Part 46 (1/2)
Adios.
”Faithfully thine,
”JUAN DICAMPA.”
”Such a strangely boyish letter to come from a bloodthirsty bandit--for such they say he is. And he is father's friend,” sighed Janice, showing the letter to Nelson Saley. ”Oh, dear! I wish daddy would leave that hateful old mine and come home.”
Nevertheless, daddy's return--or his abandonment of the mine--did not appear imminent. Good news indeed was in Mr. Broxton Day's most recent letters. The way to the border for ore trains was again open. For six weeks he had had a large force of peons at work in the mine and a great amount of ore had been s.h.i.+pped.
There was in the letter a certificate of deposit for several hundred dollars, and the promise of more in the near future.
”You must be pretty short of feminine furbelows by this time. Be good to yourself, Janice,” wrote Mr. Day.
But his daughter, though possessing her share of feminine vanity in dress, saw first another use for a part of this unexpected windfall.
She said nothing to a soul but Walky Dexter, however. It was to be a secret between them.
There was so much going on in Polktown just then that Walky could keep a secret, as he confessed himself, ”without half trying.”
”Nelson Haley openin' aour school and takin' up the good work ag'in where he laid it daown, is suthin' that oughter be noted a-plenty,”
declared Mr. Dexter. ”And I will say for 'em, that committee reinstated him before anybody heard anythin' abeout Jack Besmith havin'
stole the gold coins.
”Sure enough!” went on Walky, ”that's another thing that kin honestly be laid to Lem Parraday's openin' that bar at the Inn. That's where Jack got the liquor that twisted his brain, that led him astray, that made him a thief---- Jefers-pelters! sounds jest like 'The Haouse That Jack Built,' don't it? But poor Jack Besmith has sartainly built him a purty poor haouse. And there's steel bars at the winders of it--poor feller!”
However, it was Nelson Haley himself who used the story of Jack Besmith most tellingly, and for the cause of temperance. As the young fellow had owned to the crime when taxed with it, and had returned most of the coins of the collection, he was recommended to the mercy of the court.
But all of Polktown knew of the lad's shame.
Therefore, Nelson Haley felt free to take the incident--and n.o.body had been more vitally interested in it than himself--for the text of a speech that he made in the big tent only a week or so before Town Meeting Day.
Nelson stood up before the audience and told the story simply--told of the robbery and of how he had felt when he was accused of it, sketching his own agony and shame while for weeks and months he had not been under suspicion. ”I did not believe the bad influence of liquor selling could touch _me_, because I had nothing to do with _it_,” he said. ”But I have seen the folly of that opinion.”
He pointed out, too, the present remorse and punishment of young Jack Besmith. Then he told them frankly that the blame for all--for Jack's misdeed, his own suffering, and the criminal's final situation--lay upon the consciences of the men who had made liquor selling in Polktown possible.
It was an arraignment that stung. Those deeply interested in the cause of prohibition cheered Nelson to the echo. But one man who sat well back in the audience, his hat pulled over his eyes, and apparently an uninterested listener, slipped out after Nelson's talk and walked and fought his conscience the greater part of that night.
Somehow the school teacher's talk--or was it Janice Day's scorn?--had touched Mr. Cross Moore in a vulnerable part.
Had the Summer visitors to Polktown been voters, there would have been little doubt of the Town Meeting voting the hamlet ”dry.” But there seemed to be a large number of men determined not to have their liberties, so-called, interfered with.
Lem Parraday's bar had become a noisy place. Some fights had occurred in the horse sheds, too. And on the nights the railroad construction gang came over to spend their pay, the village had to have extra police protection.
Frank Bowman was doing his best with his men; but they were a rough set and he had hard work to control them. The engineer was a never-failing help in the temperance meetings, and n.o.body was more joyful over the clearing up of Nelson Haley's affairs than he.
”You have done some big things these past few months, Janice Day,” he said with emphasis.
”Nonsense, Frank! No more than other people,” she declared.
”Well, I guess you have,” he proclaimed, with twinkling eyes, ”Just think! You've brought out the truth about that lost coin collection; you've saved Hopewell Drugg from becoming a regular reprobate--at least, so says his mother-in-law; you've converted Walky Dexter from his habit of taking a 'snifter'----”
”Oh, no!” laughed Janice. ”Josephus converted Walky.”