In the Midst of Alarms

“No,” he said, “that won’t do. No; you have found me, and you’re a young fellow who will be president of the telegraph company some day, or perhaps hold the less important office of the United States presidency. Who knows? Have you a telegraph blank?”

“Of course,” said the boy, fishing out a bundle from the leathern wallet by his side. Yates took the paper, and flung himself down under the tree.

“Here’s a pencil,” said the messenger.

“A newspaper man is never without a pencil, thank you,” replied Yates, taking one out of his inside pocket. “Now, Renmark, I’m not going to tell a lie on this occasion,” he continued.

“I think the truth is better on all occasions.”

“Right you are. So here goes for the solid truth.”

Yates, as he lay on the ground, wrote rapidly on the telegraph blank. Suddenly he looked up and said to the professor: “Say, Renmark, are you a doctor?”

“Of laws,” replied his friend.

“Oh, that will do just as well.” And he finished his writing.

“How is this?” he cried, holding the paper at arm’s length:

“L. F. SPENCER,

“Managing Editor ‘Argus,’ New York:

“I’m flat on my back. Haven’t done a hand’s turn for a week. Am under the constant care, night and day, of one of the most eminent doctors in Canada, who even prepares my food for me. Since leaving New York trouble of the heart has complicated matters, and at present baffles the doctor. Consultations daily. It is impossible for me to move from here until present complications have yielded to treatment.

“Simson would be a good man to take charge in my absence.”

“YATES

“There,” said Yates, with a tone of satisfaction, when he had finished the reading. “What do you think of that?”

The professor frowned, but did not answer. The boy, who partly saw through it, but not quite, grinned, and said: “Is it true?”

“Of course it’s true!” cried Yates, indignant at the unjust suspicion. “It is a great deal more true than you have any idea of. Ask the doctor, there, if it isn’t true. Now, my boy, will you give this in when you get back to the office? Tell ‘em to rush it through to New York. I would mark it ‘rush’ only that never does any good, and always makes the operator mad.”

The boy took the paper, and put it in his wallet.

“It’s to be paid for at the other end,” continued Yates.

“Oh, that’s all right,” answered the messenger with a certain condescension, as if he were giving credit on behalf of the company. “Well, so long,” he added. “I hope you’ll soon be better, Mr. Yates.”

Yates sprang to his feet with a laugh, and followed him to the fence.

“Now, youngster, you are up to snuff, I can see that. They’ll perhaps question you when you get back. What will you say?”

“Oh, I’ll tell ‘em what a hard job I had to find you, and let ‘em know nobody else could ‘a’ done it, and I’ll say you’re a pretty sick man. I won’t tell ‘em you gave me a dollar!”

“Right you are, sonny; you’ll get along. Here’s five dollars, all in one bill. If you meet any other of the messengers, take them back with you. There’s no use of their wasting valuable time in this little neck of the woods.”

The boy stuffed the bill into his vest pocket as carelessly as if it represented cents instead of dollars, mounted his tired horse, and waved his hand in farewell to the newspaper man. Yates turned and walked slowly back to the tent. He threw himself once more into the hammock. As he expected, the professor was more taciturn than ever, and, although he had been prepared for silence, the silence irritated him. He felt ill used at having so unsympathetic a companion.

“Look here, Renmark; why don’t you say something?”

“There is nothing to say.”

“Oh, yes, there is. You don’t approve of me, do you?”

“I don’t suppose it makes any difference whether I approve or not.”

“Oh, yes, it does. A man likes to have the approval of even the humblest of his fellow-creatures. Say, what will you take in cash to approve of me? People talk of the tortures of conscience, but you are more uncomfortable than the most cast-iron conscience any man ever had. One’s own conscience one can deal with, but a conscience in the person of another man is beyond one’s control. Now, it is like this: I am here for quiet and rest. I have earned both, and I think I am justified in–”

“Now, Mr. Yates, please spare me any cheap philosophy on the question. I am tired of it.”

“And of me, too, I suppose?”

“Well, yes, rather—if you want to know.”

Yates sprang out of the hammock. For the first time since the encounter with Bartlett on the road Renmark saw that he was thoroughly angry. The reporter stood with clenched fists and flashing eyes, hesitating. The other, his heavy brows drawn, while not in an aggressive attitude, was plainly ready for an attack. Yates concluded to speak, and not to strike. This was not because he was afraid, for he was not a coward. The reporter realized that he had forced the conversation, and remembered he had invited Renmark to accompany him. Although this recollection stayed his hand, it had no effect on his tongue.

“I believe,” he said slowly, “that it would do you good for once to hear a straight, square, unbiased opinion of yourself. You have associated so long with pupils, to whom your word is law, that it may interest you to know what a man of the world thinks of you. A few years of schoolmastering is enough to spoil an archangel. Now, I think, of all the–”

The sentence was interrupted by a cry from the fence:

“Say, do you gentlemen know where a fellow named Yates lives?”

The reporter’s hand dropped to his side. A look of dismay came over his face, and his truculent manner changed with a suddenness that forced a smile even to the stern lips of Renmark.

Yates backed toward the hammock like a man who had received an unexpected blow.

“I say, Renny,” he wailed, “it’s another of those cursed telegraph messengers. Go, like a good fellow, and sign for the dispatch. Sign it ‘Dr. Renmark, for R. Yates.’ That will give it a sort of official, medical-bulletin look. I wish I had thought of that when the other boy was here. Tell him I’m lying down.” He flung himself into the hammock, and Renmark, after a moment’s hesitation, walked toward the boy at the fence, who had repeated his question in a louder voice. In a short time he returned with the yellow envelope, which he tossed to the man in the hammock. Yates seized it savagely, tore it into a score of pieces, and scattered the fluttering bits around him on the ground. The professor stood there for a few moments in silence.

“Perhaps,” he said at last, “you’ll be good enough to go on with your remarks.”

“I was merely going to say,” answered Yates wearily, “that you are a mighty good fellow, Renny. People who camp out always have rows. That is our first; suppose we let it be the last. Camping out is something like married life, I guess, and requires some forbearance on both sides. That philosophy may be cheap, but I think it is accurate. I am really very much worried about this newspaper business. I ought, of course, to fling myself into the chasm like that Roman fellow; but, hang it! I’ve been flinging myself into chasms for fifteen years, and what good has it done? There’s always a crisis in a daily newspaper office. I want them to understand in the Argus office that I am on my vacation.”

“They will be more apt to understand from the telegram that you’re on your deathbed.”

Yates laughed. “That’s so,” he said; “but, you see, Renny, we New Yorkers live in such an atmosphere of exaggeration that if I did not put it strongly it wouldn’t have any effect. You’ve got to give a big dose to a man who has been taking poison all his life. They will take off ninety per cent. from any statement I make, anyhow; so, you see, I have to pile it up pretty high before the remaining ten per cent. amounts to anything.”

The conversation was interrupted by the crackling of the dry twigs behind them, and Yates, who had been keeping his eye nervously on the fence, turned round. Young Bartlett pushed his way through the underbrush. His face was red; he had evidently been running.

“Two telegrams for you, Mr. Yates,” he panted. “The fellows that brought ‘em said they were important; so I ran out with them myself, for fear they wouldn’t find you. One of them’s from Port Colborne, the other’s from Buffalo.”

Telegrams were rare on the farm, and young Bartlett looked on the receipt of one as an event in a man’s life. He was astonished to see Yates receive the double event with a listlessness that he could not help thinking was merely assumed for effect. Yates held them in his hand, and did not tear them up at once out of consideration for the feelings of the young man, who had had a race to deliver them.

“Here’s two books they wanted you to sign. They’re tired out, and mother’s giving them something to eat.”

“Professor, you sign for me, won’t you?” said Yates.

Bartlett lingered a moment, hoping that he would hear something of the contents of the important messages; but Yates did not even open the envelopes, although he thanked the young man heartily for bringing them.

“Stuck-up cuss!” muttered young Bartlett to himself, as he shoved the signed books into his pocket and pushed his way through the underbrush again. Yates slowly and methodically tore the envelopes and their contents into little pieces, and scattered them as before.

“Begins to look like autumn,” he said, “with the yellow leaves strewing the ground.”

CHAPTER XV

Before night three more telegraph boys found Yates, and three more telegrams in sections helped to carpet the floor of the forest. The usually high spirits of the newspaper man went down and down under the repeated visitations. At last he did not even swear, which, in the case of Yates, always indicated extreme depression. As night drew on he feebly remarked to the professor that he was more tired than he had ever been in going through an election campaign. He went to his tent bunk early, in a state of such utter dejection that Renmark felt sorry for him, and tried ineffectually to cheer him up.

“If they would all come together,” said Yates bitterly, “so that one comprehensive effort of malediction would include the lot and have it over, it wouldn’t be so bad; but this constant dribbling in of messengers would wear out the patience of a saint.”

As he sat in his shirt sleeves on the edge of his bunk Renmark said that things would look brighter in the morning—which was a safe remark to make, for the night was dark.

Yates sat silently, with his head in his hands, for some moments. At last he said slowly: “There is no one so obtuse as the thoroughly good man. It is not the messenger I am afraid of, after all. He is but the outward symptom of the inward trouble. What you are seeing is an example of the workings of conscience where you thought conscience was absent. The trouble with me is that I know the newspaper depends on me, and that it will be the first time I have failed. It is the newspaper man’s instinct to be in the center of the fray. He yearns to scoop the opposition press. I will get a night’s sleep if I can, and to-morrow, I know, I shall capitulate. I will hunt out General O’Neill, and interview him on the field of slaughter. I will telegraph pages. I will refurbish my military vocabulary, and speak of deploying and massing and throwing out advance guards, and that sort of thing. I will move detachments and advance brigades, and invent strategy. We will have desperate fighting in the columns of the Argus, whatever there is on the fields of Canada. But to a man who has seen real war this opéra-bouffe masquerade of fighting–I don’t want to say anything harsh, but to me it is offensive.”

He looked up with a wan smile at his partner, sitting on the bottom of an upturned pail, as he said this. Then he reached for his hip pocket and drew out a revolver, which he handed, butt-end forward, to the professor, who, not knowing his friend carried such an instrument, instinctively shrank from it.

“Here, Renny, take this weapon of devastation and soak it with the potatoes. If another messenger comes in on me to-night, I know I shall riddle him if I have this handy. My better judgment tells me he is innocent, and I don’t want to shed the only blood that will be spilled during this awful campaign.”

How long they had been asleep they did not know, as the ghost-stories have it, but both were suddenly awakened by a commotion outside. It was intensely dark inside the tent, but as the two sat up they noticed a faint moving blur of light, which made itself just visible through the canvas.

“It’s another of those fiendish messengers,” whispered Yates. “Gi’ me that revolver.”

“Hush!” said the other below his breath. “There’s about a dozen men out there, judging by the footfalls. I heard them coming.”

“Let’s fire into the tent and be done with it,” said a voice outside.

“No, no,” cried another; “no man shoot. It makes too much noise, and there must be others about. Have ye all got yer bayonets fixed?”

There was a murmur, apparently in the affirmative.

“Very well, then. Murphy and O’Rourick, come round to this side. You three stay where you are. Tim, you go to that end; and, Doolin, come with me.”

“The Fenian army, by all the gods!” whispered Yates, groping for his clothes. “Renny, give me that revolver, and I’ll show you more fun than a funeral.”

“No, no. They’re at least three to our one. We’re in a trap here, and helpless.”

“Oh, just let me jump out among ‘em and begin the fireworks. Those I didn’t shoot would die of fright. Imagine scouts scouring the woods with a lantern—with a lantern, Renny! Think of that! Oh, this is pie! Let me at ‘em.”

“Hush! Keep quiet! They’ll hear you.”

“Tim, bring the lantern round to this side.” The blur of light moved along the canvas. “There’s a man with his back against the wall of the tent. Just touch him up with your bayonet, Murphy, and let him know we’re here.”

“There may be twenty in the tent,” said Murphy cautiously.

“Do what I tell you,” answered the man in command.

Murphy progged his bayonet through the canvas, and sunk the deadly point of the instrument into the bag of potatoes.

“Faith, he sleeps sound,” said Murphy with a tremor of fear in his voice, as there was no demonstration on the part of the bag.

The voice of Yates rang out from the interior of the tent:

“What the old Harry do you fellows think you’re doing, anyhow? What’s the matter with you? What do you want?”

There was a moment’s silence, broken only by a nervous scuffling of feet and the clicking of gun-locks.

“How many are there of you in there?” said the stern voice of the chief.

“Two, if you want to know, both unarmed, and one ready to fight the lot of you if you are anxious for a scrimmage.”

“Come out one by one,” was the next command.

“We’ll come out one by one,” said Yates, emerging in his shirt sleeves, “but you can’t expect us to keep it up long, as there are only two of us.”

The professor next appeared, with his coat on. The situation certainly did not look inviting. The lantern on the ground threw up a pallid glow on the severe face of the commander, as the footlights might illuminate the figure of a brigand in a wood on the stage. The face of the officer showed that he was greatly impressed with the importance and danger of his position. Yates glanced about him with a smile, all his recent dejection gone now that he was in the midst of a row.

“Which is Murphy,” he said, “and which is Doolin? Hello, alderman!” he cried, as his eyes rested on one tall, strapping, red-haired man who held his bayonet ready to charge, with a fierce determination in his face that might have made an opponent quail. “When did you leave New York? and who’s running the city now that you’re gone?”

The men had evidently a sense of humor, in spite of their bloodthirsty business, for a smile flickered on their faces in the lantern light, and several bayonets were unconsciously lowered. But the hard face of the commander did not relax.

“You are doing yourself no good by your talk,” he said solemnly. “What you say will be used against you.”

“Yes, and what you do will be used against you; and don’t forget that fact. It’s you who are in danger—not I. You are, at this moment, making about the biggest ass of yourself there is in Canada.”

“Pinion these men!” cried the captain gruffly.

“Pinion nothing!” shouted Yates, shaking off the grasp of a man who had sprung to his side. But both Yates and Renmark were speedily overpowered; and then an unseen difficulty presented itself. Murphy pathetically remarked that they had no rope. The captain was a man of resource.

“Cut enough rope from the tent to tie them.”

“And when you’re at it, Murphy,” said Yates, “cut off enough more to hang yourself with. You’ll need it before long. And remember that any damage you do to that tent you’ll have to pay for. It’s hired.”

Yates gave them all the trouble he could while they tied his elbows and wrists together, offering sardonic suggestions and cursing their clumsiness. Renmark submitted quietly. When the operation was finished, the professor said with the calm confidence of one who has an empire behind him and knows it:

“I warn you, sir, that this outrage is committed on British soil; and that I, on whom it is committed, am a British subject.”

“Heavens and earth, Renmark, if you find it impossible to keep your mouth shut, do not use the word ‘subject’ but ‘citizen.’”

“I am satisfied with the word, and with the protection given to those who use it.”

“Look here, Renmark; you had better let me do the talking. You will only put your foot in it. I know the kind of men I have to deal with; you evidently don’t.”

In tying the professor they came upon the pistol in his coat pocket. Murphy held it up to the light.

“I thought you said you were unarmed?” remarked the captain severely, taking the revolver in his hand.

“I was unarmed. The revolver is mine, but the professor would not let me use it. If he had, all of you would be running for dear life through the woods.”

“You admit that you are a British subject?” said the captain to Renmark, ignoring Yates.

“He doesn’t admit it, he brags of it,” said the latter before Renmark could speak. “You can’t scare him; so quit this fooling, and let us know how long we are to stand here trussed up like this.”

“I propose, captain,” said the red-headed man, “that we shoot these men where they stand, and report to the general. They are spies. They are armed, and they denied it. It’s according to the rules of war, captain.”

“Rules of war? What do you know of the rules of war, you red-headed Senegambian? Rules of Hoyle! Your line is digging sewers, I imagine. Come, captain, undo these ropes, and make up your mind quickly. Trot us along to General O’Neill just as fast as you can. The sooner you get us there the more time you will have for being sorry over what you have done.”

The captain still hesitated, and looked from one to the other of his men, as if to make up his mind whether they would obey him if he went to extremities. Yates’ quick eye noted that the two prisoners had nothing to hope for, even from the men who smiled. The shooting of two unarmed and bound men seemed to them about the correct way of beginning a great struggle for freedom.

“Well,” said the captain at length, “we must do it in proper form, so I suppose we should have a court-martial. Are you agreed?”

They were unanimously agreed.

“Look here,” cried Yates, and there was a certain impressiveness in his voice in spite of his former levity; “this farce has gone just as far as it is going. Go inside the tent, there, and in my coat pocket you will find a telegram, the first of a dozen or two received by me within the last twenty-four hours. Then you will see whom you propose to shoot.”

The telegram was found, and the captain read it, while Tim held the lantern. He looked from under his knitted brows at the newspaper man.

“Then you are one of the Argus staff.”

“I am chief of the Argus staff. As you see, five of my men will be with General O’Neill to-morrow. The first question they will ask him will be: ‘Where is Yates?’ The next thing that will happen will be that you will be hanged for your stupidity, not by Canada nor by the State of New York, but by your general, who will curse your memory ever after. You are fooling not with a subject this time, but with a citizen; and your general is not such an idiot as to monkey with the United States Government; and, what is a blamed sight worse, with the great American press. Come, captain, we’ve had enough of this. Cut these cords just as quickly as you can, and take us to the general. We were going to see him in the morning, anyhow.”

“But this man says he is a Canadian.”

“That’s all right. My friend is me. If you touch him, you touch me. Now, hurry up, climb down from your perch. I shall have enough trouble now, getting the general to forgive all the blunders you have made to-night, without your adding insult to injury. Tell your men to untie us, and throw the ropes back into the tent. It will soon be daylight. Hustle, and let us be off.”

“Untie them,” said the captain, with a sigh.

Yates shook himself when his arms regained their freedom.

“Now, Tim,” he said, “run into that tent and bring out my coat. It’s chilly here.”

Tim did instantly as requested, and helped Yates on with the coat.

“Good boy!” said, Yates. “You’ve evidently been porter in a hotel.”

Tim grinned.

“I think,” said Yates meditatively, “that if I you look under the right-hand bunk, Tim, you will find a jug. It belongs to the professor, although he has hidden it under my bed to divert suspicion from himself. Just fish it out and bring it here. It is not as full as it was, but there’s enough to go round, if the professor does not take more than his share.”

The gallant troop smacked their lips in anticipation, and Renmark looked astonished to see the jar brought forth. “You first, professor,” said Yates; and Tim innocently offered him the vessel. The learned man shook his head. Yates laughed, and took it himself.

“Well, here’s to you, boys,” he said. “And may you all get back as safely to New York as I will.” The jar passed down along the line, until Tim finished its contents.

“Now, then, for the camp of the Fenian army,” cried Yates, taking Renmark’s arm; and they began their march through the woods. “Great Caesar! Stilly,” he continued to his friend, “this is rest and quiet with a vengeance, isn’t it?”

CHAPTER XVI

The Fenians, feeling that they had to put their best foot foremost in the presence of their prisoners, tried at first to maintain something like military order in marching through the woods. They soon found, however, that this was a difficult thing to do. Canadian forests are not as trimly kept as English parks. Tim walked on ahead with the lantern, but three times he tumbled over some obstruction, and disappeared suddenly from view, uttering maledictions. His final effort in this line was a triumph. He fell over the lantern and smashed it. When all attempts at reconstruction failed, the party tramped on in go-as-you-please fashion, and found they did better without the light than with it. In fact, although it was not yet four o’clock, daybreak was already filtering through the trees, and the woods were perceptibly lighter.

“We must be getting near the camp,” said the captain.

“Will I shout, sir?” asked Murphy.

“No, no; we can’t miss it. Keep on as you are doing.”

They were nearer the camp than they suspected. As they blundered on among the crackling underbrush and dry twigs the sharp report of a rifle echoed through the forest, and a bullet whistled above their heads.

“Fat the divil are you foiring at, Mike Lynch?” cried the alderman, who recognized the shooter, now rapidly falling back.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said the sentry, stopping in his flight. The captain strode angrily toward him.

“What do you mean by firing like that? Don’t you know enough to ask for the counter-sign before shooting?”

“Sure, I forgot about it, captain, entirely. But, then, ye see, I never can hit anything; so it’s little difference it makes.”

The shot had roused the camp, and there was now wild commotion, everybody thinking the Canadians were upon them.