The Tempering Part 32

"For G.o.d's sake, at least be honest!" retorted Morgan pa.s.sionately.

"Whatever barbarities mountain men have, they are presumed to be outspoken and direct of speech."

"We generally aim to be. I'm asking _you_ to be the same."

"Very well. I mean to marry Anne, who is my cousin--and whose social equal I am. It doesn't please me to have you confuse my father's welcome with the idea of free and easy liberty. Is that clear?"

Morgan was glaring up into Boone's eyes, since Boone stood several inches the taller, and Boone's fingers ached to take him by the neck and shake him as a terrier does a rat. The need of remembering whose son he was became a trying obligation.

"Does Anne--whose social equal you are--know--that you're going to marry her?" he inquired, with a quiet which should have warned Morgan had he just then been able to recognize warnings.

"Perhaps," was the curt rejoinder, and Boone laughed.

"No, Mr. Wallifarro," he said. "No--even that 'perhaps' is a lie. She doesn't so much as suspect it. As for me, I know you are _not_ going to marry her."

Morgan had turned and walked around behind his desk, and as Boone added his paralyzing announcement, he threw open the drawer. "I aim to marry her myself--when I've made good--if she'll have me."

Morgan halted, half bent over, and his eyes burned madly.

"You!" he exclaimed, with a boiling over of contemptuous rage. "You d.a.m.ned baboon!"

The words had sent Wellver, like the force of uncoiled springs, vaulting over the table, and his face had gone paste-white. Yet as he landed on the far side he halted and drew himself rigidly straight, though to keep his arms inactive at his sides he had to tense every sinew from wrist to shoulder, until each fibre ached with the cramp of repression. He had caught himself on the brink of murder l.u.s.t, with the murder fog in his eyes. He had caught himself and now he held himself with a desperate sense of need, though he saw Morgan's fingers close over the stock of a heavy revolver. He even smiled briefly as he noted that it was a gun with an elegant pearl grip.

"If any other man of G.o.d's earth had fathered you," he said, each word coming separately like the drippings from an icicle, "I'd prove that I wasn't only a baboon but a gorilla--and I'd prove it by pulling the sn.o.bbish head off of your d.a.m.ned, tailor-made shoulders. People don't generally say things like that to me and go free."

Morgan too was pallid with anger, and in neither of them was any tragedy-averting possibility of faltering courage. Wallifarro held the pistol before him, and gave back a step--only one, and that one not in retreat but in order that he might have a chance to speak before he was forced to fire.

"I realize perfectly," he said, "that physically I'd be helpless in your hands. I'm as much your inferior in brute strength as--as mentally and socially--you are--mine. I don't want to take any advantage of you--it seems that we have to fight.--I'm waiting for you to draw."

He paused there, breathing heavily, and Boone stood unmoving, his hands still at his sides.

"I'm not armed," he said, and now he had recovered a less strained composure. "Why should I come with a gun on me when a gentleman of high social standing invites me to his office?"

"You're quibbling," Morgan burst out with a fresh access of fury.

"You've given me the right to demand satisfaction. You've got a pistol in your desk there, haven't you?"

"Maybe so. Why do you ask? Isn't one gun enough for you when your man's unarmed?"

"Great G.o.d," shouted the Colonel's son, "are you trying to goad me into insanity? _You_ are going to need one sorely in a moment. I give you fair warning. I'm tired of waiting. Will you arm yourself?"

Boone shook his head.

"I told you when I came in here why I wouldn't fight you. I can't fight your father's son. You know as d.a.m.ned well as you know you're living that no other man on earth could say the things you've said and go unpunished--and you know just that d.a.m.ned well, too, why I'm holding my hand."

As he paused, both were breathing as heavily as though their battle had been violently physical instead of only verbal, and it was Boone who spoke next.

"Put away that gun," he ordered curtly. "Unless you're still bent on doing murder."

He stepped forward until his chest came in contact with the muzzle, his own hands still unlifted.

"Get back!" barked Morgan, who stood with his back against the desk. "If you crowd me I _will_ shoot."

There was a swift panther-like sweep of Boone's right arm and Morgan felt fingers closing about his wrist. Then reason left him and he pressed the trigger.

But no report started echoes in the empty building. Morgan felt only the bone-crushing pressure that made his wrist ache as it was forced up, and then he saw that the hand which had closed vice-like on it had one finger thrust between the hammer and firing pin of his weapon.

The reaction left him dizzy, as he reflected that he had done all that man could do toward homicide and had been halted only by his unarmed adversary's quicker thought and action. Boone unc.o.c.ked the firearm and laid it on the table, under the other's hand.

"I guess you see now," said Morgan in a low voice, "that after this the two of us can't stay in this office."

Boone nodded. "I know, too, that I've got to get out. You're his son, but"--his voice leaped--"but I know that having held myself in this long I can last a little longer. You're too sanctified for politics and dirty work like that. But your father's in it--and until this election is over I'm going to stay right with him--I'm going to do it because he's in actual danger. After that I'll quit--I'm not afraid of cooling off too much in the meantime, are you?"

"By G.o.d, NO!"

CHAPTER XXVII

Boone rose by gas-light the next morning and from the bureau of his hall bedroom, after removing a slender pile of shirts and underwear, he extracted a heavy-calibred revolver in a battered holster of the mountain type--the kind that fits under the left armpit, supported by a shoulder strap.

He took the thing out of its case and scrupulously examined into the smoothness of its working after long disuse, debating the while whether to take it or leave it. He knew that though the "pure in heart"--as an administration speaker had humorously characterized the myrmidons of the city hall--might, with impunity, carry--and even use--concealed weapons, he and his like need expect no leniency in the courts for similar conduct. The advice at headquarters had been emphatic on that point: "Keep well within the law. There may be court sequels."

But Boone meant to be Colonel Wallifarro's bodyguard that day. He felt designated and made responsible for the Colonel's safety by Anne, and he knew that before nightfall contingencies might arise which would overshadow lesser and technical considerations. So he strapped the holster under his waistcoat, and went out into the autumn morning, which was gray and still save for the rumbling of occasional milk wagons.

At Fusion headquarters few others had yet arrived, but shortly he was joined by Colonel Wallifarro and General Prince, and within the hour the barren suite of rooms was close thronged and thick with the smoke of many cigars. Telephones were ajingle, and outside in the street a dozen motors were parked.

Nor was there any suspense of long waiting before events broke into racing stride, as a field of horses breaks from the upflung barrier.

From a half dozen sources came hurried complaints of flagrant violations and of police violence or police blindness.

When the polling places had been open an hour the wires grew feverish.

"A crowd of fifteen men came here and registered at opening time,"

announced one herald. "Forty-five minutes later the same gang came back and registered again. The protest of our challenger was ignored."

There were not enough telephones to carry the traffic of lamentation and complaint. "Our camera men are being a.s.saulted and their instruments smashed...." "The Chief of Police has just been here and left instructions that snapshotting is an invasion of private rights. He has ordered his men to lock up all photographers...." "Our judge in this precinct challenged a man when he tried to register, the second time, and a crowd of thugs with blackjacks rushed the place and beat him unconscious. The police said they saw no difficulty."

So came the burden of chorused indignation, and the automobiles began cruising outward on tours of investigation and protest. The "boys" had been a.s.sured that they were to have "all the protection in the world,"

and they were "going to it."

From this and that section of the city arrived news of men who had been blackjacked, crowd-handled and arrested, but out of the whole rapidly developing reign of terror certain precincts stood forth conspicuous.

Seated beside Colonel Wallifarro in the dust-covered car that raced from ward to ward, while the Colonel's face streamed sweat from the hurried tempo of his exertions, Boone marvelled at the fashion in which these men combined indomitable perseverance with self-contained patience.

Often he himself burned with an angry impulse to jump down from his seat and punish the insolent effrontery of some ruffian in uniform.

"I reckon you don't know who these gentlemen are," he protested at one time to a police sergeant, whose manner had pa.s.sed beyond impertinence and become abuse.

"No and I don't give a d.a.m.n who they are," retorted the guardian of peace. "I know what this business means to me. It's four years with a job or four years without one."

Twice during the morning they were called to a building that had once been a shoemaker's shop. The erstwhile showcase was dimmed by the dust of a dry summer and the grimy smears of a rainy autumn. There the tide of bulldozing had run to flood, and the Fusion judge of registration, an undersized chap with an oversized courage, had wrangled and fought against overweening odds until they took him away with both eyes closed beyond usefulness. A challenger with less stomach for punishment had borne the brunt as long as he could--and weakened. Colonel Wallifarro's car stood before the place and, with a weary gesture, he turned to Boone.