a big story like this,” he added, “of course there’d be nothing doing except for the special man sent out to cover it.”
“No. Well, I didn’t write my—what I wrote, with any idea of getting it printed.”
The newspaper man sighed wearily, sighed like a child and lied like a man of duty. “I’d like to see it.”
Without a trace of hesitation or self-consciousness Banneker said, “All right,” and, taking his composition from its docket, motioned the other to the light. Mr. Gardner finished and turned the first sheet before making any observation. Then he bent a queer look upon Banneker and grunted:
“What do you call this stuff, anyway?”
“Just putting down what I saw.”
Gardner read on. “What about this, about a Pullman sleeper ‘elegant as a hotel bar and rigid as a church pew’? Where do you get that?”
Banneker looked startled. “I don’t know. It just struck me that is the way a Pullman is.”
“Well, it is,” admitted the visitor, and continued to read. “And this guy with the smashed finger that kept threatening to ‘soom’; is that right?”
“Of course it’s right. You don’t think I’d make it up! That reminds me of something.” And he entered a memo to see the litigious-minded complainant again, for these are the cases which often turn up in the courts with claims for fifty-thousand-dollar damages and heartrending details of all-but-mortal internal injuries.
Silence held the reader until he had concluded the seventh and last sheet. Not looking at Banneker, he said:
“So that’s your notion of reporting the wreck of the swellest train that crosses the continent, is it?”
“It doesn’t pretend to be a report,” disclaimed the writer. “It’s pretty bad, is it?”
“It’s rotten!” Gardner paused. “From a news-desk point of view. Any copy-reader would chuck it. Unless I happened to sign it,” he added. “Then they’d cuss it out and let it pass, and the dear old pin-head public would eat it up.”
“If it’s of any use to you—”
“Not so, my boy, not so! I might pinch your wad if you left it around loose, or even your last cigarette, but not your stuff. Let me take it along, though; it may give me some ideas. I’ll return it. Now, where can I get a bed in the town?”
“Nowhere. Everything’s filled. But I can give you a hammock out in my shack.”
“That’s better. I’ll take it. Thanks.”
Banneker kept his guest awake beyond the limits of decent hospitality, asking him questions.
The reporter, constantly more interested in this unexpected find of a real personality in an out-of-the-way minor station of the high desert, meditated a character study of “the hero of the wreck,” but could not quite contrive any peg whereon to hang the wreath of heroism. By his own modest account, Banneker had been competent but wholly unpicturesque, though the characters in his sketch, rude and unformed though it was, stood out clearly. As to his own personal history, the agent was unresponsive. At length the guest, apologizing for untimely weariness, it being then 3.15 A.m., yawned his way to the portable shack.
He slept heavily, except for a brief period when the rain let up. In the morning—which term seasoned newspaper men apply to twelve noon and the hour or two thereafter—he inquired of Banneker, “Any tramps around here?”
“No,” answered the agent, “Not often. There were a pair yesterday morning, but they went on.”
“Some one was fussing around the place about first light. I was too sleepy to get up. I yipped and they beat it. I don’t think they got inside.”
Banneker investigated. Nothing was missing from within the shack. But outside he made a distressing discovery.
His molasses pie was gone.
CHAPTER IV
“To accomplish a dessert as simple and inexpensive as it is tasty,” prescribes The Complete Manual of Cookery, p. 48, “take one cup of thick molasses—” But why should I infringe a copyright when the culinary reader may acquire the whole range of kitchen lore by expending eighty-nine cents plus postage on 39 T 337? Banneker had faithfully followed the prescribed instructions. The result had certainly been simple and inexpensive; presumably it would have proven tasty. He regretted and resented the rape of the pie. What aroused greater concern, however, was the presence of thieves. In the soft ground near the window he found some rather small footprints which suggested that it was the younger of the two hoboes who had committed the depredation.
Theorizing, however, was not the order of his day. Routine and extra-routine claimed all his time. There was his supplementary report to make out; the marooned travelers in Manzanita to be looked after and their bitter complaints to be listened to; consultations over the wire as to the condition and probabilities of the roadbed, for the floods had come again; and in and out of it all, the busy, weary, indefatigable Gardner, giving to the agent as much information as he asked from him. When their final lists were compared, Banneker noticed that there was no name with the initials I.O.W. on Gardner’s. He thought of mentioning the clue, but decided that it was of too little definiteness and importance. The news value of mystery, enhanced by youth and beauty, which the veriest cub who had ever smelled printer’s ink would have appreciated, was a sealed book to him.
Not until late that afternoon did a rescue train limp cautiously along an improvised track to set the interrupted travelers on their way. Gardner went on it, leaving an address and an invitation to “keep in touch.” Mr. Vanney took his departure with a few benign and well-chosen words of farewell, accompanied by the assurance that he would “make it his special purpose to commend,” and so on. His nephew, Herbert Cressey, the lily-clad messenger, stopped at the station to shake hands and grin rather vacantly, and adjure Banneker, whom he addressed as “old chap,” to be sure and look him up in the East; he’d be glad to see him any time. Banneker believed that he meant it. He promised to do so, though without particular interest. With the others departed Miss Camilla Van Arsdale’s two emergency guests, one of them the rather splendid young woman who had helped with the wounded. They invaded Banneker’s office with supplementary telegrams and talked about their hostess with that freedom which women of the world use before dogs or uniformed officials.
“What a woman!” said the amateur nurse.
“And what a house!” supplemented the other, a faded and lined middle-aged wife who had just sent a reassuring and very long wire to a husband in Pittsburgh.
“Very much the châtelaine; grande dame and that sort of thing,” pursued the other. “One might almost think her English.”
“No.” The other shook her head positively. “Old American. As old and as good as her name. You wouldn’t flatter her by guessing her to be anything else. I dare say she would consider the average British aristocrat a little shoddy and loud.”
“So they are when they come over here. But what on earth is her type doing out here, buried with a one-eyed, half-breed manservant?”
“And a concert grand piano. Don’t forget that. She tunes it herself, too. Did you notice the tools? A possible romance. You’ve quite a nose for such things, Sue. Couldn’t you get anything out of her?”
“It’s much too good a nose to put in the crack of a door,” retorted the pretty woman. “I shouldn’t care to lay myself open to being snubbed by her. It might be painful.”
“It probably would.” The Pittsburgher turned