A RUNNING BATTLE
The morning light shone dimly through a narrow, darkly shadowed window
when Johnny awoke. To the reader it may seem strange that he had slept so
soundly. To the habitual wanderer a cot, a hammock, or only a hard floor
is made for sleep. The places, a jungle, an Arctic tundra, a shack in a
city's slums are all the same to him. He sleeps where he may and leaves
trouble to the morrow. So it was with Johnny.
His first waking thought was of his newfound friend. As he sat up and
stared about him, he realized that he was alone in the room. The cot
close to his own was mussed up and empty. His strange friend was gone and
his automatic had passed out with him.
"Queer." Johnny's hand went out for his trousers and his bill folder.
"All there," he murmured. "Mighty queer, I'd say. I--"
His reflections were broken off by the squeak of a door hinge. The outer
door had been opened a crack. It was closed so quickly that he caught no
glimpse of the intruder.
Springing out of bed, he hastily drew on his clothes, then went to the
corner and bathed hands and face.
"Ah!" he breathed, "another day. And once more a city, my native city! My
home! How good it is to live!"
He opened the door and stepped outside. What he saw amazed and puzzled
him. The place in which he had spent the night was a plain board shack of
but one room, built at the back of a lot. Before it, separated from it by
some ten feet of boardwalk, was a second low, wood structure. This
building was three times as large as the other, but was, if anything, in
a worse state of repair.
These shacks had evidently been built before the street was laid, for
their eaves were about on a level with the street walk.
"Queer place to live," he mused as his eyes, sweeping from left to right,
found brick structures of considerable height on every side. "Queer
they'd leave such a shack standing. Stranger still that anyone'd care to
live here. Fellow'd think--"
At that instant the back door of the larger of the two wooden structures
opened and a girl stepped forth.
A girl of sixteen, with well rounded face and figure, big brown eyes and
a disarming smile, she formed an unforgettable picture, framed as she was
by the gray of decaying wood, the door frame.
"Hello."
"Hello back," said Johnny.
"You want some coffee? Yes?"
"Yes," Johnny grinned.
"But say!" he exclaimed as she prepared to vanish. "Where is he?" He
nodded toward the shack he had just left.
"Drew? Him? He is gone a long time. Before the sun is up. He is gone.
Gone to work. What kind of work? I don't know. Fine man, Drew Lane. You
know him?"
"A little."
Johnny studied the girl as she turned to go for his coffee. She was dark.
Her hair was black. Her speech was not broken, but her sentences were
short and crisp.
"Italian. Born in America, perhaps," he told himself. "Wonder why they
live here? No neighbors; no lawn; no garden; no scenery; no nothing. Only
bare walls."
She brought him coffee, this girl, and thin sandwiches spread with odd
but delicious preserves. She set these on a small table in the room where
he had spent the night. He ate in silence.
"Queer old world," he murmured to himself. "Wonder what I should do
next."
Opening his bill folder, he counted two hundred dollars in currency.
"In Chicago they wear store clothes, I guess you'd call them. Better buy
some, I guess." This to himself. The girl by this time was gone.
Leaving his duffel bag and archery equipment in the corner, he walked out
of the place, boarded a street car and went rattling away downtown.
Twenty minutes later he was engaged in the dual task of trying on a ready
made suit and convincing the clerk that he had not always lived in the
"sticks."
Two hours later, when he boarded a car going north, he seemed quite a
different person. Save for the deep tan which life in the open had
bestowed upon him in lavish abundance, he could scarcely have been told
from any city youth. Such is the transforming power of clothes.
"I'll go back to that shack and see if this fellow, Drew Lane, has come
back," he told himself. "Don't want to leave without at least thanking
him. Queer sort of chap. Wonder why he carries a gun? Express messenger
maybe."
At that he gave himself over to a study of his fellow passengers. He was
standing on the rear platform. Two of the half dozen men there attracted
his attention. They talked of cards and gambling. One said he had lost a
"leaf" last night. What was a "leaf?" Johnny couldn't even hazard a
guess.
The car lurched. Johnny put out a hand to steady himself. It was his left
hand, for he was decidedly left handed. Strangely enough, one of the men
cast a sharp look at his hand, then turned to his companion with a
knowing wink. The other replied with a dainty pluck at his own sleeve, as
if to say, "See! It's new."
This last action was not lost on Johnny. They took him for a hick, just
because his clothes were new. He colored behind his ears.
"Like to give them a good swift poke," he thought. Johnny could do it,
too, as you probably know. But Johnny was wise. He knew how to wait his
time. And how very short the time is on some occasions!
At Grand Avenue he swung about to drop off the car. Suddenly there was a
confused crowding about him. He felt something hard strike him in the
left thigh. Something snagged at his pocket.
"Thieves!" he thought. His hand shot down for his purse. It was gone!
"So that was it! How dumb I--"
"There they go! I'll get 'em."
He leaped off the car and followed in hot pursuit.
But what was this? Now there were four. Two were much younger than the
ones he had seen.
"What of it?" He did not slacken his pace. "Get help from somewhere.
Can't pick my pocket in broad daylight," he panted.
Down an alley they raced. The two younger men had been behind at first.
They were swifter of foot, were catching up with the two he had seen on
the car.
Then of a sudden he caught his breath.
The foremost young man had half turned his head. In that instant Johnny
recognized his host of the night before, Drew Lane.
"The dirty dog!" he muttered, slowing up. "No wonder he carries a gun! Ho
well, let 'em have it. You can't get yourself shot to save a few dollars,
especially when you haven't a chance to win."
But what was this? Another wild turn of events. Having caught up with one
of the men Johnny had seen on the car, Drew Lane dealt him a blow on the
chin that sent him spinning round and round, and dropped him with a crash
to the ground.
"What you running about?" Drew Lane fairly shouted. "Get yourself
killed."
Leaving him lying there, he went racing on after the other fugitive.
Still Johnny did not understand what it was all about. Only one thing was
clear. One of two people had his purse. In that purse was his remaining
one hundred dollars, and some odd bits of change. There was an even
chance that the man lying on the stones of the alley pavement was the
one. He might at any moment recover the use of his legs and vanish with
the purse. Johnny needed the money.
Having reasoned this out, he sprinted up to the spot beside the man and
stood there, feet well placed, hands in position, attentive, expectant.
What he expected came to pass. Rolling over twice, the man put a
trembling hand to his jaw and stole a furtive glance at Johnny; then he
crept to a position on his hands and knees closely resembling that of a
racer who prepares for a hundred yard dash.
"I wouldn't move, if I were you," said Johnny, coming a step closer. "You
are all out of breath. Besides, you are in no condition to run. Don't
exercise enough, you don't. Your clothes are all right, quite the thing,
I suppose. But it's what's inside the clothes that really counts. How'd
you look stripped? Huh!"
The man looked up at Johnny out of the corner of his eye. He took in the
well rounded shoulders that bulged the lines of his new coat, noted his
hard clenched fist and the clear keen glint in his eye.
"Think you're a smart bunch, don't ya'?" he growled. "College kids!"
"We're not a bunch," said Johnny. "And I'm not from college. I'm just now
from the sticks. Some day you fellows will learn that all the boobs don't
come from the sticks. Mostly they don't. They live right here in the
city.
"As for those other fellows, I don't know their game. I only know that
one of you got my money, and I want it back."
"You--you don't know those other young fellows?" The man's tone sounded
his surprise.
Then a light of cunning appeared in his eyes.
"All you want is your money? Well, there it is, kid." He placed Johnny's
purse on the cobblestones, then stole a fugitive glance to the corner
round which the other three had gone. "You've got your money back. Sorry
I took it, kid. Just a joke. Joke on a country kid. Ha! Ha! Guess I can
go now."
"Guess you can't!" said Johnny, paying no attention to the pocketbook.
"Say, I'll tell you!" the man exclaimed. "You're a smart kid. How'd a
leaf look to you? Huh? A whole leaf?"
"A--a leaf?"
"Sure. There it is." The man drew a crumpled bill from his pocket and put
it beside Johnny's purse. It was a hundred dollar bill.
"So that's a leaf?" Johnny grinned. "I'm not much used to city talk."
"I'll leave it right here," the man whined. "Now can I go?"
"No, you can't. Not for ten grand!" Johnny said. "And there's some of
your crime slang right back at you. Put up your filthy old leaf. They
grow better ones on cottonwood trees out in the sticks. Here come the
rest of them."
It was true. His host of the night before was returning down the alley.
So, too, was a slimmer young man with a freckled Irish face. Between
them, looking very much exhausted and quite disgusted with life, was
Johnny's other street car companion.
"Well, well!" said Johnny's host, Drew Lane, eyeing the purse on the
cobblestones. "Exhibit A. Right before my eyes!
"That yours?" he asked, turning to Johnny.
"Sure it is."
"And these birds took it?"
"Sure did."
"What could be sweeter? Luck's with us this morning, old pard!" He patted
the freckled faced Irish youth on the back. "Got a case. All sewed up
neat and tight.
"Get up!" he ordered. The man on the cobblestones stood up.
Drew Lane picked up the purse. At the same time he threw open his coat,
revealing a star. It was the emblem of a city detective.
"You'll get it back O.K.," he said to Johnny. "Here's ten till you do."
He pressed a bank note into Johnny's hand. "Don't mind coming along, do
you? Need you for a witness. Been looking for these birds for six weeks.
Now we got 'em; got 'em dead to rights!"
"Don't mind a bit," said Johnny.
"Come on, you!" Drew turned his prisoners about. "March! And make it
snappy!"
"Name's Lane," he said to Johnny as they tramped along side by side,
"Drew Lane. Glad I found you. You've helped us to a pretty good break.
Fellow's record depends on how many good clean arrests he makes.
"This is Tom Howe, my side-kicker." He grinned as he put his hand on his
freckled companion's shoulder. "Detectives mostly work in pairs. We've
been together a good long time. Lane and Howe. Lane and HOW! That's the
way they say it." He chuckled. "Pretty good pals, even at that."
A police car was called. It arrived. Lane followed one of the prisoners
into a seat. Howe took the other. Johnny took his place by the door. They
went rattling away toward the police station.
At the station the prisoners were allowed to call a lawyer on the phone,
then were locked up.
"Case'll come up in two or three days," said Drew Lane. "Be in town that
long, won't you?"
"Hadn't thought much about it," said Johnny. "Sort of interested in life,
that's all. Mostly stay around where life's current moves swiftest.
"This," he added, "looks like a good start."
"No place in the world half as interesting as this old city," said Drew
Lane, gripping Johnny's hand. "Stay with us, and we'll make you a police
captain. Won't we, Howe?"
"And HOW!" exclaimed his partner. "Looks like the real thing to me. Bet
he could knock your right ear off with that mit of his right now."
"Ever box?" Drew turned to Johnny.
"A little."
"We'll put on the gloves sometime.
"Say!" he exclaimed. "There's no reason why you shouldn't shack it with
me for a few days. Why don't you?"
"I will," said Johnny.
"Wants to keep track of me," was his mental comment. "Needs me for a
witness."
"See you there at 6:00 P.M. Here's your purse. We'll need it as evidence
later. You can swear to its contents. Don't let anyone get it while Howe
and I are not around. May not get it back."
"Right!" said Johnny. "See you at six."