IV_Blacksheep! Blacksheep!

It was close upon midnight and the presence of a prowler on the premises

caused his heart to gallop wildly. He seized the pistol, crept to the

window and peered cautiously out. Between the crash of the breakers he

listened intently and had decided that the steps had been the illusion

of a dream when a sound in the room below renewed his alarm. He gained

the door in two jumps. He could hear the opening and closing of drawers

and see the flash of an electric lamp as the thief moved swiftly about,

apparently taking it for granted that he had the house to himself. The

swish of the swing-door between dining-room and pantry marked his

investigations in the rear of the house. He evidently found nothing

there, for he was back in the hall again in a moment. Then through the

vast silence of the big house the unknown gave voice to his anger and

disappointment:

"Well, I'll be damned!"

This, reaching Archie very clearly, added nothing to his comfort. He

debated making a dash for the switch and flooding the lower rooms with

light, but a burglar angrily damning himself for his stupidity in

entering a house where plated silver was the only booty in sight was not

a person to provoke unnecessarily. Then a series of quick flashes on the

wall of the stair gave warning of the intruder's invasion of the upper

rooms.

Archie drew back and waited. His thoughts and emotions in this hour of

danger interested him. He had always imagined that he would collapse in

any moment of peril. The fingers of his left hand sought the wrist of

his right that grasped the automatic and while his heart was still

beating quickly the pulse was regular. This was immensely gratifying and

he resolved to report the fact to his medical counselor at the first

opportunity.

The thief had become more cautious and was tiptoeing up the uncarpeted

treads of the stair, still sending occasionally a bar of light ahead.

All the doors of the bedrooms stood open, Archie remembered, and the

thief would not be long in discovering that the recent occupants had

left behind them nothing of the slightest value. His courage was

mounting; he was enormously surprised to find that his hands were quite

steady, and his mind had never functioned more perfectly. The burglar

was now in Mrs. Congdon's room, where he stumbled over a chair that

rocked furiously until stilled by the invader. He was now coming boldly

down the hall as though satisfied that the house was empty. A flash of

his lamp fell upon the door frame just above Archie's left hand.

He crawled hastily across the bed and swung round and waited with his

back against a chiffonier in the corner, sternly resolved that not

without a struggle would he be shot and his body left lying crumpled in

a corner with no one to tell the tale. He had the advantage of the

knowledge of the enemy's approach, and he raised the gun and covered the

door in readiness. A flash clipped the dark for an instant. Then a hand

groped along the wall seeking the switch. Archie could hear its soft

rasping over the wall. As the switch snapped the room flooded with

light. The bewildering glare leaping out of the darkness held the man in

the doorway and he raised his arm and passed his hand over his eyes to

shield them from the light.

Between the front windows stood a long mirror swung in a movable frame,

and as he measured distances and calculated chances Archie found himself

staring at the reflection of a tall man with a cap pulled low over his

head and with the collar of a yellowish raincoat turned up about his

face. The eyes of the two met, the gaze of each gripping and holding

that of the other.

The burglar's shoulders drooped as he gaped at the mirrored apparition.

Then swiftly he jerked a pistol from his pocket and fired point blank

into the mirror. The report crashed horribly in the room, followed by

the tinkle of fragments of glass. Archie aimed at the doorway, but his

shot seemed only to hasten the man's flight. A rug slipped and the

fugitive fell with a frightened yell that rang eerily through the house.

In the hall Archie turned on all the lights and gaining the landing

fired at the retreating figure as it plunged toward the front door. At

the crack of the gun the fugitive stopped short, clapped his hand to his

shoulder and groaned, then sprang through the front door and Bennett

heard immediately the quick patter of his feet on the walk.

The lock bore no evidence of having been forced. It was a curious

business and Archie closed the door, placed a heavy chair against it,

and feeling a little giddy he threw himself down on a davenport in the

living-room. He began thinking very hard. He had shot a man and for all

he knew the victim might be lying dead somewhere on the premises. To be

sure the shooting of an armed housebreaker was justifiable, but the

thought of coroner's inquests and dallyings with the police filled him

with horror. The newspapers would seize upon the case with avidity, and

his friends would never cease twitting him about his valor in firing a

bullet into the back of a fleeing burglar.

The frame of the photograph of the young girl that had so charmed him

lay on the floor face down. Bennett picked it up and found that the

picture had been removed. He wondered a little at this but dismissed the

subject from his mind to consider the graver business of how to avoid

the disagreeable consequences of his encounter. He must leave the house

and escape from Bailey Harbor before daybreak, and he went upstairs and

hurriedly began dressing.

[Illustration: At the crack of the gun the fugitive stopped short]

But for the tangible evidence of the smashed mirror (the bullet had

pierced the wooden back and was imbedded in the wall behind it) he might

have dismissed the whole thing as a nightmare. Instinctively he began

building up an alibi and planning his flight. The druggist who had given

him the key and the taxi driver both supposed that he had inspected the

house and taken the evening train for Boston. As he got into his clothes

he decided to make a wide detour of the town, perhaps tramping on to

Portsmouth, and there recover his bag and be off for the Rockies.

At one o'clock he was drinking coffee and munching toast and jam to

fortify himself for his journey. He had shot and perhaps killed a man,

and his mind surged now with self-accusations. He needn't have fired the

shot--the thief was running away and very likely would not have molested

him further. He was sorry for the fellow, wounded or dead; but in a

moment he was shuddering as he reflected that the bullet that splintered

the mirror had really been meant for him, and it had struck with great

precision just where the reflection of his head had presented a fair

target to the startled marksman.

He turned out the lights and placing the key under the door mat stole

through the garden. The man he had shot might even now be lying dead in

his path, and he lifted his feet high to avoid stumbling over the

corpse. But more appalling was the thought that the fugitive might be

lying in ambush, and he carried his pistol before him at arm's length

against such an emergency.

He gained the road, glanced toward the house and set off in the general

direction of the New Hampshire border.

There was neither star nor moon, and a chill wet wind bore in from the

sea. His immediate business was to get as far away from Bailey Harbor as

possible. He started with a long swinging stride that was quickly

arrested as he splashed through pools left by the rain or stumbled off

the road where it turned sharply. Once he wandered into a driveway and

seeking a way out crashed into a sunken garden. His feet were wet and

his trousers flapped heavily about his legs. The shrubbery pricked him

like barbed wire and a scratch along his cheek bled most disagreeably.

He hurriedly felt his way along a hedge to the highway, hating himself

with the greatest cordiality. If this was the adventurous life it was

not for him, and he solemnly resolved that if he didn't die of pneumonia

as the result of his indiscretions he would stick close to clubs and

comfortable hotels for the remainder of his life.

He had no way of keeping track of his progress, but on bumping into a

cross-roads sign-board he struck a match and read "Bailey Harbor 5 M.,"

and the discovery that only five miles lay between him and the Congdon

house filled him with rage and terror. A little later he caught the

first glimmer of dawn breaking over a gray world. This was heartening

but it brought also new dangers for he had no idea of where his tramp

had brought him and mud-splashed as he was and with the scratch across

his face stinging uncomfortably, he was in no haste to meet the

strangers who would soon be passing him in the road.

A curious whistle, a long pipe and then a short quick one, in the

roadside a little way ahead brought him to a halt. He drew the gun from

his overcoat pocket and stood perfectly quiet. In a few seconds the

whistle was repeated and Archie, grown suddenly bold, checked an impulse

to fly and imitated it.

A man rose from behind a stone wall on the right and walked toward him.

"That you, Hoky?" he called sharply, peering through the mist.

Seeing that it was not Hoky but a stranger with a pistol, he sprang

forward and wrenched the gun from Archie's hand.

"Stop squealing! Bad enough for you to fool me with that whistle without

pulling a gun. Now you get right over there by the fence where I'm

pointing and we'll consider matters a little!"

"I was just walking to Portsmouth," began Archie in a blithe tone he

hoped would prove convincing.

His captor laughed ironically, and throwing open Bennett's coat,

demanded:

"Where's your badge? Don't lie to me! You're one of these village

constables or a plainclothes man from Boston. Either way you'd better

show your hand."

"If you think I'm connected with the police," Archie faltered, "you were

never more mistaken in your life!"

The man clapped his hands over Archie's pockets and then struck a match

and surveyed his face with care. This done he stuck his nose close to

his captive's mouth and bade him breathe.

"You haven't the bouquet of an inebriate, son. You stepped along like

Hoky, my pal, and that's why I whistled; and you warbled the answer like

a mockingbird. Now listen to me! You've been up to something, so don't

tell me again that you're taking a little before breakfast stroll to

Portsmouth to work up an appetite. In the first place, have you seen a

man about your size along the road anywhere?"

"Not a soul!" declared Archie solemnly.

"Mighty queer Hoky doesn't turn up! I warned the beggar against these

seaside villas; they're all outfitted with fancy burglar alarms that

make a deuce of a row when you step on the wire. Electricity is the bane

of the craft; you light a wire that rings a gong loud enough to wake the

dead and then some chap jumps out of bed and turns on all the lights in

the house and very likely opens up with a gun before you can say

Jerusalem. But Hoky thought he knew better."

Archie clutched at the stone fence against which his captor had pushed

him and his breath came in long gasps.

"You mean," he faltered, "that you fear your friend has been shot!"

"That, my dear sir, is exactly what troubles me! Hoky didn't need to do

it; that's what rouses my indignation! He's been running free for two

years, and not a thing against him--wiped out all his indictments with

good time like an honest thief, and now very likely he's been potted by

some large prosperous householder as he was trying to lift a bit of

silver; and these country houses never have anything worth risking your

life for! My dear boy, can you blame me for being peeved, enormously

peeved, when I reflect that Hoky, one of the best pals in the world, is

probably lying as dead as a pickled mackerel somewhere back yonder? Or

if he has escaped death in his felonious enterprise he may have met the

constable and be awaiting the pleasure of a grand jury of righteous

farmers of the old commonwealth of Maine!"

Archie's tongue clung to the roof of his mouth as he tried to murmur

his sympathy for the stranger's sorrow. The thought that he was probably

talking to the accomplice of the man he had shot was terrifying; the

stranger seemed enormously fond of Hoky and if he knew that he had

within his grasp the person who was responsible for Hoky's failure to

return from his visit to Bailey Harbor he would very likely make haste

to avenge his friend's death. It seemed to Archie that the gods were

playing strange tricks upon him indeed. The man's speech was not the

argot he had assumed from his reading of crook stories to be the common

utterance of the underworld. There was something attractive in the

fellow. He carried himself jauntily, and his clean-shaven, rounded face

and fine gray eyes would not have suggested his connection with

burglary. He was an engaging sort of person, and overcoming his

discomfiture at having sent a bullet into the foolish Hoky, Archie

decided suddenly that the man might be of service to him. He was in

pressing need of a change of clothes but he was in no condition to

proceed to Portsmouth to redeem his suitcase; an impression that was

confirmed unexpectedly by his captor.

"You will pardon my candor, but you certainly look like the devil.

There's a rip in your trousers that needs explaining and that swipe on

your face reminds me of a map of the Mississippi done in red ink. Let me

introduce myself to you as the Governor. Among the powers that prey that

is my proud cognomen, not to say _alias_. Now please be frank--what

mischief brings you here at this pale hour?"

Archie gave serious thought to his answer. If he could convince this

singular person that he was a crook he would be less likely to suspect

that he had been the instrument of Hoky's undoing. And there was the

possibility that if he met the Governor's friendly advances in a

reciprocal spirit the man might help him out of his predicament. The

Governor was waiting for his answer, humming pleasantly as he surveyed

the heavens.

"I've got to make a getaway and be in a hurry about it," declared Archie

with a confidential air that caused a humorous light to play in the

Governor's eyes.

"A little trouble of some sort, eh? Perhaps fearing a collision with the

revised statutes of this or adjacent states?"

"Something like that," Archie answered huskily.

"It rather occurred to me that you were not promenading for mere

pleasure," replied the Governor, drawing his hand across his chin. "The

causes that lead people to travel have been enumerated by no less an

authority than Mr. Laurence Sterne as--

"Infirmity of body,

"Imbecility of mind, or

"Inevitable necessity.

"Unless my memory errs the same authority classifies travelers as the

idle, the inquisitive, the lying, the proud, the vain, the splenetic; to

which he added the delinquent and felonious traveler, the unfortunate

and innocent traveler, the traveler without aim and the wandering

sentimentalist. From the looks of your clothing I should judge that you

belong to the necessitous group, though from a certain uneasy expression

I might easily place you among the delinquent and criminal. A

fashionable defaulter perhaps? No. Then let it go at murder, though I

confess you don't look as though you'd have a stomach for homicide."

"I came damned near getting pinched!" asserted Archie stoutly. "The cops

back there in that town gave me a hard run for it."

Feeling that he was making an impression on the Governor he warmed to

his work.

"I was just crawling through the window of a drug store when here comes

a chap tiptoeing through the alley flashing a dark lantern, and I bolted

for the tall timber as hard as I could sprint. The fire bell rang and

the whole town woke up and I got lost running through a garden back of

one of those swell's houses on the shore. That's how I got this slash in

the face, and I'm in a pretty pickle now. There'll be a whole army

looking for me; and if your friend Hoky's been killed they'll be keen to

pinch me as another member of the gang."

The Governor listened patiently as Archie jerked this out, nervously

trying to conceal his Harvard training in the use of the English

language by resorting to such terms as he imagined bold bad men employ

in moments of mental stress.

"An amateur, I take it?" remarked the Governor with the humorous twinkle

that seemed to be habitual with him.

"Hell, no," grumbled Archie scornfully. "But I always play the game

alone; I never had any use for pals. They get in the way."

"Wrong, my boy; wrong! A good partner like me is essential to the

successful prosecution of the art or craft felonious. As for myself I

rarely venture to expose myself in these little affairs; but I advise

and counsel the brethren. I am their confidant and assist them in

innumerable ways purely for the joy of it, I assure you. Now Hoky and I

had been on the road all spring, and he made a good haul or two under my

direction; but he wouldn't let well enough alone. I warned him against

making an attempt back yonder last night. A stormy night always makes

honest householders wakeful. Take it from me, son, there couldn't be a

worse time for a burglary than a night melodious with rolling thunder.

You haven't the judgment of a month-old infant. I bought a toothbrush at

that drug store yesterday evening and there's a light right over the

safe at the end of the prescription counter. Your attempt, my son,

speaks for courage but not for discretion. You should always ask me

about such things."

"I'm sorry," replied Archie meekly, "that I didn't run into you sooner."

"The loss is mine!" cried the Governor heartily. "But let us be

practical. The coast will ring with this, particularly if Hoky is lying

cold at the undertaker's. He must be dead or pinched or he'd be here by

this time. We shall make a long jump, son, and ponder the future."

He walked off briskly with Archie close beside him.

"When Hoky persisted in his ill-chosen enterprise I felt a weariness

upon me and lifted a little roadster that I've tucked away down here in

a peaceful lane. Thought I'd be all ready to give the old boy a long

pull for freedom when he came back, but alas--!"

Sure enough the roadster was there; a very handy little car indeed, and

Archie was profoundly interested to know that it was in this fashion

that a man who from his own confession was counselor extraordinary to

thieves, toured the country. The Governor had become suddenly a man of

action. Kneeling down he detached a New York license tag from the

machine, drew from his pocket a Maine tag and attached it, humming

meanwhile.

"The rural police haven't learned this simple device," he explained, as

he sent the discarded tag skimming into a corn field. "I've got about

forty miles to run inland. The back roads only and Providence our

guide!"

He jumped in and bade Archie take the seat beside him. The car was soon

bumping merrily over a rough road that wound through a pine wood. As

near as Archie could reckon from the sun that was crawling into view

they were bound for Halifax, but to be going anywhere was an infinite

relief, and to be traveling with a man whose comrade he had shot and

probably killed only a few hours earlier, imparted a piquant flavor to

the journey. This astonishing person who called himself Governor might,

for all he knew, be hurrying him to some lonely place to murder him, but

if this was his plan he was most agreeable about it. He had taken off

the mackinaw coat in which he had first appeared in the road and the

brown coat underneath was of modish cut; and as his foot played upon the

brake Archie noted that he wore silk hose. He had never dreamed that

outlaws were so careful of their raiment. And the man's talk was that of

a cultivated gentleman who wore his learning lightly and was blessed

with an easy conscience; not at all like the philosopher and guide of

criminals.

"You seem to know this country well," Archie remarked as they penetrated

more deeply into the woods and followed a grass-grown trail that ended

abruptly at an abandoned lumber camp.

"Oh, I know most of the whole United States just as well," remarked the

Governor, steering the car slowly among the deep ruts. "We'll shoot the

car around behind that pyramid of sawdust and walk a bit to stretch our

legs."

There was no trace of a path where he struck off into the woods but he

strode along with the easy confidence of one who is sure of his

destination. They brought up presently beside a brook and in a moment

more reached a log hut planted on the edge of the high bank.

"What do you think of that, Sir Archibald?" inquired the Governor

carelessly.

Archie paused, wavering in the path. The man had called him by his right

name, throwing in the prefix with a tinge of insolence.

"Oh, your name?" remarked the Governor turning from a leisurely survey

of the dwelling. "Perfectly easy! Archibald Bennett was neatly sewed

into your coat pocket by your tailor as I observed when I rubbed my

hands over your waistcoat to see if you wore a badge. Your bill-fold is

there intact--it's rather indelicate of you to feel for it! If I'd meant

to rob you I'd have biffed you on the head long ago and thrown your

carcass to the buzzards."

"I got these duds out of a suitcase I sneaked from an auto in Boston,

and that's no name of mine," Archie explained hurriedly, still anxious

to convince the Governor that he was a thief.

"A deft hand, son; but very careless of you not to rip out the label.

Men have been hanged on slighter evidence. But Archibald is not a name

to sneeze at, and I rather like Archie; and Archie I shall continue to

call you. Now we'll see what we can do to shake up a breakfast."

He drew out a key and opened the door of the hut. On one side stood a

dilapidated cook stove of an obsolete pattern, surrounded by a few

kitchen utensils. In the far end were two bunks, one above the other,

and on a chair beside them a pile of blankets neatly folded. In the

middle of the room was a table littered with old magazines.

"Not a bad place, Archie! I stumbled upon it a couple of years ago quite

by accident and use it occasionally. The retreat of some artist who

probably starved to death. When I first found the shack it was full of

impressionistic studies that looked as though the poor boob stood on his

head to paint. I made a burnt offering of the whole lot to outraged

Nature." He opened a cupboard revealing a quantity of provisions. "Poor

old Hoky was a great lover of ham; I never saw such an appetite for

smoked pork, and he had just stocked us up with a few specimens he

lifted somewhere."

Besides three hams there were coffee, cartons of crackers and cans of

condensed milk.

"We fellows who live by our wits need the open air just as much as bank

presidents, for our business makes a heavier drain on the nerves,"

continued the Governor after they had prepared breakfast. "Your pallor

suggests that you may have emerged quite recently from one of those

institutions designed for the moral reconstruction of the weak and

erring."

Archie's eyes fell under the Governor's keen gaze. But he realized that

he must firmly establish himself in the man's confidence by palming

himself off as a crook with a prison record. In no other way could he be

sure of the assistance and protection which the Governor alone could

give him.

"Three months' jail sentence," he replied smoothly.

"Ah! A minor felony, I judge, from the brevity of your incarceration,"

replied the Governor, emptying the coffee pot into Archie's cup. "I have

never been in jail and to the best of my knowledge I have never been

indicted; or if I have the sheriff has never caught up with me! My heart

bleeds nevertheless for these poor devils who are always in the toils,

and in my poor weak fashion I try to help them. Really, my dear Archie,

thieves as a class are shockingly deficient in intelligence. Until I

dropped into the underworld they were a peculiarly helpless lot--like

dear old Hoky whose loss I shall mourn to my dying day."

Archie flinched, but he was beginning to feel at home in his new rôle of

a fugitive from justice, and murmured his sympathy without a quaver.

"My friend," said the Governor soberly as they rose from the table, "we

have dipped our hands in the same dish and broken bread together. I'm

strong for the old traditions of Arab hospitality and that sort of

thing. There's honor, you know, among thieves, and I'm rather keen for

the sentimental side of the business. You may trust me, telling me as

much or as little of yourself as you please. I don't mind saving that

you're a likable chap, but pathetically helpless in emergencies like

most of our brethren. It's well for you that you fell in with me, with

that little episode of the drug store hanging over you. I'll be a good

pal to you and I ask you to be straight with me. Are we friends or--"

He put out his hand questioningly. Archie grasped it, meeting the gaze

of the keen gray eyes squarely, but with something of an appeal in them.

"All right, Archie--for such you shall be to the end of the chapter,

whether you lied about it or not. And now let's deal with practical

affairs. I'm going to spend the afternoon on that stolen machine we've

got back there; you'll hardly know it when you see it again. I'll

paint'er white to symbolize our purity. There's an assortment of clothes

the boys have left here from time to time--all sizes and ready for any

emergency. You can pick'em over while I'm working on the car. I've got a

bag of my own stuff stuck around here somewhere." He filled and lighted

a pipe, walked toward the kitchen end of the room and kicked a long box.

"If you'll just push that aside you'll find a door in the floor--quite a

cellar underneath--made it myself. Candles on the shelf there. Don't

break your neck on the ladder."

He gathered up several cans of ready-to-use paint, and paused in the

doorway to deliver a final admonition.

"If Hoky _should_ turn up--tall chap, a little bent in the shoulders,

clean, sharp profile--call him Hoky and yell Governor before he shoots.

He's very sudden with the gun, that Hoky; a lamentable weakness; spoiled

him for delicate jobs, but I'm afraid that at last somebody's got the

drop on him."

The cellar was really a cave gouged into the earth and piled with trunks

and hand bags stuffed with all manner of loot. There was enough

silverware to equip a dozen households, and Archie amused himself by

studying the monograms, thinking that quite possibly he was handling

spoons that he had encountered on happier occasions in the homes of his

friends. The trunks contained clothing in great variety and most of it

was new and of good quality. He carried up an armful and found a gray

suit that fitted him very well. Another visit yielded shirts, socks and

underclothing, a slightly used traveling case with shaving materials and