From the hundreds of rough, uncouth specimens of masculinity assembled there arose a tornado of whistles and handclapping and shouts of approval. The Irishman at Anne’s side leaned toward her, and together they fell to watching Gus Chevalo down in the arena.
The little man in his pink tights bowed for a full minute in every direction. Then he walked over to the base of the high wooden tower. Now the noises began to subside and some twenty-six hundred and forty eyes were trained upon this nervy daredevil.
Up a delicate rope ladder which was tied at intervals to the tower he went, and shortly reached the top. There he mounted the stocky bicycle which was lying there. He stood poised for a long dramatic minute on the tiny platform. He squinted appraisingly down the long inclined path, steadying with one foot the heavy bicycle with its enormous tyres that he straddled. Then, almost before the audience could really catch its breath, he was off with the sharp cry of the trained circus performer.
The silence was suffocating as the rattle of the wheel down the long incline consumed its three or four seconds. At the bottom it gave a vicious turn upwards, and its rider could be seen to be violently pressed downward to the handlebars by the sudden change in the direction of the momentum. Then, like a bird, it flung itself into the air, a glittering mass of silvered steel, and like a great methodical machine it described two perfect and complete circles in space, man and wheel seeming to be mounted on a pivot about which they revolved slowly, and which itself travelled across the gap in a ponderous swing. And the bump as the rubber-tired bicycle struck the flat platform some distance away was followed by a deathly silence, which suddenly became rent by a veritable storm of handclapping and yelling.
“This way out! This way out!” the doortender was shouting. The canvas flaps of the main entrance had been flung open. Already something material appeared, for two wooden ticket-selling booths had been drawn up there and on each lay what appeared to be two great packages of blue paper slips.
Anne, the Irishman at her side, was held back for some time by the extreme congestion at the doorway. She could hear the men in either booth droning a formula, as they passed out a crisp blue slip to each of the members of the line that surged and pressed towards the door.
“Get your cheques countersigned at the corner o’ Irving Park an’ Broadway. Show y’r street-car transfer. If you ain’t got no transfer you can’t collect your money,” was the continual cry of the original doortender, aided by the cadaverous-looking man who helped pass out the crisp blue cheques.
Anne getting hers, the Irishman elbowing a way for himself and her, passed out into the bright morning sunlight, and the two companions in the strange affair examined their cheques curiously. Each was a duplicate of the other, except for the serial number printed in the upper right-hand corner. Each had been specially printed, and on a coupon attached to the end, but perforated, were directions in fine type identical with those that had been given verbally through the megaphone. They were drawn to “Cash” on the First National Bank of Chicago, the word “Cash” being printed in red ink; they bore the printed date of that day — September 20 — and were signed on the bottom: C. C. Cloyd. A dotted line at the end bore the italicized word “Countersigned,” and the values printed in on the cheques, were “Ten and no/100 Dollars.”
“All I got to say,” commented the Irish Terror a bit dubiously, “is I hope this ‘ere bank’s got enough coin to cash mine. Better come along, miss, and get aboard th’ car and not take no chances. I’m goin’ straight to the bank itself wid mine.”
But when they reached the street-car line, they found a terrific congestion. Men were seated along the fence like crows, and the kerbstone held them shoulder to shoulder. And they stood and saw car after car, at fifteen-minute intervals, filled up with hooting, shouting hoodlums, till at last the Irishman took her by the arm and drew her off far to one side.
“Listhen, little gur-rl,” he whispered, “we c’d mebbe make it if it’s somebody’s nose I have to bash in. But ‘tis strathegy — brain power — we’ll be usin’. Now these here doombells ayther be too doomb, else they be loafers an’ have all day to waste — and they will hang here till they get a car. So let’s you and me beat it up and over yon hill to the west — see thot great clock in thot tower peerin’ over the idge? — thot’s Dunning — the Booby Hatch — five minut’s or less walk — where these cars shtarts out from. We’ll get aboard there, and whin we come rollin’ bhy here we’ll have th’ laff on this tearin’, fightin’ mob.”
Which move Anne, being of the feminine persuasion, and having had no breakfast that morning in addition, only too gladly seconded, and together they were soon trudging westward toward the rise in the street and passing over its crest, where a cluster of houses down below marked the end of the line.
Mr. McGann proceeded to live up nobly to his glowing promise. Ensconced on the back platform where, as Mike explained, they would be the first off at Broadway and hence first to get their cheques countersigned, they held tight to the controller boxes or the sills of the open windows, as the car stopped on its way back at North 60th Court. Indeed, had they not held tight they would have been carried as flotsam in a turbulent stream, for a crowd of men swarmed in with such violence, thrusting their ready fares into the conductor’s hand and calling “transfer” so fast that he couldn’t ring up the fares. Thus, like leaves clinging to the protecting lee of a river bank, they managed to adhere to their fixed anchors on the platform. At length the stream filled the car to bursting capacity, until the conductor’s final angry cry of “All full — no more — next car, please,” and his pull at the bellcord sent the car off with an ugly jerk that threw one belated boarder flat on his face in the street amid the derisive jeers of his waiting companions back on the fence.
Yet in spite of the fact that Anne, by strategical methods, was at last safely ensconced in this human herd for a ride that would carry her straight to the essential point for countersigning her cheque, and thence downtown to the bank, had one been on the street a few blocks east some ten minutes later, he might have seen a remarkably cherubic — indeed girlish — young man with flushed cheeks and full pink lips, from under whose woollen cap escaped a stray tendril of rather long hair, tramping along the lone sidewalks and occasionally transferring with a sigh a neat black suitcase from under one arm to the other. One might also have noted the determined look upon the cherubic young man’s face which was fixed hard in the direction of Chicago’s Broadway, a goodly, goodly distance for one afoot. And as it will be guessed, that cherubic young man was Anne — Anne who fancied not a ride in a street-car packed to the doors with ruffians and hooligans, yet in whose trustful mind reposed not the slightest doubt that a cheque drawn on a bank with such a formidable name as the First National must be good no matter how late it be cashed. But of Anne’s ten dollars cheque — and Anne herself — more anon, as they say!
CHAPTER XVII
AN AFFAIR BETWEEN TRAMPS
SHORT and undersized, even youthful, it was an unprepossessing tramp who dropped off a freight train in Winniston, Wisconsin, on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 20. His face was covered with a four-day growth of beard, and his clothes tattered and torn, the poor shoes gaping at the toes, the dirty flannel-shirt, all told the story of the creature who toils not nor does he spin.
That he had, somehow or some place, had something to drink which was stronger than water, was evident, for after dismounting from the freight train he swaggered up Main Street, twice lurching against inoffensive townspeople, and each time gently cursing them beneath his breath. But it was at the corner of Main and Narcissus where the real excitement occurred.
Old man Stansbury looked back at him, as he lurched along, hands in pockets, and said something to Charlie Winle who was approaching. The tramp seemed to hear the comment, for he turned on his heel and cursed old man Stansbury volubly. Old man Stansbury and Charlie Winle diplomatically dropped all further comment and turned away their faces, but the tramp picked up a
brick which was lying near the curb. It was strange that he could not have aimed better with that missile, but as he raised it in hand it flew out sideways and — almost on purpose one might think — crashed through the window of the little ice-cream store kept by old Mrs. Cram.
With the rattle of falling glass, the tramp’s liberty was ended. Amos Hipple, the blacksmith, ran from his shop almost simultaneously with Payvey, the bicycle repair man; and Carson, the sawmill foreman, who was going along Main Street at this second with his empty dinner pail in his hand, joined in the fray. In fifteen seconds the tramp was pinioned to the ground, his arms held tight to his sides, and almost before he could get his breath, he was being marched to the office of old man Dorhum, the town constable. His shrift in regards to his liberty was short. Hipple and Payvey told of the assault which had ended in disaster to old Mrs. Cram’s window. Old man Dorhum said with a glare:
“Lock this fellow up till morning. We’ll see whether the peace of this town’s going to be disturbed.”
And thus it was that the tramp who just one hour before had dismounted from a freight in Winniston, a free and untrammelled traveller of the twin rails, was now marching without further ado toward the town lockup.
Mr. Samuel Viggman was sitting on the cot of his cell this bright afternoon ruminating and chewing on a toothpick. Things were quiet with Mr. Viggman, but he was not disturbed. He had received a letter from his attorney but three days before apprising him that his interests had not been lost sight of by Crosby of Chicago. It ran:
DEAR SIR, —
I was unable to make the trip discussed between us on the day I last saw you on account of the unexpected press of other business coming up for me. I did, however, on my later return to Chicago, make a special night trip to St. Paul, but unfortunately with no opportunity to put into execution my plans, due to the fact that both parties are ill and the one party in particular who would have to be seen cannot be seen at all just now. I shall explain this further at a later date. The very first minute, however, that conditions allow me to complete my assurance to you, I shall do my utmost to live up to my promises.
Very truly yours,
DAVID CROSBY.
Mr. Samuel Viggman had no quarrel to pick with his attorney’s handling of the mess in which he had precipitated himself. He was quite satisfied to let matters run as they were now running. From the casual remark let drop by one of the several detective agency men who had come down from St. Paul to look him over, he could interpret quite well the veiled statements in Crosby’s business-like letter: namely, that the young Rosecrantz boy who had been a witness to the hold-up of his father had been taken down suddenly with scarlet fever, and the father was still in his bed at Bethesda Hospital. Thus matters were to some extent deadlocked just for the present. But Crosby of Chicago was square, and he, Viggman, was safe and sound — and better, protected from the brutal fists and cunning methods employed by such detective agencies as the Considine agency of St. Paul.
He looked up surprised as a commotion in the outer corridor resulted in the ushering into his barred enclosure of a short tramp dressed not greatly unlike himself, with whisker-covered face, and ragged clothes. Viggman found himself alone with the new tramp.
“What you in f’r, frien’?” he asked in a companionable tone of voice.
The only answer of the new tramp was preceded by a grunt. “Hell,” he rumbled, “what sort of a joint is this here town? Couple o’ rubens tried t’ rubber at me on the main stem an’ I up an’ heaved a brick at ‘em and put through a light.”
“It’s sixty days f’r you, brother,” Viggman assured the other softly. “That’s what they handed me.”
“Sixty days — hell,” snorted the other. “I’ll say I’ll never serve no sixty days.” He looked about the cell. “Hmph! didn’t know this here burg even had a lockup.” He glanced ruefully down at himself and staggered a bit. “That’s w’at I get f’r swizzlin’ down too much rotgut. Robbed a cellar up north a couple hundred mile or so the other night with two other boes, and pinched a whole wad o’ booze. Been stiff f’r t’ree days an’ nights.”
He subsided into silence.
“Where y’ from?” queried Viggman. This was the first companion he had had for a week or so with whom he could talk.
“St. Paul,” grunted the new occupant.
“St. Paul?” repeated Viggman. “Oh — St. Paul.” He rose, walked about a few steps and yawned.
“How’s biz in St. Paul?” he inquired genially. “That’s where I’ve hung out a bit.”
“Yeah?” said the other uninterestedly, feeling about in his pockets and extracting therefrom first a few grains of dirty tobacco and later an equally dirty cigarette paper from which he deftly rolled a cigarette. “The town’s on the bum. Ever since that diamon’ dealer that was shot in the Ryan Buildin’ died, they been cleanin’ up the town o’ boes an’ grifters to beat hell. I pulled out.” He dug up a half a match and lighting his cigarette blew the smoke through his nostrils.
But Viggman saw not the other’s performance, nor did he envy him. His breath was coming shorter and shorter. Dead! The diamond dealer dead! Rosecrantz dead! He — Viggman — the murderer. The boy could identify him, even though the father was gone. He rose unsteadily from the seat he had taken up on the floor, and mopped off his forehead from which the sweat had sprung in great beads. He swallowed in gulps. He managed somehow to find his voice.
“Say — say — frien’,” he articulated with great difficulty, “you — you say that there diamon’ dealer croaked in St. Paul? Rosecrantz — you mean Rosecrantz?”
“Rosecrantz? Yep — that’s the guy. The feller who got stuck up a week ago.” He blew a circle of smoke. “But what’s it to you’n me, anyway? The thing now is to figger some way t’get outa this joint.” He tossed his butt on the cement floor and rolled over and fell promptly asleep with his face against the wall, while Sammy Viggman, white with terror, sick at the pit of his stomach, sank gracefully down to the floor from the weakness and panic that had collected in his knees.
It was eleven o’clock that night by the town hall bell as he lay staring from his couch on the floor — his cot had been completely taken over by the new tramp — that he saw the other man arise with a creaking noise from the cheap springs, and come over to where he was lying. “Y’ sleep, cull?”
“No,” Viggman managed hoarsely to articulate.
The other grunted. “Now, damn ye,” he whispered, “I’m a goin’ t’ give you a tip. One peep outen y’r mout’, you gay cat, an’ I’ll make beef outen you. I’ll beat your teet’ down y’r t’roat. D’ you hear me?”
“Y-y-yes. I — I — I — hear you,” chattered Viggman. He wished he could be beaten painlessly into unconsciousness now.
But terror-fraught as he was at his own predicament, he could not help but watch the other tramp. The latter removed his coat. Tearing at both of the shoulders his fingers emerged in the moonlight, once, twice, each time holding a fine-tempered steel-file, flat instead of triangular, and perhaps four-inches in length. “Not a peep outen you,” he warned, with a backward look. And he fell to working at the bars of the cell window.
Viggman was at his shoulder. “Cull, le’ me — le’ me help you. For God — gi’ me one of them files. You’re all right. I knowed you was a Johnny yegg when I first spotted you. I knowed ya wasn’t no reg’lar bo. For God — le’ me — le’ me out o’ this hole with you.”
The other surveyed him in the moonlight with a marked degree of suspicion in his attitude. Then he thrust into Viggman’s hand one of the two flat files. “Then fall to,” he ordered in a low voice. “We can go t’rough ‘em by midnight.”
Viggman worked as he had never worked before in his life, the sweat pouring from his forehead and dripping down off of his chin. The little machined blades, as they were propelled backward and forward by two pairs of muscular arms, cut through the iron like little demons. It was close upon one o’clock instead of midnight when the thr
ee bars were removed and the smaller man stood back. “No monkey business, you,” he warned menacingly. “Out you go ahead o’ me. If th’ coast is clear let me know. And no foolin’.”
Sammy Viggman clambered up on the front end of his former cot, and feverishly gazed out of the hole. The coast was indeed clear. The moon had dropped back of the town hall, and profound darkness was about the lockup. Out he went, therefore, and wriggling clumsily over the stone sill dropped to the ground. But he waited till his new-found friend had followed him. Then the two struck off across a wide patch of weeds towards the railroad tracks.
Viggman had but one idea — to make a freight out that night, to ride far enough to leave Winniston well behind him, to make the cover of a wood, to starve, thirst, die if needs be, before going back to the noose in St. Paul. But for the present he stuck to his new-found friend, who could be counted upon to get out of that town just as quickly as he, Viggman, wanted to do.
So down the tracks the two men hurried, Viggman a few feet in the lead. Once he stumbled over a tie and fell sprawling on all fours and the other called to him.
“Easy, friend,” he warned. “Don’t take it in sech a hurry. I know a jungle down the tracks a mile — an’ a grade w’ere we’ll make th’ first rattler out to-night. Don’t git so excited.”
Viggman clambered awkwardly to his feet, and pressed on in the light from the low moon. But as they turned a sharp bend in the railroad a strange thing happened. From the bushes to the left and right of the tracks two men stepped out, one from each side, and even as they did so, Viggman, with a sharp intake of his breath, caught sight of the lines of a huge touring car standing forty feet away on the roadway in the gloom of some trees. He turned like an arrow to flee back the way he had come, but to his utter amazement his new-found friend rushed forward, fastened his arms about him, and pinioned him so that he could not move.
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