The Freebooters of the Wilderness Part 11

If you think the Senator had had anything to do with the terrible events of the Rim Rocks, you are jumping to conclusions and must surely have failed to follow the activities of Mr. Bat Brydges the morning after the tragedy.

The first newspaper office that the handy man visited was owned by the Senator. That was easy. Bat went into the reporters' long room where the typewriters usually clicked. This morning they were silent. The men were out on their a.s.signments. The news editor was taking a message over the telephone. Bat sat down on the table and waited. The news editor was thin-faced and nervous and alert and immaculately groomed. Bat was round-faced and sleepy-eyed--tortoise-sh.e.l.l eyes--and all that prevented his suit from looking positively slovenly was that his own ample avoirdupois filled every wrinkle.

The news editor adjusted his gla.s.ses to his nose and answered, "Yes, Yes," impatiently over the telephone.

"It's a parson," he explained with an irritable snap of his black eyes towards Bat.

Bat smiled sleepily. "Thinks you're hungering and thirsting for news of his flock, does he?"

"No, blank it," snapped the news editor.

"It's another kind of flock that's worrying us this morning."

Bat's smile faded to a sly haze in his sleepy eyes.

"What has the old boy got to say?"

"How do you know he is old?" snapped the news editor.

Bat didn't volunteer on that point.

"Ask him what his name is," suggested Brydges.

"What did you say the name was? Matthews--Matthews--is that it? Wait, please!" The news-editor put his hand over the mouth piece of the telephone.

"Know anything about him, Bat?"

"I should say I do! Choke it off! He's staying with Missionary Williams at the Indian School, and you know about how much love is lost between Williams and Moyese."

"But we can't possibly suppress this, Bat. It will be all over the country."

"Better see whose ox is gored," advised Brydges.

"But we've got to get this, Brydges! The stage driver's told one of my men, already! Every bar-room buffer in the country side will know it by night."

"Then you had better get it straight," advised Bat.

The news-man looked in s.p.a.ce through eyes narrowed to an arrow. Bat watched sleepily. "If we choke this old chap's account off, can you give one to us?"

"Got it in my pocket! I've just come in on the stage!"

"I thought you came down in a motor with the Senator? Didn't he take the morning limited for Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"Well, the darn thing broke down so often it was bad as the stage.

Anyway, I've got the story for you--"

"Senator O. K. it?" The news-man hung the telephone receiver up, still keeping his hand over the mouth piece.

"Lord, no!" Bat slid off the table, tore the sheets from his note book and handed the story of the Rim Rocks across to the editor.

"What do you take the Senator for? He knows nothing about it; but it's in his const.i.tuency, and I guess his own paper should see that the account which goes in is straight."

The news-editor hoisted his foot to the seat of a chair and stood racing his eyes through sheet after sheet of Brydges's copy. Bat lighted a cigar, put his hands in his pockets and pivoted on his heels.

There was the squeak, squeak, squeak of a child's new boots coming up the first flight of stairs; and a squeak, squeak, squeak up the second flight of stairs; and a little girl, not twelve years old, resplendent in such tawdry finery as might have stepped out of an East End London p.a.w.n shop, presented herself framed in the doorway of the reporter's room. She plainly belonged to the immigrant section of Smelter City.

The news-editor never took his eyes from Bat's copy. They were eyes made for drilling holes into the motives behind facts. Bat emitted a whistle that was a laugh.

"Hullo," he said. "I knew they were coming on younger every year; but I didn't know we had gone into the kindergarten business yet. You don't want a job? Now don't tell me you want a job?"

The little person lifted a pair of very sober eyes beneath the brim of some faded plush headgear.

"Is thus th' rha-porther's room?"

"Sure! you bet!" Bat wheeled on both heels. The little person looked at him very steadily and solemnly.

"A' wannt," she said in that mongrel dialect of German-American and c.o.c.kney-English, "A wawnt an iteem."

"Sure," says Bat, "nothing easier."

"Wull thur be eny chaarge?"

"Not for ladies," says Bat, saluting, hand to hat, and grinning more sleepily than ever.

"Then, A wull guve it t' y': wull y' write it, sor?"

"Sure!" Bat squared himself to one of the reporters' high desks.

"Mestriss Leez-y O'Fannigan," dictated the little publicity agent.

"Miss O'Funny Girl," with a look to his fat cheeks as of a bag blown full of air.

"No Sor, O'Fan-ni-gan-"

"Perhaps," said Bat, "You'd like to know we're in the same boat, except that you're seeking exactly what I'm trying to avoid, Miss O'Finnigan?"

"Wull dance t' night--" continued the little publicity seeker.

"Will she dance in her copper-toe boots?" asks Bat.

"Wull dance at the H---- i-o-f lodge meetin' at--"

"That'll do, get her out of this," ordered the news-man. "It grows worse every day. Every damphool thinks the world is aching for an interview with himself, from the mining fakirs to the Shanty Town brats: it's seeped down to the kids. You go home, kid, and tell your mother to spank you special extra--"

They heard the fat little legs stumping down the stairs. "That kid belongs to Shanty Town. She dances for the bar room buffers now; she'll dance later, like you and me, Bat, for bigger bluffers. Freedom of the press! d.a.m.n it, I'm sick of the bunco game, Bat--"

"Draw it easy," drawled Bat. "If you're sick of it, it's dead easy to get out. I guess the kid is doing the same thing as you and me: 'Give us this day our daily bread.' How's the story? Will you give it a flare head?"

"Will there be any charge?" ironically repeated the news-man.