The Ne'er-Do-Well Part 42

"You don't say so!" Kirk's face broke into a smile of real pleasure.

"Ha! Makes it you to laugh, then?" exclaimed the Panamanian, excitedly. "Per'aps you shall answer to those detestable actions, senor."

"Perhaps! I see you blame me for the loss of your job. Well, maybe you won't beat up the next American you get your hands on."

"Bot--I 'ave another poseetion!" Ramen exulted.

"Indeed! Are you 'behind the ribbons' at the local Wanamaker's?"

"I 'ave been promote! I am appoint' yesterday by his Excellency the Presidente to be his secretary. So! Those dastardly attack of yours is transpire to my blessing. It will be always so."

"I suppose it's a good job, but you ought to be selling poison in a drug-store. Did you call me out to hear this news?"

"Si!" Alfarez nodded his head vigorously. Then, narrowing his eyes, he said, meaningly, in a voice that none might overhear, "Panama is sometimes very on'ealthy city for fat Americans." He ran a hostile glance up and down Anthony's burly frame. "It is the climate per'aps--of too great 'eat."

"In other words, you intend to make it hot for me, eh?"

"I?" The ex-commandant shrugged his shoulders in eloquent denial.

"I shall do not'ing, bot--if you are wise man you will not display yourself to the dangers of these climate; you will return 'ome."

"Say! I've a good notion to punch your head."

Alfarez paled slightly.

"Soch would be most dangerous, for in Chiriqui prison there is at the present some fatal disease." He laughed sneeringly. "The senor is reech man's son, eh? Those do not geeve the appearance."

With supreme insolence he touched one of the b.u.t.tons upon Kirk's linen uniform with his cane, whereat the American s.n.a.t.c.hed the stick out of his hand, broke it, and tossed it into the street.

His blood was up, and in another breath he would have struck the Spaniard, regardless of consequences, but just at that moment Allan, dashed out of the crowd crying, breathlessly:

"Oh, boss! Oh, BOSS! Glory to G.o.d, it is true! OH-H-H GLORY!"

Seizing Kirk's hands, he kissed them before the other could prevent, then ran on frantically: "Come quick! Come! Come! Come!"

"Look out!" snapped Kirk, angrily. "What's happened?"

"The dream! The dream is come! Oh, G.o.d, sar! You--you have won the capital prize, sar!"

Alfarez's exclamation, as much as the boy's wild hysteria, brought Anthony to himself.

"NO! Honest, now! What's the number?" he exclaimed.

"H'eight, h'eight, three, h'eight," sobbed the Jamaican. Kirk made a dive for his coat-pocket, while Allan continued in a rising voice:

"Glory to G.o.d, sar! Glory to G.o.d! It is fifteen thousand dollars 'silver.' I thought I should h'expire from fright. Oh, I--Quick!

Praise be--Do not say you have lost the ticket or I shall die and kill myself--"

"Here it is!" In his hand Anthony waved a slip of paper, out of which leaped four big, red numbers-"8838."

"Carraho!" came from behind him, and he turned to behold Alfarez, livid of face and with shaking hand, fling a handful of similar coupons after the broken cane. Without another word or a glance behind him, the Panamanian made off across the Plaza, barely in time to, escape the crowd that surged around the two he had quitted.

Bombarded by a fusillade of questions in a dozen tongues, jostled by a clamoring, curious throng, the lucky owner of 8838 fought his way back into the lottery building, and, as he went, the news spread like flaming oil.

There it was, plainly displayed, "8838"! There could be no possible mistake, and it meant fifteen thousand silver pesos, a princely fortune indeed for the collector of No. 2.

Promptly at five minutes to one o'clock that afternoon, Allan Allan, late of Jamaica, strode through the Panama railroad station and flaunted a first-cla.s.s, round-trip ticket to Colon before the eyes of his enemy, the gateman. He was smoking a huge Jamaican cigar, and his pockets bulged with others. When he came to board the train, he called loudly for a porter to bring him the step and, once inside, selected a shady seat with the languid air of a bored globe-trotter. He patronized the "butcher" lavishly, crushing handful after handful of lemon-drops noisily between his teeth and strewing orange peel and cigar ashes on the floor with the careless unconcern that accords with firmly established financial eminence. He spat out of the window, he waved a dignified greeting to his countrymen gathered upon station platforms, he halted hurrying brakemen to inquire times of arrival and departure, and in general he had the time of his young life.

Only when Kirk appeared upon his rounds did he forego his haughty complacency. Then his wide lips, which nature had shaped to a perpetual grin, curled back as they were intended, his smile lit up the car, and he burst into loud laughter.

"Enjoying yourself?" inquired his hero.

"Pa.s.sably, sar, pa.s.sably!" Then, with a painful a.s.sumption of seriousness: "How is the train, sar, may I ahsk?"

"On time."

"Rarely it is so, as a general thing. It is fartunate h'indeed that you consented to run her this time."

"In a hurry to get to Colon?"

"Quite so. It is h'impartant that I h'arrive promptly to-day. I have business h'affairs." His countenance a.s.sumed tortured lines as he endeavored to maintain his gravity, then failing in his attempt, he burst suddenly into a gale of merriment that sent forth a shower of peanuts and lemon candy. "Praise G.o.d, boss, we are 'appy gentlemen to-day, are we not?"

Kirk found that the report of his good-fortune had spread far and wide; he was halted a score of times for congratulations; operators at the various stations yelled at him and waved their hands; Runnels wired "Hurrah!" at Gatun. A certain respect was in these greetings, too, for he had suddenly become a character.

As yet, however, he had not fully considered what this windfall meant to him. His first thought had been that he could now discharge his debts, go back to New York, and clear himself before the law. Yet the more he thought of it the less eager he became to return. Seven thousand five hundred dollars in gold to Kirk Anthony, of Panama, Collector, was a substantial fortune. To Kirk Anthony, of Albany, Distributor, it was nothing. Suppose he went home and squared his account with the police, what would he do then? Nothing, as usual. Here, he was proving that the Anthony breed was self-supporting, at least. And there was another reason, the weightiest of all. Long before he had reached the end of his run he realized that not one hundred times the amount of this capital prize would tempt him to leave Panama before he had seen Chiquita.

Chiquita was beginning to seem like a dream. At times during the past week he had begun to wonder if she were not really a product of his own imagination. His fancy had played upon her so extravagantly that he feared he would not know her if ever they came face to face. His mental picture of her had lost all distinctness; her face was no longer clear-cut before his mind's eye, but so blurred and hazy that even to himself he could not describe her with any accuracy.

This was most unsatisfactory, and he reproached himself bitterly for the involuntary faithlessness that could allow her image to grow dim. He was almost without hope of seeing her again. And then, with the inconsequence of dreams and sprites, she appeared to him.

It was but a glimpse he had, and a tantalizing flash of recognition from her eyes. It happened in the dusk during the confusion that accompanied the arrival of No. 7 at Panama, and it came with a suddenness that stunned him. The station was jammed with a roaring flood of negroes, another crowd was forcing its way through the exits in the high iron fence, the street was a crush of Spiggoty coaches.

Kirk had volunteered to a.s.sist an old lady, and his arms were full of bundles as he guided her between the clicking teeth of a turnstile. He was helping her into a carriage when he heard the sharp clatter of hoofs upon the brick pavement, and looked up to see a fine Peruvian mare hitched to a tan-colored surrey skirting the confusion. A black coachman was driving, and there were several people in the carriage. Kirk cast it a casual glance, and just as he looked it swept into the glare of an electric light.

Out from the back seat shone a perfect oval face, with soft, luminous eyes. It was just as he had pictured it, only more beautiful.

Kirk nearly upset his little old lady, who was struggling into her equipage. He swept his armful of bundles into the coach, seized his scandalized companion under the arms, and deposited her bodily upon a seat. Without waiting to hear from her, he dashed away through the bedlam. Under horses' heads he went, past flying hoofs and sc.r.a.ping wheels, jostling pedestrians, and little, brown policemen, until he had reached the outskirts of the crowd, where he vaulted into a vacant vehicle and called upon the driver to whip up.

"Quick! Quick! Follow that tan-colored surrey! I'll give you a dollar gold not to lose sight of it."

With the blandest of smiles the coachman started his horses, then, turning, he inquired, politely:

"'Otel Tivoli?"

"No, NO! Follow that carriage!"

"No sabe Ingles!" said the coachman.

Before Kirk had succeeded in making him understand, the street had become jammed with carriages and the Peruvian mare was lost to sight. After a half-hour of futile clattering back and forth, Kirk dismissed the driver.

But there was no doubt that she had recognized him, and nothing now could prevent him from continuing his search. The trouble was that his present occupation allowed him no opportunity. He was tied to the railroad except at night.

It was perhaps two weeks later that a serious shake-up occurred in the office force, of which no one seemed to know the cause. There was a mad scramble for advancement all along the line, in which Kirk took no part. But unexpectedly Runnels summoned him to his office.