Nellie was off as she gave the word. They struck a well-beaten
cross-alley--a main thoroughfare of the yard--and sprinted off at a
lively gait. It was in Burgess’s mind that it was of prime importance
that Drake should escape--it was to aid the former convict that he had
involved himself in this predicament; and even if the wedding had to be
abandoned and the girl left behind it was better than for them all to
be caught. He was keeping as close as possible to Bob, but the young
man ran with incredible swiftness; and he now dodged into one of the
narrower paths and vanished.
The yard seemed more intricate than ever with its network of paths,
along which the lumber stacks rose fantastically. Looking over his
shoulder, Burgess saw that the single policeman had been reenforced by
another man. It was a real pursuit now--there was no belittling that
fact. A revolver barked and a fusillade followed. Then the moon was
obscured and the yard was black again. Burgess felt himself jammed in
between two tall lumber piles.
“Climb! Get on top quick and lie down!”
Nellie was already mounting; he felt for the strips that are thrust
between planks to keep them from rotting, grasped them and gained
the top. It was a solid pile and it lifted him twenty feet above the
ground. He threw himself flat just as the pursuers rushed by; and when
they were gone he sat up and nursed his knees. He marked Nellie’s
position by her low laugh. He was glad she laughed. He was glad she was
there!
Fifty yards away a light flashed--a policeman had climbed upon a tall
pile of lumber and was whipping about him with a dark lantern.
“It will take them all night to cover this yard that way,” she
whispered, edging close. “They’re crossing the yard the way women do
when they’re trying to drive chickens into a coop. They won’t find Bob
unless they commit burglary.”
“How’s that?” asked Burgess, finding a broken cigar in his waistcoat
pocket and chewing the end.
“Oh, I gave him the key to the office and told him to sit on the safe.
It’s a cinch they won’t look for him there; and we’ve got all night to
get him out.”
Burgess was flattered by the plural. Her good humor was not without its
effect on him. The daughter of the retired yeggman was a new kind of
girl, and one he was glad to add to his collection of feminine types.
He wished she would laugh oftener.
The president of the White River National Bank, perched on a pile
of lumber on a wet January evening with a girl he knew only as his
accomplice in an escapade that it would be very difficult to explain to
a cynical world, reflected that at about this hour his wife, hardly a
mile distant, in one of the handsomest houses in town, was dressing for
dinner to be ready to greet a guest, who was the most valiant member
of the sedate House of Bishops. And Webster G. Burgess assured himself
that he was not a bit frightened; he had been pursued by detectives and
police and shot at--and yet he was less annoyed than when the White
River National lost an account, or an ignorant new member preempted
his favorite seat in the University Club dining room. He had lost
both the sense of fear and the sense of shame; and he marveled at his
transformation and delighted in it.
“How long will it be before that begins to bore them, Nellie?” he
remarked casually, as though he were speaking to a girl he had known
always, in a cozy corner at a tea.
The answer was unexpected and it did not come from Nellie. He heard
the scraping of feet, and immediately a man loomed against the sky not
thirty feet away and began sweeping the neighboring stacks with an
electric lamp; its rays struck Burgess smartly across the face. He hung
and jumped; and as he let go the light flashed again and an automatic
barked.
“Lord! It’s Hill!” he gasped.
As he struck the ground he experienced a curious tingle on the left
side of his head above the ear--it was as though a hot needle had been
drawn across it. The detective yelled and fired another shot to attract
the attention of the other pursuers. Nellie was already down and ready
for flight. She grasped Burgess’s arm and hurried him over and between
unseen obstacles. There seemed to be no method of locomotion to which
he was not urged--climbing, crawling, running, edging in between
seeming Gibraltars of lumber. From a low pile she leaped to a higher,
and on up until they were thirty feet above the ground; then it seemed
to amuse her to jump from pile to pile until they reached earth again.
Running over uneven lumber piles in the dark, handicapped by an absurd
ulster, does not make for ease, grace or security--and wet lumber has a
disagreeable habit of being slippery.
They trotted across an open space and crept under a shingle shed.
“Good place to rest,” panted Nellie--and he dropped down beside her on
a bundle of shingles. The rain fell monotonously upon the low roof of
their shelter.
“That’s a pretty picture,” said the girl dreamily.
Burgess, breathing like a husky bellows, marveled at her. What had
interested her was the flashing of electric lamps from the tops of
the lumber piles, where the pursuers had formed a semicircle and were
closing in on the spot where the quarry had disappeared. They were
leaping from stack to stack, shooting their lamps ahead.
“The lights dancing round that way are certainly picturesque,” observed
Burgess. “Whistler would have done a charming nocturne of this. I doubt
whether those fellows know what a charm they impart to the mystical,
moist night. The moving pictures ought to have this. What’s our next
move?” he asked, mopping his wet face with his handkerchief.
“I’ve got to get Bob out of the office and then take a long jump. And
right here’s a good time for you to skedaddle. You can drop into the
alley back of this shed and walk home.”
“Thanks--but nothing like that! I’ve got to see you married and safely
off. I’d never dare look Gordon in the face if I didn’t.”
“I thought you were like that,” she said gently, and his heart bounded
at her praise. She stole away into the shadows, and he stared off at
the dancing lights where the police continued their search.
Far away the banker saw the aura of the city, and he experienced again
a sensation of protest and rebellion. He wondered whether this was
the feeling of the hunted man--the man who is tracked and driven and
shot at! He, Webster G. Burgess, had been the target of a bullet; and,
contrary to every rule of the life in which he had been reared, he was
elated to have been the mark for a detective’s gun. He knew that he
should feel humiliated--that he owed it to himself, to his wife waiting
for him at home, to his friends, to society itself, to walk out and
free himself of the odium that would attach to a man of his standing
who had run with the hare when his place by all the canons was with the
hounds. And then, too, this low-browed criminal was not the man for a
girl like Nellie to marry--he could not free himself of that feeling.
As he pondered this she stole back to his hiding-place. The ease,
lightness and deftness with which she moved amazed him; he had not
known she was near until he heard Drake’s heavier step beside her.
“Bob’s here, all right. We must march again,” she said.
She explained her plan and the three started off briskly, reached a
fence--the world seemed to be a tangle of fences!--and dropped over
into a coalyard. Burgess was well muddled again, but Nellie never
hesitated. It had grown colder; heavier clouds had drifted across the
heavens and snow began to fall. They reached the farther bound of the
coalyard safely; and as they were about to climb out a dog yelped and
rushed at them.
“I forgot about that dog! Over, quick! The watchman for this yard
is probably back there playing with the police, or else he’s hiding
himself,” said Nellie.
This proved to be the most formidable fence of the series for Burgess,
and his companions got him over with difficulty just as a dog snapped
at his legs. They landed in a tangle of ice-covered weeds and lay still
a moment. Bob was in bad humor, and kept muttering and cursing.
“Chuck it, Bob!” said Nellie sharply.
They were soon jumping across the railroad switches and could see
the canal stretching toward the city, marked by a succession of
well-lighted bridges.
“They’ll pinch us here! Nellie, you little fool, if you hadn’t steered
me to that office I’d ’a’ been out o’ this!”
He swore under his breath and Burgess cordially hated him for swearing
at the girl. But, beyond doubt, the pursuers had caught the scent
and were crossing the coalyard. They heard plainly the sounds of men
running and shouting. Bob seized Nellie and there was a sharp tussle.
“For God’s sake, trust me, Bob! Take this; don’t let him have it!” And
she thrust a revolver into Burgess’s hand. “Better be caught than that!
Mind the bank here and keep close together. Good dog--he’s eating the
cops!” And she laughed her delicious mirthful laugh. A pistol banged
and the dog barked no more.
The three were now on the ice of the canal, spreading out to distribute
their weight. The day had been warm enough to soften the ice and it
cracked ominously as the trio sped along. Half a dozen bridges were
plainly in sight toward the city and Burgess got his bearings again.
Four blocks away was his motor and the big car was worth making a break
for at any hazard. They stopped under the second bridge and heard the
enemy charging over the tracks and out upon the ice. A patrol wagon
clanged on a bridge beyond the coalyard and a whistle blew.
A sergeant began bawling orders and half a dozen men were sent to
reconnoiter the canal. As they advanced they swept the banks with their
electric lamps and conferred with scouts flung along the banks. The
snow fell steadily.
“We can’t hold this much longer,” said Nellie; and as she spoke there
was a wild shout from the party advancing over the ice. The lamps of
several policemen shot wildly into the sky and there were lusty bawls
for help.
“A bunch of fat cops breaking through the ice!” chuckled the girl,
hurrying on.
They gained a third bridge safely, Nellie frequently admonishing Bob to
stick close to her. It was clear enough to Burgess that Drake wanted to
be rid of him and the girl and take charge of his own destiny. Burgess
had fallen behind and was feeling his way under the low bridge; Nellie
was ahead, and the two men were for the moment flung together.
“Gi’ me my gun! I ain’t goin’ to be pinched this trip. Gi’ me the gun!”
“Keep quiet; we’re all in the same boat!” panted Burgess, whose one
hundred and seventy pounds, as registered on the club scales that very
day after luncheon, had warned him that he was growing pulpy.
The rails on the bank began to hum, and a switch engine, picking up
cars in the neighboring yards, puffed along the bank. Burgess felt
himself caught suddenly round the neck and before he knew what was
happening landed violently on his back. He struggled to free himself,
but Bob gripped his throat with one hand and snatched the revolver from
his pocket with the other. It was all over in a minute. The rattle of
the train drowned the sound of the attack, and when Nellie ran back to
urge them on Burgess was just getting on his feet and Bob had vanished.
“I couldn’t stop him--he grabbed the gun and ran,” Burgess explained.
“He must have jumped on that train.”
“Poor Bob!” She sighed deeply; a sob broke from her. Her arms went
around Burgess’s neck. “Poor Bob! Poor old Bob!”
The locomotive bell clanged remotely. It was very still, and Mr.
Webster G. Burgess, president of the White River National Bank, stood
there under a canal bridge with the arms of a sobbing girl round his
neck! Under all the circumstances it was wholly indefensible, and the
absurdity of it was not lost upon him. Drake had bolted, and all this
scramble with the ex-convict and his sweetheart had come to naught.
“He’ll get away; he was desperate and he didn’t trust me. He didn’t
even wait for the money Gordon sent me!”
“Oh!”--she faltered, and her breath was warm on his cheek--“that wasn’t
Drake!”
“It wasn’t Robert Drake?” Burgess blurted. “Not Drake?”
“No; it was Bob, my stepbrother. He got into trouble in Kentucky
and came here to hide, and I was trying to help him; and I’ll miss
Robert--and you’ve spoiled your clothes--and they shot at you!”
“It was poor shooting,” said Burgess critically as the red feather
brushed his nose; “but we’ve got to clear out of this or we’ll be in
the patrol wagon in a minute!”
It was his turn now to take the initiative. His first serious duty was
to become a decent, law-abiding citizen again, and he meant to effect
the transformation as quickly as possible. He began discreetly by
unclasping the girl’s arms.
“Stop crying, Nellie--you did the best you could for Bob; and now we’ll
get out of this and tackle Drake’s case. When that wagon that’s coming
has crossed this bridge we’ll stroll over to Senate Avenue, where my
car’s waiting, and beat it.”