Lost Farm Camp Part 21

"All right," answered David, as the train roared past and slowed down.

"Well, good-bye, Jim."

"So-long, Dave. I'll keep an eye on Fisty."

"Smoker? Three coaches forward," said a bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned official in answer to David's question.

David swung to the car steps as the train started, and stood for a second waving to Cameron. As he turned to mount the steps he saw a familiar shape shoot down the glistening platform and disappear in the darkness, a red ticket fluttering at its throat.

CHAPTER XV-BOSTON

"Smoke! Smoke!" he called, as the white figure shot across the patch of light from the station doorway and vanished up the Tramworth road. Then he realized the futility of his recent action, and laughed. As the step on which he stood glided smoothly past the end of the platform, his attention was attracted to another figure, standing with mouth open and eyes gazing with an absurdly wistful expression toward the place where Smoke was last visible. It was the baggage-man, with a piece of broken cord in his hand.

"Cheer up, old man!" shouted David, as the train slipped past. Then he turned and entered the car. "Might have known Smoke wouldn't lead just like a little woolly lamb on wheels. Hang it, though, what will Wallie say? Well, I've got the claim check for him, anyway."

He found a seat near the end of the car, flung up the window and filled his pipe. "Couldn't sleep if I tried, so I'll just have it out with myself now. Then I'll try the sleeper."

Settling comfortably in the corner of the seat, he glanced down the aisle of the car through the smoky haze that blurred the lamps and swirled through the ventilators. The man across the aisle lay huddled in his seat, mouth open and head jogging as he slept. Near the middle of the coach four men were playing cards. The muscular impetuosity of the one who was leading his trumps with a flourish that suggested swinging a pickaxe amused David more than it offended by its uncouthness. He understood that type of man better than he had a year ago.

Through the murk came the winking eye of the conductor's lantern.

"That your dog that broke loose?" he asked.

"Yes." David handed him his ticket.

"Too bad. I saw him go. He just raised up and gave one jump. Shot out of the baggage before they could grab him."

"I'm glad they didn't try to grab him," said David.

"From what I seen of him I guess that's right. North Station?

Eight-thirty." He leaned across the aisle and shook the sleeping man's arm. "Belvidere next stop. Your station."

Ahead in the night sprang the parallel silver ribbons, the glistening rails that shot beneath the rocking t.i.tan of steam and steel and wound smoothly away to nothing as the train thundered on. David could hear the humming wheels beneath him clack quickly over the switch-points of infrequent freight sidings and then the reechoed roar as the train whirled between the forest walls, driving the long shaft of its head-light through the eerie gloom of the dripping woodlands.

He rapped the ashes from his pipe and closed the window. The scar above his temple throbbed and pained him. He pa.s.sed his hand through his hair.

His head felt hot, despite the chill that ran through his limbs. His hand trembled as he felt for his pipe again. "This won't do," he muttered. "Wonder what the d.i.c.kens is the matter with me? I never felt this way before."

Then he drew a memorandum book from his pocket and sat gazing into s.p.a.ce, frequently jotting down figures. Soon he was completely absorbed in the intricacies of approximating roughly the cost of establis.h.i.+ng a plant to mine the asbestos on Lost Farm. "Now if the N. M. & Q. crosses five miles below us, it's going to make quite a difference. I doubt that a spur from Timberland would be practicable. Perhaps it's a bluff-this new survey. Maybe the old survey was a bluff. Bas...o...b..had it in his power to do as he pleased about that. Anyway, the stuff's there and he wants it. If they were going to cross at Lost Farm, we should have received notice from their attorneys before this, that's certain. Right of eminent domain would settle that. Well, we'll stick to our guns and fight it out. It's bully!" he exclaimed aloud. "It's worth while; and if we win out, well, Swickey will have to change her first name, that's certain. She will go to school, of course." He tried to picture Swickey as a gracefully gowned young woman like-no, not like Elizabeth Bas...o...b..

She could never be like Bessie; and yet-why should she be like any one but herself. The memory of Swickey's last appeal came to him keenly; the pleading eyes, the parted lips-

He arose, opened the car door, lurched across the platform to the next car, where he dropped into a more comfortable seat, and pulling his hat-brim over his eyes, fell asleep.

Several hours later he awoke as the train rumbled over the reverberating timbers of the approach to Boston. He gazed sleepily through the misty window at the familiar environs of the city. He felt strangely uncomfortable and out of place as he stepped to the station platform and moved toward the gates with the shuffling crowd about him. The reek of oil and steam from the pulsating engine was particularly disagreeable.

Several people glanced at him curiously as he came out on the street.

He shook himself together, and boarding a car sat gazing moodily at the opposite window. How flat and squalid the buildings appeared. How insignificant and how generally alike the people. They seemed to lack individuality and forcefulness, these pallid, serious-faced regulars of the civilian army of wage-getters. His native city had never appealed to him in this way before. It was vast, of course; but its vastness was a conglomeration of little things that produced the impression of size.

The wide sweep of the hills about Lost Farm and the limitless horizon of the free woodland s.p.a.ces came to him in sharp contrast, as he turned his thoughts to the present need that had brought him back to his home.

"A bath and a good sleep will straighten me out," he thought.

As the car stopped beyond a cross-street he got off and walked toward a hotel.

"My baggage is at the North Station," he told the clerk, as he registered and handed his checks to him. "Send it to my room when it comes."

"That man's sick," said the clerk, as David disappeared in the ascending elevator. "Writes a good hand," he remarked, turning the register toward him. "David Ross, Boston. Hum-m. But you can't always judge by the clothes."

About three o'clock that afternoon, David appeared at the hotel desk with a small parcel in his hand. "I shall be here a day or two, perhaps longer. I'm going to have a few things sent. You may have them put in my room."

"Yes, sir," replied the clerk, somewhat impressed by David's manner.

"I'll send them right up."

David strolled to the door and paused, gazing listlessly up and down the street. Then he stepped out, crossed the Common, and walked down the long hill toward his aunt's house. When he arrived there the maid ushered him immediately to the cosy living-room.

"Miss Ross is out, Master David, but she expects you, and your room is ready."

"I'll step up for a minute," he replied.

When he returned, attired in a quiet-colored business suit and fresh linen, he called the maid and told her he was going out for a few hours.

"Tell Miss Ross I'll be back to dinner if possible, but not to wait for me."

"Yes, sir. Excuse me, Master David, but you don't look fit to go out.

You're that pale I hardly knew you."

"Oh, I'm all right. A little tired, that's all. Don't say anything of the kind to Aunt Elizabeth, though."

Half an hour later he entered the private offices of Walter Bas...o...b.. Sr., where he was received with a suave cordiality that left an unpleasant impression.

"Wallie is at the club," said Bas...o...b.. motioning him to a seat and offering him a cigar. Taking one himself, he leaned back in his ample chair and smoked, regarding David with speculative eyes that were bright but undeniably cold.

"Well," he said, flicking the ash from his cigar, "how are you making it up in the woods?"

"Doing nicely, thank you."

"Wallie has been telling me of your-er-occupation, your partners.h.i.+p with a certain Mr. Avery of Lost Farm."

"Yes."

"Like that kind of thing?"

"Better than I do this," he replied, with a comprehensive gesture which might have been interpreted as embracing the city, the office, or themselves in particular.

"Yes?" The suavity of the tone did not disguise a shade of contempt.

Bas...o...b..swung round to his desk and drew a paper from one of the pigeon-holes.

"I've a proposition to make you, Ross." He tossed his cigar away and turned to David again. "I have been elected president of a stock company, a concern interested in northern real estate. You understand about the Lost Farm tract and the N. M. & Q. Also my personal offer of twenty-five thousand for the land. Will you take it?"