Part 7 (2/2)

Here Hiram Strong, Jr., looked up and laughed--a cynical laugh--as he glanced at me. His eyes showed that he was in earnest, and evidenced a combination of amus.e.m.e.nt and anger. He brushed the ashes from his cigarette on the box and continued: ”I told him the river water was nice and warm and muddy, and that the alligators would finish the job cheaper than an undertaker.”

”And do you know,” he continued with a smile creeping about his mouth, ”it went completely over his head, didn't even penetrate the tallow. I don't believe a German has any sense of humor--they only laugh at something ribald or salacious--they make a terrible mess of simulating virtue. Then he asked me to advise him.”

”Did you?”

”Yes--I told him he had been there nearly two years and that was long enough for her to learn to appreciate him--that the only way was for him to ask her and thus settle the question for good and all.”

”Did he take your advice?” I asked.

”He wanted to know if he shouldn't speak to her father first, but I told him the preliminary skirmish should be with her. He decided on the spot to do that and if she refused him he was going to leave.”

”I suppose he got his answer?”

”He went over immediately--what happened there I never learned, exactly, but I do know he came back in about an hour squealing like a razorback pig kicked in the ribs by a mule, and wired in his resignation. He was an awfully poor loser,” Hiram added, as he sealed the big yellow envelope for the auditor. ”Why, the poor dub was so sorry for himself, he snuffled and groaned, and his breath back-fired like a four-cylinder motor hitting only on two.”

”Who are his a.s.sociates here, and does he have any one come to see him?”

I asked, detecting something like resentment in his tone.

”No one has been here to see him since I came. No; he is just a big b.o.o.b, with this love-stuff working overtime.”

”Has anything whatever--however insignificant--happened that would connect him with the disappearance of the dynamite?”

”No, not the least thing--the claim agent and I went over that several times. There is a certain low cunning in him, a disposition to be tricky in small things, but there's nothing to him--just grease. Of course, he has the wires here all night, and I may underestimate him. By the use of a code he might pull off something.”

”Did the company accept his resignation?”

”Yes; they had to.”

”And you don't attach any importance to his going now, further than this love affair?”

Before he could reply the train he flagged for orders pulled past the station. He obligingly took the tissue order pad out on the platform for the conductor to sign. While he was gone I raised the burlap skirt covering from the box. It stuck and I had to pull it loose to get it up.

It was undoubtedly a mola.s.ses case, a can that had fermented or been punctured and had run out at the corners, but to be sure I took my pencil point, gouged some of the stuff off the side, sniffed and then tasted it. It was mixed with grit and dirt, but it tasted sweet and I was satisfied.

”Ben, take a walk over to the quarry switch with me. I've got to get the numbers of three cars standing there. I will introduce you to the head quarry man and he will tell you all he knows about it--and that's nothing at all. Still you might get a pointer there,” he added.

To this I a.s.sented without comment, but wondered why he was so careful to put everything in the safe and lock it; also the office door, when the big center sash of the bay-window facing the main track was entirely raised.

”You have light-fingered gentry here?” I queried.

”Oh, if anything were left lying around loose it might disappear. I don't take any chances because I leave that window open so that the conductors can throw their reports inside. There's one coming now,” he said, looking up the line as we picked our way over the main track and two switches, toward the quarry under the bluff, about two hundred yards distant.

”Hiram, have you any theory at all about the disappearance of this case of dynamite?” I insisted.

”I don't believe it ever came here--I know the waybill called for ten cases, and the conductor of the local checks up everything as it comes out of the car on the platform, and they're careful and good fellows, but that day he had a lot of freight; he must have checked in another case to make up his ten--you know there's a lot of goods packed in cases about that size. I'm not worried; that case of dynamite never came here, and will show up somewhere else,” he said definitely, and with complete candor, as we approached the three flat cars loaded with granite on the short quarry switch.

While he was taking the numbers I stopped and looked back at the disreputable-looking station house and D. R. Morgan's store and residence beyond, the pepper trees along the highway, and the dwindling sized houses behind them. Two or three mule teams with cotton bales could be seen creeping toward the station.

”Do you want to come over to the office and see the boss here? I must go in and give him a copy of these bills,” he explained, looking over at a board shanty they called an office some distance away.

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