“A little.”
Gardiner took a roll from his pocket. “There is a hundred dollars,” he said. “That should see you out of harm’s way.”
“I can’t take it, Mr. Gardiner; I really can’t. You have done too much for me already.”
“Take it as a loan, then.... Well, think it over. I’ll leave it here in the till, and if you’re as wise as I take you to be, both you and the money will be missing to-night. Good-bye, Burton,” he said, but without offering to shake hands. “I have to drive out to Grant’s.”
There was a significance in the last remark that did not escape Burton. As he sat in the dimly lighted office in the dark, empty, silent store, the ruins of his life came crashing down upon him. He tried to think calmly, to collect his thoughts, but his mind was a chaos of emotions. Out of the maze of perplexities, complete mysteries and half known truths more baffling still, a few characters, a few incidents, gradually distinguished themselves. The night at Grant’s, the singer, and his recital, spoken to an audience but aimed at one soul; the sacramental day at Crotton’s Crossing, again in memory he rehearsed it; he recalled the great stone, he saw the faces blend in the smiling water, and the solemn red sun look through the serried bars—! Ah, the bars! Prophetic vision which he had left unread! Bars, bars between him and the sunlight! Yes, bars, and cold, wet stone walls. They stared at him now, they glared at him, wet and shiny, out of the dark corners. They circled him, they compassed him, they crowded him. Bars, and stones, and water! They would strip him of the dress of civilization and clothe him in the garb of infamy. They would feed his body with prison fare, but his soul they would leave to shrivel and starve. However innocent he might go in, only a criminal could he come out. There was something worse than being a fugitive. Better to defy the law and the officers of the law than to let them thrust him into the criminal mill. Gardiner was right. He would fly. The world was large, there still was a chance for him, he would learn to live—and forget.
A mental numbness followed the strain of these thoughts; he did not sleep, but he lost consciousness of time. When he came to himself it was quite dark, and he was hungry. He groped his way through the store and found some cheese and biscuits, which he thrust into his pocket. Then he remembered the money Gardiner had left, but as he reached to take it from the drawer his hand paused, irresolute. Surely Gardiner had done enough for him; Gardiner, who had gone his bond and then urged him to fly. He turned away, the money untouched.
Burton let himself out by a side door; the outer air was strangely hot and oppressive. He heard many voices, and a babel of strange, confused sounds; horses being hurried into shafts, automobiles whirring along the streets. He made his way to a lane, and a large drop of rain spat on his face. His eyes were as yet unaccustomed to distant objects, but he turned to the west and beheld the heavens a-seethe with lightning—not a vivid glare that blinds the beholder, but a bright silvery flush playing like the aurora behind a mass of dark-blue cloud. Burton knew the country well enough to read the menace at a glance; the heavy blue-black cloud riding ahead of the storm never hunts except for big game. The air was oppressively still, but shortly it would be torn with the violence of the tornado; the half-obscured lightning, now playing all the way from the horizon to the zenith, would break in jagged, white-hot thunder bolts through the uneven atmosphere, and at its heels would come the deluge of rain and, perhaps, hail. It was not an uncommon scene; once or twice a season these terrifying storms were to be expected, and farmer and merchant alike watched anxiously for the straight, misty, greyish cloud and listened for the accompanying rumble of the dreaded hail.
But to the fugitive the threatened storm meant nothing. The warfare of the elements could tear no deeper than the warfare of his own soul; the fire-edged death from heaven would furnish honourable end to a discouraging struggle. Avoiding the main roads, he made his way into the country, but on every trail were rigs driving by at high speed. The drivers and occupants were much too concerned with the problem of getting home dry and safe to pay attention to pedestrians on the road, and he walked on mechanically, confident that none recognised him and that none cared.
The early darkness closed down quickly; the great cloud in advance of the storm, rolling in the heavens like a mighty fish, had swept far to the eastward; the lightning now played in dazzling flashes from cloud to cloud and from cloud to earth, its zig-zag course marking the rarer atmospheres, and accompanied by a growing, growling chorus of thunder as the menagerie of the skies roared and crackled on the crest of the storm. The blinding light left the eyes useless in the dark, and it was with difficulty Burton followed the trail.
Presently the rain came on. Swept by a mighty wind that overturned more than one top buggy that night, a few great, scattered drops dashed against the ground, then the wind subsided and was followed by a sudden stillness so intense it could be felt. But it was for an instant; a great rift of lightning shook the clouds asunder and their pent-up load of moisture poured out upon the earth. In a moment Burton was drenched to the skin; the prairie roads were running in water; and as he floundered on a cold wind struck him that brought a shiver, not for himself, but for the farmers whose fortunes were all on the growing fields. Then the thought came to him that if he should be caught unprotected in the hail he would be killed. He had faced the lightning without fear, but the prospect of being gradually pummelled to death was not inviting, and he began to look about for some place of shelter. It was not until now that he realised he had paid no attention to the course he took, and although most of the country was familiar to him in daylight he had no idea where he was. To his great relief a warm breeze sprung up, which indicated that the hail strip was narrow and had probably chosen another course, and he struggled on through mud and water hoping that every flash of lightning would reveal some place of shelter. But the country seemed strangely desolate, and the night must have been half spent before he caught an instant’s glance of a building. He pressed toward it, and another flash revealed a deserted log hut which he now recalled as being only a few miles from town and but a short way from the main road that led to Grant’s. The windows were gone and the door was off its hinges, but it would at least be better than outside, and he hurried toward it. As he did so through the darkness he fancied he saw a gleam of light in the deserted building. It was not lightning, and yet he could have sworn it was no trick of the imagination or the nerves. As he drew nearer he saw it again—a dull flicker lighting up the square framed by the empty window. Stealthily he approached the building.