The Fortune Hunter

L >> Louis Joseph Vance >> The Fortune Hunter

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"Oh, you're here!" he cried, with a distinct start of relief. "I've
been looking all over for you."

"I just got in." Nat brushed aside explanations curtly, intent upon his
purpose. "Harry, I've got something to say to you: I'm not going
through with this thing."

"You're not?"

"No; and that's final. I was just on the point of drawing you a cheque
for three-hundred; that's all my share of the profits of this concern,
so far; and my note for the balance. I'll pay that up as soon as I'm
able--and I'll work like a terrier until I do. But as for the rest of
it, I'm through."

"Oh, you are?" Kellogg took a chair and tipped back, frowning gravely.
"But what about your word to me?"

"Damn that," said Duncan without heat. "The word of honour of a man
who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a
continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than
by ruining a woman's life."

"Very well, if you feel that way about it," said Kellogg as coolly.
"And you may keep your cheque and note: I wouldn't take them. You can
pay me back when it's convenient--I don't care when. But what I want to
know is what you mean to do?"

"I mean to do the only thing left to do. I'm going to shut up here and
then see Lockwood and Josie and tell them the whole story."

"Hm," Kellogg reflected, quizzical. "You've got a pleasant little job
ahead of you."

"I don't care about that: I deserve all that's coming to me. I owe
Josie a duty. Why, it's awful, Harry, to trick a girl into caring for
you and then to--to----"

"Break her heart?" Kellogg's tone was sardonic.

"That's what I meant."

"Don't flatter yourself, my boy. Josie Lockwood doesn't love you; she
just set herself to win you because you're the best chance she's seen."
Kellogg laughed quietly. "The system would have worked just as well if
anyone else had tried it."

"Do you think so--honest?" Nat's eagerness to believe him was
undisguised.

"I'm sure of it. The trouble is that people will say you've thrown her
over--there isn't anyone in Radville who hasn't heard the news by this
time; and that's going to make the girl feel pretty cheap. But only for
a while: she'll get over it and solace herself with the next best
thing.... And don't forget; you lose a fortune."

"No, I don't," Duncan disclaimed. "I never had it and now I don't want
it."

"That's true enough," Kellogg admitted evenly. "And I hope you'll
always feel that way about it; but, believe me, you'll find plenty of
money a great help if you want to live a happy life."

"There are better things than money to make a man happy; I'll pass up
the money and try for the others."

"That's true, too; but when did you find it out?"

"Here--this last year.... You know I had everything my heart desired
until the governor cashed in; and I used to think I was a pretty happy
kid in those days. But now I've learned that you can beat that kind of
happiness to death. Harry"--Duncan was growing almost sententious--"the
real way to be happy is to work and have your work amount to something
and--and to have someone who believes in you to work for."

"Is this a sermon, Nat?"

"Call it what you like: it goes, just the same. ... That's what I've
found out this year."

Kellogg let his chair fall forward and rose, imprisoning Nat's
shoulders with two heavy but kindly hands. "And you're right!" he cried
heartily. "I'm glad you had the backbone to back out, Nat. It was a
low-down trick and I'm ashamed of myself for proposing it. I did it, I
presume, simply because I'm a schemer at heart, and I knew it would
work. It did work, but it's worked a finer way than I dreamed of: it's
made a man of you, Nat, and I'm mightly glad and proud of you!"

Nat swayed with amazement. "What's changed you all of a sudden?" he
demanded blankly.

Releasing him, Kellogg resumed his seat, laughing. "Well, a number of
things. Among others, I've talked with Graham and I've met his
daughter."

"Oh-h!"

"And that reminds me," Kellogg changed the subject briskly; "I
understood from you that Graham was sole owner of that patent burner."

"So he is."

"He says not. I had a proposition to make him from the Mutual people,
and he referred me to you, saying that you controlled the matter."

"I've not the slightest interest in it!" Nat protested.

"I know you haven't, but Graham insisted you owned the whole thing. I
pressed him for an explanation, and he finally furnished one in his
rambling, inconsequent, fine old way. He admitted that there wasn't any
sort of an existing contract or agreement of any sort, even oral,
between you, but just the same you'd been so good to him and his girl
that he'd made up his mind--some time ago, I gather--to make you a
present of the burner; but naturally he forgot to tell you about an
insignificant detail like that."

"Of course that's nonsense; I wouldn't and shant accept."

"Of course you won't. I did you the honour to discount that. But he
wouldn't say a word about the offer--yes or no--just left it all up to
you. He says you're a business man, and that he's often thought what a
help you must have been to me before you left New York."

Nat laughed outright. "Can you beat that? ... But what is the offer?"

"Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred
stock--hundred dollars par."

"What's that worth?"

"At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a
moment. "Well, what do you say?"

"Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an
acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how
good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what
you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can
clear out----"

"No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough."

Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover
Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he
beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he
shouted. "Here he is!"

"What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired

Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his
one-time rival.

"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got
something to say to you, I guess."

And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store,
Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing--a trifle more sanely drunk
than he had been some hours previous--bringing up the rear.

"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his
cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"

"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."

"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was
unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I
come here to have a word with you."

"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific.

"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved
yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into
our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you
were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I
want to know the rights to it."

"Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he
didn't deny it."

[Illustration: "You're a thief with a reward out for you!"]

"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he
can prove it?"

"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"

"That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're
that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in
Noo York."

There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his
moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by
those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features
gravely composed.

"Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly."

"That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and
the object of his obscure remark--who was painfully digesting it. "I
want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you
this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business
before it goes any further."

"Yes?" commented Nat civilly.

"Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me."

To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an attitude, "I refuse to
answer," said he.

"Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow.

"Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does
this mean?"

Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly.

"Is it true?" she insisted.

"You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression.

"Then you admit it?"

"I admit nothing."

"Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I--I hate
you!" she cried in a voice of loathing

"That's all right," he told her serenely; "I've despised myself all
evening."

The girl showed him a scornful back. "Papa----" she began.

"Don't thank me, Josie. Roland done it all: he got onto him." Lockwood
continued to watch Duncan with the air of a cat eyeing a mouse.

Impulsively Josie moved to Roland's side and caught his arm. He drew
himself up proudly.

"I do thank you, Roland; I can never be grateful enough. I've been so
foolish.

"That's all right." Roland tucked the girl's hand beneath his arm and
patted it down. "You wasn't to blame. I never seen anyone from Noo York
yet that wasn't a crook."

"Won't you please take me away from this--place, Roland?" she appealed.

"I'll be mighty glad to see you home, Josie," he assured her
generously, turning.

In the act of leaving, Josie caught Nat's eye. She hung back for an
instant, withering him with a glare. "Oh-h!" she cried. "How did you
dare pretend to care for me?"

He bowed politely. "It was one of the rules, Josie."

"There's no need to tell you, I guess, that the engagement is broken."

"None whatever, Miss Lockwood. Good-evening."

"Come, Roland!"

Arm in arm they left, with the haughty tread of the elect, while Pete
Willing lurched to Duncan's side and caught his arm.

"Come 'long to jail, Mish'r Duncan," he said with sympathy. "Mush
bessher."

"You look after him, Pete." Lockwood turned to leave with a final shot
for Duncan. "I'll 'tend to your case in the mornin', young man, and
I'll make you wish you never came to this town."

"You needn't trouble. I feel that way about it already. _Good_-night."

Lockwood left them, snarling. Nat caught Kellogg's eye and began to
giggle. But Pete was still holding him fast, partially, beyond doubt,
for support.

"You've been saved just in time, Mish'r Duncan," he commented; "y'are
mighty lucky man. Now lissen: you better make tracks. I ain't got no
warrant to hold you, 'nd I wouldn't if I had."

"You're a good fellow, Pete; but you needn't worry. I'm not the man
they think me, and it'll be easy to prove."

"Wal," said Pete, "jus' the same, you better git out, 'r you may have
to marry her aft'all."

"No, I won't."

"Thank Gawd f'r that!" Pete exclaimed in maudlin gratitude. He swung
widely toward the door, and by a miracle found it. "G'night, Mish'r
Duncan. I feel s' good 'bout thish I'm goin' try goin' home 'nd face m'
wife. G'night."

"Good-night, Pete."

"Well!" said Kellogg after a pause, "that was a bit of luck!"

"Luck!" Nat seized his hat and began to turn off the lights. "It's more
luck than I thought there was in the whole world. Come along."

"Where are you going?"

"First, to see Lockwood and have it out with him."

"No, you aren't," Kellogg laughed as Nat locked the door. "You're going
to leave Lockwood to me; I'll manage to ease his mind. You've got
infinitely more important matters to attend to--and the sooner you find
her, the better, Nat!"

XXIII

THE RAINBOW'S END

The air was heavy with moisture and very still and warm; a heady
fragrance of precocious blooms flavoured the air, vying with the scent
of rain. The silence was profound, but shaken now and then by a grumble
of distant thunder. The world hung breathless on the issue of the night.

Since evenfall a wall of cloud, massive and portentous, had been
climbing up over the western hills, slowly but with ominous steadiness
obscuring the moon-swept sky with its far, pale wreaths of stars,
blotting it out with monstrous folds and convolutions of impenetrable
purple-black. Along its crest fire played like swords in the sunlight,
and now and again sheeted flame lightened the monstrous expanse so that
it glowed with the pale phosphorescence of a summer sea.

As Duncan hurried homeward over sidewalks chequered in silver and ink,
the advance of the cloud army seemed to become accelerated. With
increasing frequency gusts of air set the trees a-shiver until their
sibilant whispers of warning filled the valley. The rolling of the
thunder grew more sharp, more instant upon the flashes.... When there
was no wind the air seemed to quiver with terror--as a dog cringes to
the whip....

But of this Duncan was barely conscious.

He gained the gate in the fence of wood paling, opened it, and entered.
The lawn and house were lit with the unearthly radiance of moonlight
threatened by eclipse. He could see the light in Graham's study and,
through the open doors, the faint glow of the hall-lamp. But there was
no one visible.

He hurried up the path, tortured by impatience, fear, longing,
despair....

Then he saw what seemed at first a pale shadow detach itself from
darker shades in the shrubbery and move toward him.

"Nat, is it you?"

"Betty!"

His whole heart was in that cry; the girl thrilled to its timbre as
though a master hand had struck a chord upon her heart-strings.

"Nat, what--what is it?"

"Betty, I want to tell you something."

She came very slowly toward him, torn alternately by fear and hope.
What did he mean?

"Do you happen to remember that I told you a while ago I was engaged to
Josie Lockwood?"

[Illustration: "Forever and ever and a day"]

"Nat! Could I forget? ... Why?"

"Because ... it's broken off, Betty."

"Broken off! ... How? Why?"

"Because it had to be, sweetheart: because I love you."

She was very close to him then. Her uplifted face shone like marble in
the fading light. "Nat, I ... I don't understand."

"Then, listen--I must tell you. It was all a plan, a scheme, my coming
here, Betty. Everything I did, said, thought, was part of a
contemptible trick.... I meant to marry Josie Lockwood, whom I'd never
seen, for her money. ... Now you know what I was, dear.... But it's
different, now. I'm not the same man who came to Radville ten months
ago. I've learned a little to understand the right, I hope: I've
learned to love and reverence goodness and purity and unselfishness and
... And I want to be a man, the kind of a man you thought me: a man
worthy of you and your love, Betty.... Because I love you. I want you
to be my wife. ... And, O Betty, Betty, I need you to help me!"

His voice broke. He waited, every nerve and fibre of him tense for her
answer. While he had been speaking, the onrush of the storm had blotted
out the moon. There was only darkness there in the garden--deep, dense
darkness, so thick he could not even see the shimmer of her dress....

Then suddenly she was in his arms, shaking and sobbing, straining him
to her.

"Oh, Nat, my Nat! I've loved you from the first day I ever saw you! You
know I have."
"Betty! ... sweetheart..."

There came an abrupt, furious patter of heavy drops of water, beating
upon the foliage, splashing and rebounding from the house.

"Forever and ever, Nat?"

"Forever and ever and a day, my dear ... my dear!"

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