Part 51

"Well, so far, we've had our trouble for nothing, you might say. You, as a director, know that Champney sends up a hundred thousand say on Thursday, and Romanzo draws it for the pay roll and other disbursements on Saturday morning; they hold it at the other end to get the use of it till the last gun is fired." He spoke with irritation.

"It looks to me as if some sort of a gun had been fired already," said Mr. Wiggins, pointing to the increasing crowd before the hall.

"Something's up," said Emlie, startled at the sight of the gathering hundreds.

"Then there's my place," said the Colonel--the other two thought they heard him sigh--and started up the street.

Emlie turned to Mr. Wiggins.

"It's rough on the Colonel; he's a man of peace if ever there was one, and likes to stand well with one and all. This rough and tumble business of sheriff goes against the grain; his time is up next month; he'll be glad enough to be out of it. I'll step over to the office for the paper, I see they've just come--the men have got them already from the stand--"

Elmer Wiggins caught his arm.

"Look!" he cried under his breath, pointing to the crowd and a man who was mounting the tail of an express wagon that had halted on the outskirts of the throng. "That's one of the quarrymen--he's ring-leader every time--he's going to read 'em something--hark!"

They could hear the man haranguing the ever-increasing crowd; he was waving a newspaper. They could not hear what he was saying, but in the pauses of his speechifying the hoarse murmur of approval grew louder and louder. The cart-tail orator pointed to the headlines; there was a sudden deep silence, so deep that the soft scurrying of a mass of fallen elm leaves in the gutter seemed for a moment to fill all the air. Then the man began to read. They saw the Colonel on the outside of the crowd; saw him suddenly turn and make with all haste for the post-office; saw him reappear reading the paper.

The two hurried across the street to him.

"What's the matter?" Emlie demanded.

The Colonel spoke no word. He held the sheet out to them and with shaking forefinger pointed to the headlines:

BIG EMBEZZLEMENT BY FLAMSTED QUARRIES CO. OFFICIAL

GUILTY MAN A FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE

SEARCH WARRANTS OUT

DETECTIVES ON TRAIL

"New York--Special Despatch: L. Champney Googe, the treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries Co.--" etc., etc.

The men looked at one another. There was a moment of sickening silence; not so much as a leaf whirled in the gutter; it was broken by a great cheer from the assembled hundreds of workmen farther up the street, followed by a conglomerate of hootings, cat-calls, yells and falsetto hoorays from the fringe of small boys. The faces of the three men in front of the post-office grew white at their unspoken thought. Each waited for the other.

"His mother--" said Emlie at last.

Elmer Wiggins' lips trembled. "You must tell her, Colonel--she mustn't hear it this way--"

"My God, how can I!" The Colonel's voice broke, but only for a second, then he braced himself to his martyrdom. "You're right; she mustn't hear it from any one but me--telephone up at once, will you, Elmer, that I'm coming up to see her on an important matter?--Emlie, you'll drive me up in your trap--we can get there before the men have a chance to get home--keep a watch on the doings here in the town, Elmer, and telephone me if there's any trouble--there's Romanzo coming now, I suppose he's got word from the office--if you happen to see Father Honore, tell him where I am, he will help--"

He stepped into the trap that had been hitched in front of the drug store, and Emlie took the reins. Elmer Wiggins reached up his hand to the Colonel, who gripped it hard.

"Yes, Elmer," he said in answer to the other's mute question, "this is one of the days when a man, who is a man, may wish he'd never been born--"

They were off, past the surging crowds who were now thronging the entire street, past The Bow, and over the bridge on their way to The Gore.

"Run on ahead, girlies," said Aileen to the twins who were with her for their annual checkerberry picnic, "I'll be down in a few minutes."

They were on the edge of the quarry woods which sheltered the Colonel's outlying sheep pastures and protected from the north wind the two sheepfolds that were used for the autumn and early spring. Dulcie and Doosie, obedient to Aileen's request, raced hand in hand across the short-turfed pastures, balancing their baskets of red berries.

The late afternoon sunshine of the last of October shone clear and warm upon the fading close-cropped herbage that covered the long slopes. The sheep were gathering by flocks at the folds. The collie, busy and important, was at work with 'Lias rounding up the stragglers. Aileen's eyes were blinded to the transient quiet beauty of this scene, for she was alive to but one point in the landscape--the red brick house with granite trimmings far away across the Rothel, and the man leaving the carriage which had just stopped at the front porch. She could not distinguish who it was, and this fact fostered conjecture--Could it be Champney Googe who had come home to help settle the trouble in the sheds?

How she hated him!--yet her heart gave a sudden sick throb of expectation. How she hated herself for her weakness!