Ah, yes, it was Tom Meredith, the same lad, in spite of his masquerade of
flesh; and Helen was right: Tom had not forgotten.
"It's the old horse-thief!" John murmured, tremulously.
"You go plumb to thunder," answered Meredith between gulps.
When he was well enough, they had long talks; and at other times Harkless
lay by the window, and breathed deep of the fresh air, while Meredith
attended to his correspondence for him, and read the papers to him. But
there was one phenomenon of literature the convalescent insisted upon
observing for himself, and which he went over again and again, to the
detriment of his single unswathed eye, and this was the Carlow "Herald."
The first letter he had read to him was one from Fisbee stating that the
crippled forces left in charge had found themselves almost distraught in
their efforts to carry on the paper (as their chief might conclude for
himself on perusal of the issues of the first fortnight of his absence),
and they had made bold to avail themselves of the services of a young
relative of the writer's from a distant city--a capable journalist, who
had no other employment for the present, and who had accepted the
responsibilities of the "Herald" temporarily. There followed a note from
Parker, announcing that Mr. Fisbee's relative was a bird, and was the kind
to make the "Herald" hum. They hoped Mr. Harkless would approve of their
bespeaking the new hand on the sheet; the paper must have suspended
otherwise. Harkless, almost overcome by his surprise that Fisbee possessed
a relative, dictated a hearty and grateful indorsement of their action,
and, soon after, received a typewritten rejoinder, somewhat complicated in
the reading, because of the numerous type errors and their corrections.
The missive was signed "H. Fisbee," in a strapping masculine hand that
suggested six feet of enterprise and muscle spattering ink on its shirt
sleeves.
John groaned and fretted over the writhings of the "Herald's" headless
fortnight, but, perusing the issues produced under the domination of H.
Fisbee, he started now and then, and chuckled at some shrewd felicities of
management, or stared, puzzled, over an oddity, but came to a feeling of
vast relief; and, when the question of H. Fisbee's salary was settled and
the tenancy assured, he sank into a repose of mind. H. Fisbee might be an
eccentric fellow, but he knew his business, and, apparently, he knew
something of other business as well, for he wrote at length concerning the
Carlow oil fields, urging Harkless to take shares in Mr. Watts's company
while the stock was very low, two wells having been sunk without
satisfactory results. H. Fisbee explained with exceeding technicality his
reasons for believing that the third well would strike oil.
But with his ease of mind regarding the "Herald," Harkless found himself
possessed by apathy. He fretted no longer to get back to Plattville. With
the prospect of return it seemed an emptiness glared at him from hollow
sockets, and the thought of the dreary routine he must follow when he went
back gave him the same faint nausea he had felt the evening after the
circus. And, though it was partly the long sweat of anguish which had
benumbed him, his apathy was pierced, at times, by a bodily horror of the
scene of his struggle. At night he faced the grotesque masks of the Cross-
Roads men and the brutal odds again; over and over he felt the blows, and
clapped his hand to where the close fire of Bob Skillett's pistol burned
his body.