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diff --git a/old/66631-0.txt b/old/66631-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c80dab3..0000000 --- a/old/66631-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11180 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of After the Manner of Men, by Francis -Lynde - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: After the Manner of Men - -Authors: Francis Lynde - Arthur E. Becher - -Release Date: October 29, 2021 [eBook #66631] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTER THE MANNER OF MEN *** - - - - - -AFTER THE MANNER OF MEN - - - - -BOOKS BY FRANCIS LYNDE - -PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - - - =After the Manner of Men.= Illus. 12mo _net_ $1.35 - - =The Real Man.= Illus. 12mo _net_ $1.35 - - =The City of Numbered Days.= Illus. 12mo _net_ $1.35 - - =The Honorable Senator Sage-brush.= 12mo _net_ $1.30 - - =Scientific Sprague.= Illus. 12mo _net_ $1.25 - - =The Price.= 12mo _net_ $1.30 - - =The Taming of Red Butte Western.= Illus. 12mo _net_ $1.35 - - =The King of Arcadia.= Illus. 12mo _net_ $1.35 - - =A Romance In Transit.= 16mo _net_ .75 - - -[Illustration: “Did you really think that some one was shooting at - _you_?” (_Page 7._)] - - - - - After the Manner - of Men - - BY - FRANCIS LYNDE - - _ILLUSTRATED BY_ - ARTHUR E. BECHER - - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - NEW YORK::::::::::1916 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - Published September, 1916 - - [Illustration] - - - - - TO - - JOSEPH FRATER, - - LOYAL FRIEND OF MANY YEARS, - TO WHOM MUCH OF THE MATERIAL AND ALL OF THE - ATMOSPHERE OF THE STORY IS OWING - - THIS BOOK - - IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED, - WITH GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FROM - THE AUTHOR - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. THE TOWNLANDER 1 - - II. THE SOW’S EAR 16 - - III. THE GOLDEN YOUTH 30 - - IV. IN WHICH CARFAX ENLISTS 47 - - V. PARTLY SENTIMENTAL 59 - - VI. DADDY LAYNE, AND OTHERS 73 - - VII. COMPANY COME 82 - - VIII. THE STUBBORN ROCK 96 - - IX. A BAD NIGHT FOR RUCKER 114 - - X. BLIND ALLEYS 125 - - XI. ROSEMARY AND RUE 148 - - XII. DULL STEEL 164 - - XIII. THE BURNT CHILD 177 - - XIV. THE LOGIC OF FACT 194 - - XV. MAMMY ANN’S GRAVE 207 - - XVI. A FRIEND AT NEED 230 - - XVII. AN ANTICLIMAX 248 - - XVIII. EVOLUTIONARY 261 - - XIX. THE HUMAN EQUATION 278 - - XX. LIMITATIONS 294 - - XXI. THE CLANSMEN 305 - - XXII. OUT OF A CLEAR SKY 323 - - XXIII. AT WESTWOOD HOUSE 334 - - XXIV. THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY 346 - - XXV. THE MANGLING OF POICTIERS 365 - - XXVI. TRYON’S NEWS 377 - - XXVII. CLOUD-WRAITHS 389 - - XXVIII. THE OCOEE’S ANSWER 397 - - XXIX. BEYOND THE GAP 410 - - XXX. A GROUNDED WIRE 419 - - XXXI. ON PISGAH’S HEIGHT 436 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - “Did you really think that some one was shooting at - _you_?” _Frontispiece_ - - FACING - PAGE - - Carfax stopped abruptly and said no more 162 - - “Poictiers, I’m a ruined man!” 328 - - “My heavens!” gasped the discoverer; and a voice, apparently - at his elbow, said: “Quite so” 400 - - - - -After the Manner of Men - - - - -I - -The Townlander - - -Coincident with a miniature thunderclap shattering the summer afternoon -silence of the mountain forest a bullet whipped through the foliage, -leaving a half-severed twig to flutter and dangle within easy arm’s -reach. Tregarvon had never before been under fire, and he was a product -of twentieth-century civilization and the cities. Yet his colonial -ancestor, figuring as a seasoned Indian fighter in Braddock’s disaster, -could scarcely have picked his sheltering tree with better judgment or -dropped behind it with more mechanical celerity. - -“Great Peter!” he exclaimed, under his breath, struggling to draw the -pocket-entangled weapon which he had persuaded himself to add to his -impedimenta before leaving Philadelphia, under the impression that it -would be a necessary part of a land-looker’s equipment in the Tennessee -mountains; “Great Pete----” - -The pocket yielded with a sound of tearing cloth, and the first shock -of panic subsided. Crouching behind his tree, the Philadelphian twirled -the cylinder of the revolver to make sure that all the chambers were -filled. While he was doing this there was another report, and this time -the bullet scored the sheltering oak. Tregarvon edged himself into -position, with due regard for the enemy’s line of fire, and cocked his -weapon, not, however, with any reassuring confidence in it, or in his -own steadiness of nerve. - -Peering judiciously around the buttressing knees of the barricade oak, -he could see nothing save a matted tangle of briers, blackberry bushes, -and laurel. But being the possessor of a fairly active imagination, he -fancied he could see more--the sunlight reflecting from the polished -barrel of a rifle, for example, and, by another turn of the imaginative -screw, the indistinct figure of his assailant far back among the trees. - -While he was thus reconnoitring, a third shot ripped through the -screening laurel and clicked spitefully into his oak. Since the -click came first, with the report a fraction of a second later, he -reserved his fire. It was evident that the hidden marksman was well -beyond pistol range, and he decided to save his ammunition against -a time when it might stand a chance of being more effective. The -target-practice part of his education had been neglected, and he -especially distrusted his marksmanship with the nickel-plated house -weapon, the more since he had never as yet fired it. - -Harboring this distrust, he was content for the moment to make -himself small behind his tree, sitting between two of the flanking -root buttresses with his back against the barrier trunk, and wincing -in spite of himself while other bullets, following now in rapid and -measured succession, whined to right or left, or buried themselves in -the solid wood. Oddly enough, the misses, though he could feel the wind -of them on either side, were less disquieting than the hits. At each -impact of lead against wood there was a jarring little shock quite -thrillingly transmissible to quick-set nerves in sympathetic contact -with the other side of the target. - -“By Jove! if Elizabeth could only see me now!” he chuckled broadly; -“Elizabeth, or the _mutterchen_, or even my rough-riding little sister! -This fusillading miscreant of mine must be one of the McNabb outlaws, -trying in his elemental fashion to settle the old feud about our title -to the coal lands. By and by, I suppose-- Whew!” - -The spine-tingling thrill was so real this time that he was half -minded to look and see if the impacting bullet had not come all the way -through the tree to bulge the bark on his side of it. But he restrained -the prompting and went on talking to himself. - -“By and by, I suppose, he’ll get tired of blazing away at a safe -distance and come charging down upon me. Then I shall be most unhappily -obliged to kill him; which will be about the crassest misfortune that -could happen, next to his killing me. Confound their barbarous feuds, -anyway! Why can’t these out-of-date mountain people wake up and realize -that they are living in the twentieth century of civilization and -Christian enlightenment? That’s what I’d like to know!” - -The only reply to this very reasonable query being the vicious “ping” -of another rifle-bullet, he went on discontentedly. - -“As if matters were not hopeless enough without adding a scrap with -these silly mountaineers about the land titles! Everything torn up at -home, the family anchor pulled out by the roots in the steel merger, -two women to be taken care of--with Elizabeth presently to make a -third--and nothing to make good on but this failure of a Cumberland -Mountain coal mine! And now, before I’ve had time to turn around, the -spirit moves this rifle-popping moonshine-maker to turn his grouch -loose until I feel it in my bones that I shall have to kill him to make -him quit!” - -Then, the _zip-zip_ of the bullets beginning again after a momentary -pause, the soliloquy went on: “That’s right; keep it up, you pin-headed -barbarian! I’ve got you for an excuse to commit manslaughter--that’s -the surest thing there is. Which brings on more talk. I wonder how it -feels to kill a man? I’d give all my old shoes if I didn’t have to -find out experimentally. Then there is Elizabeth: it is two completed -generations back to her Quaker forepeople, but she is quite capable of -flatly refusing to marry what they would have stigmatized as ‘a man of -blood.’ Say, you bloodthirsty assassin--that was an uncomfortably near -one!” - -After the glancing shot, which had flicked a handful of bark chips into -Tregarvon’s lap, the firing ceased. Assuring himself that the battling -moment at short range was approaching, the young man from the North sat -tight, gripping the house pistol in nervous anticipation, and listening -tensely for the sound of advancing footfalls. - -The suspense was short. Some one, several persons, as it presently -appeared, were pushing through the tangle of low-hanging undergrowth -toward the oak-tree. Tregarvon wondered that there should be no attempt -cautionary on the part of the enemy; wondered again, this time with -nettle pricklings of foolishness, when a voice, cheerfully exultant and -unmistakably feminine, cried out close at hand. - -“Oh, you people--come here and see! I _did_ hit it--_lots_ of times; -not that trifling little sheet of paper, of course”--scornfully--“but -the tree, I mean. Just come and-- _Ee-e-ow!_” - -The shrill little scream of surprise and alarm was for Mr. Vance -Tregarvon, issuing cautiously from behind the bulwark oak, still -mystified, and still absently gripping the pistol. - -The Philadelphian found himself confronting a young woman gowned -in stone-blue linen, and wearing an embroidery hat to match, the -hat shading a face too unaffectedly winsome to be called beautiful, -perhaps, but yet the most piquant and expressive face he had ever -looked upon. This young woman was carrying a target-rifle; and pinned -upon the bullet-punctured side of the oak was the square of white paper -at which she had evidently been shooting. - -There were others coming up to join the pretty markswoman: a -lean-faced, mild-eyed, spectacled gentleman of middle age, whose coat -suggested the church or the schoolroom; a vivacious lady in black, with -strongly marked eyebrows and eloquent hands and shoulders; a young -woman who wore an artist’s smock over her walking-gown; and another who -was girlish enough to wear a red tarn, and to be the prettier for it. -But by preference Tregarvon made his stammering apologies to the blue -embroidery hat. - -“Ah--er--please don’t mind me,” he begged, acutely conscious that his -abrupt and pistol-bearing entrance was handicapping him prodigiously. -“I thought--that is--er--you see, I really couldn’t know that it was -merely a peaceful target practice, and I----” - -“Of all things!” gasped the young woman, her slate-blue eyes -emphasizing her shocked amazement. “Did you really think that some one -was shooting at _you_? But, of course, you must have! How perfectly -dreadful!” - -Tregarvon was trying ineffectually to hide the ornamental revolver in -his coat pocket when the others closed in. - -“You are sure you are not hurt?” the mild-eyed escort made haste to -inquire, and Tregarvon grinned sheepishly. - -“Only in my self-esteem,” he confessed. “I was silly enough to think -that somebody was trying to mark me down, though I might have known -better after the first shot or two.” - -“But how could you know when you were behind the tree and couldn’t see -us?” protested the one who had been doing the shooting. “I’m sure it -speaks libraries for your self-control that you didn’t retaliate in -kind! Don’t you think so, Madame Fortier?” and she appealed to the lady -with the Gallic eyebrows and the eloquent shoulders. - -“_Ciel!_ but the _sangfroid_--what you call the cold blood--of these -American zhentlemen is of a grandeur the moz’ magnificent!” exclaimed -madame. “Mees Richardia she is shoot a hondred time at zis zhentleman, -and he is say he is injure’ onlee in hees _amour-propre_!” - -It was at this point that the humor of the situation overtook the chief -offender, and she laughed, the sweetest and most delectable laugh that -ever gladdened the ears of a young man keenly sensitive to the charms -of heavenly slate-blue eyes, a piquant face, and a voice remindful of -wood-thrushes and song-sparrows and golden-throated warblers. - -“After this, there is nothing left for us but to declare ourselves,” -she submitted ruefully, turning to the spectacled escort. “It is the -least we can do to save the gentleman the trouble of describing us if -he wishes to have us taken before Squire Prigmore.” - -But now Tregarvon was regaining some measure of equanimity. - -“Let me be the one to begin the identifying process,” he amended. “My -name is Vance Tregarvon, and I have the misfortune to be the present -owner of the valueless piece of property known as the Ocoee Mine. You -are more than welcome to make a rifle-range of my landscape any time -you wish. I am quite certain it is the only useful purpose it has ever -subserved.” - -The gentleman whose coat was either clerical or schoolmasterish, bowed -gravely and took his turn, prefacing it with a question. - -“Have you ever heard of Highmount College for Young Women, Mr. -Tregarvon?” - -Tregarvon, in deference to piquancies and slate-blue eyes and the -like, was tempted to quibble and say that, of course, every one knew -of Highmount College. But the heavenly eyes were holding him, and they -promised intolerance of anything but the pellucid truth. So he shook -his head regretfully. - -“Such is fame--the fame of an old, a great, and a noble institution -of learning!” said the spectacled one, in mock deprecation. “With -a foundation laid over half a century in the past, with the most -healthful and charming location on the entire Cumberland Mountain for -its site; with a corps of instructors second only to those of the -richly endowed colleges of the North--correct me, Miss Richardia, if -I am not quoting the prospectus accurately--with all these splendid -advantages, and with a student body drawn from the oldest and most -distinguished families of the South.... Mr. Tregarvon, can it be -possible----” - -“Spare me!” laughed the victim. “You must remember that I am only a -poor, ignorant provincial from Philadelphia, less than a fortnight out -of the shell.” - -“We are merely trying to impress you properly so that you will -think twice before having us arrested for trespass and attempted -assassination,” broke in the laughing markswoman. “We may not look -it, but we are a majority of the faculty of Highmount College for -Young Women. Let me present you to Madame Fortier, Modern Languages; -to Miss Longstreet, Art; to Miss Farron, Assistant Mathematics; and -to Professor William Wilberforce Hartridge, M.A., Vanderbilt, Higher -Mathematics and the Natural Sciences.” - -Tregarvon bowed in turn to the Gallic eyebrows, to the artist’s smock, -to the red tam-o’-shanter, and shook hands cordially with the M.A., -Vanderbilt. - -“This is fine, you know; it’s like Robinson Crusoe’s meeting with his -rescuers,” he asserted joyously. “This is my first real hearing of the -English tongue since I began doing time down yonder in Coalville, with -my old ruin of an office-building for a dungeon, and Mrs. Matt Tryon -for my jail matron. Is it very far to Highmount College? And may I hope -sometime to----” - -The three younger women laughed at this, and Madame Fortier hastened to -be hospitable. - -“We shall be moz’ charm’, Monsieur Tregarvong. I will spik for -President Caswell and hees good madame.” But Tregarvon waited for Miss -Richardia’s confirmation, which was given unhesitatingly. - -“Certainly, you must come, if you can spare the time,” she affirmed. -“We were speaking of you, and of the Ocoee prospects, at dinner the -other evening, and Doctor Caswell was even then threatening to look -you up. I think he said he had met your father in years gone by.” - -“I am sure that was exceedingly kind and hospitable--to think of taking -the stranger up before he had made himself known,” said Tregarvon, with -the hearth-warmed exile’s glow at his heart. They were moving over -to the rifle-rest, and he had fallen a step or two behind with Miss -Richardia. “You would have to be a castaway in a strange land yourself -to know how good it feels to be counted in.” - -“I have been both--the castaway and the counted-in,” she returned. “I -was four years in Boston; two of them without knowing a single soul -outside of a limited little Conservatory circle.” - -“Ah,” he said, with the air of one who pats himself on the back for his -own perspicacity. “You didn’t introduce yourself a moment ago, as you -may remember, but I was sure you were Music.” - -“Why were you?” she asked. - -“Because you look it.” - -“Harmony or discord?” she queried, with the bright little laugh -remindful of the bird songs. - -“How can you ask! Celestial harmony--no less!” It was only a matter of -a hundred yards, between the oak-tree target and the firing-stand, but -they were getting on very well, indeed. - -“Following that line of reasoning, you might say that Miss Longstreet -looks picturesque, I suppose? And Miss Farron----” - -“Miss Farron is far too charming to warrant any allusion to figures, -mathematical or other,” he retorted lightly. - -“And how about Professor Billy?” - -Tregarvon chuckled. “Is that what you call him? I’m glad I have a -Christian name that can’t very well be nicked entirely out of all -resemblance to the original. Which reminds me: have I got to call you -‘Miss Richardia’? It sounds awfully formal--don’t you think?--in the -mouth of a man who has been familiarly shot at by its possessor.” - -“You had better,” she replied calmly. “I am ‘Miss Dick’ in the -classrooms; but that is the student body’s privilege. Other people have -to earn it.” - -“Consider me an employee from this moment, if you please. I’m good at -earning things.” - -“Have you earned the Ocoee property?” she asked, altogether, as it -appeared, by way of making conversation. - -“No; but my father did--very bitterly, as it turned out. May I ask -what you know about the Ocoee?” - -“Only what every one knows: that it brings sorrow and ruin to everybody -who has anything to do with it.” - -They had reached the rifle-stand, and Hartridge was reloading the -target-gun for Miss Farron. There was still a little isolation for -Tregarvon and his companion, and the young man made the most of it. - -“Your words imply a lot more than they say,” he suggested. “I shall -take an early opportunity to make my Highmount call, and when I do, -perhaps you will tell me some of the things I need to know.” - -“Professor Hartridge or President Caswell can tell you better than I -can,” she demurred, as one dismissing an unpleasant subject. “I only -know that the mine has always been a wretched failure; first a thing -of broken promises, and afterward a cunningly devised pitfall for the -unwary.” - -If Tregarvon had for his major weakness the love of women, he was not -lacking such other qualities as may go with broad shoulders, good -gray eyes set wide apart, a clean-cut face, and a resolute jaw. The -squareness of the jaw was emphasized when he said: “This is the time -when the Ocoee quits being a failure, Miss Richardia. It is up to me -to make it a success, and I mean to do it.” - -It was at this conjuncture that Miss Farron, trying vainly to sight -the rifle over the fallen-tree firing-stand, broke in upon the -_tête-à-tête_. - -“Dickie, dear, do come here and hold your hand over my left eye,” she -called plaintively. “It just persists in coming open to see what the -other one is trying to do.” - - - - -II - -The Sow’s Ear - - -The rough-hewn world of mountain and valley had taken on a distinctly -cheerful aspect for the young man from Philadelphia when, late in the -afternoon, he reluctantly separated himself from the rifle-shooting -party and turned his steps valleyward to keep an appointment made -two days earlier with one Angus Duncan, an old Scotch mining expert, -upon whom the great Southern title company, unlimited, had long since -conferred the brevet of “captain.” - -Whatever the Tregarvon gray eyes and resolute jaw promised in the -way of decisive action and stubborn determination, their possessor -was never born to be a contented anchorite. Not even the matchless -beauties of nature, arrayed in all the glories of a Tennessee mountain -September, could atone for the solitude imposed by the dead-alive -hamlet of Coalville, and the newly opened prospect of an occasional -escape to the congenial social atmosphere of the mountain-top school -was like the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. - -Tregarvon was planning the first of these escapes, and forecasting the -time which would be consumed in freighting his motor-car down from -Philadelphia, when the forest path ended and let him out among the -deserted slope-foot buildings and empty coke-ovens of the Ocoee. He -glanced at his watch. The up-train on the branch railroad was due; it -had doubtless announced its approach by some distant crossing whistle, -since the little squad of village idlers had left its cantonments under -the porch of Tait’s store to straggle across to the station platform. - -Tregarvon remained on his own side of the railroad-tracks and waited. -He knew that Captain Duncan’s visit would be discussed in all its -possible bearings in the idlers’ caucus at Tait’s, and he was willing -to disappoint the country-store gossips when it came in his way. - -There were but few passengers to get on or off at Coalville when the -branch-line train rolled up to the platform, and Tregarvon had no -difficulty in identifying his man; the stocky, ruddy-faced, shrewd-eyed -mining engineer who had been named to him as the foremost coal expert -in the Tennessee field. He cut Duncan out of the group of loungers at -the instant of hand-shaking, and took him across to the dilapidated -building which had once been the superintendent’s office and the -commissary of the Ocoee Company, seeking, and securing, as he imagined, -ear-shot privacy for the business conference. - -But privacy in a Southern country hamlet, where gossip is as the breath -of life to the isolated few, is only to be bought with a price. From -his post of observation in Tait’s doorway, a lank, bristly-bearded man -in grimy jeans that had once been butternut, marked the direction of -the retreat across the railroad-tracks, made a dodging détour around -the engine of the standing train, and was safely hidden behind a thick -clump of althea bushes at the corner of the office-building when -Tregarvon and the Scotchman came leisurely to sit on the door-stone. - -“Ye’re paying me for an expert opeenion, Mr. Tregarvon, and that’s what -I’m bound to gie ye,” the engineer was saying. “I’ve known the Ocoee -ever since the first pick was piked intil it, and ye’ll be wasting -your time and money if you try to develop it. That’s what I told your -father, and it’s what I’m telling his son.” - -“Poor coal? Or not enough of it?” Tregarvon’s manner was that of a man -desirous of knowing the exact facts. - -“Good coal--fine! It makes a coke that would run everything this side -of Pocahontas, or maybe Connellsville, out o’ the market. And there is -enough of it if the two veins could be worked as one. But there’s the -bogie, Mr. Tregarvon; two well-defined veins, each a foot and a half -thick, one above the other, and with six foot of solid rock between. If -you had twenty such veins it wouldn’t pay to work them in this part of -the country.” - -“You mean that the digging out of the rock between the two coal seams -would eat up all the profits?” - -“Just that.” - -Tregarvon was pulling ineffectually at his short pipe. When he stooped -to pluck a spear of grass for a stem-cleaner he said: “Wasn’t it the -notion of the earliest promoters that the two veins would merge into -one, farther back in the mountain?” - -The expert waved his hand toward the long and costly inclined tramway -running straight up the steep slope of the mountain to the two black -openings at the foot of the cliff-line. - -“Ye’d think they believed in it--wouldn’t ye now--to build that tramway -on the strength of it? Two hunner’ thousand and better they put in -here, first and last; on the tramway and the coke-ovens, the miners’ -houses, and this fine office-building that’s crum’ling down behind our -backs! And with every practical coal man in the country telling them -that such a thing as two veins--two separate veins, mind ye--coming -into one was a geological impossibeelity. Parker--the man who set the -trap and caught everybody--he knew, I’m thinking; but Judge Birrell and -all the rest of ’em were crazy--fair crazy!” - -“But is it a geological impossibility, Captain Duncan? That is one of -the questions I got you up here to answer for me,” Tregarvon put in. - -The Scotch engineer was too cautious to be definitely oracular. - -“It’s never been h’ard of yet,” he replied shrewdly, “and there’s a -many to tell ye that the day o’ merricles is past. But that isn’t all, -Mr. Tregarvon. Besides being a sow’s ear that ye canna hope to make -into a silk purse, the Ocoee has another handicap. If ye had your coal -in profitable shape and quantity, ye’d never be allowed to mine and -coke and market it; never in this warld.” - -“Who would stop me?” - -“The C. C. & I. Company, which is another name in this part o’ the -warld for Consolidated Coal--the trust. The combine owns all the -producing mines hereabouts; they’ve got one in full blast at Whitlow, -five miles above this. If you should develop into anything worth while, -it would be another case of the lion and the lamb lying down in peace -together--with the Ocoee lamb inside of the trust lion. They couldn’t -afford to lat ye operate. Your coke, for as much of it as ye could -make, would drive theirs out o’ the market.” - -“Well?” said the Philadelphian. - -“They’d buy ye, if they could haggle ye down to sell at a bargain; and, -failing in that, they’d break ye. I’m not questioning your resources, -ye unnerstand; that part of it was none of my business after I’d had -your check for my fee safely in my pocket,” he threw in cannily. “But -tell me, now: if ye had your four or five or even six foot of coal, are -ye big enough in the way o’ backing and capital to fight Consolidated -Coal wi’ any hope of coming out alive?” - -“That is as it may be,” said Tregarvon, wishing neither to deny nor -to affirm publicly. Then he asked casually if the engineer could give -chapter and page proving the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company’s policy -of extermination. - -“Can I no?” said the Scotchman, with a snap of the shrewd eyes. “I can -show ye wrecked mines by the handfu’ in a day’s ride up and down this -same Wehatchee Valley we’re sitting in. ’Tis the power o’ money, Mr. -Tregarvon. When ye get between the jaws o’ that crusher, ye’re like -this”--picking up a bit of friable sandstone and crumbling it in his -palm. - -The younger man smoked on thoughtfully for a time. Then he said: “Two -of the points upon which I wished to have your opinion have been -covered pretty conclusively, it would seem. But there is a third. What -about this trouble with the McNabbs over the land title?” - -The Scotchman waved the third point away as if it had been a buzzing -fly. - -“The McNabbs are just a whiskey-making lot of poor bodies living back -in the Pocket beyond Highmount. An unscrupulous lawyer-scamp got hold -of them when the second Ocoee Company was fair rolling in money, and -showed them how they could trump up a claim to a wedge-like slip o’ -land on the top o’ the mountain which, if the claim could be made good, -would cut off the mine a hundred feet or so back from the cliff. There -was neither sense nor justice in it, and the courts said so. Ye’ll be -having no trouble wi’ the McNabbs, unless one o’ them might be taking a -pop at ye wi’ his squirrel-gun some fine day.” - -Tregarvon smiled, recalling his sensations while Miss Richardia’s -bullets were snipping bark souvenirs from his sheltering oak. - -“One wouldn’t be scared out by a little thing like that,” he remarked -half humorously. Then he asked, quite abruptly, another question--the -chief question for an answer to which he had paid the expert’s fee. - -“I have been told, Captain Duncan, that you have made an analysis -of the Ocoee coals. Also, I have been given to understand that no -two veins in these Tennessee coal-measures have exactly the same -characteristics; that the quality of the coal varies with its distance -from the original surface, though the depth difference between any two -deposits may be very slight. If you didn’t know of the existence of the -six-foot layer of stone lying between my two coal seams, would you, or -would you not, say that they were one and the same?” - -Duncan took time to consider before answering the crucial question. - -“I see what ye’re driving at, now,” he said at length. “Ye’ve paid me -for a true answer, Mr. Tregarvon, and much as I’ll hate to see your -father’s son banging his head against a stone wall, I’ll give it ye. -I’ve made half a dozen analyses: so far as they prove anything, the -coal in the two seams is the same.” - -“Thank you,” returned Tregarvon, drawing a free breath as if a burden -had been lifted from his shoulders by the answer. And then, as a -quavering whistle blast announced the approach of the down freight -train on the branch: “There is your return train, Captain Duncan. If I -had any hospitality to offer you, you shouldn’t go back to Hesterville -to-night. As it is, I know you’ll be glad you don’t have to stop over -in Coalville. Even the name is a misnomer, it would seem.” - -The grizzled Scotchman had discharged his duty and earned his fee. But -the cravings of a purely Caledonian curiosity were still unsatisfied. - -“And what’ll ye be doing, think ye, Mr. Tregarvon?” he asked -inquisitively. - -Tregarvon’s answer was pointedly and purposefully indifferent. “Oh, I -don’t know definitely yet. I may take a notion to butt my head against -the stone wall, and I may not. If I should, you’ll doubtless hear of -it. Good-by; it was mighty good of you to take the trouble to come and -talk with me when you might have put me off with a letter.” - -Though the leave-taking at the door of the office-building was a fact -accomplished, Tregarvon prolonged it a little by walking across to the -station with Duncan. Thereby he missed a possible chance of seeing the -retreat of the man who had been crouching behind the althea bushes, the -dodging run, first to the shelter of the row of coke-ovens, and later -to the lower fringe of the Mount Pisgah forest, darkening now in the -early valley twilight. - -Late that night, in his room in the cobwebbed and dismantled -office-building, Tregarvon wrote two letters. The first was to a -certain golden youth in New York, a young man rejoicing in the ancient -and honorable name of Poictiers Carfax, and whose father had left him -more money than he knew what to do with. Upon Carfax Tregarvon leaned -as upon a brother, having shared rooms with the golden one in the -university at a period in which the Tregarvon family check could also -have been drawn for seven figures. - -“You are always howling and taking on about living the simple life,” -was the opening phrase in the letter to Carfax. “I wish you could be -with me to-night and have a taste of what it really is--ten thousand -miles from the Great White Way or a decent beefsteak. I’d describe it -for you if this were anything but a begging letter--which it isn’t. - -“First, I wish you’d send your machinist over to Philadelphia and have -him ship my car to me here. Tell him to put in extras of everything, -from spark-plugs to tires, just the same as if he were sending it to a -man in Darkest Africa. - -“Next (and this is of more importance to me, and perhaps less to you), -I am going into a scheme here which promises to leave me stony broke -before I shall have pulled half-way through the experimental stage, -and will possibly bankrupt even the Carfax strong box when it fairly -gets its second wind. I may have to sell you some stock, later on, and -to that end I’ll be glad if you’ll keep in touch--so that you may be -‘touched’--or at least keep yourself within reach of a wire. - -“This is all I’m going to write, for the time being, except to say that -I’ve thought of you about five times a minute during the past week, and -have tried to picture you in Coalville, hesitating between suicide and -a lingering death from disgust. Come down and try it. I’ll go bail it -will give you an entirely new set of sensations. What do you say?” - -The second letter was to Miss Elizabeth Wardwell, and it was a -masterpiece in its way--the way of a man who writes as he would talk, -and who talks when he would much better hold his tongue. - -“The adventures began to-day,” so ran the words of unwisdom. “While I -was clambering around on the mountain above the Ocoee opening, _zip!_ -came a bullet--yes, an indubitable leaden bullet fired from a gun--near -enough to make me dodge. What will you think of me when I write it down -in muddy black ink on white paper that I hid behind a tree! I did, you -know, and immediately had plenty of reasons for being thankful that the -tree was big enough to cover me, and thick enough through to stop a -rifle-bullet. - -“For fifteen minutes, or such a matter--though it seemed a moderately -long lifetime--my assassin kept busy with the sharpshooting, and I -could feel myself growing smaller with every fresh spat of a bullet -into my tree. What did I think? I thought of you, my dear Elizabeth, -and wondered if you’d keep your promise to marry me in accordance with -the terms of Uncle Byrd’s will if I should be obliged to kill a man. -Would you? - -“When it was all over, my assassins--it turned out that there was a -bunch of them--proved to be a party of school-teachers from Highmount -College shooting at a mark, which the same--though I hadn’t seen it, -and didn’t remotely suspect its existence--was affixed to the farther -side of my tree. There were five people in the party; three attractive -young women, a French lady of uncertain age, and a middle-aged -professor in spectacles doing escort duty. Of course, there were -explanations and apologies all around: I had slipped out, cocked -revolver in hand, with a sort of ‘Now I’ll get you!’ expression on my -face, I suppose. - -“They were all very kind to me, especially the young woman who had -been doing the actual shooting. I wish you could hear her laugh. -It is the sweetest thing in Tennessee. She has the soft Southern -voice, and a face that can be perfectly wooden one minute and a whole -insurrectionary passion-stirring volume in the next. No, Miss Wardwell, -I didn’t make love to her. How could I, with all the others standing -about and looking on and listening in? - -“I’m to make myself free of the college, they say, and perhaps I -shall--later on. Please don’t lift those matchless eyebrows of yours -and ask if I’m not going to wait at least until I have met these people -properly. If you could see my present surroundings, and realize for one -little instant what an elemental ruffian these same surroundings are -likely to make of me, you’d urge me to go. - -“Please write often. You can’t imagine how I hang upon the arrival of -your letters--how much they mean to me.” - - - - -III - -The Golden Youth - - -It was on the day following Captain Angus Duncan’s visit that the -hamlet of Coalville, nestling at the foot of Mount Pisgah, took a fresh -start as an industrial centre. Word went out from Tait’s store, which -served as a general intelligence exchange for the country roundabout, -that Tregarvon wanted laborers and would pay good wages. - -The men came; some from the half-tilled valley farms, a few from the C. -C. & I. mines farther up the railroad, and two or three mountaineers. -Two of the mountain dwellers, long-haired, unshaven backwoodsmen, gave -their names as Morgan and Sill, suppressing, for some reason best known -to themselves, their surname of McNabb. Also there came the lean, -bristly-bearded man who had squatted behind the althea bushes at the -corner of the office-building during Tregarvon’s talk with Captain -Duncan; James Sawyer, by name. Tregarvon knew nothing of this man’s -antecedents; of the forehistory of any of them, for that matter. What -he demanded was work, and he went about securing it in the best of all -possible ways: by stripping off his coat and acting as his own foreman. - -In strenuous toilings fled the first two weeks, during which period -the old machinery was overhauled, the tramway up the mountain repaired -and put in running order, and the _débris_ of disuse cleared away. -For the aggressive campaign a deep-well drilling plant was secured -in Chattanooga, and upon its arrival all things were made ready for -transporting it to the top of the plateau mountain. - -Tregarvon’s plan, which he thought was original with him, was to go -back on the level mountain top with his test-drill, and to sink a -series of holes down to the coal-measures. If the first test should -show the two veins still separated by the stubborn ledge of intervening -rock, he would move the machinery farther back and try again--and yet -again, if need be; though of all this he said no more to his workmen -than was necessary to enable them to help intelligently. - -At the beginning of the second week the drilling machinery was hauled -up the mountain, and two days later, Uncle William, a solemn-faced -old negro with a narrow fringe of white wool ringing his otherwise -perfectly bald head, made his appearance at Coalville. - -He was waiting for Tregarvon on the Thursday morning when the -Philadelphian turned out to go up the mountain with his working gang; -waiting to doff his battered hat and scrape his foot, and to announce -in honeyed tones that he had come “ter tek cha’ge of de young marsteh.” - -Quite naturally, Tregarvon thought there must be some mistake, and said -so; but the old man persisted with the velvety sort of pertinacity -which refuses to be denied, vaunting himself as a body-servant of “the -quality,” and acquiring, or seeming to acquire, a curious hardness of -hearing when Tregarvon questioned him as to where he had come from and -who had sent him. - -“Yas, suh--yas, suh; cayn’t hear ve’y good on dat side o’ my haid--no, -suh. But I’se suttin sho’ gwine tek mighty good keer o’ you-all; I is -dat, marsteh.” - -“But a body-servant is the last thing on earth that I am needing here, -uncle!” protested Tregarvon, firing his final shot of objection. “If I -could find a good cook now, that would be more to the point.” - -“Dat’s it--dat’s it, suh. You-all jes’ go ’long up de mounting and -boss dem po’ white trash, and lef’ ol’ Unc’ Wilyum ter fix up dat -cook-house. He gwine show you what quality cookin’ is; yas, suh; he -will dat!” - -Tregarvon left the old man bowing and scraping and backing away to -take possession of the deserted office-building and its detached -cook-shanty; and when he came back to the valley in the evening he -gasped to remember how near he had come to incurring the penalty -imposed upon those who refuse to entertain angels in disguise. - -The old office-building was swept and garnished, above and below. -Out of the lumber-room in the basement Uncle William had rescued a -dining-table, chairs, napery of a sort, and dishes; and in the rear -room, which had once been the office of the Ocoee superintendent, a -supper was spread, hot, smoking, and appetizing enough to tempt a sick -man. Even the napkins, improvised for the moment out of pieces of a -flour-sack washed to snowy whiteness, were not lacking; and when the -master would sit down, Uncle William was behind him to whisk the chair -away and to replace it, with all the deftness of a trained butler. - -Tregarvon ate and drank in grateful and heartfelt silence down to the -black coffee, which was served, for the want of the proper crockery, -in an egg-cup, with a small fruit dish for a saucer. Then he made the -amende honorable. - -“I don’t know who you are, or where you came from, Uncle William, but I -owe you an apology, none the less,” he said. “Consider that I belong to -you for as long as you care to keep me--at your own price.” - -“Yas, suh; dat’s it--dat’s jes’ de way de quality talk to ol’ Unc’ -Wilyum, eve’y time--_hyuh! hyuh!_ ’Long erbout an hour o’ sun, white -woman comed ercross f’om dat white-niggah cabin turrer side de big -road, and she say: ‘I gwine fix up Mistoo Tregarbin’s suppeh.’ _I_ say, -‘Mistoo Tregarbin ’sents his compliments an’ say t’ank you kin’ly, but -he done got he own body-sarvant!’ Yas, suh; dat’s what I done tol’ -_huh_.” - -Tregarvon’s eyes twinkled. - -“You’ll be getting yourself disliked, Uncle William, if you put on your -quality manners with Mrs. Tryon and her kind. They tell me that this -county was Republican during the war.” Then he added: “Are you ready to -tell me now who sent you here?” - -The old man was clearing the supper-table, and he seemed to have -entirely misunderstood the query. - -“Dat ol’ cook-house? Yas, suh; it sholy did try me for to git dat ol’ -chimley ter mek de fiah bu’n for de supper-fixin’s. Ter-morrer I gwine -chink him up some; yas, suh, I sholy is.” - -After Uncle William’s mysterious advent the work on the mountain -progressed the more rapidly by precisely the difference between a -well-fed leader and an ill-fed. Tregarvon and his pick-up crew wrought -manfully, and on the eighteenth day--the day of fresh surprises--the -drilling machinery had been safely transported to the plateau, had -been set up, and was ready to be started on the test upon which the -Tregarvon hopes were building airy structures of future affluence. - -At quitting-time on this eighteenth day of preparatory toil Tregarvon -came down in a tram-car with his men and, after the dispersal at the -mountain foot, stood for a moment on the office-building porch to let -the quiet grandeur of the perfect autumn evening soak in and wash the -work-weariness out of his jaded brain and muscles. - -The sun had gone behind the mountain for all the lower reaches of the -valley, but its level rays were still pouring in a flood of yellow -light across the flat-topped promontory crowned by the buildings of -Highmount College. Pisgah, densely forested on slope and summit, loomed -vast as the early shadows rose like silently drawn curtains to soften -its rugged detail, and on the sky-line Tregarvon’s gaze sought and -found the derrick skeleton of his drilling plant struck out in rigid -lines of black against the hazy blue. Just above him the tramway cut -its steeply ascending gash through the forest of the slope, and in his -mind’s eye he could see the cars descending, each with its load of the -reopened mine’s largesse, to be dumped upon the receiving-platform -beside the row of coke-ovens. - -From the outlined derrick to the sun-illumined college buildings was -an airy leap of a mile or more. Tregarvon had not as yet used his -invitation, though the French teacher’s giving of it had been promptly -confirmed by a cordial note from the president’s wife. The social -hunger rose strong in the expatriated townlander as he let his eyes -make the leap from the industries, typified by the derrick skeleton, -to the possible relaxations harboring on Highmount. He meant to go; -he promised himself afresh that he would go, the moment his motor-car -should arrive and be put into commission to make the five-mile climb up -the mountain pike from Coalville something less than an added weariness -after a hard day’s work. - -He was still looking longingly up to the sun-shot heights and -wondering why he had heard nothing from Poictiers Carfax, when a -sound, breeze-blown up the valley, made him start and listen. When he -heard it again it was nearer; the unmistakable roar of an automobile’s -engines with the muffler cut out. To confirm the witness of the ear, a -big yellow car presently topped the rise in the valley road below the -village and came bounding over the roughnesses of the country wagon -track toward the railroad crossing. - -Tregarvon immediately recognized his own car and the cacophonous -thunderings of it; but it was only a guess that the slender young man -in dust-coat and goggles behind the steering-wheel was Carfax; that the -square-shouldered fellow in a leather jacket and closely fitting cap -beside him was the machinist; and that the liveried person sitting bolt -upright with folded arms in the exact centre of the tonneau seat was -Merkley, Carfax’s imported valet. - -Tregarvon gasped, and his hands went up in the gesture of a man vainly -striving to avert a crash of worlds. “Great Heavens!” he ejaculated. -And at that moment Jefferson Walters, acting chairman of the convention -of idlers in session under the awning of Tait’s store porch, made -himself an imaginary errand to Tryon’s, across from and a little -beyond the Ocoee office-building, timing his saunter to bring him upon -the scene as an interested onlooker when the yellow car rolled up to -Tregarvon’s door. - -“Hit do beat the Dutch--what-all gits up in the big woods when you -ain’t totin’ a gun,” he remarked to the executive session when he -returned to the other side of the railroad. “Young feller with the -eye-glasses--he must be powerful nigh blind to have to wear sech big -ones--he pulls up the team with a jerk at a han’le, and says: ‘Hello, -Vance! Here we are; the dog and the tail, and the tail wagging the -dog.’ And Tregarvon, he jest shets his fists tight and says, sort -o’ hoarse-like, ‘My Lord, Putters’--’r some sech name as that--‘did -you tool that car all the way down here from Philadelphia?’ ‘Sure, I -did,’ says Goggles; and all the while that there circus ringmaster was -a-settin’ up like he’d growed with a hick’ry saplin’ down his back, -lookin’ straight out ahead of him as if he didn’t know that anything -was happenin’,’r was ever goin’ to happen.” - -“President o’ the new Ocoee Comp’ny, d’ ye reckon?” queried one of the -listeners. - -“President o’ nothin’! I’m comin’ to him, right now. ‘And you brought -Merkley?’ says Tregarvon, speakin’ right low and soft, and chokin’ -some more. ‘Naturally,’ says Goggles, as cool as a cucumber, and then -he climbs out and goes in with our man, with the ringmaster feller -_totin’ the carpet-bags_!” - -“I know,” chirruped the oldest man in the circle, a wizened veteran of -the Mexican War. “I seed ’em in the army; the West Pointer gin’rals had -’em--called ’em val-lays.” - -“I wonder what-all our young feller over yander’ll turn up next?” mused -Jabez Layne, bringing his huge jack-knife to bear upon a pocket-worn -nugget of plug tobacco. - -“He’ll turn up a heap o’ trouble ef he don’t quit hirin’ them McNabbs,” -volunteered one of the valley men who had hitherto been speechless. -“He’s got two of ’em in his gang now--Morgan an’ Sill; an’ ef they -don’t git him afore he gits the coal----” - -“Why, then, the C. C. & I.’ll git him about five minutes afte’wards,” -laughed Walters, breaking in to complete the sentence in his own way. - -Thus ran the leisurely comment in the gray of the evening, working -its way from man to man among the loungers on Tait’s porch. But in -the dilapidated office-building across the railroad-tracks there was -consternation. - -“Why, Poictiers, old man, you can’t endure it for twenty-four hours!” -Tregarvon was protesting anxiously. “Look at this place--a dusty, -cobwebby ruin that a self-respecting tramp wouldn’t lodge in! Heavens, -man! couldn’t you see a joke when it was written out plain with a pen -and ink? I would have as soon invited Elizabeth--meaning it!” - -Carfax had slipped out of his dust-coat and goggles, the valet -assisting, and stood revealed as a handsome young fellow, a shade too -well-groomed, perhaps, but with smiling good-nature atoning for the -Carfax millions in every line of his beardless and almost effeminate -face. - -“Now that is what I call downright inhospitable,” he laughed, with the -faintest suspicion of a lisp on the sibilants, “after you had written -me to come. Your letter is out in the go-cart, if Merkley didn’t forget -to put it in my letter-case. Also, after I’ve driven that unspeakable -car of yours over a thousand miles of the worst roads the rain ever -rained on----” - -“Oh, good Lord, Poictiers--you’re welcome; as welcome as the sunshine! -Don’t rub it into me that way. But the place; the--the----” - -Carfax’s smile was cherubic; or rather it would have been if the -womanish lines of his face had not made it seraphic. - -“No apologies, you inexpressible old coal-digger. I knew you were -only joking when you asked me--or rather dared me--to come down. -But the notion seized me, and here I am. Here, likewise, is Rucker, -the machinist, who will happily shift for himself; and what is more -serious, perhaps, here also is Merkley. In all human probability I -shall bleat like a sheep at the corn-pones and the hardtack, and all -that; but Merkley was once in the service of the Duke of Marlford and -his agonies----” - -Tregarvon laughed, and the stresses came off. - -“Luckily, I have acquired Uncle William, or, perhaps I should say, he -has acquired me, since I wrote you, and you won’t starve, whatever -happens to Merkley. Find your way up-stairs and take possession, -while I tell the old uncle what he is up against in the way of -supper-getting. You’ll find a bath, with ice-cold mountain spring -water--my one luxury--at the end of the upper corridor.” - -Considering his resources, which were few and strictly limited, Uncle -William shed a lustre all his own upon the dinner for two, which was -served in the makeshift dining-room as soon as Carfax came down. - -“I’m sure you needn’t find fault with your table,” was the guest’s -comment, when the snowy biscuits and the egg-bread, the fried chicken -and the riced potatoes had passed in review. “I only wish I could -induce an Uncle William to adopt me.” - -Thus the master; but the London-bred man was not faring so well. It was -Uncle William’s effort to orient the valet--an effort vocalizing itself -through the screened windows of Tregarvon’s dining-room--that reopened -the question of the practicabilities. - -“Is you-all dat gemman’s white niggah?” was the blunt demand, made when -Merkley, dinner-inclined, ventured into the sacred precincts of Uncle -William’s detached cook-house. - -“H-I am Mr. Carfax’s man, and h-I’ll trouble you to serve my dinner,” -was the lofty reply, returned in Merkley’s best tone of aloofness. - -“I’s askin’ ef you is dat gemman’s white niggah!”--scornfully. “Ef you -is, you jes’ sots youse’f down on dat door-step an’ waits, same as -any turrer niggah. When de quality folks gets t’rough, an’ _I_ gets -t’rough, den you kin have what’s lef’.” - -Carfax waved a shapely hand toward the open window. - -“The irrepressible conflict has begun,” he remarked. “What do you do in -such cases in--er--Coalville?” - -“We go down on our knees, metaphorically speaking, and plead with an -outraged and righteously indignant Uncle William,” Tregarvon laughed; -and when the old negro made his next appearance in the dining-room, -the Philadelphian did it so skilfully that Merkley was provided for at -a side table in the hall; not of grace, as certain mumblings from the -cook-house proved, but because the master desired it. - -“That settles our status,” said Carfax, with the cherubic smile, “at -least down to Rucker, the mechanician. I wonder what has become of him?” - -“If he is the same mechanical barbarian you had last year, he’ll not -go hungry,” Tregarvon ventured; and then, with the assurance of a -tried friend: “Whatever possessed you to come down here _en suite_, -Poictiers? Did I give you the impression that the Ocoee headquarters -was a summer-resort hotel?” - -Carfax laughed joyously. “You certainly did not. But I was tired of -Lenox, and it was too early for the shooting. Moreover, you said you -wanted your car, and the fit took me to drive it. That accounts for -Rucker; and I suppose I account for poor Merkley. He is due to have -the time of his gay young life--don’t you think?--with Uncle William -and the elemental environment? But tell me more about your affair. -What have you been letting yourself in for, down here in the Southern -backwoods?” - -Uncle William had removed the cloth, and had put a tobacco-jar and two -pipes on the table. - -“It is the best we can do, even for you,” said Tregarvon, indicating -the tobacco aftermath apologetically. “Nobody has ever seen a bottle of -wine in Coalville, and the whiskey of the country isn’t fit to drink.” -Then he plunged abruptly into the story of the Ocoee, so far as he knew -it, giving the last-resort reasons why he was trying to make a family -windbreak of it, and Carfax heard him through patiently. - -“Then it sums itself up about like this: You haven’t anything at -present, and if you succeed in getting anything, the other fellows will -nab it,” he said, when Tregarvon had finished. “Is that about the size -of it?” - -“You have surrounded it completely. Only I am eliminating the ‘if.’ I -mean to get something, and I don’t mean to let the other fellows get -away with it.” - -“Any move made yet?” queried Carfax, between delicate little puffs at -the pipe of hospitality. - -“Not visibly. The trust people will scarcely move in the matter until -after I have proved my first proposition, which is that the two veins -of coal become one farther back in the mountain. But the McNabbs may -not wait that long.” - -“Who are the McNabbs?” - -Tregarvon explained again, at some length, not omitting mention of a -mysterious leaf fire which had threatened to destroy a tramway trestle, -and other small accidents which had somewhat impeded the work of the -past fortnight, and which were blankly unaccountable save upon a theory -of somebody’s malice. - -“Why don’t you buy ’em off?” said Carfax casually. Money was his -cure-all for most human ills. - -“For one reason, they haven’t given me a chance. For another, I don’t -propose to be held up and robbed. They haven’t any title to the land; -they have never had a shadow of a title.” Then he broke off suddenly, -glanced at his watch, and changed the subject. “How much too tired -are you to take a five-mile spin with me up the mountain in the car, -Poictiers?” he asked. - -Carfax’s eyebrows went up in mild surprise. Nevertheless, he said: -“Call it a go--if you can find Rucker.” - -“Never mind Rucker; I’ll drive you myself,” said Tregarvon, and a few -minutes later the big car, with its dazzling headlamps picking out the -way, was storming up the steep grades of the Pisgah pike to Highmount. - - - - -IV - -In Which Carfax Enlists - - -On the broad veranda of the administration building at Highmount, which -looked down sidewise upon the twinkling light or two of Coalville and -faced on even terms an opposing shoulder of the mountain where the -newly erected drill derrick stood, Carfax was holding Miss Farron and -four privileged members of the senior class at bay, while Tregarvon -contentedly monopolized Miss Richardia Birrell. - -The two thus comfortably isolated had quickly exhausted the -commonplaces. Tregarvon was made to know thus early that one of Miss -Richardia’s charms was her ability to plunge at once into the heart of -things; and the talk had turned upon Carfax, distance and the hubbub of -the others sanctioning personalities. - -“Oh, you don’t know him yet,” Tregarvon protested, in refutation of a -remark of Miss Birrell’s based upon Carfax’s apparent satisfaction with -his present besetment. “He is anything but a butterfly, in the meaning -you imply; and I say this in spite of his pretty face and airy gabble, -and the lisp and his bad habit of slipping instinctively, as you might -say, into the easiest chair in sight. I’ve summered him and wintered -him, and I know.” - -“I like loyalty,” said Miss Richardia, with the air of one to whom -abstractions are as daily bread. “Are you going to winter him in -Coalville?” - -“No such good luck as that for me, I’m afraid. After the shooting -begins, I don’t imagine he has a week untaken. You may not believe it, -but Poictiers is in demand--where he is known and appreciated.” - -“I am sure we shall appreciate him,” was the half-mocking rejoinder. -“Young men who come to Highmount driving their own tonneau cars are not -so plentiful.” - -Tregarvon’s laugh was not more than decently boastful. - -“This particular tonneau car happens to be mine,” he explained. -“Besides, Carfax might discount your praise. His latest purchase is an -imported Dumont-Sillery, I believe. It probably cost three times as -much as mine; and on the other side of the water, at that.” - -“How easily and familiarly you talk of imported luxuries and ‘the -other side’,” she commented, still in the mocking vein. And then, -with an exactly proportioned touch of wistfulness: “I wish I might -have a glimpse into your world; the world you have turned your back -upon--temporarily.” - -Tregarvon slid into this little pitfall without realizing that it had -been digged especially for him, thus proving that social hunger may -be as blind as any of the other appetites. So far from suspecting -pitfalls, he was thinking that there were many less enjoyable -diversions than sitting in a moderately secluded corner of a dimly -lighted veranda in the company of a young woman who was kind enough to -evince an interest in a chance visitor’s proper sphere. - -“It is not such a very high-planed world, the one I’ve left behind, -Miss Richardia; not nearly as human as this of Coalville and Mount -Pisgah,” he returned. “I believe I have seen more real human nature in -the past three weeks than I had ever seen before.” - -“You mean that the other world is artificial?” - -“It is; without intending to be, especially. We are not elemental any -more; not even in our passions. We do things in a certain well-defined -way because that is the way other people do them. We are afraid, or at -least disinclined, to strike out on new lines.” - -“You have struck out on a new line, haven’t you?” she asked. - -“I have been pushed out, in this Ocoee matter. There is enough of the -elemental surviving in me to make me break with traditions and become -a hustler when it is a question of bread and meat for my mother and -sister. But apart from that, I suppose I am quite as hidebound as other -men of my world.” - -“And Mr. Carfax?” she queried. “Is he a slave to conventions, too?” - -“Poictiers is a law unto himself in a good many ways; but on the -whole, he’s tarred with the same stick. You will remark his regalia: -I couldn’t have pulled him up here to-night with a three-inch hawser -if he hadn’t happened to have evening clothes in his kit. And he has -brought his man; a typical Cockney valet, knee-smalls, Oxford ties, and -all.” - -Miss Richardia’s quiet laugh fitted the incongruity. But when she spoke -again it was of the business affair. - -“You are at work on the Ocoee?” she inquired. - -“Yes, indeed! I am going to make a spoon or spoil a perfectly good -horn. You must all come over and see my test-drilling outfit when we -get it going.” - -“Is it your machine that we can see over beyond the glen? I wonder -if you could make me understand what you are going to do?” she said, -with interest real or so skilfully feigned that Tregarvon could not -distinguish the difference. - -He expressed himself as being very willing to try; did try at some -considerable length. And Miss Birrell, notwithstanding an air of -abstraction that seemed to come and go, appeared to grasp the -mechanical details. - -“You have no doubt that you will succeed? It will be fine to prove to -everybody that all that was needed was for some one to come from the -other world--your world--to show them how to do it.” - -Tregarvon winced, seeing now the pitfall into which he had suffered -himself to be led. - -“Is that the impression I’ve been giving you?” he asked. “Do I -advertise myself as such a blooming bounder as that would signify?” - -“Forgive me,” she said, with a little laugh which might have meant -anything from veiled ridicule to a keen appreciation of a palpable -hit. “I suspect it is the way of your world to be austerely sufficient -unto itself. You may contradict me if I am wrong.” - -“Nonsense!” he exclaimed generously. “You are as much of my world as I -am.” - -“Oh, no!” she objected: “we are only poor outlanders. I was called that -once, in Boston; not spitefully, of course, but rather as an excuse for -my shortcomings, I fancy.” - -“Whoever said it was a snob,” he exploded. “Boston is horribly -provincial, at times, you know.” - -“And Philadelphia never is?” - -“I shouldn’t dare to make the claim too broad. But I am sure -we recognize the fact that there is an America west of the -Alleghenies--and south of Mason and Dixon’s line.” - -“That is charitable, at least,” she conceded. “Still, you think it is -left for you to demonstrate success where others have failed--in the -Ocoee undertaking.” - -“I hadn’t thought of it in that way,” he answered, with due modesty. -“Indeed, I know little or nothing about the early history of the mine. -My father became interested in it some years before he died, and I -think he always regarded it as a dead loss. But he bought the stock, -or rather, I should say, had it forced upon him, when it was pretty -cheap, and----” - -“Yes,” she interrupted, a little forbiddingly, he thought; and then -she began to speak of other things as if groping for a more congenial -common ground. It was found when Tregarvon confessed to an amiable -weakness for good music. - -“I’ll play for you if you wish,” she said almost abruptly; and it was -an hour later when Carfax entered the music-room to break the spell -which Miss Richardia had woven about her single listener. - -“You must do this again, but not too often,” was Tregarvon’s -half-jesting warning to his entertainer at the moment of leave-taking; -a moment snatched while Carfax was giving the privileged seniors a spin -around the campus drive in the yellow car. - -“Why not often?--or as often as you care to come?” the musician asked -indifferently. - -“Because I am much too impressionable. You could very easily make me -forget some things that it is up to me to remember.” - -“For example?” she prompted. - -“It’s a long story, and Poictiers won’t give me time to tell it now. -But some other evening, if I may come?” - -“Why shouldn’t you come when you feel like it? I hope you won’t go away -underestimating your welcome--you and Mr. Carfax. You owe it to us to -come frequently, so that the novelty will wear off--for the student -body. I’ll venture to assert that Miss Longstreet has been having the -time of her life keeping order in the dormitories this evening. Good -night; and give my love to Uncle William.” - -“To Uncle William? Then you know him?” - -She laughed and showed him that Carfax was waiting for him. “Uncle -William will know who sent the message if you say ‘Miss Dick’,” she -explained; and he was obliged to accept this as an answer to his eager -question. - -The road down the mountain was a speeding track only in spots, and -between stretches the big car crept at a snail’s pace on the brakes, -and so permitted conversation. - -Carfax began it in genial raillery, congratulating Tregarvon upon the -accessibility of Highmount and the very evident heartiness of his -welcome. - -“You can’t desiccate entirely down here, Vance, with such a well-spring -of youth and beauty as that within shouting distance,” he remarked. - -But Tregarvon was thinking pointedly of Miss Richardia when he -rejoined: “She is a puzzle to me, Poictiers; nothing less.” - -“The charming music teacher, you mean? Peaches-and-cream, I’d call her, -if she’d let me.” - -“You’re blind; blind as a mole!” retorted Tregarvon. “Why, man! she is -anything but that--or those.” - -“Doubtless,” Carfax laughed. “They are all ‘anything but that’ when -you get down under the pose. But ‘peaches-and-cream’ is Miss Birrell’s -pose, just the same; not the conventional kind they serve you at the -Waldorf or Ritz-Carlton, of course, but the sort you get when the cream -comes thick and rich from your own dairy, and the peaches are picked, -sun-warm, in your own orchard. You may tell her that, if you like, and -palm it off as original with you. Strikes me it’s rather neat.” - -“Oh, you go hang!” said Tregarvon. “I don’t have to work in your -compliments, second-hand. I can turn ’em myself, at a pinch.” - -At this point a half-mile of good road beckoned for speed, and the talk -was interrupted. When it was resumed at the next curving hazard in the -pike, Carfax had somewhat to say about the Ocoee. - -“What do you know about the ancient history of your mine, Vance?” he -asked, when the topic was fairly launched. - -“Nothing much, in detail. Why?” - -“I was asking for information. President Caswell was speaking of it -while you were in the music-room with Miss Birrell. He came out and -sat with us for half an hour or so. There is a mystery of some sort -connected with the Ocoee.” - -“Sure!” said Tregarvon. “The mystery is six feet thick, and it consists -of a layer of good solid sandstone. I’m about to penetrate it with a -test-drill.” - -“No; I didn’t mean that,” Carfax objected. “It is another kind of -mystery. I’ll tell you what Doctor Caswell said, and you may draw your -own conclusions. We had been talking about superstitions and their -hold upon humanity. I was scoffing, as usual, but the president seemed -inclined to a belief that Providence or fate, or whatever you wish to -call it, does interfere sometimes; and that these interferences form a -basis for some of the convictions we call superstitions.” - -“All of which would seem to be a good many miles from a pair of coal -seams made profitless by a stone ‘horse’ between them,” suggested -Tregarvon mildly. - -“I’m coming to that; the distance isn’t so great as it may seem. -The doctor rode his notion as if it were a hobby. He spoke of the -well-grounded belief in the saying that ‘murder will out,’ and insisted -that the facts proved the truth of this saying; facts which were often -mysterious. Then he referred to that other pet notion of the bulk of -mankind: that misfortune pursues the possessor of ill-gotten gains. To -my astonishment, he pointed to your Ocoee property as an example.” - -“The dickens he did!” exclaimed Tregarvon, with interest suddenly -awakened. “How did he make the Ocoee fit in?” - -“That is the peculiar part of it. When I betrayed my complete ignorance -of matters Ocoeean by beginning to ask questions, he shut up like a -clam. All I could get out of him was an assertion that misfortunes had -accompanied every succeeding attempt to open the mine, and that they -would doubtless continue to follow until justice was done.” - -“But justice to whom?” queried Tregarvon. “You didn’t let it rest at -that, I hope.” - -“I tried not to, but he gave me a dignified cold shoulder and referred -me to you; said you doubtless knew all the circumstances, and would, -he hoped, take proper steps toward removing the curse.” - -The descent of Pisgah was accomplished, and Tregarvon steered the -yellow car into an empty warehouse which was to be its garage. - -Later, when he was showing his guest to the sleeping-room made ready -for him by Uncle William, he said: “I don’t wish to pull you into this -thing with me blindfolded, Poictiers. If there is a skeleton in the -Ocoee closet, I’ll have it out and give it decent Christian burial -before I ask you to back me.” - -But at this, Carfax appeared at his multi-millionaire best. - -“You’ll do nothing of the sort, old man. You will find me some old -clothes to-morrow morning and we’ll go up and set your test-drill at -work. Further along, when more money is needed, I’ll go somewhere to a -bank and turn the fortunate spigot. We’ve got to make a go of your mine -now, if only to show Doctor Caswell that the superstitions can’t prove -up on this particular homestead.” - - - - -V - -Partly Sentimental - - -Carfax’s promise to stay and see the Ocoee experiment fairly on its -feet was made in good faith, as the idlers at Tait’s store, and more -than these, a London-bred and disconsolate Merkley, were shortly -given to understand. Moreover, the golden youth’s threat of wearing -old clothes and dipping into the crude mechanical processes of the -experiment was also carried out; which not only deepened Merkley’s -conviction that he had attached himself to a mild-mannered lunatic of -a peculiarly American type, but left him without an occupation--a mere -fragment of urban flotsam eddying in the backlash of a rude current of -bucolic unfamiliarity. - -Unlike Rucker, the mechanician, who promptly donned overalls and -jumper, pulled his tight-fitting burglar’s cap down to his ears, and -put himself at the head of Tregarvon’s drilling squad on the mountain -top, Merkley took to drink and the company of the loungers on Tait’s -porch. Here he became (though unhappily without knowing it) a target -for the shrewd wit of the idlers, and, what he was even further from -suspecting, the gossip circle’s chief source of information touching -the daily progress of the latest attempt to make a silk purse out of -the Ocoee sow’s ear. - -At first there was little for Merkley to tell, and the army of -leisure, smoking its corn-cob pipes and whittling the corners of the -packing-boxes on Tait’s porch, looked on and amused itself by slyly -baiting the disconsolate Londoner. - -Day by day, Tregarvon, Carfax, and the promoted chauffeur turned out -early in the morning, took their places with the native laborers in the -tram-car, and were lifted to the scene of their labors on high Pisgah. -At sunset they came down, ate much, smoked a little, talked less, and, -save for an occasional evening when Tregarvon and his guest got out the -yellow automobile and drove to Highmount College, went early to bed as -those who had earned their rest by good, honest muscle-weariness. - -But when the smoke plume streaming bravely from the stack of the -mountain-top drilling plant announced the actual beginning of the -experiment, Merkley brought news to Tait’s. Something had gone wrong -on the mountain summit; something was continually going wrong. The -two young men inhabiting the tumble-down office-building across the -railroad-track no longer went to bed immediately after their evening -meal. Instead, there were prolonged conferences behind the closed door -of the dining-room in the rear. - -In addition to this, Rucker, characterized by Merkley as a despised, -greasy-handed mechanic, whose burglarish aspect would earn him the -attentions of a plain-clothes policeman in any properly Scotland-Yarded -city of the world, was sometimes called in to these dining-room -conferences, while he, Merkley, once the confidential and trusted valet -of his Grace the Duke of Marlford, was excluded. At this point in his -narrative, Merkley, being the worse for two or three tiltings of Jeff -Walters’s or old man Layne’s jug of corn whiskey, would become tearful -and despondent. - -These Merklean hints of a changed condition of affairs on Mount -Pisgah were well buttressed by sundry discouraging facts. During the -making-ready of the drilling plant everything had gone on fairly -well. But dating from the hour when Rucker had first sent live steam -whistling into the cylinder of the small portable engine which -furnished the power, a stream of disaster had trickled discouragingly -and persistently upon the experiment. - -First the drills went dull and refused to cut the fine-grained -sandstone of the plateau; and when Rucker had retempered them, the -engine worked water and started a cylinder-head. After the cylinder was -repaired, one of the natives who was firing the boiler let the water -get too low--to the loosening of some of the boiler-flues, and to the -imminent risk of an explosion. - -Rucker, handiest of mechanics, calked an entire day on the loosened -flues, and the machinery was started again. Two hours later the -pivot-bolt of the big timber walking-beam which imparted the -up-and-down motion to the drill worked loose, and the walking-beam came -down, one end of it narrowly missing Tregarvon, and the other wrecking -the machinery to the tune of a hundred dollars and an indefinite -interval of waiting for renewals. - -It was after this last and most disheartening of the disasters, the -only one thus far that Rucker had not been able to repair on the spot, -that the two young men once more shut the door of the back-office -dining-room upon a disappointed London serving-man. - -“By George! I’m beginning to come around to your view of it, -Poictiers,” said Tregarvon, cramming his pipe with dry tobacco from -the jar set out by Uncle William. “These setbacks are knocking us too -regularly to fit decently into any chapter of accidents. I’m beginning -to believe they are inspired.” - -“That is precisely what I have been trying to tell you and Rucker all -along, but neither of you would have it that way,” rejoined Carfax -coolly. - -“Well, carry your theory to a conclusion; who’s doing it?” - -“Ah! now you are getting out to a place where the water is over my -head,” Carfax admitted, toying delicately with a pipeful of strong -“natural-leaf” tobacco. “According to Captain Duncan’s prophecy, you -have two possible ill-wishers--haven’t you?--the C. C. & I. people and -the McNabbs.” - -“Yes; but it is rather incredible on both counts, don’t you think? You -can hardly imagine a great corporation getting down on its hands and -knees to chuck pebbles into the wheels of our little mechanism up on -Pisgah.” - -Carfax nodded. Then he said: “How about the McNabbs?” - -“It seems rather more in their line, you’d say. And yet I haven’t a -shadow of right to accuse them. So far, they are entirely mythological; -a mere name mentioned by Captain Duncan and a few others. So far as I -am aware, I have not yet seen a McNabb.” - -“Whoever it is who is setting these little traps for us is deucedly -clever,” remarked Carfax, who was still toying half-heartedly with his -long-stemmed pipe. “Rucker is fooled, all right; he still insists that -it is mere hard luck.” - -“Yes, and that is another argument against the McNabb hypothesis,” -Tregarvon put in. “It would take a pretty skilful mechanic to fool -Rucker; and from what I can hear, these title-claimants are ignorant -mountaineers whose mechanical gifts most probably don’t rise beyond -the lock action of an old-fashioned squirrel-rifle or the simple -intricacies of a ten-quart whiskey-still.” - -“Which brings us back to the original proposition--the C. C. & I.,” -suggested Carfax reflectively, and, after a pause: “How long is this -last smash going to hang us up?” - -“Three or four days. If Rucker gets back from Chattanooga with the new -gears by Monday, he will be doing well.” - -“All right. To-morrow morning I shall ask you to lend me your yellow -chug-wagon. I have a premonition that the spirit will move me to go and -run this little mystery of yours into a corner.” - -Tregarvon laughed good-naturedly. “You’d much better go back to your -own stamping-ground and begin to take up your shooting engagements. You -can’t afford to stay down here monkeying with this last-resort hustle -of mine.” - -The golden youth was looking shrewdly over the smoke wreaths at his -companion. - -“Is it a last resort, Vance?” he asked quietly, adding: “You have never -told me much about the family smash.” - -“It was complete, Poictiers; an up-to-date, finished product of modern -high-finance methods. The Vanderburg crowd got father against the wall -in the steel merger, and--well, you’ll know how bad it was when I tell -you that it killed him. The doctors said pneumonia, but it was really a -Wall Street sand-bagging. He didn’t leave a will; and when we gathered -up the fragments afterward, we knew why he didn’t; there wasn’t enough -to make it worth while. So, you see, the Ocoee _is_ a last resort, for -me.” - -Carfax was musing again. - -“Yet you are going to many a comfortable little gold mine,” he said, -after a time. - -“Uncle Byrd’s Colorado millions?--yes. And I am rather sorry; for -Elizabeth’s sake, not less than for my own. We were engaged before -Uncle Byrd died, and he knew it. It was entirely unnecessary--not to -say cruel--for him to leave his fortune to Elizabeth on the condition -that she shouldn’t change her mind and marry somebody else, and to me -in case she did.” - -Carfax did not comment upon the cruelty. He was perfectly familiar with -the terms of Mr. Byrd Tregarvon’s will. Instead, he said: “You hear -from Elizabeth regularly, I suppose?” - -“Oh, certainly. Duty is always written out in large capitals for -Elizabeth.” - -“And you think she writes to you from a sense of duty?” - -“We needn’t put it just that way. But I have no doubt she conceives it -to be her duty to a man she has promised to marry.” - -“You shouldn’t say such things as that, Vance, not even to me,” -corrected the other man quickly. - -“I know I shouldn’t. It is only one of the many ways in which Uncle -Byrd’s millions corrode things. Without meaning to, the old uncle stood -matters upon an entirely different, and most difficult, footing for us -two. We meant to marry: we had passed our word to the various members -of the clan that we were going to marry; and the clan was glad because -it had always counted upon that outcome for us. So far as a man up a -tree might discern, it was a perfectly free choice for both of us.” - -“Go on,” said Carfax, when Tregarvon stopped to refill his pipe. - -“Then one day, out of a clear sky, _zip!_ comes Uncle Byrd with his -will and his millions. After which, of course, Elizabeth can’t throw -me over without impoverishing herself; and it is equally out of the -question for me to let her do it. Moreover, it is imperatively up to me -to make good before I marry her. If I don’t, uncharitable people will -say that I let go of the business end of things because I knew that my -wife’s money would stop all the holes to keep the wind away. There you -have it--sermon length.” - -Carfax smoked in sober silence for quite a few minutes. Then he -said mildly: “Do you know, Vance, I don’t more than half like your -attitude--as you’ve just expressed it?” - -Tregarvon’s smile was a grin. - -“Tell me what there is about it that you don’t like, and I’ll change -it, Poictiers. You are by long odds the best friend I have in the -world, and I’d change a dozen attitudes for you, any day in the week.” - -“It isn’t lover-like,” Carfax objected. - -“You mean that it is too purely cousinly? I can’t very well help that -phase of it, you know; we _are_ cousins, and we have been trotting -around together, more or less, ever since Noah walked out of the ark. -Nothing like that for killing sentiment.” - -“But sentiment shouldn’t be killed, if you are going to marry -Elizabeth,” insisted the purist. - -“We have threshed all that out, time and again, down to the final -spear of straw, Elizabeth and I,” Tregarvon explained carelessly. “At -first we did try to galvanize ourselves into some of the sentimental -throes, but it was such a ridiculous little comedy that Elizabeth -herself called it off. We are sufficiently fond of each other; Uncle -Byrd’s will is mandatory, and we shall be able to live together without -quarrelling. What more could you ask?” - -“I don’t know,” said Carfax thoughtfully. “Your summary fits in pretty -accurately with the way of the world. Yet, if I had to change places -with either of you, I fancy I should ask a good bit more.” - -“If you were Elizabeth Wardwell, you wouldn’t ask any more; and if you -were Vance Tregarvon, you couldn’t. So there you are.” - -Again there was a smoke-beclouded silence, and into the thick of it -Carfax launched a pointed query: - -“Have you told Elizabeth anything at all about the girls’ school on the -mountain--Highmount?” - -“Oh, sure; and about the bewitching Miss Birrell, as well. I always -tell Elizabeth everything; I haven’t sense enough not to.” - -“And her comment?” asked the golden one half-absently. - -“On Miss Birrell, you mean? To tell the brazen truth, I -expected a wigging; not anything like a jealous outbreak, you -understand--Elizabeth is miles above that--but some nicely worded, -cool-lipped advice about not pitching the conventions out at the -window just because I happen to be living a thousand miles from real -civilization--Philadelphia civilization.” - -“And you didn’t get it?” - -“No, indeed. She didn’t say a word about Miss Birrell, specifically, -but she wrote me a good cousinly letter in which she told me how glad -she was that I needn’t deny myself all of the social mitigations, and -urging me not to let my job on the Ocoee make a one-sided hermit of me. -That letter came nearer to making me sentimental over her than anything -else she has ever said or done. It did, for a fact.” - -Carfax did not vote Aye or No on this. He appeared content to let -the sentimental matter rest, since he went back to the business -difficulties. - -“About this last-resort tussle of yours, Vance, I see now why it is -mighty necessary for you to make it win, and I wish you had a little -better assurance that you are not up against a brace game; that Old -Pisgah hasn’t stacked the cards on you.” - -“I can’t very well afford to think of that possibility,” said Tregarvon -grimly. - -“No, I suppose you can’t. Yet if the genially cynical attitude of the -native bystander counts for anything----” - -“The loafers over at Tait’s, you mean? They’d scoff at anything that -smelled of good, honest work.” - -“I wasn’t thinking of them particularly, though they help swell the -grand total. But the entire countryside seems to think that you are -barking up an empty tree. President Caswell says you are wasting time -and money; and that mild-eyed, clerical-looking professor of sciences, -Hartridge, fairly chortled when I told him what we were doing. You may -remember that he strolled over from Highmount the day we started the -drill.” - -“What did he say?” Tregarvon demanded. - -“He very pointedly said nothing. But there was a look in his skim-milk -eyes that recalled the villain in a play.” - -Tregarvon was laughing appreciatively. “You have an eye for the -dramatic possibilities, always, haven’t you, Poictiers? Why should Mr. -William Wilberforce Hartridge have it in for me?” - -“I can only make a crude guess. Even a mild-eyed professor of sciences -may turn, like the trodden worm. You umpire him out of the game pretty -ruthlessly when we spend an evening at Highmount.” - -“With Miss Richardia? Pshaw! you don’t suppose that dried-up old stick -of a pedagogue--why, it would be Beauty and the Beast!” - -Carfax’s smile was truly angelic, but it betrayed a wisdom far beyond -his years. - -“Yes,” he rejoined reflectively, “Hartridge may be all of ten years -your senior--possibly fifteen. No doubt he ought to be quietly -chloroformed and carried behind the scenes. But, as I say, he -chortled--with his eyes--when I told him that you were planning to -drill a series of test-holes, continuing the series until you find -the place where your two coal seams come together as one. He is a -geologist, among other things, and they tell me he knows this region -like a book. I believe I’d cultivate him a little, if I were you; even -if it did cost me an occasional _tête-à-tête_ with Miss Richardia -Birrell.” - -Tregarvon scoffed hardily at the suggestion, and the scorn was not -thrown away upon his companion. Perhaps that was the reason why Carfax, -going to bed a little later, without the ministrations of a lachrymose -and whiskey-breathing Merkley, opened the back of his watch to gaze -long and earnestly at a picture therein, closing the case finally -with a little sigh. Millions are good things in their way, but there -be pearls, trampled thoughtlessly underfoot by the millionless, which -millions cannot buy. - - - - -VI - -Daddy Layne, and Others - - -On the morning after the crash of the walking-beam and the consequent -halting of the mountain-top activities, Carfax took the yellow car out -of its warehouse garage; and after driving for a half-hour or so up -and down the valley road with a tonneauful of speechless but highly -delighted children picked up at Tryon’s and Jeff Walters’s, he pulled -up in front of Tait’s and went in, ostensibly to buy smoking tobacco, -but really to make friends with the country-store idlers. - -Cursory observers from an alien North, penetrating now and then to -unhackneyed regions in the Cumberlands or the Great Smokies, are apt -to find the country folk, either valley or mountain bred, reticent by -nature and notably shy of strangers. But there was no resisting the -genial and childlike affability of the young man who had been giving -the village children joy-rides, who recklessly bought a box of Tait’s -best two-for-a-nickel cigars and distributed them generously as one -among friends, and who presently had the hood lifted from the yellow -car’s motor installation and was explaining, in words of one syllable, -the workings of the driving mechanism to a group of curious and deeply -interested onlookers. - -The small lecture explanatory gave Carfax a chance to pick his man, and -the choice fell upon the elder Layne. Would Mr. Layne like to take a -little ride up the road in the car?--just to see how much more easily -manageable it was than a horse-drawn vehicle? - -Daddy Layne was overwhelmed with embarrassment, and was also secretly -puffed up with pride, though he did not yield too easily, a disposition -to haggle and make terms being a ruling passion in the Layne nature. - -“I ’low I warn’t thinkin’ none o’ takin’ a trip this mornin’,” he mused -reflectively. “Man ortn’t to go projeckin’ ’round on his’n travels when -thar’s sech a heap o’ work to be done on the place. But then, thar’s my -married daughter Malviny--her man’s coal-diggin’ for the C. C. & I., up -yander at Whitlow; ef ye could git me thar an’ back----” - -Carfax assured him that there was nothing easier, and by dint of -holding the big car down to its slowest speed on the five-mile run to -Whitlow he accomplished his purpose, which was to beguile Layne into -telling him all that the countryside knew about the C. C. & I., its -methods, its local managers, and whether or not the report was true -that it made industrial war upon the smaller companies and individual -mine owners. - -Layne gave him the countryside point of view, which was, of course, -inimical to the corporation--to any corporation. The C. C. & I. paid -its men next to nothing for digging the coal and then sold it for -fabulous prices to the people in the cities; it ran company stores -and the miner who refused to buy his supplies thereat was likely to -find himself out of a job; when a coal-digger was hurt or killed in an -accident, the company’s long purse defeated the ends of justice in the -damage suit; and so on to the end of the accusative category. - -Pinned down to the particulars about the Whitlow, Layne admitted that -the young engineer in charge as superintendent was a “squar’” man; but -Connolly, the local manager under this superintendent, was, in Layne’s -description, a man-killer. As to the company’s policy toward its -competitors, Layne could say nothing definite, the countryside point -of view not being penetrative of hidden corporation methods. But it -was true that the only mines in operation in the valley belonged to the -C. C. & I. Company. Others had been opened from time to time, but they -were usually short-lived. - -This drawing of Daddy Layne on the drive to Whitlow, and, later, -an interview with Connolly, a hard-mouthed Irishman whose crass -brutality apparently justified Layne’s descriptive epithet of “the -man-killer,” gave Carfax a clue which he followed patiently until it -was time to take Layne back to Coalville; a clue which led to a scraped -acquaintance with the local leaders of the Amalgamated Mine Workers, -to affable and seemingly pointless talks with all who dared to talk, -and finally to a friendly conference with the miner Dockery, Layne’s -son-in-law. - -“The kindling-wood for your obstruction fire is all cut and stacked -at Whitlow, Vance,” was his dinner-table announcement to Tregarvon at -the close of this day of investigation. “I have discovered a number of -things. First, that the C. C. & I. methods of benevolent assimilation -as directed toward possible competitors have varied from instigating -all sorts of trouble in the mines to be squelched up to swallowing them -whole in forced sales of stock.” - -“That sounds cheerful,” said Tregarvon. “Go on.” - -“Next, they leave it to the local managers to nip any new venture in -the bud as effectually and quietly as possible, without bothering the -trust headquarters. I took a long chance on Connolly, the assistant -superintendent at Whitlow, and got that much of it pretty straight.” - -“You don’t mean to say that he admitted any such thing as that to you, -when it is known all up and down the valley that you are interested -here with me!” exclaimed Tregarvon, wholly incredulous. - -Carfax’s smile would have made a blushing debutante envious. - -“In Mr. Connolly’s office, I was a lost lamb of the flock, looking -most pathetically for somebody to lead me home,” he rejoined. “A -fellow named Tregarvon had got me down here from New York with a view -to pulling my financial leg as an investor in some coal property a -few miles down the valley--at Coalville, in fact. I enlarged somewhat -upon this part of it; kept it up until I was reasonably sure that I -had convinced Connolly that I am a woolly sheep, merely waiting for -somebody to come along with a pair of sharp shears.” - -“Good--ripping good!” Tregarvon chuckled. “You’ve missed your calling, -Poictiers, by all the distance lying between Riverside Drive and the -city detective department down-town. But, as you say, you took a long -chance; unless Connolly is a bigger fool than he looks to be.” - -“Didn’t I? But Connolly is simply an abysmal brute; a man-driver -without any of the little gifts of perspicacity. He took me under his -wing like a stepfather-in-law; advised me bluntly to put my money into -Consolidated Coal at one-forty rather than to go gunning on my own -hook, or yours, or anybody’s, in Consolidated Coal’s intimate back -yard. Pressed a little harder, he hinted that you wouldn’t be allowed -to dig any real coal out of the Ocoee, providing there were any worth -digging--which there wasn’t.” - -“‘Wouldn’t be allowed, Mr. Connolly?’ said I, as lamb-like as possible. -‘How could Tregarvon be prevented?’” - -“‘There’s manny a way, Misther Carfax,’ he scowled up at me; and -then he let the cat out of the pillow-case: ‘These young min widout -practical experience--’tis manny a blunder they’ll be making, and -they’re soon discouraged entirely. I’m hearing that this same Misther -Tregarvin is having throuble to beat the band, and him not fair at the -beginning of it yet.’” - -Tregarvon was absently spilling a spoonful of sugar into his -after-dinner coffee--a sufficient measure of his interest in Carfax’s -story. - -“From all of which you have argued that there is a C. C. & I. spy in -our camp, haven’t you, Poictiers?” he said. - -“Yes.” - -“And the remedy?” - -“Is to find and fire him.” - -“The firing part of it will be easy; but the finding is a horse of -another color. All of my squad save one or two, I believe, have worked -at odd times for the C. C. & I. Every able-bodied man in this region -digs coal a little now and then; ‘huckleberry miners,’ the regulars -call them.” - -“We’ll simply have to watch and sift; that’s all,” said Carfax. - -“Well, you’ve done a good day’s work, anyway,” was Tregarvon’s -summing-up of the amateur detective’s report. “Candidly, I didn’t think -you had it in you, Poictiers. You don’t look it, you know--to the naked -eye.” - -The angelic smile came and sat upon the clean-shaven, womanish face of -the golden youth. - -“Don’t you know, Vance,” he drawled lispingly, “I believe that is my -strong point: not looking the ready-made, hand-me-down villain. It -is foolishly easy to make people take me for a harmless, good-natured -scrap-bag into which they can tuck any old thing they don’t happen to -be needing at the moment. Why, even old Daddy Layne confided in me. -Coming home, he told me all about the feud of the family of one of his -sons-in-law with the McNabbs. By the way, that reminds me: did you know -that you have two of the McNabb cousins in your working gang?--the -fellows who call themselves Morgan and Sill?” - -Tregarvon had not known it; and a new field of conjecture as to the -disasters was promptly opened. Why charge the coal trust with the -campaign of obstruction when two of the avowed enemies of Ocoee -progress were right on the ground day by day? - -Carfax rather sheepishly confessed that his brain had not been -capacious enough to entertain two ideas at once. Having fixed upon the -coal trust as the trouble source to be investigated, he had completely -overlooked the McNabb alternative. - -“I’ll do time for it, though,” he promised. “To-morrow will be -Saturday; and if you’ll lend me the car again, I’ll find out something -more about those moonshiners in the Pocket.” - -“Not alone, you won’t,” Tregarvon objected joyously. “It is going to be -my Saturday off, too--and a holiday at Highmount. I’ll go with you, as -far as the college, anyway.” - - - - -VII - -Company Come - - -On the day following Carfax’s journey of investigation to Whitlow, -Tregarvon did not keep his promise to accompany the amateur Vidocq. -There were still some repairs to be made on the tramway, and since -a working squad of the laborers turned up to round out the week, -Tregarvon stayed with his men and became a track foreman again. - -Carfax, too, had apparently changed his mind overnight. Instead of -driving off up the mountain after breakfast, he headed the yellow car -down the valley road and was gone all day. When he returned, late in -the afternoon, it was evident that he had discovered some other way -of ascending Pisgah. The committee of leisure, sitting, as usual, on -Tait’s porch, and amusing itself, also as usual, at the expense of an -expatriated London serving-man, marked the yellow car returning by way -of the mountain pike; observed, further, that Carfax was accompanied -by two men, one of whom sprang from the car at the turn in the -road nearest to the railway and ran to catch a northbound train of -coal-empties, so escaping unidentified by the idlers. Carfax’s other -passenger, well-known to Coalville as “The Bug Professor” at Highmount, -descended from the auto more deliberately and went across to the -coke-ovens to shake hands with Tregarvon. - -“Comp’ny come, over yander,” Daddy Layne remarked to Merkley. “Better -hump yo’self acrost the track an’ git ready to curl yo’ boss’s ha’r, -hadn’t ye, English?” - -Merkley adjourned himself accordingly, reaching the office-building -in time to be sent to show Hartridge the way to the bath-room on -the second floor. Carfax made no explanation to Tregarvon about the -guest-bringing other than to say that he had captured the professor -on the mountain, and had brought him down to take pot-luck of Uncle -William’s preparing. - -“We can eat him all right,” said the young mine owner hospitably; “but -if we have to sleep him as well----” - -“We shan’t,” Carfax asserted. “I have promised to drive him back to -Highmount in the car after dinner.” - -“Oh, that’s better. Who was the other fellow?--the one who jumped out -and sprinted for the up freight?” - -“Wait,” said Carfax mysteriously; “wait and you’ll find out.” And -Tregarvon, having no alternative, had to wait. - -The dinner for three in the back-office dining-room followed in due -course, and Tregarvon, who brought a working-man’s appetite to the -table, let the other two do most of the talking. Carfax proved to be -at his captivating best; solicitous for the guest’s entertainment, -ingenuous, eager to be informed. Wouldn’t Mr. Hartridge have some more -of the--er--rabbit, he thought it must be? And was it really a fact -that the entire Cumberland region was underlaid by a vast sheet of -bituminous coal? - -Tregarvon ate and listened, and presently became aware of two -things: that Carfax was persistently threshing the talk around to -the coal-measures, and that the professor seemed equally determined -to escape from them. A little later, he observed that in this verbal -ball-passing Carfax was proving himself the better player. Hartridge -was coerced inch by inch; first into talking about the Southern -coal-fields in the abstract, and finally into relating the ancient -history of the Ocoee; which was the purpose for which Carfax had -baited and set the dinner trap. - -“I suspect Mr. Tregarvon can tell you more about the history of the -Ocoee than I can,” Hartridge demurred modestly, after Carfax had -fairly pushed him over the brink; and upon Tregarvon’s monosyllabic -disclaimer, he went on reflectively: “Let me see; I believe it was -about ten years ago that the first company was formed--to the sound of -the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, as you might -say.” - -“A promoter’s scheme?” queried Carfax, alertly inquisitive now. - -“Yes. A man from New York--Parker was his name--launched the -enterprise; bought a little land, obtained free-will donations of a -great deal more, and, as a favor to the benighted natives who had -contributed the land, consented to part with about forty-five per cent -of the stock of his company at half-price, payable in money.” - -“Dear, dear; what a world this is!” sighed Carfax gently. “Sold them -their own land back again, did he? And then what?” - -Hartridge’s smile was genially cynical. - -“I think it took the able Mr. Parker all of four months, or possibly -a little longer, to squeeze the local stockholders--the only -investors who had contributed any real values--out of his scheme; -after which he sold the reorganized Ocoee to a New England syndicate. -The Yankees--pardon me; the word is no longer a term of reproach with -us--the Yankees meant honestly by the Ocoee; though, of course, they -were under no obligation to recognize the frozen-out natives. They -spent money liberally in development and on a costly equipment. But it -proved to be a bad investment for them--as it had for the natives.” - -“Ah,” murmured Carfax. “Now I am better able to understand President -Caswell’s attitude. In strict justice, he would say, the mine belongs -to those earliest investors who contributed the land and bought the -stock; or at least these early people should have an equity in it. -These later--er--Yankees had no ethical rights; hence their venture was -bound to be ill-starred. By Jove, Tregarvon,”--and here Carfax’s lisp -became quite apparent--“that puts the black mark on you, too, doesn’t -it?” - -If Carfax had any diplomatic designs on the dinner-guest, Tregarvon was -not a party to them. - -“I only know that my father paid good money for the Ocoee,” he said -bluntly; “paid it to these same Yankees you are telling us about, Mr. -Hartridge, when they were ready to lie down. It is up to me to prove -that they didn’t stick him as bad as they doubtless believed they were -sticking him when they pulled him into it.” - -Carfax, who was observing the dinner-guest narrowly, saw the sign he -had been watching for flit into the pale-blue eyes of Mr. William -Wilberforce Hartridge; a half-smile of gratified derision. - -“You think Vance isn’t very likely to make good on his little brag, -professor?” he put in, firing a pointblank shot at the target. - -There was no indication that the shot had gone home, unless it lay in -the quick veiling of the pale-blue eyes. - -“Who am I, that I should take out a license as a prophet of evil, Mr. -Carfax?” was the quiet rejoinder. “He is a brave man nowadays who has -the assurance to deny anything whatever to youth, vigor, and the spirit -of modern industry.” - -“Still, you believe that Tregarvon isn’t going to win out?” persisted -the golden youth. - -Hartridge laughed. - -“As Miss Richardia might put it, I haven’t any think coming to me, have -I?” he parried. - -Carfax gave it up. There was a point beyond which he could not press -a man who was dipping with him into the common salt-dish, and he felt -that the point had been reached. - -“It is a pity you can’t stay and spend the evening with us, Mr. -Hartridge,” he said, a little further along, when Uncle William came -in to bare the table; but he added nothing to the conventional protest -when the professor declared that he must go: on the contrary, he sped -the parting guest so nimbly that Tregarvon was scarcely at his third -pipe-filling when the purring of the yellow car’s motor announced -Carfax’s return from Highmount. - -“I told you so!” was the New Yorker’s first word, as he came in to take -his place before the handful of fire on the dining-room hearth. “Where -is my pipe?” - -“What did you tell me?” queried Tregarvon, finding the pipe and pushing -the tobacco within reach. - -“That Hartridge knows, or thinks he knows, that you are on a false -scent up yonder on the Pisgah cliffs: also, that he is deuced glad of -it.” - -“You can see farther into the millstone than I can, if you can draw any -such conclusion as that,” Tregarvon remarked. “I thought he bluffed you -good and plenty.” - -“He did; and then again he didn’t. I insist that there is something -doing, and that this mild-mannered gentleman who teaches mathematics -and the natural sciences is in on it. I have just had an experience -that was an eye-opener.” - -“Unload it,” said Tregarvon briefly. - -“Somebody tried to kill one of us a few minutes ago, and--and I’m -afraid Hartridge knew it was due to come off!” - -“Nonsense--you’re joking!” Tregarvon had come out of his pipe-musings -with a bound. - -“I’ll tell you just what happened, and then you shall judge for -yourself. You know that stretch of good road about two-thirds of the -way up the mountain?--the longest one there is?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, just as we turned into it, going up, Hartridge twisted himself -in the seat, looked back, and made some sort of a motion with his hand. -I was talking; trying to pump him some more; and I don’t know why I -should have noticed the bit of pantomime. Neither do I know why, coming -down a few minutes later, I should have hit that piece of road at a -ten-mile-an-hour gait instead of a thirty or forty. It was mighty -lucky I wasn’t speeding. For about two shakes of a dead lamb’s tail -you stood to lose a good friend and a twenty-five-hundred-dollar car. -There was a tree lying across the road at precisely the correct angle -to shoot me out into space if I had hit it.” - -“Heavens!” exclaimed the listener. “Done while you were going and -coming?” - -“Done while I was going and coming. And that tree was lying at the -exact spot where Hartridge turned in his seat and made the little -signal with his hand to somebody that I couldn’t see.” - -“But, good Lord, Poictiers! It’s unbelievable. Why, the man wasn’t ten -minutes away from his bread-breaking with us!” - -“I can’t help that. You have the facts.” - -“What did you do?” - -“I stopped, skirmished under the tonneau seat and found your towing -rope, and took a hitch on the obstruction. The car was good for it, and -I dragged the tree around and rolled it over the embankment. Then I -examined the place where it had stood: it had been partly undermined by -the road grading, and probably didn’t require much of a push to tip it -over.” - -“Then it might have been a sheer accident?” - -Carfax was shaking his head. “I thought so at first. But when I turned -the flash-light on the gap it had left in the upper bank, I saw that it -had not fallen accidentally. There are pick marks in the clay, and a -crowbar had been thrust in behind the roots to pry with.” - -“You didn’t see or hear anybody?” - -“Not a sign. I even went so far as to make a circuit in the woods along -the upper embankment. There wasn’t a leaf stirring.” - -“But think a minute, Poictiers: whatever crazy grudge any one might -have against me or the Ocoee, it couldn’t be made to lap over on you!” - -“That’s all right; it is your car, and you have usually driven it. You -are doubtless the one who had the narrow escape, and I was only your -happen-so proxy.” - -For a thoughtful half-hour they sat before the dying embers of the fire -and discussed the murderous attempt in all its bearings, Tregarvon -stoutly maintaining to the last that Hartridge could not possibly have -been an accomplice. But disregarding that single slight clue, they were -left completely in the dark as to the identity or motive of the man or -men who had tried to wreck the car. - -In the early stages of the discussion Tregarvon had suggested the -McNabbs; and after every other guess had been exhausted he returned to -them. But Carfax demurred at this. - -“No,” he said. “As I told you yesterday, you have two of the McNabbs in -your working gang, and they have had a thousand chances to extinguish -you since you came down here. Besides, I’ve been over in the Pocket -neighborhood to-day, and have found out a lot about the clan McNabb. -They’re perfectly harmless, I should say. I ran across both Morgan and -Sill, and they took me in and fed me fat bacon and corn pone. It is all -of ten miles to their shack in the Pocket, and they would have had to -walk out to get on this side of Pisgah. Besides that, Wilmerding gave -me a lot of pointers about the McNabb tribe.” - -“Who is Wilmerding?” - -“He is the man who rode down the mountain with Hartridge and me, and -made the quick dash for the up-train. He is the chief of staff for -the C. C. & I. in the Wehatchee Valley; has the oversight of all the -various mines of the company. He is a fine fellow; a mining engineer -with a few German university finishing touches.” - -“How did you happen to meet him?” - -“I hunted him up this morning; drove down to the Cardiff Mine for -that purpose. They told me yesterday at Whitlow that he was at the -Cardiff. I found him, and we foregathered on the spot. He is having -some labor troubles, and was about to drive over the mountain to the -Swiss settlement at New Basel to see if he couldn’t pick up a little -new blood. I didn’t have to persuade very hard to get him to abandon -his horse and buckboard, and I drove him over and back.” - -“He is all right, you think?” - -“As straight as a string. If the C. C. & I. is crooked, he is no party -to the underhand work. Also, he told me a lot about the McNabbs. He -seems to be quite certain that they have no grudge of their own to -work off. Laster McNabb, who is the grandfather of the outfit and the -chief of the clan, has talked very freely with Wilmerding about the -Ocoee lawsuit, and if the McNabbs have it in for anybody, it is for the -lawyer who dragged them into the fight with the New Englanders.” - -Tregarvon stood up to rest an elbow against the rough stone mantel. -“If your estimate of Wilmerding is correct, the C. C. & I. can’t -be held responsible; and, on the other hand, it doesn’t seem to be -the mountaineers. Yet we have had the accidents with the drilling -machinery, and somebody has just tried to assassinate you. You may say -it’s Hartridge, but I can’t follow you there. The motive is lacking.” - -“Is the motive altogether lacking?” Carfax queried gently. - -“You mean that Hartridge may be asinine enough to think that I am -trespassing on his preserves at Highmount? That is nonsense. Miss -Richardia Birrell and I are merely good friends. Besides that, I don’t -believe she has ever given the ‘bug professor’ a second thought, -sentimentally.” - -“Maybe not. But a woman as a factor in any problem is always the -unknown quantity,” Carfax remarked half musingly. Then he added: -“It would be a real charity, both to you and to Professor William -Wilberforce, if some outsider would step in and marry Miss Richardia -out of the game, don’t you think?” - -Tregarvon’s frown was morose. Slowly but surely the light with the -difficulties, material and mysterious, was working a change in the -young man whose chief characteristic had hitherto been finding its -principal expression in the light-hearted optimism of those who neither -toil nor spin. For the first time in his wealth-smoothed saunter he was -coming to hand-grips with the primitive, and the quick glance shot at -Carfax was almost a challenge. - -“Perhaps you’d like to be the outsider, Poictiers? Is that what you had -in mind?” he threw in bluntly. - -Carfax, gazing reflectively into the heart of the fire embers, took the -demand, or assumed to take it, at its face value. - -“A chap might do a lot worse,” he replied, as one who weighs the pros -and cons judicially. “It’s a broken family, to be sure, as to its -fortunes, but it’s good blood. They say that the old judge is as fine -as they make ’em; a gentleman of the old Southern school, land-poor, -but as proud as Lucifer. The two McNabb boys were telling me about him -to-day. They are squatters on Birrell land, as their forefathers were -before them, and they’d fight for the old judge at the drop of the hat.” - -“You haven’t answered my question,” said Tregarvon pointedly. - -Carfax rose and stretched his arms over his head like a man who has put -in a full day. - -“No; and I’m not going to answer it to-night. Later on, if you still -insist on needing a guardian angel, there may be a different story to -tell. Where’s my candle? I’m going to bed.” - - - - -VIII - -The Stubborn Rock - - -By the time Rucker returned from Chattanooga with the repairs for the -broken drilling plant, the Saturday-night attempt to wreck the yellow -car on Carfax’s run down the mountain had become a past danger-signal, -and was in a fair way to be overlaid and forgotten in a fresh upturning -of the activities. - -After the arrival of the new gears one day more was needed for their -installation; then the smoke plume began to wave again from the top -of the stack on lofty Pisgah, and the drill resumed its interrupted -jouncings in the sandstone. In due course, and with no added untoward -happenings to delay the work--this though the two McNabbs, identified -now and closely watched by Tregarvon, were still retained in the -gang--the drill reached the first coal seam, penetrated it, plunged -again into rock, and, a few hours later, into and through the second -and lower coal layer; net result--failure. - -With the new-found fighting resolution now fully aroused, Tregarvon -did not waste a minute. In the intervals afforded by temporary pauses -in the drilling he had found time to select a location farther back on -the plateau for the next trial; and while the boiler of the portable -engine was still hot from the fire-drawing of failure, the transfer of -the plant was begun. - -The second trial was a mere repetition of the first, save that the -layer of rock separating the two coal seams gained six inches in -thickness for the added distance from the original mine opening in the -cliff face at the head of the tramway. Wilmerding, the genial young -superintendent of the C. C. & I. subsidiaries was on the ground when -the sand-pump tests of this second hole were made, and he shook his -head doubtfully. - -“I suppose I oughtn’t to throw cold water; it doesn’t come with very -good grace from the boss in the enemy’s camp,” he said deprecatingly. -“But I’m mightily afraid you gentlemen are chasing fireflies. You have -two distinct seams, instead of one that has been split by a horizontal -wedge of the sand-rock, and I believe a careful analysis of the coal in -the two seams will prove it. Going to move still farther back and try -again?” - -“It’s the surest thing there is,” said Tregarvon, who had already set -his men at work striking the derrick. “I may be licked, but I’m too big -a fool to know it.” - -“Good!” laughed Wilmerding; “I like your courage immensely. But while -you are tapping it again, send me some samples and let me analyze the -two veins for you. I have a laboratory up at Whitlow, and I’ll be glad -to help out to that extent.” - -“You are an enemy, right, Mr. Wilmerding!” said Tregarvon heartily. “A -fighting friend couldn’t make a fairer offer than that. But you will -find that the two seams are one and the same. I made even canny old -Captain Duncan admit that he couldn’t detect any difference in the coal -taken from the two veins.” - -Wilmerding nodded. “The captain is canny, as you say, though you can -hardly prove it by me. I don’t know him very well--haven’t been down -here long enough. Thaxter knows him from away back, however, and he has -told me a good bit about the old Scotchman, who has the reputation, by -the way, of being at the top of the heap as an analytical chemist.” - -“Thaxter?” put in Carfax interrogatively. He had been an attentive -listener; his usual attitude in any three-cornered conference. - -“Yes. Don’t you know Thaxter, my bookkeeper? Not to know Thaxter is to -argue yourself unknown in the Wehatchee. The rank and file at Whitlow -think I’m the boss, and that Connolly comes next. But Thaxter is the -real power behind the throne.” - -Carfax made the necessary effort of memory and recalled a pursy little -man, round-faced, gray-haired and genial, who had beamed up at him -through a pair of thick-lensed spectacles on the day when he had -invaded the C. C. & I. stronghold at Whitlow. - -“I remember him,” he told Wilmerding. “Reminded me of one of the -Brothers Cheeryble, and I caught myself unconsciously looking about for -the other.” - -Not having read Dickens, Wilmerding lost the point of the comparison. - -“Yes,” he went on. “Thaxter is It, all right enough. More than anybody -else in this neck of woods he is Consolidated Coal: has every coal -detail of this entire region down in black on white, neatly docketed -and labelled and put away for future reference. I carry him on my -pay-roll, but I couldn’t any more fire him than I could fire the -President of the United States. On the other hand, I shouldn’t be -surprised if he could have my head any minute he chose to hold up his -finger to the big guns in New York.” - -“Nice kind of a bombshell to be rolling around under a man’s feet,” -Carfax commented. - -“Oh, Thaxter is harmless; he doesn’t explode. He is like the assistant -secretaries of the Departments in Washington, you know; the fellows -who really have the run of the business and stay on the job while the -political chiefs come and go. They are like the cat: harmless and -necessary and full of wisdom. Which reminds me: I’ll bet my wind-broken -old nag, here, against your gas-car, Tregarvon, that Thaxter has an -analysis of these coals of yours filed away somewhere this very minute. -If he has, I’ll get it for you. It will be a lot more conclusive than -any I could make, offhand, in my laboratory.” - -So offering, Wilmerding betook himself and his promise to the road -leading to Whitlow, leaving the two undismayed coal prospectors on high -Pisgah patiently removing their testing plant to a point still farther -back from the cliff face. By this time the working gang had acquired -the practice which makes perfect; and before the news of the failure -of the second attempt had spread beyond the comment of Tait’s store -the drill was churning away in the third of the testing holes, with the -lean, bristly-bearded Sawyer acting as drill-master--a post which he -had claimed and filled from the first. - -“I don’t care how much other people may laugh at you; _I_ think your -perseverance is beyond praise,” said Miss Richardia, on an afternoon -when Tregarvon, scamping his job and snatching a few moments for -himself, had driven her and a group of the Highmount young women over -in the yellow car to the new location. “I am sure you deserve to -succeed--if perseverance by itself ever deserves anything.” - -“Why do you say, ‘by itself’?” - -“I mean sheer, dogged persistence, without any of the justifying -reasons.” - -“I have the reasons; I’m obliged to succeed,” was the answer rather -gloomily given. Carfax had taken the tonneau party around to the -derrick, and the two in the driving-seat of the car had their bit of -the mountain-top world momentarily to themselves. - -“You say that as if you were sorry,” laughed the music teacher. “Don’t -you want to succeed?” - -“To want is to desire and need,” he explained meticulously. “Heaven -knows, I need success; need it awfully. Yet the very reason for -needing it is vicarious on one hand, and an exhibition of the meanest -sort of purse-pride on the other. But you know all about that.” - -Truly, Miss Richardia did know. It was during his third evening visit -to Highmount, while Carfax was trundling the entire school in batches -up and down the cherted pike in front of the college grounds in the -auto, and Miss Richardia had been playing to him in the otherwise -deserted music-room, that Tregarvon had told her all about the family -fortunes, and Elizabeth, and his engagement, and the Uncle Byrd -millions. He did not regard it as a breach of confidence at the time; -of Elizabeth’s confidence or his own. He had merely yielded to an -attack of a purely masculine desire to tell all he knew to the nearest -woman. - -“You still think it is necessary to keep Miss Wardwell waiting?” Miss -Richardia was always able to answer his unspoken thought without -apparent effort, as he had already learned. - -“You wouldn’t have me do anything else, would you?” he retorted -discontentedly. “Put yourself in Elizabeth’s place: what would you -think of me if I should take advantage of your good-nature, and so -give everybody a chance to say that I didn’t need to be in love with -you--that your money was a sufficient bait?” - -Miss Birrell was not at all past blushing, and she did it very prettily. - -“You are so boyishly personal!” she laughed, and the fact that she did -not resent the personality was an ample measure of the degree to which -their intimacy had progressed. And then: “You promised me that you were -going to be sensible and straightforward, and all those things. You -said you were going to be entirely frank with Eliz--with Miss Wardwell, -telling her that you haven’t insisted upon her naming the day because -you think you ought to have means of your own, first. Have you done -this?” - -“No, I haven’t--not yet.” - -“Why haven’t you? You owe it to her, don’t you?” - -“Perhaps; but I owe something to myself, too.” - -Miss Richardia seized upon the admission swiftly and turned it as a -weapon against him. “You do, indeed! You owe it to Mr. Vance Tregarvon -not to keep any of the anchors in reserve. As you once said, yourself, -you are too impressionable.” - -“A light o’ love,” he laughed. “I must tell Elizabeth what an eloquent -special pleader she has unconsciously acquired down here in the wilds -of Tennessee. What have I done that I ought not to have done?” - -“I am not your conscience,” was the cool-voiced reply. - -“But you are,” he retorted accusingly. “You tell me what I ought to do, -and I promise to go and do it. My intentions are always good.” - -“I am not sure of even that much, now. You have changed very remarkably -in the past few weeks, and you must forgive me if I say that the change -hasn’t been altogether for the better. You were just a nice, cheerful -boy when you came to Tennessee, and you’re not that any more.” - -“I have good reasons, and plenty of them,” he blurted out. “Do you want -to hear them?” - -“Not when you talk that way,” said Miss Birrell, and her attitude -became suddenly indifferent. - -“You shall hear them, whether you want to or not,” he broke in almost -roughly. “I have the whole world against me on this Ocoee proposition; -I have given my word to Elizabeth when I don’t love her as the man who -is going to marry her ought to love her; and----” - -“That is quite enough,” she interposed quietly. “It only proves what -I said a minute ago. You can’t afford to hold any of your anchors in -reserve. I think we had better join Mr. Carfax and the young women. -Don’t you?” - -“No. And I call that downright cruel, when we see so little of each -other, and I almost never have you to myself any more.” - -“It is your saying such things as that that makes me think I ought to -be cruel. There are times when you need cruelty. Nothing milder would -do any good.” - -“You may as well say the remainder of it,” he prompted. - -“I shall. It is really serious. You must come to a better understanding -with Miss Wardwell; and you must stop coming so often to Highmount.” - -“The first time I went to Highmount you told me that I might come as -often as I pleased. You needn’t worry about the school-girls. If you -say the word, I’ll never speak to one of them again unless she is duly -chaperoned at the moment.” - -“We were speaking of Miss Wardwell,” was the rather chilling reminder. - -“Well, we will speak of her, then. She isn’t losing any sleep on my -account. If you only knew Elizabeth as well as I do--but what’s the -use!” - -“There appears to be no use at all, and I have already said more than -your nearest friend ought to say. Suppose we talk of something else.” - -Tregarvon refused flatly to accept the invitation. - -“No; I want to know about my welcome at Highmount. I have had Mrs. -Caswell’s warrant in the past. I have it yet. You can’t make me stay -away.” - -Miss Richardia’s pretty chin went up a quarter of an inch. - -“Then you will compel me to be disagreeable; and I don’t like to be -that. I always have plenty of work to do in the evenings; quite a -number of the young women would like to take extra music lessons, and I -have a piano in my rooms.” - -Tregarvon gasped. “You don’t mean that you’d be hard-hearted enough -to shut yourself up? to refuse to see me? That would be--but I simply -can’t contemplate it. You--you don’t know what your confidence and your -clear insight have come to mean to me!” - -“On the contrary, it is because I do know, or rather because I know how -you are justifying yourself, that you must----” - -“But I shall not! It is just a frank, open friendship that has grown -very precious to me, Richardia. Put it upon the lowest possible -grounds; say that it amuses you and doesn’t hurt Elizabeth--I could -show you letters from her in which she actually encourages it--and add -to these that it does me a whole lot of good. Why should you freeze up -right in the midst of it, just when I am needing all the encouragement -I can get?” - -Miss Birrell did not wish to laugh, but his protest, the shocked -pleading of a little boy who fears he is about to be deprived of his -customary piece of bread and butter with sugar on it, was too much for -her self-control. None the less, she would not yield a hair’s-breadth. - -“You can’t convince me, and you needn’t try,” she declared. “Granting -what you say--that it amuses me and doesn’t hurt any one else--there -are still the conventions to be considered. Perhaps you think, -because you are a thousand miles from Philadelphia, that there are -no conventions. If you do, you are greatly mistaken. Highmount, for -example, has a complete equipment of them.” - -“Confound the conventions!” growled Tregarvon. Carfax was leading his -following back to the car, and the end of the confidential talk was -approaching. - -“No, you needn’t swear at them,” said Miss Richardia, with honey in her -tone. “More than that, you would be the last person in the world to -want to have them confounded. In your proper environment, I can picture -you as an exceedingly correct person; one who would protest most -vigorously if his sister should----” - -She did not finish, because the others were within hearing distance; -but the sentence was sufficiently complete to point the comparison for -Tregarvon. He bent over the steering-wheel and pretended to be trying -the connections of the substitute battery coil. The feint permitted him -to say in low tones: “You are altogether right--as you always are. I’ll -be as decent as I can: and it will cost more than you think.” - -After which he descended from the driving-seat and shifted the -responsibility of the return of the party to Highmount over to Carfax, -saying that since the drill was doubtless nearing the coal depth, he -would better stay on the job. - -He was late getting down the mountain that evening, having worked his -crew overtime to settle a disputed point with Rucker. The dispute, or -rather its outcome, was sufficiently explained in his announcement to -Carfax when he tramped into the office dining-room and dropped wearily -into a chair before the fire. - -“One more slap in the face, Poictiers. We found the coal about two -hours ago, and a little later the drill landed upon the sandstone layer -again. I’m too tired to know whether it’s discouragement or just plain -leg-weariness and back-ache, but I feel as if something had gone out of -me.” - -Carfax rose to the occasion with his customary cheerful alacrity. - -“We’re not going to say die, yet a while, Vance, old man. It merely -means another try. If you are running low in the ammunition-chest----” - -“No, it isn’t that; it isn’t costing so terribly much. But to tell the -blank truth, I don’t know where to go with the drill for another try. -We are a good quarter of a mile back from the tramway head now; an -almost impracticable distance, even if we had found the big vein.” - -“Well, what is the matter with swinging around the circle a bit? You -have latitude as well as longitude, haven’t you?” said Carfax the -comforter. - -“Oh, yes; there is Ocoee land enough. And I guess that is about the -last hope.” - -“Which way had you thought of moving, north or south?” - -“Whichever way you say,” was the spiritless reply. - -Carfax took a coin from his pocket and balanced it upon his thumb. -“Heads, Highmount way; tails, toward Whitlow,” he called, and flipped -the coin. - -It fell heads uppermost, deciding for the Highmount direction; and when -Tregarvon would have picked the coin up to return it, Carfax stopped -him. - -“Let it alone; I’m superstitious to-night. Uncle William will be in -with your warmed-over dinner in a minute: let him pick it up and keep -it--for good luck.” And a little while afterward, when the old negro -shuffled in with the covered tray: “There is a dollar on the floor -which we are both afraid to touch, Uncle William. Don’t you want it?” - -The old man scraped a foot and said: “Sarvent, suh,” but he arranged -the table to the final nicety before going around to look at the money -on the floor. - -“Now, Marsteh Poictiers, whut-all is de marter wid dat dollah?” he -asked, bending, hands on knees, to eye it suspiciously. - -“There is nothing the matter with the dollar, uncle; the trouble is -with us. We are afraid of it.” - -“Sho’ now! Is you? Dat look lak a mighty rightchus dollah to me. Dat -ain’t no debbil’s money, is it?” - -“You’ll have to settle that for yourself. Since the dollar came out of -my pocket a few minutes ago, I shall be justified in refusing to answer -so personal a question as that relating to its righteousness.” - -“_Hyuh! hyuh!_ It comed out of yo’ pocket, an’ yit you is skeered of -it? Dat look mighty cur’is to me. Look lak you-all is tryin’ to play -trick on de ol’ man, Marsteh Poictiers. I ain’t seed no white folks’ -money yit dat I’s skeered of,” and he bent cautiously to pick it up. - -“Look out, Uncle William; it might burn you!” said Carfax suddenly; and -quite as suddenly the old negro dropped the coin and started back. - -“Bless gresshus! but dat _wuz_ hot!” he exclaimed, blowing upon his -fingers. And then: “Des you keep yo’ eye on dat dollah, ef you please, -suh, twell I come back, an’ I’ll fix ’im,” and a little later he -returned from the cook-house with a small tin pan which he turned down -over the piece of money. - -“Ef dat won’t be in you gemmans’ way, an’ you-all ’ll des leab ’im dah, -I gwine come back bimeby an’ tek de cunjer off ’im. I ain’ gwine lef de -ol’ debbil hab dat dollah, not ef it _is_ his’n.” - -The little diversion did for Tregarvon what Carfax had hoped it might; -and after the belated meal was eaten and the pipes were lighted, the -atmosphere of disheartenment was changed somewhat for the better. - -“There is one thing we have to be thankful for,” the disappointed one -volunteered, when his reflections began to mellow in the tobacco smoke. -“We haven’t heard from the enemy since the attempt was made to ditch -the car, and there haven’t been any more of the unaccountable accidents -to the machinery.” - -“That is so,” said Carfax. “And I have been trying to guess, all along, -why he--or they--stopped so abruptly.” - -“There wasn’t any good reason why he--or they--should have begun,” said -Tregarvon musingly. - -“Somebody evidently thought there was a reason, and afterward changed -his mind. Why should he change his mind? That is the question that has -been puzzling me.” - -“Perhaps he has found out what a good fellow I really am, and is no -longer bloodthirsty,” put in Tregarvon, who was too tired to make any -very heavy drafts upon his mentality. - -“You haven’t any notion that the fight, if there is one, is personal -to you, have you?--excluding Professor Hartridge, of course.” - -“Oh, no; I was only joking. And we’ll always exclude Hartridge, if -you please; I’m still refusing to believe it of him. It was probably -somebody’s intention to drown the blind kitten of an Ocoee before -it had time to get its eyes open; but the somebody couldn’t, by any -stretch of imagination, be Hartridge.” - -“But why has the somebody--who isn’t Hartridge--called the fight off so -suddenly? By Jove, Vance--I have an idea! It has dawned upon the enemy, -whoever he is, that it wasn’t worth while to efface us at a time when -we were perseveringly going the right way about it to efface ourselves! -I’d like to make a bet with you: when we begin drilling in the right -place--if there is any right place--the trouble will blossom out again. -What do you think?” - -“I haven’t a thought left that isn’t too leg-weary to keep up with -you,” Tregarvon confessed; whereat he fell to talking of Miss Richardia -Birrell, dribbling on until Carfax, groaning in spirit, got up to light -the bed-room candles. - - - - -IX - -A Bad Night for Rucker - - -After the drilling plant had been moved to the chance-chosen, fourth -trial site a short half-mile south of the original line of prospect -holes, the work of reinstallation was begun. At its completion, it -was at Rucker’s suggestion that the small tool-house was fitted with -a single-sashed window and a folding cot-bed, and that the duties of -night-watchman were added to his daytime oversight of the drilling -machinery. - -Just why the plant, which had been left unguarded since the first -week of the campaign, and had been unmolested, should now need a -night-watchman, the mechanician did not attempt to explain. His reasons -for wishing to transfer his lodgings from the valley to the mountain -top were entirely personal. He had been taken as a boarder at the -Tryons’, and to wear out the dull evenings after working hours, he had -been drawn first into the lounging circle at Tait’s store, and later -into the smaller circle of the Layne household on the lower valley road. - -The loadstone at Layne’s was a granddaughter of the patriarch’s, a -black-eyed, red-lipped girl of primal passions and impulses; and in the -beginning Rucker had been given a fair field and no questions asked -as to his eligible state and standing. Evening strolls on the country -roads with Nancy Layne for a companion were not to be compared with -a night off on Broadway under the bright lights; but such diversions -were made to suffice until a day when Daddy Layne, abruptly pointing to -the long-barrelled squirrel-rifle resting on its pegs over the kitchen -fireplace, assumed the aggressive. “Git yo’ license an’ yo’ preachuh, -’r let Nan alone an’ quit projec’in’ round this yer valley o’ nights,” -was the old man’s ultimatum; and Rucker, having a wholesome fear of -consequences, and the best of reasons for not applying for a marriage -license, asked permission to sleep at the drilling plant. - -The first night on the mountain was frankly harrowing to the city-bred -mechanic, whose burglarish aspect did not insure him against the still -alarms of the forest intensified by moon-flung shadows of solemn trees, -by scurryings of fallen leaves rattling like dry bones under the autumn -night-wind, and, more than all, by a sense of complete and lonely -isolation. - -Each unfamiliar sound brought Rucker out of his cot-bed blankets -with a bound and sent him groping to the square window. First it was -a little screech-owl, perching on the walking-beam of the drill, and -chattering out its blood-curdling cry. Next it was a slow and measured -crashing in the undergrowth, sound mysterious and unnerving to a degree -until the night-prowling cow responsible for it lowed gently and -crossed the clearing to snuff suspiciously at the boiler and machinery. - -The tension once more relieved, Rucker tumbled into the blankets -again, calling himself shop names and swearing by all the gods of the -metalworkers that nothing short of a forest-fire or an earthquake -should make him lose any more sleep. Yet, while he was still only -eye-deep in his first doze a new alarm brought him leaping to his feet -and sent him, blinking and breathing hard, to the square of moonlight -framed by the small window. - -What he heard this time sounded like the measured hoof-beats of a -horse. Rucker had a pocket flash-light, and he turned it upon the face -of his watch. He had gone early to bed, and it was still early, barely -ten o’clock. A by-road, the one by which the drilling plant had been -brought in, ran through the wood a little distance to the left of -the glade. Staring wide-eyed, Rucker made out the shadowy bulk of a -wheeled vehicle standing in this road, with a white horse, seemingly of -incredible size, looming gigantic between the thills. - -The mechanician got his breath, and his heart began to pump in steadier -rhythm. A horse and buggy betokened the presence of humankind, and -Rucker was not a coward of men. Moreover, the ball-peen machinist’s -hammer, lying within easy reach, was no mean weapon of defense in the -grasp of a man who knew how to swing it. - -Obsessed by the idea that he might shortly have to resort to the -hammer, the mechanician was wholly unprepared for what followed. -Slowly, and as if they were materializing out of the shadows of the -wood, two figures glided into the watcher’s field of vision: a man, -tall, stately, wearing the long coat and the wide-brimmed soft hat -which even an unobservant Rucker knew to be the garmentings of the -old-fashioned Southern gentleman. And, hanging on the man’s arm, a -woman, small and trimly clad. - -They came only to the edge of the open glade. The woman’s hat left her -face in shadow, so that even if the light had been better, Rucker could -not have seen what she looked like. The man’s back was turned to him, -and here, again, he was at fault. Nevertheless, he was presently able -to postulate the man’s gestures as those of anger, and to understand -that the woman was pleading with him. It was etched out wholly in -pantomime; Rucker could hear nothing. Twice or thrice the man made an -inclusive motion with his free hand as if indicating the glade as the -subject of whatever he was saying; and finally he balled his hand into -a fist and shook it wrathfully at the unoffending drill derrick. - -This went on for some moments, the woman, Rucker fancied, trying to end -it and draw the man away. Whether as the result of her efforts, or for -some other reason, the scene ended as abruptly as it had begun. The two -figures turned and faded into the wood shadows as mysteriously as they -had come out of them; and while Rucker was still straining his eyes to -keep them in sight, the horse and buggy vanished to a soft thudding of -hoofs on the sandy road. - -After this apparition had disappeared, the machinist filled his black -cutty pipe, opened the door of the tool-house, and sat upon the step -to smoke and ruminate and strive for a better collecting of things -into their normal groupings. Later, he strolled out to the by-road to -see if the hoof and wheel marks were really there; to satisfy himself -beyond question that he had not been dreaming. The ocular demonstration -convinced him that he was sane, sober, and awake. The hoof-prints were -there, though they were by no means so gigantic as he had expected to -find them; and so were the wheel ruts. - -“I guess I needn’t be botherin’ my head about who they was,” he -muttered to himself as he went back to his seat on the tool-house -door-step. “Th’ bosses’ll know that, all right, all right. But if -there’s goin’ to be a whole lot of this ghost business up here, it’s me -for the downstairs, even if I do have to duck every time I see old man -Layne comin’ up th’ road. These moonlight picture-shows get next to my -gizzard-nerve. I ain’t no ghost-killer--not me.” - -His pipe was smoked out and, knocking the ash from the bowl, he got up, -having fresh designs upon the tool-house bed-room and the blanketed -cot. But he was scarcely afoot before the sounds of wheels and hoofs -came again, this time from the opposite direction. - -“My gosh!” he complained, “are they comin’ back? Or is it a torchlight -procession of ’em? No, by jing! it’s somebody else: that horse is a -black one!” - -More to be out of harm’s way than for any spying purpose, he slipped -into the tool-house and softly closed and fastened the door. When he -tiptoed to the window two other figures had entered the glade; two men, -and both of them with burdens. - -Their movements were even more mysterious than those of the earlier -visitors. The shorter of the two carried a square box, handling it by -a buckled strap which encircled it, and the other had a shoulder load -which Rucker could liken only to a small bundle of poles. Both burdens -were quickly put down; and at Rucker’s final glimpse, obtained just as -the moon was passing behind a cloud, the shorter man had gone down on -his knees beside the box, and was apparently opening it. - -Everything turned to a blurred gray for the watcher at the square -window while the cloud obscured the direct rays of the moon; and when -a better light came, the taller of the two men had disappeared, and -the other was standing motionless under a great oak, whose spreading -branches were sadly obstructing Rucker’s line of sight. - -“Now, what the devil is he doin’?” was Rucker’s demand, whispered to -the inner darknesses. “And where has t’ other guy skipped to, all of -a sudden. By jinks! I b’lieve the short one’s sightin’ a gun; no, it -ain’t a gun, either; it’s a kodak. No, I’m off again, and I hain’t -got any more guesses. Now, what t’ ’ell’s the sawed-off doin’, wavin’ -his arms up and down that way? By gollies, this whole mountain’s gone -bug-house, ’r else I have!” - -Rucker watched the arm-waving for a full minute before it dawned upon -him that the short man who seemed to be sighting something was making -signals. The small square window of espial commanded nothing but the -glade. The watcher crept cautiously to the end of the room facing -toward the near-by brow of the mountain. The moonlight helped him to -find the knot-hole he was looking for, but for a time the contracted -field of vision revealed nothing but a forest tangle of moon-spattered -shadows. - -Rucker had the patience of his craft, and the practical reasoning power -that goes with it. The man under the oak was evidently signalling to -some one to the eastward of his position at the edge of the glade: -Rucker’s knot-hole in the planking at the end of the tool-house covered -the same field: hence the eye at the knot-hole should be able to descry -what was apparently visible to the eyes under the spreading oak. - -The mechanician stuck to his hypothesis until finally the fact proved -it to be the true one. Far down among the trees, almost at the cliff’s -edge, Rucker thought, a dancing light, such as might be made by a -flaring pine torch, flashed up, flickered, and disappeared. The general -aspect of the mystery remained as impenetrable as before, but one point -became clear. The man under the tree was waving to the man with the -torch, and some purpose, quite well understood by both, was getting -itself forwarded. - -Rucker stayed at his peep-hole until the torch reappeared, flared -steadily in one place for a few seconds, and then went out as suddenly -as if a gust of wind had extinguished it. After which he tiptoed -back to his window, and was there, looking on curiously, when the -torch-bearer came tramping up from the eastward. There was a little -delay when the upcomer joined the man under the oak. The watcher saw -them taking the sighting mechanism, whatever it might be, apart and -depositing some portion of it carefully in the square box; saw the two -men resume their respective burdens and thread their way rapidly among -the trees to the waiting vehicle. Then came the grinding protest of -buggy wheels cramped short to turn in the narrow by-road, the _shough_ -of a horse, minishing hoof-beats, and silence. - -By this time Rucker was beginning to stand somewhat less in awe of -a forest wilderness which seemed, after all, to be anything but an -uninhabited solitude. A fresh filling of the short black pipe was the -preliminary to a careful scrutiny of the ground under the spreading -oak-tree. There was but a thin layer of sandy top-soil overlying the -rock through which the drill was to be churned on the morrow, but -it sufficed to reveal what Rucker was looking for--three conical -indentations made by the sharply pointed ends of a tripod, the stand -of the sighting mechanism, level, transit, or telescope, used by the -shorter of the two men. - -This much proved, Rucker went back to the tool shanty, found and -lighted a lantern, and with it steered a course between the trees -to the eastward point where the torch-bearer had stood. It took him -several minutes to discover the exact spot; but when it was found and -identified by the remains of the extinguished pine-knot torch, he -whittled a small stake and with a stone for a hammer drove it to mark -the place. - -“There, by heck!” he said, when he was once more sitting on the -tool-house door-step to finish his pipe. “If I hain’t got funny -business enough to keep the bosses guessin’ f’r a week ’r so, I’ll sit -up a few minutes longer and pull down some more.” - -It was far past midnight when he found himself nodding over the smoking -lantern, and got up to go and tumble sleepily into his bed. And this -time neither the shrilling of the katydids and tree-toads nor the -screeching of the little owl that came once more to perch upon the -drill walking-beam, kept him awake. - - - - -X - -Blind Alleys - - -There was a council of war, held without preliminaries, to follow -Rucker’s report made to his two employers on the morning after the -night of mysterious alarms. The small tool shanty served as the -council-chamber, and the councillors were only two, Rucker having been -heard and dismissed to take his place as chief mechanician in the -drilling squad. - -“Talk about fourteen-fifteen puzzles and the fourth dimension: this -masquerade puts the kibosh on them all,” remarked Carfax, opening his -pocket-case of freshly imported cigarettes. “Or are you wiping the -slate clean by charging Billy Rucker with a bad supper or a drink or so -too many?” - -Tregarvon shook his head. - -“It is too circumstantial to be a nightmare. Besides, there are the two -sets of wheel tracks in the road, and the marks of the tripod under the -oak; likewise the burnt pine torch and Rucker’s stake to mark the place -of it. It’s no pipe-dream--more’s the pity.” - -“Then what the deuce is it?--or they?--since there seem to have been -two distinct sets of phenomena.” - -Again the owner of the Ocoee shook his head. - -“I think we may safely assume that Rucker saw two acts in the same -play. But what the play may have been is beyond my wildest guess. -Rucker’s suggestion that we’ve dropped down into a neighborhood of -crazy people seems to fit better than anything else.” - -Carfax was sitting on the cot with his hands locked over one knee. “It -is rather pointedly our job to chase the shy guess into a corner, don’t -you think? There is mischief in it. One’s bosom friends would hardly -come here at night to shake their fists at things, or to run surveyors’ -lines by moonlight.” - -Tregarvon got up to tramp the floor, but there was no room in the -cluttered tool shanty and he sat down again upon a coil of rope. - -“Damn this crazy Southern mining country!” he rapped out. “Rucker is -right: I believe it’s peopled with escaped lunatics fresh from Bedlam! -You’ve got a theory, Poictiers; I can see it in your eye. Put it in -words. Whom do you suspect?” - -“Small minds suspect: larger ones reason calmly,” said the golden -youth in mild irony. “The thing for us to do first is to establish a -few identities, if we can. Who were these late-in-the-evening visitors? -Let’s take them in their natural order; first come, first served. -Rucker seems to have had a fair eye-shot at the man in a soft hat and -long-tailed coat. Doesn’t his description of the man’s clothes and -figure throw at least a suggestion into you?” - -Tregarvon frowned. “You’ve got Hartridge on the brain,” he retorted. -“You can travel anywhere in the South and still find plenty of men who -wear soft hats and full-skirted Prince Alberts.” - -“Yes; quite so. But we have met only one on Mount Pisgah, thus far, and -his name is William Wilberforce Hartridge. And if we take Mr. Hartridge -for the fist-shaking gentleman, the next step--the identity of the -lady--is simplified.” - -“I don’t see it,” Tregarvon objected sourly. - -“You mean you won’t see it. What woman, from Highmount, would be most -likely to be Mr. Hartridge’s companion on a moonlight evening drive? -Don’t let your prejudices, or rather your prepossessions, make a blind -mule of you, Vance.” - -“I suppose you mean that the woman was Richardia Birrell. It doesn’t -necessarily follow, and I don’t believe it.” - -“It isn’t so dreadfully hard to believe. There is no reason why she -shouldn’t go driving with the professor of mathematics, if she feels -like it. Neither is there anything especially culpable in the fact that -she walked down here with him when he came to shake his professorial -fist at your drilling-machine. When you have cooled down sufficiently, -we’ll go and see if my little primary guess won’t prove out.” - -“I’m cool enough,” was the answer to this; and together they went to -seek the proof. - -The buggy tracks in the damp sand of the little-used road were not hard -to trace, and there were places where the hoof-prints of the horse -which had been driven toward Highmount were clean-cut and distinct. -Carfax was a spoiled son of fortune only in his affectations. Beneath -the carefully cultivated fopperies there was a keen, active mentality -which rarely missed its mark and never fumbled. He made pencil sketches -of the hoof-prints on the back of an old letter in passing, and it was -he, and not Tregarvon, who noted the single peculiarity in the horse’s -shoeing; a missing corner from the toe-calk on the left hind foot. - -As the New Yorker’s hypothesis had assumed, the buggy tracks led -directly to Highmount; or at least the assumption seemed a fair one. -The two investigators did not follow the vehicle trail all the way to -the college gates; could not, since the trail-recording wood road came -out into the hard-metalled mountain pike a few hundred yards below -the Highmount grounds, and the wheel marks were no longer visible. -But there seemed to be no reasonable doubt of the correctness of -Carfax’s guess; and Tregarvon admitted as much on the way back to the -starting-point. - -“Mind you, I’m not admitting that Richardia was a party to anything -underhanded or crooked,” he added in qualification. “She may have -been driving with Hartridge; as you say, there isn’t any particular -reason why she shouldn’t go buggy-riding with him if she wishes to; -and she may have walked down to the glade with him. I don’t say that -she didn’t; but I do say that she isn’t tangled up in any of the -disreputable mysteries, knowingly.” - -“Oh, no; I’d be as loath to admit that as you are,” said Carfax gently. -“In fact, it is barely possible that I have the better right to defend -her. We’ll put it all up to Hartridge. The next thing is to find out, -if we can, where Hartridge got his two surveyors on such short notice, -and what it was that could be proved or disproved by a transit sight -taken in the moonlight under conditions which must have barred anything -like mathematical accuracy. Where are your blue-prints of the Ocoee -property?--down below, or up here?” - -The map copies were in the tool-house, one set of them; and when they -were found, Carfax spread them out on the cot and pored over them -thoughtfully. - -“You are not trespassing on somebody else’s land, at all events,” was -the verdict, rendered after he had verified the position of the glade -in which the fourth test-hole was being driven. “It is all Ocoee in -every direction; your land covers all this part of the mountain. By the -way, what is this name, ‘Westwood,’ written across these mountain-top -plats?” - -Tregarvon did not know, and he said so; adding that he supposed it -might be the name of the original owner of the land. - -“Who is he? Ever hear of him?” - -“I don’t recall that I have. But that is not singular. I haven’t had -occasion, or the time, to dig very deeply into ancient history.” - -“Well, there doesn’t seem to be anything very illuminating about these -blue-prints, save that they establish your perfect right to bore holes -almost anywhere you please,” said Carfax. “Suppose we go now and take -up the trail of the two surveyors.” - -The track of the second buggy proved to be a short scent soon lost. -Within a hundred yards of its turning-point opposite the glade the -buggy had left the wood road, the tracks swerving to the right in a -direction opposite to that taken by the earlier vehicle; and neither -the wheels nor the hoofs of the horse had left any impress on the -thick carpeting of fallen leaves under the trees; or none that amateur -trailers could see and follow. - -They were returning down the by-road when a crash and a hoarse roar -of escaping steam notified them that once more something had gone -wrong with the machinery. Carfax threw up his head like a thoroughbred -starting in a race. - -“We have been hunting for causes,” he snapped: “there is effect number -one, right now! I can outrun you to the home plate!” - -They came upon the scene, neck and neck, just after Rucker had stopped -the engine and opened his fire-door. The walking-beam had fallen again, -carrying down a portion of the derrick framework; and the mountaineer -whose name on the pay-roll appeared as “Morgan,” and who had been -drill-turning in Sawyer’s place at the moment, was caught and held -under the wreckage. - -Happily, the man was neither killed nor very severely injured. A few -minutes’ quick work, to which everybody lent a hand, sufficed to -extricate him from the mass of broken timbers; and a rather ugly scalp -wound, which Carfax proceeded deftly to wash and dress and bandage, -figured as the worst of his hurts. - -Tregarvon sent the man home in charge of the other masquerading McNabb; -and then came the reckoning with the smashed drilling plant. - -“What are we in for this time, Rucker?” was the owner’s question, put -after the machinist had measured the damage with a critical eye. - -“Mostly a couple o’ days’ hang-up, I guess. Leave me a man or two to -help me blacksmith, and I’ll see what I can do. But what’s eatin’ me -is, what done it?” - -There seemed to be no categorical answer to this, the cause of the -breakdown being as yet well hidden in the _débris_ of the effect. -Tregarvon was willing to charge it to the chapter of accidents, but -Carfax was less easily satisfied. - -“If it were the first,” he demurred; “but it isn’t. There is an -entire series behind it. And, coming right on the heels of the little -mysteries of last night ... I’m of the opinion that this is the -beginning of more hostilities, Vance.” Then to Rucker: “How far did you -get the hole down, Billy?” - -“Not more than a couple o’ feet.” - -“Drilling hard?” asked Tregarvon. - -“Um-m-m; middlin’ hard; ’bout like the one we put down over yonder at -the head of the tramway--the first one we drilled.” - -Tregarvon told off three of the laborers to help Rucker, and sent the -remaining three back to Coalville to report to Tryon, who, with another -small squad, was replacing rotted cross-ties on the lower end of the -tramway. After this, he beckoned to Carfax, and they went together down -the shallow glade ravine to the spot where Rucker had found the burnt -pine-knot torch and had driven his marking stake. - -Out of hearing of the four men left at the drilling-stand, Tregarvon -said: “Well, the McNabbs are eliminated, definitely. It is fair to -assume that a man wouldn’t be so careless as to get caught in a trap of -his own setting.” - -“You would think not,” was Carfax’s rejoinder; but he did not say that -it was impossible. - -On the ground where the torch-bearer of the previous night had stood -they searched carefully for something that might give a working clue -to the mystery of the moonlight survey. There was nothing, unless an -oak-tree, with a half-overgrown “blaze” and some ancient markings cut -in it, might be called a clue. - -Two or three hundred feet below the scarred oak lay the cliff edge, -at this point something less than a precipice. Tregarvon stood on the -brink, looking down over the rough, broken talus. A hundred yards below -his perch the gray ribbon of the mountain pike leading to Coalville -wound in and out among the trees and huge boulders. Farther around to -the left, and almost on a level with the broken talus, he could see the -head of the Ocoee tramway. At once he called Carfax’s attention to the -favoring topographies. - -“If we should find our big vein anywhere between here and the tramhead, -it would be almost as accessible as the old opening,” he said. “The -track could be continued on an easy curve and grade, and there is drop -enough to give us the gravity haul. I wonder if any one has ever looked -along here for the outcrop?” - -Viewed from the summit, the rough declivity, rocky, wooded, and -thickly-covered with a matted tangle of brier, laurel, and -undergrowth, looked as if it had never been trodden by the foot of man. -Carfax, leaning against a tree which grew on the extreme edge of the -cliff, gave it as his opinion that the rocky slope had never felt the -prospector’s pick. - -“They have to dig trenches or holes or something, in prospecting for -coal, don’t they?” he asked; and when Tregarvon confirmed the surmise: -“I should say that this toboggan-slide is just as old Madam Nature left -it, shouldn’t you? Can we get from here to the tramhead without going -back and around and over the mountain?” - -“Easily,” said Tregarvon, and he swung out and dropped over the low -cliff to lead the way along the broken ledges. - -It was while Carfax was lowering himself with more care than Tregarvon -had taken, with the leaning tree to help, that he made a small -discovery and called Tregarvon back. On its outer or valley-facing side -the leaning tree carried a “blazed” scar with markings similar to those -on the white-oak half-way between the cliff and the glade. Like the -other scar, this one was old, and the bark had long since healed around -the edges of the ax-wound. But the markings, which were cut into the -heart-wood, were still quite distinct. - -“Well?” said Tregarvon, after they had examined the scar together, -“what do you make of it?” - -Carfax was pencilling the mark on the back of the letter upon which he -had sketched the damp-sand hoof-prints. - -“I don’t know. It looks something like the Greek letter ‘_pi_’, a -capital ‘T’ with two stems, don’t you think? But, of course, that is -only a coincidence.” - -“Is it, though?” queried Tregarvon thoughtfully. - -“It must be. What woodsman in this part of the world would ever mark a -tree with a Greek letter?” - -“No woodsman, perhaps; but a schoolmaster might. Poictiers, I am slowly -coming around to your point of view. Hartridge is at the bottom of -all these smash-ups and mysteries. I hate to believe it of him, but -everything leans in his direction.” - -“It looks that way, doesn’t it? But the admission of the fact doesn’t -clear up the mysteries. Say that, for some reason, sentimental or -other, Hartridge wishes to drive you out--make you quit. That might -explain the smash-ups and the hindrances; but it doesn’t begin to -explain why we should find these marks of his--if they are his--made on -these two trees years and years ago; or why he should send a pair of -surveyors up here to make monkey motions in the moonlight.” - -Tregarvon was leading the way along the ledge toward the tramhead. - -“We shall probably find out more about all these things before we are -much older on the job,” he replied; and then, vengefully: “If I can -catch him at it, I promise you I’ll make him sorry!” - -After they reached the head of the inclined track and had signalled to -Tryon at the foot to let them down in the tip-car, Tregarvon outlined -his plan for the broken day. - -“We’ll go down and get out the auto and my engineering instruments, -motor back to the drilling plant, and do a little surveying on our own -account. Beyond that, you may take the car and kill time with it as you -please. I’ll stay and help Rucker.” - -The programme was carried out in due course. By ten o’clock they were -back on the mountain top with the surveying instruments. Placing the -transit upon the tripod marks under the tree on the edge of the glade, -Tregarvon took a forward sight to the eastward, with Carfax holding -the target-staff on the spot where the burnt torch was found. Then, -without changing the position of the instrument, Tregarvon signalled -Carfax to go back, halting him at the cliff edge, and moving him -to right and left until the target was once more in line with the -cross-hairs of the telescope. - -“What developments?” he inquired, when the staff-bearer came up. - -“Nothing startling. Your line of sight merely picked up the second of -the two marked trees, whatever significance that may have.” - -“You may be sure it has some significance, if we were shrewd enough -to figure it out,” Tregarvon asserted. Then: “What will you do with -yourself until dinner-time?” - -“Oh, I don’t know; chase around in the car awhile, maybe, if you can’t -use me here. Perhaps I may be able to pick up a clue or so--if I can -find anybody to talk to.” - -Tregarvon stripped off his coat and went to work with Rucker and the -helpers, and in this manner the better part of the day was accounted -for. Late in the afternoon, when the blacksmithing of new irons left -him without an occupation, he yielded to a prompting which had been -urging him all day, and went for a long tramp which took him over the -route covered by the drilling plant in its several removals. - -The sun had gone behind the mountain when he finally came out at the -tramhead and signalled for the cable-car to take him down. Tryon -answered the signal and started the machinery, and in a few minutes -Tregarvon was landed at the Coalville level, where he found Carfax -waiting for him on the porch of the office-building. - -“I beat you to it,” said the golden youth; and then, whimsically: “What -do you know now more than you knew before you knew so little as you -know now?” - -Tregarvon cast himself down upon the porch-step. “I’ll tell you, after -a bit. Did you find out anything new?” - -“Nothing very conclusive. Item number one is that there are only two -horses in the Highmount stables; neither of them white, and neither -with a broken toe-calk on the left hind foot.” - -Tregarvon smiled wearily. “More negative information; it’s always -negative.” - -“Yes; and you may put into the same basket the item that no one of -the half-dozen people I asked knew of any white horse owned on the -mountain. But I picked up one little pointer that belongs in the other -basket--the positive. I had luncheon at Highmount--upon Mrs. Caswell’s -very pressing invitation. At table, Miss Richardia wanted to know how -you came to plant your drilling-machine right in the middle of the old -burying-ground.” - -“What’s that?” said Tregarvon. “You don’t mean to say that the glade is -a graveyard!” - -“It seems that it used to be, many years ago--for the slaves. You -will remember that you remarked the sunken spots in the only bit of -soft earth there is, and wondered what made them. They are graves. Do -you suppose Rucker would sleep any better to-night than he did last -night if he knew that? If he had known it last night, perhaps it might -have accounted for some of his restlessness. But I’m drifting from -the point, which is that Miss Richardia’s question betrayed her: she -was the young woman who drove with the man behind the white horse; -otherwise she would not have known about the location of the drilling -plant in the glade.” - -“That doesn’t follow,” Tregarvon objected. “Some one might have told -her. But let that part of it go. Did you discover anything else?” - -“Yes. After school hours I took Miss Farron, Miss Longstreet, and the -French teacher out for a spin in the car. Miss Richardia said she -couldn’t go because she had another engagement. We made a rather long -round to the south and came back to Highmount by a road which parallels -the western brow of the mountain. Are you paying attention?” - -“Breathless attention,” said Tregarvon ironically. “Joy-ride stories -always make me sit up. Go on.” - -“Over on the west-brow road we passed a place which looked as if it -might be--or might some time have been--a gentleman’s country house. -It is walled in from the road, with a magnificently groved lawn, -a box-bordered, weed-grown carriage drive, and a great, rambling, -porticoed mansion needing the repair-man pretty savagely. Still sitting -up and taking notice?” - -“Yes.” - -“Just as were rolling up to pass the stone-pillared lodge-gates a horse -and buggy came out, with a young woman driving. The horse was old and -countrified, and he didn’t take kindly to the auto. So I stopped and -got out to lead him past the machine. You won’t want to believe it, -but the young woman driver was Miss Richardia; and the horse--well, no -horseman would call it white, to be sure. It was a dapple-gray, light -enough to pass for white in the moonlight, and with a mechanician like -Rucker for the color expert.” - -Tregarvon came out of his listless mood with a snap. - -“Let it be said, once for all, Poictiers, that I won’t stand for any -theory that involves Richardia Birrell in the crooked part of it,” he -declared firmly. “I’d trust her with anything I own; with my life, if -she cared to borrow it. That dapple-gray suggestion of yours makes my -back ache! It isn’t worthy of you. Rucker said ‘white,’ and white isn’t -gray; not by a long shot!” - -“Wait,” said Carfax, evenly. “After I had led the horse safely past the -car, I made sure. ‘Hold on a minute, Miss Richardia,’ said I, ‘let me -see if your horse hasn’t a pebble in his shoe.’ That gave me an excuse -to lift his near hind foot. There wasn’t any pebble, of course, but the -shoe was badly worn, _and the toe-calk had a piece broken out of it_!” - -Tregarvon maintained a stubborn silence for a full minute. Then he -denied again, with more heat than the occasion seemed to demand. - -“I don’t care what evidence you bring. I’ll believe nothing against -Richardia; _nothing_, you understand? And, after all, what does it -amount to? We agreed this morning that she might blamelessly take an -evening drive with Hartridge. The fact that they were driving behind -her father’s horse cuts no especial figure that I can see.” - -“She might have been driving with Hartridge blamelessly; we agree on -that. Or even still more blamelessly with--her father.” - -“Put it in words,” snapped Tregarvon. - -“Two or three people to whom I have spoken saw them together behind the -dapple-gray, her and her father.” - -“I won’t stand for it!” was the angry retort. “You are hinting that her -father is behind these bushwhackings, and that she is a party to them. -That doesn’t go!” - -“That was spoken very much like a lover,” said Carfax slowly. And then: -“You mustn’t let your major weakness get away with you, Vance.” - -“And what do you call my ‘major weakness’?” Tregarvon inquired, with a -rasp to the words that made them sound like a challenge. - -Carfax did not mince matters. “The inability to be off with the old -love before you are on with the new,” he said crisply. “Elizabeth has -some rights which you ought to respect, don’t you think?” - -“Go on,” Tregarvon jerked out. “You haven’t said it all.” - -“No, I haven’t; but I shall say it all. You are a changed man, Vance. -Either this coal-mine fight or your infatuation for this young woman, -or both, are bringing out the worst there is in you. Don’t you realize -it?” - -“I realize that this is a devil of a world!” was the gritting -rejoinder. “First Richardia puts the knife into me and twists it -around, and now you’re doing it. I suppose it will be Elizabeth’s turn, -next!” - -“You deserve all that is coming to you, I venture to say,” suggested -the mentor evenly. “You are engaged to one woman, and you come here and -make love openly to another.” - -Tregarvon was lost now to all sense of proportion. “I shall do as I -please!” he retorted hotly. “If you want to write to Elizabeth, it’s -your privilege. If you do, I shall tell her that you’ve had Richardia -out in the car twice to my once!” - -Carfax’s mentor mood slipped away, and he laughed softly. - -“Miss Richardia is a dear girl, and worthy of the best that any man can -give her, Vance,” he said gently. “Somebody ought to save her from the -machinations of a William Wilberforce Hartridge, don’t you think? You -can’t, you know; and sometimes I’ve wondered if that doesn’t put it -pretty squarely up to me.” - -Tregarvon rose and stood over his friend, and for an instant there -were black passions to blaze in the wide-set gray eyes. But there was -manhood enough underlying the tumult to enable him to throttle the -worst of the impulses. - -“I--I guess I’m just a jealous dog in the manger, Poictiers,” he -confessed gratingly. “I’ve had a hunch that it was going that way, and -I’ve been resenting it--like the damned scoundrel I’m coming to be. But -it’s all over now, and--and I wish you joy. Can I say more than that?” - -Carfax looked up with a quaint twinkle in his eye. - -“I’m thinking you might say a good bit more, only you are too -charitable to turn the whole menagerie loose. Shall we go in and get -ready to eat? Uncle William will be calling us in a minute or so.” - -It was not until after the dinner had been eaten, and they were smoking -bedtime pipes before the dining-room fire, that Tregarvon went back to -the discoveries of the day. - -“About the time you were going for your drive this afternoon, I took -a walk,” he said, by way of prefacing the story of the last of the -discoveries. “I went over the ground we have been covering with the -drill, examining every inch of it as if I had lost the set out of a -diamond ring. I know now why we have been permitted to go on drilling -holes in the rock without interference.” - -Carfax nodded. “I’ve had a hint of my own: I wonder if you are not -going to confirm it.” - -“Perhaps. At any rate, I found that somebody else had been over -precisely the same ground with a test-drill a good while ago. I located -five holes in all, each of them filled to the top, of course, with sand -and washings. One of these holes isn’t twenty feet from the last one we -drilled before we moved to the present location in the graveyard glade.” - -“Um,” said Carfax, absently rolling a cigarette between his palms. -“That was my guess, based upon a word that Hartridge let drop the day -I drove him down here to eat with us. I suppose the corollary to that -is----” - -“That the accident that smashed things this morning was ‘assisted,’ as -the others have been. So long as we went on drilling in dead ground -it wasn’t worth while to interfere. But now that we are trying a new -wrinkle----” - -Carfax got up and returned the softened cigarette to its place in his -pocket-case. - -“I think we’d better sleep on that corollary of yours, Vance,” he -suggested mildly. “If it looks as plausible in daylight as it does now, -I don’t know but we had better call out the militia and give Rucker -more help in the night-watching. Anyway, we’ll see how it stacks up in -the morning.” - - - - -XI - -Rosemary and Rue - - -The better impulses had been all to the fore when Tregarvon had wished -his friend a fair field and no favor at Highmount. But between a burst -of generosity on the spur of a repentant moment and a day-by-day -renouncing of a pearl of price there is apt to lie a _via dolorosa_ -plentifully bestrewn with stone bruises for misguided feet. On the day -following the evening of plain speech Tregarvon toiled manfully with -Rucker and the laborers in the repairing of the damaged machinery; but -he did it without prejudice to a good many sharp-pointed reflections -basing themselves upon Carfax’s blunt accusation, upon the golden -youth’s calm interference, and upon the fact that, late in the -forenoon, Carfax, apparently tired of looking on and doing nothing at -the scene of the repairing activities, had strolled away through the -forest in the direction of Highmount. - -There was more than one disturbing string to the bow of reflection. At -first, Miss Birrell had openly made a good-natured mock of Carfax, -with his small affectations to point her gibings; but Tregarvon was now -impecunious enough himself to appreciate the potency of money. Miss -Richardia had told him a little about the Birrell fortunes--or the lack -of them; of the vanishing of the family possessions in the aftermath of -the Civil War; of the fact that her father, once the leading jurist of -the Cumberland counties--Miss Richardia did not say this, but Tregarvon -easily inferred it--had found himself out of touch with the later and -more pushing spirit of the New South, and had withdrawn more and more -until he had become almost a hermit. The Carfax millions were enough -to tempt any young woman; and Carfax himself--Tregarvon admitted it -without bitterness--was a man to whom most women were attracted and -whom all women trusted. - -But was Carfax really in love with Judge Birrell’s daughter? Tregarvon -boasted that he had summered and wintered the golden youth; yet there -were depths in him that the Philadelphian suspected no one had ever -fully plumbed. In Tregarvon’s knowing of him he had always been, or -appeared to be, immune to sentiment; his attitude had been that of -a gentle-natured soul who was willing to be used, or even abused, -without detriment to an impartial affection for the entire sex. Would -such a man be able to make Richardia as happy as she deserved to be? In -the intimacy which Tregarvon had pressed to its ultimate limits he had -come to know that behind the cool, slate-blue eyes and the lips that -lent themselves so readily to playful mockery there was a passionate -soul which would give all and demand all; which would starve on a diet -of mere affection, however kindly and indulgent. Would the Carfax -millions outweigh this demand? It was an irritating question, refusing -to be answered. - -Tregarvon, driving bolts into the patched derrick frame, strove -dejectedly to put his own huge misfortune aside as a matter definitely -settled. He admitted, with pricklings of shame, the truth, or at least -the half-truth, of Carfax’s accusation--the charge of fickleness. In a -light-hearted way he had been devoted to many women, for the moment, -and the nearest woman had always been the loadstone. He excused the -weakness by saying that it was common to all men--thereby touching a -truth larger than he knew; excused it further by laying down the broad -principle that Richardia Birrell, though numerically the last, was -really the first woman who had ever broken through to the inner depths -of him. - -Just here he had a saving glimpse of the workings of the normal -masculine mind, and it jogged his sense of humor. Was not the latest -charmer always the pearl of great price; the one altogether lovely? -Perhaps; but in this case, he told himself, it was different. The -Richardias are few and far between; and he had discovered one of the -precious few only to realize that he was bound in honor to relinquish -her without a murmur to a Carfax, or even to a Hartridge. It was a part -of the irrefrangible vanity of the male to regard the relinquishment -as a voluntary virtue on his part. In all the gnawings of the worm of -reflection, girdings at his hard lot, questionings as to Richardia’s -future happiness, gratulatory back-pattings at his own magnanimity in -leaving the field to Carfax, it did not occur to him that Richardia, -herself, might have had something to say to his own suit--if he had -been able, as a man of honor, to press it. Like many other men, he -comforted himself with the cheerful assumption that, in the absence of -the abnormal obstacles, any man may win any woman, if he shall only put -his mind to it; a doctrine, it may be said, which is still lacking -proof in certain isolated instances. - -Thus giving himself over to the bitterness--and the -self-glorification--of the afterthought, Tregarvon wore out the day, -deferring to Rucker as boss of the repairing job, and trying not to -speculate too pointedly upon the doings of the absent Carfax. That the -golden youth was once more a drop-in guest at the near-by school was -not to be doubted; and the caviller at an unkind fate steeled himself -against another disloyalty--a temptation to rail at the New Yorker for -making such unseemly haste. The ill-natured thought would have likened -Carfax’s haste to that which prompts the heir-at-law to open and read -the will while the testator is as yet merely in the throes of the -death-agony--only Tregarvon would not yield to the temptation. - -If the murmurer against fate could have seen beyond the half-mile -of forest which intervened between the old slave burying-ground and -Highmount, he would have concluded sorrowfully that Carfax’s haste -was well on the way to its reward. Miss Richardia’s duty hours in -the afternoon were short, and at three o’clock she was free to join -the golden one, who, as Tregarvon’s prefiguring had assumed, had -been Mrs. Caswell’s luncheon guest, and was now making himself at -home on the broad veranda of the administration building. For a time -the talk rambled through Boston byways and was reminiscent of Miss -Richardia’s sojourn as a Conservatory student and of Carfax’s quickly -abandoned attempt to take a postgraduate course in the School of Naval -Architecture. - -“You see, I didn’t have the spur,” was Carfax’s excuse for the -abandoned attempt. Then, in an apparent burst of enthusiasm: “Vance is -the lucky fellow! He is obliged to work. He thinks it is pretty hard -lines, but he doesn’t know how jolly good it is for his soul. It is -precisely what he is needing, don’t you think?” - -“Work? yes; but the many disappointments: are they also good for the -soul?” - -Carfax’s smile was entirely amiable. “In due proportion, they are, -I should say. Vance has been like a bit of soft steel, needing the -forge fire and the tempering brine bath. I presume you know that he is -engaged to be married?” - -Miss Richardia’s smile was of the sort that no mere man may interpret. - -“I think he has told me all there was to tell. Are you acquainted with -Miss Wardwell?” - -“Very well acquainted, indeed. She is all that any man could ask--and -more,” said Carfax, with more warmth than he usually permitted himself. -“Last summer she was a member of a Lake Placid outing-party in which I -had the good fortune also to be included. We became quite chummy. She -swims, you know.” - -Again Miss Birrell’s smile was a charming little mask of -impenetrability. - -“These athletic young women!” she sighed. “It is their day.” - -“Oh, I don’t mean that Eliz--that Miss Wardwell is offensively -athletic. I wouldn’t have you think that. She--she is musical and all -the other things that a young woman ought to be; but she enjoys the -outdoor things, too. And so do I.” - -“And Mr. Tregarvon doesn’t enjoy them?” - -“Just in a way,” was the qualifying rejoinder. “Vance’s misfortune has -been, that, until quite recently, he has never wanted anything that he -couldn’t simply reach out and take; he has never been obliged to throw -himself whole-heartedly into anything. He is doing it now, though.” - -“Into the Ocoee, you mean? I am afraid there is nothing but -disappointment for him there.” - -Carfax was silent for a moment. Then he said: “There are times, Miss -Richardia, when I have the feeling that every one who knows what he is -trying to do wishes him to be disappointed.” - -“Including us here at Highmount?” she laughed. - -“Well, yes.” - -“Perhaps you would be willing to make it even more definite. Do you -include me with Mr. Tregarvon’s ill-wishers?” - -“Sometimes I’ve been tempted to.” - -“I’m sure I don’t know why you should say that.” - -“I have said it,” Carfax returned, with the gentle doggedness which -he could assume when the need was sufficiently pressing. “I shall be -delighted to be assured that I am mistaken.” - -Now came Miss Richardia’s opportunity to fall silent, and she improved -it. When she spoke again the playful mockery was laid aside. - -“My father was one of the sorriest of the losers in the Ocoee in the -promoting period,” she began soberly. “This entire mountain top was -once a part of the Birrell estate; my grandfather gave the site for -this school. When Mr. Parker was promoting the Ocoee, father went into -the plan, heart and soul, giving a large part of the land, and putting -all the money he could rake and scrape into the stock of Mr. Parker’s -company. Worse than that, he was so firmly convinced of the future -success of the undertaking that he persuaded his friends to invest. You -mustn’t expect us to be very enthusiastic now, Mr. Carfax. It isn’t in -human nature to rejoice when others are preparing to reap where we have -sown.” - -Carfax’s smile was angel-compassionate. - -“Poor Vance isn’t reaping very successfully as yet,” he pointed out. -Then he added: “I hope your good father doesn’t feel vindictive toward -him. I think we may safely say that Vance is the innocent third party -in the transaction--if there ever is such a thing.” - -“You don’t know my father; if you did, you would hardly accuse him of -vindictiveness, even in your thoughts.” - -“Can you say as much for yourself?” asked the accuser gently. - -“Indeed, I can!” - -“You wouldn’t put a straw in Vance’s way, if you could?” - -“I wish you would listen!” she laughed. “Do I look like a--a -subterranean plotter, Mr. Carfax?” - -“You always look charming. But you don’t want Vance to succeed.” - -“I am sure I don’t know why you should think such a thing. Perhaps you -don’t think it. I can never tell when you are really in earnest.” - -“Strange that you should have noticed that. Others have said it of me, -too, at times. But I am very much in earnest this afternoon. It lies in -your hands to make Vance fail most conspicuously, you know.” - -“You are fond of riddles, and I am not. I wish you would be more -explicit.” - -Carfax stole a glance aside at his veranda companion and it was borne -in upon him that he would have to choose his words carefully. The -slate-blue eyes had grown a trifle hard, and Miss Richardia’s tone was -no longer sympathetic. - -“Vance can’t mix business and sentiment very well,” he ventured. “He -has been spending a good bit of time here at Highmount, forgetting some -things that he ought to remember. Surely you have discovered his one -weakness by this time, haven’t you?” he went on, gravely pleading. “Not -that it isn’t tremendously excusable in the present instance, you know. -You--er--you are enough to turn any man’s head, Miss Richardia; you -are, indeed.” - -Her little shriek of laughter was sufficient to break any thin skim of -ice which may have been congealing between them. - -“You can be quite as absurd as Mr. Vance, himself, when you try!” she -mocked. Then, with the frankness which was all her own: “Are you trying -to tell me that I have been playing the part of a modern Delilah, Mr. -Carfax!” - -“Oh, dear, no! But”--he swallowed hard once or twice, and then took -the plunge--“but Vance simply couldn’t help falling in love with you. -Er--hardly any man could. And it’s--it’s smashing him to perfection. I -don’t say that he is admitting the--the little lapse, even to himself; -he is too honorable to do that, after he has given his word to Eliz--to -Miss Wardwell. But the fact remains.” - -Miss Richardia laughed again, but now the laugh scarcely rang true. - -“You are making me out a poor, miserable sinner; though I am a most -innocent one, I do assure you,” she protested, not without a suggestion -of sarcasm. “What is it you wish me to do?” - -Carfax needed no one to tell him that he was wading in deep waters, -and that another step might put him in over his head. Yet he could not -retreat; he had gone too far. - -“I have been trying to hammer a little common sense into Vance; perhaps -I have said more than even a good friend has a right to say. Hitherto -it hasn’t done much good; but last night I had a perfectly brilliant -inspiration. I wonder if you could be induced to help me carry it -out?--just in the interests of a--of a square deal all around, you -know.” - -“Another absurdity?” she queried, half scornfully. - -“Yes, just that; a--a most ridiculous absurdity. Will you--er--will you -marry me, Miss Richardia?” - -“Most certainly not,” she returned, with a strained little laugh. “Why -should I?” - -“There isn’t any reason at all, of course,” he hastened to say. “But if -you would make your answer not quite so--er--so positive: if you would -be so generous as to--er--to seem to take it under consideration; just -until Vance can get on his feet again----” - -This time her laughter was wholly mirthful; an abandonment of all -hamperings. - -“Of all preposterous askings!” she gasped. “Are there many more like -you, Mr. Carfax--in New York?” - -“Plenty of them,” he assured her, not too seriously. Then: “It wouldn’t -be such a dreadful thing, would it? I can make love very nicely, you -know; honestly, I can. And we shouldn’t have to do anything more than -to keep up appearances.” - -She shook her head. - -“I’m not going to humor you far enough to even pretend to take you -seriously,” she declared. - -“Not even for Vance’s sake? Of course, I know you don’t care for -him, particularly, but I do; he has been like a brother to me, Miss -Richardia; really he has. And we ought to make him realize what he is -about; it’s--er--it’s a sort of duty, don’t you think?” - -“If I should tell you what I think I am afraid it might sound -dreadfully unkind, Mr. Carfax. You seem to have had very little -experience with women.” - -“Oh, but I have, you know,” he burst out. “I--I’m in love, -myself--with--with some one I can’t possibly marry. That ought to make -you feel sorry for me, and I’m sure it does. Perhaps you are in a -similar situation yourself; in love with some one else, I mean. In that -case----” - -Miss Richardia had risen, and the mocking mood was once more firmly -intrenched behind her laughing eyes. - -“You have given me a most delicious half-hour, Mr. Carfax, and in the -days to come, when I feel particularly blue, I shall always have it -to look back to and remember. You are not expecting me to say any more -than that, are you? I can’t, you know, because I have an appointment -with a pupil, and I shall have to go and keep it.” - -Carfax had risen with her. “I’m perfectly delighted to be your -laughing-stock,” he asserted gently. “You’ll let me come and be it -again? Thanks, awfully.” And when she was gone he sat down like a man -who has been through a pass perilous, and smoked three of the imported -cigarettes in rapid succession. - -That evening, returning from the hard day’s work on the repairs, the -owner of the Ocoee found Carfax awaiting him in the office headquarters -at the foot of Pisgah. Uncle William’s dinner, served as soon as -Tregarvon had taken his bath, was not provocative of conversation; and -even afterward the talk, revolving around the repairs and the mystery, -was only desultory. It was not until Tregarvon was smoking his bedtime -pipe that he dug the one important thing out of his mind and flung it -at his companion. - -“You spent the day at Highmount, I suppose?” - -“Oh, dear, no; not quite so bad as that. I’ve been down here since -half-past four or such a matter.” - -“But you went to the college after you left us?” - -“Yes; and Mrs. Caswell was good enough to give me something to eat at -the proper time. She makes one believe all the old-time stories of -Southern hospitality. Which reminds me: we are both invited there to -dinner to-morrow evening.” - -Tregarvon refused to be turned aside. - -“You didn’t go to Highmount to visit with Mrs. Caswell,” he suggested -sourly. - -“Not altogether; no.” - -“Did you see Richardia?” - -Carfax had lighted his candle and was preparing to beat a hasty -retreat, did retreat as far as the door before he turned to say: “Yes, -I saw I Miss Richardia. You wished me joy, last night, Vance, and I -hope you are going to do it again. I’ve asked her to marry me, you -know.” - -“_What!_” shouted Tregarvon, springing from his chair. And then, with a -mighty effort to keep the words from choking him: “What did she say?” - -Carfax smiled like a winning angel. “She--well, it seemed to strike her -as being a bit sudden, as you might say, and----” - -[Illustration: Carfax stopped abruptly and said no more.] - -Tregarvon had dropped into a chair beside the table, and was hiding -his face in the crook of an elbow. Carfax stopped abruptly and said no -more; and when he closed the door behind him it was done so gently that -the latch made no sound. - - - - -XII - -Dull Steel - - -Rucker proved as good as his word in the matter of estimating the -delay, two days sufficing for the work of restoration. Having made a -test run in the evening after Tregarvon had gone down the mountain, the -mechanician had the machinery whirling merrily to the _chug chug_ of -the drill by the time his two bosses came on the ground the following -morning. - -Among his better qualities Tregarvon was able to number a certain -degree of resilience which, given time to take the full impact of a -blow, could recover and rebound and make the best of the inevitable. -Whatever might have come of the intimacy with Richardia Birrell--and he -told himself that nothing could have come of it in any event--it was -now an episode ended; and after a night of very much mingled emotions, -he had risen up with the determination to play the man, for Carfax’s -sake if not for his own, and to let the industrial battle fill all the -horizons for one Vance Tregarvon. With this determination firmly seated -in the saddle, he had constrained himself to meet Carfax at breakfast -without bitterness; to motor with him up the mountain in terms of -good-fellowship; and, upon their arrival, to shout cheerfully to Rucker. - -“Got her going all right again, have you, Billy? Any more puzzle people -come to see you last night?” - -Rucker grinned sheepishly. - -“I ain’t goin’ to lie about it, Mr. Tregarvon. What with pushin’ the -job so bloomin’ hard yesterday, and losin’ so much sleep between -whiles, I guess they might’ve come and lugged me off bodily without my -knowin’ it.” - -“And you didn’t find anything wrong this morning?” - -“Well, no; not to say just wrong; only sort o’ spookerish.” Then, in a -tone that the men at the drill might not hear: “There was somebody here -again last night--humans ’r ghosts. I had a fit o’ the jumps a while -back that everlastin’ly swiped my appetite for breakfast.” - -“How was that?” asked Tregarvon, looking up from his inspection of -the yellow car’s motor; and Carfax said: “It must have been something -pretty fierce, Billy, if it crippled your pneumogastric nerve.” - -“It was this way,” Rucker explained. “Last night, after we got the -derrick rigged again, I starts and runs the engine for a little while, -just to make sure everything is in workin’ order. When I shuts down, I -banks the fire under the boiler so it’ll keep overnight. ’Long about -sunrise this mornin’ I hikes over to stir her up for business, and when -I yanks the fire-box door open, it’s me for throwin’ that fit o’ the -jumps. There was the yallerist, cockiest-lookin’ skull you ever see, -settin’ on top o’ the banked fire, ready to pull a grin on me when I -opens the door.” - -“A skull?--a human skull?” exclaimed Tregarvon incredulously. - -“Yep; a yaller one; all teeth and eye-holes, and with a sort of greasy -black smoke comin’ out o’ the place where its nose ought to ’a’ been.” - -“How did it get there?” Carfax asked the question and then answered it -himself by adding: “But, of course, you don’t know.” - -Rucker was wiping his face with a piece of cotton waste--the -machinist’s handkerchief. The autumn morning was cool and bracing on -the mountain top, yet the perspiration stood in fine little beads on -his forehead. - -“No, I don’t know; and if you was to search me all day, you’d never get -it out o’ me where it come from, ’r who put it there,” he said. “I -ain’t what you’d call jumpy, but after it was all over, I didn’t want -no breakfast.” - -“What did you do with it?” Tregarvon asked. - -“Me? I jammed it back into the coals with the clinker hook, and put the -blower on, quick! Says I, ‘All right, my bucko! You make me throw a -fit, and I’ll make you make steam!’” - -“Heavens! You burned it?” Tregarvon was still conventional enough to be -half horrified, and Carfax shuddered in sympathy. - -“I certain’y did. But he got back at me, right now! In less ’n five -minutes by the watch that old boiler was red-hot and blowin’ off steam -to beat the band. She was sweatin’ black smoke at every joint; and when -I chases ’round to open the fire-door--Well, you needn’t believe me if -you don’t want to, but them grate-bars was drippin’ something ’r other -that looked like burnin’ blood!” - -There is a point beyond which the thread of sympathetic horror snaps, -and the ball rebounds into the field of the ridiculous. - -“That will do for you, Billy,” Tregarvon laughed. “We’ll allow you the -skull, but you needn’t embroider it for us. Somebody played a grisly -joke on you--with no particular object, that I can see. Just the same, -it has its significance. Some prowler was sneaking around here while -you were asleep. Are you sure the drill is working all right?” - -“You can see for yourself,” said Rucker, not unboastfully. “She’s -jumpin’ up and down to the old tune of forty to the minute, same as I -promised you she’d be this mornin’.” - -But a closer inspection proved that Rucker’s boast was loyal to the eye -but a traitor to the fact. The drill was merely “jumping up and down.” -It was hardly cutting its own clearance; had gained in depth less than -half an inch in half an hour, according to the report of Sawyer, who -was at his customary post, “churning and turning” at the hole. - -Rucker looked on critically for a few minutes and then laid a listening -ear to the steel, bowing and recovering in unison with the stroke. - -“She’s hit a bone o’ some kind,” was his verdict; and he stopped the -churning machinery and threw in the hoist by means of which the heavy -cutting-bar was lifted from the hole. - -An examination of the drill point amply verified the mechanician’s -guess that something much harder than the fine-gritted sandstone of the -mountain top had been encountered in the bottom of the test-hole. The -cutting edges of the drill burr were completely gone, broken down and -gnawed smooth until the steel cutter-bar was no more than a blunt-ended -ram. - -Tregarvon swore painstakingly, anathematizing the demon of ill luck by -bell, book, and candle, thereby further emphasizing the distance he had -travelled on the road toward things elemental. - -“Scrap it,” he snapped, meaning the ruined drill point. “How many more -have you?” - -“Three.” - -“All right; put another one in and drive it!” - -Rucker got out a fresh point, mounted and lowered it, and the churning -was resumed. Three hours of steady thumping showed a gain of less than -two inches in the depth of the hole, and at the end of that time the -second drill burr was worn as smooth as the first. - -This went on until the last of the four cutters was put in service. -For a wasted day of patient churning the hole had gone down only a few -inches, and Rucker was in despair. - -“When this cutter goes, we’re hung up for more ’n any day ’r two,” he -announced. “I can sharpen these points all right enough, but it’ll take -scads o’ time with the tools we’ve got here on the job. You two bosses -hain’t made up your minds what t’ ’ell it is we’re tryin’ to chew -through down yonder, have you?” - -Tregarvon had taken an engineering course in the university, but he was -no geologist; and Carfax’s equipment was even less hopeful. It was a -case for a specialist; and the specialist turned up at the opportune -moment in the person of Mr. Guy Wilmerding, who had ridden over from -Whitlow to see how the Ocoee experiment was progressing. - -His coming was hailed with acclamations by the two amateurs. - -“By Jove, Wilmerding, you’re just in time to save us from -strait-jackets and a padded cell!” Tregarvon exclaimed. “What kind of -rock do you have in this region that will make a drill point look like -that?” showing the C. C. & I. superintendent one of the blunted cutters. - -Wilmerding scrutinized the dulled point carefully. - -“None of the native rock ought to do that,” he demurred. “This is a -poor piece of steel, isn’t it?” - -“It is one of the four cutters we have been using ever since we began. -Three of them have gone that way, and the fourth is mulling in the hole -now with only a few more minutes to live.” - -“That’s queer. I can’t imagine what you’ve hit that would dub the -points like this. Let me see the stuff you’ve been taking out with the -sand pump.” - -The little heap of finely powdered cuttings was exhibited. Wilmerding -examined them with the eye of an expert, rubbing some of the cuttings -between his thumb and finger. - -“Pebbles,” he said definitely; “white quartz pebbles embedded in the -sandstone--‘pudding,’ the miners call it. You’ve hit a streak of this -conglomerate, and sometimes it is as hard as blue blazes. Still, I have -never seen any of it that was hard enough to smash a drill like that,” -he added reflectively. - -“You are the doctor,” Carfax suggested. “What is the needed medicine?” - -“There is nothing to do but to keep on hammering away at it,” was the -reply. “If you shift your location, the probabilities are that you -would run into the same stratum again. When you go prying into Mother -Earth’s secrets, you have to take what she sends and be thankful it’s -no worse.” - -Tregarvon’s cup of objurgation overflowed again. - -“That means Rucker to go to Chattanooga with the cutter points, and -more delay. We haven’t any tool-making facilities here.” - -“I guess this is where I come in,” said Wilmerding, with prompt -generosity. “We have a well-equipped plant at Whitlow, and a blacksmith -who is out of sight on drill-tempering. Load your man and the points -into your motor-car and shoot them up to us. We’ll try to keep you -going.” - -Tregarvon’s ill temper vanished like the dew on a summer morning. “You -are certainly an enemy of a hitherto unsuspected variety!” he declared. -“We’ve been having a good bit of trouble, first and last; some of it -bearing all the earmarks of design on somebody’s part. Do you know for -a while I thought you might be inspiring it? That was before Carfax -discovered you personally, of course.” - -Wilmerding’s laugh was good-naturedly derisive. - -“I hope you didn’t think so small of Consolidated Coal as to suspect it -of popping at you with a boy’s whip!” he retorted. “By and by, when you -find your coal and meet us in the open market, we may have to buy you -or smash you. But it will be done in the good, old-fashioned commercial -way.” - -“We shall be there when you put up the large come-off-the-perch -bluff,” Carfax thrust in gently. “But in the meantime, somebody _is_ -popping at us with the boy’s whip.” - -“Who?--for a guess?” asked the Whitlow superintendent. - -“Ah!” said Carfax, in the same gentle tone, “I have a thousand dollars -somewhere about my belongings that would be delighted to blow itself -against the real answer to that question.” - -“And you have no clue?” - -Carfax smiled. “A dozen of them, more or less. But they all have a -way of coming out by the roots when we begin to pull on them ever so -cautiously.” - -“You are calling me the enemy, but that doesn’t count until the real -fight opens up,” said Wilmerding. “If any suggestion of mine will help -while you are clawing for a foothold.... By the way, that reminds me: I -made an analysis of your coals the other day. Thaxter didn’t have one, -didn’t seem to know anything definite about the Ocoee.” - -“Well?” queried Tregarvon. “Do you agree with Captain Duncan?” - -“If your two veins are not one and the same, they ought to be. I -couldn’t sift out the slightest difference between the two specimens.” - -There was some further talk about the characteristics, analytical and -otherwise, of the Ocoee coal, and Wilmerding stayed long enough to see -the fourth and last drill point withdrawn from the hole. The cutter, -like its predecessors, was a mechanical ruin; and Wilmerding again made -the proffer of the Whitlow repair-plant. Tregarvon promised to send -Rucker and the burrs up from Coalville in the morning, and the young -superintendent climbed upon his nag and rode away. - -“Tools up, men!” Tregarvon called to the drilling squad, when -Wilmerding had disappeared among the trees. “We’ll call it a day; and -to-morrow you may all go on the track-repairing with Tryon.” - -Rucker was busying himself about the machinery after the laborers had -gone, and as yet he had said nothing about wishing to be relieved from -the night-watching. But it was clear that a man who put in full time -during the day could scarcely be expected to sleep with one eye open -at night. Moreover, if Rucker were to start in the morning for Whitlow -with the drills, it would be necessary for him to sleep at Coalville. - -“What is your programme for to-night?” asked Carfax, as he walked with -Tregarvon to the tool-house. “I suppose you’ll send Rucker down for -the early start to Whitlow. You’ll hardly care to leave things up here -without a watchman, will you?” - -“Not at the present stage of the game,” was the prompt reply. “You may -go down in the car with Rucker, and I’ll stay here for the night. I’d -like to see some of these queer happenings for myself.” - -“I can beat that plan,” Carfax put in. “You’ve forgotten that we have -an invitation to Highmount for dinner this evening. Mrs. Caswell gave -it, and I accepted for both of us. We’ll go down and dress, and come -back in the car, leaving Rucker to stand watch here while we do the -social act. Later, Rucker can come for us, trundling us over here, -first, and himself and the drills to Coalville afterward. How will that -answer?” - -Tregarvon demurred upon two counts. “You mean that you’ll sit up with -me? You don’t have to play night-watchman to this sick project of mine, -Poictiers. Besides, I don’t care to go to the Highmount faculty dinner. -More than that, you ought to be the last man in the world to put me in -for it. I’ve already wasted too much time in that way, and you know -it.” - -“In the present instance I’ve promised for you, and I guess you’ll -have to go,” said Carfax quietly. “And as for my sitting up with you -afterward, that’s a part of the game. I’m immensely interested in -skulls and things.” - -And thus, without further argument, it was decided. - - - - -XIII - -The Burnt Child - - -The dinner in the president’s dining-room at Highmount College was -anything but formal. By this time the two young men from the North -were on a footing which lacked little of the household relation, Mrs. -Caswell having said hospitably, more than once, that their plates were -always laid at the faculty table. - -Quite naturally, the Ocoee experiment came in for a share of the -table-talk, and in this field Tregarvon let Carfax do most of the -ploughing. For one reason, Miss Richardia had changed her place and was -sitting on the other side of the golden one; and for another, his own -companion was the French teacher, who persisted in talking, and making -him talk, of things trans-atlantic and Parisian. - -Later, however, he was tempted--and fell. The night was too cool for -the veranda, and the after-dinner dispersal was to the music-room. -Richardia played, and for a time Tregarvon sat beside Miss Farron and -said “Yes” and “No,” as the occasion demanded, coming always afterward -to a rapt and regretful contemplation of the pearl of great price on -the piano-bench. - -Being an artist to her finger-tips, Miss Birrell at the piano -became a breaker of hearts by just so much more as the mask of -self-consciousness fell away, leaving the true art soul free to express -itself in the musician’s ecstasy of detachment. In such moments -Tregarvon saw her as the embodied spirit of all that was most desirable -in the world of women; gazed spellbound, sinned, repented, and sinned -again; calling himself hard names in one breath, and rhapsodizing -deliriously over the supernal charm of her in the next. - -Again and again he told himself in caustic self-derision that his -infatuation was merely the result of propinquity--the nearness of -Richardia coupled with the remoteness of Elizabeth. But as often as he -pleaded this excuse, the merciless inner and final court of appeals -assured him that the evasion was but the adding of self-deception to -unfaithfulness, and insisted upon a restatement of the humiliating -facts: that he had promised to marry a woman whom he did not love, -when he knew he did not love her; and that he was now adding to this -baseness by admitting his love for another. - -This restatement of the case was dinning itself into his ears for -the hundredth time while he was saying “Yes” and “No” to the pretty -assistant in mathematics, and praying in his more lucid intervals -that Rucker might come early with the motor-car and so forestall any -chance of deeper mirings. But Rucker was apparently in no hurry. -Miss Richardia played until she was tired; Madame Fortier and Miss -Farron excused themselves and went to their duties in the dormitories; -Hartridge and Miss Longstreet went to brave the chill of the evening in -a pacing constitutional on the veranda; and the group in the music-room -was cut down to the Caswells, their guests, and Miss Birrell. - -At this conjuncture Tregarvon saw that Carfax was about to add -insult to injury by leaving him alone with Richardia. The president -was talking about some improvements he wished to make in the school -gymnasium: would Mr. Carfax be good enough to look the plans over and -give a country schoolmaster the benefit of his advice? Tregarvon turned -to the nearest window to watch for the headlamps of the expected auto. -They were not yet in sight; and when the silence behind him gave token -that Carfax and the Caswells had gone, he knew that he had been basely -deserted. - -Miss Richardia was still at the piano, letting her fingers run in -delicate little harmonies up and down the keyboard. Tregarvon meant to -keep his distance, but she drew him so irresistibly that he was beside -her before he realized that he was once more breaking all the good -resolutions. - -“Don’t go just yet,” he pleaded, when she looked around, saw that the -others were gone, and made as if she would rise. Then he added: “It -isn’t my fault this time: I didn’t wish to come, but Poictiers had -accepted for me. You mustn’t punish me when I don’t deserve it.” - -She looked up at him with the air of detachment which he had always -found more trying than her sharpest accusations. - -“Why should I punish you at all? Hasn’t your conscience been doing that -much for you?” - -“Don’t!” he begged again. “Now that it is all over, I am going to tell -you that I have been a liar and a hypocrite.” - -She stopped him with a quick little gesture of dismay. - -“Please don’t spoil it all now--just because we happen to be alone -together for a minute or two. When are you going home to marry Miss -Wardwell?” - -“You are perfectly merciless,” he complained. “Must we talk about -Elizabeth?” - -“Ask your conscience,” she retorted. - -“My conscience is busy and doesn’t want to be disturbed. One would -think you had been born and bred in New England!” - -“I wasn’t; I was born on this mountain.” - -He sat down in the nearest chair and tried to remember that he was -talking to the woman who was as good as promised to Poictiers Carfax. - -“I know,” he offered; “in a rambling old house with a groved lawn. It -has a box-bordered carriage drive, and a big, pillared veranda fronting -the west.” - -“Yes; when have you ever seen Westwood House?” - -“Perhaps I haven’t seen it; perhaps I am only imagining how it ought -to look. But the name ‘Westwood’ is familiar enough. It is written all -over the Ocoee maps.” - -Her smile, on any other lips, would have had more than a hint of -bitterness in it. - -“I suppose we ought to be proud of the distinction. The printing of the -home name on the maps was the only return my father ever had for what -he did for Mr. Parker. But, of course, you know all about that.” - -“Not so much as I’d like to know. I have understood that your father -was a heavy investor in the original Ocoee company, and that Parker -contrived to give him the hot end of things in the reorganization.” - -“It is all true.” - -“It makes me feel as if I had been caught stealing sheep,” he -volunteered. “Ethically, I suppose the Ocoee doesn’t belong to me at -all, though I hope it is clear to everybody that neither I nor my -father had any part in the crookedness. So far as that goes, my father -never knew anything about the early history of the mine; and neither -did I before I came down here. How does your father feel about it?” - -It did not strike him at the moment as being particularly significant -that she did not answer the question categorically. - -“Those things are all past and gone,” she said half-absently. And then: -“I wish you might meet my father; you and Mr. Carfax.” - -The mention of Carfax’s name was as salt to a fresh wound. - -“You’ve changed your mind about Poictiers, haven’t you?” he said, and -he tried to make the saying of it entirely judicial. “You made fun of -him at first, you know.” - -“Not of him, but of some of the things that he said and did,” she -corrected quickly. “And that was only because I didn’t know him; -because I was so stupid as not to recognize the real man under the -transparent little mask of affectation that he delights in holding up -between himself and all the rest of the world.” - -Tregarvon made a loud call upon his magnanimity, and concurred heartily. - -“He is the finest there is, Richardia. I--I hope he will be able to -make you as happy as you deserve to be.” - -For the moment he was puzzled. Sheer maiden modesty might have -accounted for the blush, but why should the slate-blue eyes grow -suspiciously bright, as with tears? - -“Then he has told you?” She had turned away from him and there was a -little catch in her voice. - -“Yes. It broke my heart, Richardia--which shows you how far I had gone -on the road to depravity. Poictiers said to me once that I was playing -the dog in the manger, and so I was. There was no excuse, of course; -there never is an excuse for dishonor. But you were heart and soul and -conscience to me, and I seemed to need you so much more than anybody -else ever could. I can say all this without blame now, can’t I? You -are going to marry Poictiers, and I am going to marry Elizabeth.” - -She had turned farther away, as if to conceal emotions too profound to -be shared. At first he thought she was crying, and wondered why. Then -it was borne in upon him that she was laughing, and he became instantly -and hotly resentful. - -“If you are laughing at me and my little lunacy, it is all right,” he -exploded. “But if it’s at Poictiers----” - -When she let him see her face again it was perfectly straight, but -there were twin imps of mockery dancing in the eyes of desire. - -“Between you and Mr. Carfax it is hard for a poor country mouse to find -breathing space,” she asserted. “Am I to understand that you are trying -to congratulate me?” - -Tregarvon frowned heavily. “No; Poictiers is the one to be -congratulated--if you were not laughing at him.” - -“I wasn’t,” she denied promptly. “He is much too splendid to be laughed -at. Don’t criticise the word; it is the only one that fits him.” - -“Then you were laughing at me?” - -“No.” - -“At what I said, then? that is just as cruel.” - -“Why will you insist upon being so quarrelsome? I was laughing because -I couldn’t help it. Let us talk about something else; about your mine. -Have you been having any more of the mysterious trouble?” - -“Yes; it is one thing after another. You heard what Poictiers was -telling at the table this evening. He made it sound like hard luck, but -it isn’t luck; it’s design. Some one is making the trouble for us.” - -“Who would do such a thing as that?” - -“For a long time we were totally in the dark. But now we know the man.” - -Miss Richardia had the translucent complexion that harmonizes perfectly -with cloudy blue eyes and masses of light-brown hair brightened by -touches of warmer tints; hence there was no telltale pink to vanish at -the command of sudden emotion. Yet Tregarvon saw she was startled, and -that the exciting cause was quick-springing anxiety. - -“You have seen him?” she asked. - -“Rucker, the machinist, has.” Tregarvon was always making good -resolutions about not talking too much, and always breaking them. -It had been no part of his intention to refer to the incriminating -incident in which Richardia herself figured as one of the two actors, -but the inexpedient thing was said and he could only hope that -Richardia would not ask for more. - -She was looking away again when she said: “Now that you know, I suppose -you will defend your rights?” - -“Take legal steps, you mean? I don’t wish to do that, if it can be -avoided.” - -“No; anything but that!” she pleaded in low tones. “You must remember -the provocation.” - -“I didn’t give the provocation.” - -“No; but you are associated, in a way, with those who did. You have -inherited a legacy of ill will.” - -“I might be able to understand that, if the man who is making the -trouble were one of the ignorant natives. But he is not.” - -“No,” she agreed half-absently; “he is not.” - -“Then you know who it is?” said Tregarvon, again permitting himself to -say one of the things which might better have been left unsaid. - -She nodded slowly. “I--I am afraid I do. And I am going to plead for -him, if you will let me. There are mitigating circumstances--prejudices -against all Northerners _as_ Northerners. You can’t understand that, -because the North didn’t suffer as the South did in the war between -the States--at least, not in the same way. And the South has suffered -bitterly since the war; from such men as Mr. Parker. There was a -disposition on our part to let bygones be bygones, after the great -struggle; but a few unprincipled promoters have done much to keep the -old sectional animosities alive.” - -Tregarvon was regarding her thoughtfully. - -“You are wise beyond your years and your sex,” he said soberly. “What -do you think I ought to do to this anachronistic gentleman who is -visiting the sins of other people upon my poor head?” - -“I can only beg of you to be broad-minded and charitable and slow to -anger for the sake of all concerned--for my sake, if you must put it -upon narrower ground.” - -At this appeal, the earnestness of which could not be questioned, -Tregarvon was frankly puzzled. A little earlier in the adventure he -would not have been surprised to find Richardia Birrell pleading for -Hartridge; but now, with Carfax apparently elbowing the professor aside -in the sentimental field, there seemed to be less reason for the plea, -unless pure friendship might account for it. - -“I shall put it wholly upon ‘narrower ground,’ as you call it,” he -maintained. “If you tell me that you care enough for the man you are -pleading for to ask me to spare him for your sake----” - -“Care enough?” she exclaimed, wide-eyed. “I should be singularly -inhuman if I didn’t care!” - -As in a flash of revealing lightning Tregarvon saw and thought he -understood. It was not Hartridge for whom she was interceding; the -professor of mathematics was not the man who had driven with her to the -glade on the night of strange happenings--who had stood with her in the -shadow of the drill derrick, shaking his fist at the inanimate symbol -of the renewed Ocoee activities. The moving spirit in all the enmities -and antagonisms was her father! - -For a moment the thing seemed unbelievable. That a man who had formerly -been a judge and a champion of the law should become a feudist, -carrying his vindictiveness over from those who had defrauded him -to the defrauders’ innocent successor, appeared blankly incredible. -Yet Tregarvon remembered that the South still held many archaic -well-springs of thought and action--he had to fight anachronisms -daily in his laborers--and that the older generation was not to be -judged by the standards of the new. Judge Birrell had felt the heel of -the invader, not only in the great conflict between the States, but -afterward, when the invader came as a friend and robbed him in the name -of business. - -Tregarvon had little time in which to determine what he ought to say; -time for nothing but a sudden and loyal resolve not to fail Richardia -in her moment of need. Voices in the hall warned him that Carfax and -the Caswells were returning, and at the same moment he heard the honk -of the motor announcing Rucker’s approach. He was upon his feet when he -said: “You have told me something that I didn’t know--didn’t suspect. -I can scarcely believe it yet. But you need have no fears for anything -that I shall do. You mustn’t worry for a single moment. It will all -come out right in the end.” - -He had his reward in a quick little grasp of the hand, in eyes filling -this time with real tears, and in a low-toned outpouring of gratitude. - -“I knew you would say that,” she avouched. “It is what you have taught -me to expect of you. I am doing all I can to--to bring about a better -understanding, and if you will only be patient and wait a little -while----” - -Carfax and the two Caswells were entering the music-room, and -Tregarvon turned quickly and made a pretense of rearranging the music -on the piano desk. The small diversion gave him a chance for another -whispered word of assurance. “I’ve been advertising myself to you as -all kinds of a graceless wretch, but now I’ll show you that I can rise -to the occasion. Don’t be afraid: there will be no scandal--no tragedy, -so far as you and yours are concerned.” - -She caught instantly at the qualification. “Then there are others?” she -queried. - -“One other, at least. And after what you have just told me I am quite -sure he is acting entirely upon his own responsibility. I’ll tell you -more about him some other time.” - -Carfax was already taking leave, and Tregarvon joined him. The host -and hostess went no farther than the door with the departing guests, -and Miss Richardia remained in the music-room. At the veranda steps -there was a little delay while Rucker was doing something to the motor. -In the waiting interval Tregarvon found himself answering a question -of Hartridge’s about the progress of the test-drilling, the professor -having outstayed his art-teacher companion in their retreat to the open -air. - -“No,” said Tregarvon, “we are not getting along as well as we might. -There seems to be a curious obstructive fatality dogging us. If you -were in the chair of psychology instead of that of mathematics, -we might give you a very handsome little problem to work on, Mr. -Hartridge. I wonder if you would attack it?” - -The mild-eyed professor’s smile was blandly incommunicative. - -“You mustn’t expect any sympathy from me,” he returned genially. “The -proverb tells us specifically that the burnt child dreads the fire; -but it doesn’t add the corollary, which is equally true, and as old as -human nature--namely, that the burnt child experiences an unholy joy -when his playmate attempts to pick up the same hot nail.” - -“Ah?” said Tregarvon. And then: “I had forgotten, if, indeed, I ever -knew. You were one of the original stockholders in the Ocoee?” - -“To the extent of my entire savings account; which was a mere drop -in the promoter’s bucket, after all. Nevertheless, I can still be -magnanimous enough to wish you all success.” Then, abruptly: “You have -a delightful night for your drive to Coalville. I could almost envy -you.” - -Tregarvon did not undeceive him about the destination of the drive; -for good and sufficient reasons it did not seem necessary to tell -Hartridge that the drilling plant would have two watchers that night, -instead of none. With a word of leave-taking he joined Carfax in the -tonneau seat, and the yellow car rolled away down the drive, with -Rucker at the wheel. - -It was less than an eighth of a mile from the college gates to the -point where the glade road turned to the left out of the downward pike, -and when Rucker would have taken the left-hand road, Tregarvon made him -stop the car. - -“We can walk in from here, Billy,” he explained, and the two volunteer -watchers got out to do it while the car, lightened of two-thirds of its -load, coasted noiselessly on down the steep mountain road and out of -sight around the first curve. - -On the short walk over to the drilling plant Tregarvon spoke but once, -and that was to say: “Your guess about Hartridge was right, Poictiers. -He was one of the native crowd which was pinched out in the first -reorganization of the Ocoee.” - -“Did Richardia tell you that?” - -“No; he told me himself, just as we were leaving. And he is still sore -about it, though he tried to turn it off as a joke.” - -“Um,” said Carfax reflectively. “If he is the man who is putting a -finger into your pie, we’ll be likely to see him within the next -half-hour or so, don’t you think? He supposes we are on the road to -Coalville, and he knows that Rucker is driving. Which presumably leaves -the plant unguarded. What will you do if we should happen to catch him -red-handed?” - -“That remains to be seen,” said Tregarvon moodily. “We’ll cross that -bridge when we come to it.” And for the remainder of the walk he -was silent; it being no part of his intention to tell Carfax that -Richardia’s father was the one who, arguing from conclusions which -seemed to be well-founded in inference, if not in fact, was most likely -to be caught red-handed. - - - - -XIV - -The Logic of Fact - - -Upon their arrival at the drilling plant the two young men who had been -Mrs. Caswell’s dinner-guests made a dressing-room of the small tool -shanty and changed quickly to their working clothes; after which they -sat upon the door-step to smoke in sober silence, each busy with his -own thoughts. - -For Tregarvon the talk with Richardia had wrenched the point of view -violently aside, adding new perplexities and fresh discouragement. -Richardia’s apparent fear that her father was responsible for the -obstacles which had been thrown in the way of the test-drilling was a -thing to be believed only because Richardia’s plea could apparently -have no other meaning. Being alien to the South and a townlander, -the Philadelphian found it difficult to understand the attitude of a -man who would make a personal matter of an ancient business defeat, -carrying his animosity over from the real offender to an innocent third -party. But seemingly--since Richardia’s word was not to be doubted--the -fact remained. - -Tregarvon saw at once that the Ocoee experiment was made vastly less -hopeful by the discovery to which Richardia had led him. Though he -had never met Judge Birrell, Coalville gossip had done the fiery old -recluse ample justice. For the loungers at Tait’s store the judge -figured as a venerable survival of the _ancien régime_; of the good old -times when the great landed proprietors ruled their small kingdoms with -an iron rod; and were coincidentally and in the meliorating sense of -the word, kindly and generous tyrants to all and sundry. Tregarvon had -heard enough to assure him that the sentiment of the entire countryside -would be with Judge Birrell in any cause he might see fit to champion; -but apart from this, the one insurmountable bar to any defensive -reprisals on his own part lay in Richardia’s appeal. Tregarvon felt -that the appeal, and his yielding thereto, had effectually tied his -hands, and he was still sufficiently infatuated to be glad. Carfax -might marry Richardia and endow her with his millions; but her greatest -debt would still be to the man who had refused to defend himself at her -father’s expense. - -Back of the dismaying discovery which had changed the point of view, -there was other food for reflection. When he had ventured to hope -that Carfax might make her happy, why had Richardia laughed? The query -led to the recognition of another impression, given often when he was -with her, and as often slurred over and dismissed when it came to be -analyzed. Not the least of her charms for him was her crystal-clear -straightforwardness. Nevertheless, there had been times when he had -been made to feel that behind the frankness there were reservations; -times when he had been given fleeting glimpses of an inner Richardia -hiding behind the slate-blue eyes and whimsically mocking him. - -“I hope the good Mrs. Caswell’s dinner is not disagreeing with you,” -Carfax broke in, in the midst of the analyzing abstraction; and -Tregarvon came back to things present with a jerk. - -“Not at all,” he denied. “I was just thinking.” - -“Better not think too much after a hearty meal. It’s bad for the -digestion,” was the gentle rejoinder. - -Tregarvon grunted. “You didn’t leave out anything but the name. I can’t -help thinking of her, Poictiers. It’s no disloyalty to you, or to -Elizabeth. You had no business to leave me alone with her when Doctor -Caswell asked you to go and look over the gymnasium things.” - -Carfax chuckled softly. - -“You are a wild ass of the plains, Vance. It is borne in upon me that I -shall have to marry her out of hand to bring you to your senses.” - -“The quicker the better,” said Tregarvon gloomily. “There is no use in -prolonging the agony.” - -“Then you’ll admit that it is an agony?” - -“I can’t joke about it, Poictiers. I have made the one crowning blunder -that spoils a man’s life. Don’t look at me that way. I’m not going -to be either a fool or a scoundrel. I shall marry Elizabeth and try -to make her as happy as I can; but it will be without prejudice to -the fact that I didn’t know what love was when I promised her. I can -imagine just how brutal that sounds to you, but it’s the truth.” - -“The truth is always rather brutal, isn’t it?” Then the golden youth -permitted himself a word that he rarely used. “I’m damned sorry for -Elizabeth.” - -“As I told you once before, you needn’t be,” Tregarvon snapped back. -“There is absolutely no question of sentiment between us, and there has -never been. You’d appreciate that if you should read her letters to me; -letters in answer to my babblings about Richardia. If Elizabeth had a -spark of sentiment in her she would have sent me packing long ago. -I’ve told her pretty nearly everything there was to tell.” - -“I suppose you have. That is one of your amiable weaknesses--to tell -some woman, any woman who happens to be within reach, a lot of things -that no woman ought to be told. You deserve all that is coming to you, -Vance.” - -“I suppose I do,” Tregarvon admitted; and beyond this the silence -came to its own again. After a time, Carfax suggested quizzically -that the ghosts might be too bashful to come out while there were -two able-bodied watchers in sight; and at that they went inside to -find seats on a coil of rope opposite the open door. Before long, the -interior darkness began to make Tregarvon sleepy and he had quite lost -himself when a touch of Carfax’s hand aroused him. - -“Look steadily at the big oak just beyond the engine--the one where -we found the tripod marks,” was the whispered injunction. “Do you see -anything?” - -Tregarvon rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stared hard at the oak. -“Nothing doing,” he said. - -“Yes, there is,” Carfax asserted. “There is a man behind that tree. I -saw him just before I shook you awake.” - -“Piffle!” said Tregarvon. “That oak isn’t big enough to hide a man.” - -“Just the same, he is there!” retorted Carfax, still in a whisper. -Then: “I suppose it didn’t occur to you that we might need something -more persuasive than our bare hands up here to-night, did it?” - -“No; and we shan’t.” Tregarvon was suddenly reminded of his promise -to Richardia that there should be no tragedies. “What we can’t handle -peaceably, we’ll let go.” - -“All right; you’re the doctor,” said the golden youth mildly. -“Nevertheless, if I had a gun I’d go out and capture that fellow who is -hiding behind the tree.” - -“Still nervous, are you?” Tregarvon put in. “You are dreaming, -Poictiers. There isn’t any one there.” - -“All right, again,” was the serene reply. “Have it that way, if you -like. Only don’t forget to keep your eye on the tree.” - -That was the beginning of a patient watch which was maintained for -a full quarter of an hour. The night was perfectly still; there was -not wind enough to rustle the browning leaves of the oaks or to -whisper in the pines. Afar off, the little screech-owl whose haunts -had been invaded by the drilling plant lifted up his voice in shrill -chatterings, but there were no other sounds to break the silence. Once -during the watchful vigil Tregarvon thought he saw something stirring -among the trees on the farther side of the glade, and his fingers -closed upon Carfax’s arm. But when he looked again the shadows were -undisturbed. - -“This is tremendously exciting,” Carfax commented finally, in gentle -irony. “If I weren’t morally certain that I saw a man dodge behind that -tree a little while ago, I’d fall asleep.” - -“Do it anyway,” Tregarvon suggested. “I’ll stand watch, and call you -when your turn comes. Take Rucker’s cot.” - -“Do you really mean it?” - -“Sure I do. Turn in and take your forty winks. If anything seems likely -to happen, I’ll let you know.” - -“Then I believe I’ll take you at your word. I haven’t been so sleepy -since the year before Noah built the ark of gopherwood. If Mrs. Caswell -wasn’t as far above suspicion as the angels of light, I might suspect -her of having put something into the black coffee.” - -Five minutes later Tregarvon was sitting alone on the rope coil, -rubbing his eyes and wishing that he might decently follow Carfax’s -example. The very act of staring at the moonlit glade hypnotized him, -the more since there was nothing unusual to be seen. With the view -through the open door becoming hazy and startlingly distinct by turns, -he struggled manfully against the rising tide of somnolence, nodding, -and recovering himself with a jerk when he realized that the tide was -submerging him. But out of one of the nodding moments he came with a -violent start that instantly banished all thoughts of sleep. The little -screech-owl had ceased complaining, and the arousing sound had been the -distinct clink of metal upon stone. - -When he looked he saw that the time for action had come. Standing -fairly in the midst of the small clearing, the drill derrick was -struck out boldly in the white moonlight, with every outline and -detail sharply distinguishable. In the square of cleaned rock surface -marked off by the four legs of the derrick frame Tregarvon saw a man -crouching. The clinking noise was repeated and the watcher at the door -faced about and felt his way in the inner darkness to the bed in the -corner of the tool-room. - -“Wake up, Poictiers!” he called in low tones; “the play has begun!” - -Carfax sat up promptly and asked but a moment for the finding of -himself. “I’m all here,” he said. “What’s doing?” - -For answer Tregarvon led him to the door and pointed to the square -of bared bed-rock under the derrick frame. There was a man there, -without doubt, but now he was standing up and was apparently examining -something which lay in the palm of his hand. The sudden rush of the two -from the tool shanty was quite evidently a surprise for the intruder, -but he made no attempt to escape. So far from it, he lifted his soft -hat politely and said: “Good evening again, gentlemen. You took me -completely by surprise--as perhaps you meant to. I was quite sure that -you were both safely in bed in Coalville by this time.” - -“No,” said Carfax very gently. “We have not been in Coalville at all: -we have been here, waiting, quite patiently for--you, Mr. Hartridge.” - -“That was kind,” said Hartridge affably. “And, now that your patient -waiting has been duly rewarded?----” - -“Now that we have caught you we shall ask you to solve that little -problem in psychology for us,” put in Tregarvon. “We’d like to know -what it is that you have just been dropping into that drill-hole.” - -“And if I assure you that I have been putting nothing into your -drill-hole, what then, Mr. Tregarvon?” - -“In that case I shall ask Carfax to see that you don’t run away while I -ascertain for myself,” was the firm rejoinder; and a careful dip of the -long cleaning spoon into the test-hole brought up a half-dozen small -metallic objects; cubes cut from a bar of tool-steel they appeared to -be. - -Tregarvon handled the cubes and passed them on to Carfax. - -“We owe you something for a day lost and four drill points all but -ruined, Mr. Hartridge,” he said rather grimly, adding: “But we’ll -credit your account with this present failure to make us do it all over -again to-morrow. Would you mind telling us in so many words what your -object has been--or still is, perhaps?” - -The professor’s smile was imperturbably bland. - -“I am sure you wouldn’t be so harsh as to put me on the witness-stand -in my own defense,” he said, still amiable. “Especially since you have -no evidence of anything worse than a neighborly call at, perhaps, a -somewhat unseasonable hour.” - -At this Carfax came quite close and he forgot to lisp when he said: -“Mr. Hartridge, may I ask you to remove your overcoat for a moment? The -night is a bit chilly, I know, but----” - -The tone of the request was gentle enough but there was a quality in -it that made the suggestion a demand. The professor slipped out of the -coat, quaintly quoting Scripture for the ready compliance. “‘If any -man ... take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak, also.’ Anything to -oblige a friend, Mr. Carfax.” - -Carfax took the surrendered coat and, feeling in the right-hand pocket, -drew out one of the little steel cubes; quite evidently the one which -Hartridge had had in his hand at the moment of surprises. - -“Thank you; that is all,” said the searcher, returning the coat, or -rather holding it thoughtfully while Hartridge put it on. And then: -“You will hardly deny that we have sufficient evidence now, I take it?” - -The professor of mathematics spread his hands as one who has done his -best and is only regretful that he can do no more. - -“Let us assume that the case has gone to the jury: what is the verdict, -gentlemen?” - -“You are asking what we mean to do?” Tregarvon demanded. - -“That is it, precisely. What can you do?--drag me before the nearest -justice of the peace on a charge of malicious mischief? You would -scarcely wish to disturb the tranquillity of an old and honored -institution of learning like Highmount College by such a proceeding as -that, would you?” - -Tregarvon could not help smiling at the audacity of the man, and the -New Yorker laughed outright. - -“You have a most excellent quality of nerve, Mr. Hartridge,” was -Carfax’s tribute to the audacity. “As you suggest, our field is rather -limited. You are perfectly well aware of the fact that Highmount -and its hospitality stand as the only barrier between us and social -starvation. Let us try to discover a _modus vivendi_. The verdict is: -‘Guilty, with a recommendation to mercy.’ We are willing to give any -man’s sense of humor a chance to redeem itself. You quoted Scripture at -me a moment ago, let me return the compliment: ‘Go in peace, and sin no -more.’” - -The professor drew himself up, smiling genially and lifting his hat. - -“I thank you, gentlemen; you are very considerate,” he returned in -gentle irony. After which he walked away, pausing at the edge of the -glade to lift his hat again. - -Carfax drew a long breath when the tall, black-coated figure was lost -under the tree shadows. Then he turned upon his companion: - -“I’m not going to say, ‘I told you so,’ Vance, because I think you -came around to my point of view some little time ago. What is the -motive--Hartridge’s motive? Is it merely impish humor? Or does it go -deeper than that?” - -Tregarvon was busily engaged in putting two and two together to make -the inevitable four. The schoolmaster was in love with Richardia -Birrell; the Philadelphian’s first visit to Highmount had made this -perfectly plain: could it be possible that Hartridge was acting -as Judge Birrell’s agent in the obstacle-raising? And, if so, did -Richardia know it? - -“Stay here a few minutes, Poictiers,” he directed. “I’m going to follow -him and see if he goes straight back to Highmount.” - -“Joy go with you,” said Carfax; and when he was left alone he went to -sit on the step of the tool-house to smoke while he waited. - - - - -XV - -Mammy Ann’s Grave - - -Carfax was smoking his third cigarette when Tregarvon returned from -spying upon the retreating professor and sat down in sober silence upon -the door-step. - -The smoker waited patiently for some little time before he said -suggestively: “I hope you didn’t have your walk for nothing.” - -“I saw all I needed to see.” - -“Hartridge went to the college?” - -“I suppose so; he was headed that way when I turned back.” - -Carfax waited again, and when nothing further was forthcoming: “It’s -a remarkably beautiful night, isn’t it? Did you ever see a handsomer -moon?” - -“Don’t make me talk!” was the irritable rejoinder. “You’ll be sorry for -it if you do.” - -“Try me and see.” - -“Well, then--if you will have it: there was a witness to our little -comedy out there under the derrick.” - -“Some one who came with Hartridge?” - -“I guess so. Some one who went back with him, at any rate.” - -“Who was it?” - -“I hate to tell you, Poictiers. It was--it was the woman you are going -to marry; Richardia Birrell.” - -Carfax laughed softly. - -“I don’t see why you need be so desperately gloomy because it happened -to be Richardia. As I remarked a moment ago, the night is jewel fine, -and I don’t wonder that she found it hard to stay indoors. And as to -my rights in the matter, I am far from denying her the privilege of -walking abroad with so old a friend as Mr. William W. Hartridge.” - -“You are trying to make a jest of it, as you do of everything,” was the -crabbed retort. “Don’t you see what it means?” - -“I must confess that I don’t see anything especially catastrophic about -it.” - -“You don’t? Why, good heavens, man! it means that Richardia knows what -Hartridge has been doing. I won’t admit yet that she is a party to it; -but she _knows_!” - -“_Place aux dames_,” said Carfax cheerfully. “We’ll give her the -benefit of the doubt; it’s our clear duty--or, at least, it is mine.” - -“No, I’ll be hanged if we do!” Tregarvon growled. “There isn’t even a -doubt where she is concerned!” - -Carfax threw the half-burnt cigarette away and lighted another. - -“Your tone is that of the still deeply infatuated lover. Must we -again come back to that phase of it?” he inquired, in the tone of the -long-suffering but still amiable bystander. - -The man beside him took plenty of time to consider. But when he opened -the flood-gates there was a torrent of self-accusings to pour out. - -“I’m a beast, a cad, the cheapest of cheap skates, Poictiers!--anything -you like to call me. It hasn’t touched Richardia, but it has gone all -sorts of despicable distances with me. When you told me the other night -that you had proposed to her, I could have murdered you. And just now, -when I saw her walking arm in arm with Hartridge, I wanted to run amuck -and destroy him. I’m not trying to excuse myself when I say that I -didn’t go down without a struggle. I did make some kind of a fight at -first: I even went so far as to tell Richardia all about Elizabeth. But -it didn’t do any good.” - -Carfax’s smile was out of the depths of wisdom, and it was not visible -above the horizon for the penitent. - -“That was great,” he said, referring to the forlorn-hope confession of -the engagement. “I don’t believe I could have done that.” - -“Oh, there is nothing coming to me on that score,” Tregarvon objected, -carrying self-abnegation to the limit. “I couldn’t help telling her; -not because it was the honest thing to do, but because I should have -burst into inconsequent little shards long ago if I hadn’t told her -everything I knew.” - -“And she has been encouraging this little idiosyncrasy of yours?” -Carfax asked tentatively. - -“Not on your life! She has been doing everything that an angel out of -heaven could do to smash me back into my place; to show me how many -different kinds of an idiot I was making of myself. No longer ago than -this evening, when you went off with the Caswells and left me in the -lurch, the first thing she did was to ask me when I was going home to -marry Elizabeth.” - -For the first time in Tregarvon’s knowing of him, Carfax appeared to be -losing his temper. - -“‘A beast, a cad, and the cheapest of cheap skates,’” he repeated -carefully. “They are your own words, and they will all apply to you if -you don’t tell Elizabeth all and more than you have just told me.” - -“There is the millstone grind of it!” groaned the sinner. “If I should -tell her how far it has gone with me, it would be tantamount to asking -her to make me a present of myself, with the Uncle Byrd millions -thrown in for a _lagniappe_. I suppose I’ve got it to do, now, but I’d -cheerfully accept the alternative of walking into old Brother Daniel’s -den of lions.” - -“Y-e-s, I should think you would,” was the drawling comment. “Any man -who would make a football of the happiness of such a woman as Elizabeth -Wardwell----” - -“Hold on,” Tregarvon cut in, sobering suddenly. “Get up and walk on me, -if that is what you think is coming to me; but don’t mangle me with a -cold iron. I’m out of it all around. If Richardia doesn’t marry you, -she’ll marry Hartridge; and when I tell Elizabeth, as I’ve got to, that -will be the end of things with her. You mustn’t hit a man when he is -down. It’s wicked.” - -“Everything goes--between friends,” said Carfax, who could never take -the trouble to put his displeasure into any permanent form. “It does -look as if you were up against it, before and behind. Far be it from -me to break the bruised reed, or to quench the smoking flax.” - -“Oh, confound you for a Job’s comforter!” rasped Tregarvon, breaking -out afresh. “I’ve got to believe in people--I’m built that way; and if -I could think for a moment that Richardia is Hartridge’s accomplice in -this contemptible trickery of his----” - -“Well, if you could?” prompted the comforter, after the pause had grown -overlong. - -“If I could, I’d lose faith in my own good intentions,” finished -Tregarvon, whose stock of comparisons was running low. “Still,” he -went on, talking now because he was started and could not stop, “still -it’s against me, Poictiers; the whole world is against me. In that -same talk in the music-room this evening--while you were away with the -Caswells--Richardia was anxious about these happenings of ours; afraid -somebody would get hurt; in fact, she made me promise not to hurt -anybody.” - -“Meaning Professor William Wilberforce Hartridge, M.A., Vanderbilt?” - -“No; er--that is, I don’t think she meant him.” Tregarvon was not yet -ready to tell Carfax that he was well assured that her fear was for her -father; though she had not bound him to secrecy, he felt that what she -had said had been spoken in confidence. - -Carfax got up from his cramped sitting on the door-step, stretched, -yawned, and looked at his watch, holding the dial up to the moonlight. - -“Ten minutes past eleven,” he announced. “Do we turn in and sleep a few -lines? Or is it to be a continuous performance--like those that the -vaudeville people advertise?” - -“Go inside and finish your nap,” Tregarvon directed, filling and -lighting his pipe. “I’m not sleepy now; don’t know as I ever shall be -again.” - -“You think the curtain has been rung down for to-night?” - -“You’d say so, wouldn’t you? The star has gone home and has probably -gone to bed. If he should get up and walk in his sleep, I’ll call you.” - -Carfax hung upon the threshold. “Better call me, anyhow, after I’ve had -another forty winks or so, so you can take your turn. People have to -sleep, you know--even after a funeral.” - -“You go to bed!” was the gruff command; and Tregarvon began a -monotonous sentry beat up and down before the tool-house. But a minute -later he thrust his face in at the little square window to say: “Asleep -yet?” - -“My Heavens, no!” returned a querulous voice in the inner darkness. “Do -you take me for an auto-hypnotist?” - -“I have just developed a notion, and it is beginning to gnaw me,” -explained the sentinel on duty. “What if the man who was on his knees -at the test-hole when I went to waken you wasn’t Hartridge, after all?” - -“Oh, good Lord!” complained the voice. “Are you trying to drag somebody -else into it?--when the character cast is already full and running -over, and all the supernumeraries have been tagged and labelled? Turn -the notion out of doors; tread on it; break its back with a stick! We -caught Hartridge with the goods on him, didn’t we?” - -“Yes; but----” - -“But what?” - -“Nothing much: only now that I come to think of it, I seem to remember -that the man I saw dropping things into the hole wasn’t wearing -Hartridge’s kind of a hat.” - -“Oh, granny! Go on and do your little sentry go. Your head is muddled -and you want to pass the muddle on to me. I’m asleep, I tell you--sound -asleep! I don’t hear a word you are saying.” - -Tregarvon gave it up; not the lately developed notion, which grew -rather more insistent the longer he thought about it, but the attempt -to interest Carfax. During the lonely two-hour watch which followed he -had time to go reflectively over the events of the night, to set them -in orderly array, and to let the unconsidered minor happenings fit into -their places and weigh as they would. - -The process straightened out a few of the tangles, or it seemed to. -Richardia’s concern, expressed by her fear that violence might grow out -of the antagonisms, was undoubtedly for her father. Also, it was plain -that up to the moment of confidences she had not suspected Hartridge -of being her father’s agent; it being a fair presumption that she -would have spoken of the professor if she had. Having got that far, -Tregarvon began to ask himself if Hartridge was the only one actively -involved. In at least two instances the schoolmaster might fairly be -held exempt. It was still incredible that the man who had come to the -Coalville headquarters as a guest had deliberately plotted to have his -host’s motor-car wrecked on its return from Highmount. By the same -token, it was difficult to imagine the professor of mathematics in the -rôle of the sardonic practical joker who had shocked Rucker with a -resin-filled skull, dug, doubtless, out of the old burying-ground. - -On the other hand, the murderous attempt at wrecking the car and the -grim joke on Rucker fitted the mountain-baron-henchman hypothesis most -accurately; as did the fact, if it were a fact, that there were two -persons concerned in the recent episode of the hardened steel cubes. -There had been time, during the arousing of Carfax, for one man to -disappear and for another to take his place; in which case it seemed -evident that Hartridge had stood his ground merely to cover the retreat -of the other man. - -The puzzle promised to give a coherent hint pointing to its solution -while Tregarvon was thinking it out and fitting the pieces together; -and so long as the mental effort continued to feed the fire of -wakefulness he was all that an alert sentinel should be. But after -the various suppositions had been properly labelled and docketed and -pigeonholed the physical reaction came, and drowsiness sat upon his -shoulders, riding him like an Old Man of the Sea. - -For a time he fought manfully, keeping up the struggle until he had -exhausted every device he could think of and yielding only when he -found himself actually falling asleep as he walked. The alternative to -leaving the plant without a watchman was to call Carfax, and this he -finally concluded to do. Groping his way blindly into the dark interior -of the tool-shack, he stumbled over the spare coil of rope, sat down -upon it for a momentary rest, and in the flitting of a bat’s wing was -past help. - -When he opened his eyes again the high-riding moon had swung far into -the west, the glade was bathed in a ghostly flood of gray shadow, and -Carfax was shaking him gently. - -“Another act on,” whispered the impromptu call-boy; “no speaking parts -out, as yet--only pantomime. But it is worth sitting up to see.” - -Tregarvon, still sodden with sleep, suffered Carfax to lead him to the -outlook window. In the gray shadows he presently made out the figure -of another intruder. Within the area of the sunken graves a man, old -and black, if the uncertain light could be trusted, was squatting on -the ground and rocking himself back and forth, his swaying body keeping -time with the measure of a weird, crooning melody. From time to time, -he would stop the swaying movement to take a small white object from -a basket at his side. These objects he appeared to be arranging in -some sort of a figure on the ground to the accompaniment of the droning -incantation. - -“How long has he been there?” Tregarvon asked. - -“Just a little while,” was the low-toned reply. “I awoke about half an -hour ago, and when I looked out, the moon was going over to the other -edge of the world, and everything was quiet. A little later the basket -man came; just appeared, you know, as if he had materialized out of -the shadows. When I first noticed him he was doing his little song and -dance, as you see him now.” - -“But what _is_ the ‘song and dance,’ as you call it?” - -“Write your guess on one side of a sheet of paper and send it to the -puzzle editor,” chuckled Carfax, adding: “If we had begun doing that at -first, the editor would have a choice collection by this time, don’t -you think?” - -“I have been making a few more guesses,” Tregarvon offered. “I was -coming in to unload them on you when my eyes went shut. What time is -it?” - -“About two o’clock--the real witching hour. I want to go home.” - -“Go out and tell the old conjurer yonder; perhaps he may have a magic -square of carpet in his basket,” suggested Tregarvon. Then: “Doesn’t -the wild and weird atmosphere of this heritage of mine get on your -nerves to the queen’s taste? Something doing all the time. I’m going to -put a notice on the derrick frame: ‘Don’t shoot the stunt-setter; he is -doing the best he can.’” - -“’Sh! what is the old ‘ghost doctor’ up to now?” - -The droning chant had ceased and the old negro was crouching or -kneeling at one end of the oblong figure traced by the enclosing row of -white objects. The silence was profound; so complete that the snapping -of a twig coming suddenly shattered it like the report of a pistol. -Both of the watchers started at the sound, but the kneeling negro -seemed not to have heard it. - -“What was that?” whispered Carfax. - -“I’m guessing once more: the obi-devil, possibly, coming in answer to -the old medicine-man’s prayers.” - -“Guess again!” Carfax thrust in excitedly. “Look this way--get a line -on the corner of the derrick frame and follow it over into the woods. -Do you see him?” - -Tregarvon said “Yes,” and began to grope for a weapon. A man, hatless -and with a handkerchief bound about his head, was edging his way -cautiously out of the undergrowth. In the hollow of his left arm he -carried a gun, and his advance was like that of the deer-stalking -hunter. With the derrick frame intervening it was to be inferred that -he did not see the negro. - -“Somebody pot-hunting for us, this time?” queried Carfax, under his -breath; but Tregarvon pressed his arm for silence. The cautious -approach was not in the direction of the tool shanty; it was toward the -engine of the drilling installation. - -“That is the fellow we want to surround,” Tregarvon whispered. “If -he had a hat on, I’d swear he was the man I saw kneeling under the -derrick--before he made his drop-out and left Hartridge to throw dust -for him! By Jove! he acts as if he were scared!” - -The exclamation was not unwarranted. The man with the gun was creeping -toward the portable engine, watchful and alert, starting at every -whisper of the night air in the pines and exhibiting all the outward -signs of an inward tension which was ready to snap and recoil in panic. - -When he passed out of sight behind the derrick, Carfax would have led -the charge; but Tregarvon restrained him. “Hold on,” he advised. “We -may as well wait and find out what he means to do.” - -The man was creeping on hands and knees when he came in sight again, -and the gun had been left behind. When he stood up he was at the -smoke-stack end of the engine-boiler; and a moment further along the -two watchers made out that he was unscrewing the fastenings of the -iron door which gave access to the smoke-box and the flues. They -waited until he had the door unfastened; saw him swing it open by slow -inchings; saw him thrust an arm into the sooty depths of the smoke-box. - -“_Now!_” Tregarvon commanded, setting the pace for the charge; but -panic was before them. Just as the man was withdrawing his arm a deep -groan shuddered upon the stillness. With a cry that was like the snarl -of a cornered animal, the man leaped up and flung out his arms as if -to ward a blow. At that the huddled figure kneeling among the sunken -graves groaned again, following the groan with a terrified, “_Oh_, my -Lordy!” when he saw the man at the boiler head. - -That was sufficient. At the spot where the man with a handkerchief -about his head had stood clutching the air there was a sudden void, -and the noise of his crashing retreat through the undergrowth had died -away before Tregarvon and Carfax could give chase. - -They captured the “ghost doctor,” however, and were not greatly -surprised when the old negro turned out to be Uncle William. His night -wandering to the mountain top was sufficiently explained when he -pointed to the sunken grave ringed about with bits of broken china. - -“Dah’s whah my ol’ ’ooman is, marstehs; yas, suh; right dah’s whah dey -bury huh. Dat triflin’ niggah, Sam, from de ol’ place, come erlong -down de mounting day befo’ yistidday, an’ he say you-all gemman is -a-trompin’ ’round an’ mashin’ up t’ings in de ol’ buryin’-ground. I -know dat ain’ so, but I says to mahse’f, ‘Willyum, yo’ gwine right up -dah and put dem li’l grabestones you been a-savin’ ’round Mammy Ann; -den Marsteh Tregarbin ain’ gwine ’sturb nuffin’ belongin’ ter you.’” - -“No,” said Tregarvon soberly. “You may be sure we shan’t disturb -your wife’s grave--or any of the others, if we can help it. I didn’t -know, until after we had begun work here, that this open place was a -burying-ground. Now tell me; do you know who that man was who stood -there by the engine and made motions at you?” - -“I ’spec’ dat wuz de ol’ debbil, hese’f, marsteh. Couldn’t a-been -nobody else; no, suh.” - -“What makes you think it was the devil, Uncle William?” Carfax wanted -to know. - -“’Cause he go off, _bing!_ in a puff o’ yaller smoke when I say ‘_Oh_, -my Lordy!’” - -Tregarvon had been groping purposefully in the old man’s explanation to -determine if it held any of the missing puzzle pieces. - -“You say Sam, from the ‘old place’ told you we were working here, Uncle -William; who is Sam, and where is the ‘old place’?” - -“Sam, he’s dat triflin’ no-’count niggah what Marsteh Judge keep for -stable niggah--when dey ain’ nuffin in de stable ’ceppin’ de ol’ -dapple-gray dat’s a heap older’n what I is, _hyuh, hyuh!_ But de ol’ -Marsteh Judge ain’ gwine tu’n nobody off’n de ol’ place whilst dar’s a -rind o’ bacon lef’ in de gre’t house; no, suh; he ain’ gwine do dat!” - -It was at this point that Tregarvon sprang his small trap. - -“Why did he turn you off, Uncle William?” - -“Who, me? No, suh--I--Miss Dick, she----” - -“It’s all right; never mind, Uncle William,” Tregarvon hastened to say. -“Now we’ll undertake to keep the devil away while you go on setting -your tombstones. I’m sorry we had to break in.” - -“Dey’s all sot, yas, suh; dat’s de bes’ I kin do for ol’ Mammy Ann. I’s -gwine tromp off down de mounting ag’in, now. Mus’ be gettin’ might’ -nigh de ol’ man’s bedtime; yas, suh; it sholy am dat. I’s sayin’ good -night to you-all; an’ t’ank yo’ kin’ly, marstehs.” - -After the old negro had shuffled away on a short-cut through the wood -in the direction of the pike, the two young men took up the affair of -the moment, which was to ascertain what the man with the bandaged head -had been doing to the engine of the drilling plant. The smoke-box door -was standing open, as he had left it, and Tregarvon struck a match and -held it in the small sooty cavern. What he saw made him withdraw the -match suddenly and blow it out. - -“Did it bite you?” asked Carfax, genially quizzical. - -Tregarvon’s rejoinder was not in words. Thrusting an arm into the -smoke-box he drew out a paper-wrapped cylinder with a capped fuse -buried in one end of it, passing the find to Carfax with the remark: “I -fancy we can stay awake until daybreak on the strength of that, don’t -you think, Poictiers?” - -“Dynamite!” gasped Carfax, holding the cartridge gingerly between thumb -and finger and at arm’s length. - -“Yes, dynamite. It was poked into one of the flues with the business -end toward the fire-box, and it made no account of Rucker, who would be -the one to fire up the boiler before breakfast the day after to-morrow.” - -“Say, by Jove, Vance! this thing is getting serious!” exclaimed the -golden youth, forgetting even the slight hint of a lisp. “We’ll have to -‘take measures,’ as my father used to say. Come on over to the shanty -and we’ll get busy. I am in the same condition you said you were, a -while back: I’m not sleepy now--don’t know as I ever shall be again.” - -The talk on the door-step of the tool-house was prolonged far past -Tregarvon’s recounting of the suppositions pieced together in the -period of his lonely sentry go. But it came back to the suppositions in -the end, with Carfax checking off the probabilities on his finger-tips. - -“So it figures out about this way,” he said, not too cheerfully. “We -have Judge Birrell as Lord High Executioner to a couple of receivers -of stolen goods--always without his daughter’s approval or consent, as -a matter of course--and Professor Hartridge as his able deputy in the -field. Then there is this skulking rascal of a dynamite-planter, who -acts under orders, or possibly exceeds them now and then; and he seems -to be the only one of the lot that we can satisfactorily pinch--when we -shall be lucky enough to catch him. Uncle William isn’t in it, is he?” - -Tregarvon shook his head gloomily. - -“I have been wrestling with that,” he confessed. “He seems more than -trustworthy. But he is evidently an old house servant of the judge’s, -and he was sent straight to me from Westwood. That is beyond question.” - -“As a spy?--perish the thought!” ranted Carfax, carefully concealing -his earnestness with an overlaying of extravagance, as his habit was. -“With the memory of Uncle William’s unapproachable dinners in my -mind--or mouth--I’ll defend him to the last gasp.” - -“He is negligible,” said Tregarvon briefly. “But this dynamiting -emissary of Hartridge’s, or the judge’s, isn’t. We must contrive to -trap him in some way. If we don’t, he will fool around until he hurts -somebody.” - -“Yea, verily,” Carfax laughed. “Any guesses coming to you?--as to who -he is?” - -“One small one; and it wouldn’t be worth mentioning if it didn’t fit -in with some of the others. You saw that he was bareheaded?” - -“Yes.” - -“And that he was wearing a handkerchief or a bandage of some sort -instead of a hat?” - -“Another ‘yes’.” - -“Well, the day before yesterday the man we’ve been calling ‘Morgan’ was -hurt by the falling walking-beam and had to have his head wrapped up in -about the same way.” - -“All right; but Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t stop with that.” - -“Neither do I. Tryon told me a little tale two days ago that possibly -forges the connecting link. We know that both Morgan and Sill are -McNabbs, and that for some reason of their own they dropped the surname -when they hired out to me.” - -“Good!” Carfax approved. “The plot thickens. Can’t you stir in a little -more stiffening?” - -“With the help of Tryon’s story, I can. It seems that these men -are, or have been, moonshiners--breakers of the revenue laws. Some -years ago the revenue officers raided their secret still, which -was hidden somewhere in the Pocket, and arrested these two, with a -number of others. Morgan McNabb and his brother were booked for the -penitentiary; would have gone there if Judge Birrell hadn’t come out of -his retirement and fought for them.” - -Carfax was slowly filling the short pipe he had borrowed from his -companion. “I begin to see daylight,” he said. “What was the judge’s -motive?” - -“A sort of clan loyalty, Tryon says. The McNabbs live on his land; they -are ‘his people’.” - -“Um,” was the thoughtful comment. “And because the judge defends -them, they take up the cudgels for him. We have to-morrow--or rather -to-day--before us, with nothing especial to do; since Rucker will -hardly be back with the drills before afternoon. Shall we telegraph to -Hesterville for the sheriff, borrow Tait’s team, and make a party call -upon the man with the bandaged head?” - -“That would be rather too summary, wouldn’t it?” Tregarvon objected. -“We may be well convinced, ourselves, but we have no direct evidence. -Neither of us could go on the stand and swear that the man we saw at -the boiler-head was Morgan McNabb.” - -“No; that is so. Past that, since I have asked the judge’s daughter to -consider me as a possible husband--” Carfax had called up the cherubic -smile, but it had the opposite of a mollifying effect upon the objector. - -“Don’t harp on that part of it any more than you have to,” was the -morose interruption. - -“I was going to say that the arrest of Morgan McNabb, just at this -critical turn in the tide of affairs, might make it embarrassing for -the judge; only you wouldn’t let me finish,” said Carfax, with great -meekness. - -“You are going to call on him?” demanded Tregarvon. - -“Since he is Richardia’s father, I don’t see how I can well avoid it. -To-morrow--or, I should say, to-day--is Friday, and I thought I’d ask -Richardia to let me drive her over to Westwood House--if you’ll lend me -the motor-wagon after Rucker gets back.” - -Tregarvon rose and stood half-menacingly over the friend of his youth. - -“If I thought you were only playing with her,” he grated; but instead -of saying what he would do in that case, he turned abruptly and went -into the tool-house to fling himself down upon the cot, leaving Carfax -to continue the night-watch or to abandon it, as he might choose. - - - - -XVI - -A Friend at Need - - -With the object-lessons of the night of visitations to emphasize -the need for vigilance, the two young men, discussing the situation -in the gray dawn, agreed that the drilling plant must not be left -unguarded during the Friday of enforced idleness, or at any other -time. Accordingly, soon after sunrise, Carfax set out to walk down the -mountain for the purpose of sending Tryon and a man or two of the track -gang up to relieve Tregarvon. - -This arrangement left the owner of the Ocoee to do sentry duty alone -until Tryon should come--a duty which he scamped ingloriously by -sitting upon the door-step of the tool-shack and promptly falling -asleep. - -It was a brusque “Hello!” that awakened him, and he sprang up with -a start to find a round-faced, pursy little man in pepper-and-salt -garmentings and mouse-colored driving-gloves standing before him. A -horse and buggy motionless in the edge of the glade accounted for -the manner of the visitor’s coming, but not for its object. Tregarvon -took a good look at the stranger before he committed himself, even to -a greeting. The round face, with its twinkling eyes, double chin, and -the little patches of closely cropped side-whisker, was altogether -reassuring; it not only beamed good-nature, it fairly shone with an -irresistible kindliness. Tregarvon, gathering his scattered wits as he -could, said: “Good morning; it’s a fine morning for a drive through the -woods.” - -The little man added another layer of geniality to his smile. - -“It’s a fine morning, also, for a nap in the sunshine,” he -reciprocated. “Do you belong to the out-of-door sleepers--the -‘simple-lifers’--Mr. Tregarvon?” - -“Not permanently,” laughed Tregarvon; “though I must confess that I am -so simple as not to be able to recall your name.” - -“Good, dev’lish good!” chuckled the visitor. “Couldn’t have turned it -more neatly myself, ’pon my word! I’m Thaxter; Wilmerding’s bookkeeper -at Whitlow. One of my fads is to take a drive before breakfast. -Excellent habit, Mr. Tregarvon; I can recommend it most highly. Gives -you an appetite like a coal-heaver. Speaking of coal--how are you -getting along taking soundings on the old Ocoee? Have you hit it yet?” - -“Not yet,” Tregarvon admitted, warming to the little man’s friendly -interest. “But I am still living in hopes.” - -Mr. Thaxter pursed his lips in a way to make them match the general -effect of rotundity. - -“Mighty mean thing to say to a man before breakfast--you haven’t -breakfasted yet, I dare say--but you are butting your head against a -stone wall, Mr. Tregarvon. Haven’t they told you that?” - -“If your ‘they’ refers to the Coalville gossips, I have been duly -warned. They told me, with all the variations, before I’d had time to -climb the mountain on my first exploring expedition.” - -“Just so; but not specifically, I suppose. You should have come to -me. While I am an employee of the C. C. & I. Company, my pay-roll -connection wouldn’t have kept me from doing you a good turn. And I -could have given you chapter, page, and verse.” - -For the moment Tregarvon lost sight of the fact that Wilmerding had -reported his bookkeeper totally barren of Ocoee information. So he -said: “Possibly you will do it now, Mr. Thaxter. We are mere babes in -the wood, Carfax and I, needing a guardian angel pretty severely, if we -are to believe what other people say of us.” - -“You have certainly been needing a little friendly counsel from some -one who was in a position to know what he was talking about. You’ll -never find your coal up here, Mr. Tregarvon.” - -“That is what they all say; but they don’t tell us precisely why we -shan’t.” - -“Ah,” said the kindly one, shaking his head in deprecation. “Human -nature is the same everywhere. Tait could have told you, or Tryon, -or Walters; all of them who have lived here long enough. But you had -money and were willing to spend it. It would have been killing the -golden-egged goose to have driven you away.” - -Tregarvon grinned. “Thank you for trying to break it gently to me, Mr. -Thaxter; but I am braced for it now. Hurl it in.” - -“They could have told you that this test-boring experiment of yours has -been tried before, all over the mountain top. I presume I could show -you a dozen holes, if they are not all filled up with wash and hidden -under the leaves.” - -Tregarvon was thinking hard. - -“Does Captain Duncan know this?” he asked. - -“I should suppose so; he ought to know it. The testing was done by the -New Ocoee Coal Company, and it may have timed itself during the summer -that Duncan spent in the West. Come to think, I believe it did. You -advised with him, of course; surely he didn’t encourage you to spend -money on the property, did he?” - -“No; I am obliged to confess that he did not. On the contrary, he -advised me not to.” - -The little man’s smile became benignantly tolerant. “You young men -are like Mr. Kipling’s puppy at times; you _will_ chew soap, knowing -perfectly well that it is soap.” - -Tregarvon’s answering laugh admitted the justness of the charge. - -“Possibly some of us like the flavor of soap,” he retorted. “There is -no accounting for the depravity of some tastes, you know.” - -“Oh, well,” said the visitor, with the air of one who is far too wise -to combat the vagaries of youth, “go on and have your fling. It is -harmless enough. If you can afford to buy a little amusement in this -way, why shouldn’t you do it? It won’t hurt you, and it is a Godsend to -Tait and the poor devils on your pay-roll while it lasts.” - -“But if I can’t afford it?” suggested Tregarvon. - -“Ah; that is another matter. From what Wilmerding has let fall, I have -been assuming that you and Mr. Carfax desired the experience and the -fun of it rather than any possible money gain.” - -“The money side of it may not appeal to Carfax; but it does to me, very -forcibly.” - -“Still, you are throwing good money after bad in putting down these -test-holes.” - -Tregarvon shrugged his shoulders. “What would you?” he asked. “I -inherited the Ocoee, and it is up to me to make something out of it, if -I can.” - -The round-bodied bookkeeper laughed until he shook like a bowl of jelly. - -“It is very evident, Mr. Tregarvon, that you were born in the purple. -If you wish to make money out of the Ocoee, why don’t you sell it?” - -“Because I should first have to find a purchaser, and before I could -find a purchaser--I should think--it would be a condition precedent -that I should find the coal. It resolves itself into the vicious -circle, as you see.” - -Mr. Thaxter smote his gloved hands together softly and appeared to be -debating a nice point with himself. When he spoke again his manner had -lost the touch of brisk impersonality. - -“Pardon me if I seem to crowd the mourners,” he apologized, “but it -strikes me that this is a matter in which the good-natured bystander -may quite properly take a hand. Is it possible that you haven’t been -told of the offer made by our people to your father?” - -“It is more than possible; it is a fact.” - -“I am truly astonished! Your lawyers must know of it.” - -“There has never been any mention of it made to me. What was the offer?” - -“If I remember correctly, it was one hundred thousand dollars for all -the titles.” - -“Thank you!” exclaimed Tregarvon triumphantly. “That is the best news -I’ve heard in many a day. If your company ever made any such an offer -as that, it proves conclusively that there is coal in the property, -somewhere.” - -The bookkeeper shook his round head in evident dismay. - -“Dear, dear!” he lamented; “I was afraid you might jump at some such -conclusion as that, and it puts me in a rather awkward position. As I -have said, I am only a pay-roll man in Consolidated Coal; I’m not even -one of its many superintendents. Yet, as man to man, perhaps I may -venture to tell you just why the C. C. & I. might still be willing to -pay you the price named, though in telling you I may be betraying an -official secret. You probably know that your property line on the north -abuts on the Whitlow lands about an eighth of a mile from your tramway?” - -Tregarvon nodded. - -“Very good. Now we have a vein of coal quite near this joint boundary; -not a very thick vein, but one which could be made to pay for working -if we could send the coal down over your tramway, and coke it in your -old ovens at Coalville, but which would not pay if we should be obliged -to build a new tramway to get at it. That is the whole thing in a -nutshell.” - -“You say that this offer of a hundred thousand for the Ocoee was once -made to my father? It’s odd that I had never heard of it. Was it in any -sense a standing offer?” - -“It was at the time, and I think it still is, though there has been no -talk of it latterly, so far as I know. But since the reasons for making -it still exist, I should imagine that you would stand a good chance of -reviving it if you should care to do so.” - -“If I only had a little breakfast in me!” Tregarvon protested -half-jokingly. “I’m too hungry to talk hundred-thousand-dollar deals -with you with any assurance that an empty stomach isn’t making me -flighty, Mr. Thaxter.” - -The bookkeeper laughed pleasantly. - -“There are your men coming over from the tramhead,” he said. “Give -them your orders, and then let me drive you down to Coalville to your -breakfast. Perhaps you’ll be willing to give me a bite, too, and in -that case I shall have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Carfax again. I -didn’t more than half get acquainted with him the day he drove up to -Whitlow.” - -“You are certainly the jolliest lot of commercial pirates a man ever -had to fight--you people up at the C. C. & I.,” said Tregarvon, after -he had climbed into the buggy with Thaxter and the spirited black horse -was flinging the soft sand of the wood road from his hoofs. “First, -Wilmerding comes to the rescue; and now you are trying to give us a -lift. It’s heart-warming.” - -Thaxter’s rejoinder had just the requisite touch of friendly solicitude -in it. - -“Then you meant what you said a few moments ago, about the financial -aspect of the--of your experiment? A hundred thousand dollars would be -worth considering?” - -“That amount would look as big as a hundred thousand cart-wheels to me, -just now,” Tregarvon confided. “My father is dead, as I suppose you -know, and there have been family misfortunes big enough to sink a ship. -A hundred thousand would give us a fresh start in the world.” - -“Then we must certainly try to get it for you,” was the affable -rejoinder; and from this on, the spirited horse demanded Thaxter’s -undivided attention, so pointedly that the bookkeeper did not even seem -to see Professor Hartridge when the buggy whirled past that gentleman -as he was returning from his morning walk down the pike. - -Carfax was waiting breakfast on Tregarvon when the black horse came to -a stand at the door of the Ocoee office-building. The young millionaire -remembered Thaxter perfectly, and seemed to be glad to renew his -acquaintance with the “Brother Cheeryble.” Yet it was Carfax’s -judicious applying of the brakes at the breakfast-table conference of -three that kept Tregarvon from committing himself too definitely in the -matter of bargain and sale. - -Nevertheless, the talk over the ham and eggs pushed the business -affair considerably farther along on the road to a tentative -conclusion. Before he took his leave to continue his return drive to -Whitlow, Thaxter was authorized to communicate by wire with the New -York headquarters of Consolidated Coal, and, without betraying any -confidences, to ascertain if the offer of one hundred thousand dollars -for the Ocoee properties still held good. - -After Thaxter had taken his departure, and the two young experimenters -had threshed the new prospect out to its final straw, the wakeful night -came in for its revenges, and they slept through the forenoon. Rucker -did not return from Whitlow with the car and the repointed drills until -long after the noon meal; and when he came he found his two employers -waiting impatiently for him--or rather for the car. The reason for the -impatience was a note from Miss Richardia sent down by the college -mail-carrier early in the afternoon; a brief message addressed to both, -begging them to come to Highmount at the earliest possible moment: -urgency only; no hint of what had happened or was due to happen. - -They made the ascent of the mountain as rapidly as the big touring-car -could measure the distance, and were met at the door of the -administration building of the college, not by Miss Birrell, but by -Professor Hartridge, who led them into the visitors’ parlor and calmly -informed them that Miss Richardia had driven to Westwood House with -her father shortly after luncheon. - -“By Jove, now!” lisped Carfax; “that’s rather curious, don’t you know!” -And Tregarvon was quite speechless. - -“Curious that Miss Birrell should ask you to come up here, and then -run away?” said Hartridge. “It was a little ruse of mine, and Miss -Richardia is altogether blameless. I wished very much to see you both, -and I was afraid you might be foolish enough to disregard an invitation -bearing my name. So I took Miss Richardia into my confidence, and she -very obligingly wrote the note which, I assume, has brought you here.” - -Carfax snapped his fingers and laughed softly. - -“Upon what footing do we stand with you, Mr. Hartridge?--upon that of -yesterday at dinner-time or upon that of a later hour, when I had the -pleasure of helping you on with your overcoat?” - -“I shouldn’t presume to say, Mr. Carfax; you must make your own -attitude. But if that attitude should be inimical, I must still beg you -to believe that I have decoyed you up here to do you a kindness.” - -Carfax was still smiling affably. “Is it Virgil who puts it into the -mouth of one of his characters to say that we should beware of the -Greeks bringing gifts, professor? You will pardon us if we seem a bit -suspicious, won’t you? But this”--he held up the small cube of hardened -steel which he happened to have in his pocket--“this is so completely -convincing, you know.” - -The mild-eyed mathematician waved the evidence aside as a thing of -small moment. - -“Now that you have had time to consider, I am sure you absolve me from -the charge of having tampered with your drill-hole,” he deprecated. - -“We do,” said Carfax. “All you did was to cover the retreat of the man -who really did the tampering. But that is sufficient to make us--er--a -bit cautious, as you might say.” - -Hartridge smiled in his turn. “You are basing your caution upon a -small specimen of the metal commercially known as steel which you -chanced to find in my pocket,” he remarked. “Let us disregard the bit -of steel for the time being, if you please. If you should happen to -lose it, it could be very easily replaced; but”--he turned short upon -Tregarvon--“you can’t replace the Ocoee if you allow Mr. Thaxter to -persuade you to sell it to Consolidated Coal, Mr. Tregarvon.” - -“What’s that?” exclaimed the Ocoee owner, starting from his chair; and -Carfax fell back upon his strongest expletive, “By Jove!” - -Hartridge appeared to be entirely at ease now. He seated himself and -crossed his long legs comfortably. - -“You are puzzled to account for my friendly interest?--after last -night?” he inquired. “I don’t blame you, and I am only sorry that I -cannot explain more fully. But I may say this: if you part with the -Ocoee properties for any such sum as Mr. Thaxter has doubtless offered -you, you will regret it as long as you live.” - -Carfax got his breath sufficiently after a time to say: “May--may we -venture to ask how you know what Mr. Thaxter has offered?” - -“Certainly. The offer of one hundred thousand dollars for the lands, -titles, and mineral rights of the property is no secret--or at least it -was not during Mr. Tregarvon’s father’s lifetime. I am merely assuming -that Thaxter has not increased it; and I am also assuming that a -renewal of the offer was the reason for his early morning drive with -Mr. Tregarvon.” - -“And you say Vance will be sorry if he accepts the offer?” - -“I do; most decidedly.” - -Carfax leaned forward and held up an accusing finger. - -“Then you know, of your own knowledge, that there is a workable vein of -coal on the property, Mr. Hartridge,” he snapped. - -“That, my dear sir, is an assumption which I must decline to confirm.” - -“Nevertheless, it is true. And here is another to go with it: _you know -where that vein can be found!_” - -Hartridge smiled again. - -“You are, constructively at least, my guest, Mr. Carfax; I should be -unpardonably rude if I were to contradict you.” - -Carfax glanced aside at Tregarvon, and Tregarvon returned the glance -as one who sees the shore from the crest of a tossing wave, but has no -hope of reaching it. After a little pause Carfax renewed the attack. - -“This is a most extraordinary situation, don’t you think, Mr. -Hartridge?” he began mildly. “Would a definite quantity of the thing -known commercially as money tend to relieve it in any way?” - -The professor’s answer was prompt and decisive. “You are assuming that -I have information to sell? I have not.” - -Carfax countered, quickly. - -“Then why have you just given us this pointer on Consolidated Coal? You -profess to be willing to help us and you refuse to help us in one and -the same breath.” - -“Oh, if you are going into motives, my dear sir, that is, indeed, a -very deep subject. It would hardly be profitable to discuss it, even -academically. Life, the really human variety of life, is full of -paradoxes. You are wondering why the man from whom, a few hours ago, -you took that small cube of steel, is now apparently trying to save -you from loss. Call it one of the human paradoxes, if you will; only -don’t sell to Consolidated Coal for a paltry hundred thousand dollars a -property upon which more than three or four times that amount has been -spent. This is what I enticed you up here to say to you; and having -said it----” - -“Hold on,” Carfax interposed. “We have met some curious varieties of -the genus enemy in this forgotten corner of the world, and you will -pardon me if I say that you are not the least remarkable specimen, Mr. -Hartridge. We are thankful for the pointer, and much more thankful for -the assurance you have given us that we are not fishing in a barren -pond. We----” - -The professor had risen and was moving toward the door. - -“I have given you no such specific assurance,” he denied. - -“No,” said Tregarvon, getting upon his feet and putting in a word for -himself. “You may congratulate yourself upon your discretion. None the -less, we shall continue to work on our problem, Mr. Hartridge, until we -have found the value of ‘_pi_’.” - -It was a centre shot, visibly and palpably piercing the bull’s-eye. -A blow would scarcely have disconcerted the schoolmaster more -effectively. Yet he recovered instantly, had blandly excused himself -upon the plea of pressing laboratory work, and was bowing himself out -at the door, when he fired the return shot. - -“You have set yourselves an impossible task, gentlemen,” he offered -mildly. “You forget that the value of ‘_pi_’ has never yet been exactly -ascertained.” - -“Well, what do you make of it all?” Tregarvon asked, when the yellow -car was rolling smoothly down the mountain pike on the return to -Coalville. - -“Nothing; except a disappointment for Mr. Thaxter,” was Carfax’s reply. - -“Thaxter; yes. Do you know, Poictiers, I’m beginning to smell brimstone -in _his_ clothes, now. Wilmerding told us definitely, if you remember, -that Thaxter gave him to understand that he didn’t have any data on the -Ocoee; didn’t know anything remotely concerning it. There is a lie out, -somewhere.” - -“Which doesn’t matter now, thanks to Mr. William Wilberforce Hartridge, -the man of mixed motives,” said Carfax definitively. - -“You think, on the strength of Hartridge’s warning, that I shouldn’t -sell to Consolidated Coal?” - -Carfax was driving the car and he let the brakes out until the machine -was dropping down the grade like a stone falling from a height. - -“Not in a thousand years!” he said. - - - - -XVII - -An Anticlimax - - -Bright and early on the Saturday morning the two young men, with the -repointed drill bits in the car, drove to the mountain top, carrying -Rucker’s breakfast in a basket generously filled by Mrs. Tryon. They -found the mechanician, who had resumed his job of night-watching, -already up and stirring, with the engine fired and ready for starting, -and there were no disturbances to report. - -“Did a little stunt of my own,” Rucker explained with a grin, showing -a concealed wire which ran all around the glade and led to the -tool-house. “Yesterday, up at Whitlow, I fished an electric bell out -of the scrap heap, and last night, before I went to bed, I rigged it -so that if anybody come monkeyin’ ’round, it’d ring and wake me up. -I guess there wa’n’t any ghost-walkin’. The bell didn’t ring, and -everything was all shipshape this mornin’.” - -Soon after this the drilling was resumed, not, however, until after -the hole had been carefully washed and swabbed out. Tregarvon did not -take any of his men into his confidence to the extent of explaining the -reason for the extra care, but during the swabbing process he stood -aside and looked on, watchful to detect any sign of guilty knowledge -on the part of his helpers. Particularly he studied the face of the -younger McNabb, the one who had been hurt still being absent. The -effort went for nothing. If isolation has been sparing of gifts to the -native of the southern Appalachians, it has at least given him a face -that no man can read. The bushy-bearded Sawyer, the head driller, was -the only one who commented upon the hole-cleaning. - -“Hit don’t look t’ me like thar was anything more ’n the drill dust to -be warshed out,” he grumbled, when the swab came up clean; and to prove -it he rubbed some of the powdered rock cuttings between his thumb and -finger. - -“It’s better to be sure than sorry,” said Tregarvon. “If we know that -the hole is clean to begin with, we’re that much ahead.” - -In due course of time the engine was started, the drill lowered, and -the churning was resumed. Very shortly it became evident that the steel -was cutting again at the usual rate, and Tregarvon’s spirits rose -accordingly. - -“Do you know, Poictiers, I believe we are going to ‘prove up’ right -here on this spot?” he predicted, after the work was well under way and -they had gone to sit on the tool-house step. “The indications all point -for us. Here is where the most determined fight has been made to stop -us; here is where we find Hartridge’s hieroglyphics on the trees; and -right here, if you’ll remark it, is where Mr. Onias Thaxter hunts me up -to make me a blanket offer for my landholdings.” - -“A little more time will tell the story,” Carfax suggested. “By noon, -if it doesn’t strike any more bones, the drill ought to be down to the -coal, if there is any coal here.” - -With hope trotting cheerfully on ahead, the forenoon became a period -of exciting suspense. Each time the drill was withdrawn the cuttings -were examined eagerly. The rock was showing all the characteristics -of the former borings: fine sandstone, coarse sandstone, some little -conglomerate, and, just before the noon hour, the shales which commonly -overlie the coal in the Cumberland region. - -“We’re coming to it!” Tregarvon exulted, when the washings which came -up in the churning began to show black. “Eighteen inches more, and -we’ll know whether we live or die!” And he carefully made a chalk-mark -on the drill so that they might determine when the critical depth was -reached. - -As in the previous tests, the steel sank rapidly in the vein of coal. -At a foot of additional depth the washings were still coming up black. -At sixteen inches there was no change. Sighting across a derrick -brace, Tregarvon watched the chalk-mark with the blood racing in -his veins. With each plunge of the heavy steel drill his hopes rose -higher. Already he was anticipating a future which, if it should lack -some of the ecstasies, would still have a sufficiency of the great -emollient--money. With a fortune of his own, the impossible situation -which had grown out of the Uncle Byrd legacy would be alleviated, and -he saw himself deeding his half of the legacy irrevocably over to -Elizabeth. The pride wound thus healed, the broken bones of sentiment -might be allowed to knit as they would. Doubtless, in time, the -knitting process would accomplish itself, and possibly without leaving -him a hopeless cripple. Judging from the past, Elizabeth would not -expect much; and even if he should be obliged to limp a little she -would probably never notice it. - -“Eighteen inches!” he called out to Carfax, “and she’s still bringing -up the black-diamond dust! Get ready to blow the hewgag and beat the -tom-tom. We’re in it, this time!” - -“Easy!” Carfax cautioned. “Don’t let your hopes soar too high. Maybe -the top vein runs a little thicker at this point than it did in the -others. Call it that, anyway, until you’re cocksure.” - -As he spoke the power went off. Tregarvon jerked his watch from his -pocket and stifled a hard word. It was noon, and the men were knocking -off work on the dot, quite as nonchalantly as if the fate of empires -were not hanging upon the result of a few more turns of the machinery. -Tregarvon tramped across to the tool-house with Carfax, a sudden -weariness making his feet heavy as lead. - -“That’s the workman of it!” he gritted. “If the world were coming to an -end in the next five minutes, they’d stop to eat!” - -Carfax permitted himself a subdued chuckle. - -“You are beautifully on edge,” he asserted. “A few inches more may mean -a lot to you, but it’s all in the day’s work for the men. They’re not -going to get rich out of your coal mine.” - -They had brought some of Uncle William’s biscuits and cold chicken -for the midday snack, and Carfax went to the motor-car, which had -been left standing in the wood road, for the basket. When he returned, -Tregarvon was pacing back and forth impatiently before the tool-house -door, and Rucker was sitting on the step, eating his luncheon. Carfax -carried the basket inside, and they made a table of the coil of rope. -While they were picking the chicken bones, the mechanician spoke again -of a matter that he had mentioned once or twice before. - -“I’m beefin’ ag’in about that boiler, Mr. Tregarvon,” he began, between -workman mouthfuls of Mrs. Tryon’s corn bread. “She ain’t much, just as -I told you at first; and draggin’ her ’round over this mountain hain’t -helped her none. She’s leakin’ like a sieve at the fire-box end of her -flues, right now.” - -“Here’s hoping that this is the last hole we’ll have to drill with it, -Billy,” said Tregarvon cheerfully. “I bought it second-hand, and the -Chattanooga junk man put one over on me.” - -“He sure did,” Rucker returned with a grin. “She’s rotten. Every time -the pop-valve goes off it makes me jump. One o’ these days----” - -The interruption was a blatant roar from the boiler in question. Rucker -had prudently shut the drafts and had left the fire-door open, or he -thought he had, but still the pressure had crept up, until now the -safety-valve was relieving it. Through the open door of the tool-shack -the two at the rope-coil table could see the plant, with the plume of -escaping steam rising to the height of the tree-tops. As usual during -the noon hour, there was not a man of the gang in sight. Tregarvon had -early learned that a part of the country laborer’s reticence expressed -itself in a dislike to eat under the boss’s eye. At the stopping of the -machinery the drill-gang would scatter in the wood, each man to his -fallen log. - -The roar of the safety-valve continuing, and seeming to increase in -stridency rather than to diminish, Tregarvon leaned forward to shout in -Rucker’s ear: - -“Are you sure you left the fire-box door open, Billy?” - -The mechanician struggled to his feet. “I thought I was, but I’ll go -see. She’s howlin’ a little bit too loud to suit me.” - -The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the earthquake crash -came. With a sound that was oddly like the tearing of a hundred saws -through dry timber, followed by a reverberating thunderclap, the boiler -and engine vanished in a thick cloud of steam, and the air was filled -with flying missiles. One piece of the boiler tore the heart out of -the sheltering oak-tree; another fragment ripped a corner from the -tool-house; a third mowed a swath through a thicket of young pines. - -Tregarvon and Carfax were both up and out before the nimbus cloud of -steam had blown aside, and their first thought was for their men. -Rucker had escaped only by a hair’s-breadth. The twisted fire-box sheet -which had knocked a corner out of the small building had passed so -close that the wind of it had bowled him over. Tregarvon left Carfax -to help the machinist to his feet, and ran shouting across the glade. -The drill gang answered and came hurrying in, a man at a time. When all -were accounted for, the material loss was inventoried. It was total, so -far as it went. The engine and boiler were reduced to a tangled heap -of scrap; one end of the drill beam was shattered, and one leg of the -derrick had suffered loss. - -For the moment Tregarvon was torn by conflicting emotions; a huge -thankfulness that no life had been lost and bitter disappointment that -the catastrophe had come at the instant when all the doubts as to -the value of the Ocoee were to be either confirmed or swept away. He -held himself together long enough to tell the men that they might go -home--that there would be nothing more done until a new power-plant -could be bought; but when Rucker had gone out to the wood road to see -if the yellow car had been hit, and the disappointed one was left alone -with Carfax, the flood-gates gave way. - -“Isn’t it enough to make an angel out of the blue heavens swear himself -black in the face, Poictiers?” he raged. “Just on the very edge of -things--just as we were going to find out, once for all, what this -cursed mountain is going to do to us----” - -“One thing at a time,” Carfax broke in soothingly. “The wrecked engine -isn’t fatal--not by many parasangs: it came just in the nick of time, -when I was wondering what under the sun I should do with the dividend -draft that I got in the mail yesterday. Take a fresh grip on yourself -and remember that you have a good bit to be thankful for. If your men -had been sitting around on the job to eat their dinners, as laborers do -up North, there’d be another story to tell.” - -“Yes, I know; but think of it--it will be days and maybe weeks before -we can get a new power-plant installed, and all that time we’ll be -hanging, like Mahomet’s coffin, between heaven and earth; won’t know -any more than we do now.” - -Rucker had come back to report that the motor-car had escaped as by -a miracle. A square yard of the boiler shell had been hurled over it -to fall accurately in the middle of the road a rod or two farther on. -While he was telling about it, a goodly portion of the faculty of -Highmount College, followed by a bevy of young women, came upon the -scene. Doctor Caswell was heading the column of reconnaissance, and -Hartridge also was with it. - -“Dear me!” exclaimed the president, coming up breathless; “we are all -so glad to find you alive! What has happened?” - -Tregarvon pointed to the tangled mass of wreckage. “Our boiler blew up. -It was old, and I suppose we were carrying too much pressure. Luckily, -it happened while the men were eating, and there was no one near enough -to be hurt. I thought of you people at once. It must have made racket -enough to make you think the end of the world was coming.” - -“It was frightful!” said Miss Farron. “The windows rattled and--” but -here her voice was lost in the chorus of excited exclamations pitching -themselves in many keys as the young women picked their way over to -the wreck and viewed the remains. - -“It is well, sometimes, to be born both lucky and rich,” Hartridge -commented gravely, when his turn came. “The material loss is serious -enough, of course; but you ought to be thankful that no lives were -lost. Were you near enough at the time to see the explosion?” - -“We were sitting in the tool-house eating our luncheon,” Carfax -explained, “and Rucker was just outside. We had been speaking of the -boiler a moment before. We were all three looking at it, I think, when -it went up.” - -Doctor Caswell had taken his wife over to assist in the sight-seeing, -but Hartridge lingered behind. - -“Happening in broad daylight, this way, with three of you looking on, I -suppose you are well assured that it was a pure accident?” he suggested -quietly. - -Tregarvon left the answer to Carfax, who made it promptly. - -“As you say, we are not able, this time, to blame any one but -ourselves. The boiler was old, and our mechanic had told us that it was -not altogether safe.” - -“You have been drilling to-day?” - -Carfax nodded. - -“May I ask if you found anything?” - -Tregarvon turned away and busied himself examining the rent in the -corner of the tool shanty. Carfax called up the cherubic smile for the -inquiring professor and said: “What if I should tell you that we have -found our bonanza, Mr. Hartridge?” - -Hartridge glanced at the drill, which was still standing in the -test-hole, and shook his head. “I should say that you are merely -talking for effect,” he smiled back. - -“But we have found the coal,” Carfax persisted. - -“You have found the upper measure, the same as you have in all the -other trials. Beneath it, you will find your sandstone dike again.” - -“Are you sure of that?” - -“Quite sure.” - -“But we have already reached a depth of more than eighteen inches, and -the drill was still in coal when we shut down for the noon stop.” - -“That is quite immaterial,” was the cool-voiced reply. “The measures -vary in thickness, though not greatly. Geology is one of my small -side-lines, Mr. Carfax, and I have made a study of this particular -region, largely as a pastime.” - -The sight-seers were straggling back, and Tregarvon was explaining to a -group of breathless maidens just where he had been sitting with Carfax -at the moment of catastrophes, and how Rucker had been knocked down by -the wind of the fragment which had struck the corner of the tool-shed. -Carfax saw his opportunity preparing to take its leave and he smiled, -level-eyed, at Hartridge. - -“You are still on the obstructive hand, aren’t you?” he threw in. “Even -now, you would like to discourage us if you could.” - -The professor of mathematics and other things was turning away to join -the others, but he paused for a low-toned rejoinder. - -“I neither deny nor affirm, Mr. Carfax. But I may say this much: if -I were in your shoes, or Mr. Tregarvon’s, I shouldn’t call to-day’s -disaster a pure accident--until I could prove it.” - -And with that he turned his back and began to talk to the art teacher. - - - - -XVIII - -Evolutionary - - -Intent upon the swift purchase of another power-plant, Tregarvon caught -an afternoon freight on the branch railroad, made a late train on the -main line, and was obliged to spend the Sunday in Chattanooga, with -little to console him save the thought that he would be on hand to -transact business with the machinery merchants bright and early Monday -morning. - -It was a sad Sunday, weatherwise, with a chill autumn rain sweeping the -streets of the battle-field city, and the crest of Lookout Mountain -veiled in cloud. Tregarvon had made a few business acquaintances in -town on previous purchasing expeditions, but there were no familiar -faces in the hotel; nothing to lighten the monotony of a dreary day of -enforced idleness. - -In such circumstances impatience becomes a rat to gnaw the vitals. The -suspense, the tormenting uncertainty which he had left behind him in -the unfinished test-hole on the summit of Mount Pisgah, would have been -hard to endure even in a whirlwind of work; and upon a day when he -could neither work nor play he was in despair. - -After the noon meal, which figured as “Luncheon” on the hotel bill -of fare, and was, in point of fact, a heavy and dispiriting midday -dinner, he braved the elements and went in a closed sight-seeing car -to the Chickamauga battle-field. The drive proved to be a damp test of -endurance, and he brought nothing back from it better than a memory of -rain-sodden fields and forest; of endless colonnades of gray, ghostly -monuments, a majority of them assuring the beholder in letters of -granite that here the Ohio troops fought nobly; of parkings of ancient -cannon, the guns pointing in so many different directions that no human -being could guess which way the battle had run; of the droning singsong -of the chauffeur pouring his explanation patter into the reversed -megaphone for the benefit of his few fares. - -The return to the hotel was merely a change from outdoor dreariness -to indoor. The lobby was a gathering-ground for a scattering of -disgruntled tourists, who had used their battle-field stop-over -privilege only to find themselves marooned by the weather. Tregarvon -smoked in solitary misery for what remained of the afternoon, and past -the evening meal, begged some of the hotel stationery, and wrote a -letter to Elizabeth Wardwell. - -“It is a sin and a shame to write you after such a day as I’ve -been wearing out here,” he began, “but you know my weakness for -afflicting other people--for unloading my woes upon the nearest pair -of sympathetic shoulders. Your shoulders have always been that; and -sometimes I wonder that you can still stand up straight and queenly, as -you do, after having carried so many of my burdens.” Here followed an -account of the events of the exciting Saturday forenoon, and he tried, -as well as the written words would serve, to transmit some picture of -the boiler explosion, tagged with an attempt to portray the tenterhooks -of suspense upon which the disaster had impaled him. - -“You see where it leaves me,” he went on; “still in the air as to -whether the Ocoee is something or nothing. For a few little minutes, -after the drill had passed the eighteen-inch dead-line, I saw -rose-colored, saw my chance to provide for the home-folks, and to -ignore forever and a day, the Uncle Byrd legacy. But now I am no better -assured than I was before we began drilling; and, to make it more -interesting, Hartridge happened along after the explosion--the whole -college turned out and came tramping over through the wood to see what -had broken loose--and he says the sandstone dike is still under us. We -shan’t know positively, of course, until we can get a new engine, and -haul it by inches up the mountain, and drag it into place and set it -going; and by that time I shall be a raving maniac. - -“In all this new trouble, Poictiers has been all that you’d expect him -to be; a friend to tie to. He doesn’t lend me money; he simply tosses -me his purse. I have his last dividend check in my pocket at this -present moment, and I’m to cash it to-morrow morning to pay for the -new engine. I suppose I needn’t say that I should have been out of the -fight down here long ago if he hadn’t joined me and given me a checking -account. He is pure gold, Elizabeth; and yet---- - - * * * * * - -“The gap represents a good half-hour, my dear cousin, in which I have -been sitting here at this dinky little table in the hotel writing-room, -trying to screw my courage to the sticking-place. What I have to tell -you concerns four people, and you are one of the four. I’ve written you -a lot about Richardia Birrell--she’s another one of the four--in the -past few weeks, and I have been assuring myself all along that I have -been telling you all there was to tell. - -“That isn’t strictly true, Elizabeth. There was a thing that I wouldn’t -admit, even to myself; but I had to admit it three days ago when -Poictiers told me that he had asked Richardia to be his wife. I knew -then what Richardia had done to me, and for a bad half-hour I--well, -I’m not going into details; it is enough to say that I’m not fit to be -your door-mat, Betha, dear--nor Poictiers Carfax’s, for that matter. - -“What can I say for myself more than I have said a hundred times in -the past? Nothing, I imagine; I’m simply hopeless where the eternal -feminine is concerned. You’ve known it ever since we went to school -together, and you’ve promised to marry me in spite of the knowledge. -I shall not be a faithless husband, my dear--I know I shan’t be that; -and this last and most humiliating lapse could never have amounted to -anything, anyway, even if Poictiers had not slammed the door in my -face. But it is your right to know about it; to know that for some few -days or hours or minutes, as the case may be, I was daffy, foolish, a -simpleton from the idiotic wards, with a slant toward depravity. - -“You see now what an incredible friend Poictiers is. I’ve never -thought of him as a marrying man, and I could swear, even now, that he -isn’t in love with Richardia--though I don’t quite see how any free man -with live blood in him could help being. Let that go: Poictiers has -killed my temptation for me. He has asked Richardia to marry him, and -he and she are good enough for each other--which is the highest praise -I can offer to either. Poictiers will get a wife who could make any -man happy; and Richardia will be able to restore the Birrell fortunes, -which, as you have doubtless gathered from my earlier letters, are -pretty sadly in need of a rich marriage. - -“This leaves us two to face things as they are as best we can, -Elizabeth. After what I have written down in this letter, can you still -care enough for me, and for the conventions and the wishes of the -families on both sides, to--not to forgive me; I’m not going to ask -that--but to take me just as I am, and let things go on as before? I -shan’t blame you in the least if you can’t, you know; but if it must -come to a break between us, you must let me be the one to make the -break. By all right and reason the Uncle Byrd legacy is yours; and -whatever happens, I promise you I shall never touch a penny of it. - -“Good night, my dear. My love for you is precisely the same as it has -always been. The madness which Richardia Birrell was stirring up in me -was something entirely different, and no doubt everybody would say it -was worlds less worthy.” - -Tregarvon had a bad habit of not reading his letters after they were -written and signed, and he did not break the habit now. Folding, -sealing, and addressing his confession, he went to the lobby to mail -it. Thanks to the rainy Sunday, the hotel mail-box was stuffed to -repletion with week-end missives, and Tregarvon, after trying in vain -to wedge his own through the slit, exemplified his careless habit by -leaving it on top of the box with the newspapers. - -Later in the evening there were other additions made to the -overflow newspaper mail, and some one, still more careless than the -Philadelphian, displaced the letter, which fell, unnoted, to the -floor. Here, during the small hours, one of the sweepers found it; and -since some muddy boot heel had defaced the postage-stamp, and all but -obliterated the address, the sweeper passed his find on to the night -clerk. At this point another phase of Tregarvon’s heedlessness came -to the fore. He had neglected to put his own name and address in the -corner of the envelope, hence the clerk had no means of identifying the -sender. Being a young man of resource, he enclosed the letter, just as -it was, in a larger envelope, copying, or trying to copy, the address. -But the marring boot heel had done its work too thoroughly. The -Philadelphia street number was entirely effaced; and “Miss Elizabeth -Wardwell” became, in the night clerk’s transcription, “Miss Eliza Bell -Woodwell.” - -Tregarvon was astir early on the Monday morning, was fortunate enough -to be able to purchase the new power-plant without waiting to have it -shipped in from some Northern supply house, hustled busily until he -had seen his purchase entrained for Coalville, and took the afternoon -local for his return. As often happened, the local was late, and -he found Carfax waiting dinner for him when he dropped off on the -office-building side of the train at the home station. - -Over Uncle William’s chicken gumbo the talk ran easily upon the -business affair. Tregarvon had driven a rather good bargain on the new -engine, and was inclined to expatiate upon it. In reality, however, -he was trying to postpone the moment when Carfax should begin to talk -of the more intimate things. That moment came with the pipe-filling -before the cheerful wood-fire, after Uncle William had cleared the -table and disappeared. - -“After you left, Saturday, I took Hartridge’s hint and went into the -explosion details a little deeper,” said Carfax. “Rucker stayed with me -and lent me his mechanical wit.” - -“What is the verdict?” - -“It is the Scotch verdict: ‘Not proven,’” was the thoughtful rejoinder. -“Knowing, as we do, that at least one attempt was made to dynamite -the boiler, I may have been oversuspicious. In such circumstances the -judicial frame of mind is hard to attain. Rucker swears he left the -furnace-door open when we stopped at noon. When we found the front -sheet of the boiler three or four hundred yards away in the woods, the -door was shut and latched.” - -“That proves nothing,” Tregarvon said. - -“No; anything might happen to a door, or to anything else, in a hurry -trip of that kind. On the other hand, it would have been a very easy -matter for some one to have sneaked up on the farther side of the -engine while we were eating. And Rucker insists that only the closed -door could have accounted for the sudden rise in pressure which caused -the explosion.” - -“We’ll never know,” was Tregarvon’s comment. “But why Hartridge should -shield our obstacle-thrower at one time, and try to set us on to him at -another, is beyond me.” - -Carfax smiled soberly. “Mr. William W. Hartridge appears to be a -unique. I had the pleasure of meeting him again, socially, no longer -ago than yesterday.” - -“You spent the Sunday at Highmount?” - -“No; I did better than that. Wilmerding was down from Whitlow, and -I found that he knows Judge Birrell familiarly and well. I took my -courage in my hand, borrowed your beast of a car, and Wilmerding and I -drove to Westwood House in the rain.” - -“So you have met Richardia’s father?” - -“I have; and a finer old citizen doesn’t exist. That suspicion of yours -that he may be inspiring the fight on us is all bosh. He isn’t at all -the kind of man to knife an enemy in the dark. He is a poem on the -Old South, Vance; a whole heart-breaking epic. His manners would put -a Chesterfield to shame; and you can see at once where Richardia gets -her keen little mind. The judge was disposed to place me in the Parker -class at first--quite naturally; I could see that plainly enough--that, -and his prejudice against all things Northern. But I was there as the -friend of his friend Wilmerding, and that settled it. A Bedouin chief -couldn’t have been more hospitable.” - -“You told him you were going to marry Richardia?” - -“Oh, dear, no; you mustn’t hurry things that way!” laughed the golden -one. “You simply _can’t_ hurry them, you know, with a man like Judge -Birrell. But I flatter myself that I made good in the try-out. -Hartridge was there, with Miss Farron--though I can’t imagine how they -got over from Highmount in the rain--so there was quite a house-party -of us. At dinner-time it was raining harder than ever, and the judge -wouldn’t hear to our going, though I had the top up on the car, and, of -course, offered to take Hartridge and Miss Farron back to the college. -So we all stayed to dinner. That dinner would have broken your heart, -Vance.” - -“Why?” - -“Because it showed in a thousand little ways what the family has -been, and what it has now come to. The china was Sèvres, but much of -it was chipped and broken, and hardly any two pieces were alike. The -table-cloth had once been somebody’s pride, but it had been laundered -and darned until it was like a piece of old lace. The silver was -evidently an heirloom, and it was so worn with much polishing that you -could scarcely make out the engraving. We had chicken--I imagine nobody -in the South ever gets so poor that he can’t have chicken--but the -luxuries were conspicuous by their absence. Do you know what I think, -Vance? I believe that the Westwood House cash assets are measured -exactly by the size of Richardia’s Highmount salary.” - -“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Tregarvon, keenly sympathetic. “Richardia -has given me to understand that there is a lot of mountain land, which -is practically valueless now that the tan-bark timber has all been cut -off; but there is nothing to bring an income.” - -“Wilmerding has told me something of the judge’s involvement with the -original Ocoee promoters, and the struggle he made to keep his name -good after he and his friends had been frozen out,” Carfax resumed. “He -had recommended the scheme to a good many others, and when the smash -came, he stripped himself bare to make good the losses of his friends, -withholding nothing but a little money he had put aside for Richardia’s -musical education.” - -Tregarvon nodded. “That explains something that Richardia said to me -one time when we were talking about people marrying and settling down; -she said, in that perfectly straightforward way of hers, that she would -like to marry, but that she was in debt, and couldn’t marry until after -she had earned enough money to pay herself out.” - -“She has said something of the same nature to me,” Carfax admitted. -“But it seems that there were other troubles besides the property -losses. The judge had a son, a year or so older than Richardia. He -was a school-boy at the time of the big smash, but was old enough, -Wilmerding says, to be hot-headed and a bit wild and ungovernable. -Parker, the promoter, was foolish enough to show up here again, after -the _débâcle_; and this boy actually tried to kill him; emptied a -pistol at him, winged him with one of the shots, and then ran away. He -has never been heard from since.” - -“That is all new to me,” Tregarvon commented. “I didn’t know Richardia -had a brother. She has never spoken of him to me.” - -“Wilmerding says nobody ever speaks of him,” Carfax went on. “Parker -was vindictive, and pushed the assault case. A grand jury found a true -bill against young Birrell, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He -couldn’t be found; has never been found. His son’s disappearance, and -the struggle to keep faith with his friends, made the judge what he is -now, a proud, broken-spirited old hermit who is carrying the heaviest -burden a father can bear--the disgrace of a son.” - -“Disgrace?” echoed Tregarvon. “It’s hardly that, is it? Haven’t we been -taught that it is a part of the Southern code that a son should shoot -his father’s betrayer?” - -“Oh, yes; that part of it was all right. The disgrace was in showing -the white feather by running away; in not staying to face the -consequences. As a matter of fact, I don’t suppose there would have -been any consequences. Any jury that could have been impanelled in this -vicinity at that particular time would have acquitted the boy. The -cowardly streak is what broke the judge’s heart.” - -“This story of the boy opens up a bit of new ground,” said Tregarvon -musingly. “I wonder if Richardia doesn’t know where he is? She has -given me the impression, more than once, that she has a deep-buried -trouble of some sort--a trouble that she never shares with anybody. -Haven’t you had the same notion?” - -Carfax shook his head. - -“She doesn’t need to go that far afield to find her troubles. The -wrecked family fortunes, and a broken old man to shield and comfort -and care for on a music teacher’s wages, are enough to fill all the -requirements, I should imagine.” - -“Surely. But as to the money hardship ... you’ll be able to change all -that, Poictiers.” - -Carfax rose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and slowly refilled it. - -“You have come to see things in their right light, at last, have you?” -he inquired at the end of the little interval of silence. - -“Partly. There is only one light in which they can be seen. I had no -shadow of right to fall in love with Richardia.” - -“Wait a minute,” said Carfax in his gentlest tone. “Are you sure it was -real? You know, you have had so many of these--er--these little erotic -explosions in the past----” - -“I know,” was the humble admission. “But this was different. You -may say that the difference lay in the fact that it was forbidden, -and point me to the moral twist--as old as the race--that makes the -forbidden thing figure as the one thing altogether desirable. Doubtless -I have the twist, in common with other men: but the difference -remains.” - -“You have written to Elizabeth?” - -“Yes; I wrote last night at the hotel in Chattanooga.” - -“I hope you said all you ought to say.” - -“I tried conscientiously to do just that, Poictiers. I’ll confess now -that I didn’t begin to see how dastardly it would look when it was -written out in black on white. But I didn’t spare myself in the least.” - -“What kind of an answer do you expect?” Carfax had sat down again and -his face was turned away. - -“Honestly, I don’t know. Every word that I have ever told you about the -lack of sentiment between us is true: and yet ... well, Elizabeth is a -woman, after all, Poictiers. Even in a relationship as unsentimental as -ours has been there are limitations--there must be limitations.” - -Carfax was gazing now into the heart of the dying fire. - -“If the case were reversed, Vance, what would your answer be?” - -Tregarvon gave a short laugh. “I can’t imagine the reversal,” he -parried. “Elizabeth is one of those splendid, serene, _élevé_ women who -go through life without ever knowing the meaning of a grand passion.” - -“Still, you haven’t answered my question.” - -“I am not afraid to answer it. If Elizabeth had told me, even before I -met Richardia, that she had-- Oh, piffle! it’s no use; I can’t imagine -it!” - -For a long time Carfax said nothing. But when the final whiff had been -drawn from the bedtime pipes, he ventured a small request. - -“I’ve been butting in on your affairs so long that it has come to be -a habit, Vance,” he said, with his quaint smile. “When you hear from -Elizabeth, will you tell me what she says?” - -Tregarvon, who had been thinking of many things during the speechless -interval, answered on the impulse of the moment. - -“Of course; I’ll let you read the letter, if you care to. Why shouldn’t -I? There’s your candle on the mantel, when you want it. I’m going to -bed.” - - - - -XIX - -The Human Equation - - -On the Tuesday after Tregarvon’s return to Coalville the arrival of the -new equipment was the signal for a brisk renewal of the activities. -Tregarvon had spent the day scouring the valley for men and teams, and -by Wednesday morning he had a small army at his command. Many hands -made light work, and by noon the machinery was unloaded, and all was -ready for the beginning of the toilsome haul up the mountain. - -“I suppose you know how you are going to do it,” Carfax remarked, -dallying over his luncheon in the office-building dining-room while -Tregarvon was hastily bolting his meal as fast as Uncle William could -serve it. “Where did you learn? The university didn’t teach you, I’m -sure.” - -“Experience,” mumbled the working-man. “I learned the trade getting the -other boiler and engine up the hill.” - -Carfax was apparently in a reflective mood. “This rough-and-tumble -game down here is making a different man of you,” he offered. “Don’t -you realize the change?” - -“I’ve never been afraid of work, if that is what you mean.” - -“Yes, I know; but the kind of work that implies the wearing of -corduroys and a flannel shirt, and builds horny lumps on the palms of -your hands, and makes you talk to a mule in the only language a mule -understands--I never used to dream it of you in the old days, Vance.” - -“I work for the same reason that other men do--because it’s up to me. -This would be a damned lazy world if necessity didn’t crack the whip.” - -“There it is again,” Carfax smiled; “you even let bits of the mule -language come to the table with you. It runs in my mind that Elizabeth -is going to have her hands full recivilizing you.” - -“Perhaps she won’t care to. Quite likely she won’t need to. If the -Ocoee should turn out to be a real mine with a dividend attachment, -it is altogether probable that I shall become again what I have been -heretofore--an ornament to polite society and a wart on the body -economic.” - -Carfax shook his head as one who refuses to be convinced. - -“That will never happen in the wide, wide world, my dear Vance. We may -go around, but we never go back. I have heard you spoken of, in times -past, as a woman’s man: you’ll never be that again.” - -“That is the kindest thing you’ve said in a week,” Tregarvon averred. -Whereupon he bolted the final mouthful and left the prophet to his own -devices. - -Somewhat later, Carfax joined the working party--but only as an -onlooker. The engine was mounted on heavy trucks, and a string -of twelve mule-spans was inching it up the mountain pike to an -accompaniment of cracking whips and much profanity. Tregarvon was in -the thick of it, and the young purse-holder stood aside and tried to -realize that this sweating, bullying gang boss and man-of-all-work was -the light-hearted _flâneur_ of whom his best friends had predicted -nothing either very good or very bad, and certainly nothing strenuous. -Carfax was given to nice weighings and measurings of the human -atom, and he wondered if the roughing-out process owed anything to -sentimental reactions. Disappointments are rude tonics to some natures, -and defeat in one field may be the germ of victory in another. Being -a good friend, he proceeded to administer an additional dose of the -tonic, dragging Tregarvon aside while the mules were catching their -breath. - -“I like your nerve,” he began, with the drawl more than usually -pronounced. “You are taking up the entire road with your beastly -contrivances. How am I going to get past all this clutter with the -motor-car, I’d like to know?” - -“That’s your lookout,” growled the man-of-all-work. “The road is mine -while I’m using it.” - -“But I have an engagement,” was the mild protest. “I’m to take -Richardia out for a drive after three o’clock.” - -“Well, I can’t help that, can I? You’ve got all the time there is for -your courting, and then some. My job is to get this engine up the -mountain.” - -Carfax chuckled softly. “In another minute or so you’ll be mistaking -me for one of the mules. I suppose I can take the other road, from -Hesterville; but as likely as not it will make me late--it’s such a -long way around.” - -“Can’t you send a note up by one of Tryon’s boys explaining the -situation?” - -“Why, my dear Vance! Can it be possible that you are suggesting that I -should break an engagement with a young lady?--you who just a few weeks -ago would have broken your neck to----” - -“Cut it out,” was the gruff interruption. “I’m busy now, and you are -delaying the game. Tag along behind us when you are ready to drive up, -and we’ll make room for you if we can.” Then to his farmer helpers: -“Now, then--are you fellows going to let those mules rest all day? -Push ’em into the collars and let’s go somewhere! _Hi!_ you fellows up -ahead--straighten out those leaders!” - -The cherubic smile was at its shining best when Carfax turned away and -sauntered back toward the coke-ovens. Human atoms are among the most -interesting things in the world, once the study of them has passed the -elementary stages. Carfax, deep in the contemplation of the subject, -had reached the ovens themselves before he saw two men coming toward -him, stopping at each stoke-door to allow the taller of the two to go -on his hands and knees to inspect the cavern-like interiors. Carfax -recognized the shorter of the pair at once. It was Thaxter. - -“Mr. Carfax, shake hands with Mr. Thirlwall, our consulting -engineer--or rather, you’d better not, because his hands are dirty: Mr. -Thirlwall, this is Mr. Poictiers Carfax, Mr. Tregarvon’s friend and -financial backer.” Thus the bookkeeper, when Carfax came up. - -Carfax acknowledged the introduction and shook hands with the tall man, -in spite of the warning. - -“Delighted,” he murmured; “always delighted to meet any friend of -Mr. Thaxter’s. Tregarvon is up the road a bit, wrestling with a -transportation problem. Shall I send for him?” - -Thaxter negatived the suggestion at once. “It isn’t at all necessary to -take him away from his work,” he protested genially. “Mr. Thirlwall was -with us for the day, and we thought we would run down and have a look -at your coking-plant. It’s in rather bad repair, isn’t it?” - -Now what Carfax did not know about coking-plants would have filled -volumes, but he was careful not to betray his ignorance. - -“There are years of service in these old ovens yet,” he asserted -confidently. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Thirlwall? But as to that, we -should expect to put them in good repair if any one wished to buy them.” - -“Mr. Tregarvon is still in the mind to sell?” queried the round-faced -bookkeeper. - -“Candidly, Vance doesn’t know his own mind from one day to another,” -said Carfax, parrying nimbly. “But I guess we are all that way, more or -less; up one day and down the next.” - -The tall engineer smiled because it seemed obvious that he was expected -to. “You have been having some more bad luck up on the mountain, so Mr. -Thaxter tells me,” he put in. “It seems rather a pity that you and your -friend won’t take the word of those who know, and stop throwing good -money away.” - -“It is a pity, isn’t it?” Carfax concurred heartily. “But if we didn’t -spend money in this way, heaven only knows in what other foolish -enterprise we might be investing.” - -“That is a new power-plant you are hauling up the hill?” the engineer -inquired. - -“Brand-new,” boasted Tregarvon’s proxy. - -“The purchase doesn’t look as if you were intending to stop throwing -the money away,” said Thirlwall. - -“Oh, that is entirely as it may happen,” Carfax countered cheerfully. -“You know the bankrupt always puts up the best front he can when he -finds himself coming to the jumping-off place.” - -“I hope you and Mr. Tregarvon are not trying to run a bluff on anything -so unimpressible as Consolidated Coal,” laughed Thaxter. - -“Much obliged for the hint,” returned the golden youth, accurately -matching the bookkeeper’s laugh. “I give you my word, we hadn’t -thought of that. Would it astonish you beyond measure if we should?” - -“Don’t try it,” the engineer advised. “We have excellent records of -every acre of coal land in this region, with all the data; thickness of -veins, their placement, and so on. You can’t very well run a bluff when -the other fellow knows every card in your hand, Mr. Carfax.” - -“That is so,” Carfax yielded gracefully. “You people have the age on -us, in both meanings of the word. Have you heard anything from New -York, Mr. Thaxter?” - -“Nothing positive, as yet; there has scarcely been time. But I believe -Mr. Thirlwall has been asked to make a report on the present condition -of the equipment.” - -The engineer confirmed the supposition with a nod, and Carfax said: -“Tregarvon will be glad to show you everything he has, I’m sure. Will -you make the inspection to-day?” - -Thirlwall looked at his watch. - -“I can hardly spare the time this afternoon,” he demurred. “Besides, if -I know anything about such things, Mr. Tregarvon wouldn’t care to leave -his machinery blocking a public road while he was showing us around.” - -Carfax had learned all he wished to know, and now he became -urgently hospitable. Wouldn’t the visitors stop and rest awhile in -the office-building? True, there was little to offer in the way of -refreshment, but the old negro cook could make a passable pot of tea. -To all of this, Thaxter made excuses for both and said they must be -driving back to Whitlow. - -Carfax let them go, apparently with the greatest reluctance, walking -with them to the post where Thaxter’s horse was hitched. But after -the natty side-bar buggy had disappeared over the small rise in the -northward road, he smiled like an angelic understudy of the villain in -a play. - -“Not much, you didn’t drive down here to tell us that our coke-ovens -are out of repair, Mr. Thaxter!” he derided joyously, apostrophizing -the vanished bookkeeper. “You came to see if it were really true that -we had bought a new engine and were going on with the game! And you are -jolly well welcome to all that you found out!” - -At a little past two o’clock, Carfax, driving the yellow car, tailed -in behind the machinery procession on the mountain road. Tregarvon had -been having good luck and was correspondingly jubilant; but the sight -of Carfax going to keep an appointment with Richardia Birrell gave him -another set back. - -“That’s right; go on and enjoy yourself,” he grumbled sourly, as Carfax -came up to edge his way past the obstructing raffle of teams and -machinery. “If you knew how to chock a wheel or handle a pinch-bar, I’d -pull you out of that joy wagon and set you at work. Since you don’t, -you’d better trundle along and get out of our way.” - -“I shall tell Miss Richardia that I left you in a heavenly temper,” -threatened the gentle mocker in the driving-seat. - -“The less you say about me in that quarter, the better,” was the -surly rejoinder; and with that, Tregarvon began to shout again at his -teamsters. - -In due time Carfax negotiated his passage and the yellow car -disappeared in the direction of Highmount. But the sting was left -behind, and Tregarvon drank deep from the opium cup of fierce labor -without being able to purchase blessed oblivion. Jagged thoughts came -uppermost; repinings as old as mankind; as venerable, at least, as that -prehistoric day when the first friend took it upon himself to smite his -brother into the straight and narrow path. - -Why must civilized man, alone of all sentient beings, be burdened with -that inconsiderate thing called conscience? The bird of the air, the -beast of the field, was free to choose its mate; the savage stood -aside only when some bigger savage compelled him. Environment and the -stress of the moment have shaping influences mighty in proportion to -the strenuosities. Tregarvon, fighting for the up-hill inches with a -load a ton or so heavier than his pulling power, became immune to the -gentler leadings. Why should a promise, made to a woman who had taken -it serenely as a conventional matter of course, stand in the way of a -passion so vital that it laid hold upon the very well-springs of life? -Why should he stand aside and let Carfax, under a fantastic sense -of duty, mar three lives, or possibly four, in a foolish attempt to -preserve the conventional unities? - -The materialistic afternoon had done its worst for Tregarvon by the -time Tryon’s boy, who had been stationed on ahead to give warning -of the approach of descending teams, waved his hat as a signal that -some one was driving down the mountain. The moment was inauspicious. -A pulling-rope had just broken; the heavy load of machinery was -stalled in a crooked bend in the road, and was for the time immovable. -Tregarvon yelped out a string of orders to his helpers, and then went -on past the tangle of mules and rope tackle to meet the descending -vehicle. Being in the proper frame of mind, he swore crabbedly to the -world at large when he saw that it was his own car, with Carfax at the -wheel, Richardia in the mechanician’s seat, and the tonneau thickly -packed with young women from Highmount. - -“You can’t pass,” was his curt denial of the right of way when Carfax -slowed to a stop. “We have just broken a tackle, and everything is all -balled up. Couldn’t you find any other road to drive on?” - -Carfax laughed and turned to his seat-mate. “You see how inhospitable -he really is when he isn’t parading his company manners.” Then to the -young women behind him: “Mr. Tregarvon won’t let us drive down, but -if you young ladies would care to see the wheels go round at a moment -when, as it seems, they have just stopped going round, we can walk.” - -There was an instant chorus of walking votes, and Carfax got out -to open the tonneau door. Tregarvon stood aside, scowling as any -working-boss might when his difficulties are about to be made a -raree-show for the frivolous. Miss Richardia slipped out of the -mechanician’s seat on her own side of the car, unassisted, but when -the sight-seeing contingent marshalled itself for the descent into the -tangle, she did not join it. - -“You are not going with the others?” said Tregarvon ungraciously. - -“There are enough of them for you to be spiteful at, without adding me -to the number,” she returned, adding: “Besides, I wanted to speak to -you. It was I who asked Mr. Carfax to drive down here.” - -She had come around to his side of the car and he looked her squarely -in the eyes. - -“Be careful what you say to me to-day, Richardia: I am not the same man -that I was a few days ago.” - -“_Boo!_” she said, with the little grimace that always set his blood -afire; “you make me shivery when you look and talk that way. I came to -try to help you--not to be frozen.” - -“Say it,” he commanded. - -“How can I, when you won’t let me? I have a piece of news for -you--something that I imagine you’d like to know. Have you written to -Miss Wardwell lately?” - -“Yes; Sunday night in Chattanooga.” - -“And this is Wednesday: have you had a reply?” - -“No; not yet. What is your news?” - -“I was just wondering whether I’d better not keep it to myself, after -all. Mr. Carfax said you were in a bad temper, but he didn’t tell me -that you were utterly impossible.” - -Tregarvon’s scowl deepened. - -“Impossible? Of course, I am impossible. What would you expect, in the -circumstances?” - -At this, she smiled up at him and said: “I’m beginning to be a little -deaf now--charitably deaf.” - -“I don’t need charity,” he broke out hotly. “All I need is a chance to -fight for my own hand. Tell me one thing: have you promised to marry -Poictiers yet?” - -“Have you any right to ask me such a question as that?” - -“I have; the best right in the world: you know I have.” - -She met his half-angry, half-passionate gaze calmly. - -“I know that you are about to make a shipwreck of your better self,” -she averred. Then: “Don’t you know that there are some things that are -hard for a woman to forgive--or, having forgiven them, to forget?” - -“I am in no mood to split hairs with you to-day,” he grated. “You -are thinking of Elizabeth: she knows already what she will have to -forgive. I told her in the letter I wrote Sunday night.” - -She shook her head sorrowfully. - -“You are tearing the anchors loose, one by one. Will nothing make you -realize what you are doing?” - -“What would you have me do? It has come to that, Richardia: I don’t -care for anything else. A little further along, you may be another -man’s wife, and I may be another woman’s husband; but it will make no -difference----” - -“_Don’t!_” she cried sharply; and then, before he could add another -word, she had left him and was walking down the road to meet the -tonneau party which was stringing along on its return to the car, with -Carfax in the lead. - -Tregarvon tramped moodily away when Carfax began to help his charges -into the car, going back to the tangle which Tryon had finally -contrived to straighten out. Taking over the command, he flung himself -once more into the work, but the fine fire was gone, and when evening -came and the machinery truck was left blocked at the roadside to wait -for another day, he trudged back to Coalville at the tail of the mule -cavalcade, sodden with weariness. - -Carfax had not returned when Uncle William served dinner, and Tregarvon -ate alone, morosely thankful for the solitude. Afterward he went -directly to his room on the second floor; and Carfax, coming in a -little after nine o’clock, had no chance to tell him of Thaxter’s visit -and its probable object. - - - - -XX - -Limitations - - -Day following day in the conflict with steepness on the mountain -road, Tregarvon toiled early and late, breakfasting before Carfax was -visible, eating at midday out of a basket brought to the scene of the -activities by Uncle William, and missing the golden youth two evenings -in succession by reason of Carfax’s continued popularity at Highmount. - -Such sacrifices to the morose deities of materialism bring their own -revenges. By the Friday evening, when the new engine and boiler had -been dragged painfully up the final ascent and had been halted for the -night at a point nearly opposite the college campus, Tregarvon had -become a bitter man-driver and was facing the consequences in a strike -on the part of his farmer helpers. - -John Teppenpaw, a husky young Wehatcheean from the farther side of the -valley who had brought four of the best-pulling beasts to the job, was -the first to raise the standard of revolt. - -“Ef you-all ’ll thess pay me off, I reckon I won’t come back no more,” -Teppenpaw announced, after he had thrown the trace-chains over the -backs of his mules for the descent of the mountain. - -“What’s that?--what the devil is the matter with _you_?” Tregarvon -snapped viciously. “Aren’t you getting enough money?” - -“Money ain’t the onliest thing ther’ is in this world,” was the sullen -retort. “I ain’t allowin’ to let no man hire me to take his cussin’ and -swearin’ and browbeatin’. I got a li’l piece o’ land and a few head o’ -stock o’ my own, and I allow I don’t _haf_ to!” - -“I reckon that’s about the size of it f’r me, too,” put in Jeff -Daggett, who was Teppenpaw’s nearest neighbor on the north; and from -this the fire of resentment spread so rapidly that the strike became -unanimous, passing at once beyond any hope of arbitration. - -“You’re quitting on me before the job’s finished?” raged Tregarvon. -“You are a lot of bally idiots! The money you are getting for this haul -is more than any one of you will see from now to Christmas! Are you a -pack of silly women that you can’t stand a little man-sized talk from a -boss?” - -“That’s jist hit,” said Daggett. “Looks like you-all was used to -rippin’ and tearin’ at them no-account furriners up No’th that ain’t -got nothin’, and don’t know enough to raise a terruction when you cuss -’em out. We-all ain’t nuther niggers n’r furriners. I’ll take my pay -and quit.” - -Tregarvon became heavily sarcastic. “Is this your way of telling me -that you want more money?” - -Bickler, the oldest man in the squad, made answer. - -“I reckon you-all ain’t got money enough to make us-all come back f’r -another day like what this’n has been, Mr. Tregarvon. You’ve got a heap -to l’arn ef ye allow to stay down yere in old Tennessee and get white -men to work f’r ye.” - -“Quit, then, and be damned to you!” Tregarvon exploded. “Show up at the -office in Coalville to-morrow morning before I leave, and you’ll get -your pay. I don’t carry your money around with me in my pocket.” - -To a clattering of hoofs and a jingling of trace-chains the cavalcade -moved off down the pike, leaving the deserted boss standing beside the -stranded machinery truck. Tregarvon knew very well that by another day -the story of the strike and its cause would be passed from lip to ear -throughout the length and breadth of the Wehatchee, and there would be -no hope of recruiting another gang among the farmers. The half-mile of -sandy wood road still remained to be traversed, and without the teams -the load could be moved only by means of a block and tackle and winch, -manned by Tryon’s gang of track laborers; a process which would add -other exasperating days of delay. - -The dusk was thickening under the trees when the discouraged -hauling-boss took his coat from the truck and struggled into it -preparatory to setting out upon the long tramp down the mountain. He -had seen nothing of Carfax since an hour before noon, when the yellow -car had edged past the road obstructions on its way up the pike. But -now he heard the purring of a motor and waited. - -The car was coming down the cross-mountain road, and Tregarvon could -see that there were two persons in it. Instead of turning in at the -campus gates, it came on, and Carfax braked it to a stop opposite the -loaded truck. “Is that you, Vance?” he called to the figure standing in -the shadow of the pines. - -“Yes.” Tregarvon stepped out of the shadows and crossed to the -automobile, though the nearer approach was not needed to assure him -that Carfax’s companion was Richardia Birrell. - -“You are coming along beautifully!” Carfax praised, speaking as one who -holds himself delicately aloof from the toilsome details. “It’s great -to be a working-man and able to do things. One day more will take you -over to the drilling ground, won’t it?” - -“Half a day was all I asked, with the men and teams; but I am not going -to have it. They have quit on me.” - -“A strike? What was the trouble? Weren’t you paying them enough?” - -“It wasn’t a question of more money. They seemed to think that I ought -to speak softly and say ‘mister’ and ‘please’ when I wanted them to get -a move.” - -Carfax laughed and turned to his companion in the other half of the -driving-seat. - -“He puts it rather--er--diplomatically, don’t you think?” he confided -to the young woman. “Really, you know, his language has come to be -something frightful!” Then to the diplomat: “What are you going to do?” - -Tregarvon ignored Carfax’s companion, and the derisive confidence to -which she had made no reply. “If I had the nerve, I suppose I might -kill another week dragging the thing through the wood by half-inches -with a block and tackle and man-power,” he offered. - -“Dear me! And in the meantime the enemy--whoever he is--will be storing -up ammunition and getting ready to efface you once more.” - -Tregarvon turned away. - -“I don’t believe I shall give ‘the enemy’ another chance at me. Will -you be down to dinner?” - -“Oh, hold on; don’t go off in a huff that way!” Carfax protested in -mock concern. “We have had our little joy-ride, and I was just taking -Miss Richardia home. Wait a minute and tell us how you are going to -block ‘the enemy’s’ game.” - -Tregarvon was still ignoring Miss Birrell. - -“Thaxter sent me a note this morning. Consolidated Coal is ready to do -business with us.” - -“With you, you mean; I am only a good-natured bystander. What does Mr. -Thaxter say?” - -For the first time in the brisk exchange of question and answer, -Tregarvon took the silent member of the trio into consideration. - -“All this doesn’t interest Miss Richardia. I can talk the business -matter over with you later on.” - -If the music teacher had been keeping a vow of silence she broke it now -with a little laugh. - -“I am interested,” she assured him; adding: “I hope you feel better, -now that you have made me say it in so many words.” - -Tregarvon let the small gibe go without retort. - -“The offer of a hundred thousand for the Ocoee properties has been -renewed in my behalf, Thaxter tells me; but if I wish to avail myself -of it, I must accept immediately.” - -“What is the keen rush?” Carfax inquired. - -“It is explained reasonably enough. The C. C. & I. people are preparing -to open other veins on their Whitlow lands to the north of the present -mine. These plans are being held up, pending my decision. If I sell -out to them, they will probably abandon these plans for the present; -opening, instead, the south vein--the one Thaxter told us about--and -using our tramway and coke-ovens.” - -Carfax seemed to have grown suddenly reflective. “It rather puts you -between two fires, doesn’t it?” he commented. “You don’t wish to lose -your chance to sell, and you don’t wish to sell before you have seen -what that unfinished hole over yonder may be going to show you. And -if you take time to drag this power-plant over by hand, the golden -opportunity will get by. The question which suggests itself to me is a -very foolish one, no doubt. I’m asking myself how much the C. C. & I. -people paid your farmers to induce them to lie down on you.” - -Tregarvon’s laugh was brittle. “You needn’t go that far. I’ll be frank -enough to admit that I gave Daggett and his men plenty of provocation -for the strike.” - -“In other words, you’ve been handing them some of the mule talk. -Shocking! But that is spilt milk and it can’t be gathered up now. What -is Thaxter’s time limit?” - -“He says in his note that he will expect to hear from me by Saturday, -at the latest. That is to-morrow.” - -At this, Miss Richardia spoke up quickly: - -“Does ‘to-morrow’ mean all day to-morrow? Or does it mean to-morrow -morning?” - -“Oh, I should suppose I might take the day for it. Any option holds -good up to midnight of its day of expiration, unless there is some -proviso to the contrary.” - -“And how long would it take you to do all these things that Mr. Carfax -says you would like to do first--before deciding?” - -“Only a few hours, if the men and teams had stayed with me. But as it -is, it would probably take a week.” - -There was silence for a moment and then Carfax said: “Miss Richardia is -trying to tell you to postpone your decision as long as you can, only -she can’t find the words. That is my advice, too. One can never tell -what a day may bring forth. Wait a minute until I can drive back to the -college, and then I’ll take you down the hill.” - -Tregarvon stood aside while Carfax turned the car and sent it swiftly -up to and through the Highmount gateway. A few minutes later the golden -youth came sauntering back, alone and afoot. - -“That blessed motor of yours has gone dippy again,” he announced -coolly, as if the yellow car had lately been acquiring bad habits. “It -pegged out just as I drove up to the Caswell door. I suppose I shall -have to send a boy over to our shack after Rucker. Mrs. Caswell rises -to the occasion and invites us both to dinner while we wait. What do -you say?” - -“Not on your life!” Tregarvon refused sourly. “I’m not fit company for -anybody to-night. I’ll walk down.” - -“All right: then I’ll stay and bring the car after Rucker has -rejuvenated it. You needn’t sit up for me. And, by the way, that -reminds me. There were some letters for you last night--Tait brought -them over after you had gone to bed. Did you find them?” - -“Yes; I got them this morning.” - -“Anything from--er--from Elizabeth yet?” - -“Not yet; no.” - -Carfax hesitated a moment and then interested himself -sympathetically--or seemed to. “I hope you didn’t say too much--or too -little--in that confession of yours last Sunday night, Vance; in the -letter you sent from Chattanooga.” - -“Why do you say that?” - -“Because I suppose I am, as you might say--er--well, I’m a sort of an -accessory before the fact, don’t you think? I can’t forget that it was -I who clubbed you into the proper frame of mind.” - -“You needn’t worry; you’re safely out of it,” declared the confessor, -with a laugh which was only half good-natured. “I gave you your just -due: told her that I owed you my soul’s salvation; which you had safely -clinched against any backsliding by asking Richardia to marry you.” - -For a moment there was a silence like that which precedes the crash -of summer thunder. Then, in a still, small voice, Carfax said: “You -told her that, did you? You gave her to understand that, right off the -bat, and merely in passing, as it were, I had carelessly determined -to marry your temptation out of your way? There was only one mistake -made in your education, Vance; the person who first taught you to put -pen to paper ought to have been instantly hanged, drawn and quartered. -I--I--” but here, apparently, speech failed him, and he turned abruptly -to walk rapidly away toward Highmount, leaving Tregarvon standing, -half-remorseful and wholly bewildered, in the middle of the road. - -The bewilderment went with the too highly educated one a good part of -the way down to Coalville, and it certainly would have been increased -if he could have known that, five minutes after he had turned the first -curve in the winding pike below Highmount, the car which had been so -lately reported out of commission had been mysteriously restored to a -state of usefulness; that, with a man and a woman in the driving-seat, -it had whisked through the campus portal, cut a perilous quarter-circle -at speed in the piked roadway, and had vanished in a thick cloud of -limestone dust to the westward, leaving Mrs. Caswell’s dinner to wait -for its return. - - - - -XXI - -The Clansmen - - -Tregarvon turned out early in the morning of a Saturday, to be known -afterward as a day of fateful happenings, largely from force of -habit--since there was no mule cavalcade to be led to the Pisgah -heights. As on the three previous mornings, he breakfasted alone. In -reply to his inquiry, Uncle William told him that the motor-car was not -in its shed, and the inference was that Carfax had spent the night as -the guest of the Caswells. - -“Summa dem po’ white men out yondeh on de po’ch a-waitin’ faw you-all, -Mistoo Tregarbin,” the old negro announced, after the solitary meal was -despatched. “Look lak dey’s mighty grumptious erbout somepin, dey does.” - -Tregarvon went to the front of the building, where he had established a -rude excuse for an office, and opened the door. The farmers were there, -waiting for their pay, and the settlement was made without waste of -words on either side. But after the money had been handed out, Daggett -was moved to make peaceful overtures, natural kindliness having gotten -the better of resentment. They--the farmers--had been talking it over -among themselves, and Daggett “allowed” that they might have been -hasty. Without prejudice to the fact that they objected to being sworn -at, they would come back Monday or Tuesday of the following week and -finish the hauling job, if the boss so desired. - -At this, as was most natural after a night of worry and disappointment, -Tregarvon’s temper flew into shards. - -“Not in a hundred years, you won’t!” he exploded wrathfully. “If I -can’t move that machinery without your help, it may stand right where -it is until it rots! You’ve got your money, and I’ve learned my lesson. -We’re quits.” And with that he shouldered his way through the group -and went to rally Tryon and the track gang, marshalling the handful of -laborers for the ascent of the mountain in the tram-car. - -Some half-hour beyond this, the handful having taken a short-cut -through the summit forest from the tramhead, Tregarvon found a sharp -surprise awaiting him at the point on the pike where the truck load -had been halted for the night. Scattered along the road or drawn -up under the trees were a dozen or more teams of all sorts and -descriptions--raw-boned mules in mismatched pairs, spans in which an -ancient horse was harnessed with a mule or with another horse to the -full as venerable, animals with back-bones like ridge-poles, others -posturing as the halt, the lame, and the blind, and, completing the -makeshifts, a wagon drawn by a pair of diminutive bulls. The drivers -of this new levy were harmoniously in keeping with their outworn -stock, decrepit wagons, and rope-patched harnesses; lank, sallow-faced -mountain men of the McNabb type, with a toothless patriarch of the -McNabb name to act as their spokesman. - -“We-uns done heerd you-uns wuz a-needin’ holp fer to pull thish-yer -load thoo the woods,” said the aged spokesman, shrilling in a high, -cracked voice at Tregarvon. “Me an’ th’ boys ’lowed we’d drap -erlong an’ gin ye a h’ist. How-all does ye hitch on ter that thar -kintraption?” with a thumb-jerk over his shoulder toward the loaded -truck. - -Tregarvon recovered from his surprise in a rebound of heartfelt -thankfulness. Here was manna from the skies, indeed. He asked no -questions; made no ungrateful effort to pry into the whys and -wherefores of the miracle. It was enough that the gods had relented. -Treading softly among the adjectives, he proceeded to set his curiously -assorted helpers, man and beast, in order, and the advance was begun. - -Oddly enough, the task ran smoothly, despite the makeshift pulling -beasts and the prodigious inexperience of the drivers with any load so -formidable as the engine-mounted truck. To offset the inexperience, -there was a quiet and resolute willingness that was heart-warming after -the exacerbating sullenness of the valley farmers. Tregarvon found that -his normal good-nature had not been slain; it had only been pushed -aside; discovered also that hard words may make hard work. Turning the -new leaf handsomely, he let the agile old patriarch do the bossing, and -thus, rod by rod, the sandy half-mile was traversed and the goal in the -old burying-ground was reached. - -Just before noon, when the truck load had been pushed and pulled and -inched into place in the glade, Carfax turned up, walking across from -the school. His congratulations were profuse, but if he knew anything -about the manner of the miracle-working, he betrayed neither himself -nor the secret. - -“I was certain you’d find a way out of the strike trouble,” he -asserted blandly. “I told the folks at the dinner-table last evening -that I had never seen you knocked out so completely that you were -obliged to take the count. How did you do it?” - -Tregarvon shook his head. “I didn’t do it; it was done for me. When I -came up this morning with Tryon and the trackmen, the teams were ready -and waiting. Somebody had rounded them up for me during the night. I -have been charging it to you.” - -Carfax’s laugh was a sufficient negation of the charge. “Do I look it?” -he demanded. “If I do, I can prove an _alibi_. I spent a very pleasant -evening with the Caswells and a bunch of the senior girls, and I am -reasonably sure that I didn’t walk in my sleep afterward.” - -“Did Richardia go home for the week-end, as usual?” - -“She did; though she stayed and took dinner with us at Highmount. I -drove her over to Westwood House in the car, later.” - -“So the car is all right again, is it?” - -“Oh, yes; there wasn’t much the matter with it.” - -Tryon had taken over the bossing of the gang, with Rucker for his able -second, and Tregarvon was free to stand aside and talk with Carfax -about the miracle. - -“You say Richardia went home after dinner?” he queried. Then: “I can’t -help thinking that this is her doing. These men are all mountaineers.” - -Carfax’s chuckle was frankly derisive. “That is mere sentiment on your -part; the wish the father to the thought. You’d rather like to feel -that you are indebted to her, wouldn’t you? But I shall have to spoil -that little day-dream. She was with the rest of us at Highmount until -after ten o’clock, and it must have been nearly eleven when I drove -her over to Westwood House--much too late to begin any campaign of -team-raising for you.” - -Tregarvon took this apparent evidence of Miss Richardia’s -non-complicity at its face value, but he was still shaking his head -dubiously. - -“I can’t understand it, Poictiers. These McNabbs and their cousins -might very properly have it in for me on the old score of the land -lawsuit; and, as you know, we have been suspecting them, more or less, -all along. But now they turn out to give me a lift, just as I am about -to lose my grip. What’s the answer?” - -Carfax’s grin was as nearly impish as his cherubic semblance would -permit. “Call it an attack of conscience,” he suggested playfully. -“The other night we decided that it was one of the McNabbs who put the -dynamite into the old boiler. Perhaps they have all had a change of -heart, and this is their way of showing it. Will you be ready to go on -drilling this afternoon?” - -“I am afraid not. We shall have the machinery unloaded in another hour -or so, and I can let these outsiders go home. But it will take the -remainder of the day to get the engine in working order, so Rucker -says.” - -“How about the C. C. & I. buying offer? The option expires with to-day, -doesn’t it?” - -Tregarvon turned quickly upon the questioner. - -“Do you advise me to take the offer, Poictiers? You will remember that -after our talk with Hartridge a week ago you said I was not to sell.” - -“I know; but only idiots and corpses are unable to change their minds. -You owe it to your people at home not to fall between two stools. After -all is said, a sure hundred thousand is better than nothing.” - -“Hartridge has been working on you again,” said Tregarvon accusingly. -“And this time he has taken the other tack. Isn’t that so?” - -Carfax neither admitted nor denied a later talk with the schoolmaster. -“He asserts positively that you will find the two thin veins again -here, with the rock between. He ought to know.” - -Tregarvon was silenced for the moment. Then he broke out impatiently. - -“I’ve got to know for myself, Poictiers. If I don’t stay with it long -enough to prove up, I shall be a quitter. I’m all the other things you -have occasionally called me, but not that!” - -“No; I know you are not. I was just thinking: if you could meet Thaxter -and talk with him? Possibly you could get the option time extended for -a few days. You have a good reason for asking--apart from the real -one, which is to find out what this drill-hole is going to say to you. -You might urge that you’d like to have time to communicate with your -lawyers. Suppose we drive up to Whitlow this afternoon?” - -“We’ll see,” Tregarvon conceded. “It is barely possible that we shall -get the drill in operation again to-day, and in that case I shall know -definitely what to do. Do you lunch at Highmount?” - -“I do,” laughed the golden youth. “The Caswells have adopted me, and I -shall get square with them a little further along by financing the new -gymnasium. How about paying this miracle gang? Have you money enough -with you?” - -“I haven’t, and I was going to ask if you would drive down to the -office and break into the safe for me.” - -“I can do better than that,” said the money-finder, producing a thick -roll of bank-notes. “Money is the one thing I’m rotten with. I must go -back and report for luncheon now, but I’ll be over again later on, and -we can decide about the trip to Whitlow.” - -A short time after Carfax’s departure, Tregarvon paid the mountaineers -and let them go. Singularly enough, some of the volunteers did not wish -to take money and had to be persuaded. The sums named were ridiculously -small, and in each instance Tregarvon gave more than was asked, putting -the larger wage on the ground of the value of the service to him. - -In the settlement the beneficiary of the miracle made an attempt to -find out to whom the timely help was owing, but the effort spent itself -against a dead wall of mountaineer reticence--or unknowledge. The -McNabb patriarch had “heerd” of the trouble with the valley farmers -through “ol’ man Kent”; Kent had got the word from somebody else; -and so it went, with the first cause either unknown or carefully -concealed. Tregarvon did not press too curiously for the explanation. -It was too much like inquiring the age of the proverbial gift-horse. - -After the noon halt, with the glade cleared of the men and teams, the -work of installation was begun. For a time it progressed handsomely. -Rucker and Tryon were both competent foremen, and by three o’clock they -had the engine and boiler shifted from the truck to its place behind -the drill derrick, with only the steam-pipe connections remaining to be -made. - -Carfax had not yet returned, and Tregarvon began to wonder if he had -forgotten the proposed Whitlow expedition. By this time it seemed -altogether probable that the drilling could be resumed within an hour -or two, and the mining gambler’s passion to stay in the game until the -last card had been turned fought against cool-headed prudence for first -place in the struggle Tregarvon was making to decide as to what he -should do. - -If he should leave the mountain before the drilling began, the -uncertainties would still be unresolved. On the other hand, if -Consolidated Coal meant to hold him rigidly to the terms of the option, -it became crucially necessary that he should know in advance what this -final drilling-test was going to prove. If it should prove only another -failure, the opportunity to sell must not be allowed to lapse. But -if the test should prove that he had at last discovered the workable -mother-vein.... Tregarvon gasped at the golden possibility, and the -offer of a paltry tenth of a million shrank to nothing. - -He was wishing, for the hundredth time, that Carfax would come and -help him to decide, when a buggy drawn by a high-stepping black horse -appeared among the trees on the opposite side of the glade. Tregarvon -recognized the equipage at once. It was Thaxter’s, and the round-bodied -bookkeeper was alone. The victim of indecision pulled himself together -quickly. Chance, or the kindlier gods, had given him his opportunity, -and he meant to improve it. - -Thaxter came across to the tool shanty with the Cheeryble smile in -commission. - -“Still spending your good money on the kite-flying, are you?” he said, -with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder at the new power-plant. -“I don’t know as I can blame you so very much: I was young and -enthusiastic once, myself. You’ve worked wonders getting that thing up -the mountain in such a short time. Somebody told me you were hung up -with a strike, or something of the sort, and as it was our Saturday -half-holiday, I thought I’d drive up and condole with you.” - -Tregarvon offered the bookkeeper a seat on the shanty step, saying: “We -were hung up, temporarily, but we are getting into shape now.” - -“So I see,” returned the jovial little man; and for a space the talk -ran upon the difficulties of mountain installations and the drawbacks -of having to depend upon picked-up labor in a region where labor was -scarce. After a time, Thaxter broached the option matter of his own -accord. - -“You got my note the other day, I presume?” - -“Promptly,” Tregarvon acknowledged. “I was planning to go to Whitlow -this afternoon.” - -“And you changed your mind?” - -“I have changed it now, since you have been good enough to drive up. -I suppose we can talk here as well as in your office. I have been -considering the offer to purchase, and on some accounts it is rather -attractive. We all like to bet on a sure thing when we can.” - -The genial go-between chuckled sagely. “And, on the other hand, we all -like to bet upon the possibilities, now and then,” he thrust in. “If -you only had any possibilities----” - -Tregarvon made haste to fight away from that phase of the situation. - -“We’ll disregard the possibilities, which I may believe in, and you -don’t, Mr. Thaxter. This new power outfit was bought before I had your -letter, and since we had it, we could hardly do less than to go on -and install it. Let that part of it go, and we’ll attack the business -affair. As I say, I have been considering Consolidated Coal’s offer to -buy me out. Since you are buying nothing but the equipment, the offer -is fair enough. But my father’s estate is concerned, and the option is -too short. In common prudence, I ought to consult my lawyers, and there -hasn’t been time.” - -The small man shook his head regretfully. - -“These matters are all decided for us by the big fellows in New York,” -he explained. “In my letter I gave you the reasons why they have put -the hurry speed on in this particular instance. It is really a very -small detail to Consolidated Coal whether it buys you out or doesn’t -buy you out--merely a pen-scratch in the day’s work. Of course, you -know that, as well as I do.” - -“Yes,” Tregarvon admitted. “But in spite of that, I am going to ask you -to take it up with the powers again, suggesting that they give me a -little more time. A few days, more or less, can make no difference.” - -This time the bookkeeper shook his head more firmly. - -“I should be risking my poor little job, Mr. Tregarvon. I am only the -humblest of under-strappers in the big corporation, and if I should try -to pull strings for you, some nippy chief clerk in the New York offices -would tell me to pack my grip and get out.” - -“Then supposing you turn the papers over to me and let me do my own -bargaining with headquarters,” Tregarvon ventured. - -“It wouldn’t do a particle of good, as you’d know if you had had any -dealings with the great corporations. These things are mere matters of -routine, and you couldn’t break that routine with a sledge-hammer, Mr. -Tregarvon. I’m awfully sorry, but I am afraid the option will have to -stand as it was made--to expire at midnight to-night.” - -Tregarvon had one small shot in reserve and the time had arrived when -it must be fired. - -“In that view of the case, Mr. Thaxter, I am afraid I shall have to -stay out,” he said, hoping against hope that the shot might find its -target. - -Once more Thaxter made the sign of regretful negation. From where -he was sitting the bookkeeper had a fair view of the installation -activities, and Tregarvon could not help wondering if their rapid -progress toward completion had anything to do with Thaxter’s -immovability. While he was waiting for the bluffing shot to penetrate, -if it would, Rucker came across from the new engine, carrying a piece -of iron pipe with a valve attached; carrying, also, a ferocious scowl -to emphasize his complaint. - -“Them machinery guys over in Chattanooga is a fright!” he rapped out. -“That boiler dome is tapped for inch-and-a-quarter pipe, and so’s the -engine; and they’ve gone and sent us this inch-and-a-half throttle and -pipe connection! Wot t’ ’ell am I goin’ to do about that, I’d like to -know?” - -Tregarvon grasped the new obstacle--and his own fierce -impatience--firmly by the neck and refused to make a profane show of -himself for Thaxter’s benefit. - -“I suppose there is only one thing to do, Billy; to go down to the -railroad office and wire the machinery people to make good,” he -answered placably. Then to Thaxter: “We have hit so many of these -knock-outs that we are beginning to learn that we must take them as -they come.” And with that, he scribbled a telegram on a leaf of his -note-book, tore it out, and gave it to Rucker. - -“There is the message,” he said. “Tell Tryon and the men that the jig -is up for to-day, and that I’ll be down a little later on to pay them -off. You’d better go down yourself and send that wire. If you can -persuade the railroad agent to hustle it, we may catch the machinery -shop before it closes.” - -Thaxter sat quite silent during the dispersal of the working gang; did -not speak again until after the last of the men had disappeared in the -direction of the tramhead. Then he said: “Well, you are hung up until -next week safely enough now. Your wire won’t get an answer this late -Saturday afternoon.” - -“No, I suppose not,” Tregarvon agreed. “The order will be filled -Monday, and the new throttle will get here Tuesday or Wednesday or -Thursday, at the pleasure of the railroad people. Cheerful layout, -isn’t it?” - -“You certainly have bad luck enough to discourage most young men,” said -the bookkeeper, as one who would not withhold sympathy where sympathy -is due. “Do you know, it simply grinds me to be the one to add my bit -to the aggregation. I’ve half a mind to take a chance on the thunder -and lightning and ask New York for that extension of time for you. -You might reasonably hope to hear from your Philadelphia attorneys by -Monday or Tuesday, don’t you think?” - -Tregarvon snatched at the concession avidly. “I’ll wire them -to-night,” he promised, as if his decision depended entirely upon the -result of the long-range consultation. But after Thaxter had driven -away, excusing his haste on the plea that no time must be lost in -reaching a telegraph office, Tregarvon wondered again; this time -half-suspiciously. Why had Thaxter changed his tune so suddenly? Was it -because he had just been given ocular proof that the test-drilling was -again postponed? The more Tregarvon thought of it, the more plausible -the assumption grew; and he was almost ready to call it a fact when, an -hour later, Carfax put in an appearance with the motor-car. - -In a few words Tregarvon told the story of the afternoon’s happenings, -giving the suspicion due standing. - -“It is only a guess, as usual,” he offered in conclusion. “But, in -any event, the strain is off for the present. Thaxter will get the -extension, and in the meantime we can take our chance to draw a -comfortable breath or two. After Rucker comes back, we’ll go down the -hill and get ready to enjoy an old-fashioned restful Sunday. I don’t -mind confessing that the strain has been getting next to me, Poictiers. -I’m going to push the whole wretched tangle into the background, for -one day, at least, and try to catch up with my nerve.” - -“Good medicine!” laughed the one who had no nerves; and Rucker -returning a few minutes later to resume his duties as resident -watchman, they climbed into the yellow car and Tregarvon took the wheel -to drive to the valley. - - - - -XXII - -Out of a Clear Sky - - -The event of the day for Coalville--the arrival of the afternoon -passenger-train from Chattanooga--was in the near prospect when the -yellow car rolled down the last of the grades and swept a wide circle -around the coke-ovens and past the unloading platforms. - -The train-time signs were always unmistakable. A little while before -the hour, and always as if warned by some signal inaudible to alien -ears, the loungers under Tait’s porch rose, shook their legs to settle -wrinkled trousers, and filed slowly over to the railroad station. -Tregarvon’s motor-car, no longer a nine days’ wonder to the army of -leisure, was slowing to cross the rails of the Ocoee siding when the -station agent ran out of his office to wave the motorists down with a -telegram. The message was for Carfax, and the agent explained that it -had been delayed in transmission by some trouble with the wire on the -branch line. - -While Carfax was opening the envelope, Tregarvon got out and went -around to see if the brakes had been running cool in the swift drop -from the summit of Pisgah. For this cause he did not hear Carfax’s, “Ye -gods and little fishes!” basing itself upon a glance at the delayed -telegram. - -“Vance!” he called, turning in his place to see what had become -of Tregarvon. But Tregarvon did not hear. A canopy-topped surrey, -venerable with age and drawn by a great-boned horse of dapple gray, was -turning out of the Hesterville road to cross the tracks to the station. -Miss Richardia Birrell was holding the reins over the dapple gray, and -in the seat beside her was an old man, erect, white-haired, handsome as -an ancestral portrait. - -“Jehu!” said Tregarvon under his breath. “So that is her father. If -looks count for anything, he is worthy of her; which is more than I -would say for any other Tennesseean I’ve met.” Then Carfax’s anxious -call was repeated, and this time Tregarvon answered. - -“Not lost--only mislaid,” he returned. Then he saw Carfax’s face: “Why, -Poictiers!--who is dead?” - -Carfax was standing up in his place, clinging to the steering-wheel -with one hand and waving the telegram like a flag of distress in the -other. - -“Read that!” he commanded tragically, when the inspector of brakes came -within passing reach. - -Tregarvon glanced at the message and became, in his turn, a man -stricken down without warning. The bolt was dated at Chattanooga, and -it had been filed for sending at nine in the forenoon. It was addressed -to Carfax, and it read: - - “Here with papa and mamma, and the Pennsylvania battle-monument - dedicators. If I should run over to Coalville with Clotilde this - afternoon, will you and Vance put me up at the hotel and show me your - mine? But, of course, you will. - - “ELIZABETH.” - -“Oh, good heavens!” groaned Tregarvon, when the paralyzing effect of -the announcement gave place to the panic of dismay; “E-Elizabeth and -her maid?--coming here?” - -Carfax laughed rather wildly. “Yes; coming here to stop at--at the -hotel!” - -Tregarvon read the message again. “She says ‘this afternoon.’ That -means to-day--now--this minute; she’s on this train! Poictiers, if you -are any friend of mine, you’ll climb down here and find a club and put -me out of my misery!” - -Carfax stopped laughing suddenly and sprang out of the car. “It’s no -joke!” he snapped. “It’s up to us, you wild ass of the desert--do you -hear? Stop your braying and listen to me: we’ve got to meet her over -there on that platform just as if we had been watching every train for -a week! There is the whistle: come along and invent your fairy-tale on -the run!” - -They did not crowd too eagerly to the front when the three-car -train drew up to the platform. There were terms to be agreed upon; -things which might be said, and things which must not be said. Thus -it happened that an exceedingly handsome young woman, in a modish -travelling hat and a brown coat, and followed by a French maid bearing -impedimenta, was helped from the car-step by the brakeman. - -“Charge!” Carfax commanded, in a hoarse whisper; but before they -could do it, Miss Richardia slipped through the ranks of the platform -loungers, put her arms quickly about the handsome young woman and -kissed her, with an “Oh, you dear thing!” to go with the affectionate -welcome. - -Tregarvon saw, gasped, swallowed hard, and the smile of greeting which -he had called up for the emergency turned into a shocked grin. - -“Get out in the road there and chunk me!” he whispered to Carfax. And -then: “Poictiers, I’m a ruined man! They were together in the Boston -music factory. Elizabeth has told me a hundred times how she chummed -with a charming little Southerner--without naming any names! And I’ve -been writing her--oh, I tell you, I’m a dead man. All you have to do -now is to get a wreath to lay on my coffin!” - -“You’ll be needing the coffin if you don’t buck up and catch the step!” -hissed Carfax. Wherewith he dragged his companion masterfully into the -circle of welcomings. - -The golden youth neither gave nor received the kiss of greeting; and -he pointedly looked another way when Miss Wardwell offered her cheek -for Tregarvon’s cousinly salute. Then he found himself shaking hands -with Richardia’s father; realized vaguely that the judge was taxing -him reproachfully for not having consented to occupy one of the many -bed-rooms at Westwood House the night before, instead of returning to -Highmount; realized also that Miss Wardwell was rallying Tregarvon -gayly upon his discomfiture accomplished by means of the jesting -telegram. - -“Surely, it didn’t mislead you, too, did it, Poictiers?” she -questioned, turning to Tregarvon’s accomplice. “Vance is trying to -tell me that you took it harder than he did.” Then she explained to -Judge Birrell: “I sent a wire to these two from Chattanooga, you know, -asking them if they could put me and Clotilde up at the Coalville -hotel--by the way, Cousin Vance, where _is_ the hotel?” Then again to -the judge: “You see, I guessed, from what Richardia said in her last -letter, that they didn’t know I was invited to Westwood House. Fancy -it! they got the telegram only a few minutes ago!” - -Tregarvon backed out of the group and fanned himself with his hat. -There were still traces of the shocked grin to temper the mask of -feverish anxiety which was slowly displacing it. Everything he had -ever written to Elizabeth about Richardia--everything he had ever -told Richardia about Elizabeth--clamored for instant recollection and -revision in the light of the unnerving fact that the two of them were -here on the Coalville platform, together, as friends of long standing. - -The train had moved on, the loungers were dispersing, and Miss Birrell -was leading the way to the venerable surrey. - -[Illustration: “Poictiers, I’m a ruined man!”] - -“Mr. Carfax has promised me that he will drive you up to Westwood House -to-morrow. I think you will be very sure to come, now,” she said, -after Tregarvon had flogged himself into some livelier sense of the -requirements of the moment. Then she added: “You may come as early as -you please.” - -“I think I shall be very ill to-morrow,” he returned gravely, as he -handed her into the carriage. “These sudden shocks are very bad--for -the heart.” Then, while Carfax was helping Miss Wardwell to the front -seat with the judge: “I didn’t believe you could be so wicked!” - -“I am not the wicked one,” was the quick retort. “I tried to tell you -last Wednesday; that was why I asked Mr. Carfax to drive down to where -you were working. But you wouldn’t let me.” - -“If I am not too ill to come, you must let me see you first, before -I--” Tregarvon was beginning; but Miss Richardia was not willing to be -dragged even into the vicinity of things confidential. - -“Hear him!” she said to Miss Wardwell; “Mr. Tregarvon is intimating -that we have made him ill, between us!” Then she spoke to her father: -“Judge Birrell, you will please command these two young gentlemen to -report to you to-morrow at Westwood House--do you hear?” - -The judge gave the invitation in due and courteous form, and Carfax -accepted promptly for himself and for Tregarvon. After which the big -dapple gray, mildly urged by his master, began to jog up and down and -the age-worn surrey crept out of sight around the barrier rank of -coke-ovens. - -“We might have offered to take them up in the motor,” said Carfax, when -the afterthought had been given time to come to the surface. - -“_You_ might have,” Tregarvon returned moodily. “I wouldn’t trust -myself to drive a wheel-barrow in the present state of things.” - -Carfax was about to swing himself behind the wheel to drive the car -over to its shed and he paused with a foot on the running-board. - -“When it comes to wrestling with the fateful tangles, you haven’t so -much the best of me as you may think you have--thanks to your little -gift of letter-writing,” he remarked darkly. - -Tregarvon walked across to the office-building while Carfax was housing -the car, went to his room, and was visible no more until Uncle William -called him to dinner. At table he ate like an ogre--a sure sign of -disturbment--and refused to rise to any of the small conversational -baits flung out by Carfax. But afterward, over the tobacco-jar, there -were things to be said and he said them. - -“Poictiers, I believe I’ll write my will to-night and let you witness -it,” he began. “The easiest thing for me to do now is to go and offer -myself to the chief of the bureau of tests as a candidate for the -poison squad.” - -“Meaning that Elizabeth is here to answer your letter in person?” -queried Carfax. “There is nothing so very deadly about that, is there?” - -“That remark shows how little you know women. I was perfectly frank -with Elizabeth, as I told you, but of course I didn’t write as I should -have written if I had known that she and Richardia were bosom friends. -Now they will proceed to exchange confidences and compare notes--if -they haven’t already done both in their letters to each other. And what -the comparison will leave of me won’t be fit to fling to a starved -puppy.” - -Carfax smoked in silence for quite some time before he said: “How they -may stick pins into you, to your face or behind your back, seems a very -inconsiderable factor in the case to me, Vance. The deadly part of it -is that you are still in love--or you think you are--with Richardia -Birrell, while you are going to marry Elizabeth Wardwell.” - -“No,” Tregarvon objected, staring gloomily into the fire; “that isn’t -the worst of it. There is a still deeper depth: I can’t help being the -one or doing the other.” - -Carfax began to show signs of becoming restive. - -“If Elizabeth only didn’t care so much for you....” Then he took a -new tack. “You didn’t tell her all you ought to have told her in -that letter, Vance; if you had, you wouldn’t be dreading the actual -show-down as you are now. Which means that you still have it to do.” - -“That is it, exactly,” said the dejected one. “And I’d much rather be -shot full of holes.” - -Carfax took another dose of his own prescription of silence. Then -he said: “What is going to come of it?--after you have made her -understand?” - -“The only thing that can come of it. While I have insisted, and still -insist, that there has never been any sentiment wasted between us, the -fact remains that Elizabeth is a woman, and she isn’t going to sit down -meekly and say, ‘All right, Vance, dear; never mind,’ when I make her -understand that I have been trying my hardest to make love to another -woman. She has plenty of spirit; she can fairly set you afire with -those brown eyes of hers when the occasion demands it.” - -“Well?” said Carfax. - -“It will be all over but the shouting, then. She will doubtless tell me -what she thinks of me and break the engagement, there and then--or try -to. But that is the one thing I can’t let her do, Poictiers. She needs -the Uncle Byrd legacy, and I mustn’t let her lose it.” - -Carfax got up and reached for the matches and his bed-room candle. -“No,” he said slowly; “you mustn’t let her lose the legacy. To a man -up a tree it would seem that the money is about all she is going to -salvage out of the wreck.” With which unkind daggering of the sinner -whose sin had found him out, he went to bed. - - - - -XXIII - -At Westwood House - - -The autumn Sunday afternoon figured as the flawless half of a day of -perfection, with the sky a vivid blue and the hardwood forest of the -mountain top, lately touched by the first sharp frosts, a riot of -gorgeous coloring. On the broad veranda of the ancient manor-house of -Westwood the conversation, which had been desultory at best, languished -in sympathy with the reposeful spell of time and place and the peaceful -surroundings. - -With a gently worded phrase of apology to his daughter’s guest, the -judge had pleaded an old man’s privilege, dragging his chair to the -farther end of the veranda and lighting his corn-cob pipe in courteous -isolation. Tregarvon marked the bit of old-fashioned chivalric -deference to Elizabeth, and wondered how many men of his own generation -would be as thoughtfully considerate of the small amenities. - -The thought was one of a series emphasizing the gross incredibility -of the theory involving Richardia’s father in the conspiracy against -the Ocoee. That the white-haired, ruddy-faced Chesterfield of Westwood -House might challenge an antagonist, give him the choice of weapons, -and afterward kill him unflinchingly, was easily conceivable. But -that he would descend to the methods of the dynamiter or the midnight -assassin was momently growing more and more unbelievable. - -With Elizabeth for his _vis-à-vis_ in her broad-armed veranda -chair, Tregarvon was finding it increasingly difficult to fix his -attention upon the Ocoeean mysteries. For some reasons--the unfamiliar -surroundings, the gap of absence so suddenly and unexpectedly bridged, -or because there was some subtle change in her--his cousin was -singularly reticent. While the talk remained general she took her part -in it; but whenever it threatened to become a dialogue, Tregarvon was -instantly made to feel the raising of the barrier. - -Since the guilty flee when no man pursueth, Tregarvon fancied he -need be at no loss to account for Miss Wardwell’s attitude. She had -doubtless received his confession letter--though no mention had been -made of it--and beyond that, she and Richardia had in all probability -been comparing notes. He could feel the presence of the Damoclean sword -suspended above his head, and was looking forward unjoyously to the -moment when chance, or design on the part of Carfax and Richardia, -would give Miss Wardwell her reproachful opportunity. - -The dreaded moment came when Miss Richardia, who had been discussing -autumn flowers with Carfax, asked the golden youth if he would like to -see her chrysanthemums and asters in the sheltered posy-patch in the -rear of the manor-house. And when they were gone, Tregarvon was left -alone with his responsibilities. - -It was Miss Wardwell who first broke the little silence which followed -the departure of the flower seekers, and her manner was distinctly at -variance with her accustomed attitude of serenity and self-possession; -was rather the manner of one marching reluctantly but firmly up to the -mouth of a loaded cannon. - -“Were you tremendously shocked yesterday afternoon when you learned -that I was coming?” she asked. - -“It is no use to deny it,” he confessed bravely. “It was a complete -surprise--as you probably intended it to be.” - -“No; I didn’t intend it--until just at the last. Richardia has been -asking me to come down, and she knew a week or more ago that I was -coming. I supposed, of course, she would tell you, and didn’t know that -she hadn’t told you until I received her last letter, just as we were -leaving.” - -“You came with your father and mother?” - -“Yes. Pennsylvania has been building some monuments on the old -battle-fields, and papa is one of the commissioners. He and mamma -didn’t particularly wish to be bothered with me, I imagine, but I had -to come. Have you guessed why, Vance?” - -Tregarvon thought he knew the constraining reason very well, indeed, -but he was not quite courageous enough to say so. Instead, he -temporized, as a man will, postponing the instant when the hair-hung -sword must fall. - -“I’m the poorest of mind-readers,” he protested. “I can’t even read my -own, at times. But I suppose you have my letter, and you thought it -ought to be answered in person.” - -“I have had many letters from you: which one do you mean?” - -“The one I wrote a week ago to-day in the hotel in Chattanooga.” - -She shook her head slowly. “No; your last letter was written two weeks -ago, and it was postmarked ‘Coalville.’ I remember you said you were -writing after Poictiers had gone to bed.” - -Tregarvon groaned inwardly. The thing which he thought had been safely -done had not been done at all; it still remained to be done. He was -bracing himself to take the plunge when she went on hurriedly: - -“You were saying just now that you couldn’t read your own -mind--sometimes. I wish I might read it now--this moment, Cousin -Vance!” She was trying to look him fairly in the eyes and was not -succeeding very well. - -“Read my mind?--heaven forbid!” he gasped. Then he came to his senses -and tried to repair the terrible misstep. “You know--er--you know what -I mean; a man’s mind is seldom fit for a--a good woman to look into, -Elizabeth.” - -“Yours is, always,” she asserted loyally, and he winced as if she had -struck him a blow. “I assure you I haven’t known you all my life for -nothing, Vance. And it was because I had known you as no other woman -ever will, that I was willing to try to make you happy.” - -He was wondering dumbly how much of this he could stand when she -continued, quite calmly, though the brown eyes were looking past him. - -“As I have said, I had to come: there is a crisis; and with your -letters before me, I couldn’t write. We agreed once, you remember, to -go around the sentimental field instead of going through it; but--but -you haven’t been living up to the spirit of that agreement in your -letters.” - -Tregarvon found his handkerchief and mopped his face. The matchless -autumn afternoon had grown suddenly sweltering for him. - -“You mean that I’ve been writing you love-letters? I’m a brute, -Elizabeth. I----” - -“Please don’t make it any harder for me than you are obliged to,” she -pleaded gently. “If you stop me now, I shall never be able to go on. -I have come all the way down here to say something to you; something -that I couldn’t write, and a thing that every added letter of yours was -making more difficult to say. But one word from you now will make it -easier--if it is the right word. Tell me, Vance; hasn’t this separation -proved to you that we couldn’t--that cousins ought not to marry?” - -Slowly it ground its way into his brain that the worst had befallen; -that Elizabeth, really and truly in love with him, now, had guessed, -either from his letters or from Richardia’s, the true state of affairs; -and that womanly pride and affection had brought her to the scene of -action to commit martyrdom. - -“Oh, by Jove!--you mustn’t, Elizabeth!” he broke out in a sudden access -of contrition. “I can’t allow you to outdo me in pure generosity that -way! And, besides, there is Uncle Byrd’s money.” - -“I have thought of that, too,” she said, quite judicially. “But, -Vance, dear, we must simply rise superior to all the mere money -considerations. Richardia has been telling me about your prospects -here--your mine--and your brave struggle to make something out of -nothing. You will need Uncle Byrd’s money; you are needing it now. -And I--if we--well, I shall not need it, anyhow,” she ended rather -incoherently. - -“The Lord help me, Elizabeth!” he groaned, entirely ignoring the -white-haired, white-mustached figure smoking peacefully at the farther -end of the veranda. “I don’t deserve----” - -“I know you don’t,” she agreed instantly; “you deserve ... well, you -deserve something quite different. But whatever happens, and whatever -you say, I must do what I came here to do. I--I have made a discovery, -Cousin Vance.” - -“Of course you have,” he said desperately. “I knew you would, sooner or -later, though I have tried awfully hard to make myself believe that -there wasn’t any discovery to be made.” - -“I know: but seriously, Vance; deep down in your heart, you don’t -really care, do you?” - -“Why, Elizabeth! Of course I care. And I have blamed myself straight -through from the first.” - -“Oh, but you mustn’t do that!” she protested quickly. “It is all my -fault, or my--no, I simply _won’t_ call it a misfortune.” - -“Your fault?” he queried. “You mean because you didn’t suspect it and -choke it off right at the beginning. But I haven’t give you a chance to -do that, have I?” - -“I didn’t suspect it,” she said musingly; “I was very far from -suspecting it. It came all at once, like a blow, you know; and then it -was too late to ‘choke it off,’ as you say.” - -The man, the true man, in him rose up in its might to buffet him into -the path of uprightness and straightforwardness. “No; it is not too -late, Elizabeth,” he assured her gravely. - -“Yes, it is,” she objected with pathetic earnestness. - -“No,” he insisted. “We must still make good. Do you know what people at -home will say if our engagement is broken now? They will say that I -made it impossible for you to carry out Uncle Byrd’s wishes; and that I -did it deliberately, to get the money for myself.” - -“But you haven’t!” she cried in wide-eyed astonishment. “_I_ am the -guilty one.” - -“You?” - -“Yes. This is what I came all the way from Philadelphia to say to you, -Vance. Do you remember, one time when we were trying to ‘galvanize,’ -I think that was the word you used, ourselves into the sentimental -ecstasy supposed to be the normal condition of engaged people, I told -you jokingly that if I ever found any one whom I could really lo--like -better----” - -“_Elizabeth!_” - -She nodded, soberly and looked away from him. “Yes; it is true; and I -had to come and tell you. You may despise me; it is your privilege.” - -Tregarvon got up and took the necessary step to the veranda end which -gave him the view into the rearward flower-garden. They were there, -Carfax and Richardia, bending together over the chrysanthemums. When he -turned back to face his cousin he was smiling grimly. - -“As our cattle-ranching cousin in the West would say, you mustn’t -‘rawhide’ yourself too severely, Elizabeth. Leaving the dollars out of -it--and I’ll find a way to leave them out if I have to throw them to -the birds--I’m getting about what I deserve; which is the glad hand all -around the block.” - -“You are bitter, and I can’t blame you,” she said, with something -alarmingly like a sob at the catching of her breath. “But really, at -the very bottom of it all, you don’t care so very much, do you, Vance?” - -“Don’t I? I’d be a mighty good specimen of the superman if I didn’t -care. Who is this fellow who, coming after me, is preferred before me?” - -“I--I can’t tell you that.” - -“Why can’t you?” - -“Because--oh, you are perfectly savage with me!--because he has had no -right to speak, nor I to listen. He hasn’t spoken; he may never speak. -But that doesn’t make any difference.” - -“No,” said Tregarvon wearily; “nothing makes any difference now. But I -told you a moment ago not to reproach yourself too bitterly. I am in -precisely the same sort of a boat myself, Elizabeth--without your good -hope of getting ashore.” - -“You? _Vance!_” - -The grim smile came again, and he said--though rather in shame than -in malice: “It hurts a little, doesn’t it?--when it is the other way -about. For nearly a week I have been thinking that you knew. I told -you all about it, you know, in the letter I wrote last Sunday night in -Chattanooga; the letter which seems to have gone astray. That is why I -was so slow in getting your meaning: I was looking for you to dagger me -the other way around, you know.” - -Miss Wardwell was no longer embarrassed, but she was well-nigh tearful. - -“I suppose it is one of those horridly pretty Southern girls in the -school,” she said half-spitefully. “Have you----” - -“No,” he hastened to say; “I have been almost as decent as the other -fellow; the fellow you won’t name for me. I haven’t asked her to marry -me.” - -“And she?” - -“She is going to marry a man old enough to be her father--if she -doesn’t reconsider and marry a young donkey of a millionaire.” - -Rucker, following an order which had been given him earlier in the day, -was tooling the yellow car up the weed-grown carriage approach, coming -to drive the two young men back to Coalville. Also, Carfax and Miss -Birrell were returning from the posy-patch. Miss Wardwell stood up and -put her hands into Tregarvon’s. - -“I’m sorry and happy and miserable all in the same breath,” she said. -“I shall be here for a few days. Papa and mamma are going over to the -Shiloh battle-field after they leave Chattanooga, and I shall stay -until they come back. You’ll come again, won’t you?” - -He was able to smile down into the brown eyes of beseeching. The -stabbed-vanity pain was passing--a little. - -“Most certainly I shall come, as often as you can get me an invitation, -and as my job on the Ocoee will permit. I don’t propose to lose my best -cousin just because I happen to have lost a lot of other things.” - -This was the key-note of the cheerful tone which he contrived to -preserve throughout the leave-takings. But at the car boarding he let -Carfax have the tonneau to himself, taking the seat beside Rucker for -the better chance it offered for a needed interval in which to bind up -the wounds of the pierced _amour-propre_. - - - - -XXIV - -The Unknown Quantity - - -When the yellow motor-car, driven by Rucker with his customary -disregard for speed limitations, had crossed the mountain and was -approaching Highmount and the forking of the wood road leading to the -old negro burying-ground, Tregarvon told the mechanician to stop and -let him out. To Carfax he made plausible excuse: Tryon was watching at -the drilling plant and he might have something to report. It was still -only mid-afternoon, and Tregarvon added that he would walk to Coalville -by way of the tramhead and the short-cut path. - -After the car had gone on, Tregarvon kept the first part of his -promise, covering the half-mile briskly. Tryon was at his post, killing -time with the aid of strong tobacco and a railroad man’s clay pipe. He -had relieved Rucker at noon, in accordance with his orders; there had -been no Sunday-afternoon visitors--nothing to disturb the peace of the -day of rest. - -Tregarvon listened perfunctorily to the foreman’s report. His object -in delaying his return to Coalville had been only half formed at the -moment of car stopping, but it had nothing to do with checking up the -day-watchman. The talk with Elizabeth and its astounding revelations -had opened new vistas. With Elizabeth calmly proposing to marry some -one else, if the some one else should ask her, a full half of the spur -which had been driving him to fight the Ocoee battle to a finish was -gone. - -Under the changed conditions the sensible thing to do, after all, might -be to close with the coal trust’s offer. But before committing himself -finally to this, he was inclined to go to Hartridge with a frank plea -for a word of friendly advice. From what had transpired it was evident -that the professor of mathematics knew much more about the Ocoee and -its mysteries than he had as yet been willing to tell; and though the -episode of the steel cubes seemed to array him definitely on the side -of the enemy, his later warning in the matter of bargain and sale was -unquestionably disinterested, if not actively amicable. - -Tregarvon was still considering the half-formed resolve to appeal to -Hartridge when Tryon fished in the pocket of his overalls and brought -up three small cubes of metal, the exact counterparts of the one which -Carfax had taken from the pocket of the schoolmaster’s overcoat. - -“I been savin’ these to show you,” said the foreman, handing the bits -of metal to Tregarvon. “What-all d’you reckon they’re meant for?” - -Tregarvon permitted the query to go unanswered. “Where did you find -them?” he asked. - -“In the pocket of an old coat that Jim Sawyer’s been wearin’ here on -the job. It’s hangin’ up in the tool shanty. I run out o’ matches a -little spell ago, and went to rummagin’ ’round to see if I couldn’t -find some.” - -“Sawyer’s coat, eh?” said Tregarvon, struck suddenly alert. - -Tryon nodded soberly. “An’ that ain’t all,” he went on. “I got a file -and tried ’em; they’re harder ’n flint--been tempered till you couldn’t -cut ’em with anything softer ’n an emery-wheel. Rucker’d been tellin’ -me how the drills went all to the bad that time when you was hung up -before the old b’iler bu’sted. Sawyer’s got a tool-box in the shanty -where he keeps his wrenches and little traps. It was locked, but I -happened to have a key that fitted. What d’you reckon I found?” - -“More of these?” - -“You’ve hit it plumb centre; a tomatter can about half full of ’em.” - -“Tell me all you know about Sawyer,” Tregarvon cut in concisely. - -“What I know about him wouldn’t get him a job anywheres where I had the -say-so. Last summer he was workin’ for the C. C. & I. at Whitlow--a -strike-breaker. Before that he was doin’ time at Brushy Mountain, for -some sort o’ crookedness, I dunno what. Maybe I ort to ’a’ told you -this when you hired him, but I allowed you knowed what you was doin’, -an’ it wasn’t none o’ my business. He’s a good drill boss.” - -Tregarvon was examining the bits of steel critically. “Tryon, I’d give -something to know just where these came from originally,” he said. - -“Maybe I might help out a little on that, too. I served my time in the -shop before I went to work for the railroad. D’you know what kind o’ -steel that is?” - -“No.” - -“It’s some o’ that new-fangled, high-speed tool-steel that you temper -by heatin’ it white-hot and coolin’ it in a fan blast. Jenkins, the -Whitlow blacksmith, was showin’ me a piece of it last Sat’day night at -Tait’s. Looked like it might ’a’ been cut off the same bar with these -little chunks o’ Jim Sawyer’s.” - -“In other words, you believe that these bits were made in the Whitlow -blacksmith shop?” - -“I ain’t a-sayin’ so, because I can’t prove it. But my boy, Tom, saw -Thaxter, the Whitlow bookkeeper, stop his buggy in the big road two or -three days ago whilst a man came out o’ the bushes to talk to him. The -man was Jim Sawyer. More ’n that, there’s just natchelly only the one -place in the Wehatchee where that steel _could_ come from. They’ve got -it at Whitlow, an’ I don’t reckon there’s ar’ another blacksmith shop -in the valley that ever heerd tell of it.” - -“Tryon, you’ve done a good afternoon’s work,” said the master of Ocoee, -dropping the three cubes into his pocket. “We owe all of our hard -luck, excepting the blown-up boiler, which may have been due to its -own rottenness, to the C. C. & I., with Thaxter pulling the strings -and Sawyer doing the actual dirty work. Isn’t that the way you have it -figured out?” - -“That’s about the way it _ort_ to stack up,” said the foreman. “But -somehow it don’t gee all the way ’round. You’d say it’s mighty near -a dead cinch that Sawyer was the one that doped the drill-hole with -these here slow-’em-downs; but right there the vein pinches out. Them -two times that the walkin’-beam fell down, Sawyer was the man that -stood the best chance o’ gettin’ his head bu’sted. Then you an’ Mr. -Carfax both saw the man that put the dannymite into the old b’iler, an’ -I hain’t heerd neither one of you a-sayin’ it was Sawyer. You’d ’a’ -knowed him, wouldn’t you?” - -“It wasn’t Sawyer,” said Tregarvon definitively. “Sawyer has a beard, -and that man was smooth-faced.” - -“Jes’ so,” nodded the foreman. Then he drew his own conclusion. “I been -knowin’ the C. C. & I. crowd, off an’ on, ever sence they took holt -here in the Wehatchee. I reckon they’d rough-house you in a holy minute -if they thought that was the easiest way to get the best o’ you in some -business fight. I wouldn’t even put the dannymitin’ a-past ’em. But -they wouldn’t go at it in no such a bunglesome way; n’r they wouldn’t -put skulls in your fire-box, n’r any such fool monkeyshines as that. -Them things don’t fit in.” - -Again Tregarvon bestowed the meed of praise where praise was due. - -“Tryon, you have a pretty level head. I am beginning to suspect that -we made a mistake in not calling you in as chief detective in this -muddle. But you still think that Thaxter and Sawyer worked the -drill-dulling scheme, don’t you?” - -“Ez I say, that part of it proves up toler’ble plain. If there was -ar’ reason, now, why they’d want to be holdin’ you back for a little -spell----” - -“There is a reason. They are trying to buy me out.” - -“Now you’re talkin’!” said the foreman sagely. “Maybe you’ve got coal -here under your feet, ’r maybe you hain’t. _You_ don’t know, yet, an’ -maybe _they_ don’t know. But they’d just as soon you wouldn’t find out -for sure whilst the dickerin’ ’s goin’ on. They’d like as not call it -‘good business’ to hold you up for a spell, wouldn’t they?” - -“Quite likely,” Tregarvon was glancing at his watch. The call upon -Hartridge had now become a necessity, if only for apologetic and -explanatory reasons. True, it was still possible that the professor -had been in collusion with the planter of steel cubes on the night -of surprises, but these later developments seemed to exonerate him -handsomely. “I must go,” he told the foreman. “Rucker will relieve you -here in time for you to go to your supper. If Sawyer should happen to -turn up, just keep your own counsel about what we have discovered. -We’ll deal with him--and his bosses--when the time comes.” - -A few minutes beyond this, Tregarvon was at Highmount, inquiring for -Professor Hartridge. The young woman who answered his ring told him -that the professor had gone over to the McNabb neighborhood to see a -sick child. Not wishing to let his opportunity escape, Tregarvon set -out to walk through the forest, taking a path leading in the general -direction of the sunken mountain-top valley known locally as the -“Pocket”; this on the chance of meeting Hartridge and walking back to -the school with him. - -Now it so chanced that Tregarvon had never visited the “Pocket,” -and though he knew, from Carfax’s description of the locality, that -it could not be more than a mile or two beyond Highmount, he was -not aware that the path he had chosen was not the right one. Having -plenty of other things to think about, he paid little attention to his -surroundings until, at the end of a half-hour, he found that the path, -which had been growing indistinct, had disappeared entirely, leaving -him in a region of deep ravines with their slopes heavily wooded; -hollows boulder-strewn, in which the old-growth timber stood thickly, -with only a fallen and rotting trunk here and there to show where the -tan-bark gatherers had slain some monarch of the forest for the paltry -stripping of its outer skin--mute testimony to the waste of a nation. - -It was not until after he had covered distance enough, as he -thought, to have taken him all the way across from Highmount to the -western brow of the mountain, that he saw a man--whom he took to be -Hartridge--sitting upon a flat stone in the shadow of a great boulder -on the opposite side of a small mountain brook. Just as he was about -to call out and make his presence known, the man sprang to his feet -suddenly, as if in alarm, and whipped a weapon from his pocket. - -Obeying the instinct of self-preservation in pure automatism, Tregarvon -dropped silently behind the nearest boulder on his own side of the -stream. When he looked again he saw that the man was not Hartridge; -he was a much younger man; a handsome young fellow, well-built and -athletic-looking, with nothing in his appearance to connect him with -the mountain and its natives. The attitude of strained anxiety into -which the quick leap afoot had thrown him lasted only for a moment. -While Tregarvon looked, a warbling bird whistle rose shrill and clear -on the windless air. The watcher saw the young man hastily pocket the -pistol and heard him whistle a reply. Almost at the same instant the -figure of a woman appeared at the buried up-hill heel of the great -boulder. She stood for a moment in the yellow light of the westering -sun, long enough for Tregarvon to recognize her beyond any question -of doubt. Then she ran, slipping and sliding, down the leaf-carpeted -hazard slope, to be caught in the arms of the waiting man. - -For a little time Tregarvon sat with his back to the sheltering -boulder, trying to surround this latest and newest development in the -maze of mysteries. Slowly it came to him that this was the explanation -of Richardia’s attitude; the reason why she had slipped aside, masking -the true state of affairs and rebuffing him by seeming to accept the -attentions of Carfax. One by one the corroborative inferences fell into -place, each fitting with exact nicety: Richardia’s piquant reticences; -her half-confidences which had always stopped short of revealment; -her little flights to the shelter of detachment whenever the talk -threatened to lean toward sentiment; all these were signs which might -have been read--which were plainly readable now in the light of the -small tableau staging itself in the shadow of the great rock on the -opposite hillside. - -Tregarvon peeped again. It was most obviously a lovers’ meeting. -The young man had drawn the judge’s daughter to a seat beside him -on the flat stone, and he still had his arm about her. They were -talking eagerly in low tones; Tregarvon could hear only a murmur of -voices, but Richardia’s face was toward him, and in it he re-read his -complete effacement. In a series of revealing flashes more of the -corroborative fragments whisked into place; he had been blind not to -see the pointing of certain playful allusions made now and then at the -Caswells’ dinner-table and aimed at the music teacher. Doubtless, to -the small world of the mountain top, these Sunday-afternoon trysts in -the forest were an old story. But why were they clandestine? The answer -fitted itself promptly. By all accounts Judge Birrell was a person of -shrewd prejudices; quite possibly he disapproved of this young man who -had stolen his daughter’s heart; and perhaps the disapproval was not -entirely without reason. Tregarvon recalled the signs of perturbation -and the sudden pistol drawing which had preceded Richardia’s appearance. - -In deference to a prompting which took its color more from complete -and hopeless chagrin than from any charitable scruples, Tregarvon -squared his back against the concealing boulder and refused to look -any more. While the pair across the streamlet kept their places, it -was impossible for him to retreat undiscovered. The waiting interval -was not unduly long. When he could no longer distinguish the murmur of -voices he ventured to peep again. The flat-stone seat was empty and -they were gone. - -The sun had dropped behind the mountain, and Tregarvon was tramping -soberly through the lengthening wood shadows toward Highmount, when the -frock-coated figure of the professor of mathematics loomed suddenly in -the path ahead. At Tregarvon’s call, Hartridge stopped and waited. - -“This is a pleasant surprise,” said the schoolmaster, with his genial -smile. “Are you walking my way?” - -“Very pointedly,” said Tregarvon. “They told me at the college that -you had gone to one of the McNabbs’, and I came out on the chance of -meeting you.” - -“That was neighborly, I’m sure,” returned the master of arts, catching -the step. “Am I to infer that you are going to let me be of some -service to you?” - -Tregarvon’s laugh was a trifle strained. “It’s a little that way,” he -confessed. “But first I wish to say that I believe we have been doing -you an injustice--Carfax and I.” - -“About the small cube of the metal known commercially as steel?” was -the gentle inquiry. - -“Precisely. I’m sorry we were not broad-minded enough to take your word -in explanation.” - -“Then you have discovered the real culprit?” - -For answer Tregarvon briefed the story of Tryon’s findings. - -“Ah!” said the listener; “then my own impression wasn’t at fault, after -all. I saw the man under the drill derrick: I thought it was Sawyer, -but I couldn’t be certain. I assume you don’t need to be told why he -did it, or who bribed him to do it?” - -“No. For some reason best known to themselves, the C. C. & I. people do -not wish me to drill that test-hole in the old burying-ground. Do you -know the reason, Professor Hartridge?” - -It was too nearly dark for Tregarvon to see the quizzical smile which -this query evoked, but he knew it was there. - -“You are asking me as man to man, Mr. Tregarvon?” - -“I am--just that. I have been condemning you unjustly, and you now have -a most excellent chance to heap coals of fire upon my head.” - -“You are making it impossible for me to hold malice,” was the genial -response. “I wish I could answer your question definitely; but I -cannot. I do _not_ know why Thaxter should wish to prevent you from -drilling that particular test-hole.” - -“You mean that I am not going to find the paying vein of coal under the -old burying-ground?” - -“I am practically certain that you are not.” - -“Would you mind giving me your reasons?” - -“They are geological--and conclusive. The strata under the glade are -precisely the same as those occurring at your tramhead. Moreover, if -you will take the trouble to examine the ground at the foot of the -cliff below your present location you will find the coal outcrop: a -single vein, not over twenty inches thick. A little lower down you will -find another, still thinner.” - -Tregarvon laughed mirthlessly. “I asked you for bread, and you have -given me a stone,” he protested. “Am I to assume that Consolidated Coal -is better informed than you are, professor?” - -Hartridge’s reply was guarded. “No man is infallible, Mr. Tregarvon. I -speak only of the things I know.” - -“Then there is a chance that, in spite of your geological deduction, -Thaxter and the men he represents have more accurate data?” - -This time the professor’s rejoinder was fairly cryptic. “The earth -holds many secrets. During the long interval in which the Ocoee -properties were allowed to lie idle and uncared for, it was anybody’s -privilege to investigate them. I am violating no confidence in saying -that the people who are now trying to induce you to sell have made a -number of surveys. They probably know your ground foot by foot.” - -Once more Tregarvon found himself confronted by the dead wall of -Hartridge’s reservations. That the professor was making reservations -he did not doubt for an instant. There was still some bar to perfect -frankness, and he seemed powerless to break it down. In sheer -desperation he shunted the talk to the field of the obstacles. - -“It seems to be conclusively proved that the drill-dulling is -chargeable to Thaxter, acting through the man Sawyer,” he said. “But -Tryon refuses to believe that the other harassings have been inspired -by the trust.” - -They had reached the Highmount boundary, and Hartridge paused with his -hand on the gate latch. - -“I am entirely at one with your foreman in that belief, Mr. Tregarvon,” -he rejoined. “Now that we are again upon amicable terms, I may -confess that I have been greatly interested in the problem which -these harassments have presented--the solving of problems being one -of my small recreations. Did you leave an enemy at home who would be -vindictive enough to follow you here?” - -Tregarvon shook his head. “So far as I know, I hadn’t an enemy in the -wide world when I came here.” - -“Then you have developed one _in situ_, as it were, and a very -unscrupulous one. Have you formed any theory of your own?” - -“None that is worth considering. At first, I suspected the McNabbs, -fancying that their enmity might be a holdover on account of the old -lawsuit about the land titles. That was before I knew that I had two of -them working for me in the drill-gang. Later--I am ashamed to confess -it--I thought that possibly Judge Birrell might have passed the word -that I was to be driven out. That was a pure absurdity, of course.” - -“Quite so,” said the professor. “The judge is entirely incapable of -doing such a thing, bitter as some of his prejudices are. It need not -be denied that he was prejudiced against you at first. One evening, -when he was driving with his daughter, he visited your drilling plant -and was greatly incensed at finding it in the old Westwood slave -burying-ground. But now you and Mr. Carfax have met him and have eaten -at his table, and this, to a man of his characteristics, salves all -wounds. Besides, as a matter of fact, you owe the help which enabled -you to place your new power-plant directly to the judge. It was he who -sent word to the mountain-folk to turn out with their teams.” - -“You surprise me!” said Tregarvon. “How did he know?” - -Hartridge smiled amiably. “You are not wholly in Mr. Carfax’s -confidence, it would seem. On the evening when you had the trouble with -the valley farmers, he and Miss Richardia drove over to Westwood House -in your car while we waited dinner for them here at the school. And the -next morning, presto! you had your help.” - -“You are guessing at this?” - -“Not wholly. I have just been to the ‘Pocket’ to see Sill McNabb’s -little daughter, who is sick--doctoring people being another of my -small recreations. When I pressed him, Sill told me that the order to -help you came from Judge Birrell, and that it was put upon the score of -common neighborliness.” - -“But the idea of helping me originated with the judge’s daughter,” -Tregarvon put in soberly. “Why should she wish to return good for evil, -Professor Hartridge?” - -This time Hartridge’s smile was less amiable. - -“Miss Richardia’s motives are not to be questioned by either of us, -Mr. Tregarvon. But why should you call her interest in your affair -returning good for evil?” - -Tregarvon fought away from the edge of the pit into which his -incorrigible ingenuousness was about to precipitate him. - -“Oh, there isn’t any reason why she should consider me. Within the past -hour I have had the best possible proof of that.” - -Hartridge was silent for a moment. Then he said: “Mr. Tregarvon, I -trust you are a gentleman in all that the much-misused word implies.” - -“A man may hardly assert that of himself,” was the quick retort. “But -why?” - -“What you have just said implies a knowledge of a secret which has been -most carefully guarded by Miss Richardia’s friends. I am not in her -confidence, but I shall take it upon myself to say that whatever she -does is right.” - -“Who is the man?” Tregarvon asked bluntly. - -“That is a question which Miss Richardia herself will doubtless answer -at the proper time. Until she chooses to answer it, neither you nor I -have any right to ask it.” - -Tregarvon was turning away to continue his walk to Coalville. But at -the leave-taking instant he faced about for a final word. - -“Has it ever occurred to you, Professor Hartridge, that this is a hell -of a world?” he asked gloomily. - -“It has--many times. Won’t you stop and take pot-luck with us at the -faculty table? No? Then I wish you a pleasant walk to the valley. Good -night.” - - - - -XXV - -The Mangling of Poictiers - - -Upon leaving Highmount, Tregarvon took the short-cut path down the -mountain, and was only a few minutes late for the dinner for two served -by Uncle William in the office dining-room at Coalville. Though he had -plenty of thought material of his own to work upon, he could hardly -help observing that Carfax ate abstractedly and was unusually silent. -While the old negro was coming and going, the talk, what little there -was of it, touched lightly upon the visit to Westwood House; but after -the table was cleared Carfax got up to stand with his back to the open -fire and the commonplaces were thrust aside. - -“When is it to be?” he asked abruptly. - -Tregarvon, who was still dallying with the black coffee, looked up with -a crooked smile. - -“When is what to be?” he asked. - -“You know what I mean. We gave you your chance with Elizabeth--Miss -Richardia and I. I hope you’re not going to tell me that you flunked -it.” - -The wry smile broke into a short laugh. “Oh, no; I didn’t flunk it. But -it’s all over, Poictiers. I’m down and out.” - -Carfax was trying to light a cigarette, but the match went black and he -did not seem to realize that he had no fire. - -“So your crime has found you out, has it?” he said, and the gentle tone -seemed to accentuate rather than to soften the accusing assumption. - -Tregarvon shook his head. “It was the other way about. Elizabeth came -down here for the express purpose of asking my permission to fall in -love with some other fellow--no names named.” - -“_Wh-what!_” - -“It is even so.” - -“And--and you believed her? You didn’t have sense enough in that thick -head of yours to know that she was merely trying to save your face?” - -“Oh, no; you’re off on the wrong foot altogether. She didn’t get that -letter I wrote her from Chattanooga, and she hadn’t given me a chance -to tell her about Richardia. It was perfectly straight. She has simply -found the other man--the right man--and she is honest enough to say so.” - -“Do you mean to say that you didn’t tell her anything about your -crookedness down here?” - -“Oh, yes; we talked about that later on, though, again, there were no -names named. She jumped to the conclusion that my ‘crookedness’, as you -call it, was with one of the pretty undergraduates at Highmount, and -I let it go at that. There was no use of making a bad matter worse by -dragging Richardia’s name into it.” - -Carfax took a pacing turn up and down the room, broke it to go and -stand for a full minute staring out of a window at Uncle William’s -cook-house, and then faced about to say, almost pleadingly: “You are -_sure_ she meant it, Vance?” - -“Of course she meant it. She wouldn’t tell me much about the other -fellow, except to say that it was some one whom I knew, and who was too -decent to try to break in while our engagement still held good.” - -“And she--she really would give the--the other fellow a chance, if--if -he had the nerve to ask for it?” - -“It would be something better than ‘a chance’, I should say.” - -Again Carfax took a pacing turn, coming back from it to drop into the -chair opposite Tregarvon. - -“Vance, _I_ am the ‘other fellow,’” he said softly. “You didn’t -suspect it, did you? It began last summer when we were at Lake Placid -together. I thought it was all on my side of the house; I didn’t dream -that she wasn’t in love with you in the--in the way she ought to have -been. But----” - -The interruption was the entrance of a softly padding Uncle William, -bearing a neatly tied packet of letters. - -“Dey’s for dat lily-white missy fr’m de Norf what’s staying with Miss -Dick up at de ol’ place,” he explained. “Mistoo Tait, he brung ’em -over, an’ ast would you-all gemmen please to send ’em up when you had -de chanst.” - -Tregarvon had found the wry smile again by the time the old negro had -shuffled away. - -“I suppose I ought to congratulate you, Poictiers, but I can’t just -now; I’m too new a widower. You’ll have to hug your happiness alone for -the present. You’ll excuse me, won’t you? But, see here--how about this -little side-play with Richardia? You’re not going to be allowed to play -fast and loose with her--not while I’m here to prevent it.” - -Carfax was absently fingering the packet of letters. - -“Hold on, Vance,” he broke in, “you’ve been saying, all along, that -this last attack of yours--with Richardia--was the real thing; that -there was no sentiment between you and Elizabeth.” - -“That’s all very well,” said the attacked one, in a fresh thrill of -self-pityings; “but I’m like the little kiddie who dropped his candy to -reach for another piece and lost both. Just the same, it seems that you -are due to get yours, too; you’ve proposed to one woman when you were -in love with another. What did Richardia say to you when you asked her -to marry you? That’s what I want to know now.” - -The cherubic smile which was waiting for its chance in Carfax’s eyes -turned slowly into an impish grin. - -“As nearly as I can recall it, she said: ‘Most certainly not. Why -should I?’ Of course, you have guessed that I asked her merely to give -you a chance to be decently loyal to Elizabeth. Miss Richardia took it -as it was meant, and we have been very good friends, playing the game -at odd moments for your benefit when you seemed to be needing a bit of -help.” - -“Oh, yes; you were very kind; you are all very kind. But that doesn’t -mend any broken bridges for me now. Do you want me to tell you why -Richardia turned you and your ridiculous fortune down so easily? I can, -you know,” and with that he told the story of his chance surprising of -Miss Birrell’s secret. - -Carfax heard him through patiently and did not seem unduly surprised at -the new development. - -“That accounts for a good many things,” he commented. “I have had -a feeling for some time that Miss Richardia had something on her -mind--something not altogether joyous. Once or twice she has seemed on -the verge of confiding in me. It’s a case of the obdurate father, isn’t -it?” - -“I suppose so; though Hartridge didn’t hint at anything of that sort.” - -“So Hartridge knows, too, does he?” - -“They all know at Highmount, I fancy. And that reminds me: I’ve done -it again--talked too much, as usual. I met Hartridge after I had seen -the pair of them together, and we spoke of the love affair. Hartridge -said it was Richardia’s secret, and that her friends had been carefully -keeping it for her. I shouldn’t have told you.” - -“It is safe enough with me, as you ought to know: you will be the one -to go and tell it all over the lot,” was the unkind retort. And then: -“These letters of Elizabeth’s; she ought to have them, don’t you think? -Do you suppose I might----?” - -Tregarvon waved him away. - -“The letters will be all the excuse you will need for making two calls -in the same half-day. Take the car and go and do what you’re aching to -do. After you have sung your little song, you may give Elizabeth my -love and my blessing. No, don’t stop to talk any more; just make your -little bow and vanish, before I get to thinking too pointedly of all -the things you’ve done to me.” - -Carfax took his cue promptly, and before Tregarvon had finished filling -his pipe the roar of the yellow car’s motor told him that the golden -youth had begun his flight to the mountain top. A short half-hour -later, at a second filling of the pipe, the motor roar was repeated, -and while the solitary smoker was wondering what had brought Carfax -back so soon, the dining-room door opened to admit Wilmerding. - -“You are responsible,” said the young superintendent, explaining the -motor-car clamor. “You gave me the fever, flaunting that big yellow -devil of yours in my face, and I was obliged to go and buy. Want to -take a little spin in the new wagon to see how she handles?” - -Tregarvon pushed a chair into the fire-warmed semicircle for his -visitor and shook his head. - -“Some other time--if you’ll be good enough to let the invitation hang -over. To-night I’d rather sit here before the fire with you and have a -little heart-to-heart talk, Wilmerding. Will you indulge me?” - -“Sure,” was the ready response. “The joy-ride can wait. Can you find me -another pipe?” - -The pipe was found and filled, and at its lighting Tregarvon began -without preface, giving the steel-cube facts as they had been developed -by Tryon and linking them up with Thaxter’s apparently disinterested -effort to promote the sale of the Ocoee to Consolidated Coal. “I’m -telling you this, Wilmerding, because I know you’re not implicated,” he -said in conclusion. “Also, because it seems no more than fair that you -should know. I’m not specially vindictive, you understand. I suppose -Thaxter and the men behind him are calling it nothing more than a bit -of sharp practice on purely legitimate business lines.” - -“That might do for the drill-dulling,” the superintendent conceded -thoughtfully, “though I’d take pretty violent exceptions to that, if I -were you. But doesn’t this one proved rascality imply the authorship of -all the others?” - -“No. Hartridge thinks not, and so do I. By a good, vigorous stretch -of imagination you could call the drill-dulling something less -than criminal. But that can’t be said of the attempt to wreck my -motor-car, or of the risk taken of killing somebody by the smashing -of the machinery and the planting of a dynamite cartridge in the -engine-boiler.” - -While the evening lengthened they discussed the various phases of the -mystery in all their bearings, and in the end Wilmerding came around to -the Tryon-Hartridge hypothesis, namely, that Thaxter, unscrupulous as -he may have been in bribing Sawyer, was not the instigator of the more -serious barbarities. - -“Not that I’m excusing Thaxter or the New York office from which he has -his instructions,” he added. “The ‘Big Business’ methods are all more -or less crooked, and I’d give half of my salary if I didn’t have to -work for an outfit that simply won’t fight in the open, as men ought to -fight. Do you know, Tregarvon, I’ve been hoping against hope that you’d -strike it, and strike it rich, on the Ocoee. In that case, I had made -up my mind to ask you to hire me.” - -“If I had a mine, you couldn’t ask anything that would please me -better,” said Tregarvon, warming to this expression of friendly -loyalty. “But the thing looks pretty hopeless just now. As I have said, -Professor Hartridge knows more about the Ocoee than anybody else seems -to--and he won’t tell all he knows. But he did assure me this afternoon -that we are not going to find the big vein where we are drilling in -the old burying-ground, and I have every reason to believe that he was -telling the truth. That lets me out. Thaxter ’phoned me this morning -that he had got the option extended until to-morrow midnight. I stand -to lose a hundred thousand dollars if I take the time to move the -drilling plant and try again.” - -Wilmerding rose to go, returning the borrowed pipe to its place on the -mantel. - -“It’s a hard proposition,” he admitted. “I’m not going to advise you to -throw up the chance to get the hundred thousand. But if I were in your -shoes, I’d be just reckless enough to gamble another throw or two. In -this talk we’ve had, you have convinced me of one thing, Tregarvon, and -that is that the Ocoee has a workable vein somewhere in the property. -Hartridge knows it, and Consolidated Coal knows it. And what they -know, some other fellow can find out. You have twenty-four hours, and -a little better, in which to think it over. I said I wouldn’t advise, -but I shall: don’t close with Thaxter one minute before you are obliged -to.” - -Tregarvon got out of his chair to shake hands with the departing -visitor. - -“You’re a man, Wilmerding, and I wish I had your nerve. But a couple -of things have happened to-day--things that I can’t talk about, even -to so good a friend as you are--and they have knocked me out. At the -end of the ends, I’m afraid I shall weaken and sell out to your hog of -a trust. It was good of you to come down and let me unload on you. If -anything new turns up I’ll get you on the wire. Good night, and good -luck to you.” - -After Wilmerding had gone, Tregarvon sat for another hour before the -fire, smoking abstractedly and hardly noting the passing of time. In -due course there was another flurry of gas-engine noises, and when the -clamor died away, Carfax came in to fling himself into the chair where -Wilmerding had been sitting. - -Tregarvon broke the silence morosely. - -“Well? You are not measuring up very strikingly with the commonly -accepted idea of the happy lover. What’s the latest?” - -Carfax had taken a cork-tipped cigarette from his case and was absently -trying to set fire to the wrong end of it. - -“Vance,” he said, in his gentlest tone, “you deserve to be murdered -in cold blood. You told me that Elizabeth hadn’t gotten that frenzied -letter you wrote her the day you were in Chattanooga. She hadn’t, but -it was merely delayed; it was in that lot of forwarded mail that I took -up to-night, and I--_I_ gave it to her!” - -“So that’s the latest, is it? Where does the tragedy come in?” - -“Don’t say another word or I shall explode! You have probably forgotten -that you wrote her that I was as good as engaged to Richardia -Birrell--it would be quite like you to forget. She excused herself to -go and read her letters, and when she came back I knew that the heavens -had fallen. Oh, no; there wasn’t any scene; she just simply wouldn’t -give me a chance to get a word in edgewise, though I tried for a solid -hour to make the chance. I’m ruined for life--and you, with your nimble -little pen and your neat facility for telling all you know, and then -some, _you_ had to be the one to mangle me!” - - - - -XXVI - -Tryon’s News - - -Tregarvon awoke on the Monday morning with the feeling of the putative -bankrupt who is facing his final day of grace. Before midnight the -bargain-and-sale decision must be made; and he knew perfectly well that -there would be no chance in the short interval which still remained -of adding to the facts as they stood. Nevertheless, after Carfax had -disappeared, walking, in the direction of Hesterville, Tregarvon -plunged into the routine, entering into a wire correspondence with -the Chattanooga machinery firm and trying to extort a promise that -the needed valve and steam-pipe should be shipped without fail by the -afternoon train. - -Since Carfax did not put in an appearance for the noon meal, Tregarvon -ate alone. While he was at table Tryon came in to report. Early in -the morning the man Sawyer had turned up at the drilling ground -with a one-horse wagon and had taken his belongings, including the -working-coat, and the tool-box, containing among other things the -reserve supply of steel cubes. Tryon was of the opinion that the drill -boss was preparing to vanish, and suggested the taking of preventive -measures. Though Sawyer would doubtless be a most unwilling witness, it -might be needful to make sure that he could be found when wanted. - -Tregarvon concurred mechanically, telling the foreman to spread an -unofficial drag-net for Sawyer, and agreeing to swear out a warrant -for the man’s arrest if he should attempt to run away. Beyond this, -he sent one of the laborers up to the drilling-stand to give Rucker -a chance to sleep; and, later in the afternoon, sent word to Tryon’s -house directing the foreman to share the coming night-watch with the -mechanician; all this also as a matter of routine, since, with the -suspension of working operations, there had been no threats of further -aggressions. - -Just before the evening meal Carfax returned abstracted and silent, -and saying nothing as to the manner in which he had spent the day. -Immediately after dinner he asked Tregarvon if he might have the -motor-car. - -“Going up to Westwood House to try again?” queried the motor-car’s -owner, not too sympathetically. - -“I’m no good to you here,” was the non-committal rejoinder; and a -little later Tregarvon found himself facing the approaching crisis -alone and still undecided. - -Thaxter had telephoned during the afternoon, calling attention once -more to the terms of the offer to purchase. The message had taken the -tone of a friendly warning. There was no hope of securing further -delay, but the bookkeeper would give Tregarvon the benefit of all the -time that remained. He would stay in his Whitlow office, or be within -call, up to midnight, and he hoped that Tregarvon would be sensible and -remember the old saw about the bird in the hand. - -Tregarvon was remembering the canny proverb--and a good many other -things--when he lighted his after-dinner pipe. Throughout the entire -day he had been wavering and postponing the moment of action. One -hundred thousand dollars, judiciously invested, would provide an -income for his mother and sister, which, however far it might fall -short of the former Tregarvon lavishnesses, would still place them -securely beyond the hazard of want. On the other hand, a certain innate -obstinacy, grown now to a passion which threatened to drive cool-blood -reason to the wall, refused to yield. - -Apart from this, there was a question of pure ethics to be considered. -Quite early in the attempt to develop the Ocoee he had secretly -determined, if his efforts should prove successful, to reorganize the -company, taking in those who had suffered loss; in other words, to make -restitution to Parker’s victims. But if the property should be sold to -the trust there was an end of the generous intention, and the nail of -injustice driven by Parker would be irrevocably clinched. - -These were some of the perplexities, but there was another which also -demanded a hearing. Carfax had been most generous and loyal, spending -not only his money but himself. But now the conditions were changed--or -changing. Carfax had another interest, suddenly grown imperative. Would -it not be most unfair to drag him still deeper into the discouraging -fight, allowing him to spend more money which might never be repaid? - -At this point in the reflective probings Tregarvon began to argue -that he must see and talk with Carfax again before he could decide -finally and definitely; and he had no sooner reached this conclusion, -and was casting about for the means to translate it into action, when -Wilmerding appeared--a veritable god-in-the-machine, since he was -driving his new car. - -“Thaxter was telling me that you’d most likely be making him a -business call this evening, and I thought I’d drive over and take you -back in my car,” said the newly made motor enthusiast. “If I’m butting -in, don’t scruple to chase me away.” - -Tregarvon was already taking his driving-coat from its closet in the -fireplace corner. “You have come precisely in the nick of time,” he -returned. “Carfax has taken my car to drive to Westwood House, and I -must have a few minutes’ talk with him before I fight the final round -with Thaxter. Will your car climb the big hill?” - -“If it won’t, I’ll scrap it and buy another,” laughed the Pittsburgher; -and five minutes later the new, high-powered roadster was storming up -the Pisgah grades. - -Eight minutes was the time to the Highmount gates, and Tregarvon -called it a beat, though he had never timed his own car over the same -distance. Eight other minutes covered the cross-mountain run to the -western brow; and it was not until Wilmerding had tooled the roadster -up the Westwood House driveway and was parking it beside the yellow -touring-car that Tregarvon began to wonder if, with Elizabeth as her -guest, Richardia would not be breaking her school routine by spending -her evenings at home. In that case ... but it was now too late to -retreat, and, with Wilmerding at his elbow, he ran up the steps to -set the old-fashioned knocker of the great door clanging its drumbeat -through the echoing interiors. - -When Aunt Phyllis, the solemn-faced old negress who was the sole -survivor of the once numerous household retinue, opened the -drawing-room doors for the two callers, the judge’s daughter was at the -piano, the judge was listening luxuriously in a deep, calico-covered -armchair, and Carfax was sitting with Miss Wardwell in a window-seat at -the farther end of the room. - -Wilmerding made his own and Tregarvon’s apologies when the judge got -upon his feet to welcome the newcomers. - -“We were taking a spin in my new car,” he explained, tactfully leaving -Tregarvon’s errand unmentioned. “Of course, we couldn’t pass your -hospitable door, Judge Birrell.” - -“No, suh; most suttainly you couldn’t,” was the ready response. “The -do-ahs of old Westwood House may creak a little on thei-uh hinges, -suh, but they still swing wide enough to let the guest enter at his -pleas-yuh. Find yo-uh places, gentlemen, if you please; my daughtuh is -giving us a little music.” - -Miss Wardwell had risen, with Carfax backgrounding her because he -was obliged to, and Tregarvon introduced Wilmerding as a fellow -Pennsylvanian from the Pittsburgh end of the State. Elizabeth was -pleasantly gracious to the young superintendent of coal mines, seeming -to welcome him as in some sort a saver of situations; at least, so it -appeared to Tregarvon. In the readjustment the judge sank back into -the depths of his armchair, and Carfax surrendered his place in the -window-seat to Wilmerding and wandered to another window to stand with -his back to the room and his hands in his pockets. This was Tregarvon’s -opportunity to say the needed word to the golden youth, but at its -offering a sudden passionate impulse seized him and he crossed quickly -to the piano alcove. “I see you have my nocturne,” he whispered, -bending over the pianist and indicating the Chopin on the piano-desk; -“please play it for me.” - -As if his masterful mood were not to be safely denied, her fingers -fell upon the keys in the opening chords of the nocturne; and this was -the beginning of what gradually grew to be an interval of suspended -possibilities. Almost at once, Tregarvon realized that Richardia was -playing only from the fingers outward--faultlessly, but mechanically; -that Carfax was wandering from one window to another in a sort of -aimless unrest; that Elizabeth was setting all her serene traditions -at defiance by chatting eagerly, like an escaped school-girl, with -Wilmerding. - -A few minutes further along, when Carfax dragged a chair into the -window recess and deliberately broke in upon Miss Wardwell and her -companion, the spirit of disquietude seemed to seize upon the judge, -also, since he wheeled his armchair to face the window group and did -violence to all the Westwood House musical unities by joining in the -low-toned conversation. This gave Tregarvon his excuse; and when the -nocturne ran away at its close into delicate little improvisations, he -spoke again in the guarded undertone. - -“Hartridge may have told you that I accidentally surprised your secret -yesterday afternoon. I did, you know; but I want you to be assured that -it is as safe with me as it is with the professor, or with any of your -friends who know it.” - -If he were expecting any manifestation of surprise it was not -forthcoming. So far from it, there was no break in the improvisation -harmonies. - -“Some day I hope it won’t be necessary to make a secret of it,” she -replied evenly, matching his low tone. - -“Does Elizabeth know?” - -“Not yet. But I shall tell her.” - -“Has she told you that our engagement is broken?” - -Her nod was barely perceptible. - -“I hope she told you that I didn’t break it.” - -“Yes; she told me that, too.” - -“You are not saying it, but deep down in your heart you are telling -yourself that I have got only what was coming to me. Isn’t that true?” - -The answer came from lips that were paling a little. “Ask yourself.” - -“It _is_ true. And it is also true, perhaps, that I should have had -this other whipping; the one I got yesterday afternoon when I was -trying to meet Hartridge on his way back from the ‘Pocket.’” - -She was still keeping her face averted. - -“I can’t talk about that now, to any one--least of all, to you.” - -He bent lower to make sure that the group at the other end of the room -should not overhear. - -“I want to meet the man. If I stay here on Mount Pisgah--if I don’t -throw it all up and go home--I mean to do what I can to help. Once -I shouldn’t have been big enough to say such a thing, Richardia; -but--thank God--I’ve grown a little in the past few months. May I add -that it is you who have shown me how to grow?” - -She ignored the query and for the first time let him see her eyes: -they were swimming, and there was a note in her voice that he had -never heard before when she said: “You must not talk of giving up and -going away; you are the one who can do the most to help when the time -comes--if only----” - -A clamorous banging of the door-knocker interrupted, and Aunt Phyllis -put her turbaned head into the drawing-room to say, with her fat chin -in the air and a fine scorn in her tone: “Po’ white man at de front -do’, comed to ast faw Mistoo Tregarbin.” - -Tregarvon obeyed the summons rather reluctantly and found Tryon on the -veranda. The foreman had been running and was short of breath. - -“You’d better come over--you an’ Mr. Carfax,” he broke out hurriedly. -“We’ve done caught the dannymiter. He was aimin’ to blow us all to -kingdom come, this time!” - -“Who is it?” Tregarvon grated. - -Tryon wagged his head mysteriously. “Hit ain’t Sawyer; hit’s the same -skunk I been a-suspicionin’ ever sense we had that talk yisterday. -You’ll see when you get thar’.” - -Tregarvon went back to the drawing-room, meaning to cut Carfax out if -possible without giving a general alarm. But Wilmerding overheard his -whispered explanation to Carfax and so did Miss Wardwell; whereupon he -spoke up quickly, briefing the story of the Ocoee troubles, and adding -its latest sequel. The effect upon the master of Westwood House was -instantaneous and militant. - -“What’s that, suh? Tryin’ to dynamite yo-uh machinery whilst you -and Mistuh Carfax are makin’ us a friendly visit heah at Westwood -House?” he demanded, his deep voice rumbling in the wrath of outraged -hospitality. “Richa’dia, daughtuh, get me my coat and hat; I’m goin’ -oveh yondeh with these young gentlemen. No, Mistuh Tregarvon; don’t -deny me that privilege, suh; yo-uh bein’ undeh my roof at the precise -moment makes yo-uh quarrel _my_ quarrel, suh! You’ll give me a seat in -yo-uh steam-wagon, and--daughtuh, my coat and hat, immediately, if you -please. And fetch me the old shot-gun, too, my deah.” - -By this time Wilmerding was declaring that he must not be left out; and -in the momentary confusion Tregarvon saw that the judge’s daughter, -while she was obeying her father’s commands, was pitiably agitated. -Assuming that her anxiety was for her father’s safety, he ventured a -word of assurance while she was holding the overcoat for the sleeves of -which the judge was hastily fumbling. - -“You mustn’t distress yourself--we are not going to let your father get -hurt,” he protested. - -“It’s--it’s not that!” she gasped; “it is something far worse.” Then, -in an agonized whisper that he had to bend lower to hear: “This man -they have taken; promise me that you will let him go before my--before -any one else has seen him!” - -Tregarvon promised blindly, striving to ignore this last of the -maddening mysteries in an effort to be wholly loyal to the woman he -loved. But as he committed himself the difficulties in the way of -performance suddenly magnified themselves. With the judge taking part -in the descent upon the scene of the capture, how was he to be kept -from seeing and questioning the culprit? Tregarvon saw that he had -promised that which he would most probably be unable to perform, but in -the confusion of the hurried departure there was no chance to add the -qualifying word, and it was left unspoken. - - - - -XXVII - -Cloud-Wraiths - - -With Judge Birrell urging haste, the start for the burying-ground -glade was made at once. Since Tregarvon’s car was large enough to hold -them all, Wilmerding’s roadster was left behind. Carfax drove the -touring-car, with Tryon clutching for handholds in the mechanician’s -seat beside him. This arrangement left the broad tonneau seat for the -other three; and the judge, with the gun between his knees, sat in -the middle. When the big car shot away with its loading the master of -Westwood was still calling down maledictions upon the heads of those -who would besmirch the fair fame of the Southland by resorting to the -methods of the assassin and the anarchist. - -“Who are these scoundrels, Mistuh Tregarvon?” he demanded. “Just name -me thei-uh names, suh!” And then, with the charming inconsistency of -his kind: “This is a law-abiding community, suh, and you have wronged -us by keeping silence so long; you have, for a fact, suh! But now we -shall vindicate ou’selves. A little taste of a rope and a tree limb for -this grand rascal yo-uh men have caught will make him tell us the names -of his confederates and accomplices; and then, by the Lord Harry, suh, -we’ll run these lawbreakuhs down with the dogs and hang them higheh -than Haman!” - -During the hurried cross-mountain run Tregarvon wrestled manfully -with the problem thrust upon him by Richardia Birrell’s whispered -appeal. How was he to prevent a meeting between the judge and the as -yet unnamed man whom Tryon and Rucker had captured? The query was -still unanswered when the yellow car skidded and slued around the turn -into the old wood road. Despite the promise given by a fair day and a -measurably clear evening, the night had suddenly thickened, with cloud -wracks flying low over the mountain top to wrap the forest in mantlings -of fleecy vapor silver-shot by the rays of a gibbous moon, but opposing -a wall of blank opacity to the headlamps of the car. Tregarvon would -have welcomed help from the chapter of accidents, but now that they -were off the main road there was a fair chance that the accident might -be too destructive. - -“Easy, Poictiers!--you’ll scrap us if you don’t look out!” he -cautioned, leaning forward to warn Carfax, who was boring into the -cloud bank at reckless speed. - -The words were scarcely uttered before there came a crunching of dry -tree limbs under the wheels, a hiss of escaping air, and a jolting -stoppage of the car as the brakes were applied. - -“Punctured!” exclaimed the cautioner, and they all got out to -investigate cause and consequence. The obstruction proved to be what it -had seemed--the dry limb of a tree--and the result was a flat tire. - -“It is dead wood, and it may have fallen of its own accord; or it may -mean that your dynamiter has friends who would like to delay us,” -Wilmerding offered. “On the bare chance, hadn’t we better sprint along -and not wait to change tires? Your man, Rucker, may easily be having -the time of his life trying to hold on to his prisoner.” - -They sprinted accordingly, the judge taking the dog-trot as actively -as his younger pace-setters, and stubbornly refusing to let Tregarvon -relieve him of the burden of the heavy deer-gun. So running, they came -in a few minutes to the site of the old burying-ground, and to the door -of the tool shanty. Rucker admitted them at Tregarvon’s knock and call, -and his report was brief and unenlightening. “No; nothin’ doin’ since -we took him in--and the cuss won’t talk. But maybe you can make him -loosen up.” - -Tregarvon still saw no way of keeping the judge out of it, and he held -himself absolved from his promise by the sheer impossibility of doing -what Richardia had begged him to do. The captive, wrist-bound with a -turn or two of cord, was sitting hunched upon the edge of Rucker’s -cot-bed. It was Carfax who picked up the lantern and flashed its light -into the man’s face. “By Jove!” he exclaimed; “Morgan McNabb!” and -Rucker nodded. - -Judge Birrell sat upon the spare coil of rope and wiped his face with -his handkerchief. His hands were trembling and he was breathing hard, -but the smart run from the disabled automobile might have accounted for -these disturbances. When he spoke to the prisoner his tone was sternly -accusing. - -“So it’s you, is it, Mo’gan McNabb?--turnin’ yo-uh teeth upon the hand -that’s been feedin’ you? By the Lord Harry, you make me mighty sorry -that I once saved you from going to the penitentiary, where you belong! -Now, then, open yo-uh mouth and tell these gentlemen why you come heah -dynamitin’ thei-uh machinery!” - -The mountaineer’s lips were drawn back in a doglike snarl. - -“I’ll see ’em damned befo’ I’ll open my haid to ’em, now, Judge -Birrell! Lookee at this yere,” and he wrenched his tied hands around so -that the judge might see. - -“You don’t like the rope?” said the judge evenly. “Listen to me, -Mo’gan; you McNabbs have lived on Westwood land, father and son, for -fo’ generations, and you’ll open yo-uh head to me, suh! What quarrel -have you got with the owneh of the Ocoee property? Ansuh me, if you -don’t want anotheh tu’n o’ that rope taken around yo-uh neck, suh!” - -The answer was as prompt as it was disconcerting. “I allow I got thess -the same sort o’ quarrel ez you have, judge. Didn’t they-all steal the -Ocoee f’om you in the first place?” - -“That’s neithuh heah nor there!” was the stern rejoinder. “Would you -give these gentlemen to understand that _I_ am yo-uh principal in these -scandalous outrages? See heah, Mo’gan, we all know that you haven’t -been actin’ on yo-uh own responsibility. Who has been puttin’ you up to -all these deviltries?” - -“If you don’t know, I reckon _I_ ain’t a-goin’ to be the one to tell -you,” said the prisoner, relapsing into his former attitude of -sullenness. Then, as if upon a second thought: “You ask Miss Dick, -judge; I allow _she_ knows.” - -The little pause of consternation which this statement precipitated was -broken by an exclamation from Rucker. - -“Look out yonder! Somebody’s set the leaves afire! My God! we left the -dynamite out there!” - -Carfax, who was standing beside the mechanician, wheeled quickly to -face the open door. Out beyond the drill derrick a thin line of fire, -driven by the freshening west wind and showing orange-colored under the -mist-wraiths, was sweeping down upon the clearing. “Show me where you -left the stuff!” he snapped at the mechanician, but even as he spoke, -a fuse squibbed and the thunder of a terrific explosion shattered the -forest silences, the concussion smashing the glass in the small square -window, rocking the lightly built tool-house like the heaving of an -earthquake, and bombarding it an instant later with a rain of falling -_débris_. The judge, sitting upon the coil of rope, was not thrown -down, but the five men who were standing were flung in a heap on the -floor. - -Tregarvon was the first to regain his feet and to reach the open. The -cloud mantlings had been thrust aside for the moment, but the stir -was full of gray dust and acrid with the fumes of the explosive. Where -the derrick and the new power-plant had stood there was a mass of -tangled wreckage, and the burying-ground glade looked as if it had been -swept by a tornado. In the wan moonlight Tregarvon caught a glimpse -of something moving under the trees beyond the wreck; then the moving -object erected itself into the stature of a man. - -One glance at the tall, frock-coated figure was enough. With a mad yell -of rage, Tregarvon snatched the gun from the judge’s hands and gave -chase, calling to the frock-coated man to stand or he would shoot. -There was an instant of hesitation, seemingly of indecision; then the -man turned and fled. And, as if to favor him, another scudding cloud -settled upon the mountain top, burying forest and glade, the tangled -wreck and the two runners in its fleecy depths. - -Tregarvon raced on for a breath-cutting space; guided solely by the -crashing of the fugitive through the brier tangles and dry-leaf beds. -Then he began to get his second wind, and again he shouted the command -to halt. Since this seemed only to have the effect of hastening the -thudding footsteps on ahead, he fired the gun, holding the muzzle -high, as he thought and intended, but apparently not high enough, -as the dreadful sequence immediately indicated. For, almost exactly -coincident with the report of the gun, there was a shriek, the crash of -a falling body, and silence. - -At this the pursuer came down from the transporting heights of berserk -rage with a shock that was sickening. “Oh, good Lord!” he gasped; “I’ve -killed him!” Whereupon he flung the offending weapon afar and ran to -confirm the horrifying conclusion. - -He was still running in the direction from which the cry had come when -the curious happening befell. As if the solid earth had been whisked -away from beneath his feet he found himself whirling through empty -space; falling through unfathomable depths of it, it seemed, before he -collided with another world--a world of shocks and coruscating pains, -of beatings and bruisings, and presently of grateful forgetfulness. - - - - -XXVIII - -The Ocoee’s Answer - - -When Tregarvon recovered consciousness he knew at once what had -happened to him. In the blind and hurried search for the body of the -man he had presumptively shot he had fallen from the cliff edge; how -far was still problematical, but far enough, as a painful roaring -in his ears, a tightening agony in his forehead, and a bruised and -stiffening ankle sufficiently testified. - -His first thought was for his victim. The man might not have been -killed outright; in which case he might be even now dying for the lack -of timely help. The thought was insupportable and Tregarvon tried to -rise. But the ankle, broken or twisted, he could not determine which, -gripped him like a fanged wild beast and he fell back with a groan. -None the less, in some way he must contrive to bring help. He felt in -his pockets for matches. A heap of dry leaves furnished the kindling -and a clear flame leaped up, hollowing out a small cavity of yellow -light in the misty gloom. At this the fire-lighter saw that he was -at the bottom of a deep, water-worn cleft opening back from the outer -scarp of the cliff, and at right angles to it; a ravine which was -little more than a crevice, save that it was large enough to have trees -and shrubs growing in it. - -He knew the crevice, though he had never explored it. It lay at a point -almost exactly half-way between the glade and the tramhead. Knowing -that the sound would not carry upward and backward over the cliff, -he did not waste his breath in vain shoutings. The alternative was a -fire signal. If the cloud would but lift a little, and he could gather -enough of the dry leaves to make a glow, the light would guide those -who must certainly, by this time, be searching for him. - -This was his thought while he was nursing the handful of fire and -adding more leaves to it. The blaze rose higher and the cavity in the -gloom grew larger until it became a hemisphere, with the black scarp of -the crevice wall for its flattened side. A thickly matted vine covered -the face of the precipice, completely concealing the perpendicular -surface upon which it climbed. At its roots in the crevice bottom the -dry leaves were bedded a foot deep. Tregarvon was reaching painfully -for the mass of fresh fuel when the fire licked out and caught it -first. There was a puff of dense smoke, a fierce blaze, and then the -climbing vine took fire and was brightly outlined in a network of -short-lived flame. - -All this was normal enough, but what followed was curiously abnormal. -As the fire glowed hotter small fragments of the cliff face began to -split off, and these fragments, falling into the burning leaf-bed, -sprang alight with hissings and sputterings and much pungent smoke. -Tregarvon, ignoring the throbbing ankle, dragged himself an agonizing -foot or so nearer and secured one of the splintered fragments. _It was -coal!_ - -Almost beside himself with excitement, he heaped more leaves upon the -fire. By the light of the fresh upblaze he could make out the upper -line of the great coal seam. It was at the height of a tall man’s head -above the bottom of the cleft, well-defined, unmistakable; the roof -shale of a vein fully six feet thick. Here, discovered in the moment of -defeat, disaster, and woundings, was the Ocoee’s lavish answer to all -the costly questionings. - -“My heavens!” gasped the discoverer; and a voice, apparently at his -elbow, said: “Quite so; if the heavens may be purchased with the gifts -of the earth. The gifts are yours, Mr. Tregarvon; first by the right -of inheritance, and now by the right of discovery.” - -Tregarvon twisted himself into a sitting posture, gritting his teeth -at the ankle’s protest and holding his head in his hands. At a -little distance away sat the professor of mathematics, one long leg -jack-knifed for a support, and the other stretched awkwardly upon a -makeshift cushion of the fallen leaves. - -“You?” Tregarvon cried. “Did you fall over the cliff, too?” - -“I think it was I who showed you the way,” Hartridge amended. “You are -a very apt pupil, Mr. Tregarvon. I was scarcely well down here before -you played the part of Jill.” - -“Are you--are you hurt?” - -“Not by your shot-gun charge, happily; but my leg is broken. And you?” - -Tregarvon winced. “I have a cracked skull, I think, and an ankle that -won’t let me get up. But about that gunshot; I didn’t fire at you; I -shot into the air to make you stop. Just the same, you gave me a quick -fit of the horrors. When you yelled, I thought I had inadvertently -killed you. What made you run?” - -The professor’s smile was a little rueful, and also a little -shamefaced. - -[Illustration: “My heavens!” gasped the discoverer; and a voice, -apparently at his elbow, said: “Quite so.”] - -“What made you chase me?” he asked. - -“Because I was hot--fighting mad. I wanted to drag you to an accounting -on the spot. I don’t suppose you will be foolish enough to deny that -you set the leaf fire that caused the explosion?” - -“Since I was near enough to be blown up myself such a denial might -have the weight of circumstantial evidence to support it,” was the -quiet reply. “But I do not make the denial. It was I who set the leaves -afire. I shall be greatly relieved if you can tell me that nobody was -injured.” - -“So far as I know the dynamite didn’t kill any of us. But tell me, did -you start that fire knowing that the explosion would follow?” - -“By no means. I may confess that I knew the dynamite had been placed; -but I supposed, as the most ordinary matter of course, that your men -had taken care of it when they captured their prisoner.” - -“Then why did you light the fire?” - -Again the quaint smile flitted across the face of the man who had -always contrived to tell less than the sum total of all he knew. - -“Once again, Mr. Tregarvon, you are going into the question of motives, -which is a very large field, indeed. Let us say that I wished to make -a diversion of some sort. Will that satisfy you?” - -“No,” was the blunt reply. - -“I am sorry; I am afraid it will have to suffice for the present.” - -Tregarvon’s head was throbbing so painfully that he found it next to -impossible to think clearly. But he would not desist. - -“Hartridge, it has come to a show-down between us. I’m giving you fair -warning. Once I did you an injustice--or thought I did--but this time -you’ve given yourself away. When I get up and around again, I’m going -to sift this thing to the ultimate bottom and somebody will be made to -sweat blood for what has been done to-night. As matters stand now, you -seem to be the man the officers will want first.” - -Once more the professor smiled. “And yet you can’t say that I have ever -wittingly done anything to harm you,” he offered mildly. - -“That remains to be proved,” was the angry retort. “Meaning to, or -not meaning to, you fired that dynamite a little while back; and you -certainly have never strained yourself in any effort to help me. You -knew that this big vein was here--you have known it all along!” - -“This time you are not my guest, Mr. Tregarvon, and I may contradict -you without blame. I did not know it.” - -“Then why did you carve the Greek letter _pi_ on those two oak-trees -below the glade? Or do you deny that, as well?” - -“It is you who have found the value of _pi_,” said the one who was -under accusation. “I am ashamed to confess that it baffled me. Some -three years ago, two strange surveyors acting, as I learned afterward, -in the interests of Consolidated Coal, ran many lines over this -property of yours, which was then practically abandoned. I had no -access to their note-books, of course, so I was obliged to work out my -conclusions as best I could from their stakes. One of these conclusions -was that the true vein would be found somewhere in this locality. Can -you believe me thus far?” - -“I’m trying to,” said Tregarvon. “Go on.” - -“It is humiliating to have to acknowledge that, while all the -line-running on the part of these strangers pointed to this immediate -locality, I could never discover the outcrop. True, I never thought -of looking in this particular crevice. But to preserve a record for -possible future investigation, I made the marks on the two trees. The -distance between the oaks, carefully measured and multiplied by _pi_, -or three and the decimal one thousand, four hundred and sixteen, gives -the distance around the cliff from the lower oak to the point somewhere -below us where the intruding strangers drove their final stake.” - -Tregarvon heaped more leaves upon the fire, which was threatening to -die out. - -“You are still miles beyond my comprehension,” he complained moodily. -“On one hand, you stop at nothing to prevent me from finding out what -you have just told me, and on the other you make what appears to be a -very worthy and earnest effort to keep me from flinging myself into the -maw of Consolidated Coal. How am I to reconcile such things?” - -“When you are older, Mr. Tregarvon, and come to know human nature -a little better, you will apprehend the truth of that worldly wise -beatitude, ‘Blessed are they who expect little, for, verily, they shall -not be disappointed.’ Consider a moment: you came here, the legal owner -of the Ocoee, to be sure, and the innocent owner, inasmuch as your -father was the unsuspecting purchaser of stolen goods. Yet you were -none the less the legitimate successor of the bandit who had looted -us. You wouldn’t expect much from those who had been so ruthlessly -defrauded, would you?” - -“Since I was not even constructively to blame, yes,” Tregarvon insisted -stubbornly. “Your motive went deeper than that.” - -“It did,” the professor admitted gravely. “Almost from the first I saw -the slight chance of a reward, the attainment of which has been the one -thing desirable in a rather drab-colored life, slipping away from me; -taken away from me in sheer wantonness, as it seemed, since, I had been -given to understand, you were already pledged to marry Miss Wardwell. -It was not in human nature to be entirely unresentful, Mr. Tregarvon.” - -“Oh; so that was it?” said Tregarvon shortly. Then: “What I saw -yesterday afternoon in the forest back of Westwood House seems to prove -that I am as far out of the running as you are with Judge Birrell’s -daughter.” - -The professor’s face became, for the moment, a study in astoundment. - -“Ah--yes,” he said, stumbling over the words; and then: “I am to -infer that you didn’t recognize the young man whom you saw with Miss -Richardia yesterday afternoon?” - -“No; he was a stranger to me. Doesn’t the judge approve of him?” - -This time the professor’s smile was rather grim. - -“He does not--most decidedly.” - -“But Richardia loves him; and that is enough--for you and for me.” - -“Assuredly she loves him--very loyally,” was the grave reply; and a -moment later, as if the mention of the judge had evoked a new train of -thought: “I am curious to know if my leaf-fire diversion--which had -such unlooked-for and disastrous results--came soon enough. How much -had Morgan McNabb confessed?” - -Tregarvon ignored the brow-wrinkling of pain which accompanied the -question. - -“I am beginning to believe that you are a very hardened criminal, Mr. -Hartridge. If you know that McNabb had a confession to make, it follows -that you were his accomplice.” - -The answer was a suppressed groan, for which the schoolmaster instantly -apologized. - -“You--you must forgive me if I say that I can’t go into the matter -of culpability with you just now. This leg--of mine--grows a bit -insistent. But it will be the greatest possible satisfaction to me if -you will answer my question.” - -“All right; you shall have it. Just before the explosion came McNabb -had admitted that he was acting for somebody else.” - -“But he did not name the person?” - -“The judge was trying to make him do so, but he was still refusing. -The last thing he said, as I remember it, was something which seemed to -implicate Miss Richardia as the one who could tell if she chose. Which -was absurd, of course.” - -“Quite so,” was the low-voiced reply. “Shall we let the matter rest -there--for the present?” - -Tregarvon was holding his head in his hands again. The throbbing pain -was so intense that he could only grit his teeth and endure. When -speech became possible he gave his answer. - -“It may rest until I am able to take hold again. Then I shall make -somebody pay for this night’s work if it takes every dollar I can dig -out of the Ocoee for the next ten years!” - -Once more Hartridge bent in apparent agony over the broken leg. But -when the paroxysm had passed he looked up with a face that was gray -with a deeper suffering than that inflicted by the broken bone. - -“If you do; if you strike back in the spirit of reprisal, which seems -so justifiable to you now, you will carry the woundings of your own -vindictiveness to your grave, Mr. Tregarvon,” he said solemnly. - -Tregarvon did not comment upon the sober prophecy. He was heaping more -leaves upon the fire and wondering irritably why it was taking the -rescuers so long to find them. The hammering agony in his head climaxed -now at shorter intervals and the recurrences were blinding, but he -contrived to keep the leaf glow alive until a welcome shout from the -cliff above announced the presence of the searchers. - -The hauling of the two injured men out of the deep cleft proved to be -a difficult undertaking, this though there were five in the rescue -party, which included the freed McNabb. Once it was done, a stretcher -was quickly improvised for Hartridge, with Rucker, Tryon, and McNabb -to take turns as bearers; and Tregarvon made shift to help himself a -little, with Wilmerding and Carfax to shoulder him on either side. - -On the slow progress back to the glade Tregarvon realized vaguely that -his companions were gravely silent; and as the lagging procession -issued from the wood he saw the cause. Rucker, or some one, had -replaced the deflated tire and the motor-car had been brought upon -the scene. The white glare of its headlamps focused upon the open -space in front of the tool shanty. Judge Birrell, bowed and shrunken, -was sitting upon the tool-house door-step with his face hidden in -his hands; and on Rucker’s cot-bed, which had been placed under the -light of the headlamps, lay the body of a man covered with one of the -blankets. - -“Who is it?” Tregarvon muttered, leaning more heavily upon his helpers. - -He thought it singular that no one answered him, and the thought -swiftly became an irritation too keen to be borne. - -“What the devil is the matter with you all?” he rasped, with a curious -idea that he had to shout to make his voice heard above the deafening -thunder of many cataracts in his brain. Then, as in a dream, he seemed -to hear Wilmerding saying to Carfax, almost savagely: “Ease him down -and we’ll carry him. Can’t you see he’s gone off his head?” - - - - -XXIX - -Beyond the Gap - - -It was a full fortnight before the Hesterville physician, driven at -breakneck speed to Coalville in Wilmerding’s roadster on the night of -woundings, pronounced Tregarvon out of danger and in a fair way to -recover from the broken head. - -Whatever the lapse of time may have meant for others, it had little -significance for the man who tossed and rolled in his bed in an upper -room of the Ocoee office-building. Dim pictures there were of people -coming and going; of grotesque attendants lifting him about, these -sometimes parading as liveried Merkleys with Uncle William heads, or -the reverse; of faces, affectionately sorrowful, hanging over him, -now hopefully, and again with sharp anxiety in eyes which were never -completely recognizable. - -But for the greater interval, what with thundering brain cataracts to -attend to, and a thousand dancing lights which had to be wheeled in -vanishing spirals, checked, stopped, and wheeled the other way around -precisely three hundred twirls a minute, he was so pressed for time as -not to be aware of the lapse of it. Hence, when he finally opened eyes -of full consciousness upon the walls and ceiling of the familiar room, -he was sadly out of touch, his latest clear recollection being of a -cloud-banked night, of a glade in the mountain-top forest, and of two -great white eyes of artificial light staring down upon a cot-bed bier -supporting a blanketed body. - -At first he thought he was alone in the bare-walled upper room, but at -his earliest conscious stirring Carfax came to stand beside the bed. - -“That’s better--much better!” said the golden one, noting the -turning-point improvement at once. “You certainly had us guessing, -old man. Our only comfort has been in the fact that you could eat -and didn’t seem to be losing too much flesh. Have the wheels stopped -buzzing?” - -“They weren’t wheels; they were lights and waterfalls,” said the sick -man meticulously. - -“All right; call ’em anything you like, so long as they’re gone. We -had one doctor, a specialist from Nashville, who gave us a fit of -seasickness; said you’d live, and be all right physically, but that you -would most probably never recover your reason. Nice cheerful prospect -for the friends and relatives, wasn’t it?” - -“How long have I been knocked out, Poictiers?” - -“Two solid weeks.” - -“My mother and sister--has anybody written them?” - -“Sure! Elizabeth has been writing them every day or so. They wanted -to come down, of course, but we decided that it wasn’t best. You were -getting all the care you could stand.” - -“Then Elizabeth hasn’t gone home?” - -“Not yet. Her father and mother have gone to Florida, and she has been -staying on at Westwood House--what time she hasn’t been down here -coddling you. She’s an angel, Vance; one of the kind you read about. -But I mustn’t let you talk too much.” - -“If I can’t talk, you’ll have to. Have you made it up with -Elizabeth--about that silly side-play of yours with Richardia?” - -Carfax’s smile began on the cherubic lines but it ended in a mere -face-wrinkling of soberness. - -“We have had too much else to think about; too many little diversions, -as you might say. But I’m hoping she isn’t going to insist upon making -a horrible example of me for my apparent fickleness.” - -“‘Too many little diversions’,” Tregarvon echoed. “That reminds -me: I can remember you and the others pulling us out of the -crevice--Hartridge and me--and after that, a stretcher was made for -Hartridge and we used up an age or so getting back to the glade. Am I -right, so far?” - -“It was something like that; yes.” - -“And when we came into the old burying-ground the motor-car had been -run down opposite the tool-house, and its headlamps made everything -look ghastly. The judge was sitting on the door-step with his face -hidden in his hands, and Rucker’s cot was standing in the open under -the lights with a blanketed corpse lying upon it. Who was the dead man, -Poictiers?” - -Carfax shook his head. “Call it a bad dream,” he said soothingly. “The -cracked skull was beginning to get in its work. You didn’t see any dead -man.” - -Tregarvon closed his eyes wearily. “It’s passing strange how a little -knock on the head can mix things. I could swear that I saw the judge -and the dead man and the car just as I have described them. Let it go, -and tell me about Richardia.” - -Carfax seemed suddenly embarrassed. “I--I don’t know as there is much -to tell,” he stammered. “She--she is well, I believe.” - -Tregarvon raised himself on an elbow. - -“You’re keeping something back,” he protested. “Is she--is -she--married?” - -“Oh, no; nothing of that sort,” was the hasty reply. “She has been -here to see you--she and her father--quite often; that is, as often -as possible. I have fetched them in the car, you know. They have left -nothing undone that could be done.” - -Tregarvon still felt the presence of a reservation; of many of them; -but he was too weak to fight for the clearer explication. - -“How is Hartridge getting along?” he asked, sinking back upon the -pillows. - -“Rather slowly. It was a bad fracture. But the doctor says he won’t be -a cripple.” - -“That’s good. I want him to get well so that I can drag him into court. -He set the leaf fire that blew us up. Did you know that?” - -The golden youth nodded gravely. “I know a good many things that I -didn’t know before you got your knockout.” - -“Bring me down to date,” said the sick man impatiently. “What have you -done about the mine?” - -Carfax seemed to welcome the change to the more material field. - -“Any number of things,” he answered cheerfully. “In the first place -we--the judge and I--swore everybody to secrecy on that Monday night -of smashing catastrophes, and the secret has been kept from the world -at large, and from Consolidated Coal in particular. The wrecked -drilling plant has been left just as it was; your laboring force has -been discharged; and the impression has been given that if you ever -recovered your wits, you’d go straight away back to Philadelphia, a -sadder and much wiser young man.” - -“Fine!” approved the listener. “But that isn’t all?” - -“Not by a jugful. Two days after you were hurt, Wilmerding resigned -from the C. C. & I. service and disappeared. He has been North buying -machinery and material and shipping it in as far as Hesterville by -littles. The explanation given and accepted is that a new company has -been formed to develop some coal lands in the Hesterville vicinity, and -the C. C. & I. people are running around in circles and uttering loud -cries in their effort to find out where the lands are and who is going -to develop them.” - -“Good!--ripping good!” the sick man applauded. - -“We have been only waiting for you to get upon your feet, and we -didn’t wish to give Thaxter and his backers any chance to tangle things -for you in the meantime. The moment you are able to take hold you will -find everything in train--material and machinery where you can rush it -in with motor-trucks, labor all engaged, coke-burners from Pennsylvania -ready to take the first train south, and all that.” - -Tregarvon doubled the pillows under his head and his eyes were -flashing. “Poictiers, you’re a miracle!” he declared. - -The professional idler smiled his denial. “I didn’t do any of it. I -merely stood aside and told the others to go ahead and we’d pay the -bills. Wilmerding was fully competent to take charge of the business -part of it, and I have retained old Captain Duncan for the engineering. -All you have to do now is to rise up and say the word, and you’ll have -a mine that will make the Whitlow proposition compare accurately with a -last year’s almanac.” - -Tregarvon closed his eyes again and kept them closed so long as to give -the impression that he had fallen asleep. But when Carfax was about to -tiptoe away the heavy-lidded eyes opened. - -“I’ll build upon the foundation you have laid, Poictiers; you and -Wilmerding and Duncan. There are three things that I mean to do before -I quit and go West to look for another job: to stand the Ocoee upon -its feet as a paying proposition, to make provision for my mother -and sister with a part of the property and to divide the remainder -equitably among those who were frozen out in the Parker robbery, and -after this is done to turn heaven and earth over until I have found and -punished the man or men who have tried so hard to smash me. When I’ve -squared up I’ll vanish.” - -Carfax laid a hand as slender and shapely as a woman’s upon the hot -forehead. “I’ve let you talk too much and you are getting the ‘wheels’ -again,” he said gently. “You mustn’t be vindictive; and there is no -reason on earth why you should talk of throwing things up and running -away.” - -“There are good reasons for both,” was the stubborn insistence. “I owe -it to common justice, no less than to myself, to dig up the criminal or -criminals and bring them to book. If they should prove to be Thaxter -and his backers, after all, the world needs the example; and if it was -pure outlawry on the part of the McNabbs and Hartridge and some other -scoundrel that McNabb wouldn’t name there is all the more reason why -I should send for the best detectives the country affords and run the -outlaws down. And as to running away after it is all over, that says -itself, Poictiers. I couldn’t stay on here after Richardia is married -to another man. It isn’t in human nature. Now go away and let me sleep. -I want to hurry and get well, so that I can stand up and straighten -things out.” - - - - -XXX - -A Grounded Wire - - -The small world of Coalville, centring socially under Tait’s store -porch, had its vivifying shock when it awoke one morning to find that -in a single night, as one might say, the entire face of nature had -changed for the sleepy little hamlet at the foot of old Pisgah. In -the instant of transformation the Ocoee of many disappointments had -suddenly leaped into the foreground as a coal discovery of unlimited -possibilities; an army of workmen was massing to shift the old tramway -to the new opening; motor-trucks, piled high with material, were -trundling over the valley pike from Hesterville; carpenters were -rushing up new buildings at top speed; and at the centre of all these -stirring activities, directing and driving them, was the young man whom -rumor had been bulletining as dead or dying in his room on the second -floor of the old office-building, or at best destined to pass the -remainder of his life in an asylum. - -Taking one thing with another, the gossips at Tait’s found it -difficult to recognize the convalescent Tregarvon. The brief period -of his illness had seemed to mature him curiously; to make him a man -of a single idea--the idea being to turn the Ocoee into a producing -industry in the shortest possible time. Also, they missed the genial -and mollifying influence of the young New York millionaire, who, though -still nominally an inmate of the Ocoee headquarters building, spent -most of his time on the mountain, presumably as a guest of the Caswells. - -As it chanced, the store-porch gossips were not the only persons who -were finding a changed Tregarvon sitting at the desk of overlordship in -the hastily remodelled Ocoee office-building. There were others, among -them Barnby, travelling freight agent for the railroad, who had come -all the way from his own headquarters to find out why the Ocoee was -hauling its new material from Hesterville in motor-trucks. - -“You will find the reason in the correspondence files of your general -office,” was the curt reply of the Ocoee organizer. “I asked for a -rate from Hesterville to Coalville on the material and was told that -the shortage of cars would make it impossible for your road to handle -the freight save as it might be transported a little at a time by the -daily way-train. I don’t propose to be held up by a railroad company, -the policy of which seems to be dictated by the C. C. & I., Mr. Barnby.” - -Barnby was a fleshy young man with an easy smile, and he gave the smile -its blandishing opportunity. - -“You will have to ship your product out over our road when you get in -operation, won’t you?” he asked mildly. - -“Not necessarily. We have all the capital we need, and if you don’t -give us an equal show with the C. C. & I. we shall build a ten-mile -industrial track, for which we have already secured a right of way, to -a connection with the South Central at Midvale. It’s up to your people. -Talk it over with them when you go back to headquarters. Glad to have -met you. Drop in again when you are going over the line. Good morning.” - -Touching this intimation that the coal trust had already begun a new -series of impeding activities, speculation was rife. Some said that the -C. C. & I. would buy the new mine, lock, stock, and barrel, and close -it; others hinted that the trust would put the price of coke so low -that the new company would be bankrupted in short order; still others -suggested that Consolidated Coal would conspire with the railroad and -call Tregarvon’s bluff to build the industrial cut-off. - -Wilmerding or Duncan, or both of them, brought these rumors to -Tregarvon, and were amazed to find that he refused to be either -disturbed or greatly interested. In many ways the superintendent and -the old Scotch engineer were discovering daily that they had to do with -a man who had developed suddenly into a master of himself and others. -The light-hearted young fellow who had thrown himself so joyously -into the fray at the beginning had given place to a modern captain -of industry, alert, strong-willed, a bit dictatorial, perhaps, but -entirely capable. - -“Never mind what the C. C. & I. is doing, or will try to do,” he told -his oddly assorted lieutenants. “Our job is to get the mine open and -the ovens fired. Consolidated Coal will neither buy us nor break us, -nor force us to build a railroad to Midvale. I’ll take care of all -those details at the proper time.” - -It was on the day when the first tram loads of Ocoee coal were coming -down the mountain to be dumped into the oven-filling hoppers that -another caller discovered the new Tregarvon. Late in the afternoon -a neat, rubber-tired buggy, drawn by a black Hambletonian, stopped -in front of the Ocoee office-building, and a round-bodied little man -descended and hitched the horse. - -Somewhat to his chagrin, it may be supposed, Mr. Onias Thaxter was -allowed to cool his heels for a full quarter of an hour in the outer -office before he was admitted to the presence of the new overlord; -and the waiting was doubtless the harder to endure since he came -bearing the olive-branch of peace. Tregarvon sat back in his chair and -listened coldly while the peace branch was getting itself waved to an -accompaniment of placative speech. - -“There is no such thing as personal vindictiveness in business, Mr. -Tregarvon,” was the summing-up of the Thaxter argument. “Without -admitting it as a fact, let us assume, for the moment, that the man -Sawyer was employed as a sort of scout for our people. This is a thing -that is done every day; it’s business, and good business. You might -do it yourself, if you had a competitor. We are hearing it asserted -here and there and everywhere that you are charging us with a lot of -outlawry with which we had nothing to do, and that you are going to -press the charges in the courts. Will you pardon me if I say that that -isn’t playing the game?” - -“You may say anything you wish to say, if you will only make it -sufficiently brief,” was the discouraging rejoinder. - -“I have already made my suggestion. It must be evident to you that a -consolidation of interests with us is by far the most sensible plan you -can adopt. You can hardly hope to do business here, as an independent -coal operator, in the heart of a region which we have developed. There -would be constant friction; in the market, with your labor, with the -transportation companies. I am not authorized to make a definite -proposal, but if you will organize your new company on a conservative -basis with a modest capitalization, I feel sure that our people would -take you in as a subsidiary, share for share at par value.” - -“Are you quite through?” asked the new Tregarvon, when the emissary -paused to take breath. “If you are, you may have my answer in one -word--No.” - -“I am sure you are deciding too hastily, and because you haven’t given -the plan sufficient thought. As I have pointed out, there is no such -thing as vindictiveness in business; but when you deliberately set up -that standard for yourself, you mustn’t expect the other fellow to lie -down and let you run the truck-wheels over him.” - -“By which you mean that if I refuse to let you swallow me peaceably, -you will do it the other way?” - -“That is your own deduction--not mine,” said the bookkeeper in the tone -of one trying to soothe a wayward child. - -“Then listen to me, Mr. Thaxter. Some scoundrels--possibly you and -your people--have harried me like a lot of pirates. Nothing has been -left undone in the effort either to swindle me out of my property on -the one hand, or to force me out of it on the other. But now the shoe -is on the other foot”--he was leaning across the corner of the desk -and emphasizing the words with a clenched fist beating softly upon the -oak--“we have Sawyer where we can make him talk. We know that he can -implicate you, individually, in one of the criminalities; and perhaps -he can tell us something about the others. Mr. Thaxter, I am going to -sift these bushwhackings to the bottom, and you know best whether or -not you or the combination you represent can afford to heap more fuel -on the fire now by fighting me in the manner you have suggested. That -is all I have to say, I believe, and I shall have to ask you to excuse -me. This is my busy day.” - -In the early evening of the fourth day after Thaxter’s visit, -Carfax made one of his infrequent descents of the mountain, driving -a ridiculously high-priced car, the purchasing of which had been his -latest extravagance. The coke-ovens in the long rank were aglow with -the fires of the initial charging, and the air of the valley was murky -with the smoke of the new industry. Wilmerding and Duncan were at the -mine, and Tregarvon had just finished his dinner when Carfax entered -the dining-room. - -“You do turn up once in a while, don’t you?” said the solitary diner -not too hospitably. “You’re late for dinner, but doubtless Uncle -William can find you something. You will have to eat alone. I have some -work to do.” - -Carfax followed the worker into the front office and, when the lights -were turned on, dropped into a chair. - -“I don’t want any dinner,” he said. “Or rather I should say, I’m due to -show up at Mrs. Caswell’s at the proper dinner-hour.” - -Tregarvon had a telegraph pad under his hand and he took time to write -a brief message before he said, half-absently: “We keep working-men’s -hours here.” - -“Which is a delicate way of intimating that I’d better go chase myself -and quit bothering you?” put in the intruder with a gentle chuckle. -“All right; I’ll vanish presently. But first I’d like to ask if you are -still clinging to your fantastic idea of making somebody suffer for the -dynamiting?” - -“I am; and I don’t see anything fantastic about it. A number of crimes -have been committed, and I have no notion of compounding a felony by -letting the perpetrators get away. Morgan McNabb is the key to the -situation, and I have never understood why you and Judge Birrell turned -him loose and gave him a chance to disappear. It has cost me a pretty -penny to trace him, but I’ve got him now. He is under arrest in Dallas, -Texas.” - -“And you are going to have him brought back and given the third degree?” - -“Precisely. I have just written the telegram.” - -Carfax was feeling in his pockets for his cigarette-case, going about -it leisurely as one who would gain time. - -“McNabb is only a poor devil of a mountaineer, too ignorant to be held -fully accountable, don’t you think?” he ventured at the match-lighting. - -“That may be. But he knows the real criminal or criminals who employed -him. I’ve been an easy mark all my life, Poictiers, but that is a -thing of the past now. I’ve turned over a new leaf.” - -The golden youth was blowing delicate little smoke rings at the ceiling. - -“So you have, and the new leaf isn’t as pleasant reading as some of the -old ones, Vance,” he commented, speaking slowly and without a trace of -the lisp. “Some of the things you are writing down on it are rather -sordid, don’t you think? You are a bigger man in some ways, and a much -smaller one in some others.” - -“‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend,’” quoted the one under criticism -with a short laugh. “Suppose you elucidate.” - -“I will. Up to the time of your father’s death you were as much of -a _flâneur_ as I’ve always been. You didn’t have to ask for your -blessings; you merely reached out and took them--if they didn’t happen -to be handed you on a silver platter. During the past few months you’ve -been chucked up against life as it really is for the greater part of -mankind; a fight, a frantic scramble for a foothold. You’ve made the -fight, because you have the good old Cornish fighting blood in you; but -while you have been growing on one side you have been shrinking on the -other.” - -“Go on.” - -“Real magnanimity was one of the strongest and most lovable qualities -of the man you’ve put off; you’ve lost it completely. Cheerful optimism -was one of the other good points, and you’ve dropped it. Just now you -are planning first to get square with your enemies, and next to shirk -your responsibilities by effacing yourself. What have you done about -the new incorporation?” - -“I have done exactly what I told you I should. The new company is -formed, and the papers for the division of the capital stock are -prepared. I am looking for Peters, the family lawyer, on every train, -and when he comes the deal will be closed.” - -“You tried to tell me the other day what the property arrangement is to -be, but I didn’t get it very clearly fixed in my mind,” Carfax offered. - -“It is simple. Since you say you don’t want any of the stock, you will -be reimbursed for your cash advances out of the first money earned by -the mine. The stock is to be divided, sixty per cent to my mother and -sister and forty to Judge Birrell for distribution among the original -minority stockholders who were swindled out of their holdings by -Parker.” - -“Parker,” said Carfax musingly. “He will never swindle any more. Did -I tell you? I read an item in the New York _Times_. Parker was found -dead at his desk in his Broad Street office one day last week.” Then he -came back to the matter in hand. “Where do you come in, in the property -distribution?” - -“I don’t come in; I go out. Wilmerding and Duncan can operate the mine, -and I shan’t be needed. I shall go West and try for an engineering job -in one of the gold camps.” - -“But not before you have had your revenge upon the dynamiters?” - -“No; I shall stay long enough to see that part of it through to a -finish.” - -“You are proving my contention very handsomely, don’t you think?” said -the critic quietly; “that you are bigger in some ways and smaller in -others? You are telling yourself that this generous thing you are going -to do is perfectly magnanimous, and that you are merely raising the -magnanimity to the _nth_ power by conserving the ends of pure justice -in the prosecution part of it, and by obliterating yourself afterward. -But, really, at the bottom of it all there are two rather dismal -motives. You want your revenge, and you wish to show the woman in the -case that you can turn your back upon her without half trying. Isn’t -that true?” - -Tregarvon’s grin bordered upon the saturnine. “It’s next to impossible -to resent anything you choose to say, Poictiers; that is your one -little gift--to be able to flay your friends without getting yourself -disliked. Let’s talk of something else. How long is Elizabeth going to -stay at Judge Birrell’s?” - -This time the golden youth was able to call up the cherubic smile in -all its glory. - -“Not very much longer now. She, too, is going West.” - -“What? Elizabeth? You don’t know her as well as I do. Her ‘West’ begins -and ends at the summit of the Alleghenies.” - -“Nevertheless, she is planning to make the grand tour--in a private -car.” - -Tregarvon reached suddenly across the corner of the table-desk and -grasped the hand of many helpings. - -“There is enough of the old Vance Tregarvon left in me to wish you all -the joy there is in the world, Poictiers!” he exclaimed, with some -touch of the old-time heartiness. “You two were made for each other; I -can see it now.” - -“You are quite sure there aren’t any inward daggerings behind that, -Vance?” said the successful one half wistfully. - -“Not in the least. I’m glad. If you or Elizabeth had only told me at -first who the other fellow was ... but it is all right now. How did -you contrive to persuade her to overlook your bit of play-acting with -Richardia?” - -The persuader shook his head. “That part of it was pretty serious. It -was one of the things that couldn’t very well be explained in cold -words. I think Miss Richardia has helped out some. She knew well enough -what I did it for.” - -“You didn’t do it for me,” Tregarvon interposed bluntly. - -“Not at all,” was the quiet rejoinder. “As I have said before, I -assumed most naturally that Elizabeth’s happiness was involved, and I -didn’t propose to stand by and see you make ducks and drakes of it if I -could help it.” - -“Never mind; it’s all over now, and you two at least are in a fair way -to get what is coming to you. How is Hartridge getting along by this -time?” - -“Quite well. He is walking with a crutch, and is able to hear his -classes.” So much Carfax said in the matter-of-fact manner of one -who answers a commonplace categorically. Then he sat up suddenly and -snapped his fingers, and the lisping drawl had returned when he went -on: “By Jove! that reminds me, don’t you know. Hartridge would like to -see you.” - -“Why does he wish to see me?” - -Carfax spread his hands. “My dear boy, I’m no mind-reader. But I’m sure -it’s rather urgent. Will you go?” - -Tregarvon sat frowning down upon the papers on the desk for a full -half-minute before he looked up to say: “I can’t go, Poictiers. I don’t -care especially to meet Hartridge, or to listen to the begging-off -plea which he is probably going to make. He as good as told me that -he was jealous, and was trying to get square. Besides, I haven’t seen -Richardia since this mad-work whirl began, and--and it will be easier -for me if I don’t see her again.” - -Carfax had his answer ready. “You’ll not meet Richardia at Highmount. -Elizabeth is staying with the Caswells for a few days, and Richardia -went home to Westwood House at three o’clock. I know, because I drove -her in my car. Hartridge has his rooms in the laboratory building, and -you needn’t show up at the president’s house at all if you don’t wish -to.” - -Tregarvon hesitated a moment and then glanced at his watch. - -“I’ll go--a little later,” he decided abruptly. “I don’t know that I -owe the professor anything but an action at law for helping to destroy -my drilling plant, but I’ll give him a chance to say what he has to -say. Now run along and keep your dinner engagement. I can drive up in -my own car when I am ready.” - -“About what time will that be?” queried Carfax, hanging upon the -threshold of the door of leave-takings. “I ought to let Hartridge know -when to expect you.” - -Again Tregarvon looked at his watch. “Say eight o’clock. Will that do?” - -“Perfectly, I should think.” It was the golden youth’s cue to -disappear, but still he lingered. “That telegram you have just written, -Vance; are you going to send it to-night?” - -Tregarvon answered without looking up. “Certainly. And to-morrow I -shall notify the sheriff to send a deputy after McNabb.” - -Carfax went out, closing the door softly behind him. But when the -big expensive motor-car had cut its half-circle to head toward the -mountain pike it was brought to a stand at the railroad station, and -the driver left it for a minute or two while he had speech through the -ticket-window with Orcutt, the night telegraph operator. Daddy Layne, -with nothing better to do, was warming his shins at the waiting-room -stove, and though he listened, after the manner of his kind, he caught -only one sentence of the low-toned talk. That was Orcutt’s, spoken -after Layne’s keen old eyes had glimpsed the passing of something that -looked like a yellow-backed bank-note through the window. “It’ll be as -much as my job’s worth, Mr. Carfax, but I’ll do it.” - -A half-hour later, while Layne was dozing in a corner of the -superheated waiting-room, Tregarvon came in with his message to the -Dallas chief of police. This time there was no effort made to keep the -talk from being overheard. - -“I’m mighty sorry, Mr. Tregarvon, but I can’t get it off to-night,” was -the operator’s deprecatory protest when the message was handed in. “The -commercial wires are grounded--been that way all the evening. Mighty -sorry, but these things will happen once in a while. Yes; sure! first -thing in the morning, if I have to put it through the despatcher’s -office. Good night.” - - - - -XXXI - -On Pisgah’s Height - - -Professor William Wilberforce Hartridge was reading before the cheerful -grate fire in his sitting-room when his visitor was brought up by the -old negro janitor. - -“Come in, Mr. Tregarvon, and be at home,” he said, rising, with the -aid of his crutch, for the welcoming, and making difficult work of it. -“Draw your chair to the fire and be comfortable. It was kind of you -to----” - -“Carfax brought me your message,” Tregarvon interrupted, rather -more brusquely than he meant to. “In a certain sense I suppose I am -responsible for your present condition, and since you wished to see -me----” - -“Ah, yes; but I didn’t wish to give myself the opportunity of -reproaching you for the accident, I assure you,” was the deprecatory -rejoinder. “You were not even constructively to blame for my cowardly -legs.” Then he added, with a touch of naïve humor: “I trust they have -sufficiently learned their lesson.” - -“You are having a pretty long siege of it,” Tregarvon offered, finding -himself sympathizing where he had meant to be coldly self-contained. - -“Old bones,” returned the schoolmaster, with his quaint smile. “They -haven’t knitted quite as rapidly as they might. But let us hope that -there is nothing worse than broken bones in store for any of us. May I -be very frank with you, Mr. Tregarvon?” - -“I shall set you the example. I can conceive of only one reason why -you should wish to see me, Mr. Hartridge. You have been told that I am -still determined to exact an eye for an eye in the matter of bringing -certain criminals to justice, and you would like to forestall your -arrest as an accessory. Am I right?” - -At this the quaint smile became quizzical. “Partly; but only partly. -Have you taken any steps as yet?” - -“I have. After a good bit of trouble and expense I have at last -succeeded in tracing the man Morgan McNabb. He is under arrest in -Dallas, Texas, and I shall have him brought back as soon as the -necessary papers can be obtained.” - -“And your object in bringing him back?” - -“Is to make him give the name of the man who hired him to put -the dynamite under my drilling plant. That man is going to the -penitentiary, Mr. Hartridge, if any effort of mine can send him there.” - -The schoolmaster removed his spectacles to polish them, and for a time -sat staring with unshielded eyes into the heart of the coal fire in the -grate. - -“You have all the precedents on your side,” he admitted at length. -“It is your right to prosecute if you choose to do so. Yet I venture -to predict that you will be exceedingly sorry if you bring Morgan -McNabb to Tennessee and extort his confession--a confession which will -necessarily be made public. Besides, there is a much easier way in -which you can apprehend his principal.” - -“Are you willing to indicate the way?” snapped Tregarvon. - -“Not altogether willing; no. You are at heart a much flintier young -man than you appeared to be when we first met, Mr. Tregarvon. It is an -inheritance from some one of your Cornish forebears, I imagine. But I -have allowed myself to be overpersuaded. You have your car here?” - -“Yes.” - -“I shall ask you to drive me. Will you trust me that far?” - -Tregarvon rose, smiling grimly. “I shall have you for my hostage. If -you are about to have me ambushed, I shall make you share my risk. Do -we go at once?” - -Hartridge limped to a closet and found his overcoat, and Tregarvon -helped him to put it on. Then he gave the temporary cripple an arm -through the laboratory corridor and down the stair. At the steps he -lifted Hartridge bodily into the mechanician’s seat of the car. As yet -there had been no hint given of their destination, but when he took his -place behind the wheel Tregarvon asked for driving directions. - -“Westward, on the cross-mountain road,” was the brief reply, and -no other word was exchanged until the swiftly driven machine was -approaching the intersection of the cross-road with the west-brow pike. -Then Hartridge said: “To your left,” and Tregarvon had a sudden sinking -of the heart. A mile away he could see the lights of Westwood House, -and a great fear rose up to unsteady his hand as he made the turn out -of the cross-road. - -Tregarvon’s fear was realized in some measure when, at Hartridge’s -direction, the car made a second left-hand turn into the Westwood -grounds and was brought to a stand before the door of the old mansion. -“I have obeyed you blindly thus far,” he said, as he was lifting -Hartridge out of the car. “But now you must tell me. Is it Judge -Birrell?” - -“Wait,” said the schoolmaster, and Tregarvon helped the lame man up -the steps and steadied him while he groped for the knocker. Before he -could knock, the door opened silently under the hand of the judge’s -daughter, and Tregarvon again gave Hartridge an arm to help him over -the threshold. - -Though the hall was but dimly lighted he saw at once that there had -been a pitiful change in Richardia. There was the shadow of a deep -grief in her eyes when she greeted him, and the hand that she gave him -was nerveless and cold. He had never seen her in black before, and -that, and the chill of the great hall and the grave silence of his car -companion, made him feel as if he had entered a house of mourning. - -Without a word in explanation the changed Richardia led him to the -stair and signed to him to precede her. Tregarvon hesitated only long -enough to see that the professor was hobbling away toward the lighted -library. Then he stood aside and slipped an arm under Richardia’s. -“They hadn’t told me you had been ill,” he said reproachfully; and as -they went up together the nearness of her set his blood afire and for -the moment he forgot the scene in the deep wood timing itself in the -Sunday afternoon of revealment. - -At the stairhead a door stood ajar, with the flickering light of an -open fire in the room beyond shining through the narrow opening. With -a quick premonition that a tragedy was about to be revealed, Tregarvon -followed his guide into the room. It was a huge chamber, spacious -enough to belittle the few pieces of old-fashioned furnishings, and -in the great four-poster bed lay a young man with an arm in a sling -and his bandaged head propped high among the pillows. Though the face -of the sick man was haggard and emaciated, Tregarvon recognized it -instantly. It was the face of the handsome young fellow who had kept -the Sunday afternoon tryst with Richardia. - -It was only natural that he should be checked by a sudden feeling of -antagonism, but before it could find expression it was swallowed up in -an astoundment too great to be measured. Richardia had led him to the -bedside and she was saying quietly: “Mr. Tregarvon has come, brother. -Shall I leave him alone with you?” - -The sick man roused himself with an effort that was plainly -distressful. “Yes,” he said shortly. And after Richardia had gone: -“I’m the man you’re looking for.” - -Tregarvon dragged a chair to the bedside and sat down. In the rush of -conflicting emotions one exultant fact was hammering itself into his -brain and dominating all others: Richardia’s secret had not been her -lover’s secret; it was her _brother’s_. In the turmoil of readjustment, -it was inevitable that the generous impulses of former days--the days -before the _débâcle_--should come swiftly to the surface. - -“I’m glad to be here, Mr. Birrell; and that is entirely apart from -anything you may be going to tell me,” he said quickly. “Are you quite -sure you are able to talk?” - -“I’ve got to talk; it’s up to me now. Sister told me a little while -ago that you had caught Morgan McNabb; that you’re going to have him -brought back here so that you can give him the third degree. I’m the -man you want. Morgan did only what I made him do.” - -Tregarvon was beginning to understand a little. “Perhaps you’d better -tell it all, if you feel equal to it,” he suggested soberly. Then he -added: “I’m not going to be your judge, Mr. Birrell.” - -The sick man rocked his head on the pillows. - -“You won’t understand; I couldn’t make anybody understand. But it’s got -to be told. Do you know what that crook Parker did to my father?” - -“Yes.” - -“All of it?” - -“Yes; all of it.” - -“Well, it made a devil of me. I was only a kid then, but it seemed as -if I grew to be a man between two days. I tried to kill Parker. Maybe -you know that, too.” - -“Yes; I have heard about it.” - -“He didn’t die; and he spent his money like water until he got me -indicted. Then I broke my father’s heart by showing the yellow -streak--running away. I’ve been hid out down in Arizona ever since, but -I always meant to come back and stand the gaff some day.” - -“Go on,” said Tregarvon gravely. - -“I didn’t come back by the railroad. The yellow streak showed up again, -and I dodged the sheriff by walking in over the mountain from Piketown. -The McNabbs hid me out in the ‘Pocket.’ They told me you were Parker’s -man, and that you had come to finish what he’d begun. Afterward they -told me you were making love to my sister, and that settled it.” - -“I see,” said Tregarvon. Then: “Why didn’t you come out in the open -like a man and find out a few things for yourself?” - -“I couldn’t. The indictment was still hanging over me; as it is yet. -And I was crazy mad. I swore I’d run you out of the country or kill you -if you didn’t go. I made Morgan McNabb help me. He’d been mixed up in a -feud years ago and had ambushed a man, and I was the only one who knew -it. I told him I’d give him away if he didn’t help me run you off.” - -“Your sister knew you had come back?” - -“Yes; but she didn’t know anything else. She thought I was afraid to -show myself on account of the old trouble--as I was. She was trying to -fix things so that I could come back here to my father and Westwood -House. I did come, but they brought me on a stretcher. Somebody set -the leaves afire that night in the old negro burying-ground, and the -dynamite went off and caught me while I was trying to stamp the fire -out. The jig’s up now. All you’ve got to do is to send for the sheriff.” - -Tregarvon saw that it was time to intervene. The sick man’s breath was -coming in gasps and his face was livid. - -“You mustn’t try to talk any more now,” he said, rising and taking the -thin hand that was so much like Richardia’s in his own. “For a good -many reasons you have nothing to fear from me. Of course, you know now -that I am in no sense Parker’s representative. So far from it, the -papers are already drawn which will restore to your father and his -friends the property that Parker stole from them. I meant to do that -from the first, if I should be lucky enough to find the coal.” - -The grip of the thin fingers tightened upon the hand of reassurance. -“My God!” breathed the prodigal, “and I’ve been trying to kill you! -Mr. Tregarvon, can you go one step farther and--and turn Morgan McNabb -loose? That’s what made me frame it up with sister and Hartridge and -Mr. Carfax to bring you here to-night.” - -“McNabb will not be brought back; I promise you that. Shall I send your -sister up to you?” - -“Not--not right now; tell her to play something; something low and soft -that’ll make the devil let me alone. I want to think. I--I reckon I’m -willing to go to the convict camps now for trying to square up with -Parker; I reckon I _ought_ to go!” - -Tregarvon went out softly, closing the door behind him and groping his -way down the stair. Richardia was waiting for him in the hall below, -as he hoped she would be, and she led him across to the drawing-room -where there were lights and a wood-fire purring and crackling in the -big stone fireplace. - -“Tell me,” she entreated. - -“There is nothing to tell--nothing that you haven’t already guessed. -I am completely disarmed, as you knew I would be. I have assured your -brother that he has nothing to fear from me.” - -“It has been very dreadful,” she said, moving aside to hold her hands -out to the fire. - -“How badly was he hurt in the explosion?” - -“So badly that it is only within the past few days that we have dared -to hope. Mr. Carfax hasn’t told you?” - -“Not a word. Your secret has been guarded very carefully.” - -“But now it is a secret no longer. If he gets well it will only be to -face a trial for the attempt upon Mr. Parker’s life.” - -“Nothing will come of that,” Tregarvon predicted confidently. “Parker -is dead; he died suddenly in his New York office a few days ago. And no -twelve Tennesseeans could ever be found who would convict your brother -for trying to avenge his father’s wrongs.” - -“We are your poor debtors--all of us,” she went on. “You are heaping -coals of fire on our heads, and--and they _burn_! Of course, you know -now that I was my brother’s accomplice?” - -“I know nothing of the sort; of course, you were not!” - -“But I was--in a way. All along, I feared that it was he who was -making, or at least planning, all the trouble you were having. He was -_so_ bitter!” - -Tregarvon nodded complete comprehension. “I knew you were anxious about -somebody; I thought, at first, that it was Hartridge, and later that it -was your father. You have had a heavy burden to carry; and I have been -doing what I could to make it heavier.” - -“You have,” she said quite frankly. - -He did not affect to misunderstand. - -“You knew all the time that Poictiers and Elizabeth were held apart -only by Elizabeth’s engagement to me?” - -“I guessed it. But that didn’t excuse you for--for----” - -“For making love to you? I know it didn’t. But I had my punishment -the Sunday afternoon when you met your brother in the wood above the -‘Pocket.’ I had gone out to meet Hartridge, and I saw you two together. -I took it for granted that the man was your lover who, for some -reason, couldn’t come here to Westwood House to meet you.” - -“Others took it for granted, too, and I did not deny it--for Richard’s -sake.” - -“Is his name Richard?” - -“Yes; Richard and Richardia. My father named us so, after a brother and -sister of his own who were twins.” - -Tregarvon glanced at his watch. There were other things to be -said--many of them, but a suddenly recrudescent sense of the fitness of -things told him that the moment was unauspicious. - -“I suppose I’ll have to consider Hartridge and take him back to -Highmount,” he offered. Then he added quite irrelevantly: “He’s in love -with you, too. Speaking of accomplices, how much or how little did he -have to do with the bushwhacking?” - -“Nothing at all. It was only on the day of the explosion that he -learned that Richard had come back, and was hiding with the McNabbs in -the ‘Pocket,’ and heard, through Sill McNabb, that something was going -to happen that night at your drilling plant. He suspected Richard at -once, and went over to try to prevent the happening. Then your men -caught Morgan McNabb, and Professor Billy hardly knew what to do. He -guessed that Tryon had come over here after you and Mr. Carfax, and -when you took father back with you he was afraid Morgan would be made -to confess, and so make a bad matter infinitely worse. His idea in -lighting the leaf fire was to give Morgan McNabb a chance to escape. Of -course, he supposed the dynamite had been removed.” - -“It has been a tragedy of errors from the beginning,” said Tregarvon -soberly. “But I am going to expiate my part of it. Has Poictiers told -you anything about my plans?” - -“No.” - -“I made them while I was lying in bed in the old office-building at -Coalville, trying to get well enough to crawl out and take hold with my -hands. It came to me then what an egregious ass I had made of myself, -all the way round. I had blundered in ahead of Poictiers and didn’t -have sense enough even to suspect it; and I had deliberately killed any -little regard you might have had for me by showing myself up as a man -who would make love to one woman while he was engaged to another. I was -eaten up with shame, Richardia, and I am yet.” - -“It hurt me; I think you will never know how much it hurt,” she said -slowly. “A man asks utter and absolute loyalty of the woman he loves.” - -“And the woman can ask no less of the man, you would say. That -is true. I am no defender of the double standard; still less an -apologist for my sex. I have only one excuse, Richardia; it wasn’t -merely propinquity--as you and Poictiers seemed to think. I had never -known what love was until I met you. Elizabeth is going to marry -Poictiers, and you must believe me when I say that I think just as -much of her--and in the same way--as I did before. But let that pass. -I had found my coal mine, and had lost pretty nearly everything else, -including my own self-respect. You were lost to me; doubly lost, as I -thought then; so it seemed that the only thing for me to do was to set -the Ocoee house in order, and after that was done to go away and try to -forget.” - -“You are still meaning to go away?” - -“Yes. I meant to stay long enough to make somebody suffer for the -bushwhackings, but that is past. I have sent for Peters, our family -lawyer, and when he comes we shall settle the property affair. -Three-fifths of the stock in the mine will go to my mother and sister, -and the remainder will be turned over to your father to be distributed -among the Parker victims. This is what I have been meaning to do all -along, if I should be fortunate enough to discover the coal.” - -She shook her head. “You are reckoning without my father. He won’t take -the money.” - -“He must be made to take it. It is only just and fair. When it comes to -that, you must help me, Richardia; for his sake and for your brother’s.” - -“Poor Dick!” she murmured. “He needs a friend much more than he needs -the money; some one who would care enough for him to stand by and hold -him up to the best there is in him. There _is_ good in him; you may not -believe it now, but there is, really--lots of it.” - -“I can very readily believe it, since he is your brother and the son of -your father. And he has proved it to-night by climbing into the breach -for McNabb. He will have his chance on the Ocoee, and Wilmerding will -be his friend.” - -“Then you are determined to go away?” - -“Yes. I owe it to you and to everybody else, not less than to myself. -But some day, Richardia, after I have done penance for the sin of -loving you before I had a right to I am coming back. But I had -forgotten; your brother wished me to ask you to play for him; something -that would drive the devil away. He said he wanted to think.” - -She went to the piano at once. Alone among the old-fashioned house -furnishings it was modern; an artist’s instrument, full-toned and -responsive. Tregarvon sank into an armchair before the blazing logs and -gave himself up to the quiet ecstasies of the music-lover. From the -first her playing had stirred him as no other chamber-music ever had. -For a time he knew that she was improvising; then there were gentle -themes from Mendelssohn, shading one into another so deftly that he -could never mark the changes. And at the last there was the Chopin -nocturne. - -While the closing chords of the night-song were still lingering in the -air she came to sit in a chair at the opposite corner of the hearth. - -“You played the Chopin for me; was that your way of telling me that I -might come back some day, Richardia?” he asked quite humbly. - -Her hands were clasped over one knee and her gaze was fixed upon the -blue and yellow flames in the great fireplace, when she said softly: -“You are very human--and very blind; so blind that you haven’t seen -that I have had to fight for two--for myself no less than for you. And -there have been times when--when I almost _hated_ Elizabeth!” - -The Tregarvon blood was not sluggish; at least, he had never found it -so before; but for the moment he was like a man stricken suddenly dumb. -Then the gift of speech came back, laboring as it could in the turmoil -of new ecstasies. - -“_You had to fight for two_; God help me, Richardia--if I had known -that----” - -She rose quickly and came to stand beside his chair. - -“If you had known it, you would have been the strong one, Vance, dear. -I know it; I knew it all the time; but I--was afraid--to trust--myself. -You are not going away, now, are you?” - -There was the sound of an opening and closing door and the stumping of -the professor’s crutch on the bare floor of the hall. Tregarvon sprang -up and took the small black-gowned figure in his arms. - -“Going away?” he broke out passionately; “you couldn’t drive me away -with an axe! I’m going to stay forever, and let you make a complete man -of me. We’ll _marry_ your father’s share of the Ocoee back to him, and -together we’ll make a man of your brother. There are a million other -things to say, but Hartridge is coming to look for his chauffeur and I -must take him back to Highmount. Richardia--sweetheart!... If I don’t -wreck the car on the way it will be a miracle.” - -Very gently she disengaged herself. “You--you needn’t smother a -person,” she protested, with the quaint little grimace that he loved. -And then: “That is father, calling me to go to brother. Please heap -some more coals of fire and be good to Professor Billy--for the sake of -his loyalty to me and mine.... Yes, daddy, dear; I’m coming.” - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been corrected. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTER THE MANNER OF MEN *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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