How Janice Day Won Part 46

Adios.

"Faithfully thine,

"JUAN DICAMPA."

"Such a strangely boyish letter to come from a bloodthirsty bandit--for such they say he is. And he is father's friend," sighed Janice, showing the letter to Nelson Saley. "Oh, dear! I wish daddy would leave that hateful old mine and come home."

Nevertheless, daddy's return--or his abandonment of the mine--did not appear imminent. Good news indeed was in Mr. Broxton Day's most recent letters. The way to the border for ore trains was again open. For six weeks he had had a large force of peons at work in the mine and a great amount of ore had been s.h.i.+pped.

There was in the letter a certificate of deposit for several hundred dollars, and the promise of more in the near future.

"You must be pretty short of feminine furbelows by this time. Be good to yourself, Janice," wrote Mr. Day.

But his daughter, though possessing her share of feminine vanity in dress, saw first another use for a part of this unexpected windfall.

She said nothing to a soul but Walky Dexter, however. It was to be a secret between them.

There was so much going on in Polktown just then that Walky could keep a secret, as he confessed himself, "without half trying."

"Nelson Haley openin' aour school and takin' up the good work ag'in where he laid it daown, is suthin' that oughter be noted a-plenty,"

declared Mr. Dexter. "And I will say for 'em, that committee reinstated him before anybody heard anythin' abeout Jack Besmith havin'

stole the gold coins.

"Sure enough!" went on Walky, "that's another thing that kin honestly be laid to Lem Parraday's openin' that bar at the Inn. That's where Jack got the liquor that twisted his brain, that led him astray, that made him a thief---- Jefers-pelters! sounds jest like 'The Haouse That Jack Built,' don't it? But poor Jack Besmith has sartainly built him a purty poor haouse. And there's steel bars at the winders of it--poor feller!"

However, it was Nelson Haley himself who used the story of Jack Besmith most tellingly, and for the cause of temperance. As the young fellow had owned to the crime when taxed with it, and had returned most of the coins of the collection, he was recommended to the mercy of the court.

But all of Polktown knew of the lad's shame.

Therefore, Nelson Haley felt free to take the incident--and n.o.body had been more vitally interested in it than himself--for the text of a speech that he made in the big tent only a week or so before Town Meeting Day.

Nelson stood up before the audience and told the story simply--told of the robbery and of how he had felt when he was accused of it, sketching his own agony and shame while for weeks and months he had not been under suspicion. "I did not believe the bad influence of liquor selling could touch _me_, because I had nothing to do with _it_," he said. "But I have seen the folly of that opinion."

He pointed out, too, the present remorse and punishment of young Jack Besmith. Then he told them frankly that the blame for all--for Jack's misdeed, his own suffering, and the criminal's final situation--lay upon the consciences of the men who had made liquor selling in Polktown possible.

It was an arraignment that stung. Those deeply interested in the cause of prohibition cheered Nelson to the echo. But one man who sat well back in the audience, his hat pulled over his eyes, and apparently an uninterested listener, slipped out after Nelson's talk and walked and fought his conscience the greater part of that night.

Somehow the school teacher's talk--or was it Janice Day's scorn?--had touched Mr. Cross Moore in a vulnerable part.

Had the Summer visitors to Polktown been voters, there would have been little doubt of the Town Meeting voting the hamlet "dry." But there seemed to be a large number of men determined not to have their liberties, so-called, interfered with.

Lem Parraday's bar had become a noisy place. Some fights had occurred in the horse sheds, too. And on the nights the railroad construction gang came over to spend their pay, the village had to have extra police protection.

Frank Bowman was doing his best with his men; but they were a rough set and he had hard work to control them. The engineer was a never-failing help in the temperance meetings, and n.o.body was more joyful over the clearing up of Nelson Haley's affairs than he.

"You have done some big things these past few months, Janice Day," he said with emphasis.

"Nonsense, Frank! No more than other people," she declared.

"Well, I guess you have," he proclaimed, with twinkling eyes, "Just think! You've brought out the truth about that lost coin collection; you've saved Hopewell Drugg from becoming a regular reprobate--at least, so says his mother-in-law; you've converted Walky Dexter from his habit of taking a 'snifter'----"

"Oh, no!" laughed Janice. "Josephus converted Walky."

Save at times when he had to deliver freight or express to the hotel, the village expressman had very little business to take him near Lem Parraday's bar nowadays. However, because of that secret between Janice and himself, Walky approached the Inn one evening with the avowed purpose of speaking to Joe Bodley.

Marm Parraday had returned home that very day--and she had returned a different woman from what she was when she went away. The Inn was already being conducted on a Winter basis, for most of the Summer boarders had flitted. There were few patrons now save those who hung around the bar.

Walky, entering by the front door instead of the side entrance, came upon Lem and his wife standing in the hall. Marm Parraday still had her bonnet on. She was grimly in earnest as she talked to Lem--so much in earnest, indeed, that she never noticed the expressman's greeting.

"That's what I've come home for, Lem Parraday--and ye might's well know it. I'm a-goin' ter do my duty--what I knowed I should have done in the fust place. You an' me have worked hard here, I reckon. But you ain't worked a mite harder nor me; and you ain't made the Inn what it is no more than I have."

"Not so much, Marm--not so much," admitted her husband evidently anxious to placate her, for Marm Parraday was her old forceful self again.

"I'd never oughter let rum sellin' be begun here; an' now I'm a-goin'

ter end it!"

"My mercy, Marm! 'Cordin' ter the way folks talk, it's goin' to be ended, anyway, when they vote on Town Meeting Day," said Lem, nervously. "I ain't dared renew my stock for fear the 'drys' might git it----"

"Lem Parraday--ye poor, miser'ble worm!" exclaimed his wife. "Be you goin' ter wait till yer neighbors put ye out of a bad business, an'

then try ter take credit ter yerself that ye gin it up? Wal, _I_ ain't!" cried the wife, with energy.

"We're goin' aout o' business right now! I ain't in no prayin' mood terday--though I thank the good Lord he's shown me my duty an' has give me stren'th ter do it!"

On the wall, in a "fire protection" frame, was coiled a length of hose, with a red painted pail and an axe. Marm turned to this and s.n.a.t.c.hed down the axe from its hooks.

"Why, Marm!" exploded Lem, trying to get in front of her.

"Stand out o' my way, Lem Parraday!" She commanded, with firm voice and unfaltering mien.

"Yeou air crazy!" shrieked the tavern keeper, dancing between her and the barroom door.

"Not as crazy as I was," she returned grimly.

She thrust him aside as though he were a child and strode into the barroom. Her appearance offered quite as much excitement to the loafers on this occasion as it had the day of the tempest. Only they shrank from her with good reason now, as she flourished the axe.

"Git aout of here, the hull on ye!" ordered the stern woman. "Ye have had the last drink in this place as long as Lem Parraday and me keeps it. Git aout!"

She started around behind the bar. Joe Bodley, smiling cheerfully, advanced to meet her.

"Now, Marm! You know this ain't no way to act," he said soothingly.

"This ain't no place for ladies, anyway. Women's place is in the home.

This here----"

"Scat! ye little rat!" snapped Marm, and made a swing at him--or so he thought--that made Joe dance back in sudden fright.

"Hey! take her off, Lem Parraday! _The woman's mad!_"

"You bet I'm mad!" rejoined Marm Parraday, grimly, and _smas.h.!.+_ the axe went among the bottles on the shelf behind the bar. Every bottle containing anything to drink was a target for the swinging axe. Joe jumped the bar, yelling wildly. He was the first out of the barroom, but most of the customers were close at his heels.

"Marm! Yeou air ruinin' of us!" yelled Lem.