The sun was streaming through the east windows. Jap looked anxiously
up and down the street. Bill had not been home all night. This was a
state of affairs alarming to Jap. He walked back to the table and
turned the exchanges over restlessly.
"I wonder if the boy could have persuaded that butterfly to elope with
him, as he threatened he would, when her mother cut up so rough," he
worried.
Tim Simpson came in and peered around furtively.
"Bill is drunk as a lord," he announced in a stage whisper. "I've got
him in the back room of the calaboose, to sober up without the news
leakin'."
Jap paled.
"Bill drunk?" he faltered. "Who got him into it? Is he asleep, Tim?"
"Lord, no! If he was, I would 'a' left him out when he come to, and
said no word to you about it. But I'm plum scared about him. He's
chargin' up and down like a Barnum lion. I reckon as how you'd better
mosey down there and try to ca'm him."
As Jap walked rapidly down the alley beside the night marshal, he asked:
"Did you try to talk to him?"
"Yes," said Simpson ruefully. "He kicked me out and was chasin' after
me when I slammed the door on him. He's blind crazy loaded. I fu'st
seen him after number nine pulled in, so I think he come on her. He
was mutterin' and shakin' his fist when he hove in sight. I got him
and steered him into the jug without much trouble, and it was only a
hour ago that he started this ragin' and ravin'."
As they entered the jail, sounds of tramping feet and mutterings
reached their ears. Bill's swollen, blotched face and reddened eyes
appeared behind the grating.
"Let me out of here!" he shouted. "You'll get a broken head for this,
you old mule." He shook the grating furiously.
"Bill," said Jap slowly, "do you want to come with me, or do you want
me to stay here with you till you've had a bath and a good sleep?"
Bill laughed discordantly.
"A sleep! A sleep!" he cried. "Yes, a long, long sleep. As soon as
you take me out of this hell-hole, I'll take a sleep that'll last."
Jap opened the door and stepped inside.
"Don't come any nearer," warned Bill. "I'm too filthy, Jap. But let
me stay as I am till it's over."
He sat down on the cot and stared crazily into the corridor. Jap sat
down beside him and drew his arm around his shoulder, with the
tenderness of a woman.
"Tell me about it, Bill, boy," he counselled gently. "Tim, you may
leave us."
Bill sat a long time, staring sullenly at the floor.
"Well, this is a hell of a display for me to bring to Bloomtown," he
declared at last. "I should have ended it in Jones's town. If I
hadn't been so dumb with rotgut that I didn't know what I was doing, I
would be furnishing some excitement for the Bartonites this morning.
The finest place in the world to die in--it isn't fit to live in."
Jap shook him briskly.
"Straighten up, Bill, and tell me what kind of a mess you have been in."
Bill laughed wildly. After a moment he dragged a letter from his
pocket. Jap read:
"When you read this, I will be the wife of Wilfred Jones, the Editor of
the Barton _Standard_. Maybe you will be pleased? I prefer to marry a
real editor, not the half of Jap Herron."
The letter was signed, "Rosalie," but the affectation carried none of
the elements of a disguise. To Jap it was the crowning insult.
Crushing the silly note in his hand, he threw it from him. Standing
up, he drew Bill to his feet.
"We are going home," he said curtly. "When you are sober I will tell
you how disappointed I am in my brother."
The news that Bill had been jilted spread over Bloomtown like fire in a
stubble-field, and deep resentment greeted the announcement that Jones
of the _Standard_ had scored another notch against the _Herald_.
Bill, sullen and defiant, had battled it out in the room above the
office. All the vagaries of a sick mind were his. Murder, suicide,
mysterious disappearance, chased each other across the field of his
vision, and ever the specter of suicide returned to grin at him. For a
day and a night Jap sat beside his bed, talking, soothing, comforting.
Finally he made this compact:
"To show you that I love you better than myself, Bill, I am going to
promise that I will not marry until you are cured of this blow. Not a
word, Bill! Happiness would turn to ashes if I accepted it at your
cost. How far I am to blame in your trouble, I can only guess. I am
not going to preach philosophy. I am only going to plead my love for
you."
He took the revolver from the drawer and laid it on the table beside
Bill.
"If you are the boy I think you are, you will be sticking type when I
come back from Flossy's. If you are a coward, I will not grieve to
find you have taken the soul that God gave you and flung it at His
feet."
Not trusting himself to look back, he hurried down the stairs. His
heart was heavy with dread as he locked the office and walked blindly
to the cottage where all his problems had been carried. He could not
talk to Flossy, but, sitting beside her on the little front porch, he
fought the mad impulse to run back to the office. He strained his ears
for the sound that he was praying not to hear.
Two hours he sat there, fighting with his fears, the longest hours of
his life. Flossy sat as silent. No one knew Jap as Flossy did.
Smoothing his tumbled hair and stroking his tightly clenched hands were
her only expressions. Futile indeed would words be now. The tragedy
that hovered over them both must work itself out.
A whistle shrilled from the road. Jap sprang up with a strangled cry,
as Wat Harlow came through the gate. His face was stern.
"Bill allowed that this is where I'd find you, chatting your valuable
time away," he chaffed. Then the mask of his countenance broke into a
grin.
"Is Bill in the office?" Jap's lips were so stiff he could scarcely
articulate.
"Sure he is," said Harlow cheerfully. "He wants you to ramble down
there."
"There's a hen on, Jap," he confided, after they had taken leave of
Flossy. "We'll try to hatch something this time. I'm going to get in
the game again. You know the old saying: 'You mustn't keep a good dog
chained up.'"
"Well?" queried Jap, his thoughts springing space and picturing what
Bill might be doing. Wat was discreetly silent until they had passed
through town and were inside the office. Bill, pale and haggard,
looked up from his desk. He extended the paper he was writing on. Jap
took it without a word.
"WAT HARLOW FOR GOVERNOR!"
"How's that for a head?" he demanded. "If we're going into this thing,
we might as well go with both feet."
He looked into Jap's face. Their eyes met. With one voice they cried:
"Ellis!"
"'When Harlow runs for governor,'" Jap quoted tremulously, "'you will
boom him. Till then, nothing doing in the Halls of Justice.' Bill,
Ellis was a prophet. He even knew that he wouldn't be in the game.
Wat, we'll put you across this time."
"Yes, and it'll be a nasty fight," Wat returned, as Bill leaned over
and picked nervously at the ears of the office cat. "We've got Bronson
Jones to buck up against, in all political probability. He's almost
sure of the nomination."
"Just who is Bronson Jones?" Jap asked. "Seems to me I ought to place
him. He's been in the papers down in the southwestern part of the
state a good deal."
"He's the smooth proposition that came back here a couple of years ago
and bought back his old newspaper for his son and has managed up to the
present time to keep his own name discreetly out of that same paper,"
vouchsafed Harlow. "He won't let it leak out till the psychological
moment. He's the daddy of the split-hoofed imp of Satan that runs the
Barton _Standard_!"