Blacksheep! Blacksheep! by Meredith Nicholson (best books for students to read TXT) 📕

"No red caps here, I suppose," said Congdon with a glance toward the station.

"I fancy not," Archie replied. "I'll be glad to help you with your bags."

"Oh, thank you! I have a game shoulder,—nearly well now, but it gives me a twinge occasionally. The train's on time, I believe."

A blast from the locomotive and a humming of the rails woke the station to life. Archie grabbed the larger of Congdon's bags and led the way toward a voice bawling "Chicago sleeper." Congdon showed his ticket for lower three and climbed in; Archie remaining behind to negotiate for space.

"Nothing left but uppers; you can take upper three."

He found Congdon in the aisle disposing of his effects.

"I've got the upper half of the section," said Archie, "But I promise not to be a nuisance to you."

"That will be all right. I asked for a stateroom but you can never get what you want at these way stations. I'm going to smoke for a while."

Archie threw his suitcase into the upper berth and clung to the curtains as the train started with a jerk. Here was a situation so utterly confounding that his spirit sank under the weight of it. He was not only traveling with a man he had shot; he was obliged to sleep over him. The propinquity made it possible to finish the business begun at Bailey Harbor and be done with him. He felt the perspiration trickling down his cheeks. The possibilities of the next few hours were hideous; what if he were unable to resist an impulse to give Putney Congdon his quietus; what if—

He staggered toward the smoking compartment and found it unoccupied save for Congdon, who had planted himself in a chair and was trying to light a cigarette. Archie sank upon the leather divan and struck and held a match for him.

Congdon thanked him with a nod and remarked that the weather was favoring the farmers.

Archie, satisfied that the rather melancholy blue eyes had found in him nothing familiar or suggestive of their earlier and tragic meeting, heartily commended the weather as excellent for the crops. Congdon gave a hitch to his shoulder occasionally and flinched when a sudden jerk of the car threw him against the window frame. The glint of pain in his eyes sent a wave of remorse through Archie's soul. Congdon bore his affliction manfully. There was about him nothing even remotely suggestive of Eliphalet Congdon's grotesque figure or excited, choppy speech. He had suffered and perhaps his wound was not alone responsible for his pallor or the hurt look in his eyes. As Congdon played nervously with his watch chain, he inspected Archie with quick furtive glances.

"I'm all banged up—nerves shot to pieces," he said abruptly, turning his gaze intently upon Archie.

"That's rough. Used to be troubled a good deal myself."

The sound of his own voice and the consciousness that the victim of his bullet was reaching out to him for sympathy brought back his courage. He would be very kind to Putney Congdon. Even apart from the disabled shoulder there was a pathos in the man. Archie felt that in happier moments he could become very fond of Putney Congdon. He looked like a chap it would be pleasant to sit with at a table for two in a quiet club corner.

"Chicago?" Congdon asked. It seemed to Archie that he threw into the question a hope that they were to be fellow travelers to the end of the journey. Here was something, a turn of the screw, that even the Governor could not have foreseen.

The conductor came for their tickets and Archie took advantage of the interruption to ponder the ethics and the etiquette of his predicament; but there was no precedent in all history for such a synchronization of two gentlemen who had recently engaged in a midnight duel. Archie was appalled by the consciousness that he and Congdon were really hitting it off.

The tickets surrendered, Congdon drew out his watch, said that he had been sleeping badly and hated to go to bed. He sat erect and tried to reach his coat pocket. His face twitched with the pain of the effort.

"I had a bottle of dope I'm supposed to take to help me sleep; must have left it in my bag. Will you poke the button, please?"

"Can't I get it for you?" asked Archie.

"You are very kind. It's the small satchel—a lot of stuff in it all mixed up. A bottle about as long as your hand."

Opening the bag in Congdon's berth Archie's hand fell upon a photograph that lay on top. The face swam before his eyes and he pitched forward in his agitation, bumping his head viciously against the window. It was a photograph of Isabel Perry, an Isabel somewhat younger than the girl he knew, but Isabel—indubitably Isabel! Another dive into the bag's recesses brought up the photograph of Edith Congdon that had been snatched from the frame in the Bailey Harbor cottage. This was explicable enough, but the likeness of Isabel in Congdon's satchel was utterly inexplicable and astounding. He groped for the bottle and crept back to the smoking compartment.

"That's right; thanks. One teaspoonful in water if you don't mind. This is really quite unpardonable. You are very good to bother with me; I'd counted on the porter's help. Had a trained nurse for a while but you can't go traveling over the country with a nurse, and the woman had begun to bore me to death. I'd rather die than have doctors and nurses trailing me about."

"They're odious," Archie assented. "There! Now have a cigarette to kill the taste."

"Good idea! One more and I'll turn in."

A cigarette is the most insignificant of peace offerings, and yet Archie experienced a pleasurable thrill as Putney Congdon accepted one from his case. They were very good cigarettes, of a brand with which Archie had supplied himself generously at Tiffin and Congdon expressed his approval of them.

Congdon, the custodian of a photograph of Isabel Perry, demanded a more careful inspection, and Archie studied him with renewed interest. Isabel had in no way indicated that she knew Congdon; it was Mrs. Congdon that she was trying to serve, and Isabel was hardly a girl to bestow her photograph upon a married man. Congdon had no business with the photograph and Archie bitterly resented its presence in the man's luggage.

He jumped when Congdon announced that he was ready to turn in, followed him to the berth, and helped him to undress, even touching the wounded shoulder.

"That little scratch there's coming along all right now, but the bone's sore; suppose I'll feel weather changes as old chaps do who have rheumatism."

"Whistle if you need anything in the night," said Archie, and allowed the porter to push him into the upper berth, the first he had ever occupied. Wakened now and then by unusual jars, he heard nothing of Congdon. He stifled a desire to steal Isabel's photograph and in time slept the sleep of exhaustion.

When they were roused by the porter he helped Congdon into his clothes, chose a clean shirt for him and laughingly offered to shave him.

Congdon regarded him quizzically.

"You're a mighty good fellow! It's about time I was introducing myself. My name is Congdon. I live in New York; just taking a little trip for my health; going up into the lakes."

"Comly's my name. No particular plans myself. Just knocking about a bit."

By the time Archie had made his toilet they were running into the Chicago station.

"Suppose we have breakfast in the station restaurant?" Congdon suggested. "If I go up to the University Club I'm likely to run into somebody who'll want me to do things. And I'm not up to it; really I'm not."

"I understand perfectly," said Archie.

"And see here, old man; I don't want to force myself on you, but you've been awfully decent to me. Don't be alarmed, but to tell you the honest truth my nerves are in such a state that I'm afraid to be alone. If a poor neurasthenic won't bore you too much I wish you'd let me tag you till my train leaves tonight. I promise not to be a nuisance and if it becomes unbearable, just chuck me!"

They not only breakfasted together, but after motoring through the parks they spent an hour at the art institute and then Archie acted as host at luncheon. The fear of being accosted by an acquaintance made him nervous, and his anxiety seemed to be shared by Congdon, who chose an eating place unfrequented by travelers. By this time Archie was fully committed to the further journey into Michigan and contributed his half to the purchase of a stateroom for the trip.

"I'm using you; you can see that I'm using you, making a valet of you, dragging you into the wilderness!" exclaimed Congdon. "But I always was a selfish whelp."

He made the confession with a grim smile, and an impatient sweep of his free arm as though brushing himself out of existence.

Archie's intimate friends were few; men thought him difficult, or looked upon him as an invalid to be left to his own devices; and yet he felt that he had known Putney Congdon for years.

On a bench in Grant Park Congdon swung himself into a confidential attitude.

"Life's the devil's own business," he said with a deep sigh. "I've got to a place where I don't care what happens—everything black anywhere I look. I've been trying for the past four or five years to do things God Almighty never intended me to do. I was happily married; two beautiful children; none finer,—but I'll shorten up the story so you can see what a monkey fate has made of me. My father's a crank, a genius in his way, but decidedly eccentric. My mother died when I was a youngster and as I was an only child father tried all sorts of schemes of educating me, whimsical notions, one after another. The result was I've never got a look in anywhere; unfitted for everything. After I married he still tried to hold the rein on me, wanted to put me into businesses I hated and kept meddling with my domestic affairs. All this made me weak and irresolute. I have a mechanical turn—not a strong bent but the only thing that ever tugged at me very hard. Almost made some important inventions, but only almost. About the time I'd get a good start father would shoot me off into something else, and if I refused he'd cut off my allowance. Never set me up for myself; keeps me dependent on his bounty. Humiliating; positively humiliating!"

"I can imagine so," Archie agreed. He had now got the explanation of the blue prints in the Bailey Harbor house and found himself deeply interested in Congdon's recital.

"Well, sir, I was about to offer myself as exhibit A on a slab in the nearest morgue," Congdon continued, "when I met a young woman who seemed to understand me, and right there's where I made the greatest mistake of my life. It was last spring when that happened. Talk about plausibility, Comly! The word never had any meaning until that girl came along. She made a fool of me; that's the short of it. I took her into dinner at the house of some friends right here in Chicago—I lived here about a month trying to learn a patent medicine business father had gone into. The thing was a fake; a ghastly imposition on the public. Such things have a weird fascination for father; it's simply an obsession, for he doesn't need the money."

He was wandering into a description of various other dubious businesses that had attracted Eliphalet Congdon when Archie, nervously twisting a folded newspaper, brought him back to