CHAPTER XXV
A DECEMBER SNOW STORM
As the dusty wanderers wound slowly down into southern Georgia on amild bright day, a December snow storm broke with flake and flurry overthe Westfall farm. Whirling, crooning, pirouetting, the mad whiteghost swept down from the hills and hurled itself with a rattle ofshutters and stiffened boughs against the frozen valley. By nightfallthe wind was wailing eerily through the chimneys; but the checkerboardpanes of light one glimpsed through the trees of the Westfall lane werebright and cheery.
In the comfortable sitting room of the farmhouse, Carl rose and drewthe shades, added a log to the great, open fireplace and glancedhumorously at his companion who was industriously playing Canfield.
"Well, Dick," said he, "on with your overcoat. Now that supper's done,we've a tramp ahead of us."
Wherry rebelled.
"Oh, Lord, Carl!" he exclaimed. "Hear the wind!" He rose and drewaside the shade. "The lane's thick with snow. Heavens, man, it's nonight for a tramp. Allan's coming in with the mail and he looks like asnow man."
"You promised," reminded Carl inexorably. "How long since you've had adrink, Dick?"
"Nine weeks!" said Wherry, his boyish face kindling suddenly with pride.
"And your eyes and skin are clear and you're lean and hard as a racehorse. But what a fight! What a fight!" Carl slipped his armsuddenly about the other's broad shoulders. "Come on, Dick," he urgedgently. "It's discipline and endurance to-night. I want you to fightthis icy wind and grit your teeth against it. Every battle won makes aforce furrow in your will."
He met Wherry's eyes and smiled with a flash of the irresistiblemagnetism which somehow awoke unconscious response in those who beheldit. It flamed now in Wherry's clear young eyes, a look of dumbfidelity such as one sees now and then in the eyes of a faithfulanimal. Such a look had flashed at times in the bloated face of HunchDorrigan, in the eyes of young Allan Carmody here at the farm, and--inearly manhood when Carl had lazily set a college by the ears--in theeyes of Philip Poynter. It was the nameless force which the facultyhad dreaded, for it sent men flocking at the heels of one whose daringwhims were as incomprehensible as they were unexpected and original.
Young Allan brought the mail in and Carl smilingly tossed a letter toWherry, who colored and slipped it in his pocket with an air of studiedindifference.
Carl slit the two directed to himself and rapidly scanned theircontents. One was from Ann Sherrill jogging his memory about a promiseto come to Palm Beach in January, the other from Aunt Agatha, whosetrip to her cousin's in Indiana Carl had encouraged with a great floodof relief, for it had made possible this nine weeks with Wherry at theGlade Farm.
Two steps at a time, Wherry bounded up to his room. When he returnedhe was in better spirits than he had been for months.
"Come on, Carl," he exclaimed boyishly. "I'll walk down any galeto-night. And Allan says we're in for a blizzard."
Breasting the biting gale, the two men swung out through the snowy laneto the roadway.
Carl watched his companion in silence. It was a test--this wind--tosee how much of a man had been made from the flabby, drunken wreck hehad dragged to the Glade Farm weeks ago with a masterful command. Ithad been a bitter fight, with days of heavy sullenness on Wherry's partand swift apology when the mood was gone, days of hard riding andwalking, of icy plunges after a racking grind of exercise for whichCarl himself with his splendid strength inexorably set the pace, daysof fierce rebellion when he had calmly thrashed his suffering youngguest into submission and locked him in his room, days of horriblechoking remorse and pleading when Carl had grimly turned away from thepitiful wreck Starrett had made of his clever young secretary.
Once Starrett had motored up officiously to bully Wherry into comingback to him. Carl smiled. Starrett had stumbled back to his waitingmotor with a broken rib and a bruised and swollen face. Starrett was acoward--he would not come again.
Carl glanced again at Wherry. It was a man who walked beside himto-night. The battle was over. Chin up, shoulders squared against thebitter wind, he walked with the free, full stride of health and newendurance, tossing the snow from his dark, heavy hair with a laugh.There was clear red in his face and his eyes were shining.
Five miles in the teeth of a sleety blizzard and every muscle achedwith the fight.
"Dick," said Carl suddenly, "I'm proud of you."
Wherry swung sturdily on his heel.
"But you won for me, Carl," he said quietly. "I'll not forget that."
In silence they tramped back through the heavy drifts to the farmhouseand left their snowy coats in the great warm kitchen where theCarmodys--old Allan and young Allan, young, shy, pretty Mary and oldMary, the sole winter servants of the Glade--were mulling cider over ared-hot stove.
By the fire in the sitting room Dick faced his host with hot color inhis face.
"Carl," he said with an effort, "my letter to-night--it's from a girlup home in Vermont. I--I've never spoken of her before--I wasn't fit--"
"Yes?" said Carl.
"She's a little bit of a girl with wonderful eyes," said Wherry, hiseyes gentle. "We used to play a lot by the brook, Carl, until I wentaway to college and forgot. I--I wrote her the whole wretched mess,"he choked. "She says come back."
"Yes," said Carl sombrely, "there are fine, big splendid women likethat. I'm glad you know one. God knows what the world of men would dowithout them. You'll go back to her?"
Wherry gulped courageously.
"If--if you think I'm fit," he said, his face white. "If you feel youcan trust me, I'll go in the morning."
"I know I can trust you," said Carl with his swift, ready smile. "Iknow, old man, that you'll not forget."
"No," said Dick, "I can't forget."
"Tell me," Carl bent and turned the log. "What will you do now, Dick?I know your head was turned a bit by the salary Starrett gave you, butyou'll not go back to that sort of work for a while anyway, will you?"
"No," said Dick. "If I knew something of scientific farming," he addedafter a while, "I think I'd stay home. Dad's a doctor, a kindly,old-fashioned chap. I--I'd like to have you know him, Carl--he's abully sort. He's living up there in Vermont on a farm that's neverbeen developed to its full possibilities. It's the best farm in thevalley, but, you see, he hasn't the time and he's growing old--"
"Why not take a course at an agricultural college?"
Wherry colored.
"I haven't the money, Carl," he acknowledged honestly. "Most of Dad'ssavings went to see me through college. I've a little--"
"Would a thousand a year see you through, with what you've got?" askedCarl quietly.
But Wherry did not answer. He had walked away to the window, shaking.Presently he turned back to the table, but his face was white and hiseyes dark with agony. Dropping into a chair he buried his face in hishands, unnerved at the end of his fight by Carl's offer.
Wisely the man by the fire let him fight it out by himself and for aninterval there was no sound in the quiet room save the crackle of thelog and the great choking breaths of the boy by the table, whose headhad fallen forward on his outstretched arms.
Carl threw his cigar into the fire and rose.
"Brace up, Dick!" he said at length. "We've been touching the highspots up here and you were strung to a tension that had to break." Hecrossed to Wherry and laid his hand heavily on the boy's heavingshoulder. "Now, Dick, I want you to listen to me. I'm going to seeyou through an agricultural college and you're not going to tell me Ican't afford it. I know it already. But I've four thousand a year andthat's so far off from what I need to live in my way--that a thousandor so one way or the other wouldn't make any more difference than asnowflake in hell. I owe you something anyway--God knows!--forsupplying the model that sent you to perdition. If you hadn't paid methe ingenuous compliment of unremitting imitation, you'd have been asight better off. . . . And you're going to marry the white littlegirl with the beautiful eyes and th
e wonderful, sweet forgiving decencyof heart, and bring up a crowd of God-fearing youngsters, make over theold doctor's farm for him--and likely his life--and begin afresh.That's all I ask. Now to bed with you."
Wherry wrung Carl's hand, and after a passionate, incoherent storm ofgratitude stumbled blindly from the room.
The old house grew very quiet. Presently to the crackle of the fireand the wild noise of the wind outside was added the soft andmelancholy lilt of a flute. There was no mockery or impudence in thestrain to-night. It was curiously of a piece with the creakingloneliness of the ancient farmhouse and so soft at times that the clashof the frozen branches against the house engulfed it utterly.
Sombre, swayed by a surge of deep depression, the flutist lay back inhis chair by the fire, piping moodily upon the friend he always carriedin his pocket. To-morrow Dick would be off to the girl in Vermont--
The clock struck twelve. The rural world was wrapped in slumber.Above-stairs Dick was sleeping the sound, dreamless sleep of healthyweariness, and most likely dreaming of the girl by the brook. Acleansed body and a cleansed mind, thank God! So had he slept fornights while the inexorable master of his days, with no companion buthis flute, drank and drank until dawn, climbing up to bed atcockcrow--sometimes drunk and morose, sometimes a grim and consciousmaster of the bottle.
Carl had been drinking wildly, heavily for months. That inflagellating Wherry's body day by day he spared not himself, wascharacteristic of the man and of his will. That he preached anddragged a man from the depths of hell by day and deliberately descendedinto infernal abysses by night, was but another revelation of the wild,inconsistent humors which tore his soul, Youth and indomitable physiquegave him as yet clear eyes and muscles of iron, for all he abused them,but the humors of his soul from day to day grew blacker.
Kronberg, a new servant Carl had brought with him to the Glade forpersonal attendance, presently brought in his nightly tray of whiskey.
Carl glanced at the bottle and frowned.
"Take it away!" he said curtly.
Kronberg obeyed.
A little later, white and very tired, Carl went up to bed.
Dick went in the morning. At the door, after chatting nervously tocover the surge of emotion in his heart, he held out his hand. Neitherspoke.
"Carl," choked Wherry at last, meeting the other's eyes with a glanceof wild imploring, "so help me God, I'll run straight. You know that?"
"Yes," said Carl truthfully, "I know it."
An interval of desperate silence, then: "I--I can't thank you, old man,I--I'd like to but--"
"No," said Carl. "I wish you wouldn't."
And Wherry, wildly wringing his hand for the last time, was off to thesleigh waiting in the lane, a lean, quivering lad with blazing eyes ofgratitude and a great choke in his throat as he waved at Carl, whosmiled back at him with lazy reassurance through the smoke of acigarette.
Carl's day was restless and very lonely. By midnight he was drinkingheavily, having accepted the tray this time and dismissed Kronberg forthe night. Though the snow had abated some the night before, andceased in the morning, it was again whirling outside in the lane withthe wild abandon of a Bacchante. The wind too was rising and fillingthe house with ghostly creaks.
It was one of those curious nights when John Barleycorn chose to bekind--when mind and body stayed alert and keen. Carl lazily pouredsome whiskey in the fire and watched the flame burn blue. He could notrid his mind of the doctor's farm and the girl in Vermont.
Again the wind shook the farmhouse and danced and howled to its crazycastanetting. There was a creak in the hallway beyond. Last night,too, when he had been talking to Wherry, there had been such a creakand for the moment, he recalled vividly, there had been no wind. Then,disturbed by Dick's utter collapse, he had carelessly dismissed it.Now with his brain dangerously edged by the whiskey and his mindbrooding intently over a series of mysterious and sinister adventureswhich had enlivened his summer, he rose and stealing catlike to thedoor, flung it suddenly back.
Kronberg, his dark, thin-lipped face ashen, fell headlong into the roomwith a revolver in his hand.
With the tigerish agility which had served him many a time before Carlleaped for the revolver and smiling with satanic interest leveled it atthe man at his feet.
"So," said he softly, "you, too, are a link in the chain. Get up!"
Sullenly Kronberg obeyed.
"If you are a good shot," commented Carl coolly, "the bullet you sentfrom this doorway would have gone through my head. That was yourintention?"
Kronberg made no pretense of reply.
"You've been here nine weeks," sympathized Carl, "and were cautiousenough to wait until Wherry departed. What a pity you were so delayed!Caution, my dear Kronberg, if I may fall into epigram, is frequentlyand paradoxically the mother of disaster. As for instance your owncase. I imagine you're a blunderer anyway," he added impudently; "yourfingers are too thick. If you hadn't been so anxious to learn whenWherry was likely to go," guessed Carl suddenly, "you wouldn't havelistened and creaked at the keyhole last night. And more than likelyyou'd have gotten that creak over on me to-night."
Kronberg's shifting glance roved desperately to the doorway.
"Try it," invited Carl pleasantly. "Do. And I'll help you over thethreshold with a little lead. Do you know the way to the attic door inthe west wing?"
Kronberg, gulping with fear, said he did not. He was shaking violently.
"Get the little lamp on the mantel there," commanded Carl curtly, "andlight it. Bring it here. Now you will kindly precede me to the door Ispoke of. I'll direct you. If you bolt or cry out, I'll send a bulletthrough your head. So that you may not be tempted to waste your bloodand brains, if you have any, and my patience, pray recall that theCarmodys are snugly asleep by now in the east wing and the house islarge. They couldn't hear you."
It was the older portion of the house and one which by reason of itsdraughts was rarely used in winter, to which Carl drove his shakingprisoner. In summer it was cool and pleasant. In winter, however, itwas cut off from heat and habitation by lock and key.
At Carl's curt direction Kronberg turned the key in the door and passedthrough the icy file of rooms beyond to the second floor, thence to adusty attic where the sweep of the wind and snow seemed very close, andon to an ancient cluster of storerooms. Years back when the oldfarmhouse had been an inn, shivering servants had made these chill anddusty rooms more habitable. Now with the deserted wing below and thewind-feet of the Bacchante on the roof above, they were inexpressiblylonely and dreary.
Kronberg bit his lip and shuddered. His fear of the grim young guardbehind him had been subtly aggravated by the desolation of his destinedjail.
Halting in the doorway of an inner room, Carl held the light high andnodded with approval.
Its dim rays fell upon dust and cobwebs, trunks and the nondescriptrelics of years of hoarding. There were no windows; only a skylightabove clouded by the whirl of the storm.
Carl seated himself upon a trunk, placed the lamp beside him anddirected his guest to a point opposite. Kronberg, with dark,fascinated eyes glued upon the glittering steel in his jailer's hand,obeyed.
"Kronberg," said Carl coldly, "there's a lot I want to know. Moreover,I'm going to know it. Nor shall I trust to drunken jailers as I did awhile back with a certain compatriot of yours. Late last spring whenyou sought employment at my cousin's town-house, you were already, Ipresume, a link in the chain. If my memory serves me correctly, youwere dismissed after ten days of service, through no fault of your own.The house was closed for the summer. You came to me again this fallwith a letter of recommendation from Mrs. Westfall. Knowing my aunt,"reflected Carl dryly, "that is really very humorous. What were youdoing in the meantime?"
Carl shifted the lamp that its pale fan of light might fall full uponthe other's face.
"Let me tell you--do!" said he. "For I'm sure I know. During thesummer, my dear Kronberg, I was the v
ictim of a series of peculiar andpersistent attacks. To a growing habit of unremitting vigilance andsuspicion, I may thank my life. As for the peaceful monotony of thelast nine weeks, doubtless I may attribute that to the constantcompanionship of Wherry, the fact that you were much too unpopular withthe Carmodys as a foreigner to find an opportunity of poisoning myfood, and that I've fallen into the discreet and careful habit ofalways drinking from a fresh bottle, properly sealed. There was achance even there, but you were not clever enough to take it. You'reovercautious and a coward. But how busy you must have been beforethat," he purred solicitously, "bolting about in various disguisesafter me. How very patient! Dear, dear, if Nature had only given youbrains enough to match your lack of scruples--"
The insolent purr of his musical voice whipped color into Kronberg'scheeks. Abruptly he shifted his position and glared stonily.
"Venice," murmured Carl impudently, "Venice called them _bravi_;here in America we brutally call them gun-men, but honestly, Kronberg,in all respect and confidence, you really haven't brains andoriginality enough for a clever professional murderer. Amateurishkilling is a sickly sort of sport. And the danger of it! Take forinstance that night when you fancied you were a motor bandit andwaylaid me on the way to the farm. I was very drunk and driving madlyand I nearly got you. A pretty to-do that would have been! To bekilled by an amateur and you a paid professional! My! My! Kronberg,I blush for you. I really do!"
He rose smiling, though his eyes were dangerously brilliant.
"Just when," said he lazily, "did you steal the paper I found in thecandlestick? It's gone--"
He had struck fire from the stone man at last. A hopeless, hunted lookflamed up in Kronberg's eyes and died away.
"Ah!" guessed Carl keenly, "so you're in some muddle there, too, eh?"Kronberg stared sullenly at the dusty floor.
"A silence strike?" inquired Carl. "Well we'll see how you feel aboutthat in the morning. As for the skylight, Kronberg, if you feel likeskating down an icy roof to hell, try it."
Whistling softly, Carl backed to the door and disappeared. An instantlater came the click of a key in the lock. He had taken the lamp withhim.
Groping desperately about, Kronberg searched for some covering toprotect him from the icy cold. His search was unsuccessful. When theskylight grayed at dawn, he was pacing the floor, white and shakingwith the chill.
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