BRINGING THE SKELETON OUT.
The old clerk was so wrought up over the business he had in hand that
he had given scant consideration to himself. All his life--ever since
he had been cast adrift to make his own way in the world--he had been a
clerk. The only outdoor exercise he had ever taken consisted in walking
from his sleeping quarters to his boarding place, and thence to the
office, back to the boarding place for lunch, then back once more for
supper and to his lodgings for sleep. During the last few months, since
joining the "army," he had had evening exercise of a strenuous nature,
but it came at a time of life when it merely ran down the physical
organism instead of building it up.
It was a bedraggled and shattered Prebbles that completed the trip by
wagon from Minnewaukon to the post. This lap of the journey was through
a driving rain, the old man being insufficiently protected by a thin
horse blanket. His whole body was shaking, as he sat dripping in the
chair, and his teeth clattered and rattled.
Several times Prebbles tried to speak to Motor Matt, but the chill
splintered his words into indistinguishable sounds.
O'Hara peered into the clerk's gray face, and then turned a significant
look at his superior officer.
"Sor," said he, "th' ould chap ain't built t' shtand a couple av hours
in th' rain."
"Get him something hot from the kitchen, sergeant," ordered Cameron.
Then, when O'Hara had left, the lieutenant turned to Matt. "Bring him
into my bedroom, Matt you and McGlory. I've some clothes he can put on.
They'll be a mile too big for him, but they'll be dry."
"Don't try to talk now, Prebbles," admonished Matt, as he and the
cowboy supported him into the next room. "You'll feel better in a
little while and then you can talk all you please."
O'Hara came with a pitcher of hot milk, in which the post doctor had
mixed a stimulant of some kind, and he was left in the bedroom to help
Prebbles out of his wet clothes and into the dry ones.
"Who is he?" inquired Cameron, when he and the boys were once more back
in the sitting room.
"Murgatroyd's clerk," replied Matt. "I saw him once, when I first
reached Jamestown and called on the broker to make inquiries about
Traquair's aëroplane."
"Then, if he works for a scoundrel like Murgatroyd, he must be of the
same calibre. Like master, like man, you know."
"That old saw don't apply to this case, Cameron," said Matt earnestly.
"Prebbles is a good deal of a man. He belongs to the Salvation Army and
tries to be square with everybody. Why, the very first time I called on
Murgatroyd, Prebbles warned me to beware of the broker."
"The old boy is the clear quill," said McGlory, "you take it from me.
But what's he doing here? Sufferin' horned toads! Say, do you think
he's come to tell us something about Murg?"
"By Jove," muttered Cameron, with suppressed excitement, "I'll bet
that's what brought him!"
"Perhaps," said Matt. "We'll know all about it, in a little while."
In less than half an hour the old clerk emerged from the room, in a
comfortable condition outside and in. The only thing about him that was
at all damp was a sheet of folded paper which he carried in his hand.
"We had to swim, just about, from Minnewaukon over here," muttered
Prebbles, as he lowered himself into a chair. "You're mighty good to an
old man, Motor Matt, you and your friends."
"When did you leave Jamestown?" asked Matt.
"This morning."
"Then it was raining hard when you got off the train at Minnewaukon!"
"Raining pitchforks!"
"Why didn't you wait in the town until the rain was over?"
"There wasn't time," and the shake in Prebbles' high-pitched voice told
of his growing excitement. "I just had to get here, that's all. What
I've got to say, Motor Matt," he added, with an anxious look at Cameron
and McGlory, "is--is mighty important."
"Perhaps we'd better go, then," said Cameron, with a look at the
cowboy.
"Wait a minute," interposed Matt. "Has what you've got to say anything
to do with Murgatroyd?"
"He's a robber," barked Prebbles: "he's worse'n a robber. Yes, Murg's
mainly concerned in what I've got to say."
"Then it will be well for Cameron to stay and hear it. He represents
the government, and the government is after Murgatroyd. As for McGlory,
here, he's my pard, and I have few secrets from him."
"All right, then," returned Prebbles. "It ain't a pleasant story I'm
goin' to tell--leastways not for me. I've got to dig a few old bones
out of my past life, and I know you won't think hard of me, seeing as
how I belong to the army. It's a great thing to belong," and the old
man seemed to forget what he was about to say, for a few moments, and
fell to musing.
The young motorist, the cowboy, and the lieutenant waited patiently for
Prebbles to pull himself together and proceed. The old clerk's haggard
face proved that he had suffered much, and his three auditors had only
kindness and consideration for him.
"It's like this," went on the old man suddenly, pulling himself
together and drawing a hand over his eyes. "I was married, a long while
ago--so long it seems as though it must have been in another world. I
reckon I was happy, then, but it didn't last long. My wife died in two
years and left me with a boy to raise. I wonder if you know how hard it
is for a man like me to bring up a boy without a good woman to help?
The job was too much for Prebbles. I did the best I knew how, on only
thirty-five dollars a month, givin' the lad an education--or trying to,
rather, for he never took much to books and schooling. He ran away from
me when he was fifteen, an' I didn't see him again until last spring,
when he was twenty-one.
"Six years had made a big difference in that boy, friends. He had gone
his way, and it wasn't a good way, either. He was in Jimtown just a
month, gamblin' and carryin' on, and then him and me had a quarrel.
They were bitter words we passed, me accusin' him of dishonoring his
dead mother and his father, by his ways, and him twitting me of bein'
a failure in life just because I didn't have the nerve to be dishonest
and go to grafting. I must have said things that were awful--I can't
remember--but all I do know is that Newt hit me. He knocked me down,
right in Murgatroyd's office. Murg was out, at the time, and Newt and
me was alone there together. When I came to, Newt was gone."
Again was there a silence, the old clerk fingering a scar on the side
of his cheek.
"How like a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful son," went on Prebbles.
"And yet, Newt wasn't all to blame. I wasn't the right sort to bring up
a high-spirited boy. I wasn't able to do my duty. He left four hundred
in gamblin' debts, when he went away. Murgatroyd showed me the I O U's
with Newt's name to 'em. That's why I kept right on workin' for Murg,
when I knew he was a robber, and after I had joined the army. I've been
taking up those I O U's. Three of 'em's been paid, and there's one
more left; and here I've pulled the pin on myself before takin' up the
other. I don't know what I'm going to do for a job," and a pathetic
helplessness crept into the old clerk's voice, "but," and the voice
strengthened grimly, "I started out on this thing and I'm going to
see it through. What I want, is to make up with Newt. Lawsy, how that
quarrel has worried me! I don't care about the way he hit me--he had
the right, I guess--but I want to make up with him an' get him back."
The old man dropped his face in his hands. The other three looked at
him sympathetically, and then exchanged significant glances.
"It isn't so hard, Prebbles," remarked Matt gently, "to advance the
spark of friendship, and it ought to be more than easy in the case of
you and your son."
Prebbles lifted his head and his forlorn face brightened.
"I knew you'd help me, Matt," and he put out his thin, clawlike hand
to grip Matt's; "you help everybody that wants you to, and I knew
sure you'd see me through this business. I did what I could for
you--remember that? Mebby what I done didn't amount to such a terrible
sight, but I put you next to Murgatroyd the first time you ever came
into his office."
"Of course I'll do what I can to help you, Prebbles," said Matt
reassuringly.
"It's make or break with me, this time," shivered Prebbles. "I'm pretty
well along to stand such a row as I had with Newt."
"Where is Newt now?" inquired Matt.
"That's the point!" murmured Prebbles, trying to brace up in his chair.
"Somehow, he's got under the thumb of Murgatroyd, or Murg's got under
_his_ thumb, I can't just understand which."
Prebbles smoothed out the damp sheet of folded paper on his knee.
"I belong to the army," he quavered, "and I don't feel that what I've
done's wrong. A letter came to Murgatroyd, at the office, last night.
It was addressed in Newt's handwriting. I opened that letter and made
a copy of it; then I sent the letter on, with some others, to George
Hobbes, Bismarck. That's the name Murg uses when he pretends he's
lendin' money for some one else. He can gouge and strip a man, while
sayin' he's actin' for Hobbes, see?"
Every one of the three who had listened to Prebbles was deeply
interested. The bringing in of Murgatroyd seemed to offer a chance for
capturing the rascal.
"Here's the letter, Motor Matt," said Prebbles. "Read it out loud, and
then you'll all understand. There's a way to get Newt, and advance the
spark of friendship, as you call it. By doin' that, the boy can be
saved from the influence of Murgatroyd--and that's what I want."
Matt took the copy of the letter from the clerk's nerveless hand and
read it aloud. Just as he finished, Prebbles slumped slowly forward out
of his chair and fell in a senseless heap on the floor.