Gallegher and Other Stories | Page 4

in half an hour, and the stranger, alighting
quickly, struck off at a rapid pace down the country road leading to the
station.
Gallegher gave him a hundred yards' start, and then followed slowly
after. The road ran between fields and past a few frame-houses set far
from the road in kitchen gardens.
Once or twice the man looked back over his shoulder, but he saw only a
dreary length of road with a small boy splashing through the slush in
the midst of it and stopping every now and again to throw snowballs at
belated sparrows.
After a ten minutes' walk the stranger turned into a side road which led
to only one place, the Eagle Inn, an old roadside hostelry known now
as the headquarters for pothunters from the Philadelphia game market
and the battle-ground of many a cock-fight.
Gallegher knew the place well. He and his young companions had often
stopped there when out chestnutting on holidays in the autumn.
The son of the man who kept it had often accompanied them on their
excursions, and though the boys of the city streets considered him a
dumb lout, they respected him somewhat owing to his inside
knowledge of dog and cock-fights.
The stranger entered the inn at a side door, and Gallegher, reaching it a
few minutes later, let him go for the time being, and set about finding
his occasional playmate, young Keppler.

Keppler's offspring was found in the wood-shed.
"'Tain't hard to guess what brings you out here," said the tavern-
keeper's son, with a grin; "it's the fight."
"What fight?" asked Gallegher, unguardedly.
"What fight? Why, the fight," returned his companion, with the slow
contempt of superior knowledge. "It's to come off here to-night. You
knew that as well as me; anyway your sportin' editor knows it. He got
the tip last night, but that won't help you any. You needn't think there's
any chance of your getting a peep at it. Why, tickets is two hundred and
fifty apiece!"
"Whew!" whistled Gallegher, "where's it to be?"
"In the barn," whispered Keppler. "I helped 'em fix the ropes this
morning, I did."
"Gosh, but you're in luck," exclaimed Gallegher, with flattering envy.
"Couldn't I jest get a peep at it?"
"Maybe," said the gratified Keppler. "There's a winder with a wooden
shutter at the back of the barn. You can get in by it, if you have some
one to boost you up to the sill."
"Sa-a-y," drawled Gallegher, as if something had but just that moment
reminded him. "Who's that gent who come down the road just a bit
ahead of me--him with the cape-coat! Has he got anything to do with
the fight?"
"Him?" repeated Keppler in tones of sincere disgust. "No-oh, he ain't
no sport. He's queer, Dad thinks. He come here one day last week about
ten in the morning, said his doctor told him to go out 'en the country for
his health. He's stuck up and citified, and wears gloves, and takes his
meals private in his room, and all that sort of ruck. They was saying in
the saloon last night that they thought he was hiding from something,
and Dad, just to try him, asks him last night if he was coming to see the

fight. He looked sort of scared, and said he didn't want to see no fight.
And then Dad says, 'I guess you mean you don't want no fighters to see
you.' Dad didn't mean no harm by it, just passed it as a joke; but Mr.
Carleton, as he calls himself, got white as a ghost an' says, 'I'll go to the
fight willing enough,' and begins to laugh and joke. And this morning
he went right into the bar- room, where all the sports were setting, and
said he was going into town to see some friends; and as he starts off he
laughs an' says, 'This don't look as if I was afraid of seeing people, does
it?' but Dad says it was just bluff that made him do it, and Dad thinks
that if he hadn't said what he did, this Mr. Carleton wouldn't have left
his room at all."
Gallegher had got all he wanted, and much more than he had hoped
for-- so much more that his walk back to the station was in the nature
of a triumphal march.
He had twenty minutes to wait for the next train, and it seemed an hour.
While waiting he sent a telegram to Hefflefinger at his hotel. It read:
"Your man is near the Torresdale station, on Pennsylvania Railroad;
take cab, and meet me at station. Wait until I come. GALLEGHER."
With the exception of one at midnight, no other train stopped at
Torresdale that evening, hence the direction