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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ranson's Folly, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+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: Ranson's Folly
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+
+Release Date: May, 2004  [EBook #5643]
+This file was first posted on August 3, 2002
+Last Updated: March 4, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RANSON'S FOLLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RANSON'S FOLLY
+
+And Others
+
+By Richard Harding Davis
+
+
+Illustrations By Frederic Remington, Walter Appleton Clark, Howard
+Chandler Christy, E.M. Ashe & F. Dorr Steele (illustrations not
+available in this file)
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+RANSOM'S FOLLY Illustrated by Frederic Remington.
+
+THE BAR SINISTER Illustrated by E.M. Ashe.
+
+A DERELICT Illustrated by Walter Appleton Clark.
+
+LA LETTRE D'AMOUR Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+IN THE FOG Illustrated by Frederic Dorr Steele.
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations:
+
+“Throw up your hands,” he commanded.
+
+Ranson faced the door, spinning the revolver around his fourth finger.
+
+“I suppose I'm the ugliest bull-dog in America”.
+
+“Miss Dorothy snatches me up and kisses me between the ears.”
+
+“We've got a great story! We want a clear wire.”
+
+He played to the empty chair.
+
+The men around the table turned and glanced toward the gentleman in
+front of the fireplace.
+
+“What was the object of your plot?”
+
+
+
+
+RANSON'S FOLLY
+
+I
+
+
+The junior officers of Fort Crockett had organized a mess at the
+post-trader's. “And a mess it certainly is,” said Lieutenant Ranson. The
+dining-table stood between hogsheads of molasses and a blazing log-fire,
+the counter of the store was their buffet, a pool-table with a cloth,
+blotted like a map of the Great Lakes, their sideboard, and Indian Pete
+acted as butler. But none of these things counted against the great fact
+that each evening Mary Cahill, the daughter of the post-trader, presided
+over the evening meal, and turned it into a banquet. From her high
+chair behind the counter, with the cash-register on her one side and
+the weighing-scales on the other, she gave her little Senate laws, and
+smiled upon each and all with the kind impartiality of a comrade.
+
+At least, at one time she had been impartial. But of late she smiled
+upon all save Lieutenant Ranson. When he talked, she now looked at the
+blazing log-fire, and her cheeks glowed and her eyes seemed to reflect
+the lifting flame.
+
+For five years, ever since her father brought her from the convent at
+St. Louis, Mary Cahill had watched officers come and officers go. Her
+knowledge concerning them, and their public and private affairs, was
+vast and miscellaneous. She was acquainted with the traditions of
+every regiment, with its war record, with its peace-time politics, its
+nicknames, its scandals, even with the earnings of each company-canteen.
+At Fort Crockett, which lay under her immediate observation, she knew
+more of what was going forward than did the regimental adjutant, more
+even than did the colonel's wife. If Trumpeter Tyler flatted on church
+call, if Mrs. Stickney applied to the quartermaster for three feet
+of stovepipe, if Lieutenant Curtis were granted two days' leave for
+quail-shooting, Mary Cahill knew it; and if Mrs. “Captain” Stairs
+obtained the post-ambulance for a drive to Kiowa City, when Mrs.
+“Captain” Ross wanted it for a picnic, she knew what words passed
+between those ladies, and which of the two wept. She knew all of these
+things, for each evening they were retailed to her by her “boarders.”
+ Her boarders were very loyal to Mary Cahill. Her position was a
+difficult one, and had it not been that the boy-officers were so
+understanding, it would have been much more difficult. For the life of a
+regimental post is as circumscribed as the life on a ship-of-war, and
+it would no more be possible for the ship's barber to rub shoulders with
+the admiral's epaulets than that a post-trader's child should visit the
+ladies on the “line,” or that the wives of the enlisted men should dine
+with the young girl from whom they “took in” washing.
+
+So, between the upper and the nether grindstones, Mary Cahill was left
+without the society of her own sex, and was of necessity forced to
+content herself with the society of the officers. And the officers
+played fair. Loyalty to Mary Cahill was a tradition at Fort Crockett,
+which it was the duty of each succeeding regiment to sustain. Moreover,
+her father, a dark, sinister man, alive only to money-making, was known
+to handle a revolver with the alertness of a town-marshal.
+
+Since the day she left the convent Mary Cahill had held but two
+affections: one for this grim, taciturn parent, who brooded over her as
+jealously as a lover, and the other for the entire United States Army.
+The Army returned her affection without the jealousy of the father, and
+with much more than his effusiveness. But when Lieutenant Ranson
+arrived from the Philippines, the affections of Mary Cahill became less
+generously distributed, and her heart fluttered hourly between trouble
+and joy.
+
+There were two rooms on the first floor of the post-trader's--this
+big one, which only officers and their women-folk might enter, and the
+other, the exchange of the enlisted men. The two were separated by
+a partition of logs and hung with shelves on which were displayed
+calicoes, tinned meats, and patent medicines. A door, cut in one end
+of the partition, with buffalo-robes for portieres, permitted Cahill to
+pass from behind the counter of one store to behind the counter of the
+other. On one side Mary Cahill served the Colonel's wife with many yards
+of silk ribbons to be converted into german favors, on the other her
+father weighed out bears' claws (manufactured in Hartford, Conn., from
+turkey-bones) to make a necklace for Red Wing, the squaw of the Arrephao
+chieftain. He waited upon everyone with gravity, and in obstinate
+silence. No one had ever seen Cahill smile. He himself occasionally
+joked with others in a grim and embarrassed manner. But no one had ever
+joked with him. It was reported that he came from New York, where, it
+was whispered, he had once kept bar on the Bowery for McTurk.
+
+Sergeant Clancey, of G Troop, was the authority for this. But when,
+presuming on that supposition, he claimed acquaintanceship with Cahill,
+the post-trader spread out his hands on the counter and stared at the
+sergeant with cold and disconcerting eyes. “I never kept bar nowhere,”
+ he said. “I never been on the Bowery, never been in New York, never been
+east of Denver in my life. What was it you ordered?”
+
+“Well, mebbe I'm wrong,” growled the sergeant.
+
+But a month later, when a coyote howled down near the Indian village,
+the sergeant said insinuatingly, “Sounds just like the cry of the Whyos,
+don't it?” And Cahill, who was listening to the wolf, unthinkingly
+nodded his head.
+
+The sergeant snorted in triumph. “Yah, I told you so!” he cried, “a man
+that's never been on the Bowery, and knows the call of the Whyo gang!
+The drinks are on you, Cahill.”
+
+The post-trader did not raise his eyes, but drew a damp cloth up and
+down the counter, slowly and heavily, as a man sharpens a knife on a
+whetstone.
+
+That night, as the sergeant went up the path to the post, a bullet
+passed through his hat. Clancey was a forceful man, and forceful men,
+unknown to themselves, make enemies, so he was uncertain as to whether
+this came from a trooper he had borne upon too harshly, or whether, In
+the darkness, he had been picked off for someone else. The next night,
+as he passed in the full light of the post-trader's windows, a shot
+came from among the dark shadows of the corral, and when he immediately
+sought safety in numbers among the Indians, cowboys, and troopers in the
+exchange, he was in time to see Cahill enter it from the other store,
+wrapping up a bottle of pain-killer for Mrs. Stickney's cook. But
+Clancey was not deceived. He observed with satisfaction that the soles
+and the heels of Cahill's boots were wet with the black mud of the
+corral.
+
+The next morning, when the exchange was empty, the post-trader turned
+from arranging cans of condensed milk upon an upper shelf to face the
+sergeant's revolver. He threw up his hands to the level of his ears as
+though expressing sharp unbelief, and waited in silence. The sergeant
+advanced until the gun rested on the counter, Its muzzle pointing at the
+pit of Cahill's stomach. “You or me has got to leave this post,” said
+the sergeant, “and I can't desert, so I guess it's up to you.”
+
+“What did you talk for?” asked Cahill. His attitude was still that
+of shocked disbelief, but his tone expressed a full acceptance of the
+situation and a desire to temporize.
+
+“At first I thought it might be that new 'cruity' in F Troop,” explained
+the sergeant “You came near making me kill the wrong man. What harm did
+I do you by saying you kept bar for McTurk? What's there in that to get
+hot about?”
+
+“You said I run with the Whyos.”
+
+“What the h--l do I care what you've done!” roared the sergeant. “I
+don't kmow nothing about you, but I don't mean you should shoot me in
+the back. I'm going to tell this to my bunky, an' if I get shot up, the
+Troop'll know who done it, and you'll hang for it. Now, what are you
+going to do?”
+
+Cahill did not tell what he would do; for, from the other store, the low
+voice of Mary Cahill called, “Father! Oh, father!”
+
+The two men dodged, and eyed each other guiltily. The sergeant gazed at
+the buffalo-robe portieres with wide-opened eyes. Cahill's hands dropped
+from the region of his ears, and fell flat upon the counter.
+
+When Miss Mary Cahill pushed aside the portieres Sergeant Clancey, of
+G Troop, was showing her father the mechanism of the new
+regulation-revolver. He apparently was having some difficulty with the
+cylinder, for his face was red. Her father was eying the gun with the
+critical approval of an expert.
+
+“Father,” said Miss Cahill petulantly, “why didn't you answer? Where is
+the blue stationery--the sort Major Ogden always buys? He's waiting.”
+
+The eyes of the post-trader did not wander from the gun before him.
+“Next to the blank books, Mame,” he said. “On the second shelf.”
+
+Miss Cahill flashed a dazzling smile at the big sergeant, and whispered,
+so that the officer in the room behind her might not overhear, “Is
+he trying to sell you Government property, dad? Don't you touch it.
+Sergeant, I'm surprised at you tempting my poor father.” She pulled the
+two buffalo-robes close around her neck so that her face only showed
+between them. It was a sweet, lovely face, with frank, boyish eyes.
+
+“When the major's gone, sergeant,” she whispered, “bring your gun around
+my side of the store and I'll buy it from you.”
+
+The sergeant nodded in violent assent, laughing noiselessly and slapping
+his knee in a perfect ecstasy of delight.
+
+The curtains dropped and the face disappeared.
+
+The sergeant fingered the gun and Cahill folded his arms defiantly.
+
+“Well?” he said.
+
+“Well?” asked the sergeant.
+
+“I should think you could see how it is,” said Cahill, “without my
+having to tell you.”
+
+“You mean you don't want she should know?”
+
+“My God, no! Not even that I kept a bar.”
+
+“Well, I don't know nothing. I don't mean to tell nothing, anyway, so if
+you'll promise to be good I'll call this off.”
+
+For the first time in the history of Fort Crockett, Cahill was seen to
+smile. “May I reach under the counter NOW?” he asked.
+
+The sergeant grinned appreciatively, and shifted his gun. “Yes, but
+I'll keep this out until I'm sure it's a bottle,” he said, and laughed
+boisterously.
+
+For an instant, under the cover of the counter, Cahill's hand touched
+longingly upon the gun that lay there, and then passed on to the bottle
+beside it. He drew it forth, and there was the clink of glasses.
+
+In the other room Mary Cahill winked at the major, but that officer
+pretended to be both deaf to the clink of the glasses and blind to the
+wink. And so the incident was closed. Had it not been for the folly of
+Lieutenant Ranson it would have remained closed.
+
+A week before this happened a fire had started in the Willow Bottoms
+among the tepees of some Kiowas, and the prairie, as far as one could
+see, was bruised and black. From the post it looked as though the sky
+had been raining ink. At the time all of the regiment but G and H
+Troops was out on a practice-march, experimenting with a new-fangled
+tabloid-ration. As soon as it turned the buttes it saw from where the
+light in the heavens came and the practice-march became a race.
+
+At the post the men had doubled out under Lieutenant Ranson with wet
+horse-blankets, and while he led G Troop to fight the flames, H Troop,
+under old Major Stickney, burned a space around the post, across which
+the men of G Troop retreated, stumbling, with their ears and shoulders
+wrapped in the smoking blankets. The sparks beat upon them and the
+flames followed so fast that, as they ran, the blazing grass burned
+their lacings, and they kicked their gaiters ahead of them.
+
+When the regiment arrived it found everybody at Fort Crockett talking
+enthusiastically of Ranson's conduct and resentfully of the fact that
+he had regarded the fire as one which had been started for his especial
+amusement.
+
+“I assure you,” said Mrs. Bolland to the colonel, “if it hadn't been
+for young Ranson we would have been burned in our beds; but he was most
+aggravating. He treated it as though it were Fourth of July fireworks.
+It is the only entertainment we have been able to offer him since he
+joined in which he has shown the slightest interest.” Nevertheless,
+it was generally admitted that Ranson had saved the post. He had been
+ubiquitous. He had been seen galloping into the advancing flames like
+a stampeded colt, he had reappeared like a wraith in columns of black,
+whirling smoke, at the same moment his voice issued orders from twenty
+places. One instant he was visible beating back the fire with a wet
+blanket, waving it above him jubilantly, like a substitute at the
+Army-Navy game when his side scores, and the next staggering from out
+of the furnace dragging an asphyxiated trooper by the collar, and
+shrieking, “Hospital-steward, hospital-steward! here's a man on fire.
+Put him out, and send him back to me, quick!”
+
+Those who met him in the whirlwind of smoke and billowing flame related
+that he chuckled continuously. “Isn't this fun?” he yelled at them.
+“Say, isn't this the best ever? I wouldn't have missed this for a trip
+to New York!”
+
+When the colonel, having visited the hospital and spoken cheering words
+to those who were sans hair, sans eyebrows and with bandaged hands,
+complimented Lieutenant Ranson on the parade-ground before the assembled
+regiment, Ranson ran to his hut muttering strange and fearful oaths.
+
+That night at mess he appealed to Mary Cahill for sympathy. “Goodness,
+mighty me!” he cried, “did you hear him? Wasn't it awful? If I'd thought
+he was going to hand me that I'd have deserted. What's the use of
+spoiling the only fun we've had that way? Why, if I'd known you could
+get that much excitement out of this rank prairie I'd have put a match
+to it myself three months ago. It's the only fun I've had, and he goes
+and preaches a funeral oration at me.”
+
+Ranson came into the army at the time of the Spanish war because it
+promised a new form of excitement, and because everybody else he
+knew had gone into it too. As the son of his father he was made an
+adjutant-general of volunteers with the rank of captain, and unloaded
+on the staff of a Southern brigadier, who was slated never to leave
+Charleston. But Ranson suspected this, and, after telegraphing his
+father for three days, was attached to the Philippines contingent and
+sailed from San Francisco in time to carry messages through the surf
+when the volunteers moved upon Manila. More cabling at the cost of many
+Mexican dollars caused him to be removed from the staff, and given a
+second lieutenancy in a volunteer regiment, and for two years he pursued
+the little brown men over the paddy sluices, burned villages,
+looted churches, and collected bolos and altar-cloths with that
+irresponsibility and contempt for regulations which is found chiefly
+in the appointment from civil life. Incidentally, he enjoyed himself
+so much that he believed in the army he had found the one place where
+excitement is always in the air, and as excitement was the breath of his
+nostrils he applied for a commission in the regular army. On his record
+he was appointed a second lieutenant in the Twentieth Cavalry, and on
+the return of that regiment to the States--was buried alive at Fort
+Crockett.
+
+After six months of this exile, one night at the mess-table Ranson broke
+forth in open rebellion. “I tell you I can't stand it a day longer,” he
+cried. “I'm going to resign!”
+
+From behind the counter Mary Cahill heard him in horror. Second
+Lieutenants Crosby and Curtis shuddered. They were sons of officers
+of the regular army. Only six months before they themselves had been
+forwarded from West Point, done up in neat new uniforms. The traditions
+of the Academy of loyalty and discipline had been kneaded into their
+vertebrae. In Ranson they saw only the horrible result of giving
+commissions to civilians.
+
+“Maybe the post will be gayer now that spring has come,” said Curtis
+hopefully, but with a doubtful look at the open fire.
+
+“I wouldn't do anything rash,” urged Crosby.
+
+Miss Cahill shook her head. “Why, I like it at the post,” she said, “and
+I've been here five years--ever since I left the convent--and I--”
+
+Ranson interrupted, bowing gallantly. “Yes, I know, Miss Cahill,” he
+said, “but I didn't come here from a convent. I came here from the
+blood-stained fields of war. Now, out in the Philippines there's always
+something doing. They give you half a troop, and so long as you bring
+back enough Mausers and don't get your men cut up, you can fight all
+over the shop and no questions asked. But all I do here is take care of
+sick horses. Any vet. in the States has seen as much fighting as I have
+in the last half-year. I might as well have had charge of horse-car
+stables.”
+
+“There is some truth in that,” said Curtis cautiously. “If you do
+resign, certainly no one can accuse you of resigning in the face of the
+enemy.”
+
+“Enemy, ye gods!” roared Ranson. “Why, if I were to see a Moro entering
+that door with a bolo in each fist I'd fall on his neck and kiss him.
+I'm not trained to this garrison business. You fellows are. They took
+all the sporting blood out of you at West Point; one bad mark for
+smoking a cigarette, two bad marks for failing to salute the instructor
+in botany, and all the excitement you ever knew were charades and
+a cadet-hop a t Cullum Hall. But, you see, before I went to the
+Philippines with Merritt, I'd been there twice on a fellow's yacht, and
+we'd tucked the Spanish governor in his bed with his spurs on. Now,
+I have to sit around and hear old Bolland tell how he put down a
+car-strike in St. Louis, and Stickney's long-winded yarns of Table
+Mountain and the Bloody Angle. He doesn't know the Civil War's over. I
+tell you, if I can't get excitement on tap I've got to make it, and if I
+make it out here they'll court-martial me. So there's nothing for it but
+to resign.”
+
+“You'd better wait till the end of the week,” said Crosby, grinning.
+“It's going to be full of gayety. Thursday, paymaster's coming out with
+our cash, and to-night that Miss Post from New York arrives in the up
+stage. She's to visit the colonel, so everybody will have to give her a
+good time.”
+
+“Yes, I certainly must wait for that,” growled Ranson; “there probably
+will be progressive euchre parties all along the line, and we'll sit up
+as late as ten o'clock and stick little gilt stars on ourselves.”
+
+Crosby laughed tolerantly.
+
+“I see your point of view,” he said. “I remember when my father took me
+to Monte Carlo I saw you at the tables with enough money in front of
+you to start a bank. I remember my father asked the croupiers why they
+allowed a child of your age to gamble. I was just a kid then, and so
+were you, too. I remember I thought you were the devil of a fellow.”
+
+Ranson looked sheepishly at Miss Cahill and laughed. “Well, so I
+was--then,” he said. “Anybody would be a devil of a fellow who'd been
+brought up as I was, with a doting parent who owns a trust and doesn't
+know the proper value of money. And yet you expect me to be happy with
+a fifty-cent limit game, and twenty miles of burned prairie. I tell you
+I've never been broken to it. I don't know what not having your own way
+means. And discipline! Why, every time I have to report one of my men to
+the colonel I send for him afterward and give him a drink and apologize
+to him. I tell you the army doesn't mean anything to me unless there's
+something doing, and as there is no fighting out here I'm for the back
+room of the Holland House and a rubber-tired automobile. Little old New
+York is good enough for me!”
+
+As he spoke these fateful words of mutiny Lieutenant Ranson raised his
+black eyes and snatched a swift side-glance at the face of Mary Cahill.
+It was almost as though it were from her he sought his answer. He could
+not himself have told what it was he would have her say. But ever since
+the idea of leaving the army had come to him, Mary Cahill and the army
+had become interchangeable and had grown to mean one and the same thing.
+He fought against this condition of mind fiercely. He had determined
+that without active service the army was intolerable; but that without
+Mary Cahill civil life would also prove intolerable, he assured himself
+did not at all follow. He had laughed at the idea. He had even argued it
+out sensibly. Was it reasonable to suppose, he asked himself, that after
+circling the great globe three times he should find the one girl on it
+who alone could make him happy, sitting behind a post-trader's counter
+on the open prairie? His interest in Miss Cahill was the result of
+propinquity, that was all. It was due to the fact that there was no
+one else at hand, because he was sorry for her loneliness, because her
+absurd social ostracism had touched his sympathy. How long after he
+reached New York would he remember the little comrade with the brave,
+boyish eyes set in the delicate, feminine head, with its great waves of
+gorgeous hair? It would not be long, he guessed. He might remember the
+way she rode her pony, how she swung from her Mexican saddle and caught
+up a gauntlet from the ground. Yes, he certainly would remember that,
+and he would remember the day he had galloped after her and ridden with
+her through the Indian village, and again that day when they rode to the
+water-fall and the Lover's Leap. And he would remember her face at night
+as it bent over the books he borrowed for her, which she read while they
+were at mess, sitting in her high chair with her chin resting in her
+palms, staring down at the book before her. And the trick she had,
+whenever he spoke, of raising her head and looking into the fire, her
+eyes lighting and her lips smiling. They would be pleasant memories, he
+was sure. But once back again in the whirl and rush of the great world
+outside of Fort Crockett, even as memories they would pass away.
+
+Mary Cahill made no outward answer to the rebellious utterance of
+Lieutenant Ranson. She only bent her eyes on her book and tried to think
+what the post would hold for her when he had carried out his threat and
+betaken himself into the world and out of her life forever. Night after
+night she had sat enthroned behind her barrier and listened to his talk,
+wondering deeply. He had talked of a world she knew only in novels, in
+history, and in books of travel. His view of it was not an educational
+one: he was no philosopher, nor trained observer. He remembered
+London--to her the capital of the world--chiefly by its restaurants,
+Cairo on account of its execrable golf-links. He lived only to enjoy
+himself. His view was that of a boy, hearty and healthy and seeking only
+excitement and mischief. She had heard his tales of his brief career at
+Harvard, of the reunions at Henry's American bar, of the Futurity, the
+Suburban, the Grand Prix, of a yachting cruise which apparently had
+encountered every form of adventure, from the rescuing of a stranded
+opera-company to the ramming of a slaver's dhow. The regret with which
+he spoke of these free days, which was the regret of an exile marooned
+upon a desert island, excited all her sympathy for an ill she had never
+known. His discourteous scorn of the social pleasures of the post, from
+which she herself was excluded, rilled her with speculation. If he could
+forego these functions, how full and gay she argued his former life must
+have been. His attitude helped her to bear the deprivations more easily.
+And she, as a loyal child of the army, liked him also because he was
+no “cracker-box” captain, but a fighter, who had fought with no morbid
+ideas as to the rights or wrongs of the cause, but for the fun of
+fighting.
+
+And one night, after he had been telling the mess of a Filipino officer
+who alone had held back his men and himself, and who at last died in his
+arms cursing him, she went to sleep declaring to herself that Lieutenant
+Ranson was becoming too like the man she had pictured for her husband
+than was good for her peace of mind. He had told the story as his
+tribute to a brave man fighting for his independence and with such
+regret that such a one should have died so miserably, that, to the
+embarrassment of the mess, the tears rolled down his cheeks. But he
+wiped them away with his napkin as unconcernedly as though they were
+caused by the pepper-box, and said simply, “He had sporting blood, he
+had. I've never felt so bad about anything as I did about that chap.
+Whenever I think of him standing up there with his back to the cathedral
+all shot to pieces, but giving us what for until he died, it makes me
+cry. So,” he added, blowing his nose vigorously, “I won't think of it
+any more.”
+
+Tears are properly a woman's weapon, and when a man makes use of them,
+even in spite of himself, he is taking an advantage over the other
+sex which is unfair and outrageous. Lieutenant Ranson never knew the
+mischief the sympathy he had shown for his enemy caused in the heart of
+Mary Cahill, nor that from that moment she loved him deeply.
+
+The West Point graduates before they answered Ranson's ultimatum smoked
+their cigarettes for some time in silence.
+
+“Oh, there's been fighting even at Fort Crockett,” said Crosby. “In the
+last two years the men have been ordered out seven times, haven't they,
+Miss Cahill? When the Indians got out of hand, and twice after cowboys,
+and twice after the Red Rider.”
+
+“The Red Rider!” protested Ranson; “I don't see anything exciting in
+rounding up one miserable horse thief.”
+
+“Only they don't round him up,” returned Curtis crossly. “That's why
+it's exciting. He's the best in his business. He's held up the stage six
+times now in a year. Whoever the fellow is, if he's one man or a gang of
+men, he's the nerviest road-agent since the days of Abe Case.”
+
+Ranson in his then present mood was inclined toward pessimism. “It
+doesn't take any nerve to hold up a coach,” he contradicted.
+
+Curtis and Crosby snorted in chorus. “That's what you say,” mocked
+Curtis.
+
+“Well, it doesn't,” repeated Ranson. “It's all a game of bluff. The
+etiquette is that the driver mustn't shoot the road-agent, and that the
+road-agent mustn't hurt the driver, and the passengers are too scared
+to move. The moment they see a man rise out of the night they throw up
+their hands. Why, even when a passenger does try to pull his gun the
+others won't let him. Each thinks sure that if there's any firing he
+will be the one to get hurt. And, besides, they don't know how many more
+men the road agent may have behind him. I don't---”
+
+A movement on the part of Miss Cahill caused him to pause abruptly.
+Miss Cahill had descended from her throne and was advancing to meet the
+post-trader, who came toward her from the exchange.
+
+“Lightfoot's squaw,” he said. “Her baby's worse. She's sent for you.”
+
+Miss Cahill gave a gasp of sympathy, snatched up her hat from the
+counter, and the buffalo robes closed behind her.
+
+Ranson stooped and reached for his sombrero. With the flight of Miss
+Cahill his interest in the courage of the Red Rider had departed also.
+
+But Crosby appealed to the new-comer, “Cahill, YOU know,” he said.
+“We've been talking of the man they call the Red Rider, the chap that
+wears a red bandanna over his face. Ranson says he hasn't any nerve.
+That's not so, is it?”
+
+“I said it didn't take any nerve to hold up a stage,” said Ranson; “and
+it doesn't.”
+
+The post-trader halted on his way back to the exchange and rubbed one
+hand meditatively over the other arm. With him speech was golden and
+difficult. After a pause he said: “Oh, he takes his chances.”
+
+“Of course he does,” cried Crosby, encouragingly. “He takes the chance
+of being shot by the passengers, and of being caught by the posse and
+lynched, but this man's got away with it now six times in the last year.
+And I say that takes nerve.”
+
+“Why, for fifty dollars---” laughed Ranson.
+
+He checked himself, and glanced over his shoulder at the retreating
+figure of Cahill. The buffalo robes fell again, and the spurs of
+the post-trader could be heard jangling over the earth-floor of the
+exchange.
+
+“For fifty dollars,” repeated Ranson, in brisk, businesslike tones,
+“I'll rob the up stage to-night myself!”
+
+Previous knowledge of his moods, the sudden look of mischief in his eyes
+and a certain vibration in his voice caused the two lieutenants to jump
+simultaneously to their feet. “Ranson!” they shouted.
+
+Ranson laughed mockingly. “Oh, I'm bored to death,” he cried. “What will
+you bet I don't?”
+
+He had risen with them, but, without waiting for their answer, ran to
+where his horse stood at the open door. He sank on his knees and began
+tugging violently at the stirrup-straps. The two officers, their eyes
+filled with concern, pursued him across the room. With Cahill twenty
+feet away, they dared not raise their voices, but in pantomime they
+beckoned him vigorously to return. Ranson came at once, flushed and
+smiling, holding a hooded army-stirrup in each hand. “Never do to have
+them see these!” he said. He threw the stirrups from him, behind the row
+of hogsheads. “I'll ride in the stirrup-straps!” He still spoke in the
+same low, brisk tone.
+
+Crosby seized him savagely by the arm. “No, you won't!” he hissed. “Look
+here, Ranson. Listen to me; for Heaven's sake don't be an ass! They'll
+shoot you, you'll be killed---”
+
+--“And court-martialed,” panted Curtis.
+
+“You'll go to Leavenworth for the rest of your life!”
+
+Ranson threw off the detaining hand, and ran behind the counter. From a
+lower shelf he snatched a red bandanna kerchief. From another he dragged
+a rubber poncho, and buttoned it high about his throat. He picked up the
+steel shears which lay upon the counter, and snipping two holes in the
+red kerchief, stuck it under the brim of his sombrero. It fell before
+his face like a curtain. From his neck to his knees the poncho concealed
+his figure. All that was visible of him was his eyes, laughing through
+the holes in the red mask.
+
+“Behold the Red Rider!” he groaned. “Hold up your hands!”
+
+He pulled the kerchief from his face and threw the poncho over his arm.
+“Do you see these shears?” he whispered. “I'm going to hold up the stage
+with 'em. No one ever fires at a road agent. They just shout, 'Don't
+shoot, colonel, and I'll come down.' I'm going to bring 'em down with
+these shears.”
+
+Crosby caught Curtis by the arm, laughing eagerly. “Come to the stables,
+quick,” he cried. “We'll get twenty troopers after him before he can go
+a half mile.” He turned on Ranson with a triumphant chuckle. “You'll not
+be dismissed this regiment, if I can help it,” he cried.
+
+Ranson gave an ugly laugh, like the snarl of a puppy over his bone. “If
+you try to follow me, or interfere with me, Lieutenant Crosby,” he said,
+“I'll shoot you and your troopers!”
+
+“With a pair of shears?” jeered Crosby.
+
+“No, with the gun I've got in my pocket. Now you listen to me. I'm not
+going to use that gun on any stage filled with women, driven by a man
+seventy years old, but--and I mean it--if you try to stop me, I'll use
+it on you. I'm going to show you how anyone can bluff a stage full with
+a pair of tin shears and a red mask for a kicker. And I'll shoot the man
+that tries to stop me.”
+
+Ranson sprang to his horse's side, and stuck his toe into the empty
+stirrup-strap; there was a scattering of pebbles, a scurry of hoofs, and
+the horse and rider became a gray blot in the moonlight.
+
+The two lieutenants stood irresolute. Under his breath Crosby was
+swearing fiercely. Curtis stood staring out of the open door.
+
+“Will he do it?” he asked.
+
+“Of course he'll do it.”
+
+Curtis crossed the room and dropped into a chair. “And what--what had we
+better do?” he asked. For some time the other made no answer. His brows
+were knit, and he tramped the room, scowling at the floor. Then with an
+exclamation of alarm he stepped lightly to the door of the exchange and
+threw back the curtain. In the other room, Cahill stood at its furthest
+corner, scooping sugar from a hogshead.
+
+Crosby's scowl relaxed, and, reseating himself at the table, he rolled
+a cigarette. “Now, if he pulls it off,” he whispered, “and gets back to
+quarters, then--it's a case of all's well. But, if he's shot, or caught,
+and it all comes out, then it's up to us to prove he meant it as a
+practical joke.”
+
+“It isn't our duty to report it now, is it?” asked Curtis, nervously.
+
+“Certainly not! If he chooses to make an ass of himself, that's none
+of our business. Unless he's found out, we have heard nothing and seen
+nothing. If he's caught, then we've got to stick by him, and testify
+that he did it on a bet. He'll probably win out all right. There is
+nobody expected on the stage but that Miss Post and her aunt. And the
+driver's an old hand. He knows better than to fight.”
+
+“There may be some cowboys coming up.”
+
+“That's Ranson's lookout. As Cahill says, the Red Rider takes his
+chances.”
+
+“I wish there was something we could do now,” Curtis protested,
+petulantly. “I suppose we've just got to sit still and wait for him?”
+
+“That's all,” answered Crosby, and then leaped to his feet. “What's
+that?” he asked. Out on the parade ground, a bugle-call broke suddenly
+on the soft spring air. It rang like an alarm. The noise of a man
+running swiftly sounded on the path, and before the officers reached the
+doorway Sergeant Clancey entered it, and halted at attention.
+
+“The colonel's orders,” panted the sergeant, “and the lieutenant's are
+to take twenty men from G and H Troops, and ride to Kiowa to escort the
+paymaster.”
+
+“The paymaster!” Crosby cried. “He's not coming till Thursday.”
+
+“He's just telegraphed from Kiowa City, lieutenant. He's ahead of his
+schedule. He wants an escort for the money. He left Kiowa a few minutes
+ago in the up stage.”
+
+The two lieutenants sprang forward, and shouted in chorus: “The stage?
+He is in the stage!”
+
+Sergeant Clancey stared dubiously from one officer to the other. He
+misunderstood their alarm, and with the privilege of long service
+attempted to allay it. “The lieutenant knows nothing can happen to the
+stage till it reaches the buttes,” he said. “There has never been a
+hold-up in the open, and the escort can reach the buttes long before
+the stage gets here.” He coughed consciously. “Colonel's orders are to
+gallop, lieutenant.”
+
+As the two officers rode knee to knee through the night, the pay escort
+pounding the trail behind them, Crosby leaned from his saddle. “He
+has only ten minutes' start of us,” he whispered. “We are certain to
+overtake him. We can't help but do it. We must do it. We MUST! If we
+don't, and he tries to stop Colonel Patten and the pay-roll, he'll die.
+Two women and a deaf driver, that--that's a joke. But an Indian fighter
+like old Patten, and Uncle Sam's money, that means a finish fight-and
+his death and disgrace.” He turned savagely in his saddle. “Close up
+there!” he commanded. “Stop that talking. You keep your breath till I
+want it--and ride hard.”
+
+After the officers had galloped away from the messroom, and Sergeant
+Clancey had hurried after them to the stables, the post-trader entered
+it from the exchange and barred the door, which they in their haste had
+left open. As he did this, the close observer, had one been present,
+might have noted that though his movements were now alert and eager,
+they no longer were betrayed by any sound, and that his spurs had ceased
+to jangle. Yet that he purposed to ride abroad was evident from the fact
+that from a far corner he dragged out a heavy saddle. He flung this upon
+the counter, and swiftly stripped it of its stirrups. These, with more
+than necessary care, he hid away upon the highest shelf of the shop,
+while from the lower shelves he snatched a rubber poncho and a red
+kerchief. For a moment, as he unbarred the door, the post-trader paused
+and cast a quick glance before and behind him, and then the door closed
+and there was silence. A minute later it was broken by the hoofs of a
+horse galloping swiftly along the trail to Kiowa City.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+That winter Miss Post had been going out a great deal more than was
+good for her, and when the spring came she broke down. The family doctor
+recommended Aiken, but an aunt of Miss Post's, Mrs. Truesdall, had
+been at Farmington with Mrs. “Colonel” Bolland, and urged visiting her
+instead. The doctor agreed that the climatic conditions existing at Fort
+Crockett were quite as health-giving as those at Aiken, and of the two
+the invalid decided that the regimental post would be more of a novelty.
+
+So she and her aunt and the maid changed cars twice after leaving St.
+Louis and then staged it to Kiowa City, where, while waiting for “Pop”
+ Henderson's coach to Fort Crockett, they dined with him on bacon, fried
+bread, and alkali water tinged with coffee.
+
+It was at Kiowa City, a city of four hundred houses on blue-print paper
+and six on earth, that Miss Post first felt certain that she was going
+to enjoy her visit. It was there she first saw, at large and on his
+native heath, a blanket Indian. He was a tall, beautiful youth, with
+yellow ochre on his thin, brown arms and blue ochre on his cheekbones,
+who sat on “Pop's” steps, gazing impassively at the stars. Miss Post
+came out with her maid and fell over him. The maid screamed. Miss Post
+said: “I beg your pardon”; and the brave expressed his contempt by
+gutteral mutterings and by moving haughtily away. Miss Post was then
+glad that she had not gone to Aiken. For the twelve-mile drive through
+the moonlit buttes to Fort Crockett there was, besides the women, one
+other passenger. He was a travelling salesman of the Hancock Uniform
+Company, and was visiting Fort Crockett to measure the officers for
+their summer tunics. At dinner he passed Miss Post the condensed
+milk-can, and in other ways made himself agreeable. He informed her aunt
+that he was in the Military Equipment Department of the Army, but, much
+to that young woman's distress, addressed most of his remarks to the
+maid, who, to his taste, was the most attractive of the three.
+
+“I take it,” he said genially to Miss Post, “that you and the young lady
+are sisters.”
+
+“No,” said Miss Post, “we are not related.”
+
+It was eight o'clock, and the moon was full in the heavens when “Pop”
+ Henderson hoisted them into the stage and burdened his driver, Hunk
+Smith, with words of advice which were intended solely for the ears of
+the passengers.
+
+“You want to be careful of that near wheeler, Hunk,” he said, “or he'll
+upset you into a gully. An' in crossing the second ford, bear to the
+right; the water's running high, and it may carry youse all down stream.
+I don't want that these ladies should be drowned in any stage of mine.
+An' if the Red Rider jumps you don't put up no bluff, but sit still. The
+paymaster's due in a night or two, an' I've no doubt at all but that the
+Rider's laying for him. But if you tell him that there's no one inside
+but womenfolk and a tailor, mebbe he won't hurt youse. Now, ladies,” he
+added, putting his head under the leather flap, as though unconscious
+that all he had said had already reached them, “without wishing to make
+you uneasy, I would advise your having your cash and jewelry ready in
+your hands. With road-agents it's mostly wisest to do what they say, an'
+to do it quick. Ef you give 'em all you've got, they sometimes go away
+without spilling blood, though, such being their habits, naturally
+disappointed.” He turned his face toward the shrinking figure of the
+military tailor. “You, being an army man,” he said, “will of course want
+to protect the ladies, but you mustn't do it. You must keep cool. Ef you
+pull your gun, like as not you'll all get killed. But I'm hoping for the
+best. Good-night all, an' a pleasant journey.”
+
+The stage moved off with many creaks and many cracks of the whip, which
+in part smothered Hunk Smith's laughter. But after the first mile, he,
+being a man with feelings and a family, pulled the mules to a halt.
+
+The voice of the drummer could instantly be heard calling loudly from
+the darkness of the stage: “Don't open those flaps. If they see us,
+they'll fire!”
+
+“I wanted you folks to know,” said Hunk Smith, leaning from the
+box-seat, “that that talk of Pop's was all foolishness. You're as safe
+on this trail as in a Pullman palace-car. That was just his way. Pop
+will have his joke. You just go to sleep now, if you can, and trust to
+me. I'll get you there by eleven o'clock or break a trace. Breakin' a
+trace is all the danger there is, anyway,” he added, cheerfully, “so
+don't fret.”
+
+Miss Post could not resist saying to Mrs. Truesdall: “I told you he was
+joking.”
+
+The stage had proceeded for two hours. Sometimes it dropped with
+locked wheels down sheer walls of clay, again it was dragged, careening
+drunkenly, out of fathomless pits. It pitched and tossed, slid and
+galloped, danced grotesquely from one wheel to another, from one stone
+to another, recoiled out of ruts, butted against rocks, and swept down
+and out of swollen streams that gurgled between the spokes.
+
+“If ever I leave Fort Crockett,” gasped Mrs. Truesdall between jolts, “I
+shall either wait until they build a railroad or walk.”
+
+They had all but left the hills, and were approaching the level prairie.
+That they might see the better the flaps had been rolled up, and
+the soft dry air came freely through the open sides. The mules were
+straining over the last hill. On either side only a few of the buttes
+were still visible. They stood out in the moonlight as cleanly cut
+as the bows of great battleships. The trail at last was level. Mrs.
+Truesdall's eyes closed. Her head fell forward. But Miss Post, weary
+as she was in body, could not sleep. To her the night-ride was full of
+strange and wonderful mysteries. Gratefully she drank in the dry scent
+of the prairie-grass, and, holding by the frame of the window, leaned
+far out over the wheel. As she did so, a man sprang into the trail from
+behind a wall of rock, and shouted hoarsely. He was covered to his knees
+with a black mantle. His face was hidden by a blood-red mask.
+
+“Throw up your hands!” he commanded. There was a sharp creaking as the
+brakes locked, and from the driver's seat an amazed oath. The stage
+stopped with a violent jerk, and Mrs. Truesdall pitched gently forward
+toward her niece.
+
+“I really believe I was asleep, Helen,” she murmured. “What are we
+waiting for?”
+
+“I think we are held up,” said Miss Post.
+
+The stage had halted beyond the wall of rock, and Miss Post looked
+behind it, but no other men were visible, only a horse with his bridle
+drawn around a stone. The man in the mask advanced upon the stage,
+holding a weapon at arm's-length. In the moonlight it flashed and
+glittered evilly. The man was but a few feet from Miss Post, and the
+light fell full upon her. Of him she could see only two black eyes that
+flashed as evilly as his weapon. For a period of suspense, which seemed
+cruelly prolonged, the man stood motionless, then he lowered his weapon.
+When he opened his lips the mask stuck to them, and his words came from
+behind it, broken and smothered. “Sorry to trouble you, miss,” the mask
+said, “but I want that man beside you to get out.”
+
+Miss Post turned to the travelling salesman. “He wants you to get out,”
+ she said.
+
+“Wants me!” exclaimed the drummer. “I'm not armed, you know.” In a
+louder voice he protested, faintly: “I say, I'm not armed.”
+
+“Come out!” demanded the mask.
+
+The drummer precipitated himself violently over the knees of the ladies
+into the road below, and held his hands high above him. “I'm not armed,”
+ he said; “indeed I'm not.”
+
+“Stand over there, with your back to that rock,” the mask ordered. For
+a moment the road agent regarded him darkly, pointing his weapon
+meditatively at different parts of the salesman's person. He suggested
+a butcher designating certain choice cuts. The drummer's muscles jerked
+under the torture as though his anatomy were being prodded with an awl.
+
+“I want your watch,” said the mask. The drummer reached eagerly for his
+waistcoat.
+
+“Hold up your hands!” roared the road agent. “By the eternal, if you
+play any rough-house tricks on me I'll--” He flourished his weapon until
+it flashed luminously.
+
+An exclamation from Hunk Smith, opportunely uttered, saved the drummer
+from what was apparently instant annihilation. “Say, Rider,” cried the
+driver, “I can't hold my arms up no longer. I'm going to put 'em down.
+But you leave me alone, an' I'll leave you alone. Is that a bargain?”
+ The shrouded figure whirled his weapon upon the speaker. “Have I ever
+stopped you before, Hunk?” he demanded.
+
+Hunk, at this recognition of himself as a public character, softened
+instantly. “I dunno whether 'twas you or one of your gang, but--”
+
+“Well, you've still got your health, haven't you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then keep quiet,” snarled the mask.
+
+In retort Hunk Smith muttered audible threatenings, but sank obediently
+into an inert heap. Only his eyes, under cover of his sombrero, roamed
+restlessly. They noted the McClellan saddle on the Red Rider's horse,
+the white patch on its near fore-foot, the empty stirrup-straps, and at
+a great distance, so great that the eyes only of a plainsman could have
+detected it, a cloud of dust, or smoke, or mist, that rode above the
+trail and seemed to be moving swiftly down upon them.
+
+At the sight, Hunk shifted the tobacco in his cheek and nervously
+crossed his knees, while a grin of ineffable cunning passed across his
+face.
+
+With his sombrero in his hand, the Red Rider stepped to the wheel of
+the stage. As he did so, Miss Post observed that above the line of his
+kerchief his hair was evenly and carefully parted in the middle.
+
+“I'm afraid, ladies,” said the road agent, “that I have delayed you
+unnecessarily. It seems that I have called up the wrong number.” He
+emitted a reassuring chuckle, and, fanning himself with his sombrero,
+continued speaking in a tone of polite irony: “The Wells, Fargo
+messenger is the party I am laying for. He's coming over this trail
+with a package of diamonds. That's what I'm after. At first I thought
+'Fighting Bob' over there by the rock might have it on him; but he
+doesn't act like any Wells, Fargo Express agent I have ever tackled
+before, and I guess the laugh's on me. I seem to have been weeping
+over the wrong grave.” He replaced his sombrero on his head at a rakish
+angle, and waved his hand. “Ladies, you are at liberty to proceed.”
+
+But instantly he stepped forward again, and brought his face so close to
+the window that they could see the whites of his eyes. “Before we part,”
+ he murmured, persuasively, “you wouldn't mind leaving me something as a
+souvenir, would you?” He turned the skull-like openings of the mask full
+upon Miss Post.
+
+Mrs. Truesdall exclaimed, hysterically: “Why, certainly not!” she cried.
+“Here's everything I have, except what's sewn inside my waist, where I
+can't possibly get at it. I assure you I cannot. The proprietor of that
+hotel told us we'd probably--meet you, and so I have everything ready.”
+ She thrust her two hands through the window. They held a roll of bills,
+a watch, and her rings
+
+Miss Post laughed in an ecstasy of merriment “Oh, no, aunt,” she
+protested, “don't. No, not at all. The gentleman only wants a keepsake.
+Something to remember us by. Isn't that it?” she asked. She regarded the
+blood-red mask steadily with a brilliant smile.
+
+The road agent did not at once answer. At her words he had started
+back with such sharp suspicion that one might have thought he meditated
+instant flight. Through the holes in his mask he now glared searchingly
+at Miss Post, but still in silence.
+
+“I think this will satisfy him,” said Miss Post.
+
+Out of the collection in her aunt's hands she picked a silver coin
+and held it forward. “Something to keep as a pocket-piece,” she said,
+mockingly, “to remind you of your kindness to three lone females in
+distress.”
+
+Still silent, the road agent reached for the money, and then growled
+at her in a tone which had suddenly become gruff and overbearing. It
+suggested to Miss Post the voice of the head of the family playing Santa
+Claus for the children. “And now you, miss,” he demanded.
+
+Miss Post took another coin from the heap, studied its inscription, and
+passed it through the window. “This one is from me,” she said. “Mine is
+dated 1901. The moonlight,” she added, leaning far forward and smiling
+out at him, “makes it quite easy to see the date; as easy,” she went
+on, picking her words, “as it is to see your peculiar revolver and the
+coat-of-arms on your ring.” She drew her head back. “Good-night,” she
+cooed, sweetly.
+
+The Red Rider jumped from the door. An exclamation which might have been
+a laugh or an oath was smothered by his mask. He turned swiftly upon the
+salesman. “Get back into the coach,” he commanded. “And you, Hunk,” he
+called, “if you send a posse after me, next night I ketch you out here
+alone you'll lose the top of your head.”
+
+The salesman scrambled into the stage through the door opposite the one
+at which the Red Rider was standing, and the road agent again raised
+his sombrero with a sweeping gesture worthy of D'Artagnan. “Good-night,
+ladies,” he said.
+
+“Good-night, sir,” Mrs. Truesdall answered, grimly, but exuding a
+relieved sigh. Then, her indignation giving her courage, she leaned from
+the window and hurled a Parthian arrow. “I must say,” she protested, “I
+think you might be in a better business.”
+
+The road agent waved his hand to the young lady. “Good-by,” he said.
+
+“Au revoir,” said Miss Post, pleasantly.
+
+“Good-by, miss,” stammered the road agent,
+
+“I said 'Au revoir,'” repeated Miss Post.
+
+The road agent, apparently routed by these simple words, fled muttering
+toward his horse.
+
+Hunk Smith was having trouble with his brake. He kicked at it and,
+stooping, pulled at it, but the wheels did not move.
+
+Mrs. Truesdall fell into a fresh panic. “What is it now?” she called,
+miserably.
+
+Before he answered, Hunk Smith threw a quick glance toward the column of
+moving dust. He was apparently reassured.
+
+“The brake,” he grunted. “The darned thing's stuck!”
+
+The road agent was tugging at the stone beneath which he had slipped
+his bridle. “Can I help?” he asked, politely. But before he reached
+the stage, he suddenly stopped with an imperative sweep of his arm
+for silence. He stood motionless, his body bent to the ground, leaning
+forward and staring down the trail. Then he sprang upright. “You old
+fox!” he roared, “you're gaining time, are you?”
+
+With a laugh he tore free his bridle and threw himself across his horse.
+His legs locked under it, his hands clasped its mane, and with a cowboy
+yell he dashed past the stage in the direction of Kiowa City, his voice
+floating back in shouts of jeering laughter. From behind him he heard
+Hunk Smith's voice answering his own in a cry for “Help!” and from a
+rapidly decreasing distance the throb of many hoofs. For an instant he
+drew upon his rein, and then, with a defiant chuckle, drove his spurs
+deep into his horse's side.
+
+Mrs. Truesdall also heard the pounding of many hoofs, as well as Hunk
+Smith's howls for help, and feared a fresh attack. “Oh, what is it?” she
+begged.
+
+“Soldiers from the fort,” Hunk called, excitedly, and again raised his
+voice in a long, dismal howl.
+
+“Sounds cheery, doesn't it?” said the salesman; “referring to the
+soldiers,” he explained. It was his first coherent remark since the Red
+Rider had appeared and disappeared.
+
+“Oh, I hope they won't--” began Miss Post, anxiously.
+
+The hoof-beats changed to thunder, and with the pounding on the dry
+trail came the jangle of stirrups and sling-belts. Then a voice, and
+the coach was surrounded by dust-covered troopers and horses breathing
+heavily. Lieutenant Crosby pulled up beside the window of the stage.
+“Are you there, Colonel Patten?” he panted. He peered forward into the
+stage, but no one answered him. “Is the paymaster in here?” he demanded.
+
+The voice of Lieutenant Curtis shouted in turn at Hunk Smith. “Is the
+paymaster in there, driver?”
+
+“Paymaster? No!” Hunk roared. “A drummer and three ladies. We've been
+held up. The Red Rider--” He rose and waved his whip over the top of the
+coach. “He went that way. You can ketch him easy.”
+
+Sergeant Clancey and half a dozen troopers jerked at their bridles. But
+Crosby, at the window, shouted “Halt!”
+
+“What's your name?” he demanded of the salesman.
+
+“Myers,” stammered the drummer. “I'm from the Hancock Uniform--”
+
+Curtis had spurred his horse beside that of his brother officer. “Is
+Colonel Patten at Kiowa?” he interrupted.
+
+“I can't give you any information as to that,” replied Mr. Myers,
+importantly; “but these ladies and I have just been held up by the Red
+Rider. If you'll hurry you'll--”
+
+The two officers pulled back their horses from the stage and, leaning
+from their saddles, consulted in eager whispers. Their men fidgeted with
+their reins, and stared with amazed eyes at their officers. Lieutenant
+Crosby was openly smiling, “He's got away with it,” he whispered.
+“Patten missed the stage, thank God, and he's met nothing worse than
+these women.”
+
+“We MUST make a bluff at following him,” whispered Curtis.
+
+“Certainly not! Our orders are to report to Colonel Patten, and act as
+his escort.”
+
+“But he's not at Kiowa; that fellow says so.”
+
+“He telegraphed the Colonel from Kiowa,” returned Crosby. “How could he
+do that if he wasn't there?” He turned upon Hunk Smith. “When did you
+leave Henderson's?” he demanded.
+
+“Seven o'clock,” answered Hunk Smith, sulkily. “Say, if you young
+fellows want to catch--”
+
+“And Patten telegraphed at eight,” cried Crosby. “That's it. He reached
+Kiowa after the stage had gone. Sergeant Clancey!” he called.
+
+The Sergeant pushed out from the mass of wondering troopers.
+
+“When did the paymaster say he was leaving Kiowa?”
+
+“Leaving at once, the telegram said,” answered Clancey.
+
+“'Meet me with escort before I reach the buttes.' That's the message I
+was told to give the lieutenant.”
+
+Hunk Smith leaned from the box-seat. “Mebbe Pop's driving him over
+himself in the buckboard,” he volunteered. “Pop often takes 'em over
+that way if they miss the stage.”
+
+“That's how it is, of course,” cried Crosby. “He's on his way now in the
+buckboard.”
+
+Hunk Smith surveyed the troopers dismally and shook his head. “If he
+runs up against the Red Rider, it's 'good-by' your pay, boys,” he cried.
+
+“Fall in there!” shouted Crosby. “Corporal Tynan, fall out with two men
+and escort these ladies to the fort.” He touched his hat to Miss Post,
+and, with Curtis at his side, sprang into the trail. “Gallop! March!” he
+commanded.
+
+“Do you think he'll tackle the buckboard, too?” whispered Curtis.
+
+Crosby laughed joyously and drew a long breath of relief.
+
+“No, he's all right now,” he answered. “Don't you see, he doesn't know
+about Patten or the buckboard. He's probably well on his way to the post
+now. I delayed the game at the stage there on purpose to give him a good
+start. He's safe by now.”
+
+“It was a close call,” laughed the other. “He's got to give us a dinner
+for helping him out of this.”
+
+“We'd have caught him red-handed,” said Crosby, “if we'd been five
+minutes sooner. Lord!” he gasped. “It makes me cold to think of it. The
+men would have shot him off his horse. But what a story for those women!
+I hope I'll be there when they tell it. If Ranson can keep his face
+straight, he's a wonder.” For some moments they raced silently neck
+by neck, and then Curtis again leaned from his saddle. “I hope he HAS
+turned back to the post,” he said. “Look at the men how they're keeping
+watch for him. They're scouts, all of them.”
+
+“What if they are?” returned Crosby, easily. “Ranson's in uniform--out
+for a moonlight canter. You can bet a million dollars he didn't wear his
+red mask long after he heard us coming.”
+
+“I suppose he'll think we've followed to spoil his fun. You know you
+said we would.”
+
+“Yes, he was going to shoot us,” laughed Crosby. “I wonder why he packs
+a gun. It's a silly thing to do.”
+
+The officers fell apart again, and there was silence over the prairie,
+save for the creaking of leather and the beat of the hoofs. And then,
+faint and far away, there came the quick crack of a revolver, another,
+and then a fusillade. “My God!” gasped Crosby. He threw himself forwards
+digging his spurs into his horse, and rode as though he were trying to
+escape from his own men.
+
+No one issued an order, no one looked a question; each, officer and
+enlisted man, bowed his head and raced to be the first.
+
+The trail was barricaded by two struggling horses and an overturned
+buckboard. The rigid figure of a man lay flat upon his back staring at
+the moon, another white-haired figure staggered forward from a rock.
+“Who goes there?” it demanded.
+
+“United States troops. Is that you, Colonel Patten?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Colonel Patten's right arm was swinging limply at his side. With
+his left hand he clasped his right shoulder. The blood, black in the
+moonlight, was oozing between his fingers.
+
+“We were held up,” he said. “He shot the driver and the horses. I fired
+at him, but he broke my arm. He shot the gun out of my hand. When he
+reached for the satchel I tried to beat him off with my left arm, but he
+threw me into the road. He went that way--toward Kiowa.”
+
+Sergeant Clancey, who was kneeling by the figure in the trail, raised
+his hand in salute. “Pop Henderson, lieutenant,” he said. “He's shot
+through the heart. He's dead.”
+
+“He took the money, ten thousand dollars,” cried Colonel Patten. “He
+wore a red mask and a rubber poncho. And I saw that he had no stirrups
+in his stirrup-straps.”
+
+Crosby dodged, as though someone had thrown a knife, and then raised his
+hand stiffly and heavily.
+
+“Lieutenant Curtis, you will remain here with Colonel Patten,” he
+ordered. His voice was without emotion. It fell flat and dead. “Deploy
+as skirmishers,” he commanded. “G Troop to the fight of the trail, H
+Troop to the left. Stop anyone you see--anyone. If he tries to escape,
+cry 'Halt!' twice and then fire--to kill. Forward! Gallop! March! Toward
+the post.”
+
+“No!” shouted Colonel Patten. “He went toward Kiowa.”
+
+Crosby replied in the same dead voice: “He doubled after he left you,
+colonel. He has gone to the post.”
+
+Colonel Patten struggled from the supporting arms that held him and
+leaned eagerly forward. “You know him, then?” he demanded.
+
+“Yes,” cried Crosby, “God help him! Spread out there, you, in open
+order--and ride like hell!”
+
+Just before the officers' club closed for the night Lieutenant Ranson
+came in and, seating himself at the piano, picked out “The Queen of the
+Philippine Islands” with one finger. Major Stickney and others who were
+playing bridge were considerably annoyed. Ranson then demanded that
+everyone present should drink his health in champagne for the reason
+that it was his birthday and that he was glad he was alive, and wished
+everyone else to feel the same way about it. “Or, for any other reason
+why,” he added generously. This frontal attack upon the whist-players
+upset the game entirely, and Ranson, enthroned upon the piano-stool,
+addressed the room. He held up a buckskin tobacco-bag decorated with
+beads.
+
+“I got this down at the Indian village to-night,” he said. “That old
+squaw, Red Wing, makes 'em for two dollars. Crosby paid five dollars for
+his in New Mexico, and it isn't half as good. What do you think? I got
+lost coming back, and went all the way round by the buttes before I
+found the trail, and I've only been here six months. They certainly
+ought to make me chief of scouts.”
+
+There was the polite laugh which is granted to any remark made by the
+one who is paying for the champagne.
+
+“Oh, that's where you were, was it?” said the post-adjutant, genially.
+“The colonel sent Clancey after you and Crosby. Clancey reported that
+he couldn't find you. So we sent Curtis. They went to act as escort
+for Colonel Patten and the pay. He's coming up to-night in the stage.”
+ Ranson was gazing down into his glass. Before he raised his head he
+picked several pieces of ice out of it and then drained it.
+
+“The paymaster, hey?” he said. “He's in the stage to-night, is he?”
+
+“Yes,” said the adjutant; and then as the bugle and stamp of hoofs
+sounded from the parade outside, “and that's him now, I guess,” he
+added.
+
+Ranson refilled his glass with infinite care, and then, in spite of a
+smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth, emptied it slowly.
+
+There was the jingle of spurs and a measured tramp on the veranda of
+the club-house, and for the first time in its history four enlisted men,
+carrying their Krags, invaded its portals. They were led by Lieutenant
+Crosby; his face was white under the tan, and full of suffering. The
+officers in the room received the intrusion in amazed silence. Crosby
+strode among them, looking neither to the left nor right, and touched
+Lieutenant Ranson upon the shoulder.
+
+“The colonel's orders, Lieutenant Ranson,” he said. “You are under
+arrest.”
+
+Ranson leaned back against the music-rack and placed his glass upon the
+keyboard. One leg was crossed over the other, and he did not remove it.
+
+“Then you can't take a joke,” he said in a low tone. “You had to run
+and tell.” He laughed and raised his voice so that all in the club might
+hear, “What am I arrested for, Crosby?” he asked.
+
+The lines in Crosby's face deepened, and only those who sat near could
+hear him. “You are under arrest for attempting to kill a superior
+officer, for the robbery of the government pay-train--and for murder.”
+
+Ranson jumped to his feet. “My God, Crosby!” he cried.
+
+“Silence! Don't talk!” ordered Crosby. “Come along with me.”
+
+The four troopers fell in in rear of Lieutenant Crosby and their
+prisoner. He drew a quick, frightened breath, and then, throwing back
+his shoulders, fell into step, and the six men tramped from the club and
+out into the night.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+That night at the post there was little sleep for any one. The feet
+of hurrying orderlies beat upon the parade-ground, the windows of the
+Officers' Club blazed defiantly, and from the darkened quarters of the
+enlisted men came the sound of voices snarling in violent vituperation.
+At midnight, half of Ranson's troop, having attacked the rest of
+the regiment with cavalry-boots, were marched under arrest to the
+guard-house. As they passed Ranson's hut, where he still paced the
+veranda, a burning cigarette attesting his wakefulness, they cheered him
+riotously. At two o'clock it was announced from the hospital that both
+patients were out of danger; for it had developed that, in his hurried
+diagnosis, Sergeant Clancey had located Henderson's heart six inches
+from where it should have been.
+
+When one of the men who guarded Ranson reported this good news the
+prisoner said, “Still, I hope they'll hang whoever did it. They
+shouldn't hang a man for being a good shot and let him off because he's
+a bad one.”
+
+At the time of the hold-up Mary Cahill had been a half-mile distant from
+the post at the camp of the Kiowas, where she had gone in answer to the
+cry of Lightfoot's squaw. When she returned she found Indian Pete in
+charge of the exchange. Her father, he told her, had ridden to the
+Indian village in search of her. As he spoke the post-trader appeared.
+“I'm sorry I missed you,” his daughter called to him.
+
+At the sound Cahill pulled his horse sharply toward the corral. “I had
+a horse-deal on--with the chief,” he answered over his shoulder. “When I
+got to Lightfoot's tent you had gone.”
+
+After he had dismounted, and was coming toward her, she noted that his
+right hand was bound in a handkerchief, and exclaimed with apprehension.
+
+“It is nothing,” Cahill protested. “I was foolin' with one of the new
+regulation revolvers, with my hand over the muzzle. Ball went through
+the palm.”
+
+Miss Cahill gave a tremulous cry and caught the injured hand to her
+lips.
+
+Her father snatched it from her roughly.
+
+“Let go!” he growled. “It serves me right.”
+
+A few minutes later Mary Cahill, bearing liniment for her father's hand,
+knocked at his bedroom and found it empty. When she peered from the top
+of the stairs into the shop-window below she saw him busily engaged with
+his one hand buckling the stirrup-straps of his saddle.
+
+When she called, he sprang upright with an oath. He had faced her so
+suddenly that it sounded as though he had sworn, not in surprise, but at
+her.
+
+“You startled me,” he murmured. His eyes glanced suspiciously from her
+to the saddle. “These stirrup-straps--they're too short,” he announced.
+“Pete or somebody's been using my saddle.”
+
+“I came to bring you this 'first-aid' bandage for your hand,” said his
+daughter.
+
+Cahill gave a shrug of impatience.
+
+“My hand's all right,” he said; “you go to bed. I've got to begin taking
+account of stock.”
+
+“To-night?”
+
+“There's no time by day. Go to bed.”
+
+For nearly an hour Miss Cahill lay awake listening to her father moving
+about in the shop below. Never before had he spoken roughly to her, and
+she, knowing how much the thought that he had done so would distress
+him, was herself distressed.
+
+In his lonely vigil on the veranda, Ranson looked from the post down
+the hill to where the light still shone from Mary Cahill's window. He
+wondered if she had heard the news, and if it were any thought of him
+that kept sleep from her.
+
+“You ass! you idiot!” he muttered. “You've worried and troubled her. She
+believes one of her precious army is a thief and a murderer.” He cursed
+himself picturesquely, but the thought that she might possibly be
+concerned on his account, did not, he found, distress him as greatly
+as it should. On the contrary, as he watched the light his heart glowed
+warmly. And long after the light went out he still looked toward the
+home of the post-trader, his brain filled with thoughts of his return
+to his former life outside the army, the old life to which he vowed he
+would not return alone.
+
+The next morning Miss Cahill learned the news when the junior officer
+came to mess and explained why Ranson was not with them. Her only
+comment was to at once start for his quarters with his breakfast in a
+basket. She could have sent it by Pete, but, she argued, when one of her
+officers was in trouble that was not the time to turn him over to the
+mercies of a servant. No, she assured herself, it was not because
+the officer happened to be Ranson. She would have done as much, or as
+little, for any one of them. When Curtis and Haines were ill of the
+grippe, had she not carried them many good things of her own making?
+
+But it was not an easy sacrifice. As she crossed the parade-ground she
+recognized that over-night Ranson's hut, where he was a prisoner in his
+own quarters, had become to the post the storm-centre of interest,
+and to approach it was to invite the attention of the garrison. At
+head-quarters a group of officers turned and looked her way, there was a
+flutter among the frocks on Mrs. Bolland's porch, and the enlisted men,
+smoking their pipes on the rail of the barracks, whispered together.
+When she reached Ranson's hut over four hundred pairs of eyes were upon
+her, and her cheeks were flushing. Ranson came leaping to the gate,
+and lifted the basket from her arm as though he were removing an
+opera-cloak. He set it upon the gate-post, and nervously clasped the
+palings of the gate with both hands. He had not been to bed, but that
+fact alone could not explain the strangeness of his manner. Never before
+had she seen him disconcerted or abashed.
+
+“You shouldn't have done it,” he stammered. “Indeed, indeed, you are
+much too good. But you shouldn't have come.”
+
+His voice shook slightly.
+
+“Why not?” asked Mary Cahill. “I couldn't let you go hungry.”
+
+“You know it isn't that,” he said; “it's your coming here at all. Why,
+only three of the fellows have been near me this morning. And they
+only came from a sense of duty. I know they did--I could feel it. You
+shouldn't have come here. I'm not a proper person; I'm an outlaw. You
+might think this was a pest-house, you might think I was a leper.
+Why, those Stickney girls have been watching me all morning through a
+field-glass.” He clasped and unclasped his fingers around the palings.
+“They believe I did it,” he protested, with the bewildered accents of a
+child. “They all believe it.”
+
+Miss Cahill laughed. The laugh was quieting and comforting. It brought
+him nearer to earth, and her next remark brought him still further.
+
+“Have you had any breakfast?” she asked.
+
+“Breakfast!” stammered Ranson. “No. The guard brought some, but I
+couldn't eat it. This thing has taken the life out of me--to think sane,
+sensible people--my own people--could believe that I'd steal, that I'd
+kill a man for money.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” said Miss Cahill soothingly; “but you've not had any
+sleep, and you need your coffee.” She lifted the lid of the basket.
+“It's getting cold,” she said. “Don't you worry about what people think.
+You must remember you're a prisoner now under arrest. You can't expect
+the officers to run over here as freely as they used to. What do you
+want?” she laughed. “Do you think the colonel should parade the band and
+give you a serenade?” For a moment Ranson stared at her dully, and then
+his sense of proportion returned to him. He threw back his head and
+laughed with her joyfully.
+
+From verandas, barracks, and headquarters, the four hundred pairs of
+eyes noted this evidence of heartlessness with varied emotions. But,
+unmindful of them, Ranson now leaned forward, the eager, searching look
+coming back into his black eyes. They were so close to Mary Cahill's
+that she drew away. He dropped his voice to a whisper and spoke swiftly.
+
+“Miss Cahill, whatever happens to me I won't forget this. I won't forget
+your coming here and throwing heart into me. You were the only one who
+did. I haven't asked you if you believe that I--”
+
+She raised her eyes reproachfully and smiled. “You know you don't have
+to do that,” she said.
+
+The prisoner seized the palings as though he meant to pull apart the
+barrier between them. He drew a long breath like one inhaling a draught
+of clean morning air.
+
+“No,” he said, his voice ringing, “I don't have to do that.”
+
+He cast a swift glance to the left and right. The sentry's bayonet was
+just disappearing behind the corner of the hut. To the four hundred
+other eyes around the parade-ground Lieutenant Ranson's attitude
+suggested that he was explaining to Cahill's daughter what he wanted
+for his luncheon. His eyes held her as firmly as though the palings he
+clasped were her two hands.
+
+“Mary,” he said, and the speaking of her name seemed to stop the
+beating of his heart. “Mary,” he whispered, as softly as though he were
+beginning a prayer, “you're the bravest, the sweetest, the dearest girl
+in all the world. And I've known it for months, and now you must know.
+And there'll never be any other girl in my life but you.”
+
+Mary Cahill drew away from him in doubt and wonder.
+
+“I didn't mean to tell you just yet,” he whispered, “but now that I've
+seen you I can't help it. I knew it last night when I stood back there
+and watched your windows, and couldn't think of this trouble, nor of
+anything else, but just you. And you've got to promise me, if I get out
+of this all right--you must--must promise me--”
+
+Mary Cahill's eyes, as she raised them to his, were moist and glowing.
+They promised him with a great love and tenderness. But at the sight
+Ranson protested wildly.
+
+“No,” he whispered, “you mustn't promise--anything. I shouldn't have
+asked it. After I'm out of this, after the court-martial, then you've
+got to promise that you'll never, never leave me.”
+
+Miss Cahill knit her hands together and turned away her head. The
+happiness in her heart rose to her throat like a great melody and choked
+her. Before her, exposed in the thin spring sunshine, was the square
+of ugly brown cottages, the bare parade-ground, in its centre Trumpeter
+Tyler fingering his bugle, and beyond on every side an ocean of
+blackened prairie. But she saw nothing of this. She saw instead a
+beautiful world opening its arms to her, a world smiling with sunshine,
+glowing with color, singing with love and content.
+
+She turned to him with all that was in her heart showing in her face.
+
+“Don't!” he begged, tremblingly, “don't answer. I couldn't bear it--if
+you said 'no' to me.” He jerked his head toward the men who guarded him.
+“Wait until I'm tried, and not in disgrace.” He shook the gate between
+them savagely as though it actually held him a prisoner.
+
+Mary Cahill raised her head proudly.
+
+“You have no right. You've hurt me,” she whispered. “You hurt me.”
+
+“Hurt you?” he cried.
+
+She pressed her hands together. It was impossible to tell him, it was
+impossible to speak of what she felt; of the pride, of the trust and
+love, to disclose this new and wonderful thing while the gate was
+between them, while the sentries paced on either side, while the curious
+eyes of the garrison were fastened upon her.
+
+“Oh, can't you see?” she whispered. “As though I cared for a
+court-martial! I KNOW you. You are just the same. You are just what you
+have always been to me--what you always will be to me.”
+
+She thrust her hand toward him and he seized it in both of his, and then
+released it instantly, and, as though afraid of his own self-control,
+backed hurriedly from her, and she turned and walked rapidly away.
+
+Captain Carr, who had been Ranson's captain in the Philippines, and
+who was much his friend, had been appointed to act as his counsel. When
+later that morning he visited his client to lay out a line of defence he
+found Ranson inclined to treat the danger which threatened him with the
+most arrogant flippancy. He had never seen him in a more objectionable
+mood.
+
+“You can call the charge 'tommy-rot' if you like,” Carr protested,
+sharply. “But, let me tell you that's not the view any one else takes
+of it, and if you expect the officers of the court-martial and the civil
+authorities to take that view of it you've got to get down to work and
+help me prove that it IS 'tommy rot.' That Miss Post, as soon as she got
+here, when she thought it was only a practical joke, told them that the
+road agent threatened her with a pair of shears. Now, Crosby and Curtis
+will testify that you took a pair of shears from Cahill's, and from what
+Miss Post saw of your ring she can probably identify that, too; so--”
+
+“Oh, we concede the shears,” declared Ranson, waving his hand grandly.
+“We admit the first hold-up.”
+
+“The devil we do!” returned Carr. “Now, as your counsel, I advise
+nothing of the sort.”
+
+“You advise me to lie?”
+
+“Sir!” exclaimed Carr. “A plea of not guilty is only a legal form. When
+you consider that the first hold-up in itself is enough to lose you your
+commission--”
+
+“Well, it's MY commission,” said Ranson. “It was only a silly joke,
+anyway. And the War Department must have some sense of humor or it
+wouldn't have given me a commission in the first place. Of course, we'll
+admit the first hold-up, but we won't stand for the second one. I had no
+more to do with that than with the Whitechapel murders.”
+
+“How are we to prove that?” demanded Carr. “Where's your alibi? Where
+were you after the first hold-up?”
+
+“I was making for home as fast as I could cut,” said Ranson. He suddenly
+stopped in his walk up and down the room and confronted his counsel
+sternly. “Captain,” he demanded, “I wish you to instruct me on a point
+of law.”
+
+Carr's brow relaxed. He was relieved to find that Ranson had awakened to
+the seriousness of the charges against him.
+
+“That's what I'm here for,” he said, encouragingly.
+
+“Well, captain,” said Ranson, “if an officer is under arrest as I am and
+confined to his quarters, is he or is he not allowed to send to the club
+for a bottle of champagne?”
+
+“Really, Ranson!” cried the captain, angrily, “you are impossible.”
+
+“I only want to celebrate,” said Ranson, meekly. “I'm a very happy
+man; I'm the happiest man on earth. I want to ride across the prairie
+shooting off both guns and yelling like a cowboy. Instead of which I am
+locked up indoors and have to talk to you about a highway robbery
+which does not amuse me, which does not concern me--and of which I
+know nothing and care less. Now, YOU are detailed to prove me innocent.
+That's your duty, and you ought to do your duty, But don't drag me in.
+I've got much more important things to think about.”
+
+Bewilderment, rage, and despair were written upon the face of the
+captain.
+
+“Ranson!” he roared. “Is this a pose, or are you mad? Can't you
+understand that you came very near to being hanged for murder and that
+you are in great danger of going to jail for theft? Let me put before
+you the extremely unpleasant position in which you have been ass enough
+to place yourself. You don't quite seem to grasp it. You tell two
+brother-officers that you are going to rob the stage. To do so you
+disguise yourself in a poncho and a red handkerchief, and you remove the
+army-stirrups from your stirrup-leathers. You then do rob this coach, or
+at least hold it up, and you are recognized. A few minutes later, in the
+same trail and in the same direction you have taken, there is a second
+hold-up, this time of the paymaster. The man who robs the paymaster
+wears a poncho and a red kerchief, and he has no stirrups in his
+stirrup-leathers. The two hold-ups take place within a half-mile of
+each other, within five minutes of each other. Now, is it reasonable to
+believe that last night two men were hiding in the buttes intent
+upon robbery, each in an army poncho, each wearing a red bandanna
+handkerchief, and each riding without stirrups? Between believing in
+such a strange coincidence and that you did it, I'll be hanged if I
+don't believe you did it.”
+
+“I don't blame you,” said Ranson. “What can I do to set your mind at
+rest?”
+
+“Well, tell me exactly what persons knew that you meant to hold up the
+stage.”
+
+“Curtis and Crosby; no one else.”
+
+“Not even Cahill?”
+
+“No, Cahill came in just before I said I would stop the stage, but I
+remember particularly that before I spoke I waited for him to get back
+to the exchange.”
+
+“And Crosby tells me,” continued Carr, “that the instant you had gone he
+looked into the exchange and saw Cahill at the farthest corner from the
+door. He could have heard nothing.”
+
+“If you ask me, I think you've begun at the wrong end,” said Ranson. “If
+I were looking for the Red Rider I'd search for him in Kiowa City.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because, at this end no one but a few officers knew that the paymaster
+was coming, while in Kiowa everybody in the town knew it, for they saw
+him start. It would be very easy for one of those cowboys to ride ahead
+and lie in wait for him in the buttes. There are several tough specimens
+in Kiowa. Any one of them would rob a man for twenty dollars--let alone
+ten thousand. There's 'Abe' Fisher and Foster King, and the Chase boys,
+and I believe old 'Pop' Henderson himself isn't above holding up one of
+his own stages.”
+
+“He's above shooting himself in the lungs,” said Carr. “Nonsense. No,
+I am convinced that someone followed you from this post, and perhaps
+Cahill can tell us who that was. I sent for him this morning, and he's
+waiting at my quarters now. Suppose I ask him to step over here, so that
+we can discuss it together.”
+
+Before he answered, Ranson hesitated, with his eyes on the ground. He
+had no way of knowing whether Mary Cahill had told her father anything
+of what he had said to her that morning. But if she had done so, he did
+not want to meet Cahill in the presence of a third party for the first
+time since he had learned the news.
+
+“I'll tell you what I wish you would do,” he said. “I wish you'd let me
+see Cahill first, by myself. What I want to see him about has nothing to
+do with the hold-up,” he added. “It concerns only us two, but I'd like
+to have it out of the way before we consult him as a witness.”
+
+Carr rose doubtfully. “Why, certainly,” he said; “I'll send him over,
+and when you're ready for me step out on the porch and call. I'll be
+sitting on my veranda. I hope you've had no quarrel with Cahill--I mean
+I hope this personal matter is nothing that will prejudice him against
+you.”
+
+Ranson smiled. “I hope not, too,” he said. “No, we've not
+quarrelled--yet,” he added.
+
+Carr still lingered. “Cahill is like to be a very important witness for
+the other side--”
+
+“I doubt it,” said Ranson, easily. “Cahill's a close-mouthed chap, but
+when he does talk he talks to the point and he'll tell the truth. That
+can't hurt us.”
+
+As Cahill crossed the parade-ground from Captain Carr's quarters on his
+way to Ranson's hut his brain was crowded swiftly with doubts, memories,
+and resolves. For him the interview held no alarms. He had no misgivings
+as to its outcome. For his daughter's sake he was determined that he
+himself must not be disgraced in her eyes and that to that end Ranson
+must be sacrificed. It was to make a lady of her, as he understood what
+a lady should be, that on six moonlit raids he had ventured forth in his
+red mask and robbed the Kiowa stage. That there were others who roamed
+abroad in the disguise of the Red Rider he was well aware. There were
+nights the stage was held up when he was innocently busy behind his
+counter in touch with the whole garrison. Of these nights he made much.
+They were alibis furnished by his rivals. They served to keep suspicion
+from himself, and he, working for the same object, was indefatigable
+in proclaiming that all the depredations of the Red Rider showed the
+handiwork of one and the same individual.
+
+“He comes from Kiowa of course,” he would point out. “Some feller who
+lives where the stage starts, and knows when the passengers carry
+money. You don't hear of him holding up a stage full of recruits or
+cow-punchers. It's always the drummers and the mine directors that the
+Red Rider lays for. How does he know they're in the stage if he don't
+see 'em start from Kiowa? Ask 'Pop' Henderson. Ask 'Abe' Fisher. Mebbe
+they know more than they'd care to tell.”
+
+The money which at different times Cahill had taken from the Kiowa stage
+lay in a New York bank, and the law of limitation made it now possible
+for him to return to that city and claim it. Already his savings were
+sufficient in amount to support both his daughter and himself in one of
+those foreign cities, of which she had so often told him and for which
+he knew she hungered. And for the last five years he had had no other
+object in living than to feed her wants. Through some strange trick of
+the mind he remembered suddenly and vividly a long-forgotten scene
+in the back room of McTurk's, when he was McTurk's bouncer. The night
+before a girl had killed herself in this same back room; she made
+the third who had done so in the month. He recalled the faces of the
+reporters eyeing McTurk in cold distaste as that terror of the Bowery
+whimpered before them on his knees. “But my daughters will read it,”
+ he had begged. “Suppose they believe I'm what you call me. Don't go and
+give me a bad name to them, gentlemen. It ain't my fault the girl's
+died here. You wouldn't have my daughters think I'm to blame for that?
+They're ladies, my daughters, they're just out of the convent, and they
+don't know that there is such women in the world as come to this place.
+And I can't have 'em turned against their old pop. For God's sake,
+gentlemen, don't let my girls know!”
+
+Cahill remembered the contempt he had felt for his employer as he pulled
+him to his feet, but now McTurk's appeal seemed just and natural. His
+point of view was that of the loving and considerate parent. In Cahill's
+mind there was no moral question involved. If to make his girl rich and
+a lady, and to lift her out of the life of the Exchange, was a sin the
+sin was his own and he was willing to “stand for it.” And, like McTurk,
+he would see that the sin of the father was not visited upon the child.
+Ranson was rich, foolishly, selfishly rich; his father was a United
+States Senator with influence enough, and money enough, to fight the
+law--to buy his son out of jail. Sooner than his daughter should know
+that her father was one of those who sometimes wore the mask of the Red
+Rider, Ranson, for all he cared, could go to jail, or to hell. With this
+ultimatum in his mind, Cahill confronted his would-be son-in-law with a
+calm and assured countenance.
+
+Ranson greeted him with respectful deference, and while Cahill seated
+himself, Ranson, chatting hospitably, placed cigars and glasses before
+him. He began upon the subject that touched him the most nearly.
+
+“Miss Cahill was good enough to bring up my breakfast this morning,” he
+said. “Has she told you of what I said to her?”
+
+Cahill shook his head. “No, I haven't seen her. We've been taking
+account of stock all morning.”
+
+“Then--then you've heard nothing from her about me?” said Ranson.
+
+The post trader raised his head in surprise. “No. Captain Carr spoke
+to me about your arrest, and then said you wanted to see me first
+about something private.” The post trader fixed Ranson with his keen,
+unwavering eyes. “What might that be?” he asked.
+
+“Well, it doesn't matter now,” stammered Ranson; “I'll wait until Miss
+Cahill tells you.”
+
+“Any complaint about the food?” inquired the post trader.
+
+Ranson laughed nervously. “No, it's not that,” he said. He rose, and,
+to protect what Miss Cahill evidently wished to remain a secret, changed
+the subject. “You see you've lived in these parts so long, Mr. Cahill,”
+ he explained, “and you know so many people, I thought maybe you could
+put me on the track or give me some hint as to which of that Kiowa gang
+really did rob the paymaster.” Ranson was pulling the cork from the
+whiskey bottle, and when he asked the question Cahill pushed his glass
+from him and shook his head. Ranson looked up interrogatively and
+smiled. “You mean you think I did it myself?” he asked.
+
+“I didn't understand from Captain Carr,” the post trader began in heavy
+tones, “that it's my opinion you're after. He said I might be wanted to
+testify who was present last night in my store.”
+
+“Certainly, that's all we want,” Ranson answered, genially. “I only
+thought you might give me a friendly pointer or two on the outside. And,
+of course, if it's your opinion I did the deed we certainly don't want
+your opinion. But that needn't prevent your taking a drink with me, need
+it? Don't be afraid. I'm not trying to corrupt you. And I'm not trying
+to poison a witness for the other fellows, either. Help yourself.”
+
+Cahill stretched out his left hand. His right remained hidden in the
+side pocket of his coat. “What's the matter with your right hand?”
+ Ranson asked. “Are you holding a gun on me? Really, Mr. Cahill, you're
+not taking any chances, are you?” Ranson gazed about the room as though
+seeking an appreciative audience. “He's such an important witness,” he
+cried, delightedly, “that first he's afraid I'll poison him and he won't
+drink with me, and now he covers me with a gun.”
+
+Reluctantly, Cahill drew out his hand. “I was putting the bridle on my
+pony last night,” he said. “He bit me.”
+
+Ranson exclaimed sympathetically, “Oh, that's too bad,” he said. “Well,
+you know you want to be careful. A horse's teeth really are poisonous.”
+ He examined his own hands complacently. “Now, if I had a bandage like
+that on my right hand they would hang me sure, no matter whether it was
+a bite, or a burn, or a bullet.”
+
+Cahill raised the glass to his lips and sipped the whiskey critically.
+“Why?” he asked.
+
+“Why? Why, didn't you know that the paymaster boasted last night to the
+surgeons that he hit this fellow in the hand? He says--”
+
+Cahill snorted scornfully. “How'd he know that? What makes him think
+so?”
+
+“Well, never mind, let him think so,” Ranson answered, fervently. “Don't
+discourage him. That's the only evidence I've got on my side. He says he
+fired to disarm the man, and that he saw him shift his gun to his left
+hand. It was the shot that the man fired when he held his gun in his
+left that broke the colonel's arm. Now, everybody knows I can't hit
+a barn with my left. And as for having any wounds concealed about my
+person”--Ranson turned his hands like a conjurer to show the front and
+back--“they can search me. So, if the paymaster will only stick to
+that story--that he hit the man--it will help me a lot.” Ranson seated
+himself on the table and swung his leg. “And of course it would be a
+big help, too, if you could remember who was in your Exchange when I was
+planning to rob the coach. For someone certainly must have overheard
+me, someone must have copied my disguise, and that someone is the man we
+must find. Unless he came from Kiowa.”
+
+Cahill shoved his glass from him across the table and, placing his hands
+on his knees, stared at his host coldly and defiantly. His would-be
+son-in-law observed the aggressiveness of his attitude, but, in his
+fuller knowledge of their prospective relations, smiled blandly.
+
+“Mr. Ranson,” began Cahill, “I've no feelings against you personally.
+I've a friendly feeling for all of you young gentlemen at my mess. But
+you're not playing fair with me. I can see what you want, and I can tell
+you that you and Captain Carr are not helping your case by asking me
+up here to drink and smoke with you, when you know that I'm the most
+important witness they've got against you.”
+
+Ranson stared at his father-in-law-elect in genuine amazement, and then
+laughed lightly.
+
+“Why, dear Mr. Cahill,” he cried, “I wouldn't think of bribing you with
+such a bad brand of whiskey as this. And I didn't know you were such an
+important witness as all that. But, of course, I know whatever you say
+in this community goes, and if your testimony is against me, I'm sorry
+for it, very sorry. I suppose you will testify that there was no one in
+the Exchange who could have heard my plan?”
+
+Cahill nodded.
+
+“And, as it's not likely two men at exactly the same time should have
+thought of robbing the stage in exactly the same way, I must have robbed
+it myself.”
+
+Cahill nursed his bandaged hand with the other. “That's the court's
+business,” he growled; “I mean to tell the truth.”
+
+“And the truth is?” asked Ransom
+
+“The truth is that last night there was no one in the Exchange but you
+officers and me. If anybody'd come in on the store side you'd have seen
+him, wouldn't you? and if he'd come into the Exchange I'd have seen him.
+But no one come in. I was there alone--and certainly I didn't hear your
+plan, and I didn't rob the stage. When you fellows left I went down to
+the Indian village. Half the reservation can prove I was there all the
+evening--so of the four of us, that lets me out. Crosby and Curtis were
+in command of the pay escort--that's their alibi--and as far as I can
+see, lieutenant, that puts it up to you.”
+
+Ranson laughed and shook his head. “Yes, it certainly looks that way,”
+ he said. “Only I can't see why you need be so damned pleased about it.”
+ He grinned wickedly. “If you weren't such a respectable member of Fort
+Crockett society I might say you listened at the door, and rode after me
+in one of your own ponchos. As for the Indian village, that's no alibi.
+A Kiowa swear his skin's as white as yours if you give him a drink.”
+
+“And is that why I get this one?” Cahill demanded. “Am I a Kiowa?”
+
+Ranson laughed and shoved the bottle toward his father-in-law-elect.
+
+“Oh, can't you take a joke?” he said. “Take another drink, then.”
+
+The voice outside the hut was too low to reach the irate Cahill, but
+Ranson heard it and leaped to his feet.
+
+“Wait,” he commanded. He ran to the door, and met Sergeant Clancey at
+the threshold.
+
+“Miss Cahill, lieutenant,” said the sergeant, “wants to see her father.”
+
+Cahill had followed Ranson to the door, “You want to see me, Mame?” he
+asked.
+
+“Yes,” Miss Cahill cried; “and Mr. Ransom, too, if I may.” She caught
+her father eagerly by the arm, but her eyes were turned joyfully upon
+Ranson. They were laughing with excitement. Her voice was trembling and
+eager.
+
+“It is something I have discovered,” she cried; “I found it out just
+now, and I think--oh, I hope!--it is most important. I believe it will
+clear Mr. Ranson!” she cried, happily. “At least it will show that last
+night someone went out to rob the coach and went dressed as he was.”
+
+Cahill gave a short laugh. “What's his name?” he asked, mockingly. “Have
+you seen him?”
+
+“I didn't see him and I don't know his name, but--”
+
+Cahill snorted, and picked up his sombrero from the table. “Then it's
+not so very important after all,” he said. “Is that all that brought you
+here?”
+
+“The main thing is that she is here,” said Ranson; “for which the poor
+prisoner is grateful--grateful to her and to the man she hasn't seen, in
+the mask and poncho, whose name she doesn't know. Mr. Cahill, bad as
+it is, I insist on your finishing your whiskey. Miss Cahill, please sit
+down.”
+
+He moved a chair toward her and, as he did so, looked full into her face
+with such love and happiness that she turned her eyes away.
+
+“Well?” asked Cahill.
+
+“I must first explain to Lieutenant Ranson, father,” said his daughter,
+“that to-day is the day we take account of stock.”
+
+“Speaking of stock,” said Ranson, “don't forget that I owe you for a
+red kerchief and a rubber poncho. You can have them back, if you like. I
+won't need a rain coat where I am going.”
+
+“Don't,” said Miss Cahill. “Please let me go on. After I brought you
+your breakfast here, I couldn't begin to work just at once. I was
+thinking about--something else. Everyone was talking of you--your
+arrest, and I couldn't settle down to take account of stock.” She threw
+a look at Ranson which asked for his sympathy. “But when I did start
+I began with the ponchos and the red kerchiefs, and then I found out
+something.” Cahill was regarding his daughter in strange distress, but
+Ranson appeared indifferent to her words, and intent only on the light
+and beauty in her face. But he asked, smiling, “And that was?”
+
+“You see,” continued Miss Cahill, eagerly, “I always keep a dozen of
+each article, and as each one is sold I check it off in my day-book.
+Yesterday Mrs. Bolland bought a poncho for the colonel. That left eleven
+ponchos. Then a few minutes later I gave Lightfoot a red kerchief for
+his squaw. That left eleven kerchiefs.”
+
+“Stop!” cried Ranson. “Miss Cahill,” he began, severely, “I hope you do
+not mean to throw suspicion on the wife of my respected colonel, or
+on Mrs. Lightfoot, 'the Prairie Flower.' Those ladies are my personal
+friends; I refuse to believe them guilty. And have you ever seen Mrs.
+Bolland on horseback? You wrong her. It is impossible.”
+
+“Please,” begged Miss Cahill, “please let me explain. When you went to
+hold up the stage you took a poncho and a kerchief. That should have
+left ten of each. But when I counted them this morning there were nine
+red kerchiefs and nine ponchos.”
+
+Ranson slapped his knee sharply. “Good!” he said. “That is interesting.”
+
+“What does it prove?” demanded Cahill.
+
+“It proves nothing, or it proves everything,” said Miss Cahill. “To my
+mind it proves without any doubt that someone overheard Mr. Ranson's
+plan, that he dressed like him to throw suspicion on him, and that this
+second person was the one who robbed the paymaster. Now, father, this
+is where you can help us. You were there then. Try to remember. It is so
+important. Who came into the store after the others had gone away?”
+
+Cahill tossed his head like an angry bull.
+
+“There are fifty places in this post,” he protested, roughly, “where a
+man can get a poncho. Every trooper owns his slicker.”
+
+“But, father, we don't know that theirs are missing,” cried Miss Cahill,
+“and we do know that those in our store are. Don't think I am foolish.
+It seemed such an important fact to me, and I had hoped it would help.”
+
+“It does help--immensely!” cried Ranson.
+
+“I think it's a splendid clue. But, unfortunately, I don't think we can
+prove anything by your father, for he's just been telling me that there
+was no one in the place but himself. No one came in, and he was quite
+alone--” Ranson had begun speaking eagerly, but either his own words or
+the intentness with which Cahill received them caused him to halt and
+hesitate--“absolutely--alone.”
+
+“You see,” said Cahill, thickly, “as soon as they had gone I rode to the
+Indian village.”
+
+“Why, no, father,” corrected Miss Cahill. “Don't you remember, you told
+me last night that when you reached Lightfoot's tent I had just gone.
+That was quite two hours after the others left the store.” In her
+earnestness Miss Cahill had placed her hand upon her father's arm and
+clutched it eagerly. “And you remember no one coming in before you
+left?” she asked. “No one?”
+
+Cahill had not replaced the bandaged hand in his pocket, but had shoved
+it inside the opening of his coat. As Mary Cahill caught his arm her
+fingers sank into the palm of the hand and he gave a slight grimace of
+pain.
+
+“Oh, father,” Miss Cahill cried, “your hand! I am so sorry. Did I hurt
+it? Please--let me see.”
+
+Cahill drew back with sudden violence.
+
+“No!” he cried. “Leave it alone! Come, we must be going.” But Miss
+Cahill held the wounded hand in both her own. When she turned her eyes
+to Ranson they were filled with tender concern.
+
+“I hurt him,” she said, reproachfully. “He shot himself last night with
+one of those new cylinder revolvers.”
+
+Her father snatched the hand from her. He tried to drown her voice by a
+sudden movement toward the door. “Come!” he called. “Do you hear me?”
+
+But his daughter in her sympathy continued. “He was holding it so,” she
+said, “and it went off, and the bullet passed through here.” She laid
+the tip of a slim white finger on the palm of her right hand.
+
+“The bullet!” cried Ranson. He repeated, dully, “The bullet!”
+
+There was a sudden, tense silence. Outside they could hear the crunch of
+the sentry's heel in the gravel, and from the baseball field back of the
+barracks the soft spring air was rent with the jubilant crack of the bat
+as it drove the ball. Afterward Ranson remembered that while one half
+of his brain was terribly acute to the moment, the other was wondering
+whether the runner had made his base. It seemed an interminable time
+before Ranson raised his eyes from Miss Cahill's palm to her father's
+face. What he read in them caused Cahill to drop his hand swiftly to his
+hip.
+
+Ranson saw the gesture and threw out both his hands. He gave a
+hysterical laugh, strangely boyish and immature, and ran to place
+himself between Cahill and the door. “Drop it!” he whispered. “My God,
+man!” he entreated, “don't make a fool of yourself. Mr. Cahill,” he
+cried aloud, “you can't go till you know. Can he, Mary? Yes, Mary.” The
+tone in which he repeated the name was proprietary and commanding. He
+took her hand. “Mr. Cahill,” he said, joyously, “we've got something to
+tell you. I want you to understand that in spite of all I'VE done--I
+say in spite of all I'VE done--I mean getting into this trouble and
+disgrace, and all that--I've dared to ask your daughter to marry me.”
+ He turned and led Miss Cahill swiftly toward the veranda. “Oh, I knew he
+wouldn't like it,” he cried. “You see. I told you so. You've got to let
+me talk to him alone. You go outside and wait. I can talk better when
+you are not here. I'll soon bring him around.”
+
+“Father,” pleaded Miss Cahill, timidly. From behind her back Ranson
+shook his head at the post-trader in violent pantomime. “She'd better go
+outside and wait, hadn't she, Mr. Cahill?” he directed.
+
+As he was bidden, the post-trader raised his head and nodded toward
+the door. The onslaught of sudden and new conditions overwhelmed and
+paralyzed him.
+
+“Father!” said Miss Cahill, “it isn't just as you think. Mr. Ranson did
+ask me to marry him--in a way--At least, I knew what he meant. But I did
+not say--in a way--that I would marry him. I mean it was not settled,
+or I would have told you. You mustn't think I would have left you out of
+this--of my happiness, you who have done everything to make me happy.”
+
+She reproached her father with her eyes fastened on his face. His
+own were stern, fixed, and miserable. “You will let it be, won't you,
+father?” she begged. “It--it means so much. I--can't tell you--” She
+threw out her hand toward Ranson as though designating a superior being.
+“Why, I can't tell HIM. But if you are harsh with him or with me it will
+break my heart. For as I love you, father, I love him--and it has got to
+be. It must be. For I love him so. I have always loved him. Father,” she
+whispered, “I love him so.”
+
+Ranson, humbly, gratefully, took the girl's hand and led her gently to
+the veranda and closed the door upon her. Then he came down the room
+and regarded his prospective father-in-law with an expression of
+amused exasperation. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his
+riding-breeches and nodded his head. “Well,” he exclaimed, “you've made
+a damned pretty mess of it, haven't you?”
+
+Cahill had sunk heavily into a chair and was staring at Ranson with the
+stupid, wondering gaze of a dumb animal in pain. During the moments in
+which the two men eyed each other Ranson's smile disappeared. Cahill
+raised himself slowly as though with a great effort.
+
+“I done it,” said Cahill, “for her. I done it to make her happy.”
+
+“That's all right,” said Ranson, briskly. “She's going to be happy.
+We're all going to be happy.”
+
+“An' all I did,” Cahill continued, as though unconscious of the
+interruption, “was to disgrace her.” He rose suddenly to his feet.
+His mental sufferings were so keen that his huge body trembled. He
+recognized how truly he had made “a mess of it.” He saw that all he had
+hoped to do for his daughter by crime would have been done for her by
+this marriage with Ranson, which would have made her a “lady,” made her
+rich, made her happy. Had it not been for his midnight raids she would
+have been honored, loved, and envied, even by the wife of the colonel
+herself. But through him disgrace had come upon her, sorrow and trouble.
+She would not be known as the daughter of Senator Ranson, but of Cahill,
+an ex-member of the Whyo gang, a highway robber, as the daughter of a
+thief who was serving his time in State prison. At the thought Cahill
+stepped backward unsteadily as though he had been struck. He cried
+suddenly aloud. Then his hand whipped back to his revolver, but before
+he could use it Ranson had seized his wrist with both hands. The two
+struggled silently and fiercely. The fact of opposition brought back to
+Cahill all of his great strength.
+
+“No, you don't!” Ranson muttered. “Think of your daughter, man. Drop
+it!”
+
+“I shall do it,” Cahill panted. “I am thinking of my daughter. It's the
+only way out. Take your hands off me--I shall!”
+
+With his knuckles Ranson bored cruelly into the wounded hand, and it
+opened and the gun dropped from it; but as it did so it went off with a
+report that rang through the building. There was an instant rush of
+feet upon the steps of the veranda, and at the sound the two men sprang
+apart, eyeing each other sheepishly like two discovered truants. When
+Sergeant Clancey and the guard pushed through the door Ranson stood
+facing it, spinning the revolver in cowboy fashion around his fourth
+finger. He addressed the sergeant in a tone of bitter irony.
+
+“Oh, you've come at last,” he demanded. “Are you deaf? Why didn't you
+come when I called?” His tone showed he considered he had just cause for
+annoyance.
+
+“The gun brought me, I--” began Clancey.
+
+“Yes, I hoped it might. That's why I fired it,” snapped Ranson. “I want
+two whiskey-and-sodas. Quick now!”
+
+“Two--” gasped Clancey.
+
+“Whiskey-and-sodas. See how fast one of you can chase over to the club
+and get 'em. And next time I want a drink don't make me wake the entire
+garrison.”
+
+As the soldiers retreated Ranson discovered Miss Cahill's white face
+beyond them. He ran and held the door open by a few inches.
+
+“It's all right,” he whispered, reassuringly. “He's nearly persuaded.
+Wait just a minute longer and he'll be giving us his blessing.”
+
+“But the pistol-shot?” she asked.
+
+“I was just calling the guard. The electric bell's broken, and your
+father wanted a drink. That's a good sign, isn't it? Shows he's
+friendly, What kind did you say you wanted, Mr. Cahill--Scotch was it,
+or rye?” Ranson glanced back at the sombre, silent figure of Cahill, and
+then again opened the door sufficiently for him to stick out his head.
+“Sergeant,” he called, “make them both Scotch--long ones.”
+
+He shut the door and turned upon the post-trader. “Now, then,
+father-in-law,” he said, briskly, “you've got to cut and run, and you've
+got to run quick. We'll tell 'em you're going to Fort Worth to buy the
+engagement ring, because I can't, being under arrest. But you go to
+Duncan City instead, and from there take the cars, to--”
+
+“Run away!” Cahill repeated, dazedly. “But you'll be court-martialled.”
+
+“There won't be any court-martial!”
+
+Cahill glanced around the room quickly. “I see,” he cried. In his
+eagerness he was almost smiling. “I'm to leave a confession and give it
+to you.”
+
+“Confession! What rot!” cried Ranson.
+
+“They can't prove anything against me. Everyone knows by now that there
+were two men on the trail, but they don't know who the other man was,
+and no one ever must know--especially Mary.”
+
+Cahill struck the table with his fist. “I won't stand for it!” he cried.
+“I got you into this and I'm goin'--”
+
+“Yes, going to jail,” retorted Ranson. “You'll look nice behind the
+bars, won't you? Your daughter will be proud of you in a striped suit.
+Don't talk nonsense. You're going to run and hide some place, somewhere,
+where Mary and I can come and pay you a visit. Say--Canada. No, not
+Canada. I'd rather visit you in jail than in a Montreal hotel. Say
+Tangier, or Buenos Ayres, or Paris. Yes, Paris is safe enough--and so
+amusing.”
+
+Cahill seated himself heavily. “I trapped you into this fix, Mr.
+Ranson,” he said, “you know I did, and now I mean to get you out of it.
+I ain't going to leave the man my Mame wants to marry with a cloud on
+him. I ain't going to let her husband be jailed.”
+
+Ranson had run to his desk and from a drawer drew forth a roll of bills.
+He advanced with them in his hand.
+
+“Yes, Paris is certainly the place,” he said. “Here's three hundred
+dollars. I'll cable you the rest. You've never been to Paris, have you?
+It's full of beautiful sights--Henry's American Bar, for instance, and
+the courtyard of the Grand Hotel, and Maxim's. All good Americans go to
+Paris when they die and all the bad ones while they are alive. You'll
+find lots of both kinds, and you'll sit all day on the sidewalk and
+drink Bock and listen to Hungarian bands. And Mary and I will join you
+there and take you driving in the Bois. Now, you start at once. I'll
+tell her you've gone to New York to talk it over with father, and buy
+the ring. Then I'll say you've gone on to Paris to rent us apartments
+for the honeymoon. I'll explain it somehow. That's better than going to
+jail, isn't it, and making us bow our heads in grief?”
+
+Cahill, in his turn, approached the desk and, seating himself before it,
+began writing rapidly.
+
+“What is it?” asked Ranson.
+
+“A confession,” said Cahill, his pen scratching.
+
+“I won't take it,” Ranson said, “and I won't use it.”
+
+“I ain't going to give it to you,” said Cahill, over his shoulder.
+“I know better than that. But I don't go to Paris unless I leave a
+confession behind me. Call in the guard,” he commanded; “I want two
+witnesses.”
+
+“I'll see you hanged first,” said Ranson.
+
+Cahill crossed the room to the door and, throwing it open, called,
+“Corporal of the guard!”
+
+As he spoke, Captain Carr and Mrs. Bolland, accompanied by Miss Post and
+her aunt, were crossing the parade-ground. For a moment the post-trader
+surveyed them doubtfully, and then, stepping out upon the veranda,
+beckoned to them.
+
+“Here's a paper I've signed, captain,” he said; “I wish you'd witness my
+signature. It's my testimony for the court-martial.”
+
+“Then someone else had better sign it,” said Carr. “Might look
+prejudiced if I did.” He turned to the ladies. “These ladies are coming
+in to see Ranson now. They'll witness it.”
+
+Miss Cahill, from the other end of the veranda, and the visitors entered
+the room together.
+
+“Mrs. Truesdale!” cried Ranson. “You are pouring coals of fire upon my
+head. And Miss Post! Indeed, this is too much honor. After the way I
+threatened and tried to frighten you last night I expected you to hang
+me, at least, instead of which you have, I trust, come to tea.”
+
+“Nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Bolland, sternly. “These ladies
+insisted on my bringing them here to say how sorry they are that they
+talked so much and got you into this trouble. Understand, Mr. Ranson,”
+ the colonel's wife added, with dignity, “that I am not here officially
+as Mrs. Bolland, but as a friend of these ladies.”
+
+“You are welcome in whatever form you take, Mrs. Bolland,” cried Ranson,
+“and, believe me, I am in no trouble--no trouble, I assure you. In fact,
+I am quite the most contented man in the world. Mrs. Bolland, in spite
+of the cloud, the temporary cloud which rests upon my fair name, I take
+great pride in announcing to you that this young lady has done me the
+honor to consent to become my wife. Her father, a very old and dear
+friend, has given his consent. And I take this occasion to tell you of
+my good fortune, both in your official capacity and as my friend.”
+
+There was a chorus of exclamations and congratulations in which Mrs.
+Bolland showed herself to be a true wife and a social diplomatist. In
+the post-trader's daughter she instantly recognized the heiress to the
+Ranson millions, and the daughter of a Senator who also was the chairman
+of the Senate Committee on Brevets and Promotions. She fell upon Miss
+Cahill's shoulder and kissed her on both cheeks. Turning eagerly upon
+Mrs. Truesdale, she said, “Alice, you can understand how I feel when I
+tell you that this child has always been to me like one of my own.”
+
+Carr took Ranson's hand and wrung it. Sergeant Clancey grew purple with
+pleasure and stole back to the veranda, where he whispered joyfully to a
+sentry. In another moment a passing private was seen racing delightedly
+toward the baseball field.
+
+At the same moment Lieutenants Crosby and Curtis and the regimental
+adjutant crossed the parade ground from the colonel's quarters and ran
+up the steps of Ranson's hut. The expressions of good-will, of smiling
+embarrassment and general satisfaction which Lieutenant Crosby observed
+on the countenances of those present seemed to give him a momentary
+check.
+
+“Oh,” he exclaimed, disappointedly, “someone has told you!”
+
+Ranson laughed and took the hand which Crosby held doubtfully toward
+him. “No one has told me,” he said. “I've been telling them.”
+
+“Then you haven't heard?” Crosby cried, delightedly. “That's good.
+I begged to be the first to let you know, because I felt so badly at
+having doubted you. You must let me congratulate you. You are free.”
+
+“Free?” smiled Ranson.
+
+“Yes, relieved from arrest,” Crosby cried, joyfully. He turned and took
+Ranson's sword from the hands of the adjutant. “And the colonel's let
+your troop have the band to give you a serenade.”
+
+But Ranson's face showed no sign of satisfaction.
+
+“Wait!” he cried. “Why am I relieved from arrest?”
+
+“Why? Because the other fellow has confessed.”
+
+Ranson placed himself suddenly in front of Mary Cahill as though to
+shield her. His eyes stole stealthily towards Cahill's confession. Still
+unread and still unsigned, it lay unopened upon the table. Cahill was
+gazing upon Ranson in blank bewilderment.
+
+Captain Carr gasped a sigh of relief that was far from complimentary to
+his client.
+
+“Who confessed?” he cried.
+
+“'Pop' Henderson,” said Crosby.
+
+“'Pop' Henderson!” shouted Cahill. Unmindful of his wound, he struck the
+table savagely with his fist. For the first time in the knowledge of the
+post he exhibited emotion. “'Pop' Henderson, by the eternal!” he cried.
+“And I never guessed it!”
+
+“Yes,” said Crosby, eagerly. “Abe Fisher was in it. Henderson persuaded
+the paymaster to make the trip alone with him. Then he dressed up Fisher
+to represent the Red Rider and sent him on ahead to hold him up. They
+were to share the money afterward. But Fisher fired on 'Pop' to kill, so
+as to have it all, and 'Pop's' trying to get even. And what with wanting
+to hurt Fisher, and thinking he is going to die, and not wishing to see
+you hanged, he's told the truth. We wired Kiowa early this morning and
+arrested Fisher. They've found the money, and he has confessed, too.”
+
+“But the poncho and the red kerchief?” protested Carr. “And he had no
+stirrups!”
+
+“Oh, Fisher had the make-up all right,” laughed Crosby; “Henderson says
+Fisher's the 'only, original' Red Rider. And as for the stirrups, I'm
+afraid that's my fault. I asked the colonel if the man wasn't riding
+without stirrups, and I guess the wish was father to the fact. He only
+imagined he hadn't seen any stirrups. The colonel was rattled. So, old
+man,” he added, turning to Ranson, “here's your sword again, and God
+bless you.”
+
+Already the post had learned the news from the band and the verandas of
+the enlisted men overflowed with delighted troopers. From the stables
+and the ball field came the sound of hurrying feet, and a tumult of
+cheers and cowboy yells. Across the parade-ground the regimental band
+bore down upon Ranson's hut, proclaiming to the garrison that there
+would be a hot time in the old town that night. But Sergeant Clancey
+ran to meet the bandmaster, and shouted in his ear. “He's going to marry
+Mary Cahill,” he cried. “I heard him tell the colonel's wife. Play 'Just
+Because She Made Them Goo-goo Eyes.'”
+
+“Like hell!” cried the bandmaster, indignantly, breaking in on the tune
+with his baton. “I know my business! Now, then, men,” he commanded,
+“'I'll Leave My Happy Home for You.'”
+
+As Mrs. Bolland dragged Miss Cahill into view of the assembled troopers
+Ranson pulled his father-in-law into a far corner of the room. He shook
+the written confession in his face.
+
+“Now, will you kindly tell me what that means?” he demanded. “What sort
+of a gallery play were you trying to make?”
+
+Cahill shifted his sombrero guiltily. “I was trying to get you out of
+the hole,” he stammered. “I--I thought you done it.”
+
+“You thought I done it!”
+
+“Sure. I never thought nothing else.”
+
+“Then why do you say here that YOU did it?”
+
+“Oh, because,” stammered Cahill, miserably, “'cause of Mary, 'cause she
+wanted to marry you--'cause you were going to marry her.”
+
+“Well--but--what good were you going to do by shooting yourself?”
+
+“Oh, then?” Cahill jerked back his head as though casting out an
+unpleasant memory. “I thought you'd caught me, you, too--between you!”
+
+“Caught you! Then you did--?”
+
+“No, but I tried to. I heard your plan, and I did follow you in the
+poncho and kerchief, meaning to hold up the stage first, and leave it to
+Crosby and Curtis to prove you did it. But when I reached the coach you
+were there ahead of me, and I rode away and put in my time at the Indian
+village. I never saw the paymaster's cart, never heard of it till this
+morning. But what with Mame missing the poncho out of our shop and the
+wound in my hand I guessed they'd all soon suspect me. I saw you did.
+So I thought I'd just confess to what I meant to do, even if I didn't do
+it.”
+
+Ranson surveyed his father-in-law with a delighted grin. “How did you
+get that bullet-hole in your hand?” he asked.
+
+Cahill laughed shamefacedly. “I hate to tell you that,” he said. “I got
+it just as I said I did. My new gun went off while I was fooling with
+it, with my hand over the muzzle. And me the best shot in the Territory!
+But when I heard the paymaster claimed he shot the Red Rider through the
+palm I knew no one would believe me if I told the truth. So I lied.”
+
+Ranson glanced down at the written confession, and then tore it slowly
+into pieces. “And you were sure I robbed the stage, and yet you believed
+that I'd use this? What sort of a son-in-law do you think you've got?”
+
+“You thought _I_ robbed the stage, didn't you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you were going to stand for robbing it yourself, weren't you? Well,
+that's the sort of son-in-law I've got!”
+
+The two men held out their hands at the same instant.
+
+Mary Cahill, her face glowing with pride and besieged with blushes,
+came toward them from the veranda. She was laughing and radiant, but she
+turned her eyes on Ranson with a look of tender reproach.
+
+“Why did you desert me?” she said. “It was awful. They are calling you
+now. They are playing 'The Conquering Hero.'”
+
+“Mr. Cahill,” commanded Ranson, “go out there and make a speech.” He
+turned to Mary Cahill and lifted one of her hands in both of his. “Well,
+I AM the conquering hero,” he said. “I've won the only thing worth
+winning, dearest,” he whispered; “we'll run away from them in a minute,
+and we'll ride to the waterfall and the Lover's Leap.” He looked down at
+her wistfully. “Do you remember?”
+
+Mary Cahill raised her head and smiled. He leaned toward her
+breathlessly.
+
+“Why, did it mean that to you, too?” he asked.
+
+She smiled up at him in assent.
+
+“But I didn't say anything, did I?” whispered Ranson. “I hardly knew you
+then. But I knew that day that I--that I would marry you or nobody else.
+And did you think--that you--”
+
+“Yes,” Mary Cahill whispered.
+
+He bent his head and touched her hand with his lips.
+
+“Then we'll go back this morning to the waterfall,” he said, “and tell
+it that it's all come right. And now, we'll bow to those crazy people
+out there, those make-believe dream-people, who don't know that there
+is nothing real in this world but just you and me, and that we love each
+other.”
+
+A dishevelled orderly bearing a tray with two glasses confronted Ranson
+at the door. “Here's the Scotch and sodas, lieutenant,” he panted. “I
+couldn't get 'em any sooner. The men wanted to take 'em off me--to drink
+Miss Cahill's health.”
+
+“So they shall,” said Ranson. “Tell them to drink the canteen dry and
+charge it to me. What's a little thing like the regulations between
+friends? They have taught me my manners. Mr. Cahill,” he called.
+
+The post-trader returned from the veranda.
+
+Ranson solemnly handed him a glass and raised the other in the air.
+“Here's hoping that the Red Rider rides on his raids no more,” he said;
+“and to the future Mrs. Ranson--to Mary Cahill, God bless her!”
+
+He shattered the empty glass in the grate and took Cahill's hand.
+
+“Father-in-law,” said Ranson, “let's promise each other to lead a new
+and a better life.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BAR SINISTER
+
+I
+
+
+The Master was walking most unsteady, his legs tripping each other.
+After the fifth or sixth round, my legs often go the same way.
+
+But even when the Master's legs bend and twist a bit, you mustn't think
+he can't reach you. Indeed, that is the time he kicks most frequent. So
+I kept behind him in the shadow, or ran in the middle of the street. He
+stopped at many public-houses with swinging doors, those doors that are
+cut so high from the sidewalk that you can look in under them, and see
+if the Master is inside. At night when I peep beneath them the man at
+the counter will see me first and say, “Here's the Kid, Jerry, come to
+take you home. Get a move on you,” and the Master will stumble out and
+follow me. It's lucky for us I'm so white, for no matter how dark the
+night, he can always see me ahead, just out of reach of his boot. At
+night the Master certainly does see most amazing. Sometimes he sees two
+or four of me, and walks in a circle, so that I have to take him by the
+leg of his trousers and lead him into the right road. One night, when he
+was very nasty-tempered and I was coaxing him along, two men passed us
+and one of them says, “Look at that brute!” and the other asks “Which?”
+ and they both laugh. The Master, he cursed them good and proper.
+
+This night, whenever we stopped at a public-house, the Master's pals
+left it and went on with us to the next. They spoke quite civil to me,
+and when the Master tried a flying kick, they gives him a shove. “Do you
+want we should lose our money?” says the pals.
+
+I had had nothing to eat for a day and a night, and just before we set
+out the Master gives me a wash under the hydrant. Whenever I am locked
+up until all the slop-pans in our alley are empty, and made to take
+a bath, and the Master's pals speak civil, and feel my ribs, I know
+something is going to happen. And that night, when every time they see a
+policeman under a lamp-post, they dodged across the street, and when at
+the last one of them picked me up and hid me under his jacket, I began
+to tremble; for I knew what it meant. It meant that I was to fight again
+for the Master.
+
+I don't fight because I like it. I fight because if I didn't the other
+dog would find my throat, and the Master would lose his stakes, and I
+would be very sorry for him and ashamed. Dogs can pass me and I can pass
+dogs, and I'd never pick a fight with none of them. When I see two dogs
+standing on their hind-legs in the streets, clawing each other's ears,
+and snapping for each other's windpipes, or howling and swearing and
+rolling in the mud, I feel sorry they should act so, and pretend not to
+notice. If he'd let me, I'd like to pass the time of day with every dog
+I meet. But there's something about me that no nice dog can abide. When
+I trot up to nice dogs, nodding and grinning, to make friends, they
+always tell me to be off. “Go to the devil!” they bark at me; “Get
+out!” and when I walk away they shout “mongrel,” and “gutter-dog,” and
+sometimes, after my back is turned, they rush me. I could kill most of
+them with three shakes, breaking the back-bone of the little ones, and
+squeezing the throat of the big ones. But what's the good? They are nice
+dogs; that's why I try to make up to them, and though it's not for them
+to say it, I am a street-dog, and if I try to push into the company of
+my betters, I suppose it's their right to teach me my place.
+
+Of course, they don't know I'm the best fighting bull-terrier of my
+weight in Montreal. That's why it wouldn't be right for me to take no
+notice of what they shout. They don't know that if I once locked my jaws
+on them I'd carry away whatever I touched. The night I fought Kelley's
+White Rat, I wouldn't loosen up until the Master made a noose in my
+leash and strangled me, and if the handlers hadn't thrown red pepper
+down my nose, I never would have let go of that Ottawa dog. I don't
+think the handlers treated me quite right that time, but maybe they
+didn't know the Ottawa dog was dead. I did.
+
+I learned my fighting from my mother when I was very young. We slept in
+a lumber-yard on the river-front, and by day hunted for food along the
+wharves. When we got it, the other tramp-dogs would try to take it off
+us, and then it was wonderful to see mother fly at them, and drive them
+away. All I know of fighting I learned from mother, watching her picking
+the ash-heaps for me when I was too little to fight for myself. No one
+ever was so good to me as mother. When it snowed and the ice was in the
+St. Lawrence she used to hunt alone, and bring me back new bones, and
+she'd sit and laugh to see me trying to swallow 'em whole. I was just a
+puppy then, my teeth was falling out. When I was able to fight we kept
+the whole river-range to ourselves, I had the genuine long, “punishing”
+ jaw, so mother said, and there wasn't a man or a dog that dared worry
+us. Those were happy days, those were; and we lived well, share and
+share alike, and when we wanted a bit of fun, we chased the fat old
+wharf-rats. My! how they would squeal!
+
+Then the trouble came. It was no trouble to me. I was too young to care
+then. But mother took it so to heart that she grew ailing, and wouldn't
+go abroad with me by day. It was the same old scandal that they're
+always bringing up against me. I was so young then that I didn't know. I
+couldn't see any difference between mother--and other mothers.
+
+But one day a pack of curs we drove off snarled back some new names
+at her, and mother dropped her head and ran, just as though they had
+whipped us. After that she wouldn't go out with me except in the dark,
+and one day she went away and never came back, and though I hunted for
+her in every court and alley and back street of Montreal, I never found
+her.
+
+One night, a month after mother ran away, I asked Guardian, the old
+blind mastiff, whose Master is the night-watchman on our slip, what it
+all meant. And he told me.
+
+“Every dog in Montreal knows,” he says, “except you, and every Master
+knows. So I think it's time you knew.”
+
+Then he tells me that my father, who had treated mother so bad, was
+a great and noble gentleman from London. “Your father had twenty-two
+registered ancestors, had your father,” old Guardian says, “and in him
+was the best bull-terrier blood of England, the most ancientest, the
+most royal; the winning 'blue-ribbon' blood, that breeds champions. He
+had sleepy pink eyes, and thin pink lips, and he was as white all over
+as his own white teeth, and under his white skin you could see his
+muscles, hard and smooth, like the links of a steel chain. When your
+father stood still, and tipped his nose in the air, it was just as
+though he was saying, 'Oh, yes, you common dogs and men, you may well
+stare. It must be a rare treat for you Colonials to see a real English
+royalty.' He certainly was pleased with hisself, was your father. He
+looked just as proud and haughty as one of them stone dogs in Victoria
+Park--them as is cut out of white marble. And you're like him,” says
+the old mastiff--“by that, of course, meaning you're white, same as him.
+That's the only likeness. But, you see, the trouble is, Kid--well, you
+see, Kid, the trouble is--your mother--”
+
+“That will do,” I said, for I understood then without his telling me,
+and I got up and walked away, holding my head and tail high in the air.
+
+But I was, oh, so miserable, and I wanted to see mother that very
+minute, and tell her that I didn't care.
+
+Mother is what I am, a street-dog; there's no royal blood in mother's
+veins, nor is she like that father of mine, nor--and that's the
+worst--she's not even like me. For while I, when I'm washed for a fight,
+am as white as clean snow, she--and this is our trouble, she--my mother,
+is a black-and-tan.
+
+When mother hid herself from me, I was twelve months old and able to
+take care of myself, and, as after mother left me, the wharves were
+never the same, I moved uptown and met the Master. Before he came, lots
+of other men-folks had tried to make up to me, and to whistle me home.
+But they either tried patting me or coaxing me with a piece of meat;
+so I didn't take to 'em. But one day the Master pulled me out of a
+street-fight by the hind-legs, and kicked me good.
+
+“You want to fight, do you?” says he. “I'll give you all the FIGHTING
+you want!” he says, and he kicks me again. So I knew he was my Master,
+and I followed him home. Since that day I've pulled off many fights for
+him, and they've brought dogs from all over the province to have a go at
+me, but up to that night none, under thirty pounds, had ever downed me.
+
+But that night, so soon as they carried me into the ring, I saw the dog
+was over-weight, and that I was no match for him. It was asking too much
+of a puppy. The Master should have known I couldn't do it. Not that I
+mean to blame the Master, for when sober, which he sometimes was, though
+not, as you might say, his habit, he was most kind to me, and let me out
+to find food, if I could get it, and only kicked me when I didn't pick
+him up at night and lead him home.
+
+But kicks will stiffen the muscles, and starving a dog so as to get him
+ugly-tempered for a fight may make him nasty, but it's weakening to his
+insides, and it causes the legs to wabble.
+
+The ring was in a hall, back of a public-house. There was a red-hot
+whitewashed stove in one corner, and the ring in the other. I lay in the
+Master's lap, wrapped in my blanket, and, spite of the stove, shivering
+awful; but I always shiver before a fight; I can't help gettin' excited.
+While the men-folks were a-flashing their money and taking their last
+drink at the bar, a little Irish groom in gaiters came up to me and give
+me the back of his hand to smell, and scratched me behind the ears.
+
+“You poor little pup,” says he. “You haven't no show,” he says. “That
+brute in the tap-room, he'll eat your heart out.”
+
+“That's what you think,” says the Master, snarling. “I'll lay you a quid
+the Kid chews him up.”
+
+The groom, he shook his head, but kept looking at me so sorry-like,
+that I begun to get a bit sad myself. He seemed like he couldn't bear to
+leave off a-patting of me, and he says, speaking low just like he would
+to a man-folk, “Well, good-luck to you, little pup,” which I thought so
+civil of him, that I reached up and licked his hand. I don't do that to
+many men. And the Master, he knew I didn't, and took on dreadful.
+
+“What 'ave you got on the back of your hand?” says he, jumping up.
+
+“Soap!” says the groom, quick as a rat. “That's more than you've got
+on yours. Do you want to smell of it?” and he sticks his fist under the
+Master's nose. But the pals pushed in between 'em.
+
+“He tried to poison the Kid!” shouts the Master.
+
+“Oh, one fight at a time,” says the referee. “Get into the ring, Jerry.
+We're waiting.” So we went into the ring.
+
+I never could just remember what did happen in that ring. He give me
+no time to spring. He fell on me like a horse. I couldn't keep my feet
+against him, and though, as I saw, he could get his hold when he liked,
+he wanted to chew me over a bit first. I was wondering if they'd be able
+to pry him off me, when, in the third round, he took his hold; and I
+began to drown, just as I did when I fell into the river off the Red
+C slip. He closed deeper and deeper, on my throat, and everything went
+black and red and bursting; and then, when I were sure I were dead, the
+handlers pulled him off, and the Master give me a kick that brought me
+to. But I couldn't move none, or even wink, both eyes being shut with
+lumps.
+
+“He's a cur!” yells the Master, “a sneaking, cowardly cur. He lost the
+fight for me,” says he, “because he's a---------cowardly cur.” And
+he kicks me again in the lower ribs, so that I go sliding across the
+sawdust. “There's gratitude fer yer,” yells the Master. “I've fed that
+dog, and nussed that dog, and housed him like a prince; and now he puts
+his tail between his legs, and sells me out, he does. He's a coward;
+I've done with him, I am. I'd sell him for a pipeful of tobacco.” He
+picked me up by the tail, and swung me for the men-folks to see.
+“Does any gentleman here want to buy a dog,” he says, “to make into
+sausage-meat?” he says. “That's all he's good for.”
+
+Then I heard the little Irish groom say, “I'll give you ten bob for the
+dog.”
+
+And another voice says, “Ah, don't you do it; the dog's same as
+dead--mebby he is dead.”
+
+“Ten shillings!” says the Master, and his voice sobers a bit; “make it
+two pounds, and he's yours.”
+
+But the pals rushed in again.
+
+“Don't you be a fool, Jerry,” they say. “You'll be sorry for this when
+you're sober. The Kid's worth a fiver.”
+
+One of my eyes was not so swelled up as the other, and as I hung by
+my tail, I opened it, and saw one of the pals take the groom by the
+shoulder.
+
+“You ought to give 'im five pounds for that dog, mate,” he says; “that's
+no ordinary dog. That dog's got good blood in him, that dog has. Why,
+his father--that very dog's father--”
+
+I thought he never would go on. He waited like he wanted to be sure the
+groom was listening.
+
+“That very dog's father,” says the pal, “is Regent Royal, son of
+Champion Regent Monarch, champion bull-terrier of England for four
+years.”
+
+I was sore, and torn, and chewed most awful, but what the pal said
+sounded so fine that I wanted to wag my tail, only couldn't, owing to my
+hanging from it.
+
+But the Master calls out, “Yes, his father was Regent Royal; who's
+saying he wasn't? but the pup's a cowardly cur, that's what his pup
+is, and why--I'll tell you why--because his mother was a black-and-tan
+street-dog, that's why!”
+
+I don't see how I get the strength, but some way I threw myself out of
+the Master's grip and fell at his feet, and turned over and fastened all
+my teeth in his ankle, just across the bone.
+
+When I woke, after the pals had kicked me off him, I was in the
+smoking-car of a railroad-train, lying in the lap of the little groom,
+and he was rubbing my open wounds with a greasy, yellow stuff, exquisite
+to the smell, and most agreeable to lick off.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+“Well--what's your name--Nolan? Well, Nolan, these references are
+satisfactory,” said the young gentleman. My new Master called “Mr.
+Wyndham, sir.”
+
+“I'll take you on as second man. You can begin to-day.”
+
+My new Master shuffled his feet, and put his finger to his forehead.
+“Thank you, sir,” says he. Then he choked like he had swallowed a
+fish-bone. “I have a little dawg, sir,” says he.
+
+“You can't keep him,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” very short.
+
+“'Es only a puppy, sir,” says my new Master; “'e wouldn't go outside the
+stables, sir.”
+
+“It's not that,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir;” “I have a large kennel of very
+fine dogs; they're the best of their breed in America. I don't allow
+strange dogs on the premises.”
+
+The Master shakes his head, and motions me with his cap, and I crept out
+from behind the door. “I'm sorry, sir,” says the Master. “Then I can't
+take the place. I can't get along without the dog, sir.”
+
+“Mr. Wyndham, sir,” looked at me that fierce that I guessed he was going
+to whip me, so I turned over on my back and begged with my legs and
+tail.
+
+“Why, you beat him!” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” very stern.
+
+“No fear!” the Master says, getting very red. “The party I bought him
+off taught him that. He never learnt that from me!” He picked me up in
+his arms, and to show “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” how well I loved the Master, I
+bit his chin and hands.
+
+“Mr. Wyndham, sir,” turned over the letters the Master had given him.
+“Well, these references certainly are very strong,” he says. “I guess
+I'll let the dog stay this time. Only see you keep him away from the
+kennels--or you'll both go.”
+
+“Thank you, sir,” says the Master, grinning like a cat when she's safe
+behind the area-railing.
+
+“He's not a bad bull-terrier,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” feeling my head.
+“Not that I know much about the smooth-coated breeds. My dogs are St.
+Bernards.” He stopped patting me and held up my nose. “What's the matter
+with his ears?” he says. “They're chewed to pieces. Is this a fighting
+dog?” he asks, quick and rough-like.
+
+I could have laughed. If he hadn't been holding my nose, I certainly
+would have had a good grin at him. Me, the best under thirty pounds in
+the Province of Quebec, and him asking if I was a fighting dog! I ran to
+the Master and hung down my head modest-like, waiting for him to tell
+my list of battles, but the Master he coughs in his cap most painful.
+“Fightin' dog, sir,” he cries. “Lor' bless you, sir, the Kid don't
+know the word. 'Es just a puppy, sir, same as you see; a pet dog, so to
+speak. 'Es a regular old lady's lap-dog, the Kid is.”
+
+“Well, you keep him away from my St. Bernards,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,”
+ “or they might make a mouthful of him.”
+
+“Yes, sir, that they might,” says the Master. But when we gets outside
+he slaps his knee and laughs inside hisself, and winks at me most
+sociable.
+
+The Master's new home was in the country, in a province they called Long
+Island. There was a high stone wall about his home with big iron gates
+to it, same as Godfrey's brewery; and there was a house with five red
+roofs, and the stables, where I lived, was cleaner than the aerated
+bakery-shop, and then there was the kennels, but they was like nothing
+else in this world that ever I see. For the first days I couldn't sleep
+of nights for fear someone would catch me lying in such a cleaned-up
+place, and would chase me out of it, and when I did fall to sleep I'd
+dream I was back in the old Master's attic, shivering under the rusty
+stove, which never had no coals in it, with the Master flat on his
+back on the cold floor with his clothes on. And I'd wake up, scared and
+whimpering, and find myself on the new Master's cot with his hand on
+the quilt beside me; and I'd see the glow of the big stove, and hear the
+high-quality horses below-stairs stamping in their straw-lined boxes,
+and I'd snoop the sweet smell of hay and harness-soap, and go to sleep
+again.
+
+The stables was my jail, so the Master said, but I don't ask no better
+home than that jail.
+
+“Now, Kid,” says he, sitting on the top of a bucket upside down, “you've
+got to understand this. When I whistle it means you're not to go out of
+this 'ere yard. These stables is your jail. And if you leave 'em I'll
+have to leave 'em, too, and over the seas, in the County Mayo, an old
+mother will 'ave to leave her bit of a cottage. For two pounds I must
+be sending her every month, or she'll have naught to eat, nor no thatch
+over 'er head; so, I can't lose my place, Kid, an' see you don't lose it
+for me. You must keep away from the kennels,” says he; “they're not for
+the likes of you. The kennels are for the quality. I wouldn't take a
+litter of them woolly dogs for one wag of your tail, Kid, but for all
+that they are your betters, same as the gentry up in the big house are
+my betters. I know my place and keep away from the gentry, and you keep
+away from the Champions.”
+
+So I never goes out of the stables. All day I just lay in the sun on
+the stone flags, licking my jaws, and watching the grooms wash down the
+carriages, and the only care I had was to see they didn't get gay and
+turn the hose on me. There wasn't even a single rat to plague me. Such
+stables I never did see.
+
+“Nolan,” says the head-groom, “some day that dog of yours will give you
+the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against
+his natur'.” The head-groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know
+everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it. As
+if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed
+me in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and
+sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing
+more. But I'd think of her snooping in the gutters, or freezing of
+nights under the bridges, or, what's worse of all, running through the
+hot streets with her tongue down, so wild and crazy for a drink, that
+the people would shout “mad dog” at her, and stone her. Water's so good,
+that I don't blame the men-folks for locking it up inside their houses,
+but when the hot days come, I think they might remember that those are
+the dog-days and leave a little water outside in a trough, like they
+do for the horses. Then we wouldn't go mad, and the policemen wouldn't
+shoot us. I had so much of everything I wanted that it made me think a
+lot of the days when I hadn't nothing, and if I could have given what I
+had to mother, as she used to share with me, I'd have been the happiest
+dog in the land. Not that I wasn't happy then, and most grateful to the
+Master, too, and if I'd only minded him, the trouble wouldn't have come
+again.
+
+But one day the coachman says that the little lady they called Miss
+Dorothy had come back from school, and that same morning she runs over
+to the stables to pat her ponies, and she sees me.
+
+“Oh, what a nice little, white little dog,” said she; “whose little dog
+are you?” says she.
+
+“That's my dog, miss,” says the Master. “'Is name is Kid,” and I ran up
+to her most polite, and licks her fingers, for I never see so pretty and
+kind a lady.
+
+“You must come with me and call on my new puppies,” says she, picking me
+up in her arms and starting off with me.
+
+“Oh, but please, Miss,” cries Nolan, “Mr. Wyndham give orders that the
+Kid's not to go to the kennels.”
+
+“That'll be all right,” says the little lady; “they're my kennels too.
+And the puppies will like to play with him.”
+
+You wouldn't believe me if I was to tell you of the style of them
+quality-dogs. If I hadn't seen it myself I wouldn't have believed it
+neither. The Viceroy of Canada don't live no better. There was forty of
+them, but each one had his own house and a yard--most exclusive--and
+a cot and a drinking-basin all to hisself. They had servants standing
+'round waiting to feed 'em when they was hungry, and valets to wash 'em;
+and they had their hair combed and brushed like the grooms must when
+they go out on the box. Even the puppies had overcoats with their
+names on 'em in blue letters, and the name of each of those they called
+champions was painted up fine over his front door just like it was a
+public-house or a veterinary's. They were the biggest St. Bernards I
+ever did see. I could have walked under them if they'd have let me. But
+they were very proud and haughty dogs, and looked only once at me, and
+then sniffed in the air. The little lady's own dog was an old gentleman
+bull-dog. He'd come along with us, and when he notices how taken aback
+I was with all I see, 'e turned quite kind and affable and showed me
+about.
+
+“Jimmy Jocks,” Miss Dorothy called him, but, owing to his weight, he
+walked most dignified and slow, waddling like a duck as you might say,
+and looked much too proud and handsome for such a silly name.
+
+“That's the runway, and that's the Trophy House,” says he to me,
+“and that over there is the hospital, where you have to go if you get
+distemper, and the vet. gives you beastly medicine.”
+
+“And which of these is your 'ouse, sir?” asks I, wishing to be
+respectful. But he looked that hurt and haughty. “I don't live in the
+kennels,” says he, most contemptuous. “I am a house-dog. I sleep in Miss
+Dorothy's room. And at lunch I'm let in with the family, if the visitors
+don't mind. They most always do, but they're too polite to say so.
+Besides,” says he, smiling most condescending, “visitors are always
+afraid of me. It's because I'm so ugly,” says he. “I suppose,” says
+he, screwing up his wrinkles and speaking very slow and impressive, “I
+suppose I'm the ugliest bull-dog in America,” and as he seemed to be so
+pleased to think hisself so, I said, “Yes, sir, you certainly are the
+ugliest ever I see,” at which he nodded his head most approving.
+
+“But I couldn't hurt 'em, as you say,” he goes on, though I hadn't said
+nothing like that, being too polite. “I'm too old,” he says; “I haven't
+any teeth. The last time one of those grizzly bears,” said he, glaring
+at the big St. Bernards, “took a hold of me, he nearly was my death,”
+ says he. I thought his eyes would pop out of his head, he seemed so
+wrought up about it. “He rolled me around in the dirt, he did,” says
+Jimmy Jocks, “an' I couldn't get up. It was low,” says Jimmy Jocks,
+making a face like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “Low, that's what
+I call it, bad form, you understand, young man, not done in our
+circles--and--and low.” He growled, way down in his stomach, and puffed
+hisself out, panting and blowing like he had been on a run.
+
+“I'm not a street-fighter,” he says, scowling at a St. Bernard marked
+“Champion.” “And when my rheumatism is not troubling me,” he says, “I
+endeavor to be civil to all dogs, so long as they are gentlemen.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said I, for even to me he had been most affable.
+
+At this we had come to a little house off by itself and Jimmy Jocks
+invites me in. “This is their trophy-room,” he says, “where they keep
+their prizes. Mine,” he says, rather grand-like, “are on the sideboard.”
+ Not knowing what a sideboard might be, I said, “Indeed, sir, that must
+be very gratifying.” But he only wrinkled up his chops as much as to
+say, “It is my right.”
+
+The trophy-room was as wonderful as any public-house I ever see. On the
+walls was pictures of nothing but beautiful St. Bernard dogs, and rows
+and rows of blue and red and yellow ribbons; and when I asked Jimmy
+Jocks why they was so many more of blue than of the others, he laughs
+and says, “Because these kennels always win.” And there was many shining
+cups on the shelves which Jimmy Jocks told me were prizes won by the
+champions.
+
+“Now, sir, might I ask you, sir,” says I, “wot is a champion?”
+
+At that he panted and breathed so hard I thought he would bust hisself.
+“My dear young friend!” says he. “Wherever have you been educated? A
+champion is a--a champion,” he says. “He must win nine blue ribbons in
+the 'open' class. You follow me--that is--against all comers. Then
+he has the title before his name, and they put his photograph in the
+sporting papers. You know, of course, that _I_ am a champion,” says
+he. “I am Champion Woodstock Wizard III., and the two other Woodstock
+Wizards, my father and uncle, were both champions.”
+
+“But I thought your name was Jimmy Jocks,” I said.
+
+He laughs right out at that.
+
+“That's my kennel name, not my registered name,” he says. “Why, you
+certainly know that every dog has two names. Now, what's your registered
+name and number, for instance?” says he.
+
+“I've only got one name,” I says. “Just Kid.”
+
+Woodstock Wizard puffs at that and wrinkles up his forehead and pops out
+his eyes.
+
+“Who are your people?” says he. “Where is your home?”
+
+“At the stable, sir,” I said. “My Master is the second groom.”
+
+At that Woodstock Wizard III. looks at me for quite a bit without
+winking, and stares all around the room over my head.
+
+“Oh, well,” says he at last, “you're a very civil young dog,” says he,
+“and I blame no one for what he can't help,” which I thought most fair
+and liberal. “And I have known many bullterriers that were champions,”
+ says he, “though as a rule they mostly run with fire-engines, and to
+fighting. For me, I wouldn't care to run through the streets after a
+hose-cart, nor to fight,” says he; “but each to his taste.”
+
+I could not help thinking that if Woodstock Wizard III. tried to follow
+a fire-engine he would die of apoplexy, and that, seeing he'd lost his
+teeth, it was lucky he had no taste for fighting, but, after his being
+so condescending, I didn't say nothing.
+
+“Anyway,” says he, “every smooth-coated dog is better than any hairy
+old camel like those St. Bernards, and if ever you're hungry down at
+the stables, young man, come up to the house and I'll give you a bone.
+I can't eat them myself, but I bury them around the garden from force
+of habit, and in case a friend should drop in. Ah, I see my Mistress
+coming,” he says, “and I bid you good-day. I regret,” he says, “that our
+different social position prevents our meeting frequent, for you're a
+worthy young dog with a proper respect for your betters, and in this
+country there's precious few of them have that.” Then he waddles off,
+leaving me alone and very sad, for he was the first dog in many
+days that had spoken to me. But since he showed, seeing that I was a
+stable-dog, he didn't want my company, I waited for him to get well
+away. It was not a cheerful place to wait, the Trophy House. The
+pictures of the champions seemed to scowl at me, and ask what right had
+such as I even to admire them, and the blue and gold ribbons and the
+silver cups made me very miserable. I had never won no blue ribbons or
+silver cups; only stakes for the old Master to spend in the publics, and
+I hadn't won them for being a beautiful, high-quality dog, but just for
+fighting--which, of course, as Woodstock Wizard III. says, is low. So I
+started for the stables, with my head down and my tail between my legs,
+feeling sorry I had ever left the Master. But I had more reason to be
+sorry before I got back to him.
+
+The Trophy House was quite a bit from the kennels, and as I left it I
+see Miss Dorothy and Woodstock Wizard III. walking back toward them,
+and that a fine, big St. Bernard, his name was Champion Red Elfberg, had
+broke his chain, and was running their way. When he reaches old Jimmy
+Jocks he lets out a roar like a grain-steamer in a fog, and he makes
+three leaps for him. Old Jimmy Jocks was about a fourth his size; but
+he plants his feet and curves his back, and his hair goes up around his
+neck like a collar. But he never had no show at no time, for the grizzly
+bear, as Jimmy Jocks had called him, lights on old Jimmy's back and
+tries to break it, and old Jimmy Jocks snaps his gums and claws the
+grass, panting and groaning awful. But he can't do nothing, and the
+grizzly bear just rolls him under him, biting and tearing cruel. The
+odds was all that Woodstock Wizard III. was going to be killed. I had
+fought enough to see that, but not knowing the rules of the game among
+champions, I didn't like to interfere between two gentlemen who might be
+settling a private affair, and, as it were, take it as presuming of me.
+So I stood by, though I was shaking terrible, and holding myself in like
+I was on a leash. But at that Woodstock Wizard III., who was underneath,
+sees me through the dust, and calls very faint, “Help, you!” he says.
+“Take him in the hind-leg,” he says. “He's murdering me,” he says.
+And then the little Miss Dorothy, who was crying, and calling to the
+kennel-men, catches at the Red Elfberg's hind-legs to pull him off, and
+the brute, keeping his front pats well in Jimmy's stomach, turns his big
+head and snaps at her. So that was all I asked for, thank you. I went
+up under him. It was really nothing. He stood so high that I had only
+to take off about three feet from him and come in from the side, and my
+long, “punishing jaw” as mother was always talking about, locked on his
+woolly throat, and my back teeth met. I couldn't shake him, but I shook
+myself, and every time I shook myself there was thirty pounds of weight
+tore at his windpipes. I couldn't see nothing for his long hair, but
+I heard Jimmy Jocks puffing and blowing on one side, and munching the
+brute's leg with his old gums. Jimmy was an old sport that day, was
+Jimmy, or, Woodstock Wizard III., as I should say. When the Red Elfberg
+was out and down I had to run, or those kennel-men would have had my
+life. They chased me right into the stables; and from under the hay I
+watched the head-groom take down a carriage-whip and order them to the
+right about. Luckily Master and the young grooms were out, or that day
+there'd have been fighting for everybody.
+
+Well, it nearly did for me and the Master. “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” comes
+raging to the stables and said I'd half-killed his best prize-winner,
+and had oughter be shot, and he gives the Master his notice. But Miss
+Dorothy she follows him, and says it was his Red Elfberg what began the
+fight, and that I'd saved Jimmy's life, and that old Jimmy Jocks
+was worth more to her than all the St. Bernards in the Swiss
+mountains--where-ever they be. And that I was her champion, anyway. Then
+she cried over me most beautiful, and over Jimmy Jocks, too, who was
+that tied up in bandages he couldn't even waddle. So when he heard that
+side of it, “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” told us that if Nolan put me on a chain,
+we could stay. So it came out all right for everybody but me. I was glad
+the Master kept his place, but I'd never worn a chain before, and it
+disheartened me--but that was the least of it. For the quality-dogs
+couldn't forgive my whipping their champion, and they came to the fence
+between the kennels and the stables, and laughed through the bars,
+barking most cruel words at me. I couldn't understand how they found it
+out, but they knew. After the fight Jimmy Jocks was most condescending
+to me, and he said the grooms had boasted to the kennel-men that I was
+a son of Regent Royal, and that when the kennel-men asked who was my
+mother they had had to tell them that too. Perhaps that was the way of
+it, but, however, the scandal was out, and every one of the quality-dogs
+knew that I was a street-dog and the son of a black-and-tan.
+
+“These misalliances will occur,” said Jimmy Jocks, in his old-fashioned
+way, “but no well-bred dog,” says he, looking most scornful at the St.
+Bernards, who were howling behind the palings, “would refer to your
+misfortune before you, certainly not cast it in your face. I, myself,
+remember your father's father, when he made his debut at the Crystal
+Palace. He took four blue ribbons and three specials.”
+
+But no sooner than Jimmy would leave me, the St. Bernards would take to
+howling again, insulting mother and insulting me. And when I tore at my
+chain, they, seeing they were safe, would howl the more. It was never
+the same after that; the laughs and the jeers cut into my heart, and the
+chain bore heavy on my spirit. I was so sad that sometimes I wished I
+was back in the gutter again, where no one was better than me, and some
+nights I wished I was dead. If it hadn't been for the Master being so
+kind, and that it would have looked like I was blaming mother, I would
+have twisted my leash and hanged myself.
+
+About a month after my fight, the word was passed through the kennels
+that the New York Show was coming, and such goings on as followed I
+never did see. If each of them had been matched to fight for a thousand
+pounds and the gate, they couldn't have trained more conscientious. But,
+perhaps, that's just my envy. The kennel-men rubbed 'em and scrubbed 'em
+and trims their hair and curls and combs it, and some dogs they fatted,
+and some they starved. No one talked of nothing but the Show, and the
+chances “our kennels” had against the other kennels, and if this one of
+our champions would win over that one, and whether them as hoped to
+be champions had better show in the “open” or the “limit” class, and
+whether this dog would beat his own dad, or whether his little puppy
+sister couldn't beat the two of them. Even the grooms had their money
+up, and day or night you heard nothing but praises of “our” dogs, until
+I, being so far out of it, couldn't have felt meaner if I had been
+running the streets with a can to my tail. I knew shows were not for
+such as me, and so I lay all day stretched at the end of my chain,
+pretending I was asleep, and only too glad that they had something so
+important to think of, that they could leave me alone.
+
+But one day before the Show opened, Miss Dorothy came to the stables
+with “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” and seeing me chained up and so miserable, she
+takes me in her arms.
+
+“You poor little tyke,” says she. “It's cruel to tie him up so; he's
+eating his heart out, Nolan,” she says. “I don't know nothing about
+bull-terriers,” says she, “but I think Kid's got good points,” says she,
+“and you ought to show him. Jimmy Jocks has three legs on the Rensselaer
+Cup now, and I'm going to show him this time so that he can get the
+fourth, and if you wish, I'll enter your dog too. How would you like
+that, Kid?” says she. “How would you like to see the most beautiful dogs
+in the world? Maybe, you'd meet a pal or two,” says she. “It would cheer
+you up, wouldn't it, Kid?” says she. But I was so upset, I could only
+wag my tail most violent. “He says it would!” says she, though, being
+that excited, I hadn't said nothing.
+
+So, “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” laughs and takes out a piece of blue paper, and
+sits down at the head-groom's table.
+
+“What's the name of the father of your dog, Nolan?” says he. And Nolan
+says, “The man I got him off told me he was a son of Champion Regent
+Royal, sir. But it don't seem likely, does it?” says Nolan.
+
+“It does not!” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” short-like.
+
+“Aren't you sure, Nolan?” says Miss Dorothy.
+
+“No, Miss,” says the Master.
+
+“Sire unknown,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” and writes it down.
+
+“Date of birth?” asks “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”
+
+“I--I--unknown, sir,” says Nolan. And “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” writes it
+down.
+
+“Breeder?” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”
+
+“Unknown,” says Nolan, getting very red around the jaws, and I drops my
+head and tail. And “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” writes that down.
+
+“Mother's name?” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”
+
+“She was a--unknown,” says the Master. And I licks his hand.
+
+“Dam unknown,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” and writes it down. Then he
+takes the paper and reads out loud: “Sire unknown, dam unknown, breeder
+unknown, date of birth unknown. You'd better call him the 'Great
+Unknown,'” says he. “Who's paying his entrance-fee?”
+
+“I am,” says Miss Dorothy.
+
+Two weeks after we all got on a train for New York; Jimmy Jocks and me
+following Nolan in the smoking-car, and twenty-two of the St. Bernards,
+in boxes and crates, and on chains and leashes. Such a barking and
+howling I never did hear, and when they sees me going, too, they laughs
+fit to kill.
+
+“Wot is this; a circus?” says the railroad-man.
+
+But I had no heart in it. I hated to go. I knew I was no “show” dog,
+even though Miss Dorothy and the Master did their best to keep me from
+shaming them. For before we set out Miss Dorothy brings a man from town
+who scrubbed and rubbed me, and sand-papered my tail, which hurt most
+awful, and shaved my ears with the Master's razor, so you could most see
+clear through 'em, and sprinkles me over with pipe-clay, till I shines
+like a Tommy's cross-belts.
+
+“Upon my word!” says Jimmy Jocks when he first sees me. “What a swell
+you are! You're the image of your grand-dad when he made his debut at
+the Crystal Palace. He took four firsts and three specials.” But I knew
+he was only trying to throw heart into me. They might scrub, and they
+might rub, and they might pipe-clay, but they couldn't pipe-clay the
+insides of me, and they was black-and-tan.
+
+Then we came to a Garden, which it was not, but the biggest hall in the
+world. Inside there was lines of benches, a few miles long, and on them
+sat every dog in the world. If all the dog-snatchers in Montreal had
+worked night and day for a year, they couldn't have caught so many dogs.
+And they was all shouting and barking and howling so vicious, that my
+heart stopped beating. For at first I thought they was all enraged at my
+presuming to intrude, but after I got in my place, they kept at it just
+the same, barking at every dog as he come in; daring him to fight, and
+ordering him out, and asking him what breed of dog he thought he was,
+anyway. Jimmy Jocks was chained just behind me, and he said he never see
+so fine a show. “That's a hot class you're in, my lad,” he says, looking
+over into my street, where there were thirty bull-terriers. They was all
+as white as cream, and each so beautiful that if I could have broke
+my chain, I would have run all the way home and hid myself under the
+horse-trough.
+
+All night long they talked and sang, and passed greetings with old
+pals, and the home-sick puppies howled dismal. Them that couldn't sleep
+wouldn't let no others sleep, and all the electric lights burned in the
+roof, and in my eyes. I could hear Jimmy Jocks snoring peaceful, but I
+could only doze by jerks, and when I dozed I dreamed horrible. All the
+dogs in the hall seemed coming at me for daring to intrude, with their
+jaws red and open, and their eyes blazing like the lights in the roof.
+“You're a street-dog! Get out, you street-dog!” they yells. And as they
+drives me out, the pipe-clay drops off me, and they laugh and shriek;
+and when I looks down I see that I have turned into a black-and-tan.
+
+They was most awful dreams, and next morning, when Miss Dorothy comes
+and gives me water in a pan, I begs and begs her to take me home, but
+she can't understand. “How well Kid is!” she says. And when I jumps into
+the Master's arms, and pulls to break my chain, he says, “If he knew
+all as he had against him, Miss, he wouldn't be so gay.” And from a book
+they reads out the names of the beautiful high-bred terriers which I
+have got to meet. And I can't make 'em understand that I only want to
+run away, and hide myself where no one will see me.
+
+Then suddenly men comes hurrying down our street and begins to brush the
+beautiful bull-terriers, and Nolan rubs me with a towel so excited that
+his hands trembles awful, and Miss Dorothy tweaks my ears between her
+gloves, so that the blood runs to 'em, and they turn pink and stand up
+straight and sharp.
+
+“Now, then, Nolan,” says she, her voice shaking just like his fingers,
+“keep his head up--and never let the Judge lose sight of him.” When I
+hears that my legs breaks under me, for I knows all about judges. Twice,
+the old Master goes up before the Judge for fighting me with other dogs,
+and the Judge promises him if he ever does it again, he'll chain him
+up in jail. I knew he'd find me out. A Judge can't be fooled by no
+pipe-clay. He can see right through you, and he reads your insides.
+
+The judging-ring, which is where the Judge holds out, was so like a
+fighting-pit, that when I came in it, and find six other dogs there, I
+springs into position, so that when they lets us go I can defend myself,
+But the Master smoothes down my hair and whispers, “Hold 'ard, Kid, hold
+'ard. This ain't a fight,” says he. “Look your prettiest,” he whispers.
+“Please, Kid, look your prettiest,” and he pulls my leash so tight that
+I can't touch my pats to the sawdust, and my nose goes up in the air.
+There was millions of people a-watching us from the railings, and three
+of our kennel-men, too, making fun of Nolan and me, and Miss Dorothy
+with her chin just reaching to the rail, and her eyes so big that I
+thought she was a-going to cry. It was awful to think that when the
+Judge stood up and exposed me, all those people, and Miss Dorothy, would
+be there to see me driven from the show.
+
+The Judge, he was a fierce-looking man with specs on his nose, and a red
+beard. When I first come in he didn't see me owing to my being too quick
+for him and dodging behind the Master. But when the Master drags me
+round and I pulls at the sawdust to keep back, the Judge looks at us
+careless-like, and then stops and glares through his specs, and I knew
+it was all up with me.
+
+“Are there any more?” asks the Judge, to the gentleman at the gate, but
+never taking his specs from me.
+
+The man at the gate looks in his book. “Seven in the novice-class,” says
+he. “They're all here. You can go ahead,” and he shuts the gate.
+
+The Judge, he doesn't hesitate a moment. He just waves his hand toward
+the corner of the ring. “Take him away,” he says to the Master. “Over
+there and keep him away,” and he turns and looks most solemn at the six
+beautiful bull-terriers. I don't know how I crawled to that corner.
+I wanted to scratch under the sawdust and dig myself a grave. The
+kennel-men they slapped the rail with their hands and laughed at the
+Master like they would fall over. They pointed at me in the corner, and
+their sides just shaked. But little Miss Dorothy she presses her lips
+tight against the rail, and I see tears rolling from her eyes. The
+Master, he hangs his head like he had been whipped. I felt most sorry
+for him, than all. He was so red, and he was letting on not to see the
+kennel-men, and blinking his eyes. If the Judge had ordered me right
+out, it wouldn't have disgraced us so, but it was keeping me there while
+he was judging the high-bred dogs that hurt so hard. With all those
+people staring too. And his doing it so quick, without no doubt nor
+questions. You can't fool the judges. They see insides you.
+
+But he couldn't make up his mind about them high-bred dogs. He scowls at
+'em, and he glares at 'em, first with his head on the one side and then
+on the other. And he feels of 'em, and orders 'em to run about. And
+Nolan leans against the rails, with his head hung down, and pats me. And
+Miss Dorothy comes over beside him, but don't say nothing, only wipes
+her eye with her finger. A man on the other side of the rail he says to
+the Master, “The Judge don't like your dog?”
+
+“No,” says the Master.
+
+“Have you ever shown him before?” says the man.
+
+“No,” says the Master, “and I'll never show him again. He's my dog,”
+ says the Master, “an' he suits me! And I don't care what no judges
+think.” And when he says them kind words, I licks his hand most
+grateful.
+
+The Judge had two of the six dogs on a little platform in the middle of
+the ring, and he had chased the four other dogs into the corners, where
+they was licking their chops, and letting on they didn't care, same as
+Nolan was.
+
+The two dogs on the platform was so beautiful that the Judge hisself
+couldn't tell which was the best of 'em, even when he stoops down and
+holds their heads together. But at last he gives a sigh, and brushes the
+sawdust off his knees and goes to the table in the ring, where there was
+a man keeping score, and heaps and heaps of blue and gold and red and
+yellow ribbons. And the Judge picks up a bunch of 'em and walks to the
+two gentlemen who was holding the beautiful dogs, and he says to each
+“What's his number?” and he hands each gentleman a ribbon. And then he
+turned sharp, and comes straight at the Master.
+
+“What's his number?” says the Judge. And Master was so scared that he
+couldn't make no answer.
+
+But Miss Dorothy claps her hands and cries out like she was laughing,
+“Three twenty-six,” and the Judge writes it down, and shoves Master the
+blue ribbon.
+
+I bit the Master, and I jumps and bit Miss Dorothy, and I waggled so
+hard that the Master couldn't hold me. When I get to the gate Miss
+Dorothy snatches me up and kisses me between the ears, right before
+millions of people, and they both hold me so tight that I didn't know
+which of them was carrying of me. But one thing I knew, for I listened
+hard, as it was the Judge hisself as said it.
+
+“Did you see that puppy I gave 'first' to?” says the Judge to the
+gentleman at the gate.
+
+“I did. He was a bit out of his class,” says the gate-gentleman.
+
+“He certainly was!” says the Judge, and they both laughed.
+
+But I didn't care. They couldn't hurt me then, not with Nolan holding
+the blue ribbon and Miss Dorothy hugging my ears, and the kennel-men
+sneaking away, each looking like he'd been caught with his nose under
+the lid of the slop-can.
+
+We sat down together, and we all three just talked as fast as we could.
+They was so pleased that I couldn't help feeling proud myself, and I
+barked and jumped and leaped about so gay, that all the bull-terriers in
+our street stretched on their chains, and howled at me.
+
+“Just look at him!” says one of those I had beat. “What's he giving
+hisself airs about?”
+
+“Because he's got one blue ribbon!” says another of 'em. “Why, when I
+was a puppy I used to eat 'em, and if that Judge could ever learn to
+know a toy from a mastiff, I'd have had this one.”
+
+But Jimmy Jocks he leaned over from his bench, and says, “Well done,
+Kid. Didn't I tell you so!” What he 'ad told me was that I might get a
+“commended,” but I didn't remind him.
+
+“Didn't I tell you,” says Jimmy Jocks, “that I saw your grandfather make
+his debut at the Crystal--”
+
+“Yes, sir, you did, sir,” says I, for I have no love for the men of my
+family.
+
+A gentleman with a showing leash around his neck comes up just then and
+looks at me very critical. “Nice dog you've got, Miss Wyndham,” says he;
+“would you care to sell him?”
+
+“He's not my dog,” says Miss Dorothy, holding me tight. “I wish he
+were.”
+
+“He's not for sale, sir,” says the Master, and I was that glad.
+
+“Oh, he's yours, is he?” says the gentleman, looking hard at Nolan.
+“Well, I'll give you a hundred dollars for him,” says he, careless-like.
+
+“Thank you, sir, he's not for sale,” says Nolan, but his eyes get very
+big. The gentleman, he walked away, but I watches him, and he talks to a
+man in a golf-cap, and by and by the man comes along our street, looking
+at all the dogs, and stops in front of me.
+
+“This your dog?” says he to Nolan. “Pity he's so leggy,” says he. “If he
+had a good tail, and a longer stop, and his ears were set higher, he'd
+be a good dog. As he is, I'll give you fifty dollars for him.”
+
+But before the Master could speak, Miss Dorothy laughs, and says,
+“You're Mr. Polk's kennel-man, I believe. Well, you tell Mr. Polk from
+me that the dog's not for sale now any more than he was five minutes
+ago, and that when he is, he'll have to bid against me for him.” The man
+looks foolish at that, but he turns to Nolan quick-like. “I'll give you
+three hundred for him,” he says.
+
+“Oh, indeed!” whispers Miss Dorothy, like she was talking to herself.
+“That's it, is it,” and she turns and looks at me just as though she had
+never seen me before. Nolan, he was a gaping, too, with his mouth open.
+But he holds me tight.
+
+“He's not for sale,” he growls, like he was frightened, and the man
+looks black and walks away.
+
+“Why, Nolan!” cries Miss Dorothy, “Mr. Polk knows more about
+bull-terriers than any amateur in America. What can he mean? Why, Kid is
+no more than a puppy! Three hundred dollars for a puppy!”
+
+“And he ain't no thoroughbred neither!” cries the Master. “He's
+'Unknown,' ain't he? Kid can't help it, of course, but his mother,
+Miss--”
+
+I dropped my head. I couldn't bear he should tell Miss Dorothy. I
+couldn't bear she should know I had stolen my blue ribbon.
+
+But the Master never told, for at that, a gentleman runs up, calling,
+“Three Twenty-Six, Three Twenty-Six,” and Miss Dorothy says, “Here he
+is, what is it?”
+
+“The Winner's Class,” says the gentleman “Hurry, please. The Judge is
+waiting for him.”
+
+Nolan tries to get me off the chain onto a showing leash, but he shakes
+so, he only chokes me. “What is it, Miss?” he says. “What is it?”
+
+“The Winner's Class,” says Miss Dorothy. “The Judge wants him with the
+winners of the other classes--to decide which is the best. It's only a
+form,” says she. “He has the champions against him now.”
+
+“Yes,” says the gentleman, as he hurries us to the ring. “I'm afraid
+it's only a form for your dog, but the Judge wants all the winners,
+puppy class even.”
+
+We had got to the gate, and the gentleman there was writing down my
+number.
+
+“Who won the open?” asks Miss Dorothy.
+
+“Oh, who would?” laughs the gentleman. “The old champion, of course.
+He's won for three years now. There he is. Isn't he wonderful?” says he,
+and he points to a dog that's standing proud and haughty on the platform
+in the middle of the ring.
+
+I never see so beautiful a dog, so fine and clean and noble, so white
+like he had rolled hisself in flour, holding his nose up and his eyes
+shut, same as though no one was worth looking at. Aside of him, we other
+dogs, even though we had a blue ribbon apiece, seemed like lumps of mud.
+He was a royal gentleman, a king, he was. His Master didn't have to hold
+his head with no leash. He held it hisself, standing as still as an iron
+dog on a lawn, like he knew all the people was looking at him. And so
+they was, and no one around the ring pointed at no other dog but him.
+
+“Oh, what a picture,” cried Miss Dorothy; “he's like a marble figure by
+a great artist--one who loved dogs. Who is he?” says she, looking in her
+book. “I don't keep up with terriers.”
+
+“Oh, you know him,” says the gentleman. “He is the Champion of
+champions, Regent Royal.”
+
+The Master's face went red.
+
+“And this is Regent Royal's son,” cries he, and he pulls me quick into
+the ring, and plants me on the platform next my father.
+
+I trembled so that I near fall. My legs twisted like a leash. But my
+father he never looked at me. He only smiled, the same sleepy smile, and
+he still keep his eyes half-shut, like as no one, no, not even his son,
+was worth his lookin' at.
+
+The Judge, he didn't let me stay beside my father, but, one by one, he
+placed the other dogs next to him and measured and felt and pulled at
+them. And each one he put down, but he never put my father down. And
+then he comes over and picks up me and sets me back on the platform,
+shoulder to shoulder with the Champion Regent Royal, and goes down on
+his knees, and looks into our eyes.
+
+The gentleman with my father, he laughs, and says to the Judge,
+“Thinking of keeping us here all day. John?” but the Judge, he doesn't
+hear him, and goes behind us and runs his hand down my side, and holds
+back my ears, and takes my jaws between his fingers. The crowd around
+the ring is very deep now, and nobody says nothing. The gentleman at the
+score-table, he is leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, and
+his eyes very wide, and the gentleman at the gate is whispering quick to
+Miss Dorothy, who has turned white. I stood as stiff as stone. I didn't
+even breathe. But out of the corner of my eye I could see my father
+licking his pink chops, and yawning just a little, like he was bored.
+
+The Judge, he had stopped looking fierce, and was looking solemn.
+Something inside him seemed a troubling him awful. The more he stares
+at us now, the more solemn he gets, and when he touches us he does
+it gentle, like he was patting us. For a long time he kneels in the
+sawdust, looking at my father and at me, and no one around the ring says
+nothing to nobody.
+
+Then the Judge takes a breath and touches me sudden. “It's his,” he
+says, but he lays his hand just as quick on my father. “I'm sorry,” says
+he.
+
+The gentleman holding my father cries:
+
+“Do you mean to tell me--”
+
+And the Judge, he answers, “I mean the other is the better dog.” He
+takes my father's head between his hands and looks down at him, most
+sorrowful. “The King is dead,” says he, “long live the King. Good-by,
+Regent,” he says.
+
+The crowd around the railings clapped their hands, and some laughed
+scornful, and everyone talks fast, and I start for the gate so dizzy
+that I can't see my way. But my father pushes in front of me, walking
+very daintily, and smiling sleepy, same as he had just been waked, with
+his head high, and his eyes shut, looking at nobody.
+
+So that is how I “came by my inheritance,” as Miss Dorothy calls it,
+and just for that, though I couldn't feel where I was any different, the
+crowd follows me to my bench, and pats me, and coos at me, like I was a
+baby in a baby-carriage. And the handlers have to hold 'em back so that
+the gentlemen from the papers can make pictures of me, and Nolan walks
+me up and down so proud, and the men shakes their heads and says, “He
+certainly is the true type, he is!” And the pretty ladies asks Miss
+Dorothy, who sits beside me letting me lick her gloves to show the crowd
+what friends we is, “Aren't you afraid he'll bite you?” and Jimmy Jocks
+calls to me, “Didn't I tell you so! I always knew you were one of us.
+Blood will out, Kid, blood will out. I saw your grandfather,” says he,
+“make his debut at the Crystal Palace. But he was never the dog you
+are!”
+
+After that, if I could have asked for it, there was nothing I couldn't
+get. You might have thought I was a snow-dog, and they was afeerd I'd
+melt. If I wet my pats, Nolan gave me a hot bath and chained me to the
+stove; if I couldn't eat my food, being stuffed full by the cook, for
+I am a house-dog now, and let in to lunch whether there is visitors or
+not, Nolan would run to bring the vet. It was all tommy-rot, as Jimmy
+says, but meant most kind. I couldn't scratch myself comfortable,
+without Nolan giving me nasty drinks, and rubbing me outside till it
+burnt awful, and I wasn't let to eat bones for fear of spoiling my
+“beautiful” mouth, what mother used to call my “punishing jaw,” and my
+food was cooked special on a gas-stove, and Miss Dorothy gives me an
+overcoat, cut very stylish like the champions', to wear when we goes out
+carriage-driving.
+
+After the next show, where I takes three blue ribbons, four silver cups,
+two medals, and brings home forty-five dollars for Nolan, they gives
+me a “Registered” name, same as Jimmy's. Miss Dorothy wanted to call me
+“Regent Heir Apparent,” but I was THAT glad when Nolan says, “No, Kid
+don't owe nothing to his father, only to you and hisself. So, if you
+please, Miss, we'll call him Wyndham Kid.” And so they did, and you can
+see it on my overcoat in blue letters, and painted top of my kennel. It
+was all too hard to understand. For days I just sat and wondered if I
+was really me, and how it all come about, and why everybody was so kind.
+But, oh, it was so good they was, for if they hadn't been, I'd never
+have got the thing I most wished after. But, because they was kind, and
+not liking to deny me nothing, they gave it me, and it was more to me
+than anything in the world.
+
+It came about one day when we was out driving. We was in the cart they
+calls the dog-cart, because it's the one Miss Dorothy keeps to take
+Jimmy and me for an airing. Nolan was up behind, and me in my new
+overcoat was sitting beside Miss Dorothy. I was admiring the view, and
+thinking how good it was to have a horse pull you about so that you
+needn't get yourself splashed and have to be washed, when I hears a
+dog calling loud for help, and I pricks up my ears and looks over the
+horse's head. And I sees something that makes me tremble down to my
+toes. In the road before us three big dogs was chasing a little, old
+lady-dog. She had a string to her tail, where some boys had tied a can,
+and she was dirty with mud and ashes, and torn most awful. She was too
+far done up to get away, and too old to help herself, but she was making
+a fight for her life, snapping her old gums savage, and dying game. All
+this I see in a wink, and then the three dogs pinned her down, and I
+can't stand it no longer and clears the wheel and lands in the road on
+my head. It was my stylish overcoat done that, and I curse it proper,
+but I gets my pats again quick, and makes a rush for the fighting.
+Behind me I hear Miss Dorothy cry, “They'll kill that old dog. Wait,
+take my whip. Beat them off her! The Kid can take care of himself,” and
+I hear Nolan fall into the road, and the horse come to a stop. The old
+lady-dog was down, and the three was eating her vicious, but as I come
+up, scattering the pebbles, she hears, and thinking it's one more of
+them, she lifts her head and my heart breaks open like someone had sunk
+his teeth in it. For, under the ashes and the dirt and the blood, I can
+see who it is, and I know that my mother has come back to me.
+
+I gives a yell that throws them three dogs off their legs.
+
+“Mother!” I cries. “I'm the Kid,” I cries. “I'm coming to you, mother,
+I'm coming.”
+
+And I shoots over her, at the throat of the big dog, and the other two,
+they sinks their teeth into that stylish overcoat, and tears it off me,
+and that sets me free, and I lets them have it. I never had so fine a
+fight as that! What with mother being there to see, and not having
+been let to mix up in no fights since I become a prize-winner, it just
+naturally did me good, and it wasn't three shakes before I had 'em
+yelping. Quick as a wink, mother, she jumps in to help me, and I just
+laughed to see her. It was so like old times. And Nolan, he made me
+laugh too. He was like a hen on a bank, shaking the butt of his whip,
+but not daring to cut in for fear of hitting me.
+
+“Stop it, Kid,” he says, “stop it. Do you want to be all torn up?” says
+he. “Think of the Boston show next week,” says he, “Think of Chicago.
+Think of Danbury. Don't you never want to be a champion?” How was I to
+think of all them places when I had three dogs to cut up at the same
+time. But in a minute two of 'em begs for mercy, and mother and me lets
+'em run away. The big one, he ain't able to run away. Then mother and
+me, we dances and jumps, and barks and laughs, and bites each other and
+rolls each other in the road. There never was two dogs so happy as we,
+and Nolan, he whistles and calls and begs me to come to him, but I just
+laugh and play larks with mother.
+
+“Now, you come with me,” says I, “to my new home, and never try to run
+away again.” And I shows her our house with the five red roofs, set on
+the top of the hill. But mother trembles awful, and says: “They'd never
+let the likes of me in such a place. Does the Viceroy live there, Kid?”
+ says she. And I laugh at her. “No, I do,” I says; “and if they won't let
+you live there, too, you and me will go back to the streets together,
+for we must never be parted no more.” So we trots up the hill, side by
+side, with Nolan trying to catch me, and Miss Dorothy laughing at him
+from the cart.
+
+“The Kid's made friends with the poor old dog,” says she. “Maybe he knew
+her long ago when he ran the streets himself. Put her in here beside me,
+and see if he doesn't follow.”
+
+So, when I hears that, I tells mother to go with Nolan and sit in the
+cart, but she says no, that she'd soil the pretty lady's frock; but I
+tells her to do as I say, and so Nolan lifts her, trembling still, into
+the cart, and I runs alongside, barking joyful.
+
+When we drives into the stables I takes mother to my kennel, and tells
+her to go inside it and make herself at home. “Oh, but he won't let me!”
+ says she.
+
+“Who won't let you?” says I, keeping my eye on Nolan, and growling a bit
+nasty, just to show I was meaning to have my way. “Why, Wyndham Kid,”
+ says she, looking up at the name on my kennel.
+
+“But I'm Wyndham Kid!” says I.
+
+“You!” cries mother. “You! Is my little Kid the great Wyndham Kid the
+dogs all talk about?” And at that, she, being very old, and sick, and
+hungry, and nervous, as mothers are, just drops down in the straw and
+weeps bitter.
+
+Well, there ain't much more than that to tell. Miss Dorothy, she settled
+it.
+
+“If the Kid wants the poor old thing in the stables,” says she, “let her
+stay.”
+
+“You see,” says she, “she's a black-and-tan, and his mother was a
+black-and-tan, and maybe that's what makes Kid feel so friendly toward
+her,” says she.
+
+“Indeed, for me,” says Nolan, “she can have the best there is. I'd never
+drive out no dog that asks for a crust nor a shelter,” he says. “But
+what will Mr. Wyndham do?”
+
+“He'll do what I say,” says Miss Dorothy, “and if I say she's to stay,
+she will stay, and I say--she's to stay!”
+
+And so mother and Nolan, and me, found a home. Mother was scared at
+first--not being used to kind people--but she was so gentle and loving,
+that the grooms got fonder of her than of me, and tried to make me
+jealous by patting of her, and giving her the pick of the vittles. But
+that was the wrong way to hurt my feelings. That's all, I think. Mother
+is so happy here that I tell her we ought to call it the Happy Hunting
+Grounds, because no one hunts you, and there is nothing to hunt; it just
+all comes to you. And so we live in peace, mother sleeping all day in
+the sun, or behind the stove in the head-groom's office, being fed
+twice a day regular by Nolan, and all the day by the other grooms most
+irregular, And, as for me, I go hurrying around the country to the
+bench-shows; winning money and cups for Nolan, and taking the blue
+ribbons away from father.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A DERELICT
+
+
+When the war-ships of a navy lie cleared for action outside a harbor,
+and the war-ships of the country with which they are at war lie cleared
+for action inside the harbor, there is likely to be trouble. Trouble
+between war-ships is news, and wherever there is news there is always a
+representative of the Consolidated Press.
+
+As long as Sampson blockaded Havana and the army beat time back of the
+Tampa Bay Hotel, the central office for news was at Key West, but
+when Cervera slipped into Santiago Harbor and Sampson stationed his
+battle-ships at its mouth, Key West lost her only excuse for existence,
+and the press-boats burled their bows in the waters of the Florida
+Straits and raced for the cable-station at Port Antonio. It was then
+that Keating, the “star” man of the Consolidated Press Syndicate, was
+forced to abandon his young bride and the rooms he had engaged for her
+at the Key West Hotel, and accompany his tug to the distant island of
+Jamaica.
+
+Keating was a good and faithful servant to the Consolidated Press. He
+was a correspondent after its own making, an industrious collector of
+facts. The Consolidated Press did not ask him to comment on what it
+sent him to see; it did not require nor desire his editorial opinions or
+impressions. It was no part of his work to go into the motives which led
+to the event of news interest which he was sent to report, nor to point
+out what there was of it which was dramatic, pathetic, or outrageous.
+
+The Consolidated Press, being a mighty corporation, which daily fed
+seven hundred different newspapers, could not hope to please the policy
+of each, so it compromised by giving the facts of the day fairly set
+down, without heat, prejudice, or enthusiasm. This was an excellent
+arrangement for the papers that subscribed for the service of the
+Consolidated Press, but it was death to the literary strivings of the
+Consolidated Press correspondents.
+
+“We do not want descriptive writing,” was the warning which the manager
+of the great syndicate was always flashing to its correspondents. “We do
+not pay you to send us pen-pictures or prose poems. We want the facts,
+all the facts, and nothing but the facts.”
+
+And so, when at a presidential convention a theatrical speaker sat down
+after calling James G. Blaine “a plumed knight,” each of the “special”
+ correspondents present wrote two columns in an effort to describe
+how the people who heard the speech behaved in consequence, but the
+Consolidated Press man telegraphed, “At the conclusion of these remarks
+the cheering lasted sixteen minutes.”
+
+No event of news value was too insignificant to escape the watchfulness
+of the Consolidated Press, none so great that it could not handle it
+from its inception up to the moment when it ceased to be quoted in the
+news-market of the world. Each night, from thousands of spots all over
+the surface of the globe, it received thousands of facts, of cold,
+accomplished facts. It knew that a tidal wave had swept through China, a
+cabinet had changed in Chili, in Texas an express train had been held up
+and robbed, “Spike” Kennedy had defeated the “Dutchman” in New Orleans,
+the Oregon had coaled outside of Rio Janeiro Harbor, the Cape Verde
+fleet had been seen at anchor off Cadiz; it had been located in the
+harbor of San Juan, Porto Rico; it had been sighted steaming slowly past
+Fortress Monroe; and the Navy Department reported that the St. Paul had
+discovered the lost squadron of Spain in the harbor of Santiago. This
+last fact was the one which sent Keating to Jamaica. Where he was sent
+was a matter of indifference to Keating. He had worn the collar of
+the Consolidated Press for so long a time that he was callous. A board
+meeting--a mine disaster--an Indian uprising--it was all one to Keating.
+He collected facts and his salary. He had no enthusiasms, he held no
+illusions. The prestige of the mammoth syndicate he represented gained
+him an audience where men who wrote for one paper only were repulsed on
+the threshold. Senators, governors, the presidents of great trusts and
+railroad systems, who fled from the reporter of a local paper as from
+a leper, would send for Keating and dictate to him whatever it was they
+wanted the people of the United States to believe, for when they talked
+to Keating they talked to many millions of readers. Keating, in turn,
+wrote out what they had said to him and transmitted it, without color or
+bias, to the clearinghouse of the Consolidated Press. His “stories,”
+ as all newspaper writings are called by men who write them, were as
+picturesque reading as the quotations of a stock-ticker. The personal
+equation appeared no more offensively than it does in a page of
+typewriting in his work.
+
+Consequently, he was dear to the heart of the Consolidated Press, and,
+as a “safe” man, was sent to the beautiful harbor of Santiago--to a spot
+where there were war-ships cleared for action, Cubans in ambush,
+naked marines fighting for a foothold at Guantanamo, palm-trees and
+coral-reefs--in order that he might look for “facts.”
+
+There was not a newspaper man left at Key West who did not writhe with
+envy and anger when he heard of it. When the wire was closed for
+the night, and they had gathered at Josh Kerry's, Keating was the
+storm-centre of their indignation.
+
+“What a chance!” they protested. “What a story! It's the chance of a
+lifetime.” They shook their heads mournfully and lashed themselves with
+pictures of its possibilities.
+
+“And just fancy its being wasted on old Keating,” said the Journal man.
+“Why, everything's likely to happen out there, and whatever does happen,
+he'll make it read like a Congressional Record. Why, when I heard of it
+I cabled the office that if the paper would send me I'd not ask for any
+salary for six months.”
+
+“And Keating's kicking because he has to go,” growled the Sun man. “Yes,
+he is, I saw him last night, and he was sore because he'd just moved his
+wife down here. He said if he'd known this was coming he'd have let her
+stay in New York. He says he'll lose money on this assignment, having to
+support himself and his wife in two different places.”
+
+Norris, “the star man” of the World, howled with indignation.
+
+“Good Lord!” he said, “is that all he sees in it? Why, there never was
+such a chance. I tell you, some day soon all of those war-ships will let
+loose at each other and there will be the best story that ever came over
+the wire, and if there isn't, it's a regular loaf anyway. It's a picnic,
+that's what it is, at the expense of the Consolidated Press. Why,
+he ought to pay them to let him go. Can't you see him, confound him,
+sitting under a palm-tree in white flannels, with a glass of Jamaica rum
+in his fist, while we're dodging yellow fever on this coral-reef, and
+losing our salaries on a crooked roulette-wheel.”
+
+“I wonder what Jamaica rum is like as a steady drink,” mused the
+ex-baseball reporter, who had been converted into a war-correspondent by
+the purchase of a white yachting-cap.
+
+“It won't be long before Keating finds out,” said the Journal man.
+
+“Oh, I didn't know that,” ventured the new reporter, who had just come
+South from Boston. “I thought he didn't drink. I never see Keating in
+here with the rest of the boys.”
+
+“You wouldn't,” said Norris. “He only comes in here by himself, and he
+drinks by himself. He's one of those confidential drunkards, You give
+some men whiskey, and it's like throwing kerosene on a fire, isn't it?
+It makes them wave their arms about and talk loud and break things, but
+you give it to another man and it's like throwing kerosene on a cork
+mat. It just soaks in. That's what Keating is. He's a sort of a cork
+mat.”
+
+“I shouldn't think the C. P. would stand for that,” said the Boston man.
+
+“It wouldn't, if it ever interfered with his work, but he's never fallen
+down on a story yet. And the sort of stuff he writes is machine-made; a
+man can write C. P. stuff in his sleep.”
+
+One of the World men looked up and laughed.
+
+“I wonder if he'll run across Channing out there,” he said. The men at
+the table smiled, a kindly, indulgent smile. The name seemed to act
+upon their indignation as a shower upon the close air of a summer-day.
+“That's so,” said Norris. “He wrote me last month from Port-au-Prince
+that he was moving on to Jamaica. He wrote me from that club there at
+the end of the wharf. He said he was at that moment introducing the
+President to a new cocktail, and as he had no money to pay his passage
+to Kingston he was trying to persuade him to send him on there as his
+Haitian Consul. He said in case he couldn't get appointed Consul, he had
+an offer to go as cook on a fruit-tramp.”
+
+The men around the table laughed. It was the pleased, proud laugh that
+flutters the family dinner-table when the infant son and heir says
+something precocious and impudent.
+
+“Who is Channing?” asked the Boston man.
+
+There was a pause, and the correspondents looked at Norris.
+
+“Channing is a sort of a derelict,” he said. “He drifted into New York
+last Christmas from the Omaha Bee. He's been on pretty nearly every
+paper in the country.”
+
+“What's he doing in Haiti?”
+
+“He went there on the Admiral Decatur to write a filibustering story
+about carrying arms across to Cuba. Then the war broke out and he's
+been trying to get back to Key West, and now, of course, he'll make for
+Kingston. He cabled me yesterday, at my expense, to try and get him a
+job on our paper. If the war hadn't come on he had a plan to beat his
+way around the world. And he'd have done it, too. I never saw a man who
+wouldn't help Charlie along, or lend him a dollar.” He glanced at the
+faces about him and winked at the Boston man. “They all of them look
+guilty, don't they?” he said.
+
+“Charlie Channing,” murmured the baseball reporter, gently, as though
+he were pronouncing the name of a girl. He raised his glass. “Here's
+to Charlie Channing,” he repeated. Norris set down his empty glass and
+showed it to the Boston man.
+
+“That's his only enemy,” he said. “Write! Heavens, how that man can
+write, and he'd almost rather do anything else. There isn't a paper in
+New York that wasn't glad to get him, but they couldn't keep him a
+week. It was no use talking to him. Talk! I've talked to him until three
+o'clock in the morning. Why, it was I made him send his first Chinatown
+story to the International Magazine, and they took it like a flash and
+wrote him for more, but he blew in the check they sent him and didn't
+even answer their letter. He said after he'd had the fun of writing a
+story, he didn't care whether it was published in a Sunday paper or in
+white vellum, or never published at all. And so long as he knew he wrote
+it, he didn't care whether anyone else knew it or not. Why, when that
+English reviewer--what's his name--that friend of Kipling's--passed
+through New York, he said to a lot of us at the Press Club, 'You've got
+a young man here on Park Row--an opium-eater, I should say, by the look
+of him, who if he would work and leave whiskey alone, would make us all
+sweat.' That's just what he said, and he's the best in England!”
+
+“Charlie's a genius,” growled the baseball reporter, defiantly. “I say,
+he's a genius.”
+
+The Boston man shook his head. “My boy,” he began, sententiously,
+“genius is nothing more than hard work, and a man--”
+
+Norris slapped the table with his hand.
+
+“Oh, no, it's not,” he jeered, fiercely, “and don't you go off believing
+it is, neither. I've worked. I've worked twelve hours a day. Keating
+even has worked eighteen hours a day--all his life--but we never wrote
+'The Passing of the Highbinders,' nor the 'Ships that Never Came
+Home,' nor 'Tales of the Tenderloin,' and we never will. I'm a better
+news-gatherer than Charlie, I can collect facts and I can put them
+together well enough, too, so that if a man starts to read my story
+he'll probably follow it to the bottom of the column, and he may turn
+over the page, too. But I can't say the things, because I can't see
+the things that Charlie sees. Why, one night we sent him out on a big
+railroad-story. It was a beat, we'd got it by accident, and we had it
+all to ourselves, but Charlie came across a blind beggar on Broadway
+with a dead dog. The dog had been run over, and the blind beggar
+couldn't find his way home without him, and was sitting on the
+curb-stone, weeping over the mongrel. Well, when Charlie came back to
+the office he said he couldn't find out anything about that railroad
+deal, but that he'd write them a dog-story. Of course, they were raging
+crazy, but he sat down just as though it was no concern of his, and,
+sure enough, he wrote the dog-story. And the next day over five hundred
+people stopped in at the office on their way downtown and left dimes and
+dollars to buy that man a new dog. Now, hard work won't do that.”
+
+Keating had been taking breakfast in the ward-room of H. M. S.
+Indefatigable. As an acquaintance the officers had not found him an
+undoubted acquisition, but he was the representative of seven hundred
+papers, and when the Indefatigable's ice-machine broke, he had loaned
+the officers' mess a hundred pounds of it from his own boat.
+
+The cruiser's gig carried Keating to the wharf, the crew tossed their
+oars and the boatswain touched his cap and asked, mechanically, “Shall I
+return to the ship, sir?”
+
+Channing, stretched on the beach, with his back to a palm-tree, observed
+the approach of Keating with cheerful approbation.
+
+“It is gratifying to me,” he said, “to see the press treated with such
+consideration. You came in just like Cleopatra in her barge. If the flag
+had been flying, and you hadn't steered so badly, I should have thought
+you were at least an admiral. How many guns does the British Navy give a
+Consolidated Press reporter when he comes over the side?”
+
+Keating dropped to the sand and, crossing his legs under him, began
+tossing shells at the water.
+
+“They gave this one a damned good breakfast,” he said, “and some very
+excellent white wine. Of course, the ice-machine was broken, it always
+is, but then Chablis never should be iced, if it's the real thing.”
+
+“Chablis! Ice! Hah!” snorted Channing. “Listen to him! Do you know what
+I had for breakfast?”
+
+Keating turned away uncomfortably and looked toward the ships in the
+harbor.
+
+“Well, never mind,” said Channing, yawning luxuriously. “The sun is
+bright, the sea is blue, and the confidences of this old palm are
+soothing. He's a great old gossip, this palm.” He looked up into the
+rustling fronds and smiled. “He whispers me to sleep,” he went on,
+“or he talks me awake--talks about all sorts of things--things he has
+seen--cyclones, wrecks, and strange ships and Cuban refugees and
+Spanish spies and lovers that meet here on moonlight nights. It's always
+moonlight in Port Antonio, isn't it?”
+
+“You ought to know, you've been here longer than I,” said Keating.
+
+“And how do you like it, now that you have got to know it better? Pretty
+heavenly? eh?”
+
+“Pretty heavenly!” snorted Keating. “Pretty much the other place! What
+good am I doing? What's the sense of keeping me here? Cervera isn't
+going to come out, and the people at Washington won't let Sampson go in.
+Why, those ships have been there a month now, and they'll be there just
+where they are now when you and I are bald. I'm no use here. All I do
+is to thrash across there every day and eat up more coal than the whole
+squadron burns in a month. Why, that tug of mine's costing the C. P. six
+hundred dollars a day, and I'm not sending them news enough to pay for
+setting it up. Have you seen 'em yet?”
+
+“Seen what? Your stories?”
+
+“No, the ships!”
+
+“Yes, Scudder took me across once in the Iduna. I haven't got a paper
+yet, so I couldn't write anything, but--”
+
+“Well, you've seen all there is to it, then; you wouldn't see any more
+if you went over every day. It's just the same old harbor-mouth, and
+the same old Morro Castle, and same old ships, drifting up and down; the
+Brooklyn, full of smoke-stacks, and the New York, with her two bridges,
+and all the rest of them looking just as they've looked for the last
+four weeks. There's nothing in that. Why don't they send me to Tampa
+with the army and Shafter--that's where the story is.”
+
+“Oh, I don't know,” said Channing, shaking his head. “I thought it was
+bully!”
+
+“Bully, what was bully?”
+
+“Oh, the picture,” said Channing, doubtfully, “and--and what it meant.
+What struck me about it was that it was so hot, and lazy, and peaceful,
+that they seemed to be just drifting about, just what you complain of.
+I don't know what I expected to see; I think I expected they'd be racing
+around in circles, tearing up the water and throwing broadsides at Morro
+Castle as fast as fire-crackers.
+
+“But they lay broiling there in the heat just as though they were
+becalmed. They seemed to be asleep on their anchor-chains. It reminded
+me of a big bull-dog lying in the sun with his head on his paws and his
+eyes shut. You think he's asleep, and you try to tiptoe past him, but
+when you're in reach of his chain--he's at your throat, what? It seemed
+so funny to think of our being really at war. I mean the United States,
+and with such an old-established firm as Spain. It seems so presumptuous
+in a young republic, as though we were strutting around, singing, 'I'm
+getting a big boy now.' I felt like saying, 'Oh, come off, and stop
+playing you're a world power, and get back into your red sash and
+knickerbockers, or you'll get spanked!' It seems as though we must be
+such a lot of amateurs. But when I went over the side of the New York I
+felt like kneeling down on her deck and begging every jackey to kick me.
+I felt about as useless as a fly on a locomotive-engine. Amateurs! Why,
+they might have been in the business since the days of the ark; all of
+them might have been descended from bloody pirates; they twisted those
+eight-inch guns around for us just as though they were bicycles, and the
+whole ship moved and breathed and thought, too, like a human being, and
+all the captains of the other war-ships about her were watching for her
+to give the word. All of them stripped and eager and ready--like a lot
+of jockeys holding in the big race-horses, and each of them with his
+eyes on the starter. And I liked the way they all talk about Sampson,
+and the way the ships move over the stations like parts of one machine,
+just as he had told them to do.
+
+“Scudder introduced me to him, and he listened while we did the talking,
+but it was easy to see who was the man in the Conning Tower. Keating--my
+boy!” Channing cried, sitting upright in his enthusiasm, “he's put a
+combination-lock on that harbor that can't be picked--and it'll work
+whether Sampson's asleep in his berth, or fifteen miles away, or killed
+on the bridge. He doesn't have to worry, he knows his trap will work--he
+ought to, he set it.”
+
+Keating shrugged his shoulders, tolerantly.
+
+“Oh, I see that side of it,” he assented. “I see all there is in it for
+YOU, the sort of stuff you write, Sunday-special stuff, but there's no
+NEWS in it. I'm not paid to write mail-letters, and I'm not down here to
+interview palm-trees either.”
+
+“Why, you old fraud!” laughed Channing. “You know you're having the time
+of your life here. You're the pet of Kingston society--you know you
+are. I only wish I were half as popular. I don't seem to belong, do I? I
+guess it's my clothes. That English Colonel at Kingston always scowls
+at me as though he'd like to put me in irons, and whenever I meet our
+Consul he sees something very peculiar on the horizon-line.”
+
+Keating frowned for a moment in silence, and then coughed, consciously.
+
+“Channing,” he began, uncomfortably, “you ought to brace up.”
+
+“Brace up?” asked Channing.
+
+“Well, it isn't fair to the rest of us,” protested Keating, launching
+into his grievance. “There's only a few of us here, and we--we think
+you ought to see that and not give the crowd a bad name. All the other
+correspondents have some regard for--for their position and for the
+paper, but you loaf around here looking like an old tramp--like any
+old beach-comber, and it queers the rest of us. Why, those English
+artillerymen at the Club asked me about you, and when I told them
+you were a New York correspondent they made all sorts of jokes about
+American newspapers, and what could I say?”
+
+Channing eyed the other man with keen delight.
+
+“I see, by Jove! I'm sorry,” he said. But the next moment he laughed,
+and then apologized, remorsefully.
+
+“Indeed, I beg your pardon,” he begged, “but it struck me as a sort
+of--I had no idea you fellows were such swells--I knew I was a social
+outcast, but I didn't know my being a social outcast was hurting anyone
+else. Tell me some more.”
+
+“Well, that's all,” said Keating, suspiciously. “The fellows asked me
+to speak to you about it and to tell you to take a brace. Now, for
+instance, we have a sort of mess-table at the hotels and we'd like to
+ask you to belong, but--well--you see how it is--we have the officers
+to lunch whenever they're on shore, and you're so disreputable”--Keating
+scowled at Channing, and concluded, impotently, “Why don't you get
+yourself some decent clothes and--and a new hat?”
+
+Channing removed his hat to his knee and stroked it with affectionate
+pity.
+
+“It is a shocking bad hat,” he said. “Well, go on.”
+
+“Oh, it's none of my business,” exclaimed Keating, impatiently. “I'm
+just telling you what they're saying. Now, there's the Cuban refugees,
+for instance. No one knows what they're doing here, or whether they're
+real Cubans or Spaniards.”
+
+“Well, what of it?”
+
+“Why, the way you go round with them and visit them, it's no wonder they
+say you're a spy.”
+
+Channing stared incredulously, and then threw back his head and laughed
+with a shout of delight.
+
+“They don't, do they?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, they do, since you think it's so funny. If it hadn't been for
+us the day you went over to Guantanamo the marines would have had you
+arrested and court-martialed.”
+
+Channing's face clouded with a quick frown, “Oh,” he exclaimed, in a
+hurt voice, “they couldn't have thought that.”
+
+“Well, no,” Keating admitted grudgingly, “not after the fight, perhaps,
+but before that, when you were snooping around the camp like a Cuban
+after rations.” Channing recognized the picture with a laugh.
+
+“I do,” he said, “I do. But you should have had me court-martialed and
+shot; it would have made a good story. 'Our reporter shot as a spy, his
+last words were--' what were my last words, Keating?”
+
+Keating turned upon him with impatience, “But why do you do it?” he
+demanded. “Why don't you act like the rest of us? Why do you hang out
+with all those filibusters and runaway Cubans?”
+
+“They have been very kind to me,” said Channing, soberly. “They are a
+very courteous race, and they have ideas of hospitality which make the
+average New Yorker look like a dog hiding a bone.”
+
+“Oh, I suppose you mean that for us,” demanded Keating. “That's a slap
+at me, eh?”
+
+Channing gave a sigh and threw himself back against the trunk of the
+palm, with his hands clasped behind his head.
+
+“Oh, I wasn't thinking of you at all, Keating,” he said. “I don't
+consider you in the least.” He stretched himself and yawned wearily.
+“I've got troubles of my own.” He sat up suddenly and adjusted the
+objectionable hat to his head.
+
+“Why don't you wire the C. P.,” he asked, briskly, “and see if they
+don't want an extra man? It won't cost you anything to wire, and I need
+the job, and I haven't the money to cable.”
+
+“The Consolidated Press,” began Keating, jealously. “Why--well, you know
+what the Consolidated Press is? They don't want descriptive writers--and
+I've got all the men I need.”
+
+Keating rose and stood hesitating in some embarrassment. “I'll tell you
+what I could do, Channing,” he said, “I could take you on as a stoker,
+or steward, say. They're always deserting and mutinying; I have to carry
+a gun on me to make them mind. How would you like that? Forty dollars a
+month, and eat with the crew?”
+
+For a moment Channing stood in silence, smoothing the sand with the sole
+of his shoe. When he raised his head his face was flushing.
+
+“Oh, thank you,” he said. “I think I'll keep on trying for a paper--I'll
+try a little longer. I want to see something of this war, of course, and
+if I'm not too lazy I'd like to write something about it, but--well--I'm
+much obliged to you, anyway.”
+
+“Of course, if it were my money, I'd take you on at once,” said Keating,
+hurriedly.
+
+Channing smiled and nodded. “You're very kind,” he answered. “Well,
+good-by.”
+
+A half-hour later, in the smoking-room of the hotel, Keating addressed
+himself to a group of correspondents.
+
+“There is no doing anything with that man Channing,” he said, in a tone
+of offended pride. “I offered him a good job and he wouldn't take it.
+Because he got a story in the International Magazine, he's stuck on
+himself, and he won't hustle for news--he wants to write pipe-dreams.
+What the public wants just now is news.”
+
+“That's it,” said one of the group, “and we must give it to them--even
+if we have to fake it.”
+
+Great events followed each other with great rapidity. The army ceased
+beating time, shook itself together, adjusted its armor and moved, and,
+to the delight of the flotilla of press-boats at Port Antonio, moved,
+not as it had at first intended, to the north coast of Cuba, but to
+Santiago, where its transports were within reach of their megaphones.
+
+“Why, everything's coming our way now!” exclaimed the World manager
+in ecstasy. “We've got the transports to starboard at Siboney, and the
+war-ships to port at Santiago, and all we'll need to do is to sit on the
+deck with a field-glass, and take down the news with both hands.”
+
+Channing followed these events with envy. Once or twice, as a special
+favor, the press-boats carried him across to Siboney and Daiquiri, and
+he was able to write stories of what he saw there; of the landing of the
+army, of the wounded after the Guasimas fight, and of the fever-camp at
+Siboney. His friends on the press-boats sent this work home by mail on
+the chance that the Sunday editor might take it at space rates. But mail
+matter moved slowly and the army moved quickly, and events crowded so
+closely upon each other that Channing's stories, when they reached New
+York, were ancient history and were unpublished, and, what was of more
+importance to him, unpaid for. He had no money now, and he had become
+a beach-comber in the real sense of the word. He slept the warm nights
+away among the bananas and cocoanuts on the Fruit Company's wharf,
+and by calling alternately on his Cuban exiles and the different
+press-boats, he was able to obtain a meal a day without arousing any
+suspicions in the minds of his hosts that it was his only one.
+
+He was sitting on the stringer of the pier-head one morning, waiting for
+a press-boat from the “front,” when the Three Friends ran in and lowered
+her dingy, and the “World” manager came ashore, clasping a precious
+bundle of closely written cable-forms. Channing scrambled to his feet
+and hailed him.
+
+“Have you heard from the chief about me yet?” he asked. The “World” man
+frowned and stammered, and then, taking Channing by the arm, hurried
+with him toward the cable-office.
+
+“Charlie, I think they're crazy up there,” he began, “they think they
+know it all. Here I am on the spot, but they think--”
+
+“You mean they won't have me,” said Channing. “But why?” he asked,
+patiently. “They used to give me all the space I wanted.”
+
+“Yes, I know, confound them, and so they should now,” said the “World”
+ man, with sympathetic indignation. “But here's their cable; you can see
+it's not my fault.” He read the message aloud. “Channing, no. Not safe,
+take reliable man from Siboney.” He folded the cablegram around a dozen
+others and stuck it back in his hip-pocket.
+
+“What queered you, Charlie,” he explained, importantly, “was that last
+break of yours, New Year's, when you didn't turn up for a week. It
+was once too often, and the chief's had it in for you ever since. You
+remember?”
+
+Channing screwed up his lips in an effort of recollection.
+
+“Yes, I remember,” he answered, slowly. “It began on New Year's eve in
+Perry's drug-store, and I woke up a week later in a hack in Boston. So
+I didn't have such a run for my money, did I? Not good enough to have to
+pay for it like this. I tell you,” he burst out suddenly, “I feel like
+hell being left out of this war, with all the rest of the boys working
+so hard. If it weren't playing it low down on the fellows that have been
+in it from the start, I'd like to enlist. But they enlisted for glory,
+and I'd only do it because I can't see the war any other way, and it
+doesn't seem fair to them. What do you think?”
+
+“Oh, don't do that,” protested the World manager. “You stick to your own
+trade. We'll get you something to do. Have you tried the Consolidated
+Press yet?”
+
+Channing smiled grimly at the recollection.
+
+“Yes, I tried it first.”
+
+“It would be throwing pearls to swine to have you write for them, I
+know, but they're using so many men now. I should think you could get on
+their boat.”
+
+“No, I saw Keating,” Channing explained. “He said I could come along as
+a stoker, and I guess I'll take him up, it seems--”
+
+“Keating said--what?” exclaimed the “World” man. “Keating? Why, he
+stands to lose his own job, if he isn't careful. If it wasn't that he's
+just married, the C. P. boys would have reported him a dozen times.”
+
+“Reported him, what for?”
+
+“Why--you know. His old complaint.”
+
+“Oh, that,” said Channing. “My old complaint?” he added.
+
+“Well, yes, but Keating hasn't been sober for two weeks, and he'd
+have fallen down on the Guasimas story if those men hadn't pulled him
+through. They had to, because they're in the syndicate. He ought to go
+shoot himself; he's only been married three months and he's handling the
+biggest piece of news the country's had in thirty years, and he can't
+talk straight. There's a time for everything, I say,” growled the
+“World” man.
+
+“It takes it out of a man, this boat-work,” Channing ventured, in
+extenuation. “It's very hard on him.”
+
+“You bet it is,” agreed the “World” manager, with enthusiasm. “Sloshing
+about in those waves, sea-sick mostly, and wet all the time, and with a
+mutinous crew, and so afraid you'll miss something that you can't
+write what you have got.” Then he added, as an after-thought, “And our
+cruisers thinking you're a Spanish torpedo-boat and chucking shells at
+you.”
+
+“No wonder Keating drinks,” Channing said, gravely. “You make it seem
+almost necessary.”
+
+Many thousand American soldiers had lost themselves in a jungle, and
+had broken out of it at the foot of San Juan Hill. Not wishing to return
+into the jungle, they took the hill. On the day they did this Channing
+had the good fortune to be in Siboney. The “World” man had carried him
+there and asked him to wait around the waterfront while he went up to
+the real front, thirteen miles inland. Channing's duty was to signal
+the press-boat when the first despatch-rider rode in with word that the
+battle was on. The World man would have liked to ask Channing to act as
+his despatch-rider, but he did not do so, because the despatch-riders
+were either Jamaica negroes or newsboys from Park Row--and he remembered
+that Keating had asked Channing to be his stoker.
+
+Channing tramped through the damp, ill-smelling sand of the beach,
+sick with self-pity. On the other side of those glaring, inscrutable
+mountains, a battle, glorious, dramatic, and terrible, was going
+forward, and he was thirteen miles away. He was at the base, with the
+supplies, the sick, and the skulkers.
+
+It was cruelly hot. The heat-waves flashed over the sea until the
+transports in the harbor quivered like pictures on a biograph. From the
+refuse of company kitchens, from reeking huts, from thousands of empty
+cans, rose foul, enervating odors, which deadened the senses like a
+drug. The atmosphere steamed with a heavy, moist humidity. Channing
+staggered and sank down suddenly on a pile of railroad-ties in front of
+the commissary's depot. There were some Cubans seated near him, dividing
+their Government rations, and the sight reminded him that he had had
+nothing to eat. He walked over to the wide door of the freight-depot,
+where a white-haired, kindly faced, and perspiring officer was, with his
+own hands, serving out canned beef to a line of Cubans. The officer's
+flannel shirt was open at the throat. The shoulder-straps of a colonel
+were fastened to it by safety-pins. Channing smiled at him uneasily.
+
+“Could I draw on you for some rations?” he asked. “I'm from the Three
+Friends. I'm not one of their regular accredited correspondents,” he
+added, conscientiously, “I'm just helping them for to-day.”
+
+“Haven't you got a correspondent's pass?” asked the officer. He was
+busily pouring square hardtack down the throat of a saddle-bag a Cuban
+soldier held open before him.
+
+“No,” said Channing, turning away, “I'm just helping.”
+
+The officer looked after him, and what he saw caused him to reach under
+the counter for a tin cup and a bottle of lime-juice.
+
+“Here,” he said, “drink this. What's the matter with you--fever? Come in
+here out of that sun. You can lie down on my cot, if you like.”
+
+Channing took the tin cup and swallowed a warm mixture of boiled water
+and acrid lime-juice.
+
+“Thank you,” he said, “but I must keep watch for the first news from the
+front.”
+
+A man riding a Government mule appeared on the bridge of the lower
+trail, and came toward them at a gallop. He was followed and surrounded
+by a hurrying mob of volunteers, hospital stewards, and Cubans.
+
+The Colonel vaulted the counter and ran to meet him.
+
+“This looks like news from the front now,” he cried.
+
+The man on the mule was from civil life. His eyes bulged from their
+sockets and his face was purple. The sweat ran over it and glistened on
+the cords of his thick neck.
+
+“They're driving us back!” he shrieked.
+
+“Chaffee's killed, an' Roosevelt's killed, an' the whole army's beaten!”
+ He waved his arms wildly toward the glaring, inscrutable mountains. The
+volunteers and stevedores and Cubans heard him, open-mouthed and with
+panic-stricken eyes. In the pitiless sunlight he was a hideous and awful
+spectacle.
+
+“They're driving us into the sea!” he foamed.
+
+“We've got to get out of here, they're just behind me. The army's
+running for its life. They're running away!”
+
+Channing saw the man dimly, through a cloud that came between him and
+the yellow sunlight. The man in the saddle swayed, the group about him
+swayed, like persons on the floor of a vast ball-room. Inside he burned
+with a mad, fierce hatred for this shrieking figure in the saddle. He
+raised the tin cup and hurled it so that it hit the man's purple face.
+
+“You lie!” Channing shouted, staggering. “You lie! You're a damned
+coward. You lie!” He heard his voice repeating this in different places
+at greater distances. Then the cloud closed about him, shutting out
+the man in the saddle, and the glaring, inscrutable mountains, and the
+ground at his feet rose and struck him in the face.
+
+Channing knew he was on a boat because it lifted and sank with him, and
+he could hear the rush of her engines. When he opened his eyes he was in
+the wheel-house of the Three Friends, and her captain was at the wheel,
+smiling down at him. Channing raised himself on his elbow.
+
+“The despatch-rider?” he asked.
+
+“That's all right,” said the captain, soothingly. “Don't you worry. He
+come along same time you fell, and brought you out to us. What ailed
+you--sunstroke?”
+
+Channing sat up. “I guess so,” he said.
+
+When the Three Friends reached Port Antonio, Channing sought out the
+pile of coffee-bags on which he slept at night and dropped upon them.
+Before this he had been careful to avoid the place in the daytime, so
+that no one might guess that it was there that he slept at night, but
+this day he felt that if he should drop in the gutter he would not care
+whether anyone saw him there or not. His limbs were hot and heavy and
+refused to support him, his bones burned like quicklime.
+
+The next morning, with the fever still upon him, he hurried restlessly
+between the wharves and the cable-office, seeking for news. There was
+much of it; it was great and trying news, the situation outside of
+Santiago was grim and critical. The men who had climbed San Juan Hill
+were clinging to it like sailors shipwrecked on a reef unwilling to
+remain, but unable to depart. If they attacked the city Cervera promised
+to send it crashing about their ears. They would enter Santiago only to
+find it in ruins. If they abandoned the hill, 2,000 killed and wounded
+would have been sacrificed in vain.
+
+The war-critics of the press-boats and of the Twitchell House saw but
+two courses left open. Either Sampson must force the harbor and destroy
+the squadron, and so make it possible for the army to enter the city,
+or the army must be reinforced with artillery and troops in sufficient
+numbers to make it independent of Sampson and indifferent to Cervera.
+
+On the night of July 2d, a thousand lies, a thousand rumors, a thousand
+prophecies rolled through the streets of Port Antonio, were filed at the
+cable-office, and flashed to the bulletin-boards of New York City.
+
+That morning, so they told, the batteries on Morro Castle had sunk three
+of Sampson's ships; the batteries on Morro Castle had surrendered
+to Sampson; General Miles with 8,000 reinforcements had sailed from
+Charleston; eighty guns had started from Tampa Bay, they would occupy
+the mountains opposite Santiago and shell the Spanish fleet; the
+authorities at Washington had at last consented to allow Sampson to run
+the forts and mines, and attack the Spanish fleet; the army had not been
+fed for two days, the Spaniards had cut it off from its base at Siboney;
+the army would eat its Fourth of July dinner in the Governor's Palace;
+the army was in full retreat; the army was to attack at daybreak.
+
+When Channing turned in under the fruit-shed on the night of July 2d,
+there was but one press-boat remaining in the harbor. That was
+the Consolidated Press boat, and Keating himself was on the wharf,
+signalling for his dingy. Channing sprang to his feet and ran toward
+him, calling him by name. The thought that he must for another day
+remain so near the march of great events and yet not see and feel them
+for himself, was intolerable. He felt if it would pay his passage to
+the coast of Cuba, there was no sacrifice to which he would not stoop.
+Keating watched him approach, but without sign of recognition. His eyes
+were heavy and bloodshot.
+
+“Keating,” Channing begged, as he halted, panting, “won't you take me
+with you? I'll not be in the way, and I'll stoke or wait on table, or
+anything you want, if you'll only take me.”
+
+Keating's eyes opened and closed, sleepily. He removed an unlit cigar
+from his mouth and shook the wet end of it at Channing, as though it
+were an accusing finger.
+
+“I know your game,” he murmured, thickly. “You haven't got a boat and
+you want to steal a ride on mine--for your paper. You can't do it, you
+see, you can't do it.”
+
+One of the crew of the dingy climbed up the gangway of the wharf and
+took Keating by the elbow. He looked at him and then at Channing and
+winked. He was apparently accustomed to this complication. “I haven't
+got a paper, Keating,” Channing argued, soothingly. “Who have you got to
+help you?” he asked. It came to him that there might be on the boat some
+Philip sober, to whom he could appeal from Philip drunk.
+
+“I haven't got anyone to help me,” Keating answered, with dignity. “I
+don't need anyone to help me.” He placed his hand heavily and familiarly
+on the shoulder of the deck-hand. “You see that man?” he asked. “You
+see tha' man, do you? Well, tha' man he's too good for me an' you. Tha'
+man--used to be the best reporter in New York City, an' he was too good
+to hustle for news, an' now he's--now he can't get a job--see? Nobody'll
+have him, see? He's got to come and be a stoker.”
+
+He stamped his foot with indignation.
+
+“You come an' be a stoker,” he commanded. “How long you think I'm going
+to wait for a stoker? You stoker, come on board and be a stoker.”
+
+Channing smiled, guiltily, at his good fortune, He jumped into the bow
+of the dingy, and Keating fell heavily in the stern.
+
+The captain of the press-boat helped Keating safely to a bunk in the
+cabin and received his instructions to proceed to Santiago Harbor.
+Then he joined Channing. “Mr. Keating is feeling bad to-night. That
+bombardment off Morro,” he explained, tactfully, “was too exciting. We
+always let him sleep going across, and when we get there he's fresh as a
+daisy. What's this he tells me of your doing stoking?”
+
+“I thought there might be another fight tomorrow, so I said I'd come as
+a stoker.”
+
+The captain grinned.
+
+“Our Sam, that deck-hand, was telling me. He said Mr. Keating put it on
+you, sort of to spite you--is that so?”
+
+“Oh, I wanted to come,” said Channing.
+
+The captain laughed, comprehendingly. “I guess we'll be in a bad way,”
+ he said, “when we need you in the engine-room.” He settled himself
+for conversation, with his feet against the rail and his thumbs in his
+suspenders. The lamps of Port Antonio were sinking into the water, the
+moonlight was flooding the deck.
+
+“That was quite something of a bombardment Sampson put up against Morro
+Castle this morning,” he began, critically. He spoke of bombardments
+from the full experience of a man who had seen shells strike off Coney
+Island from the proving-grounds at Sandy Hook. But Channing heard him,
+eagerly. He begged the tugboat-captain to tell him what it looked like,
+and as the captain told him he filled it in and saw it as it really was.
+
+“Perhaps they'll bombard again to-morrow,” he hazarded, hopefully.
+
+“We can't tell till we see how they're placed on the station,” the
+captain answered. “If there's any firing we ought to hear it about eight
+o'clock to-morrow morning. We'll hear 'em before we see 'em.”
+
+Channing's conscience began to tweak him. It was time, he thought, that
+Keating should be aroused and brought up to the reviving air of the
+sea, but when he reached the foot of the companion-ladder, he found
+that Keating was already awake and in the act of drawing the cork from
+a bottle. His irritation against Channing had evaporated and he greeted
+him with sleepy good-humor.
+
+“Why, it's ol' Charlie Channing,” he exclaimed, drowsily. Channing
+advanced upon him swiftly.
+
+“Here, you've had enough of that!” he commanded. “We'll be off Morro by
+breakfast-time. You don't want that.”
+
+Keating, giggling foolishly, pushed him from him and retreated with the
+bottle toward his berth. He lurched into it, rolled over with his face
+to the ship's side, and began breathing heavily.
+
+“You leave me 'lone,” he murmured, from the darkness of the bunk. “You
+mind your own business, you leave me 'lone.”
+
+Channing returned to the bow and placed the situation before the
+captain. That gentleman did not hesitate. He disappeared down the
+companion-way, and, when an instant later he returned, hurled a bottle
+over the ship's side.
+
+The next morning when Channing came on deck the land was just in sight,
+a rampart of dark green mountains rising in heavy masses against the
+bright, glaring blue of the sky. He strained his eyes for the first
+sight of the ships, and his ears for the faintest echoes of distant
+firing, but there was no sound save the swift rush of the waters at the
+bow. The sea lay smooth and flat before him, the sun flashed upon it;
+the calm and hush of early morning hung over the whole coast of Cuba.
+
+An hour later the captain came forward and stood at his elbow.
+
+“How's Keating?” Channing asked. “I tried to wake him, but I couldn't.”
+
+The captain kept his binoculars to his eyes, and shut his lips grimly.
+“Mr. Keating's very bad,” he said. “He had another bottle hidden
+somewhere, and all last night--” he broke off with a relieved sigh.
+“It's lucky for him,” he added, lowering the glasses, “that there'll be
+no fight to-day.”
+
+Channing gave a gasp of disappointment. “What do you mean?” he
+protested.
+
+“You can look for yourself,” said the captain, handing him the glasses.
+“They're at their same old stations. There'll be no bombardment to-day.
+That's the Iowa, nearest us, the Oregon's to starboard of her, and the
+next is the Indiana. That little fellow close under the land is the
+Gloucester.”
+
+He glanced up at the mast to see that the press-boat's signal was
+conspicuous, they were drawing within range.
+
+With the naked eye, Channing could see the monster, mouse-colored
+war-ships, basking in the sun, solemn and motionless in a great
+crescent, with its one horn resting off the harbor-mouth. They made
+great blots on the sparkling, glancing surface of the water. Above
+each superstructure, their fighting-tops, giant davits, funnels, and
+gibbet-like yards twisted into the air, fantastic and incomprehensible,
+but the bulk below seemed to rest solidly on the bottom of the ocean,
+like an island of lead. The muzzles of their guns peered from the
+turrets as from ramparts of rock.
+
+Channing gave a sigh of admiration.
+
+“Don't tell me they move,” he said. “They're not ships, they're
+fortresses!”
+
+On the shore there was no sign of human life nor of human habitation.
+Except for the Spanish flag floating over the streaked walls of Morro,
+and the tiny blockhouse on every mountain-top, the squadron might have
+been anchored off a deserted coast. The hills rose from the water's edge
+like a wall, their peaks green and glaring in the sun, their valleys
+dark with shadows. Nothing moved upon the white beach at their feet, no
+smoke rose from their ridges, not even a palm stirred. The great range
+slept in a blue haze of heat. But only a few miles distant, masked by
+its frowning front, lay a gayly colored, red-roofed city, besieged by
+encircling regiments, a broad bay holding a squadron of great war-ships,
+and gliding cat-like through its choked undergrowth and crouched among
+the fronds of its motionless palms were the ragged patriots of the Cuban
+army, silent, watchful, waiting. But the great range gave no sign. It
+frowned in the sunlight, grim and impenetrable.
+
+“It's Sunday,” exclaimed the captain. He pointed with his finger at the
+decks of the battleships, where hundreds of snow-white figures had
+gone to quarters. “It's church service,” he said, “or it's general
+inspection.”
+
+Channing looked at his watch. It was thirty minutes past nine. “It's
+church service,” he said. “I can see them carrying out the chaplain's
+reading-desk on the Indiana.” The press-boat pushed her way nearer into
+the circle of battleships until their leaden-hued hulls towered high
+above her. On the deck of each, the ship's company stood, ranged in
+motionless ranks. The calm of a Sabbath morning hung about them, the sun
+fell upon them like a benediction, and so still was the air that those
+on the press-boat could hear, from the stripped and naked decks, the
+voices of the men answering the roll-call in rising monotone, “one, two,
+three, FOUR; one, two, three, FOUR.” The white-clad sailors might have
+been a chorus of surpliced choir-boys.
+
+But, up above them, the battle-flags, slumbering at the mast-heads,
+stirred restlessly and whimpered in their sleep.
+
+Out through the crack in the wall of mountains, where the sea runs in to
+meet the waters of Santiago Harbor, and from behind the shield of Morro
+Castle, a great, gray ship, like a great, gray rat, stuck out her nose
+and peered about her, and then struck boldly for the open sea. High
+before her she bore the gold and blood-red flag of Spain, and, like a
+fugitive leaping from behind his prison-walls, she raced forward for her
+freedom, to give battle, to meet her death.
+
+A shell from the Iowa shrieked its warning in a shrill crescendo, a
+flutter of flags painted their message against the sky. “The enemy's
+ships are coming out,” they signalled, and the ranks of white-clad
+figures which the moment before stood motionless on the decks, broke
+into thousands of separate beings who flung themselves, panting, down
+the hatchways, or sprang, cheering, to the fighting-tops.
+
+Heavily, but swiftly, as islands slip into the water when a volcano
+shakes the ocean-bed, the great battle-ships buried their bows in the
+sea, their sides ripped apart with flame and smoke, the thunder of their
+guns roared and beat against the mountains, and, from the shore, the
+Spanish forts roared back at them, until the air between was split and
+riven. The Spanish war-ships were already scudding clouds of smoke,
+pierced with flashes of red flame, and as they fled, fighting, their
+batteries rattled with unceasing, feverish fury. But the guns of the
+American ships, straining in pursuit, answered steadily, carefully, with
+relentless accuracy, with cruel persistence. At regular intervals they
+boomed above the hurricane of sound, like great bells tolling for the
+dead.
+
+It seemed to Channing that he had lived through many years; that the
+strain of the spectacle would leave its mark upon his nerves forever. He
+had been buffeted and beaten by a storm of all the great emotions; pride
+of race and country, pity for the dead, agony for the dying, who clung
+to blistering armor-plates, or sank to suffocation in the sea; the lust
+of the hunter, when the hunted thing is a fellow-man; the joys of danger
+and of excitement, when the shells lashed the waves about him, and the
+triumph of victory, final, overwhelming and complete.
+
+Four of the enemy's squadron had struck their colors, two were on the
+beach, broken and burning, two had sunk to the bottom of the sea, two
+were in abject flight. Three battle-ships were hammering them with
+thirteen-inch guns. The battle was won.
+
+“It's all over,” Channing said. His tone questioned his own words.
+
+The captain of the tugboat was staring at the face of his silver watch,
+as though it were a thing bewitched. He was pale and panting. He looked
+at Channing, piteously, as though he doubted his own senses, and turned
+the face of the watch toward him.
+
+“Twenty minutes!” Channing said. “Good God! Twenty minutes!”
+
+He had been to hell and back again in twenty minutes. He had seen an
+empire, which had begun with Christopher Columbus and which had spread
+over two continents, wiped off the map in twenty minutes. The captain
+gave a sudden cry of concern. “Mr. Keating,” he gasped. “Oh, Lord, but I
+forgot Mr. Keating. Where is Mr. Keating?”
+
+“I went below twice,” Channing answered. “He's insensible. See what you
+can do with him, but first--take me to the Iowa. The Consolidated Press
+will want the 'facts.'”
+
+In the dark cabin the captain found Keating on the floor, where Channing
+had dragged him, and dripping with the water which Channing had thrown
+in his face. He was breathing heavily, comfortably. He was not concerned
+with battles.
+
+With a megaphone, Channing gathered his facts from an officer of the
+Iowa, who looked like a chimney-sweep, and who was surrounded by a crew
+of half-naked pirates, with bodies streaked with sweat and powder.
+
+Then he ordered all steam for Port Antonio, and, going forward to the
+chart-room, seated himself at the captain's desk, and, pushing the
+captain's charts to the floor, spread out his elbows, and began to write
+the story of his life.
+
+In the joy of creating it, he was lost to all about him. He did not know
+that the engines, driven to the breaking-point, were filling the ship
+with their groans and protests, that the deck beneath his feet was
+quivering like the floor of a planing-mill, nor that his fever was
+rising again, and feeding on his veins. The turmoil of leaping engines
+and of throbbing pulses was confused with the story he was writing, and
+while his mind was inflamed with pictures of warring battle-ships, his
+body was swept by the fever, which overran him like an army of tiny
+mice, touching his hot skin with cold, tingling taps of their scampering
+feet.
+
+From time to time the captain stopped at the door of the chart-room
+and observed him in silent admiration. To the man who with difficulty
+composed a letter to his family, the fact that Channing was writing
+something to be read by millions of people, and more rapidly than he
+could have spoken the same words, seemed a superhuman effort. He even
+hesitated to interrupt it by an offer of food.
+
+But the fever would not let Channing taste of the food when they placed
+it at his elbow, and even as he pushed it away, his mind was still fixed
+upon the paragraph before him. He wrote, sprawling across the desk,
+covering page upon page with giant hieroglyphics, lighting cigarette
+after cigarette at the end of the last one, but with his thoughts far
+away, and, as he performed the act, staring uncomprehendingly at the
+captain's colored calendar pinned on the wall before him. For many
+months later the Battle of Santiago was associated in his mind with a
+calendar for the month of July, illuminated by a colored picture of six
+white kittens in a basket.
+
+At three o'clock Channing ceased writing and stood up, shivering and
+shaking with a violent chill. He cursed himself for this weakness, and
+called aloud for the captain.
+
+“I can't stop now,” he cried. He seized the rough fist of the captain as
+a child clings to the hand of his nurse.
+
+“Give me something,” he begged. “Medicine, quinine, give me something to
+keep my head straight until it's finished. Go, quick,” he commanded. His
+teeth were chattering, and his body jerked with sharp, uncontrollable
+shudders. The captain ran, muttering, to his medicine-chest.
+
+“We've got one drunken man on board,” he said to the mate, “and now
+we've got a crazy one. You mark my words, he'll go off his head at
+sunset.”
+
+But at sunset Channing called to him and addressed him sanely. He held
+in his hand a mass of papers carefully numbered and arranged, and he
+gave them up to the captain as though it hurt him to part with them.
+
+“There's the story,” he said. “You've got to do the rest. I
+can't--I--I'm going to be very ill.” He was swaying as he spoke. His
+eyes burned with the fever, and his eyelids closed of themselves. He
+looked as though he had been heavily drugged.
+
+“You put that on the wire at Port Antonio,” he commanded, faintly; “pay
+the tolls to Kingston. From there they are to send it by way of Panama,
+you understand, by the Panama wire.”
+
+“Panama!” gasped the captain. “Good Lord, that's two dollars a word.”
+ He shook out the pages in his hand until he found the last one. “And
+there's sixty-eight pages here,” he expostulated. “Why the tolls will
+be five thousand dollars!” Channing dropped feebly to the bench of the
+chart-room and fell in a heap, shivering and trembling.
+
+“I guess it's worth it,” he murmured, drowsily.
+
+The captain was still staring at the last page.
+
+“But--but, look here,” he cried, “you've--you've signed Mr. Keating's
+name to it! 'James R. Keating.' You've signed his name to it!”
+
+Channing raised his head from his folded arms and stared at him dully.
+
+“You don't want to get Keating in trouble, do you?” he asked with
+patience. “You don't want the C. P. to know why he couldn't write the
+best story of the war? Do you want him to lose his job? Of course you
+don't. Well, then, let it go as his story. I won't tell, and see you
+don't tell, and Keating won't remember.”
+
+His head sank back again upon his crossed arms. “It's not a bad story,”
+ he murmured.
+
+But the captain shook his head; his loyalty to his employer was still
+uppermost. “It doesn't seem right!” he protested. “It's a sort of a
+liberty, isn't it, signing another man's name to it, it's a sort of
+forgery.”
+
+Channing made no answer. His eyes were shut and he was shivering
+violently, hugging himself in his arms.
+
+A quarter of an hour later, when the captain returned with fresh
+quinine, Channing sat upright and saluted him.
+
+“Your information, sir,” he said, addressing the open door politely, “is
+of the greatest value. Tell the executive officer to proceed under full
+steam to Panama. He will first fire a shot across her bows, and then
+sink her!” He sprang upright and stood for a moment, sustained by the
+false strength of the fever. “To Panama, you hear me!” he shouted. He
+beat the floor with his foot. “Faster, faster, faster,” he cried. “We've
+got a great story! We want a clear wire, we want the wire clear from
+Panama to City Hall. It's the greatest story ever written--full of
+facts, facts, facts, facts for the Consolidated Press--and Keating wrote
+it. I tell you, Keating wrote it. I saw him write it. I was a stoker on
+the same ship.”
+
+The mate and crew came running forward and stood gaping stupidly
+through the doors and windows of the chart-room. Channing welcomed them
+joyously, and then crumpled up in a heap and pitched forward into the
+arms of the captain. His head swung weakly from shoulder to shoulder.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” he muttered, “I beg your pardon, captain, but your
+engine-room is too hot. I'm only a stoker and I know my place, sir, but
+I tell you, your engine-room is too hot. It's a burning hell, sir, it's
+a hell!”
+
+The captain nodded to the crew and they closed in on him, and bore him,
+struggling feebly, to a bunk in the cabin below. In the berth opposite,
+Keating was snoring peacefully.
+
+After the six weeks' siege the Fruit Company's doctor told Channing he
+was cured, and that he might walk abroad. In this first walk he found
+that, during his illness, Port Antonio had reverted to her original
+condition of complete isolation from the world, the press-boats had left
+her wharves, the correspondents had departed from the veranda of her
+only hotel, the war was over, and the Peace Commissioners had sailed for
+Paris. Channing expressed his great gratitude to the people of the hotel
+and to the Fruit Company's doctor. He made it clear to them that if they
+ever hoped to be paid those lesser debts than that of gratitude which he
+still owed them, they must return him to New York and Newspaper Row.
+It was either that, he said, or, if they preferred, he would remain and
+work out his indebtedness, checking bunches of bananas at twenty dollars
+a month. The Fruit Company decided it would be paid more quickly if
+Channing worked at his own trade, and accordingly sent him North in one
+of its steamers. She landed him in Boston, and he borrowed five dollars
+from the chief engineer to pay his way to New York.
+
+It was late in the evening of the same day when he stepped out of the
+smoking-car into the roar and riot of the Grand Central Station. He had
+no baggage to detain him, and, as he had no money either, he made his
+way to an Italian restaurant where he knew they would trust him to
+pay later for what he ate. It was a place where the newspaper men were
+accustomed to meet, men who knew him, and who, until he found work,
+would lend him money to buy a bath, clean clothes, and a hall bedroom.
+
+Norris, the World man, greeted him as he entered the door of the
+restaurant, and hailed him with a cry of mingled fright and pleasure.
+
+“Why, we didn't know but you were dead,” he exclaimed. “The boys said
+when they left Kingston you weren't expected to live. Did you ever get
+the money and things we sent you by the Red Cross boat?”
+
+Channing glanced at himself and laughed.
+
+“Do I look it?” he asked. He was wearing the same clothes in which he
+had slept under the fruit-sheds at Port Antonio. They had been soaked
+and stained by the night-dews and by the sweat of the fever.
+
+“Well, it's great luck, your turning up here just now,” Norris assured
+him, heartily. “That is, if you're as hungry as the rest of the boys
+are who have had the fever. You struck it just right; we're giving a big
+dinner here to-night,” he explained, “one of Maria's best. You come in
+with me. It's a celebration for old Keating, a farewell blow-out.”
+
+Channing started and laughed.
+
+“Keating?” he asked. “That's funny,” he said. “I haven't seen him
+since--since before I was ill.”
+
+“Yes, old Jimmie Keating. You've got nothing against him, have you?”
+
+Channing shook his head vehemently, and Norris glanced back complacently
+toward the door of the dining-room, from whence came the sound of
+intimate revelry.
+
+“You might have had, once,” Norris said, laughing; “we were all
+up against him once. But since he's turned out such a wonder and
+a war-hero, we're going to recognize it. They're always saying we
+newspaper men have it in for each other, and so we're just giving him
+this subscription-dinner to show it's not so. He's going abroad, you
+know. He sails to-morrow morning.”
+
+“No, I didn't know,” said Channing.
+
+“Of course not, how could you? Well, the Consolidated Press's sending
+him and his wife to Paris. He's to cover the Peace negotiations there.
+It's really a honeymoon-trip at the expense of the C. P. It's their
+reward for his work, for his Santiago story, and the beat and all
+that--”
+
+Channing's face expressed his bewilderment.
+
+Norris drew back dramatically.
+
+“Don't tell me,” he exclaimed, “that you haven't heard about that!”
+
+Channing laughed a short, frightened laugh, and moved nearer to the
+street.
+
+“No,” he said. “No, I hadn't.”
+
+“Yes, but, good Lord! it was the story of the war. You never read such
+a story! And he got it through by Panama a day ahead of all the other
+stories! And nobody read them, anyway. Why, Captain Mahan said it was
+'naval history,' and the Evening Post had an editorial on it, and said
+it was 'the only piece of literature the war has produced.' We never
+thought Keating had it in him, did you? The Consolidated Press people
+felt so good over it that they've promised, when he comes back from
+Paris, they'll make him their Washington correspondent. He's their
+'star' reporter now. It just shows you that the occasion produces the
+man. Come on in, and have a drink with him.”
+
+Channing pulled his arm away, and threw a frightened look toward the
+open door of the dining-room. Through the layers of tobacco-smoke he
+saw Keating seated at the head of a long, crowded table, smiling,
+clear-eyed, and alert.
+
+“Oh, no, I couldn't,” he said, with sudden panic. “I can't drink; doctor
+won't let me. I wasn't coming in, I was just passing when I saw you.
+Good-night, I'm much obliged. Good-night.”
+
+But the hospitable Norris would not be denied.
+
+“Oh, come in and say 'good-by' to him, anyhow,” he insisted. “You
+needn't stay.”
+
+“No, I can't,” Channing protested. “I--they'd make me drink or eat and
+the doctor says I can't. You mustn't tempt me. You say 'good-by' to him
+for me,” he urged. “And Norris--tell him--tell him--that I asked you to
+say to him, 'It's all right,' that's all, just that, 'It's all right.'
+He'll understand.”
+
+There was the sound of men's feet scraping on the floor, and of chairs
+being moved from their places.
+
+Norris started away eagerly. “I guess they're drinking his health,” he
+said. “I must go. I'll tell him what you said, 'It's all right.' That's
+enough, is it? There's nothing more?”
+
+Channing shook his head, and moved away from the only place where he was
+sure to find food and a welcome that night.
+
+“There's nothing more,” he said.
+
+As he stepped from the door and stood irresolutely in the twilight of
+the street, he heard the voices of the men who had gathered in Keating's
+honor upraised in a joyous chorus.
+
+“For he's a jolly good fellow,” they sang, “for he's a jolly good
+fellow, which nobody can deny!”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LA LETTRE D'AMOUR
+
+
+When Bardini, who led the Hungarian Band at the Savoy Restaurant, was
+promoted to play at the Casino at Trouville, his place was taken by
+the second violin. The second violin was a boy, and when he greeted his
+brother Tziganes and the habitues of the restaurant with an apologetic
+and deprecatory bow, he showed that he was fully conscious of the
+inadequacy of his years. The maitre d'hotel glided from table to table,
+busying himself in explanations.
+
+“The boy's name is Edouard; he comes from Budapest,” he said. “The
+season is too late to make it worth the while of the management to
+engage a new chef d'orchestre. So this boy will play. He plays very
+good, but he is not like Bardini.”
+
+He was not in the least like Bardini. In appearance, Bardini suggested a
+Roumanian gypsy or a Portuguese sailor; his skin was deeply tanned, his
+hair was plastered on his low forehead in thick, oily curls, and his
+body, through much rich living on the scraps that fell from the tables
+of Girot's and the Casino des Fleurs, was stout and gross. He was
+the typical leader of an orchestra condemned to entertain a noisy
+restaurant. His school of music was the school of Maxim's. To his skill
+with the violin he had added the arts of the head waiter, and he and the
+cook ran a race for popularity, he pampering to one taste, and the cook,
+with his sauces, pampering to another. When so commanded, his pride
+as an artist did not prevent him from breaking off in the middle of
+Schubert's Serenade to play Daisy Bell, nor was he above breaking it off
+on his own accord to salute the American patron, as he entered with the
+Belle of New York, or any one of the Gaiety Girls, hurrying in late for
+supper, with the Soldiers in the Park. When he walked slowly through the
+restaurant, pausing at each table, his eyes, even while they ogled the
+women to whom he played, followed the brother Tzigane--who was passing
+the plate--and noted which of the patrons gave silver and which gave
+gold.
+
+Edouard, the second violin, was all that Bardini was not, consequently
+he was entirely unsuited to lead an orchestra in a restaurant. Indeed,
+so little did he understand of what was required of him that on the
+only occasion when Bardini sent him to pass the plate he was so
+unsophisticated as not to hide the sixpences and shillings under the
+napkin, and so leave only the half-crowns and gold pieces exposed.
+And, instead of smiling mockingly at those who gave the sixpences, and
+waiting for them to give more, he even looked grateful, and at the same
+time deeply ashamed. He differed from Bardini also in that he was very
+thin and tall, with the serious, smooth-shaven face of a priest. Except
+for his fantastic costume, there was nothing about him to recall the
+poses of the musician: his hair was neither long nor curly; it lay
+straight across his forehead and flat on either side, and when he
+played, his eyes neither sought out the admiring auditor nor invited
+his applause. On the contrary, they looked steadfastly ahead. It was as
+though they belonged to someone apart, who was listening intently to the
+music. But in the waits between the numbers the boy's eyes turned from
+table to table, observing the people in his audience. He knew nearly all
+of them by sight: the head waiters who brought him their “commands,”
+ and his brother-musicians, had often discussed them in his hearing. They
+represented every city of the world, every part of the social edifice:
+there were those who came to look at the spectacle, and those who came
+to be looked at; those who gave a dinner for the sake of the diners,
+those who dined for the dinner alone. To some the restaurant was a
+club; others ventured in counting the cost, taking it seriously, even
+considering that it conferred upon them some social distinction. There
+were pretty women in paint and spangles, with conscious, half-grown
+boys just up from Oxford; company-promoters dining and wining possible
+subscribers or “guinea-pigs” into an acquiescent state; Guardsmen giving
+a dinner of farewell to brother-officers departing for the Soudan or the
+Cape; wide-eyed Americans just off the steamer in high dresses, great
+ladies in low dresses and lofty tiaras, and ladies of the stage, utterly
+unconscious of the boon they were conferring on the people about them,
+who, an hour before, had paid ten shillings to look at them from the
+stalls.
+
+Edouard, as he sat with his violin on his knee, his fingers fretting the
+silent strings, observed them all without envy and without interest. Had
+he been able to choose, it would not have been to such a well-dressed
+mob as this that he would have given his music. For at times a burst
+of laughter killed a phrase that was sacred to him, and sometimes the
+murmur of the voices and the clatter of the waiters would drown him out
+altogether. But the artist in him forced him to play all things well,
+and for his own comfort he would assure himself that no doubt somewhere
+in the room someone was listening, someone who thought more of the
+strange, elusive melodies of the Hungarian folksongs than of the chefs
+entrees, and that for this unknown one he must be true to himself and
+true to his work. Covertly, he would seek out some face to which he
+could make the violin speak--not openly and impertinently, as did
+Bardini, but secretly and for sympathy, so that only one could
+understand. It pleased young Edouard to see such a one raise her head as
+though she had heard her name spoken, and hold it poised to listen, and
+turn slowly in her chair, so completely engaged that she forgot the
+man at her elbow, and the food before her was taken away untouched. It
+delighted him to think that she knew that the music was speaking to
+her alone. But he would not have had her think that the musician spoke,
+too--it was the soul of the music, not his soul, that was reaching out
+to the pretty stranger. When his soul spoke through the music it would
+not be, so he assured himself, to such chatterers as gathered on the
+terrace of the Savoy Restaurant.
+
+Mrs. Warriner and her daughter were on their way home, or to one of
+their homes; this one was up the Hills of Lenox. They had been in Egypt
+and up the Nile, and for the last two months had been slowly working
+their way north through Greece and Italy. They were in London, at the
+Savoy, waiting for their sailing-day, and on the night of their arrival
+young Corbin was giving them a dinner. For three months Mrs. Warriner
+and himself had alternated in giving each other dinners in every part of
+Southern Europe, and the gloom which hung over this one was not due to
+the fact that the diners had become wearied of one another's society,
+but that the opportunities still left to them for this exchange of
+hospitality were almost at an end. That night, for the hundredth time,
+young Corbin had decided it would have been much better for him if they
+had come to an end many weeks previous, for the part he played in the
+trio was a difficult one. It was that of the lover who will not take
+“no” for an answer. The lover who will take no, and goes on his way
+disconsolate, may live to love another day, and everyone is content; but
+the one who will not have no, who will not hear of it, nor consider it,
+has much to answer for in making life a burden to himself and all around
+him.
+
+When Corbin joined the Warriners on their trip up the Nile it was
+considered by all of them, in their ignorance, a happy accident.
+Other mothers, more worldly than Mrs. Warriner, with daughters less
+attractive, gave her undeserved credit for having lured into her
+party one of the young men of Boston who was most to be desired as a
+son-in-law. But the mind of Mrs. Warriner, so far as Mr. Corbin was
+concerned, was quite free from any such consideration; so was the mind
+of the young bachelor; certainly Miss Warriner held no tender thoughts
+concerning him. The families of the Warriners and the Corbins had been
+friends ever since the cowpath crossed the Common. Before Corbin entered
+Harvard Miss Warriner and he had belonged to the same dancing-class.
+Later she had danced with him at four class-days, and many times
+between. When he graduated, she had gone abroad with her mother, and he
+had joined the Somerset Club, and played polo at Pride's Crossing, and
+talked vaguely of becoming a lawyer, and of re-entering Harvard by the
+door of the Law School, chiefly, it was supposed, that he might have
+another year of the football team. He was very young in spirit, very
+big and athletic, very rich, and without a care or serious thought. Miss
+Warriner was to him, then, no more than a friend; to her he was a boy,
+one of many nice, cultivated Harvard boys, who occasionally called upon
+her and talked football. On the face of things, she was not the sort of
+girl he should have loved. But for some saving clause in him, he should
+have loved and married one of the many other girls who had belonged to
+the same dancing-class, who would have been known as “Mrs. Tom” Corbin,
+who would have been sought after as a chaperone, and who would have
+stood up in her cart when he played polo and shouted at him across the
+field to “ride him off.”
+
+Miss Warriner, on the contrary, was much older than he in everything but
+years, and was conscious of the fact. She was a serious, self-centred
+young person, and satisfied with her own thoughts, unless her companion
+gave her better ones. She concerned herself with the character and ideas
+of her friends. If a young man lacked ideas, the fact that he possessed
+wealth and good manners could not save him. If these attributes had been
+pointed out to her as part of his assets she would have been surprised.
+She was not impressed with her own good looks and fortune--she took them
+for granted; so why should they count with her in other people?
+
+Miss Warriner made an error of analysis in regard to Mr. Corbin in
+judging his brain by his topics of conversation. His conversation
+was limited to the A B C's of life, with which, up to the time of his
+meeting her, his brain had been fed. When, however, she began to cram it
+full with all the other letters of the alphabet, it showed itself just
+as capable of digesting the economic conditions of Egypt as it had
+previously succeeded in mastering the chess-like problems of the game of
+football.
+
+Young Corbin had not considered the Home Beautiful, nor Municipal
+Government, nor How the Other Half Lives as topics that were worth his
+while; but when Miss Warriner showed her interest in them, her doing so
+made them worth his while, and he fell upon them greedily. He even went
+much further than she had gone, and was not content merely to theorize
+and to discuss social questions from the safe distance of the deck of
+a dahabiyeh on the Nile, but proposed to at once put her theories into
+practice. To this end he offered her a house in the slums of Boston,
+rent free, where she could start her College Settlement. He made
+out lists of the men he thought would like to teach there, and he
+volunteered to pay the expenses of the experiment until it failed or
+succeeded. When her interest changed to the Tombs of the Rameses, and
+the succession of the ancient dynasties, he spent hours studying his
+Baedeker that he might keep in step with her; and when she abandoned
+ancient for modern Egypt and became deeply charmed with the intricacies
+of the dual control and of the Mixed Courts, he interviewed subalterns,
+Pashas, and missionaries in a gallant effort to comprehend the social
+and political difficulties of the white men who had occupied the land of
+the Sphinx, who had funded her debt, irrigated her deserts, and “made a
+mummy fight.”
+
+One night, as the dahabiyeh lay moored beneath a group of palms in the
+moonlight, Miss Warriner gave him praise for offering her the house
+in the slums for her experiment. He assured her that he was entirely
+selfish--that he did so because he believed her settlement would be a
+benefit to the neighborhood, in which he owned some property. When
+she then accused him of giving sordid reasons for what was his genuine
+philanthropy he told her flatly that he neither cared for the higher
+education of the slums nor the increased value of his rents, but for
+her, and to please her, and that he loved her and would love her always.
+In answer to this, Miss Warriner told him gently but firmly that she
+could not love him, but that she liked him and admired him, even though
+she was disappointed to find that his sudden interest in matters more
+serious than polo had been assumed to please her. She added that she
+would always be his friend. This, she thought, ended the matter; it was
+unfortunate that they should be shipbound on the Nile; but she trusted
+to his tact and good sense to save them both from embarrassment. She
+was not prepared, however, to see him come on deck very late the next
+morning, after, apparently, a long sleep, as keen, as cheerful, and
+as smiling as he had been before the blow had fallen. It piqued her a
+little, and partly because of that, and partly because she really was
+relieved to find him in such a humor, she congratulated him on his most
+evident happiness.
+
+“Why not?” he asked, suddenly growing sober. “I love you. That is enough
+to make any man happy, isn't it? You needn't love me, but you can't
+prevent my going on loving you.”
+
+“Well, I am very sorry,” she sighed in much perplexity.
+
+“You needn't be,” he answered, reassuringly. “I'm more sorry for you
+than I am for myself. You are going to have a terrible time until you
+marry me.”
+
+They were at Thebes, and he went off that afternoon to the Temple of
+Luxor with her mother, and made violent use of the sacred altars,
+the beauty of Cleopatra, the eternity of the scarabea, and the
+indestructibility of the Pyramids to suggest faintly to Mrs. Warriner
+how much he loved her daughter. He shook his hand at the crouching
+sphinxes and said:
+
+“Mrs. Warriner, in forty centuries they have never looked down upon a
+man as proud as I am, and I am told they have seen Napoleon; but I need
+help; she won't help me, so you must. It's no use arguing against me.
+When this Nile dries up I shall have ceased loving your daughter!”
+
+“Did you tell Helen what you have told me? Did you talk to her so?”
+ asked Mrs. Warriner.
+
+“No, not last night,” said Corbin; “but I will, in time, after she gets
+more used to the Idea.”
+
+Unfortunately for the peace of Mr. Corbin and all concerned. Miss
+Warriner did not become reconciled to the idea. On the contrary, she
+resented it greatly. She had looked at the possibility of something to
+be carried out later--much later, perhaps not at all. It did not seem
+possible that before she had really begun to enjoy life it should be
+subjected to such a change. She saw that it was obviously the thing
+that should happen. If the match had been arranged by the entire city of
+Boston it could not have been more obvious. But she argued with him that
+marriage was a mutual self-sacrifice, and that until she felt ready to
+make her share of the sacrifice it was impossible for her to consent.
+
+He combated her arguments, which he refused to consider as arguments,
+and demolished them one by one. But the objection which he destroyed
+before he went to sleep at night was replaced the next day by another,
+and his cause never advanced. Each day he found the citadel he was
+besieging girt in by new and intricate defences. The reason was
+simple enough: the girl was not in love with him. Her objections, her
+arguments, her reasons were as absurd as he proved them to be. But they
+were insurmountable because they were really various disguises of the
+fact that she did not care for him. They were disguises to herself as
+well as to him. He was so altogether a good fellow, so earnest, honest,
+and desperate a lover that the primary fact that she did not want his
+love did not present itself, and she kept casting about in her mind
+for excuses and reasons to explain her lack of feeling. He wooed her in
+every obvious way that would present itself to a boy of deep feeling, of
+quick mind, and an unlimited letter of credit. He created wants in order
+to gratify them later. He suggested her need of things which he had
+already ordered, which, before she had been enticed into expressing a
+wish for them, were then speeding across the Continent toward her. Every
+hour brought her some fresh and ingenuous sign of his thought and of his
+devotion. He treated these tributes as a matter of course; if she failed
+to observe them and to see his handiwork in them he let them fall to the
+ground unnoticed.
+
+His love itself was his argument-in-chief; it was its own excuse; it
+needed no allies; “I love you” was his first and last word. It puzzled
+her to find that she could not care. When she was alone she asked
+herself what there was in him of which she disapproved, and she could
+only answer that there was nothing. She asked herself what other men
+there were who pleased her more, and she could think of none. On the
+contrary, she found him entirely charming as a friend--but his love
+distressed her greatly. It was a foreign language; she could not
+comprehend it. When he allowed it to appear it completely disguised him
+in her eyes; it annoyed her so much that at times she considered herself
+a much ill-used young person.
+
+It was in this way that the matter stood between them when their long
+journey was ended and they reached London. He was miserable, desperate,
+and hopeless; the girl was firm in that she would not marry him, and
+her mother, who respected both the depth of Corbin's feelings and her
+daughter's reticence, and who had watched the struggle with a troubled
+heart, was only thankful that they were to part, and that it was at
+an end. Corbin had no idea where he would go nor what he would do. He
+recognized that to cross the ocean with them would only subject his love
+to fresh distress and humiliation, and he had determined to put as
+much space between him and Miss Warriner as the surface of the globe
+permitted. The Philippines seemed to offer a picturesque retreat for a
+broken life. He decided he would go there and enlist and have himself
+shot. He was uncertain whether he would follow in the steps of his
+Revolutionary ancestors and join the men who were struggling for their
+liberty and independence, or his fellow-Americans; but that he would
+get shot by one side or the other he was determined. And then in days to
+come she would think, perhaps, of the young man on the other side of the
+globe, buried in the wet rice-fields, with the palms fanning him through
+his eternal sleep, and she might be sorry then that she had not listened
+to his troubled heart. The picture gave him some small comfort, and that
+night when he ordered dinner for them at the Savoy his manner showed the
+inspired resolve of one who is soon to mount the scaffold unafraid, and
+with a rose between his lips.
+
+Edouard, the first violin, saw Miss Warriner when she entered and took
+her place facing him at one of the tables in the centre of the room. He
+was sitting with his violin on his knees, touching the strings with his
+finger-tips. When he saw her he choked the neck of the violin with his
+hand, as though it had been the hand of a friend which he had grasped in
+a sudden ecstasy of delight. The effect her appearance had made upon him
+was so remarkable that he glanced quickly over his shoulder to see if
+he had betrayed himself by some sign or gesture. But the other musicians
+were concerned with their own gossip, and he felt free to turn again and
+from under his half-closed eyelids to observe her covertly.
+
+There was nothing to explain why Miss Warriner, in particular, should
+have so disturbed him; the English women seated about her were as fair;
+she showed no great sorrow in her face; her beauty was not of the
+type which carried observers by assault. And yet not one of the many
+beautiful women who on one night or another passed before Edouard in the
+soft light of the red shades had ever stirred him so strangely, had ever
+depressed him with such a tender melancholy, and filled his soul--the
+soul of a Hungarian and a musician--with such loneliness and unrest. He
+knew that, so far as he was concerned, she was as distant as the Venus
+in the Louvre; she was, for him, a beautiful, unapproachable statue,
+placed, by some social convention, upon a pedestal.
+
+As he looked at her he felt hotly the degradation of his silly uniform,
+of the striped sash around his waist, the tawdry braids, and the
+tasselled boots. He felt as he had often felt before, but now more
+keenly than ever, the prostitution of his art in this temple of the
+senses, this home of epicures, where people met to feast their eyes and
+charm their palates. He could not put his feelings into words, and he
+knew that if by some upheaval of the social world he should be thrown
+into her presence he would still be bound, he would not be able to speak
+or write what she inspired in him. But--and at the thought he breathed
+quickly, and raised his shoulders with a touch of pride--he could tell
+her in his own way; after his own fashion he could express what he felt
+better even than those other men could tell what they feel--these men
+for whose amusement he performed nightly, to whom it was granted to sit
+at her side, who spoke the language of her class and of her own people.
+Edouard was not given to analyzing his emotions; like the music of his
+Tzigane ancestors, they came to him sweeping every chord in his nature,
+beating rapidly to the time of the Schardash, or with the fitfulness of
+the gypsy folksongs sinking his spirits into melancholy. So he did not
+stop to question why this one face so suddenly inspired him; he only
+knew that he felt grateful, that he was impatient to pay his tribute
+of admiration, that he was glad he was an artist who could give his
+feelings voice.
+
+In the long programme of selected airs he remembered that there was one
+which would give him this chance to speak, in the playing of which he
+could put all his skill and all his soul, an air which carried with it
+infinite sadness and the touch of a caress. The other numbers on the
+programme had been chosen to please the patrons of a restaurant,
+this one, La Lettre d'Amour, was included in the list for his own
+satisfaction. He had put it there to please himself; to-night he would
+play it to please her--to this unknown girl who had so suddenly awakened
+and inspired him.
+
+As he waited for this chance to come he watched her, noting her every
+movement, her troubled smile, her air of being apart and above her
+surroundings. He noticed, too, the set face of the young man at her side
+and, with the discernment of one whose own interest is captive, saw the
+half-concealed longing in his eyes. He felt a quick antipathy to this
+young man. His assured position at the girl's side accentuated how far
+he himself was removed from her; he resented also the manner of the
+young man to the waiters, and he wondered hotly if, in the mind of
+this favored youth, the musician who played for his entertainment was
+regarded any more highly than the servant who received his orders. To
+this feeling of resentment was added one of contempt. For, as he read
+the tableau at the table below him, the young man was the devotee of the
+young girl at his side, and if one could judge from her averted eyes,
+from her silent assent to his questions, from the fact that she withdrew
+from the talk between him and the older woman, his devotion was not
+welcome.
+
+This reading of the pantomime pleased Edouard greatly. Nothing could
+have so crowned the feeling which the beauty of the stranger stirred in
+him as the thought that another loved her as well as himself, and that
+the other, who started with all things in his favor, met with none from
+her.
+
+Edouard assured himself that this was so because he had often heard his
+people boast that men not of their country could not feel as they could
+feel. If he had ever considered them at all it was as cold and conscious
+creatures who taught themselves to cover up what they felt, so that when
+their emotions strove to assert themselves they were found, through long
+disuse, to be dumb and inarticulate. Edouard rejoiced that to the men of
+his race it was given to feel and suffer much. He was sure that beneath
+the calmness of her beauty this woman before him could feel deeply; he
+read in her eyes the sympathy of a great soul; she made him think of a
+Madonna in the church of St. Sophia at Budapest. He saw in her a woman
+who could love greatly. When he considered how impossible it was for the
+young man at her side ever to experience the great emotions which alone
+could reach her, his contempt for him rose almost to pity. His violin,
+with his power to feel, and with his knowledge of technic added, could
+send his message as far as sound could carry. He could afford to be
+generous, and when he rose to play La Lettre d'Amour it was with the
+elation of a knight entering the lists, with the ardor of a lover
+singing beneath his lady's window. La Lettre d'Amour is a composition
+written to a slow measure, and filled with chords of exquisite pathos.
+It comes hesitatingly, like the confession of a lover who loves so
+deeply that he halts to find words with which to express his feelings.
+It moves in broken phrases, each note rising in intensity and growing
+in beauty. It is not a burst of passionate appeal, but a plea, tender,
+beseeching, and throbbing with melancholy. As he played, Edouard stepped
+down from the dais on which the musicians sat, and advanced slowly
+between the tables. It was late, and the majority of those who had been
+dining had departed to the theatres. Those who remained were lingering
+over their coffee, and were smoking; their voices were lowered to a
+polite monotone; the rush of the waiters had ceased, and the previous
+chatter had sunk to a subdued murmur. Into this, the quivering sigh
+of Edouard's violin penetrated like a sunbeam feeling its way into
+a darkened room, and, at the sound, the voices, one by one, detached
+themselves from the general chorus, until, lacking support, it ceased
+altogether. Some were silent, that they might hear the better, others,
+who preferred their own talk, were silent out of regard for those who
+desired to listen, and a waiter who was so indiscreet as to clatter a
+tray of glasses was hushed on the instant. The tribute of attention lent
+to Edouard an added power; his head lifted on his shoulders with pride;
+his bow cut deeper and firmer, and with more delicate shading; the
+notes rose in thrilling, plaintive sadness, and flooded the hot air with
+melody.
+
+Edouard made his way to within a short distance of the table at which
+Miss Warriner was seated, and halted there as though he had found his
+audience. He did not look at her, although she sat directly facing him,
+but it was evident to all that she was the one to whom his effort
+was directed, and Corbin, who was seated with his back to Edouard,
+recognized this and turned in his chair.
+
+The body of the young musician was trembling with the feeling which
+found its outlet through the violin. He was in ecstasy over his power
+and its accomplishment. The strings of the violin pulsated to the
+beating of his heart, and he felt that surely by now the emotion which
+shook him must have reached the girl who had given it life--and, for one
+swift second, his eyes sought hers. What he saw was the same beautiful
+face which had inspired him, but unmoved, cold, and unresponsive. As his
+eyes followed hers she raised her head and looked, listlessly, around
+the room, and then turned and glanced up at him with a careless and
+critical scrutiny. If his music had been the music of an organ in the
+street, and he the man who raised his hat for coppers, she could not
+have been less moved. The discovery struck Edouard like a cold blast
+from an open door. His fingers faltered on the neck of his violin, his
+bow wavered, drunkenly, across the strings, and he turned away his eyes
+to shut out the vision of his failure, seeking relief and sympathy. And,
+in their swift passage, they encountered those of Corbin looking up at
+him, his eyes aglow with wonder, feeling, and sorrow. They seemed to
+hold him to account; they begged, they demanded of him not to break
+the spell, and, in response, the hot blood in the veins of the musician
+surged back, his pride flared up again, his eyes turned on Corbin's
+like those of a dog to his master's. Under their spell the music soared,
+trembling, paused and soared again, thrilling those who heard it with
+its grief and tenderness.
+
+Edouard's heart leaped with triumph. “The man knows,” he whispered to
+the violin; “he understands us. He knows.”
+
+The people, leaning with their elbows on the tables before them, the
+waiters listening with tolerant smiles, the musicians following Edouard
+with anxious pride, saw only a young man with his arm thrown heavily
+across the back of his chair, who was looking up at Edouard with a
+steady, searching gaze. But Edouard saw in him both a disciple and a
+master. He saw that this man was lifted up and carried with him, that he
+understood the message of the music. The notes of the violin sank lower
+and lower, until they melted into the silence of the room, and the
+people, freed of the spell the music had put upon them, applauded
+generously. Edouard placed his violin under his arm, and with his eyes,
+which had never left Corbin's face, still fastened upon his, bowed low
+to him, and Corbin raised his head and nodded gravely. It was as though
+they were the only people in the room. As Edouard retreated his face was
+shining with triumph, for he knew that the other had understood him, and
+that the other knew that he knew.
+
+That night until he fell asleep, and all of the day following, the
+beautiful face of Miss Warriner troubled Edouard, and the thought of her
+alternately thrilled and depressed him. One moment he mocked at himself
+for presuming to think that his simple art could reach the depths of
+such a nature, and the next he stirred himself to hope that he should
+see her once again, and that he should succeed where he had failed.
+
+The music had moved Corbin so deeply that when he awoke the day
+following the effect of it still hung upon him. It seemed to him as
+though all he had been trying to tell Miss Warriner of his love for her,
+and which he had failed to make her understand in the last three months,
+had been expressed in the one moment of this song. It was that in it
+which had so enchanted him. It was as though he had listened to his
+own deepest and most sacred thoughts, uttered for the first time
+convincingly, and by a stranger. Why was it, he asked himself, that this
+unknown youth could translate another's feelings into music, when he
+himself could not put them into words? He was walking in Piccadilly,
+deep in this thought, when a question came to him which caused him to
+turn rapidly into Green Park, where he could consider it undisturbed.
+
+The doubt which had so suddenly presented itself was in some degree the
+same one which had stirred Edouard. Was it that he was really unable to
+express his feelings, or was it that Miss Warriner could not understand
+them? Was it really something lacking in him, or was it not something
+lacking in her? He flushed at the disloyalty of the thought and put it
+from him; but, as his memory reached back over the past three months,
+the question returned again and again with fresh force, and would not
+be denied. He called himself a fatuous, conceited fool. Because he could
+not make a woman love him other men could do so. That was really the
+answer; he was not the man. But the answer did not seem final. What,
+after all, was the thing his love sought--a woman only, or a woman
+capable of deep and great feeling? Even if he could not inspire such
+emotions, even if another could, he would still be content and proud
+to love a woman capable of such deep feelings. But if she were without
+them? At the thought, Corbin stared blankly before him as though he had
+stumbled against a stone wall. What sign had she ever given him that she
+could care greatly? Was not any form of emotion always distasteful to
+her? Was not her mind always occupied with abstract questions? Was she
+not always engaged in her own self-improvement--with schemes, it is
+true, for bettering the world; but did her heart ever ache once for the
+individual? What was it, then, he loved? Something he imagined this girl
+to be, or was he in love with the fact that his own nature had been so
+mightily stirred? Was it not the joy of caring greatly which had carried
+him along? And if this was so, was he now to continue to proffer this
+devotion to one who could not feel, to a statue, to an idol? Were not
+the very things which rendered her beautiful the offerings which he
+himself had hung upon her altar? Did the qualities he really loved in
+her exist? Was he not on the brink of casting his love before one
+who could neither feel it for him nor for any other man? He stood up,
+trembling and frightened. Even though the girl had rejected him again
+and again, he felt a hateful sense of disloyalty. He was ashamed to
+confess it to himself, and he vowed, hotly, that he must be wrong, that
+he would not believe. He would still worship her, fight for her, and
+force her to care for him.
+
+Mrs. Warriner and her daughter were to sail on the morrow, and
+that night they met Corbin at dinner for the last time. After many
+days--although self-accused--he felt deeply conscious of his recent lack
+of faith, and, in the few hours still left him, he determined to atone
+for the temporary halt in his allegiance. They had never found him more
+eager, tactful, and considerate than he was that evening. The eyes of
+Mrs. Warriner softened as she watched him. As one day had succeeded
+another, her admiration and liking for him had increased, until now she
+felt as though his cause was hers--as though she was not parting from
+a friend, but from a son. But the calmness of her daughter was
+impenetrable; from her manner it was impossible to learn whether the
+approaching separation was a relief or a regret.
+
+To Edouard the return of the beautiful girl to the restaurant appeared
+not as an accident, but as a marked favor vouchsafed to him by Fate. He
+had been given a second chance. He read it as a sign that he should take
+heart and hope. He felt that fortune was indeed kind. He determined that
+he would play to her again, and that this time he would not fail.
+
+As the first notes of La Lettre d'Amour brought a pause of silence
+in the restaurant, Corbin, who was talking at the moment, interrupted
+himself abruptly, and turned in his chair.
+
+All through the evening he had been conscious of the near presence of
+the young musician. He had not forgotten how, on the night before, his
+own feelings had been interpreted in La Lettre d'Amour, and for some
+time he had been debating in his mind as to whether he would request
+Edouard to play the air again, or let the evening pass without again
+submitting himself to so supreme an assault upon his feelings. Now the
+question had been settled for him, and he found that it had been decided
+as he secretly desired. It was impossible to believe that Edouard was
+the same young man who had played the same air on the night previous,
+for Edouard no longer considered that he was present on sufferance--he
+invited and challenged the attention of the room; his music commanded it
+to silence. It dominated all who heard it.
+
+As he again slowly approached the table where Miss Warriner was seated,
+the eyes of everyone were turned upon him; the pathos, the tenderness
+of his message seemed to speak to each; the fact that he dared to offer
+such a wealth of deep feeling to such an audience was in itself enough
+to engage the attention of all. A group of Guardsmen, their faces
+flushed with Burgundy and pulling heavily on black cigars, stared at him
+sleepily, and then sat up, erect and alert, watching him with intent,
+wide-open eyes; and at tables which had been marked by the laughter of
+those seated about them there fell a sudden silence. Those who fully
+understood the value of the music withdrew into themselves, submitting,
+thankfully, to its spell; others, less susceptible, gathered from the
+bearing of those about them that something of moment was going forward;
+but it was recognized by each, from the most severe English matron
+present down to the youngest “omnibus-boy” among the waiters, that it
+was a love-story which was being told to them, and that in this public
+place the deepest, most sacred, and most beautiful of emotions were
+finding noble utterance.
+
+The music filled Corbin with desperate longing and regret. It was
+so truly the translation of his own feelings that he was alternately
+touched with self-pity and inspired to fresh resolve. It seemed to
+assure him that love such as his could not endure without some return.
+It emboldened him to make still another and a final appeal. Mrs.
+Warriner, with all the other people in the room, was watching Edouard,
+and so, unobserved, and hidden by the flowers upon the table, Corbin
+leaned toward Miss Warriner and bent his head close to hers. His eyes
+were burning with feeling; his voice thrilled in unison to the plaint of
+the violin.
+
+He gave a toss of his head in the direction from whence the music came.
+
+“That is what I have been trying to tell you,” he whispered. His voice
+was hoarse and shaken. “That is how I care, but that man's genius is
+telling you for me. At last, you must understand.” In his eagerness, his
+words followed each other brokenly and impetuously. “That is love,” he
+whispered. “That is the real voice of love in all its tenderness
+and might, and--it is love itself. Don't you understand it now?” he
+demanded.
+
+Miss Warriner raised her head and frowned. She stared at Edouard with a
+pained expression of perplexity and doubt.
+
+“He shows no lack of feeling,” she said, critically, “but his technic is
+not equal to Ysaye's.”
+
+“Good God!” Corbin gasped. He sank away from Miss Warriner and stared at
+her with incredulous eyes.
+
+“His technic,” he repeated, “is not equal to Ysaye's?” He gave a laugh
+which might have been a sob, and sat up, suddenly, with his head
+erect and his shoulders squared. He had the shaken look of one who has
+recovered from a dangerous illness. But when he spoke again it was in
+the accents of every-day politeness.
+
+At an early hour the following morning, Mrs. Warriner and her daughter
+left Waterloo Station on the steamer-train for Southampton, and Corbin
+attended them up to the moment of the train's departure. He concerned
+himself for their comfort as conscientiously as he had always
+done throughout the last three months, when he had been their
+travelling-companion; nothing could have been more friendly, more
+sympathetic, than his manner. This effort, which Mrs. Warriner was sure
+cost him much, touched her deeply. But when he shook Miss Warriner's
+hand and she said, “Good-by, and write to us before you go to the
+Philippines,” Corbin for the first time stammered in some embarrassment.
+
+“Good-by,” he said; “I--I am not sure that I shall go.”
+
+He dined at the Savoy again that night, in company with some Englishmen.
+They sat at a table in the corner where they could observe the whole
+extent of the room, and their talk was eager and their laughter constant
+and hearty. It was only when the boy who led the orchestra began to
+walk among the tables, playing an air of peculiar sadness, that Corbin's
+manner lost its vivacity, and he sank into a sudden silence, with his
+eyes fixed on the table before him.
+
+“That's odd,” said one of his companions. “I say, Corbin, look at that
+chap! What's he doing?”
+
+Corbin raised his eyes. He saw Edouard standing at the same table at
+which for the last two nights Miss Warriner had been seated. “What is
+it?” he asked.
+
+“Why, that violin chap,” said the Englishman. “Don't you see? He's been
+playing to the only vacant table in the room, and to an empty chair.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IN THE FOG
+
+I
+
+
+The Grill is the club most difficult of access in the world. To be
+placed on its rolls distinguishes the new member as greatly as though he
+had received a vacant Garter or had been caricatured in “Vanity Fair.”
+
+Men who belong to the Grill Club never mention that fact. If you were
+to ask one of them which clubs he frequents, he will name all save that
+particular one. He is afraid if he told you he belonged to the Grill,
+that it would sound like boasting.
+
+The Grill Club dates back to the days when Shakespeare's Theatre stood
+on the present site of the “Times” office. It has a golden Grill which
+Charles the Second presented to the Club, and the original manuscript
+of “Tom and Jerry in London,” which was bequeathed to it by Pierce Egan
+himself. The members, when they write letters at the Club, still use
+sand to blot the ink.
+
+The Grill enjoys the distinction of having blackballed, without
+political prejudice, a Prime Minister of each party. At the same sitting
+at which one of these fell, it elected, on account of his brogue and his
+bulls, Quiller, Q. C., who was then a penniless barrister.
+
+When Paul Preval, the French artist who came to London by royal command
+to paint a portrait of the Prince of Wales, was made an honorary
+member--only foreigners may be honorary members--he said, as he signed
+his first wine-card, “I would rather see my name on that than on a
+picture in the Louvre.”
+
+At which Quiller remarked, “That is a devil of a compliment, because the
+only men who can read their names in the Louvre to-day have been dead
+fifty years.”
+
+On the night after the great fog of 1897 there were five members in
+the Club, four of them busy with supper and one reading in front of the
+fireplace. There is only one room to the Club, and one long table. At
+the far end of the room the fire of the grill glows red, and, when
+the fat falls, blazes into flame, and at the other there is a broad
+bow-window of diamond panes, which looks down upon the street. The four
+men at the table were strangers to each other, but as they picked at
+the grilled bones, and sipped their Scotch and soda, they conversed
+with such charming animation that a visitor to the Club, which does
+not tolerate visitors, would have counted them as friends of long
+acquaintance, certainly not as Englishmen who had met for the first
+time, and without the form of an introduction. But it is the etiquette
+and tradition of the Grill that whoever enters it must speak with
+whomever he finds there. It is to enforce this rule that there is but
+one long table, and whether there are twenty men at it or two, the
+waiters, supporting the rule, will place them side by side.
+
+For this reason the four strangers at supper were seated together, with
+the candles grouped about them, and the long length of the table cutting
+a white path through the outer gloom.
+
+“I repeat,” said the gentleman with the black pearl stud, “that the days
+for romantic adventure and deeds of foolish daring have passed, and that
+the fault lies with ourselves. Voyages to the pole I do not catalogue
+as adventures. That African explorer, young Chetney, who turned up
+yesterday after he was supposed to have died in Uganda, did nothing
+adventurous. He made maps and explored the sources of rivers. He was
+in constant danger, but the presence of danger does not constitute
+adventure. Were that so, the chemist who studies high explosives, or
+who investigates deadly poisons, passes through adventures daily. No,
+'adventures are for the adventurous.' But one no longer ventures. The
+spirit of it has died of inertia. We are grown too practical, too just,
+above all, too sensible. In this room, for instance, members of this
+Club have, at the sword's point, disputed the proper scanning of one
+of Pope's couplets. Over so weighty a matter as spilled Burgundy on a
+gentleman's cuff, ten men fought across this table, each with his
+rapier in one hand and a candle in the other. All ten were wounded. The
+question of the spilled Burgundy concerned but two of them. The eight
+others engaged because they were men of 'spirit.' They were, indeed, the
+first gentlemen of the day. To-night, were you to spill Burgundy on
+my cuff, were you even to insult me grossly, these gentlemen would not
+consider it incumbent upon them to kill each other. They would separate
+us, and to-morrow morning appear as witnesses against us at Bow Street.
+We have here to-night, in the persons of Sir Andrew and myself, an
+illustration of how the ways have changed.”
+
+The men around the table turned and glanced toward the gentleman in
+front of the fireplace. He was an elderly and somewhat portly person,
+with a kindly, wrinkled countenance, which wore continually a smile
+of almost childish confidence and good-nature. It was a face which the
+illustrated prints had made intimately familiar. He held a book from him
+at arm's-length, as if to adjust his eyesight, and his brows were knit
+with interest.
+
+“Now, were this the eighteenth century,” continued the gentleman with
+the black pearl, “when Sir Andrew left the Club to-night I would have
+him bound and gagged and thrown into a sedan chair. The watch would not
+interfere, the passers-by would take to their heels, my hired bullies
+and ruffians would convey him to some lonely spot where we would guard
+him until morning. Nothing would come of it, except added reputation to
+myself as a gentleman of adventurous spirit, and possibly an essay in
+the 'Tatler' with stars for names, entitled, let us say, 'The Budget and
+the Baronet.'”
+
+“But to what end, sir?” inquired the youngest of the members. “And
+why Sir Andrew, of all persons--why should you select him for this
+adventure?”
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“It would prevent him speaking in the House to-night. The Navy Increase
+Bill,” he added, gloomily. “It is a Government measure, and Sir Andrew
+speaks for it. And so great is his influence and so large his following
+that if he does”--the gentleman laughed ruefully--“if he does, it will
+go through. Now, had I the spirit of our ancestors,” he exclaimed, “I
+would bring chloroform from the nearest chemist's and drug him in that
+chair. I would tumble his unconscious form into a hansom-cab, and hold
+him prisoner until daylight. If I did, I would save the British taxpayer
+the cost of five more battleships, many millions of pounds.”
+
+The gentleman again turned, and surveyed the baronet with freshened
+interest. The honorary member of the Grill, whose accent already had
+betrayed him as an American, laughed softly.
+
+“To look at him now,” he said, “one would not guess he was deeply
+concerned with the affairs of state.”
+
+The others nodded silently.
+
+“He has not lifted his eyes from that book since we first entered,”
+ added the youngest member. “He surely cannot mean to speak to-night.”
+
+“Oh, yes, he will speak,” muttered the one with the black pearl,
+moodily. “During these last hours of the session the House sits late,
+but when the Navy bill comes up on its third reading he will be in his
+place--and he will pass it.”
+
+The fourth member, a stout and florid gentleman of a somewhat sporting
+appearance, in a short smoking-jacket and black tie, sighed enviously.
+
+“Fancy one of us being as cool as that, if he knew he had to stand up
+within an hour and rattle off a speech in Parliament. I'd be in a devil
+of a funk myself. And yet he is as keen over that book he's reading as
+though he had nothing before him until bedtime.”
+
+“Yes, see how eager he is,” whispered the youngest member. “He does
+not lift his eyes even now when he cuts the pages. It is probably an
+Admiralty Report, or some other weighty work of statistics which bears
+upon his speech.”
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl laughed morosely.
+
+“The weighty work in which the eminent statesman is so deeply
+engrossed,” he said, “is called 'The Great Rand Robbery.' It is a
+detective novel for sale at all bookstalls.”
+
+The American raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
+
+“'The Great Rand Robbery'?” he repeated, incredulously. “What an odd
+taste!”
+
+“It is not a taste, it is his vice,” returned the gentleman with the
+pearl stud. “It is his one dissipation. He is noted for it. You, as a
+stranger, could hardly be expected to know of this idiosyncrasy. Mr.
+Gladstone sought relaxation in the Greek poets, Sir Andrew finds his in
+Gaboriau. Since I have been a member of Parliament, I have never seen
+him in the library without a shilling shocker in his hands. He
+brings them even into the sacred precincts of the House, and from the
+Government benches reads them concealed inside his hat. Once started on
+a tale of murder, robbery, and sudden death, nothing can tear him from
+it, not even the call of the division-bell, nor of hunger, nor the
+prayers of the party Whip. He gave up his country house because when
+he journeyed to it in the train he would become so absorbed in his
+detective-stories that he was invariably carried past his station.” The
+member of Parliament twisted his pearl stud nervously, and bit at the
+edge of his mustache. “If it only were the first pages of 'The Rand
+Robbery' that he were reading,” he murmured bitterly, “instead of the
+last! With such another book as that, I swear I could hold him here
+until morning. There would be no need of chloroform to keep him from the
+House.”
+
+The eyes of all were fastened upon Sir Andrew, and each saw, with
+fascination, that, with his forefinger, he was now separating the
+last two pages of the book. The member of Parliament struck the table,
+softly, with his open palm.
+
+“I would give a hundred pounds,” he whispered, “if I could place in his
+hands at this moment a new story of Sherlock Holmes--a thousand pounds,”
+ he added, wildly--“five thousand pounds!”
+
+The American observed the speaker sharply, as though the words bore to
+him some special application, and then, at an idea which apparently had
+but just come to him, smiled, in great embarrassment.
+
+Sir Andrew ceased reading, but, as though still under the influence of
+the book, sat looking, blankly, into the open fire. For a brief space,
+no one moved until the baronet withdrew his eyes and, with a sudden
+start of recollection, felt, anxiously, for his watch. He scanned its
+face eagerly, and scrambled to his feet.
+
+The voice of the American instantly broke the silence in a high, nervous
+accent.
+
+“And yet Sherlock Holmes himself,” he cried, “could not decipher the
+mystery which to-night baffles the police of London.”
+
+At these unexpected words, which carried in them something of the tone
+of a challenge, the gentlemen about the table started as suddenly
+as though the American had fired a pistol in the air, and Sir Andrew
+halted, abruptly, and stood observing him with grave surprise.
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl was the first to recover.
+
+“Yes, yes,” he said, eagerly, throwing himself across the table. “A
+mystery that baffles the police of London. I have heard nothing of it.
+Tell us at once, pray do--tell us at once.”
+
+The American flushed uncomfortably, and picked, uneasily, at the
+table-cloth.
+
+“No one but the police has heard of it,” he murmured, “and they only
+through me. It is a remarkable crime, to which, unfortunately, I am the
+only person who can bear witness. Because I am the only witness, I
+am, in spite of my immunity as a diplomat, detained in London by the
+authorities of Scotland Yard. My name,” he said, inclining his head,
+politely, “is Sears, Lieutenant Ripley Sears, of the United States Navy,
+at present Naval Attache to the Court of Russia. Had I not been detained
+to-day by the police, I would have started this morning for Petersburg.”
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl interrupted with so pronounced an
+exclamation of excitement and delight that the American stammered and
+ceased speaking.
+
+“Do you hear, Sir Andrew?” cried the member of Parliament, jubilantly.
+“An American diplomat halted by our police because he is the only
+witness of a most remarkable crime--THE most remarkable crime, I believe
+you said, sir,” he added, bending eagerly toward the naval officer,
+“which has occurred in London in many years.”
+
+The American moved his head in assent, and glanced at the two other
+members. They were looking, doubtfully, at him, and the face of each
+showed that he was greatly perplexed.
+
+Sir Andrew advanced to within the light of the candles and drew a chair
+toward him.
+
+“The crime must be exceptional, indeed,” he said, “to justify the police
+in interfering with a representative of a friendly power. If I were not
+forced to leave at once, I should take the liberty of asking you to tell
+us the details.”
+
+The gentleman with the pearl pushed the chair toward Sir Andrew, and
+motioned him to be seated.
+
+“You cannot leave us now,” he exclaimed. “Mr. Sears is just about to
+tell us of this remarkable crime.”
+
+He nodded, vigorously, at the naval officer and the American, after
+first glancing, doubtfully, toward the servants at the far end of the
+room, and leaned forward across the table. The others drew their chairs
+nearer and bent toward him. The baronet glanced, irresolutely, at his
+watch, and, with an exclamation of annoyance, snapped down the lid.
+“They can wait,” he muttered. He seated himself quickly, and nodded at
+Lieutenant Sears.
+
+“If you will be so kind as to begin, sir,” he said, impatiently.
+
+“Of course,” said the American, “you understand that I understand that
+I am speaking to gentlemen. The confidences of this Club are inviolate.
+Until the police give the facts to the public press, I must consider you
+my confederates. You have heard nothing, you know no one connected with
+this mystery. Even I must remain anonymous.”
+
+The gentlemen seated around him nodded gravely.
+
+“Of course,” the baronet assented, with eagerness, “of course.”
+
+“We will refer to it,” said the gentleman with the black pearl, “as 'The
+Story of the Naval Attache.'”
+
+“I arrived in London two days ago,” said the American, “and I engaged a
+room at the Bath Hotel. I know very few people in London, and even the
+members of our embassy were strangers to me. But in Hong Kong I had
+become great pals with an officer in your navy, who has since retired,
+and who is now living in a small house in Rutland Gardens, opposite
+the Knightsbridge Barracks. I telegraphed him that I was in London, and
+yesterday morning I received a most hearty invitation to dine with him
+the same evening at his house. He is a bachelor, so we dined alone and
+talked over all our old days on the Asiatic Station and of the changes
+which had come to us since we had last met there. As I was leaving the
+next morning for my post at Petersburg, and had many letters to write,
+I told him, about ten o'clock, that I must get back to the hotel, and he
+sent out his servant to call a hansom.
+
+“For the next quarter of an hour, as we sat talking, we could hear the
+cab-whistle sounding, violently, from the doorstep, but apparently with
+no result.
+
+“'It cannot be that the cabmen are on strike,' my friend said, as he
+rose and walked to the window.
+
+“He pulled back the curtains and at once called to me.
+
+“'You have never seen a London fog, have you?' he asked. 'Well, come
+here. This is one of the best, or, rather, one of the worst, of them.' I
+joined him at the window, but I could see nothing. Had I not known that
+the house looked out upon the street I would have believed that I was
+facing a dead wall. I raised the sash and stretched out my head, but
+still I could see nothing. Even the light of the street-lamps, opposite,
+and in the upper windows of the barracks, had been smothered in the
+yellow mist. The lights of the room in which I stood penetrated the fog
+only to the distance of a few inches from my eyes.
+
+“Below me the servant was still sounding his whistle, but I could afford
+to wait no longer, and told my friend that I would try and find the way
+to my hotel on foot. He objected, but the letters I had to write were
+for the Navy Department, and, besides, I had always heard that to be out
+in a London fog was the most wonderful experience, and I was curious to
+investigate one for myself.
+
+“My friend went with me to his front door, and laid down a course for me
+to follow. I was first to walk straight across the street to the brick
+wall of the Knightsbridge Barracks. I was then to feel my way along the
+wall until I came to a row of houses set back from the sidewalk. They
+would bring me to a cross street. On the other side of this street was
+a row of shops which I was to follow until they joined the iron railings
+of Hyde Park. I was to keep to the railings until I reached the gates
+at Hyde Park Corner, where I was to lay a diagonal course across
+Piccadilly, and tack in toward the railings of Green Park. At the end
+of these railings, going east, I would find the Walsingham, and my own
+hotel.
+
+“To a sailor the course did not seem difficult, so I bade my friend
+good-night and walked forward until my feet touched the paving. I
+continued upon it until I reached the curbing of the sidewalk. A few
+steps further, and my hands struck the wall of the barracks. I turned
+in the direction from which I had just come, and saw a square of faint
+light cut in the yellow fog. I shouted, 'All right,' and the voice of
+my friend answered, 'Good luck to you.' The light from his open door
+disappeared with a bang, and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow
+darkness. I have been in the Navy for ten years, but I have never known
+such a fog as that of last night, not even among the icebergs of Behring
+Sea. There one at least could see the light of the binnacle, but last
+night I could not even distinguish the hand by which I guided myself
+along the barrack-wall. At sea a fog is a natural phenomenon. It is as
+familiar as the rainbow which follows a storm, it is as proper that
+a fog should spread upon the waters as that steam shall rise from a
+kettle. But a fog which springs from the paved streets, that rolls
+between solid house-fronts, that forces cabs to move at half speed, that
+drowns policemen and extinguishes the electric lights of the music-hall,
+that to me is incomprehensible. It is as out of place as a tidal wave on
+Broadway.
+
+“As I felt my way along the wall, I encountered other men who were
+coming from the opposite direction, and each time when we hailed each
+other I stepped away from the wall to make room for them to pass. But
+the third time I did this, when I reached out my hand, the wall had
+disappeared, and the further I moved to find it the further I seemed
+to be sinking into space. I had the unpleasant conviction that at any
+moment I might step over a precipice. Since I had set out, I had heard
+no traffic in the street, and now, although I listened some minutes, I
+could only distinguish the occasional footfalls of pedestrians. Several
+times I called aloud, and once a jocular gentleman answered me, but only
+to ask me where I thought he was, and then even he was swallowed up in
+the silence. Just above me I could make out a jet of gas which I guessed
+came from a street-lamp, and I moved over to that, and, while I tried
+to recover my bearings, kept my hand on the iron post. Except for this
+nicker of gas, no larger than the tip of my finger, I could distinguish
+nothing about me. For the rest, the mist hung between me and the world
+like a damp and heavy blanket.
+
+“I could hear voices, but I could not tell from whence they came, and
+the scrape of a foot, moving cautiously, or a muffled cry as someone
+stumbled, were the only sounds that reached me.
+
+“I decided that until someone took me in I had best remain where I
+was, and it must have been for ten minutes that I waited by the lamp,
+straining my ears and hailing distant footfalls. In a house near me some
+people were dancing to the music of a Hungarian band. I even fancied I
+could hear the windows shake to the rhythm of their feet, but I could
+not make out from which part of the compass the sounds came. And
+sometimes, as the music rose, it seemed close at my hand, and, again, to
+be floating high in the air above my head. Although I was surrounded by
+thousands of householders, I was as completely lost as though I had been
+set down by night in the Sahara Desert. There seemed to be no reason
+in waiting longer for an escort, so I again set out, and at once bumped
+against a low, iron fence. At first I believed this to be an area
+railing, but, on following it, I found that it stretched for a long
+distance, and that it was pierced at regular intervals with gates. I was
+standing, uncertainly, with my hand on one of these, when a square
+of light suddenly opened in the night, and in it I saw, as you see a
+picture thrown by a biograph in a darkened theatre, a young gentleman in
+evening dress, and, back of him, the lights of a hall. I guessed, from
+its elevation and distance from the sidewalk, that this light must come
+from the door of a house set back from the street, and I determined
+to approach it and ask the young man to tell me where I was. But, in
+fumbling with the lock of the gate, I instinctively bent my head, and
+when I raised it again the door had partly closed, leaving only a narrow
+shaft of light. Whether the young man had re-entered the house, or had
+left it I could not tell, but I hastened to open the gate, and as I
+stepped forward I found myself upon an asphalt walk. At the same instant
+there was the sound of quick steps upon the path, and someone rushed
+past me. I called to him, but he made no reply, and I heard the gate
+click and the footsteps hurrying away upon the sidewalk.
+
+“Under other circumstances the young man's rudeness, and his
+recklessness in dashing so hurriedly through the mist, would have struck
+me as peculiar, but everything was so distorted by the fog that at the
+moment I did not consider it. The door was still as he had left it,
+partly open. I went up the path, and, after much fumbling, found the
+knob of the door-bell and gave it a sharp pull. The bell answered me
+from a great depth and distance, but no movement followed from inside
+the house, and, although I pulled the bell again and again, I could hear
+nothing save the dripping of the mist about me. I was anxious to be on
+my way, but unless I knew where I was going there was little chance
+of my making any speed, and I was determined that until I learned my
+bearings I would not venture back into the fog. So I pushed the door
+open and stepped into the house.
+
+“I found myself in a long and narrow hall, upon which doors opened from
+either side. At the end of the hall was a staircase with a balustrade
+which ended in a sweeping curve. The balustrade was covered with heavy,
+Persian rugs, and the walls of the hall were also hung with them. The
+door on my left was closed, but the one nearer me on the right was open,
+and, as I stepped opposite to it, I saw that it was a sort of reception
+or waiting-room, and that it was empty. The door below it was also open,
+and, with the idea that I would surely find someone there, I walked on
+up the hall. I was in evening dress, and I felt I did not look like
+a burglar, so I had no great fear that, should I encounter one of the
+inmates of the house, he would shoot me on sight. The second door in the
+hall opened into a dining-room. This was also empty. One person had
+been dining at the table, but the cloth had not been cleared away, and
+a flickering candle showed half-filled wineglasses and the ashes of
+cigarettes. The greater part of the room was in complete darkness.
+
+“By this time I had grown conscious of the fact that I was wandering
+about in a strange house, and that, apparently, I was alone in it.
+The silence of the place began to try my nerves, and in a sudden,
+unexplainable panic I started for the open street. But as I turned,
+I saw a man sitting on a bench, which the curve of the balustrade had
+hidden from me. His eyes were shut, and he was sleeping soundly.
+
+“The moment before I had been bewildered because I could see no one, but
+at sight of this man I was much more bewildered.
+
+“He was a very large man, a giant in height, with long, yellow hair,
+which hung below his shoulders. He was dressed in a red silk shirt, that
+was belted at the waist and hung outside black velvet trousers, which,
+in turn, were stuffed into high, black boots. I recognized the costume
+at once as that of a Russian servant, but what a Russian servant in his
+native livery could be doing in a private house in Knightsbridge was
+incomprehensible.
+
+“I advanced and touched the man on the shoulder, and, after an effort,
+he awoke, and, on seeing me, sprang to his feet and began bowing
+rapidly, and making deprecatory gestures. I had picked up enough Russian
+in Petersburg to make out that the man was apologizing for having fallen
+asleep, and I also was able to explain to him that I desired to see his
+master.
+
+“He nodded vigorously, and said, 'Will the Excellency come this way? The
+Princess is here.'
+
+“I distinctly made out the word 'princess,' and I was a good deal
+embarrassed. I had thought it would be easy enough to explain my
+intrusion to a man, but how a woman would look at it was another matter,
+and as I followed him down the hall I was somewhat puzzled.
+
+“As we advanced, he noticed that the front door was standing open, and
+with an exclamation of surprise, hastened toward it and closed it. Then
+he rapped twice on the door of what was apparently the drawing-room.
+There was no reply to his knock, and he tapped again, and then, timidly,
+and cringing subserviently, opened the door and stepped inside. He
+withdrew himself at once and stared stupidly at me, shaking his head.
+
+“'She is not there,' he said. He stood for a moment, gazing blankly
+through the open door, and then hastened toward the dining-room. The
+solitary candle which still burned there seemed to assure him that the
+room also was empty. He came back and bowed me toward the drawing-room.
+'She is above,' he said; 'I will inform the Princess of the Excellency's
+presence.'
+
+“Before I could stop him, he had turned and was running up the
+staircase, leaving me alone at the open door of the drawing-room. I
+decided that the adventure had gone quite far enough, and if I had been
+able to explain to the Russian that I had lost my way in the fog, and
+only wanted to get back into the street again, I would have left the
+house on the instant.
+
+“Of course, when I first rang the bell of the house I had no other
+expectation than that it would be answered by a parlor-maid who would
+direct me on my way. I certainly could not then foresee that I would
+disturb a Russian princess in her boudoir, or that I might be thrown out
+by her athletic bodyguard. Still, I thought I ought not now to leave
+the house without making some apology, and, if the worst should come,
+I could show my card. They could hardly believe that a member of an
+Embassy had any designs upon the hat-rack.
+
+“The room in which I stood was dimly lighted, but I could see that, like
+the hall, it was hung with heavy, Persian rugs. The corners were filled
+with palms, and there was the unmistakable odor in the air of Russian
+cigarettes, and strange, dry scents that carried me back to the bazaars
+of Vladivostock. Near the front windows was a grand piano, and at the
+other end of the room a heavily carved screen of some black wood,
+picked out with ivory. The screen was overhung with a canopy of silken
+draperies, and formed a sort of alcove. In front of the alcove was
+spread the white skin of a polar bear, and set on that was one of those
+low, Turkish coffee-tables. It held a lighted spirit-lamp and two gold
+coffee-cups. I had heard no movement from above stairs, and it must have
+been fully three minutes that I stood waiting, noting these details of
+the room and wondering at the delay, and at the strange silence.
+
+“And then, suddenly, as my eye grew more used to the half-light, I saw,
+projecting from behind the screen, as though it were stretched along the
+back of a divan, the hand of a man and the lower part of his arm. I
+was as startled as though I had come across a footprint on a deserted
+island. Evidently, the man had been sitting there since I had come
+into the room, even since I had entered the house, and he had heard the
+servant knocking upon the door. Why he had not declared himself I could
+not understand, but I supposed that, possibly, he was a guest, with
+no reason to interest himself in the Princess's other visitors, or,
+perhaps, for some reason, he did not wish to be observed. I could see
+nothing of him except his hand, but I had an unpleasant feeling that he
+had been peering at me through the carving in the screen, and that
+he still was doing so. I moved my feet noisily on the floor and said,
+tentatively, 'I beg your pardon.'
+
+“There was no reply, and the hand did not stir. Apparently, the man
+was bent upon ignoring me, but, as all I wished was to apologize for my
+intrusion and to leave the house, I walked up to the alcove and peered
+around it. Inside the screen was a divan piled with cushions, and on the
+end of it nearer me the man was sitting. He was a young Englishman with
+light-yellow hair and a deeply bronzed face. He was seated with his arms
+stretched out along the back of the divan, and with his head resting
+against a cushion. His attitude was one of complete ease. But his mouth
+had fallen open, and his eyes were set with an expression of utter
+horror. At the first glance, I saw that he was quite dead.
+
+“For a flash of time I was too startled to act, but in the same flash I
+was convinced that the man had met his death from no accident, that he
+had not died through any ordinary failure of the laws of nature. The
+expression on his face was much too terrible to be misinterpreted. It
+spoke as eloquently as words. It told me that before the end had come he
+had watched his death approach and threaten him.
+
+“I was so sure he had been murdered that I instinctively looked on the
+floor for the weapon, and, at the same moment, out of concern for my
+own safety, quickly behind me; but the silence of the house continued
+unbroken.
+
+“I have seen a great number of dead men; I was on the Asiatic Station
+during the Japanese-Chinese war. I was in Port Arthur after the
+massacre. So a dead man, for the single reason that he is dead, does not
+repel me, and, though I knew that there was no hope that this man was
+alive, still, for decency's sake, I felt his pulse, and, while I kept
+my ears alert for any sound from the floors above me, I pulled open his
+shirt and placed my hand upon his heart. My fingers instantly touched
+upon the opening of a wound, and as I withdrew them I found them wet
+with blood. He was in evening dress, and in the wide bosom of his shirt
+I found a narrow slit, so narrow that in the dim light it was scarcely
+discernible. The wound was no wider than the smallest blade of a
+pocket-knife, but when I stripped the shirt away from the chest and left
+it bare, I found that the weapon, narrow as it was, had been long enough
+to reach his heart. There is no need to tell you how I felt as I stood
+by the body of this boy, for he was hardly older than a boy, or of the
+thoughts that came into my head. I was bitterly sorry for this stranger,
+bitterly indignant at his murderer, and, at the same time, selfishly
+concerned for my own safety and for the notoriety which I saw was sure
+to follow. My instinct was to leave the body where it lay, and to hide
+myself in the fog, but I also felt that since a succession of accidents
+had made me the only witness to a crime, my duty was to make myself a
+good witness and to assist to establish the facts of this murder.
+
+“That it might, possibly, be a suicide, and not a murder, did not
+disturb me for a moment. The fact that the weapon had disappeared, and
+the expression on the boy's face were enough to convince, at least me,
+that he had had no hand in his own death. I judged it, therefore, of
+the first importance to discover who was in the house, or, if they had
+escaped from it, who had been in the house before I entered it. I had
+seen one man leave it; but all I could tell of him was that he was a
+young man, that he was in evening dress, and that he had fled in such
+haste that he had not stopped to close the door behind him.
+
+“The Russian servant I had found apparently asleep, and, unless he acted
+a part with supreme skill, he was a stupid and ignorant boor, and as
+innocent of the murder as myself. There was still the Russian princess
+whom he had expected to find, or had pretended to expect to find, in the
+same room with the murdered man. I judged that she must now be either
+upstairs with the servant, or that she had, without his knowledge,
+already fled from the house. When I recalled his apparently genuine
+surprise at not finding her in the drawing-room, this latter supposition
+seemed the more probable. Nevertheless, I decided that it was my duty to
+make a search, and after a second hurried look for the weapon among the
+cushions of the divan, and upon the floor, I cautiously crossed the hall
+and entered the dining-room.
+
+“The single candle was still flickering in the draught, and showed only
+the white cloth. The rest of the room was draped in shadows. I picked up
+the candle, and, lifting it high above my head, moved around the corner
+of the table. Either my nerves were on such a stretch that no shock
+could strain them further, or my mind was inoculated to horrors, for
+I did not cry out at what I saw nor retreat from it. Immediately at my
+feet was the body of a beautiful woman, lying at full length upon the
+floor, her arms flung out on either side of her, and her white face and
+shoulders gleaming, dully, in the unsteady light of the candle. Around
+her throat was a great chain of diamonds, and the light played upon
+these and made them flash and blaze in tiny flames. But the woman who
+wore them was dead, and I was so certain as to how she had died that,
+without an instant's hesitation, I dropped on my knees beside her and
+placed my hands above her heart. My fingers again touched the thin slit
+of a wound. I had no doubt in my mind but that this was the Russian
+princess, and when I lowered the candle to her face I was assured that
+this was so. Her features showed the finest lines of both the Slav and
+the Jewess; the eyes were black, the hair blue-black and wonderfully
+heavy, and her skin, even in death, was rich in color. She was a
+surpassingly beautiful woman.
+
+“I rose and tried to light another candle with the one I held, but
+I found that my hand was so unsteady that I could not keep the wicks
+together. It was my intention to again search for this strange dagger
+which had been used to kill both the English boy and the beautiful
+princess, but before I could light the second candle I heard footsteps
+descending the stairs, and the Russian servant appeared in the doorway.
+
+“My face was in darkness, or I am sure that, at the sight of it, he
+would have taken alarm, for at that moment I was not sure but that this
+man himself was the murderer. His own face was plainly visible to me in
+the light from the hall, and I could see that it wore an expression of
+dull bewilderment. I stepped quickly toward him and took a firm hold
+upon his wrist.
+
+“'She is not there,' he said. 'The Princess has gone. They have all
+gone.'
+
+“'Who have gone?' I demanded. 'Who else has been here?'
+
+“'The two Englishmen,' he said.
+
+“'What two Englishmen?' I demanded. 'What are their names?'
+
+“The man now saw by my manner that some question of great moment hung
+upon his answer, and he began to protest that he did not know the names
+of the visitors and that until that evening he had never seen them.
+
+“I guessed that it was my tone which frightened him, so I took my hand
+off his wrist and spoke less eagerly.
+
+“'How long have they been here?' I asked, 'and when did they go?'
+
+“He pointed behind him toward the drawing-room.
+
+“'One sat there with the Princess,' he said; 'the other came after I
+had placed the coffee in the drawing-room. The two Englishmen talked
+together, and the Princess returned here to the table. She sat there in
+that chair, and I brought her cognac and cigarettes. Then I sat outside
+upon the bench. It was a feast-day, and I had been drinking. Pardon,
+Excellency, but I fell asleep. When I woke, your Excellency was standing
+by me, but the Princess and the two Englishmen had gone. That is all I
+know.'
+
+“I believed that the man was telling me the truth. His fright had
+passed, and he was now apparently puzzled, but not alarmed.
+
+“'You must remember the names of the Englishmen,' I urged. 'Try to
+think. When you announced them to the Princess what name did you give?'
+
+“At this question he exclaimed, with pleasure, and, beckoning to me,
+ran hurriedly down the hall and into the drawing-room. In the corner
+furthest from the screen was the piano, and on it was a silver tray. He
+picked this up and, smiling with pride at his own intelligence, pointed
+at two cards that lay upon it. I took them up and read the names
+engraved upon them.”
+
+The American paused abruptly, and glanced at the faces about him. “I
+read the names,” he repeated. He spoke with great reluctance.
+
+“Continue!” cried the baronet, sharply.
+
+“I read the names,” said the American with evident distaste, “and the
+family name of each was the same. They were the names of two brothers.
+One is well known to you. It is that of the African explorer of whom
+this gentleman was just speaking. I mean the Earl of Chetney. The other
+was the name of his brother. Lord Arthur Chetney.”
+
+The men at the table fell back as though a trapdoor had fallen open at
+their feet.
+
+“Lord Chetney?” they exclaimed, in chorus. They glanced at each
+other and back to the American, with every expression of concern and
+disbelief.
+
+“It is impossible!” cried the Baronet. “Why, my dear sir, young Chetney
+only arrived from Africa yesterday. It was so stated in the evening
+papers.”
+
+The jaw of the American set in a resolute square, and he pressed his
+lips together.
+
+“You are perfectly right, sir,” he said, “Lord Chetney did arrive in
+London yesterday morning, and yesterday night I found his dead body.”
+
+The youngest member present was the first to recover. He seemed much
+less concerned over the identity of the murdered man than at the
+interruption of the narrative.
+
+“Oh, please let him go on!” he cried. “What happened then? You say you
+found two visiting-cards. How do you know which card was that of the
+murdered man?”
+
+The American, before he answered, waited until the chorus of
+exclamations had ceased. Then he continued as though he had not been
+interrupted.
+
+“The instant I read the names upon the cards,” he said, “I ran to the
+screen and, kneeling beside the dead man, began a search through his
+pockets. My hand at once fell upon a card-case, and I found on all
+the cards it contained the title of the Earl of Chetney. His watch and
+cigarette-case also bore his name. These evidences, and the fact of his
+bronzed skin, and that his cheek-bones were worn with fever, convinced
+me that the dead man was the African explorer, and the boy who had fled
+past me in the night was Arthur, his younger brother.
+
+“I was so intent upon my search that I had forgotten the servant, and
+I was still on my knees when I heard a cry behind me. I turned, and saw
+the man gazing down at the body in abject horror.
+
+“Before I could rise, he gave another cry of terror, and, flinging
+himself into the hall, raced toward the door to the street. I leaped
+after him, shouting to him to halt, but before I could reach the hall he
+had torn open the door, and I saw him spring out into the yellow fog. I
+cleared the steps in a jump and ran down the garden-walk but just as
+the gate clicked in front of me. I had it open on the instant, and,
+following the sound of the man's footsteps, I raced after him across the
+open street. He, also, could hear me, and he instantly stopped running,
+and there was absolute silence. He was so near that I almost fancied I
+could hear him panting, and I held my own breath to listen. But I could
+distinguish nothing but the dripping of the mist about us, and from far
+off the music of the Hungarian band, which I had heard when I first lost
+myself.
+
+“All I could see was the square of light from the door I had left open
+behind me, and a lamp in the hall beyond it flickering in the draught.
+But even as I watched it, the flame of the lamp was blown violently to
+and fro, and the door, caught in the same current of air, closed slowly.
+I knew if it shut I could not again enter the house, and I rushed madly
+toward it. I believe I even shouted out, as though it were something
+human which I could compel to obey me, and then I caught my foot against
+the curb and smashed into the sidewalk. When I rose to my feet I was
+dizzy and half stunned, and though I thought then that I was moving
+toward the door, I know now that I probably turned directly from it;
+for, as I groped about in the night, calling frantically for the police,
+my fingers touched nothing but the dripping fog, and the iron railings
+for which I sought seemed to have melted away. For many minutes I beat
+the mist with my arms like one at blind man's buff, turning sharply in
+circles, cursing aloud at my stupidity and crying continually for help.
+At last a voice answered me from the fog, and I found myself held in the
+circle of a policeman's lantern.
+
+“That is the end of my adventure. What I have to tell you now is what I
+learned from the police.
+
+“At the station-house to which the man guided me I related what you have
+just heard. I told them that the house they must at once find was one
+set back from the street within a radius of two hundred yards from the
+Knightsbridge Barracks, that within fifty yards of it someone was giving
+a dance to the music of a Hungarian band, and that the railings before
+it were as high as a man's waist and filed to a point. With that to work
+upon, twenty men were at once ordered out into the fog to search for
+the house, and Inspector Lyle himself was despatched to the home of Lord
+Edam, Chetney's father, with a warrant for Lord Arthur's arrest. I was
+thanked and dismissed on my own recognizance.
+
+“This morning, Inspector Lyle called on me, and from him I learned the
+police theory of the scene I have just described.
+
+“Apparently, I had wandered very far in the fog, for up to noon to-day
+the house had not been found, nor had they been able to arrest Lord
+Arthur. He did not return to his father's house last night, and there is
+no trace of him; but from what the police knew of the past lives of the
+people I found in that lost house, they have evolved a theory, and their
+theory is that the murders were committed by Lord Arthur.
+
+“The infatuation of his elder brother, Lord Chetney, for a Russian
+princess, so Inspector Lyle tells me, is well known to everyone. About
+two years ago the Princess Zichy, as she calls herself, and he were
+constantly together, and Chetney informed his friends that they were
+about to be married. The woman was notorious in two continents, and when
+Lord Edam heard of his son's infatuation he appealed to the police for
+her record.
+
+“It is through his having applied to them that they know so much
+concerning her and her relations with the Chetneys. From the police Lord
+Edam learned that Madame Zichy had once been a spy in the employ of the
+Russian Third Section, but that lately she had been repudiated by her
+own government and was living by her wits, by blackmail, and by her
+beauty. Lord Edam laid this record before his son, but Chetney either
+knew it already or the woman persuaded him not to believe in it, and the
+father and son parted in great anger. Two days later the marquis altered
+his will, leaving all of his money to the younger brother, Arthur.
+
+“The title and some of the landed property he could not keep from
+Chetney, but he swore if his son saw the woman again that the will
+should stand as it was, and he would be left without a penny.
+
+“This was about eighteen months ago, when, apparently, Chetney tired
+of the Princess, and suddenly went off to shoot and explore in Central
+Africa. No word came from him, except that twice he was reported as
+having died of fever in the jungle, and finally two traders reached
+the coast who said they had seen his body. This was accepted by all
+as conclusive, and young Arthur was recognized as the heir to the Edam
+millions. On the strength of this supposition he at once began to borrow
+enormous sums from the money-lenders. This is of great importance, as
+the police believe it was these debts which drove him to the murder of
+his brother. Yesterday, as you know, Lord Chetney suddenly returned from
+the grave, and it was the fact that for two years he had been considered
+as dead which lent such importance to his return and which gave rise
+to those columns of detail concerning him which appeared in all the
+afternoon papers. But, obviously, during his absence he had not tired of
+the Princess Zichy, for we know that a few hours after he reached London
+he sought her out. His brother, who had also learned of his reappearance
+through the papers, probably suspected which would be the house he would
+first visit, and followed him there, arriving, so the Russian servant
+tells us, while the two were at coffee in the drawing-room. The
+Princess, then, we also learn from the servant, withdrew to the
+dining-room, leaving the brothers together. What happened one can only
+guess.
+
+“Lord Arthur knew now that when it was discovered he was no longer the
+heir, the moneylenders would come down upon him. The police believe
+that he at once sought out his brother to beg for money to cover the
+post-obits, but that, considering the sum he needed was several hundreds
+of thousands of pounds, Chetney refused to give it him. No one knew
+that Arthur had gone to seek out his brother. They were alone. It is
+possible, then, that in a passion of disappointment, and crazed with
+the disgrace which he saw before him, young Arthur made himself the heir
+beyond further question. The death of his brother would have availed
+nothing if the woman remained alive. It is then possible that he crossed
+the hall, and, with the same weapon which made him Lord Edam's heir,
+destroyed the solitary witness to the murder. The only other person
+who could have seen it was sleeping in a drunken stupor, to which fact
+undoubtedly he owed his life. And yet,” concluded the Naval Attache,
+leaning forward and marking each word with his finger, “Lord Arthur
+blundered fatally. In his haste he left the door of the house open, so
+giving access to the first passer-by, and he forgot that when he entered
+it he had handed his card to the servant. That piece of paper may yet
+send him to the gallows. In the meantime, he has disappeared completely,
+and somewhere, in one of the millions of streets of this great capital,
+in a locked and empty house, lies the body of his brother, and of the
+woman his brother loved, undiscovered, unburied; and with their murder
+unavenged.”
+
+In the discussion which followed the conclusion of the story of the
+Naval Attache, the gentleman with the pearl took no part. Instead, he
+arose, and, beckoning a servant to a far corner of the room, whispered
+earnestly to him until a sudden movement on the part of Sir Andrew
+caused him to return hurriedly to the table.
+
+“There are several points in Mr. Sears's story I want explained,” he
+cried. “Be seated, Sir Andrew,” he begged. “Let us have the opinion of
+an expert. I do not care what the police think, I want to know what you
+think.”
+
+But Sir Andrew rose reluctantly from his chair.
+
+“I should like nothing better than to discuss this,” he said. “But it
+is most important that I proceed to the House. I should have been there
+some time ago.” He turned toward the servant and directed him to call a
+hansom.
+
+The gentleman with the pearl stud looked appealingly at the Naval
+Attache. “There are surely many details that you have not told us,” he
+urged. “Some you have forgotten.”
+
+The Baronet interrupted quickly.
+
+“I trust not,” he said, “for I could not possibly stop to hear them.”
+
+“The story is finished,” declared the Naval Attache; “until Lord Arthur
+is arrested or the bodies are found there is nothing more to tell of
+either Chetney or the Princess Zichy.”
+
+“Of Lord Chetney, perhaps not,” interrupted the sporting-looking
+gentleman with the black tie, “but there'll always be something to tell
+of the Princess Zichy. I know enough stories about her to fill a book.
+She was a most remarkable woman.” The speaker dropped the end of his
+cigar into his coffee-cup and, taking his case from his pocket, selected
+a fresh one. As he did so he laughed and held up the case that the
+others might see it. It was an ordinary cigar-case of well-worn
+pig-skin, with a silver clasp.
+
+“The only time I ever met her,” he said, “she tried to rob me of this.”
+
+The Baronet regarded him closely.
+
+“She tried to rob you?” he repeated.
+
+“Tried to rob me of this,” continued the gentleman in the black tie,
+“and of the Czarina's diamonds.” His tone was one of mingled admiration
+and injury.
+
+“The Czarina's diamonds!” exclaimed the Baronet. He glanced quickly and
+suspiciously at the speaker, and then at the others about the table.
+But their faces gave evidence of no other emotion than that of ordinary
+interest.
+
+“Yes, the Czarina's diamonds,” repeated the man with the black tie.
+“It was a necklace of diamonds. I was told to take them to the Russian
+Ambassador in Paris, who was to deliver them at Moscow. I am a Queen's
+Messenger,” he added.
+
+“Oh, I see,” exclaimed Sir Andrew, in a tone of relief. “And you say
+that this same Princess Zichy, one of the victims of this double murder,
+endeavored to rob you of--of--that cigar-case.”
+
+“And the Czarina's diamonds,” answered the Queen's Messenger,
+imperturbably. “It's not much of a story, but it gives you an idea
+of the woman's character. The robbery took place between Paris and
+Marseilles.”
+
+The Baronet interrupted him with an abrupt movement. “No, no,” he cried,
+shaking his head in protest. “Do not tempt me. I really cannot listen. I
+must be at the House in ten minutes.”
+
+“I am sorry,” said the Queen's Messenger. He turned to those seated
+about him. “I wonder if the other gentlemen--” he inquired, tentatively.
+There was a chorus of polite murmurs, and the Queen's Messenger, bowing
+his head in acknowledgment, took a preparatory sip from his glass. At
+the same moment the servant to whom the man with the black pearl had
+spoken, slipped a piece of paper into his hand. He glanced at it,
+frowned, and threw it under the table.
+
+The servant bowed to the Baronet.
+
+“Your hansom is waiting, Sir Andrew,” he said.
+
+“The necklace was worth twenty thousand pounds,” began the Queen's
+Messenger, “It was a present from the Queen of England to celebrate--”
+ The Baronet gave an exclamation of angry annoyance.
+
+“Upon my word, this is most provoking,” he interrupted. “I really ought
+not to stay. But I certainly mean to hear this.” He turned irritably to
+the servant. “Tell the hansom to wait,” he commanded, and, with an air
+of a boy who is playing truant, slipped guiltily into his chair.
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl smiled blandly, and rapped upon the
+table.
+
+“Order, gentlemen,” he said. “Order for the story of the Queen's
+Messenger and the Czarina's diamonds.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+“The necklace was a present from the Queen of England to the Czarina of
+Russia,” began the Queen's Messenger. “It was to celebrate the occasion
+of the Czar's coronation. Our Foreign Office knew that the Russian
+Ambassador in Paris was to proceed to Moscow for that ceremony, and I
+was directed to go to Paris and turn over the necklace to him. But when
+I reached Paris I found he had not expected me for a week later and was
+taking a few days' vacation at Nice. His people asked me to leave the
+necklace with them at the Embassy, but I had been charged to get a
+receipt for it from the Ambassador himself, so I started at once for
+Nice. The fact that Monte Carlo is not two thousand miles from Nice may
+have had something to do with making me carry out my instructions so
+carefully.
+
+“Now, how the Princess Zichy came to find out about the necklace I don't
+know, but I can guess. As you have just heard, she was at one time a spy
+in the service of the Russian Government. And after they dismissed her
+she kept up her acquaintance with many of the Russian agents in London.
+It is probable that through one of them she learned that the necklace
+was to be sent to Moscow, and which one of the Queen's Messengers had
+been detailed to take it there. Still, I doubt if even that knowledge
+would have helped her if she had not also known something which I
+supposed no one else in the world knew but myself and one other man.
+And, curiously enough, the other man was a Queen's Messenger, too, and a
+friend of mine. You must know that up to the time of this robbery I had
+always concealed my despatches in a manner peculiarly my own. I got the
+idea from that play called 'A Scrap of Paper.' In it a man wants to hide
+a certain compromising document. He knows that all his rooms will be
+secretly searched for it, so he puts it in a torn envelope and sticks it
+up where anyone can see it on his mantle-shelf. The result is that the
+woman who is ransacking the house to find it looks in all the unlikely
+places, but passes over the scrap of paper that is just under her nose.
+Sometimes the papers and packages they give us to carry about Europe are
+of very great value, and sometimes they are special makes of cigarettes,
+and orders to court-dressmakers. Sometimes we know what we are carrying
+and sometimes we do not. If it is a large sum of money or a treaty,
+they generally tell us. But, as a rule, we have no knowledge of what the
+package contains; so to be on the safe side, we naturally take just as
+great care of it as though we knew it held the terms of an ultimatum or
+the crown-jewels. As a rule, my confreres carry the official packages
+in a despatch-box, which is just as obvious as a lady's jewel-bag in the
+hands of her maid. Everyone knows they are carrying something of value.
+They put a premium on dishonesty. Well, after I saw the 'Scrap-of-Paper'
+play, I determined to put the government valuables in the most unlikely
+place that anyone would look for them. So I used to hide the documents
+they gave me inside my riding-boots, and small articles, such as money
+or jewels, I carried in an old cigar-case. After I took to using my case
+for that purpose I bought a new one, exactly like it, for my cigars.
+But, to avoid mistakes, I had my initials placed on both sides of the
+new one, and the moment I touched the case, even in the dark, I could
+tell which it was by the raised initials.
+
+“No one knew of this except the Queen's Messenger of whom I spoke.
+We once left Paris together on the Orient Express. I was going to
+Constantinople and he was to stop off at Vienna. On the journey I told
+him of my peculiar way of hiding things and showed him my cigar-case. If
+I recollect rightly, on that trip it held the grand cross of St. Michael
+and St. George, which the Queen was sending to our Ambassador. The
+Messenger was very much entertained at my scheme, and some months later
+when he met the Princess he told her about it as an amusing story. Of
+course, he had no idea she was a Russian spy. He didn't know anything
+at all about her, except that she was a very attractive woman. It was
+indiscreet, but he could not possibly have guessed that she could ever
+make any use of what he told her.
+
+“Later, after the robbery, I remembered that I had informed this young
+chap of my secret hiding-place, and when I saw him again I questioned
+him about it. He was greatly distressed, and said he had never seen the
+importance of the secret. He remembered he had told several people of
+it, and among others the Princess Zichy. In that way I found out that it
+was she who had robbed me, and I know that from the moment I left London
+she was following me, and that she knew then that the diamonds were
+concealed in my cigar-case.
+
+“My train for Nice left Paris at ten in the morning. When I travel at
+night I generally tell the chef de gare that I am a Queen's Messenger,
+and he gives me a compartment to myself, but in the daytime I take
+whatever offers. On this morning I had found an empty compartment, and
+I had tipped the guard to keep everyone else out, not from any fear of
+losing the diamonds, but because I wanted to smoke. He had locked the
+door, and as the last bell had rung I supposed I was to travel alone, so
+I began to arrange my traps and make myself comfortable. The diamonds
+in the cigar-case were in the inside pocket of my waistcoat, and as
+they made a bulky package, I took them out, intending to put them in my
+hand-bag. It is a small satchel like a bookmaker's, or those hand-bags
+that couriers carry. I wear it slung from a strap across my shoulders,
+and, no matter whether I am sitting or walking, it never leaves me.
+
+“I took the cigar-case which held the necklace from my inside pocket
+and the case which held the cigars out of the satchel, and while I was
+searching through it for a box of matches I laid the two cases beside me
+on the seat.
+
+“At that moment the train started, but at the same instant there was a
+rattle at the lock of the compartment, and a couple of porters lifted
+and shoved a woman through the door, and hurled her rugs and umbrellas
+in after her.
+
+“Instinctively I reached for the diamonds. I shoved them quickly into
+the satchel and, pushing them far down to the bottom of the bag, snapped
+the spring-lock. Then I put the cigars in the pocket of my coat, but
+with the thought that now that I had a woman as a travelling companion I
+would probably not be allowed to enjoy them.
+
+“One of her pieces of luggage had fallen at my feet, and a roll of rugs
+had landed at my side. I thought if I hid the fact that the lady was
+not welcome, and at once endeavored to be civil, she might permit me
+to smoke. So I picked her hand-bag off the floor and asked her where I
+might place it.
+
+“As I spoke I looked at her for the first time, and saw that she was a
+most remarkably handsome woman.
+
+“She smiled charmingly and begged me not to disturb myself. Then she
+arranged her own things about her, and, opening her dressing-bag, took
+out a gold cigarette-case.
+
+“'Do you object to smoke?' she asked.
+
+“I laughed and assured her I had been in great terror lest she might
+object to it herself.
+
+“'If you like cigarettes,' she said, 'will you try some of these? They
+are rolled especially for my husband in Russia, and they are supposed to
+be very good.'
+
+“I thanked her, and took one from her case, and I found it so much
+better than my own that I continued to smoke her cigarettes throughout
+the rest of the journey. I must say that we got on very well. I judged
+from the coronet on her cigarette-case, and from her manner, which was
+quite as well bred as that of any woman I ever met, that she was someone
+of importance, and though she seemed almost too good-looking to be
+respectable, I determined that she was some grande dame who was so
+assured of her position that she could afford to be unconventional. At
+first she read her novel, and then she made some comment on the scenery,
+and finally we began to discuss the current politics of the Continent.
+She talked of all the cities in Europe, and seemed to know everyone
+worth knowing. But she volunteered nothing about herself except that she
+frequently made use of the expression, 'When my husband was stationed at
+Vienna,' or 'When my husband was promoted to Rome.' Once she said to
+me, 'I have often seen you at Monte Carlo. I saw you when you won the
+pigeon-championship.' I told her that I was not a pigeon-shot, and she
+gave a little start of surprise. 'Oh, I beg your pardon,' she said; 'I
+thought you were Morton Hamilton, the English champion.' As a matter
+of fact, I do look like Hamilton, but I know now that her object was to
+make me think that she had no idea as to who I really was. She needn't
+have acted at all, for I certainly had no suspicions of her, and was
+only too pleased to have so charming a companion.
+
+“The one thing that should have made me suspicious was the fact that
+at every station she made some trivial excuse to get me out of the
+compartment. She pretended that her maid was travelling back of us in
+one of the second-class carriages, and kept saying she could not imagine
+why the woman did not come to look after her, and if the maid did not
+turn up at the next stop, would I be so very kind as to get out and
+bring her whatever it was she pretended she wanted.
+
+“I had taken my dressing-case from the rack to get out a novel, and had
+left it on the seat opposite to mine, and at the end of the compartment
+farthest from her. And once when I came back from buying her a cup of
+chocolate, or from some other fool-errand, I found her standing at my
+end of the compartment with both hands on the dressing-bag. She looked
+at me without so much as winking an eye, and shoved the case carefully
+into a corner. 'Your bag slipped off on the floor,' she said. 'If you've
+got any bottles in it, you had better look and see that they're not
+broken.'
+
+“And I give you my word, I was such an ass that I did open the case and
+looked all through it. She must have thought I WAS a Juggins. I get hot
+all over whenever I remember it. But, in spite of my dulness, and her
+cleverness, she couldn't gain anything by sending me away, because what
+she wanted was in the hand-bag, and every time she sent me away the
+hand-bag went with me.
+
+“After the incident of the dressing-case her manner changed. Either in
+my absence she had had time to look through it, or, when I was examining
+it for broken bottles, she had seen everything it held.
+
+“From that moment she must have been certain that the cigar-case, in
+which she knew I carried the diamonds, was in the bag that was fastened
+to my body, and from that time on she probably was plotting how to get
+it from me.
+
+“Her anxiety became most apparent. She dropped the great-lady manner,
+and her charming condescension went with it. She ceased talking, and,
+when I spoke, answered me irritably, or at random. No doubt her mind
+was entirely occupied with her plan. The end of our journey was drawing
+rapidly nearer, and her time for action was being cut down with the
+speed of the express-train. Even I, unsuspicious as I was, noticed
+that something was very wrong with her. I really believe that before we
+reached Marseilles if I had not, through my own stupidity, given her the
+chance she wanted, she might have stuck a knife in me and rolled me out
+on the rails. But as it was, I only thought that the long journey had
+tired her. I suggested that it was a very trying trip, and asked her if
+she would allow me to offer her some of my cognac.
+
+“She thanked me and said, 'No,' and then suddenly her eyes lighted, and
+she exclaimed, 'Yes, thank you, if you will be so kind.'
+
+“My flask was in the hand-bag, and I placed it on my lap and, with my
+thumb, slipped back the catch. As I keep my tickets and railroad-guide
+in the bag, I am so constantly opening it that I never bother to lock
+it, and the fact that it is strapped to me has always been sufficient
+protection. But I can appreciate now what a satisfaction, and what a
+torment, too, it must have been to that woman when she saw that the bag
+opened without a key.
+
+“While we were crossing the mountains I had felt rather chilly and had
+been wearing a light racing-coat. But after the lamps were lighted
+the compartment became very hot and stuffy, and I found the coat
+uncomfortable. So I stood up, and after first slipping the strap of the
+bag over my head, I placed the bag in the seat next me and pulled off
+the racing-coat. I don't blame myself for being careless; the bag was
+still within reach of my hand, and nothing would have happened if
+at that exact moment the train had not stopped at Arles. It was the
+combination of my removing the bag and our entering the station at the
+same instant which gave the Princess Zichy the chance she wanted to rob
+me.
+
+“I needn't say that she was clever enough to take it. The train ran into
+the station at full speed and came to a sudden stop. I had just thrown
+my coat into the rack, and had reached out my hand for the bag. In
+another instant I would have had the strap around my shoulder. But at
+that moment the Princess threw open the door of the compartment and
+beckoned wildly at the people on the platform. 'Natalie!' she called,
+'Natalie! here I am. Come here! This way!' She turned upon me in the
+greatest excitement. 'My maid!' she cried. 'She is looking for me. She
+passed the window without seeing me. Go, please, and bring her back.'
+She continued pointing out of the door and beckoning me with her other
+hand. There certainly was something about that woman's tone which made
+one jump. When she was giving orders you had no chance to think of
+anything else. So I rushed out on my errand of mercy, and then rushed
+back again to ask what the maid looked like.
+
+“'In black,' she answered, rising and blocking the door of the
+compartment. 'All in black, with a bonnet!'
+
+“The train waited three minutes at Arles, and in that time I suppose I
+must have rushed up to over twenty women and asked, 'Are you Natalie?'
+The only reason I wasn't punched with an umbrella or handed over to the
+police was that they probably thought I was crazy.
+
+“When I jumped back into the compartment the Princess was seated where
+I had left her, but her eyes were burning with happiness. She placed
+her hand on my arm almost affectionately, and said, in a hysterical way,
+'You are very kind to me. I am so sorry to have troubled you.'
+
+“I protested that every woman on the platform was dressed in black.
+
+“'Indeed, I am so sorry,' she said, laughing; and she continued to laugh
+until she began to breathe so quickly that I thought she was going to
+faint.
+
+“I can see now that the last part of that journey must have been a
+terrible half-hour for her. She had the cigar-case safe enough, but she
+knew that she herself was not safe. She understood if I were to open my
+bag, even at the last minute, and miss the case, I would know positively
+that she had taken it. I had placed the diamonds in the bag at the very
+moment she entered the compartment, and no one but our two selves had
+occupied it since. She knew that when we reached Marseilles she would
+either be twenty thousand pounds richer than when she left Paris, or
+that she would go to jail. That was the situation as she must have read
+it, and I don't envy her her state of mind during that last half-hour.
+It must have been hell.
+
+“I saw that something was wrong, and, in my innocence, I even wondered
+if possibly my cognac had not been a little too strong. For she suddenly
+developed into a most brilliant conversationalist, and applauded and
+laughed at everything I said, and fired off questions at me like a
+machine-gun, so that I had no time to think of anything but of what she
+was saying. Whenever I stirred, she stopped her chattering and leaned
+toward me, and watched me like a cat over a mouse-hole. I wondered how I
+could have considered her an agreeable travelling-companion. I thought
+I would have preferred to be locked in with a lunatic. I don't like to
+think how she would have acted if I had made a move to examine the bag,
+but as I had it safely strapped around me again, I did not open it, and
+I reached Marseilles alive. As we drew into the station she shook hands
+with me and grinned at me like a Cheshire cat.
+
+“'I cannot tell you,' she said, 'how much I have to thank you for.' What
+do you think of that for impudence?
+
+“I offered to put her in a carriage, but she said she must find Natalie,
+and that she hoped we would meet again at the hotel. So I drove off by
+myself, wondering who she was, and whether Natalie was not her keeper.
+
+“I had to wait several hours for the train to Nice; and as I wanted to
+stroll around the city I thought I had better put the diamonds in the
+safe of the hotel. As soon as I reached my room I locked the door,
+placed the hand-bag on the table, and opened it. I felt among the things
+at the top of it, but failed to touch the cigar-case. I shoved my hand
+in deeper, and stirred the things about, but still I did not reach it.
+A cold wave swept down my spine, and a sort of emptiness came to the pit
+of my stomach. Then I turned red-hot, and the sweat sprung out all over
+me. I wet my lips with my tongue, and said to myself, 'Don't be an ass.
+Pull yourself together, pull yourself together. Take the things out, one
+at a time. It's there, of course, it's there. Don't be an ass.'
+
+“So I put a brake on my nerves and began very carefully to pick out the
+things, one by one, but, after another second, I could not stand it, and
+I rushed across the room and threw out everything on the bed. But the
+diamonds were not among them. I pulled the things about and tore them
+open and shuffled and rearranged and sorted them, but it was no use. The
+cigar-case was gone. I threw everything in the dressing-case out on the
+floor, although I knew it was useless to look for it there. I knew that
+I had put it in the bag. I sat down and tried to think. I remembered I
+had put it in the satchel at Paris just as that woman had entered the
+compartment, and I had been alone with her ever since, so it was she
+who had robbed me. But how? It had never left my shoulder. And then I
+remembered that it had--that I had taken it off when I had changed
+my coat and for the few moments that I was searching for Natalie. I
+remembered that the woman had sent me on that goose-chase, and that at
+every other station she had tried to get rid of me on some fool-errand.
+
+“I gave a roar like a mad bull, and I jumped down the stairs, six steps
+at a time.
+
+“I demanded at the office if a distinguished lady of title, possibly a
+Russian, had just entered the hotel.
+
+“As I expected, she had not. I sprang into a cab and inquired at two
+other hotels, and then I saw the folly of trying to catch her without
+outside help, and I ordered the fellow to gallop to the office of the
+Chief of Police. I told my story, and the ass in charge asked me to calm
+myself, and wanted to take notes. I told him this was no time for taking
+notes, but for doing something. He got wrathy at that, and I demanded
+to be taken at once to his Chief. The Chief, he said, was very busy, and
+could not see me. So I showed him my silver greyhound. In eleven years
+I had never used it but once before. I stated, in pretty vigorous
+language, that I was a Queen's Messenger, and that if the Chief of
+Police did not see me instantly he would lose his official head. At that
+the fellow jumped off his high horse and ran with me to his Chief--a
+smart young chap, a colonel in the army, and a very intelligent man.
+
+“I explained that I had been robbed, in a French railway-carriage, of
+a diamond-necklace belonging to the Queen of England, which her Majesty
+was sending as a present to the Czarina of Russia. I pointed out to him
+that if he succeeded in capturing the thief he would be made for life,
+and would receive the gratitude of three great powers.
+
+“He wasn't the sort that thinks second thoughts are best. He saw Russian
+and French decorations sprouting all over his chest, and he hit a
+bell, and pressed buttons, and yelled out orders like the captain of a
+penny-steamer in a fog. He sent her description to all the city-gates,
+and ordered all cabmen and railway-porters to search all trains
+leaving Marseilles. He ordered all passengers on outgoing vessels to be
+examined, and telegraphed the proprietors of every hotel and pension to
+send him a complete list of their guests within the hour. While I was
+standing there he must have given at least a hundred orders, and sent
+out enough commissaires, sergeants de ville, gendarmes, bicycle-police,
+and plain-clothes Johnnies to have captured the entire German army.
+When they had gone he assured me that the woman was as good as arrested
+already. Indeed, officially, she was arrested; for she had no more
+chance of escape from Marseilles than from the Chateau D'If.
+
+“He told me to return to my hotel and possess my soul in peace. Within
+an hour he assured me he would acquaint me with her arrest.
+
+“I thanked him, and complimented him on his energy, and left him. But I
+didn't share in his confidence. I felt that she was a very clever woman,
+and a match for any and all of us. It was all very well for him to be
+jubilant. He had not lost the diamonds, and had everything to gain if he
+found them; while I, even if he did recover the necklace, would only
+be where I was before I lost them, and if he did not recover it I was a
+ruined man. It was an awful facer for me. I had always prided myself on
+my record. In eleven years I had never mislaid an envelope, nor missed
+taking the first train. And now I had failed in the most important
+mission that had ever been intrusted to me. And it wasn't a thing that
+could be hushed up, either. It was too conspicuous, too spectacular. It
+was sure to invite the widest notoriety. I saw myself ridiculed all over
+the Continent, and perhaps dismissed, even suspected of having taken the
+thing myself.
+
+“I was walking in front of a lighted cafe, and I felt so sick and
+miserable that I stopped for a pick-me-up. Then I considered that if I
+took one drink I would probably, in my present state of mind, not want
+to stop under twenty, and I decided I had better leave it alone. But
+my nerves were jumping like a frightened rabbit, and I felt I must
+have something to quiet them, or I would go crazy. I reached for my
+cigarette-case, but a cigarette seemed hardly adequate, so I put it back
+again and took out this cigar-case, in which I keep only the strongest
+and blackest cigars. I opened it and stuck in my fingers, but, instead
+of a cigar, they touched on a thin leather envelope. My heart stood
+perfectly still. I did not dare to look, but I dug my finger-nails into
+the leather, and I felt layers of thin paper, then a layer of cotton,
+and then they scratched on the facets of the Czarina's diamonds!
+
+“I stumbled as though I had been hit in the face, and fell back into one
+of the chairs on the sidewalk. I tore off the wrappings and spread out
+the diamonds on the cafe-table; I could not believe they were real. I
+twisted the necklace between my fingers and crushed it between my palms
+and tossed it up in the air. I believe I almost kissed it. The women in
+the cafe stood up on the chairs to see better, and laughed and screamed,
+and the people crowded so close around me that the waiters had to form a
+body-guard. The proprietor thought there was a fight, and called for
+the police. I was so happy I didn't care. I laughed, too, and gave the
+proprietor a five-pound note, and told him to stand everyone a drink.
+Then I tumbled into a fiacre and galloped off to my friend the Chief of
+Police. I felt very sorry for him. He had been so happy at the chance I
+gave him, and he was sure to be disappointed when he learned I had sent
+him off on a false alarm.
+
+“But now that I had found the necklace, I did not want him to find the
+woman. Indeed, I was most anxious that she should get clear away, for,
+if she were caught, the truth would come out, and I was likely to get a
+sharp reprimand, and sure to be laughed at.
+
+“I could see now how it had happened. In my haste to hide the diamonds
+when the woman was hustled into the carriage, I had shoved the cigars
+into the satchel, and the diamonds into the pocket of my coat. Now that
+I had the diamonds safe again, it seemed a very natural mistake. But I
+doubted if the Foreign Office would think so. I was afraid it might not
+appreciate the beautiful simplicity of my secret hiding-place. So, when
+I reached the police-station, and found that the woman was still at
+large, I was more than relieved.
+
+“As I expected, the Chief was extremely chagrined when he learned of my
+mistake, and that there was nothing for him to do. But I was feeling so
+happy myself that I hated to have anyone else miserable, so I suggested
+that this attempt to steal the Czarina's necklace might be only the
+first of a series of such attempts by an unscrupulous gang, and that I
+might still be in danger.
+
+“I winked at the Chief, and the Chief smiled at me, and we went to Nice
+together in a saloon-car with a guard of twelve carabineers and twelve
+plain-clothes men, and the Chief and I drank champagne all the way.
+We marched together up to the hotel where the Russian Ambassador was
+stopping, closely surrounded by our escort of carabineers, and delivered
+the necklace with the most profound ceremony. The old Ambassador was
+immensely impressed, and when we hinted that already I had been made the
+object of an attack by robbers, he assured us that his Imperial Majesty
+would not prove ungrateful.
+
+“I wrote a swinging personal letter about the invaluable services of
+the Chief to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and they gave him
+enough Russian and French medals to satisfy even a French soldier. So,
+though he never caught the woman, he received his just reward.”
+
+The Queen's Messenger paused and surveyed the faces of those about him
+in some embarrassment.
+
+“But the worst of it is,” he added, “that the story must have got about;
+for, while the Princess obtained nothing from me but a cigar-case and
+five excellent cigars, a few weeks after the coronation the Czar sent
+me a gold cigar-case with his monogram in diamonds. And I don't know yet
+whether that was a coincidence, or whether the Czar wanted me to know
+that he knew that I had been carrying the Czarina's diamonds in my
+pig-skin cigar-case. What do you fellows think?”
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Sir Andrew rose, with disapproval written in every lineament.
+
+“I thought your story would bear upon the murder,” he said. “Had I
+imagined it would have nothing whatsoever to do with it, I would not
+have remained.” He pushed back his chair and bowed, stiffly. “I wish you
+good night,” he said.
+
+There was a chorus of remonstrance, and, under cover of this and the
+Baronet's answering protests, a servant, for the second time, slipped
+a piece of paper into the hand of the gentleman with the pearl stud. He
+read the lines written upon it and tore it into tiny fragments.
+
+The youngest member, who had remained an interested but silent listener
+to the tale of the Queen's Messenger, raised his hand, commandingly.
+
+“Sir Andrew,” he cried, “in justice to Lord Arthur Chetney, I must ask
+you to be seated. He has been accused in our hearing of a most serious
+crime, and I insist that you remain until you have heard me clear his
+character.”
+
+“You!” cried the Baronet.
+
+“Yes,” answered the young man, briskly. “I would have spoken sooner,”
+ he explained, “but that I thought this gentleman”--he inclined his head
+toward the Queen's Messenger--“was about to contribute some facts of
+which I was ignorant. He, however, has told us nothing, and so I will
+take up the tale at the point where Lieutenant Sears laid it down and
+give you those details of which Lieutenant Sears is ignorant. It seems
+strange to you that I should be able to add the sequel to this story.
+But the coincidence is easily explained. I am the junior member of
+the law firm of Chudleigh & Chudleigh. We have been solicitors for
+the Chetneys for the last two hundred years. Nothing, no matter how
+unimportant, which concerns Lord Edam and his two sons is unknown to
+us, and naturally we are acquainted with every detail of the terrible
+catastrophe of last night.”
+
+The Baronet, bewildered but eager, sank back into his chair.
+
+“Will you be long, sir?” he demanded.
+
+“I shall endeavor to be brief,” said the young solicitor; “and,” he
+added, in a tone which gave his words almost the weight of a threat, “I
+promise to be interesting.”
+
+“There is no need to promise that,” said Sir Andrew, “I find it much too
+interesting as it is.” He glanced ruefully at the clock and turned his
+eyes quickly from it.
+
+“Tell the driver of that hansom,” he called to the servant, “that I take
+him by the hour.”
+
+“For the last three days,” began young Mr. Chudleigh, “as you have
+probably read in the daily papers, the Marquis of Edam has been at the
+point of death, and his physicians have never left his house. Every hour
+he seemed to grow weaker; but although his bodily strength is apparently
+leaving him forever, his mind has remained clear and active. Late
+yesterday evening, word was received at our office that he wished my
+father to come at once to Chetney House and to bring with him certain
+papers. What these papers were is not essential; I mention them only
+to explain how it was that last night I happened to be at Lord Edam's
+bedside. I accompanied my father to Chetney House, but at the time we
+reached there Lord Edam was sleeping, and his physicians refused to have
+him awakened. My father urged that he should be allowed to receive Lord
+Edam's instructions concerning the documents, but the physicians would
+not disturb him, and we all gathered in the library to wait until he
+should awake of his own accord. It was about one o'clock in the morning,
+while we were still there, that Inspector Lyle and the officers from
+Scotland Yard came to arrest Lord Arthur on the charge of murdering his
+brother. You can imagine our dismay and distress. Like everyone else,
+I had learned from the afternoon papers that Lord Chetney was not dead,
+but that he had returned to England, and, on arriving at Chetney House,
+I had been told that Lord Arthur had gone to the Bath Hotel to look
+for his brother and to inform him that if he wished to see their father
+alive he must come to him at once. Although it was now past one o'clock,
+Arthur had not returned. None of us knew where Madame Zichy lived, so we
+could not go to recover Lord Chetney's body. We spent a most miserable
+night, hastening to the window whenever a cab came into the square, in
+the hope that it was Arthur returning, and endeavoring to explain
+away the facts that pointed to him as the murderer. I am a friend of
+Arthur's, I was with him at Harrow and at Oxford, and I refused to
+believe for an instant that he was capable of such a crime; but as a
+lawyer I could not help but see that the circumstantial evidence was
+strongly against him.
+
+“Toward early morning, Lord Edam awoke, and in so much better a state
+of health that he refused to make the changes in the papers which he had
+intended, declaring that he was no nearer death than ourselves. Under
+other circumstances, this happy change in him would have relieved us
+greatly, but none of us could think of anything save the death of his
+elder son and of the charge which hung over Arthur.
+
+“As long as Inspector Lyle remained in the house, my father decided that
+I, as one of the legal advisers of the family, should also remain there.
+But there was little for either of us to do. Arthur did not return, and
+nothing occurred until late this morning, when Lyle received word that
+the Russian servant had been arrested. He at once drove to Scotland Yard
+to question him. He came back to us in an hour, and informed me that
+the servant had refused to tell anything of what had happened the night
+before, or of himself, or of the Princess Zichy. He would not even give
+them the address of her house.
+
+“'He is in abject terror,' Lyle said. 'I assured him that he was not
+suspected of the crime, but he would tell me nothing.'
+
+“There were no other developments until two o'clock this afternoon, when
+word was brought to us that Arthur had been found, and that he was lying
+in the accident-ward of St. George's Hospital. Lyle and I drove there
+together, and found him propped up in bed with his head bound in a
+bandage. He had been brought to the hospital the night before by the
+driver of a hansom that had run over him in the fog. The cab-horse had
+kicked him on the head, and he had been carried in unconscious. There
+was nothing on him to tell who he was, and it was not until he came to
+his senses this afternoon that the hospital authorities had been able
+to send word to his people. Lyle at once informed him that he was under
+arrest, and with what he was charged, and though the Inspector warned
+him to say nothing which might be used against him, I, as his solicitor,
+instructed him to speak freely and to tell us all he knew of the
+occurrences of last night. It was evident to anyone that the fact of
+his brother's death was of much greater concern to him than that he was
+accused of his murder.
+
+“'That,' Arthur said, contemptuously, 'that is damned nonsense. It
+is monstrous and cruel. We parted better friends than we have been in
+years. I will tell you all that happened--not to clear myself, but to
+help you to find out the truth.' His story is as follows: Yesterday
+afternoon, owing to his constant attendance on his father, he did not
+look at the evening papers, and it was not until after dinner, when the
+butler brought him one and told him of its contents, that he learned
+that his brother was alive and at the Bath Hotel. He drove there at
+once, but was told that about eight o'clock his brother had gone out,
+but without giving any clew to his destination. As Chetney had not at
+once come to see his father, Arthur decided that he was still angry
+with him, and his mind, turning naturally to the cause of their quarrel,
+determined him to look for Chetney at the home of the Princess Zichy.
+
+“Her house had been pointed out to him, and though he had never
+visited it, he had passed it many times and knew its exact location. He
+accordingly drove in that direction, as far as the fog would permit the
+hansom to go, and walked the rest of the way, reaching the house about
+nine o'clock. He rang, and was admitted by the Russian servant. The man
+took his card into the drawing-room, and at once his brother ran out and
+welcomed him. He was followed by the Princess Zichy, who also received
+Arthur most cordially.
+
+“'You brothers will have much to talk about,' she said. 'I am going to
+the dining-room. When you have finished, let me know.'
+
+“As soon as she had left them, Arthur told his brother that their father
+was not expected to outlive the night, and that he must come to him at
+once.
+
+“'This is not the moment to remember your quarrel,' Arthur said to him;
+'you have come back from the dead only in time to make your peace with
+him before he dies.'
+
+“Arthur says that at this Chetney was greatly moved.
+
+“'You entirely misunderstand me, Arthur,' he returned. 'I did not know
+the governor was ill, or I would have gone to him the instant I arrived.
+My only reason for not doing so was because I thought he was still angry
+with me. I shall return with you immediately, as soon as I have said
+good-by to the Princess. It is a final good-by. After to-night I shall
+never see her again.'
+
+“'Do you mean that?' Arthur cried.
+
+“'Yes,' Chetney answered. 'When I returned to London I had no intention
+of seeking her again, and I am here only through a mistake.' He then
+told Arthur that he had separated from the Princess even before he went
+to Central Africa, and that, moreover, while at Cairo on his way south,
+he had learned certain facts concerning her life there during the
+previous season, which made it impossible for him to ever wish to see
+her again. Their separation was final and complete.
+
+“'She deceived me cruelly,' he said; 'I cannot tell you how cruelly.
+During the two years when I was trying to obtain my father's consent to
+our marriage she was in love with a Russian diplomat. During all that
+time he was secretly visiting her here in London, and her trip to Cairo
+was only an excuse to meet him there.'
+
+“'Yet you are here with her to-night,' Arthur protested, 'only a few
+hours after your return.'
+
+“'That is easily explained,' Chetney answered. 'As I finished dinner
+to-night at the hotel, I received a note from her from this address. In
+it she said she had just learned of my arrival, and begged me to come to
+her at once. She wrote that she was in great and present trouble, dying
+of an incurable illness, and without friends or money. She begged me,
+for the sake of old times, to come to her assistance. During the last
+two years in the jungle all my former feeling for Zichy has utterly
+passed away, but no one could have dismissed the appeal she made in that
+letter. So I came here, and found her, as you have seen her, quite as
+beautiful as she ever was, in very good health, and, from the look of
+the house, in no need of money.
+
+“'I asked her what she meant by writing me that she was dying in a
+garret, and she laughed, and said she had done so because she was
+afraid, unless I thought she needed help, I would not try to see her.
+That was where we were when you arrived. And now,' Chetney added, 'I
+will say good-by to her, and you had better return home. No, you can
+trust me, I shall follow you at once. She has no influence over me now,
+but I believe, in spite of the way she has used me, that she is, after
+her queer fashion, still fond of me, and when she learns that this
+good-by is final there may be a scene, and it is not fair to her that
+you should be here. So, go home at once, and tell the governor that I am
+following you in ten minutes.'
+
+“'That,' said Arthur, 'is the way we parted. I never left him on more
+friendly terms. I was happy to see him alive again, I was happy to think
+he had returned in time to make up his quarrel with my father, and I was
+happy that at last he was shut of that woman. I was never better pleased
+with him in my life.' He turned to Inspector Lyle, who was sitting at
+the foot of the bed, taking notes of all he told us.
+
+“'Why, in the name of common-sense,' he cried, 'should I have chosen
+that moment, of all others, to send my brother back to the grave?' For
+a moment the Inspector did not answer him. I do not know if any of you
+gentlemen are acquainted with Inspector Lyle, but if you are not, I can
+assure you that he is a very remarkable man. Our firm often applies
+to him for aid, and he has never failed us; my father has the greatest
+possible respect for him. Where he has the advantage over the ordinary
+police-official is in the fact that he possesses imagination. He
+imagines himself to be the criminal, imagines how he would act under the
+same circumstances, and he imagines to such purpose that he generally
+finds the man he wants. I have often told Lyle that if he had not been a
+detective he would have made a great success as a poet or a playwright.
+
+“When Arthur turned on him, Lyle hesitated for a moment, and then told
+him exactly what was the case against him.
+
+“'Ever since your brother was reported as having died in Africa,' he
+said, 'your lordship has been collecting money on post-obits. Lord
+Chetney's arrival, last night, turned them into waste-paper. You were
+suddenly in debt for thousands of pounds--for much more than you could
+ever possibly pay. No one knew that you and your brother had met at
+Madame Zichy's. But you knew that your father was not expected to
+outlive the night, and that if your brother were dead also, you would
+be saved from complete ruin, and that you would become the Marquis of
+Edam.'
+
+“'Oh, that is how you have worked it out, is it?' Arthur cried. 'And for
+me to become Lord Edam was it necessary that the woman should die, too?'
+
+“'They will say,' Lyle answered, 'that she was a witness to the
+murder--that she would have told.'
+
+“'Then why did I not kill the servant as well?' Arthur said.
+
+“'He was asleep, and saw nothing.'
+
+“'And you believe that?' Arthur demanded.
+
+“'It is not a question of what I believe,' Lyle said, gravely. 'It is a
+question for your peers.'
+
+“'The man is insolent!' Arthur cried. 'The thing is monstrous!
+Horrible!'
+
+“Before we could stop him, he sprang out of his cot and began pulling
+on his clothes. When the nurses tried to hold him down, he fought with
+them.
+
+“'Do you think you can keep me here,' he shouted, 'when they are
+plotting to hang me? I am going with you to that house!' he cried at
+Lyle. 'When you find those bodies I shall be beside you. It is my right.
+He is my brother. He has been murdered, and I can tell you who murdered
+him. That woman murdered him.'
+
+“'She first ruined his life, and now she has killed him. For the last
+five years she has been plotting to make herself his wife, and last
+night, when he told her he had discovered the truth about the Russian,
+and that she would never see him again, she flew into a passion and
+stabbed him, and then in terror of the gallows, killed herself. She
+murdered him, I tell you, and I promise you that we will find the knife
+she used near her--perhaps still in her hand. What will you say to
+that?'
+
+“Lyle turned his head away and stared down at the floor. 'I might say,'
+he answered, 'that you placed it there.'
+
+“Arthur gave a cry of anger and sprang at him, and then pitched forward
+into his arms. The blood was running from the cut under the bandage, and
+he had fainted. Lyle carried him back to the bed again, and we left him
+with the police and the doctors, and drove at once to the address he had
+given us. We found the house not three minutes' walk from St. George's
+Hospital. It stands in Trevor Terrace, that little row of houses set
+back from Knightsbridge, with one end in Hill Street.
+
+“As we left the hospital, Lyle had said to me, 'You must not blame me
+for treating him as I did. All is fair in this work, and if by angering
+that boy I could have made him commit himself, I was right in trying to
+do so; though, I assure you, no one would be better pleased than
+myself if I could prove his theory to be correct. But we cannot tell.
+Everything depends upon what we see for ourselves within the next few
+minutes.'
+
+“When we reached the house, Lyle broke open the fastenings of one of the
+windows on the ground-floor, and, hidden by the trees in the garden, we
+scrambled in. We found ourselves in the reception-room, which was the
+first room on the right of the hall. The gas was still burning behind
+the colored glass and red, silk shades, and when the daylight streamed
+in after us it gave the hall a hideously dissipated look, like the foyer
+of a theatre at a matinee, or the entrance to an all-day gambling-hall.
+The house was oppressively silent, and, because we knew why it was
+so silent, we spoke in whispers. When Lyle turned the handle of the
+drawing-room door, I felt as though someone had put his hand upon my
+throat. But I followed, close at his shoulder, and saw, in the subdued
+light of many-tinted lamps, the body of Chetney at the foot of the
+divan, just as Lieutenant Sears had described it. In the drawing-room we
+found the body of the Princess Zichy, her arms thrown out, and the
+blood from her heart frozen in a tiny line across her bare shoulder. But
+neither of us, although we searched the floor on our hands and knees,
+could find the weapon which had killed her.
+
+“'For Arthur's sake,' I said, 'I would have given a thousand pounds if
+we had found the knife in her hand, as he said we would.'
+
+“'That we have not found it there,' Lyle answered, 'is to my mind the
+strongest proof that he is telling the truth, that he left the house
+before the murder took place. He is not a fool, and had he stabbed his
+brother and this woman, he would have seen that by placing the knife
+near her he could help to make it appear as if she had killed Chetney
+and then committed suicide. Besides, Lord Arthur insisted that the
+evidence in his behalf would be our finding the knife here. He would not
+have urged that if he knew we would NOT find it, if he knew he himself
+had carried it away. This is no suicide. A suicide does not rise and
+hide the weapon with which he kills himself, and then lie down again.
+No, this has been a double murder, and we must look outside of the house
+for the murderer.'
+
+“While he was speaking, Lyle and I had been searching every corner,
+studying the details of each room. I was so afraid that, without telling
+me, he would make some deductions prejudicial to Arthur, that I never
+left his side. I was determined to see everything that he saw, and, if
+possible, to prevent his interpreting it in the wrong way. He finally
+finished his examination, and we sat down together in the drawing-room,
+and he took out his note-book and read aloud all that Mr. Sears had told
+him of the murder and what we had just learned from Arthur. We compared
+the two accounts, word for word, and weighed statement with statement,
+but I could not determine, from anything Lyle said, which of the two
+versions he had decided to believe.
+
+“'We are trying to build a house of blocks,' he exclaimed, 'with half of
+the blocks missing. We have been considering two theories,' he went on:
+'one that Lord Arthur is responsible for both murders, and the other
+that the dead woman in there is responsible for one of them, and has
+committed suicide; but, until the Russian servant is ready to talk, I
+shall refuse to believe in the guilt of either.'
+
+“'What can you prove by him?' I asked. 'He was drunk and asleep. He saw
+nothing.'
+
+“Lyle hesitated, and then, as though he had made up his mind to be quite
+frank with me, spoke freely.
+
+“'I do not know that he was either drunk or asleep,' he answered.
+'Lieutenant Sears describes him as a stupid boor. I am not satisfied
+that he is not a clever actor. What was his position in this house? What
+was his real duty here? Suppose it was not to guard this woman, but to
+watch her. Let us imagine that it was not the woman he served, but a
+master, and see where that leads us. For this house has a master, a
+mysterious, absentee landlord, who lives in St. Petersburg, the unknown
+Russian who came between Chetney and Zichy, and because of whom Chetney
+left her. He is the man who bought this house for Madame Zichy, who sent
+these rugs and curtains from St. Petersburg to furnish it for her after
+his own tastes, and, I believe, it was he also who placed the Russian
+servant here, ostensibly to serve the Princess, but in reality to spy
+upon her. At Scotland Yard we do not know who this gentleman is; the
+Russian police confess to equal ignorance concerning him. When Lord
+Chetney went to Africa, Madame Zichy lived in St. Petersburg; but there
+her receptions and dinners were so crowded with members of the nobility
+and of the army and diplomats, that, among so many visitors, the police
+could not learn which was the one for whom she most greatly cared.'
+
+“Lyle pointed at the modern French paintings and the heavy, silk rugs
+which hung upon the walls.
+
+“'The unknown is a man of taste and of some fortune,' he said, 'not the
+sort of man to send a stupid peasant to guard the woman he loves. So I
+am not content to believe, with Mr. Sears, that the servant is a boor.
+I believe him, instead, to be a very clever ruffian. I believe him to
+be the protector of his master's honor, or, let us say, of his master's
+property, whether that property be silver plate or the woman his master
+loves. Last night, after Lord Arthur had gone away, the servant was left
+alone in this house with Lord Chetney and Madame Zichy. From where he
+sat in the hall, he could hear Lord Chetney bidding her farewell; for,
+if my idea of him is correct, he understands English quite as well as
+you or I. Let us imagine that he heard her entreating Chetney not to
+leave her, reminding him of his former wish to marry her, and let us
+suppose that he hears Chetney denounce her, and tell her that at Cairo
+he has learned of this Russian admirer--the servant's master. He hears
+the woman declare that she has had no admirer but himself, that this
+unknown Russian was, and is, nothing to her, that there is no man she
+loves but him, and that she cannot live, knowing that he is alive,
+without his love. Suppose Chetney believed her, suppose his former
+infatuation for her returned, and that, in a moment of weakness, he
+forgave her and took her in his arms. That is the moment the Russian
+master has feared. It is to guard against it that he has placed his
+watch-dog over the Princess, and how do we know but that, when the
+moment came, the watch-dog served his master, as he saw his duty, and
+killed them both? What do you think?' Lyle demanded. 'Would not that
+explain both murders?'
+
+“I was only too willing to hear any theory which pointed to anyone else
+as the criminal than Arthur, but Lyle's explanation was too utterly
+fantastic. I told him that he certainly showed imagination, but that he
+could not hang a man for what he imagined he had done.
+
+“'No,' Lyle answered, 'but I can frighten him by telling him what I
+think he has done, and now when I again question the Russian servant
+I will make it quite clear to him that I believe he is the murderer.
+I think that will open his mouth. A man will at least talk to defend
+himself. Come,' he said, 'we must return at once to Scotland Yard and
+see him. There is nothing more to do here.'
+
+“He arose, and I followed him into the hall, and in another minute we
+would have been on our way to Scotland Yard. But just as he opened
+the street-door a postman halted at the gate of the garden, and began
+fumbling with the latch.
+
+“Lyle stopped, with an exclamation of chagrin.
+
+“'How stupid of me!' he exclaimed. He turned quickly and pointed to a
+narrow slit cut in the brass plate of the front door. 'The house has a
+private letter-box,' he said, 'and I had not thought to look in it! If
+we had gone out as we came in, by the window, I would never have seen
+it. The moment I entered the house I should have thought of securing
+the letters which came this morning. I have been grossly careless.'
+He stepped back into the hall and pulled at the lid of the letter-box,
+which hung on the inside of the door, but it was tightly locked. At the
+same moment the postman came up the steps holding a letter. Without
+a word, Lyle took it from his hand and began to examine it. It was
+addressed to the Princess Zichy, and on the back of the envelope was the
+name of a West End dressmaker.
+
+“'That is of no use to me,' Lyle said. He took out his card and showed
+it to the postman. 'I am Inspector Lyle from Scotland Yard,' he said.
+'The people in this house are under arrest. Everything it contains is
+now in my keeping. Did you deliver any other letters here this morning?'
+
+“The man looked frightened, but answered, promptly, that he was now upon
+his third round. He had made one postal delivery at seven that morning
+and another at eleven.
+
+“'How many letters did you leave here?' Lyle asked.
+
+“'About six altogether,' the man answered.
+
+“'Did you put them through the door into the letter-box?'
+
+“The postman said, 'Yes, I always slip them into the box, and ring and
+go away. The servants collect them from the inside.'
+
+“'Have you noticed if any of the letters you leave here bear a Russian
+postage-stamp?' Lyle asked.
+
+“'The man answered, 'Oh, yes, sir, a great many.'
+
+“'From the same person, would you say?'
+
+“'The writing seems to be the same,' the man answered. 'They come
+regularly about once a week--one of those I delivered this morning had a
+Russian postmark.'
+
+“'That will do,' said Lyle, eagerly. 'Thank you, thank you very much.'
+
+“He ran back into the hall, and, pulling out his penknife, began to pick
+at the lock of the letter-box.
+
+“'I have been supremely careless,' he said, in great excitement. 'Twice
+before when people I wanted had flown from a house I have been able to
+follow them by putting a guard over their mailbox. These letters, which
+arrive regularly every week from Russia in the same handwriting, they
+can come but from one person. At least, we shall now know the name of
+the master of this house. Undoubtedly, it is one of his letters that the
+man placed here this morning. We may make a most important discovery.'
+
+“As he was talking he was picking at the lock with his knife, but he
+was so impatient to reach the letters that he pressed too heavily on the
+blade and it broke in his hand. I took a step backward and drove my
+heel into the lock, and burst it open. The lid flew back, and we pressed
+forward, and each ran his hand down into the letter-box. For a moment we
+were both too startled to move. The box was empty.
+
+“I do not know how long we stood, staring stupidly at each other, but
+it was Lyle who was the first to recover. He seized me by the arm and
+pointed excitedly into the empty box.
+
+“'Do you appreciate what that means?' he cried. 'It means that someone
+has been here ahead of us. Someone has entered this house not three
+hours before we came, since eleven o'clock this morning.'
+
+“'It was the Russian servant!' I exclaimed.
+
+“'The Russian servant has been under arrest at Scotland Yard,' Lyle
+cried. 'He could not have taken the letters. Lord Arthur has been in his
+cot at the hospital. That is his alibi. There is someone else, someone
+we do not suspect, and that someone is the murderer. He came back here
+either to obtain those letters because he knew they would convict him,
+or to remove something he had left here at the time of the murder,
+something incriminating--the weapon, perhaps, or some personal article;
+a cigarette-case, a handkerchief with his name upon it, or a pair of
+gloves. Whatever it was, it must have been damning evidence against him
+to have made him take so desperate a chance.'
+
+“'How do we know,' I whispered, 'that he is not hidden here now?'
+
+“'No, I'll swear he is not,' Lyle answered. 'I may have bungled in some
+things, but I have searched this house thoroughly. Nevertheless,' he
+added, 'we must go over it again, from the cellar to the roof. We have
+the real clew now, and we must forget the others and work only it.' As
+he spoke he began again to search the drawing-room, turning over even
+the books on the tables and the music on the piano.
+
+“'Whoever the man is,' he said, over his shoulder, 'we know that he has
+a key to the front door and a key to the letter-box. That shows us he is
+either an inmate of the house or that he comes here when he wishes. The
+Russian says that he was the only servant in the house. Certainly, we
+have found no evidence to show that any other servant slept here. There
+could be but one other person who would possess a key to the house
+and the letter-box--and he lives in St. Petersburg. At the time of
+the murder he was two thousand miles away.' Lyle interrupted himself,
+suddenly, with a sharp cry, and turned upon me, with his eyes flashing.
+'But was he?' he cried. 'Was he? How do we know that last night he was
+not in London, in this very house when Zichy and Chetney met?'
+
+“He stood, staring at me without seeing me, muttering, and arguing with
+himself.
+
+“'Don't speak to me,' he cried, as I ventured to interrupt him. 'I can
+see it now. It is all plain. It was not the servant, but his master, the
+Russian himself, and it was he who came back for the letters! He came
+back for them because he knew they would convict him. We must find
+them. We must have those letters. If we find the one with the Russian
+postmark, we shall have found the murderer.' He spoke like a madman, and
+as he spoke he ran around the room, with one hand held out in front of
+him as you have seen a mind-reader at a theatre seeking for something
+hidden in the stalls. He pulled the old letters from the writing-desk,
+and ran them over as swiftly as a gambler deals out cards; he dropped on
+his knees before the fireplace and dragged out the dead coals with
+his bare fingers, and then, with a low, worried cry, like a hound on
+a scent, he ran back to the waste-paper basket and, lifting the papers
+from it, shook them out upon the floor. Instantly, he gave a shout of
+triumph, and, separating a number of torn pieces from the others, held
+them up before me.
+
+“'Look!' he cried. 'Do you see? Here are five letters, torn across in
+two places. The Russian did not stop to read them, for, as you see, he
+has left them still sealed. I have been wrong. He did not return for the
+letters. He could not have known their value. He must have returned
+for some other reason, and, as he was leaving, saw the letter-box, and,
+taking out the letters, held them together--so--and tore them twice
+across, and then, as the fire had gone out, tossed them into this
+basket. Look!' he cried, 'here in the upper corner of this piece is a
+Russian stamp. This is his own letter--unopened!'
+
+“We examined the Russian stamp and found it had been cancelled in St.
+Petersburg four days ago. The back of the envelope bore the postmark of
+the branch-station in upper Sloane Street, and was dated this morning.
+The envelope was of official, blue paper, and we had no difficulty in
+finding the other two parts of it. We drew the torn pieces of the letter
+from them and joined them together, side by side. There were but two
+lines of writing, and this was the message: 'I leave Petersburg on the
+night-train, and I shall see you at Trevor Terrace, after dinner, Monday
+evening.'
+
+“'That was last night!' Lyle cried. 'He arrived twelve hours ahead of
+his letter--but it came in time--it came in time to hang him!'”
+
+The Baronet struck the table with his hand.
+
+“The name!” he demanded. “How was it signed? What was the man's name?”
+
+The young Solicitor rose to his feet and, leaning forward, stretched out
+his arm. “There was no name,” he cried. “The letter was signed with
+only two initials. But engraved at the top of the sheet was the man's
+address. That address was 'THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, ST. PETERSBURG, BUREAU
+OF THE NAVAL ATTACHE,' and the initials,” he shouted, his voice rising
+into an exultant and bitter cry, “were those of the gentleman who sits
+opposite who told us that he was the first to find the murdered bodies,
+the Naval Attache to Russia, Lieutenant Sears!”
+
+A strained and awful hush followed the Solicitor's words, which seemed
+to vibrate like a twanging bowstring that had just hurled its bolt. Sir
+Andrew, pale and staring, drew away, with an exclamation of repulsion.
+His eyes were fastened upon the Naval Attache with fascinated horror.
+But the American emitted a sigh of great content, and sank, comfortably,
+into the arms of his chair. He clapped his hands, softly, together.
+
+“Capital!” he murmured. “I give you my word I never guessed what you
+were driving at. You fooled ME, I'll be hanged if you didn't--you
+certainly fooled me.”
+
+The man with the pearl stud leaned forward, with a nervous gesture.
+“Hush! be careful!” he whispered. But at that instant, for the third
+time, a servant, hastening through the room, handed him a piece of paper
+which he scanned eagerly. The message on the paper read, “The light over
+the Commons is out. The House has risen.”
+
+The man with the black pearl gave a mighty shout, and tossed the paper
+from him upon the table.
+
+“Hurrah!” he cried. “The House is up! We've won!” He caught up his
+glass, and slapped the Naval Attache, violently, upon the shoulder. He
+nodded joyously at him, at the Solicitor, and at the Queen's Messenger.
+“Gentlemen, to you!” he cried; “my thanks and my congratulations!”
+ He drank deep from the glass, and breathed forth a long sigh of
+satisfaction and relief.
+
+“But I say,” protested the Queen's Messenger, shaking his finger,
+violently, at the Solicitor, “that story won't do. You didn't play
+fair--and--and you talked so fast I couldn't make out what it was all
+about. I'll bet you that evidence wouldn't hold in a court of law--you
+couldn't hang a cat on such evidence. Your story is condemned tommy-rot.
+Now, my story might have happened, my story bore the mark--”
+
+In the joy of creation, the story-tellers had forgotten their audience,
+until a sudden exclamation from Sir Andrew caused them to turn,
+guiltily, toward him. His face was knit with lines of anger, doubt, and
+amazement.
+
+“What does this mean?” he cried. “Is this a jest, or are you mad? If you
+know this man is a murderer, why is he at large? Is this a game you have
+been playing? Explain yourselves at once. What does it mean?”
+
+The American, with first a glance at the others, rose and bowed,
+courteously.
+
+“I am not a murderer, Sir Andrew, believe me,” he said; “you need not
+be alarmed. As a matter of fact, at this moment I am much more afraid of
+you than you could possibly be of me. I beg you, please to be indulgent.
+I assure you, we meant no disrespect. We have been matching stories,
+that is all, pretending that we are people we are not, endeavoring to
+entertain you with better detective-tales than, for instance, the last
+one you read, 'The Great Rand Robbery.'”
+
+The Baronet brushed his hand, nervously, across his forehead.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me,” he exclaimed, “that none of this has happened?
+That Lord Chetney is not dead, that his Solicitor did not find a letter
+of yours, written from your post in Petersburg, and that just now, when
+he charged you with murder, he was in jest?”
+
+“I am really very sorry,” said the American, “but you see, sir, he could
+not have found a letter written by me in St. Petersburg because I have
+never been in Petersburg. Until this week, I have never been outside
+of my own country. I am not a naval officer. I am a writer of short
+stories. And to-night, when this gentleman told me that you were fond of
+detective-stories, I thought it would be amusing to tell you one of my
+own--one I had just mapped out this afternoon.”
+
+“But Lord Chetney IS a real person,” interrupted the Baronet, “and he
+did go to Africa two years ago, and he was supposed to have died there,
+and his brother, Lord Arthur, has been the heir. And yesterday Chetney
+did return. I read it in the papers.”
+
+“So did I,” assented the American, soothingly; “and it struck me as
+being a very good plot for a story. I mean his unexpected return from
+the dead, and the probable disappointment of the younger brother. So I
+decided that the younger brother had better murder the older one. The
+Princess Zichy I invented out of a clear sky. The fog I did not have to
+invent. Since last night I know all that there is to know about a London
+fog. I was lost in one for three hours.”
+
+The Baronet turned, grimly, upon the Queen's Messenger.
+
+“But this gentleman,” he protested, “he is not a writer of short
+stories; he is a member of the Foreign Office. I have often seen him
+in Whitehall, and, according to him, the Princess Zichy is not an
+invention. He says she is very well known, that she tried to rob him.”
+
+The servant of the Foreign Office looked, unhappily, at the Cabinet
+Minister, and puffed, nervously, on his cigar.
+
+“It's true, Sir Andrew, that I am a Queen's Messenger,” he said,
+appealingly, “and a Russian woman once did try to rob a Queen's
+Messenger in a railway carriage--only it did not happen to me, but to
+a pal of mine. The only Russian princess I ever knew called herself
+Zabrisky. You may have seen her. She used to do a dive from the roof of
+the Aquarium.”
+
+Sir Andrew, with a snort of indignation, fronted the young Solicitor.
+
+“And I suppose yours was a cock-and-bull story, too,” he said. “Of
+course, it must have been, since Lord Chetney is not dead. But don't
+tell me,” he protested, “that you are not Chudleigh's son either.”
+
+“I'm sorry,” said the youngest member, smiling, in some embarrassment,
+“but my name is not Chudleigh. I assure you, though, that I know the
+family very well, and that I am on very good terms with them.”
+
+“You should be!” exclaimed the Baronet; “and, judging from the liberties
+you take with the Chetneys, you had better be on very good terms with
+them, too.”
+
+The young man leaned back and glanced toward the servants at the far end
+of the room.
+
+“It has been so long since I have been in the Club,” he said, “that I
+doubt if even the waiters remember me. Perhaps Joseph may,” he added.
+“Joseph!” he called, and at the word a servant stepped briskly forward.
+
+The young man pointed to the stuffed head of a great lion which was
+suspended above the fireplace.
+
+“Joseph,” he said, “I want you to tell these gentlemen who shot that
+lion. Who presented it to the Grill?”
+
+Joseph, unused to acting as master of ceremonies to members of the Club,
+shifted, nervously, from one foot to the other.
+
+“Why, you--you did,” he stammered.
+
+“Of course I did!” exclaimed the young man. “I mean, what is the name of
+the man who shot it? Tell the gentlemen who I am. They wouldn't believe
+me.”
+
+“Who you are, my lord?” said Joseph. “You are Lord Edam's son, the Earl
+of Chetney.”
+
+“You must admit,” said Lord Chetney, when the noise had died away, “that
+I couldn't remain dead while my little brother was accused of murder.
+I had to do something. Family pride demanded it. Now, Arthur, as the
+younger brother, can't afford to be squeamish, but, personally, I should
+hate to have a brother of mine hanged for murder.”
+
+“You certainly showed no scruples against hanging me,” said the
+American, “but, in the face of your evidence, I admit my guilt, and I
+sentence myself to pay the full penalty of the law as we are made to pay
+it in my own country. The order of this court is,” he announced, “that
+Joseph shall bring me a wine-card, and that I sign it for five bottles
+of the Club's best champagne.”
+
+“Oh, no!” protested the man with the pearl stud, “it is not for YOU to
+sign it. In my opinion, it is Sir Andrew who should pay the costs. It
+is time you knew,” he said, turning to that gentleman, “that,
+unconsciously, you have been the victim of what I may call a patriotic
+conspiracy. These stories have had a more serious purpose than merely to
+amuse. They have been told with the worthy object of detaining you
+from the House of Commons. I must explain to you that, all through
+this evening, I have had a servant waiting in Trafalgar Square with
+instructions to bring me word as soon as the light over the House of
+Commons had ceased to burn. The light is now out, and the object for
+which we plotted is attained.”
+
+The Baronet glanced, keenly, at the man with the black pearl, and then,
+quickly, at his watch. The smile disappeared from his lips, and his face
+was set in stern and forbidding lines.
+
+“And may I know,” he asked, icily, “what was the object of your plot?”
+
+“A most worthy one,” the other retorted. “Our object was to keep you
+from advocating the expenditure of many millions of the people's money
+upon more battle-ships. In a word, we have been working together to
+prevent you from passing the Navy Increase Bill.”
+
+Sir Andrew's face bloomed with brilliant color. His body shook with
+suppressed emotion.
+
+“My dear sir!” he cried, “you should spend more time at the House and
+less at your Club. The Navy Bill was brought up on its third reading
+at eight o'clock this evening. I spoke for three hours in its favor. My
+only reason for wishing to return again to the House to-night was to sup
+on the terrace with my old friend, Admiral Simons; for my work at the
+House was completed five hours ago, when the Navy Increase Bill was
+passed by an overwhelming majority.”
+
+The Baronet rose and bowed. “I have to thank you, sir,” he said, “for a
+most interesting evening.”
+
+The American shoved the wine-card which Joseph had given him toward the
+gentleman with the black pearl.
+
+“You sign it,” he said.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ranson's Folly, by Richard Harding Davis
+
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