THE FLIGHT OF GILLINGWATER
"It will be better for me to break the news to Colonel Gillingwater," said Jerry, "and you must go out and meet the troops yourself, with Mr. Cooke and that amusing Mr. Collins. There is no telling what effect my tidings will have on Rutherford, or what he will decide to do. He has never before been so near trouble as he is now, and I may have to give him first aid to the injured when he finds out that the South Carolina troops are on Raccoon Creek, all ready to march upon our sacred soil."
"But suppose your adjutant-general shouldn't go back to his troops after he sees you, then what am I to do?"
"If you don't see him by ten o'clock you will take personal command and exercise your own discretion as to the best method of landing Appleweight in a South Carolina jail. After that we must find papa, and it will be up to him to satisfy the newspapers and his constituents with some excuse for his strange disappearance."
Collins had come from Raleigh on the evening train, and he had solemnly assured Ardmore that the present state of affairs could not be maintained another twenty-four hours. He had exhausted his professional resources, and the North Carolina newspapers of all shades of opinion were clamoring for the truth, and were insisting that, for the honor and dignity of the state, Governor Dangerfield should show himself in Raleigh. Even the metropolitan press, which Collins had filled for several days with blithe stories of the administration's vigorous policy in the Appleweight case, had refused further matter from him.
"We've got to find Dangerfield or bust. Now, where is that eminent statesman, Ardmore? You can't tell me you don't know; but if you don't, Miss Dangerfield does, and she's got to tell."
"She hasn't the slightest idea, but if the newspapers find out that he's really and truly missing, he will have to show up; but first we've got to take Appleweight off that case of Chateau Bizet and lodge him in the jail at Turner Court House, and let Governor Osborne have the odium of incarcerating the big chief of the border, to whom he is under the greatest political obligations."
"But it's all over the country now that Osborne hasn't been seen in Columbia since he and Dangerfield had that row in New Orleans. Cranks are turning up everywhere, pretending to be governors of various states, and old Dangerfield is seen on all the outgoing steamers. There's been nothing like it since the kidnapping of Charley Ross."
Ardmore drew on his riding-gloves reflectively, and a delighted grin illuminated his countenance.
"I caught a lunatic down on the Raccoon this afternoon who said he was the governor of South Carolina, and I locked him up."
"Well, he may be Osborne," remarked Collins, with journalistic suspicion.
"And he may be a Swiss admiral or the king of Mars. I guess I'm a governor myself, and I know what a governor looks like and acts like—you can't fool me. I put this impostor where he'll have a chance to study astronomy to-night."
"Then he isn't on that case of Chateau Bizet with Appleweight?"
"No; I locked him up in a corn-crib until I get time to study his credentials. Come along now!"
Ardmore, Collins and Cooke rode rapidly away through the wide gates of the estate along the Sapphire road, over which, by his last bulletin, the adjutant-general of North Carolina was marching his troops. They had left Cooke's men with Paul's foresters to guard the house and to picket the banks of the Raccoon in the immediate neighborhood of the camp of the South Carolinians.
"I guess those fellows can hold 'em till morning," said Cooke. "We've got to clean up the whole business by to-morrow night. You can't have two states at war with each other this way without shaking up the universe, and if federal troops come down here to straighten things out it won't be funny."
They had ridden about a mile, when Cooke checked his horse with an exclamation.
"There's somebody coming like the devil was after him. It must be Gillingwater."
They drew rein and waited, the quick patter of hoofs ringing out sharply in the still night. The moonlight gave them a fair sweep of the road, and they at once saw a horseman galloping rapidly toward them.
"Lordy, the man's on fire!" gasped Ardmore.
"By George, you're right!" muttered Collins, moving nervously in his saddle. "It's a human sunburst."
"It's only his gold braid," explained the practical Cooke.
"He must have on solid gold armor, then," declared Collins.
Seeing three men drawn across the road, the horseman began to check his flight.
"Men!" he shouted, as his horse pawed the air with its forefeet, "is this the road to Ardsley?"
"Right you are," yelled Cooke, and they were aware of a flash, a glitter that startled and dazzled the eye, and Colonel Rutherford Gillingwater thundered on.
Ardmore looked at his watch.
"He's undoubtedly a man of action, if I ever saw one; and I think we are to be congratulated on having so gallant a commander for our troops," said the master of Ardsley; but the sight of Rutherford Gillingwater had filled his soul with jealous forebodings. He had heard that women are prone to fall in worship before warriors in their battle armor, and he was sure that Jerry Dangerfield was a girl of infinitely kind heart, who might not, when face to face with the issue, subject the man she had engaged to marry to any severe test.
They rode on, however, and saw presently the lights of camp-fires, and a little later were ceremoniously halted at the roadside by an armed guard.
It had been arranged that Collins, who had once been a second lieutenant in the Georgia militia, should be presented as an officer of the regular army, detailed as special aide to Governor Dangerfield during the encampment, and that in case Gillingwater failed to return promptly he should take command of the North Carolina forces.
An open field had been seized for the night's camp, and the tents already shone white in the moonlight. The three men introduced themselves to the militia officers, and Collins expressed their regret that they had missed the adjutant-general.
"Governor Dangerfield wished you to move your force on to Ardsley should we fail to meet Colonel Gillingwater; and you had better strike your tents and be in readiness to advance in case he doesn't personally return with orders."
Captain Collins, as he had designated himself, apologized for not being in uniform.
"I lost my baggage train," he laughed, "and Governor Dangerfield is so anxious not to miss this opportunity to settle the Appleweight case that I hurried out to meet you with these gentlemen."
"Appleweight!" exclaimed the group of officers in amazement.
"None other than the great Appleweight!" responded Collins. "The governor has him in his own hands at last, and is going to carry him across the border and into a South Carolina bastile, as a little pleasantry on the governor of South Carolina."
"He's had a sudden change of heart if he's captured Appleweight," remarked a major incredulously. "His policy has always been to let old Bill alone."
"It's only a ripple of the general reform wave that's sweeping the country," suggested Ardmore cheerfully. "Turn the rascals out; put the rascals in; keep the people hopeful and the jails full. That's the Dangerfield watchword."
"Well, I guess Dangerfield knows how to drive the hearse if there's got to be a funeral," observed the quartermaster. "The governor's not a man to ride inside if he can find another corpse."
And they all laughed and accepted the situation as promising better diversion than they had expected from the summer maneuvers.
The militia officers gave the necessary orders for breaking the half-formed camp, and then turned their attention to the entertainment of their guests. Ardmore kept track of the time, and promptly at ten o'clock Collins rose from the log by the roadside where they had been sitting.
"We must obey the governor's orders, gentlemen," said Collins courteously, "and march at once to Ardsley. I, you understand, am only a courier, and your guest for the present."
"If you please," asked Cooke, when the line had begun to move forward, "what is that wagon over there?"
He pointed to a mule team hitched to a quartermaster's wagon that a negro was driving into position across the rough field. It was piled high with luggage, a pyramid that rose black against the heavens. One of the militia officers, evidently greatly annoyed, bawled to the driver to get back out of the way.
"Pardon me," said Collins politely, "but is that your personal baggage, gentlemen?"
"That belongs to Colonel Gillingwater," remarked the quartermaster. "The rest of us have a suit-case apiece."
"Do you mean," demanded Ardmore, "that the adjutant-general carries all that luggage for himself?"
"That is exactly it! But," continued the quartermaster loyally, "you never can tell what will happen when you take the field this way, and our chief is not a man to forget any of the details of military life."
"In Washington we all think very highly of Colonel Gillingwater," remarked Collins, with noble condescension, "and in case we should become involved in war he would undoubtedly be called to high rank in the regular establishment."
"It's too bad," said Cooke, as the three drew aside and waited for a battery of light artillery to rumble into place behind the infantry, "it's too bad, Collins, that it didn't occur to you to impersonate the president of the French Republic or Emperor William. You'll be my death before we finish this job."
"This won't be so funny when Dangerfield gets hold of us," grinned the reporter. "We'd better cheer up all we can now. We're playing with the state of North Carolina as though it were a bean-bag. But what's that over there?"
The pyramidal baggage wagon had gained the road behind them, and lingered uncertainly, with the driver asleep and waiting for orders. The conspirators were about to gallop forward to the head of the moving column, when Collins pointed across the abandoned campground to where a horseman, who had evidently made a wide detour of the advancing column, rode madly toward the baggage wagon.
"The gentleman's trying to kill his horse, I should judge," murmured Ardmore. "By Jove!"
"It's Gillingwater!" chorused the trio.
The rider in his haste had overlooked the men in the road. He dashed through the wide opening in the fence, left by the militiamen, took the ditch by the roadside at a leap, wakened the sleeping driver on the wagon with a roar, and himself leaped upon the box and began turning the horses.
"What do you think he's doing?" asked Cooke.
"He's in a hurry to get back to mother's cooking," replied Ardmore. "He's seen Miss Dangerfield and learned that war is at hand, and he's going to get his clothes out of danger. Lordy! Listen to him slashing the mules!"
"But you don't think—"
The wagon had swung round, and already was in rapid flight. Collins howled in glee.
"Come on! We can't miss a show like this!"
"Leave the horses then! There's a hill there that will break his neck. We'd better stop him if we can!" cried Cooke, dismounting.
They threw their reins to the driver of the wagon, who had been brushed from his seat by the impatient adjutant-general, and was chanting weirdly to himself at the roadside.
The wagon, piled high with trunks and boxes, was dashing forward, Gillingwater belaboring the mules furiously, and, hearing the shouts of strange pursuers, yelling at the team in a voice shrill with fear.
"Come on, boys!" shouted Ardmore, thoroughly aroused, "catch the spy and traitor!"
The road dipped down into the shadow of a deep cut, where the moon's dim rays but feebly penetrated, and where the flow of springs had softened the surface; but the pursuers were led on by the rumble of the wagon, which swung from side to side perilously, the boxes swinging about noisily and toppling threateningly at the apex. Down the sharp declivity the wagon plunged like a ship bound for the bottom of the sea.
The pursuers bent gamely to their task in the rough road, with Cooke slightly in the lead. Suddenly he shouted warningly to the others, as something rose darkly above them like a black cloud, and a trunk fell with a mighty crash only a few feet ahead of them. The top had been shaken off in the fall, and into it head first plunged Ardmore.
"There's another coming!" yelled Collins, and a much larger trunk struck and split upon a rock at the roadside. Clothing of many kinds strewed the highway. A pair of trousers, flung fiercely into the air, caught on the limb of a tree, shook free like a banner, and hung there somberly etched against the stars.
Ardmore crawled out of the trunk, screaming with delight. The fragrance of toilet water broke freshly upon the air.
"It's his ammunition!" bawled Ardmore, rubbing his head where he had struck the edge of a tray. "His scent bottles are smashed, and it's only by the grace of Providence that I haven't cut myself on broken glass."
"Thump! Bump!" sounded down the road.
"Are those pants up there?" asked Cooke, pointing, "or is it a hole in the sky?"
"This," said Collins, picking up a garment from the bush over which it had spread itself, "has every appearance of being his little nightie. How indelicate!"
"No," said Ardmore, taking it from him, "it's a kimona of the most expensive silk, which the colonel undoubtedly wears when they get him up at midnight to hear the reports of his scouts."
They went down the road, stumbling now and then over a bit of debris from the vanished wagon.
"It's like walking on carpet," observed Cooke, picking up a feathered chapeau. "I didn't know there were so many clothes in all the world."
They abandoned the idea of farther pursuit on reaching a trunk standing on end, from which a uniform dress-coat drooped sadly.
"This is not our trouble; it's his trouble. I guess he's struck a smoother road down there. We'd better go back," said Cooke.
"Whom the gods would destroy they first dress in glad rags," piped Collins.
They sat down and laughed until the negro approached warily with the horses.
"He's lost his raiment, but saved his life," sputtered Collins, climbing into his saddle.
"He's lost more than that," remarked Ardmore, and his flushed countenance, noted by the others as he lighted a cigarette, was cheerfuller than they had ever seen it before.
In a moment they had climbed the hill and were in hot pursuit of the adjutant-general's abandoned army.