CHAPTER XX

SO FAR AWAY!

Benway Chase was looking at her and Ethel realized that in the boy’s eyes there was an expression of pain and despair that gave almost a tragic cast to his countenance. He had suddenly become aware that his old-time friend, the girl he had always worshiped, was given to the very last fibre of her being to another.

His lips moved stiffly as he came nearer to her desk.

“Is it Mr. Barton’s division!” he questioned, brokenly. “Oh, Ethel!”

“His Field Artillery is a part of the Meteor Division,” she said, and was surprised that her voice was unshaken.

“And you--” He did not finish the speech. His gaze dropped. The others gathered around to read the startling news in the _Clarion_.

Besides the headlines emblazoned across the page, there was not much to read. The War Department merely announced that it was reported--a report as yet unverified--that the Germans had raided the American camp. No casualties were announced. As previously declared, the Department would make all particulars public as soon as the undisputed facts were received from the officer commanding the division.

Mayberry must have heard the buzz of conversation from the private office. He appeared, an ominous scowl on his brow.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded. “Is this all you people have to do? I believe the Hapwood-Diller Company could get along just as well with half the office force we have.”

“Let you and me enlist, Mayberry,” suggested Sydney. “They could get along without us, that’s sure.”

Little Skinner giggled. The superintendent, who had some fear of Sydney, strode forward without replying to the bookkeeper and took the paper out of Josephine Durand’s hand. He held some papers in a sheaf in his left hand and when he caught sight of the headlines he put his papers on the desk the better to handle the smutted newspaper.

Ethel had not risen. In flapping open the _Clarion_ Mayberry started a circulation of air that scattered his sheaf of papers. Ethel gathered them together and stacked them into a neat packet. But this time a different paper was on top of the pile. She saw that the top sheet was headed: “A. Schuster.”

“What’s all this about?” Mayberry was saying. “Murder! Was Barton in it?”

“His battalion is attached to that division, Mr. Mayberry,” Benway said.

“Well, maybe he’s seen some real fighting, then,” the superintendent said cheerfully. “That’s what he went over there for, I suppose.”

He dropped the _Clarion_ upon Ethel’s desk and picked up his papers. Seeing what lay on top he flashed the girl a sudden suspicious glance. But Ethel seemed oblivious of it.

Indeed, it seemed as though all save the phlegmatic superintendent were too thoroughly disturbed to set their minds on office matters. Ethel betrayed less emotion than most of them, perhaps; but then it was her nature to hide her keener feelings.

The few following days she found hard to live through. The strain upon her patience was great. The papers were filled with frothings and imaginations about the raid on the American camp. Then came the truth with the list of casualties.

The list was small. One enlisted man killed, seven wounded and one missing. The huge German flying machine had been brought down, one of its crew losing his life, the other fourteen being captured by Second-Lieutenant Charles Bradley with a part of his company.

With hungry eyes Ethel Clayton read the list of casualties. The last line yielded the news which she had feared all along:

“_Lieutenant F. Barton, Field Artillery, missing._”

There was a full account in the papers of the raid and the bringing down of the German raider. But the single statement, that Frank Barton was missing, added a spice of mystery to the affair that created a good deal of excitement in Mailsburg.

It could not be possible, if all the German raiders were captured or killed, that Frank Barton was himself captured and taken into the German lines. That seemed improbable. Yet the sinister report stood.

What had happened to him? Would Ethel ever hear from him again? Was his fate to be one of those mysteries of war that are never satisfactorily explained? Of the three lurid headings of the casualty list, killed, wounded, missing, the last is always the most nerve-breaking.

Just at this time, however, Ethel Clayton’s mind was scarified by other and serious troubles. She had decided that at last the evidence of conspiracy was sufficient to lay before Mr. Hammerly; and as the latter seemed to make no move the girl went to him.

“The quarterly meeting is near. I understand that Mr. Mayberry is to be advanced to Mr. Barton’s position,” she said to the old grain dealer. “To me it looks like ruin for us all. My mother has some interest in it, Mr. Hammerly, so I am speaking for her, not for myself as an employee.”

“Humph! No! You’d best keep out of it, Ethel,” said the old man. “Leave this to me. I’ve learned something about this Schuster, though I never saw him. If I need your evidence I’ll call on you in the board meeting. But I reckon I can link up A. Schuster with the proper parties without your verbal testimony.”

Meanwhile Jim Mayberry made himself as unpleasant around the offices as he could. He felt, it seemed, that he would soon have all the force at his mercy, unless it were Sydney. He would scarcely dare discharge the bookkeeper, who had been so long with the corporation.

“Mayberry hangs the sword of Damocles over our heads,” Benway growled one evening to Ethel. “I can feel the breath of it on the back of my neck, at least. I might as well be looking around for another job.”

Ethel had no word of comfort for him. She did not see herself just how it was coming out. It seemed probable that Frank Barton would never come back now; so why should the stockholders keep his situation for him?

The day for the quarterly board meeting arrived, and the board room buzzed like a hive of disturbed bees. Thoroughly in touch as she was with the reports from all departments, Ethel knew very well that the expected blow must fall.

The usual dividend must be passed. The circumstances of the corporation would not allow anything else to be done. The last two quarterly reports showed a decline in profits, in production, and in value of plant, which fairly staggered most of the board members.

“It stands to reason,” Grandon Fuller stated in his decided way, “that before he went away, Mr. Barton was covering up a good many things that he would better have given us notice of. We can excuse the enthusiasm and anxiety of the young, perhaps; he was very desirous of getting out of it all and putting on the army khaki. But now we have suffered enough--this corporation I mean--because of his mistakes. We must get back on a stable foundation. Somebody must get a firm grip upon the Hapwood-Diller Company.”

“Suppose Brother Fuller tells us just wherein Frank Barton is to be blamed for our present situation?” suggested Macon Hammerly, with surprising gentleness for him. “We want facts, not allegations.”

“You know very well how he bungled that Kimberly order.”

“I have affidavits of a chemist and two handwriting experts here,” interposed Hammerly, shuffling the papers before him, “which state that two lines in the Kimberly Company’s schedule sheet were erased, and in the two interpolated lines an attempt made by somebody to copy the writing of the young woman who made the schedule. In other words a deliberate and successful attempt to change the substance of the Kimberly order was made after it passed out of Mr. Barton’s hands.”

There was immediate uproar--denial by Fuller and angry talk by some of the other members of the board. Hammerly grimly displayed his affidavits and proved his case to the satisfaction of most of the board of directors.

“The fact remains,” cried Grandon Fuller, “that our shares are selling in the open market as low as sixty. The news has got out that the business is tottering for want of a strong hand to manage it.”

“We’ll take that up, too,” interposed Hammerly. “I have here a list of shares and whom they were bought from by a man named A. Schuster. These shares have been thrown on the market by various brokers at ridiculous prices. They were all bought up again by A. Schuster! And this same tricky legal light has been the representative of a certain member of this board in New York for the past three years.”

This remarkable statement produced a profound sensation. For a brief instant there was intense silence as the members of the board looked at each other. Then--

“What are you saying?”

“That’s a grave accusation!”

“Can you prove your words?”

“It’s a crime to do what you’re hinting at, Hammerly.”

“He can’t prove a thing!”

“He don’t know what he’s talking about!”

“Shut him up!”

“He ought to be put out of the meeting!”

“That’s the talk. He is going too far. This is a meeting of gentlemen.”

Thus came the chorus of objections, not alone from Grandon Fuller. But Macon Hammerly’s scowl quelled the riot.

“I know whereof I speak,” he said solemnly. “I have papers and witnesses to prove it. And I have reason to suppose, in addition, that Mr. Grandon Fuller has made some wash sales of his own shares of the Hapwood-Diller Company that in the first place bore down the price. Let him deny it if he dares!”