The Search Part 1

The Search.

by Grace Livingston Hill.

I

Two young men in officers' uniforms entered the smoker of a suburban train, and after the usual formalities of matches and cigarettes settled back to enjoy their ride out to Bryne Haven.

"What d'ye think of that girl I introduced you to the other night, Harry?

Isn't she a pippin?" asked the second lieutenant taking a luxurious puff at his cigarette.

"I should say, Bobbie, she's some girl! Where d'ye pick her up? I certainly owe you one for a good time."

"Don't speak of it, Harry. Come on with me and try it again. I'm going to see her friend to-night and can get her over the 'phone any time. She's just nuts about you. What do you say? Shall I call her up?"

"Well, hardly to-night, Bob," said the first lieutenant thoughtfully, "she's a ripping fine girl and all that, of course, but the fact is, Bob, I've decided to marry Ruth Macdonald and I haven't much time left before I go over. I think I'll have to get things fixed up between us to-night, you see. Perhaps--later----. But no. I guess that wouldn't do. Ruth's folks are rather fussy about such things. It might get out. No, Bob, I'll have to forego the pleasures you offer me this time."

The second lieutenant sat up and whistled:

"You've decided to marry Ruth Macdonald!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, staring. "But has Ruth Macdonald decided to marry you?"

"I hardly think there'll be any trouble on that score when I get ready to propose," smiled the first lieutenant complacently, as he lolled back in his seat. "You seem surprised," he added.

"Well, rather!" said the other officer dryly, still staring.

"What's there so surprising about that?" The first lieutenant was enjoying the sensation he was creating. He knew that the second lieutenant had always been "sweet" on Ruth Macdonald.

"Well, you know, Harry, you're pretty rotten!" said the second lieutenant uneasily, a flush beginning to rise in his face. "I didn't think you'd have the nerve. She's a mighty fine girl, you know. She's--_unusual_!"

"Exactly. Didn't you suppose I would want a fine girl when I marry?"

"I don't believe you're really going to do it!" burst forth the second lieutenant. "In fact, I don't believe I'll _let_ you do it if you try!"

"You couldn't stop me, Bob!" with an amiable sneer. "One word from you, young man, and I'd put your captain wise about where you were the last time you overstayed your leave and got away with it. You know I've got a pull with your captain. It never pays for the pot to call the kettle black."

The second lieutenant sat back sullenly with a deep red streaking his cheeks.

"You're no angel yourself, Bob, see?" went on the first lieutenant lying back in his seat in satisfied triumph, "and I'm going to marry Ruth Macdonald next week and get a ten days' leave! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!"

There ensued a long and pregnant silence. One glance at the second lieutenant showed that he was most effectually silenced.

The front door of the car slammed open and shut, and a tall slim officer with touches of silver about the edges of his dark hair, and a look of command in his keen eyes came crisply down the aisle. The two young lieutenants sat up with a jerk, and an undertone of oaths, and prepared to salute as he pa.s.sed them. The captain gave them a quick searching glance as he saluted and went on to the next car.

The two jerked out salutes and settled back uneasily.

"That man gives me a pain!" said Harry Wainwright preparing to soothe his ruffled spirits by a fresh cigarette.

"He thinks he's so doggone good himself that he has to pry into other people's business and get them in wrong. It beats me how he ever got to be a captain--a prim old fossil like him!"

"It might puzzle some people to know how you got your commission, Harry.

You're no fossil, of course, but you're no angel, either, and there are some things in your career that aren't exactly laid down in military manuals."

"Oh, my uncle Henry looked after my commission. It was a cinch! He thinks the sun rises and sets in me, and he had no idea how he perjured himself when he put me through. Why, I've got some of the biggest men in the country for my backers, and wouldn't they lie awake at night if they knew!

Oh Boy! I thought I'd croak when I read some of those recommendations, they fairly gushed with praise. You'd have died laughing, Bob, if you had read them. They had such adjectives as 'estimable, moral, active, efficient,' and one went so far as to say that I was equally distinguished in college in scholars.h.i.+p and athletics! Some stretch of imagination, eh, what?"

The two laughed loudly over this.

"And the best of it is," continued the first lieutenant, "the poor b.o.o.b believed it was all true!"

"But your college records, Harry, how could they get around those? Or didn't they look you up?"

"Oh, mother fixed that all up. She sent the college a good fat check to establish a new scholars.h.i.+p or something."

"Lucky dog!" sighed his friend. "Now I'm just the other way. I never try to put anything over but I get caught, and n.o.body ever tried to cover up my tracks for me when I got gay!"

"You worry too much, Bobby, and you never take a chance. Now _I_----"

The front door of the car opened and shut with a slam, and a tall young fellow with a finely cut face and wearing workman's clothes entered. He gave one quick glance down the car as though he was searching for someone, and came on down the aisle. The sight of him stopped the boast on young Wainwright's tongue, and an angry flush grew, and rolled up from the top of his immaculate olive-drab collar to his close, military hair-cut.

Slowly, deliberately, John Cameron walked down the aisle of the car looking keenly from side to side, scanning each face alertly, until his eyes lighted on the two young officers. At Bob Wetherill he merely glanced knowingly, but he fixed his eyes on young Wainwright with a steady, amused, contemptuous gaze as he came toward him; a gaze so noticeable that it could not fail to arrest the attention of any who were looking; and he finished the affront with a lingering turn of his head as he pa.s.sed by, and a slight accentuation of the amus.e.m.e.nt as he finally lifted his gaze and pa.s.sed on out of the rear door of the car. Those who were sitting in the seats near the door might have heard the words: "And they _killed_ such men as Lincoln!" muttered laughingly as the door slammed shut behind him.

Lieutenant Wainwright uttered a low oath of imprecation and flung his half spent cigarette on the floor angrily:

"Did you see that, Bob?" he complained furiously, "If I don't get that fellow!"

"I certainly did! Are you going to stand for that? What's eating him, anyway? Has he got it in for you again? But _he_ isn't a very easy fellow to get, you know. He has the reputation----"

"Oh, I know! Yes, I guess anyhow _I know_!"

"Oh, I see! Licked you, too, once, did he?" laughed Wetherill, "what had you been up to?"

"Oh, having some fun with his girl! At least I suppose she must have been his girl the way he carried on about it. He said he didn't know her, but of course that was all bluff. Then, too, I called his father a name he didn't like and he lit into me again. Good night! I thought that was the end of little Harry! I was sick for a week after he got through with me.

He certainly is some brute. Of course, I didn't realize what I was up against at first or I'd have got the upper hand right away. I could have, you know! I've been trained! But I didn't want to hurt the fellow and get into the papers. You see, the circ.u.mstances were peculiar just then----"

"I see! You'd just applied for Officer's Training Camp?"

"Exactly, and you know you never can tell what rumor a person like that can start. He's keen enough to see the advantage, of course, and follow it up. Oh, he's got one coming to him all right!"

"Yes, he's keen all right. That's the trouble. It's hard to get him."

"Well, just wait. I've got him now. If I don't make him bite the dust! Ye G.o.ds! When I think of the way he looks at me every time he sees me I could skin him alive!"

"I fancy he'd be rather slippery to skin. I wouldn't like to try it, Harry!"

"Well, but wait till you see where I've got him! He's in the draft. He goes next week. And they're sending all those men to our camp! He'll be a private, of course, and he'll have to _salute me_! Won't that gall him?"

"He won't do it! I know him, and _he won't do it_!"