THEY were two very startled youths who leaped back as the door unexpectedly opened and who, for a breathless instant, gazed speechlessly at the man confronting them. He was tall, wide-shouldered and narrow-hipped, with a frank, good-looking face, clean-shaven, on which at the moment a quizzical smile rested. He had laid aside coat and vest, and under the uprolled sleeves of his white shirt his long arms showed muscles like whip-cords. It was Fudge who found his voice first.
"I—I—W-w-we"
"No savvy, hombre. Start again."
"W-we were j-j-just list-list-list"
"Listening," said Perry helpfully.
"Well, I hope you liked it. Come on in. We're all friends together."
"No, thanks," said Perry, embarrassed. "We just happened to hear you singing"
"Hooray!" exclaimed the man. "That's sure fine! Shake, pardner!"
And Perry found himself shaking hands most enthusiastically with the strange person and, at the same time, being drawn through the doorway. He tried to hold back, but it was utterly useless. Fudge, his startled expression vastly increased, followed doubtfully and the man closed the door. He was smiling broadly.
"Sit down, boys, and tell me your sweet, sad tale. You sure have made a big hit with me, all right. No one ever called that noise of mine singing before. Yes, sir, muchachos, you've won me!"
"I—we thought it was very"—Perry searched for a word—"very nice singing."
"P-P-Peachy," supplemented Fudge, smiling ingratiatingly, and then casting a troubled look at the closed door. To be shut in like this at the mercy of a train-robber had not been within his calculations. To increase his uneasiness, Fudge noted that his host's eyes were blue, light grayish-blue, but still to all intents and purposes blue! He looked meaningly at Perry, wondering whether, if they started together, they could reach the door before they were intercepted. The man had made them take two of the three chairs and perched himself on a corner of the table in the middle of the room.
"I hope I didn't scare you when I pulled the door open," he said. "Wouldn't want to do that, you know. Too flattered at having an audience."
"No, sir, we weren't scared," Perry assured him not too truthfully. "We oughtn't have done it, but—we heard you and"
"Just couldn't resist it, eh? Was it the words or the tune that hypnotized you?" He regarded Perry very gravely indeed, but there was a twinkle in his blue eyes.
Perry smiled weakly.
"I—I guess it was the words," he said.
"I'll bet it was! That's a nice song. I'll teach it to you some time if you like. Haven't I seen you boys around town?"
Perry nodded, casting a quick glance at Fudge. Fudge, however, had his gaze set longingly on the door.
"I thought so. I've got a good memory for faces. Pretty good ears, too." He laughed. "I suppose you fellows thought you weren't making a sound out there? Well, I heard you when you first came along the hall. Live around here, do you?"
"I do," answered Perry. "He doesn't."
"Well, let's tell our names. Mine's Addicks." "My name is Hull and his is Shaw. My first name is Perry."
"Perry Hull, eh? Sounds like something out of a history of the American Navy. Any relation to the celebrated commodores?"
"No, sir, I don't think so."
"What's his name to his friends?" asked the host, nodding toward Fudge.
"Fud—that is, William."
"My first name's Myron. I don't know why they called me that, but they did. Doesn't he ever talk?" Again Mr. Addicks indicated the absorbed Fudge.
"I was j-j-just thinking," replied the latter.
"Oh! What were you thinking?"
Fudge regarded the questioner doubtfully. "Lots of things," he muttered darkly.
Mr. Addicks laughed. "Sounds interesting, the way you tell it! I dare say you chaps go to school?"
"Yes, sir, High School," replied Perry. "We're both juniors."
"Good leather! Go in for sports, do you? Football, baseball, those things?"
"A little. Fudge plays baseball and football some. I play football, too."
"So his name is Fudge, is it? William Fudge Shaw, I suppose."
"It's just a nickname," explained Perry.
"I savvy. William week-days and Fudge Sunday, eh?" Perry smiled politely at the joke, but Fudge's expression remained serious and distrustful. "I'd like to see you fellows play some time," continued their host. "I used to play football at college, but I never tried baseball. Didn't have time. Sprinting and hurdling were my stunts. Do you have a track team at your school?"
"Yes, sir," answered Perry eagerly, "and he and I are trying for it this year. Fudge is learning to put the shot and throw the hammer and I'm trying the sprints."
"You don't say? How old are you, Hull?"
"Fifteen."
"You look older. What's your time for the hundred?"
"I—I don't know yet. Skeet—he's our coach—gave me a trial the other day, but he wouldn't tell me what my time was."
Mr. Addicks nodded. "I see. What's the school record?"
Perry didn't know, but Fudge supplied the information. "It's ten and a fifth. Lanny White did it last year against Springdale."
"That's good work! I'd like to see that chap run. I suppose you have your work-outs in the afternoons, don't you? If I didn't have to—if I wasn't so busy I'd come out and look you over. My record was ten flat for the hundred when I was in college, and fifteen and two-fifths over the high hurdles. I never could do much at the two-twenty distance, sprint or hurdles. I did do the low hurdles once in twenty-six flat, but that was in practice."
"What college did you go to?" asked Fudge, forgetting his suspicion for the moment.
"Morgan," answered the man, and smiled at their perplexity. "It's in Nebraska. Ever hear of it?"
They shook their heads, looking apologetic.
"I suppose not. It's a long ride from here. Good little college, though. I spent a right comfortable three years there."
"Does it take but three years to get through there?" asked Fudge. "I'd like to go there myself, I guess."
"No, but I was in a hurry, so I finished up in three. Had to get out and hustle me a living, you see. Not but what I wasn't doing that after a fashion all the time." He paused and chuckled deeply. "Ran a livery stable."
"A livery stable! While you were in college?" asked Fudge.
"You said it, hombre. Had to do something. Didn't have much of anything but what I had on when I struck college. Paid them a half-year's tuition—education's cheap out that way, friends, and it's good, too—and looked around for something to work at. Didn't find anything at first and so one day I go down to a stable run by a poor thing name of Cheeny and hires me a bronch for a couple of hours. I can always think a heap better when I'm on a horse, it seems. Well, thinking doesn't do me much good this time, though, and I heads back to town telling myself the best thing I can do is roll my blanket and hit the trail. But when I gets back to the stable, which isn't much more than a shed and a corral built of railway ties set on end, this poor thing name of Cheeny says to me: 'Know anyone wants to buy a nice livery business?' 'Supposing I did?' says I, squinting around the shack. 'Why, here it is,' he says. Well, to come right down to brass tacks, he and I did business after a day or two. He wanted to hike back to Missouri, which he ought never to have left, and we made a dicker. I was to pay him so much a month till we were square. Course I knew that, as he'd been running the place, he wasn't making enough to pay his feed bill, but I had a notion I could do a bit better. Did, too. What I bought wasn't much—half a dozen carriages about ready to fall to pieces, five bronchos and a little grain and alfalfa. The bronchs weren't so bad, if you excuse their looks. What they needed mostly was food. Trouble was, though, that everyone out there who needed a horse had one, and I saw that if I was to make anything on that investment I'd have to make my own market. Which I did."
"How did you do it?" asked Perry eagerly.
"Introduced the wholesome recreation of riding. Used to take a string of bronchs up to college in the afternoon and stand 'em outside the Hall. Then when anyone came along I'd ask him if he didn't want to hire a horse for two bits an hour. At first I just got laughed at. Then one or two fellows tried it for a lark, and after that it went fine. I gave riding lessons to some of the girls—Morgan is co-ed, you know—and the next year I had to buy me more horses. Paid that poor thing name of Cheeny in full before I'd been there six months. When I left I sold out to a man from Lincoln and did right well. Now you talk."
"Wh-what did you do next?" asked Fudge interestedly.
"Went down to Texas and got a job with a firm of engineers who were running a new railway down to the Gulf. I'd taken a course of civil engineering. Met up with a slick customer who looked like a down-east preacher and went shares with him on some oil land. Still got it. Something happened to the railway about that time and they stopped work. That left me strapped and I hired out as a ranch hand. After that I went to punching down near Las Topas."
"Punching?" queried Fudge.
"Cows."
"You mean you were a cowboy?" asked Perry eagerly.
"Four years of it."
"Gee!" sighed Perry. "That must have been great!"
Mr. Addicks laughed. "Well, some of it wasn't so bad. I liked it pretty well. I was always crazy about horses and riding. I got enough of it, though. It don't get you anything. An uncle of mine died and a lawyer wrote me I was the old chap's heir and had better beat it back here and claim the estate. Which I did." He smiled wryly. "The estate was a tumble-down farm-house about three miles from here on the Springdale road with a mortgage all over it. There's so much mortgage you have to lift up a corner of it before you can see the house. Being still a trifle worse than broke, I got a job with a moving picture company in Jersey and rode for 'em almost a year. That was harder work than being the real thing, and a sight more dangerous. I nearly killed myself one day, when a horse fell on me, and so I got my time and quit being an actor. That was about a month ago. Then I came back here and rented this place and started in business. The business hasn't shown up yet, though. I guess being a civil engineer in Clearfield is about as busy a job as being a street-cleaner in Venice! Now you know all about me. Hope I haven't tired you out."
"No, indeed," replied Perry emphatically. "I like to hear about it. Say, you've been around a lot, haven't you? Were you born in Nebraska?"
"Me? Hombre, I'm a native son of this grand old state. My folks farmed it over near Petersboro before the Pilgrims bought their passage!"
"How did you happen to go to college away out there, sir?"
"Why—now, look here, I've talked enough. I'll tell you some day about that, if you say so, but if I don't quit now you'll think I'm wound up. You tell me things."
"What?" asked Perry, smiling.
"Well, what are you aiming to do when you get through cramming your head full of knowledge, friend?"
"I don't know. I used to think I'd be a doctor. That's what my father is. But lately—I don't know. There doesn't seem to be much money in doctoring."
"Be a civil engineer then and get rich," said Mr. Addicks gravely. "What's your line going to be, Shaw?"
"I'm going to be an author," answered Fudge earnestly.
"That's another of those well-paid professions. Guess what we'd better do is make a date to meet in the poor house in, say, twenty or thirty years!"
"Some authors make a lot of money," said Fudge.
"Do they? Maybe so. The only one I ever knew who had money in his pocket was a chap out in Laredo. Don't know as you'd call him an author exactly either; more of a poet. He traveled around on side-door Pullmans and sold poems at the houses. Said he was 'singing his way around the world.' Told me he sometimes got as much as fifty cents for a poem. Yes, he was what you might call a right successful author; one of those 'best-sellers' you hear about, I guess."
"What were the poems like?" asked Fudge.
"Well, I don't believe, between you and me and the shovel, he had more than the one, and that—let me see if I can remember it. How was it now? 'My name is' I used to know that song, too. Wait a minute. I've got it!
"'My name is James O'Reilly,
I come from Erin's sod
To sing my humble ballads
As round the world I plod.
I ask no gift from any man,
I pay my way with song.
The world is kind, and so I find
Each day I trudge along.'"
"I wouldn't call that real poetry," said Fudge critically.
"No more did he; he called it a song. Anyhow, it brought him money. If someone doesn't happen in pretty quick and give me a job of surveying I'm going to steal that song and see what I can do with it! I suppose, now, you fellows don't want any surveying done? My prices are cheap. This is bargain week."
"I'm afraid not," answered Fudge. "I guess there isn't much"
He suddenly stopped, mouth open, eyes round and glassy, and stared at his host.
"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Addicks, following Fudge's fascinated gaze. "Anything wrong with my hand?"
Fudge seemed to shake himself out of his daze. "N-n-n-no, sir!" he gulped. "Oh, n-n-no, sir! I j-j-just hap-hap-happened to th-th-think of some-something!"
Mr. Addicks laughed dryly. "You're a remarkable young thinker, Shaw. I thought, by the way you were looking at my hand, that maybe I needed a manicure. Hello, going?"
"Yes, sir, I guess we'd better be getting home," said Perry. "We've enjoyed your—our visit."
"Have you? Well, I have, anyway. I was just naturally bored to death when you came. When you hear me trying to sing you'll know it's because I'm bored. Drop in again soon, fellows. I'm usually in in the mornings. Come around and I'll teach you that song." He chuckled as he opened the door for them. "I know some others too. 'Sam Bass,' for instance. I know thirty-four verses of 'Sam Bass,' and that's three more than any other chap at the 'Lazy K' knew!"
It was not until they were in the street that either of the boys spoke. Then Perry asked wonderingly: "For the love of mud, Fudge, what was the matter with you? You looked like a dying fish!"
"D-d-d-didn't you see?" asked Fudge tensely.
"See what?"
"The wh-wh-wh-white s-s-scar!"
"What white scar? Where?"
"On his arm!" replied Fudge, hoarsely, triumphantly. "The l-l-left one!"