The Sherrods Part 30

"You talk too much fer a job like this, Jim," said Crawley.

There followed a few moments of silence.

"One of Grimes' men says you morgidged your team to the old man," began Overshine.

"Which one of Grimes' men said that?" asked 'Gene, quietly.

"Why, I--er--lemme see, who did say it?" floundered Link, in distress.

"Oh, it don't matter," said 'Gene, carelessly. "I just asked."

The subject was dropped at once. The crowd watched him leave the place and conversation was stagnant until Hardesty, who was near the window, remarked that 'Gene was walking pretty rapidly down the road. With the knowledge that he was out of sight and hearing, the loungers discussed him and his affairs freely.

It was not until the fourth day that he received a letter from Chicago, directed in strange handwriting. A number of men were in the store when the epistle was handed out to him by Mrs. Hardesty. Without hesitation he tore open the envelope and began to read. The letter was for him, beyond a doubt, but Justine had not addressed the envelope.

What had happened to her?

He read the letter with at least a dozen eyes watching him closely, but his dark face betrayed no sign of emotion. At the end he calmly replaced the note in the envelope and strolled off homeward. Once out of the hearing of the curious, he leaned against a fence, read it again, folded it carefully, opened it and read it again, and then lowered his hands and gazed out over the fields.

CHAPTER XXVI.

TWO WOMEN AND A BABE.

"Mr. Sherrod is not working for the paper now," responded a man in the counting room when Justine, overawed, applied for information at the office of the newspaper in which her husband's pictures had attracted such widespread notice. At the station a policeman had put her in a cab with directions to the driver. With her baby and her pitiful old satchel, she was jolted over the streets and up to the door of the newspaper office. She felt small, helpless, lost in this vast solitude of noises. The rush of vehicles, cars and people frightened her.

Every moment she expected there would be a collision and catastrophe.

And Jud was somewhere in this seething, heartless city, sick, unhappy, discouraged and longing for her.

"I know," she responded, thickly, to the clerk, whose glance had been cold and whose tones were curt. "He left here some months ago, but he gets his mail here."

"Does he?" brusquely.

"I address all of my letters to this office and he gets them."

"Country as can be," thought the clerk, his eye sweeping over her, "but devilish pretty. Lord, what eyes she's got." Then aloud, with a trifle more cordiality: "I'll ask Mr. Brokell if he knows where Sherrod lives. Just wait a minute, please." As he walked away there was one thought in his mind: "Sherrod is a lucky dog if he can get this woman to leave her happy home for him." In a few minutes he returned with the information that the address was not known in the office, but that he would be glad to a.s.sist her in the search. She thanked him and walked away. Somehow she did not like to meet the eye of this man.

There was in it an expression she had never seen before, she who had looked only into the honest faces of countrymen.

The shock of the clerk's blunt announcement that Jud's address was not known to any one then in the office was stupefying. So stunned with surprise was she that her wits did not return until she found herself caught up by the rushing throng on the sidewalk. When she paused in the aimless progress through the crowd she was far from the newspaper office and paralyzed by the realization that she and the baby had nowhere to go. In sheer terror she stopped still and looked about with the manner of one who is aroused from a faint and finds a strange world looking on in sympathetic curiosity.

Busy men jostled her rudely, thoughtlessly; women arrayed as she had seen but one in her life, stared at her as she stood frightened and undecided in the middle of the sidewalk. There was no friendly face, no kindly hand in all that rushing crowd. Scarcely realizing what she did, she asked a man who leaned against the building nearby if he knew Dudley Sherrod. The man stared at her blankly for an instant, a sarcastic grin flashing across his hard face. The smile faded instantly, however, for, street loafer though he was, he saw the agony in her eyes, and knew that she had lost her way. With a politeness that surprised himself, he answered in the negative and then advised her to consult a directory.

She looked so helpless and unhappy that he volunteered to lead her to the nearest drug store. She followed him across the street, her baby on one arm, the big "telescope" b.u.mping against her tired leg as she lugged it with the other hand. The city directory gave Dudley Sherrod's address as 1837 E---- street, but she remembered that he had left this place nearly a year before. Her friend, the lounger, advised her to appeal to the police, but she revolted against anything suggestive of the "criminal." To ask the police to look for her husband was to her shocking.

A clerk in the store was appealed to by the lounger, and that individual agreed with him that the police alone could find "the Man,"

if he was to be found at all. All this was adding new terror. Tears came to Justine's eyes and she did not try to dash them away. Pride was conquered by despair. The clerk, taking matters in his own hands, called in a pa.s.sing policeman, and bluntly told her to state the situation to him.

"In the fir'rst place, ma'am, d'ye know the felly here?" asked the officer, regarding the lounger with an unfriendly eye. The latter winced a bit but did his best to put up a brave show of resentment.

"She never seen me till ten minutes ago, Maher, an' I ain't done or said nawthin' wrong to her. Leave it to th' girl herself if I ain't been dead square. Ain't I, ma'am?"

"He's been very kind, policeman," answered Justine, eagerly.

"Sure, sure, Maher, dat's right," said the lounger, triumphantly.

"Did he's thry to touch ye, ma'am?" demanded the officer, still unsatisfied.

"No, sir; he did not do anything so rude. He was very kind, and I thank him," responded she, taking the word "touch" literally.

"What d'I tell you?" said the suspect in hurt tones.

"Kape yer gab out, Biggs," said the officer. "I mean, ma'am, did he ask yez fer money?"

"Oh, no, sir," said Justine confusedly.

"Never asked her fer a cent, on the dead----"

"That'll do ye, Biggs. Clear out, onnyhow," said the policeman, unpityingly.

"Aw, dat's not right----"

"G'wan now, will ye?" exclaimed Officer Maher, roughly shoving Mr.

Biggs toward the door.

"Oh," cried Justine, indignantly. "Let him alone!" Her eyes were flashing angrily.

"It's all right, ma'am," explained the clerk, calmly.

"But he's done nothing wrong."

"You can't take chances with these b.u.ms. They're a bad lot. He's a tough customer, Biggs is. Don't have anything to do with strangers on the street. It's not safe." By this time the red-faced guardian of the peace was with them again, and Justine reluctantly explained her dilemma to him.

"He worked here for a long time as a newspaper artist," she said, in conclusion.

"I've seen his pictures many a time," said the clerk with new interest.

"Is he your husband?"

"Yes, sir."

"I guess he's not on the paper now. I haven't seen his pictures for some time."

"He's been off the paper for nearly a year."

"Come wid me to hidquarters, ma'am, an' the chief'll sind some wan out to loca--ate him before night," said the officer. "Sthate yer case to the boss. It won't be no thrick to find him."

"I hate to have the police look for him," said she imploringly.

"Will, thin, phat'd yez call me in fer?" demanded the officer, harshly.