Chapter 19

By all these adventitious aids Vice-President McVickar was profiting on the Saturday morning following the mysterious disappearance on the Friday of the gasolene unit-car somewhere between Bald Butte and the capital. The small resort hotel at the head of Shonoho Canyon had been transformed into a field headquarters. The hotel manager's desk, wheeled out in front of a crackling wood-fire in the ornate little lobby, was studded with its row of electric call-buttons; a railroad dining-car crew had taken possession of the kitchen; and the spacious writing-and lounging-room, sacred, in the season, to the guests of the exclusive hotel, housed a ranking of glass-topped telegraph-tables and impromptu desks--a work-room manned by a dozen picked young men, with O'Brien, the vice-president's private secretary, acting as the chief.

Though the momentous Tuesday was still three days in the future, Mr. McVickar was actively at work on the Saturday morning, gathering in the loose ends and strengthening the railroad company's defences. With his arm-chair drawn up to the borrowed desk he was running rapidly through the telegrams filtering in a steady shower from the crackling sounders in the writing-room. When the situation had begun to outline itself with something like coherence, he pressed a call-button for O'Brien.

"How about that wire to Detwiler at Ophir--any reply yet?" was the rasping demand shot at the secretary.

"Nothing yet; no, sir."

"Go after him again! There's a screw loose among those miners! How about Hathaway? Did you phone Twin Buttes?"

"Yes; and Grogan, the mill time-keeper, answered. He says Mr. Hathaway is in the capital and something has gone wrong--he doesn't know what."

"Keep the wires hot until you can get hold of Hathaway himself, and when you nail him, switch him over to my phone. Any word from the irrigation people at Natcho?"

"Yes. They say that the farmers under the High Line have been getting restive and forming associations. Daniels was the man who talked to me, and he says it's a Gordon movement, though the ranchmen are trying to keep it quiet."

"Take a message to Daniels!" snapped the vice-president; and then, dictating: "'How would it do to let it be known quietly that Gordon's election means raise in price of water to High Line users?' Send that, and sign it 'Committee of Safety.' Now how about Kittredge? Did you get him?"

"I did; he's driving out in his car, and he ought to be here in a few minutes."

As if to make O'Brien's word good, the roar of an automobile came from the driveway, dominating for the moment the chattering of the telegraph-instruments, and a little later Kittredge came in, lifting his goggles and wiping the road dust from his closely clipped black beard.

"That car of yours isn't what it might be, Kittredge," was the vice-president's crusty greeting. "You'd better get a faster one. Sit down, and let's have it. How are things shaping up in the city?"

The big superintendent sat down and found a cigar in an inner pocket of his driving-coat.

"We are holding our own, as far as anybody can see," he returned.

"That 'as far as anybody can see' is just your weakness, Kittredge," said the chief testily. "What we want--what we've got to have first, last, and all the time--is the _fact_. Now see if you can answer a few straight questions. What is the senator doing?"

"His wife has a young girl visiting her, and if the Honorable Dave is doing anything more than to show the two women a good time, I can't find it out."

"There you go again! You say 'if.' It's your business to know."

Kittredge held his peace. Being designed by nature for a heavy-weight ring-fighter, there were times when he felt like taking off his coat to the vice-president.

"Well?" prompted McVickar, when Kittredge remained obstinately silent.

"If I knew what sort of a deal you have made with the senator--"

"That cuts no figure. But let it go. What's young Blount doing?"

"He's out of it, good and plenty. He started to go to the Sampson Block fire last night and was knocked down by a hook-and-ladder truck. It's a cracked skull, and Doc Dillon says he's safe to stay in bed for a week or so."

"H'm," said the chief reflectively. "That is almost what you might call opportune, Kittredge. The young fellow has done his work well, but there was always the danger that he might overdo it. In fact, there was a time, a week or two ago, when I thought he would have to be called down and given a lesson. Now then, how about that Gryson business?"

"It was just as you said: I had to take Tom by the neck and get rid of him."

"He did his work all right?"

"Yes, and came swaggering around for his pay. I sized it up one side and down the other. He had a pretty bad case of swelled head and tried to hold me up for a bonus, hinting around about what he could do if he wanted to throw the gaff into us. As I say, I sized it up, and took snap judgment on him--pulled the Montana racket and gave him twenty-four hours' start of the police."

The vice-president frowned and shook his head. "You took a chance--a long chance, Kittredge! Twenty-four hours gave him all the time he needed to fall afoul of young Blount."

The big superintendent grinned amiably.

"The senator helped out on that," he explained.

"The senator? How was that?"

"It's the first time he has shown any part of his hand to me in the entire campaign. About an hour after I had shot Tom Gryson to pieces a note came down from the Inter-Mountain, asking me to come up. I didn't get to see the senator himself, but Mrs. Blount gave me the dope. As a result, young Blount got a hurry telegram from you, directing him to go to Lewiston at once in that right-of-way matter of Brodhead's. I gave him my car, and the trip cost him the better part of two whole days."

Again the vice-president shook his head.

"Your methods are always pretty crude, Kittredge," he commented. "You took another long chance when you forged my name to a telegram for as shrewd a young lawyer as Evan Blount. But go on. You got Blount out of the way--then what?"

"Then I went after Gryson again. The little woman's hint hit the bull's-eye as true as a rifle bullet. Tom meant to give us away to Blount. He haunted Blount's up-town office the better part of the day; and finally, in sheer self-defence, I had to tip him off to the police, as I had threatened to. Another little mystery bobbed up there. Chief Robertson winked one eye at me and said: 'You're too late, Mr. Kittredge; your man has already been piped off and he's gone.'"

"Who did it?" snapped McVickar.

"I don't know, and Robertson wouldn't tell me. But I got him to promise to put out the reward quietly. If Gryson comes back he'll be nipped before he can talk."

"With young Blount laid up, it won't make much difference," was the summing-up rejoinder. And then: "I think that is all--for this morning. Go around to the telephone-exchange when you get back to town and tell the manager that I want a special operator--a man, if he's got one--put on this long-distance wire. Have you sent your linemen out to guard the wires on the Shoshone mine track?"

"Yes; all the way from the switch to the hills."

"All right; that's all. Keep your finger on the pulse of things in town to-day, and arrange with your despatcher to give my operators here a clear wire in any direction whenever it's called for. Above all, keep me posted, Kittredge; don't let anything get by you, no matter how trivial it may seem."

As the superintendent was climbing into his car, the railroad electrician who was in charge of the men guarding the telegraph-wires came up.

"One minute, Mr. Kittredge. I've put the box in, according to orders--"

"What box, and whose orders?"

"The recording microphone in Mr. McVickar's office, in there; and by his orders, I guess--at least they came from one of his men. We're needing a couple more batteries, and I was just wondering if it'd be all right to take 'em from that gasolene unit-car. We could put 'em back afterwards."

"Yes; take 'em wherever you can find 'em," said the superintendent, who was thinking pointedly of other things just then; and the permission given, he started his motor and drove away.

XXV

BLOOD AND IRON

Ten o'clock in the Saturday forenoon marked the time of Superintendent Kittredge's flying visit to his chief's headquarters-on-the-field at the head of Shonoho Canyon; and at that hour Evan Blount, blinking dizzily, and with his head bandaged and throbbing as if the premier company of all the African tom-tom symphonists were making free with it, was letting Mrs. Honoria beat up his pillows and prop him with them, so that the drum-beating clamor might be minimized to some bearable degree.

"You are feeling better now?" suggested the volunteer nurse, going to adjust the window-curtains for the better comfort of the blinking and aching eyes.

The victim of the hook-and-ladder squad's mascot answered qualitatively.

"I feel as if I had been having an argument with a battering-ram and had come off second-best. I've been out of my head, haven't I?"

"A little, yes; but that was to be expected. You were pretty badly hurt."

"Have I been talking?"

"Not very much--nothing intelligible." The little lady had drawn her chair to the window and was busying herself with the never-finished embroidery.

"What hit me--was it the truck?"

"No; some of the people in the street said it was a dog; a coach-dog running and jumping at the heads of the fire-horses. In falling you struck your head against the iron grating of a sewer inlet."

"Umph!" said Blount, and the face-wrinkling which was meant to be a sardonic smile turned itself into a painful grin. "Shot to death by a dog! Blenkinsop or some of the others ought to have run that for a head-line." Then, with a twist of the hot eyeballs: "This isn't my room. Where am I?"

"You are in the spare room of our suite. Your father had you brought here so that we could take care of you properly. But you mustn't talk too much; it's the doctor's orders."

Blount lay for a long time watching her as she passed the needle in and out through the bit of snowy linen stretched upon the tiny embroidery-ring. She had fine eyes, he admitted; eyes with the little downward curve in brow and lid at the outer corners--the curve of allurement, he had heard it called. Also, her hands were shapely and pretty. He recalled the saying that a woman may keep her age out of her face, but her hands will betray her. Mrs. Honoria's hands were still young; they looked almost as young as Patricia's, he decided. At the comparison he broke over the rule of silence.

"Does Patricia know?" he asked.

"Certainly. She has been here nearly all morning. She wouldn't let anybody else hold your head while the doctor was sewing it up."

"I know," he returned; "that is a part of her--of her special training: first aid to the injured, and all that. They teach it in the German sociological schools she attended last year."

"Oh, yes; I see"--with a malicious little smile to accentuate the curving downdroop of the pretty eyelids. "You mean that she was just getting a bit of practice. I wondered why she was so willing; most young women are so silly about the sight of a little blood. Don't you think you'd better try to sleep for a while? Doctor Dillon said it would be good for you if you could."

"Heavens and earth!" he chanted impatiently; "I'm not sick!" And then, with a sharp fear stabbing him: "What day is this, please?"

She looked up with a smile. "Are you wondering if you have lost a day? You haven't. The fire was at three o'clock this morning, and this is Saturday."

As if the naming of the day had been a spell to strike him dumb, Blount shut his eyes and groped helplessly for some hand-hold upon the suddenly rehabilitated responsibilities. Saturday--the day when Gryson would return with the proofs which, if they were to serve any good end, must be given the widest possible publicity in the two days remaining before the election. Blount recalled his carefully laid plans: he had intended giving Collins and the two record clerks a half-holiday, so that Gryson might come and go unnoticed. Also, he had meant to make a definite appointment with Blenkinsop and the representative of the United Press, to the end that there might be no delay in the firing of the mine. Lastly, Gryson must be shielded and gotten out of the city in safety; so much the traitor had a right to demand if he should risk his liberty and his life by returning with the evidence.

It was a hideous tangle to owe itself to the joyous gambollings of the firemen's mascot dog. And there was more to it than the hopeless smashing of the Saturday's plans. Into the midst of the mordant reflections, and adding a sting which was all its own, came the thought of this newest obligation laid upon him by his father and his father's wife. They had taken him in and were loading him down with kinsman gifts of care and loving-kindness, while his purpose had been--must still be--to strike back like a merciless enemy. He remembered the old fable of the adder warmed to life in a man's bosom, and it left him sick and nerveless.

None the less, the obsession of the indomitable purpose persisted, gripping him like the compelling hand of a giant in whose grasp he was powerless. For a time he sought to escape, not realizing that the obsession was the call of the blood passed on from the men of his race who, with axe and rifle, had hewn and fought their way in the primeval wilderness, and would not be denied. Neither did he suspect that the dominating passion driving him on was his best gift from the man against whom he was pitting his strength. What he did presently realize was that the giant grip of purpose was not to be broken; and thereupon a vast cunning came to possess him. He must have time and a chance to plan again: if he should feign sleep, perhaps the woman whose presence and personality were shackling the inventive thought would go away and leave him free to think.

She did go after a while, though so noiselessly that when he opened his eyes it was with the fear that he should see her still bending over the little embroidery frame at the window. Finding himself alone, he sat up in bed and gave the broken head an opportunity to blot him out if it could. For a little space the walls of the room became as the interior of a hollow peg-top, spinning furiously with a noise like the rushing of many waters. After the surroundings had resumed their normal figurings he rose to his knees. There was another grapple with the whirling peg-top, and again he mastered the dizzying confusion. Made bold by success, he got his feet on the floor and stood up, clinging to the brass foot-rail of the bed until the unstable encompassments had once more come to rest.

By this time he was able to conquer all save the throbbing headache. Shuffling first to one door and then to the other, he shot the bolts against intrusion. Then he staggered across to the dressing-case and took a look at himself in the glass. The bandaged head, with its haggard, pain-distorted face grimacing back at him, extorted a grunt of sardonic disapproval, but the mirror answered the query which had sent him stumbling across to it. The bandage was comparatively small and tightly drawn; a soft hat could be worn over it--the hat would cover and decently hide it.

Next he found his clothes, those he had been wearing at the time of the accident. Somebody had been thoughtful enough to have them cleaned and pressed; from which he argued that the plunging fall on the wet asphalt had been demoralizing in more ways than one. Continuing the experimental venture, he walked back and forth and up and down until he could do it without clutching at the bed-rails to save himself from falling. Then he reshot the door-bolts and went back to bed to await developments.

The first of these came when Patricia brought his luncheon. He had been wondering if she would be the one to come; wondering and hoping. With the unfilial purpose driving him on, there were added twinges at the thought of his father's wife going on piling the mountain of obligation higher and still higher by waiting upon him, and thus reminding him at every turn of the adder fable. With Patricia it was different.

"Good morning," he grimaced, when Patricia came in with the daintily appointed server. "Getting a bit more of the first-aid practice, are you?"

"I am obeying orders," she flashed back, when she had shaken up the pillows and placed the appetizing meal within his reach. "Mrs. Blount said I'd probably have a less disturbing influence upon you than she would. Shall I feed you?"

"Good heavens, no! I'm not that near dead, I hope! If you don't believe it, you may sit down and watch me eat--if you're not missing your own luncheon."

"Nurses have no regular meal-times," she retorted. And then: "You are feeling a great deal better, aren't you?"

"Much better--since you came. Did they tell you it was a dog?"

She nodded, and he went on.

"It was my unlucky night, I guess. Did the fire burn up my office? I forgot to ask Mrs. Blount about that."

"No; it was a building across the street from the Temple Court."

"'Small favors thankfully received,'" he quoted, resolutely pushing a fresh recurrence of the tomtom beatings into the background; "small favors and larger ones in proportion--this broth, for example. It's simply delicious. I hadn't realized how hungry I was."

"The broth ought to be good; I made it myself, you know."

"You did? Where, for pity's sake?"

"In the hotel kitchen. The _chef_ was furious at first. He twirled his Napoleon-III mustaches and sputtered and swelled up like an angry old turkey. But when I talked nice to him in his own beloved Bordelaise he let me do anything I pleased."

Blount looked up quickly, and the movement brought the head-throbbings back with disconcerting celerity.

"You are cruelly kind to me, Patricia; everybody is kind to me. And I'm not needing kindness just now," he ended.

"Aren't you? I don't agree with you, and I'm sure your father and Mrs. Blount wouldn't." Then she went on to tell him how they had all been up, watching the progress of the fire from their windows, when the word came that he had been hurt in the street. Also, she told how his father had impatiently smashed the telephone because, the wires having been cut and tangled in the fire, he could get no response, and how, thereupon, he had turned the entire night force of the hotel out to go in search of a doctor. "But with all that, he couldn't stand it to look on while the doctor was taking the stitches," she added. "He turned his back and tramped over here to the window; and I could hear him gritting his teeth and--and swearing."

If Evan Blount ate faster than a sick man should, it was because there are limits to the finest fortitude. Patricia ran on cheerfully, minimizing her own part in the first-aid incidents, and magnifying the anxious and affectionate concern of the senator and his wife. He listened because he could not help it; but when he had finished, and she was inquiring if there was anything else she could do for him, he dissembled, saying that he would try to sleep, and asking her to shut out more of the daylight and to deny him to everybody until evening.

She promised; but naturally enough, with the dreadful responsibility drawing nearer with every hour-striking of the tiny leather-cased travelling-clock on the dresser, sleep was out of the question for him. Hot-eyed and restless, he wore out the long afternoon in feverish impatience, slipping now and then into the shadow land of delirium when the pain was severest, but clinging always to the obsessing idea. At whatever cost, the crisis must find him resolute to do his part. Gryson must be met, the evidence of fraud must be secured, and the fraud itself must be defeated.

The bright autumn day was fading to its twilight, and the shadows were gathering around his bed, when Patricia tiptoed in to ask, first, if he were awake, and, next, what he would like to have for his supper. Exhausted by the waiting battle, he answered briefly: he was not hungry; if he could be left alone again, with the assurance that no one would come to disturb him, it was all he would ask. He tried to say it crustily, with the irritable impatience of the convalescent--dissembling again. But the young woman with a self-sacrificial career in view had lost none of her womanly gift of sympathetic intuition.

"You are not so well this evening," she said softly, laying a cool palm on his forehead. "I think I'd better telephone Doctor Dillon."

Now the thing for Patricia's lover to do was obvious. With pity thus trembling on the very crumbling brink of love, the opportunity which months of patient wooing had not evoked lay ready to his hand. It was a fair measure of the mastery an obsession may obtain--the lover's ability to thrust the gentler emotion into the background, to feign restless irritation under the passion-stirring touch, and to say: "No; I don't want Dillon or anybody; I want to be left alone. Please latch the door when you go out, and tell father and his--and Mrs. Blount that I don't want to be disturbed."

She took the curt dismissal in silence, and after she was gone Blount sat up in bed and cursed himself fervently and painstakingly for the little brutality. But the remorseful cursings took nothing from the grim determination which had prompted the brutality. The dusk was thickening, and the street electrics were turning the avenue into a broad highway of radiance. Blount got up, and with a disheartening renewal of the splitting headache, began to dress, but there were many pauses in which he had to sit on the edge of the bed to wait for the throbbing pain to subside.

The next step was to reach his own room, two floors above, and he let himself cautiously into the corridor and locked the door from the outside. Making a long round to avoid the elevators, he dragged himself up two flights of stairs and so came to his goal.

Enveloped in a rain-coat, and with a soft hat drawn well over his eyes, he compassed the escape from the upper floor by means of the remote stair he had used in ascending, and so reached the ground-floor. Fortunately, the lobby was crowded; and turning up the collar of the rain-coat to hide the bandage, Blount worked his way toward the revolving doors. More than once in the dodging progress he rubbed shoulders with men whom he knew, and who knew him; but the shielding hat-brim and the muffling rain-coat saved him.

Reaching the street, he did not attempt to walk to the Temple Court. Instead, he crept around to a garage near the hotel and hired a two-seated road-car. Quite naturally, the garage-keeper wanted to send his own driver, and Blount counted it as an unavoidable misfortune that he was obliged to give his name, and to hear the motor-liveryman say: "Oh, sure! I didn't recognize you, Mr. Blount. I reckon Senator Dave's son can have anything o' mine that he wants."