"I never saw a tramp yet that was worth his breakfast," snarled Grubbs,
the foreman of Eliphalet Congdon's farm. "But don't you bums think y'
can loaf round here. It's goin' t' be work from now right through till
the wheat's cut. Jail birds, both on y', I bet. Well, there ain't
nothin' round here to steal. Y' can both sleep in the hands' house back
yonder and hop to meals when the bell rings. There's some old hats in
the barn; shed them pies y' got on yer heads and try t' look like honest
men anyhow."
They partook of the generous midday meal provided in a big screened
porch adjoining the kitchen. Half a dozen other laborers, regularly
attached to Eliphalet's section of rich land, eyed the newcomers with
the disdain born of their long tenure. Perky was a capital actor; no one
would have imagined that he had ever seen either of the new hands
before. In the near-by fields the wheat shimmered goldenly in the sun,
quivering into the perfection that would bring it under the knife a few
days later. Help was scarce and the scorn of the foreman was assumed. He
had every intention of clinging to the latest comers, inexperienced
vagabonds though they might prove, until the pressing need was passed.
The Governor was set to work with two other men ripping out an old rail
fence and replacing it with wire. Archie's task was the rather more
disagreeable one of trundling gravel in a wheelbarrow and distributing
it in holes staked for his guidance in the road that ran from the
highway gate to the barn. The holes were small; it seemed to Archie
absurd to spend time filling such small cavities; and a wheelbarrow
filled with gravel is heavy. The foreman explained the job and departed,
reappearing from time to time for the pleasure of criticizing Archie's
work. When Archie suggested that there would be an economy of time in
loading the gravel into a wagon and effecting the distribution by that
means the foreman stared at him open-mouthed for a moment, then burst
into ironical laughter.
"Give _you_ a team to handle--you!"
The thought of trusting Archie with a team when teams were needed for
much more important matters struck the cynical foreman as a gross
impiety. The humor of the thing was too tremendous to be enjoyed alone;
he yelled to a man who was driving by in a motor truck filled with milk
cans to stop and hear the joke. Archie's soul burned within him. That a
man of education who belonged to the best clubs on the continent should
be proclaimed a fool by a hatchet-faced farmer in overalls, before a fat
person on a milk truck was the most crushing of all humiliations. The
foreman jumped on the truck and rode away, and Archie bent his back to
the barrow, resolving that never again would he complain of bumps in a
road now that he knew the heart-breaking and back-breaking labor of
road-mending.
On the whole he did a good job; it was remarkable how interested one
could become in so contemptible a task. He tamped the gravel into the
holes with the loving care of a dentist filling a tooth, and struck work
with reluctance when the bell sounded for supper.
The Governor was already on terms of comradeship with his fellow
toilers, and as they splashed in the basins set out on a long plank near
the kitchen, his quips kept them laughing. Two college boys had just
arrived to aid in the harvesting. Farmers are not much given to humor
and the young fellows were clearly pleased to find a jester on the
premises. At the supper table the Governor gave his conversational
powers free rein. This was the only life; he had rested all winter so
that he might enjoy farm life the more. He subjected the collegians to a
rigid examination in Latin, quizzed them in physics and promised the
whole company a course of lectures on astronomy.
Perky strolled away in one direction; the Governor in another and
Archie, left to his own devices, fumed at this desertion. The two would
meet somewhere and plan the next strategic move, Archie surmised, and he
was irritated to find himself denied a place in their councils. He
refused an invitation to sit in at a poker game that was being organized
in the farm hands' house and wandered idly about the premises. The
residence was a two-story farmhouse, with a broad veranda evidently
quite recently added. As Archie passed the windows he noted that the
rooms were handsomely furnished. This was not an establishment where the
employees were admitted to social intercourse with the family of the
owner. As Archie stole by, the voices from the veranda sounded remote as
from another world. An aristocrat by birth and training, he found here a
concrete lesson in democracy that disturbed him. The world was not all
club corners and week-end parties. For a few hours at least he was
earning his bread by the sweat of his face--a marvelous experience--and
feeling very lonesome indeed at the end of his day's labor.
"I don't want to stay with papa; I want to see mama!"
A child's voice plaintively uttering this as he slunk round the house
reminded him of the real nature of his sojourn on Eliphalet Congdon's
acres.
"Papa's sick; you must be nice to your papa. You must help him to get
well, and then you can see your mama!"
Through the parlor windows he saw the stolen Edith rebelliously
confronting the tall woman who had been a party to the kidnaping in
Central Park.
Eliphalet Congdon entered the room clutching a newspaper and Archie
heard him exclaim angrily:
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Edith. Your papa's just come and
is sick and tired and your fretting's keeping him awake. Take her
upstairs, Sarah, and put her to bed."
As he surveyed the upper windows he caught a glimpse of a woman in a
trained nurse's uniform. Putney Congdon was established on the farm and
though it was nearly three weeks since the fateful night at Bailey
Harbor, he was still feeling the effects of his injury. Afraid of being
caught loitering Archie hurried down to the meadow that stretched away
from the house and stumbled into a flock of sheep.
He left the sheep, rather envying their placid existence, and was on his
way to the laborers' shack when the Governor stepped into his path.
"Mooning? Perky and I have been smoking our pipes off yonder in the
woods. He's as sore as a boil because Putney's blown in and he's got to
make a feint at honest labor. Perky has a very delicate touch with the
tools of his trade and he'd just got his laboratory fixed up in the
garret where he's been doctoring gold pieces to beat the band. He says
old Eliphalet is more and more delighted with his work. The more he's
delighted the better the sport for us."
"I don't see where the sport comes in!" said Archie testily, pausing at
the fence of the chicken yard. "It's a long way to that camp in Michigan
where we've got to take the child; and you needn't think it's going to
be so easy. The old man will be hot after us. Putney's still got a nurse
looking after him, but if he's traveled this far he's not going to let
go of the little girl without a fight. You've got to take this thing
seriously; a mistake will be fatal and after all I've gone through I
don't just relish making a mess of it."
"Make a wish!" cried the Governor. "There goes a star sliding merrily
toward the Pacific."
But a shower of meteors would not have stopped Archie's questions as to
the manner in which Edith Congdon was to be snatched from her
grandfather's farm in Ohio and transferred to the inland seas. He
resented his exclusion from the conference with Perky and said so.
"My dear boy, suspense is good for the soul; I'm merely cultivating in
you the joy of surprise. The discipline of waiting will sharpen your
wits, which is important, as I mean to honor you with considerable
responsibility and leave you here when I depart, which will be tonight
as dewy eve spreads her sparkling robe--"
"Leave me here! My God, man, I'm not going to be stranded in this
wilderness! You've lost your senses if you think you can shake me now
and leave me to get pinched and do time for your foolishness!"
"Patience, little brother, and not quite so vociferous! You have a good
natural voice with strong carrying powers but it shows a sad lack of
cultivation. This much will I impart: tomorrow morning Perky will
whisper to Eliphalet that the Government is wise to the gold piece trick
and that they are watched. The old boy will be scared to death--his son
on the place and all that sort of thing, besides the chance of facing a
hard-hearted Federal judge for tampering with the Republic's coin. Perky
will throw a scare into him that will stand him on his head and then
he'll advise him to beat it and the old chap will throw his arms around
Perky's neck and beg for protection. And Perky, with a reputation for
never deserting a pal, will seize him firmly by the hand and away
they'll go."
"_Where_ will they go?" Archie demanded tartly.
"That would be telling! Let it suffice that they depart in some haste.
Next I take the little girl into my care and start for the camp. You,
Archie, will remain here to watch Mr. Putney Congdon."
"I didn't come here with you, did I? They won't suspect me of complicity
or anything--oh, no!" moaned Archie.
"Bless you, my boy, I'm far less stupid than you think. I'm leaving here
at once and the little girl will be carried off with all circumspection.
My lines of communication are working splendidly and some of the keenest
wits in the underworld are assembling here and there to assist in my
various enterprises. The part I'm assigning you flatters your
intelligence. You are to watch Putney Congdon and follow him when he
leaves."
"Cut that rubbish and listen to me," said Archie, his voice quavering
with anger; "you can't play the fool with me in this fashion. You mean
to leave me here with a man I shot; and you think I'm going to _follow_
him! What if he never goes; what if he stays all summer!"
"He won't," the Governor answered. "He's going to follow that child of
his if it leads him to kingdom come. If you want to see your Isabel
again, follow Putney Congdon. You will of course be a model of
discretion, but--"
"Do you mean to say you'll tell him where you're taking his child? If I
didn't know you for a sober man I'd swear you'd been drinking!"
"Never more sober in my life, Archie. I shall not of course spoil the
joy of the kidnaping by taking Putney into my confidence, but after the
child's well out of the way I shall send him a wire telling him where
his daughter may be found--a gentle hint, but sufficient to tease his
curiosity."
Archie stamped his foot in impotent fury.
"You're leaving me here on this infernal farm, with a man I shot and
nearly murdered! And you'll wire him where you're headed for when you
haven't told me!"
"Steady, lad; steady! Don't forget that the underworld is a labyrinth of
mystery. I'm utilizing all my power among the brotherhood to pull off
this undertaking. All about us--" he waved his hand--"with their
functions duly assigned, are men I can trust and who trust me--some of
them utter strangers to one another but bound by the same tie. But I'll
just whisper the address in your ear and you'll do well to remember it.
Heart o' Dreams Camp, Huddleston, Michigan; post-office, Calderville.
When the victim of your ready gun rises from his couch and strikes out
for the northwest you will not lose sight of him. If you do you'll
muddle everything. Your hand baggage has been planted safely with the
baggage master at the railway station at Tiffin, seven miles from where
we stand, and here's the check for it. Once more you shall renew your
acquaintance with scented soap. Observe my instructions strictly,
Archie; meet all difficulties with a confident spirit and you will
neither stumble nor fall. Good-by and God bless you!"
The Governor's blessing failed to dispel the gloom that settled upon Mr.
Archibald Bennett as he crept through the shed where the laborers were
housed and found his cot. It was a hot humid night, with the chirr of
queer insects outside mocking with weary iteration the lusty snores of
the weary farm hands. He might bolt, now that he had Isabel's address,
and suffer the Governor to manage in his own fashion the foolhardy
enterprises, of which he had spoken so lightly; but to do this would be
only to prove himself a deserter. The business of delivering Edith
Congdon into Isabel's hands was his affair as much as the Governor's.
And having twice had a taste of Isabel's anger his appetite was sated.
To win her applause he must appear before her a heroic figure, but the
part the Governor had assigned him was little calculated to develop his
chivalric qualities. He found himself warmly hating Putney Congdon. If
Congdon had only had the decency to die there would not be all this
bother, and in his bitterness he resolved that if he got another chance
he would make an end of him. Soothed by this decision he fell asleep.