The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories

by George Barr McCutcheon

  “I may not be able to call on you for some time, but you can be very good to me by coming to see me. I’ll be stopping at St. Luke’s Hospital for quite a while.”

  “At St. Luke’s Hospital? I don’t understand,” she cried perplexed.

  “You see, my dear Mrs. Delancy, I have come to a definite conclusion in regard to our present position. You must not stay here all night. I’d be a coward and a cur to subject you to such a thing. Well, I’m going down to tackle that dog.”

  “To—tackle—the—dog,” she gasped.

  “And while I’m keeping him busy you are to cut and run for the road down there. Then you’ll have easy sailing for town.”

  “Mr. Crosby,” she said firmly, clasping his arm; “you are not to leave this beam. Do you think I’ll permit you to go down there and be torn to pieces by that beast, just for the sake of letting me cut and run, as you call it? I’d be a bigger brute than the dog and—and—”

  “Mrs. Delancy, my mind is made up. I’m going down!”

  “That settles it! I’m coming too,” she proclaimed emphatically.

  “To be sure. That’s the plan. You’ll escape while I hold Swallow.”

  “I’ll do nothing of the sort. You shall not sacrifice yourself for my sake. I’d stay up here with you all the rest of my life before I’d permit you to do that.”

  “I’ll remind you of that offer later on, my dear Mrs. Delancy, when we are not so pressed for time. Just now you must be practical, however. We can’t stay up here all night.”

  “Please, Mr. Crosby, for my sake, don’t go down there. To please me, don’t be disfigured. I know you are awfully brave and strong, but he is such a huge, vicious dog. Won’t you please stay here?”

  “Ten minutes from now it will be too dark to see the dog and he’ll have an advantage over me. Listen: I’ll meet you at the depot in an hour and a half. This is final, Mrs. Delancy. Will you do as I tell you? Run for the road and then to town. I’ll promise to join you there.”

  “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” she moaned, as he drew away from her and swung one foot to the ladder. “I shall die if you go down there.”

  “I am going just the same. Don’t be afraid, little woman. My pocket knife is open and it is a trusty blade. Now, be brave and be quick. Follow me down the ladder and cut for it.”

  “Please, please, please!” she implored, wringing her hands.

  But he was already half-way down the ladder and refused to stop.

  Suddenly Crosby paused as if checked in his progress by some insurmountable obstacle. The dog was at the foot of the ladder, snarling with joy over the prospective end of his long vigil. Above, Mrs. Delancy was moaning and imploring him to come back to her side, even threatening to spring from the beam to the floor before he could reach the bottom.

  “By George!” he exclaimed, and then climbed up three or four rounds of the ladder, greatly to the annoyance of the dog.

  “What is it?” cried Mrs. Delancy, recovering her balance on the beam.

  “Let me think for a minute,” he answered, deliberately resting his elbow on an upper round.

  “It is about time you were doing a little thinking,” she said, relief and asperity in her voice. “In another second I should have jumped into that dog’s jaws.”

  “I believe it can be done,” he went on, excited enthusiasm growing in his voice. “That’s what bulldogs are famous for, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, but I do know that whenever they take hold of anything they have to be treated for lockjaw before they will let go. If you don’t come up here beside me I’ll have a fit, Mr. Crosby.”

  “That’s it—that’s what I mean,” he cried eagerly. “If they close those jaws upon anything they won’t let go until death them doth part. Gad, I believe I see a way out of this pickle.”

  “I don’t see how that can help us. The dog’s jaws are the one and only obstacle, and it is usually the other fellow’s death that parts them. Oh,” she went on, plaintively, “if we could only pull his teeth. Good heaven, Mr. Crosby,” sitting up very abruptly, “you are not thinking of undertaking it, are you?”

  “No, but I’ve got a scheme that will make Swallow ashamed of himself to the end of his days. I can’t help laughing over it.” He leaned back and laughed heartily. “Hold my coat, please.” He removed his coat quickly and passed it up to her.

  “I insist on knowing what you intend doing,” she exclaimed.

  “Just wait and see me show Mr. Swallow a new trick or two.” He had already taken his watch and chain, his fountain pen, and other effects from his vest, jamming them into his trousers pockets. Mrs. Delancy, in the growing darkness, looked on, puzzled and anxious.

  “You might tell me,” she argued resentfully. “Are you going to try to swim out?”

  Folding the vest lengthwise, he took a firm grip on the collar, and cautiously descended the ladder.

  “I’ll not come to the hospital,” she cried warningly. “Don’t! he’ll bite your leg off!”

  “I’m merely teasing him, Mrs. Delancy. He sha’n’t harm my legs, don’t fear. Now watch for developments.” Pausing just beyond reach of the dog’s mightiest leaps, he took a firm hold on the ladder and swung down with the vest until it almost slapped the head of the angry animal. It was like casting a fly directly at the head of a hungry pickerel. Swallow’s eager jaws closed down upon the cloth and the teeth met like a vice. The heavy body of the brute almost jerked Crosby’s arm from the socket, but he braced himself, recovered his poise, and clung gaily to the ladder, with the growling, squirming dog dangling free of the floor. Mrs. Delancy gave a little shriek of terror.

  “Are you—going to bring him up here?” she gasped.

  “Heaven knows where he’ll end.”

  “But he will ruin your vest.”

  “I’ll charge it up to your account. Item: one vest, fifteen dollars.”

  By this time he was swinging Swallow slowly back and forth, and he afterwards said that it required no little straining of his muscles.

  “You extravagant thing!” she cried, but did not tell whether she meant his profligacy in purchasing or his wantonness in destroying. “And now, pray enlighten me. Are you swinging him just for fun or are you crazy?”

  “Everything depends on his jaws and my strong right arm,” he said, and he was beginning to pant from the exertion. Swallow was swinging higher and higher.

  “Well, it is the most aimless proceeding I ever saw.”

  “I hope not. On second thought, everything depends on my aim.”

  “And what is your aim, Mr. Hercules?”

  “See that opening above the box-stall over there?”

  “Dimly.”

  “That’s my aim. Heavens, he’s a heavy brute.”

  “Oh, I see!” she cried ecstatically, clapping her hands. “Delicious! Lovely! Oh, Mr. Crosby, you are so clever.”

  “Don’t fall off that beam, please,” he panted. “It might rattle me.”

  “I can’t help being excited. It is the grandest thing I ever heard of. He can’t get out of there, can he? Dear me, the sides of that stall are more than eight feet high.”

  “He can’t—get—out—of it if—I get him—in,” gasped Crosby.

  Not ten feet away to the left and some four feet above the floor level there was a wide opening into a box-stall, the home of Mr. Austin’s prize stallion. As the big horse was inside munching his hay, Crosby was reasonably sure that the stall with its tall sides was securely closed and bolted.

  Suddenly there was a mighty creak of the ladder, the swish of a heavy body through the air, an interrupted growl, and then a ripping thud. Swallow’s chubby body shot squarely through the opening, accompanied by a trusty though somewhat sadly stretched vest, and the deed was done. A cry of delight came from the beam, a shout of pride and relief from the ladder, and sounds of a terrific scramble from the stall. First there was a sickening grunt, then a surprised howl, then the banging of horse-hoofs, and at
last a combination of growls and howls that proved Swallow’s invasion of a hornet’s nest.

  “Thunderation!” came in sharp, agonized tones from the ladder.

  “What is the matter?” she cried, detecting disaster in the exclamation.

  “I am a—a—blooming idiot,” he groaned. “I forgot to remove a roll of bills from an upper pocket in that vest!”

  “Oh, is that all?” she cried, in great relief, starting down the ladder.

  “All? There was at least fifty dollars in that roll,” he said, from the floor, not forgetting to assist her gallantly to the bottom.

  “You can add it to my bill, you know,” she said sweetly.

  “But it leaves me dead broke.”

  “You forget that I have money, Mr. Crosby. What is mine tonight is also yours. I think we should shake hands and congratulate one another.” Crosby’s sunny nature lost its cloud in an instant, and the two clasped hands at the bottom of the ladder.

  “I think it is time to cut and run,” he said. “It’s getting so beastly dark we won’t be able to find the road.”

  “And there is no moon until midnight. But come; we are free. Let us fly the hated spot, as they say in the real novels. How good the air feels!”

  She was soon leading the way swiftly toward the gate. Night had fallen so quickly that they were in utter darkness. There were lights in the windows of the house on the hill, and the escaped prisoners, with one impulse, shook their clenched hands toward them.

  “I am awfully sorry, Mr. Crosby, that you have endured so much hardship in coming to see me,” she went on. “I hope you haven’t many such clients as I.”

  “One is enough, I assure you,” he responded, and somehow she took it as a compliment.

  “I suppose our next step is to get to the railway station,” she said.

  “Unless you will condescend to lead me through this assortment of plows, wood-piles, and farm-wagons, I’m inclined to think my next step will be my last. Was ever night so dark?” Her warm, strong fingers clutched his arm and then dropped to his hand. In this fashion she led him swiftly through the night, down a short embankment, and into the gravel highway. “The way looks dark and grewsome ahead of us, Mrs. Delancy. As your lawyer, I’d advise you to turn back and find safe lodging with the enemy. It is going to storm, I’m sure.”

  “That’s your advice as a lawyer, Mr. Crosby. Will you give me your advice as a friend?” she said lightly. Although the time had passed when her guiding hand was necessary, he still held the member in his own.

  “I couldn’t be so selfish,” he protested, and without another word they started off down the road toward town.

  “Do you suppose they are delaying the opera in Chicago until you come?” she asked.

  “Poor Graves! he said he’d kill me if I didn’t come,” said Crosby, laughing.

  “How dreadful!”

  “But I’m not regretting the opera. Quive does not sing until tomorrow night.”

  “I adore Quive.”

  “You can’t possibly have an engagement for tomorrow night either,” he said reflectively.

  “I don’t see how I could. I expected to be on a Pullman sleeper.”

  “I’ll come for you at 8:15 then.”

  “You are very good, Mr. Crosby, but I have another plan.”

  “I beg your pardon for presuming to—” he began, and a hot flush mounted to his brow.

  “You are to come at seven for dinner,” she supplemented delightedly.

  “What a nice place the seventh heaven is!” he cried warmly.

  “Sh!” she whispered suddenly, and both stopped stock-still. “There is a man with a lantern at the lower gate. See? Over yonder.”

  “They’re after me, Mrs. Delancy,” he whispered. A moment later they were off the road and in the dense shadow of the hedge.

  “Is he still in the barn, Mr. Austin?” demanded the man in the buggy.

  “I am positive he is. No human being could get away from that dog of mine.” Crosby chuckled audibly, and Mrs. Delancy with difficulty suppressed a proud giggle.

  “Well, we might as well go up and get him then. Do you think he’s a desperate character?”

  “I don’t know anything about him, Davis. He says he is a lawyer, but his actions were so strange that I thought you’d best look into his case. A night in the jail won’t hurt him, and if he can prove that he is what he says he is, let him go tomorrow. On the other hand, he may turn out to be a very important capture.”

  “Oh, this is rich!” whispered Crosby excitedly. “Austin is certainly doing the job up brown. But wait till he consults Swallow, the infallible; he won’t be so positive.” For a few minutes the party of men at the gate conversed in low tones, the listeners being able to catch but few of the words uttered.

  “Please let go of my arm, Mrs. Delancy,” said Crosby suddenly.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I am going to tell Austin what I think of him. You don’t expect me to stand by and allow a pack of jays to hunt me down as if I were Jesse James or some other desperado, do you?”

  “Do you suppose they would credit your story? They will throw you into jail and there you’d stay until some one came down from Chicago to identify you.”

  “But a word from you would clear me,” he said in surprise.

  “If they pinned me down to the truth, I could only say I had never seen you until this afternoon.”

  “Great Scott! You know I am Crosby, don’t you?”

  “I am positive you are, but what would you, as a lawyer, say to me if you were cross-examining me on the witness stand? You’d ask some very embarrassing questions, and I could only say in the end that the suspected horse thief told me his name and I was goose enough to believe him. No, my dear friend, I think the safest plan is to take advantage of the few minutes’ start we have and escape the law.”

  “You mean that I must run from these fellows as if I were really a thief?”

  “Only a suspected thief, you know.”

  “I’d rather be arrested a dozen times than to desert you at this time.”

  “Oh, but I’m going with you,” she said positively.

  “Like a thief, too? I could not permit that, you know. Just stop and think how awkward for you it would be if we were caught flying together.”

  “Birds of a feather. It might have been worse if you had not disposed of Swallow.”

  “I must tell you what a genuine brick you are. If they overtake us it will give me the greatest delight in the world to fight the whole posse for your sake.”

  “After that, do you wonder I want to go with you?” she whispered, and Crosby would have fought a hundred men for her.

  The marshal and his men were now following Mr. Austin and the lantern toward the barn, and the road was quite deserted. Mrs. Delancy and Crosby started off rapidly in the direction of the town. The low rumble of distant thunder came to their ears, and ever and anon the western blackness was faintly illumined by flashes of lightning. Neither of the fugitives uttered a word until they were far past the gate.

  “By George, Mrs. Delancy, we are forgetting one important thing,” said Crosby. They were striding along swiftly arm in arm. “They’ll discover our flight, and the railway station will be just where they’ll expect tofind us.”

  “Oh, confusion! We can’t go to the station, can we?”

  “We can, but we’ll be captured with humiliating ease.”

  “I know what we can do. Scott Higgins is the tenant on my farm, and he lives half a mile farther from town than Austin. We can turn back to his place, but we will have to cut across one of Mr. Austin’s fields.”

  “Charming. We can have the satisfaction of trampling on some of Mr. Austin’s early wheat crop. Right about, face! But, incidentally, what are we to do after we get to Mr. Higgins’s?” They were now scurrying back over the ground they had just traversed.

  “Oh, dear me, why should we think about troubles until we come to them?”


  “I wasn’t thinking about troubles. I’m thinking about something to eat.”

  “You are intensely unromantic. But Mrs. Higgins is awfully good. She will give us eggs and cakes and milk and coffee and—everything. Won’t it be jolly?”

  Five minutes later they were plunging through a field of partly grown wheat, in what she averred to be the direction of the Higgins home. It was not good walking, but they were young and strong and very much interested in one another and the adventure.

  “Hello, what’s this? A river?” he cried, as the swish of running waters came to his ears.

  “Oh; isn’t it dreadful? I forgot this creek was here, and there is no bridge nearer than a mile. What shall we do? See there is a light in Higgins’s house over there. Isn’t it disgusting? I could sit down and cry,” she wailed. In the distance a dog was heard barking fiercely, but they did not recognize the voice of Swallow. A new trouble confronted them.

  “Don’t do that,” he said resignedly. “Remember how Eliza crossed the ice with the bloodhounds in full trail. Do you know how deep and wide the creek is?”

  “It’s a tiny bit of a thing, but it’s wet,” she said ruefully.

  “I’ll carry you over.” And a moment later he was splashing through the shallow brook, holding the lithe, warm figure of his client high above the water. As he set her down upon the opposite bank she gave a pretty sigh of satisfaction, and naively told him that he was very strong for a man in the last stages of starvation.

  Two or three noisy dogs gave them the first welcome, and Crosby sagely looked aloft for refuge. His companion quieted the dogs, however, and the advance on the squat farmhouse was made without resistance. The visitors were not long in acquainting the good-natured and astonished young farmer with the situation. Mrs. Higgins was called from her bed and in a jiffy was bustling about the kitchen, from which soon floated odors so tantalizing that the refugees could scarcely suppress the desire to rush forth and storm the good cook in her castle.

  “It’s mighty lucky you got here when you did, Mrs. Delancy,” said Higgins, peering from the window. “Looks ’s if it might rain before long. We ain’t got much of a place here, but, if you’ll put up with it, I guess we can take keer of you over night.”