THE FIGHTER
THE FIGHTER
BY
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
AUTHOR OF
“CALEB CONOVER, RAILROADER,” “DR. DALE,”
“THE WORLD’S GREAT EVENTS,” ETC.
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
_Entered at Stationers’ Hall_
_All rights reserved_
TO MY KINDEST, SEVEREST CRITIC,
MY WIFE
SO MUCH OF THIS BOOK AS MAY BE WORTHY HER
APPROVAL IS
DEDICATED
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CALEB CONOVER WINS 9
II. THE GIRL 23
III. CALEB CONOVER FIGHTS 37
IV. CALEB CONOVER EXPLAINS 53
V. AN INTERLUDE 63
VI. CALEB CONOVER RUNS AWAY 72
VII. THE BATTLE 81
VIII. CALEB CONOVER STORMS A RAMPART 100
IX. A LESSON IN IGNORANCE 121
X. IN THE HOUSE OF RIMMON 134
XI. A PEACE CONFERENCE 151
XII. INTO AN UNKNOWN LAND 161
XIII. MOONLIGHT AND MISTAKES 185
XIV. CALEB CONOVER TAKES AN AFTERNOON OFF 196
XV. CALEB CONOVER LIES 209
XVI. DESIRÉE MAKES PLANS 224
XVII. THE DUST DAYS 233
XVIII. CALEB CONOVER GIVES A READING LESSON 245
XIX. ON THE TOP OF THE WORLD 259
XX. CALEB “OVERLOOKS A BET” 273
XXI. FOREST MADNESS 286
XXII. CALEB CONOVER RECEIVES NEWS 321
XXIII. “THE STRONG ARM OF CHRIST” 337
XXIV. THE LAST FIGHT 352
CAST OF CHARACTERS
CALEB CONOVER, _a self-made man who glorifies his maker_.
AMZI NICHOLAS CAINE, _a young newspaper owner afflicted with certain
ideas_.
JACK HAWARDEN, _a youth who issues drafts on future literary fame_.
REUBEN STANDISH, _decayed branch of a once-mighty family tree_.
BLACARDA, _an exception to the rule concerning honor among
financiers_.
SAUL, _a derelict_.
CLIVE STANDISH, _a victim of “home rule.”_
BILLY SHEVLIN, _a more or less typical small boy_.
THE REV. MR. GRANT, _a minister of the Gospel_.
DR. BOND, _a country physician_.
STEVE MARTIN, _an Adirondack guide_.
JOHN HAWARDEN, SR., }
FEATHERSTONE, } _Pillars of the_
VROOM, } _Arareek Country Club._
DILLINGHAM, }
A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER.
A LOCOMOTIVE FIREMAN.
A STATION AGENT.
DESIRÉE SHEVLIN, _the girl_.
LETTY STANDISH, _the other girl_.
MRS. STANDISH, _whose attitudes are all beatitudes_.
MRS. HAWARDEN, _a chaperone for revenue only_.
SCENE: The City of Granite, the State Capital, Magdeburg Village, and
the Adirondacks.
THE FIGHTER
CHAPTER I
CALEB CONOVER WINS
The red-haired man was fighting.
He had always been fighting. The square jaw, the bull neck proclaimed
him of the battling breed; even before one had scope to note the alert,
light eyes, the tight mouth, the short, broad hands with their stubby
strength of finger.
In prize ring, in mediaeval battlefield, in ’longshore tavern, Caleb
Conover would have slugged his way to supremacy. In business he won as
readily--and by like methods. His was not only the force but also the
supreme craft of the fighter. Therefore he was president, instead of
bouncer, in the offices of the C. G. & X. Railroad.
It was not railroad business that engrossed Conover as he sat at his
desk one day in early spring: tearing open a ceaseless series of
telegrams, scribbling replies, ringing now and then for a messenger to
whom he gave a curt order.
Telegrams and messages ceased. In the lull, Conover jumped to his feet
and began to walk back and forth. His big hands were clenched, his
head thrust forward, his whole muscle-bound body tense.
Then began a violent ringing from the long-distance telephone in the
far corner of the room. Conover picked up the receiver, grunted a
question, then listened. For nearly five minutes he stood thus, the
receiver at his ear, his broad, freckled face impassive save for a
growing fire in the pale, alert eyes. A grunt of dismissal and the
receiver was hung on its hook.
Conover crossed the room, threw himself into a big creaking chair,
cocked his feet on the window sill, drew out and lighted a fat cigar.
The tenseness was gone. His whole heavy body was relaxed. He smoked
mechanically and let his gaze rove with dull inertness over the blank
wall across the street. He was resting as hard as he had fought.
A clerk timidly opened the door leading from the outer offices.
“Mr. Caine, sir,” ventured the employee, “He says he--”
“Send him in,” vouchsafed Conover without turning his head.
His eyes were still fixed in unseeing comfort on the wall, when his
guest entered. Nor did he shift his glance without visible reluctance.
The newcomer seemingly was used to his host’s lack of cordiality. For,
favoring Conover with a slight nod, he deposited his hat, gloves and
stick on the table and lighted a cigarette, before speaking.
Conover surveyed the well-groomed figure of his visitor with an air of
disparaging appraisal that reached its climax as he noted the cigarette.
“Here!” he suggested, “Throw away that paper link between fire and a
fool, and smoke real tobacco. Try one of these cigars if you want to.
They’ll fit your mouth a lot better. Why does a grown man smoke a--?”
“This grown man,” replied Caine, unruffled, “has a way of doing what he
chooses. I came to see if you were ready to go to your execution.”
“Execution, eh?” grinned Conover. “Well, it’s just on the books that
there _may_ be a little executin’ done, up there. But _I_ won’t be the
gent with his head on the block. Besides, you’re an hour early.”
“I know I am. It’s an ideal day for work. So I haven’t done any. I
left the office ahead of time and came to see if I could lure you into
a walk before we go to the Club. You don’t seem much worried over the
outcome.”
“Why should I be? I’ll win. I always win.”
“Conover,” said Caine, observing his friend with the condescendingly
interested air of a visitor at the Zoo, “If I had your sublime conceit
I’d be President of the United States or the richest man in America, or
some other such odious personage whose shoes we all secretly fear we
may some day fill.”
“President? Richest man?” repeated Conover, mildly attracted by the
dual idea. “Give me time and I’ll likely be both. I’ve made a little
start on the second already, to-day.”
“Won another fight?” queried Caine.
“Yes, a big one. The biggest yet, by far.”
“Nothing to do with Steeloid, I suppose!” suggested the visitor, a note
of real concern peering through his customary air of amused calm.
“_All_ about Steeloid,” returned Conover. “The Independent Steeloid
Company is incorp’rated at last. Cap’talized at--”
“The Independent! That means a slump in our U. S. Steeloid! You call
that winning a fight? I thought--”
“You’d be better off, Caine, if you’d leave the thinkin’ part of these
things to me. Thinkin’ is my game. Not yours. You talk about ‘our’ U.
S. Steeloid. You seem to forget I swing seventy-two per cent. of the
stock and you own just what I let you in on.”
“Never mind all that,” interposed Caine. “If the Independents are
banded together, they’ll make things warm for us.”
“Not enough to cause any hurry call for electric fans, I guess,”
chuckled Conover. “If you’ll stop ‘thinkin’’ a minute or two an’ listen
to me, I’ll try to explain. An’ maybe I can hammer into your head a few
of the million things you don’t know about finance. Here’s the idea. I
built up the Steeloid Trust, didn’t I? And Blacarda and his crowd who
had been running a bunch of measly third-rate Steeloid companies, set
up a squeal because I could undersell ’em.”
“Go on,” urged Caine. “I know all that. You needn’t take a running
start with your lesson in high finance. We’ll take it for granted that
I read at least the newspaper I own and that I know Blacarda has been
trying to organize the independent companies against you. What next?”
“Well, they’re organized. Only Blacarda didn’t do it. A high-souled
philanthropic geezer that worked through agents, jumped in an’ combined
all the independent companies against us an’ got ’em to give him
full voting power on all their stock. Put themselves into his hands
entirely, you see, for the fight against my Steeloid Trust. Then this
noble hearted trust buster incorporated the Independents. The deal went
through to-day. I got final word on it just now. The Independents are
organized. The votes on every share of their stock is in the control of
one man.”
“But he’ll--”
“An’ that ‘one man,’” resumed the Fighter, “happens to be Caleb
Conover.”
“But,” gasped the dumbfounded Caine, “I don’t understand.”
“Caine,” protested Conover, gently, “if all the things you don’t
understand about finance was to be placed end to end--like they say
in the Sunday ‘features’ of your paper,--they’d reach from here to
Blacarda’s chances of swingin’ the Independent Steeloid Company.
An’ that’s a long sight farther than twice around the world. What
I’m gettin’ at is this: I went to work on the quiet an’ formed that
Independent Combine. Then I gave it to myself as a present. It is now
part of my U. S. Steeloid Company. Or will be as soon as I can strangle
the Legislature kick that Blacarda’s sure to put up.”
“I see now,” said Caine, slipping back into his armor of habitual calm,
“and I take off my hat to you. Conover, you missed your calling when
you failed to go into the safe breaking profession.”
“There’s more money in business,” replied Conover simply. “But now
maybe you won’t lay awake nights worryin’ over your Steeloid stock. If
it was worth 170 2-5 this morning it’ll be quoted at 250 before the
month is out.”
“I don’t wonder you aren’t afraid of this afternoon’s ordeal,” observed
Caine, “But Blacarda is on the Board of Governors.”
“So are you, for that matter,” said Conover, “and I guess the vote of
the man who’s made rich by Steeloid will pair off with the vote of the
man who’s broke by it.”
“I hope,” corrected Caine, “you don’t think it’s because of my Steeloid
holdings that I’m backing you in this. I do it because it amuses me to
see the gyrations of the under dog. A sporting instinct, I suppose.”
“If you’re pickin’ _me_ for the under dog,”--began Conover, but broke
off to stare in disgust at the other’s upraised hand.
Caine was lifting his cigarette to his lips. Conover watched the lazily
graceful gesture with more than his wonted contempt.
“Say, Caine,” he interrupted, “why in thunder do you make your nails
look like a pink skatin’ rink?”
“If you mean, why do I have them manicured,” answered Caine, coolly,
“it is absolutely none of your business.”
“Now I s’pose that’s what you’d call a snub,” ruminated Conover, “But
it don’t answer the question. Pink nails all shined up like that may
look first rate on a girl. But for a man thirty years old--with a
mustache--Say, _why_ do you do it?”
“Why do you wear a necktie?” countered Caine, “I admit it is a
surpassingly ugly one. But why wear one at all? It doesn’t keep you
warm. It has no use.”
“Clo’es don’t make a man,” stammered Conover, rather discomfited at
the riposte, “But there’s no use creatin’ a disturbance by goin’ round
without ’em. As for my necktie, it shows I ain’t a day laborer for one
thing.”
“Well-groomed hands are just as certain a sign manual of another sort,”
finished Caine.
“I don’t quite get your meanin’. If--”
“As a failure you would have been a success, Conover,” interrupted
Caine, “But as a success you are in some ways a lamentable failure. To
paraphrase your own inspired words, if all the things you don’t know
about social usage were placed end to end--”
“They’d cover a mighty long list of measly useless information. What do
_I_ care for such rot?”
“That’s what you’re called on to explain this afternoon before the
Governors of the Arareek Country Club,” finished Caine rising. “Are you
ready?”
“No, I’m going to stop at Desirée’s for a few minutes, first. I want
to tell her about my winnin’ out against the Blacarda crowd. She knows
Blacarda.”
“Does she know finance?”
“As well as she knows Blacarda, I guess. An’ neither of ’em enough to
be ’specially int’rested. But she likes to hear about things I’ve done.
I’ll just drop ’round there on my way. Join you later at the Club.”
“I’ll walk as far as her door with you, if you like,” suggested Caine,
gathering up his hat and stick. “Then I’ll go on and see what I can
do with the Governors before the meeting. But I don’t look forward to
coercing many of them into sanity. They bear a pitifully strong family
resemblance to the late lamented Bourbons. They ‘learn nothing, forget
nothing’ and--”
“And they go your Bourbon gang one better,” supplemented Conover, “by
never havin’ known anything to start with. Maybe I can give ’em an idea
or two, though, before we’re done. I used to boss Dago section hands,
you know.”
“You’ll find this job rather more difficult, I fancy. A garlick-haloed
section hand is a lamb compared to some of our hardshell club
governors. Why do you want to stay in the Club, anyhow? It seems to
me--”
“In the first place because I won’t quit. Prov’dence loves a bulldog,
but He hates a quitter. In the second place I want to feel I’ve as much
right in that crowd as I have in Kerrigan’s saloon. I’ve made my way.
This Steeloid shuffle ought to put me somewhere in the million class.
An’ there’s more to come. Lots of it. I’m a railroad pres’dent, too.
The C. G. & X. is a punk little one-horse railroad; but some day I’ll
make it cover this whole State. The road was on it last legs when I got
hold of it, and I’m making it what I choose to. Now, as a man with all
that cash,--and a railroad president, to boot,--why ain’t I entitled to
line up with the other big bugs of Granite? Tell me that. They don’t
want me, maybe? Well, I’ll make ’em want me, before I’m done. Till
then, they’ll take me whether they want me or not. Ain’t that sound
logic?”
“As sound as a dynamite cartridge,” laughed Caine, “You’re a paradox!
No, ‘paradox’ isn’t a fighting word, so don’t scowl. You have the
Midas-gift of making everything you touch turn to solid cash, and
making two dollars grow where one mortgage blank formerly bloomed. You
have the secret of power. And, with it all, you stoop to crawl under
the canvas into the Social Circus. Feet of clay!”
Caleb glanced furtively at his broad, shining boots, then, disdaining
the allusion as past his discernment, answered:
“It’s my own game and I play it as I plan to. In one year from now
you’ll see folks askin’ me to the same houses where _you’ve_ been
invited ever since your great grandfather held down the job of ‘First
Land-owner’ here, in the Revolution. See if I don’t.”
“Did you ever chance to read Longfellow’s poem about the Rabbi--Ben
Levi--who ‘took the Kingdom of Heaven by violence?’” queried Caine.
“I don’t read rhymes. Life’s too short. What happened to him?”
“He didn’t have a particularly pleasant time of it, as I remember.
In fact, I believe the angels joined in a symphonic clamor for his
expulsion. Not unlike the very worthy governors of the Arareek Country
Club.”
“H’m!” sniffed Conover in high contempt. “If the Rabbi person had took
the trouble of postin’ himself on those angels’ pasts, he might a’ got
front-row seat in the choir instead of bein’ throwed out.”
“So _that’s_ the line you’re going to take with the governors? I’m glad
I decided to be there. It ought to prove amusing. But you don’t seem to
realize that even if you win, you won’t be exactly beloved by them, in
future.”
“I’m not expectin’ a loving cup with a round-robin of their names on
it. Not just at first, anyhow. So don’t waste any worry on me. The
Club’s only the first step, anyhow. The real fun’s liable to come when
I take another.”
“_Festina lente!_” counseled Caine, “People have a way of forgetting a
man is _nouveau riche_ as long as he remembers it. But they remember
it as soon as he forgets it. Is it discreet to ask what Miss Shevlin
thinks of all this? Is she in sympathy with your social antics--I mean
‘ambitions?’”
“I don’t know. I never asked her. I never thought to. But if I did,
she’d stand for it. You see, not bein’ as old and as wise as some of
the Granite folks, she’s fallen into the habit of thinkin’ I’m just
about all right. It’s kind of nice to have someone feel that way about
you.”
“You seem to return the compliment. I don’t blame you. It isn’t every
man who finds himself guardian to an exquisite bit of animated Sevres
china. I’m lying back to watch for the time when some scared youth
comes to ask your leave to marry her.”
“What’s that?” snarled Conover, stopping and glowering up at the tall,
clean-cut figure at his side.
“Don’t get excited,” laughed Caine. “You can’t expect as lovely and
lovable a girl as Desirée Shevlin to live and die an old maid. If
you’re so opposed to this imaginary suitor I’ve conjured up, why not
marry her yourself?”
“Marry? That kid? _Me?_” sputtered Conover, “Why I’m past thirty
an’--an’ she ain’t twenty yet. Besides I’m a daddy to her. If I hear
of you or anyone else queerin’ that kid’s fondness for me by any such
fool talk, I’ll--”
“Her father was wise in appointing you her guardian,” mocked Caine. “In
the absence of man-eating blood-hounds or a regiment of cavalry, you’re
an ideal Dragon. I remember old Shevlin. A first rate contractor and
ward politician; but the last sort of man to have such a daughter. As
for Billy, now--he’s the model of his father. A tougher little chap and
a greater contrast to his sister could hardly be imagined.”
“She takes after her mother,” explained Conover, puffing mightily at a
recalcitrant cigar; “Mother was French. Came of good people, I hear.
Named her girl Desirée. French name. Kind of pretty name, too. Died
when Billy was born. I s’pose that’s why the boy was named for his
dad, instead of being called Pe-air or Juseppy or some other furren
trademark. That’s why he’s tough too. Desirée was brought up. Billy’s
bringing himself up. Same as I did. It’s the best trainin’ a boy can
have. So I let him go his own gait, an’ I pay for the windows he
smashes.”
“How did Old Man Shevlin happen to leave you guardian of the two
children? Hadn’t he any relatives?”
“None but the aunt the kids live with. I s’pose he liked me an’ thought
I’d give the girl a fair show. An’ I have. Convent school, music an’
furren lingoes an’ all that rot. An’ she’s worth it.”
“How about Billy?”
“That’s no concern of mine. He gets his clothes an’ grub an’ goes to
public school. It’s all any boy’s got a right to ask.”
“Contractors are like plumbers in being rich past all dreams of
avarice, aren’t they? One always gets that idea. The Shevlins will
probably be as rich as cream--”
“They’ll have what they need,” vouchsafed Conover.
“Then you’re doing all this on the money that Shevlin left?”
“Sure! You don’t s’pose I’d waste my own cash on ’em?”
“What a clumsy liar you are!” observed Caine admiringly. “There! There!
In this case ‘liar’ is no more a fighting word than ‘paradox.’ Don’t
get red.”
“What are you drivin’ at?” demanded Conover.
“Only this: The wills and some other documents filed at the Hall of
Records, are copied by our men and kept on file in our office. I
happened to be going over one of the books the other day and I ran
across a copy of old Shevlin’s will. There was a Certificate of Effects
with it. He left just $1,100, or, to be accurate, $1,098.73.”
“Well?” challenged Conover.
“Well,” echoed Caine, “The rent of the house where Miss Shevlin lives,
her two servants, and her food must come to several times that sum each
year. To say nothing of the expenses and the support of the aunt, who
lives with her. None of those are on the free list. You’re an awfully
white chap, Conover. You went up about fifty points in my admiration
when I read that will. Now don’t look as if I’d caught you stealing
sheep. It’s no affair of mine. And as she doesn’t seem to know, I’m
not going to be the cheerful idiot to point out to her the resemblance
between her father’s $1,100 and the Widow’s Cruse. It’s pleasure enough
to me, as a student of my fellow animals, to know that a pirate like
you can really once in your life give something for nothing. There’s
the house. Don’t forget you’re due at the Club in fifty minutes.”
Conover, red, confused, angry, mumbled a word of goodbye and ran up the
steps of a pretty cottage that stood in its own grounds just off the
street they were traversing.
Caine watched the Fighter’s bulky form vanish within the doorway. Then
he lighted a fresh cigarette and strolled on.
“I wonder,” he ruminated, “what his growing list of financial victims
would say if they knew that Brute Conover worships as ideally and
reverently as a Galahad at the shrine of a little flower-faced
nineteen-year old girl? But,” he added, in dismissing the quaint theme,
“no one of them all would be half so surprised to know it as Conover
himself!”