Vaniman followed

CHAPTER XXX

THE PROMISED LAND

There was a big man in the parlor, a hearty-looking man, manifestly of the metropolis, patently of the “good sport” type.  He was walking up and down.  With his tweed knickerbockers, his belted jacket, his diamonds in his scarf and on his fingers, he was such an odd figure in the homely surroundings that he produced on Vaniman a surprise effect.  The young man surveyed the stranger with the interest one might take in a queer animal in a circus van; the big man’s restless pacing suggested a caged creature.  But he took not the least interest in Vaniman, an unkempt individual without a coat.

“Hexter, what did happen, anyway?  I thought you were never coming back.  I had a good mind to chase you up, though it would be poor judgment for me to show myself to-night.”

“This has happened!” The Squire pointed to Vaniman.  The big man cocked an inquiring eyebrow, looking at the Squire’s exhibit with indifference.  “Colonel, this is Frank Vaniman.  You know all about the case!”

The stranger stepped back so hastily that he knocked over a chair.

“Know about the case!” he bawled.  “No, I don’t know about it, either, if this is the man the mountain fell on—­or whatever it was that happened.  What kind of con is this you’re giving me, Hexter?”

“This is the man, sir.  What I mean by saying you know about the case is that you have agreed with me that an innocent man was railroaded into prison, after I gave you the facts.  He is out through a trick worked by a prison guard.  He’ll give us the details later.  Just now it’s more important for you to be told that Tasper Britt, by his own acts, has confessed that he robbed the Egypt Trust Company.”

“Well, I’ll be damnationed!” blurted the big man, with such whole-souled astonishment that the mode of expression was pardonable.  “And I thought that plenty and enough was happening in this town for one night!”

“Frank, this is Colonel Norman Wincott.  He has well understood your case from what I have told him.  Now he will understand better.  Colonel, won’t you allow Frank’s story to wait?  He is in a dreadfully nervous state, poor chap.  And I’m afraid he’ll go crazy on our hands if he isn’t enlightened right away about what is going on here to-night.”

Colonel Wincott strode across the room and slapped Vaniman cordially on the shoulder with one hand and pumphandled with the other.  “Plenty of men have escaped from state prison.  There’s a special novelty about a story of that sort.  But let me tell you that I’m the only man in the world who has ever put over a proposition such as this one that is on the docket right here and now.  I don’t blame you for being interested.”  It was plain that the colonel entertained no mean opinion of himself and his projects.  “All is, Vaniman, I hope your making a two-ring affair of it hasn’t taken the attention of the folks off the main show.”