THE HERO EXPLAINS
For half a minute after his titled friend had bowed himself out, Blake
stood glowering at the door. The sharp crackle of a blueprint under the
thrumming fingers of Griffith caused him to start from his abstraction
and cross to the desk, where he dropped heavily into his former seat.
"Well?" demanded Griffith. "Out with it."
"With what?"
"You called him your friend. He's a likely-looking youngster, even if
he _is_ the son of a duke. Same time, there's something in the wind.
Cough it up. Haven't happened to smash any heads or windows, have you,
while you were--"
"No!" broke in Blake harshly. "It's worse than that, ten times worse!
It's--it's Jenny--Miss Leslie!"
Griffith's thin lips puckered in a soundless whistle. "Well, I'll be--!
Don't tell me you've gone and--Why, you never cared a rap for girls."
"No, but this time, Grif--It began when I showed her through that Rand
mine. Jimmy has told you what followed."
Griffith blinked, and discreetly said nothing as to what lie had heard
from Miss Leslie's father. "H'm. I'd like to hear it all, straight from
you."
"Can't now. Too long a yarn. I want to tell you about the results.
Couldn't do it to any one else," explained Blake, blushing darkly under
his thick layer of tropical tan. He sought to beat around the bush.
"Well, I proved myself fit to survive in that environment, tough as it
was--sort of cave-man's hell. Queer thing, though, Jenny--Miss
Leslie--proved fit, too; that is, she did after right at the start.
She's got a headpiece, and _grit!_"
"Takes after her dad," suggested Griffith.
"Him!"
"As to the brains and grit."
"Not in anything else, though. They're no more alike than garlic and
roses."
"Getting poetic, eh?" cackled Griffith.
"Don't laugh, Grif. It's too serious a matter. I'd do anything in the
world for her. She's the truest, grittiest girl alive. She told me
straight out, there at the last, that she--she loved me."
"Crickey!" ejaculated Griffith. "She told you that?--she?--Miss--"
"Hush! not so loud!" cautioned Blake. Again the color deepened in his
bronzed cheeks. His pale eyes shone very blue and soft. "It was when we
heard the siren of Jimmy's steamer. She--You'll forget this, Grif?
Never whisper a hint of it?"
"Sure! What you take me for?"
"Well, she wouldn't agree to wait. Wanted to be married as soon as we
got aboard ship."
"She--!" Griffith lacked breath even for an expletive.
"I agreed. Couldn't help it, with her looking at me that way. Then we
went down around through the cleft to the shore, where the boat was
pulling in. Well, there was Jimmy in the sternsheets, in a white
yachting suit--Me with my hyena pants, and Jenny in her leopard-skin
dress!"
"Say, you _were_ doing the Crusoe business!" cackled Griffith.
"It shook me out of my dream all right, soon as I set eyes on Jimmy. I
waded out with--Miss Leslie, and put her into the boat. Told him to
hurry her aboard. I cut back to the cleft--the place where we'd been
staying."
"Off your head, eh?"
"No. Don't you see? I had to save Jenny. I had proved myself a pretty
good cave-man, and she had been living so close to that sort of thing
that she had lost her perspective. Wasn't fair to her to let her tie
herself up to me till she'd first had a chance to size me up with the
men of her class."
"You mean to say you passed up your chance?"
"I'd have been a blackguard to 've let her marry me then!" cried Blake,
his eyes flashing angrily. He checked himself, and went on in a
monotone: "I waited till Jimmy came back to fetch me. Course I had to
explain the situation. Asked him to pull out without me, and send down
a boat from Port Mozambique. No go. Finally we fixed it up for me to
slip aboard into the forecastle."
"Well, I'll be--switched!" croaked Griffith. "You did that, to escape
marrying the daughter of a multi-millionaire!"
"It would have been the same if she'd been poor, Grif. She's a lady,
through and through, and I--I love her! God! how I love her!"
"Guess that's no lie," commented Griffith in his dryest tone.
Blake relaxed the grip that seemed to be crushing the arms of his chair.
"Well, I went aboard and kept under cover. Jimmy managed to keep her
diverted till we put into Port Mozambique. There I sent a note aft to
her, letting on that I had already landed, and swearing that I was
going to steer clear of her until after she got back to her father. But
I kept aboard, in the forecastle, as Jimmy had made me promise to do.
At Aden, Jimmy put her on a P. and O. liner in the care of a friend of
his, Lady Chetwynd, who was on her way home to England from India."
"He went along, too; leaving you to shift for yourself, eh?"
"Don't you think it! He had been spending half the time forward with me
in that stew-hole of a forecastle. Soon as she was safe, I hiked aft
and bunked with him. No; Jimmy's as square as they make 'em. To prove
it--he had met Jenny before; greatly taken with her. There on the
steamer was the very chance he had been after. But he played fair;
didn't try to win her. Told me all about it, right at the first, and we
came to an agreement. We were both to steer clear of her over on that
side. That's why we stuck close to Ruthby Castle till Jenny sailed for
home. No; Jimmy is white. He had invitations to more than one
house-party where she was visiting around with Lady Chetwynd and Madam
Gantry."
"So neither of you have seen her since there at Aden?"
"Yes, we have. Came on from New York with her and her aunt. They had
stopped over when they landed, and we blundered into them before we
could dodge."
"And Miss Leslie? You look glum. Guess you got what was coming to you,
eh?"
Blake's face clouded. "Haven't seen her apart from her aunt yet. She
has been kind but--mighty reserved. I'd give a lot to know whether--"
He paused, gripping his chair convulsively. "Just the same, I haven't
quit. The agreement with Jimmy is off to-morrow afternoon. She's had
plenty of time for comparisons. I'll make my try then."
"Don't fash yourself, Tom. If she's the sort you say, and went as far
as you say, she's not likely to throw you over now."
"You don't savvy!" exclaimed Blake. "There on that infernal coast I was
the real thing--and the only one, at that. Here I'm just T. Blake,
ex-bum, periodic drunkard, all around--"
"Stow that drivel!" ordered Griffith. "What if you were a kid hobo?
What are you now?--one of the best engineers in the country; one that's
going to make the top in short order. I tell you, you're going to
succeed. What's more, Mollie said--"
"Mollie!" repeated Blake softly. "Say, but wasn't she a booster! Had
even you beat, hands down. Good Lord, to think that she, of all the
little women--! Only thing, typhoid isn't so bad as some things. They
don't suffer so much."
"Yes," assented Griffith. "That helps--some--when I get to thinking of
it. She went out quietly--wasn't thinking of herself."
"She never did!" put in Blake, "Say, but can't a woman make a heap of
difference--when she's the right sort!"
"There was a message for you. She said, almost the last thing: 'Tell
Tom not to give up the fight. Tell him,' she said, 'he'll win out, I
know he'll win out in the end.'"
"God!" whispered Blake. "She said that?" He bent over and covered his
eyes with his hand.
Griffith averted his head and peered at the blueprints on the nearest
wall with unseeing eyes. A full minute passed. Keeping his face still
averted, he began to tap out the ash and half-smoked tobacco from his
pipe.
"H'm--guess you'd better work in a room apart," he remarked in a
matter-of-fact tone. "Too much running in and out here. D' you want to
start right off?"
"No," muttered Blake. He paused and then straightened to face his
friend. His eyes were blood-shot but resolute, his face impassive. "No.
I'll wait till after to-morrow. Big order on for to-morrow morning.
Appointment to meet H. V."
"Hey?"
"He was down at the depot. You can imagine how effusive he wasn't over
my saving his daughter. Curse the luck! If only she had had any one
else for a father!"
"Now, now, Tommy, don't fly off the handle. You know there are lots of
'em worse than H. V."
"None I'm in so hard with. First place, there's that Q. T. survey."
"That's all smoothed over. He came around all right. Just ask for your
pay-check. He'll shell out."
"I'll ask for interest. Ought to have a hundred per cent. I needed the
money then mighty bad."
"We all did. Let it slide. He's her father. You can't afford to buck
his game."
"I'd do it quick enough if it wasn't for her," rejoined Blake. "That's
where he's got me. Lord! if only he and she weren't--!" Blake's teeth
clenched on the end of the sentence.
"Now look here, Tommy," protested Griffith. "This isn't like you to
hold a grudge. It's true H. V. did us dirt on the survey pay. But he
gave in, soon as I got a chance to talk it over with him."
"'Cause he had to have you on the Michamac Bridge, eh?" demanded Blake,
his face darkening.
"Stow it! That may be true, but--didn't I tell you he turned the bridge
over to the Coville Company?"
"Afraid he'd be found out, eh?"
"Found out? What do you mean?"
"Mean!" repeated Blake, his voice hoarse with passion. He brought his
big fist down upon the desk with the thud of a maul. "Mean? Listen
here! I didn't write it to you--I couldn't believe it then, even of
him. But answer me this, if you can. I was fool enough not to send my
plans for the bridge competition to him by registered mail; I was fool
enough to hand them in to his secretary without asking a receipt. After
the contest, I called for my plans. Clerk told me he couldn't find
them; couldn't find any record that they'd been received. I tell you my
plans solved that central span problem. Who was it could use my
plans?--who were they worth a mint of money to?"
Griffith stared at his friend, his forehead furrowed with an anxious
frown. "See here, Tom--this tropical roughing--it must be mighty
overtaxing on a man. You didn't happen to have a sunstroke or--"
Blake's scowl relaxed in an ironical grin. "All right, take it that
way, if you want to. He let on he thought I was trying to blackmail
him."
"Crickey! You don't mean to say you--"
"Didn't get a chance to see him that time. Just sent in a polite note
asking for my plans. He sent out word by his private-detective
office-boy that if I called again he'd have me run in."
"And now you come back with this dotty pipe-dream that he knows what
became of your plans! Take my advice. Think it all you want, if that
does you any good; but keep your head closed--keep it closed! First
thing he'd do would be to look up the phone number of the nearest
asylum."
"I'd like to see him do it," replied Blake. He shook his head
dubiously. "That's straight, Grif. I'd like to see him do it. I can't
forget he's her father. If only I could be sure he hadn't a finger in
the disappearance of those plans--Well, you can guess how I feel about
it."
"You're dotty to think it a minute. He's a money-grubber--as sharp as
some others. But he wouldn't do a thing like that. Don't you believe
it!"
"Wish I'd never thought of it--he's her father. But it's been growing
on me. I handed them in to his secretary, that young dude, Ashton."
"Ashton? There you've hit on a probability," argued Griffith. "Of all
the heedless, inefficient papa's boys, he takes the cake! He wasn't H.
V.'s secretary except in name. Wine, women, sports, and
gambling--nothing else under his hat. Always had a mess on his desk.
Ten to one, he got your package mixed in the litter, and shoved all
together into his wastebasket."
"I'll put it up to him!" growled Blake.
"What's the use? He couldn't remember a matter of business over night,
to save him."
"Lord! I sweat blood over those plans! It was hard enough to enter a
competition put up by H. V., but it was the chance of a lifetime for
me. Why, if only I'd known in time that they were lost, I'd have put in
my scratch drawings and won on _them_. I tell you, Grif, that truss was
something new."
"Oh, no, there's no inventiveness, no brains in your head, oh, no!"
rallied Griffith. "Wait till you make good on this Zariba Dam."
"You just bet I'll make a stagger at it!" cried Blake. His eyes shone
bright with the joy of work,--and as suddenly clouded with renewed
moroseness.
"I'll be working for you, though," he qualified. "I don't take any jobs
from H. V. Leslie--not until that matter of the bridge plans is cleared
up."