A Cool Million (11 page)

“You!” exclaimed both of the
hometown friends together.

Anyone who had ever seen these two
youngsters on their way home from church in Ottsville would have been struck by
the great change that only a few years in the great world had made.

Miss
Prail
was rouged most obviously. She smelled of cheap perfume, and her dress revealed
much too much of her figure. She was a woman of the streets, and an
unsuccessful one at that.

As for our hero,
Lemuel
,
minus an eye and all his teeth, he had acquired nothing but a pronounced stoop.

“How did you escape Wu Fong?” asked
Lem
.

“You helped me without knowing it,”
replied Betty. “He and his henchmen were so busy throwing you into the street
that I was able to walk out of the house without anyone seeing me.”

“I’m glad,” said
Lem
.

The two young people were silent,
and stood looking at each other. They both wanted to ask the same question, but
they were embarrassed. Finally, they spoke at the same time.

“Have you…”

That was as far as they got. They
both stopped to let the other finish. There was a long silence, for neither wanted
to complete the question. Finally, however, they spoke again.

“…any money?”

“No,” said
Lem
and Betty answering the question together as they had asked it.

“I’m hungry,” said Betty sadly. “I
just wondered.” “I’m hungry, too,” said
Lem
.

A policeman now approached. He had
been watching them since they met.

“Get along, you rats,” he said
gruffly.

“I resent your talking that way to a
lady,” said
Lem
indignantly.

“What’s that?” asked the officer
lifting his club.

“We are both citizens of this country
and you have no right to treat us in this manner,” went on
Lem
fearlessly.

The patrolman was just about to
bring his truncheon down on the lad’s skull, when Betty interfered and dragged
him away.

The two youngsters walked along
without talking. They felt a little better together because misery loves
company. Soon they found themselves in Central Park, where they sat down on a
bench.

Lem
sighed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Betty
sympathetically.

“I’m a failure,” answered
Lem
with still another sigh.

“Why,
Lemuel
Pitkin, how you talk!” exclaimed Betty indignantly. “You’re only seventeen
going on eighteen and…”

“Well,” interrupted
Lem
, a little ashamed of having admitted that he was
discouraged. “I left Ottsville to make my fortune and so far I’ve been to jail
twice and lost all my teeth and one eye.”

“To make an
omelette
you have to break eggs,” said Betty. “When you’ve lost both your eyes, you can
talk. I read only the other day about a man who lost both of his eyes yet
accumulated a fortune. I forget how, but he did. Then, too, think of Henry
Ford. He was dead broke at forty and borrowed a thousand dollars from James
Couzens
; when he paid him back it had become thirty-eight
million dollars. You’re only seventeen and say you’re a failure.
Lem
Pitkin, I’m surprised at you.”

Betty continued to comfort and
encourage
Lem
until it grew dark.
With the departure of the sun, it also grew extremely cold.

From behind some shrubs that did not
quite conceal him, a policeman began to eye the two young people suspiciously.

“I have nowhere to sleep,” said
Betty, shivering with cold.

“Nor have I,” said
Lem
with a profound sigh.

“Let’s go to the Grand Central
Station,” suggested Betty. “It’s warm there, and I like to watch the people
hurrying through. If we make believe we are waiting for a train, they won’t
chase us.”

“It all seems like a dream to me,
Mr. Whipple. This morning when I was set free from jail I thought I would
probably starve, and here I am on my way to California to dig gold.”

Yes, it was
Lem
,
our hero, talking. He was sitting in the dining room of the “Fifth Avenue
Special” en route to Chicago, where he and the party he was traveling with were
to change to “The Chief,” crack train of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and
continue on to the high Sierras.

With him in the dining room were
Betty, Mr. Whipple and Jake Raven, and the four friends were in a cheerful mood
as they ate the excellent food provided by the Pullman Company.

The explanation of how this had come
about is quite simple. While
Lem
and Betty were
warming themselves in the waiting room of the Grand Central Station, they had
spied Mr. Whipple on line at one of the ticket booths.
Lem
had approached the ex-banker and had been greeted effusively by him, for he was
indeed glad to see the boy. He was also glad to see Betty, whose father he had
known before Mr.
Prail’s
death in the fire.

After listening to
Lem’s
account of the difficulties the two of them` were in,
he invited them to accompany him on his trip to California. It seemed that Mr.
Whipple was going there with Jake Raven to dig gold from a mine that the
redskin owned. With this money, he intended to finance the further activities
of the National Revolutionary Party.

Lem
was to
help Mr. Whipple in the digging operations, while Betty was to keep house for
the miners. The two young people jumped at this opportunity, as we can well
imagine, and overwhelmed Mr. Whipple with their gratitude.

“In Chicago,” said
Shagpoke
, when the dining car waiter had brought coffee, “we
will have three hours and a half before The Chief’ leaves for the Golden West.
During that time,
Lem
, of course, will have to get
himself a new set of store teeth and an eye, but I believe that the rest of us
will still have time to pay a short visit to the World’s Fair.”

Mr. Whipple went on to describe the
purpose of the fair, until, on a courteous signal from the head waiter, the
little patty was forced to leave their table and retire to their berths.

In the morning, when the train
pulled into the depot, they disembarked.
Lem
was
given some money to purchase the things he needed, while the others started
immediately for the fair. He was to look for them on the grounds, if he got
through in time.

Lem
hurried as much as he could and managed quickly to select an eye and a set of
teeth in a store devoted to that type of equipment. He then set out for the
fair grounds.

As he was walking down Eleventh
Street towards the North Entrance, he was accosted by a short, stout man, who
wore a soft, black felt hat, the brim of which was slouched over his eyes. A
full, brown beard concealed the lower part of his face.

“Excuse me,” he said in a repressed
tone of voice, “but I think you are the young man I am looking for.”

“How is that?” asked
Lem
, instantly on his guard, for he did not intend to be
snared by a sharper.

“Your name is
Lemuel
Pitkin, is it not?”

“It is, sir.”

“I thought you answered the
description given me.” “Given you by whom?” queried our hero.

“By Mr. Whipple, of course,” was the
surprising answer the stranger made.

“Why should he have given you a
description of me?” “So I could find you at the fair.”

“But why, when I am to meet him at
the depot in two hours from now?”

“An unfortunate accident has made it
impossible for him to be there.”

“An accident?”

“Exactly.”

“What kind of an accident?”

“A very serious one, I am afraid. He
was struck by a sightseeing bus and…”

“Killed!” cried
Lem
in dismay. “Tell me the truth, was he killed?”

“No, not exactly, but he was
seriously injured, perhaps fatally. He was taken unconscious to a hospital.
When he regained his senses, he asked for you and I was sent to fetch you to ‘him.
Miss
Prail
and Chief Raven are at his bedside.”

Lem
was so
stunned by the dire news that it required some five minutes for him to recover
sufficiently to gasp, “This is terrible!”

He asked the bearded stranger to
take him to Mr. Whipple at once.

This was just what the man had
counted on. “I have a car with me,” he said with a bow. “Please enter it.”

He then led our hero to a powerful
limousine that was drawn up at the curb.
Lem
got in,
and the chauffeur, who was wearing green goggles and a long linen duster, drove
off at top speed.

All this seemed natural to the lad
because of his agitated state of mind, and the rate at which the car traveled
pleased him rather than otherwise, for he was anxious to get to Mr. Whipple’s
bedside.

The limousine passed rapidly under
one elevated structure and then another. There were fruit vendors on the street
corners and merchants peddling neckties. People moved to and fro on the
sidewalks; cabs, trucks and private vehicles flitted past. The roar of the
great city rose on every side, but
Lem
saw and heard
nothing.

“Where was Mr. Whipple taken?” he
asked presently.
“To the Lake Shore Hospital.”

“And is this the quickest way there?’

“Most certainly.”

With this the stranger lapsed into
moody silence again.

Lem
looked
from the window of the limousine and saw that the cars and trucks were growing
less in number. Soon they disappeared from the streets altogether. The people
also became fewer till no more than an occasional pedestrian was to be observed
and then only of the lowest type.

As the car approached an extremely
disreputable neighborhood, the bearded stranger drew the shade of one of its
two windows.

“Why did you do that?” demanded
Lem
.

“Because the sun hurts my eyes,” he
said as he deliberately drew the other shade, throwing the interior into
complete darkness.

These acts made
Lem
think that all was not quite as it should be.

“I must have one or both of these
shades up,” he said, reaching for the nearest one to raise it.

“And I say that they must both
remain down,” returned the man in a low harsh voice.

“What do you mean, sir?”

A strong hand suddenly fastened in a
grip of iron on
Lem’s
throat, and these words reached
his ears:

“I mean,
Lemuel
Pitkin, that
you are in the power of the Third
International.”

Although thus suddenly attacked,
Lem
grappled with his assailant, determined to
sell
his life as dearly as possible.

The lad had been one of the best
athletes in the Ottsville High School, and when aroused he was no mean
adversary, as the bearded man soon discovered. He tore at the hand which was
strangling him and succeeded in removing it from his throat, but when he tried
to cry out for help, he discovered that the terrible pressure had robbed him of
his vocal powers.

Even if he had been able to cry out
it would have been useless for him to do so because the chauffeur was in the
plot. Without once looking behind, he stepped on his accelerator and turned
sharply into a noisome, dark alley.

Lem
struck
out savagely and landed a stiff blow in his opponent’s face. That worthy
uttered a fierce imprecation but did not strike back. He was fumbling for
something in his pocket.

Lem
struck
again, and this time his hand caught in the beard. It proved to be false and
came away readily.

Although it was dark in the car, if
you had been sitting in it, dear reader, you would have recognized our hero’s
assailant to be none other than the fat man in the Chesterfield overcoat.
Lem
, however, did not recognize him because he had never
seen him before.

Suddenly, as he battled with the
stranger, he felt something cold and hard against his forehead. It was a
pistol.

“Now, you fascist whelp, I have you!
If you
so
much as move a finger, I’ll blow you to
hell!”

These words were not spoken; they
were snarled.

“What do you want of me?”
Lem
managed to gasp. “You were going to dig gold with Mr.
Whipple. Where is the mine located?”