“A ROD FOR THE FOOL’S BACK”
COMPARING it with the fortnight of yesterdays, Brant reckoned the day
of his meeting with Dorothy as one worthy of anniversaries. In good
truth, his confession had stopped something short of its climax, and
of the coveted personal absolution; but it was comforting to remember
that he had spoken plainly, and that she had bidden him go forward
hopefully. Notwithstanding the untimely interruption, there could be
no reasonable doubt of the major fact: that she fully understood his
parable and its application--understood and was glad, and would have
let him go on but for the interruption.
So much for the good; and as for the ill, the rebuff at the church gate
went for little. Being so well assured of the daughter’s--he was about
to say “love,” but he changed it to “sympathy”--being so well assured
of the daughter’s sympathy, he could afford to wait for reinstatement
in the good graces of the mother. Women, even such women as the Mrs.
Langfords, are not implacable, he reasoned; and when he should have
shown how sincere he was, her resentment--her natural resentment,
he was willing to call it--would be allayed, and she would see the
injustice of her sentence of ostracism. Wherein he showed forth an
unknowledge of womankind common to very young men, and to some older
ones whose walk in life has led them much apart from women worth the
knowing.
In the exuberance of his self-congratulation Brant lost sight of the
one redeeming thread in the thought-woven fabric of the day, which
thread was a brotherly concern for Antrim, and a half-formed resolve
to turn bearwarden to the foolish one. By evening the half-formed
resolve took permanent shape; and since a physician must first know
something of the disease and the cause of it, he began by trying to
breach Antrim’s reticence at the supper table. For reasons good and
sufficient, the effort was bootless; and Brant, driven from ear to eye
evidence, and having, moreover, considerable skill in diagnosing the
symptoms of bottle sickness, saw with concern that Antrim was tottering
on the verge of the abyss.
From that to keeping a solicitous eye on him was but a step; and when
Antrim went upstairs, Brant, whose room was just across the corridor
from the chief clerk’s, went too, mounting guard with a light, a book,
and with his door ajar. For a long time there was no stir in the
opposite room; but just as he was beginning to hope that Antrim had
gone to bed, the door opened and the chief clerk hurried out.
Brant’s first impulse was to follow and bring him back without
ceremony. Then he reflected that it is an ill thing to meddle, even
with the best of motives, and so cast about for a plausible excuse.
Luckily, he found one ready to his hand. The papers containing the
evidence against Harding were in the drawer of his writing table, and
in view of the late stirrings in that pool it would be well to put them
under lock and key. There was a safe in Antrim’s office, and the errand
would give him a chance to probe Antrim’s wound, and so haply he might
find the bullet or the arrowhead, or whatever it might be that was
rankling therein.
So he put the papers in his pocket and went out; and taking it for
granted that Antrim would make straight for the nearest barroom, lost
a half hour or more in a fruitless search among the drinking places.
When he had widened the search circle to the farthest limits of the
_quasi_-respectable district, outside of which Antrim would not be
likely to venture, he stumbled upon Jarvis and stopped to inquire of
him.
“Say, Jarvis, have you seen anything of Harry Antrim this evening?”
The reporter nodded. “Um-hm; saw him heading for his office half an
hour ago, plugging along with his head down and his hands in his
pockets. What’s struck him lately?”
“I don’t know,” replied the bearwarden truthfully enough; “much
obliged.” But when he would have gone on, Jarvis turned and went with
him.
“Going to hunt him up? I’ll mog along with you. The old man says the
president of the C. E. & W. is coming in on a special, and I’d like to
get the facts for an item.”
“Can’t you telephone?” asked Brant, remembering the nature of his
errand.
“I suppose I could, but I don’t mind the walk. Say, it’s queer about
Harry, isn’t it? Never saw a man let go all holds at once like he has.”
“He will get over it; it’s nothing worse than a fit of the blues,” said
Brant, taxing his ingenuity meanwhile for an expedient which would rid
him of the reporter.
“Blues nothing! Fit of the ‘jimmies,’ if he doesn’t pull up pretty
short. He isn’t built right to carry bug juice in bulk, and that is
just about what he is trying to do.”
“What was it you said to me about preaching last night?” asked Brant,
as they climbed the stair to the railway offices.
“Never mind about that; you were preaching at me, and I didn’t need it.
Now, with a fellow like Harry it’s different----”
They were at the door of the train despatcher’s room, and Brant paused.
“Better ask Disbrow about the special,” he said, with a glance at the
darkened transom of the superintendent’s office. “Harry doesn’t seem to
be here.”
The reporter acted upon the suggestion; and when he was alone in the
corridor Brant went quickly to the door of the darkened office. It was
ajar, and when he pushed it open the light from the hall fell full upon
the figure of the chief clerk lying inert and helpless across the open
desk.
Brant took in the situation at a glance, closed the door softly, and
walked back toward the despatcher’s room. Jarvis was a good fellow, but
he already knew too much about Antrim’s affair, and he must be got rid
of at all hazards. He met the reporter as the latter was coming out of
Disbrow’s door.
“Get what you wanted?” he inquired.
“No. You railroad fellows are all of a piece when it comes to giving
up anything that the public would care to read about. Disbrow says he
doesn’t know anything about a special train--didn’t know the president
was coming. Between you and me and the gatepost, I think he doesn’t
know much of anything.”
“Then you’ll have to forego the item.”
“Forego nothing! I’ll hang around this old shack till morning, now, but
what I’ll find out about that train.”
Brant laughed. “I like your persistence, even if it is a little out of
proportion to the object. Come into my office here and sit down and
smoke a cigar while I try my hand at it. I owe you a good turn, anyway.”
Brant unlocked the door of the chief engineer’s rooms, and, telling the
reporter to make himself comfortable while he waited, left him. But
since it was no time for half measures he took the precaution to set
the catch of the nightlatch as he closed the door, locking Jarvis in.
Hurrying back to the superintendent’s office, he turned on the light
and tried to rouse Antrim, shaking him roughly and sparing neither
blows nor abuse. Nothing coming of this, he was beginning to despair of
any measure of success which should antedate the end of the reporter’s
patience, when his eye lighted upon the unfinished letter to the train
despatcher. Written as it had been, in the dark, it was a barely
legible scrawl, but he made shift to decipher it, pieced it out with
Jarvis’s information and Disbrow’s ignorance, and knowing much more
about building railways than about operating them, jumped at once to
the conclusion that the special train was rushing onward to certain
destruction. Wherefore he forgot the imprisoned reporter, overlooked
the very obvious expedient of notifying the despatcher by word of
mouth, and fell upon Antrim with renewed buffetings to which the
assumed exigencies lent stinging vigour.
No sudorific could hold out long against such an heroic antidote, and
with the first signs of returning consciousness Brant dragged his
patient to the wash basin in the corner of the room and held his head
under the cold faucet. Antrim came up gasping and struggled feebly with
his tormentor, but Brant thrust him down again and held him until he
found speech and sanity wherewith to protest.
“For Heaven’s sake, let up--you’ll drown me!” gasped the victim, and
Brant desisted.
“Got your grip again so it will stay?” he inquired grimly.
Antrim staggered back against the wall and groped for the towel which
Brant handed him.
“I should hope so. What’s the matter? What have you been doing to me?”
“Matter enough. Drop that towel and come over here.” Brant was dragging
him back to the desk. “Read that letter, quick, and tell me what to do,
before somebody gets killed!” he commanded.
Antrim sank into the chair. “Great Scott! I feel as if I had been
brayed in a mortar!” he groaned. Then he took up the letter and read it.
“Well?” said Brant impatiently. “Pull your wits together and tell me
what I am to do--or is it too late to do anything?”
The chief clerk blinked at the clock and was evidently unable to see
its dial. “Will you tell me what time it is?” he said. “I can’t seem to
see very well.”
“It is ten minutes past nine.”
“‘Between nine and ten,’ he said,” muttered Antrim, quoting the
misplaced message. Then to Brant: “Maybe there is time enough. Can you
run a typewriter, Brant?”
“Yes--after a fashion.”
“Then let me give you a letter. I couldn’t write it with a pen to save
my life.”
Brant jerked the cover from the machine and thrust in a sheet of paper.
“Go ahead.”
Antrim handed him the unfinished letter.
“Just copy that, if you will, and I’ll tell you what to add.”
“But, man alive! have we got to sit here and fool with red tape when
every minute may be worth a dozen lives?”
“It isn’t so bad as all that,” said Antrim soberly enough. “The train
can’t get past Lone Pine without orders for this division. But I’m a
ruined man if Disbrow doesn’t get that letter before Lone Pine calls
him up. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then I’ll explain. The general manager is on that train, and he wired
me this morning for regardless orders over this division. I answered
that they would be given--and they haven’t been. If there is a balk
at Lone Pine, every operator on the line will know that some one has
fallen down, and you can trust the general manager to find out who that
some one is. And when he finds out, I’m done.”
“I see,” said Brant, and forthwith he turned and fell upon the
typewriter. When he had written to the break in the unfinished letter,
Antrim dictated:
“Will reach Lone Pine Junction between nine and ten this P. M., and you
will arrange to give it right of way to Denver over all other trains.”
Brant finished with a flourish and jerked the sheet out of the rolls.
“Can you make out to sign it?” he asked.
“I guess so,” responded the chief clerk, and he dipped his pen and made
the supposition good, though with no little difficulty. “Now, if you
will copy it in that book and tell me how I’m to get it to Disbrow at
this late hour without giving myself away, we’ll see what comes of it.”
Brant took an impression of the letter, laying his plans meanwhile.
“Can’t trust Disbrow, I suppose?” he asked.
“Yes; but he will hold it over me.”
“Then we won’t give him a chance. Let me have an envelope.”
When the letter was inclosed and addressed, Brant told the chief clerk
to sit still and wait for him. He was back in a few minutes, and
Antrim had not to ask if his errand had been successful.
“How did you manage it?” he queried.
“Never you mind about that. I got two letters to-day in the train mail
that didn’t belong in our office.”
“Oh. What did Disbrow say?”
“Nothing much. Swore a little on general principles, and said it was
lucky I found it before the old man had time to raise Cain. It took me
longer because I had to go and bake it over a gas jet; it was wet, you
know.”
Antrim swallowed a lump in his throat and pulled himself together to
meet the demands of the occasion.
“Brant, you have played the Good Samaritan to-night, if you never did
before. You have pulled me out of the deepest hole I ever got into.”
“No, I haven’t; but I am going to. Now tell me how the thing happened.”
Antrim told the story of the day’s miseries, concluding with the
curious experience in the darkness.
“It’s all plain enough but the miracle, and that is beyond me,” he
confessed. “Did I know what I was about? or was I beginning to ‘see
things’?”
“A little of both, I guess,” said Brant, and as he spoke the key of the
incandescent lamp snapped and left them in the darkness. Brant laughed
and got up to turn it on again.
“That is doubtless the snap you heard, and it accounts for the
blindness. As for the rest, your brain was simply making another hunt
for the missing clew. Does that satisfy you?”
“It will have to, I guess.”
“Well, then, it is my turn. I want to know why you have been making a
bally idiot of yourself for the last week or so.”
Antrim hung his head. “Because I haven’t any better sense, I suppose.”
“That doesn’t go. Give me the facts.”
“There is only one to give: Isabel won’t marry me.”
“Oh, she won’t? And so you are going to make a howling wilderness of
yourself because a young woman doesn’t happen to know her own mind. Is
that it?”
“But she does know her own mind,” Antrim protested.
“Oh, nonsense! You are no boy, and you ought to know better. If you
love her--and I take that for granted--all you have to do is just to
hang on and wait; and that is what you are going to do, if I can make
you.”
Antrim smiled wearily. “The way I feel at this present moment, anybody
could make me do anything. I am as weak as a cat, and as sore as if I
had been through a prize fight.--What on earth is that?”
“That” was a furious pounding on a near-by door, and Brant sprang up,
oversetting his chair in his haste.
“It’s Jarvis--that’s what it is!” he exclaimed. “Blest if I didn’t
forget all about him! Sit in the dark a minute, will you?” and he
turned off the light and went to liberate the captive.
“Nice fellow, you are!” began Jarvis wrathfully when the door was
opened. “Lock a man up while you go off and go to sleep----”
Brant broke in with an apology which ran smoothly and without a
break until he had walked the reporter down the stair and out into
the street. Then he gave Jarvis the required information about the
president’s special, and hastened back to Antrim to explain the
interruption.
“You see, I had to do something with him,” he concluded. “He is a good
fellow, but he talks too much, and the less said about this business
of yours the better.”
“I should say so,” agreed Antrim ruefully, adding, “but it’s no use;
the whole town must know about it by this time. I haven’t been at it
very long, but I haven’t been hiding my light under a bushel.”
“Oh, I don’t know about the publicity. A man doesn’t fill the public
eye quite as much as he is apt to think. Besides, you have made your
last appearance in the idiotic rôle. Beginning right now, you are going
to break it short off and be yourself again. When did you eat last?”
“Supper, last night.”
“Humph! I thought as much. No wonder you had wheels in your head! Let
me help you into your overcoat, and we’ll go up to Elitch’s.”
“I don’t believe I could eat anything, if it was to save my life,”
objected Antrim, rising laboriously.
“Yes, you can--you have got to; and then you are going to let me take
you home and put you to bed; and if we hear of any more foolishness,
you will come in for a manhauling that you won’t get over for a week.”
Antrim reached backward for the sleeves of the overcoat and groaned
piteously.
“Great Moses! I feel as if I’d had that already. What the mischief do
you suppose makes me so stiff and sore?”
Brant’s laugh lacked sympathy. “It is one of the after-effects, I
fancy; look out you don’t bring it on again.” And he tucked Antrim’s
arm under his own and led him uptown, carrying out his programme to the
letter, and playing his new rôle of bearwarden until he had seen his
charge safe in bed.
When he reached his own room he found the packet of papers still in his
pocket and tossed it carelessly across to the table. Then he thought
better of it, and put the envelope back in his pocket.
“It is climbing into the plane of responsibilities, and my conscience
isn’t clean enough yet to handle it,” he mused. “Just now I feel as
if I should like to burn the stuff and give the beggar a chance for
his life; and yet I suppose there are plenty of purists who would say
that I am an accessory in the murder of Henry Brinton for not giving
his murderer up to justice. I wonder what _she_ would say about it? If
I knew, that is what I should do.” He stretched his arms and yawned
sleepily. “Heigho! it’s a queer old round world, from any point of
view; but since the morning and the evening of this blessed day, I’m
rather glad to be in it.”
With which altruistic reflection he went to bed to dream that he was
about to be hanged for the murder of one Henry Brinton.