Although certain that the room was empty, for he knew Myles to be out of town, Ben exercised the utmost caution as he entered it and softly closed the door behind him. He did not remain there more than a minute, but when he came out he trembled so violently that it was difficult for him to insert the key into the lock. When he had accomplished this he sped back to his own room, possessed of the miserable fear that always follows a guilty conscience. Ben was bad, and had been for years; but he was now practising a new style of wickedness, and the terror that it inspired was unlike any he had ever before known.
Having transacted all these items of business to his satisfaction he resumed his shoes, put on his hat, and, quietly leaving the hotel without being noticed, walked down town to the post-office, where he mailed his letter.
Then, for fear that he had been seen, and wishing to have a good excuse for being on the street at that hour of the night, he made the pretence of examining into the safety of the car-shops, that resulted in meeting with Jacob Allen, as Myles afterward learned from Lieutenant Easter.
The fire that followed so closely upon Allen’s arrest was set to carry out a threat made by the strikers that they would destroy some piece of railroad property for every one of their number who should be thrown into prison.
When Myles Manning, completely worn out with the hard work and excitement of the night, threw himself, without undressing, upon his bed, he fully intended to be up again and ready to go out with the train that Lieutenant Easter proposed to put through that day. He had been told that it would start at ten o’clock, or possibly earlier than that hour. When, therefore, after what seemed to him but a few minutes of heavy, dreamless sleep, he awoke to find the sun shining brightly and already high in the sky, he feared he had neglected another opportunity of obeying the orders under which he was working, and lost his chance of accompanying the first train sent out since the beginning of the great strike.
Instinctively feeling for his watch, that he might see what time it really was, he was for a moment puzzled to account for its disappearance. Then the memory of the use to which it had been put the previous evening came back to him, and again he flushed with hot indignation as he recalled the mortifying position in which he was placed.
“Oh, what a fool I was—what a fool I was!” he cried out in his distress. “To gamble away money that I needed so badly, and which, at the same time, was not my own. That I am in this fix is all my own fault, though, and I am well paid for my folly. It is a bitter experience that I shall remember so long as I live, and it has at least cured me of gambling; for never again will I risk one cent upon a game of chance. No, not one cent,” he repeated earnestly, as if registering a vow.
He hated to go down stairs with the chance of meeting the proprietor of the hotel.
“Though why should I?” he thought. “He holds security worth twenty times the amount of his wretched bill. Oh, for a few dollars with which to pay him and demand the return of my watch, with an apology for his suspicions! I almost wish I had accepted that operator’s offer of a loan. He’s a good fellow, and I wouldn’t so very much mind being under an obligation to him.”
Thus thinking, the young reporter went down to the hotel office, where a glance at the clock showed him that it was already past ten. As he was hurrying out of the front door the clerk at the desk said: