Clarence Budington Kelland

“ Potter was astonished. He was something more than astonished, he was filled with a thrilling excitement, the excitement that comes to a man when he feels he is standing at the gate of some climax.
Cantor was explaining such erudite matters as the tail-spin, the nose-dive, looping the loop, and how one gave his machine the spurious appearance of fluttering downward out of control—so to deceive an unwary adversary. He was very clear, very positive. No man, thought Potter, could talk like that who was not a master of the air, who had not been a super-skilled pilot.... ”

“ It was during the week that followed the sinking of the Lusitania that Potter was introduced to a Major Craig, of that then comparatively unknown branch of the United States military machinery known as the Signal Corps. It was at the Country Club, and Potter, who was seldom drawn to an individual, felt something much akin to boyish admiration for the slender, trim, uniformed figure of the young major. Craig was young for a major. He might have been forty, but a well-spent man’s life made him appear younger. ”

“ While his rage was in eruption Potter was no patriot laboring in the service of his country, but an individualist of individualists, thirsting for private vengeance. He plotted revenge.... When a man begins to plot he begins to reason; reason and fiery rage cannot dwell side by side in the same brain.... As he thought more rationally it was clear to him that the most agonizing blow he could strike Cantor would be to unmask him, to exhibit him to the world in the loathsome habiliments of plotter, spy, murderer—and to bring his patient, stealthy labors to a fruition of futility.... ”

“ Steadily, swiftly it sped to take its place as sentinel at those high gates; to bar the roads of the sky; to ride the clouds a challenger, a champion, a winged guardian, steadfast, courageous, eagerly dauntless....
Potter felt the splendor of it; it uplifted him. Soaring there above the lake, he knew a strange sense of detachment from the fetters of the flesh. He felt, not like a man, liable to weaknesses, ills, death, but like an immortal upon a mission for Olympus. ”

“ She took up the story, told it vividly, feelingly, so that her hearers saw the things she saw, experienced the things she had experienced, and as she continued Downs and Fabius Waite looked at Potter as at a stranger suddenly set among them, some stranger worthy of deference, of something like awe.
“So,” finished Hildegarde, “Potter met him in the air—and shut the highway to him.... And that was Cantor’s end.”
“Son,” said Fabius Waite, his words vibrant with pride, “I can’t say what I feel.... I’m proud—proud.... The whole country will be proud.” ”

“ The American does not parade his grief; does not flaunt before the world his serious emotions. Those are for his secret heart; not even, save in great moments, for his immediate family. With a rude joke and a laugh he puts himself on record, and perhaps that record lies. There is but one record that offers verity, but that is a secret record, not open to the investigator. It is printed in the recesses of the heart.
Hildegarde saw the parade, too, saw it from the vantage-point of Cantor’s office window, and watched his face with greater interest than she watched the passing men below. ”

“ He stood still looking at the teeming Campus, following its currents and cross-currents and eddies with eyes darkened by thought. It was a current worthy to pass between magnificent banks. The sidewalks eddied with never-motionless men and women; with human beings whose errands hurried them on. Potter studied them with interest. Their faces were mobile, alert, intelligent, forceful. There was a capability about each individual; there was something distinct about each atom in the crowd.... Here, after all, was the great machine of government. ”

“ An atmosphere of suspicion arose like a dank fog, and every man looked askance at his neighbor—for he knew in his heart that that neighbor might be the man; might be spending of nights money that found its way into his pockets from the huge sums Germany was reported to have placed in America to hamper America’s preparations for war. Some man, some men, were hampering the work in that plant; it was a patent fact. Some men who had passed the inspection of government investigators and who wore the guise of honest American working-men had sold their souls to the German devil. ”

“ When money flows in torrentially it washes away walls of economy. Detroit spent as it earned—lavishly. It was just completing what is perhaps the most magnificent clubhouse in the United States—a million-dollar plaything, the money for which had been raised almost in an hour. It was the new Detroit Athletic Club, outgrowth of that historic and honorable old athletic club which had so long been a landmark on Woodward Avenue when land was cheap and a quarter-mile cinder track and football-field might be maintained in the heart of the city. ”

“ They continued to mount, for Potter wanted to spread before her the great reaches of the delta—a world of close-growing wild rice and reeds, a universe of wild birds, myriad tiny islets, with here and there a strip of land high enough above the water to supply a foothold for wind-bent, scraggling trees. Here and there wound a maze of channels, some navigable by small boats, and to the northward another gleaming river, the North Channel, up which the fleets of the Lakes had been compelled to pass before the construction of the ship-canal. ”

“ He did not put his arms about her hungrily, nor give her, against her will, another of those high moments of which she had experienced too few.
“Cantor is a spy,” he said, “a German spy.... I know it. I must have proof.... You know it, too.”
“No,” she said, “I know nothing.”
“Hildegarde,” he said, “whatever you are, whatever you have done, you’re not a traitor.... You can’t be that. You are shielding this man. Knowing what he is doing, you shield him.... You used to talk about America and patriotism....”
“I’m not a traitor!... I’m not a traitor!” ”

“ CHAPTER VIII Between the date of Potter Waite’s injury and the first of the new year tremendous events occurred at home and abroad, and among the most tremendous, the most hopeful to Potter, and to Americans who loved and feared for their country, was the birth of the thing that came to be known as the Plattsburg Idea. It was the one sign of life in an ocean of lethargy; it showed that there were men not unaffected by sinister manifestations—men who foresaw peril, men who were ready to give their abilities and their lives for the safety of the flag that waved over their prosperity. ”

“ Cantor was, Potter judged, in the neighborhood of thirty-five; a man of wide experience, whose eyes had seen most of the world with a distinctness which enabled him to talk of it as no mere globe-trotter could talk. In spite of a feeling, not so much of suspicion as of questioning, with which Potter regarded Cantor at first, he found himself attracted by the man. This was due, in its inception, doubtless to Cantor’s attitude toward Potter’s object in life. There was no doubt that Cantor accepted Potter’s clearness of vision and was deeply interested in his plans. ”

“ Close beside him spluttered that fuse. He leaped upon it, seized it, hurled the deadly thing toward which that spark was crawling, far in the direction of the lake.... Now he was surrounded by men—his own men.... And then came a mighty cough, as if the universe itself had coughed with all the strength of its hidden forces. There was an instant of light and fire, the impact of an irresistible energy. Stunned, deafened, blinded, Potter was hurled to the ground....
“My Gawd!...” said a voice.
Potter struggled to his feet and stood reeling. “Are you there?... Is any one hurt?” ”

“ Where once were cobblestone pavements and horse-cars are countless swarms of automobiles; where once were meadows, pastures, wood-lots, are tremendous plants employing armies of men, covering scores of acres, turning out annual products which bring to the city hundreds of millions of dollars. In the history of the world no city has come into such a fortune as Detroit, nor has there been such universal prosperity, not to employer alone, but to employees, and to the least of employees. ”

“ Potter looked first at Cantor. There was something about the man, something that made his memory itch. He had seen Cantor somewhere, but where? What was there about the man? He noticed that Cantor scrutinized him tensely. It was as if the man were searching for something, something that he was afraid to find.
“Greetings, Potter,” said La Mothe. “You’re looking bang-up for a fellow that was all fitted to a coffin. We were taking up a subscription to send you a floral pillow.... You remember Cantor?”
“Yes,” said Potter, extending his hand. “You’re making quite a stay in Detroit.” ”

“ He had not been accustomed to the idea of love of country, but had been contented with the thought that America was a good-enough place and he was generally satisfied with it. He tried picturing to himself the invasion of Michigan by German troops; the re-enacting of the crime of Louvain upon the city of Detroit. His imagination was vivid, active.... As he created the picture he felt emotion welling up within him, a sense of the unbearableness of what he had imagined, the feeling that he could not endure the happening of such a catastrophe. ”

“ How can you be what you are and keep that look in your eyes?...”
“Potter!” she cried. “No!...”
“Who is Cantor?” he said, harshly.
“I can’t tell you.”
“You see?” he said, bitterly. Then his voice changed, became charged with emotion, and the emotion thrilled her, moved her as she had never been moved. “Even now I could love you; I could forget—everything but this. You can’t be bad. Great God! It isn’t possible that you can be altogether what you seem to be. Tell me, Hildegarde.... You can tell me what I must know. It’s your duty. It’s a thing your country demands of you.... It’s your chance. ”

“ Germany was awakening America; Germany was America’s alarm-clock. Her propaganda, her bomb plots, her labor agitations, her arrogance, and her submarines were doing for America what America seemed unable to do for herself.... Germany, while willing quite another thing, was proving herself a friend to America; she was clumsily, bull-headedly, forcing America to think together and to the point; she was compelling America to think about America.... That way lay the path to patriotism.
Tom Watts and O’Mera sat at table with Potter one evening. ”

“ Philip did not stop for a dozen blocks. Then he drew up at the curb before a dingy frame structure housing one of those hand-to-mouth saloons which seem to abound in Detroit, saloons which sell enormous glasses of beer for a nickel, and find difficulty to make both ends meet, to provide food for the family and funds to pay the considerable government license. Into this place Philip hastened.
Potter was at his heels, stepping into a murky room reeking with the odor of stale beer, villainous tobacco, and even more distressing aromas of cookery not guiltless of the taint of garlic. ”

“ The man had been a German, an officer; he had been decorated for it by the Kaiser himself. The name of the aviator was Lieutenant Adolf von Arnheim.
Potter was excited. Was it a discovery? His suspicions of Cantor were reawakened, made vivid. He fancied he now had real basis for suspicion, for if his intelligence were not at fault the man had intimated in his tipsy way that he had topped the Alps in an aeroplane, had even seemed to verge upon the boast that it was he who had first accomplished that feat. Potter reviewed the conversation, weighed and valued each word. ”

“ It was a world-spectacle arranged for the United States to sit by and watch—and derive immense profit from.
Here and there, fortunately, were men of broader vision, of abiding patriotism. One great manufacturer was taking a salutary step in insisting that every employee in his mammoth shops should be an American citizen; one was purchasing space in the newspapers of the country to advertise, not automobiles, but preparedness. One man had the very stationery of his firm inscribed with words which not only showed the world where he stood, but urged the world to step forth and do likewise. ”

“ Philip came forward eagerly, the driver ready in his hands.
“Don’t, Potter,” Hildegarde said. “Go away. You don’t know these men. You don’t know—”
“Miss von Essen!” said Cantor, sharply.
“There are two of them.... Go away, please.... And you’re hurt.”
“You won’t fight, man to man?” Potter said.
“Why should I?” Cantor said.
Potter turned and looked at Hildegarde, looked at her as a man looks at a loved face that is vanishing forever out of his life. Then he turned on his heel and walked unsteadily away. He went straight to his car, stopping for nothing, and drove it out into the road. ”

“ Slow as the ’plane was, compared with those miracles of speed with which the chivalry of the air hold their tournaments in the lists of the sky, it seemed to eliminate time and space. Distances which the swiftest vessel passed laboriously in an hour seemed to withdraw themselves as at a magic word of command. Abreast of the light-ship they passed an up-bound freighter. Its deck seemed a mammoth gridiron as Hildegarde looked down upon it—a gridiron whose cross-bars were battened hatches. ”

“ You’ll learn to know America, and you’ll learn what it is to love your country.... If you want to know what war is, let yourselves think about the murdered children, the raped women, the butchered men of Belgium and France.... That’s war, and America is sending her men to give their lives so the children and women at home may not be murdered and violated.... It isn’t a smug, comfortable thought. America is going out to kill a wild beast, and America will be torn by that beast.... ”

“ It is like you, disgracing yourself. Have you no brains? Rushing here to this man that has made your name common in the whole city.... Out of here, out of here while I attend to him!” He advanced threateningly, but Hildegarde did not move, only eyed him with level contempt. “You,” he raved at Potter, “you entice my daughter!... By God! I’ll show you!...” He advanced again, burly fists doubled, Bismarck-like face purple and distorted by rage.
At the instant when it seemed the furious German would rush upon Potter, Cantor took one step forward and spoke. ”

“ It was these who had made possible, who had created, the terra-cotta sky-scrapers; it was these who had made possible that marvelous procession of automobiles which taxed the width of Woodward Avenue; it was these who had made possible the building up of that miracle of industrial life that stretched around the town like fortifications around some European city—but fortifications holding the city safe, not from a foreign invader, but from an economic invader. Factory-fortresses preserving the prosperity of the town. ”