INTRODUCING MR. RAT CONNORS
The gentleman whose voice Mr. Copewell heard singing beside him in the
wilderness was not, himself, without his troubles. Trouble resembles
the star in the drama, who comes in various make-ups and reading
various lines, but always demanding the center of the stage and
claiming the white glare of the spotlight.
Mr. Copewell, longing for the soft voice of the lady of his heart,
believed in his soul that no misfortune could equal that of a marriage
ruthlessly interrupted by the chance hostility of Fate. Mr. Rat
Connors was equally certain that Destiny does her worst when she
thwarts a dash for freedom and fortune.
Mr. Rat Connors had more than a bowing acquaintance with Vicissitude,
the hope-scuttling Lord of Life. Vicissitude, in its latest guise, had
come wearing the mantle of Reform to the city of Mercerville, where
rich treasures had heretofore awaited enterprise and where the new
régime had blasted prospects. Mr. Connors wished most wishfully that
the gentlemen responsible for this spoil-sport amendment of régime
were, for two minutes, in his power and that he held in his right hand
a serviceable fragment of lead pipe.
Only last night a warning had been given him at Corkhill’s Exchange
that it would be most expedient for him to leave town. Corkhill’s
Exchange was, in the argot of such as Mr. Connors, “de dump w’ere de
woid is passed ter cut loose or lie low.” The word just now was not
merely to lie low but to fly far.
“Take it from me, Rat,” the bartender had confided, “an’ _beat_ it! De
new Chief ain’t goin’ ter run t’ings on de old plan. De bulls ain’t
goin’ ter take de divvy an’ keep d’eir faces shut no more. McGarvey’s
due ter get de ax. If you hangs round here, you’ll be ditched an’
settled an’ de key t’rowed away, see? McGarvey tipped dat off hisself,
an’ it’s straight. He said de best he could do fer youse guys was ter
warn youse ter make quick getaways, see?”
This advice, being interpreted, meant that an end had come to the old
régime under which Corkhill’s Exchange had operated as a neutral zone
where police and criminals maintained an _entente cordiale_ on a
monetary basis. That was the work of the Hon. Alexander Hamilton
Burrow and his confréres. It was very inconvenient for Mr. Rat
Connors.
So Mr. Connors, being just then short of funds, had planned a double
event in the way of a flight and a _coup_. There was a certain country
house near Perryville where the treasure was alluring, and if Mr.
Connors could reach it he thought he saw a way to mend his fortunes.
It was the journey thither which “Captain” Fallow had frustrated.
But to return to immediate conditions—Mr. Copewell wished to learn the
time. He struck a match to consult his watch. Then he groaned again.
His watch had stopped! Without knowledge of the hour he was a
storm-tossed mariner deprived of a compass. In a rudimentary fashion
the paralyzed brain of Mr. Copewell had begun to take up again the
task of thought.
Thought had carried him this far. Mary Asheton would necessarily take
one of the horns of her dilemma. She would either leave the train at
Jaffa Junction, as per program, to find herself at the mercy of a rude
and woman-hating man, or she would receive a quick and unsoftened
warning from the aforesaid brutal person, in which event she would
continue on her way, heartbroken, to aunty and Europe. If she were
indeed marooned at Jaffa Junction, the essential thing was to
establish communication with that point. Hence, the first step was to
find a telephone. If, on the other hand, Burrow had warned her, the
one indispensable step was to flag the east-bound train as it passed
his own isolated spot.
Without knowledge of time or place he could not risk leaving the
track, because he could have no idea when the train might pass.
Perhaps this minstrel, whose voice had come to him through the curtain
of darkness, might have a watch. Perhaps he might become an ally.
Without a lantern Mr. Copewell could not flag the train unless he
built a fire. Obviously, therefore, he must kindle a blaze and open
negotiations with the unknown singer. Under the sudden stimulus of
revivified hope Mr. Copewell became facetious. “Hello, you, Caruso!”
he shouted.
* * * * *
Even before Mr. Copewell hailed him Mr. Connors had noted that the man
who appeared in the night so near him was dressed too well to be a
fellow vagabond. His photographic eyes had recorded this fact when the
sputtering match had caught a red reflection on the watch-case with
the glint and color of gold. It might have been wiser, reflected Mr.
Connors, to have remained silent and slipped up on this gentleman in
the official capacity of a thief in the night. His tell-tale song had,
however, made that impossible, so he decided upon permitting events to
shape them selves. If it came to a crisis, Rat had, in his inside
pocket, his “cannister” which was of .38 caliber and dependable.
“Hello yourself, bo!” responded Mr. Connors with affability. “Did you
git t’rowed off de dangler, too?”
“I beg your pardon?” inquired Mr. Copewell. It began to dawn on him
that this person might after all be an undesirable companion.
“Did yer light on yer neck offen de hurry-up train?” elucidated the
other, coming amicably forward and striking a match. The two men
regarded each other in the temporary illumination.
“No,” said Mr. Copewell, “I got off by mistake.”
“Same here,” declared Mr. Connors. “De conductor guy made de mistake.
De brakeman helped him.”
For a moment Mr. Copewell stood hesitant. Mr. Connors was not just the
man he would have selected to assist in retrieving his disastrously
threatened life, but there was small choice of collaborators.
“Have you a watch?” he demanded. “Mine has stopped.”
“Sorry,” replied Mr. Connors with a grin. “I loaned me ticker ter a
pal.”
Mr. Copewell turned on his heel and began foraging for firewood. Mr.
Connors looked on without comment. When the blaze was at last glowing
prosperously, its radius of light revealed to him the suit-case which
lay near the track a short distance away.
“Now I don’t know you and you don’t know me,” tersely began Mr.
Copewell. “It is vitally important to me to telephone to Jaffa
Junction. When the Eastern express comes by, it is also important to
flag it. Do you know this country? Do you know where there’s a
farmhouse?”
Mr. Connors shook his head.
“Neither do I,” went on Mr. Copewell. “Now, whatever you do for me,
you get paid for. I can’t be in two places at once and I’m going to
hunt for a ’phone. I’ll be back shortly, but if I miss that train I
want you to flag it and ask whether Miss Asheton is on board. If she
is, you must give the conductor a note for her.”
Mr. Connors was eying the suit-case. He thought the absence of the
other man would afford him a better chance to investigate its possible
value. “Sure,” was his ready response. “I’d do most anyt’ing fer a
pal.”
Mr. Copewell tore a page from his notebook and hastily scribbled this
message:
Dearest: Am caught in the Mill of the Inexorable. I can’t
explain now. I’ll follow you to Europe and it will only
mean a delay. I love you. Reserve judgment and you will
understand.
He then plunged into the smothering tangle of the hills. Had he been
told that there existed in his State such void and unpeopled wastes,
he would, as a patriotic citizen, have resented the charge. He climbed
a tree, remembering that all the correspondence courses in woodcraft
advise survey from an eminence. The net results were a bark-scraped
face, bruised shins and spoiled wedding-clothes. But at last, with a
leap of joy, he descried a dim light off to the left. Where there are
lights there is humanity, and where there is humanity there may be
information—possibly even a telephone.
* * * * *
He had meant to remain close enough to the track to reach it if he
heard the train whistle, but this light lured him like a marsh-fire,
through briars and over deceptive distances. At last it grew steady
and Mr. Copewell went forward at an encouraged trot. A rise of ground
confronted him. He rushed across it as though he were charging Fate’s
artillery. He did not know that the ridge was in reality the
brush-cloaked edge of a steep river-bank, any more than he knew that
the light he sought was on the opposite side of the stream. He became
apprised of both facts, however, a half-second later, when the ground
dropped out from under him and he found himself floundering in cold,
deep water.
Handicapped by the weight of his clothes, he made the bank after two
or three highly problematical minutes, arriving in the unbeautiful
condition of a drenched rat. The ascent of the sticky acclivity
contributed a coating of mud. As he turned miserably back he heard the
approaching rumble of an express locomotive. Mr. Copewell broke wildly
through the thicket toward his fire, half a mile away.
Neither his exterior nor his rate of speed accorded with that staid
dignity which should characterize a man going to meet his fair young
bride. Mr. Copewell, however, had lost his sense of proportion. He did
not care. What he wanted was to get there.
The sound of the oncoming train grew louder. Mr. Copewell attained a
higher rate of speed. The sweat poured into his bulging eyes. The
rumble grew, gathering into a crescendo, then dropped down the scale
of sound with diminuendo. He knew the train had passed. It had not
stopped. It had not hesitated. The engineer was getting a good
forty-five miles an hour out of his boilers!
As a capstone to his arch of misfortune an outcropping root caught Mr.
Copewell’s toe and threw him headlong into a deep cut. It began to
look as though, in the question of his marriage, the nays had it. A
very definite pain in the chest and shoulder told him that something
had broken. He staggered to his feet and went more slowly. A torment
in one ankle retarded him—also, there was no further need of hurrying.
At the fire he discerned the peacefully recumbent figure of Mr.
Connors, his head pillowed on the suit-case.
“Why in —— didn’t you stop that train?” bawled Mr. Copewell in futile
frenzy.
“It’s like dis, pal,” confided Mr. Rat Connors placidly. “I just gets
t’rowed offen one dangler, see? I ain’t goin’ ter take chances
stoppin’ no fliers in places like dis. It ain’t healt’y. Meself, I
knows w’en I gets plenty.”
“Didn’t you agree to do it?” screamed Mr. Copewell, choking and
sputtering like a cataleptic maniac.
“Sure,” smiled Mr. Connors, “but I loses me noive, see?” He did not
add that he had accomplished his real object when he had rifled the
suit-case and that his promise had been purely strategic.
Mr. Copewell sank down by the fire. Perhaps it was the shock of the
wetting and a broken clavicle. Perhaps it was despair and pain
combined. The blood in his temples seemed to be cascading into his
eyeballs and flooding his sight with red. Slowly Mr. Copewell crumpled
forward in a senseless heap on the stone-ballasted right of way.
* * * * *
Mr. Connors, rolling a cigarette, was startled by the collapse of his
_vis-à-vis_. He rose and went over to investigate. He studied the face
and its pallor impressed him. Mr. Rat Connors stood indicted for
several dozen felonies. More cities claimed him living than ever
claimed Homer dead. The fact that he was at large was sufficient
evidence of his criminal efficiency. Yet at times he felt that a
career of great promise was seriously handicapped by a tendency toward
softheartedness.
Now his hands played over the prostrate body as deftly as though the
fingers were experimenting with the combination of a safe. The
diagnosis told him that a rib and a collar bone were broken. There
might be also other breakages, but these two were patent on a cursory
inventory.
“Now if dat ain’t ——,” snarled Mr. Connors, “I’ll eat a goat!”
He sat down and brooded bitterly. He had been booted off a train and
had dropped into the company of a stranger. By virtue of helplessness,
this stranger became an enforced trust upon the unwilling hands of Mr.
Connors until he could be turned over to some one else. Mutual
misfortune created a certain tie of brotherhood. Mr. Connors scorned
the quitter who abandoned even a chance pal in a state of wounded
disability. Every profession has its ethics. There was, however, no
ethical objection to robbing the invalid’s pockets. Mr. Connors was a
socialist. This man had money. Mr. Connors had none. It was equitable
that the extremes of wealth and poverty be leveled. Profound thinkers
have enunciated this principle.
Mr. Connors bent over and proceeded to carry into effect the
socialistic propaganda by the simple device of searching every pocket.
Mr. Copewell had drawn his check that day with a view to meeting the
requirements of honeymooning—and honeymooning is an expensive pastime.
The eyes of Mr. Rat Connors bulged and glittered in the firelight as
he counted bills and made transfers. Then Mr. Connors dragged the
prostrate figure farther back into the shadow and arranged it as
comfortably as possible on the grass. After that he piled fresh sticks
on the blaze.
“Now I’ve got ter find some hoosier ter look after dis guinea,”
soliloquized the unwilling custodian. “Gee, but it’s —— to be
soft-hearted!” He paused and felt through his coat the thick wad of
bills in his pocket. “An’ say, Rat, me son,” he added with deep
sorrow, “wid a bun like dat yer could beat it ter de North Pole, too!”
Mr. Connors struck off at random into the night, singing mournfully as
he went:
“Jay Gould’s daughter, afore she died,
Done signed a paper so de bums can’t ride.”