_CHAPTER TWO_
Ben Connor sat in his room overlooking the crossing of the streets. Itwas by no means the ramshackle huddle of lean-to's that he had expected,for Lukin was built to withstand a siege of January snows andstorm-winds which were scooped by the mountains into a funnel thatfocused straight on the village. Besides, Lukin was no accidental,crossroads town, but the bank, store, and amusement center of a bigcountry. The timber was being swept from the Black Mountain; there werefairly prosperous mines in the vicinity; and cattlemen were rangingtheir cows over the plateaus more and more during the spring and summer.Therefore, Lukin boasted two parallel main streets, and a cross street,looking forward to the day when it should be incorporated and have amayor of its own. At present it had a moving-picture house and a dancehall where a hundred and fifty couples could take the floor at once;above all, it had Jack Townsend's hotel. This was a stout, timberbuilding of two stories, the lower portion of which was occupied by therestaurant, the drug store, the former saloon now transformed into anice-cream parlor, and other public places.
It was dark, but the night winds had not yet commenced, and Lukinsweltered with a heat more unbearable than full noon.
It was nothing to Ben Connor, however, for he was fresh from the chokingsummer nights of Manhattan, and in Lukin, no matter how hot it became,the eye could always find a cool prospect. It had been unpleasantenough when the light was burning, for the room was done in a hot,orange-colored paper, but when he blew out the lamp and sat down beforethe window he forgot the room and let his glance go out among themountains. A young moon drifted across the corner of his window, asickle of light with a dim, phosphorescent line around the rest of thecircle. It was bright enough to throw the peaks into strong relief, anddull enough to let the stars live.
His upward vision had as a rule been limited by the higher stories ofsome skyscraper, and now his eye wandered with a pleasant sense offreedom over the snow summits where he could imagine a cold wind blowingthrough reach after reach of the blue-gray sky. It pleased and troubledBen Connor very much as one is pleased and troubled by the first studyof a foreign language, with new prospects opening, strange turns ofthought, and great unknown names like stars. But after a time Ben Connorrelaxed. The first cool puff moved across his forehead and carried himhalfway to a dreamless sleep.
Here a chorus of mirth burst up at him from the street, men's voicespitched high and wild, the almost hysterical laughter of people who aremuch alone. In Manhattan only drunken men laughed like this. Among themountains it did not irritate Ben Connor; in tune with the rest, it wasfull of freedom. He looked down to the street, and seeing half a dozenbearded fellows frolic in the shaft of light from a window, he decidedthat people kept their youth longer in Lukin.
All things seemed in order to Connor, this night. He rolled his sleeveshigher to let all the air that stirred get at his bulky forearms, andthen lighted a cigar. It was a dark, oily Havana--it had cost him agreat deal in money and nerves to acquire that habit--and he breathedthe scent deep while he waited for the steady wind which Jack Townsendhad promised. There was just enough noise to give the silence thatwaiting quality which cannot be described; below him voices murmured,and lifted now and then, rhythmically. Ben Connor thought the soundsstrangely musical, and he began to brim with the same good nature whichpuffed the cheeks of Jack Townsend. There was a substantial basis forthat content in the broiled trout which he had had for dinner. It waswhile his thoughts drifted back to those browned fish that the firstwind struck him. Dust with an acrid scent whirled up from thestreet--then a steady stream of air swept his face and arms.
It was almost as if another personality had stepped into the room. Thesounds from the street fell away, and there was the rustling of clothsomewhere, the cool lifting of hair from his forehead, and an odd senseof motion--as if the wind were blowing through him. But something elsecame with the breeze, and though he noted it at first with only asubconscious discontent, it beat gradually into his mind, a lightticking, very rapid, and faint, and sounding in an irregular rhythm. Hewanted to straighten out that rhythm and make the flutter of tappingregular. Then it began to take on a meaning; it framed words.
"Philip Lord, jailed for embezzlement."
"Hell!" burst out Ben Connor. "The telegraph!"
He started up from his chair, feeling betrayed, for that light,irregular tapping was the voice of the world from which he had fled. Ahard, cool mind worked behind the gray eyes of Ben Connor, but as hefingered the cigar his brain was fumbling at a large idea. Forty-Secondand Broadway was calling him back.
When he looked out the window, now, the mountains were flat shapesagainst a flat sky, with no more meaning than a picture.
The sounder was chattering: "Kid Lane wins title in eighth round. Luckypunch dethrones lightweight champion." Ben Connor swallowed hard andfound that his throat was dry. He was afraid of himself--afraid that hewould go back. He was recalled from his ugly musing by the odor of thecigar, which had burned out and was filling the room with a rank smell;he tossed the crumbled remnants through the window, crushed his hat uponhis head, and went down, collarless, coatless, to get on the street inthe sound of men's voices. If he had been in Manhattan he would havecalled up a pal; they would have planned an evening together; but inLukin--
At the door below he glared up and down the street. There was nothing tosee but a light buggy which rolled noiselessly through the dust. A dogdetached itself from behind the vehicle and came to bark furiously athis feet. The kicking muscles in Connor's leg began to twitch, but avoice shouted and the mongrel trotted away, growling a challenge overits shoulder. The silence fell once more. He turned and strode back tothe desk of the hotel, behind which Jack Townsend sat tilted back in hischair reading a newspaper.
"What's doing in this town of yours to-night?" he asked.
The proprietor moistened a fat thumb to turn the page and looked overhis glasses at Connor.
"Appears to me there ain't much stirrin' about," he said. "Except forthe movies down the street. You see, everybody's there."
"Movies," muttered Connor under his breath, and looked savagely aroundhim.
What his eyes fell on was a picture of an old, old man on the wall, andthe rusted stove which stood in the center of the room with a pipezigzagging uncertainly toward the ceiling. Everything was out of order,broken down--like himself.
"Looks to me like you're kind of off your feet," said Jack Townsend, andhe laid down his paper and looked wistfully at his guest. He made up hismind. "If you're kind of dry for a drink," he said, "I might rustle youa flask of red-eye--"
"Whisky?" echoed Connor, and moistened his lips. Then he shook his head."Not that."
He went back to the door with steps so long and heavy that Jack Townsendrose from his chair, and spreading his hands on the desk, peered afterthe muscular figure.
"That gent is a bad hombre," pronounced Jack to himself. He sat downagain with a sigh, and added: "Maybe."
At the door Connor was snarling: "Quiet? Sure; like a grave!"
The wind freshened, fell away, and the light, swift ticking soundedagain more clearly. It mingled with the alkali scent of thedust--Manhattan and the desert together. He felt a sense of persecutedvirtue. But one of his maxims was: "If anything bothers you, go and findout about it."
Ben Connor largely used maxims and epigrams; he met crises byremembering what some one else had said. The ticking of the sounder wasmaking him homesick and dangerously nervous, so he went to find thetelegrapher and see the sounder which brought the voice of the worldinto Lukin.
A few steps carried him to a screen door through which he looked upon along, narrow office.
In a corner, an electric fan swung back and forth through a hurried arcand fluttered papers here and there. Its whining almost drowned theticking of the sounder, and Ben Connor wondered with dull irritation howa tapping which was hardly audible at the door of the office could carryto his room in the hotel. He opened the door and entered.