ELEVATORVILLE.
Vance woke up next morning with a severe headache.
He was in bed in his room at the hotel.
His thinking powers were somewhat mixed, and he wondered what had occurred to him.
“I don’t recollect coming to bed,” he muttered in a perplexed tone. “Where was I last night?”
He did not even remember that he had been to the theater.
After lying motionless in bed a good fifteen minutes staring at the ceiling he gave the problem up for a bad job.
“What time is it, anyway?”
“Gee! Nearly ten o’clock! I’ll have to hustle if I am going to get any breakfast in this house to-day. Something is wrong with me, that’s sure. I never felt this way before.”
He began to dress, and then gave his face and head a good sousing, which made him feel better.
“I look as if I had been out with the boys all night,” he said, observing his bloodshot eyes and pallid expression. “I’d give something to know what has knocked me out.”
He did not feel hungry, but he believed a cup of coffee would do him good.
On his way from the elevator to the dining-room he stopped at the office and asked the clerk if he had any idea when he came in last evening.
“You’ll have to see the night man about that,” replied the spruce young man with a quizzical smile. “Been having a good time, I suppose. Better get a bromo-seltzer before you eat. Step into the drug store, right through the corridor, and he’ll fix you up all right.”
Vance thought the clerk’s advice was good and he followed it, after which he went into breakfast.
It was not long before the events of the preceding evening began to fashion themselves in his brain, and the situation dawned upon him.
“But I didn’t drink anything at that place,” he persisted to himself, “that is, nothing but a cup of coffee. Perhaps strong coffee at midnight doesn’t agree with me, as I’m not used to it. All the same, it’s funny I don’t remember a thing about how the affair wound up, or how I got back and into my bed upstairs.”
The reflection annoyed him a good bit.
“That Miss Miller is a fine looking girl, all right,” he mused, trying to devote his attention to the morning’s report about the corn market; “I don’t think I ever met such an attractive person. Still, I think I prefer Bessie. And the chap that was with her—I forget his name—he seems to be a pretty swell party. Seems to me I’ve seen him before. If I have, of course it was in Chicago. I wonder if Dudley will be around looking for me this morning? I don’t fancy him much, although he certainly treated me away up in G. I’m sorry on the whole I met him, for if he returns to town before me he’ll probably mention that he met me out here, and that’s just what Mr. Whitemore doesn’t want. If it should get about that I was on a night racket with him it’s bound to hurt me. I guess I’d better cut Dudley out by taking an early train for Grainville.”
As this seemed to be good policy, Vance hastened to settle with the hotel people, and having found that he could get a train for his destination at 1:30 p. m., he snatched a hasty lunch, hired a cab, and reached the station in plenty of time to board the through accommodation.
Arrived at Grainville, he went to the best hotel in town and registered, depositing his documents, as usual, in the office safe.
Next morning he visited the two elevator concerns he had to do business with, settled the differences without trouble, and took a call on the grain, sending his vouchers off to Chicago in the usual way.
From there he went to other important grain centers in Kansas, where the balance of his options were to be settled, closing up that part of the business finally in Jayville, Missouri.
“There, that winds up the option business,” he remarked with an air of relief as he registered the last of his vouchers for Chicago.
Consulting his letter of instructions, he found that he had to proceed to a town called Elevatorville, on the Mississippi, facing the State of Kentucky.
The branch railroad that connected the place with the nearest trunk line was a rocky affair, and had fallen into the hands of a receiver owing to a default in the interest on its first mortgage bonds.
Evidently transportation business had fallen off badly in that section.
Vance made cautious inquiries at the junction as to whether much grain had passed over the branch road lately, but nobody seemed to know anything about the matter.
The regular station agent was sick in bed, and the substitute assured Vance that there was nothing doing in that line.
The boy took the late afternoon train for Elevatorville, arriving at the town long after dark.
A solitary, worn-out hotel ’bus was backed up against the station platform.
Vance, grip in hand, was stepping over to take it, when it suddenly struck him that perhaps he had better not go to the hotel.
If he could obtain accommodation at some house in the suburbs his presence in the place would probably attract less attention.
There might be nothing in it after all, but he proposed to omit no precaution having a bearing on his secret mission.
So he asked a husky looking boy he noticed standing around if he knew of any place in the vicinity where he could find board and lodging for a few days.
“I’ll show you a place, mister.”
The country boy took him around to an unpretentious cottage, where he secured what he wanted at very reasonable terms.
Feeling that some excuse was in order, he explained to the elderly spinster who owned the house that he thought Elevatorville might improve his health.
“You don’t look a bit sick,” she ventured, looking him over with critical consideration.
“That’s right, madam; but you can’t always tell by appearances,” replied Vance with a politeness that quite charmed her.
“True,” she answered. “I remember my niece Mary Ann looked the very picture of health when she came here to visit me, and before she was here a week she took down sick with liver complaint and nearly died.”
“Just so, madam,” said Vance, with an amused smile.
“I hope you won’t be sick, young man,” she continued anxiously; “but if you should be, I can recommend my nephew, who is the best doctor in town.”
“I’ll bear your relative in mind if I should need his services,” replied the boy, stifling a grin.
“I s’pose you feel kind of hungry, don’t you? Come by the train, didn’t you?”
Vance admitted that he could eat a trifle if she would be so good as to prepare something.
“The fire is out, but I can light it up again. I can’t promise you any delicacies, but we don’t stint ourselves. I’m right glad to get a boarder these hard times, and will make you feel at home. It’s a wonder you didn’t go right to the hotel, though if you can’t afford it you’ve done right to come here.”
If the lady was surprised at Vance’s healthy appetite, she discreetly made no reference to it, beyond remarking that she was glad to see he enjoyed the meal.
Vance was up early next morning, and after a satisfactory breakfast sallied out on a tour of observation.
The place wore a dormant air, a surprising fact for a western river town.
Vance judged that it had been struck by a temporary setback of some sort, which happened to be the fact.
The boy saw the outlines of five big elevator buildings in the distance down by the river, and he strolled over in that direction.
He avoided the main business streets, going toward the great Mississippi by a roundabout way that brought him to the river bank a mile above the objects that he aimed at.
He smiled to himself at the idea of taking so much trouble, which in the end might prove to have been time spent to no purpose; but when he drew near to the doorway leading to the office of the first elevator he suddenly came to a different conclusion.
For there, sunning himself on an inverted cask outside of the entrance, he spied a familiar figure.
A quick glance at the person’s face enabled Vance to identify him.
It was the dapper young Chicagoian, Guy Dudley, as large as life.