CHAPTER I

Produced by Robert Shimmin, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team.

Success

BY SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS

Author of "The Clarion," "Common Cause," etc.

1921

CONTENTS

PART I. ENCHANTMENT

PART II. THE VISION

PART III. FULFILLMENT

SUCCESS

PART I

ENCHANTMENT

CHAPTER I

The lonely station of Manzanita stood out, sharp and unsightly, in the

keen February sunlight. A mile away in a dip of the desert, lay the

town, a sorry sprawl of frame buildings, patternless save for the one

main street, which promptly lost itself at either end in a maze of

cholla, prickly pear, and the lovely, golden-glowing roseo. Far as the

eye could see, the waste was spangled with vivid hues, for the rare

rains had come, and all the cacti were in joyous bloom, from the scarlet

stain of the ocatilla to the pale, dream-flower of the yucca. Overhead

the sky shone with a hard serenity, a blue, enameled dome through which

the imperishable fires seemed magnified as they limned sharp shadows on

the earth; but in the southwest clouds massed and lurked darkly for a

sign that the storm had but called a truce.

East to west, along a ridge bounding the lower desert, ran the railroad,

a line as harshly uncompromising as the cold mathematics of the

engineers who had mapped it. To the north spread unfathomably a forest

of scrub pine and piñon, rising, here and there, into loftier growth. It

was as if man, with his imperious interventions, had set those thin

steel parallels as an irrefragable boundary to the mutual encroachments

of forest and desert, tree and cactus. A single, straggling trail

squirmed its way into the woodland. One might have surmised that it was

winding hopefully if blindly toward the noble mountain peak shimmering

in white splendor, mystic and wonderful, sixty miles away, but seeming

in that lucent air to be brooding closely over all the varied loveliness

below.

Though nine o'clock had struck on the brisk little station-clock, there

was still a tang of night chill left. The station-agent came out,

carrying a chair which he set down in the sunniest corner of the

platform. He looked to be hardly more than a boy, but firm-knit and

self-confident. His features were regular, his fairish hair slightly

wavy, and in his expression there was a curious and incongruous

suggestion of settledness, of acceptance, of satisfaction with life as

he met it, which an observer of men would have found difficult to

reconcile with his youth and the obvious intelligence of the face. His

eyes were masked by deeply browned glasses, for he was bent upon

literary pursuits, witness the corpulent, paper-covered volume under his

arm. Adjusting his chair to the angle of ease, he tipped back against

the wall and made tentative entry into his book.

What a monumental work was that in the treasure-filled recesses of which

the young explorer was straightway lost to the outer world! No human

need but might find its contentment therein. Spread forth in its

alluringly illustrated pages was the whole universe reduced to the

purchasable. It was a perfect and detailed microcosm of the world of

trade, the cosmogony of commerce _in petto_. The style was brief, pithy,

pregnant; the illustrations--oh, wonder of wonders!--unfailingly apt to

the text. He who sat by the Damascus Road of old marveling as the

caravans rolled dustily past bearing "emeralds and wheat, honey and oil

and balm, fine linen and embroidered goods, iron, cassia and calamus,

white wool, ivory and ebony," beheld or conjectured no such wondrous

offerings as were here gathered, collected, and presented for the

patronage of this heir of all the ages, between the gay-hued covers of

the great Sears-Roebuck Semiannual Mail-Order Catalogue. Its happy

possessor need but cross the talisman with the ready magic of a postal

money order and the swift genii of transportation would attend, servile

to his call, to deliver the commanded treasures at his very door.

But the young reader was not purposefully shopping in this vast

market-place of print. Rather he was adventuring idly, indulging the

amateur spirit, playing a game of hit-or-miss, seeking oracles in those

teeming pages. Therefore he did not turn to the pink insert, embodying

the alphabetical catalogue (Abdominal Bands to Zither Strings), but

opened at random.

"Supertoned Banjos," he read, beginning at the heading; and, running his

eye down the different varieties, paused at "Pride of the Plantation, a

full-sized, well-made, snappy-toned instrument at a very moderate price.

12 T 4031/4."

The explorer shook his head. Abovestairs rested a guitar (the Pearletta,

12 S 206, price $7.95) which he had purchased at the instance of Messrs.

Sears-Roebuck's insinuating representation as set forth in catalogue

item 12 S 01942, "Self-mastery of the Guitar in One Book, with All

Chords, Also Popular Solos That Can Be Played Almost at Sight." The

nineteen-cent instruction-book had gone into the fire after three days

of unequal combat between it and its owner, and the latter had

subsequently learned something of the guitar (and more of life) from a

Mexican-American girl with lazy eyes and the soul of a capricious and

self-indulged kitten, who had come uninvited to Manzanita to visit an

aunt, deceased six months previously. With a mild pang of memory for

those dreamy, music-filled nights on the desert, the youth decided

against further experiments in stringed orchestration.

Telescopes turned up next. He lingered a moment over 20 T 3513, a

nickel-plated cap pocket-glass, reflecting that with it he could discern

any signal on the distant wooded butte occupied by Miss Camilla Van

Arsdale, back on the forest trail, in the event that she might wish a

wire sent or any other service performed. Miss Camilla had been very

kind and understanding at the time of the parting with Carlotta, albeit

with a grimly humorous disapproval of the whole inflammatory affair; as

well as at other times; and there was nothing that he would not do for

her. He made a neat entry in a pocket ledger (3 T 9901) against the time

when he should have spare cash, and essayed another plunge.

Arctics and Lumberman's Overs he passed by with a grin as inappropriate

to the climate. Cod Liver Oil failed to interest him, as did the

Provident Cast Iron Range and the Clean-Press Cider Mill. But he paused

speculatively before Punching Bags, for he had the clean pride of body,

typical of lusty Western youth, and loved all forms of exercise. Could

he find space, he wondered, to install 6 T 1441 with its Scientific

Noiseless Platform & Wall Attachment (6 T 1476) in the portable house

(55 S 17) which, purchased a year before, now stood in the clearing

behind the station crammed with purchases from the Sears-Roebuck

wonderbook. Anyway, he would make another note of it. What would it be

like, he wondered, to have a million dollars to spend, and unlimited

access to the Sears-Roebuck treasures. Picturing himself as such a

Croesus, he innocently thought that his first act would be to take train

for Chicago and inspect the warehoused accumulations of those princes of

trade with his own eager eyes!

He mused humorously for a moment over a book on "Ease in Conversation."

("No trouble about conversation," he reflected; "the difficulty is to

find anybody to converse with," and he thought first of Carlotta, and

then of Miss Camilla Van Arsdale, but chiefly of the latter, for

conversation had not been the strong point of the passionate,

light-hearted Spanish girl.) Upon a volume kindly offering to teach

astronomy to the lay mind without effort or trouble (43 T 790) and

manifestly cheap at $1.10, he bestowed a more respectful attention, for

the desert nights were long and lonely.

Eventually he arrived at the department appropriate to his age and the

almost universal ambition of the civilized male, to wit, clothing.

Deeply, judiciously, did he meditate and weigh the advantages as between

745 J 460 ("Something new--different--economical--efficient. An all-wool

suit embodying all the features that make for clothes satisfaction. This

announcement is of tremendous importance"--as one might well have

inferred from the student's rapt expression) and 776 J 017 ("A

double-breasted, snappy, yet semi-conservative effect in dark-green

worsted, a special social value"), leaning to the latter because of a

purely literary response to that subtle and deft appeal of the

attributive "social." The devotee of Messrs. Sears-Roebuck was an

innately social person, though as yet his gregarious proclivities lay

undeveloped and unsuspected by himself. Also he was of a literary

tendency; but of this he was already self-conscious. He passed on to

ulsters and raincoats, divagated into the colorful realm of neckwear,

debated scarf-pins and cuff-links, visualized patterned shirtings, and

emerged to dream of composite sartorial grandeurs which, duly

synthesized into a long list of hopeful entries, were duly filed away

within the pages of 3 T 9901, the pocket ledger.

Footsteps shuffling along the right of way dispelled his visions. He

looked up to see two pedestrians who halted at his movement. They were

paired typically of that strange fraternity, the hobo, one being a

grizzled, hard-bitten man of waning middle age, the other a vicious and

scrawny boy of eighteen or so. The boy spoke first.

"You the main guy here?"

The agent nodded.

"Got a sore throat?" demanded the boy surlily. He started toward the

door. The agent made no move, but his eyes were attentive.

"That'll be near enough," he said quietly.

"Oh, we ain't on that lay," put in the grizzled man. He was quite

hoarse. "You needn't to be scared of us."

"I'm not," agreed the agent. And, indeed, the fact was self-evident.

"What about the pueblo yonder?" asked the man with a jerk of his head

toward the town.

"The hoosegow is old and the sheriff is new."

"I got ya," said the man, nodding. "We better be on our way."

"I would think so."

"You're a hell of a guy, you are," whined the boy. "'On yer way' from

you an' not so much as 'Are you hungry?' What about a little hand-out?"

"Nothing doing."

"Tightwad! How'd you like--"

"If you're hungry, feel in your coat-pocket."

"I guess you're a wise one," put in the man, grinning appreciatively.

"We got grub enough. Panhandlin's a habit with the kid; don't come

natural to him to pass a likely prospect without makin' a touch."

He leaned against the platform, raising one foot slightly from the

ground in the manner of a limping animal. The agent disappeared into the

station, locking the door after him. The boy gave expression to a

violent obscenity directed upon the vanished man. When that individual

emerged again, he handed the grizzled man a box of ointment and tossed a

packet of tobacco to the evil-faced boy. Both were quick with their

thanks. That which they had most needed and desired had been, as it

were, spontaneously provided. But the elder of the wayfarers was

puzzled, and looked from the salve-box to its giver.

"How'd you know my feet was blistered?"

"Been padding in the rain, haven't you?"

"Have you been on the hoof, too?" asked the hobo quickly.

The other smiled.

"Say!" exclaimed the boy. "I bet he's Banneker. Are you?" he demanded.

"That's my name."

"I heard of you three years ago when you was down on the Long Line

Sandy," said the man. He paused and considered. "What's your lay, Mr.

Banneker?" he asked, curiously but respectfully.

"As you see it. Railroading."

"A gay-cat," put in the boy with a touch of scorn.

"You hold your fresh lip," his elder rebuked him. "This gent has treated

us _like_ a gent. But why? What's the idea? That's what I don't get."

"Oh, some day I might want to run for Governor on the hobo ticket,"

returned the unsmiling agent.

"You get our votes. Well, so long and much obliged."

The two resumed their journey. Banneker returned to his book. A freight,

"running extra," interrupted him, but not for long. The wire had been

practicing a seemly restraint for uneventful weeks, so the agent felt

that he could settle down to a sure hour's bookishness yet, even though

the west-bound Transcontinental Special should be on time, which was

improbable, as "bad track" had been reported from eastward, owing to the

rains. Rather to his surprise, he had hardly got well reimmersed in the

enchantments of the mercantile fairyland when the "Open Office" wire

warned him to be attentive, and presently from the east came tidings of

Number Three running almost true to schedule, as befitted the pride of

the line, the finest train that crossed the continent.

Past the gaunt station she roared, only seven minutes late, giving the

imaginative young official a glimpse and flash of the uttermost luxury

of travel: rich woods, gleaming metal, elegance of finish, and on the

rear of the observation-car a group so lily-clad that Sears-Roebuck at

its most glorious was not like unto them. Would such a train, the

implanted youth wondered, ever bear him away to unknown, undreamed

enchantments?

Would he even wish to go if he might? Life was full of many things to do

and learn at Manzanita. Mahomet need not go to the mountain when, with

but a mustard seed of faith in the proven potency of mail-order miracles

he could move mountains to come to him. Leaning to his telegraph

instrument, he wired to the agent at Stanwood, twenty-six miles

down-line, his formal announcement.

"O. S.--G. I. No. 3 by at 10.46."

"O. K.--D. S.," came the response.

Banneker returned to the sunlight. In seven minutes or perhaps less, as

the Transcontinental would be straining to make up lost time, the train

would enter Rock Cut three miles and more west, and he would recapture

the powerful throbbing of the locomotive as she emerged on the farther

side, having conquered the worst of the grade.

Banneker waited. He drew out his watch. Seven. Seven and a half. Eight.

No sound from westward. He frowned. Like most of the road's employees,

he took a special and almost personal interest in having the regal train

on time, as if, in dispatching it through, he had given it a friendly

push on its swift and mighty mission. Was she steaming badly? There had

been no sign of it as she passed. Perhaps something had gone wrong with

the brakes. Or could the track have--

The agent tilted sharply forward, his lithe frame tense. A long drawn,

quivering shriek came down-wind to him. It was repeated. Then short and

sharp, piercing note on piercing note, sounded the shrill, clamant

voice.

The great engine of Number Three was yelling for help.

CHAPTER II

Banneker came out of his chair with a spring.

"Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!" screamed the strident voice.

It was like an animal in pain and panic.

For a brief instant the station-agent halted at the door to assure

himself that the call was stationary. It was. Also it was slightly

muffled. That meant that the train was still in the cut. As he ran to

the key and sent in the signal for Stanwood, Banneker reflected what

this might mean. Crippled? Likely enough. Ditched? He guessed not. A

ditched locomotive is usually voiceless if not driverless as well.

Blocked by a slide? Rock Cut had a bad repute for that kind of accident.

But the quality of the call predicated more of a catastrophe than a mere

blockade. Besides, in that case why could not the train back down--

The answering signal from the dispatcher at Stanwood interrupted his

conjectures.

"Number Three in trouble in the Cut," ticked Banneker fluently. "Think

help probably needed from you. Shall I go out?"

"O. K.," came the answer. "Take charge. Bad track reported three miles

east may delay arrival."

Banneker dropped and locked the windows, set his signal for "track

blocked" and ran to the portable house. Inside he stood, considering.

With swift precision he took from one of the home-carpentered shelves a

compact emergency kit, 17 S 4230, "hefted" it, and adjusted it, knapsack

fashion, to his back; then from a small cabinet drew a flask, which he

disposed in his hip-pocket. Another part of the same cabinet provided a

first-aid outfit, 3 R 0114. Thus equipped he was just closing the door

after him when another thought struck him and he returned to slip a coil

of light, strong sash-cord, 36 J 9078, over his shoulders to his waist

where he deftly tautened it. He had seen railroad wrecks before. For a

moment he considered leaving his coat, for he had upwards of three miles

to go in the increasing heat; but, reflecting that the outward and

visible signs of authority might save time and questions, he thought

better of it. Patting his pocket to make sure that his necessary

notebook and pencil were there, he set out at a moderate, even,

springless lope. He had no mind to reach a scene which might require his

best qualities of mind and body, in a semi-exhausted state.

Nevertheless, laden as he was, he made the three miles in less than half

an hour. Let no man who has not tried to cover at speed the ribbed

treacheries of a railroad track minimize the achievement!

A sharp curve leads to the entrance of Rock Cut. Running easily,

Banneker had reached the beginning of the turn, when he became aware of

a lumbering figure approaching him at a high and wild sort of

half-gallop. The man's face was a welter of blood. One hand was pressed

to it. The other swung crazily as he ran. He would have swept past

Banneker unregarding had not the agent caught him by the shoulder.

"Where are you hurt?"

The runner stared wildly at the young man. "I'll soom," he mumbled

breathlessly, his hand still crumpled against the dreadfully smeared

face. "Dammum, I'll soom."

He removed his hand from his mouth, and the red drops splattered and

were lost upon the glittering, thirsty sand. Banneker wiped the man's

face, and found no injury. But the fingers which he had crammed into his

mouth were bleeding profusely.

"They oughta be prosecuted," moaned the sufferer. "I'll soom. For ten

thousan' dollars. M'hand is smashed. Looka that! Smashed like a bug."

Banneker caught the hand and expertly bound it, taking the man's name

and address as he worked.

"Is it a bad wreck?" he asked.

"It's hell. Look at m'hand! But I'll soom, all right. _I_'ll show'm ...

Oh! ... Cars are afire, too ... Oh-h-h! Where's a hospital?"

He cursed weakly as Banneker, without answering, re-stowed his packet

and ran on.

A thin wisp of smoke rising above the nearer wall of rocks made the

agent set his teeth. Throughout his course the voice of the engine had,

as it were, yapped at his hurrying heels, but now it was silent, and he

could hear a murmur of voices and an occasional shouted order. He came

into sight of the accident, to face a bewildering scene.

Two hundred yards up the track stood the major portion of the train,

intact. Behind it, by itself, lay a Pullman sleeper, on its side and

apparently little harmed. Nearest to Banneker, partly on the rails but

mainly beside them, was jumbled a ridiculous mess of woodwork, with here

and there a gleam of metal, centering on a large and jagged boulder.

Smaller rocks were scattered through the _mélange_. It was exactly like

a heap of giant jack-straws into which some mischievous spirit had

tossed a large pebble. At one end a flame sputtered and spread

cheerfully.

A panting and grimy conductor staggered toward it with a pail of water

from the engine. Banneker accosted him.

"Any one in--"

"Get outa my way!" gasped the official.

"I'm agent at Manzanita."

The conductor set down his pail. "O God!" he said. "Did you bring any

help?"

"No, I'm alone. Any one in there?" He pointed to the flaming debris.

"One that we know of. He's dead."

"Sure?" cried Banneker sharply.

"Look for yourself. Go the other side."

Banneker looked and returned, white and set of face. "How many others?"

"Seven, so far."

"Is that all?" asked the agent with a sense of relief. It seemed as if

no occupant could have come forth of that ghastly and absurd

rubbish-heap, which had been two luxurious Pullmans, alive.

"There's a dozen that's hurt bad."

"No use watering that mess," said Banneker. "It won't burn much further.

Wind's against it. Anybody left in the other smashed cars?"

"Don't think so."

"Got the names of the dead?"

"Now, how would I have the time!" demanded the conductor resentfully.

Banneker turned to the far side of the track where the seven bodies lay.

They were not disposed decorously. The faces were uncovered. The

postures were crumpled and grotesque. A forgotten corner of a

battle-field might look like that, the young agent thought, bloody and

disordered and casual.

Nearest him was the body of a woman badly crushed, and, crouching beside

it, a man who fondled one of its hands, weeping quietly. Close by lay

the corpse of a child showing no wound or mark, and next that, something

so mangled that it might have been either man or woman--or neither. The

other victims were humped or sprawled upon the sand in postures of

exaggerated _abandon_; all but one, a blonde young girl whose upthrust

arm seemed to be reaching for something just beyond her grasp.

A group of the uninjured from the forward cars surrounded and enclosed a

confused sound of moaning and crying. Banneker pushed briskly through

the ring. About twenty wounded lay upon the ground or were propped

against the rock-wall. Over them two women were expertly working, one

tiny and beautiful, with jewels gleaming on her reddened hands; the

other brisk, homely, with a suggestion of the professional in her

precise motions. A broad, fat, white-bearded man seemed to be informally

in charge. At least he was giving directions in a growling voice as he

bent over the sufferers. Banneker went to him.

"Doctor?" he inquired.

The other did not even look up. "Don't bother me," he snapped.

The station-agent pushed his first-aid packet into the old man's hands.

"Good!" grunted the other. "Hold this fellow's head, will you? Hold it

hard."

Banneker's wrists were props of steel as he gripped the tossing head.

The old man took a turn with a bandage and fastened it.

"He'll die, anyway," he said, and lifted his face.

Banneker cackled like a silly girl at full sight of him. The spreading

whisker on the far side of his stern face was gayly pied in blotches of

red and green.

"Going to have hysterics?" demanded the old man, striking not so far

short of the truth.

"No," said the agent, mastering himself. "Hey! you, trainman," he called

to a hobbling, blue-coated fellow. "Bring two buckets of water from the

boiler-tap, hot and clean. Clean, mind you!" The man nodded and limped

away. "Anything else, Doctor?" asked the agent. "Got towels?"

"Yes. And I'm not a doctor--not for forty years. But I'm the nearest

thing to it in this shambles. Who are you?"

Banneker explained. "I'll be back in five minutes," he said and passed

into the subdued and tremulous crowd.

On the outskirts loitered a lank, idle young man clad beyond the glories

of Messrs. Sears-Roebuck's highest-colored imaginings.

"Hurt?" asked Banneker.

"No," said the youth.

"Can you run three miles?"

"I fancy so."

"Will you take an urgent message to be wired from Manzanita?"

"Certainly," said the youth with good-will.

Tearing a leaf from his pocket-ledger, Banneker scribbled a dispatch

which is still preserved in the road's archives as giving more vital

information in fewer words than any other railroad document extant. He

instructed the messenger where to find a substitute telegrapher.

"Answer?" asked the youth, unfurling his long legs.

"No," returned Banneker, and the courier, tossing his coat off, took the

road.

Banneker turned back to the improvised hospital.

"I'm going to move these people into the cars," he said to the man in

charge. "The berths are being made up now."

The other nodded. Banneker gathered helpers and superintended the

transfer. One of the passengers, an elderly lady who had shown no sign

of grave injury, died smiling courageously as they were lifting her.

It gave Banneker a momentary shock of helpless responsibility. Why

should she have been the one to die? Only five minutes before she had

spoken to him in self-possessed, even tones, saying that her

traveling-bag contained camphor, ammonia, and iodine if he needed them.

She had seemed a reliable, helpful kind of lady, and now she was dead.

It struck Banneker as improbable and, in a queer sense, discriminatory.

Remembering the slight, ready smile with which she had addressed him, he

felt as if he had suffered a personal loss; he would have liked to stay

and work over her, trying to discover if there might not be some spark

of life remaining, to be cherished back into flame, but the burly old

man's decisive "Gone," settled that. Besides, there were other things,

official things to be looked to.

A full report would be expected of him, as to the cause of the accident.

The presence of the boulder in the wreckage explained that grimly. It

was now his routine duty to collect the names of the dead and wounded,

and such details as he could elicit. He went about it briskly,

conscientiously, and with distaste. All this would go to the claim agent

of the road eventually and might serve to mitigate the total of damages

exacted of the company. Vaguely Banneker resented such probable

penalties as unfair; the most unremitting watchfulness could not have

detected the subtle undermining of that fatal boulder. But essentially

he was not interested in claims and damages. His sensitive mind hovered

around the mystery of death; that file of crumpled bodies, the woman of

the stilled smile, the man fondling a limp hand, weeping quietly.

Officially, he was a smooth-working bit of mechanism. As an individual

he probed tragic depths to which he was alien otherwise than by a large

and vague sympathy. Facts of the baldest were entered neatly; but in the

back of his eager brain Banneker was storing details of a far different

kind and of no earthly use to a railroad corporation.

He became aware of some one waiting at his elbow. The lank young man had

spoken to him twice.

"Well?" said Banneker sharply. "Oh, it's you! How did you get back so

soon?"

"Under the hour," replied the other with pride. "Your message has gone.

The operator's a queer duck. Dealing faro. Made me play through a case

before he'd quit. I stung him for twenty. Here's some stuff I thought

might be useful."

From a cotton bag he discharged a miscellaneous heap of patent

preparations; salves, ointments, emollients, liniments, plasters.

"All I could get," he explained. "No drug-store in the funny burg."

"Thank you," said Banneker. "You're all right. Want another job?"

"Certainly," said the lily of the field with undiminished good-will.

"Go and help the white-whiskered old boy in the Pullman yonder."

"Oh, he'd chase me," returned the other calmly. "He's my uncle. He

thinks I'm no use."

"Does he? Well, suppose you get names and addresses of the slightly

injured for me, then. Here's your coat."

"Tha-anks," drawled the young man. He was turning away to his new duties

when a thought struck him. "Making a list?" he asked.

"Yes. For my report."

"Got a name with the initials I. O. W.?"

Banneker ran through the roster in the pocket-ledger. "Not yet. Some one

that's hurt?"

"Don't know what became of her. Peach of a girl. Black hair, big,

sleepy, black eyes with a fire in 'em. Dressed _right_. Traveling alone,

and minding her own business, too. Had a stateroom in that Pullman there

in the ditch. Noticed her initials on her traveling-bag."

"Have you seen her since the smash?"

"Don't know. Got a kind of confused recklection of seeing her wobbling

around at the side of the track. Can't be sure, though. Might have been

me."

"Might have been you? How could--"

"Wobbly, myself. Mixed in my thinks. When I came to I was pretty busy

putting my lunch," explained the other with simple realism. "One of Mr.

Pullman's seats butted me in the stomach. They ain't upholstered as soft

as you'd think to look at 'em. I went reeling around, looking for Miss

I. O. W., she being alone, you know, and I thought she might need some

looking after. And I had that idea of having seen her with her hand to

her head dazed and running--yes; that's it, she was running. Wow!" said

the young man fervently. "She was a pretty thing! You don't suppose--" He

turned hesitantly to the file of bodies, now decently covered with

sheets.

For a grisly instant Banneker thought of the one mangled

monstrosity--_that_ to have been so lately loveliness and charm, with

deep fire in its eyes and perhaps deep tenderness and passion in its

heart. He dismissed the thought as being against the evidence and

entered the initials in his booklet.

"I'll look out for her," said he. "Probably she's forward somewhere."

Without respite he toiled until a long whistle gave notice of the return

of the locomotive which had gone forward to meet the delayed special

from Stanwood. Human beings were clinging about it in little clusters

like bees; physicians, nurses, officials, and hospital attendants. The

dispatcher from Stanwood listened to Banneker's brief report, and sent

him back to Manzanita, with a curt word of approval for his work.

Banneker's last sight of the wreck, as he paused at the curve, was the

helpful young man perched on the rear heap of wreckage which had been

the observation car, peering anxiously into its depths ("Looking for I.

O. W. probably," surmised the agent), and two commercial gentlemen from

the smoker whiling away a commercially unproductive hiatus by playing

pinochle on a suitcase held across their knees. Glancing at the vast,

swollen, blue-black billows rolling up the sky, Banneker guessed that

their game would be shortly interrupted.

He hoped that the dead would not get wet.

CHAPTER III

Back in his office, Banneker sent out the necessary wires, and learned

from westward that it might be twelve hours before the break in the

track near Stanwood could be fixed up. Then he settled down to his

report.

Like his earlier telegram, the report was a little masterpiece of

concise information. Not a word in it that was not dry, exact,

meaningful. This was the more to the writer's credit in that his brain

was seething with impressions, luminous with pictures, aflash with odds

and ends of minor but significant things heard and seen and felt. It was

his first inner view of tragedy and of the reactions of the human

creature, brave or stupid or merely absurd, to a crisis. For all of this

he had an outlet of expression.

Taking from the wall a file marked "Letters. Private"-it was 5 S 0027,

and one of his most used purchases--he extracted some sheets of a

special paper and, sitting at his desk, wrote and wrote and wrote,

absorbedly, painstakingly, happily. Wind swept the outer world into a

vortex of wild rain; the room boomed and trembled with the

reverberations of thunder. Twice the telegraph instrument broke in on

him; but these matters claimed only the outer shell; the soul of the man

was concerned with committing its impressions of other souls to the

secrecy of white paper, destined to personal and inviolable archives.

Some one entered the waiting-room. There was a tap on his door. Raising

his head impatiently, Banneker saw, through the window already dimming

with the gathering dusk, a large roan horse, droopy and disconsolate in

the downpour. He jumped up and threw open his retreat. A tall woman,

slipping out of a streaming poncho, entered. The simplicity, verging

upon coarseness, of her dress detracted nothing from her distinction of

bearing.

"Is there trouble on the line?" she asked in a voice of peculiar

clarity.

"Bad trouble, Miss Camilla," answered Banneker. He pushed forward a

chair, but she shook her head. "A loosened rock smashed into Number

Three in the Cut. Eight dead, and a lot more in bad shape. They've got

doctors and nurses from Stanwood. But the track's out below. And from

what I get on the wire"--he nodded toward the east--"it'll be out above

before long."

"I'd better go up there," said she. Her lips grew bloodless as she spoke

and there was a look of effort and pain in her face.

"No; I don't think so. But if you'll go over to the town and see that

Torrey gets his place cleaned up a bit, I suppose some of the passengers

will be coming in pretty soon."

She made a quick gesture of repulsion. "Women can't go to Torrey's," she

said. "It's too filthy. Besides--I'll take in the women, if there aren't

too many and I can pick up a buckboard in Manzanita."

He nodded. "That'll be better, if any come in. Give me their names,

won't you? I have to keep track of them, you know."

The manner of the two was that of familiars, of friends, though there

was a touch of deference in Banneker's bearing, too subtly personal to

be attributed to his official status. He went out to adjust the

visitor's poncho, and, swinging her leg across the Mexican saddle of her

horse with the mechanical ease of one habituated to this mode of travel,

she was off.

Again the agent returned to his unofficial task and was instantly

submerged in it. Impatiently he interrupted himself to light the lamps

and at once resumed his pen. An emphatic knock at his door only caused

him to shake his head. The summons was repeated. With a sigh Banneker

gathered the written sheets, enclosed them in 5 S 0027, and restored

that receptacle to its place. Meantime the knocking continued

impatiently, presently pointed by a deep--

"Any one inside there?"

"Yes," said Banneker, opening to face the bulky old man who had cared

for the wounded. "What's wanted?"

Uninvited, and with an assured air, the visitor stepped in.

"I am Horace Vanney," he announced.

Banneker waited.

"Do you know my name?"

"No."

In no wise discountenanced by the matter-of-fact negative, Mr. Vanney,

still unsolicited, took a chair. "You would if you read the newspapers,"

he observed.

"I do."

"The New York papers," pursued the other, benignly explanatory. "It

doesn't matter. I came in to say that I shall make it my business to

report your energy and efficiency to your superiors."

"Thank you," said Banneker politely.

"And I can assure you that my commendation will carry weight. Weight,

sir."

The agent accepted this with a nod, obviously unimpressed. In fact, Mr.

Vanney suspected with annoyance, he was listening not so much to these

encouraging statements as to some unidentified noise outside. The agent

raised the window and addressed some one who had approached through the

steady drive of the rain. A gauntleted hand thrust through the window a

slip of paper which he took. As he moved, a ray of light from the lamp,

unblocked by his shoulder, fell upon the face of the person in the

darkness, illuminating it to the astounded eyes of Mr. Horace Vanney.

"Two of them are going home with me," said a voice. "Will you send these

wires to the addresses?"

"All right," replied Banneker, "and thank you. Good-night."

"Who was that?" barked Mr. Vanney, half rising.

"A friend of mine."

"I would swear to that face." He seemed quite excited. "I would swear to

it anywhere. It is unforgettable. That was Camilla Van Arsdale. Was she

in the wreck?"

"No."

"Don't tell me that it wasn't she! Don't try to tell me, for I won't

believe it."

"I'm not trying to tell you anything," Banneker pointed out.

"True; you're not. You're close-mouthed enough. But--Camilla Van

Arsdale! Incredible! Does she live here?"

"Here or hereabouts."

"You must give me the address. I must surely go and see her."

"Are you a friend of Miss Van Arsdale?"

"I could hardly say so much. A friend of her family, rather. She would

remember me, I am sure. And, in any case, she would know my name. Where

did you say she lived?"

"I don't think I said."

"Mystery-making!" The big man's gruffness had a suggestion of amusement

in it. "But of course it would be simple enough to find out from town."

"See here, Mr. Vanney, Miss Van Arsdale is still something of an

invalid--"

"After all these years," interposed the other, in the tone of one who

ruminates upon a marvel.

"--and I happen to know that it isn't well for--that is, she doesn't

care to see strangers, particularly from New York."

The old man stared. "Are you a gentleman?" he asked with abrupt

surprise.

"A gentleman?" repeated Banneker, taken aback.

"I beg your pardon," said the visitor earnestly. "I meant no offense.

You are doubtless quite right. As for any intrusion, I assure you there

will be none."

Banneker nodded, and with that nod dismissed the subject quite as

effectually as Mr. Horace Vanney himself could have done. "Did you

attend all the injured?" he asked.

"All the serious ones, I think."

"Was there a young girl among them, dark and good-looking, whose name

began--"

"The one my addle-brained young nephew has been pestering me about? Miss

I. O. W.?"

"Yes. He reported her to me."

"I handled no such case that I recall. Now, as to your own helpfulness,

I wish to make clear that I appreciate it."

Mr. Vanney launched into a flowery tribute of the after-dinner variety,

leaning forward to rest a hand upon Banneker's desk as he spoke. When

the speech was over and the hand withdrawn, something remained among the

strewn papers. Banneker regarded it with interest. It showed a blotch of

yellow upon green and a capital C. Picking it up, he looked from it to

its giver.

"A little tribute," said that gentleman: "a slight recognition of your

services." His manner suggested that hundred-dollar bills were

inconsiderable trifles, hardly requiring the acknowledgment of thanks.

In this case the bill did not secure such acknowledgment.

"You don't owe me anything," stated the agent. "I can't take this!"

"What! Pride? Tut-tut."

"Why not?" asked Banneker.

Finding no immediate and appropriate answer to this simple question, Mr.

Vanney stared.

"The company pays me. There's no reason why you should pay me. If

anything, I ought to pay you for what you did at the wreck. But I'm not

proposing to. Of course I'm putting in my report a statement about your

help."

Mr. Vanney's cheek flushed. Was this composed young hireling making

sport of him?

"Tut-tut!" he said again, this time with obvious intent to chide in his

manner. "If I see fit to signify my appreciation--remember, I am old

enough to be your father."

"Then you ought to have better judgment," returned Banneker with such

candor and good-humor that the visitor was fairly discomfited.

An embarrassing silence--embarrassing, that is, to the older man; the

younger seemed not to feel it--was happily interrupted by the advent of

the lily-clad messenger.

Hastily retrieving his yellow-back, which he subjected to some furtive

and occult manipulations, Mr. Vanney, after a few words, took his

departure.

Banneker invited the newcomer to take the chair thus vacated. As he did

so he brushed something to the floor and picked it up.

"Hello! What's this? Looks like a hundred-bucker. Yours?" He held out

the bill.

Banneker shook his head. "Your uncle left it."

"It isn't a habit of his," replied the other.

"Give it to him for me, will you?"

"Certainly. Any message?"

"No."

The newcomer grinned. "I see," he said. "He'll be bored when he gets

this back. He isn't a bad old bird, but he don't savvy some things. So

you turned him down, did you?"

"Yes."

"Did he offer you a job and a chance to make your way in the world in

one of his banks, beginning at ten-per?"

"No."

"He will to-morrow."

"I doubt it."

The other gave a thought to the bill. "Perhaps you're right. He likes

'em meek and obedient. He'd make a woolly lamb out of you. Most fellows

would jump at the chance."

"I won't."

"My name's Herbert Cressey." He handed the agent a card. "Philadelphia

is my home, but my New York address is on there, too. Ever get East?"

"I've been to Chicago."

"Chicago?" The other stared. "What's that got to do with--Oh, I see.

You'll be coming to New York one of these days, though."

"Maybe."

"Sure as a gun. A chap that can handle a situation like you handled the

wreck isn't going to stick in a little sand-heap like this."

"It suits me here."

"No! Does it? I'd think you'd die of it. Well, when you do get East look

me up, will you? I mean it; I'd like to see you."

"All right."

"And if there's anything I can do for you any time, drop me a line."

The sumptuous ripple and gleam of the young man's faultless coat,

registered upon Banneker's subconscious memory as it had fallen at his

feet, recalled itself to him.

"What store do you buy your clothes at?"

"Store?" Cressey did not smile. "I don't buy 'em at a store. I have 'em

made by a tailor. Mertoun, 505 Fifth Avenue."

"Would he make me a suit?"

"Why, yes. I'll give you a card to him and you go in there when you're

in New York and pick out what you want."

"Oh! He wouldn't make them and send them out here to me? Sears-Roebuck

do, if you send your measure. They're in Chicago."

"I never had any duds built in Chicago, so I don't know them. But I

shouldn't think Mertoun would want to fit a man he'd never seen. They

like to do things _right_, at Mertoun's. Ought to, too; they stick you

enough for it."

"How much?"

"Not much short of a hundred for a sack suit."

Banneker was amazed. The choicest "made-to-measure" in his Universal

Guide, "Snappy, fashionable, and up to the minute," came to less than

half of that.

His admiring eye fell upon his visitor's bow-tie, faultless and

underanged throughout the vicissitudes of that arduous day, and he

yearned to know whether it was "made-up" or self-confected.

Sears-Roebuck were severely impartial as between one practice and the

other, offering a wide range in each variety. He inquired.

"Oh, tied it myself, of course," returned Cressey. "Nobody wears the

ready-made kind. It's no trick to do it. I'll show you, any time."

They fell into friendly talk about the wreck.

It was ten-thirty when Banneker finished his much-interrupted writing.

Going out to the portable house, he lighted an oil-stove and proceeded

to make a molasses pie. He was due for a busy day on the morrow and

might not find time to take the mile walk to the hotel for dinner, as

was his general habit. With the store of canned goods derived from the

mail-order catalogue, he could always make shift to live. Besides, he

was young enough to relish keenly molasses pie and the manufacture of

it. Having concluded his cookery in strict accordance with the rules set

forth in the guide to this art, he laid it out on the sill to cool over

night.

Tired though he was, his brain was too busy for immediate sleep. He

returned to his den, drew out a book and began to read with absorption.

That in which he now sought release and distraction was not the _magnum

opus_ of Messrs. Sears-Roebuck, but the work of a less practical and

popular writer, being in fact the "Eve of St. Agnes," by John Keats.

Soothed and dreamy, he put out the lights, climbed to his living

quarters above the office, and fell asleep. It was then eleven-thirty

and his official day had terminated five hours earlier.

At one o'clock he arose and patiently descended the stairs again. Some

one was hammering on the door. He opened without inquiry, which was not

the part of wisdom in that country and at that hour. His pocket-flash

gleamed on a thin young man in a black-rubber coat who, with head and

hands retracted as far as possible from the pouring rain, resembled a

disconsolate turtle with an insufficient carapace.

"I'm Gardner, of the Angelica City Herald," explained the untimely

visitor.

Banneker was surprised. That a reporter should come all the way from the

metropolis of the Southwest to his wreck--he had already established

proprietary interest in it--was gratifying. Furthermore, for reasons of

his own, he was glad to see a journalist. He took him in and lighted up

the office.

"Had to get a horse and ride to Manzanita to interview old Vanney and a

couple of other big guys from the East. My first story's on the wire,"

explained the newcomer offhand. "I want some local-color stuff for my

second day follow-up."

"It must be hard to do that," said Banneker interestedly, "when you

haven't seen any of it yourself."

"Patchwork and imagination," returned the other wearily. "That's what I

get special rates for. Now, if I'd had your chance, right there on the

spot, with the whole stage-setting around one--Lordy! How a fellow could

write that!"

"Not so easy," murmured the agent. "You get confused. It's a sort of

blur, and when you come to put it down, little things that aren't really

important come up to the surface--"

"Put it down?" queried the other with a quick look. "Oh, I see. Your

report for the company."

"Well, I wasn't thinking of that."

"Do you write other things?" asked the reporter carelessly.

"Oh, just foolery." The tone invited--at least it did not

discourage--further inquiry. Mr. Gardner was bored. Amateurs who

"occasionally write" were the bane of him who, having a signature of his

own in the leading local paper, represented to the aspiring mind the

gilded and lofty peaks of the unattainable. However he must play this

youth as a source of material.

"Ever try for the papers?"

"Not yet. I've thought maybe I might get a chance sometime as a sort of

local correspondent around here," was the diffident reply.

Gardner repressed a grin. Manzanita would hardly qualify as a news

center. Diplomacy prompted him to state vaguely that there was always a

chance for good stuff locally.

"On a big story like this," he added, "of course there'd be nothing

doing except for the special man sent out to cover it."

"No. Well, I didn't write my--what I wrote, with any idea of getting it

printed."

The newspaper man sighed wearily, sighed like a child and lied like a

man of duty. "I'd like to see it."

Without a trace of hesitation or self-consciousness Banneker said, "All

right," and, taking his composition from its docket, motioned the other

to the light. Mr. Gardner finished and turned the first sheet before

making any observation. Then he bent a queer look upon Banneker and

grunted:

"What do you call this stuff, anyway?"

"Just putting down what I saw."

Gardner read on. "What about this, about a Pullman sleeper 'elegant as a

hotel bar and rigid as a church pew'? Where do you get that?"

Banneker looked startled. "I don't know. It just struck me that is the

way a Pullman is."

"Well, it is," admitted the visitor, and continued to read. "And this

guy with the smashed finger that kept threatening to 'soom'; is that

right?"

"Of course it's right. You don't think I'd make it up! That reminds me

of something." And he entered a memo to see the litigious-minded

complainant again, for these are the cases which often turn up in the

courts with claims for fifty-thousand-dollar damages and heartrending

details of all-but-mortal internal injuries.

Silence held the reader until he had concluded the seventh and last

sheet. Not looking at Banneker, he said:

"So that's your notion of reporting the wreck of the swellest train that

crosses the continent, is it?"

"It doesn't pretend to be a report," disclaimed the writer. "It's pretty

bad, is it?"

"It's rotten!" Gardner paused. "From a news-desk point of view. Any

copy-reader would chuck it. Unless I happened to sign it," he added.

"Then they'd cuss it out and let it pass, and the dear old pin-head

public would eat it up."

"If it's of any use to you--"

"Not so, my boy, not so! I might pinch your wad if you left it around

loose, or even your last cigarette, but not your stuff. Let me take it

along, though; it may give me some ideas. I'll return it. Now, where can

I get a bed in the town?"

"Nowhere. Everything's filled. But I can give you a hammock out in my

shack."

"That's better. I'll take it. Thanks."

Banneker kept his guest awake beyond the limits of decent hospitality,

asking him questions.

The reporter, constantly more interested in this unexpected find of a

real personality in an out-of-the-way minor station of the high desert,

meditated a character study of "the hero of the wreck," but could not

quite contrive any peg whereon to hang the wreath of heroism. By his own

modest account, Banneker had been competent but wholly unpicturesque,

though the characters in his sketch, rude and unformed though it was,

stood out clearly. As to his own personal history, the agent was

unresponsive. At length the guest, apologizing for untimely weariness,

it being then 3.15 A.M., yawned his way to the portable shack.

He slept heavily, except for a brief period when the rain let up. In the

morning--which term seasoned newspaper men apply to twelve noon and the

hour or two thereafter--he inquired of Banneker, "Any tramps around

here?"

"No," answered the agent, "Not often. There were a pair yesterday

morning, but they went on."

"Some one was fussing around the place about first light. I was too

sleepy to get up. I yipped and they beat it. I don't think they got

inside."

Banneker investigated. Nothing was missing from within the shack. But

outside he made a distressing discovery.

His molasses pie was gone.

CHAPTER IV

"To accomplish a dessert as simple and inexpensive as it is tasty,"

prescribes The Complete Manual of Cookery, p. 48, "take one cup of thick

molasses--" But why should I infringe a copyright when the culinary

reader may acquire the whole range of kitchen lore by expending

eighty-nine cents plus postage on 39 T 337? Banneker had faithfully

followed the prescribed instructions. The result had certainly been

simple and inexpensive; presumably it would have proven tasty. He

regretted and resented the rape of the pie. What aroused greater

concern, however, was the presence of thieves. In the soft ground near

the window he found some rather small footprints which suggested that it

was the younger of the two hoboes who had committed the depredation.

Theorizing, however, was not the order of his day. Routine and

extra-routine claimed all his time. There was his supplementary report

to make out; the marooned travelers in Manzanita to be looked after and

their bitter complaints to be listened to; consultations over the wire

as to the condition and probabilities of the roadbed, for the floods had

come again; and in and out of it all, the busy, weary, indefatigable

Gardner, giving to the agent as much information as he asked from him.

When their final lists were compared, Banneker noticed that there was no

name with the initials I.O.W. on Gardner's. He thought of mentioning the

clue, but decided that it was of too little definiteness and importance.

The news value of mystery, enhanced by youth and beauty, which the

veriest cub who had ever smelled printer's ink would have appreciated,

was a sealed book to him.

Not until late that afternoon did a rescue train limp cautiously along

an improvised track to set the interrupted travelers on their way.

Gardner went on it, leaving an address and an invitation to "keep in

touch." Mr. Vanney took his departure with a few benign and well-chosen

words of farewell, accompanied by the assurance that he would "make it

his special purpose to commend," and so on. His nephew, Herbert Cressey,

the lily-clad messenger, stopped at the station to shake hands and grin

rather vacantly, and adjure Banneker, whom he addressed as "old chap,"

to be sure and look him up in the East; he'd be glad to see him any

time. Banneker believed that he meant it. He promised to do so, though

without particular interest. With the others departed Miss Camilla Van

Arsdale's two emergency guests, one of them the rather splendid young

woman who had helped with the wounded. They invaded Banneker's office

with supplementary telegrams and talked about their hostess with that

freedom which women of the world use before dogs or uniformed officials.

"What a woman!" said the amateur nurse.

"And what a house!" supplemented the other, a faded and lined

middle-aged wife who had just sent a reassuring and very long wire to a

husband in Pittsburgh.

"Very much the châtelaine; grande dame and that sort of thing," pursued

the other. "One might almost think her English."

"No." The other shook her head positively. "Old American. As old and as

good as her name. You wouldn't flatter her by guessing her to be

anything else. I dare say she would consider the average British

aristocrat a little shoddy and loud."

"So they are when they come over here. But what on earth is her type

doing out here, buried with a one-eyed, half-breed manservant?"

"And a concert grand piano. Don't forget that. She tunes it herself,

too. Did you notice the tools? A possible romance. You've quite a nose

for such things, Sue. Couldn't you get anything out of her?"

"It's much too good a nose to put in the crack of a door," retorted the

pretty woman. "I shouldn't care to lay myself open to being snubbed by

her. It might be painful."

"It probably would." The Pittsburgher turned to Banneker with a change

of tone, implying that he could not have taken any possible heed of what

went before. "Has Miss Van Arsdale lived here long, do you know?"

The agent looked at her intently for a moment before replying: "Longer

than I have." He transferred his gaze to the pretty woman. "You two were

her guests, weren't you?" he asked.

The visitors glanced at each other, half amused, half aghast. The tone

and implication of the question had been too significant to be

misunderstood. "Well, of all extraordinary--" began one of them under

her breath; and the other said more loudly, "I really beg--" and then

she, too, broke off.

They went out. "Châtelaine and knightly defender," commented the younger

one in the refuge of the outer office. "Have we been dumped off a train

into the midst of the Middle Ages? Where do you get station-agents like

that?"

"The one at our suburban station chews tobacco and says 'Marm' through

his nose."

Banneker emerged, seeking the conductor of the special with a message.

"He is rather a beautiful young thing, isn't he?" she added.

Returning, he helped them on the train with their hand-luggage. When the

bustle and confusion of dispatching an extra were over, he sat down to

think. But not of Miss Camilla Van Arsdale. That was an old story,

though its chapters were few, and none of them as potentially eventful

as this intrusion of Vanneys and female chatterers.

It was the molasses pie that stuck in his mind. There was no time to

make another. Further, the thought of depredators hanging about

disturbed him. That shack of his was full of Aladdin treasures,

delivered by the summoned genii of the Great Book. Though it was secured

by Little Guardian locks and fortified with the Scarem Buzz alarm, he

did not feel sure of it. He decided to sleep there that night with his

.45-caliber Sure-shot revolver. Let them come again; he'd give 'em a

lesson! On second thought, he rebaited the window-ledge with a can of

Special Juicy Apricot Preserve. At ten o'clock he turned in, determined

to sleep lightly, and immediately plunged into fathomless depths of

unconsciousness, lulled by a singing wind and the drone of the rain.

A light, flashing across his eyes, awakened him. For a moment he lay,

dazed, confused by the gentle and unfamiliar oscillations of his

hammock. Another flicker of light and a rumble of thunder brought him to

his full senses. The rain had degenerated into a casual drizzle and the

wind had withdrawn into the higher areas. He heard some one moving

outside.

Very quietly he reached out to the stand at his elbow, got his revolver

and his flashlight, and slipped to the floor. The malefactor without was

approaching the window. Another flash of lightning would have revealed

much to Banneker had he not been crouching close under the sill, on the

inside, so that the radiance of his light, when he found the button,

should not expose him to a straight shot.

A hand fumbled at the open window. Finger on trigger, Banneker held up

his flashlight in his left hand and irradiated the spot. He saw the

hand, groping, and on one of its fingers something which returned a more

brilliant gleam than the electric ray. In his crass amazement, the agent

straightened up, a full mark for murder, staring at a diamond-and-ruby

ring set upon a short, delicate finger.

No sound came from outside. But the hand became instantly tense. It fell

upon the sill and clutched it so hard that the knuckles stood out,

white, strained and garish. Banneker's own strong hand descended upon

the wrist. A voice said softly and tremulously:

"Please!"

The appeal went straight to Banneker's heart and quivered there, like a

soft flame, like music heard in an unrealizable dream.

"Who are you?" he asked, and the voice said:

"Don't hurt me."

"Why should I?" returned Banneker stupidly.

"Some one did," said the voice.

"Who?" he demanded fiercely.

"Won't you let me go?" pleaded the voice.

In the shock of his discovery he had released the flash-lever so that

this colloquy passed in darkness. Now he pressed it. A girlish figure

was revealed, one protective arm thrown across the eyes.

"Don't strike me," said the girl again, and again Banneker's heart was

shaken within him by such tremors as the crisis of some deadly fear

might cause.

"You needn't be afraid," he stammered.

"I've never been afraid before," she said, hanging her weight away from

him. "Won't you let me go?"

His grip relaxed slightly, then tightened again. "Where to?"

"I don't know," said the appealing voice mournfully.

An inspiration came to Banneker. "Are you afraid of me?" he asked

quietly.

"Of every thing. Of the night."

He pressed the flash into her hand, turning the light upon himself.

"Look," he said.

It seemed to him that she could not fail to read in his face the

profound and ardent wish to help her; to comfort and assure an uneasy

and frightened spirit wandering in the night.

He heard a little, soft sigh. "I don't know you," said the voice. "Do

I?"

"No," he answered soothingly as if to a child. "I'm the station-agent

here. You must come in out of the wet."

"Very well."

He tossed an overcoat on over his pajamas, ran to the door and swung it

open. The tiny ray of light advanced, hesitated, advanced again. She

walked into the shack, and immediately the rain burst again upon the

outer world. Banneker's fleeting impression was of a vivid but dimmed

beauty. He pushed forward a chair, found a blanket for her feet, lighted

the "Quick-heater" oil-stove on which he did his cooking. She followed

him with her eyes, deeply glowing but vague and troubled.

"This is not a station," she said.

"No. It's my shack. Are you cold?"

"Not very." She shivered a little.

"You say that some one hurt you?"

"Yes. They struck me. It made my head feel queer."

A murderous fury surged into his brain. His hand twitched toward his

revolver.

"The hoboes," he whispered under his breath. "But they didn't rob you,"

he said aloud, looking at the jeweled hand.

"No. I don't think so. I ran away."

"Where was it?"

"On the train."

Enlightenment burst upon him. "You're sure--" he began. Then, "Tell me

all you can about it."

"I don't remember anything. I was in my stateroom in the car. The door

was open. Some one must have come in and struck me. Here." She put her

left hand tenderly to her head.

Banneker, leaning over her, only half suppressed a cry. Back of the

temple rose a great, puffed, leaden-blue wale.

"Sit still," he said. "I'll fix it."

While he busied himself heating water, getting out clean bandages and

gauze, she leaned back with half-closed eyes in which there was neither

fear nor wonder nor curiosity: only a still content. Banneker washed the

wound very carefully.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

"My head feels queer. Inside."

"I think the hair ought to be cut away around the place. Right here.

It's quite raw."

It was glorious hair. Not black, as Cressey had described it in his

hasty sketch of the unknown I.O.W.; too alive with gleams and glints of

luster for that. Nor were her eyes black, but rather of a deep-hued,

clouded hazel, showing troubled shadows between their dark-lashed, heavy

lids. Yet Banneker made no doubt but that this was the missing girl of

Cressey's inquiry.

"May I?" he said.

"Cut my hair?" she asked. "Oh, no!"

"Just a little, in one place. I think I can do it so that it won't show.

There's so much of it."

"Please," she answered, yielding.

He was deft. She sat quiet and soothed under his ministerings.

Completed, the bandage looked not too unworkmanlike, and was cool and

comforting to the hot throb of the wound.

"Our doctor went back on the train, worse luck!" he said.

"I don't want any other doctor," she murmured. "I'd rather have you."

"But I'm not a doctor."

"No," she acquiesced. "Who are you? Did you tell me? You are one of the

passengers, aren't you?"

"I'm the station-agent at Manzanita."

For a moment she looked at him wonderingly. "Are you? I don't seem to

understand. My head is very queer."

"Don't try to. Here's some tea and crackers."

"I'm starved," she said.

With subtle stirrings of delight, he watched her eat the bit that he had

prepared for her while heating the water. But he was wise enough to know

that she must not have much while the extent of her injury was still

undetermined.

"Are you wet?" he inquired.

She nodded. "I haven't been dry since the flood."

"I have a room with a real stove in it over the station. I'll build a

fire, and you must take off your wet things and go to bed and sleep. If

you need anything you can hammer on the floor."

"But you--"

"I'll be in my office, below. I'm on night duty to-night," said he,

tactfully fabricating.

"Very well. You're awfully kind."

He adjusted the oil-stove, threw a warmed blanket over her feet, and

hurried to his room to build the promised fire. When he came back she

smiled.

"You are good to me! It's stupid of me--my head is so queer--did you say

you were--"

"The station-agent. My name is Banneker. I'm responsible to the company

for your safety and comfort. You're not to worry about it, nor think

about it, nor ask any questions."

"No," she agreed, and rose.

He threw the blanket around her shoulders. At the protective touch she

slipped her hand through his arm. So they went out into the night.

Mounting the stairs, she stumbled, and for a moment he felt the firm,

warm pressure of her body against him. It shook him strangely.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. And, a moment later, "Good-night, and thank

you."

Taking the hand which she held out, he returned her good-night. The door

closed. He turned away and was halfway down the flight when a sudden

thought recalled him. He tapped on the door.

"What is it?" asked the serene music of the voice.

"I don't want to bother you, but there's just one thing I forgot. Please

give me your name."

"What for?" returned the voice doubtfully.

"I must report it to the company."

"Must you?" The voice seemed to be vaguely troubled. "To-night?"

"Don't give a thought to it," he said. "To-morrow will do just as well.

I'm sorry to have troubled you."

"Good-night," she said again.

"Can't remember her own name!" thought Banneker, moved and pitiful.

Darkness and quiet were grateful to him as he entered the office. By

sense of direction he found his chair, and sank into it. Overhead he

could hear the soft sound of her feet moving about the room, his room.

Quiet succeeded. Banneker, leagues removed from sleep, or the hope of

it, despite his bodily weariness, followed the spirit of wonder through

starlit and sunlit realms of dream.

The telegraph-receiver clicked. Not his call. But it brought him back to

actualities. He lighted his lamp and brought down the letter-file from

which had been extracted the description of the wreck for Gardner of the

Angelica City Herald.

Drawing out the special paper, he looked at the heading and smiled.

"Letters to Nobody." He took a fresh sheet and began to write. Through

the night he wrote and dreamed and dozed and wrote again. When a sound

of song, faint and sweet and imminent, roused him to lift his

sleep-bowed head from the desk upon which it had sunk, the gray, soiled

light of a stormy morning was in his eyes. The last words he had written

were:

"The breast of the world rises and falls with your breathing."

Banneker was twenty-four years old, and had the untainted soul of a boy

of sixteen.

CHAPTER V

Overhead she was singing. The voice was clear and sweet and happy. He

did not know the melody; some minor refrain of broken rhythm which

seemed always to die away short of fulfillment. A haunting thing of

mystery and glamour, such mystery and glamour as had irradiated his long

and wonderful night. He heard the door open and then her light footsteps

on the stair outside. Hot-eyed and disheveled, he rose, staggering a

little at first as he hurried to greet her.

She stood poised on the lower step.

"Good-morning," he said.

She made no return to his accost other than a slow smile. "I thought you

were a dream," she murmured.

"No. I'm real enough. Are you better? Your head?"

She put a hand to the bandage. "It's sore. Otherwise I'm quite fit. I've

slept like the dead."

"I'm glad to hear it," he replied mechanically. He was drinking her in,

all the grace and loveliness and wonder of her, himself quite

unconscious of the intensity of his gaze.

She accepted the mute tribute untroubled; but there was a suggestion of

puzzlement in the frown which began to pucker her forehead.

"You're really the station-agent?" she asked with a slight emphasis upon

the adverb.

"Yes. Why not?"

"Nothing. No reason. Won't you tell me what happened?"

"Come inside." He held open the door against the wind.

"No. It's musty." She wrinkled a dainty nose. "Can't we talk here? I

love the feel of the air and the wet. And the world! I'm glad I wasn't

killed."

"So am I," he said soberly.

"When my brain wouldn't work quite right yesterday, I thought that some

one had hit me. That isn't so, is it?"

"No. Your train was wrecked. You were injured. In the confusion you must

have run away."

"Yes. I remember being frightened. Terribly frightened. I'd never been

that way before. Outside of that one idea of fear, everything was mixed

up. I ran until I couldn't run any more and dropped down."

"And then?"

"I got up and ran again. Have you ever been afraid?"

"Plenty of times."

"I hadn't realized before that there was anything in the world to be

afraid of. But the thought of that blow, coming so suddenly from

nowhere, and the fear that I might be struck again--it drove me." She

flung out her hands in a little desperate gesture that twitched at

Banneker's breath.

"You must have been out all night in the rain."'

"No. I found a sort of cabin in the woods. It was deserted."

"Dutch Cal's place. It's only a few rods back in."

"I saw a light from there and that suggested to my muddled brain that I

might get something to eat."

"So you came over here."

"Yes. But the fear came on me again and I didn't dare knock. I suppose I

prowled."

"Gardner thought he heard ghosts. But ghosts don't steal molasses pie."

She looked at him solemnly. "Must one steal to get anything to eat

here?"

"I'm sorry," he cried. "I'll get you breakfast right away. What will you

have? There isn't much."

"Anything there is. But if I'm to board with you, you must let me pay my

way."

"The company is responsible for that."

Her brooding eyes were still fixed upon him. "You actually are the

agent," she mused. "That's quaint."

"I don't see anything quaint about it. Now, if you'll make yourself

comfortable I'll go over to the shack and rustle something for

breakfast."

"No; I'd rather go with you. Perhaps I can help."

Such help as the guest afforded was negligible. When, from sundry of the

Sears-Roebuck cans and bottles, a condensed and preserved sort of meal

had been derived, she set to it with a good grace.

"There's more of a kick in tea than in a cocktail, I believe, when you

really need it," she remarked gratefully. "You spoke of a Mr. Gardner.

Who is he?"

"A reporter who spent night before last here."

She dropped her cracker, oleomargarine-side down. "A reporter?"

"He came down to write up the wreck. It's a bad one. Nine dead, so far."

"Is he still here?"

"No. Gone back to Angelica City."

Retrieving her cracker, the guest finished her meal, heartily but

thoughtfully. She insisted on lending a hand to the washing-up process,

and complimented Banneker on his neatness.

"You haven't told me your name yet," he reminded her when the last

shining tin was hung up.

"No; I haven't. What will you do with it when you get it?"

"Report it to the company for their lists."

"Suppose I don't want it reported to the company?'

"Why on earth shouldn't you?"

"I may have my reasons. Would it be put in the papers?"

"Very likely."

"I don't _want_ it in the papers," said the girl with decision.

"Don't you want it known that you're all right? Your people--"

"I'll wire my people. Or you can wire them for me. Can't you?"

"Of course. But the company has a right to know what has happened to its

passengers."

"Not to me! What has the company done for me but wreck me and give me an

awful bang on the head and lose my baggage and--Oh, I nearly forgot. I

took my traveling-bag when I ran. It's in the hut. I wonder if you would

get it for me?"

"Of course. I'll go now."

"That's good of you. And for your own self, but not your old company,

I'll tell you my name. I'm--"

"Wait a moment. Whatever you tell me I'll have to report."

"You can't," she returned imperiously. "It's in confidence."

"I won't accept it so."

"You're a most extraordinary sta--a most extraordinary sort of man. Then

I'll give you this much for yourself, and if your company collects pet

names, you can pass it on. My friends call me Io."

"Yes. I know. You're I.O.W."

"How do you know that? And how much more do you know?"

"No more. A man on the train reported your initials from your baggage."

"I'll feel ever so much better when I have that bag. Is there a hotel

near here?"

"A sort of one at Manzanita. It isn't very clean. But there'll be a

train through to-night and I'll get you space on that. I'd better get a

doctor for you first, hadn't I?"

"No, indeed! All I need is some fresh things."

Banneker set off at a brisk pace. He found the extravagant little

traveling-case safely closed and locked, and delivered it outside his

own door which was also closed and, he suspected, locked.

"I'm thinking," said the soft voice of the girl within. "Don't let me

interrupt your work."

Beneath, at his routine, Banneker also set himself to think; confused,

bewildered, impossibly conjectural thoughts not unmingled with

semi-official anxiety. Harboring a woman on company property, even

though she were, in some sense, a charge of the company, might be open

to misconceptions. He wished that the mysterious Io would declare

herself.

At noon she did. She declared herself ready for luncheon. There was

about her a matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation as natural, even

inevitable, which entranced Banneker when it did not appall him. After

the meal was over, the girl seated herself on a low bench which Banneker

had built with his own hands and the Right-and-Ready Tool Kit (9 T 603),

her knee between her clasped hands and an elfish expression on her face.

"Don't you think," she suggested, "that we'd get on quicker if you

washed the dishes and I sat here and talked to you?"

"Very likely."

"It isn't so easy to begin, you know," she remarked, nursing her knee

thoughtfully. "Am I--Do you find me very much in the way?'"

"No."

"Don't suppress your wild enthusiasm on my account," she besought him.

"I haven't interfered with your duties so far, have I?"

"No," answered Banneker wondering what was coming next.

"You see"--her tone became ruminative and confidential--"if I give you

my name and you report it, there'll be all kinds of a mix-up. They'll

come after me and take me away."

Banneker dropped a tin on the floor and stood, staring.

"Isn't that what you want?"

"It's evident enough that it's what _you_ want," she returned,

aggrieved.

"No. Not at all," he disclaimed. "Only--well, out here--alone--I don't

understand."

"Can't you understand that if one had happened to drop out of the world

by chance, it might be desirable to stay out for a while?"

"For _you_? No; I can't understand that."

"What about yourself?" she challenged with a swift, amused gleam. "You

are certainly staying out of the world here."

"This is my world."

Her eyes and voice dropped. "Truly?" she murmured. Then, as he made no

reply, "It isn't much of a world for a man."

To this his response touched the heights of the unexpected. He stretched

out his arm toward the near window through which could be seen the white

splendor of Mount Carstairs, dim in the wreathing murk.

"Lo! For there, amidst the flowers and grasses, Only the mightier

movement sounds and passes, Only winds and rivers, Life and death,"

he quoted.

Her eyes glowed with sheer, incredulous astonishment. "How came you by

that Stevenson?" she demanded. "Are you poet as well as recluse?"

"I met him once."

"Tell me about it."

"Some other time. We've other things to talk of now."

"Some other time? Then I'm to stay!"

"In Manzanita?"

"Manzanita? No. Here."

"In this station? Alone? But why--"

"Because I'm Io Welland and I want to, and I always get what I want,"

she retorted calmly and superbly.

"Welland," he repeated. "Miss I.O. Welland. And the address is New York,

isn't it?"

Her hands grew tense across her knee, and deep in her shadowed eyes

there was a flash. But her voice suggested not only appeal, but almost a

hint of caress as she said:

"Are you going to betray a guest? I've always heard that Western

hospitality--"

"You're not my guest. You're the company's."

"And you won't take me for yours?"

"Be reasonable, Miss Welland."

"I suppose it's a question of the conventionalities," she mocked.

"I don't know or care anything about the conventionalities--"

"Nor I," she interrupted. "Out here."

"--but my guess would be that they apply only to people who live in the

same world. We don't, you and I."

"That's rather shrewd of you," she observed.

"It isn't an easy matter to talk about to a young girl, you know."

"Oh, yes, it is," she returned with composure. "Just take it for granted

that I know about all there is to be known and am not afraid of it. I'm

not afraid of anything, I think, except of--of having to go back just

now." She rose and went to him, looking down into his eyes. "A woman

knows whom she can trust in--in certain things. That's her gift, a gift

no man has or quite understands. Dazed as I was last night, I knew I

could trust you. I still know it. So we may dismiss that."

"That is true," said Banneker, "so far as it goes."

"What farther is there? If it's a matter of the inconvenience--"

"No. You know it isn't that."

"Then let me stay in this funny little shack just for a few days," she

pleaded. "If you don't, I'll get on to-night's train and go on and--and

do something I'll be sorry for all the rest of my life. And it'll be

your fault! I was going to do it when the accident prevented. Do you

believe in Providence?"

"Not as a butt-in," he answered promptly. "I don't believe that

Providence would pitch a rock into a train and kill a lot of people,

just to prevent a girl from making a foo--a bad break."

"Nor I," she smiled. "I suppose there's some kind of a General Manager

over this queer world; but I believe He plays the game fair and square

and doesn't break the rules He has made Himself. If I didn't, I wouldn't

want to play at all!... Oh, my telegram! I must wire my aunt in New

York. I'll tell her that I've stopped off to visit friends, if you don't

object to that description as being too compromising," she added

mischievously. She accepted a pad which he handed her and sat at the

table, pondering. "Mr. Banneker," she said after a moment.

"Well?"

"If the telegram goes from here, will it be headed by the name of the

station?"

"Yes."

"So that inquiry might be made here for me?"

"It might, certainly."

"But I don't want it to be. Couldn't you leave off the station?"

"Not very well."

"Just for me?" she wheedled. "For your guest that you've been so

insistent on keeping," she added slyly.

"The message wouldn't be accepted."

"Oh, dear! Then I won't send it."

"If you don't notify your family, I must report you to the company."

"What an irritating sense of duty you have! It must be dreadful to be

afflicted that way. Can't you suggest something?" she flashed. "Won't

you do a _thing_ to help me stay? I believe you don't want me, after

all."

"If the up-train gets through this evening, I'll give your wire to the

engineer and he'll transmit it from any office you say."

Childlike with pleasure she clapped her hands. "Of course! Give him

this, will you?" From a bag at her wrist she extracted a five-dollar

bill. "By the way, if I'm to be a guest I must be a paying guest, of

course."

"You can pay for a cot that I'll get in town," he agreed, "and your

share of the food."

"But the use of the house, and--and all the trouble I'm making you," she

said doubtfully. "I ought to pay for that."

"Do you think so?" He looked at her with a peculiar expression which,

however, was not beyond the power of her intuition to interpret.

"No; I don't," she declared.

Banneker answered her smile with his own, as he resumed his dish-wiping.

Io wrote out her telegram with care. Her next observation startled the

agent.

"Are you, by any chance, married?"

"No; I'm not. What makes you ask that?"

"There's been a woman in here before."

Confusedly his thoughts flew back to Carlotta. But the Mexican girl had

never been in the shack. He was quite absurdly and inexplicably glad now

that she had not.

"A woman?" he said. "Why do you think so?"

"Something in the arrangement of the place. That hanging, yonder. And

that little vase--it's good, by the way. The way that Navajo is placed

on the door. One feels it."

"It's true. A friend of mine came here one day and turned everything

topsy-turvy."

"I'm not asking questions just for curiosity. But is that the reason you

didn't want me to stay?"

He laughed, thinking of Miss Van Arsdale. "Heavens, no! Wait till you

meet her. She's a very wonderful person; but--"

"Meet her? Does she live near here, then?"

"A few miles away."

"Suppose she should come and find me here?"

"It's what I've been wishing."

"Is it! Well, it isn't what I wish at all."

"In fact," continued the imperturbable Banneker, "I rather planned to

ride over to her place this afternoon."

"Why, if you please?"

"To tell her about you and ask her advice."

Io's face darkened rebelliously. "Do you think it necessary to tattle to

a woman who is a total stranger to me?"

"I think it would be wise to get her view," he replied, unmoved.

"Well, I think it would be horrid. I think if you do any such thing, you

are--Mr. Banneker! You're not listening to me."

"Some one is coming through the woods trail," said he.

"Perhaps it's your local friend."

"That's my guess."

"Please understand this, Mr. Banneker," she said with an obstinate

outthrust of her little chin. "I don't know who your friend is and I

don't care. If you make it necessary, I can go to the hotel in town; but

while I stay here I won't have my affairs or even my presence discussed

with any one else."

"You're too late," said Banneker.

Out from a hardly discernible opening in the brush shouldered a big

roan. Tossing up his head, he stretched out in the long, easy lope of

the desert-bred, his rider sitting him loosely and with slack bridle.

"That's Miss Van Arsdale," said Banneker.

CHAPTER VI

Seated in her saddle the newcomer hailed Banneker.

"What news, Ban? Is the wreck cleared up?"

"Yes. But the track is out twenty miles east. Every arroyo and barranca

is bank-high and over."

He had crossed the platform to her. Now she raised her deep-set, quiet

eyes and rested them on the girl. That the station should harbor a

visitor at that hour was not surprising. But the beauty of the stranger

caught Miss Van Arsdale's regard, and her bearing held it.

"A passenger, Ban?" she asked, lowering her voice.

"Yes, Miss Camilla."

"Left over from the wreck?"

He nodded. "You came in the nick of time. I don't quite know what to do

with her."

"Why didn't she go on the relief train?"

"She didn't show up until last night."

"Where did she stay the night?"

"Here."

"In your office?"

"In my room. I worked in the office."

"You should have brought her to me."

"She was hurt. Queer in the head. I'm not sure that she isn't so yet."

Miss Van Arsdale swung her tall form easily out of the saddle. The girl

came forward at once, not waiting for Banneker's introduction, with a

formal gravity.

"How do you do? I am Irene Welland."

The older woman took the extended hand. There was courtesy rather than

kindliness in her voice as she asked, "Are you much hurt?"

"I'm quite over it, thank you. All but the bandage. Mr. Banneker was

just speaking of you when you rode up, Miss Van Arsdale."

The other smiled wanly. "It is a little startling to hear one's name

like that, in a voice from another world. When do you go on?"

"Ah, that's a point under discussion. Mr. Banneker would, I believe,

summon a special train if he could, in his anxiety to get rid of me."

"Not at all," disclaimed the agent.

But Miss Van Arsdale interrupted, addressing the girl:

"You must be anxious, yourself, to get back to civilization."

"Why?" returned the girl lightly. "This seems a beautiful locality."

"Were you traveling alone?"

The girl flushed a little, but her eyes met the question without

wavering. "Quite alone."

"To the coast?"

"To join friends there."

"If they can patch up the washed-out track," put in Banneker, "Number

Seven ought to get through to-night."

"And Mr. Banneker in his official capacity was almost ready to put me

aboard by force, when I succeeded in gaining a reprieve. Now he calls

you to his rescue."

"What do you want to do?" inquired Miss Van Arsdale with lifted brows.

"Stay here for a few days, in that funny little house." She indicated

the portable shack.

"That is Mr. Banneker's own place."

"I understand perfectly."

"I don't think it would do, Miss Welland. It is _Miss_ Welland, isn't

it?"

"Yes, indeed. Why wouldn't it do, Miss Van Arsdale?"

"Ask yourself."

"I am quite capable of taking care of myself," returned the girl calmly.

"As for Mr. Banneker, I assume that he is equally competent. And," she

added with a smiling effrontery, "he's quite as much compromised already

as he could possibly be by my staying."

Banneker flushed angrily. "There's no question of my being compromised,"

he began shortly.

"You're wrong, Ban; there is," Miss Van Arsdale's quiet voice cut him

short again. "And still more of Miss Welland's. What sort of escapade

this may be," she added, turning to the girl, "I have no idea. But you

cannot stay here alone."

"Can't I?" retorted the other mutinously. "I think that rests with Mr.

Banneker to say. Will you turn me out, Mr. Banneker? After our

agreement?"

"No," said Banneker.

"You can hardly kidnap me, even with all the conventionalities on your

side," Miss Welland pointed out to Miss Van Arsdale.

That lady made no answer to the taunt. She was looking at the

station-agent with a humorously expectant regard. He did not disappoint

her.

"If I get an extra cot for the shack, Miss Van Arsdale," he asked,

"could you get your things and come over here to stay?"

"Certainly."

"I won't be treated like a child!" cried the derelict in exactly the

tone of one, and a very naughty one. "I won't! I won't!" She stamped.

Banneker laughed.

"You're a coward," said Io.

Miss Van Arsdale laughed.

"I'll go to the hotel in the town and stay there."

"Think twice before you do that," advised the woman.

"Why?" asked Io, struck by the tone.

"Crawly things," replied Miss Van Arsdale sententiously.

"Big, hungry ones," added Banneker.

He could almost feel the little rippling shudders passing across the

girl's delicate skin. "Oh, I think you're _loathly_!" she cried. "Both

of you."

Tears of vexation made lucent the shadowed depths of her eyes. "I've

never been treated so in my life!" she declared, overcome by the

self-pity of a struggling soul trammeled by the world's injustice.

"Why not be sensible and stay with me to-night while you think it all

over?" suggested Miss Van Arsdale.

"Thank you," returned the other with an unexpected and baffling change

to the amenable and formal "You are very kind. I'd be delighted to."

"Pack up your things, then, and I'll bring an extra horse from the town.

I'll be back in an hour."

The girl went up to Banneker's room, and got her few belongings

together. Descending she found the agent busy among his papers. He put

them aside and came out to her.

"Your telegram ought to get off from Williams sometime to-morrow," he

said.

"That will be time enough," she answered.

"Will there be any answer?"

"How can there be? I haven't given any address."

"I could wire Williams later."

"No. I don't want to be bothered. I want to be let alone. I'm tired."

He cast a glance about the lowering horizon. "More rain coming," he

said. "I wish you could have seen the desert in the sunshine."

"I'll wait."

"Will you?" he cried eagerly. "It may be quite a while."

"Perhaps Miss Van Arsdale will keep me, as you wouldn't."

He shook his head. "You know that it isn't because I don't want you to

stay. But she is right. It just wouldn't do.... Here she comes now."

Io took a step nearer to him. "I've been looking at your books."

He returned her gaze unembarrassed. "Odds and ends," he said. "You

wouldn't find much to interest you."

"On the contrary. Everything interested me. You're a mystery--and I hate

mysteries."

"That's rather hard."

"Until they're solved. Perhaps I shall stay until I solve you."

"Stay longer. It wouldn't take any time at all. There's no mystery to

solve." He spoke with an air of such perfect candor as compelled her

belief in his sincerity.

"Perhaps you'll solve it for me. Here's Miss Van Arsdale. Good-bye, and

thank you. You'll come and see me? Or shall I come and see you?"

"Both," smiled Banneker. "That's fairest."

The pair rode away leaving the station feeling empty and unsustained. At

least Banneker credited it with that feeling. He tried to get back to

work, but found his routine dispiriting. He walked out into the desert,

musing and aimless.

Silence fell between the two women as they rode. Once Miss Welland

stopped to adjust her traveling-bag which had shifted a little in the

straps.

"Is riding cross-saddle uncomfortable for you?" asked Miss Van Arsdale.

"Not in the least. I often do it at home."

Suddenly her mount, a thick-set, soft-going pony shied, almost unseating

her. A gun had banged close by. Immediately there was a second report.

Miss Van Arsdale dismounted, replacing a short-barreled shot-gun in its

saddle-holster, stepped from the trail, and presently returned carrying

a brace of plump, slate-gray birds.

"Wild dove," she said, stroking them. "You'll find them a welcome

addition to a meager bill of fare."

"I should be quite content with whatever you usually have."

"Doubted," replied the other. "I live rather a frugal life. It saves

trouble."

"And I'm afraid I'm going to make you trouble. But you brought it upon

yourself."

"By interfering. Exactly. How old are you?"

"Twenty."

"Good Heavens! You have the aplomb of fifty."

"Experience," smiled the girl, flattered.

"And the recklessness of fifteen."

"I abide by the rules of the game. And when I find myself--well, out of

bounds, I make my own rules."

Miss Van Arsdale shook her firmly poised head. "It won't do. The rules

are the same everywhere, for honorable people."

"Honorable!" There was a flash of resentful pride as the girl turned in

the saddle to face her companion.

"I have no intention of preaching at you or of questioning you,"

continued the calm, assured voice. "If you are looking for

sanctuary"--the fine lips smiled slightly--"though I'm sure I can't see

why you should need it, this is the place. But there are rules of

sanctuary, also."

"I suppose," surmised the girl, "you want to know why I don't go back

into the world at once."

"No."

"Then I'll tell you."

"As you wish."

"I came West to be married."

"To Delavan Eyre?"

Again the dun pony jumped, this time because a sudden involuntary

contraction of his rider's muscles had startled him. "What do you know

of Delavan Eyre, Miss Van Arsdale?"

"I occasionally see a New York newspaper."

"Then you know who I am, too?"

"Yes. You are the pet of the society column paragraphers; the famous

'Io' Welland." She spoke with a curious intonation.

"Ah, you read the society news?"

"With a qualmish stomach. I see the names of those whom I used to know

advertising themselves in the papers as if they had a shaving-soap or a

chewing-gum to sell."

"Part of the game," returned the girl airily. "The newcomers, the

climbers, would give their souls to get the place in print that we get

without an effort."

"Doesn't it seem to you a bit vulgar?" asked the other.

"Perhaps. But it's the way the game is played nowadays."

"With counters which you have let the parvenues establish for you. In my

day we tried to keep out of the papers."

"Clever of you," approved the girl. "The more you try to keep out, the

more eager the papers are to print your picture. They're crazy over

exclusiveness," she laughed.

"Speculation, pro and con, as to who is going to marry whom, and who is

about to divorce whom, and whether Miss Welland's engagement to Mr. Eyre

is authentic, 'as announced exclusively in this column'--more

exclusiveness--; or whether--"

"It wasn't Del Eyre that I came out here to marry."

"No?"

"No. It's Carter Holmesley. Of course you know about him."

"By advertisement, also; the society-column kind."

"Really, you know, he couldn't keep out of the papers. He hates it with

all his British soul. But being what he is, a prospective duke, an

international poloist, and all that sort of thing, the reporters

naturally swarm to him. Columns and columns; more pictures than a

popular _danseuse_. And all without his lifting his hand."

"_Une mariage de reclame_," observed Miss Van Arsdale. "Is it that that

constitutes his charm for you?"

Miss Van Arsdale's smile was still instinct with mockery, but there had

crept into it a quality of indulgence.

"No," answered the girl. Her face became thoughtful and serious. "It's

something else. He--he carried me off my feet from the moment I met him.

He was drunk, too, that first time. I don't believe I've ever seen him

cold sober. But it's a joyous kind of intoxication; vine-leaves and

Bacchus and that sort of thing 'weave a circle 'round him thrice'--_you_

know. It _is_ honey-dew and the milk of Paradise to him." She laughed

nervously. "And charm! It's in the very air about him. He can make me

follow his lead like a little curly poodle when I'm with him."

"Were you engaged to Delavan Eyre when you met him?"

"Oh, engaged!" returned the girl fretfully. "There was never more than a

sort of understanding. A _mariage de convenance_ on both sides, if it

ever came off. I _am_ fond of Del, too. But he was South, and the other

came like a whirlwind, and I'm--I'm queer about some things," she went

on half shamefacedly. "I suppose I'm awfully susceptible to physical

impressions. Are all girls that way? Or is that gross and--and

underbred?"

"It's part of us, I expect; but we're not all so honest with ourselves.

So you decided to throw over Mr. Eyre and marry your Briton."

"Well--yes. The new British Ambassador, who arrives from Japan next

week, is Carty's uncle, and we were going to make him stage-manage the

wedding, you see. A sort of officially certified elopement."

"More advertisement!" said Miss Van Arsdale coldly. "Really, Miss

Welland, if marriage seems to you nothing more than an opportunity to

create a newspaper sensation I cannot congratulate you on your

prospects."

This time her tone stung. Io Welland's eyes became sullen. But her voice

was almost caressingly amiable as she said:

"Tastes differ. It is, I believe, possible to create a sensation in New

York society without any newspaper publicity, and without at all meaning

or wishing to. At least, it was, fifteen years ago; so I'm told."

Camilla Van Arsdale's face was white and lifeless and still, as she

turned it toward the girl.

"You must have been a very precocious five-year-old," she said steadily.

"All the Olneys are precocious. My mother was an Olney, a first cousin

of Mrs. Willis Enderby, you know."

"Yes; I remember now."

The malicious smile on the girl's delicate lips faded. "I wish I, hadn't

said that," she cried impulsively. "I hate Cousin Mabel. I always have

hated her. She's a cat. And I think the way she, acted in--in

the--the--well, about Judge Enderby and--".

"Please!" Miss Van Arsdale's tone was peremptory. "Here is my place."

She indicated a clearing with a little nest of a camp in it.

"Shall I go back?" asked Io remorsefully.

"No."

Miss Van Arsdale dismounted and, after a moment's hesitancy, the other

followed her example. The hostess threw open the door and a beautiful,

white-ruffed collie rushed to her with barks of joy. She held out a hand

to her new guest.

"Be welcome," she said with a certain stately gravity, "for as long as

you will stay."

"It might be some time," answered Io shyly. "You're tempting me."

"When is your wedding?"

"Wedding! Oh, didn't I tell you? I'm not going to marry Carter Holmesley

either."

"You are not going--"

"No. The bump on my head must have settled my brain. As soon as I came

to I saw how crazy it would be. That is why I don't want to go on West."

"I see. For fear of his overbearing you."

"Yes. Though I don't think he could now. I think I'm over it. Poor old

Del! He's had a narrow escape from losing me. I hope he never hears of

it. Placid though he is, that might stir him up."

"Then you'll go back to him?"

The girl sighed. "I suppose so. How can I tell? I'm only twenty, and it

seems to me that somebody has been trying to marry me ever since I

stopped petting my dolls. I'm tired of men, men, men! That's why I want

to live alone and quiet for a while in the station-agent's shack."

"Then you don't consider Mr. Banneker as belonging to the tribe of men?"

"He's an official. I could always see his uniform, at need." She fell

into thought. "It's a curious thing," she mused.

Miss Van Arsdale said nothing.

"This queer young cub of a station-agent of yours is strangely like

Carter Holmesley, not as much in looks as in--well--atmosphere. Only,

he's ever so much better-looking."

"Won't you have some tea? You must be tired," said Miss Van Arsdale

politely.

CHAPTER VII

Somewhere within the soul of civilized woman burns a craving for that

higher power of sensation which we dub sensationalism. Girls of Io

Welland's upbringing live in an atmosphere which fosters it. To outshine

their rivals in the startling things which they do, always within

accepted limits, is an important and exciting phase of existence. Io had

run away to marry the future Duke of Carfax, partly through the charm

which a reckless, headlong, and romantic personality imposed upon her,

but largely for the excitement of a reckless, headlong, and romantic

escapade. The tragic interposition of the wreck seemed to her present

consciousness, cooled and sobered by the spacious peace of the desert,

to have been providential.

Despite her disclaimer made to Banneker she felt, deep within the placid

acceptances of subconsciousness, that the destruction of a train was not

too much for a considerate Providence to undertake on behalf of her

petted and important self. She clearly realized that she had had a

narrow escape from Holmesley; that his attraction for her was transient

and unsubstantial, a surface magnetism without real value or promise.

In her revulsion of feeling she thought affectionately of Delavan Eyre.

There lay the safe basis of habitude, common interests, settled liking.

True, he bored her at times with his unimpeachable good-nature, his easy

self-assurance that everything was and always would be "all right," and

nothing "worth bothering over."

If he knew of her escapade, that would at least shake him out of his

soft and well-lined rut. Indeed, Io was frank enough with herself to

admit that a perverse desire to explode a bomb under her imperturbable

and too-assured suitor had been an element in her projected elopement.

Never would that bomb explode. It would not even fizzle enough to alarm

Eyre or her family. For not a soul knew of the frustrated scheme, except

Holmesley and the reliable friend in Paradiso whom she was to visit; not

her father, Sims Welland, traveling in Europe on business, nor her aunt,

Mrs. Thatcher Forbes, in whose charge she had been left. Ostensibly she

had been going to visit the Westerleys, that was all: Mrs. Forbes's

misgivings as to a twenty-year-old girl crossing the continent alone had

been unavailing against Io's calm willfulness.

Well, she would go back and marry Del Eyre, and be comfortable ever

after. After all, liking and comprehension were a sounder foundation for

matrimony than the perishable glamour of an attraction like Holmesley's.

Any sensible person would know that. She wished that she had some older

and more experienced woman to talk it out with. Miss Van Arsdale, if

only she knew her a little better....

Camilla Van Arsdale, even on so casual an acquaintance, would have told

Io, reckoning with the slumbering fire in her eyes, and the sensitive

and passionate turn of the lips, but still more with the subtle and

significant emanation of a femininity as yet unawakened to itself, that

for her to marry on the pallid expectancies of mere liking would be to

invite disaster and challenge ruin.

Meantime Io wanted to rest and think.

Time enough for that was to be hers, it appeared. Her first night as a

guest had been spent in a semi-enclosed porch, to which every breeze

wafted the spicy and restful balm of the wet pines. Io's hot brain

cooled itself in that peace. Quite with a feeling of welcome she

accepted the windy downpour which came with the morning to keep her

indoors, as if it were a friendly and opportune jailer. Reaction from

the mental strain and the physical shock had set in. She wanted only, as

she expressed it to her hostess, to "laze" for a while.

"Then this is the ideal spot for you," Miss Van Arsdale answered her.

"I'm going to ride over to town."

"In this gale?" asked the surprised girl.

"Oh, I'm weather-proof. Tell Pedro not to wait luncheon for me. And keep

an eye on him if you want anything fit to eat. He's the worst cook west

of the plains. You'll find books, and the piano to amuse you when you

get up."

She rode away, straight and supple in the saddle, and Io went back to

sleep again. Halfway to her destination, Miss Van Arsdale's

woods-trained ear caught the sound of another horse's hooves, taking a

short cut across a bend in the trail. To her halloo, Banneker's clear

voice responded. She waited and presently he rode up to her.

"Come back with me," she invited after acknowledging his greeting.

"I was going over to see Miss Welland."

"Wait until to-morrow. She is resting."

A shade of disappointment crossed his face. "All right," he agreed. "I

wanted to tell her that her messages got off all right."

"I'll tell her when I go back."

"That'll be just as well," he answered reluctantly. "How is she

feeling?"

"Exhausted. She's been under severe strain."

"Oughtn't she to have a doctor? I could ride--"

"She won't listen to it. And I think her head is all right now. But she

ought to have complete rest for several days."

"Well, I'm likely to be busy enough," he said simply. "The schedule is

all shot to pieces, and, unless this rain lets up, we'll have more track

out. What do you think of it?"

Miss Van Arsdale looked up through the thrashing pines to the rush of

the gray-black clouds. "I think we're in for a siege of it," was her

pronouncement.

They rode along single file in the narrow trail until they emerged into

the open. Then Banneker's horse moved forward, neck and neck with the

other. Miss Van Arsdale reined down her uneasy roan.

"Ban."

"Yes?"

"Have you ever seen anything like her before?"

"Only on the stage."

She smiled. "What do you think of her?"

"I hardly know how to express it," he answered frankly, though

hesitantly. "She makes me think of all the poetry I've ever read."

"That's dangerous. Ban, have you any idea what kind of a girl she is?"

"What kind?" he repeated. He looked startled.

"Of course you haven't. How should you? I'm going to tell you."

"Do you know her, Miss Camilla?"

"As well as if she were my own sister. That is, I know her type. It's

common enough."

"It can't be," he protested eagerly.

"Oh, yes! The type is. She is an exquisite specimen of it; that's all.

Listen, Ban. Io Welland is the petted and clever and willful daughter of

a rich man; a very rich man he would be reckoned out here. She lives in

a world as remote from this as the moon."

"Of course. I realize that."

"It's well that you do. And she's as casual a visitant here as if she

had floated down on one moonbeam and would float back on the next."

"She'll have to, to get out of here if this rain keeps up," observed the

station-agent grimly.

"I wish she would," returned Miss Van Arsdale.

"Is she in your way?"

"I shouldn't mind that if I could keep her out of yours," she answered

bluntly.

Banneker turned a placid and smiling face to her. "You think I'm a fool,

don't you, Miss Camilla?"

"I think that Io Welland, without ill-intent at all, but with a period

of idleness on her hands, is a dangerous creature to have around. She's

too lovely and, I think, too restless a spirit."

"She's lovely, all right," assented Banneker.

"Well; I've warned you, Ban," returned his friend in slightly dispirited

tones.

"What do you want me to do? Keep away from your place? I'll do whatever

you say. But it's all nonsense."

"I dare say it is," sighed Miss Van Arsdale. "Forget that I've said it,

Ban. Meddling is a thankless business."

"You could never meddle as far as I'm concerned," said Banneker warmly.

"I'm a little worried," he added thoughtfully, "about not reporting her

as found to the company. What do you think?"

"Too official a question for me. You'll have to settle that for

yourself."

"How long does she intend to stay?"

"I don't know. But a girl of her breeding and habits would hardly settle

herself on a stranger for very long unless a point were made of urging

her."

"And you won't do that?"

"I certainly shall not!"

"No; I suppose not. You've been awfully good to her."

"Hospitality to the shipwrecked," smiled Miss Van Arsdale as she crossed

the track toward the village.

Late afternoon, darkening into wilder winds and harsher rain, brought

the hostess back to her lodge dripping and weary. On a bearskin before

the smouldering fire lay the girl, her fingers intertwined behind her

head, her eyes half closed and dreamy. Without directly responding to

the other's salutation she said:

"Miss Van Arsdale, will you be very good to me?"

"What is it?"

"I'm tired," said Io. "So tired!"

"Stay, of course," responded the hostess, answering the implication

heartily, "as long as you will."

"Only two or three days, until I recover the will to do something.

You're awfully kind." Io looked very young and childlike, with her

languid, mobile face irradiated by the half-light of the fire. "Perhaps

you'll play for me sometime."

"Of course. Now, if you like. As soon as the chill gets out of my

hands."

"Thank you. And sing?" suggested the girl diffidently.

A fierce contraction of pain marred the serenity of the older woman's

face. "No," she said harshly. "I sing for no one."

"I'm sorry," murmured the girl.

"What have you been doing all day?" asked Miss Van Arsdale, holding out

her hands toward the fire.

"Resting. Thinking. Scaring myself with bogy-thoughts of what I've

escaped." Io smiled and sighed. "I hadn't known how worn out I was until

I woke up this morning. I don't think I ever before realized the meaning

of refuge."

"You'll recover from the need of it soon enough," promised the other.

She crossed to the piano. "What kind of music do you want? No; don't

tell me. I should be able to guess." Half turning on the bench she gazed

speculatively at the lax figure on the rug. "Chopin, I think. I've

guessed right? Well, I don't think I shall play you Chopin to-day. You

don't need that kind of--of--well, excitation."

Musing for a moment over a soft mingling of chords she began with a

little ripple of melody, MacDowell's lovely, hurrying, buoyant

"Improvisation," with its aeolian vibrancies, its light, bright surges

of sound, sinking at the last into cradled restfulness. Without pause or

transition she passed on to Grieg; the wistful, remote appeal of the

strangely misnamed "Erotique," plaintive, solemn, and in the fulfillment

almost hymnal: the brusque pursuing minors of the wedding music, and the

diamond-shower of notes of the sun-path song, bleak, piercing, Northern

sunlight imprisoned in melody. Then, the majestic swing of Åse's

death-chant, glorious and mystical.

"Are you asleep?" asked the player, speaking through the chords.

"No," answered Io's tremulous voice. "I'm being very unhappy. I love

it!"

Bang! It was a musical detonation, followed by a volley of chords and

then a wild, swirling waltz; and Miss Van Arsdale jumped up and stood

over her guest. "There!" she said. "That's better than letting you

pamper yourself with the indulgence of unhappiness."

"But I want to be unhappy," pouted Io. "I want to be pampered."

"Naturally. You always will be, I expect, as long as there are men in

the world to do your bidding. However, I must see to supper."

So for two days Io Welland lolled and lazed and listened to Miss Van

Arsdale's music, or read, or took little walks between showers. No

further mention was made by her hostess of the circumstances of the

visit. She was a reticent woman; almost saturnine, Io decided, though

her perfect and effortless courtesy preserved her from being

antipathetic to any one beneath her own roof. How much her silence as to

the unusual situation was inspired by consideration for her guest, how

much due to natural reserve, Io could not estimate.

A little less reticence would have been grateful to her as the hours

spun out and she felt her own spirit expand slowly in the calm. It was

she who introduced the subject of Banneker.

"Our quaint young station-agent seems to have abandoned his

responsibilities so far as I'm concerned," she observed.

"Because he hasn't come to see you?"

"Yes. He said he would."

"I told him not to."

"I see," said Io, after thinking it over. "Is he a little--just a wee,

little bit queer in his head?"

"He's one of the sanest persons I've ever known. And I want him to stay

so."

"I see again," stated the girl.

"So you thought him a bit unbalanced? That _is_ amusing." That the

hostess meant the adjective in good faith was proved by her quiet

laughter.

Io regarded her speculatively and with suspicion. "He asked the same

about me, I suppose." Such was her interpretation of the laugh.

"But he gave you credit for being only temporarily deranged."

"Either he or I ought to be up for examination by a medical board,"

stated the girl poutingly. "One of us must be crazy. The night that I

stole his molasses pie--it was pretty awful pie, but I was starved--I

stumbled over something in the darkness and fell into it with an awful

clatter. What do you suppose it was?"

"I think I could guess," smiled the other.

"Not unless you knew. Personally I couldn't believe it. It felt like a

boat, and it rocked like a boat, and there were the seats and the oars.

I could feel them. A steel boat! Miss Van Arsdale, it isn't reasonable."

"Why isn't it reasonable?'

"I looked on the map in his room and there isn't so much as a mud-puddle

within miles and miles and miles. Is there?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then what does he want of a steel boat?"

"Ask him."

"It might stir him up. They get violent if you question their pet

lunacies, don't they?"

"It's quite simple. Ban is just an incurable romanticist. He loves the

water. And his repository of romance is the catalogue of Sears, Roebuck

and Co. When the new issue came, with an entrancing illustration of a

fully equipped steel boat, he simply couldn't stand it. He had to have

one, to remind him that some day he would be going back to the coast

lagoons.... Does that sound to you like a fool?"

"No; it sounds delicious," declared the girl with a ripple of mirth.

"What a wonderful person! I'm going over to see him to-morrow. May I?"

"My dear; I have no control over your actions."

"Have you made any other plans for me to-morrow morning?" inquired Miss

Welland in a prim and social tone, belied by the dancing light in her

eyes.

"I've told you that he was romantic," warned the other.

"What higher recommendation could there be? I shall sit in the boat with

him and talk nautical language. Has he a yachting cap? Oh, do tell me

that he has a yachting cap!"

Miss Van Arsdale, smiling, shook her head, but her eyes were troubled.

There was compunction in Io's next remark.

"I'm really going over to see about accommodations. Sooner or later I

must face the music--meaning Carty. I'm fit enough now, thanks to you."

"Wouldn't an Eastern trip be safer?" suggested her hostess.

"An Eastern trip would be easier. But I've made my break, and it's in

the rules, as I understand them, that I've got to see it through. If he

can get me now"--she gave a little shrug--"but he can't. I've come to my

senses."

Sunlight pale, dubious, filtering through the shaken cloud veils,

ushered in the morning. Meager of promise though it was, Io's spirits

brightened. Declining the offer of a horse in favor of a pocket compass,

she set out afoot, not taking the trail, but forging straight through

the heavy forest for the line of desert. Around her, brisk and busy

flocks of piñon jays darted and twittered confidentially. The warm spice

of the pines was sweet in her nostrils. Little stirrings and rustlings

just beyond the reach of vision delightfully and provocatively suggested

the interest which she was inspiring by her invasion among the lesser

denizens of the place. The sweetness and intimacy of an unknown life

surrounded her. She sang happily as she strode, lithe and strong and

throbbing with unfulfilled energies and potencies, through the

springtide of the woods.

But when she emerged upon the desert, she fell silent. A spaciousness as

of endless vistas enthralled and, a little, awed her. On all sides were

ranged the disordered ranks of the cacti, stricken into immobility in

the very act of reconstituting their columns, so that they gave the

effect of a discord checked on the verge of its resolution into form and

harmony, yet with a weird and distorted beauty of its own. From a little

distance, there came a murmur of love-words. Io moved softly forward,

peering curiously, and from the arc of a wide curving ocatilla two wild

doves sprang, leaving the branch all aquiver. Bolder than his companions

of the air, a cactus owl, perched upon the highest column of a great

green candelabrum, viewed her with a steady detachment, "sleepless, with

cold, commemorative eyes." The girl gave back look for look, into the

big, hard, unwavering circles.

"You're a funny little bird," said she. "Say something!"

Like his congener of the hortatory poem, the owl held his peace.

"Perhaps you're a stuffed little bird," said Io, "and this not a real

desert at all, but a National Park or something, full of educational

specimens."

She walked past the occupant of the cactus, and his head, turning,

followed her with the slow, methodical movement of a toy mechanism.

"You give me a crick in my neck," protested the intruder plaintively.

"Now, I'll step over behind you and you'll _have_ to move or stop

watching me."

She walked behind the watcher. The eyes continued to hold her in direct

range.

"Now," said Io, "I know where the idea for that horrid advertisement

that always follows you with its finger came from. However, I'll fix

you."

She fetched a deliberate circle. The bird's eyes followed her without

cessation. Yet his feet and body remained motionless. Only the head had

turned. That had made a complete revolution.

"This is a very queer desert," gasped Io. "It's bewitched. Or am I? Now,

I'm going to walk once more around you, little owl, or mighty magician,

whichever you are. And after I've completely turned your head, you'll

fall at my feet. Or else..."

Again she walked around the feathered center of the circle. The head

followed her, turning with a steady and uninterrupted motion, on its

pivot. Io took a silver dime from her purse.

"Heaven save us from the powers of evil!" she said appreciatively.

"Aroint thee, witch!"

She threw the coin at the cactus.

"Chrr-rr-rrum!" burbled the owl, and flew away.

"I'm dizzy," said Io. "I wonder if the owl is an omen and whether the

other inhabitants of this desert are like him; however much you turn

their heads, they won't fall for you. Charms and counter-charms!... Be a

good child, Io," she admonished herself. "Haven't you got yourself into

enough trouble with your deviltries? I can't help it," she defended

herself. "When I see a new and interesting specimen, I've just _got_ to

investigate its nature and habits. It's an inherited scientific spirit,

I suppose. And he is new, and awfully interesting--even if he is only a

station-agent." Wherefrom it will be perceived that her thoughts had

veered from the cactus owl, to another perplexing local phenomenon.

The glaring line of the railroad right-of-way rose before her feet, a

discordant note of rigidity and order in the confused prodigality of

desert growth. Io turned away from it, but followed its line until she

reached the station. No sign of life greeted her. The door was locked,

and the portable house unresponsive to her knocking. Presently, however,

she heard the steady click of the telegraph instrument and, looking

through the half-open office window, saw Banneker absorbed in his work.

"Good-morning," she called.

Without looking up he gave back her greeting in an absent echo.

"As you didn't come to see me, I've come to see you," was her next

attempt.

Did he nod? Or had he made no motion at all?

"I've come to ask important questions about trains," she pursued, a

little aggrieved by his indifference to her presence.

No reply from the intent worker.

"And 'tell sad stories of the death of kings,'" she quoted with a fairy

chuckle. She thought that she saw a small contortion pass over his

features, only to be banished at once. He had retired within the walls

of that impassive and inscrutable reserve which minor railroad officials

can at will erect between themselves and the lay public. Only the broken

rhythms of the telegraph ticker relieved the silence and furnished the

justification.

A little piqued but more amused, for she was far too confident of

herself to feel snubbed, the girl waited smilingly. Presently she said

in silken tones:

"When you're quite through and can devote a little attention to

insignificant me, I shall perhaps be sitting on the sunny corner of the

platform, or perhaps I shall be gone forever."

But she was not gone when, ten minutes later, Banneker came out. He

looked tired.

"You know, you weren't very polite to me," she remarked, glancing at him

slantwise as he stood before her.

If she expected apologies, she was disappointed, and perhaps thought

none the less of him for his dereliction.

"There's trouble all up and down the line," he said. "Nothing like a

schedule left west of Allbright. Two passenger trains have come through,

though. Would you like to see a paper? It's in my office."

"Goodness, no! Why should I want a newspaper here? I haven't time for

it. I want to see the world"--she swept a little, indicating hand about

her; "all that I can take in in a day."

"A day?" he echoed.

"Yes. I'm going to-morrow."

"That's as may be. Ten to one there's no space to be had."

"Surely you can get something for me. A section will do if you can't get

a stateroom."

He smiled. "The president of the road might get a stateroom. I doubt if

anybody else could even land an upper. Of course I'll do my best. But

it's a question when there'll be another train through."

"What ails your road?" she demanded indignantly. "Is it just stuck

together with glue?"

"You've never seen this desert country when it springs a leak. It can

develop a few hundred Niagaras at the shortest notice of any place I

know."

"But it isn't leaking now," she objected.

He turned his face to the softly diffused sunlight. "To be continued.

The storm isn't over yet, according to the way I feel about it. Weather

reports say so, too."

"Then take me for a walk!" she cried. "I'm tired of rain and I want to

go over and lean against that lovely white mountain."

"Well, it's only sixty miles away," he answered. "Perhaps you'd better

take some grub along or you might get hungry."

"Aren't you coming with me?"

"This is my busy morning. If it were afternoon, now--"

"Very well. Since you are so urgent, I _will_ stay to luncheon. I'll

even get it up myself if you'll let me into the shack."

"That's a go!" said Banneker heartily. "What about your horse?"

"I walked over."

"No; did you?" He turned thoughtful, and his next observation had a

slightly troubled ring. "Have you got a gun?"

"A gun? Oh, you mean a pistol. No; I haven't. Why should I?"

He shook his head. "This is no time to be out in the open without a gun.

They had a dance at the Sick Coyote in Manzanita last night, and

there'll be some tough specimens drifting along homeward all day."

"Do you carry a gun?"

"I would if I were going about with you."

"Then you can loan me yours to go home with this afternoon," she said

lightly.

"Oh, I'll take you back. Just now I've got some odds and ends that will

take a couple of hours to clear up. You'll find plenty to read in the

shack, such as it is."

Thus casually dismissed, Io murmured a "Thank you" which was not as meek

as it sounded, and withdrew to rummage among the canned edibles drawn

from the inexhaustible stock of Sears-Roebuck. Having laid out a

selection, housewifely, and looked to the oil stove derived from the

same source, she turned with some curiosity to the mental pabulum with

which this strange young hermit had provided himself. Would this, too,

bear the mail-order imprint and testify to mail-order standards? At

first glance the answer appeared to be affirmative. The top shelf of the

home-made case sagged with the ineffable slusheries of that most popular

and pious of novelists, Harvey Wheelwright. Near by, "How to Behave on

All Occasions" held forth its unimpeachable precepts, while a little

beyond, "Botany Made Easy" and "The Perfect Letter Writer" proffered

further aid to the aspiring mind. Improvement, stark, blatant

Improvement, advertised itself from that culturous and reeking

compartment. But just below--Io was tempted to rub her eyes--stood

Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"; a Browning, complete; that inimitably

jocund fictional prank, Frederic's "March Hares," together with the same

author's fine and profoundly just "Damnation of Theron Ware"; Taylor's

translation of Faust; "The [broken-backed] Egoist"; "Lavengro" (Io

touched its magic pages with tender fingers), and a fat, faded, reddish

volume so worn and obscured that she at once took it down and made

explorative entry. She was still deep in it when the owner arrived.

"Have you found enough to keep you amused?"

She looked up from the pages and seemed to take him all in anew before

answering. "Hardly the word. Bewildered would be nearer the feeling."

"It's a queerish library, I suppose," he said apologetically.

"If I believed in dual personality--" she began; but broke off to hold

up the bulky veteran. "Where did you get 'The Undying Voices'?"

"Oh, that's a windfall. What a bully title for a collection of the great

poetries, isn't it!"

She nodded, one caressing hand on the open book, the other propping her

chin as she kept the clear wonder of her eyes upon him.

"It makes you think of singers making harmony together in a great open

space. I'd like to know the man who made the selections," he concluded.

"What kind of a windfall?" she asked.

"A real one. Pullman travelers sometimes prop their windows open with

books. You can see the window-mark on the cover of this one. I found it

two miles out, beside the right-of-way. There was no name in it, so I

kept it. It's the book I read most except one."

"What's the one?"

He laughed, holding up the still more corpulent Sears-Roebuck catalogue.

"Ah," said she gravely. "That accounts, I suppose, for the top shelf."

"Yes, mostly."

"Do you like them? The Conscientious Improvers, I mean?"

"I think they're bunk."

"Then why did you get them?"

"Oh, I suppose I was looking for something," he returned; and though his

tone was careless, she noticed for the first time a tinge of

self-consciousness.

"Did you find it there?"

"No. It isn't there."

"Here?" She laid both hands on the "windfall."

His face lighted subtly.

"It _is_ there, isn't it! If one has the sense to get it out."

"I wonder," mused the girl. And again, "I wonder." She rose, and taking

out "March Hares" held it up. "I could hardly believe this when I saw

it. Did it also drop out of a car window?"

"No. I never heard of that until I wrote for it. I wrote to a Boston

bookstore that I'd heard about and told 'em I wanted two books to cheer

up a fool with the blues, and another to take him into a strange

world--and keep the change out of five dollars. They sent me 'The Bab

Ballads' and this, and 'Lavengro.'"

"Oh, how I'd like to see that letter! If the bookstore has an ounce of

real bookitude about it, they've got it preserved in lavender! And what

do you think of 'March Hares'?"

"Did you ever read any of the works of Harvey Wheelwright?" he

questioned in turn.

"Now," thought Io, "he is going to compare Frederic to Wheelwright, and

I shall abandon him to his fate forever. So here's his chance ... I

have," she replied aloud.

"It's funny," ruminated Banneker. "Mr. Wheelwright writes about the kind

of things that might happen any day, and probably do happen, and yet you

don't believe a word of it. 'March Hares'--well, it just couldn't

happen; but what do you care while you're in it! It seems realer than

any of the dull things outside it. That's the literary part of it, I

suppose, isn't it?"

"That's the magic of it," returned Io, with a little, half-suppressed

crow of delight. "Are you magic, too, Mr. Banneker?"

"Me? I'm hungry," said he.

"Forgive the cook!" she cried. "But just one thing more. Will you lend

me the poetry book?"

"It's all marked up," he objected, flushing.

"Are you afraid that I'll surprise your inmost secrets?" she taunted.

"They'd be safe. I can be close-mouthed, even though I've been

chattering like a sparrow."

"Take it, of course," he said. "I suppose I've marked all the wrong

things."

"So far," she laughed, "you're batting one hundred per cent as a

literary critic." She poured coffee into a tin cup and handed it to him.

"What do you think of my coffee?"

He tasted it consideringly; then gave a serious verdict. "Pretty bad."

"Really! I suppose it isn't according to the mail-order book recipe."

"It's muddy and it's weak."

"Are you always so frank in your expression of views?"

"Well, you asked me."

"Would you answer as plainly whatever I asked you?"

"Certainly. I'd have too much respect for you not to."

She opened wide eyes at this. Then provocatively: "What do you think of

me, Mr. Banneker?"

"I can't answer that."

"Why not?" she teased.

"I don't know you well enough to give an opinion."

"You know me as well as you ever will."

"Very likely."

"Well, a snap judgment, for what it's worth.... What are you doing

there?"

"Making more coffee."

Io stamped her foot. "You're the most enraging man I ever met."

"It's quite unintentional," he replied patiently, but with no hint of

compunction. "You may drink yours and I'll drink mine."

"You're only making it worse!"

"Very well; then I'll drink yours if you like."

"And say it's good."

"But what's the use?"

"And say it's good," insisted Io.

"It's marvelous," agreed her unsmiling host.

Far from being satisfied with words and tone, which were correctness

itself, Io was insensately exasperated.

"You're treating me like a child," she charged.

"How do you want me to treat you?"

"As a woman," she flashed, and was suddenly appalled to feel the blood

flush incredibly to her cheeks.

If he noted the phenomenon, he gave no sign, simply assenting with his

customary equanimity. During the luncheon she chattered vaguely. She was

in two minds about calling off the projected walk. As he set aside his

half-emptied cup of coffee--not even tactful enough to finish it out of

compliment to her brew--Banneker said:

"Up beyond the turn yonder the right-of-way crosses an arroyo. I want to

take a look at it. We can cut through the woods to get there. Are you

good for three miles?"

"For a hundred!" cried Io.

The wine of life was potent in her veins.

CHAPTER VIII

Before the walk was over, Io knew Banneker as she had never before, in

her surrounded and restricted life, known any man; the character and

evolution and essence of him. Yet with all his frankness, the rare,

simple, and generous outgiving of a naturally rather silent nature

yielding itself to an unrecognized but overmastering influence, he

retained the charm of inner mystery. Her sudden understanding of him

still did not enable her to place him in any category of life as she

knew it to be arranged.

The revelation had come about through her description of her encounter

with the queer and attentive bird of the desert.

"Oh," said Banneker. "You've been interviewing a cactus owl."

"Did he unwind his neck carefully and privately after I had gone?"

"No," returned Banneker gravely. "He just jumped in the air and his body

spun around until it got back to its original relation."

"How truly fascinating! Have you seen him do it?"

"Not actually seen. But often in the evenings I've heard them buzzing as

they unspin the day's wind-up. During the day, you see, they make as

many as ten or fifteen revolutions until their eyes bung out. Reversing

makes them very dizzy, and if you are around when they're doing it, you

can often pick them up off the sand."

"And doesn't it ever make _you_ dizzy? All this local lore, I mean, that

you carry around in your head?"

"It isn't much of a strain to a practiced intellect," he deprecated. "If

you're interested in natural history, there's the Side-hill Wampus--"

"Yes; I know. I've been West before, thank you! Pardon my curiosity, but

are all you creatures of the desert queer and inexplicable?"

"Not me," he returned promptly if ungrammatically, "if you're looking in

my direction."

"I'll admit that I find you as interesting as the owl--almost. And quite

as hard to understand."

"Nobody ever called me queer; not to my face."

"But you are, you know. You oughtn't to be here at all."

"Where ought I to be?"

"How can I answer that riddle without knowing where you have been? Are

you Ulysses--"

"'Knowing cities and the hearts of men,'" he answered, quick to catch

the reference. "No; not the cities, certainly, and very little of the

men."

"There, you see!" she exclaimed plaintively. "You're up on a classical

reference like a college man. No; not like the college men I know,

either. They are too immersed in their football and rowing and too

afraid to be thought high-brow, to confess to knowing anything about

Ulysses. What was your college?"

"This," he said, sweeping a hand around the curve of the horizon.

"And in any one else," she retorted, "that would be priggish as well as

disingenuous."

"I suppose I know what you mean. Out here, when a man doesn't explain

himself, they think it's for some good reason of his own, or bad reason,

more likely. In either case, they don't ask questions."

"I really beg your pardon, Mr. Banneker!"

"No; that isn't what I meant at all. If you're interested, I'd like to

have you know about me. It isn't much, though."

"You'll think me prying," she objected.

"I think you a sort of friend of a day, who is going away very soon

leaving pleasant memories," he answered, smiling. "A butterfly visit.

I'm not much given to talking, but if you'd like it--"

"Of course I should like it."

So he sketched for her his history. His mother he barely remembered;

"dark, and quite beautiful, I believe, though that might be only a

child's vision; my father rarely spoke of her, but I think all the

emotional side of his life was buried with her." The father, an American

of Danish ancestry, had been ousted from the chair of Sociology in old,

conservative Havenden College, as the logical result of his writings

which, because they shrewdly and clearly pointed out certain ulcerous

spots in the economic and social system, were denounced as "radical" by

a Board of Trustees honestly devoted to Business Ideals. Having a small

income of his own, the ex-Professor decided upon a life of investigatory

vagrancy, with special reference to studies, at first hand, of the

voluntarily unemployed. Not knowing what else to do with the only child

of his marriage, he took the boy along. Contemptuous of, rather than

embittered against, an academic system which had dispensed with his

services because it was afraid of the light--"When you cast a light,

they see only the resultant shadows," was one of his sayings which had

remained with Banneker--he had resolved to educate the child himself.

Their life was spent frugally in cities where they haunted libraries,

or, sumptuously, upon the open road where a modest supply of ready cash

goes a long way. Young Banneker's education, after the routine

foundation, was curiously heterodox, but he came through it with his

intellectual digestion unimpaired and his mental appetite avid. By

example he had the competent self-respect and unmistakable bearing of a

gentleman, and by careful precept the speech of a liberally educated

man. When he was seventeen, his father died of a twenty-four hours'

pneumonia, leaving the son not so much stricken as bewildered, for their

relations had been comradely rather than affectionate. For a time it was

a question whether the youngster, drifting from casual job to casual

job, would not degenerate into a veritable hobo, for he had drunk deep

of the charm of the untrammeled and limitless road. Want touched him,

but lightly; for he was naturally frugal and hardy. He got a railroad

job by good luck, and it was not until he had worked himself into a

permanency that his father's lawyers found and notified him of the

possession of a small income, one hundred dollars per annum of which,

they informed him, was to be expended by them upon such books as they

thought suitable to his circumstances, upon information provided by the

deceased, the remainder to be at his disposal.

Though quite unauthorized to proffer advice, as they honorably stated,

they opined that the heir's wisest course would be to prepare himself at

once for college, the income being sufficient to take him through, with

care--and they were, his Very Truly, Cobb & Morse.

Banneker had not the smallest idea of cooping up his mind in a college.

As to future occupation, his father had said nothing that was definite.

His thesis was that observation and thought concerning men and their

activities, pointed and directed by intimate touch with what others had

observed and set down--that is, through books--was the gist of life. Any

job which gave opportunity or leisure for this was good enough.

Livelihood was but a garment, at most; life was the body beneath.

Furthermore, young Banneker would find, so his senior had assured him,

that he possessed an open sesame to the minds of the really intelligent

wheresoever he might encounter them, in the form of a jewel which he

must keep sedulously untarnished and bright. What was that? asked the

boy. His speech and bearing of a cultivated man.

Young Banneker found that it was almost miraculously true. Wherever he

went, he established contacts with people who interested him and whom he

interested: here a brilliant, doubting, perturbed clergyman, slowly

dying of tuberculosis in the desert; there a famous geologist from

Washington who, after a night of amazing talk with the young prodigy

while awaiting a train, took him along on a mountain exploration; again

an artist and his wife who were painting the arid and colorful glories

of the waste places. From these and others he got much; but not

friendship or permanent associations. He did not want them. He was

essentially, though unconsciously, a lone spirit; so his listener

gathered. Advancement could have been his in the line of work which had

by chance adopted him; but he preferred small, out-of-the-way stations,

where he could be with his books and have room to breathe. So here he

was at Manzanita. That was all there was to it. Nothing very mysterious

or remarkable about it, was there?

Io smiled in return. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Errol. But every one calls me Ban."

"Haven't you ever told this to any one before?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why should I?"

"I don't know really," hesitated the girl, "except that it seems almost

inhuman to keep one's self so shut off."

"It's nobody else's business."

"Yet you've told it to me. That's very charming of you."

"You said you'd be interested."

"So I am. It's an extraordinary life, though you don't seem to think

so."

"But I don't want to be extraordinary."

"Of course you do," she refuted promptly. "To be ordinary is--is--well,

it's like being a dust-colored beetle." She looked at him queerly.

"Doesn't Miss Van Arsdale know all this?"

"I don't see how she could. I've never told her."

"And she's never asked you anything?"

"Not a word. I don't quite see Miss Camilla asking any one questions

about themselves. Did she ask you?"

The girl's color deepened almost imperceptibly. "You're right," she

said. "There's a standard of breeding that we up-to-date people don't

attain. But I'm at least intelligent enough to recognize it. You reckon

her as a friend, don't you?"

"Why, yes; I suppose so."

"Do you suppose you'd ever come to reckon me as one?" she asked, half

bantering, half wistful.

"There won't be time. You're running away."

"Perhaps I might write you. I think I'd like to."

"Would you?" he murmured. "Why?"

"You ought to be greatly flattered," she reproved him. "Instead you

shoot a 'why' at me. Well; because you've got something I haven't got.

And when I find anything new like that, I always try to get some of it

for myself."

"I don't know what it could be, but--"

"Call it your philosophy of life. Your contentment. Or is it only

detachment? That can't last, you know."

He turned to her, vaguely disturbed as by a threat. "Why not?"

"You're too--well, distinctive. You're too rare and beautiful a

specimen. You'll be grabbed." She laughed softly.

"Who'll grab me?"

"How should I know? Life, probably. Grab you and dry you up and put you

in a case like the rest of us."

"Perhaps that's why I like to stay out here. At least I can be myself."

"Is that your fondest ambition?"

However much he may have been startled by the swift stab, he gave no

sign of hurt in his reply.

"Call it the line of least resistance. In any case, I shouldn't like to

be grabbed and dried up."

"Most of us are grabbed and catalogued from our birth, and eventually

dried up and set in our proper places."

"Not you, certainly."

"Because you haven't seen me in my shell. That's where I mostly live.

I've broken out for a time."

"Don't you like it outside, Butterfly?" he queried with a hint of

playful caress in his voice.

"I like that name for myself," she returned quickly. "Though a butterfly

couldn't return to its chrysalis, no matter how much it wanted to, could

it? But you may call me that, since we're to be friends."

"Then you do like it outside your shell."

"It's exhilarating. But I suppose I should find it too rough for my

highly sensitized skin in the long run.... Are you going to write to me

if I write to you?"

"What about? That Number Six came in making bad steam, and that a

west-bound freight, running extra, was held up on the siding at Marchand

for half a day?"

"Is that all you have to write about?"

Banneker bethought himself of the very private dossier in his office.

"No; it isn't."

"You _could_ write in a way all your own. Have you ever written anything

for publication?"

"No. That is--well--I don't really know." He told her about Gardner and

the description of the wreck.

"How did you happen to do that?" she asked curiously.

"Oh, I write a lot of things and put them away and forget them."

"Show me," she wheedled. "I'd love to see them."

He shook his head. "They wouldn't interest you." The words were those of

an excuse. But in the tone was finality.

"I don't think you're very responsive," she complained. "I'm awfully

interested in you and your affairs, and you won't play back the least

bit."

They walked on in silence for a space. He had, she reflected, a most

disconcerting trick of silence, of ignoring quite without embarrassment

leads, which in her code imperatively called for return. Annoyance

stirred within her, and the eternal feline which is a component part of

the eternal feminine asserted itself.

"Perhaps," she suggested, "you are afraid of me."

"No; I'm not."

"By that you mean 'Why should I be'?"

"Something of the sort."

"Didn't Miss Van Arsdale warn you against me?"

"How did you know that?" he asked, staring.

"A solemn warning not to fall in love with me?" pursued the girl calmly.

He stopped short. "She told you that she had said something to me?"

"Don't be idiotic! Of course she didn't."

"Then how did you know?" he persisted.

"How does one snake know what another snake will do?" she retorted.

"Being of the same--"

"Wait a moment. I don't like that word 'snake' in connection with Miss

Van Arsdale."

"Though you're willing to accept it as applying to me. I believe you are

trying to quarrel with me," accused Io. "I only meant that, being a

woman, I can make a guess at what another woman would do in any given

conditions. And she did it!" she concluded in triumph.

"No; she didn't. Not in so many words. But you're very clever."

"Say, rather, that _you_ are very stupid," was the disdainful retort.

"So you're not going to fall in love with me?"

"Of course not," answered Banneker in the most cheerfully commonplace of

tones.

Once embarked upon this primrose path, which is always an imperceptible

but easy down-slope, Io went farther than she had intended. "Why not?"

she challenged.

"Brass buttons," said Banneker concisely.

She flushed angrily. "You _can_ be rather a beast, can't you!"

"A beast? Just for reminding you that the Atkinson and St. Philip

station-agent at Manzanita does not include in his official duties that

of presuming to fall in love with chance passengers who happen to be

more or less in his care."

"Very proper and official! Now," added the girl in a different manner,

"let's stop talking nonsense, and do you tell me one thing honestly. Do

you feel that it would be presumption?"

"To fall in love with you?"

"Leave that part of it out; I put my question stupidly. I'm really

curious to know whether you feel any--any difference between your

station and mine."

"Do you?"

"Yes; I do," she answered honestly, "when I think of it. But you make it

very hard for me to remember it when I'm with you."

"Well, I don't," he said. "I suppose I'm a socialist in all matters of

that kind. Not that I've ever given much thought to them. You don't have

to out here."

"No; you wouldn't. I don't know that _you_ would have to anywhere....

Are we almost home?"

"Three minutes' more walking. Tired?"

"Not a bit. You know," she added, "I really would like it if you'd write

me once in a while. There's something here I'd like to keep a hold on.

It's tonic. I'll _make_ you write me." She flashed a smile at him.

"How?"

"By sending you books. You'll have to acknowledge them."

"No. I couldn't take them. I'd have to send them back."

"You wouldn't let me send you a book or two just as a friendly memento?"

she cried, incredulous.

"I don't take anything from anybody," he retorted doggedly.

"Ah; that's small-minded," she accused. "That's ungenerous. I wouldn't

think that of you."

He strode along in moody thought for a few paces. Presently he turned to

her a rigid face. "If you had ever had to accept food to keep you alive,

you'd understand."

For a moment she was shocked and sorry. Then her tact asserted itself.

"But I have," she said readily, "all my life. Most of us do."

The hard muscles around his mouth relaxed. "You remind me," he said,

"that I'm not as real a socialist as I thought. Nevertheless, that

rankles in my memory. When I got my first job, I swore I'd never accept

anything from anybody again. One of the passengers on your train tried

to tip me a hundred dollars."

"He must have been a fool," said Io scornfully.

Banneker held open the station-door for her. "I've got to send a wire or

two," said he. "Take a look at this. It may give some news about general

railroad conditions." He handed her the newspaper which had arrived that

morning.

When he came out again, the station was empty.

Io was gone. So was the newspaper.

CHAPTER IX

Deep in work at her desk, Camilla Van Arsdale noted, with the outer

tentacles of her mind, slow footsteps outside and a stir of air that

told of the door being opened. Without lifting her head she called:

"You'll find towels and a bathrobe in the passageway."

There was no reply. Miss Van Arsdale twisted in her chair, gave one

look, rose and strode to the threshold where Io Welland stood rigid and

still.

"What is it?" she demanded sharply.

The girl's hands gripped a folded newspaper. She lifted it as if for

Miss Van Arsdale's acceptance, then let it fall to the floor. Her throat

worked, struggling for utterance, as it might be against the pressure of

invisible fingers.

"The beast! Oh, the beast!" she whispered.

The older woman threw an arm over her shoulders and led her to the big

chair before the fireplace. Io let herself be thrust into it, stiff and

unyielding as a manikin. Any other woman but Camilla Van Arsdale would

have asked questions. She went more directly to the point. Picking up

the newspaper she opened it. Halfway across an inside page ran the

explanation of Io's collapse.

BRITON'S BEAUTIFUL FIANCÉE LOST

read the caption, in the glaring vulgarity of extra-heavy type, and

below;

_Ducal Heir Offers Private Reward to Dinner Party of Friends_

After an estimating look at the girl, who sat quite still with hot,

blurred eyes, Miss Van Arsdale carefully read the article through.

"Here is advertising enough to satisfy the greediest appetite for

print," she remarked grimly.

"He's on one of his brutal drunks." The words seemed to grit in the

girl's throat. "I wish he were dead! Oh, I wish he were dead!"

Miss Van Arsdale laid hold on her shoulders and shook her hard. "Listen

to me, Irene Welland. You're on the way to hysterics or some such

foolishness. I won't have it! Do you understand? Are you listening to

me?"

"I'm listening. But it won't make any difference what you say."

"Look at me. Don't stare into nothingness that way. Have you read this?"

"Enough of it. It ends everything."

"I should hope so, indeed. My dear!" The woman's voice changed and

softened. "You haven't found that you cared for him, after all, more

than you thought? It isn't that?"

"No; it isn't that. It's the beastliness of the whole thing. It's the

disgrace."

Miss Van Arsdale turned to the paper again.

"Your name isn't given."

"It might as well be. As soon as it gets back to New York, every one

will know."

"If I read correctly between the lines of this scurrilous thing, Mr.

Holmesley gave what was to have been his bachelor dinner, took too much

to drink, and suggested that every man there go on a separate search for

the lost bride offering two thousand dollars reward for the one who

found her. Apparently it was to have been quite private, but it leaked

out. There's a hint that he had been drinking heavily for some days."

"My fault," declared Io feverishly. "He told me once that if ever I

played anything but fair with him, he'd go to the devil the quickest way

he could."

"Then he's a coward," pronounced Miss Van Arsdale vigorously.

"What am I? I didn't play fair with him. I practically jilted him

without even letting him know why."

Miss Van Arsdale frowned. "Didn't you send him word?"

"Yes. I telegraphed him. I told him I'd write and explain. I haven't

written. How could I explain? What was there to say? But I ought to have

said something. Oh, Miss Van Arsdale, why didn't I write!"

"But you did intend to go on and face him and have it out. You told me

that."

A faint tinge of color relieved the white rigidity of Io's face. "Yes,"

she agreed. "I did mean it. Now it's too late and I'm disgraced."

"Don't be melodramatic. And don't waste yourself in self-pity. To-morrow

you'll see things clearer, after you've slept."

"Sleep? I couldn't." She pressed both hands to her temples, lifting

tragic and lustrous eyes to her companion. "I think my head is going to

burst from trying not to think."

After some hesitancy Miss Van Arsdale went to a wall-cabinet, took out a

phial, shook into her hand two little pellets, and returned the phial,

carefully locking the cabinet upon it.

"Take a hot bath," she directed. "Then I'm going to give you just a

little to eat. And then these." She held out the drug.

Io acquiesced dully.

Early in the morning, before the first forelight of dawn had started the

birds to prophetic chirpings, the recluse heard light movements in the

outer room. Throwing on a robe she went in to investigate. On the

bearskin before the flickering fire sat Io, an apparition of soft

curves.

"D--d--don't make a light," she whimpered. "I've been crying."

"That's good. The best thing you could do."

"I want to go home," wailed Io.

"That's good, too. Though perhaps you'd better wait a little. Why, in

particular do you want to go home?"

"I w-w-w-want to m-m-marry Delavan Eyre."

A quiver of humor trembled about the corners of Camilla Van Arsdale's

mouth. "Echoes of remorse," she commented.

"No. It isn't remorse. I want to feel safe, secure. I'm afraid of

things. I want to go to-morrow. Tell Mr. Banneker he must arrange it for

me."

"We'll see. Now you go back to bed and sleep."

"I'd rather sleep here," said Io. "The fire is so friendly." She curled

herself into a little soft ball.

Her hostess threw a coverlet over her and returned to her own room.

When light broke, there was no question of Io's going that day, even had

accommodations been available. A clogging lassitude had descended upon

her, the reaction of cumulative nervous stress, anesthetizing her will,

her desires, her very limbs. She was purposeless, ambitionless, except

to lie and rest and seek for some resolution of peace out of the tangled

web wherein her own willfulness had involved her.

"The best possible thing," said Camilla Van Arsdale. "I'll write your

people that you are staying on for a visit."

"Yes; they won't mind. They're used to my vagaries. It's awfully good of

you."

At noon came Banneker to see Miss Welland. Instead he found a curiously

reticent Miss Van Arsdale. Miss Welland was not feeling well and could

not be seen.

"Not her head again, is it?" asked Banneker, alarmed.

"More nerves, though the head injury probably contributed."

"Oughtn't I to get a doctor?"

"No. All that she needs is rest."

"She left the station yesterday without a word."

"Yes," replied the non-committal Miss Van Arsdale.

"I came over to tell her that there isn't a thing to be had going west.

Not even an upper. There was an east-bound in this morning. But the

schedule isn't even a skeleton yet."

"Probably she won't be going for several days yet," said Miss Van

Arsdale, and was by no means reassured by the unconscious brightness

which illumined Banneker's face. "When she goes it will be east. She's

changed her plans."

"Give me as much notice as you can and I'll do my best for her."

The other nodded. "Did you get any newspapers by the train?" she

inquired.

"Yes; there was a mail in. I had a letter, too," he added after a little

hesitation, due to the fact that he had intended telling Miss Welland

about that letter first. Thus do confidences, once begun, inspire even

the self-contained to further confidences.

"You know there was a reporter up from Angelica City writing up the

wreck."

"Yes."

"Gardner, his name is. A nice sort of fellow. I showed him some nonsense

that I wrote about the wreck."

"You? What kind of nonsense?"

"Oh, just how it struck me, and the queer things people said and did. He

took it with him. Said it might give him some ideas."

"One might suppose it would. Did it?"

"Why, he didn't use it. Not that way. He sent it to the New York Sphere

for what he calls a 'Sunday special,' and what do you think! They

accepted it. He had a wire."

"As Gardner's?"

"Oh, no. As the impressions of an eye-witness. What's more, they'll pay

for it and he's to send me the check."

"Then, in spite of a casual way of handling other people's ideas, Mr.

Gardner apparently means to be honest."

"It's more than square of him. I gave him the stuff to use as he wanted

to. He could just as well have collected for it. Probably he touched it

up, anyway."

"The Goths and Vandals usually did 'touch up' whatever they acquired, I

believe. Hasn't he sent you a copy?"

"He's going to send it. Or bring it."

"Bring it? What should attract him to Manzanita again?"

"Something mysterious. He says that there's a big sensational story

following on the wreck that he's got a clue to; a tip, he calls it."

"That's strange. Where did this tip come from? Did he say?"

Miss Van Arsdale frowned.

"New York, I think. He spoke of its being a special job for The Sphere."

"Are you going to help him?"

"If I can. He's been white to me."

"But this isn't white, if it's what I suspect. It's yellow. One of their

yellow sensations. The Sphere goes in for that sort of thing."

Miss Van Arsdale became silent and thoughtful.

"Of course, if it's something to do with the railroad I'd have to be

careful. I can't give away the company's affairs."

"I don't think it is." Miss Van Arsdale's troubled eyes strayed toward

the inner room.

Following them, Banneker's lighted up with a flash of astonished

comprehension.

"You don't think--" he began.

His friend nodded assent.

"Why should the newspapers be after her?"

"She is associated with a set that is always in the lime-light,"

explained Miss Van Arsdale, lowering her voice to a cautious pitch. "It

makes its own lime-light. Anything that they do is material for the

papers."

"Yes; but what has she done?"

"Disappeared."

"Not at all. She sent back messages. So there can't be any mystery about

it."

"But there might be what the howling headlines call 'romance.' In fact,

there is, if they happen to have found out about it. And this looks very

much as if they had. Ban, are you going to tell your reporter friend

about Miss Welland?"

Banneker smiled gently, indulgently. "Do you think it likely?"

"No; I don't. But I want you to understand the importance of not

betraying her in any way. Reporters are shrewd. And it might be quite

serious for her to know that she was being followed and hounded now. She

has had a shock."

"The bump on the head, you mean?"

"Worse than that. I think I'd better tell you since we are all in this

thing together."

Briefly she outlined the abortive adventure that had brought Io west,

and its ugly outcome.

"Publicity is the one thing we must protect her from," declared Miss Van

Arsdale.

"Yes; that's clear enough."

"What shall you tell this Gardner man?"

"Nothing that he wants to know."

"You'll try to fool him?"

"I'm an awfully poor liar, Miss Camilla," replied the agent with his

disarming smile. "I don't like the game and I'm no good at it. But I can

everlastingly hold my tongue."

"Then he'll suspect something and go nosing about the village making

inquiries."

"Let him. Who can tell him anything? Who's even seen her except you and

me?"

"True enough. Nobody is going to see her for some days yet if I can help

it. Not even you, Ban."

"Is she as bad as that?" he asked anxiously.

"She won't be any the better for seeing people," replied Miss Van

Arsdale firmly, and with that the caller was forced to be content as he

went back to his own place.

The morning train of the nineteenth, which should have been the noon

train of the eighteenth, deposited upon the platform Gardner of the

Angelica City Herald, and a suitcase. The thin and bespectacled reporter

shook hands with Banneker.

"Well, Mr. Man," he observed. "You've made a hit with that story of

yours even before it's got into print."

"Did you bring me a copy of the paper?"

Gardner grinned. "You seem to think Sunday specials are set up and

printed overnight. Wait a couple of weeks."

"But they're going to publish it?"

"Surest thing you know. They've wired me to know who you are and what

and why."

"Why what?"

"Oh, I dunno. Why a fellow who can do that sort of thing hasn't done it

before or doesn't do it some more, I suppose. If you should ever want a

job in the newspaper game, that story would be pretty much enough to get

it for you."

"I wouldn't mind getting a little local correspondence to do," announced

Banneker modestly.

"So you intimated before. Well, I can give you some practice right now.

I'm on a blind trail that goes up in the air somewhere around here. Do

you remember, we compared lists on the wreck?"

"Yes."

"Have you got any addition to your list since?"

"No," replied Banneker. "Have you?" he added.

"Not by name. But the tip is that there was a prominent New York society

girl, one of the Four Hundred lot, on the train, and that she's

vanished."

"All the bodies were accounted for," said the agent.

"They don't think she's dead. They think she's run away."

"Run away?" repeated Banneker with an impassive face.

"Whether the man was with her on the train or whether she was to join

him on the coast isn't known. That's the worst of these society tips,"

pursued the reporter discontentedly. "They're always vague, and usually

wrong. This one isn't even certain about who the girl is. But they think

it's Stella Wrightington," he concluded in the manner of one who has

imparted portentous tidings.

"Who's she?" said Banneker.

"Good Lord! Don't you ever read the news?" cried the disgusted

journalist. "Why, she's had her picture published more times than a

movie queen. She's the youngest daughter of Cyrus Wrightington, the

multi-millionaire philanthropist. Now did you see anything of that kind

on the train?"

"What does she look like?" asked the cautious Banneker.

"She looks like a million dollars!" declared the other with enthusiasm.

"She's a killer! She's tall and blonde and a great athlete: baby-blue

eyes and general rosebud effect."

"Nothing of that sort on the train, so far as I saw," said the agent.

"Did you see any couple that looked lovey-dovey?"

"No."

"Then, there's another tip that connects her up with Carter Holmesley.

Know about him?"

"I've seen his name."

"He's been on a hell of a high-class drunk, all up and down the coast,

for the last week or so. Spilled some funny talk at a dinner, that got

into print. But he put up such a heavy bluff of libel, afterward, that

the papers shied off. Just the same, I believe they had it right, and

that there was to have been a wedding-party on. Find the girl: that's

the stunt now."

"I don't think you're likely to find her around here."

"Maybe not. But there's something. Holmesley has beaten it for the Far

East. Sailed yesterday. But the story is still in this country, if the

lady can be rounded up.... Well, I'm going to the village to make

inquiries. Want to put me up again for the night if there's no train

back?"

"Sure thing! There isn't likely to be, either."

Banneker felt greatly relieved at the easy turn given to the inquiry by

the distorted tip. True, Gardner might, on his return, enter upon some

more embarrassing line of inquiry; in which case the agent decided to

take refuge in silence. But the reporter, when he came back late in the

evening disheartened and disgusted with the fallibility of long-distance

tips, declared himself sick of the whole business.

"Let's talk about something else," he said, having lighted his pipe.

"What else have you written besides the wreck stuff?"

"Nothing," said Banneker.

"Come off! That thing was never a first attempt."

"Well, nothing except random things for my own amusement."

"Pass 'em over."

Banneker shook his head. "No; I've never shown them to anybody."

"Oh, all right. If you're shy about it," responded the reporter

good-humoredly. "But you must have thought of writing as a profession."

"Vaguely, some day."

"You don't talk much like a country station-agent. And you don't act

like one. And, judging from this room"--he looked about at the

well-filled book-shelves--"you don't look like one. Quite a library.

Harvey Wheelwright! Lord! I might have known. Great stuff, isn't it?"

"Do you think so?"

"Do I think so! I think it's the damndest spew that ever got into print.

But it sells; millions. It's the piety touch does it. The worst of it is

that Wheelwright is a thoroughly decent chap and not onto himself a bit.

Thinks he's a grand little booster for righteousness, sweetness and

light, and all that. I had to interview him once. Oh, if I could just

have written about him and his stuff as it really is!"

"Why didn't you?"

"Why, he's a popular literary hero out our way, and the biggest

advertised author in the game. I'd look fine to the business office,

knocking their fat graft, wouldn't I!"

"I don't believe I understand."

"No; you wouldn't. Never mind. You will if you ever get into the game.

Hello! This is something different again. 'The Undying Voices.' Do you

go in for poetry?"

"I like to read it once in a while."

"Good man!" Gardner took down the book, which opened in his hand. He

glanced into it, then turned an inquiring and faintly quizzical look

upon Banneker. "So Rossetti is one of the voices that sings to you. He

sang to me when I was younger and more romantic. Heavens! he can sing,

can't he! And you've picked one of his finest for your floral

decoration." He intoned slowly and effectively:

"Ah, who shall dare to search in what sad maze Thenceforth their

incommunicable ways Follow the desultory feet of Death?"

Banneker took the book from him. Upon the sonnet a crushed bloom of the

sage had left its spiced and fragrant stain. How came it there? Through

but one possible agency of which Banneker could think. Io Welland!

After the reporter had left him, Banneker bore the volume to his room

and read the sonnet again and again, devout and absorbed, a seeker for

the oracle.

CHAPTER X

"Wouldn't you like to know when I'm going home?"

Io Welland looked up from beneath her dark lashes at her hostess with a

mixture of mischief and deprecation.

"No," said Miss Van Arsdale quietly.

"Ah? Well, I would. Here it is two full weeks since I settled down on

you. Why don't you evict me?"

Miss Van Arsdale smiled. The girl continued:

"Why don't I evict myself? I'm quite well and sane again--at least I

think so--thanks to you. Very well, then, Io; why don't you go home?"

"Instinct of self-preservation," suggested the other. "You're better off

here until your strength is quite restored, aren't you?"

The girl propped her chin in her hand and turned upon her companion a

speculative regard. "Camilla Van Arsdale, you don't really like me," she

asserted.

"Liking is such an undefined attitude," replied the other,

unembarrassed.

"You find me diverting," defined Io. "But you resent me, don't you?"

"That's rather acute in you. I don't like your standards nor those of

your set."

"I've abandoned them."

"You'll resume them as soon as you get back."

"Shall I ever get back?" The girl moved to the door. Her figure swayed

forward yieldingly as if she would give herself into the keeping of the

sun-drenched, pine-soaked air. "Enchantment!" she murmured.

"It is a healing place," said the habitant of it, low, as if to herself.

A sudden and beautiful pity softened and sobered Io's face. "Miss Van

Arsdale," said she with quiet sincerity; "if there should ever come a

time when I can do you a service in word or deed, I would come from the

other side of the world to do it."

"That is a kindly, but rather exaggerated gratitude."

"It isn't gratitude. It's loyalty. Whatever you have done, I believe you

were right. And, right or wrong, I--I am on your side. But I wonder why

you have been so good to me. Was it a sort of class feeling?"

"Sex feeling would be nearer it," replied the other. "There is something

instinctive which makes women who are alone stand by each other."

Io nodded. "I suppose so. Though I've never felt it, or the need of it

before this. Well, I had to speak before I left, and I suppose I must go

on soon."

"I shall miss you," said the hostess, and added, smiling, "as one misses

a stimulant. Stay through the rest of the month, anyway."

"I'd like to," answered Io gratefully. "I've written Delavan that I'm

coming back--and now I'm quite dreading it. Do you suppose there ever

yet was a woman with understanding of herself?"

"Not unless she was a very dull and stupid woman with little to

understand," smiled Miss Van Arsdale. "What are you doing to-day?"

"Riding down to lunch with your paragon of a station-agent."

Miss Van Arsdale shook her head dubiously. "I'm afraid he'll miss his

daily stimulant after you've gone. It has been daily, hasn't it?"

"I suppose it has, just about," admitted the girl. "The stimulus hasn't

been all on one side, I assure you. What a mind to be buried here in the

desert! And what an annoying spirit of contentment! It's that that

puzzles me. Sometimes it enrages me."

"Are you going to spoil what you cannot replace?" The retort was swift,

almost fierce.

"Surely, you won't blame me if he looks beyond this horizon," protested

Io. "Life is sure to reach out in one form or another and seize on him.

I told him so."

"Yes," breathed the other. "You would."

"What were you intending to do with him?"

There was a hint of challenge in the slight emphasis given to the query.

"I? Nothing. He is under no obligation to me."

"There you and he differ. He regards you as an infallible mentor." A

twinkle of malice crept into the slumbrous eyes. "Why do you let him

wear made-up bow ties?" demanded Io.

"What does it matter?"

"Out here, nothing. But elsewhere--well, it does define a man, doesn't

it?"

"Undoubtedly. I've never gone into it with him."

"I wonder if I could guess why."

"Very likely. You seem preternaturally acute in these matters."

"Is it because the Sears-Roebuck mail-order double-bow knot in polka-dot

pattern stands as a sign of pristine innocence?"

In spite of herself Miss Van Arsdale laughed. "Something of that sort."

Io's soft lips straightened. "It's rotten bad form. Why shouldn't he be

right? It's so easy. Just a hint--"

"From you?"

"From either of us. Yes; from me, if you like."

"It's quite an intimate interest, isn't it?"

"'But never can battle of men compare With merciless feminine fray'"--

quoted Io pensively.

"Kipling is a sophomore about women," retorted Miss Van Arsdale. "We're

not going to quarrel over Errol Banneker. The odds are too unfair."

"Unfair?" queried Io, with a delicate lift of brow.

"Don't misunderstand me. I know that whatever you do will be within the

rules of the game. That's the touchstone of honor of your kind."

"Isn't it good enough? It ought to be, for it's about the only one most

of us have." Io laughed. "We're becoming very serious. May I take the

pony?"

"Yes. Will you be back for supper?"

"Of course. Shall I bring the paragon?"

"If you wish."

Outside the gaunt box of the station, Io, from the saddle sent forth her

resonant, young call:

"Oh, Ban!"

"'Tis the voice of the Butterfly; hear her declare, 'I've come down to

the earth; I am tired of the air'"

chanted Banneker's voice in cheerful paraphrase. "Light and preen your

wings, Butterfly."

Their tone was that of comrades without a shade of anything deeper.

"Busy?" asked Io.

"Just now. Give me another five minutes."

"I'll go to the hammock."

One lone alamo tree, an earnest of spring water amongst the dry-sand

growth of the cactus, flaunted its bright verdency a few rods back of

the station, and in its shade Banneker had swung a hammock for Io.

Hitching her pony and unfastening her hat, the girl stretched herself

luxuriously in the folds. A slow wind, spice-laden with the faint, crisp

fragrancies of the desert, swung her to a sweet rhythm. She closed her

eyes happily ... and when she opened them, Banneker was standing over

her, smiling.

"Don't speak to me," she murmured; "I want to believe that this will

last forever."

Silent and acquiescent, he seated himself in a camp-chair close by. She

stretched a hand to him, closing her eyes again.

"Swing me," she ordered.

He aided the wind to give a wider sweep to the hammock. Io stirred

restlessly.

"You've broken the spell," she accused softly. "Weave me another one."

"What shall it be?" He bent over the armful of books which he had

brought out.

"You choose this time."

"I wonder," he mused, regarding her consideringly.

"Ah, you may well wonder! I'm in a very special mood to-day."

"When aren't you, Butterfly?" he laughed.

"Beware that you don't spoil it. Choose well, or forever after hold your

peace."

He lifted the well-worn and well-loved volume of poetry. It parted in

his hand to the Rossetti sonnet. He began to read at the lines:

"When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze After their life sailed by,

and hold their breath."

Io opened her eyes again.

"Why did you select that thing?"

"Why did you mark it?"

"Did I mark it?"

"Certainly, I'm not responsible for the sage-blossom between the pages."

"Ah, the sage! That's for wisdom," she paraphrased lightly.

"Do you think Rossetti so wise a preceptor?"

"It isn't often that he preaches. When he does, as in that sonnet--well,

the inspiration may be a little heavy, but he does have something to

say."

"Then it's the more evident that you marked it for some special reason."

"What supernatural insight," she mocked. "Can you read your name between

the lines?"

"What is it that you want me to do?"

"You mean to ask what it is that Mr. Rossetti wants you to do. I didn't

write the sonnet, you know."

"You didn't fashion the arrow, but you aimed it."

"Am I a good marksman?"

"I suppose you mean that I'm wasting my time here."

"Surely not!" she gibed. "Forming a link of transcontinental traffic.

Helping to put a girdle 'round the earth in eighty days--or is it forty

now?--enlightening the traveling public about the three-twenty-four

train; dispensing time-tables and other precious mediums of education--"

"I'm happy here," he said doggedly.

"Are you going to be, always?"

His face darkened with doubt. "Why shouldn't I be?" he argued. "I've got

everything I need. Some day I thought I might write."

"What about?" The question came sharp and quick.

He looked vaguely around the horizon.

"Oh, no, Ban!" she said. "Not this. You've got to know something besides

cactuses and owls to write, these days. You've got to know men. And

women," she added, in a curious tone, with a suspicion of effort, even

of jealousy in it.

"I've never cared much for people," he said.

"It's an acquired taste, I suppose for some of us. There's something

else." She came slowly to a sitting posture and fixed her questioning,

baffling eyes on his. "Ban, don't you want to make a success in life?"

For a moment he did not answer. When he spoke, it was with apparent

irrelevance to what she had said. "Once I went to a revival. A reformed

tough was running it. About every three minutes he'd thrust out his

hands and grab at the air and say, 'Oh, brothers; don't you yearn for

Jesus?'"

"What has that to do with it?" questioned Io, surprised and impatient.

"Only that, somehow, the way you said 'success in life' made me think of

him and his 'yearn for Jesus.'"

"Errol Banneker," said Io, amused in spite of her annoyance, "you are

possessed of a familiar devil who betrays other people's inner thoughts

to you. Success _is_ a species of religion to me, I suppose."

"And you are making converts, like all true enthusiasts. Tell, tell me.

What kind of success?"

"Oh, power. Money. Position. Being somebody."

"I'm somebody here all right. I'm the station-agent of the Atkinson and

St. Philip Railroad Company."

"Now you're trying to provoke me."

"No. But to get success you've got to want it, haven't you?" he asked

more earnestly. "To want it with all your strength."

"Of course. Every man ought to."

"I'm not so sure," he objected. "There's a kind of virtue in staying

put, isn't there?"

She made a little gesture of impatience.

"I'll give you a return for your sonnet," he pursued, and repeated from

memory:

"What else is Wisdom? What of man's endeavor Or God's high grace, so

lovely and so great? To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait;

To hold a hand uplifted over Hate. And shall not Loveliness be loved

forever?"

"I don't know it. It's beautiful. What is it?"

"Gilbert Murray's translation of 'The Bacchae.' My legal mentors had a

lapse of dry-as-dustness and sent it to me."

"'To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait,'" murmured the girl.

"That is what I've been doing here. How good it is! But not for you,"

she added, her tone changing from dreamy to practical. "Ban, I suspect

there's too much poetry in your cosmos."

"Very probably. Poetry isn't success, is it?"

Her face grew eager. "It might be. The very highest. But you've got to

make yourself known and felt among people."

"Do you think I could? And how does one get that kind of desire?" he

asked lazily.

"How? I've known men to do it for love; and I've known them to do it for

hate; and I've known them to do it for money. Yes; and there's another

cause."

"What is it?"

"Restlessness."

"That's ambition with its nerves gone bad, isn't it?"

Again she smiled. "You'll know what it is some day."

"Is it contagious?" he asked solicitously.

"Don't be alarmed. I haven't it. Not now. I'd love to stay on and on and

just 'breathe and wait,' if the gods were good."

'"Dream that the gods are good,'" he echoed. "The last thing they ever

think of being according to my reading."

She capped his line;

"We twain, once well in sunder, What will the mad gods do--'"

she began; then broke off, jumping to her feet. "I'm talking sheer

nonsense!" she cried. "Take me for a walk in the woods. The desert

glares to-day."

"I'll have to be back by twelve," he said. "Excuse me just a moment."

He disappeared into the portable house. When he rejoined her, she asked:

"What did you go in there for? To get your revolver?"

"Yes."

"I've carried one since the day you told me to. Not that I've met a soul

that looked dangerous, nor that I'd know how to shoot or when, if I

did."

"The sight of it would be taken as evidence that you knew how to use

it," he assured her.

For a time, as they walked, she had many questions to put about the tree

and bird life surrounding them. In the midst of it he asked her:

"Do you ever get restless?"

"I haven't, here. I'm getting rested."

"And at home I suppose you're too busy."

"Being busy is no preventive. Somebody has said that St. Vitus is the

patron saint of New York society."

"It must take almost all the time those people have to keep up with the

theaters and with the best in poetry and what's being done and thought,

and the new books and all that," he surmised.

"I beg your pardon; what was that about poetry and books?"

"Girls like you--society girls, I mean--read everything there is, don't

they?"

"Where do you get that extraordinary idea?"

"Why, from knowing you."

"My poor, innocent Ban! If you were to try and talk books and poetry,

'Shakespeare and the musical glasses,' to the average society girl, as

you call her, what do you suppose would happen?"

"Why, I suppose I'd give myself away as an ignoramus."

"Heaven save you for a woolly lambkin! The girl would flee, shrieking,

and issue a warning against you as a high-brow, a prig, and a hopeless

bore. They don't read books, except a few chocolate-cream novels. They

haven't the time."

"But you--"

"Oh, I'm a freak! I get away with it because I'm passably good-looking

and know how to dress, and do what I please by the divine right

of--well, of just doing it. But, even so, a lot of the men are rather

afraid of me in their hearts. They suspect the bluestocking. Let 'em

suspect! The market is plenty good enough," declared Io flippantly.

"Then you just took up books as a sort of freak; a side issue?" The

disappointment in his face was almost ludicrous.

"No." A quiet gravity altered her expression. "I'll tell you about me,

if you want to hear. My mother was the daughter of a famous classical

scholar, who was opposed to her marriage because Father has always been

a man of affairs. From the first, Mother brought me up to love books and

music and pictures. She died when I was twelve, and poor Father, who

worshiped her, wanted to carry out her plans for me, though he had no

special sympathy with them. To make things worse for him, nobody but

Mother ever had any control over me; I was spoiled and self-willed and

precocious, and I thought the world owed me a good time. Dad's business

judgment of human nature saved the situation, he thoroughly understood

one thing about me, that I'd keep a bargain if I made it. So we fixed up

our little contract; I was to go through college and do my best, and

after I graduated, I was to have a free hand and an income of my own, a

nice one. I did the college trick. I did it well. I was third in my

class, and there wasn't a thing in literature or languages that they

could stop me from getting. At eighteen they turned me loose on the

world, and here I am, tired of it, but still loving it. That's all of

me. Aren't I a good little autobiographer. Every lady her own Boswell!

What are you listening to?"

"There's a horse coming along the old trail," said Banneker.

"Who is it?" she asked. "Some one following us?"

He shook his head. A moment later the figure of a mounted man loomed

through the brush. He was young, strong-built, and not ill-looking.

"Howdy, Ban," he said.

Banneker returned the greeting.

"Whee-ew!" shrilled the other, wiping his brow. "This sure does fetch

the licker outen a man's hide. Hell of a wet night at the Sick Coyote

last night. Why wasn't you over?"

"Busy," replied Banneker.

Something in his tone made the other raise himself from his weary droop.

He sighted Io.

"Howdy, ma'am," he said. "Didn't see there was ladies present."

"Good-morning," said Io.

"Visitin' hereabouts?" inquired the man, eyeing her curiously.

"Yes."

"Where, if I might be bold to ask?"

"If you've got any questions to ask, ask them of me, Fred," directed

Banneker.

While there was nothing truculent in his manner, it left no doubt as to

his readiness and determination.

Fred looked both sullen and crestfallen.

"It ain't nothin'," he said. "Only, inquiries was bein' made by a gent

from a Angelica City noospaper last week."

"Somebody else meant," asserted Banneker. "You keep that in mind, will

you? And it isn't necessary that you should mention this lady at all.

Savvy, Fred?"

The other grunted, touched his sombrero to Io and rode on.

"Has a reporter been here inquiring after me?" asked Io.

"Not after you. It was some one else."

"If the newspapers tracked me here, I'd have to leave at once."

"They won't. At least, it isn't likely."

"You'd get me out some way, wouldn't you, Ban?" she said trustfully.

"Yes."

"Ban; that Fred person seemed afraid of you."

"He's got nothing to be afraid of unless he talks too much."

"But you had him 'bluffed.' I'm sure you had. Ban, did you ever kill a

man?"

"No."

"Or shoot one?"

"Not even that."

"Yet, I believe, from the way he looked at you, that you've got a

reputation as a 'bad man'?"

"So I have. But it's no fault of mine."

"How did you get it?"

"You'll laugh if I tell you. They say I've got a 'killer's' eye."

The girl examined his face with grave consideration. "You've got nice

eyes," was her verdict. "That deep brown is almost wasted on a man; some

girl ought to have it. I used to hear a--a person, who made a deep

impression on me at the time, insist that there was always a flaw in the

character of a person with large, soft brown eyes."

"Isn't there a flaw in every character?"

"Human nature being imperfect, there must be. What is yours; suppressed

murderousness?"

"Not at all. My reputation is unearned, though useful. Just before I

came here, a young chap showed up from nowhere and loafed around

Manzanita. He was a pretty kind of lad, and one night in the Sick Coyote

some of the old-timers tried to put something over on him. When the

smoke cleared away, there was one dead and six others shot up, and

Little Brownie was out on the desert, riding for the next place, awfully

sore over a hole in his new sombrero. He was a two-gun man from down

near the border. Well, when I arrived in town, I couldn't understand why

every one looked so queerly at my eyes, until Mindle, the mail-driver,

told me they were exactly like the hair-trigger boy's. Cheap and easy

way to get a reputation, isn't it?"

"But you must have something back of it," insisted the girl. "Are you a

good shot?"

"Nothing fancy; there are twenty better in town."

"Yet you pin some faith to your 'gun,'" she pointed out.

He glanced over his shoulder to right and left. Io jumped forward with a

startled cry. So swift and secret had been his motion that she hardly

saw the weapon before--PLACK--PLACK--PLACK--the three shots had sounded.

The smoke drifted around him in a little circle, for the first two shots

had been over his shoulder and the third as he whirled. Walking back, he

carefully examined the trunks of three trees.

"I'd have only barked that fellow, if he'd been a man," he observed,

shaking his head at the second mark.

"You frightened me," complained Io.

"I'm sorry. I thought you wanted to see a little gun-play. Out here it

isn't how straight you can shoot at a bull's-eye, but how quick you can

plant your bullets, and usually in a mark that isn't obliging enough to

be dead in line. So I practice occasionally, just in case."

"Very interesting. But I've got luncheon to cook," said Io.

They returned through the desert. As he opened the door of the shack for

her, Banneker, reverting to her autobiographical sketch, remarked

thoughtfully and without preliminary:

"I might have known there couldn't be any one else like you."

CHAPTER XI

Although the vehicle of his professional activities had for some years

been a small and stertorous automobile locally known as "Puffy Pete,"

Mr. James Mindle always referred to his process of postal transfer from

the station to the town as "teamin' over the mail." He was a frail,

grinny man from the prairie country, much given to romantic imaginings

and an inordinate admiration for Banneker.

Having watched from the seat of his chariot the brief but ceremonial

entry of Number Three, which, on regular schedule, roared through

Manzanita at top speed, he descended, captured the mail-bag and, as the

transcontinental pulled out, accosted the station-agent.

"What'd she stop for, Ban?"

"Special orders."

"Didn't say nothin' about havin' a ravin' may-ni-ac aboard, did theh?"

"No."

"Ban, was you ever in the State of Ohio?"

"A long time ago."

"Are Ohio folks liable to be loony?"

"Not more than others, I reckon, Jimmy."

"Pretty enthoosiastic about themselves, though, ain't theh?"

"Why, I don't know. It's a nice country there, Jimmy."

"There was one on Number Three sure thought so. Hadn't scarcely come to

a stop when off he jumps and waves his fins and gives three cheers for

it."

"For what?"

"Ohio. I'm tellin' you. He ramps across the track yippin' 'Ohio! Ohio!

Ohio!' whoopity-yoop. He come right at me and I says, 'Watch yehself,

Buddy. You'll git left.'"

"What did he say to that?" asked Banneker indulgently.

"Never looked at me no more than a doodle-bug. Just yelled 'Ohio!'

again. So I come back at him with 'Missourah.' He grabs me by the

shoulder and points to your shack. 'Who owns that little shed?' says he,

very excited. 'My friend, Mr. Banneker,' says I, polite as always to

strangers. 'But I own that shoulder you're leanin' on, and I'm about to

take it away with me when I go,' I says. He leaned off and says, 'Where

did that young lady come from that was standin' in the doorway a minute

ago?' 'Young lady,' Ban. Do you get that? So I says, 'You're lucky, Bud.

When I get 'em, it's usually snakes and bugs and such-like rep-tyles.

Besides,' I says, 'your train is about to forgit that you got off it,' I

says. With that he gives another screech that don't even mean as much as

Ohio and tails onto the back platform just in time."

Said Ban, after frowning consideration:

"You didn't see any lady around the shack, did you, Jimmy?"

"Not on your life," replied the little man indignantly. "I ain't had

anything like that since I took the mail-teamin' contract."

"How good time do you think Puffy Pete could make across-desert in case

I should want it?" inquired the agent after a pause.

The mail-man contemplated his "team," bubbling and panting a vaporous

breath over the platform. "Pete ain't none too fond of sand," he

confessed. "But if you want to _git_ anywhere, him and me'll git you

there. You know that, Ban."

Banneker nodded comradely and the post chugged away.

Inside the shack Io had set out the luncheon-things. To Banneker's eyes

she appeared quite unruffled, despite the encounter which he had

surmised from Jimmy's sketch.

"Get me some flowers for the table, Ban," she directed. "I want it to

look festive."

"Why, in particular?"

"Because I'm afraid we won't have many more luncheons together."

He made no comment, but went out and returned with the flowers. Meantime

Io had made up her mind.

"I've had an unpleasant surprise, Ban."

"I was afraid so."

She glanced up quickly. "Did you see him?"

"No. Mindle, the mail transfer man, did."

"Oh! Well, that was Aleck Babson. 'Babbling Babson,' he's called at the

clubs. He's the most inveterate gossip in New York."

"It's a long way from New York," pointed out Banneker.

"Yes; but he has a long tongue. Besides, he'll see the Westerleys and my

other friends in Paradiso, and babble to them."

"Suppose he does?"

"I won't have people chasing here after me or pestering me with

letters," she said passionately. "Yet I don't want to go away. I want to

get more rested, Ban, and forget a lot of things."

He nodded. Comfort and comprehension were in his silence.

"You can be as companionable as a dog," said Io softly. "Where did you

get your tact, I wonder? Well, I shan't go till I must.... Lemonade,

Ban! I brought over the lemons myself."

They lunched a little soberly and thoughtfully.

"And I wanted it to be festive to-day," said Io wistfully, speaking out

her thoughts as usual. "Ban, does Miss Camilla smoke?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Because if she does, you'll think it all right. And I want a cigarette

now."

"If you do, I'll _know_ it's all right, Butterfly," returned her

companion fetching a box from a shelf.

"Hold the thought!" cried Io gayly. "There's a creed for you! 'Whatever

is, is right,' provided that it's Io who does it. Always judge me by

that standard, Ban, won't you?... Where in the name of Sir Walter

Raleigh's ghost did you get these cigarettes? 'Mellorosa' ... Ban, is

this a Sears-Roebuck stock?"

"No. It came from town. Don't you like it?"

"It's quite curious and interesting. Never mind, my dear; I won't tease

you."

For all that Io's "my dear" was the most casual utterance imaginable, it

brought a quick flush to Banneker's face. Chattering carelessly, she

washed up the few dishes, put them away in the brackets, and then,

smoking another of the despised Mellorosas, wandered to the

book-shelves.

"Read me something out of your favorite book, Ban.... No; this one."

She handed him the thick mail-order catalogue. With a gravity equal to

her own he took it.

"What will you have?"

"Let the spirit of Sears-Roebuck decide. Open at random and expound."

He thrust a finger between the leaves and began:

"Our Special, Fortified Black Fiber Trunk for Hard Travel. Made of

Three-Ply Ven--"

"Oh, to have my trunks again!" sighed the girl. "Turn to something else.

I don't like that. It reminds me of travel."

Obedient, Banneker made another essay:

"Clay County Clay Target Traps. Easily Adjusted to the Elevation--"

"Oh, dear!" she broke in again. "That reminds me that Dad wrote me to

look up his pet shot-gun before his return. I don't like that either.

Try again."

This time the explorer plunged deep into the volume.

"How to Make Home Home-like. An Invaluable Counselor for the Woman of

the Household--"

Io snatched the book from the reader's hand and tossed it into a corner.

"Sears-Roebuck are very tactless," she declared. "Everything they have

to offer reminds one of home. What do you think of home, Ban? Home, as

an abstract proposition. Home as the what-d'you-call-'em of the nation;

the palladium--no, the bulwark? Home as viewed by the homing pigeon?

Home, Sweet Home, as sung by--Would you answer, Ban, if I stopped

gibbering and gave you the chance?"

"I've never had much opportunity to judge about home, you know."

She darted out a quick little hand and touched his sleeve. The raillery

had faded from her face. "So you haven't. Not very tactful of me, was

it! Will you throw me into the corner with Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck,

Ban? I'm sorry."

"You needn't be. One gets used to being an air-plant without roots."

"Yet you wouldn't have fitted out this shack," she pointed out shrewdly,

"unless you had the instincts of home."

"That's true enough. Fortunately it's the kind of home I can take along

when they transfer me."

Io went to the door and looked afar on the radiant splendor of the

desert, and, nearer, into the cool peace of the forest.

"But you can't take all this," she reminded him.

"No. I can't take this."

"Shall you miss it?"

A shadow fell upon his face. "I'd miss something--I don't know what it

is--that no other place has ever given me. Why do you talk as if I were

going away from it? I'm not."

"Oh, yes; you are," she laughed softly. "It is so written. I'm a

seeress." She turned from the door and threw herself into a chair.

"What will take me?"

"Something inside you. Something unawakened. 'Something lost beyond the

ranges.' You'll know, and you'll obey it."

"Shall I ever come back, O seeress?"

At the question her eyes grew dreamy and distant. Her voice when she

spoke sank to a low-pitched monotone.

"Yes, you'll come back. Sometime.... So shall I ... not for years ...

but--" She jumped to her feet. "What kind of rubbish am I talking?" she

cried with forced merriment. "Is your tobacco drugged with hasheesh,

Ban?"

He shook his head. "It's the pull of the desert," he murmured. "It's

caught you sooner than most. You're more responsive, I suppose; more

sens--Why, Butterfly! You're shaking."

"A Scotchman would say that I was 'fey.' Ban, do you think it means that

I'm coming back here to die?" She laughed again. "If I were fated to die

here, I expect that I missed my good chance in the smash-up. Fortunately

I'm not superstitious."

"There might be worse places," said he slowly. "It is the place that

would call me back if ever I got down and out." He pointed through the

window to the distant, glowing purity of the mountain peak. "One could

tell one's troubles to that tranquil old god."

"Would he listen to mine, I wonder?"

"Try him before you go. You can leave them all here and I'll watch over

them for you to see that they don't get loose and bother you."

"Absolution! If it were only as easy as that! This _is_ a haunted

place.... Why should I be here at all? _Why_ didn't I go when I should?

Why a thousand things?"

"Chance."

"Is there any such thing? Why can't I sleep at night yet, as I ought?

Why do I still feel hunted? What's happening to me, Ban? What's getting

ready to happen?"

"Nothing. That's nerves."

"Yes; I'll try not to think of it. But at night--Ban, suppose I should

come over in the middle of the night when I can't sleep, and call

outside your window?"

"I'd come down, of course. But you'd have to be careful about rattlers,"

answered the practical Ban.

"Your friend, Camilla, would intercept me, anyway. I don't think she

sleeps too well, herself. Do you know what she's doing out here?"

"She came for her health."

"That isn't what I asked you, my dear. Do you know what she's doing?"

"No. She never told me."

"Shall I tell you?"

"No."

"It's interesting. Aren't you curious?"

"If she wanted me to know, she'd tell me."

"Indubitably correct, and quite praiseworthy," mocked the girl. "Never

mind; you know how to be staunch to your friends."

"In this country a man who doesn't is reckoned a yellow dog."

"He is in any decent country. So take that with you when you go."

"I'm not going," he asserted with an obstinate set to his jaw.

"Wait and see," she taunted. "So you won't let me send you books?" she

questioned after a pause.

"No."

"No, I thank you," she prompted.

"No, I thank you," he amended. "I'm an uncouth sort of person, but I

meant the 'thank you.'"

"Of course you did. And uncouthness is the last thing in the world you

could be accused of. That's the wonder of it.... No; I don't suppose it

really is. It's birth."

"If it's anything, it's training. My father was a stickler for forms, in

spite of being a sort of hobo."

"Well, forms make the game, very largely. You won't find them

essentially different when you go out into the--I forgot again. That

kind of prophecy annoys you, doesn't it? There is one book I'm going to

send you, though, which you can't refuse. Nobody can refuse it. It isn't

done."

"What is that?"

Her answer surprised him. "The Bible."

"Are you religious? Of course, a butterfly should be, shouldn't she?

should believe in the release of the soul from its chrysalis--the

butterfly's immortality. Yet I wouldn't have suspected you of a leaning

in that direction."

"Oh, religion!" Her tone set aside the subject as insusceptible of

sufficient or satisfactory answer. "I go through the forms," she added,

a little disdainfully. "As to what I believe and do--which is what one's

own religion is--why, I assume that if the game is worth playing at all,

there must be a Judge and Maker of the Rules. As far as I understand

them, I follow them."

"You have a sort of religious feeling for success, though, haven't you?"

he reminded her slyly.

"Not at all. Just human, common sense."

"But your creed as you've just given it, the rules of the game and that;

that's precisely the Bible formula, I believe."

"How do you know?" she caught him up. "You haven't a Bible in the place,

so far as I've noticed."

"No; I haven't."

"You should have."

"Probably. But I can't, somehow, adjust myself to that advice as coming

from you."

"Because you don't understand what I'm getting at. It isn't religious

advice."

"Then what is it?"

"Literary, purely. You're going to write, some day. Oh, don't look

doubtful! That's foreordained. It doesn't take a seeress to prophesy

that. And the Bible is the one book that a writer ought to read every

day. Isaiah, Psalms, Proverbs. Pretty much all the Old Testament, and a

lot of the New. It has grown into our intellectual life until its

phrases and catchwords are full of overtones and sub-meanings. You've

got to have it in your business; your coming business, I mean. I know

what I'm talking about, Mr. Errol Banneker--_moi qui parle_. They

offered me an instructorship in Literature when I graduated. I even

threatened to take it, just for a joke on Dad. _Now_, will you be good

and accept my fully explained and diagrammed Bible without fearing that

I have designs on your soul?"

"Yes."

"And will you please go back to your work at once, and by and by take me

home and stay to supper? Miss Van Arsdale told me to ask you."

"All right. I'll be glad to. What will you do between now and four

o'clock?"

"Prowl in your library and unearth more of your secrets."

"You're welcome if you can find any. I don't deal in 'em."

When Banneker, released from his duties until evening train time,

rejoined her, and they were riding along the forest trail, he said:

"You've started me to theorizing about myself."

"Do it aloud," she invited.

"Well; all my boyhood I led a wandering life, as you know. We were never

anywhere as much as a month at a time. In a way, I liked the change and

adventure. In another way, I got dead sick of it. Don't you suppose that

my readiness to settle down and vegetate is the reaction from that?"

"It sounds reasonable enough. You might put it more simply by saying

that you were tired. But by now you ought to be rested."

"Therefore I ought to be stirring myself so as to get tired again?"

"If you don't stir, you'll rust."

"Rust is a painless death for useless mechanism."

She shot an impatient side-glance at him. "Either you're a hundred years

old," she said, "or that's sheer pose."

"Perhaps it is a sort of pose. If so, it's a self-protective one."

"Suppose I asked you to come to New York?"

Intrepid though she was, her soul quaked a little at her own words,

foreseeing those mail-order-cut clothes and the resolute butterflyness

of the tie greeting her on Fifth Avenue.

"What to do?"

"Sell tickets at the Grand Central Station, of course!" she shot back at

him. "Ban, you _are_ aggravating! 'What to do?' Father would find you

some sort of place while you were fitting in."

'No. I wouldn't take a job from you any more than I'd take anything

else."

"You carry principles to the length of absurdity. Come and get your own

job, then. You're not timid, are you?"

"Not particularly. I'm just contented."

At that provocation her femininity flared. "Ban," she cried with

exasperation and appeal enchantingly mingled, "aren't you going to miss

me at all when I go?"

"I've been trying not to think of that," he said slowly.

"Well, think of it," she breathed. "No!" she contradicted herself

passionately. "Don't think of it. I shouldn't have said that.... I don't

know what is the matter with me to-day, Ban. Perhaps I _am_ fey." She

smiled to him slantwise.

"It's the air," he answered judicially. "There's another storm brewing

somewhere or I'm no guesser. More trouble for the schedule."

"That's right!" she cried eagerly. "_Be_ the Atkinson and St. Philip

station-agent again. Let's talk about trains. It's--it's so reliable."

"Far from it on this line," he answered, adopting her light tone.

"Particularly if we have more rain. You may become a permanent resident

yet."

Some rods short of the Van Arsdale cabin the trail took a sharp turn

amidst the brush. Halfway on the curve Io caught at Banneker's near

rein.

"Hark!" she exclaimed.

The notes of a piano sounded faintly clear in the stillness. As the

harmonies dissolved and merged, a voice rose above them, resonant and

glorious, rose and sank and pleaded and laughed and loved, while the two

young listeners leaned unconsciously toward each other in their saddles.

Silence fell again. The very forest life itself seemed hushed in a

listening trance.

"Heavens!" whispered Banneker. "Who is it?"

"Camilla Van Arsdale, of course. Didn't you know?"

"I knew she was musical. I didn't know she had a voice like that."

"Ten years ago New York was wild over it."

"But why--"

"Hush! She's beginning again."

Once more the sweep of the chords was followed by the superb voice while

the two wayfarers and all the world around them waited, breathless and

enchained. At the end, Banneker said dreamily:

"I've never heard anything like that before. It says everything that

can't be said in words alone, doesn't it? It makes me think of

something--What is it?" He groped for a moment, then repeated:

"'A passionate ballad, gallant and gay, Singing afar in the springtime

of life, Singing of youth and of love And of honor that cannot die.'"

Io drew a deep, tremulous breath. "Yes; it's like that. What a voice!

And what an art to be buried out here! It's one of her own songs, I

think. Probably an unpublished one."

"Her own? Does she write music?"

"She is Royce Melvin, the composer. Does that mean anything to you?"

He shook his head.

"Some day it will. They say that he--every one thinks it's a he--will

take Massenet's place as a lyrical composer. I found her out by

accidentally coming on the manuscript of a Melvin song that I knew.

That's her secret that I spoke of. Do you mind my having told you?"

"Why, no. It'll never go any further. I wonder why she never told me.

And why she keeps so shut off from the world here."

"Ah; that's another secret, and one that I shan't tell you," returned Io

gravely. "There's the piano again."

A few indeterminate chords came to their ears. There followed a jangling

disharmony. They waited, but there was nothing more. They rode on.

At the lodge Banneker took the horses around while Io went in.

Immediately her voice, with a note of alarm in it, summoned him. He

found her bending over Miss Van Arsdale, who lay across the divan in the

living-room with eyes closed, breathing jerkily. Her lips were blue and

her hands looked shockingly lifeless.

"Carry her into her room," directed Io.

Banneker picked up the tall, strong-built form without effort and

deposited it on the bed in the inner room.

"Open all the windows," commanded the girl. "See if you can find me some

ammonia or camphor. Quick! She looks as if she were dying."

One after another Banneker tried the bottles on the dresser. "Here it

is. Ammonia," he said.

In his eagerness he knocked a silver-mounted photograph to the floor. He

thrust the drug into the girl's hand and watched her helplessly as she

worked over the limp figure on the bed. Mechanically he picked up the

fallen picture to replace it. There looked out at him the face of a man

of early middle age, a face of manifest intellectual power, high-boned,

long-lined, and of the austere, almost ascetic beauty which the

Florentine coins have preserved for us in clear fidelity. Across the

bottom was written in a peculiarly rhythmic script, the legend:

"Toujours à toi. W."

"She's coming back," said Io's voice. "No. Don't come nearer. You'll

shut off the air. Find me a fan."

He ran to the outer room and came back with a palm-leaf.

"She wants something," said Io in an agonized half-voice. "She wants it

so badly. What is it? Help me, Ban! She can't speak. Look at her

eyes--so imploring. Is it medicine?... No! Ban, can't you help?"

Banneker took the silver-framed portrait and placed it in the flaccid

hand. The fingers closed over it. The filmiest wraith of a smile played

about the blue lips.

An hour later, Io came out to Banneker waiting fearfully in the big

room.

"She won't have a doctor. I've given her the strychnia and she insists

she'll be all right."

"Don't you think I ought to go for the doctor, anyway?"

"She wouldn't see him. She's very strong-willed.... That's a wonderful

woman, Ban." Io's voice shook a little.

"Yes."

"How did you know about the picture?"

"I saw it on the dresser. And when I saw her eyes, I guessed."

"Yes; there's only one thing a woman wants like _that_, when she's

dying. You're rather a wonderful person, yourself, to have known. That's

her other secret, Ban. The one I said I couldn't tell you."

"I've forgotten it," replied Banneker gravely.

CHAPTER XII

Attendance upon the sick-room occupied Io's time for several days

thereafter. Morning and afternoon Banneker rode over from the station to

make anxious inquiry. The self-appointed nurse reported progress as

rapid as could be expected, but was constantly kept on the alert because

of the patient's rebellion against enforced idleness. Seizures of the

same sort she had suffered before, it appeared, but none hitherto so

severe. Nothing could be done, she told Io, beyond the administration of

the medicine, for which she had full directions. One day an attack would

finish it all; meantime, in spite of her power of self-repression, she

chafed at the monotony of her imprisonment.

In the late afternoon of the day after the collapse, while Io was

heating water at the fireplace, she heard a drawer open in the sick-room

and hurried back to find Miss Van Arsdale hanging to the dresser, her

face gray-splotched and her fingers convulsively crushing a letter which

she had taken from under lock. Alarmed and angry, the amateur nurse got

her back to bed only half conscious, but still cherishing her trove.

When, an hour later, she dared leave her charge, she heard the rustle of

smoothed-out paper and remained outside long enough to allow for the

reading. On her return there was no sign of the letter. Miss Van

Arsdale, a faint and hopeful color in her cheeks, was asleep.

For Banneker these were days of trial and tribulation. Added to the

anxiety that he felt for his best friend was the uncertainty as to what

he ought to do about the developments affecting her guest. For he had

heard once more from Gardner.

"It's on the cards," wrote the reporter, "that I may be up to see you

again. I'm still working, on and off, on the tip that took me on that

wild-goose chase. If I come again I won't quit without some of the wild

goose's tail feathers, at least. There's a new tip locally; it leaked

out from Paradise. ["The Babbling Babson," interjected the reader

mentally.] It looks as though the bird were still out your way. Though

how she could be, and you not know it, gets me. It's even a bigger game

than Stella Wrightington, if my information is O.K. Have you heard or

seen anything lately of a Beautiful Stranger or anything like that

around Manzanita?... I enclose clipping of your story. What do you think

of yourself in print?"

Banneker thought quite highly of himself in print as he read the

article, which he immediately did. The other matter could wait; not that

it was less important; quite the contrary; but he proposed to mull it

over carefully and with a quiet mind, if he could ever get his mind back

to its peaceful current again: meantime it was good for him to think of

something quite dissociated from the main problem.

What writer has not felt the conscious red tingle in his cheeks at first

sight of himself in the magnified personification of type? Here is

something, once himself, now expanded far beyond individual limits, into

the proportions of publicity, for all the world to measure and estimate

and criticize. Ought it to have been done in just that way? Is there not

too much "I" in the presentation? Would not the effect have been greater

had the method been less personal? It seemed to Banneker that he himself

stood forth in a stark nakedness of soul and thought, through those

blatantly assertive words, shameless, challenging to public opinion, yet

delightful to his own appreciation. On the whole it was good; better

than he would have thought he could do.

What he had felt, in the writing of it, to be jerks and bumps were

magically smoothed out in the finished product. At one point where the

copy-reader's blue pencil had elided an adjective which the writer had

deemed specially telling, he felt a sharp pang of disappointed

resentment. Without that characterization the sentence seemed lifeless.

Again, in another passage he wished that he had edited himself with more

heed to the just word. Why had he designated the train as "rumbling"

along the cut? Trains do not rumble between rock walls, he remembered;

they move with a sustained and composite roar. And the finger-wringing

malcontent who had vowed to "soom"; the editorial pencil had altered

that to "sue 'em," thereby robbing it of its special flavor. Perhaps

this was in accordance with some occult rule of the trade. But it

spoiled the paragraph for Banneker. Nevertheless he was thrilled and

elate.... He wanted to show the article to Io. What would she think of

it? She had read him accurately: it _was_ in him to write. And she could

help him, if only by--well, if only by being at hand.... But Gardner's

letter! That meant that the pursuit was on again, more formidably this

time. Gardner, the gadfly, stinging this modern Io out of her refuge of

peace and safety!

He wrote and dispatched a message to the reporter in care of the

Angelica City Herald:

Glad to see you, but you are wasting your time. No such person could be

here without my knowing it. Thanks for article.

That was as near an untruth as Banneker cared to go. In his own mind he

defended it on the ground that the projected visit would, in fact, be

time wasted for the journalist since he, Banneker, intended fully that

Gardner should not see Io. Deep would have been his disgust and

self-derision could he have observed the effect of the message upon the

cynical and informed journalist who, however, did not receive it until

the second day after its transmission, as he had been away on another

assignment.

"The poor fish!" was Gardner's comment. "He doesn't even say that she

isn't there. He's got to lie better than that if he goes into the

newspaper game."

Further, the reporter had received a note from the cowman whom Ban and

Io had encountered in the woods, modestly requesting five dollars in

return for the warranted fact that a "swell young lady" had been seen in

Banneker's company. Other journalistic matters were pressing, however;

he concluded that the "Manzanita Mystery," as he built it up

headline-wise in his ready mind, could wait a day or two longer.

Banneker, through the mechanical course of his office, debated the

situation. Should he tell Io of the message? To do so would only add to

her anxieties, probably to no good purpose, for he did not believe that

she would desert Miss Van Arsdale, ill and helpless, on any selfish

consideration. Fidelity was one of the virtues with which he had

unconsciously garlanded Io. Then, too, Gardner might not come anyway. If

he did Banneker was innocently confident of his own ability to outwit

the trained reporter and prevent his finding the object of his quest. A

prospective and possible ally was forecast in the weather. Warning of

another rainfall impending had come over the wire. As yet there was no

sign visible from his far-horizoned home, except a filmy and changeful

wreath of palest cloud with which Mount Carstairs was bedecked. Banneker

decided for silence.

Miss Van Arsdale was much better when he rode over in the morning, but

Io looked piteously worn and tired.

"You've had no rest," he accused her, away from the sick woman's

hearing.

"Rest enough of its kind, but not much sleep," said Io.

"But you've got to have sleep," he insisted. "Let me stay and look after

her to-night."

"It wouldn't be of any use."

"Why not?"

"I shouldn't sleep anyway. This house is haunted by spirits of unrest,"

said the girl fretfully. "I think I'll take a blanket and go out on the

desert."

"And wake up to find a sidewinder crawling over you, and a tarantula

nestling in your ear. Don't think of it."

"Ban," called the voice of Camilla Van Arsdale from the inner room,

clear and firm as he had ever heard it.

He went in. She stretched out a hand to him. "It's good to see you, Ban.

Have I worried you? I shall be up and about again to-morrow."

"Now, Miss Camilla," protested Banneker, "you mustn't--"

"I'm going to get up to-morrow," repeated the other immutably. "Don't be

absurd about it. I'm not ill. It was only the sort of knock-down that I

must expect from time to time. Within a day or two you'll see me riding

over.... Ban, stand over there in that light.... What's that you've got

on?"

"What, Miss Camilla?"

"That necktie. It isn't in your usual style. Where did you get it?"

"Sent to Angelica City for it. Don't you like it?" he returned, trying

for the nonchalant air, but not too successfully.

"Not as well as your spotty butterflies," answered the woman jealously.

"That's nonsense, though. Don't mind me, Ban," she added with a wry

smile. "Plain colors are right for you. Browns, or blues, or reds, if

they're not too bright. And you've tied it very well. Did it take you

long to do it?"

Reddening and laughing, he admitted a prolonged and painful session

before his glass. Miss Van Arsdale sighed. It was such a faint,

abandoning breath of regret as might come from the breast of a mother

when she sees her little son in his first pride of trousers.

"Go out and say good-night to Miss Welland," she ordered, "and tell her

to go to bed. I've taken a sleeping powder."

Banneker obeyed. He rode home slowly and thoughtfully. His sleep was

sound enough that night.

Breakfast-getting processes did not appeal to him when he awoke in the

morning. He walked over, through the earliest light, to the hotel, where

he made a meal of musty eggs, chemical-looking biscuits, and coffee of a

rank hue and flavor, in an atmosphere of stale odors and flies,

sickeningly different from the dainty ceremonials of Io's preparation.

Rebuking himself for squeamishness, the station-agent returned to his

office, caught an O.S. from the wire, took some general instructions,

and went out to look at the weather. His glance never reached the

horizon.

In the foreground where he had swung the hammock under the alamo it

checked and was held, absorbed. A blanketed figure lay motionless in the

curve of the meshwork. One arm was thrown across the eyes, warding a

strong beam which had forced its way through the lower foliage. He

tiptoed forward.

Io's breast was rising and falling gently in the hardly perceptible

rhythm of her breathing. From the pale yellow surface of her dress,

below the neck, protruded a strange, edged something, dun-colored,

sharply defined and alien, which the man's surprised eyes failed to

identify. Slowly the edge parted and flattened out, broadwise,

displaying the marbled brilliance of the butterfly's inner wings,

illumining the pale chastity of the sleeping figure as if with a

quivering and evanescent jewel. Banneker, shaken and thrilled, closed

his eyes. He felt as if a soul had opened its secret glories to him.

When, commanding himself, he looked again, the living gem was gone. The

girl slept evenly.

Conning the position of the sun and the contour of the sheltering tree,

Banneker estimated that in a half-hour or less a flood of sunlight would

pour in upon the slumberer's face to awaken her. Cautiously withdrawing,

he let himself into the shack, lighted his oil stove, put on water to

boil, set out the coffee and the stand. He felt different about

breakfast-getting now. Having prepared the arrangements for his

prospective guest, he returned and leaned against the alamo, filling his

eyes with still delight of the sleeper.

Youthful, untouched, fresh though the face was, in the revealing

stillness of slumber, it suggested rather than embodied something

indefinably ancient, a look as of far and dim inheritances, subtle,

ironic, comprehending, and aloof; as if that delicate and strong beauty

of hers derived intimately from the wellsprings of the race; as if

womanhood, eternal triumphant, and elusive were visibly patterned there.

Banneker, leaning against the slender tree-trunk, dreamed over her,

happily and aimlessly.

Io opened her eyes to meet his. She stirred softly and smiled at him.

"So you discovered me," she said.

"How long have you been here?"

She studied the sun a moment before replying. "Several hours."

"Did you walk over in the night?"

"No. You told me not to, you know. I waited till the dawn. Don't scold

me, Ban. I was dead for want of sleep and I couldn't get it in the

lodge. It's haunted, I tell you, with unpeaceful spirits. So I

remembered this hammock."

"I'm not going to scold you. I'm going to feed you. The coffee's on."

"How good!" she cried, getting to her feet. "Am I a sight? I feel

frowsy."

"There's a couple of buckets of water up in my room. Help yourself while

I set out the breakfast."

In fifteen minutes she was down, freshened and joyous.

"I'll just take a bite and then run back to my patient," she said. "You

can bring the blanket when you come. It's heavy for a three-mile

tramp.... What are you looking thoughtful and sober about, Ban? Do you

disapprove of my escapade?"

"That's a foolish question."

"It's meant to be. And it's meant to make you smile. Why don't you? You

_are_ worried. 'Fess up. What's happened?"

"I've had a letter from the reporter in Angelica City."

"Oh! Did he send your article?"

"He did. But that isn't the point. He says he's coming up here again."

"What for?"

"You."

"Does he know I'm here? Did he mention my name?"

"No. But he's had some information that probably points to you."

"What did you answer?"

Ban told her. "I think that will hold him off," he said hopefully.

"Then he's a very queer sort of reporter," returned Io scornfully out of

her wider experience. "No; he'll come. And if he's any good, he'll find

me."

"You can refuse to see him."

"Yes; but it's the mere fact of my being here that will probably give

him enough to go on and build up a loathsome article. How I hate

newspapers!... Ban," she appealed wistfully, "can't you stop him from

coming? Must I go?"

"You must be ready to go."

"Not until Miss Camilla is well again," she declared obstinately. "But

that will be in a day or two. Oh, well! What does it all matter! I've

not much to pack up, anyway. How are you going to get me out?"

"That depends on whether Gardner comes, and how he comes."

He pointed to a darkening line above the southwestern horizon. "If that

is what it looks like, we may be in for another flood, though I've never

known two bad ones in a season."

Io beckoned quaintly to the far clouds. "Hurry! Hurry!" she summoned.

"You wrecked me once. Now save me from the Vandal. Good-bye, Ban. And

thank you for the lodging and the breakfast."

Emergency demands held the agent at his station all that day and

evening. Trainmen brought news of heavy rains beyond the mountains. In

the morning he awoke to find his little world hushed in a murky light

and with a tingling apprehension of suspense in the atmosphere. High,

gray cloud shapes hurried across the zenith to a conference of the storm

powers, gathering at the horizon. Weather-wise from long observation,

Banneker guessed that the outbreak would come before evening, and that,

unless the sullen threat of the sky was deceptive, Manzanita would be

shut off from rail communication within twelve hours thereafter. Having

two hours' release at noon, he rode over to the lodge in the forest to

return Io's blanket. He found the girl pensive, and Miss Van Arsdale

apparently recovered to the status of her own normal and vigorous self.

"I've been telling Io," said the older woman, "that, since the rumor is

out of her being here, she will almost certainly be found by the

reporter. Too many people in the village know that I have a guest."

"How?" asked Banneker.

"From my marketing. Probably from Pedro."

"Very likely from the patron of the Sick Coyote that you and I met on

our walk," added the girl.

"So the wise thing is for her to go," concluded Miss Van Arsdale.

"Unless she is willing to risk the publicity."

"Yes," assented Io. "The wise thing is for me to go." She spoke in a

curious tone, not looking at Banneker, not looking at anything outward

and visible; her vision seemed somberly introverted.

"Not now, though," said Banneker.

"Why not?" asked both women. He answered Io.

"You called for a storm. You're going to get it. A big one. I could send

you out on Number Eight, but that's a way-train and there's no telling

where it would land you or when you'd get through. Besides, I don't

believe Gardner is coming. I'd have heard from him by now. Listen!"

The slow pat-pat-pat of great raindrops ticked like a started clock on

the roof. It ceased, and far overhead the great, quiet voice of the wind

said, "Hush--sh--sh--sh--sh!", bidding the world lie still and wait.

"What if he does come?" asked Miss Van Arsdale

"I'll get word to you and get her out some way."

The storm burst on Banneker, homebound, just as he emerged from the

woodland, in a wild, thrashing wind from the southwest and a downpour

the most fiercely, relentlessly insistent that he had ever known. A

cactus desert in the rare orgy of a rainstorm is a place of wonder. The

monstrous, spiky forms trembled and writhed in ecstasy, heat-damned

souls in their hour of respite, stretching out exultant arms to the

bounteous sky. Tiny rivulets poured over the sand, which sucked them

down with a thirsting, crisping whisper. A pair of wild doves, surprised

and terrified, bolted close past the lone rider, so near that his mount

shied and headed for the shelter of the trees again. A small snake,

curving indecisively and with obvious bewilderment amidst the growth,

paused to rattle a faint warning, half coiled in case the horse's step

meant a new threat, then went on with a rather piteous air of not

knowing where to find refuge against this cataclysm of the elements.

Lashing in the wind, a long tentacle of the giant ocatilla drew its

cimeter-set thong across Ban's horse which incontinently bolted. The

rider lifted up his voice and yelled in sheer, wild, defiant joy of the

tumult. A lesser ocatilla thorn gashed his ear so that the blood mingled

with the rain that poured down his face. A pod of the fishhook-barbed

cholla drove its points through his trousers into the flesh of his knee

and, detaching itself from the stem, as is the detestable habit of this

vegetable blood-seeker, clung there like a live thing of prey, from

barbs which must later be removed delicately and separately with the

cold steel. Blindly homing, a jack-rabbit ran almost beneath the horse's

hooves, causing him to shy again, this time into a bulky vizcaya, as big

as a full-grown man, and inflicting upon Ban a new species of

scarification. It did not matter. Nothing mattered. He rode on, knees

tight, lines loose, elate, shouting, singing, acclaiming the storm which

was setting its irrefragable limits to the world wherein he and Io would

still live close, a few golden days longer.

What he picked from the wire when he reached it confirmed his hopes. The

track was threatened in a dozen places. Repair crews were gathering.

Already the trains were staggering along, far behind their schedule.

They would, of course, operate as far as possible, but no reliance was

to be placed upon their movements until further notice. Through the

night traffic continued, but with the coming of the morning and the

settling down of a soft, seeping, unintermittent pour of gray rain, the

situation had clarified. Nothing came through. Complete stoppage, east

and west. Between Manzanita and Stanwood the track was out, and in the

other direction Dry Bed Arroyo was threatening. Banneker reported

progress to the lodge and got back, soaked and happy. Io was thoughtful

and content.

Late that afternoon the station-agent had a shock which jarred him quite

out of his complacent security. Denny, the operator at Stanwood, wired,

saying:

Party here anxious to get through to Manzanita quick. Could auto make

upper desert?

No (clicked Banneker in response). Describe party.

The answer came back confirming his suspicion:

Thin, nice-spoken, wears goggles, smokes cork-tips. Arrived Five from

Angelica held here.

Tell impossible by any route (instructed Banneker). Wire result.

An hour later came the reply:

Won't try to-night. Probably horse to-morrow.

Here was a problem, indeed, fit to chill the untimely

self-congratulations of Banneker. Should the reporter come in--and come

he would if it were humanly possible, by Banneker's estimate of him--it

would be by the only route which gave exit to the west. On the other

side the flooded arroyo cut off escape. To try to take Io out through

the forest, practically trackless, in that weather, or across the

channeled desert, would be too grave a risk. To all intents and purposes

they were marooned on an island with no reasonable chance of

exit--except! To Banneker's feverishly searching mind reverted a local

legend. Taking a chance on missing some emergency call, he hurried over

to the village and interviewed, through the persuasive interpretation of

sundry drinks, an aged and bearded wreck whose languid and chipped

accents spoke of a life originally far alien to the habitudes of the

Sick Coyote where he was fatalistically awaiting his final attack of

delirium tremens.

Banneker returned from that interview with a map upon which had been

scrawled a few words in shaky, scholarly writing.

"But one doesn't say it's safe, mind you," had warned the shell of

Lionel Streatham in his husky pipe. "It's only as a sporting offer that

one would touch it. And the courses may have changed in seven years."

Denny wired in the morning that the inquiring traveler had set out from

Manzanita, unescorted, on horseback, adding the prediction that he would

have a hell of a trip, even if he got through at all. Late that

afternoon Gardner arrived at the station, soaked, hollow-eyed, stiff,

exhausted, and cheerful. He shook hands with the agent.

"How do you like yourself in print?" he inquired.

"Pretty well," answered Banneker. "It read better than I expected."

"It always does, until you get old in the business. How would you like a

New York job on the strength of it?"

Banneker stared. "You mean that I could get on a paper just by writing

that?"

"I didn't say so. Though I've known poorer stuff land more experienced

men."

"More experienced; that's the point, isn't it? I've had none at all."

"So much the better. A metropolitan paper prefers to take a man fresh

and train him to its own ways. There's your advantage if you can show

natural ability. And you can."

"I see," muttered Banneker thoughtfully.

"Where does Miss Van Arsdale live?" asked the reporter without the

smallest change of tone.

"What do you want to see Miss Van Arsdale for?" returned the other, his

instantly defensive manner betraying him to the newspaper man.

"You know as well as I do," smiled Gardner.

"Miss Van Arsdale has been ill. She's a good deal of a recluse. She

doesn't like to see people."

"Does her visitor share that eccentricity?"

Banneker made no reply.

"See here, Banneker," said the reporter earnestly; "I'd like to know why

you're against me in this thing."

"What thing?" fenced the agent.

"My search for Io Welland."

"Who is Io Welland, and what are you after her for?" asked Banneker

steadily.

"Apart from being the young lady that you've been escorting around the

local scenery," returned the imperturbable journalist, "she's the most

brilliant and interesting figure in the younger set of the Four Hundred.

She's a newspaper beauty. She's copy. She's news. And when she gets into

a railroad wreck and disappears from the world for weeks, and her

supposed fiancé, the heir to a dukedom, makes an infernal ass of himself

over it all and practically gives himself away to the papers, she's big

news."

"And if she hasn't done any of these things," retorted Banneker, drawing

upon some of Camilla Van Arsdale's wisdom, brought to bear on the case,

"she's libel, isn't she?"

"Hardly libel. But she isn't safe news until she's identified. You see,

I'm playing an open game with you. I'm here to identify her, with half a

dozen newspaper photos. Want to see 'em?"

"No, thank you."

"Not interested? Are you going to take me over to Miss Van Arsdale's?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why should I? It's no part of my business as an employee of the road."

"As to that, I've got a letter from the Division Superintendent asking

you to further my inquiry in any possible way. Here it is."

Banneker took and read the letter. While not explicit, it was

sufficiently direct.

"That's official, isn't it?" said Gardner mildly.

"Yes."

"Well?"

"And this is official," added Banneker calmly. "The company can go to

hell. Tell that to the D.S. with my compliments, will you?"

"Certainly not. I don't want to get you into trouble. I like you. But

I've got to land this story. If you won't take me to the place, I'll

find some one in the village that will. You can't prevent my going

there, you know."

"Can't I?" Banneker's voice had grown low and cold. A curious light

shone in his eyes. There was an ugly flicker of smile on his set mouth.

The reporter rose from the chair into which he had wetly slumped. He

walked over to face his opponent who was standing at his desk. Banneker,

lithe, powerful, tense, was half again as large as the other; obviously

more muscular, better-conditioned, more formidable in every way. But

there is about a man, singly and selflessly intent upon his job in hand,

an inner potency impossible to obstruct. Banneker recognized it;

inwardly admitted, too, the unsoundness of the swift, protective rage

rising within, himself.

"I don't propose to make trouble for you or to have trouble with you,"

said the reporter evenly. "But I'm going to Miss Van Arsdale's unless

I'm shot on the way there."

"That's all right," returned the agent, mastering himself. "I beg your

pardon for threatening you. But you'll have to find your own way. Will

you put up here for the night, again?"

"Thanks. Glad to, if it won't trouble you. See you later."

"Perhaps not. I'm turning in early. I'll leave the shack unlocked for

you."

Gardner opened the outer door and was blown back into the station by an

explosive gust of soaking wind.

"On second thought," said he, "I don't think I'll try to go out there

this evening. The young lady can't very well get away to-night, unless

she has wings, and it's pretty damp for flying. Can I get dinner over at

the village?"

"Such as it is. I'll go over with you."

At the entrance to the unclean little hotel they parted, Banneker going

further to find Mindle the "teamer," whom he could trust and with whom

he held conference, brief and very private. They returned to the station

together in the gathering darkness, got a hand car onto the track, and

loaded it with a strange burden, after which Mindle disappeared into the

storm with the car while Banneker wired to Stanwood an imperative call

for a relief for next day even though the substitute should have to walk

the twenty-odd miles. Thereafter he made, from the shack, a careful

selection of food with special reference to economy of bulk, fastened it

deftly beneath his poncho, saddled his horse, and set out for the Van

Arsdale lodge. The night was pitch-black when he entered the area of the

pines, now sonorous with the rush of the upper winds.

Io saw the gleam of his flashlight and ran to the door to meet him.

"Are you ready?" he asked briefly.

"I can be in fifteen minutes." She turned away, asking no questions.

"Dress warmly," he said. "It's an all-night trip. By the way, can you

swim?"

"For hours at a time."

Camilla Van Arsdale entered the room. "Are you taking her away, Ban?

Where?"

"To Miradero, on the Southwestern and Sierra."

"But that's insanity," protested the other. "Sixty miles, isn't it? And

over trailless desert."

"All of that. But we're not going across country. We're going by water."

"By water? Ban, you _are_ out of your mind. Where is there any

waterway?"

"Dry Bed Arroyo. It's running bank-full. My boat is waiting there."

"But it will be dangerous. Terribly dangerous. Io, you mustn't."

"I'll go," said the girl quietly, "if Ban says so."

"There's no other way out. And it isn't so dangerous if you're used to a

boat. Old Streatham made it seven years ago in the big flood. Did it in

a bark canoe on a hundred-dollar bet. The Arroyo takes you out to the

Little Bowleg and that empties into the Rio Solano, and there you are!

I've got his map."

"Map?" cried Miss Van Arsdale. "What use is a map when you can't see

your hand before your face?"

"Give this wind a chance," answered Banneker. "Within two hours the

clouds will have broken and we'll have moonlight to go by.... The

Angelica Herald man is over at the hotel now," he added.

"May I take a suitcase?" asked Io.

"Of course. I'll strap it to your pony if you'll get it ready. Miss

Camilla, what shall we do with the pony? Hitch him under the bridge?"

"If you're determined to take her, I'll ride over with you and bring him

back. Io, think! Is it worth the risk? Let the reporter come. I can keep

him away from you."

A brooding expression was in the girl's deep eyes as she turned them,

not to the speaker, but to Banneker. "No," she said. "I've got to get

away sooner or later. I'd rather go this way. It's more--it's more of a

pattern with all the rest; better than stupidly waving good-bye from the

rear of a train."

"But the danger."

"_Che sará, sará_," returned Io lightly. "I'll trust him to take care of

me."

While Ban went out to prepare the horses with the aid of Pedro, strictly

enjoined to secrecy, the two women got Io's few things together.

"I can't thank you," said the girl, looking up as she snapped the lock

of her case. "It simply isn't a case for thanking. You've done too much

for me."

The older woman disregarded it. "How much are you hurting Ban?" she

said, with musing eyes fixed on the dim and pure outline of the girlish

face.

"I? Hurt him?"

"Of course he won't realize it until you've gone. Then I'm afraid to

think what is coming to him."

"And I'm afraid to think what is coming to me," replied the girl, very

low.

"Ah, you!" retorted her hostess, dismissing that consideration with

contemptuous lightness. "You have plenty of compensations, plenty of

resources."

"Hasn't he?"

"Perhaps. Up to now. What will he do when he wakes up to an empty

world?"

"Write, won't he? And then the world won't be empty."

"He'll think it so. That is why I'm sorry for him."

"Won't you be sorry a little for me?" pleaded the girl. "Anyway, for the

part of me that I'm leaving here? Perhaps it's the very best of me."

Miss Van Arsdale shook her head. "Oh, no! A pleasantly vivid dream of

changed and restful things. That's all. Your waking will be only a

sentimental and perfumed regret--a sachet-powder sorrow."

"You're bitter."

"I don't want him hurt," protested the other. "Why did you come here?

What should a girl like you, feverish and sensation-loving and

artificial, see in a boy like Ban to charm you?"

"Ah, don't you understand? It's just because my world has been too

dressed up and painted and powdered that I feel the charm of--of--well,

of ease of existence. He's as easy as an animal. There's something about

him--you must have felt it--sort of impassioned sense of the gladness of

life; when he has those accesses he's like a young god, or a faun. But

he doesn't know his own power. At those times he might do anything."

She shivered a little and her lids drooped over the luster of her

dreaming eyes.

"And you want to tempt him out of this to a world where he would be a

wretched misfit," accused the older woman.

"Do I? No; I think I don't. I think I'd rather hold him in my mind as he

is here: a happy eremite; no, a restrained pagan. Oh, it's foolish to

seek definitions for him. He isn't definable. He's Ban...."

"And when you get back into the world, what will you do, I wonder?"

"I won't send for him, if that's what you mean."

"But what _will_ you do, I wonder?"

"I wonder," repeated Io somberly.

CHAPTER XIII

Silently they rode through the stir and thresh of the night, the two

women and the man. For guidance along the woods trail they must trust to

the finer sense of their horses whose heads they could not see in the

closed-in murk. A desultory spray fell upon them as the wind wrenched at

the boughs overhead, but the rain had ceased. Infinitely high,

infinitely potent sounded the imminent tumult of the invisible Powers of

the night, on whose sufferance they moved, tiny, obscure, and unharmed.

It filled all the distances.

Debouching upon the open desert, they found their range of vision

slightly expanded. They could dimly perceive each other. The horses drew

closer together. With his flash covered by his poncho, Banneker

consulted a compass and altered their course, for he wished to give the

station, to which Gardner might have returned, a wide berth. Io moved up

abreast of him as he stood, studying the needle. Had he turned the light

upward he would have seen that she was smiling. Whether he would have

interpreted that smile, whether, indeed, she could have interpreted it

herself, is doubtful.

Presently they picked up the line of telegraph poles, well beyond the

station, just the faintest suggestion of gaunt rigor against the

troubled sky, and skirted them, moving more rapidly in the confidence of

assured direction. A very gradual, diffused alleviation of the darkness

began to be felt. The clouds were thinning. Something ahead of them

hissed in a soft, full, insistent monosonance. Banneker threw up a

shadowy arm. They dismounted on the crest of a tiny desert clifflet, now

become the bank of a black current which nuzzled and nibbled into its

flanks.

Io gazed intently at the flood which was to deliver her out of the hands

of the Philistine. How far away the other bank of the newborn stream

might be, she could only guess from the vague rush in her ears. The

arroyo's water slipped ceaselessly, objectlessly away from beneath her

strained vision, smooth, suave, even, effortless, like the process of

some unhurried and mighty mechanism. Now and again a desert plant,

uprooted from its arid home, eddied joyously past her, satiated for once

of its lifelong thirst; and farther out she thought to have a glimpse of

some dead and whitish animal. But these were minor blemishes on a great,

lustrous ribbon of silken black, unrolled and re-rolled from darkness

into darkness.

"It's beckoning us," said Io, leaning to Banneker, her hand on his

shoulder.

"We must wait for more light," he answered.

"Will you trust yourself to _that_?" asked Camilla Van Arsdale, with a

gesture of fear and repulsion toward the torrent.

"Anywhere!" returned Io. There was exaltation in her voice.

"I can't understand it," cried the older woman. "How do you know what

may lie before you?"

"That is the thrill of it."

"There may be death around the first curve. It's so unknown; so secret

and lawless."

"Ah, and I'm lawless!" cried Io. "I could defy the gods on a night like

this!"

She flung her arms aloft, in a movement of sweet, wild abandon, and, as

if in response to an incantation, the sky was reft asunder and the moon

rushed forth, free for the moment of the clutching clouds, fugitive,

headlong, a shining Maenad of the heavens, surrounded by the rush and

whirl that had whelmed earth and its waters and was hurrying them to an

unknown, mad destiny.

"Now we can see our way," said Banneker, the practical.

He studied the few rods of sleek, foamless water between him and the

farther bank, and, going to the steel boat which Mindle had brought to

the place on the hand car, took brief inventory of its small cargo.

Satisfied, he turned to load in Io's few belongings. He shipped the

oars.

"I'll let her go stem-first," he explained; "so that I can see what

we're coming to and hold her if there's trouble."

"But can you see?" objected Miss Van Arsdale, directing a troubled look

at the breaking sky.

"If we can't, we'll run her ashore until we can."

He handed Io the flashlight and the map.

"You'll want me in the bow seat if we're traveling reversed," said she.

He assented. "Good sailorwoman!"

"I don't like it," protested Miss Van Arsdale. "It's a mad business.

Ban, you oughtn't to take her."

"It's too late to talk of that," said Io.

"Ready?" questioned Banneker.

"Yes."

He pushed the stern of the boat into the stream, and the current laid it

neatly and powerfully flat to the sheer bank. Io kissed Camilla Van

Arsdale quickly and got in.

"We'll wire you from Miradero," she promised. "You'll find the message

in the morning."

The woman, mastering herself with a difficult effort, held out her hand

to Banneker.

"If you won't be persuaded," she said, "then good--"

"No," he broke in quickly. "That's bad luck. We shall be all right."

"Good luck, then," returned his friend, and turned away into the night.

Banneker, with one foot in the boat, gave a little shove and caught up

his oars. An unseen hand of indeterminable might grasped the keel and

moved them quietly, evenly, outward and forward, puppets given into the

custody of the unregarding powers. Oars poised and ready, Ban sat with

his back toward his passenger, facing watchfully downstream.

Leaning back into the curve of the bow, Io gave herself up to the

pulsing sweep of the night. Far, far above her stirred a cosmic tumult.

The air might have been filled with vast wings, invisible and incessant

in the night of wonders. The moon plunged headlong through the clouds,

now submerged, now free, like a strong swimmer amidst surf. She moved to

the music of a tremendous, trumpeting note, the voice of the unleashed

Spring, male and mighty, exulting in his power, while beneath, the

responsive, desirous earth thrilled and trembled and was glad.

The boat, a tiny speck on the surface of chaos, darted and checked and

swerved lightly at the imperious bidding of unguessed forces, reaching

up from the depths to pluck at it in elfish sportiveness. Only when Ban

thrust down the oar-blades, as he did now and again to direct their

course or avoid some obstacle, was Io made sensible, through the jar and

tremor of the whole structure, how swiftly they moved. She felt the

spirit of the great motion, of which they were a minutely inconsiderable

part, enter into her soul. She was inspired of it, freed, elated,

glorified. She lifted up her voice and sang. Ban, turning, gave her one

quick look of comprehension, then once more was intent and watchful of

their master and servitor, the flood.

"Ban," she called.

He tossed an oar to indicate that he had heard.

"Come back and sit by me."

He seemed to hesitate.

"Let the boat go where it wants to! The river will take care of us. It's

a good river, and so strong! I think it loves to have us here."

Ban shook his head.

"'Let the great river bear us to the sea,'" sang Io in her fresh and

thrilling voice, stirring the uttermost fibers of his being with

delight. "Ban, can't you trust the river and the night and--and the mad

gods? I can."

Again he shook his head. In his attitude she sensed a new concentration

upon something ahead. She became aware of a strange stir that was not of

the air nor the water.

"Hush--sh--sh--sh--sh!" said something unseen, with an immense effect of

restraint and enforced quiet.

The boat slewed sharply as Banneker checked their progress with a

downthrust of oars. He edged in toward the farther bank which was quite

flat, studying it with an eye to the most favoring spot, having selected

which, he ran the stern up with several hard shoves, leapt out, hauled

the body of the craft free from the balked and snatching current, and

held out a hand to his passenger.

"What is it?" she asked as she joined him.

"I don't know. I'm trying to think where I've heard that noise before."

He pondered. "Ah, I've got it! It was when I was out on the coast in the

big rains, and a few million tons of river-bank let go all holds and

smushed down into the stream.... What's on your map?"

He bent over it, conning its detail by the light of the flash which she

turned on.

"We should be about here," he indicated, touching the paper, "I'll go

ahead and take a look."

"Shan't I go with you?"

"Better stay quiet and get all the rest you can."

He was gone some twenty minutes. "There's a big, fresh-looking split-off

in the opposite bank," he reported; "and the water looks fizzy and

whirly around there. I think we'll give her a little time to settle. A

sudden shift underneath might suck us down. The water's rising every

minute, which makes it worth while waiting. Besides, it's dark just

now."

"Do you believe in fate?" asked the girl abruptly, as he seated himself

on the sand beside her. "That's a silly, schoolgirl thing to say, isn't

it?" she added. "But I was thinking of this boat being there in the

middle of the dry desert, just when we needed it most."

"It had been there some time," pointed out Banneker. "And if we couldn't

have come this way, I'd have found some other."

"I believe you would," crowed Io softly.

"So, I don't believe in fate; not the ready-made kind. Things aren't

that easy. If I did--"

"If you did?" she prompted as he paused.

"I'd get back into the boat with you and throw away the oars."

"I dare you!" she cried recklessly.

"We'd go whirling and spinning along," he continued with dreams in his

voice, "until dawn came, and then we'd go ashore and camp."

"Where?"

"How should I know? In the Enchanted Canyon where it enters the

Mountains of Fulfillment.... They're not on this map."

"They're not on any map. More's the pity. And then?"

"Then we'd rest. And after that we'd climb to the Plateau Beyond the

Clouds where the Fadeless Gardens are, and there..."

"And there?"

"There we'd hear the Undying Voices singing."

"Should we sing, too?"

"Of course. 'For they who attain these heights, through pain of upward

toil and the rigors of abstention, are as the demigods, secure above

evil and the fear thereof.'"

"I don't know what that is, but I hate the 'upward toil' part of it, and

the 'abstention' even more. We ought to be able to become demigods

without all that, just because we wish it. In a fairy-tale, anyway. I

don't think you're a really competent fairy-tale-monger, Ban."

"You haven't let me go on to the 'live happy ever after' part," he

complained.

"Ah, that's the serpent, the lying, poisoning little serpent, always

concealed in the gardens of dreams. They don't, Ban; people don't live

happy ever after. I could believe in fairy-tales up to that point. Just

there ugly old Experience holds up her bony finger--she's a horrid hag,

Ban, but we'd all be dead or mad without her--and points to the

wriggling little snake."

"In my garden," said he, "she'd have shining wings and eyes that could

look to the future as well as to the past, and immortal Hope for a

lover. It would be worth all the toil and the privation."

"Nobody ever made up a Paradise," said the girl fretfully, "but what the

Puritan in him set the road with sharp stones and bordered it with

thorns and stings.... Look, Ban! Here's the moon come back to us.... And

see what's laughing at us and our dreams."

On the crest of a sand-billow sprawled a huge organ-cactus, brandishing

its arms in gnomish derision of their presence.

"How can one help but believe in foul spirits with that thing to prove

their existence?" she said. "And, look! There's the good spirit in front

of that shining cloud."

She pointed to a yucca in full, creamy flower; a creature of unearthly

purity in the glow of the moon, a dream-maiden beckoning at the gates of

darkness to a world of hidden and ineffable beauty.

"When I saw my first yucca in blossom," said Banneker, "it was just

before sunrise after I had been riding all night, and I came on it

around a dip in the hills, standing alone against a sky of pearl and

silver. It made me think of a ghost, the ghost of a girl who had died

too young to know womanhood, died while she was asleep and dreaming

pale, soft dreams, never to be fulfilled."

"That's the injustice of death," she answered. "To take one before one

knows and has felt and been all that there is to know and feel and be."

"Yet"--he turned a slow smile to her--"you were just now calling

Experience bad names; a horrid hag, wasn't it?"

"At least, she's life," retorted the girl.

"Yes. She's life."

"Ban, I want to go on. The whole universe is in motion. Why must we

stand still?"

They reëmbarked. The grip of the hurrying depths took them past crinkly

water, lustrously bronze in the moonlight where the bank had given way,

and presently delivered them, around the shoulder of a low,

brush-crowned bluff, into the keeping of a swollen creek. Here the going

was more tricky. There were shoals and whirls at the bends, and plunging

flotsam to be avoided. Banneker handled the boat with masterly address,

easing her through the swift passages, keeping her, with a touch here

and a dip there, to the deepest flow, swerving adroitly to dodge the

trees and brush which might have punctured the thin metal. Once he cried

out and lunged at some object with an unshipped oar. It rolled and sank,

but not before Io had caught the contour of a pasty face. She was

startled rather than horrified at this apparition of death. It seemed an

accessory proper to the pattern of the bewitched night.

Through a little, silvered surf of cross-waves, they were shot, after an

hour of this uneasy going, into the broad, clean sweep of the Little

Bowleg River. After the troubled progress of the lesser current it

seemed very quiet and secure; almost placid. But the banks slipped by in

an endless chain. Presently they came abreast of three horsemen riding

the river trail, who urged their horses into a gallop, keeping up with

them for a mile or more. As they fell away, Io waved a handkerchief at

them, to which they made response by firing a salvo from their revolvers

into the air.

"We're making better than ten miles an hour," Banneker called over his

shoulder to his passenger.

They shot between the split halves of a little, scraggly, ramshackle

town, danced in white water where the ford had been, and darted onward.

Now Banneker began to hold against the current, scanning the shores

until, with a quick wrench, he brought the stern around and ran it up on

a muddy bit of strand.

"Grub!" he announced gayly.

Languor had taken possession of Io, the languor of one who yields to

unknown and fateful forces. Passive and at peace, she wanted nothing but

to be wafted by the current to whatever far bourne might await her. That

there should be such things as railway trains and man-made schedules in

this world of winds and mystery and the voice of great waters, was hard

to believe; hardly worth believing in any case. Better not to think of

it: better to muse on her companion, building fire as the first man had

built for the first woman, to feed and comfort her in an environment of

imminent fears.

Coffee, when her man brought it, seemed too artificial for the time and

place. She shook her head. She was not hungry.

"You must," insisted Ban. He pointed downstream where the murk lay

heavy. "We shall run into more rain. You will need the warmth and

support of food."

So, because there were only they two on the face of the known earth,

woman and man, the woman obeyed the man. To her surprise, she found that

she was hungry, ardently hungry. Both ate heartily. It was a silent

meal; little spoken except about the chances and developments of the

journey, until she got to her feet. Then she said:

"I shall never, as long as I live, wherever I go, whatever I do, know

anything like this again. I shall not want to. I want it to stand

alone."

"It will stand alone," he answered.

They met the rain within half an hour, a wall-like mass of it. It

blotted out everything around them. The roar of it cut off sound, as the

mass of it cut off sight. Fortunately the boat was now going evenly as

in an oiled groove. By feeling, Io knew that her guide was moving from

his seat, and guessed that he was bailing. The spare poncho, put in by

Miss Van Arsdale, protected her. She was jubilant with the thresh of the

rain in her face, the sweet, smooth motion of the boat beneath her, the

wild abandon of the night, which, entering into her blood, had

transmuted it into soft fire.

How long she crouched, exultant and exalted, under the beat of the

storm, she could not guess. She half emerged from her possession with a

strange feeling that the little craft was being irresistibly drawn

forward and downward in what was now a suction rather than a current. At

the same time she felt the spring and thrust of Banneker's muscles,

straining at the oars. She dipped a hand into the water. It ridged high

around her wrists with a startling pressure. What was happening?

Through the uproar she could dimly hear Ban's voice. He seemed to be

swearing insanely. Dropping to her hands and knees, for the craft was

now swerving and rocking, she crept to him.

"The dam! The dam! The dam!" he shouted. "I'd forgotten about it. Go

back. Turn on the flash. Look for shore."

Against rather than into that impenetrable enmeshment of rain, the glow

dispersed itself ineffectually. Io sat, not frightened so much as

wondering. Her body ached in sympathy with the panting, racking toil of

the man at the oars, the labor of an indomitable pigmy, striving to

thwart a giant's will. Suddenly he shouted. The boat spun. Something low

and a shade blacker than the dull murk about them, with a white,

whispering ripple at its edge, loomed. The boat's prow drove into soft

mud as Banneker, all but knocking her overboard in his dash, plunged to

the land and with one powerful lift, brought boat and cargo to safety.

For a moment he leaned, gasping, against a stump. When he spoke, it was

to reproach himself bitterly.

"We must have come through the town. There's a dam below it. I'd

forgotten it. My God! If we hadn't had the luck to strike shore."

"Is it a high dam?" she asked.

"In this flood we'd be pounded to death the moment we were over. Listen!

You can hear it."

The rain had diminished a little. Above its insistence sounded a deeper,

more formidable beat and thrill.

"We must be quite close to it," she said.

"A few rods, probably. Let me have the light. I want to explore before

we start out."

Much sooner than she had expected, he was back. He groped for and took

her hand. His own was steady, but his voice shook as he said:

"Io."

"It's the first time you've called me that. Well, Ban?"

"Can you stand it to--to have me tell you something?"

"Yes."

"We're not on the shore."

"Where, then? An island?"

"There aren't any islands here. It must be a bit of the mainland cut off

by the flood."

"I'm not afraid, if that's what you mean. We can stand it until dawn."

A wavelet lapped quietly across her foot. She withdrew it and with that

involuntary act came understanding. Her hand, turning in his, pressed

close, palm cleaving to palm.

"How much longer?" she asked in a whisper.

"Not long. It's just a tiny patch. And the river is rising every

minute."

"How long?" she persisted.

"Perhaps two hours. Perhaps less. My good God! If there's any special

hell for criminal fools, I ought to go to it for bringing you to this,"

he burst out in agony.

"I brought you. Whatever there is, we'll go to it together."

"You're wonderful beyond all wonders. Aren't you afraid?"

"I don't know. It isn't so much fear, though I dread to think of that

hammering-down weight of water."

"Don't!" he cried brokenly. "I can't bear to think of you--" He lifted

his head sharply. "Isn't it lightening up? Look! Can you see shore? We

might be quite near."

She peered out, leaning forward. "No; there's nothing." Her hand turned

within his, released itself gently. "I'm not afraid," she said, speaking

clear and swift. "It isn't that. But I'm--rebellious. I hate the idea of

it, of ending everything; the unfairness of it. To have to die without

knowing the--the realness of life. Unfulfilled. It isn't fair," she

accused breathlessly. "Ban, it's what we were saying. Back there on the

river-bank where the yucca stands. I don't want to go--I can't bear to

go--before I've known ... before...."

Her arms crept to enfold him. Her lips sought his, tremulous,

surrendering, demanding in surrender. With all the passion and longing

that he had held in control, refusing to acknowledge even their

existence, as if the mere recognition of them would have blemished her,

he caught her to him. He heard her, felt her sob once. The roar of the

cataract was louder, more insistent in his ears ... or was it the rush

of the blood in his veins?... Io cried out, a desolate and hungry cry,

for he had wrenched his mouth from hers. She could feel the inner man

abruptly withdrawn, concentrated elsewhere. She opened her eyes upon an

appalling radiance wherein his face stood out clear, incredulous, then

suddenly eager and resolute.

"It's a headlight!" he cried. "A train! Look, Io! The mainland. It's

only a couple of rods away."

He slipped from her arms, ran to the boat.

"What are you going to do?" she called weakly. "Ban! You can never make

it."

"I've got to. It's our only chance."

As he spoke, he was fumbling under the seat. He brought out a coil of

rope. Throwing off poncho, coat, and waistcoat, he coiled the lengths

around his body.

"Let me swim with you," she begged.

"You're not strong enough."

"I don't care. We'd go together ... I--I can't face it alone, Ban."

"You'll have to. Or give up our only chance of life. You must, Io. If I

shouldn't get across, you may try it; the chances of the current might

help you. But not until after you're sure I haven't made it. You must

wait."

"Yes," she said submissively.

"As soon as I get to shore, I'll throw the rope across to you. Listen

for it. I'll keep throwing until it strikes where you can get it."

"I'll give you the light."

"That may help. Then you make fast under the forward seat of the boat.

Be sure it's tight."

"Yes, Ban."

"Twitch three times on the rope to let me know when you're ready and

shove out and upstream as strongly as you can."

"Can you hold it against the current?"

"I must. If I do, you'll drift around against the bank. If I don't--I'll

follow you."

"No, Ban," she implored. "Not you, too. There's no need--"

"I'll follow you," said he. "Now, Io."

He kissed her gently, stepped back, took a run and flung himself upward

and outward into the ravening current.

She saw a foaming thresh that melted into darkness....

Time seemed to have stopped for her. She waited, waited, waited in a

world wherein only Death waited with her.... Ban was now limp and

lifeless somewhere far downstream, asprawl in the swiftness, rolling a

pasty face to the sky like that grisly wayfarer who had hailed them

silently in the upper reach of the river, a messenger and prophet of

their fate. The rising waters eddied about her feet. The boat stirred

uneasily. Mechanically she drew it back from the claim of the flood. A

light blow fell upon her cheek and neck.

It was the rope.

Instantly and intensely alive, Io tautened it and felt the jerk of Ban's

signal. With expert hands she made it fast, shipped the oars, twitched

the cord thrice, and, venturing as far as she dared into the deluge,

pushed with all her force and threw herself over the stern.

The rope twanged and hummed like a gigantic bass-string. Io crawled to

the oars, felt the gunwale dip and right again, and, before she could

take a stroke, was pressed against the far bank. She clambered out and

went to Banneker, guiding herself by the light. His face, in the feeble

glow, shone, twisted in agony. He was shaking from head to foot. The

other end of the rope which had brought her to safety was knotted fast

around his waist.... So he would have followed, as he said!

Through Io's queer, inconsequent brain flitted a grotesque conjecture:

what would the newspapers make of it if she had been found, washed up on

the river-bank, and the Manzanita agent of the Atkinson and St. Philip

Railroad Company drowned and haltered by a long tether to his boat, near

by? A sensational story!...

She went to Banneker, still helplessly shaking, and put her firm, slight

hands on his shoulders.

"It's all right, Ban," she said soothingly. "We're out of it."

CHAPTER XIV

"Arrived safe" was the laconic message delivered to Miss Camilla Van

Arsdale by Banneker's substitute when, after a haggard night, she rode

over in the morning for news.

Banneker himself returned on the second noon, after much and roundabout

wayfaring. He had little to say of the night journey; nothing of the

peril escaped. Miss Welland had caught a morning train for the East. She

was none the worse for the adventurous trip. Camilla Van Arsdale, noting

his rapt expression and his absent, questing eyes, wondered what

underlay such reticence.... What had been the manner of their parting?

It had, indeed, been anti-climax. Both had been a little shy, a little

furtive. Each, perhaps feeling a mutual strain, wanted the parting over,

restlessly desiring the sedative of thought and quiet memory after that

stress. The desperate peril from which they had been saved seemed a

lesser crisis, leading from a greater and more significant one; leading

to--what? For his part Banneker was content to "breathe and wait." When

they should meet again, it would be determined. How and when the

encounter might take place, he did not trouble himself to consider. The

whole universe was moulded and set for that event. Meantime the glory

was about him; he could remember, recall, repeat, interpret....

For the hundredth time--or was it the thousandth?--he reconstructed that

last hour of theirs together in the station at Miradero, waiting for the

train. What had they said to each other? Commonplaces, mostly, and at

times with effort, as if they were making conversation. They two! After

that passionate and revealing moment between life and death on the

island. What should he have said to her? Begged her to stay? On what

basis? How could he?.... As the distant roar of the train warned them

that the time of parting was close, it was she who broke through that

strange restraint, turning upon him her old-time limpid and resolute

regard.

"Ban; promise me something."

"Anything."

"There may be a time coming for us when you won't understand."

"Understand what?"

"Me. Perhaps I shan't understand myself."

"You'll always understand yourself, Io."

"If that comes--when that comes--Ban, there's something in the book,

_our_ book, that I've left you to read."

"'The Voices'?"

"Yes. I've fastened the pages together so that you can't read it too

soon."

"When, then?"

"When I tell you ... No; not when I tell you. When--oh, when you must!

You'll read it, and afterward, when you think of me, you'll think of

that, too. Will you?"

"Yes."

"Always?"

"Always."

"No matter what happens?"

"No matter what happens."

"It's like a litany." She laughed tremulously.... "Here's the train.

Good-bye, dear."

He felt the tips of slender fingers on his temples, the light, swift

pressure of cold lips on his mouth.... While the train pulled out, she

stood on the rear platform, looking, looking. She was very still. All

motion, all expression seemed centered in the steady gaze which dwindled

away from him, became vague ... featureless ... vanished in a lurch of

the car.

Banneker, at home again, planted a garden of dreams, and lived in it,

mechanically acceptant of the outer world, resentful of any intrusion

upon that flowerful retreat. Even of Miss Van Arsdale's.

Not for days thereafter did the Hunger come. It began as a little

gnawing doubt and disappointment. It grew to a devastating, ravening

starvation of the heart, for sign or sight or word of Io Welland. It

drove him out of his withered seclusion, to seek Miss Van Arsdale, in

the hope of hearing Io's name spoken. But Miss Van Arsdale scarcely

referred to Io. She watched Banneker with unconcealed anxiety.

... Why had there been no letter?...

Appeasement came in the form of a package addressed in her handwriting.

Avidly he opened it. It was the promised Bible, mailed from New York

City. On the fly-leaf was written "I.O.W. to E.B."--nothing more. He

went through it page by page, seeking marked passages. There was none.

The doubt settled down on him again. The Hunger bit into him more

savagely.

... Why didn't she write? A word! Anything!

... Had she written Miss Van Arsdale?

At first it was intolerable that he should be driven to ask about her

from any other person; about Io, who had clasped him in the Valley of

the Shadow, whose lips had made the imminence of death seem a light

thing! The Hunger drove him to it.

Yes; Miss Van Arsdale had heard. Io Welland was in New York, and well.

That was all. But Banneker felt an undermining reserve.

Long days of changeless sunlight on the desert, an intolerable glare.

From the doorway of the lonely station Banneker stared out over leagues

of sand and cactus, arid, sterile, hopeless, promiseless. Life was like

that. Four weeks now since Io had left him. And still, except for the

Bible, no word from her. No sign. Silence.

Why that? Anything but that! It was too unbearable to his helpless

masculine need of her. He could not understand it. He could not

understand anything. Except the Hunger. That he understood well enough

now....

At two o'clock of a savagely haunted night, Banneker staggered from his

cot. For weeks he had not known sleep otherwise than in fitful passages.

His brain was hot and blank. Although the room was pitch-dark, he

crossed it unerringly to a shelf and look down his revolver. Slipping on

overcoat and shoes, he dropped the weapon into his pocket and set out up

the railroad track. A half-mile he covered before turning into the

desert. There he wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, and after that

groped his way, guarding with a stick against the surrounding threat of

the cactus, for his eyes were tight closed. Still blind, he drew out the

pistol, gripped it by the barrel, and threw it, whirling high and far,

into the trackless waste. He passed on, feeling his uncertain way

patiently.

It took him a quarter of an hour to find the railroad track and set a

sure course for home, so effectually had he lost himself.... No chance

of his recovering that old friend. It had been whispering to him, in the

blackness of empty nights, counsels that were too persuasive.

Back in his room over the station he lighted the lamp and stood before

the few books which he kept with him there; among them Io's Bible and

"The Undying Voices," with the two pages still joined as her fingers had

left them. He was summoning his courage to face what might be the final

solution. When he must, she had said, he was to open and read. Well ...

he must. He could bear it no longer, the wordless uncertainty. He lifted

down the volume, gently parted the fastened pages and read. From out the

still, ordered lines, there rose to him the passionate cry of protest

and bereavement:

"............................Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my

door Of individual life I shall command The uses of my soul, nor lift my

hand Serenely in the sunshine as before, Without the sense of that which

I forbore--Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part

us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double. What I do And

what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And

when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine And sees within

my eyes the tears of two."

Over and over he read it with increasing bewilderment, with increasing

fear, with slow-developing comprehension. If that was to be her farewell

... but why! Io, the straightforward, the intrepid, the exponent of fair

play and the rules of the game!... Had it been only a game? No; at least

he knew better than that.

What could it all mean? Why that medium for her message? Should he write

and ask her? But what was there to ask or say, in the face of her

silence? Besides, he had not even her address. Miss Camilla could

doubtless give him that. But would she? How much did she understand? Why

had she turned so unhelpful?

Banneker sat with his problem half through a searing night; and the

other half of the night he spent in writing. But not to Io.

At noon Camilla Van Arsdale rode up to the station.

"Are you ill, Ban?" was her greeting, as soon as she saw his face.

"No, Miss Camilla. I'm going away."

She nodded, confirming not so much what he said as a fulfilled suspicion

of her own. "New York is a very big city," she said.

"I haven't said that I was going to New York."

"No; there is much you haven't said."

"I haven't felt much like talking. Even to you."

"Don't go, Ban."

"I've got to. I've got to get away from here."

"And your position with the railroad?"

"I've resigned. It's all arranged." He pointed to the pile of letters,

his night's work.

"What are you going to do?"

"How do I know! I beg your pardon, Miss Camilla. Write, I suppose."

"Write here."

"There's nothing to write about."

The exile, who had spent her years weaving exquisite music from the

rhythm of desert winds and the overtones of the forest silence, looked

about her, over the long, yellow-gray stretches pricked out with hints

of brightness, to the peaceful refuge of the pines, and again to the

naked and impudent meanness of the town. Across to her ears, borne on

the air heavy with rain still unshed, came the rollicking, ragging

jangle of the piano at the Sick Coyote.

"Aren't there people to write about there?" she said. "Tragedies and

comedies and the human drama? Barrie found it in a duller place."

"Not until he had seen the world first," he retorted quickly. "And I'm

not a Barrie.... I can't stay here, Miss Camilla."

"Poor Ban! Youth is always expecting life to fulfill itself. It

doesn't."

"No; it doesn't--unless you make it."

"And how will you make it?"

"I'm going to get on a newspaper."

"It isn't so easy as all that, Ban."

"I've been writing."

In the joyous flush of energy, evoked under the spell of Io's

enchantment, he had filled his spare hours with work, happy, exuberant,

overflowing with a quaint vitality. A description of the desert in

spate, thumb-nail sketches from a station-agent's window, queer little

flavorous stories of crime and adventure and petty intrigue in the town;

all done with a deftness and brevity that was saved from being too

abrupt only by broad touches of color and light. And he had had a

letter. He told Miss Van Arsdale of it.

"Oh, if you've a promise, or even a fair expectation of a place. But,

Ban, I wouldn't go to New York, anyway."

"Why not?"

"It's no use."

His strong eyebrows went up. "Use?"

"You won't find her there."

"She's not in New York?"

"No."

"You've heard from her, then? Where is she?"

"Gone abroad."

Upon that he meditated. "She'll come back, though."

"Not to you."

He waited, silent, attentive, incredulous.

"Ban; she's married."

"Married!"

The telegraph instrument clicked in the tiny rhythm of an elfin

bass-drum. "O.S. O.S." Click. Click. Click-click-click. Mechanically

responsive to his office he answered, and for a moment was concerned

with some message about a local freight. When he raised his face again,

Miss Van Arsdale read there a sick and floundering skepticism.

"Married!" he repeated. "Io! She couldn't."

The woman, startled by the conviction in his tone, wondered how much

that might imply.

"She wrote me," said she presently.

"That she was married?"

"That she would be by the time the letter reached me."

("You will think me a fool," the girl had written impetuously, "and

perhaps a cruel fool. But it is the wise thing, really. Del Eyre is so

safe! He is safety itself for a girl like me. And I have discovered that

I can't wholly trust myself.... Be gentle with him, and make him do

something worth while.")

"Ah!" said Ban. "But that--"

"And I have the newspaper since with an account of the wedding.... Ban!

Don't look like that!"

"Like what?" said he stupidly.

"You look like Pretty Willie as I saw him when he was working himself up

for the killing." Pretty Willie was the soft-eyed young desperado who

had cleaned out the Sick Coyote.

"Oh, I'm not going to kill anybody," he said with a touch of grim

amusement for her fears. "Not even myself." He rose and went to the

door. "Do you mind, Miss Camilla?" he added appealingly.

"You want me to leave you now?"

He nodded. "I've got to think."

"When would you leave, Ban, if you do go?"

"I don't know."

On the following morning he went, after a night spent in arranging,

destroying, and burning. The last thing to go into the stove, 67 S 4230,

was a lock of hair, once glossy, but now stiffened and stained a dull

brown, which he had cut from the wound on Io's head that first, strange

night of theirs, the stain of her blood that had beaten in her heart,

and given life to the sure, sweet motion of her limbs, and flushed in

her cheeks, and pulsed in the warm lips that she had pressed to his--Why

could they not have died together on their dissolving island, with the

night about them, and their last, failing sentience for each other!

The flame of the greedy stove licked up the memento, but not the memory.

"You must not worry about me," he wrote in the note left with his

successor for Miss Van Arsdale. "I shall be all right. I am going to

succeed."

PART II

THE VISION

CHAPTER I

Mrs. Brashear's rooming-house on Grove Street wore its air of

respectability like a garment, clean and somber, in an environment of

careful behavior. Greenwich Village, not having fully awakened to the

commercial advantages of being a _locale_, had not yet stretched between

itself and the rest of New York that gauzy and iridescent curtain of

sprightly impropriety and sparkling intellectual naughtiness, since

faded to a lather tawdry pattern. An early pioneer of the Villager type,

emancipated of thought and speech, chancing upon No. 11 Grove, would

have despised it for its lack of atmosphere and its patent conservatism.

It did not go out into the highways and byways, seeking prospective

lodgers. It folded its hands and waited placidly for them to come. When

they came, it pondered them with care, catechized them tactfully, and

either rejected them with courteous finality or admitted them on

probation. Had it been given to self-exploitation, it could have boasted

that never had it harbored a bug or a scandal within its doors.

Now, on this filmy-soft April day it was nonplussed. A type new to its

experience was applying for a room, and Mrs. Brashear, who was not only

the proprietress, but, as it were, the familiar spirit and incarnation

of the institution, sat peering near-sightedly and in some perturbation

of soul at the phenomenon. He was young, which was against him, and of a

winning directness of manner, which was in his favor, and extremely good

to look at, which was potential of complications, and encased in

clothing of an uncompromising cut and neutral pattern (to wit; No. 45 T

370, "an ideal style for a young business man of affairs; neat,

impressive and dignified"), which was reassuring.

"My name is Banneker," he had said, immediately the door was opened to

him. "Can I get a room here?"

"There is a room vacant," admitted the spirit of the house unwillingly.

"I'd like to see it."

As he spoke, he was mounting the stairs; she must, perforce, follow. On

the third floor she passed him and led the way to a small, morosely

papered front room, almost glaringly clean.

"All right, if I can have a work-table in it and if it isn't too much,"

he said, after one comprehensive glance around.

"The price is five dollars a week."

Had Banneker but known it, this was rather high. The Brashear

rooming-house charged for its cleanliness, physical and moral. "Can I

move in at once?" he inquired.

"I don't know you nor anything about you, Mr. Banneker," she replied,

but not until they had descended the stairs and were in the cool, dim

parlor. At the moment of speaking, she raised a shade, as if to help in

the determination.

"Is that necessary? They didn't ask me when I registered at the hotel."

Mrs. Brashear stared, then smiled. "A hotel is different. Where are you

stopping?"

"At the St. Denis."

"A very nice place. Who directed you here?"

"No one. I strolled around until I found a street I liked, and looked

around until I found a house I liked. The card in the window--"

"Of course. Well, Mr. Banneker, for the protection of the house I must

have references."

"References? You mean letters from people?"

"Not necessarily. Just a name or two from whom I can make inquiries. You

have friends, I suppose."

"No."

"Your family--"

"I haven't any."

"Then the people in the place where you work. What is your business, by

the way?"

"I expect to go on a newspaper."

"Expect?" Mrs. Brashear stiffened in defense of the institution. "You

have no place yet?"

He answered not her question, but her doubt. "As far as that is

concerned, I'll pay in advance."

"It isn't the financial consideration," she began loftily--"alone," she

added more honestly. "But to take in a total stranger--"

Banneker leaned forward to her. "See here, Mrs. Brashear; there's

nothing wrong about me. I don't get drunk. I don't smoke in bed. I'm

decent of habit and I'm clean. I've got money enough to carry me.

Couldn't you take me on my say-so? Look me over."

Though it was delivered with entire gravity, the speech provoked a tired

and struggling smile on the landlady's plain features. She looked.

"Well?" he queried pleasantly. "What do you think? Will you take a

chance?"

That suppressed motherliness which, embodying the unformulated desire to

look after and care for others, turns so many widows to taking lodgers,

found voice in Mrs. Brashear's reply:

"You've had a spell of sickness, haven't you?"

"No," he said, a little sharply. "Where did you get that idea?"

"Your eyes look hot."

"I haven't been sleeping very well. That's all."

"Too bad. You've had a loss, maybe," she ventured sympathetically.

"A loss? No.... Yes. You might call it a loss. You'll take me, then?"

"You can move in right away," said Mrs. Brashear recklessly.

So the Brashear rooming-house took into its carefully guarded interior

the young and unknown Mr. Banneker--who had not been sleeping well. Nor

did he seem to be sleeping well in his new quarters, since his light was

to be seen glowing out upon the quiet street until long after midnight;

yet he was usually up betimes, often even before the moving spirit of

the house, herself. A full week had he been there before his fellow

lodgers, self-constituted into a Committee on Membership, took his case

under consideration in full session upon the front steps. None had had

speech with him, but it was known that he kept irregular hours.

"What's his job: that's what I'd like to know," demanded in a tone of

challenge, young Wickert, a man of the world who clerked in the

decorative department of a near-by emporium.

"Newsboy, I guess," said Lambert, the belated art-student of thirty-odd

with a grin. "He's always got his arms full of papers when he comes in."

"And he sits at his table clipping pieces out of them and arranging them

in piles," volunteered little Mrs. Bolles, the trained nurse on the top

floor. "I've seen him as I go past."

"Help-wanted ads," suggested Wickert, who had suffered experience in

that will-o'-the-wisp chase.

"Then he hasn't got a job," deduced Mr. Hainer, a heavy man of heavy

voice and heavy manner, middle-aged, a small-salaried accountant.

"Maybe he's got money," suggested Lambert.

"Or maybe he's a dead beat; he looks on the queer," opined young

Wickert.

"He has a very fine and sensitive face. I think he has been ill." The

opinion came from a thin, quietly dressed woman of the early worn-out

period of life, who sat a little apart from the others. Young Wickert

started a sniff, but suppressed it, for Miss Westlake was held locally

in some degree of respect, as being "well-connected" and having

relatives who called on her in their own limousines, though seldom.

"Anybody know his name?" asked Lambert.

"Barnacle," said young Wickert wittily. "Something like that, anyway.

Bannsocker, maybe. Guess he's some sort of a Swede."

"Well, I only hope he doesn't clear out some night with his trunk on his

back and leave poor Mrs. Brashear to whistle," declared Mrs. Bolles

piously.

The worn face of the landlady, with its air of dispirited motherliness,

appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Banneker is a _gentleman_," she said.

"Gentleman" from Mrs. Brashear, with that intonation, meant one who, out

of or in a job, paid his room rent. The new lodger had earned the title

by paying his month in advance. Having settled that point, she withdrew,

followed by the two other women. Lambert, taking a floppy hat from the

walnut rack in the hall, went his way, leaving young Wickert and Mr.

Hainer to support the discussion, which they did in tones less discreet

than the darkness warranted.

"Where would he hail from, would you think?" queried the elder. "Iowa,

maybe? Or Arkansas?"

"Search me," answered young Wickert. "But it was a small-town carpenter

built those honest-to-Gawd clothes. I'd say the corn-belt."

"Dressed up for the monthly meeting of the Farmers' Alliance, all but

the oil on his hair. He forgot that," chuckled the accountant.

"He's got a fine chance in Nuh Yawk--of buying a gold brick cheap,"

prophesied the worldly Wickert out of the depths of his metropolitan

experience. "Somebody ought to put him onto himself."

A voice from the darkened window above said, with composure, "That will

be all right. I'll apply to you for advice."

"Oh, Gee!" whispered young Wickert, in appeal to his companion. "How

long's he been there?"

Acute hearing, it appeared, was an attribute of the man above, for he

answered at once:

"Just put my head out for a breath of air when I heard your kind

expressions of solicitude. Why? Did I miss something that came earlier?"

Mr. Hainer melted unostentatiously into the darkness. While young

Wickert was debating whether his pride would allow him to follow this

prudent example, the subject of their over-frank discussion appeared at

his elbow. Evidently he was as light of foot as he was quick of ear.

Meditating briefly upon these physical qualities, young Wickert said, in

a deprecatory tone:

"We didn't mean to get fresh with you. It was just talk."

"Very interesting talk."

Wickert produced a suspiciously jeweled case. "Have a cigarette?"

"I have some of my own, thank you."

"Give you a light?"

The metropolitan worldling struck a match and held it up. This was on

the order of strategy. He wished to see Banneker's face. To his relief

it did not look angry or even stern. Rather, it appeared thoughtful.

Banneker was considering impartially the matter of his apparel.

"What is the matter with my clothes?" he asked.

"Why--well," began Wickert, unhappy and fumbling with his ideas; "Oh,

_they_'re all right."

"For a meeting of the Farmers' Alliance." Banneker was smiling

good-naturedly. "But for the East?"

"Well, if you really want to know," began Wickert doubtfully. "If you

won't get sore--" Banneker nodded his assurance. "Well, they're jay. No

style. No snap. Respectable, and that lets 'em out."

"They don't look as if they were made in New York or for New York?"

Young Mr. Wickert apportioned his voice equitably between a laugh and a

snort. "No: nor in Hoboken!" he retorted. "Listen, 'bo," he added, after

a moment's thought. "You got to have a smooth shell in Nuh Yawk. The

human eye only sees the surface. Get me? And it judges by the surface."

He smoothed his hands down his dapper trunk with ineffable complacency.

"Thirty-eight dollars, this. Bernholz Brothers, around on Broadway. Look

it over. That's a cut!"

"Is that how they're making them in the East?" doubtfully asked the

neophyte, reflecting that the pinched-in snugness of the coat, and the

flare effect of the skirts, while unquestionably more impressive than

his own box-like garb, still lacked something of the quiet distinction

which he recalled in the clothes of Herbert Cressey. The thought of that

willing messenger set him to groping for another sartorial name. He

hardly heard Wickert say proudly:

"If Bernholz's makes 'em that way, you can bet it's up to the

split-second of date, and _maybe_ they beat the pistol by a jump. I

bluffed for a raise of five dollars, on the strength of this outfit, and

got it off the bat. There's the suit paid for in two months and a pair

of shoes over." He thrust out a leg, from below the sharp-pressed

trouser-line of which protruded a boot trimmed in a sort of bizarre

fretwork. "Like me to take you around to Bernholz's?"

Banneker shook his head. The name for which he sought had come to him.

"Did you ever hear of Mertoun, somewhere on Fifth Avenue?"

"Yes. And I've seen Central Park and the Statue of Liberty," railed the

other. "Thinkin' of patternizing Mertoun, was you?"

"Yes, I'd like to."

"Like to! There's a party at the Astorbilt's to-morrow night; you'd

_like_ to go to that, wouldn't you? Fat chance!" said the disdainful and

seasoned cit. "D'you know what Mertoun would do to you? Set you back a

hundred simoleons soon as look at you. And at that you got to have a

letter of introduction like gettin' in to see the President of the

United States or John D. Rockefeller. Come off, my boy! Bernholz's 'll

fix you just as good, all but the label. Better come around to-morrow."

"Much obliged, but I'm not buying yet. Where would you say a fellow

would have a chance to see the best-dressed men?"

Young Mr. Wickert looked at once self-conscious and a trifle miffed, for

in his own set he was regarded as quite the mould of fashion. "Oh, well,

if you want to pipe off the guys that _think_ they're the whole thing,

walk up the Avenue and watch the doors of the clubs and the swell

restaurants. At that, they haven't got anything on some fellows that

don't spend a quarter of the money, but know what's what and don't let

grafters like Mertoun pull their legs," said he. "Say, you seem to know

what you want, all right, all right," he added enviously. "You ain't

goin' to let this little old town bluff you; ay?"

"No. Not for lack of a few clothes. Good-night," replied Banneker,

leaving in young Wickert's mind the impression that he was "a queer

gink," but also, on the whole, "a good guy." For the worldling was only

small, not mean of spirit.

Banneker might have added that one who had once known cities and the

hearts of men from the viewpoint of that modern incarnation of Ulysses,

the hobo, contemptuous and predatory, was little likely to be overawed

by the most teeming and headlong of human ant-heaps. Having joined the

ant-heap, Banneker was shrewdly concerned with the problem of conforming

to the best type of termite discoverable. The gibes of the doorstep

chatterers had not aroused any new ambition; they had merely given point

to a purpose deferred because of other and more immediate pressure.

Already he had received from Camilla Van Arsdale a letter rich in

suggestion, hint, and subtly indicated advice, with this one passage of

frank counsel:

If I were writing, spinster-aunt-wise, to any one else in your position,

I should be tempted to moralize and issue warnings about--well, about

the things of the spirit. But you are equipped, there. Like the

"Master," you will "go your own way with inevitable motion." With the

outer man--that is different. You have never given much thought to that

phase. And you have an asset in your personal appearance. I should not

be telling you this if I thought there were danger of your becoming

vain. But I really think it would be a good investment for you to put

yourself into the hands of a first-class tailor, and follow his advice,

in moderation, of course. Get the sense of being fittingly turned out by

going where there are well-dressed people; to the opera, perhaps, and

the theater occasionally, and, when you can afford it, to a good

restaurant. Unless the world has changed, people will look at you. _But

you must not know it_. Important, this is!... I could, of course, give

you letters of introduction. "_Les morts vont vite_," it is true, and I

am dead to that world, not wholly without the longings of a would-be

_revenant_; but a ghost may still claim some privileges of memory, and

my friends would be hospitable to you. Only, I strongly suspect that you

would not use the letters if I gave them. You prefer to make your own

start; isn't it so? Well; I have written to a few. Sooner or later you

will meet with them. Those things always happen even in New York.... Be

sure to write me all about the job when you get it--

Prudence dictated that he should be earning something before he invested

in expensive apparel, be it never so desirable and important. However,

he would outfit himself just as soon as a regular earning capacity

justified his going into his carefully husbanded but dwindling savings.

He pictured himself clad as a lily of the field, unconscious of

perfection as Herbert Cressey himself, in the public haunts of fashion

and ease; through which vision there rose the searing prospect of thus

encountering Io Welland. What was her married name? He had not even

asked when the news was broken to him; had not wanted to ask; was done

with all that for all time.

He was still pathetically young and inexperienced. And he had been badly

hurt.

CHAPTER II

Dust was the conspicuous attribute of the place. It lay, flat and

toneless, upon the desk, the chairs, the floor; it streaked the walls.

The semi-consumptive office "boy's" middle-aged shoulders collected it.

It stirred in the wake of quiet-moving men, mostly under thirty-five,

who entered the outer door, passed through the waiting-room, and

disappeared behind a partition. Banneker felt like shaking himself lest

he should be eventually buried under its impalpable sifting. Two hours

and a half had passed since he had sent in his name on a slip of paper,

to Mr. Gordon, managing editor of the paper. On the way across Park Row

he had all but been persuaded by a lightning printer on the curb to have

a dozen tasty and elegant visiting-cards struck off, for a quarter; but

some vague inhibition of good taste checked him. Now he wondered if a

card would have served better.

While he waited, he checked up the actuality of a metropolitan newspaper

entrance-room, as contrasted with his notion of it, derived from motion

pictures. Here was none of the bustle and hurry of the screen. No brisk

and earnest young figures with tense eyes and protruding notebooks

darted feverishly in and out; nor, in the course of his long wait, had

he seen so much as one specimen of that invariable concomitant of all

screen journalism, the long-haired poet with his flowing tie and neatly

ribboned manuscript. Even the office "boy," lethargic, neutrally polite,

busy writing on half-sheets of paper, was profoundly untrue to the

pictured type. Banneker wondered what the managing editor would be like;

would almost, in the wreckage of his preconceived notions, have accepted

a woman or a priest in that manifestation, when Mr. Gordon appeared and

was addressed by name by the hollow-chested Cerberus. Banneker at once

echoed the name, rising.

The managing editor, a tall, heavy man, whose smoothly fitting cutaway

coat seemed miraculously to have escaped the plague of dust, stared at

him above heavy glasses.

"You want to see me?"

"Yes. I sent in my name."

"Did you? When?"

"At two-forty-seven, thirty," replied the visitor with railroad

accuracy.

The look above the lowered glasses became slightly quizzical. "You're

exact, at least. Patient, too. Good qualities for a newspaper man.

That's what you are?"

"What I'm going to be," amended Banneker.

"There is no opening here at present."

"That's formula, isn't it?" asked the young man, smiling.

The other stared. "It is. But how do you know?"

"It's the tone, I suppose. I've had to use it a good deal myself, in

railroading."

"Observant, as well as exact and patient. Come in. I'm sorry I misplaced

your card. The name is--?"

"Banneker, E. Banneker."

Following the editor, he passed through a large, low-ceilinged room,

filled with desk-tables, each bearing a heavy crystal ink-well full of a

fluid of particularly virulent purple. A short figure, impassive as a

Mongol, sat at a corner desk, gazing out over City Hall Park with a rapt

gaze. Across from him a curiously trim and graceful man, with a strong

touch of the Hibernian in his elongated jaw and humorous gray eyes,

clipped the early evening editions with an effect of highly judicious

selection. Only one person sat in all the long files of the work-tables,

littered with copy-paper and disarranged newspapers; a dark young giant

with the discouraged and hurt look of a boy kept in after school. All

this Banneker took in while the managing editor was disposing, usually

with a single penciled word or number, of a sheaf of telegraphic

"queries" left upon his desk. Having finished, he swiveled in his chair,

to face Banneker, and, as he spoke, kept bouncing the thin point of a

letter-opener from the knuckles of his left hand. His hands were fat and

nervous.

"So you want to do newspaper work?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I think I can make a go of it."

"Any experience?"

"None to speak of. I've written a few things. I thought you might

remember my name."

"Your name? Banneker? No. Why should I?"

"You published some of my things in the Sunday edition, lately. From

Manzanita, California."

"No. I don't think so. Mr. Homans." A graying man with the gait of a

marionnette and the precise expression of a rocking-horse, who had just

entered, crossed over. "Have we sent out any checks to a Mr. Banneker

recently, in California?"

The new arrival, who was copy-reader and editorial selecter for the

Sunday edition, repeated the name in just such a wooden voice as was to

be expected. "No," he said positively.

"But I've cashed the checks," returned Banneker, annoyed and bewildered.

"And I've seen the clipping of the article in the Sunday Sphere of--"

"Just a moment. You're not in The Sphere office. Did you think you were?

Some one has directed you wrong. This is The Ledger."

"Oh!" said Banneker. "It was a policeman that pointed it out. I suppose

I saw wrong." He paused; then looked up ingenuously. "But, anyway, I'd

rather be on The Ledger."

Mr. Gordon smiled broadly, the thin blade poised over a plump, reddened

knuckle.

"Would you! Now, why?"

"I've been reading it. I like the way it does things."

The editor laughed outright. "If you didn't look so honest, I would

think that somebody of experience had been tutoring you. How many other

places have you tried?"

"None."

"You were going to The Sphere first? On the promise of a job?"

"No. Because they printed what I wrote."

"The Sphere's ways are not our ways," pronounced Mr. Gordon primly.

"It's a fundamental difference in standards."

"I can see that."

"Oh, you can, can you?" chuckled the other. "But it's true that we have

no opening here."

(The Ledger never did have an "opening"; but it managed to wedge in a

goodly number of neophytes, from year to year, ninety per cent of whom

were automatically and courteously ejected after due trial. Mr. Gordon

performed a surpassing rataplan upon his long-suffering thumb-joint and

wondered if this queer and direct being might qualify among the

redeemable ten per cent.)

"I can wait." (They often said that.) "For a while," added the youth

thoughtfully.

"How long have you been in New York?"

"Thirty-three days."

"And what have you been doing?"

"Reading newspapers."

"No! Reading--That's rather surprising. All of them?"

"All that I could manage."

"Some were so bad that you couldn't worry through them, eh?" asked the

other with appreciation.

"Not that. But I didn't know the foreign languages except French, and

Spanish, and a little Italian."

"The foreign-language press, too. Remarkable!" murmured the other. "Do

you mind telling me what your idea was?"

"It was simple enough. As I wanted to get on a newspaper, I thought I

ought to find out what newspapers were made of."

"Simple, as you say. Beautifully simple! So you've devised for yourself

the little job of perfecting yourself in every department of journalism;

politics, finances, criminal, sports, society; all of them, eh?"

"No; not all," replied Banneker.

"Not? What have you left out?"

"Society news" was the answer, delivered less promptly than the other

replies.

Bestowing a twinkle of mingled amusement and conjecture upon the

applicant's clothing, Mr. Gordon said:

"You don't approve of our social records? Or you're not interested? Or

why is it that you neglect this popular branch?"

"Personal reasons."

This reply, which took the managing editor somewhat aback, was accurate

if not explanatory. Miss Van Arsdale's commentaries upon Gardner and his

quest had inspired Banneker with a contemptuous distaste for this type

of journalism. But chiefly he had shunned the society columns from dread

of finding there some mention of her who had been Io Welland. He was

resolved to conquer and evict that memory; he would not consciously put

himself in the way of anything that recalled it.

"Hum! And this notion of making an intensive study of the papers; was

that original with you?"

"Well, no, not entirely. I got it from a man who made himself a bank

president in seven years."

"Yes? How did he do that?"

"He started by reading everything he could find about money and coinage

and stocks and bonds and other financial paper. He told me that it was

incredible the things that financial experts didn't know about their own

business--the deep-down things--and that he guessed it was so with any

business. He got on top by really knowing the things that everybody was

supposed to know."

"A sound theory, I dare say. Most financiers aren't so revealing."

"He and I were padding the hoof together. We were both hoboes then."

The managing editor looked up, alert, from his knuckle-tapping. "From

bank president to hobo. Was his bank an important one?"

"The biggest in a medium-sized city."

"And does that suggest nothing to you, as a prospective newspaper man?"

"What? Write him up?"

"It would make a fairly sensational story."

"I couldn't do that. He was my friend. He wouldn't like it."

Mr. Gordon addressed his wedding-ring finger which was looking a bit

scarified. "Such an article as that, properly done, would go a long way

toward getting you a chance on this paper--Sit down, Mr. Banneker."

"You and I," said Banneker slowly and in the manner of the West, "can't

deal."

"Yes, we can." The managing editor threw his steel blade on the desk.

"Sit down, I tell you. And understand this. If you come on this

paper--I'm going to turn you over to Mr. Greenough, the city editor,

with a request that he give you a trial--you'll be expected to

subordinate every personal interest and advantage to the interests and

advantages of the paper, _except_ your sense of honor and fair-play. We

don't ask you to give that up; and if you do give it up, we don't want

you at all. What have you done besides be a hobo?"

"Railroading. Station-agent."

"Where were you educated?"

"Nowhere. Wherever I could pick it up."

"Which means everywhere. Ever read George Borrow?"

"Yes."

The heavy face of Mr. Gordon lighted up. "Ree-markable! Keep on. He's a

good offset to--to the daily papers. Writing still counts, on The

Ledger. Come over and meet Mr. Greenough."

The city editor unobtrusively studied Banneker out of placid,

inscrutable eyes, soft as a dove's, while he chatted at large about

theaters, politics, the news of the day. Afterward the applicant met the

Celtic assistant, Mr. Mallory, who broadly outlined for him the

technique of the office. With no further preliminaries Banneker found

himself employed at fifteen dollars a week, with Monday for his day off

and directions to report on the first of the month.

As the day-desk staff was about departing at six o'clock, Mr. Gordon

sauntered over to the city desk looking mildly apologetic.

"I practically had to take that young desert antelope on," said he.

"Too ingenuous to turn down," surmised the city editor.

"Ingenuous! He's heir to the wisdom of the ages. And now I'm afraid I've

made a ghastly mistake."

"Something wrong with him?"

"I've had his stuff in the Sunday Sphere looked up."

"Pretty weird?" put in Mallory, gliding into his beautifully fitting

overcoat.

"So damned good that I don't see how The Sphere ever came to take it.

Greenough, you'll have to find some pretext for firing that young

phenomenon as soon as possible."

Perfectly comprehending his superior's mode of indirect expression the

city editor replied:

"You think so highly of him as that?"

"Not one of our jobs will be safe from him if he once gets his foot

planted," prophesied the other with mock ruefulness. "Do you know," he

added, "I never even asked him for a reference."

"You don't need to," pronounced Mallory, shaking the last wrinkle out of

himself and lighting the cigarette of departure. "He's got it in his

face, if I'm any judge."

Highly elate, Banneker walked on springy pavements all the way to Grove

Street. Fifteen a week! He could live on that. His other income and

savings could be devoted to carrying out Miss Camilla's advice. For he

need not save any more. He would go ahead, fast, now that he had got his

start. How easy it had been.

Entering the Brashear door, he met plain, middle-aged little Miss

Westlake. A muffler was pressed to her jaw. He recalled having heard her

moving about her room, the cheapest and least desirable in the house,

and groaning softly late in the night; also having heard some lodgers

say that she was a typist with very little work. Obviously she needed a

dentist, and presumably she had not the money to pay his fee. In the

exultation of his good luck, Banneker felt a stir of helpfulness toward

this helpless person.

"Oh!" said he. "How do you do! Could you find time to do some typing for

me quite soon?"

It was said impulsively and was followed by a surge of dismay. Typing?

Type what? He had absolutely nothing on hand!

Well, he must get up something. At once. It would never do to disappoint

that pathetic and eager hope, as of a last-moment rescue, expressed in

the little spinster's quick flush and breathless, thankful affirmative.

CHAPTER III

Ten days' leeway before entering upon the new work. To which of scores

of crowding purposes could Banneker best put the time? In his offhand

way the instructive Mallory had suggested that he familiarize himself

with the topography and travel-routes of the Island of Manhattan.

Indefatigably he set about doing this; wandering from water-front to

water-front, invading tenements, eating at queer, Englishless

restaurants, picking up chance acquaintance with chauffeurs, peddlers,

street-fakers, park-bench loiterers; all that drifting and iridescent

scum of life which variegates the surface above the depths. Everywhere

he was accepted without question, for his old experience on the hoof had

given him the uncoded password which loosens the speech of furtive men

and wise. A receptivity, sensitized to a high degree by the inspiration

of new adventure, absorbed these impressions. The faithful pocket-ledger

was filling rapidly with notes and phrases, brisk and trenchant, set

down with no specific purpose; almost mechanically, in fact, but

destined to future uses. Mallory, himself no mean connoisseur of the

tumultuous and flagrant city, would perhaps have found matter foreign to

his expert apprehension could he have seen and translated the pages of 3

T 9901.

Banneker would go forward in the fascinating paths of exploration; but

there were other considerations.

The outer man, for example. The inner man, too; the conscious inner man

strengthened upon the strong milk of the philosophers, the priests, and

the prophets so strangely mingled in that library now stored with

Camilla Van Arsdale; exhilarated by the honey-dew of "The Undying

Voices," of Keats and Shelley, and of Swinburne's supernal rhythms,

which he had brought with him. One visit to the Public Library had quite

appalled him; the vast, chill orderliness of it. He had gone there,

hungry to chat about books! To the Public Library! Surely a Homeric joke

for grim, tomish officialdom. But tomish officialdom had not even

laughed at him; it was too official to appreciate the quality of such

side-splitting innocence.... Was he likely to meet a like

irresponsiveness when he should seek clothing for the body?

Watch the clubs, young Wickert had advised. Banneker strolled up Fifth

Avenue, branching off here and there, into the more promising side

streets.

It was the hour of the First Thirst; the institutions which cater to

this and subsequent thirsts drew steadily from the main stream of human

activity flowing past. Many gloriously clad specimens passed in and out

of the portals, socially sacred as in the quiet Fifth Avenue clubs,

profane as in the roaring, taxi-bordered "athletic" foundations; but

there seemed to the anxious observer no keynote, no homogeneous

character wherefrom to build as on a sure foundation. Lacking knowledge,

his instinct could find no starting-point; he was bewildered in vision

and in mind. Just off the corner of the quietest of the Forties, he met

a group of four young men, walking compactly by twos. The one nearest

him in the second line was Herbert Cressey. His heavy and rather dull

eye seemed to meet Banneker's as they came abreast. Banneker nodded,

half checking himself in his slow walk.

"How are you?" he said with an accent of surprise and pleasure.

Cressey's expressionless face turned a little. There was no response in

kind to Banneker's smile.

"Oh! H'ware you!" said he vaguely, and passed on.

Banneker advanced mechanically until he reached the corner. There he

stopped. His color had heightened. The smile was still on his lips; it

had altered, taken on a quality of gameness. He did not shake his fist

at the embodied spirit of metropolitanism before him, as had a famous

Gallic precursor of his, also a determined seeker for Success in a

lesser sphere; but he paraphrased Rastignac's threat in his own terms.

"I reckon I'll have to lick this town and lick it good before it learns

to be friendly."

A hand fell on his arm. He turned to face Cressey.

"You're the feller that bossed the wreck out there in the desert, aren't

you? You're--lessee--Banneker."

"I am." The tone was curt.

"Awfully sorry I didn't spot you at once." Cressey's genuineness was a

sufficient apology. "I'm a little stuffy to-day. Bachelor dinner last

night. What are you doing here? Looking around?"

"No. I'm living here."

"That so? So am I. Come into my club and let's talk. I'm glad to see

you, Mr. Banneker."

Even had Banneker been prone to self-consciousness, which he was not,

the extreme, almost monastic plainness of the small, neutral-fronted

building to which the other led him would have set him at ease. It gave

no inkling of its unique exclusiveness, and equally unique

expensiveness. As for Cressey, that simple, direct, and confident soul

took not the smallest account of Banneker's standardized clothing, which

made him almost as conspicuous in that environment as if he had entered

clad in a wooden packing-case. Cressey's creed in such matters was

complete; any friend of his was good enough for any environment to which

he might introduce him, and any other friend who took exceptions might

go farther!

"Banzai!" said the cheerful host over his cocktail. "Welcome to our

city. Hope you like it."

"I do," said Banneker, lifting his glass in response.

"Where are you living?"

"Grove Street."

Cressey knit his brows. "Where's that? Harlem?"

"No. Over west of Sixth Avenue."

"Queer kind of place to live, ain't it? There's a corkin' little suite

vacant over at the Regalton. Cheap at the money. Oh!-er-I-er-maybe--"

"Yes; that's it," smiled Banneker. "The treasury isn't up to bachelor

suites, yet awhile. I've only just got a job."

"What is it?"

"Newspaper work. The Morning Ledger."

"Reporting?" A dubious expression clouded the candid cheerfulness of the

other's face.

"Yes. What's the matter with that?"

"Oh; I dunno. It's a piffling sort of job, ain't it?"

"Piffling? How do you mean?"

"Well, I supposed you had to ask a lot of questions and pry into other

people's business and--and all that sorta thing."

"If nobody asked questions," pointed out Banneker, remembering Gardner's

resolute devotion to his professional ideals, "there wouldn't be any

news, would there?"

"Sure! That's right," agreed the gilded youth. "The Ledger's the

decentest paper in town, too. It's a gentleman's paper. I know a feller

on it; Guy Mallory; was in my class at college. Give you a letter to him

if you like."

Informed that Banneker already knew Mr. Mallory, his host expressed the

hope of being useful to him in any other possible manner--"any tips I

can give you or anything of that sort, old chap?"--so heartily that the

newcomer broached the subject of clothes.

"Nothin' easier," was the ready response. "I'll take you right down to

Mertoun. Just one more and we're off."

The one more having been disposed of: "What is it you want?" inquired

Cressey, when they were settled in the taxi which was waiting at the

club door for them.

"Well, what _do_ I want? You tell me."

"How far do you want to go? Will five hundred be too much?"

"No."

Cressey lost himself in mental calculations out of which he presently

delivered himself to this effect:

"Evening clothes, of course. And a dinner-jacket suit. Two business

suits, a light and a dark. You won't need a morning coat, I expect, for

a while. Anyway, we've got to save somethin' out for shirts and boots,

haven't we?"

"I haven't the money with me" remarked Banneker, his innocent mind on

the cash-with-order policy of Sears-Roebuck.

"Now, see here," said Cressey, good-humoredly, yet with an effect of

authority. "This is a game that's got to be played according to the

rules. Why, if you put down spot cash before Mertoun's eyes he'd faint

from surprise, and when he came to, he'd have no respect for you. And a

tailor's respect for you," continued Cressey, the sage, "shows in your

togs."

"When do I pay, then?"

"Oh, in three or four months he sends around a bill. That's more of a

reminder to come in and order your fall outfit than it is anything else.

But you can send him a check on account, if you feel like it."

"A check?" repeated the neophyte blankly. "Must I have a bank account?"

"Safer than a sock, my boy. And just as simple. To-morrow will do for

that, when we call on the shirt-makers and the shoe sharps. I'll put you

in my bank; they'll take you on for five hundred."

Arrived at Mertoun's, Banneker unobtrusively but positively developed a

taste of his own in the matter of hue and pattern; one, too, which

commanded Cressey's respect. The gilded youth's judgment tended toward

the more pronounced herringbones and homespuns.

"All right for you, who can change seven days in the week; but I've got

to live with these clothes, day in and day out," argued Banneker.

To which Cressey deferred, though with a sigh. "You could carry off

those sporty things as if they were woven to order for you," he

declared. "You've got the figure, the carriage, the--the

whatever-the-devil it is, for it."

Prospectively poorer by something more than four hundred dollars,

Banneker emerged from Mertoun's with his mentor.

"Gotta get home and dress for a rotten dinner," announced that gentleman

cheerfully. "Duck in here with me," he invited, indicating a sumptuous

bar, near the tailor's, "and get another little kick in the stomach. No?

Oh, verrawell. Where are you for?"

"The Public Library."

"Gawd!" said his companion, honestly shocked. "That's a gloomy hole,

ain't it?"

"Not so bad, when you get used to it. I've been putting in three hours a

day there lately."

"Whatever for?"

"Oh, browsing. Book-hungry, I suppose. Carnegie hasn't discovered

Manzanita yet, you know; so I haven't had many library opportunities."

"Speaking of Manzanita," remarked Cressey, and spoke of it,

reminiscently and at length, as they walked along together. "Did the

lovely and mysterious I.O.W. ever turn up and report herself?"

Banneker's breath caught painfully in his throat.

"D'you know who she was?" pursued the other, without pause for reply to

his previous question; and still without intermission continued: "Io

Welland. _That_'s who she was. Oh, but she's a hummer! I've met her

since. Married, you know. Quick work, that marriage. There was a dam'

queer story whispered around about her starting to elope with some other

chap, and his going nearly batty because she didn't turn up, and all the

time she was wandering around in the desert until somebody picked her up

and took care of her. You ought to know something of that. It was

supposed to be right in your back-yard."

"I?" said Banneker, commanding himself with an effort; "Miss Welland

reported in with a slight injury. That's all."

One glance at him told Cressey that Banneker did indeed "know something"

of the mysterious disappearance which had so exercised a legion of busy

tongues in New York; how much that something might be, he preserved for

future and private speculation, based on the astounding perception that

Banneker was in real pain of soul. Tact inspired Cressey to say at once:

"Of course, that's all you had to consider. By the way, you haven't seen

my revered uncle since you got here, have you?"

"Mr. Vanney? No."

"Better drop in on him."

"He might try to give me another yellow-back," smiled the ex-agent.

"Don't take Uncle Van for a fool. Once is plenty for him to be hit on

the nose."

"Has he still got a green whisker?"

"Go and see. He's asked about you two or three times in the last coupla

months."

"But I've no errand with him."

"How can you tell? He might start something for you. It isn't often that

he keeps a man in mind like he has you. Anyway, he's a wise old bird and

may hand you a pointer or two about what's what in New York. Shall I

'phone him you're in town?"

"Yes. I'll get in to see him some time to-morrow."

Having made an appointment, in the vital matter of shirts and shoes, for

the morning, they parted. Banneker set to his browsing in the library

until hunger drove him forth. After dinner he returned to his room,

cumbered with the accumulation of evening papers, for study.

Beyond the thin partition he could hear Miss Westlake moving about and

humming happily to herself. The sound struck dismay to his soul. The

prospect of work from him was doubtless the insecure foundation of that

cheerfulness. "Soon" he had said; the implication was that the matter

was pressing. Probably she was counting on it for the morrow. Well, he

must furnish something, anything, to feed the maw of her hungry

typewriter; to fulfill that wistful hope which had sprung in her eyes

when he spoke to her.

Sweeping his table bare of the lore and lure of journalism as typified

in the bulky, black-faced editions, he set out clean paper, cleansed his

fountain pen, and stared at the ceiling. What should he write about? His

mental retina teemed with impressions. But they were confused,

unresolved, distorted for all that he knew, since he lacked experience

and knowledge of the environment, and therefore perspective. Groping, he

recalled a saying of Gardner's as that wearied enthusiast descanted upon

the glories of past great names in metropolitan journalism.

"They used to say of Julian Ralph that he was always discovering City

Hall Park and getting excited over it; and when he got excited enough,

he wrote about it so that the public just ate it up."

Well, he, Banneker, hadn't discovered City Hall Park; not consciously.

But he had gleaned wonder and delight from other and more remote spots,

and now one of them began to stand forth upon the blank ceiling at which

he stared, seeking guidance. A crowded corner of Essex Street, stewing

in the hard sunshine. The teeming, shrill crowd. The stench and gleam of

a fish-stall offering bargains. The eager games of the children,

snatched between onsets of imminent peril as cart or truck came whirling

through and scattering the players. Finally the episode of the trade

fracas over the remains of a small and dubious weakfish, terminating

when the dissatisfied customer cast the delicacy at the head of the

stall-man and missed him, the _corpus delicti_ falling into the gutter

where it was at once appropriated and rapt away by an incredulous,

delighted, and mangy cat. A crude, commonplace, malodorous little street

row, the sort of thing that happens, in varying phases, on a dozen

East-Side corners seven days in the week.

Banneker approached and treated the matter from the viewpoint of the

cat, predatory, philosophic, ecstatic. One o'clock in the morning saw

the final revision, for he had become enthralled with the handling of

his subject. It was only a scant five pages; less than a thousand words.

But as he wrote and rewrote, other schemata rose to the surface of his

consciousness, and he made brief notes of them on random ends of paper;

half a dozen of them, one crowding upon another. Some day, perhaps, when

there were enough of them, when he had become known, had achieved the

distinction of a signature like Gardner, there might be a real

series.... His vague expectancies were dimmed in weariness.

Such was the genesis of the "Local Vagrancies" which later were to set

Park Row speculating upon the signature "Eban."

CHAPTER IV

Accessibility was one of Mr. Horace Vanney's fads. He aspired to be a

publicist, while sharing fallible humanity's ignorance of just what the

vague and imposing term signifies; and, as a publicist, he conceived it

in character to be readily available to the public. Almost anybody could

get to see Mr. Vanney in his tasteful and dignified lower Broadway

offices, upon almost any reasonable or plausible errand. Especially was

he hospitable to the newspaper world, the agents of publicity; and, such

is the ingratitude of the fallen soul of man, every newspaper office in

the city fully comprehended his attitude, made use of him as convenient,

and professionally regarded him as a bit of a joke, albeit a useful and

amiable joke. Of this he had no inkling. Enough for him that he was

frequently, even habitually quoted, upon a wide range of windy topics,

often with his picture appended.

With far less difficulty than he had found in winning the notice of Mr.

Gordon, Banneker attained the sanctum of the capitalist.

"Well, well!" was the important man's greeting as he shook hands. "Our

young friend from the desert! How do we find New York?"

From Banneker's reply, there grew out a pleasantly purposeless

conversation, which afforded the newcomer opportunity to decide that he

did not like this Mr. Vanney, sleek, smiling, gentle, and courteous, as

well as he had the brusque old tyrant of the wreck. That green-whiskered

autocrat had been at least natural, direct, and unselfish in his grim

emergency work. This manifestation seemed wary, cautious, on its guard

to defend itself against some probable tax upon its good nature. All

this unconscious, instinctive reckoning of the other man's

characteristics gave to the young fellow an effect of poise, of

judicious balance and quiet confidence. It was one of Banneker's

elements of strength, which subsequently won for him his unique place,

that he was always too much interested in estimating the man to whom he

was talking, to consider even what the other might think of him. It was

at once a form of egoism, and the total negation of egotism. It made him

the least self-conscious of human beings. And old Horace Vanney,

pompous, vain, the most self-conscious of his genus, felt, though he

could not analyze, the charm of it.

A chance word indicated that Banneker was already "placed." At once,

though almost insensibly, the attitude of Mr. Vanney eased; obviously

there was no fear of his being "boned" for a job. At the same time he

experienced a mild misgiving lest he might be forfeiting the services of

one who could be really useful to him. Banneker's energy and

decisiveness at the wreck had made a definite impression upon him. But

there was the matter of the rejected hundred-dollar tip. Unpliant,

evidently, this young fellow. Probably it was just as well that he

should be broken in to life and new standards elsewhere than in the

Vanney interests. Later, if he developed, watchfulness might show it to

be worth while to....

"What is it that you have in mind, my boy?" inquired the benign Mr.

Vanney.

"I start in on The Ledger next month."

"The Ledger! Indeed! I did not know that you had any journalistic

experience."

"I haven't."

"Well. Er--hum! Journalism, eh? A--er--brilliant profession!"

"You think well of it?"

"I have many friends among the journalists. Fine fellows! Very fine

fellows."

The instinctive tone of patronage was not lost upon Banneker. He felt

annoyed at Mr. Vanney. Unreasonably annoyed. "What's the matter with

journalism?" he asked bluntly.

"The matter?" Mr. Vanney was blandly surprised. "Haven't I just said--"

"Yes; you have. Would you let your son go into a newspaper office?"

"My son? My son chose the profession of law."

"But if he had wanted to be a journalist?"

"Journalism does not perhaps offer the same opportunities for personal

advancement as some other lines," said the financier cautiously.

"Why shouldn't it?"

"It is largely anonymous." Mr. Vanney gave the impression of feeling

carefully for his words. "One may go far in journalism and yet be

comparatively unknown to the public. Still, he might be of great

usefulness," added the sage, brightening, "very great usefulness. A

sound, conservative, self-respecting newspaper such as The Ledger, is a

public benefactor."

"And the editor of it?"

"That's right, my boy," approved the other. "Aim high! Aim high! The

great prizes in journalism are few. They are, in any line of endeavor.

And the apprenticeship is hard."

Herbert Cressey's clumsy but involuntary protest reasserted itself in

Banneker's mind. "I wish you would tell me frankly, Mr. Vanney, whether

reporting is considered undignified and that sort of thing?"

"Reporters can be a nuisance," replied Mr. Vanney fervently. "But they

can also be very useful."

"But on the whole--"

"On the whole it is a necessary apprenticeship. Very suitable for a

young man. Not a final career, in my judgment."

"A reporter on The Ledger, then, is nothing but a reporter on The

Ledger."

"Isn't that enough, for a start?" smiled the other. "The station-agent

at--what was the name of your station? Yes, Manzanita. The station-agent

at Manzanita--"

"Was E. Banneker," interposed the owner of that name positively. "A

small puddle, but the inhabitant was an individual toad, at least. To

keep one's individuality in New York isn't so easy, of course."

"There are quite a number of people in New York," pointed out the

philosopher, Vanney. "Mostly crowd."

"Yes," said Banneker. "You've told me something about the newspaper

business that I wanted to know." He rose.

The other put out an arresting hand. "Wouldn't you like to do a little

reporting for me, before you take up your regular work?"

"What kind of reporting?"

"Quite simple. A manufacturing concern in which I own a considerable

interest has a strike on its hands. Suppose you go down to Sippiac, New

Jersey, where our factories are, spend three or four days, and report

back to me your impressions and any ideas you may gather as to improving

our organization for furthering our interests."

"What makes you think that I could be useful in that line?" asked

Banneker curiously.

"My observations at the Manzanita wreck. You have, I believe, a knack

for handling a situation."

"I can always try," accepted Banneker.

Supplied with letters to the officials of the International Cloth

Company, and a liberal sum for expenses, the neophyte went to Sippiac.

There he visited the strongly guarded mills, still making a feeble

pretense of operating, talked with the harassed officials, the gang-boss

of the strike-breakers, the "private guards," who had, in fact,

practically assumed dominant police authority in the place; all of which

was faithful to the programme arranged by Mr. Vanney. Having done so

much, he undertook to obtain a view of the strike from the other side;

visited the wretched tenements of the laborers, sought out the sullen

and distrustful strike-leaders, heard much fiery oratory and some veiled

threats from impassioned agitators, mostly foreign and all tragically

earnest; chatted with corner grocerymen, saloon-keepers, ward

politicians, composing his mental picture of a strike in a minor city,

absolutely controlled, industrially, politically, and socially by the

industry which had made it. The town, as he came to conceive it, was a

fevered and struggling gnome, bound to a wheel which ground for others;

a gnome who, if he broke his bonds, would be perhaps only the worse for

his freedom. At the beginning of the sixth day, for his stay had

outgrown its original plan, the pocket-ledger, 3 T 9901, was but little

the richer, but the mind of its owner teemed with impressions.

It was his purpose to take those impressions in person to Mr. Horace

Vanney, by the 10 A.M. train. Arriving at the station early, he was

surprised at being held up momentarily by a line of guards engaged in

blocking off a mob of wailing, jabbering women, many of whom had

children in their arms, or at their skirts. He asked the ticket-agent, a

big, pasty young man about them.

"Mill workers," said the agent, making change.

"What are they after?"

"Wanta get to the 10.10 train."

"And the guards are stopping them?"

"You can use your eyes, cantcha?"

Using his eyes, Banneker considered the position. "Are those fellows on

railroad property?"

"What is it to you whether they are or ain't?"

Banneker explained his former occupation. "That's different," said the

agent. "Come inside. That's a hell of a mess, ain't it!" he added

plaintively as Banneker complied. "Some of those poor Hunkies have got

their tickets and can't use 'em."

"I'd see that they got their train, if this was my station," asserted

Banneker.

"Yes, you would! With that gang of strong-arms against you."

"Chase 'em," advised Banneker simply. "They've got no right keeping your

passengers off your trains."

"Chase 'em, ay? You'd do it, I suppose."

"I would."

"How?"

"You've got a gun, haven't you?"

"Maybe you think those guys haven't got guns, too."

"Well, all I can say is, that if there had been passengers held up from

their trains at my station and I didn't get them through, _I_'d have

been through so far as the Atkinson and St. Philip goes."

"This railroad's different. I'd be through if I butted in on this mill

row."

"How's that?"

"Well, for one thing, old Vanney, who's the real boss here, is a

director of the road."

"So _that_'s it!" Banneker digested this information. "Why are the women

so anxious to get away?"

"They say"--the local agent lowered his voice--"their children are

starving here, and they can get better jobs in other places. Naturally

the mills don't want to lose a lot of their hands, particularly the

women, because they're the cheapest. I don't know as I blame 'em for

that. But this business of hiring a bunch of ex-cons and--Hey! Where are

you goin'?"

Banneker was beyond the door before the query was completed. Looking out

of the window, the agent saw a fat and fussy young mother, who had

contrived to get through the line, waddling at her best speed across the

open toward the station, and dragging a small boy by the hand. A lank

giant from the guards' ranks was after her. Screaming, she turned the

corner out of his vision. There were sounds which suggested a row at the

station-door, but the agent, called at that moment to the wire, could

not investigate. The train came and went, and he saw nothing more of the

ex-railroader from the West.

Although Mr. Horace Vanney smiled pleasantly enough when Banneker

presented himself at the office to make his report, the nature of the

smile suggested a background more uncertain.

"Well, what have you found, my boy?" the financier began.

"A good many things that ought to be changed," answered Banneker

bluntly.

"Quite probably. No institution is perfect."

"The mills are pretty rotten. You pay your people too little--"

"Where do you get that idea?"

"From the way they live."

"My dear boy; if we paid them twice as much, they'd live the same way.

The surplus would go to the saloons."

"Then why not wipe out the saloons?"

"I am not the Common Council of Sippiac," returned Mr. Vanney dryly.

"Aren't you?" retorted Banneker even more dryly.

The other frowned. "What else?"

"Well; the housing. You own a good many of the tenements, don't you?"

"The company owns some."

"They're filthy holes."

"They are what the tenants make them."

"The tenants didn't build them with lightless hallways, did they?"

"They needn't live there if they don't like them. Have you spent all

your time, for which I am paying, nosing about like a cheap magazine

muckraker?" It was clear that Mr. Vanney was annoyed.

"I've been trying to find out what is wrong with Sippiac. I thought you

wanted facts."

"Precisely. Facts. Not sentimental gushings."

"Well, there are your guards. There isn't much sentiment about them. I

saw one of them smash a woman in the face, and knock her down, while she

was trying to catch a train and get out of town."

"And what did you do?"

"I don't know exactly how much. But I hope enough to land him in the

hospital. They pulled me off too soon."

"Do you know that you would have been killed if it hadn't been for some

of the factory staff who saved you from the other guards--as you

deserved, for your foolhardiness?"

The young man's eyebrows went up a bit. "Don't bank too much on my

foolhardiness. I had a wall back of me. And there would have been

material for several funerals before they got me." He touched his

hip-pocket. "By the way, you seem to be well informed."

"I've been in 'phone communication with Sippiac since the regrettable

occurrence. It perhaps didn't occur to you to find out that the woman,

who is now under arrest, bit the guard very severely."

"Of course! Just like the rabbit bit the bulldog. You've got a lot of

thugs and strong-arm men doing your dirty work, that ought to be in

jail. If the newspapers here ever get onto the situation, it would make

pretty rough reading for you, Mr. Vanney."

The magnate looked at him with contemptuous amusement. "No newspaper of

decent standing prints that kind of socialistic stuff, my young friend."

"Why not?"

"Why not! Because of my position. Because the International Cloth

Company is a powerful institution of the most reputable standing, with

many lines of influence."

"And that is enough to keep the newspapers from printing an article

about conditions in Sippiac?" asked Banneker, deeply interested in this

phase of the question. "Is that the fact?"

It was not the fact; The Sphere, for one, would have handled the strike

on the basis of news interest, as Mr. Vanney well knew; wherefore he

hated and pretended to despise The Sphere. But for his own purposes he

answered:

"Not a paper in New York would touch it. Except," he added negligently,

"perhaps some lying, Socialist sheet. And let me warn you, Mr.

Banneker," he pursued in his suavest tone, "that you will find no place

for your peculiar ideas on The Ledger. In fact, I doubt whether you will

be doing well either by them or by yourself in going on their staff,

holding such views as you do."

"Do you? Then I'll tell them beforehand."

Mr. Vanney privately reflected that there was no need of this: _he_

intended to call up the editor-in-chief and suggest the unsuitability of

the candidate for a place, however humble, on the staff of a highly

respectable and suitably respectful daily.

Which he did. The message was passed on to Mr. Gordon, and, in his large

and tolerant soul, decently interred. One thing of which the managing

editor of The Ledger was not tolerant was interference from without in

his department.

Before allowing his man to leave, Mr. Vanney read him a long and

well-meant homily, full of warning and wisdom, and was both annoyed and

disheartened when, at the end of it, Banneker remarked:

"I'll dare you to take a car and spend twenty-four hours going about

Sippiac with me. If you stand for your system after that, I'll pay for

the car."

To which the other replied sadly that Banneker had in some manner

acquired a false and distorted view of industrial relations.

Therein, for once in an existence guided almost exclusively by

prejudice, Horace Vanney was right. At the outset of a new career to

which he was attuning his mind, Banneker had been injected into a

situation typical of all that is worst in American industrial life, a

local manufacturing enterprise grown rich upon the labor of underpaid

foreigners, through the practice of all the vicious, lawless, and

insidious methods of an ingrown autocracy, and had believed it to be

fairly representative. Had not Horace Vanney, doubtless genuine in his

belief, told him as much?

"We're as fair and careful with our employees as any of our

competitors."

As a matter of fact there were, even then, scores of manufacturing

plants within easy distance of New York, representing broad and generous

policies and conducted on a progressive and humanistic labor system. Had

Banneker had his first insight into local industrial conditions through

one of these, he might readily have been prejudiced in favor of capital.

As it was, swallowing Vanney's statement as true, he mistook an evil

example as a fair indication of the general status. Then and there he

became a zealous protagonist of labor.

It had been Mr. Horace Vanney's shrewd design to show a budding

journalist of promise on which side his self-interest lay. The weak spot

in the plan was that Banneker did not seem to care!

CHAPTER V

Banneker's induction into journalism was unimpressive. They gave him a

desk, an outfit of writing materials, a mail-box with his name on it,

and eventually an assignment. Mr. Mallory presented him to several of

the other "cubs" and two or three of the older and more important

reporters. They were all quite amiable, obviously willing to be helpful,

and they impressed the observant neophyte with that quiet and solid

_esprit de corps_ which is based upon respect for work well performed in

a common cause. He apprehended that The Ledger office was in some sort

an institution.

None of his new acquaintances volunteered information as to the

mechanism of his new job. Apparently he was expected to figure that out

for himself. By nature reticent, and trained in an environment which

still retained enough of frontier etiquette to make a scrupulous

incuriosity the touchstone of good manners and perhaps the essence of

self-preservation, Banneker asked no questions. He sat and waited.

One by one the other reporters were summoned by name to the city desk,

and dispatched with a few brief words upon the various items of the

news. Presently Banneker found himself alone, in the long files of

desks. For an hour he sat there and for a second hour. It seemed a

curious way in which to be earning fifteen dollars a week. He wondered

whether he was expected to sit tight at his desk. Or had he the freedom

of the office? Characteristically choosing the more active assumption,

he found his way to the current newspaper files. They were like old

friends.

"Mr. Banneker." An office boy was at his elbow. "Mr. Greenough wants

you."

Conscious of a quickened pulse, and annoyed at himself because of it,

the tyro advanced to receive his maiden assignment. The epochal event

was embodied in the form of a small clipping from an evening paper,

stating that a six-year-old boy had been fatally burned at a bonfire

near the North River. Banneker, Mr. Greenough instructed him mildly, was

to make inquiries of the police, of the boy's family, of the hospital,

and of such witnesses as he could find.

Quick with interest he caught up his hat and hurried out. Death, in the

sparsely populated country wherefrom he hailed, was a matter of

inclusive local importance; he assumed the same of New York. Three

intense hours he devoted to an item which any police reporter of six

months' standing would have rounded up in a brace of formal inquiries,

and hastened back, brimful of details for Mr. Greenough.

"Good! Good!" interpolated that blandly approving gentleman from time to

time in the course of the narrative. "Write it, Mr. Banneker! write it."

"How much shall I write?"

"Just what is necessary to tell the news."

Behind the amiable smile which broadened without lighting up the

sub-Mongol physiognomy of the city editor, Banneker suspected something.

As he sat writing page after page, conscientiously setting forth every

germane fact, the recollection of that speculative, estimating smile

began to play over the sentences with a dire and blighting beam. Three

fourths of the way through, the writer rose, went to the file-board and

ran through a dozen newspapers. He was seeking a ratio, a perspective.

He wished to determine how much, in a news sense, the death of the son

of an obscure East-Side plasterer was worth. On his return he tore up

all that he had written, and substituted a curt paragraph, without

character or color, which he turned in. He had gauged the value of the

tragedy accurately, in the light of his study of news files.

Greenough showed the paragraph (which failed to appear at all in the

overcrowded paper of next morning) to Mr. Gordon.

"The new man doesn't start well," he remarked. "Too little imaginative

interest."

"Isn't it knowledge rather than lack of interest?" suggested the

managing editor.

"It may come to the same thing. If he knows too much to get really

interested, he'll be a dull reporter."

"I doubt whether you'll find him dull," smiled Mr. Gordon. "But he may

find his job dull. In that case, of course he'd better find another."

Indeed, that was the danger which, for weeks to follow, Banneker

skirted. Police news, petty and formal, made up his day's work. Had he

sought beneath the surface of it the underlying elements, and striven to

express these, his matter as it came to the desk, however slight the

technical news value might have been, would have afforded the watchful

copy-readers, trained to that special selectiveness as only The Ledger

could train its men, opportunity of judging what potentialities might

lurk beneath the crudities of the "cub." But Banneker was not crude. He

was careful. His sense of the relative importance of news, acquired by

those weeks of intensive analysis before applying for his job, was too

just to let him give free play to his pen. What was the use? The "story"

wasn't worth the space.

Nevertheless, 3 T 9901, which Banneker was already too cognoscent to

employ in his formal newsgathering (the notebook is anathema to the

metropolitan reporter), was filling up with odd bits, which were being

transferred, in the weary hours when the new man sat at his desk with

nothing to do, to paper in the form of sketches for Miss Westlake's

trustful and waiting typewriter. Nobody could say that Banneker was not

industrious. Among his fellow reporters he soon acquired the melancholy

reputation of one who was forever writing "special stuff," none of which

ever "landed." It was chiefly because of his industry and reliability,

rather than any fulfillment of the earlier promise of brilliant worth as

shown in the Sunday Sphere articles, that he got his first raise to

twenty dollars. It surprised rather than gratified him.

He went to Mr. Gordon about it. The managing editor was the kind of man

with whom it is easy to talk straight talk.

"What's the matter with me?" asked Banneker.

Mr. Gordon played a thoughtful tattoo upon his fleshy knuckles with the

letter-opener. "Nothing. Aren't you satisfied?"

"No. Are you?"

"You've had your raise, and fairly early. Unless you had been worth it,

you wouldn't have had it."

"Am I doing what you expected of me?"

"Not exactly. But you're developing into a sure, reliable reporter."

"A routine man," commented Banneker.

"After all, the routine man is the backbone of the office." Mr. Gordon

executed a fantasia on his thumb. "Would you care to try a desk job?" he

asked, peering at Banneker over his glasses.

"I'd rather run a trolley car. There's more life in it."

"Do you _see_ life, in your work, Mr. Banneker?"

"See it? I feel it. Sometimes I think it's going to flatten me out like

a steam-roller."

"Then why not write it?"

"It isn't news: not what I see."

"Perhaps not. Perhaps it's something else. But if it's there and we can

get a gleam of it into the paper, we'll crowd news out to make a place

for it. You haven't been reading The Ledger I'm afraid."

"Like a Bible."

"Not to good purpose, then. What do you think of Tommy Burt's stuff?"

"It's funny; some of it. But I couldn't do it to save my job."

"Nobody can do it but Burt, himself. Possibly you could learn something

from it, though."

"Burt doesn't like it, himself. He told me it was all formula; that you

could always get a laugh out of people about something they'd been

taught to consider funny, like a red nose or a smashed hat. He's got a

list of Sign Posts on the Road to Humor."

"The cynicism of twenty-eight," smiled the tolerant Mr. Gordon. "Don't

let yourself be inoculated."

"Mr. Gordon," said Banneker doggedly; "I'm not doing the kind of work I

expected to do here."

"You can hardly expect the star jobs until you've made yourself a star

man."

Banneker flushed. "I'm not complaining of the way I've been treated.

I've had a square enough deal. The trouble is with me. I want to know

whether I ought to stick or quit."

"If you quit, what would you do?"

"I haven't a notion," replied the other with an indifference which

testified to a superb, instinctive self-confidence. "Something."

"Do it here. I think you'll come along all right."

"But what's wrong with me?" persisted Banneker.

"Too much restraint. A rare fault. You haven't let yourself out." For a

space he drummed and mused. Suddenly a knuckle cracked loudly. Mr.

Gordon flinched and glared at it, startled as if it had offended him by

interrupting a train of thought. "Here!" said he brusquely. "There's a

Sewer-Cleaners' Association picnic to-morrow. They're going to put in

half their day inspecting the Stimson Tunnel under the North River.

Pretty idea; isn't it? Suppose I ask Mr. Greenough to send you out on

the story. And I'd like a look at it when you turn it in."

Banneker worked hard on his report of the picnic; hard and

self-consciously. Tommy Burt would, he knew, have made a "scream" of it,

for tired business men to chuckle over on their way downtown. Pursuant

to what he believed Mr. Gordon wanted, Banneker strove conscientiously

to be funny with these human moles, who, having twelve hours of freedom

for sunshine and air, elected to spend half of it in a hole bigger,

deeper, and more oppressive than any to which their noisome job called

them. The result was five painfully mangled sheets which presently went

to the floor, torn in strips. After that Banneker reported the picnic as

he saw, felt, and smelt it. It was a somber bit of writing, not without

its subtleties and shrewd perceptions; quite unsuitable to the columns

of The Ledger, in which it failed to appear. But Mr. Gordon read it

twice. He advised Banneker not to be discouraged.

Banneker was deeply discouraged. He wanted to resign.

Perhaps he would nave resigned, if old Mynderse Verschoyle had not died

at eight o'clock on the morning of the day when Banneker was the

earliest man to report at the office. A picturesque character, old

Mynderse, who had lived for forty-five years with his childless wife in

the ancient house on West 10th Street, and for the final fifteen years

had not addressed so much as a word to her. She had died three months

before; and now he had followed, apparently, from what Banneker learned

in an interview with the upset and therefore voluble secretary of the

dead man, because, having no hatred left on which to center his life, he

had nothing else to live for. Banneker wrote the story of that hatred,

rigid, ceremonious, cherished like a rare virtue until it filled two

lives; and he threw about it the atmosphere of the drear and divided old

house. At the end, the sound of the laughter of children at play in the

street.

The article appeared word for word as he had written it. That noon Tommy

Burt, the funny man, drawing down his hundred-plus a week on space, came

over and sat on Banneker's desk, and swung his legs and looked at him

mournfully and said:

"You've broken through your shell at last."

"Did you like it?" asked Banneker.

"Like it! My God, if I could write like that! But what's the use! Never

in the world."

"Oh, that's nonsense," returned Banneker, pleased. "Of course you can.

But what's the rest of your 'if'?"

"I wouldn't be wasting my time here. The magazines for me."

"Is that better?"

"Depends on what you're after. For a man who wants to write, it's

better, of course."

"Why?"

"Gives him a larger audience. No newspaper story is remembered overnight

except by newspaper men. And they don't matter."

"Why don't they matter?" Banneker was surprised again, this time rather

disagreeably.

"It's a little world. There isn't much substance to it. Take that

Verschoyle stuff of yours; that's literature, that is! But you'll never

hear of it again after next week. A few people here will remember it,

and it'll help you to your next raise. But after you've got that, and,

after that, your lift onto space, where are you?"

The abruptly confidential approach of Tommy Burt flattered Banneker with

the sense that by that one achievement of the Verschoyle story he had

attained a new status in the office. Later there came out from the inner

sanctum where sat the Big Chief, distilling venom and wit in equal parts

for the editorial page, a special word of approval. But this pleased the

recipient less than the praise of his peers in the city room.

After that first talk, Burt came back to Banneker's desk from time to

time, and once took him to dinner at "Katie's," the little German

restaurant around the corner. Burt was given over to a restless and

inoffensively egoistic pessimism.

"Look at me. I'm twenty-eight and making a good income. When I was

twenty-three, I was making nearly as much. When I'm thirty-eight, where

shall I be?"

"Can't you keep on making it?" asked Banneker.

"Doubtful. A fellow goes stale on the kind of stuff I do. And if I do

keep on? Five to six thousand is fine now. It won't be so much ten years

from now. That's the hell of this game; there's no real chance in it."

"What about the editing jobs?"

"Desk-work? Chain yourself by the leg, with a blue pencil in your hand

to butcher better men's stuff? A managing editor, now, I'll grant you.

He gets his twenty or twenty-five thousand if he doesn't die of

overstrain, first. But there's only a few managing editors."

"There are more editorial writers."

"Hired pens. Dishing up other fellows' policies, whether you believe in

'em or not. No; I'm not of that profession, anyway." He specified the

profession, a highly ancient and dishonorable one. Mr. Burt, in his gray

moods, was neither discriminating nor quite just.

Banneker voiced the question which, at some point in his progress, every

thoughtful follower of journalism must meet and solve as best he can.

"When a man goes on a newspaper I suppose he more or less accepts that

paper's standards, doesn't he?"

"More or less? To what extent?" countered the expert.

"I haven't figured that out, yet."

"Don't be in a hurry about it," advised the other with a gleam of

malice. "The fellows that do figure it out to the end, and are honest

enough about it, usually quit."

"You haven't quit."

"Perhaps I'm not honest enough or perhaps I'm too cowardly," retorted

the gloomy Burt.

Banneker smiled. Though the other was nearly two years his senior, he

felt immeasurably the elder. There is about the true reporter type an

infinitely youthful quality; attractive and touching; the eternal

juvenile, which, being once outgrown with its facile and evanescent

enthusiasms, leaves the expert declining into the hack. Beside this

prematurely weary example of a swift and precarious success, Banneker

was mature of character and standard. Nevertheless, the seasoned

journalist was steeped in knowledge which the tyro craved.

"What would you do," Banneker asked, "if you were sent out to write a

story absolutely opposed to something you believed right; political, for

instance?"

"I don't write politics. That's a specialty."

"Who does?"

"'Parson' Gale."

"Does he believe in everything The Ledger stands for?"

"Certainly. In office hours. For and in consideration of one hundred and

twenty-five dollars weekly, duly and regularly paid."

"Outside of office hours, then."

"Ah; that's different. In Harlem where he lives, the Parson is quite a

figure among the reform Democrats. The Ledger, as you know, is

Republican; and anything in the way of reform is its favorite butt. So

Gale spends his working day poking fun at his political friends and

associates."

"Out West we'd call that kind of fellow a yellow pup."

"Well, don't call the Parson that; not to me," warned the other

indignantly. "He's as square a man as you'll find on Park Row. Why, you

were just saying, yourself, that a reporter is bound to accept his

paper's standards when he takes the job."

"Then I suppose the answer is that a man ought to work only on a

newspaper in whose policies he believes."

"Which policies? A newspaper has a hundred different ones about a

hundred different things. Here in this office we're dead against the

split infinitive and the Honest Laboring Man. We don't believe he's

honest and we've got our grave doubts as to his laboring. Yet one of our

editorial writers is an out-and-out Socialist and makes fiery speeches

advising the proletariat to rise and grab the reins of government. But

he'd rather split his own head than an infinitive."

"Does he write anti-labor editorials?" asked the bewildered Banneker.

"Not as bad as that. He confines himself to European politics and

popular scientific matters. But, of course, wherever there is necessity

for an expression of opinion, he's anti-socialist in his writing, as

he's bound to be."

"Just a moment ago you were talking of hired pens. Now you seem to be

defending that sort of thing. I don't understand your point of view."

"Don't you? Neither do I, I guess," admitted the expositor with great

candor. "I can argue it either way and convince myself, so far as the

other fellow's work is concerned. But not for my own."

"How do you figure it out for yourself, then?"

"I don't. I dodge. It's a kind of tacit arrangement between the desk and

me. In minor matters I go with the paper. That's easy, because I agree

with it in most questions of taste and the way of doing things. After

all The Ledger _has_ got certain standards of professional conduct and

of decent manners; it's a gentleman's paper. The other things, the

things where my beliefs conflict with the paper's standards, political

or ethical, don't come my way. You see, I'm a specialist; I do mostly

the fluffy stuff."

"If that's the way to keep out of embarrassing decisions, I'd like to

become a specialist myself."

"You can do it, all right," the other assured him earnestly. "That story

of yours shows it. You've got The Ledger touch--no, it's more individual

than that. But you've got something that's going to stick out even here.

Just the same, there'll come a time when you'll have to face the other

issue of your job or your--well, your conscience."

What Tommy Burt did not say in continuation, and had no need to say,

since his expressive and ingenuous face said it for him, was, "And I

wonder what you'll do with _that_!"

A far more influential friend than Tommy Burt had been wondering, too,

and had, not without difficulty, expressed her doubts in writing.

Camilla Van Arsdale had written to Banneker:

... I know so little of journalism, but there are things about it that I

distrust instinctively. Do you remember what that wrangler from the _Jon

Cal_ told Old Bill Speed when Bill wanted to hire him: "I wouldn't take

any job that I couldn't look in the eye and tell it to go to hell on

five minutes' notice." I have a notion that you've got to take that

attitude toward a reporting job. There must be so much that a man cannot

do without loss of self-respect. Yet, I can't imagine why I should worry

about you as to that. Unless it is that, in a strange environment one

gets one's values confused.... Have you had to do any "Society"

reporting yet? I hope not. The society reporters of my day were either

obsequious little flunkeys and parasites, or women of good connections

but no money who capitalized their acquaintanceship to make a poor

living, and whom one was sorry for, but would rather not see. Going to

places where one is not asked, scavenging for bits of news from butlers

and housekeepers, sniffing after scandals--perhaps that is part of the

necessary apprenticeship of newspaper work. But it's not a proper work

for a gentleman. And, in any case, Ban, you are that, by the grace of

your ancestral gods.

Little enough did Banneker care for his ancestral gods: but he did

greatly care for the maintenance of those standards which seemed to have

grown, indigenously within him, since he had never consciously

formulated them. As for reporting, of whatever kind, he deemed Miss Van

Arsdale prejudiced. Furthermore, he had met the society reporter of The

Ledger, an elderly, mild, inoffensive man, neat and industrious, and

discerned in him no stigma of the lickspittle. Nevertheless, he hoped

that he would not be assigned to such "society news" as Remington did

not cover in his routine. It might, he conceived, lead him into false

situations where he could be painfully snubbed. And he had never yet

been in a position where any one could snub him without instant

reprisals. In such circumstances he did not know exactly what he would

do. However, that bridge could be crossed or refused when he came to it.

CHAPTER VI

Such members of the Brashear household as chose to accommodate

themselves strictly to the hour could have eight o'clock breakfast in

the basement dining-room for the modest consideration of thirty cents;

thirty-five with special cream-jug. At these gatherings, usually

attended by half a dozen of the lodgers, matters of local interest were

weightily discussed; such as the progress of the subway excavations, the

establishment of a new Italian restaurant in 11th Street, or the calling

away of the fourth-floor-rear by the death of an uncle who would perhaps

leave him money. To this sedate assemblage descended one crisp December

morning young Wickert, clad in the natty outline of a new Bernholz suit,

and obviously swollen with tidings.

"Whaddya know about the latest?" he flung forth upon the coffee-scented

air.

"The latest" in young Wickert's compendium of speech might be the

garments adorning his trim person, the current song-hit of a vaudeville

to which he had recently contributed his critical attention, or some

tidbit of purely local gossip. Hainer, the plump and elderly accountant,

opined that Wickert had received an augmentation of salary, and got an

austere frown for his sally. Evidently Wickert deemed his news to be of

special import; he was quite bloated, conversationally. He now dallied

with it.

"Since when have you been taking in disguised millionaires, Mrs.

Brashear?"

The presiding genius of the house, divided between professional

resentment at even so remotely slurring an implication (for was not the

Grove Street house good enough for any millionaire, undisguised!) and

human curiosity, requested an explanation.

"I was in Sherry's restaurant last night," said the offhand Wickert.

"I didn't read about any fire there," said the jocose Hainer, pointing

his sally with a wink at Lambert, the art-student.

Wickert ignored the gibe. Such was the greatness of his tidings that he

could afford to.

"Our firm was giving a banquet to some buyers and big folks in the

trade. Private room upstairs; music, flowers, champagne by the case. We

do things in style when we do 'em. They sent me up after hours with an

important message to our Mr. Webler; he was in charge of arrangements."

"Been promoted to be messenger, ay?" put in Mr. Hainer, chuckling.

"When I came downstairs," continued the other with only a venomous

glance toward the seat of the scorner, "I thought to myself what's the

matter with taking a look at the swells feeding in the big restaurant.

You may not know it, people, but Sherry's is the ree-churchiest place in

Nuh Yawk to eat dinner. It's got 'em all beat. So I stopped at the door

and took 'em in. Swell? Oh, you dolls! I stood there trying to work up

the nerve to go in and siddown and order a plate of stew or something

that wouldn't stick me more'n a dollar, just to _say_ I'd been dining at

Sherry's, when I looked across the room, and whadda you think?" He

paused, leaned forward, and shot out the climactic word, "Banneker!"

"Having his dinner there?" asked the incredulous but fascinated Mrs.

Brashear.

"Like he owned the place. Table to himself, against the wall. Waiter

fussin' over him like he loved him. And dressed! Oh, Gee!"

"Did you speak to him?" asked Lambert.

"He spoke to me," answered Wickert, dealing in subtle distinctions. "He

was just finishing his coffee when I sighted him. Gave the waiter haffa

dollar. I could see it on the plate. There I was at the door, and he

said, 'Why, hello, Wickert. Come and have a liquor.' He pronounced it a

queer, Frenchy way. So I said thanks, I'd have a highball."

"Didn't he seem surprised to see you there?" asked Hainer.

Wickert paid an unconscious tribute to good-breeding. "Banneker's the

kind of feller that wouldn't show it if he was surprised. He couldn't

have been as surprised as I was, at that. We went to the bar and had a

drink, and then I ast him what'd _he_, have on _me_, and all the time I

was sizing him up. I'm telling you, he looked like he'd grown up in

Sherry's."

The rest of the conversation, it appeared from Mr. Wickert's spirited

sketch, had consisted mainly in eager queries from himself, and

good-humored replies by the other.

Did Banneker eat there every night?

Oh, no! He wasn't up to that much of a strain on his finances.

But the waiters seemed to know him, as if he was one of the regulars.

In a sense he was. Every Monday he dined there. Monday was his day off.

Well, Mr. Wickert (awed and groping) _would_ be damned! All alone?

Banneker, smiling, admitted the solitude. He rather liked dining alone.

Oh, Wickert couldn't see that at all! Give him a pal and a coupla lively

girls, say from the Ladies' Tailor-Made Department, good-lookers and

real dressers; that was _his_ idea of a dinner, though he'd never tried

it at Sherry's. Not that he couldn't if he felt like it. How much did

they stick you for a good feed-out with a cocktail and maybe a bottle of

Italian Red?

Well, of course, that depended on which way was Wickert going? Could

Banneker set him on his way? He was taking a taxi to the Avon Theater,

where there was an opening.

Did Mr. Banneker (Wickert had by this time attained the "Mr." stage)

always follow up his dinner at Sherry's with a theater?

Usually, if there were an opening. If not he went to the opera or a

concert.

For his part, Wickert liked a little more spice in life. Still, every

feller to his tastes. And Mr. Banneker was sure dressed for the part.

Say--if he didn't mind--who made that full-dress suit?

No; of course he didn't mind. Mertoun made it.

After which Mr. Banneker had been deftly enshrouded in a fur-lined coat,

worthy of a bank president, had crowned these glories with an impeccable

silk hat, and had set forth. Wickert had only to add that he wore in his

coat lapel one of those fancy tuberoses, which he, Wickert, had gone to

the pains of pricing at the nearest flower shop immediately after

leaving Banneker. A dollar apiece! No, he had not accepted the offer of

a lift, being doubtful upon the point of honor as to whether he would be

expected to pay a _pro rata_ of the taxi charge. They, the assembled

breakfast company, had his permission to call him, Mr. Wickert, a goat

if Mr. Banneker wasn't the swellest-looking guy he had anywhere seen on

that memorable evening.

Nobody called Mr. Wickert a goat. But Mr. Hainer sniffed and said:

"And him a twenty-five-dollar-a-week reporter!"

"Perhaps he has private means," suggested little Miss Westlake, who had

her own reasons for suspecting this: reasons bolstered by many and

frequent manuscripts, turned over to her for typing, recast, returned

for retyping, and again, in many instances, re-recast and re-retyped,

the result of the sweating process being advantageous to their literary

quality. Simultaneous advantage had accrued to the typist, also, in a

practical way. Though the total of her bills was modest, it constituted

an important extra; and Miss Westlake no longer sought to find solace

for her woes through the prescription of the ambulant school of

philosophic thought, and to solve her dental difficulties by walking the

floor of nights. Philosophy never yet cured a toothache. Happily the

sufferer was now able to pay a dentist. Hence Banneker could work,

untroubled of her painful footsteps in the adjoining room, and

considered the outcome cheap at the price. He deemed himself an exponent

of enlightened selfishness. Perhaps he was. But the dim and worn

spinster would have given half a dozen of her best and painless teeth to

be of service to him. Now she came to his defense with a pretty dignity:

"I am sure that Mr. Banneker would not be out of place in any company."

"Maybe not," answered the cynical Lambert. "But where does he get it? I

ask you!"

"Wherever he gets it, no gentleman could be more forehanded in his

obligations," declared Mrs. Brashear.

"But what's he want to blow it for in a shirty place like Sherry's?"

marveled young Wickert.

"Wyncha ask him?" brutally demanded Hainer.

Wickert examined his mind hastily, and was fain to admit inwardly that

he had wanted to ask him, but somehow felt "skittish" about it.

Outwardly he retorted, being displeased at his own weakness, "Ask him

yourself."

Had any one questioned the subject of the discussion at Mrs. Brashear's

on this point, even if he were willing to reply to impertinent

interrogations (a high improbability of which even the hardy Wickert

seems to have had some timely premonition), he would perhaps have

explained the glorified routine of his day-off, by saying that he went

to Sherry's and the opening nights for the same reason that he prowled

about the water-front and ate in polyglot restaurants on obscure

street-corners east of Tompkins Square; to observe men and women and the

manner of their lives. It would not have been a sufficient answer;

Banneker must have admitted that to himself. Too much a man of the world

in many strata not to be adjustable to any of them, nevertheless he felt

more attuned to and at one with his environment amidst the suave

formalism of Sherry's than in the more uneasy and precarious elegancies

of an East-Side Tammany Association promenade and ball.

Some of the youngsters of The Ledger said that he was climbing.

He was not climbing. To climb one must be conscious of an ascent to be

surmounted. Banneker was serenely unaware of anything above him, in that

sense. Eminent psychiatrists were, about that time, working upon the

beginning of a theory of the soul, later to be imposed upon an

impressionable and faddish world, which dealt with a profound psychical

deficit known as a "complex of inferiority." In Banneker they would have

found sterile soil. He had no complex of inferiority, nor, for that

matter, of superiority; mental attitudes which, applied to social

status, breed respectively the toady and the snob. He had no complex at

all. He had, or would have had, if the soul-analysts had invented such a

thing, a simplex. Relative status was a matter to which he gave little

thought. He maintained personal standards not because of what others

might think of him, but because he chose to think well of himself.

Sherry's and a fifth-row-center seat at opening nights meant to him

something more than refreshment and amusement; they were an assertion of

his right to certain things, a right of which, whether others recognized

or ignored it, he felt absolutely assured. These were the readily

attainable places where successful people resorted. Serenely determined

upon success, he felt himself in place amidst the outward and visible

symbols of it. Let the price be high for his modest means; this was an

investment which he could not afford to defer. He was but anticipating

his position a little, and in such wise that nobody could take exception

to it, because his self-promotion demanded no aid or favor from any

other living person. His interest was in the environment, not in the

people, as such, who were hardly more than, "walking ladies and

gentlemen" in a _mise-en-scène_. Indeed, where minor opportunities

offered by chance of making acquaintances, he coolly rejected them.

Banneker did not desire to know people--yet. When he should arrive at

the point of knowing them, it must be upon his terms, not theirs.

It was on one of his Monday evenings of splendor that a misadventure of

the sort which he had long foreboded, befell him. Sherry's was crowded,

and a few tables away Banneker caught sight of Herbert Cressey, dining

with a mixed party of a dozen. Presently Cressey came over.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" he asked, shaking hands.

"Haven't seen you for months."

"Working," replied Banneker. "Sit down and have a cocktail. Two, Jules,"

he added to the attentive waiter.

"I guess they can spare me for five minutes," agreed Cressey, glancing

back at his forsaken place. "This isn't what you call work, though, is

it?"

"Hardly. This is my day off."

"Oh! And how goes the job?"

"Well enough."

"I'd think so," commented the other, taking in the general effect of

Banneker's easy habituation to the standards of the restaurant. "You

don't own this place, do you?" he added.

From another member of the world which had inherited or captured

Sherry's as part of the spoils of life, the question might have been

offensive. But Banneker genuinely liked Cressey.

"Not exactly," he returned lightly. "Do I give that unfortunate

impression?"

"You give very much the impression of owning old Jules--or he does--and

having a proprietary share in the new head waiter. Are you here much?"

"Monday evenings, only."

"This is a good cocktail," observed Cressey, savoring it expertly.

"Better than they serve to me. And, say, Banneker, did Mertoun make you

that outfit?"

"Yes."

"Then I quit him," declared the gilded youth.

"Why? Isn't it all right?"

"All right! Dammit, it's a better job than ever I got out of him,"

returned his companion indignantly. "Some change from the catalogue suit

you sported when you landed here! You know how to wear 'em; I've got to

say that for you.... I've got to get back. When'll you dine with me? I

want to hear all about it."

"Any Monday," answered Banneker.

Cressey returned to his waiting potage, and was immediately bombarded

with queries, mainly from the girl on his left.

"Who's the wonderful-looking foreigner?"

"He isn't a foreigner. At least not very much."

"He looks like a North Italian princeling I used to know," said one of

the women. "One of that warm-complexioned out-of-door type, that

preserves the Roman mould. Isn't he an Italian?"

"He's an American. I ran across him out in the desert country."

"Hence that burned-in brown. What was he doing out there?"

Cressey hesitated. Innocent of any taint of snobbery himself, he yet did

not know whether Banneker would care to have his humble position tacked

onto the tails of that work of art, his new coat. "He was in the

railroad business," he returned cautiously. "His name is Banneker."

"I've been seeing him for months," remarked another of the company.

"He's always alone and always at that table. Nobody knows him. He's a

mystery."

"He's a beauty," said Cressey's left-hand neighbor.

Miss Esther Forbes had been quite openly staring, with her large, gray,

and childlike eyes, at Banneker, eating his oysters in peaceful

unconsciousness of being made a subject for discussion. Miss Forbes was

a Greuze portrait come to life and adjusted to the extremes of fashion.

Behind an expression of the sweetest candor and wistfulness, as behind a

safe bulwark, she preserved an effrontery which balked at no defiance of

conventions in public, though essentially she was quite sufficiently

discreet for self-preservation. Also she had a keen little brain, a

reckless but good-humored heart and a memory retentive of important

trifles.

"In the West, Bertie?" she inquired of Cressey. "You were in that big

wreck there, weren't you?"

"Devil of a wreck," said Cressey uneasily. You never could tell what

Esther might know or might not say.

"Ask him over here," directed that young lady blandly, "for coffee and

liqueurs."

"Oh, I say!" protested one of the men. "Nobody knows anything about

him--"

"He's a friend of mine," put in Cressey, in a tone which ended that

particular objection. "But I don't think he'd come."

Instantly there was a chorus of demand for him.

"All right, I'll try," yielded Cressey, rising.

"Put him next to me," directed Miss Forbes.

The emissary visited Banneker's table, was observed to be in brief

colloquy with him, and returned, alone.

"Wouldn't he come?" interrogated the chorus.

"He's awfully sorry, but he says he isn't fit for decent human

associations."

"More and more interesting!"--"Why?"--"What awful thing has he been

doing?"

"Eating onions," answered Cressey. "Raw."

"I don't believe it," cried the indignant Miss Forbes. "One doesn't eat

raw onions at Sherry's. It's a subterfuge."

"Very likely."

"If I went over there myself, who'll bet a dozen silk stockings that I

can't--"

"Come off it, Ess," protested her brother-in-law across the table.

"That's too high a jump, even for you."

She let herself be dissuaded, but her dovelike eyes were vagrant during

the rest of the dinner.

Pleasantly musing over the last glass of a good but moderate-priced

Rosemont-Geneste, Banneker became aware of Cressey's dinner party filing

past him: then of Jules, the waiter, discreetly murmuring something,

from across the table. A faint and provocative scent came to his

nostrils, and as he followed Jules's eyes he saw a feminine figure

standing at his elbow. He rose promptly and looked down into a face

which might have been modeled for a type of appealing innocence.

"You're Mr. Banneker, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"I'm Esther Forbes, and I think I've heard a great deal about you."

"It doesn't seem probable," he replied gravely.

"From a cousin of mine," pursued the girl. "She was Io Welland. Haven't

I?"

A shock went through Banneker at the mention of the name. But he

steadied himself to say: "I don't think so."

Herein he was speaking by the letter. Knowing Io Welland as he had, he

deemed it very improbable that she had even so much as mentioned him to

any of her friends. In that measure, at least, he believed, she would

have respected the memory of the romance which she had so ruthlessly

blasted. This girl, with the daring and wistful eyes, was simply

fishing, so he guessed.

His guess was correct. Mendacity was not outside of Miss Forbes's easy

code when enlisted in a good cause, such as appeasing her own impish

curiosity. Never had Io so much as mentioned that quaint and lively

romance with which vague gossip had credited her, after her return from

the West; Esther Forbes had gathered it in, gossamer thread by gossamer

thread, and was now hoping to identify Banneker in its uncertain

pattern. Her little plan of startling him into some betrayal had proven

abortive. Not by so much as the quiver of a muscle or the minutest

shifting of an eye had he given sign. Still convinced that he was the

mysterious knight of the desert, she was moved to admiration for his

self-command and to a sub-thrill of pleasurable fear as before an

unknown and formidable species. The man who had transformed

self-controlled and invincible Io Welland into the creature of moods and

nerves and revulsions which she had been for the fortnight preceding her

marriage, must be something out of the ordinary. Instinct of womankind

told Miss Forbes that this and no other was the type of man to work such

a miracle.

"But you did know Io?" she persisted, feeling, as she afterward

confessed, that she was putting her head into the mouth of a lion

concerning whose habits her knowledge was regrettably insufficient.

The lion did not bite her head off. He did not even roar. He merely

said, "Yes."

"In a railroad wreck or something of that sort?"

"Something of that sort."

"Are you awfully bored and wishing I'd go away and let you alone?" she

said, on a note that pleaded for forbearance. "Because if you are, don't

make such heroic efforts to conceal it."

At this an almost imperceptible twist at the corners of his lips

manifested itself to the watchful eye and cheered the enterprising soul

of Miss Forbes. "No," he said equably, "I'm interested to discover how

far you'll go."

The snub left Miss Forbes unembarrassed.

"Oh, as far as you'll let me," she answered. "Did you ride in from your

ranch and drag Io out of the tangled wreckage at the end of your lasso?"

"My ranch? I wasn't on a ranch."

"Please, sir," she smiled up at him like a beseeching angel, "what did

you do that kept us all talking and speculating about you for a whole

week, though we didn't know your name?"

"I sat right on my job as station-agent at Manzanita and made up lists

of the killed and injured," answered Banneker dryly.

"Station-agent!" The girl was taken aback, for this was not at all in

consonance with the Io myth as it had drifted back, from sources never

determined, to New York. "Were you the station-agent?"

"I was."

She bestowed a glance at once appraising and flattering, less upon

himself than upon his apparel. "And what are you now? President of the

road?"

"A reporter on The Ledger."

"Really!" This seemed to astonish her even more than the previous

information. "What are you reporting here?"

"I'm off duty to-night."

"I see. Could you get off duty some afternoon and come to tea, if I'll

promise to have Io there to meet you?"

"Your party seems to be making signals of distress, Miss Forbes."

"That's the normal attitude of my friends and family toward me. You'll

come, won't you, Mr. Banneker?"

"Thank you: but reporting keeps one rather too busy for amusement."

"You won't come," she murmured, aggrieved. "Then it _is_ true about you

and Io."

This time she achieved a result. Banneker flushed angrily, though he

said, coolly enough: "I think perhaps you would make an enterprising

reporter, yourself, Miss Forbes."

"I'm sure I should. Well, I'll apologize. And if you won't come for

Io--she's still abroad, by the way and won't be back for a

month--perhaps you'll come for me. Just to show that you forgive my

impertinences. Everybody does. I'm going to tell Bertie Cressey he must

bring you.... All right, Bertie! I wish you wouldn't follow me up

like--like a paper-chase. Good-night, Mr. Banneker."

To her indignant escort she declared that it couldn't have hurt them to

wait a jiffy; that she had had a most amusing conversation; that Mr.

Banneker was as charming as he was good to look at; and that (in answer

to sundry questions) she had found out little or nothing, though she

hoped for better results in future.

"But he's Io's passion-in-the-desert right enough," said the irreverent

Miss Forbes.

Banneker sat long over his cooling coffee. Through haunted nights he had

fought maddening memories of Io's shadowed eyes, of the exhalant,

irresistible femininity of her, of the pulses of her heart against his

on that wild and wonderful night in the flood; and he had won to an

armed peace, in which the outposts of his spirit were ever on guard

against the recurrent thoughts of her.

Now, at the bitter music of her name on the lips of a gossiping and

frivolous girl, the barriers had given away. In eagerness and

self-contempt he surrendered to the vision. Go to an afternoon tea to

see and speak with her again? He would, in that awakened mood, have

walked across the continent, only to be in her presence, to feel himself

once more within the radius of that inexorable charm.

CHAPTER VII

"Katie's" sits, sedate and serviceable, on a narrow side street so near

to Park Row that the big table in the rear rattles its dishes when the

presses begin their seismic rumblings, in the daily effort to shake the

world. Here gather the pick and choice of New York journalism, while

still on duty, to eat and drink and discuss the inner news of things

which is so often much more significant than the published version;

haply to win or lose a few swiftly earned dollars at pass-three hearts.

It is the unofficial press club of Newspaper Row.

Said McHale of The Sphere, who, having been stuck with the queen of

spades--that most unlucky thirteener--twice in succession, was retiring

on his losses, to Mallory of The Ledger who had just come in:

"I hear you've got a sucking genius at your shop."

"If you mean Banneker, he's weaned," replied the assistant city editor

of The Ledger. "He goes on space next week."

"Does he, though! Quick work, eh?"

"A record for the office. He's been on the staff less than a year."

"Is he really such a wonder?" asked Glidden of The Monitor.

Three or four Ledger men answered at once, citing various stories which

had stirred the interest of Park Row.

"Oh, you Ledger fellows are always giving the college yell for each

other," said McHale, impatiently voicing the local jealousy of The

Ledger's recognized _esprit de corps_. "I've seen bigger rockets than

him come down in the ash-heap."

"He won't," prophesied Tommy Burt, The Ledger's humorous specialist.

"He'll go up and stay up. High! He's got the stuff."

"They say," observed Fowler, the star man of The Patriot, "he covers his

assignment in taxicabs."

"He gets the news," murmured Mallory, summing up in that phrase all the

encomiums which go to the perfect praise of the natural-born reporter.

"And he writes it," put in Van Cleve of The Courier. "Lord, how that boy

can write! Why, a Banneker two-sticks stands out as if it were printed

in black-face."

"I've never seen him around," remarked Glidden. "What does he do with

himself besides work?"

"Nothing, I imagine," answered Mallory. "One of the cubs reports finding

him at the Public Library, before ten o'clock in the morning, surrounded

by books on journalism. He's a serious young owl."

"It doesn't get into his copy, then," asserted "Parson" Gale, political

expert for The Ledger.

"Nor into his appearance. He certainly dresses like a flower of the

field. Even the wrinkles in his clothes have the touch of high-priced

Fifth Avenue."

"Must be rich," surmised Fowler. "Taxis for assignments and Fifth-Avenue

raiment sound like real money."

"Nobody knows where he got it, then," said Tommy Burt. "Used to be a

freight brakeman or something out in the wild-and-woolly. When he

arrived, he was dressed very proud and stiff like a Baptist elder going

to make a social call, all but the made-up bow tie and the oil on the

hair. Some change and sudden!"

"Got a touch of the swelled head, though, hasn't he?" asked Van Cleve.

"I hear he's beginning to pick his assignments already. Refuses to take

society stuff and that sort of thing."

"Oh," said Mallory, "I suppose that comes from his being assigned to a

tea given by the Thatcher Forbes for some foreign celebrity, and asking

to be let off because he'd already been invited there and declined."

"Hello!" exclaimed McHale. "Where does our young bird come in to fly as

high as the Thatcher Forbes? He may look like a million dollars, but is

he?"

"All I know," said Tommy Burt, "is that every Monday, which is his day

off, he dines at Sherry's, and goes in lonely glory to a first-night, if

there is one, afterward. It must have been costing him half of his

week's salary."

"Swelled head, sure," diagnosed Decker, the financial reporter of The

Ledger. "Well, watch the great Chinese joss, Greenough, pull the props

from under him when the time comes."

"As how?" inquired Glidden.

"By handing him a nawsty one out of the assignment book, just to show

him where his hat fits too tight."

"A run of four-line obits," suggested Van Cleve, who had passed a

painful apprenticeship of death-notices in which is neither profitable

space nor hopeful opportunity, "for a few days, will do it."

"Or the job of asking an indignant millionaire papa why his pet daughter

ran away with the second footman and where."

"Or interviewing old frozen-faced Willis Enderby on his political

intentions, honorable or dishonorable."

"If I know Banneker," said Mallory, "he's game. He'll take what's handed

him and put it over."

"Once, maybe," contributed Tommy Burt. "Twice, perhaps. But I wouldn't

want to crowd too much on him."

"Greenough won't. He's wise in the ways of marvelous and unlicked cubs,"

said Decker.

"Why? What do you think Banneker would do?" asked Mallory curiously,

addressing Burt.

"If he got an assignment too rich for his stomach? Well, speaking

unofficially and without special knowledge, I'd guess that he'd handle

it to a finish, and then take his very smart and up-to-date hat and

perform a polite adieu to Mr. Greenough and all the works of The Ledger

city room."

A thin, gray, somnolent elder at the end of the table, whose nobly cut

face was seared with lines of physical pain endured and outlived,

withdrew a very small pipe from his mouth and grunted.

"The Venerable Russell Edmonds has the floor," said Tommy Burt in a

voice whose open raillery subtly suggested an underlying affection and

respect. "He snorts, and in that snort is sublimated the wisdom and

experience of a ripe ninety years on Park Row. Speak, O Compendium of

all the--"

"Shut up, Tommy," interrupted Edmonds. He resumed his pipe, gave it two

anxious puffs, and, satisfied of its continued vitality, said:

"Banneker, uh? Resign, uh? You think he would?"

"I think so."

"Does _he_ think so?"

"That's my belief."

"He won't," pronounced the veteran with finality. "They never do. They

chafe. They strain. They curse out the job and themselves. They say it

isn't fit for any white man. So it isn't, the worst of it. But they

stick. If they're marked for it, they stick."

"Marked for it?" murmured Glidden.

"The ink-spot. The mark of the beast. I've got it. You've got it,

Glidden, and you, McHale. Mallory's smudged with it. Tommy thinks it's

all over him, but it isn't. He'll end between covers. Fiction, like as

not," he added with a mildly contemptuous smile. "But this young

Banneker; it's eaten into him like acid."

"Do you know him, Pop?" inquired McHale.

"Never saw him. Don't have to. I've read his stuff."

"And you see it there?"

"Plain as Brooklyn Bridge. He'll eat mud like the rest of us."

"Come off, Pop! Where do you come in to eat mud? You've got the

creamiest job on Park Row. You never have to do anything that a railroad

president need shy at."

This was nearly true. Edmonds, who in his thirty years of service had

filled almost every conceivable position from police headquarters

reporter to managing editor, had now reverted to the phase for which the

ink-spot had marked him, and was again a reporter; a sort of

super-reporter, spending much of his time out around the country on

important projects either of news, or of that special information

necessary to a great daily, which does not always appear as news, but

which may define, determine, or alter news and editorial policies.

Of him it was said on Park Row, and not without reason, that he was

bigger than his paper, which screened him behind a traditional principle

of anonymity, for The Courier was of the second rank in metropolitan

journalism and wavered between an indigenous Bourbonism and a desire to

be thought progressive. The veteran's own creed was frankly socialistic;

but in the Fabian phase. His was a patient philosophy, content with slow

progress; but upon one point he was a passionate enthusiast. He believed

in the widest possible scope of education, and in the fundamental duty

of the press to stimulate it.

"We'll get the Social Revolution just as soon as we're educated up to

it," he was wont to declare. "If we get it before then, it'll be a worse

hash than capitalism. So let's go slow and learn."

For such a mind to be contributing to an organ of The Courier type might

seem anomalous. Often Edmonds accused himself of shameful compromise;

the kind of compromise constantly necessary to hold his place. Yet it

was not any consideration of self-interest that bound him. He could have

commanded higher pay in half a dozen open positions. Or, he could have

afforded to retire, and write as he chose, for he had been a shrewd

investor with wide opportunities. What really held him was his ability

to forward almost imperceptibly through the kind of news political and

industrial, which he, above all other journalists of his day, was able

to determine and analyze, the radical projects dear to his heart.

Nothing could have had a more titillating appeal to his sardonic humor

than the furious editorial refutations in The Courier, of facts and

tendencies plainly enunciated by him in the news columns.

Nevertheless, his impotency to speak out openly and individually the

faith that was in him, left always a bitter residue in his mind. It now

informed his answer to Van Cleve's characterization of his job.

"If I can sneak a tenth of the truth past the copy-desk," he said, "I'm

doing well. And what sort of man am I when I go up against these

big-bugs of industry at their conventions, and conferences, appearing as

representative of The Courier which represents their interests? A damned

hypocrite, I'd say! If they had brains enough to read between the lines

of my stuff, they'd see it."

"Why don't you tell 'em?" asked Mallory lazily.

"I did, once. I told the President of the United Manufacturers'

Association what I really thought of their attitude toward labor."

"With what result?"

"He ordered The Courier to fire me."

"You're still there."

"Yes. But he isn't. I went after him on his record."

"All of which doesn't sound much like mud-eating, Pop."

"I've done my bit of that in my time, too. I've had jobs to do that a

self-respecting swill-hustler wouldn't touch. I've sworn I wouldn't do

'em. And I've done 'em, rather than lose my job. Just as young Banneker

will, when the test comes."

"I'll bet he won't," said Tommy Burt.

Mallory, who had been called away, returned in time to hear this. "You

might ask him to settle the bet," he suggested. "I've just had him on

the 'phone. He's coming around."

"I will," said Edmonds.

On his arrival Banneker was introduced to those of the men whom he did

not know, and seated next to Edmonds.

"We've been talking about you, young fellow," said the veteran.

From most men Banneker would have found the form of address patronizing.

But the thin, knotty face of Edmonds was turned upon him with so kindly

a regard in the hollow eyes that he felt an innate stir of knowledge

that here was a man who might be a friend. He made no answer, however,

merely glancing at the speaker. To learn that the denizens of Park Row

were discussing him, caused him neither surprise nor elation. While he

knew that he had made hit after hit with his work, he was not inclined

to over-value the easily won reputation. Edmonds's next remark did not

please him.

"We were discussing how much dirt you'd eat to hold your job on The

Ledger."

"The Ledger doesn't ask its men to eat dirt, Edmonds," put in Mallory

sharply.

"Chop, fried potatoes, coffee, and a stein of Nicklas-brau," Banneker

specified across the table to the waiter. He studied the mimeographed

bill-of-fare with selective attention. "And a slice of apple pie," he

decided. Without change of tone, he looked up over the top of the menu

at Edmonds slowly puffing his insignificant pipe and said: "I don't like

your assumption, Mr. Edmonds."

"It's ugly," admitted the other, "but you have to answer it. Oh, not to

me!" he added, smiling. "To yourself."

"It hasn't come my way yet."

"It will. Ask any of these fellows. We've all had to meet it. Yes; you,

too, Mallory. We've all had to eat our peck of dirt in the sacred name

of news. Some are too squeamish. They quit."

"If they're too squeamish, they'd never make real newspaper men,"

pronounced McHale. "You can't be too good for your business."

"Just so," said Tommy Burt acidly, "but your business can be too bad for

you."

"There's got to be news. And if there's got to be news there have got to

be men willing to do hard, unpleasant work, to get it," argued Mallory.

"Hard? All right," retorted Edmonds. "Unpleasant? Who cares! I'm talking

about the dirty work. Wait a minute, Mallory. Didn't you ever have an

assignment that was an outrage on some decent man's privacy? Or, maybe

woman's? Something that made you sick at your stomach to have to do? Did

you ever have to take a couple of drinks to give you nerve to ask some

question that ought to have got you kicked downstairs for asking?"

Mallory, flushing angrily, was silent. But McHale spoke up. "Hell! Every

business has its stinks, I guess. What about being a lawyer and serving

papers? Or a manufacturer and having to bootlick the buyers? I tell you,

if the public wants a certain kind of news, it's the newspaper's

business to serve it to 'em; and it's the newspaper man's business to

get it for his paper. I say it's up to the public."

"The public," murmured Edmonds. "Swill-eaters."

"All right! Then give 'em the kind of swill they want," cried McHale.

Edmonds so manipulated his little pipe that it pointed directly at

Banneker. "Would you?" he asked.

"Would I what?"

"Give 'em the kind of swill they want? You seem to like to keep your

hands clean."

"Aren't you asking me your original question in another form?" smiled

the young man.

"You objected to it before."

"I'll answer it now. A friend of mine wrote to me when I went on The

Ledger, advising me always to be ready on a moment's notice to look my

job between the eyes and tell it to go to hell."

"Yes; I've known that done, too," interpolated Mallory. "But in those

cases it isn't the job that goes." He pushed back his chair. "Don't let

Pop Edmonds corrupt you with his pessimism, Banneker," he warned. "He

doesn't mean half of it."

"Under the seal of the profession," said the veteran. "If there were

outsiders present, it would be different. I'd have to admit that ours is

the greatest, noblest, most high-minded and inspired business in the

world. Free and enlightened press. Fearless defender of the right.

Incorruptible agent of the people's will. Did I say 'people's will' or

'people's swill'? Don't ask me!"

The others paid their accounts and followed Mallory out, leaving

Banneker alone at the table with the saturnine elder. Edmonds put a

thumbful of tobacco in his pipe, and puffed silently.

"What will it get a man?" asked Banneker, setting down his coffee-cup.

"This game?" queried the other.

"Yes."

"'What shall it profit a man,'" quoted the veteran ruminatively. "You

know the rest."

"No," returned Banneker decidedly. "That won't do. These fellows here

haven't sold their souls."

"Or lost 'em. Maybe not," admitted the elder. "Though I wouldn't gamble

strong on some of 'em. But they've lost something."

"Well, what is it? That's what I'm trying to get at."

"Independence. They're merged in the paper they write for."

"Every man's got to subordinate himself to his business, if he's to do

justice to it and himself, hasn't he?"

"Yes. If you're buying or selling stocks or socks, it doesn't matter.

The principles you live by aren't involved. In the newspaper game they

are."

"Not in reporting, though."

"If reporting were just gathering facts and presenting them, it wouldn't

be so. But you're deep enough in by now to see that reporting of a lot

of things is a matter of coloring your version to the general policy of

your paper. Politics, for instance, or the liquor question, or labor

troubles. The best reporters get to doing it unconsciously. Chameleons."

"And you think it affects them?"

"How can it help? There's a slow poison in writing one way when you

believe another."

"And that's part of the dirt-eating?"

"Well, yes. Not so obvious as some of the other kinds. Those hurt your

pride, mostly. This kind hurts your self-respect."

"But where does it get you, all this business?" asked Banneker reverting

to his first query.

"I'm fifty-two years old," replied Edmonds quietly.

Banneker stared. "Oh, I see!" he said presently. "And you're considered

a success. Of course you _are_ a success."

"On Park Row. Would you like to be me? At fifty-two?"

"No, I wouldn't," said Banneker with a frankness which brought a faint

smile to the other man's tired face. "Yet you've got where you started

for, haven't you?"

"Perhaps I could answer that if I knew where I started for or where I've

got to."

"Put it that you've got what you were after, then."

"No's the answer. Upper-case No. I want to get certain things over to

the public intelligence. Maybe I've got one per cent of them over. Not

more."

"That's something. To have a public that will follow you even part

way--"

"Follow me? Bless you; they don't know me except as a lot of print that

they occasionally read. I'm as anonymous as an editorial writer. And

that's the most anonymous thing there is."

"That doesn't suit me at all," declared Banneker. "If I have got

anything in me--and I think I have--I don't want it to make a noise like

a part of a big machine. I'd rather make a small noise of my own."

"Buy a paper, then. Or write fluffy criticisms about art or theaters. Or

get into the magazine field. You can write; O Lord! yes, you can write.

But unless you've got the devotion of a fanatic like McHale, or a born

servant of the machine like 'Parson' Gale, or an old fool like me,

willing to sink your identity in your work, you'll never be content as a

reporter."

"Tell me something. Why do none of the men, talking among themselves,

ever refer to themselves as reporters. It's always 'newspaper men.'"

Edmonds shot a swift glance at him. "What do you think?"

"I think," he decided slowly, "it's because there is a sort of stigma

attached to reporting."

"Damn you, you're right!" snapped the veteran. "Though it's the rankest

heresy to admit it. There's a taint about it. There's a touch of the

pariah. We try to fool ourselves into thinking there isn't. But it's

there, and we admit it when we use a clumsy, misfit term like 'newspaper

man.'"

"Whose fault is it?"

"The public's. The public is a snob. It likes to look down on brains.

Particularly the business man. That's why I'm a Socialist. I'm ag'in the

bourgeoisie."

"Aren't the newspapers to blame, in the kind of stuff they print?"

"And why do they print it?" demanded the other fiercely. "Because the

public wants all the filth and scandal and invasion of privacy that it

can get and still feel respectable."

"The Ledger doesn't go in for that sort of thing."

"Not as much as some of the others. But a little more each year. It

follows the trend." He got up, quenched his pipe, and reached for his

hat. "Drop in here about seven-thirty when you feel like hearing the old

man maunder," he said with his slight, friendly smile.

Rising, Banneker leaned over to him. "Who's the man at the next table?"

he asked in a low voice, indicating a tall, broad, glossily dressed

diner who was sipping his third _demi-tasse_, in apparent detachment

from the outside world.

"His name is Marrineal," replied the veteran. "He dines here

occasionally alone. Don't know what he does."

"He's been listening in."

"Curious thing; he often does."

As they parted at the door, Edmonds said paternally:

"Remember, young fellow, a Park Row reputation is written on glass with

a wet finger. It doesn't last during the writing."

"And only dims the glass," said Banneker reflectively.

CHAPTER VIII

Heat, sudden, savage, and oppressive, bore down upon the city early that

spring, smiting men in their offices, women in their homes, the horses

between the shafts of their toil, so that the city was in danger of

becoming disorganized. The visitation developed into the big story of

successive days. It was the sort of generalized, picturesque

"fluff-stuff" matter which Banneker could handle better than his

compeers by sheer imaginative grasp and deftness of presentation. Being

now a writer on space, paid at the rate of eight dollars a column of

from thirteen to nineteen hundred words, he found the assignment

profitable and the test of skill quite to his taste. Soft job though it

was in a way, however, the unrelenting pressure of the heat and the task

of finding, day after day, new phases and fresh phrases in which to deal

with it, made inroads upon his nerves.

He took to sleeping ill again. Io Welland had come back in all the

glamorous panoply of waking dreams to command and torment his loneliness

of spirit. At night he dreaded the return to the draughtless room on

Grove Street. In the morning, rising sticky-eyed and unrested, he shrank

from the thought of the humid, dusty, unkempt hurly-burly of the office.

Yet his work was never more brilliant and individual.

Having finished his writing, one reeking midnight, he sat, spent, at his

desk, hating the thought of the shut-in place that he called home.

Better to spend the night on a bench in some square, as he had done

often enough in the earlier days. He rose, took his hat, and had reached

the first landing when the steps wavered and faded in front of him and

he found himself clutching for the rail. A pair of hands gripped his

shoulders and held him up.

"What's the matter, Mr. Banneker?" asked a voice.

"God!" muttered Banneker. "I wish I were back on the desert."

"You want a drink," prescribed his volunteer prop.

As his vision and control reestablished themselves, Banneker found

himself being led downstairs and to the nearest bar by young Fentriss

Smith, who ordered two soda cocktails.

Of Smith he knew little except that the office called him "the permanent

twenty-five-dollar man." He was one of those earnest, faithful, totally

uninspired reporters, who can be relied upon implicitly for routine

news, but are constitutionally impotent to impart color and life to any

subject whatsoever. Patiently he had seen younger and newer men overtake

and pass him; but he worked on inexorably, asking for nothing, wearing

the air of a scholar with some distant and abstruse determination in

view. Like Banneker he had no intimates in the office.

"The desert," echoed Smith in his quiet, well-bred voice. "Isn't it

pretty hot, there, too?"

"It's open," said Banneker. "I'm smothering here."

"You look frazzled out, if you don't mind my saying so."

"I feel frazzled out; that's what I mind."

"Suppose you come out with me to-night as soon as I report to the desk,"

suggested the other.

Banneker, refreshed by the tingling drink, looked down at him in

surprise. "Where?" he asked.

"I've got a little boat out here in the East River."

"A boat? Lord, that sounds good!" sighed Banneker.

"Does it? Then see here! Why couldn't you put in a few days with me, and

cool off? I've often wanted to talk to you about the newspaper business,

and get your ideas."

"But I'm newer at it than you are."

"For a fact! Just the same you've got the trick of it and I haven't.

I'll go around to your place while you pack a suitcase, and we're off."

"That's very good of you." Accustomed though he was to the swift and

ready comradeship of a newspaper office, Banneker was puzzled by this

advance from the shy and remote Smith. "All right: if you'll let me

share expenses," he said presently.

Smith seemed taken aback at this. "Just as you like," he assented.

"Though I don't quite know--We'll talk of that later."

While Banneker was packing in his room, Smith, seated on the

window-sill, remarked:

"I ought to tell you that we have to go through a bad district to get

there."

"The Tunnel Gang?" asked Banneker, wise in the plague spots of the city.

"Just this side of their stamping ground. It's a gang of wharf rats.

There have been a number of hold-ups, and last week a dead woman was

found under the pier."

Banneker made an unobtrusive addition to his packing. "They'll have to

move fast to catch me," he observed.

"Two of us together won't be molested. But if you're alone, be careful.

The police in that precinct are no good. They're either afraid or they

stand in with the gang."

On Fifth Avenue the pair got a late-cruising taxicab whose driver,

however, declined to take them nearer than one block short of the pier.

"The night air in that place ain't good fer weak constitutions," he

explained. "One o' my pals got a headache last week down on the pier

from bein' beaned with a sandbag."

No one interfered with the two reporters, however. A whistle from the

end of the pier evolved from the watery dimness a dinghy, which, in a

hundred yards of rowing, delivered them into a small but perfectly

appointed yacht. Banneker, looking about the luxurious cabin, laughed a

little.

"That was a bad guess of mine about half expenses," he said

good-humoredly. "I'd have to mortgage my future for a year. Do you own

this craft?"

"My father does. He's been called back West."

Bells rang, the wheel began to churn, and Banneker, falling asleep in

his berth with a vivifying breeze blowing across him, awoke in broad

daylight to a view of sparkling little waves which danced across his

vision to smack impudently the flanks of the speeding craft.

"We'll be in by noon," was Smith's greeting as they met on the

companionway for a swim.

"What do you do it for?" asked Banneker, seated at the breakfast table,

with an appetite such as he had not known for weeks.

"Do what?"

"Two men's work at twenty-five per for The Ledger?"

"Training."

"Are you going to stick to the business?"

"The family," explained Smith, "own a newspaper in Toledo. It fell to

them by accident. Our real business is manufacturing farm machinery, and

none of us has ever tried or thought of manufacturing newspapers. So

they wished on me the job of learning how."

"Do you like it?"

"Not particularly. But I'm going through with it."

Banneker felt a new and surprised respect for his host. He could

forecast the kind of small city newspaper that Smith would make;

careful, conscientious, regular in politics, loyal to what it deemed the

best interests of the community, single-minded in its devotion to the

Smith family and its properties; colorless, characterless, and without

vision or leadership in all that a newspaper should, according to

Banneker's opinion, stand for. So he talked with the fervor of an

enthusiast, a missionary, a devotee, who saw in that daily chronicle of

the news an agency to stir men's minds and spur their thoughts, if need

be, to action; at the same time the mechanism and instrument of power,

of achievement, of success. Fentriss Smith listened and was troubled in

spirit by these unknown fires. He had supposed respectability to be the

final aim and end of a sound newspaper tradition.

The apparent intimacy which had sprung up between twenty-five-dollar

Smith and the reserved, almost hermit-like Banneker was the subject of

curious and amused commentary in The Ledger office. Mallory hazarded a

humorous guess that Banneker was tutoring Smith in the finer arts of

journalism, which was not so far amiss as its proponent might have

supposed.

The Great Heat broke several evenings later in a drench of rain and

wind. This, being in itself important news, kept Banneker late at his

writing, and he had told his host not to wait, that he would join him on

the yacht sometime about midnight. So Smith had gone on alone.

The next morning Tommy Burt, lounging into the office from an early

assignment, approached the City Desk with a twinkle far back in his

lively eyes.

"Hear anything of a shoot-fest up in the Bad Lands last night?" he

asked.

"Not yet," replied Mr. Greenough. "They're getting to be everyday

occurrences up there. Is it on the police slips, Mr. Mallory?"

"No. Nothing in that line," answered the assistant, looking over his

assortment.

"Police are probably suppressing it," opined Burt.

"Have you got the story?" queried Mr. Greenough.

"In outline. It isn't really my story."

"Whose is it, then?"

"That's part of it." Tommy Burt leaned against Mallory's desk and

appeared to be revolving some delectable thought in his mind.

"Tommy," said Mallory, "they didn't open that committee meeting you've

been attending with a corkscrew, did they?"

"I'm intoxicated with the chaste beauties of my story, which isn't

mine," returned the dreamily smiling Mr. Burt. "Here it is, boiled down.

Guest on an anchored yacht returning late, sober, through the mist.

Wharf-gang shooting craps in a pier-shed. They size him up and go to it;

six of 'em. Knives and one gun: maybe more. The old game: one asks for

the time. Another sneaks up behind and gives the victim the

elbow-garrote. The rest rush him. Well, they got as far as the garrote.

Everything lovely and easy. Then Mr. Victim introduces a few

specialties. Picks a gun from somewhere around his shirt-front, shoots

the garroter over his shoulder; kills the man in front, who is at him

with a stiletto, ducks a couple of shots from the gang, and lays out two

more of 'em. The rest take to the briny. Tally: two dead, one dying, one

wounded, Mr. Guest walks to the shore end, meets two patrolmen, and

turns in his gun. 'I've done a job for you,' says he. So they pinch him.

He's in the police station, _incomunicado_."

Throughout the narrative, Mr. Greenough had thrown in little, purring

interjections of "Good! Good!"--"Yes."--"Ah! good!" At the conclusion

Mallory exclaimed!

"Moses! That is a story! You say it isn't yours? Why not?"

"Because it's Banneker's."

"Why?"

"He's the guest with the gun."

Mallory jumped in his chair. "Banneker!" he exclaimed. "Oh, hell!" he

added disconsolately.

"Takes the shine out of the story, doesn't it?" observed Burt with a

malicious smile.

One of the anomalous superstitions of newspaperdom is that nothing which

happens to a reporter in the line of his work is or can be "big news."

The mere fact that he is a reporter is enough to blight the story.

"What was Banneker doing down there?" queried Mr. Greenough.

"Visiting on a yacht."

"Is that so?" There was a ray of hope in the other's face. The glamour

of yachting association might be made to cast a radiance about the

event, in which the damnatory fact that the principal figure was a mere

reporter could be thrown into low relief. Such is the view which

journalistic snobbery takes of the general public's snobbery. "Whose

yacht?"

Again the spiteful little smile appealed on Burt's lips as he dashed the

rising hope. "Fentriss Smith's."

And again the expletive of disillusion burst from between Mallory's

teeth as he saw the front-page double-column spread, a type-specialty of

the usually conservative Ledger upon which it prided itself, dwindle to

a carefully handled inside-page three-quarter of a column.

"You say that Mr. Banneker is in the police station?" asked the city

editor.

"Or at headquarters. They're probably working the third degree on him."

"That won't do," declared the city desk incumbent, with conviction. He

caught up the telephone, got the paper's City Hall reporter, and was

presently engaged in some polite but pointed suggestions to His Honor

the Mayor. Shortly after, Police Headquarters called; the Chief himself

was on the wire.

"The Ledger is behind Mr. Banneker, Chief," said Mr. Greenough crisply.

"Carrying concealed weapons? If your men in that precinct were fit to be

on the force, there would be no need for private citizens to go armed.

You get the point, I see. Good-bye."

"Unless I am a bad guesser we'll have Banneker back here by evening. And

there'll be no manhandling in his case," Mallory said to Burt.

Counsel was taken of Mr. Gordon, as soon as that astute managing editor

arrived, as to the handling of the difficult situation. The Ledger,

always cynically intolerant of any effort to better the city government,

as savoring of "goo-gooism," which was its special _bête noire_, could

not well make the shooting a basis for a general attack upon police

laxity, though it was in this that lay the special news possibility of

the event. On the other hand, the thing was far too sensational to be

ignored or too much slurred.

Andreas, the assistant managing editor, in charge of the paper's

make-up, a true news-hound with an untainted delight in the unusual and

striking, no matter what its setting might be, who had been called into

the conference, advocated "smearing it all over the front page, with

Banneker's first-hand statement for the lead--pictures too."

Him, Mr. Greenough, impassive joss of the city desk, regarded with a

chill eye. "One reporter visiting another gets into a muss and shoots up

some riverside toughs," he remarked contemptuously. "You can hardly

expect our public to get greatly excited over that. Are we going into

the business of exploiting our own cubs?"

Thereupon there was sharp discussion to which Mr. Gordon put an end by

remarking that the evening papers would doubtless give them a lead;

meantime they could get Banneker's version.

First to come in was The Evening New Yorker, the most vapid of all the

local prints, catering chiefly to the uptown and shopping element. Its

heading half-crossed the page proclaiming "Guest of Yachtsman Shoots

Down Thugs." Nowhere in the article did it appear that Banneker had any

connection with the newspaper world. He was made to appear as a young

Westerner on a visit to the yacht of a millionaire business man, having

come on from his ranch in the desert, and presumptively--to add the

touch of godhead--a millionaire himself.

"The stinking liars!" said Andreas.

"That settles it," declared Mr. Gordon. "We'll give the facts plainly

and without sensationalism; but all the facts."

"Including Mr. Banneker's connection here?" inquired Mr. Greenough.

"Certainly."

The other evening papers, more honest than The Evening New Yorker,

admitted, though, as it were, regretfully and in an inconspicuous finale

to their accounts that the central figure of the sensation was only a

reporter. But the fact of his being guest on a yacht was magnified and

glorified.

At five o'clock Banneker arrived, having been bailed out after some

difficulty, for the police were frightened and ugly, foreseeing that

this swift vengeance upon the notorious gang, meted out by a private

hand, would throw a vivid light upon their own inefficiency and

complaisance. Happily the District Attorney's office was engaged in one

of its periodical feuds with the Police Department over some matter of

graft gone astray, and was more inclined to make a cat's-paw than a

victim out of Banneker.

Though inwardly strung to a high pitch, for the police officials had

kept him sleepless through the night by their habitual inquisition,

Banneker held himself well in hand as he went to the City Desk to report

gravely that he had been unable to come earlier.

"So we understand, Mr. Banneker," said Mr. Greenough, his placid

features for once enlivened. "That was a good job you did. I

congratulate you."

"Thank you, Mr. Greenough," returned Banneker. "I had to do it or get

done. And, at that, it wasn't much of a trick. They were a yellow lot."

"Very likely: very likely. You've handled a gun before."

"Only in practice."

"Ever shot anybody before?"

"No, sir."

"How does it feel?" inquired the city editor, turning his pale eyes on

the other and fussing nervously with his fingers.

"At first you want to go on killing," answered Banneker. "Then, when

it's over, there's a big let-down. It doesn't seem as if it were you."

He paused and added boyishly: "The evening papers are making an awful

fuss over it."

"What do you expect? It isn't every day that a Wild West Show with real

bullets and blood is staged in this effete town."

"Of course I knew there'd be a kick-up about it," admitted Banneker.

"But, some way--well, in the West, if a gang gets shot up, there's quite

a bit of talk for a while, and the boys want to buy the drinks for the

fellow that does it, but it doesn't spread all over the front pages. I

suppose I still have something of the Western view.... How much did you

want of this, Mr. Greenough?" he concluded in a business-like tone.

"You are not doing the story, Mr. Banneker. Tommy Burt is."

"I'm not writing it? Not any of it?"

"Certainly not. You're the hero"--there was a hint of elongation of the

first syllable which might have a sardonic connotation from those pale

and placid lips--"not the historian. Burt will interview you."

"A Patriot reporter has already. I gave him a statement."

Mr. Greenough frowned. "It would have been as well to have waited.

However."

"Oh, Banneker," put in Mallory, "Judge Enderby wants you to call at his

office."

"Who's Judge Enderby?"

"Chief Googler of the Goo-Goos; the Law Enforcement Society lot. They

call him the ablest honest lawyer in New York. He's an old crab. Hates

the newspapers, particularly us."

"Why?"

"He cherishes some theory," said Mr. Greenough in his most toneless

voice, "that a newspaper ought to be conducted solely in the interests

of people like himself."

"Is there any reason why I should go chasing around to see him?"

"That's as you choose. He doesn't see reporters often. Perhaps it would

be as well."

"His outfit are after the police," explained Mallory. "That's what he

wants you for. It's part of their political game. Always politics."

"Well, he can wait until to-morrow, I suppose," remarked Banneker

indifferently.

Greenough examined him with impenetrable gaze. This was a very cavalier

attitude toward Judge Willis Enderby. For Enderby was a man of real

power. He might easily have been the most munificently paid corporation

attorney in the country but for the various kinds of business which he

would not, in his own homely phrase, "poke at with a burnt stick."

Notwithstanding his prejudices, he was confidential legal adviser, in

personal and family affairs, to a considerable percentage of the

important men and women of New York. He was supposed to be the only man

who could handle that bull-elephant of finance, ruler of Wall Street,

and, when he chose to give it his contemptuous attention, dictator,

through his son and daughters, of the club and social world of New York,

old Poultney Masters, in the apoplectic rages into which the slightest

thwart to his will plunged him. To Enderby's adroitness the financier

(one of whose pet vanities was a profound and wholly baseless faith in

himself as a connoisseur of art) owed it that he had not become a

laughing-stock through his purchase of a pair of particularly flagrant

Murillos, planted for his special behoof by a gang of clever Italian

swindlers. Rumor had it that when Enderby had privately summed up his

client's case for his client's benefit before his client as referee, in

these words: "And, Mr. Masters, if you act again in these matters

without consulting me, you must find another lawyer; I cannot afford

fools for clients"--they had to call in a physician and resort to the

ancient expedient of bleeding, to save the great man's cerebral arteries

from bursting.

Toward the public press, Enderby's attitude was the exact reverse of

Horace Vanney's. For himself, he unaffectedly disliked and despised

publicity; for the interests which he represented, he delegated it to

others. He would rarely be interviewed; his attitude toward the

newspapers was consistently repellent. Consequently his infrequent

utterances were treasured as pearls, and given a prominence far above

those of the too eager and over-friendly Mr. Vanney, who, incidentally,

was his associate on the directorate of the Law Enforcement Society. The

newspapers did not like Willis Enderby any more than he liked them. But

they cherished for him an unrequited respect.

That a reporter, a nobody of yesterday whose association with The Ledger

constituted his only claim to any status whatever, should profess

indifference to a summons from a man of Enderby's position, suggested

affectation to Mr. Greenough's suspicions. Young Mr. Banneker's head was

already swelling, was it? Very well; in the course of time and his

duties, Mr. Greenough would apply suitable remedies.

If Banneker were, indeed, taking a good conceit of himself from the

conspicuous position achieved so unexpectedly, the morning papers did

nothing to allay it. Most of them slurred over, as lightly as possible,

the fact of his journalistic connection; as in the evening editions, the

yacht feature was kept to the fore. There were two exceptions. The

Ledger itself, in a colorless and straightforward article, frankly

identified the hero of the episode, in the introductory sentence, as a

member of its city staff, and his host of the yacht as another

journalist. But there was one notable omission about which Banneker

determined to ask Tommy Burt as soon as he could see him. The Patriot,

most sensational of the morning issues, splurged wildly under the

caption, "Yacht Guest Cleans Out Gang Which Cowed Police." The Sphere,

in an editorial, demanded a sweeping and honest investigation of the

conditions which made life unsafe in the greatest of cities. The Sphere

was always demanding sweeping and honest investigations, and not

infrequently getting them. In Greenough's opinion this undesirable

result was likely to be achieved now. To Mr. Gordon he said:

"We ought to shut down all we can on the Banneker follow-up. An

investigation with our man as prosecuting witness would put us in the

position of trying to reform the police, and would play into the hands

of the Enderby crowd."

The managing editor shook a wise and grizzled head. "If The Patriot

keeps up its whooping and The Sphere its demanding, the administration

will have to do something. After all, Mr. Greenough, things have become

pretty unendurable in the Murder Precinct."

"That's true. But the signed statement of Banneker's in The

Patriot--it's really an interview faked up as a statement--is a savage

attack on the whole administration."

"I understand," remarked Mr. Gordon, "that they were going to beat him

up scientifically in the station house when Smith came in and scared

them out of it."

"Yes. Banneker is pretty angry over it. You can't blame him. But that's

no reason why we should alienate the city administration.... Then you

think, Mr. Gordon, that we'll have to keep the story running?"

"I think, Mr. Greenough, that we'll have to give the news," answered the

managing editor austerely. "Where is Banneker now?"

"With Judge Enderby, I believe. In case of an investigation he won't be

much use to us until it's over."

"Can't be helped," returned Mr. Gordon serenely. "We'll stand by our

man."

Banneker had gone to the old-fashioned offices of Enderby and Enderby,

in a somewhat inimical frame of mind. Expectant of an invitation to aid

the Law Enforcement Society in cleaning up a pest-hole of crime, he was

half determined to have as little to do with it as possible. Overnight

consideration had developed in him the theory that the function of a

newspaper is informative, not reformative; that when a newspaper man has

correctly adduced and frankly presented the facts, his social as well as

his professional duty is done. Others might hew out the trail thus

blazed; the reporter, bearing his searchlight, should pass on to other

dark spots. All his theories evaporated as soon as he confronted Judge

Enderby, forgotten in the interest inspired by the man.

A portrait painter once said of Willis Enderby that his face was that of

a saint, illumined, not by inspiration, but by shrewdness. With his

sensitiveness to beauty of whatever kind, Banneker felt the

extraordinary quality of the face, beneath its grim outline,

interpreting it from the still depth of the quiet eyes rather than from

the stern mouth and rather tyrannous nose. He was prepared for an abrupt

and cold manner, and was surprised when the lawyer rose to shake hands,

giving him a greeting of courtly congratulation upon his courage and

readiness. If the purpose of this was to get Banneker to expand, as he

suspected, it failed. The visitor sensed the cold reserve behind the

smile.

"Would you be good enough to run through this document?" requested the

lawyer, motioning Banneker to a seat opposite himself, and handing him a

brief synopsis of what the Law Enforcement Society hoped to prove

regarding police laxity.

Exercising that double faculty of mind which later became a part of the

Banneker legend in New York journalism, the reader, whilst absorbing the

main and quite simple points of the report, recalled an instance in

which an Atkinson and St. Philip ticket agent had been maneuvered into a

posture facing a dazzling sunset, and had adjusted his vision to find it

focused upon the barrel of a 45. Without suspecting the Judge of hold-up

designs, he nevertheless developed a parallel. Leaving his chair he

walked over and sat by the window. Halfway through the document, he

quietly laid it aside and returned the lawyer's studious regard.

"Have you finished?" asked Judge Enderby.

"No."

"You do not find it interesting?"

"Less interesting than your idea in giving it to me."

"What do you conceive that to have been?"

By way of reply, Banneker cited the case of Tim Lake, the robbed agent.

"I think," he added with a half smile, "that you and I will do better in

the open."

"I think so, too. Mr. Banneker, are you honest?"

"Where I came from, that would be regarded as a trouble-hunter's

question."

"I ask you to regard it as important and take it without offense."

"I don't know about that," returned Banneker gravely. "We'll see.

Honest, you say. Are you?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you begin by doubting the honesty of a stranger against

whom you know nothing?"

"Legal habit, I dare say. Fortified, in this case, by your association

with The Ledger."

"You haven't a high opinion of my paper?"

"The very highest, of its adroitness and expertness. It can make the

better cause appear the worse with more skill than any other journal in

America."

"I thought that was the specialty of lawyers."

Judge Enderby accepted the touch with a smile.

"A lawyer is an avowed special pleader. He represents one side. A

newspaper is supposed to be without bias and to present the facts for

the information of its one client, the public. You will readily

appreciate the difference."

"I do. Then you don't consider The Ledger honest."

Judge Enderby's composed glance settled upon the morning's issue, spread

upon his desk. "I have, I assume, the same opinion of The Ledger's

honesty that you have."

"Do you mind explaining that to me quite simply, so that I shall be sure

to understand it?" invited Banneker.

"You have read the article about your exploit?"

"Yes."

"Is that honest?"

"It is as accurate a job as I've ever known done."

"Granted. Is it honest?"

"I don't know," answered the other after a pause. "I intend to find

out."

"You intend to find out why it is so reticent on every point that might

impugn the police, I take it. I could tell you; but yours is the better

way. You gave the same interview to your own paper that you gave to The

Patriot, I assume. By the way, what a commentary on journalism that the

most scurrilous sheet in New York should have given the fullest and

frankest treatment to the subject; a paper written by the dregs of Park

Row for the reading of race-track touts and ignorant servant girls!"

"Yes; I gave them the same interview. It may have been crowded out--"

"For lack of space," supplied Enderby in a tone which the other heartily

disliked. "Mr. Banneker, I thought that this was to be in the open."

"I'm wrong," confessed the other. "I'll know by this evening why the

police part was handled that way, and if it was policy--" He stopped,

considering.

"Well?" prompted the other.

"I'll go through to the finish with your committee."

"You're as good as pledged," retorted the lawyer. "I shall expect to

hear from you."

As soon as he could find Tommy Burt, Banneker put to him the direct

question. "What is the matter with the story as I gave it to you?"

Burt assumed an air of touching innocence. "The story had to be handled

with great care," he explained blandly.

"Come off, Tommy. Didn't you write the police part?"

Tommy Burl's eyes denoted the extreme of candor. "It was suggested to me

that your views upon the police, while interesting and even important,

might be misunderstood."

"Is _that_ so? And who made the suggestion?"

"An all-wise city desk."

"Thank you. Tommy."

"The Morning Ledger," volunteered Tommy Burt, "has a high and

well-merited reputation for its fidelity to the principles of truth and

fairness and to the best interests of the reading public. It never gives

the public any news to play with that it thinks the dear little thing

ought not to have. Did you say anything? No? Well; you meant it. You're

wrong. The Ledger is the highest-class newspaper in New York. We are the

Elect!"

In his first revulsion of anger, Banneker was for going to Mr. Greenough

and having it out with him. If it meant his resignation, very good. He

was ready to look his job in the eye and tell it to go to hell. Turning

the matter over in his mind, however, he decided upon another course. So

far as the sensational episode of which he was the central figure went,

he would regard himself consistently as a private citizen with no

responsibility whatsoever to The Ledger. Let the paper print or suppress

what it chose; his attitude toward it would be identical with his

attitude toward the other papers. Probably the office powers would

heartily disapprove of his having any dealings with Enderby and his Law

Enforcement Society. Let them! He telephoned a brief but final message

to Enderby and Enderby. When, late that night, Mr. Gordon called him over

and suggested that it was highly desirable to let the whole affair drop

out of public notice as soon as the startling facts would permit, he

replied that Judge Enderby had already arranged to push an

investigation.

"Doubtless," observed the managing editor. "It is his specialty. But

without your evidence they can't go far."

"They can have my evidence."

Mr. Gordon, who had been delicately balancing his letter-opener, now

delivered a whack of such unthinking ferocity upon his fat knuckle as to

produce a sharp pang. He gazed in surprise and reproach upon the aching

thumb and something of those emotions informed the regard which he

turned slowly upon Banneker.

Mr. Gordon's frame of mind was unenviable. The Inside Room, moved by

esoteric considerations, political and, more remotely, financial, had

issued to him a managerial ukase; no police investigation if it could be

avoided. Now, news was the guise in which Mr. Gordon sincerely worshiped

Truth, the God. But Mammon, in the Inside Room, held the purse-strings

Mr. Gordon had arrived at his honorable and well-paid position, not by

wisdom alone, but also by compromise. Here was a situation where news

must give way to the more essential interests of the paper.

"Mr. Banneker," he said, "that investigation will take a great deal of

your time; more, I fear, than the paper can afford to give you."

"They will arrange to put me on the stand in the mornings."

"Further, any connection between a Ledger man and the Enderby Committee

is undesirable and injudicious."

"I'm sorry," answered Banneker simply. "I've said I'd go through with

it."

Mr. Gordon selected a fresh knuckle for his modified drumming. "Have you

considered your duty to the paper, Mr. Banneker? If not, I advise you to

do so." The careful manner, more than the words, implied threat.

Banneker leaned forward as if for a confidential communication, as he

lapsed into a gross Westernism:

"Mr. Gordon, _I_ am paying for this round of drinks."

Somehow the managing editor received the impression that this remark,

delivered in just that tone of voice and in its own proper environment,

was usually accompanied by a smooth motion of the hand toward the pistol

holster.

Banneker, after asking whether there was anything more, and receiving a

displeased shake of the head, went away.

"Now," said he to the waiting Tommy Burt, "they'll probably fire me."

"Let 'em! You can get plenty of other jobs. But I don't think they will.

Old Gordon is really with you. It makes him sick to have to doctor

news."

Sleepless until almost morning, Banneker reviewed in smallest detail his

decision and the situation to which it had led. He thought that he had

taken the right course. He felt that Miss Camilla would approve. Judge

Enderby's personality, he recognized, had exerted some influence upon

his decision. He had conceived for the lawyer an instinctive respect and

liking. There was about him a power of attraction, not readily

definable, but seeming mysteriously to assert some hidden claim from the

past.

Where had he seen that fine and still face before?

CHAPTER IX

Sequels of a surprising and diverse character followed Banneker's sudden

fame. The first to manifest itself was disconcerting. On the Wednesday

following the fight on the pier, Mrs. Brashear intercepted him in the

hallway.

"I'm sure we all admire what you did, Mr. Banneker," she began, in

evident trepidation.

The subject of this eulogy murmured something deprecatory.

"It was very brave of you. Most praiseworthy. We appreciate it, all of

us. Yes, indeed. It's very painful, Mr. Banneker. I never expected

to--to--indeed, I couldn't have believed--" Mrs. Brashear's plump little

hands made gestures so fluttery and helpless that her lodger was moved

to come to her aid.

"What's the matter, Mrs. Brashear? What's troubling you?"

"If you could make it convenient," said she tremulously, "when your

month is up. I shouldn't think of asking you before."

"Are you giving me notice?" he inquired in amazement.

"If you don't mind, please. The notoriety, the--the--your being

arrested. You were arrested, weren't you?"

"Oh, yes. But the coroner's jury cleared--"

"Such a thing never happened to any of my guests before. To have my

house in the police records," wept Mrs. Brashear. "Really, Mr. Banneker,

really! You can't know how it hurts one's pride."

"I'll go next week," said the evicted one, divided between amusement and

annoyance, and retired to escape another outburst of grief.

Now that the matter was presented to him, he was rather glad to be

leaving. Quarters somewhere in mid-town, more in consonance with his

augmented income, suggested themselves as highly desirable. Since the

affray he had been the object of irksome attentions from his fellow

lodgers. It is difficult to say whether he found the more unendurable

young Wickert's curiosity regarding details, Hainer's pompous adulation,

or Lambert's admiring but jocular attitude. The others deemed it their

duty never to refrain from some reference to the subject wherever and

whenever they encountered him. The one exception was Miss Westlake. She

congratulated him once, quietly but with warm sincerity; and when next

she came to his door, dealt with another topic.

"Mrs. Brashear tells me that you are leaving, Mr. Banneker."

"Did she tell you why? That she has fired me out?"

"No. She didn't."

Banneker, a little surprised and touched at the landlady's reticence,

explained.

"Ah, well," commented Miss Westlake, "you would soon have outgrown us in

any case."

"I'm not so sure. Where one lives doesn't so much matter. And I'm a

creature of habit."

"I think that you are going to be a very big man, Mr. Banneker."

"Do you?" He smiled down at her. "Now, why?"

She did not answer his smile. "You've got power," she replied. "And you

have mastered your medium--or gone far toward it."

"I'm grateful for your good opinion," he began courteously; but she

broke in on him, shaking her head.

"If it were mine alone, it wouldn't matter. It's the opinion of those

who know. Mr. Banneker, I've been taking a liberty."

"You're the last person in the world to do that, I should think," he

replied smilingly.

"But I have. You may remember my asking you once when those little

sketches that I retyped so often were to be published."

"Yes. I never did anything with them."

"I did. I showed them to Violet Thornborough. She is an old friend."

Ignorant of the publication world outside of Park Row, Banneker did not

recognize a name, unknown to the public, which in the inner literary

world connoted all that was finest, most perceptive, most discriminating

and helpful in selective criticism. Miss Thornborough had been the first

to see and foster half of the glimmering and feeble radiances which had

later grown to be the manifest lights of the magazine and book world,

thanks largely to her aid and encouragement. The next name mentioned by

Miss Westlake was well enough known to Banneker, however. The critic, it

appears, had, with her own hands, borne the anonymous, typed copies to

the editorial sanctum of the foremost of monthlies, and, claiming a

prerogative, refused to move aside from the pathway of orderly business

until the Great Gaines himself, editor and autocrat of the publication,

had read at least one of them. So the Great Gaines indulged Miss

Thornborough by reading one. He then indulged himself by reading three

more.

"Your goose," he pronounced, "is not fledged; but there may be a fringe

of swan feathers. Bring him to see me."

"I haven't the faintest idea of who, what, or where he is," answered the

insistent critic.

"Then hire a detective at our expense," smiled the editor. "And, please,

as you go, can't you lure away with you Mr. Harvey Wheelwright, our most

popular novelist, now in the reception-room wishing us to publish his

latest enormity? Us!" concluded the Great Gaines sufficiently.

Having related the episode to its subject, Miss Westlake said

diffidently: "Do you think it was inexcusably impertinent of me?"

"No. I think it was very kind."

"Then you'll go to see Mr. Gaines?"

"One of these days. When I get out of this present scrape. And I hope

you'll keep on copying my Sunday stuff after I leave. Nobody else would

be so patient with my dreadful handwriting."

She gave him a glance and a little flush of thankfulness. Matters had

begun to improve with Miss Westlake. But it was due to Banneker that she

had won through her time of desperation. Now, through his suggestion,

she was writing successfully, quarter and half column "general interest"

articles for the Woman's Page of the Sunday Ledger. If she could in turn

help Banneker to recognition, part of her debt would be paid. As for

him, he was interested in, but not greatly expectant of, the Gaines

invitation. Still, if he were cast adrift from The Ledger because of

activity in the coming police inquiry, there was a possible port in the

magazine world.

Meantime there pressed the question of a home. Cressey ought to afford

help on that. He called the gilded youth on the telephone.

"Hello, old fire-eater!" cried Cressey. "Some little hero, aren't you!

Bully work, my boy. I'm proud to know you.... What; quarters? Easiest

thing you know. I've got the very thing--just like a real-estate agent.

Let's see; this is your Monday at Sherry's, isn't it? All right. I'll

meet you there."

Providentially, as it might appear, a friend of Cressey's, having

secured a diplomatic appointment, was giving up his bachelor apartment

in the select and central Regalton.

"Cheap as dirt," said the enthusiastic Cressey, beaming at Banneker over

his cocktail that evening. "Two rooms and bath; fully furnished, and you

can get it for eighteen hundred a year."

"Quite a raise from the five dollars a week I've been paying," smiled

Banneker.

"Pshaw! You've got to live up to your new reputation. You're somebody,

now, Banneker. All New York is talking about you. Why, I'm afraid to say

I know you for fear they'll think I'm bragging."

"All of which doesn't increase my income," pointed out the other.

"It will. Just wait. One way or another you'll capitalize that

reputation. That's the way New York is."

"That isn't the way _I_ am, however. I'll capitalize my brains and

ability, if I've got 'em; not my gun-play."

"Your gun-play will advertise your brains and ability, then," retorted

Cressey. "Nobody expects you to make a princely income shooting up

toughs on the water-front. But your having done it will put you in the

lime-light where people will notice you. And being noticed is the

beginning of success in this-man's-town. I'm not sure it isn't the end,

too. Just see how the head waiter fell all over himself when you came

in. I expect he's telling that bunch at the long table yonder who you

are now."

"Let him," returned Banneker comfortably, his long-bred habit of

un-self-consciousness standing him in good stead. "They'll all forget it

soon enough."

As he glanced over at the group around the table, the man who was

apparently acting as host caught his eye and nodded in friendly fashion.

"Oh, you know Marrineal, do you?" asked Cressey in surprise.

"I've seen him, but I've never spoken to him. He dines sometimes in a

queer little restaurant way downtown, just off the Swamp. Who is he,

anyway?"

"Puzzle. Nobody in the clubs knows him. He's a spender. Bit of a

rounder, too, I expect. Plays the Street, and beats it, too."

"Who's the little beauty next him?"

"You a rising light of Park Row, and not know Betty Raleigh? She killed

'em dead in London in romantic comedy and now she's come back here to

repeat."

"Oh, yes. Opening to-night, isn't she? I've got a seat." He looked over

at Marrineal, who was apparently protesting against his neighbor's

reversed wine-glass. "So that's Mr. Marrineal's little style of game, is

it?" He spoke crudely, for the apparition of the girl was quite touching

in its youth, and delight, and candor of expression, whereas he had read

into Marrineal's long, handsome, and blandly mature face a touch of the

satyr. He resented the association.

"No; it isn't," replied Cressey promptly. "If it is, he's in the wrong

pew. Miss Raleigh is straight as they make 'em, from all I hear."

"She looks it," admitted Banneker.

"At that, she's in a rather sporty lot. Do you know that chap three

seats to her left?"

Banneker considered the diner, a round-faced, high-colored, youthful man

of perhaps thirty-five, with a roving and merry eye. "No," he answered.

"I never saw him before."

"That's Del Eyre," remarked Cressey casually, and appearing not to look

at Banneker.

"A friend of yours?" The indifference of the tone indicated to his

companion either that Banneker did not identify Delavan Eyre by his

marriage, or that he maintained extraordinary control over himself, or

that the queer, romantic stories of Io Welland's "passion in the desert"

were gross exaggerations. Cressey inclined to the latter belief.

"Not specially," he answered the question. "He belongs to a couple of my

clubs. Everybody likes Del; even Mrs. Del. But his pace is too swift for

me. Just at present he is furnishing transportation, sixty horse-power,

for Tarantina, the dancer who is featured in Betty Raleigh's show."

"Is she over there with them?"

"Oh, no. She wouldn't be. It isn't as sporty as all that." He rose to

shake hands with a short, angular young man, dressed to a perfection as

accurate as Banneker's own, and excelling him in one distinctive touch,

a coat-flower of gold-and-white such as no other in New York could wear,

since only in one conservatory was that special orchid successfully

grown. By it Banneker recognized Poultney Masters, Jr., the son and heir

of the tyrannous old financier who had for years bullied and browbeaten

New York to his wayward old heart's content. In his son there was

nothing of the bully, but through the amiability of manner Banneker

could feel a quiet force. Cressey introduced them.

"We're just having coffee," said Banneker. "Will you join us?"

"Thank you; I must go back to my party. I came over to express my

personal obligation to you for cleaning out that gang of wharf-rats. My

boat anchors off there. I hope to see you aboard her sometime."

"You owe me no thanks," returned Banneker good-humoredly. "What I did was

to save my own precious skin."

"The effect was the same. After this the rats will suspect every man of

being a Banneker in disguise, and we shall have no more trouble."

"You see!" remarked Cressey triumphantly as Masters went away. "I told

you you'd arrived."

"Do you count a word of ordinary courtesy as so much?" inquired

Banneker, surprised and amused.

"From Junior? I certainly do. No Masters ever does anything without

having figured out its exact meaning in advance."

"And what does this mean?" asked the other, still unimpressed.

"For one thing, that the Masters influence will be back of you, if the

police try to put anything over. For another, that you've got the

broadest door to society open to you, if Junior follows up his hint

about the yacht."

"I haven't the time," returned Banneker with honest indifference. He

sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "Cressey," he said, "if I had a

newspaper of my own in New York, do you know what I'd do with it?"

"Make money."

"I hope so. But whether I did or not, I'd set out to puncture that

bubble of the Masters power and supremacy. It isn't right for any man to

have that power just through money. It isn't American."

"The old man would smash your paper in six months."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Nobody has ever taken a shot at him yet. He may be

more vulnerable than he looks.... Speaking of money, I suppose I'd

better take that apartment. God knows how I'll pay for it, especially if

I lose my job."

"If you lose your job I'll get you a better one on Wall Street

to-morrow."

"On the strength of Poultney Masters, Jr., shaking hands with me, I

suppose."

"Practically. It may not get into your newspapers, but the Street will

know all about it to-morrow."

"It's a queer city. And it's a queer way to get on in it, by being quick

on the trigger. Well, I'm off for the theater."

Between acts, Banneker, walking out to get air, was conscious of being

the object of comment and demonstration. He heard his name spoken in

half whispers; saw nods and jerks of the head; was an involuntary

eavesdropper upon a heated discussion; "That's the man."--"No; it ain't.

The paper says he's a big feller."--"This guy ain't a reporter. Pipe his

clothes."--"Well, he's big if you size him right. Look at his

shoulders."--"I'll betcha ten he ain't the man." And an apologetic young

fellow ran after him to ask if he was not, in truth, Mr. Banneker of The

Ledger. Being no more than human, he experienced a feeling of mild

excitation over all this. But no sooner had the curtain risen on the

second act than he quite forgot himself and his notoriety in the fresh

charm of the comedy, and the delicious simplicity of Betty Raleigh as

the heroine. That the piece was destined to success was plain, even so

early. As the curtain fell again, and the star appeared, dragging after

her a long, gaunt, exhausted, alarmed man in horn-rimmed spectacles, who

had been lurking in a corner suffering from incipient nervous breakdown

and illusions of catastrophe, he being the author, the body of the house

rose and shouted. A hand fell on Banneker's shoulder.

"Come behind at the finish?" said a voice.

Turning, Banneker met the cynical and near-sighted eyes of Gurney, The

Ledger's dramatic critic, with whom he had merely a nodding

acquaintance, as Gurney seldom visited the office except at off-hours.

"Yes; I'd like to," he answered.

"Little Betty spotted you and has been demanding that the management

bring you back for inspection."

"The play is a big success, isn't it?"

"I give it a year's run," returned the critic authoritatively. "Laurence

has written it to fit Raleigh like a glove. She's all they said of her

in London. And when she left here a year ago, she was just a fairly good

_ingénue_. However, she's got brains, which is the next best thing in

the theatrical game to marriage with the manager--or near-marriage."

Banneker, considering Gurney's crow-footed and tired leer, decided that

he did not like the critic much.

Back-of-curtain after a successful opening provides a hectic and

scrambled scene to the unaccustomed eye. Hastily presented to a few

people, Banneker drifted to one side and, seating himself on a wire

chair, contentedly assumed the role of onlooker. The air was full of

laughter and greetings and kisses; light-hearted, offhand, gratulatory

kisses which appeared to be the natural currency of felicitation. Betty

Raleigh, lovely, flushed, and athrill with nervous exaltation, flung him

a smile as she passed, one hand hooked in the arm of her leading man.

"You're coming to supper with us later," she called.

"Am I?" said Banneker.

"Of course. I've got something to ask you." She spoke as one expectant

of unquestioning obedience: this was her night of glory and power.

Whether he had been previously bidden in through Gurney, or whether this

chance word constituted his invitation, he did not know. Seeking

enlightenment upon the point, he discovered that the critic had

disappeared, to furnish his half-column for the morning issue. La

Tarantina, hearing his inquiry, gave him the news in her broken English.

The dancer, lithe, powerful, with the hideous feet and knotty legs

typical of her profession, turned her somber, questioning eyes on the

stranger:

"You air Monsieur Ban-kerr, who shoot, n'est-ce-pas?" she inquired.

"My name is Banneker," he replied.

"Weel you be ver' good an' shoot sahmbody for me?"

"With pleasure," he said, laughing; "if you'll plead for me with the

jury."

"Zen here he iss." She stretched a long and, as it seemed, blatantly

naked arm into a group near by and drew forth the roundish man whom

Cressey had pointed out at Marrineal's dinner party. "He would be

unfaithful to me, ziss one."

"I? Never!" denied the accused. He set a kiss in the hollow of the

dancer's wrist. "How d'ye do, Mr. Banneker," he added, holding out his

hand. "My name is Eyre."

"But yess!" cried the dancer. "He--what you say it?--he r-r-r-rave over

Miss R-r-raleigh. He make me jealous. He shall be shoot at sunrice an' I

weel console me wiz his shooter."

"Charming programme!" commented the doomed man. It struck Banneker that

he had probably been drinking a good deal, also that he was a very

likeable person, indeed. "If you don't mind my asking, where the devil

did you learn to shoot like that?"

"Oh, out West where I came from. I used to practice on the pine trees at

a little water-tank station called Manzanita".

"Manzanita!" repeated the other. "By God!" He swore softly, and stared

at the other.

Banneker was annoyed. Evidently the gossip of which Io's girl friend had

hinted that other night at Sherry's had obtained wide currency. Before

the conversation could go any further, even had it been likely to after

that surprising check, one of the actors came over. He played the part

of an ex-cowboy, who, in the bar-room scene, shot his way out of danger

through a circle of gang-men, and he was now seeking from Banneker

ostensibly pointers, actually praise.

"Say, old man," he began without introduction. "Gimme a tip or two. How

do you get your hand over for your gun without giving yourself away?"

"Just dive for it, as you do in the play. You do it plenty quick enough.

You'd get the drop on me ten times out of ten," returned Banneker

pleasantly, leaving the gratified actor with the conviction that he had

been talking with the coming dramatic critic of the age.

For upwards of an hour there was carnival on the dismantling stage,

mingled with the hurried toil of scene-shifters and the clean-up gang.

Then the impromptu party began to disperse, Eyre going away with the

dancer, after coming to bid Banneker good-night, with a look of veiled

curiosity and interest which its object could not interpret. Banneker

was gathered into the _corps intime_ of Miss Raleigh's supper party,

including the author of the play, an elderly first-nighter, two or three

dramatic critics, Marrineal, who had drifted in, late, and half a dozen

of the company. The men outnumbered the women, as is usual in such

affairs, and Banneker found himself seated between the playwright and a

handsome, silent girl who played with distinction the part of an elderly

woman. There was wine in profusion, but he noticed that the player-folk

drank sparingly. Condition, he correctly surmised, was part of their

stock in trade. As it should be part of his also.

Late in the supper's course, there was a shifting of seats, and he was

landed next to the star.

"I suppose you're bored stiff with talking about the shooting," she

said, at once.

"I am, rather. Wouldn't you be?"

"I? Publicity is the breath of life to us," she laughed. "You deal in

it, so you don't care for it."

"That's rather shrewd in you. I'm not sure that the logic is sound."

"Anyway, I'm not going to bore you with your fame. But I want you to do

something for me."

"It is done," he said solemnly.

"How prettily you pay compliments! There is to be a police

investigation, isn't there?"

"Probably."

"Could you get me in?"

"Yes, indeed!"

"Then I want to come when you're on the stand."

"Great goodness! Why?"

"Why, if you want a reason," she answered mischievously, "say that I

want to bring good luck to your _première_, as you brought it to mine."

"I'll probably make a sorry showing. Perhaps you would give me some

training."

She answered in kind, and the acquaintanceship was progressing most

favorably when a messenger of the theater manager's office staff

appeared with early editions of the morning papers. Instantly every

other interest was submerged.

"Give me The Ledger," demanded Betty. "I want to see what Gurney says."

"Something pleasant surely," said Banneker. "He told me that the play

was an assured success."

As she read, Betty's vivacious face sparkled. Presently her expression

changed. She uttered a little cry of disgust and rage.

"What's the matter?" inquired the author.

"Gurney is up to his smartnesses again," she replied. "Listen. Isn't

this enraging!" She read:

"As for the play itself, it is formed, fashioned, and finished in the

cleverest style of tailor-made, to Miss Raleigh's charming personality.

One must hail Mr. Laurence as chief of our sartorial playwrights. No

actress ever boasted a neater fit. Can you not picture him, all nice

little enthusiasms and dainty devices, bustling about his fair

patroness, tape in hand, mouth bristling with pins, smoothing out a

wrinkle here, adjusting a line there, achieving his little _chef

d'oeuvre_ of perfect tailoring? We have had playwrights who were

blacksmiths, playwrights who were costumers, playwrights who were

musical-boxes, playwrights who were, if I may be pardoned, garbage

incinerators. It remained, for Mr. Laurence to show us what can be done

with scissors, needle, and a nice taste in frills.

"I think it's mean and shameful!" proclaimed the reader in generous

rage.

"But he gives you a splendid send-off, Miss Raleigh," said her leading

man, who, reading over her shoulder, had discovered that he, too, was

handsomely treated.

"I don't care if he does!" cried Betty. "He's a pig!"

Her manager, possessed of a second copy of The Ledger, now made a

weighty contribution to the discussion. "Just the same, this'll help

sell out the house. It's full of stuff we can lift to paper the town

with."

He indicated several lines heartily praising Miss Raleigh and the cast,

and one which, wrenched from its satirical context, was made to give an

equally favorable opinion of the play. Something of Banneker's

astonishment at this cavalier procedure must have been reflected in his

face, for Marrineal, opposite, turned to him with a look of amusement.

"What's your view of that, Mr. Banneker?"

"Mine?" said Banneker promptly. "I think it's crooked. What's yours?"

"Still quick on the trigger," murmured the other, but did not answer the

return query.

Replies in profusion came from the rest, however. "It isn't any

crookeder than the review."--"D'you call that fair criticism!"--"Gurney!

He hasn't an honest hair in his head."--"Every other critic is strong

for it; this is the only knock."--"What did Laurence ever do to Gurney?"

Out of the welter of angry voices came Betty Raleigh's clear speech,

addressed to Banneker.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Banneker; I'd forgotten that The Ledger is your paper."

"Oh, The Ledger ain't any worse than the rest of 'em, take it day in and

day out," the manager remarked, busily penciling apposite texts for

advertising, on the margin of Gurney's critique.

"It isn't fair," continued the star. "A man spends a year working over a

play--it was more than a year on this, wasn't it, Denny?" she broke off

to ask the author.

Laurence nodded. He looked tired and a little bored, Banneker thought.

"And a critic has a happy thought and five minutes to think it over, and

writes something mean and cruel and facetious, and perhaps undoes a

whole year's work. Is that right?"

"They ought to bar him from the theater," declared one of the women in

the cast.

"And what do you think of _that_?" inquired Marrineal, still addressing

Banneker.

Banneker laughed. "Admit only those who wear the bright and burnished

badge of the Booster," he said. "Is that the idea?"

"Nobody objects to honest criticism," began Betty Raleigh heatedly, and

was interrupted by a mild but sardonic "Hear! Hear!" from one of the

magazine reviewers.

"Honest players don't object to honest criticism, then," she amended.

"It's the unfairness that hurts."

"All of which appears to be based on the assumption that it is

impossible for Mr. Gurney honestly to have disliked Mr. Laurence's

play," pointed out Banneker. "Now, delightful as it seemed to me, I can

conceive that to other minds--"

"Of course he could honestly dislike it," put in the playwright hastily.

"It isn't that."

"It's the mean, slurring way he treated it," said the star "Mr.

Banneker, just what did he say to you about it?"

Swiftly there leapt to his recollection the critic's words, at the close

of the second act. "It's a relief to listen for once to comedy that is

sincere and direct." ... Then why, why--"He said that you were all that

the play required and the play was all that you required," he answered,

which was also true, but another part of the truth. He was not minded to

betray his associate.

"He's rotten," murmured the manager, now busy on the margin of another

paper. "But I dunno as he's any rottener than the rest."

"On behalf of the profession of journalism, we thank you, Bezdek," said

one of the critics.

"Don't mind old Bez," put in the elderly first-nighter. "He always says

what he thinks he means, but he usually doesn't mean it."

"That is perhaps just as well," said Banneker quite quietly, "if he

means that The Ledger is not straight."

"I didn't say The Ledger. I said Gurney. He's crooked as a corkscrew's

hole."

There was a murmur of protest and apprehension, for this was going

rather too far, which Banneker's voice stilled. "Just a minute. By that

you mean that he takes bribes?"

"Naw!" snorted Bezdek.

"That he's influenced by favoritism, then?"

"I didn't say so, did I?"

"You've said either too little or too much."

"I can clear this up, I think," proffered the elderly first-nighter, in

his courteous voice. "Mr. Gurney is perhaps more the writer than the

critic. He is carried away by the felicitous phrase."

"He'd rather be funny than fair," said Miss Raleigh bluntly.

"The curse of dramatic criticism," murmured a magazine representative.

"Rotten," said Bezdek doggedly. "Crooked. Tryin' to be funny at other

folks' expense. _I_'ll give his tail a twist!" By which he meant Mr.

Gurney's printed words.

"Apropos of the high cult of honesty," remarked Banneker.

"The curse of all journalism," put in Laurence. "The temptation to be

effective at the expense of honesty."

"And what do you think of _that_?" inquired the cheerful Marrineal,

still directing his query to Banneker.

"I think it's rather a large order. Why do you keep asking my opinion?"

"Because I suspect that you still bring a fresh mind to bear on these

matters."

Banneker rose, and bade Betty Raleigh good-night. She retained his hand

in hers, looking up at him with a glint of anxiety in her weary,

childlike eyes. "Don't mind what we've said," she appealed to him.

"We're all a little above ourselves. It's always so after an opening."

"I don't mind at all," he returned gravely: "unless it's true."

"Ah, it's true right enough," she answered dispiritedly. "Don't forget

about the investigation. And don't let them dare to put you on on a

matinée day."

Betty Raleigh was a conspicuous figure, at not one but half a dozen

sessions of the investigation, which wound through an accelerating and

sensational course, with Banneker as the chief figure. He was an

extraordinary witness, ready, self-possessed, good-humored under the

heckling of the politician lawyer who had claimed and received the right

to appear, on the ground that his police clients might be summoned later

on a criminal charge.

Before the proceedings were over, a complete overturn in the city

government was foreshadowed, and it became evident that Judge Enderby

might either head the movement as its candidate, or control it as its

leader. Nobody, however, knew what he wished or intended politically.

Every now and again in the progress of the hearings, Banneker would

surprise on the lawyer's face an expression which sent his memory

questing fruitlessly for determination of that elusive likeness,

flickering dimly in the past.

Banneker's own role in the investigation kept him in the headlines; at

times put him on the front page. Even The Ledger could only minimize,

not suppress, his dominating and picturesque part.

But there was another and less pleasant sequel to the shooting, in its

effect upon the office status. Though he was a "space-man" now, dependent

for his earnings upon the number of columns weekly which he had in the

paper, and ostensibly equipped to handle matter of importance, a long

succession of the pettiest kind of assignments was doled out to him by

the city desk: obituary notices of insignificant people, small police

items, tipsters' yarns, routine jobs such as ship news, police

headquarters substitution, even the minor courts usually relegated to

the fifteen or twenty-dollar-a-week men. Or, worst and most grinding

ordeal of a reporter's life, he was kept idle at his desk, like a

misbehaving boy after school, when all the other men had been sent out.

One week his total space came to but twenty-eight dollars odd. What this

meant was plain enough; he was being disciplined for his part in the

investigation.

Out of the open West which, under the rigor of the game, keeps its

temper and its poise, Banneker had brought the knack of setting his

teeth and smiling so serenely that one never even perceived the teeth to

be set behind the smile. This ability stood him in good stead now. In

his time of enforced leisure he bethought himself of the sketches which

Miss Westlake had typed. With his just and keen perception, he judged

them not to be magazine matter. But they might do as "Sunday stuff." He

turned in half a dozen of them to Mr. Homans. When next he saw them they

were lying, in uncorrected proof, on the managing editor's desk while

Mr. Gordon gently rapped his knuckles over them.

"Where did you get the idea for these, Mr. Banneker?" he asked.

"I don't know. It came to me."

"Would you care to sign them?"

"Sign them?" repeated the reporter in surprise, for this was a

distinction afforded to only a choice few on the conservative Ledger.

"Yes. I'm going to run them on the editorial page. Do us some more and

keep them within the three-quarters. What's your full name?"

"I'd like to sign them 'Eban,'" answered the other, after some thought.

"And thank you."

Assignments or no assignments, thereafter Banneker was able to fill his

idle time. Made adventurous by the success of the "Vagrancies," he next

tried his hand at editorials on light or picturesque topics, and with

satisfying though not equal results, for here he occasionally stumbled

upon the hard-rooted prejudices of the Inside Office, and beheld his

efforts vanish into the irreclaimable limbo of the scrap-basket.

Nevertheless, at ten dollars per column for this kind of writing, he

continued to make a decent space bill, and clear himself of the doldrums

where the waning of the city desk's favor had left him. All that he

could now make he needed, for his change of domicile had brought about a

corresponding change of habit and expenditure into which he slipped

imperceptibly. To live on fifteen dollars a week, plus his own small

income, which all went for "extras," had been simple, at Mrs.