THE UNDERSTUDY
With the certainty of ancient practice he applied rouge and pencil
deftly to his face, rubbing in a deeper tinge on the cheeks, shadowing
the temples, accentuating by ever so little the corners of eyes and
mouth. Lastly he drew a slanting scar on the right cheek, emphasising
it a trifle, as the keynote of the counterfeit.
He looked at himself, swiftly, critically. There was but the one
double gate and the single watchman to pass--and the sunlight was not
bright under the archway! And luckily the fur cap, with its ear-flaps,
effectually hid the cropped scalp. He wasted no time in changing
clothes, but turned up the striped trousers and the sleeves of the
jacket and donned the smart habilaments over his prison rig, the extra
lining compensating for his slighter form. In five minutes he was
completely dressed, even to spats and flaunting tie. All the while he
was thinking rapidly and coolly, weighing contingencies, estimating
chances, taking into lightning account each detail which might mean the
slenderest advantage in the desperate game. Lastly he thrust his
prison cap under his coat and put the make-up box and the tin
dinner-pail into the empty valise.
Overcoated and with the valise in his hand, he strode to the door--to
come back to his desk with a quick afterthought, to pick up the
record-card that bore his own number, and slip it into an inner pocket.
Then he opened the door and went quickly down the stair.
Fate was kind. The Warden was not in his office. As a matter of fact,
at that very moment, with outward gravity yet with inner amusement, he
was witnessing John Stark's nonchalant experiment and finding the bit
of clever impersonation, under the very eyes of his unsuspecting
assistants, vastly diverting.
Harry went out to the gate.
The watchman looked up, surprised. "Hello!" he said. "The half-hour
isn't up already, is it? Or did you weaken?"
Harry laughed. "Not I!" he answered, airily. "I've had no end of a
lark. I'd have stayed longer only I've got a rehearsal on. I could
have pulled the wool over their eyes for a week!" As he spoke he drew
out a silver cigarette-and-match box which his hand had encountered in
the overcoat pocket, and lighted a cigarette behind his cupped hands.
In that crucial instant he dared not look at the face so near him and
his heart seemed to flutter and then stop beating--till there came the
ponderous grind of the great lock as the inner gate swung open.
The watchman was chuckling as he unlocked the outer barrier. "Well,
that's one on the Deputy Warden!" he said appreciatively. "You're a
clever one to have pulled it off!"
Harry stepped jauntily through. "Come and see me do it on the stage,"
he said, nodding a brisk good-bye. "It's up to the Warden to stand
tickets all round, I should think!"
The gate clanged shut behind him.
The sound sent to his soul the first agonised stab of futility. He had
won through those pitiless encircling walls, yet what chance had he of
ultimate escape, after all, there on the highway, in that recognisable
costume, with scant grace at best from pursuit? Then, even as the cold
wave of hopelessness swept over him, he saw something which sent his
blood running like quicksilver; it was the actor's empty motor standing
at the side of the road.
In another minute he was in its seat, his grip on the wheel, his hand
touching the lever of the self-starter. It was not of a make which he
knew, but he had always been an ardent motorist, had known every cog
and bearing of his own car's intricate mechanism, and before the
machine was well under way he had mastered its essentials.
As the snow-dusted road spun out behind him, he drew deep, gasping
breaths of the cold air and felt the dimming sunshine on his face like
the touch of some magical elixir, yet he was free from agitation, his
mind was working clearly and coolly. The alarm would come soon. When
the genial young tragedian returned to the office building, he would be
likely to assume that his suggestion had been acted upon, and his
clothing bestowed in another room. Subsequent inquiry might be worth a
few minutes. The absence of Harry's cap and the tin pail would suggest
that he had gone to his cell to eat his supper, a privilege that was
his when he cared to avail himself of it--this would be good for a few
minutes more. A general search of the buildings would be next in
order. How soon the inquiry would embrace the watchman at the outer
gate could not be guessed. Altogether he might count, perhaps, on a
half-hour. He could cover few miles in that time, and telephone and
the clicking wire would soon be busy. It would be the automobile that
would be first traced, and the sentries on the wall would report the
direction he had taken. He must rid himself of the car, and somehow
double on his trail!
Far to the right, across wastes of snowy fields and numb, glittering
trees, a line of telegraph poles thrust up darkly against the skyline.
A quick plan flashed to his mind. The road was topping a gentle rise
now, where the wind had swept the hard ground clear of the light snow.
He stopped, and cast a glance before and behind him; no vehicle was in
sight. He sprang out and pulled out the rails of the fence that lined
the road, then ran the motor into the field and into a hollow of dead,
rustling stalks, where stood a group of hayricks which would
effectually hide it from the highway. He left the fur-overcoat and the
valise in the car, replaced the fence-rails and ran across the field to
the railroad track. A quarter of a mile further along stood a small
country station and he turned his steps thither, making shift as he
went to wipe the grease-paint from his face with John Stark's perfumed
handkerchief.
The ticket-seller, who combined with his duties those of freight and
express agent and general factotum, was sweeping out his tiny box of an
office. "What is the next train west?" inquired Harry.
"None till nine to-night," was the reply. "There's one due in twenty
minutes, but she only stops for through passengers."
Before entering Harry had gone through John Stark's pockets; now he
pushed a bill under the little wicket. "I happen to be going through,"
he said easily.
The other made out the ticket with deliberation, laboriously counted
the change and leisurely went out to the platform to affix the red
flag. The minutes that passed thereafter the lone passenger was all
his life to remember as a ghastly interval measured by dragging epochs
that drew themselves snail-like across some incalculable duration of
time. When the express came to its grinding stop cold drops of
perspiration were on Harry's face. He swung himself aboard and went
forward to the day-coach.
Five minutes later the train stopped at a water-tank, to refresh the
thirsty engine. A half mile away, outlined sombrely against the dusky
evening blue, rose a huddle of dingy yellow walls. The occupant of the
seat in front of him leaned to look through the window.
"What are those buildings?" he asked interestedly of the conductor, who
was passing down the aisle.
"That's the State Penitentiary," was the answer.
As he spoke through the silence there came a deep, dull _boom_,
repeated again and again--the sound of a monster bell, tolling.
"What's that?" the other asked. Windows went up along the car. Harry
lifted his also, with outward coolness but with a curious spasm of the
heart. The conductor stooped to peer beside him.
"It's the alarm," he said. "A prisoner must have escaped."
Amid excited exclamations the train started again, and the conductor
withdrew his head. "They'll soon get him," he predicted, as he punched
Harry's ticket. "The poor devil won't get far in those striped clothes
they make them wear!"
"No," said Harry. "I fancy he won't."
Night had fallen, the dark relieved by the dim lustre of a thin new
moon, when Sevier rose and sauntered back to the platform. The train
was passing through a defile and laboriously puffing up a grade. He
looked back into the lighted car; no one was observing him. He
buttoned his coat close about him and poising on the lowest step to
choose his ground, sprang off into a snowbank.
He had made his leap with all the care possible, but the speed of the
train was such that only the snow and his padded clothing saved him
from serious injury. As it was it was some minutes before he could
regain his breath, and then it came with a keen stab that seemed a
sword piercing his shoulder--a sharp complaint from the recent wound.
He rose painfully, but at the first step collapsed with a groan,
realising that he had twisted his ankle badly. With lips compressed
from the wretched pang, he rose again and set the injured member to the
ground, forcing it to bear his weight. For a while each step was
agony, then this dulled somewhat and he went steadily on, limping along
the uneven ties.
When he came to the crest of the rise he stopped and looked about him.
He knew, roughly, where he was. Across the dark valley unrolling at
his feet under a sky that shook with stars, he could dimly make out
another darker ridge. Beyond lay a deeper valley and beyond that the
foot-hills of the Blue Ridge, and there, forty miles away as the crow
flies--how far by the irregular route he must take he could not
estimate--lay his mountain lodge, the lonely little demesne of forest
and stream, whither he had been wont to go for summer weeks of hunting
and fishing, with its rough but spacious bungalow presided over by his
care-taker, old "Jubilee Jim," whose father had been a slave of his
father before the Civil War.
Forty miles as the crow flies! Across a difficult and sparsely-settled
country, with now only the faint moonlight and a natural instinct of
direction to guide him, in patent-leather shoes and with a sprained
ankle!
He set his teeth and plunged down the declivity through the tumbled
rocks and snow-drifts.