CHAPTER VIII.

THE MORNING NEWS.

The downward course of crime is a rapid descent, and becomes facile and familiar to the victim of evil, once he is started on the steep grade.

At least so Rodney Darringford found it. When he awoke the morning after the events depicted in the last chapter, it was in a room at a hotel, and with him was his companion of the night previous--Tim Downey.

Rodney had a splitting headache, as he expressed it. There was a sense of confusing, a frightened, all-gone feeling; a weight that caused him to close his eyes and try to imagine what had really occurred to be a dream.

Wine! liquor! that he now discerned was the cause of all his boldness. He had descended to the level of a common criminal. He had been a party to the guilt of Tim Downey and his confederates.

How far had that guilt carried them?

“The new steamer--they set it on fire,” gasped Rodney, and then the terror of the law and the enormity of the crime flashed over his mind with crushing force and drove him from the bed with a groan.

“I’ll get away from Tim--I’ll hurry to the boat!” muttered Rodney. “What a fool I was ever to be led by him into trouble--when he’d have done it alone!”

Yes, that was it--not regret or remorse, but dread. Rodney Darringford recked little that Judge Oglesby’s property had been destroyed. He simply did not wish to be mixed up in it himself.

“Hallo! you awake?”

Tim was out of bed and dressing himself. He grinned coolly at Rodney, and his hardened face expressed none of the pallor or worry that Rodney’s features bore.

“Yes, I’m awake.”

“Don’t be in a hurry.”

“I want to get back to the boat.”

“The _Warrior_?”

“Yes.”

“It don’t sail until ten o’clock.”

“Well----”

“Well, you want to get away from me!” jeered Tim. “That don’t suit me. Here, you’re trembling like a leaf. Take a swig. It will brace up your nerves.”

Rodney shuddered with nausea as he bolted a drink from the flask of fiery liquor that Tim handed him.

“Feel better?”

“Warmed up, yes.”

“That’s right. See here, Rod, don’t get so squeamish.”

“Tim, I’m scared,” confessed Rodney candidly.

Tim laughed derisively.

“What at?” he demanded.

“At getting caught.”

“Who by?”

“The--the police.”

“What for?”

“For--for burning the boat.”

“Did you burn it?”

“No.”

“Did you see anyone burn it?”

“No.”

“Then, don’t worry. All you have to do is to keep your mouth shut. My pals won’t squeal--never fear. The job is done. Just exactly all you have to do about it is to be friendly to me. Your father hired me to burn the _Spray_.”

Rodney felt a thrill of horror and dread.

He and his father were both in this unscrupulous boy’s power completely.

“There’s no use to squeal now. The job was done mighty cheap. Yer father’s got no rival now. And I’ve got rid of the meanest enemy a boy ever had.”

Tim’s manner seemed to express more than his words, so that Rodney hastened to ask for an explanation.

“I don’t mind telling ye, seeing ye and yer dad are ’s deep in the mud ’s I am in the mire. I hain’t afreed ye’ll blow on me, ’cos if yer do, I’ll drag yer into the muddle. When the _Spray_ went up in smoke last night, it carried Dean Mercer with it!”

Rodney was truly frightened by this statement, made in the coolest tone imaginable.

“Yes,” Tim went on; “my men were not only to go aboard the boat and leave some cotton saturated with oil to be ignited at the proper time, but they were to chloroform Dean Mercer and leave him helpless. The fire would be set in his cabin, so there would be no chance to get him out. Oh, I’m a deep one. ’Twas a big job at a mighty cheap price--two hundred dollars.”

Again Rodney Darringford shivered. Then a new thought came into his muddled brain.

“What if it is known that Dean Mercer was killed in that fire? How can I get that check cashed?”

For the first time Tim Downey showed fear.

“They will not know it--so soon. How can they? The bank opens at nine. It is now almost that. You must hurry. To fail in this part will be worse than ’s if we had not undertaken it at all. Hurry, Rod, or you will be too late.”

Liquor had overcome the conscientious scruples of Colonel Darringford sufficiently to induce him to pay Tim Downey to burn the new lake steamer, the _Spray_.

Liquor also brought the courage of his unworthy son to a point where he finally agreed to personate Dean Mercer at the bank.

“There’s no risk,” affirmed Tim Downey. “I’d go myself, only I look so ragged and rough. See here, Rod, no one knows of the burning of the _Spray_, or the disappearance of Dean Mercer at Millville yet. Get the money quick. Leave the rest to me.”

“But search will be made for him?”

“As a thief, yes.”

Rodney started.

“Oh! that’s it,” he cried, a new light breaking on his mind.

“Yes. He disappears. They will probably say that he burned the boat. He got the check from the judge cashed and sloped with that, too. See?”

Yes, Rodney did see. It was a glorious scheme, a splendid revenge. His rival and enemy, Dean Mercer, would be disgraced--he would roll in riches!

It would be believed that Dean himself had drawn the money at the bank. He, Rodney, was not known there. Still, he determined to act cautiously.

When, an hour later, he started for the bank, he had got Dean Mercer’s signature down to perfection, and he had bought a pair of spectacles and tried to throw into his face as much of false expression as was possible, so as to make his features vague to the cashier, in view of a later identification.

The bank was a large and a busy one. The cashier accepted the check and Judge Oglesby’s letter carelessly, glanced at them and said:

“Glad to know you, Mr. Mercer. How will you have the money?”

Then, as the false Dean Mercer, in a smothered tone of voice, stated that he would take it in bills of a large denomination, the cashier waved him to the paying teller, and passed on to the next customer of the bank as carelessly as if the payment of eight thousand dollars was a mere bagatelle in the immense affairs of the great Atlas Bank.

Rodney’s heart beat like a trip hammer as he thrust the big pile of bills into his pocket and turned away to leave the bank.

He realized that he was a thief, a forger, as wicked as Tim Downey. Yes, worse, for he knew better. Tim had been brought up in the midst of sin.

“Mr. Mercer,” called out one of the bank officials, coming forward to the cashier’s window, “that’s a fine steamer you have had built.”

“Yes, sir,” faltered Rodney.

“I have been down to see her this morning, and I assure you there was never her equal on Lake Seneca. Colonel Darringford’s old tub will be nowhere now. Well, it is time some one woke up to the situation.”

Rodney’s heart was in his mouth, and fairly gasping for breath, he did not dare to make a reply, but he hurried out into the open air with quickened steps.

Chancing to glance down the street he received another shock greater than the first.

Crossing the main street he saw Dean Mercer!