The terror which the menace of violent death had held for her now seemed
a pallid, weak thing, beside the heart-stopping emotion which the New
Yorker's mocking, amused voice uttering her real name called into being.
Her head jerked instinctively from the comfort of his arm. Squirming
away from him, under the sodden blanket of canvas, she curled into a
tight little ball of agony, her face cupped in her hands. "So that's why
you bothered me so!" she cried, her voice muffled by her fingers.
"You're a detective! You knew all the time! You were going to take me to
jail! Oh, you--Oh! David, David!"
"Listen, you little idiot!" Van's voice came sharply, bereft of its
mocking note for once. "I'm not a detective! Good heavens! Do I look
like one? I've always understood that they have enormous feet and wear
derbies and talk out of the corner of their mouths." Mockery was
creeping back. "Did you think that a poor little tyke like you was worth
sending to New York for a detective to bay at your heels like a
bloodhound? I merely overheard the little Betsy's keen penetration of
your disguise. And I took the trouble to inquire casually of the
governor this evening just who--if anybody--Sally Ford might be--"
"Then you gave me away--David and me!" she accused him, shuddering with
sobs.
"Not at all. How it does pain me for you to persist in misunderstanding
me! I gave nothing away--absolutely nothing! I merely found out that
David Nash and Sally Ford are fugitives from justice, wanted on rather
serious charges. After making the acquaintance of 'Princess Lalla,' I
might add that I don't believe a word of the silly story. Besides, I
have your own word for it--" and he laughed--"that you are 'not that
kind of a girl.' As a matter-of-fact--oh! We're about to be rescued,
Sally Ford! I hear the 'heave-ho' of stalwart black boys. And the storm
is over except for a gentle, lady-like rain."
It was not till he mentioned the blessed fact that Sally realized that
the storm was indeed over. The only sound, besides the shouts of the
"white hopes" engaging in raising the collapsed tent, was the patter of
rain upon the canvas which still weighted down her small cold body, as
wet as if she had been swimming.
Struggling to a sitting position under the already moving mass of
canvas, the New Yorker cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted:
"Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!" In an aside to Sally he chuckled: "What does one
shout under the circumstances--or rather, under the canvas of a
collapsed tent?"
Sally managed a weak little laugh. "One shouts, 'Hey, rube!'" she told
him.
And his stentorian "Hey, rube!" struggled up through layers of dripping
canvas, bringing speedy relief for the submerged "rube" and performer.
When at last the tent was raised, Sally walked out, Van's arm still
about her shivering, soaked body, to find apparently the entire carnival
force huddled in the rain to welcome her, drawn by that fateful cry of
"Hey, rube!"
Jan, the giant, was there, sad-eyed but smiling, "Pitty Sing" perched on
one of his shoulders, Noko, the male midget, on the other. "The girl
nobody can lift" was there, too, her right arm in splints; a deep gash
down her pale cheek; Eddie Cobb, who, they told her as they chorused
their welcome, had been crying like a baby as he searched for her
through the wreck of the carnival, was clasping a drenched Kewpie doll
to his breast, apparently the sole survivor of his gambling wheel stock.
Pop and Mrs. Bybee were there, Mrs. Bybee clad only in a black sateen
petticoat and a red sweater. And in spite of his heavy loss from the
fury of the storm Pop was smiling, his bright blue eyes twinkling a
welcome. But--but--Sally's eyes roved from face to face, confidently at
first, grateful for their friendliness, then widening with alarm. For
David was not there.
"Where's David?" she cried, then, her voice growing shrill and frantic,
she screamed at them: "Where's David? Tell me! He's hurt--dead? Tell
me!" She broke away from Van, ran to Pop Bybee and tugged with her
little blue-white hands washed free of their brown make-up, at his wet
coat.
"Reckon he's safe and sound in the privilege car," Bybee reassured her,
but his blue eyes avoided hers, pityingly, she thought.
"Was anyone killed in the storm? Tell me!" she insisted, her bluish lips
twisting into a piteous loop of pain.
"We can't find Nita nowhere," Babe, the fat girl, blurted out, her eyes
wide with childish love of excitement. "We thought she was buried under
a tent but they've got all the tents up now and she ain't nowhere."
Nita--and David. Nita--David--missing. For she did not believe for an
instant that Pop Bybee was telling her the truth.
"It seems to me," Van interrupted nonchalantly, "that dry clothes are
indicated for Princess Lalla. May I escort you to your tent?" and he
bowed with mocking ceremony before her.
"He saved my life," Sally acknowledged suddenly, half-angrily, for she
resented with childish unreasonableness the fact that it had been this
mocking, insolent stranger, this "rube" from New York, not David, who
had saved her.
An hour later when she was uneasily asleep in her berth in the show
train, whose sleeping cars had been pressed into service in lieu of the
soaked cots in the dress tent, a sudden uproar--hoarse voices shouting
and cursing--shocked her into consciousness. Broken sentences flung out
by angry men, Pop Bybee's voice easily distinguished among them, told
her what had happened:
"Every damn cent gone!--Pay roll gone!--Safe cracked!--Told you you was
a fool to take in them two hoboes that was already wanted by the police.
That Dave guy's beat it--made a clean-up--"
"Everybody tumble out! Pop Bybee wants us all in the privilege car," a
carnival employe shouted, running down the sleeping car and pausing only
to thrust a hand into each berth, like a Pullman porter awakening its
passengers.
But Sally was already dressing, getting her dress on backward and
sobbing with futile rage at the time lost in reversing it. When she was
scrambling out of her upper berth, a tiny hand reached out of the lower
and tugged at her foot.
"Don't forget me, Sally," the midget commanded sharply. "And for
heaven's sake, don't take on so! You'll make yourself sick, crying like
that. Of course your David didn't rob the safe. I'm all dressed."
Sally parted the green curtains and stretched out her arms for the
midget, who was so short that she could stand upright upon her bed
without her head touching the rounded support of the upper berth. Little
Miss Tanner ran into Sally's arms and clambered to her shoulder.
"It's that Nita." She nodded her miniature head emphatically. "I always
did have my suspicions about her. Always turning white as a sheet when a
policeman hove into sight."
"But David's missing, too," Sally sobbed, as she hurried down the aisle
which was becoming choked with frowsy-headed women in all stages of
dress and undress. "Of course he didn't do it--"
"Hurry up, everybody! Don't take time to primp, girls!" a man bawled at
them from the door.
They found most of the men employes and performers of the carnival
already assembled with the Bybees in the privilege car. Pop Bybee's
usually lobster-colored face was as white as putty, but his arm was
gallantly about his wife's shoulder. Mrs. Bybee still wore the black
sateen petticoat and red sweater in which she had hurried from the show
train to the carnival immediately after the storm. Her reddened eyes
showed that she had been crying bitterly, but as the carnival family
crowded into the privilege car she searched each face with fury and
suspicion.
"Come here to me, Sally Ford!" she shrilled, when Sally entered the car
with "Pitty Sing" riding on her shoulder.
"Now, honey, go easy!" Pop Bybee cautioned her futilely. "Better let me
do the talking--"
"You shut up!" his wife commanded angrily. "Sally, you knew where I kept
the money! You saw the safe! Oh, I was a fool, all right, but I wanted
to show that I trusted you! Huh! Thought I'd wronged you by accusing you
of taking presents from my husband! Tell him you saw the safe! Tell
him!" And she seized Sally's wrist and shook her so that the midget had
to cling tightly to the girl's neck to keep from being catapulted to the
floor.
"Yes, Mrs. Bybee," Sally answered, her voice almost dying in her throat
with fright. "I saw the safe. But I didn't tell anybody--"
"You're a liar!" Mrs. Bybee screamed. "You told that David boy that very
night! Sneaked off and went walking with him and cooked up this robbery
so you two could make your get-away. Thought it was a grand way to get
out of the state so the cops couldn't pinch you, didn't you?" she
repeated, beside herself with anger, her fingers clamped like a vise on
Sally's wrist.
"Oh, please!" Sally moaned, writhing with a pain of which she was
scarcely conscious, so great was her fear and bewilderment at this
unexpected charge.
"Sally certainly didn't go with him," Pop Bybee interposed reasonably.
"Sure she didn't!" his wife shrilled with angry triumph. "She couldn't!
She couldn't! She was buried under the tent! If it hadn't been for the
storm she wouldn't be here now, working on your sympathies with them
dying-calf eyes of hers--"
"Better let me handle this, honey," Pop Bybee interrupted again, this
time more firmly. "Turn the child loose. Ain't a bit of use breaking her
arm. Now, folks, I might as well tell you all just what happened, and
then try to get to the bottom of this matter. When the worst of the
storm was over Mrs. Bybee left the show train to look for me, to see if
I was hurt or if she could do anything for anyone who was. She hadn't
been out of the stateroom all evening till then--not since she'd put
some money into the safe right after supper. She found the boy Dave
starting out to look for Sally, and she ordered him to stay on the train
to keep an eye on it, in case tramps or crooks tried to board it. There
wasn't anybody else on the train. That right, Mother?"
He turned to Mrs. Bybee, who nodded angrily.
"She told him she'd look after Sally, but he'd have to stand guard on
the train. She didn't say anything to him about the safe--just told him
to patrol the train while she was gone. The safe is under a seat in our
stateroom, and far as we knew, nobody knew where it was, except Sally
here, who happened to come into the stateroom when my wife was counting
a day's receipts."
"Please, Mr. Bybee," Sally interrupted, memory struggling with the panic
in her brain. "Someone else did know! Nita knew! When I left the
stateroom that last day in Stanton I saw Nita disappearing into the
women's dressing room, and I thought she'd been listening. She--"
"Hold on a minute!" Bybee cut in sternly. "How do you know she'd been
listening? Any proof?"
"Yes, sir!" Sally cried eagerly. "Mrs. Bybee had been telling me that
she'd found out that Ford isn't my real name, that the woman I always
thought was my mother wasn't really my mother at all. She said she
guessed I--that my mother was ashamed I'd ever been born. And that same
day Nita called me a--a bad name that means--" She could not go on. Sobs
began to shake her small body again and her face was scarlet with shame.
"That's right!" Gus, the barker, edged toward Bybee through the crowd.
"I found Sally lighting into Nita for calling her that name. And Nita
didn't deny she'd done it. Reckon that proves she was eavesdropping, all
right. And if she was listening in, too, she was probably peeping in,
too, or heard Mrs. Bybee talking about the safe. Was the door open,
ma'am?"
"I don't know," Mrs. Bybee snapped. "Yes, it may have been. It was awful
hot. And I didn't know anybody was on the train."
"It was open a little way," Sally cried. "I remember distinctly. Because
I worried about whether Nita had overheard what Mrs. Bybee had been
telling me. And there's something else--something that happened that
night, when David and I were walking." Memory of that blessed hour in
the moonlight brought tears to her eyes, but she dashed them away with
the wrist which bore the marks of Mrs. Bybee's rage.
"What was it, Sally?" Pop Bybee asked gently. "All we want is to get at
the truth of this thing. Don't be afraid to speak up."
"I hate being a tattle-tale," Sally whimpered. "I never told on anyone
in all my life! But David and I were sitting under a tree, not talking,
when we suddenly heard Nita's voice. She couldn't see us for the tree,
but we peeped around the trunk of it and we saw Nita and a man walking
awfully close together, and Nita was talking. We just heard a few words.
She said: 'No monkey business now, Steve. If you double-cross me I'll
cut your heart out! Fifty-fifty or nothing--'"
Unconsciously her voice had mimicked Nita's, so that to the startled
carnival family it seemed that Nita, the Hula dancer, had appeared
suddenly in the car.
"Sounds like Nita, all right." Gus, the barker, nodded with
satisfaction. "'Steve,' huh? Who the devil is this Steve?"
"What did he look like, Sally?" Bybee asked.
"I don't know," she answered, her big blue eyes imploring him to believe
her. "We couldn't see their faces. We just recognized Nita's voice and
her yellow hair that looked almost white in the moonlight. He wasn't
tall, not any taller than Nita, and I guess he wasn't very big either,
because they were so close together that they looked almost like one
person. We didn't hear the man say a word. Nita was doing all the
talking--"
"Nita would!" a voice from the crowd growled. "Reckon I can tell you
something about this, Pop. I was just ready to ballyhoo the last
performance of the 'girlie' show when Nita come slouching up to me,
pulling a long face and a song-and-dance about being knocked out with
the heat. Bessie had fainted at the last show and I thought Nita might
really be all in, so I told her she could cut the last performance and
go to the dress tent. I never seen hair nor hide of her again, and--" he
paused significantly, "I don't reckon I ever will."
"No, I reckon you won't, not unless the cops nab her," Mrs. Bybee cut in
bitterly. "I always said she was a snake in the grass! And that David,
too! Them goody-goody kind ain't ever worth the powder and lead it'd
take to blow out their brains! I told you, Winfield Bybee, that there
was something phony about that hussy and Dave! 'Tain't like a star
performer like Nita thought she was to trail around after a cook's
helper, like she done with Dave. They didn't pull the wool over my eyes,
even if they did double-cross the kid here--if they _did_ double-cross
her! Mind you, Bybee, I ain't saying I believe a word she's been saying!
She knew where the safe was, and she tipped off the boy.
"I ain't forgot they was both wanted by the police when they joined up
with us! As I said before, if it hadn't been that she was buried under
the freak tent, she'd have skipped with Nita and Dave. You roped Nita in
on your little scheme, didn't you, because she'd had more experience
cracking safes than you or the boy? That's right, ain't it?" the old
lady demanded fiercely of Sally.
Sally shrank from her in horror, but the midget, still perched on her
shoulder, patted her cheeks reassuringly. "No, no! I didn't even tell
David where the safe was! I didn't! David didn't do it! He couldn't!
David's good! He's the best man in the world!"
"Then where is he?" Mrs. Bybee screamed. "Why did he blow? I left him to
guard the train, didn't I? And he ain't here, is he? He wasn't here when
we got back from the carnival lot after the tents was raised. If he's so
damned good, why did he blow with Nita and this Steve you've made up out
of your head?"
"Now, now, Mother," Pop Bybee soothed her, but his eyes were troubled
and suspicious. "Reckon we'd better notify the police, folks. I hate to
call in the law. I've always said I was the law of this outfit, but I
suppose if I've been harboring thieves I'll have to get the help of the
law to track 'em down. Ben, you and Chuck beat it down the tracks to the
police station and give 'em a description of Nita and Dave and this
Steve person, as much as Sally's been able to tell us anyway--"
"Please, Mr. Bybee!" Sally ran to the showman and seized both his hands
in hers. "Please don't set the police on David! I know he's innocent!
There's some reason why he isn't here--a good reason! But he didn't have
anything to do with the robbery. I know that! But if you tell the police
he's been with the carnival they'll find him somehow and put him in jail
on those other charges--and me, too! It doesn't matter about me, but I
couldn't live if David was put in jail on my account! Oh, please! You've
been so good to us!" And she went suddenly on her knees to him, her face
upraised in an agony of appeal.
Pop Bybee looked down upon Sally's agonized face with troubled
indecision in his bright blue eyes. He tried to lift her to her feet,
but her arms were locked about his knees. The midget had scrambled from
Sally's shoulder to the floor of the car and as Bybee hesitated, her
tiny fists beat upon his right leg for attention.
"You're not going to break your promise to Sally, are you, Mr. Bybee?"
the tiny voice piped shrilly. "You told her and the boy you'd protect
them. She's told you the truth. Don't you know truth when you hear it? I
always knew Nita was a crook. She never saw a policeman or a constable
or a sheriff without turning white as a ghost. She joined up with the
carnival just to learn the lay of the land and tip off her
accomplice--this Steve person--where to find the money. That's why she
was spying on Mrs. Bybee that day in Stanton. Listen to me!"
"I'm listening, Miss Tanner," Pop Bybee acknowledged wearily. "And I
swear I don't know what to say or do. If they get clear away with that
money the show'll be stranded. Every cent I had in the world was in that
safe. Reckon I was a fool to carry it with me, but I never trusted a
bank, and it was more convenient, having it right with me. Tomorrow's
payday, too, and all of you are in the same boat with me."
"Listen, boss, let's take a vote on it." Gus, the barker, spoke up
suddenly and loudly. "Now me--I believe the kid here is telling the
truth. No college boy could crack a safe like that. It was a
professional job, or I'm a liar! Of course Nita may have tolled the boy
off with her and this Steve, since she was so crazy about him, but we
ain't got no proof she did, and as Sally says, if you sick the cops on
the boy, the jig will be up with her as well as the boy. Another thing,
Dave may be laying in the bushes somewhere with a bullet--"
"Oh!" Sally screamed, as the full significance of Gus' words burst upon
her. She fainted then, her little body slumping into a heap at Bybee's
feet, her head striking one of his big shoes and resting there.
When she regained consciousness she was lying in the lower berth which
had belonged to Nita, and the midget was kneeling on the pillow beside
her head, dabbing her face with a handkerchief soaked in aromatic
spirits of ammonia. Mazie and Sue, two of the dancers in the "girlie"
show, sat on the edge of the berth, their cold-creamed faces almost
beautiful with anxiety and sympathy.
"What's the matter? Is it time to get up?" Sally asked dazedly. "What
are you doing, Betty?"
The midget answered in her tiny, brisk voice: "I'm bathing your face
with ammonia which Mrs. Bybee sent. It should be cologne, and this
ammonia will probably dry your skin something dreadful, but it was the
only thing we could get. You fainted, you know."
"Oh, I remember!" Sally moaned, her head beginning to thresh from side
to side on the pillow. "Have they found David? I know he's been hurt!"
"They're looking for him," the midget assured her briskly. "Mr. Bybee
took a vote on whether he was to notify the police about David's being
gone, as well as Nita, and the vote was 'No!' That ought to make you
feel happier!"
"Oh, it does!" Sally began to cry softly. "You have all been so kind, so
kind! You said Mrs. Bybee sent the ammonia?" she asked wistfully.
"She certainly did, and she's in the kitchen of the privilege car right
now, making you some hot tea. She won't say she's sorry, probably, but
she'll try to make it up to you. She's like that--always flying off the
handle and suspicious of everybody, but she's got a heart as big as
Babe, the fat girl."
"And so have you!" Sally told her brokenly, taking both of the tiny
hands into one of hers and laying them softly against her lips.
"Ain't love grand?" Mazie sighed deeply. "If it had been my sweetie, I'd
a-fell for that line of Ma Bybee's about him running off with Nita, but
you sure stuck by him! I was in love like that once, when I was a kid. I
married him, too, and he run off with the albino girl and took my grouch
bag with him. Every damn cent I had! But it sure was sweet before we was
married and he was nuts about me."
"Aw, let the kid alone!" Sue slipped from the edge of the berth and
yawned widely. "Gawd, I'm sleepy! If the cops don't catch that Hula
hussy I'm going out looking for her myself, and when I get through with
her she'll never shake another grass skirt! C'mon, Mazie. It's three
o'clock in the morning, and we've got eighteen shows ahead of us."
"Maybe!" Mazie yawned. "If Pop wasn't stringing us, we'll be stranded in
this burg. G'night, Sally. G'night, Midge. And say, Sally, even if this
Dave boy has blowed and left you flat, you won't have no trouble copping
off another sweetie. Gus was telling us about that New York rube that's
trailing you. Hook up with him and you'll wear diamonds. Believe me,
kid, they ain't none of 'em worth losing sleep over when you've got
eighteen shows a day ahead of you. G'night."
When they had gone the midget yanked the green curtains together with
comical fierceness, then crawled under the top of the sheet that covered
Sally.
"I'm going to sleep here with you, Sally," she said. "I don't take up
much room."
And the woman who was old enough to be Sally's mother curled her 29-inch
body in the curve of Sally's right arm and laid her tiny cheek, as soft
and wrinkled as a worn kid glove, in the hollow of Sally's firm young
neck.
But long after the midget was asleep, Sally lay wide-eyed and tense in
the dark, her mind a welter of fears and love and doubt. She had pleaded
passionately with Pop Bybee for David, fiercely shoving to the dark
depths of her mind even the memory of the jealousy which Nita had
fiendishly aroused in her heart. But now that she had saved him
temporarily by convincing Bybee that the boy could not have taken part
in the robbery, doubt began to insinuate its ugly body upward from those
dark depths where she had buried it.
Did he really love her--a pathetic, immature girl from an orphanage, a
girl who had been nothing but a responsibility and a source of dire
trouble to him since he had first met and championed her on the Carson
farm?
Her old feeling of inferiority rose like nausea in her throat. Life in
an orphanage is not calculated to give a girl faith in her own beauty
and charm. No one, until David's teasing eyes had rested on her, had
thought her beautiful.
Had he been only sorry for her, glad of an opportunity to "blow," to get
out of the state where he was wanted on two serious charges? Was he
dismayed, too, by the fact that moonlight had tricked him into telling
her that he loved her, thus adding the responsibility of her future to
the burden of protecting her in this hectic present?
Then a sweeter, saner memory clamored for attention. She heard again his
fond, husky voice caressing her, his "Dear little Sally!" And
involuntarily her mouth pursed in memory of his kiss, that kiss that had
left her giddy with delight.
How unfailingly kind and sweet he had been since that first day, when he
had strode into her life, with the sun on his chestnut hair and the
glory of the sun in his eyes. He had not failed her once, but she was
failing him now, by doubting him, by picturing him as a fugitive in the
dark, fleeing with a pair of criminals who had robbed the man whose
kindness had protected him from the law.
Why, she must be crazy to think for a moment that David could do a thing
like that! No one in the world was as good and kind and honorable as
David.
But where was he? Mrs. Bybee had left him to guard the train. Not for a
moment could she believe that he had failed in his trust. Painfully,
Sally tried to visualize the dreadful thing that had happened. David
alone, patrolling the train, his eyes sharp for intruders. Then--the
sudden appearance of Nita and the man, Steve, weighted down with the
contents of the safe they had robbed. For Sally knew that the robbery
must have taken place before David caught his first glimpse of the
crooks. Otherwise the safe would be intact now, even if David's dead
body had been found as silent witness that he had fulfilled his trust.
Her mind shuddered away from that imagined picture, went back to the
painful reconstruction of what must have taken place. David had seen
them, had given chase. Of course! Otherwise he would be here now. Was he
still pursuing them, or was he lying somewhere near the road, wounded,
his splendid young body ignominiously flung into a cornfield?
She could bear no more, could no longer lie safe in her berth while
David needed her somewhere. Very carefully, for all her haste, she
lifted the tiny body that nestled against her side and laid it tenderly
upon the pillow, which was big enough to serve as a mattress for the
midget. Then, sobbing soundlessly, she groped for her shoes in the
little green hammock swung across the windows; found them, put them on,
slipped to the edge of the berth. She was profoundly thankful that the
girls had not undressed her after she had fainted.
When she reached the car in which Mr. and Mrs. Bybee occupied a
stateroom she saw the showman and his wife through the open door,
talking to two strangers whom she guessed to be plainclothes policemen
from police headquarters of Capital City. The two men were evidently
about to leave, nodding impatiently that they understood, when Sally
appeared, like a frightened, pale little ghost in green-and-white
striped gingham.
She forgot that she was without make-up, that the police were looking
for her as well as for the criminals who had robbed the safe. But Pop
Bybee had not forgotten. Still talking with the plainclothes detectives,
he motioned to her violently behind his back. She turned and forced
herself to walk slowly and sedately toward the other end of the car as
the detectives made their farewells and their brusque promises of "quick
action."
When the men had left the car Bybee's voice summoned her in a husky
stage whisper, calling her "Lalla," so that the detectives, if they were
listening, should not identify her with the girl who had run away from
the orphanage in the company of a man wanted on a charge of assault with
the intent to kill.
"Are you crazy?" Bybee demanded hoarsely when she had come running to
the stateroom. "Them was dicks! Policemen, understand? They mighta
nabbed you. What are you doing up? Get back to bed and try to sleep."
"Have you found David?" she quavered, brushing aside his anxiety for
her.
"Not a sign of him." Bybee shook his head. "But I didn't spill the beans
to the dicks. I'd given you my word, and Winfield Bybee's word is as
good as his bond."
"I'm going to look for David," she announced simply, but her blazing
eyes dared him to try to prevent her. "He's hurt somewhere--or killed.
I'm going to find him."
And before the astonished man or his wife could stretch out a hand to
detain her she was gone. When she dropped from the platform of the car
she heard the retreating roar of the police car. Instinct turned her in
the opposite direction, away from the city, down the railroad tracks
leading into the open country.
She did not know and would not have cared that Mr. and Mrs. Bybee were
following her, Mrs. Bybee muttering disgustedly but refusing to let
Sally search alone for the boy in whom she had such implicit faith.
Dawn was breaking, pale and wan, in a sky that was shamelessly cloudless
and serene after the violence of last night's storm, when, over a slight
hill, a man's figure loomed suddenly, then seemed to drag with
unbearable weariness as it plodded toward the show train.
"David!" Sally shrieked. "David!"
She began to run, her ankles turning against clots of cinders, but her
arms outstretched, a glory greater than that of the dawn in her face.
Before she reached him Sally almost fainted with horror, for in the pale
light of the dawn she saw that David's shirt about his left shoulder was
soaked with blood. But his uninjured right arm was stretched out in
urgent invitation, and his voice was hailing her gaily, in spite of his
terrible weakness and fatigue.
"Dear little Sally!" he cried huskily, as his right arm swept her
against his breast. "Why aren't you in bed, darling? But I'm glad you're
not! I've been able to keep plodding on in the hope of seeing you. Did
you think I'd run away and left you? Poor little Sally!" he crooned over
her, for she was crying, her frantic hands playing over his face, her
eyes devouring him through her tears.
"But you're hurt, David!" she moaned. "I knew you were hurt! I told them
so! I was looking for you. I knew you hadn't run away."
"And she made us believe you hadn't, too," Pop Bybee panted, having
reached them on a run, dragging his wife behind him. "What happened,
Dave boy? Had a mix-up with the dirty crooks, did you?"
"Winfield Bybee, you _are_ a fool!" Mrs. Bybee gasped, breathless from
running. "Let the poor boy get his breath first. Here! Put your arm
about him and let him lean on you. Sally, you run back to the train and
get help. This boy's all done up and he's going to have that shoulder
dressed before he's pestered to death with questions."
"I can walk," David panted, his breath whistling across his ashen lips.
"I don't want Sally out of my sight. I--would--give up--then. Nothing
much--the matter. Just a--bullet--in my shoulder. Be all right--in
a--day or two."
"Please don't try to talk, darling," Sally begged, rubbing her cheek
against his right hand and wetting it with tears.
"Lean on me and take it easy," Pop Bybee urged, his voice husky with
unashamed emotion. "And don't talk any more till we get you into a
berth. God! But I'm glad to see you, Dave boy! I'd made up my mind I'd
never trust another man if you'd thrown me down. But Sally didn't doubt
you a minute. Kept me from telling the police that you had disappeared
with the crooks."
"Thanks," David gasped, leaning heavily on the showman. "I was scared
sick--the police--had found--Sally. Knew there was--bound to be--an
awful row."
He fainted then, his splendid young body crumpling suddenly to the
cinders of the railroad track. Somehow the three of them managed to get
him to the show train and into the Bybees' stateroom, where Gus, the
barker, who had graduated from a medical school before the germ of
wanderlust had infected him, dressed the wounded shoulder.
"The bullet went clear through the fleshy part of the arm at the
shoulder," Gus told them, as he washed his hands in the stateroom's
basin. "No bones touched at all. Just a flesh wound. Of course he's lost
a lot of blood and he'll be pretty shaky for a few days, but no real
harm done. You can turn off the faucet, Sally. Save them tears for a big
tragedy--like ground glass in your cold cream, or something like that.
Want a real doctor to give that shoulder the once-over, Pop?" he asked,
turning to Bybee, who had not left David's side.
It was David, opening his eyes dazedly just then, who answered: "No
other doctor, please. I'm a fugitive from justice, remember. If I could
have some coffee now I think I could tell you what happened, Mr. Bybee."
A dozen eager voices outside the stateroom door offered to get the
coffee from the privilege car, and within a few minutes Sally was
kneeling before David, holding a cup of steaming black coffee to his
lips.
As many of the carnival family as could crowd into the small space of
the car aisle pressed against the open door of the stateroom to hear his
story. Jan the Holland giant, who was too tall to stand upright in the
car, was invited into the stateroom, where he sat between Pop Bybee and
Mrs. Bybee, "Pitty Sing" in the crook of one of his arms, Noko, the
Hawaiian midget, in the other. Sally still knelt beside David, holding
his right hand tightly in both of hers and laying her lips upon it when
his story moved her unbearably.
"I suppose Mrs. Bybee has told you that I was leaving the show train to
go to the carnival grounds to see if anything had happened to Sally. I'd
have gone sooner, but the storm was so violent that I knew I'd not have
a chance to get there. Mrs. Bybee said she was going to the lot and
would look after Sally for me, but she wanted me to stay on the train,
or near it, to patrol it. She didn't tell me there was a lot of money in
her stateroom, or I'd have stationed myself in there."
"You see," Sally interrupted eagerly. "I told you I hadn't said a word
to him about the safe."
"Safe?" David glanced down at her, puzzled. "So this Steve crook cracked
a safe to get the money, did he? I didn't know--didn't have time to find
out."
"And I told you it was a man named Steve!" Sally reminded them joyously,
raising David's cold hand to her lips. "They thought I was making it all
up, Dave, but they believed me after a while."
"I suppose Sally has told you that we saw Nita and some man walking in
the moonlight that last night we were in Stanton," David addressed Pop
Bybee. "We heard her call him Steve, and say something about what she'd
do to him if he double-crossed her. I should have told you then, Mr.
Bybee, but I didn't have an idea Nita was planning to rob the outfit,
and anyway--" he blushed, his eyes twinkling fondly at Sally--"by
morning I'd forgotten all about it. I couldn't think of anything
but--but Sally. You see we'd just told each other that night
that--that--well, sir, that we loved each other and--"
"Anybody else in the whole outfit could have told you that," Bybee
chuckled. "It's all right, Dave. Carnival folks usually mind their own
business and spend damn little time toting tales."
"I'm glad you're not blaming me," David said gratefully. "Well, sir, I
was walking up and down the tracks, just wild to get away and see if
anything had happened to Sally, when suddenly I heard a soft thud, like
somebody jumping to the ground on the other side of the train. I crossed
over as quick as I could, but by that time they were running down the
side of the train pretty far ahead of me. It was Nita and a man. They
must have been hidden on the train, waiting their chance, when the storm
broke--were there when Mrs. Bybee left.
"I suppose they hadn't counted on any such luck; had probably intended
to overpower her before you got back, sir, and the storm saved them the
trouble."
"I'd have give them a run for the money," Mrs. Bybee retorted grimly,
her skinny old hand knotting into a menacing fist.
"That's just what I did," David grinned rather whitely at her. "I yelled
at them to stop, because I had an idea they'd been up to something,
since they'd jumped off this car, and I knew Nita had no business on the
train, since all you people were sleeping on the lot.
"They were carrying a couple of suitcases that looked suspiciously heavy
to me. It flashed over me that Mrs. Bybee, being treasurer of the
outfit, must have left a lot of money in her stateroom, and that Nita
and this Steve chap had been planning to rob her when Sally and I heard
them talking the other night. I started after them, still yelling for
them to stop, and Steve turned and fired at me. He missed me, lucky for
me, and I kept right on.
"About a hundred yards beyond the end of the train they climbed into a
car that was parked on the road that runs alongside the tracks and after
telling me goodby with another bullet that missed me, too, Steve had the
car started. I was about to give up and start toward Capital City to
notify the police when I noticed there was a handcar on the tracks, just
where this spur joins the main line.
"I threw the switch and in a minute I had the handcar on the main line
and was pumping along after them. The state road parallels the railroad
track for about five or six miles, you know, and I could make nearly as
good time in my handcar as they could in their flivver, for it's a down
grade nearly all the way." He paused, his eyes closing wearily as if
every muscle in his body ached with the memory of that terrible ride in
the dead of night.
"Better rest awhile, Dave," Pop Bybee suggested gently, bending over the
boy to wipe the cold drops of sweat from his forehead.
"No, I'll get it over with," David protested weakly. "There's not much
more to tell. They couldn't see me--had no idea I was trailing them in
the handcar. But I could keep them in sight because of their headlights.
I guess they'd have got away, though, if a freight train hadn't come
along just then and blocked the road. They were just reaching the grade
crossing where the state road cuts the railroad tracks when this freight
came charging down on us--"
"But you, David!" Sally shuddered, bowing her head on his hand, the
fingers of which curled upward weakly to cup her face. "You were on the
track. Did the train hit you? Oh!"
"Of course not!" David grinned at her. "I'm here, and I wouldn't have
been if the engine had hit the handcar when I was on it. But I'm afraid
the railroad company is minus one handcar this morning. The cowcatcher
of the freight engine scooped it up and tossed it aside as if it had
been a baby's go-cart, but I'd already jumped and was tumbling down the
bank into a nice bed of wildflowers.
"Pretty wet after the storm, so I didn't go to sleep. I'd jumped to the
other side of the tracks and was hidden from Steve's car while the
freight train rolled on. They didn't stop to hold a post-mortem over the
handcar. Probably figured a tramp had been bumming a free ride on it and
had got his, and good enough for him.
"When the train had passed I was waiting by the road for Steve's car. I
guess he was pretty badly surprised when I hopped upon the running board
and grabbed the steering wheel and swerved the car into a ditch, nearly
turning it over. I don't remember much of what happened then, what with
Nita screeching and Steve swearing and popping his gun at me. But
somehow I managed to get his revolver--didn't know I'd been shot at
first--and dragged him out of the car.
"It must have been a pretty good fight, for Nita decided to beat it
before it was finished. She started off with one of the suitcases but it
was too heavy and she dropped it in the road and lit out. If Nita could
dance as well as she can run," David interrupted himself to grin at
Bybee, "she'd be a real loss to the outfit."
"Well, Dave, even if Steve did get away with the money, my hat's off to
you, boy," and he reached for the hand which Sally was still cuddling
jealously.
"Who's telling this?" David demanded, with just a touch of boyish
bravado, which made Sally love him better than ever. "He didn't get
away. I'm afraid he won't be good for much for a long time. Nita should
have stayed to look."
"The money, Dave!" Mrs. Bybee screamed. "You didn't save the money, did
you, Dave? Where are you, Winfield Bybee? I'm giving you fair warning!
If he saved that money, I'm going to faint dead away!"
"Then I reckon I'd better not tell you that I did save the money," David
grinned at her. "I surely hate to see you faint, ma'am. It isn't so
pleasant."
"Dave, you answer me this minute!" the old lady commanded, shaking a
skinny finger in his face. "Do you know the outfit'll be stranded if
those two crooks did get away with the money? Every cent we had in the
world was in that safe! You oughta be ashamed of yourself, teasing an
old woman!"
"I did save the money, if that's what they had in the suitcases, Mrs.
Bybee," David answered more seriously.
"Then where is it? What have you done with it? Left it lying in the
road?" the showman's wife screeched, her eyes wild in her gray, wrinkled
face.
"Now, now, Mother," Bybee soothed her. "If he did, he shan't be blamed.
How could you expect him to walk six or seven miles with two heavy
suitcases and his shoulder shot through?"
Sally lifted her face from David's caressing hand and glared at Mrs.
Bybee. "Of course he didn't leave it lying in the road! After risking
his life to save it for you? David is the cleverest and bravest man in
the world! Don't you know that yet?"
Her eyes dropped then to David's face, softened and glowed with such a
divine light of love that the boy's head jerked impulsively upward from
the pillow. "Where did you hide it, David darling?"
"Dear little Sally!" he murmured, as he fell back, overcome with
dizziness. "She guessed it, sir," he said drowsily, turning his head
with an effort to face Bybee. "I knew I couldn't carry it far, so I hid
it. The Steve chap was knocked out cold--I suppose they'll have another
charge of 'assault with intent to kill' against me now--so I knew he
couldn't see what I was doing.
"I took the two suitcases across the road, holding them in one hand,
because by that time my shoulder was bleeding so I was afraid to strain
it. There's a farm right at the end of the road. I struck a match and
read the name on the mail box nailed to a post on the road. The name's
Randall--C. J. Randall, R. F. D. 2. You oughtn't to have any trouble
finding the place.
"There wasn't any moon, but the stars were so bright after the storm
that I could just make out a barn about a hundred yards from the road. I
cut across the cornfield and managed to reach the barn. There wasn't a
sound, not even a dog barking, lucky for me, for if I'd been caught with
the suitcases I'd have had a fine time explaining how I happened to get
them and what I was doing with them. But I had to take that chance."
"Even if the police had caught you with them, I'd never have believed
that you robbed Pop Bybee," Sally assured him, tears slurring her voice,
but her eyes shining with pride.
"If you'd seen me robbing the safe, you wouldn't have believed it,"
David said softly, his free arm drawing her down to the berth so that he
could kiss her.
There was a rustle of whispering, a giggle or two from the audience
crammed into the corridor outside the door. But David and Sally did not
mind. The kiss was none the shorter or sweeter because it was witnessed
by the carnival family.
"Well, sir," David went on after that unashamed kiss, which had left
Sally trembling and radiant, "I got the suitcases into the barn and up a
ladder to the hayloft. You'll find them buried under the hay, unless the
Randall horses have made a meal off them by this time."
"Glory be to the Lord!" Mrs. Bybee screamed, pounding her husband on the
back. "The show'll go on, Winfield! And what are you standing there for?
Hustle right out after them suitcases or I'll go myself! You've got to
go yourself, or that farmer Randall will take a pot shot at anybody that
goes meddling around his barn."
"All right, Mother, all right!" Bybee protested. "I'll handle it. Don't
worry. But I want to thank Dave here for what he's done for the outfit.
Dave--" he began, lifting his voice as if he intended to make an
oration.
"Oh, that's all right, Mr. Bybee," David blushed vividly. "We'll just
call it square. You didn't turn me over to the police last night, and
you've taken Sally and me in and given us work and protected us--"
"I'm going to do more than that, by golly!" Bybee shouted. "I'm going to
the district attorney of this burg and tell him the whole yarn! I'll get
them charges against you and Sally quashed in less time than it takes to
say it! You're a hero, boy, and by golly, I feel like charging admission
for the rubes to look at you! The biggest and bravest hero in captivity!
Yes, sir! How's that for a spiel, Gus?" he shouted to the barker.
"Dave don't seem to think it's so grand!" Gus chuckled. "Look at him! A
body'd thing he'd been socked in the eye instead of slapped on the
back!"
It was true. David was looking so white and sick and his eyes were so
filled with embarrassment and distress that Sally was in tears again.
"What's the matter, Dave?" Bybee asked in bewilderment. "I thought you
and the kid would be tickled to death to get a clean bill of health from
the cops. What's wrong?"
David struggled upon the elbow of his right arm, his white face
twitching with a spasm of pain. "I'd be glad to be free of those
charges, Mr. Bybee, but I guess we'd better let them stand for a while.
I might get off all right, but--it's Sally. You see, sir, she's not of
age, and the state would make her go back to the orphanage. The law in
this state makes her answerable to the orphanage till she's eighteen,
and it would kill her to go back. I couldn't bear it, either, Mr. Bybee.
Sally and I belong together, and we're going to be married when this
trouble blows over." Although he was blushing furiously, his voice was
strong and clear, his eyes unwavering as they met the bright, frowning
blue eyes of Pop Bybee.
"But man alive," Pop protested, and it was noticeable to both Sally and
David that he did not call him "boy" after David's declaration of his
intentions toward Sally. "We can't simply hush this whole thing up! You
did follow the crooks and take the money away from them! I've got to
notify the police that the swag has been recovered."
"Can't you tell them it was all a mistake and call off the case?" David
pleaded earnestly.
"And let that Hula-hussy get off Scot-free?" Bybee hooted. "No, siree!
She ain't a member of this family no more, and she'll have to pay for
double-crossing me! I was good to that girl! Staked her to cakes and
clothes when she joined up, whining she didn't have a cent to her name!
Stringing me all along! Just joined up to learn the lay of the land!
"Besides, we've already put the case in the hands of the police and
they've seen the safe for themselves. The sergeant said it was a
professional job, all right, as neat a safe-cracking trick as he'd ever
seen turned. I couldn't hush it up if I wanted to."
"I'll do what I can for Sally, lie like a gentleman for her, say she
never joined up with us, we don't know where she is--anything you like,
but I'm afraid you're bound to be the hero of Capital City before you're
twenty-four hours older. Too bad, son, but I don't see how it can be
helped," he twinkled.
"I don't care a rap about being a hero," David snapped. "The only thing
in God's world I care about is Sally Ford. Listen, Mr. Bybee, tell the
police that one of the other boys chased the crooks and took the money
away from them. Let Eddie Cobb be the hero! Eddie'd like that, wouldn't
you, Eddie?" he sang out to the freckle-faced youngster who was looking
on, goggle-eyed, among the crowd that jammed the door of the stateroom.
"Aw, Dave!" Eddie protested, flushing brightly under his freckles.
"Sure you would like it!" David laughed feebly, sinking back to his
pillows. "Listen, Mr. Bybee: this is Eddie Cobb's home town. He was
raised in the orphanage, like Sally. He'd get a great kick out of being
a hero to the kids at the Home. He can go with you to get the suitcases,
after you've sent for the police to go along with you.
"I'll lie low, Eddie can tell the story I've told you, and the cops will
never be the wiser. I can give him a pretty good description of Steve. I
had plenty of chances to study his face after I'd knocked him out. I
imagine he's beat it in his car by this time, if he was able to drive;
otherwise you'll find him in the road just as I told you. Of course he'd
know it wasn't Eddie that fought with him, but the police wouldn't have
any reason to doubt Eddie's word."
"But Nita may have told him about you and me!" Sally cried. "Oh, David,
don't bother about me! Take your chance while you have it to be cleared
of those terrible charges! I--I'll go back to the Home and--and wait for
you. I could stand it--somehow--if I knew you were back in college, a--a
hero, and working for both of us. Please, David! Think of yourself, not
me!"
"No." David shook his head stubbornly. "This little thing I've done
wouldn't get you out of trouble. They might clap you into the
reformatory, as a juvenile delinquent. We can't take a chance on that!
Besides, you've had enough of the orphanage. We stick together, darling,
and that's that! May I have another cup of coffee, if it isn't too much
trouble?"
"You're both a pair of fools, so crazy in love with each other that you
can't see straight!" Mrs. Bybee scolded, as she blew her nose violently.
"But I'd like to see Winfield Bybee try to do anything you don't want
him to! Far as I'm concerned, you can have anything I've got and welcome
to it!"
Of course there was nothing then for Pop Bybee to do but to adopt
David's plan. The boy was transferred to a lower berth, where he was
safely hidden until after the detectives had arrived and departed with
Pop Bybee, Eddie and Gus, the barker.
Eddie, in his zeal for playing his part well, had torn his shirt,
bruised his knuckles, scraped dirt on his arms, rolled in mud, and done
everything else to make up for the part.
For the rest of the day Eddie strutted about in the limelight of
publicity. Newspaper photographers and reporters arrived within a few
minutes after the detectives had phoned headquarters that the suitcases
filled with silver and bills had been found in the hayloft; and when
Eddie returned with the showman and the barker, he was prevailed upon to
pose bashfully for his pictures.
The newspaper reporters commented admirably on the "boy hero's"
admirable modesty and diffidence in the big front-page stories that they
wrote about the carnival robbery, and Eddie's freckled face, grinning
bashfully from the center of the pages, confirmed every word written
about him.
His kewpie doll booth at the carnival that afternoon and evening was
mobbed by his admirers, and before the day was ended Eddie almost
believed that he _had_ routed two famous criminals and saved a small
fortune for his employer.
Sally was permitted to stay with David during the afternoon, but Bybee
apologetically asked her to go on for the evening performances, since a
record-breaking crowd had turned out, drawn partly by the fine weather
that followed the storm, but largely by the front page publicity which
the robbery had won for the show.