Jap Herron Part 19

Bill sat a long time, staring sullenly at the floor.

"Well, this is a h.e.l.l of a display for me to bring to Bloomtown," he declared at last. "I should have ended it in Jones's town. If I hadn't been so dumb with rotgut that I didn't know what I was doing, I would be furnishing some excitement for the Bartonites this morning.

The finest place in the world to die in--it isn't fit to live in."

j.a.p shook him briskly.

"Straighten up, Bill, and tell me what kind of a mess you have been in."

Bill laughed wildly. After a moment he dragged a letter from his pocket. j.a.p read:

"When you read this, I will be the wife of Wilfred Jones, the Editor of the Barton _Standard_. Maybe you will be pleased? I prefer to marry a real editor, not the half of j.a.p Herron."

The letter was signed, "Rosalie," but the affectation carried none of the elements of a disguise. To j.a.p it was the crowning insult.

Crushing the silly note in his hand, he threw it from him. Standing up, he drew Bill to his feet.

"We are going home," he said curtly. "When you are sober I will tell you how disappointed I am in my brother."

The news that Bill had been jilted spread over Bloomtown like fire in a stubble-field, and deep resentment greeted the announcement that Jones of the _Standard_ had scored another notch against the _Herald_.

Bill, sullen and defiant, had battled it out in the room above the office. All the vagaries of a sick mind were his. Murder, suicide, mysterious disappearance, chased each other across the field of his vision, and ever the specter of suicide returned to grin at him. For a day and a night j.a.p sat beside his bed, talking, soothing, comforting.

Finally he made this compact:

"To show you that I love you better than myself, Bill, I am going to promise that I will not marry until you are cured of this blow. Not a word, Bill! Happiness would turn to ashes if I accepted it at your cost. How far I am to blame in your trouble, I can only guess. I am not going to preach philosophy. I am only going to plead my love for you."

He took the revolver from the drawer and laid it on the table beside Bill.

"If you are the boy I think you are, you will be sticking type when I come back from Flossy's. If you are a coward, I will not grieve to find you have taken the soul that G.o.d gave you and flung it at His feet."

Not trusting himself to look back, he hurried down the stairs. His heart was heavy with dread as he locked the office and walked blindly to the cottage where all his problems had been carried. He could not talk to Flossy, but, sitting beside her on the little front porch, he fought the mad impulse to run back to the office. He strained his ears for the sound that he was praying not to hear.

Two hours he sat there, fighting with his fears, the longest hours of his life. Flossy sat as silent. No one knew j.a.p as Flossy did.

Smoothing his tumbled hair and stroking his tightly clenched hands were her only expressions. Futile indeed would words be now. The tragedy that hovered over them both must work itself out.

A whistle shrilled from the road. j.a.p sprang up with a strangled cry, as Wat Harlow came through the gate. His face was stern.

"Bill allowed that this is where I'd find you, chatting your valuable time away," he chaffed. Then the mask of his countenance broke into a grin.

"Is Bill in the office?" j.a.p's lips were so stiff he could scarcely articulate.

"Sure he is," said Harlow cheerfully. "He wants you to ramble down there."

"There's a hen on, j.a.p," he confided, after they had taken leave of Flossy. "We'll try to hatch something this time. I'm going to get in the game again. You know the old saying: 'You mustn't keep a good dog chained up.'"

"Well?" queried j.a.p, his thoughts springing s.p.a.ce and picturing what Bill might be doing. Wat was discreetly silent until they had pa.s.sed through town and were inside the office. Bill, pale and haggard, looked up from his desk. He extended the paper he was writing on. j.a.p took it without a word.

"WAT HARLOW FOR GOVERNOR!"

"How's that for a head?" he demanded. "If we're going into this thing, we might as well go with both feet."

He looked into j.a.p's face. Their eyes met. With one voice they cried:

"Ellis!"

"'When Harlow runs for governor,'" j.a.p quoted tremulously, "'you will boom him. Till then, nothing doing in the Halls of Justice.' Bill, Ellis was a prophet. He even knew that he wouldn't be in the game.

Wat, we'll put you across this time."

"Yes, and it'll be a nasty fight," Wat returned, as Bill leaned over and picked nervously at the ears of the office cat. "We've got Bronson Jones to buck up against, in all political probability. He's almost sure of the nomination."

"Just who is Bronson Jones?" j.a.p asked. "Seems to me I ought to place him. He's been in the papers down in the southwestern part of the state a good deal."

"He's the smooth proposition that came back here a couple of years ago and bought back his old newspaper for his son and has managed up to the present time to keep his own name discreetly out of that same paper,"

vouchsafed Harlow. "He won't let it leak out till the psychological moment. He's the daddy of the split-hoofed imp of Satan that runs the Barton _Standard_!"

CHAPTER XVII

j.a.p threw his pencil impatiently on the desk.

"I can't get my thoughts running clear this morning," he said abruptly.

"Every time I try to write, the pale face of little J. W. comes between me and the page."

"They're back from the city," Bill said uneasily. "I saw them coming from the train. I fully meant to tell you, j.a.p."

"I hope the specialist has quieted Flossy's fears." j.a.p ran his fingers through his loose red locks. "The boy is growing too fast.

Why, look at the way he has shot up in the last year. Ellis told me that he ran up like a bean pole, the way I did, and just as thin. J.

W. is exactly like him."

"And Ellis died at forty----"

"Don't, Bill," j.a.p choked. "I can't bear it." He walked to the door and gazed out into the hazy silver autumn air.

"This weather is like wine," he declared. "It will set the boy up, fine as a fiddle. You must remember, Bill, that Ellis impoverished his system by the life of hardship he was forced to endure while the town was growing. The things he used to tell were humorous enough, the droll way he had of telling them. But they break our hearts when we think of them now, and know that it was that privation that killed him.

It was bad enough here when I was a youngster, and that was luxury to what he had had. J. W. has not had such a handicap. Of course he was a delicate baby, but he certainly outgrew all that."

Bill was discreetly silent. He knew that j.a.p was only arguing with his fears. In the early summer, J. W. had been acutely ill, and as the heat progressed, he languished with headache and fever. In the end, Dr. Hall had counselled taking him to a noted specialist in the city.

"Better take a run up to Flossy's," Bill suggested. "You'll be better satisfied."

j.a.p took a copy of the _Herald_ from the table and went out. All the way along Spring street he strove with his anxiety. Flossy met him on the porch. One glance was enough for j.a.p. He sat down, helpless, on the lower step.

"J. W. is tired out and asleep," said Flossy softly. "Come with me, j.a.p, down to the arbor. You remember the day that Ellis told you the truth about himself?"

j.a.p followed her beneath the grape trellis, stumbling clumsily. When they reached the arbor, with its bench and rustic table, she faced him, slender to attenuation.

"j.a.p," she said brokenly, "J. W. has tuberculosis in the worst form.

His entire body is filled with it. He contracted it while we were with Ellis--and we never knew, never suspected----" Her voice broke. "Not even a miracle can prolong his life longer than spring. The doctors insisted on examining me, too. They say I have it, in incipiency, and my only chance of escape is to leave my boy to the care of others.