ove
a garden fence. He came upon a wooden bridge over a small stream and
halted to breathe, for his walk beneath the dark trees had been rapid
and nervous. Frogs were croaking in the sluggish water. A cradle in a
hovel bumped upon the uneven floor, and he remembered to have heard
from his father that in the pioneer days he had been many a time
rocked to sleep in a sugar trough. The lights of the town, the few
that he could see, looked red and angry. He remembered a newspaper
account of the way-laying and robbing of a prominent citizen. It was
so easy for a tramp to knock down an unsuspecting man. Tramp and
robber were interchangeable terms with him, and often, on a cold
night, when he had seen the wanderer's fire, kindled close to the
railway track, he had wondered why such license had been allowed in a
law-abiding community. He moved off with a brisk step, for he fancied
that he heard something under the bridge. There was many a worse man
than McElwin, but it is doubtful whether a ranker coward had ever been
born to see the light of day, or to shy at an odd shape in the dark.
He felt an easy-breathing sense of relief when he reached the main
street, and in the light of the tavern lamp, hung out in front, he was
bold; his head went up and his heels fell with measured firmness upon
the bricks. He halted in front of his bank, as his own clock was
striking ten, and looked up at Lyman's window. The room was dim, but
the other part of the floor, the long room, was bright. He was afraid
to show anxiety concerning either Sawyer or Lyman, nor did he deem it
advisable to call at old Jasper's house. For what purpose had he come,
he then asked himself. He must do something to pay himself for coming,
to make himself feel that his time had not been utterly thrown away.
In his arrangement of economy, every piece of time must show either
an actual or a possible result. To go even in the direction of old
Jasper's house was out of the question, for if anyone should see him
he would surely be associated with the White Caps. Why would it not be
a wise move to find out whether or not Lyman was in the
printing-office, and to warn him. He could easily put his call upon
the ground of an argument against the impulsive man's rashness in
burning the check. No, that would invite the ill-will and perhaps the
outright enmity of Sawyer. He could not afford to lose Sawyer; he
needed his energy for the future and the use of his money for the
present.