In the Midst of Alarms by Robert Barr

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When Mrs. Bartlett resumed conversation with the professor, Yates
looked up at young Hiram and winked. The boy flushed with pleasure
under the comprehensiveness of that wink. It included him in the
attractive halo of crime that enveloped the fascinating personality of
the man from New York. It seemed to say:

"That's all right, but we are men of the world. _We_ know."

Young Hiram's devotion to the Goddess Nicotine had never reached the
altitude of a cigar. He had surreptitiously smoked a pipe in a secluded
corner behind the barn in days when his father was away. He feared both
his father and his mother, and so was in an even more embarrassing
situation than old Hiram himself. He had worked gradually up to tobacco
by smoking cigarettes of cane made from abandoned hoop-skirts.
Crinoline was fashionable, even in the country, in those days, and ribs
of cane were used before the metallic distenders of dresses came in.
One hoop-skirt, whose usefulness as an article of adornment was gone,
would furnish delight and smoking material for a company of boys for a
month. The cane smoke made the tongue rather raw, but the wickedness
was undeniable. Yates' wink seemed to recognize young Hiram as a
comrade worthy to offer incense at the shrine, and the boy was a firm
friend of Yates from the moment the eyelid of the latter drooped.

The tea things having been cleared away, Yates got no more glimpses of
the girl through the open door. He rose from his lowly seat and
strolled toward the gate, with his hands in his pockets. He remembered
that he had forgotten something, and cudgeled his brains to make out
what it was. He gazed down the road at the house of the Howards, which
naturally brought to his recollection his meeting with the young girl
on the road. There was a pang of discomfiture in this thought when he
remembered the accomplishments attributed to her by Mrs. Bartlett. He
recalled his condescending tone to her, and recollected his anxiety
about the jar. The jar! That was what he had forgotten. He flashed a
glance at old Hiram, and noted that the farmer was looking at him with
something like reproach in his eyes. Yates moved his head almost
imperceptibly toward the barn, and the farmer's eyes dropped to the
floor of the veranda. The young man nonchalantly strolled past the end
of the house.

"I guess I'll go to look after the horses," said the farmer, rising.

"The horses are all right, father. I saw to them," put in his son, but
the old man frowned him down, and slouched around the corner of the
house. Mrs. Bartlett was too busy talking to the professor to notice.
So good a listener did not fall to her lot every day.

"Here's looking at you," said Yates, strolling into the barn, taking a
telescopic metal cup from his pocket, and clinking it into receptive
shape by a jerk of the hand. He offered the now elongated cup to Hiram,
who declined any such modern improvement.

"Help yourself in that thing. The jug's good enough for me."

"Three fingers" of the liquid gurgled out into the patented vessel, and
the farmer took the jar, after a furtive look over his shoulder.

"Well, here's luck." The newspaper man tossed off the potion with the
facility of long experience, shutting up the dish with his thumb and
finger, as if it were a metallic opera hat.

The farmer drank silently from the jar itself. Then he smote in the
cork with his open palm.

"Better bury it in the wheat bin," he said morosely. "The boy might
find it if you put it among the oats--feedin' the horses, ye know."

"Mighty good place," assented Yates, as the golden grain flowed in a
wave over the submerged jar. "I say, old man, you know the spot;
you've been here before."

Bartlett's lowering countenance indicated resentment at the imputation,
but he neither affirmed nor denied. Yates strolled out of the barn,
while the farmer went through a small doorway that led to the stable. A
moment later he heard Hiram calling loudly to his son to bring the
pails and water the horses.

"Evidently preparing an _alibi_," said Yates, smiling to himself,
as he sauntered toward the gate.

CHAPTER V.

"What's up? what's up?" cried Yates drowsily next morning, as a
prolonged hammering at his door awakened him.

"Well, _you're_ not, anyhow." He recognized the voice of young
Hiram. "I say, breakfast's ready. The professor has been up an hour."

"All right; I'll be down shortly," said Yates, yawning, adding to
himself: "Hang the professor!" The sun was streaming in through the
east window, but Yates never before remembered seeing it such a short
distance above the horizon in the morning. He pulled his watch from the
pocket of his vest, hanging on the bedpost. It was not yet seven
o'clock. He placed it to his ear, thinking it had stopped, but found
himself mistaken.

"What an unearthly hour," he said, unable to check the yawns. Yates'
years on a morning newspaper had made seven o'clock something like
midnight to him. He had been unable to sleep until after two o'clock,
his usual time of turning in, and now this rude wakening seemed
thoughtless cruelty. However, he dressed, and yawned himself
downstairs.

They were all seated at breakfast when Yates entered the apartment,
which was at once dining room and parlor.

"Waiting for you," said young Hiram humorously, that being one of a set
of jokes which suited various occasions. Yates took his place near Miss
Kitty, who looked as fresh and radiant as a spirit of the morning.

"I hope I haven't kept you waiting long." he said.

"No fear," cried Mrs. Bartlett. "If breakfast's a minute later than
seven o'clock, we soon hear of it from the men-folks. They get precious
hungry by that time."

"By that time?" echoed Yates. "Then do they get up before seven?"

"Laws! what a farmer you would make, Mr. Yates!" exclaimed Mrs.
Bartlett, laughing.

"Why, everything's done about the house and barn; horses fed, cows
milked--everything. There never was a better motto made than the one
you learned when you were a boy, and like as not have forgotten all
about:

"'Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.'

I'm sorry you don't believe in it, Mr. Yates."

"Oh, that's all right," said Yates with some loftiness; "but I'd like
to see a man get out a morning paper on such a basis. I'm healthy
enough, quite as wealthy as the professor here, and everyone will admit
that I'm wiser than he is; yet I never go to bed until after two
o'clock, and rarely wake before noon."

Kitty laughed at this, and young Hiram looked admiringly at the New
Yorker, wishing he was as clever.

"For the land's sake!" cried Mrs. Bartlett, with true feminine
profanity, "What do you do up so late as that?"

"Writing, writing," said Yates airily; "articles that make dynasties
tremble next morning, and which call forth apologies or libel suits
afterward, as the case may be."

Young Hiram had no patience with one's profession as a topic of
conversation. The tent and its future position was the burning question
with him. He mumbled something about Yates having slept late in order
to avoid the hearing of the words of thankfulness at the beginning of
the meal. What his parents caught of this remark should have shown them
how evil communications corrupt good manners; for, big as he was, the
boy had never before ventured even to hint at ridicule on such a
subject. He was darkly frowned upon by his silent father, and sharply
reprimanded by his voluble mother. Kitty apparently thought it rather
funny, and would like to have laughed. As it was, she contented herself
with a sly glance at Yates, who, incredible as it may seem, actually
blushed at young Hiram's allusion to the confusing incident of the day
before.

The professor, who was a kind-hearted man, drew a herring across the
scent.

"Mr. Bartlett has been good enough," said he, changing the subject, "to
say we may camp in the woods at the back of the farm. I have been out
there this morning, and it certainly is a lovely spot."

"We're awfully obliged, Mr. Bartlett," said Yates. "Of course Renmark
went out there merely to show the difference between the ant and the
butterfly. You'll find out what a humbug he is by and by, Mrs.
Bartlett. He looks honest; but you wait."

"I know just the spot for the tent," cried young Hiram--"down in the
hollow by the creek. Then you won't need to haul water."

"Yes, and catch their deaths of fever and ague," said Mrs. Bartlett.
Malaria had not then been invented. "Take my advice, and put your tent
--if you _will_ put it up at all--on the highest ground you can
find. Hauling water won't hurt you."

"I agree with you, Mrs. Bartlett. It shall be so. My friend uses no
water--you ought to have seen his bill at the Buffalo hotel. I have it
somewhere, and am going to pin it up on the outside of the tent as a
warning to the youth of this neighborhood--and what water I need I can
easily carry up from the creek."

The professor did not defend himself, and Mrs. Bartlett evidently took
a large discount from all that Yates said. She was a shrewd woman.

After breakfast the men went out to the barn. The horses were hitched
to the wagon, which still contained the tent and fittings. Young Hiram
threw an ax and a spade among the canvas folds, mounted to his place,
and drove up the lane leading to the forest, followed by Yates and
Renmark on foot, leaving the farmer in his barnyard with a cheery
good-by, which he did not see fit to return.

First, a field of wheat; next, an expanse of waving hay that soon would
be ready for the scythe; then, a pasture field, in which some young
horses galloped to the fence, gazing for a moment at the harnessed
horses, whinnying sympathetically, off the next with flying heels
wildly flung in the air, rejoicing in their own contrast of liberty,
standing at the farther corner and snorting defiance to all the world;
last, the cool shade of the woods into which the lane ran, losing its
identity as a wagon road in diverging cow paths. Young Hiram knew the
locality well, and drove direct to an ideal place for camping. Yates
was enchanted. He included all that section of the country in a
sweeping wave of his hand, and burst forth:

"'This is the spot, the center of the grove:
There stands the oak, the monarch of the wood.
In such a place as this, at such an hour,
We'll raise a tent to ward off sun and shower.'

Shakespeare improved."

"I think you are mistaken," said Renmark.

"Not a bit it. Couldn't be a better camping ground."

"Yes; I know that. I picked it out two hours ago. But you were wrong in
your quotation. It is not by Shakespeare and yourself, as you seem to
think."

"Isn't it? Some other fellow, eh? Well, if Shake is satisfied, I am. Do
you know, Renny, I calculate that, line for line, I've written about
ten times as much as Shakespeare. Do the literati recognize that fact?
Not a bit of it. This is an ungrateful world, Stilly."

"It is, Dick. Now, what are you going to do toward putting up the
tent?"

"Everything, my boy, everything. I know more about putting up tents
than you do about science, or whatever you teach. Now, Hiram, my boy,
you cut me some stakes about two feet long--stout ones. Here,
professor, throw off that coat and _neglige_ manner, and grasp
this spade. I want some trenches dug."

Yates certainly made good his words. He understood the putting up of
tents, his experience in the army being not yet remote. Young Hiram
gazed with growing admiration at Yates' deftness and evident knowledge
of what he was about, while his contempt for the professor's futile
struggle with a spade entangled in tree roots was hardly repressed.

"Better give me that spade," he said at length; but there was an
element of stubbornness in Renmark's character. He struggled on.

At last the work was completed, stakes driven, ropes tightened,
trenches dug.

Yates danced, and gave the war whoop of the country.

"Thus the canvas tent has risen,
All the slanting stakes are driven,
Stakes of oak and stakes of beechwood:
Mops his brow, the tired professor;
Grins with satisfaction, Hiram;
Dances wildly, the reporter--
Calls aloud for gin and water.

Longfellow, old man, Longfellow. Bet you a dollar on it!" And the
frivolous Yates poked the professor in the ribs.

"Richard," said the latter, "I can stand only a certain amount of this
sort of thing. I don't wish to call any man a fool, but you act
remarkably like one."

"Don't be mealy-mouthed, Renny; call a spade a spade. By George! young
Hiram has gone off and forgotten his--And the ax, too! Perhaps they're
left for us. He's a good fellow, is young Hiram. A fool? Of course I'm
a fool. That's what I came for, and that's what I'm going to be for the
next two weeks. 'A fool--a fool, I met a fool i' the forest'--just the
spot for him. Who could be wise here after years of brick and mortar?

"Where are your eyes, Renny," he cried, "that you don't grow wild when
you look around you? See the dappled sunlight filtering through the
leaves; listen to the murmur of the wind in the branches; hear the
trickle of the brook down there; notice the smooth bark of the beech
and the rugged covering of the oak; smell the wholesome woodland
scents. Renmark, you have no soul, or you could not be so unmoved. It
is like paradise. It is--Say, Renny, by Jove, I've forgotten that jug
at the barn!"

"It will be left there."

"Will it? Oh, well, if you say so."

"I do say so. I looked around for it this morning to smash it, but
couldn't find it."

"Why didn't you ask old Bartlett?"

"I did; but he didn't know where it was."

Yates threw himself down on the moss and laughed, flinging his arms and
legs about with the joy of living.

"Say, Culture, have you got any old disreputable clothes with you?
Well, then, go into the tent and put them on; then come out and lie on
your back and look up at the leaves. You're a good fellow, Renny, but
decent clothes spoil you. You won't know yourself when you get ancient
duds on your back. Old clothes mean freedom, liberty, all that our
ancestors fought for. When you come out, we'll settle who's to cook and
who to wash dishes. I've settled it already in my own mind, but I am
not so selfish as to refuse to discuss the matter with you."

When the professor came out of the tent, Yates roared. Renmark himself
smiled; he knew the effect would appeal to Yates.

"By Jove! old man, I ought to have included a mirror in the outfit. The
look of learned respectability, set off with the garments of a
disreputable tramp, makes a combination that is simply killing. Well,
you can't spoil _that_ suit, anyhow. Now sprawl."

"I'm very comfortable standing up, thank you."

"Get down on your back. You hear me?"

"Put me there."

"You mean it?" asked Yates, sitting up.

"Certainly."

"Say, Renny, beware. I don't want to hurt you."

"I'll forgive you for once."

"On your head be it."

"On my back, you mean."

"That's not bad, Renny," cried Yates, springing to his feet. "Now, it
will hurt. You have fair warning. I have spoken."

The young men took sparring attitudes. Yates tried to do it gently at
first, but, finding he could not touch his opponent, struck out more
earnestly, again giving a friendly warning. This went on ineffectually
for some time, when the professor, with a quick movement, swung around
his foot with the airy grace of a dancing master, and caught Yates
just behind the knee, at the same time giving him a slight tap on the
breast. Yates was instantly on his back.

"Oh, I say, Renny, that wasn't fair. That was a kick."

"No, it wasn't. It is merely a little French touch. I learned it in
Paris. They _do_ kick there, you know; and it is good to know how
to use your feet as well as your fists if you are set on by three, as I
was one night in the Latin Quarter."

Yates sat up.

"Look here, Renmark; when were you in Paris?"

"Several times."

Yates gazed at him for a few moments, then said:

"Renny, you improve on acquaintance. I never saw a Bool-var in my life.
You must teach me that little kick."

"With pleasure," said Renmark, sitting down, while the other sprawled
at full length. "Teaching is my business, and I shall be glad to
exercise any talents I may have in that line. In endeavoring to
instruct a New York man the first step is to convince him that he
doesn't know everything. That is the difficult point. Afterward
everything is easy."

"Mr. Stillson Renmark, you are pleased to be severe. Know that you are
forgiven. This delicious sylvan retreat does not lend itself to
acrimonious dispute, or, in plain English, quarreling. Let dogs
delight, if they want to; I refuse to be goaded by your querulous
nature into giving anything but the soft answer. Now to business.
Nothing is so conducive to friendship, when two people are camping out,
as a definition of the duties of each at the beginning. Do you follow
me?"

"Perfectly. What do you propose?"

"I propose that you do the cooking and I wash the dishes. We will
forage for food alternate days."

"Very well. I agree to that."

Richard Yates sat suddenly upright, looking at his friend with reproach
in his eyes. "See here, Renmark; are you resolved to force on an
international complication the very first day? That's no fair show to
give a man."

"What isn't?"

"Why, agreeing with him. There are depths of meanness in your
character, Renny, that I never suspected. You know that people who camp
out always object to the part assigned them by their fellow-campers. I
counted on that. I'll do anything but wash dishes."

"Then why didn't you say so?"

"Because any sane man would have said 'no' when I suggested cooking,
merely _because_ I suggested it. There is no diplomacy about you,
Renmark. A man doesn't know where to find you when you act like that.
When you refused to do the cooking, I would have said: 'Very well,
then, I'll do it,' and everything would have been lovely; but now----"

Yates lay down again in disgust. There are moments in life when
language fails a man.

"Then it's settled that you do the cooking and I wash the dishes?" said
the professor.

"Settled? Oh yes, if you say so; but all the pleasure of getting one's
own way by the use of one's brains is gone. I hate to be agreed with in
that objectionably civil manner."

"Well, that point being arranged, who begins the foraging--you or I?"

"Both, Herr Professor, both. I propose to go to the house of the
Howards, and I need an excuse for the first visit; therefore I shall
forage to a limited extent. I go ostensibly for bread. As I may not get
any, you perhaps should bring some from whatever farmhouse you choose
as the scene of your operations. Bread is always handy in the camp,
fresh or stale. When in doubt, buy more bread. You can never go wrong,
and the bread won't."

"What else should I get? Milk, I suppose?"

"Certainly; eggs, butter--anything. Mrs. Bartlett will give you hints
on what to get that will be more valuable than mine."

"Have you all the cooking utensils you need?"

"I think so. The villain from whom I hired the outfit said it was
complete. Doubtless he lied; but we'll manage, I think."

"Very well. If you wait until I change my clothes, I'll go with you as
far as the road."

"My dear fellow, be advised, and don't change. You'll get everything
twenty per cent. cheaper in that rig-out. Besides, you are so much more
picturesque. Your costume may save us from starvation if we run short
of cash. You can get enough for both of us as a professional tramp. Oh,
well, if you insist, I'll wait. Good advice is thrown away on a man
like you."

CHAPTER VI.

Margaret Howard stood at the kitchen table kneading dough. The room was
called the kitchen, which it was not, except in winter. The stove was
moved out in spring to a lean-to, easily reached through the open door
leading to the kitchen veranda.

When the stove went out or came in, it marked the approach or the
departure of summer. It was the heavy pendulum whose swing this way or
that indicated the two great changes of the year. No job about the farm
was so much disliked by the farmer and his boys as the semiannual
removal of the stove. Soot came down, stovepipes gratingly grudged to
go together again; the stove was heavy and cumbersome, and many a pain
in a rural back dated from the journey of the stove from outhouse to
kitchen.

The kitchen itself was a one-story building, which projected back from
the two-story farmhouse, giving the whole a T-shape. There was a
veranda on each side of the kitchen, as well as one along the front of
the house itself.

Margaret's sleeves were turned back nearly to her elbows, showing a
pair of white and shapely arms. Now and then she deftly dusted the
kneading board with flour to prevent the dough sticking, and as she
pressed her open palms into the smooth, white, spongy mass, the table
groaned protestingly. She cut the roll with a knife into lumps that
were patted into shape, and placed side by side, like hillocks of snow,
in the sheet-iron pan.

At this moment there was a rap at the open kitchen door, and Margaret
turned round, startled, for visitors were rare at that hour of the day;
besides, neighbors seldom made such a concession to formality as to
knock. The young girl flushed as she recognized the man who had spoken
to her the day before. He stood smiling in the doorway, with his hat in
his hand. She uttered no word of greeting or welcome, but stood looking
at him, with her hand on the floury table.

"Good-morning, Miss Howard," said Yates blithely; "may I come in? I
have been knocking for some time fruitlessly at the front door, so I
took the liberty of coming around."

"I did not hear you knock," answered Margaret. She neglected to invite
him in, but he took the permission for granted and entered, seating
himself as one who had come to stay. "You must excuse me for going on
with my work," she added; "bread at this stage will not wait."

"Certainly, certainly. Please do not let me interrupt you. I have made
my own bread for years, but not in that way. I am glad that you are
making bread, for I have come to see if I can buy some."

"Really? Perhaps I can sell you some butter and eggs as well."

Yates laughed in that joyous, free-hearted manner of his which had much
to do with his getting on in the world. It was difficult to remain long
angry with so buoyant a nature.

"Ah, Miss Howard, I see you haven't forgiven me for that remark. You
surely could not have thought I meant it. I really intended it for a
joke, but I am willing to admit, now that I look back on it, that the
joke was rather poor; but, then, most of my jokes are rather shopworn."

"I am afraid I lack a sense of humor."

"All women do," said Yates with easy confidence. "At least, all I've
ever met."

Yates was sitting in a wooden chair, which he now placed at the end of
the table, tilting it back until his shoulders rested against the wall.
His feet were upon the rung, and he waved his hat back and forth,
fanning himself, for it was warm. In this position he could look up at
the face of the pretty girl before him, whose smooth brow was touched
with just the slightest indication of a faint frown. She did not even
glance at the self-confident young man, but kept her eyes fixed
resolutely on her work. In the silence the table creaked as Margaret
kneaded the dough. Yates felt an unaccustomed sensation of
embarrassment creeping over him, and realized that he would have to
re-erect the conversation on a new basis. It was manifestly absurd that
a resourceful New Yorker, who had conversed unabashed with presidents,
senators, generals, and other great people of a great nation, should be
put out of countenance by the unaccountable coldness of a country girl
in the wilds of Canada.

"I have not had an opportunity of properly introducing myself," he said
at last, when the creaking of the table, slight as it was, became
insupportable. "My name is Richard Yates, and I come from New York. I
am camping out in this neighborhood to relieve, as it were, a mental
strain--the result of years of literary work."

Yates knew from long experience that the quickest and surest road to a
woman's confidence was through her sympathy. "Mental strain" struck him
as a good phrase, indicating midnight oil and the hollow eye of the
devoted student.

"Is your work mental, then?" asked Margaret incredulously, flashing,
for the first time, a dark-eyed look at him.

"Yes," Yates laughed uneasily. He had manifestly missed fire. "I notice
by your tone that you evidently think my equipment meager. You should
not judge by appearances, Miss Howard. Most of us are better than we
seem, pessimists to the contrary notwithstanding. Well, as I was
saying, the camping company consists of two partners. We are so
different in every respect that we are the best of friends. My partner
is Mr. Stillson Renmark, professor of something or other in University
College, Toronto."

For the first time Margaret exhibited some interest in the
conversation.

"Professor Renmark? I have heard of him."

"Dear me! I had no idea the fame of the professor had penetrated beyond
the precincts of the university--if a university has precincts. He told
me it had all the modern improvements, but I suspected at the time that
was merely Renny's brag."

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