The Rose in the Ring

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"We will see you again before you leave," said the mother. "I am sure
we understand each other. Come back, David, if you will, but only for
a day. Let us walk home. You may walk with Christine. Say your good-
bys now. Joey! Are you coming?"

When the train for the East pulled out at eleven o'clock that night
David was aboard. He positively had refused to take back any of the
money he had lent to Mrs. Braddock, preferring to borrow from Joey and
Casey. Christine kissed him good-by at the station.

"I know that my father struck you, David," she whispered, as she put
her hand to his cheek. "That won't prevent your coming back, will it?
You will come, won't you?"

"As surely as I am alive," he said fervently.

There were tears in his eyes as the train rolled away. He had said
good-by to all of them--to Joey and Ruby and Casey, and they had
wished him good luck with that complaisant philosophy which was theirs
by nature.

Some one sat down beside him in the seat. He looked up.

"I guess I'll go part ways with you," said Artful Dick Cronk
comfortably. "I want you to do me a favor. Take this money and step
into the little inn there in your town and pay the woman what I owe
her. I forgot to settle when I left. She was a very good woman. I
never trim a woman, good or bad."

Primarily, Dick Cronk was traveling with David because his brother had
disappeared from the snack stand early in the evening. The watchful
pickpocket scented trouble. Before joining David in the coach, he
traversed the length of the train to assure himself that Ernie had not
slipped aboard in the darkness for the purpose of doing evil to the
Virginia boy when least expected. He was satisfied that Ernie was not
aboard, but it was now necessary for him to go on to the next station
before leaving the train.

"I owe her five dollars and sixty cents. Tell her to keep the change.
I hear you're coming back soon to visit the--er--show. Let me put you
onto Colonel Grand. He's a good loser, that old boy is. He's terrible
disappointed because you've squared yourself with the law. He had
something up his sleeve for you, but this spoils it all. But you
noticed that he took it very pleasantly--polite and agreeable cuss, he
is, when he has to be. Maybe you'd like to know what his game was."

"I think I know, Dick."

"Nix. I guess not. You were to do him a great favor before long. You
were going to run away with Christie Braddock!"

David started. "You are mistaken," he cried indignantly. "I wouldn't
think of such a thing."

"Just the same, kid, that's what he had it fixed for you to do, and
you couldn't ha' got out of it. He's a wonder, he is. That's the only
way he could get rid of Christie; and, with Christie gone, Mrs.
Braddock's spirit would be smashed. He's going to get rid of Tom
Braddock purty soon. Tom don't know it, but his days with this show
are numbered."

"What a cold-blooded devil he is!" cried David.

"Hot-blooded's what I'd call him."

CHAPTER XIII

THE SALE

We will forsake David Jenison for the time being. He is well started
on his journey to the home of his forefathers, where complete
restoration and the newspaper reporters await him. Let the imagination
picture the welcome he is to receive; if possible, let it also
describe the attitude of the community which had hunted him with dogs
and deadly weapons, but which now stood ready to cast itself without
reserve at the feet of the boy who had been so cruelly wronged.

Picture Mr. Blake's disgust at learning from David's own lips how he
had been outwitted by the circus people, and contrast it with his
sincere relief in contemplation of the fact that he had not captured
the boy in those days of prejudice.

We leave all these details to the generous intelligence of the reader,
for he knows that the heir to Jenison Hall has come unto his own
again; and he also knows that in spite of all that can be done to make
life bright and cheerful for David, there is still a shadow in the
background that turns the world into a bleak and desolate waste for
him.

Two weeks passed over his head before he was able to turn away from
the bewildering mass of legal requirements and look once more to the
West, whither his heart was forever journeying. Not all the excitement
that filled the fortnight to overflowing, nor all the homage that came
to him, could ease the dull, insistent pain of separation from
interests so vital to his young heart.

He stole away one night, accompanied by a single servant--for now he
was "lord of the manor" and traveled only as a true gentleman of the
South should travel. Half-way to his destination he stopped off to
draw from the savings bank the money he had placed there. With this
small fortune in his possession he resumed the journey, now closely
guarded by old Jeff, who always had been a slave to the Jenisons and
would be till he died, Abraham Lincoln to the contrary.

David's constant prayer was that he might not be too late.

He was destined to find many changes in Van Slye's Great and Only
Mammoth Shows.

Let us go back to the night after the one which saw David's departure
from the show. For two days Thomas Braddock had slunk about the show
grounds, morose, ugly, taciturn. He avoided every one except those
with whom he was obliged to consult. His wife and daughter caught
fleeting glimpses of him; Colonel Grand and the others saw him but
little more. He held aloof, brooding over his wrongs, accumulating a
vast resentment against the world and all of its inhabitants, obsessed
by the single desire to make some one else suffer for the ignominy
that had come to him.

Strangely enough, his most bitter resentment was lodged against the
wife who had stood by him all these years, through thick and thin,
through incessant storm and hardship, with a staunchness that now
maddened him, because, down in his heart, he could see no guile in
her. She was too good for him; she held herself above him; she made
him to feel that he was not of her world--from the beginning. She was
loyal because it would have put her in his class if she had lifted her
voice in public complaint. He knew that she loathed him; he hated her
for the virtue which gave her the right to despise him and yet to
remain loyal to him. His sodden, debased soul resented the odious
comparison that his own flesh and blood justly could make. There had
been bitter moments when this maudlin wretch almost convinced himself
that he could rejoice in the discovery that Christine was not of his
flesh and blood, that this too virtuous woman was not pure, after all.

His sullen despair brought him to even lower depths. In half-sober
moments he began to realize that his daughter feared and despised him.
She had come to feel the distinction between her parents, and she had
done the perfectly obvious thing in following the instincts of the
gentle blood that was in her: she had cast her lot with her mother. He
forgot his own aspirations and hopes for her in this bitter hour. He
wanted to hurt her, so that she might cry out with him in ugly rage
against the smug, serene paragon. If he only could bring Mary to his
level, so that Christine might no longer be so arrogantly proud of the
blood that came through the Portmans.

He drove himself at last into such a condition of hatred for all that
was good and noble that he would have hailed with joy the positive
proof that his wife had been untrue to him!

All day long he had been singularly abstemious. His brooding had
caused him to forget or to neglect the appetite that mastered him.
Toward evening he resumed his drinking, however, mainly for the
purpose of restoring his courage, which had slumped terribly in this
estimate of himself.

When the time came to go over the receipts with the ticket-sellers he
pulled himself together and prepared to assert his authority. He
tossed away the empty bottle and advanced upon the wagon, his face
blanched by self-pity. He was confounded by the sight of Colonel
Grand, sitting inside and going over the cash with Hanks, the seller.

"What do you want?" demanded Colonel Grand, when Braddock, after
trying the locked door, showed his convulsed face at the little
window. Hanks looked uncomfortable.

"Let me in there, Grand!" grated the man outside.

"I'll attend to this. We can't have you bothering with the finances--"

"I'll kick that door in," roared Braddock; "and I'll kill somebody!"

Colonel Grand picked up the treasurer's revolver. He smiled
indulgently.

"I'm taking care of the money after this, Brad."

"I own this show, damn you! I-I-I'll fix you!" sputtered the other. He
began to cry.

"Get away from that window!" snapped Grand, his eyes glittering.

"Oh, say now Bob, treat me fair, treat me right," pleaded Braddock,
all at once abject.

"I'll talk to you later on. Get away!"

"Don't throw me down, Bob. I've always done the square thing by you.
Didn't I pay up everything I owed you by--"

"Are you going to leave that window?" demanded Grand.

The miserable wretch looked into the deadly eyes of the man inside,
and realized. A great sob arose in his throat. He held it back for a
moment, but it grew and grew as he saw no pity in the steely eyes
beyond.

"My soul!" he groaned, with the bursting of the sob. He withdrew his
ghastly face and rushed away in the night, stumbling over ropes and
pegs, creating no end of havoc among the men who happened to toil in
his path. They ran from him, thinking him mad.

Half an hour later Ernie Cronk came upon him. He was sitting on the
curb across the street from the circus lot, his elbows on his knees,
his chin in his hands--staring, staring through dry, hot eyes at the
tented city that was slipping away from him.

"What's the matter?" asked the hunchback, in his high, querulous
voice.

The older man did not respond. He did not alter his position when the
questioner spoke to him.

"What are you looking at?" asked the other.

"Ernie," began Braddock in a voice that sent a shiver across the boy's
crooked back, it was so sepulchral, "let me take your pistol a
second."

Ernie Cronk drew back a step. He eyed Braddock narrowly.

"Who are you going to kill?" he asked after a moment.

"Myself," said Braddock, lifting his haggard face.

Again the hunchback looked long at the man. Then, without a word, he
handed a new revolver to Thomas Braddock. It was not the small
derringer he was wont to carry.

Braddock seemed surprised by the boy's readiness. He received the
weapon gingerly. A sudden spasm shook his big frame.

"Is--is it loaded?" he inquired, less lugubrious than he had been
before.

"No," said Ernie shortly. Braddock's chest swelled suddenly. "I
suppose you think I'm fool enough to let you kill yourself with my gun
and me right here where they could nab me. It's got blank ca'tridges,
that's all. Somebody changed 'em on me last night--just before that--
that sneak went away on the train."

Volumes could not have told more than that single sentence.

Braddock handed the weapon back to him.

"But if you really want to shoot yourself," went on Ernie maliciously,
"I've got a round of real ca'tridges here. While you're loadin' the
gun I can make a sneak. If I was you, though, I'd go up that alley
there, Brad. It's terrible public here."

"You wicked little brute, you!" cried Braddock in horror, coming to
his feet and drawing away as if from a viper. "You cold-blooded whelp!
I--I never heard of such--"

"Ain't you going to kill yourself?" demanded Ernie, grinning.

Braddock appeared to ponder. "No," he said with eager finality; "not
just now. I've changed my mind. I'm going to have it out with her
first. Then, maybe I won't do it at all."

Without another glance at the hunchback he swung off toward the
dressing-tent. Ernie's scoffing laugh followed him into the shadows.
It was the last straw. He was an object of derision to this thing of
jibes and sneers.

The flush of anger had come back into his bloated cheeks by the time
he had slipped under the sidewall into the dressing-tent. A sense of
loneliness struck him with the force of a blow as he paused to survey
the conglomerate mass of gaudy trappings: the men, the women, the
horses, the dye-scented paraphernalia of the ring. The very spangles
on the costumes of these one-time friends seemed to twinkle with
merriment at the sight of him; the tarletan skirts appeared to flaunt
scorn in his face. There was mockery in everything. His humiliation
was complete when this motley array of people disdained to greet him
with the eager concern that heretofore had marked their demeanor. No
one appeared to notice him, further than to offer a curt nod or to
exchange sly grins with the others.

Christine was in the ring. Mrs. Braddock stood over by the tattered
red curtains, peering out into the "big top." He knew just where to
look for her; she always stood there while her daughter was performing
with old Tom Sacks. Not Tom Braddock, but all the others, noted the
weary droop of her shoulders.

She started violently when he came up from behind and spoke to her.

"Well, how does it look without the gentleman in stripes?" he asked
coarsely. "It ain't so refined, eh?"

She faced him, hesitated an instant, and then said, without a trace of
emotion in her voice:

"Tom, do you think Colonel Grand would be willing to buy out my share
in the show?"

He stared. Then he laughed sardonically.

"What are you givin' us? Buy out your share? I should say not. He
might buy you, but not your share."

"You are a beast, Tom Braddock," she said, the red mounting slowly to
her pale cheek. "Why do you say that to me?"

"Say, don't you suppose I know how it stands with you and him?" he
retorted. "Come off, Mary. You're both trying to freeze me out. I'm on
to the little game."

"Don't speak so loudly," she implored, clasping her hands.

"Oh, I'm not tellin' any secrets," he snarled. "It's common property.
Everybody's on. I should think you'd be ashamed to look Christine in
the face."

"God forgive you, Tom Braddock," she cried, abject horror in her eyes.

"Say, I've got to have an understanding with you," he went on
ruthlessly. "I'm going to find out just how I stand in this here
arrangement. Grand's taken charge of the money box. He says it's you
and him against me. He's going to--"

"He lies! He lies!"

"Oh, let up--let up! I'm no fool."

"Tom Braddock, are you--are you _accusing me?_" she cried, all a-
tremble.

He opened his lips to utter the words which would have ended
everything between them. His eyes met hers and the words slipped back
into his throat. The spark of manhood that was left in him revolted
against this wanton assault upon the pure soul that looked out upon
him.

His gaze was lowered. He began fumbling in his pocket for a cigar.

"Course not," he said reluctantly. He peered hard at the opaque
sidewall uncomfortably conscious of the scornful look she bent upon
him. Neither spoke for a long time.

"How much lower can you sink?" she asked in low tones.

"Don't you turn against me like this," he returned sullenly.

"I have endured too long--too long," she said lifelessly.

"Now, shut up, Mary. Shut up your trap. I'm sick of having you whining
all the time--"

"Whining!" she cried. "God in heaven!"

"Well, belly-achin', then." Her bitter laugh irritated him. "Say, I
got to talk this business over with you. We've got to understand each
other."

"We _do_ understand each other," she said, a note of decision in
her voice. "You are ready to prostitute me for the sake of worming
money out of that horrid beast. I loathe him. You know it, and yet you
force me to meet him. I am going to end it all. Either he leaves this
show, or I do. I will not endure this unspoken but manifest insult a
day longer. Do you understand me?"

"I'd like to know how you're going to help it," he said, glaring at
her with half-restored belligerence. "You can't get out without losin'
what you've got in the business, and he _won't_ get out."

"Are you going to permit him to continue paying his odious attentions
to me--to your wife?" she cried.

"I don't care what he does," roared Braddock. "That's his business.
You don't have to give in to him, do you? If he thinks you've got a
price, that's his lookout, not mine."

"Not yours?" she gasped. "Oh, Tom! Tom! What manner of man have you
come to be?"

"Well, I'm just tellin' you, that's all."

"You--you surely are not in your right mind."

"You bet I am! Now, you listen to me. You are going to stick right
with this show--you and Christine. And you're going to do what I tell
you to do. You got to treat Bob Grand half-way decent. He's liable to
leave us in the lurch any time. How'd you suppose we'd get on without
his help right now? Just as soon as we get on our feet I'll put an end
to his funny business. I'll show him what's what. He'll get out of the
show business a heap sight wiser man than he is now. But we need him
now. We got to stand together, you and me. No flunking, see. We--"

"Stop!" She stood before him like an outraged priestess. This time he
did not shrink, but glared back at her balefully. "This is the end! We
have come to the parting of the ways. I will never call you husband
again. If you even speak to me, Thomas Braddock, I shall ask any one
of a dozen men here to beat you as you deserve. Oh, they will be only
too happy to do it! Now, hear me: I am going to take Christine away
from you--forever. Don't curse me yet! Wait! I am not through. This
very night I shall offer my share in this show to Colonel Grand. He
may have it at his own price. If he will not buy, then I shall go
forth and look for another purchaser. I--"

"You're my wife. You can't sell without my consent," he exclaimed.

"Then I will ask the court to give me the right. Now, go! I--"

"You can't take Christine. She's as much mine as she is--"

"I will hear no more. I have given you the last chance to be a man.
This ends it!"

She turned and walked away from him. He knew that it was all over
between them.

Considerably shaken, he went over and sat down on a trunk near the
wall. Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a curious half-laugh, half-
sob. He glared at the flap through which she had disappeared. A
cunning, malevolent expression came into his pop-eyes.

"Sell out, will you?" he muttered. "I'll block that game. I'll sell
out to him myself. That's what he wants."

He lifted the sidewall and passed out into the open air, directing his
footsteps toward the ticket-wagon. Colonel Grand was leaving it as he
came up.

"Hello, Brad," he said quite genially. "If I was a bit rough awhile
ago, I apolo--"

"Say, I want to talk privately with you, right away. I've got a
proposition to make. It's final, too,--and it's friendly, so don't
look as if you're going to pull a gun on me. Come on to the hotel. Oh,
I'm not as drunk as you think!"

"Mrs. Braddock expects me to escort her to the hotel--"

"No, she don't," rasped the other. "She's all right. Leave her alone.
Are you coming?"

Colonel Grand was struck by the man's behavior. He shrewdly saw that
something vital was in the air.

"All right," he said. "I'll go with you."

They were soon closeted in the room back of the hotel bar, a bottle
between them on the table. The door was locked. Their conversation
lasted an hour. When Colonel Grand arose to depart he stood a little
behind and to the left of Braddock's chair, a soft, sardonic smile on
his lips. He held a sheet of paper in his hand. Pen and ink on the
table, alongside the more sinister bottle, told of an act of
penmanship.

"We'll have the night clerk and some one else witness the signatures,"
he said quietly.

"All right," said Braddock hoarsely. He was staring at his fingers,
which he twiddled in a nerveless, irresolute manner.

"The inside conditions are between you and me personally. You'll have
to live up to them, Braddock."

"Oh, I'm a man of my word, don't fret."

"You are to get out at the end of the week. That's plain, is it?"

"If the cash is passed over. Don't forget that. Say, Bob, I swear,
you're treating me dirt mean. I ought to have five times more than you
are payin' me, and you know it. Five thousand dollars! Why, it's
givin' the show away, that's what it is. I've built up this here
show--"

"It is your own proposition. I didn't suggest buying you out. You came
to me to sell. If you don't want to let it go at the price we've
agreed on I'll tear up this bill of sale."

"I've got to take it, so what's the use kicking? I'm going to get out
of the business. My wife's against me. Everybody is. Damn them all!"

Colonel Grand knew quite well that Mrs. Braddock, as the man's wife,
could interpose legal objections to the transfer, but he was not
really buying Tom's interest in the show; he was deliberately paying
him to desert his wife and child. That was the sum and substance of
it. Braddock was not so drugged with liquor that he could not
appreciate that side of the transaction quite as fully as the other.

Down in his besotted soul there lurked the hope that some day, in the
long run, through the wife whom he was selling so basely, he might
succeed in obtaining the upper hand of Bob Grand, and crush him as he
was being crushed!

"It will be a week before the currency can get here from Baltimore. I
refuse to draw on my banker in the regular way. This money, being
evil, must come from an evil source. My dealers will send it from the
'place.' Now, again, you understand that I can put you in the
penitentiary if you go back on your word. You _did_ take the boy's
money out of the dressing-tent. My man saw you."

"I don't see why you hired a canvasman to watch me," growled the
other, pouring another drink. "Mighty cheap work, Bob Grand."

"I always go on the principle that it isn't safe to have business
dealings with a man until you know all that is to be found out about
him. In your case I had to choose my own way of finding out."

"I'll knock off a couple of hundred if you'll tell me the name of that
sneaking--"

"You need the two hundred more than I do, Brad," said Grand with
infinite sarcasm--and finality.

"Well, I'm a Jonah in the show business. I guess it's the best thing I
can do to get out of it. You'll do the right thing by Mary and--and--"
he swallowed hard, casting a half glance at the other out of his
bleary eyes--"and the young 'un. They'll get what's coming to them,
Bob?"

"Certainly."

"I wouldn't sell out like this if--if Mary had acted decent by me," he
said, trying to justify his action. He was congratulating himself that
he had sold her out before she had the chance to sell him out. He
closed his eyes to the real transaction involved in the deal. It gave
him some secret satisfaction, however, to contemplate the futility of
Colonel Grand's designs upon Mary Braddock.

"Of course," said Bob Grand.

"I am going to California," said Tom Braddock, for the third time
during the interview.

"I've asked you not to mention that fact to me, Braddock. You are
supposed to stay with the show as manager and overseer."

"Humph!" grunted the other. "You want to be as much shocked as the
rest of 'em when I skip by the light of the moon, eh?"

"We'll sign the paper," was the only response of the purchaser.

Ten minutes later, after two men had witnessed their signatures, the
document reposed in Bob Grand's pocketbook.

The next morning Mary Braddock appeared before the master of Van
Slye's Circus and offered her interest for sale. He calmly announced
that he could not afford to put any more money into the concern.

"I must sell out," she said. "All the money I have in the world is in
this show."

"It could not be better invested," he said. She shrank from the look
in his eyes.

"But I need it for Christine's education," she began.

"I will see to it that Christine is given the best of everything,
Mary. Leave it to me. She shall be sent abroad next year, if you think
best."

"I am asking no favors of you, Colonel Grand."

"It may interest you to know that I have purchased your husband's
entire interest in this show," he said softly.

She stared, spellbound.

"He--he has sold out to you?" she murmured, going white to the lips.

"You seem surprised."

"He could not do it! It is necessary to have my consent. I--I--" Her
brain was whirling.

"I understood that he was a perfectly free agent. I can send him to
the penitentiary if he has swindled me. If you and Christine care to
take that sort of stand against him, I'll have to do it. I should be
terribly sorry on the girl's account, but--Oh, well, I'm sure it won't
come to that."

"He--he has sold me out?" she cried weakly.

"Oh, hardly that!"

Unable to speak another word to him, she turned and blindly made her
way to the women's dressing-room. The Colonel smiled comfortably as he
lifted his hat to her retreating back.

Late that night four or five persons slipped out of the hotel by the
rear doors. At the mouth of the dark alley a hack was waiting. With
the utmost caution this small, closely huddled group approached the
rickety vehicle. Three women climbed in, followed by numerous valises
and small bags; their two male companions mounted the seat with the
driver. Off through the still night rattled the mysterious cab,
clattering across the cobbled streets for many minutes until at last
it drew up at the darkest end of the railway station platform. Three
trunks stood against the wall of the station building. One of the men
attended to the checking of these heavy pieces, presenting two railway
tickets for the guidance of the sleepy agent. The other stood guard
over the cab and its occupants.

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