Chapter I: DID not bother with any of the victualing houses in that low-down (2)

“There may be a good deal you can do to help me in the thing,” he said. “But, blast it! after what you once did to me, I ain’t sure I can trust you!” He squinted his eyes and sized me up shrewdly. “You’re a Sidney, and the old rat did dirt to you before you left this town. If you ain’t willing to rise up now and swoop on him, there’s a reason. You ain’t stuck on that girl of his, are you?”

The blood surged into my face. I couldn’t help it. I was thinking hard about her all through that talk. That was the last thing I would have looked for from my uncle. He had jumped me in fine shape, and he saw it.

“Yah-h-h!” he snarled. “You fool! You devilish fool! It had to be a girl to keep you from doing your plain duty--and I knew it. Nothing but a girl would be putting a twist-bit into your mouth right now!”

“You’re wrong! You’re all wrong!” I protested, but I didn’t sound real convincing.

Nor did he, either, when he started to give me hints about her. His eyes shifted and he stammered. I took him by the arm with a good, hearty clutch and he shut up.

There did not seem to be anything more to say just then, on the part of either of us; plainly, we had squared off at each other!

So I walked out.

I was glad because my first session with my uncle was over. But while I felt relief I knew I had pretty well done for myself where he was concerned. Of course, I had not intended to confess to him my financial condition, but deep down I had felt until then that if worse came to the worst he would see me out of a hole. He would have done something, at least, for my father’s sake. But I had been the one to deal family loyalty the first kick. Now my uncle would see me starve and enjoy my sufferings; his grudges followed just such grooves.

Whatever else was ahead, it was pretty much up to me!

I went back to the tavern, for it was some comfort just to look on Dodovah Vose’s kindly face.

“Let’s see! You’ve been dropping a word or two about doing business here,” he prodded in friendly fashion. “Hope so. It’s quiet in town. We’re all climbing ‘March Hill,’ you know--dull time in the country.”

“I’m here to start something, sir.” I was telling him the truth then. I had just started something over in the town office. I sat down and picked up a newspaper from the table and began to show great interest in reading so that I would not be obliged to talk. I was afraid he would get me cornered. I hung onto that paper as if it were a life-buoy--I read it from title to last line, advertisements and all. It was the _Mechanicsville Herald_, printed in a manufacturing city about thirty miles from Levant, and because I did not miss anything which was printed in it I noted that two concerns wanted cord-wood--and I had just mentioned the matter of cord-wood to my uncle. At all events, I was traveling on a singletrack lie in old Levant!

I laid down that paper and did some mighty lively thinking. Then, to reassure myself, I gave my silk hat the least bit of a cock and marched to Judge Kingsley’s mansion.

Celene herself opened the door so promptly after my ring that I had a cozy little suspicion that she had seen me coming and had hurried to meet me. She was very pretty in her morning gown.

“Oh, your ankle is so much better, isn’t it?” she cried. “I watched you coming across the square.”

She stepped back, inviting me to enter by her manner, and I walked in.

“I knew just what to do for it. It’s pretty nigh all right.”

She led me to the sitting-room, and her mother rose and met me; Mrs. Kingsley was distantly polite, that was all. I was glad even for that much in the case of a Sidney, for I knew that Judge Kingsley’s obedient wife was as careful in matching her opinions to his as she was in matching colors at the store.

“I ask to be excused for calling so early in the day,” I said, with my hat in the hook of my arm, and putting on my best manners. “But this is a business call and I’m in somewhat of a hurry. You heard me speak to your father, Miss Kingsley, about the wood-lot. Now--”

“I never presume to interfere in my husband’s business matters,” said Mrs. Kingsley, looking half scared. “I know nothing whatever about his business.”

“Oh, I am not asking you to do so--certainly not,” I hurried to tell her. “I shall do all my business directly with him. But to do so I need his address in the city. I have come to ask you for it. I suppose he left it.”

“Oh yes--so that I may send his mail.” She looked relieved and gave me the name of a hotel.

I had not presumed to sit down, though I was sure that Celene’s eyes had asked me. I bowed and backed toward the door.

“I thank you. That’s all I wanted. I am sorry I was obliged to intrude.” I felt that I was certainly doing that little thing well. “I may be obliged to call again, if you will allow me.”

Mrs. Kingsley hesitated.

“Of course you may call,” blurted Celene.

“I may have to consult with you in a matter similar to this errand to-day,” I explained. “I’m sorry the judge is not here; in that case I would not be bothering you.”

“I tried to prevail on my husband to stay at home--he is not at all well--there are so many matters which need his attention here,” complained Mrs. Kingsley. “If we can help you with any information we’ll be glad to doit.”

I went away on that, and I guess I left a good impression that I was strictly business!

Feeling sure that the two of them were watching me, I put a lot of business snap into my gait when I returned to the tavern.

“Mr. Vose,” I asked, briskly, “how many hitches have you in your livery-stable?”

“Eight,” he said, “if I include two road-carts.”

“The road-carts are all right, too. I want to use all of ’em, if you can furnish drivers.”

“It’s easy enough to find men in these slack times.”

“And probably farmers and day’s-work men in the back districts of the town would like a job.”

“You can bet on it!”

“Start eight men going, then, as soon as you can get the horses hitched in. Have the messengers pass the word that I can use two hundred husky men. Each man to report here in the tavern yard to-morrow morning at six-thirty with a sharp ax on his shoulder.”

“And what else--tell ’em what else?”

“Nothing.”

“But about wages--and what they’re to do?”

“Tell ’em nothing. They’ll come running in here to find out what it’s all about, Mr. Vose. Don’t even tell ’em who wants ’em. You and I both know how curiosity itches in this town till it has been properly scratched.”

“Guess you’re right,” agreed the landlord. “If you set out to hire ’em regular style they’d want to hem and haw and haggle about so long and so much!”

“If you want a deposit for--” I suggested, reaching toward a breast pocket which was empty.

“Godfrey domino, no!” he protested, flapping his hands. “If you have had to handle business in those suspicious ways down in the city I’m sorry for you. Now forget money talk between us till it’s time to talk.”

I was glad to do that, and I hoped that his ideas of time were liberal.

I borrowed some blank paper and went up to my room and figured for many hours, stopping only to eat a good dinner--a boiled dinner in Vose’s best style. My plate was piled high twice with corned beef fringed with golden fat, succulent disks of yellow carrots, wine-red beets, snowy white spuds, and odorous turnips. No man could possibly be a pessimist with that dinner under his belt! I had every reason to be the most apprehensive man in Avon County, but I had set my face to the front and I had just naturally made up my mind that I was going to pay for that dinner and for the other things which I had been recklessly ordering. I proposed to put myself into a position where I would be compelled to use every bit of my capital of cheek. The sweat stood, out on my forehead, but it wasn’t the kind of moisture which could soften my grit.

In the afternoon, every time a steaming horse came homing back to Vose’s stable, I felt a funny quiver inside me.

“I reckon you have got a good line on human nature, young Sidney,” stated the landlord, when I went down to the foreroom before supper. “From what the men say this rushing around back district’s with teams has got the boys all heifered up. Even if they don’t come in to go to work, they’ll be here to see what in tunket the hoorah’s about.”

“I have heard my father say that this town was always ready to turn out to a bee,” I told him. When I said it another thought came to cheer me--I had noticed that when a lot of men were set at work together on one job the natural spirit of rivalry put pep into the bunch.

When Dodovah Vose went to his kitchen to give an eye to supper, I plucked a telegraph blank from his office desk. I nerved myself to try on my most audacious trick of all. I wrote this:

_To Ross Sidney, Levant.--Offer accepted. Go ahead with work. Will settle with you on my return._

_Z. Kingsley._

I set my jaws and told myself that the message wasn’t all falsehood; the last sentence was strictly true, even if Zebulon Kingsley did not pen it.

I folded the paper, stuck it in my pocket, and went again to the Kingsley house. It was brazen business--a dangerous hazard. But I was depending on woman’s inadequacy. I felt that I had the two of them sized pretty well. They had never presumed to meddle in the affairs of their master. They would not dare to question his will. I figured that sending him a wire asking corroboration of the message to me would seem to them like bold interference which would bring reproof from him.

I waited, respectfully standing, while they read the message, Celene looking over her mother’s shoulder.

“It’s more about the wood-lot matter,” I explained. “I think you heard your father make me a price on it. Miss Kingsley.”

“I remember distinctly, mother. Father said he would sell for two thousand dollars.”

“I know it must seem rather irregular,” I said, “but in my wire I explained that my people are in a great hurry--and I’m glad that he has been willing to meet me half-way. It means that I am to put on a crew at once and cut the wood--and, of course, it’s a safe proposition for the judge,” I went on, forcing the best smile I could. “Neither the land nor the wood can be carried away in a shawl-strap before he returns--I think he said in a week or ten days!”

They returned my smile, and for the first time Mrs. Kingsley seemed rather cordial.

“I’m glad you are taking it off his hands,” she declared. “It will be one less thing for him to worry about. He has been so troubled by his business. I’m sure that he’ll be glad to get rid of a lot more property in the same way.”

My soul whispered its doubts!

“I hope that the matter is all clear now and that you have a good understanding, Mrs. Kingsley. You will explain, will you, if anybody comes to you in regard to the matter or questions my authority?”

“I will, Mr. Sidney.”

She exchanged glances with her daughter and they seemed to understand each other quickly. While we had been talking I heard the subdued clatter of supper preparations in another room.

“I feel sure that if my husband were here,” said Mrs. Kingsley, “he would extend the hospitality of our house to a gentleman who was obliging him in a business matter. Won’t you stay and take supper with us, Mr. Sidney?”

Without replying, I gave my hat into the ready hands of Celene and sat down weakly.

I was tickled nigh foolish--I’ll admit that. But I was not wholly taken in by that hospitality play. Mrs. Zebulon Kingsley had known too much about me and my breed-to feel any great hankering to have me as a guest. But I was willing to bet a big plum that she was thinking a lot about my uncle’s hostility and about the judge’s fear of that rambunctious town official. And I was also sure that certain matters had been talked over between her and Celene since my arrival in town with such outward emblems of importance and prosperity. Furthermore, had I not fairly promised the daughter that I would do my best in the line of uncle-busting?

So I held on to my emotions as best I could and waited for the subject to come up. It did, of course. I had not been in the house ten minutes before Mrs. Kingsley burst out. She was full of that topic. She saw in my uncle’s attitude nothing but a wanton desire to make trouble for a good and great man.

I had been thinking over the matter of that hostility since my morning’s talk with Uncle Deck. I had been developing a sharp-ended suspicion that my uncle had something up his sleeve with which to arm that hostility. Judge Kingsley would never have pulled his wife into a row he was having with Decker Sidney unless desperation had moved him. I was bitterly ashamed and grieved when I listened to her description of that unutterable interview.

As for her, she had no suspicions as to her husband’s integrity--I could see that! The picture she made of the affair was of a mad dog chasing a saint!

“But what does the man think he can do to my husband? He can do nothing. He must realize it. What has he said to you, Mr. Sidney? I ask you, for I am sure you do not approve, his actions.”

I looked at Celene, and answered that I certainly did not approve, nor had I ever approved many things my uncle did.

“I will say further that I did what I could to-day to turn him from his grudge.”

“But what does he think he can do to my husband?” she insisted. “I suppose he told you.”

“No, he did not, madam. He said he did not trust me. He twitted me with having betrayed him once before to the judge--about the doctored horse,” I added, with a sickly grin.

“But, of course, you--his own nephew--you produced some effect on him?”

“Yes, I made him so mad he would have struck me if he had dared. That’s all the effect I seemed to produce.”

Tears came into her eyes. “How will it end?” she quavered.

I did not feel like bragging just then about any powers of mine in the matter; I had plenty on my mind and conscience as it was. I was distinctly aware of being glad I had had that boiled dinner, and plenty of it, and I say that much with all due respect for the blessed presence of Celene at the supper-board. For between my ever-swelling love for her, my self-consciousness at table, my shame on account of my uncle, and my general emotions, anyway, I could scarcely choke down a mouthful. And at the end I was wholly and fairly rattled--that expression seems to fit my state of mind better than anything I can think of right now.

She accompanied me to the door that evening when I departed--Mrs. Kingsley allowed her to go alone, evidently having elevated me to the plane of, at least, a buttonhole friend of the family after hearing of my quarrel with my uncle.

And being rattled, and seeing the grieved anxiety in her eyes, and knowing how much distress must be tearing at her poor heart, I gulped out that I would put my uncle where he belonged. I was saying to myself that I would see him in tophet before I’d allow his persecution to harm those innocent women, and I came nigh saying that to her in my excitement.

She put out to me both of her hands, and I took them. I tossed all prudence over the rail then.

“If there’s got to be a fight in the Sidney family, then there’ll be one! You tell your mother to sleep easy. I’ll take this thing in hand from now on and I won’t have your father abused by anybody.”

I was talking as big as old Lord Argyle, and I knew I was babbling like a fool--bu t what can’t a girl’s wet eyes do to a fellow’s common, sense?

“We trust you,” she said. “You have made me so happy!”

I bent down and kissed her dear hands, first one and then the other. When I straightened up and saw the flush on her cheeks and the shy pleasure in her eyes I went the limit without stopping to take thought. I put my arms around her and kissed her on the lips--and no honest man can look me squarely in the eye and tell me there’s any memory like the remembrance of the first kiss from one’s own true love! For the first true love is not merely maiden--she has elements of the goddess in her!

Therefore, having presumed so much with a goddess, I was immediately frightened and found myself ready to struggle with apology--and apology did not fit that occasion. So I ran away before I made more of a fool of myself.

“Good night!” I whispered from the gate. “I love you!”

She closed the big door very softly and I gathered good omen from that.

How bright the stars were when I looked at them through my tears! A half-century ago a Yankee poet wrote these verses when he was in love:

When twilight’s sable curtain falls,

Then stars stand thick at even To act as outside sentinels
Around the gates of heaven.

That night along the shimmering slant,

(I tell you true, my brother)

The password was “Almira Grant”

They whispered to each other.

I knew mighty well what was their password that March night when I walked away from Celene.

I was not fit for any tavern society just then. Impulse seized upon me and I went down into the orchard. True love does not forget his trails and his caches! I found the tree with the hollow trunk and slipped my hand into the hole; I pulled forth the little packet of three rings. I reckoned that when I got my courage and my voice I would have a story to tell her--some evidence of love longstanding to offer--and that I’d find those rings pretty valuable as exhibits A, B, and C.

There were quite a number of gossiping loafers in the tavern foreroom when I marched in at last and took my room key from its hook.

If there had been any doubt among them as to my importance in the world, that doubt must have vanished when they looked on me that night; for if I did not feel at that moment that the world was mine, nobody ever did!

XII--STARTING SOMETHING IN LEVANT

THE men were there in the morning--a mob of them.

They came riding and they footed it into the village. The tavern office was crowded and the yard was full.

The growing buzz of them woke me before sunup, and I wasted no time in dressing and getting down.

It was just as I had expected--the spirit of a lark was in them. They were not like men who had come dragging themselves to work. The men I knew--and I knew a lot of them on account of my early goings and comings about the countryside on my uncle’s affairs--were on my back in a moment, their mouths full of questions.

But I was not ready to talk turkey till I had settled on one point, and I told them to be easy for a few minutes.

I needed one man for a special purpose. I had left the selection of that man for morning, feeling instinctively that I would do better to pick from the crowd than to give away my plans overnight.

I saw him inside of ten seconds. It was as clear a case of the right man for the job as if I had specified and had received the goods.

The man was Henshaw Hook, the best-known man in that section, the town auctioneer. He had the gift of gab, the science of talking all men into good humor, and was as alert in all his doings as a cricket on a hot spider.

I took him by the arm and rushed him up to my room. Mr. Hook had brought no ax to the levee; he told me, by way of explanation, that he had come around out of curiosity. So had a lot of others, I knew well enough.

Dodovah Vose followed us, for I had summoned him by a jerk of my head.

“Now, Mr. Hook, here’s the story short and snappy,” I told him. “I represent a big syndicate which is buying all kinds of property. I have bought Judge Kingsley’s wood-lot for the sake of what is on it--and it must be cleaned off in a hurry. Of course, I can’t hang around town to attend to that part of the business. I need an able man who can attend to it.” I pulled out my papers and inspected my figures. “Mostly we are after hardwood--cord-wood! Do you suppose you can pull a hundred or so good workers out of that crowd downstairs?”

“Yep!” snapped Hook. “Mebbe more.”

He was just as brisk as I was.

The newspaper had given me quotations in its market column, and I had chopped cord-wood in my own young life. Furthermore, in my everlasting scurryings after squirrels and birds I had made many explorations on Judge Kingsley’s domains. I was fully prepared to talk business, therefore.

“Mr. Hook, green cord-wood is selling for five dollars a cord. It’s a poor man with an ax who can’t chop, trim, and pile his cord a day--four-foot length. If you can put two hundred men on that job and will abide by the rules of my syndicate, you can turn a profit of around fifty dollars a day for your own pocket--for I offer you five per cent, on five dollars a cord.”

Mr. Hook promptly showed much interest. “You said rules?”

“I said rules!”

“Spill,” invited Mr. Hook.

“Get out your pencil and make notes--and I’ll ask you to do the same, Mr. Vose, so that there’ll be no comeback!”

They obeyed promptly.

“I am to do all my business with you--you are to do all the business with the choppers. You are the responsible party in all the details. You are to keep the books, measuring each man’s daily cut and giving him due credit. He is to be paid two dollars and fifty cents a cord--a weekly bonus of twenty-five dollars to the man who comes across with the most cords! No payment to be made for two weeks and then one week’s pay will be held back so that the men will not quit on me.”

“Don’t know about their agreeing!”

“Then the syndicate doesn’t want them. There’s no chance for argument. We’ll see how many volunteer when you put the matter up to ’em. I’m going to leave the speechmaking to you!”

“I’m fairly handy with my tongue,” he said, with a grin. “So I know. And I must be sure that _you_ will not quit. That would disorganize the whole thing. All money to the men must go through your hands. Therefore, Mr. Hook, you must deposit with me, so as to cinch your responsibility, the sum of five hundred dollars in cash before axes start this morning.”

That idea did not please Mr. Henshaw Hook--not for a minute! He looked pretty blank.

“I haven’t any option in the matter,” I stated, coldly. “The syndicate makes its rules--but you can see that’s a common-sense one. I couldn’t be jumping around the country, leaving behind a lot of operations running by guess and by gosh, nobody financially responsible for the details.”

“Corporations have to have their rules, Hen,” said helpful Landlord Vose. “We all know how young Sidney, here, has come along in the world!”

“The Sortwells have advertised that all right,” agreed Mr. Hook.

“He isn’t working for dubs, Hen!”

“Probably not! But with the judge out of town I can’t dig up more than three hundred and fifty this morning, not even if I went and robbed my old woman’s work-basket!”

“Needn’t worry about that,” said Dodovah Vose. “I’ve got public spirit and I want to see business get a hump on in this town. I’ll lend you enough to make up the five hundred.”

Mr. Hook devoted thirty seconds to meditation. “Let’s see--what did I understand you to say your concern is?” he queried with assumed innocence.

“I did not say--we are not advertising; we are pussyfooting so that they won’t be boosting land values on us,” I said, serenely.

“But among friends--”

“News travels faster among friends than anywhere else. Mr. Hook, I’m not going to risk my job by shooting off my mouth. You don’t think I’ve come back to my home town to work a flimflam trick, do you?”

“I’ll grab in on this myself rather than see the plan dumped,” stated the landlord.

“I’ll go down and put the thing up to the boys,” offered Hook, hastily. Fifty dollars and over a day had properly baited this Hook.

Our auctioneer was a good talker! When--as he put it to them amidst laughter--he asked the sheep to separate from the goats, more than a hundred and fifty men stepped to one side and waved their axes as signal that they were ready to go to work.

Fifteen minutes later, closeted with Vose and Hook in my room, I was counting the deposit money--a fat bundle of bills; I had made ready for that part of the ceremony and I had an equally fat packet of blank paper in the drawer of my little table. I had not sat at the feet of my crook acquaintances without hearing much about the “substitution trick.” I worked it then and there on those guileless old countrymen.

I merely yanked out a table drawer with the casual remark about an envelope, turned my back for an instant, and then slipped into an envelope in full view of them a financial sandwich; I had made that sandwich by flicking two bills off the money-packet and framing the blank paper. I licked the mucilage, sparked down the flap, and handed the packet to Landlord Vose. I left the rest of the money in the drawer and slammed it shut.

“I suppose you have wax and a seal down-stairs, Mr. Vose. Please daub on a little and lock this up in your safe. Then Mr. Hook and you and I will feel all right about our affairs.”

I led the gang to the wood-lot, and that plug-hat of mine must have flashed in the March sunlight about as brightly as the helmet of Henry of Navarre--providing I remember my _Fourth Reader_ selection. That wad of bills which I had frisked out of the table drawer was bulked against my ribs in most comforting manner.

I never saw men pitch into a job more cheerfully than those chaps did after I led them over the fence and gave the word. It was a real frolic. Men bantered one another and made side bets on ability and everybody was laughing. Axes sounded in a chick-chock chorus, and trees began to crash down.

I spent the most of the day on the job, for I saw opportunities for extra profits; there was quite a stand of hackmatack, for instance, and there was a lot of cedar which fringed a small swamp. I made special bargains with men to fell this stuff for railroad ties. There was also considerable pine suitable for, box stuff; before the day was over a portable-sawmill man, hearing of the onslaught on the Kingsley lot, came hurrying to the village, made a trade for the pine, and paid down a sizable deposit; advertising was certainly paying!

One of the most interested onlookers was my uncle Deck, who drove dose to the wood-lot fence and scowled and sliced the air with his whip. He made several trips during the day and was handy by when I started to walk back to the village in the late afternoon. He offered a seat in his wagon and I accepted, for I was all done being scared of him and I was footsore.

“Recorded your deed yet?” he asked.

“No, not yet,” I said, airily.

“Probably not, seeing that you haven’t got any.”

I let it go at that, having no sensible explanation to give a business man like my uncle.

“So, as it stands,” he went on, “it’s a case of neck-and-neck whether _he’ll_ jew you or _you’ll_ jew _him_. As bad as I hate _him_ I’m getting to hate _you_ worse! I hope he’ll stick you. But I doubt it. A young pirate who can step in here and steal a whole wood-lot right under the noses of men who ought to know better is qualified to give old Judas I-scarrot lessons in deviltry.”

“I don’t blame you for feeling pleased and for praising me, Uncle Deck. I certainly am doing credit to your training.”

“But as first selectman of this town I’ve got a reputation to look after, and where will I get off with one of my blood and name serving time in State prison for grand larceny?”

“Oh, I’m not going to State prison.”

“You will, with that old devil after you, surer’n hell’s down-hill!”

“We’re sort of partners, the judge and I.” I decided that I might as well give him a jolt or two, even if his common sense did tell him that I was lying.

“Oh, bah-h-h!” he yelped.

“And as his partner I want to warn you against trying to trig his business affairs.”

He almost yanked the jaw off his horse, pulling the animal to a standstill.

“Condemn your young tripe! You are about as much a partner of his as a pullet is partner of a polecat! Don’t you talk up to me! If you are trying to cheat him I’ll help you do it. But if you are trying to help him, down goes your house!”

“I propose to help him--help his family,” I said.

To my surprise he held himself in. “Help him how?” he asked.

“Why, by making you quit hounding him, for one thing. It’s time this foolish old row was stopped. I am taking a special interest in Judge Kingsley’s family in these days.”

“Down to brass tacks, now! You mean just what you say, do you?”

“I most certainly do, Uncle Deck!”

“Don’t you dare to call me uncle, you wall-eyed pup! You have gone to leaning up against that girl like a tomcat cuddling a warm brick, have you? You’re letting her fool you along--”

“Shut that dirty mouth of yours!” I shouted.

“Get out of this wagon--out with you!”

I obeyed promptly, for I had had plenty of his society.

He waggled his whip-lash close to my nose when I stood in the road. “When you get into State prison, where you belong,” he snarled, “you’ll have a chum there. For that’s where I’m going to send old Kingsley, so help me the living God!”

And he curled the lash with all his might under the belly of his horse, taking it out on the poor brute, and tore away, with the animal on the dead run.

I trudged along in the dust he left flying. A fine chance I stood of handling my uncle Deck!

A precious lot of fool babbling that talk had been at the front door of the Kingsley house the night before!

Nevertheless, I went to the house again that evening, for I had a business excuse. I told mother and daughter that certain urgent matters called me out of town and that I would be leaving early in the morning. I had a word or two to say about my arrangements for clearing the lot so that their minds might be at ease if any gossip came to them; in country communities there are busybodies who are always guessing at mischief and are trying to make trouble.

I remained with them only a short time, for I was afraid they would try to get consolation out of me regarding my uncle and I was not in the mood to do any more lying. I was in a generally uncomfortable state of mind, anyway, and I knew that Celene was troubled by my manner. There seemed to be sense of impending evil hovering over the three of us. Frankly, my uncle’s threat regarding the judge had thrown a good-sized scare into me; Uncle Deck had truly acted as if he knew what he was talking about. My own conscience was creaking considerably inside me. When I rose to go Celene did not see me to the door. She gazed at me tenderly when I stated that I would be back in a few days, but some sort of reserve kept her at her mother’s side.

The stars were certainly not so bright that night when I walked back to the tavern. In my gloom a memory popped into my mind, queerly enough. I remembered that Dodovah Vose had loaned me ten dollars the night he helped me to escape.

I plucked a bill out of my breast pocket and handed it to him when I walked into the tavern.

“I hope you’ll excuse the delay,” I pleaded.

“I sure will,” he replied, heartily. “You’re an honest chap, young Sidney!”

But I was far from feeling honest that night.

XIII--THE MAN WHO TALKED IN THE DARK

NEXT morning Dodovah Vose drove me to the railroad station at the Lower Comers. He looked at the trip as a sort of a triumphal parade, and said so to me.

“Some different from that night ride we took, young Sidney,” he chuckled. “I’m playing hackman this time so as to take the taste of that other ride out of my mouth!”

Yet, as I rode that morning by his side, I was wondering whether I would have courage to come back to Levant. Panic was in me--it truly was!

“Mighty scared little bug was you that night! But I always knew you had sprawl and gumption in you. Now you’re showing the old town a thing or two and I’m proud of you.”

His praise made me cringe more than ever.

When we passed the wood-lot a merry rick-tack of axes sounded in our ears.

“Yes, sir! You have shown them all that you can come back here and start something,” stated Landlord Vose. He did not realize how infernally right he was. What I had started was setting the willy-wallies to dancing in my soul.

“Things have come along with such a rush that I haven’t thought to ask you how you happened to hit it off so smooth with the judge,” he proceeded, and my alarm increased.

“I met him on the road, and we turned a quick trade on the spot. He was starting for the city and we had to trade sudden or not at all.”

“That hasn’t been the judge’s usual way in business,” he commented, sagely. “I have had some dealings with him myself, and so I know his style pretty well.” He gave me a sly, sideways glance. “Yes, I know him so well that I’ve noticed how he’s losing his grip on business.”

“And do you think he has been losing money, too?” I plumped at him.

“Well,” drawled Vose, “I don’t know how much money he’s got nor what sort of investments he’s carrying or how much money he has been handling for other folks, for he has always been cussed secret in his operations. And the folks who have turned money over to him have been secret, too, for I reckon he has helped them hide their money away from the tax-assessors. But I’ll tell you, young Sidney, his money, however much he’s got, must be pretty well tied up these days.”

I questioned him with a side-glance which met his own. “Because when old Rollins died a few months ago the heirs lit on the judge for the money he had in his hands--for the heirs are spenders and wanted the money to toss away. The judge’s home place is in his wife’s name and she mortgaged it to raise the money--and when a man mortgages the roof over his family’s head he does need money, there’s no doubt about that.”

“But there are times when a man doesn’t like to sacrifice securities,” I said. Somehow I felt as if I had been specially delegated to stand up for the Kingsley family. “Maybe so! Maybe so!” agreed Vose. “Finance is a strange critter--and the judge is a regular financier. But, I swan, if I like the looks of the strangers he has been doing business with for a long time back. I ain’t any kind of a hand to pry into the dealings of men who put up at my tavern. Those fellows always paid their bills and showed plenty of money, but it don’t seem to me as if straight business needs to be so blamed secret.”

“However, the big fellows in money affairs keep their cards pretty dose to their vests,” I suggested.

“Maybe so! But he’s selling property off slapdash--”

“Mrs. Kingsley says he wants to get rid of some of his cares.” Perhaps she had not said just that--but I had taken the rôle of the family champion.

“Maybe so--and if that’s the case, it’s too bad your uncle Deck is rampaging so. Generally, we all trust the judge and look up to him, and we don’t want to see him bothered at this time in his life. But here’s your uncle trying to stir, up enough sentiment to call a special town meeting.”

“What for?” I was more alarmed than ever.

“His excuse is that the town is now so prosperous that we can afford to pay off the whole town debt by a little extra splurge in taxation. Says that with the debt all paid off new industries can be induced to locate here.”

“But does that mean anything against Judge Kingsley? It looks to me like enterprise on Uncle Deck’s part.” Again Mr. Vose chanted his everlasting and singsong, “Maybe so!” Then he added: “But I reckon your uncle Deck has more visible property spread around this town than any other taxpayer in it. Maybe he has had a change of heart about money. Maybe he intends to loosen up in his old age. Maybe he wants to hand something back to a town he has gouged all his life. But from what I know of your uncle Deck, I don’t think he has grown so cussed patriotic all of a sudden. Young Sidney, I reckon there’s a hotter and livelier reason. Your uncle has been nursing a grudge till it’s well-grown and all haired out. That grudge is prancing, and he’s willing to pay high for a chance to show its paces in public. And there’s more in the plan of that special town meeting than shows on the surface at present writing!”

Therefore, when I climbed on board the train I had plenty to think about outside the immediate business I had in hand, though that was enough for one poor mind, Lord knows!

Take everything, by and large, I was in the prime mess of my young life up to date.

The principal reason why I stayed in it, I suppose, was because I didn’t know any better! That reason has accounted for a lot of my experiences.

Some of the best fights on the records have been won by men who were worst scared.

I alighted in Mechanicsville in a state of mind I’ll not attempt to describe. But I looked at myself in a store window and made up a business face to go with my appearance. I hired the best hack in sight, I started on a round of factories, wood merchants, brick-yards, and lumber-dealers. I rode up to the doors of offices in style; I walked in on ’em in style.

It was certainly a new wrinkle in wood-peddling--this plug-hat performance! It opened all doors to me. I don’t know what they thought I was, before I opened my mouth, but I was not kept twiddling my thumbs in anterooms; the main squeeze in every office shunted all else in order to greet me. I wonder what would have been my lot if I had come as a stammering farmer, a crude countryman, or a chopper in wool boots!

I sold wood! By gracious, I did!

I found out something all of a sudden. I discovered that I had the art of salesmanship. It’s an art, a qualification hard to describe. Every man who has ever bought anything knows what it is and how it has operated in his case.

I sold wood and lumber and sleepers--and the more I sold, the higher rose my confidence in my personality, and I had hard work to control and conceal my hysterics of success.

I worked off onto brick-yards even the crooked limbs, the second-grade stuff which I had seen piling up on my operation.

With every buyer I made written contracts, designating prompt delivery on certain dates, first deliveries to be made within a week and calling for cash payments of two-thirds of value of wood delivered, the whole amount to be paid when final delivery was made.

I went on down the line to another city and then to a third. I sold wood! I sold for three days. Then I woke up and stopped selling. It occurred to me that I might be overguessing on the resources of the Kingsley wood-lot.

I had not a mite of trouble in arranging with the division superintendent of the railroad line for a supply of gondola cars; I was offering something worth his attention.

I left that gentleman in mighty abrupt fashion; he must have thought that I was a very precipitate business man. But while I was winding up my arrangements with him, I looked out of his office window in the railroad station into the windows of a train which was pulling slowly out, on its way up-country. I caught a glimpse of a stem profile with a roll of chin-beard under it. If that face did not belong to Zebulon Kingsley--But I did not stop to do any more thinking on the matter. I galloped out of that office. I had to chase that train a hundred yards down the platform--but I made the last car!

Zebulon Kingsley home ahead of schedule!

I stood on the car steps, getting my breath, giving dizzy thought to the peril I had so narrowly missed. Zebulon Kingsley back in Levant ahead of me, viewing his desolated wood-lot and voicing his fury! Where would my character and importance land after that blow-up?

Did I say that my dizzy thoughts dealt with a peril I had missed? In about ten seconds I decided that I was traveling right along with the peril. I was doomed to drop into Levant in its company.

I might have been mistaken, I reflected. I hoped I had been deceived by a too-hasty glance. I walked down through the train. I was pretty sure of my man when I passed him, though I got a view of the back of his head only. Therefore I went to the front of the car, making an excuse of the water-cooler. I looked back at him while I drank. He seemed to be asleep, for his head was bent down into the folds of the cape he had pulled about his ears. I was so sure he was asleep that when I went back up the car I gave him a bold look to convince myself I had not been mistaken.

I got one of the starts of my life!

Zebulon Kingsley was distinctly not asleep. His eyes were like fire-balls, and he stared straight at me without one flicker of the lids or crinkle of the countenance to show that he recognized me. His face was gray and haggard. He was like a stone man. If he had given one hint by his expression that he knew me I would have pushed myself in beside him, I reckon, and would have come across with my little story. But that frozen face was too much for me. I was doing a lot of guessing about his state of mind, and my guesses warned me to stay away from him just then.

I hurried past and sat down in the first vacant seat.

The feeling I had was that he had found out by letter from home or somehow what kind of a trick I had cut up. Those glaring eyes hinted at unutterable things. He must be in such a fury, I thought, that words had failed him. He was waiting until he stepped foot in Levant to go at me in proper style. Naturally, he would not start anything on a railroad train. I sat there while those, thoughts flamed up in me like fire in a brush-heap, and for a long time I found no handy extinguisher for those thoughts.

However, there was a rather comforting packet in the breast pocket of my frock-coat; I got out those contracts and went over them carefully.

I did have some visible emblems of success to stick up in front of his sour face when it came to a showdown. But if Zebulon Kingsley was not willing to start anything in public on a train, neither was I. I studied my contracts, added figures, and tried to keep my mind off the big trouble ahead. But who has ever sat near a bomb with a sputtering fuse and felt in a mood for philosophy? I couldn’t even add figures!

The train bumped on and on. It was a long ride.

When we arrived at Levant Corners, I followed Kingsley so closely that we almost walked in a lock-step. I had a sort of crazy notion that if he started to bawl me out on the platform and expose me to the populace I’d choke him and drag him off somewhere for an explanation, for I truly did have a face to save in Levant.

I trod behind him on the station platform. Far up the platform was waiting a man who wore a constable’s badge. I itched all over as we approached that man; I fully expected that the judge would whirl and point me out and call for my arrest. But the constable touched his hat respectfully and the judge marched on. I almost bumped into him when he stopped at hail of a citizen. I was forced to go on, then. The citizen had buttonholed the judge on some matter of business, but by the few words I heard I knew it was no affair of mine. I ran my eye over the array of hitches waiting in the station yard, expecting to see Celene Kingsley. But she was not there. Her absence hinted to me that her father was not expected. Then he would ride on the stage! I resolved to walk on and to hail it when it overtook me. I proposed to be on the scene when Judge Kingsley got first peep at what had been his wood-lot. I kept looking behind and noted that he walked past the stage-coach and had started to foot it on my trail. Therefore he was not expected at home, and for reasons of his own had decided to walk.

When I saw that the stage had come on without him and had observed that he shook protesting hand at persons who stopped and offered a lift, I walked on more briskly. He wanted to be left alone, then! His expression had already hinted to me that he had no use for companionship at that time.

At last I could hear my ax-men. Their blades were biting wood in lively chorus, though the dusk was gathering. I realized that the spirit of rivalry was in them and that they were not watching the clock on that job. When I came in sight of the wood-lot I saw that a big expanse had been cleared, down to the bushes; the bared land was thickly dotted with wood which was tiered in cord lots. I hardly recognized the place.

The notion struck me that this was the proper strategic point to await the battle. In the first place, I would not be obliged to waste any breath in telling Zebulon Kingsley that his wood-lot was being cleared; his eyes would inform him on that point. I could devote all my language and energy to the job of enlightening him regarding my activities in the matter, my hopes and his prospects of getting some money. Secondly, considering strategy, my appearance before my men, accompanied by Judge Kingsley, after I got him under control, would put the stamp of authority on the whole affair; I believed I could control him. He certainly would have to take the situation as he found it; he couldn’t stick those trees back into the ground again.

Therefore I settled my plug-hat well on my head, pulled out my bunch of contracts, and waited for him to come around the bend in the road.

I reflected that he had looked to me like a man who had a great deal of trouble on his mind. In my young days, when old dog Bonny was dreadfully afflicted with fleas I tied a tin can to his tail to take his mind off his troubles. I believe fully that changing the current of his thoughts for a time proved really restful to him.

It was certain that Judge Kingsley would have the current of his thoughts changed in a very few minutes. He would have something entirely fresh to think about, and I hoped it would do him good, even though I received no thanks.

He seemed pretty much cast down when he shambled into sight, his shoulders bowed, staring at the road ahead of him. But all at once he straightened, threw back his head, and seemed to sniff the air.

“Charge!” I said to myself. And he set his elbows akimbo under his cape and came at a trot.

He tried to rush past me on his way to the fence, but I stepped in front of him and threw up my hands.

“Just a moment, Judge Kingsley! This is my business--”

“Your business be damned!” he stuttered.

Strong talk for a Sunday-school teacher, but it made him seem more human and my courage rose a bit. I had not known how to tackle that frozen figure he looked to be in the railroad train.

“But I’ll explain!”

“I’m going to find out what this set of infernal thieves--”

He wouldn’t wait any longer, though I was trying to head him off with my arms outstretched. He drove past me and wrenched a post out of the fence and started to climb into the wood-lot. There was only one thing to do--I must get the upper hand of the infuriated old man before we attracted the attention of my busy workers; the dusk was helping me in that respect.

I pulled the stake from him, held him by his arms, and set my face close to his; he was a scrawny old chap and he hadn’t any muscle left.

“Judge Kingsley, forgive me--but you must listen. It’s best for all concerned. I have bought this lot from you and I am operating on it.”

I thought he would choke to death before he got the words wrenched out of him.

“You haven’t bought it. You couldn’t buy it! There is no money passed. There’s no deed. You’re a thief!”

I had dropped the bunch of contracts when I grabbed him. I released my clutch on one arm and picked up the packet.

“Here’s something to show I am not a thief, sir. You’ve got to look at ’em. And the middle of the road is no place for our business.”

Furthermore, I noticed all at once that the choppers were giving up work and starting for the highway.