The Fortune Hunter

L >> Louis Joseph Vance >> The Fortune Hunter

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It's interesting when one has come to my time of life, to sit and
speculate on the singular mental blindness of mortal man, such as that
which kept Nat unaware of the real, rock-bottom reason why he was
working so hard on the Beech Street house. I daresay the young idiot
thought his motives as much selfish as anything else--told himself that
he wanted a comfortable home--and this was his way of securing one--and
all that rot. At all events, he told me as much, quite seriously--
seemed to believe it himself; and this, in spite of the fact that Miss
Carpenter had done everything imaginable to make him comfortable....

Josie Lockwood came home again for the Easter holidays, but didn't
return to finish her term in the New York school. Just why, we never
discovered: the Lockwoods furnished us with no really satisfying
explanation; they said that Josie didn't like New York, but I've always
doubted that, especially since Josie married and insisted on moving
straightway to that metropolis. I suspect she didn't get along with
the class of young women with whom she was thrown at school, and I'm
pretty certain she was uneasy about Nat all the time she was so far
away from him. Anyway, she elected to remain in Radville and keep the
young man dancing attendance on her day in and out. Which he did, as in
duty bound; he liked the game less and less all the time, but Kellogg
held his promise....

It was during this period, between the Easter vacation and the end of
the spring school term, that Roland Barnette's animosity toward Duncan
became virulent. Looking back, I can recall the symptoms of his waxing
hostility--as, for instance, the evening he spent in the
_Citizen_ office, poring over back files of our exchanges. That
seemed innocent enough at the time, a harmless freak on the part of the
young man, and no one paid much attention to it; but it led to great
things, in the end, and incidentally did Duncan a service which
probably could have been accomplished through no other agency. This,
however, is something that Roland doesn't realise to this day; and I'm
inclined to doubt if you could ever make him understand it.

Josie, of course, was prompt to oust Angie Tuthill from her place in
the choir. After that she sang with Nat on Friday nights as well as
Wednesdays and twice per Sunday. Between whiles she was a pretty
constant patron of the store. There was no longer the least doubt in
the collective mind of the town as to the inclination of Josie's
affections. Nat himself gave evidence of his appreciation of the
gravity of the situation, managing by some admirable diplomacy to evade
the issue until the very last moment. But with the three--Roland, Nat,
and Josie--so involved, we sensed a storm below the horizon, and
awaited its breaking, if not with avidity, at least with quickened
apprehension.

The culmination came the day before Betty was to return--a day late in
May, I remember, and a Friday at that.

It began along toward evening. Duncan, alone in the store, was busy
behind the prescription counter. The day had been humid, warm and
sultry, and the doors and windows were open. The air was bland and
still, and sound travelled easily. He could hear the musical clanking
of hammers in Badger's smithy, on the next block, the deep-throated
_hoot-toot_ of the late afternoon train as it rushed down the
valley, sounds of fierce altercation from the home of Pete Willing near
by, a boy rattling a stick along palings down on Main Street.... But he
did not hear anybody enter the store: absorbed with his task, he
thought himself quite alone until a well-kenned voice reached his ear.

"Well!" it said, unctuous with appreciation of the sight of him.
"_Old_ Doctor Duncan!"

He let the pestle fall from his hand and jumped as if he had been stuck
with a pin. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. "Great Scott!" he
cried; and in a twinkling was round the counter, throwing himself into
the arms of a man whom he hailed ecstatically: "Harry, by all that's
wonderful!" He fairly danced with delight. "Henry Kellogg, Esquire!"
he cried, holding him at arms' length and looking him over. "What in
thunderation are you doing here?"

Kellogg freed himself, only to seize both Nat's hands and squeeze them
violently. "Wanted to see you," he replied, beaming. "On my way to
Cincinnati on business--thought I'd drop off for a night and size you
up. My, but it's good to get a look at you! How are you?"

"Me? Look at me--picture of health. Harry, you've made a new man of
me." Duncan pranced round his friend in a mild frenzy. "No booze--no
smokes--no swears--work! I feel like a two-year-old: I could do a
Marathon without turning a hair. Watch me kick up my heels and neigh!"
He paused for breath. "And you?"

"Fine as silk--but you've got it on me, Nat, physically. You're a sight
to heal the blind."

"And listen!" Nat crowed: "I'm a business man. Didn't you believe it?
Pipe my shop!"

Kellogg checked to obey the admonition of Duncan's gesticulations, and
took a long look round the store. "Gad!" said he. "I'm blowed if it
isn't true! It _was_ hard to credit your letters. But it's great,
old man. I congratulate you, with all my heart."

"Just wait and I'll tell you all about it. But first tell me how long
you're going to be here."

"Well, I plan to hang around with you a couple of days. My business in
the West isn't pressing."

"Good!"

"Which is the least worst hotel?"

"There ain't no such thing in the whole giddy town.... No, none of that
hotel stuff, now I I'm going to put you up--and I'll do it in style,
too. I wrote you about taking a new place for the Grahams?"

"Yes, and I'm mighty keen to meet 'em. The girl here?"

"Betty? No; she's coming home to-morrow. But Graham himself is upstairs
in the laboratory. Take you up in a minute, but not before I've had a
good look at you."

Kellogg found himself a chair. "Well," he inquired, twinkling, "how's
the scheme working out? Are you really living up to all the rules?"

"Every singletary one."

"You have got a strong constitution.... Even prayer-meetings?"

"The church thing? Honest, Harry, I _own_
it."

"Bully for you, Nat. But how does it work? Was I right?"

"I should say you were. It's so easy it's a shame to do it. If this
thing ever should get into the papers there'd be a swarm of city men
lighting out for the Rube centres so thick you wouldn't be able to see
the sky."

"I knew it! Trust your Uncle Harry." Kellogg waited a time for further
particulars, but Duncan seemed stuck; his transports of the few
minutes just gone were sensibly abated; and the sidelong look he gave
Kellogg was both uneasy and rueful--apprehensive, indeed. So Kellogg
had to pump for news. "And you've made a strong play for the fond
affections of Lockwood's daughter?"

"Certainly not!"

"Not--?"

"You forget your rules." Nat grinned, whimsical. "I let her to make a
play for me."

"Of course. My mistake.... But how has it worked?"

"Oh! immense." Duncan's tone, however, was wholly destitute of
enthusiasm. He stuck his hands in his trousers' pockets and half turned
away from his friend, looking out of the window.

Kellogg smiled secretly. "You mean you've won her already?"

"Oh, there's nothing to it," said Duncan, shaking his head and meaning
just the exact opposite of what his words conveyed, for of such is our
modern slang.

"Then you're engaged?" Kellogg had understood perfectly, you see.

"No, not _yet_. I've got two months left--almost."

"So you have. And since she's so strong for you, there's no hurry: let
her take her time."

"I only wish she would." Duncan removed one hand from the pocket the
better to tug at his moustache. "It's got beyond that--to the point
where I have to keep dodging her."

"You don't mean it! That's splendid." Kellogg got up and slapped Nat's
shoulder heartily. "But don't overdo the dodging. She might get her
back up."

"Not she. She'd eat out of my hand, if I'd let her. You don't
understand."

"What's the matter, then? Aren't you strong for her?"

"I wish I were."

"But why? Is there another----?"

"No." Nat shook his head, honestly believing he was telling the truth.
"Only ... I don't look at things the way I did once."

"Just what do you mean by that?"

Nat, squaring himself to face Kellogg, was very serious, now, and
troubled. "See here, Harry," he said: "do you really want me to carry
out the rest of the agreement?"

"Most certainly I do. Why not?"

"Because I'm pretty well fixed here. The business is making good--and
so am I. It won't be long before I can pay you back, with interest, as
we agreed, without having to marry that poor girl and ... and draw on
her money to make good to you."

"You want to go back on our agreement?" demanded Kellogg, with a show
of disappointment and disgust.

"Yes and no. I won't break faith with you, if you insist, but I'd give
a lot if you'd let me off--let me pay back what you advanced and cry
quits.... When you outlined this scheme I was down and three times
out--willing to take a chance at anything, no matter how contemptible.
Now... well, it's different."

"Good heavens! You don't mean you'd be willing to _live_ here?"

Nat smiled, but not mirthfully. "I don't know," he hesitated; "I'm
afraid I'm beginning to like it."

"You, Nat?" Kellogg's amazement was unfeigned. "You, ready to spend
your life here slaving away in this measly store?"

Duncan grunted indignantly. "Hold on, now. Don't you call this a measly
store. There isn't a more complete drug-store in the State!"

"Do you hear that?" Kellogg appealed vehemently to the universe at
large. "Is it possible that this is Nat Duncan, the fellow who hated
work so hard he couldn't earn a living?... Gad, I believe I've arrived
just in time!"

"In time for what?"

"To save you from yourself, old man. Here's the heiress you came here
to cop out, ready and anxious, everything else coming your way and ...
and you're more than half inclined to back out.... You make me tired."

"I suppose I must. But I can't help it. I can't make you see how the
thing looks to me. You know--I've written you all about everything--
what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it
was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well
that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this
low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been
of some service to people who were worth it----"

"Who? Sam Graham?"

"He and his daughter----"

"Oh, his daughter!"

"Now get that foolish idea out of your head; there's nothing in it.
Betty's just a simple, sweet little girl, who's had a pretty hard time
and never a real chance in life--until I managed to give it to her. And
I'd feel pretty good about that if ... Oh, there's no use talking to
you!"

"No; go on; you're very entertaining." Kellogg laughed mockingly.

"Well, I have tried to keep to the terms of our understanding; I
singled out this Lockwood girl and worked all the degrees--didn't say
much, you know--no love-making--just let her catch me looking sadly
at her once in a while..."

"That's the way to work it."

"Yes, that's the way," Nat assented gloomily. "But the longer I keep it
up the meaner I feel and... I wish you'd agree to call it off. ...
These Rubes at first struck me as being nothing but a lot of jay
freaks, but when I got to know them I realised they were just as human
as we are. I like them now and... on the level, I'm getting kind of
stuck on church.... As for work, why, I eat it up!"

Kellogg laughed with delight "Nat," he cried, "my poor crazy friend,
listen to me: This working and church-going and helping old Graham is
all very noble and fine, and I'm glad you've done it. This drug-store
is a monument to the business ability that I always knew was latent in
you. And clean living hasn't done you any harm.... But now you're due
to come down to earth. This place pays you a neat profit. Well and
good! That's all it'll ever do. It's new to you now and you like the
novelty and you're having the time of your life finding out you're good
for something. But pretty soon it'll begin to stale on you, and before
long you'll find yourself hating it and the town--and then you'll be
back where you started. Now, I'm going to hold you to our bargain for
your own sake. If you're stuck on the town and the work you can keep
right on just as well after you're married; but when you do begin to
tire of it, you'll want that fortune to fall back on and do what you
like with. Don't let this chance slip--not on your life!"

"But," Nat argued feebly, "think of the injustice to the girl. From
the way I've behaved since I struck this burg she thinks I'm closely
related to the saints."

"Very well, then; I'll concede a point. If you really think you're
taking a mean advantage of her, when she proposes to you tell her all
about yourself--just the sort of a chap you've been. You needn't
mention our agreement, however. Then if she wants to drop you, I'll
have nothing to say."

"Thank you for nothing," said Duncan bitterly. "A bargain's a bargain.
I gave you my word of honour I'd go through with this thing, and I'll
stick to it. But I tell you now, I don't like it."

"Oh, I know how you feel, Nat. But I _know_ that some day you'll
come to me and say: 'Harry, if you had let me back out, I'd never have
forgiven you.'"

"All right," said Nat impatiently. "I presume you know best."

"You can bet I do. And now I'd like to meet old Graham."

"I'll take you right up--no, I can't. Here comes a customer. But you
just go through that door and upstairs; he'll be in the laboratory--the
front room--and he knows all about you. I'll join you just as soon as
Tracey gets back."

XIX

PROVING THE PERSPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG

A customer came and went, and then Nat noticed that twilight was
beginning to darken the store. Though the hour wasn't late and the
evenings were long at that season, the windows faced the east, and
there were huge, overshadowing elms outside--just then heavy with
luxuriant foliage; so dusk was always early in the room.

It was one of Nat's axioms that a store, to be successful, should be
always brilliantly lighted. It was a bit expensive, perhaps, but in the
long run it paid. For that reason he installed electric light as soon
as he felt the business could afford it.

Now he moved to the windows and switched on the bulbs behind the huge
glass jars filled with tinted water. Returning, he was about to connect
up the remainder of the illuminating system, when Josie, entering,
stayed him. Later he was glad of this.

"Nat..."

He knew that voice. "Why, Josie!" he exclaimed in surprise, swinging
about to discover her standing on the threshold--very dainty and
fetching, indeed, in one of the summery frocks she had brought back
from New York.

She moved over to him, holding out her hand. He took it with disguised
reluctance. "Where's Tracey?" she asked with a look that first held his
eyes, then reviewed the store.

"This is his afternoon off," Nat reminded her.

"Then you're all alone?" she deduced archly.

"Oh, quite...."

"I'm so glad." She sighed and dropped into a chair by the soda-water
counter. "I wanted to see you--to talk to you alone."

He bit his lip in his annoyance, shivering with a presentiment. "What
about, Josie?"

"About Wednesday night--after prayer meeting. Why didn't you wait for
me?"

"Why--ah--I had to get back to the store, you know--there were some
cheques to be made out and sent off, and I'd forgotten them. Besides,"
he added on inspiration, "you were talking with Roland and I didn't
want to interrupt you."

"So you left me to go home with him?"

"Why, what else--"

"You're making me awful' unhappy." Her voice trembled.

"_I_, Josie?"

"Yes. You knew I didn't want to walk home with Roland."

"How could I know that?"

"I should think you ought to know it, Nat, unless you're blind.
Besides, I told you once."

"True," he fenced desperately, "but that was a long time ago; and how
could I be sure you hadn't changed your mind? Besides, you know, I
mustn't monopolise you. If I do...."

"Well?" she inquired sweetly as he paused on the lip of a break.

"Why, if I do--ah--"

"If you're afraid people will talk about us, seeing us so much
together, you needn't worry. They're doing that now."

"Why, Josie!"

"Yes, they are. We've been going together so long, and then suddenly
you don't seem to care about--care to be alone with me at all. This
is the first chance I've had to talk to you, when there wasn't somebody
else round, for I don't know how long. And even now you don't seem glad
to see me."

"You should _know_ I am...."

"You don't act like it."

"It's so unexpected," he muttered wretchedly.

"You didn't really think I wanted Roland Barnette to go home with me
Wednesday night, did you, Nat?"

"It seemed so, but ... that's all right. Why shouldn't you?"

She turned to him, trembling a little. "Must I tell you, Nat?"

"O, no!" he cried in dismay. "Please don't----!"

"I see I must," she persisted. "You're so blind. It----"

"Josie, don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he entreated wildly.

"I can't help it: I've got to. It was--it was because I wanted to be
with you.... There!" she gasped, frightened by her own forwardness.

"Now I've said it!"

Duncan grasped frantically at straws. "But you don't really mean it,
Josie: you know you don't," he floundered. "You're just saying that
because you--you have such a kind heart and--ah--don't want to hurt
me--ah--because----"

She stemmed the flood of his protestations with a hand on his arm.
"Nat," she said gently, looking up into his face, "would it make you
happy to know I really meant it?"

"Why--ah--why shouldn't it, Josie?"

"Then please believe me, when I say it."

"But I do believe it. I..." He stammered and fell still.

"Because I do like you, Nat, very much, and--and it's very hard for me
to know that folks think I'm pursuing you and that you're trying to
avoid me."

"Josie!" he exclaimed reproachfully.

"Well, that's the way it looks," she affirmed plaintively. "You don't
want it to, do you?"

"Why, no; of course I don't."

"Then why don't you stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and
yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as
I like you----"

He moved away a pace or two. "Ah, child!" he said, with a feeling that
the term was not misapplied, somehow, "you don't know what you're
saying."

"Yes, I do." She pouted. "I don't believe you... care anything about
me."

"Oh, Josie, please----"

"Well, anyway, you've never told me so." She turned an indignant
shoulder to him.

"How could I?"

"Why couldn't you?"

"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her
side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of
desperation.

"Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with
the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated--
"ah--not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only
daughter. Your father--ah--is my friend. How unfair it would be to him."

But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He
told me so."

He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are
rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was
after your money?"

"No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound
conviction.

"Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you
know, they might be right. How do you know that------"

"Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things!
I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such
a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and
_he_ says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would
rather see me your wife than any------"'

"Josie!"

The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what,
Nat?" she asked, rising.

"The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth."

"Oh, Nat!"

"I'm _not_ what you think me," he continued, dramatic.

_"Oh, Nat!"_

"Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town
thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian--it's all a bluff: I didn't
know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and
I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you
into caring for me!"

"Oh, Nat, I don't believe it."

"Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!"

"But you did it to win my love, Nat?"

"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.

"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"

He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His
head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips
warm upon his own.

"Josie!" he gasped.

"Nat, my darling!"

With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl.
"Josie," he said earnestly, "I--I'm going to try to be a good husband
to you.... And that," he concluded, _sotto voce_, "wasn't in the
agreement!"

She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!"

"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably.
And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur
you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the
square, with her...."

Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened
and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the
latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's
this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.

In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by
the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on
the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he
seemed unable to credit his sight.

"Why, Nat!" he quavered, coming out toward the guilty pair. "Why,
Nat...!"

Duncan took a long breath and Josie's hand at one and the same time.
"Mr. Graham," he said coolly, "I'm glad you're the first to know it.
Josie has just ask--agreed to be my wife."

Old Sam recovered sufficiently to take the girl's hand and pat it. "I'm
mighty glad, my dear," he told her. "I congratulate you both with all
my heart."

"And so will I, when I have the right," Kellogg added, smiling.

"Oh, I forgot." Nat hastened to remedy his oversight. "Josie, this is
my dearest friend, Mr. Kellogg; Harry, this is Miss Lockwood."

Josie gave Kellogg her hand. "I--I," she giggled--"I'm pleased to meet
you, I'm sure."

"I'm charmed. I've heard a great deal of you, Miss Lockwood, from Nat's
letters, and I shall hope to know you much better before
long."

"It's awful' nice of you to say so, Mr. Kellogg."

"And, Nat, old man!" Kellogg threw an arm round Duncan's shoulder. "I
congratulate you! You're a lucky dog!"

"I'm a dog, all right," said Nat glumly.

"But we mustn't disturb these young people, Mr. Kellogg," Graham broke
in nervously.

"They'll--they'll have a lot to say to one another, I'm sure; so we'll
just run along. I'm taking Mr. Kellogg up to the house, Nat. You'll
follow us as soon as you can, won't you?"

"Yes--sure."

"I've got some news for you, too, that'll make you happy."

"Never mind about that; it'll keep till supper, Mr. Graham." Kellogg
laughed, taking the old man's arm. "Good-bye, both of you--good-bye for
a little while."

"Good-bye..."

"Wasn't that terrible!" Josie turned back to Nat when they were alone.
"I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights
that way," she simpered. "Somebody else might've seen."

"Yes," agreed the young man, half distracted; "but of course I daren't
turn them off again."

"Never mind. We can wait." Josie blushed.

"I'll just sit here and wait--we can talk till Tracey comes, and then
you can walk home with me."

"Yes, that'll be nice," he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.

Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled
into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from
a cut on his forehead.

"'Scuse me," he muttered huskily. "Kin I see you a minute, Doc?"

He reeled and almost fell--would have fallen had not Duncan caught his
arm and guided him to a chair. "Great Scott, Pete!" he cried. "What's
happened to you?"

"M' wife..." Pete explained thickly.

XX

ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND

"Perhaps I'd better go." Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little
pale, went quickly to the door.

Duncan followed her a pace or two. "I can't leave just now," he
stammered.

"I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone
from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down
to hers and kissed him. "I'm so happy..."

Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged
with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he
turned back to Pete.

The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant
person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined
the two-inch gash in his head. "That's a bird, Pete."

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