Part 21 (1/2)

The room was a large apartment with smoke-cured and age-blackened beams in the ceiling. This was the ancient tap-room of the tavern, which had been built at that pre-Revolutionary time when the stuffed catamount, with its fangs and claws bared to the York State officers, crouched on top of the staff at Bennington--for Polktown was one of the oldest settlements in these ”Hamps.h.i.+re Grants.”

No noisier or more ill-favored crew, Janice Day thought, could ever have been gathered under the roof of the Inn, than she now saw as she pushed open the screen. Tobacco smoke poisoned the air, floating in clouds on a level with the men's heads, and blurring the lamplight.

There was a crowd of men and boys at the door of the dance hall. At the bar was another noisy line. It was evident that Joe Bodley had merely run from behind the bar for a moment to stop, if he could, Hopewell Drugg's departure. Hopewell was flushed, hatless, and trembling. Whether he was intoxicated or ill, the fact remained that he was not himself.

The storekeeper clung with both hands to the neck of his violin. A greasy-looking, black-haired fellow held on to the other end of the instrument, and was laughing in the face of the expostulating Frank Bowman, displaying a wealth of white teeth, and the whites of his eyes, as well. He was a foreigner of some kind. Janice had never seen him before, and she believed he must be the ”foxy-looking” man Frank had previously mentioned.

It was, however, Joe Bodley, whom the indignant young girl confronted when she came so suddenly into the room. Most of the men present paid no attention to the quarreling group at the entrance.

”Come now, Hopewell, be a sport,” the young barkeeper was saying.

”It's early yet, and we want to hear more of your fiddling. Give us that 'Darling, I Am Growing Old' stuff, with all the variations.

Sentiment! Sentiment! Oh, hullo! Evening, Miss! What can I do for you?”

He said this last impudently enough, facing Janice. He was a fat-faced, smoothly-shaven young man--little older than Frank Bowman, but with pouches under his eyes and the score of dissipation marked plainly in his countenance. He had unmeasured impudence and bravado in his eyes and in his smile.

”I have come to speak to Mr. Drugg,” Janice said, and she was glad she could say it unshakenly, despite her secret emotions. She would not give this low fellow the satisfaction of knowing how frightened she really was.

Frank Bowman's back was to the door. Perhaps this was well, for he would have hesitated to do just what was necessary had he known Janice was in the room. The young engineer had not been bossing a construction gang of l.u.s.ty, ”two-fisted” fellows for six months without many rude experiences.

”So, you won't let go, eh?” he gritted between his teeth to the smiling foreigner.

With his left hand in his collar, Frank jerked the man toward him, thrust his own leg forward, and then pitched the fellow backward over his knee. This act broke the man's hold upon Drugg's violin and he crashed to the floor, striking the back of his head soundly.

”All right, Mr. Drugg,” panted Frank. ”Get out.”

But it was Janice, still confronting Bodley, that actually freed the storekeeper from his enemies. Her eyes blazed with indignation into the bartender's own. His fat, white hand dropped from Hopewell's arm.

”Oh, if the young lady's really come to take you home to the missus, I s'pose we'll have to let you go,” he said, with a nasty laugh. ”But no play, no pay, you understand.”

Janice drew the bewildered Hopewell out of the door, and Frank quickly followed. Few in the room had noted the incident at all.

The three stood a minute on the porch, the mist drifting in from the lake and wetting them. The engineer finally took the umbrella from Janice and raised it to shelter her.

”They--they broke two of the strings,” muttered Hopewell, with thought for nothing but his precious violin.

”You'd better cover it up, or it will be wet; and that won't do any fiddle any good,” growled Frank, rather disgusted with the storekeeper.

But there was something queer about Hopewell's condition that both puzzled Janice and made her pity him.

”He is not intoxicated--not as other men are,” she whispered to the engineer.

”I don't know that he is,” said Frank. ”But he's made us trouble enough. Come on; let's get him home.”

Drugg was trying to shelter the precious violin under his coat.

”He has no hat and the fiddle bag is gone,” said Janice.

”I'm not going back in there,” said the civil engineer decidedly. And then he chuckled, adding:

”That fellow I tipped over will be just about ready to fight by now. I reckon he thinks differently now about the 'white-headed kid,' as he called me. You see,” Frank went on modestly, ”I was something of a boxer at the Tech school, and I've had to keep my wits about me with those 'muckers' of the railroad construction gang.”

”Oh, dear, me! I think there must be something very tigerish in all of us,” sighed Janice. ”I was glad when I saw that black-haired man go down. What did he want Hopewell's violin for?”