"There was no need to put it under a mail sack!" he
shouted, shaking his fist. "I'll be even with you for this."
Followed by the shouts of the travelling men and the laughter of the
idlers upon the platform he climbed upon the moving train and began
running from car to car. Off the last car dropped Sam McPherson, a smile
upon his lips, the bundle of newspapers gone, his pocket jingling with
coins. The evening's entertainment for the town of Caxton was at an end.
John Telfer, standing by the side of Valmore, waved his cane in the air
and began talking.
"Beat him again, by Gad!" he exclaimed. "Bully for Sam! Who says the
spirit of the old buccaneers is dead? That boy didn't understand what I
said about art, but he is an artist just the same!"
CHAPTER II
Windy McPherson, the father of the Caxton newsboy, Sam McPherson, had been
war touched. The civilian clothes that he wore caused an itching of the
skin. He could not forget that he had once been a sergeant in a regiment
of infantry and had commanded a company through a battle fought in ditches
along a Virginia country road. He chafed under the fact of his present
obscure position in life. Had he been able to replace his regimentals with
the robes of a judge, the felt hat of a statesman, or even with the night
stick of a village marshal life might have retained something of its
sweetness, but to have ended by becoming an obscure housepainter in a
village that lived by raising corn and by feeding that corn to red steers
--ugh!--the thought made him shudder.
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