"That"s my name, yes."
"And I am Ralph--don"t you remember?"
"I don"t."
"Ralph Fairbanks."
Van gave a start. He squarely faced his companion now. His blinking eyes told that the machinery of his brain was actively at work.
"Fairbanks--Fairbanks?" he repeated. "Aha! yes--letter!"
His hand shot into an inside coat pocket. He withdrew it disappointedly. Then his glance chancing to observe for the first time, it seemed, the suit he wore, apparel that belonged to Ralph, he stood in a painful maze, unable to figure out how he had come by it and what it meant.
"You are looking for a letter," guessed Ralph.
"Yes, I was--"John Fairbanks, Stanley Junction." How do you know?" with a stare.
"Because I am Ralph Fairbanks, his son. When you first showed it to me----"
"Showed it to you?"
"Yes."
"Where?
"At Stanley Junction."
"I never was there."
"I think you were."
"When?"
"About three weeks ago. And you just left there this morning. You was with me on that locomotive that just went ahead, jumped off, and--you had better sit down and let me explain things."
Van looked distressed. He was in repossession of all his faculties, there was no doubt of that, but there was a blank in his life he could never fill out of his own volition. He studied Ralph keenly for a minute or two, sighed desperately, sat down on a bowlder by the side of the road, and said:
"Something"s wrong, I can guess that. I had a letter to deliver, and it seems as if it was only a minute ago that I had it with me. Now it"s gone, I find myself here without knowing how I came here, with you who are a stranger telling me strange things, and--I give it up. It"s a riddle. What"s the answer?"
Ralph had a task before him. In his judgment it was best not to crowd things too speedily, all of a jumble.
"You came to Stanley Junction with a letter about three weeks ago," he said. "It seemed you had dead-headed it there on the trucks from some point down the line."
Van nodded as if he dimly recalled all this.
"You hid in an old factory, or went there to take a nap. A baseball struck your head accidentally. We took you to our home, you have been there since."
"That"s queer, I can"t remember. Yes--yes, I do, in a way," Van corrected himself sharply. "Was there a chicken house there--oh, such a fine chicken house!" he exclaimed expansively, "with fancy towers made out of laths, and a dandy wind vane on it?"
"You built that chicken house yourself," explained Ralph.
"Oh, go on!" said Van incredulously.
"Well, you did."
"And there was a lady there, dressed in black," muttered Van, his glance strained dreamily. "She was good to me. She used to sing sweet songs--just like a mother would. I never had a mother, to remember."
Van"s eyes began to fill with tears. Ralph was touched at the recognition of his mother"s gentleness. Emotion had lightened the shadows in Van"s mind more powerfully than suggestion or memory.
Ralph felt that he had better rouse his companion from a retrospective mood.
"You"re all right now," he said briskly.
"And I was knocked silly?" observed Van "I see how it was. I"ve been like a man in a long sleep. How did I come out of it, though?"
"Just as you went into it--with a shock. I took you for a trip on a locomotive. Just as we got near here you made a sudden jump, rolled down the embankment, your head burst through that fence board yonder, and I thought you were killed."
Van felt over his head. He winced at a sensitive touch at one spot, but said, with a light laugh:
"I"ve got a cast-iron skull, I guess! But what made me jump from the locomotive? Did I have daffy fits?"
"Oh, not at all."
"Well, then?"
"Why," said Ralph, "I think the sight of a man in a long linen duster, driving a one-horse gig down this road startled you or attracted your attention, or something of that sort."
"Ginger!" interrupted Van, jumping to his feet, "I remember now! It was--him! And I"ve got to see him. He went that way. I"m off."
"Hold on! hold on!" called the dismayed Ralph.
But Van heard not, or heeded not. He sprinted for the bend in the road, Ralph hotly at his heels.
CHAPTER XXVIII--MYSTERY
Ralph outran his compet.i.tor, then kept easy pace with him, and did not try to stop him. He recognized a certain obstinacy and impetuousness in Van that he felt he must deal with in a politic manner.
He noticed, too, that Van was not in normal physical trim. The roll down the embankment had wrenched one foot slightly, and when they came to the bend to discover no gig in sight, and a series of other bends ahead, Van halted, breathless and tired.
"Give it up!" he panted, sinking to a dead tree. "Oh, well! I can catch him up later. Twenty-miles tramp, though."
"You seem to know who the man in the linen duster is?" ventured Ralph.
"Oh, yes."