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 Chapter 10: The t Test for Two Independent Samples

There are several possible solutions to the matchstick problem in the Chapter 10 Preview but all
involve destroying two of the existing squares. One square is destroyed by removing two
matchsticks from one of the corners and a second square is destroyed by removing one
matchstick. The three removed matchsticks are then used to build a new square using a line that
already exists in the figure as the fourth side. One solution is shown in the following figure.

Original pattern with 5 squares (arrows note matchsticks to remove)

 

New pattern with 4 squares (arrows note new locations)



 

1. An independent-measures study uses a separate sample for each of the treatments or

populations being compared.

2. The standard error for the independent measures t provides an estimate of the standard
distance between a sample mean difference (M1 – M2) and the population mean difference
(μ1 – μ2). When the two samples come from populations with the same mean (when H0 is true),
the standard error indicates the standard amount of error (distance) between two sample means.

3. a. The size of the two samples influences the magnitude of the estimated standard error in
the denominator of the t statistic. As sample size increases, the value of t also increases
(moves farther from zero), and the likelihood of rejecting H0 also increases.
b. The variability of the scores influences the estimated standard error in the denominator.
As the variability of the scores increases, the value of t decreases (becomes closer to
zero), and the likelihood of rejecting H0 decreases.

Solutions - Chapter 10 - page 316

4. The homogeneity of variance assumption specifies that the variances are equal for the two
populations from which the samples are obtained. If this assumption is violated, the t statistic
can cause misleading conclusions for a hypothesis test.

5. a. The first sample has s2 = 12 and the second has s2 = 8. The pooled variance is 80/8 = 10
(halfway between).
b. The first sample has s2 = 12 and the second has s2 = 4. The pooled variance is 80/12 =
6.67 (closer to the variance for the larger sample).

6. a. The first sample has a variance of 10, the second sample variance is 6, and the pooled
variance is 8 (halfway between).
b. The first sample has a variance of 10, the second sample variance is 14, and the pooled
variance is 112/10 = 11.2 (closer to the variance for the larger sample).

7. a. The pooled variance is 6 and the estimated standard error is 1.50.

b. The pooled variance is 24 and the estimated standard error is 3.
c. Larger variability produces a larger standard error.

8. a. The pooled variance is 150.

b. The estimated standard error is 5.00.
c. A mean difference of 8 would produce t = 8/5 = 1.60. With df = 22 the critical values are
±2.074. Fail to reject H0.
d. A mean difference of 12 would produce t = 12/5 = 2.40. With df = 22 the critical values
are ±2.074. Reject H0.
e. With a mean difference of 8 points, r2 = 0.104. With a difference of 12 points, r2 =
0.207.

9. a. The pooled variance is 90.

b. The estimated standard error is 5.
c. A mean difference of 10 points produces t = 2.00. With critical boundaries of ±2.160,
fail to reject H0
d. A mean difference of 13 points produces t = 2.60. With critical boundaries of ±2.160,
reject H0

10. a. The estimated standard error for the sample mean difference is 4 points.
b. The estimated standard error for the sample mean difference is 2 points.
c. Larger samples produce a smaller standard error.

11. a. The pooled variance is 60 and the estimated standard error is 5.

b. The pooled variance is 240 and the estimated standard error is 10.
c. Increasing the sample variance produces an increase in the standard error.

Solutions - Chapter 10 - page 317

12. a. The two samples combined have a total of 32 participants.
b. With df = 30 and α = .05, the critical region consists of t values beyond 2.042. The t
statistic is in the critical region. Reject H0 and conclude that there is a significant
difference.
c. r2 =4.35/34.35 = 0.127 or 12.7%

13. a. Using df = 30, , because 34 is not listed in the table, and α = .05, the critical region
consists of t values beyond 2.042. The pooled variance is 81, the estimated standard
error is 3, and t(34) = 7.6/3 = 2.53. The t statistic is in the critical region. Reject H0 and
conclude that there is a significant difference.
b. For 90% confidence, the t values are 1.697 (using df = 30), and the interval extends
from 2.509 to 12.691 points higher with the calming music.
c. Classroom performance was significantly better with background music, t(34) = 2.53, p <
.05, 95% CI [2.509, 12.691].

14. a. The pooled variance is 90, the estimated standard error is 4, and t = 9/4 = 2.25. With
df = 22 the critical value is 2.074. Reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a
significant difference in attitude between males and females.
b. r2 = 5.06/27.06 = 0.187 or 18.7%
c. The results show a significant difference between males and females in their attitude
toward food, t(22) = 2.25, p < .05, r2 = 0.187.

15. a. For the offensive linemen, the standard error is 0.97 and t = 4.54. For a one-tailed test
with df = 16, the critical value is 2.583. Reject the null hypothesis. The offensive
linemen are significantly above the criterion for BMI.
b. For the defensive linemen, the standard error is 0.80 and t = 2.375. For a one-tailed test
with df = 18, the critical value is 2.552. Fail to reject the null hypothesis. The defensive
linemen are not significantly above the criterion for BMI.
c. For the independent-measures t, the pooled variance is 14.01, the estimated standard error
is 1.25, and t(34) = 2.00. For a two-tailed test using df = 30 (because 34 is not listed), the
critical value is 2.750. Fail to reject the null hypothesis. There is no significant
difference between the two groups.

16. a. The pooled variance is 0.24, the estimated standard error is 0.22, and t = 1.18. For a
two-tailed test with df = 18 the critical value is 2.101. Fail to reject the null hypothesis.
There is no significant difference between the two groups.
b. For these data, r2 = 1.39/19.39 = 0.072 or 7.2%.
c. The data showed no significant difference in attitude toward functional foods for males
compared with females, t(18) = 1.18, p > .05, r2 = 0.072.

Solutions - Chapter 10 - page 318

17. a. The research prediction is that participants who hear the verb “smashed into” will
estimate higher speeds than those who hear the verb “hit.” For these data, the pooled
variance is 33, the estimated standard error is 2.10, and t(28) = 3.24. With df = 28 and α
= .01, the critical value is t = 2.467. The sample mean difference is in the right direction
and is large enough to be significant. Reject H0.
b. The estimated Cohen’s d = 6.8/√33 = 1.18.
c. The results show that participants who heard the verb “smashed into” estimated
significantly higher speeds than those who heard the verb “hit,” t(28) = 3.24, p < .01, d =
1.18.

18. a. The pooled variance is 7.2, the estimated standard error is 1.2, and t(18) = 3.00. For a
one-tailed test with df = 18 the critical value is 2.552. Reject the null hypothesis.
There is a significant difference between the two groups.
b. For 95% confidence, the t values are 2.101, and the interval extends from 1.079 to 6.121
points higher for boys.
c. The results indicate that adolescent males have significantly higher self-esteem than girls,
t(18) = 3.00, p < .01, one tailed, 95% CI [1.079, 6.121].

19. a. The null hypothesis states that there is no difference between the two sets of instructions,
H0: μ1 – μ2 = 0. With df = 6 and α = .05, the critical region consists of t values beyond
±2.447. For the first set, M = 6 and SS = 16. For the second set, M = 10 with SS = 32.
For these data, the pooled variance is 8, the estimated standard error is 2, and t(6) = 2.00.
Fail to reject H0. The data are not sufficient to conclude that there is a significant
difference between the two sets of instructions.
b. For these data, the estimated d = 4/√8 = 1.41 (a very large effect) and r2 = 4/10 = 0.40
(40%).

20. The pooled variance is 63, the estimated standard error is 3.00, and t = 7/3 = 2.33. With df =
26 the critical value is 2.056. Reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a significant
difference between the two sleep conditions.

21. The humorous sentences produced a mean of M = 4.25 with SS = 35, and the non-
humorous sentences had M = 4.00 with SS = 26. The pooled variance is 2.03, the
estimated standard error is 0.504, and t = 0.496. With df = 30, the critical value is 2.042.
Fail to reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is no significant difference in memory
for the two types of sentences.

22. a. The null hypothesis states that the type of sport does not affect neurological performance.
For a one-tailed test, the critical boundary is t = 1.796. For the swimmers, M = 9 and SS
= 44. For the soccer players, M = 6 and SS = 24. The pooled variance is 6.18 and t(11) =
2.11. Reject H0. The data show that the soccer players have significantly lower scores.
b. For these data, r2 = 0.288 (28.8%).

Solutions - Chapter 10 - page 319

23. a. The null hypothesis states that the lighting in the room does not affect behavior. For the
well-lit room the mean is M = 7.55 with SS = 42.22. For the dimly-lit room, M = 11.33
with SS = 38. The pooled variance is 5.01, the standard error is 1.06, and t(16) = 3.57.
With df = 16 the critical values are 2.921. Reject the null hypothesis and conclude that
the lighting did have an effect on behavior.
b. d = 3.78/2.24 = 1.69

Solutions - Chapter 10 - page 320

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jewelry and patent leather shoes took the places of the pallid,
smooth shaven business men that had been his companions from
Jersey City to Chicago. There were also a number of women
traveling alone, large, competent, and not overrefined. Brainard,
whose ideas of Americans other than the types to be seen on the
streets of New York had been drawn from the travestied figures of
the stage,—the miner and the cowboy with flapping sombrero and
chaps,—watched these new specimens of his fellow countrymen with
keen interest. In spite of their rather uncouth speech and their
familiarity with the negro porters, they were attractive. They had a
vigorous air about them, indicating that they came from a big
country, with big ways of doing things in it, and a broad outlook over
wide horizons. The would-be dramatist began to perceive that the
world was not peopled wholly by the types that the American stage
had made familiar to him.
A little way beyond Ogden the train rolled out into the bright blue
inland sea of the Great Salt Lake and trundled on for mile after mile
in the midst of the water on a narrow strip of rocky roadbed.
Brainard had read in the newspapers of this famous “Lucin cut-off”
where in an effort to save a detour of a few miles around the shore
of the lake millions of tons of “fill” had been dumped into an
apparently bottomless hole. The pluck and the energy of that road
builder who had conceived this work and kept at it month after
month, dumping trainloads of rock into a great lake had not specially
thrilled him when he read of it. But now the imagination and the
courage of the little man who did this sort of thing thrilled him.
Harriman, the bold doer of this and greater things, was of course a
popular Wall Street hero to the New Yorker,—one of those legendary
creatures who were supposed to have their seat of power in the lofty
cliffs of that narrow Via Dolorosa and somehow like the alchemists of
old conjure great fortunes out of air, with the aid of the “tape.” That
was the way in which this young man had always thought of
Harriman,—“the wizard of railroad finance.”
But now as he glided smoothly over the solid roadbed that ran
straight westward into the remote distance with the salt waves
almost lapping the tracks and leaving a white crust from their
spume, with lofty mountains looming to south and to north,—as he
stood on the rear platform of the heavy steel train observing this
marvelous panorama,—a totally new conception of the renowned
financier came to him. This was not done by watching the tape! It
demanded will and force and imagination and faith—spiritual
qualities in a man—to do this. The young traveler mentally did
homage to the character that had created the wonderful highway
over which for a day and a half he had been comfortably borne in
luxurious ease.
As he watched the blue mountains about Ogden fade into the haze,
it seemed that New York, his life there, and all his conventional
conceptions of the little world in which he had vainly struggled for
existence also receded and grew smaller, less real. The train in its
westward flight was bearing him forward into a new world, within as
well as without! As the track began to wind up again to higher
levels before taking its next great leap over the Sierras, Brainard
went forward to the smoking room, his usual post of observation,
where he sat through long, meditative hours, listening to the talk
about him and gazing at the fleeting landscape. Whatever else it
might mean,—this jaunt across the continent on a stranger’s errand,
—it was bringing him a rich cargo of new ideas.
Of all his fellow travelers the man who happened to occupy the
drawing-room in the car where Brainard had his section aroused his
curiosity especially. He was one of those well-dressed, alert young
business men who had made Brainard conscious of his shabby and
inappropriate appearance when he first started on his journey. The
door of his room had been closed all the way to Chicago, and
Brainard had seen nothing of the man. But since the train left
Omaha the door to the drawing-room had been open, and from his
section Brainard observed its occupant diligently reading a book.
What aroused his attention and interested him in the stranger more
than his pleasant appearance of frank good humor had been the sort
of book he had chosen for this long journey. It was bound like a
“best seller” in a gaudy red cloth, and a picture of a starry-eyed
maiden with floating hair adorned the cover. But it was labeled in
unmistakable black letters Paradise Lost. Brainard, who had made a
painful and superficial acquaintance in his youth with this poetic
masterpiece, decided that the smartly dressed young American could
not be devoting the journey to Milton’s epic. It must be that some
writer of best sellers had cribbed the great poet’s title and fitted it to
a less strenuous tale of love and starry-eyed maidens. This theory,
however, broke down before the fact that from time to time the
young man consulted a small black book that was indubitably a
dictionary, and Brainard taking advantage of a moment when the
traveler had left his room assured himself that the book was really a
copy of Milton’s poem set within profane modern covers. Just why
this young man should spend his hours on the train reading the
puritan epic of heaven and hell puzzled Brainard and whetted his
curiosity to know what sort of man the stranger was.
Earlier this morning as the train was climbing down from the Rockies
into Utah, an opportunity had come to speak to his fellow traveler.
The train had pulled up somewhere before a desolate station whose
architect had tried to make a Queen Anne cottage that looked
singularly out of place in the bare, wild landscape. While the engine
took its long drink, the passengers stretched their legs and enjoyed
the crisp mountain air. The stranger came to the vestibule, yawned,
and read the name of the station:
“Palisade, is it? . . . The last time I was over this way it looked more
lively than this.”
“What was happening?” Brainard inquired.
“There was a bunch of miners somewheres in Utah making trouble,
on a strike. The company had brought in a couple of carloads of
greasers, and the miners were down here shooting up the party.”
He got down to the ground, yawned again, and opened a gold
cigarette case which he offered to Brainard,—“Have one?”
Brainard took one of the monogrammed cigarettes, and they
sauntered together in the sunlight.
“Yes, sir,” his new acquaintance continued, “they sure did have a
lively time. The greasers were over there on the siding in their cars,
and they just let go at ’em with their guns. Now and then they’d hit
the station, for fun, you know. I guess maybe you can see the holes
yet.”
The young man pointed up at some scars among the shingles and a
broken window in the upper story. “Sure enough they left their
marks!”
“What did they do to ’em?” Brainard asked naïvely, as they returned
to the car when the conductor droned “all aboard.”
“Who?” the stranger asked. “The police?”
He waved a hand at the desolate stretch of sage brush backed by
grim mountains and laughed. As the train moved off, he added,
“Lord, I don’t know! They were still popping when my train pulled
out. There weren’t many greasers fit to work in the mines. What
was left after the reception must have walked home—a long ways.”
Brainard was somewhat impressed with the possibilities of a country
that could offer such a scrap, en passant, so to speak. The stranger
invited him into his room and gave him another cigarette.
“From New York?” he inquired. “Not a bad sort of place,” he
observed tolerantly. “Ever been on the Coast? You’ve something to
see.”
“How is San Francisco since the earthquake?” Brainard inquired,
thinking to come cautiously and guardedly to the topic of
Krutzmacht.
“It’s all there and more than ever,” the stranger cheerily responded.
“You won’t find any large cracks,” he jested.
“It’s queer that you all went straight back to the same ground and
built over again.”
“Why? It was home, wasn’t it? Folks always have a feeling for the
place they’ve lived in, even if it has disadvantages. It’s only human!”
Brainard reflected that this was a sentimental point of view he
should hardly have expected from the practical sort of man opposite
him. In the course of their conversation Brainard inquired about the
graft prosecution then in full swing, which had attracted the notice
even of eastern papers on account of the highly melodramatic flavor
that a picturesque prosecuting attorney had given to the
proceedings. The man from San Francisco readily gave his point of
view, which was unfavorable to the virtuous citizens engaged in the
task of civic purification. When Brainard asked about the celebrated
prosecuting attorney, the stranger looked at him for the first time
suspiciously, and said coldly:
“Well, as that gentleman has just been parading up and down the
state saying he was going to put me in state prison for the better
part of my remaining years, I can’t say I have a high opinion of him.”
“Indeed!” Brainard emitted feebly. The stranger was more
mysterious than ever. He did not seem in the least like a candidate
for state prison.
“You see,” the young man continued cheerfully, “I’m loose now on
about seventy-five thousand dollars of bonds. Time was up in fact
day before yesterday, and I’ve been wondering some what they are
going to do to my bondsmen. Well, we’ll find out at Ogden when we
get the coast papers.”
And when they reached Ogden Brainard ventured to inquire, seeing
his new acquaintance deep in the folds of a San Francisco
newspaper,—“Well, what did they do to those bondsmen?”
“Nothing yet, so far as I can see. Oh, hell, it’s all bluff anyway!” and
he dropped his newspaper out of the open window. . . .
A man of such cheerful and frank presence, who read Paradise Lost
(with the aid of a dictionary) and traveled to New York on seventy-
five thousand dollars of bail bonds was a curiosity to Brainard. He
very much wished to ask him a few impertinent questions in order to
satisfy his curiosity, but could not summon sufficient courage,
though he felt sure that the agreeable stranger would cheerfully
enlighten him.

V
As Brainard entered the smoking compartment of the “club car,” he
observed that his interesting fellow traveler was in close
conversation with a new arrival, who had taken the section opposite
Brainard at Ogden. He had already noted this grizzled, thickset
person, about sixty years old, who wore a black frock coat, had a
large seal ring and a massive Masonic charm. When the newcomer
opened his grip to extract a black skull cap, he had seen that the
remaining contents of the bag were a mass of papers, a few bits of
loose rock, and a bottle of whisky. Whatever toilet articles the
traveler carried were carefully concealed.
Already the oldish, grizzled traveler with the skull cap was at home,
the center of a little group of men at one of the card tables,—a
bottle of beer in front of him, a cigar tilted at an angle between his
teeth. He was conversing with that perfect naturalness and freedom
that Brainard had observed was the custom in this large country,
even among complete strangers.
“Yes, sir,” he was saying, “I came back from Alaska in 1907 broke,—
that is, what you might call broke,—a couple of thousand dollars all I
had in the world. I said to my wife, ‘I’m done with mines! For
good. I’ve spent the better part of thirty years chasing gold, and
there may be money to be got out of the ground, but it ain’t for
me.’ And would you believe it? The next morning I was starting for
Union! Met a man I knew at the hotel in Seattle and he showed me
some samples of the ore they were taking out there. And I started.
The old woman too. Been there ever since!” He paused as if to let
the others say “Kismet!” and repeated,—“Been there ever since,
working the next claim. My wife died six months ago, and I got
lonely and thought I’d come out and see what had happened to
Frisco since the quake.”
From this point the talk drifted on erratically as the train rushed
towards the Sierras. The agreeable young man who read Paradise
Lost and was under bonds to justice seemed to have an extensive
acquaintance in common with the grizzled miner. They discussed
some Scotchman who had been mining but now owned an oil well in
the “Midway field” that was reputed to be bringing in five thousand
dollars a day. Another of their friends—an Englishman—had a silver
“proposition” in Mexico. There was also Jimmie Birt who owned a
string of horses and had sunk a fortune in a mine in British
Columbia, but Jimmie, it seemed, was making good in Oregon
timber land. So it went with one adventurer after another, roaming
this side of the continent, now penniless, to-morrow with millions,
restlessly darting from subarctic Alaska to subtropical Mexico along
the coast or the mountain spine of the continent. They sought gold
and silver and copper, oil and wood and cattle, water-power, wheat,
and wine,—it made little odds what. Everything was a “big
proposition” in which to make or lose. Brainard drank in the varied
biography of this company of adventurers, his brain fired with the
excitements of their risks. Krutzmacht, it seemed to him, must have
been such a one as these. He was on the point of asking the old
miner, who was the principal talker, if he had ever heard of
Krutzmacht, when his ears caught the words:
“I see by to-day’s San Francisco paper that a receivership has been
asked for the Shasta companies. That means they’ve got
Krutzmacht, don’t it?”
“I expect so—he’s been on the edge some time from what I hear,”
the younger man replied.
“So they got him. . . . I thought Herb would make good—he was a
nervy Dutchman, if there ever was one! But he couldn’t go up
against that crowd.”
“When he began building his road through the mountains to the Bay,
the S. P. crowd went for him and shut off his credit. You’ve got to
get permission to do some things in California.”
“I’m told he’d built up a big property.”
“That’s right—if he’d been able to hold on, there would have been
millions, what with the power company, the timber, the railroad, and
the land. That’s why the S. P. people wanted it! They waited, and
when the panic came on, they began squeezing him. I saw him in
New York a few days ago. I suppose he was trying to get money
from some of those big Jew bankers where he’d got it before. But it
isn’t the right time to pass the hat in Wall Street just now.”
The talk ran on desultorily about “the S. P. crowd,” who it seemed
were the financial dictators of the Pacific Coast and “the nerve of the
Dutchman who went up against that bunch.” Brainard listened
closely to every word, but refrained from asking questions for fear of
betraying an undue interest in Krutzmacht. As far as he could make
out, with his inexperience in business affairs, Krutzmacht’s
companies were valuable and solvent, but he himself was
embarrassed, as many men of large enterprises were at this time,
and his enemies had taken this opportune moment to get possession
of his properties, using for that purpose the courts of which they
seemed to have control as they had of the legislature and the
governor.
“It’s a shame,” the younger stranger remarked frankly; “I expect
they’ll put him through the mill and take every dollar he owns.”
“They’ll eat the hide off him all right!”
“Well, well,” the miner sighed in conclusion. “So Herb’s lost out!
He’s a nervy one, though, obstinate as a mule. Wouldn’t surprise
me if he crawled through somehow. I remember him years ago
when he had a mine down in Arizona, a big low-grade copper
proposition. That was in nineteen four, no,—three. It was another
of those big schemes, too big for any one man,—a railroad and a
smelter besides the mine. He claimed there was a fortune in it—and
I guess it was so—only he was forced to shut down, and the next I
heard of him he was out here on the Coast in this Shasta
proposition.”
And that was all they had to say about Krutzmacht.

VI
“Do you know who that man is?” Brainard asked the old miner as
the gentleman under bonds to return to California strolled out of the
smoking room.
“Why, that’s Eddie Hollinger.”
“And who is Mr. Hollinger?”
“Say, young feller, don’t you ever read the papers where you live?
Why, he’s the boss of the prize ring business here on the Coast,—the
‘fight trust,’ as they call it. Made lots of money. Mighty fine feller Ed
is, too. He’s having his troubles these days the same as the rest of
us. They’re trying him for bribery, you know.”
After he had delivered himself of an impassioned defense of the
“business men who were being hounded by a lot of hypocrites,”
Brainard led him back to Krutzmacht, or as the miner preferred to
call him, “that nervy Dutchman.” But beyond elaborating the story
of his own personal encounter with the German a number of years
before somewhere in Arizona, the miner could add little to what had
already been told. The German was a daring and adventurous man,
who had been “known on the Coast” for thirty years or more,—
always involved in some large financial venture in which he had been
backed by capital from his native land. “But it’s up and down with
all of us,” he sighed in conclusion and drifted on to tell his own
story. He talked with the volubility and hopefulness of youth. When
he said that he hadn’t seen a white man in six months except the
dozen “dagoes” working his claim, his volubility seemed to Brainard
excusable. It was less easy to explain his hopeful mood, for it
appeared that he had knocked about the mountain states for the
better part of a lifetime with scarcely more to show for his efforts
than what was contained in his lean bag. But the roll of blue prints
of his claim, with the little bag of specimen ore, was in his eyes a
sure guarantee of fortune.
“You’d oughter see my mine,—the Rosy Lee I call it because that
was my wife’s name. It’s a winner sure! I’m expecting they’ll break
into the vein every blast. May get a wire in Frisco that they’re in,
and then you bet I’ll go whooping back to pick up the dollars! The
Union, next door to me, so to speak, got some ore that ran forty
thousand to the ton—they’ve taken out four millions already.”
He rambled on about “shoots,” “winzes,” “stopes,” “faults,” and
geological formation until he had thoroughly fired the young man’s
imagination with the fascinating lure of the search for “metal.” They
examined the specimens in the old miner’s bag and talked far into
the night while the train panted up the steep grades and the
moonlight lay white on the snowdrifts of the mountains outside.
“Come back with me, young feller,” the miner said in his simple,
expansive manner, “and I’ll show you some life you’ve never seen! .
. . It’s kind of lonesome up there now the old woman’s gone. . . .
You’ll make money.”
“I’d like to,” Brainard responded warmly. “Nothing better! Perhaps I
will some day, but I can’t this trip.”
“Come soon,” the old fellow urged, “or you’ll find me at the Waldorf
in your own town.”
Brainard lay awake in his berth long afterwards, listening to the
laboring locomotives as they pulled the heavy train over the
mountains, rushed through the snowsheds, and emerged
occasionally to give glimpses of steep, snowy hillsides. The rarefied
air of the lofty altitude had set his pulses humming. So much it
seemed had happened to him already since he stepped aboard the
train in Jersey City that he could hardly realize himself. The “boss of
the fight trust” and the cheerful miner who had “lost the old woman
six months back” and still had faith after a lifetime of
disappointments that he would dig a fortune from that “hole up in
them hills,” were real experiences to the young man. The simple,
natural, human quality of these strangers appealed to him. “It must
be the west,” he generalized easily. “I suppose Krutzmacht is the
same sort,—large-hearted, simple, a good gambler.” But the man
who had signed his name between convulsions,—H. Krutzmacht,—
didn’t seem to fit the same genial frame. He was of sterner stuff.
“Anyway he’s given me one fine time and I’ll do what I can for him
out there!” It was useless to speculate further as to what awaited
him in San Francisco. It might be that court proceedings having
already begun, the affair would be taken out of his hands
completely. He might find a telegram from Krutzmacht
countermanding his orders.
At last he dropped to sleep, buoyant and eager for that unknown
future that lay before him, while the train having surmounted the
last mountain barrier wound slowly down into the green, fruit-
covered valleys of California.

VII
The Overland was several hours late; it was nearly four o’clock of a
foggy April afternoon before Brainard emerged from the ferry station
with his big valise in his hand. His first intention had been to go to a
hotel and there deposit his bag and make inquiries. The miner had
urged him to accompany him to the old “Palace.” “They say it’s finer
than ever since the quake.” But Brainard, reflecting that it was
Saturday afternoon and considering that a few hours’ delay might
mean the loss of two days, shook hands with his fellow travelers and
turned to the telephone booths to discover Krutzmacht’s city
address. When he had memorized the street and number he started
up Market Street, still carrying his bag. He was astonished to see
how thoroughly the city had recovered from its disaster in little more
than a year. There were large gaps in the business blocks, to be
sure, but it was a lively, substantial city with a great deal of building
going forward, especially in the noisy erection of tall steel buildings.
The very sight of these ambitious structures inspired courage!
After a short walk Brainard found himself at the entrance of a large,
new building on Sutter Street that corresponded with the number he
had memorized. He stood on the curb for a few moments staring up
at the windows. Now that he had reached his goal, a trace of his
former habit of despondency came over him, making him hesitate
before the final effort, but shaking himself free from the old
morbidness he walked briskly into the building. When he emerged
from the elevator on the top floor, the boy pointed down the
corridor. “The last one on the right,” he said.
Brainard passed a number of offices whose doors bore in small black
letters the names of different companies,—“Pacific Northern
Railroad,” “Great Western Land and Improvement Company,” “The
Shasta Corporation.” At the extreme end of the corridor was a door
with the simple lettering, “Herbert Krutzmacht.” The plain black
letters of the name had something of the same potency that the
signature at the bottom of the power of attorney had. Like that, like
the sick man himself who had painfully gasped out his last orders,
they were a part of the substantial realm of fact. So far, at least, the
dream held! There was a real man named Krutzmacht, engaged in
important business enterprises, and from what Brainard had learned
on the train he knew that there was a crisis in his affairs.
With his hand on the door-handle he paused. His heart beat fast,
and he looked around him nervously as if expecting to see an officer
of the court lurking somewhere in the corridor. There was no one on
this floor, however. The quiet of a late Saturday afternoon had
settled down on the busy building, but within the private office
Brainard could hear the slow click of a typewriter. He pushed open
the door and entered.
It was a large, rather barely furnished room, evidently used as an
ante-room to other offices. Near the window a young woman was
seated at a desk, lazily examining a mass of papers and occasionally
tapping the keys of a machine, with the desultory air of an employee
killing time at the end of the day. She was a distinctly good looking
woman, Brainard observed, although no longer young, with
abundant coarse black hair, fresh complexion, and decidedly plump.
The stenographer looked up from her work at Brainard with a start
as if she had been expecting some one, but quickly composed
herself.
“Well, what is it?” she asked with a peculiar intonation that indicated
hostility.
Brainard was at a loss for a reply and stood gaping at the
stenographer foolishly. He had not thought of meeting a woman.
He had known few women, and he lacked confidence in dealing with
them.
“Is—is Mr. Krutzmacht in?” he stammered awkwardly, and cursed
himself for the silly question.
The woman gave him a suspicious look and answered shortly:
“No, he ain’t.”
“Oh,” the young man remarked, looking about the office. Near the
stenographer’s desk was a door partly open, which led into an inner
room. In the farther corner of this room could be seen the
projecting corner of a steel safe. This Brainard felt must be his goal,
and he unconsciously stepped toward the door of the inner office.
The woman rose as if to bar his further progress and snapped
irritably:
“What do you want here?”
“Why, I just want to talk to you,” he replied as amiably as he could.
“Cut it short then, young man. I haven’t any time to waste in
conversazione.”
“You don’t seem very busy!” Brainard observed smiling.
“I’m always busy to strangers, little one—I do my day-dreaming
outside of office hours.” She thrust the metal cover on her machine
with a clatter. “See?”
“Oh, yes, I see,” Brainard replied and again tried to approach the
inner office. The stenographer confronted him alertly and folding
her arms demanded:
“What’s your game, anyway, young man? If you’re one of those
lawyers—”
“No, I’m no lawyer,” Brainard said laughing. “Guess again!”
“Haven’t the time. It’s Saturday afternoon, and this office is
supposed to be closed at one o’clock.”
“So it is Saturday—I’d almost forgotten the fact.”
The stenographer eyed him very sourly and observed coldly:
“Where do you keep yourself that you don’t know the day of the
week? Go home, young man, and think it over.”
Brainard saw that in this national game of “josh” he could make no
progress against such an adept and came bluntly to the point:
“Are you in charge of Mr. Krutzmacht’s office?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Because I’ve been sent here by Mr. Krutzmacht to—”
“Sent here by Mr. Krutzmacht—the one you were asking for just
now? . . . Try something else, sonny.”
Brainard felt foolish and completely baffled. He wanted to strangle
the woman and throw her out of the window. But aside from the
fact that she appeared to be vigorous and of a fighting disposition
he realized that the less disturbance he made the greater chance he
would have of carrying through his mission successfully. It is not
clear what the outcome between the two would have been, if at that
moment there had not appeared from the inner office an elderly
man whose mild face had a worried look. Brainard noted the man’s
near-sighted, timid air and regained his calm.
“Here’s a young feller, Mr. Peters, who says he’s looking for Mr.
Krutzmacht,” the girl said.
“Mr. Krutzmacht is not in the city,” the man said nervously.
“Yes, I know that!” Brainard replied easily. “You see I was sent here
by Mr. Krutzmacht himself.”
“You come from Krutzmacht!” the man gasped in excitement, while
the woman’s face expressed incredulity. “Where is he? We’ve been
telegraphing all over the country the last week trying to locate him.
Mr. Snell has just gone east—left this office only an hour ago—to see
if he can find him.”
Brainard reflected that the Overland Limited had probably served
him a good turn by being late; for he judged that the fewer persons
he had to deal with in the present emergency the easier it would be
for him to accomplish his purposes. This mild-mannered, flustered
clerk did not look formidable. His tones gained confidence.
“Mr. Krutzmacht,” Brainard explained glibly, “has met with an
accident—not a serious one, I hope. He is in good hands. He has
sent me out here to get some papers that he wants from his safe.”
“But, but,” the bewildered clerk stammered, “don’t you know that
the court—”
“They’ve fixed up a receivership, I know,” Brainard interrupted,
“that’s the reason perhaps—”
“I’ve been expecting ’em in here all the afternoon,” the clerk said
nervously, looking at the door. “Then there’ll be the devil to pay
generally.”
“All the better!” Brainard exclaimed. “Let’s get busy before they
arrive.”
“But who are you, anyway?” the old man demanded with a sudden
access of caution.
Brainard merely smiled at the worried old man. He was more and
more at his ease, now that he knew the caliber of the timid old clerk,
and though he felt the necessity of haste in his operations, if an
officer of the court was momentarily expected to make a descent
upon Krutzmacht’s private office, yet he spoke and acted with calm.
“Suppose we lock these outer doors—if you think any one is likely to
interrupt us—and then we can proceed undisturbed.”
He shot the brass bolt in the door through which he had entered and
glanced into the inner office, but apparently this one had no exit
upon the corridor. Meanwhile the stenographer was whispering
vehemently to the old clerk, who looked at the intruder doubtfully
and seemed irresolute. Brainard leisurely pulled down the shade
over the glass window in the door.
“There!” he said. “Now we are ready.”
He took the sheet that bore Krutzmacht’s signature from his pocket
and held it out to Peters. “Want my credentials? That’s a power of
attorney Mr. Krutzmacht dictated and signed just before I left him.”
He waited for the clerk to adjust his glasses and read the hastily
penned sheet, thinking what he should do if by chance the old man
refused to recognize it. He did not feel disturbed. The ride across
the continent had rested him bodily and mentally. The good meals
and the unwonted luxury of eating and sleeping without care, which
had been his daily companion for all the years he could remember,
had given him a fresh spirit. He could think quickly and with
precision; he felt himself amply capable, full of power to meet any
emergency that might rise—for the first time in his life.
“What do you want to do?” Peters asked, handing back the power of
attorney. He seemed somewhat reassured by the sight of his
master’s signature at the bottom of the scrawl.
“Mr. Krutzmacht wanted me to get the stuff out of his safe—I
suppose it’s the one in there?”
“But—but,” the clerk protested. “If the court has granted this
injunction, I don’t suppose I ought to—”
“That’s just why you ought!” Brainard interrupted impatiently. “Don’t
you see this is Krutzmacht’s one chance of getting his property out
of their reach? Once the court puts hands on it, there won’t be
much left for the owner!”
Without further delay he strode into the inner office, saying lightly:
“Krutzmacht is keeping out of sight for the present—until trouble
blows over, you see.”
“The safe’s locked,” the clerk objected weakly, “and no one here has
the combination. Mr. Snell didn’t leave it.”
Without taking the trouble to reply, Brainard walked over to the
heavy steel door and began twirling the knob as if he had opened
office safes all his life. The clerk and the stenographer stared while
the little nickel wheel revolved in Brainard’s fingers. When finally the
bolts shot back and the door swung open, Peters gasped:
“But how will you get all that stuff out of here?”
“Just bring me that bag from the other room, will you please?”
Brainard asked the stenographer. As she turned unwillingly to fetch
the bag, there came a loud, resolute knock at the door of the outer
office.
“There!” the old clerk exclaimed.
The stenographer started for the door, but Brainard with one leap
overtook her, pushed her back into the inner room, and closed the
door. Again the knocking on the outside door came, even more
insistently, and the knob was rattled as if the visitor was determined
to gain entrance. The three in the inner office stood still listening,
not speaking. Brainard noticed an angry red flush spread over the
woman’s features. As no further knocking came after a few
moments, Brainard turned to the stenographer sternly.
“You can sit at that desk, miss. I’ll answer the door. Come on, Mr.
Peters, and show me the most important things in here—the papers
Krutzmacht’s enemies would hate to lose. You know them, don’t
you?”
“Some of them,” the clerk admitted, rather doubtfully, his eyes
running over the close-packed shelves of the vault. “They’re ’most
all valuable in here, I suppose. The general papers are kept in the
other vault downstairs. But the most important are in these
drawers.”
He pulled out several receptacles that seemed crammed with
engraved certificates and legal papers.
“Mr. Krutzmacht kept all his personal papers up here where he could
get at them day or night,” he explained. “I guess it’s all valuable to
some one!” he concluded hopelessly.
“I can’t put it all in that bag,” Brainard observed, his eye running
over the contents of the well-filled vault. “Well, let’s try the drawers
first—the cream is likely to be there.”
He began to pass out the contents of the drawers to the clerk, who
shoved them hastily into the large valise. But before Brainard had
quite finished the second tier of drawers, the bag was almost filled
with crisp, tightly packed bundles of securities and legal papers.
There remained books and other rows of documents. Brainard
looked at some of them impatiently, trying to decide what could best
be left behind. At last he exclaimed:
“It’s no use my trying to pick it over. I might leave the best of the
lot. I must have a small trunk. Can you get me one, Peters? While
you are gone I will fetch it all out here and sort it over. . . . No,
don’t go out that way!” he exclaimed, as the clerk started for the
outer door. “Where does that go?” He pointed to a small door
behind the corner of the safe.
“It’s the fire escape,” Peters explained timidly.
“Just the thing!”
He opened the door and peered out into the dark, inclosed well
down which ran one of the modern circular fire escapes.
Brainard handed Peters a bill, and shoved him toward the door.
After the clerk had gone, Brainard turned to his task, and emptied
the safe in a few minutes. Then he began to sort the books and
papers and securities into piles for convenient packing, stuffing the
bonds and stocks, which he judged to be the most valuable part of
the loot, into his valise.
There had been no movement by the stenographer for some time,
and Brainard had almost forgotten her presence. Suddenly, while he
was in the safe, he heard a slight sound outside, like the movement
of a woman’s dress. He jumped to his feet. The stenographer, with
one hand on the desk telephone, was about to take off the receiver.
“Put that down!” Brainard ordered, and added more gently, “What
are you telephoning for?”
“Just going to call up a friend,” the woman replied pertly, and started
to take the receiver off the hook again.
Brainard cleared the intervening space in a bound, and snatched the
instrument from the woman’s hand.
“You’ll have to wait a while to talk to your friend!”
“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked angrily.
“You can see—packing up some papers. You might give me a hand.”
“Say,” she replied without moving, “I don’t believe that yarn you told
old Peters.”
“Oh, you don’t?”
“Not for one minute!”
“Well, what will you do about it?”
The girl tapped sullenly with her foot, without replying.
“Want to let that friend of yours know about me?” Brainard
continued meaningly. As the stenographer tossed her head and
moved again toward the telephone, he added, “Come over here
where I can watch you! Quick now, pack those bundles into the
bag.” As she still hesitated, defying him, he said sharply, “Get down
on your knees and go to work!”
She whimpered, but fell to her knees. They worked silently for
several minutes. The vault was stripped bare. The smaller papers
were packed into the bag, and the bulkier stuff was stacked on the
floor, ready to be thrust into another receptacle.
Brainard glanced at his watch. Peters had been gone more than a
quarter of an hour. Had he been detained, or had he become
suspicious and decided to get advice before going any farther?
Brainard considered departing with what he had already packed in
his bag, which he judged was the more important part of the safe’s
contents.
“I guess it’s about time for me to be going home now,” the
stenographer remarked, plucking up her courage. “I’ll leave you and
Mr. Peters to lock up.”
“You want to see that friend badly, don’t you?” Brainard asked. “Not
quite yet; the day’s work is not over yet. Be patient!”
He did not dare to trust her beyond his sight, nor did he think it wise
to leave her behind him. The girl walked idly to the window, then
edged along the wall. Beside the safe there was a recess, from
which the rear door opened. When the stenographer reached this,
she, darted for the door.
“Good-by!” she called. “I guess the police will take care of you!”
The little door fortunately stuck. Before she could open it, Brainard
had dragged her back into the room.
“You’re just a common second-story man!” she cried angrily.
“Exactly! How clever of you to penetrate my disguise! I’m a car-
barn bandit—Texas Joe—anything you please! But before you skip, I
want you to look through those drawers in the vault, to see if I have
missed anything.”
He shoved the surprised woman into the empty vault, and swung
the door. As the bolts shot back into place, a muffled cry escaped
from within. Brainard called back:
“Save your breath! There’s enough air in there to keep you alive for
some hours; and I’ll see that you get out in plenty of time to join
that friend for dinner. Just keep quiet and save your breath!”
A sob answered him from the vault.

VIII
At that moment a low, confidential knock came on the door of the
outer office, followed by a discreet rattling of the knob.
“There he is at last!” thought Brainard, with a sense of relief.
He hurried to unbolt the door; but instead of Peters’s mild face, a
chubby, spectacled young fellow, wearing his derby hat pushed far
back on a round, bald head, confronted him.
“Who are you?” Brainard demanded, trying to close the door.
The man grinned back:
“And who are you?”
He had shoved his right leg into the opening, and with his question
he gave a powerful push that almost knocked Brainard from his feet.
“Well?” he said, once within the office, grinning more broadly. “I’m
Farson—Edward, Jr.—from the Despatch. We just had a wire from
New York that Krutzmacht’s been found, dead!”
“Dead!” Brainard exclaimed.
“Had a stroke or something, and died this morning in a hospital.
One of our old men down East got on to it, and tipped us the wire.”
The intruder settled himself comfortably on the top of the
stenographer’s little desk, and drew out a cigarette. Dangling his fat
legs, he eyed Brainard with an amused stare.
The latter stood for the moment dumfounded. Although he had at
first looked for this outcome, as the days had gone by he had come
to believe that the old man was recovering. Now he realized swiftly
that with Krutzmacht dead his power of attorney was no better than
a piece of blank paper. His position was doubly tenuous.
“Say!” The reporter interrupted his meditation in a burst of cynical
confidence. “The old man was a good pirate—fought to the last
ditch, and then got out.”
“What makes you think he got out?” Brainard inquired.
The reporter shrugged his shoulders.
“They had him, and he must have known it. That railroad crowd
would have taken the hide off him, and put what was left in the
penitentiary.”
“Perhaps they made away with him,” Brainard suggested meaningly.
“You think so? My, that would be a fat scoop! What makes you
think so?”
Brainard raised his eyebrows mysteriously, and the reporter nimbly
filled in a reasonable outline of the story.
“You mean he got the money down East that he needed to stop this
receivership, and they knew it, and put him out of the way, so that
he shouldn’t interrupt the game?”
“Possibly,” Brainard admitted.
The reporter jumped from his seat briskly. “Well, I must get busy—
they’re holding the paper for me. Who’s in charge here?”
“I am,” Brainard replied promptly.
“And what’s your name?”
He pulled a dirty note book from his hip-pocket.
“Wilkins,” Brainard answered quickly, “of Wilkins & Starbird, Mr.
Krutzmacht’s New York attorneys.”
The reporter looked at Brainard and whistled, but he wrote down the
name.
“You folks didn’t lose any time in getting busy! I s’pose there’ll be
litigation and all that. Do you expect to save much from the wreck?”
“That’s what I am here for—to keep those pirates from making off
with the stuff!” His eye fell upon his valise, and a sudden resolution
came to him. “See here, Farson,” he said confidentially, laying a
hand on the reporter’s pudgy thigh, “do you see that bag? The
Pacific Northern that they’re after and the Shasta Company are right
inside that bag, together with a lot of other valuable property. I’m
going to take it where those pirates can’t lay a finger on it, in spite
of all the courts in California!”
The reporter’s eyes grew round.
“You’ve got your nerve!” he said admiringly.
“You see, time’s money—big money. So I can’t stay here all night
gassing with you. There is a train on the Santa Fé at ten, isn’t
there?”
“Ten ten,” the reporter corrected.
“I must make that train, or—”
“Lose the trick?” the reporter suggested affably.
“I’m going to make it!”
“You’ll need some help in the get-away, I suppose?”
“Just so! If I make that train all right with this stuff, there’ll be a
couple of hundred dollars for you, my boy; and what’s more, you can
have the story all to yourself. It will be better than the old man’s
death.”
A pleasant smile circled around the reporter’s chubby face.
“All right, Mr. Wilkins! What do you want now?”
“I’ve sent out for another bag,” Brainard explained. “I’ll just pass
the rest of these papers out to you, and you can stack them ready to
pack when the bag comes.”
Brainard opened the inner door and listened. There were faint
sounds like sobbing within the safe.
“If she can cry, she’ll last,” he said to himself. “Now for it! Where in
thunder can that fellow Peters be? I hope he hasn’t heard that the
old man is dead!”
He began to shove the books and papers through the door, which he
kept nearly closed, for fear that the reporter might detect the sounds
that came from the safe, and ask questions. It was dark now, but
he did not dare to turn on the electric lights, for the windows faced
the street, and he feared men might already be watching the office.
He had transferred all the packages not packed, and was struggling
at his heavy valise, when he heard a voice behind him, and started.
“I guess you thought I was never coming back,” Peters stammered
breathlessly. He was dragging a small trunk through the little back
door behind the safe. “It nearly broke my back getting this thing up
those five flights of stairs.”
“Bring it this way, Peters!” Brainard shouted nervously, pushing the
old man through the door into the outer office.
He banged the door shut just as a muffled scream issued from the
safe.
“What’s that?” Peters asked, dropping the trunk to the floor.
“Somebody in the hall, I suppose,” Brainard replied coolly.
Fortunately the old man’s attention was distracted from the scream
by the sight of the reporter. Farson had lighted another cigarette,
and was swinging his legs and smiling amiably.
“Didn’t expect to see me, did you?”
“Who—”
“That’s all right. Your friend here seems to be in a hurry. He asked
me to stay and help in the spring moving.”
“Come, get to work!” Brainard called out, on his knees before the
trunk. “Cigars and explanations afterward!”
They slung the books and the packages of papers, which the
reporter had neatly arranged, into the little trunk. Then they closed
and locked it. Brainard unbolted the outer door.
“I wouldn’t make my exit by the front door,” the reporter advised. “I
reckon you’d be spotted before you got to the street. There’s a back
way, ain’t there?”
Brainard, thinking of the woman in the safe, hesitated.
“That’s how I brought up the trunk,” Peters said. “There’s nobody
out there.”
Brainard opened the door to the inner office, and listened. It was
quite still. Probably the woman had fainted.
“Come on!” he called, grasping one end of the trunk.
The reporter caught hold of the other, and Peters followed, tugging
at the heavy bag. As they crossed the inner office, there was not a
sound.
Brainard hesitated at the door, thinking that he must release the girl
before he left; but as he stood before the safe, there was a squeal
from within which indicated sufficient liveliness on the part of the
stenographer. There would be time enough to attend to her after he
had got his loot to the street. If she were released now, her temper
might prove to be troublesome; so he joined the others on the
landing, closing the little door behind him.
“The old man used to get out this way sometimes,” Peters observed.
“I reckon he never will again,” the reporter laughed.
The hall opened on a narrow, circular iron staircase, without a single
light. Down this pit Brainard and the reporter plunged, tugging at
the trunk, which threatened to stick at every turn. The old man got
on more easily with the bag, which he merely allowed to slide after
him. Brainard was soaked in perspiration; the reporter puffed and
swore, but he stuck manfully at his job.
At last they tumbled out into the dark alley at the rear of the
building. After he had caught his breath, Brainard inquired where he
could find a cab.
“If I were you, young man,” the reporter replied, “I wouldn’t try
being a swell. I’d take the first rig I could charter. There’s one over
there now.”
He pointed down the alley, and waded off into the dark. Presently
he returned with a plumber’s wagon.
“He says he’ll land your baggage at the ferry for four bits. You can
ride or walk behind, just as you like.”
They loaded the trunk and the bag into the wagon, and the reporter,
perching himself beside the driver, announced genially:
“I’ll see you aboard!”
“How much time is there left?” Brainard asked.
“Thirty-two minutes—you can do it easily in twenty-five.”
“Wait a minute, then!”
Brainard took Peters to one side, and said to him in a low voice:
“You remember that noise you heard up there in the office? It came
from the girl—the stenographer. She got fresh while you were out,
and I had to lock her up in the safe to keep her quiet. I think there
is enough air to last her some time yet; but her last squeal was
rather faint. Suppose you run up and let her out!”
Peters, with a scared look on his face, made one bound for the
stairs.
“Hold on, man!” Brainard shouted after him. “You don’t know the
combination. Here it is!”
He searched in his pockets for the slip of paper on which he had
copied the figures, but in the dark he could not find it.
“This ain’t any automobile,” the reporter suggested. “You’d better
put off your good-bys until the next time!”
“Try to remember what I say,” Brainard said to the frightened Peters,
and began repeating the combination from memory. “I’m pretty
sure that’s right. Say it over! There, again!”
The shaking man repeated the figures three or four times.
“Good! Keep saying it over to yourself as you go upstairs, and I’ll
telephone the office from the ferry and see if you’ve got her out.”
But Peters had already disappeared into the darkness within the
building. Brainard climbed into the plumber’s wagon, the man
whipped up his horse, and they jolted out of the alley. As they came
in sight of the ferry building, the reporter compared his watch with
the clock, and remarked:
“Eight minutes to the good—fast traveling for a plumber!”
“Just look out for my stuff while I telephone!” Brainard exclaimed.
All the way to the ferry he had been anxious about the girl in the
safe. He had already resolved that if he found Peters had failed to
open the safe, he would go back and run the risk of capture.
When the operator rang up the number of Krutzmacht’s private
office, there was an agonizing wait before any one answered.
Finally a woman’s voice, very faint, called:
“Who is it?”
Prudence counseled Brainard to assume that the voice was that of
the stenographer, and to hang up the receiver. But he wished to
make sure that it was the woman herself, and so he asked:
“Are you feeling all right, miss?”
“You thief!” came hissing over the wire to his ear. “You won’t get—”
And there was no more.
She had dropped the receiver, probably for action. When Brainard
stepped from the telephone booth, he looked uneasily in the
direction of Market Street, as if he expected to see the stenographer
flying through the hurrying crowd. The reporter beckoned to him.
“Your trunk has gone aboard the ferry. Here’s the check—to
Chicago. I thought you’d rather tote this bag yourself, though it’s
pretty heavy.”
“Much obliged for all your trouble,” Brainard replied warmly. “And
now for you!”
He pulled his roll of currency from his pocket, and handed five
hundred-dollar bills to the reporter.
“You earned it! I never should have got away in time without you.”
“I guess that’s so. Much obliged for the dough; but the scoop alone
is worth it. What a story! A light-fingered attorney from New York
blowing in here under the court’s nose and lifting the whole Pacific
Northern, and goodness knows what else besides, clean out of the
State! Some folks who think they know how to do things will be sick
to-morrow morning when they get the Despatch!”
He shoved the bills into his trousers pocket and pulled out another
cigarette.
“There’s the gong!” he remarked.
“Thanks!” Brainard said warmly, shaking the reporter’s fat hand. “I’ll
want to see your story. Send it to me!”
“And say, I’d make up a better yarn than that lawyer story, when you
have time.”
“So you didn’t believe me?”
“I guess I’m no cub reporter!” the Despatch man laughed
complacently, as the ferry-boat began to move out of the slip.
Then he started on a run for the nearest telephone booth.
“If that girl means business, as I think she does, I shan’t get as far
as Chicago!” Brainard muttered to himself, turning into the cabin of
the ferry-boat.

IX
When Brainard awoke the next morning the train was moving
through the Mojave desert. He lay for some time in his berth trying
to collect himself and realize all that had brought him thither. It was
intensely hot in the narrow compartment that he had taken, and
when he raised the window curtains the sunlight reflected from the
desert was blinding. As he drew down the curtain, his eyes fell upon
the large bag beside him, and with a start the adventure of the
previous day came over him. He laughed aloud as he recalled the
different scenes in Krutzmacht’s office,—the stenographer’s
suspicious reception, the endless bumping down the circular iron
stairs with the bag and the valise, old Peters’s horrified face when he
learned that the woman had been shut in the safe. Indeed, the
entire week since he ran across the dying stranger at the door of his
lodging seemed like a dream, peopled with faces and scenes that
were extraordinarily vivid and of a kind he had never known in his
narrow, sordid life. With a luxurious sense of new possession he
went over all the little details of his journey across the continent.
The week, he recognized, had been a liberal education to his
mentally starved self. But what was he going to do now?
Hitherto he had been carried along easily on a wave of events that
demanded instant action, and he had not worried about the future.
Even when the reporter had given him the news of Krutzmacht’s
death in the hospital he was already too deep in the affair to stop,
although he realized that the crude power of attorney, which had
been his sole legal protection in looting the safe, had lost all its force
the instant its maker ceased to breathe. After that, he was, as the
stenographer had said,—merely a burglar. Yet he had not hesitated
to obey the dead man’s will rather than the law. But now?
Thus far he had been executing Krutzmacht’s direct orders, with an
unconscious sense of a living personality guiding him, taking the real
responsibility for his deeds. The stranger who had been stricken
near his door had seized upon him as the nearest available tool, had
imposed on him his will, and had sent him hurrying across the
continent on an errand the full nature of which was even yet a
mystery to Brainard. And he had obeyed the dying stranger with a
curious faith in his reasonableness,—had responded to him pliantly
as to the command of a natural master. But now that this master
was dead, the situation was altogether different. Should he still
attempt to execute his scarcely intelligible wishes?
He had learned enough about Krutzmacht these last few days to
understand that the old man had been engaged in a life-and-death
struggle for the control of large properties,—one of those peculiarly
modern duels fought with bankers’ credits and court decrees.
Apparently his enemies, more powerful than he—at least with larger
resources at their command—had been closing in on him for the
final grapple, which threatened utterly to ruin him. He had gone to
New York to raise the funds with which to evade impending
bankruptcy and loss of control of the properties which he had
created. Brainard now fully believed that Krutzmacht had succeeded
in this, and that he had been stricken at last by the hand of a hired
thug and thrown on the street to die. But even in the torture of his
final convulsions the old man had exerted his powerful will to defeat
these cowardly foes, and had lingered on in life just long enough to
enable his agent to snatch the prey from their jaws.
What now was he to do with this bag of documents and securities
that lay there, its fat sides bulging in proof of his deed? The obvious
thing would be to seek the nearest federal authority, deposit his
plunder, and allow an impartial court to settle the dispute between
the dead man and his enemies. A week before, such a timid and
safe course of conduct would have seemed to Brainard the only
possible action to take. Now he found it not in the least to his taste,
and dismissed it without further consideration. He had become an
altogether different person, even in this week, from that beaten man
who had stumbled homeward from a petty defeat through the New
York streets in the gloom of an April day. For this one brief week in
all the years he could remember he had been alive—fully alive—and
with his hand now in the thick of this vital web he was not willing to
withdraw. The one who had used him as a tool was dead, but his
strong will lived on in him, not yet fulfilled, and to that strong will
whose only hope of fulfillment lay in him—the chance stranger—a
new sense of loyalty responded. He would not desert the old man in
the present crisis, no matter what the merely legal aspects of his
situation were. Already the stranger’s will like fertile seed was
germinating within this fresh soil.
“Take everything,” Krutzmacht said. “Take it all to Berlin.” That he
would do if he could.
But then what?
There was a strange name—Mell or Melody—that the dying man had
been at such pains to enunciate. What had Melody to do with the
matter? Was it the name of a person? Or an institution? He
exercised all his ingenuity in trying to invent a reasonable
explanation of this one word. Possibly Krutzmacht had tried to
pronounce Mendel or Mendelssohn. Brainard thought there was a
firm of German bankers with some such name. Light on the puzzle