CHAPTER XV.

MUST LEAVE THE TOWN.

At eleven o'clock the next day, Zeb Sawyer was to meet McElwin at the bank. The hour was tolled off by a grim old clock standing high in a corner, a rare old time piece with a history, or at least a past, of interest to McElwin, for it had been bought at the forced sale of fixtures belonging to a defunct bank. It struck with solemn self-importance, as if proclaiming the hour to foreclose a mortgage; and though not given to this sort of reflective speculation, McElwin must have been vaguely influenced by its knell-like stroke, for he nearly always glanced up as if a tribute were due to its promptness. A few minutes later Zeb Sawyer was shown into the room. The banker had been sitting in deep thought, with his legs stretched forth, and with his hands in his pockets, but he turned about when the clock struck, and as Sawyer entered the office he was busy with papers on a table in front of him.

"Good morning, Zeb; sit down."

"Hard at it, I see," said the young man, taking a seat at the opposite side of the table.

"Yes, day and night. No rest for the wicked, you know."

"I don't know as to that," Sawyer replied, "but I do know that there is mighty little rest for the man that wants to do anything in the world."

"You are right. The gospel of content builds poor houses. I never knew a happy man who wasn't lazy."

"You ought to go to Congress, McElwin; they need such talk there."

"They need a good many qualities that they are not likely to get." He put his papers aside, and leaning with his arms on the table looked into the eyes of his visitor. "My daughter has developed into a thinking woman, Zeb."

The over-confident young money-maker's face brightened, as if the banker had given him a piece of encouraging news.

"Yes, sir," McElwin went on, "and no cause is lost so long as thinking is going on. Why, sir, it took my wife years and years to learn how to think. It was not expected that a young woman in this part of the country should think. Men were the necessities and women the adornments of society when I was a young fellow."

"But you said your daughter had become a thinking woman," Sawyer hastened to remark, to bring him back from his wanderings.

"Yes. And it will require all my strength and influence as a father, to get her to think as I want her to. Still, in our dealings with a woman there is always hope—if she thinks. I had quite a talk with her last night, but I did not convince her that she ought to go to that fellow and ask him to sign—sign that infamous petition." McElwin took his arms off the table and leaned back in his chair. "And, sir, I don't believe she'll do it."

"It can't be that she can care anything for him," said Sawyer.

"Nonsense," the banker replied. "Such a thing has never entered her head. I think she enjoys the oddity of her position, married and yet not married. I think it tickles her sense of romance. But there is a way of getting at everything, and there must be some way of approaching this outrageous affair. I have looked into the law, and I find that in case the fellow should go and remain away one year, his signature would not be necessary. However, being a sort of a lawyer, he knows this as well as I do. We can't bring the charge of non-support, for we have not let him try. Zeb, she has intimated that you are afraid of him."

The banker looked straight at him, but the mule-trader did not change countenance. "No, I am not afraid of him," he said, "but unless I'm shoved pretty far, I don't care to mix up with him, I tell you that. My life is too valuable to throw away, and they tell me that Lyman is nothing short of a desperado when he is stirred up, though you wouldn't think it to look at him. But you can never tell a man by looking at him, not half as much as you can a mule. Oh, if the worst comes, I'd kill him, but—"

"That would never do," the banker broke in. "Don't think of such a thing. I wonder if we couldn't buy him off," he added, after a moment's musing. "I should think that he might be induced to go away. There is one thing in support of this; he has had a taste of success, or rather a nibble at ambition, and he may, even now, be thinking of going to a city. Suppose you go over and see him—offer him five hundred dollars."

Sawyer studied awhile. "He couldn't take offense at that," he said. "At least no sensible man ought to. Suppose you write me a check payable to him."

McElwin, without replying, made out a check, blotted it and handed it to Sawyer. "Come back and tell me," he said.

Lyman was writing when Sawyer tapped at the open door. "Come in," said the writer. His manner was pleasant and his countenance was genial, and Sawyer, standing at the threshold, felt an encouragement coming to meet him. He stepped forward and Lyman invited him to sit down.

"A little warm," said Lyman.

"Yes, think we'll have rain, soon; the air's so heavy."

"Shouldn't be surprised. It would help farmers when setting out their tobacco plants."

"I reckon you are right. But the farmers would complain anyway, wet or dry. The weather wouldn't suit them, even if they had the ordering of it."

"Well, in that they are not different from the rest of us," said Lyman. "We all grumble."

A short silence followed. Lyman moved some papers. Sawyer coughed slightly. They heard the grinding of the press.

"Printing the paper in there?" said Sawyer, nodding toward the door. He began to turn about as if nervous at the thought of his errand. "How many do you print a week?"

"I don't know, but we have a pretty fair circulation."

"I see it a good deal out in the state."

"Yes, it spreads out fairly well. We try to make it interesting to the farmers."

"By telling them something they don't know," said the visitor.

Lyman shook his head slowly: "By reminding them of many things they do know," he replied. "Tell a man a truth he doesn't know and he may dispute it; call to his mind a truth which he has known and forgotten, and he regards it as a piece of wisdom. The farmer is the weather-cock of human nature."

"I guess you have about hit it. By the way, Mr. Lyman, I have called on a little matter of business, and I hope you'll not fly off before you consider it. The only way we can get at the merits of a case is by being cool and deliberate. The last time we had a talk, you—"

"Yes," Lyman interrupted, "I must have gone too far when I called you a coward."

"I think so, sir, but be that as it may, let us be cool and deliberate now. I have just had a talk with Mr. McElwin and he is still greatly distressed over—over that affair, and he thinks by putting our reasons to work we can get at a settlement. The fact is, he wonders that you would want to stay in such a small and unimportant place as this is, after your editorial that everybody is talking about."

"Did he call it an editorial?" Lyman asked, smiling at his visitor.

"Well, I don't know as he called it that, but whatever it is, he was a good deal struck by it, and he wondered that you didn't go to some big city and set up there. And I wondered so too, from all that I heard. Somebody, I have forgotten who, hinted that maybe you didn't have money enough and—"

"Money," said Lyman; "why, I've got money enough to burn a wet elephant."

Sawyer blinked in the glare of this dazzling statement, but he managed to smile and then to proceed: "I spoke to Mr. McElwin about what had been hinted, and inasmuch as you had applied to him for a loan, he didn't know but it was the truth."

"A very natural conclusion on his part," said Lyman, leaning back and crossing his feet on a corner of the table.

"Yes, he thought so, and I did, too. He ain't so hard a man to get along with as you might think."

"He is not a hard man to get away from. It doesn't seem to put him to any trouble to let a man know when he's got enough of him."

"I'm afraid you didn't see him under the best conditions."

"No, I don't believe I did. He made me feel as if I looked like the man standing at the threshold of the almanac, badly cut up, with crabs and horns and other things put about him."

"I think you would find him much more agreeable now."

"Oh, he was agreeable enough then, only he didn't agree. And I am thankful that he didn't."

"Well, he regrets that he didn't let you have the money, although you came in an unbusiness-like way."

"Yes, I did. And pretending to be a lawyer, I ought to have known better. I don't blame him for that."

"What do you blame him for, then?"

"For wanting his daughter to be your wife."

Sawyer jerked his hand as if something had bitten him. "But what right have you to blame him for that? It was arranged long before you ever saw me, and besides what right have you, a stranger, to interfere in his affairs?"

"That's very well put, Mr. Sawyer, but there are some affairs that rise above family and appeal to humanity. You requested me to be cool and deliberate, and you will pardon me, I hope, if I am cooler than you expected, and more considerate than you desire. It would be a crime to attempt to merge that young woman's life into yours."

"I know you have a pretty low estimate of me, but I won't resent it. We are to be cool."

"And considerate," said Lyman, with a slight bow.

"Yes, sir; and considerate. But I don't see where the crime would come in. My family is as good as hers."

"That may be. I am not looking at her family, but at her. She was spoiled, it is true, but she is developing into the highest type of American womanhood."

"Yes, but I haven't come to discuss her. We were talking just now about the prospect of your going away, and the probability that you might not have money enough to settle in a city. Mr. McElwin is willing to help you toward that end, and has signed a check for five hundred dollars, made out in your name. Here it is." He handed the check to Lyman, who took it, looked at it and said: "He writes a firm hand. Money gives a man confidence in himself, doesn't it?" He held out the check toward Sawyer. The latter did not take it, and it fluttered in the air and fell to the floor. Sawyer took it up and put it on the table, with an ink stand on it to hold it down.

"It is yours, Mr. Lyman; it is made out to you."

"Upon the condition that I leave here and remain away as long as one year. Is that it?"

"Well, yes."

"I told you that I have enough money to burn a wet elephant. I haven't—I haven't enough to scorch a dry cricket."

"Then you will accept the check," said Sawyer, brightening.

Lyman had struck a match, as if to light his pipe. He took up the check and held it to the blaze. "Look out," he said, as Sawyer sprung to interfere. "Sit down." He took the cinders and wrapped them in a piece of paper, folding it neatly. "Give this to Mr. McElwin and tell him that I have cremated the little finger of his god, and send him the ashes," he said.

Sawyer stood gazing at him in astonishment.

"I told you to sit down. You won't sit down. And you won't take the god-ashes to the devotee. Come, that's unkind."

"Sir, you have insulted me."

"What, again?"

"And you shall regret it. And you shall leave this town," he added, turning to go. "You have not only insulted me, but you—you have put an indignity upon Mr. McElwin." Indignity was rather a big word, coming from him unexpectedly out of his vague recollection, and he halted to stiffen with a better opinion of himself. "I say you shall leave this town."

"I heard what you said. But I thought we were to be cool. Oh, pardon me, it was the fire that gave offense."

"I say you are going to leave this town."

"Good-bye, then."

"I will make one more attempt," said Sawyer, standing in the door.

"Don't exert yourself."

"I will offer you a thousand dollars to go away."

"My stock is rising."

"Will you take it?"

"The advance is too rapid. Can't afford to sell now."

Sawyer began to sputter. "I'm done," he said. "I have no other proposition to make. But remember what I say. You are going to leave this town."

"Then I may not see you again; good-bye."