Chapter XXX: The Beginning of Mystery

An unusual number of patients were gathered around some object of interest in the men's ward, which ordinarily was well-nigh deserted in the middle of the day. As John drew near the group, but one voice was distinguishable and that was speaking as follows:

"There was a man out in Lenawee had a bunch on his neck like that, only it was on the left side instead of the right. He'd been here, and he'd been to one of these traveling doctors that tucks his advertisements and his pictures in the papers. Get help? Of course he didn't get any help. Then, after he'd tried everything else, I sold him a bottle of panacea. I told him to put it on three days and then leave it off three days. The first three days the bunch got soft. The next three days it commenced to go away. When he put on the medicine, it softened it up, but it wouldn't start to go away until he quit putting it on. Just as soon as he quit, it would go down a little, and after three days it would get hard again. There was something strange about that. He kept on that way a month, and his neck was cured, and it never bothered him again. The next time I saw him he was practicing lifting things with his teeth. He had a leather fastened to a barrel of cider, and he'd churn the barrel up and down. He talked of practicing up to go with a show. I didn't hear, though, whether he did or not."

"I don't give a continental for the strengthening part," said the New Yorker. "All I care about is to take the bunch off."

"That's what this will do," said Panicky, for it was indeed he. "Helloa!" he exclaimed, as he espied John moving away on his crutches. "I'd like to see you a minute. Will you wait till I get through talking with this man?"

"Yes," responded John, who had intended to slip from the hospital unobserved.

"I'll be through here directly," said Panicky, "now, if this don't give perfect satisfaction, you can bring it back."

"You seem to be in very bad shape," observed Panicky, to a man who was blowing his nose.

"Yes," answered the patient, "I'm in bad shape. I've got the catarrh, and I guess I always will have it."

"Oh no, you won't," answered Panicky, "not if you doctor it right. Three weeks is all I ask to cure that in."

"Three weeks," echoed the sufferer, "you're wild. You're just talking to sell."

"I'll tell you why I think so," said Panicky, "and after I've explained it, you'll think as I do. The panacea reduces unnatural growths. That is what it is designed expressly for. Now, I wouldn't advise that man with the scrofula to use it, for it wouldn't help him a bit. This is on the same principle as taking off a swelling, you see, bringing the blood-vessels down to their normal size and destroying inflammation and clearing the nasal passages."

"Oh, I don't hardly think it would help me," said the man with the catarrh.

"I've cured eleven cases of catarrh this summer," assured Panicky. "Now, I'll tell you what I'll do. If you get sick of your bargain, I'll take the medicine back any time."

"That's fair enough," said the patient after a sneeze. "I'll take a bottle, but I don't have much hope that it will help me."

"Come along this way," said Panicky, grabbing his satchels and hurrying to John. "I see a doctor coming," he explained as they left the hospital. "If he should see me in there and know what I was doing, he wouldn't like it. These doctors act as though nobody knew any medicine but themselves. They caught me in there once, and they made an awful fuss. Now, I come down here on purpose after you, I thought I might as well sell a little medicine while I was here."

"What do you want of me?" asked John, instantly thinking of his experience at Break o' Day.

"I can't explain it," said Panicky. "I was sent by a certain person to bring you if you'd come, and to pay all your expenses."

"Who is the person?" asked John.

"That I can't tell you," said the peddler. "All I can say is, that it is something of great importance to you, and that, if I was in your place, I wouldn't miss it for money."

"I will go," said John, as his mind reverted to the elder Wrengell.

"Then get what you've got to get, and let's be out of this," said Panicky.

John went back into the hospital and packed a few articles of clothing in a bundle, which he put inside the stand by his bed. The letter to Manie he placed in his pocket.

"You ain't going away are you. Johnny?" asked Wrengell.

"Yes," answered John, "I think I shall."

"Where are you thinking of going?"

"I do not know," answered John.

"I don't believe I'd go," advised Wrengell with the solemnity of a prophet.

John, unheeding the remonstrance, hobbled toward the door.

"Johnny," said Wrengell, following after him, "there's something I want to tell you. There's a fortune in England for the Wrengells. Now, you've got the education, and you can look it up. You're the hope of the family. I'll see you again and tell you all I know about it. You'll look it up, won't you?"

"Perhaps," said John.

"If you get a chance, go and see Dan," said Wrengell as they were passing through the long hall. "Poor fellow, his freedom was swore away. As likely a boy as ever lived."

"Don't waste much time," said Panicky, when the twain had slowly emerged from the hospital. "Time is precious."

"Johnny!" exclaimed Wrengell, as if a valuable idea had suddenly seized him. "I'll go with you. I've become attached to you, and I'm certain you have to me. My eyes are about well, any way."

"I do not think it advisable for you to go," said John.

"I can't see any hurt in it," said Wrengell. "It's been years since I've seen you."

"We don't want you," said Panicky bluntly. "A man of any sense won't urge his company after it's declined."

"Good-bye, Johnny," said Wrengell, with an evil look at the peddler, which intensified John's dislike of him. "Don't forget your uncle."

John and Panicky had gone but a short distance when they were stopped by a call from behind; and turning, they beheld the man from New York and the victim of catarrh walking hurriedly toward them.

"They won't let us keep these bottles," said the catarrhal sufferer, who always spoke with a mournful intonation.

"How can they help themselves?" said Panicky. "This is a free country. Buy what you want and tell other folks it's none of their business."

"But," explained the patient, "they won't give me any medicine if I take this."

"You don't want any of their medicine," said Panicky vehemently. "They can't help you."

"You'll have to take this back as you said you would," firmly declared the New Yorker. "You can't dodge that."

"I don't want to dodge it," replied Panicky. "I always keep my agreement about everything."

"And I'll return mine, too," said the man with the catarrh.

"I hope you'll recover speedily, gentlemen," remarked the peddler, putting the bottles into his pocket and starting off with his satchels.

"Hold on there, you low-lived smouse," cried the indignant New Yorker, "where's my money?"

"I don't keep any account of your finances," said Panicky, again halting. "What money do you mean?"

"Now, this isn't according to the agreement," said the catarrhal victim in the manner when he might have employed to pronounce a funeral oration. "You said we could return the medicine when we wanted to."

"And I kept my agreement," responded the vendor of medicine. "You returned them, and I took them back like a man."

"It don't seem to me as though that's hardly right," said the man with the catarrh in an aggrieved tone.

For a moment the New Yorker was speechless. Then the veins stood out alongside the bunch on his neck and he cried, "Oh, you whelp. If you wasn't right here in the city, I'd smash you fine."

"We expected you would refund the money," said the catarrhal sufferer.

"Now, that would be unreasonable," returned Panicky, "unless there was such an understanding. I said I would take them back, and that's what I've done. I wouldn't wonder if you'd better keep your medicine. It may save your lives," he added, placing the bottles on the side-walk and leaving his dissatisfied customers.

There was a clink of broken glass. The New Yorker had dyed the paving-stones with Great American Panacea.

"What a waste," remarked Panicky to John. "That might have preserved a human life that just as like as not will be lost now. How lame that horse is. I wonder what is the matter with him?"

Panicky joined John immediately after his repulse by the teamster. His strides were so rapid that his crippled companion was soon left in the rear. "Can't you let out a notch or two?" he said. "We ought to be getting around."

"We could get along faster if we took a more even pace," returned John. "We walk five minutes and stop fifty."

"That can't be helped," said Panicky. "I have got my work to do for the good of my race, and it must be done. Sun, calm, wind, rain, snow or hail, I must travel and give help to the afflicted. When we stop I'll let you have a bottle of the panacea for your foot. I don't like to see a man limp that way."

"Where are you going to take me?" asked John. "How can you expect me to follow you around when you will not give me the least satisfaction as to what you want of me?"

"Do just as you like about coming," said Panicky. "All I've got to say to you is, if I was in your place, I wouldn't stay away for all the money there is in Ann Arbor. You'll know when you get there. Don't ask me any more questions unless it's fun for you, because I won't answer them."

"It is a very hard thing which you ask," said John, "but I will do as you say. I have a letter to mail at the post-office."

"Come down to the Central depot," said Panicky, handing John a dollar. "Here's something to pay for your ride. I'll go down there now, for I've got business."

After mailing the letter to Manie, John rode to the depot in a hack. The untiring peddler was talking earnestly to a laboring man, who wore a woolen shirt traversed horizontally by alternate stripes of red and squares of red and gray. He sought his customers, John noticed, among the farming and laboring classes, rather than among the rich and aristocratic. He lingered a moment after the arrival of the train, trying to sell a bottle of the panacea to a man who had a cow which had the garget. When he and John were on their way to the westward, he seized every chance to prosecute his business. His attempts to dispose of his wares were made in the absence of the conductor. There was no disease for which he had not a specific, and of which he had not seen and cured a counterpart, differing from it only in location or in being more serious.

John's interest in the route was less intense than when he was going to Ann Arbor. At Barton Junction Manie's friend, Miss Holmes, entered the car in which John was seated. She looked curiously at him, but probably out of consideration for him, did not speak.

Panicky was provokingly reticent to John and voluble to others while they were waiting at Jackson. He would answer no questions, but finally ordered that his charge, who he evidently thought was a necessary encumbrance, should accompany him to the Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw depot.

From this place to the journey's end John hardly looked out of his car window.

"Come on, young man," said Panicky, as they stopped at Lansing.

The surroundings of the depot were far from pleasing. Before it was a willow swamp, which long lumber piles and a manufactory made of brick, which a high, smoke-blackened chimney, did not hide. The richest part of the city, whose roofs and steeples alone were visible, lay to the westward.

Small groups of citizens stood in front of the passenger-house. A pair of trucks with "Phoenix Mills" labeled on the box was passing alongside the railroad track through a cut. From a car on a side-track a good-natured looking man was loading stove-wood into a wagon with a high box, on which was inscribed the name of the commodity which it was designed to carry. A wheeze from the old horse by which the wagon was drawn instantly brought Panicky to the spot.

"How do you do," said the peddler. "Bad cough that horse has."

"Yes," answered the teamster, without stopping his work an instant. "He's got the heaves."

"I know what will fix that in a hurry," said Panicky. "Cobb's Concentrated Carbolic Cough Killer will kill any cough that a horse ever had."

"I don't hardly think I'll buy to-day," said the teamster, as if he disliked to wound the feelings of the patent medicine man.

"If you use it once, you'll never be without it," said the peddler. "Coughs, wheezing, running at the nose, colds, animal influenza, distemper, heaves, none of them can stand before the cough killer."

"It seems to me my brother got some of that for his boss," said the teamster, still throwing the wood into the wagon.

"Then you've found out it's a grand thing," said Panicky. "Didn't it kill the cough?"

"Well, no, not exactly," returned the teamster, straightening up. "Killed the boss, though."

"Very lamentable, very," remarked Panicky, as he grabbed his satchels and started southward along the railroad track, followed by John. He had gone but a few rods when he riveted his gaze on a robust appearing fellow who was going toward the main part of the city.

"Must we stop again?" asked John. "Take me to my destination and then sell as much medicine as you like."

"Young man," replied the peddler severely, "you are too narrow-minded. You think the world was made for you and your petty concerns. You must broaden out and get sympathy for humanity."

The track ran through a piece of high ground which descended to the west. The hillside at the east, covered with scraggy brush, stood out in bold relief; but the view at the right was limited, because of its swift descent to the hidden river and the low elevation of the track. Scattered along on the small rises of ground which overlooked the stream, were diminutive cottages, of which a few were painted. Before one of these little buildings a smooth-faced old man wearing a Scotch cap was bent low, cutting stove-wood with a dull buck-saw.

"That's hard business," remarked Panicky.

"There ain't nothin' easy about it," said the wood-sawyer, suspending his work.

"Don't you sometimes get tired?"

"Yes, real. Sometimes I'm purty near played. I used to be so I could stand it tol'able well, but late years I ain't so full o' besum."

"I noticed that before I got anywhere near you."

"You talk as if you knowed!" exclaimed the old man in astonishment.

"I do. You can't fool me much about a man. Don't your back ache some?"

"Yes, yes," said the wood-sawyer, his wonder increasing.

"And when you stoop over, it's a good deal worse; and if you stoop over long, you can't stand it and have to straighten up, and then it'll get better for a while. But in the morning, the day after you've worked hard, it's worse than it is any other time."

"No," answered the peddler, "I know more about it than a doctor."

"Do you think it's anything particular?"

"Yes, it's deficient vigor in the back. Muscles lax, spinal column imperfectly sustained.' It will keep getting worse and worse until it finally downs you."

"Danged if I ain't a gittin' worried," said the old man, letting go of his buck-saw. "Don't you s'pose I'll ever cure it?"

"It ain't at all likely," returned Panicky. "You'll probably be a cripple and linger along for some years. But you mustn't be discouraged. You ought to be ready to die when your time comes."

"I know I orto be ready. But the lingerin', I don't like that 'ere. What 'ud you do for this back bizness if it was on you?"

"I should cure it, if it was on me."

"I thought you said there wa'n't no cure for it."

"Oh, no, I thought you'd be apt to let it run until there wasn't any hope for you."

"What 'ud you take for it, anyhow?"

"I should take Great American Panacea and cure it in three weeks."

"Where could a feller git a bottle o' that 'ere stuff?"

"I've got a bottle I'll sell you for a dollar if you want it."

"Oh, you're a sellin' of it," exclaimed the old man, a light suddenly breaking in on his dull understanding, "I don't believe I want none. Times is hard with me."

"You better take a bottle. Mister," urged Panicky.

"You'll never regret it. I knew a man out in Oakland County----"

"I don't want none," said the old man with decision.

"I've been thinking," said Panicky, "if Professor Domnoroff's Elixir of Mercy wouldn't be the thing for you."

"What kind o' stuff is that?" inquired the old man.

"Grand." answered Panicky, opening a satchel and drawing out a thin bottle of colorless liquid. "It's Spanish medicine, got up by the smartest man there is in all Spain. There you see the directions are in Spanish and English, too."

"I don't want none on it," said the old man.

"Just as like as not, the trouble is in your kidneys," remarked Panicky. "Your complexion looks like it. For kidney disorders there never was anything could hold a candle to Wakefield's Honey of Mullein and Sage."

"I ain't a-hankerin' to take no mullein nor sage," said the old man. "My mother she give me sage tea when I was a little chap, till I got clean degusted with it. I smoked mullein, tryin' to give up tobaccer, an' I ain't crazy for mullein no more. I won't buy no medicine to-day."

"I know what will cure you," exclaimed the peddler. "You need a bottle of Great Wangamyika Discovery."

"Now, I wouldn't wonder an there was suthin' in that," said the old man, impressed by the peculiar orthography of the name.

"It's a great thing," said Panicky, "and no mistake. There was an African chief, he was a great fellow to fight, and he'd always fight with a club. Once, when he was having a battle with another tribe, he got a lick in the back that about used him up. He couldn't run and he couldn't swing his war-club. That was what bothered him the worst. Every morning he'd get up and see if he couldn't fetch the war-club around, but it wasn't any use. His enemies commenced to press him on every side, and as he couldn't fight, of course his men got whipped. This kept up quite a while, and at last he didn't have much of any territory left. He said if he could only get out himself and fight he could drive them back in short order. He got all the big medicine men in his kingdom to prescribe for him, but his back grew worse, instead of better. By and by he lost his patience entirely, and he said if they didn't relieve him inside of six months, off would go their heads.

"That set 'em to thinking. They come together and consulted. The first thing they done was to take some slaves and lame 'em, as near as they could like the chief. One of 'em practiced up till he could hit the right kind of a wallop every time. The slaves they'd squirm around and yell, but nobody would pay any attention to 'em. The medicine men they fussed and fussed till they got discouraged. They'd think a patient was on the gain, when he'd up and die. They'd try five kinds of medicine, and six, and eight, and twelve. They'd try half of one kind and a twentieth of the rest, and a tenth of three or four and different parts of a lot of others.

"About two weeks before the time was up, one of the slaves got well. They fixed the chief up a few doses of the same stuff, and he was swinging his war-club as well as he ever did. He got so he could throw it in a curve around one of his men and hit an enemy. His back grew so stout that he didn't like a light club any more. He had a heavy one made that nobody else could fetch around in any kind of shape. There never was another such a fellow to shake a war-club in Africa. A week after he was cured he went out against the Maleovajaws, beat 'em and took their king prisoner. He let the medicine men practice up on the prisoners, hitting 'em in the back and curing 'em. He give 'em directions that they should never let anybody know the secret of the medicine. One of 'em did, though, told a missionary when he was dying. The missionary thought folks in this country ought to have it. He went all over Africa to gather the herbs, and sent 'em here. He named it Great Wangamyika discovery."

"This 'ere Great Wanagam cured the chief purty quick, did it?" inquired the old man.

"Yes," answered Panicky, "very quick. There seems to be something about it that's specially good for the back. Affinity they call it for the spinal cord and the vertebrae."

"I'll have a bottle if it busts me," said the old man. "Hand it over."

Panicky instructed his customer how to use the medicine. He must rub it in thoroughly, half of the time stroking downward and half crosswise.

John and his companion soon came in sight of the river; and after crossing the railroad bridge, turned to the right and followed the stream, leaving it, however, when they had reached the next street which led to the left. The houses were here better, and the view in general was correspondingly improved.

"How much farther have we to go?" asked John.

"We're about there now," said Panicky, "that house right ahead."

It was a noble-looking structure which had been indicated by the peddler. Whether the walls were of stone or of brick, John, who knew little of architecture, could not determine. An upright and a wing, on a rise of ground too gradual and low to be called a hill, it was, saving its preponderance of length,

"A tower of strength that stood four square.
To all the winds that blew."

One of the most efficient aids in giving it an aspect of majesty was its simplicity. The ornaments which decorate most costly buildings were poorly represented in this edifice. In front of it were evergreens, small and far apart. A path and a drive ran from the street through the yard, the drive-winding carelessly up, as if its course had been fixed by unassisted and unrestrained circumstance. As they opened the gate before the path, a man came out into the porch, stood a brief space of time, and answered some questions which were addressed to him from within. In the twilight, which was fast settling, John could see nothing of him but the outline of his form.

"I'm going back," said Panicky hurriedly. "You can find your way. Go up there and knock."

The man in the porch walked swiftly out to meet John. When he left the shadow of the house, his identity was no longer doubtful; he was Durgenson.

"Helloa, Wrengell," he said. "So you've come here, have you?"

"Did you not send for me?" asked John.

"Certainly." responded Durgenson. "But I'm awful busy just now. You go to number one hundred and nine ---- Street. Tell the man you want to stay all night. I'll be up there in from one to three hours. Don't go out in the street, because I'm in a hurry and want to find you there when I come. I mean business. I'll make your fortune."

"Is that all you want of me," asked John in disappointment, "to buy cattle and horses? I thought you had found something which would give me respectability."

"So I have," said Durgenson. "So I have. I'll satisfy you on that point to-night. I can't explain now. I'm in a great hurry."

A woman rushed from the porch and interrupted John in his departure.

"Stop," she cried. "I want to see you." "Maybe you'd better go in," said Durgenson.

The woman led John through a hall, through another room and into a smaller apartment, in which she left him.

"Stay here a moment," she said, locking the door as she went.

On ordinary occasions John would have been quick to rebel against a curtailment of his liberty, but he was now so anxious to hear the expected revelation that he submitted with good grace.

"This way," said the woman, again peering into the room.

John, with his expectations aroused to the highest pitch, went up a flight of stairs and into a small room as his guide indicated.

"Wait here until I call for you," said the woman, turning the key in the lock.

The house was still, and the room, lighted only by one window, was comparatively dark. As time passed curiosity gave place to loneliness, and loneliness to unrest.

John's dissatisfaction with his quarters increased. Mrs. Boyle's neglected warning to avoid Durgenson, coupled with the suspicious conduct of the woman who had conducted him to the chamber, intensified his sense of insecurity.

While he was deliberating whether to cry out and demand release, or to attempt an escape from the window, there came from below a voice, which, low but resonant, filled him with a singular awe.

"Has the Suebian come?"