"In spite of my warnings you continue to follow me!" said Isabel when they were established in the supper room.
"Are we to have another row? I don't believe I can go through with it."
"No; for rows haven't got us anywhere. And Ruth whispered to me a moment ago to be very nice to you. While the gentleman on the other side of me is occupied we might clear up matters a little."
"It's not in my theory of life to explain things; I tried explaining myself at Portsmouth and again at Bennington but you were singularly unsympathetic. Please be generous and tell me why you were skipping over New England, darting through trains and searching hotel registers and manifesting uneasiness when policemen appeared. You recommended a life of lawlessness to me but I didn't know you meant to go in for that sort of thing yourself."
"It occurred to me after the Bennington interview that I might have been unjust, but I was in a humor to suspect every one. When you said you'd shot Putney Congdon you frightened me to death. Of course you did nothing of the kind!"
"This is wonderful chicken salad," he said, hastily. "I beg you to do it full justice. The people about us mustn't get the idea that we're discussing homicide. Now, to answer your question, I had shot Mr. Putney Congdon and in edging away from the scene of my bloodshed I was guilty of other indiscretions that made me chatter like a maniac when I saw you. It was such a joke that you should turn up when I was doing just what you prescribed for me as a cure for my ills. I am quite calm now, and my health is so good that when the waiter brings those little pocket rolls this way I shall take a second and perhaps a third."
"My own nerves had gone to pieces or I shouldn't have flared as I did at Portsmouth and I was even more irresponsible when I saw you in that parlor car at Bennington."
"You saw me kiss a girl on the train. Miss Perry, I will not deceive you about that. She was all but a stranger, and I had assisted her to elope. Her husband was hiding in the baggage car."
"He would have thrown himself under the wheels if he had witnessed that ardent kissing! I confess that I hadn't done justice to your fascinations. And you were not her guardian, or anything like that?"
"Certainly not. She's a dairy maid I married to a diamond thief by mistake. My ignorance of women is complete. Sally Walker's duplicity wasn't necessary to convince me of that but your own conduct completely crushed my vanity."
"The crushing has improved you, I think. Please don't think that because I am showing you so much tolerance I am wholly satisfied that you weren't trying to thwart my own criminal adventures. When we met at Portsmouth I was trying to meet poor Mrs. Congdon somewhere to help kidnap her little girl!"
"Edith—a lovely child," Archie remarked, and picked up the napkin that slipped from her knees. He enjoyed her surprise. "Please don't scorn the ice cream; you will find it very refreshing. As you were saying—"
"If I hadn't been warned by Ruth that you were to be trusted in this business I should begin screaming. How did you know the child's name? What do you know about the Congdons?"
"Volumes! Let my imagination play on your confession. You were trying to find Mrs. Congdon and whisk the child away to your camp, when I ran into you. You had missed connections with the mother and thought I was trying to embarrass or frustrate you? I had troubles of my own and you couldn't have done me a greater wrong!"
"Mrs. Congdon was in a panic, skipping about with the children to avoid her husband; but it was really her father-in-law who was pursuing her. He's a miserly, disagreeable wretch! I came here to meet Ruth, who is an old friend of hers, hoping she might be able to deliver the little girl to me undetected. I met both Mr. and Mrs. Congdon once, several years ago, at a dinner in Chicago, but I can hardly say that I know them. Ruth's to be the chief councilor of my camp—so interested in my scheme that she insisted on going up there to help me. And Mrs. Congdon thought that would be a fine place to hide her Edith while the family rumpus was on. I was to run with Edith as hard as I could for Heart o' Dreams, my girls' camp, you know, up in Michigan."
"How stupid I am! With a word you might have made unnecessary our two altercations!"
"The matter, as you can see, is very delicate, even hazardous. I had never been a kidnaper and when you saw me on those two occasions I was terribly alarmed, not finding Mrs. Congdon where she expected to be. And I must say that you added nothing to my peace of mind."
"Please note that I am drinking coffee at midnight! I shouldn't have dared do that before your cheering advice in Washington. We have but a moment more, and I shall give you in tabloid form my adventures to date."
It was the Isabel of the Washington dinner party who listened. She was deeply interested and amused, and at times he had the satisfaction of reading in her face what he hopefully interpreted as solicitude for his safety. He confined himself to essentials so rigidly that she protested constantly that he was not doing his story justice. Of the Governor he spoke guardedly, finding that Isabel knew nothing about him beyond a shadowy impression she had derived from Ruth that he was a wanderer who had charmed her fancy.
"If he hasn't told you of the beginning of their acquaintance, I must have a care," said Isabel. "He and Ruth met oddly enough in a settlement house—I needn't say where it was—where Ruth was a volunteer worker. Your friend turned up there as a tramp and she didn't know at once that he was masquerading. Afterward he threw himself in her path, most ingeniously, in his proper rôle of a gentleman, in a summer place where she was visiting, and that added to the charm of the mystery. I can see that he's very unusual. You've told me more than she knows about him, but even that leaves a good deal to be desired. In all the world there's no girl like Ruth; there must be no question of her happiness!"
"You needn't be afraid. In spite of his singular ways I'd trust him round the world. We can't stay here longer, I suppose; there's a young blade at the door looking for you now. Is there any way I can serve you?"
"Ruth has explained all that to Mr. Saulsbury by now. She felt sure that he would help; and, believe me, I have confidence in you."
"The first thing is to find Edith Congdon and you may trust us for that. I will seize this moment to say," he added quietly, "that you are even lovelier than I remembered you!"
"You are very bold, sir! You wouldn't have said that a very little while ago."
"You complained once that I wasn't bold enough! Now that I come to you red handed and for all you know with stolen silver in my pocket, you can't complain of my forwardness. I am a rascal of high degree, as you would have me be. And I now declare myself your most relentless suitor! I trust my frankness pleases you?"
"Your adventures in rascality have added to your plausibility. I almost believe you—but not quite. You seem to be extremely vulnerable to feminine blandishments. There's Sally, the milkmaid. Remember that I saw you kiss her with rather more than brotherly warmth. Still, I suppose you'd earned some reward for your daring."
"A bluff old man-at-arms ought to be forgiven for pausing in his wild career to kiss a pretty lass at the wayside!" he growled.
His mock-heroic attitude toward his exploits kept her laughing, until she said, quite soberly:
"Please don't think I'm so awfully frivolous, for I really am not. And to be sitting in a place like this among all these highly proper people talking of the dreadful things you've done is simply ridiculous. When I undertook to hide Edith Congdon from her father I couldn't see that there would be anything wrong in it! And yet I would have been a kidnaper, I suppose."
"And you've cheerfully turned the job over to me," he said, finding it now his turn to be amused. "When you gave me your warrant to destroy all the kingdoms of the world you forgot that there might be unpleasant consequences. But I assure you that after a few days you don't care much!"
"It's so deliciously dreadful! And only the other day you were in mortal terror of sudden death."
"I've forgotten I ever had a nerve. To be sure our little misunderstandings nearly broke my heart, but now that you've smiled again I'm ready for anything. I might say further that in the end I shall expect my reward. If there are other men who love you they will do well to keep out of my path. We shall meet somewhere or other soon, I hope!"
"From what you say of your friend's faith in the stars there's no use planning. I shall remain here a day or two in the hope of hearing from Mrs. Congdon. She loves her husband and from what Ruth says he's really devoted to her, but the father-in-law is a malicious mischief maker."
"If I shot the wrong man I shall always deplore the error. I hope you take into consideration the fact that he might have shot me! He thought he had a man at the end of his gun when he popped away at the mirror."
"I'm ashamed that I find it all so funny. Shooting any one can't really be a pleasant performance for a gentleman of your up-bringing; and yet you speak of it now as though it were only a trifling incident of the day's work. The Marquis of Montrose would certainly be vastly tickled if he knew what his little rhyme has done for you."
"The Marquis isn't in the sketch at all; it's far more important that you should approve of me in every particular. You spoke of buried treasure at that never-to-be-forgotten dinner at my sister's. I've kept that in mind as rather a pretty prospect."
"That cousin of mine is a great nuisance. He's not only bent upon finding my grandfather's buried money, but he thinks he is in love with me."
"I have a rival then?" asked Archie, with a sinking of the heart.
"You may call him that," she laughed. "A girl always likes to think there are others."
"Your camp—you haven't yet told me how to find it?" he said eagerly.
"It's a girls' camp, you know, and the male species is rigidly excluded. But Ruth will give Mr. Saulsbury full particulars."
"Crusoe found a footprint in the sand! By the way, did my sister May ever find a summer cottage?"
"She found a house at Cape May, which is much more accessible from Washington than Bailey Harbor. Do you imagine you can ever tell her all you've just told me?"
"There are certain confidences permissible between sisters-in-law, so it's really up to you!" he replied glibly. "Don't trouble to answer; the Governor's waiting for me."
They walked back to the hotel in the best of humor. As they crossed the lobby the Governor suddenly slapped his pockets and walked to the cigar stand. A tall man in a gray traveling cap was talking earnestly to the clerk, meanwhile spinning a twenty-dollar gold piece on the show case. The Governor purchased some cigarettes and while waiting for change nodded to the stranger, who absently responded and began tapping the coin with the handle of a penknife.
"Not many of those things in circulation nowadays," the Governor remarked, thrusting the cigarettes into his pocket. The stranger carelessly inspected the two gentlemen in evening dress and handed the coin to the Governor.
"What d'ye think of that?" he asked.
The Governor turned the gold disk to the light and then flung it sharply on the wooden end of the counter, where it rang musically. He handed it back with a smile.
"The real thing, all right! Wish I had a couple of million just like it."
"It's a good thing you haven't!" the man remarked with a grin.
He resumed his talk with the clerk, speaking in a low tone, while the Governor loitered at the magazine counter. Archie went to the desk for their keys and received a bundle of mail for Mr. Saulsbury, who walked slowly toward him apparently absorbed in the periodical he had purchased.
"It doesn't seem possible we can lose!" he said when they reached their rooms. "There will be cross-currents yet; but a strong tide has set in, bearing us on."
He threw the magazine with well-directed aim into a desk in the corner, and meditatively smoothed his hat on his sleeve.
"That chap was Dobbs, a Government specialist in counterfeiters, and that twenty-dollar piece had almost the true ring, but not quite. The man who turned it out showed me the difference only yesterday. Perky? Certainly! He said Eliphalet Congdon had taken a bagful to pass on the unwary. The old boy had changed a lot of them in New England and the Government is not ignoring the matter. Eliphalet Congdon presents just such a case as we find occasionally where some perfectly sound conservative country banker feels the call of the wild and does a loop of death in high finance."
"You don't think old man Congdon has been here lately?" asked Archie.
"Only a day or two ago! I picked that up while I was buying my magazine. Congdon bought some stogies at the cigar stand and changed that twenty. We're all loaded for Eliphalet, Archie. After you told me your kidnaping story, I telegraphed to Perky for all the possible places where the old man might be. Perky has ranged the country with him and from his data we can keep tab on the old boy. Dobbs knows nothing of the kidnaping; it's the gold piece that interests him. I overheard enough to know we're on the right track. Eliphalet Congdon owns a farm in Ohio. Perky spent a month there boring out gold pieces. What we've got to do, Archie, is to find the Congdon child and turn her over to your Isabel and my Ruth. A very pretty job, demanding our best attention."
He paced the floor for a moment, his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, his silk hat tipped rakishly on one side of his head.
"A strange thing is happening; something the stars gave no hint of. We're being driven by circumstances utterly beyond our control from the side of the lawless to the side of the lawful and benevolent. In spite of ourselves, you understand!"
"But we're not leaving here until—"
"You were about to say that we can't shake the dust of Rochester from our sandals before we've made our party calls. Alas, no! We shall not communicate with our ladies again. First we must justify their confidence in us and find the Congdon child. Our wool can only change from black to white when we have performed some act of valor in a good cause. That is clearly indicated by my latest pondering of the zodiacal signs. Let me say that your Isabel is beyond question a girl worth living or dying for. I am delighted that she and Ruth speak the language of those of us who love the life adventurous, children of stars and sun. I shall be up early to make a few discreet inquiries as to the recent visit of Eliphalet and then I must buy a machine powerful enough to carry us far and fast. Luckily I brought a bundle of cash for just such emergencies."
"But a day's delay can't matter," Archie pleaded. "Every hour matters when the woman I love sets a task for me. It's still the open road for us, Archie. Good-night and pleasant dreams!”
The new car proved to be a racer and the Governor drove it with the speed of a king's messenger bearing fateful tidings. Occasionally from sheer weariness he relinquished the wheel to Archie, whose disposition to respect the posted warnings against lawless haste evoked the Governor's most contemptuous criticism.
"We ride for our ladies! Let the constables go hang!"
Constables were not to Archie's taste but now that they were bent upon a definite errand and one that promised another meeting with Isabel at the end of the journey he shared the Governor's zest for flight. It was a joy to be free under the broad blue arch of June. Spring is a playtime for fledgling fancy but in summer the heart is strong of wing and dares the heavens. It was Archie who now initiated vocal outbursts, striking up old glee club catches he hadn't thought of since his college days. He was in love. He bawled his scraps of song that the world might know that he was a lover riding far and hard at the behest of his lady. His thoughts skipped before him like dancing children. The life he was leading was not the noblest; he had no illusions on that score; but he was no longer a loafer waiting in luxurious ease for the curtain to fall upon a dull first act in a tedious drama, but a man of action, quite capable of holding his own against the world!
"You've caught the spirit at last! We're the jolliest beggars alive!" exulted the Governor.
He dropped from the clouds at intervals; proved his possession of a practical mind; received telegrams in towns Archie had never heard of before, and tossed the fragments to the winds.
"All the machinery, the intricate mechanism of the underworld is at work to assist us! I tell you as little as possible, but I neglect nothing. All communications in cipher, and you can see that the telegraph clerks think we are persons of highest importance."
He dashed off replies unhesitatingly, emphasizing the urgency for their prompt despatch. Skirting the shores of Erie, he produced from a hollow tree a bundle of mail, wrapped in oil-skin. Soiled envelopes with the addresses scrawled awkwardly in pencil were reenclosed in brown envelopes neatly directed in typewriting and bearing the S. S. S. P. in one corner. The humor of his Society for the Segregation of Stolen Property tickled the Governor mightily and when Archie asked what would happen if these packets of mail went astray and fell into the hands of post-office inspectors, he displayed one of the notes which consisted of a dozen unrelated words, decorated with clumsy drawings,—a tree, a bridge, a barred window.
"Only twenty men out of our hundred million could read that! Code of our most exclusive circle. The silly wretch has been raiding country banks in the middle west and carried his playfulness too far. He's in jail now but not at all worried—merely bored. He'd safely planted his stuff before they nabbed him, and he had fixed up his alibi in advance; that's the import of that oblong in the corner, which means that he can show a white card—a clean bill of health, legally speaking, and isn't afraid."
"I suppose he expects you to find the stuff and turn it into non-taxable securities," Archie remarked ironically.
"Precisely the idea! But I may not be able to serve him there. It will grieve me to leave the boys in the lurch; they've confided in me a long time."
The Governor had lapsed into moods of silence frequently since they left Rochester. The imminence of his release from whatever power had dominated him might, Archie thought, have subdued him to this unfamiliar humor with its attendant long periods of sober reflection. The meeting with Ruth had worked this change, he believed, no longer marveling at the fate that had linked their lives and their loves together. But the hints the Governor let fall of an approaching climacteric, a crisis of significance in his affairs, filled Archie with apprehension.
"Don't be foolish!" exclaimed the Governor, when Archie broached the matter. "Haven't I told you time and again that we shall stand together to the end of the trail!"
This was in a town where they paused for a quick overhauling of the car. At their table in a cafeteria he rioted in figures and expressed satisfaction with the results.
"If only the stars continue kind!" he said.
Nothing was to be gained by pressing inquiries upon a gentleman who ordered his affairs by the zodiac. At Buffalo the Governor made earnest efforts to rent a yacht, without confiding to Archie just what use he expected to make of it. No yachts being in the market, the Governor set about hiring a tug, and did in fact lease one for a month from a dredging company, paying cash and the wages of the crew in advance, and reserving an option to buy. The Arthur B. Grover was to be sent to Cleveland and held there for orders. He might want to negotiate the lakes as far as Duluth, he told the president of the company, who was surprised and chagrined when the singular Mr. Saulsbury readily accepted a figure that was intended to be prohibitive. The Governor was proud of the tug and expatiated upon its good points, which included sleeping quarters for the men and a nook where the captain could tuck himself away. He deplored his previous inattention to tugs; he believed more fun could be got from a tug like the Arthur B. Grover than from the best steam yacht afloat.
"We must be ready for anything," he remarked to Archie. "The signs point to a disturbance of great waters, and there's nothing like being prepared."
At Cleveland Archie's last doubt as to his mentor's connection with the underworld of which he talked so entertainingly was removed. Reaching the city at midnight the car was left at a garage downtown, their trunks expressed to Chicago, and they arrived by a devious course at an ill-smelling boarding house. Here, the Governor informed him, only the aristocracy of the preying professions were received.
The arrival of another guest, a tall man of thirty, who had been taking a porch-climbing jaunt through mid-western cities, added to Archie's pleasure. In his clubs he had lent eager ear to the tales of such of his acquaintances as had slaughtered lions in Africa, or performed fancy stunts of mountaineering, and more lately he had listened with awe to the narratives of scarred veterans of the Foreign Legion; but this fellow "Gyppy," as the Governor called him, who had mastered the art of scaling colonial pillars and raiding the second story chambers of the homes of honest citizens, seemed to Archie hardly less heroic. "Gyppy" recounted his adventures with a kind of sullen humor that Archie found highly diverting. He sheepishly confessed that the net reward of a fortnight of diligent labor in his specialty was only three hundred dollars. The Governor was very stern with "Gyppy," advising him to abandon porch-climbing as a hazardous and unprofitable vocation. Archie was dragged from the hardest bed he had ever slept in early the next morning.
"No more scented soap!" cried the Governor. "No more breakfast-in-bed! Here's where we get down to brass tacks and let our whiskers flourish!" He threw a rough suit of clothes on a chair and bade Archie get into it as quickly as possible. "Jam the other suit into your bag and Wiggins will ship it with mine to a point we may or may not touch. We shall leave this thriving city as farm hands eager to step softly upon the yielding clod. We go by trolley a little way, and if you have never surveyed the verduous Ohio Valley from a careening trolley car you have a joy coming to you. A democratic conveyance; plenty of chances to plant your feet in baskets of fresh-laid eggs or golden butter! But don't assume that we shall ride all the way; it's afoot for us, Archie! We shall be tramps seeking honest labor but awfully choosey about the jobs we take!"
An ill-fitting suit, with a blue flannel shirt and tattered cap completely transformed him. He surveyed himself with satisfaction in a cracked mirror while urging Archie to greater haste.
"We'd cut a pretty figure on Fifth Avenue now!" he exclaimed, delighted to see Archie apparelled in a suit rather less pleasing to the eye than his own. "We'll roughen up considerably in our travels and by the time we reach Eliphalet Congdon's broad acres he'll never recognize us as gentlemen he's met before."
"You don't expect to see the old man, do you?" demanded Archie with a sinking of the heart. "I thought we were going to find that little girl and hurry with her to Isabel's camp? This tramping stuff will merely cause us to lose time."
"We're not going to lose any time. I'm as anxious to be on with the business as you are; but we're not going to make a mess of it. I've got some ideas I don't dare tell you about; you might get panicky and run! Steady, Archie, and trust the Governor."
Trusting the Governor had been much easier while they were traveling in fast motors or in parlor cars. The trolley with its frequent stops, the proneness of the plain folk to lunch upon bananas and peanuts and cast the skins and shells thereof upon the floor pained Archie greatly.
The first night they slept in a barn, without leave, begged a breakfast and walked until Archie cried for mercy.
"What's a blistered foot more or less!" cried the Governor, producing an ointment which he forthwith applied with tenderest solicitude.
From his ingenuity in foraging and the philosophy with which he accepted the day's vicissitudes, Archie judged that his companion was by no means new to the road. He showed the greatest familiarity with the region they traversed, avoiding farmhouses where no generosity could be expected by the tramping fraternity, leading the way through quiet woods to "swimming holes" where they bathed and solaced their souls. They must not get ahead of their schedule, he explained. When Archie, knowing nothing of schedules, timidly asked questions the Governor, feigning not to hear, would deliver long lectures on Ohio history, praising the pioneers of the commonwealth, and enthusiastically reciting the public services of her statesmen.
At the end of the fourth day as they kicked their heels against the pier of a bridge that spanned the Sandusky, watching the stars slip into their places in the soft tender sky, the Governor's quick ear detected the step of a pedestrian approaching from the west.
"Unless we've missed a turn somewhere, that's Perky. A punctual chap; this is the exact time and place for our meeting and he should bear tidings of interest in our affairs."
The man, who was dressed like a farm laborer, responded carelessly to the Governor's greeting, and swung himself to a seat beside him on the abutment.
"The young brother knows the wisdom of silence," remarked the Governor, laying his hand on Archie's knee. "It's a pleasure to bring you two together. He and I follow the leading of the same star. What news of the lamb in the pasture?"
As though taking time to accommodate himself to the Governor's manner of speech Perky lighted his pipe and flicked the match into the river.
"The little lamb is not happy. The father is expected tonight. I've got orders to chop wood while he's on the reservation."
"The son is not wise to the metal trick and you drop into the background?"
"The true word has been spoken, brother."
"The son has been long upon the road. What caused him to linger?"
"A broken arm, so the old man has it; and repairs have been made in a hospital at Portland by the eastern sea."
The Governor dug his elbow into Archie's ribs. Archie caught a gleam. Putney Congdon had been in a hospital recovering from the bullet wound received at Bailey Harbor, but was now arriving at his father's Ohio farm, where his child, the lamb referred to, was concealed. Putney was to be kept in ignorance of the lure of the tampered coins that had brought Perky into alliance with his father, and Perky was to interest himself in wood-chopping during the son's visit. In the privacy of the bridge with only an uninterested river for auditor, there seemed to be no reason why these matters should not be discussed openly; but the Governor evidently enjoyed these veiled communications, though it was clear that Perky found difficulty in fashioning the responses.
"Is there work in the fields for willing hands? Shall we find welcome as laborers keen for the harvest?" asked the Governor.
"The slave driver weeps for lack of help and the pay is high. You will be welcome. When the sun makes its shortest shadow tomorrow you will sign papers for the voyage."
This penetrated to Archie's consciousness as assurance that he and the Governor would find employment on Eliphalet's farm, where Edith Congdon was being concealed from her mother, and that the most fortunate time to apply for employment was at noon the next day.
"The lamb must be carried to more northern pastures. We must guard against snares and pitfalls."
"The old ram is keen but only one eye may be used at a knot-hole. He suspects nothing. We have spoken enough?"
"Longer speech would be a weariness; you may leave us."
Perky waited for a motor to clatter over the bridge and with a careless "So long!" walked away whistling.
"A pretty decent chap, that," remarked the Governor, "with a highly developed bump of discretion. A man I hope to see with his feet on honest earth when I leave the road. There must be no slip, Archie. The responsibilities of the next fortnight are enormous. The happiness of many people depends upon us. We'll stroll back to that big farm we passed awhile ago. It's starred in the official guide books of the dusty ramblers and the milk and bread and butter there will be excellent. And the barn is red, Archie! A red barn is the best of all for sleeping purposes. An unpainted barn advertises the unthrift of the owner, and the roof is always leaky. The scent of moldy hay is extremely offensive to me—suggests rheumatism and pneumonia. And a white barn stares at you insolently. Whenever I see a white barn I prepare for bad luck. But a red barn, Archie, warms the cockles of your heart. It enfolds you like a canopy of dreams! I wouldn't have the red too glaring;—a certain rustiness of tint is desirable—"
"Here endeth the lecture," Archie interrupted. "I am starving in a land of milk and honey. Do I understand," he asked as they crossed the bridge, "that tomorrow we're going to find jobs on Eliphalet's plantation and kidnap his granddaughter?"
"Much as I hate to anticipate, Archie, it's not only little Edith we're going to kidnap! We're going to steal the old man too!”
"I never saw a tramp yet that was worth his breakfast," snarled Grubbs, the foreman of Eliphalet Congdon's farm. "But don't you bums think y' can loaf round here. It's goin' t' be work from now right through till the wheat's cut. Jail birds, both on y', I bet. Well, there ain't nothin' round here to steal. Y' can both sleep in the hands' house back yonder and hop to meals when the bell rings. There's some old hats in the barn; shed them pies y' got on yer heads and try t' look like honest men anyhow."
They partook of the generous midday meal provided in a big screened porch adjoining the kitchen. Half a dozen other laborers, regularly attached to Eliphalet's section of rich land, eyed the newcomers wi