The Rules of the Game

by White, Stewart Edward

  Amy opened her eyes, sat up, shook herself slightly, and laughed.

  "I'm all right now," she told Bob, "and certainly very much ashamed."

  "Amy!" he stammered.

  She shot a swift look at him, and immediately arose to her feet.

  "We will have to testify at a coroner's inquest, I presume," said she, in the most matter-of-fact tones.

  "I suppose so," agreed Bob morosely. It is impossible to turn back all the strongly set currents of life without at least a temporary turmoil.

  Amy glanced at him sideways, and smiled a faint, wise smile to herself. For in these matters, while men are more analytical after the fact, women are by nature more informed. She said nothing, but stooped to the creek for a drink. When she had again straightened to her feet, Bob had come to himself. The purport of Amy's last speech had fully penetrated his understanding, and one word of it—the word testify—had struck him with an idea.

  "By Jove!" he cried, "that lets out Pollock!"

  "What?" said Amy.

  "This man Oldham was the only witness who could have convicted George Pollock of killing Plant."

  "What do you mean?" asked Amy, leaning forward interestedly. "Was he there? How do you know about it?"

  A half-hour before Bob would have hesitated long before confiding his secret to a fourth party; but now, for him, the world of relations had shifted.

  "I'll tell you about it," said he, without hesitation; "but this is serious. You must never breathe even a word of it to any one!"

  "Certainly not!" cried Amy.

  "Oldham wasn't an actual witness of the killing; but I was, and he knew it. He could have made me testify by informing the prosecuting attorney."

  Bob sketched rapidly his share in the tragedy: how he had held Pollock's horse, and been in a way an accessory to the deed. Amy listened attentively to the recital of the facts, but before Bob had begun to draw his conclusions, she broke in swiftly.

  "So Oldham offered to let you off, if you would keep out of this Modoc Land case," said she.

  Bob nodded.

  "That was it."

  "But it would have put you in the penitentiary," she pointed out.

  "Well, the case wasn't quite decided yet."

  She made her quaint gesture of the happily up-thrown hands.

  "Just what you said about Mr. Welton!" she cried. "Oh, I'm glad you told me this! I was trying so hard to think you were doing a high and noble duty in ignoring the consequences to that poor old man. But I could not. Now I see!"

  "What do you mean?" asked Bob curiously, as she paused.

  "You could do it because your act placed you in worse danger," she told him.

  "Too many for me," Bob disclaimed. "I simply wasn't going to be bluffed out by that gang!"

  "That was it," said Amy wisely. "I know you better than you do yourself. You don't suppose," she cried, as a new thought alarmed her, "that Oldham has told the prosecuting attorney that your evidence would be valuable."

  Bob shook his head.

  "The trial is next week," he pointed out. "In case the prosecution had intended calling me, I should have been summoned long since. There's dust; they are coming. You'd better stay here."

  She agreed readily to this. After a moment a light wagon drove up. On the seat perched Welton and Ware. Bob climbed in behind.

  They drove rapidly down to the forks, stopped and hitched the team.

  "Ware's been telling me the whole situation, Bobby," said Welton. "That gang's getting pretty desperate! I've heard of this man Oldham around this country for a long while, but I always understood he was interested against the Power Company."

  "Bluff," said Bob briefly. "He's been in their employ from the first, but I never thought he'd go in for quite this kind of strong-arm work. He doesn't look it, do you think?"

  "I never laid eyes on him," replied Welton. "He's never been near the mill, and I never happened to run across him anywhere else."

  By this time they had secured the team. Ware led the way to the tree under which lay the body of the land agent. Welton surveyed the prostrate figure for some time in silence. Then turned to Bob, a curious expression on his face.

  "It wasn't an accident that I never met him," said he. "He saw to it. Don't you remember this man, Bobby?"

  "I saw him in Los Angeles some years ago."

  "Before that—in Michigan—many years ago."

  "His face has always seemed familiar to me," said Bob slowly. "I can't place it—yes—hold on!"

  A picture defined itself from the mists of his boyhood memories. It was of an open field, with a fringe of beech woods in the distance. A single hickory stood near its centre, and under this a group lounged, smoking pipes. A man, perched on a cracker box, held a blank book and pencil. Another stood by a board, a gun in his hand. The smell of black powder hung in the atmosphere. Little glass balls popped into the air, and were snuffed out. He saw Oldham distinctly, looking younger and browner, but with the same cynical mouth, the same cold eyes, the same slanted eyeglasses. Even before his recollections reproduced the scorer's drawling voice calling the next contestant, his memory supplied the name.

  "It's Newmark!" he cried aloud.

  "Joe Newmark, your father's old partner! He hasn't changed much. He disappeared from Michigan when you were about eight years old; didn't he! Nobody ever knew how or why, but everybody had suspicions.... Well; let's get him in."

  They disposed the body in the wagon, and drove back up the road. At the little brook they stopped to let off Ware. It was agreed that all danger to Bob was now past, and that the gun-man would do better to accompany Amy back to headquarters. Of course, it would be necessary to work the whole matter out at the coroner's inquest, but in view of the circumstances, Ware's safety was assured.

  At the mill the necessary telephoning was done, the officials summoned, and everything put in order.

  "What I really started over to see you about," then said Bob to Welton, "is this matter of the Modoc Company." He went on to explain fully Amy's plan for checkmating Baker. "You see, if I get in my word first, Baker is as much implicated as you are, and it won't do him any good to turn state's evidence."

  "I don't see as that helps me," remarked Welton gloomily.

  "Baker might be willing to put himself in any position," said Bob; "but I doubt if he'll care to take the risk of criminal punishment. I think this will head him off completely; but if it doesn't, every move he makes to save his own skin saves yours too."

  "It may do some good," agreed Welton. "Try it."

  "I've already written Baker. But I didn't want you to think I was starting up the bloodhounds against you without some blame good reason."

  "I'd know that anyway, Bobby," said Welton kindly. He stared moodily at the stovepipe. "This is getting too thick for an old-timer," he broke out at last. "I'm just a plain, old-fashioned lumberman, and all I know is to cut lumber. I pass this mess up. I wired your father he'd better come along out."

  "Is he coming?" asked Bob eagerly.

  "I just got a message over the 'phone from the telegraph office. He'll be in White Oaks as fast as he can get there. Didn't I tell you?"

  "Wire him aboard train to go through to Fremont, and that we'll meet him there," said Bob instantly. "It's getting about time to beard the lion in his den."

  * * *

  XXXVII

  The coroner's inquest detained Bob over until the week following. In it Amy's testimony as to the gun-man's appearance and evident intention was quite sufficient to excuse Ware's shooting; and the fact that Oldham, as he was still known, instead of Saleratus Bill, received the bullet was evidently sheer unavoidable accident. Bob's testimony added little save corroboration. As soon as he could get away, he took the road to Fremont.

  Orde was awaiting his son at the station. Bob saw the straight, heavy figure, the tanned face with the snow-white moustache, before the train had come to a stop. Full of eagerness, he waved his hat over the head of the outraged porter barricaded on
the lower steps by his customary accumulation of suit cases.

  "Hullo, dad! Hullo, there!" he shouted again and again, quite oblivious to the amusement of the other passengers over this tall and bronzed young man's enthusiasm.

  Orde caught sight of his son at last; his face lit up, and he, too, swung his hat. A moment later they had clasped hands.

  After the first greetings, Bob gave his suit case in charge to the hotel bus-man.

  "We'll take a little walk up the street and talk things over," he suggested.

  They sauntered slowly up the hill and down the side streets beneath the pepper and acacia trees of Fremont's beautiful thoroughfares. So absorbed did they become that they did not realize in the slightest where they were going, so that at last they had topped the ridge and, from the stretch of the Sunrise Drive, they looked over into the cañon.

  "So you've been getting into trouble, have you?" chaffed Orde, as they left the station.

  "I don't know about that," Bob rejoined. "I do know that there are quite a number of people in trouble."

  Orde laughed.

  "Tell me about this Welton difficulty," said he. "Frank Taylor has our own matters well in hand. The opposition won't gain much by digging up that old charge against the integrity of our land titles. We'll count that much wiped off the slate."

  "I'm glad to hear it," said Bob heartily. "Well, the trouble with Mr. Welton is that the previous administration held him up—" He detailed the aspects of the threatened bribery case; while Orde listened without comment. "So," he concluded, "it looked at first as if they rather had him, if I testified. It had me guessing. I hated the thought of getting a man like Mr. Welton in trouble of that sort over a case in which he was no way interested."

  "What did you decide?" asked Orde curiously.

  "I decided to testify."

  "That's right."

  "I suppose so. I felt a little better about it, because they had me in the same boat. That let me out in my own feelings, naturally."

  "How?" asked Orde swiftly.

  "There had been trouble up there between Plant—you remember I wrote you of the cattle difficulties?"

  "With Simeon Wright? I know all that."

  "Well, one of the cattlemen was ruined by Plant's methods; his wife and child died from want of care on that account. He was the one who killed Plant; you remember that."

  "Yes."

  "I happened to be near and I helped him escape."

  "And some one connected with the Modoc Company was a witness," conjectured Orde. "Who was it?"

  "A man who went under the name of Oldham. A certain familiarity puzzled me for a long time. Only the other day I got it. He was Mr. Newmark."

  "Newmark!" cried Orde, stopping short and staring fixedly at his son.

  "Yes; the man who was your partner when I was a very small boy. You remember?"

  "Remember!" repeated Orde; then in tones of great energy: "He and I both have reason to remember well enough! Where is he now? I can put a stop to him in about two jumps!"

  "You won't need to," said Bob quietly; "he's dead—shot last week."

  For some moments nothing more was said, while the two men trudged beneath the hanging peppers near the entrance to Sunrise Drive.

  "I always wondered why he had it in for me, and why he acted so queerly," Bob broke the silence at last. "He seemed to have a special and personal enmity for me. I always felt it, but I couldn't make it out."

  "He had plenty of reasons for that. But it's funny Welton didn't recognize the whelp."

  "Mr. Welton never saw him," Bob explained—"that is, until Newmark was dead. Then he recognized him instantly. What was it all about?"

  Orde indicated the bench on the cañon's edge.

  "Let's sit," said he. "Newmark and I made our start together. For eight years we worked together and built up a very decent business. Then, all at once, I discovered that he was plotting systematically to do me out of every cent we had made. It was the most cold-blooded proposition I ever ran across."

  "Couldn't you prove it on him?" asked Bob.

  "I could prove it all right; but the whole affair made me sick. He'd always been the closest friend, in a way, I had ever had; and the shock of discovering what he really was drove everything else out of my head. I was young then. It seemed to me that all I wanted was to wipe the whole affair off the slate, to get it behind me, to forget it—so I let him go."

  "I don't believe I'd have done that. Seems to me I'd have had to blow off steam," Bob commented.

  Orde smiled reminiscently.

  "I blew off steam," [8] said he. "It was rather fantastic; but I actually believe it was one of the most satisfactory episodes in my life. I went around to his place—he lived rather well in bachelor quarters, which was a new thing in those days—and locked the door and told him just why I was going to let him off. It tickled him hugely—for about a minute. Then I finished up by giving him about the very worst licking he ever heard tell of."

  "Was that what you told him?" cried Bob.

  "What?"

  "Did you say those words to him?—'I'm going to give you the very worst licking you ever heard tell of'?"

  "Why, I believe I did."

  Bob threw back his head and laughed.

  "So did I!" he cried; and then, after a moment, more soberly. "I think, incidentally, it saved my life."

  "Now what are you driving at?" asked Orde.

  "Listen, this is funny: Newmark had me kidnapped by one of his men, and lugged off to a little valley in the mountains. The idea was to keep me there until after the trial, so my testimony would not appear. You see, none of our side knew I had that testimony. I hadn't told anybody, because I had been undecided as to what I was going to do."

  Orde whistled.

  "I got away, and had quite a time getting home. I'll tell you all the details some other time. On the road I met Newmark. I was pretty mad, so I lit into him stiff-legged. After a few words he got scared and pulled a gun on me. I was just mad enough to keep coming, and I swear I believe he was just on the point of shooting, when I said those very same words: 'I'm going to give you the very worst licking you ever heard tell of.' He turned white as a sheet and dropped his gun. I thought he was a coward; but I guess it was conscience and luck. Now, wouldn't that come and get you?"

  "Did you?" asked Orde.

  "Did I what?"

  "Give him that licking?"

  "I sure did start out to; but I couldn't bring myself to more than shake him up a little."

  Orde rose, stretching his legs.

  "What are your plans now?"

  "To see Baker. I'm going to tell him that on the first indications of his making trouble I'm going to enter complaint for bribery against both him and Mr. Welton. You see, I was there too. Think it'll work?"

  "The best way is to go and see."

  "Come on," said Bob.

  * * *

  XXXVIII

  The two men found Baker seated behind his flat-top desk. He grinned cheerfully at them; and, to Bob's surprise, greeted him with great joviality.

  "All hail, great Chief!" he cried. "I've had my scalp nicely smoke-tanned for you, so you won't have to bother taking it." He bowed to Orde. "I'm glad to see you, sir," said he. "Know you by your picture. Please be seated."

  Bob brushed the levity aside.

  "I've come," said he, "to get an explanation from you as to why, in the first place, you had me kidnapped; and why, in the second place, you tried to get me murdered."

  Baker's mocking face became instantly grave; and, leaning forward, he hit the desk a thump with his right fist.

  "Orde," said he, "I want you to believe me in this: I never was more sorry for anything in my life! I wouldn't have had that happen for anything in the world! If I'd had the remotest idea that Oldham contemplated something of that sort, I should have laid very positive orders on him. He said he had something on you that would keep your mouth shut, but I never dreamed he meant gun play."

  "I don't
suppose you dreamed he meant kidnapping either," observed Bob.

  Baker threw himself back with a chuckle.

  "Being kidnapped is fine for the health," said he. "Babies thrive on it. No," he continued, again leaning forward gravely, "Oldham got away from his instructions completely. Shooting or that kind of violence was absurd in such a case. You mustn't lay that to me, but to his personal grudge."

  "What do you know of a personal grudge?" Bob flashed back.

  "Ab-so-lute-ly nothing; but I suspected. It's part of my job to be a nifty young suspector—and to use what I guess at. He just got away from me. As for the rest of it, that's part of the game. This is no croquet match; you must expect to get your head bumped if you play it. I play the game."

  "I play the game, too," returned Bob, "and I came here to tell you so. I'll take care of myself, but I want to say that the moment you offer any move against Welton, I shall bring in my testimony against both of you on this bribery matter."

  "Sapient youth!" said Baker, amused; "did that aspect of it just get to you? But you misinterpreted the spirit of my greeting when you came in the room. In words of one syllable, you've got us licked. We lie down and roll over. We stick all four paws in the air. We bat our august forehead against the floor. Is that clear?"

  "Then you drop this prosecution against Welton?"