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The Young Engineers on the Gulf, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 22. Mr. Bascomb Hears Bad News |
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_ CHAPTER XXII. MR. BASCOMB HEARS BAD NEWS When Evarts used the word "people" he employed it only in a general sense. He had seen no one but Tom Reade, but Tom was the one person in the world whom the ex-foreman wanted most to 'see' at a disadvantage. "Now, I have you!" Evarts croaked hoarsely, rushing in, flourishing his weapon, then letting the muzzle drop to the position of aim. Dick Prescott, unseen, stirred almost under the fellow's feet. Flop! Bump! Caught by the legs, by that famous football player, Dick Prescott, Evarts simply had to go down on his back. In the same instant Reade leaped, then bent over the prostrate foe. Evarts was too much dazed to resist much. Tom snatched the revolver out of his hand. Sambo, beholding this much, came to a dismayed stop for an instant. "Dick, it's your trade to know how to handle this tool better than I can," Tom cried, passing the captured revolver to Prescott, who swiftly received it as he rose. "I'm afraid," continued the young engineer, "that it's going to be necessary to kill the negro." "Wow! Woof!" uttered Sambo Ebony. It didn't take that villain an instant to decide on flight. Bending low, the black man ran off with frantic speed. Dick took a step forward---only one, for Evarts furiously gripped at one of the young army officer's ankles, bringing him down to his knees. "Hang you, you hound!" ground out Tom, in a rage, as he threw himself athwart of the ex-foreman. Within the next thirty seconds Evarts received a swift, fearful pummeling. "Let up, Mr. Reade! Let up!" cried the wretch. "I'll behave myself." "I'll wager you will," retorted the young engineer grimly, as he gripped Evarts by the coat collar and drew him to his feet. Dick was up and had run ahead some distance. But the time that had been gained for the black man had proved sufficient. Sambo, was now out of sight, nor did he send back any sound to guide his pursuers. "It may have to be a long hunt for the negro," remarked Tom Reade when Lieutenant Dick stepped back to state the case. "Stand by me and shoot this fellow down in his tracks if he tries to get away." "Why, what are you going to do to me?" quaked the ex-foreman. "It's back to jail for yours," Tom informed him crisply. "Then the laugh will be on you," jeered Evarts. "I'm out on bail---all in regular form." "You're not on bail on the latest charge against you---attempted murderous assault," Reade rejoined. "Nor will any court allow you out on bail again when Mr. Prescott and I testify to hearing you tell the negro that you were going to jump your bail." "Humph! That was all a joke," blustered Evarts. "All right," nodded Tom. "Explain the joke to the judge, if you can find a judge who's a good and willing listener. What you'll find, at this time, is that a hundred thousand dollars' worth of bail won't get you out of jail. Start along with you," Tom wound up, shaking Evarts by the arm that he gripped. "If this sneak tries to get away, Dick, bring him down with a bullet." "I'm ready enough to do it," Prescott agreed. A sudden great change came over the ex-foreman. At first he threatened. Then he begged to be turned loose, promising nothing but the best behavior in the future. "Stop all your nonsense," ordered Reade finally. "There's only one proper place on earth for you, Evarts, and that's behind the bars. Now, move right along, or I'll give you a worse walloping every time you stop or argue." Finding that nothing would avail with these determined captors the ex-foreman relapsed into sulks. However, he kept walking straight ahead, obeying every order addressed to him. Tom stopped briefly at the cottage. Mr. Prenter was not there, and Harry Hazelton had turned in. Nicolas was lying on a blanket on the porch. "You'll have to keep awake until I get back, anyway, Nicolas, and keep your eyes open," Tom informed the Mexican. "Sambo is at large again, and I'm afraid he may turn up here." "I shall know how to take care of him, Senor," grinned the Mexican holding up his right forefinger. "That wouldn't help you, this time," Tom retorted dryly. "Mr. Sambo Ebony has a revolver with him. Don't let him get a shot at you; he'd be only too glad to even the score. Now, Dick, I guess we'd better get Evarts over to the jail." Away started the chums and their prisoner while Nicolas went inside to warn Harry. Not so very much later Tom and Dick turned Evarts over to the police in Blixton. Evarts was locked up on the new charge. The revolver taken from him was turned over to the police as evidence. The chums also gave their information that they had overheard the ex-foreman tell the negro that he intended to jump bail. But the greatest of all was the news of the plot to rescue the gambler prisoners now in jail. Then the chums started back to camp. "I noticed," said Lieutenant Prescott, in a low tone, "that you didn't mention the conversation between Bascomb and Evarts." "I hadn't any right to," Tom said simply. "If Mr. Bascomb once had trouble in his life, but is living honestly now, it would be criminal of me to expose such a secret that he wouldn't want known. Mr. Bascomb's past is none of my business." "I'm mighty glad to hear you talk that way about it," said Prescott, resting a hand on Reade's shoulder. "Why?" demanded Tom rather bluntly. "Did you think that I could feel any other way about it?" "But Evarts is pretty sure to talk a lot about Bascomb, now," hinted the young army officer. "If he does," sighed Tom, "I don't know that I can think of any way to stop the fellow." "Then you don't believe that Mr. Bascomb's evil record of past years affects his honesty now?" Dick went on after a long pause. "I don't believe it," Tom answered with unusual emphasis. "If I did it would be as much as if I said that a fellow who once makes a wrong step must never hope to get back into the right path again. Mr. Prenter, I am certain, is an honest man and an unusually keen one. He is satisfied to trust Mr. Bascomb as president of the company. But, if Evarts is some sort of family connection of Bascomb's, and if he has often threatened to tell all about Mr. Bascomb's past history, you can imagine the terror that poor Mr. Bascomb has lived in for years." "If I were in Bascomb's place," Dick declared positively, "I would go before the board of directors and tell them the whole story. Then no one else could ever hold any power over me." "I guess that's the way all of us think we would act if we'd meet a blackmailer," nodded Reade. "Yet I guess most of the victims, when there's a sad, true story that could be told about them, pay the blackmailer and so secure silence." "Which may be another way," mused the young army officer, "of saying that most men are cowards. Or, maybe, it's another way, after all, of saying that the man who does anything very wrong or crooked is generally such a coward at heart that he'll spend his savings in keeping his secret from the world." "Yet Bascomb must have shown considerable bravery in meeting Evarts's demands," suddenly suggested Reade. "Otherwise, Mr. Bascomb would now be a poor man and Evarts would have spent all of Bascomb's money. Heretofore, I imagine, Evarts hasn't been able to blackmail his relative for anything much more substantial than a good job. I hear that Evarts has been drawing good pay from the Melliston Company for something more than four years---and Evarts isn't a very useful man, at that." "Then, after four years of easy berths, no wonder Evarts hates you, Tom, for having bounced him out," smiled Dick Prescott. "I'm afraid I'm going to do worse than bounce the fellow out of a job," sighed Reade. "I'm afraid I've helped head him for prison for a term of a good many long years." "Evarts did that much for himself," Prescott argued. "I wouldn't waste much worry over the fellow." "I suppose it's my way to worry over a dog with a sore paw," answered Reade thoughtfully, "Certainly Evarts has done some mean things against me, and without any just cause; but I don't like the thought of his having to be locked up, away from sunlight, joy and life, for so many years as I'm afraid are coming to him." Arrived at camp, Tom found Mr. Bascomb walking back and forth on the porch of the engineers' house. "You're up late, sir," was Tom's friendly greeting to the president. "Yes, Reade; I can't sleep to-night," said Mr. Bascomb wearily. "I came over here to talk with Prenter. Where is he?" "Asleep, I imagine, sir," Tom answered. "Wrong," replied President Bascomb. "I've already been inside, but Prenter isn't in the house." "Then perhaps he thought it too lively around here," laughed Reade, "and went over to Blixton to sleep at the hotel." Mr. Bascomb didn't reply to this, but puffed hard at the black cigar he was smoking and sending up clouds of smoke. But the president of the Melliston Company became instantly more distracted when Tom Reade began an account of the capture of Evarts, and his jailing, and the escape of Mr. Sambo Ebony. Presently Bascomb began to puff harder than ever at his cigar. "Reade," he finally blurted out, "how long were you hiding there before Evarts found you there?" "Some little time," Tom admitted vaguely. More clouds of cigar smoke ascended; then, shaking, and his face a sickly white and green, the president inquired: "Reade, were you there---you and Mr. Prescott---at the time when I talked with Evarts on that very spot to-night?" There was no use in evading the question, so engineer Reade answered in a straightforward manner: "Yes, sir. Mr. Prescott and I were there." "Then---then---y-y-you heard all of my talk with Evarts?" "Yes, sir." Bascomb's teeth began to chatter so that he was forced to steady his jaws. Tom and Dick looked aside, pitying the man for his evident anguish of mind. At last the president steadied himself enough to speak. "Reade, I know I haven't been a very good friend of yours, and I even tried to work you out of this contract altogether. Now, you know my secret, and I'm in your power!" _ |
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