by Zane Grey
Lane put his head on his hands, as if to rest it, or still the throbbing there.
“Who took Lorna to this place?” he asked, presently, breathing heavily.
“I don’t know. But it was Dick Swann who poured the drink out of the flask. Between you and me, Lane, that young millionaire is going a pace hereabouts. Listen,” he went on, lowering his voice, and glancing round to see there was no one to overhear him, “there’s a gambling club in Middleville. I go there. My rooms are in the same building. I’ve made a peep-hole through the attic floor next to my room. Do I see more things than cards and bottles? Do I! If the fathers of Middleville could see what I’ve seen they’d go out to the asylum.… I’m not supposed to know it’s more than a place to gamble. And nobody knows I know. Dick Swann and Hardy Mackay are at the head of this club. Swann is the genius and the support of it. He’s rich, and a high roller if I ever saw one.… Among themselves these young gentlemen call it the Strong Arm Club. Study over that, Lane. Do you get it? I know you do, and that saves me talking until I see red.”
“Pepper, have you seen my sister—there?” queried Lane, tensely.
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
“I’ll not say, Lane. There’s no need for that. I’ll give you a key to my rooms, and you can go there—in the afternoons—and paste yourself to my peep-hole, and watch.… Honest to God, I believe it means bloodshed. But I can’t help that. Something must be done. I’m not much good, but I can see that.”
Colonel Pepper wiped his moist face. He was now quite pale and his hands shook.
“I never had a wife, or a sweetheart,” he went on. “But once I had a little sister. Thank Heaven she didn’t live her girlhood in times like these.”
Lane again bowed his head on his hands, and wrestled with the might of reality.
“I’m going to take you to these club-rooms tonight,” went on Pepper. “It’ll cause a hell of a row. But once you get in, there’ll be no help for them. Swann and his chums will have to stand for it.”
“Did you ever take an outsider in?” asked Lane.
“Several times. Traveling men I met here. Good fellows that liked a game of cards. Swann made no kick at that. He’s keen to gamble. And when he’s drinking the sky’s the limit.”
“Wouldn’t it be wiser just to show me these rooms, and let me watch from your place—until I find my sister there?” queried Lane.
“I don’t know,” replied Pepper, thoughtfully. “I think if I were you I’d butt in tonight with me. You can drag young Dalrymple home before he gets drunk”.
“Pepper, I’ll break up this—this club,” declared Lane.
“I’ll say you will. And I’m for you strong. If it was only the booze and cards I’d not have squealed. That’s my living. But by God, I can’t stand for the—the other stuff any longer!… Come on now. And I’ll put you on to a slick stunt that’ll take your breath away.”
He led the way out of the hotel, in his excitement walking rather fast.
“Go slow, Pepper,” said Lane. “We’re not going over the top.”
Pepper gave him a quick, comprehending look.
“Good Lord, Lane, you’re not as—as bad as all that!”
Lane nodded. Then at slower pace they went out and down the bright Main Street for two blocks, and then to the right on West Street, which was quite comparable to the other thoroughfare as a business district. At the end of the street the buildings were the oldest in Middleville, and entirely familiar to Lane.
“Give White’s the once over,” said Pepper, indicating a brightly lighted store across the street. “That place is new to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I don’t remember White, or that there was a confectionery den along here.”
“Den is right. It’s some den, believe me.… White’s a newcomer—a young sport, thick with Swann. For all I know Swann is backing him. Anyway he has a swell joint and a good trade. People kick about his high prices. Ice cream, candy, soda, soft drinks, and all that rot. But if he knows who you are you can get a shot. It’ll strike you funny later to see he waits on the customers himself. But when you get wise it’ll not be so funny. He’s got a tea parlor upstairs—and they say it’s some swell place, with a rest room or ladies’ dressing room back. Now from this back room the girls can get into the club-rooms of the boys, and go out on the other side of the block. In one way and out the other—at night. Not necessary in the afternoon.… Come on now, well go round the block.”
A short walk round the block brought them into a shaded, wide street with one of Middleville’s parks on the left. A row of luxuriant elm trees helped the effect of gloom. The nearest electric light was across on the far corner, with trees obscuring it to some extent. At the corner where Pepper halted there was an outside stairway running up the old-fashioned building. The ground floor shops bore the signs of a florist and a milliner; above was a photograph gallery; and the two upper stories were apparently unoccupied. To the left of the two stores another stairway led up into the center of the building. Pepper led Lane up this stairway, a long, dark climb of three stories that taxed Lane’s endurance.
“Sure is a junk heap, this old block,” observed Pepper, as he fumbled in the dim light with his keys. At length he opened a door, turned on a light and led Lane into his apartment. “I have three rooms here, and the back one opens into a kind of areaway from which I get into an abandoned storeroom, or I guess it’s an attic. Tomorrow afternoon about three you meet me here and I’ll take you in there and let you have a look through the peep-hole I made. It’s no use tonight, because there’ll be only boys at the club, and I’m going to take you right in.”
He switched off the light, drew Lane out and locked the door. “I’m the only person who lives on this floor. There’re three holes to this burrow and one of them is at the end of this hall. The exit where the girls slip out is on the floor below, through a hallway to that outside stairs. Oh, I’ll say it’s a Coney Island maze, this building! But just what these young rakes want.… Come on, and be careful. It’ll be dark and the stairs are steep.”
At the end of the short hall Pepper opened a door, and led Lane down steep steps in thick darkness, to another hall, dimly lighted by a window opening upon the street.
“You’ll have to make a bluff at playing poker, unless my butting in with you causes a row,” said Pepper, as he walked along. Presently he came to a door upon which he knocked several times. But before it was opened footsteps and voices sounded down the hall in the opposite direction from which Pepper had escorted Lane.
“Guess they’re just coming. Hard luck,” said Pepper. “’Fraid you’ll not get in now.”
Lane counted five dark forms against the background of dim light. He saw the red glow of a cigarette. Then the door upon which Pepper had knocked opened to let out a flare. Pepper gave Lane a shove across the threshold and followed him. Lane did not recognize the young man who had opened the door. The room was large, with old walls and high ceiling, a round table with chairs and a sideboard. It had no windows. The door on the other side was closed.
“Pepper, who’s this you’re ringin’ in on me?” demanded the young fellow.
“A pard of mine. Now don’t be peeved, Sammy,” replied Pepper. “If there’s any kick I’ll take the blame.
Then the five young men glided swiftly into the room. The last one was Dick Swann. In the act of closing the door behind him, he saw Lane, and started violently back. His face turned white. His action, his look silenced the talk.
“Lane! What do you want?” he jerked out.
Lane eyed him without replying. He thought he read more in Swann’s face and voice than any of the amazed onlookers.
“Dick, I fetched Lane up for a little game,” put in Pepper, with composure.
Swann jerked as violently out of his stiffened posture as he had frozen into it. His face changed—showed comprehension—relief—then flamed with anger.
“Pepper, it’s a damn high-handed imposition fo
r you to bring strangers here,” he burst out.
“Well, I’m sorry you take it that way,” replied Pepper, with deprecatory spreading of his hands. He was quite cool and his little eyes held a singular gleam. “You never kicked before when I brought a stranger.”
Swann fiercely threw down his cigarette.
“Hell! I told you never to bring any Middleville man in here.”
“Ahuh! I forgot. You’ll have to excuse me,” returned Pepper, not with any particular regret.
“What’s the matter with my money?” queried Lane, ironically, at last removing his steady gaze from Swann to the others. Mackay was there, and Holt Dalrymple, the boy in whom Lane had lately interested himself. Holt resembled his sister in his dark rich coloring, but his face wore a shade of sullen depression. The other two young men Lane had seen in Middleville, but they were unknown to him.
“Pepper, you beat it with your new pard,” snarled Swarm. “And you’ll not get in here again, take that from me.”
The mandate nettled Pepper, who evidently felt more deeply over this situation than had appeared on the surface.
“Sure, I’ll beat it,” returned he, resentfully. “But see here, Swann. Be careful how you shoot off your dirty mouth. It’s not beyond me to hand a little tip to my friend Chief of Police Bell.”
“You damned squealer!” shouted Swann. “Go ahead—do your worst. You’ll find I pull a stroke.… Now get out of here.”
With a violent action he shoved the little man out into the hall. Then turning to Lane he pointed with shaking hand to the door.
“Lane, you couldn’t be a guest of mine.”
“Swann, I certainly wouldn’t be,” retorted Lane, in tones that rang. “Pepper didn’t tell me you were the proprietor of this—this joint.”
“Get out of here or I’ll throw you out!” yelled Swann, now beside himself with rage. And he made a threatening move toward Lane.
“Don’t lay a hand on me,” replied Lane. “I don’t want my uniform soiled.”
With that Lane turned to Dalrymple, and said quietly: “Holt, I came here to find you, not to play cards. That was a stall. Come away with me. You were not cut out for a card sharp or a booze fighter. What’s got into you that you can gamble and drink with slackers?”
Dalrymple jammed his hat on and stepped toward the door. “Dare, you said a lot. I’ll beat it with you—and I’ll never come back.”
“You bet your sweet life you won’t,” shouted Swann.
“Hold on there, Dalrymple,” interposed Mackay, stepping out. “Come across with that eighty-six bucks you owe me.”
“I—I haven’t got it, Mackay,” rejoined the boy, flushing deeply.
Lane ripped open his coat and jerked out his pocket-book and tore bills out of it. “There, Hardy Mackay,” he said, with deliberate scorn, throwing the money on the table. “There are your eighty-six dollars—earned in France.… I should think it’d burn your fingers.”
He drew Holt out into the hall, where Pepper waited. Some one slammed the door and began to curse.
“That ends that,” said Colonel Pepper, as the three moved down the dim hall.
“It ends us, Pepper, but you couldn’t stop those guys with a crowbar,” retorted Dalrymple.
Lane linked arms with the boy and changed the conversation while they walked back to the inn. Here Colonel Pepper left them, and Lane talked to Holt for an hour. The more he questioned Holt the better he liked him, and yet the more surprised was he at the sordid fact of the boy’s inclination toward loose living. There was something perhaps that Holt would not confess. His health had been impaired in the service, but not seriously. He was getting stronger all the time. His old job was waiting for him. His mother and sister had enough to live on, but if he had been working he could have helped them in a way to afford him great satisfaction.
“Holt, listen,” finally said Lane, with more earnestness. “We’re friends—all boys of the service are friends. We might even become great pards, if we had time.”
“What’s time got to do with it?” queried the younger man. “I’m sure I’d like it—and know it’d help me.”
“I’m shot to pieces, Holt.… I won’t last long.…”
“Aw, Lane, don’t say that!”
“It’s true. And if I’m to help you at all it must be now.… You haven’t told me everything, boy—now have you?”
Holt dropped his head.
“I’ll say—I haven’t,” he replied, haltingly. “Lane—the trouble is—I’m clean gone on Margie Maynard. But her mother hates the sight of me. She won’t stand for me.”
“Oho! So that’s it?” ejaculated Lane, a light breaking in upon him. “Well, I’ll be darned. It is serious, Holt.… Does Margie love you?”
“Sure she does. We’ve always cared. Don’t you remember how Margie and I and Dal and you used to go to school together? And come home together? And play on Saturdays?… Ever since then!… But lately Margie and I are—we got—pretty badly mixed up.”
“Yes, I remember those days,” replied Lane, dreamily, and suddenly he recalled Dal’s dark eyes, somehow haunting. He had to make an effort to get back to the issue at hand.
“If Margie loves you—why it’s all right. Go back to work and marry her.”
“Lane, it can’t be all right. Mrs. Maynard has handed me the mitt,” replied Holt, bitterly. “And Margie hasn’t the courage to run off with me.… Her mother is throwing Margie at Swann—because he’s rich.”
“Oh Lord, no—Holt—you can’t mean it!” exclaimed Lane, aghast.
“I’ll say I do mean it. I know it,” returned Holt, moodily. “So I let go—fell into the dumps—didn’t care a d—— what became of me.”
Lane was genuinely shocked. What a tangle he had fallen upon! Once again there seemed to confront him a colossal Juggernaut, a moving, crushing, intangible thing, beyond his power to cope with.
“Now, what can I do?” queried Holt, in sudden hope his friend might see a way out.
Despairingly, Lane racked his brain for some word of advice or assurance, if not of solution. But he found none. Then his spirit mounted, and with it passion.
“Holt, don’t be a miserable coward,” he began, in fierce scorn. “You’re a soldier, man, and you’ve got your life to live!… The sun will rise—the days will be long and pleasant—you can work—do something. You can fish the streams in summer and climb the hills in autumn. You can enjoy. Bah! don’t tell me one shallow girl means the world. If Margie hasn’t courage enough to run off and marry you—let her go! But you can never tell. Maybe Margie will stick to you. I’ll help you. Margie and I have always been friends and I’ll try to influence her. Then think of your mother and sister. Work for them. Forget yourself—your little, miserable, selfish desires.… My God, boy, but it’s a strange life the war’s left us to face. I hate it. So do you hate it. Swann and Mackay giving nothing and getting all!… So it looks.… But it’s false—false. God did not intend men to live solely for their bodies. A balance must be struck. They have got to pay. Their time will come.… As for you, the harder this job is the fiercer you should be. I’ve got to die, Holt. But if I could live I’d show these slackers, these fickle wild girls, what they’re doing.… You can do it, Holt. It’s the greatest part any man could be called upon to play. It will prove the difference between you and them.…”
Holt Dalrymple crushed Lane’s hand in both his own. On his face was a glow—his dark eyes flashed: “Lane—that’ll be about all,” he burst out with a kind of breathlessness. Then his head high, he stalked out.
The next day was bad. Lane suffered from both over-exertion and intensity of emotion. He remained at home all day, in bed most of the time. At supper time he went downstairs to find Lorna pirouetting in a new dress, more abbreviated at top and bottom than any costume he had seen her wear. The effect struck him at an inopportune time. He told her flatly that she looked like a French grisette of the music halls, and ought to be ashamed to be seen in such attire.
>
“Daren, I don’t think you’re a good judge of clothes these days,” she observed, complacently. “The boys will say I look spiffy in this.”
So many times Lorna’s trenchant remarks silenced Lane. She hit the nail on the head. Practical, logical, inevitable were some of her speeches. She knew what men wanted. That was the pith of her meaning. What else mattered?
“But Lorna, suppose you don’t look nice?” he questioned.
“I do look nice,” she retorted.
“You don’t look anything of the kind.”
“What’s nice? It’s only a word. It doesn’t mean much in my young life.”
“Where are you going tonight?” he asked, sitting down to the table.
“To the armory—basketball game—and dance afterward.”
“With whom?”
“With Harry. I suppose that pleases you, big brother?”
“Yes, it does. I like him. I wish he’d take you out oftener.”
“Take me! Hot dog! He’d kill himself to take me all the time. But Harry’s slow. He bores me. Then he hasn’t got a car.”
“Lorna, you may as well know now that I’m going to stop your car rides,” said Lane, losing his patience.
“You are not,” she retorted, and in the glint of the eyes meeting his, Lane saw his defeat. His patience was exhausted, his fear almost verified. He did not mince words. With his mother standing open-mouthed and shocked, Lane gave his sister to understand what he thought of automobile rides, and that as far as she was concerned they had to be stopped. If she would not stop them out of respect to her mother and to him, then he would resort to other measures. Lorna bounced up in a fury, and in the sharp quarrel that followed, Lane realized he was dealing with flint full of fire. Lorna left without finishing her supper.
“Daren, that’s not the way,” said his mother, shaking her head.
“What is the way, mother?” he asked, throwing up his hands.