How Janice Day Won Part 20

"We may be evenly divided--fifty-fifty," and Bowman laughed grimly.

"But the ones who believe--or _say_ that they believe--Nelson Haley guilty, will talk much louder than those who deny."

"Oh, Frank Bowman! you take all my hope away."

"I don't mean to. I want to point out to you--and myself, as well--that to sit idle and wait for the matter to settle itself, is not enough for us who believe Haley is guiltless. We've got to set about disproving the accusation."

"I--I can see you are right," admitted the girl faintly.

"Yes; I am right. But being right doesn't end the matter. The question is: How are we going about it to save Nelson?"

Janice was rather shocked by this conclusion. Frank had seemed so clear up to this point. And then he slumped right down and practically asked her: "What are _you_ going to do about it?"

"Oh, dear me!" cried Janice Day, faintly, "I don't know. I can't think. We must find some way of tracing the real thief. Oh! how can I think of that, when here poor 'Rill and Hopewell are in trouble?"

"Never mind! Never mind, Janice!" said Frank Bowman. "We'll soon get Hopewell home. And I hope, too, that his wife will know enough to keep him away from the hotel hereafter."

"But, suppose she can't," whispered Janice. "You know, his father was given to drinking."

"No! Is that so?"

"Yes. Maybe it is hereditary----"

"Queer it didn't show itself before," said Bowman sensibly. "I am more inclined to believe that Joe Bodley is playing tricks. Why! he's kept bar in the city and I know he was telling some of the scatter-brained young fools who hang around the Inn, that he's often seen 'peter' used in men's drink to knock them out. 'Peter,' you know, is 'knock-out drops!'"

"No, I don't know," said Janice, with disgust. "Or, I didn't till you told me."

"Forgive me, Janice," the civil engineer said humbly. "I was only explaining."

"Oh, I'm not blaming you at all," she said. "But I am angry to think that my own mind--as well as everybody's mind in Polktown--is being contaminated from this barroom. We are all learning saloon phrases. I never heard so much slang from Marty and the other boys, as I have caught the last few weeks. Having liquor sold in Polktown is giving us a new language."

"Well," said Bowman, as the lights of the Inn came in sight, "I hadn't thought of it that way. But I guess you are right. Now, now, Janice, what had we better do? Hear the noise?"

"What kind of dance is it?" asked Janice, in disgust. "I should think that it was a sailor's dance hall, or a lumber camp dance. I have heard of such things."

"It's going a little too strong for Lem Parraday himself to-night, I guess. Marm shuts herself in their room upstairs, I understand, and reads her Bible and prays."

"Poor woman!"

"She's of the salt of the earth," said Bowman warmly. "But she can't help herself. Lem would do it. The Inn did not pay. And it is paying now. At least, he says it is."

"It won't pay them in the end if this keeps up," said Janice, listening to the stamping and the laughter and the harsh sounds of violins and piano. "Surely Hopewell isn't making _all_ that--that music?"

"I'll go in and see. I shouldn't wonder if he was not playing at all now. Maybe one of the boys has got his fiddle."

"Oh, no! He'd never let that precious violin out of his own hands, would he?" queried Janice. "Why! do you know, Frank, I believe that is quite a valuable instrument."

"I don't know. But when I started uptown one of the visitors was teasing to get hold of the violin. I don't know the man. He is a stranger--a black-haired, foxy-looking chap. Although, by good rights, I suppose a 'foxy-looking' person should be red-haired, eh?"

Janice, however, was not splitting hairs. She said quickly: "Do go in; Frank, and see what Hopewell is about."

"How'll I get him out?"

"Tell him I want to see him. He'll think something has happened to 'Rill or Lottie. I don't care if he is scared. It may do him good."

"I'll go around by the barroom door," said the young engineer, for they had come to the front entrance of the hotel.

Lights were blazing all over the lower floor of the sprawling building; but from the left of the front door came the sound of dancing. Some of the windows were open and the shades were up. Janice, standing in the darkness of the porch, could see the dancers pa.s.sing back and forth before the windows.

By the appearance of those she saw, she judged that the girls and women were mostly of the mill-hand cla.s.s, and were from Middletown and Millhampton. She knew the men of the party were of the same cla.s.s.

The tavern yard was full of all manner of vehicles, including huge party wagons which carried two dozen pa.s.sengers or more. There was a big crowd.

Janice felt, after all, as though she had urged Frank Bowman into the lion's den! The dancers were a rough set. She left the front porch after a while and stole around to the barroom door.

The door was wide open, but there was a half-screen swinging in the opening which hid all but the legs and feet of the men standing at the bar. Here the voices were much plainer. There were a few boys hanging about the doorway, late as the hour was. Janice was smitten with the thought that Marty's boys' club, the foundation society of the Public Library and Reading Room, would better be after these youngsters.

"Why, Simeon Howell!" she exclaimed suddenly. "You ought not to be here. I don't believe your mother knows where you are."

The other boys, who were ragam.u.f.fins, giggled at this, and one said to young Howell:

"Aw, Sim! Yer mother don't know yer out, does she? Better run home, Simmy, or she'll spank ye."

Simeon muttered something not very complimentary to Janice, and moved away. The Howells lived on Hillside Avenue and he was afraid Janice would tell his mother of this escapade.

Suddenly a burst of voices proclaimed trouble in the barroom. She heard Frank Bowman's voice, high-pitched and angry:

"Then give him his violin! You've no right to it. I'll take him away all right; but the violin goes, too!"

"No, we want the fiddle. He was to play for us," said a harsh voice.

"There is another feller here can play instead. But we want both violins."

"None of that!" snapped the engineer. "Give me that!"

There was a momentary struggle near the flapping screen. Suddenly Hopewell Drugg, very much disheveled, half reeled through the door; but somebody pulled him back.

"Aw, don't go so early, Hopewell. You're your own man, ain't ye?

Don't let this white-haired kid boss you."

"Let him alone, Joe Bodley!" commanded Bowman again, and Janice, shaking on the porch, knew that it must be the barkeeper who had interfered with Hopewell Drugg's escape.

The girl was terror-stricken; but she was indignant, too. She shrank from facing the half-intoxicated crowd in the room just as she would have trembled at the thought of entering a cage of lions.

Nevertheless, she put her hand against the swinging screen, pushed it open, and stepped inside the tavern door.

CHAPTER XIV

A DECLARATION OF WAR