CHAPTER V
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE SALVATION ARMY
While Beatrice Whitford waited in the little library for the Arizonanto join her, she sat in a deep chair, chin in hand, eyes fixed on thejetting flames of the gas-log. A little flush had crept into the ovalface. In her blood there tingled the stimulus of excitement. For intoher life an adventure had come from faraway Cattleland.
A crisp, strong footstep sounded in the hall. Her fingers flew to patinto place the soft golden hair coiled low at the nape of the neck. Attimes she had a boylike unconcern of sex; again, a spirit whollyfeminine.
The clothes of her father fitted Lindsay loosely, for Colin Whitfordhad begun to take on the flesh of middle age and Clay was lean andclean of build as an elk. But the Westerner was one of those to whomclothes are unimportant. The splendid youth of him would have shonethrough the rags of a beggar.
"My name is Clay Lindsay," he told her by way of introduction.
"Mine is Beatrice Whitford," she answered.
They shook hands.
"I'm to wait here till my clothes dry, yore man says."
"Then you'd better sit down," she suggested.
Within five minutes she knew that he had been in New York less thanthree hours. His impressions of the city amused and entertained her.He was quite simple. She could look into his mind as though it were adeep, clear well. There was something inextinguishably boyish andbuoyant about him. But in his bronzed face and steady, humorous eyeswere strength and shrewdness. He was the last man in the world abunco-steerer could play for a sucker. She felt that. Yet he made nopretenses of a worldly wisdom he did not have.
A voice reached them from the top of the stairs.
"Do you know where Miss Whitford is, Jenkins?"
"Hin the Red Room, sir." The answer was in the even, colorless voiceof a servant.
The girl rose at once. "If you'll excuse me," she said, and steppedout of the room.
"Hello, Bee. What do you think? I never saw such idiots as the policeof this town are. They're watching this house for a desperado whoassaulted some one outside. I met a sergeant on our steps. Says hedoesn't think the man's here, but there's just a chance he slipped intothe basement. It's absurd."
"Of course it is." There was a ripple of mirth in the girl's voice."He didn't come in by the basement at all, but walked in at the frontdoor."
"Who are you talking about?"
"The desperado, Dad."
"The front door!" exploded her father. "What do you mean? Who let himin?"
"I did. He came as my guest, at my invitation."
"What?"
"Don't shout, Dad," she advised. "I thought I had brought you upbetter."
"But--but--but--what do you mean?" he sputtered. "Is this ruffian inthe house now?"
"Oh, yes. He's in the Red Room here--and unless he's very deaf hehears everything we are saying," the girl answered calmly, much amusedat the amazement of her father. "Won't you come in and see him? Hedoesn't seem very desperate."
Clay rose, pinpoints of laughter dancing in his eyes. He liked the gayaudacity of this young woman, just as he liked the unconventional pluckwith which she had intruded herself into his affairs as a rescuer andthe businesslike efficiency that had got him out of his wet rags intocomfortable clothes.
A moment later he was offering a brown hand to Colin Whitford, who tookit reluctantly, with the same wariness a boxer does that of hisopponent in the ring. His eyes said plainly, "What the deuce are youdoing here, sitting in my favorite chair, smoking one of my importedcigars, wearing my clothes, and talking to my daughter?"
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Whitford. Yore daughter has just saved my lifefrom the police," the Westerner said, and his friendly smile was verymuch in evidence.
"You make yourself at home," answered the owner of a large per cent ofthe stock of the famous Bird Cage mine.
"My guests do, Dad. It's the proof that I'm a perfect hostess,"retorted Beatrice, her dainty, provocative face flashing to mirth.
"Hmp!" grunted her father dryly. "I'd like to know, young man, why thepolice are shadowing this house?"
"I expect they're lookin' for me."
"I expect they are, and I'm not sure I won't help them find you.You'll have to show cause if I don't."
"His bark is much worse than his bite," the girl explained to Clay,just as though her father were not present.
"Hmp!" exploded the mining magnate a second time. "Get busy, youngfellow."
Clay told the story of the fifty-five-dollar suit that I. Bernstein hadwished on him with near-tears of regret at parting from it. Thecowpuncher dramatized the situation with some native talent formimicry. His arms gestured like the lifted wings of a startledcockerel. "A man gets a chance at a garment like that only once in awhile occasionally. Which you can take it from me that when I.Bernstein sells a suit of clothes it is shust like he is dealing withhis own brother. Qvality, my friendts, qvality! Why, I got anyhow asuit which I might be married in without shame, un'erstan' me."
Colin Whitford was of the West himself. He had lived itsrough-and-tumble life for years before he made his lucky strike in theBird Cage. He had moved from Colorado to New York only ten yearsbefore. The sound of Clay's drawling voice was like a message fromhome. He began to grin in spite of himself. This man was too good tobe true. It wasn't possible that anybody could come to the big townand import into it so naively such a genuine touch of the outdoor West.It was not possible, but it had happened just the same. Of courseManhattan would soon take the color out of him. It always did out ofeverybody. The city was so big, so overpowering, so individual itself,that it tolerated no individuality in its citizens. Whitford had longsince become a conformist. He was willing to bet a hat that this bigbrown Arizonan would eat out of the city's hand within a week. In themeantime he wanted to be among those present while the process oftaming the wild man took place. Long before the cowpuncher hadfinished his story of hog-tying the Swede to a hitching-post with hisown hose, the mining man was sealed of the large tribe of ClayLindsay's admirers. He was ready to hide him from all the police inNew York.
Whitford told Stevens to bring in the fifty-five-dollar suit so that hecould gloat over it. He let out a whoop of delight at sight of itsstill sodden appearance. He examined its sickly hue with chuckles ofmirth.
"Guaranteed not to fade or shrink," murmured Clay sadly.
He managed to get the coat on with difficulty. The sleeves reachedjust below his elbows.
"You look like a lifer from Sing Sing," pronounced Whitford joyously."Get a hair-cut, and you won't have a chance on earth to fool thepolice."
"The color did run and fade some," admitted Clay.
"Worth every cent of nine ninety-eight at a bargain sale before theSwede got busy with it--and he let you have it at a sacrifice forfifty-five dollars!" The millionaire wept happy tears as a climax ofhis rapture. He swallowed his cigar smoke and had to be pounded on theback by his daughter.
"Would you mind getting yore man to wrop it up for me? I'm goin' tohave a few pleasant words with I. Bernstein," said Clay with mockmournfulness.
"When?" asked Whitford promptly.
"Never you mind when, sah. I'm not issuin' any tickets of admission.It's goin' to be a strictly private entertainment."
"Are you going to take a water hose along?"
"That's right," reproached Clay. "Make fun of me because I'm astranger and come right from the alfalfa country." He turned toBeatrice cheerfully. "O' course he bit me good and proper. I'm green.But I'll bet he loses that smile awful quick when he sees me again."
"You're not going to--"
"Me, I'm the gentlest citizen in Arizona. Never in trouble. Alwayspeaceable and quiet. Don't you get to thinkin' me a bad-man, for Iain't."
Jenkins came to the door and announced "Mr. Bromfield."
Almost on his heels a young man in immaculate riding-clothes saunteredinto the room. He had the assured ease of one who
has the run of thehouse. Miss Whitford introduced the two young men and Bromfield lookedthe Westerner over with a suave insolence in his dark, handsome eyes.
Clay recognized him immediately. He had shaken hands once before withthis well-satisfied young man, and on that occasion a fifty-dollar billhad passed from one to the other. The New Yorker evidently did notknow him.
It became apparent at once that Bromfield had called to go riding inthe Park with Miss Whitford. That young woman came up to say good-byeto her new acquaintance.
"Will you be here when I get back?"
"Not if our friends outside give me a chance for a getaway," he toldher.
Her bright, unflinching eyes looked into his. "You'll come again andlet us know how you escaped," she invited.
"I'll ce'tainly do that, Miss Whitford."
"Then we'll look for you Thursday afternoon, say."
"I'll be here."
"If the police don't get you."
"They won't," he promised serenely.
"When you're quite ready, Bee," suggested Bromfield in a bored voice.
She nodded casually and walked out of the room like a young Diana,straight as a dart in her trim slenderness.
Clay slipped out of the house by the back way, cut across to thesubway, and took a downtown train. He got out at Forty-Second Streetand made his way back to the clothing establishment of I. Bernstein.
That gentleman was in his office in the rear of the store. Lindsaywalked back to it, opened and closed the door, locked it, and put thekey in his pocket.
The owner of the place rose in alarm from the stool where he wassitting. "What right do you got to lock that door?" he demanded.
"I don't want to be interrupted while I'm sellin' you this suit, Mr.Bernstein," the cowpuncher told him easily, and he proceeded to unwrapthe damp package under his arm. "It's a pippin of a suit. The colorwon't run or fade, and it's absolutely unshrinkable. You won't oftenget a chance at a suit like this. Notice the style, the cut, thequality of the goods. And it's only goin' to cost you fifty-fivedollars."
The clothing man looked at the misshapen thing with eyes that bulged."Where is it you been with this suit--in the East River, my friendt?"he wanted to know.
"I took a walk along Riverside Drive. That's all. I got a strongguarantee with this suit when I bought it. I'm goin' to give you thesame one I got. It won't shrink or fade and it will wear to beat a'Pache pup. Oh, you won't make any mistake buyin' this suit."
"You take from me an advice. Unlock that door and get out."
"I can give you better advice than that. Buy this suit right away.You'll find it's a bargain."
The steady eyes of the Westerner daunted the merchant, but he did notintend to give up fifty-five dollars without a murmur.
"If you don't right avay soon open that door I call the police. Thenyou go to jail, ain't it?"
"How's yore heart, Mr. Bernstein?" asked Clay tenderly.
"What?"
"I'm askin' about yore heart. I don't know as you're hardly strongenough to stand what I'll do to you if you let a single yelp out ofyou. I kinda hate to hurry yore funeral," he added regretfully, stillin his accustomed soft drawl.
The man beside the stool attempted one shout. Instantly Clay filledhis mouth with a bunch of suit samples that had been lying on the desk.With one arm he held the struggling little man close to his body. Withhis foot and the other hand he broke in two a yardstick and fitted thetwo parts together.
"Here's the programme," he said by way of explanation. "I'm goin' toput you over my knee and paddle you real thorough. When you make upyore mind that you want to buy that suit for fifty-five dollars, itwill be up to you to let me know. Take yore own time about it. Don'tlet me hurry you."
Before the programme had more than well started, the victim of itsignified his willingness to treat with the foe. To part withfifty-five dollars was a painful business, but not to part with it wasgoing to hurt a good deal more. He chose the lesser of two evils.
While he was counting out the bills Clay bragged up the suit. Hepraised its merits fluently and cheerfully. When he left he locked thedoor of the office behind him and handed the key to one of the clerks.
"I've got a kinda notion Mr. Bernstein wants to get out of his office.He's actin' sort o' restless, seems like."
Restless was hardly the word. He was banging on the door like a wildman. "Police! Murder! Help!" he shouted in a high falsetto.
Clay wasted no time. He and the fifty-five dollars vanished into thestreet. In his haste he bumped into a Salvation Army lassie with atambourine.
She held it out to him for a donation, and was given the shock of herlife. For into that tambourine the big brown man crammed a fistful ofbills. He waited for no thanks, but cut round the corner towardBroadway in a hurry.
When the girl reached headquarters and counted the contribution shefound it amounted to just fifty-five dollars.
The Big-Town Round-Up Page 6