"Oh, so that's what you call him? However, I'm asking you. You ought to know. I've seen you all over the lot, talking with everybody."

"Ask Pharaoh!" repeated the Prophet, sonorously.

The helper nudged Bangs with a swift punch. "If you feel like taking that advice, boss, here's your chance. There's Tasper Britt."

The magnate of Egypt was revealed suddenly, coming from the direction of his new mansion. He strode past Elias. "Ask Pharaoh!" advised the Prophet once more, and Britt halted. He came back a few steps and addressed the men on the tavern porch:

"Can't a man who is deputy warden of our state prison find something for amus.e.m.e.nt better than stirring up a lunatic?"

"I'm not trying to find amus.e.m.e.nt--not in this town," returned Mr.

Bangs. "I'm after information. He refers me to you--or so I take it!"

"What information?"

"There's something the trouble in this town and I'd like to know what it is."

"There it is," barked Britt, pointing to Elias. "That's the princ.i.p.al trouble--a lunatic spreading lunacy like smallpox."

"But what is it all about?" insisted Bangs, "What's this new excitement?"

"I know nothing about any excitement, sir. I attend to business instead of gossip. If you can make it your business to take this pest to state prison, where he probably belongs if his record could be dug up, the town of Egypt will be all right again."

"Pharaoh, I have a message of comfort for you," stated the Prophet.

"This night do I depart from the land of Egypt. I go and I shall not return."

For some moments Britt did not find words with which to reply. Then he mumbled something about good riddance and shaking the dust from the feet.

"I shall shake all the dust from my feet this side of the border line,"

said Elias. "Your land of Egypt cannot spare any soil."

"You are getting away just in time," rasped the usurer. "I have been tolerating you since you got back from jail because I've been too busy to tend to your case."

"Ah!" commented Elias, mildly.

This subtle humility goaded Britt's wrath more effectually than the Prophet could have prevailed with resentful retort.

"The next time it wouldn't have been a bailable trespa.s.s case. Do you dare to tell me why you kept looking in at the windows of my house?"

"I was looking for the closet."

"What closet?"

"For the closet where you keep the skeleton. But rest this night in peace, Pharaoh. I am going away."

"I can sleep better for knowing that you are out of this town."

"Then promise me that you will sleep to-night--sleep soundly. That thought will cheer me as I go on my way." Britt started along, making no reply. "I bespeak for you sleep without dreams," the Prophet called after him. "Your dreams, Pharaoh, might be colored with some of the realities--and that would be bad, very bad for your peace of mind."

Once more Britt strode back from the vapors. "Are you trying to provoke me to smash my fist into your face? Are you trying to cook up a blackmail damage suit by the advice of that crook lawyer who bailed you out? I'm beginning to see why a lawyer was enough interested in you to get you back into this town."

"You guess shrewdly, Pharaoh. You have avoided the deep plot against your wealth. Let the thought make you sleep soundly to-night. I'm glad to make my confession and hope it will add to your peace of mind."

Usial Britt had appeared in the door of his cottage; he leaned lazily against the jamb. "It will be a fine night for sleeping," he remarked, amiably. "This fog is sort of relaxing to the nerves!"

"Hold one moment, Pharaoh!" pleaded Elias. The appearance of the hated brother had started the magnate off once more. "I am anxious to make your night a peaceful one. If you see me go away, knowing that I shall not return again before your face, the comfort of your knowledge will lull you to sleep. Wait!"

He stepped to the door of the cottage, reached inside, and secured a long staff. He picked up from the floor a huge horn--a sort of trump.

He settled the curve of the instrument over his shoulder. He blew a long and resounding blast. Then he marched away, taking long strides.

He loomed in the first stratum of the vapor, the radiance from the open door showing him as an eerie figure; then the fog swallowed him up.

Every few moments he sounded a mighty blast on the trump. The blare of the horn rolled echoes afar in the murk. Steadily the volume of the sound decreased; it was plain that the Prophet was traveling at good speed.

"Well, I'll be dimdaddled!" grunted Mr. Bangs. His was the only comment on the departure of Prophet Elias from the land of Egypt--that is to say, the only comment pa.s.sed by the group in front of Files's tavern.

Tasper Britt went his way toward the Harnden home, his lodgings still.

Usial Britt closed his cottage door. Bangs found the sticky chill of the fog uncomfortable. He and his helper went in and upstairs to their rooms.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SHADE WHO MEDDLED

Sometime in the night Vaniman awoke, not suddenly, or with the sense of having been disturbed, but torpidly, with the feeling that he had been especially deep in slumber. He recovered his senses slowly. Therefore, only gradually did he become aware of a peculiar new condition of affairs in the camp. He wondered idly, trying to make up his mind as to what was different in the place this night. He heard the "yeak-yeak"

of the crickets outside. He heard nothing else. Then he understood.

His three comrades were not vocalizing their slumber in snores. He had endured the torture philosophically night after night.

His surprise awakened him fully. He listened, but he could not hear the sound of breathing. He rolled out of his bunk and investigated.

The light in the camp was merely the reflection of the paler hue of the night outside, filtering through the open door and the single window.

But he perceived that he was alone in the place--the bunks were empty.

His primitive life in the camp had inured him to new habits; he had been removing only his shoes and his coat when he went to bed. He pulled on his shoes--he did not bother with coat or hat. He rushed out of doors and called aloud, hoping that his panic was exaggerating his apprehensions. There was no answer.

Then his fears took definite shape and sought for confirmation. He ran to the horse hovel. The animal was gone.

Standing there, bitterly conscious of what had happened and acutely aware of what was likely to happen with those three miscreants on the trail of the treasure that they coveted, Vaniman accepted his full measure of responsibility. He did not excuse the pa.s.sion which had prompted him to open his heart in regard to Tasper Britt. It was plain that they intended to unlock the secret of the money by the use of Britt, going to any lengths of brutality the occasion might demand.

To get at Britt they would be obliged to invade the Harnden home.

The thought of what might develop from that sortie wrought havoc in Vaniman's soul! His fears for Vona and her mother spurred him to action even more effectively than his conviction that his own cause was lost if the men were able to force the money from Britt. If they were captured it would be like them to incriminate Vaniman as an accomplice; if they got safely away with the treasure there could be no revelations regarding Britt's complicity in its concealment. Britt certainly would not tell the truth about what had happened to him; the fugitives would hide their secret and their plunder.

If ever a victim of devilish circ.u.mstances had a compelling reason to play the game, single-handed and to the full limit of desperation, so Vaniman told himself, he was the man.

He ran from the hovel to the peak of the crag that overlooked the village of Egypt. He beheld below him a vast expanse of grayish white, the fleecy sea of the enshrouding vapor. He heard no sounds, he saw no lights. He had no notion of the hour. Wagg had accommodated him with the time of day, when he asked for it, just as Wagg loaned him a razor and doled his rations, persistently and with cunning malice working to subdue the young man's sense of independence.

But in this crisis all of Vaniman's courage broke from the thralls in which prison intimidation and a fugitive's caution and despair had bound it during the months of his disgrace.

No matter how long the others had been on their way! They would be obliged to go the long route around the hill, and were hampered by the van; their grim forethought in taking the vehicle to transport their booty, as if they were sure of succeeding, was another element that wrought upon Vaniman's temper.

As he was, without coat or hat, he leaped from the crag, as if he were trying to jump squarely into the middle of the village of Egypt. He had taken no thought of the steepness of the slope or the dangers of descent. He slipped and rolled for many rods and a rain of rocks and earth followed him and beat upon him when he caught a tree and clung to it. He went on more cautiously after that; blood trickled from the wounds on his face where the sharp edges of rocks had cut. He thrust himself through the scrub growth, opening a way with the motions of a swimmer, his hands scarred by the tangled branches. There were other steep places that were broken by terraces. When he was down from the rocky heights on which the vapor did not extend and had entered the confusing mists, he was obliged to go more slowly still, for he narrowly missed some nasty falls.

Fierce impatience roweled him. He would not allow himself to weaken his determination by thinking on what he would do after he arrived at the Harnden home. He had set that as his goal. Above other considerations he placed his frenzied resolution to protect Vona. He realized that he must protect her even from himself--from the shock she would suffer by his unprefaced appearance, this lover who would come like one risen from the dead! The scoundrels who came seeking Britt in her home would not be as terrifying as the visitor who would seem to be a specter--the shade of the convict whom a mountain had crushed, so said the official reports of the tragic affair.