ON THE GREAT HIGHWAY.
As violently rent from his job as Maxim Waldron had been torn from his
alliance with Catherine, Gabriel Armstrong met the sudden change in his
affairs with far more equanimity than the financier could muster. Once
the young electrician's first anger had subsided--and he had pretty well
mastered it before he had reached the Oakwood Heights station--he began
philosophically to turn the situation in his mind, and to rough out his
plans for the future.
"Things might be worse, all round," he reflected, as he strode along at
a smart pace. "During the seven months I've been working for these
pirates, I've managed to pay off the debt I got into at the time of the
big E. W. strike, and I've got eighteen dollars or a little more in
my pocket. My clothes will do a while longer. Even though Flint
blacklists me all over the country, as he probably will, I can duck into
some job or other, somewhere. And most important of all, I know what's
due to happen in America--I've seen that note-book! Let them do what
they will, they can't take _that_ knowledge away from me!"
The outlook, on the whole, was cheering. Gabriel broke into a whistle,
as he swung along the highway, and slashed cheerfully with his heavy
stick at the dusty bushes by the roadside. A vigorous, pleasing figure
of a man he made, striding onward in his blue flannel shirt and
corduroys, stout boots making light of distance, somewhat rebellious
black hair clustering under his cap, blue eyes clear and steady as the
sunlight itself. There must have been a drop of Irish blood somewhere or
other in his veins, to have given him that ruddy cheek, those eyes, that
hair, that quick enthusiasm and that swiftness to anger--then, by
reaction, that quick buoyancy which so soon banished everything but
courageous optimism from his hot heart.
Thus the man walked, all his few worldly belongings--most precious among
them his union card and his red Socialist card--packed in the knapsack
strapped to his broad shoulders. And as he walked, he formulated his
plans.
"Niagara for mine," he decided. "It's there these hellions mean to start
their devilish work of enslaving the whole world. It's there I want to
be, and must be, to follow the infernal job from the beginning and to
nail it, when the right time comes. I'll put in a day or two with my old
friend, Sam Underwood, up in the Bronx, and maybe tell him what's doing
and frame out the line of action with him. But after that, I strike for
Niagara--yes, and on foot!"
This decision came to him as strongly desirable. Not for some time, he
knew, could the actual work of building the Air Trust plant be started
at Niagara. Meanwhile, he wanted to keep out of sight, as much as
possible. He wanted, also to save every cent. Again, his usual mode of
travel had always been either to ride the rods or "hike" it on shanks'
mare. Bitterly opposed to swelling the railways' revenues by even a
penny, Armstrong in the past few years of his life had done some
thousands of miles, afoot, all over the country. His best means of
Socialist propaganda, he had found, was in just such meanderings along
the highways and hedges of existence--a casual job, here or there, for a
day, a week, a month--then, quick friendships; a little talk; a few
leaflets handed to the intelligent, if he could find any. He had laced
the continent with such peregrinations, always sowing the seed of
revolution wherever he had passed; getting in touch with the Movement
all over the republic; keeping his finger on the pulse of ever-growing,
always-strengthening Socialism.
Such had his habits long been. And now, once more adrift and jobless,
but with the most tremendous secret of the ages in his possession, he
naturally turned to the comfort and the calming influence of the broad
highway, in his long journey towards the place where he was to meet, in
desperate opposition, the machinations of the Air Trust magnates.
"It's the only way for me," he decided, as he turned into the road
leading toward Saint George and the Manhattan Ferry. "Flint and Herzog
will be sure to put Slade and the Cosmos people after me. Blacklisting
will be the least of what they'll try to do. They'll use slugging
tactics, sure, if they get a chance, or railroad me to some Pen or
other, if possible. My one best bet is to keep out of their way; and I
figure I'm ten times safer on the open road, with a few dollars to stave
off a vagrancy charge, and with two good fists and this stick to keep
'em at a distance, than I would be on the railroads or in cheap dumps
along the way.
"The last place they'll ever think of looking for me will be the big
outdoors. _Their_ idea of hunting for a workman is to dragnet the back
rooms of saloons--especially if they're after a Socialist. That's the
limit of their intelligence, to connect Socialism and beer. I'll beat
'em; I'll hike--and it's a hundred to one I land in Niagara with more
cash than when I started, with better health, more knowledge, and the
freedom that, alone, can save the world now from the most damnable
slavery that ever threatened its existence!"
Thus reasoning, with perfect clarity and a long-headedness that proved
him a strategist at four-and-twenty, Gabriel Armstrong whistled a louder
note as he tramped away to northward, away from the hateful presence of
Herzog, away from the wage-slavery of the Oakwood Heights plant,
away--with that precious secret in his brain--toward the far scene of
destined warfare, where stranger things were to ensue than even he could
possibly conceive.
Saturday morning found him, his visit with Underwood at an end, already
twenty miles or more from the Bronx River, marching along through
Haverstraw, up the magnificent road that fringes the Hudson--now hidden
from the mighty river behind a forest-screen, now curving on bold
abutments right above the sun-kissed expanses of Haverstraw Bay, here
more than two miles from wooded shore to shore.
At eleven, he halted at a farm house, some miles north of the town, got
a job on the woodpile, and astonished the farmer by the amount of birch
he could saw in an hour. He took his pay in the shape of a bountiful
dinner, and--after half an hour's smoke and talk with the farmer, to
whom he gave a few pamphlets from the store in his knapsack--said
good-bye to all hands and once more set his face northward for the long
hike through much wilder country, to West Point, where he hoped to pass
the night.
Thus we must leave him, for a while. For now the thread of our
narration, like the silken cord in the Labyrinth of Crete, leads us back
to the Country Club at Longmeadow, the scene, that very afternoon, of
the sudden and violent rupture between the financier and Catherine
Flint.
Catherine, her first indignation somewhat abated, and now vastly
relieved at the realization that she indeed was free from her loveless
and long-since irksome alliance with Waldron, calmly enough returned to
the club-house. Head well up, and eyes defiant, she walked up the broad
steps and into the office. Little cared she whether the piazza
gossips--The Hammer and Anvil Club, in local slang--divined the quarrel
or not. The girl felt herself immeasurably indifferent to such
pettinesses as prying small talk and innuendo. Let people know, or not,
as might be, she cared not a whit. Her business was her own. No wagging
of tongues could one hair's breadth disturb that splendid calm of hers.
The clerk, behind the desk, smiled and nodded at her approach.
"Please have my car brought round to the porte-cochère, at once?" she
asked. "And tell Herrick to be sure there's plenty of gas for a long
run. I'm going through to New York."
"So soon?" queried the clerk. "I'm sure your father will be
disappointed, Miss Flint. He's just wired that he's coming out tomorrow,
to spend Sunday here. He particularly asks to have you remain. See
here?"
He handed her a telegram. She glanced it over, then crumpled it and
tossed it into the office fire-place.
"I'm sorry," she answered. "But I can't stay. I must get back, to-night.
I'll telegraph father not to come. A blank, please?"
The clerk handed her one. She pondered a second, then wrote:
Dear Father: A change of plans makes me return home at once.
Please wait and see me there. I've something important to talk over
with you.
Affectionately,
Kate.
Ordinarily people try to squeeze their message to ten words, and count
and prune and count again; but not so, Catherine. For her, a telegram
had never contained any space limit. It meant less to her than a
post-card to you or me. Not that the girl was consciously extravagant.
No, had you asked her, she would have claimed rigid economy--she rarely,
for instance, paid more than a hundred dollars for a morning gown, or
more than a thousand for a ball-dress. It was simply that the idea of
counting words had never yet occurred to her. And so now, she
complacently handed this verbose message to the clerk, who--thoroughly
well-trained--understood it was to be charged on her father's perfectly
staggering monthly bill.
"Very well, Miss Flint," said he. "I'll send this at once. And your car
will be ready for you in ten minutes--or five, if you like?"
"Ten will do, thank you," she answered. Then she crossed to the
elevator and went up to her own suite of rooms on the second floor, for
her motor-coat and veils.
"Free, thank heaven!" she breathed, with infinite relief, as she stood
before the tall mirror, adjusting these for the long trip. "Free from
that man forever. What a narrow escape! If things hadn't happened just
as they did, and if I hadn't had that precious insight into Wally's
character--good Lord!--catastrophe! Oh, I haven't been so happy since
I--since--why, I've _never_ been so happy in all my life!
"Wally, dear boy," she added, turning toward the window as though
apostrophizing him in reality, "now we can be good friends. Now all the
sham and pretense are at an end, forever. As a friend, you may be
splendid. As a husband--oh, impossible!"
Lighter of heart than she had been for years, was she, with the added
zest of the long spin through the beauty of the June country before
her--down among the hills and cliffs, among the forests and broad
valleys--down to New York again, back to the father and the home she
loved better than all else in the world.
In this happy frame of mind she presently entered the low-hung,
swift-motored car, settled herself on the luxurious cushions and said
"Home, at once!" to Herrick.
He nodded, but did not speak. He felt, in truth, somewhat incapable of
quite incoherent speech. Not having expected any service till next day,
he had foregathered with others of his ilk in the servants' bar,
below-stairs, and had with wassail and good cheer very effectively put
himself out of commission.
But, somewhat sobered by this quick summons, he had managed to pull
together. Now, drunk though he was, he sat there at the wheel, steady
enough--so long as he held on to it--and only by the redness of his face
and a certain glassy look in his eye, betrayed the fact of his
intoxication. The girl, busy with her farewells as the car drew up for
her, had not observed him. At the last moment Van Slyke waved a foppish
hand at her, and smirked adieux. She acknowledged his good-bye with a
smile, so happy was she at the outcome of her golf-game; then cast a
quick glance up at the club windows, fearing to see the harsh face of
Wally peeping down at her in anger.
But he was nowhere to be seen; and now, with a sudden acceleration of
the powerful six-cylinder engine, the big gray car moved smoothly
forward. Growling in its might, it swung in a wide circle round the
sweep of the drive, gathered speed and shot away down the grade toward
the stone gates of the entrance, a quarter mile distant.
Presently it swerved through these, to southward. Club-house, waving
handkerchiefs and all vanished from Kate's view.
"Faster, Herrick," she commanded, leaning forward, "I must be home by
half past five."
Again he nodded, and notched spark and throttle down. The car, leaping
like a wild creature, began to hum at a swift clip along the smooth,
white road toward Newburgh on the Hudson.
Thirty miles an hour the speedometer showed, then thirty-five and forty.
Again the drunken chauffeur, still master of his machine despite the
poison pulsing in his dazed brain, snicked the little levers further
down. Forty-five, fifty, fifty-five, the figures on the dial showed.
Now the exhaust ripped in a crackling staccato, like a machine gun, as
the chauffeur threw out the muffler. Behind, a long trail of dust rose,
whirling in the air. Catherine, a sportswoman born, leaned back and
smiled with keen pleasure, while her yellow veil, whipping sharply on
the wind, let stray locks of that wonderful red-gold hair stream about
her flushed face.
Thus she sped homeward, driven at a mad race by a man whose every sense
was numbed and stultified by alcohol--homeward, along a road up which,
far, far away, another man, keen, sober and alert, was trudging with a
knapsack on his broad back, swinging a stick and whistling cheerily as
he went.
Fate, that strange moulder of human destinies, what had it in store for
these two, this woman and this man? This daughter of a billionaire, and
this young proletarian?
Who could foresee, or, foreseeing, could believe what even now stood
written on the Book of Destiny?