Lost Farm Camp Part 43

"I was jest a-goin' to say suthin' about it m'self, to Dave. Guess I'll go over and see him now. Comin' over?"

"No," replied Bas...o...b.. leaning back against the side of the cabin. "This is feathers for me after that tramp to-day. I'll loaf here awhile."

"Thet's right. You kin keep Swickey comp'ny." Avery arose and stretched himself. "I'm gettin' a mite stiff settin' here."

As the old man strode toward the light of David's doorway, Bas...o...b..called to Swickey.

"Did you hear that?"

"About Pop getting stiff in the night air?"

"Of course. I don't need night air to make me stiff, though. I bear the loving marks of the trail all over me. Won't you come out and ease my departing spirit with a little friendly conversation?"

"If you'll promise not to be silly like you were to-day." She stepped softly to the door and peered at Bas...o...b..

"I'll promise."

She came out and sat on the edge of the porch, her back against one of the posts.

"That's it," said Bas...o...b.. "'Just as you are,' as the picture-man says.

Your profile against the summer night sky is-There, you've spoiled it!

Please turn your head again. Diana and the moon-"

Swickey faced him. "Diana the huntress?"

"Yes, a mythical creature as illusive-as you are. She's very lovely, too."

"Does she wash dishes and mop floors and-"

"Tantalize mortals?" he interrupted. "Yes, she does, just the same as she used to forty-seven hundred years ago."

"I'm not going to ask any more questions," said Swickey, "but you can talk if you want to. I'll listen."

"Thanks awfully. If you'll sit, just as you are, I'll answer all those questions you're not going to ask-every one of them."

Swickey resumed her position and sat gazing into the gloom. She could hear the murmur of voices from the doorway opposite. Presently she heard David say: "That's right, Avery."

"You bet it is, if Davy says so," murmured Bas...o...b..

Swickey turned toward him again. "Did Dave really write poetry once, Mr.

Bas...o...b.."

"Really, truly, cross my-pocketbook," he replied, "only it's in my other clothes."

"He doesn't look like a poet, does he? I mean their pictures."

"No. Davy looks more like a man. Now I'd make a good understudy to Shakespeare; don't you think so?"

"I don't know," she replied, drawing up her knees and clasping her hands about them. "You're almost too fat. Besides, I haven't read Shakespeare, and only one letter that _you_ wrote, and that wasn't poetry."

"You'll forgive me for that, won't you?" said Bas...o...b..

"Perhaps. I looked up 'Cyclops,' but I didn't tell father what it meant."

"Well, you're the frankest creature! Great Scott! I feel like a worm."

"I didn't want to make you feel like that," said Swickey. "I just said what was so."

"And therein lies your bright particular charm, mademoiselle," replied Bas...o...b.. knocking the ashes from his pipe. "Don't you want to walk down to the river and hear it gargle?"

"No-not the river-"

"I forgot, Swickey."

She arose and went in, without her usual cheery "good-night."

Bas...o...b..filled his pipe, blinking in the flare of the match. He puffed meditatively for a while.

"Wallie," he said to himself, "you're a chump. Come out of it. She's not your kind, my boy." And then, as he realized the sn.o.bbishness of his thought, he added, "No, she's a blamed sight better."

The moon, drifting toward the western tree-tops, flickered on the moss-edged s.h.i.+ngles of the camp; glimmered on the sagging eaves and crept down till the shadowy lattice of the window-frame lay aslant the floor of Swickey's bedroom, where she stood, slowly undressing. The coat David had given her hung in the glow of the moonlight. She took it down and pressed the soft fabric to her face and throat. "David!" she whispered. "David!" She rocked to and fro, then suddenly flung the coat from her. "It burns!" she exclaimed.

She sat on the edge of the bed, gazing wistfully out of the window.

Presently she seemed to see the river; the tangle of logs, the das.h.i.+ng spray, and then a figure standing erect for a moment to wave to her, and disappear forever....

She knelt by the bed, pressing her face in the cool white coverlet, the heavy ma.s.ses of her dark hair falling across her arms and shoulders. She lifted her hands imploringly toward the soft radiance that poured through the window.

"I never prayed," she whispered. "I'm wicked-I'm wicked, but, O G.o.d, I want Dave."

CHAPTER XXVIII-COMPLICATIONS

Foot by foot the N. M. & Q. crowded through the summer forest, heralded by the roar of derrick engines, the clink and thud of spike-driving, the rattling crash of rock ballast dumped from the flat-cars, the rasp of shovels as the ballast was distributed, and the shouts of foremen as the sweating crews lugged the long ninety-pound rails from rain-rusted piles to the unballasted ties ahead. The abutments of the bridge across the Branch stood naked-gray in the sun. Finally the heavy steel girders and trusses were hoisted and swung into place, and the din of riveting echoed above the sombre cadence of the river. Day after day Avery, Bas...o...b.. and David, with their small crew of axemen, felled and cleared away the trees and underbrush between the Timberland survey line for the road and the creek-bed above it. Finally, Cameron came with his team and handled the heavier timbers, which were corded and piled for winter fuel.

In the meantime the three cabins became a sort of headquarters for the N. M. & Q. division engineer and foremen, who invented daily excuses for stopping at the camp to talk with Swickey. She held a rustic court, in which each overalled gallant vied with his neighbor in keeping the wood-box and water-pails filled. Smoke paid indifferent attention to their coming and going, but Avery's halloo as he returned at night, always brought the dog bounding down the slope to the river, where he stood excitedly waiting for his triumvirate to cross the dam. Smoke's boundary was the riverside, and in vain had Avery, Wallie, and David endeavored to coax him farther from Swickey.

The summer sun held a tyrannous hand on the dead, still heat of the woods, only lifted at night or when the clouds, loafing round the encircling hills, drew together grumbling, and, bursting, shot ragged flashes through the heavy air aslant the downright volley of the welcome rain. August saw the dull parallels of steel gaining length after length on the open right-of-way, which swung round the base of Timberland Mountain and ran north, vanis.h.i.+ng in the distant haze of skyline.

One evening when the sounds of the railroad camps had died away in the sultriness preceding a thunderstorm which flickered its silent warnings across the western horizon, Bas...o...b.. who had been silently listening to a somewhat heated discussion between David and Avery, proposed to Swickey that they stroll down to the edge of the woods.

"Just to cool off," he said, "and get out of the zone of danger,"

indicating David and Avery with a shrug.

Swickey, with a quiet glance at David, who was expounding a theory as to the rights of corporations in general and the N. M. & Q. especially, listlessly arose and walked down the hill with the young surveyor.