Janice Day Part 25

"Sure," was the reply.

"Then I'll go along with you," declared Marty, who wasn't half as ashamed to escort a girl on the street nowadays as he had been a few months before.

Now, Janice had intended running over to Hopewell Drugg's store and looking at the paper Marty had tried to destroy. She did not for a moment suspect what was in it, or why her cousin had told her a falsehood about it. But she saw she would have to defer the examination of the news-sheet.

"All right. Come along, Marty," she agreed, with a.s.sumed carelessness.

The boy was very moody. He stole glances at her only when he thought she was not looking. Never had Janice seen the hobbledehoy act so strangely!

They plowed through the increasing snow up Hillside Avenue, and the snow fell so rapidly that the girl was really glad she had come home. She entered first, Marty staying out on the porch a long time, stamping and sc.r.a.ping his boots.

When he came in he still had nothing to say. He pulled his seat to the far side of the glowing stove and sat there, hands in his pockets and chin on his breast.

"What's the matter with you, Marty?" shrilled Mrs. Day. "You ain't sick, be ye?"

"Nop," growled her son.

That was about all they could get out of him--monosyllables--until Janice retired to her own room. The girl was so anxious to get upstairs and look at that paper she had recovered from the reading-room fire, that she went early. When she had bidden the others good night and mounted to her room, however, she did something she had never done before. She unlatched her door again softly and tiptoed out to the landing at the top of the stairs, to listen.

Marty had suddenly come to life. She heard his voice, low and tense, dominating the other voices in the kitchen. She could not hear a word he said, but suddenly Aunt 'Mira broke out with: "Oh! my soul and body, Marty! It ain't so--don't _say_ it's so!"

"Be still, 'Mira," commanded Uncle Jason's quaking voice. "Let the boy tell it."

She heard nothing more but the murmur of her cousin's voice and her aunt's soft crying. Janice stole back into her cold room. She shook terribly, but not with the chill of the frosty air.

Her trembling fingers found a match and ignited the wick of the skeleton lamp. She had, ere this, manufactured a pretty paper shade for it, and this threw the stronger radiance of the light upon a round spot on the bureau. She drew out the scorched paper and unfolded it in that light.

She did not have to search long. The article she feared to see was upon the first page of the paper. The black headlines were so plain that she scanned them at a single glance:

THE BANDIT, RAPHELE, AT WORK

A Fugitive's Story of the Christmas-Week Execution in Granadas District

TWO AMERICANS DRAW LOTS FOR LIFE

John Makepiece Tells His Story in Cida; His Fellow-Prisoner, Broxton Day, Fills One of Raphele's "Christmas Graves"

CHAPTER XVIII

"THE FLY-BY-NIGHT"

Janice Day could never have told how long she sat there, elbows on the bureau, eyes glued to those black lines on the newspaper page. The heat of the tall oil lamp almost scorched her face; but her back was freezing. There was never anything invented--not even a cold storage plant--as cold as the ordinary New England farmhouse bedchamber!

But the girl felt neither the lamp's heat, nor the deadly chill of the room. For a long time she could not even read beyond the mere headlines of the article telegraphed from Cida.

This seemed to be conclusive. It was the end of all hope for Janice--or, so she then believed. There seemed not a single chance that her father could have escaped. No news had been good news, after all. This story in the paper was all too evil--all too certainly evil!

By and by she managed to concentrate her numbed mind upon the story itself. There is no need to repeat it here in full; when Janice had read it twice she could not easily forget its most unimportant phrase.

The man, John Makepiece, with Broxton Day, of Granadas district, had been held "incommunicado" for months by the bandit, Raphele. This leader had fought with his _commando_ for the Const.i.tutionalists at the battle of Granadas; but he was really an outlaw and cutthroat, and many of his followers were brigands like him.

The prisoners had been held for ransom. Several of the Mexican captives of Raphele had managed to pay their way out of the villain's clutches; but both Americans refused to apply to their friends for ransom. Indeed, they did not trust to Raphele's protestations, believing that if any money at all for their release was forthcoming, it would only whet the villain's cupidity and cause Raphele to make larger demands.

Raphele feared now to remain longer in that part of Chihuahua. His unlawful acts had called down upon his head the serious strictures of the Const.i.tutionalist leaders. They were about to abolish his command.

In his rage and bloodthirstiness he had declared his intention of either destroying his remaining prisoners, or sending them to their homes crippled. But the two Americans he treated differently. With fiendish delight in seeing those two brave men suffer, he had commanded them to cast lots to see which should be escorted beyond the lines, while the other was marched to the edge of an open grave, there to find a sure and sudden end under the rain of bullets from a "firing squad."

John Makepiece had drawn the long straw. There was no help for it. He rode away on a sorry nag that was given him, and from a distant height saw the other American marched out to the place of burial, and even waited to see the puff of smoke from the guns as the soldiers fired at the doomed man.

The details were horrible. The effect upon Janice was a most unhappy one. For more than an hour she sat there before her bureau in the cold room, her gaze fastened upon the story in the newspaper.

Then the family came up to bed. Aunt 'Mira saw the light under the girl's door.

"Janice! Janice!" she whispered. "Whatever is the matter with you?"

Aunt 'Mira had been crying and her voice was still husky. When she pushed open the door a little way and saw the girl, she gasped out in alarm.

"Oh, my dear!" sobbed Aunt 'Mira. "_Do you know?_"

Janice could not then speak. She pointed to the paper, and when Aunt 'Mira folded her in her arms, the girl burst into tears--tears that relieved her overcharged heart.

"You run down an' open up the drafts of that stove again, Jason,"

exclaimed the fleshy lady, for once taking command of affairs. "This child's got a chill. She's got ter have suthin' hot, or she'll be sick on our hands--poor dear! She's been a-settin' here readin' all that stuff Marty told us was in the paper--I do believe. Ain't that so, child?"

Janice, sobbing on her broad bosom, intimated that it was a fact.

"That boy ain't no good. He didn't burn up the paper at all. She got holt on it," declared Uncle Jason, quite angry.

"Oh, it wasn't--wasn't Marty's fault," sobbed Janice. "And I had to know! I had to know!"

They got her downstairs, and Mrs. Day sent "the men folks" to bed. She insisted upon putting Janice's feet into a mustard-water bath, and made her swallow fully a pint of steaming hot "composition." Two hours later Janice was able to go to bed, and, because she hoped against hope, and was determined not to believe the story until it was thoroughly confirmed, she fell immediately into a dreamless sleep.

When she awoke on Christmas morning, it was with a full and clear knowledge of what had happened, and a pang of desolation and grief such as had swept over her the night before. But she set herself to hope as long as she could, and to suppress any untoward exhibition of her sorrow and pain, while she made every effort to find out the truth about her father.

The family was very gentle with the heartsick girl. Even Marty showed by his manner that he sympathized with her. And she could not forget that he had tried his very best to keep the knowledge of the awful crime from her.

Janice brought down with her to the breakfast table the little presents which she had prepared for her uncle, and aunt, and cousin. There were no boisterous "Merry Christmases" in the old Day house that morning; even Uncle Jason wiped his eyes after saying grace at the breakfast table.

After all, Janice was the most self-controlled of the four. She said, midway of the meal:

"I cannot believe all of that dreadful story in the paper. I want to know more of the particulars."

"Oh, hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+" begged her aunt. "I read it. It's too horrible! I wouldn't want to know any more, child."