Delaney

“ He peered through the blue haze that with every discharge thickened between him and the buster. For his own safety he must “place” at least one shot. Delaney's chest and shoulders rose suddenly above the smoke close upon him as the distraught buckskin reared again. Annixter, for the first time during the fight, took definite aim, but before he could draw the trigger there was a great shout and he was aware of the buckskin, the bridle trailing, the saddle empty, plunging headlong across the floor, crashing into the line of chairs. Delaney was scrambling off the floor. ”

“ Not a man could he hire to go out tonight. Who'd risk his life to help a rich man make more money?”
“Not me,” said Delaney. "Who's this Gaunt?”
“He's hoping to marry your girl.”
“Oh!” said Delaney, and whistled. “She didn't write me of that. Is he a good man?”
“Good outside,” said Cap'n Johnny. “He fancies himself. Says he can pilot the Norah across, and between them they can manage the engines. Is she a good boat?”
“Housed and stanch enough, but bad engines,” said Delaney. “If they get across, it'll be by drifting. Where's Miss Johnson? I want to see her.” ”

“ Drew thrust his arms into his silk-lined sleeves, pulled the hat down over his eyes and swung as the big operative turned his shoulder.
“Look,” whispered Delaney.
Loris Stockbridge and her lover stood under the glow from the soft clusters of the inner room of the suite. The captain held his peaked cap in his right hand. He also was departing.
299“Turtle-doves,” Delaney breathed with almost pride.
“Ah!” said Drew. “Ah, my friend, you must remember that we were once that way ourselves. But now—but now, Delaney—there is a thing which is sweeter than love’s young dream. It is a tired man’s sleep. ”

“ The old man was alive during the telephone call from the Grand Central, and dead when the howler was put on for the first time. Do you see that?”
Delaney frowned. “I see it and I don’t,” he said. “I’m all balled up, Chief. What with the magpie and the howler and a man shot in a locked room and the spot of soot on your neck120—I’m all twisted into a knot. I think I’ll go out and get a drink!”
“No, Delaney, don’t,” said Drew. “You’ll need your head in this case. We’re squarely up against class of the highest order. ”

“ The message that Delaney had sent over the snow-crusted wires, and along the underground conduits, was laden with menace. It drove Drew westward through the drifts like a man who had a whip held over him. He crossed two avenues before he sighted a taxi. He charged after this, sprang to the running board, and shouted into the driver’s muffled ear.
“Drive like sin—full speed and more—up Fifth Avenue! I’ll tell you when to stop! The devils are not going to kill that little lady if I can help it,” he added, as he opened the door and climbed inside the taxi. ”

“ Took three months to plan the murder and left his rain-stick behind. His initials were on it.”
“They can’t get away––” started Delaney.
“Here’s your bird!” announced Drew, as a knock sounded on the door. “Move over and let that valet stand there. I want the light in his eyes when we’re talking to him. Always get the light in the other fellow’s eye. Sisst!”
The door opened to a crack—then wide. The valet came in with an important strut. He turned and deposited a cage at Delaney’s big feet. The operative moved back with a grunt of disgust. ”

“ Delaney will be up from the office with his flying squad. I left it to him to arrange about tracing the call through a telephone official. No use telling the chief operator too much. The official will go right over her head and into the heart of the thing. Now,”—Drew pulled down the lapels of his black coat and leaned over the Magnate. “Now,” he said with vigor, “now, what about your servants? I had a good look at some of them. How about that English butler? How long have you had him?”
“Ten years! Brought him over, myself. Wife picked the other servants. They’re all old, tried and trusted. ”

“ Perhaps the police records will show such a man who is at large—very much at large.”
Delaney furrowed his brows and screwed his face into a painful knot. “I’m trying to go back, Chief, to the Morphy case and them crooked witnesses he had. They all had loud voices—like wolves!”
“Yes—I remember them. But then, Delaney, a man can change his voice. That whole pack will bear watching.”
“You’ve eliminated some things that were worrying, Chief. But there’s some I don’t see yet. It’s impossible for a man to get shot like that old millionaire was. ”

“ Delaney's face.
"I will not explain exactly what I mean," said the mother, giving the little hand a loving squeeze, "only to assure you, Iris, that, as the trial comes, strength will be given to you to meet it. Please understand, my darling, that from first to last, to the end of life, it [13] is all a fight. 'The road winds uphill all the way.' If you will remember that you will not think things half as hard, and you will be brave and strong, and, like the rainbow, you will cheer people even in the darkest hours. ”

“ He’s always dangerous, though.”
“Another old devil,” said Delaney thrashing his arms. “I can see him now, Chief, in his big automobile. A husky man with a leather coat and cap. And always a woman by his side, Chief. A different woman, every time!”
34“He fell a long way, Delaney. Come on. We’ll forget Morphy for a while. Stockbridge is alone. He is in danger.”
Drew clutched the operative’s arm and motioned across the street. They plunged through the snow with heads down. They entered the iron-grilled gate. Drew touched a button set in the stone of the doorway. ”

“ I remarked that I probably could not have got away as easily as I had done if he had not been so agreeable, but that I would have shot—and he knew it.
But at that, I believe Delaney was more sincere than I really wanted to give him credit for. I am suspicious of everybody. Particularly of my friends. ”

“ The lad walked down to the ripe cornfield, took another big cornstalk, went back to the cabin and borrowed a table-knife from the cupboard, and made a cornstalk fiddle. It was after sundown when Mary Newland returned.
The following morning, she washed and ironed Daredevil Delaney's handkerchief—and she did a job to be proud of—wrapped it in a page of an old story-paper, and sent Buck to the Delaney home with it.
"Go right to the house, and come right back," she instructed. "Don't stay, and don't talk to 'em." ”

“ Delaney's friendship was valuable, but he could not without trouble for himself have bucked a combination such as I was up against. Besides, his regard for me was one only of friendship; his relation with Thrope and the police and judges was one of business.
When I was younger even than at that time, I used to vow that I would never run, never be a fugitive. I swore to stand and see it through—"it" being anything that might happen. But I have run frequently, far and fast. ”

“ At the shock, Delaney lost balance and came to his knees, but hauled in the line. Then Gaunt was crawling over the gunwale beside him; he heaved in the line, and as the two craft drew apart briefly Delaney leaned down and got a grip on Johnson's clothes. Gaunt took hold, and they dragged the senseless man inboard.
A sea hurled the boat up, smashed her down upon the Norah once more. Under his feet Delaney felt the timbers groan and crack. The searchlight was jarred out; the three figures on the wet foredeck all but went overboard. Delaney turned a terrible face to Bill Allers. ”

“ Pay particular attention to Mr. Stockbridge’s rooms. Look at the windows. See that they are locked. See that there are no places where a man could be hidden. You’ll permit Delaney to do this, Mr. Stockbridge?”
The Munition Magnate nodded. He kept his eyes on Drew, who still faced him. “Do you think it is necessary?” he asked. “I’ll answer for my servants.”
“We must suspect everybody,” Drew said. “Go on, Delaney. Find the butler and let 36him show you around. I’ve searched in here.”
Delaney started toward the portières as Stockbridge reached down and pressed the floor-button with his finger. ”

“ If a man was not providing for his family, he had a warning; if he did not immediately mend his ways, Daredevil Delaney gave him a whipping that he did not soon forget. Delaney caused men to pay their debts, support the preacher, and buy more corn-meal and bacon than yellow-corn whisky.
Of course, he had his enemies as well as his friends; and, of course, there had been committed grave crimes that had been put at his door—which was inevitable, and which often had placed him in jeopardy and made his position one scarcely to be envied.
"Mother," suddenly asked Buck, "are ye sick? ”

“ For one second Emmett stared in surprise. They sprang to the ground and faced each other. To run from one man was much against Delaney's liking, though the officer now had drawn a weapon. Delaney dove under with the lithe quickness of a panther; with his left hand he caught Emmett's gun-wrist, and with his right he wrenched the revolver free; then he struck the deputy a chest blow that staggered him, stepped backward, and threw the revolver over apple-trees and into a blackberry thicket. ”

“ The young man no longer doubted what he had before only suspected—namely, that Jerry Delaney was the man who had been responsible for the series of accidents which had placed the Red Ore Mining Company on the verge of bankruptcy. Nor could Jimmy Dane forget for a single instant that this man was the half-brother and sole surviving relative of the girl who in the last few weeks had come to mean so much to him.
He followed Delaney into the stygian darkness of the passage. The big man worked swiftly. ”

“ I was vexed enough, as may be supposed, at this malicious pertinacity, but I kept down my struggling gorge with a resolution which I had been compelled often enough to exercise before; and quietly ended the interview by taking my hat and departure, as I said:—
“You are certainly a very sagacious lady, Mrs. Delaney; but I must leave you, and wait your own time to make these mysterious revelations. My respects to Mr. Delaney. Good morning.”
“Oh, good morning; but let me tell you, Mr. Clifford, if you don't see, it's not because you can't. Other people can see without trying.” ”

“ But I told you that Nan loved me. Your words are insulting to her. I guess there's only one kind of answer that a man like you can understand——”
His blow knocked the elder man against the door frame and jarred the shed.
Men came running from the mill and the near-by sheds, and a crowd gathered at the doorway, for it was a grand sight. Jason Johnson knocked Delaney down three times, and then put the boots to him; by this time Delaney was warmed up, and evaded the boots, and went into the elder man with both fists and feet. Then it was soon over, and it was not Delaney who was knocked cold. ”

“ Delaney's on Tuesday morning, and with his wife go on to Fort Pitt, and if they saw any excitement they would follow. We did not expect anything to occur. When we got up to Mr. Delaney's we found the police had left for Fort Pitt. Big Bear's Indians were in the house talking to Mr. Quinn about the trouble at Duck Lake, and saying that Poundmaker the chief at Battleford wanted Big Bear to join him but he would not, as he intended remaining where he was and live peaceably. They considered Big Bear to be a better man than he was given credit for. ”

“ He was accompanied by an officer of the corps of guides; and requesting permission to hold a few minutes private conversation with Sir John Hope, they all three retired together.
"We shall have something to do before twenty-four hours pass," said one of the aides-de-camp; "Delaney always brings warlike communications with him." "So much the better," was the general reply. "Let us drink to our host, and success to to-morrow's operations." The toast was hardly finished when Sir John returned, bringing with him only the officer of the corps of guides—Delaney was gone ”

“ HE WAS eleven years old, and he belonged to the aristocracy of Tennessee's mountains, on his mother's side of the house; his father had been a good-looking and good-natured, lazy North Carolina hillman to whom a hound dog was of as much value as a woman—which, after all, is saying very little against his regard for women. He lived, this boy, with his pretty widowed young mother in a small cabin near the head of the rather thickly settled valley that is called Little Jerusalem, of which "Daredevil" Delaney was king. ”

“ An hour after found him again among the boomers.
Mike Delaney was just coming in by the Allen trail. The Irishman was much crestfallen over his failure to find a better trail than that selected by the scout, and Rosy was giving it to him with a vengeance.
"Th' nixt toime ye go forward it will be undher Pawnee Brown's directions, Moike Delaney!" she cried. "It's not yerself thot is as woise as Moses in the wilderness, moind thot!" And her clenched fist shook vigorously to emphasize her words. After that Delaney never strayed from the proper trail again. ”

“ One night, after several weeks of this, Delaney and I fancied that we caught sight of Van Twiller in the private box of an uptown theatre, where some thrilling trapeze performance was going on, which we did not care to sit through; but we concluded afterward that it was only somebody who looked like him. Delaney, by the way, was unusually active in this search. I dare say he never quite forgave Van Twiller for calling him Muslin Delaney. Ned is fond of ladies' society, and that's a fact. ”

“ Delaney was willing. The drink he poured, after the butler brought a clean glass, would have cost him considerable money in war time. He upended it neat. He smiled as one hand rested upon his chest. “Fine!” he said with sincerity. “There’s nothin’ th’ matter with that!”
Drew turned toward the portières, where, between, the butler waited. “We’ll go now,” he said. “Remember—lock and bolt this door. Instruct your man to stay outside and not to leave it under any circumstances. When you go up to your bedroom, have him go with you. ”