Chapter II: Prologue (1)

A toy horse or a raspberry-tart is not often responsible for the loss of a life, but a succession of toy horses, raspberry-tarts, and whatever else the heart of a small boy craved, given in a reckless abandonment of superfluity, was certainly responsible for the wilfulness in the character of Paul Weston; and the wilfulness, in turn, was responsible for the quarrel.

At twenty he was a restless, impulsive, good-hearted, broad-chested, strong-limbed young fellow, the adored of his mother and the pride of his father. And yet it was over the prostrate form of this same father that he now stood—the crack of the revolver still ringing in his ears, the weapon itself still clutched in his hand.

Was the man dead? But a minute before he had been speaking; now there was a fast-growing pool of something dark and horrible on the floor at his side.

Paul Weston brushed the back of his left hand across his eyes and looked down at the still smoking revolver. Had his miserable temper brought him to this? His features worked convulsively and his eyes widened in horror. Throwing the revolver from him to the farthermost corner of the room, he turned and fled.

Out the door, through the gate, and down the long street of the little New England village he ran. It was dusk, but he stumbled as though it were the darkness of midnight.

The neighbors looked and wondered at the fleeing figure, but only their eyes spoke disapproval. If Paul Weston chose to use the main street of the village as a race-course, it was not for them to interfere—they knew him too well. The town fool alone ventured to accost him.

“Hi, there—go it! What’s after ye?” he shouted; but the jeering words and the vacant smile died on his lips at sight of the face Paul turned upon him.

Down the street, across the open field, and over the fence at a bound—surely the friendly shelter of the woods receded as he ran! But his pace did not slacken even in the dense shadows of the forest. On and on, stumbling, falling, tearing his flesh and his clothing on the thorns and brambles until, exhausted, he dropped on a grassy mound, miles away from that dread thing he had left behind him.

The wind sighed and whispered over his head. Weston had always loved the sound, but tonight it was only an accusing moan in his ears. Even the stars that peeped through the leaves above were like menacing eyes seeking out his hiding-place.

An owl hooted; Weston raised his head and held his breath. Then through the forest came the baying of a distant hound. The man was on his feet in an instant. Something tightened in his throat and his heart-beats came in slow, suffocating throbs. He knew that sound! They sought for—murderers with creatures like that! With a bound he was away on his wild race again. Hours later, the gray dawn and his nearness to a small village warned him to move more cautiously.

All that day he tramped, without rest, without food, reaching at night the seaport town that had been his goal. Skulking through the back streets he came to a cheap eating-house down by the wharves.

The odor of greasily fried meats and bad coffee floated out the open door, causing Weston to sniff hungrily. In a moment he had thrown caution to the winds, entered the restaurant and slunk into the nearest seat.

By his side lay a discarded newspaper. He reached for it with a shaking hand, then snatched his fingers back as though the printed sheet had scorched them. No, oh, no—he dared not look at it! His mind’s eye pictured the headlines, black with horror:

“MURDER! PARRICIDE! THE
FIEND STILL AT LARGE!”

He pushed back his chair and rushed from the room. An hour later he had shipped as a sailor on a vessel bound for San Francisco around Cape Horn.

I

The cracker-barrels and packing-boxes that usually served for seats in Pedler Jim’s store were, strange to say, unoccupied. Bill Somers, sole representative of “the boys,” sat cross-legged on the end of the counter, meditatively eying a dozen flies that were buzzing happily around a drop of molasses nearby. Pedler Jim himself occupied his customary stool behind the counter.

It was ten years now since the little hunchback pedler first appeared in Skinner Valley. He came from no one knew where, driving a battered and worn horse attached to a yet more battered and worn pedler’s cart. The horse had promptly taken advantage of the stop in the village, and by dying had made sure of never leaving the place for the wearisome trail again. The miners say that the night the old horse died, its master patted and stroked the poor dead head until it was cold and stiff, and that the morning found him fondling the useless reins with his shriveled, misshapen fingers.

The next day he bartered for a tiny piece of land fronting the main street. When he had wheeled his old cart into proper position upon it, he busied himself some time with a bit of board and a paint pot, finally producing a rough sign bearing the single word “Store.” This creation he nailed with much satisfaction upon the front of the dashboard, then sat down on one of the thills to wait for a customer.

Perhaps it was the oddity of the thing; or perhaps there was something in the deformed little body that appealed to the strong-limbed, straight-backed miners; or perhaps it was the wonderful knowledge of healing herbs and soothing lotions that Pedler Jim possessed—perhaps it was a little of all three. At all events, the new store prospered amazingly so that in a year its owner bought more land, trundled the old cart to the rear, and erected a small cabin on his lot. This, in turn, gave place to a good-sized frame building bearing the imposing gilt-lettered sign:

JAMES A. POWERS,
_Skinner Valley Emporium_.

The hunchback rolled this high-sounding title under his tongue with keen relish, but it was still “the store” to the boys, and its owner was only “Pedler Jim.”

Bill Somers shifted his position on the end of the counter and poked a teasing finger at the agitated mass of wings and legs around the molasses drop. The storekeeper grinned appreciatively and broke the silence:

“Say, who’s yer new man?”

“Blest if I know.”

“Well, he’s got a name, hain’t he?”

“Mebbe he has—then again, mebbe he hain’t.”

“But don’t ye call him nothin’?”

“Oh, we _call_ him ‘Hustler Joe’; but that ain’t no name to hitch a grocery bill on to—eh, Jim?”

The little hunchback slid from his stool and brought his fist down hard on the counter.

“That’s jest the point! He don’t git much, but what he does git he pays fur—spot cash. An’ that’s more’n I can say of some of the rest of ye,” he added, with a reproachful look.

Bill laughed and stretched his long legs.

“I s’pose, now, that’s a dig at me, Jim.”

“I didn’t call no names.”

“I know yer lips didn’t, but yer eyes did. Say, how much do I owe, anyhow?”

With manifest alacrity Jim darted over to the pine box that served for a desk.

“There ain’t no hurry, Jim,” drawled Somers, with a slow smile. “I wouldn’t put ye out fur nothin’!”

The storekeeper did not hear. He was rapidly turning the greasy, well-thumbed pages of the account-book before him.

“It’s jest twenty dollars and fourteen cents, now, Bill,” he said, his brown forefinger pausing after a run down one of the pages. “Ye hain’t paid nothin’ since Christmas, ye know,” he added significantly.

“Well,” sighed Bill, with another slow smile, “mebbe ’twouldn’t do no harm if I ponied up a bit!” And he plunged both hands into his trousers pockets.

Pedler Jim smiled and edged nearer, while Bill drew out a handful of change and laboriously picked out a dime and four pennies.

“There!” he said, slapping the fourteen cents on the counter, “now it’s even dollars!”

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” cried Pedler Jim, turning his back and walking over to the window.

Somers looked after the retreating figure, and a broad smile lighted up his round red face. Slipping his hand inside his coat he pulled out a roll of greenbacks. In another minute the fourteen cents lay neatly piled on top of two ten-dollar bills. The man hastily slipped into his old position and coughed meaningly.

“Ye don’t seem pleased,” he began.

The hunchback did not stir.

“Mebbe ye don’t want my money,” hazarded the miner.

No answer.

“Oh, well, I can take it back,” and Somers shuffled noisily off his seat.

Pedler Jim wheeled about and came down the store with his small black eyes blazing.

“Jiminy Christmas, man! If you ain’t enough ter try a saint! I’m blest if I can git mad at ye, though, fur all yer pesterin’ ways. Now what in thunder—” The storekeeper’s jaw dropped, and his mouth fell open idiotically as his eyes rested on the greenbacks. “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he murmured again, and clutched the money in his claw-like fingers.

At that moment the outer door opened to admit a tall, broad-shouldered miner wearing a slouch hat well over his eyes. In a trice Pedler Jim was the obsequious merchant behind the counter.

The newcomer gave his order in a low voice and stood motionless while the hunchback busied himself in filling it.

“Anything else?” suggested Jim wistfully, as he pushed a small package toward him.

“Oh, I guess that’ll do for this time,” returned the man, picking up his purchase and motioning toward a dollar bill on the counter.

Pedler Jim looked up quickly and something like tenderness came into his eyes.

“I—guess you’re from Yankee-land, stranger; shake, won’t ye?” he said, thrusting his hand across the counter. “Gorry! but it’s prime ter see a good old New Englander among all these dagos and Dutchmen and the Lord only knows what else here. Bill an’ me was gittin’ lonesome—I’m glad ye come!”

At Jim’s first words the stranger had stepped back, but the outstretched hand had brought him to the counter again, and he gave the brown fingers a grip that made the little hunchback wince with pain. But Pedler Jim’s welcome was scarcely spoken before the man had turned and disappeared through the door.

“Well, I snum! I should think he was ‘Hustler Joe’!” murmured Jim. “If he didn’t even hustle off and leave his change,” he added, looking helplessly at the dollar bill on the counter.

Somers laughed.

“Hustle!—you’d oughter see him at the mines! why, that man works like all possessed. He don’t speak nor look at a soul of us ’nless he has to. If there’s a chance ter work extry—he gits it; an’ he acts abused ’cause he can’t work every night and Sundays to boot. Gosh! I can’t understand him,” finished Bill, with a yawn and a long stretch.

“That ain’t ter be wondered at—’tain’t ‘Hustler Bill’ that the boys call you,” replied Jim, a sly twinkle in his beady little eyes.

Somers sprang to his feet and towered over the hunchback, his fist raised in pretended wrath.

“Why don’t ye take a feller yer own size?” he demanded.

The hunchback chuckled, dove under the upraised arm, and skipped around the room like a boy. An encounter like this was meat and drink to him, and the miners good-naturedly saw to it that he did not go hungry.

Somers shook his fist at the curious little creature perched on the farthermost cracker-barrel and slouched out the door.

II

Skinner Valley did not know very much about Hustler Joe. Six weeks ago he had appeared at the Candria coal mine and asked for work. Since that time he had occupied an old shanty on the hillside—a shanty so hopeless in its decrepitude that it had long been abandoned to bats and owls. Hustler Joe, however, had accomplished wonders in the short time he had lived there.

It was a popular belief in the town that the man never slept. Stray wanderers by the shanty had reported hearing the sound of the hammer and saw at all hours of the night. Outside the shanty loose timbers, tin cans, rags and refuse had given way to a spaded, raked and seeded lawn. The cabin itself, no longer broken-roofed and windowless, straightened its back and held up its head as if aware of its new surroundings.

This much the villagers could see; but inside it was still a mystery, for Hustler Joe did not seem to be hospitably inclined, and even the children dared not venture too near the cabin door.

It was vaguely known that the man had come over the mountains from San Francisco, and with that the most were content. Keen eyes and ears like Pedler Jim’s were not common in the community, and the little hunchback’s welcome to the man because he came from “Yankee-land” was not duplicated.

Hustler Joe had not been in the habit of frequenting the store. His dollar bill was in Pedler Jim’s hands a week before the disturbed storekeeper had an opportunity of handing back the change. The miner had forgotten all about the money and had wandered into the store simply because each stick and stone and dish and chair at home was in its place and there was absolutely nothing for his nervous fingers to put in order.

Joe pushed open the door of the “emporium,” then halted in evident indecision. A dozen miners were jabbering in half as many languages over by the stove, huddled around it as though the month were January instead of June, and the stove full of needed heat instead of last winter’s ashes. Bill Somers lolled on the counter, and Pedler Jim was bowing and scraping to a well-dressed stranger whose face Joe could not see.

The miner had half turned to go when Pedler Jim’s sharp eyes fell upon him. In another moment the hunchback was by his side thrusting some change into his fingers.

“You forgot it, ye know—when ye bought them nails,” he said hurriedly; then added, “why don’t ye come in and set down?”

For a second Joe hesitated; then he raised his head with a peculiarly defiant up-tilting of his chin, and strolled across the room to an unoccupied cracker-barrel behind the gesticulating miners. Pedler Jim went back to his customer.

“You won’t find a better smoke within fifty miles!” he said pompously, giving the box of cigars on the counter a suggestive push.

The well-dressed man gave a disagreeable laugh.

“Well, that’s hardly saying very much, is it?” he questioned.

At the stranger’s first words Hustler Joe glanced up sharply. His fingers twitched and a gray look crept around the corners of his mouth. The room, the miners, and Pedler Jim seemed to fade and change like the dissolving pictures he used to see when a boy. A New England village street drifted across his vision with this well-dressed stranger in the foreground. He could even see a yellow-lettered sign out one of the windows:

GEORGE L. MARTIN,
_Counselor at Law_.

Then it all faded into nothingness again—all save the well-dressed stranger in the tall black hat. In another minute the jabbering miners, Bill Somers, and the obsequious hunchback were in their old places, and Pedler Jim was saying:

“Jest try ’em, an’ see fur yerself.”

“All right, I’ll take you at your word,” laughed the stranger, picking out a cigar and leisurely striking a match. “It’s a pity you can’t have a few more languages going in here,” he added, throwing the dead match on the floor and glancing at the group around the stove. “I suppose Barrington employs mostly foreigners in the mines, eh?”

The hunchback thrust his brown fingers through his hair and made a wry face.

“Foreigners!” he exclaimed. “I was born and raised in the state of Maine, an’ if it wa’n’t fur Bill Somers—he’s from York State—to talk God’s own language to me once in awhile, I’d ’a’ gone daft long ago!”

The stranger chuckled softly.

“You hav’n’t anyone here at the works from New England, then, I take it, eh?” he asked, with studied carelessness.

A smile crept up from Pedler Jim’s mouth and looked out of his twinkling eyes.

“Well, we have—” he began, then his eyes suddenly lost their twinkle as they encountered the despairing appeal from beneath Hustler Joe’s slouch hat. “We have—been wishin’ there would be some,” he finished after the slightest of hesitations. “We’ve got everythin’ else under the sun!”

Bill Somers’s long legs came down from the counter abruptly.

“Why, Jim, there’s Hustler Joe—ain’t he from New England?”

The hunchback’s little beany eyes turned upon Somers and looked him through and through without winking.

“Hustler Joe came over the mountains from San Francisco, I have heard,” he said blandly.

“Oh, so he did—so he did!” murmured Somers, and sauntered out the door.

The man on the cracker-barrel over in the corner pulled his hat down over his eyes and sank back into the shadows.

“Well,” said the stranger, tossing a bill and a small white card on the counter, “put me up a dozen of those cigars of yours, and there’s my card—if you happen to know of any New Englanders coming to these parts, just let me know at that address, will you? I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Very good, sir, very good,” murmured Pedler Jim, making a neat package of the cigars. “Thank you, sir,” he said suavely, holding out the change and glancing down at the card; “thank you, Mr.—er—Martin.” And he bowed him out of the store.

One by one the miners went away; still the figure on the cracker-barrel remained motionless. When the last jabbering foreigner had passed through the door, Hustler Joe rose and walked across the room to the pine box where the storekeeper was bending over his account-book.

“See here, little chap,” he began huskily, “that was a mighty good turn you did me a bit ago—just how good it was, I hope to God you’ll never know. What you did it for is a mystery to me; but you did it—and that’s enough. I sha’n’t forget it!”

Something splashed down in front of Pedler Jim, then the outer door slammed. When the hunchback turned to his accounts again a blot and a blister disfigured the page before him.

III

John Barrington, the principal owner of the Candria mine, did not spend much of his time in Skinner Valley. Still, such time as he did spend there he intended to be comfortable. Indeed, the comfort of John Barrington—and incidentally of those nearest and dearest to him—was the one thing in life worth striving for in the eyes of John Barrington himself, and to this end all his energies were bent.

In pursuance of this physical comfort, John Barrington had built for his occasional use a large, richly fitted house just beyond the unpleasant smoke and sounds of the town. A tiny lake and a glorious view had added so materially to its charms that the great man’s wife and daughter had unconsciously fallen into the way of passing a week now and then through the summer at The Maples, as it came to be called in the family—“Skinner Valley” being a name to which Miss Ethel’s red lips did not take kindly.

Mr. Barrington’s factotum-in-chief at the mines, Mark Hemenway, lived at the house the year round. He was a man who took every possible responsibility from his chief’s shoulders and was assiduous in respectful attentions and deferential homage whenever the ladies graced the place with their presence.

To Ethel this was of little consequence, as she paid no more attention to him than she did to the obsequious servant behind her chair; but to Mrs. Barrington he was the one drawback to complete enjoyment of the place.

Mark Hemenway was a man of limited means, but of unlimited ambitions. Every day saw him more and more indispensable to his comfort-loving employer, and every day saw him more and more determined to attain to his latest desire—nothing less than the hand of this same employer’s daughter in marriage.

In a vague way Mrs. Barrington was aware of this, though Hemenway was, as yet, most circumspect in his actions. Mrs. Barrington was greatly disturbed, otherwise she would not have ventured to remonstrate with her husband that Sunday afternoon.

“My dear,” she began timidly, “isn’t there any other—couldn’t Mr. Hemenway live somewhere else—rather than here?”

Her husband turned in his chair, and a frown that Mrs. Barrington always dreaded appeared between his eyebrows.

“Now, Bess, why can’t you leave things all comfortable as they are? I like to have you and Ethel here first rate, but I don’t see why you think you must upset things when you stay only five minutes, so to speak.”

“I—I don’t mean to upset things, John, but—I don’t like him!” she finished in sudden asperity.

“Like him! My dear, who expected you to? Nobody supposes he is one of your palavering, tea-drinking members of the upper ten! He isn’t polished, of course.”

“Polished! He’s polished enough, in a way, but—I don’t like the metal to begin with,” laughed Mrs. Barrington, timidly essaying a joke.

Her husband’s frown deepened.

“But, Bess, don’t you see? I must have him here—it’s easier for me, lots easier. Why can’t you let things be as they are, and not bother?” he urged in the tone of a fretful boy.

Mrs. Barrington knew the tone, and she knew, too, the meaning of the nervous twitching of her husband’s fingers.

“Well, well, John,” she said, hastily rising, “I won’t say anything more,” and the door closed softly behind her.

As she passed through the hall she caught a glimpse of Ethel and her friend starting for a walk, and the strange unlikeness of the two girls struck her anew. Just why Ethel should have chosen Dorothy Fenno for a week’s visit to The Maples, Mrs. Barrington could not understand. Perhaps it would have puzzled Ethel herself to have given a satisfactory reason.

Ethel Barrington had met Dorothy Fenno the winter before on a committee connected with a fashionable charity, and had contrived to keep in touch with the girl ever since, though the paths of their daily lives lay wide apart.

“She is mixed up with ‘settlement work’ and ‘relief bands,’ and everything of that sort,” Ethel had told her mother; “but she’s wonderfully interesting and—I like her!” she had finished almost defiantly.

The girls leisurely followed a winding path that skirted the lake and lost itself in the woods beyond. They had walked half an hour when they came to the clearing that commanded the finest view in the vicinity.

Ethel dropped wearily to the ground and, with her chin resting in her hand, watched her friend curiously.

“Well, my dear girl, you——”

“Don’t—don’t speak to me!” interrupted Dorothy.

Ethel Barrington bit her lips; then she laughed softly and continued to watch the absorbed face of her companion—this time in the desired silence. By and bye Dorothy drew a long breath and turned to her.

“Isn’t it beautiful!” she murmured reverently.

Miss Barrington gave a short laugh and sat up.

“Yes, very beautiful, I suppose; but, do you know, I’ve seen so much I’m spoiled—absolutely spoiled for a scene like that? I’d rather look at you—you are wonderfully refreshing. I don’t know another girl that would have snapped me up as you did a minute ago.”

“Indeed, I beg your pardon,” began Dorothy in distress.

“Don’t!” interrupted her friend, with a petulant gesture; “you’ll be like all the rest if you do.”

“But it was very rude,” insisted Dorothy earnestly. “A view like this always seems to me like a glorious piece of music, and I want everything quiet as I would if I were hearing a Beethoven symphony, you know. That is why I couldn’t bear even the tones of your voice—but it was rude of me, very.”

Ethel sighed, and fell to picking a daisy to pieces.

“I used to feel that way, once,” she said; “I did, really.”

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” replied Dorothy, with a smile.

“But I don’t any more!”—the daisy was tossed aside.

“No?”

“No; I’m like a five-year-old that’s had too much candy, I suppose. I’ve seen the Alps and the Rockies, the Rhine and the St. Lawrence; and yet, the first time I looked at that view I felt just as you did. But now——!”

“You need something outside yourself to give zest to your life, my dear,” said Dorothy, her eyes on the town below.

Ethel looked at her narrowly.

“Now see here, my dear, I love you—and you know it, but I just can’t stand any of that settlement talk!”

“I never said settlement,” laughed Dorothy, her eyes still on the straggling cottages.

“I know, but—well, I just simply can’t! How in the world you stand those dismal sounds and sights and—and smells,” she added, with a grimace, “I don’t understand.”

“I suppose the miners live in those cottages,” mused Dorothy aloud, as though she had not heard.

“I suppose so,” acquiesced Ethel indifferently. “Others live over the hill in Westmont.”

“They don’t look as though they’d be very comfortable,” continued Dorothy softly.

“Oh, I don’t know; people like that don’t mind such things, I fancy.”

“Did you ever ask them?”

Ethel looked up in quick suspicion, but Dorothy’s face was placid.

“Of course not! How silly!”

“Suppose you do, sometimes,” suggested Dorothy, quite as a matter of course.

“I thought that was what you were coming to!” flashed Ethel. “My dear girl, you have no idea what those miners are,” she continued in a superior tone. “In the first place, I don’t think there is one of them that understands a word of English, and I’d be afraid to trust my life anywhere near them.”

“But the women and the little children—they wouldn’t hurt you. Isn’t there something you could do for them, dear?” urged Dorothy.

A rumble of thunder brought the girls to their feet before Ethel could reply, and a big storm-cloud coming rapidly out of the west drove the whole thing from her mind.

“Quick—we must run!” she exclaimed. “We can’t reach home, but there’s an old shanty just behind those trees over there. No one lives in it, but ’twill give us a little shelter, maybe,” and in another minute the girls were hurrying down the hill. Big drops of rain and a sharp gust of wind quickened their steps to a run.

Had Ethel not been running with her head bent to the wind she would have noticed the changed appearance of the shanty to which they were hastening. But as it was, she rushed blindly forward, up the steps, and pushed open the door, Dorothy close by her side. Once across the threshold she stopped in amazement, while Dorothy dropped breathlessly into the nearest chair.

IV

The tiny room was exquisite in its orderly neatness. The furniture was of the plainest, but bore an air of individuality. On one side was a case of books, and the mantel above the fireplace was decorated with quaint curios and beautiful shells.

A shadow fell across the floor.

“A nearer view might the better satisfy your curiosity, madam,” said a voice from behind Ethel.

Ethel turned sharply to find herself face to face with a man in the rough garb of a miner. The man’s eyes looked straight into hers without flinching.

“I said that a nearer view might the better satisfy your curiosity in regard to my poor possessions,” he repeated.

“Yours?” she stammered, a look of repulsion coming into her eyes.

The look and the shrinking gesture were not lost on Hustler Joe. His eyes darkened. His broad shoulders bent in a mocking bow and his right hand made a sweeping flourish.

“Mine, madam; but consider them yours until the storm is over. I’ll not intrude”—and he was gone.

A flare of lightning and a deafening report made his exit wonderfully dramatic to Dorothy. The rain was falling in torrents, too—a fact which suddenly occurred to Ethel. For a moment she hesitated; then she sped through the door, overtook and confronted the miner.

“Go back instantly!” she commanded. “If—if you don’t, I shall start for home in all this rain!”

The words were scarcely spoken before the man had turned and was hurrying her back to the house. Once inside there was an uncomfortable silence. Dorothy came to the rescue.

“I’m afraid you thought we were unpardonably rude,” she began pleasantly. “You see we were caught by the shower and my friend thought no one was living here; otherwise, we would not have so unceremoniously taken possession.”

“No, of course not,” murmured Miss Barrington constrainedly, going over to the window and looking out at the swaying trees.

Hustler Joe made a dissenting gesture.

“Say no more: you are quite welcome,” he replied, going over to the fireplace and touching a match to the light wood ready placed for a fire. “It will take the dampness out of the air, and—of your garments,” he added, with a furtive glance at the tall figure in the window.

“Thank you, you are very kind,” said Dorothy, drawing nearer. The movement brought her close to the mantel, and she picked up one of the shells. “Did you gather these yourself?” she asked, wondering at the light that leaped into his eyes at the question.

Ethel, turning round a minute later, found them talking like old friends together. She even caught herself listening breathlessly to a story he was telling of an Indian arrow he held in his hand. A sudden glance in her direction from the man’s dark eyes sent her back to her old position with an abruptness that surprised as well as displeased her.

The storm was not a long one. The clouds were already lifting in the west and the rain was less flood-like in its descent. Finally the sun peeped out and flashed for a moment in Ethel’s eyes.

Dorothy and their host were over at the bookcase deep in a discussion of the respective merits of Scott and Dickens, when Ethel crossed the room and came toward them.

“I think,” she said, with the slightest of inclinations in Hustler Joe’s direction, “that the storm is over. We can go now.”

“So it is,” said Dorothy; then turning to the man at her side she held out a cordial hand. “Thank you very much. You have been very kind.”

“Yes, very kind—thank you,” murmured Ethel, bowing slightly and turning toward the door. “We shall have to go home by the road,” she announced regretfully a moment later, as she stood outside looking longingly at the hillside path where the wet grass sparkled in the sun.

For a time the two girls walked on in silence, then Dorothy murmured softly:

“Not a word of English—not a word!”

Ethel gave a sidelong look from her lowered lids.

“Well, I didn’t suppose they could!” she said petulantly.

“I wouldn’t trust my life near one of them,” continued Dorothy in the same low voice.

Ethel shrugged her shoulders and a faint pink showed on her forehead.

“Don’t!” she protested. “How could you talk with him so?—what dreadful boots he wore!”

Dorothy laughed outright.

“My dear, his boots do not cover his head. Would you have a man dig coal in patent-leathers?”

Ethel made a wry face and was silent.

“Seriously, dear,” Dorothy went on, “he was very interesting to me. His knowledge of books was most amazing. What he is doing here I can’t imagine—he’s no common miner!”

“Oh, of course not,” laughed Ethel mockingly. “No doubt he’s a college president in disguise! But really, I’m not in the least interested. Let’s talk of something else.” And she changed the subject.

And yet it was Ethel who, at dinner that night, turned to Mr. Barrington with the abrupt question:

“Father, who is living in the old shanty just beyond the Deerfield woods?”

“I’m sure I haven’t the least idea, my daughter,” replied the man, mildly indifferent.

“Perhaps I can assist Miss Barrington in the matter,” interposed the smooth voice of Mark Hemenway. “It has lately been taken in hand by a curious creature known as ‘Hustler Joe.’”

“‘Hustler Joe’?” murmured John Barrington.

“Yes, sir, one of the men. A queer, silent sort—the kind that no good comes of. I’m keeping my eye on him, however.”

“Indeed,” observed Ethel calmly, “I thought him quite the gentleman.”

The effect of her words was like that of an electric shock around the table; in fact, Ethel herself felt it to some extent, for her remark was almost as much of a surprise to herself as to the others.

“Why, my daughter!” murmured Mrs. Barrington faintly, and even Dorothy started. There was an ugly narrowing of Mark Hemenway’s eyes, but it was John Barrington who spoke.

“Well, you seem to have the advantage,” he drawled. “Would you mind telling where the rest of us could meet—this gentleman?”

His daughter laughed and lapsed into her old bantering tone.

V

That portion of the Candria mine known as the “Bonanza” had been on the black-list of the miners for some time. It was more than two months since Henry Rotalick, a fire boss, had reported that an extra amount of gas seemed to be collecting in the district. The mine officials had begun at once to take the utmost precautions.

The Bonanza was one of the wealthiest portions of the mine, but, the coal being deep and of very fine quality and the slate being particularly thick, it necessitated considerable blasting to get down to the finest parts. Owing to this and to the growing accumulations of gases, the miners had for some time past been repeatedly warned to use the greatest care.

On the day after the thunderstorm, Hustler Joe was passing through this district when he came upon some miners drilling holes twelve feet or more in depth and preparing for an exceptionally heavy charge.

“You’d better look out or you’ll bring the whole thing tumbling about your ears!” he said, with a sharp glance at one of the men who seemed much the worse for liquor.

A snarl of oaths in various tongues followed him as he turned his back and walked away.

Thirty minutes later every door in the Bonanza fell with a crash, and solid walls of masonry three feet through were torn down as though they were but barriers of paper, so terrible was the explosion that shook the earth.

Hustler Joe was half a mile away. The shock threw him on his face, and for a minute he was too dazed to think. Then he staggered to his feet and rushed blindly forward straight toward the place where he thought the explosion had occurred. At every turn he met fleeing men, coatless, hatless and crazed with terror. Suddenly he came face to face with Bill Somers.

“Good God, man! Where ye goin’? Are ye gone clean crazy?” demanded Bill, clutching Joe’s arm and trying to turn him about.

For answer Hustler Joe wrenched himself free, picked up a half-unconscious miner and set him on his feet; then he dashed forward and attempted to raise a fallen door that had pinned another miner fast.

“Jiminy Christmas! Ye ain’t goin’ ter stay in this hell of a place alone, anyhow,” muttered Bill, bringing his broad shoulder and huge strength to bear on the door. In another moment the imprisoned man was free and in broken English was calling on heaven to reward his rescuers.

The two men did not falter for an instant, though all the while the deadly damp was closing around them. From gallery to gallery they went, warning, helping, dragging a comrade into a possible place of safety, until human endurance could stand it no longer. Exhausted, they staggered into a chamber which the fire damp had not entered.

“We—we’d better git out—if we’re goin’ to,” panted Somers weakly.

Joe was dizzy and faint. For himself he did not care. He had long ago given up all thought of escape; but a sudden vision came to him of the little blue-eyed woman that he had so often seen clinging to this man’s arm and looking fondly into his face.

“Your wife and babies, Somers—” murmured Joe, his hand to his head as he tried to think. “Yes, we must get out somehow. There’s the fanhouse—we might try that,” he added, groping blindly forward.

The fanhouse, now out of use, stood at the top of the airshaft heading that led up through the Deerfield hill from the mine. And by this way the two men finally reached the open air, and there, blinking in the sunshine, they sank exhausted on the hillside.

It was some time before Somers found strength to move, but his companion was up and away very soon.

The Candria mine had two openings about four miles apart, that went by the names Silver Creek and Beachmont. The Bonanza section was a mile and a half from the surface, and was nearer to the Silver Creek opening than to the Beachmont. It was to the former entrance, therefore, that Hustler Joe turned his steps as soon as he could stand upon his feet.

The news of the disaster was before him. Men running from the mine, barely escaping with their lives, had told fearful tales of crawling over the dead bodies of their companions in their flight. The story flew from lip to lip and quickly spread through the entire town. Mothers, wives, daughters, sons and sweethearts rushed to the mine entrances and frantically sought for news of their dear ones.

When Hustler Joe reached the Silver Creek entrance, a bit of a woman with a tiny babe in her arms darted from the sobbing multitude and clutched his arm.

“Bill—my Bill—did you see him?” she cried.

Hustler Joe’s voice shook as it had not done that day.

“On Deerfield hill, by the fanhouse—he’s all right, Mrs. Somers,” he said huskily; and the little woman sped with joyful feet back by the way she had come.

It was Hustler Joe who was at the head of the first rescue party that attempted to enter the mine; but the deadly gases increased with every step. First one, then another of the heroic men succumbed, until the rest were obliged to stagger back to the outer air, half carrying, half dragging their unconscious companions.

Again and again was this repeated, until they were forced to abandon all hope of reaching the entombed miners from that direction; then hasty preparations were made to attempt the rescue from the Beachmont opening. Here, as at Silver Creek, Hustler Joe was untiring—directing, helping, encouraging. The man seemed to work in almost a frenzy, yet every movement counted and his hand and head were steady.

Slowly, so slowly they worked their way into the mine, fighting the damp at every turn. By using canvas screens to wall the side entrances and rooms, a direct current of pure air was forced ahead of the rescuers, and by night their first load of maimed and blackened forms was sent back to the mine entrance to be cared for by tender hands.

All night Hustler Joe worked, and it was his strong arms that oftenest bore some suffering miner to air and safety. Once, far down a gallery, he heard a shrill laugh. A sound so strange brought the first tingle like fear to his heart. Another moment and a blackened form rushed upon him out of the darkness, angrily brandishing a pickaxe. Crazed with wandering for hours in that horrid charnel-house of the earth’s interior, the miner was ready to kill even his rescuers. He was quickly overpowered and his hands and feet were securely bound; then on Hustler Joe’s back he made the journey of a quarter of a mile to the cars that were waiting to bear him, and others like him, to the aid so sadly needed.

Toward morning Hustler Joe was accosted by one of the doctors who had been working at his side half the night.

“See here, my man, you’ve done enough. No human being can stand this sort of thing forever. I don’t like the look of your eye—go outside and get some rest. There are fifty men now that owe their lives to you alone. Come—you’d really better quit, for awhile, at least.”

“Fifty? Fifty, did you say?” cried the miner eagerly. Then a look came into his face that haunted the doctor for long days after. “Would fifty count against—one?” he muttered as if to himself, then fell to work with a feverishness that laughed at the doctor’s warning.

From dusk to dawn, and again from dawn to dusk, flying ambulances, hastily improvised from every sort of vehicle, coursed the streets with their gruesome burdens. Weeping throngs surged about the Beachmont entrance and about the stricken homes of the dead. Sleepless wives and mothers waited all night for news of their missing dear ones, and peeped fearfully through closed blinds as the dead and injured were borne through the streets.

But everywhere the name of Hustler Joe was breathed in gratitude and love. Tales of his bravery and of his rescues were on every lip, and when the man walked out of the mine that day, he walked straight into the hearts of every man, woman and child of the place.

His fellow-workmen tried to show their love and appreciation by going in a body to his lonely cabin on the hillside. They found him muttering half crazily to himself: “Fifty lives for one—fifty for one!” And on the table before him he had placed fifty matches in a row and below them one other alone.

They looked at him half fearfully, wholly pitifully, thinking the past horror had turned his brain. But he listened with brilliant eyes and flushed cheeks to their hearty words of thanks and seemed strangely eager to hear all that they had come to say.

Yet the next morning his eyes were heavy with misery, and someone said that the matches lay strewn all over the floor where an impatient hand had cast them—all save one, left alone in the middle of the table.

VI

On the day of the explosion in the Candria mine John Barrington sat on the broad piazza of The Maples reading his morning paper. Occasionally he glanced up to admire the charming picture his daughter and her friend made playing tennis on the lawn nearby.

His night’s rest had been good and his morning’s beefsteak tender; moreover, a certain paragraph in the newspaper before him had warmed his heart and, in prospect, his pocketbook. He leaned back in his chair and sighed contentedly.

After a time he spied Hemenway’s tall form at the far end of the winding walk leading to the house. There was a languid curiosity in his mind as to why Hemenway was walking so fast; but when he caught his first glimpse of his general superintendent’s face, his head came upright with a jerk, and he waited in some apprehension for the man to speak.

The girls on the lawn heard an exclamation of dismay from the piazza, then saw the two men pass rapidly down the walk and disappear in the direction of the town. Fifteen minutes later Jennie Somers, the parlor-maid, crossed the lawn and approached Miss Barrington. All her pretty rose color had fled, and her eyes were wide and frightened.

“I beg your pardon—but would you please let me go to town? There has been an explosion in the mine, and my brother—he may be hurt! May I please go?”

“An explosion? How terrible! Yes, yes, child—run right along. Don’t hurry back if you’re needed there,” said Miss Barrington. “I hope you’ll find your brother uninjured,” she added as the girl hurried away. When she turned to speak to Dorothy she found herself alone.

Miss Fenno appeared a few minutes later dressed in a short walking-suit.

“Why, Dorothy!”

“Has Jennie gone? If you don’t mind, dear, I’ll go with her. I might be able to do something,” explained Dorothy hastily.

“Mercy!” shuddered Ethel, “how can you go, dear? They’ll be all maimed and bleeding! There’ll be doctors and—and others to do everything needful. I wouldn’t go—really, dear.”

“I know—but there’ll be something else to do. I might help someone—Jennie, for instance, if she found her brother injured. I really want to go—Oh—there she is!” And Miss Fenno hurried after Jennie’s swiftly moving figure.

Ethel was restless when her friend had gone. She wandered aimlessly around the grounds, then went indoors and began to play a waltz on the piano. The piece was scarcely half through, however, before her fingers moved more and more slowly, finally straying into a minor wail that ended abruptly in a discordant crash as the player rose from the piano-stool.

Miss Barrington’s next move was to take the field-glass from the library and go upstairs to the tower. From there she could see the village and catch occasional glimpses of hurrying forms. She could see the Silver Creek entrance to the mine, too, and she shuddered at the crowds her glasses showed her there. Twice she turned her eyes away and started down the winding stairs, but each time she returned to her old position and gazed in a fascination quite unaccountable to herself at the moving figures in the distance.

By and bye she saw the head-gardener coming rapidly up the road from the town. As he entered the driveway she hurried down the stairs and out into the kitchen.

“Were there many injured, Peter?” she asked anxiously as the man came into the room.

“They don’t know yet, ma’am; they can’t get into the mine. They’re goin’ to try the Beachmont openin’ now.”

“Perhaps they won’t find things so bad as they think,” she suggested.

“Mebbe not; but them that has come out, ma’am, tell sorry tales of creepin’ over dead men’s bodies—there ain’t much hope for the poor fellers inside now, I’m ’fraid.”

“Is—is there anything one can do?”

Peter shook his head.

“Not much, ma’am. They can’t get in to get ’em out. The young lady from the house here has got her hands full with the women and children. They are takin’ on awful, of course, but she kinder calms ’em down—she and that feller they call Hustler Joe.”

Miss Barrington turned away. As she opened the door she stopped abruptly and looked back into the kitchen.

“If they need anything, Peter—anything at all—come to me at once,” she said hurriedly, and closed the door behind her.

* * * * *

It was at dinner the next night that Mr. Barrington said to his general superintendent:

“What was the matter with Rotalick today? I heard you laying down the law pretty sharp to him this noon.”

“Oh, he wanted a prima donna, that’s all.”

“A what?”

Hemenway laughed.

“Yes, I thought so, too. It was simply this. There isn’t anyone to sing at the funerals Thursday. The choir that usually sings at funerals hereabouts is incapacitated through injuries to the bass and loss of a husband to the soprano. Rotalick wanted a day off to go hunting for singers over in Westmont.”

“Humph!” commented Mr. Barrington.

“I rather think our departed friends will excuse the lack of music,” laughed the general superintendent coarsely; but the laugh ceased at a flash from Miss Barrington’s eyes.

“Will you be so kind, Mr. Hemenway, as to tell the man that I will sing Thursday?” Once more the electric shock ran around that table, and once more Mrs. Barrington murmured faintly, “Why, my daughter!”

This time Mark Hemenway rose promptly to the occasion.

“How very kind!” he said suavely. “Indeed, Miss Barrington, one could almost _afford_ to die for so great an honor. I will tell Rotalick. The miners will be overjoyed—they have bitterly bemoaned the probable lack of music tomorrow. Funny they should care so much!”

“Oh, I don’t know—they are human beings, I suppose,” Miss Barrington suggested.

“Yes—of course—certainly—but then——”

“You seem troubled to find a solution,” she remarked, with slightly uplifted eyebrows; “suppose you give it up?”

“Suppose I do,” he acquiesced with ready grace, glad of the way of escape she had opened.

VII

Many of the victims of the explosion had lived in Westmont, but for those whose homes had been in Skinner Valley a succession of funeral services had been arranged to take place in the Slovak Catholic Church, the largest audience-room in the town. It was here that Miss Barrington had offered to sing, and as one sad service followed another in rapid succession the task she had undertaken was no light one.

But her heart did not lose its courage nor her voice its sweetness all through those long hours. She did grow sick and faint, though, as the throngs of weeping women and children filed in and out of the church, and her voice trembled and nearly broke when a young girl fainted and sank to the floor.

Hustler Joe had not been known to step inside a church since he came to Skinner Valley. On the day of the funerals he had lapsed into his old unapproachableness. He left his cabin early in the morning and joined the crowds moving toward the church, but, once there, he lost himself in the throngs outside instead of entering the doors.

Hustler Joe had long since made up his mind that a church was no place for him. He had the reverence, born of a New England boyhood’s training, for all things sacred, and he had come to feel that his own presence was an unpardonable insult to any holy place.

The windows of the church were open and the chanting tones of the priest floated out to his ears. He imagined himself as one of those still, silent forms before the chancel, and he bitterly envied the dead.

“’Twould have been the easiest way out of it!” he muttered under his breath. “By Jove, what a voice!” he added aloud a moment later as the priest’s droning gave way to the flute-like tones of a singer.

“It’s old Barrington’s daughter—ain’t she great?” said Bill Somers at his elbow. The man had been there several minutes furtively watching for a chance to speak.

Hustler Joe did not answer until the last note quivered into silence. Then he drew a long breath and turned around.

“Barrington’s daughter? What is she doing here?”

“Singin’—didn’t ye hear her?”

“But why? How happens it?” Joe demanded.

“Rotalick said she heard how that the choir couldn’t sing and that the Slavs and Poles were makin’ a terrible touse ’cause there wa’n’t no music. So she jest stepped up as pleasant as ye please an’ said she’d sing for ’em. She’s a daisy, an’ as purty as a picture. Have ye seen her?”

“Yes,” replied Hustler Joe shortly, moving away.

Ethel Barrington’s singing won her many sincere, if humble, admirers that day, but perhaps no one inside the building listened quite so hungrily for every tone that fell from her lips as did a tall, sad-eyed man who stood outside—just beneath an open window.

When the last sombre procession had moved away from the doors, and Miss Barrington herself, white and faint with weariness, stepped into her carriage, Hustler Joe left his position under the window and walked slowly toward his home.

“Yes, I’ll go back,” he muttered. “There’s nothing but hell upon earth to be gained by running away in this cowardly fashion. I’ll give myself up and take the consequences—which will be hell somewhere else, I suppose,” he added grimly. “Good God—it can’t be worse than this!”

He pushed open his cabin door and looked about him with troubled eyes. For the first time he was conscious of a fondness for the place.

“I’ll give them to Jim,” he said aloud, his eyes lingering on the books and on the shells and curios over the mantel.

With feverish haste he began collecting a few necessaries into a traveling-bag. It was packed and strapped when there came a knock at the door. At so unusual an occurrence Hustler Joe started guiltily. Then he crossed the room and threw wide the door.

The bent form of an old woman with two frightened eyes peering out from beneath a worn shawl confronted him.

“Has he been here?” she whispered, stepping into the room and glancing furtively around her.

“He! Who?”

“Then he hasn’t, or you’d know it,” she answered in a relieved tone; but her expression changed almost instantly, and her frail form shook with terror. “But he may come! You wouldn’t give him up—you’re Hustler Joe, ain’t ye? They say you’re good an’ kind. Oh, you wouldn’t give him up!”

A strange look came into the miner’s eyes.

“No, I wouldn’t give him up,” he said, after a moment. “But who is he? And who are you?”

“I’m his mother, sir. He didn’t know anyone was livin’ here,” she apologized, “an’ he sent me a bit of paper sayin’ he’d meet me here tonight. Oh, sir, they’d hang him if they got him! Hang him!” she shuddered.

Hustler Joe’s lips twitched, then settled into stern lines.