you that the mouth I have opened to ask questions will stay
+open in regard to hoarding that specie where it ain't drawing interest."
+
+Britt jumped up and shook his fist under Stickney's snub nose. "Don't
+you dare to go blabbing around the country! You might as well set off a
+bomb under our bank as to circulate news that will attract robbers."
+
+"Bomb? Britt, I'm safe when I'm handled right, but if I'm handled
+wrong--" Stickney did not finish his sentence; but his truculent air was
+pregnant with suggestion.
+
+"Do you think you can blackmail me or this bank into making an exception
+in your case against our present policy? Go ahead and talk, Stickney,
+and I'll post the people of this town on your selfish tactics--and
+you'll see where you get off!"
+
+Stickney did not argue the matter further. He looked like a man who
+was disgusted because he had wasted so much time trying to get around
+a Tasper Britt stony "No!" He picked up his papers, stamped out, and
+slammed the door.
+
+Britt shook himself, like a spiritualist medium trying to induce the
+trance state, and went back to his writing.
+
+After a time a dull, thrumming sound attracted his attention. It was
+something like Files's dinner gong, whose summons Mr. Britt was wont to
+obey on the instant.
+
+Mr. Britt was certain that it was not the gong; however, he glanced
+up at the clock on the wall, then he leaped out of his chair. In his
+amazement he rapped out, "Well, I'll be--"
+
+That clock was reliable; it marked the hour of twelve.
+
+Mr. Britt had received convincing evidence that the rhapsody of
+composition makes morsels of hours and gulps days in two bites.
+
+But he had completed five stanzas. He concluded that they would do,
+though he had planned on five more. Glancing over his composition, he
+decided that it might be better to leave the matter a bit vague, just
+as the poem left it at the end of the fifth stanza. In the corridor that
+morning Vona had shown that too much precipitateness alarmed her; he
+might go too far in five more stanzas. The five he had completed would
+give her a hint--something to think of. He pondered on that point while
+he stuck the paper into an envelope and sealed it.
+
+Mr. Britt hurried the rest of his movements; Files's kitchen
+conveniences were archaic, and the guest who was not on time got cold
+viands.
+
+The lover who had begun to stir Miss Harnden's thoughts into rather
+unpleasant roiliness of doubts came hustling into the bank, hat and coat
+on.
+
+The girl and young Vaniman were spreading their respective lunches on
+the center table inside the grille.
+
+Britt called Vona to the wicket. He slipped the envelope through to her.
+"There's no hurry, you understand! Take your time. Read it in a slack
+moment--later! And"--he hesitated and gulped--"I want to see you after
+bank hours. If you'll step in--I'll be much obliged."
+
+She did not assent orally, nor show especial willingness to respond to
+his invitation. She took the envelope and turned toward the table after
+Britt had left the wicket.
+
+She walked to the window and gazed at the retreating back of Mr. Britt,
+and put the envelope into a velvet bag that was attached by slender
+chains to her girdle.
+
+When she faced Vaniman, the young cashier was regarding her archly.
+
+"I wonder if congratulations are in order," he suggested.
+
+Her quick flush was followed by a pallor that gave her an appearance of
+anger. "I don't relish that sort of humor."
+
+"My gracious, Vona, I wasn't trying to be especially humorous," he
+protested, staring at her so ingenuously that his candor could not be
+questioned. "I reckoned that the boss was raising your pay, and was
+being a bit sly about it! What else can it be?"
+
+Then she was truly disconcerted; at a loss for a reply; ashamed of her
+display of emotion.
+
+He stared hard at her. His face began to show that he was struggling
+with an emotion of his own. "Vona," he faltered, after a time, "I
+haven't any right to ask you--but do you have any--is that paper--"
+
+He was unable to go on under the straight and strange gaze she leveled
+at him. She was plainly one who was taking counsel with herself. She
+came to a sudden decision, and drew forth the envelope and tore it open,
+unfolded the paper, and began to read.
+
+When her eyes were not on him Vaniman revealed much of what a discerning
+person would have known to be love; love that had been pursuing its way
+quietly, but was now alarmed and up in arms. He narrowed his eyes and
+studied her face while she read. But she did not reveal what she thought
+and he became more perturbed. She finished and looked across at him and
+then she narrowed her eyes to match his expression. Suddenly she leaned
+forward and gave him the paper. He read it, amazement lifting his
+eyebrows.
+
+When he met her stare again they were moved by a common impulse--mirth;
+mirth that was born out of their mutual amazement and was baptized by
+the tears that their merriment squeezed from their eyes.
+
+"I am not laughing at Tasper Britt," he gasped, checking his hilarity.
+"I would not laugh at any man who falls in love with you, Vona. I am
+laughing at the idea of Tasper Britt writing poetry. Let me look out
+of the window! Has Burkett Hill tipped over? Has the sun turned in the
+heavens at high noon and started back to the east?"
+
+"What does it mean?" she asked. Her expression excused the banality of
+her query; her eyes told him that she knew, but her ears awaited his
+indorsement of her woman's conviction.
+
+He pointed to the big calendar on the wall. "It's a valentine," he said,
+gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in his eyes when he added, "And
+valentines have always been used for prefaces in the volume of Love."
+
+She did not reflect any of his amusement. She clasped her hands and
+gazed down on them, and her forehead was wrinkled with honest distress.
+
+"Of course, you have sort of been guessing," he ventured. "All the
+renovating process--the way he has been tiptoeing around and squinting
+at you!"
+
+She looked up suddenly and caught his gaze; his tone had been hard, but
+his eyes were tender.
+
+Then it happened!
+
+They had been hiding their deeper feelings under the thin coating
+of comradeship for a long time. As in the instance of other pent-up
+explosives, only the right kind of a jar was needed to "trip" the mass.
+
+The threat of a rival--even of such a preposterous rival as Tasper
+Britt--served as detonator in the case of Frank Vaniman, and the
+explosion of his emotions produced sympathetic results in the girl
+across the table from him. He leaped up, strode around to her and put
+out his arms, and she rushed into the embrace he offered.
+
+But their mutual consolations were denied them--he was obliged to dam
+back his choking speech and she her blessed tears.
+
+A depositor came stamping in.
+
+They were calm, with their customary check on emotions, when they were
+free to talk after the man had gone away.
+
+"Vona, I did not mean to speak out to you so soon," he told her. "Not
+but what it was in here"--he patted his breast--"and fairly boiling all
+the time!"
+
+She assured him, with a timid look, that her own emotions had not been
+different from his.
+
+"But I have respected your obligations," he went on, with earnest
+candor. "And this is the first real job I've ever had. It's best to be
+honest with each other."
+
+She agreed fervently.
+
+"I wish we could be just as honest with Britt. But we both know what
+kind of a man he is. The sentiment of 'Love, and the world well lost' is
+better in a book than it is in this bank just now, as matters stand with
+us. I have had so many hard knocks in life that I know what they mean,
+and I want to save you from them. Isn't it best to go along as we
+are for a little while, till I can see my way to get my feet placed
+somewhere else?"
+
+"We must do so, Frank--for the time being." Her candor matched his. "I
+do need this employment for the sake of my folks. Both of us must be
+fair to ourselves--not silly. Only--"
+
+Her forehead wrinkled again.
+
+"I know, Vona! Britt's attentions! I'll take it on myself--"
+
+"No," she broke in, with dignity. "I must make that my own affair.
+It can be easily settled. It's pure folly on his part. I'll make him
+understand it when I talk with him this afternoon."
+
+"But I'll feel like a coward," he protested, passionately.
+
+She put up her hand and smiled. "You're not a coward, dear! Nor am I a
+hypocrite. We're just two poor toilers who must do the best we can till
+the clouds clear away."
+
+She went to him, and when her hands caressed his cheeks he bent down and
+kissed her.
+
+Then they applied themselves to their tasks in Mr. Britt's bank.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE ACHE OF RAPPED KNUCKLES
+
+Landlord Files set forth a boiled dinner that day; he skinched on corned
+beef and made up on cabbage; but he economized on fuel, and the cabbage
+was underdone.
+
+Mr. Britt, back in his office, allowing his various affairs to be
+digested--his dinner, his political project, the valentine--his hopes
+in general--found that soggy cabbage to be a particularly tough
+proposition. He was not sufficiently imaginative to view his punishment
+by the intractable cabbage as a premonitory hint that he was destined to
+suffer as much in his pride as he did in his stomach. His pangs took his
+mind off the other affairs. He was pallid and his lips were blue when
+Emissary Orne came waddling into the office.
+
+Mr. Orne, in addition to other characteristics that suggested a
+fowl, had a sagging dewlap, and the February nip had colored it into
+resemblance to a rooster's wattles. When he came in Mr. Orne's face was
+sagging, in general. It was a countenance that was already ridged into
+an expression of sympathy. When he set eyes on Britt the expression of
+woe was touched up with alarm. But that the alarm had to do with the
+personal affairs of Mr. Orne was shown when he inquired apprehensively
+whether Mr. Britt would settle then and there for the day's work.
+
+The candidate looked up at the office timepiece. "It ain't three
+o'clock. I don't call it a day."
+
+"You call it a day in banking. I've got the same right to call it a day
+in politics."
+
+"What infernal notion is afoul of you, Orne, grabbing for my money
+before you report?"
+
+"I do business with a man according to his own rules--and then he's
+suited, or ought to be. You collect sharp on the dot after service has
+been rendered. So do I." Mr. Orne was displaying more acute nervous
+apprehension. "And the understanding was that you'd leave it to me as
+your manager, and wouldn't go banging around, yourself."
+
+Britt found the agent's manner puzzling. "I haven't been out of this
+office, except to go to my dinner. I haven't talked politics with
+anybody."
+
+"Oh!" remarked Orne, showing relief. "Perhaps, then, it was the way the
+light fell on your face." He peered closely at his client. Mr. Britt's
+color was coming back. Orne's cryptic speeches and his haste to collect
+had warmed the banker's wrath. "It'll be ten dollars, as we agreed."
+
+Britt yanked a big wallet from his breast pocket, plucked out a bill,
+and shoved it at Orne. The latter set the bill carefully into a big
+wallet of his own, "sunk" the calfskin, and buttoned up his buffalo
+coat.
+
+"It does beat blazes," stated "Sniffer" Orne, "what a messed up state
+all politics is in since this prim'ry business has put the blinko onto
+caucuses and conventions. Caucuses was sensible, Mr. Britt. Needn't tell
+me! Voters liked to have the wear and tear off 'em. Now a voter gets
+into that booth and has to caucus by himself, and he's either so puffed
+up by importance that he thinks he's the whole party or else--"
+
+Mr. Britt's patience was ground between the millstones of anger and
+indigestion. He smacked the flat of his hand on his desk. "When I want
+a stump speech out of you, Orne, I'll drop you a postcard and give you
+thirty days' notice so that you can get up a good one. You have made a
+short day of it, as I said, but you needn't feel called on to fill it up
+with a lecture." Mr. Britt continued on pompously and revealed that he
+placed his own favorable construction on the emissary's early return
+from the field. "You didn't have to go very far, hey, to find out how I
+stand for that nomination?"
+
+"I went far enough so that you can depend on what I tell you."
+
+"Go ahead and tell, then."
+
+Mr. Orne slowly fished a quill toothpick from the pocket of his
+overcoat, set the end of the quill in his mouth, and "sipped" the air
+sibilantly, gazing over Britt's head with professional gravity. "Of
+course, you're the doctor in this case and are paying the money, and if
+you don't want any soothing facts, like I was intending to throw in free
+of charge and for good measure, showing how the best of politicians--"
+
+There were ominous sounds from the direction of Britt. Orne checked his
+discourse, but he did not look at the candidate. "But no matter," said
+the agent. "That may be neither here nor there. You're the doctor, I
+say! When I first came in here I thought you had been disobeying my
+orders and had dabbled into the thing. Your face looked like you was
+posted."
+
+"I'm paying for the goods, not for gobbling, you infernal old turkey!
+Come out with the facts!"
+
+"Facts is that the whole thing is completely gooly-washed up," stated
+Mr. Orne, with an oracle's decisiveness.
+
+But that declaration in Mr. Orne's political terminology did not convey
+much information to the candidate. Britt, thoroughly incensed by what
+seemed to be evasion, leaped up, twitched the toothpick from Orne's
+lips, and flung it away. "I've paid for the English language, and I want
+it straight and in short words, and not trigged by a toothpick."
+
+"All right! You're licked before you start."
+
+It was a bit too straight from the shoulder--that piece of news! Britt
+blinked as if he had received a blow between the eyes. He sat down and
+stared at Orne, elbows on the arms of the chair, hands limply hanging
+from lax wrists.
+
+"It's this way!" Mr. Orne started, briskly, with upraised forefinger;
+but he shook his head and put down his hand. He turned away. "I forgot.
+You ordered plain facts."
+
+"You hold on!" Britt thundered. "How do you dare to tell me that you can
+go out and in fifteen minutes come back with information of that sort?"
+
+Mr. Orne glanced reproachfully from his detractor to the clock; he had
+not the same reasons as Mr. Britt had for finding the hours of the day
+fleeting. "Mr. Britt, a man doesn't need to make a hoss of himself and
+eat a whole head of cabbage by way of sampling it." Britt winced at the
+random simile. "It's the same way with me in sampling politics, being an
+expert. Your case, to start with, had me gy-poogled and--"
+
+"English language, I tell you!" Britt emphasized his stand as a stickler
+by a tremendous thump of his fist on the desk.
+
+Orne jabbed his finger back and forth from his breast to the direction
+of Britt, with the motions of the "eeny, meeny" game. "I was mistook.
+You was mistook. I figgered on your money. So did you. I figgered you'd
+go strong in politics like you had in _finance_. So did you." Mr. Orne
+put his hand up sidewise and sliced the air. "Nothing doing in politics,
+Mr. Britt! You can cash in on straight capital, but there ain't a cent
+in the dollar for you when you try to collect in what you 'ain't ever
+invested. A man don't have to be so blamed popular after he is well
+settled in politics; but you've got to have some real human-nature
+assets to get a start with. You've got to depend on given votes--not the
+boughten ones."
+
+"Orne, you're rasping me mighty hard."
+
+"You demanded facts--not hair-oil talk."
+
+"Then the facts are--" Britt hesitated.
+
+"Facts is that, by the usual arrangement in the legislative class of
+towns, Egypt had the choice this year. You won't get a vote in Egypt."
+
+"But the men who come in here--" Again Britt halted in a sentence.
+
+"The men who come in here and sit down at that desk and pick up a pen
+to sign a note have fixed on their grins before they open your door. But
+the men who get into a voting booth alone with God and a lead pencil,
+they'll jab down on to that ballot a cross for t'other candidate that'll
+look like a dent in a tin dipper. Somebody else might lie to you about
+the situation, Mr. Britt. I've done consid'able lying in politics, too.
+But when I'm hired by a man to deliver goods--and same has been paid
+for--my word can be depended on."
+
+Britt turned around and looked into the depths of his desk, staring
+vacantly. His rounded shoulders suggested grief. Orne settled his wallet
+more firmly, pressing on the outside of the buffalo coat. His face again
+sagged with sympathy. "Mr. Britt, it's only like what most of us do in
+this life--take smiles without testing 'em with acid--take words-current
+for what they seem to be worth, and then we do test 'em out and--"
+
+Britt whirled and broke on this fatuous preachment with an oath. Mr.
+Orne thriftily withheld further sympathy; it was plainly wasted.
+
+"Orne, I hope it's about due to revise the New Testament again. I
+want to send in some footnotes for that page where Judas Iscariot is
+mentioned. I want a full roster of his descendants to appear; I'll
+furnish the voting list of this town. Get out of here and pass that
+word."
+
+But a yelp from the candidate halted the departing Orne at the
+door. "Seeing that you have my ten dollars and are full of political
+information, perhaps you'll throw in free of charge who it is this town
+is going to send to the legislature!"
+
+"Only one thing has been decided on so far," returned the politician.
+"And, having no desire to rub it in, I'll let you draw your own
+conclusions." Mr. Orne had the door open; he dodged out and slammed the
+door shut.
+
+It was promptly opened--so promptly that Mr. Britt was fairly caught at
+what he was about. He was standing up, shaking both fists at the door
+and cursing roundly. Vona was gazing at him in alarm.
+
+"I was waiting in the corridor, sir, till you--till your business--till
+Mr. Orne went away," she stammered.
+
+"Come in!" muttered Britt, even more disconcerted than the girl.
+
+Then he wished that he had told her to go away. He realized that he was
+in no mood or condition to woo; the cabbage had tortured him, but this
+new sort of indigestion in the very soul of him had left him without
+poise or courage.
+
+He slumped down in his chair and waved a limp hand in invitation for her
+to take a seat near him. But she merely came and stood in the middle of
+the room and surveyed him with an uncompromising air of business. From
+the velvet toque, with just a suggestion of a coquettish cant on her
+brown curls, down her healthily round cheeks, a bit flushed, above the
+fur neckpiece that clasped her throat, Britt's fervent eyes strayed. And
+some of the words of the Prophet's singsong monotone echoed in the empty
+chambers of Britt's consciousness, "'Thou hast dove's eyes within thy
+locks--thy lips are like a thread of scarlet.'"
+
+But she was aloof. She held herself rigidly erect. Her eyes were coldly
+inquiring. Those lips were set tightly. Mr. Britt had just been reaching
+out for honors, and his knuckles had been rapped cruelly. He wanted to
+reach out for love--and he dared not. The girl, as she stood there, was
+so patently among the things he was not able to possess!
+
+She had come into his presence with expectation keenly alert, with her
+fears putting her into a mental posture of defense. She felt that she
+knew just what was going to happen, and she was assuring herself that
+she would be able to meet the situation. But she was not prepared for
+what did happen. She did not understand Britt's mental state of that
+moment. Mr. Britt, himself, did not understand. He had never been up
+against conditions of that sort. He had not had time to fix his face and
+his mood, as he did daily before the mirror in his bedroom. He did what
+nobody had ever seen him do--what neither he nor the girl would have
+predicted one minute before as among human probabilities--he broke down
+and blubbered like a whipped urchin.
+
+And after he had recovered some of his composure and was gazing up at
+her again, sniffling and scrubbing his reddened eyes with the bulge
+at the base of his thumb, knowing that he must say something by way
+of legitimate excuse, dreading the ridicule that a girl's gossip might
+bring upon him, a notion that was characteristic of Mr. Britt came
+to him: he grimly weighed the idea of telling her that Files's boiled
+dinner was the cause of his breakdown. However, in his weakness, his
+love flamed more hotly than ever before.
+
+"Vona, I'm so lonesome!" he gulped.
+
+Miss Harnden had entered behind her shield, nerved like a battling
+Amazon. She promptly lowered that shield and became all woman, with a
+woman's instinctive sympathetic understanding, but womanlike, she took
+the opportunity to introduce for her own defense a bit of guile with her
+sympathy. "I quite understand how you feel about the loss of Mrs. Britt,
+sir. And I'm glad because you remain so loyal to her memory."
+
+Mr. Britt, like a man who had received a dipperful of cold water in the
+face, backed away from anything like a proposal at that unpropitious
+moment. But in all his arid nature he felt the need of some sort of
+consolation from a feminine source. "Vona, I've just had a terrible
+setback," he mourned. "There's only one other disappointment that could
+be any worse--and I don't dare to think of that right now."
+
+Miss Harnden apprehensively proceeded to keep him away from the
+prospective disappointment, dwelling on the present, asking him
+solicitously what had happened.
+
+He told her of his ambition and of what Ossian Orne had reported.
+
+"But why should that be so very important for a man like you--to go to
+the legislature--Mr. Britt?"
+
+He opened his mouth, hankering to blurt out what he had been treasuring
+as dreams whose realization would serve as an inducement to her. He had
+been picturing to himself their honeymoon at the state capital, away
+from the captious tongues of Egypt--how he would stalk with his handsome
+bride into the dining room of the capital's biggest hotel; how she would
+attract the eyes of jealous men, in her finery and with her jewels; how
+she would sit in the gallery at the State House and survey him making
+his bigness among the lawmakers; for some weeks he had been laboring on
+the composition of a speech that he intended to deliver. But her second
+dash of cold water kept him from the disclosure of his feelings. He
+went on so far as to ask her if she did not think a session at the state
+capital would be interesting.
+
+"I have never thought anything about such a matter, of course, Mr.
+Britt, being only a girl and not a politician."
+
+"But women who are there get into high society and wear fine clothes and
+have a grand time, Vona."
+
+"It must be a tedious life," she replied, indifferently.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to try it?" Now that he could not offer her the grand
+inducement he had planned as an essential part of his campaign of love
+he sought consolation in her assurance that the prospect did not tempt
+her. His hopes revived. He was reflecting that his money could buy
+railroad tickets, even if he had not the popularity with which to win
+votes. She shook her head promptly when he asked the question, and he
+went on with his new idea. "I suppose what a girl really enjoys is to
+see the world, after she has been penned up all her life in a town like
+this."
+
+"I don't waste my time in foolish longings, Mr. Britt. In fact, I have
+no time to waste on anything." She gave him a bit of a smile. "In that
+connection I'll confess that I must hurry home and help mother with some
+sewing. Did you want anything especial of me?" Her smile had vanished,
+and in her tone there was a clink of the metallic that was as subtly
+suggestive of "On guard" as the click of a trigger.
+
+Mr. Britt had planned upon a radiant disclosing of his
+projects--expecting to be spurred in his advances by the assurance of
+what he could offer her as the consort of a legislator--as high an honor
+as his narrow vision could compass. She had found him cursing, had
+kept him at bay, and he had already had evidence of the danger of
+precipitateness in her case. And his tears made him feel foolish. His
+ardor had been wet down; it took a back seat. His natural good judgment
+was again boss of the situation.
+
+"I had something on my mind--but it can wait till you're in less of a
+hurry, Vona. Never neglect a mother. That's my attitude toward women.
+I'm always considerate where they're concerned. It's my nature. I hope
+you'll hold that in mind."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Britt." She turned and hurried to the door, getting away from
+a fire that was showing signs of breaking out of its smoldering brands
+once more.
+
+Britt recovered some of his courage when her back was turned. "You
+haven't said anything about those verses," he stammered.
+
+"I think it's a beautiful way of putting aside your business cares for a
+time. I'm taking them home to read to mother."
+
+He marched to the window and watched her as long as she was in sight.
+
+Then he glowered on such of the Egyptians as passed to and fro along
+the street on their affairs. He muttered, spicing his comments with
+profanity. The girl's disclaimer of personal interest in Britt's
+ambitions did not soften his rancorous determination to make the voters
+of Egypt suffer for the stand they had taken--suffer to the bitter limit
+to which unrelenting persecution could drive them. He gritted his teeth
+and raved aloud. "From now on! From now on! Anything short of murder to
+show 'em! And as for that girl--if there's somebody--"
+
+Britt stopped short of what that rival might expect, but his expression
+indicated that the matter was of even more moment than his affair with
+the voters of the town.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"AND PHARAOH'S HEART WAS HARDENED"
+
+When Vona left him that afternoon, Vaniman paced the floor.
+
+She had gone bravely to her meeting with Britt, bearing Frank's kiss on
+her cheek--a caress of encouragement when he had walked with her to the
+door in order to lock it after her.
+
+It was not worry that caused him to tramp to and fro, frowning. Vona's
+demeanor of self-reliance had helped his feelings a great deal. But the
+corollary of devoted love is chivalry, and he felt that he was allowing
+her to do something that belonged to him to so, somehow. The policy
+which they had so sanely discussed did not seem to be such a comfortable
+course when he was alone, wondering what was going on across the
+corridor.
+
+At last the sound of a door and the click of her heels signaled the
+end of the interview. He hoped that she would come back into the bank,
+making an excuse of something forgotten, in order to give him a soothing
+bulletin. He ran to the door and opened it. But the slam of the outside
+door informed him that she had gone on her way. Her prompt departure
+indicated that she was consistently pursuing the level-headed policy
+they had adopted; but the young man, impatient and wondering, was
+wishing she had taken a change, for once, even to the prejudice of
+policy. He shut his door and hurried to the window.
+
+Though two men were watching her going-away, and though she must have
+been conscious of the fact, she did not turn her head to glance behind
+her.
+
+At any rate, the thing was over, whatever had happened, the cashier
+reflected with relief. Nevertheless, curiosity was nagging at him; he
+felt an impulse to go in and inspect the condition of Tasper Britt by
+way of securing a hint.
+
+Vaniman, however, shook his head and dropped into the routine of his
+duties. The ruts of life in Egypt, especially in the winter, were
+deep ones. The cashier had become contented with his little circle of
+occupation and recreation.
+
+He carried the books into the vault. He wound the clock that controlled
+the mechanism of bolts and bars, and pushed the big outer door shut and
+made certain that it was secure.
+
+Having finished as cashier, he became janitor.
+
+Egypt had no electric lights. Vaniman trimmed the kerosene reflector
+lamp and set it on the table so that the front of the safe would be
+illuminated for the benefit of the village's night watchman.
+
+Then he put on his cap and overcoat and locked the grille door and the
+bank door after he had passed each portal. His last chore of the day was
+always a trip into the basement to make sure that the dying fire in the
+wood furnace was carefully closed in for the night.
+
+The basement stairs led from the rear of the corridor. When Vaniman
+returned up the stairs he had settled on a small matter of business
+which would serve as a valid excuse for entering the presence of
+President Britt. But he did not need to employ the excuse. Britt stood
+in his open door and called to the cashier and walked back to his chair,
+leaving Vaniman to follow, and the employee obeyed the summons with
+alacrity; he was consumed with desire to get a line on the situation
+that had been troubling him.
+
+An observer would have called the contest of mutual inspection a
+fifty-fifty break--perhaps with a shade in favor of Britt, for the
+usurer's face was like leather and his goggling marbles of eyes under
+the lids that resembled little tents did not flicker.
+
+"What can I do for you?" Britt demanded, and the query made for the
+young man's discomposure.
+
+"Why, you called me in, sir!"
+
+"Uh-huh!" the president admitted, "but somehow I had the impression
+that you said you wanted to see me after the bank closed." He was taking
+account of stock of Vaniman's personality, his eyes going up and down
+the stalwart figure and dwelling finally and persistently on the young
+man's hair; it was copper-bronze in hue, it had an attractive wave,
+there was plenty of it, and it seemed to be very firmly rooted.
+
+"I don't remember that I mentioned it, Mr. Britt, but I do have an
+errand with you."
+
+"All right! What is it?" Mr. Britt was not revealing any emotions that
+Vaniman found illuminating in regard to his particular quest.
+
+"I am being tongue-lashed terribly through the wicket. Men won't believe
+that I'm obeying the orders of you and the board when accommodation is
+refused. Won't you take the matter off my hands--let me refer all to
+you?"
+
+"I don't keep a dog and do my own barking," rasped the president. He
+brought his eyes down from the young man's hair and noted that Vaniman
+stiffened and was displaying resentment.
+
+"That's only a Yankee motto--you needn't take it as personal, Vaniman.
+I have turned over to you the running of the bank. I say to all that
+you're running it. You ought to feel pretty well set up!"
+
+"I obey your orders, sir," returned the cashier, not warming.
+
+"That's all right for an understanding between us two. But I let the
+public think you're the whole thing. I tell 'em I've got full confidence
+in you. You don't want the public to think you're only a rubber stamp,
+do you?"
+
+"The general opinion right now seems to be that I'm either a first-class
+liar or Shylock sentenced to a second term on earth," retorted Vaniman,
+with bitterness.
+
+There was a long silence in the room, where the early dusk was
+deepening. The two men regarded each other with expressions that did not
+soften.
+
+After a time Britt turned to his desk, unlocked a compartment, and
+produced a letter, which he unfolded slowly, again staring hard at the
+cashier.
+
+"Speaking of being sentenced!" There was something ominous in his drawl.
+"You told me a whole lot about yourself, Vaniman, when I was talking of
+hiring you. But there was one important thing you didn't mention--mighty
+important, seeing that you wanted a job as boss of a bank." He tapped
+the open letter. "I've had this letter for a good many weeks, not saying
+anything about it to you or anybody else. I'm not sure just why I'm
+saying anything now."
+
+Vaniman flushed. His face worked with emotion. He put up his hand and
+started to speak, but Britt put up a more compelling hand and went on.
+"I reckon I'm bringing this matter up so that you'll know just where
+you stand--so that you'll mind your eye and look out for my interests
+in every way from now on--so that--" He hesitated a moment. His eyes
+flamed. "So that you'll know your place! That's it! Know your place--and
+be mighty careful how you go against me in anything--anything where I'm
+interested." Britt had whipped himself into anger. That anger, fanned by
+a flame of jealousy after it had been touched off by his inspection of
+youth and good looks, had carried Mr. Britt far. He shook the letter at
+the young man. "There's a reliable name signed to this letter; he is a
+friend of mine, one of the big financiers in the city, and this was in
+the way of friendly warning."
+
+"I understand, Mr. Britt." The cashier had recovered his
+self-possession. "You are warned that my father was sentenced to the
+penitentiary for embezzlement. No, I did not mention that to you. It
+concerned a man who is dead. It has nothing to do with my honesty."
+
+"Well, there's another motto about 'blood will tell,'" sneered Britt.
+
+Vaniman stepped forward, honestly indignant, manfully resolute. "Let
+me tell you, sir, that the letter you hold there--no matter who wrote
+it--concerns a _good_ man who is dead. He was the scapegoat of one of
+those big financiers." Vaniman's lip curled. "My father was railroaded
+to jail on a track greased with lies--and died because the heart had
+been ripped out of him and--"
+
+"Hold on! It won't get us anywhere to try that case all over, Vaniman.
+Let the letter stand as it is--it was probably meant in the right
+spirit. But I didn't write it. You and I better not fight over it. I've
+shown, by laying it away and saying nothing, that I have a decent nature
+in me. I hope I'll never have any need to take it out of this desk
+again." He turned and shoved the paper back and locked the compartment.
+
+"I think it is best for me to resign, Mr. Britt."
+
+"Don't be a fool, young man. Now that this thing is off our minds
+there's a better understanding between us than ever. I don't think--I
+hope"--he surveyed Vaniman with leisure in which there was the
+suggestion of a threat--"I'll never have any occasion to take that
+letter out again. Er--ah--" Britt joggled a watch charm and inquired,
+casually, "Would you plan on getting married if I boost your wages a
+little?"
+
+In spite of an effort to control himself under Britt's basilisk stare,
+Vaniman showed how much the query had jumped him.
+
+"Of course, a chap like you has had his sweetheart down in the city,"
+pursued the inquisitor when the young man failed to answer. "Must be one
+there now."
+
+"I have no sweetheart in the city, Mr. Britt."
+
+Then there was a longer silence in the room. The cashier was not
+enduring inspection with an air that did credit to his promise to keep a
+secret. Britt had made a breach in the wall of Vaniman's mental defense
+by the means of that letter and its implied accusation; Britt was taking
+advantage of that breach. Right then the young man was in a mood that
+would have prompted him to fling the truth and his defiance at Britt if
+the latter had kept on to the logical conclusion of his interrogation
+and had asked whether there was a sweetheart elsewhere; Vaniman had
+the feeling that by denying his love at that moment--to that man of all
+others--he would be dealing insult to Vona Harnden, as well as taking
+from her the protection that his affection gave her.
+
+The attention of Britt was diverted from the quarry he was pursuing.
+
+Outside Britt Block, Prophet Elias raised his voice in his regular
+"vesper service." It was his practice, on his way to Usial Britt's
+cottage from his daily domiciliary visits, to halt in front of the bank
+and deliver a few texts. The first one--and the two men in the office
+listened--was of the general tenor of those addressed to "Pharaoh."
+Said the Prophet, in resounding tones, "'As a roaring lion and a ranging
+bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.'"
+
+"Vaniman, go out and tell that old hoot owl to move on! I'm in a
+dangerous frame of mind to-day." Britt's lips were pulled tightly
+against his yellow teeth.
+
+The Prophet's next deliverance was more concretely to the
+point--indicating that the exhorter was not so much wrapped up in
+religion that he had no ear out for the political news current in Egypt
+that day, "'Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before
+a fall.'"
+
+There was a fireplace in the office and Britt leaped to it and grabbed
+a poker. The cashier was moved to interfere, urged by two compelling
+motives. He wanted to get away from his own dangerous situation of the
+moment in that office--and he wanted to protect the old man outside
+from assault. "I'll attend to him, sir!" But he halted at the door and
+turned. "Mr. Britt, our talk has driven an important matter from my
+mind. The men who bellow at me through the wicket have considerable to
+say about our hoarding specie. It makes me uneasy to have that sort of
+gossip going the rounds."
+
+"We'll have the money out of here in a short time, Vaniman, as I have
+told you. That broker says that foreign money is going lower yet--and
+seeing that we've taken all this trouble to get the hard cash ready for
+the deal, we may as well make the clean-up as big as we can."
+
+"Don't you think we'd better hire a couple of good men with rifles and
+put 'em in the bank nights, sir?"
+
+President Britt declared with scorn that the expense was not necessary,
+that putting guards in the bank would only start more talk, and that
+it also would be essential to hire old Ike Jones to sit in front of
+the vault and play all night on his trombone to keep awake any two
+men picked from Egypt. While Britt was expressing his opinion of
+inefficiency and expense, the Prophet was furnishing this obbligato
+outside, "'He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he
+shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.'"
+
+Vaniman closed the door on Britt's objurgations.
+
+The young man did not find it necessary to prevail upon the Prophet to
+give over his discourse. As soon as the emissary appeared Elias folded
+his ample umbrella, tucked it under his arm, gave Vaniman a friendly
+greeting, and winked at him. The twilight dimmed the seamed face and
+the young man wondered whether he had been mistaken about the sly
+suggestiveness of that wink.
+
+"Joseph, how doth Pharaoh rest on his throne? Doth he sit easy?"
+
+Always in their brief but good-natured interviews the evangelist called
+the young man "Joseph." Elias took Vaniman's arm and walked along with
+him.
+
+"I'm afraid, Prophet Elias, that you'll provoke Mr. Britt too far. Take
+my advice. Keep away from him for a time."
+
+"'There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yeah, four which
+I know not: the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon
+a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man
+with a maid,'" said the Prophet, placidly. "Furthermore, 'The proud have
+digged pits for me.' Joseph, the pitfalls encompass thee."
+
+Vaniman refrained from making a reply; the Prophet was displaying an
+embarrassing amount of sapience as to conditions.
+
+In front of Usial Britt's cot they halted and the eccentric leaned close
+to Vaniman's ear. "Joseph, my son, keep thine eye peeled." He released
+the cashier's arm and strode to the door of Usial's house.
+
+Vaniman, delaying his departure, noted that the door did not give way
+when the Prophet wrenched at the knob. The guest banged his fist against
+a panel. "Let it be opened unto me!" he shouted.
+
+His voice served as his guaranty; Usial Britt opened the door and
+slammed it shut so suddenly after the Prophet had entered that it was
+necessary to reopen the portal and release the tail of Elias's robe.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"THE HORNET" GOES TO PRESS
+
+Vaniman did not go on his way at once, though, by his daily routine, he
+was headed toward his bit of recreation which cheered the end of his
+day of occupation. Every afternoon he dropped in at the office of Notary
+Amos Hexter--"Squire" Hexter, the folks of Egypt called him--and played
+euchre with the amiable old chap. After the euchre, the Squire and Frank
+trudged over to the Hexter home; the cashier boarded with the Squire and
+his wife, Xoa.
+
+In his general uneasiness, in his hankering for any sort of information
+that would help his affairs, the young man was tempted to follow the
+provocative Elias and pin him down to something definite; the flashes of
+shrewd sanity in the fanatic's mouthings had encouraged Frank to believe
+that the Prophet was not quite as much of an ingenuous lunatic as his
+gab and garb suggested.
+
+Right away, curiosity of another sort added its impulse.
+
+Usial's windows were uncurtained, though the grime on them helped to
+conceal activities within by a sort of ground-glass effect. But Vaniman
+could see well enough to understand what was going on. Every once in a
+while a canvas flap came over in a half circle across Vaniman's line
+of vision through one of the windows. Then a hairy arm turned a crank
+briskly; a moment later the arm pulled at a horizontal bar with vigor.
+
+It was plain that Usial Britt was printing.
+
+Vaniman had seen the shoemaker's printing equipment in common with
+everybody else who dropped into the shop. There were a few cases of worn
+type; there was a venerable Washington hand press. Vaniman had even been
+down on his knees, by Usial's invitation, and had peered up at the under
+surface of the imposing stone.
+
+When Tasper Britt wanted a burial lot in the Egypt cemetery of a size
+sufficient to set off his statue in good shape, he secured a hillock in
+which some of the patriarchs of the pioneers had been interred. There
+was no known descendants to say him nay. A fallen slate slab that had
+been long concealed in the tangled grass was tossed over the cemetery
+fence by the men who cleared up the hillock. Usial Britt considered the
+slab a legitimate find and with it replaced a marble imposing stone
+that had become gouged and cracked. Vaniman had found the inscription
+interesting when he knelt and peered up:
+
+     Here Lies the Body of THOSPIT WAGG,
+     In Politics a Whig.
+     By Occupation a Cooper in a Hoop-pole Town.
+     Now Food for Worms.
+     Here I Lie, Like an Old Rum Puncheon,
+     Marked, Numbered and Shooked,
+     To be Raised at Last and Finished by the Hand of My Maker.
+
+As Egypt knew, Usial Britt did not print for profit. He accepted no pay
+of any sort for the product of his press. When the spirit moved, or he
+felt that the occasion demanded comment in print, he "stuck" the
+worn type, composing directly from the case without first putting his
+thoughts on paper, and printed and issued a sheet which he titled _The
+Hornet_. Sometimes _The Hornet_ buzzed blandly--more often it stung
+savagely.
+
+Vaniman obeyed his impulse; he went to the door and knocked. He had
+always found Usial Britt in a sociable mood.
+
+"Who is it?" inquired the shoemaker.
+
+"Vaniman of the bank."
+
+"Leave your job, whatever it is, on the threshold, sir."
+
+"I am not bringing you any work, Mr. Britt."
+
+"Then kindly pass on; I'm in executive session, sir."
+
+The grumble of the cogs and the squeak of the press went on.
+
+So did Vaniman, after he had waited at the door for a few moments.
+
+Squire Hexter had a corner of his table cleaned of paper litter, in
+readiness for the euchre game.
+
+He was tilted back in his chair, smoking his blackened T. D. pipe, and a
+swinging boot was scraping to and fro along the spine of a fuzzy old dog
+whose head was meditatively lowered while he enjoyed the scratching.
+The Squire called the old dog "Eli"; that name gave Hexter a frequent
+opportunity to turn his little joke about having owned another dog that
+he called "Uli" and presented to a brother lawyer as an appropriate
+gift.
+
+The Squire had little dabs of whiskers on his cheeks like fluffs of
+cotton batting, and his wide mouth linked those dabs when he smiled.
+
+He came forward promptly in his chair, slapped his palm on the waiting
+pack of cards, and cut for the deal while Vaniman was throwing off his
+coat.
+
+"Judging by signs, as I came past Britt's shop, _The Hornet_ is getting
+ready to buzz again," said the cashier.
+
+"Aye! I reckoned as much. I have looked across there from time to time
+to-day and have seen customers knocking in vain on the door. It's your
+deal, boy!"
+
+Vaniman shuffled obediently.
+
+"And there was a run-in this morning between your boss and his brother,"
+observed the Squire, scratching a match. "And Eli, here, called my
+attention to the fact that two sun dogs, strangers to him, were chasing
+along with the sun all the forenoon. Signs of trouble, boy--sure signs!"
+He sorted his cards. It was more of the Squire's regular line of humor
+to ascribe to Eli various sorts of comment and counsel.
+
+"How crazy do you think Prophet Elias is?" inquired the young man,
+avoiding further reference to his employer.
+
+"After listening many times to the testimony of expert alienists in
+court trials I have come to the conclusion that all the folks in the
+world are crazy, son, or else nobody is ever crazy. I don't think I'll
+express any opinion on the Prophet. I might find myself qualifying as an
+alienist expert. I'd hate to!"
+
+After that mild rebuff Vaniman gave all his mind to the game--for when
+the Squire played euchre he wanted to attend strictly to the business
+in hand. And in the span of time between dusk and supper the two were
+rarely interrupted.
+
+But on this afternoon they were out of luck.
+
+Men came tramping up the screaking outside stairs that conducted to the
+office; the Squire had a room over Ward's general store.
+
+The men were led into the office by Isaac Jones--"Gid-dap Ike," he was
+named--the driver of the mail stage between Egypt and the railroad at
+Levant.
+
+For a moment Squire Hexter looked really alarmed. There were half
+a dozen men in the party and he was not accustomed to irruptions of
+numbers. Then his greeting smile linked his whisker tufts. Mr. Jones and
+his party pulled off their hats and by their demeanor of awkward dignity
+stood convicted as being members of a delegation formally presenting
+themselves.
+
+"Hullo, boys! Have chairs. Excuse the momentary hesitation. I was afraid
+you had come after me with a soaped rope."
+
+"I reckon we won't set," stated Mr. Jones. "And we'll be straight and to
+the point, seeing that a game is on. Squire Hexter, me and these gents
+represent the voters of Egypt. We ask you to accept the nomination to
+the legislature from this town for next session. So say I."
+
+"So say we all!" chorused the other men.
+
+The Squire set the thumb and forefinger of each hand into a whisker
+fluff and twisted a couple of spills, squinting at them. "The compliment
+is esteemed, boys. But the previousness is perplexing. This is February,
+and the primaries are not till June."
+
+"Squire Hexter, it ain't too early to show a man in this town where he
+gets off. That man is Tasper Britt. He has had ten dollars' worth of
+telling to-day by 'Sniffer' Orne. But telling ain't showing. What do you
+say?"
+
+The Squire gave Jones a whimsical wink and indicated the attentive
+Vaniman with a jab of the thumb. "S-s-sh! Look out, or the rate of
+interest will go up."
+
+Jones and his associates scowled at the cashier, and Vaniman understood
+with added bitterness the extent of his vicarious atonement as Britt's
+mouthpiece at the wicket of the bank.
+
+"The interest-payers of this town have been well dreened. But the
+voters--the _voters_, understand, still have assets. The voters have got
+to the point where they ain't afraid of Tasper Britt. The cashier of
+his bank can so report to him, if the said cashier so chooses--and, as
+cashier, probably will."
+
+"The cashier will attend strictly and exclusively to his bank duties,
+and to nothing else," declared Vaniman, with heat.
+
+"Hope you're enjoying 'em, such as they are of late," Jones retorted.
+"But once again, what say, Squire Hexter?"
+
+"Boys, you'd better get somebody else to sandpaper Tasper Britt with.
+I'm not gritty enough."
+
+"I'll come across with our full idea, Squire. It ain't simply to
+sandpaper Britt with that we want you to go. But we need some kind of
+legislation to help this town out of the hole. We don't know where we
+are. We can't raise money to pay state taxes, and we ain't getting our
+school money from the state, nor any share of the roads appropriation,
+nor--"
+
+"I know, Ike," broke in the Squire, not requiring any legal posting from
+a layman. "But it's the lobbyist, instead of the legislator, who really
+counts at the state capital. I've been planning to do a little lobbying
+at the next session. I'll tell you now that I'll go, and, by hooking a
+clean collar around each ankle under my socks, I'll be prepared for a
+two weeks' stay. Send somebody else to work for the state and I'll go
+and work for Egypt."
+
+"The voters want you," Jones insisted.
+
+The Squire rapped his toe against the old dog at his feet. "What say,
+Eli?"
+
+"Wuff!" the dog replied, emphatically.
+
+"Can't go as a legislator, boys! Eli says 'No.'"
+
+"This ain't no time for joking," growled the spokesman.
+
+"Certainly not!" The Squire snapped back his retort briskly. He was
+serious. "I agree with you that this poor old town needs help and a
+hearing. But when I go to the State House I propose to wear out shoe
+leather instead of pants cloth. If you must rasp Britt, go get a real
+file!"
+
+"Who in the blazes can we get?" demanded Jones, helplessly.
+
+The Squire laid down the hand of cards which he had just picked up, thus
+signaling the end of the interview, impatiently motioning to Vaniman to
+play; then the notary narrowed his eyes and pondered.
+
+The silence was broken by more screaking of the outside stairs.
+
+Prophet Elias stalked into the office. He carried limp, damp sheets
+across a forearm--papers that had been well wet down in order to take
+impressions from the Washington press. The men in the room waited for
+one of his sonorous promulgations of biblical truth. But he said no
+word, and his silence was more impressive because it was unwonted. He
+marched straight to the Squire and gave him one of the sheets. Then
+the Prophet turned and strode toward the door. Jones put out his hand,
+asking for one of the papers. Elias shook his head. "Yon scribe has a
+voice. Let him read aloud. I have but few papers--they must be spent
+thriftily." He passed on and went out.
+
+"One of the city newspapers ought to hire him for a newsboy," remarked
+Mr. Jones, acridly. "He could scare up a big circulation."
+
+The only light in the dim room was afforded by the big lamp at the
+Squire's elbow. He spread the sheet on the table in the lamp's circle of
+radiance. "Boys, _The Hornet_ is out and it looks as if it has a barb in
+its stinger," he stated, and then paused while he fixed his spectacles
+upon his nose.
+
+Vaniman, sitting close by, felt that a glance at a public sheet was not
+invading privacy.
+
+A smutted heading in wood type was smeared across the top of the page.
+It counseled:
+
+
+VOTE FOR BRITT. GIVE PHARAOH HIS KINGLY CROWN
+
+
+There was a broad, blank space in one of the upper corners of the sheet.
+Under the space was this explanation:
+
+
+Portrait of Tasper Britt, with his latest improvements. But, on second
+thought, out of regard for the feelings of our readers, we omit the
+portrait.
+
+
+The Squire, getting control of emotions which the observing Jones and
+his associates noted with rising interest, demurely explained to them
+the layout of the page after he had carefully inspected the sheet.
+
+Then Squire Hexter began to read aloud, in a tone whose twist of satire
+gave the text its full flavor:
+
+
+"We hasten to proclaim in the land of Egypt that Pharaoh Britt has
+reached for the scepter, though he had not loosed his grip on the gouge.
+You will know him here and hereafter by his everlasting grip on the
+gouge. He will take that gouge to Tophet with him. Then it will be
+heated red-hot and he will prance around hell astraddle of it. But in
+the meantime he is hot after the honors of this world. Give him his
+crown, say we. He has prepared a nice, new hair mattress on his brow
+where the diadem will rest easy. Under his coat of arms--to wit, a
+yellow he-goat rampant in a field of purple thistles--let him write the
+word 'Victory.'"
+
+
+The men in that room were Yankees, with a sense of humor as keen as a
+new bush scythe.
+
+The Squire sat back and wiped his spectacles and beamed on their
+laughter. Then he read on down the column, through the biting satire to
+the bitter end, having an audience whose hilarity would have delighted a
+vaudeville performer's soul.
+
+Therefore, it was with inspired unction that the reader delivered the
+"tag lines" of the screed.
+
+
+"We confess that we have a selfish purpose in paying this affectionate,
+brotherly tribute to Pharaoh. When he has deigned to refer to us in
+the past he has called us 'Useless' Britt. Now, if this tribute has the
+effect that we devoutly hope for, Pharaoh may be of a mind to give us
+back our right name. We ask nothing else in the way of recompense."
+
+
+The Squire folded the paper carefully and put it away in his breast
+pocket with the manner of one caching a treasure. "Boys, what are you
+waiting for?" he inquired, with an affectation of surprise.
+
+Their wide grins narrowed into the creases of wonderment of their own.
+
+Hexter patted his breast where he had stowed away the paper. "Egypt has
+a literary light, a journalist who wields a pen of power, a shoemaker
+philosopher. And modest--not grasping! See how little he asks for
+himself. Why not give him a real present? Why not--"
+
+Spokesman Jones perceived what the counsel was aiming at and
+ecstatically shouted, "Gid-dap!"
+
+"Why not use real sandpaper?" urged the squire, with innocent mildness.
+
+Jones whirled and drove his delegation ahead of him from the room, both
+hands upraised, fingers and thumbs snapping loud cracks as if he were
+urging his horses up Burkett Hill with snapping whip. The men went
+tramping down the outside stairs, bellowing the first honest-to-goodness
+laughter that Egypt had heard for many a day.
+
+Squire Hexter leaped up and grabbed his hat and coat from their hooks.
+"Come on, boy! It looks as if there's going to be a nominating bee at
+_The Hornet_ office--and we mustn't miss any of the buzzing."
+
+The two followed close on the heels of the noisy delegation.
+
+Usial Britt opened his door and stood in the frame of light after Jones
+had halted his clamorous crowd. The amateur publicist rolled his inky
+hands in his apron and showed doubt that was growing into alarm.
+
+"Hold your nippety pucket, Usial," counseled Hexter, calling over the
+heads of the men. "The boys had me guessing, too, a few minutes ago. But
+this isn't a lynching bee."
+
+However, while the crowd laughed and others came hastening to the scene,
+and while Spokesman Jones was trying to make himself heard above the
+uproar, an element was added which seemed to discount the Squire's
+reassuring words.
+
+Tasper Britt rushed out from Files's tavern and stood on the porch. He
+had one of the papers in his hand. He ripped the paper to tatters
+and strewed about him the bits and stamped on the litter. He shrieked
+profanity. Then he leaped off the porch.
+
+In the tavern yard was "Gid-dap" Jones's stage pung. Britt yanked the
+big whip from its socket and bounced across the street, untangling the
+lash.
+
+"No, you don't!" bellowed Jones, getting in the way and making grabs
+at the whip. "Not with my own private persuader! Get aholt of him, men!
+Down him. Don't let him whale the representative we're going to send
+from the town of Egypt!"
+
+That declared hint of what was afoot put the last touch on Tasper
+Britt's fury. He fought savagely to force his way through the men.
+
+The voice of Usial checked the melee. He shouted with a compelling
+quality in his tone. As the man on whom they proposed to bestow the
+town's highest honor, he had already acquired new authority. The men
+loosed Tasper Britt.
+
+"This is between brothers," said Usial. He had stepped from his doorway.
+He stood alone. "What outsider dares to interfere?"
+
+Tasper Britt employed his freedom promptly and brutally; he leaped along
+the avenue the men left for him and began to lash Usial with the whip.
+The stolid townsfolk of Egypt stood in their tracks.
+
+"That's the best way--let 'em fight it out," counseled Spokesman Jones.
+"Tasp Britt will get his, and it'll be in the family!"
+
+But Usial merely tossed his big apron over his head and crouched and
+took the lashing.
+
+"Isn't somebody going to stop that?" Vaniman demanded.
+
+Nobody moved. Egypt had its own ideas about interference in family
+matters, it seemed, and had been tartly reminded of those ideas by Usial
+Britt himself.
+
+But Vaniman was an outlander. He saw his employer disgracing himself; he
+beheld an unresisting victim cruelly maltreated.
+
+The young man jumped on Tasper Britt and tried to hold his arms. When
+Britt whirled and broke loose by the twist of his quick turn and struck
+the cashier with the whip, Vaniman wrested away the weapon, using all
+his vigorous strength, and threw it far. Then he seized the frothing
+assailant and forced him back toward the tavern. "Mr. Britt, remember
+what you are--the president of our bank--a prominent man--" Vaniman
+gasped, protesting. "When you're yourself you'll thank me!"
+
+But there was no sign of gratitude in Britt's countenance just then. His
+crazed rage was shifted to this presumptuous person who had interfered
+and was manhandling him; at that moment the liveliest emotion in Britt
+was the mordant jealousy that he had been trying to stifle. It awoke and
+raged, finding real excuse for the venting of its rancor on the man who
+had made him jealous.
+
+"You damnation spawn of a jailbird--"
+
+The young man had a rancor of his own that he had been holding in leash
+ever since he had sent Vona to fight her own battle, with his kiss
+on her cheek. He broke off that vitriolic taunt by dealing Britt an
+open-handed slap across the mouth, a blow of such force that the man
+went reeling backward. And when Britt beheld Vaniman's face, as the
+young man came resolutely along, the magnate of Egypt kept going
+backward of his own accord, flapping hands of protest. "Vaniman, here
+and now I discharge you from the bank."
+
+"Mr. Britt, that's a matter for the vote of the directors--and I'll wait
+to hear from them."
+
+Vaniman whirled from Britt, for the impulse was in him to smash his
+doubled fist into that hateful visage; his palm still itched; the
+open-handed buffet had not satisfied the tingling nerves of that hand.
+
+Usial Britt had not hurried about raising himself from his crouching
+position. He was standing with his apron over his head and faced the
+citizens. He was smiling--an irradiating, genial, triumphant sort of
+smile! One might readily have taken him for the victor in a contest!
+
+Spokesman Jones gulped. "We came--we was intending--but this
+hoop-te-doo--"
+
+Usial beamed blandly and helped out Mr. Jones's efforts to express his
+intentions. "Yes, Brother Jones, it was quite a shower while it lasted.
+What were you intending to do?"
+
+"Ask you to take the nomination for the legislature."
+
+The crowd indorsed the request with _viva-voce_ enthusiasm.
+
+"I certainly will. I am pleased and proud," declared Usial.
+
+Through the circle of men came Prophet Elias, his robe trailing on his
+heels. He stood beside Usial and faced the bystanders. He proclaimed,
+"'Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that
+loved us.'"
+
+Somebody handed to Mr. Jones his whip and he inspected it carefully. "Of
+course, there's more than one way of fighting a man--and I have my own
+notions--but maybe I'm wrong."
+
+"Eli has observed many a dog-fight," Squire Hexter remarked; "and, so
+far as he sees, the attacking dog doesn't get much out of the fracas
+except a ripped ear and a raw reputation in the neighborhood." He
+marched to Vaniman, took that perturbed young man by the arm, and said
+that Xoa would be waiting supper.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SQUARED OFF AND ALL SET
+
+As Squire Hexter and Vaniman walked on together the notary deferred
+comment on the recent happenings, as if he hoped that the cashier would
+open up on the topic. But Frank was grimly silent.
+
+Therefore the Squire broke the ice. "What kind of a partner does
+Tasp Britt make in a polka, son? I saw you and him going at it pretty
+briskly."
+
+"I stopped him from making a fool of himself."
+
+"Quite a contract, boy! Quite a contract! And when you got to the matter
+of his purple whiskers and his lamp-mat hair--"
+
+"I said nothing to Mr. Britt on such a ridiculous topic--certainly not,
+sir!"
+
+"And yet you brag that you have stopped him from making a fool of
+himself," purred the Squire. "Tut! Tut! He's worse than ever. I heard
+him tell you that you're discharged from the bank."
+
+"Yes, I heard him, too!"
+
+"I didn't catch what you answered back."
+
+"I told him I should ask the directors to decide that matter."
+
+"Quite right! You're sure of one vote for your side--that's mine! And
+I think that when President Britt considers that he has no other charge
+against you except that you took away a horsewhip that he was using not
+wisely but too well--"
+
+"I struck him across the mouth."
+
+"Oh, I missed that," said the Squire, regretfully. "Why the pat?"
+
+"I could not express my feelings in any other way. As to what those
+feelings were and why he stirred them, I'll have to ask you to excuse
+me, Squire Hexter. If I were going to stay in the bank I would explain
+the matter to you and to the directors. But I'm going to resign. Under
+these conditions, nobody has the right to tear the heart out of me and
+stick it up for a topic of conversation."
+
+The Squire glanced sideways at the convulsed face of the cashier and
+opened his eyes wide; but he promptly hid his wonderment and checked
+an exclamation that sounded like a question. "I reckon all of us better
+wait till morning, son--Tasper and you and I and all the rest." He
+looked up at the bright stars in a hard sky. "A snappy night like this
+will cool things off considerable."
+
+"I'll wait till morning, sir! Then I propose to resign," Frank insisted.
+
+"Don't say anything like that in front of Xoa," pleaded Squire Hexter.
+"I don't ever want to see again on her face the look she wore when she
+followed our own Frank to the cemetery; now that she has sort of adopted
+you, boy, I'm afraid she'll have the same look if she had to follow you
+to Ike Jones's stage."
+
+The supper was waiting, as the Squire had predicted; but he took no
+chances on sitting at table at once and having her keen woman's eyes
+survey Vaniman's somber face; he feared that her solicitude would open
+up a dangerous topic.
+
+"Leave your biscuits in for a few minutes, Mother," the Squire urged.
+"Let's have some literature for an appetizer."
+
+So he sat down and read the brotherly tribute in the new issue of _The
+Hornet_, and Xoa's eyes glistened behind her spectacles, though she
+decorously deplored the heat of the sting dealt by Usial. Frank,
+watching her efforts to hide mirth and display womanly concern at this
+distressing affair between brothers, forgot some of his own troubles in
+his amusement. Therefore the Squire's tactics were successful, and the
+talk at the supper table over the hot biscuits and the cold chicken and
+the damson preserves was concerned merely with the characters of the
+brothers Britt. Squire Hexter did mention, casually, that Frank had
+succeeded in inducing Tasper to stop whipping Usial. Xoa reached and
+patted the young man's arm and blessed him with her eyes.
+
+Frank, as usual, helped Xoa to clear away the supper things. Early in
+his stay he had been obliged to beg for permission to do it, and she
+had consented at last when he pleaded that it made him feel less like a
+boarder in the Hexter home.
+
+While she finished her work in the kitchen Vaniman sat with the
+Squire in front of the fireplace and smoked his pipe, but not with his
+customary comfort; the tobacco seemed to be as bitter as his ponderings;
+he was trying to stiffen his resolution to go away from Egypt.
+
+Squire Hexter chatted. It was hard to keep off the Britt affair, but the
+notary tactfully kept away from the sore center of it.
+
+"It has been going on a long time--the trouble between 'em, son. For two
+men who look alike outside, they're about as different inside as any two
+I've ever known. Tasper has been all for grab! He grabbed away Usial's
+share of the home place and then he grabbed Mehitable Dole while she
+was keeping company with Usial. I suppose Hittie reckoned there was no
+choice in outside looks, but saw considerable inducement in the home
+place. Plenty of other women for Usial! Yes! But I can't help thinking
+that I might be keeping bach hall in my law office if I hadn't got hold
+of Xoa in my young days. So there's Usial! Right in his rut because he's
+the kind that stays in a rut. Pegs shoes days and reads books nights. No
+telling how the legislature may develop him. Glad he's going."
+
+The Squire rapped out his pipe ashes against an andiron. His posture
+gave him an opportunity to say what he said next without meeting
+Vaniman's gaze. "Vona Harnden was a mighty smart girl when she was
+teaching school. I was superintendent and had a chance to know. Does she
+take hold well in the bank?"
+
+Vaniman had hard work to make his affirmative sound casual.
+
+"Have you met Joe, her father, since you've been in town?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Not surprising, and no great loss. Joe is on the jump a lot--geniusing
+around the country. Joe's a real genius."
+
+The young man looked straight into the fire and returned no comment. He
+knew well the dry quality of Hexter's satirical humor and perceived that
+the notary was indulging in that humor.
+
+"Yes, Joe Harnden is quite an operator, son. Jumps, as I have said. A
+good optimist. Jumps up so high every day that he can see over all the
+bothersome hills into the Promised Land of Plenty. Only trouble is that
+Joe's jumping apparatus is so geared that he only jumps straight up and
+lands back in the same place. Now, if only he could jump ahead."
+
+Xoa had come in from the kitchen and was setting out a small table on
+which the pachisi board was ready for the evening's regular recreation.
+She broke in with protest. "Amos, you shouldn't make fun of the
+neighbors!"
+
+"I'm complimenting Joe Harnden," the Squire went on, with serenity. "I'm
+saying that when he uses that inventive genius of his on his own jumping
+gear he'll leap ahead and make good. For instance, son, here's an
+example. Joe invented an anti-stagger shoe--a star-shaped shoe--to
+be let out at saloons and city clubs like they lend umbrellas for a
+fee--and then the reformers went and passed that prohibition law. Always
+a little behind with a grand notion--that's the trouble with Joe!"
+
+"Amos, you're making up that yarn about a shoe!" declared Xoa.
+
+"Well, if it wasn't an anti-stagger shoe, it was--oh--something,"
+insisted the Squire. "At any rate, Joe was in my office to-day. He's
+home again. He's all cheered up. He is taking town gossip for face
+value." The notary looked away from Vaniman and gave his wife an
+ingenuous glance. "Of course, I don't need to remind you, Xoa, speaking
+of gossip, that the folks will have it that Tasp Britt has put on that
+war paint so as to go on the trail of a Number Two. And Joe says that,
+in picking Vona, Britt has picked right. Joe's a genius in inventing.
+I'm expecting that he'll now invent a lie about himself or Britt or
+somebody else to make that girl either sorry enough or mad enough to
+carry out what gossip is predicting."
+
+Xoa had seated herself at the small table and was vigorously rattling
+the dice in one of the boxes by way of a hint to the laggard menfolks.
+"Women have a soft side, and men come up on that side and take
+advantage--and Joe Harnden's mealy mouth has always served him well
+with his womenfolks--but I do hope Vona Harnden has got done being
+fool enough to galley-slave and sacrifice for the rest of her life,"
+sputtered the dame. "Britt for her? Fs-s-sh!" Her hiss of disgust was
+prolonged. Then she rattled the dice more vigorously.
+
+"It's a mighty good imitation of a--diamond-backed rattler, mother! But
+come on over to the table, son! She isn't as dangerous as she sounds!"
+The Squire dragged along his chair.
+
+Vaniman leaped from his seat with a suddenness that was startling in
+that interior where peace prevailed and composure marked all acts. For
+the first time in his stay in the Hexter home his mood fought with the
+serenity of the place. The prospect of that bland contest with disks
+and dice was hateful, all of a sudden. His rioting feelings needed
+room--air--somehow there seemed to be something outside that he ought to
+attend to.
+
+"Dear folks, let me off for to-night," he pleaded. "It's been a hard day
+for me--in the bank--I'm nervous--I think a walk will do me good."
+
+He rushed into the hallway without waiting for any reply. He put on his
+cap and finished pulling on his overcoat when he was outside the house.
+His first impulse was to stride away from the village--go out along the
+country road to avoid the men who scowled at him as Britt's right-hand
+servitor.
+
+But he noted that some kind of tumult seemed to be going on in the
+village--and any kind of tumult fitted the state of his emotions right
+then. He hurried toward the tavern.
+
+Up and down the street men were marching, to and fro before Usial's
+shop. Vaniman saw tossing torches and the light revealed that some of
+the marchers wore oilcloth capes, evidently relics of some past and gone
+political campaign when parades were popular.
+
+There was music, of a sort. A trombone blatted--there was the staccato
+tuck of a snare drum, and the boom of a bass drum came in with
+isochronal beats.
+
+Vaniman went to the tavern porch and stood there with other onlookers.
+
+"Give Ike Jones half a chance with that old tramboon of his and he ain't
+no slouch as a musicianer," remarked Landlord Files to the young man. "I
+hope Egypt is waking up to stay so."
+
+"If we keep on, the town will get to be lively enough to suit even a
+city chap like you are," said another citizen. "Hope you're going to
+stay with us!" But there was no cordiality in that implied invitation;
+that there was malice which hoped to start something was promptly
+revealed. "In spite of what is reported about Tasp Britt firing you out
+of your job!" sneered the man.
+
+The morrow held no promise for Vaniman, no matter what the Squire had
+said in the way of reassurance. To stay with Britt in that bank would
+be intolerable punishment. He decided that he might as well talk back
+to Egypt as Egypt deserved to be talked to, considering what line of
+contumely had been passed in through that bank wicket. He was obliged
+to speak loudly in order to be heard over the trombone and the drums.
+Therefore, everybody in the crowd got what he said; he was young, deeply
+stirred, and he had held back his feelings for a long time. "I'm going
+to leave this God-forsaken, cat-fight dump just as soon as I can make my
+arrangements to get away. Good night!"
+
+He was ashamed of himself the moment that speech was out of his mouth.
+He was so much ashamed that he immediately became afraid he would
+be moved to apologize; and he was also ashamed to apologize. He was,
+therefore, suffering from a peculiar mixture of emotions, and realized
+that fact, and hurried off before his tongue could get him into any
+worse scrape.
+
+He suddenly felt an impulse to get back to sanity by a talk with Vona.
+He had never called at her home. He knew his Egypt all too well--short
+as his stay had been! A call on a young woman by a young man was always
+construed by gossip as a process of courtship--and until that day Frank
+had been keeping his feelings hidden even from Vona herself.
+
+But, having definitely decided to leave the town, he was in a mood to
+put aside considerations of caution in regard to their mutual affairs,
+for one evening, at any rate. He was moved also by the reflection that
+her father was at home--and the Squire and Xoa had dropped broad hints
+as to that gentleman's methods of operation with his womenkind. Vaniman
+possessed youth's confidence in his ability to make good in the world.
+He wondered if it would not be well to have a general show-down in the
+Harnden family, in order that when he went away from Egypt he might go
+with the consolation of knowing that Vona was waiting for him, her love
+sanctioned.
+
+Pondering, he arrived in front of Egypt's humble town hall. Young folks
+were coming out of the door. He remembered then! For some weeks they
+had been rehearsing a drama to be presented on the eve of Washington's
+Birthday, and Vona had the leading role; she had employed him at slack
+times in the bank to hold the script and prompt her in her lines.
+
+He saw her and stopped, and she hastened to him. "I suppose a political
+parade on Broadway wouldn't break up a rehearsal, Frank. But that's what
+has happened in this case. Not one of us could keep our minds on what we
+were saying."
+
+"I'm not surprised. Any noise of an evening in this place, except an owl
+hooting, is a cause for hysterics."
+
+She walked on at his side. "You're disgusted with our poor old town,"
+she said, plaintively.
+
+"I'm going to leave. Do you blame me?"
+
+"I've heard about the--whatever it was!"
+
+"That's right! Leave it unnamed--whatever it was!"
+
+She touched his arm timidly. "Please be kind--to me--no matter how much
+cause you have to dislike others here."
+
+He stopped, put his arms about her, and drew her into a close embrace.
+There were shadows of buildings where they stood; no one was near.
+
+"I can't do my best here, Vona. You understand it. But I can't go away
+and do the best that's in me unless I go with your pledge to me."
+
+"You have it, Frank! The pledge of all my love."
+
+"But your folks! They tell me your father is at home."
+
+"I have said nothing to father and mother--naturally." She smiled up
+at him. "I have never had any occasion to say anything to them about my
+loving anybody, because that matter has never come up till now."
+
+"I am going home with you," he said, grimly, and drew her along, his arm
+linked in hers.
+
+"If you think it is advisable for me to talk with father and mother,
+I'll do it--I'll do it to-night," she volunteered, courageously.
+
+"Vona, I never want to feel again as I did this afternoon when I allowed
+you to go alone on an errand that concerned us both. After this, I'm
+going to stand up, man fashion, and do the talking for the two of us."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TWO AGAINST THE FIELD
+
+Mr. Harnden had not had a bit of trouble late that afternoon in securing
+a promise from Tasper Britt to give him audience and view the plans and
+specifications of Mr. Harnden's latest invention. In fact, the consent
+had been secured so easily that Mr. Harnden, freshly arrived in town on
+Ike Jones's stage, and having heard no Egypt gossip during a prolonged
+absence from home, had blinked at Britt with the air of a man who had
+expected to find a door held against him, had pushed hard, and had
+tumbled head over heels when nothing opposed him.
+
+Mr. Harnden went out on the street and put himself in the way of hearing
+some gossip. Then he went directly back into Britt's office and shook
+hands with the money king, giving Mr. Britt an arch look which suggested
+that Mr. Harnden knew a whole lot that he was not going to talk about
+right then. He said, ascribing the idea to second thought, that it might
+be cozier and handier to view the plans at the Harnden home. Mr. Britt
+agreed with a heartiness that clinched the hopes which gossip had given
+Mr. Harnden. The father causally said he supposed, of course, that Vona
+had gone home long before from the bank, and he watched Mr. Britt's
+expression when the banker replied to a question as to how she was
+getting on with her work.
+
+"Yes, siree, she's a smart girl," corroborated the father, "and I have
+always impressed on her mind that some day she was bound to rise high
+and get what she deserves to have. Come early, Tasper, and we'll make a
+pleasant evening of it."
+
+Mr. Britt went early, but not early enough to catch Vona before she left
+for the rehearsal.
+
+Although it had been particularly easy to get Mr. Britt to come to
+the house, Mr. Harnden was not finding it easy to hold his prospective
+backer's attention. The patent project under consideration was what the
+inventor called "a duplex door," designed to keep kitchen odors from
+dining rooms. Mr. Harnden had a model of the apparatus. With his
+forefinger he kept tripping the doors, showing how a person's weight
+operated the contrivance, shutting the doors behind and simultaneously
+opening the doors in front; but Mr. Harnden did not draw attention to
+the palpable fact that a waiter would need to have the agility of a flea
+to escape being swatted in the rear or banged in the face.
+
+Mr. Britt watched the model's operations with lackluster eyes; he seemed
+to be looking through the little doors and at something else that was
+not visible to the inventor.
+
+Mr. Harnden was short and roly-poly, with a little round mouth and big
+round eyes, and a curlicue of topknot that he wagged in emphasis as a
+unicorn might brandish his horn. Mr. Harnden considered that he was a
+good talker. He was considerably piqued by Britt's apparent failure to
+get interested, although the banker was making considerable of an effort
+to return suitable replies when the inventor pinned him to answers.
+
+"Suppose I go over the whole plan again, from the start," suggested
+Harnden.
+
+"Joe, Mr. Britt looks real tired," protested Mrs. Harnden from the
+chimney corner. Her querulous tone fitted her lackadaisical looks; her
+house dress had too many flounces on it; she had a paper-covered novel
+in her hand.
+
+"Yes, I _am_ tired," declared Britt, mournfully. "Sort of worn out and
+all discouraged. I feel terribly alone in this world."
+
+"Too bad!" Mrs. Harnden cooed her sympathy, affectedly.
+
+"And I've been through hell's torments in the last few hours," declared
+Britt; ire succeeded his dolor.
+
+"You must try and forget how those ingrates have abused you, Mr. Britt.
+This is a beautiful story I have just finished. You must take it with
+you and read it. The love sentiment is simply elegant. And it speaks of
+the sheltering walls of the home making a haven for the wounded heart. I
+hope you have found this home a haven to-night." She rose and crossed to
+him and laid the novel in his hands.
+
+Mr. Harnden shoved his own hands into his trousers pockets, throwing
+back his coat from his comfortable frontal convexity. He presented
+a sort of full-rigged effect--giving the appearance of one of those
+handy-Jack "Emergency Eddies" who make personal equipment a fad: the
+upper pockets of his waistcoat bristled with pencils and showed the
+end of a folded rule and some calipers. He had all sorts of chains
+disappearing into various pockets--chains for keys and knife and cigar
+cutter and patent light. "Tasper," he advised, briskly, "seeing that
+you're now in a happy haven, as the wife says, why waste time and temper
+on this town? The only reason why I have kept my home here is because
+the town is solid rock and makes a good jumping-off place for me; I can
+get a firm toe hold. Why do you bother with a dinky office like the one
+you started out for? With your money and general eminence you can be the
+Governor of our state. Sure! I know all the men in this state. I've made
+it my business to know 'em. Let me be your manager and I'll make you
+Governor like"--Mr. Harnden yanked out one hand and tripped the doors
+of the model with a loud snap--"like that! Open goes the door to
+honors--bang goes the door against enemies!"
+
+Mr. Britt glanced at the title of the story in his hands--_The Flowers
+Along Life's Pathway_--and perked up a bit as if he saw an opportunity
+to pluck some of those flowers. But when Mr. Harnden went on to say that
+politics was not as expensive--with the right manager--as some folks
+supposed, Mr. Britt exhibited gloomy doubt. "A home is about all I have
+in mind right now," he declared. "A man has got to have a happy home
+before his mind is free for big plans."
+
+"My experience exactly!" stated Mr. Harnden, graciously indicating with
+a wave of the hand the happy home which he rarely graced. "And knowing
+what I do about the help a good home gives an enterprising man, you've
+got my full co-operation in your efforts, Tasper."
+
+They heard the hall door open.
+
+"It's Vona," announced Mrs. Harnden. She beamed on Britt. "I wonder why
+the dear girl is coming home so early."
+
+The caller's face lighted up with the effect of an arc lamp going into
+action.
+
+But when the sitting-room door opened and Vona escorted Vaniman in ahead
+of her, Britt's illuminated expression instantly became the red glare of
+rage instead of the white light of hope. He leaped to his feet.
+
+The situation made for embarrassment of overwhelming intensity; there
+was no detail of the affair in front of Usial's cot that had not been
+canvassed by every mouth in Egypt, including the mouths of the Harnden
+home.
+
+Vaniman made the first move. He bowed to Mrs. Harnden; he knew the
+mother; she had called on Vona in the bank. "May I meet your father?" he
+asked the girl.
+
+Vona presented him, recovering her composure by the aid of Frank's
+steadiness.
+
+"How-de-do!" said Mr. Harnden, stiffly. He did not ask the caller to be
+seated. Vona gave the invitation. While Vaniman hesitated, the master
+of the household had a word to say, putting on his best business air.
+"Ordinarily, young man, the latchstring of my home is out and the boys
+and the girls are welcome here to make merry in a sociable way." Mr.
+Harnden was distinctly patronizing, with an air that put Frank into
+the intruding-urchin class. "But it so happens that this evening Banker
+Britt has seized the opportunity of my being in town and he and I are in
+close conference regarding an important matter in the investment line.
+You'll excuse us, I'm sure."
+
+It was certainly no moment to go tilting in the field of Love, and
+Frank, though undaunted, was deferential; and he was compelled to
+recognize the father's rights as master of the household. He bowed and
+turned to leave, carefully keeping his eyes off Britt.
+
+But Vona had her word to say then; her foot was on the hearth of home;
+she had that advantage over Frank. Moreover, she was moved by the
+instinct of self-protection; she did not relish the notion of being left
+alone with that trio.
+
+"We can kindle a fire in the front room, father!"
+
+"There hasn't been a fire in that room all winter, dear girl." Mrs.
+Harnden's protest was sweetly firm. "No one shall run the chance of
+catching a cold."
+
+"Exactly! It's tricky weather, and we must be careful of our guests,"
+agreed Mr. Harnden. "Call again, young sir!"
+
+"I will," stated Vaniman. He turned and addressed Vona. "The little
+matter will take no harm if it's postponed till to-morrow," he told her.
+His gaze was tender--and the girl looked up at him with an expression
+which even a careless observer would have found telltale. Britt's vision
+was sharpened by such jealous venom that he would have misconstrued even
+innocent familiarity. He had been struggling with his passion ever since
+Vaniman had appeared, escorting the girl in from the night where the two
+had been alone together. Age's ugly resentment at being supplanted by
+youth was sufficiently provocative in this case where Britt ardently
+longed, and had promised himself what he desired; but to that
+provocation was added the stinging memory of the blow dealt that day
+by Youth's hand across Age's withered mouth; he licked the swollen lips
+with a rabid tongue. He beheld the two young folks exchanging looks that
+gave to their simple words an import which roused all his fury. Britt
+shook himself free from all restraint. He had been assured by the
+Harndens that their home was his haven; he took advantage of that
+assurance and of the young man's more dubious standing in the household.
+
+Britt was holding to the paper-covered novel--it was doubled in his
+ireful grip and its title showed plainly above his ridged hand--a
+particularly infelicitous title it seemed to be under the circumstances,
+because Britt was shaking the book like a cudgel and his demeanor was
+that of a man who was clutching thorns instead of flowers. He advanced
+on Frank and his voice made harsh clamor in the little room. "You'd
+better not take on any more engagements for to-morrow, Vaniman. You'll
+be mighty busy with me, winding up our business together."
+
+"Very well, sir. And suppose we leave off all matters between us until
+then!"
+
+But Britt had started to run wild and was galloping under the whip of
+fury. He had been doing some amazing things that day--he had written
+verse, he had blubbered foolishly with a girl looking on, and he had
+horsewhipped his twin brother before the eyes of the populace--but what
+he did next was more amazing than all the rest. Having sourly admitted
+to himself that he was a coward when he was alone with the girl, he
+took advantage of this moment when his choleric desperation gave him
+fictitious courage. He slashed into the situation with what weapons he
+had at hand--and he held a reserve weapon, so he thought, in the big
+wallet that thrust its bulk reassuringly against his breast. "This thing
+seems to have come to a climax; and it ain't through any fault of mine.
+I've never yet been afraid to talk for myself, in a climax, and I ain't
+afraid now. The time to do business is when you've got your interested
+parties assembled--and the five folks in this room--the whole five--may
+not be collected together again," he stated, with vengeful significance,
+looking hard at Vaniman. Then he whirled on the girl. "Vona, I want to
+marry you. You know it. Your folks know it. It's all understood, even if
+it hasn't been put into words. I'll give you everything that money will
+buy. When you get me you know what you're getting. I put the question to
+you right here and now, before your home folks, and that shows you what
+kind of a square man I am. I don't sneak in dark corners." He accused
+her escort with a glowering side-glance.
+
+Mrs. Harnden simpered.
+
+Vona had never found her mother an especially stable support in times of
+stress, but the girl did feel that the maternal spirit might arise and
+help in an emergency as vital as that one! Mrs. Harnden, however,
+was gazing into the arena and was blandly indicating by her demeanor,
+"Thumbs down!"
+
+Then the girl appealed to her father, mutely eager; denied sympathy, she
+was asking for protection. But Mr. Harnden was distinctly not extending
+protection. He was looking at Mr. Britt. By avoiding what he knew the
+girl was asking for with all her soul in her eyes, Mr. Harnden was
+indulging his consistent selfishness; he hated to be worried by the
+troubles of others; others' woes placed brambles on the pathway of his
+optimism.
+
+"Tasper, you have certainly jumped the Harnden family--jumped us
+complete! You can't expect a girl to get her voice back right away. But
+I suppose it's up to me to speak for the family."
+
+Vaniman stepped into the center of the room. "I suppose so, too, Mr.
+Harnden. I'll confess that I came into your house this evening with that
+idea in my mind."
+
+Now the girl had eyes only for the one whom she recognized as her
+real champion; those eyes would have inspired a knight to any sort of
+derring-do, Frank was telling himself.
+
+"That being agreed, I'll speak," stated Mr. Harnden, throwing back his
+coat lapels and displaying all his pencil quills.
+
+"Just one moment, sir, till I have shown that Mr. Britt has no monopoly
+on courage--seeing that he has put invasion of a quiet home on that
+plane. I love your daughter. I want her for my wife. I came here to tell
+you so; but I was putting politeness ahead of my anxiety after you told
+me that you were engaged."
+
+"Harnden, that man hasn't a cent in the world," Britt declared. "He
+sends away every sou markee he can spare from his salary. He buys checks
+from me. I can show 'em." Out came Britt's big wallet; he threw down the
+paper-covered novel.
+
+"I support my mother and I'm putting my young sister through school,"
+admitted the cashier. "Mr. Britt is right. But every time I buy one of
+his checks I buy a lot of honest comfort for myself."
+
+"I think, young man, that the Harnden family better not interfere with
+the comfort of the Vaniman family," averred the father, loftily. "I'd
+hate to think I was a party to taking bread from the mouths of a mother
+and a sister. I'm sure Vona feels the same way."
+
+"Certainly!" supplemented Mrs. Harnden. "I understand a woman's feelings
+in such a matter."
+
+"Furthermore, I have discharged Vaniman for good and sufficient
+reasons," said President Britt. "He stands there busted and without a
+job."
+
+"That is quite true," Vaniman admitted. "I cannot remain with the Egypt
+Trust Company, but that's a matter quite of my own choice."
+
+"Oh, it is, is it?" scoffed the president.
+
+"Yes, sir! I've had quite enough of your society."
+
+"Therefore, it seems to me that there isn't much more to be said--not
+here--in a home that we try to make peaceful and happy at all times,"
+said Mr. Harnden, pompously.
+
+"But there's something more I'm going to say!" Britt was proceeding with
+malice in tones and mien. He had been waving the canceled checks. He
+pulled another paper from the wallet. "You think the directors would
+keep you on in that job, do you, Vaniman, if you forced the issue?"
+
+"I do! Jealousy and petty spite would not show up very strong in a board
+meeting, Mr. Britt."
+
+Britt shook the paper. "How would this show up?"
+
+Vaniman did not lose his composure. "Why don't you read it aloud? You
+have stirred curiosity in Mr. and Mrs. Harnden, I see."
+
+"And I'll stir something else in a girl you're trying to fool! But I'm
+gong to save this letter for that board meeting; I'll have you fired by
+a regular vote--and I'll send the record of that vote to every bank in
+this part of the country. Then see how far you'll get with your lies
+about my jealousy!" Britt was plainly determined to allow guesswork to
+deal in the blackest construction regarding the letter.
+
+Vaniman turned his back on the others. He talked directly to Vona. The
+agonized query in her eyes demanded a reply from him. "Mr. Britt has in
+his hand a letter from some banking friend of his. The letter says that
+my father was sentenced to the penitentiary, charged with embezzlement.
+That is so. My father died there. But it was wicked injustice. You and
+your father and mother are entitled to know that an honest man was made
+a scapegoat."
+
+"Excuse me!" broke in Harnden. "We are outsiders and will probably
+remain so, and have no hankering to pry into family matters."
+
+"I did not intend to tell the story now, Mr. Harnden. It's too sacred
+a matter to be discussed in the presence of that man who stands there
+trying to make a club of the thing to ruin my hopes and my life. This is
+a hateful situation. I apologize. But he has forced me to speak out, as
+I have done, telling you and your wife of my love for Vona."
+
+"I don't see how you dare to speak of it, seeing what the circumstances
+are," declared the father; there was a murmur of corroboration from the
+mother.
+
+"It's a cheeky insult to all concerned," shouted Britt.
+
+"No, it's my best attempt to be honest and open and a man," insisted
+Vaniman. "I have left no chance for gossip to bring tales to you, Mr.
+Harnden."
+
+But Mr. Harnden sliced the air with a hand that sought to sever further
+conference. "Absolutely impossible, young man."
+
+"Vona's prospects must not be ruined by anybody's selfishness," stated
+Mrs. Harnden.
+
+In his eagerness, encouraged by this parental backing, Mr. Britt did
+not employ a happy metaphor. "It has been my rule, in the case of bitter
+medicine, to take it quick and have the agony over with." He put all the
+appeal he could muster into his gaze at Vona. "That's why I have sprung
+the thing this evening, on the spur of the moment. I ain't either young
+or handsome, Vona. I know my shortcomings. But I've got everything to
+make you happy; all you've got to do is turn around and take me as your
+husband and make me and your folks happy, too."
+
+Mr. Harnden's optimism bobbed up with its usual serenity. "We're making
+a whole lot out of a little, come to think it over!" He turned to Vona,
+feeling that he was fortified against any appeal he might find in her
+eyes.
+
+In the silence that she had imposed on herself while her champion was
+battling she had been gathering courage, piling up the ammunition of
+resolution. Love lighted her eyes and flung out its signal banners of
+challenge on her cheeks.
+
+"Why, our girl has never said that she is in love with anybody," prated
+the father.
+
+"I'll say it now, when there's a good reason for saying it," cried the
+girl, her tones thrilling the listeners. "I'll say it in my own way to
+the one who is entitled to know, and you may listen, father and mother!"
+
+She went to Frank, stretching her hands to him, and he took them in
+his grasp. "I understand! I can wait," she told him. "And when the time
+comes and you call to me, I'll say, as Ruth said, 'Entreat me not to
+leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou
+goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall
+be my people, and thy God my God.'" Impulsively, heeding only him, she
+threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Then she ran from the
+room.
+
+And finding the light gone out of the place, Frank groped to the door,
+like a blind man feeling his way, and departed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE NIGHT BROUGHT COUNSEL
+
+Mr. Britt, left with the father and mother, got his voice first because
+he had been pricked most deeply; furthermore, the girl's method of
+expression had touched him on the spot which had been abraded by Prophet
+Elias's daily rasping.
+
+The suitor drove his fist down on the center table with a force that
+caused the model of Mr. Harnden's doors to jump and snap. "By the
+joo-dinged, hump-backed Hosea, I've just about got to my limit in this
+text business!"
+
+"The dear girl is all wrought up. She don't realize what she's saying.
+I'll run up to her room and reason with her. Don't mind what a girl says
+in a tantrum, Mr. Britt," Mrs. Harnden pleaded.
+
+Mr. Britt, left with the father, began to stride back and forth across
+the room. The title of the book jeered up at him from the carpet where
+he had tossed the volume; he kicked the book under the table.
+
+"The wife said a whole lot just now," affirmed Mr. Harnden, soothingly.
+"Consider where the girl has been this evening, Tasper! Off elocuting
+dramatic stuff! Comes back full of high-flown nonsense. Gets off
+something that was running in her head. Torched on by that fly-by-night
+who'll be getting out of town and who'll be forgotten inside a week.
+Where's your optimism?" He reached up and slapped Britt's back when the
+banker passed him.
+
+"She is in love with him," complained the suitor; his anger was
+succeeded by woe; his face "squizzled" as if he were about to weep a
+second time that day.
+
+"Piffle! She's a queer girl if she didn't have the usual run of childish
+ailments, along with the whooping cough and the measles. I have always
+known how to manage my womenfolks, Tasper. Not by threats and by
+tumulting around as you have been doing! You've got a lot to learn.
+Listen to me!"
+
+Mr. Britt paused and blinked and listened.
+
+Mr. Harnden plucked out a pencil and made believe write a screed on the
+palm of his hand while he talked. "'By the twining tendrils of their
+affections you can sway 'em to and fro,' as the poet said, speaking of
+women. I am loved in my home. I have important prospects, now that you
+are backing me."
+
+Mr. Britt blinked more energetically, but he did not dispute.
+
+"Another poet has said that's it's all right to lie for love's sake--or
+words to that effect. I know the right line of talk to give Vona. And
+I won't have to lie such a great lot to make her know how bad off I am
+right now. She has always had a lot of sympathy for me," declared Mr.
+Harnden, complacently. "I may as well cash in on it. She won't ruin a
+loving father and a happy home when she wakes up after a good cry on the
+wife's shoulder and gets her second wind and understands where she's at
+in this thing. Tasper, you sit down there in a comfortable chair and let
+me rub on some optimism anodyne where you're smarting the worst."
+
+When Mrs. Harnden came into the room a half hour later she looked
+promptly relieved to find Mr. Britt in such a calm mood; when she had
+hurried out he was acting as if he were intending to kick the furniture
+about the place.
+
+"A good cry--and all at peace, eh?--and a new view of things in the
+morning?" purred the optimist in the way of query.
+
+"She didn't cry," reported the mother, with a disconsolateness that did
+not agree with the cheering words of the reports.
+
+"Oh, very well," remarked Mr. Harnden, optimism unspecked. "That shows
+she is taking a common-sense view and is using her head. What says she?"
+
+"I may as well post you on how the matter stands, Mr. Britt. By being
+honest all 'round we can operate together better."
+
+Britt agreed by an emphatic nod.
+
+After an inhalation which suggested the charging of an air gun, Mrs.
+Harnden pulled the verbal trigger. "Vona says she is all through at the
+bank."
+
+"Oh, I know my girl," said Mr. Harnden, airily. "I'll handle her when
+morning's light is bright, and forgotten is the night!"
+
+"I thought I knew my girl, too," the mother declared, gloomily. "But I
+guess I don't. I never saw her stiffen up like this before. She sat
+and looked at me, and I felt like a cushion being jabbed by a couple of
+hatpins--if there's any such thing as a cushion having feelings."
+Mrs. Harnden, settling her flounces, a soft and sighing example of "a
+languishing Lydia," was as unfortunate in her metaphor as Britt had been
+when he mentioned a bitter medicine.
+
+"Tell her that I'll pay her ten dollars more a week," said President
+Britt, looking desperate. "She mustn't leave me in the lurch."
+
+"She'll do it! Nothing to worry about!" affirmed the father. "And I'll
+grab in as cashier till my bigger projects get started. I've got a
+natural knack for handling money, Tasper."
+
+The banker winced.
+
+"We can make it all snug, right in the family," insisted Harnden.
+He jumped up, opened the door into the hallway, and called. He kept
+calling, his tones growing more emphatic, till the girl replied from
+abovestairs.
+
+"She's coming down," reported the general manager of the household,
+taking his stand in front of the fireplace. He pulled on a chain and
+dragged out a bunch of keys and whirled them like a David taking aim
+with a sling.
+
+Vona came no farther than the doorway, and stood framed there.
+
+"What's this last nonsense--that you won't go to your work in the
+morning?"
+
+"Your pay is raised ten dollars a week, starting to-morrow,"
+supplemented Britt, appealingly.
+
+But there was no compromise in the girl's mien. "Mr. Britt, I realize
+perfectly well that I ought to give you due notice--the usual two weeks.
+That would be the honorable business way. But you have set the example
+of disregarding business methods, in your treatment of Mr. Vaniman. You
+mustn't blame others for doing as you're doing. Therefore I positively
+will not come into the bank, as conditions are. As I feel to-night I
+shall feel to-morrow! If you, or my father and mother, think you can
+change my mind on the matter, you'll merely waste your arguments."
+
+That time she did not run away. She surveyed them in turn, leisurely
+and perfectly self-possessed. Even the optimist recognized inflexibility
+when he was bumped against it hard enough! She stepped backward,
+challenging reply, but they were silent, and she went upstairs.
+
+"Still, nobody knows what the morning may bring forth," persisted
+Harnden, after waiting for somebody else to speak. "As I have said, I
+have a knack--"
+
+"Of blowing up paper bags and listening to 'em bust!" snarled the
+banker, permitting himself, at least, to express his real opinion of
+a man whom he had always held to be an impractical nincompoop. "If you
+count cash the way you count chickens before they're hatched, you'd make
+a paper bag out of my bank. I'll bid you good night!"
+
+He wrenched away from Harnden's restraining hands and shook himself
+under the shower of the optimist's pattering words, as a dog would
+shake off rain. In the hall he pulled on his overcoat and turned up the
+collar, for the words still pattered. He went out into the night and
+slammed the door.
+
+Britt began his program of general anathema by shaking his fist at the
+Harnden house after he had reached the street. He shook his fist at the
+other houses along the way as he went tramping in the middle of the road
+toward his home. He even brandished his fist at his own statue in the
+facade of Britt Block. The moonlight revealed the complacent features;
+the cocky pose of serene confidence presented by the effigy affected the
+disheartened original with as acute a sense of exasperation as he would
+have felt if the statue had set thumb to nose and had wriggled the stone
+fingers in impish derision.
+
+"Gid-dap" Jones and a few citizens who could not make up their minds to
+go to bed till they had sucked all the sweetness out of an extraordinary
+evening in Egypt, were walking up and down the tavern porch, cooling
+off. Mr. Britt, tramping past, shook his fist at them, too.
+
+"Hope you enjoyed the music!" suggested Jones, wrought up to a pitch
+where he would not be bull-dozed even by "Phay-ray-oh."
+
+"Yes, and I hope we'll have some more to-morrow night," retorted the
+banker. "You still have the poorhouse, the cattle pound, and the lockup
+to serenade."
+
+"All right! Which one of 'em do you expect to be in?" inquired Jones.
+"We wouldn't have you miss a tune for the world!"
+
+When Britt arrived in the shadows of his own porch he stood and looked
+out over Egypt and cursed the people, in detail and in toto. He had
+become a monomaniac. He had set himself to accomplish one fell purpose.
+
+In his office, earlier that day, he had resolved upon revenge; but
+his natural caution had served as a leash, and he had pondered on no
+definite plans that might prove dangerous. Now only one fear beset
+him--the fear that he would not be able to think up and put through a
+sufficiently devilish program.
+
+He banged his door behind him and lighted a lamp which he kept on a
+stand in the hall. He creaked upstairs in the lonely house. His sense of
+loneliness was increased when he reflected that Vona would not be at her
+desk in the morning.
+
+The village watchman noted that the reflector lamp shone all night on
+the door of the vault in the Egypt Trust Company; it was the watchman's
+business to keep track of that light. But he noted also, outside of his
+regular business, that there was a light for most of the night in Tasper
+Britt's bedroom.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MAN WHO WAS SORRY
+
+It was a heavy dawn, next day; a thaw had set in and a drizzle of rain
+softened the snow; gray clouds trailed their draperies across the top of
+Burkett Hill.
+
+Landlord Files had trouble in getting his kitchen fire started--in the
+sluggish air the draught was bad. Mr. Files's spirits were as heavy as
+the air. He knew it was up to him to be the first man in Egypt to come
+in contact with Tasper Britt that morning.
+
+Stage-driver Jones had an early breakfast, for he had to be off with the
+mail. Mr. Jones had been up late, for him, and he was grouchy. In the
+matter of the warfare on Pharaoh his mood seemed to be less assertive
+than it had been the night before. Mr. Files detected that much after
+some conversation while the breakfast was served.
+
+"All you have to do is 'gid-dap' and get away," said Files, sourly. "I
+have to stay here on my job and be the first to meet him and get the
+brunt of the whole thing. And I condoned, as you might say, and as he'll
+probably feel. I let my porch be used for meeting and mobbing, as you
+might say. And he ketched me grinning over his shoulder when I read
+them heading words after that old lunkhead of a Prophet passed him the
+paper."
+
+"Shut up!" remarked Driver Jones, stabbing a potato.
+
+"I owe him money--and I let my porch be used--"
+
+"Figure out the wear and tear on the planks and pass me the bill. Now
+shut up and don't spoil my vittles any morn'n you have done in the way
+of cooking 'em."
+
+Mr. Files, left alone to meet Britt, resolved to hand that tyrant a
+partial sop by having breakfast on the table the moment the regular
+boarder unfolded his napkin; food might stop Britt's mouth to some
+extent, the landlord reflected.
+
+Result of this precautionary courtesy! The breakfast was a mess when
+Britt arrived, a half hour late. Mr. Files had depended on his boarder's
+invariable punctuality and had been obliged to keep "hotting up" the
+food, watching the clock with increasing despair.
+
+Britt smiled on the landlord when they faced each other in the dining
+room. The smile made the landlord shiver. He was dreading the explosion.
+He set on the viands as timidly as a child holding out peanuts to
+an elephant. Mr. Britt beamed blandly and spoke of the change in the
+weather and said he was hoping that "Old Reliable Ike wouldn't be
+bothered too much by the soft footing on his way to Levant."
+
+Mr. Files gasped when he heard this consideration expressed for the
+ringleader of the evening's demonstration. He recovered sufficiently to
+start in on an explanation of the condition of the food.
+
+"It's all right, Files! It's my fault. I overslept."
+
+Britt ate for a few minutes; then he suspended operations and looked
+Files hard in the face; that face, as to mouth, was as widely open as
+the countenance of the office alligator. "I did a whole lot of thinking
+last night, Files. I'm telling you first, like I propose to tell others
+in Egypt as I come in contact with 'em during the day--it has been my
+fault--how things have happened! The night brings counsel! Yes, sir, it
+surely does." He went on eating.
+
+"Mr. Britt, I was afraid--"
+
+Pharaoh waved his knife expostulatingly. "I know it, Files! Your face
+told me the whole story when I stepped in here. But I'm a changed man.
+I know when I'm down. However, it's my own fault, I repeat. I stubbed my
+toe over the trigs I had set in the way of my own operations. I deserve
+what I'm getting--and the lesson will make me a different man from now
+on."
+
+Mr. Files staggered out into the kitchen in order to be alone with his
+thoughts.
+
+Britt spent a longer time than usual in the tavern office after
+breakfast; he smoked two cigars, himself, and gave a cigar to each of
+the early citizens who dropped in through the front way after they had
+received certain information from Files, who excitedly had beckoned
+them to come to him at the ell door. Mr. Britt frankly exposed his new
+sentiments about living and doing. When he put on his overcoat and went
+forth, Prophet Elias popped out of the door of Usial's cot like the
+little gowned figure of a toy barometer. Britt waved his hand in
+cheerful greeting. "Prophet Elias, hand me that text about the way of
+the transgressor being a hard one to travel, and I'll take it in a meek
+and lowly spirit and be much obliged." There was no sarcasm in Britt's
+tone; on the contrary, his manner agreed with his profession regarding
+meekness. The Prophet swapped stares with Files, who stood in the tavern
+door; that Elias was greatly impressed was evident, because he withheld
+speech.
+
+That situation had enough drawing power to bring the brother to the
+cottage door; he appeared, his spider in his hand.
+
+"Good morning, Usial," called Tasper. "I own up that you're a convincing
+writer. According to your request, you see I'm giving you your right
+name. The voters are giving you honors. Who knows what another issue of
+_The Hornet_ may get for you?" Britt's tone was one of bluff sincerity.
+
+Egypt's Pharaoh did not seem to be a bit put out because no one replied
+to him in this astonishing levee. He descended from the porch and
+strolled off toward Britt Block, puffing his cigar.
+
+He found the cashier alone in the bank. Vaniman hastened to put in the
+first word. "President Britt, I'm ready to wind up my affairs, and I
+hope you see the wisdom in holding our talk strictly to the business in
+hand."
+
+The president walked in past the grille and sat down at the table; by
+the mere look he gave the young man Britt succeeded in climaxing the
+succession of the morning's surprises; Vaniman had more reason than the
+others to be amazed.
+
+"Frank, I'm sorry!" There was wistful fervor in the declaration; for the
+first time in their association the president had called the cashier by
+his Christian name.
+
+Vaniman had risen from his stool; he sat down again and goggled at
+Britt.
+
+"If the two of us begin to apologize, we'll get all snarled up," went on
+the president. "Real men can get down to cases in a better way. I did a
+lot of thinking last night; probably you did, too. The hell fire I went
+through yesterday would upset any man. To-day I'm scorched and sensible.
+I went after something I couldn't get. Just now I don't ask you to stay
+here permanently. You can stay right along if you want to, I'll say that
+here and now! But if you're bound to go--later--go when you can leave on
+the square, after you have broken another man into the job, if you feel
+you don't want it. I'll send you away then with my best wishes and a
+clean bill! Please don't make me crawl any more'n I'm doing!"
+
+It was an appeal to Youth's hale generosity--and generosity dominated
+all the other qualities in Vaniman's nature. "I'll stay, Mr. Britt," he
+blurted. "After what you have said I can't help staying."
+
+The banker rose and stretched out his hand. "Men can put more into a
+grip of the fist than women can into an afternoon of gabble, Frank."
+
+After the vigorous clasp of palm in palm, Britt had something more to
+say. "Vona was terribly stirred up last night, and nobody can blame her.
+She served notice on me that she was done in the bank. But she needs
+the money and you and I need her help. Go up and ask her to walk back in
+here as if nothing had happened. And tell her that what I said about the
+raise in her pay holds good."
+
+"I think you ought to go and tell her, Mr. Britt," Vaniman demurred.
+"And my standing with Mr. and Mrs. Harnden--"
+
+"I guess your standing will be better from now on," Britt broke in,
+twisting his face into a wry smile. "I left Harnden with a hot ear on
+him last night! Furthermore, you'll have to ask her. She declared that
+if her father or mother or I tried to change her mind about coming back
+here we'd be wasting breath. Go on! I'll tend bank."
+
+When Frank returned with Vona a half hour later the president beamed on
+them through the wicket. He immediately left the bank office, giving the
+bookkeeper a paternal pat on the shoulder as he passed her, calling her
+a good girl. And then the business of the Egypt Trust Company settled
+back into its usual routine.
+
+During the day customers came to the wicket with notes sanctioned by the
+president's O. K. and his sprawling initials; Mr. Britt did not trouble
+himself by consulting the directors in regard to ordinary loans. He was
+well settled in his autocracy by virtue of the voting proxies which he
+handled for stockholders, although he had only a modest amount of his
+own money invested in the stock of the bank. Mr. Britt could use his own
+money to better advantage. He was permitted to make a one-man bank
+of the Trust Company because nobody in Egypt ventured to dispute his
+sapience as a financier.
+
+The customers who came that day were plainly having a hard time of it
+in controlling their desire to share some of their emotions with
+the cashier. But Vaniman's stolid countenance did not encourage any
+confidences.
+
+Some of the repression he exercised in the case of customers extended
+to his communion with Vona during the slack times of the business day.
+There seemed to be a tacit agreement between them to keep off the topic
+of what had happened the night before. Words could not have added to
+their understanding of their mutual feelings. That understanding had
+established for them the policy of waiting. Though Frank said but little
+to the girl about his talk with the president, he imagined he could feel
+the tingle of Britt's handclasp as he remembered the look on Britt's
+face, and he pitied the old man. To go on, seizing every opportunity to
+make love, would seem like "rubbing it in," Frank told himself. He
+also said something of the sort to Vona, and she agreed with an amiable
+smile.
+
+And the two of them agreed on one thing, more especially: Tasper Britt
+must have had a strange housecleaning of the heart during that vigil in
+his home on the hill.
+
+Among other convincing evidences of Britt's transformation was his
+treatment of Prophet Elias at the end of that day.
+
+The Prophet did not deliver his usual matutinal taunts in front of
+Britt Block. But when he came back from the field in the afternoon, he
+returned from conferences with Egyptian skeptics who had not seen Tasper
+Britt in his new form, and therefore, perhaps, their assertions had
+caused Elias to doubt the evidences of his own senses. At any rate, the
+Prophet resolved to put the reform of Pharaoh to the test of texts, and
+he raised his voice and declaimed.
+
+Britt came to the front door and mildly entreated the Prophet to walk
+in. "I'll be glad to listen to you. Isn't it a good idea to tell me, man
+to man, in my office what's wrong with me, instead of standing out there
+in the snow, telling the neighborhood?"
+
+The Prophet went in, having first slapped his hand on his breast, urging
+action, "'Go in, speak unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that he let the
+children of Israel go out of his hand.'"
+
+He trudged forth, after a time, and walked along slowly toward Usial's
+house, clawing his hand above his ear with the air of a man trying to
+solve a perplexing puzzle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+SACKS AND MOUTHS--ALL SEALED
+
+Every now and then the fad of a new trick puzzle--a few bits of twisted
+wire, or a stick and a string--will as effectually occupy the time of an
+entire community as a cowbell will take up the undivided attention of a
+cur, if the bell is hitched to the cur's tail.
+
+The folks of Egypt had a couple of brain-twisters to solve.
+
+What had happened to Tasper Britt?
+
+How did it happen that Cashier Vaniman was holding on to his job?
+
+His townsfolk knew Britt's character pretty well, and they had much food
+for speculation in his case.
+
+There were some who ventured the suggestion that Hittie's remonstrating
+spirit had come to him in the night watches. Other guesses ran all the
+way down the scale of probability to the prosaic belief that Britt had
+decided that it was not profitable to go on making a fool of himself. It
+was agreed that Britt had a good eye for profit in every line of action;
+and it was conceded, even by those who did not believe all that was said
+about spiritist influences in these modern days, that if Hittie really
+had managed to get at him it was likely that her caustic communications
+would knock some of the folly out of him.
+
+Egypt did not know Vaniman, the outlander, very well. Gossip about his
+reasons for remaining were mostly all guess-so; the folks got absolutely
+nothing from him on the subject. He did not discuss the matter even with
+Squire Hexter and Xoa. Frank and Vona had definitely adopted the policy
+of waiting, and he resolved to take no chances on having that policy
+prejudiced by anybody carrying random stories to Britt, reports that the
+cashier had said this or the other.
+
+Vaniman took occasion to reassure Mr. Britt on that point, and the
+latter had displayed much gratitude. "If you don't hurt _me_, Frank, I
+won't hurt _you_!" Then the usurer's eyes hardened. "Of course I can't
+expect you to forget that I threatened to blacken your name in banking
+circles. But in our new understanding I guess we can afford to call it a
+stand-off."
+
+"If I were staying here simply to wheedle you into passing me on with
+a high testimonial, I'd be playing a selfish game, and that isn't my
+attitude, sir. I was anxious to get this job. I felt that I had a right
+to stand for myself, on my own honesty. But I shall tell the whole story
+the next time I apply for a position. I'm getting to understand big
+financiers better," he added, with bitterness.
+
+"Yes, finance is very touchy on certain points," admitted the president.
+"But I'm glad you're not going to do any more talking here in town.
+You're somewhat of a new man here, and you don't know the folks as I
+do. I suppose some talk will have to be made as to why you and I are
+sticking along together, after you slapped my face in public. You'd
+better let me manage the story."
+
+"You may say what you think is best, Mr. Britt."
+
+"They're a suspicious lot, the men in this town." The banker surveyed
+Vaniman, making slits of his eyes. "However, I've grown used to all this
+recent talk about me being a fool. If it's also said that I'm a fool for
+keeping you here, I won't mind it. And you mustn't mind if it's hinted
+around that you're hanging on in the bank because you've got private
+reasons that you're not talking about."
+
+The cashier greeted that sentiment with an inquiring frown.
+
+"Oh, don't be nervous, Frank!" Mr. Britt flapped his hand, making light
+of the matter. He grinned. "I won't set you out as being the leader of
+a robber gang. I'm not like the peaked-billed old buzzards of this
+place--bound to say the worst of every stranger. You'd better turn to
+and hate the critters here, just as I do."
+
+Britt's tones rasped when he said that; his feelings were getting
+away from him. The young man's expression hinted that he was trying to
+reconcile this rancorous mood with Britt's recent declarations of a new
+view of life.
+
+"What I really meant to say, Frank, was that such has been my feeling in
+the past. I'm trying to change my nature. If I forget and slip once in a
+while, don't lay it up against me."
+
+After that the president and the cashier in their daily conferences
+confined their discourse to the business of the bank. Britt got into the
+way of asking Vaniman's advice and of deferring to it when it had been
+given. "You're running the bank. You know the trick better than I do."
+
+Therefore, it was perfectly natural for the president to bring up a
+topic of the past, a matter where Frank had given advice that had been
+scornfully rejected. "I've been thinking over what you said about
+that stock of hard money in the vault needing a guard. That fool of a
+Stickney has started a lot of gossip, in spite of my warning to him.
+There's no telling how far the gossip has spread."
+
+"That kind of news travels fast, sir."
+
+Britt showed worry. "Perhaps I undertook too much of a chore for a
+little bank like ours. But because we are little and because this town
+isn't able to support the bank the way I had hoped, I thought I'd turn
+a trick that would net us more of a handy surplus in a modest sort of a
+way."
+
+Britt did not trouble himself to explain to the cashier that, by a
+private arrangement with the city broker, the deal would also turn a
+neat sum into the pocket of the president of the Egypt Trust Company,
+hidden in the charge of "commission and expenses," split with due regard
+to the feelings of broker and president.
+
+"The big fellows are grabbing off twenty-five or thirty per cent in
+their foreign money deals," went on the banker. "Tightening home credits
+so as to do it! What's fair for big is fair for little!"
+
+"The profit is attractive, surely," the cashier stated.
+
+"Our stockholders have honored me right along, and I'd like to show 'em
+that I deserve my reputation as a financier. I'm just finicky enough
+to want to clean up the last cent there is in it--and that's why I'm
+waiting for the right market. We've got to hold on for a few days, at
+any rate. But I reckon you feel as I do, that we're taking chances, now
+that gossip is flying high!"
+
+"I think the vault should be guarded, Mr. Britt."
+
+"Any suggestions as to a man?"
+
+"I don't know the men here well enough to choose."
+
+"And I know 'em so blasted well that I'm in the same box as you are.
+They're numbheads."
+
+The two men sat and looked at each other in silence; the matter seemed
+to be hung up right there, like a log stranded on a bank--"jillpoked,"
+as rivermen say.
+
+"There's one way out of it, Frank," blurted the president. "Nobody cares
+when I come or go, nights. I may as well sleep here as in my house, all
+alone. I'll have a cot put in the back room." He pointed to a door in
+the rear of the bank office.
+
+Vaniman came forward with instant and eager proffer. "That's a job for
+me, Mr. Britt."
+
+In spite of an effort to seem casual, Britt could not keep significance
+out of his tone. "It's too bad to pen a young man up of an evening, when
+he can be enjoying himself somewhere."
+
+"It's because I'm young that I'm insisting, sir."
+
+"And I suppose I'm so old that no husky robber would be afraid of me,"
+returned Britt, dryly. "So you insist, do you?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"I must ask you to remember that you're doing it only because you have
+volunteered."
+
+"I'll be glad to have you tell the directors that I volunteered and
+insisted."
+
+"Very well! We'll have the thing understood, Frank. I wouldn't want to
+have 'em think I was obliging you to do more than your work as cashier."
+
+Therefore, Vaniman had a cot brought down from Squire Hexter's house,
+and borrowed a double-barreled shotgun from the same source. He did not
+consider that his new duty entailed any hardship. He had his evenings
+for the pachisi games. Xoa insisted on making a visit to the bank and
+putting the back room in shape for the lodger. But she vowed that she
+was more than ever convinced that money was the root of all evil.
+
+Frank's slumbers were undisturbed; he found the temporary arrangement
+rather convenient than otherwise. He kindled his furnace fire before
+going to the Squire's for breakfast and Britt Block was thoroughly warm
+when he returned.
+
+There was only one break in this routine, one occasion for alarm, and
+the alarm was but temporary. Frank heard footsteps in the corridor one
+evening after he had come back to the bank from the Squire's house.
+Almost immediately Mr. Britt used his key and appeared to the young man.
+"I waited till I was sure you were here," the president explained. "What
+Hexter doesn't know won't hurt him--and I thought I'd better not come
+to the house for you. I'm sorry it's so late." Britt was anxiously
+apologetic.
+
+"It isn't very late, sir."
+
+"But it's late, considering what's on my mind, Frank. And now that I'm
+here I hate to tell you what my errand is." He fumbled in his pocket and
+brought out a letter, tapped it with his forefinger, and replaced it. "I
+got it in the mail after you had gone to supper."
+
+"If it's any matter where I can be of help, sir, you needn't be a bit
+afraid to speak out."
+
+"You can help, but--" After his hesitation Britt plunged on. "I wrote
+to that broker that I was feeling a little under the weather and was
+postponing my trip to the city, and now that fool of a Barnes writes
+back that he's starting right behind his letter to come up here to
+arrange about taking over the specie and closing the deal, because the
+market is just right to act. And the through train, the one he'll be
+sure to take, hits Levant about two o'clock to-morrow morning. He asks
+me to send somebody down to meet him. That's all one of those taxicab
+patronizers knows about traveling conditions in the country. Frank,
+unless you'll volunteer to go I'll have to go myself. I don't want that
+man talking all the way up here with old Files's gabby hostler, or with
+anybody else I send from the village."
+
+Vaniman, even though he tried to make Britt's reasons for the request
+seem convincing, could not help feeling that the financier's natural
+secretiveness in matters of personal business was stretched somewhat in
+this instance. But he gulped back any hesitation and offered to go on
+the errand.
+
+"Frank, when I was having my run of foolishness I was sorry that you
+are young. Now I'm mighty glad of it," declared Britt. "I can take your
+place in yonder on the cot for the night--and I'm going to do it. But
+I'll be frank enough to say that I'd rather you'd ride to Levant and
+back in a sleigh to-night than do it myself. Go rout up Files's hostler,
+borrow his fur coat, and bundle up warm. It's good slipping along the
+road, and the trip may have a little pep for you, after all."
+
+And, putting away his momentary doubts, Frank reflected on the matter
+and was honestly glad to vary the monotony of his close confinement to
+the bank.
+
+So he went and roused Files's hostler, bundled himself in the coat and
+the sleigh robes, and made a really joyous experience out of the trip
+to Levant, under the stars and over the snow that was crisped by the
+night's chill.
+
+He waited beside the station platform, standing up in the sleigh and
+peering eagerly after the train stopped. He called the name, "Mr.
+Barnes," until the few sleepy, slouching, countrified passengers who
+alighted had passed on their way.
+
+It was perfectly apparent that Broker Barnes was not present to answer
+roll call.
+
+And after waiting, in whimsical delay, to make sure that Mr. Barnes had
+not come footing it behind the train, Frank whipped up and drove back
+to Egypt. He felt no pique; he had enjoyed the outing in the sparkling
+night.
+
+In the gray dawn he again routed out Files's yawning hostler and turned
+the equipage over to him.
+
+"Hope you found it a starry night for a ramble," suggested the hostler,
+willing to be informed as to why a bank cashier had been gallivanting
+around over the country between days, turning in a sweating horse at
+break of dawn.
+
+Vaniman allowed that it was a starry night, all right, and left the
+topic there, with a period set to it by the snap of his tone.
+
+He went directly to the bank and admitted himself with his keys.
+
+President Britt came from the back room, with yawns that matched those
+of the hostler.
+
+"What time did Barnes say he'd be down here from the tavern in the
+morning?"
+
+"Mr. Barnes did not come on that train, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll be--" rapped Britt, snapping shut his jaws.
+
+"But I haven't minded the trip--I really enjoyed the ride," insisted the
+messenger.
+
+"Don't tell that to Barnes when he shows up to-night on Ike Jones's
+stage," commanded Britt. "I propose to have a few words to say about
+what it means in the country when a city fathead changes his mind about
+the train he'll take." He was looking past the cashier while he talked.
+He turned away and picked up his hat and coat from a chair. "I'll be
+going along to my house, I reckon. You'd better catch a cat-nap on the
+cot. I found it comfortable. I've slept every minute since you've been
+gone."
+
+Then Britt hurried out, locking the door behind him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SOMETHING TO BE EXPLAINED
+
+By noon that day, in the lulls between customers at the wicket,
+Vaniman had had a succession of run-ins with the demon of drowsiness--a
+particularly mischievous elf, sometimes, in business hours. Whenever he
+caught himself snapping back into wakefulness he found Vona's twinkle of
+amusement waiting for him.
+
+Once she pointed to the big figures on the day-by-day calendar on the
+wall. The date was February 21st. "Console yourself, Frank, dear," she
+advised, teasing him. "The bank will be closed to-morrow and you can
+make Washington's Birthday your sleep day! But I do hope you can stay
+awake at our play this evening."
+
+"The man who invented sleep as a blessing didn't take into account city
+brokers who change their minds about trains," he returned. "I hope old
+Ike Jones will sing that 'Ring, ting! Foo loo larry, lo day' song of his
+all the way coming up from Levant. It'll be about the sort of punishment
+that Behind-time Barnes deserves."
+
+A few minutes later the cashier was jumped out of another incipient
+nap by the clamor of bells. The two horses that whisked past, pulling
+a double-seated sleigh, were belted with bells. A big man with a
+lambrequin mustache was filling the rear seat measurably well. Folks
+recognized the team as a "let-hitch" from Levant.
+
+"Mr. Barnes comes late, but he comes in style and with all his bells,"
+Vona suggested.
+
+The equipage swung up beside the tavern porch and the big man threw off
+the robes and stamped in, leaving the driver to take the horses to the
+stable.
+
+Landlord Files had furnished an accompaniment for the clangor of the
+bells; he was pounding his dinner gong.
+
+The new arrival had a foghorn voice and used it in hearty volume in
+telling Mr. Files that his music was all right and mighty timely! "And
+that alligator seems to be calling for his grub, too," he remarked, on
+his way to hang up his coat. "But he doesn't look any hungrier than I
+feel."
+
+"Room?" inquired the landlord, hopefully, swinging the register book and
+pulling a pen out of a withered potato.
+
+"No room! Just dinner. I expect to be out of here by night."
+
+Mr. Files stabbed the potato with a vicious pen thrust. He knew food
+capacity when he viewed it; there would be some profit from a lodging,
+but none from a two-shilling meal served to a man who had compared
+himself with that open-mouthed saurian.
+
+But the guest grabbed the penstock while it was still vibrating. He
+wrote across the book, with great flourishes: "Fremont Starr. State Bank
+Examiner. February 21st."
+
+"A matter of record, landlord! Show's I'm here. Tells the world I was
+here on date noted. Never can tell when the law will call for records.
+Hotel registers are fine evidence. Always keep your registers."
+
+"I've had that one eleven years, and it 'ain't been filled up yet,"
+averred Mr. Files, inspecting the potentate's signature as sourly as
+if he were estimating by how much the lavish use of ink had reduced the
+possible dinner profit. "You're the new appointment, hey? I heard you
+speak, one time, over at the political rally in the shire town."
+
+"Both my enemies and my friends would have advised you to stay right
+here on your porch--saying that you could hear me just as well, if you
+didn't care to make the trip to the shire," said Mr. Starr, lifting the
+mat of his mustache in a wide smile. "But when they call me 'Foghorn
+Fremont' I'm never one mite offended. 'Let your light shine and your
+voice be heard,' is my motto in politics."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if it's a good one, when they get to passing around
+the offices," admitted Files. He started on his way to the kitchen.
+
+At that moment President Britt entered, having answered the gong with
+the promptitude of a fireman chasing a box alarm.
+
+"What have you on the fire, landlord?" called Mr. Starr, absorbed in the
+dinner topic.
+
+"Boiled dinner!"
+
+Britt did not show the enthusiasm that was exhibited by the other guest.
+
+"Nothing like a boiled dinner after a long ride," Mr. Starr affirmed.
+"Plenty of cabbage with mine, if you'll be so kind!"
+
+Files gave Mr. Britt some information that he thought might be of
+interest. "Here's the new bank examiner. Seeing that you probably have
+business together, I'll set both of you at the same table." He retired.
+
+After the commonplaces of getting acquainted, the two tacked the boiled
+dinner.
+
+"Let's see--who's your cashier?" inquired Starr, chewing vigorously
+behind the mask of his mustache.
+
+"Young fellow named Vaniman. I have let him take full charge of the bank
+business. He seems to know all the ropes."
+
+"Poor policy, Britt! Poor policy!" stated the examiner, vehemently. "Not
+a word to say against Vaniman--" He halted on the word and opened his
+eyes on Britt. "Vaniman! A name that sticks. There was a Vaniman of
+Verona. Easy to remember! There was some sort of a money snarl, as I
+recollect."
+
+"It was the young chap's father."
+
+"And you're letting the son run your bank?"
+
+"I'm not the kind that visits the sins of the fathers on the children,"
+loftily stated the president. "Furthermore, a burnt child dreads the
+fire. I heard a railroad manager say that a trainman who had let an
+accident happen by his negligence was worth twice as much to the road as
+he was before. You don't say that I made a bad pick, do you?"
+
+"Not a word to say against Vaniman!" repeated Starr, slashing his
+cabbage. "I never _guess_ about any proposition--I go at it! But what
+I'm saying to you, Britt, is what I'm saying to all the easy-going
+country-town bankers. 'You may have second editions of the Apostle
+Paul for your cashiers,' I say, 'but every time you sign a statement of
+condition without close and careful audit you're bearing false witness.'
+And being a new broom that proposes to sweep clean, I'm tempted to
+poke it just as hard to slack presidents and directors as I am to an
+embezzling cashier who has been given plenty of rope to run as he wants!
+_I'm_ on the job _examining_ banks!" He was a vigorous man, Examiner
+Starr! He showed it by the way he went at his corned beef.
+
+President Britt was perturbed; his eyes shifted; he was even pale. "If
+that's the way you feel about it, I hope you'll give our little bank a
+good going-over. I was glad to read of your appointment, Mr. Starr!"
+
+"Uncle Whittum isn't on this job any longer," stated the examiner, not
+needing, in Britt's case, as a banker, to dwell upon the lax methods of
+the easy-going predecessor.
+
+A half hour later, Starr, with his unbuttoned fur-lined overcoat
+outspread as he strode, giving him the aspect of a scaling aeroplane,
+marched from the tavern to the bank with Britt.
+
+Vaniman had his mouth opened to welcome a man named Barnes, but he
+was presented to Bank-Examiner Starr and surprise placed him at a
+disadvantage in the meeting. The torpor of drowsiness made him appear
+stupid and ill at ease in the presence of this forceful man who stamped
+in and proceeded to exploit and enjoy his newly acquired authority. Mr.
+Starr hung up his coat and hat and swooped like a hawk on the daybook,
+at the same time calling for the book of "petty cash."
+
+"First of all, the finger on the pulse of the patient, Cashier," he
+declared, grimly jovial. "Then we'll have a look at the tongue, and
+study the other symptoms."
+
+President Britt went away to his own office.
+
+Examiner Starr, confining himself to his announced policy of grabbing
+in on the running operations of the bank at the moment of his entry,
+studied the petty-cash accounts and checked up the daybook with
+thoroughness. He found everything all right and grunted his
+acknowledgment of that discovery.
+
+Then he began on the ledgers, assuring Vona with ponderous gallantry
+that he wouldn't get in her way; he averred that he had a comparison
+system of his own, and showed the pride of "the new broom."
+
+After a time it was apparent that Mr. Starr was having trouble. He
+added columns of figures over again and scowled; his system was plainly
+trigged.
+
+"Young lady, where's your comptometer?" he demanded, after he had made a
+quick survey of the office.
+
+"We have never used one, sir."
+
+"One is indispensable these days in a bank--especially when a bookkeeper
+can't add a column of figures correctly by the old method."
+
+She flushed and her lips quivered. "I'm sure I do add correctly, sir. My
+books always balance."
+
+"Add that column, young lady!" He indicated the column with the plunging
+pressure of a stubby digit, and stood so close to her, while she toiled
+up the line of figures, that his breath fanned her hair.
+
+Vaniman looked on, sympathizing, feeling sure that the bluff inquisitor
+had made a mistake of his own.
+
+Her confusion under Starr's baleful espionage sent her wits scattering.
+She jotted down the total, as she made it.
+
+"Wrong!" announced the examiner. "And your figures are different, even,
+from the wrong total you have on the books. Try again."
+
+She set her lips and controlled her emotions and went over the work once
+more.
+
+Starr exhibited figures which he had jotted on a bit of paper that he
+had palmed. "You're right, as the figures stand! But your book total
+doesn't agree with those figures. Now what say?"
+
+Vona was distinctly in no condition to say anything sensible; she stared
+from the figures to Starr, showing utter amazement, and then she mutely
+appealed to the cashier.
+
+"I'm sure that Miss Harnden is remarkably accurate in her work, Mr.
+Starr," asserted the young man. "I have been in the habit of going over
+it, myself, and I have found no errors."
+
+"Oh, you go over it, do you? That's good!" But Starr's tone was not one
+of satisfied indorsement. He picked up the big book and carried it to
+the center table. He fished from his waistcoat pocket a small reading
+glass, unfolded the lenses, and studied the page. He turned other pages
+and performed the same minute inspection. Then he took the ledger to the
+window and held page after page against the glass, propping the book in
+his big hands.
+
+When he turned, Vona was sitting in a chair, trembling, tears in her
+eyes, apprehension ridging her face.
+
+"Cashier Vaniman, I don't want to hurt this young lady's feelings any
+more than I have. There's no sense in blaming her until I understand the
+which and the why of this thing. I have found column after column added
+wrongly. Perhaps she has done her work, originally, all right. But the
+pages of this ledger are pretty well speckled with erasures. The two of
+you will have to thresh it out between yourselves. I'm looking to you
+as the responsible party in this bank, Vaniman. I'll do the rest of my
+talking to you. After you have found out what the trouble is you must
+explain to me."
+
+"There can be no trouble with our books!" But the cashier stammered; his
+incredulity would not permit him to discuss the matter then or to offer
+any sort of explanation; in his amazement he could not think of any
+possible explanation. He could not convince himself that Vona needed
+other protection than her own thoroughness and rectitude gave her;
+however, he wanted to extend his protection.
+
+"If anything is wrong with the accounts, you may most certainly look to
+me, Mr. Starr. I assume full responsibility. I have found Miss Harnden
+to be most accurate."
+
+"I ought to have been through with this small bank and away by night,"
+grumbled the examiner. "But I'm going to give you a fair show, Vaniman,
+by waiting over. You've got this evening--and to-morrow is a holiday,
+and you can take that day, if you need it, to get this tangle
+straightened out. I'm stopping my work right here." He slammed the
+ledger shut and tossed it on the girl's desk. "There's no sense in going
+through your cash in the vault till I can check by the book accounts.
+But, bless my soul! I can't understand by what rhyme or reason those
+figures have been put into the muddle they're in. It's coarse work. I'll
+be frank and say that it doesn't look like a sane man's attempt to put
+something over. That's why I'm lenient with you and am not sticking one
+of my closure notices on to your front door. Now get busy, so that you
+can be sure it won't go up on the door day after to-morrow."
+
+He took down his coat and hat and when he left the room they heard him
+go into Tasper Britt's office across the corridor.
+
+The stricken lovers faced each other, appalled, mystified, questioning
+with the looks they exchanged.
+
+"Frank," the girl wailed, "you know I haven't--"
+
+"I know you have been faithful and careful, in every stroke of your pen,
+dear. Whatever it is, it's not your fault."
+
+"But what has happened to the books?" she queried, winking back her
+tears, trying hard to meet him on the plane of his calmness; he was
+getting his feelings in hand.
+
+"I propose to find out before I close my eyes this night," he told her,
+gravely.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MISFORTUNE MEDDLES
+
+Shortly before the supper hour, Britt and Starr came into the bank;
+they wore their overcoats and hats, and were on their way to the tavern,
+evidently.
+
+"How are you making it, Frank?" the president inquired, with solicitude.
+
+A sympathetic observer would have found a suggestion of captives, caged
+and hopeless, in the demeanor of the cashier and the bookkeeper behind
+the grille.
+
+Vaniman peered through the lattice into the gloom where the callers
+stood and shook his head. "I'm not making it well at all, sir."
+
+"But you must have some idea of what the trouble is."
+
+"There's trouble, all right, Mr. Britt--plenty of it. There's no use
+in my denying that. But I'm not far enough along to give any sensible
+explanation."
+
+The president showed real anxiety. "What do you say for a guess?"
+
+"If you are asking me only for a guess, I should say that the ghost of
+Jim the Penman has been amusing himself with these books," replied the
+cashier; he was bitter; he was showing the effects of worry that was
+aggravated by lack of sleep.
+
+"Aha! Plainly not far enough along for a sensible explanation," rumbled
+Examiner Starr.
+
+"A knave is usually ready with a good story when he has been taken by
+surprise. Honesty isn't as handy with the tongue. I can only say that
+something--I don't say somebody--has put these books into a devil of a
+mess, and I'm doing my best to straighten them."
+
+"I wish you luck," affirmed Starr. "I've been talking with your
+president and he says everything good about your faithfulness, and about
+how you have been doing guard duty in the bank of late. Perhaps you're a
+sleepwalker, Vaniman," he added, with heavy humor.
+
+"I feel like one now," retorted the cashier. "I was awake all last
+night."
+
+"Ah! Doing what?" asked the examiner, politely, but without interest.
+
+The question hinted that in the talk in Britt's office the president had
+refrained from mention of Barnes, the broker. Vaniman decided instantly
+to respect Britt's reticence; the president had shown much caution
+the night before, even in regard to Squire Hexter. "Oh, merely running
+around on a little business of my own, Mr. Starr."
+
+Britt did not assist by any reference to his own share in the business.
+"We may as well start along toward the tavern, Starr." The president
+took two steps toward the grille and addressed Vona. "I'm going to take
+Mr. Starr to the show this evening. I want him to see what smart girls
+we have in Egypt."
+
+Vona did not reply. She turned to Vaniman with the air of one who has
+suddenly been reminded of something forgotten in the stress of affairs.
+But before she had an opportunity to speak there was a tramping of hasty
+feet in the corridor and her father came in through the door that
+had been left ajar by Britt. "Good evening, all!" hailed Mr. Harnden,
+cheerily. "But, see here, Vona, my dear girl, we have been waiting
+supper a whole half hour. You've got scant time to eat and get on your
+stage togs."
+
+"This has been a pretty busy day in the bank, Harnden," explained Britt.
+"Meet Mr. Starr, the bank examiner!"
+
+"Oh, hullo, Starr!" cried Mr. Harnden, shoving out a friendly hand.
+"Heard you were in town. I know Starr," he told Britt. "I know everybody
+in the state worth knowing. I told you so."
+
+Mr. Starr was not effusive; there was a hint of sarcasm in his inquiry
+as to how the invention business was coming along.
+
+"Fine and flourishing!" announced Harnden, radiantly. Then he blurted
+some news which seemed to embarrass Britt very much; the news also
+provoked intense interest in Vaniman and the daughter. "All I've ever
+needed is backing, Starr. Now I've got it!" He clapped his hand on the
+banker's shoulder. "Here's my backer--good as a certified check. Hey,
+Tasper?"
+
+"I'm--I'm always ready to help develop local talent," Britt admitted,
+stammering, turning his back on the faces at the grille. "Starr, we'd
+better get along toward the tavern. I've had some poor luck with Files
+when he's off his schedule time!"
+
+"The new combination of Harnden and Britt will make 'em sit up and take
+notice," persisted the inventor. Forgetting Vona, desiring to impress a
+skeptic from the outside world, he followed Starr and the banker.
+
+Vaniman and the girl listened to the optimist's fervid declarations till
+the slam of the outside door shut them off.
+
+"That sounds like an interesting investment, Vona," was the cashier's
+dry comment. "Mr. Britt seems to be swinging that watering pot of his
+new generosity around in pretty reckless fashion. I wonder what he'll do
+next!"
+
+"Frank, I'm afraid!" She spoke in a whisper, staring hard at him. "No,
+no! Not what you think! I am not afraid because he is buying my father.
+If Mr. Britt thinks I can be included in that bargain he is wiser
+in making his money than he is in spending it. But there's something
+dreadful at work against us!" She had her hand on the page of an open
+ledger.
+
+"The books can be straightened," he insisted. "I can do it. I'll do it,
+if I have to call in every depositor's pass book." He pointed to the
+vault. He was keeping the doors open till his work was done. "As long as
+the money is there, every cent of it, the final checking will show for
+itself. And the money will be there! I'm answering for that much! I
+propose to stay with it till that Barnes shows up."
+
+"I remember now that you told me he would come by the stage to-day."
+
+"So Britt gave me to understand, when I reported that he didn't come on
+the night train."
+
+"But I looked out of the window a little while ago--there was no
+passenger with Jones."
+
+"Has the stage come?" He glanced at the clock and blinked at the girl.
+"Well, I guess those books had me hypnotized!"
+
+"Small wonder," she said, bitterly. "I tell you I'm afraid, Frank!
+There's something we don't see through!"
+
+"I don't dare to waste any more time wondering what the trouble is,
+Vona. I must get on to the job."
+
+"Both of us must."
+
+"It's time for you to be going home."
+
+"I'm going to stay here."
+
+"But, dear girl, there's the play! You have the leading part!"
+
+"The words will stick in my throat and tears will blind me when I think
+of you working here alone. Frank, I insist! I will not leave you. They
+must postpone the play."
+
+He went to her and laid her hands, one upon the other, between his
+caressing palms. "The folks will be there--they are expecting the
+play--you must not disappoint them. It's as much your duty to go to the
+hall as it is mine to stay here with the books. And another thing! Think
+of the stories that will be set going, with the bank examiner here, if
+it's given out that the play had to be postponed because you couldn't
+leave the books. Such a report might start a run on the bank. Folks
+would be sure to think there's trouble here. You must go, Vona. It's for
+the sake of both of us."
+
+He went and brought her coat and hat.
+
+"I can't go through with the play," she wailed.
+
+"We've got to use all the grit that's in us--whatever it is we're up
+against. Come! Hold out your arms!" He assisted her with the coat.
+
+He drew her toward the door with his arm about her. "We'll make a good
+long day of it to-morrow--a holiday. George Washington never told a lie.
+Perhaps those books will come to themselves in the morning and realize
+what day it is and will stop lying! Now be brave!"
+
+The kiss he gave her was long and tender; she clung to him. He released
+her, but she turned in the corridor and hurried back to him. "I
+shouldn't feel as I do--worried sick about you, Frank! The books must
+come out right, because both of us have been careful and honest."
+
+"Exactly! The thing will prove itself in the end. The money in that
+vault will talk for us! I'll do a little talking, myself, when--But no
+matter now!"
+
+"You have suspicions! I know you have!"
+
+"Naturally, not believing as much in ghosts or demons as I may have
+intimated to Starr."
+
+She looked apprehensively over her shoulder into the dark corners of the
+corridor. Then she drew his face down close to hers. "And it's hard to
+believe in the reformation of demons," she whispered.
+
+"I'm doing a whole lot of thinking, little girl. But I don't want
+to talk now. Do your best at the play. Hide your troubles behind
+smiles--that's real fighting! And we'll see what to-morrow will do for
+us."
+
+"Yes, to-morrow!" She ran away, but again she returned. "And nothing
+can happen to you here, in a quiet town like this, can it, Frank?" she
+asked.
+
+"Nothing but what can be taken care of with that shotgun in the back
+room! But don't look frightened, precious girl! There's nothing--"
+
+But even Vaniman was startled, the next moment. The girl leaped into his
+embrace and cowered. Something was clattering against a window of
+the bank. But only the mild face of Squire Hexter was framed in the
+lamplight cast on the window. He called, when he got a peep at the
+cashier, who came hastening back inside the grille: "Supper, boy!
+Supper! Come along!"
+
+Frank threw up the window. "I'll make what's left over from my lunch do
+me, Squire. I'm tied up here with my work."
+
+"I'll allow the new Starr in our local sky to keep you away from
+euchre," the Squire grumbled, "but I swanny if I'll let your interest in
+astronomy, all of a sudden, keep you away from the hot vittles you need.
+You come along with me to the house."
+
+"Squire, I can't lock the vault yet awhile. I don't want to leave things
+as they are. I must not."
+
+Vona had come to his side, she understood the nature of his anxiety. "I
+am just starting for my house, Squire Hexter. I'm going to hurry back
+with Frank's supper, so that he won't be bothered."
+
+"Bless your soul, sis, even Xoa will be perfectly satisfied with that
+arrangement when I explain," said the Squire, gallantly. "I'm tempted to
+stay, myself, if Hebe is going to serve." He backed away and did a grand
+salaam, flourishing the cane whose taps on the window had startled the
+lovers.
+
+"You must not take the time, Vona," protested the young man.
+
+"I'll bring the supper when I'm on my way to the hall. Not another word!
+If I'm to lose the best part of my audience from the hall to-night,
+I can, at least, have that best part give me a compliment on my new
+gown--and give me," she went on, reassuring him by a brave little smile,
+"a whole lot of courage by a dear kiss."
+
+She hurried away.
+
+He was hard at work when she returned, carrying a wicker basket.
+
+Again he protested because she was taking so much trouble, but she laid
+aside her coat and insisted on arranging the food on a corner of the
+table, a happy flush on her cheeks, giving him thanks with her eyes when
+he praised her gown.
+
+"I'm going to look in on you after the show," she declared. "Father will
+come with me."
+
+Vona remained with him until the wall clock warned her.
+
+She asked him to wait a moment when he brought her wraps. She stood
+before him in her gay garb, wistfully appealing. "Frank, I was intending
+to have a little play of my own with you at the hall to-night. I was
+going to look right past that Durgin boy, straight down into your eyes,
+when I came to a certain place in the play. I was intending to let the
+folks of Egypt know something, providing they all don't know it by now.
+This is what I have to say, and now I'm saying it to the only audience I
+care for:
+
+     "'Twere vain to tell thee all I feel,
+     Or say for thee I'd die.
+     Ah, well-a-day, the sweetest melody
+     Could never, never say one half my love for thee."
+
+Then, after a moment, she escaped from his ardent embrace.
+
+"Remember that, dearest," she called from the doorway.
+
+"I'll remember it every time I start with a line of figures, you blessed
+girl. And then how my pencil will go dancing up the column!"
+
+After she had gone he pulled the curtain cords, raising the curtains so
+that they covered the lower sashes; he did not care to be seen at his
+work by the folks who were on their way to the hall.
+
+Squire Hexter, escorting Xoa, took the trouble to step to the window and
+tap lightly with his cane. He was hoping that the cashier would change
+his mind and go to the hall. He waited after tapping but Vaniman did not
+appear at the window. The Squire did not venture to tap again. "He must
+be pretty well taken up with his work," he suggested to Xoa when they
+were on their way. "That's where we get the saying, 'Deaf as an adder.'"
+
+Oblivious to all sounds, bent over his task, Vaniman gave to the
+exasperating puzzle all the concentration he could muster.
+
+The play that evening at Town Hall dragged after the fashion of amateur
+shows. The management of the sets and the properties consumed much
+time. There were mishaps. One of these accidents had to do with the
+most ambitious scene of the piece, a real brook--the main feature of
+the final, grand tableau when folks were trying to keep awake at eleven
+o'clock. The brook came babbling down over rocks and was conveyed
+off-stage by means of a V-shaped spout. There was much merriment when
+the audience discovered that the brook could be heard running uphill
+behind the scenes; two hobble-de-hoy boys were dipping the water with
+pails from the washboiler at the end of the sluice and lugging it
+upstairs, where they dumped it into the brook's fount. The brook's
+peripatetic qualities were emphasized when both boys fell off the top of
+the makeshift stairs and came down over the rocks, pails and all. Then
+there was hilarity which fairly rocked the hall.
+
+For some moments another sound--a sound which did not harmonize with the
+laughter--was disregarded by the audience.
+
+All at once the folks realized that a man was squalling
+discordantly--his shrieks almost as shrill as a frightened porker's
+squeals. Heads were snapped around. Eyes saw Dorsey, the municipal
+watchman, almost the only man of the village of Egypt who was not of
+the evening's audience in Town Hall. He was standing on a settee at
+the extreme rear of the auditorium. He was swinging his arms wildly; as
+wildly was he shouting. He noted that he had secured their attention.
+
+"How in damnation can you laugh" he screamed. "The bank has been robbed
+and the cashier murdered!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A BANK TURNED INSIDE OUT
+
+When the skeow-wowed "brook" twisted the drama into an anticlimax of
+comicality, the players who were on the stage escaped the deluge by
+fleeing into the wings.
+
+Vona had been waiting for her cue to join the hero and pledge their vows
+beside the babbling stream. After one horrified gasp of amazement, she
+led off the hilarity back-stage. Frank was in her mind at that moment,
+as he had been all the evening; her zestful enjoyment of the affair was
+heightened by the thought that she could help him forget his troubles
+for a little while by the story she would carry to him. Then she and the
+others in the group heard the piercing squeals of a man's voice.
+
+"Somebody has got hystierucks out of it, and I don't blame him," stated
+the manager of the show. He grabbed the handle of the winch and began to
+let down the curtain. "I reckon the only sensible thing to do is to let
+Brook Number One and Brook Number Two take the curtain call."
+
+Then Dorsey's shrill insistence prevailed over the roars of laughter in
+front; the young folks on the stage heard his bloodcurdling bulletin.
+
+The manager let slip the whirling handle and the pole of the hurrying
+curtain thumped the platform. Vona had leaped, risking her life, and was
+able to dodge under the descending pole. For a moment, sick with horror
+and unutterable woe, she stood there alone against the tawdry curtain,
+as wide-eyed and white-faced as Tragedy's muse.
+
+Men, women, and children, all the folks of Egypt, were struggling to
+their feet; the sliding settees squawked and clattered.
+
+She saw Tasper Britt, fighting a path for himself, Starr following.
+Britt's face, above his blackened beard, was yellow-pale.
+
+Panic was piling the people at the narrow rear doors; the weight of
+those who were rushing forward wedged all the mass at the exits.
+
+"Vona!" called the manager, pulling at the edge of the curtain to give
+her passage. "This way! The side door."
+
+The summons helped to put away her faintness; her strength came back
+to her. Her goal was the bank! In the frenzy of her solicitude for her
+lover she took no thought of herself.
+
+The others stopped to find their wraps. Vona ran down the street as she
+was, bareheaded, the ribbons of her stage finery fluttering. She was
+close behind the first arrivals at the open door of Britt Block. All the
+other portals were wide open, bank door and grille door. But the door of
+the vault was closed.
+
+She thrust herself resolutely through the group of men and made a
+frenzied survey of the bank's interior. Her single quest was for
+Vaniman; he was nowhere in sight. The books of account were open on the
+desk, mute evidence for her that he had been interrupted suddenly.
+
+She voiced demands in shrill tones, but the men had no information for
+her. She called his name wildly and there was no reply.
+
+"I found the outside door open," said Dorsey, raucously hoarse. "I came
+in, and all was just as you see it."
+
+"But you said that he--that Frank--" Vona pressed her hands against her
+throat; she could not voice the terrible announcement that Dorsey had
+made.
+
+"Well, if it ain't that, what else is it?" insisted the watchman.
+
+Then Tasper Britt arrived in the room, followed by the bank examiner;
+they entered, breathing heavily and running with the tread of
+Percherons.
+
+"If it ain't murder and robbery, what is it, Mr. Britt?" Dorsey bawled,
+evidently feeling the authority was then on the scene and was demanding
+report and action.
+
+"I don't know--I don't know!" the president quavered, staggering to
+the grille and clutching the wires with both hands in order to steady
+himself. He was palpably, unmistakably stricken with a fear that was
+overpowering him.
+
+The outer office was filling; the corridor was being packed by the
+arriving throngs.
+
+Examiner Starr took command of the situation. He noted the nickel badge
+on Dorsey's breast. "Officer, put every person except Mr. Britt out of
+this building!"
+
+But Watchman Dorsey, though he commanded and pushed, was not able to
+make any impression.
+
+"By my authority as bank examiner, I order this place cleared!" bellowed
+Mr. Starr. The folks of Egypt showed that they were greatly interested
+in the volume of voice possessed by "Foghorn Fremont," but they did not
+retreat. For that matter, the crowd in the room was thoroughly blocked
+at the door by the press in the corridor.
+
+Starr's attention was wholly taken up by one individual for the next few
+minutes. Prophet Elias boldly advanced, after worming his way out of
+the throng; he pushed the examiner aside from the door of the grille and
+went into the inner inclosure. An intruder who was prosaically garbed
+would not have prevailed as easily as this bizarre individual with the
+deep-set eyes, assertive mien, and wearing a robe that put him out
+of the ordinary run of humanity. But Mr. Starr got back his voice and
+ordered the Prophet to walk out.
+
+Elias turned slowly and faced Starr. The Prophet's feet were hidden by
+the robe and he came around with the effect of a window dummy revolving
+on a support. Starr bawled more furious demands.
+
+But the Prophet did not lower his crest. "'Many bulls have compassed
+me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with
+their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.'"
+
+Then the Prophet spatted his palm upon the legend on his breast and
+clacked a disdainful digit off the pivot of his thumb. Tasper Britt,
+even in his hottest ire, had been restrained in the past by some
+influence from laying violent hands on this peculiar personage. It was
+evident that Starr was controlled by a similar reluctance and that his
+forbearance was puzzling him. When the Prophet got down on his knees,
+Starr was silent; it looked as if this zealot intended to offer
+prayer--and the bank examiner did not care to earn the reputation of
+being a disturber of a religious gathering. But Elias doubled over and
+began to crawl around the room on his hands and knees, peering
+intently and cocking his ear and seeming to take much interest in his
+undertaking.
+
+Until then, in the rush of events, in the haste of gathering at the
+scene of the tragedy, in the wild uncertainty as to what had happened,
+nobody had taken the time to study the details of the conditions in the
+bank inclosure.
+
+Starr ordered Dorsey to stand in front of the grille door and keep out
+all persons. The examiner was obliged to urge Britt to unclasp his hands
+and follow him before the door was closed and locked against the crowd.
+
+Vona had stumbled to a chair; she was staring about her, trying to
+control her horror and steady her mind so that she might comprehend what
+had happened. Under a stool she saw a crumpled coat; she leaped from her
+chair, secured it, and sat down again. It was Frank's office coat; both
+sleeves were ripped and the back breadths were torn. She held it forward
+in her shaking hands for the inspection of the bank examiner. But Mr.
+Starr was too intent on other matters to take heed of the pathetic proof
+of violence. He was particularly concerned with what he had found in one
+corner.
+
+Literally, thousands of small metal disks were heaped and scattered
+there. Some of the disks had rolled to all parts of the room. The
+Prophet had been scraping up handfuls of them, inspecting them, and
+throwing them toward the corner where the main mass lay.
+
+Starr picked up some of them. They were iron; each disk was perforated.
+
+There were many canvas sacks near the heap of disks; the sacks were
+ripped and empty. Mr. Starr secured one of them. Its mouth was closed
+with the seal with which specie sacks are usually secured.
+
+But Mr. Starr saw something else in the corner, an object at which he
+peered; the gloom made the results of his scrutiny uncertain. He
+stooped and picked up that object, making it the third of the trinity
+of exhibits. It was a large square of pasteboard, the backing of an
+advertising calendar. Starr carried it to the lamp on the table. There
+was writing on the placard. The characters were large and sprawling.
+The bank examiner tapped his finger on the writing, calling for the
+attention of the anguished president. The legend read:
+
+
+This is a _hell_ of a bank!
+
+
+"Britt, if this is a sample of your whole stock of specie," Starr
+rumbled, holding a disk between thumb and forefinger, "the profanity is
+sort of excused by the emphasis needed. I really think I would have been
+obliged to say the same, after counting up."
+
+"I can't understand it," the president muttered.
+
+"Did you suppose you carried actual coin in those bags?"
+
+"Yes--gold and some silver."
+
+"Had you counted it?"
+
+"I left the checking up to the cashier."
+
+"Where do you think your cashier is, right now?"
+
+Britt flapped his hands, helplessly confessing that he did not know.
+
+In all the room there was a profound hush. The crowd had been straining
+aural nerves, trying to hear what was being said by the men in
+authority.
+
+Nobody had been paying any attention to Prophet Elias, who had been
+crawling like a torpid caterpillar. For some moments he had been rigidly
+motionless in one spot. He was leaning against the front of the vault,
+his ear closely pressed to the crevice at the base of the door.
+
+He straightened up on his knees and shouted in such stentorian tones
+that all in the room jerked their muscles in sudden fright. "Swine!
+Fools!"
+
+They gaped at him.
+
+"Whilst you're shouting amongst your trash a man is dying on the other
+side of the door!"
+
+Vona leaped from her chair. She shrieked. She ran to the door and beat
+her fists against the steel, futilely and furiously.
+
+"In there lies your money-changer, I tell you, Pharaoh, lord of Egypt,"
+the Prophet shouted. "I hear his groans!"
+
+Britt and Starr rushed to the vault and both of them strove clumsily and
+ineffectually with the mechanism, giving up their attempts after a few
+moments.
+
+"It's no use!" Britt gulped. "The time lock must be on."
+
+"Oh, for the rod of Moses and the ancient faith that smote the rock in
+twain!" pleaded the Prophet.
+
+"We'd better use rendrock, seeing that we can't depend on a miracle,"
+called a practical citizen from behind the grille.
+
+"Get sledge hammers and chisels," shouted somebody else, and there
+followed a surging of the throng, indicating that concerted action was
+following the suggestion.
+
+The face of the president was twisted by grimaces which resembled
+spasms. "Wait! Wait a moment! There may be a way!" he called, chokingly.
+"Let me out through there!"
+
+Then Vona gave over her insane efforts to pry open the vault door with
+her finger nails. She ran out past Starr, who stopped to lock the grille
+door. The examiner was too much taken up by other matters to bother with
+the Prophet, who held to his place at the vault door and was intently
+scrutinizing something which he found of interest.
+
+Vona forced herself through the press, in company with Starr, and was at
+Britt's elbow when he unlocked his office door. He tried to keep her out
+and called to Dorsey. But she slipped past while the door was open to
+admit Starr's bulky form. Inside, she turned on Britt, who was in the
+doorway.
+
+"You don't dare to keep me out, Mr. Britt!" She stamped her foot. Her
+eyes blazed. "You don't dare!"
+
+He blinked and entered and locked the door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+VIA THE PRESIDENT'S PRIVATE WAY
+
+There was a hanging lamp in Britt's office, and the president hastened
+to light it.
+
+"Do you mean to say that there's another way of entering that bank
+vault?" Starr demanded when Britt began to twirl the knob of a steel
+door that guarded his private vault. "I'm beginning to think that the
+fellow who wrote on that placard had this joint sized up mighty well."
+
+Britt went on with the working of the combination. He was deeply
+stirred; his excitement had made his temper touchy. "I know of no reason
+why the president of a bank isn't allowed access to the vault."
+
+"Perhaps not, under proper conditions, but we'll discuss that matter
+later, Britt. Right now I'm all-fired glad you can get in." He sneered
+when he added, "Perhaps a regular, time-locked vault does need a safety
+outlet. I may recommend it for all state banks."
+
+Vona took her stand close to the door, trembling with passionate
+eagerness. Constantly she appealed to Britt to hurry. When he finally
+swung open the door she leaped into the vault. He dragged her back,
+handling her roughly, harshly telling her that it was no place for a
+girl.
+
+"I don't think it is, either," agreed Starr. "We seem to have
+considerable love mixed in with this situation, young woman, but this is
+not the time for it."
+
+He crowded past her, at the back of Britt.
+
+The man ahead stopped and fumbled at what seemed to be a wall of
+concrete; he pushed open a narrow door which fitted so closely that it
+had seemed to be a part of the wall.
+
+Mr. Starr grunted.
+
+There was a passage at the right of the inner safe. The light from the
+lamp outside shed dim radiance. Britt descended a short flight of cement
+steps, and Starr, following groping with his feet, realized that the
+way led under the floor of the corridor. He was obliged to crouch almost
+double in order to avoid the ceiling.
+
+There was another flight of stairs leading up to the floor level.
+
+The two men, mounting the stairs, heard groans.
+
+Vona, undeterred by her treatment, had followed closely on Starr's
+heels. She urged them to hurry, calling hysterically.
+
+Again the man ahead fumbled at what seemed to be solid wall. Again he
+was able to open a door of concrete.
+
+But Britt, when he was through the narrow door in the lead, was blocked
+and stopped. He lighted a match. One leaf of the double doors of the
+inner safe of the bank vault was flung back across the narrow passage.
+He dropped the stub of the match and pushed. The door moved only a few
+inches; it was opposed by something on the other side. The president
+lighted another match and held it while he peered over the door; there
+was a space between the top of the door and the ceiling. "It's Vaniman,"
+he reported, huskily. "He's lying against this door. I can't push it any
+further. He's wedged against the front of the vault."
+
+Then Starr lighted a match. He noted that the space above the door was
+too narrow for his bulk or Britt's.
+
+"Go tell the guard to send in a chap that's slim and spry," the examiner
+commanded the girl. "We've got to boost somebody in over that door."
+
+"I'll go. I must go. I'm bound and determined to go!" she insisted,
+pulling at him, trying to crowd past him.
+
+But it was necessary for Starr and Britt to follow her to the wider
+space below the corridor in order to allow her to pass them. They
+demurred, still, but she hurried back up the stairs. Britt knelt and
+gave her his shoulders to serve as a mounting block. She swung herself
+over the door, and by the light of the match that Starr held she was
+able to avoid stepping on the prostrate figure when she lowered herself
+to the floor.
+
+The men outside in the passage detected the odor of chloroform.
+
+"I have lifted him," the girl cried. "Push back the door."
+
+Britt obeyed. Then he and Starr took the unconscious cashier by
+shoulders and heels and carried him to the private office.
+
+Britt's office conveniences did not include a couch; the men propped
+Vaniman in the desk chair and Vona crouched beside him and took his head
+on her shoulder.
+
+There were no visible marks of injury. He gave off the scent of
+chloroform. His wrists were crossed in front of him and were secured
+with a noose of tape. Starr picked up shears from Britt's desk and cut
+the tape. "Where's your doctor? Get him in here."
+
+"He lives in another part of the town. I didn't see him at the hall
+to-night," said Britt. "I'll send for him."
+
+But Vaniman began to show such promising symptoms that the president
+delayed the message.
+
+There seemed to be magic in the touch of Vona's caressing palm on the
+stricken man's forehead; the words she was murmuring in his ear were
+stirring his faculties. He opened his eyes and stared at her and at the
+two men, vague wonderment in his expression.
+
+"What is it--what has happened?" he muttered.
+
+"That's what we want to know," said Starr. "What did happen? Who got
+afoul of you?"
+
+"I don't know. Who brought me in here?"
+
+"We got you out of the bank vault and brought you here by the way of
+Britt's private passage."
+
+Vaniman seemed to find that statement unconvincing.
+
+"He didn't know about that passage," stammered the president. "I--I
+never bothered to speak about it. I suppose I ought to have told you,
+Frank. That cement panel is a door--with the handle on this side."
+
+The cashier shook his head slowly, as if giving up the attempt to
+understand.
+
+"I guess the panel fits so closely that you never noticed it was a
+door," Britt went on, with the manner of one trying to set himself
+right. "I meant to tell you about it."
+
+"But what happened?" the examiner insisted.
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"Look here! You must know something!"
+
+"Mr. Starr, this is no time to shout and bellow at this poor boy who has
+barely got his senses back," Vona protested, indignantly.
+
+"You mustn't blame Mr. Starr, dear," said the cashier, patting her hand.
+"Of course, he and Mr. Britt are much stirred up over the thing. I'm not
+trying to hide anything, gentlemen. You say you found me in the vault!
+What is the condition of things in the bank?" He struggled and sat up
+straighter in the chair. He was showing intense anxiety as his senses
+cleared.
+
+Examiner Starr, though present officially, was in no mood to make any
+report on bank conditions just then. "Vaniman, you'd better do your
+talking first."
+
+"I'll tell all I know about it. I was working on the books, my attention
+very much taken up, of course. I felt a sudden shock, as I remember it.
+Everything went black. As to what has been going on from that moment,
+whenever it was, till I woke up here, I'll have to depend on you for
+information."
+
+"That's straight, is it?" demanded the examiner, grimly.
+
+"On my honor, sir."
+
+"There's a lot to be opened out and what you have said doesn't help."
+
+"I wish I could help more. I understand fully what a fix I'm in unless
+this whole muddle is cleared up," confessed the cashier, plaintively. He
+had been putting his hand to his head. "I think I must have been stunned
+by a blow."
+
+Starr, without asking permission, ran his hand over Vaniman's head. "No
+especially big lump anywhere!"
+
+Vaniman spanned a space on his head between thumb and forefinger. "I
+feel a particular ache right about there, sir."
+
+"Britt, get down that lamp!"
+
+The president brought the lamp from the hanging bracket and held it
+close to Vaniman's head while Starr carefully parted the hair and
+inspected. "There's a red strip, but it's not much swollen," he
+reported. "Of course, we know all about those rubber wallopers
+that--But this is not a time for guesswork. Now, Vaniman, how about this
+chloroform odor? Remember anything about an attempt to snuff you that
+way?"
+
+"No, sir!"
+
+"Why don't you wait until to-morrow and let Frank's mind clear up?"
+Vona pleaded. She had been standing with her arm about the young man's
+shoulders, insisting on holding her position even when Starr crowded
+close in making his survey of the cashier's cranium.
+
+"Young woman, the first statements in any affair are the best statements
+when there's a general, all-round desire to get to bottom facts," said
+the examiner, sternly.
+
+"That's my desire, sir," declared Vaniman, earnestly. "But I have told
+you all I know."
+
+President Britt had replaced the lamp in the bracket. He waited for a
+moment while Starr regarded the cashier with uncompromising stare, as if
+meditating a more determined onslaught in the way of the third degree.
+Britt, restraining himself during the interview, had managed to steady
+himself somewhat, but he was much perturbed. He ventured to put in a
+word. "Mr. Starr, don't you think that Vona's idea is a good one--give
+Frank a good night's rest? He may be able to tell us a whole lot more in
+the morning."
+
+Then the bank examiner delivered the crusher that he had been holding
+in reserve. "Vaniman, you may be able to tell me in the morning, if not
+now, how it happens that all your specie bags were filled with--not with
+the gold coin that ought to have been there, but with"--Starr advanced
+close to the cashier and shook a big finger--"mere metal disks!" He
+shouted the last words.
+
+Whether Starr perceived any proof of innocence in Vaniman's
+expression--mouth opening, eyes wide, face white with the pallor of
+threatened collapse--the bank examiner did not reveal by any expression
+of his own.
+
+"This is wicked--wicked!" gasped Vona.
+
+"Young woman, step away!" Starr yanked her arm from Vaniman's shoulder
+and pushed her to one side. "Did you know _that_, Mr. Cashier--suspect
+that--have any least idea of that?"
+
+"I did not know it, sir."
+
+"Why didn't you know it?"
+
+Vaniman tried to say something sensible about this astounding condition
+of affairs and failed to utter a word, he shook his head.
+
+"How had you verified the specie?"
+
+"By checking the sacks as received--by weighing them."
+
+"Expect somebody else to take 'em in the course of business on the same
+basis?"
+
+"I was intending--"
+
+Starr waited for the explanation and then urged the cashier out of his
+silence.
+
+"I intended to have President Britt and a committee of the directors
+count up the coin with me, sir. But it can't be possible--not with the
+Sub-treasury seal--not after--"
+
+"If you're able to walk, you'd better go over into the bank and take
+a look at what was in those sacks, Mr. Cashier." The examiner put a
+sardonic twist upon the appellation. "The sight may help your thoughts
+while you are running over the matter in your mind between now and
+to-morrow morning."
+
+Vaniman rose from the chair. He was flushed. "Mr. Starr, I protest
+against this attitude you're taking! From the very start you have acted
+as if I am a guilty man--guilty of falsifying accounts, and now of
+stealing the bank's money."
+
+There was so much fire in Vaniman's resentment that Starr was taken down
+a few pegs. He replied in a milder tone: "I don't intend to put any name
+on to the thing as it stands. But I'm here to examine a bank, and I find
+a combination of crazy bookkeeping and a junk shop. My feelings are to
+be excused."
+
+"I'll admit that, sir. But you found something else! You found me in the
+vault, you say. It is plain that I was shut in that vault with the time
+lock on; otherwise it wouldn't have been necessary to lug me out by that
+other way, whatever it is!" He snapped accusatory gesture at the
+open door of Britt's vault and flashed equally accusatory gaze at the
+president. "Do you think I was trying to commit suicide by that kind of
+lingering agony?"
+
+"Seeing how you admit that you excuse my feelings, Vaniman, I'll admit,
+for my part, that you've certainly got me on that point. It doesn't look
+like a sensible plan of doing away with yourself, provided there is
+any sense in suicide, anyway! You say you were not aware of Mr. Britt's
+private passage?" he quizzed.
+
+"Most certainly I knew nothing about it."
+
+"I suppose, however, the vault door is time-locked. To be sure, we were
+pretty much excited when we tried to open it--"
+
+"Verily, ye were!"
+
+The voice was deep and solemn. The sound jumped the four persons in
+Britt's office. Framed in the door of Britt's vault was Prophet Elias.
+
+"How did you get in here?" thundered "Foghorn Fremont," first to get his
+voice.
+
+"Not by smiting with the rod of Moses," returned the Prophet,
+considerable ire in his tone. "I pulled open the door of the bank vault
+and walked in."
+
+"Britt, you'd better put up a sign of 'Lunatic Avenue' over that passage
+and invite a general parade through," barked Starr. "I've had plenty of
+nightmares in my life, but never anything to equal this one, take it by
+and large!"
+
+It was evident from President Britt's countenance that a great many
+emotions were struggling in him; but the prevailing expression--the one
+which seemed to embrace all the modifications of his emotions--indicated
+that he felt thoroughly sick. He gazed at the open door of his vault and
+looked as a man might appear after realizing that the presentation of a
+wooden popgun had made him turn over his pocketbook to a robber. "Walked
+in? _Walked_ in?" he reiterated.
+
+The stress of the occasion seemed to have made the Prophet less
+incoherent than was his wont; or perhaps he found no texts to fit this
+situation. "I did not dive through your solid steel, Pharaoh! I used my
+eyes, after I had used my ears. Here!" His fists had been doubled. He
+unclasped his hands and held them forward. In each palm was one of the
+metal disks. "Your bank-vault door was trigged with these--wedged in the
+crack of the outer flange. I saw, I pulled hard on the big handle--and
+here I am!"
+
+"But the bolts--" Starr stopped, trying to remember about the bolts.
+
+"The bolts were not shot. You were trying to push back what had already
+been pushed."
+
+Starr began to scratch the back of his head, in the process tipping his
+hat low over his eyes. He turned those eyes on Vaniman. "Speaking of
+pushing--of being able to push--" But the examiner did not allow himself
+to go any farther at that time. "Vaniman," he blurted, after a few
+moments of meditation, "I want you to volunteer to do something--of your
+own free will, understand!"
+
+Vaniman, pallid again, was fully aware of the effect of this new
+revelation on his position, already more than questionable. "I'll follow
+any suggestion, of my own free will, sir."
+
+"We'd better arrange to have a private talk to-night before we go to
+sleep, and another talk when we wake up. I suggest that you come to the
+tavern and lodge with me."
+
+"It's a good plan, Mr. Starr," the cashier returned, bravely.
+
+But in the distressed glance which Frank and Vona exchanged they both
+confessed that they knew he was politely and unofficially under arrest.
+
+"I'll keep Dorsey on the premises and will stay here, myself," proffered
+the president. "You can be sure that things will take no harm during the
+night, Mr. Starr."
+
+"So far as your bank goes, there doesn't seem to be much left to harm,
+Britt," snapped back the examiner. He fished one of the disks from his
+vest pocket and surveyed it grimly. "As to these assets, whatever they
+may be, I don't think you need to fear--except that small boys may want
+to steal 'em to use for sinkers or to scale on the water next summer.
+What are they, anyway? Does anybody know?"
+
+Britt had plucked one of the disks from his pocket and was inspecting
+it. He hastened to say that he had never seen anything of the sort till
+that evening.
+
+Prophet Elias seemed to be taking no further interest in affairs. He
+went to the door leading into the corridor. It was locked. "I'd like to
+get out," he suggested.
+
+"Now that the other way through the vaults had become the main-traveled
+avenue of the village, why don't you go out as you came in?" was Starr's
+sardonic query.
+
+The Prophet was not ruffled. "I would gladly do so, but the door of the
+grille is locked."
+
+"Ah, that accounts for the fact that everybody else in Egypt isn't in
+this office on your heels! Britt, let him out!"
+
+The president obeyed, unlocking the door, and the Prophet joined the
+crowd in the corridor. Starr went to the door and addressed the folks.
+"Allow me to call your attention, such of you as are handy to this door,
+to Cashier Vaniman." He jerked a gesture over his shoulder. "You can see
+that he is all right. We are giving out no information to-night. I order
+you, one and all, to leave this building at once. I mean business!"
+
+He waited till the movement of the populace began, gave Dorsey some
+sharp commands, and banged the door. But when he turned to face those
+in the office he reached behind himself and opened the door again; the
+sight of the girl had prompted him. "I suggest that this is a good time
+for you to be going along, Miss Harnden. You'll have plenty of company."
+
+But she showed no inclination to go. She was exhibiting something like a
+desperate resolve. "Will you please shut the door, Mr. Starr?"
+
+He obeyed.
+
+"It's in regard to those disks! They are coat weights!"
+
+Starr fished out his souvenir once more and inspected it; his face
+showed that he had not been illuminated especially.
+
+"Women understand such things better than men, of course," she went on.
+"Dressmakers stitch those weights into the lower edges of women's suit
+coats to make the fabric drape properly and hang without wrinkling."
+
+"You're a woman and you probably know what you're talking about on
+that line," admitted the examiner. "But because you're a woman I don't
+suppose you can tell me how coat weights happen to be the main
+cash assets of this bank!" Mr. Starr's manner expressed fully his
+contemptuous convictions on that point.
+
+"I certainly cannot say how those weights happen to be in the bank, sir.
+But I feel that this is the time for everybody in our town to give in
+every bit of information that will help to clear up this terrible thing.
+I'm taking that attitude for myself, Mr. Starr, and I hope that all
+others are going to be as frank." She gave President Britt a fearless
+stare of challenge. "My father has recently had a great deal of new
+courage about some of the inventions he hopes to put through. He has
+told me that Mr. Britt is backing him financially."
+
+"Your father is everlastingly shinning up a moonbeam, and you know it,"
+declared Britt.
+
+Starr shook his hand, pinching the disk between thumb and forefinger.
+"Young woman, I'm interested only in this, if you have any information
+to give me in regard to it."
+
+Vaniman was displaying an interest of his own that was but little short
+of amazement.
+
+"The information I have is this, sir! My father said that Mr. Britt's
+help had enabled him to start in manufacturing a patent door which
+requires the use of many washers with small holes, and he was saying
+at home that he'd be obliged to have them turned out by a blacksmith.
+I happened to be making over something for mother and I had some coat
+weights on my table. I showed them to my father and he said they were
+just the thing. He found out where they were made and he ordered a
+quantity--they came in little kegs and he stored them in the stable.
+That's all, Mr. Starr!"
+
+"All? Go ahead and tell me--"
+
+"I have told you all I know, sir! That's the stand I'm taking, whatever
+may come up. If you expect me to tell you that these are the disks my
+father stored in the stable, I shall do no such thing. The kegs and the
+disks may be there right now, for all I know." She faced the examiner
+with an intrepidity which made that gentleman blink. It was plain enough
+that he wanted to say something--but he did not venture to say it.
+
+"And now I'll go! I think my father must be out there waiting for me.
+If you care to stay here long enough, I'll have him hurry back from our
+home and report whether the kegs are still in the stable."
+
+"We'll wait, Miss Harnden!" Starr opened the door.
+
+After she had gone, Britt closed the door of his vault and shot the
+bolts.
+
+The three men kept off the dangerous topic except as they conferred on
+the pressing business in hand. They helped Dorsey hurry the lingerers
+from the building. Then they went into the bank, stored the books in the
+vault, and locked it.
+
+Starr, especially intent on collecting all items of evidence, found
+in the vault, when he entered, a cloth that gave off the odor of
+chloroform. On one corner of the cloth was a loop by which it could be
+suspended from a hook.
+
+"Is this cloth anything that has been about the premises?" asked the
+official.
+
+"It's Vona's dustcloth," stated Britt. He had watched the girl too
+closely o' mornings not to know that cloth!
+
+That information seemed to prick Starr's memory on another point. From
+his trousers pocket he dug the tape which he had cut from Vaniman's
+wrists. He glanced about the littered floor. There was the remnant of a
+roll of tape on the floor. Mr. Starr wrapped the fragment of tape in a
+sheet of paper along with the roll.
+
+Then Mr. Harnden arrived. The outer door had been left open for him. He
+had run so fast that his breath came in whistles with the effect of
+a penny squawker. As the movie scenarios put it, he "got over," with
+gestures and breathless mouthings rather than stated in so many words,
+that the kegs of disks were gone--all of them.
+
+Replying with asthmatic difficulty to questions put to him by Starr, Mr.
+Harnden stated that he could not say with any certainty when the kegs
+had been taken, nor could he guess who had taken them. He kept no horse
+or cow and had not been into the stable since he put the kegs there. The
+stable was not locked. He had always had full faith in the honesty of
+his fellow-man, said the optimist.
+
+Mr. Starr allowed that he had always tried to feel that way, too, but
+stated that he had been having his feelings pretty severely wrenched
+since he had arrived in the town of Egypt.
+
+Then he and Vaniman left the bank to go to the tavern.
+
+Outside the door, a statue of patience, Squire Hexter was waiting.
+
+"I didn't use my pull as a director to get underfoot in there, Brother
+Starr. No, just as soon as I heard that the boy, here, was all right I
+stepped out and coaxed out all the others I could prevail on. What has
+been done about starting the general hue and cry about those robbers?"
+
+Starr stammered when he said that he supposed that the local constable
+had notified the sheriff.
+
+"I attended to that, myself! Dorsey could think of only one thing at
+a time. But I reckoned you had taken some steps to make the call more
+official. The state police ought to be on the job."
+
+"I'll attend to it." But Mr. Starr did not display particularly urgent
+zeal.
+
+"Well, son, we'll toddle home! What say?"
+
+Vaniman did not say. He was choking. Reaction and grief and anxiety were
+unnerving him. Starr did the saying. "The cashier and I have a lot of
+things to go over, Squire, and he plans to spend the night with me at
+the tavern."
+
+"I see!" returned the notary, amiably, showing no surprise. He called a
+cheery "Good night!" when he left them at the tavern door.
+
+Landlord Files gave them a room with two beds. Without making any bones
+of the thing, Examiner Starr pushed his bed across the door and then
+turned in and snored with the abandon of one who had relieved himself of
+the responsibility of keeping vigil.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LOOKED AT SQUARELY
+
+The bank examiner and the cashier were down early to breakfast.
+
+Starr had slept well and was vigorously alert. Vaniman was haggard and
+visibly worried. Both of them were reticent.
+
+Vaniman felt that he had nothing to say, as matters stood.
+
+Starr was thinking, rather than talking. He snapped up Files when the
+landlord meekly inquired whether there were any clews. Files retreated
+in a panic.
+
+"Vaniman," said the examiner, when they pulled on their coats under the
+alligator's gaping espionage, "this is going to be my busy day and I
+hope you feel like pitching into this thing with me, helping to your
+utmost."
+
+"You can depend on me, Mr. Starr."
+
+"I don't intend to bother you with any questions at present except to
+ask about the routine business of the bank. So you can have your mind
+free on that point."
+
+They went to the bank and relieved Britt.
+
+"Go get your breakfast and come back here as soon as you can," Starr
+commanded, plunging into matters with the air of the sole captain of the
+craft. "And call a meeting of the directors."
+
+The examiner had brought a brief-case along with him from the tavern.
+He pulled out a card. Britt winced when he saw what was printed on the
+card.
+
+
+THIS BANK CLOSED
+
+pending examination of resources and liabilities and
+
+auditing of accounts. Per order STATE BANK EXAMINERS.
+
+
+Mr. Starr ordered Britt to tack that card on the outer door.
+
+"Isn't there any other way but this?" asked the president.
+
+"There's nothing else to be done--certainly not! I'm afraid the
+institution is in a bad way, Britt. You say you have been calling
+regular loans in order to build up a cash reserve--and your cash isn't
+in sight. I reckon it means that the stockholders will be assessed the
+full hundred per cent of liability."
+
+He bolted the bank door behind the president.
+
+"Now, Vaniman, did you find out anything sensible about those books, as
+far as you got last evening?"
+
+"Only that the accounts seem to have been willfully tangled up."
+
+"Then we'll let that part of the thing hang. Get out letters to
+depositors, calling in all pass books."
+
+After Vaniman had set himself down to that task, Starr went about his
+business briskly. He prepared telegrams and sent his charioteer to
+put them on the wire at Levant. Those messages were intended to set in
+operation the state police, a firm of licensed auditors, the security
+company which had bonded the bank's officials, the insurance corporation
+which guaranteed the Egypt Trust Company against loss by burglars. Then
+Starr proceeded with the usual routine of examination as conducted when
+banks are going concerns.
+
+For the next few days Egypt was on the map.
+
+Ike Jones was obliged to put extra pungs on to his stage line for the
+accommodation of visitors who included accountants, newspaper reporters,
+insurance men, and security representatives.
+
+Finally, so far as Starr's concern was involved, the affairs of the
+Egypt Trust Company were shaken down into something like coherence. The
+apparent errors in the books, when they had been checked by pass books
+and notes and securities, were resolved into a mere wanton effort to mix
+things up.
+
+Mr. Starr took occasion to reassure Miss Harnden in regard to those
+books; during the investigation the girl had been working with Vaniman
+in the usual double-hitch arrangement which had prevailed before the day
+of the disaster. The two plodded steadily, faithfully, silently, under
+the orders of the examiner.
+
+"Now that I've seen you at work, Miss Harnden, I eliminate carelessness
+and stupidity as the reasons for the books being as they are. That's the
+way I'm going at this thing--by the process of elimination. I'm going to
+say more! I'm eliminating you as being consciously responsible for any
+of the wrongdoing in this bank. That's about as far as I've got in the
+matter of elimination." He thumped his fist on a ledger. "It looks to me
+as if somebody had started to put something over by mixing these figures
+and had been tripped before finishing the job."
+
+Then Mr. Starr, as if to show his appreciation of a worthy young woman
+whom he had treated in rather cavalier fashion at their first meeting,
+made her clerk to the receiver; the receiver was Almon Waite, an amiable
+old professor of mathematics, retired, who had come back to Egypt to
+pass his last days with his son. Examiner Starr, having taken it upon
+himself to put the Egypt Trust case through, had found in Professor
+Waite a handy sort of a soft rubber stamp.
+
+Every afternoon, day by day, Starr had remarked casually to Vaniman,
+"Seeing that we have so many things to talk over, you'd better lodge
+with me at the hotel to-night!" And daily Vaniman agreed without
+a flicker of an eyelid. In view of the fact that both of them kept
+sedulously off the bank business after hours, there was a perfect
+understanding between the examiner and the cashier as to what this
+espionage meant. And Vaniman knew perfectly well just why a chap named
+Bixby was in town!
+
+Having a pretty good knowledge of Starr's general opinions and
+prejudices, the cashier had squared himself to meet things as they came
+along. Once or twice Starr gave the young man an opportunity to come
+across with explanations or defense. Vaniman kept silent.
+
+The cashier explained his sentiments to Vona. "It's mighty little
+ammunition I've got, dear! All I can do now is to keep it dry, and wait
+till I can see the whites of the enemy's eyes."
+
+He refrained from any comment on the identity of the enemy. He did not
+need to name names to Vona. The attitude of Tasper Britt, who kept by
+himself in his own office; who offered not one word of suggestion or
+explanation or consolation; who surveyed Vaniman, when the two met at
+the tavern, with the reproachful stare of the benefactor who had been
+betrayed--Britt's attitude was sufficiently significant. Vaniman was
+waiting to see what Britt would do in the crisis that was approaching.
+"At any rate, I must keep silent until I'm directly accused, Vona. Starr
+is regularly talking with Britt. If I begin now to defend myself by
+telling about Britt's operations, I'll merely be handing weapons to the
+enemy. They can't surprise me by any charge they may bring! I have got
+myself stiffened up to that point. You must make up your mind that it's
+coming. Pile up courage beforehand!"
+
+It was a valiant little speech. But he was obliged to strive heroically
+to make his countenance fit his words of courage. In facing the
+situation squarely he had been trying to make an estimate of the state
+of mind in Egypt. He bitterly decided that the folks were lining up
+against the outlander. As hateful as Britt had made himself, he was
+Egyptian, born and bred. Vaniman knew what the wreck of the little bank
+signified in that town, which was already staggering under its debt
+burden. How that bank had been wrecked was not clear to Vaniman, even
+when he gave the thing profound consideration. He did not dare to
+declare to himself all that he suspected of the president. Nor did he
+dare to believe that Britt would dump the whole burden on the cashier.
+However, if Britt undertook such a play of perfidy, the outlander knew
+that the native would have the advantage in the exchange of accusation.
+
+Vaniman perceived the existing state of affairs in the demeanor of the
+men whom he met on the street, going to and from the tavern. He heard
+some of their remarks. He strove to keep a calm face while his soul
+burned!
+
+Then, at last, Examiner Starr acted. He employed peculiar methods to fit
+a peculiar case.
+
+One afternoon Starr sat and stared for some time at Vaniman. They were
+alone in the bank. Receiver Waite and Vona had gone away.
+
+"Would you relish a little show?" inquired the examiner.
+
+Vaniman had nerved himself against all kinds of surprise, he thought,
+but he was not prepared for this proffer of entertainment. He frankly
+declared that he did not understand.
+
+"Seeing that you are doubtful, we'll have the show, anyway, and you
+can tell me later whether or not you relish it." He opened the door and
+called. Bixby came in. It was evident that Bixby had been waiting.
+
+"All ready!" said Starr.
+
+"All right!" said Bixby.
+
+"I'll say that Bixby, here, is an operator from a detective agency, in
+case you don't know it," explained the examiner.
+
+"I do know it, sir!"
+
+Bixby pulled off his overcoat. Under it he wore a mohair office coat. He
+yanked off that garment, ripped the sleeves, tore the back breadth, and
+threw the coat under a stool. Then he secured a dustcloth from a hook,
+produced a small vial of chloroform, and poured some of the liquid on
+the cloth. He poured more of the chloroform on his hair and his vest.
+Then he laid down the cloth and got a roll of tape out of a drawer. He
+cut off a length and made a noose, slipped it over his wrists, bent down
+and laid the end of the tape on the floor, stood on it, and pulled taut
+the noose until the flesh was ridged. He stooped again and picked up
+two metal disks which Starr tossed on the floor; the detective did this
+easily, although his writs were noosed.
+
+"Not the exact program, perhaps, but near enough," Starr commented.
+
+With equal ease Bixby laid the disks carefully on the flange of the sill
+of the vault. Then he took the cloth from the desk, went to the vault,
+stooped and thumped his head up against the projecting lever. He went
+into the vault and carefully pulled the door shut after him, both hands
+on the main bolt.
+
+Starr was silent for some moments, exchanging looks with the cashier.
+
+"Any comments?" inquired the manager of the show.
+
+"None, sir."
+
+"I'll simply say that the chloroform cloth can be put to the nose as
+occasion calls for. Bixby isn't doing that. I told Bixby that for the
+purposes of demonstration he might count one hundred slow and then
+figure that he had used up the oxygen in the vault, and then, if nobody
+came to open the door, he could--well, he isn't in there to commit
+suicide, but only to create an impression. I ask again--any comments?"
+
+Vaniman shook his head.
+
+Then the door swung open. Bixby was on his back, his heels in the air.
+He had pushed the door with his feet, his shoulders against the inner
+door. He rose and came out. Starr cut the tape with the office shears.
+
+"That's all!" said the manager.
+
+Bixby, not troubling about the torn office jacket, put on his overcoat
+and departed.
+
+Starr took a lot of time in lighting a cigar and getting a good clinch
+on the weed with his teeth. He spoke between those teeth. "It's your
+move, Vaniman."
+
+"I haven't agreed to sit in at that kind of a game," stated the young
+man, firmly.
+
+"But you'll have to admit that I'm playing mighty fair," insisted the
+examiner. "When we talked in Britt's office, you and I agreed that it
+wasn't likely that a chap would run risks or commit suicide by shutting
+himself up in a bank vault with a time lock on. That's about the only
+point we did agree on. I'm showing you that I don't agree with you now,
+even on that point. That being the case, you've got to--show _me_."
+Starr emphasized the last two words by stabbing at his breast with the
+cigar.
+
+"The idea is, Mr. Starr, you believe that I framed a fake robbery, or
+something that looked like a robbery, in order to cover myself." Frank
+stood up and spoke hotly.
+
+Mr. Starr jumped up and was just as heated in his retort. "Yes!"
+
+"But the whole thing--the muddling of the bank's books--the disks--a man
+shoving himself into the vault--I'd have to be a lunatic to perform in
+that fashion!"
+
+"They say there's nothing new under the sun! There is, just the same!
+Some crook is thinking up a new scheme every day!"
+
+"By the gods, you shall not call me a crook!"
+
+"You, yourself, are drawing that inference. But I don't propose to deal
+in inferences--"
+
+"Starting in the first day you struck this town, hounding me on account
+of matters I had no knowledge of, Mr. Starr, was drawing a damnable
+inference."
+
+"It has been backed up by some mighty good evidence!"
+
+"What is your evidence?"
+
+The examiner blew a cloud of smoke, then he fanned the screen away and
+squinted at Vaniman. "If you ever hear of me giving away the state's
+case in any matter where I'm concerned you'll next hear of me committing
+suicide by locking myself into a bank vault. Calm down, Mr. Cashier!"
+
+Starr walked close to Vaniman and tapped a stubby forefinger against
+the young man's heaving breast. "I'm going to give you a chance, young
+fellow! I staged that little play a few moments ago so that you'd see
+what a fool house of cards you're living in! I hope you noted carefully
+that we did not need to go off the premises for any of our props. I,
+myself, had noted in your case that everything that was used came from
+the premises. Real robbers usually bring their own stuff. Even that
+chloroform--"
+
+"I know nothing about the chloroform, sir."
+
+"Well, the vial was here that night, anyway! It's a small thing to waste
+time on! I don't profess to be at the bottom of the affair, Vaniman.
+I'll admit that it looks as if there's a lot behind this thing--plenty
+that is interesting. I've got my full share of human curiosity. I'd like
+to be let in on this thing, first hand. Now come across clean! The whole
+story! Tell me where the coin is! It's certainly a queer case, and there
+must be some twist in it where I can do you a good turn. I've giving you
+your chance, I say!"
+
+"I have no more idea where that coin is than you have, Mr. Starr. I
+never touched it. I have already told the whole truth, so far as I know
+facts."
+
+"Now listen, Vaniman! This town is already _down_! If that gold isn't
+recovered this bank failure will put the town _out_! The folks are ugly.
+They're talking. Britt says they believe you have hidden the money!"
+
+"He does say it!" Vaniman fairly barked the words. "No doubt he has been
+telling 'em so!"
+
+Starr proceeded remorselessly. "I have heard all the gossip about the
+trouble between you and Britt. But that gossip doesn't belong in this
+thing right now. Vaniman, you know what a country town is when it turns
+against an outsider! If you go before a jury on this case--and that
+money isn't in sight--you don't stand the show of a wooden latch on the
+back door of hell's kitchen! They'll all come to court with what they
+can grub up in the way of brickbats--facts, if they can get 'em, lies,
+anyway! Come, come, now! Dig up the coin!"
+
+Starr's bland persistency in taking for granted the fact that Vaniman
+was hiding the money snapped the overstrained leash of the cashier's
+self-restraint. In default of a general audience of the hateful Egyptian
+vilifiers, he used Starr as the object of his frenzied vituperation.
+
+Mr. Starr listened without reply.
+
+As soon as it was apparent to the bank examiner that the cashier did
+not intend to take advantage of the chance that had been offered, Starr
+marched to the door, opened it, and called. The corridor, it seemed, was
+serving as repository for various properties required in the drama
+which Mr. Starr had staged that day. The man who entered wore a gold
+badge--and a gold badge marks the high sheriff of a county. Starr handed
+a paper to the officer. "Serve it," he commanded, curtly.
+
+The sheriff walked to Vaniman and tapped him on the shoulder. "You're
+under arrest."
+
+"Charged with what?"
+
+"I'm making it fairly easy for you," explained, Starr, dryly, appearing
+to be better acquainted with the nature of the warrant than the
+sheriff was. "Burglary, with or without accomplices, might have been
+charged--seeing that the coin has been removed--in the nighttime, of
+course! But we're simply making the charge embezzlement!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ON THE FACE OF IT
+
+Squire Hexter arranged for Vaniman's bail, volunteering for that
+service, frankly admitting that he "had seen it coming all along"! But
+the Squire was not as ready to serve as Frank's counsel and withstood
+that young man's urging for some time. The Squire's solicitude in behalf
+of the accused was the reason for this reluctance. "You ought to have
+the smartest city lawyer you can hire. I'm only an old country codger,
+son!"
+
+"Squire Hexter, I propose to let the other side have a monopoly of the
+tricks. I'm depending on my innocence, and I want your honesty back of
+it."
+
+In the hope that the folks of Egypt would recognize innocence when they
+saw it, Vaniman daily walked the streets of the village. The pride
+of innocence was soon wounded; he learned that his action in "showing
+himself under the folks's noses" was considered as bravado. The light of
+day showed him so many sour looks that he stayed in the house with Xoa
+or in the Squire's office until night. Then he discovered that when he
+walked abroad under cover of the darkness he was persistently trailed;
+it was evident that the belief that he had hidden the coin of the Egypt
+Trust Company was sticking firmly in the noodles of the public.
+
+The bank, of course, was now forbidden ground for him. The affairs of
+that unhappy institution were being wound up. Considering the fact that
+the stockholders had been assessed dollar for dollar of their holdings,
+and that, even with this assessment added to the assets, the depositors
+would get back only a fraction of their money, Vaniman could scarcely
+marvel at the hard looks and the muttered words he met up with on the
+street.
+
+Furthermore, the insurance company took the stand that the bank had
+not been burglarized. On the other hand, the security company behind
+Vaniman's bond refused to settle, claiming that some kind of a theft
+had been committed by outsiders. Only after expensive litigation could
+Receiver Waite hope to add insurance and bond money to the assets. The
+prospects of getting anything were clouded by the revelations concerning
+President Britt's private entrance to the bank vault. But Britt was not
+accused of anything except of presuming on too many liberties in running
+a one-man bank. Under some circumstances Britt would have been called
+to an accounting, without question. But all the venom of suspicion was
+wholly engaged with Frank Vaniman, the son of an embezzler.
+
+Squire Hexter, armed with authority and information given him by the
+young man, had repeatedly waited on Tasper Britt and had asked what
+attitude the president proposed to take at the trial. Britt had said
+that he should tell the truth, and that was all any witness could be
+expected to do or to promise, furthermore, so he told the Squire, he had
+been enjoined by his counsel to make no talk to anybody.
+
+Vaniman was not sure of his self-restraint during that period of
+waiting. There were days when he felt like slapping the faces that
+glowered when he looked at them. He avoided any meeting with Britt. That
+was easy, because Britt swung with pendulum regularity between house and
+tavern, tavern and office.
+
+There were days when Vaniman was so thoroughly disheartened that he
+pleaded with Vona to make a show of breaking off their friendship. She
+had insisted on displaying herself as his champion; obeying her, he
+walked in her company to and from the bank with more or less regularity.
+His spirit of chivalry made the snubs harder to endure when she was
+obliged to share them in his company.
+
+But Vona staunchly refused to be a party to such deception. She borrowed
+some figures of speech suggested by the work she was doing in the bank
+and declared that her loyalty was not insolvent and that she would not
+make any composition with her conscience.
+
+In her zeal to be of service, one day she even volunteered to interview
+Tasper Britt on the subject of what had happened to the Egypt Trust
+Company. On that fresh April morning they had walked up the slope of
+Burkett Hill, where the sward was showing its first green. He had come
+to her house earlier than usual so that she might have time for the
+little excursion. They hunted for mayflowers and found enough to make a
+bit of a bouquet for her desk in the office.
+
+"One just has to feel hopeful in the spring, Frank," she insisted,
+brushing the blossoms gently against his cheek. From the slope they
+could look down into the length of Egypt's main street. "Why, there
+goes Tasper Britt toward his office and he actually waved his hand to
+a man--honest! The spring does soften folks. If he does know something
+about the inside of the dreadful puzzle, as you and I have talked so
+many times, I do believe I can coax him to tell me."
+
+"I don't want you to coax him, dear. Squire Hexter has put the thing up
+to Britt, man to man, and I think it better to let it stand that way."
+
+"But if we could get only a little hint to work from!"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll find him as stingy with hints as he is with
+everything else. He does know--something! I would not put him above
+arranging that frame-up that put me where I was found that night," he
+declared, with bitterness.
+
+"No, Frank, I tell you again that I don't believe he knew it was going
+to happen. When I stood there outside the curtain that night I was
+looking straight at him, and at nobody else. I don't remember another
+face. Tasper Britt is not actor enough to make up the expression that I
+saw. It was simple, absolute, flabbergasted fright!"
+
+They started down the slope and walked in silence.
+
+"He's considerable of a coward," Vaniman admitted, after his pondering.
+"I'm depending on that fact, more or less. I don't believe he'll dare to
+stand up as a witness in court and perjure himself. Squire Hexter has a
+line of questions that he and I have prepared very carefully. Britt will
+have to testify that I did not have sole opportunity. In considering
+crimes, it's proving sole opportunity that sends folks to prison!"
+
+She turned away her face and set her teeth upon her lower lip,
+controlling her agitation.
+
+"I'm trying to face the thing just as bravely as I can, Vona. On the
+face of it I'm in bad! When I remember how Britt maneuvered with me, I
+feel like running to him and twisting his head off his neck."
+
+When they arrived in front of Britt Block, Vaniman scowled at the stone
+effigy in its niche. Then, when his eyes came down from that complacent
+countenance, they beheld the face of Tasper Britt framed in his office
+window. The Britt in the bank was distinctly in an ugly mood. And there
+was a challenge in his demeanor, a sneer in the twist of his features.
+
+"Vona, I'm going in there," Vaniman declared. "There's got to be a
+showdown, but it's no job for you!"
+
+She offered neither protest nor advice. At that moment the young man was
+manifestly in a state of mind which sudden resolution had inflamed with
+something like desperation. When he strode in through the front door
+Britt disappeared from the window.
+
+Vona, following her lover, put her hand on his arm when he arrived in
+front of the office door. "Don't you need me with you in there?" She
+could not hide her apprehensiveness.
+
+"I'm going to hold myself in, dear! Don't be worried. But it's best for
+me to see him alone."
+
+He waited until she had gone into the bank office.
+
+He did not bother to knock on Britt's door. When he twisted the handle
+he found that the door was locked. He called, but Britt did not reply.
+He put his mouth close to the door. "Mr. Britt, I have some business to
+talk over with you. Please let me in!"
+
+He waited. The man inside did not move or speak. "I'm coming in there,
+Britt, even if I have to kick this door down."
+
+But the threat did not produce any results. Vaniman stepped back and
+drove his foot against the panel, but not with enough force to break the
+lock. His kick was in the way of admonition. After a few moments Britt
+opened the door; he had an iron poker in his hand. Vaniman marched in.
+"You don't need any weapon, sir."
+
+"I think I do, judging from the way you came rushing into this building.
+Vaniman, I protest. I have said my say to your attorney. I have nothing
+more to add."
+
+"I'm not here to try the case, Mr. Britt. I'll confess that I did not
+intend to waste my breath in talking with you. But I could not resist
+the feeling that came over me a few moments ago." He was standing just
+inside the door. He closed it. "You informed Squire Hexter that you
+intend to tell the truth at the trial. That's all right! I hope so. I
+have no criticism to offer on that point. But there's a matter of man's
+business between us two, and it belongs here rather than in a courtroom.
+Do you intend to tell the truth about how you framed me?"
+
+"I don't understand what you mean," returned Britt, stiffly.
+
+"I'll put it so that you can't help understanding, sir. You rigged a
+plan to have me sleep in the bank nights."
+
+"That was your own suggestion. You asked to be allowed to sleep here."
+
+"You intend to say that in your testimony, do you?"
+
+Britt took a firm hold on the poker. "I most certainly do."
+
+"You cooked up an excuse to send me off on a wild-goose chase in the
+night."
+
+"I know nothing about your going anywhere in the night--except that
+Files's hostler is saying that you hired a hitch for some purpose."
+
+Vaniman knew that appeal and protest would be futile--realizing the full
+extent of Britt's effrontery. However, in his amazement he began to rail
+at the president.
+
+Britt broke in on the anathema. "I was not nigh the bank that night.
+I was asleep in my own house. You'd better not try any such ridiculous
+story in court--it will spoil any defense Hexter may manage to put up
+for you. Vaniman, it's plain enough why you hired that hitch! Why don't
+you tell where you hauled that money?"
+
+"I'm not going to do to you what I ought to do, Britt. I'm into the hole
+deep enough as it is! But let me ask you if any jury is going to believe
+that I was lunatic enough to hire a livery hitch, if I was hauling away
+loot?"
+
+"It's my idea, Vaniman, that you were trying to work a hold-up game on
+the bank, knowing that you were done here," stated Britt, coolly. "But
+something went wrong before you had a chance to offer a compromise.
+Naturally, you thought we'd do 'most anything to keep our little bank
+from failing."
+
+The young man beat his fist upon his breast. "Have you the damnation
+cheek, Britt, to use me, the victim, to rehearse your lies on?"
+
+"I'm giving you a little glimpse of the evidence. If the hint is of any
+use to you, you're welcome."
+
+"Britt, have you turned into a demon?" Vaniman demanded. He stared at
+the usurer with honest incredulity.
+
+"I've had enough setbacks, in recent days, to craze 'most any man, I'll
+admit. But I'm keeping along in my usual course, doing the right thing
+as I see it."
+
+"Britt, I have never done you an injury. Are you going to ruin me
+because a good girl loves me?"
+
+"I have too much respect for that young lady to allow her name to be
+dragged into a mess of this sort," stated the amazing Britt. "And I
+think that she'll wake up after she has come to a realizing sense of
+what a narrow escape she has had."
+
+Vaniman stood there, his hands closing and unclosing, his palms itching
+to feel the contact of Britt's cheeks. There was venom in Britt's eyes.
+This outrageous baiting was satisfying the older man's rancor--the ugly
+grudge that clawed and tore his soul when he sat alone in his chamber
+and gazed on the girl's pictured beauty. Every night, after he puffed
+out his light, he muttered the same speech--it had become the talisman
+of his ponderings. "Whilst I'm staying alone here he'll be alone in a
+cell in state prison."
+
+Vaniman understood.
+
+He turned on his heel and walked out of Britt's office.
+
+In the street the young man met Prophet Elias, who was adventuring
+abroad under his big umbrella. Vaniman was in a mood to poke ruthless
+facts against his aches. "Prophet, you ought to know whether any of the
+folks in this town believe that I'm innocent. Are there any?"
+
+Elias, ever since he had flung to the cashier the sage advice about
+keeping his eye peeled, had used texts rarely in his infrequent talks
+with Vaniman.
+
+"Oh yes, there are a few," he said, with matter-of-fact indifference.
+"But they didn't lose money by the bank failure."
+
+"What do you think about me?"
+
+The Prophet cocked his eyebrow. "'Can a man take fire into his bosom,
+and his clothing not be burned?' Britt, the bank, the girl! Three hot
+torches, young sir! Very hot torches!" He walked on. Then he turned and
+came back and patted Vaniman's arm. "You didn't keep your eye peeled!
+The young are thoughtless. But four good old eyes will be serving you
+while you're--_away_! Mine and Brother Usial's."
+
+"Thank you!" said the young man, and he went on his way. He was
+reflecting on that text the Prophet had enunciated.
+
+Might it not apply as well to Tasper Britt?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A PERSISTENT BELIEF
+
+Vaniman was indicted; he was tried; he was convicted; he was sentenced
+to serve seven years in the state prison. He refused to allow Squire
+Hexter to appeal the case. He had no taste for further struggle
+against the circumstantial evidence that was reinforced by perjury.
+His consciousness of protesting innocence was subjugated by the morose
+determination to accept the unjust punishment.
+
+The general opinion was that he was a very refractory young man because
+he would not disclose the hiding place of the gold.
+
+Even the warden of the prison had some remarks to make on that subject.
+The chaplain urged Vaniman to clear his conscience and do what he could
+to aid the distressed inhabitants of a bankrupt town. This conspiracy of
+persistent belief in his guilt put a raw edge on his mental suffering.
+
+His only source of solace was the weekly letter from Vona. Her fortitude
+seemed to be unaffected; her loyalty heartened him. And after a time
+hope intervened and comforted him; although Vaniman had only a few
+friends on the job for him in Egypt, he reflected that Tasper Britt
+had plenty of enemies who would operate constantly and for the indirect
+benefit of Britt's especial victim. The young man felt that accident
+might disclose the truth at any time. But every little while he went
+through a period of acute torture; he had a wild desire to break out of
+his prison, to be on the ground in Egypt, to go at the job of unmasking
+Britt as only a man vitally interested in the task could go at it!
+
+Sometimes his frenzy reached such a height that it resembled the
+affliction that pathologists call claustrophobia. He stamped to and fro
+in his cell, after the bolts had been driven for the night; he lamented
+and he cursed, muffling his tones. And a man named Bartley Wagg, having
+taken it upon himself to keep close tabs on Vaniman's state of mind,
+noted the prisoner's rebellious restlessness with deepening interest and
+coupled a lot of steady pondering with his furtive espionage.
+
+Wagg was a prison guard.
+
+After Vaniman was committed, Wagg complained of rheumatism and asked the
+warden to transfer him from the wall where he had been doing sentry-go
+with a rifle and give him an inside job as night warder. And the warden
+humored Wagg, who was a trusted veteran.
+
+Wagg made regular trips along the cell tiers during the night. He padded
+as noiselessly as a cat, for he had soles of felt on his shoes. Many
+times, keeping vigil when his emotions would not allow him to sleep,
+Vaniman saw Wagg halt and peer through the bars of the cell. The
+corridor light showed his face. But Wagg did not accost the prisoner.
+The guard acted like a man who, whatever might be his particular
+interest in Vaniman, proposed to take plenty of time in getting
+acquainted.
+
+Once, after midnight, Wagg found the prisoner pacing; Vaniman dared to
+relieve his feelings by groans, for the chorus of snores served as a
+sound-screen.
+
+"Sick?" inquired the guard, whispering.
+
+"No."
+
+"If you ever are, don't be afraid to call on me when I pass. I've got a
+good heart."
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"I've really got too good a heart to be tied up to a prison job,"
+volunteered Wagg. "I hate to see sorrow."
+
+"Sorrow is about all you have a chance to see in this place."
+
+"Yes," admitted the guard, sliding away.
+
+The warden had given Vaniman a bookkeeper's job. But the prison office
+was a gloomy place and the windows were hatefully barred Through the
+bars he could see convict toilers wheeling barrows of dirt. They were
+filling up a lime-quarry pit within the walls. In the old days convicts
+had quarried lime rocks. But in the newer days of shops the quarry was
+abandoned and had been gradually filled with stagnant water. When the
+prison commissioners decided that the pool was a menace to health, a
+crew was set at work filling the pit. Vaniman envied the men who could
+work in the sunshine. He was everlastingly behind bars; the office was
+not much better than his cell. The bars shut him away from opportunity
+to make a man's fight for himself. Every time he looked at a window he
+was reminded of his helplessness. It seemed to him that if he could get
+out into the sunshine and toil till his muscles ached he would be able
+to endure better the night of confinement in the cell.
+
+He blurted out that much of confession to Wagg when the guard discovered
+him pacing in the narrow space a few nights later.
+
+"I sympathize!" whispered Wagg. "I know all about your case!" Then Wagg
+passed on.
+
+The next night he halted long enough to say that, knowing all about
+the case from what the newspapers printed, he realized just why Vaniman
+found it so tough to be locked up.
+
+Then Wagg refrained from saying anything for several nights. The
+prisoner was quite sure that the guard had something on his mind outside
+of a mere notion of being polite; in the case of Wagg, so hardened a
+veteran, politeness to a prisoner would have been heresy. Wondering just
+what Wagg was driving at, Vaniman found the guard's leisurely methods
+tantalizing in the extreme. One night the prisoner ventured to take the
+initiative; he stuck out his hand to signal the guard.
+
+Wagg, it was manifest, was not so much a master of facial control that
+he could suppress all signs of satisfaction. He looked pleased--like a
+man who had employed tactics that were working according to plans and
+hopes.
+
+"Sick?"
+
+"Yes--heart and soul! Body, too! Isn't there any way of my getting a job
+wheeling that dirt?"
+
+Wagg made his noiseless getaway. He departed suddenly, without a word.
+Until the next night Vaniman was left to wonder to what extent he had
+offended the official.
+
+But Wagg showed no signs of unfriendliness when he halted, after
+midnight, at the cell door. "Feel any better?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"I reckon I understand. Of course I understand! Most of 'em that's in
+here haven't anything special to look forward to when they get out. Your
+case is different. Everything to look forward to! No wonder you walk the
+cell."
+
+On he slid, silently.
+
+Vaniman had read the _Arabian Nights_ tales, as they were divided in
+the literal translation. He reflected whimsically on the methods of
+the story-teller who, "having said her permitted say," was wont to stop
+right in the middle of a sentence for the sake of piquing interest in
+what was to follow.
+
+The next night the prisoner's interest was heightened into real
+amazement. Wagg stuck his hand through the bars and waggled it
+invitingly.
+
+"Take it!" he urged, sibilantly.
+
+For a dizzy instant Vaniman was moved by the expansive hope that his
+plight had appealed to this man; he hastened to take what Wagg offered.
+It was a small cube of something.
+
+"Eat it!" said the guard.
+
+Holding it close to his face, to make an inspection in the dim light,
+the young man caught the scent of the cube. It was a piece of soap. He
+made sure by putting it to his nose.
+
+"Just a little at a time--what you can stomach," Wagg urged. He passed
+on.
+
+But Vaniman did not obey; he was unable to comprehend what this sort of
+fodder signified; he broke the cube into bits, thinking that a saw might
+be hidden. It was only soap--common soap. He put the bits away in the
+portfolio he was allow to have in his cell.
+
+Wagg was a bit testy the next night when Vaniman confessed that he had
+not eaten any of the soap.
+
+"You've got to show absolute confidence in me--do what I tell you to
+do," insisted the guard.
+
+"I can't eat that soap. It will make me sick!"
+
+"You've said it! But eat that soap--a little at a time--and see what the
+prison doctor says. It isn't easy to fool prison doctors--but I've been
+on this job long enough to know how."
+
+That was Wagg's longest speech to date. His earnestness impressed the
+young man. He managed to eat a bit of the soap after the guard had
+departed. He ate more in the morning before his release from the cell.
+He put some crumbs of the soap in his pockets and choked down the
+hateful substance when he found an opportunity during the day.
+
+That night Wagg had a few more words to say on the subject. "One of the
+biggest birds they ever caged at Atlanta fooled the doctors and got his
+pardon so that he could die outside the pen. Did he die? Bah-bah! Soap!
+Just soap!"
+
+"So you think the pardon plan can be worked in my case, do you?"
+
+"Pardon your eyes!" scoffed Wagg. "That isn't the idea at all!"
+
+He fed the soap to the prisoner for many nights, but he did not give any
+information. However, Wagg had the air of a man who knew well what he
+was about, and Vaniman was desperate enough to continue the horrible
+diet, having found that Mr. Wagg was a very touchy person when his
+policies were doubted or his good faith questioned.
+
+Then, one day the prison doctor, who had been observing Vaniman for some
+time, took the bookkeeper into his office and examined him thoroughly;
+he gravely informed the warden that the young man had symptoms of
+incipient kidney trouble and ought to be less closely confined.
+
+When Vaniman found himself out in the sunshine, intrusted with the
+sinecure of checking up barrow-loads of dirt which convicts wheeled past
+him where he sat in an armchair provided by the warden from his office,
+the prisoner perceived that the Wagg policies were effective in getting
+results.
+
+Having added respect for Mr. Wagg's ability in general, Vaniman was not
+surprised to find the guard following the favored prisoner into the new
+field of operations. The young man was quite sure that the guard had not
+opened up on his principal plan.
+
+One morning Wagg came with a stool and a rifle and located himself close
+beside the armchair; he sat on the stool and rested the rifle across
+his knees and smoked a corncob pipe placidly. And there was plenty of
+opportunity for talk, though Wagg obtrusively kept his face turned from
+Vaniman's and talked through the corner of his mouth.
+
+"Now you see, I hope! In a prison you've got to step light and go the
+other way around to get to a thing. I'm favored here, and I'm supposed
+to be nursing rheumatism." He leaned forward to knock out his pipe
+dottle and found an opportunity to give Vaniman a wink. "I arranged to
+come off the wall--knowing all about your case. I could ask to come out
+here, having found that night work didn't help me! Sunshine is good. But
+you couldn't ask for sunshine. When a prisoner asks for a thing, they go
+on the plan of doing exactly opposite to what he seems to want. From now
+on, having seen how I can operate, I expect you to do just what I tell
+you to do."
+
+Vaniman looked at the rifle. Wagg waved it, commanding a convict to
+hurry past.
+
+"Yes, sir! You've got to do just as I say!" insisted the guard when the
+convict had gone out of earshot.
+
+"How can I help myself?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean that I'm going to team you around with this rifle! I
+want you to co-operate."
+
+"Don't you think I can co-operate better if you give me a line on what
+all this means?" pleaded the prisoner.
+
+"Sure and slow is my policy. I'm not just certain that I have you sized
+up right, as yet. I'm of a suspicious nature. But I'm finding this
+sunshine softening." Mr. Wagg rambled on, squinting up at the sky.
+"Seven years is a long while to wait for a good time to come. Figuring
+that your time will be paid for at the rate of about ten thousand
+dollars a year, while you're in here, helps to smooth the feelings
+somewhat, of course. But now that you're in here you're counting
+days instead of years--and every day seems a year when you're looking
+forward. The newspapers said it was about seventy-five thousand dollars
+in good, solid gold."
+
+Wagg bored Vaniman with a side glance that was prolonged until a toiling
+convict had passed to a safe distance. The young man was eyeing
+the guard with a demeanor which indicated that the tractable spirit
+commended by Mr. Wagg was no longer under good control. However, Vaniman
+did manage to control his tongue.
+
+After the silence had continued for some time, the guard slipped down
+from the stool and marched to and fro with his rifle in the hook of his
+arm, affording a fine display of attention to duty.
+
+After he had returned to his stool, Wagg gave the ex-cashier plenty of
+time to take up the topic. "Considering my position in this place, I
+reckon I've said about enough," suggested the guard.
+
+"I think you have said enough!" returned Vaniman, grimly.
+
+"What have you to say?"
+
+"I didn't take that money from the Egypt Trust Company. I don't know
+where it is. I never knew where it went. And I'm getting infernally sick
+of having it everlastingly thrown up at me."
+
+"I thought I had you sized up better--but I see I was wrong," admitted
+Wagg.
+
+"Of course you're wrong! You and the chaplain and the warden and the
+jury! I didn't take that money!"
+
+"I didn't mean I was wrong on that point," proceeded Wagg,
+remorselessly. "But I had watched you bang around your cell and I
+concluded that you was ready to make about a fifty-fifty split of
+the swag with the chap who could get you out of here. If you're still
+stuffy, you'll have to stay that way--and stay in here, too!"
+
+He took another promenade, pursuing his regular policy of starting the
+fire and letting the kettle come aboil on its own hook.
+
+"What good would it do me to escape from this prison--to be hounded and
+hunted from one end of the world to the other?" Vaniman demanded, when
+Wagg had returned to the stool. "I do want to get out. But I want to get
+out right! I have a job to do for myself when I'm out of here!" Mr. Wagg
+nodded understandingly. "And that job is right in the same town where I
+have been living."
+
+"Exactly!" agreed the guard. "And speaking of a job, you don't think for
+one moment, do you, that I'd be earning a fifty-fifty split by boosting
+you over that wall or smuggling you out of the gate to shift for
+yourself? Small wonder that you got hot, thinking I meant it that way.
+My plan will put you out right! My plan is a prime plan that can be
+worked only once. Therefore, it's worth money."
+
+"Damn it, I haven't the money!" Vaniman, exasperated by this
+pertinacity, was not able to control his feelings or his language.
+
+"It's too bad you are still at the point where you _think_ you haven't
+got it," returned Mr. Wagg. "I'm a terrible good waiter. Reckon I have
+showed that kind of a disposition already. When you get to the other
+and sensible point where you want to be out of here, and out right,
+with nobody chasing and hectoring you, you and I will do business on the
+fifty-fifty basis. It may seem high," he pursued. "But all prices are
+high in these times. They're so blamed high that I'm in debt, simply
+trying to give my family a decent living. The state won't raise my
+wages. The state practically says, 'You'll have to do the best you can!'
+The state owes me a living. So I'll grab on to the assets that the state
+has hove into my reach, and will speculate as best I know now."
+
+"You think I'm your asset, eh?"
+
+"You're not worth a cent to me or yourself until I operate. And when
+you're ready to have me operate--fifty-fifty--give me the high sign. And
+something will be done what was never done before!"
+
+Then Wagg carried his stool to the lee of a shop wall, seeking
+shade--too far away for further talk.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+AND PHARAOH'S HEART WAS HARDENED
+
+By the wiles of Wagg and a soap diet Frank Vaniman had been able to
+secure his modest slice of God's sunlight.
+
+There was aplenty of that sunshine in Egypt. It flooded the bare
+hills and the barren valleys; there were not trees enough to trig the
+sunlight's flood with effective barriers of shade.
+
+Tasper Britt walked out into it from the door of Files's tavern.
+
+He had just been talking to the landlord about the tavern diet. His
+language was vitriolic. Even Vaniman could not have used more bitter
+words to express his detestation for soap as a comestible.
+
+Britt's heat in the matter, the manner in which he had plunged into
+the diatribe all of a sudden, astonished Mr. Files tremendously. Britt
+seemed to be acting out a part, he was so violent. Usually, Britt did
+not waste any of the heat in his cold nature unless he had a good
+reason for the expenditure. There seemed to be something else than mere
+dyspepsia concerned, so Files thought. He followed Mr. Britt and called
+to him from the door. Britt had stopped to light his cigar.
+
+"I've had my say. I'm all done here. Let that end it," declared the
+departing guest.
+
+There were listeners, the usual after-dinner loafers of the tavern's
+purlieus. Mr. Britt did not seem to mind them. He even looked about, as
+if to make sure of their numbers.
+
+"All you needed to do was to complain in a genteel way, and I would have
+been just as genteel in rectifying," pleaded Files.
+
+"The people of this town are still saying that I'm a hard man. If that's
+so, I'm waking up to the reason for it--your grub has petrified me.
+My real friends have noticed it." Here was more of Britt's unwonted
+garrulity about his private concerns. "Some of those friends have taken
+pity on me. I have been invited to board with the Harnden family."
+
+Mr. Britt did not look around to note the effect of that piece of news.
+He gazed complacently up into the sunshine.
+
+He made quite a figure--for Egypt--as he stood there. Mr. Britt had
+"togged out." His toupee, when he first flashed it, had signified much.
+But the manner in which he had garbed himself for summer was little less
+than hardihood, considering the sort of a community in which he
+lived. He was "a native." The style of his attire declared that he was
+completely indifferent to any comments by his townsmen--and such a trait
+exposed in a New England village revealed more fully than his usurious
+habits the real callousness of the Britt nature. There was not a man in
+sight who did not have patches either fore or aft, or both! Mr. Britt
+wore a light, checked suit with a fitted waist, garishly yellow shoes,
+a puff tie of light blue, and a sailor straw with a sash band. He was
+a peacock in a yard full of brown Leghorns. But nobody laughed at Mr.
+Britt. Nobody in Egypt felt like laughing at anything, any more. They
+were accepting Britt, in his gorgeous plumage, as merely another strange
+item in the list of the signs and wonders that marked the latter days in
+Egypt.
+
+More tawdry than ever appeared Prophet Elias's robe in that sunshine,
+though his umbrella did seem to comport better with the season. He stood
+in front of Usial's home. For a long time he had been keeping his tongue
+off the magnate of the town. For some weeks he had been away somewhere.
+To those who indulgently asked where he had been he replied tartly that
+he had volunteered as a scapegoat for the woes and sins of Egypt, had
+gone in search of a wilderness, and had come back because all other
+wildernesses were only second-rate affairs compared with the town from
+which he had started.
+
+The Prophet seemed to feel that the appearance of Mr. Britt required
+comment. He raised his voice and made that comment:
+
+"'And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field,
+how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto
+you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
+these.'"
+
+The Prophet bestowed a momentary benefit on gloomy Egypt--the listeners
+did manage to crease their countenances with grins; Britt surveyed those
+grins before he turned his attention to Elias. But all he did turn was
+his attention--silent, bodeful, malicious scrutiny. The onlookers were
+considerably surprised by Britt's silence; they wondered what controlled
+his tongue; but they were not in doubt on one point--every man of them
+knew that when Tasper Britt wore that expression it meant that he
+had settled upon the method of his revenge in the case of one who had
+offended him.
+
+After a few moments Britt turned from his stare at the Prophet and
+dropped what was nigh to being a bombshell; it was more effective
+because it had nothing to do with the matter in hand.
+
+"Listen, fellow townsmen! We all know that we ought to put our shoulders
+to the wheel and do something for poor Egypt. I propose to start off."
+He pointed to the old Britt mansion. "I'm going to tear down my house."
+
+The men of Egypt goggled at him.
+
+"Aye! And start off with it?" queried the Prophet. "Good riddance!"
+
+But Mr. Britt was not troubling himself about the mouthings of Elias.
+
+"I shall put a crew on it to-morrow. A city contractor will arrive here
+this afternoon with equipment and men. But he can also use all the local
+men who want to work. All who will pitch in can hire with him at the
+regular scale of wages. As soon as the site is cleared I shall start
+work on a new house. The plans are drawn. I have them here."
+
+He snapped the rubber bands off a roll which he carried under his arm.
+He exhibited a watercolor facade elevation, stretching his arms wide and
+holding the paper in front of his face. The men came crowding around.
+They saw the drawing of a pretentious structure with towers and
+porticoes. Britt, holding the architect's broad sheet so that his
+features were hidden, explained the details of his project in regard to
+rooms and grounds. There was a hateful expression on the hidden face;
+it was the face of a man who hoped he was stirring jealous envy in those
+whom he wished to punish.
+
+"It will be a mansion to the queen's taste, when you get it done,"
+observed one man; he took advantage of the fact that Britt could not see
+him and winked at a neighbor. But if the man hoped to get a rise out of
+the builder in regard to a possible queen, he was disappointed.
+
+Another citizen was more venturesome: "I'm taking it for granted that
+you don't intend to keep old-bach hall in a house like that, Tasper!"
+
+Britt took down the shield. He displayed a countenance of bland
+satisfaction. "I don't think I'll be allowed to do it," he retorted,
+answering jest with jest. "You know what women are when they see
+a good-looking house needing a mistress." He rolled the paper up
+carefully. "And now, talking of something sensible, I hope you're going
+to turn out in good numbers when that contractor begins to hire. And
+pass the word!"
+
+Nobody showed much enthusiasm. One man with a querulous mouth suggested:
+"It will seem like helping waste money, tearing down a stand of
+buildings that ain't in any ways due to be scrapped; I ain't sure but
+what it will seem like a worse waste of money, building a palace in a
+town like this. Don't you expect to be taxed like Sancho?"
+
+"Until we get some kind of legislation or court action to make our town
+acts legal, the taxation question isn't worrying me much," said Britt,
+grimly. "I'll take my chances along with the rest of you on getting an
+act allowing us to compound with creditors."
+
+"Probably can be arranged," said a man with the malice against the
+usurer that prevailed in the oppressed town. "We're sending a good man
+to the next legislature."
+
+But Britt, in that new mood of his, was refusing to be baited. He began
+to look about. "Where is that person who calls himself a Prophet?"
+
+The others joined with Britt in making a survey of the landscape. Nobody
+had been paying any attention to Elias, whose voice had been stilled
+since the one-sided affair with Britt.
+
+"There he is," announced a man.
+
+The Prophet was patrolling. He was marching to and fro in front of
+Britt's house. Then he walked in through a gap in Britt's fence and went
+to the house and peered in at one of the windows. He had lowered and
+folded his big umbrella and carried it under his arm.
+
+"I call on all of you to note what he did then," called Britt. "He has
+been doing that lately."
+
+The Prophet returned to the road. Then he seemed to be attacked by
+another idea. He went back through the gap in the fence and peered in at
+another window.
+
+"I repeat, he has been doing that. I was getting ready to take proper
+measures to handle him. Something better than talking back to a lunatic!
+But I didn't reckon I'd have such good luck as this! Twelve men right
+here for my witnesses! Look hard at him, men!"
+
+They did look, though they did not comprehend what Britt's excited
+insistence signified. He pulled out a notebook and pencil and handed it
+to the nearest man. "Mark down two! Mark it down--and all of you take
+due notice."
+
+The Prophet returned to the highway and came slowly pacing along toward
+the group.
+
+"All of you saw, did you? All of you ready to bear witness?" demanded
+the magnate.
+
+He stepped out in front of Elias when the latter came near. Britt shook
+the roll of drawings under the Prophet's nose. "Listen here, my man! I
+didn't bother to talk to you a few minutes ago. Now I'm talking. You've
+been a vagabond in this town for a long time. The only thing that has
+protected you from the law in such cases made and provided has been the
+roof of a man who ought to be a tramp along with you. Right now, before
+the eyes of a dozen citizens, you have committed two separate and
+distinct breaches of the law. You have trespassed on my property. In
+the past I have sent men to jail for sixty days for one offense of that
+sort. On my complaint, backed by these witnesses, you'll see sixty days
+on one case--and I'll have you re-arrested on the other count the moment
+you step foot out of the jail." He paused.
+
+"Yes?" said the Prophet, mildly inquiring.
+
+"I'm a fair man, and I call the attention of these witnesses to what I
+say now. I'll give you a chance. Walk out of this town and stay out, and
+I'll not prosecute."
+
+The Prophet shook his head.
+
+"Do you refuse to go?"
+
+For a man who dealt so exclusively in texts, the Prophet was rather
+vulgarly blunt when he replied, "You bet!"
+
+Britt received that manner of retort with the air of a man who had been
+tunked between the eyes. It was some moments before he could go
+on. "Don't you realize what the judge will say when I show up your
+willfulness?"
+
+The Prophet was even more amazing in his new manners. He stuck out his
+tongue, put his thumb to his nose, and wriggled his fingers.
+
+"Well, I'll be condemned!" Britt gasped.
+
+"Sure! When all the evidence is in about you!"
+
+The magnate of Egypt lowered the roll that he had brandished so
+constantly. After a few moments of silent challenge with the eyes, he
+turned and walked away.
+
+But he heard the mumble of men's laughter behind him, and his anger
+and the determination not to be put down in this style in his own town
+helped him to get back some of his self-possession. He whirled on his
+heels and strode to the enigma of Egypt.
+
+"Who are you, anyway?" he demanded.
+
+But Prophet Elias was his usual self once more. He had assumed that air
+which a practical man like Britt found an aggravating, teasing pose or
+a kind of lunacy with which common sense could not cope. Elias slowly
+spread his umbrella. He stood beneath it and declaimed:
+
+"'And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh; and the
+Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of
+Israel go out of his land.'"
+
+"You let me tell you something! There's one man going out of this
+land mighty sudden--and he's going to the county jail in charge of a
+constable."
+
+When Britt started away that time he kept on going. He went to the
+office of Trial-Justice Bowman and swore out a warrant. A constable
+served it and the Prophet was haled before the justice. On the evidence
+presented, Bowman sentenced a person known as "the Prophet Elias" to
+serve sixty days in the county jail. Within an hour after the Prophet's
+defiance he was on his way with the constable in a side-bar buggy.
+
+The Prophet had not opened his mouth to give out even one text. He had
+not opened his mouth, either, to give his name; the writ designated him
+merely by his sobriquet. But there was a queer little wrinkle at each
+corner of that closed mouth.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+NO STRAW FOR THE BRICKS
+
+Mr. Harnden banged his pulpy fist on the board at which so he had
+declared, Tasper Britt was to sit.
+
+"I have ruled a happy home by love in the past. Don't force me to rule
+it otherwise now."
+
+He was obliged to lower his eyes to a level at last because his neck
+ached. He was forced to turn those eyes in his daughter's direction,
+for her gaze was of that compelling quality which causes the object of
+regard to return the scrutiny.
+
+"I tell you, I'm not lowering myself by taking in boarders," the father
+insisted. "I have become tied up in a business way with my friend Britt.
+We need to be in conference right along. They're going to tear down his
+house. Shall I let it be said that I left a friend ahungered and without
+a roof? Shall--"
+
+"Father, I'm no longer patient enough to listen to any more of that
+nonsense," said Vona.
+
+"But it isn't nonsense," put in the mother. "Poor Tasper is left without
+a home. Files's vittles have nigh killed him. He was always used to home
+cooking. He--"
+
+"Please! Please!" protested the girl, impatiently. "We're three
+grown-ups. Let's be honest with one another. I, at least, have been
+honest--ever since I declared myself under this roof last winter."
+
+"If you're bound to put your father's and your mother's close friendship
+for a man strictly on the business basis, we'll have it that way,"
+agreed Mr. Harnden, trying to straightedge his little bunghole of a
+mouth and failing.
+
+"Very well, father! We shall get along better. I'm not in any position
+to dictate in our home--"
+
+"Well, I should say not!" exploded the master.
+
+"But I have worked and turned in my money to help support it, and I have
+my personal rights here."
+
+Mr. Harnden had more success in arranging the expression he assumed
+then; he looked hurt; he had been very successful with that expression
+in the past. "Any farseeing man has his ups and downs, Vona. Is it kind
+to twit your father--"
+
+She protested more impatiently still. "I am simply presenting the
+business side of the matter. I say, I have earned some rights to be
+comfortable in my own home. On the plea of friendship for a man whom I
+detest, you are proposing to destroy that comfort. Is your friendship
+for that man greater than your love for your daughter?"
+
+Mr. Harnden rose and stuck out his frontal convexity and wagged a
+forefinger. "Now you're getting off the question of business--just
+as you accused me of getting off it!" He slapped his breast. "I'm a
+business man these days. I'm no longer a man with visions, needing a
+daughter's sacrifices, like you have twitted me of being. Keep still!
+I'm talking!" he squealed. He was displaying more of the new and cocky
+demeanor that had been his for some time. He had been especially set up
+for a few days prior to his announcement that Tasper Britt was coming
+into the Harnden home as lodger and guest at table. "Business it is!
+Britt will pay board enough, seeing that he has come to my--_my_ terms,
+so that your mother can keep a hired girl for the first time in her
+life. Are you so selfish as to want to have your mother--my wife--go
+on potwalloping in the kitchen for the rest of her days? If that's so,
+you'll find that my pride will override your selfishness."
+
+"Father, I will stay at home and do all the work, if you'll keep our
+home from being desecrated by that man!"
+
+Mr. Harnden reared his crest and advanced one foot. "I have raised my
+daughter to be a lady and will keep her so! I'm now in a position to do
+it without any of her help."
+
+Vona stood up then. But not to fling angry retort at her father! She
+knew that she was able to conquer the raging self that was urging her
+to tell both of them what she thought of their idiotic persistency
+in backing the attentions of Britt. Being victor over herself in that
+conflict with self where so many fail, she felt courage to battle in
+another quarter. Since Frank had been penned up where he could
+not fight, she had felt that she was the champion for their mutual
+interests, and she was resolved to keep on valiantly. "Father, you know
+how I stand in the matter of Frank Vaniman."
+
+"I have broken your engagement with that jailbird."
+
+"Vona, I have told you repeatedly that I will never consent to your
+marrying that man," shrilled Mrs. Harnden. "What does the Bible say
+about obeying your parents?"
+
+The girl was tensely suppressing her emotions. "The outsiders merely
+know that I am engaged to marry him. But both of you know that I am
+married to him."
+
+Mr. Harnden sat down in order to express his emotions; Mrs. Harnden
+stood up. Their duet of disavowal of any such knowledge was keyed high.
+
+"You heard me when I married him--in your presence--under this roof. The
+legal formality can wait. But I am married. In my heart I am married.
+It is enough for me until he comes back to me. And what God hath joined
+together let not man put asunder!" She said it reverently, with all her
+soul in her tones, all her woman's resolution of loyalty in her eyes.
+
+They tried to say something, but in the face of her demeanor of firmness
+their opposition was futile, and they probably realized it, for they
+became silent and allowed her to speak on.
+
+"If you do not choose to consider my feelings in the matter, I'll not
+complain. You are master and mistress of the home. I tell you now, as I
+have told you before, that if Tasper Britt had come out with the whole
+truth Frank would not be in prison. You must not expect that I will sit
+at table with a man who has so persecuted my--husband!" She hesitated
+a moment before she spoke the last word. She caressed it with loving
+inflection. A moment later her cheeks were burning hotly. She went out
+into the hall, got her sunshade, and left the house.
+
+She still had her work at the bank; the progress of liquidation was
+slow. Tasper Britt, from his office window, saw her coming. She wore no
+hat. The parasol framed the face that was still glowing after her battle
+for the sanctity of her love.
+
+"It's worth it!" he muttered; but not even to himself did Britt mention
+what the price was.
+
+Mr. Harnden's comment, delayed for some minutes, was that the girl was
+putting it almighty strong.
+
+"It's her loyalty. She can't help it. She takes it from me," declared
+the mother, pouring another cup of tea for her shaken nerves.
+
+"She does, hey?" Mr. Harnden's voice indicated that he was not
+commending the quality mentioned.
+
+His wife was decidedly tart in her retort that he ought to be thankful
+for the loyalty that enabled her to put up with all the privations of
+the past.
+
+"Well, let the past be the past. I've got my feet placed now--and that
+hired girl is coming to-morrow." The idea of his new prosperity revived
+Mr. Harnden's natural optimism. "That jailbird hasn't been away from her
+long enough for her to be weaned from her foolishness about him. He's
+safe away for seven years, and a whole lot can happen in that time--even
+to that loyalty that women seem to set such store by. My friend Britt
+comes here--into our family! That's understood. If Vona wants to eat
+off'n the mantelshelf in her room, well and good till she's tamed. And
+now--to work--to work!"
+
+Mr. Harnden was truly very much up-and-coming those days. He rose
+and shook out first one leg and then the other, with the manner of a
+scratching rooster. The movements settled the legs of his trousers. He
+had a new suit of his own. It resembled Tasper Britt's. That new suit
+and the yellow gloves and the billycock hat excited some interest in
+Egypt; the new hitch that Harnden possessed excited much more interest.
+He was driving a "trappy" bay nag, and his new road wagon had rubber
+tires. Nor was Mr. Harnden doing any more inventing, so he declared to
+the public. The public, however, did declare behind his back that he
+must have invented something in the way of a system to be able to wear
+those clothes and drive that hitch. To be sure, there were some who
+insisted that the matter of Vona was still potent with Britt and that
+Britt's money was behind Harnden. But there were more who were certain
+that it was not the style of Britt to invest in any such remote
+possibility as a girl who openly declared that she proposed to wait
+seven years for the man of her choice.
+
+Harnden had a new business; he was selling nursery stock. But that
+business did not account for his prosperity. He was taking town orders
+for his goods--taking orders on the town treasury, orders that had long
+been creased in wallets or had grown yellow in bureau drawers or had
+been dickered about at a few cents on the dollar and accepted when a
+debtor had nothing else with which to pay. Mr. Harnden said he was ready
+to take town orders at any time. He optimistically declared that his
+faith in the old town was firmly fixed. That optimism was entirely in
+accord with Mr. Harnden's past professions; and nobody wondered much,
+because he was so foolish. But he was not wholly a fool in that matter.
+He had only about a fifty-per-cent faith in Egypt--he insisted on that
+much discount when he took in a town order. Even at that rate, Ossian
+Orne did insist that Harnden was a complete fool. Orne would not take
+town orders for his nursery stock. But Orne's nose was out of joint, it
+was generally agreed. Harnden's lithographs showed apples twice as big
+as Orne's book did; the pears fairly oozed sweetness from their plump,
+pictured mellowness; there were peaches that provoked folks to make
+funny noises at the corners of their mouths when the optimistic Harnden
+flipped a page and brought the fruit to view. Nobody had ever heard of
+a peach tree growing among the rocks of Egypt. On the other hand, nobody
+supposed that a town order on the Egypt treasury was worth anything, as
+things stood. There were folks who bought peach trees!
+
+And in the meantime there was much clatter in and about the old Britt
+house, tumble of timbers and rip of wainscotings and snarl of drawing
+nails. Out from the gaping windows floated the powdery drift of the
+plastering which the broad shovels had tackled. The satirists said that
+it was noticeable that the statue of Tasper Britt in the cemetery had
+settled down heavier on its heels, as if making grimly sure that Hittie
+was staying where she could not interfere.
+
+In the meantime, also, Tasper Britt and a hired girl had become fixtures
+in the Harnden home--and the hired girl was quite in love with Vona and
+in entire sympathy with her stand; the girl brought to Vona's room the
+tidbits of all the meals and offered to put tacks in Britt's doughnuts
+if that would help matters any.
+
+Vona was entirely serene in her companionship with her father and her
+mother. As for Tasper Britt, in sitting room or hall, on the street or
+on the lawn of the Harndens, he was ignored as completely, yet sweetly,
+as if he were an innocuous dweller in the so-called Fourth Dimension--to
+be seen through--even walked through--a mere shade, uninterred,
+unhonored, and unwarranted.
+
+Tasper Britt, relentlessly on the job of punishing those who had
+poisoned his pride and his peace of mind, acknowledged to himself that
+the attitude of this girl was reacting on him in the way of more acute
+punishment than he was dealing out to anybody just then, except to
+Vaniman. Through the latter the girl was punished. But that punishment
+had steeled her to the stand she was making in the case of Britt. The
+god of the machine pondered on the case and constantly found himself in
+a more parlous state of mind because he did ponder.
+
+Mr. Harnden tried his best to cheer the morose Britt. Some days the
+usurer-suitor wanted to cuff the optimist; some days he felt that he
+would go crazy unless Harnden could extend some hope, suggest some way
+of changing the girl's attitude.
+
+All the time Mr. Harnden was very cheerful and extremely busy; his nag
+kicked up the dust along all the roads. His book of lithographs was
+dog's-eared with much thumbing, but he had served as a human vacuum
+cleaner in sucking up most of the town orders. Mr. Harnden was very free
+with information, customarily. But when folks asked him whatever in the
+world he expected to do with those town orders he was reticent as to any
+details of his plans. He considered that his optimism of faith in the
+future of the town covered the matter. He said so. He let it go at that.
+
+One day Harnden roamed far afield and went to the shire.
+
+The next day he came back from the shire.
+
+After supper he sat in a wicker chair on the lawn with Tasper Britt, who
+was wearing a new suit of white flannel and who scowled when Vona passed
+along the walk without even a glance in that direction, though Britt had
+twitched up his trousers leg to show a particularly handsomely clocked
+sock.
+
+Mr. Harnden did a lot of talking that evening. Every now and then, as if
+to fortify his optimistic courage, he declared, "After all, business
+is business--and the trend of the times is to make the most of
+opportunity."
+
+Britt was showing interest in what Harnden was saying--interest and
+satisfaction, too. But all at once that interest was diverted and the
+smooth satisfaction was wrinkled by a scowl. Britt swore roundly and
+struggled up from his chair.
+
+Prophet Elias was passing along the street. He flapped his hand in a
+greeting contemptuously indifferent and went on his way toward Usial's
+cot.
+
+"Oh! I was intending to tell you about him," avowed Mr. Harnden, "but
+I've had more important things to talk over!"
+
+Britt gave to this blunderheaded news purveyor the tail end of the
+malevolent stare that he had been bestowing on the Prophet's back.
+
+"I heard about it when I was over to the shire town. A city lawyer
+showed up the other day and deposited cash bonds and got out a writ,
+and got Elias out, too, and the case has been appealed. Looks like the
+Prophet has footed it back here again. But I suppose you can arrest him
+on that other case of trespass."
+
+Britt did not show especial alacrity in starting anything else in the
+case of the new arrival in town. He sat down. "Who was the lawyer? Who
+sent him?"
+
+"Guess he didn't say. Let the money do the talking for him. And money
+can talk! Now, as I was saying, to get back to our regular business,
+it's up to you to name the ones that Dowd will tackle. Say, where are
+you going?"
+
+Britt was on his feet and moving rapidly. "Somewhere to do some thinking
+away from that carpet-loom, shuttle-tongued, infernal mouth of yours!"
+
+Mr. Harnden, astonished and much hurt, watched the usurer till he
+tramped into Britt Block.
+
+But Mr. Harnden had too much important business of his own on his mind
+to use time in wondering how a Prophet had managed to get out of jail.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BLOOD OUT OF TURNIPS
+
+In the past Mr. Harnden had regularly referred to Egypt as a good
+jumping-off place; he emphasized the jest by pointing to the ledge
+outcroppings which indicated that the landscape would not sag under the
+weight of the most energetic jumper. Then away he would go!
+
+His detractors said that he was in the habit of coming home when affairs
+were in such a bad way with him that he could not stay anywhere else.
+
+His wife and daughter had never admitted anything of the sort, even to
+each other. They affectionately welcomed Mr. Harnden when he came; after
+he had stoked the fires of his faith, and they had darned his socks and
+mended his shirts, they gave him the accustomed encouraging and loving
+Godspeed when he went away again under a full head of optimism. They
+always agreed with him, on each going-away, that this was surely the
+time when Opportunity was waiting outside.
+
+But for many weeks Opportunity had seemed to be camping with Mr. Harnden
+right in his own home town. He was brisk, radiant, and apparently
+prosperous.
+
+Therefore, when he announced in the bosom of his family that he proposed
+to go away for a time, his wife and daughter were frankly astonished.
+
+It was directly after breakfast on the morning following Mr. Harnden's
+return from the shire town.
+
+He did not display his usual jocose manner when he referred to Egypt as
+a jumping-off place. Vona found a sort of furtive uneasiness in the way
+he glanced out of the window and fingered his vest-pocket equipment. And
+he trod to and fro with the air of a man stepping on hot bricks.
+
+"But you have said you are doing so well in your new business, father!"
+Vona's straightforward gaze was disconcerting.
+
+Mr. Harnden kept on with his patrol. "Confound it. I've got to get into
+towns where there's more dirt if I'm going to sell any more nursery
+stock!"
+
+"Oh, is that it? But I happened to go up in the attic and I found your
+sample books thrown behind a trunk, and I was afraid--"
+
+"Afraid of what?" he demanded, with childish temper.
+
+"Afraid you were giving up what seems to be a sure thing. The other
+ventures have been such uncertainties!" she returned, her business
+woman's composure unaffected by his reproachful stare.
+
+"The books were all smutched up--too many dirty fingers afoul of them.
+I shall get new ones--providing I stay in that line." He was not
+convincing. "We'll see--we'll see! I've got to be moving. These are busy
+times for me."
+
+"But you don't say when you're coming back, Joe!" quavered his wife.
+
+"Why should I begin to set dates now, when I never have in past times?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose it's because we've got so used to having you at home,"
+she confessed.
+
+"I'm leaving matters in better shape than I ever did before," said Mr.
+Harnden, pompously. "I have been worried about my home in the past when
+I have had to be absent on my business. We have Tasper in the house now.
+And he will not only guard and protect, but he will pay as he goes. I
+may not go far or stay long. Just let it stand that way. Tell inquiring
+friends that. I'll keep you posted. You know what my business is; it
+takes me here--it takes me there." He gave his wife a peck of a kiss and
+patted Vona's shoulder when he passed her. He picked up a valise in the
+hallway.
+
+The girl followed him. "Father, always when you have been away, mother
+and I have felt perfectly comfortable and safe here in our home. If Mr.
+Britt hasn't the sense or the good taste to go somewhere else to board,
+won't you suggest to him that he'd better do so?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort, Vona!" declared Harnden. "That contractor has
+brought a lot of strangers here to work on Britt's house, seeing that
+the men of this town are biting off their noses to spite their faces!
+I wouldn't take a minute's peace, knowing that my home is unprotected,
+unless I felt that a friend of mine was here as guardian. Oh, I know
+what you mean! But I have the safety of my family to consider instead of
+a girl's whims."
+
+She did not argue the matter. His peppery impatience was increasing.
+This time he was not departing with his customary bland hopefulness.
+She knew the sort of selfishness her father possessed and how he avoided
+scenes that troubled his smug serenity. But on this occasion he seemed
+to be impelled by some urgent reason outside of mere anxiety to be away
+from complaining tongues.
+
+He hurried out of the house and went to the stable, and she said no
+further word.
+
+Ten minutes later he drove away, flinging a kiss to his womenfolks from
+the finger tips of the yellow gloves.
+
+He headed directly out of the village and drove at a good clip.
+
+However, one might have concluded that Mr. Harnden's destination was not
+as clearly settled in his mind as the haste of his departure suggested.
+When he came to four corners he pulled up and looked to right and to
+left and to the straight ahead. Mr. Harnden was too well acquainted
+with all the roads of Egypt and its environs to be confused by anything
+except strictly personal and peculiar doubts which had nothing to do
+with the matter of destination. He looked up into the heavens, as if he
+really wished that he might be able to escape from Egypt by flight. Then
+he did literally what the Yankee phrase suggests by way of synonym for
+taking counsel--"he looked between the horse's ears." He narrowed
+his eyes in meditation and spoke aloud. "I reckon it's only general
+nervousness on account of overwork and women's foolishness. There ain't
+one chance in ten that they'll get around to it to-day."
+
+Arriving at that comfortable conclusion, Mr. Harnden lighted a cigar and
+chirruped to his horse and drove straight on.
+
+The road zigzagged through an alder swamp for some distance, and the
+horse footed along slowly because a portion of the way was patched with
+sapling "corduroy." And with the impulse of a man who had been obliged
+to waste time, and saw an opportunity to get on, Harnden whipped up when
+he was again facing a smooth road. Therefore he came suddenly around
+the bend of the alders into cleared country and abreast a farm. It was
+a farm made up of the alluvial soil of the lowlands and was a rather
+pretentious tract of tillage, compared with the other hillside apologies
+of Egypt. And the buildings were in fairly good repair. It was the home
+of Jared Sparks Grant, the first selectman of the town.
+
+Mr. Harnden did not look to right or left as his horse trotted past.
+He did not appear to be interested in the affairs of Egyptians that
+day--even in the case of the town's chief executive. When Harnden was
+hailed raucously he did not pull up, though he heard his name. After a
+few moments a gun banged behind him.
+
+"I'm saving the other barrel," the voice announced, after Harnden had
+steered his horse from the gutter into the road; the animal had been
+frightened by the pattering of shot in the foliage of a tree overhead.
+"You'll get it straight, Harnden, unless you drive back here!"
+
+When Harnden wheeled the horse and returned he perceived a dooryard
+group which he had affected not to see a few moments before.
+
+There were Jared Sparks Grant, his son, his womenfolks, his hired
+man; Mr. Harnden recognized all of them, of course. He also recognized
+Deputy-sheriff Wagner Dowd from the shire town. Dowd had a couple of
+helpers with him. It was plain that the shotgun which had halted Mr.
+Harnden had been very nigh at hand and ready for use; there was a look
+about the folks in the dooryard which suggested an armed truce, now
+prolonged, for the handling of the new arrival.
+
+"Don't you realize what's going on here?" demanded Selectman Grant, his
+weapon in the hook of his arm.
+
+"No!" asserted Mr. Harnden.
+
+"I know a blamed sight better! You can't look at this deputy sheriff
+without turning redder than one of the apples in that fake picture book
+of yours. You know what you have been doing in this town."
+
+The selectman's tone was offensively harsh and loud. Mr. Harnden
+was moved to show a little spirit, having been cornered--and feeling
+protected by the presence of an officer of the law. "I have been doing
+business!"
+
+"Scooping in town orders, you mean!"
+
+"Taking them in the due course of my business, Mr. Selectman. I had a
+right to do it!"
+
+"And what did you do with those orders?"
+
+"I passed them on--still in the course of my business."
+
+"And you don't know into whose hands they have come?"
+
+"Oh no!"
+
+The selectman stepped close to the carriage and brandished his gun.
+"While this town was staggering along, trying to find a way out, only
+a hellion would take and make a club out of those orders and hit us the
+last and final clip with 'em. You've done it, Harnden! For the sake of
+the dirty money you've done it. They were letting those orders rest
+easy till we could get the legislature and have things put into some
+condition where we'd know what's what. Through your work some land
+pirate has got hold of those town orders. There isn't a cent in the town
+treasury. You know it."
+
+He whirled away from Harnden and shook the gun at the deputy sheriff.
+
+"I sha'n't believe your law, Dowd, till I've been and talked with Squire
+Hexter."
+
+"Go and talk! But in the meantime a good lawyer has told me what to
+do and has given me the documents, and I'm not trying the case in your
+dooryard. I have levied on those oxen and I shall take 'em along."
+
+"Do you hear that, Harnden? That's what you have done to your town,"
+bellowed the infuriated selectman. "He says there's a law allowing a
+creditor to levy on the property of any citizen of a town to satisfy
+a judgment. Judgment has been secured on those town orders. They are
+jumping on me first."
+
+"It's what the lawyer told me to do," insisted the officer. "'Start with
+the selectman,' says he. 'That shows the others where they get off.'
+Grant, I'm here with the papers and the right to act." He advanced close
+to the selectman, waggling admonitory forefinger. "I've been excusing
+your feelings. I don't blame you! This is tough. It's the penalty you
+pay for living in such a town. But I don't propose to stand for any more
+of that gunplay. Hand it over!"
+
+Grant hesitated. The officer snatched away the gun, broke it down,
+and pulled out the undischarged shell. He put that into his pocket and
+shoved the gun under the seat of a wagon. "You can have this gun back
+after the war is over. Now to business! You claim that the oxen are
+exempt because you have no horses. All right! I see you have a dozen
+cows. I'll take three of those. I'm fair, you see! You're only entitled
+to one cow. But keep nine. I'm going to spread the thing around town
+till I have enough to satisfy this judgment. It's for one hundred and
+ninety dollars. What say, now? Do you want to pay a fine for obstructing
+an officer?"
+
+Selectman Grant shook his head. The flame of his rage had died down into
+sullen rancor. He went along to Harnden's carriage and suddenly nipped
+that gentleman's nose between toil-calloused index and middle fingers.
+"They tell me there's no law against doing this," he said between his
+yellow, hard-set teeth, as he twisted at the nose, while Harnden's eyes
+ran water. "If there is a law, I hope you'll stay handy by in this
+town and prosecute while we're heating the tar and getting the feathers
+ready."
+
+Sheriff Dowd took advantage of Selectman Grant's preoccupation with
+Harnden. He gave off orders to his helpers and they lowered the bars of
+the barnyard and started away with the cows.
+
+There was a general disintegration of the group. Mrs. Grant led the
+lamenting womenfolk into the house. Mr. Harnden did not really extricate
+his nose; Grant twisted so violently that he broke his own grip, and his
+victim laced the whip under the horse's belly and escaped.
+
+Within ten minutes Selectman Grant was whipping his own horse in a
+direction opposite to that which Harnden had taken. Mr. Grant was hot
+after law.
+
+Squire Hexter gave him the law, and cold comfort.
+
+"They can do it, Jared. Outsiders can get hold of unpaid town orders
+and put on the screws if they're that heartless. It isn't done once in a
+dog's age. But, as I say, it can be done when a creditor is ugly enough.
+Harnden didn't say, did he, just who brought the orders?"
+
+"I wouldn't have believed him if he did say! But he didn't say."
+
+"And you don't know the man who secured judgment?"
+
+"Never heard of him."
+
+"I will try to trace the matter, Jared. No, keep your wallet in your
+pocket. There's no charge. It's a case where the interests of the
+citizens in general are concerned. I'm the regularly elected town agent,
+as you know!" The Squire smiled. "I'll take a town order for my pay."
+He looked out of the window. "It's about time for somebody else to come
+larruping up here after law! Don't hurry, Jared! Wait and hear what's
+happened to the neighbors!"
+
+The selectman sat gloomily, elbows squared on his knees, and waited.
+Almost opposite the Squire's office the rattle-te-bang business on
+Britt's premises was going on.
+
+"I wonder whether Tasper will dare to go ahead and build his palace
+after he hears the latest news," suggested the Squire. "You must be
+told, Jared, that after the live stock of the town has been thinned
+down to the essentials permitted by law, then the farms and general real
+estate can be levied on."
+
+Grant lifted his haggard face and stared at the Squire. "Then, outside
+of the cook stove and my clothes, I don't know whether I'm worth a
+blasted cent, hey? They can dreen me slow with a gimlet, or let it out
+all at once with a pod auger, can they? That's what the law can do _to_
+me, you say! What can it do _for_ me, Squire Hexter?"
+
+"Well, Jared, they'll take your cows over to the shire and auction them
+off for what they'll bring. You can sue this town and recover the real
+value of the cows, along with interest at twelve per cent. That is to
+say, you can get judgment against the town for that amount."
+
+"And then I can go over to my neighbor's and grab away any loose
+property I can find of his?"
+
+"You can do it!"
+
+"Look here, Squire, that makes it nothing except a game of 'tag, you're
+it,' and a case of 'I've got my fingers crossed'! The whole of us
+running around in circles, and the lawyers picking up all the loose
+change we drop from our pockets. Where do we wind up?"
+
+The Squire shook his head slowly and reached down and stroked one of
+Eli's ears. "Eli was telling me that Jones thought he had invented
+perpetual motion when he tied a piece of liver to a pup's tail and set
+the pup to revolving; but the pup wore out."
+
+Grant sat for some minutes and harkened to the bang of the hammers
+across the way. "I don't understand how a farseeing man like Tasp Britt
+dares to build a good house here," he growled.
+
+"Oh, the pup may be worn out by the time it is finished--or those
+towers may mean that he intends to list it as a meetinghouse and have it
+exempted from taxation, Jared. We shall see!"
+
+But whatever it was that the selectman saw, as he sat there and stared
+at the wall of Squire Hexter's office, it evidently was not serving in
+the way of comfort.
+
+The Squire's prediction about other seekers for law was fulfilled before
+long. The deputy sheriff had proceeded on his travels. The afflicted
+parties came up the Squire's stairs. Arden Young reported that three
+of his best cows were driven away. George Jordan and his cousin J. O.
+Jordan each surrendered two faithful moolies. It was plain that Sheriff
+Dowd proposed to make sure that there was auction material enough to
+yield one hundred and ninety dollars, along with the costs.
+
+"Jared," suggested the notary, "you'd better have an accounting and find
+out how many of those town orders were issued when the reckless spirit
+was on. Somebody has decided to milk the old town. It is being done
+scientifically, seeing that this first mess is so modest. But we need to
+know about how many messes we're expected to give down."
+
+Inside of a fortnight there were two more milkings.
+
+At about that time Tasper Britt started proceedings to foreclose a
+couple of mortgages. The debtors despondently declared that they would
+not attempt to redeem the property; they told Britt that he could
+have it for what he could get out of it. The usurer tried to show
+disinclination to take over real estate in Egypt, but he did not make a
+very good job of the pretense. He had the air of a man who expected to
+be obliged to tussle for something, but had had the something dropped
+into his grasp when he merely touched the holder's knuckles.
+
+Britt had a map of the town in his office desk. He began to color
+sections with a red crayon. According to Mr. Britt's best judgment in
+the matter, he was in a fine way to own a whole town--a barony six miles
+square--at an extremely reasonable figure. From the selectman down,
+nobody seemed to feel that Egypt property was worth anything. As to
+beginning suits against the town, nobody felt like paying lawyers' fees
+and piling up costs. It was like tilting against a fog bank. And in a
+veritable fog bank of doubt and despair the unhappy Egyptians wandered
+around and around.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE TAUT STRING SNAPS
+
+Frank Vaniman's mother was allowed to visit him once a month at the
+prison. She was not present at his trial. She had respected his earnest
+wishes in that matter.
+
+When she came to him she smiled--she did not weep. When she smiled he
+wanted to weep. He realized how much that display of calm courage was
+costing Martha Vaniman. He remembered how bravely and steadfastly she
+had brought that same heroine's quality to the support of his father
+when she had taken Frank with her to the prison; they used to walk in
+through the gloomy portal hand in hand, and, though her face was serene,
+her throbbing fingers told him what her heart was saying to her.
+
+Her husband had thankfully accepted that little fiction of her
+fortitude; her son, under like circumstances, did the same. Between
+mother and son, as between husband and wife, was the bond of an implicit
+faith in the innocence of the accused. Love was not shamed, no matter
+how the outside world might view the matter.
+
+The prison warden was a fat man, full of sympathy. He gave the
+mother and son the privileges of his office, and to those reassuring
+surroundings the mother brought Frank's sister on one of the regular
+visits.
+
+After Mr. Wagg's guile gave Vaniman his outdoor job, the mother brought
+Anna each month, for the school vacation season was on. The sun was
+bright out there in the yard. One could look up into the fleecy clouds,
+over the walls, and forget the bars and the armed guards.
+
+In fact, one day, Anna's ingenuous forgetfulness of the true situation
+provoked real merriment for the little party--Guard Wagg included.
+Anna surveyed apprehensively several particularly villainous-looking
+barrowmen who passed and expressed the devout hope that Frank always saw
+to it carefully that he locked his bedroom door nights.
+
+Before all the zest of that joke had evaporated, Mrs. Vaniman departed;
+it was a part of her helpful tact in alleviating the grievous situation
+in which Frank was placed. She always came with the best little piece of
+news she could provide for the meeting; for the parting she reserved a
+bit of a joke.
+
+Mr. Wagg chuckled for a long time after the visitors went away.
+Gradually his face became serious. "Of course, I have to sit here and
+listen to what's said, because that's my duty. But, as I have told
+you before, all family matters simply pass into one ear and out of the
+other."
+
+"I'm mighty grateful for the way you have treated us," said Vaniman.
+
+"The fact that we haven't done business as yet hasn't changed me--never
+will change me. That mother of yours is so fine a woman that she
+deserves every favor that I can grant her, for her own sake. And, she
+being so fine a woman, I was sorry to hear what you wormed out of her
+this day--that she has gone back to work in the store again."
+
+"It was the one big happiness in my life in Egypt, Mr. Wagg, to feel
+that at last my mother was having the little rest and comfort that she
+deserved. I used to look ahead to the time when I could give her what I
+was able to give her while I was at work. I had a dreadful struggle with
+her, getting her to leave her work. The only way I ever did get around
+her was to complain that she was spoiling my prettiest dream by staying
+in the store. And now it's all to do over again. I haven't even the
+realization of the dream to help me here."
+
+"It's tough--realizing what you could do if you had the chance, and not
+being able to do it," averred Mr. Wagg. He lighted his pipe and slid off
+his stool. "A woman earning her living these days has to do a terrible
+lot of hard work in seven years."
+
+And having, after his usual custom, lighted a fire under the kettle, Mr.
+Wagg went to a distance and allowed the contents to boil.
+
+The contents did boil that day, when Vaniman had an opportunity to do
+some concentrated thinking.
+
+That morning he had received his weekly letter from Vona. She confessed
+to him that for some weeks she had refrained from telling him that
+Tasper Britt was a member of the household. She explained under what
+circumstances Britt was there and what her attitude was and would
+continue to be. She had not written anything about the matter, she said,
+on account of her anxiety to keep petty troubles and worries away from
+one who was suffering from such cruel injustice. But now that her father
+had gone away for an indefinite stay, leaving Britt as general guardian,
+she wrote to Vaniman to anticipate any rumors which might reach the
+young man from another quarter.
+
+She did not state that this intrusion by Britt into her home was
+perpetual persecution where she was concerned; Vaniman felt that she
+did not need to say so. His imagination pictured the situation. He had
+become morbid. He admitted it, but he could not help himself. He had
+done his best to keep his judgments sane and his hopes untarnished. But
+he was judging Britt by what Britt had already done, and he was in a
+mood to believe that Britt would be able to go ahead and accomplish a
+lot more in the way of hideous deviltry. The thought of Britt in that
+house--a girl there with no other protection than the presence of a
+silly mother--made for agony of apprehension that was excruciating.
+
+One of his most precious dreams had just melted into drab reality--his
+mother was compelled to go back to her toil.
+
+His other dream--the one that was consoling him through the dreary wait
+of seven years behind bars--was threatened by the malevolence of a man
+who was showing himself to be a veritable fiend in his machinations.
+
+Vaniman put some questions to himself. Who on God's green earth had a
+more imperious call to be out--to be free to fight for himself and the
+innocent? Would not a lie be holy if it should open prison doors and
+allow a guiltless man to go forth and battle with the guilty? Did not
+the end justify all the means? The state had declared that his liberty
+must be forfeited. Had the state the right to take away his reason?
+Vaniman told himself that he was on the straight road to lunacy.
+
+He leaped up, in the frenzy of his determination forgetting that there
+were preliminaries yet to be attended to.
+
+"Sit down there, Convict Two-Seven-Nine, or I'll bore ye!" bawled Guard
+Wagg, with a mighty volume of tone. A deputy warden was crossing the
+yard. He flourished a commendatory salute to the vigilant warder.
+
+"Good stuff, Bart! Always on your job, eh?"
+
+"Always!" agreed Mr. Wagg.
+
+The warden went on his way and the guard marched to the convict with
+a manner which expressed a determination to give No. 279 an earful. He
+stood over Vaniman, who had dropped back to the chair, and the two of
+them swapped stares.
+
+"I want to get out--I want to get out!" whimpered Vaniman.
+
+Mr. Wagg nodded.
+
+"What must I do?"
+
+"Whack up with me--fifty-fifty. Haven't I told you times enough?"
+
+"But, I mean, what must I do to help?"
+
+"I don't need any of your help. I only want you to say that you'll lead
+me to that money."
+
+Vaniman drew a deep breath. "I will lead you to that money."
+
+"Some men would make you swear that you know just where the coin is,"
+proceeded Wagg. "But I'm playing my own hunch in this thing on that
+point. Furthermore, I have talked with a chap named Bixby." He looked
+hard at the ex-cashier. "Bixby tied your little game into knots, didn't
+he?"
+
+Vaniman admitted that fact by a rueful sag of his chin.
+
+"Confidence--mutual confidence in each other!" Mr. Wagg walked away.
+When he came back past Vaniman, patrolling, he snapped: "No more talk!
+No more need of talk. Never can tell when talk may trip us. From now on,
+sit tight!"
+
+After that, though days passed, Wagg had not one word for the
+amelioration of the convict's impatience. Then, one day, Wagg changed
+his job again. Vaniman was kept at the same work, if work it could be
+called. He caught glimpses of Wagg. The guard was busy on the opposite
+side of the big pit. He had two or three convict helpers. They began to
+operate drills in the side of a rocky hillock which towered considerably
+above the level of the yard.
+
+News circulates inside prison walls despite the inhibition on
+communications between the inmates. Vaniman got information piecemeal
+from convicts who stopped near him on the pretense of spitting on their
+hands to get a new grip on their barrow handles. He learned that the
+plan was to mine the hillock and rig a blast that would tip it into the
+pit for filling. The barrow work was proving too slow an operation and
+the prison commissioners wanted the outside men put back into the shops
+where they could earn money for the state.
+
+It was evident that Guard Wagg was having a great deal of trouble with
+his helpers. He was continually bawling them out with a violence whose
+volume reached the ears of Vaniman.
+
+One day Wagg perceived the warden inspecting the work from the edge of
+the pit near Vaniman; the guard came trotting around.
+
+"Warden, I'm an expert on quarry work, as you know," he panted. "I'm
+doing my best to show you that I haven't forgotten what I learned over
+at Stoneport, and to back up what I promised you and the commissioners
+after I gave you the tip as to what could be done with that hill. Much
+obliged to you for allowing me all the dynamite I need. But, demmit!
+I haven't got anybody with brains to help me handle it. It's notional
+stuff, sir. It hates a blasted fool." He pointed a finger at the men
+across the pit. Their striped suits suggested the nomenclature he used
+"Those potato bugs will do something to blow us to blazes sure'n there's
+air in a doughnut hole!"
+
+The warden showed his concern. "Don't you know of some man who is used
+to dynamite?"
+
+"That ain't it, sir. A fool gets used to it, till he's too cussed
+familiar. I want a man with brains enough to be polite to it."
+
+The warden, making a general survey of the scene, beheld Vaniman. "A man
+who knows enough to be a bank cashier ought to have brains, Wagg. How
+about Number Two-Seven-Nine?"
+
+Mr. Wagg contemplated Vaniman and took plenty of time for thought. "I'll
+try him," he said, without enthusiasm. "I hadn't thought of him--but
+I'll try him."
+
+Directed to do so by the warden, Vaniman went to his new work with Wagg.
+The latter exhibited no especial symptoms of satisfaction at securing
+such a helper. He told the young man that his particular care would be
+the dynamite--to handle the boxes, store them in the little shed, unpack
+the sticks, and follow the drills, planting the rendrock ready for the
+blast that was to topple the hillock into the pit. Mr. Wagg explained to
+the warden, after a time, that the dynamite could be planted more safely
+and to better advantage when the drillers were off the job. Therefore,
+Vaniman was detailed to help during the noon hour while the prisoners
+were at dinner.
+
+But, even when they were alone together, day after day, Mr. Wagg
+maintained his reticence. Once in a while he did wink at Vaniman. The
+winks grew more frequent when Mr. Wagg began to connect up the dynamite
+pockets in the hill with wires. One afternoon, near knocking-off time,
+he stepped into the shed where Vaniman was covering up his boxes for the
+night. "When you leave your cell in the morning," said the man who
+had promised freedom, "hide in your pockets all the letters and little
+chickle-fixings you intend to carry away with you. You won't be going
+back into that cell again, Number Two-Seven-Nine."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+NO VOICE FROM THE PIT
+
+It was a night of wakefulness and of tremors for Vaniman. His was the
+acute expectancy of one who was about to set out on strange adventures,
+but whose orders were sealed and whose destination was unknown. Wagg's
+stolid appearance of knowing just what he was about had been a steadying
+aid in helping the young man control his doubts; in issuing his final,
+curt commands Wagg did not abate his confidence; Vaniman felt that he
+was in no position to demand more candor.
+
+He forced himself to eat his breakfast when it was pushed under his cell
+door. The messes that were daily dabbed into the compartments of the tin
+tray were never appetizing; that morning his emotions made everything
+as tasteless as sawdust. But he ate for strength's sake; he did not know
+what form of endurance would be demanded of him.
+
+He put only a few of his letters into his pocket. Cells were inspected
+every day after the convicts went forth to their toil. He did not
+dare to excite suspicion by taking away any noticeable amount of his
+possessions.
+
+The forenoon work went on as usual. And Mr. Wagg gave no signs that this
+was the day of days according to his plans. He constantly warned the
+convicts not to meddle with any of the wires. He was even peremptorily
+short with a deputy warden who came poking around. The warden asked if
+there was any danger.
+
+"There's always danger when a hill is full of wired-up, canned thunder,"
+stated Mr. Wagg. "I maintain, as I always have maintained, that it's
+notional stuff. You'll kindly remember that I told you so."
+
+The warden departed with an air that revealed how much he had been
+impressed.
+
+With the crisis so near, irritability pricked Vaniman's state of nervous
+tension. He began to resent Wagg's contemptuous silence in regard to
+details. That the guard's plans were concerned in some way with the
+mined hillock was evident enough. But an explosion which merely would
+create a diversion to assist in an escape was not a device that would
+effectively solve his difficulties, Vaniman reflected. Wagg's general
+stolidity made him seem rather stupid; the young man felt that his own
+wits ought to be enlisted in the affair. In the stress of circumstances
+he hankered to co-operate instead of being a sort of Ludlam's dog, dumb
+and driven.
+
+However, toward noon, Mr. Wagg was displaying a certain amount of
+tension of his own and his demeanor did not invite complaints or
+recrimination. The convict decided that there was nothing for it except
+to let Mr. Wagg do the wagging.
+
+When the noon bell clanged from the tower, the pit-job prisoners
+filtered into groups from their occupation in the yard and others filed
+from the doors of the shops. They shuffled their way in double lines
+through the gaping door of the main building, received their tins of
+food, and went to their cells.
+
+As usual, Vaniman remained with Wagg.
+
+The warders on the walls relaxed their vigilance when the heavy door was
+closed behind the last men of the lines. The guards went into the sentry
+boxes and set down the heavy rifles.
+
+Wagg made a general survey of the scene. No person was moving in the
+open area of the yard. The veteran of the guard was well acquainted with
+the customary habits and movements of the noon hour. He knew that the
+men in the main guardroom were reduced to a shift of two while the
+others went to their dinners; the two men were in the habit of giving
+the deserted yard only indifferent attention. But Mr. Wagg had provided
+against even casual glances.
+
+For purposes of his own, which a boss did not need to explain, he had
+nailed boards together to form something like a door, six feet square.
+The thing had been leaning against the dynamite shed for some days.
+
+Quite casually, Mr. Wagg went and lifted away this square of boarding,
+holding to the traverse braces on which the boards were nailed. He
+trudged along, carrying it, and came to where Vaniman was standing,
+observing and wondering.
+
+"Scooch!" snapped Wagg. "Walk along. Don't show yourself past this
+shield!"
+
+It was a true shield. Wagg carried it straight up and down. Vaniman
+obeyed instantly. He had a mental flash that Wagg did know exactly what
+he was about in his tactics. Lacking all idea of the scheme, Vaniman
+had not the heart to begin to ask for any details of the big plan at the
+crucial moment. He allowed himself to be an automaton. It was easy to do
+one thing at a time, as Wagg commanded; knowing nothing about what Wagg
+intended to do. Vaniman was not in a position to delay matters by
+doubts as to the best way of doing the thing. He walked behind the board
+screen, conscious that his movements were hidden from the men in the
+guardroom and, for that matter, from the eyes of anybody in the prison
+building.
+
+After a walk of a few rods Vaniman found himself close to a big chimney;
+it served a shop which had been unused since the crew had been at work
+on the job of filling the pit. Wagg set down the shield on its edge, as
+if needing to rest for a moment.
+
+"Open that chimney door and dodge in. Pull the door to behind you."
+
+At the base of the chimney Vaniman beheld the iron door provided for
+the convenience of cleaners and repair men. The padlock of the door was
+unhooked. He lifted the door from its latch, crawled into the chimney,
+and pulled the door shut. A moment later, waiting in the stifling
+darkness, he heard the rattle of metal against metal and the snap of the
+padlock. There was the tramp of departing feet. Gradually he became
+able to see about him in some degree. Away up above him was a square of
+sunlit sky at the top of the shaft. He saw in one corner a large pail
+with a cover; inside it were several bottles. Also, there was a bundle
+of clothing.
+
+Judging from the amount of food, it was rather evident that Mr. Wagg
+expected prison-bird Two-Seven-Nine to play chimney swallow for some
+little time!
+
+Wagg had made a quick job of locking in Vaniman. The guard tipped the
+upper edge of the shield inward till it rested against the chimney. He
+reached around the end of the boarding and snapped the padlock. Then he
+lifted his burden and went on.
+
+About that time a lazy man in the guardroom rolled slow gaze upon the
+yard. He saw Wagg moving with the burden and watched until Wagg laid it
+down flat on the ground. He opined that it was a part of the
+bomb-proof shelter that Wagg proposed to build in order to watch the
+hillock-smashing at close range. The other guard confirmed that opinion,
+having information straight from Wagg, himself.
+
+"When does she bust?"
+
+"Next week, so he cal'lates!"
+
+But Mr. Wagg, returning slowly, keeping to the side of the pit farthest
+from the hillock, was at that moment down to seconds in his figuring
+how long it would be before the crawling fire on a fuse would reach and
+sever a cord and trip a certain trigger.
+
+"I reckon she's about due," muttered Mr. Wagg. He stopped without easy
+jumping distance of the corner of a shop and slowly lighted his pipe as
+an excuse for stopping.
+
+His reckoning was correct.
+
+The hillock heaved. The mining had been skillfully done; the mass of
+rocks and earth was hoisted from behind and slid toward the pit. There
+was a tremor of the ground under the prison and its yard as if Thor
+had thunked viciously with his heaviest hammer. When startled men shot
+glances from the windows that were handiest for observation, the hill
+was toppling into the pit. In the forefront was the dynamite shed,
+splintering under the tons of moving rock. Instantly the last sliver
+of the shed was swallowed up, and then other tons of dirt and rock went
+piling into the pit, burying the shattered structure in crashing depths
+from which lime-rock dust came puffing in clouds.
+
+On the edge of the pit a man was dancing wildly in an aura of dust.
+The man was Wagg. He came staggering away from the pit, his arms folded
+across his eyes.
+
+"I saw him!" he squalled, when officers met him in their race across the
+yard from the prison. "He was in the shed. I told him to keep away from
+them wires. I've been telling everybody to keep off'n them wires. But
+everybody has been bound and determined to fool with 'em." He pulled
+down his arms and shot accusatory digit at the deputy warden whom he had
+previously rebuked. "Only this day I had to warn you not to fool with
+them wires. He must have done it. I saw him go under. It's Gawd-awful.
+I'll never forget it--how he looked. Gimme water!"
+
+He sucked from the edge of the tin dipper which a man brought, suffling
+like a thirsty horse. He rolled up his eyes and surveyed the warden, who
+had arrived.
+
+"Number Two-Seven-Nine--you say he has gone?" The warden's countenance
+registered honest horror; but Mr. Wagg's simulated horror was even more
+convincing in its intensity.
+
+"He's gone! He's under the whole of it!" Wagg dropped the dipper and
+collapsed on the ground. "My nerve is all busted, Warden. I sha'n't ever
+have any more grit to be a guard. I ask to be discharged. Here and now I
+beg to be fired!"
+
+"I'll arrange a furlough for you, Wagg," said the warden, with
+understanding sympathy. "You're entitled to a lay-off with pay. It was a
+terrible thing to see!"
+
+"And his mother!" mourned the guard. "Break it to her easy!"
+
+"A dreadful--dreadful affair," insisted the warden.
+
+He started toward the edge of the pit. "And the prison commissioners,
+the way state finances are, will never go to the expense of having all
+that rock moved to dig him out."
+
+"Probably not, seeing that he's under the whole of it," agreed Wagg.
+"He was a likable chap, spite of what he had done to get in here. Poor
+Two-Seven-Nine!"
+
+One of the inside guards had arrived at the scene of mourning. He was
+greatly excited. "And I guess it's poor Two-Eight-Two! He's missing from
+the noon count-up, Mr. Warden!"
+
+Wagg struggled upon his feet. He was not simulating the new phase of
+his emotions. He looked distinctly frightened. "There's only one under
+there. I saw him go. Who is Two-Eight-Two?"
+
+"One of the pair sent down from Levant for breaking and entering in the
+nighttime."
+
+"He wasn't in my crew--he wasn't on outdoor work," shouted Wagg.
+
+"What was his job?" demanded the warden.
+
+"Harness shop," reported an officer. He called to another guard and
+started into the building indicated.
+
+All those in the yard waited anxiously, their eyes on the door where
+the guards had entered. Promptly the officers came out. One propelled
+a convict, clutching the collar of the dingy prison coat; the other
+carried a length of narrow ladder that was fashioned from strips of
+leather. "I reckon he hid out to work on this," said the guard.
+
+"Didn't you know that you couldn't get away with anything of that sort?"
+the warden demanded, angrily.
+
+The convict looked past the warden, straight into the eyes of Wagg.
+"You never can tell what you can get away with till you try it,"
+Two-Eight-Two declared. There was a touch of insolence in his manner.
+
+"Into the doghole with him!" the warden commanded.
+
+Wagg surveyed the departure of the convict. The man contrived to twist
+his head around and look behind him; and he disclosed a grin. But he was
+hampered by the clutch on his collar and Wagg was not sure that the grin
+was intended for him, though the consciousness that the convict might
+have beheld what was on the inner side of that shield of boards was a
+thought which troubled Mr. Wagg's complacent belief that a good job had
+been well done.
+
+He continued to watch the man until the narrow door which opened from
+the yard, admitting to the doghole cells, swallowed up the convict and
+his guard. All that time a sort of quivery feeling was inside Wagg. He
+actually found himself in frantic mental search of some kind of a lie to
+be used in case the convict whirled and pointed to the big chimney and
+got over an accusation. But the man did not look around again.
+
+"I can plainly see that you are in a bad way, Wagg," affirmed the
+warden. Fervently did Mr. Wagg agree in his heart. "Your leave of
+absence dates from this moment, if you say so."
+
+"I may have to go on to stone work again if I don't get back my grit,
+warden. I'd like to have the run of the yard for a day or so, in order
+to look over just how that blast worked. Seeing that it cost a human
+life, I'd like to get full value of experience out of it."
+
+"Come and go as you like, Wagg. I'll lend you a key to the small door
+beside the wagon entrance in case you don't want to ring in through the
+guardroom."
+
+Mr. Wagg expressed his gratitude in proper terms and allowed that he
+would go and lie down for a time in order to calm himself. Again he
+urged the warden to break the news gently to Vaniman's mother and
+respectfully requested that Guard Wagg's sympathy be included in the
+condolence in the official letter.
+
+The newspapers of that afternoon contained an account of the tragic
+happening at the state prison.
+
+That night, too, Vona Harnden kept vigil, her door locked against her
+mother, whose fatuous commonplaces of commiseration were like files
+against the raw surface of the girl's agony.
+
+The front parlor of the Harndens had been converted into a sleeping room
+for Tasper Britt. Vona's room was over the parlor. She could hear the
+rasping diapason of his snoring. He appeared to be sleeping with the
+calm relaxation of a man who had been able to eliminate some especial
+worries from his mind.
+
+Furthermore, that night, the chairman of the prison commissioners had a
+talk with the warden over the telephone. The warden made a guess as
+to how many thousands of tons of rock were piled above the body of the
+unfortunate victim.
+
+"The taxpayers will never indorse the project of digging out that pit
+to recover the body of a convict, no matter who he is," declared the
+commissioner. "I don't mean to sound brutal, but we must let it stand
+as it is. Enter the reports of witnesses and declare the man officially
+dead. Here is one case, at least, Mr. Warden, when there's no doubt
+about a man being dead."
+
+However, shortly after twelve o'clock that night--and the night being
+particularly black with an overcast sky--Bartley Wagg opened the iron
+door of the big chimney and called forth Frank Vaniman and led him out
+through the little door at the side of the carriage entrance.
+
+There was a conveyance waiting there, a good-sized van, drawn by a
+solid-looking horse. Mr. Wagg lifted the flap of the van's cover.
+
+"Crawl in!" he commanded. "You'll find plenty of room along with the
+rest of the camping kit. Roll yourself up in the tent and take it easy.
+My nerves have been shocked by the terrible affair and I'm going into
+the mountains to recuperate. Doctor's orders!" He was grimly serious.
+
+He mounted the seat of the van and drove away with his passenger and the
+outfit.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE SHADE WHO STALLED
+
+Mr. Wagg did not hurry. He used several days for his trip to Egypt.
+He drove leisurely along roads which led through small towns and
+out-of-the-way places. That plan afforded him opportunity and excuse for
+pitching a tent to serve as shelter during the night stops. And after
+the tent was pitched and the dusk descended, Vaniman was able to come
+thankfully from the hateful restraint of the van and stroll along the
+woodland aisles and get the kinks out of his anatomy.
+
+But, although he eased his body, he was unable to ease his mind. He had
+not expected to enjoy his questionable freedom, anyway. Liberty was of
+value to him only as he might be able to use it in his fight for his
+rights as an innocent man. He could not freely use his liberty until he
+had cleared his name and thereby justified his escape from the prison.
+Now he was wondering whether he would have allowed Wagg to proceed as
+he did had the guard apprised him of the full details of the plan. The
+sweat of anguish stood out on him as he pondered in the jolting van; he
+found no pleasure in the respite of the peaceful woods.
+
+By the plot of Wagg he had dealt his loved ones the cruel blow that
+sudden death inflicts on the affections. In spite of what he hoped to
+gain from his freedom, Vaniman was accusing himself, realizing what his
+mother, his sister, and Vona were suffering. It was his nature to draw
+fine distinctions in points of honor; he was ashamed in the presence of
+Wagg; and in the consideration of the interests of self, he felt that
+his liberty was exacting too great a price from others. To all intents
+and purposes, outside the knowledge of one man to the contrary, he was
+dead, and he had deprived his best beloved of hope and peace of mind.
+The one man in the secret profanely declared that if Vaniman made
+an attempt to communicate with any person in the world until their
+particular business had been settled, the whole project was in danger.
+"I don't care how much dependence you put in your mother's good sense.
+She's a woman, and women slop over when they're all wowed up! She'd have
+to tell your sister, wouldn't she? She couldn't let your sister go
+on suffering. And your sister's too young to be trusted. Vaniman, the
+toughest part is over for 'em. That's a cinch! They'll go on sorrowing,
+of course, but they'll be feeling more reconciled every day. Mourners
+always do. Mourners can't help seeing the bright side, after a time.
+Think of that and quit your foolishness. You have made a trade with me.
+Till your part of that trade is carried out you ain't a free agent to do
+what you want to do in your own affairs."
+
+The worry over his inability to carry out that trade was mingled with
+the young man's general bitterness of regret because he had challenged
+Fate so boldly.
+
+"There's one thing about it," Mr. Wagg pursued, "the quicker you come
+across with me the sooner you can do what you darnation want to on your
+own hook. I have worked a thing that could be worked only once. You're
+out--and you're out right. Nobody is chasing you. Take another name,
+show up in some other part of the country, and you'll live happy ever
+after."
+
+He dwelt on that theme whenever the two talked, and he played all the
+variations. Furthermore, he complained because Vaniman was not showing
+his gratitude in more hearty fashion. "I catch you looking at me like
+a youngster would look at a bumblebee crawling across his bare foot.
+I don't ask to be taken into your bosom as your main and particular
+chum--understand that! But while there's business on between us I expect
+pleasant looks, even if you don't feel like handing me conversation."
+
+Mr. Wagg was doing practically all the talking on that trip. He had
+emerged from his cocoon of taciturnity. He explained that naturally he
+was a great talker, but that prison rules had pretty nigh paralyzed his
+tongue and he was trying to get it back into good working order once
+more.
+
+He made an especial point of vaunting himself upon the success of his
+scheme of deliverance. He tackled the thing from all angles. He played
+it up as the greatest achievement that ever had been worked in behalf of
+a convict. Mr. Wagg, serving as board of appraisal of his own feat, kept
+boosting the value. It was evident that he was suspecting that Vaniman,
+out and free, was in the mood that is characteristic of the common run
+of humanity: urgent desire is reckless about price; possession proceeds
+to haggle and demur.
+
+"And there's one thing about it," insisted Wagg, "we've got to keep on
+going ahead. We can't back up. We can't dissolve partnership. And the
+trade has got to stand as it was made--fifty-fifty."
+
+"I'm not going back on the trade."
+
+They were sitting close to each other on a tussock behind their little
+tent. Mr. Wagg leaned close and bored Vaniman with earnest gaze. "We'll
+fetch Egypt on to-morrow's hitch. Of course, you're going to stick close
+to me, and you can bet that I'm going to stick close to you till the
+whack-up has been made. No shenanigan! Now, seeing how far I have
+gone in doing my part, don't you think it's about time for you to come
+across?"
+
+Vaniman spread his hands. "How can I? Wait till we get to Egypt." Right
+then he had no notion of what he was going to do when he arrived in
+Egypt. He had not dared to look the proposition squarely in the face.
+He did not even analyze his feelings. He was dimly conscious that he
+was pitying Wagg. That ambitious person was in for a grievous
+disappointment. To be sure, Wagg had insisted on following a current
+belief and persisted in building his hopes on a fallacy and had forced
+human nature until weak human nature had snapped under the strain. Wagg
+had refused to believe the truth; he had preferred to indulge his
+own delusion in regard to the treasure of the Egypt Trust company.
+Nevertheless, Vaniman was ashamed--and he was afraid.
+
+Britt was the crux of the situation--that was evident enough! Britt
+knew where the coin was. Vaniman was sure on that point. Britt had so
+maneuvered that wild-goose errand to Levant that he had made the affair
+furnish opportunity to himself and fix the odium on Vaniman. In spite of
+what the young man knew of Britt's lust for money, he believed that the
+usurer had worked a scheme to ruin a rival instead of merely operating
+to add to his riches. But Vaniman knew Britt well enough to reach the
+conclusion that, once having the hard cash in his possession, and the
+blame fastened on another man, Britt was allowing avarice to stand pat
+on the play.
+
+But if, now being on the job in person, he could rig a scheme to make
+Britt disclose, what could be done for coadjutor Wagg? There was a
+reward posted for information leading to the recovery of the money.
+Britt had offered that reward. He had made quite a show of the thing
+in the public prints. He pledged himself to pay the sum of two thousand
+five hundred dollars from his own pocket, and Vaniman bitterly realized
+just why Britt had adopted that pose. Would Wagg be content with the sop
+of the reward?
+
+The man who had been declared dead knew that he must play for time. He
+ran over various plans in his head. He did not feel like blurting out
+the truth to Mr. Wagg and asking what that effectually compromised
+gentleman was going to do about it. He needed Mr. Wagg. He thought of
+pleading that the summer landscape was so much different from the winter
+lay of the land, when the snow was heaped in the gullies and on the
+hills, that he was bothered in remembering just where he had planted the
+treasure that night; he reflected that he might show Mr. Wagg a hole in
+the rocks and assert that some of the persistent Egyptian gold hunters
+had undoubtedly located the money and taken it for themselves; being
+moved to more desperate projects, he meditated on the plan of coming
+across to Wagg with the whole story, showing him that Britt must be
+guilty, and thereby turning a blackmailer loose on the magnate with
+plenty of material to use in extorting what Wagg might consider fair pay
+for the work he had put in.
+
+But Vaniman was freshly free from prison walls. Just then he was
+psychologically incapable of standing up for himself as a real man
+ought. His sense of innocence had not been able to withstand that
+feeling of intimidation with which a prisoner becomes obsessed. Right
+along with him was the man who had been persistently his guard in the
+prison. Wagg's narrow rut of occupation had had its full effect on his
+nature. His striated eyeballs had a vitreous look; they were as hard as
+marbles. Vaniman knew that he could not look at those eyes and tell a
+convincing lie. In view of Wagg's settled convictions in the matter of
+the treasure, the real truth might be harder to support than a lie.
+
+Vaniman went into the van like a whipped dog into a kennel and lay awake
+and wrestled with his difficulties.
+
+During the progress of the pilgrimage the next day Wagg halted
+frequently. Vaniman could hear the conversations between his charioteer
+and the natives of the section. Mr. Wagg was seeking information and at
+the same time he gave out a modest amount of revelation about himself
+and his need of a retired spot where he might recuperate. He explained
+that he wanted to find a camp in some place so remote that nobody would
+be coming around jarring his nerves.
+
+Eventually he got on track of what he wanted. A native told him about an
+abandoned log house on the top of a mountain called "Devilbrow."
+
+"They used it for a fire-warden station in the days when Egypt had
+enough timber to make it an object to protect it," said the man. "You'll
+be plenty lonesome up there. You can get your wagon within half a mile.
+Pack your truck on your hoss's back and lead him the rest of the way.
+That's what I used to do. I was warden till I found myself trying to
+carry on conversations with tumblebugs and whippoorwills."
+
+When Wagg had driven along far enough so that the native could not
+overhear, he hailed Vaniman through the trap in the top of the van.
+
+"Did you hear that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is that Devilbrow within grabbing distance of what we're after?"
+
+Vaniman returned a hearty affirmative. He had been able to see those
+craggy heights from his window in Britt Block. The thought that what he
+wanted to grab and what Mr. Wagg wanted to grab were not exactly mated
+as desired objects did not shade his candor when he asserted that
+Devilbrow was just the place from which to operate.
+
+"All right!" chirruped Wagg. "Us for it!" He displayed the first
+cheeriness he had shown on the trip. He whistled for a time. Then he
+sang, over and over, to a tune of his own, "Up above the world so high,
+like a di'mond in the sky." This display of Wagg's hopeful belief that
+the fifty-fifty settlement was near at hand served to increase Vaniman's
+despondency.
+
+Obeying the native's instructions as to the route, Wagg soon turned off
+the highway and drove along a rutted lane which whiplashed a slope that
+continually became steeper. Soon he pulled up and told Vaniman to get
+out and walk and ease the load on the horse. Wagg got down and walked,
+too.
+
+The trail up Devilbrow was on the side away from the village of Egypt.
+The way was through hard growth. There were no houses--no sign of a
+human being. Wagg's cheerfulness increased. And he said something which
+put a glimmer of cheer into Vaniman's dark ponderings.
+
+"There's no call to hurry the thing overmuch. If I recuperate too sudden
+and show up back home it might look funny, after the way I bellowed
+about my condition. There's plenty of flour, bacon, and canned stuff in
+that van. I reckon we'd better get our feet well settled here and make
+sure that nobody is watching us; the money is safer in the hole than
+with us, for the time being. My pay is going on and the future looks
+rosy."
+
+A cock partridge rose from the side of the lane and whirred away through
+the beech leaves that the first frost of early autumn had yellowed.
+
+"And I've got a shotgun and plenty of shells! Son, let's forget that
+we have ever been in state prison. In the course of time that place is
+about as wearing on a guard as it is on a convict."
+
+The log camp was behind a spur of the rocky summit and was hidden from
+the village below. Wagg commented with satisfaction on the location when
+they had reached the place. The van had been concealed in a ravine
+which led from the lane. The work of loading the horse with the sacked
+supplies, and the ascent of the mountain, had consumed hours. Twilight
+was sifting into the valleys by the time they had unloaded the stuff and
+stabled the horse in a lean-to.
+
+There was a stove in the camp, and the place was furnished after a
+fashion with chairs and a table fashioned from birch saplings. The
+blankets of Wagg's camp equipment made the bunks comfortable.
+
+Wagg had been the cook as well as the captain of the expedition. He did
+better that evening with the wood-burning stove than he had done with
+the oil stove of his kit.
+
+After supper, before he turned in, Vaniman went out on a spur of
+Devilbrow and gazed down on the scattered lights of the village of
+Egypt. As best he could he determined the location of the Harnden house.
+He felt as helplessly aloof as if he were a shade revisiting the scene
+of his mortal experiences.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE FIRST PEEP BEHIND THE CURTAIN
+
+The next day Wagg went out and shot two partridges and contrived a stew
+which fully occupied his attention in the making and the eating. He had
+suggested to Vaniman that he'd better come along on the expedition
+after the birds. Vaniman found a bit more than mere suggestion in
+Wagg's manner of invitation. With his shotgun in the hook of his arm
+he presented his wonted appearance as the guard at the prison. It
+was perfectly apparent that Mr. Wagg proposed to keep his eye on the
+promiser of the fifty-fifty split. But Wagg did not refer to the matter
+of the money while they strolled in the woods.
+
+As a matter of fact, days went by without the question coming up.
+
+Wagg had previously praised himself as a patient waiter; the young man
+confessed in his thoughts that his guardian merited the commendation.
+Wagg was plainly having a particularly good time on this outing. He
+displayed the contentment of a man who had ceased to worry about the
+future; he was taking it easy, like a vacationer with plenty of money
+in the bank. On one occasion he did mention the money in the course of a
+bit of philosophizing on the situation:
+
+"I suppose that, when you look at it straight, it's stealing, what I'm
+doing. I've seen a lot of big gents pass through that state prison,
+serving sentences for stealing. Embezzlement, forgery, crooked stock
+dealing--it's all stealing. They were tempted. I've been tempted. I've
+fell. I ain't an angel, any more than those big gents were. And you
+know what I told you about mourners chirking up, after the first blow!
+I figure it's the same way in the bank case. They have given up the idea
+of getting the money back. They're still sad when they think about it,
+but they keep thinking less and less every day. They've crossed it off,
+as you might say."
+
+The two who were bound in that peculiar comradeship were out on the
+crag where they could look down upon the distant checker board of the
+village. Vaniman, in the stress of the circumstances, wondered whether
+he might be able to come at Wagg on the sentimental side of his nature.
+
+"The little town must have gone completely broke since the bank failure.
+Innocent people are suffering. If that money could be returned--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence. Mr. Wagg was most distinctly not
+encouraging that line of talk.
+
+"Look here, Vaniman, when you got away with that money you had hardened
+yourself up to the point where you were thinking of your own self first,
+hadn't you?"
+
+The young man did not dare to burst out with the truth--not while Wagg
+was in the mood his expression hinted at.
+
+Wagg continued: "Well, I've got myself to the point where I'm thinking
+of my own self. I'm as hard as this rock I'm sitting on." In his
+emphasis on that assertion Wagg scarred his knuckles against the ledge.
+"After all the work I've had in getting myself to that point, I'm
+proposing to stay there. If you try to soften me I shall consider that
+you're welching on your trade."
+
+Wagg made the declaration in loud tones. After all his years of
+soft-shoeing and repression in a prison, the veteran guard was taking
+full advantage of the wide expanses of the big outdoors.
+
+"What did I do for you, Vaniman? I let you cash in on a play that I had
+planned ever since the first barrow of dirt was dumped into that pit.
+There's a lifer in that prison with rich relatives. I reckon they
+would have come across with at least ten thousand dollars. There's a
+manslaughter chap who owns four big apartment houses. But I picked you
+because I could sympathize with you on account of your mother and that
+girl the papers said so much about. It's a job that can't be done
+over again, not even for the Apostle Peter. Now will you even hint at
+welching?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+But that affirmation did not come from Vaniman. It was made in his
+behalf by a duet of voices, bass and nasal tenor, speaking loudly and
+confidently behind the two men who were sitting on the ledge.
+
+The younger man leaped to his feet and whirled; the older man struggled
+partly upright and ground his knees on the ledge when he turned to
+inspect the terrifying source of sound.
+
+So far as Vaniman's recollection went, they were strangers. One was
+short and dumpy, the other was tall and thin. They wore slouchy,
+wrinkled, cheap suits. There was no hint of threat in their faces. On
+the contrary, both of the men displayed expressions of mingled triumph
+and mischief. Then, as if they had a mutual understanding in the matter
+of procedure, they went through a sort of drill. They stuck their right
+arms straight out; they crooked the arms at the elbows; they drove
+their hands at their hip pockets and produced, each of them, a bulldog
+revolver; they snapped their arms into position of quick aim.
+
+Wagg threw up his hands and began to beg. Vaniman held himself under
+better control.
+
+But the men did not shoot. They returned the guns to their pockets and
+saluted in military fashion, whacking their palms violently against
+their thighs in finishing salute.
+
+"Present!" they cried. Then the dumpy man grinned. Wagg had been
+goggling, trying to resolve his wild incredulity into certainty. That
+grin settled the thing for him. It was the same sort of a suggestive
+grin that he had viewed on that day of days in the prison yard.
+
+"Number Two-Eight-Two!" he quavered.
+
+"Sure thing!" The dumpy man patted the tall man's arm. "Add one, and
+you have Number Two-Eight-Three--a pal who drew the next number because
+we're always in company."
+
+"And we're here because we're here," stated the other.
+
+The short man fixed his gaze on the ex-cashier. "You don't realize it
+yet, but this is more of a reunion than it looks to be on the surface.
+You two gents have seen how we're fixed in the gun line, and we hope the
+understanding is going to make the party sociable."
+
+"You may be thinking that this is only another case of it being proved
+how small the world is, after all," remarked the tall man. "Not so! Not
+so! We have followed you two because we have important business with
+you. We have had a lot of trouble and effort in getting here. Bear that
+in mind, please!"
+
+The new arrivals were quite matter-of-fact and Wagg was helped
+to recover some of his composure. "The two of you are three-year
+men--robbery in the nighttime," he declared, out of his official
+knowledge. "What in blue blazes are you doing outside the pen?"
+
+"Attending to the same business as you are--after a slice of the bank
+coin," replied the short man, carelessly.
+
+Wagg got to his feet and banged his fists together. "Do you dare to walk
+right up to a guard of the state prison and--and--" He balked in his
+demand for information; Mr. Wagg was plainly afflicted with a few
+uncomfortable considerations of his own situation.
+
+"We do!" the convicts declared in concert. Then the dumpy man went on:
+"And whatever else it is you're wondering whether we dare to do, we'll
+inform that we dare. Once on a time we had occasion to express our
+opinion of a bank. I wrote out that opinion and left it where it would
+be seen. Not exactly Sunday-school language, but it hit the case." He
+turned away from Vaniman's frenzy of gasping interrogation. He confined
+his attention to Wagg. "A prison guard, say you? You're a hell of a
+guard!"
+
+"Opinion indorsed!" said the other convict.
+
+For a few moments there was complete silence on the summit of Devilbrow.
+Somewhere, on an upland farm in the distance, a cow mooed. Then a
+rooster challenged all comers.
+
+"That's the word, old top!" agreed the tall man. "It expresses my
+feelings," He clapped his hands against his legs and cried in his
+tenor, imitating the singsong of the rooster, "We're here because we're
+he-e-ere!"
+
+Then he and his fellow sat down on a ledge outcropping that overtopped
+and commanded the position of the other men. The convicts surveyed
+Vaniman and Wagg with a complacent air of triumph. "Are you willing to
+take things as they stand, or do you feel that you can't go ahead till
+your curiosity has been scratched?" inquired the short man.
+
+"Curiosity!" stormed the ex-cashier. "Do you dare to call the feeling I
+have in me curiosity?" He thumped his fist against his breast.
+
+"And how about my feelings, with escaped convicts racing and chasing all
+over this country?" shouted the guard. "What has happened to that prison
+since I've been off my job?"
+
+"One at a time!" The dumpy man put up his hand to shut off the stream of
+questions that were pouring from Wagg. "The young fellow has his innings
+first. He has more good reasons for rearing and tearing. It's easy
+enough to get out of a state prison when you have a trick that can be
+worked once." He winked at Wagg. Then he directed his remarks strictly
+at Vaniman.
+
+"I'm going to talk free and open. We're all in the same boat. We're a
+couple of pots, and both of you are kettles, all black. Now, listen! I'm
+Bill." He stuck his finger against his breast and then tagged with
+it his pal at his side. "He's Tom. Bill and Tom have been humble and
+hard-working yeggmen, never tackling anything bigger than country stores
+and farmers' flivvers. Once on a time they were in a barn, tucked
+away waiting for night, and they heard a man running a double shift of
+talk--beating down the farmer on the price of cattle and blowing off
+about gold coin hoarded by the bushel in a rube bank."
+
+Stickney's unruly mouth! Vaniman understood. "So, says Bill to Tom:
+'Why not go up like everything else is going up these days?' Says Tom to
+Bill: 'I'm on.' We took our time about it, getting the lay of the land.
+We went down to the big burg to buy drills and soup and pick up points
+on how to crack a real nut. Equipment up to that time had been a glass
+cutter and a jimmy for back windows and padlocks."
+
+He was humorously drawling his confession. He stopped talking and
+lighted a cigarette. Impatience that was agony urged Vaniman, but he
+controlled himself. Wagg did not venture to say anything. His thoughts
+were keeping him busy; he was mentally galloping, trying to catch up
+with the new situation.
+
+"And let me tell you that when Bill and Tom got back up here, they had
+colder feet than the weather accounted for. General headquarters, that
+camp!" He jerked thumb gesture toward the log cabin. "It had been our
+hang-out in times past when we operated in this section. Handy place!
+Finally got up courage enough to go to the job. Fine night for it!
+Deserted village. Peeked into Town Hall and saw the general round-up.
+Light in the bank. Bill was boosted up by Tom and got a peek over the
+curtain. One fellow inside adding figures--much taken up. Bank-vault
+door wide open. Front door unlocked. Crawled in. Kept crawling. Crawled
+into bank room. Grille door wide open. Bill up and hit fellow with
+rubber nob-knocker--it snuffs, but is not dangerous. Tom is handy by
+with the chloroform--always carried it for our second-story work."
+
+The young man began to stride to and fro, striving by using his legs to
+keep from using his tongue.
+
+The narrator snapped the ash off his cigarette. "Bill and Tom looked at
+each other. Did they expect such easy picking? They did not. The stuff
+had been fairly handed to 'em. They dragged the stuff out--all the sacks
+of it. Transportation all planned on. Couple of handsleds such as we had
+seen leaning up against the houses in the village. Slipped the fellow
+into the vault with his hands tied and shut the door with a trig so that
+he couldn't kick it open right away. Idea was that anybody stepping in
+later would think he had gone home; we intended to put out the light;
+nothing desperate about us; we wouldn't shoot the bolts. Bill said to
+Tom that there'd be a hunt for the fellow when he failed to show up at
+home, wherever he lived, and he'd sure be pulled out of the vault in
+good season. Thoughtful, you see! Not bloody villains. Simply wanted
+time for our getaway. Slow pulling up this hill with handsleds! But
+we slit a bag to make sure of what we would be pulling. And we kept on
+slitting bags. And--" the short man shook his head and sighed. "You
+say it, Tom. I'm trying to be sociable in this talk with these
+gents--showing a full and free spirit in coming across with the facts.
+But I don't trust myself!"
+
+"Nor I!" declared Tom. "We'd better not spoil a pleasant party."
+
+"Well, Bill wrote his sentiments, as they occurred to him at the time.
+Then we heard somebody hollering at the front door that we had left
+open. We ran and jumped behind the door of the bank office. The fellow
+who galloped in ran a few times in circles and then he galloped out. He
+might have noticed a rhinoceros if the rhino had risen up and bit him.
+But he paid no attention to Bill and Tom behind the door. And Bill and
+Tom walked out. And we managed to get clear of the village just as that
+Town Hall crowd broke loose.
+
+"Says Bill to Tom, when they were on their way: 'It's plain that banks
+are bunk, like everything else these days. Let's stick to our humble
+line where we know what we're doing.' But, having been studying bank
+robbing, we had got ourselves nerved up to take desperate chances--and
+we bulled the regular game in Levant. Coarse work, because we were off
+our stride. All due to the bank. The bank stands liable for damages.
+We're up here collecting. Cashier, consider what regular and desperate
+cracksmen would have done to you! Considering our carefulness where you
+were concerned, and the trouble we have been put to in getting out and
+chasing you, what say?"
+
+Again Vaniman got a strong grip on his emotions. He was a fugitive;
+these cheeky rascals had his fate in their hands; he was not in a
+position to reply to their effrontery as his wild desire urged. He did
+not dare to open his mouth just then with any sort of reply; he did not
+trust himself even to look their way.
+
+"Think it over," advised the short man, composedly. "But please take
+note that there are now four of us in on the split, and that quartering
+it makes easy figuring."
+
+Mr. Wagg was not composed. This threat to disrupt his fifty-fifty plan
+brought him out of something that was like stupor. "You belong back in
+state prison, and I'll see to it that you're put there."
+
+The man who called himself Bill was not ruffled. He waved his arm to
+indicate the spread of the landscape. "Doesn't being up here above the
+world lift you out of the rut of petty revenge? Can't you see things in
+a broader way? I can. I feel like praising you for that job you put up
+to get our valuable friend out where he can help all four of us. For
+many a day, after I saw that you had this friend out in the yard and
+were interested in him, I tended less to making harness pads and more to
+watching you through the shop window. I was interested in the gent, too.
+Tom and I had made up our minds to be as patient as possible for seven
+years--and then be rusticating up in these hills, right on hand to help
+him in the chore of digging it out of whatever hole it's hidden in.
+Couldn't let you monopolize him--absolutely not, Mr. Guard! Do you think
+I was hiding out that noon only by luck and chance? No, no! I saw
+you monkeying with the chimney door that forenoon. I saw how you were
+hopping around and I got a good look at your face. Says I to myself, Tom
+not being handy, 'There's something to be pulled off, and I'll make sure
+how it is pulled.' That's how I happened to be on the business side of
+that shield, Mr. Guard. It was good work. It leaves our friend pretty
+comfortable, so far as the dicks are concerned. Tom and I have got to
+keep dodging 'em. We didn't have your advantages, you know--Tom and I
+didn't! We simply did the best we could in getting out--realizing the
+value of time."
+
+The short man was employing a patronizing tone, as if accomplishing an
+escape from state prison was merely a matter of election of methods. All
+of the guard's official pride was in arms. He advanced on the convict
+and shook a finger under his nose. "How did you get out? You don't dare
+to tell me. It was an accident. You didn't use any brains. You don't
+dare to tell, I say!"
+
+"Oh yes, I do!" The convict was placid. "I'll tell you because you'll
+never dare to open your mouth on the matter. Furthermore, you've got to
+understand the position Tom and I are in right now in regard to a third
+party. That party is a trusty--he gets out in three months from now and
+has been having the run of the corridors as a repair man."
+
+Wagg growled something.
+
+"Oh yes, he will!" asseverated the convict. "He'll come out on time!
+A fine show of yourself you'll make trying to dutch him. The pen is
+mightier than the sword, but inside a prison pen the little screw driver
+has 'em all faded when a trusty is the repair man. Cell door, tier
+door, attic door--all attended to; ventilator grating likewise. Rope in
+ventilator, up rope--out goes rope and down rope! Roof, wall, drop! Rear
+window of second-hand shop. Outfit! Hike! Good start, till morning shows
+the cot dummies! Truss rods of Wagner freight, blind baggage to Levant
+on the 'tween-days train. Into the bush--and here!"
+
+"With this added by me," put in the other convict. "That trusty was a
+pal in the old days. He understands his friends' financial interest
+is in this thing, and how we needed to get out sudden to tend to that
+interest. We have given him our word. He took that word like it was a
+certified check. And he's going to cash in on that word!"
+
+"He sure is!" declared the short man. "We pass words instead of checks
+in our business, and a man who lets his promise go to protest is crabbed
+for keeps. We have incurred obligations so as to get in at the split."
+He spread out his palm and tapped a digit into the center of it.
+"Cash--here!"
+
+"Strictly on a business basis, of course," said the tall man. "We don't
+call for a special split for that trusty. It's a personal debt incurred
+by Bill and me. We ask nobody to pay our personal debts. All we ask is
+that debts due us be paid. And we're drawing a sight draft on you gents.
+Bill and I are probably only a few jumps ahead of the dicks. Where's the
+coin?"
+
+He brutally thrust the question at Vaniman. The young man turned to
+Wagg, seeking support in that crisis, believing that the affair could
+be held on the basis of two against two in the interests of further
+dilatory tactics. Wagg had been showing indignant protest against
+the demands of the interlopers. But his corrugated face was smoothed
+suddenly. He had evidently decided to cash in on the new basis. "That's
+what I want to know--and what I have been trying to find out. Where's
+the coin?"
+
+The realignment--three against one--was menacing. Vaniman surveyed the
+faces--the glowering demanding countenances, the eyes in which money
+lust gleamed. He knew that the men were in a mood where the truth would
+serve him in sad stead. He had no knack as a liar. He understood how
+little chance he had of convincing those shrewd knaves by his inept
+falsehoods in that extremity. He had already meditated on the plan of
+running away from Wagg. His reasons for escaping from this intolerable
+baiting were now threefold.
+
+"It's too near sunset for a job that will take us a long way through the
+woods," he blurted.
+
+"I'll admit I'm so tired I can't count money till I've had a night's
+sleep," confessed the short man. "But you make your promise now and
+here, Mr. Cashier. When?" He emphasized the last word.
+
+"To-morrow!"
+
+"A promissory note--dated and delivered. Don't let it go to protest.
+That's language you can understand, Mr. Bankman."
+
+Vaniman walked off toward the cabin and the three men followed him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE SHOW-DOWN
+
+His troubles and his trials had not wholly dulled youth's sense of the
+ludicrous in Vaniman. He sat down that evening to the meal that had been
+prepared by Guard Wagg, late of the state prison, for three fugitive
+convicts, also late of that institution. The chimney of the kerosene
+lamp was smoky and the light was dim, therefore Vaniman's grin was
+hidden from his companions. Undoubtedly it would have produced no
+especial wonderment in them if they had noted his cheerful visage. They
+were decidedly cheerful, themselves. Mr. Wagg was no longer exhibiting
+the official side of his nature; he was receiving compliments on his
+biscuits. The three who had aligned themselves against Vaniman seemed
+to be getting along in a very friendly fashion, being bound by a common
+interest.
+
+From biscuits in hand the conversation passed to the prison fare in
+retrospect. Wagg admitted that the fare was a disgrace to the state.
+From that point it was easy to go on and agree with the short man and
+the tall man that the prison was mismanaged generally and that a man was
+lucky in being able to get away from such a place--no matter whether
+he was a guard or a prisoner. The incongruous friendliness increased
+Vaniman's amusement.
+
+He looked at the two knaves who had recently enlightened their victim in
+such a matter-of-fact manner. He admitted that the comedy overbalanced
+the tragedy, in view of the fact that the job had resolved itself into
+petty sneak-thievery. Taking into consideration the trick money they
+had found, there was considerable farce in the affair. However, Vaniman,
+looking ahead to the threatening to-morrow, perceived tragedy looming
+again.
+
+Victim, criminals, guard of the criminals, they were breaking bread in a
+temporary comradeship of a bizarre nature--a money quest. But that money
+interest which bound them of an evening would be a disastrous problem on
+the morrow, if one man attempted to stand out against three.
+
+The one man made up his mind that there was a risky resource for him--to
+flee and take his chances alone in the woods; he had decided to put his
+own personal interpretation on the promise, "To-morrow!"
+
+Right after supper he turned into his bunk, in order to simulate slumber
+and avoid the questions that he could not answer.
+
+The two new arrivals had had much to say about their weariness. He
+expected that they would promptly eliminate themselves as obstacles to
+flight. Mr. Wagg, at any rate, had shown a confiding disposition all
+along.
+
+But the tall man and the short man conferred _sotto voce_ and let it
+be known that they had suspended payment of confidence currency for the
+time being.
+
+"The idea is," explained the short man, "this being a pleasant party,
+and all interests being common, it would be a shame to have it broken
+up. Tom will sit there in the door for two hours--then he wakes me and
+I sit there. We're not accusing anybody inside of wanting to leave; but
+who is sure that somebody from the outside may not stroll along and want
+to come in? Seeing that we went down to the pen from Levant, it may be
+thought--providing they do any thinking at the state prison--that we
+have come back here to start in where we left off. On the other hand,
+providing they don't do any thinking, they may come up into this section
+because a reasoning man never would believe we'd take chances by coming
+back into an old stamping ground. Either way it's looked at, we've got
+to be careful. Therefore, we hope that gents of a pleasant party will
+consider this double-shift arrangement as being for the general good of
+all hands."
+
+Mr. Wagg was pleased. He said so unhesitatingly, but not tactfully. He
+declared that he would mortally hate to be surprised keeping the company
+he was in.
+
+Vaniman was able to stay awake through most of the two watches. But the
+short man on sentry go was more vigilant than the tall man had been; two
+hours of sleep and the keen hope for the morrow conspired to keep the
+guard alert. In despair the young man loosed his hold on the hateful
+verities and slipped into slumber.
+
+He was suddenly awakened by a pinching grip on his arm. He opened his
+eyes upon broad day and upon the face of the tall man. He was aware that
+the short man was shaking Wagg awake in the next bunk. "Two men coming
+up the side of the mountain; got a slant at 'em through the trees;
+they're after us!"
+
+"Sho!" demurred Wagg. "They're only bird hunters."
+
+"We're taking no chances on 'em being jailbird hunters! Are there any
+holes here in the rocks?"
+
+"Plenty," stated Wagg. "And the three of you better hunt them holes, no
+matter who is coming."
+
+The short man, the tall man, and Vaniman needed no urging on that point.
+They ran, crouching low, and scrambled out of sight among the ledges of
+the craggy peak of Devilbrow.
+
+Wagg lighted his pipe and went out and sat on the bench beside the
+camp's door, and when the two early visitors came puffing up the hill
+and confronted him he was to all appearances enjoying the delights of a
+bland fall morning and the comfort of an unruffled conscience. He jumped
+to his feet and hailed one of the men with a great show of cordiality;
+the man was one of the deputy wardens of the state prison.
+
+Mr. Wagg hopefully and guilelessly expressed the conviction that the
+officer had followed along into the wilderness in order to join in the
+process of recuperation.
+
+The deputy asserted that Mr. Wagg was wrong to the extent of a damsite,
+or something of the sort, and reported some recent happenings at the
+state prison, Mr. Wagg listening with appropriate, shocked, official
+concern. He opined that it was a long shot, figuring that the convicts
+had fled back to the region of Levant. The warden agreed. "But the
+Old Man is bound to have us tip over every flat rock, Bart. He got a
+call-down for that accident--and this matter on top of it has made him
+sore. I'm up here this far because I got a line on you at Levant."
+
+"You did, hey?" Mr. Wagg gazed off across the landscape, as if wondering
+how much of a trail he had left.
+
+"You dropped 'recuperates' like a molting rooster drops feathers, Bart,"
+averred the warden, jocosely. "That was my trail. Reckoned I'd come and
+tip you off so that you can do a little scouting for the good cause."
+
+Mr. Wagg threw out his chest. "You can leave this hill section to me.
+Always on the job! That's my motto."
+
+The deputy said he knew that, stated that he would probably spend a week
+along the highways and in the villages of the section, got a drink of
+water from a spring near at hand, and departed with his aide.
+
+And after the two were far down the slope, Mr. Wagg called in his
+campmates with the caution of a hen partridge assembling the brood after
+the hunter has passed. "It means that we've got to stick close by this
+camp and mind our business for a week, at any rate," he said, after he
+had reported the conversation.
+
+Vaniman could not keep the complacency out of his countenance. He caught
+the short man squinting at him with a peculiar expression. "It would be
+mighty dangerous for any one of us to go far from this camp," said the
+young man.
+
+"It sure would!" agreed the convict, sententiously.
+
+Vaniman was promptly conscious that his innocent air had not been
+convincing.
+
+He became more fully aware of that fact when the tall man and the short
+man resumed guard duty that night, turn about. It was plain that they
+proposed to hang grimly to the token in their possession until the token
+could be cashed in for the coin.
+
+The confinement behind prison bars had tested Vaniman's powers of
+endurance; this everlasting espionage by the men who had set themselves
+over him tried him still more bitterly. They lacked the sanction of
+the law which even an innocent man respects while he chafes. While
+that situation continued he was prevented from taking any step toward
+clearing up his tangled affairs. He could look down on the roofs of
+the village of Egypt and meditate savagely--and that was all. Vona had
+apprised him of Britt's plans regarding a mansion. He could see that
+structure was taking shape rapidly. Men swarmed over it like bees over
+a hive. He did not doubt the loyalty of the girl. But he was left to
+wonder how long her loyalty to the memory of a dead man would endure.
+
+Day by day, through dragging hours, he suffered from the agonizing
+monotony of the camp. But the future offered only a somber prospect.
+After this respite in the insistence of the treasure seekers, he could
+expect only ugly determination when they dared to make a move in the
+matter. They had plenty of leisure for talk. They were already spending
+that money! Wagg was even more impatient than the others.
+
+Though Vaniman had been cruelly tortured by thoughts of the injustice
+that had been visited on him, by his reflections that the Egyptians
+had shown him no consideration, he had nursed the hope that he might
+contrive to give them back their money after he had dragged from Britt
+the truth.
+
+But at last, in his new spirit of loneliness, in the consciousness that
+no man's hand was offered to him in the way of help, he entered upon a
+new phase of resolution. He had gone into prison with youth's ingenuous
+belief that the truth would prevail. He had permitted a lie to aid in
+prying his way out, and now he was paltering with evasions and making no
+progress except toward more dangerous involvement. One afternoon sudden
+fury swept the props out from under caution.
+
+He leaped up from the rock on which he had been sitting, pondering, the
+rumble of the conspirators' conversation serving as obbligato for the
+cry his soul was uttering. He was between them and the sunset sky.
+
+"The truth!" he shouted.
+
+The three men peered at him, shading their eyes. He seemed to tower with
+heroic stature. He came at them, shaking his fists over his head.
+
+"You are thieves and renegades. I don't believe you know the truth when
+you hear it. But you're going to hear it."
+
+He tackled Wagg first. He set the grip of both of his hands into the
+slack of the shoulders of the amazed guard's coat and yanked Wagg to his
+feet and shouted, with his nose barely an inch from Wagg's face, "I told
+you the truth at first. I said I didn't know where the money was. You
+gave me a chance to get out by a lie. I'm human. I took the chance."
+
+He threw Wagg from him with a force that sent the man staggering; the
+guard stumbled over a rock and fell on his back.
+
+He turned on the convicts. By his set-to with Wagg he had gained their
+full attention. "You low-lived scoundrels, do you know an honest man
+when you lay eyes on him? I declare that I am one. Dispute me, and I'll
+knock your teeth down your throats--guns or no guns. I don't know where
+the money is. I never touched that money. I didn't know what was in
+those sacks. If you were decent men, with any conception of an oath
+before God, I'd swear to the truth of what I say. I won't lower myself
+to make oath! I make the statement. And now let some of you--or all
+three of you--stand up in front of me and tell me that I'm lying. Come
+on! It's an open field!"
+
+They did not stand up. Wagg merely sat up.
+
+"Say something! Some one of you! Say something!" pleaded Vaniman through
+his set teeth.
+
+The convicts kept their sitting. Vaniman went on adjuring them to stand
+up and say something. They showed no resentment when he called them
+names, and they indicated no relish for battle.
+
+"Hold on a minute!" pleaded the short man. "You seem to have your
+mind well made up as to what we'd better not say. I may have to eat
+state-prison grub again, and I'll need my teeth. Won't you kindly drop a
+hint as to what would suit you in the line of talk?"
+
+"You can tell me whether you think I'm handing you the truth or not."
+
+"I think you are," agreed Bill, readily.
+
+"So do I," asserted Tom.
+
+"How about you, Wagg?" Vaniman demanded, resolved on clearing the matter
+up once for all.
+
+But the lethargic Mr. Wagg was manifestly unable to turn his slow wits
+on the single track of the mind and start them off in the opposite
+direction.
+
+"No matter about him now," said the short man. "Give his mind time. A
+toadstool grows fast after it gets started."
+
+This meek surrender helped Vaniman to regain his poise. "If you're
+willing to take the truth from me, men, I'll meet you halfway. You have
+been frank and open with me. Men who pretend to be better than you, they
+have lied to me and about me. That's why I was sent to state prison."
+
+"Tom and I couldn't do business like we do if we lied to folks of our
+kind. Didn't we cash in our word to the trusty? Being in the hole, as
+you are right now, you'll excuse me for saying that we consider you one
+of our kind."
+
+"Thank you," returned the young man, accepting that statement at face
+value.
+
+The short man lighted a cigarette and pondered for a few moments. "You
+didn't take the money. Tom and I believe what you say. Wagg will catch
+up with the procession later. All right, Vaniman! But seeing how anxious
+you were to get out and up here, it's likely that you have a pretty
+good idea as to who did take the money. If you need any help in squaring
+yourself, I'll call your attention to the fact that here are a couple of
+gents who have a little spare time on their hands."
+
+Vaniman was then in no mood to balance the rights and the wrongs of the
+case. "I have started in on the basis of the whole truth, and I'm coming
+through, men. I'm following your lead. I was framed in that bank matter.
+There was a man who had the opportunity to exchange junk for that gold.
+He made that opportunity for himself by working on my good nature. The
+man is Tasper Britt, who was the president of that bank. He took the
+money. He knows where it is."
+
+"Do you think he is the only one who knows?"
+
+"Naturally, he wouldn't be passing the word around."
+
+"You're a bank man--you had the run of the premises--you had a chance to
+know the general style of his ways! What do you guess he did with it?"
+
+"I'm sticking to the truth--and what I actually know. I'm not guessing."
+
+"Not even when you say he took the money?"
+
+"I didn't see him take it. But he had a private entrance to the vault.
+Everybody was so determined to plaster the guilt on to me that no
+move was made against Britt on account of that back door of his. I was
+railroaded by perjurers--and Britt was the captain of 'em."
+
+"There's a corner on 'most everything these days, but it's really
+too bad for a man like Britt to have a corner on so much valuable
+knowledge," sighed the short man.
+
+And the tall man sighed and agreed.
+
+Mr. Wagg was catching up. With the appearance of a man who had been
+running and was out of breath he panted, "What's--what's gong to be done
+about it?"
+
+Vaniman made no suggestions. Having cut the knot of his own entanglement
+where these men were concerned, he felt no spirit of alacrity about
+inviting them farther into his personal affairs; he realized that he
+had merely shifted the course of their dogged pursuit of that money. In
+spite of his feelings toward Britt, he was dreading what might come from
+the disclosures he had just made. He had reason to distrust the tactics
+such men might employ. His relief arising from the show-down was tinged
+with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt. To
+employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts
+to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised
+to involve him more wretchedly.
+
+"Vaniman, suppose you take command and give off your orders," said the
+short man.
+
+"I haven't any sensible plans. I admit that. I have been so pestered and
+wrought up by the everlasting bullyragging about the devilish money that
+I haven't had a chance to figure out a way of getting at the man who
+has ruined me," Vaniman complained. He strode to and fro, snapping his
+fingers, revealing his sense of helplessness.
+
+"Suppose we sleep on the thing--the whole four of us," suggested the
+short man. "I said sleep, please note! This general show-down has
+cleared the air up here a whole lot, I'll say! And Wagg has steered away
+the dicks! They won't be strolling in, and till we have settled on a
+plan I'm sure nobody will feel like strolling out. The night watch is
+disbanded."
+
+He marched off toward the camp. The others trailed on behind him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE STIR OF THE YEAST
+
+Mr. Delmont Bangs was naturally of an observant nature. While he was in
+Egypt he was keeping his eyes particularly wide open. He was looking
+for two men wanted by the state. Mr. Bangs was the deputy warden who had
+gone up to the summit of Devilbrow in order to view the landscape o'er
+and pass the word to Mr. Wagg. Mr. Bangs rode along every highway
+and byway, day after day, not missing a trick. He was not especially
+sanguine in regard to locating the missing convicts in that section,
+but he was obeying the warden's orders; after a day or so he was also
+obeying an impulse to satisfy his curiosity in lines quite apart from
+his official quest.
+
+He spent his nights at Files's tavern and grabbed his meals wherever he
+happened to be.
+
+But after a time he found that housewives were unwilling to give him
+anything to eat. He was sure that they had not soured on him because he
+was a state catchpole. When he first arrived in town and gave out the
+news of his mission and issued a general call for tips he was welcomed
+heartily by everybody; the women, especially, hoped that he would find
+the villains and put them where they could not threaten unprotected
+females. Mr. Bangs had not been able to spend his money for food at
+farmhouses; the women would not accept any pay, and gave him their best.
+
+However all at once they could not be induced to give food or even to
+sell it. They acted as if they did not care to be bothered; some of them
+declared that they were too busy to do cooking. They would not allow Mr.
+Bangs to stick his nose into their houses; they snapped refusal at him
+from behind doors only partially opened and foot-braced.
+
+Men with whom Bangs conversed wore an air of abstraction. They plainly
+were not interested in Mr. Bangs or in the convicts whom he was
+pursuing. He tackled them on all sorts of subjects, hoping to hit on the
+topic which was absorbing so much of their attention. He went so far as
+to ask them bluntly what they were carrying on their minds besides hair.
+Those who were not surly looked scared.
+
+Even the barn doors were no longer frankly open. There was a mysterious
+sort of subsurface stir everywhere. There was expectancy that was ill
+disguised. Mr. Bangs, a stranger, perceived that strangers, for some
+unexplained reason, had ceased to be popular in Egypt. One day a man
+gruffly told him that detectives would do well to go off and do their
+detecting in some other place. That was pretty blunt, and Mr. Bangs
+informed his helper that he, personally, had had about enough of the
+gummed-up, infernal town. He declared that he was going to leave. Mr.
+Bangs was more certain about his departure when he arrived back at
+Files's tavern that evening. Mr. Files informed him that there would
+be no more accommodations at the tavern after that night. Mr. Files,
+questioned, refused to say whether he intended to close the tavern or
+was merely going away; he would reveal nothing about his further plans.
+
+Mr. Bangs went out and sat on the porch bench with his helper, and
+irefully asked that bewildered person what the ding-dong the matter was
+with the dad-fired town, anyway?
+
+In default of specific knowledge the aide tried to be humorous. He told
+Mr. Bangs that it looked as if the hive was getting ready to swarm. His
+facetiousness fell flat; Mr. Bangs scowled. The helper became serious.
+
+"I've been watching the old hystrampus they call the Prophet. Everywhere
+we've been the past few days, he seems to be just coming or just going.
+Noticed him, haven't you?"
+
+"Of course I've noticed him."
+
+"I don't know what his religious persuasion is, because he hasn't done
+any talking where I could overhear him. But he seems to be getting
+busier all the time. Do you know what he preaches?"
+
+"I'm working for the state prison, not the state insane asylum."
+
+"Well," drawled the other, "though I don't know what he's preaching,
+the general fussed-up condition here in this town reminds me of what
+happened in Carmel when I lived there as a boy. One of them go-upper
+preachers struck town. He finally got most of our neighbors into a state
+of whee-ho where the womenfolks made ascension robes for all concerned
+and the menfolks built a high platform and they all climbed up on it and
+waited all one night for Gabr'el's trump to sound."
+
+"What's that got to do with this town?" demanded Mr. Bangs, impatiently.
+
+"Why, considering how near busted the town is--and all the timber cut
+off and the farms run out--I wouldn't wonder a mite if the right kind of
+a preacher could get 'em into a frame of mind where they'd be willing to
+start for anywhere--even straight down, provided they couldn't arrange
+matters so as to go straight up, like the Carmel folks planned on. Not
+as how I say that these folks are going to get up and hump it out of
+Egypt! But there's a whole lot of restle-ness in 'em! That's plain
+enough to be seen!"
+
+"If there's half as much of it in 'em as there is in me, right now,
+they'll all follow me when I drive out of town in the morning," declared
+Mr. Bangs. "And what that king pin, name o' Britt, is building that
+palace over there for is beyond my guess."
+
+"Expects to grab off the girl of the Vaniman case," said the aide, who
+had put himself in the way of hearing all the local gossip.
+
+Mr. Bangs lighted a fresh cigar. "Say, I'd like to find out whether this
+stir here is a go-upper proposition. I'd join the party and go up, too,
+if I thought I could locate that cashier and find out where he hid that
+mess of gold."
+
+"Try the ouija board," giggled the aide.
+
+However, in his desperate desire for information in general Mr. Bangs
+proceeded to try something which suited better his practical turn of
+mind.
+
+He hailed Prophet Elias, who had appeared in the open door of Usial
+Britt's shop. The gloom of the autumn evening was deepened by vapor
+which came drifting from the lowlands after the night air had chilled
+the moisture evoked by the sun from the soil. The open door set a patch
+of radiance on the dun robe of the dusk. The light spread upon the
+vapor, was diffused in it, furnished an aura of soft glow in the center
+of which stood the robed figure.
+
+Deputy Bangs's first hail, when Elias opened the door and stood
+revealed, was contemptuously brusque; he used the tone he commonly
+employed toward his charges in prison; he perceived at first only the
+queer old chap, the dusty plodder of the highways, the man of cracked
+wits. Bangs spoke as an officer, peremptorily: "Say, you! Come over
+here. I want to talk with you!"
+
+The Prophet made no move, either with his feet or his tongue. In the
+haze that lay between him and Bangs, the man of the robe seemed to tower
+and to take on a mystic dignity which had been lacking in the candid
+light of day. After the silence had continued for some time Bangs spoke
+again. His new manner showed that his eyes had been reprimanding his
+tongue. "Excuse me! I didn't mean to sound short. But would you kindly
+step across here? Or"--the eyes certainly had shamed the tongue and had
+humbled it--"or I'll come over there, if you'd rather have it that way."
+
+The Prophet strode along the misty path of light and stood in the middle
+of the road. "Talk--but I must ask you to talk to the point and in few
+words. I have no time to waste on gossip."
+
+"All right! Few words it is! What's the matter with this town all of a
+sudden?"
+
+"Ask Pharaoh. The kingdom is his."
+
+"I don't get you!"
+
+The deputy's helper pulled his chief's sleeve and hissed some rapid
+words of explanation, more fruit gathered from local gossip.
+
+"Oh, so that's what you call him? However, I'm asking you. You ought to
+know. I've seen you all over the lot, talking with everybody."
+
+"Ask Pharaoh!" repeated the Prophet, sonorously.
+
+The helper nudged Bangs with a swift punch. "If you feel like taking
+that advice, boss, here's your chance. There's Tasper Britt."
+
+The magnate of Egypt was revealed suddenly, coming from the direction
+of his new mansion. He strode past Elias. "Ask Pharaoh!" advised the
+Prophet once more, and Britt halted. He came back a few steps and
+addressed the men on the tavern porch:
+
+"Can't a man who is deputy warden of our state prison find something for
+amusement better than stirring up a lunatic?"
+
+"I'm not trying to find amusement--not in this town," returned Mr.
+Bangs. "I'm after information. He refers me to you--or so I take it!"
+
+"What information?"
+
+"There's something the trouble in this town and I'd like to know what it
+is."
+
+"There it is," barked Britt, pointing to Elias. "That's the principal
+trouble--a lunatic spreading lunacy like smallpox."
+
+"But what is it all about?" insisted Bangs, "What's this new
+excitement?"
+
+"I know nothing about any excitement, sir. I attend to business instead
+of gossip. If you can make it your business to take this pest to state
+prison, where he probably belongs if his record could be dug up, the
+town of Egypt will be all right again."
+
+"Pharaoh, I have a message of comfort for you," stated the Prophet.
+"This night do I depart from the land of Egypt. I go and I shall not
+return."
+
+For some moments Britt did not find words with which to reply. Then
+he mumbled something about good riddance and shaking the dust from the
+feet.
+
+"I shall shake all the dust from my feet this side of the border line,"
+said Elias. "Your land of Egypt cannot spare any soil."
+
+"You are getting away just in time," rasped the usurer. "I have been
+tolerating you since you got back from jail because I've been too busy
+to tend to your case."
+
+"Ah!" commented Elias, mildly.
+
+This subtle humility goaded Britt's wrath more effectually than the
+Prophet could have prevailed with resentful retort.
+
+"The next time it wouldn't have been a bailable trespass case. Do you
+dare to tell me why you kept looking in at the windows of my house?"
+
+"I was looking for the closet."
+
+"What closet?"
+
+"For the closet where you keep the skeleton. But rest this night in
+peace, Pharaoh. I am going away."
+
+"I can sleep better for knowing that you are out of this town."
+
+"Then promise me that you will sleep to-night--sleep soundly. That
+thought will cheer me as I go on my way." Britt started along, making
+no reply. "I bespeak for you sleep without dreams," the Prophet called
+after him. "Your dreams, Pharaoh, might be colored with some of the
+realities--and that would be bad, very bad for your peace of mind."
+
+Once more Britt strode back from the vapors. "Are you trying to
+provoke me to smash my fist into your face? Are you trying to cook up a
+blackmail damage suit by the advice of that crook lawyer who bailed you
+out? I'm beginning to see why a lawyer was enough interested in you to
+get you back into this town."
+
+"You guess shrewdly, Pharaoh. You have avoided the deep plot against
+your wealth. Let the thought make you sleep soundly to-night. I'm glad
+to make my confession and hope it will add to your peace of mind."
+
+Usial Britt had appeared in the door of his cottage; he leaned lazily
+against the jamb. "It will be a fine night for sleeping," he remarked,
+amiably. "This fog is sort of relaxing to the nerves!"
+
+"Hold one moment, Pharaoh!" pleaded Elias. The appearance of the hated
+brother had started the magnate off once more. "I am anxious to make
+your night a peaceful one. If you see me go away, knowing that I shall
+not return again before your face, the comfort of your knowledge will
+lull you to sleep. Wait!"
+
+He stepped to the door of the cottage, reached inside, and secured a
+long staff. He picked up from the floor a huge horn--a sort of trump.
+He settled the curve of the instrument over his shoulder. He blew a
+long and resounding blast. Then he marched away, taking long strides.
+He loomed in the first stratum of the vapor, the radiance from the open
+door showing him as an eerie figure; then the fog swallowed him up.
+Every few moments he sounded a mighty blast on the trump. The blare
+of the horn rolled echoes afar in the murk. Steadily the volume of the
+sound decreased; it was plain that the Prophet was traveling at good
+speed.
+
+"Well, I'll be dimdaddled!" grunted Mr. Bangs. His was the only comment
+on the departure of Prophet Elias from the land of Egypt--that is to
+say, the only comment passed by the group in front of Files's tavern.
+Tasper Britt went his way toward the Harnden home, his lodgings still.
+Usial Britt closed his cottage door. Bangs found the sticky chill of
+the fog uncomfortable. He and his helper went in and upstairs to their
+rooms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE SHADE WHO MEDDLED
+
+Sometime in the night Vaniman awoke, not suddenly, or with the sense of
+having been disturbed, but torpidly, with the feeling that he had been
+especially deep in slumber. He recovered his senses slowly. Therefore,
+only gradually did he become aware of a peculiar new condition of
+affairs in the camp. He wondered idly, trying to make up his mind as to
+what was different in the place this night. He heard the "yeak-yeak"
+of the crickets outside. He heard nothing else. Then he understood.
+His three comrades were not vocalizing their slumber in snores. He had
+endured the torture philosophically night after night.
+
+His surprise awakened him fully. He listened, but he could not hear
+the sound of breathing. He rolled out of his bunk and investigated.
+The light in the camp was merely the reflection of the paler hue of the
+night outside, filtering through the open door and the single window.
+But he perceived that he was alone in the place--the bunks were empty.
+
+His primitive life in the camp had inured him to new habits; he had been
+removing only his shoes and his coat when he went to bed. He pulled on
+his shoes--he did not bother with coat or hat. He rushed out of
+doors and called aloud, hoping that his panic was exaggerating his
+apprehensions. There was no answer.
+
+Then his fears took definite shape and sought for confirmation. He ran
+to the horse hovel. The animal was gone.
+
+Standing there, bitterly conscious of what had happened and acutely
+aware of what was likely to happen with those three miscreants on the
+trail of the treasure that they coveted, Vaniman accepted his full
+measure of responsibility. He did not excuse the passion which had
+prompted him to open his heart in regard to Tasper Britt. It was plain
+that they intended to unlock the secret of the money by the use of
+Britt, going to any lengths of brutality the occasion might demand.
+To get at Britt they would be obliged to invade the Harnden home.
+The thought of what might develop from that sortie wrought havoc in
+Vaniman's soul! His fears for Vona and her mother spurred him to action
+even more effectively than his conviction that his own cause was lost if
+the men were able to force the money from Britt. If they were captured
+it would be like them to incriminate Vaniman as an accomplice; if
+they got safely away with the treasure there could be no revelations
+regarding Britt's complicity in its concealment. Britt certainly would
+not tell the truth about what had happened to him; the fugitives would
+hide their secret and their plunder.
+
+If ever a victim of devilish circumstances had a compelling reason to
+play the game, single-handed and to the full limit of desperation, so
+Vaniman told himself, he was the man.
+
+He ran from the hovel to the peak of the crag that overlooked the
+village of Egypt. He beheld below him a vast expanse of grayish white,
+the fleecy sea of the enshrouding vapor. He heard no sounds, he saw no
+lights. He had no notion of the hour. Wagg had accommodated him with the
+time of day, when he asked for it, just as Wagg loaned him a razor
+and doled his rations, persistently and with cunning malice working to
+subdue the young man's sense of independence.
+
+But in this crisis all of Vaniman's courage broke from the thralls in
+which prison intimidation and a fugitive's caution and despair had bound
+it during the months of his disgrace.
+
+No matter how long the others had been on their way! They would be
+obliged to go the long route around the hill, and were hampered by the
+van; their grim forethought in taking the vehicle to transport their
+booty, as if they were sure of succeeding, was another element that
+wrought upon Vaniman's temper.
+
+As he was, without coat or hat, he leaped from the crag, as if he were
+trying to jump squarely into the middle of the village of Egypt. He
+had taken no thought of the steepness of the slope or the dangers of
+descent. He slipped and rolled for many rods and a rain of rocks and
+earth followed him and beat upon him when he caught a tree and clung
+to it. He went on more cautiously after that; blood trickled from the
+wounds on his face where the sharp edges of rocks had cut. He thrust
+himself through the scrub growth, opening a way with the motions of a
+swimmer, his hands scarred by the tangled branches. There were other
+steep places that were broken by terraces. When he was down from the
+rocky heights on which the vapor did not extend and had entered the
+confusing mists, he was obliged to go more slowly still, for he narrowly
+missed some nasty falls.
+
+Fierce impatience roweled him. He would not allow himself to weaken his
+determination by thinking on what he would do after he arrived at the
+Harnden home. He had set that as his goal. Above other considerations he
+placed his frenzied resolution to protect Vona. He realized that he must
+protect her even from himself--from the shock she would suffer by his
+unprefaced appearance, this lover who would come like one risen from the
+dead! The scoundrels who came seeking Britt in her home would not be as
+terrifying as the visitor who would seem to be a specter--the shade of
+the convict whom a mountain had crushed, so said the official reports of
+the tragic affair.
+
+The fact that he was rushing to meet in combat three men, armed and
+desperate, worried him less than his anguished concern in behalf of the
+girl who was unprepared for his advent by hint or warning.
+
+At last he came to the pasture slopes where he was more sure of his
+footing. He ran. When he heard the rumble of wheels he stopped in order
+to listen, trying to distinguish the location of the sound in the fog,
+which made direction uncertain. He knew it must be late. Few vehicles
+were moved in Egypt after dark. He suspected that what he heard was the
+van.
+
+However, he was puzzled by what he was hearing. Either there were many
+vehicles, or else the echoes were playing pranks in the mists
+which enwrapped all objects. Under the pall of fog all sounds were
+exaggerated. To right and left, near at hand and far away he heard the
+rumble of wheels, the creak of whiffletrees, and the plodding feet of
+animals.
+
+He heard, too, an occasional, dust-choked bleat or a plaintive lowing.
+
+But a sound that was repeated regularly he could not understand, nor
+could he determine the direction from which it came. It was sound
+diffused like the fog itself. It was mellowed by distance. He recognized
+the notes as the winding of some sort of a horn or trump.
+
+Vaniman's ears were telling him nothing definite. He hurried on down the
+hill so that he might make his eyes serve him at closer range. In order
+to see what was going on in the highway he was obliged to go close to
+the wall which bordered it; though the fog hindered, it helped, for in
+the obscurity he was well hidden among the bushes.
+
+First he saw a hayrack go past. Two horses drew it. It was piled high
+with household goods, and women and children were on top of the load.
+Two cows were hitched on behind. By the time the fog had hidden this
+conveyance a wagon of the jigger type rumbled past. It was as heavily
+loaded as the hayrack. He heard other vehicles coming--he heard still
+others far down the road on their way.
+
+He was urged by a furious desire to shout--to ask what all this meant.
+But he did not dare to run such risks. There was a wall between him and
+the rest of humanity until his sorry affairs could be straightened.
+
+The highway gave him a clew as to his whereabouts; he had been lost
+in that wallow of vapor, unable to distinguish north from south. He
+retreated from the wall and stooped as he ran along behind the screen of
+the wayside alders. He had an affair of his own to look after, no matter
+what the rest of Egypt was doing.
+
+In spite of his haste, he carefully scrutinized each item in this
+singular parade of the night, keeping near enough to the road for
+that purpose. It seemed like some sort of a migration. He wondered how
+comprehensive it was. He wanted to be sure that nobody in whom he was
+especially interested passed him without his knowledge. There was every
+kind of an equipage that would convey people or property. Nobody was
+talking. So far as was possible, the human beings in the procession
+seemed to be trying to make a secret of the affair. Mothers hushed
+their children when the youngsters chattered or whimpered. Men merely
+whispered commands to the horses.
+
+All at once Vaniman beheld the van. It was holding a place in the parade
+and was moving with the decorous slowness of the other vehicles. On the
+driver's seat with Wagg were the two convicts. The comrade whom they had
+deserted waited until it had passed; then he ran out into the road and
+ducked along close to the rear of it.
+
+They were coming away from the village of Egypt. To what extent had they
+succeeded in their rascally errand? What burden were they conveying?
+Vaniman could not curb his wild desire to find out. He had had plenty of
+experience in dodging into that van. He lifted the flap and leaped in.
+There was black darkness in there. He put out his hand cautiously.
+It touched a man. The move that the man made was a sort of fruitless
+struggle, indicating that his limbs were secured in some way.
+
+Vaniman, in that crisis in his affairs, was not affected by
+squeamishness. He used his hands. He immediately discovered that the man
+was tied up hand and foot with torn cloth, strips of sheets or something
+of the kind. The man's only apparel was a nightshirt. Around his neck,
+so Vaniman's touch told him, was a leather cord to which keys were
+attached. Tasper Britt had told his cashier that he always carried his
+keys to bed with him in that fashion, and he had advised Vaniman to
+employ the same caution.
+
+This prisoner in the van was certainly the magnate of Egypt. Vaniman
+found that a towel was bound tightly across the bearded mouth; the young
+man even ran his hand over the bald pate, now divested of its toupee.
+
+There was no gold in the van. Vaniman made sure of that after he had
+satisfied himself as to the identity of Britt.
+
+While the young man was endeavoring to steady his whirling thoughts,
+striving to plan some course of action by which he could turn the
+situation to his personal benefit, his attention became taken up in
+another quarter. Through the trap he heard the voice of the short man.
+"Quick! Off the road. Nobody's in sight!"
+
+The van lurched and the front of it dipped with a violence that drove
+Vaniman and Britt against the end. Up came the front and the rear
+sagged. Then the van went bumping and swaying over uneven ground. The
+claw-clash of the branches of trees against the sides informed Vaniman
+that the men had driven into the woods.
+
+When the vehicle halted, the young man crawled forward and huddled down
+into as compact a ball as he could make of himself.
+
+He heard the three men dismounting. "I'll tell the world that this is a
+handy night for us, whatever it is that's going on in this burg!" It was
+the voice of that ever-ready spokesman, the short man. "There would have
+been a head at every window if we had been obliged to go teaming around
+all by ourselves, in the night. But they wouldn't have noticed a couple
+of giraffes and a hippopotamus in that procession."
+
+"I couldn't see that they even paid any attention to those women
+squalling upstairs when we did the job," was the tall man's opinion.
+"Handy night, say you? Why, that man we braced up to and asked where was
+Britt's boarding house, he seemed to have so much of his own business
+on his mind that he wasn't wondering a mite what our business with Britt
+might be."
+
+"Get busy!" said the other convict. "That business is only just
+beginning."
+
+There was a stir of feet.
+
+"Hold on!" It was the voice of Wagg, mumbling cautiously. "Tie your
+handkerchiefs over your faces like I'm doing."
+
+"Right!" the short man agreed. "Always leave 'em guessing when you say
+good-by!"
+
+A few moments later Wagg lifted the flap; Vaniman saw him outlined
+against the fog. The convicts reached in and pulled Britt out, and the
+flap was dropped.
+
+"Look out!" the short man warned. "Loosen that towel only a little and
+hold your clutch on his gullet, bo! We're not any too far from that
+road, and we'll understand the good news if he'll only whisper it."
+
+After a few moments he went on. "Man, we've got you--got you foul! You
+know where that gold coin is. Shut up! No argument. You tell us where it
+is. Then you won't get hurt. If you don't tell us, you _will_ get hurt.
+Get busy with your mouth!"
+
+In spite of his abhorrence at this method of extorting the truth,
+Vaniman was conscious of a feeling of comradeship with the three
+rapscallions at that moment. They were merely seeking loot. He was
+seeking the re-establishment of his honor and his love. He waited in the
+tense silence, straining every nerve to hear. No sound came to him. He
+wondered whether Britt, cowed, was whispering the information.
+
+"Get busy, I tell you!"
+
+Evidently the prisoner was obstinate.
+
+Minute after minute the short man labored with the captive, the snarl in
+his insisting voice deepening into the diapason of malevolent threat.
+
+But Britt said no word.
+
+Vaniman, feeling that all the prospects of his life were at stake,
+decided to play a waiting game. In spite of their culpable motive, the
+men outside were serving as his aides in the crucial moment. They were
+demanding information which the usurer owed to the innocent.
+
+"Oh, very well," said the master of ceremonies. "We'll go on with the
+rest of the program, then. One of you bring that side lamp and light it.
+And help me get this towel tighter. He's going to try some squalling."
+
+Vaniman saw the flare of the lamp past the edge of the flap. He set
+his teeth and decided that he would not interfere. When he heard sounds
+which, muffled in the towel, were like the whines and grunts of a
+tortured animal, he stiffened his determination to await the issue.
+
+"Now loosen the gag and let him talk! I reckon he has found something to
+say."
+
+Vaniman heard louder groans. But Britt gave out no information.
+
+"Back with the talk-tickler! Hold it closer! The same foot! We've got a
+good start on that one."
+
+The man in the van felt his gorge rising, in spite of the fact that the
+victim was a relentless persecutor of others. The stifled accents of
+agony were dreadful.
+
+After a time the short man spoke. Into three words he put the venom of
+a malice that would not be gainsaid. "Now, damn you!" His tone hinted at
+no regret for what had gone on before; it suggested that there was more
+to come; it was compelling demand that the captive should employ the
+respite that was offered.
+
+Britt began to babble; there was a suggestion of partial mania in his
+tones. Vaniman could not understand what he was saying, but the sharp
+questions that were interjected by the manager of the affair--the
+queries that gimleted for additional information--suggested the line of
+confession that Britt was giving forth.
+
+"Yes--in the bank! Where in the bank? . . . I heard that, but where?
+. . . In the basement, hey? Well, where in the basement? . . . Concrete
+block hey? . . . Come across! . . . Along here with that lamp, bo! . . .
+Exactly where is that block?"
+
+Through Vaniman there flooded something that was almost a delirium of
+derring do. He did not know just what he would be able to perform--one
+against three. He did not dare to wait for any farther developments in
+the thing. He was possessed by the frantic fear that the knaves would
+use their information and beat him to the treasure. That the money was
+somewhere in the basement of Britt Block was enough for him at that
+juncture. He decided that the time for stealth was past. He would
+proclaim the news. He would tell his story. He would trust the case to
+the fair judgment of men.
+
+He scrambled forward in the van and made a hasty survey of the
+situation. Britt was stretched on the ground. The two convicts were
+kneeling side by side, bending over their captive, and the short man was
+still plying Britt with questions. Their backs were toward the man in
+the van. Wagg was kneeling at Britt's feet, holding the carriage lamp,
+shielding the flare with a curved palm.
+
+The posture of all three of them invited the attack that Vaniman
+instantly decided on. He could not hope that he would be offered a
+better opportunity.
+
+He flung aside the flap, he leaped from the opening. Spreading his
+knees, he landed on the convicts, a knee on each back, and then he
+brought his hands toward each other with all his strength, cuffing their
+skulls together with a resounding crack. They fell across Britt.
+Vaniman was on his feet while Wagg was rising; the guard's slow mind
+was operating ineptly on his muscles. The young man felled Wagg with a
+vicious blow under the ear.
+
+The convicts, knocked senseless, were on their faces, pinning Britt to
+the ground. The butts of the bulldog revolvers in their hip pockets were
+exposed. Vaniman snatched out the weapons. He aimed one of the revolvers
+at Wagg, who had struggled to his knees. "Your knife! Throw it to me!
+Quick!"
+
+Under the menace of the gun Wagg obeyed.
+
+The young man pocketed the guns for a moment. He rolled the reviving
+convicts off Britt and slashed the prisoner's bonds and tore the towel
+from his face. It was in his mind to force Britt to crawl into the van.
+He was regarding Britt as his chief witness and principal exhibit in the
+exposure he proposed to lay before the people of Egypt. In the back of
+Vaniman's head there may have been some sort of consideration for
+the man who had ruined him--scruples against leaving him with those
+renegades who had tortured him. However, the young man was conscious
+of the more compelling motive--to carry Britt along with him, to force
+Britt, before the eyes of men, to uncover the hiding place of the
+treasure.
+
+He trained his guns on the three men, backing away from them in order to
+have them at a safe distance. Britt was on his knees. He was staring at
+Vaniman with unblinking eyes in which unmistakable mania was flaming.
+The attack on him in his bed that night, the blow that had stunned
+him so that the assailants might tie him up, the ride in the strange
+conveyance, the dreadful uncertainty of what it was all about--these
+matters had wrought cruelly upon the victim's wits. The torture by the
+flame had further unsettled his mind. And at that moment, coming down
+from the heavens, so it seemed, a dead man had appeared to him.
+
+Britt's recent experience had rendered him incapable of surveying the
+thing from a normal viewpoint. He saw the man whom he had disgraced
+by plot and perjury, the man who was buried under tons of rock, so the
+state had officially reported, the man to whose return after seven years
+of punishment Britt had been looking forward with dread. He had slept
+more peacefully since that tragedy had been enacted at the prison. Britt
+was not admitting that this was a human being in the flesh. Already
+partially crazed by the manhandling from which he had suffered, he
+peered at this apparition, a mystic figure in the aura of the fog--the
+shade of Frank Vaniman, so his frantic belief insisted--and leaped up,
+screaming like a man who had gone stark, staring mad.
+
+Before Vaniman had time to issue a command Britt ran away along the lane
+by which the van had entered the wood. He was an extraordinary figure in
+flight. His night robe fluttered behind as he ran. For the most part he
+hopped on one foot; he yelped with pain when he was obliged to set the
+blistered foot on the ground in order to recover his balance.
+
+Vaniman did not stay to threaten the three men. He had their weapons and
+he did not fear them.
+
+He ran after Britt.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE FOX WHO WAS RUN TO EARTH
+
+Vaniman's first impulse was to overtake the fugitive. He wanted to have
+Britt in his grip, holding to him, forcing him to confess and restore.
+
+But when Britt reached the highway and started in the direction of the
+village, saner second thought controlled the pursuer. Britt had become
+a self-operating proposition; Vaniman felt that, although sudden fright
+were spurring Britt, a fear more inherently characteristic was pulling
+the usurer on his race to the village--he had betrayed the hiding place
+of hard cash! He was rushing to protect it. By running to the treasure
+Britt would be betraying something of more moment to Vaniman than gold.
+The young man kept his distance, keeping the quarry in sight, running a
+few feet behind Britt in the fog.
+
+In the mist the two were like the flitting figures of a fantasy. The
+road was still well filled with wains and pedestrians, following after
+those who had gone on ahead. The wains stopped; the pedestrians halted
+and gaped and gasped. Women cried out shrilly. Vaniman and Britt
+furnished an uncanny spectacle. The eyes which beheld them saw them only
+for an instant; the fog's curtain allowed each observer scant time to
+determine what these figures were. Britt, hairless, his face sickly
+white, his night gear fluttering, was as starkly bodeful as if he were
+newly risen from the grave, garbed in death's cerements. Vaniman's
+presence on the scene added to the terrifying illusion produced by
+Britt.
+
+This pursuer had been officially proclaimed dead. They who beheld
+believed they saw a dead man. The face was smutched with blood. The eyes
+were wide and were set straight ahead. Vaniman was taking no chances on
+losing the man whom he was chasing.
+
+After the first thrill of horror, wild curiosity stung the men of Egypt.
+They dropped the reins, those who were driving horses, and joined those
+who had turned in their tracks and were following the phantoms of the
+night.
+
+In this fashion, with the rout and rabble behind and Vaniman close on
+his heels, Tasper Britt arrived at Britt Block--and even the statue in
+its niche seemed to goggle with amazed stare.
+
+Britt did not stop to lift the loop of the leather thong over his head;
+with a fierce tug he broke the cord. He unlocked the door and rushed in.
+
+After Vaniman followed, the men outside hesitated only momentarily.
+Their numbers gave them courage. They crowded into the corridor. Some of
+them were carrying the lanterns which they had used to light the way of
+the procession of carts.
+
+Britt did not enter his office; he ran the length of the corridor and
+flung open the door which led to the basement. The pursuers kept on at
+the heels of Vaniman. But they took the precaution to allow the men with
+the lanterns to go ahead.
+
+Britt went frantically at his work, paying no attention to anybody. In
+fact, he did not seem to realize that others were present. There was a
+heap of furnace wood in one corner of the basement; he began to heave
+that wood in all directions. One of the lanterns was smashed by a
+billet. The men in the place were obliged to dodge the flying sticks.
+Britt worked as if he were alone in the place. He talked to himself.
+"Demons are after it. Demons and dead men! The demons sha'n't have it.
+I told 'em where it was. But I'll take it away. The demons brought hell
+fire to make me tell. They brought a dead man. But they sha'n't have
+it."
+
+"He's gone raving crazy!" cried an onlooker in shrill tones.
+
+"Come on, men! Let's catch him and tie him up," suggested somebody else.
+
+But they were prevented by fears which were made effective by influences
+which did not seem to partake wholly of human qualities.
+
+In their concentrated interest in the active Britt they had been
+disregarding Vaniman, who was restraining himself, standing outside the
+radiance of the lanterns.
+
+The next instant he leaped into the sight of all of them. He stood
+between them and Britt. He pulled his weapons. His blood-spotted face
+seemed a vision of the unreal; but the guns were unmistakably the
+agents which a human being would employ in an emergency. And there was a
+businesslike click in his tone. "Stand back, the whole of you! This is a
+show-down. Tasper Britt is confessing that he is a thief and a liar. Use
+your eyes."
+
+They cowered back from the threat of the guns and did use their eyes.
+They saw Britt uncover a section of the basement floor of concrete. They
+saw him locate an iron ring that was cunningly concealed under a little
+square of concrete which he pried up with his finger nails. He tugged at
+the ring and lifted a slab. The men with the lanterns raised them high.
+The light glinted on gold--gold coins in bulk, naked of sacks.
+
+A man had come thrusting through the crowd in the basement, hurrying in
+from the outside. It was Squire Amos Hexter. It was hard to determine
+from his expression which spectacle he found the more astounding--Frank
+Vaniman at bay, in the flesh, or the gold coins that Tasper Britt was
+dipping with both hands, sluicing them upon the concrete in jingling
+showers.
+
+Squire Hexter did find his voice. "Good God!" he shouted.
+
+"God is good!" said Vaniman. He threw the weapons into a far corner of
+the basement. "Squire Hexter, take charge of this thing. Here are plenty
+of witnesses."
+
+The Squire went forward slowly. His lips moved without the sound of
+spoken word. He set the clutch of his hands on Vaniman's arms. He stared
+long and earnestly into the young man's eyes.
+
+"I can't talk now," Vaniman quavered.
+
+And the Squire seemed to know, out of his sympathy with men, that there
+was something for that case better than words. He put his arms around
+Vaniman and kissed him. "Come along home with me to Xoa, sonny."
+
+Britt struggled to his feet, and groaned when his weight came on the
+tortured flesh. He looked about as if searching for something. "A
+basket!" he muttered. "I must find a basket."
+
+He started forward and saw Vaniman in the hook of the Squire's arm.
+Whether increase of his mania or some sort of remorse prompted his
+utterance was not clear. "Take it back to Tophet with you! I didn't mean
+to keep it. I didn't know how to give it back. I took it so that they'd
+pen you up, out from under my feet. But even a thousand tons of rock
+can't pen you. I'm done trying. If this is what you're chasing me for,
+take it! Keep away from me."
+
+He went through the crowd, beating his way with his fists.
+
+"Shall we hold him, Squire?" called a man.
+
+"Let him alone for just now! He can't go far in that shape. We'll attend
+to him after a little while." The Squire pulled himself together with
+the air of one who saw that the situation needed a commander. He singled
+responsible men from the crowd and ordered them to take charge of the
+coin.
+
+"Come away with me," he urged Vaniman. "This is no place for our talk."
+
+When they walked out of the building they saw no sign of Britt. "We'll
+let him alone," insisted the Squire. "There'll be no use in asking him
+questions till he's in his right mind. He'll probably get back his wits
+when he gets back his clothes."
+
+"Squire Hexter, what's happening in this town to-night. What--"
+
+"All in good time, sonny! Let's get home where Xoa is."
+
+There were lights in the Squire's house. In spite of the fog, Vaniman
+perceived that there was a gray hint of dawn in the heavens. More
+acutely was he wondering what this universal vigil in Egypt signified.
+But reaction had overtaken him. He was in the mood to accept commands of
+any sort. He walked on in silence.
+
+"You must stay out here till I break the thing to Xoa!"
+
+The young man clung to the trellis of the porch for a few moments until
+Xoa flung wide the door. Supported in her embrace, he staggered into the
+sitting room.
+
+"Cry, sonny! Cry a little," the Squire adjured him. "Put your head on
+Xoa's knee and have it out. It will tide you over till your own mother
+can comfort you."
+
+But wild desire for knowledge burned the sudden tears out of Vaniman's
+eyes. "Where is Vona? What is happening?"
+
+"We'll see to it mighty quick that Vona knows, sonny. The right word
+must get to her in the right way. Mother will know how. Mother, you'd
+better attend to it."
+
+She agreed with that suggestion, but first she brought a basin and water
+and soft cloths and solicitously made more presentable the young man's
+face.
+
+While she ministered to him he told them what had been happening in his
+affairs.
+
+"You're alive. That's the main point. Now, Xoa," urged the Squire, "go
+to Vona before some lunatic tells her something to scare her to death!"
+
+The good woman hastened away, her smile reassuring the lover.
+
+For some time the Squire regarded Vaniman with an expression into which
+some of the old notary's whimsical humor began to creep. "So it struck
+you, did it, that you had dropped back into town on a lively night? I
+was expecting quite a general stir, myself. But I'll confess that the
+thing hit me as livelier than what I had looked for when I was sitting
+here and heard a man holler outside that your ghost had chased Tasper
+Britt into his office. You see, the plan was not to have Tasper
+disturbed by any human beings this night. We all hoped he would sleep
+sound. Everybody proposed to tiptoe when passing in the neighborhood of
+the Harnden house. But to have a ghost come and chase Tasper around town
+was wholly outside the calculations of the human beings in Egypt this
+night."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't see any joke hidden in this proposition, Squire,"
+the young man complained.
+
+"Son, it's a joke, but it's so big and ironic that only one of those
+gods on high Olympus is big enough and broad-minded enough to be able to
+laugh at it. Some day the folks of this town will be able to look
+back on this night and laugh, I do hope. But not now. They're too much
+wrought up. They're too busy. Hold on! I'm going to let another man
+explain the thing. He's in a position to pass out information more to
+the point than anything I can hand you. I'll simply say this. When you
+saw what you beheld in the fog this night, you were seeing a revised
+version of the Book of Exodus acted out in real life. The Children of
+Israel, of this day and date, are departing from the land of Pharaoh,
+current edition. With their flocks and their possessions, their wives
+and their children, they are on their way to The Promised Land. And
+now, if you'll step into the parlor with me I'll introduce you to the
+promiser."
+
+Vaniman followed
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE PROMISED LAND
+
+There was a big man in the parlor, a hearty-looking man, manifestly of
+the metropolis, patently of the "good sport" type. He was walking up and
+down. With his tweed knickerbockers, his belted jacket, his diamonds in
+his scarf and on his fingers, he was such an odd figure in the homely
+surroundings that he produced on Vaniman a surprise effect. The young
+man surveyed the stranger with the interest one might take in a queer
+animal in a circus van; the big man's restless pacing suggested a caged
+creature. But he took not the least interest in Vaniman, an unkempt
+individual without a coat.
+
+"Hexter, what did happen, anyway? I thought you were never coming back.
+I had a good mind to chase you up, though it would be poor judgment for
+me to show myself to-night."
+
+"This has happened!" The Squire pointed to Vaniman. The big man cocked
+an inquiring eyebrow, looking at the Squire's exhibit with indifference.
+"Colonel, this is Frank Vaniman. You know all about the case!"
+
+The stranger stepped back so hastily that he knocked over a chair.
+
+"Know about the case!" he bawled. "No, I don't know about it, either, if
+this is the man the mountain fell on--or whatever it was that happened.
+What kind of con is this you're giving me, Hexter?"
+
+"This is the man, sir. What I mean by saying you know about the case is
+that you have agreed with me that an innocent man was railroaded into
+prison, after I gave you the facts. He is out through a trick worked
+by a prison guard. He'll give us the details later. Just now it's more
+important for you to be told that Tasper Britt, by his own acts, has
+confessed that he robbed the Egypt Trust Company."
+
+"Well, I'll be damnationed!" blurted the big man, with such whole-souled
+astonishment that the mode of expression was pardonable. "And I thought
+that plenty and enough was happening in this town for one night!"
+
+"Frank, this is Colonel Norman Wincott. He has well understood your case
+from what I have told him. Now he will understand better. Colonel, won't
+you allow Frank's story to wait? He is in a dreadfully nervous state,
+poor chap. And I'm afraid he'll go crazy on our hands if he isn't
+enlightened right away about what is going on here to-night."
+
+Colonel Wincott strode across the room and slapped Vaniman cordially on
+the shoulder with one hand and pumphandled with the other. "Plenty of
+men have escaped from state prison. There's a special novelty about a
+story of that sort. But let me tell you that I'm the only man in the
+world who has ever put over a proposition such as this one that is on
+the docket right here and now. I don't blame you for being interested."
+It was plain that the colonel entertained no mean opinion of himself and
+his projects. "All is, Vaniman, I hope your making a two-ring affair of
+it hasn't taken the attention of the folks off the main show."
+
+"It has only added to the general effect," affirmed the Squire. "It's a
+clincher. Folks don't care now because Tasper Britt is awake. He has got
+plenty of business of his own to attend to without calling in sheriffs
+to slap on attachments."
+
+"Very good! The easier the better," returned Colonel Wincott. "But when
+I hired you to look after the law part, Hexter, I reckoned you could
+counter every crack he made. Sit down, Vaniman!" He picked up the chair
+he had overturned and took it for himself. "You have seen the parade,
+some of it?"
+
+"I saw a great deal of it, sir."
+
+"And you don't know where it's headed for?"
+
+"No."
+
+The colonel leaned back and regarded the Squire with the satisfied
+contentment of a cat who had tucked away the last morsel of the canary.
+Then he winked at Vaniman. "Young man, did you ever hear of Wincott's
+Pure Rye?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Glad of it! Hope you never were familiar with any other brands.
+However, enough men did know about it in those dear, damp days beyond
+recall to make me independent of the pawnshop, to say the least. And,
+having cleaned up a good pot with whisky running down men's gullets, I
+reckoned I'd see what I could do with water running downhill. Do you get
+me at all so far?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Didn't suppose you would. I'm only shuffling the deck. Now for the
+deal! Awhile ago I came up into this state from the South and I bought
+the unorganized township that bounds this town on the north. It had gone
+begging for a buyer because it's mostly pond and water power. But it's
+what I wanted. And, having bought it, I used my check book and got
+some good lobbyists on the job and I got a conditional charter from the
+legislature. That is to say, it becomes a town charter automatically the
+moment I can report a certain number of inhabitants--not mere men, but
+families, regularly settled. Do you see?"
+
+"I surely do begin to see, Colonel Wincott."
+
+"Vaniman, if I had gone to the cities and advertised for settlers, what
+kind would I have got? Probably only a bunch of aliens dissatisfied
+already; if they weren't sore on general conditions I couldn't coax 'em
+to move. And aliens are always moving. I wanted some of the old breed of
+Yankee pioneers. That's what my folks were, 'way back. I took a sly
+peek into the town of Egypt. Good folks, but no opportunities here.
+Everything gone to seed. Up in my township a new deal with a fresh deck!
+Plenty of timber, plenty of rich land--and mills going up. Confound it!
+I propose to be boss of a real town--not a wild land plantation!"
+
+He suddenly shifted his posture. He came forward in his chair and set
+his elbows on his knees. "Say, Vaniman, I got Hexter's opinion a few
+days ago when I opened up to him and hired him to attend to the law. But
+I want to ask you now what you think of my real-estate agent?"
+
+The young man shifted his bewildered gaze from the colonel's jovial and
+inquiring visage to the Squire's equally cheerful countenance.
+
+"Known to Pharaoh and the modern Children of Israel as the Prophet
+Elias, Frank," explained the notary. "I have heartily indorsed his good
+work. Furthermore, he knows well how to keep a secret and how to train
+others to keep one. Tasper Britt went to bed this night without one
+inkling of what was about to happen. He did not know that he was to be
+left here without men to toil and pay him his twelve per cent. He has
+town debts. He has the bare acres he has foreclosed on--he has the
+tumble-down houses. He has the paupers on the poor farm. He--"
+
+"Hold on, Squire! I forgot about those paupers," broke in the colonel.
+"I want a town that's fully rounded out. A few paupers belong in a town
+so that they may serve to remind others folks that they must keep busy
+and avoid the poor farm. And even the paupers will wake up and go to
+work in my town! Work will be in the air. I'm going to send a wagon
+after those paupers. Britt is no sort of a man to be allowed pets; he'll
+let 'em starve."
+
+"Undoubtedly," agreed the Squire. "I'll say, further, Frank, that when
+the Prophet started off last evening, blowing his trump to sound the
+signal for the migration, Britt stood and saw him go--and never guessed
+what it meant."
+
+"I heard that horn--I wondered."
+
+"He's a good blower," stated Colonel Wincott. "He blew all the props out
+from under the man Britt. Solidly grounded on texts, Elias is! Vaniman,
+a brand-new scheme needs a resourceful operator." He patted the top of
+his head. "Pardon me for flattering myself. I invented the system and
+the Prophet played it."
+
+Then Colonel Wincott leaned back, stuck his thumbs into the armholes of
+his vest, and rocked on the hind legs of the chair. "I played a hunch,"
+he went on. "I was going through Scollay Square in Boston one evening
+and I heard a street evangelist holding forth. He was preaching on the
+subject, 'Bondage.' Sin he called Pharaoh. And he was hammering the
+hearers with texts from Exodus. The idea hit me. I hung up beside the
+curb till he was through preaching, then I invited him to take a ride
+with me in my car. And a wise old bird I found him to be! No hypocrite!
+Doing his best to help his fellow-men, but always hep! Never out of a
+city till I pulled him up here. Likes the country now. Going to be the
+regular preacher in my new town. No more robe-and-umbrella business,
+of course. That was my idea. I'm inclined to be a little circusy in
+my notions. He stood for it. The scheme helped him to put over what he
+couldn't have got away with by ordinary means."
+
+Vaniman remembered those flashes of worldly wisdom in the Prophet, and
+was enlightened. His countenance revealed his thoughts.
+
+"Had you guessing?" demanded the colonel. "Nothing like starting folks
+to guessing. Keeps up the interest. One by one Elias snipped the cords
+that bound the folks to the soil of this place. Did a fine job. They're
+going to thrive after they are transplanted. Even Squire Hexter is going
+to bring up the rear guard, after he has finished here with the loose
+ends of the law needed in the case."
+
+"It's to be a clean sweep, Frank," the Squire affirmed. "Even Usial
+and his press; the new town will be in his legislative class." Then
+he looked long at Colonel Wincott, who was rocking on the legs of his
+chair.
+
+"I know mighty well what you want to say to me, Squire Hexter," stated
+the object of the regard. "You don't need to say a word, though. I'll do
+the saying. Vaniman, you have had a raw deal. But you'll soon be through
+the woods. I'm going to have a bank in my new town. You're going to be
+the boss of it."
+
+"Just a moment before you say anything, Frank," expostulated the Squire
+when Vaniman, choking with doubts and gratitude both, attempted to
+speak. "I propose to start at once for the shire town. I'll begin with
+the county attorney. I'll have your name cleared inside of twenty-four
+hours."
+
+"And don't bother with any Dobbins for that job," declared the colonel.
+"Use my car. My chauffeur is hiding it in the bush a little ways from
+here. And now, Vaniman, give me all your attention," he went on, with
+the pride of a successful performer. "I'll tell you what's going to
+happen over across the line in my town. It's going to interest you. You
+have been a man of affairs and you can grasp what I'm saying."
+
+But Vaniman did not seem to be grasping even that introduction of the
+subject. He had heard hurrying footsteps outside the house.
+
+"You'll never listen to anything that will stir your blood like what I'm
+going to tell you of my plans for the future," insisted the colonel.
+
+But a tremulous voice called: "Frank! Frank!"
+
+Vaniman leaped from his chair and turned his back on the man who
+proposed to stir the blood of the listener.
+
+Squire Hexter hurried to Colonel Wincott and whispered information
+which caused the master of The Promised Land to elevate his eyebrows
+understandingly.
+
+"Great Caesar! Why, sure!" he blurted, and popped up out of his chair.
+
+Following the Squire, he tiptoed to the door and stood on one side when
+the notary opened and peeped out.
+
+"Vona!" called the Squire, gently. "The boy is in here. Come!"
+
+She ran past them into the room.
+
+Colonel Wincott ducked out and the Squire followed and closed the door.
+He closed it slowly, softly, reverently, and then turned a smiling face
+of compassionate understanding toward Xoa and the colonel.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THROUGH THE GATES OF THE DAWN INTO "LIBERTY"
+
+There was a hush in the Squire's house. The three who were in the
+sitting room discussed affairs, subduing their tones almost to whispers.
+
+When somebody tramped on to the porch and pounded on the door, the
+interruption was startling.
+
+The Squire went and opened the door and disclosed Deputy-Warden Bangs of
+the state prison. But when Bangs made a step forward the notary bulked
+himself in the doorway with all the dignity his modest size would
+permit.
+
+"I'm led to believe that you have in this house an escaped convict, name
+of Vaniman," declared the officer.
+
+"Don't your prison records show that the convict named Vaniman is
+officially dead, sir?"
+
+"I'll admit that; but if what I have heard since I was routed out of my
+bed is so, those records will have to be revised."
+
+"I have no control over your records," returned the Squire, grimly.
+
+Mr. Bangs made another step forward.
+
+"But I have full control over my own house, sir. You cannot come in."
+
+"Do you stand in the way of a deputy warden of the state prison?"
+
+"I certainly do until he presents himself in my door with a proper
+search warrant, instead of coming here on the strength of mere hearsay."
+
+"I tried to get a warrant," the officer confessed. "But I can't locate
+the trial justice."
+
+"I hear that he is moving," was the Squire's dry retort.
+
+"You seem to be the only one in the place who isn't moving," said Bangs,
+craning his neck to peer past the keeper of the door.
+
+"Oh, I'm simply delaying my departure a few days in order to close up
+some matters of business."
+
+"Let me tell you that if you're concealing a convict in this house
+you'll have more business than what you plan on. I'm up here--"
+
+"As you have reported to me and all others, you're up here to find two
+escaped prisoners, sir. Very well! They are not in my house. But I have
+heard from them. They were seen a very short time ago in the stretch
+of woods near here known as Baniman's Bower. If you hurry you may catch
+them."
+
+Bangs displayed prompt interest. He showed more when the Squire added:
+"They may be already captured. I learned, also, that a man who has been
+a prison guard was in the same locality. You officials seem to be very
+vigilant!"
+
+Mr. Bangs choked back some sort of a threatened explosion. He stood
+there, shifting from foot to foot. Then he blurted: "Say, you seem to be
+the most level-headed man in this town. I'll go chase those convicts if
+your tip is a straight one. But tell me! Am I having the nightmare, or
+are all these things really happening around here?"
+
+However, Squire Hexter did not try to comfort the perturbed Mr. Bangs
+just then. The notary stepped out on the porch, closing his door behind
+him. He stared into the graying murk of the night and the fog. That fog
+was showing a light which was not that of the dawn. It was a spreading,
+baleful, reddening glare, and after a few moments it covered all the
+sky.
+
+Then men began to shout. There was an especial uproar from one quarter.
+The Squire knew that in the direction of the hullabaloos were located
+the camps in which were lodged the imported workmen who had wrought into
+solid structure the plans of the mansion that Britt had held in pictured
+form before the eyes of Egypt.
+
+The feet of running men pounded along the highway. Somebody cried, in
+clarion tones, "It's Tasp Britt's new house!"
+
+The Squire ran into the road, and Bangs followed.
+
+The notary hailed a little group of men who came rushing from the
+direction of the main part of the village. "Why aren't you bringing the
+tub? Fetch Hecla! Quick, men!"
+
+"She's gone!" panted one of the group.
+
+"Gone?"
+
+"There wasn't any wagon left behind, Squire, and they had to haul that
+gold. They hove it into Hecly's water tank and formed a guard, and she's
+been a whole half hour gone!"
+
+At that juncture a man came running to them from the direction of the
+fire. The Squire recognized him as the boss of the carpenters. "Mr.
+Britt is in that house. I saw him through a window. But it's a furnace
+from top to bottom."
+
+The Squire opened his mouth as if query, urgently demanding utterance,
+had pried apart his jaws. "How do you think the fire--" But he promptly
+closed his mouth and set his lips tightly. He shook his head with
+the manner of one who did not require information. Then he turned and
+hurried to his house.
+
+Colonel Wincott and Xoa were on the porch, lighted by the great, red
+torch whose radiance was flung afar by the reflector aid of the fog.
+
+"It's Britt's house--and Britt is in it," he told them. "Colonel, your
+man Friday had over many times one text that fits this thing. 'Can a man
+take fire into his bosom, and his clothing not be burned?'"
+
+He went to Xoa and patted her arm. "Better go inside, mother. It isn't a
+good thing to be looking at. Where are the children?"
+
+Frank and Vona answered that question by appearing in the door. They
+were honestly affected by the news the Squire gave them. Vona hid her
+face against the young man's breast.
+
+"It seems to be a self-operating proposition," stated Colonel Wincott.
+"And about all anybody can do is to let it flicker!"
+
+Vaniman was clearly not the captain of his soul in those distressing
+circumstances. He was displaying symptoms of collapse. Squire Hexter
+noted and acted.
+
+"Wincott, this boy must not stay here in this town any longer. If that
+prison guard runs afoul of him before I get matters under way at the
+shire, Frank will be galloped back to his cell in order to make a
+grandstand play. I've got to be going. Take Frank under your wing. Get
+him over the border."
+
+"Surest thing in the world!" declared the hearty colonel. "Got a hitch?"
+
+"My horse and double-seater. Come along to the stable--you, too, Frank.
+Xoa, bring him one of my coats and a hat!"
+
+Vona leaped away from her lover and faced the Squire. "I shall go with
+him, wherever he may go!" she said, with the fire of one who expected to
+meet opposition.
+
+But the Squire grinned. "Why, girl, of course you'll go! I wouldn't grab
+life-saving medicine away from a sick man. Take your mother along, and
+God bless the whole of you on the way."
+
+That way was toward the north, on the heels of the wains and the flocks
+and the herds and the men and women and children of the migrating
+population of Egypt.
+
+Colonel Wincott occupied the front seat with Mrs. Harnden. By the
+time he had teamed the Squire's fat little nag along for a mile he had
+succeeded in calming Mrs. Harnden's hysterical spirits. He induced
+her to quit looking over her shoulder at the great torch that lighted
+luridly the heavens above the deserted town. "It's a pillar of fire
+by night, madam, as you say! But that's as far as it fits in with the
+Exodus sentiment. It's behind us--and behind us let it stay."
+
+At the end of another mile Mrs. Harnden was extolling the capability of
+her husband.
+
+"I've heard about him," said the colonel. "Optimist? So am I. Get in
+touch with him and tell him to come to my new town. He'll have something
+that he can really optimize over."
+
+Colonel Wincott sedulously kept his attention off the two who rode on
+the back seat; he obliged Mrs. Harnden to do the same.
+
+After a time the trotting nag overtook the trailers of the procession.
+The colonel hailed and passed one wain after another, steadily calling,
+"Gangway!" They recognized his authority; they obeyed; they gave him
+half the road.
+
+He had an especially hearty greeting for the hand tub, Hecla, trundling
+on its little wheels, men guarding its flanks, men pulling on the rope
+by which it was propelled. Ike Jones was one of the guards. He gave the
+colonel's party a return greeting by a flourish on the "tramboon."
+
+"The stage starts from your town this morning, Colonel! Runs express
+through Egypt."
+
+"Good idea! Nothing but scenery left there," agreed the colonel. "Take
+good care of that gold, boys! The receiver of the Egypt Trust Company
+will be able to cut _some_ melon!"
+
+But Prof. Almon Waite, toddling behind the treasure, had a metaphor
+of his own. "This gold will gloriously pave the streets of the New
+Jerusalem, sir!"
+
+They went on in the growing dawn, threading their way among the vehicles
+and the folks on foot.
+
+In all their progress they met only one party headed in the opposite
+direction, coming back toward the town that had been deserted. Vaniman
+beheld Bartley Wagg teaming along the two convicts. They were tied
+together and he was threatening them with a club. They merely flashed
+on the screen of the mist and were out of sight. It was evident that
+Mr. Wagg had determined to grab a couple of straws, at any rate, in
+a desperate attempt to buoy himself officially in the flood of his
+misfortunes.
+
+The sun was burning away the mists when Colonel Wincott's turnout topped
+a hill; he waved his whip to invite the attention of his passengers.
+"There she lies, folks! I've been calling it my town. From now on it's
+our town. Some daisy on the breast of nature, eh?"
+
+There was a lake on the facets of whose ripples the sunlight danced.
+White water tumbled down cascades. Beside the lake there was a nest of
+portable houses. "Homes till we build bigger ones," explained the master
+of The Promised Land. "I'm giving building lots free. The class of
+settlers warrants it!"
+
+Then Colonel Wincott called their attention to something else--something
+that was not visible. He wrinkled his nose, but his sniff indicated
+gusto. "Smell it? It's food for the Children of Israel. Not manna. But
+it will fit the occasion, I hope. It's a barbecue. A whole ox and all
+the fixings."
+
+Then they came to a high arch, fashioned from boughs of fir and spruce
+trees. The wains were rolling under it.
+
+Frank and Vona lifted up their eyes. At the top of the arch, in great
+letters that were formed of pine tassels fastened to a stretch of
+canvas, was the word, "LIBERTY."
+
+"The name of our new town," said the colonel.
+
+But for the two on the rear seat it was more than the name of a town.
+Vaniman pressed the girl's trembling hand between his palms. They looked
+at each other through the lenses of grateful tears.
+
+Just inside the arch stood Prophet Elias, welcoming all comers. He had
+put off his robe and had laid aside his fantastic umbrella. He wore
+the sober garb of a dominic, and his face, above his tie of white lawn,
+displayed shrewd and complete appreciation of the occasion.
+
+He took off his hat and bowed low when Colonel Wincott's party passed
+under the arch. And this sonorous proclamation followed Frank and Vona:
+
+"'And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead
+them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light
+before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto
+them, and not forsake them.'"
+
+"Amen!" responded Colonel Wincott, fervently.
+
+The two persons on the rear seat did not speak. In silence they had
+reverently prostrated themselves at a shrine of thanksgiving in their
+souls.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of When Egypt Went Broke, by Holman Day
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