The Atonement of Hustler Joe

(COMPLETE NOVELETTE)

BY ELEANOR H. PORTER

PROLOGUE

A TOY horse or a raspberry-tart is not often responsible for the loss of a life, but a succession of toy horses, raspberry-tarts, and whatever else the heart of a small boy craved, given in a reckless abandonment of superfluity, was certainly responsible for the wilfulness in the character of Paul Weston; and the wilfulness, in turn, was responsible for the quarrel.

At twenty he was a restless, impulsive, good-hearted, broad-chested, strong-limbed young fellow, the adored of his mother and the pride of his father. And yet it was over the prostrate form of this same father that he now stood—the crack of the revolver still ringing in his ears, the weapon itself still clutched in his hand.

Was the man dead? But a minute before he had been speaking; now there was a fast-growing pool of something dark and horrible on the floor at his side.

Paul Weston brushed the back of his left hand across his eyes and looked down at the still smoking revolver. Had his miserable temper brought him to this? His features worked convulsively and his eyes widened in horror. Throwing the revolver from him to the farthermost corner of the room, he turned and fled.

Out the door, through the gate, and down the long street of the little New England village he ran. It was dusk, but he stumbled as though it were the darkness of midnight.

The neighbors looked and wondered at the fleeing figure, but only their eyes spoke disapproval. If Paul Weston chose to use the main street of the village as a race-course, it was not for them to interfere—they knew him too well. The town fool alone ventured to accost him.

“Hi, there—go it! What’s after ye?” he shouted; but the jeering words and the vacant smile died on his lips at sight of the face Paul turned upon him.

Down the street, across the open field, and over the fence at a bound—surely the friendly shelter of the woods receded as he ran! But his pace did not slacken even in the dense shadows of the forest. On and on, stumbling, falling, tearing his flesh and his clothing on the thorns and brambles until, exhausted, he dropped on a grassy mound, miles away from that dread thing he had left behind him.

The wind sighed and whispered over his head. Weston had always loved the sound, but tonight it was only an accusing moan in his ears. Even the stars that peeped through the leaves above were like menacing eyes seeking out his hiding-place.

An owl hooted; Weston raised his head and held his breath. Then through the forest came the baying of a distant hound. The man was on his feet in an instant. Something tightened in his throat and his heart-beats came in slow, suffocating throbs. He knew that sound! They sought for—murderers with creatures like that! With a bound he was away on his wild race again. Hours later, the gray dawn and his nearness to a small village warned him to move more cautiously.

All that day he tramped, without rest, without food, reaching at night the seaport town that had been his goal. Skulking through the back streets he came to a cheap eating-house down by the wharves.

The odor of greasily fried meats and bad coffee floated out the open door, causing Weston to sniff hungrily. In a moment he had thrown caution to the winds, entered the restaurant and slunk into the nearest seat.

By his side lay a discarded newspaper. He reached for it with a shaking hand, then snatched his fingers back as though the printed sheet had scorched them. No, oh, no—he dared not look at it! His mind’s eye pictured the headlines, black with horror:

“MURDER! PARRICIDE! THE FIEND STILL AT LARGE!”

He pushed back his chair and rushed from the room. An hour later he had shipped as a sailor on a vessel bound for San Francisco around Cape Horn.

I

The cracker-barrels and packing-boxes that usually served for seats in Pedler Jim’s store were, strange to say, unoccupied. Bill Somers, sole representative of “the boys,” sat cross-legged on the end of the counter, meditatively eying a dozen flies that were buzzing happily around a drop of molasses nearby. Pedler Jim himself occupied his customary stool behind the counter.

It was ten years now since the little hunchback pedler first appeared in Skinner Valley. He came from no one knew where, driving a battered and worn horse attached to a yet more battered and worn pedler’s cart. The horse had promptly taken advantage of the stop in the village, and by dying had made sure of never leaving the place for the wearisome trail again. The miners say that the night the old horse died, its master patted and stroked the poor dead head until it was cold and stiff, and that the morning found him fondling the useless reins with his shriveled, misshapen fingers.

The next day he bartered for a tiny piece of land fronting the main street. When he had wheeled his old cart into proper position upon it, he busied himself some time with a bit of board and a paint pot, finally producing a rough sign bearing the single word “Store.” This creation he nailed with much satisfaction upon the front of the dashboard, then sat down on one of the thills to wait for a customer.

Perhaps it was the oddity of the thing; or perhaps there was something in the deformed little body that appealed to the strong-limbed, straight-backed miners; or perhaps it was the wonderful knowledge of healing herbs and soothing lotions that Pedler Jim possessed—perhaps it was a little of all three. At all events, the new store prospered amazingly so that in a year its owner bought more land, trundled the old cart to the rear, and erected a small cabin on his lot. This, in turn, gave place to a good-sized frame building bearing the imposing gilt-lettered sign:

James A. Powers, Skinner Valley Emporium.

The hunchback rolled this high-sounding title under his tongue with keen relish, but it was still “the store” to the boys, and its owner was only “Pedler Jim.”

Bill Somers shifted his position on the end of the counter and poked a teasing finger at the agitated mass of wings and legs around the molasses drop. The storekeeper grinned appreciatively and broke the silence:

“Say, who’s yer new man?”

“Blest if I know.”

“Well, he’s got a name, hain’t he?”

“Mebbe he has—then again, mebbe he hain’t.”

“But don’t ye call him nothin’?”

“Oh, we call him ‘Hustler Joe’; but that ain’t no name to hitch a grocery bill on to—eh, Jim?”

The little hunchback slid from his stool and brought his fist down hard on the counter.

“That’s jest the point! He don’t git much, but what he does git he pays fur—spot cash. An’ that’s more’n I can say of some of the rest of ye,” he added, with a reproachful look.

Bill laughed and stretched his long legs.

“I s’pose, now, that’s a dig at me, Jim.”

“I didn’t call no names.”

“I know yer lips didn’t, but yer eyes did. Say, how much do I owe, anyhow?”

With manifest alacrity Jim darted over to the pine box that served for a desk.

“There ain’t no hurry, Jim,” drawled Somers, with a slow smile. “I wouldn’t put ye out fur nothin’!”

The storekeeper did not hear. He was rapidly turning the greasy, well-thumbed pages of the account-book before him.

“It’s jest twenty dollars and fourteen cents, now, Bill,” he said, his brown forefinger pausing after a run down one of the pages. “Ye hain’t paid nothin’ since Christmas, ye know,” he added significantly.

“Well,” sighed Bill, with another slow smile, “mebbe ’twouldn’t do no harm if I ponied up a bit!” And he plunged both hands into his trousers pockets.

Pedler Jim smiled and edged nearer, while Bill drew out a handful of change and laboriously picked out a dime and four pennies.

“There!” he said, slapping the fourteen cents on the counter, “now it’s even dollars!”

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” cried Pedler Jim, turning his back and walking over to the window.

Somers looked after the retreating figure, and a broad smile lighted up his round red face. Slipping his hand inside his coat he pulled out a roll of greenbacks. In another minute the fourteen cents lay neatly piled on top of two ten-dollar bills. The man hastily slipped into his old position and coughed meaningly.

“Ye don’t seem pleased,” he began.

The hunchback did not stir.

“Mebbe ye don’t want my money,” hazarded the miner.

No answer.

“Oh, well, I can take it back,” and Somers shuffled noisily off his seat.

Pedler Jim wheeled about and came down the store with his small black eyes blazing.

“Jiminy Christmas, man! If you ain’t enough ter try a saint! I’m blest if I can git mad at ye, though, fur all yer pesterin’ ways. Now what in thunder—” The storekeeper’s jaw dropped, and his mouth fell open idiotically as his eyes rested on the greenbacks. “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he murmured again, and clutched the money in his claw-like fingers.

At that moment the outer door opened to admit a tall, broad-shouldered miner wearing a slouch hat well over his eyes. In a trice Pedler Jim was the obsequious merchant behind the counter.

The newcomer gave his order in a low voice and stood motionless while the hunchback busied himself in filling it.

“Anything else?” suggested Jim wistfully, as he pushed a small package toward him.

“Oh, I guess that’ll do for this time,” returned the man, picking up his purchase and motioning toward a dollar bill on the counter.

Pedler Jim looked up quickly and something like tenderness came into his eyes.

“I—guess you’re from Yankee-land, stranger; shake, won’t ye?” he said, thrusting his hand across the counter. “Gorry! but it’s prime ter see a good old New Englander among all these dagos and Dutchmen and the Lord only knows what else here. Bill an’ me was gittin’ lonesome—I’m glad ye come!”

At Jim’s first words the stranger had stepped back, but the outstretched hand had brought him to the counter again, and he gave the brown fingers a grip that made the little hunchback wince with pain. But Pedler Jim’s welcome was scarcely spoken before the man had turned and disappeared through the door.

“Well, I snum! I should think he was ‘Hustler Joe’!” murmured Jim. “If he didn’t even hustle off and leave his change,” he added, looking helplessly at the dollar bill on the counter.

Somers laughed.

“Hustle!—you’d oughter see him at the mines! why, that man works like all possessed. He don’t speak nor look at a soul of us ’nless he has to. If there’s a chance ter work extry—he gits it; an’ he acts abused ’cause he can’t work every night and Sundays to boot. Gosh! I can’t understand him,” finished Bill, with a yawn and a long stretch.

“That ain’t ter be wondered at—’tain’t ‘Hustler Bill’ that the boys call you,” replied Jim, a sly twinkle in his beady little eyes.

Somers sprang to his feet and towered over the hunchback, his fist raised in pretended wrath.

“Why don’t ye take a feller yer own size?” he demanded.

The hunchback chuckled, dove under the upraised arm, and skipped around the room like a boy. An encounter like this was meat and drink to him, and the miners good-naturedly saw to it that he did not go hungry.

Somers shook his fist at the curious little creature perched on the farthermost cracker-barrel and slouched out the door.

II

Skinner Valley did not know very much about Hustler Joe. Six weeks ago he had appeared at the Candria coal mine and asked for work. Since that time he had occupied an old shanty on the hillside—a shanty so hopeless in its decrepitude that it had long been abandoned to bats and owls. Hustler Joe, however, had accomplished wonders in the short time he had lived there.

It was a popular belief in the town that the man never slept. Stray wanderers by the shanty had reported hearing the sound of the hammer and saw at all hours of the night. Outside the shanty loose timbers, tin cans, rags and refuse had given way to a spaded, raked and seeded lawn. The cabin itself, no longer broken-roofed and windowless, straightened its back and held up its head as if aware of its new surroundings.

This much the villagers could see; but inside it was still a mystery, for Hustler Joe did not seem to be hospitably inclined, and even the children dared not venture too near the cabin door.

It was vaguely known that the man had come over the mountains from San Francisco, and with that the most were content. Keen eyes and ears like Pedler Jim’s were not common in the community, and the little hunchback’s welcome to the man because he came from “Yankee-land” was not duplicated.

Hustler Joe had not been in the habit of frequenting the store. His dollar bill was in Pedler Jim’s hands a week before the disturbed storekeeper had an opportunity of handing back the change. The miner had forgotten all about the money and had wandered into the store simply because each stick and stone and dish and chair at home was in its place and there was absolutely nothing for his nervous fingers to put in order.

Joe pushed open the door of the “emporium,” then halted in evident indecision. A dozen miners were jabbering in half as many languages over by the stove, huddled around it as though the month were January instead of June, and the stove full of needed heat instead of last winter’s ashes. Bill Somers lolled on the counter, and Pedler Jim was bowing and scraping to a well-dressed stranger whose face Joe could not see.

The miner had half turned to go when Pedler Jim’s sharp eyes fell upon him. In another moment the hunchback was by his side thrusting some change into his fingers.

“You forgot it, ye know—when ye bought them nails,” he said hurriedly; then added, “why don’t ye come in and set down?”

For a second Joe hesitated; then he raised his head with a peculiarly defiant up-tilting of his chin, and strolled across the room to an unoccupied cracker-barrel behind the gesticulating miners. Pedler Jim went back to his customer.

“You won’t find a better smoke within fifty miles!” he said pompously, giving the box of cigars on the counter a suggestive push.

The well-dressed man gave a disagreeable laugh.

“Well, that’s hardly saying very much, is it?” he questioned.

At the stranger’s first words Hustler Joe glanced up sharply. His fingers twitched and a gray look crept around the corners of his mouth. The room, the miners, and Pedler Jim seemed to fade and change like the dissolving pictures he used to see when a boy. A New England village street drifted across his vision with this well-dressed stranger in the foreground. He could even see a yellow-lettered sign out one of the windows:

George L. Martin, Counselor at Law.

Then it all faded into nothingness again—all save the well-dressed stranger in the tall black hat. In another minute the jabbering miners, Bill Somers, and the obsequious hunchback were in their old places, and Pedler Jim was saying:

“Jest try ’em, an’ see fur yerself.”

“All right, I’ll take you at your word,” laughed the stranger, picking out a cigar and leisurely striking a match. “It’s a pity you can’t have a few more languages going in here,” he added, throwing the dead match on the floor and glancing at the group around the stove. “I suppose Barrington employs mostly foreigners in the mines, eh?”

The hunchback thrust his brown fingers through his hair and made a wry face.

“Foreigners!” he exclaimed. “I was born and raised in the state of Maine, an’ if it wa’n’t fur Bill Somers—he’s from York State—to talk God’s own language to me once in awhile, I’d ’a’ gone daft long ago!”

The stranger chuckled softly.

“You hav’n’t anyone here at the works from New England, then, I take it, eh?” he asked, with studied carelessness.

A smile crept up from Pedler Jim’s mouth and looked out of his twinkling eyes.

“Well, we have—” he began, then his eyes suddenly lost their twinkle as they encountered the despairing appeal from beneath Hustler Joe’s slouch hat. “We have—been wishin’ there would be some,” he finished after the slightest of hesitations. “We’ve got everythin’ else under the sun!”

Bill Somers’s long legs came down from the counter abruptly.

“Why, Jim, there’s Hustler Joe—ain’t he from New England?”

The hunchback’s little beany eyes turned upon Somers and looked him through and through without winking.

“Hustler Joe came over the mountains from San Francisco, I have heard,” he said blandly.

“Oh, so he did—so he did!” murmured Somers, and sauntered out the door.

The man on the cracker-barrel over in the corner pulled his hat down over his eyes and sank back into the shadows.

“Well,” said the stranger, tossing a bill and a small white card on the counter, “put me up a dozen of those cigars of yours, and there’s my card—if you happen to know of any New Englanders coming to these parts, just let me know at that address, will you? I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Very good, sir, very good,” murmured Pedler Jim, making a neat package of the cigars. “Thank you, sir,” he said suavely, holding out the change and glancing down at the card; “thank you, Mr.—er—Martin.” And he bowed him out of the store.

One by one the miners went away; still the figure on the cracker-barrel remained motionless. When the last jabbering foreigner had passed through the door, Hustler Joe rose and walked across the room to the pine box where the storekeeper was bending over his account-book.

“See here, little chap,” he began huskily, “that was a mighty good turn you did me a bit ago—just how good it was, I hope to God you’ll never know. What you did it for is a mystery to me; but you did it—and that’s enough. I sha’n’t forget it!”

Something splashed down in front of Pedler Jim, then the outer door slammed. When the hunchback turned to his accounts again a blot and a blister disfigured the page before him.

III

John Barrington, the principal owner of the Candria mine, did not spend much of his time in Skinner Valley. Still, such time as he did spend there he intended to be comfortable. Indeed, the comfort of John Barrington—and incidentally of those nearest and dearest to him—was the one thing in life worth striving for in the eyes of John Barrington himself, and to this end all his energies were bent.

In pursuance of this physical comfort, John Barrington had built for his occasional use a large, richly fitted house just beyond the unpleasant smoke and sounds of the town. A tiny lake and a glorious view had added so materially to its charms that the great man’s wife and daughter had unconsciously fallen into the way of passing a week now and then through the summer at The Maples, as it came to be called in the family—“Skinner Valley” being a name to which Miss Ethel’s red lips did not take kindly.

Mr. Barrington’s factotum-in-chief at the mines, Mark Hemenway, lived at the house the year round. He was a man who took every possible responsibility from his chief’s shoulders and was assiduous in respectful attentions and deferential homage whenever the ladies graced the place with their presence.

To Ethel this was of little consequence, as she paid no more attention to him than she did to the obsequious servant behind her chair; but to Mrs. Barrington he was the one drawback to complete enjoyment of the place.

Mark Hemenway was a man of limited means, but of unlimited ambitions. Every day saw him more and more indispensable to his comfort-loving employer, and every day saw him more and more determined to attain to his latest desire—nothing less than the hand of this same employer’s daughter in marriage.

In a vague way Mrs. Barrington was aware of this, though Hemenway was, as yet, most circumspect in his actions. Mrs. Barrington was greatly disturbed, otherwise she would not have ventured to remonstrate with her husband that Sunday afternoon.

“My dear,” she began timidly, “isn’t there any other—couldn’t Mr. Hemenway live somewhere else—rather than here?”

Her husband turned in his chair, and a frown that Mrs. Barrington always dreaded appeared between his eyebrows.

“Now, Bess, why can’t you leave things all comfortable as they are? I like to have you and Ethel here first rate, but I don’t see why you think you must upset things when you stay only five minutes, so to speak.”

“I—I don’t mean to upset things, John, but—I don’t like him!” she finished in sudden asperity.

“Like him! My dear, who expected you to? Nobody supposes he is one of your palavering, tea-drinking members of the upper ten! He isn’t polished, of course.”

“Polished! He’s polished enough, in a way, but—I don’t like the metal to begin with,” laughed Mrs. Barrington, timidly essaying a joke.

Her husband’s frown deepened.

“But, Bess, don’t you see? I must have him here—it’s easier for me, lots easier. Why can’t you let things be as they are, and not bother?” he urged in the tone of a fretful boy.

Mrs. Barrington knew the tone, and she knew, too, the meaning of the nervous twitching of her husband’s fingers.

“Well, well, John,” she said, hastily rising, “I won’t say anything more,” and the door closed softly behind her.

As she passed through the hall she caught a glimpse of Ethel and her friend starting for a walk, and the strange unlikeness of the two girls struck her anew. Just why Ethel should have chosen Dorothy Fenno for a week’s visit to The Maples, Mrs. Barrington could not understand. Perhaps it would have puzzled Ethel herself to have given a satisfactory reason.

Ethel Barrington had met Dorothy Fenno the winter before on a committee connected with a fashionable charity, and had contrived to keep in touch with the girl ever since, though the paths of their daily lives lay wide apart.

“She is mixed up with ‘settlement work’ and ‘relief bands,’ and everything of that sort,” Ethel had told her mother; “but she’s wonderfully interesting and—I like her!” she had finished almost defiantly.

The girls leisurely followed a winding path that skirted the lake and lost itself in the woods beyond. They had walked half an hour when they came to the clearing that commanded the finest view in the vicinity.

Ethel dropped wearily to the ground and, with her chin resting in her hand, watched her friend curiously.

“Well, my dear girl, you——”

“Don’t—don’t speak to me!” interrupted Dorothy.

Ethel Barrington bit her lips; then she laughed softly and continued to watch the absorbed face of her companion—this time in the desired silence. By and bye Dorothy drew a long breath and turned to her.

“Isn’t it beautiful!” she murmured reverently.

Miss Barrington gave a short laugh and sat up.

“Yes, very beautiful, I suppose; but, do you know, I’ve seen so much I’m spoiled—absolutely spoiled for a scene like that? I’d rather look at you—you are wonderfully refreshing. I don’t know another girl that would have snapped me up as you did a minute ago.”

“Indeed, I beg your pardon,” began Dorothy in distress.

“Don’t!” interrupted her friend, with a petulant gesture; “you’ll be like all the rest if you do.”

“But it was very rude,” insisted Dorothy earnestly. “A view like this always seems to me like a glorious piece of music, and I want everything quiet as I would if I were hearing a Beethoven symphony, you know. That is why I couldn’t bear even the tones of your voice—but it was rude of me, very.”

Ethel sighed, and fell to picking a daisy to pieces.

“I used to feel that way, once,” she said; “I did, really.”

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” replied Dorothy, with a smile.

“But I don’t any more!”—the daisy was tossed aside.

“No?”

“No; I’m like a five-year-old that’s had too much candy, I suppose. I’ve seen the Alps and the Rockies, the Rhine and the St. Lawrence; and yet, the first time I looked at that view I felt just as you did. But now——!”

“You need something outside yourself to give zest to your life, my dear,” said Dorothy, her eyes on the town below.

Ethel looked at her narrowly.

“Now see here, my dear, I love you—and you know it, but I just can’t stand any of that settlement talk!”

“I never said settlement,” laughed Dorothy, her eyes still on the straggling cottages.

“I know, but—well, I just simply can’t! How in the world you stand those dismal sounds and sights and—and smells,” she added, with a grimace, “I don’t understand.”

“I suppose the miners live in those cottages,” mused Dorothy aloud, as though she had not heard.

“I suppose so,” acquiesced Ethel indifferently. “Others live over the hill in Westmont.”

“They don’t look as though they’d be very comfortable,” continued Dorothy softly.

“Oh, I don’t know; people like that don’t mind such things, I fancy.”

“Did you ever ask them?”

Ethel looked up in quick suspicion, but Dorothy’s face was placid.

“Of course not! How silly!”

“Suppose you do, sometimes,” suggested Dorothy, quite as a matter of course.

“I thought that was what you were coming to!” flashed Ethel. “My dear girl, you have no idea what those miners are,” she continued in a superior tone. “In the first place, I don’t think there is one of them that understands a word of English, and I’d be afraid to trust my life anywhere near them.”

“But the women and the little children—they wouldn’t hurt you. Isn’t there something you could do for them, dear?” urged Dorothy.

A rumble of thunder brought the girls to their feet before Ethel could reply, and a big storm-cloud coming rapidly out of the west drove the whole thing from her mind.

“Quick—we must run!” she exclaimed. “We can’t reach home, but there’s an old shanty just behind those trees over there. No one lives in it, but ’twill give us a little shelter, maybe,” and in another minute the girls were hurrying down the hill. Big drops of rain and a sharp gust of wind quickened their steps to a run.

Had Ethel not been running with her head bent to the wind she would have noticed the changed appearance of the shanty to which they were hastening. But as it was, she rushed blindly forward, up the steps, and pushed open the door, Dorothy close by her side. Once across the threshold she stopped in amazement, while Dorothy dropped breathlessly into the nearest chair.

IV

The tiny room was exquisite in its orderly neatness. The furniture was of the plainest, but bore an air of individuality. On one side was a case of books, and the mantel above the fireplace was decorated with quaint curios and beautiful shells.

A shadow fell across the floor.

“A nearer view might the better satisfy your curiosity, madam,” said a voice from behind Ethel.

Ethel turned sharply to find herself face to face with a man in the rough garb of a miner. The man’s eyes looked straight into hers without flinching.

“I said that a nearer view might the better satisfy your curiosity in regard to my poor possessions,” he repeated.

“Yours?” she stammered, a look of repulsion coming into her eyes.

The look and the shrinking gesture were not lost on Hustler Joe. His eyes darkened. His broad shoulders bent in a mocking bow and his right hand made a sweeping flourish.

“Mine, madam; but consider them yours until the storm is over. I’ll not intrude”—and he was gone.

A flare of lightning and a deafening report made his exit wonderfully dramatic to Dorothy. The rain was falling in torrents, too—a fact which suddenly occurred to Ethel. For a moment she hesitated; then she sped through the door, overtook and confronted the miner.

“Go back instantly!” she commanded. “If—if you don’t, I shall start for home in all this rain!”

The words were scarcely spoken before the man had turned and was hurrying her back to the house. Once inside there was an uncomfortable silence. Dorothy came to the rescue.

“I’m afraid you thought we were unpardonably rude,” she began pleasantly. “You see we were caught by the shower and my friend thought no one was living here; otherwise, we would not have so unceremoniously taken possession.”

“No, of course not,” murmured Miss Barrington constrainedly, going over to the window and looking out at the swaying trees.

Hustler Joe made a dissenting gesture.

“Say no more: you are quite welcome,” he replied, going over to the fireplace and touching a match to the light wood ready placed for a fire. “It will take the dampness out of the air, and—of your garments,” he added, with a furtive glance at the tall figure in the window.

“Thank you, you are very kind,” said Dorothy, drawing nearer. The movement brought her close to the mantel, and she picked up one of the shells. “Did you gather these yourself?” she asked, wondering at the light that leaped into his eyes at the question.

Ethel, turning round a minute later, found them talking like old friends together. She even caught herself listening breathlessly to a story he was telling of an Indian arrow he held in his hand. A sudden glance in her direction from the man’s dark eyes sent her back to her old position with an abruptness that surprised as well as displeased her.

The storm was not a long one. The clouds were already lifting in the west and the rain was less flood-like in its descent. Finally the sun peeped out and flashed for a moment in Ethel’s eyes.

Dorothy and their host were over at the bookcase deep in a discussion of the respective merits of Scott and Dickens, when Ethel crossed the room and came toward them.

“I think,” she said, with the slightest of inclinations in Hustler Joe’s direction, “that the storm is over. We can go now.”

“So it is,” said Dorothy; then turning to the man at her side she held out a cordial hand. “Thank you very much. You have been very kind.”

“Yes, very kind—thank you,” murmured Ethel, bowing slightly and turning toward the door. “We shall have to go home by the road,” she announced regretfully a moment later, as she stood outside looking longingly at the hillside path where the wet grass sparkled in the sun.

For a time the two girls walked on in silence, then Dorothy murmured softly:

“Not a word of English—not a word!”

Ethel gave a sidelong look from her lowered lids.

“Well, I didn’t suppose they could!” she said petulantly.

“I wouldn’t trust my life near one of them,” continued Dorothy in the same low voice.

Ethel shrugged her shoulders and a faint pink showed on her forehead.

“Don’t!” she protested. “How could you talk with him so?—what dreadful boots he wore!”

Dorothy laughed outright.

“My dear, his boots do not cover his head. Would you have a man dig coal in patent-leathers?”

Ethel made a wry face and was silent.

“Seriously, dear,” Dorothy went on, “he was very interesting to me. His knowledge of books was most amazing. What he is doing here I can’t imagine—he’s no common miner!”

“Oh, of course not,” laughed Ethel mockingly. “No doubt he’s a college president in disguise! But really, I’m not in the least interested. Let’s talk of something else.” And she changed the subject.

And yet it was Ethel who, at dinner that night, turned to Mr. Barrington with the abrupt question:

“Father, who is living in the old shanty just beyond the Deerfield woods?”

“I’m sure I haven’t the least idea, my daughter,” replied the man, mildly indifferent.

“Perhaps I can assist Miss Barrington in the matter,” interposed the smooth voice of Mark Hemenway. “It has lately been taken in hand by a curious creature known as ‘Hustler Joe.’”

“‘Hustler Joe’?” murmured John Barrington.

“Yes, sir, one of the men. A queer, silent sort—the kind that no good comes of. I’m keeping my eye on him, however.”

“Indeed,” observed Ethel calmly, “I thought him quite the gentleman.”

The effect of her words was like that of an electric shock around the table; in fact, Ethel herself felt it to some extent, for her remark was almost as much of a surprise to herself as to the others.

“Why, my daughter!” murmured Mrs. Barrington faintly, and even Dorothy started. There was an ugly narrowing of Mark Hemenway’s eyes, but it was John Barrington who spoke.

“Well, you seem to have the advantage,” he drawled. “Would you mind telling where the rest of us could meet—this gentleman?”

His daughter laughed and lapsed into her old bantering tone.

V

That portion of the Candria mine known as the “Bonanza” had been on the black-list of the miners for some time. It was more than two months since Henry Rotalick, a fire boss, had reported that an extra amount of gas seemed to be collecting in the district. The mine officials had begun at once to take the utmost precautions.

The Bonanza was one of the wealthiest portions of the mine, but, the coal being deep and of very fine quality and the slate being particularly thick, it necessitated considerable blasting to get down to the finest parts. Owing to this and to the growing accumulations of gases, the miners had for some time past been repeatedly warned to use the greatest care.

On the day after the thunderstorm, Hustler Joe was passing through this district when he came upon some miners drilling holes twelve feet or more in depth and preparing for an exceptionally heavy charge.

“You’d better look out or you’ll bring the whole thing tumbling about your ears!” he said, with a sharp glance at one of the men who seemed much the worse for liquor.

A snarl of oaths in various tongues followed him as he turned his back and walked away.

Thirty minutes later every door in the Bonanza fell with a crash, and solid walls of masonry three feet through were torn down as though they were but barriers of paper, so terrible was the explosion that shook the earth.

Hustler Joe was half a mile away. The shock threw him on his face, and for a minute he was too dazed to think. Then he staggered to his feet and rushed blindly forward straight toward the place where he thought the explosion had occurred. At every turn he met fleeing men, coatless, hatless and crazed with terror. Suddenly he came face to face with Bill Somers.

“Good God, man! Where ye goin’? Are ye gone clean crazy?” demanded Bill, clutching Joe’s arm and trying to turn him about.

For answer Hustler Joe wrenched himself free, picked up a half-unconscious miner and set him on his feet; then he dashed forward and attempted to raise a fallen door that had pinned another miner fast.

“Jiminy Christmas! Ye ain’t goin’ ter stay in this hell of a place alone, anyhow,” muttered Bill, bringing his broad shoulder and huge strength to bear on the door. In another moment the imprisoned man was free and in broken English was calling on heaven to reward his rescuers.

The two men did not falter for an instant, though all the while the deadly damp was closing around them. From gallery to gallery they went, warning, helping, dragging a comrade into a possible place of safety, until human endurance could stand it no longer. Exhausted, they staggered into a chamber which the fire damp had not entered.

“We—we’d better git out—if we’re goin’ to,” panted Somers weakly.

Joe was dizzy and faint. For himself he did not care. He had long ago given up all thought of escape; but a sudden vision came to him of the little blue-eyed woman that he had so often seen clinging to this man’s arm and looking fondly into his face.

“Your wife and babies, Somers—” murmured Joe, his hand to his head as he tried to think. “Yes, we must get out somehow. There’s the fanhouse—we might try that,” he added, groping blindly forward.

The fanhouse, now out of use, stood at the top of the airshaft heading that led up through the Deerfield hill from the mine. And by this way the two men finally reached the open air, and there, blinking in the sunshine, they sank exhausted on the hillside.

It was some time before Somers found strength to move, but his companion was up and away very soon.

The Candria mine had two openings about four miles apart, that went by the names Silver Creek and Beachmont. The Bonanza section was a mile and a half from the surface, and was nearer to the Silver Creek opening than to the Beachmont. It was to the former entrance, therefore, that Hustler Joe turned his steps as soon as he could stand upon his feet.

The news of the disaster was before him. Men running from the mine, barely escaping with their lives, had told fearful tales of crawling over the dead bodies of their companions in their flight. The story flew from lip to lip and quickly spread through the entire town. Mothers, wives, daughters, sons and sweethearts rushed to the mine entrances and frantically sought for news of their dear ones.

When Hustler Joe reached the Silver Creek entrance, a bit of a woman with a tiny babe in her arms darted from the sobbing multitude and clutched his arm.

“Bill—my Bill—did you see him?” she cried.

Hustler Joe’s voice shook as it had not done that day.

“On Deerfield hill, by the fanhouse—he’s all right, Mrs. Somers,” he said huskily; and the little woman sped with joyful feet back by the way she had come.

It was Hustler Joe who was at the head of the first rescue party that attempted to enter the mine; but the deadly gases increased with every step. First one, then another of the heroic men succumbed, until the rest were obliged to stagger back to the outer air, half carrying, half dragging their unconscious companions.

Again and again was this repeated, until they were forced to abandon all hope of reaching the entombed miners from that direction; then hasty preparations were made to attempt the rescue from the Beachmont opening. Here, as at Silver Creek, Hustler Joe was untiring—directing, helping, encouraging. The man seemed to work in almost a frenzy, yet every movement counted and his hand and head were steady.

Slowly, so slowly they worked their way into the mine, fighting the damp at every turn. By using canvas screens to wall the side entrances and rooms, a direct current of pure air was forced ahead of the rescuers, and by night their first load of maimed and blackened forms was sent back to the mine entrance to be cared for by tender hands.

All night Hustler Joe worked, and it was his strong arms that oftenest bore some suffering miner to air and safety. Once, far down a gallery, he heard a shrill laugh. A sound so strange brought the first tingle like fear to his heart. Another moment and a blackened form rushed upon him out of the darkness, angrily brandishing a pickaxe. Crazed with wandering for hours in that horrid charnel-house of the earth’s interior, the miner was ready to kill even his rescuers. He was quickly overpowered and his hands and feet were securely bound; then on Hustler Joe’s back he made the journey of a quarter of a mile to the cars that were waiting to bear him, and others like him, to the aid so sadly needed.

Toward morning Hustler Joe was accosted by one of the doctors who had been working at his side half the night.

“See here, my man, you’ve done enough. No human being can stand this sort of thing forever. I don’t like the look of your eye—go outside and get some rest. There are fifty men now that owe their lives to you alone. Come—you’d really better quit, for awhile, at least.”

“Fifty? Fifty, did you say?” cried the miner eagerly. Then a look came into his face that haunted the doctor for long days after. “Would fifty count against—one?” he muttered as if to himself, then fell to work with a feverishness that laughed at the doctor’s warning.

From dusk to dawn, and again from dawn to dusk, flying ambulances, hastily improvised from every sort of vehicle, coursed the streets with their gruesome burdens. Weeping throngs surged about the Beachmont entrance and about the stricken homes of the dead. Sleepless wives and mothers waited all night for news of their missing dear ones, and peeped fearfully through closed blinds as the dead and injured were borne through the streets.

But everywhere the name of Hustler Joe was breathed in gratitude and love. Tales of his bravery and of his rescues were on every lip, and when the man walked out of the mine that day, he walked straight into the hearts of every man, woman and child of the place.

His fellow-workmen tried to show their love and appreciation by going in a body to his lonely cabin on the hillside. They found him muttering half crazily to himself: “Fifty lives for one—fifty for one!” And on the table before him he had placed fifty matches in a row and below them one other alone.

They looked at him half fearfully, wholly pitifully, thinking the past horror had turned his brain. But he listened with brilliant eyes and flushed cheeks to their hearty words of thanks and seemed strangely eager to hear all that they had come to say.

Yet the next morning his eyes were heavy with misery, and someone said that the matches lay strewn all over the floor where an impatient hand had cast them—all save one, left alone in the middle of the table.

VI

On the day of the explosion in the Candria mine John Barrington sat on the broad piazza of The Maples reading his morning paper. Occasionally he glanced up to admire the charming picture his daughter and her friend made playing tennis on the lawn nearby.

His night’s rest had been good and his morning’s beefsteak tender; moreover, a certain paragraph in the newspaper before him had warmed his heart and, in prospect, his pocketbook. He leaned back in his chair and sighed contentedly.

After a time he spied Hemenway’s tall form at the far end of the winding walk leading to the house. There was a languid curiosity in his mind as to why Hemenway was walking so fast; but when he caught his first glimpse of his general superintendent’s face, his head came upright with a jerk, and he waited in some apprehension for the man to speak.

The girls on the lawn heard an exclamation of dismay from the piazza, then saw the two men pass rapidly down the walk and disappear in the direction of the town. Fifteen minutes later Jennie Somers, the parlor-maid, crossed the lawn and approached Miss Barrington. All her pretty rose color had fled, and her eyes were wide and frightened.

“I beg your pardon—but would you please let me go to town? There has been an explosion in the mine, and my brother—he may be hurt! May I please go?”

“An explosion? How terrible! Yes, yes, child—run right along. Don’t hurry back if you’re needed there,” said Miss Barrington. “I hope you’ll find your brother uninjured,” she added as the girl hurried away. When she turned to speak to Dorothy she found herself alone.

Miss Fenno appeared a few minutes later dressed in a short walking-suit.

“Why, Dorothy!”

“Has Jennie gone? If you don’t mind, dear, I’ll go with her. I might be able to do something,” explained Dorothy hastily.

“Mercy!” shuddered Ethel, “how can you go, dear? They’ll be all maimed and bleeding! There’ll be doctors and—and others to do everything needful. I wouldn’t go—really, dear.”

“I know—but there’ll be something else to do. I might help someone—Jennie, for instance, if she found her brother injured. I really want to go—Oh—there she is!” And Miss Fenno hurried after Jennie’s swiftly moving figure.

Ethel was restless when her friend had gone. She wandered aimlessly around the grounds, then went indoors and began to play a waltz on the piano. The piece was scarcely half through, however, before her fingers moved more and more slowly, finally straying into a minor wail that ended abruptly in a discordant crash as the player rose from the piano-stool.

Miss Barrington’s next move was to take the field-glass from the library and go upstairs to the tower. From there she could see the village and catch occasional glimpses of hurrying forms. She could see the Silver Creek entrance to the mine, too, and she shuddered at the crowds her glasses showed her there. Twice she turned her eyes away and started down the winding stairs, but each time she returned to her old position and gazed in a fascination quite unaccountable to herself at the moving figures in the distance.

By and bye she saw the head-gardener coming rapidly up the road from the town. As he entered the driveway she hurried down the stairs and out into the kitchen.

“Were there many injured, Peter?” she asked anxiously as the man came into the room.

“They don’t know yet, ma’am; they can’t get into the mine. They’re goin’ to try the Beachmont openin’ now.”

“Perhaps they won’t find things so bad as they think,” she suggested.

“Mebbe not; but them that has come out, ma’am, tell sorry tales of creepin’ over dead men’s bodies—there ain’t much hope for the poor fellers inside now, I’m ’fraid.”

“Is—is there anything one can do?”

Peter shook his head.

“Not much, ma’am. They can’t get in to get ’em out. The young lady from the house here has got her hands full with the women and children. They are takin’ on awful, of course, but she kinder calms ’em down—she and that feller they call Hustler Joe.”

Miss Barrington turned away. As she opened the door she stopped abruptly and looked back into the kitchen.

“If they need anything, Peter—anything at all—come to me at once,” she said hurriedly, and closed the door behind her.

It was at dinner the next night that Mr. Barrington said to his general superintendent:

“What was the matter with Rotalick today? I heard you laying down the law pretty sharp to him this noon.”

“Oh, he wanted a prima donna, that’s all.”

“A what?”

Hemenway laughed.

“Yes, I thought so, too. It was simply this. There isn’t anyone to sing at the funerals Thursday. The choir that usually sings at funerals hereabouts is incapacitated through injuries to the bass and loss of a husband to the soprano. Rotalick wanted a day off to go hunting for singers over in Westmont.”

“Humph!” commented Mr. Barrington.

“I rather think our departed friends will excuse the lack of music,” laughed the general superintendent coarsely; but the laugh ceased at a flash from Miss Barrington’s eyes.

“Will you be so kind, Mr. Hemenway, as to tell the man that I will sing Thursday?” Once more the electric shock ran around that table, and once more Mrs. Barrington murmured faintly, “Why, my daughter!”

This time Mark Hemenway rose promptly to the occasion.

“How very kind!” he said suavely. “Indeed, Miss Barrington, one could almost afford to die for so great an honor. I will tell Rotalick. The miners will be overjoyed—they have bitterly bemoaned the probable lack of music tomorrow. Funny they should care so much!”

“Oh, I don’t know—they are human beings, I suppose,” Miss Barrington suggested.

“Yes—of course—certainly—but then——”

“You seem troubled to find a solution,” she remarked, with slightly uplifted eyebrows; “suppose you give it up?”

“Suppose I do,” he acquiesced with ready grace, glad of the way of escape she had opened.

VII

Many of the victims of the explosion had lived in Westmont, but for those whose homes had been in Skinner Valley a succession of funeral services had been arranged to take place in the Slovak Catholic Church, the largest audience-room in the town. It was here that Miss Barrington had offered to sing, and as one sad service followed another in rapid succession the task she had undertaken was no light one.

But her heart did not lose its courage nor her voice its sweetness all through those long hours. She did grow sick and faint, though, as the throngs of weeping women and children filed in and out of the church, and her voice trembled and nearly broke when a young girl fainted and sank to the floor.

Hustler Joe had not been known to step inside a church since he came to Skinner Valley. On the day of the funerals he had lapsed into his old unapproachableness. He left his cabin early in the morning and joined the crowds moving toward the church, but, once there, he lost himself in the throngs outside instead of entering the doors.

Hustler Joe had long since made up his mind that a church was no place for him. He had the reverence, born of a New England boyhood’s training, for all things sacred, and he had come to feel that his own presence was an unpardonable insult to any holy place.

The windows of the church were open and the chanting tones of the priest floated out to his ears. He imagined himself as one of those still, silent forms before the chancel, and he bitterly envied the dead.

“’Twould have been the easiest way out of it!” he muttered under his breath. “By Jove, what a voice!” he added aloud a moment later as the priest’s droning gave way to the flute-like tones of a singer.

“It’s old Barrington’s daughter—ain’t she great?” said Bill Somers at his elbow. The man had been there several minutes furtively watching for a chance to speak.

Hustler Joe did not answer until the last note quivered into silence. Then he drew a long breath and turned around.

“Barrington’s daughter? What is she doing here?”

“Singin’—didn’t ye hear her?”

“But why? How happens it?” Joe demanded.

“Rotalick said she heard how that the choir couldn’t sing and that the Slavs and Poles were makin’ a terrible touse ’cause there wa’n’t no music. So she jest stepped up as pleasant as ye please an’ said she’d sing for ’em. She’s a daisy, an’ as purty as a picture. Have ye seen her?”

“Yes,” replied Hustler Joe shortly, moving away.

Ethel Barrington’s singing won her many sincere, if humble, admirers that day, but perhaps no one inside the building listened quite so hungrily for every tone that fell from her lips as did a tall, sad-eyed man who stood outside—just beneath an open window.

When the last sombre procession had moved away from the doors, and Miss Barrington herself, white and faint with weariness, stepped into her carriage, Hustler Joe left his position under the window and walked slowly toward his home.

“Yes, I’ll go back,” he muttered. “There’s nothing but hell upon earth to be gained by running away in this cowardly fashion. I’ll give myself up and take the consequences—which will be hell somewhere else, I suppose,” he added grimly. “Good God—it can’t be worse than this!”

He pushed open his cabin door and looked about him with troubled eyes. For the first time he was conscious of a fondness for the place.

“I’ll give them to Jim,” he said aloud, his eyes lingering on the books and on the shells and curios over the mantel.

With feverish haste he began collecting a few necessaries into a traveling-bag. It was packed and strapped when there came a knock at the door. At so unusual an occurrence Hustler Joe started guiltily. Then he crossed the room and threw wide the door.

The bent form of an old woman with two frightened eyes peering out from beneath a worn shawl confronted him.

“Has he been here?” she whispered, stepping into the room and glancing furtively around her.

“He! Who?”

“Then he hasn’t, or you’d know it,” she answered in a relieved tone; but her expression changed almost instantly, and her frail form shook with terror. “But he may come! You wouldn’t give him up—you’re Hustler Joe, ain’t ye? They say you’re good an’ kind. Oh, you wouldn’t give him up!”

A strange look came into the miner’s eyes.

“No, I wouldn’t give him up,” he said, after a moment. “But who is he? And who are you?”

“I’m his mother, sir. He didn’t know anyone was livin’ here,” she apologized, “an’ he sent me a bit of paper sayin’ he’d meet me here tonight. Oh, sir, they’d hang him if they got him! Hang him!” she shuddered.

Hustler Joe’s lips twitched, then settled into stern lines.

“Ye see,” continued the woman, her voice husky with feeling, “his daddy was—was one of them that was killed, an’ my boy came back to look once more on his poor dead face today. He said he’d colored his hair an’ changed his looks so no one would know him; but oh, they’d hang him—hang my boy!” she finished in a frenzy, wringing her hands and swaying her body from side to side.

Through the window Hustler Joe saw the figure of a man moving among the shadows of the trees near the house. The miner stepped close to the old woman and laid a light hand on her shoulder.

“Listen! I am going away for an hour. When I am out of sight, go out to the trees behind the house and call your boy in. I shall be gone and shall know nothing of it—you can trust me. Do you understand?”

A heartfelt “God bless you!” rang in his ears as he left the house and hurried away.

When he returned an hour later he found these words scrawled on a bit of brown wrapping-paper:

You treated me white. Thanks. You don’t know what you saved my mother. It would have broke her heart if they had strung me up. Thanks.

Hustler Joe stared fixedly at the note long after he had read it; then he tore the paper into tiny bits and dropped them into the fireplace. Very slowly he opened the traveling-bag and unpacked one by one the articles therein. When the bag was empty and the room restored to its spotless order, he drew a long breath.

“Yes, ’twould break her heart; she’s less miserable if I stay where I am,” he murmured. “Poor dear mother, she’s suffered enough through me already!”

VIII

The days that followed were busy ones for Ethel. Company made The Maples gay with fun and laughter; but Ethel did not drop her newly awakened interest in the miners. By her earnest persuasion Miss Fenno had agreed to lengthen her visit, the need of these same miners having been held up by the wary Ethel as good and sufficient reason for her remaining.

A maid, laden with the best the house afforded, always accompanied Dorothy on her frequent visits to the town, and sometimes Ethel herself went. It was after her first trip of this sort that she burst unceremoniously into the library.

“Father, do you do anything for them?” she demanded breathlessly.

“My dear, not being aware of the antecedent of that pronoun, I may not be able to give a very satisfactory answer to your question.”

“What? Oh—sure enough!” laughed Ethel. “I mean the miners, of course.”

“Since when—this philanthropic spirit, my dear?”

“Do you, father?” persisted Ethel, ignoring the question.

“Well,” Mr. Barrington began, putting the tips of his forefingers together impressively, “we think we do considerable. We are not overbearing; we force no ‘company store’ on them, but allow that curious little Pedler Jim full sway. We—However, have you anything to suggest?” he suddenly demanded in mild sarcasm.

Somewhat to his surprise Miss Barrington did have something to suggest, and that something was not particularly to his mind. However, when Miss Barrington set out to have her own way she usually had it, even with her comfort-loving father—perhaps it was because he was a comfort-loving father that he always succumbed in the end.

At all events, the Candria Mining Company, after the explosion in the Bonanza section, organized a system of relief to which they ever after adhered. The family of each miner killed in the disaster, or dying from its effects, received one thousand dollars cash over and above all medical and burial expenses. The maimed were dealt with according to the extent of their injuries.

The mine was a great source of interest to all of Miss Barrington’s friends, and it was accounted a great day among them when a party under careful escort were allowed to “do the mines,” as they enthusiastically termed a glimpse of the mine buildings and a short trip through a few underground passages.

Two weeks after the explosion Ethel, with a merry party of ladies and gentlemen led by Mark Hemenway, and duly chaperoned, started for the Beachmont entrance to the mine. The general superintendent was in his element. He explained and exhibited all through the outer buildings, and was about to take his charges into the mine itself when an unavoidable something intervened and claimed his immediate attention. It was with evident reluctance that he therefore handed his party over to Bill Somers, who, having proved himself careful and attentive, had often before been intrusted with the escort of sightseers over the mines.

To Ethel the change was a relief. A vague unrest had lately assailed her whenever in Hemenway’s presence and she had almost unconsciously begun to avoid him. Her old indifference to his existence had given way to a growing realization that there was such a being, and the realization was bringing with it an intangible something not quite pleasant.

The feminine portion of the party followed Bill Somers through the strange underground chambers with daintily lifted skirts and with many a shudder and half-smothered shriek. And though they laughed and chatted at times, they cast sidelong glances of mingled curiosity and aversion at the stalwart forms of the begrimed miners.

“Is—is this anywhere near the—accident?” asked Miss Barrington, looking behind her fearfully.

“No, ma’am—oh, no!” reassured Bill Somers quickly. “The Bonanza is a long ways off. We don’t go nowheres near there today, ma’am.”

“Oh, was there an accident?” chimed in a pretty girl with rose-pink cheeks.

“Sure; this was the mine, wasn’t it?” interposed a fussy little man with eyeglasses through which he was peering right and left with his small, near-sighted eyes.

“Tell us about it, please,” begged three or four voices at once; and Bill needed no second bidding.

When they passed Hustler Joe, Somers pointed him out, and as they walked on into the next gallery he told with unconscious power the story of the heroic rescue of the imprisoned men. The shifting shadows and twinkling lights made the telling more impressive, and the dusky forms flitting in and out of the mysterious openings on either side, added a realistic touch to the tale that sobered the gay crowd not a little. Their interest in the earth’s interior waned perceptibly.

“Are—are we on the way out, now?” asked the pretty girl, her cheeks showing white in the gloom.

“No, ma’am; we’re goin’ in deeper. Wa’n’t that what ye wanted?” returned Bill.

“Yes, of course,” murmured the girl, without enthusiasm.

The man with glasses coughed.

“Really, Miss Barrington, this is beastly air. It might be well enough to go back before long.”

Bill Somers took the hint. He knew the type to which the fussy little man belonged. The party turned about, and the pretty girl’s eyes flashed with a grateful glance—a glance which the near-sighted-glassed saw and promptly appropriated.

As they repassed Hustler Joe, Ethel Barrington dropped behind the others and came close to the miner’s side.

“I want to thank you myself,” she said, the crimson staining her cheeks as she impulsively held out a slim, ungloved hand. “I want to tell you how much I appreciate your courage and bravery at the explosion.”

The man flushed painfully. As he reluctantly touched her finger-tips, she added:

“You must be so happy to have saved so many lives. I knew you were a good man the minute I saw your face!”

Hustler Joe grew white to the lips, dropped her hand rudely and turned away without a word.

Hemenway met the party at the entrance of the mine. He was profuse in apologies for his enforced absence and in offerings of further service, but Miss Barrington dismissed him with a cool “Thank you; nothing more,” and led the way to The Maples.

Miss Barrington was vexed—worse than that, she was vexed because she was vexed. Her pulse quickened and her nostrils dilated as she thought of Hustler Joe and of the way he had met her impulsive greeting.

“The—the rude—boor!” she said to herself, at loss for words to express fittingly that to which she was so little accustomed. A lingering touch or a gentle pressure was the usual fare of Miss Barrington’s graciously extended hand—never this wordless touching of her finger-tips and hasty, rude release. “Not that I care,” she thought, with a disdainful tilt of her head. “But he might have been decently civil!” she added, with a scornful smile as she thought of how differently a score of pampered youths of her acquaintance would have received so signal a mark of favor as she had that afternoon bestowed on an all too unappreciative miner.

When Hustler Joe had left Miss Barrington so abruptly he had attacked his work with a fierceness that even the miners had never seen him show. “A good man—a good man—‘I knew you were a good man’!” he muttered between his teeth. “A ‘good’ man indeed—bah!” he snarled aloud, wielding his pick with long, sweeping strokes. Then he suddenly stood upright. “Great God—am I not a good man? Have fifty lives not a feather’s weight?”

The pick dropped from his relaxed fingers, and his hands went up to his head.

“Ah, no,” he moaned; “father—father—fifty, a hundred—a thousand times a hundred could not tip the scale with your dear, dead self on the other side!”

IX

Exciting days came to Skinner Valley. Gold was discovered far up the creek. A man furnished with funds by Mark Hemenway, who long had expressed faith in the locality, had “struck it rich,” and the general superintendent awoke one day to find himself wealthy.

The effect of this awakening was as immediate as it was startling. His commanding tones took on an added imperiousness, his clothing a new flashiness, and his whole demeanor an importance likely to impress the most casual of beholders. His veiled attentions to Miss Barrington gave way to a devoted homage that was apparent to all men, and so thick was his armor of self-conceit that her daily snubs fell pointless at his feet.

Miss Barrington had never before spent so long a time at The Maples, and Mr. Hemenway’s sudden accession to wealth resulted, as far as she was concerned, in hasty preparations to leave. Her guests were already gone.

On the day before her intended departure she started off by herself to enjoy one more sunset from the clearing beyond the Deerfield woods, the place where she and Dorothy were overtaken by that memorable thunder-shower.

Mark Hemenway did not confine himself so strictly to business these days as had heretofore been his custom, and he was upstairs in his room when he spied Miss Barrington’s lithe figure disappearing in the grove that skirted the grounds on the west.

The general superintendent had lately invested in a tall silk hat, and it was this impressive bit of headgear that he donned as he left the house and followed, at a discreet distance, the form of the woman he meant to marry.

Since Hemenway had become rich this idea of marriage had strengthened wonderfully. In a certain coarse way the man was handsome, and the only class of women with which he had ever come in contact had readily welcomed his attentions. He had supposed the lack of money would be the only drawback in the eyes of this his latest love, and now that the lack no longer existed he was confident of success.

Miss Barrington followed the path very leisurely, picking a flower or a fern here and there, and softly humming a tune. Upon reaching the clearing she settled herself comfortably under her favorite tree and opened her book to read. It was then that Hemenway approached from the shadows of the path she had just left.

At the snapping of a dry twig Miss Barrington glanced up. Her first impulse was to laugh, so absurd did the checkered trousers, flaming watch-charm and silk hat look to her against the background of the cool green woods. But the laugh was killed at birth by an angry objection that the man should be there at all. Even then she supposed him to be merely passing by and that he might stop for a word or two.

“Ah, good afternoon, Miss Barrington. What a surprise to find you here,” fibbed Hemenway, advancing with easy confidence.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hemenway.” Miss Barrington moved her book suggestively and lowered her eyes.

“Charming view you have here!” said the man.

No reply.

“You have an interesting book there, Miss Barrington?”

“I don’t know—I’m trying to find out,” replied Miss Barrington, with calm but ineffectual rudeness.

“Um—delightful place to read! Nice day, too.”

No answer.

Mr. Hemenway looked down approvingly at the lowered lids of the girl’s eyes and, blinded by his vast conceit, mistook the flush of annoyance for the blush of maidenly shyness. “I never did like a girl to fling herself in my face,” he mused, coming a little nearer.

“Well,” he said aloud, “if you have no objections, Miss Barrington, I’ll just stop a bit with you and enjoy this breeze,” and he cast himself at her feet in careful imitation of the attitude he had seen the fussy man with glasses assume only the week before.

Miss Barrington was speechless with indignation. Her first instinct was to spring to her feet, but the paralysis of amazement that had struck her dumb had also rendered her, for the moment, incapable of motion. A sudden determination to “teach the man a lesson and stop once for all this insufferable persecution”—as her mind expressed it—followed, and she remained passively quiet.

There was an uncomfortable silence that to any man but Hemenway would have proved embarrassing.

“Er—I believe I haven’t told you,” he finally began, “how kind I thought it was of you to interest yourself as you have in the miners.”

“It is not necessary that you should,” said Ethel icily.

“Very becoming modesty!” thought Hemenway. Aloud he said: “Oh, no, not necessary, perhaps, but I want to do it. It is a pleasure to me.”

“It is not one to me.”

Hemenway frowned. There was such a thing as carrying this modesty too far.

“Your singing, too—it was delightful!” he continued smoothly. “And so kind of you to do it!”

Miss Barrington turned a leaf of her book with an unnecessary rustling of the paper.

“Feigning indifference,” commented Hemenway to himself. “I’ve seen ’em do that before.”

“You looked so tired that night after the funerals. I actually worried about you—you looked sick,” he said next, in what was meant for tender tones.

Miss Barrington’s eyes narrowed ominously as she replied:

“Mr. Hemenway, my actions and my looks can have no possible interest for you. I should be obliged if you would cease to consider them.”

To Hemenway’s perverted fancy this was but a bit of shy bait. He promptly took advantage of it.

“On the contrary, I have the very greatest interest, my dear Miss Barrington—the very warmest interest. I—I—Miss Barrington, as you may be aware, I am a rich man now.”

“That does not concern me in the least,” retorted Ethel sharply.

A strange expression came over Hemenway’s face. For the first time a doubt shook his egotistical content. His eyes grew hard. No maidenly shyness prompted that speech. Still—possibly she had not understood.

“Miss Barrington, it has long been in my mind to ask you to be my wife. I love you, and now I am rich I am confident I can make you——”

“Stop! I won’t even listen to you!” Miss Barrington was on her feet, her eyes blazing.

Hemenway rose and faced her. All his polish dropped like a mask, and the real man looked out from beneath angrily frowning brows.

“You won’t listen, my fine lady? And why not, pray? Ain’t I good enough to speak to you?”

“I hate you—I despise you—oh, I loathe the very sight of you!” shuddered Ethel, losing all control of herself. “Now will you leave me in peace—or must I say more before you quite understand me?”

Hate—despise—loathe; these words Hemenway knew. The delicate shafts of society sarcasm fell powerless against his shield of self-conceit, but these heavier darts struck home and reached a vital point—his pride. His face grew livid.

“Will you go?” repeated Ethel impatiently, not a quiver of fear in the scorn of her eyes—“or shall I?” she added.

“Neither one!” he retorted insolently.

For answer Ethel wheeled and took two steps toward the path. Hemenway was at her side in an instant with a clutch on her wrist that hurt her.

“Coward!” she cried. “Would you force me to scream for protection?”

“Do so, if you like—there’s not a house within earshot, and the inhabitants of this region are not given to walking for pleasure!” He released her wrist and stepped again in front of her.

The sharp throb of terror that paled Ethel’s cheek was followed by one of joy that sent the color back in surging waves—Hustler Joe’s shanty just behind those trees! It was after six—he must be there. If worst came to worst——!

“Mr. Hemenway, this is altogether too theatrical. I ask you again—will you let me pass?”

“If you think I am a man to be loathed and hated and despised with impunity, young lady, you are much mistaken. No, I won’t let you pass—you’ll listen to me. I want none of your airs!” he finished sourly.

Ethel’s head bent in a scornful bow.

“Very well, suppose we walk on, then,” she said. “I’m tired of standing.” And she turned about and began walking in the opposite direction from the path that led toward home.

Mark Hemenway was suspicious of this sudden acquiescence. He hurried to her side and looked sharply into her face.

“None of your tricks, young lady! I mean business,” he snarled. “If you ain’t willing to hear what I’ve got to say by fair means, you shall by foul!” he added, bringing a small revolver into view, then slipping it back into his pocket.

Ethel was thoroughly frightened. She thought Hemenway must be mad.

“I should think you had stepped out of a dime novel, Mr. Hemenway,” she began, trying to steady her shaking lips. “Nobody wins a bride at the point of a pistol nowadays!” The trees that hid Hustler Joe’s shanty from view were very near now.

“Then you needn’t treat me as if I was nothing but the dirt under your feet,” he muttered sullenly, already regretting his absurd threat of a moment before.

Ethel suddenly darted forward and around the edge of the trees, ran across the lawn and sprang up the steps of the shanty. Hemenway was close at her heels when she flung the door open with a bang and stood face to face with Hustler Joe.

“Will you please take me home?” she asked, trying to speak as though she considered it a customary thing to invade a man’s house and demand his escort in this unceremonious fashion. “Mr. Hemenway is—busy and cannot go,” she added, with a cheerful assurance due to the presence of the big-bodied miner at her side.

Hustler Joe instantly accepted the part she had given him to play.

“I shall be glad to be of any service,” he said respectfully, with ready tact, but with a sharp glance at Hemenway.

The general superintendent bowed to Miss Barrington with uplifted hat, then turned and walked away.

“Please do not ask me any questions,” said Miss Barrington hurriedly to Hustler Joe as they left the house. “You had better take me by the path through the woods—it is the nearer way, and will be less embarrassing than the main road would be for—both of us. I know you think my conduct extraordinary, but, believe me, I had good reason for asking your escort. You—you always seem to be around when I need someone!” she concluded, with an hysterical little laugh—the tension to which she had been keyed was beginning to tell on her.

“No apology is needed,” demurred the man gravely. “I think I understand.”

That walk was a strange one. The sun had set and the woods were full of shadows, and of sounds unheard in the daytime. Ethel was faint and nervous. The miner was silent. Once or twice Ethel spoke perfunctorily. His answers were civil but short. At the edge of the private grounds the girl paused.

“Thank you very much; I shall not forget your courtesy,” she said, hesitating a moment, then resolutely offering her hand.

It was not the finger-tips the man touched this time—it was the hand from nail to wrist; and his clasp quite hurt her with its fierceness.

“Miss Barrington, you thought me a brute the other day when you spoke so kindly to me, and no wonder. I can only beg your pardon—your words cut deep. I am going to the mines tomorrow—the gold mines, I mean. I’m glad I had this chance to speak to you. You were wrong, Miss Barrington—I—I’m not the good man you think!” He dropped her hand and turned away.

“I—I don’t believe it!” she called softly, and fled, swift-footed, across the lawn.

Mark Hemenway did not appear at The Maples that night. A message from him received by Mr. Barrington in the evening said that he had been suddenly called away on business connected with his gold mine; that he would return soon, however, and would like immediately to make arrangements whereby he could sever his connection with the Candria Mining Company, as his new interests needed all his attention.

“Humph!” commented Mr. Barrington. “I never saw a little money make such a dam fool of a man as it has of Hemenway!”

Ethel’s lips parted, then closed with sudden determination. Twelve hours later she left for Dalton without mentioning to her father her experience of the day before, and within a week she had sailed from New York on a steamer bound for Liverpool.

X

The discovery of gold had made all the miners at Skinner Valley restless, and Hustler Joe was among the first to take his wages and start for the promised bonanza.

Hustler Joe of the coal mines was still “Hustler Joe” of the gold mines. The same ceaseless, untiring energy spurred the man on to constant labor. The claim he staked out proved to be the richest in the place and wealth sought him out and knocked at his cabin door.

Strange to say, Hustler Joe was surprised. He had come to the mines simply because they promised excitement and change. He had thought, too, that possibly they harbored the peace and forgetfulness for which he so longed.

But peace had fled at his approach and wealth had come unasked. Man-like, he regarded the unsought with indifference and gazed only at the unattainable; whereupon wealth rustled her golden garments to charm his ears and flashed her bright beauty to dazzle his eyes. Still failing to win his heart, she whispered that she—even she—was peace in disguise, and that he had but to embrace her to find what he sought.

It was then that Hustler Joe yielded. In a year he had sold half his claim for a fabulous sum. The other half he retained, and leaving it to be developed under the charge of expert engineers, he left for Skinner Valley.

Hustler Joe had never forgotten the little hunchback pedler, nor the debt of gratitude he owed him. Many a time in the old days at the coal mines he had tried to pay this debt, but always, in his own estimation, he had failed. So it was of Pedler Jim that he first thought when this new power of wealth came into his hands.

The news of Hustler Joe’s good luck had not reached Skinner Valley, and the man was in the same rough miner’s garb when he pushed open the familiar door of the “Emporium” in search of Pedler Jim.

“Well, if it ain’t Hustler Joe!” exclaimed the hunchback delightedly. “You’re a sight good fur sore eyes. Come back ter stay?”

“Well, awhile, maybe. How’s the world using you these days, Jim?”

“Oh, fair—fair; ’tain’t quite ’s good as I’d like—but I ain’t complainin’.”

“I wonder if anything would make you complain—I never heard you,” remarked Joe, helping himself to a seat on the counter.

“Well, now that ye mention it, mebbe I don’t much—I hain’t no need to. My appetite’s good an’ my conscience is clear; an’ a clear conscience is——”

“Jim,” interrupted the miner sharply, “did you ever hear of Aladdin and his lamp?”

“Huh? Oh, the feller that rubbed it an’ got what he wanted?”

“That’s the chap.”

“Well—s’posin’ I have?”

“Oh, I only wondered what you’d ask for if you had one to rub.”

“Gorry—I wish’t I had!”

“Well, what would you?” persisted Joe, his face alight.

“What would I? Well, I’ll tell ye. I’d buy the big house on the hill——”

“What—Barrington’s?” interrupted Joe.

“Gee whiz, no! I mean the empty one that Rotalick lived in; an’ I’d make it over into a hospital, an’ I’d add to it as I was able.”

“A hospital? Why, there is one.”

“Yes, I know—the company’s; but the boys always have ter quit there long ’fore they’re able. They can’t work, an’ if they laze ’round home it takes furever to git well—what with the noise an’ the children an’ all. They crawl down here to the store, an’ my heart jest aches fur ’em, they’re so peaked-lookin’. I’d have it all fixed up with trees an’ posies an’ places ter set, ye know, where they could take some comfort while they was gittin’ well.”

A moisture came into Joe’s eyes.

“But how about yourself?” he asked. “You haven’t rubbed out anything for yourself, Jim.”

“Fur me? Gorry—if I jest had that lamp, you’d see me rubbin’ out somethin’ fur me, all right. I’ve been wantin’ ter send home a box ter the old folks—’way back in Maine, ye know. Jiminy Christmas, man, there’d be no end ter the black silk dresses and gold-headed canes an’ fixin’s an’ fur-belows that I’d rub out an’ send to ’em!”

Hustler Joe laughed; then something came into his throat and choked the laugh back.

“But all this isn’t for you, Jim,” he remonstrated.

“Huh? Not fur me? Fur heaven’s sake, man, who is it fur, then?”

The miner laughed again and slid off the counter.

“You’ve got quite a store, Jim. Ever wish you had more room?” he asked abruptly.

Pedler Jim not only nibbled at the bait, but swallowed it.

“Well, ye see, I’m goin’ ter have the place next door when I git money enough and then I’ll jine ’em together. That’ll be somethin’ worth while,” he continued.

Hustler Joe easily kept him talking on this fascinating theme a full ten minutes, then he prepared to take his leave.

“Let’s see,” he mused aloud, “you came from Maine, you say. About where—the town, I mean?”

Jim named it.

“You say the old folks are living there yet?”

Jim nodded.

“Name is Powers, I suppose, same as yours; maybe you were named for your father, eh?”

“No; father’s name was Ebenezer, an’ mother objected—so it’s ‘Jim’ I am. Why? Goin’ ter dig up my family tree by the roots?” asked the little man whimsically.

“Not a bit of it!” laughed the miner, looking strangely embarrassed as he hurried out the door.

“Monte Cristo” had been Hustler Joe’s favorite tale in his boyhood days. He thought of it now, as he left the “Emporium,” and the thought brought a smile to his lips.

A few days later Pedler Jim was dumfounded to receive a call from a Westmont lawyer.

“Well, my friend,” the man began, “I have a few little documents here that demand your attention.”

Pedler Jim eyed the formidable-looking papers with some apprehension.

“Now see here, sir,” he demurred, “my conscience is perfectly clear. I don’t want nothin’ to do with sech devilish-lookin’ things as that!”—his eyes on the big red seal. “I hain’t never harmed no one—’tain’t an arres’, is it?” he added, his voice suddenly failing him.

“Well, hardly!” returned the lawyer, chuckling to himself. “This, my friend, is the deed, filled out in your name, to the Rotalick property on the hill back here; and this,” he continued, taking up another paper and paying no attention to the little hunchback, who had dropped in limp stupefaction on to a packing-box, “this is the deed—also made out in your name—to the building adjoining this store on the south. Mr. Balch, the present occupant, has a lease which expires in two months. After that the property is at your disposal.”

“But where in thunder did I git it?” demanded Pedler Jim.

“That is not my business, sir,” said the lawyer, with a bow.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” murmured the hunchback, gingerly picking up one of the deeds and peering at it.

Pedler Jim was still further astounded to find that to his tiny bank account had been added a sum so large that he scarcely believed his eyes. It was entered under the name “Hospital Fund.”

Following close upon all this came a letter from the folks at home:

Dear Jimmie: What a good, good son we have, and how can we ever thank you! (“Dear Jimmie” looked blank.) The black silk, so soft and rich, will make up into such a beautiful gown—much too fine for your old mother, Jimmie, but I shall be proud of it. Father is already quite puffed up with his lovely gold-topped cane. Nellie and Mary and Tom and John have divided up the pretty ribbons and books and sweetmeats to suit themselves, as long as you didn’t single them out by name. (“No—I’m blest if I did!” murmured Jim.) We were proud and pleased to get the box, Jimmie, both because the things were so beautiful and because you thought to send them. (“I’ll be hanged if I did!” muttered the hunchback, scratching his head in his perplexity.) Why don’t you come on East and see us, dear? We wish you would.

Then followed bits of neighborhood gossip and family news, ending with another burst of thanks which left Pedler Jim helpless with bewilderment.

It was that night that Somers was talking in the store.

“Yes, he’s rich—rich as mud, they say, an’ I ain’t sorry, neither. There ain’t anyone I know that I’d as soon would have a streak o’ luck as Hustler Joe.”

Pedler Jim was across the room, but he heard.

“Rich! Hustler Joe rich!” he demanded, springing to his feet.

“That’s what he is!”

“Jiminy Christmas!” shouted the hunchback. “I’ve found him—he was the lamp himself!”

XI

It was in Dalton, the nearest large city to Skinner Valley, that Hustler Joe began his career as a rich man.

He built him a house—a house so rare and costly that people came from miles around to stare and wonder. Society not only opened its doors to him, but reached out persuasive hands and displayed its most alluring charms. She demanded but one thing—a new name: “Hustler Joe” could scarcely be tolerated in the aristocratic drawing-rooms of the inner circle! He gave her “Westbrook,” and thenceforth “Mr. Joseph Westbrook” was a power in the city.

He was petted by maneuvering mamas, flattered by doting papas, and beamed upon by aspiring daughters; yet the firm lips seldom relaxed in a smile, and his groom told of long night rides when the master would come home in the gray of the morning with his horse covered with mud and foam. But society cared not. Society loves a Mystery—if the Mystery be rich.

When Joseph Westbrook’s mansion was finished and furnished from cellar to garret and placed in the hands of a dignified, black-robed housekeeper at the head of a corps of servants, and when his stables were filled with thoroughbreds and equipped with all things needful, from a gold-tipped whip to a liveried coachman, Mr. Joseph Westbrook himself was as restless and ill at ease as Hustler Joe had been in the renovated shanty on the hillside.

The balls and the dinners—invitations to which poured in upon him—he attended in much the same spirit that Hustler Joe had displayed in loitering in Pedler Jim’s “Emporium”—anywhere to get rid of himself. But if the inner man was the same, the outer certainly was not; and the well-groomed gentleman of leisure bore little resemblance to the miner of a year before.

On the night of the Charity Ball Westbrook had been almost rude in his evasion of various unwelcome advances, and he now stood in the solitude for which he had striven, watching the dancers with sombre eyes. Suddenly his face lighted up; but the flame that leaped to his eyes was instantly quenched by the look of indifference he threw into his countenance. Coming toward him was Ethel Barrington, leaning on the arm of her father.

“Mr. Westbrook,” said the old gentleman genially, “my little girl says she is sure she has seen your face somewhere, so I have brought her over to renew old acquaintance.”

Someone spoke to John Barrington then, and he turned aside, while Westbrook found himself once more clasping a slim firm hand, and looking into a well-remembered pair of blue eyes.

“You are——?”

“Hustler Joe,” he supplied quietly, his eyes never leaving her face.

“I knew it!” she exclaimed, her pleasure frankly shown. “I never could forget your face,” she added impulsively, then colored in confusion as she realized the force of her words.

But his tactful reply put her immediately at ease and they were soon chatting merrily together, closely watched by many curious eyes. Society never had seen Mr. Joseph Westbrook in just this mood before.

“Father did not recognize you,” said Ethel, after a time.

“No; I was introduced to Mr. Barrington at the Essex Club a week ago. I hardly thought he would remember Hustler Joe. You have just returned, Miss Barrington?”

“A month ago—from Europe, I mean; mother is there yet. America looks wonderfully good to me—I have been away from it the greater part of the last two years, you know. When I came home to Dalton I found the name of Mr. Joseph Westbrook on every lip. You seem to be a very important personage, sir,” she laughed.

“A little gilding goes a long way, sometimes,” he replied, with a bitter smile.

“But there must have been something to gild!” she challenged. “Mr. Westbrook, for the last two weeks I have been at The Maples—have you been down to Skinner Valley lately?” she asked, with peculiar abruptness.

“Not for some months.”

“There are some changes in the village.”

“Yes?”

“That poor little deformed storekeeper has bought the Rotalick house and has turned it into the dearest little convalescents’ home imaginable.”

“Is that so?” murmured Westbrook, meeting Miss Barrington’s gaze with a face that was innocently noncommittal. “Pedler Jim always was kind to the boys.”

“So it would seem; still—someone must have helped him in this,” she suggested, her eyes on his again.

“Do you think so? Possibly! I am wondering, Miss Barrington, if we might not find it cooler over there by the window. Will you allow me to escort you?”

“Perhaps we might,” she smilingly assented. “Perhaps we could find some subject of conversation other than Hustler Joe’s generosity to Pedler Jim, too—we might try!” She threw him a merry glance, which he answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Indeed, Miss Barrington, you quite overestimate anything I may have had to do in the matter. It was entirely Pedler Jim’s idea. How about the reading-room?” he suddenly asked, mentioning Miss Barrington’s latest gift to the miners, “and the kindergarten class, and the——”

“Ah—please!” interrupted the girl, with hand upraised in laughing protest. “I acknowledge myself vanquished at my own game. I’ll talk about—the weather, now, if you like,” she finished dutifully.

Westbrook laughed, but before he could reply Miss Barrington was claimed by a tall young fellow for the next dance.

“I wonder,” he mused as he saw them glide gracefully into the waltz—“I wonder if dancing belongs to those things one never forgets. I’ll have to brush up my old steps—and learn some new ones,” he added, after a pause.

From the night of the Charity Ball the world appeared in new colors for Westbrook. He did not stop to question the cause of all this change. If wealth were lifting her disguise and showing a glimpse of peace, he was too rejoiced to care to ask the reason.

“I wish you’d come up to the house some time,” said John Barrington to Westbrook one evening soon after the Charity Ball. “I’d like to talk with you—we can’t make any headway in this infernal racket!”—the “infernal racket” in question being the high C’s and low G’s of some world-famous singers at a particularly exclusive musical.

Westbrook smiled.

“Thank you; I should be only too happy.”

“Then call it tomorrow night—to dinner. Seven o’clock.”

“I will—and thank you,” said Westbrook after a momentary hesitation.

To his daughter John Barrington said a little later:

“Oh, I’ve invited Mr. Westbrook up to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Mr. Westbrook!”

“Why, yes—why not? You seem surprised.”

“Gilding does count, doesn’t it, father dear?”

“Eh? Gilding? My dear, I don’t know what you mean. I know he’s rich as mud—if that’s what you’re talking about; but he’s got more than money—he’s got brains. He knows as much about mines as I do! I like him—he’s worth a dozen of the youths that usually flutter about you.”

“Perhaps he is,” laughed Ethel, the color in her cheeks deepening.

That was but the first of many visits. Barrington was urgent, Ethel charmingly cordial—and Westbrook, nothing loth.

XII

“I’m in search of a good lawyer,” said Westbrook to John Barrington one day. “Can you recommend one to me?”

“Indeed I can. I have in mind the very man—he’s been doing a little work for me, and he is very highly spoken of.”

“That sounds about O. K. Who is he?”

“That’s just the point,” laughed the older man; “the name’s escaped me. He’s from the East—hasn’t been here very long. I’ll tell you what—I’ll bring him into your office tomorrow. Will that do?”

“It will—and thank you.”

Westbrook’s “office” was something new. A life of leisure was becoming wearisome; consequently he invested in various bits of real estate, opened an office, put a man in charge, and of late had himself tended strictly to business, such time as he could spare from his social engagements.

It was into this office that Mr. Barrington came one morning accompanied by a short, smooth-faced man whose garments were irreproachable in style and cut.

“Ah, Westbrook,” began Barrington, “let me introduce Mr. Martin, of Martin & Gray, the lawyer of whom I was telling you yesterday.”

Again the room and all it contained—save the figure of Martin himself—faded from Westbrook’s sight, and he saw the New England street with the lawyer’s sign in the foreground. The next moment the vision was gone, and he had extended a cordial hand.

“I’m very glad to meet Mr. Martin,” he said, looking the lawyer straight in the eye.

“Mr. Westbrook—delighted, I’m sure,” murmured the little man suavely; then, in a puzzled tone, “have I had the honor of meeting you before, Mr. Westbrook? There is something familiar about you.”

“Is there?” began Westbrook, but John Barrington interrupted.

“There, Martin, you’ve hit my case exactly! He’s puzzled me a thousand times with a little turn or twist that’s like someone I’ve seen. Dash it—who is it?”

“My features must be cast in a common mold,” laughed Westbrook, “to remind so many of one they know.”

“Um—ah—well—I shouldn’t want to say quite that!” retorted Barrington. “Well, gentlemen,” he resumed after a pause, “I’ll leave you to your own devices. I’m off—good morning.”

“Good morning, and thank you,” replied Westbrook, rising. “I’ve no doubt Mr. Martin will prove a credit to your introduction,” he concluded as he bowed the elder gentleman out. Then he turned to the lawyer and began the business at hand.

In his own room that night Westbrook carried a small mirror close to the light and scrutinized himself for some minutes.

“H’m,” he mused, “hair rather gray for a man not yet thirty; still—it looks less like that of a youth of twenty.”

He stroked his carefully trimmed beard meditatively.

“Hides the telltale mouth and chin pretty well,” he murmured. “Mr. Joseph Westbrook can stay where he is for the present, I think.”

The next evening Westbrook called at the Barringtons’. He found Ethel and Mr. Martin at the piano singing a duet which they continued at his solicitation. Then the two musicians drifted into a discussion of Martin’s favorite composer, which was like a foreign language to Westbrook.

After a half-hour of this the lawyer took his leave. Westbrook drew a long breath, but it was caught and stifled in half completion by Miss Barrington’s first remark.

“What a fine voice he has!”

“Er—yes, very.”

“And his knowledge of musical matters is most unusual, too.”

“That so?”

“Yes. He says he wanted to make music his profession, but his parents objected; so he took up law.”

“Indeed,” murmured Westbrook without enthusiasm.

“Yes, but he talks of musicians as glibly as though he had read Grove as much as Blackstone. I haven’t had so good a time discussing my pet composers for many a day.”

Westbrook stirred restlessly, and his hostess suddenly became aware of the hopelessly lost look in his eyes. She promptly changed the subject.

It was the very next day that Mr. Joseph Westbrook appeared in the leading book-store of the city.

“I want some lives of musicians,” he announced.

“I beg pardon?”

“Books, I mean—lives of musicians.”

“Oh, certainly, of course,” apologized the clerk. “Which ones?”

“Why—er—the best ones, to be sure.” Westbrook’s voice faltered at first, but it vibrated with the courage of his convictions at the last.

The clerk suddenly turned his back, and when Westbrook next saw his face it was an apoplectic shade of reddish purple.