Blacksheep! Blacksheep! Part 27

This only increased the woman's indignation and he roused himself to placate her.

"I had better run to the house and telephone to the Tiffin police," he suggested.

To his infinite surprise she declared in alarm that this must not be done; she would go herself and tell the child's father what had occurred and let him deal with the matter. This was wholly beyond his comprehension and to conceal his emotions he fell back heavily upon his role of the country b.u.mpkin, complaining of imaginary injuries and vowing that he would have the law on the men who a.s.saulted him. The woman glanced carefully about, as though to make sure they had not been observed and then set off for the house. She took several steps and then turned to say:

"Don't talk about this--do you understand? You're not to say a word about it. I'll see Mr. Putney Congdon and tell him just how it happened."

"But if the police should ask me--"

"Don't be a fool! The police are not going to know about this. Those were Mr. Putney Congdon's orders in case anything like this happened.

And you needn't talk to the other hands about it either. I'll fix the foreman; all you've got to do is to keep your mouth shut."

Her a.s.sumption that Mr. Putney Congdon would not be greatly aroused by the abduction of his daughter was anything but clarifying. Archie returned the pony to the barn and was sitting in the door brooding upon the prevailing madness of the human race when Grubbs found him.

"Well, it certainly beats h.e.l.l!" the man remarked, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.

"There's a good deal in what you say," Archie mournfully a.s.sented. "I want you to know that it wasn't my fault. Those fellows--there were about six of 'em--jumped on me and tried to choke me to death and then pitched me over the fence and it was all over in half a second. I apologize if that's what you expect."

"I don't expect a d.a.m.ned thing! That fool woman said I wasn't to pester you about it as you wasn't to blame, which makes me sore, for at the first jump I was goin' to call the sheriff and turn y' over. But from what she says we're not to say a word--not a word, mind y'! Y' can't beat it!"

"I certainly shan't attempt to beat it," replied Archie sadly. "I'd like to catch a March hare just to tell him that some human beings are a lot crazier than he is. We haven't done justice to the intellectual powers of the rabbit."

The foreman blinked but the remark penetrated and he burst into a loud guffaw. That a child should be picked up in the road and carried away was startling enough but that nothing was to be done about it was so egregious that words failed to do justice to it. It was only eleven o'clock and he told Archie that he might spend an hour at the woodpile, even guiding him to that unromantic spot and initiating him into the uses of saw and ax.

V

Three days in the harvest field brought Archie to a new respect for his daily bread. He found joy in the discovery that he had strength to throw into the scale against man's necessities. He was taking a holiday from life itself; and he was content to bide his time until the vacation ended. He was pa.s.sing through an ordeal and if he emerged alive he would be a wiser and better man. He planned a life with Isabel that should be spent wholly in the open. Cities should never know him again. Isabel lived now so vividly in his mind that trifles he had not thought of in their meetings became of tremendous importance; foolish things, lover's fatuities. There was a certain grave deliberation of speech, more deliberate when the sentence was to end in laughter; this he knew to be adorable. There was the tiniest little scar, almost imperceptible, over one of her temples; it was the right one, he remembered. An injury in childhood, perhaps; he grieved over it as though he had seen the cruel wound inflicted. And she had a way of laying her hand against her cheek that touched him deeply as he thought of it. Her hands were the most wonderful he had ever seen; useful, capable hands, slim and long.

When he thought of the castigation she had given him in those dark days when they so miserably misunderstood each other, it helped to remember her hands; they were hands that could be only the accompaniment of a kind and generous heart. There was the troublesome cousin who loved her; but he consoled himself with the reflection that she would not have mentioned the man if she had really cared for him; and yet this might be only a blind. He would have an eye to that cousin. The buried treasure he hadn't taken very seriously. In spite of all the remarkable things that had happened to him he still had moments of incredulity, and in the midst of an Ohio wheatfield, with the click and clatter of the reapers in his ears and the dry scent of the wheat in his nostrils, to dream of buried gold was transcendent folly.

Gossip from the farmhouse reached him at the back door and he was alert for any sign that Putney Congdon meditated leaving. Eliphalet had not returned; he judged that Perky, probably inspired by the Governor, had frightened the old man into taking a long journey. The woman who had cared for Edith had left; he got that direct from Grubbs, who poured out confidences freely as they smoked together after the twilight supper.

"Say, I guess I sized you up all wrong. You don't act like a b.u.m at all; I guess you and me might rent a farm round here somewhere and make some money out of it next year. You're the first hobo I ever saw who could do a day's work without cryin'."

The queer ways of the Congdons had not been referred to between them until the third evening, when they took counsel of their tobacco apart from the other men, sprawling on the gra.s.s in a friendly intimacy that Archie found flattering. A plain, hard-fisted farmer liked him and showed a preference for his society; the thing was unbelievable.

"I get it through the kitchen that the old man's son's goin' to clear out tonight. Orders was sent to have a machine ready to take him to town at eleven o'clock. Guess there was nothing the matter with him nohow--y'

know what these rich young fellas are, and they say the old man's worth a mint. The idea of a big grown man havin' a nurse take care of him makes me sick. I ain't seen that fella since he came. Telegram phoned out this evenin' made 'im jump out o' bed, they say, and he's off for somewhere tonight. Sees a chance to make a lot of money most likely."

Archie cautiously changed the subject, but he was already planning his departure. The Governor had bidden him follow Congdon and here were his marching orders. The prospect of playing the spy upon Congdon had grown no less disagreeable since the Governor had told him that this was to be his next duty. The only thing that reconciled him to the unattractive task was the a.s.surance that Congdon would set out at once for Heart o'

Dreams Camp, where Isabel presumably was now established. To bother himself further with the Congdons was not to his liking; he had ceased wis.h.i.+ng that he had killed Putney; he wished now that the whole family were at the other side of the world where they wouldn't so persistently interfere with his affairs.

Grubbs complained bitterly because upon him fell the duty of getting Putney into town to catch a west-bound train at midnight.

"You'd think we run a taxi joint here! Where am I goin' to get a night's rest, I'd like to know!"

With the seven-mile tramp to town before him Archie was unable to sympathize with Grubbs' longing for slumber. He left the foreman tinkering the machine in which Putney was to be borne to the station, changed his hat for his cap and stole out of the sleeping quarters to the road.

The thought that he was on his way to Isabel lightened his step, and he trudged along with frequent invocations of the stars. He carried nothing in his pockets but the sealed address the Governor's sister had given him; the verse in Isabel's writing, and a roll of bills the Governor had pressed upon him when they parted.

Reaching town, he found himself with an hour to spare. He got his bag from the station and bought a ticket. There was only one upper available, said the agent with the usual optimistic suggestion of ticket agents that something better might be found when the train came in. He spent half an hour at a hotel cleaning up and changing to the clothing he had discarded at Cleveland.

... Grubbs carried Putney's luggage across the platform with dogged stride, pa.s.sing Archie without a sign of recognition. He was followed by a tall man in a gray suit whose left arm was supported by a sling.

Grubbs took hasty leave and the two travelers were left alone.

"A warm night," Congdon remarked.

Archie agreed to this, a trifle huskily. Congdon was not a bad looking fellow; his tone and manner, and his face, as revealed by the platform lights, encouraged the belief that he was a gentleman.

"No red caps here, I suppose," said Congdon with a glance toward the station.

"I fancy not," Archie replied. "I'll be glad to help you with your bags."

"Oh, thank you! I have a game shoulder,--nearly well now, but it gives me a twinge occasionally. The train's on time, I believe."

A blast from the locomotive and a humming of the rails woke the station to life. Archie grabbed the larger of Congdon's bags and led the way toward a voice bawling "Chicago sleeper." Congdon showed his ticket for lower three and climbed in; Archie remaining behind to negotiate for s.p.a.ce.

"Nothing left but uppers; you can take upper three."

He found Congdon in the aisle disposing of his effects.

"I've got the upper half of the section," said Archie, "But I promise not to be a nuisance to you."

"That will be all right. I asked for a stateroom but you can never get what you want at these way stations. I'm going to smoke for a while."

Archie threw his suitcase into the upper berth and clung to the curtains as the train started with a jerk. Here was a situation so utterly confounding that his spirit sank under the weight of it. He was not only traveling with a man he had shot; he was obliged to sleep over him. The propinquity made it possible to finish the business begun at Bailey Harbor and be done with him. He felt the perspiration trickling down his cheeks. The possibilities of the next few hours were hideous; what if he were unable to resist an impulse to give Putney Congdon his quietus; what if--

He staggered toward the smoking compartment and found it unoccupied save for Congdon, who had planted himself in a chair and was trying to light a cigarette. Archie sank upon the leather divan and struck and held a match for him.

Congdon thanked him with a nod and remarked that the weather was favoring the farmers.

Archie, satisfied that the rather melancholy blue eyes had found in him nothing familiar or suggestive of their earlier and tragic meeting, heartily commended the weather as excellent for the crops. Congdon gave a hitch to his shoulder occasionally and flinched when a sudden jerk of the car threw him against the window frame. The glint of pain in his eyes sent a wave of remorse through Archie's soul. Congdon bore his affliction manfully. There was about him nothing even remotely suggestive of Eliphalet Congdon's grotesque figure or excited, choppy speech. He had suffered and perhaps his wound was not alone responsible for his pallor or the hurt look in his eyes. As Congdon played nervously with his watch chain, he inspected Archie with quick furtive glances.

"I'm all banged up--nerves shot to pieces," he said abruptly, turning his gaze intently upon Archie.

"That's rough. Used to be troubled a good deal myself."

The sound of his own voice and the consciousness that the victim of his bullet was reaching out to him for sympathy brought back his courage. He would be very kind to Putney Congdon. Even apart from the disabled shoulder there was a pathos in the man. Archie felt that in happier moments he could become very fond of Putney Congdon. He looked like a chap it would be pleasant to sit with at a table for two in a quiet club corner.

"Chicago?" Congdon asked. It seemed to Archie that he threw into the question a hope that they were to be fellow travelers to the end of the journey. Here was something, a turn of the screw, that even the Governor could not have foreseen.

The conductor came for their tickets and Archie took advantage of the interruption to ponder the ethics and the etiquette of his predicament; but there was no precedent in all history for such a synchronization of two gentlemen who had recently engaged in a midnight duel. Archie was appalled by the consciousness that he and Congdon were really hitting it off.

The tickets surrendered, Congdon drew out his watch, said that he had been sleeping badly and hated to go to bed. He sat erect and tried to reach his coat pocket. His face twitched with the pain of the effort.

"I had a bottle of dope I'm supposed to take to help me sleep; must have left it in my bag. Will you poke the b.u.t.ton, please?"

"Can't I get it for you?" asked Archie.