Lost Farm Camp Part 20

An hour later they were jolting down the trail in the big wagon. As they entered the woods, David turned and waved his hat. A hand flickered up and down on the distant cabin porch. He could not see the figures distinctly, Avery shading his eyes with a great hairy hand, as he gazed at the retreating wagon, and Swickey, standing beside him, eyes fixed on the edge of the forest, and the memory of David's real good-bye still warm in her heart and tingling on her lips.

CHAPTER XIV-THE FLIGHT OF SMOKE

They pa.s.sed Cameron's place without stopping, much to the disappointment of the good woman of that establishment, whose real fondness for David was hidden beneath the rough bark of bucolic a.s.sertiveness with which she chose to mask her natural kindness of heart.

"There goes Jim and that man Ross, tearin' past here like as if wagons and hosses didn't cost nothin'," she remarked. "And they're drivin' into what's like to be the biggest drenchin' of their lives, if I'm any jedge."

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the meagre array of stockings, sheets, and underwear from the clothes-line, bundling them hurriedly in her long, muscular arms, and disappeared into the house, followed by the first scattering harbingers of a heavy June downpour that presently came, spreading black spots on the soft gray of the sun-bleached door.

Racketing over the road at a brisk trot, a quarter of a mile below, went the team, David clinging to the seat and wondering how Cameron managed to maintain his swaying poise with both hands on the reins and his mind engrossed with nothing more serious than asking stuttering questions as to what his companion thought the new road-_b.u.mp! Judas!_-was up to now?

"She's a-goin' to break loose in a minute,' yelled Cameron, as a gust of wind flapped his hat-brim over his eyes. With one hand he reached beneath the seat and drew out a grain sack, which he flung round his shoulders, tucking the ends beneath his suspenders.

"C-c-cant, he-he-lp it now," replied David. "I want to make that ten-thirty train."

He cast a glance over his shoulder to where Smoke stood, legs spread to the lurch of the wagon, and a canine grin of fixed intensity gripped between his set jaws.

With the quick chill of air that blew in their faces came the roar of the rain through the leaves.

The broad, round flanks of the horses worked rhythmically, and each huge forefoot rose and fell with trip-hammer precision. A sharp drive of wind bent the tops of the young wayside firs groundward. The wagon pitched over a knoll and took the rutted grade below it at a speed that kept the horses' flanks quivering with the antic.i.p.ated shock of the clacking whiffletrees, as the traces slackened and then snapped taut again with a jerk. Then somewhere in the southern sky a long, fiery seam sprang open and winked shut again, followed by a hush in which the battering of the horses' feet on the shale was like mimic thunder.

A dull grumbling rolled out of nowhere and boomed lazily across the crouching hills, dying away in the distant valleys.

"'Fraid of lightnin'?" asked Cameron, pulling up the horses as they descended a steep pitch in the road.

"No, but I don't like it."

"I be," said Cameron.

David glanced at his dripping face, which seemed strangely white in the gathering dusk.

"Had a hoss struck onct-when I was drivin' him. That's as close as I-"

A whirl of flame spurted from the trees on the roadside. A rush of shattering noises tore the false truce of silence to a million shreds, and the top of a giant hemlock fell cras.h.i.+ng through the trees below it and lunged across the road. The team plunged backward, and David saved himself from a headlong dive between the rearing animals by the sheer force of his grip on the seat. The roar of the rain, as it pounded on the corduroy of the "swamp-stretch," drowned Cameron's voice as he called to the horses. Curious Jim's fear of lightning was not altogether a selfish one. He treated his horses like human beings in so far as he could, and they shuddered uneasily in the slack harness as they stood in front of the wrecked tree-top, but they did not run, as David feared they would.

Cameron handed the lines to David and went to their heads with a rea.s.suring familiarity of voice and touch that quieted them.

"You go ahead a piece and look if they's room to get by."

David dropped to the road and felt his way cautiously over the slippery logs. A white flash lit the dripping leaves around him, disclosing an impa.s.sable barrier of twisted limbs through which gleamed the riven top of the hemlock.

"We can't make it with the team," he shouted.

"You jest hold the hosses a spell." David came back to him. "No-go back and take the lines. I'll have a squint at things."

The teamster crept forward in the gloom and peered at the obstruction.

Presently he came back and reached beneath the wagon. David heard him loosen the chain and brake-shoe attached to the axle. Again Cameron moved toward the fallen tree, the chain clanking behind him. "Now, I'll onhitch and see if we can snake her to one side. Where in thunder's that axe?"

He found it and drove out the king-pin. The tongue of the wagon thudded to the road as the horses stepped free.

"They's jest one chanct in a hundred we kin make it," he called, as he started toward the tree.

Another flash burned through the cavernous gloom, and David saw his companion stooping among the fallen branches. Then he heard the chain jump taut with a snap, followed by myriad rustlings as the horses leaned to the creaking collars. He could hear Cameron's voice urging them easily as they stumbled on the slippery corduroy. With a groan the tree swung parallel to the trail. The horses stopped.

"She's a-comin'," called Jim. "If they'd only light up ag'in so I could resk snakin' her a leetle-"

With the flash that followed, Cameron called to the horses. Ross could hear them shouldering through the underbrush at the edge of the swamp.

"E-e-easy, thar!" Cameron backed the team and unhooked the chain.

"Reckon we kin jest about squeak by," he said, as he swung the hard-breathing horses to the wagon again. "She's lettin' up some, but that ain't sayin' much." After some delay he found the axe which he had dropped after driving out the king-pin. He drove it in place again and climbed to the seat.

"When we git by this piece of corrugated cussedness, I calc'late we'll make a noise like as if suthin's comin'," he remarked, wiping his forehead with a dripping hand. "Kin you see what's the time?"

"About nine-thirty. I looked when you were unhitching. I won't have time to change my clothes at the hotel."

"Reckon not," replied Jim, as he swung the horses round the crowding branches that whipped their flanks and snapped along the side of the wagon. In a few minutes they were on the natural roadbed again, swis.h.i.+ng through pools of muddy water, and clanking over the stony stretches at a brisk trot.

A tiny red glow appeared on the edge of the night. It crept higher and higher as they jingled toward it. Presently it was a lamp, framed in the cottage window of the first habitation on the outskirts of Tramworth.

Then more lights sprang out of the darkness, gleaming faintly through rain-blurred panes.

A dog ran out of a dooryard as they pa.s.sed, barking raucously. Smoke growled his disapproval. It was bad enough to get wet to the hide without being insulted by an ill-bred animal whose valor was proportionate, in adverse ratio, to the proximity of the front gate.

Smoke knew that kind.

They turned a corner and trotted smoothly down the main street of the town. On the right, at the foot of the street, shone the low red and green switch-lights of the railroad. The station baggage-room was open, and the lamplight spread out across the glistening, wet cinders of the approach to the platform. Cameron whirled the team alongside and David jumped out, Smoke at his heels.

"Boston-single."

The station agent stamped the ticket and shoved the change under the wire screen.

"Two bundles on this," he said, handing his ticket to the baggage-man, and lifting his belongings to the platform. "I suppose the dog can come in the smoker with me?"

"'Gainst the rules. Have to buy a ticket for him. He goes in the baggage."

The air quavered with the rumble of the on-coming train. A long shaft of light shot round a distant curve.

"Here, Smoke!" David attached the red ticket to the dog's collar.

"You're live baggage this trip."

"You'll have to have a chain or they won't take him," said the baggage-man.

"Got a piece of rope, Jim?"

"Nope. They's some on your duffle."

"Here you are." The baggage-man appeared with a cord which he hastily knotted in the dog's collar. "I'll put him aboard with your stuff."