r <; 
 
 OD 
 
 AMERJCANSTORY OF TO-ft 
 
 GERTRUDE 
 POTTEH 
 DANIELS

 
 The Warners 
 
 AN AMERICAN STORY 
 OF TODAY 
 
 BY 
 GERTRUDE POTTER DANIELS 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 JAMIESON-HIGGINS CO. 
 1901
 
 COPYRIGHT 1901 
 Bv GERTRUDE POTTER DANIELS
 
 Donald ant) 
 
 THE THREE 
 
 WHOSE FAITH IN ME 
 
 IS UNLIMITED 
 
 2227822
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AT fifteen minutes past six o'clock in 
 the evening Cyrus arrived home 
 from the factory; at seven to the 
 minute he sat down to a solitary supper of 
 his own cooking. His menu was not large 
 or varied, but it was substantial and it suf- 
 ficed. For years this meal had taken place 
 at the same hour ; in fact, it marked the begin- 
 ning of his independence an independence 
 whose progress was slow but was yet prog- 
 ress. He never ate without remembering 
 the past and how he had worked up. His 
 satisfaction over his "working up" was su- 
 preme ; for his boyhood had been very dubi- 
 ous. 
 
 Until Cyrus had moved into a room that 
 he called his own his appetite had not been 
 catered to fully or regularly; sometimes his 
 food was doled out to him at back doors; 
 sometimes he picked bits out of garbage 
 boxes ; oftener he went hungry. The sensa- 
 tion of emptiness in early years was so com- 
 mon that consciousness of it had ceased to 
 7
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 annoy him it was part of existence to be 
 hungry. Likewise he had gone without the 
 gratefulness of all personal comforts; all re- 
 laxations, and enjoyments. A home, the 
 warmth of a fire, the sense of satiety in any 
 form he had never known. His clothes were 
 either too large, or too small. Nothing ever 
 matched. There were too few garments in 
 the winter ; in summer he wore what he had 
 because they were his all a mass of filthy 
 rags and patches clinging to his little body. 
 When he slept it was in some odd corner not 
 too far away and always well hidden from 
 the sight of prying eyes. Here, twisted into 
 a cramped and uncomfortable position on the 
 bare stones, Cyrus would fall into an imme- 
 diate and profound slumber overcome with 
 exhaustion ; lying inert hour after hour, for- 
 getting in this brief oblivion the gnawings, the 
 pains, the wearinesses of the days. Up again 
 before the sun had fairly a chance to show 
 its face, the boy would rise yawning and rub- 
 bing the sleep from his eyes, then stretching 
 his stiff little legs, was off to the office for 
 his papers, alert with the persistence of youth. 
 Through the long days of varying heat 
 8 '
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 and cold he cried himself hoarse with head- 
 line horrors. When he was not selling papers 
 he blacked boots and with the indomitable 
 will of one who has a fortune to seek, the 
 boy managed to make a living. Even more, 
 for, child of the street as he was, Cyrus, by 
 degrees, became possessed of very definite 
 notions of life ; also of two distinct and colos- 
 sal ambitions. 
 
 It would be difficult to trace the instincts 
 that gave this boy his desire for riches and 
 an education; but the desire was there as 
 ungovernable as the winds that blow. No 
 manner of hard luck could bend or break his 
 insistence concerning these ambitions. He 
 was blind to all the difficulties that assailed 
 him. He felt no inadequacies. He set his 
 mind and hardened his will, and redoubled his 
 strength to meet his purpose, seeing in each 
 day a nearer completion of his tremendous 
 ideas. 
 
 These ambitions may have been inborn 
 from the father whom he had never seen, or 
 the mother he had never known the one 
 good thing they had left this boy of theirs for 
 inheritance ; the only kindness they had ever 
 9
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 shown him. And with the mysterious knit- 
 ting together of the lines of fate, they be- 
 came the fine fabric around which the rest 
 of his character wove its pattern of good and 
 evil. 
 
 Naturally he had not the time to go regu- 
 larly to a place of learning, but for all that 
 bit by bit Warner did master the first rudi- 
 ments of reading, writing and arithmetic. It 
 was a fierce struggle ; literally a hand-to-hand 
 wrestle with every word, every line, every 
 figure. But again that was life and he was 
 in no way cowed. 
 
 These notions of his as to right and wrong 
 Cyrus mapped into shape according to ob- 
 servance of his own making. His rules were 
 simple and concise. But each rule had its 
 reason and through them Cyrus adjusted 
 himself to conditions. He never permitted 
 himself to lose his temper, because he had 
 never seen violence displayed to a man's ad- 
 vantage. He never fought, his private belief 
 being that educated men dreamed instead of 
 pummeled. Liquor was left untouched be- 
 cause it cost money. 
 
 Tossed hither and thither through the mael- 
 10
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 strom of a city, these notions were not always 
 easy of practice. It was only by first prov- 
 ing his prowess that he was given liberty. He 
 had to fight to keep from fighting. 
 
 It was a curious thing that half-starved 
 as he was and deprived of everything neces- 
 sary to make bone, sinew and flesh, Cyrus 
 yet continued to flourish. He shot up tre- 
 mendously, as though the life agreed with 
 him. 
 
 At sixteen he stood six feet in his stock- 
 ings, and looked taller because of the ex- 
 treme leanness of his body. His face would 
 have been homely but for its expression of 
 gentleness. His forehead was straight and 
 high, the eyes large and brilliant. His mouth, 
 too, was large, but determined. In fact, it 
 was this feature that gave character to the 
 boy's whole countenance. His hands and 
 feet were enormous, his strength prodigious 
 a dangerous strength had his nature been 
 belligerent, a force with his ideas of self-gov- 
 ernment. Cyrus' mind kept pace with his 
 body. He was slow, ponderous, docile and 
 very just. 
 
 It was when he had reached his eighteenth 
 II
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 birthday, as near as he could count, that he 
 was taken on at the factory. He left the un- 
 certainties of the street to become one of the 
 "hands," and it seemed that his chance had 
 come at last. That one move marked the 
 period of many important changes. First and 
 foremost he took possession of HIS ROOM. 
 Once there he shut the door firmly in the face 
 of haunting poverty. 
 
 This room served as an entire apartment 
 to Cyrus. It was on the top floor of a tene- 
 ment; a tiny box of an affair, with two dor- 
 mer windows under the eaves, and a ceiling 
 that half the way across would not permit 
 the man to stand erect in his full height. At 
 five o'clock every morning he awakened to 
 the preliminary work of the day. He lighted 
 his oil stove, filled the kettle and started the 
 water to boiling. While this was in progress 
 he threw the bedclothes back over a chair 
 with one of the dormer windows wide open 
 for air. He thumped his pillows and his 
 mattress vigorously, replaced the clothes 
 carefully, then took his cleaning cloth and 
 pail out from under the bed. Warner never 
 wiped up with a dry duster, but sopped and 
 
 12
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 pottered, continually wringing the rag out in 
 the water until everything steamed and reeked 
 with dampness. Then he gave himself to the 
 cooking of his breakfast. Sometimes an egg 
 or a piece of salt pork, with a boiled potato ; 
 generally a pot of coffee and a crusty roll 
 bought the night before at the bakery around 
 the corner. 
 
 After he had eaten he washed the dishes, 
 flinging all the dirty water out of the window 
 into the back lot. 
 
 Breakfast over, Cyrus betook himself to 
 the factory where he worked all day, thinking 
 over the conveniences and the comforts of 
 his room, and wondering if he could ever 
 hope for anything much better. Not that 
 there was much better to have, for as it was 
 everything lay at his finger tips. He lacked 
 nothing. His furniture was great ; there was 
 a bureau with two drawers, and a place on 
 top for a wash bowl and pitcher. There was 
 a cot bed, the first bed that he had ever 
 slept on ; a wonderful thing, long enough to 
 hold him any way he lay ; a marvel of softness 
 and warmth, where he dreamed in the stupe- 
 faction of enjoyment. Two stiff-backed and 
 '3
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 rickety chairs, rigid and military, stood side 
 by side against the wall. These chairs were 
 continually getting in the way. Yet Cyrus 
 cherished them. He could never have en- 
 tertained without them. For decoration 
 Warner had secured three remarkable calen- 
 dars and two chromos. The chromos were 
 companion pieces. One represented a bril- 
 liant sunset over a green, darkening land- 
 scape; the other was a scene at dawn with 
 woods and birds and in the distance a glimpse 
 of purple water. But what appealed to Cyrus 
 closest was his library. These volumes were 
 arranged in a swinging shelf over his bed, 
 where his eyes could rest on them at night 
 and open upon them, directly in the morning. 
 He regarded them with a tenderness that was 
 pathetic ; in fact, their possession seemed un- 
 real, somehow representing a link between 
 his desire for knowledge and the knowledge 
 itself, and they never lost their hold on him. 
 The sight of them dispelled the illusion of 
 failures and disappointments and brought an 
 actual completion of education within pos- 
 sibility. 
 
 But the satisfaction of a home and posses- 
 14
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 sions did not make Cyrus extravagant, or for- 
 getful of his ambitions ; on the contrary, he 
 became miserly. He starved himself as 
 closely as he could and still preserve strength 
 enough to continue with his work. He suf- 
 fered considerably from the cold; he prac- 
 ticed every small economy he could think of, 
 and pinched and saved and went without. The 
 results of this penuriousness were self-evi- 
 dent. At twenty he opened a bank account ; 
 the deposit he made was not a large begin- 
 ning; still it was a beginning. In fact, that 
 twentieth year of his was one remarkable with 
 many surprises. He began geography at 
 home ; at the factory he received a raise in 
 position and an increase in salary; also, he 
 met HER. 
 
 She was a very little thing, very pretty and 
 a stenographer. How she could read, and 
 write, and spell ! It was a fascinating sight, 
 and it won Cyrus; at least, at first. After- 
 wards he loved her because he could not 
 help it. The fellow had never seen just such 
 a woman as Betty Martin. It happened the 
 morning he was called into the General Man- 
 ager's office to receive his raise. There she 
 IS
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 sat, taking down a letter that the Manager 
 was dictating as fast as the words would fall 
 from his lips. But nothing phased her; she 
 wrote on and on. 
 
 While Cyrus waited for the Manager's at- 
 tention he watched her. Her hair was a 
 mass of curls coming out all about her face, 
 and piled up in a heap in the back ; when the 
 sun fell strongly on it there was a glint of 
 red like a miniature reflection of the orb 
 itself. Her eyes were large and dark; her 
 skin was white, transparent and with tiny 
 threads of veins showing plainly. 
 
 "Too white," was Cyrus' mental comment ; 
 "I'll give her a rest and the country " 
 
 The thought brought a quick flush to his 
 own face. Before it died away the Manager 
 turned, and the revery ceased. But it was at 
 that first glance that Cyrus decided the future 
 of both himself and Betty. 
 
 When one is poor the monotony of exist- 
 ence passes unnoticed. It takes riches to 
 create ennui. But it must be confessed that 
 after that meeting with Betty Martin, life as- 
 sumed proportions that had never before en- 
 tered into Cyrus' mind. It was the first time 
 16
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 he had ever been in love, but the woman at 
 last had entangled herself in the man's line of 
 fate, and there altered destiny. He began 
 promptly to starve himself more severely. 
 Warner's constitution was something he 
 prided himself on; his ability to endure pain 
 was immense; so he imposed upon himself 
 to hurry the future. Waiting was well enough 
 up to a certain length of time, beyond that 
 limit his patience rebelled. He wanted her 
 dreadfully. In truth, the thought of possess- 
 ing her was too entrancing to dwell upon 
 safely. If it had only been a mere matter of 
 strength ! But there was something else in- 
 volved. It never entered the man's mind 
 that he could propose to a girl without suffi- 
 cient income to support her. He had learned 
 what that brought the tenement taught it 
 with a thoroughness not to be avoided. 
 
 So he pinched harder, and squeezed, and 
 went hungry and allowed himself only a part 
 of Sunday for recreation. All the other days 
 in the week he worked from seven until six. 
 He suffered miserably, yet these periods of 
 toil were lightened occasionally by glimpses 
 of Miss Martin spelling, writing, playing on 
 
 V
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 that machine with the utmost unconcern. The 
 very rattle of the keys was music to Cyrus' 
 ears, because it was she who played. It did 
 not trouble the man that she paid no heed to 
 him that probably she was not conscious of 
 his existence. Knowledge of his presence 
 would come in due course of time. 
 
 Cyrus had waited for the arithmetic and 
 the reader and the geography especially the 
 geography. They had all come ; even IT had 
 come. He had learned the science of waiting 
 complacently. 
 
 About this time a fellow was taken or at 
 the factory with whom Cyrus struck up an 
 immediate friendship. This was contrary to 
 Warner's habits he had found that friend- 
 ships were exacting and expensive ! generally 
 he kept clear of them, but there was some- 
 thing in Kirby that was impressive because 
 it was peculiar. 
 
 He was a thin, delicate-looking chap, with 
 a nervous, active body and a face that showed 
 the ravages of temper. Extreme, excessive 
 temper a temper that rode through his 
 strength with a whirlwind of fury, and shat- 
 tered all the vitality that could be got to- 
 ' 18
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 gather in his body. Naturally it was a fearful 
 hindrance. It kept the man almost contin- 
 ually out of a job. It was this that made him 
 come and go empty-handed and poor, will- 
 ing to take what he could get. Kirby was 
 neither an ignorant, nor an incapable man ; he 
 had simply sacrificed everything to his master 
 fury. 
 
 It may have been the discovery of Kirby's 
 schooling that caught Cyrus; at any rate, 
 the two became intimate. They were so in- 
 separable that in time Kirby moved his be- 
 longings over to the house where Cyrus' fort- 
 ress was situated. He took a room on the 
 same floor, only across the hall, and settled 
 down as a neighbor. 
 
 It came about in this way that their daily 
 routine was changed, as their devotion to 
 each other increased. They took turns at 
 cooking the seven o'clock supper; afterward 
 they spent the evening together. Sometimes 
 they walked in the glare of the noisy, busy 
 streets, jostling with the crowd, Kirby talking 
 loudly to attract the attention of the girls. 
 \Yhen they turned, showing their teeth and 
 tossing their heads, he would call at them, 
 19
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 grinning facetiously. Kirby was a heavy 
 joker in his lighter moods. Other evenings 
 the two would sit at home smoking pipe after 
 pipe of tobacco, discussing the problems of 
 the day and their own individual interests. 
 
 Gradually Kirby discovered Cyrus' ambi- 
 tions; his desire for an education, his greed 
 to be somebody. At the same time Warner 
 awakened to Kirby's inclination toward so- 
 cialism. And it was a big awakening. It 
 brought confusion to his mind. Never had 
 Cyrus heard just such ideas or just such 
 language as Kirby used. Sometimes it made 
 him shiver and chill when Kirby, calling down 
 the curses of the living God to smite the 
 bodies of the rich, would announce that but 
 for the capitalists he and Cyrus would be rid- 
 ing in carriages of their own, with money to 
 burn. Then Kirby, seeing the effect of his 
 words, followed up his points remorselessly. 
 Excited by his own noise, he would continue 
 a tirade of abuse. He shouted and yelled 
 until the master fiend roused itself in self- 
 defense, and what was commenced in a good- 
 natured discussion, would finish in a fiery and 
 disastrous exhibition of oratory. 
 20
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 It left Kirby limp, faint, and in spasms of 
 exhaustion. Cyrus was frightened. At the 
 same time he had to acknowledge to himself 
 that he was profoundly impressed. It was a 
 hideous complication that assailed him. All 
 his theories of life were swept away. He 
 could not even recall exactly what they were. 
 He clasped his head with his hands. "I can't 
 believe it it is not possible wait, wait, 
 Kirby! You say they drive us down?" 
 
 He was terribly upset. Everything in the 
 man's nature rebelled against what he had 
 heard; but repetition drove it home. After 
 a time he began to see through the haze of 
 his confusion, then he wondered if perhaps 
 capitalists were as black as Kirby pictured. 
 
 Argument did not come easily to Cyrus, 
 but he could not rest. He had to fix this 
 question somehow. After much mental labor 
 Warner settled it according to his observance 
 of rich people. They did not live for the 
 sole purpose of grinding down the working 
 class. He knew that. Besides, education 
 taught broadness all the rich were educated. 
 That was a stopper to Kirby's assertions, and 
 a stopper that no oratory could pull. But in 
 
 21
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 spite of this difference of opinion, and Cyrus 
 clung tenaciously to his point of view, War- 
 ner was loyal to Kirby in everything else. 
 More than once by sheer force of tact he 
 saved the wretchedly tempered man from 
 losing his place at the factory. In gratitude 
 for this service, Kirby offered to assist Cyrus 
 in his studies. After that the socialistic har- 
 angues, and the stock phrases of clap-trap 
 politicians came with less frequency. Also 
 because of what Kirby was doing for him, 
 the greatest in all the catalogue of great 
 things, Cyrus became his devoted friend. 
 There was nothing the one could ask that the 
 other would not do; they were closer than 
 brothers ; they were pals. 
 
 The student made great strides in his edu- 
 cation; and it was due more to his learning 
 than anything else that year by year small 
 promotions came. Finally there was a good 
 promotion, another raise of salary. His bank 
 account was growing; Cyrus considered the 
 situation, and confessed that the time to ad- 
 dress Miss Martin was ripe. 
 
 22
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THAT question involved the most im- 
 portant and the most serious oper- 
 ation of Cyrus' life. He had seen 
 Betty daily now for almost two years. Betty 
 the demure, Betty the charming. Dressed in 
 her simple, trim and dainty garments, with 
 her hair curling down over her ears and fore- 
 head, she made a picture that fascinated the 
 heart, as well as the eye. 
 
 Cyrus was sure her hair was redolent with 
 the spices of Araby. He had never pen- 
 mitted himself an approach near enough to 
 discover this for a fact; it was one of his 
 dreams. He adored the way she held her- 
 self. He began to know by the very expres- 
 sion of the eyes whether she were sick or 
 well or tired or fresh. Her hands, small, 
 delicate fingered hands, became in his sight 
 the most perfect thing the world possessed. 
 The very fact that she was a woman touched 
 him to the heart, for she was THE woman, 
 the tender, fragile woman, whom he in time 
 23
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 was to be called upon to shield, protect and 
 support. That was a dazzling thought, only 
 to be met complacently by a man of knowl- 
 edge and means. 
 
 He sat thinking of this one evening; in 
 fact, of late he had been thinking of it contin- 
 ually, when Kirby came in. Kirby had been to 
 a meeting, a gathering in some hall, where he 
 had spoken until shouting reduced his voice 
 to a whisper. He sat down on the edge of 
 Cyrus' cot, talking rapidly. After a long 
 time he asked abruptly: "Cy! what's up?" 
 
 The sudden appeal troubled Warner. The 
 situation was uncomfortable. Kirby was sure 
 to ridicule him, and just now that was more 
 than he could bear. But he had no idea how 
 to evade the orator. There was a dead 
 silence for a moment, Cyrus feeling very 
 helpless. 
 
 "Come on, Cy, out with it," pursued Kirby. 
 
 So Warner confessed fully and com- 
 pletely. The more he talked the easier it be- 
 came. Kirby sat listening intently, his white 
 anaemic face ghastly under the shock of 
 black hair that hung about it loose and 
 stringy. 
 
 24
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "You want to meet her, huh? That's the 
 game?" 
 
 Cyrus nodded. 
 
 "That's dead easy; I can fix it. Shall I? 
 Eh!" 
 
 Cyrus rose to his feet with a rush: "Do 
 you mean it, Kirby? You are not joshing 
 me." The revulsion of feeling that stirred 
 in him was tremendous. 
 
 "Joshing? What in hell should I josh for, 
 eh ! Women are a big nuisance, but if you 
 want to meet this one, why it's none of my 
 funeral. Of course I'll fix it. It's dead sim- 
 ple." He was very certain. It was a swing- 
 ing, scornful certainty. Kirby knew and un- 
 derstood women. 
 
 Cyrus looked at him dumbly, in full and 
 unconcealed admiration. How was he to do 
 it ? This man could accomplish it if any one 
 could, but how would he go at it ? Of course 
 Kirby was good for anything if he said so. 
 The orator was a great man, and no mistake 
 about that. 
 
 Cyrus did not question; he felt that to ask 
 Kirby's methods after such an offer would be 
 far from delicate. Warner attempted to utter 
 25
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 some phrases of thanks. Kirby disclaimed 
 them, with great superiority ; he felt his mag- 
 nanimity, but he made a great pretense. He 
 was always willing to see a friend through, 
 and he and Cy were pals, weren't they eh ? 
 
 Cyrus went to bed in a state of happiness 
 bordering on the imbecile. He found him- 
 self lying awake, thinking of her, and of what 
 was to come, and the wonder of it all. From 
 out of the darkness all about him her face 
 shown sweet, pale, sympathetic, smiling upon 
 him, and he smiled back. He was caught in 
 the mesh of her fascinations, and he yielded 
 without a struggle. In fact, it was all de- 
 licious. To be a man and to have a woman, 
 a charmingly pretty woman, THE WOMAN 
 depending on you for all the happiness and 
 comfort life brings, is an exhilarating affair. 
 
 Cyrus gave his cot a thump. "We'll have 
 a spring and a hair mattress," he said aloud 
 with great satisfaction. After many hours he 
 fell asleep. 
 
 Kirby managed the introduction. He said 
 
 that he would, and he kept his word ; but it 
 
 was not all as Cyrus would have liked. In 
 
 the first place it was rather a bold proceeding 
 
 26
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 on Kirby's part. He had never spoken to 
 Miss Martin before. This was not delicate 
 of Kirby. Had Cyrus dreamed of such a 
 possibility he would not have permitted the 
 rudeness to Betty, the demure. In his heart, 
 however, he was glad he had not known, for, 
 in spite of the method, it was still an intro- 
 duction ; a passage of words that gave him the 
 liberty of addressing her. 
 
 She was as demure in speech as she was 
 in appearance; she had none of those high 
 spirits and loud ways and flippant manners 
 that pass often for vivacity. She was, in- 
 stead, rather quaint and very gentle. Cyrus 
 thrilled under her soft voice ; it was so exactly 
 as he would have had it. It was eminently 
 the voice that he would like about his home 
 the home that he was to purchase some time 
 for her as well as for himself. 
 
 That night he lay awake again. The en- 
 trancing visions that showed themselves in 
 his fortress after dark were not to be missed. 
 It was a white cottage with green blinds, set 
 in a comfortable yard, that visited him. And 
 as it floated above him quite as plainly as
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 reality could have made it, he heard her voice 
 distinctly, calling to him, of course. 
 
 Those night dreams that from now on be- 
 came regular occurrences took Cyrus quite 
 out of the narrow, day-in-and-day-out monot- 
 ony of factory life. They broadened his view, 
 expanded his imagination and gave him an 
 ambition for other things than merely an edu- 
 cation. He put the screws on harder; there 
 were days now when he suffered from actual 
 and acute hunger. He worked over hours 
 when he could and was filled with an enor- 
 mous joy when he had enough put aside to 
 warrant a trip to that savings bank not for 
 himself was this miserly habit acquired, not 
 at all. It was that every day he liked Betfy 
 better and better. She took complete posses- 
 sion of him ; it became a matter of resistance 
 every time he was with her to keep down ex- 
 pressions of his infatuation. He was bewil- 
 dered, dizzy, with the thought of obtaining 
 what seemed so inaccessible, but so neces- 
 sary. His life centered on Betty and their 
 home; so he hoarded for her and for it his 
 wife and the cottage. It was a magnificent 
 incentive to suffer and to work for. 
 28
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 But the incentive could not keep away the 
 marks and ravages of what Cyrus was doing. 
 He grew so thin that his cheek bones rose 
 high in their places ; he had a pinched, drawn 
 look that gave a pathetic, heart-breaking ex- 
 pression to his face, for he always smiled. Be- 
 side this, he was living in a strained atmos- 
 phere of constant exaltation that sucked his 
 vitality to the source. One day, while he was 
 in the midst of his factory work, without the 
 least warning, he fell down, lying white and 
 cold and inert. He was in a complete faint, 
 this great man of strength. He was carried 
 into the manager's office, Kirby following in 
 a state of high excitement, giving orders at 
 every step. Betty, the demure, left her ma- 
 chine ; she knelt beside the long, prostrate fig- 
 ure and bathed the man's head with her 
 coarse little kerchief, stopping occasionally to 
 chafe his big, thin hands, with her perfect 
 little ones. 
 
 Kirby was in a great state. In his own 
 way he had a strong fondness for this Cyrus ; 
 this gentle, unsophisticated, big-hearted Cy- 
 rus. He approved entirely of Miss Martin's 
 course of action in this reviving, but he was 
 
 2Q
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 not pleased with her personally. It was, in 
 fact, all her fault that Cyrus, the strong, was 
 thus reduced he guessed he knew how his 
 friend was starving himself and why all for 
 this girl, who was a hell of a nuisance, any 
 way you put it. It would end in her killing 
 him yet. 
 
 When Kirby's mind had reached this con- 
 clusion his temper Began to assume com- 
 mand; it also began to talk through Kirby, 
 wildly, crazily and insultingly. He did not 
 care what he said : 
 
 "Huh, you think you're great, I suppose, 
 sitting there slobbing that man with a wet rag. 
 You think you're deceiving me, don't you, 
 but you ain't; not a bit. I know he's sweet 
 on you, so do you, and you're playing him for 
 a fool. He's starving himself for you. You'll 
 probably pretend that's news. But it ain't: 
 why else should he be cutting up a woman's 
 trick like this. If you carry this thing too far, 
 you want to look out. This is my friend, my 
 pal. I won't stand one side and see him mur- 
 dered in cold blood by a white-faced thing 
 like you. I won't, by God !" 
 
 Betty's face had gone red, then very white 
 30
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 again; her hands trembled. But she did not 
 get up, and, stranger still, she took no of- 
 fense. Presently Cyrus' eyes opened heav- 
 ily ; they looked into her great eyes ; he saw 
 something there that startled him; his blood 
 began a rapid course through his chilled body. 
 He wished he could lie there forever, star- 
 ing up at her. 
 
 Kirby spoiled it at once. He leaned over 
 and assisted Cyrus to a chair, pulling the 
 great fellow around easily. Cyrus wondered 
 vaguely at so much strength in such a lank, 
 lean body. 
 
 Immediately Miss Martin resumed her 
 work. The manager suggested Cyrus' laying 
 off a day, but Warner cast the idea aside with 
 a laugh he had been strengthened beyond 
 any need of laying off, although his knees still 
 shook and his body was numb. 
 
 He got up presently and went to work, 
 Betty's eyes always before him. The pres- 
 sure of that perfect, delicate-fingered hand, 
 still to be felt on his wide forehead. But 
 more wonderful than all this was yet to hap- 
 pen. That evening she waited for him. She 
 made a great show of putting on her gloves, 
 31
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 but a keen observer would not have been 
 misled. As he came down the steps past the 
 office door, she whispered with her eyes 
 turned away from his : 
 
 "Eat more, please ; I want you to."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AFTER that she spoke every day. She 
 never looked at him, and that troubled 
 Cyrus. It was such an effort for him 
 to keep his eyes away from her ; such a feast 
 when he was permitted to look. Should she 
 not feel the same way if she cared? Cyrus 
 was not knowing in the ways of women. If 
 he had been he would not have troubled about 
 her bashfulness. 
 
 At last there came a Saturday night when 
 he got up great courage and asked Miss Mar- 
 tin if she would walk in the park with him 
 the next afternoon. He had rehearsed the 
 speech over and again for weeks it was the 
 preliminary of the courting the first shot to- 
 wards the cottage with the green blinds. He 
 had never planned nor prepared for a refusal ; 
 nor did he receive one, after he floundered 
 through the invitation. Yet her acceptance 
 upset him terribly. He could scarcely 
 breathe, and the sensation of suffocation did 
 not wear off for hours. 
 33
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 He was up and down half the night to 
 watch the weather. By lying prone his full 
 length on the floor he could just get a peep 
 at the sky from out of his windows, and the 
 stars up there wheeling around in their 
 course. When he could see one, he gave a 
 sigh and went back to bed in peace. Once he 
 lost all sight of them. It was a tragedy. Of 
 course it was clouding up probably would 
 storm terribly all day. That was apt to make 
 her superstitious women were born super- 
 stitious. If the weather was not propitious 
 for that first outing, she might believe that 
 fate was dead against them. There was no 
 telling how women regarded these things. 
 
 He spent a wretched fifteen minutes, then 
 he looked again. Up between the steep walls 
 blinked a little point of light. It was there 
 bright, beautiful and clear, thank Heaven ! 
 How could he have imagined a storm was 
 imminent. For fear of another such fright 
 he took his pillow and blanket from his cot 
 and lay on the floor until daylight, his face 
 looking up into the face of the Heavens. 
 
 Cyrus called for Betty at three o'clock; 
 precisely three. That was the time she had 
 34
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 set. He was at the corner below an hour 
 earlier, but he presented himself at the door 
 only when he was told he might. Never had 
 he been so nervous, or so intensely happy. 
 The day was perfect ; warm enough to make 
 an overcoat a nuisance. 
 
 Betty came down looking adorable. She 
 was in her best things, naturally, it being 
 Sunday. Cyrus hitherto had only viewed her 
 in her office garments. She was charming in 
 those, but absolutely irresistible now. 
 
 As he stepped along beside her, he was 
 suddenly filled with grave apprehensions. 
 Surely she was not for him. He was so awk- 
 ward, so colossal, and somehow so unlovely. 
 He was a fool to hope that she could care 
 for him. He was so evidently out of place 
 beside this little woman. 
 
 When this knowledge took possession of 
 him, he began to be assailed with huge 
 doubts, the contrast between them was so 
 hideous. How could this dainty, refined bit 
 of a woman ever look upon him with favor? 
 It was impossible. His size, his gait, his 
 awkwardness, his lack of personal beauty all 
 told against him. He had never considered 
 35
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 these things before ; now they were upper- 
 most in his mind. Everything else shrank 
 away from him. He was breathless with dis- 
 gust as he squinted down upon himself. 
 
 Betty, however, appeared to be taking his 
 defects calmly ; in fact, she did not seem to be 
 aware of them. From time to time she raised 
 her splendid eyes and looked him in the face. 
 Directly this occurred Cyrus lost the drift of 
 all he was saying and stammered horribly; 
 yet he enjoyed those glances. 
 
 Presently they sat down upon the grass ; 
 the sunshine was delicious ; so was the air. 
 All at once a kind of faintness crept over the 
 man; he was suddenly conscious that he was 
 near her very near her near enough to 
 catch the perfume from her hair. The spices 
 of Araby were there, surely ; they hypnotized 
 him. 
 
 From that moment Cyrus Warner was less 
 hounded by thoughts of self-denunciation. He 
 had little idea of anything that happened or 
 of anything that was said. He kept wanting 
 to do something; something immense, some- 
 thing wonderful ; something that from sheer 
 strength or manliness should put him from a 
 36
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 masculine standpoint on an equal footing 
 with this delicate creature. He wanted to 
 make her proud of him ; but no opportunity 
 for such an achievement arrived. It seemed 
 to him a dastardly trick of fate to deny him 
 this privilege. Until he could prove himself 
 he had no right to love and aspire "to this 
 perfect being. It was sacrilege. 
 
 His silence kept Betty very busy of tongue. 
 She enjoyed everything thoroughly and ex- 
 pressed her pleasure by infectious little 
 laughs and a great deal of merry talk. She 
 said nothing of much import, but Cyrus hung 
 on her words bewitched. Oh, he was very 
 much in love, this man! Very seriously in 
 love. 
 
 At half-past five he took her home. It had 
 only been a minute since they started out. 
 He was sure of it. The clocks said five-thirty 
 they lied; so she took out her watch. He 
 believed that, because the time-piece belonged 
 to her ; but he asserted loudly that the hands 
 might have dropped; it could not be five- 
 thirty it was absurd! 
 
 Then she did laugh, and he joined in. When 
 he could catch his breath long enough to 
 37
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 speak, he asked boldly if he could take her 
 out again next week. She hesitated just a 
 moment; then she called: "Yes, if you will 
 believe the clocks." 
 
 He roared again she was the acme of wit. 
 He finally returned to his fortress in a high 
 state of vibrating happiness. What a day it 
 had been what a day ! 
 
 At nine o'clock that same night Kirby ar- 
 rived outside Cyrus' door. Ordinarily, Cyrus 
 would have been in bed and asleep at that 
 hour on Sunday. This evening, instead, he 
 was reading his geography by the light of a 
 candle. 
 
 "All right," he called in response to Kirby's 
 cry; "come in," and Kirby entered. 
 
 He had been busy at oratory again to- 
 night ; but he had not his usual color and ag- 
 gressive manner the aftermath of his 
 speeches. He was breathing short and look- 
 ing sheepish. 
 
 "What's up? Any trouble?" said Cyrus. 
 
 "Oh, no; what trouble should I be in?" He 
 
 crossed his legs, looking about the room. 
 
 Every once in a while he sighed noisily and 
 
 stirred in his chair it was very evident that 
 
 38
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 he wanted to be questioned about some- 
 thing. 
 
 "Did you speak at the show?" 
 
 "Rather." 
 
 "Well, what's the row? There's some- 
 thing up. Let's have it straight." 
 
 "You thought I could spealc, didn't you? 
 Everybody who's ever heard me thought I 
 could speak, didn't they huh?" 
 
 Cyrus nodded. "I have never heard to the 
 contrary." 
 
 "Well, all I've got to say is, I wish you'd 
 been with me tonight. Talk about speakin' 
 I ain't in it. I never touched a speech. I 
 don't know what the word 'speakin' ' means ; 
 but there's a woman God, that woman ; you 
 never heard anything like it ! She can talk ! 
 I am beat, and down with my hands tied be- 
 hind me," and then, in answer to Cyrus' 
 astonished face, the orator settled himself and 
 continued. He gave a complete outline of 
 what he had heard, and his own position. 
 
 "She come out there and stood up before 
 us a room full and I said to my neigh- 
 bors, 'Oh, Gee; what's this, anyhow, a mis- 
 sionary meeting?' She wasn't bigger'n a 
 39
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 minute, and pretty well, she's the prettiest 
 thing in the shape of a woman I ever came up 
 against. She wasn't flustered and did she 
 know her business? Well, did she! That's 
 all I can say did she? She didn't speak 
 loud ; never roared once ; but Gee whiz ! how 
 she did land words. Cy, she lammed the cap- 
 italists something immense. The Bloody 
 Shirt dripped. All I can say is, she can have 
 me ; and that any time she says the word. I 
 ain't givin' myself away every day, either. 
 Lord, what a team we'd make the two of 
 us there's money in us for somebody." 
 
 Kirby stopped and mopped his face. He 
 could see himself and a fine future vividly. 
 He would improve his ideas with hers, and 
 take her tricks of expression ; this coupled 
 w r ith his delivery and his explosive epithets 
 would make an irresistible combination. A 
 low tone was well enough for a time, but it 
 took his voice to stampede a meeting in the 
 long run. Dimly, as though he looked 
 through a mist, Kirby saw himself leading a 
 vast concourse of men men of toil, men of 
 strength, men of the down-trodden class. 
 They rose in a mass to follow him. It was 
 40
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 not a place for a woman that he saw. It was 
 a man's place his place. Ah, he would lead ! 
 Those white-collared slaves of indolent ease, 
 who bossed, and controlled and murdered, 
 would learn who he was and what. Also in 
 this vision, but in the background back of 
 him he perceived that woman; her face 
 alight with admiration for him; her mouth 
 closed under the spell of what he was saying 
 for them both. It was a triumphant pano- 
 rama. 
 
 All this time Cyrus sat bewildered; never 
 had he known Kirby to be like this before. 
 There was a cold pause. Kirby was in a 
 queer fix sure, but for once Cyrus could not 
 sympathize. In his silent communion with 
 Betty this noise and furore found no place. 
 He became uneasy and perturbed by Kirby's 
 ranting voice. Finally it drove all his 
 thoughts to riot and scattered his dream. 
 After that he sat in sullen silence, wishing 
 the fierce-tongued orator would go to bed. 
 
 Kirby sat and sat; he talked, and talked 
 
 and got excited. His face flushed, and 
 
 dripped until he was like a lathered animal. 
 
 Probably in its way it was a remarkable flow 
 
 41
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 of language ; but it dizzied Cyrus. He tried 
 not to listen. He did not want to listen ; but 
 where was the escape? The orator had been 
 deprived of his applause at the meeting, so he 
 appealed to his pal. He had to talk. It was 
 a physical need. 
 
 "I want my rights. You want yours. 
 We've been played for suckers long enough. 
 Where's the laboring man goin' to stand, 
 huh? There's got to come a day of reckon- 
 ing, and then we'll see. I'll be there so'll 
 you so'll the capitalist ; but he won't be IT 
 that day. This is called 'Free America,' ain't 
 it? Who's free? you, me, the fellow who 
 works? I'd like to know. It's the rich that's 
 got the cinch on freedom, but some day the 
 workingman'll rise up and find out he wants 
 the cinch. See? Huh! Then," he shouted, 
 rising and pounding the cot, "we'll see. I'll 
 be there. You can count me Kirby in. 
 The working man don't know his business 
 yet. He's too easy. But you wait. I'm in 
 this game. In to stay; and I'm doing some- 
 thing besides shouting, too, by God. You 
 just wait. We ain't all dubs, by a damn 
 sight." 
 
 42
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Shut up, Kirby. You're shouting now. 
 Go to bed. I'm sleepy." Cyrus got up and 
 gave Kirby a good-natured shove. Out in 
 the street a clock struck twelve. Kirby, re- 
 minded of the time, yawned and stretched. 
 "All right, Cy." The orator's voice subsided 
 at once. "But you watch me. I'll lift the 
 yoke yet. I won't stand by forever and see 
 the life crushed out of labor by these tyrants. 
 Good night." Yawning and growling, Kirby 
 disappeared down the hall. 
 
 Immensely relieved, Cyrus closed and 
 locked his fortress. He undressed slowly, re- 
 joicing in the quiet and solitude. But Betty 
 was gone for tonight. The visions and 
 dreams would not be coaxed back. Kirby 
 had frightened them with his tirades. Vainly 
 Cyrus lay staring wide-eyed and waiting there 
 in the darkness. 
 
 "The fool's spoiled my whole evening. She 
 does not like what he's been saying; so she 
 won't come. Damn it all, I don't blame her. 
 I don't like it myself." 
 
 43
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CYRUS' courtship progressed without 
 his appreciating it. Every Sunday 
 afternoon Betty and he walked to- 
 gether. He continued to call for her at three 
 o'clock and Betty would meet him flushed and 
 smiling and ready to enjoy everything. When 
 it stormed the two visited art galleries and 
 museums. She pointed out the pictures that 
 caught her fancy and he promptly admired 
 them, trying to use words that would not 
 come. When the weather permitted they 
 strolled through the park or took long cable 
 car rides, always sitting on the front seat of 
 the grip; that necessitated some squeezing 
 and brought them very close together. The 
 first time that this happened she blushed to 
 the tips of her ears, and Cyrus had been pain- 
 fully embarrassed ; but afterward they laughed 
 and joked, never thinking of changing. 
 
 These rides were flashes of Paradise. On 
 the grip car she was wholly his. There she 
 sat, her wonderful eyes aglow with pleasure, 
 44
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 a tinge of color in her pale face. She was 
 sweet, pretty, adorable above all other 
 women ; charming him into an humble mas- 
 culine submission by a hundred fascinations, 
 all her own. It was very wonderful ! Life 
 was beautiful. So beautiful that he could 
 not absorb it all. How he longed on Sunday 
 evenings to live the day all over again by 
 himself ! But that bliss was denied to him, 
 and he did not complain, because he felt that 
 he had too much as it was. There was a cer- 
 tain limit to happiness, and he was constantly 
 uneasy for fear he would overstep. 
 
 The meetings of the socialists continued. 
 Every Sunday night the orator went to Cyrus 
 and rehearsed all that had occurred. Con- 
 trary to his usual methods, however. Kirby 
 spoke very little of himself and a great deal 
 of that woman. She had made a big effect 
 on him. Her name was Ida Fisher : she was 
 of German parentage, and was a wonder. As 
 far as Cyrus could discern, she was always 
 speaking. That was her life "vocation," 
 Kirby announced, watching Cyrus suspi- 
 ciously to see how he took the word. 
 
 It was a habit with Kirby; he eyed every 
 45
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 one except Cyrus suspiciously when he talked. 
 But he only began it with his pal when Frau- 
 lein Fisher was mentioned. 
 
 The days passed. That fall Cyrus Warner 
 received an unexpected advancement in posi- 
 tion, with an increased salary. It decided 
 matters. The man awakened suddenly to find 
 that his dream was a reality. It was here. 
 He had enough to marry on. An income 
 sufficient for the support of a wife. 
 
 He laid awake all night, stunned by the 
 suddenness and ease with which it had finally 
 happened. He had waited for this very thing 
 thirty years, yet nothing could have taken 
 him more completely unawares. It was ex- 
 traordinary; it was incomprehensible. Next 
 Sunday he could tell Betty. It was not neces- 
 sary to woo any longer. He was in a posi- 
 tion to ask her to face life with him. It was 
 Wednesday now. What would she do and 
 say? When he thought of this he became 
 afraid. It was a fear that checked his joy, 
 and made him cold and uneasy. He had 
 thought of her as his future wife ever since 
 that time long ago when he first saw her. It 
 was no new idea to him : but with her prob- 
 46
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 ably she had never dreamed of such a mar- 
 riage she might be frightened at the mere 
 prospect. Worse still, suppose she would 
 have none of him? Of what use, then, would 
 be all this money and all this education? 
 Without her there could be no cottage; no 
 future. He groaned aloud, fearfully alarmed. 
 How could he wait until Sunday to settle 
 matters. 
 
 He decided finally that he would speak the 
 first thing in the morning. That was it. No 
 waiting for him. The idea pleased him. He 
 would have it out and settled one way or the 
 other. At daylight he altered the plan. He 
 argued the matter while he dressed slowly. 
 He lighted the oil stove, and stood the kettle 
 over the blaze without remembering to fill it 
 with water. 
 
 If he was to lose her, he wanted to post- 
 pone the loss as long as possible. Best not 
 hurry matters, he concluded. He would wait 
 after all, letting things take their course. 
 Suddenly he remembered the kettle, and for 
 a second his mind was busy with household 
 duties. 
 
 Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent 
 47
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 in alternate gloom and elation ; he was hot 
 and cold by turns. He talked the situation 
 over every night with Kirby. Instead of 
 being struck dumb as Warner had imagined, 
 Kirby grew strangely sympathetic with his 
 friend's love affair. The orator listened 
 eagerly. Some day perhaps he would ask 
 a woman to marry him. A woman who 
 who was in accord with his notions of life. 
 Yes, no doubt about it, it would be a woman 
 who spoke. 
 
 "Ah, you're all right, Cy. She won't play 
 you dirt. I just wish I had your chance, that's 
 all." 
 
 Cyrus was frightened. "You ain't in love 
 with her, too?" he exclaimed, aghast. 
 
 "Shu! what's the matter with you? She 
 ain't the only girl, is she? If I get sweet on 
 any one, it'll be one that can talk." 
 
 Kirby spit this out between puffs ; he was 
 lighting his pipe, feigning great abstraction. 
 
 Cyrus' eyes rolled. Being in love, he was 
 terribly acute about its symptoms. He stared 
 a minute ; all at once he shoved out an enor- 
 mous hand ; there was a big grin on his gentle 
 face. Kirby stared in his turn, taking time 
 48
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 to adjust himself. But he could trust Cy. 
 They pulled together. Both men rose, and 
 gripped, wringing each other's hands silently. 
 It was an entire .understanding that existed 
 here. What a fine thing a friendship was 
 that even marriage could not break ! That, 
 no matter what happened, they could always 
 be pals. 
 
 "Don't get weak. Don't give in. You're 
 all right, Cy," was Kirby's parting bracer on 
 Saturday night. 
 
 But Cyrus walked miles on Sunday morn- 
 ing to get sufficient courage to steady his 
 knees. 
 
 It was another heavenly day, clear and cool. 
 Betty wore a new jacket. It fitted her trim 
 little figure to perfection. But her loveliness 
 made the man's heart sink. If only she were 
 less ideal, a little rougher, so that he were 
 more on a level with her. 
 
 Betty pretended not to notice Cyrus' em- 
 barrassment. Yet it was so pronounced that 
 she herself became uneasy. He stammered 
 over everything he tried to utter. He grew 
 flushed and hot, though the wind was blow- 
 ing fiercely from the northeast. It seemed to 
 49
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 him that the difficulties before him were in- 
 surmountable. 
 
 They got off the car at the far limit of its 
 run; it was country there, with a patch of 
 woods and great big trees, and a hint of 
 sweetness in the air. They wandered along 
 side by side, very happy, and by this time 
 not constrained ; still they were a trifle uncer- 
 tain. 
 
 Cyrus was attempting a conversation. 
 Every time he began to talk, Betty raised her 
 eyes and listened, very much interested. It 
 was pleasant, only he could never say what 
 he wished when she looked at him. 
 
 "Wait till we get back of those trees; 
 then " Cyrus said under his breath, mak- 
 ing a strong mental resolve. "Once there 
 well." But back of those trees he stopped 
 and stared, his mouth opened wide in blank 
 amazement. On the grass sat Kirby ; by his 
 side was a little woman with an unhappy, 
 haunted face. Her lips were constantly quiv- 
 ering; her eyes looked at everything be- 
 seechingly. 
 
 Kirby sprang to his feet. "Cy ! Ain't this 
 50
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 luck?" The orator's face had gone red on 
 the instant. 
 
 There was quite a flurry of excitement. 
 The men shook hands, this action giving them 
 time to think. The women viewed each other. 
 A sensation of pity swept over Betty the de- 
 mure, and it was this sensation which caused 
 her to smile adorably when Kirby made them 
 acquainted. 
 
 But Cyrus could not get used to the thing 
 at all. He looked from one to another stu- 
 pidly, completely non-plussed. It was here 
 that he was to propose to Betty ; now, instead, 
 he was one of a party of people. He could 
 not think of a thing to say. He had no idea 
 what to do. His helplessness was complete. 
 When Kirby nudged him, however, Cyrus did 
 remember to take off his hat to Miss Fisher. 
 
 The women seated themselves ; they did 
 not rustle their skirts and giggle, and they 
 displayed no tricks to call to themselves the 
 attention of the men. 
 
 "Wasn't it strange that we should have met, 
 way out here?" said Betty. 
 
 "Every Sunday when the weather is fine 
 Mr. Kirby and I come out here for a few 
 51
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 moments." The inflection in Ida's voice was 
 very gentle." 
 
 "We get rested here before we have to 
 speak," said Kirby. 
 
 "Of course. I wish we had brought a 
 lunch; we could have had supper here to- 
 gether," said Betty, nodding and smiling up 
 at Cyrus. 
 
 His face had been blank ; at once it lighted 
 into being, and he smiled back. "Sure sup- 
 per out here," he repeated. 
 
 "We love picnics, our race. They are dear 
 to the German heart," sighed Miss Fisher. 
 
 "What's the matter with arranging one 
 eh ?" shouted Kirby, alert on the minute. 
 
 "That would be nice." 
 
 "Just us four, eh?" 
 
 "Good work " 
 
 "But the weather isn't it too cold? We 
 might wait until next spring, and go into the 
 woods." The strong wind carried a chill in it. 
 Betty shivered as she spoke. 
 
 "Certainly it's too late for picnics," as- 
 serted Cyrus, expressing his first coherent 
 idea since this unfortunate meeting. There 
 was a pause. 
 
 52
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Say, Cy, I heard of a great thing for a 
 fellow that's got a little cash he wants to 
 blow. It's great." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Well, Miss Fisher's got a brother who 
 ain't strong; he's got some property in the 
 south of this State, with oil on it. He wants 
 to sell, dirt cheap. It's a chance for a fellow 
 with cash." 
 
 The idea caught Cyrus' fancy; if it was a 
 good chance, why, he had cash. 
 
 "Is it in the country?" 
 
 "Oh, Idunno. How is that, Ida?" 
 
 Miss Fisher, thus appealed to, explained: 
 "Otto has consumption. The doctors say he 
 must go away West if he wants to live. It 
 is a little town, a village, and there is much 
 oil there. My brother has a good well, only 
 he has never had any money from it yet, for 
 he's only just got it ready. It's too bad. He 
 needs money awfully. There's a home on the 
 place. A cottage with six rooms." 
 
 "What a pity he has to leave before he gets 
 anything," said Betty, all sympathy. 
 
 "A cottage? white?" Cyrus' eyes were 
 burning. This was a startling bit of intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 53
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Yes. How did you know?" put in Miss 
 Fisher. 
 
 Cyrus blushed and stammered. Kirby came 
 to the rescue. He gave a labored wink. "Oh, 
 Cy knows his business," he said. Both 
 women laughed, Betty a little consciously. 
 
 "I haven't any money saved. If I had, you 
 bet I'd take this, good and plenty. Be your 
 own master, is my idea. No working for a 
 corporation. No being ground under. No, 
 siree. That's why this is a pipe. Here you 
 are oiling for yourself. Selling your own 
 products. It's a big chance for a fellow with 
 cash." 
 
 Cyrus was roused; he was so excited with 
 the sound of this opportunity that he could 
 not keep still. It seemed to be so exactly 
 what he wanted. He was afraid some one 
 would get in ahead of him. Why hadn't he 
 heard of it before ? A cottage, white too ; 
 six rooms! Oh, here was luck if he wasn't 
 too late! The whole dream, entrancing as a 
 fairy tale, come true in a minute. The future 
 jumping at a bound into the present. 
 
 He made Ida promise to write to Otto that 
 very night. He wanted to know exactly how 
 54
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 things stood; if it wasn't asking too much, 
 he would like a plat of the property too; so 
 that he'd be familiar with the lay of the land. 
 He had some money laid by, and perhaps 
 maybe he would take the chance, if Kirby 
 was sure it was all right and Otto would come 
 to good terms. 
 
 "All right!" ejaculated the orator. "Well, 
 all I can say is, I wish things like that would 
 come my way just once, when I had the cash 
 to blow. That's all I wish." 
 
 Betty arose. She was cold, and thought 
 that they had better get back. Miss Fisher 
 and Kirby were to speak that night as usual 
 at a hall only two blocks away. Kirby made 
 a sweeping bow to Betty, talking easily at 
 the same time. Cyrus was amazed at the 
 orator's grace of manner. The two social- 
 ists were sorry they could not ride to town 
 with the other two. Betty echoed the regret, 
 and that put a damper on Cyrus' rising spir- 
 its. He had been immensely pleased with the 
 turn things had taken, for the ride home left 
 him a chance to speak. But he said he was 
 sorry to leave, because the others said so, and 
 they all talked at once when they said good- 
 55
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 bye. Then Betty and Cyrus raced for the car 
 that was just coming out of the barn, and 
 caught it, breathless and flushed. In spite of 
 the cold they clambered up on the front seat 
 of the grip. 
 
 "Were you sorry they couldn't come?" 
 asked Cyrus uneasily. He wanted to know 
 the worst without delay. 
 
 Betty did not answer, but something in her 
 eyes made him take courage. He had no 
 words ready, so he plunged into the thing 
 desperately, and told her somehow what she 
 was to him, and what he wanted to be to her. 
 
 When he got through he was conscious in 
 every part of his big frame that he had put 
 the matter before her hideously. What girl 
 could consider such a wretched proposal? 
 But it was out, and he waited in fearful, terri- 
 fying suspense. Betty turned her face to him ; 
 it was radiant; she snuggled herself a little 
 closer. 
 
 "You dear old silly; I have loved you ever 
 since I found you were starving yourself for 
 me. I even loved that noisy Kirby because 
 he told me about it," she said.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IT was quite true ; Betty the demure did 
 love Cyrus. She laughed to herself that 
 she had concealed it so cleverly. The 
 woman instinct in her had divined long ago 
 what Cyrus was. She saw his kindness and 
 the bigness of his heart ; his steadfastness 
 and moral reliability. She knew that a wom- 
 an's life with him would be exactly what the 
 woman herself made it. His wife would 
 always be his influence ; it would remain with 
 her whether the future held happiness or dis- 
 content. He might never forestall her wishes, 
 but those wishes once expressed would be 
 carried out to the letter. He would never 
 seek to conquer or control, and yet he would 
 always command respect. His gentleness was 
 his strength. His determination his guide. 
 
 Betty had no qualms, no fears about trust- 
 ing herself to him ; there were no risks here. 
 She thanked the chance that had thrown them 
 together, and she loved him in her quiet, deep 
 way, that boded well for what the future 
 might bring. 
 
 57
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Cyrus saw her regularly every evening. It 
 was not exactly courting, for he never men- 
 tioned love. It was characteristic of the man, 
 too, that he never kissed her face. He did 
 not smother her with embraces or grip her 
 with his hands. Occasionally at parting he 
 bent down his height, great above hers, and 
 pressed his lips to her hair that curly hair 
 redolent with the odors of Araby. That was 
 all; yet he often had a desire, an intense de- 
 sire to kiss her; but somehow he could not. 
 It seemed an indelicacy. In his own estima- 
 tion he was so coarse and heavy and clumsy, 
 that to hold her was like the crushing of a 
 flower in some monster machine. 
 
 Betty understood perfectly, and loved him 
 the more for it. These things convinced her 
 of her safety with him. Then what evenings 
 they spent all confidences and plans ! And 
 how they did agree ! When Cyrus spoke of 
 the white cottage Betty was enchanted. 
 
 "I can cook, Cyrus ; really I can. You 
 would not think it knowing my work; but 1 
 can. Oh, it will be so nice, a home of our 
 own. I have always wanted one." 
 
 "And a garden with geraniums?" 
 58
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Yes, and sweet peas. I love those ; don't 
 you. Oh, oh, it's all too wonderful. I wonder 
 when we will hear from Mr. Fisher. I love 
 the country, Cyrus." 
 
 Cyrus had written about the well. He had 
 exhibited the letter with huge pride to Betty. 
 She read it all through. 
 
 "What a beautiful hand you write," was her 
 first remark. 
 
 Then Cyrus' cup was filled to the utmost. 
 "If Fisher would be satisfied with half-pay- 
 ment down, a mortgage on the property and 
 the rest of the amount in semi-annual install- 
 ments, Cyrus had decided to take the bargain. 
 He wrote to that effect. 
 
 Kirby had assured Cyrus violently that 
 Fisher's price had been dirt cheap, by God; 
 clear in the limit ; and Betty had clinched the 
 matter by saying : "You see, Cyrus, we would 
 have our home and your business there all to- 
 gether. We won't have to be separated a 
 minute." 
 
 Clearly it was a great all round stroke of 
 luck. 
 
 Fisher, however, was slow in answering; 
 probably because he was ill and not quick at 
 59
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 decisions. Meanwhile the matter was dis- 
 cussed nightly. At these discussions Cyrus 
 forgot his uneasiness of mind at Fisher's pro- 
 crastination, giving himself up completely to 
 the fascination of Betty's ideas. Away from 
 her he fumed and fretted, his apprehensions 
 assuming enormous proportions. Fisher was 
 a fool, a blackguard ; he would never answer ; 
 he had led Cyrus on to make the offer and 
 then had changed his mind. Perhaps was 
 laughing up his sleeve at Cyrus' simplicity in 
 thinking he would let go of a good thing. 
 Worse yet, he may have found some rich man 
 who could pay the full amount at a sitting. 
 Oh, these capitalists, how they were continu- 
 ally getting into the laboring man's way ! 
 
 So Cyrus nightly worked himself into a 
 fever that told on him more than those peri- 
 ods of starvation. 
 
 It was Fisher's letter that was to decide 
 their wedding day. Under such conditions a 
 man much in love is not to be condemned for 
 ill-temper. 
 
 At last it came. Cyrus tore open the en- 
 velope. He was so confused he could not 
 read a word. 
 
 60
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "What! what!" he kept exclaiming; "I 
 never saw such writing." The letters were 
 swimming upside down ; there was not a 
 straight mark on the page. 
 
 He was at the factory; he tore across to 
 Kirby. 
 
 "Eh, what's this?" said Kirby. 
 
 "A letter Fisher's." Cyrus had never 
 seen Kirby stupid before. 
 
 "Oh, yes; well, what does he say?" 
 
 "That's it, that's it what does he say? 
 Read it out ; I can't see." 
 
 By degrees it got into Kirby's understand- 
 ing what was wanted. He felt his importance 
 immediately, and got his voice into his pro- 
 fessional orotund. It was all right Fisher 
 accepted the terms; but he put in one condi- 
 tion, to the effect that the cold weather was 
 doing him so bad the doctors said he must 
 go away at once ; therefore, Cyrus was asked 
 to make the payment and assume control 
 without delay. 
 
 "How's that ?" said Kirby. "Oh, but you're 
 IT!" 
 
 "All right; all right," nodded Cyrus. To 
 61
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 himself he was saying, "It ain't true ; I'll wake 
 up pretty soon. It ain't true." 
 
 But it was. When he told Betty she clapped 
 her hands. They were getting thin, those 
 perfectly figured hands. He saw it, and rais- 
 ing them to his lips he kissed them. Cyrus 
 was to write that night, saying he would come 
 on in two weeks. 
 
 "I'll tell him my wife and I'll take posses- 
 sion two weeks from today," he suggested. 
 She nodded and smiled and flushed. Her 
 happiness had entire hold on her. 
 
 "It will keep me busy. I have been getting 
 some of my things made. I am glad now 
 that I did. Still, I have more to get." 
 
 Oh, but this was life, glorious life. Betty 
 had managed to save something, too. Out 
 of her little funds she purchased her trousseau 
 and left some to help furnish the cottage. She 
 gave Cyrus some odd-shaped packages to put 
 in his trunk. He carried them to his fortress 
 very flustered. The strangeness of it thrilled 
 him from his head to his heels and set 
 him a-tremble with delight carrying her 
 "things." 
 
 They were to be married at the minister's. 
 62
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Neither the bride nor the groom had any 
 family. Kirby and Ida were to be present in 
 the double capacity of witnesses and guests. 
 
 "Ida is like one of the family, Cyrus. We 
 are taking her brother's home and well, you 
 see," said Betty. 
 
 Of course, Ida was closely related. Cyrus 
 wondered at himself that he had not remem- 
 bered this. The ceremony would take place 
 at twelve o'clock ; then the four were to dine 
 together at a restaurant Kirby had recom- 
 mended. At five the same afternoon Mr. and 
 Mrs. Warner would leave for their future 
 dwelling. 
 
 Betty attended to everything. There were 
 not many details, but what there were ren- 
 dered Cyrus useless. By forfeiting a week's 
 wages Betty was permitted to leave the fac- 
 tory on short notice ; but the day she and 
 Cyrus finished, the company did the hand- 
 some thing by them. 
 
 In a little speech that left Cyrus helpless 
 with embarrassment the manager presented 
 to the future bride and groom, in the name 
 of the company and as a mark of appreciation 
 for their joint excellent services, an entire set 
 63
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 of dishes, sixty-one pieces. These were to be 
 shipped to their home, expressage paid by the 
 company. 
 
 Betty received the present charmingly. She 
 covered Cyrus' confusion by her tact and 1 
 graciousness. Then both of them shook the 
 manager's hand and thanked him for his 
 kindness. 
 
 This ordeal over, Cyrus sighed deeply with 
 relief. He did not dream what was before 
 him. At the door of the factory, ranged in 
 a double line that extended out into the 
 street, were all the factory hands. Kirby had 
 marshalled them, and was waving his arms 
 and shouting orders from the head. Here 
 was a chance for exerting his powers as a 
 leader of men. 
 
 "Here they are. Now, then sjjit it out!" 
 
 Cheered, jostled and joshed, Betty and 
 Cyrus marched down the long line. At their 
 heads, at their bodies, at their feet were aimed 
 showers of rice. There were calls and good- 
 wishes from every one : but the rice was para- 
 mount. Betty covered her face and ran; 
 Cyrus followed. Never had he been so com- 
 pletely upset. He was paralyzed. What 
 64
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 should he do ? What was expected of him ? 
 He joined in the fun. He tried to return 
 joke for joke. He paused to poke half a 
 dozen men in the ribs. He laughed with fear- 
 ful sounds. W'hen he was finally rid of that 
 crowd Betty was two blocks ahead. He was 
 stinging and scratched where the rice had hit 
 him. For weeks after whenever he wore 
 those clothes he scattered rice as he moved. 
 In time he learned to look back upon the 
 episode of parting as a tremendously funny 
 thing. But what he suffered while he was in 
 the midst of it even Betty did not know.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NEITHER Betty nor Cyrus could tell 
 much of that first year in their new 
 home. It took them weeks to get 
 really settled. Their things were slow in com- 
 ing. Extra shelves had to be put up to hold 
 those sixty-one dishes. Cupboards that Betty 
 needed for kettles and pans were lacking. It 
 took Cyrus a long time to get into the new 
 work. He read all the literature on oil that 
 was obtainable, and the more he read the 
 surer he became that he had a good thing. 
 
 But it was all good fun, even after the ex- 
 cited happiness of the honeymoon had drifted 
 into sober, steadfast contentment and house- 
 keeping had become automatic. These two 
 loved each other as a man and woman should 
 love he seeing a divinity worthy of worship 
 in her ; she knowing him to be a noble, gen- 
 erous, high-souled being and ready to mould 
 her personality into his. They were never 
 assailed with doubts ; never even thinking of 
 such a thing. There was no disputing of 
 authority. Betty belonged to Cyrus ; she liked 
 66
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 to say it and feel it ; yet. womanlike, knew all 
 along that it was she who ruled; not auto- 
 cratically, but with love The initiative in 
 everything came from her, yet Cyrus was 
 never conscious of being led. 
 
 Betty had none of those infinite longings, 
 none of that homesickness for past freedom 
 that is so paralyzing to a young husband. 
 She had had no home for years. She had no 
 regrets ; no dreads of future responsibilities. 
 She was happy and she made him happy ; and 
 happiness and love settled the beginning of 
 their life together into adaptable grooves. 
 Betty showed after a little practice that a ste- 
 nographer is not necessarily a poor house- 
 keeper; she was neatness personified, an ad- 
 mirable manager, a good worker. From the 
 windows of her little kitchen she could see 
 Cyrus at the well. She would stop in her 
 baking to wave at him or call out. Then he 
 would straighten up his tall form from his 
 work to smile back an answer. She sang at 
 her cleaning, carolling about the House all 
 day, like a bird ; and Cyrus whistled no tune 
 that had ever been heard of before, but ex- 
 pressive in its tunelessness of his complete 
 6 7
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 content. His gentleness increased hourly. 
 His good-will and readiness to help made him 
 popular in the immediate neighborhood. By 
 degrees this popularity broadened until 
 Cyrus Warner was one of the best-liked men 
 in the town. This delighted Betty; she glo- 
 ried in his praises. With wonderful tact she 
 added to this reputation of his by deeds all 
 her own, for which she received no credit and 
 wanted none. It was enough to her that 
 Cyrus was loved. Oh, it was a dream, this 
 life in the cottage. It was all either one of 
 them asked. It was enough for any one. 
 
 At the end of the first year their little girl 
 came. When it was over Cyrus went all to 
 pieces. He cried and sobbed like a child, and 
 Betty at the other end of the house cried in 
 sympathy. The nurse brewed a cup of strong 
 tea. After gulping it down in immense 
 mouthfuls that burned fearfully all the way. 
 Cyrus felt better. He tiptoed into the bed- 
 room where Betty lay, very white, but prettier 
 than ever before, smiling a greeting at him. 
 The sight of her alive and well unnerved him. 
 He had been sure she would die, she was so 
 delicate, so fragile. He had had no courage 
 68
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 at all. He knelt down, putting his face against 
 her hand, speechless with emotion. 
 
 Presently he tiptoed out again. She was to 
 be guarded against excitement and visitors. 
 He lay awake all that night, thanking God 
 that she was spared to him. Once the high 
 wail of a little voice came out to him. For 
 a moment he pondered with bewilderment, 
 wondered what it was and where it came 
 from. Afterwards he was ashamed. To think 
 he had forgotten his daughter his own 
 daughter ! 
 
 He never forgot again. As that little mite 
 of humanity, the second Betty, grew, every 
 inch of her stature became part of her big 
 father. He groveled at her feet in abject 
 adoration. He was sure there had never been 
 such a child. She never took her mother's 
 place in his heart no one could do that ; but 
 that heart expanded. It had practically taken 
 possession of the man's body. It was a dif- 
 ferent love that he gave these two, but each 
 was as strong in its own way as the other. 
 His blessings were enormous. He was over- 
 whelmed with what had come to him. 
 
 The well paid; its store of oil seemed inex- 
 69
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 haustible; people spoke of it as the best 
 "flower" in the district, and the semi-annual 
 payments were met regularly. Of course it 
 took care and saving, but Betty was an eco- 
 nomical manager, and so was Cyrus for him- 
 self. Penuriousness, however, took a differ 
 ent turn when pennies were put away from 
 his wife and baby. Without Betty's guiding 
 hand, the man would have grown extravagant 
 for her. So the little woman saved secretly 
 from her housekeeping fund, putting away 
 quarters and half-dollars until she hoarded 
 quite a sum. When she handed the amount 
 to Cyrus, it was great fun. His face was such 
 a study on these occasions. Then she would 
 tell him just to wait until the well was all 
 their own. She wouldn't save a ce.nt after 
 that, but spend everything. Oh, she would be 
 extravagant then ; just let Cyrus wait. She 
 announced this gaily, taking his face between 
 her hands and kissing it. 
 
 At the sound of her merriment the baby 
 would totter and teeter and fall against her 
 father's knee in her effort to be taken up 
 and petted. Then Cyrus would sit down and 
 hold both of these little women of his own 
 70
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 and the deliciousness of life was beyond him. 
 There was no such thing as time; there was 
 just the sweetness of existence. 
 
 Winters and summers came and passed. The 
 life of the Warners went on in its accustomed 
 grooves. Both were perfectly contented with 
 the even monotony of the days. At long in- 
 tervals there came a break in the work. Every 
 fall people from all over the country sent in 
 all manner of exhibits to the town. Mon- 
 strous cattle, sleek and well groomed; abnor- 
 mally fat hogs, only a few months old ; pump- 
 kins and squash that resembled some ante- 
 diluvian mammoth. Patch-work of fearful 
 design ; hand-made paintings, usually flowers 
 or fruit, framed in plush; silk quilts worked 
 by old women and covered with impossible 
 raised flowers done in chenille; jelly, pickles, 
 canned fruit. 
 
 The arrival of these things was the signal 
 for great confusion. All day there was a per- 
 sistent noise of sawing and hammering. 
 Booths went up, squares were fenced off for 
 the animals, boxes and crates littered the 
 street. Women stood in groups chattering, 
 laughing, occasional ends of their conversa- 
 71
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 tion breaking out clear above the murmur. 
 The crowd increased hourly. Everywhere 
 there arose a vast babble of noise ; a mingled 
 roar of animals' cries and human voices. 
 
 All previous air of village quiet and relaxa- 
 tion was thrown off. Here and there, like 
 the purring of some enormous cat, came the 
 sound of machinery; a young woman from 
 a distant city spent many hours a day bang- 
 ing tunes out of a piano that had various at- 
 tachments a zither, a banjo, an organ. She 
 explained the instrument before each perform- 
 ance. 
 
 For blocks around wagons, buggies, carry- 
 alls were lined against the sidewalk head cm, 
 the horses sleeping all day. There was a big 
 hurry of business ; clouds of dust settled over 
 everything. The town gave itself over to the 
 county fair, and bristled with noise and im- 
 portance. 
 
 Side-shows hung on to the skirts of the 
 exhibits. There was a circus, where acts of 
 all kinds astonished the audience, every after- 
 noon and evening. In the morning the per- 
 formers paraded the streets behind a brass 
 band ; very tired, very slovenly, very badly 
 72
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 painted, but attired in a bewilderment of gor- 
 geous colors. 
 
 Across from the circus tent was a water 
 tank built in an ungainly wagon. Flaming 
 placards announced this as the home of a re- 
 markable rhinoceros, with a hideous expanse 
 of mouth, and a dangerous disposition. A 
 man stood on the step, urging the men to 
 bring in their ladies ; admission ten cents. He 
 shouted and joked. He kept every one in 
 excellent humor. Crowds stood before the 
 wagon all day, staring at first one poster 
 then another, commenting, shaking their 
 heads. Occasionally one or two went in, 
 looking foolish and feigning great uncon- 
 sciousness. 
 
 In a cage the size of a room sat a South 
 Sea Island cannibal. The children elbowed 
 their way to the front, peering through the 
 wire netting, shuddering while they looked. 
 The keeper sat on a raised platform. With 
 huge flourishes of his arms he continually 
 assured them that the creature was perfectly 
 safe even affectionate if well fed. 
 
 To prove his words he thrust his hand be- 
 tween the bars with a great show of care- 
 73
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 lessness, and whistled at the same time. It 
 was a tremendous moment. 
 
 By the second day order was evolved out 
 of chaos. The people in the village knew this. 
 Year after year it was the second day of the 
 Fair that they attended. Cyrus and Betty 
 and the baby left home early. As they ap- 
 proached the scene of operation the air was 
 full of many odors hay, cigar smoke, steam- 
 ing cattle, cooking coffee, stale vegetables. 
 The excitement too was intense; the spirit 
 of rivalry rampant with owners of squash and 
 turnip. There were loud discussions between 
 farmers as to the relative merits of certain 
 pigs and sheep. 
 
 Every now and then a restless rooster 
 would pierce the air with its shrill crow. 
 
 Cyrus and Betty spent the morning looking 
 at all the exhibits carefully and commenting 
 freely. Every little while they paused to greet 
 a friend. It was like an immense party with 
 no responsibility attached. 
 
 Old Man Shoyer, the wit of the county, 
 
 who hadn't missed a Fair for forty years, was 
 
 on hand. He was one of the sights, and knew 
 
 it, and felt hurt if he wasn't noticed. Every- 
 
 74
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 where he went peals of laughter followed. 
 His sayings were repeated faithfully over and 
 over. 
 
 Shoyer edged up to Mrs. Warner. She was 
 looking at a long green cucumber, set up to 
 resemble a snake. There were black beads 
 put in for eyes, and a painted mouth from 
 which a forked tongue protruded, with wild 
 fierceness. Shoyer looked, too, mumbling his 
 lips that curved in instead of out. Silence fell. 
 Every one waited. 
 
 "If I'm any jedge o' horseflesh, Mis' War- 
 ner, that cucumber is a pretty good sarpint." 
 
 Betty smiled, but Cyrus was pleased beyond 
 measure. He roared and shouted. A crowd 
 collected. 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "Mr. Warner, tell us, tell us !" 
 
 "Ain't he just the funniest man." 
 
 "Shoyer's all right, by gosh ! He's all 
 right." 
 
 Cyrus repeated the joke all day. Whenever 
 he looked at an exhibit that caught his fancy 
 he would begin, "If I'm any jedge o' horse- 
 flesh " then shouted again. 
 
 Little Betty was lifted up to pat the cows. 
 75
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 She crowed and waved her hands, squealing 
 with joy. The women all turned to look at 
 her. Everywhere there were murmurs, "How 
 sweet; isn't she just cute? And so pretty." 
 
 Cyrus was overcome with pride ; his face 
 beamed. "I wish there was a baby show," he 
 said to Betty. 
 
 The Warners had lunch at the Fair. 
 Chicken pie, coffee or tea, and apple or 
 pumpkin pie. It was hot and good, and all 
 you paid was fifteen cents apiece. The 
 woman who served it commented on its ex- 
 cellence and the absurdity of the price. 
 
 "I ain't begrudgin' nothin', but I ain't 
 makin' money, either," she repeated. "Still, 
 I wouldn't miss a Fair if it bankrupt me and 
 my ole man both." 
 
 Cyrus was impressed. He ate in huge 
 mouthfuls, listening and nodding sympathy 
 over his fork. When he was through he was 
 so affected that he gave the woman half a 
 dollar a quarter for himself, a quarter for 
 Betty. As soon as they had eaten they hur- 
 ried to the circus tent. It was too early for 
 the performance. Rows of empty benches 
 ran all around the interior except where the 
 76
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 curtain led back into the dressing room. 
 There was a strong smell of sawdust. 
 
 "It is nice to rest a minute," sighed Betty; 
 "besides, I can get baby to sleep." 
 
 Cyrus got out his pipe. Betty cuddled the 
 little child close in her arms, rocking her body 
 to and fro, singing all the time in a low tone. 
 The racket outside was a subdued murmur 
 here. 
 
 Presently the tent began to fill up. Shoyer 
 came in with a great following. The report 
 got around that the clown was going to try 
 and get the better of the old man. His pock- 
 ets bulged with apples. At intervals all 
 through the afternoon he passed the fruit 
 around to his neighbors. 
 
 It was a great performance. Cyrus could 
 have sat there forever. The barebacked rider 
 was a marvel ; the woman on the trapeze left 
 him breathless. 
 
 "I wonder what Shoyer says to that!" he 
 gasped. 
 
 Betty couldn't look at all. It made her cold 
 
 to even think of the danger. The trained 
 
 bull that fired off a pistol astonished them 
 
 both. "Don't it beat all!" Cyrus exclaimed. 
 
 77
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "I wonder if the man who trains him is 
 kind or cruel," murmured Betty. 
 
 Finally there was a brief pause. A man 
 stumbled out into the ring, dressed as a 
 tramp, and simulating intoxication. Cyrus 
 was disgusted. 
 
 "They ought to put him out. He's hurting 
 the show." 
 
 At once the tramp began to appeal to the 
 ringmaster in hoarse whispers. He wanted 
 to ride he didn't care how. He knew he 
 could beat any fellow in the circus, if he just 
 had a chance. The ringmaster tried to put 
 him off by speaking quietly. No use; the 
 tramp was making a veritable nuisance of 
 himself. At last, to the amusement of the 
 audience, the ringmaster invited the tramp to 
 come in and try. 
 
 Then there was excitement. Betty was 
 dreadfully uneasy. 
 
 "He'll get hurt, Cyrus; I know he'll get 
 hurt." 
 
 "Serve him right," returned Cyrus, his eyes 
 following the intoxicated man in an unblink- 
 ing stare. Even Shoyer was speechless. 
 
 After great efforts, assisted by three men, 
 78
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 the tramp got onto the horse. He swayed 
 and promptly lost his balance. He fell con- 
 tinually, while the audience cheered. Sud- 
 denly a woman shrieked. Betty looked up ; 
 instantly her face flamed. Something was 
 happening to the fellow's clothes. He was 
 looking around, dreadfully embarrassed. 
 Something terrible was sure to be the out- 
 come if they didn't look out, but nobody 
 seemed willing to help the creature. The 
 men howled. Suit by suit this intoxicated 
 tramp was shedding clothes, trousers, coats, 
 vests, spun through the air. Finally Cyrus, 
 who had been breathing hard, slapped his 
 knee with an exclamation of delight. 
 
 "Well, by gum! He fooled me pretty 
 square. He fooled the whole kit of us. Won- 
 der how Shoyer feels now." 
 
 Then Betty took courage and looked up. 
 The tramp was a tramp no longer, but a daz- 
 zling young man in blue tights, standing 
 easily on the horse's back and making grace- 
 ful gestures to the roaring audience. How 
 he had fooled every one ! 
 
 The Warners stayed the show out. Then 
 on account of little Betty they went home 
 79
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 just as the colored lanterns were being strung 
 up around the fairground. It was a great 
 day. The two discussed it in detail. 
 
 "Mercy, how I felt when that tramp began 
 to take off his trousers !" said Betty. 
 
 Cyrus howled in remembrance. "Wasn't 
 he great ! And those women on that high 
 swing I tell you what, that's dangerous." 
 
 "Yes, I couldn't look at all. Oh, Cyrus, it 
 seems almost wicked, doesn't it, for girls to 
 have to risk their lives just to amuse people." 
 
 And Cyrus was quite sure it was most un- 
 fortunate. 
 
 It was after Betty the second passed her 
 tenth birthday that the last payment was 
 made. Cyrus and his wife owned their cot- 
 tage, owned their yard, owned their well. It 
 was all their own. Only years of close sav- 
 ing, hard work and deprivations had made 
 this possible. That they had gotten happiness 
 and contentment out of those same years did 
 not lessen the fact of their toil. Between 
 times they together had fixed up their home 
 and had made a pretty place of it. 
 
 The cottage in its immaculate white and 
 green was Cyrus' pride. He painted it every 
 80
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 second year with great care. Betty had 
 trained vines and creepers up the front. On 
 the side was a rose-bed, and winding above 
 the kitchen windows were purple, white and 
 pale-pink Morning Glories. It seemed as 
 though the sun could not leave this cottage. 
 It was shining on all of the windows all of the 
 time. Small wonder that the girl Betty out- 
 grew all her clothes and that both she and 
 her mother sang perpetually. Sometimes by 
 dint of a special economy they were able to 
 add to their rather scant stock of furniture 
 a rocking-chair, a book-case, once a rug. 
 
 Cyrus' only regret in all these years was 
 his loss of Kirby. A few months after the 
 Warners had left the factory Kirby had been 
 discharged. His temper was fearful when no 
 one was near to help him check it. He wrote 
 Cyrus that he was going to devote himself 
 entirely to speechmaking; Ida advised it. He 
 felt himself that he was cut out for the work. 
 He was not always going to be bound like 
 a slave not he. Also, he had moved away 
 from the tenement ; it was too dull there with- 
 out Cy. But he forgot to give his friend his 
 new address. Cyrus consulted Betty ; she ad- 
 81
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 vised his writing an answer to the letter, send- 
 ing it to the tenement; but he received no 
 reply, and Kirby was not heard from again. 
 There always lurked in Cyrus' mind an affec- 
 tionate remembrance of the fiery tongued 
 orator. Probably it was heightened by the 
 stupendous fact that Kirby had manipulated 
 the introduction between himself and Betty 
 the demure. 
 
 Time passed. The well paid, enough for a 
 comfortable living and something sent to the 
 bank at the beginning of each July and each 
 January. Cyrus settled down into a kind of 
 premature old-manship. Betty the demure, 
 pretty and dainty as ever, worked and sang. 
 
 Betty the second, taller than her mother 
 and quite as pretty, was becoming wayward. 
 She adored lovely dresses and was quite con- 
 tented not to work. Sometimes she tossed her 
 head and made eyes. These were fascinating 
 tricks in her father's sight, but the mother 
 looked grave and a bit of uneasiness cast its 
 first shadow over her married life. 
 
 It was on the second of August that an 
 important fact of news ran through the town 
 on a wave of excitement. It sped on, flying 
 82
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 from tongue to tongue. Finally it reached 
 the cottage. A private car, with an engine 
 engaged especially to pull it, had come into 
 the station. Mr. Fellows Anthony J. Fel- 
 lows had arrived to look their village aver.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IT was astounding. Cyrus came into the 
 kitchen and delivered the gossip to 
 Betty. Betty the second was there listen- 
 ing. She clapped her hands and jumped up 
 and down. 
 
 "Take me to see it, father! Oh, a car, all 
 by himself! Think of it! My, my! How I 
 would like it ! Does it take a million dollars, 
 father, to have a train all your own ? Oh ! 
 Oh!" 
 
 Cyrus yielded ; he always yielded ; so Betty 
 ran to get into another dress. Before she 
 appeared again, another bomb was dropped 
 in camp ; Mr. Fellows sent word by a villager 
 (had given him fifty cents to deliver the mes- 
 sage) that he would be obliged if Mr. Warner 
 would call at his car, "to talk business." 
 
 Cyrus was terribly troubled on the instant. 
 His wife was correspondingly proud. "You 
 see, dear, he has heard of your success." 
 
 She helped him with clean linen; she put 
 84
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 him into his best suit. Betty, the child, by this 
 time was dancing with excitement. 
 
 "Take me, father, oh, do; oh, do. You 
 know I never saw such a thing. And to go 
 inside oh, father!" 
 
 "Leave your father alone, Betty." 
 
 "Mother, please let me go." 
 
 "Yes, I'll take the child. Am I all right, 
 Betty? Which hat shall I wear? What do 
 you suppose he wants eh? Shall I just talk 
 right out as though I was rich too?" 
 
 Betty encouraged. She told him how 
 capable he was, and that he was not to be at 
 all embarrassed. By the time the two were 
 off the mother sat down exhausted. She 
 waved to her daughter from the porch, think- 
 ing how like an exquisite flower the child 
 looked in her thin, pink dimity and Her hair 
 blowing curly and loose about her face. Her 
 big pink hat was just a bit awry. She jumped 
 and skipped, keeping tight hold of Cyrus' 
 great hand. The mother did not rejoice in 
 the child's attractiveness. It was too great; 
 too dangerously great. Perhaps the maternal 
 instinct sensed danger. One cannot explain
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 a mother's heart ; it has a sixth sense and it 
 warns ahead of time. 
 
 Mr. Fellows saw Cyrus on the station plat- 
 form at once. He arose and went himself 
 to the door. Cyrus, still leading Betty, 
 stepped up awkwardly. In his left hand he 
 held his big straw hat. 
 
 "Come in. Come in, Mr. Warner. Hot 
 day. My man will bring us a glass of some- 
 thing. Your daughter? What a charmingly 
 pretty girl." 
 
 Cyrus was dumb ; he tried to speak ; the 
 result was an unintelligible mutter. He had 
 no knowledge of small talk. Preliminaries 
 were a source of immense difficulty. 
 
 Mr. Fellow's eye-glasses hung on a small 
 cord suspended about his neck. He twirled 
 this incessantly. He was well groomed, clean- 
 shaven, sleek. 
 
 Inside the car they seated themselves, Betty 
 pulling herself up delightedly on an elaborate 
 chair, looking everywhere, her eyes sparkling, 
 her fact radiant. 
 
 All at once she glanced at a couch at the 
 other end of the room; a man lay stretched 
 out, eyeing her impudently. He was a young 
 86 '
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 man, very dark, very good looking and very 
 bestial as to countenance. He was dressed 
 in wonderful garments. Betty stared hard. 
 What a beautiful being this was, and what 
 clothes ! There were jewels on him too. 
 Rings on his long white fingers, and his scarf 
 was held in place by an emerald snake that 
 did not seem like a pin at all, but glittered 
 and gleamed and threw back every reflection 
 of light like some live thing. 
 
 Cyrus had paid no heed to this individual; 
 he was in a very trying position. Mr. Fellows 
 repeatedly offered him things to drink that he 
 did not want, and to refuse politely was a 
 problem. The man of money had a slippery 
 way of speaking; words glided from his 
 mouth without the least effort. Cyrus won- 
 dered at this, vaguely wishing he had pos- 
 session of the same gift. 
 
 Fellows straightened up; he was ready to 
 introduce the subject in hand. He spoke of 
 oil wells, and their products, and the future 
 for oil. At last Cyrus felt himself on solid 
 earth. He began to talk, telling all about 
 his property; his pride in it was very appar- 
 ent ; also, he was remembering Betty's in- 
 87
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 structions. The elegant young- man rose list- 
 lessly, wearied by inaction and amused at this 
 pretty child's open-eyed admiration. By the 
 time Cyrus was fairly getting into his subject 
 Teddy Fellows was leaning over very close 
 to Betty, talking to her in a way she had never 
 been talked to before. 
 
 Her face flushed, her lips parted in an un- 
 certain smile, and she was a little breathless. 
 He told her wonderful things, all accom- 
 plished through the agency Money. He 
 showed her beautiful things all bought with 
 money. He intimated at greater possibilities 
 even than he had spoken of, in money. He 
 feasted her upon the marvels of wealth, of 
 which he possessed a large share. All the 
 time he talked with languid airs, taking no 
 pains to conceal what he thought of her and 
 using flattery with lavish freedom. Betty was 
 spellbound. 
 
 "If you are as beautiful two years from now 
 as you are today, Betty, there is no reason 
 why you shouldn't have money to use," he 
 began after a moment's reflection, his eyes 
 never traveling from her face. 
 
 "How?" she exclaimed, trembling with ex- 
 88
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 citement. It was almost her first speech since 
 she had seen this being. 
 
 But he only laughed; her innocence was 
 delicious. "You will think of me sometimes, 
 won't you, Betty?" he asked. 
 
 Before the child could reply, Cyrus arose : 
 he too was flushed, and he looked very posi- 
 tive ; he and Fellows had clashed. 
 
 'Think it over, Mr. Warner. Of course, 
 it's merely a proposition. It's my advice to 
 you to take my offer ; for your own good, you 
 understand. Personally it is nothing to me; 
 remember that, my friend." They were Mr. 
 Fellow's parting words, and he was twirling 
 the cord fearfully. He bowed Cyrus and 
 Betty out of the car with considerable cere- 
 mony, and the two started homeward, Cyrus 
 still ignorant of his daughter's entertainment 
 by that other man. 
 
 They walked rapidly and silently, both 
 father and daughter busy with a multitude of 
 thoughts disastrous thoughts, too. It was 
 remarkable to watch the effect that visit had 
 made upon these two. 
 
 The woman in Betty had suddenly leaped 
 to the front. A powerful something stirring 
 89
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 in her and binding her to this stranger. She 
 was ashamed of the very thoughts that were 
 coursing through her brain, as uncontrollable 
 as the winds of Heaven. It was as if her un- 
 doing had already begun. 
 
 Betty the demure was waiting for them. 
 Directly she saw them she sent the little girl 
 away to change her gown. The wife had 
 only to look at her husband to know that 
 something had roused and perplexed him to 
 an extraordinary extent. His face was white 
 and drawn. 
 
 "What is it, dear?" she asked, going to him 
 and putting both arms about his neck. 
 
 It burst out in a torrent: "He wants me 
 to sell our well our home here, that's been 
 so much." The man choked; he buried his 
 face in his hands. 
 
 For once even Betty was stupefied. 
 
 "What do you mean, Cyrus?" she cried, 
 aghast with the thoughts that rushed in upon 
 her. 
 
 "Why, you see, he's got oil wells, and he 
 
 wants more. He's heard of our property 
 
 here. Every one knows that the well is good," 
 
 proudly. "But I told him I could not sell; 
 
 90
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 that it was my home, my business, my living 
 why, it's my whole life. He can't force me to 
 sell, and I won't sell. By God, I won't." 
 
 A reaction was coming over the gentle 
 Cyrus. That instinct of the father to protect 
 his own; the instinct that makes beasts of 
 men when the necessity forces. 
 
 "Of course he can't force you ; don't worry, 
 dear. It's not possible to take your property 
 away from you if you are not willing to sell. 
 He simply knows it's good, and naturally is 
 interested, being a business man. But that's 
 all. Don't worry, dear ; it's all right." 
 
 But though she soothed and encouraged 
 and took the burden from her husband, some- 
 where deep in her heart Betty had a fearful 
 shrinking. If the man was determined, what 
 might he not do with money? 
 
 Together they wrote a letter to Fellows 
 that night. Cyrus was stubborn on the point 
 that he would not see the capitalist again. 
 Not for all the money in the universe. They 
 could only work at cross-purposes ; besides, 
 he disliked him. What was the use of an- 
 other visit ? In the letter they jointly declined
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 to sell their well and their property to Mr. 
 Fellows. 
 
 "He offered me what I paid Fisher for it, 
 Betty ; but the price ain't the question," Cyrus 
 had acknowledged, as if in justice to Fellows. 
 
 Betty nodded; she understood only too 
 well that the money was not all. The letter 
 was dispatched. The next afternoon Mr. Fel- 
 lows and Teddy and the private car, with the 
 special engine, sped away. But for weeks 
 after that visit Betty lay awake all through 
 the hours of the night, staring, wondering, 
 fearing; and Betty the second was restless, 
 and Cyrus, unlike himself, worked without 
 whistling and writhed in his dreams. The 
 news soon spread that all the well-owners had 
 been interviewed, and all except two had re- 
 fused to sell. Then it was whispered that 
 Fellows had left, vowing vengeance against 
 the blockheads. Half the town was waiting 
 and wondering and despairing, as Cyrus and 
 Betty were. What would be the next move? 
 
 92
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ABOUT this time Kirby and Ida Fisher 
 married. The wedding was to have 
 been a quiet affair; at the last minute, 
 however, all this was changed. A friend of 
 Kirby's, also the friend of a theatrical man- 
 ager, who had a show running in town a 
 melodrama bristling with battles, murders 
 and sudden deaths had worked up a great 
 scheme. He approached the orator with it. 
 Instead of having the orator's marriage take 
 place in the parlor at the minister's, it should 
 be performed on the stage, after the show. It 
 would work up in great shape. Bridesmaids, 
 best man and groomsmen could be drawn 
 from the company. The theater orchestra 
 would furnish appropriate musical selections. 
 The audience would witness the affair from 
 the theater; afterward an impromptu recep- 
 tion, held on the stage, would give each and 
 every one a chance to offer congratulations, 
 and shake hands with the bridal couple. It 
 would be an event calculated to live in the 
 93
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 memory a lifetime an historical occurrence 
 to hand down to one's grandchildren genera- 
 tion after generation. 
 
 The prospect pleased Kirby beyond words. 
 The whole arrangement was so in harmony 
 with his dream of the future. There was no 
 doubt about it, it would catch the public. 
 Immediately he saw himself up there, a noble 
 figure standing sublimely before a huge audi- 
 ence, stilled with admiration and awe. He 
 was willing to let them become a part of the 
 most serious drama in his life. Willing be- 
 cause he had sacrificed his life to the masses. 
 
 Kirby 's nerves and emotions were always 
 on a strained condition of exultation. Now 
 he could hardly speak. He clapped his friend 
 on the shoulder, holding him at arm's length. 
 
 "All right! It's all right. If I can fix 
 Ida, why I'm willing to see the thing 
 through " He could get no farther. 
 
 Ida's eyes grew frightened when Kirby 
 explained the idea, but she had no chance 
 to demur. The fact was Kirby always domi- 
 nated her with his rapid phrases of intense 
 feeling. 
 
 Their consent once given, the management 
 94
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 lost no time. The city flamed with the An- 
 nouncements of a wedding on the stage, with 
 real ministers and real people, all for the one 
 price of admission. There was an article 
 about the affair in the morning dailies. Even 
 Kirby's picture was in the paper. 
 
 Meanwhile the orator had been presented 
 to the professionals who were to be his as- 
 sistants. During the introduction he stood 
 erect, impassive, gazing with a stare of fixed 
 attention. He regarded these men and 
 women as a general who before some decisive 
 battle selects aides from his staff. 
 
 After they had all shaken hands, Kirby de- 
 cided on the villain to do the part of best man. 
 His carriage and hauteur entitled him to this. 
 The leading lady would assist Ida. The first 
 old man, a fresh young fellow, with very pink 
 cheeks, was to give the bride away. Kirby 
 requested him to keep on the melodrama 
 make-up during the ceremony. There was 
 something so inadequate about a youth play- 
 ing the part of the father without snowy hair 
 and wrinkles. The leading man and the in- 
 genue would fill out the active members of 
 
 95
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 the bridal party. Kirby communicated these 
 arrangements to Ida. 
 
 The great day arrived. At a quarter before 
 eight o'clock in the evening the management 
 sent a carriage for the bride and groom elect. 
 It had been decided that the couple were to 
 drive to the theater and witness the perform- 
 ance from one of the boxes. Ida was in a 
 state of nervous tension, bordering on a col- 
 lapse, fearful of facing that multitude of 
 people. 
 
 Kirby, as became a man of the world, ac- 
 cepted the situation with great complacency. 
 He felt that he had been called upon to play 
 a part a part that was to launch him into a 
 public life, and the importance of every move 
 was apparent. 
 
 The manager met the two at the theater 
 entrance. The men shook hands with much 
 eclat. Kirby presented Miss Fisher, and the 
 three moved on, the orator with Ida clinging 
 to his arm. Their entrance into the box was 
 martial. Kirby was prepared, had the audi- 
 ence demanded, not only to bow an acknowl- 
 edgement of the greeting, but to make a few 
 remarks. He would begin on matrimony as a 
 96
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 noble institution. This would be followed by 
 a statement of his pride in appearing before 
 such a distinguished gathering of men and 
 women. He would finish with a graceful ex- 
 pression of his thanks and Miss Fisher's for 
 the kindly interest that had been extended to 
 them by the audience. 
 
 But the audience was engrossed in the play. 
 The stage was darkened ; the villain, in hide- 
 ous mustache and a long, black cape, was 
 planning fearful complications for the heroine. 
 
 Ida and Kirby seated themselves unob- 
 served. Miss Fisher gave a trembling breath 
 of relief and huddled down to make herself 
 smaller. Kirby, arms folded, brows con- 
 tracted, erect, impassive, nonchalant, pulled 
 his chair closer to the stage. Occasionally he 
 turned and glanced at the rows of seats. Not 
 a vacant space to be seen; the house was 
 packed to the doors. Rows of heads every- 
 where ; tier after tier of men and women here 
 to see him. To witness his marriage to Ida. 
 Even the orchestra had disappeared under the 
 stage, and lines of chairs filled the space. It 
 was an entrancing vision. He felt very noble 
 and heroic. 
 
 97
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Ida knew very little of what was going on 
 anywhere about her. She was wishing from 
 the depths of her heart that the evening were 
 safely over. Kirby might be cut out for this 
 sort of thing, but not she. Finally the mo- 
 ment arrived. The villain had been baffled ; 
 the first old man was blessing the weeping 
 heroine; the hero, supporting first old lady, 
 was giving voice to noble platitudes ; the in- 
 genue pirouetted all over the stage, stopping 
 occasionally to snap a long wad of gum in 
 full view of the audience. 
 
 As the curtain fell in a storm of approval 
 the manager appeared at the back of the box. 
 
 "Now is the time," he whispered hoarsely. 
 Ida started guiltily. Kirby, grandly grave, 
 stepped out royally. The scene-shifters were 
 hurrying around, making appropriate set- 
 tings for the wedding. All the actors, except 
 the leading lady and the first old man were 
 in the dressing rooms, taking off paint, 
 powder and superfluous hair ; the men putting 
 on evening dress, sticking huge white chrys- 
 anthemums in their left buttonholes. The 
 ingenue was making an elaborate toilet. 
 
 The orchestra came up on to the stage. The 
 98
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 leader, a fat little German, arranged his musi- 
 cians into groups in the wings ; and stationed 
 himself where he could watch the ceremony. 
 An altar was placed down middle center, 
 with great effect. During these changes the 
 audience outside became impatient; cat calls, 
 crys and remarks came back to the actors. 
 There were shouts of Kirby's name, followed 
 by "speech." Kirby heard it distinctly. 
 
 All at once everything was ready. The min- 
 ister took his place back of the altar; in his 
 hands he held a prayer-book. Before him 
 and directly in middle center was Kirby, ele- 
 gant in a rented dress suit that fitted only 
 in spots. His hair was brushed straight back. 
 At his right stood Ida, fearfully pale, clutch- 
 ing hysterically at a bouquet that had been 
 placed in her hands. Grouped around these 
 two were the villain, minus his mustache; the 
 leading lady and the first old man. Just back 
 of this circle were the ingenue in long skirts 
 ar.d without the gum, and the leading man. 
 Artificial flowers, unnatural hand-made palms 
 and green moss-covered banks were every- 
 where on the stage. 
 
 The manager gave the signal. The orches 
 99
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 tra leader raised his baton. The musicians 
 broke into the wedding march ; the curtain 
 swung up. 
 
 The audience fell into a sudden quiet, lean- 
 ing forward, straining its ears to catch the 
 sound of the service. The orchestra was play- 
 ing pianissimo, but the music was louder than 
 Ida's trembling responses. Kirby's tones 
 rang out clear, important. At the prayer the 
 minister spread out his hands and arms so as 
 to include everyone. Then all on the stage 
 knelt. The professionals went through the 
 manoeuvre with the precision of their calling. 
 The leading lady swept down, her dress fall- 
 ing in even folds. She was weeping beauti- 
 fully. The villain was a cloud of gloom. The 
 leading man posed, his eyes rolled heaven- 
 ward. First old man entered so completely 
 into his part that he forgot his youth and 
 raised a trembling hand to his forehead. His 
 mouth was quivering. 
 
 In less than five minutes it was all over. 
 The orchestra thundered into a triumphal 
 march, and the manager stepped into view to 
 offer congratulations. The leading lady still 
 tremendously affected, kissed Ida. The vil- 
 ioo
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 lain and Kirby wrung each other's hands, 
 both in a state of heroics. A clamor was ris- 
 ing out in front. The audience remembering 
 the placards, demanded that the announce- 
 ments should be carried out to the letter. It 
 wanted its money's worth. A reception had 
 been promised, hadn't it? 
 
 The manager superintended everything. 
 First he made a little speech that was wildly 
 applauded. Then the rush began. Men and 
 women crowded about Mr. and Mrs. Kirby. 
 For over an hour, a sea of people surged to 
 the front, shaking hands, laughing, chatter- 
 ing, trying to think what to say. 
 
 Kirby was very superior. He accepted the 
 good wishes majestically, and introduced Mrs. 
 Kirby, sometimes with large commanding 
 gestures ; again by an elegant inclination of 
 his head. Occasionally she leaned closer to 
 speak to him. At once his whole attitude be- 
 came deferential. Ida was smiling and look- 
 ing very happy. She was recovering from 
 her nervousness. All this time the orchestra 
 was lending its efforts towards a successful 
 completion of the evening. One could not 
 
 IOI
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 hear a word his neighbor said above the lam- 
 entations of the horns and drums. 
 
 Presently the theatre began to empty. The 
 rows of seats grew dark and lonesome. An 
 usher began to close the chairs, banging them 
 noisily. Two scrub women stood back in the 
 foyer with pails and mops, waiting for a 
 chance to begin work. And Ida, very tired, 
 very anxious to have it all over with, gave a 
 sigh of contentment as the last couple passed. 
 
 It had been a great evening; a most suc- 
 cessful affair, and on the whole it had passed 
 more agreeably than she had dared to hope. 
 People had been so kind. 
 
 Kirby and Ida drove home through the 
 quiet streets, the city looking big and un- 
 natural in its desertion. Ida slipped her 
 hand into her husband's. 
 
 "We ought to be happy, if good wishes 
 count," she said shyly. 
 
 After this partnership, as Kirby called his 
 marriage to Ida, the orator conceived the 
 idea of editing a paper. A paper dealing with 
 the woes of the down-trodden laboring class 
 the bulwarks of the nation. In each issue 
 there would be a fierce article on the vices, 
 102
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 deceptions, and cruelties of capitalists an ar- 
 ticle that showed them up. He would give to 
 the world a paper that feared nothing, asked 
 nothing and spoke the truth. Also in each 
 issue Ida would conduct a German column 
 devoted to practically the same kind of work ; 
 calling on the poor to arise and assert them- 
 selves, make America free in truth, as it was 
 in name. 
 
 Kirby was willing and ready to back his 
 tirades with his life. Like all fanatics he 
 dedicated his life to any cause that arose. But 
 no two ways about it, he was gaining a kind 
 of influence among a certain class of people. 
 His bellowings and flow of lurid phrases ap- 
 pealed to the uneducated who could not follow 
 an argument. Those who could not work 
 because they would not, adhered to him as- 
 siduously. Their praise unfitted Kirby for all 
 usefulness. He became involved in fearful 
 statements and yelled himself free of them. 
 He discussed the social problem wildly and 
 glared defiance. Let anyone come on who 
 would and disprove. 
 
 He banged, and howled, and worked him- 
 self into a high pitch of frenzy through his 
 103
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 own clamor. His audience unfailingly caught 
 his excitement, and howled applause and ap- 
 proval at him. After his speech they would 
 all rise and shake their fists into the faces of 
 their neighbors, asserting the orator's bril- 
 liancy; with monster oaths they cursed the 
 tyranny which held them down; they blas- 
 phemed the monied interests of the country 
 and pledged themselves to a gory badge of 
 freedom. 
 
 "When the time was ripe the capitalists 
 would see how they could struggle. Oh, it 
 was a crew for a government to tremble at. 
 Just wait, they weren't started yet, but when 
 they were Uncle Sam had better look out. 
 In time they would run the policy of the 
 United States ; put up their own President." 
 
 Here there was a pause, while wild eyes 
 traveled towards Kirby. He was their leader 
 now, a fearless man of great strength. Well, 
 perhaps who could say what he might be 
 when they ruled the government. 
 
 During this pause Kirby assumed a terribly 
 
 unconscious pose ; placing one hand behind 
 
 him, the other between the buttons of his 
 
 coat; all the time his blood was coursing 
 
 104
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 riotously through his veins. Ah, he was a 
 leader of men; some day his name would be 
 known from one end of the universe to the 
 other. 
 
 But being a leader of men and an editor of 
 a paper did not bring in vast sums upon 
 which to manage his family. Kirby borrowed 
 freely, and with large faith in himself. He 
 did not trouble himself with quick payments 
 of his debts. But even this method of ob- 
 taining money left him wretchedly poor most 
 of the time. The poorer he got the more ram- 
 pant he became. He often thought of Cyrus, 
 sometimes with a notion of writing to him, 
 for help. He put it aside, however, too loyal 
 to his friend to burden him. Still, his con- 
 tinued ill-luck and his persistent poverty ex- 
 asperated him. He began to drink exces- 
 sively. After one of these debauches his talk 
 was something fearful. His brain flamed 
 with the heat of whiskey, and even men of his 
 own stamp feared him. He was a beast, a 
 raging, roaring, irresponsible, dangerous ani- 
 mal. 
 
 Meanwhile Ida had given birth to a sickly, 
 pinch-faced boy with eyes as haunted as her 
 105
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 own. The father regarded him as another 
 bulwark of society, and planned a flaming 
 future for the tiny mite. 
 
 In her half-starved condition the mother 
 lay week after week, too ill to move, too 
 wretched to be conscious of the neglect and 
 want that besieged them. The rooms where 
 the Kirbys lived were abominably dirty ; they 
 reeked with filth and foul odors. Small 
 wonder that the baby moaned and wailed. 
 What had it come into, anyway? What was 
 this world? 
 
 Kirby was seldom home. He arrived late 
 at night, bringing with him a heavy smell of 
 alcohol and stale tobacco smoke. He was 
 unkempt, a week's growth of black beard dark- 
 ened his face. His clothes were frayed and 
 ragged. He was never brutal to Ida, even 
 in his drunken rages, but he was sullen, use- 
 less and lazy. What was the use anyway; 
 no sense in trying as long as monopolists had 
 their way. Wait until things began to come 
 HIS way, just once; then he'd alter his life. 
 There would be a revolution of his planning 
 and leading, when the time was ripe. Finish 
 with that, then he and Ida would live in a 
 1 06
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 house, by God, and a swell house. He was 
 working to that end, but it required time. 
 Just let him control. Let the bulwarks of the 
 nation be in his guarding and see. 
 
 He would roar this out at his wife repeat- 
 edly, making the scant furniture rattle with 
 his gesticulations. The boy woke in a fright 
 at the noise and moaned pitifully. Ida quiv- 
 ered, weary with the heaviness of her hus- 
 band's tones. Sometimes she cried from 
 sheer weakness and despair; then Kirby's 
 face would become mottled with rage and he 
 would swear horribly at the state of things. 
 
 Far away in the southern part of the State 
 Cyrus was wretched too, for things in the lit- 
 tle cottage were going badly, very badly. 
 Fellows, Anthony J. Fellows was having 
 his revenge. This man counted his money by 
 millions, but that was not the issue. He 
 wanted these oil-wells that he could not buy. 
 The fact of resistance made his more deter- 
 mined. He would have them. He would 
 show those duffers, those country Bills what 
 he and his money could accomplish ; and that 
 they could not bulldoze him out of what he 
 
 wanted. 
 
 107
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 He sat apart in his suite of offices and 
 planned the calamity. When he was ready, 
 by a word he sent down the price of oil. It 
 went with a crash. It was a matter of no 
 concern to him how far the price tumbled. 
 Ruin could not beset him. In the end he 
 had to gain. Millions backed him, hundreds 
 backed his opponents not opponents but 
 victims ; there was no question of opposition 
 in the matter. The news came like a clap of 
 thunder in that little village. Those small 
 producers were paralyzed. Oil went off two 
 and three cents at a time. The market was 
 in pieces. 
 
 Cyrus became old in a week. He said noth- 
 ing, because it was not his way to complain ; 
 but he understood his helplessness. Long 
 ago Kirby had warned him against rich men ; 
 Kirby had been right, far-seeing. He had 
 spoken truly. There was nothing exag- 
 gerated in those harangues. Theories of life 
 were absurd. 
 
 Cyrus worked. He did it out of force of 
 habit ; also because he loved every inch of 
 his ground ; but he was stunned, bewildered, 
 1 08
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 and he dared not stop to think ahead a min- 
 ute. The injustice of it was appalling. 
 
 "I won't quit; and we ain't paupers yet," 
 he would cry with deep desperation in every 
 tone ; and Betty always acquiesced. 
 
 They never heard again directly from Fel- 
 lows; but that was quite unnecessary; he 
 had put oil so low that none of the small men 
 could sell. He did not need to be heard from 
 further. 
 
 After a few months the Warners began to 
 draw some money from their little store in 
 the savings bank. They were deprived of 
 their only source of income they had to live. 
 Betty cried over this. She showed no sor- 
 row before Cyrus in fact she was merry and 
 bright when he was anywhere near, but by 
 herself she wept and prayed. 
 
 In the deepness of her grieving over Cyrus 
 and her home, and what was coming, she lost 
 sight of her daughter; otherwise she would 
 not only have noticed, she would have be?n 
 startled at what she saw in little Betty's face. 
 
 The child drooped. She was silent, and 
 subdued, and started guiltily when anyone 
 addressed her suddenly. She did not sleep. 
 109
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 She ate so little that sometimes she grew 
 faint from very want of sustenance. She had 
 fallen into the habit of taking long walks by 
 herself. Anywhere to get away. Sometimes 
 it was through the fields, occasionally down 
 the broad country road that led on and on 
 indefinitely; but more often it was to the 
 woods. Here Betty would sit down in the 
 very thick of the trees and think and think. 
 She came so close to Teddy in her thoughts 
 that it would not have surprised her any mo- 
 ment if he had appeared. It was wonderful 
 the unreasonable influence that one meeting 
 had exerted over her. 
 
 Betty staid away from home as long as she 
 dared; sitting motionless hour after hour; 
 watching nothing, doing nothing only think- 
 ing. This solitude had become a passion with 
 the child. It was taking her a long time to 
 become accustomed to that other self in her. 
 It had awakened with such suddenness the 
 girl was terrified. Until that meeting with 
 Teddy there had been nothing like this in her 
 whole being; no thought of anyone or any- 
 thing beyond her father and mother. Her 
 life had been tranquil and sufficient, 
 no
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 But this disturbance that had come swift 
 and strong had changed it all. It had caught 
 her and held her fast and was claiming not 
 only recognition but her entire attention. 
 She couldn't escape it. Moreover, the girl 
 was assailed from a thousand different 
 points. Sometimes she was tortured and 
 racked and ashamed, yet all the while, beneath 
 the pain there was a strange element of joy 
 that was like nothing she had ever experi- 
 enced before. She would cry with anger at 
 her perplexity at the same time would thrill 
 under gusts of such intense emotion that she 
 shivered and drew her body together. 
 
 Why had all this come to her anyway? She 
 did not know herself at all. Everything was 
 so unexpected. She wanted nothing of this 
 kind. Certainly she had not sought it. Who 
 could have guessed that the meeting with 
 Teddy would have involved any such crisis as 
 this. It took away half of the enjoyment of 
 the thing. 
 
 If she could have chosen, Betty would have 
 shunned every part of existence but the 
 pleasant part. But somehow she found all 
 III
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 at once that in this matter her desire had 
 small voice. 
 
 There was one gleam of comfort. This lay 
 in the knowledge that Teddy was remember- 
 ing too. His remembrance took the form of 
 letters that came with great regularity on cer- 
 tain days of every week. He pledged this lit- 
 tle girl to secrecy and warned her of the days 
 when his letters were to arrive. 
 
 They came promptly smooth, insinuating, 
 contemptible things, but as she read the child 
 trembled from a something that left her cold 
 and near to tears. It was a wonderful hap- 
 piness, a happiness very akin to fear. It was 
 the further awakening of that mysterious 
 womanhood. 
 
 He loved her; he said so she never read 
 that without quivering. Down in the bottom 
 of a little box made of her favorite sweet 
 grass, these precious bits of paper were 
 smoothed away one by one. By degrees the 
 paper took on the scent of the perfume and 
 that delighted her. There came a time later 
 when the smell of this same grass made 
 Betty clench her hands and dig her nails into 
 
 her flesh. 
 
 112
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Long after her mother and father were in 
 bed she took those letters out of their hiding 
 place when she was sure the others slept. 
 She would gloat over them with miserly rap- 
 ture. She would press the inanimate things 
 to her soft, white cheek. "Oh, how sweet 
 they are!" she murmured. Sometimes she 
 kissed them.
 
 I 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CYRUS WARNER had passed his for- 
 tieth birthday. It meant that for forty 
 years this man had spent his strength 
 and his time and his constitution in fighting 
 starvation and nakedness. It was as if for 
 thirty of these years he had been chained to 
 a wall, to gain ten of freedom, afterward to 
 be recaptured and put back at the beginning 
 again. For the grind had begun all over. 
 Cyrus' ambition, the oil-well and the cottage, 
 were things of the past. He had kept up the 
 fight stubbornly until every cent from the 
 savings bank had been drawn, and still Fel- 
 lows sent the price of oil pushing down. 
 
 Then he and Betty talked it over. Her 
 voice trembled in spite of all her resolves to 
 be brave. Cyrus sat staring stupidly out 
 across his beautiful lawn. 
 
 "I never asked for much; not more than 
 
 seemed my share I wasn't a hog. Where's 
 
 the justice of what's happened?" he asked. 
 
 But Betty could not tell him, and there was 
 
 114
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 only one thing to do ; talking really did not 
 help. 
 
 "We will go back to the city; it won't be 
 so bad. We will get something, some price, 
 for our home." Her voice choked. "That 
 will start us, and schools are better there for 
 Betty, you know." Surely there was a gleam 
 of brightness. 
 
 For a second it found a reflection in the 
 man's heavy heart. His old worship of an 
 education still burned in him, dimly, to be 
 sure, but it burned. 
 
 "The schools ; yes ; that's right ; Betty 
 must be a scholar." 
 
 "We'd better not try to take all our things 
 back; it costs such a lot." 
 
 "Can we sell them?" 
 
 But a happier thought struck Betty. "We'll 
 try and rent the cottage furnished. That will 
 bring us a little every month. It'll take care 
 of our things too. Perhaps, you know, some 
 day we'll come back. Furnished cottages like 
 ours are hard to get. We will sell only the 
 well to that man." 
 
 Cyrus arose. He drew himself up stiffly 
 to his full height. "Damn that man !" he
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 said, and his teeth clicked. A moment later 
 his eyes wandered through the parlor into 
 their little bedroom beyond the room where 
 Betty had been born. His face softened ; his 
 eyes blurred. He held out his hand to his 
 wife : "I didn't mean to, Betty. I have no 
 right to be impatient when you, when you ." 
 He had no words to finish. 
 
 She put her arms tight about him: "Oh, 
 dear, I know, I know." 
 
 But renting the cottage and selling the well 
 were not to be done in a minute. Mr. Fel- 
 lows' secretary, writing for Mr. Fellows, re- 
 plied to Mr. Warner's letter. He announced 
 that a price had been offered for the well 
 some months previously, but since then the 
 property had depreciated in value. Oil had 
 declined materially. In fact, Mr. Fellows 
 doubted the advisability of adding to his al- 
 ready enormous stretches of oil land. How- 
 ever, he would consider the matter, and if 
 later he decided to alter this present opinion 
 he would communicate with Mr. Warner, 
 naming the amount he was willing to give. 
 
 Cyrus read, his eyes extending with the 
 fury that swept over him. He knew it was 
 116
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 a system of robbery ; a cold-blooded attack to 
 get his property away. Fellows understood 
 better than anyone what that well was worth. 
 There were no laws to defend Cyrus. Noth- 
 ing that he could do. No way he could force 
 or protect. He was absolutely helpless ; yet 
 he was being hounded and bled. 
 
 "It's dreadful, dreadful, dreadful," whis- 
 pered Betty, she was reading this damnable 
 note for the sixth time. Somehow she could 
 not understand ; yet her eyes would not leave 
 the page. 
 
 She was pale to her lips, with all the fresh- 
 ness gone from her face. "It's no use," she 
 moaned; "no use, Cyrus. That man's going 
 to have his way. We might just as well start 
 back now. Leave it all. Thinking of leaving 
 is making me sick. I want to get it over 
 with. Oh, my little home. My dear, dear, lit- 
 tle home ! I can't stand it ! It's just break- 
 ing my heart." She gave out now, com- 
 pletely. Leaning her arms against the wall, 
 her curly head buried in them, she sobbed 
 and sobbed. 
 
 It was the first time Cyrus had seen her 
 give way like this. He looked at her for a 
 117
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 moment in pitiful bewilderment; then sud- 
 denly something roused itself in him, some- 
 thing that never had been touched before. It 
 took possession of him from head to foot, 
 and had in it a savageness that would have 
 led him to commit murder. He paced the 
 room, his face working, his fists doubled hard 
 and red. The expression in his eyes was ter- 
 rible. 
 
 "If that man crosses my path again let him 
 look out that's all look out," he growled, 
 his teeth set. 
 
 The next day they began to pack; they 
 took what they could afford to ship and what 
 was necessary for fitting up a new home. 
 The case of books, the swinging shelf and 
 the chromos were included. The rest of their 
 things they sold. Betty had at the last minute 
 arranged with a couple who took the cottage 
 for ten dollars a month; but it was to be 
 emptied. This new couple had furniture, and 
 they did not care to be burdened with more. 
 
 Cyrus and Betty kept close to each other 
 
 all the time they packed, seeming to derive 
 
 some comfort from nearness. They talked 
 
 very little; both of them had changed won- 
 
 118
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 derfully in the past few weeks. Little Betty 
 was all excitement. She was everywhere, do- 
 ing nothing useful, wanting to keep every- 
 thing of her own. She expressed no sorrow 
 at leaving her home. 
 
 Her mother explained this to Cyrus. "Chil- 
 dren are all alike. They want change. Betty 
 doesn't know ; she doesn't understand." 
 
 But it was the mother who was misunder- 
 standing, and because of the sorrow so deep 
 in her heart she secretly resented the child's 
 gayety. It was sacrilege. 
 
 When the first intimation had come that 
 they must return to the city, Betty the sec- 
 ond had written a childish letter to Teddy. 
 It was full of her parents' goodness and grief, 
 and complaints of his father's cruelty. Ted- 
 dy's answer had been sentences of rejoicing 
 at the prospect of the future before them : 
 "The old man is not as black as your father 
 paints him. Dad will do the square thing by 
 your people some day. But don't think of 
 that ; think of us, what we've got. No more 
 letters but each other, eh, Betty. How do 
 you like that? Finding fault? Then you 
 don't love me. I am impatient with counting 
 119
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 the hours 'till you come; you mourn and 
 rage because you are coming. Which loves 
 the best, miss, tell me that." 
 
 It was such a dear, beautiful, manly letter 
 naturally she could not grieve ; it would be 
 selfish when Teddy wanted her so; but 
 neither could she explain. However, some 
 day they would know, father and mother 
 when they got there, how good and splendid 
 the Fellows were. 
 
 The cottage was finally stripped and bare 
 and the good-byes were all said. The three 
 sat miserably on their boxes at the station 
 waiting for the train that was to carry them 
 back into the city. Betty had managed not 
 to break down again, but she was sick and 
 faint with the efforts she had made to keep 
 up. Cyrus in a dumb, broken-hearted way at- 
 tempted to comfort her. Betty felt this with 
 a great uplifting of spirit his love was un- 
 failing. 
 
 "After all, it does not so much matter as 
 long as we have each other," she whispered 
 to him. 
 
 "That's so ; that's so," he replied, nodding 
 and brightening at once. 
 120
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Betty was very excited on the train. It was 
 her first trip away from the very borders of 
 the little country town. She talked very fast 
 and flushed often. Many men in the same car 
 watched her with staring glances of imperti- 
 nent approval. There was something about the 
 child that was continually drawing men's no- 
 tice to her. 
 
 The marvels of the journey kept her so 
 occupied that at first she was unconscious of 
 this attention. After a little, one man began 
 to walk up and down the car on purposeless 
 errands. Each time he passed her he slowed 
 up and stared. The fourth time this occurred 
 she looked up and met his eyes. She blushed 
 to her ears. Finally, the fellow changed his 
 seat to be nearer. From that minute he re- 
 garded her ceaselessly. It was a very extra- 
 ordinary performance. 
 
 The noise and confusion and dirt of the 
 city terrified Betty. She clutched her father's 
 hand when they crossed the streets, and gave 
 little nervous cries at the clanging of the 
 car bells. 
 
 "What's the matter, father is there a fire ? 
 Where are we going? hurry, hurry, mother." 
 121
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Hush, Betty." 
 
 "We're all right, my girl." 
 
 It seemed as though they were to walk 
 forever and no where could they turn to get 
 rid of the crowd. 
 
 It took months of city life to accustom the 
 child Betty to that one thing. She abhorred 
 contact with people. She longed for cool, 
 fresh air and the pretty dresses that never 
 soiled. She missed the cottage that was theirs 
 alone, and wilted under the work that her 
 mother from necessity put upon her. The 
 truth was Betty the demure was seeing ahead 
 and beginning the practice of economy. She 
 knew that the time was not far distant when 
 she, like Cyrus, would have to take up the 
 grind again. Then the housework would fall 
 upon the daughter. The child was old enough 
 to help ; she must help. 
 
 Cyrus evaded this time; he shrank from it 
 horribly; the thought of Betty, his wife, the 
 woman he had promised to protect, taking 
 upon herself the burden of a bread-winner was 
 a perpetual torment. 
 
 But misfortunes once encountered hound 
 you. You cannot escape them. The War- 
 
 122
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 ners were no exception. Cyrus had gone at 
 once to his old camping ground the factory. 
 He had never questioned the possibility of 
 obtaining employment here. It would not 
 have surprised him to have received the offer 
 of his old position. 
 
 When he came in sight of the building he 
 saw it had been improved; it was taller, 
 newer looking. He presented himself at the 
 office. This part still bore sufficient resem- 
 blance to the old one to breathe a certain air 
 of familiarity. 
 
 Once inside the door this familiarity was 
 swept away; the difference was appalling. 
 Not one face that he knew. He stood looking 
 about him from one to another, awkward, 
 embarrassed ; turning his hat in his hand like 
 a bashful child. He knew by instinct before 
 he had opened his lips that all his hopes for 
 a position here were doomed to disappoint- 
 ment. The man asked for work, mechani- 
 cally, and when it was refused he departed at 
 once, still acting automatically. As he left the 
 building it commenced to rain a cold, dreary 
 drizzle, that soaked him to the skin and made 
 him shiver violently. It was a long way to 
 123
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 his home, and he had to walk it every step 
 of the distance. By the time he reached there 
 he was in a chill ; his teeth chattering so that 
 talk was impossible. 
 
 Betty took off his dripping clothes, and 
 helped him to bed, after he had soaked his 
 feet. During this process he had sat on the 
 edge of the bed, wrapped like an Indian in a 
 big blanket, while the beads of perspiration 
 poured out all on his forehead. He re- 
 counted his experience to his wife, after he 
 lay down, and while he was noisily sipping a 
 ''hot sling." 
 
 Betty's prompt action probably saved Cyrus 
 from a heavy illness, but for three days he 
 was wretched. He could not drag himself 
 through the streets to look for employment. 
 This enforced idleness was telling severely on 
 the Warner finances. Some means of liveli- 
 hood was imperative. They were depriving 
 themselves of everything except the absolute 
 necessities ; and it was a question how these 
 were to be purchased if something did not 
 turn up. 
 
 As soon as he was well, every morn- 
 ing Cyrus went out early. He spent entire 
 124
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 days looking and asking for work ; he would 
 have taken anything ; but ill success followed 
 the man. Night after night he returned crest- 
 fallen and wretchedly unhappy. What would 
 be the end? At last, Betty joined in the 
 search ; she went into the hunt desperately, 
 fully alive to the fact that years of housework 
 had practically unfitted her for a position as 
 stenographer. Her only hope lay in her wil- 
 lingness to work for small wages until she got 
 into practice again. 
 
 This left little Betty alone Little Betty ? 
 she was nearly fifteen, but looked much older, 
 was taller than her mother, and strong with 
 the strength of her free, active outdoor life. 
 
 She had seen Teddy many times since they 
 had come to the city stolen visits all of them, 
 but delicious. He was so dear, so courteous 
 and thoughtful. His inquiries for her father 
 and mother showed his concern for their wel- 
 fare. He did not approve his own father's 
 course, he said so frankly. That was some- 
 thing. 
 
 But even this nearness to Teddy did not al- 
 together make up for the wretchedness of the 
 life the girl had come into. Betty was an aris- 
 125
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 tocrat from the top of her head to the soles 
 of her dainty feet. She loathed work; she 
 abominated poverty. Even Teddy found it 
 hard to smooth the pathway. She watched 
 her hands and wept at the change in their ap- 
 pearance; her nice dresses were past all 
 cleaning she despised living in three rooms. 
 
 Teddy had not yet arrived at a point where 
 he considered it wise to offer money; never- 
 theless, he could draw a clear picture of the 
 future from the outline already presented to 
 view; so he waited and made himself irre- 
 sistible. 
 
 Finally, by the greatest of good luck, Cyrus 
 got a job. It was in a harvesting plant, and 
 his wages were not large. But they were 
 something. He hailed this change with a 
 profound joy. Betty cried. 
 
 "We will have luck after a little, dear; 
 don't be unhappy." 
 
 "Mother," put in Betty the second, "must 
 I clean and wash? Can't we get someone to 
 help? Look at my hands; they are all red 
 and horrid. I won't be a servant." 
 
 A report from a pistol could not have 
 shocked Betty and Cyrus more intensely than 
 126
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 distress from this source. Neither one spoke. 
 Mrs. Warner looked across to where the child 
 sat; looked keenly at the discontented face, 
 beautiful for all the lines that this discontent- 
 ment had drawn into it. Suddenly, she awak- 
 ened to the danger. What had come had 
 been so gradual that the abruptness of its 
 first announcement startled the mother. Now 
 she knew. 
 
 "Cyrus, we have made a mistake," she said, 
 turning her troubled eyes from her daughter 
 to her husband. 
 
 "Oh, I guess not, I guess not; it is hard 
 on her, Betty." 
 
 The father would not see; no man can 
 until too late. That was all, then. They 
 spoke no more. Betty, a little shame-faced, 
 went to bed. But, Betty the demure remem- 
 bered, and worried, and had few easy mo- 
 ments. 
 
 127
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CYRUS had been at the "works" a month 
 when he suddenly ran into Kirby. 
 The orator was carried away with 
 enthusiasm immediately. What in the world 
 did this mean? Cy. here in town. They 
 shook hands, gripping fiercely. 
 
 "By God, what's this, eh? Back to buy 
 goods? or, are you painting the town? 
 Where did you fall from ? holiday ?" 
 
 Cyrus was disturbed at once ! he disliked 
 above everything to confess his bad fortune. 
 
 "Where are you going?" he asked, to gain 
 time. 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "Home," said Cyrus, not thinking. 
 
 "Eh! what! home! You don't mean 
 you've come back here to live, do you?" 
 
 Of course it was all out. Really, Cyrus 
 had no hope of concealing the state of things 
 for very long, anyway. He laughed mirth- 
 lessly. "Yes, I've sold out, or rather I've 
 stopped my well. I want to sell out." 
 128
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "No good?" Kirby had fallen in step with 
 Cyrus ; the two were walking briskly. 
 
 "Yes, too good ; that's the whole trouble ; 
 it was too good." The tone Cyrus used was 
 unpleasant. 
 
 "A brush with the capitalists?" 
 
 "Yes, damn them !" yelled Cyrus. 
 
 Kirby rolled his great eyes towards his 
 friend. "On the level, Cy, is that true? Did 
 they shove you?" 
 
 Kirby was entirely in his element, but also 
 for the moment nonplussed; it was incredi- 
 ble; he talked against the monied men be- 
 cause it was his trade ; he never believed half 
 he accused them of. But here was a clear 
 case. He talked on glibly. He could always 
 talk, nevertheless his mind was confused. By 
 the time his thoughts had readjusted them- 
 selves, Cyrus was telling him the whole 
 wretched business, flinging the words out be- 
 tween breaks and pauses. Instinctively, Kirby 
 flamed with the fury of his hobby. 
 
 "Tricked you, by God !" he cried during one 
 
 of these pauses ; his voice sounded as though 
 
 a fight were imminent. Inadvertently some 
 
 of the passers-by stopped and stared and 
 
 129
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 waited to see the fun. But the couple passed 
 on amicably, jostled and pushed by the crowds 
 and unconscious of the commotion they 
 caused. 
 
 "I can't sell my well; I can't sell my oil; 
 I can't live in my home. It's a gol darn im- 
 position, Kirby." 
 
 "It's a crime a crime not only against 
 you, but against the bulwarks of a free and 
 independent nation. What ruined Rome? 
 Eh, do you know? Well, it was because three 
 men had all the cash. Three men. What's 
 threatening the prosperity of our country? 
 The same thing. The money getting away 
 from the masses into the control of a few, a 
 few hogs always grunting for more. It's got 
 to be stopped. It will be stopped! There'll 
 be hell to pay; but it'll be stopped." Kirby 
 gesticulated wildly. 
 
 Cyrus had listened to this tirade many 
 times ; but never with the same intense in- 
 terest. It had a meaning now, a personal 
 meaning that had never before been evident. 
 He was no longer puzzled. From hard, prac- 
 tical experience he understood what sermons 
 
 130
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 could never have taught him; moreover, he 
 liked to listen. 
 
 He took Kirby to his three rooms, forget- 
 ting to be ashamed of their very apparent 
 poverty. Once there he attempted himself to 
 talk on the subject of Capital and Labor, to 
 assist Kirby's arguments. He made a poor 
 showing; but it revealed the man's immense 
 feeling that he put forward the attempt. 
 Finally he realized his inability. After that 
 he confined himself to nods of the head and 
 let Kirby go on with all the talking. 
 
 Betty sat at one side sewing and listening. 
 The noise and the repetition worried her; 
 Kirby was so fierce. Beside this, she felt that 
 his talk was not for the best. A disturbing' 
 clement of such a radical sort is never wise. Il 
 was bound to bring dangerous complications, 
 fearful results. Yet she was too sensible to 
 interfere. 
 
 Cyrus, sitting stiffly in his chair, finally 
 struck a keynote without realizing it. 
 
 "How are you goin' to change it? That's 
 the point. You haven't any power. Neither 
 have I. We haven't even the law with us. It
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 ain't our fault, but how are we going to help 
 it? r ' 
 
 "I'll tell you how. I'll tell you just how !" 
 shouted Kirby, never more furiously excited. 
 "Revolution; that's the means. A bloody 
 revolution. We are not so helpless as you 
 think. We're waiting for numbers, and we've 
 not so long to wait either. We've most 
 enough; then we'll out with it. We'll unite 
 and start out by blowing up things. We can 
 fix the law. We'll teach this whole govern- 
 ment such a lesson as it never got before. 
 We'll show 'em up at Washington that they 
 can't run the whole country to please two or 
 three blooming trust companies. You wait; 
 you just wait; there's revenge coming your 
 way all right. It will be blood and war, but 
 the more of it the better. Blood ! Red ! Hot ! 
 Rich ! The blood of those God-damn capital- 
 ists !" The brute in him was loosed ; his 
 tirades had aroused in him an evil mania; it 
 was fast becoming a veritable obsession. At 
 that moment he was capable of anything. 
 
 "What right have they to starve us, eh? 
 What right have they to grind us down to 
 
 132
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 such poverty as this?" throwing his arms in 
 a sweeping gesture around the room. 
 
 Cyrus winced. 
 
 "Ain't we human ? Haven't our wives and 
 children feelings, as well as theirs? Because 
 they have millions where we have cents, is 
 that any reason why they need to take all 
 we have. I tell you we have got to show 
 them ; and that will be done by killing. I am 
 ready to begin right now." 
 
 Betty the demure arose. This thing had 
 gone as far as she cared to have it. 
 
 "How is Ida?" she said. 
 
 It took Kirby two or three seconds to re- 
 verse his thoughts. His eyes winked stu- 
 pidly. Then he talked about his wife and 
 boy. He was lofty; referred to his apart- 
 ments and his wife's devotion to housework. 
 But Betty reading the unspoken truth from 
 the flow of spoken sentences guessed at their 
 condition. 
 
 After Kirby had departed Betty said to 
 Cyrus : "I believe they are dreadfully poor. 
 That man's ideas may be all right, but they 
 won't buy bread and meat. If he worked 
 half as much as he talked he would be richer. 
 133
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 I am going over to see Ida. Her eyes always 
 did predict a mournful life." 
 
 "But there's a lot in what he says, Betty; 
 something's wrong somewhere, sure. He 
 comes near to hitting it," Cyrus remarked. 
 ****** 
 
 A man's greatest devotion to a woman 
 comes when he is not sure of her. Teddy 
 began to have Betty Warner on his mind. 
 He had looked for an easy conquest, an 
 amusing affair with an exceedingly young 
 and an unusually pretty country girl. In fact 
 it had looked so simple and so easy that he 
 was not more than half interested. But, with 
 the turn of their fortunes Betty proved to be 
 not so simple. She was furious at her posi- 
 tion ; she was ashamed of it and humiliated, 
 and she vented her feelings on Teddy in 
 strange and varied forms, all strictly feminine. 
 
 She began by extreme indifference. He 
 found himself continually wondering if she 
 actually felt as unconcerned as she acted. He 
 wondered about it so much that he suddenly 
 discovered that this girl was seldom out of 
 his mind. This angered the elegant Teddy; 
 he retaliated by indifference. At this, Betty 
 134
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 told him with supreme contempt that he 
 bored her, also that she thought they had 
 seen each other a sufficient number of times. 
 She liked to be amused. He was stupid be- 
 yond all endurance. 
 
 Teddy gasped. The girl was evidently so 
 sincere that he swore under his breath, 
 promptly losing all semblance of not caring. 
 He strove mightily to please. All he said and 
 all he did was unavailing. 
 
 "How absurd you are," she commented, her 
 chin high in the air. "Do you think I have 
 anything but loathing for you and your fam- 
 ily. Come to my home and then ask why I 
 do not adore you." 
 
 "But I am not to blame," he answered, with 
 an humbleness that was very real. "I am dev- 
 ilish sorry." 
 
 "Prove it," she said. 
 
 "What shall I do?" 
 
 "Tell your father to put back the price of 
 oil, then we can go home and live. LIVE, do 
 you hear ! not exist like rats in a hole. Look 
 at me. Look at my hands. Look at my 
 clothes. Oh, it is a marvel, isn't it, that I am 
 not worshipping you on my knees." 
 135
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Damn it, you know I can't do that. The 
 old man has got to keep this up. Your father 
 isn't the only one he is after. To put oil up 
 would lose him thousands." 
 
 "He has only millions, I believe. You are 
 very tiresome," she sneered. 
 
 But Betty did not dwell upon this end of 
 the situation. The truth was she knew how 
 far to go. Her moods varied going with 
 incredible swiftness from one to another. At 
 one moment she was adorable, the next sar- 
 castic. Sometimes flippant ; always inter- 
 esting. 
 
 For the first time in Teddy's career he felt 
 distinctly inadequate ; he believed himself put 
 upon and abused. At the same time he strug- 
 gled somehow to make amends for some in 
 definite thing. His one object resolved itself 
 into getting Betty into an easier condition. 
 When Teddy was away from her he was con- 
 tinually going over their tete-a-tetes in his 
 mind. They made him furious ; furious at 
 himself, furious at her, but he counted the 
 hours until he should see her again. The busi- 
 ness was becoming absolutely desperate, intol- 
 lerable. He was always making resolves to 
 136
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "show her" the next time they met. But those 
 "showings" never came off. In fact he did 
 not dare sulk with her it was too uncertain 
 risky. He really did not know whether she 
 cared for him or not; also by now, he was 
 discovering that in some mysterious and un- 
 heard-of fashion he did care. It might have 
 been pique or vanity or hurt pride : he had 
 no desire to analyze, but that girl was on his 
 brain. So he became humble, bowed to Fate 
 and submitted to her rule. 
 
 They saw each other on irregular days, but 
 always twice a week. Teddy would drive to 
 the park in great style, sending his trap back 
 by the groom. Then he waited. He smoked 
 innumerable cigarettes and looked incessant- 
 ly at his watch, furious that he had come so 
 early. 
 
 He was getting to be a regular dub, stand- 
 ing around for his girl like some damned 
 workingman. The whole thing was beyond 
 him, anyway ; but at least she might be on 
 time. 
 
 The longer he waited the madder he grew ; 
 galled at the indignity he was suffering. Im- 
 mediately Betty came in view the young man 
 137
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 subsided. Never by any possible chance did 
 she arrive first at these appointments. 
 Neither by any chance did Teddy complain to 
 her of her tardiness. His meekness was un- 
 assailable. 
 
 The girl was growing very self-possessed. 
 She had entirely recovered from those quick 
 excitements that were once so much a part 
 of her. Instead, she was as demure as her 
 mother had ever been; but there was this 
 difference : Betty the daughter was conscious 
 of everything she did ; Betty the mother, had 
 never known an affectation in all her life. 
 
 She received Teddy's greetings with con- 
 siderable hauteur, and accepted his adulation 
 as her right. She gave nothing, claimed 
 everything, and the young man yielded. The 
 truth was she fascinated him by her complete 
 complacence and her strong personalities. 
 Her airiness was not vulgar, but bewitching. 
 She had a distinct aversion to sitting or walk- 
 ing in the park it was too much like hired 
 help ; so the two generally went to a quiet lit- 
 tle German garden, where in the afternoon 
 they were quite by themselves. In the winter 
 time the place was all enclosed and heated by 
 138
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 a huge German stove, that reminded Betty of 
 graves ; she did not explain where the resem- 
 blance came in; in the summer it was cool 
 and delicious, with shady trees coming up out 
 of a gravel floor. 
 
 Betty did not approve of liquor, so Teddy 
 initiated her into the delights of a very harm- 
 less drink he called it a "slo gin fizz." It 
 was nice because it was so very pretty; like- 
 wise, the taste was pleasing. 
 
 "Like lemonade something; only better," 
 she asserted. 
 
 "It's not as strong as lemonade/' he an- 
 nounced, drinking his with a disgusted face. 
 
 When Betty chose she made these meetings 
 delightful ; on other occasions they were dis- 
 tinct failures. The uncertainty as to which 
 they would be kept Teddy in a nervous 
 anxiety to repeat them. He also learned 
 many things when to avoid certain subjects; 
 when to introduce others. Money was ta- 
 booed; this young man of wealth who had 
 taken a serene enjoyment in bragging of his 
 income and his prospects and his devices for 
 spending a fortune, never dared mention the 
 question now at all. It was wonderful any- 
 139
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 way, what Teddy was doing for this chit of 
 a girl. The more his mind dwelled upon it 
 the keener he became for a time when he 
 could assert himself, and "show her," "just 
 make her dance once to his tune for the vari- 
 ety of the thing." That would come when 
 he was sure of her. He would never be 
 strictly unkind, and of course, never exactly 
 brutal; but she should move to his whims, 
 not he to hers; and once at least he'd make 
 her dance. He would not be continually sac- 
 rificed. 
 
 He counted his time from the moment he 
 was permitted to kiss her and take her in his 
 arms. That would fix her, and her dance. 
 If she yielded that far she was won. With 
 all Betty's coquettishness she never gave lib- 
 erties, so after all Teddy had some under- 
 standing of some women. 
 
 When he was alone the young man gave 
 vent to such thoughts as these, but all the 
 time he was scheming and planning how he 
 could make her fast and sure to him ; he 
 had an overpowering desire to possess her. 
 
 When it finally fell to him, schemes and 
 
 140
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 plans had no part in it. It was just sheer 
 chance. 
 
 Betty's mother had found work ; she went 
 now with Cyrus every morning at seven, tak- 
 ing her lunch with her. It was six when 
 she returned. Betty was left alone to do the 
 work. All the work. All alone. 
 
 The first meeting of Betty and Teddy after 
 this calamity had fallen upon the girl opened 
 up miserably; she was sullen and disagree- 
 able, and she never looked prettier than in 
 her rage. Teddy, all at sea, worked and 
 strove; it was no use, she would not be 
 pleased ; finally the trouble came out. Teddy 
 listened in silence. 
 
 "Are you quite through?" he asked, when 
 her recital of hardship was finished. 
 
 "Quite," she snapped. 
 
 "Then listen to me. Hereafter a woman 
 will arrive at your place in the morning early, 
 seven-thirty, say; she will do your work, 
 everything. I will pay her. She will cook 
 and scrub and wash and all the rest of the 
 damned business. You will spend the extra 
 time with me. The creature can leave before 
 your people get home." 
 141
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 He leaned over and picked up her hands. 
 He looked at them a second, then he kissed 
 them. 
 
 "What a hell of a nuisance, anyway," he 
 remarked vaguely. 
 
 Her face was radiant. "You mean it ?" she 
 cried, referring to his offer. 
 
 "W r ill you be kind to me if I do?" 
 
 Her face darkened. "I sell nothing." 
 
 "Oh, God," he ejaculated, angrily, "I am 
 not quibbling." 
 
 A moment later she laughed ; it was a most 
 delicious laugh. "Teddy, be friends. You 
 are a lamb. I adore you," she said, touching 
 him. 
 
 He turned on the instant : a queer expres- 
 sion came into his eyes. "I mean to have 
 you say that in a different tone some day. I 
 intend to make you adore me," he said. 
 
 There was no banter in his voice, neither 
 was there anxiety expressed in her self-sat- 
 isfied countenance. 
 
 142
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 KINGS were working admirably. The 
 JL woman Teddy sent was a treasure. 
 For the first two weeks Betty was 
 in a terror of fear. If something should hap- 
 pen to make her mother and the hired girl 
 meet! But nothing did. When her mother 
 and father were safely off Betty went back 
 to bed. She finished her sleep while the 
 woman clattered and worked and put 'things 
 in great order. Then at eleven she had hot 
 chocolate and a roll fresh from the baker's 
 served to her in bed. This appeared the ex- 
 treme of luxury. Teddy paid for it. After 
 that she spent a long time in dressing and try- 
 ing wonderful arrangements of her hair. At 
 one o'clock she lunched. Every afternoon she 
 spent with Teddy sometimes driving, some- 
 times at a matinee, occasionally shopping, but 
 oftener at the little German garden. She al- 
 ways returned home well before six o'clock, 
 to change her gown and finish getting supper. 
 Her mother's praises on what she did were 
 143
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 terrible. The girl accepted them silently with 
 averted face. They were a burden because 
 they brought with them a sense of guilt. 
 
 Her father's heavy approval bored her. 
 She was continually comparing him to Teddy. 
 She adored elegant men. Certainly no one 
 could accuse Cyrus of elegance. 
 
 This state of things continued for some 
 time nearly an entire winter; then Cyrus 
 began coming home with many tales to tell 
 of the uneasiness among the men at the 
 ''works. " It had been coming for months. 
 It had its beginning in a kind of club they 
 were forming. Cyrus was uneasy. They 
 were finding fault with their pay, but this 
 was a mere pretext for something deeper, he 
 believed. Kirby was inciting discontent too; 
 in fact, Kirby was at the bottom of the whole 
 business. He came each morning and dis- 
 tributed copies of his paper to the laborers 
 on their way to work. The articles he wrote 
 were fierce, wild things, senseless too, but 
 they inflamed. 
 
 Cyrus was troubled because a strike meant 
 idleness again ; perhaps starvation. He was 
 willing to work for any pay; he understood, 
 144
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 however, that this would not be tolerated if a 
 strike was ordered. He was commanded to 
 join the society, but he had refused. The 
 threats that followed his refusal he never al- 
 lowed his wife to hear. He and Betty talked 
 it over nightly, both alarmed at the situa- 
 tion. Was it the beginning of another end ? 
 
 One dreary afternoon about four o'clock 
 little Betty was sitting disconsolately, her 
 hands in her lap. It was too wet and too 
 nasty to go out; the rain had poured down 
 all day. She had nothing to do ; the working 
 woman was getting things ready for the War- 
 ners' supper and Teddy was off somewhere 
 buying a horse. 
 
 Suddenly, without warning, Cyrus opened 
 the door. He walked in, shaking the drops 
 of water from off his hat. 
 
 Betty sprang up with a cry; she was 
 caught, trapped. At first she believed it was 
 her mother. What should she do ? When she 
 faced her father, for once in her life she was 
 grateful that he looked at her with eyes 
 blinded by love; that his wits were slow of 
 suspicion; that he was dull enough to be- 
 lieve whatever she said. 
 145
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Her own countenance was pallid with fear. 
 Instinct guided her speech. 
 
 "Father," she cried in alarm, "what is it? 
 Are you ill? I have been ill too. So sick all 
 day that this good woman came in to help 
 with our supper. I couldn't get it. I didn't 
 want to worry you and mother. You both 
 work so hard. She, this kind woman, was 
 going away just before you came. You won't 
 tell mother, will you, about this ; she would 
 think I was shirking." 
 
 Her mother would have known the lie at 
 once. Cyrus' unhappy eyes looking into his 
 daughter's face, saw only her beauty her ex- 
 treme loveliness, and had no suspicion. 
 
 "We won't tell mother, eh ? All right. Our 
 secret yours and mine ain't it, my girl? 
 You work too hard, anyhow ; and now it will 
 be worse than ever." His head sank. 
 
 "How? Why?" she exclaimed. 
 
 "A strike, a strike's on. There is no more 
 work. Those fools want more pay and fewer 
 hours. They won't let any others work, even 
 willing ones." 
 
 "That means your being home every day," 
 she said, more than half to herself. She was 
 146
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 seeing herself at it again ; no more help ; no 
 more afternoons with Teddy. No more long 
 hours in bed with chocolate before she was 
 up ; later on the dainty luncheons and drives. 
 
 She clasped her hands together. 
 
 "Oh, it's too bad; we have the hardest 
 luck ; the hardest kind of luck. It isn't fair," 
 and she burst into tears. 
 
 Cyrus had no word of comfort. The man's 
 spirits were at their lowest ebb. He needed 
 comforting himself. He wandered around, 
 restlessly, waiting for the other Betty. She 
 never failed him. Never once in all the 
 years of their married life had she failed him. 
 He wanted her now terribly. 
 
 Outside the rain beat and beat, and dripped 
 and dripped. It trickled down the windows; 
 it blew in through the casements ; it stormed 
 and raged piteously. When it grew dark the 
 storm increased. 
 
 At six o'clock Betty arrived, exhausted, 
 cold and wet to the skin. Cyrus said nothing 
 of his trouble. He took off her shoes and 
 chafed her icy feet, talking of the weather. 
 He heated her some tea and made her take 
 it strong and hot. 
 
 147
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 The daughter stood looking on, wanting to 
 help but afraid to move from Cyrus' side. 
 She was in an emotion of terror for fear that 
 stupid man would say something of the hired 
 woman. She knew she could never carry a 
 lie through with her mother. 
 
 The girl's face was white and strained. 
 Along with her fear she was quivering with 
 irritation. But Cyrus was thinking only of 
 his wife he had forgotten the "kind woman." 
 
 Their supper that night was not as good as 
 usual, although no one noticed it. Cyrus ate 
 rapidly to keep Betty from suspecting any- 
 thing, but he had no knowledge of what 
 passed his lips. He wanted her to have a 
 good night's rest. He was worried at her 
 appearance. Time enough to tell what he 
 had to in the morning. Perhaps after a 
 night's rest her face would seem less thin and 
 careworn. 
 
 Neither of the women could eat. They 
 picked and pretended, but each was busy with 
 her own thoughts. 
 
 The rain continued. By contrast the three 
 rooms looked less cheerless less lamentably 
 desolate. 
 
 148
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Cyrus did the dishes; he insisted on this. 
 "You both look done up," he called out, and 
 little Betty shrank away afraid that the sight 
 of her would make him continue. 
 
 The mother choked. Cyrus' unflagging 
 thoughtfulness and care for her touched her 
 aching heart. 
 
 After the last dish was washed and wiped, 
 Cyrus undid the apron that he had tied about 
 himself and sat down with a big breath. 
 Betty the demure crossed the room to him. 
 He took her on his lap, his heart at once 
 so full of tenderness and concern for this wife 
 of his that he forgot all his cares and dis- 
 couragements. For a long time they were 
 silent. 
 
 At last Betty raised her head from his 
 stooped, tired shoulder. "Cyrus," she said, 
 drawing a long sigh, "I received my notice 
 today; after this week they don't want me 
 any longer. I'm not quick enough." 
 
 "I'm glad of it," cried Cyrus brightly; "I 
 had no business letting you go at all; we 
 will get on all right. Don't you worry." 
 
 What a capital thing it was that he had not 
 mentioned the strike. 
 
 149
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 All this time the other Betty had been lean- 
 ing close against the window where the rain 
 pattered and stormed ; now she rose sudden- 
 ly, struck by an idea: "Then, how are we 
 going to live, I'd like to know, with father 
 idle, and you idle, and no money in the bank. 
 What are we going to do ?" she asked impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 "What do you mean?" cried her mother. 
 
 Cyrus was making a series of unintelligible 
 signs to his daughter; she understood per- 
 fectly what they meant, but this thing had got 
 to be faced some time. It was quite as well 
 to have it over with. It was as hard for her 
 as for the others, certainly. 
 
 "Father came home early today; there is 
 a strike at the works. He can't work there. 
 I suppose he did not want to let you know 
 about it ; but you have got to know some 
 time. Now, you are out of work, too ; oh, it's 
 all too bad ; it isn't right. Why can't we go 
 back home to the cottage. We might as well 
 starve there as here, and starvation is what 
 this means, sooner or later." 
 
 For the first time in her life Betty had an- 
 gered her father. He put his wife off his lap, 
 150
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 and jumped to his feet. "You have been sup- 
 ported all your life; you have never gone 
 hungry that I know of; you've never been 
 asked to work that I know of. You have 
 been cared for and shielded from both. You 
 might have spared your mother this tonight. 
 Of course it's got to be faced; but she and 
 I face it, not you. Go to bed. I don't want 
 to hear anything more from you; and next 
 time you keep still." 
 
 The thought Cyrus expressed was more 
 coherent than the words he used in expressing 
 it. Betty understood, and she obeyed; in 
 fact she was afraid ; as she left the room, she 
 gave one glance towards her mother's white 
 face. There were no signs of sympathy in it. 
 The girl choked back the sobs that were com- 
 ing. Existence was desolate no one cared 
 at all for her. 
 
 She lay awake hour after hour until the 
 noises in the streets were gone, and all the 
 tenants in the great house were quiet. Only 
 the rain, pattering and beating, broke the 
 heavy silence. 
 
 "What shall I do?" she was whispering to 
 herself ; "with both of them home I can have
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 nothing. There'll be no money. We will 
 have terrible things to eat or nothing at all ; 
 and my clothes patched, dirty, coarse. Then 
 the work oh, it isn't true; it can't be true. 
 All my life I must live this way. I won't have 
 it so, I won't, I won't." 
 
 The outlook was dark ; darker and gloomier 
 than death itself. "It isn't fair," she wailed, 
 as the picture grew vivid in her mind. "He 
 could help us such a lot. Oh, what will be- 
 come of me. I want to be pretty. I want a 
 good time. I want clothes and money. I 
 want to do as other girls do." She clenched 
 her fists. The helplessness of her position 
 was maddening. "I will have them! I will! 
 I WILL!!" 
 
 In the room beyond, those other two 
 caught no sound of Betty's weeping, yet 
 neither Cyrus nor Betty the demure slept. It 
 was a fearful night. One that lived in the 
 memory of all three as a horror that could 
 not be forgotten. 
 
 Before they were fairly through breakfast 
 
 the next morning Kirby came bounding in; 
 
 he was wearing a checked suit with a flaming 
 
 tie of red silk around his neck ; in his but- 
 
 152
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 ton-hole was a badge white, with a blind 
 Justice held by men labelled "Capitalist." 
 Around the figure was the red flag of Anarchy. 
 
 "Come with me, Cy, this is goin' to be a 
 great day. I'm going to speak to the men 
 over at the works ; a mass meeting. Ida'll be 
 along to do it in German. We'll stir up some- 
 thing that's worth while. Come along." 
 
 Cyrus hesitated. Kirby during the pause 
 regarded him with something approaching 
 malignancy. His hobby was bordering very 
 closely on insanity. Kirby assumed that 
 every individual not in accord with his doc- 
 trines must be sympathizers with the capital- 
 ists. His hatred of rich men increased hourly. 
 He could not wait for the day to arrive when 
 he could lead a force a multitude of starving, 
 infuriated men, wild with their wrongs and 
 mad for revenge against those begorged aris- 
 tocrats. 
 
 Now at last the opportunity seemed ripe. 
 The hesitation of one of the abused, enraged 
 him. 
 
 "What t'll ails you? Are you crazy? Are 
 you going to stand still all your life and be 
 driven into a hole like this? a place a rat 
 153
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 would run from, when you could have a 
 home." 
 
 Cyrus was still motionless and silent ; he 
 was terribly nonplussed. 
 
 It was Betty who came to his rescue. She 
 had put on her hat and coat. Now she turned. 
 "You see, Cyrus has promised to walk to my 
 place with me. That's why he hesitated. 
 He's promised. I won't let him break it." 
 
 Kirby drooped. The explanation was per- 
 fectly valid. "But you'll come later, eh. You 
 may never have a chance like this again. It's 
 a strike two ways. You want to be in it. 
 Show yourself. Let 'em know how you 
 stand." 
 
 The orator called out the last words. He 
 was already on the stairs, going down rapidly 
 in a fury of impatience to get to the scene 
 of excitement. 
 
 "You must not go near them, Cyrus, dear; 
 something will happen. I know it. Proba- 
 bly something dreadful. You must not go !" 
 
 Cyrus shook his head. He always yielded 
 to Betty. Now he followed his own inclina- 
 tion as well. 
 
 When her father and mother were out of 
 154
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 sight Betty was off. She went directly to the 
 Fellows' house and waited until she caught 
 sight of Teddy. 
 
 "It's all over," she announced, when he 
 joined her. "You tell your father he's got 
 to do something. He's robbed my father. 
 You can't call it anything else but cold- 
 blooded, deliberate robbery; now he's got to 
 make amends." 
 
 "Betty, I'll square it with you." 
 
 "How can you; what can you do? There 
 I am working and slaving with a father and 
 mother both home every second, knowing 
 everything that's going on; knowing every 
 time I move. What can you do?" She was 
 scornful. 
 
 "I can give you money." 
 
 "How can I use it?" 
 
 "Oh, damn it, any way you please." 
 
 "That's right, swear. It's a fine way to talk 
 to a girl. See here, for the last time, will you 
 tell your father he must do something. Buy 
 that well and pay for it in cash at once. We 
 will starve. Simply starve. That's all." 
 
 "Betty, I can't work the old man. You 
 know that. See here ; there's one way we can 
 155
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 fix it ; quit the hovel where you live and I 
 will give you a place ; it will be a dandy too. 
 You can have all your own servants and 
 dresses and all the rest of it." 
 
 "Yes, and Disgrace too." 
 
 "Why, don't I love you? don't you love 
 me? I can't see the complication. You think 
 it over ; I can't see the disgrace of it, myself. 
 Take your own time. The offer is open. 
 Where will we go today?" 
 
 "I ought to go home. Father will be 
 there." 
 
 There was no great decision in her voice ; 
 it gave the man an opportunity for assertion. 
 "Nonsense ; if it is our last, we will make a 
 good time of it." Teddy announced. 
 
 She yielded, with no question. 
 
 Meanwhile Cyrus was on his way home. 
 Betty had been taken safely to her place of 
 employment. Inadvertently, Warner fell into 
 the very mass meeting Kirby had announced 
 and he had determined to avoid. It was not 
 held at the works at all, but on the 'street in 
 front of a hall. The road was packed. 
 Mounted on the seat of an empty truck in the 
 
 156
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 midst of black, shifting masses, Kirby stood. 
 He was yelling out his words : 
 
 "We are accused of brutality, of want of 
 wisdom. Why? Because we will not allow 
 ourselves to be trampled upon by others ; be- 
 cause we will not be silenced. \Ve are here 
 to stay. We are here with a purpose. A re- 
 ligion. It is the betterment of our condition, 
 yes, more, the condition of all mankind, 
 that we are struggling for ; and betterment of 
 any kind was never accomplished without 
 revolution. It is for this reason that we must 
 unite and work together in a banded unity. 
 We must arm ourselves. Until we are all 
 ready we may be silenced, perhaps, only to 
 make a greater noise when our plans are ripe. 
 But trampled on Never!" 
 
 There was an angry repetition of the word 
 through the crowd, that increased to an in- 
 articulate shout. It surged and grew to a 
 sound like the enraged growl of an angry 
 beast. 
 
 "The day must come, it is not far distant 
 when one of us well armed will appear at every 
 door. Whoever has not the sign or pass- 
 word will be shot. We'll raise hell before 
 157
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 we're done," continued Kirby. He smote the 
 air, glaring about him, daring any one to cry 
 an opposition. 
 
 "We might as well die fighting as starve to 
 death. Kill the capitalists. Do it now. 
 
 "Why must there be rich ? Why must there 
 be poor? Why not all alike?" remonstrated 
 the orator. But at once he became malevo- 
 lent again. 
 
 "You are to keep the law because your mas- 
 ters refuse you employment. You are to be 
 peaceful because you are hungry and without 
 a home or a shelter. If you refuse to die in 
 your hovels, in due observation of law and 
 order, then you are shot or hung. Is that it 
 huh? 
 
 "If that's the idea, then what you want is 
 guns. What you want is not peace and law 
 and order, but revolution." 
 
 Like the roar of an avalanche the phrase 
 was taken up. 
 
 "That was it By God Revolution ! Rev- 
 olution ! That was the word. This man had 
 ideas." 
 
 Kirby was intoxicated with his success. 
 
 "We are in the midst of abundance, yet 
 158
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 we starve. We are turned out of house and 
 home by sharks who make us ragged slaves, 
 and beggars. Vampires who starve us and 
 freeze us, and still expect us to obey the laws. 
 Obey laws! Well, who is saying anything 
 against that ? Not you ; not I ; we do obey 
 the laws. Yes, but not the statute laws. We 
 obey the laws of man. The natural laws 
 provided for every rank of man. Those laws 
 that render accessible to every man enough to 
 eat, enough to wear, enough to support his 
 family; and we can demand this. What we 
 need is organization. That's all and that's 
 simple. The day for it is come. Here now. 
 What can you lose? nothing. What can 
 you win? the world. Arm, brothers, slaves, 
 arm. It don't require money. One man sup- 
 plied with a dynamite bomb is equal to a 
 regiment of militia. Dynamite is cheap. It's 
 our power. It's our protection. It's our 
 saviour. Arm yourselves. Men, men, wake 
 up !" 
 
 The mob had been carried beyond excite- 
 ment ; it had become a howling pack of rabid, 
 frenzied animals, applauding, encouraging. 
 Kirby was frantic. He was yelling at the top 
 159
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 of his lungs, shaking his fists into the faces of 
 his audience. 
 
 "On, on," he screamed; "to the works, 
 where your places are being filled. On, on to 
 the works where the scabs are making small 
 of you. Are you going to let the capitalists 
 laugh at your sufferings and poverties?" 
 
 Shouts of "No," "No," pierced the air. 
 
 "Then show them what stuff you're made 
 of. I'll lead you against the tyrants." 
 
 Kirby stepped down from the truck. On 
 the spur of the moment, and full to the quick 
 of animal combativeness the crowd fell into 
 line behind this leader. There were cries and 
 curses and beneath all these a droning under- 
 tone of great excitement and exasperation. 
 
 "Yes. Yes ! On against the tyrants ; that's 
 the thing. That's our work. He'll lead. 
 He's onto his job. We've been held up long 
 enough. They won't play us for suckers any 
 longer." 
 
 Cyrus in the midst of the rabble had at- 
 tempted once to fight his way out. It was no 
 use. He could not get out. Instead he was 
 being carried helplessly along, against his will, 
 into the very thing he shrank from encounter- 
 160
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 ing. The man looked about him stupidly. It 
 was inexplicable how he had gotten here. He 
 was all taken aback that he should be joining 
 men in an attack on other men. An attempt 
 to take lives. He was willing to listen to 
 Kirby privately, but this was a different thing 
 listening and the actual doing were vastly 
 different. 
 
 Harassed and troubled, Warner was swept 
 along, and on. When the crowd stopped he 
 looked up for the first time, his eyes wide, his 
 lips apart. They were in the street fronting 
 the works. Kirby, still exercising his author- 
 ity as leader, was shouting and urging again. 
 He was not mounted now, and only a few 
 of the crowd could see him ; but they all heard. 
 
 Cyrus caught a glimpse of him. The or- 
 ator was hatless ; his hair, longer and blacker 
 than ever, streamed about his face. His tie 
 \vas loose. There was a long rent in his 
 checked coat, his trousers were splattered with 
 mud. His linen was fearfully rumpled and 
 soiled ; he began to talk of the interests that 
 affected not individuals but whole classes ; the 
 fairness of the strikers' present demands. He 
 advised them not to hesitate. 
 161
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Force your demands by blood, if neces- 
 sary." He was absolutely reckless by now, 
 no longer weighing his words. Also repeat- 
 ing himself with great frequency. 
 
 In the midst of this harangue there was a 
 stir and commotion around the corner. One 
 began to distinguish the quick sharp tramp 
 of regular footsteps. By degrees the sound 
 grew nearer. Two companies of blue-coated 
 policemen were swinging into the street. They 
 were headed toward the crowd. Rank after 
 rank of strong, able-bodied men ready for 
 duty. 
 
 The sight was so unexpected every face in 
 the mob turned stupid and heavy. Kirby took 
 it all in. On the second he scented a possible 
 wavering of sentiment. It was now or never ; 
 he would stand firm. Cowardice, at least, 
 would never be laid at his door. 
 
 "Here come the bloodhounds, "he screamed. 
 "At 'em. At 'em. Do your duty." 
 
 But as his voice ceased a sudden chill ran 
 over the multitude. That fear of the law, in- 
 born in crude natures, was rising. Those of- 
 ficers had come prepared to force order ; that 
 was evident. They carried in their hands re- 
 162
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 volvers loaded and cocked ; ready for imme- 
 diate use. Duty was all right sometimes. 
 Now it meant facing death, courting death ; 
 flaunting their bodies as targets before these 
 lines of creatures who could fire straight. 
 
 Men mad for blood a moment before began 
 to slink away one by one. A great babble of 
 noise arose; not voices of protest but of 
 peace, and the tones were apologetic. 
 
 Confusion and terror of personal combat 
 ran riot. The fatal instant had passed and 
 the instinct of self-preservation was as yet 
 paramount. 
 
 Kirby was transfixed; he watched these 
 men who were creeping away with averted 
 heads and shrinking bodies, and for the mo- 
 ment he could not understand. Only a mo- 
 ment ; then rage and fury seized him. He saw 
 himself suddenly transformed from a leader 
 to a man humiliated, shamed, deserted. The 
 overthrow of his influence roused him beyond 
 all control. What did it all mean ? Did they 
 guess for one minute that they could throw 
 him down like this? Well, they'd find out 
 they couldn't. That was all he had to say. 
 
 163
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 He'd show them, by God. He simply wouldn't 
 have it. 
 
 Everything was dwarfed beside this gigantic 
 insult. The cause itself became insignificant. 
 The orator sprang up with a cry that echoed 
 blocks away, waving his arms at the groups 
 of disappearing men. 
 
 "You cowards !" he cried ; "if you won't 
 make your own strike for liberty I'll do it for 
 you. Oh, if I could reach you once just 
 once, I'd make you sweat. But I'll show you, 
 anyhow." 
 
 He clenched his fists; his face purple and 
 swollen. 
 
 Nobody minded him. His cry went un- 
 heeded. It is hard to have told what would 
 have happened then if this leader of men had 
 not suddenly found himself gripped from be- 
 hind by the arms. When he turned with an 
 oath it was to find himself face to face with 
 Cyrus. 
 
 Kirby's fury was a thing of almost instan- 
 taneous action. It radiated unceasingly from 
 wildness to passiveness. His insult for the 
 moment was completely forgotten now Cyrus 
 had been here to witness his personal trium- 
 164
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 phant exhibition of bravery. The Warners 
 would always know what a marvelous thing 
 he had accomplished. His pride was so great 
 that he could not reinstate his wrath even 
 when he tried. 
 
 He forgot his yelling and his humiliation, 
 his dire threats. He was quite beside himself 
 with joy that he was discovered in the very 
 midst of an heroic roll. 
 
 "Wasn't it great, Cy just great," he kept 
 saying again and again. "I had those fellows 
 in the palm of my hand, moving 'em to my 
 will. It's a grand power. I have to be care- 
 ful not to abuse it. I told you we'd raise hell ; 
 and we did. Ain't through yet. either. You 
 see what it took to clear the street," pointing 
 with undisguised vanity to the police. "Well, 
 you wait till our next meeting. It'll take am- 
 bulances to clear the road then, and don't you 
 forget it." 
 
 While he talked, Cyrus had been leading the 
 orator away from the scene of the disturbance. 
 They crossed the street, emptied now of all 
 except the police, and went undisturbed down 
 an alley, walking through ash-heaps and 
 mounds of garbage. Kirby all this time was 
 165
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 unconscious of where he stepped. He swag- 
 gered tremendously as he told of his teach- 
 ings ; but he was trembling with the after ef- 
 fects of the excitement. 
 
 Cyrus kept still, apparently listening to 
 Kirby's boasts. When they were well away 
 from the police Warner caught hold of his 
 friend's shoulders and shook him roughly. 
 
 "You stop. You stop that rot, and listen 
 to me a minute. You're making a damn fool 
 of yourself, just a show, and no mistake. 
 What are you thinking of, anyhow ? You've 
 done enough already to put you in prison. If 
 you don't look out you'll get there with 
 murder to answer for. You got to stop, 
 Kirby. Do you hear?" 
 
 Kirby gaped at Warner in open-mouthed 
 astonishment. How dared this man criticise ; 
 a laboring man, too. Incredible ! 
 
 "I'm a fool, am I," he growled, pulling him- 
 self free from Cyrus' heavy grasp. "Well, I 
 know what I'M about, anyhow. Some day 
 you will, too. You ain't in sympathy with our 
 society, eh?" 
 
 He put the question roughly. 
 
 166
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "I ain't in sympathy with murderers; if 
 that's what you mean." 
 
 "You want to stand right where you are, do 
 you? Get thrown down by every bloke 
 that's got a cent. I thought you'd been done 
 out of enough to make you see some things 
 by now. You are willing to die in the poor- 
 house, are you? rot there along with your 
 women at the government's expense." 
 
 "No, I ain't," said Cyrus, exasperated. "But 
 you and this mob ain't goin' at the business 
 in a way to prevent it. If I don't get rich, 
 at least I won't get hung. More than that, I 
 never could see the right of killing under any 
 conditions." 
 
 They went on in silence. With any other 
 man Kirby by now would have been quarrel- 
 ing, but some strange affection that from the 
 first had stirred his heart toward Cyrus still 
 burned within his violent nature. 
 
 He was hurt and disturbed, but he was not 
 angry. He was so aggrieved that he was 
 overcome with self-pity. Some day Cyrus 
 would understand. Kirby would simply go 
 on with his work and wait for Cyrus when 
 that day came. His eyes were moist as he 
 167
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 realized his own magnanimity towards this 
 unreasoning friend. He saw himself in the 
 future a martyred hero to the cause of the 
 laboring man, sacrificing his life and and 
 his family for the principles he espoused. 
 That he was misunderstood now was but a 
 part of the whole. Cyrus should have under- 
 stood, but his misunderstanding he forgave 
 freely. He found himself pitying Cyrus, too, 
 for when the future came, that future that 
 would show the name of Kirby to be worthy 
 of canonization Cyrus would be miserable. 
 
 This was all the nobility of his own nature 
 asserting itself even in his moment of ex- 
 treme discouragement. His head lifted; he 
 was breathing hard. The greatest reformers 
 had been the greatest sufferers. He was re- 
 signed. 
 
 Cyrus left Kirby at the tenement where Ida 
 and the baby lived in two wretched rooms. 
 Then Warner pushed on, to his own home 
 hurriedly. He wondered at finding no one in. 
 The rooms were dirty and grimy; they were 
 full of the smells of night, the beds unmade 
 and soiled dishes lying around in little piles. 
 Cyrus got out his apron and went to work. 
 
 Meanwhile, Kirby gave great accounts to 
 168
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Ida of the success of the day. He worked 
 all the episodes out with his arms. Ida's 
 white face burned. Her hands twitched ner- 
 vously, as she listened. Kirby was suddenly 
 excessively buoyant. He pummeled his boy 
 in affected imitation of a prize-fighter; tfren 
 he tossed the sickly child roughly in the air 
 and laughed at the big frightened eyes that 
 peered down at him. This son was named 
 Reinsdorf Fisher after an apostle of An- 
 archy. He was a pathetic little fellow, easily 
 frightened and happy in intense quiet. He 
 seemed a parody on his raging, loud-voiced 
 father, of whom he was fearfully afraid. 
 
 "Our next meeting is at the hall tomorrow 
 night. If the crowd's too big we will have it 
 in the street. You've got to be there. Take 
 the boy along. It's a good thing for him to 
 hear and see. We will take some of the good 
 stuff with us, Ida, to have it handy." 
 
 Mrs. Kirby's eyes dilated in horror; she 
 looked wildly at her husband. He had re- 
 leased Reinsdorf and was bringing a large 
 box across the floor ; it was full of sawdust and 
 very heavy. The man sat down beside it, 
 working his hands through the siftings cau- 
 tiously. 
 
 169
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Suddenly Ida picked up her boy, straining 
 his little figure close to her. 
 
 "Kirby, you are not going to take that to- 
 morrow night," she cried. 
 
 Kirby looked up. "What ails you?" he 
 growled. 
 
 "But the boy. I'm not afraid for myself; 
 but the boy. If anything should happen and 
 he was hurt. Oh, let me leave him here. It 
 might mean his death." 
 
 Then Kirby arose. In his hands he was 
 holding a short piece of lead pipe that he had 
 just picked out of the sawdust. One end was 
 plugged. From out of the other hung a long 
 fuse. Raising this instrument of death over 
 the woman's head, he cried aloud : "It would 
 be his baptism in the fire of a good cause. I 
 could ask no better thing ! I do ask no better 
 thing than that you both may give your lives 
 to the gospel that we preach." 
 
 His eyes were a narrow squint of fire. He 
 was fearfully in earnest. It was as if he were 
 possessed with the mania of Death. The 
 woman shuddered. She was holding the boy 
 hugged to her so closely that suddenly he be- 
 gan to send up a soft, painful wail. 
 170
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE meeting did not come off the next 
 night, for it rained. All day long the 
 water poured down in torrents, and 
 Kirby addressed a few followers indoors. He 
 set the time for a full gathering a week ahead. 
 Ida stayed home with the boy; likewise, the 
 "good stuff" remained harmlessly in its box. 
 
 But this postponement brought little peace 
 to the wretched woman. Every nerve in her 
 fragile body was racked and aching her mind 
 was disordered with schemes to avert what 
 was to come. It never occurred to her that 
 she could refuse to obey Kirby the question 
 was, how to obey and protect her child at the 
 same time. 
 
 She couldn't take her boy to that final meet- 
 ing the meeting of desperate men armed 
 with desperate means. It was as if something 
 was showing her the end before the end had 
 come, and it forbade that baby's presence. 
 Once a wild idea shot through her brain ; 
 she would take Reinsdorf and run away. 
 
 Contemplation of this idea showed its use- 
 171
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 lessness. It required money everything re- 
 quired money. The Kirbys had absolutely 
 nothing. 
 
 Ida went over and over everything, torn 
 with a conflict of emotions. She believed with 
 her entire soul in the equal rights of individ- 
 uals, but she had no desire to express this 
 belief when words meant danger to her boy. 
 He must escape the doom that was hovering 
 near by with her it made no difference. 
 What odds was it if with her the worst came 
 to the worst ? 
 
 Hourly the situation at the works grew 
 more desperate. The hungrier the strikers 
 became the less cautious they were of their 
 lives the more they listened to Kirby. 
 
 "Plug some of those fellows and see how 
 long before things come your way," he kept 
 repeating. 
 
 He was drinking a good deal now ; lack of 
 food sent the liquor directly to his brain. 
 In this condition his passion against capital- 
 ists became savagery; but his oratory kept 
 pace with his fury. His flow of words was as- 
 tonishing; more than that, he had not the 
 least concern about what he said or urged. 
 172
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 He was absolutely careless, fearless, desper- 
 ate. So were the men to whom he talked. 
 
 At the Warners life was not gay. Betty 
 the demure gave out. It was a combination 
 of worry, work and no nourishment. Cyrus 
 was like a crazy man. He hung over his wife 
 day and night, wild with alarm, beside him- 
 self with nervousness ; nothing she could say 
 comforted him; the man was all unnerved. 
 Occasionally, from sheer exhaustion he would 
 fall asleep in a chair as he watched, and lie in 
 a heavy stupor. Then Betty would scarcely 
 breathe for fear of arousing him ; but his rest 
 was gone in a moment. All at once he would 
 start up haunted by a terrible dream ; a dream 
 that showed Betty dead ; cold, white, fearfully 
 motionless. For hours afterwards he would 
 be afraid to sit the fear of sleeping again and 
 seeing that vision was maddening. 
 
 He took care of his wife as he would have a 
 child. His gentleness was pathetic his awk- 
 wardness pitiful. She would not have a doc- 
 tor, insisting that all she needed was rest. 
 She did not add "food," because it would only 
 have hurt Cyrus and done no good. The 
 Warners, like the Kirbys, had nothing. Cyrus 
 173
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 understood, however, and one night he came 
 in with an armful of things ; for the first time 
 in his life Cyrus had gone in debt. 
 
 During her mother's illness Betty the 
 younger was at home very seldom ; she pre- 
 tended she was searching for work; instead, 
 she was spending every day with Teddy. This 
 young man felt, and with reason, that his hour 
 had almost come. His turn at last. It had 
 been a long, hard, ridiculous fight. Under 
 the circumstances it spoke well for his pa- 
 tience and his strategy that it was coming out 
 his way. 
 
 Betty was in her seventeenth year, and the 
 fame of her beauty was spreading. Her abil- 
 ity of attracting men was very noticeable. 
 When she began to appreciate all this her 
 wisdom flew away. 
 
 "There is no reason why, with proper dress 
 and care and money, I should not make a 
 great place for myself," she announced. 
 
 After this her selfishness was supreme. Her 
 consideration for her father and mother was 
 wiped out of existence by her consideration 
 for herself. "They'll never miss me as long 
 as they have each other; and, after all, why 
 174
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 should I spend my beauty and my life scrub- 
 bing three nasty rooms in a common tene- 
 ment." 
 
 It was a cold-blooded argument in favor of 
 the final step. It proceeded from a cold- 
 blooded nature. In reality there was no hesi- 
 tation whatever in Betty's mind. She did not 
 care. 
 
 At seven o'clock on the night set for the 
 mass meeting, Kirby again stopped for Cyrus. 
 Betty was up, for the first time in days very 
 pallid and very weak, but better. 
 
 "I've sent Ida and Reinsdorf on ahead. 
 Come on, Cy, it'll be a big thing. Don't you 
 try to stop him, Mrs. Warner. It's going to 
 be something no laboring man wants to miss." 
 
 "She ain't stopping me," broke in Cyrus, 
 promptly indignant. "She's been sick. I 
 can't leave her. I won't leave her." 
 
 Then Kirby clamored at Cyrus' backsliding 
 and left the house furiously angry. 
 
 When he came to the meeting place the 
 square was crowded ; packed with a sweating, 
 howling horde of bestial men. It was an easy 
 matter to incite them to riot or murder. That 
 was what they had come there for ; they were 
 175
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 gnawed with hunger ; they were tired and dis- 
 couraged and mad. 
 
 They welcomed Kirby vociferously. When 
 Ida and the boy mounted the platform beside 
 him, and Kirby pointed to them as his willing, 
 living sacrifices on the altar of their sacred 
 cause, the noise that broke out was terrifying. 
 
 "This revolution can never be accomplished 
 except over ruins and ashes ; over blood and 
 dead bodies. Are you ready to begin?" 
 
 "Yes. Yes !" answered the frantic mob. 
 
 "Then come on," he yelled, waving his 
 hands. 
 
 Ida pulled out a red flag and unfurled it. 
 Standing between her boy and her husband, 
 she marched first down the street, the motley 
 pack in full cry behind her. Her boy was 
 panting with exhaustion. Down his livid baby 
 face ran tears of excitement and of terror. 
 His tiny hands alternately applauded and beat 
 the air. 
 
 The mother dared not look at him. Some- 
 times she caught her breath in sharp hisses. 
 The acuteness of the pain she was bearing 
 stabbed her. 
 
 They were living sacrifices. Kirby had 
 176
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 spoken truly. Her baby was the sacrifice of- 
 fered by the father, sanctioned by the mother. 
 
 She gripped the red flag of anarchy, flaunt- 
 ing it above her head. She waved it, trying to 
 screw up her courage, striving to hide the de- 
 sire that tempted her ; a desire to creep away 
 somewhere with her baby and rest. Away 
 from the turmoil that she hated and the noise 
 that hurt her. But they were wanted here. 
 At the head of this death's march. It was 
 duty after all. The duty she herself years be- 
 fore had preached about. 
 
 With a sudden impetuosity, the woman be- 
 gan to sing. A terrible song. Her voice 
 rose high, shrill, strident, above the din of 
 those tramping feet. In less than a second 
 the song was taken up, pouring out of a thou- 
 sand steaming throats, a grisly sound. 
 
 All at once there came the cry, "The blood- 
 hounds ! The bloodhounds !" 
 
 Kirby's face went white like ashes. He 
 gave one look in front; one at his wife and 
 child by his side, and then he forgot every- 
 thing. 
 
 "Let 'em have it," he shouted. 
 
 This time there was no fear in his mind 
 that those men would desert. 
 177
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 On marched the two groups of men, com- 
 ing nearer and nearer, in absolute silence. 
 The singing had ceased. The uproar had 
 stilled itself. There was not a murmur; it 
 was the grewsome stillness preceding the aw- 
 ful breaking of a torrent. When the police 
 were within three feet of Ida the captain of 
 the force raised his hands : 
 
 "I call upon you in the name of the people 
 to disperse," he cried. 
 
 "We are here to do our duty," replied 
 Kirby. "Men, do your duty," he shouted 
 back over his shoulder. 
 
 At that, and still in silence there came a 
 movement from the center of the mob. A 
 spark rose, flashed through the air. It swung 
 over the heads of the men with a hiss and a 
 splutter, aimed straight toward the lines of 
 blue-coated men. It fell short; with a 
 bound it dropped directly at the feet of Ida 
 and Reinsdovf. Instantly there came a ter- 
 rific explosion, a noise that deafened the ears 
 and rolled away with the rip of a thunder 
 crash, throwing its echoes back from between 
 the walls. 
 
 For a moment no one seemed to know 
 what had happened. The multitude was
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 paralyzed with fright. Then a terrible scene 
 began. First the uproar broke loose. It 
 rose from a mutter to a hurricane of sound. 
 There were cries of 
 
 "Save yourselves !" 
 
 "Let 'em have it !" 
 
 "Bombs!" "Bombs!" 
 
 "Look out for another !" 
 
 Every one talked at once, spitting out 
 words between curses and cries. The brute 
 instinct of self-preservation at any cost was 
 leaping to the surface. It was the idea of 
 every man there to get away. If doing this 
 meant crushing his neighbor why, crush, 
 that was all right. Batter out life if neces- 
 sary. 
 
 The streets cleared as if by magic; the ef- 
 forts of the officers were superfluous. 
 
 But two people up in front did not struggle 
 or fight, or cry. A little child with a livid face 
 and wide-opened, haunted eyes, and a body all 
 wet and splotched with blood lay silent on a 
 woman's lap ; she was sitting on a piece of 
 torn pavement. Across her had fallen the red 
 flag of Anarchy, soaking fast with the redder 
 
 blood that flowed from a great hole in her 
 179
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 side. Her hair was wet and matted with blood 
 from another wound in her head. Drop by 
 drop this ran down her cheeks unheeded. Yet 
 all this time she crooned to the baby. How 
 she lived to do it no one knew. No one but 
 a mother could have breathed, hurt as she was 
 hurt. 
 
 Kirby stood by them unharmed. He looked 
 at them stupidly, his eyes wandering in in- 
 definite search along the ground, but always 
 coming back to them those two, his wife 
 and his son. He made no effort to touch 
 them ; once he raised his head to the group 
 of faces that surrounded him and began 
 to cry out unintelligible things. It was as if 
 he asked aid. But when one of those men, 
 moved to pity, put out a hand towards him he 
 started up from the ground panic-stricken. 
 No hands should restrain him. He had no 
 idea what he did nor where he went. He sim- 
 ply followed that same inborn instinct that had 
 possessed the mob. 
 
 Darting like a terror-stricken animal, he 
 
 dodged and ran and hid. Once, going with 
 
 full speed he hit with fearful force against a 
 
 building; a cry of rage and pain broke from 
 
 180
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 his lips ; but he kept on and on, and the place 
 where he finally stopped was Cyrus Warner's. 
 
 The rooms were dark ; the door was locked. 
 Kirby pounded and called. Cyrus came at 
 last, groping his way sleepily across the floor 
 by the light of a candle. 
 
 Kirby entered. "For God's sake !" gasped 
 Cyrus. 
 
 Kirby came forward. He was suddenly un- 
 able to walk. His legs tottered; all his 
 strength was gone. Across his shirt there was 
 a red streak. His left arm hung limp and use- 
 less by his side. 
 
 "For God's sake, what is it?" repeated 
 Cyrus. 
 
 Kirby sank into a chair. Betty, alarmed by 
 her husband's cry, came out. 
 
 "What is it? Yes; that's it; what is it?" 
 he mumbled breathlessly. 
 
 "Ida! Is it Ida?" called Betty, sharply. 
 
 "Yes. Yes; Ida. That's it. Ida. They 
 were a sacrifice. That's it. A living sacri- 
 fice." The man's face lighted up. His eyes 
 rolled. Betty shivered. 
 
 "Cyrus, something terrible is the trouble. 
 We must go and see," she whispered, her lips 
 white. 
 
 181
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Cyrus nodded. 
 
 "Perhaps murder," Betty went on. 
 
 Cyrus stared dumbly, first at her and then 
 at Kirby. While Cyrus was waiting for Betty 
 to dress Kirby muttered. 
 
 He told of living sacrifices, and exclaimed 
 loudly: "It was duty !" But he would answer 
 no questions. In fact, his mind did not seem 
 to work at all. 
 
 Together Cyrus and Betty got the man to 
 his home. The horror that seized Betty as 
 she was about to actually step foot into the 
 Kirbys' two small rooms made her faint. Her 
 throat was choked with a lump that filled it. 
 
 Once inside there was nothing terrible to be 
 seen. Nothing to show that murder had been 
 committed, or anything wrong attempted. 
 
 "What is all the trouble, anyway?" she 
 asked, sharply, shaking Kirby's shoulder. 
 
 Then the man began little by little to ex- 
 plain. He told enough to let them guess the 
 rest. As he finished, out in the street there 
 was the clang of a patrol wagon. The sound 
 of that bell sent a fierce, unreasoning terror 
 into the mind of the orator. It started his 
 wits out of their sluggishness. He threw 
 himself wildly upon Cyrus. 
 182
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Save me from them. They've come for 
 me ; to take me. I didn't kill them, Cy ; you 
 know that. Help me. Don't let 'em have 
 me. Keep me safe until after Ida and the boy 
 are cared for." 
 
 He cried and wept and begged, beside him- 
 self. He dragged himself across the floor, 
 tugging at Cyrus' knees. 
 
 Cyrus picked him up. He would have 
 sought to hide his friend ; he pulled the orator 
 half across the room; but he hadn't time. 
 There was a clamor at the door; Cyrus 
 dropped his burden. Kirby gave a scream. 
 A moment later two policemen entered. Fol- 
 lowing them came more policemen, carrying a 
 stretcher. On this lay the bodies of Ida and 
 Reinsdorf; the bodies of the two sacrificed 
 for the cause of the Laboring Man.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FOR days afterward Betty was constantly 
 seeing those two poor bodies before 
 her. She couldn't get away from the 
 sight. The infinite pity of the thing had 
 shaken her more than the horror. Night after 
 night she would wake up trembling and fright- 
 ened and calling to Cyrus : "Oh, oh, Cyrus, I 
 saw it all so plainly Ida and that poor baby." 
 Then Cyrus soothed and quieted as best he 
 could. Time and again this was repeated. 
 
 Ida and Reinsdorf were buried as became 
 sacrifices, with much pomp and ceremony and 
 no real feeling. Kirby sat through the serv- 
 ices guarded on each side by a policeman. He 
 was stolid, apparently unmoved; but there 
 was a light in his continually rolling, roving 
 red eyes that showed why emotion had not 
 come to him. 
 
 After the funeral this orator, who had in- 
 cited the riot was led back to jail. Kirby was 
 waiting his trial for murder the murder of 
 his wife and child. Outside, a crowd had 
 184
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 collected, so that extra policemen had come 
 to force a passageway through the throng. 
 Kis name was on every one's lips. The whole 
 story was spread broadcast. Every one stood 
 staring and peering. As he walked down the 
 steps toward the patrol wagon a subdued 
 murmur followed him. 
 
 It was evening before Cyrus and Betty 
 reached their home. She was pale and hol- 
 low-eyed. Cyrus had been terribly overcome 
 during the day. His great heart ached with 
 the pathos and dreadfulness of the whole 
 affair. 
 
 Once inside their rooms the two noticed 
 immediately the appearance of neglect over 
 everything. With a sudden instinctive fear 
 the mother rushed into the daughter's room. 
 Things were in great confusion, as though 
 there had been a hurried gathering together oi 
 clothes. On the table in conspicuous evidence 
 lay a three-cornered piece of paper. The 
 mother seized on it crazily. 
 
 "Dear Mother and Father: I have taken 
 
 this day for going, because you are both 
 
 away; that makes explanations and partings 
 
 unnecessary. Did you both think I was go- 
 
 185
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 ing on forever in this way a burden and a 
 care? Did you suppose I could not see how 
 you have struggled? My own uselessness 
 has hurt me long enough. I am going to 
 change it. I have found a place in the coun- 
 try. It will mean a home for me and a little 
 money besides. Probably you would not have 
 allowed me to go if I had asked, so I took the 
 thing in my own hands. 
 
 "Don't be unhappy or lonesome. I am safe 
 and well, and being cared for. Of course I 
 shall write. 
 
 Your loving daughter, 
 
 "Betty." 
 
 Betty the mother gasped. She made her 
 way out of the little room, when she liad read 
 the note, into the kitchen. Cyrus was stand- 
 ing, dumbly waiting. 
 
 Of course this was an explanation Betty 
 admitted that, but there was something, a 
 suspicion, an uneasiness, an intangible some- 
 thing that had come over the woman. It 
 pounded at her unceasingly. It made her 
 quail with apprehension. 
 
 Cyrus read the note. The heaviness lifted 
 from his face; he breathed hard. 
 186
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Well, that's all right. Thought she was a 
 care, did she? Well, she didn't know; that's 
 all. She just didn't know." 
 
 The mother shook her head ; she said noth- 
 ing. Perhaps she could not have spoken. 
 Cyrus, hugely relieved, prepared for bed. He 
 stretched and yawned, very tired from the 
 emotions of the day; but for some reason 
 Betty waited around, not going to bed till 
 past midnight. She wandered irresolutely 
 from room to room putting things to rights. 
 Pottering over the trifles Betty had left be- 
 hind. 
 
 The sensation of something terribly wrong 
 would not leave her. 
 
 "After all, Ida and Reinsdorf are happier, 
 perhaps," she whispered, desolately, to her- 
 self. Then the tears came from her hot, star- 
 ing eyes, and she crept in to Cyrus for com- 
 fort. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Across the city, not three miles from where 
 the mother fought with the instinctive fear 
 that is born of maternal love, the daughter 
 slept, her head pillowed comfortably, her sur- 
 roundings luxurious. She had slipped easily 
 187
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 into the life that she craved. There was no 
 longer the necessity for rising at an early 
 hour; no longer the danger of spoiling her 
 hands ; no longer the humiliation of wearing 
 coarse garments. Neither had the young 
 woman any qualms. Why should she have? 
 She possessed beauty, youth and fascination. 
 Teddy was a fixture, likewise, her slave; a 
 very devoted lover. Betty had ample proof 
 of that. The girl truly had learned a great 
 deal; but there was one thing she had not 
 guessed at the peculiarities of men's natures. 
 
 188
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THINGS went from bad to worse with 
 the Warners. The strikers' places at 
 the works had all been rilled with new 
 men. The spirit of Anarchy for the moment 
 was crushed out of sight. The horror of what 
 had come to their leader cowed the men of 
 Revolution. Betty was wretched and misera- 
 ble; constantly mourning for her daughter. 
 The mother's grief over the child's disappear- 
 ance had driven out all other feeling of dis- 
 couragement at their ill luck. No word 
 had come from the girl; her people had no 
 idea where to address her. 
 
 About this time the couple who had lived 
 in the Warners' cottage departed. It was no 
 great loss one way or another, as they had 
 never paid the rent ; it seemed the conspiring 
 of Fate to leave no stone unturned. But how 
 to obtain food had become an immense ques- 
 tion. The perversity of poverty was heart- 
 breaking; sometimes for days they could af- 
 ford nothing; then Cyrus would take his place 
 in line at a bake-shop and wait hours for a loaf 
 189
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 of bread or a few rolls. Occasionally he 
 worked with a street gang, shoveling and 
 picking. He grew thin and white, and his 
 flesh drew tight over his body. Betty was 
 losing her trimness her gaunt face was no 
 longer fresh and pretty. But through all their 
 suffering there was never a harsh word, an un- 
 gentle expression between this husband and 
 wife; neither one failed the other. Privation 
 and misery could not break their bond of love. 
 
 When things seemed desperate there came 
 a letter from Fellows ; enclosed was a check. 
 It was not a third what Cyrus' well was worth, 
 but Fellows said frankly that it was this or 
 nothing; it was all he was prepared to give. 
 Cyrus, naturally, accepted the amount. 
 
 Then the man conceived a plan. It had lain 
 dormant in his head a long time ; this money 
 brought it forward a possibility. He talked 
 it over with Betty in all detail he would leave 
 the money with his wife, every cent of it, ex- 
 cept a few dollars to buy him a new suit. By 
 care, they figured, it would last her some 
 time. He meanwhile would work his way 
 West and do a little prospecting. A man, a 
 day laborer, who was down in his luck and 
 190
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 working in the city only because necessity de- 
 manded, had told him that there were mines 
 in Michigan that paid great iron ore mines. 
 The hunt for these wasn't run into the ground, 
 as gold mining was. 
 
 Cyrus had small idea of prospecting, hot 
 this man who had been a miner told War- 
 ner considerable. At any rate, anything was 
 worth the trying. He couldn't go on this 
 way starvation was facing them, and the fu- 
 ture was glum. 
 
 Betty asquiesced, not gaily or cheerfully, 
 but with the bravery of desperation. It meant 
 her first separation from her husband ; that 
 seemed a larger calamity than poverty or 
 hunger; but for his own sake she knew that 
 something had got to be done. 
 
 There were no hesitations or delays. When 
 the thing was decided she moved out of their 
 desolate three rooms into one room. 
 
 It fronted on an alley that was foul with 
 dirt and the odors that rose from it pervaded 
 the whole atmosphere ; but the room was 
 cheap and in itself immaculate. 
 
 It was here that the parting took place. 
 Cyrus had purchased a cheap ticket that car- 
 191
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 ried him by rail into the State where he want- 
 ed to go. This saved weeks of tramping and 
 the danger of stealing rides. He took his be- 
 longings in a canvas bag that Betty herselt 
 had made. She went over and over these 
 things to see that they were all right. There 
 was one entire new suit, a stout pair of shoes 
 and some underclothing and socks, all of the 
 coarsest kind. Beside these, there was a pair 
 of heavy overalls, a book on mines, and a 
 cheap, gray blanket. It was likely he would 
 sleep many nights out of doors. 
 
 After these things were packed the bag was 
 filled to its limit. 
 
 "You must wear your overcoat, dear; it 
 won't go in," said Betty, looking up and pant- 
 ing with the exertion. 
 
 At last everything was ready. Cyrus stood 
 up; he kept looking at the bag and his over- 
 coat and hat. He talked spasmodically, dread- 
 ing to speak the last word, yet fearfully con- 
 scious that it must come soon. Time was 
 getting short. The man referred frequently 
 to letters. It seemed the only tangible 
 species of consolation. 
 
 He would write to her very often. Perhaps 
 192
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 sometimes news might be indefinite, for he 
 would be in the hills and away from post- 
 offices ; so she must prepare herself for that, 
 but when he could he would send her letters. 
 
 Betty nodded. She was cold and trembling. 
 Her lips quivered so that she couldn't speak. 
 The tears were coursing down Cyrus' pinched 
 face. It was too hard the cruelty of this 
 moment was supreme. 
 
 "Oh, I can't stand it, dear ; I can't ; I can't." 
 Betty suddenly cried out, throwing herself in 
 his arms. He held her close, speechless with 
 unhappiness and grief. He could riot even 
 encourage with hopes of the great things he 
 would win. 
 
 "Take care of yourself," he gasped finally. 
 "I couldn't stand it to come back and find 
 you " Cyrus had no words to finish. 
 
 There was another convulsive embrace. He 
 reached down and took up his bag and coat. 
 Then came one hysterical cry from the wom- 
 an's pallid lips. Human grief could go no 
 farther. 
 
 He was gone. 
 
 She watched him from the alley window, 
 seeing his tall, lean figure through a haze ot 
 193
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 tears. Once he turned and waved ; after that 
 she couldn't see him at all. When it finally 
 became apparent that he was gone quite, 
 quite gone all Betty's courage and restraint 
 flew. She dropped on her knees and, with 
 her head buried in her arms, cried as if her 
 heart would break. When she rose again her 
 knees shook ; she was faint and weak. The 
 afternoon had faded and outside the night 
 was falling somber and black. 
 
 194
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A MONTH passed ; then another and an- 
 other. The great forests, with their 
 darkening lights and queer, uncertain 
 silences in time became a solace to Cyrus 
 Warner, though never for a moment's time 
 was his longing for Betty appeased. All day 
 he strode up and down the great, rugged hills, 
 loving them for their w r ildness ; sympathizing 
 with them in their crudeness ; talking to them 
 for companionship. At night he rolled him- 
 self in his blanket and lay staring up into the 
 star-studded blackness until he fell asleep in 
 the midst of the gigantic solitude. 
 
 All about him were mines in operation. 
 Apparently the country was alive with them. 
 Sometimes he came close enough to hear the 
 dull roar of machinery ; then he would turn 
 away in another direction. He was seeking a 
 mine of his own not a place as a day laborer. 
 
 The thought of this last came to his mind 
 only as a necessity if all else failed ; not that 
 he ever admitted failure. His belief in ulti- 
 mate success clung to him. He always wrote 
 195
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 it to Betty ; he continually asserted it to him- 
 self. He would not be beaten ; there was no 
 such thing; he would break Fate in its own 
 game. 
 
 The weather was turning very cold. As 
 long as no snow fell his work was not inter- 
 fered with. Occasionally the thought of pass- 
 ing an entire winter in inaction frightened 
 him. It would mean a prolonging of this 
 separation that was telling on him severely. 
 But he did not dwell on the possibility; in- 
 stead he plodded on with a monotonous rou- 
 tine that made all his days alike and took 
 away all notion of time. 
 
 He got under way as soon as it was light, 
 and tramped over the country, his eyes fixed 
 on the ground for a spot of rusty grass, a 
 sight of iron pyrite. He was laden on these 
 journeys like a pack-horse. Over one shoul- 
 der was slung the canvas bag ; dangling from 
 this by cords was a small prospector's outfit 
 pans, a pick, a hammer, shovel, some bacon, 
 coffee and a small sack of flour. It was a 
 terrible lift to carry all day, but he seldom 
 stopped two nights in exactly the same place. 
 
 Yet with all this, Cyrus' supply of food was 
 196
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 only sufficient for a few days. He depended 
 on other camps or small towns for frequent 
 replenishings. He simply could not carry 
 more. The man walked slowly, that he might 
 miss no possible chance, but his eyes became 
 alert from the continued practice, and he cov- 
 ered many miles a day. 
 
 No snow came until January that winter. 
 On the afternoon of the 3ist of December 
 Cyrus fell in with a man, a great bulk of a 
 fellow, sitting on a stump in an attitude of 
 extreme dejection. He stared at Cyrus in 
 bewilderment. 
 
 "By the gods, this is luck !" he exclaimed, 
 speaking to himself. 
 
 "What's up ?" asked Cyrus. 
 
 "I'm stuck. I expected to cross this place 
 and get into the next town by night, and I've 
 missed it. I ain't got a thing to eat, and I'm 
 dead beat. Will you share ?" 
 
 "Sure." Cyrus put down his pack. Thus 
 unburdened he straightened up his shoulders 
 with a deep breath of relief. 
 
 "Miner?" he queried, after a moment. 
 
 "Not now. Was once. I don't care about 
 
 197
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 working underground much. You prospect- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Huh-huh." 
 
 "Any luck?" 
 
 "None yet." 
 
 There was a pause. A cold blast of air 
 swept down from the north. It cut through 
 Cyrus' worn garments, stabbing his flesh. He 
 shivered, then began to look around for twigs 
 to kindle a fire. The stranger arose imme- 
 diately and helped. In half an hour a bright 
 blaze was springing up. But the night was 
 not promising. It had suddenly fallen terri- 
 bly cold; the sun went down in a bank of 
 freezing gray clouds and the wind came up 
 with a roar. It swept down between the hills 
 and whistled through the hollows, and struck 
 at the men. 
 
 Tingling and pricking, they got out the 
 pans. The stranger sliced the bacon; Cyrus 
 made the coffee. It was a long and a diffi- 
 cult business it seemed impossible to cook in 
 that cold a thing chilled before it got fairly 
 away from the fire. The wind blew fiercer at 
 every blast. 
 
 "God damn this weather!" ejaculated the 
 198
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 stranger, jumping up and down, all the time 
 he was smiting his hands together. 
 
 Cyrus plodded speechlessly. His face was 
 a queer blue, and he had to pay considerable 
 attention to his legs to keep them from shak- 
 ing ; but it was not his way to complain. 
 
 The coffee was finally cooked; it warmed 
 them, sending a glow through their bodies. 
 When it was gone the stranger began to talk : 
 
 "We've made a mistake, a big mistake," he 
 exclaimed. "We ought to have got under 
 the lee of some protection, a hill or some- 
 thing. We get the whole sweep of the cli- 
 mate here." 
 
 Cyrus knew this; he looked around fur- 
 tively, trying to penetrate the blackness ; it 
 was a thoroughly useless attempt; the night 
 was the darkest one he had ever seen; not 
 even a star ! 
 
 "No use now," he said, creeping closer to 
 the fire. "We've got to stay awake and keep 
 this going. That's sure." 
 
 "You don't happen to have any whiskey 
 about you, I suppose?" The stranger put the 
 question anxiously. 
 
 199
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "I never carry it much ; whiskey don't agree 
 with me." 
 
 "Pshaw ! I didn't have time to get my flask 
 filled 1 left town in a hustle." 
 
 Cyrus was an unsuspicious man ; this ex- 
 planation appeared perfectly valid. He of- 
 fered no comments, and the stranger sank 
 back against a tree, shivering every once in 
 a while. 
 
 Conversation languished neither man felt 
 sociable. They sat there, two silent, deso- 
 late figures, lost in the vastness of a rugged, 
 untamed forest solitude. 
 
 After a time Cyrus moved to a position 
 where he could replenish the fire without ris- 
 ing. He smoked pipe after pipe of tobacco, 
 thinking of Betty and wondering when 
 when he would get back to her; when luck 
 would come his way again ; when this endless 
 battle would be settled. 
 
 The stranger was sleeping fitfully ; once he 
 called out sharply, dreaming he was being 
 chased, and sending out curse after curse. A 
 moment later he sat up, eyeing Cyrus with 
 a look of evil cunning. 
 
 "Did you speak?" 
 
 200
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Cyrus, startled out of his vision of Betty, 
 replied gruffly : "No ; no, I didn't say a word." 
 
 "Well, who bawled?" 
 
 "I didn't hear any one. Probably it was 
 an animal." Cyrus was honest in this ; his 
 mind had not been on his surroundings. The 
 expression on Warner's face showed this suffi- 
 ciently to satisfy the stranger; but he slept 
 no more during the entire night. 
 
 Some sense of danger apparently pursued 
 this fellow who had been deceived in the dis- 
 tances between towns ; but he went into no 
 personalities. However, in the desultory talk 
 that took place between these two men during 
 the wretched hours of that endless night 
 Cyrus learned one great piece of information 
 it concerned the existence of a magnetized 
 rod that made the discovery of iron ore a 
 matter of ease. 
 
 "I'll have one of those rods if I have to sell 
 my clothes for it," he asserted loudly, his eyes 
 rolling with enthusiasm. 
 
 "They're great," assented the stranger. 
 "Too bad you didn't know of one sooner." 
 
 Before morning both men were crouching 
 close to the flickering blaze; their supply of 
 201
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 sticks was exhausted. The cold was some- 
 thing fearful ; there was nothing to break 
 those horrible gusts of wind, nothing to give 
 them relief from the numb aching cf their 
 half-frozen bodies. 
 
 "Lord, won't day ever come !" exclaimed 
 the stranger, his teeth now chattering so that 
 speech was difficult. 
 
 "We'll have to get up and tramp; it won't 
 do to sit here like this after our fire's gone." 
 
 But as the last words came from his lips 
 Cyrus sank into a doze; he had resisted as 
 long as endurance had permitted. But he 
 was not allowed an unbroken rest. Before 
 an hour had passed he felt something soft 
 falling and melting on his face. His eyes 
 opened with a jerk it had begun to snow. 
 He stirred sharply; every move was torture; 
 the fire was completely out ; the stranger, 
 lying in a heap, was breathing noisily. 
 
 Far away the tops of the trees were a faint 
 outline against the skies morning was com- 
 ing at last, thank God ! 
 
 Cyrus struggled to his feet ; he leaned over 
 and shook his companion : 
 
 202
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "Get up, pardner ; this won't do. It'll mean 
 your death, sure. Get up." 
 
 At the last cry the stranger did get up 
 with a bound and an oath. He jumped to 
 his feet and stood alert, poised for an imme- 
 diate struggle. For fully a minute he stood 
 like this looking into Cyrus' face and trying 
 to place himself. He had evidently received 
 a tremendous fright. His brain was teeming 
 with some kind of a personal danger. When 
 he recovered he dropped his eyes sheepishly. 
 
 "You see, I was dreaming that some bloke 
 was hunting me. I was getting ready to 
 have it out," he explained, his voice trem- 
 bling. For hours afterward he still showed 
 evidences of fear. 
 
 This time there shot through Cyrus' mind 
 a little curiosity as to what his pardner's occu- 
 pation was. 
 
 Dawn did not arrive with a flaming an- 
 nouncement that morning; daylight came be- 
 cause it was law, not from choice. The sun 
 kept in persistent hiding behind the clouds 
 that piled up steadily ; everywhere the sky was 
 grey with them. The atmosphere was thick 
 with snow that beat down in sheets of blind, 
 203
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 whirling torture. It sifted down their backs 
 and cut their skin ; there was no escape. The 
 wind increased until it blew a gale that roared 
 and raged pitilessly on the two struggling 
 men. It seemed to spend its entire rage on 
 them. But its very pitilessness goaded them 
 into action and preserved their lives, for they 
 could not stay still. They hurried and 
 tramped when exhaustion had become phys- 
 ical pain, and a total collapse was imminent. 
 They wandered unceasingly when it became 
 evident that all sense of direction and dis- 
 tance was lost. They crossed half-frozen 
 places; waded through drifts waist deep, the 
 heat of their bodies melting the snow on their 
 clothes ; only to freeze later stiff and hard. 
 Their faces were raw from the pelt of the 
 storm. There was not a sound anywhere; 
 no objects ; nothing but the drift of the snow 
 and the shriek of the wind. On they went, 
 tortured, beaten, chased ; always on and on. 
 
 "Lord, what a spot," muttered the stranger. 
 "Who'd think this could happen in a civilized 
 land?" 
 
 "We must be near somewhere," Cyrus kept 
 
 204
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 repeating. "I have never walked so long be- 
 fore and come to nothing." 
 
 The possibility of another sleepless night 
 out of doors was unendurable; but some- 
 thing had got to happen soon. It was be- 
 coming clear that they could not struggle on 
 much longer. They were used up, nervously 
 and physically ; neither one spoke of it, though 
 each one understood. 
 
 "If it gets much colder, or we have to walk 
 much longer I don't know " whispered 
 the stranger. 
 
 Cyrus pushed on silently. The snow began 
 to crunch under their feet ; the sun was still 
 hidden. There was no signs of a progressing 
 day, for the dull gray was unbroken ; but in- 
 stinct told them it must be afternoon. Eight 
 hours of this heart-breaking battle! 
 
 Still they could not stop; they dared not. 
 A fire was out of the question; so were rest 
 and food. Could this be the end was it the 
 end here, in the very midst of a much-fre- 
 quented country? 
 
 All at once from out of that gigantic frozen 
 solitude there sprang a distinct object. The 
 same instant both men saw it. It met their 
 205
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 strained, half-blinded vision through no defi- 
 nite shape ; only as something that rose before 
 them different from the eternal landscape of 
 frozen things. 
 
 "I guess we're coming to something," 
 gasped Cyrus, going forward in a queer hitch- 
 ing haste. For the first time in his life he 
 was mad with impatience. 
 
 "Hold on wait I can't keep up," cried the 
 stranger in a trembling voice. 
 
 Cyrus slowed his gait. The thing was far- 
 ther away than at first he had thought. After 
 he had stared at it steadily it seemed to dis- 
 appear. 
 
 "You don't suppose " Cyrus began, 
 
 then hesitated ; he could not speak the doubt 
 that assailed him. 
 
 "If that's so, I'm done for." The stranger 
 was following the same thought. 
 
 A moment later he stumbled, falling full 
 length on the ice-incrusted snow, and lay 
 there, making no effort to rise. 
 
 Cyrus pulled him up. As he bent over, sud- 
 denly there came to his ears a sound, scarcely 
 more than the vibration of the air. But it 
 arose above the shriek of the wind. It was 
 206
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 distinct. He listened a moment, bewildered; 
 then the sound became familiar. 
 
 "It's all right ; it's all right," he cried, stand- 
 ing his companion up and holding him in posi- 
 tion. This stranger was losing all power over 
 his legs. 
 
 Then began the final fight over Nature, and 
 it was Cyrus' dogged persistence that con- 
 quered. The stranger kept stumbling; but for 
 Cyrus the man would have died within calling 
 distance of refuge. They went forward step 
 by step, their bodies quivering, their brains 
 unsteady. 
 
 As the two stepped across the threshold 
 of shelter the stranger fell again, and this 
 time Cyrus failed to get him up. He lay 
 mumbling that he might as well have been 
 strung up, it was death anyhow. Fortunately 
 no one paid any attention to what he said. 
 
 Opposite to him Cyrus was talking fiercely 
 to the men who were undressing him. He 
 waved his arms and rolled his eyes and 
 fought. 
 
 "It's so hot; so damnably hot. Leave my 
 clothes on me," he cried. Then he began to 
 swear horribly. 
 
 207
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Cyrus rallied after a few hours. His con- 
 stitution, in spite of hard usage and age, was 
 not shattered. It rose to the man's needs, 
 still the same powerful thing that had carried 
 him as a boy through the battle against pov- 
 erty and starvation. 
 
 The stranger, too, pulled out of his plight, 
 although for days his condition was pitiful, 
 and during the next four months these two 
 men dug and picked side by side, while the 
 elements without stormed and raged. 
 
 There was nothing but storm after storm ; 
 the snow fell and fell. It stood in drifts 
 higher than a man's length; it covered the 
 ground two and three feet on a level. It shut 
 the men in beyond all hope of release. There 
 was nothing in sight but trees and frozen 
 stuff; the country all about was like the vast 
 ice regions of the far north. 
 
 Cyrus could not get beyond the camp. He 
 had no alternative but to stay here and work 
 the days out to a finish at the interminable 
 mining. He settled to it, accepting fate 
 silently yet aching in every part of his great 
 being for Betty ; his beloved Betty. 
 
 But the stranger fretted and fumed. He 
 208
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 was unsociable, taciturn, uneasy, regarding 
 every man about him, except Cyrus, with an 
 open suspicion that made him very unpopu- 
 lar. Sometimes to throw his companions off 
 the track he feigned great abstraction pre- 
 tending not to see and hear many things that 
 went on about him. But reajly nothing es- 
 caped this man's observation. He was fear- 
 fully acute in every sense. 
 
 His peace at night was continually dis- 
 turbed. He lay rolled in his blanket, staring 
 wide awake long after the other men slept. 
 He could not sleep ; he could not doze. There 
 was something the matter with him; some- 
 thing in him that goaded him to move on, 
 rebelling at his inaction here. But how could 
 he? How could he move on? Walking 
 across that wilderness of ice and snow was 
 impossible. He had no instrument to guide 
 him. It was sheer madness to start out now. 
 Yet to stay what did that mean what did 
 it mean? 
 
 There was one little breath of comfort. It 
 
 did not stand for much, but it was something. 
 
 If he couldn't get out, at least no outsider 
 
 could get in, either, unless a very imperative 
 
 209
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 need urged the attempt. Revenge, for in- 
 stance ! 
 
 At this point the man would draw himself 
 out of his blanket and sit peering through 
 the darkness, clutching his revolver and listen- 
 ing. By degrees the silence reassured him; 
 then he would lie down again with a long 
 sigh. But in spite of all this the days did pass. 
 
 Late in the spring the report came that a 
 road had been opened up to the next town. 
 It was a rumor. No one had come through 
 yet. But that made no difference. From the 
 moment he heard this, the stranger knew no 
 rest. 
 
 "I got to chuck this job that's all," he' 
 announced to Cyrus after a few hours of tor- 
 tured thought. The suspicion in him had 
 grown stronger than any emotion or reason. 
 He could not stand it. He was like some 
 cornered animal waiting the coming of his 
 doom. 
 
 Cyrus put down his pick. He did not ap- 
 prove of this man, but he did feel sorry for 
 him. "It ain't a good time to start out," he 
 suggested. 
 
 210
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 "It ain't a good time to stay, either. I got 
 to go, that's all," the man repeated. 
 
 "You know the roads?" 
 
 The stranger shook his head. 
 
 Cyrus looked at him curiously. There was 
 something in his comrade's expression that 
 was very like fear. 
 
 "Say," he broke in suddenly, following an 
 impulse, "I tell you what I'll do, if you're 
 bound to go. I've got a compass. It ain't 
 an elaborate affair, but it points north all 
 right. I bought it off a fellow here after we 
 got in camp. I thought I needed it then, it 
 was such a close call we had in that storm. 
 But you can have it. I'm goin' to wait til! 
 the snow's off before I begin my job again. 
 I won't need it, and it may do you good/ 
 
 The stranger raised his head; his face was 
 very red. "Do you mean it, pard ?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 "Then I'll tell you what I'll do for you. 
 I ain't ungrateful. I kin put you onto a mine 
 a showing not very far from here, either. 
 It's a corker, or I miss my calculation, but I 
 can't stay in this neighborhood long enough 
 to work it. I got to go. A compass is worth 
 
 211
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 more to me just now than fifty mines," the 
 stranger paused. 
 
 Cyrus gasped. "You ain't doin' me small?" 
 
 "No ; it's the real thing." 
 
 By degrees the stranger told of the claim. 
 He repeated frequently that it belonged to 
 him, but he couldn't stop long enough in this 
 part of the country to open it. Probably be- 
 fore he came back some other fellow would 
 have rediscovered it. So Cyrus could have it 
 for the compass. 
 
 Cyrus listened, with his eyes rolling. It 
 was good luck at last ! Good luck ! And all 
 for a compass a bit of thing costing less 
 than a dollar, and bought on the spur of the 
 moment. What strange tricks fate did play 
 when it was in the humor ! 
 
 The two talked together hurriedly, discuss- 
 ing, planning, arranging; for the stranger, 
 once seeing his way clear to move on, was 
 spurred into an immediate leaving. He could 
 not rest. It was hurry, hurry, hurry. He 
 waited for nothing; there were no breaks or 
 pauses. Before night had come he had fixed 
 everything and set out, his compass fastened 
 securely in his pocket. He carried a scant 
 
 212
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 stock of supplies in a bag of soiled burlap 
 sewed down its length with string and tied 
 at one end with a heavy cord. He and Cyrus 
 shook hands heavily at parting; then Cyrus 
 watched him go. 
 
 He strode along, crouching under the load, 
 but swinging across the hills, on and on until 
 the bent figure disappeared, far away behind 
 the trees. 
 
 "I wonder what that fellow's runnin' from, 
 anyhow. The law, most likely. But I'm 
 mighty thankful I could help him. It ain't 
 fun to be chased. Not much fun to be 
 chased." 
 
 213
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LIFE was hideous no longer. Betty was 
 living in great state. It seemed as 
 though she had never lived in any 
 other way but the extreme of luxury. At 
 first she had been strongly moved by all this 
 wealth, like a child in her delight; then she 
 was besieged by the notion that in some 
 fashion she must repay Teddy for all he was 
 doing all he was giving to her; so she lost 
 her high ways and became very different. She 
 was yielding, always ready to do his bidding, 
 instead of commanding. It was a mistake, a 
 fatal mistake. After a few weeks of it Teddy 
 became bored. He always knew exactly how 
 he should find her. It was intensely stupid. 
 
 She realized the change too late. Then she 
 lost all frankness, all sincerity, and took on 
 instead a flippant manner that hid all real 
 feeling, if she had any. The one genuine 
 sensation that apparently belonged to her 
 from now on was temper. 
 
 She could be very angry ; so angry that it 
 214
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 went past all reason and got into the extreme. 
 It was a passion, terrible, fierce, wicked, that 
 turned her into an untamed monster. She 
 grew old beyond her years, also more beau- 
 tiful ; in fact, it was her marvelous face that 
 held Teddy, when her personality ceased to 
 charm him. He no longer stopped to con- 
 sider what her feelings were toward him ; 
 their attitude of mind toward each other had 
 altered materially. The man understood that 
 as long as she pleased him and he paid for 
 the privilege of being pleased, he could own 
 her. It was a matter of barter and change, 
 the sort of arrangement that was not condu- 
 cive to affection, but saved misunderstanding. 
 
 The couple lived a fast life, doing some- 
 thing all the time; they traveled a little, but 
 seldom went far away from the city. Betty 
 preferred the city to any place on earth. She 
 liked the noise and the rattle outside; the 
 constant stream of people ; and in her own 
 apartment it pleased her to be complete mis- 
 tress. 
 
 She entertained the men that Teddy 
 brought, unhampered by conventionalities, 
 
 and they were usually boisterous affairs. She 
 *
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 liked to carry things as far as they could go. 
 It was this same spirit that became the key- 
 note to her whole existence. 
 
 She overcame her prejudices against liquor, 
 because it became a necessity to buoy up on 
 daily braces of whiskey. The taste of the 
 stuff was dreadful, but the after effects deli- 
 cious. 
 
 The girl dressed extravagantly ; in fact, she 
 seemed to be continually seeking methods of 
 spending money. She threw away a fortune 
 on races and games. Bit by bit these games 
 grew to have an immense fascination for her. 
 She played and played, tingling to her finger- 
 tips with excitement, usually losing. 
 
 Teddy eyed her critically; she was a most 
 expensive toy, but he was constantly seeing 
 other men eye her with open admiration. 
 This one fact made him liberal ; his pride was 
 touched. He had what other men could not 
 get. Betty showed plainly that she was not 
 interested in the species man. He could see 
 that. And as long as his possession remained 
 valuable and superior in other men's eyes, just 
 so long no other should step in. It was a 
 curious game. 
 
 216
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 Betty had written once to her mother, send- 
 ing the letter to the old rooms. It had not 
 surprised her that an answer never came. She 
 did not expect it. She had given no address. 
 After the letter had gone she sat for a long 
 time thinking. Something in her was touched, 
 some remembrance awakened. She looked 
 back into the past and wondered. 
 
 "I wouldn't go back; I couldn't. Those 
 rooms, that poverty oh, oh! Oh, I could 
 not," she argued, and as she spoke her fingers 
 were running up and down a string of pearls. 
 That night for the first time she showed some- 
 thing near to real affection toward Teddy. 
 His response to it was his first bit of brutality 
 toward her he was seeing that chance to 
 "show her." 
 
 As the summer waned and winter came on 
 their life went from "fast" to riotous. She 
 was becoming satiated with wealth, but she 
 craved continual excitement it was always 
 something new. She scattered money so lav- 
 ishly that Teddy grew uneasy; the life was 
 ruining his resources. Also, it was telling on 
 her. Her whims were as changeable as the 
 wind. There was a strained look in her eyes ; 
 217
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 the color in her face was extreme pallor. Her 
 moods were terrible; the whiskey was re- 
 sorted to with alarming frequency ; it was all 
 in line with the pace that breaks, then kills. 
 
 Her mind never seemed to be clear any 
 more. Sometimes she was tortured with 
 queer visions of her father and her mother. 
 When these came she would sit down and 
 argue the entire thing out with them, as il 
 they were present, showing them how she 
 could not, could not be poor. Flinging her 
 arms wide open, she would cry, "Look at me ! 
 My beauty was something. It was dear to 
 me. Dearer than anything else; it deserved 
 recognition. What could I do but this ?" 
 
 Once after such a scene she sent some 
 money to her mother. Of course she never 
 heard from it; but at the time it eased her 
 mind and drove the vision away. 
 
 By Christmas time Teddy's bank account 
 was low, very low, and he was in an ugly 
 temper. After that first evidence of brutality 
 toward Betty he was less careful of his tem- 
 per, and outbursts occurred from him with 
 great frequency and increasing steadily in vio- 
 lence. It got so that nothing she did was 
 218
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 right. He hounded her about money, twitted 
 her about her poverty, sneered at her fading 
 looks. He belittled her in every possible way. 
 
 At first she defied him with stinging re- 
 plies ; suddenly she became meek ; finally 
 frightened. It was when the man saw this, 
 that with a gleam he realized his power. He 
 had her underneath his grip. He had danced 
 his last for her. She would do the dancing 
 hereafter the hideous dance of complete 
 degradation. 
 
 He followed up the advantage promptly, 
 doing everything to hurt her. She never 
 knew what to expect. She cowered back 
 whenever he approached, sometimes fearing 
 his violence. He seized her arms and held 
 them until she bit her lips with pain ; or he'd 
 catch the soft lobes of her tiny pink ears 
 between his teeth and grind them. 
 
 Once after this performance she gave a shrill 
 scream drops of blood were dripping dow r n 
 her face. His teeth had met between the flesh. 
 It was a beastly performance. His threats to 
 cast her off always followed these scenes, and 
 silenced the fury that raged in her. But after 
 he was gone it would break loose into a pas- 
 219
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 sion, roused by physical agony, and gaining 
 strength from the mental knowledge of her 
 own wretched miserable helplessness. Her 
 ravings were terrible. She would tear her hair 
 and dig her nails into her flesh and pound her 
 body. 
 
 "The brute ! The brute ! I'll not stand this 
 forever. Even to save me from starvation, 
 I'll not stand it! Oh, it can't go on always 
 like this. It shall not. I'll do something 
 some day. Something that he'll be respon- 
 sible for. It will not be my fault, but his 
 own. I'll do something something. The 
 beast !" she cried, between her teeth ; all the 
 time rocking her body to and fro. 
 
 To look at her then, with her poor body 
 marred by the man's blows, and her pallid 
 face ravaged by temper and excesses, there 
 were few signs about her of anything akin to 
 beauty. Yet it had been less than a year. 
 
 Oh, life was not very gay; in spite of the 
 wealth and the comforts and the idleness, life 
 was not very gay. 
 
 Time went on. Insensibly their intercourse 
 drifted into a series of brutalities. Their sep- 
 arations increased in length. Teddy spent 
 220
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 very little time with her; also he cut down 
 her expenses. But from some inexplicable 
 motive he continued to look upon her as his 
 possession he still owned her. Respect be- 
 tween them was a dead thing of the past. 
 Love there had never been. The degradation 
 of their companionship was rampant, but 
 Betty sank numbly into the position where 
 he had pushed her. 
 
 She ceased to argue with visions. She had 
 no symptoms of remorse, no regrets ; she still 
 believed that her decision against her poverty 
 was right. That this decision had entangled 
 her in a bad web of life, holding her fast in 
 its meshes, was but part of the scheme of the 
 universe. 
 
 She was abused beyond all reason, and she 
 accepted it uncomplainingly. Even the man 
 was stunned sometimes at her silence, but he 
 did not know. 
 
 Somewhere deep down in Betty's heart, 
 rooted there, was a resolve. A thing that 
 was waiting for time ; a thing that was going 
 to break itself loose some day when time was 
 ripe, and with the force of a battering ram 
 
 221
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 fly to the destruction of certain doings. She 
 was uncomplaining now ; but wait. 
 
 If the man had been a reader of faces he 
 would have shuddered at the expression in 
 her countenance; instead of that he laughed 
 when she shrank from him in fear. 
 
 But this resolve was marked there. It 
 gleamed underneath her lines and scars ; it 
 burned out from her eyes in a great glare ; it 
 held its head like a poisonous thing, erect 
 above the grip of her hands when they were 
 clutched in pain that she stifled the pain of 
 his inflicting. 
 
 By the time winter had gone no one would 
 have recognized Betty Warner, a child in 
 years a forlorn, broken, pitiful wreck of a 
 woman in everything else. 
 
 The spring budded and passed into the 
 blossom of early summer. Early one morn- 
 ing Betty dragged herself to a window. The 
 freshness and beauty of the world sent a pain 
 through her tired, aching heart. What a mis- 
 take everything was, anyway. 
 
 Up above, somewhere in a tree, a robin was 
 making a great medley of song. He was busy 
 at nest-building. There was an exhilaration 
 222
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 in the air a sense of wanting to live ; of the 
 goodness of being alive. Perhaps, under 
 some conditions life was not a mistake. Per- 
 haps if she had tried in time she might have 
 won him back ; then it would never have come 
 to this. 
 
 Suddenly the man about whom she 
 thought appeared in the street below. Betty 
 raised her hand to her eyes, shielding them 
 from the glare of the sun and watching him. 
 His coming at this hour was unusual. The 
 girl quivered, promptly losing all the softened 
 emotions that had come to her. This visit 
 boded no good. What would he do to her 
 today ? 
 
 She raised her body, every move hurting 
 her; she was sore and lame and sick. But 
 she did not rise when he came in. and her 
 eyes were still wandering over the scene out- 
 side. The heavy brightness of the clear morn- 
 ing was full upon her. Teddy stopped half- 
 way across the room and stared at her. 
 
 "God, but you're a sight !" he exclaimed. 
 
 He was dressed in a riding-suit, with long 
 patent-leather leggins up to his knees, fawn- 
 colored riding tights and a short jacket. He 
 223
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 did not remove his hat. In his hand he car- 
 ried a short, heavy whip. This whip was an 
 elegant affair, with considerable gold-work 
 about it. He flicked it continually. 
 
 Betty had had a severe schooling in self- 
 repression ; but she never became quite used 
 to references of her faded beauty.. On the 
 instant a deep flush crept over her cheeks. 
 He saw it at once. 
 
 "That's better," he laughed. "Color makes 
 the picture complete. Lord, but you do look 
 common." 
 
 Then he raised the whip deliberately, and 
 going closer he struck her a blow in each 
 cheek a sharp, stinging cut, that brought the 
 blood leaping to the surface. 
 
 The woman never cringed. 
 
 "I'll leave a spot of color for you to thank 
 me for. It makes you look young. And, 
 say, I've come here to tell you to get out. 
 I need the place ; but empty. You are an 
 inferior article now. I want something fresh. 
 You move today. Understand ! You're not 
 to play any of your God damn sneaking tricks 
 on me. You take the stuff with you that you 
 landed here with. What I paid for stays." 
 224
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 What blows and abuse could not accom- 
 plish, this order more than filled. Betty rose. 
 In her face, ghastly white except for the 
 bright red welt in each cheek, was an expres- 
 sion of terror. It had come. She was to be 
 tossed aside. 
 
 "Don't, Teddy; don't. I can't go back. 
 I've nowhere to go. Haven't I given you the 
 best of my life? Even a dog is entitled to 
 something for faithful service. Give me what 
 you would give a dog." 
 
 "You haven't the value of a dog. You're 
 in my way. I tell you, I want you to get out 
 today; mind, today." 
 
 The girl threw herself at him; he stepped 
 aside with a quick move, and Betty, losing 
 her balance, fell her length on the floor. She 
 got up to her knees quickly and clutched at 
 the man's legs. Anything to hold him ; any- 
 thing to gain time. 
 
 "Teddy, I'll do anything for you. You 
 know that. Only don't send me out into it 
 again. Poverty! I can't stand it! Teddy, 
 don't do that. Oh " 
 
 The cry came from her in spite of all she 
 could do, for the man to free himself from 
 225
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 her hands was raining blow after blow on her. 
 They fell anywhere on her body, her hands, 
 her head ; yet, above the agony of the lashing 
 the woman was striving to band together all 
 her reasoning faculties for one final plea. 
 This torment was momentary ; to be sent out 
 would be a lasting hell, enduring until death. 
 She was oppressed with the dread of poverty 
 and what poverty brought ! It was the only 
 thing which moved her, the one thing she 
 could not endure. 
 
 "Damn you, let me go. Take your hands 
 off me." Teddy's face was flaming. 
 
 "Won't anything change you? Can't I stay? 
 Won't you give me something some tiling to 
 just keep me on?" The words poured out; 
 she had no longer any pride, any dignity. 
 
 "No ; curse you ! I won't give you a thing. 
 I won't do a thing for you ; and I want you 
 to get out." The whip fell again, but it did 
 not rise. Mad with the hurts she had re- 
 ceived, goaded beyond everything, by the des- 
 peration of meeting the final end, Betty seized 
 the whip, her temper aroused in all its vio- 
 lence. 
 
 She sprang from her knees, raging, furious, 
 226
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 and stood up before the man no longer a 
 woman, but an animal with animal instincts, 
 animal feelings, animal methods. 
 
 Teddy, a coward, as all bullies are, backed 
 away. She headed him off. Then began a 
 series of maneuvers, and it was he who cow- 
 ered and quailed not she. They faced each 
 other speechlessly moving about, always 
 face to face ; he trying to escape, she to cor- 
 ner. The sound of her breath, labored and 
 gasping, filled the room. The welts on her 
 face stood out swollen, blood-red. His coun- 
 tenance was livid. 
 
 Suddenly she lurched forward, her hand 
 raised; the whip came down with terrific 
 force. It was the heavy end, the end so elabo- 
 rately ornamented with gold. It struck him 
 squarely on the left temple. 
 
 As he fell she was upon him, a mad crea- 
 ture ; her head thrown back, her fists 1 Houbled. 
 
 Then the beastliness of the thing became 
 
 appalling. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The robin on the tree was still pluming 
 itself and singing, when suddenly the slam 
 of a door startled it. A woman, shabby, 
 227
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 ragged, shrinking, peered out ; then came cau- 
 tiously down the steps. Her face was cov- 
 ered with a veil, but its whiteness showed 
 through the covering. 
 
 She stood looking furtively up and down 
 the street. There was about her the uncer- 
 tainty that goes with hopelessness, sheer 
 hopelessness. The robin grew uneasy, then 
 the bird flew away; but the woman did not 
 notice its flight ; she was concerned with her 
 thoughts, and they were heavy with the ven- 
 geance of the law. It was hanging over her 
 a matter of a short time. 
 
 She hurried down the steps, slinking away, 
 turning every corner wide, moving clear of 
 every passer-by. So she passed out of sight, 
 still slinking. It was the end of everything, 
 the final end. Pursued all the rest of her 
 life pursued. 
 
 228
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ONE can get through with the finishing 
 of many shirts a day, providing one's 
 back holds out. Betty the demure 
 crouched over a machine hour after hour, 
 stitching, stitching, always stitching; and the 
 pile of garments at her side grew higher. 
 There was always the same number to send 
 each night. Faster work never increased it; 
 slower she never did. The routine of her days 
 was relentless. At six o'clock she had break- 
 fast it was a cup of tea and a hard roll ; then 
 until twelve o'clock she worked. At that time 
 there was a dinner usually a dish of soup, 
 sometimes a bit of meat with a piece of potato. 
 At night it was tea and roll, over again. 
 
 She was careless of her dress now, and her 
 room was not always neat. What was the 
 use; no one came to see, and she worked 
 hard enough anyway. The rank odor of foul 
 alleys poured in at the windows all day and 
 all night. Personal cleanliness would not do 
 away with that. And indoors ft was dark, 
 gloomy, lamentably desolate. This she could 
 229
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 not change either. It had been months since 
 she had any word from Cyrus. He was prob- 
 ably dead; no doubt of it at all; only death 
 would keep him from sending those letters 
 that breathed of hope and spoke continually 
 of love. Betty mourned for him night and 
 day. Sitting over that machine she poured 
 her heart out in grief the tears fell and fell, 
 rolling down over her cheeks that were no 
 longer fresh and pink, but sunken into dark 
 shadows. Her hair, odorous with the spices 
 of Araby, was streaked with grey, and piled 
 loosely on her head. Her eyes were dimmed 
 with crying and working too much in the 
 dark. She was pitifully thin. 
 
 The heat of late July was in the air; the 
 atmosphere was stagnant, shimmering and 
 vibrating. It took the very breath of life 
 from one's lungs. The sun was like an open 
 furnace, pouring out heat that burned every- 
 thing it touched. There was no escaping it. 
 It beat down in a blue glare, blistering and 
 torturing death in its rays. 
 
 At four in the afternoon it became unen- 
 durable. There was not a sign of wind stir- 
 ring. Betty, doubled over her work, gasped. 
 230
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 She had had nothing to eat since morning. 
 The hour at noon she had taken for rest 
 rest that was an absolute demand. Great 
 black circles rimmed her eyes ; the rest of her 
 face was white to her lips ; yet she sewed. The 
 room was full of smells the smell of foul 
 stuff decaying in the sun, the smell of filth 
 and overcrowding ; the smell of hot humanity 
 when it is poor, crowded, unkempt, unclean. 
 
 Suddenly Betty started to her feet, grasping 
 at her head, reeling with fatigue. She stum- 
 bled half way toward the bed. Before she 
 could cross the room, without the least warn- 
 ing, she fell heavily on the floor and lay there 
 still and rigid, her lips a queer blue black 
 color. It was a total collapse; the miracle 
 was how she had kept up so long. 
 
 Only a few seconds afterward there was 
 considerable commotion outside her room. 
 A big voice was asking: "Is Mrs. Warner in 
 this place?" 
 
 And an answering voice, "That's where, if 
 she's still any place on this earth." 
 
 A moment later, and without a preliminary 
 knock, the door of Betty's room was thrown 
 open with a wide swing. Cyrus stepped in. 
 231
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 His countenance was radiant ; his whole body 
 buoyant. He gave one glance, then all life 
 left his expression. 
 
 With a cry of horror he looked at the pros- 
 trate figure on the floor. In that one swift 
 second he took in everything the poverty, 
 the suffering, the hardship of the months gone 
 by; those months of separation and agony. 
 His own miserable weeks were forgotten be- 
 fore the evidences of what this woman had 
 borne. 
 
 He knelt down, raising the poor, wasted 
 figure in his arms his beloved Betty, the 
 woman he had taken unto himelf, to love, 
 honor and protect. 
 
 "Oh, Betty, my girl, my girl; open your 
 eyes. I've come back to you, dear. It's all 
 right. Don't leave me now, my girl. I'm 
 back now," he called, his voice sharp with 
 anxiety. 
 
 Some note in it recalled her wandering 
 sense, and she did open her eyes with a stifled 
 groan. She looked up directly into his face, 
 then for an instant Betty's heart stood still. 
 She was terror stricken. His presence was 
 like the leading of the dead back to life. She 
 232
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 had awakened from unconsciousness into de- 
 lirium. She caught her breath, at the same 
 time seized hold of him wildly, and he witl. 
 a cry threw both arms about her, holding her 
 to him, sobbing like a child, but sobbing with 
 joy. 
 
 She had come back to him; nothing else 
 mattered but that ; she was there, his Betty 
 not dead, but alive with him. 
 
 Care and responsibility left his mind; he 
 was back again with his wife, crowned with 
 the victories of success; his work was fin- 
 ished, and he had won. His perversity and 
 dogged insistence had won. He assured her 
 continually of that. There was nothing else 
 to tell; no failures to recount; no disap- 
 pointments to go over ; he had endured both 
 when they had come, but they were between 
 God and himself not between himself and 
 men. He had done his work, fought his bat 
 ties, and resisted the onslaught of his ene- 
 mies, poverty and the elements ; and he had 
 conquered them. 
 
 Cyrus told Betty a great deal of the in- 
 spiration that she had been to him. He 
 poured out all the torrent of pent-up love that 
 233
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 had been stifling him during the miserable 
 months of separation. He let her know how 
 his hopes were always high, because of think- 
 ing of what the future held for them together. 
 How he knew that it must end right for them 
 all. Fears? No, there had been no fears; 
 there was no failure possible. He would not 
 hint at the other side ; but somehow Betty 
 the demure read beneath all this and saw for 
 herself. It flashed before her like a vision, 
 the man's unfailing courage, unflinching pa- 
 tience, dogged persistence. 
 
 The woman looked at him, understanding 
 what he had endured and overcome ; what he 
 had suffered and withstood. How from the 
 first he had made it a question only of suc- 
 cess or death, and had carried triumph into 
 the very camp of defeat. 
 
 Hour after hour they sat close together, 
 her hand fast in his, her face against his face. 
 The night with its breathless heat and nau- 
 seating odors was forgotten; the shirts lay 
 in a small pile on the floor, one still unfinished 
 floundered helpless from the presser of the 
 machine. The cries and street noises had sub- 
 
 234
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 sided. All over the city the people were in 
 bed. 
 
 These two had no remembrance of time. 
 It was long past midnight when the sound of 
 cautious footsteps came creeping around the 
 house and up the stairs. Cyrus holding Betty 
 close paid no heed. Their emotion of bound- 
 less joy held them in its fierce grip joy too 
 deep for human comprehension too pro- 
 found for outside interruption. 
 
 The steps continued ; then stopped abrupt- 
 ly outside. The door opened. Like the 
 shadow cf death and as noiselessly, a 
 wretched figure slunk in. Cyrus started, 
 thinking only of some mistake. The woman 
 kept on, closed the door, locked it, then 
 leaned over with her ear to the key-hole and 
 listened intently. Suddenly she turned. 
 
 "They're after me. I know it. Hide me. 
 For God's sake, don't give me up," she whis- 
 pered. 
 
 Cyrus looked at her; there was an abrupt 
 recognition ; a recognition that he put aside 
 as unreal, impossible ; he drew a deep breath ; 
 his hands fell helplessly by his side. What 
 
 235
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 doom was this that was hanging over his 
 house? 
 
 "What is it?" asked Betty the demure. 
 
 Cyrus did not answer; he had lost all 
 faculty of dealing with the situation. It was 
 beyond him. He knew the face ; yet it could 
 not be it could not be the thing was too 
 ghastly. 
 
 The miserable woman turned again ; every 
 move she made gave the impression of slink- 
 ing. She held out her hands, "Oh, mother," 
 she wailed. 
 
 At that cry the world broke about the 
 mother's head. 
 
 "No ! No ! No !" she screamed, violently 
 clinging to Cyrus. "Not that, not that!" 
 
 At once the woman cowered back, bowing 
 her head upon her arms, misunderstanding 
 surprise for repudiation. 
 
 "I deserve it, of course. I am here unasked, 
 unbidden. I left Hark !" She started up, 
 listening again. No sound anywhere ; only 
 the noises of sleep, the deep exhaling of the 
 hideous creature, night. 
 
 Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh, 
 Mother, Father, I have looked everywhere 
 236
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 for a refuge. If you do not take me then there 
 is no hope. I must go to them. His money 
 will hunt me out. I am afraid. I am so 
 afraid to die !" She shuddered. She was 
 humbled at last. So humbled that she would 
 never rise again. 
 
 Cyrus went to her swiftly, only the years of 
 her childhood rose in his sight. Reason was 
 returning. At last he appreciated that this 
 was his girl. 
 
 "My girl," he stammered. "What is it?" 
 But the mother caught the child in her 
 arms. This was their re-uniting. She had no 
 questions ; no rebukes. Maternal love, 
 stronger than life, stronger than death, was 
 here. "You must never leave us again, dear ; 
 never as long as we have a roof above our 
 heads," she said. 
 
 237
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CYRUS had come home believing his last 
 conflict had been fought. But had it ? 
 Was not all life and every hour in life 
 a huge battle against the onset of that mon- 
 ster, the World. 
 
 By degrees little Betty's story came out. 
 As he listened, the great protective instinct in 
 Cyrus rose, alert and aggressive. He could 
 not stand it; never had he been so roused. 
 He struggled with his hands to keep them 
 still ; his eyes rolled, his breath came quiv- 
 ering from his open lips. He was stricken 
 speechless with the horror of the thing. 
 
 When the girl bared her neck and breast, 
 showing him the scars and evidences of the 
 abuse she had received, Cyrus became a rag- 
 ing beast. What was the use of restraint be- 
 fore such cruelty as this ? 
 
 "You should have killed him ; killed him," 
 he gasped. 
 
 "I did," she whispered, nodding; "I did. I 
 did; and they are hunting me for it. But 
 they'll never take me." 
 238
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 While Cyrus was stirred only by his girl's 
 sufferings, the shame of her daughter's life 
 was what sunk into the mother's heart. It 
 sunk and burned, eating its way deeper and 
 deeper. She was tortured with a vague, in- 
 definable remorse, that put a question. Had 
 she brought up her little girl so poorly that 
 honor had been as nothing? What a bungler 
 she had been. How unobserving and careless. 
 
 She said no word. It might have been bet- 
 ter if she had ; but words now were so mean- 
 ingless. She simply took the responsibility 
 of the whole affair, making excuses for every- 
 one but herself. There was something fun- 
 damentally wrong somewhere ; that was cer- 
 tain. It must be with herself; who else was 
 there ? 
 
 And she began to have an intense hatred of 
 her body. Her gentleness to little Betty was 
 sublime. The mother fancied that in this way 
 she was making some reparation for past fail- 
 ures, past neglects. 
 
 Those two things were continually before 
 her. She worked heroically to correct and 
 amend. Hers must be a life of sacrifice and 
 
 239
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 renunciation from now on. Perhaps in that 
 way she could save them both. 
 
 Little Betty lying on her bed, too weak to 
 sit up, would watch her mother, racked with 
 the crudest grief she had ever known. Bru- 
 tality she could have endured with stoicism, 
 but this kindness was killing. 
 
 Without raising her head her eyes would 
 follow her mother all over the room. Some- 
 times she would reach out her arms, seizing 
 her mother, and cling to her, crying broken- 
 ly: "I am not fit. I don't deserve it. You 
 must not come near me . But don't leave me, 
 Mother, don't. Don't." 
 
 Then the mother's head would bow. "You 
 must not say that, Betty. It's my fault, not 
 yours. All my fault, and I'll never leave you, 
 little girl." 
 
 It was after a scene like this one day that 
 Kirby arrived. He was just out of prison, 
 released at the end of a year's service by or- 
 der of the Governor. His sentence had been 
 for life. 
 
 He came down in high spirits to get at 
 work again. Anarchy must prevail, and he 
 was the man of all men to assist it. His 
 240
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 name was great among his own kind; the 
 press had sounded his deeds from one end 
 of the country to the other. He had had 
 every move chronicled; every sentence re- 
 produced. His imprisonment had heightened 
 his power. The tragic death of Ida and Reins- 
 dorf assured him a position second to none 
 of the socialistic leaders. The sense of peril 
 in connection with his work apparently did 
 not influence him. He was sincere enough in 
 his ideas to put them before self. 
 
 But his coming was fatal to Cyrus. The 
 man now was not only willing but ready to 
 listen. The tirades against the rich soothed 
 him, though he had no enmity against any- 
 one but Fellows. 
 
 His feeling towards that man was inhuman. 
 There was nothing he would not have done 
 to him. He could not speak the name, he was 
 so choked with hatred. Some day there would 
 be an end to this thing. Cyrus waited for it ; 
 yet knowing that a meeting with Anthony J. 
 Fellows would be disastrous. But he was glad 
 of it. He wanted something fearful. 
 
 He watched his daughter and knew that she 
 was dying. Her condition grew weaker every 
 241
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 day. Her fever-burned hands picked and 
 played over the coverlet. She talked inces- 
 santly, raving in delirium ; going from one 
 subject to another. She went over and over 
 her life with Teddy. It was fight, fight, fight. 
 All at once her voice would change; in the 
 bitterest grief she would cry out for forgive- 
 ness, tortured by the shame she had brought 
 on her father and mother. From that she 
 would implore protection, tossing in the 
 throes of pursuit. The police were on her 
 track she had no where to go. Her trou- 
 bles left her in a state of collapse. 
 
 Yet it was what she had caused her people 
 that distressed her most. She talked to her 
 mother in pitiful, heartbroken tones. Betty's 
 whole body quivered with pain. 
 
 Cyrus sobbed, beside himself. It was past 
 all limit. He hovered over the broken wreck 
 of womanhood and saw only his child, his 
 beautiful child, his child and Betty's. 
 
 One day a letter came addressed to him ; 
 he read it through hastily, his face flaming. 
 It was from a mining agent, asking the price 
 of his mine. Mr. Anthony J. Fellows was 
 seeking to consolidate all the iron-ore mines 
 242
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 into one great company what was his price ? 
 Cyrus uttered a great oath. 
 
 "What's up?" asked Kirby; he was beside 
 the bed putting iced-cloths on Betty's head. 
 Betty the demure stopped in her work and 
 turned her tired, haggard face towards her 
 husband. 
 
 "He is after that too? He ain't content 
 with all the rest. God damn him." 
 
 But what was there to do? nothing but 
 Fellows' will. If Cyrus refused to sell he 
 knew what would happen. That resistless 
 enemy MONEY would begin the hunt ; it 
 would squeeze him, starve him, and finally 
 break him. If he sold, what then? What was 
 there left? The old story, starvation, pov- 
 erty, suffering. 
 
 The very thing he had fought to keep off 
 was back at him again through Fellows, al- 
 ways through Fellows. Would that man 
 never cease to trouble him to hound him? 
 He had brought ruin now for the third time. 
 Was there any right in the course things had 
 taken? Any right in what Fellows was per- 
 mitted to do ? There might be no statute law 
 to stop him ; but there was another law the 
 243
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 law of right the law of living and letting 
 live. And Cyrus demanded the right to live. 
 He was not always going to be powerless to 
 resist. 
 
 Betty's ravings filled the room. "Don't, 
 Teddy. Don't send me out into that. I can't 
 stand it. Even a dog is entitled to something 
 for faithful service. Oh, oh, oh, you hurt 
 me." She was panting and struggling. Her 
 mother took both the burning hands in one 
 of hers and supporting Betty's head with the 
 other, she laid the girl back against the pil- 
 lows. 
 
 Little Betty yielded like a child; she was 
 very weak ; but even that exertion tired Betty 
 the demure, she was giving out. In truth, 
 sacrificing her life to her daughter. Anyone 
 could see that it was becoming only a matter 
 of a little time for them both. 
 
 Something of this flashed through Cyrus' 
 brain. He seemed to be seeing things all at 
 once with desperate distinctness. His face 
 went white. 
 
 "Come," he whispered to Kirby, "I want 
 your help. I am going to kill Anthony Fel- 
 lows." 
 
 244
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CYRUS went to work on his plan of 
 murder with the utmost deliberation. 
 He and Kirby had virtually changed 
 places. It was he who arranged and advo- 
 cated death to the capitalist. It was no 
 longer an evil to kill ; it was right. The prin- 
 ciple underlying the deed was self-preserva- 
 tion, and in every crisis self-preservation was 
 the first law. A perfectly legitimate thing. 
 
 There was not much discussion of means. 
 It would be a bomb, of course. Kirby would 
 make it. It should have a time-fuse and they 
 would place it somewhere about Fellows' 
 house. It depended on the rich man's habits, 
 how and where and when the exploding thing 
 should be put. 
 
 By turns Kirby and Warner dogged the 
 house. It was a big square building of stone 
 like an impregnable fortress. A driveway ran 
 from the barn to porte cochere. 
 
 By dint of persistent watching the men dis- 
 covered that Anthony J. Fellows left nis house 
 in a carriage at nine o'clock Tuesdays, Wed- 
 245
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 nesdays and Thursdays ; the rest of the week 
 he spent out of town, to avoid the heat of 
 summer. 
 
 This seemed to furnish the necessary in- 
 formation. It was decided that the bomb 
 should be placed by the driveway just the 
 other side of the porte cochere. 
 
 After much discussion they concluded that 
 a fuse-bomb was too uncertain; it might go 
 off too soon or too late. A percussion bomb 
 was the article. The weight of the carriage 
 rolling over it would explode the dynamite. 
 That would make failure practically impos- 
 sible. 
 
 In fact it seemed that with careful manipula- 
 tion the attempt could not fail. 
 
 The percussion bomb caused Kirby some 
 uneasy moments ; it was much more difficult 
 of manufacture than a fuse ; but it was finally 
 mastered. A rough affair of lead pipe. Kirby 
 begged the privilege of placing it, but Cyrus 
 was immovable; it was his doing. He was 
 dealing out the death for his own wrongs; 
 therefore his alone should be the risk. 
 
 Everything was ready on Monday after- 
 noon. Cyrus went home to spend the last 
 246
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 evening and night with his two women. The 
 next morning before dawn he would come to 
 Kirby for the machine. This was to be put 
 in its position while the servants at Fellows' 
 house were asleep. 
 
 The two Bettys were entirely ignorant of 
 the scheme. It was Cyrus' wish that they 
 know nothing at all of the affair. Little Betty 
 raved no longer; the activity of her mind 
 was lost. She lay quiet in her bed, picking 
 always picking with restless fingers, her eyes 
 stared open. She was pitifully weak. There 
 was no hope for her absolutely no hope. 
 Death was coming ; not boisterously, but like 
 the gentle rising of the tide. There was no 
 use to fight ; no use to pray ; the shadow was 
 so near no man could stop it. 
 
 The mother sat by the bed watching; no 
 expression in her face no emotion any- 
 where. The sorrows that she had endured 
 had blunted every sense in her whole make- 
 up. She simply sat moveless, helpless, dumbly 
 waiting; her hands shutting tighter and 
 tighter. Even Cyrus' presence failed to rouse' 
 her. 
 
 Along towards nine o'clock Kirby came in ; 
 247
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 he was fearfuly excited. In his hand he car- 
 ried a package that he handled with immense 
 caution. He called Cyrus aside. 
 
 "You've got to keep this here. Tonight I 
 was followed home. Those bloodhounds are 
 on to the game. They suspect something and 
 are dogging me. Don't come near me in the 
 morning; it wouldn't be safe. I think I'd best 
 get away somewhere for tonight. Be careful 
 of this ; you know one drop would blow you 
 all to hell. I don't dare stay here; it might 
 put 'em on your track. Good luck, Cy. Don't 
 get nervous. The bomb is all right." 
 
 Cyrus took the bomb gingerly. He was too 
 amazed at what Kirby had said to grasp the 
 situation clearly. 
 
 A moment later Kirby had wrung Cyrus' 
 hand and was off, peering out into the hall 
 before he passed his friend's door to be sure 
 the way was clear. He wouldn't bring his 
 friend under suspicion. 
 
 When the leader of anarchy was finally out 
 into the street he was off like a hound, disap- 
 pearing down an alley, and dodging streets. 
 If anyone was dogging him he'd give them 
 their money's worth. He would not get into 
 248
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 the penitentiary again if he could avoid it. 
 That was straight. 
 
 Meanwhile Cyrus, holding the instrumenf 
 of instantaneous death in one hand, was 
 searching all about the room for a place of 
 safety. He did not like the turn things had 
 taken. Never, never would he have endan- 
 gered his beloved Betty by housing such a 
 terror as this in the same room with her if 
 he could have helped it. He tiptoed around 
 awkwardly; his face red with anxiety and 
 alarm. 
 
 Once he passed near the bed. It was just 
 then that a swift crisis began to manifest it- 
 self in the sick woman. Her face turned livid ; 
 it seemed impossible for her to breathe ; the 
 under jaw fell ; she trembled, her hands and 
 feet already cold. Then a rattle came, vibra- 
 ting in her throat. 
 
 The mother heard ; at last she was roused 
 to emotion again. Bending over the bed she 
 stared at that dying face through the flicker- 
 ing light of a candle. It was death. Death ! 
 No mistake about that; nothing but death 
 could look like this. 
 
 There came a shrill, sudden scream of fright 
 249
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 from the lips of the woman Cyrus adored. 
 It pierced his faculties. 
 
 "Cyrus ! Cyrus ! She's dying our Betty ! 
 Oh ! Oh ! " 
 
 At Betty's cry Cyrus turned sharply; his 
 mind terribly confused. The move brought 
 him on a line with the bed and the door. 
 Betty the demure was swaying. Her strength 
 had fled and she was frightfully pale. The 1 
 man divined that almost without seeing, for 
 his rolling eyes were fixed on another figure. 
 A man who stood there before him in the 
 doorway. At first Cyrus stared, bewildered, 
 without understanding. Then with the swift- 
 ness of an instinctive protection he remem- 
 bered. 
 
 It was that man ! The man who was track- 
 ing her! His dying child. His Betty all 
 because she had killed the son. How in the 
 world had he found them out? How had he 
 come in so silently, standing there in the very 
 room before he had been discovered? 
 
 With the vivid sagacity of a trapped beast 
 
 all Cyrus' senses bounded into acute action. 
 
 This was his enemy the enemy that had 
 
 haunted his house with the persistence of 
 
 250
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 doom, but was the very man he himself was 
 seeking out. The man whom he was to kill 
 in less than twelve hours. 
 
 Cyrus took one step forward. His eyes 
 were gleaming with satisfaction. Through 
 his whole body swept a veritable passion oi 
 joy. They were on an equal footing now. 
 The instrument of death was in his hands 
 his enemy was within his reach at last ! 
 
 With great deliberation Cyrus advanced to 
 within three feet of Anthony J. Fellows. Then 
 he raised his hand, the hand that held the 
 bomb. In the presence of this tremendous op- 
 portunity the man was forgetting everything 
 Betty's death, his wife's collapse, his own 
 danger they were all lost sight of under the 
 madness of his desire for revenge. 
 
 Suddenly he paused, his hand in the air. 
 Something in the doomed man's eyes was 
 holding Cyrus. Something that was not fear , 
 something that was not born of danger. 
 
 In another minute Fellows moved a step 
 nearer to Warner, stretching out a hand. For 
 an instant the fate of both men swung in the 
 balance, then 
 
 "Wait," said Fellows. 
 251
 
 THE WARNERS. 
 
 And Cyrus, still looking directly into his 
 enemy's eyes, slowly began to lower the 
 bomb. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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