KING AROUSED
Benton King, politely invited――nay, urged――to call on Bob Hutchinson
at the Central Hotel, dropped round that same Sunday afternoon, out of
passing curiosity, and listened with swiftly growing interest to what
Hutchinson had to tell.
“I knew it!” exclaimed King triumphantly, when the vengeful manager had
finished. “I knew it all the time, but I didn’t have the proof. For the
last few days I’ve been expecting a letter that ought to contain all
the proof anybody wants.”
“What more,” inquired Hutchinson, “do you want than what I have given
you? I have shown you the letter written to Hazelton, which was mailed
to him in an envelope addressed to Tom Locke. That certainly nails it
on him for fair.”
“Yes,” said Bent, with a nod, “but I’ll have something more convincing
than that for a skeptical person, if I’m not badly mistaken. He was a
fool to deny his identity in the first place.”
“Right; especially to his manager. We protect college guys who confide
in us, and let them play under fake names if they wish, but this man
has been crooked with me, and there’s no reason why I should cover him
up. You should have seen the other letter I spoke of, the one he was
writing. I read it, thinking he might give himself away. He knocked me
in it, and he soaked you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. He said you were a fellow with more money than brains, thanks to
a rich father. He also referred to a certain young lady in town by the
name of Janet Harting; said you were chasing round after her, but he
proposed to get busy and cut you out, as she was the prettiest girl he
had seen around here, and would serve to amuse him while he had to stay
here.”
King’s face was dark; his hands clenched, and his eyes flashed. A
singular ring of yellowish pallor formed round his mouth, his lips drew
back from his teeth, and he cried:
“He denied, in her presence, that he was Hazelton, and I know what
she thinks of a liar. He won’t amuse himself much with her when I am
through with him.”
Thoroughly satisfied, Hutchinson walked slowly toward his window, which
looked out on the main street of the town. He had begun the work of
undermining the man who had dared express to his face an unreserved
opinion of him as a manager, and when he, Hutchinson, was finished, the
so-called Tom Locke would be down and done for.
“I have your promise, Mr. King,” said Hutch, “to say nothing concerning
the source of your information. I was determined to know the truth
about that man, but you can understand that the general public might
not approve of my method of obtaining it.”
Suddenly he brushed back one of the coarse lace curtains, and leaned
forward to look out of the window.
“I declare,” he said, without the slightest change in his voice, “if
here isn’t our man now, carrying a kid on his back; and, on my word,
the young lady in question is with him.”
King crossed the room, almost at a bound, snatching aside the curtains.
True, Locke was passing on the opposite side of the street, bearing
on his back a little boy, whose left foot was bound about with a
bloodstained handkerchief. Janet walked beside him; the other children
straggled along behind.
There was a roaring in Benton King’s ears, and a reddish mist seemed to
flow across his vision like a filmy waterfall in the evening sunlight.
Far and wide in lumber land, old Cyrus King was known as a man with a
violent and ungovernable temper, deadly dangerous when aroused, and, in
this respect, at least, Benton was his father’s son.
“I’ll do up that sneaking, boasting fellow!” he snarled wolfishly, sick
to the core with the rage that possessed him.
“Evidently,” said Hutchinson, heaping fuel to the leaping flames, “he
has begun to amuse himself with Miss Harting.”
“I’ll get him!” cried Bent again, burning and freezing alternately with
fury that made him tremble. “And I’ll make quick work of it!”
He wheeled from the window, but Hutch turned with equal swiftness and
shot out a pair of hands that fastened upon him.
“Hold on,” said the manager. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to fix him――to fix him! Hands off! He can’t make a jest of
that girl! Amuse himself with her, will he? His pleasure will be brief!
Let me go!”
Exerting all his strength, Hutchinson swung the infuriated young man
to one side, giving him a thrust that made him stagger. Springing to
the door, the manager turned the key in the lock, removed it, and put
it into his pocket. Again he faced King, one open hand upheld, palm
outward.
“Open that door!” shouted Bent, his eyes glaring, a bit of white foam
on his lips. “What are you trying to do?”
“I am trying to prevent you from making a fool of yourself,” answered
the other calmly. “Listen to me a minute. Have you any regard whatever
for Miss Harting?”
“Have I? I’m going to protect her from that wolf. Let me out!”
“Do you want to involve her in a scandal? In your present state of
blind madness, you would rush after them and attack the man upon the
street. A common scrap over a girl on Sunday――you know what that
means. The burg would buzz with it; the young lady would feel herself
humiliated and disgraced. Do you think you would gain favor in her eyes
by such folly? Besides, you are no match for that fellow; you ought to
know it, for you saw him whip Jock Hoover, and Hoover’s no slouch of
a fighter. You would not make a very heroic figure in that sort of an
affair.”
“I can fight, if necessary,” panted Benton. “I discharged two men last
week because they left work to attend a ball game against my orders.
One of them was a dago, and he came back, drunk, to cut me up. I took
his knife away from him and threw him out. I can fight, and I’m not
afraid of a coward who hides behind a fake name.”
“Even if you whipped him, you’d stand a good chance of putting yourself
in Dutch with the girl, who surely would be mortified by the notoriety
the affair would bring. Have some sense; wait a bit, King, and cool
off. With a clear head, you’ll see that there are other and far better
ways of fixing the man.”