The Henchman | Page 8

street through
hedgerows of box. The mouth of the driveway at this moment gleamed
white from the kerchiefs of a knot of Polish children estray from the
quarry district, who, at a laughing nod from Ruth, swooped, a
chattering barbaric horde, on the fallen apples dotting a bit of sward

with yellow and red. Shelby smilingly watched the scramble to its
speedy end, and turned to the giver of the feast, who sat in a sheltered
corner of her veranda with a caller. The latter proved to be Bernard
Graves, sunning himself with a cat's content.
"Industrious young man," Shelby observed with the irony of
whole-souled dislike. "Inherits a comfortable property, goes to an
expensive college, dawdles through Europe, and then comes home to
play carpet knight and read poetry to girls. Why doesn't he go to
work?"
Bowers made no reply to the gibe. He was watching Ruth. Presently in
his slow way he checked off her qualifications:--
"Handsome girl, good education, kind disposition, rich, no airs, and no
incumbrances, barring her companion, the old maid cousin, who could
be pensioned. Ross, she'd do you more good than a brace of married
women."
Shelby threw off the laugh of a contented man.
"I'm not in the marrying class."
"Then you'd better enter." His hand on the door, Bowers asked, "Your
contribution for the county campaign fund ready?"
"Draw you a check any time," the candidate returned jauntily.
Nevertheless, when the county leader had gone Shelby gave a diligent
quarter-hour to his bankbook. By and by he took an opera glass from a
drawer and focussed it on the pair below. So his clerk came upon him,
compelling a ruse of adjusting the instrument.
"One lens has dust in it," he declared. Perceiving Bernard Graves pass
down the box-bordered path, he left his office for the day.
That evening Shelby took certain steps to prosper his coming rally at
the court-house, one of which was duly noted by Mrs. Seneca Bowers.

It was this lady's habit in summer evenings to discuss the doings of her
immediate neighbors from her piazza, but now that the nights were cool
she had shifted to the bay window of a room styled by courtesy the
library from a small bookcase filled with Patent Office Reports and
similar offerings of a beneficent government. This station embraced a
wide prospect of shady street flanked by pleasantly sloping lawns and
dwellings of various architectural pretence. Most proximate and most
interesting to Mrs. Bowers was the Hilliard house, and while she
rocked placidly over her darning, she contrived to hold this gingerbread
edifice in a scrutiny which permitted the escape of no slightest
movement of chick or child. She saw the newsboy leave the evening
city papers; Milicent Hilliard dance down the leaf-strewn walk to a last
half-hour's play; a white-capped maid sheet the geranium beds against
possible frost; and, finally, the householder himself emerge and light a
cigar whose ruddy tip winked for a second in the thickening dusk.
Listing from side to side, big Joe Hilliard tramped heavily down and
away to his nightly haunt in the billiard room of the Tuscarora House.
As the quarry owner's great bulk vanished Shelby entered the scene,
briskly crosscut the Hilliard lawn, and bounded up the steps just quitted
by the substantial Joe.
"There; he's done it again!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowers.
"Who has done what?" grunted her husband, from the lounge. He was
coatless and shoeless, and had spread a newspaper over his bald spot to
the annoyance of a few superannuated yet active flies.
"Ross Shelby. He's gone to Cora Hilliard's again!"
"Well, let him," said Bowers, from beneath the news of the day. "It's a
free country."
Mrs. Bowers smoothed a mended sock and rolled it into a neat ball with
its fellow by aid of an arc light which sizzled into sudden brilliance
among the maples.
"'Tisn't his going that's such a scandal," she discriminated. "All the men
run there. It's the way he goes. This is the ninth time I've known him to

wait till Joe Hilliard had left the house."
"Looks as if he didn't dote on Joe's society," chuckled Bowers. "I can't
say that I do myself."
"It's a scandal," repeated Mrs. Bowers, firmly. Her husband remaining
indifferent, she assumed her wifely prerogative to pass rigorous
judgment upon his conscience. "And it's your plain duty, Seneca
Bowers, to speak to him."
The old man flung off his newspaper with a snort.
"What call have I to set up as a censor of public morals?" he demanded
testily. "I'm not Shelby's guardian. He's of age. He's cut his eye teeth.
Talk sense, Eliza."
Mrs. Bowers essayed a flank attack.
"You're the Tuscarora boss, aren't you?"
"Yes, I'm county leader."
"What you say goes?"
"I suppose so."
She