CHAPTER X.
MR. STANLOCK AMUSED.
"I understand now how a mathematician could write 'Alice inWonderland'," Helen Nash remarked to Marion after Mr. Stanlock hadwithdrawn to the diningroom and his belated meal.
"How is that?" the hostess inquired, looking curiously at her friend.
"Why, your father, I suppose, has been thinking in terms of tons ofcoal all day--"
"Carloads," Marion corrected, with a toss of levity.
"Well, make it carloads," Helen assented. "That's better to mypurpose, more like a multiplication table, instead of addition. But itmust be about as dry as mathematics."
"Oh, I get you," Marion exclaimed delightedly. "You mean that it isquite as remarkable for a coal operator, with carloads of coal andsoot weighing down his imagination all day, to come home in theevening and spin off a lot of nonsense like a comedian as it is for amathematician to have written 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'."
"Precisely," answered Helen.
"Well, I don't know but you're right. Anyway, I wouldn't detract fromsuch a nice compliment paid to the dearest daddy on earth. Still,after leaving the atmosphere of his carloads of coal he hadexperienced the diversion of being held up."
"By two masked men with guns on a lonely highway," supplemented Helen.
"Yes."
"And later found that his driver had turned traitor and planned todeliver him into the hands of the enemy."
"Yes."
"I don't see any diversion or inspiration in that sort of experience.Many a man would have come home in a very depressed state of mindafter such an adventure. And yet he came home, found everybody scaredto death, and before he even began his story had us all laughing justas Alice would at some of the contortions behind the looking glass.And he kept us smiling even when he told of the masked would-bekidnappers standing in the middle of the road and pointing pistols atthe driver of his automobile."
"Kidnappers," repeated Marion in puzzled surprise. "Why do you saykidnappers?"
The two girls were alone in the library when this conversation tookplace. All of the other guests, feeling that the members of the familywould prefer to be left alone following the startling occurrences ofthe evening, had withdrawn to their rooms. Helen was about to bid herfriend good-night when her remark regarding Mr. Stanlock's happypersonal faculties opened the discussion as here recorded. Shehesitated a few moments before answering the last inquiry; then shesaid:
"Don't you think that those men intended to kidnap your father? Whatother explanation can you find for their actions?"
"I hadn't tried to figure out their motive," Marion repliedthoughtfully. "Father called it a hold-up and I took his word for it."
"But he had no money with him, did he?"
"No, I think not. He seldom carries much money."
"And it is hardly reasonable to suppose that this plot between thechauffeur and the two highwaymen was for the purpose of murder. Theywould have gone about it in some other way. This one leaves too manytraces behind."
"Yes," Marion admitted.
"Well, the only reasonable conclusion you can reach with the robberyand murder motives out of the way, is that the plotters wished to takeyour father prisoner and hold him some place until they got what theywanted."
"But what did they want?" asked the bewildered Marion.
"That's for your father to suspect and the police to find out," saidHelen shrewdly. "Personally, I haven't a doubt that the strike haseverything to do with it."
"What makes you think so?"
"The threatening letter that you received at the Institute. Show thatto your father tonight and suggest that he turn it over to thepolice."
"I will," Marion promised. "In this new excitement I forgot all aboutit. I didn't even show it to mother. Just as soon as papa finishes hisdinner, I'm going to show that letter to him. I'll go upstairs now andget it. You wait here and be present when we talk it over, Helen.You're so good at offering suggestions that maybe with you present wecan all work out some kind of solution of what has been going on."
Marion hastened up to her room and returned presently with both of theanonymous letters she had received in Westmoreland. A few minuteslater her father and mother both entered the library with the evidentpurpose in mind of holding a lengthy conference on the problemsgrowing out of Mr. Stanlock's business troubles.
"Papa, do you think those men tried to kidnap you?" Marion inquired byway of introducing the subject.
Mr. Stanlock laughed heartily.
"Kidnap me!" he exclaimed. "Well, that's a good one. I thought theyonly kidnapped kids."
"Father," the girl pleaded; "do be serious with me. I've got somethingvery important to show you, something I forgot all about until Helenreminded me. Helen thinks those men tried to kidnap you, and she's apretty wise girl, as I've had occasion to find out."
"If Helen said that, she surely must be a wise girl or else she hasmade a pretty accurate guess," was the mine owner's reply.
"Then they did want to kidnap you?"
"Absolutely no doubt of it. They've got some kind of retreat in themountains, and planned to carry me off there and keep me prisoner."
"What for?"
"Why, to force me to yield to some of their demands, which are utterlyimpossible and unreasonable. First, they demand an increase of wagesthat would force us into a receivership sooner or later and again theydemand the adoption of a cooperative plan which eventually would makethem owners of the mines, if there were any possibility of it working,and there isn't. It's a most ridiculous hold-up, the responsibilityfor which rests with a few fanatical leaders of doubtful integrity."
"What do you think of these letters?" Marion asked, handing the twoanonymous missives to her father. "I received them by mail at theInstitute last night, but neglected to read them until we were all onthe train this morning."
As Mr. Stanlock read them, his brow contracted sternly. He could treatlightly any hostile attack on himself, but when danger threatenedmembers of his family or their intimate friends, all signs of levitydisappeared from his manner and he was ready at once to meet with allhis energy the source of the danger, whether it be human or an elementof inanimate nature.
"This" he said, as he finished reading and held up the letter signedwith a skull and cross-bones, "undoubtedly came from the source wherethe plot to kidnap me originated. They are pretty well organized anddetermined to go the limit. Of course, you girls must give up yourplans to work among the strikers' families. It would be foolhardy andprobably would result in somebody's getting hurt."
"How about the other letter?" Marion asked.
"I don't know," was the reply. "It doesn't seem to amount to much. Ihardly think it is to be taken as a threat. Have you no idea who sentit?"
"Some of the girls think it was sent by some of the Boy Scouts atSpring Lake. You see they came up in full force to Hiawatha on thenight when we held our Grand Council Fire. It was a complete surpriseon us, exceedingly well done and about as clever as you could expectfrom the cleverest boys. Before they left, several of them boastedopenly that they were planning another surprise for some of us, andthey dared us to find out in advance what it was."
"No doubt that is what this note means," Mr. Stanlock declared sopositively and such a gleam of interest in his eyes that Marioncould not help wondering just a little.
"What makes you so certain about it?" she inquired. "I don't see anyreal proof in those words as to what they mean or who wrote them."
"No, no, of course not," agreed Mr. Stanlock with seemingly uncalledfor glibness; "but then, you see, it is more reasonable to suspectthat this note came from the boys than from the strikers. If it isbetween the two,--the boys and the strikers,--I say forget thestrikers and be sure that the boys sent this note."
"I wish that the boys would spring their surprise tonight and settlethe question of that note," said Marion.
"Why?" inquired her father with the faint light of a smile in hiseyes.
"Because
I don't like the uncertainty of the thing. Uncertainty alwaysbothers me, and this is a more than ordinary case."
"But how could the boys spring their surprise without coming toHollyhill?" her father asked.
"That's just it," she returned with a quick glance of suspicion towardboth her father and her mother. "Do you know, I found myself wonderingseveral times if Clifford wouldn't bring some of those boys down heresome time during the holidays."
Mr. Stanlock laughed, but he would have given a good deal to be ableto recall the noise he made. It was really a noise, as he must haveadmitted himself, and so hollow as to indicate something decidedlyunlike spontaneous amusement.
Marion caught herself in a brown study several times over thesecircumstances and her father's manner before she went to sleep thatnight.
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