At the Crossroads Part 17

"I know you often get fussed, Rivers, about what you term my _using_ you in business, but I swear to you that in the end you'll think different about that. I've got to work under cover myself to a certain extent. I'm not my own master. But this I can say--I'm willing to be a part of a big thing. When the public _is_ taken into our confidence, we'll all feel repaid. Can you--do you catch on, Larry?"

"It's like catching on to something in the dark," Larry muttered.

"Well, that's something," Maclin said cheerfully. "Something to hold to in the dark isn't to be sneered at."

"Depends upon what it is!" Apparently Larry was in a difficult mood.

Maclin tried a new course.

"It's one thing having a friend in the dark, old man, and another having an enemy. I suppose that's what you mean. Well, have I been much of an enemy to you?"

"I just told you what I think about that." Larry misinterpreted Maclin's manner and took advantage.

"Larry, I'm going to give you something to chew on because I _am_ your friend and because I want you to trust me, even in the dark. The fellow Northrup----"

Larry started as if an electric spark had touched him. Maclin appeared not to notice.

"--is on our tracks, but he mustn't suspect that we have sensed it."

The words were ill-chosen. Having any one on his tracks was a significant phrase that left an ugly fear in Larry's mind.

"What tracks?" he asked suspiciously.

"Our inventions." Maclin showed no nervous dread. "These inventions, big as they are, old man, are devilish simple. That's why we have to lie low. Any really keen chap with the right slant could steal them from under our noses. That's why I like to get foreigners in here--these Dutchies don't smell around. Give them work to do, and they do it and ask no questions; the others snoop. Now this Northrup is here for a purpose."

"You know that for a fact, Maclin?"

"Sure, I know it." Maclin was a man who believed in holding all the cards and discarding at his leisure; he always played a slow game. "I know his kind, but I'm going to let him hang himself. Now see here, Rivers, you better take me into your confidence--I may be able to fix you up. What's wrong between you and your wife?"

This plunge sent Larry to the wall. When a slow man does make a drive, he does deadly work.

"Well, then"--Larry looked sullen--"I've left the house and mean to stay out until Mary-Clare comes to her senses!"

"All right, old man. I rather smelled this out. I only wanted to make sure. It's this Northrup, eh? Now, Rivers, I could send you off on a trip but it would be the same old story. I hate to kick you when you're down, but I will say this, your wife doesn't look like one mourning without hope when you're away, and with this Northrup chap on the spot, needing entertainment while he works his game, I'm thinking you better stay right where you are! You can, maybe, untie the knot, old chap. Give her and this Northrup all the chance they want, and if you leave 'em alone, I guess the Forest will smoke 'em out."

Maclin came nearer to being jubilant than Rivers had ever seen him.

The sight was heartening, but still something in Larry tempered his enthusiasm. He had been able, in the past, to exclude Mary-Clare from the inner sanctuary of Maclin's private ideals, and he hated now to betray her into his clutches. Maclin was devilishly keen under that slow, sluggish manner of his and he hastened, now, to say:

"Don't get a wrong slant on me, old man. I'm only aiming for the good of us all, not the undoing. I want to show this fellow Northrup up to your wife as well as to others. Then she'll know her friends from her foes. Naturally a woman feels flattered by attentions from a man like this stranger, but if she sees how he's taken the Heathcotes in and how he's used her while he was boring underground, she'll flare up and know the meaning of real friends. Some women have to be _shown_!"

By this time Larry suspected that much had gone on during his absence that Maclin had not confided to him. He was thoroughly aroused.

"Now see here, Rivers!" Maclin drew his chair closer and laid his hand on Larry's arm--he gloated over the trouble in the eyes holding his with dumb questioning. "It's coming out all right. We're in early and we've got the best seats--only keep them guessing; guessing! Larry, your wife goes--down to the Point a lot--goes missionarying, you know.

Well, this Northrup is tramping around in the woods skirting the Point."

Just here Larry started and looked as if something definite had come to him. Had he not seen Northrup that very day in the woods?

"Now there's an empty shack on the Point, Rivers--some old squatter has died. I want you to get that shack somehow or another. It ought to be easy, since they say your wife owns the place; it's your business to _get_ it and then watch out and keep your mouth shut. You've got to live somewhere while you can't live decent at home. 'Tisn't likely your wife, having slammed the door of her home on you, will oust you from that hovel on the Point--your being there will work both ways--she won't dare to take a step."

Larry drew a sigh, a heavy one, and began to understand. He saw more than Maclin could see.

"She hasn't turned me out," he muttered. "I came out."

"Let her explain that, Rivers. See? She can't do it while she's gallivanting with this here Northrup."

Larry saw the possibilities from Maclin's standpoint, but he saw Mary-Clare's smile and that uplifted head. He was overwhelmed again by the sense of impotence.

"Give a woman a free rein, Rivers, she'll shy, sooner or later."

Maclin was gaining a.s.surance as he saw Larry's discomfort. "That's what keeps women from getting on--they shy! When all's said, a tight rein is a woman's best good, but some women have to learn that."

Something in Larry burned hot and resentful, but whether it was because of Maclin or Mary-Clare he could not tell, so he kept still.

"Let's turn in, anyway, for to-night, old boy." Maclin's voice sounded paternal. "To-morrow is to-morrow and you'll feel able to tackle the job after a night's sleep."

So they turned in and it was the afternoon of the next day when Larry took his walk to the Point.

Just as he started forth Maclin gave him two or three suggestions.

"I'd offer to hire the shanty," he said. "That will put you in a safe position, no matter how they look at it. An old woman by the name of Peneluna thinks she owns it. There's an old codger down there, too, Twombley they call him--he's smart as the devil, but you can't tell which way he may leap. Try him out. Get him to take sides with you if you can."

"I remember Twombley," Larry said. "Dad used to get a lot of fun out of him in the old days. I haven't been on the Point since I was a boy."

"It's a good thing you never troubled the Point, Rivers. They'll be more stirred by you now."

"Maybe they'll kick me out."

"Never fear!" Maclin rea.s.sured him. "Not if you show good money and play up to your old dad. He had everyone eating out of his hand, all right."

So Larry, none too sure of himself, but more cheerful than he had been, set forth.

Now there is one thing about the poor, wherever you find them--they live out of doors when the weather permits. Given suns.h.i.+ne and soft air, they promptly turn their backs on the sordid dens they call home and take to the open. The day that Larry went to the Point was warm and lovely, and all the Pointers, or nearly all of them, were in evidence.

Jan-an was sweeping the steps of Peneluna's doorway, sweeping them viciously, sending the dust flying. She was working off her state of mind produced by the recent funeral of old Philander. She was spiritually inarticulate, but her gropings were expressed in service to them she loved and in violence to them she hated. As she swept she was cleaning for Peneluna, and at the same time, sweeping to the winds of heaven the memory of the dreadful minister who had said such fearsome things about the dead who couldn't talk back. The man had made Mary-Clare cry as she sat holding Peneluna's hard, cold hand.

Jan-an knew how hard and cold it was, for she had held the other in decent sympathy.

Among the tin cans and ash heaps the children of the Point were playing. One inspired girl had decked a mound of wreckage and garbage with some glittering goldenrod and was calling her mates to come and see the "heaven" she had made.

Larry laughed at this and muttered: "Made it in h.e.l.l, eh, kid?"

The child scowled at him.

Twombley was sitting in his doorway watching what was going on. He was a gaunt, sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed, and sharp-tongued man. He was the laziest man on the Point, but with all the earmarks of the cleverest.

"Well, Twombley, how are you?"

Twombley spat and took Larry out of the pigeonhole of his memory--labelled and priced; Twombley had not thought of him in years, as a definite individual. He was Mary-Clare's husband; a drifter; a tool of Maclin. As such he was negligible.

"Feeling same as I look," he said at last. He was ready to appraise the man before him.

"Bad nut," was what he thought, but diluted his sentiments because of the relations.h.i.+p to the old doctor and Mary-Clare. Twombley, like everyone else, had a shrine in his memory--rather a musty, shabby one, to be sure, but it held its own sacredly. Doctor Rivers and all that belonged to him were safely niched there--even this son, the husband of Mary-Clare about whom the Forest held its tongue because he was the son of the old doctor.