The Flyers
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George Barr McCutcheon >> The Flyers
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"Oh, Joe--listen! Do you think you can get a ladder out from under the
verandah? The painters left them there this morning. Look out for
paint, dear. Don't make a noise--not a sound. Mr. Windomshire's room
is just over the porte cochere. For Heaven's sake, don't arouse him."
"Drop your bag down first, dear,--here! I'll catch it."
"I've got to put some things in it first. It isn't quite ready," she
gasped, darting away from the window.
"'T was ever thus," he muttered in despair. Cautiously he made his way
to the end of the verandah. A close listener might have heard him
snarl "damn" more than once as he tugged away at the painters'
ladders, which had been left there when the rain began. He was a good-
natured chap, but barking his knuckles, bumping his head, and banging
his shins, added to the misfortunes that had gone before, were enough
to demoralise a saint.
He imagined that he was making enough noise to rouse the neighbours
for blocks around. No time was to be lost in self-commiseration,
however. He hurriedly dragged out a ladder, which he managed to place
against the window-sill without accident.
"Here it is," she whispered excitedly. The next instant a heavy object
dropped at his feet with a crash. "Oh!" she exclaimed with horror, "my
perfume bottles!"
"Good Lord!" he gasped.
"I thought you were going to catch it. Oh, here's the ladder. Do you
think I'll fall? Oh, oh!"
"Don't be afraid. Climb out, dear--and hurry!"
She was brave enough in the crisis. While he held the bottom of the
ladder she scrambled through the window and hurried downward. Before
she reached the bottom he lifted her from the ladder in his strong
arms and held her close for a moment.
"Take the ladder down, dearest," she whispered between kisses. "I
don't want mother to know I left that way--not just yet,--nor Mr.
Windomshire, either."
"Come this way," he whispered, after replacing the ladder. "I left the
car just around the corner. Come on, darling, and we'll soon be safe.
Don't make a noise!"
"Goodness, isn't it dark! What a horrid night! Oh, what's that?"
"Gad, I thought I heard something over there in the croquet ground.
Sounded like some one mixing it up with a wicket. Quick! Out this
way!" He had her hand in his, and was rushing ruthlessly through
flower-beds toward the big gate, her travelling bag banging against
his knee with the insistence of a hundredweight.
Panting and gasping for breath, they finally floundered into the
roadway, and dashed off through the muddy surface toward the unseen
automobile.
She was half fainting with the panic of excitement as he started to
lift her into the tonneau of the car. "No, no! Please let me sit with
you in the front seat," she implored. She had her way, and a moment
later he was up beside her, both wrapped in the oil-cloths, the
drizzle blowing in their hot faces.
"We're off, thank God!" he whispered joyously, as the car leaped
forward under his hand.
"I wonder--oh, dear, how I wonder what mamma will say," she was crying
in his ear.
Dauntless grinned happily as the car shot onward through the blackness
of the night. Its lanterns were dark and cold, but he knew the road.
CHAPTER II
THE FLYERS CATCH THE FLYER
No one would have recognised either of them had it been possible to
see them,--so carefully were their heads swathed in their coverings.
She was veiled and he was goggled, and both of them scrooged down in
the seat apprehensively. Hardy's car, borrowed in reality for the
occasion, was performing nobly. It careened through the muddy streets
of the village with a sturdiness that augured well for the enterprise.
Out into the country road, scudding northward, it sped. Dauntless
increased the speed, not to the limit, on account of the fog and
uncertainty of the road, but enough to add new thrills to the girl who
crouched beside him. Neither spoke until they were far from the town
line; the strain was too intense.
"What will everybody say?" she finally cried in his ear--the most
natural question in the world. "And the newspapers? Oh, dear!"
"You're not weakening, are you?" he cried. "Shall I turn back?"
She was silent for half a mile.
"No," she replied at last, "I couldn't climb UP that ladder. And
besides--" with a gasp as the car shot over the railroad tracks,--"we
never could get as good a start as this again."
"Bully for you!" he shouted.
"How far is it to Fenlock, Joe?" she asked, a quaver in her high-
pitched voice.
"About seven miles. We'll take the short cut through O'Brien's Lane
and strike Cobberly Road again at the crossroads. Then it will be easy
going. We'll catch the flyer all right, Nell. Everything's arranged.
You go into Car 5 and I in Car 7--"
"With a whole car between us? Heavens!"
"It's safest, dear. There might happen to be some one on board who'd
know us and suspect. Keep your veil down until you get into the berth.
There's not much danger of any one being up at this time of night, but
don't take any chances."
"Goodness, isn't it thrilling! And when do we get to Omegon?"
"Little after seven in the morning. My cousin will meet us in a hack
and drive us straight to the church. His wife will go with us as the
extra witness. By eight o'clock we'll be married. Derby will be on the
train with us. He's a full-fledged preacher now, and he'll marry us
without a whimper."
"Oh," she sighed deliciously, in spite of the jarring of the motor,
"isn't it nice to have old college chums who can be depended upon?"
"Poor old Windomshire," he laughed in the buoyancy of conquest.
"I don't think he'll---" She stopped.
"What?"
"Care very much," she concluded. He laughed doubtingly.
Mile after mile the car traversed the misty night, jolting over the
ruts in the lane, taking the hills blindly--driven entirely by the
hand of Good Luck.
Suddenly the "honk, honk!" of an invisible motor struck upon their
tense ears, the sound coming from some point ahead in the black,
narrow lane. Dauntless sat straight and peered ahead, sounding his
horn sharply.
"I hope no one is coming toward us," he groaned, slowing up sharply.
"We never can pass in this confounded lane. If we get off into the
soft ground--Hello! Here he comes--and no lights either! Hey! Look
out!" He brought his car to an abrupt standstill.
"Where are we, Joe?" she cried.
"Near the crossroads, I'm sure. Curse an idiot that runs around
without lights on a night like this," he growled, forgetting that his
own lamps were dark.
Out of the misty blackness loomed another car, directly ahead. It had
come to a sudden stop not ten feet away. Both cars were tooting their
horns viciously.
"Where are your lights?" roared Dauntless.
"Where are yours?" came back angrily through the fog.
"Good Lord!" gasped Joe, panic-stricken.
"It's Mr. Windomshire," whispered Eleanor, in consternation.
Before she realised what was happening her companion lifted her bodily
over the back of the seat and deposited her in the bed of the tonneau.
"Hide, dearest," he whispered. "Get under the storm blankets. He must
not see you! I'll--I'll bluff it out some way."
"Wha--what is he doing out here in a machine?" she was whispering
wildly. "He is pursuing us! He has found out!"
In the other car Windomshire--for it was the tall Englishman--was
hoarsely whispering to some one beside him:
"It's Dauntless! Hang him! What's he doing here?" Then followed a
hurried scuffling and subdued whispers. A long silence, fraught with
an importance which the throbbing of the two engines was powerless to
disturb, followed the mutual discovery. Joe's brain worked the
quicker. Disguising his voice as best he could, he shouted through the
fog:
"We can't pass here."
"Is--is this Cobberly Road?" cried Windomshire, striving to obtain
what he considered the American twang.
"No, it's not. It's O'Brien's Lane."
Then, after a long silence, "Can't you back out?"
"It's rather--I mean sorter risky, mister. I don't know how far I'd
have to back, doncherknow--er, ahem!"
"The crossroads can't be more than a hundred yards behind you. Where
are you going?"
"I'm going for--a doctor," called Windomshire, hastily.
"Well, then, we ought not to stand here all night," groaned Joe, his
ears open to catch the sound of the locomotive's whistle. There was no
time to be lost.
"I'll--I'll try to back her out," shouted Windomshire. Eleanor
whispered something shrilly and anxiously from the tonneau, and Joe
called out instantly:
"Who is ill?"
"Mrs.--Mrs. Smith," replied the other, bravely.
"Good!" exclaimed Dauntless, heartily. Windomshire was not in the
least annoyed by the lack of sympathy. He began to drive his car
backward by jerks and jolts, blindly trusting to luck in the effort to
reach the road which he had passed in his haste a few minutes before.
Joe was shouting encouragement and pushing slowly forward in his own
machine. The noise of the engines was deafening.
"Hang it all, man, don't blow your horn like that!" roared Windomshire
at last, harassed and full of dread. Joe, in his abstraction, was
sounding his siren in a most insulting manner.
At last Windomshire's wheels struck a surface that seemed hard and
resisting. He gave a shout of joy.
"Here we are! It's macadam!"
"Cobberly Road," cried Joe. "Back off to the right and let me run in
ahead. I'm--I'm in a devil of a hurry."
"By Gad, sir, so am I. Hi, hold back there! Look out where you're
going, confound you!"
"Now for it," cried Joe to Eleanor. "We've got the lead; I'll bet a
bun he can't catch us." He had deliberately driven across the other's
bows, as it were, scraping the wheel, and was off over Cobberly Road
like the wind. "Turn to your right at the next crossing," he shouted
back to Windomshire. Then to himself hopefully: "If he does that,
he'll miss Fenlock by three miles."
They had covered two rash, terrifying miles before a word was spoken.
Then he heard her voice in his ear--an anxious, troubled voice that
could scarcely be heard above the rushing wind.
"What will we do if the train is late, dear? He'll be--be sure to
catch us."
"She's never late. Besides, what if he does catch us? We don't have to
go back, do we? You're of age. Brace up; be a man!" he called back
encouragingly.
"There are too many men as it is," she wailed, sinking back into the
tonneau.
"Here we are!" he shouted, as the car whizzed into a murky, dimly
lighted street on the edge of Fenlock, the county seat. "There are the
station lights just ahead."
"Is the train in?" she cried, struggling to her feet eagerly.
"I think not." He was slowing down. A moment later the throbbing car
came to a stop beside the railway station platform. The lights blinked
feebly through the mist; far off in the night arose the faint toot of
a locomotive's whistle.
"We're just in time," he cried. "She's coming. Quick!" He lifted her
bodily over the side of the car, jerked two suitcases from beneath the
curtains, and rushed frantically to the shelter of the platform sheds.
"I'll leave you here, dear," he was saying rapidly. "Wait a second;
there is your railroad ticket and your drawing-room ticket, too. I'll
wake Derby when I get on board. I have to run the automobile down to
Henry's garage first. Won't take ten seconds. Don't worry. The train
won't be here for three or four minutes. Get on board and go to sleep.
I'll be two cars ahead."
"Oh, Joe, won't I see you again before we start?" she cried
despairingly.
"I'll be back in a minute. It's only half a block to Henry's. All I
have to do is to leave the car in front of his place. His men will
look after it. It's all understood, dearest; don't worry. I'll be here
before the train, never fear. Stand here in the shadow, dear." He gave
her what might have been a passionate kiss had it not been for the
intervention of veil and goggles. Then he was off to the motor, his
heart thumping frantically. Standing as stiff and motionless as a
statue against the damp brick wall, she heard the automobile leap away
and go pounding down the street. Apparently she was alone on the
platform; the ticking of telegraph instruments came to her anxious
ears, however, and she knew there were living people inside the long,
low building. The experience certainly was new to this tall, carefully
nurtured girl. Never before had she been left alone at such an hour
and place; it goes without saying that the circumstances were unique.
Here she was, standing alone in the most wretched of nights, her heart
throbbing with a dozen emotions, her eyes and ears labouring in a new
and thrilling enterprise, her whole life poised on the social dividing
line. She was running away to marry the man she had loved for years;
slipping away from the knot that ambition was trying to throw over her
rebellious head. If she had any thought of the past or the future,
however, it was lost among the fears and anxieties of the present. Her
soul was crying out for the approach of two objects--Joe Dauntless and
the north-bound flyer.
Her sharp ears caught the sound which told her that the motor had
stopped down the street; it was a welcome sound, for it meant that he
was racing back to the station--and just in time, too; the flyer was
pounding the rails less than half a mile away.
Fenlock was a division point in the railroad. The company's yards and
the train despatcher's office were located there. A huge round-house
stood off to the right; half a dozen big headlights glared out at the
shivering Eleanor like so many spying, accusing eyes. She knew that
all trains stopped in Fenlock. Joe had told her that the flyer's pause
was the briefest of any during the day or night; still she wondered if
it would go thundering through and spoil everything.
Miss Thursdale, watching the approaching headlight, her ears filled
with the din of the wheels, did not see or hear a second motor car
rush up to the extreme south end of the platform. She was not thinking
of Windomshire or his machine. That is why she failed to witness an
extraordinary incident.
As the driver leaped from the car a second man disconnected himself
from the shadows, paused for a moment to take orders from the new
arrival, and then jumped into the seat just vacated. Whereupon the
one-time driver performed precisely the same feat that Dauntless had
performed three minutes before him. He jerked forth a couple of bags
and then proceeded to lift from the tonneau of the car a vague but
animate something, which, an instant later, resolved itself into the
form of a woman at his side.
"I've settled with the company, Meaders," hurriedly announced
Windomshire to the man on the seat. "The car is in your hands now."
"Yes, sir; I understand. Your week is up to-night. Hope it was
satisfactory, sir." The car shot off in the night, almost running down
a man who scudded across the street in its path.
"Just in time, Anne," said Windomshire to the tall, hooded figure
beside him. "Thank God, we didn't miss it."
"Hasn't it been good sport, Harry?" cried the young woman, with an
unmistakably English inflection. "It's just like a book."
"Only more so," he observed. "This has really happened, you know.
Things never really happen in books, don't you know. You've not lost
your tickets, dear?"
"No; they do that only in books. Really, I'm trembling like a leaf. I
can't realise that it is all taking place as we planned, and that I am
to be your wife after all. Ah, Harry! isn't it splendid?"
"'Gad, little woman, I am the one who hasn't the right to realise. By
Jove, I didn't give myself credit for the cleverness to fool every one
so neatly. Really, don't you know, however, I feel a bit sorry for
Miss Thursdale. She's a ripping good sort, and I'm sorry on that
account."
Miss Courtenay--erstwhile governess--took hold of the lapels of his
raincoat and looked seriously up into his face. "Are you sure you'll
never regret giving her up for me--with all her money?"
"Oh, I say, Anne dear, it's I who am running away, not you. I've
always wanted you--all my life. I've been something of a cad---"
"It wasn't your fault. Mrs. Thursdale was bound to have you. It's her
way."
"It hurts my pride to say it, but hanged if I think--er--Eleanor was
very strong for the match. I've a notion she was bullied into it."
"I'm quite sure of it."
"You're doing her a good turn, my dear. You see, I couldn't love her,
and I'd probably have beaten her and all that. It wasn't as if I had
to marry her for her money. Deuce take it, I've got a few pounds of my
own."
"I'm only Anne Courtenay, the governess."
"You'll be Lady Windomshire some day, my word for it--if the other
chaps manage to die, God bless 'em. I say, here's the train. Good-
night, dear, up you go! I'll go up ahead. Don't forget! The wedding's
at noon to-morrow."
The long, shadowy train came to a stop. He elbowed the porter aside
and helped her up the steps. Neither of them noticed the vague figure
which rushed across the platform and into the second car below.
"Where's the luggage car?" shouted Windomshire to the porter.
"The what?"
"I mean the baggage van."
"Way up front, sir. Where they're puttin' on the trunks, sir."
Swinging his travelling bag almost at arm's length, the long
Englishman raced forward. His own and Miss Courtenay's pieces had come
over during the afternoon, skilfully smuggled out of the Thursdale
house. Just as he reached the baggage truck a panting, mud-covered
individual dashed up from the opposite direction, madly rushing for
the train. They tried to avoid a collision, but failed. A second later
the two men were staring into each other's eyes, open-mouthed and
dismayed.
"Hello!" gasped Dauntless, staggered.
"What the devil, sir, do--My word! It's Dauntless!" sputtered
Windomshire.
"Where is she?" shouted Joe, convinced that his rival had captured his
runaway fiancee and was now confronting him for explanation.
"Confound you, sir, it's none of your business," roared Windomshire,
confident that Dauntless had been sent by Mrs. Thursdale to intercept
him in his flight with the governess. "Damn your impudence!"
"Stand aside, Windomshire," exclaimed Joe, white with anger and dread.
"I'm going to find her. What have you done with her?"
"You sha'n't interfere, Dauntless," cried Windomshire, squaring
himself. "She's going to be my wife, and---"
"I guess NOT! Get out of my way, or---"
"She's on that train, confound you, and I'm going away with her
whether you like it or not--or anybody else, for that matter," said
Windomshire, refusing to budge an inch.
"Well, you'll have a damned hard time getting rid of me," roared Joe,
trying to break past his rival. A baggage-man leaped between them in
time to prevent blows. He held the angry, mistaken rivals apart,--
rivals no longer, if they only knew. "Let go of me! Hold this fellow
and I'll give you a hundred dollars--hold him till the train goes!"
"Hold me, will you? My word! What is this? A highway robbery!"
Both men broke away from the baggage-man and rushed frantically down
the line of cars, each trying to hold the other back. Joe succeeded in
grasping the handrail of the first sleeping-car, but his adversary
pulled him away. An instant later they were struggling across the
station platform, clasped in savage and hysterical combat. The station
employees were rushing up to separate them when the train began to
move slowly away.
[Illustration: Eleanor was still sitting ... stiff and silent]
They came to their senses a moment later to find themselves held
firmly by brawny peacemakers, the black cars rushing swiftly by
without them.
Forgetting the battle so inopportunely begun, they started off madly
in pursuit, shouting, yelling, commanding. But the flyer was deaf to
their cries, callous against their tears. It whistled off into the
north, carrying two trusting, nervous young women, who were secure in
the belief that their liege lords to be were aboard, utterly
unconscious of the true state of affairs. In the drawing-room of Car 5
Eleanor was still sitting, with her veil down, her raincoat saturating
the couch on which she sat stiff and silent. Anne Courtenay in Car 7
was philosophically preparing for bed, absolutely confident that the
Englishman she had loved for years was not going to fail her.
Windomshire, alas, came to grief in his useless pursuit. He fell off
the end of the platform and rolled in the mud, half stunned. When he
painfully picked himself up, he saw Dauntless sitting on the edge of
the walk, his haggard, staring face lighted by the glare of a
sympathetic lantern. The station agent was offering vain but well-
intended commiseration.
"Good God!" he heard Joe groan, but he did not catch the words, "she's
gone without me!"
The next instant the distracted eloper was on his feet demanding a
special engine.
"I've got to have it!" he shouted.
Windomshire's wits returned. Why not have a special too? It was the
only way.
"You can order one for me, too," he exclaimed. "At once. It's
imperative."
CHAPTER III
THE MORNING AFTER
The sun was peeping over the hilltops and shooting his merry glance
across the rain-soaked lowlands when Eleanor Thursdale awoke from her
final snatch of slumber. A hundred feverish lapses into restless
subconsciousness had marked the passage of nearly as many miles of
clatter and turmoil. Never before had she known a train to be so
noisy; never before had she lain awake long enough to make the natural
discovery. It seemed hours before she dropped off in the first
surrender to sleep; it seemed hours between the succeeding falls. Her
brain and heart were waging the most relentless battle against peace
and security. She KNEW Joe Dauntless was but two cars ahead, and yet
she wondered if were really there; she wondered and was troubled--oh,
so troubled.
Daylight was creeping in beneath the curtain of the window. She
stretched her fine, tired young body, and for the first time really
felt like going to sleep. The perversity of early morning! Gradually
it dawned upon her that the train was not moving; as far back as she
could recall in her now wakeful spell it occurred to her that the cars
had been standing still and that everything was as quiet as death. She
looked at her watch; it was six o'clock.
"Goodness!" she thought, sitting up suddenly, "what is the matter?"
The curtain flew up and her startled eyes blinked out upon the glaring
world.
There was not a house in sight as far as her eyes could range forward
and behind. Instead, a wide sweep of farm lands partially submerged by
the flood water of many rains. Far away there were brown hills and a
long army of tall trees standing at attention,--a bleak prospect
despite the cheery intentions of the sun, which lurked behind the
hills. Despondent cornstalks of last year's growth stood guard over
the soggy fields; drenched, unhappy tufts of grass, and forlorn but
triumphant reeds arose here and there from the watery wastes,
asserting their victory over a dismantled winter. It was not a
glorious view that met the gaze of the bride on her wedding morn.
Strangest of all, the train was so quiet, so utterly inactive, that an
absurd feeling of loneliness grew upon her, gradually developing into
the alarming certainty that she was the only living person in the
world. Then she heard men's voices outside of the window; her relief
was almost hysterical. Scrambling out of the berth, she began a hasty,
nervous toilet. Three sharp pushes on the button brought the company's
ladies' maid--advertised as a part of the luxury and refinement which
made the flyer "the finest train in the world."
"What has happened? Where are we?" she demanded, upon the entrance of
the sleepy young coloured woman.
"The Pride River bridge is washed away, ma'am," said the maid. "We
can't go on no furder."
"Dear me," sighed Eleanor, turning to be buttoned at the back. "And
where is Pride River bridge--or where was it, I mean?"
"'Bout twenty mile south of Omegon, ma'am--miss. The river's a sight--
highest 'at it's ever been known. It's all over the bottoms. This here
train came mighty nigh running into it, too. A boy flagged it just in
time, 'bout five o'clock."
"Have we been standing here a whole hour?"
"Yes, miss; right here. They say we can't go back till the section
boss has examined the track in Baxter's Cut. Seems as though there's
some danger of a washout back yander."
"Do you mean to say we are likely to stay here indefinitely?" gasped
Eleanor. "Ouch! Be careful, please!"
"Oh, it won't be long. The porter says they've sent back over the line
to telegraft for the section men."
"Good Heavens, is there no station here?"
"No, ma'am; five miles back. They's one jest across the river, but it
might as well be in Africa."
"Be quick, please, and then send the conductor to me--and the porter
too," urged Eleanor, in distress.
The porter was the first to arrive.
"Porter, will you go to Car 7 and see if the occupant of lower 4 is
awake? I am quite sure that is right, but if it should happen to be
wrong, please let me know at once."
"Yes, miss; and what shall I tell her?"
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