The Early Ayn Rand

The whole little town had about two streets, one grocery store and a dozen houses. In a moment we were out in the country, flying along a deserted, muddy road. We saw in the distance the train going away to San Francisco, without its most valuable passenger this time. The long line of lighted car windows rolled faster and faster under a rain of red sparks from the puffing engine. It whistled away into the night and disappeared with a moaning of trembling rails. We were alone in the dark country, going at full speed, with all lights turned off. Nothing but desolated plains, lonely bushes and an immense black sky around us.

We all were tense and silent. But Winton Stokes was perfectly calm and seemed to be curious about it all.

We came to a stop before a shabby little hot-dog stand on the road, a couple of miles from the town. I can't imagine what kind of a business it was doing in that God-forsaken spot, but it fitted our purpose perfectly. It was locked for the night. We forced the lock easily and took our prisoner in.

The old shack was full of dirty pans, onion-peels, bread crumbs, rusty cans and an odor of cheap grease. We lighted a kerosene lamp and awakened a cloud of flies and night-bugs that came buzzing around and beating against the dusty, smoked lamp-chimney.

"Mr. Stokes," I said gracefully, "you are a sensible man and so are we. You realize that you are entirely in our power, and you can save yourself a lot of trouble by giving to us peacefully and of a free will the Night King, which is as good as ours already."

"It never pays," answered Winton Stokes, "to jump to conclusions."

"Yeh?" I said, less gracefully. "If you don't obey, that stone'll be in my hand here within the next ten minutes!"

"That," answered Winton Stokes, "remains to be seen."

"All right!" I sneered. "Look!"

At a sign from me, the boys seized him and started the search, while I busted his suitcase open and looked it over myself. Winton Stokes seemed amused and he had the nasty light smile that I hated playing on his lips.

We searched carefully and thoroughly. During the first five minutes of it I was casting mocking glances at Winton Stokes and whistling a musical comedy tune. At the end of ten minutes I stopped the whistling. At the end of half an hour I began to think that my blood was getting unusually cold.

We looked over every inch of his clothes; we tore off the lining of his coat; we examined every grain of dust in his suitcase — to no avail.

"Hang it!" burst out Pete. "The stone ain't big, but it couldn't have gone into thin air, could it?"

"We'll find it, if we have to spend all night here!" I said.

"Take your time, boys, I'm not in a hurry," remarked Winton Stokes.

"Listen," I groaned to him in a hoarse whisper. "Get this into your head: I'll have that stone!"

"Well, what's stopping you?" he inquired.

At the end of three hours we sat down on the floor and looked helplessly at each other: we didn't know what more we could search. We had torn every seam in his clothes; we had broken his suitcase to pieces; we had busted the heels of his shoes; squeezed his hat into a pan-cake; crushed flat all his cigarettes; chopped to pieces his soap and towel; ragged his underwear into a mass of fringe; smashed every object he had in his suitcase. We had a pile of wreckage before us and no sign of anything like a diamond.

Pete was perspiring. "Snout" was shaking. I was breathing heavily. Winton Stokes looked indifferent and slightly bored. Believe it or not, he even yawned once.

"Damn you!" I roared, at last. "You'll tell me where it is or we'll make you tell, if we have to tear your whole damn body to bits, too!"

"I'll tell you."

"Yeah?!"

"I'll tell you that you're a fool: nothing on earth can tear a sound from me when I want to be silent — and you know it!"

I answered by a series of expressions that I can't write down.

"I have been thinking," he said suddenly, "that I know your voice."

And before I had time to jump back, he seized the handkerchief covering my face and pulled it off.

All his self-control was not enough to stop a gasp. He stepped back and looked at my face.

"Surprised, eh?" I sneered. He didn't answer.

"Listen, you," I yelled. "I'd give my life, hear me? — my life to get that stone! And I wouldn't mind taking yours, if it would help me to find it!"

At that — he laughed uproariously, a long, loud, insolent laugh...

When morning came and a cold grey light crawled into the shack through the dusty window, we were still there, hopeless, broken, beaten. We didn't even talk any more-There was nothing to be done. We couldn't stay here much longer: the owner would come soon to open his stand. And besides, what should we stay for?

Silently, without looking at each other, we went to our car and rode away. Of course, we didn't take Winton Stokes with us. I remember I turned around and saw him standing at the door of the shack, following us with his eyes, his beautiful brown body trembling slightly in the morning cold under the torn rags of his clothes...