The Daughter of Anderson Crow
"I'm goin' to try to think it up to-night. He was a rich-lookin' feller
an' he had a heavy black band aroun' one of his coat sleeves. Wick, I
bet he's the man we want. I've made up my mind 'at he's her father!"
Bonner impatiently wormed all the information possible out of the
marshal, especially as to the stranger's looks, voice, the direction
taken when they parted company and then dismally concluded that an
excellent opportunity had been hopelessly lost. Anderson said, in
cross-examination, that the stranger had told him he "was leavin' at
once fer New York and then going to Europe." His mother had died
recently.
"I'll try to head him off at Boggs City," said Bonner; and half an hour
later he was off at full speed in the big machine for the county seat, a
roundabout way to Bonner Place. The New York train had gone, but no one
had seen a man answering the description of Anderson's interviewer.
"I'm sorry, Rosalie," said Bonner some time later. He was taking her for
a spin in the automobile. "It was a forlorn hope, and it is also quite
probable that Mr. Crow's impressions are wrong. The man may have
absolutely no connection with the matter. I'll admit it looks
interesting, his manner and his questions, and there is a chance that he
knows the true story. In any event, he did not go to New York to-day and
he can't get another train until to-morrow. I'll pick up Mr. Crow in the
morning and we'll run up here to have a look at him if he appears."
"I think it is a wild goose chase, Wicker," Rosalie said despairingly.
"Daddy Crow has done such things before."
"But this seems different. The man's actions were curious. He must have
had some reason for being interested in you. I am absolutely wild with
eagerness to solve this mystery, Rosalie. It means life to me."
"Oh, if you only could do it," she cried so fervently, that his heart
leaped with pity for her.
"I love you, Rosalie. I would give my whole life to make you happy.
Listen, dearest--don't turn away from me! Are you afraid of me?" He was
almost wailing it into her ear.
"I--I was only thinking of the danger, Wicker. You are not watching the
road," she said, flushing a deep red. He laughed gaily for the first
time in months.
"It is a wide road and clear," he said jubilantly. "We are alone and we
are merely drifting. The machine is alive with happiness.
Rosalie--Rosalie, I could shout for joy! You _do_ love me? You will be
my wife?"
She was white and silent and faint with the joy of it all and the pain
of it all. Joy in the full knowledge that he loved her and had spoken in
spite of the cloud that enveloped her, pain in the certainty that she
could not accept the sacrifice. For a long time she sat staring straight
down the broad road over which they were rolling.
"Wicker, you must not ask me now," she said at last, bravely and
earnestly. "It is sweet to know that you love me. It is life to me--yes,
life, Wicker. But, don't you see? No, no! You must not expect it. You
must not ask it. Don't, don't, dear!" she cried, drawing away as he
leaned toward her, passion in his eyes, triumph in his face.
"But we love each other!" he cried. "What matters the rest? I want
you--_you!_"
"Have you considered? Have you thought? I have, a thousand times, a
thousand bitter thoughts. I cannot, I will not be your--your wife,
Wicker, until--"
In vain he argued, pleaded, commanded. She was firm and she felt she was
right if not just. Underneath it all lurked the fear, the dreadful fear
that she may have been a child of love, the illegitimate offspring of
passion. It was the weight that crushed her almost to lifelessness; it
was the bar sinister.
"No, Wicker, I mean it," she said in the end resolutely. "Not until I
can give you a name in exchange for your own."
"Your name shall one day be Bonner if I have to wreck the social system
of the whole universe to uncover another one for you."
The automobile had been standing, by some extraordinary chance, in the
cool shade of a great oak for ten minutes or more, but it was a wise,
discreet old oak.
CHAPTER XXX
The Hemisphere Train Robbery
Anderson Crow lived at the extreme south end of Tinkletown's principal
thoroughfare. The "calaboose" was situated at the far end of Main
Street, at least half a mile separating the home of the law and the home
of the lawless. Marshal Crow's innate love for the spectacular alone
explains the unneighbourliness of the two establishments. He felt an
inward glory in riding or walking the full length of the street, and he
certainly had no reason to suspect the populace of disregarding the
outward glory he presented.
The original plan of the merchantry comprehended the erection of the
jail in close proximity to the home of its chief official, but Mr. Crow
put his foot flatly and ponderously upon the scheme. With the dignity
which made him noticeable, he said he'd "be doggoned ef he wanted to
have people come to his own dooryard to be arrested." By which, it may
be inferred, that he expected the evil-doer to choose his own arresting
place.
Mr. and Mrs. Crow were becoming thrifty, in view of the prospect that
confronted them, to wit: The possible marriage of Rosalie and the
cutting off of the yearly payments. As she was to be absent for a full
month or more, Anderson conceived the idea of advertising for a lodger
and boarder. By turning Roscoe out of his bed, they obtained a spare
room that looked down upon the peony beds beyond the side "portico."
Mr. Crow was lazily twisting his meagre chin whiskers one morning soon
after Rosalie's departure. He was leaning against the town pump in front
of the post-office, the sun glancing impotently off the bright badge on
the lapel of his alpaca coat. A stranger came forth from the post-office
and approached the marshal.
"Is this Mr. Crow?" he asked, with considerable deference.
"It is, sir."
"They tell me you take lodgers."
"Depends."
"My name is Gregory, Andrew Gregory, and I am here to canvass the
neighbourhood in the interest of the Human Life Insurance Company of
Penobscot. If you need references, I can procure them from New York or
Boston."
The stranger was a tall, lean-faced man of forty or forty-five, well
dressed, with a brusque yet pleasant manner of speech. His moustache and
beard were black and quite heavy. Mr. Crow eyed him quietly for a
moment.
"I don't reckon I'll ask fer references. Our rates are six dollars a
week, board an' room. Childern bother you?"
"Not at all. Have you any?"
"Some, more or less. They're mostly grown."
"I will take board and room for two weeks, at least," said Mr. Gregory,
who seemed to be a man of action.
For almost a week the insurance agent plied his vocation assiduously but
fruitlessly. The farmers and the citizens of Tinkletown were slow to
take up insurance. They would talk crops and politics with the obliging
Mr. Gregory, but that was all. And yet, his suavity won for him many
admirers. There were not a few who promised to give him their insurance
if they concluded to "take any out." Only one man in town was willing to
be insured, and he was too old to be comforting. Mr. Calligan was
reputed to be one hundred and three years of age; and he wanted the
twenty-year endowment plan. Gregory popularised himself at the Crow home
by paying for his room in advance. Moreover, he was an affable chap with
a fund of good stories straight from Broadway. At the post-office and
in Lamson's store he was soon established as a mighty favourite. Even
the women who came to make purchases in the evening,--a hitherto unknown
custom,--lingered outside the circle on the porch, revelling in the
second edition of the "Arabian Nights."
"Our friend, the detective here," he said, one night at the close of the
first week, "tells me that we are to have a show in town next week. I
haven't seen any posters."
"Mark Riley's been goin' to put up them bills sence day 'fore
yesterday," said Anderson Crow, with exasperation in his voice, "an he
ain't done it yet. The agent fer the troupe left 'em here an' hired
Mark, but he's so thunderation slow that he won't paste 'em up 'til
after the show's been an' gone. I'll give him a talkin' to to-morrer."
"What-fer show is it?" asked Jim Borum.
"Somethin' like a circus on'y 'tain't one," said Anderson. "They don't
pertend to have animals."
"Don't carry a menagerie, I see," remarked Gregory.
"'Pears that way," said Anderson, slowly analysing the word.
"I understand it is a stage performance under a tent," volunteered the
postmaster.
"That's what it is," said Harry Squires, the editor, with a superior
air. "They play 'As You Like It,' by Shakespeare. It's a swell show. We
got out the hand bills over at the office. They'll be distributed in
town to-morrow, and a big batch of them will be sent over to the summer
places across the river. The advance agent says it is a high-class
performance and will appeal particularly to the rich city people up in
the mountains. It's a sort of open-air affair, you know." And then Mr.
Squires was obliged to explain to his fellow-townsmen all the known
details in connection with the approaching performance of "As You Like
It" by the Boothby Company, set for Tinkletown on the following Thursday
night. Hapgood's Grove had been selected by the agent as the place in
which the performance should be given.
"Don't they give an afternoon show?" asked Mrs. Williams.
"Sure not," said Harry curtly. "It isn't a museum."
"Of course not," added Anderson Crow reflectively. "It's a troupe."
The next morning, bright and early, Mark Riley fared forth with paste
and brush. Before noon, the board fences, barns and blank walls of
Tinkletown flamed with great red and blue letters, twining in and about
the portraits of Shakespeare, Manager Boothby, Rosalind, Orlando, and an
extra king or two in royal robes. A dozen small boys spread the hand
bills from the _Banner_ presses, and Tinkletown was stirred by the
excitement of a sensation that had not been experienced since
Forepaugh's circus visited the county seat three years before. It went
without saying that Manager Boothby would present "As You Like It" with
an "unrivalled cast." He had "an all-star production," direct from "the
leading theatres of the universe."
When Mark Riley started out again in the afternoon for a second
excursion with paste and brush, "slapping up" small posters with a
celerity that bespoke extreme interest on his part, the astonished
populace feared that he was announcing a postponement of the
performance. Instead of that, however, he was heralding the fact that
the Hemisphere Trunk Line and Express Company would gladly pay ten
thousand dollars reward for the "apprehension and capture" of the men
who robbed one of its richest trains a few nights before, seizing as
booty over sixty thousand dollars in money, besides killing two
messengers in cold blood. The great train robbery occurred in the
western part of the State, hundreds of miles from Tinkletown, but nearly
all of its citizens had read accounts of the deed in the weekly paper
from Boggs City.
"I seen the item about it in Mr. Gregory's New York paper," said
Anderson Crow to the crowd at Lamson's.
"Gee whiz, it must 'a' been a peach!" said Isaac Porter, open-mouthed
and eager for details. Whereupon Marshal Crow related the story of the
crime which stupefied the world on the morning of July 31st. The express
had been held up in an isolated spot by a half-dozen masked men. A safe
had been shattered and the contents confiscated, the perpetrators
vanishing as completely as if aided by Satan himself. The authorities
were baffled. A huge reward was offered in the hope that it might induce
some discontented underling in the band to expose his comrades.