CHAPTER XXIII.

AFTER AN ANXIOUS NIGHT.

McElwin arose after a night of cat-naps. He was up long before breakfast. He stood at the gate, looking up and down the road; and when a peddler came along the banker hailed him and asked if there were any news in the town. The fellow held up a chicken. McElwin shook his head and repeated the inquiry. The fellow put the chicken back into his cart and held up a duck, whereupon McElwin ordered him to move on. At the breakfast table he sat with an unseeing stare. The clouds were gone, the day was bright and the air came sweet from the garden. His daughter spoke to him and he broke his stare and looked at her.

"Did you speak to me?" he asked.

"I said I was afraid you were not well this morning."

"Oh, yes, quite well, I thank you. But I didn't sleep very much."

"You might say you didn't sleep at all," his wife spoke up; "and I don't think you ought to go down town today."

This preposterous suggestion made him nervous. "Gracious alive, don't make an invalid of me," he replied. "I am all right, but an over-concern about my health will make me sick. Did you ever notice that when the newspapers begin to discuss a man's health he dies pretty soon? It's a fact. One newspaper comes out and says that Mr. Jones is not looking well. Another paper declares that Mr. Jones is looking better than he has looked for years. Then all the papers have their fling and the first thing you know Mr. Jones is dead."

Eva laughed; the idea struck her as being so humorously true, and Mrs. McElwin smiled, but it was the sad smile of protest. "James," she said, "you are a man of wonderful judgment, but sometimes you persist in looking at life through stained glass. Something is wrong with you and you ought to see a doctor at once."

"There you go," he cried, winking at his daughter. "Call in a doctor and that would settle it. The newspapers would then have their fling and that would fix me. I am worried, I acknowledge that, but it won't last long. Who is that at the gate?" he broke off, looking through the window. "He's moving off now. I thought at first that it was old Jasper Staggs."

It was his custom to read a newspaper in the library after breakfast, but this morning he did not tarry a moment, but went straightway toward the bank. At the wooden bridge he met Caruthers, and halted to speak to him. It was the first time that the lawyer had ever received the great man's attention, but knowing the cause of the interest now manifested, he was determined to dally with it as a sort of revenge.

"Any news, Mr. Caruthers?"

"Oh, you know my name. I am much flattered, I assure you. Of course I have known you for many years, but I didn't think you remembered me."

McElwin stood blinking at the sun. "I think I have spoken to you on an average of once a day for the last fifteen years," said he. "I am not a gusher, however. I have not seen a newspaper this morning and ask you if there is any news."

"Oh, I suppose there must be," Caruthers replied, leaning back against the rail of the bridge. "I haven't seen a newspaper either and I don't know what may have happened in the outside world."

"Any news about town?"

"No, nothing unusual, I believe. A dog was found dead on the public square, I understand; and I hear that old Mart Henley's son has been suspected of stealing a ham from Avery's meat house. Let me see." He passed his hand over his brow, as if in deep meditation. "Maxey's cow tramped down the roses in Donalson's yard and Thompson's hogs, covered with mud, have rubbed themselves against Tillman's white fence."

"Such occurrences are of no interest to me," said the banker.

"No, nor to me either. Well, I'll bid you good morning. Wait a moment," he added. "There was something else on my mind. Oh, did you hear of the White Caps?"

"No!" McElwin said with a gasp. "What about them?"

"Well, they went last night to have some fun with Sam Lyman."

"Ah, and they took him out and whipped him?"

"Well, hardly. He wore out a chair over them, and about three miles from town, I understand that old Doc Mason has been kept pretty busy since midnight sewing up their heads. Lyman didn't tell me, but I got it pretty straight that somebody stole the pistol out of his room; and if it hadn't been for that the undertaker would have had no cause to complain of the dullness of the season."

"You don't tell me!"

"Yes, I am inclined to think I do. Old Jasper had a visitor early in the evening; the women went out calling, and the visitor got the old man drunk."

"And it is suspected that the visitor had something to do with the subsequent call of the White Caps?"

"Well, it is not only suspected, but pretty well established. I suppose you could guess the name of the visitor."

"How could I, sir?"

"Well, I have heard it said that the visitor never makes an investment without consulting you, and it is thought more than likely that he consulted you on the occasion of this bad investment."

Caruthers leered and the banker winced. "As yet I am at a loss as to who the visitor might have been," said McElwin; "but no matter who, I wish to say that he did not consult me. I have never been known to violate the law, sir."

"Oh, no one would suspect you of that, Mr. McElwin. We all know that you never break the law, but we don't know that you are not sometimes aware that the law is going to be broken. Good morning."

"Wait a moment, sir. Do you mean to tell me that I am suspected of complicity in this infamous outrage?"

"No, I don't mean to tell you that. Neither do I mean to say that you would be wrong in doing so. You have had cause. Lyman's stubbornness is quite enough to rasp a saint. I couldn't stand it; and between me and you, I wish they had lashed him till he would have craved the privilege of going away."

"Wait just one more moment, Mr. Caruthers. Is what you have told me in reality suspected by the people or did you evolve it out of your own richness of observation?"

Caruthers bowed his head under the outpour of this compliment. "It is not public talk," he admitted.

"Ah, thank you. Drop in at the bank some time and see me, sir. Good morning."

Warren stepped out of the room, merely nodding to McElwin as he passed. Lyman got up, handed McElwin a chair, and without speaking, sat down again. McElwin stood with his hands on the back of the chair, looking at Lyman, and evidently embarrassed as to what he ought to say. "Beautiful morning," said Lyman, seeing his embarrassment and feeling that it was his duty as host to help him out of it.

"Yes, very bright after the rain."

"That's a fact; it did rain last night."

"Mr. Lyman, I heard something this morning that has grieved me very much."

"Oh, about the White Caps. Sit down, won't you?"

McElwin sat down. "Yes, the White Caps." He was silent for a moment and then he continued: "The intercourse between you and me has been far from friendly. I do not deny that I should like to see you leave this place, never to return; I acknowledge that I would bribe you to go, but I would not give countenance to a mob that would force you to leave."

Lyman looked at him with a cool smile. "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. McElwin, that Sawyer did not speak to you of his intention to take me out as if I were a thief or a wife-beater—"

"Stop, sir!" McElwin commanded, holding up his hand. "I forbid you to—"

"Forbid is rather a strong word. Don't you think that request would be better?"

"Well," said McElwin, softening, "we will say request. As I tell you, your presence in this community is distasteful to me, and your farcical marriage stands directly opposed to my plans. But I would not violate the law and commit a misdemeanor to drive you off. You have reasons for believing that Mr. Sawyer—"

"Yes, he was the organizer."

"But not with my sanction, sir."

"No? But perhaps not without your knowledge."

"Sir!"

"Keep your seat. Now I am going to tell you what I believe. I believe that Sawyer came to you, after I had burned the check, and told you what he intended to do."

"He did, and I told him not to do it."

"Ah. But did you go to the law and enter a protest against an outrage which you knew he was going to commit? Did you send me a word of warning or did you quietly wait in the hope that the result might rid you of me?"

"Mr. Lyman, I am going to tell you the absolute truth. I advised against it, and after he was gone, I went out to look for him, but he had driven down into the country to—"

"To organize his mob," Lyman suggested.

"Well, yes, we will say that he had gone for that purpose. And at night I came down town in the rain to see if I could not find him, and when I failed in this, I thought that I would come up here to warn you." He hesitated, with a slight cough.

"But you didn't come."

"No, not all the way. I halted on the stairs and turned back. I felt that I—" He hesitated.

"You felt that you could not afford to antagonize Mr. Sawyer."

McElwin coughed. "It was not exactly that, Mr. Lyman. But I did think that it was meddling with something that—that did not concern me."

"Didn't concern you? I thought you were deeply concerned, enough at least to feel yourself warranted in attempting to buy me, to hire me to leave."

"You don't quite understand, Mr. Lyman."

"Oh, yes I do. The trouble with you is that I understand too well. Go ahead with your absolute truth."

McElwin cleared his husky throat. "I went home, sir, and passed a most anxious night; I suffered, sir, far more than you did."

"No doubt of that. I enjoyed myself."

"Mr. Lyman, will you please not make a joke of this affair."

"Oh, I won't make a joke of it. It will be earnest enough by the time it is over with. I am informed that Mrs. Sawyer is very old and that to introduce her son's name in connection with the White Caps would greatly distress her, and I have resolved not to do this. But there are punishments, moral lessons to be served out, and I think it well to begin with you."

"Mr. Lyman, we are not friends, but would you ruin me in the estimation of the public?"

"No, I will say nothing to the public. I will tell your daughter."

McElwin started. His mind had been so directly fixed upon the public that he had not thought of his home. Being the master there he could command respect, and it was on the tip of his tongue now to say that his daughter would not believe Lyman, but, as if a bitter taste had suddenly arisen in his mouth, he felt that this man's word out-weighed his own. He had a strong hope that when his daughter should be set free and left to choose at will, her judgment would finally settle upon Sawyer. But he knew that should she be convinced that her father had counciled him to engage the services of lawless men or had even connived at the brutal procedure—he knew that, convinced of this, she would turn in scorn upon Sawyer and, in a moment, wreck the plans that it had taken years to build.

"Mr. Lyman," he said, "I admit that I am largely to blame, and I now throw myself upon your mercy, sir. Please don't tell my daughter."

All his dignity and arrogance had vanished, and the chair creaked under him. His brown beard, usually so neatly trimmed, looked ragged now, and his eyes, which Lyman had thought were full of sharp and cutting inquiry, now looked dull and questionless. "I throw myself upon your mercy," he repeated.

"Then, sir, you knock my props from under me," Lyman replied. "I am not equipped with that firmness which men call justice. Nature sometimes makes sport of a man by giving him a heart. And what does it mean? It means that he shall suffer at the hands of other men, and that when his hour for revenge has come, his over-grown heart rises up and commands him to be merciful. McElwin, I ought to publish you—I ought to tell your wife and daughter that you have conspired with ruffians to have me whipped from the town, but I will not. You may go now."

The banker's arrogance flew back to him. "You may go" were words that pierced him like a three-pronged fork, but he controlled himself, for now his judgment was stronger than his dignity. He arose and stepped up close to Lyman. "I am under deep obligations to you," he said. "You are a kind and generous man."

"Why don't you say that you are thankful to find me a fool?"

McElwin took no notice of this remark. "And I hope that I may be able to do something for you," he said. Still he stood there, as if he had not struck the proper note. "Do something for you. And if you need—need money, I shall be glad to let you have it."

"Oh, you couldn't get away without mentioning your god-essence, could you? Good day."