The Depot Master Part 20

"'Why don't you ask Mr. Scudder to make the experiment, uncle?' suggests that confounded niece, smilin' the spitefullest smile.

"'Scudder,' says the professor, 'I'll give you five thousand dollars cash to start in that aeroplane this moment.'

"For a jiffy Nate was staggered. Five thousand dollars CASH--whew! But then he thought of how deep Gus had been shoved into that sandbank.

And there was a new and more powerful motor aboard the thing now. Five thousand dollars ain't much good to a telescoped corpse. He fetched a long breath.

"'Well, now, Mr. Dixland,' he says, 'I'd like to, fust rate, but you see I don't know nothin' about mechanics.'

"'Professor--' begins Augustus. 'Twas the final straw. Old Whiskers jumped out of the chair, lameness and all.

"'Out of this house, you ingrate!' he bellers. 'Out this instant! I discharge you. Go! go!'

"He was actually frothin' at the mouth. I cal'late Olivia thought he was goin' to die, for she run to him.

"'You'd better go, I think,' says she to her shakin' beau. 'Go, dear, now. I must stay with him for the present, but we will see each other soon. Go now, and trust me.'

"'I disown you, you ungrateful girl,' foams her uncle. 'Scudder, I order you to put that--that creature off this island.'

"'Yes, sir,' says Nate, polite; 'in about two shakes of a heifer's tail.'

"He started for Augustus, and Gus started for the door. I guess Olivia might have interfered, but just then the professor keels over in a kind of faint and she had to tend to him. Gus darts out of the door with Nate after him. Scudder reached the beach just as his nephew was shovin' off in the boat, bound for the mainland.

"'Consarn your empty head!' Nate yelled after him. 'See what you get by not mindin' me, don't you? I'm runnin' things on this island after this.

I'm boss here; understand? When you're ready to sign a paper deedin'

over ha'f that money your wife's goin' to get to me and Huldy Ann, maybe I'll let you come back. And perhaps then I'll square things for you with Dixland. But if you dare to set foot on these premises until then I'll murder you; I'll drown you; I'll cut you up for bait; I'll feed you to the dog.'

"He sculled off, his oars rattlin' 'Hark from the tomb' in the rowlocks.

He b'lieved Nate meant it all. Oh, Scudder had HIM trained all right."

CHAPTER VII

CAPTAIN SOL DECIDES TO MOVE

"Trust Nate for that," interrupted Wingate. "He's just as much a born bully as he is a cheat and a skinflint."

"Yup," went on Captain Sol. "Well, when Nate got back to the house the professor was alone in the chair, lookin' sick and weak. Olivia was up in her room havin' a cryin' fit. Nate got the old man to bed, made him some clam soup and hot tea, and fetched and carried for him like he was a baby. The professor's talk was mainly about the ungrateful desertion, as he called it, of his a.s.sistant.

"'Keep him away from this island,' he says. 'If he comes, I shall commit murder; I know it.'

"Scudder promised that Augustus shouldn't come back. The professor wanted guard kept night and day. Nate said he didn't know's he could afford so much time, and Dixland doubled his wages on the spot. So Nate agreed to stand double watches, made him comfort'ble for the night, and left him.

"Olivia didn't come downstairs again. She didn't seem to want any supper, but Nate did and had it, a good one. Galileo, the cat, came yowlin' around, and Nate kicked him under the sofy. Phillips Brooks was howlin' starvation in the woodshed, and Scudder let him howl. If he starved to death Nate wouldn't put no flowers on his grave. Take it altogether, he was havin' a fairly good time.

"And when, later on, he set alone up in his room over the kitchen, he begun to have a better one. Prospects looked good. Maybe old Dixland WOULD disown his niece. If he did, Nate figgered he was as healthy a candidate for adoption as anybody. And Augustus would have to come to terms or stay single. That is, unless him and Olivia got married on nothin' a week, paid yearly. Nate guessed Huldy Ann would think he'd managed pretty well.

"He set there for a long while, thinkin', and then he says he cal'lates he must have dozed off. At any rate, next thing he knew he was settin'

up straight in his chair, listenin'. It seemed to him that he'd heard a sound in the kitchen underneath.

"He looked out of the window, and right away he noticed somethin'. 'Twas a beautiful, clear moonlight night, and the high board fence around the buildin's showed black against the white sand. And in that white strip was a ten-foot white gape. Nate had shut that gate afore he went upstairs. Who'd opened it? Then he heard the noise in the kitchen again.

Somebody was talkin' down there.

"Nate got up and tiptoed acrost the room. He was in his stockin' feet, so he didn't make a sound. He reached into the corner and took out his old duck gun. It was loaded, both barrels. Nate c.o.c.ked the gun and crept down the back stairs.

"There was a lamp burnin' low on the kitchen table, and there, in a couple of chairs hauled as close together as they could be, set that Olivia niece and Augustus. They was in a clove hitch again and whisperin' soft and slushy.

"My! but Scudder was b'ilin'! He give one jump and landed in the middle of that kitchen floor.

"'You--you--you!' he yelled, wavin' the shotgun. 'You're back here, are you? You know what I told you I'd do to you? Well, now, I'll do it.'

"The pair of 'em had jumped about as far as Nate had, only the opposite way. Augustus was a paralyzed statue, but Olivia had her senses with her.

"'Run, Augustus!' she screamed. 'He'll shoot you. Run!'

"And then, with a screech like a siren whistle, Augustus commenced to run. Nate was between him and the outside door, so he bolted headfirst into the dining room. And after him went Nate Scudder, so crazy mad he didn't know what he was doin'.

"'Twas pitch dark in the dining room, but through it they went rattlety bang! dishes smashin', chairs upsettin' and 'hurrah, boys!' to pay gen'rally. Then through the best parlor and into the front hall.

"I cal'late Nate would have had him at the foot of the front stairs if it hadn't been for Galileo. That cat had been asleep on the sofy, and the noise and hullabaloo had stirred him up till he was as crazy as the rest of 'em. He run right under Nate's feet and down went Nate sprawlin'

and both barrels of the shotgun bust loose like a couple of cannon.

"Galileo took for tall timber, whoopin' anthems. Up them front stairs went Augustus, screechin' shrill, like a woman; he was SURE Nate meant to murder him now. And after him his uncle went on all fours, swearin'

tremendous.

"Then 'twas through one bedroom after another, and each one more crowded with noisy, smashable things than that previous. Nate said he could remember the professor roarin' 'Fire!' and 'Help!' as the two of 'em b.u.mped into his bed, but they didn't stop--they was too busy. The whole length of the house upstairs they traveled, then through the ell, then the woodshed loft, and finally out into the upper story of the barn. And there Nate knew he had him. The ladder was down.

"'Now!' says Nate. 'Now, you long-legged villain, if I don't give you what's comin' to you, then--Oh, there ain't no use in your climbin' out there; you can't get down.'

"The big barn doors was open, and, in the moonlight, Nate could see Gus scramblin' up and around on the flyin' stage where the professor's aeroplane was perched, lookin' like some kind of magnified June bug.

"'Come back, you fool!' Scudder yelled at him. 'Come back and be butchered. You might as well; it's too high for you to drop. You won't?

Then I'll come after you.'

"Nate says he never shall forget Augustus's face in the blue light when he see his uncle climbin' out on that stage after him. He was simply desperate--that's it, desperate. And the next thing he did was jump into the saddle of the machine and pull the startin' lever.

"There was the buzz of the electric motor, a slippery, slidin' sound, one awful hair-raisin' whoop from Augustus, and then--'F-s-s-s-t!'--down the flyin' stage whizzed that aeroplane and out through the doors.

"Nate set down on the trestles and waited for the sound of the smash.

I guess he actually felt conscience stricken. Of course, he'd only done his duty, and yet--

"But no smash came. Instead, there was a long scream from the kitchen--Olivia's voice that was. And then another yell that for pure joy beat anything ever heard.

"'It flies!' screamed Professor Ansel Hobart Whiskers Dixland, from his bedroom window. 'At last! At last! It FLIES!'

"It took Nate some few minutes to paw his way back through the shed loft and the ell over the things him and Gus knocked down on the fust lap, until he got to his room where the trouble had started. Then he went down to the kitchen and outdoor.