BOOK I. AFIELD (continued 3)

“They look at me and it’s very plain that I come just to be good to them.... They think of me in the same way as a Salvation Army lassie or a missionary——”

“Now, that’s queer,” said he. “It didn’t occur to me at all. It would never come to me to ask you to leave a tract.”

“And I didn’t feel like a missionary, either.... Now it’s all cleared again. I must go.”

There was a pang.... Where was Nevin? Why had Noyes or someone from the Western States not come to him? Coming back to these things pained.... A boy in the halls called the afternoon papers in a modified voice.

“Will you get me the papers—especially the Western States?”

She hurried to call the boy. He saw the huge picture of Duke Fallows on the sheet toward him, as she re-entered.

“This is what I want,” he said hoarsely, taking the Western States....

“John Morning,” she whispered.

In inch letters across the top—there it was:

JOHN MORNING BRINGS IN THE FIRST FALLOWS STORY.

Full Day Ahead of Coptic Mails.... Morning Leaves Fallows on the Field Beyond Liaoyang, Night of September 3rd.... Two Americans Alone See Great Battle.... The Incomparable Fallows’ Story Printed in Full in the Western States To-day.... John Morning’s Detail Picture—a Book in Itself—Begins in the Western States To-morrow—Biggest Newspaper Feature of the Year’s Campaign.... Read To-day How John Morning Brought in the News—a Story of Unparalleled Daring and Superhuman Endurance....

Such was the head and the big-print captions. Morning’s riding forth from Liaoyang on the night of the third—the sorrel mare—the Hun Crossing—the Liao Crossing and the fight with the river-bandits—the runaway of the sorrel and her broken heart—his journey dazed and delirious, covered with wounds, thirty miles to Koupangtse—Tongu—the battle to get aboard the Sickles, first, second, and third attempts—redoing the great story on shipboard—all this in form of an interview and printed as a local story, ran ahead of the Duke Fallows article.

A great moment, and John Morning, forgetting all else, even forgetting the girl who glanced at him with awed and troubled eyes, held hard for a moment to the one realization: Noyes would not have printed, “Begins in the Western States to-morrow,” had he not arranged for publication in Reever Kennard’s World-News....

Her chair was farther away. She waited for him—as one expecting to be called. He turned; their eyes met full.

“You are not an American soldier——”

“I am an American. I have had a hard time, almost as hard as any soldier could——”

“I wouldn’t have come—the whole city will serve you——”

“That’s why I didn’t speak. No soldier could have gotten more good.”

Her eyes turned downward. The room was almost dark. A knock at the door.

“I must go——”

He held out his hand. “Won’t you come again?”

“It doesn’t seem——”

He would not let her hand go. “Oh, won’t you come again?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

Betty Berry opened the door for Noyes and another, and she passed out.

21

Noyes said lightly:

“The young lady doesn’t need to go on our account——”

“But she’s gone,” Morning muttered. The walls gave him back the words.

“If it’s any interest to you, Morning, I’ve followed directions in your letter,” the editor said presently.

“The World-News——”

“That’s what I waited for—before coming here. They’re using Field’s local story to-morrow morning. It’s on the wire to them now. This is Field.”

“I had the pleasure of bringing in your manuscript from the Sickles rather early this morning,” said the latter. “Also I did the story that Doctor Nevin told me.”

“I wish he would come,” said Morning.

“Nevin?”

“Yes.”

“He’s on his toes where you are concerned,” said Field.

“He has done much for me——”

“Friend Fallows is rather strong for you, too, I should say,” Noyes offered.

He was a pale, soft, middle-aged man who gave the impression of being more forceful than he looked.

“I owe everything to him,” said Morning.

“By the way, Morning, what were you mad at, when you wrote that letter of directions to me? I followed it carefully as you said—price—World-News—everything. We’ll have a lot of other papers beside the World-News—but that letter made me hot under the collar every time I glanced at it——”

“I was just about to break. I was very sick of words. Every sentence was like drawing a rusty chain in one ear and out the other.”

“Of course you know you’ve got the world by the tail on this Russian end—this Liaoyang story,” Noyes observed.

“I’ve written the story. The big part of the copy is here for you.”

“You’re not going to quit now. Are you down and out physically?”

“No.”

“Why, Morning,” Field broke in, “you ought to make ten thousand dollars in the next thirty days. You’ve got a big feature for every magazine in America—and then the book.”

“The chance doesn’t come but once in a life time—and then only to God’s chosen few, who work like hell,” said Noyes, and he sat back to review this particularly finished remark.

“What would you do?” Morning asked.

“I’d start for New York to-night. Field’s story about you—the one we run to-night at the head of Fallows’ story—will start the game. A couple of installments of your big yarn will have appeared in the World-News when you reach New York. If it ends as good as it begins, you’ll have the big town groggy within a week. You’ll receive the magazine editors in your hotel, contract to furnish so much—and talk off same to expert typists. That’s the way things are done. You’ve got the goods. New York serves a man like that. It’s nothing to me, but I know the game—even if I never cornered a Liaoyang story. Fallows said you have done more work for less money than any man in America. He’s one of our owners——”

So Noyes rambled on; Field breaking in with fresh and timely zest. Morning had not looked beyond the main story. He saw separate articles now in every phase. It would work out.... Four days of rest—looking out of the car-window. He would land in New York once and for all—land hard—do it all at once. Then he would rest.... He was seething again.... With this advantage he could break into the markets that would stand aloof from his ordinary product for years. All day his devil had slept, and now was awake for rough play in the dusk. His dreams organized—the big markets—breaking out of the newspapers into the famous publications! He had the stuff. It would be as Noyes said. He would have thought of it for another man.

“How soon can I start?” he said.

“Four or five hours.”

“I’m obliged to you.... Fallows seems still with me,” he said strangely.... “I must see Nevin——”

There was a ringing in his brain at some unused door, but he did not answer. He was driven again. Harrowing the idea of waiting a single day ... in these modern hours when world-events are so swiftly forgotten.

Everything was settled. Morning was taken from place to place in a cab. Noyes not only was conscientious about seeing to every detail for Friend Fallows—but he made it very clear that he was not accustomed to spend his evenings down-town. From time to time, he dropped hints of what he would be doing at home at this hour. Down-town nights were all put away for him, he declared.

The balance of the manuscript was locked in the safe at the Western States to be set up to-morrow, and proofs sent out. The second and possibly third installments of the story would go to the World-News by telegraph, the rest follow by mail.

“To-morrow morning, out in the mountains, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that New York is reading Field’s story which we ran to-day. Is that stuff the Doctor gave us, right, Morning?”

“Huh?”

“Did you dream about that sorrel mare—entrails out—walking like a man—white death in her eyes?” Noyes pursued.

“God, I wonder if I did? Did I dream that I did the big story twice?——”

He was in pain; there was lameness in his mind at being driven again. He wished Noyes would go home.... Messengers were back and forth to the Sickles trying to get Nevin. Transportation to New York was the newspaper’s affair; when it was handed him, something went from Morning that he could not get again. There was much to drink. Noyes had put all this from him so long that he found the novelty humorous—and yet, what a bore it was after all! Field was a steaming geyser of enthusiasms. Both talked. Others talked. Morning was sick with words. He had not had words drummed into his brain in so long. He half-realized that his impatience for all these things was disgust at himself, but all his past years, and their one-pointed aim held him now. This was his great chance.... He wanted Nevin.

These city men gave him everything, and disappointed him. Had he been forced to battle with them for markets; had he been forced to accept the simple column rate, he could not have seen them as now. Because they had become his servants, he touched their weakness. And what giants he had known—Fallows and Nevin—and Endicott, the little Englishman at Tongu.... You must answer a man’s need when that need is desperate—to make a heart-hold. A man makes his friends before his world capitulates.

He was waiting in the bar of the Polander.... Nevin had not been found. Morning was clothed, expensed; his order upon New York for the price of the story would not be touched until he reached there. He had won already; he had the world by the tail.... Nevin did not come. There was no bite in the drink for Morning. He was in pain; others made a night of it. He struggled in the pits of self, that sleepless, never-forgetting self. There was a calling, a calling deep within, but the outer noise spoiled the meaning. Men drank with single aim; they drank like Russian officers—to get drunk. They were drunk; all was rich and free. Noyes knew many whom he saw every day, and many whom he had seen long ago. He called them forward to meet Morning, who had brought in the story.... Morning who knew Duke Fallows—Morning who had the big story of the year, beginning to-morrow.... And always when they passed, Noyes remarked that the down-town stuff was silly as the devil. White and clerical, his oaths were effective. He drank hard and well as men go. Field drank well—his impulses becoming more gusty, but not evil.... Once Morning would have called this a night of triumph. Every one looked at him—talked respectfully—whispered, pointed.... Twenty minutes left—the crowd grew denser in the Polander bar. There was a voice in the arch to the hotel. Ferry entered in the midst of men. He was talking high, his eyes dancing madly.

“Why, the son of ... threw me—that’s all. He’s done with the Sickles.... Who? Why, Nevin, the squint-eyed son of a.... He threw me.... I thought this Morning was some drunken remittance man wanting passage. Reever Kennard said he was a thief.... Nevin might have come to me.... Why, Morning didn’t even pay his commutation for rations——”

“I would have mailed it to you, Ferry—except for this meeting,” said Morning, his voice raised a little to carry.

An important moment to him, and one of the strangest of his life. This was the man whom he had dreamed of murdering, the man who had made him suffer as only the gods should make men suffer. And yet Ferry was like an unpleasant child; and Morning, troubled by greater things, had no hate now, no time nor inclination to hate. The face that had seemed dark and pitiless on the deck in Nagasaki harbor—was only weak and undone—an unpleasant child crying, refusing to be quieted—an annoyance to the house. Such was the devil of the Sickles, the man who had stood between him and America, the man who had tried to make him miss beating the Coptic mails.... They faced each other, the quartermaster, wincing and shrunken.

“I had to get across, Ferry. I was too sick to make you see. Kennard always says that. He seems to know that best—but it isn’t true.... I was bad to look at. You see, I had come a long way. I was off my head and eyes——”

“I didn’t know,” Ferry blurted, “and now Nevin has thrown me. I wasn’t supposed to take civilians——”

“I know it—only I had to get across.... I don’t know what I’d have done but for Nevin. He was mother and father on the voyage. I can give you the commutation now——”

“You were a stowaway——”

“That’s what made it delicate to pay for the passage——”

Ferry was broken-nerved. He suggested buying a drink, as a child who has learned a fancied trick of men.

And Morning drank. Noyes glanced at Field, who had suddenly become pale and anxious with a story-idea. He was at work—drink-clouds shoved back and all the exterior enthusiasm—fresh as after a night’s rest. He was on a new story.

Ferry went away and Morning looked at the clock. Only five minutes of his life had been used in this important transaction. Nevin had not come—Nevin who had lost his berth, thrown over his own work for him.... There would be no more Nevin on the Sickles. Would he come East?

“Oh, I say, Field—drop the Ferry end of the story,” Morning said.

“Sure,” said Field glibly.

“Nothing to it,” said Noyes.

Morning was too tired to go further, though he felt their lie.

“But, Nevin,” he said to Noyes.

“I’ll have him found to-morrow. That’s the big local thing to-morrow.”

“Tell him——”

When Morning stopped telling Noyes and Field what to tell Nevin for him, it was time to go for the ferry. The Polander slipped out of Morning’s mind like a dream—smoke, voices, glasses, indecent praise. Noyes reached across the bar for a package. That last seemed quite as important as anything.

They left him at the ferry—these men of the Western States—servants of his action and his friends.... And somewhere in the city was little Nevin, who had done his work and who had not come for his pay; somewhere in the city, but apart from voices and adulation—the man who had forgotten himself in telling the story of how the news was brought in.... It was all desperately unfinished. It hurt him every moment.

In the Pullman berth he opened the package Noyes had given him; the porter brought a glass. Afterward, he lay in the darkness. It was very still when he had become accustomed to the wheels. The going always had soothed him. In the still train and the peace of the road, he heard at last that ringing again at the new door of his life, and opened to Betty Berry, who had promised to come.