In the Midst of Alarms by Robert Barr (sites to read books for free txt) 📕

Renmark watched the glory of the sunrise, took one lingering look at the curved beauty of the bay shore, shook the sand from his clothing, and started back for the village and the camp beyond.

The village was astir when he reached it. He was surprised to see Stoliker on horseback in front of one of the taverns. Two assistants were with him, also seated on horses. The constable seemed disturbed by the sight of Renmark, but he was there to do his duty.

"Hello!" he cried, "you're up early. I have a warrant for the arrest of your friend: I suppose you won't tell me where he is?"

"You can't expect me to give any information that will get a friend into trouble, can you? especially as he has done nothing."

"That's as may turn out before a jury," said one of the assistants gravely.

"Yes," assented, Stoliker, winking quietly at the professor. "That is for judge and jury to determine--not you."

"Well," said Renmark, "I will not inform about anybody, unless I am compelled to do so, but I may save you some trouble by telling where I have been and what I have seen. I am on my way back from the lake. If you go down there, you will still see the mark of a boat's keel on the sand, and probably footprints. A boat came over from the other shore in the night, and a man got on board. I don't say who the man was, and I had nothing to do with the matter in any way except as a spectator. That is all the information I have to give."

Stoliker turned to his assistants, and nodded. "What did I tell you?" he asked. "We were right on his track."

"You said the railroad," grumbled the man who had spoken before.

"Well, we were within two miles of him. Let us go down to the lake and see the traces. Then we can return the warrant."

Renmark found Yates still asleep in the tent. He prepared breakfast without disturbing him. When the meal was ready, he roused the reporter and told him of his meeting with Stoliker, advising him to get back to New York without delay.

Yates yawned sleepily.

"Yes," he said, "I've been dreaming it all out. I'll get father-in-law to tote me out to Fort Erie to-night."

"Do you think it will be safe to put it off so long?"

"Safer than trying to get away during the day. After breakfast I'm going down to the Bartlett homestead. Must have a talk with the old folks, you know. I'll spend the rest of the day making up for that interview by talking with Kitty. Stoliker will never search for me there, and, now that he thinks I'm gone, he will likely make a visit to the tent. Stoliker is a good fellow, but his strong point is duty, you know; and if he's certain I'm gone, he'll give his country the worth of its money by searching. I won't be back for dinner, so you can put in your time reading my Dime Novels. I make no reflections on your cooking, Renny, now that the vacation is over; but I have my preferences, and they incline toward a final meal with the Bartletts. If I were you, I'd have a nap. You look tired out."

"I am," said the professor.

Renmark intended to lie down for a few moments until Yates was clear of the camp, after which he determined to pay a visit; but Nature, when she got him locked up in sleep, took her revenge. He did not hear Stoliker and his satellites search the premises, just as Yates had predicted they would; and when he finally awoke, he found to his astonishment that it was nearly dark. But he was all the better for his sleep, and he attended to his personal appearance with more than ordinary care.

Old Hiram Bartlett accepted the situation with the patient and grim stolidity of a man who takes a blow dealt him by a Providence known by him to be inscrutable. What he had done to deserve it was beyond his comprehension. He silently hitched up his horses, and, for the first time in his life, drove into Fort Erie without any reasonable excuse for going there. He tied his team at the usual corner, after which he sat at one of the taverns and drank strong waters that had no apparent effect on him. He even went so far as to smoke two native cigars; and a man who can do that can do anything. To bring up a daughter who would deliberately accept a man from "the States," and to have a wife who would aid and abet such an action, giving comfort and support to the enemy, seemed to him traitorous to all the traditions of 1812, or any other date in the history of the two countries. At times wild ideas of getting blind full, and going home to break every breakable thing in the house, rose in his mind; but prudence whispered that he had to live all the rest of his life with his wife, and he realized that this scheme of vengeance had its drawbacks. Finally, he untied his patient team, after paying his bill, and drove silently home, not having returned, even by a nod, any of the salutations tendered to him that day. He was somewhat relieved to find no questions were asked, and that his wife recognized the fact that he was passing through a crisis. Nevertheless, there was a steely glitter in her eye under which he uneasily quailed, for it told him a line had been reached which it would not be well for him to cross. She forgave, but it must not go any further.

When Yates kissed Kitty good-night at the gate, he asked her, with some trepidation, whether she had told anyone of their engagement.

"No one but Margaret," said Kitty.

"And what did she say?" asked Yates, as if, after all, her opinion was of no importance.

"She said she was sure I should be happy, and she knew you would make a good husband."

"She's rather a nice girl, is Margaret," remarked Yates, with the air of a man willing to concede good qualities to a girl other than his own, but indicating, after all, that there was but one on earth for him.

"She is a lovely girl," said Kitty enthusiastically. "I wonder, Dick, when you knew her, why you ever fell in love with me."

"The idea! I haven't a word to say against Margaret; but, compared with my girl----"

And he finished his sentence with a practical illustration of his frame of mind.

As he walked alone down the road he reflected that Margaret had acted very handsomely, and he resolved to drop in and wish her good-by. But as he approached the house his courage began to fail him, and he thought it better to sit on the fence, near the place where he had sat the night before, and think it over. It took a good deal of thinking. But as he sat there it was destined that Yates should receive some information which would simplify matters. Two persons came slowly out of the gate in the gathering darkness. They strolled together up the road past him, absorbed in themselves. When directly opposite the reporter, Renmark put his arm around Margaret's waist, and Yates nearly fell off the fence. He held his breath until they were safely out of hearing, then slid down and crawled along in the shadow until he came to the side road, up which he walked, thoughtfully pausing every few moments to remark: "Well, I'll be----" But speech seemed to have failed him; he could get no further.

He stopped at the fence and leaned against it, gazing for the last time at the tent, glimmering white, like a misshapen ghost, among the somber trees. He had no energy left to climb over.

"Well, I'm a chimpanzee," he muttered to himself at last. "The highest bidder can have me, with no upset price. Dick Yates, I wouldn't have believed it of you. _You_ a newspaper man? _You_ a reporter from 'way back? _You_ up to snuff? Yates, I'm ashamed to be seen in your company! Go back to New York, and let the youngest reporter in from a country newspaper scoop the daylight out of you. To think that this thing has been going on right under your well-developed nose, and you never saw it--worse, never had the faintest suspicion of it; that it was thrust at you twenty times a day--nearly got your stupid head smashed on account of it; yet you bleated away like the innocent little lamb that you are, and never even suspected! Dick, you're a three- sheet-poster fool in colored ink. And to think that both of them know all about the first proposal! _Both_ of them! Well, thank Heaven, Toronto is a long way from New York."

THE END.
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Publication Date: 08-09-2010

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