George Barr McCutcheon

“ Three or four young women were busy with chafing dishes in this department of the house, and some good-looking young men were looking on and bothering them with attentions. In the front part of the house a score of people were laughing and making merry.
"Gosh!" said the new tramp, twisting his chin whiskers, "how many of you are there?"
"Oh, there are many more at home like us," trilled out one of the young women gaily. "You're just in time, you poor old thing, to have some of the bride-to-be's cake."
"I guess I'm in the wrong house," murmured Anderson blankly. ”

“ Any other would have cut off your life at the beginning."
"That's my idee," agreed Anderson solemnly.
"I don't want the fortune!" cried Rosalie. "I am happy here! Why can't they let me alone?"
"I tell you, Miss Gray, unless something happens to prevent it, that woman will some day give you back your own—your fortune and your name."
"I can't believe it, Mr. Bonner. It is too much like a dream to me."
"Well, doggone it, Rosalie, dreams don't last forever!" broke in Anderson Crow. "You've got to wake up some time, don't you see?" ”

“ Rosalie Gray, wan, dishevelled, but more beautiful than the reports had foretold, could not at first believe herself to be free from the clutches of the bandits. It took him many minutes—many painful minutes—to convince her that it was not a dream, and that in truth he was Wicker Bonner, gentleman. Sitting with his back against a tent pole, facing the cabin through the flap, with a revolver in his trembling hand, he told her of the night's adventures, and was repaid tenfold by the gratitude which shone from her eyes and trembled in her voice. ”

“ Wicker Bonner, late of Harvard, what had brought them from Tinkletown to the haunted house, and what they had seen upon their arrival. Young Bonner's face glowed with the joy of excitement.
"Great!" he cried, fastening his happy eyes upon the hated thing among the trees. "Let's search the place. By George, this is glorious!"
"Not on your life!" said Ed Higgins. "You can't get me inside that house. Like as not a feller'd never come out alive."
"Well, better men than we have died," said Mr. Bonner tranquilly. "Come on; I'll go in first. It's all tommy-rot about the place being haunted. ”

“ Anderson Crow waved to the men under Crow's Cliff, and they began to make their arduous way along the bank in the trail of the skiff. Part of the armed posse hurried down and boarded the raft, while others followed the chase by land.
"We'll beat them to Bracken's by a mile," cried Jack Barnes.
"If they don't shoot us," she responded. "Why, oh, why are they so intent upon killing us?"
"They don't want you to be a widow and—break a—lot of hearts," he said. "If they—hit me now you—won't be—dangerous as a—widow." ”

“ It's not what you are accustomed—"
"Home is what the home folks make it," he said, striving to quote a vague old saying. He was dimly conscious of a subdued smile on her part and he felt the fool. "At any rate, I was more than comfortable. I was happy—never so happy. All my life shall be built about this single month—my past ends with it, my future begins. You, Rosalie," he went on swiftly, his eyes gleaming with the love that would not be denied, "are the spirit of life as I shall know it from this day forth. It is you who have made Tinkletown a kingdom, one of its homes a palace. ”

“ With this explanation firmly impressed upon his mind, Wicker Bonner decided to begin his own campaign for the liberation of Rosalie Gray. It would be hours before the sluggish Anderson Crow appeared; and Bonner was not the sort to leave a woman in jeopardy if it was in his power to help her. Besides, the country people had filled him with stories of Miss Gray's beauty, and they found him at an impressionable and heart-free age. The thrill of romance seized him and he was ready to dare. ”

“ Anderson Crow's policy was to always look at things through the small end of the telescope.
The slow, hot summer wore away, and to Rosalie it was the longest that she ever had experienced. She was tired of the ceaseless twaddle of Tinkletown, its flow of "missions," "sociables," "buggy-horses," "George Rawlin's new dress-suit," "harvesting," and "politics"—for even the children talked politics. Nor did the assiduous attentions of the village young men possess the power to shorten the days for her—and they certainly lengthened the nights. ”

“ Let's go home," added Ed Higgins conclusively.
"Are you coming?" sang out Bonner from the interior of the house. His voice sounded prophetically sepulchral.
"Consarn it, cain't you wait a minute?" replied Anderson Crow, still bravely but consistently looking for the much-needed dark lantern.
"It's all right in here. There hasn't been a human being in the house for years. Come on in; it's fine!"
Anderson Crow finally ventured up to the doorway and peeped in. Bonner was standing near the tumbledown fireplace, placidly lighting a cigarette.
"This is a fine job you've put up on me," he growled. ”

“ The next instant Rosalie was conscious of being lowered through a trap door in the floor, and then of being borne rapidly through a long, narrow passage, lighted fitfully by the rays of a lantern in the hands of a fourth and as yet unseen member of the band.
"There!" said Bill, impolitely dropping his burden upon a pile of straw in the corner of the rather extensive cave at the end of the passage; "wonder if the little fool is dead. She ought to be coming to by this time." ”

“ Her hand touched his arm for an instant. "You will understand, won't you? Please don't!" There was a world of meaning in it.
His heart turned cold as ice, the blood left his face. He understood. She did not love him.
"Yes," he said, his voice dead and hoarse, "I think I understand, Rosalie. I have taken too much for granted, fool that I am. Bah! The egotism of a fool!"
"You must not speak like that," she said, her face contracted by pain and pity. "You are the most wonderful man I've ever known—the best and the truest. But—" and she paused, with a wan, drear smile on her lips. ”

“ Had Bonner pressed his demands upon her at the end of the visit in Boston, it is possible—more than possible—that she would have faltered in her resolution. After all, why should she deprive herself of happiness if it was held out to her with the promise that it should never end?
The summer turned steaming hot in the lowlands about Tinkletown, but in the great hills across the river the air was cool, bright, and invigorating. People began to hurry to their country homes from the distant cities. ”

“ His whole soul was enveloped in the hope that the washout had trapped the robbers. He was almost praying that it might be so. The reward could be divided with the poor old marshal if—
He gave a yell of delight, an instant later, and then began jumping straight up and down like one demented. Anderson Crow stopped so abruptly that his knees were stiff for weeks. Jackie Blake's wild dream had come true. The huge automobile had struck the washout, and it was now lying at the base of the bluff, smashed to pieces on the rocks! ”

“ At that very instant a stranger drove up to the hitching-rack, bringing his sweat-covered horse to a standstill so abruptly in front of the marshal's nose that that dignitary's hat fell off backward.
"Whoa!" came clearly and unmistakably from the lips of the stranger who held the reins. Half a dozen loafers on the post-office steps were positive that he said nothing more, a fact that was afterward worth remembering.
"Here!" exclaimed Anderson Crow wrathfully. "Do you know what you're doin', consarn you?"
"I beg pardon," everybody within hearing heard the young man say. ”

“ An instant later, another man dragged the helpless girl across the threshold and into the house. Even as Bonner squared himself to rush down upon them the light disappeared and darkness fell over the cabin. There was a sound of footsteps on the floor, a creaking of hinges and the stealthy closing of a door. Then there was absolute quiet.
Bonner was wise as well as brave. He saw that to rush down upon the house now might prove his own as well as her undoing. In the darkness, the bandits would have every advantage. ”

“ Luce's gate they were tramping through Anderson's front yard and into his house.
"Say," said "Blootch" so loudly that the crowd felt like remonstrating with him, "what's the use of all this?"
No one responded. No one was equal to it on such short notice.
"We've got to do something besides stand around and whisper," he said. "We've got to find Rosalie Gray."
"But good gosh!" ejaculated Isaac Porter, "they've got purty nigh a day's start of us."
"Well, that don't matter. Anderson would do as much for us. Let's get a move on."
"But where in thunder will we hunt?" murmured George Ray. ”

“ ANDERSON CROW: To your good and merciful care an unhappy creature consigns this helpless though well-beloved babe. All the world knows you to be a tender, loving, unselfish man and father. The writer humbly, prayerfully implores you to care for this babe as you would for one of your own. It is best that her origin be kept a secret. Care for her, cherish her as your own, and at the end of each year the sum of a thousand dollars will be paid to you as long as she lives in your household as a member thereof. ”

“ Perhaps she was more highly entertained by the manner in which Tinkletown femininity paired its venom with masculine admiration.
"Mornin', Miss Banks," was Anderson's greeting as he stamped noisily into the room. He forgot that he had said good-morning to her when she stopped in to see Rosalie on her way to the schoolhouse. The children ceased their outdoor game and peered eagerly through the windows, conscious that the visit of this dignitary was of supreme importance. Miss Banks looked up from the papers she was correcting, the pucker vanishing from her pretty brow as if by magic. ”

“ Rosalie had drooned Thackeray to the old lady until both of them were dozing, and it was indeed a welcome relief that came with Roscoe's resounding thumps on the front door. Mrs. Luce was too old to be frightened out of a year's growth, but it is perfectly safe to agree with her that the noise cost her at least three months.
Desperately blue over the defection of Elsie Banks, Rosalie had found little to make her evening cheerful indoors, but the fresh, crisp air set her spirits bounding the instant she closed Mrs. Luce's door from the outside. ”

“ CHAPTER XX In the Cave
"It's not my fault that we're still here," he growled in answer to her pathetic appeal. "I've heard you prayin' for Daddy Crow to come and take you away. Well, it's lucky for him that he don't know where you are. We'd make mincemeat of that old jay in three minutes. Don't do any more prayin'. Prayers are like dreams—you have 'em at night and wonder why the next day. Now, look 'ere, Miss Gray, we didn't do this rotten job for the love of excitement. We're just as anxious to get out of it as you are." ”

“ Perhaps the most anxious period in the life of Anderson Crow came when Rosalie was about ten years old. A new sheriff had been elected in Bramble County, and he posed as a reformer. His sister taught school in Tinkletown, and Rosalie was her favourite. She took an interest in the child that was almost the undoing of Mr. Crow's prosperity. Imagining that she was befriending the girl, the teacher appealed to her brother, the sheriff, insisting that he do what he could to solve the mystery of her birth. The sheriff saw a chance to distinguish himself. ”

“ There isn't a soul here, and there hasn't been, either."
"Thunderation, man, you cain't see ghosts when they don't want you to!" said Anderson Crow. "It was a ghost, that's settled. I knowed it all the time. Nothin' human ever looked like it, and nothin' alive ever moaned like it did."
By this time the rest of the party had reached the cabin door. The less timorous ventured inside, while others contented themselves by looking through the small windows. ”

“ The audience sat stupefied, paralysed. While all this was going on upon the inside, a single detective on the outside was stealthily puncturing the tires of every automobile in the collection, Mr. Bracken's huge touring car being excepted for reasons to be seen later on.
"Good heavens!" groaned old Judge Brewster. A half dozen women fainted and a hundred men broke into a cold perspiration.
"Hands up, everybody!" commanded Andrew Gregory. "We can take no chances. The train robbers are in this audience. They came to hold up the entire crowd, but we are too quick for you, my fine birds. ”