Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

The Interpreter said, quietly, "Jake Vodell."

With every second the red glow grew brighter—reaching higher and higher—spreading wider and wider over the midnight sky. Then they could see the flames—threadlike streaks and flashes in the dark cloud of smoke at first but increasing in volume, climbing and climbing in writhing, twisting columns of red fury. The wild, long-drawn shriek of the fire whistles, the clanging roar of the engines, the frantic rush of speeding automobiles awoke the echoes of the cliffs and aroused the sleeping creatures on the hillsides. The volume of the leaping, whirling mass of flames increased until the red glare shut out the stars.

The officers of the law who were hunting Jake Vodell heard that explosion and telephoned their stations for orders. The business men of the little city, awakened from their sleep, looked from their windows, muttered drowsy conjectures and returned to their beds. Mothers and children in their homes heard and turned uneasily in their dreams. The dwellers in the Flats heard and wondered fearfully.

Before morning dawned the telegraph wires would carry the word throughout the land. In every corner of our country the people would read, as they have all too often read of similar explosions. They would read, offer idle comments, perhaps, and straightway forget. That is the wonder and the shame of it—that with these frequent warnings ringing in our ears we are not warned. With these things continually forced upon our attention we do not heed. With the demonstration before our eyes we are not convinced. We are not aroused to the meaning of it all.

In his cell in the county jail, Sam Whaley heard that explosion and knew what it was.

The Interpreter was right when he said, "Jake Vodell."

It was an hour, perhaps, after the Interpreter's friends had left the hut when the old basket maker, who was still sitting at the window watching the burning factory, heard an automobile approaching at a frightful pace from the direction of the fire. The noise of the speeding machine ceased with startling suddenness at the foot of the stairway, and the Interpreter heard some one running up the steps with headlong haste. Without pausing to knock, Adam Ward burst into the room and stood panting and shaking with mad excitement before the man in the wheel chair.

The Mill owner's condition was pitiful. By his eyes that were glittering with wild, unnatural light, by the gray, twitching features, the grotesque gestures, the trembling, jerking limbs, the Interpreter knew that the last flickering gleam of reason had gone out. The hour toward which the man himself had looked with such dread had come. Adam Ward was insane.

With a leering grin of triumph the madman went closer to the old basket maker. "I got away again. They were right after me but they couldn't catch me. That roadster of mine is the fastest car in the county—cost me four thousand dollars. I knew if I could get here I would be safe. They wouldn't think of looking for me here in your shanty, would they? They can't get in anyway if they should come. You wouldn't—you wouldn't let them get me, would you?"

"Peace, Adam Ward! You are safe here."