Jack Ralston

“ When he came to the scene which had taken place on that afternoon, she leaned forward in her chair, breathless with interest.
“Oh, Jack!” she cried. “You always seem to be fighting somebody!”
“Yes—but wasn’t I right, mother?” he asked, quickly. “What could I do? He acted like a madman, and he dragged Katharine from me and whirled her off upon the floor as though he’d been handling a man in a free fight. I couldn’t stand that.”
“No—of course you couldn’t,” answered Mrs. Ralston. “I don’t see what you could have done but hit him, I’m sure. And yet it’s a shocking affair—it is, really. ”

“ Now we’re friends again, Jack; she’s been splendid, you know, or rather, you don’t half know!”
“And what happened the other day, to save your remaining locks?” enquired Ralston, with a smile.
“Oh, I can’t tell you. Perhaps she will, some day. But as I was saying, you can’t imagine what my life at home has been all these years. I’m not sure whether it hasn’t been worse since Charlotte was married. You know what we are—we’re so awfully polite when we fight. Ham Bright’s the only one who gets rough when he’s excited. That’s California and Nevada, I suppose. But we! we quarrel with all solemnity. ”

“ THE CLANG OF THE FIRE BELL “Well, I kinder guess now this here little ol’ ho-tel in Salt Lake City’s got our experience in Cheyenne knocked all to flinders. Good room, twin beds that keep you from hoggin’ all the covers on a cool night an’ as to eats, say it’s sure prime stuff, though mebbe I ain’t no judge ’long any line ’cept quantity. How ’bout it, Jack, ol’ hoss?”
The happy-go-lucky speaker was an old friend of ours, one Perk, and the companion to whom he addressed his question was his bosom pal, Jack Ralston of the U. S. Secret Service. ”

“ I know you love him. But it’s not the same thing. You’ll know some day. I hope you may. There’s another kind of love besides that of men and women.”
She spoke with a suppressed energy that Katharine hardly understood. The young girl mentally compared this woman’s love for her son with Alexander Junior’s parental affection for his daughter. It seemed to be a very different thing.
“No,” continued Mrs. Ralston. “You can’t guess what Jack is to me, and always has been. I don’t think he knows it himself. ”

“ One wonders how the man had come to appreciate Jacqueline Ralston's nature so thoroughly in the few weeks of their acquaintance? Did he know that this appeal would be the surest way to awaken her sympathies? [159] Jack had always a passion for doing things for other people rather than having them do for her. If she loved Captain Madden, she would gladly share all her money with him. It was stupid of her, however, not to realize that no true man could have been willing to ask all the sacrifices of her. Jack's only present problem was: "Did she care enough?" ”

“ She touched Robert Lauderdale’s sleeve, and pointed to the old marks on Katharine’s arm, calling his attention to them.
“Those weren’t made now, Mr. Lauderdale,” she said, in a low, matter-of-fact tone.
“No—it was last night,” said Katharine, rather faintly. “Jack, dear—get me a cup of tea. I don’t feel well.”
Ralston hurried away, saying something to himself which was not audible to the others, and which may as well be omitted here. The black and white of paper and ink make youth’s blood seem too red. Old Lauderdale’s anger was still at the boiling-point, and broke out again. ”

“ I’m sure the bills will come in before the estate’s settled, and then papa will take the roof off, as you always say—he’ll be so angry! But I don’t think he’ll make such a fuss about our marriage.”
“No—that’s just what I say. That’s why I want to tell him myself.”
“Jack!” cried Katharine, reproachfully. “You just said there’d be a row if I went to him about it.”
“Well—I think I can manage him better,” said Ralston. “You and he are used to fighting every day as a matter of habit, so that you’re sure to go at each other on the smallest provocation. ”

“ Katharine,” he said, more loudly, addressing her, “it amounts to this. I’ve left a few charities, and I’ve left the Miners a little something to make them comfortable, and I’ve given a million to the Brights—Hamilton and Hester and their mother—and I’ve left the rest to you three young ones—you and Charlotte and Jack Ralston. That ought to make about twenty-five millions for each of you. ”

“ This trip abroad might mean more to her than to any one of the other four girls. In spite of her lameness, which was never apparent except when she was greatly fatigued, Jack was tall—five feet seven inches—and held her shoulders with the erectness of other days. Slender, Jack would always be, but not thin, for sixteen years of outdoor life had given her too fine a beginning.
In each person's atmosphere or aura, if you prefer to call it so, there is usually a suggestion of some one distinctive quality, some characteristic that shows above all others. With Jacqueline Ralston it was purity. ”

“ Beman, I could never be civil to him again,” she said. “Can you imagine anything much worse? I can’t. But you’re quite right to try and stay at Beman’s. It means a great deal to uncle Robert—your sticking to regular work, don’t you see?”
“I don’t know what will happen when he dies,” said Ralston, thoughtfully. “Nobody else will ever do anything for me, when he’s gone.”
“No,” answered Katharine, suppressing a smile at the thought of what she knew, “nobody else will do anything. Let’s hope that uncle Robert will live long enough to see you succeed. But do you know, Jack, I’m anxious about him. ”

“ Bright.
“No fear of that, Jack,” answered Bright, anxious to show Katharine that he was not displeased at Ralston’s coming. “My mother always looks upon you as a sort of second son.”
“The prodigal son,” suggested John.
“Is that a hint to produce the fatted calf?” asked Bright. “Or have you dined? You don’t look as though you had.”
“Why? What’s the matter with me? I’ve just come from dinner. I dined at home with my mother.”
“You’re rather lean for a man who dines every day,” laughed Bright. “That’s all. I believe you starve in secret. You’re afraid of getting fat, Jack—that’s the truth. ”

“ He would rather have died than have accepted money from uncle Robert. I’d have taken it, and uncle Robert offered it to me, but Jack wouldn’t let me accept it.”
“Of course not, my dear,” answered Mrs. Ralston. “That’s exactly what it would have been—a begging speculation. There’s only one thing that can excuse a secret marriage, and that’s love.”
“Well—in that case—” Katharine did not finish her sentence, but smiled happily as she turned her face away. ”

“ Ralston returned her gaze, and her features gradually relaxed into a peaceful smile.
“In old times I should,” she said. “I believe I’m that kind of woman. But we’re not going to quarrel about which loves him best, my dear—though I believe we’re both capable of committing any folly for him,” she added.
“Yes. We are,” said Katharine. “And I don’t suppose that we could say so to any one else but each other in the world.”
“I’m glad you feel that. So do I. And Jack knows it all without our telling him. At least, he should, by this time.”
“Do men ever know?” asked Katharine. ”

“ I’m sure there are people who care very much, but who are never good friends. Look at papa and my mother. They’re like that. They’re not at all good friends. They never tell each other anything if they can help it. But they care all the same. We could never be like that together, could we? Jack—where does friendship end and love begin?”
“What a beautiful question!” exclaimed Ralston, very much amused. ”

“ She’d be such a comfort when you were down town, you know.”
“Yes,” answered Ralston, in a doubtful tone. “I couldn’t take my mother down town to comfort me at Beman’s, could I?”
“What an absurd idea! But, Jack,—shall you still go to Beman’s? You can’t, you know. Everybody would laugh at you. A man with forty millions or so, doing clerk’s work in a bank! It’s ridiculous!”
“No doubt! But what am I to do with myself? What do people like that do? I can’t hang about the clubs all day.”
“You can stay at home and talk to me,” said Katharine. ”

“ Why, Jack, I wouldn’t even tell you!”
“I don’t want to know,” answered Ralston. “Uncle Robert isn’t going to die for twenty years, and I hope he may live thirty. Of course, when he dies, if we’re alive, we shall have heaps of money all round, and your father and grandfather will probably get the biggest shares. But there’ll be plenty for us all. Your father seems to me to have lost his head about it.”
“He really has. It’s the same thing every day. He tells me that I’m all kinds of things—undutiful, and impertinent, and intolerable—altogether a perfect fiend, according to him. ”

“ Then all the people—they come in shoals. There have been ever so many who’ve wanted to look. It’s that horrible curiosity about death. All the relations. Even the three Miss Miners came. I thought they’d never go. Of course I don’t see them, so I have to be always dodging in here or into the drawing-room, or the gallery, or else I have to stay in my room. It will be worse to-morrow.”
“Yes,” answered Ralston. “You ought not to stay.” He paused a moment. “Dear,” he added, “I want you to know it at once—I’ve told my mother that we’re married—”
“Oh, Jack!” exclaimed Katharine, taken by surprise. ”

“ I’m rather worried.”
“Do you think I couldn’t see that in your face, Jack?” asked Mrs. Ralston, smiling as she met his eyes. “There’s a certain line in your forehead that always comes when there’s trouble. What is it, boy?”
John told his story briefly and accurately, without superfluous comment, and as much of what had happened in Katharine’s life as she had confided to him. He made it clear enough that she was being tormented to give up Robert Lauderdale’s secret, and if he dwelt unduly upon any point, it was upon this. Mrs. Ralston listened attentively. ”

“ Jack stared and then seemed to fairly double-up as though to him there might be something worth laughing at in the hurried retreat of his pal.
“He’s more scared than you can be, Perk!” he managed to cry out. “See him making off, will you, taking steps that are nearly as long as your own. Watch him shake those new horns of his, as if to tell you he’d be willing to fight it out only his head pieces are so new like, and soft!” ”

“ The man’s half in love with you, you know.”
“Oh, nonsense, Jack! It’s only because we dislike him so. If ever a man was in love with his wife, he is.”
“Yes, I know,” answered Ralston, in the same thoughtful tone. “That’s quite true. But it doesn’t prevent him from being half in love with lots of other women at the same time. It’s not the same thing. Oh, yes! he loves Hester. She’s quite mad about him, of course. We all know that, in the family. But Crowdie’s peculiar—and it’s not a nice peculiarity, either. One sees it in his manner somehow, and in his eyes. ”

“ It’s not kind. It’s much nicer to be misunderstood in a friendly way than to have all one’s friends up on their hind legs trying to understand one, when one hasn’t meant anything particular. By Jove! There goes the bell again! I wonder who it is?”
“What ears you have!” exclaimed Mrs. Bright. “I didn’t hear anything. But it must be Jack Ralston. He’d come early, you know.”
Katharine glanced surreptitiously at the two men, leaning back in her chair with half-closed eyes. Bright’s expression became a little more set, and he moved one foot uneasily. Wingfield looked at Mrs. ”

“ But Doctor Routh says there’s nothing to be done for a day or two, and he hasn’t moved the bandages. Now don’t talk about it any more—there are other things much more important. Sit down, Jack—there, in uncle Robert’s chair. Poor uncle Robert!” she exclaimed, in a different tone, realizing that the old man would never sit beside her again.
“Poor man!” echoed Ralston, with real sorrow in his voice. ”

“ Such confidence in a comrade bordered on the sublime, yet according to his light Perk felt he was justified in believing Jack to be at the head of his class—without a peer, yet modest withal, shrinking from praise, and content to let the heroes of unsurpassed air flights, as well as all manner of broken records for speed, endurance, and like exploits, bask in the spotlight, while he was satisfied to do his full duty, and afterwards remain unknown to fame. ”

“ Jack again summoned his courage to the fore and went on to ask the crucial question:
“This girl, sir, is the sweetheart of Buddy Warner, whose strange disappearance has thrilled the entire nation—have pity, and relieve her dreadful suspense—is he alive?”
Another nod, and in the affirmative, accompanied by a ghost of a smile. Then came the words that would ring in Jack’s ears for many a moon:
“Alive, and with a good chance for recovery, I am glad——”
“Quick! catch her, Perk!” yelled Jack as he felt the girl falling in a dead faint from the reaction. ”

“ Jack took special pains to give the ambitious comrade such a ride as he could never have imagined, even in his wildest dreams—he put the new boat through all manner of ordinary stunts, even turning over so that they kept going ahead at a fair pace while flying upside-down—he went through dizzy revolutions, banked sharply and carried on generally as skillful pilots seem to take great delight in doing. ”

“ Jack’s first inclination was to decide the other must be one of those dudish young chaps who sometimes drift into the ranks of flying men. Not at all weak or yellow when occasion arose to prove their stamina, but so constituted by nature that they can “carry on” and yet show little signs of the ordinary pilot’s addiction to dirt.
He stepped toward the other, leaving to Perk the job of finding some means for securing the end of the rope, possibly to a stake driven into the sand or perhaps to the nearby wreck of the Stinson-Detroiter ship. ”