Chapter 15

PIKE AND BADGER.

The next evening, which was Tuesday evening, while the societies were hilariously enjoying their annual calcium-light procession, Donald Pike took a car and hastened to the home of the Honorable Fairfax Lee. He had tarried in the campus long enough to be sure that Winnie Lee was again enjoying the processional festivities from one of the dormitory windows.

"Nobody will know whether I am in that procession or not," he muttered, as he started toward Lee's. "And if they do know, what is the difference? I'm under no obligation to be there, and I can say that I had a headache, or anything else I want to, if I choose to take the trouble to account for my absence."

To Pike's great satisfaction, he found Fairfax Lee at home; and when he told the servant that he had an important communication to make, he was invited into the waiting-room, and finally was ushered into the presence of Mr. Lee.

The facing of Mr. Lee in this manner, even though he could claim disinterested motives, rather phased even the blunted spirit of Donald Pike. If he had dared to, he would have committed his story to writing, and so brought it to Lee's attention. But things that are written often have an unpleasant way of reappearing, to the discomfiture and undoing of the writer, and Pike's caution warned him against such risks. Words merely spoken, he assured himself, can be denied, if that becomes afterward necessary. Written words, undestroyed, cannot be so easily escaped.

"Anything I can do for you?" Mr. Lee queried, when Pike hesitated. "You have a communication, I believe?"

Donald pulled himself together, and the opening sentences of what he intended to say came back to him. He had thought these out with care, and they seemed very fine and even humanitarian.

"I want you to know at the outset, Mr. Lee, that in coming to you with the information I bear I am wholly disinterested. But the truth is due you. No one else seems to have had the courage to tell you, and I shall."

Fairfax Lee began to look interested.

"You are very kind," he said, "and I thank you in advance for your favor."

This was so auspicious a beginning that Pike's courage rose.

"I want to have a frank talk with you about a certain young Yale man--Mr. Buck Badger. You must have noticed that he is very devoted in his attentions to your daughter?"

There was no reply to this, though Pike halted, in the expectation that there would be one.

"I am well acquainted with Badger. In fact, until very recently, he was my roommate, and we were good friends. Perhaps when I tell you that he is not a fit man to associate with your daughter, you may think I am led by the fact that Badger and I are not now the friends we were once. But it is not so. We are not friends simply because his baseness became so apparent to me that I could no longer associate with him.

"I have thought this thing over for a good while, Mr. Lee, and as an honorable man, I did not think I ought to remain silent and see things go on as they are. You love your daughter, Mr. Lee?"

This last was rather an effective shot, for Fairfax Lee loved Winnie devotedly.

"All this is very unpleasant, Mr. Pike, but I am ready to hear what you have to say. I am free to confess that you rather surprise me."

"Your daughter is an admirable young lady, Mr. Lee. And though I cannot say that she and I are more than the merest acquaintances, I thought it a shame that matters should go on as they are without a word from me to you, to let you see what your daughter is walking into. Or what she would walk into, if she should ever be so unfortunate as to marry Buck Badger!"

Donald Pike had at last contrived to get into his tones and manner a sympathetic element that, while it was veriest hypocricy, was very effective.

"My daughter is not married to Mr. Badger yet!" said Lee, somewhat bluntly, a frown on his usually pleasant face, for his position was far from agreeable.

"And I hope she may never be."

"You fail to specify," Lee reminded. "You make only vague charges."

"There are many things," said Pike, coming to the point now with great boldness, "but I shall name only one. Buck Badger is a drunkard."

Fairfax Lee seemed astonished, and the frown on his face deepened.

"He is the worst type of drunkard. Not a man who drinks steadily, but one of those who indulge now and then in crazy, drunken debauches. For weeks, even months, he may not touch a drop of liquor. Then he will go on a spree. You can verify this, I am sure, by inquiries carefully made among the students. More than once he has been known to be on a drunk. He was drunk when he went aboard the excursion steamer, _Crested Foam_, when she was burned in the bay."

"What?"

"It is true, Mr. Lee, every word of it. Your daughter and a good many others think he was drugged by the boat-keeper, Barney Lynn, and lured on the steamer for the purpose of robbery. But when he met Lynn he was already raving blind drunk, and Lynn merely took advantage of his helpless condition. You can know that this is true if you will call or send a man to the saloon of Joe Connelly. He went to Connelly's that night--or rather, the evening before--filled himself up on the vilest decoctions, and went out from there as drunk as a fool. He has been there before many times. Connelly knows him well."

All this was so circumstantial that Fairfax Lee was alarmed and moved. He knew that Connelly's was one of the worst dens of the city, and he felt sure that unless there was something in the story Pike would not give names in this way. He resolved to learn the whole truth about the matter.

"If what you say is true, Buck Badger is not fit to associate with any girl," he asserted.

"Especially not with a girl as innocent and unsuspecting as your daughter, Mr. Lee. I have seen that for a good while, and it has been a fight with my conscience to keep from coming here with this story. I couldn't delay it longer. I trust you see that I can have no hope of gain, and nothing but right motives in bringing you this story--which you will find fully substantiated by a course of inquiry."

Fairfax Lee was flushed and silent.

"All of Badger's friends, or most of them, I am sure, know that he was drunk, and not drugged, when he went aboard the _Crested Foam_. Some of them might admit this knowledge."

"You are a sophomore?"

"Yes."

"And Mr. Badger is?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you were recently his friend and roommate?"

"Yes."

"I have your card, which I will put by for reference. I presume, if I call on you, you will be willing to repeat anywhere what you have said to me here?"

This was unexpected, and Pike hesitated.

"I don't care to get myself into trouble with Badger. He is of the bulldog, pugilistic type, and the first thing he would do would be to assault me like the bully he is. I have given you the warning. You can get all the proof you want. Probably you would never have heard of this until too late, if I had not voluntarily brought you the story."

"You are right," Lee admitted. "Perhaps that would be asking too much."

"I have struck the blow, Badger," Donald Pike muttered, as he left the handsome home of the Lees. "You will find it more of a knock-down, I fancy, than if I had hit you between the eyes with my fist. Nobody ever walks roughshod over Don Pike and gets off without suffering for it. You will hear something drop pretty soon."

And so, chuckling, he took his way to the street-car line, and returned to the campus and the Yale jollification.

The Kansan had accompanied Winnie Lee home that evening, as usual. The hour was late, and he did not enter the house, but kissed her good-night at the gate.

"Good-night and pleasant dreams, sweetheart!" he said as he turned to go.

His heart was light, for he and Winnie had enjoyed a long and loving talk on the way home, and throughout the evening there had been no untoward incident to mar his pleasure. He had noticed Donald Pike's absence, and had been glad of it, but he merely supposed Pike kept away because of the row of the previous evening. If there are such things as premonitions of coming trouble, certainly they did not distress Badger that night. Winnie was also in a happy frame of mind as she tripped lightly up the steps and entered the house.

Inza and Elsie had returned some time before. As she had expected, they had retired to their rooms. She was surprised, however, to find her father waiting for her in the sitting-room, which was brightly lighted. As she came into the room, she saw something ominous in his face. She thought she was to be lectured for remaining out so late.

"Sit down, Winnie," he said. "I want to have a talk with you."

His voice was even more ominous than his face. She came and sat down by his side, when she had removed her hat. He put his hand on her head and drew her toward him.

"Did Mr. Badger come home with you, Winnie?" he asked, and his voice was slightly tremulous.

"Yes, father. I know I stayed a little late, but it was so hard to get away while so much was going on. I don't know when I have had so pleasant an evening. And besides, it was hard for Buck to get away, and we had arranged for him to come home with me. The festivities had not ended when we left."

"Buck Badger must never come home with you again!" he said, with a firmness and suddenness that took all the color out of her cheeks, and seemed to take all the breath out of her body. She sat still, as if frozen by the statement, while a scared look filled her eyes. Then she partly roused herself.

"What--why do you say that?"

"I have learned that he is not fit to associate with you--is not fit to associate with any girl!"

"What have you heard, father?" she demanded, in a trembling voice. "I know that whatever it is, it isn't true, for Buck is fit to associate with any girl!"

She half-expected him to refer to the fracas of the evening before in the campus.

"If there is one thing on which I am determined, it is that my daughter shall never marry a drunkard!"

"Buck isn't a drunkard!"

"He was drunk when he was taken aboard the _Crested Foam_ by that boatman, Barney Lynn."

"No, father!"

"You think not, of course. You think he was drugged."

"He was drugged. Lynn drugged him. He was not drunk, and he had not been drinking. Who has been telling you such things? I am sure it cannot be any one who has any honor."

"It was some one who felt it to be his duty to warn me of the fact that my daughter is in danger of marrying a drunkard. I thank him for it."

"But, father, you would not take the unsupported word of any one, would you? I know that Buck has touched liquor at times, just as nearly all the college men do, but he is not a drunkard, and he is not even a drinking man. And he is now strictly temperate. He told me so himself, that he has taken a pledge with himself never to touch anything of the kind again. And Mr. Merriwell--you know that Mr. Merriwell wouldn't befriend and favor him as he is doing now if Buck were a drunkard."

"But I know, Winnie, dear!" Lee firmly, yet kindly, insisted.

"And I know, father! Barney Lynn confessed to me that he drugged Buck; but he said nothing about Buck being intoxicated, which he would have done, wouldn't he, if Buck had really been intoxicated when he met Lynn?"

The girl was quick and alert. She understood that some desperate attempt to separate her from the man she loved had been made, and she did not intend that it should succeed without an effort against it on her part.

"Who told you this--lie, father?"

"I wish it was a lie!" Lee groaned.

"It is!"

"I have just come from Connelly's saloon, down in one of the worst parts of the city. I was told to go there and I would find the evidence I wanted. I went; and I have just returned. Badger was at Connelly's the night before the _Crested Foam_ excursion. It is an all-night resort--though it professes, I believe, to close at midnight. Badger left there at about two or three o'clock, blindly intoxicated. He was simply reeling drunk. He must have gone from there to the wharf, and there he fell into the hands of Barney Lynn, who drugged him for his money. This is true, Winnie. There isn't the slightest doubt about it. I wish it were all a terrible mistake, but it isn't. And that was not the first time that Badges had reeled out of Connelly's far into the night, drunk. He is given to just such drunken debauches."

Winnie Lee's heart seemed to have turned to lead in her bosom. She was cold from head to feet, except that in her cheeks bright spots burned. Her father looked at her with anguished eyes. He noted the pallor and the hectic spots.

"Winnie, I can't let you throw yourself away on such a fellow as Buck Badger! You must put him out of your thoughts. He is unworthy of you. I thought he was an honorable young man, and now I find I was mistaken. I shall make further inquiries, but those I have made to-night are enough to condemn him. You must not see him again, and you must have nothing further to do with him. I want you to tell him just what I have said--or I shall tell him myself, and give him a piece of my mind in the bargain."

Winnie knew that she was trembling as with an ague, but she tried to hold her emotions in check that she might fight for herself and for Buck. Everything was at stake now, she felt, for she loved Badger with an absorbing love.

"You have simply been deceived, father," she insisted. "I know it. Like many Yale men, Buck has been a little wild at times. He knows it and acknowledges it But as for that night and that excursion, that isn't true, I don't care who told you. Buck has a good many enemies, and some of them have come to you with this story. Tell me who told you, in the first place."

"It wouldn't be right just now for me to give his name. And it is not needed. Connelly admitted that Badger had been there often, and had gone from there drunk the night before the steamer excursion. He remembered it, because the story of the fire and of Lynn's death, and the drugging of Badger, was in the papers, and he could not forget the time. I wish it wasn't true, Winnie; but it is true. It will be hard, perhaps, for you to give him up, but better that than for him to make you unhappy, as he is sure to do."

"Hard!" she mentally cried. "It will kill me!"

He looked at her pathetically, yet with decision and firmness.

"Make up your mind that he is unworthy. I will bring you more proofs, if necessary. But I, first of all, lay on you my commands. You must not see him again, except to tell him that he cannot call again, and that you cannot be anything to each other hereafter but the merest acquaintances."

Man of affairs and of the world as he was, Fairfax Lee had not yet learned that love cannot be made to come and go at will. If the little god is blind, he is also stubborn, and has a way of his own.

"I can't, father!" Winnie begged. "You must not ask it of me."

"What? You would not continue to go with him, knowing what I have told you? You would not permit a drunkard to pay you attentions, or a man who is in the habit of going on wild debauches?"

"No. But Buck is not that kind of a man. You have simply been deceived."

"I have given my orders," said Lee, with a sternness he seldom used in speaking to Winnie. "I expect that they will be obeyed. It is useless to argue the matter. Buck Badger must not come into this house. I will write him a note to that effect, myself. You shall not see him again! I shall tell him in plain words just what I have learned, and that this house and your company are forbidden to him."

"But, father----"

"We will not talk any more about it. You are stubborn to-night. You will think better of it in the morning. No one--no one, Winnie, loves you as I do! I have given you every advantage. You shall not throw yourself away on any one."

He got up, as if to end the interview.

The room and its belongings seemed swinging wildly round in a crazy dance before the eyes of Winnie Lee. She grasped at her chair for support. She seemed unable to lift herself. In her heart there was only one cry--one wild cry: "Buck! Buck! Buck!"

By a great effort, she at last arose from her chair. Her father saw the marblelike pallor of her face, and, touched by this sign of distress, he came over, put his arms about her and kissed her. Her cheek, against which he pressed his lips, seemed cold as ice.

"Don't be foolish, dear!" he pleaded. "You shouldn't grieve over a man who is so manifestly unworthy of you. You know that I love you, and that I haven't said these things to give you pain, but because it is my duty as your father. Now, good night, dear."

"Good night!" she said, as if in a dream, and blindly walked toward the door.

In her room, she threw herself across her bed.

"Oh, what shall I do?" she moaned. "Buck! Buck! Buck! Who has told such terrible lies on you, dear?"

And so she lay there, moaning out a grief that was too great for tears.