The Big-Town Round-Up Part 54

None the less Johnnie was distressed. He believed that his friend was concealing an aching heart beneath all this attention to impending details. As a Benedict he considered it his duty to help the rest of the world get married too. A bachelor was a b.o.o.b. He didn't know what was best for him. Same way with a girl. Clay was fond of Miss Beatrice, and she thought a heap of him. You couldn't fool Johnnie.

No, sirree! Well, then?

Mooning on the sad plight of these two friends who were too coy or too perverse to know what was best for them, Johnnie suddenly slapped himself a whack on the thigh. A brilliant idea had flashed into his cranium. It proceeded to grow until he was like to burst with it.

When Lindsay rose from breakfast he was mysteriously beckoned into another room. Johnnie outlined sketchily and with a good deal of hesitation what he had in mind. Clay's eyes danced with that spark of mischief his friends had learned to recognize as a danger signal.

"You're some sure-enough wizard, Johnnie," he admitted. "I expect you're right about girls not knowin' their own minds. You've had more experience with women than I have. If you say the proper thing to do is to abduct Miss Whitford and take her with us, why--"

"That's whatever. She likes you a heap more than she lets on to you.

O' course it would be different if I wasn't married, but Kitty she can chaperoon Miss Beatrice. It'll be all accordin' to Hoyle."

The cattleman gazed at the puncher admiringly. "Don't rush me off my feet, old-timer," he said gayly. "Gimme a coupla hours to think of it, and I'll let you know what I'll do. This is real sudden, Johnnie. You must 'a' been a terror with the ladies when you was a bachelor. Me, I never kidnaped one before."

"Onct in a while you got to play like you're gonna treat 'em rough,"

said Mr. Green sagely, blus.h.i.+ng a trifle nevertheless.

"All right. I'll let you engineer this if I can make up my mind to it after I've milled it over. I can see you know what you're doin'."

When Johnnie returned from a telephone call at the office two hours later, Kitty had a suspicion he was up to something. He bubbled mystery so palpably that her curiosity was piqued. But the puncher for once was silent as a clam. He did not intend to get Kitty into trouble if his plan miscarried. Moreover, he had an intuition that if she knew what was under way she would put her small, competent foot through the middle of the project.

The conspirators arranged details. Johnnie was the brains of the kidnaping. Clay bought the tickets and was to take charge of the prisoner after the train was reached. They decided it would be best to get a stateroom for the girl.

"We wantta make it as easy as we can for her," said Johnnie. "O'

course it's all for her own good, but we don't figure to treat her noways but like the princess she is."

"Yes," agreed Clay humbly.

According to programme, carefully arranged by Johnnie, Beatrice rode down to the train with him and Kitty in their taxicab. She went on board for the final good-byes and chatted with them in their section.

The chief conspirator was as easy as a toad in a hot skillet. Now that it had come down to the actual business of taking this young woman with them against her will, he began to weaken. His heart acted very strangely, but he had to go through with it.

"C-can I see you a minute in the next car, Miss Beatrice?" he asked, his voice quavering.

Miss Whitford lifted her eyebrows, but otherwise expressed no surprise.

"Certainly, Johnnie."

"What do you want to see Miss Whitford about, Johnnie?" his spouse asked. There were times when Kitty mistrusted Johnnie's judgment. She foresaw that he might occasionally need a firm hand.

"Oh, nothin' much. Tell you about it later, honey." The kidnaper mopped the perspiration from his forehead. At that moment he wished profoundly that this brilliant idea of his had never been born.

He led the way down the aisle into the next sleeper and stopped at one of the staterooms. Shakily he opened the door and stood aside for her to pa.s.s first.

"You want me to go in here?" she asked.

"Yes'm."

Beatrice stepped in. Johnnie followed.

Clay rose from the lounge and said, "Glad to see you, Miss Whitford."

"Did you bring me here to say good-bye, Johnnie?" asked Beatrice.

The Runt's tongue stuck to the root of his mouth, His eyes appealed dumbly to Clay.

"Better explain to Miss Whitford," said Clay, pa.s.sing the buck.

"It's for yore good, Miss Beatrice," stammered the villain who had brought her. "We--we--I--I done brought you here to travel home with us."

"You--what?"

Before her slender, outraged dignity Johnnie wilted. "Kitty, she--she can chaperoon you. It's all right, ma'am. I--we--I didn't go for to do nothin' that wasn't proper. We thought--"

"You mean that you brought me here expecting me to go along with you--without my consent--without a trunk--without--"

Clay took charge of the kidnaping. "Johnnie, if I were you I'd light a shuck back to the other car. I see I'll have to treat this lady rough as you advised."

Johnnie wanted to expostulate, to deny that he had ever given such counsel, to advise an abandonment of the whole project. But his nerve unexpectedly failed him. He glanced helplessly at Clay and fled.

He was called upon the carpet immediately on joining Kitty.

"What are you up to, Johnnie? I'm not going to have you make a goose of yourself if I can help it. And where's Mr. Lindsay? You said he'd meet us here."

"Clay, he's in the next car."

"You took Miss Beatrice in there to say good-bye to him?"

"No--she--she's goin' along with us."

"Going along with us? What do you mean, Johnnie Green?"

He told her his story, not at all cheerfully. His bold plan looked very different now from what it had two days before.

Already the chant of the wheels had begun. The train was in the sub-Hudson darkness of the tunnel.

Kitty rose with decision. "Well, of all the foolishness I ever heard, Johnnie, this is the limit. I'm going right to that poor girl. You've spoiled everything between you. She'll hate Mr. Lindsay for the rest of her life. How could he be so stupid?"

Her husband followed her, crestfallen. He wanted to weep with chagrin.

Beatrice opened the door of the stateroom. She had taken off her hat and Clay was hanging it on a hook.

"Come in," she said cordially, but faintly.

Kitty did not quite understand. The atmosphere was less electric than she had expected. She stopped, taken aback at certain impressions that began to register themselves on her brain.

"Johnnie was tellin' me--"

"About how he abducted me. Yes. Wasn't it dear of him?"