Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have been retained.

THE PROMISE
A Tale of the Great Northwest

By

JAMES B. HENDRYX

A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York

Published by Arrangements with G. P. Putnam's Sons

Copyright, 1915
BY
JAMES B. HENDRYX
Seventh Impression

by James B. Hendryx

• The Promise
• Connie Morgan in Alaska
• The Gun Brand
• Connie Morgan with the Northwest Mounted

This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York

CONTENTS

THE PROMISE

[ ]

CHAPTER I

THE PACE

Young Carmody awoke to the realization of another day.

The sun of mid-forenoon cast a golden rhombus on the thick carpet, and through the open windows the autumnal air, stirred by just the suspicion of a breeze, was wafted deliciously cool against his burning cheeks and throbbing temples.

He gazed about the familiar confines of the room in puffy-eyed stupidity.

There was a burning thirst at his throat, and he moistened his dry lips with a bitter-coated tongue. His mouth was lined with a brown slime of dead liquor, which nauseated him and sent the dull ache to his head in great throbbing waves.

Upon a beautifully done mahogany table near the door stood a silver pitcher filled to the brim with clear, cold ice-water. It seemed miles away, and, despite the horrible thirst that gnawed at his throat, he lay for many minutes in dull contemplation of its burnished coolness.

The sodden condition of his imagination distorted his sense of proportion. The journey across the room loomed large in the scheme of things. It was a move of moment, to be undertaken not lightly, but after due and proper deliberation.

He threw off the covers and placed a tentative foot upon the floor.

A groan escaped him as his right hand brushed the counterpane. Gingerly he brought the member within range of his vision—it was swollen to the wrist and smeared with dried blood, which had oozed from an ugly split in the tight-drawn skin. Slowly he worked the fingers and frowned—more in perplexity than distress—at the sharp pain of the stiffened knuckles.

He crossed to the table and, springing the silver catch of a tiny door, cunningly empaneled in the wall, selected from the cellaret a long-necked, cut-glass decanter, from which he poured a liberal drink. The sight of it sickened him, and for an instant he stood contemplating the little beads that rushed upward and ranged themselves in a sparkling semicircle along the curve of the liquor-line.

"The hair of the dog is good for the bite," he muttered, and with an effort closed his eyes and conveyed the stuff jerkily to his lips. Part of the contents spilled over his fingers and splashed upon the polished table-top. As the diffused odor reached his nostrils a wave of nausea swept over him. With a shudder he drained the glass at a gulp and groped blindly for the water-pitcher, from which he greedily swallowed great quantities of ice-water.

He paused before a tall pier-glass and surveyed himself through bloodshot eyes. The telephone upon the opposite wall emitted a peremptory ring. Young Carmody turned with a frown of annoyance. He ignored the summons and carefully scrutinized his damaged hand.

His brain was rapidly clearing and, from out the tangled maze of dancing girls, popping corks, and hilarious, dress-suited men, loomed large the picture of a policeman. Just how it all happened he could not recollect. He must see the boys and get the straight of it.

His mirrored image grinned at the recollection of the officer, the quick, hard-struck blow, and the hysterical screams and laughter of the girls as they were seized in the strong arms of their companions, rushed across the sidewalk, and swung bodily into the waiting taxis.

B-r-r-r-r-r. B-r-r-r-r-r-r. B-r-r-r-r-r! Again the telephone bell cut short his musing. There was a compelling insistency in the sound and, with a muttered imprecation, he jerked the receiver from the hook.

"Well?" he growled. "Yes, this is William Carmody. Oh, hello, governor! I will be right down. I overslept this morning. Stay where I am! Why? All right, I'll wait."

"Now what?" he murmured. "The old gentleman seems peeved."

After a cold bath and a vigorous rub he began leisurely to dress. His eyes cleared and he noted with satisfaction that aside from a slight pouchiness, and the faint mottling of red that blotched his cheeks, all traces of the previous night's orgy had disappeared. True his hand pained him, but he had neatly mended the split with plaster and the swelling had, in a great measure, yielded to the cold water.

"Getting fat," he grunted, as he noticed the increasing heaviness at his girth. "Fat and soft," he added, as a huge muscle yielded under the grip of his strong fingers.

In college this man had pulled the stroke oar of his crew, and on the gridiron had become a half-back of national renown. By the end of his second year no amateur could be found who would willingly face him with the gloves, and upon several occasions, under a carefully guarded sobriquet, he had given a good account of himself against some of the foremost professionals of the squared circle. He was a man of mighty muscles, of red blood, and of iron, to whom the strain and sweat of physical encounter were the breath of life.

He wondered as he carefully selected a tie, at the strange request he had received at the telephone. He glanced at the French clock on the mantel. His father, he knew, had been at his desk these two hours.

They had little in common—these two. After the death of his young wife, years before, Hiram Carmody had surrounded himself with a barrier of imperturbability beyond which even his son never ventured. Cold and unyielding, men called him—a twentieth century automaton of big business. Rarely, outside of banking hours, did the two meet. Never but once did they hold extended conversation. It was upon the occasion of the younger man's return from a year's Continental travel that his father summoned him and, with an air of impersonal finality, laid out his life work. The time had come for him to settle down to business. In regard to the nature of this business, or any choice he might have in the matter, William was not consulted. As a matter of course, being a Carmody, he was to enter the bank. His official position was that of messenger. His salary, six dollars a week, his private allowance, one hundred. And thus he was dismissed.

It cannot be chronicled that young Carmody was either surprised or disappointed at thus being assigned to a career. In truth, up to that time he had thought very little of the future and made no plans. He realized in a vague sort of way that some time he would engage in business; therefore, upon receipt of the paternal edict he merely looked bored, shrugged, and with a perfunctory, "Yes, sir," quit the room without comment.

He entered upon his duties stoically and without enthusiasm. At the end of a year his salary had increased to twelve dollars a week, and his sphere of usefulness enlarged to embrace the opening and sorting of mail. The monotony of the life palled upon him. He attended to his duties with dogged persistence and in the evenings haunted the gymnasiums. His athletic superiority was soon demonstrated and after a time, neither in the ring nor on the mat could he find an opponent worthy the name.

More and more he turned for diversion toward the white lights of Broadway. Here was amusement, excitement—life! He became immensely popular among certain of the faster set and all unconsciously found himself pitted against the most relentless foeman of them all—John Barleycorn.

Gradually the personnel of his friends changed. Less and less frequently did he appear at the various social functions of the Avenue, and more and more did he enter into the spirit of the Great White Way. On every hand he was hailed as "Bill Carmody," and by the great force of his personality maintained his universal popularity. Many smiled at the rumors of his wild escapades—some even envied—a few frowned. If his father knew he kept his own council—it was his way.

Only one warned him. Ethel Manton, beautiful, imperious, and altogether desirable, with just the suspicion of a challenge in her daringly flashing eyes, was the one person in all the world that Bill Carmody loved. And loving her, he set her high upon a pedestal and entered the lists with all the ardor of his being. His was the love of desire—the love of a strong man for his mate, bringing out by turns all that was best and worst in him.

Yet she remained cold—this girl of his golden dreams. Only at rare intervals did she unbend and allow him a fleeting glimpse of her very soul. At such times her eyes grew tender and she seemed very near to him—and very dear. And then he would tell her of his great love, and always her answer was the same: She would marry no man who was content to live upon an allowance. He must make good—must win to the fore in the business world as he had won in the athletic. And above all he must forswear the pace!

In vain he explained that business held no interest for him; that it was no man's game, but a sordid struggle of wits for the amassing of unneeded gold. In vain he argued that his father, already rich, would, in the event of their marriage, settle a large amount upon them in their own right. In answer to her reference to his habits he would laugh. He was not afraid; there was a man's game!

Of course, once married, all that would be changed. But, pshaw; it is all in a lifetime! And then he would lightly promise to mend his ways—a promise that was forgotten within the hour. What do women know of a strong man's play?

But one woman did know, and, knowing, cared.

[ ]

CHAPTER II

"BROADWAY BILL"

William Carmody had scarcely completed his careful grooming when, with a tap at the door, his father entered, closely followed by a rather burly individual in citizen's clothing, whose jaw was correctly and artistically swathed in bandages.

The two advanced a few paces into the room and paused. Father and son regarded each other in silence. At length the older man spoke:

"Where were you last night?"

William flushed at the tone and cast an inquiring glance at the man in bandages, who awkwardly shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His father motioned him to proceed.

"I was out with a bunch from Philly. Chesterton, '05; Burke, '03; little Hammond, '06; and old Busk Brater, star guard of the naughty-naughts."

"Drunk, were you?" The words sounded coldly impersonal, and the tone showed no surprise.

"Why, no, that is, I wouldn't exactly say——" his father silenced him with a gesture.

"Did you ever see this man before?"

William scrutinized the other carefully.

"I think not."

"Oh, you hain't, eh?"

The man's awkwardness disappeared, he advanced a step and it was evident that he spoke with difficulty.

"How about last night in front of Shanley's? Guess you wasn't there, eh? Guess I just dreamt about a bunch of souses turkey-trottin' along the sidewalk? I'd of stood for it, at that, but the girls got to pullin' it too raw even for Broadway.

"I know'd you by sight an' started in to give you the tip to put the soft pedal on the wiggle stuff, when, zowie! I guess you didn't reach out an' soak me—a cop!" He tapped the bandage upon the aggressively advanced jaw.

"Maybe the Times Building just tangoed across the square an' fell on me!" he went on with ponderous sarcasm. "An' that ain't all; when I gathers myself up, here's the tail-lights of a couple of taxis disappearin' into Forty-fourth Street, an' the crowd laughin' an' joshin' me somethin' fierce. I guess I dreamt that, too, eh?

"An' that ain't the worst of it. Down to headquarters I draws a thirty-day space—without! An' then, again, I guess they'll shove me right along for promotion on top of this. Not! I tell you I'm in bad all the ways around, with the whole force passin' me the grin an' askin' me have I saw Broadway Bill lately? An' in comes the inspector this mornin' with an order when I came back on, to report to McClusky, up in Harlem, an' help shoo the goats away from eatin' up the new sidewalks in front of the five-dollar-instalment lots.

"Nice kettle of fish for me, that was in line for a lieut. I ain't layin' it up again' you so much for the jolt; you're sure there with the punch, nor for the thirty-day space, neither, though with my family I can't afford that none. But, damn it, kid, you've broke me! With this here again' me I'll never be a lieut in a thousand years. I'm done!"

During the recital, the officer's voice lost its belligerent tone. He spoke as man to man, with no hint of self-pity. Young Carmody was honestly sorry. Here was a man who, in the act of giving him a friendly warning, had been felled by a brutal and unexpected blow. A hot blush of shame reddened his cheeks. He was about to speak but was interrupted by the voice of his father.

The old man seemed suddenly to have aged. His fine features, always pallid, appeared a shade paler. Gone was the arrogant poise of the head which for forty years had dominated boards of directors. The square-set shoulders drooped wearily, and in the eyes was the tired, dumb look of a beaten man.

"Officer, it seems hardly necessary for me to express my thanks for the consideration you have shown in coming directly to me with this matter," he said at last. "Had you been so inclined you could have stirred up a nasty mess of it, and no one would have blamed you."

He stepped to a small table and, seating himself, produced check-book and pen.

"I trust this will reimburse you for any financial loss you may have incurred by reason of this most unfortunate affair," he went on; "and as for the rest, leave that to me. I have, I believe, some little influence at headquarters, and I shall personally call upon the inspector."

The officer glanced at the slip of paper which the other thrust into his hand. It was written in four figures. He looked up. Something in the old man's attitude—the unspoken pain in the eyes—the pathetic droop of the shoulders, struck a responsive chord in the heart of the officer.

Impulsively he extended the hand in which the check remained unfolded.

"Here, Mr. Carmody, I can't take your money. You didn't get me right. I start out to knife you for what I can get, an' you wind up by treatin' me white. It wasn't your fault, nohow, an' I didn't know how you felt about—things."

There may have been just the shadow of a smile at the corners of Hiram Carmody's mouth as he waved a dismissal.

"We will consider the incident closed," he said.

At the door the officer turned to the younger man, who had been a silent listener.

"It's a pity to waste yourself that way. It's a punk game, kid, take it from me—they don't last! Where's your Broadway Bills of ten years ago? Stop an' think, kid. Where are they at?"

"My God," he muttered, as he passed down the broad stairway, "how many old fathers in New York is hidin' their feelin's behind a bold front, an' at the same time eatin' their hearts out with worry for their boys! An' folks callin' them good fellows!

"Money ain't everything in this here world, after all," he added, as his gaze traveled over the paintings and tapestries that lined the great hall.

Above stairs an uncomfortable atmosphere of constraint settled upon father and son. Both felt the awkwardness of the situation.

Young Carmody was a man with a heart as warm as his ways were wild. His was an impulsive nature which acted upon first impressions. Loving alike a fight or a frolic, he entered into either with a zest that made of them events to be remembered. He glanced across to where his father stood beside the table toying with a jade ink-well, and noted the unwonted droop of the shoulders and the unfamiliar gaze of the gray eyes in which the look of arrogance had dulled almost to softness—a pathetic figure, standing there in his own house—alone—unloved—a stranger to his only son.

The boy saw for the first time, not the banker, the dictator of high finance—but the man. Could it be that here was something he had missed? That through the long years since the death of his wife, the sweet-faced mother whom the boy remembered so vividly, this strange, inscrutable old man had craved the companionship of his son—had loved him?

At that moment, had the elder man spoken the word—weakened, he would have called it—the course of lives would have been changed. But the moment passed. Hiram Carmody's shoulders squared to their accustomed set, and his eyes hardened as he regarded his son.

"Well?" The word rang harsh, with a rising inflection that stung. The younger man made no reply and favored the speaker with a level stare.

"And you a Carmody!"

"Yes, I am a Carmody! But, thank God, I am only half Carmody! It is no fault of mine that I bear the Carmody name! At heart I am a McKim!"

The young man's eyes narrowed, and the words flashed defiantly from his lips. The shaft struck home. It was true. From the boy's babyhood the father had realized it with fear in his heart.

The beautiful, dashing girl he had wooed so long ago; had married, and had loved more deeply than she ever knew, was Eily McKim, descendant of the long line of Fighting McKims, whose men-children for five hundred years had loomed large in the world-wars of nations. Men of red blood and indomitable courage—these, who pursued war for the very love of the game, and who tasted blood in every clime, and under the flag of every nation. Hard-riding, hard-drinking, hard-fighting cavaliers, upon whose deeds and adventures the staid, circumspect Carmodys looked aghast. And this girl-wife, whose soft eyes and gentle nature had won his love, had borne him a son, and by some freak of atavism had transmitted to him the turbulent spirit of the Fighting McKims.

Again the old man spoke, and his voice was the voice that Wall Street knew—and feared.

"I suppose you are well pleased with yourself. You are referred to as one of 'a bunch of souses.' You were 'pulling it too raw even for Broadway.' You are known to fame as 'Broadway Bill.' You are a sport! You, and your college friends. And last night you achieved the crowning success of your career—you 'soaked a cop'! You, the last of a line of men, who for a hundred years have dominated the finances of a nation! You, the last of the Carmodys, are Broadway Bill, the sport!"

The biting scorn of his father's tone was not lost upon the younger man, who paled to the lips.

"Where are the securities you were supposed to have delivered to Strang, Liebhardt & Co.?"

"Here, in my desk. I intended to deliver them on my way to the bank this morning. The boys blew in yesterday and it was up to me to show them around a bit."

"I will relieve you of the securities. The deal with Strang, Liebhardt & Co. is off. It depended upon the delivery of those bonds during banking hours yesterday."

Without a word William crossed to the desk and, withdrawing a packet sealed in a heavy manila envelope, handed it to his father.

"The bank no longer requires your services," went on the old man coldly. "That a Carmody should prove himself absolutely untrustworthy and unreliable is beyond my ken. I do not intend to take you to task for your manner of living. It is a course many have chosen with varying results. You have made your bed—now lie in it. I need only say that I am bitterly disappointed in my son. Henceforth we are strangers.

"Here is my personal check for ten thousand dollars. That is the last cent of Carmody money you will receive. Properly invested it will yield you a competence. Many men have builded fortunes upon less. As pocket money for a Broadway Bill it will soon be squandered."

Mechanically the younger man picked up the check from the table.

"I think, sir," he answered, "that you have succeeded in making yourself perfectly clear. As a Carmody, I am a failure. You spoke of an investment. I am about to make one of which any McKim would approve."

With slow, deliberate movements he tore the check into tiny pieces and scattered them upon the carpet. "I shall leave your house," he continued, meeting the other's gaze squarely, "without a dollar of Carmody money, but with ten thousand dollars' worth of McKim self-respect. Good-by."

There was a note of cold finality in those last two words and the elder Carmody involuntarily extended his hand. He quitted the room abruptly as the boy, ignoring the civility, turned away.

An hour later William walked hurriedly down the steps of the Carmody mansion and, with never a backward glance, hailed a taxi and was whirled rapidly uptown.

[ ]

CHAPTER III

THE FINAL KICK

It was Saturday, and Ethel Manton was lunching early that she might accompany her fifteen-year-old brother on a ride through the park.

A certain story in the morning paper arrested her attention, and she reread it with flushed face and tightening lips. It was well done, as newspaper stories go, this account of a lurid night on Broadway which wound up in a crescendo of brilliance with the flooring of a policeman. No names were mentioned, but the initiated who read between the lines knew that only one man could have pulled off the stunt and gotten by with it.

"For goodness' sake, Eth, aren't you ever going to finish? You'll waste the whole afternoon over that old paper!"

Young Charlie had bolted his luncheon and waited impatiently in a deep window-seat overlooking the park. His sister laid down the paper with a sigh.

"Are the horses ready?" She asked the question in a dull, listless tone, so unlike her usual self that even Charlie noticed.

"Gee! You don't seem very keen about it. And look what a day! You look like you were going to a funeral."

Before the girl could reply he turned again to the window: "Look, a taxi is stopping and somebody is getting out. Oh, it's Bill Carmody! Ain't he a crackerjack, though? Say, Eth, why don't you marry Bill? He's just crazy about you—everybody says so, and——"

"Charlie!" The word was jerked out hysterically, and the boy was puzzled at the crimson of her face.

"Well, I don't care, it's so! And then I'd be a brother-in-law to Bill Carmody! Why, he can lick everybody down to the gym. He put on the gloves with me once," he boasted, swelling visibly, "just sparring, you know; but he promised to teach me the game. And football! There never was a half-back like Bill Carmody! Why he——"

"Do hush! He might hear you. Run along, now. You ride on and I will overtake you. I—I must see Mr. Carmody alone."

"Mr. Carmody! So you two have had a scrap! Well, if I was a girl, and Bill Carmody wanted to marry me, you bet, I'd marry him before he got a chance to change his mind. You bet, when I grow up I'm going to be just like him—so there!"

The boy flounced defiantly out of the room, leaving the girl alone with a new fear.

Since the death of her parents she had bravely and capably undertaken the management of the household, and her chief care was this impulsive boy who was so dear to her heart.

"Look after Charlie as long as he shall need you." The words of her dying mother came to her vividly. "He is really a noble little fellow—but hard to manage."

And now, added to the sorrow that already seemed crushing her, was this new anxiety.

Charlie had set up an idol—and the fact that his idol was also her idol—although she never admitted it—struck fear to her heart. For the undiscerning eyes of the boy were blind to the feet of clay.

In the library across the hall, William Carmody paced nervously up and down, pausing at each turn to gaze abstractedly out of the window.

After what seemed an interminable wait, the portières parted and the girl stepped into the room. In her hand she carried a carefully folded newspaper. She crossed to the table and, regarding the man with a cold, disconcerting stare, waited for him to speak.

"Hello, Ethel! No, thank you, I have had luncheon. I——" His gaze encountered the unwavering blue eyes, and he suddenly dropped the air of flippant assurance. "Er, I came to see you," he added lamely.

"Yes?" There was little of encouragement in the word with its accompanying inflection.

"You see, I am leaving New York."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, I am going away." He paused, but receiving no answer, continued, "I am going away to—to make good. And I came to say good-by. When I return, if—if you are still free, I will have something to tell you—something I have often told you before, but—well, things will be different, then."

"I suppose you said good-by to your other friends last night?" Her glance rested for a moment on the folded newspaper, and the silky sneer of her retort was brutal—with the studied brutality of the female of the species who would inflict pain. The man winced under its sting.

"Last night cannot be recalled," he replied gravely. "Whatever happened then is past and gone. You are right; figuratively speaking, I have said good-by to the others—to Broadway, and all it stands for. You alone know of my going. I am making no promises. If I fail no one will know—nor care. When I make good I will return—and then——"

The girl looked up. Their glances met, and in the depths of the steady gray eyes the soft blue ones read purpose—unflinching purpose to fight and win for the glory of an infinite love.

Her eyes dropped. She felt the hot blood mount to her face under the compelling magnetism of his gaze. She loved this man. In all the world no other could so move her. She loved—yet feared him. The very strength of him—the overmastering force of his personality—his barbaric disregard of conventionality at once attracted and frightened her.

In that moment she knew, deep down in her heart, that if this man should take her in his arms and hold her close against the throbbing of his great heart, his lips find hers, and should he pour into her ears the pent-up torrent of his love, her surrender would be complete.

His was the master mind, and in all the years to come that mind would rule, and she, the weaker one, would be forced under the yoke of its supremacy. She prayed for strength.

Let those who believe that once the living flesh has turned to clay the spirit dies, ascribe to a trick of memory the vision of her dying mother that flashed before the eyes of the girl, and the whispered words: "Look after Charlie as long as he shall need you."

But those there are who know that in that momentary vision spoke in faint memory-whispers the gentle spirit-mother, who—ranking high in that vast army which, in the words of the immortal Persian,

"Before us passed the door of Darkness through,"

—would guide the footsteps of her loved ones.

Thus strength came and steeled the heart of one great little woman who battled alone against love for her right to rule and shape the destiny of lives. The momentary flush receded from her face, and when her eyes again sought the man's, their glance was coldly repellent. She even forced a smile.

"Is it so amusing, then—my going?" he asked a little grimly.

"Yes, rather amusing to consider where a man would go and what he would do. A man, I mean, whose sole recommendation seems to be that he can 'lick' most anybody, and can 'drink more and stay soberer than any of the sports he travels with.'"

The dull red flooded the man's face at her words. Unconsciously he squared his shoulders and there was an unwonted dignity in his reply:

"I am well aware that my accomplishments are more in the nature of liabilities than assets. In spite of this I will make good—somewhere."

He stepped closer to the girl, and his voice grew harsh, almost rasping in its intensity. "I can beat the game. And I will beat it—now! Just to show you and your kind what a man can do—a man, I mean," he added, "'whose sole recommendation seems to be that he can lick most anybody—and can drink more and stay soberer than any of the sports he travels with.' Incidentally, I am glad to know your real opinion of me. I once believed that you were different from the others—that in you I had found a woman who possessed a real soul."

He laughed, a short, grating laugh—deep down, as though rude fingers drew a protest from raw heart-strings—a laugh that is not good to hear.

"I even thought," he went on, "that you cared for me—a little. That you were the one woman who, at the last of things, would give a man a helping hand, a little word of encouragement and hope, perhaps, instead of the final kick."

He bowed stiffly and turned toward the door. "Good-by!" he said, and the heavy portières closed behind him.

In the room the girl, white as marble, heard the click of the front door, the roar of a newly cranked motor, and the dying chug, chug of the retreating taxi.

That afternoon Charlie Manton rode alone, and when he returned, hungry as a young wolf, to be told that his sister had retired with a sick headache, he drew his own conclusions, nodding sagely over his solitary dinner.

Later, as he passed her door on the way to his room, he placed his ear at the keyhole and listened a long time to her half-muffled sobs.

"Gee!" he muttered as he passed down the hall, "they must have had an awful scrap!" He turned and quietly retraced his steps. In the library he switched on the lights and crossed to the telephone.

"There isn't any sense in that," he said, speaking to himself. "Bill loves Eth—that's a cinch. And she does love him, too, even if she won't let on.

"She wouldn't stick up in her room all day bawling her eyes out if she didn't. I'll call Bill up and tell him so, then he'll come and they'll make up. I bet he's sorry, too, by now."

At the Carmody residence he was told that Bill was not in. He received the same answer from several clubs, at each of which he left explicit instructions for Mr. Carmody to call him up at the first possible moment.

Thereafter Charlie frequented the gymnasiums and made industrious inquiry, but it was many a day before he again saw his idol. Bill Carmody was missing from his accustomed haunts, and none could tell whither he had gone.

Those were days fraught with anxiety for the boy. Ethel, to whom he was devoted, went about the house listless and preoccupied, in spite of her efforts to appear cheerful. When he attempted to reason with her she burst into tears and forbade him to mention Bill Carmody's name in her hearing as long as he lived. Whereupon the youngster retired disconsolately to his room to think things over.

"Love's a bum thing," he told himself. "If they do get married they die or get a divorce or something; and if they don't—well, Bill has prob'ly committed suicide and Eth is moping around, and most likely now she'll marry that dang St. Ledger." He made a wry face as he thought of St. Ledger.

"Runty little mollycoddle! Couldn't lick a chicken—him and his monocle. And that day the wind took his hat and rolled it through the mud, and he said: 'Oh, pshaw!' instead of damn it! Oh—slush! And I promised mother I'd take care of Eth."

He burrowed his face deep into the pillow, as, in spite of himself, tears came to his eyes.

[ ]

CHAPTER IV

LOVE OR HATE

Thus a week passed, in the course of which the heart of the girl was torn by conflicting emotions. Love clashed with hate and self-pity with self-reproach. Was it true—what he had said? Had she administered the final kick to a man who was down—who, loving her—and deep down in her heart she knew that he did love her—had come to her in the extremity of his need for a word of encouragement?

Now that he was gone she realized how much he had meant to her. How, in spite of his reckless disregard of life's serious side, she loved him. Try as she would she could not forget the look of deep hurt that dulled his eyes at her words.

Had she not been justified? Had he not needed just that to bring him to a realization of his responsibilities? Had she not, at the sacrifice of her own love, spurred and strengthened his purpose to make good? Or, had she, by raising a barrier between them, removed his one incentive to great effort?

Over and over the girl pondered these things. One moment her heart cried out for his return, and the next she reiterated her undying hate for the man in whose power it was so sorely to wound her with a word.

And so she sat one evening before an open fire in the library which had been the scene of their parting. Mechanically she turned the pages of a novel, but her mind was elsewhere, and her eyes lingered upon the details of the room.

"He stood there," she mused, "and I here—and then—those awful words. And, oh! the look in his eyes that day as the portières closed between us—and he was gone. Where?"

Somehow the idea obsessed her that he had gone to sea. She pictured him big and strong and brave, battling before the mast on some wallowing, storm-hectored trading ship outbound, bearing him away into the melting-pot of strange world-ways.

Would he come clean through the moil, winning honor and his place among men? And thus would he some day return—to her? Or would the sea claim him for her own, roughen him, and buffet him about through the long years among queer Far Eastern hell-ports where, jostling shoulder to shoulder with brutish men and the women who do not care, he would drink deep and laugh loud among the flesh-pots of society's discards?

The uncertainty was terrible to the girl, and she forced her thoughts into the one channel in which there was a ray of comfort.

"At least," she murmured, "he has ceased to be a menace to Charlie."

"Mr. Hiram Carmody, miss."

The old manservant who had been with the Mantons always, stood framed in the inverted V of the parted portières.

Ethel started. Why had he called? During the lifetime of her father the elder Carmody had been a frequent visitor in the Manton home.

Was it about Bill? Was he sick? Had there been an accident, and was he hurt—possibly dead? There was an icy grip at her heart, though her voice was quite firm as she replied:

"I will see Mr. Carmody at once, Craddon."

As the man silently withdrew from the doorway a new thought came to her.

Could it be that Bill was still in New York? That his going away had been an empty threat? And was he now trying to bring about a reconciliation through the medium of his father? How she could despise him for that!

Her lips thinned, and there was a hint of formality in her greeting as she offered her hand to the tall, gray-haired man who advanced toward her.

"Well, well! Miss Ethel," he began, "all alone with a book and a cozy fire. That is what I call solid comfort." He crossed the room and extended his hands to the blaze.

"It is a long time since you have called, Mr. Carmody."

"Yes. We old fellows rarely drift outside the groove of our fixed orbit. One by one we drop out, and as each one passes beyond it shortens the orbit of the others. The circle is always contracting—never expanding. The last one of us will be found in his dotage never venturing beyond the circle of his own fireside until he, too, shall answer the call."

The voice held a note of sadness which touched the girl deeply, and she suddenly noted that the fine patrician face had aged.

"You should not speak of being old," she said gently. "Why, you are called the Wizard of Wall Street."

"A man is only as old as he feels. Until recently I have considered myself a young man. But of late I feel that I am losing my grip."

"Isn't that a dangerous admission? If it should become known on the Street——"

"Ha!"—the heavy gray eyebrows met with a ferocity which belied the smile that curved the thin lips—"if it were but whispered upon the Street the wolves would be at my throat before morning. But they would have a fight on their hands! However, all that is beside the purpose. I suppose you are wondering why I called?"

The girl was momentarily at a loss for a reply. "Why, I—You know you are always welcome here."

"Yes, yes. But, as you must have surmised, I called with a definite object in view. A matter that concerns you and—er, my son."

The girl turned a shade paler.

"I do not understand," she replied.

"Nor do I. I have come to you at the risk of being thought a meddling old fool! But the fact is, I have several times lately heard your name mentioned in connection with William's, and recently there came into my possession this packet of letters addressed to my son in a feminine hand and bearing the Manton crest."

The girl's face flushed as she took the proffered packet and waited for him to continue.

"Fred Manton was my best friend," went on the old man, "and I won't see harm come to his daughter, if I can prevent it. You two may be just friends; you may be engaged—or married, for all I know. My son never deemed it worth while to take me into his confidence. In either case, I am here—and I will have my say. I shall put myself in the place of your father and speak as, I believe, he would have spoken. I may seem harsh and bitter toward my own son, but remember, Miss Ethel, I have had vastly more experience in the ways of the world than you have—and I know whereof I speak.

"Slight as is the difference between your ages, you are but an inexperienced girl, as the world knows experience, and William is a man—and a man, I am sorry to say, who is no fit associate for a woman like you."

Surprised and perplexed the girl felt her anger rise against this man. Instinctively she rallied to Bill's defense:

"He is not bad at heart!" she said resentfully.

"What worse can you say?" returned Carmody with a harsh laugh. "Of all expressions coined to damn a man with faint praise, there is only one more effective: 'He means well.'"

Ethel was thoroughly angry now. She drew herself up, and her blue eyes darkened as she faced him.

"That is not so!" she cried. "Bill is not bad at heart! And he does mean well! Whose fault is it that he has grown up reckless and wild? Who is to blame? What chance has he had? What have you done for him? Filled his pockets with money and packed him off to school. Filled his pockets with money and sent him to college. Filled his pockets with money and shipped him abroad.

"Then, without consulting his taste or desire, you peremptorily thrust him into a business which he loathes—on an office boy's salary and an allowance out of all proportion to his requirements.

"You say he has never taken you into his confidence. Have you ever invited that confidence? Have you ever sought his companionship—even his acquaintance?"

The man was astonished at her vehemence. Uncomfortably he found himself forced to the defensive.

"He had his chance. I placed him in the bank that he might learn the business as I learned it. If he had had the right stuff in him he would have made good. As it was, he attended to his duties in the most perfunctory and superficial manner. He showed not the slightest interest in the business. In fact, his position could have been ably filled by the veriest gutter-snipe. And he is the man who one day, in all probability, would have come into control of the Carmody millions! And he would have scattered them in a riot of dissipation the length and breadth of Broadway.

"But I have forestalled him. He is foot-loose—gone, God knows where, to follow the fortune of adventure, perhaps, at the ends of the earth. For in him, transmitted in some unaccountable manner through the blood of the gentlest, sweetest little woman who ever warmed a heart, is the restless spirit of the roistering, fighting McKims."

"Is it the boy's fault that he is a McKim?" returned the girl a little sharply. "Who chose his mother? Of all men you should be the last to speak disparagingly of a McKim. Turn the pages of history and you will find written large in the story of the upbuilding of nations the name of McKim. Carmody gold is the cabala of Carmody suzerainty. But the McKim name has been carved deep in the annals of nations by sheer force of the personalities behind blades of naked steel.

"Even now the crying world-need for men—big men—is as great as in the days when the fighting McKims deserted their hearthstones to answer the call of the falchion's clash or the cannon's roar. And some day you will realize this—when your bank messenger makes good!"

The old man regarded her with a look of admiration.

"You love him!" he said quietly.

The girl started. Her eyes flashed and the play of the firelight gave an added touch of crimson to her cheeks.

"I do not love him! I—I hate him!" Her voice faltered, and the man saw that she was very near to tears.

"A strange hate, this, Miss Ethel. A strange and a most dangerous hate for a girl to hold against a man who is a thief."

[ ]

CHAPTER V

"THIEF!"

"A man who is a thief!" The words fell distinctly from Carmody's lips with the studied quiet of desperation. Ethel stared wild-eyed at the speaker, and in the frozen silence of the room her tiny fists doubled until the knuckles whitened.

Noting the effect upon the girl, he continued, speaking more rapidly now that the dreaded word had been uttered.

"I had no wish to tell you this thing. It is a secret I would gladly have kept locked within my own breast. But I came here this evening with a purpose—to save, in spite of herself, if need be, the daughter of my dead friend from a life of suffering which would inevitably fall to the lot of any pure-hearted woman who linked her life with that of an unscrupulous scoundrel, in whom even common decency is dead, if, indeed, it ever lived."

"He is not a thief! He——" began Ethel vehemently, but the man interrupted her.

"Wait until you have heard the facts. Last week, on Friday, there was entrusted to my son's care for delivery a heavy manila envelope containing fifty thousand dollars' worth of negotiable bonds. It was a matter of vital importance that these be delivered within a specified time. Ignoring this fact, he pocketed the bonds, and, in company with a number of his acquaintances, indulged in a drunken spree which culminated after midnight in a disgraceful street scene in the Broadway theatre district.

"The following morning, when I confronted him, he flouted me to my face, whereupon I virtually disinherited him. Not wishing to turn him away penniless, I handed him a check for a considerable amount which he saw fit to destroy melodramatically in my presence. Upon my request for the return of the securities, he handed me an envelope identical with that in which the bonds had been placed. I carried the packet to the bank where it was opened and found to contain not the bonds—but those letters.

"To avoid a scandal I made good the loss. I learned later, through investigation, that upon leaving home he came directly to this house, where he remained for upward of a half-hour.

"Further than this I know nothing of his movements except that he reëntered the taxi and proceeded down-town. At Thirty-Fourth Street, where the chauffeur slowed down for instructions, he found the cab empty."

"And these are the facts upon which you base your accusation?" asked the girl coldly. "You, his own father!"

"To an unbiased mind the evidence allows but one interpretation."

"But his eyes! Oh, can't you see there has been some mistake? His eyes are not the eyes of a thief!"

"There has been no mistake. A most thorough search of the premises has failed to disclose a trace of the missing securities. In his desk from which he took the substituted packet were found several similar envelopes, but these contained only worthless rubbish—newspaper clippings of sporting events and the like.

"No, Miss Ethel, when William Carmody left my house that morning he carried with him those bonds. And he came here, knowing that he was a thief, with his pocket bulging with plunder!

"As I told you, I know nothing of the relations existing between you and my son. I only hope that he has gone forever out of your life, as he has gone out of mine."

The light died out of the girl's eyes and her voice sounded strangely dull as she replied:

"Yes, he has gone out of my life—maybe forever. He came to me here, to tell me that he was going away to make good. And I—I was not big enough to see it. I sent him away with a sneer. Bill is no thief. For what he has been you are to blame—you and the Carmody money. For the first time in his life he has a fair chance. He has left New York the man you made him. He will return the man he makes himself. Oh! If—if I only——"

"There, there, Miss Ethel, your loyalty is admirable, if misplaced——"

"Don't speak to me of loyalty! I have been as narrow and as mean as—as you have!"

"My dear girl, you are overwrought. The sooner we learn that William Carmody has ceased to exist the better it will be for both of us. I bid you good-night."

The girl sank into the depths of her big chair and watched the sputtering little jet-flames lick futilely at the artificial logs of the fireplace. Believing herself alone, she was startled by the sound of footsteps hurrying noisily across the room. The next instant a tousle-headed boy with eyes ablaze was at her side working her hands like pump-handles.

"By Jimmy, Eth, you're a brick—the way you gave it to him! You bet I'll tell Bill how you stuck up for him."

"Charlie Manton! You were listening—eavesdropping."

"I didn't! I wasn't! I mean I couldn't help hearing! The door of the den was open and I was in there studying. Old man Carmody is an old liar!"

"Charlie!"

"Well, he is, and you know it! I hate him! You bet he wouldn't dare call Bill a thief to his face! Bill could lick forty-seven like him with one hand tied behind his back. Bill is square. He wouldn't swipe a million dollars—let alone a rotten, measly fifty thousand!"

"Charlie Manton! What kind of talk is that? You ought to be ashamed!"

"Well, I ain't—so there! And I'm Bill's friend, and I ain't afraid to say so, either. You do love Bill—and you know it! You can claim you hate him till you're black in the face, but you can't fool me! What did you stick up for him for if you hated him? I bet old man Carmody swiped the bonds himself!"

"Stop right there! Aren't you ashamed to speak so disrespectfully of Mr. Carmody? He was an old friend of father's."

"I don't care if he was. I'm an old friend of Bill's, too. And Bill ain't a thief, no matter what he says!"

"You go to bed this minute. I am surprised and mortified to think that you would be so contemptible as to listen to other people's affairs."

"'Taint any worse than lying!"

The boy stamped angrily from the room, and the girl sat long by the fire and, one by one, fed letters to the flames.

[ ]

CHAPTER VI

THE CROOKED GAME

"Clickity-click, clickity-click, clickity-click," the monotonous song of the rails told off the miles as the heavy train rushed westward between the endless cornfields of a flat middle State. To the well-built athletic young man who was one of the four occupants of the little end-room, smoking compartment, the outlook was anything but cheerful.

As far as the eye could reach long rows of shriveled husks, from which the season's crop of yellow ears had been torn, flapped dejectedly against their dried and broken stalks. Here and there a square of rich, black loam, freshly turned, bespoke the forehanded farmer; while in the fields of his neighbors straggling groups of cattle and hogs gleaned half-heartedly in the standing roughage.

"Not much for scenery, is it?" The offensively garrulous passenger directed his remarks to the young man, who abstractedly surveyed the landscape. "No, sir," he continued, "you've got to go West for Scenery. Ever been West?"

The young man nodded without removing his gaze from the window.

"I live in Coloraydo," the other persisted. "Went out there for my health—and I stayed. Johnson's my name. I'm in the mining business."

His eyes swept the compartment to include the others in the too evident geniality of their glance.

"Now that we're all acquainted," he ventured—"how about a little game of seven-up, just to pass away the time? How about you, dad?"

Thus flippantly he addressed the ruddy-faced, middle-aged gentleman in gray tweeds, whose attention was apparently concentrated upon the lengthening ash of his cigar.

With enthusiasm undampened by the curtness of the latter's refusal, he turned to the remaining passenger—a youth upon whose lip sprouted a tenderly pruned mustache, so obviously new that it looked itchy.

"How about you, captain?" The top-heavy youth closed his magazine and unlocked a brain-cell.

"I don't mind." He ostentatiously consulted a very gold watch. "Must be in Chicago this evening," he muttered quite audibly, pulling a ten, twent, thirt frown that caused his labial foliage to rustle with importance.

He drew from his pocket a card upon which the ink was scarcely dry and handed it to the effervescent Johnson, who read aloud:

Mr. LINCOLN S. TARBEL

Municipal Investigator

"You see," explained its owner, "it has reached the ears of the managing editor of my paper in South Bend that vice in various forms flourishes in Chicago! Thereupon he immediately sent for me and ordered a sweeping investigation."

Further information was forestalled by the entrance of a suave-mannered individual who introduced himself as a cigar salesman, and who was readily induced to take a hand in the game.

The lightning-like glances that passed between the newcomer and the Western Mr. Johnson, while entirely unnoted by the investigator of municipal vice, aroused the interest of the athletic young man to the point of assenting to make the fourth. Here, evidently, was something about to be pulled off, and he decided to be actively among those present.

The game progressed through several uneventful deals. Suddenly Johnson, scrutinizing a hand dealt him by the cigar salesman, emitted a low whistle.

"If we were playing poker now I'd have something to say!"

"Oh, I don't know! I've got some poker hand myself," opined the dealer. "Discard one, to make a five-card hand, and I bet you five dollars I beat you."

"You're on!" Each produced a bill which he handed to the athletic young man to hold.

"Three eights and a pair of deuces," boasted the Westerner, exposing the full hand upon the board.

"Beats three kings," admitted the other, ruefully laying down his hand. The winner pocketed the money with an exaggerated wink in the direction of the newspaper youth who had been an interested spectator.

The game progressed, and before many deals another challenge was passed and accepted between the two. This time it was the salesman who profited to the extent of twenty-five dollars which he received from the stakeholder with the remark that he would bet his whole roll on a jack full any old day.

The elderly gentleman smoked in silence and amused himself by mentally cataloguing the players. Suddenly his attention became riveted.

What he saw jarred harshly upon his estimate of the athletic young man who, at the conclusion of his deal, dexterously slipped some cards beneath the table from his pile of tricks, then, bunching the pack, passed it to the Westerner for the next deal.

He was on the point of exposing this cheap bit of knavery when the young man glanced in his direction. Something in the steady gaze of the gray eyes, though for the life of him he could not have told what, stayed his purpose, and he settled into his seat, more puzzled than before.

"If it had been any one of the others," he thought to himself; "and then to think that he turns around and with a look virtually makes me a party to his tuppenny trickery!"

His reflections were cut short by a sharp exclamation from the investigator of vice who, in spite of his desire to appear composed, was evidently laboring under great excitement.

"I'll bet twenty-five dollars I've got the best poker hand this time!" He was staring at his tight-gripped cards. Johnson looked his hand over—and with a careless:

"Here's where I get even," tossed the amount to the athletic young man, who laid his cards upon the table. The cigar salesman broke in:

"Hold on! I'm in on this, too! Got a pretty fair hand myself. And just to show you sports I'm game, I'll make it a hundred."

He passed a handful of bills to the stakeholder and glared defiantly at the newspaper person who was in the act of returning a bill-fold to his pocket.

"Why, that is all I've got!" he gasped, "and it's expense-money!"

"Well, of course," the other replied, "if you don't care to see my hand, and I don't mind telling you it's more than a middling good one——"

"I'll bet"—the hand that extracted the neatly folded bills from the leather case shook and the voice rose to a ludicrous falsetto—"I've got you beat, and if I had any more money with me I'd come back at you."

"You've got a watch there," remarked Mr. Johnson. "Let's see it. I ain't going to stay for the raise. My three sevens don't look as good as they did."

"I paid fifty dollars for it!" piped the youth, passing the watch across the board. Both men examined it.

"Oh, well, I don't know anything about watches, but I'll take your word for it. Stick her up—here's the fifty."

"I've got four aces!" squealed the reporter as he spread them out face upward. He stared wildly at the other, and his hands made wet marks where they touched the board.

"No good," remarked his opponent blandly. "Mine's hearts—all in a row, with the jack at the top." One by one he laid them down—a straight flush. South Bend stared incredulously at the cards.

"All right, Mr. Stakeholder," laughed the salesman, "pass over the kale. Just slip out a five for your trouble."

"Just a minute." The voice of the stakeholder was quiet and his lips smiled. The two across the board bristled aggressively and the plucked one sniffled.

"Well"—there was an ugly note in the cigar salesman's voice—"a straight flush beats four aces, don't it?"

"Oh, yes, there is no question as to that. Are these the same cards we have been using?"