MR. RAT CONNORS, SAMARITAN
When Mr. Rat Connors dropped out of sight over the railroad embankment
his ideas of procedure had been somewhat vague. In the United States
were some eighty million people. It seemed a fair sporting
proposition, and one worth a small bet, that out of that number at
least a single individual must have residence in this neighborhood. If
he sought hard enough he might find that habitation. Himself, he would
have preferred a night’s lodging under the broad and starry skies to a
quest of the sort he had undertaken. But the other gentlemen was “in
bad” and the tenets of Mr. Rat Connors’ primitive knighthood precluded
the possibility of “leavin’ him lay” suffering and unsuccored.
The search was, for a while, futile. The timbered hills stretched
unbroken in lines of ragged shadow. It was a knob country,
surrendered, even in the narrow valleys, to the crawfish and the crow,
save for a few scattered cabin-dwellers who cultivated peach orchards
on the sterile slopes of the hills. But at last Mr. Connors came upon
a sort of trail which seemed to be the poor relation to a road. Mr.
Connors set his feet therein and trudged on with what comfort and
companionship he could derive from Jay Gould’s Daughter personified in
song.
At last he came upon a point where, through a gap in the timber-line,
he saw a dilapidated and almost shapeless bulk etched darkly against
the star-punctured sky. Now, disclaiming any intention to speak with
aspersion of Mr. Connors, it must be said that his profession made his
habits largely nocturnal. Men who operate in darkness share with the
cat the power to use their eyes where the honest householder would
find himself blind.
To Mr. Connors the well-nigh shapeless mass defined itself into a
building, and the erect projection at its top into a modest steeple,
proclaiming it a “meeting-house.” A church on a hill, in the middle of
the night, offers little encouragement to a man seeking living aid.
Toppling smudges of lighter gray flanked its walls, telling of men and
women who slept in the enclosure, but these men and women were all
dead. The smudges were their gravestones.
The eyes of Mr. Connors went farther back, penetrating the darkness,
and discovered a second and more indistinct pile. That might be the
parsonage! Mr. Connors halted for reflection. Churches were
establishments distinctly out of his line. Parsons were gentlemen
engaged in a different, even a hostile, profession. On the other hand,
churchmen might be expected to lend an attentive ear to tales of
distress.
Mr. Rat Connors turned into the churchyard, shivering instinctively as
he passed among the graves. Mr. Connors was a simple soul easily awed
by the Great Phenomenon of death. No lights shone from the windows or
doors of the house in the rear. At this hour honest folk slept, in
that vicinity. Before the house hung a rickety gate, and Mr. Connors
had his hand on the latch, when his entire plan of campaign underwent
sudden revision.
He had intended entering the gate, proceeding up the grass-grown walk
and hammering at the front door. Instead, he went fleetly up the
fence, paused on its top only long enough to grasp an over-arching
branch, then swung himself precipitately into a convenient tree.
The cause of this sudden change of itinerary remained below, since it
is the wise dispensation of Providence that dogs can not climb trees.
The Cause, however, in his sudden heat and passion, did not seem
willing to admit that Providence had acted wisely in the matter. He
gave evidence of a desire to pursue Mr. Connors into the upper
branches. It was clear that the Cause was given to violent and hasty
prejudices and that Mr. Connors had aroused such a prejudice.
The dog squatted below and leaped into the air. When he alighted he
leaped again. Mr. Connors, straddling a limb, the strength of which
was not guaranteed, was ready to admit without cavil that the animal
was jumping some. The brute seemed gifted with an almost Rooseveltian
strenuousness and sincerity. Even in his moments of resting between
efforts there was a grim determination in his pose which indicated his
intention of remaining until Mr. Connors came down.
For a time he was silent, save for an occasional snarl; then he sent
his voice echoing belligerently across the hills. Lord Byron says,
“’tis sweet to hear the honest watch-dog’s bay.” Lord Byron was, no
doubt, quite sincere in the assertion. It all depends on the point of
view. It is safe to assume that Lord B. did not compose that line
while clinging to a bending tree-limb with the honest watch-dog baying
at the exact spot upon which he would fall if the branch broke.
Something must be done. The force of habit is strong. So often had Mr.
Connors found it necessary to cover his movements with a cloak of
silence when approaching a dwelling-house in the night time that it
did not occur to him for some minutes to shout for help from within.
Then he remembered that this time he was not on burglary bent. He
lifted his voice in competition with that of the dog and shouted
madly.
* * * * *
At last the door of the house opened and a timid female voice inquired
who was calling and why he was calling.
“It’s me,” explained Mr. Connors from his perch in the tree. The
explanation was candid yet it seemed insufficient.
“Who are you and what are you doing up my tree?” demanded the voice a
shade more boldly.
“Is dis your tree?” apologized Mr. Connors with some irony. “I didn’t
get no time to ask whose tree it was.”
“What are you doing up there?”
“Ask your dawg,” replied Mr. Connors. “He put me here.”
From the dog came a growl which entirely corroborated Mr. Connors on
the point in question.
The slit of light in the door remained just wide enough to permit a
shawl-wrapped head to protrude. The dog fell silent. He appeared to
recognize that his was now a thinking part, but he relaxed nothing in
vigilance of pose. As the parley proceeded he squatted below,
ominously alert, a beast couchant waiting his cue to take again the
center of the stage. There was a painful pause.
“Say,” suggested Mr. Connors at last, “if you’re skeered ter talk ter
me, send out some of the men-folks. I ain’t dangerous. I won’t hurt
’em.”
“The men-folks are all away,” replied the voice, growing timid once
more, “and I guess you had better stay where you are till they get
home.”
“When are you lookin’ fer ’em back?” inquired Mr. Connors courteously.
The branch was made of hard wood and it was a very knotty bit of
timber; the length of time he might be required to occupy it was
interesting.
The rustic mind runs to loquacity. The woman found herself explaining
in more detail than the circumstances required.
“My husband is the minister. My son is the justice of the peace. They
have both gone up the river, but the boat is due at the landing in an
hour or so—unless it is late. You might as well wait a while and see
them.”
Mr. Connors groaned from the depths of his soul. In an hour or so,
unless the boat was late!
“Lady,” pleaded Mr. Connors in his most ingratiating voice, “I come
here lookin’ fer a doctor, see? W’en a guy goes ter git a doctor, it
ain’t right ter butt in an’ stop him. Dat’s de way it looks ter a man
up a tree, lady.”
The woman ventured no opinion. She merely closed the door.
“Lady!” shouted Mr. Connors in his most humble and winning manner.
“Lady!”
The door opened again.
“Well, what is it?”
“Lady, I come here to git help fer a guy dat’s lyin’ on de railroad
track wid a busted slat. He ain’t got nobody ter look after him. If
you keeps me up here dere ain’t no tellin’ what’ll happen ter de pore
afflicted feller.”
“A man with a busted what?” inquired the lady suspiciously.
“A busted slat,” repeated Mr. Connors. “Dis guy falls down a clift and
caves in a few spare-ribs. Dat’s on de level, lady. I ain’t kiddin’
wid yer.”
“You mean the man is wounded?”
“Dat’s it. He’s all in an’ down an’ out.”
“Where—where is this person?” The minister’s wife put the question
with preliminary symptoms of relenting. If some one were genuinely in
distress, she must probe the facts.
“Right up de railroad about three-quarters of a mile from here.”
The lady was considering. While she did so the beast below made a
sound as if licking his chops with the relish of keen anticipation.
“When my husband and son come home,” ruled the woman at last, “they
will investigate your story. Of course they may not get home
to-night—the boat is usually a few hours late.”
Once more Mr. Connors groaned.
“Meanwhile,” added the lady, “I’ll call off the dog. You can vamoose.”
“T’anks, lady.” Mr. Connors voice was eager.
“But,” continued the warning voice, “the dog will be about all
evening, and if you come back——”
“_Me_ come back, lady!” Mr. Connors’ voice trembled with emotion.
“Ferget it! Dis is me farewell appearance!”
The lady opened the door a little wider.
“Fido,” she commanded, “come here! Here, Fido! That’s a good little
doggie!”
Thirty seconds later Mr. Connors dropped to the ground and
disappeared.
* * * * *
Mr. Lewis Copewell resumed consciousness to find himself apparently
deserted. With the reawakening of his mental activities came a renewed
horror of the situation which engulfed him. He must find a telephone.
He struggled to his feet, but while he slept his injuries had been
multiplying and his joints stiffening. He breathed with difficulty.
Also, he could not walk. One ankle had swollen until his shoe bound it
like a vise, and when he stepped forward he fell, with nauseating
pain, to the broken rocks.
The following is a true capitulation of the casualties suffered by Mr.
Copewell: one broken collar bone; one broken rib; one sprained ankle.
Mr. Copewell was not a man of flimsy courage. In order to send a
single reassuring word to the lady he loved, he would gladly have
waded through blood, but one can not wade successfully through blood
on one foot. He could not even walk along a railroad track on one
foot. He tried hopping and found it, on the whole, an unsatisfactory
means of locomotion. Then Mr. Copewell crawled back to his suit-case
and sat down again in despair.
Mr. Lewis Copewell was not astonished that his chance companion
should, as it seemed, have abandoned him in his adversity. His meeting
with Mr. Connors had been merely casual. Finding himself converted
without warning from a voyager bound for the Enchanted Isles where a
beauteous maiden awaited him into a wrecked and battered derelict, his
course had drifted across that of a second derelict. The second
derelict had stood by for a time and offered him some slight aid, then
had drifted on, abandoning him to the mercy of winds and tides.
As Mr. Copewell’s harrowed mind dwelt on the analogy of his
shipwrecked life he realized that instead of being a friend this
black-haired youth was in fact his Nemesis, his evil genius. In the
waste places of the sea float dangerous, half-sunken craft that menace
the traffic of the ocean lanes. Good ships bear down on these
submerged hulks and yawning holes are driven into seaworthy prows.
Such a drifting peril was the black-haired youth.
But for him the train would have gone on uninterruptedly to Jaffa
Junction, and the hope-laden argosy of Mr. Copewell’s existence would
have made its happy port! But for this creature’s perfidy, Mr.
Copewell himself would have remained by his fire and flagged the
eastern train, at least establishing communication with the civilized
world. So he might have snatched victory out of defeat. But now! Now
there loomed before him only the ignominy and bitterness of a life
spoiled in the making.
In all maritime law it is meet and proper, when a sea-faring man
encounters a drifting derelict, to destroy it. Mr. Copewell wished
whole-heartedly for an opportunity to dispose of Mr. Connors. Yet,
even as he brooded vengefully, Mr. Connors was parleying in his behalf
with a clergyman’s wife, while a clergyman’s dog, of unchristian
temper, licked his fangs beneath.