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diff --git a/26732-8.txt b/26732-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb007c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/26732-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10735 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Free Air, by Sinclair Lewis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Free Air + +Author: Sinclair Lewis + +Release Date: September 30, 2008 [EBook #26732] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FREE AIR *** + + + + +Produced by K Nordquist, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + FREE AIR + + + BY + SINCLAIR LEWIS + + AUTHOR OF + THE JOB, ETC. + + + [Device] + + + GROSSET & DUNLAP + PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY + HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I MISS BOLTWOOD OF BROOKLYN IS LOST IN THE MUD 3 + II CLAIRE ESCAPES FROM RESPECTABILITY 10 + III A YOUNG MAN IN A RAINCOAT 21 + IV A ROOM WITHOUT 36 + V RELEASE BRAKES--SHIFT TO THIRD 49 + VI THE LAND OF BILLOWING CLOUDS 66 + VII THE GREAT AMERICAN FRYING PAN 74 + VIII THE DISCOVERY OF CANNED SHRIMPS AND HESPERIDES 85 + IX THE MAN WITH AGATE EYES 101 + X THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE HILLSIDE ROAD 112 + XI SAGEBRUSH TOURISTS OF THE GREAT HIGHWAY 119 + XII THE WONDERS OF NATURE WITH ALL MODERN IMPROVEMENTS 129 + XIII ADVENTURERS BY FIRELIGHT 138 + XIV THE BEAST OF THE CORRAL 149 + XV THE BLACK DAY OF THE VOYAGE 154 + XVI THE SPECTACLES OF AUTHORITY 165 + XVII THE VAGABOND IN GREEN 176 + XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE 188 + XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES 194 + XX THE FREE WOMAN 205 + XXI THE MINE OF LOST SOULS 219 + XXII ACROSS THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 228 + XXIII THE GRAEL IN A BACK YARD IN YAKIMA 237 + XXIV HER OWN PEOPLE 242 + XXV THE ABYSSINIAN PRINCE 254 + XXVI A CLASS IN ENGINEERING AND OMELETS 270 + XXVII THE VICIOUSNESS OF NICE THINGS 279 + XXVIII THE MORNING COAT OF MR. HUDSON B. RIGGS 290 + XXIX THE ENEMY LOVE 300 + XXX THE VIRTUOUS PLOTTERS 307 + XXXI THE KITCHEN INTIMATE 310 + XXXII THE CORNFIELD ARISTOCRAT 331 + XXXIII TOOTH-MUG TEA 345 + XXXIV THE BEGINNING OF A STORY 361 + + + + +FREE AIR + + + + +FREE AIR + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MISS BOLTWOOD OF BROOKLYN IS LOST IN THE MUD + + +When the windshield was closed it became so filmed with rain that Claire +fancied she was piloting a drowned car in dim spaces under the sea. When +it was open, drops jabbed into her eyes and chilled her cheeks. She was +excited and thoroughly miserable. She realized that these Minnesota +country roads had no respect for her polite experience on Long Island +parkways. She felt like a woman, not like a driver. + +But the Gomez-Dep roadster had seventy horsepower, and sang songs. Since +she had left Minneapolis nothing had passed her. Back yonder a truck had +tried to crowd her, and she had dropped into a ditch, climbed a bank, +returned to the road, and after that the truck was not. Now she was +regarding a view more splendid than mountains above a garden by the +sea--a stretch of good road. To her passenger, her father, Claire +chanted: + +"Heavenly! There's some gravel. We can make time. We'll hustle on to the +next town and get dry." + +"Yes. But don't mind me. You're doing very well," her father sighed. + +Instantly, the dismay of it rushing at her, she saw the end of the patch +of gravel. The road ahead was a wet black smear, criss-crossed with +ruts. The car shot into a morass of prairie gumbo--which is mud mixed +with tar, fly-paper, fish glue, and well-chewed, chocolate-covered +caramels. When cattle get into gumbo, the farmers send for the +stump-dynamite and try blasting. + +It was her first really bad stretch of road. She was frightened. Then +she was too appallingly busy to be frightened, or to be Miss Claire +Boltwood, or to comfort her uneasy father. She had to drive. Her frail +graceful arms put into it a vicious vigor that was genius. + +When the wheels struck the slime, they slid, they wallowed. The car +skidded. It was terrifyingly out of control. It began majestically to +turn toward the ditch. She fought the steering wheel as though she were +shadow-boxing, but the car kept contemptuously staggering till it was +sideways, straight across the road. Somehow, it was back again, eating +into a rut, going ahead. She didn't know how she had done it, but she +had got it back. She longed to take time to retrace her own cleverness +in steering. She didn't. She kept going. + +The car backfired, slowed. She yanked the gear from third into first. +She sped up. The motor ran like a terrified pounding heart, while the +car crept on by inches through filthy mud that stretched ahead of her +without relief. + +She was battling to hold the car in the principal rut. She snatched the +windshield open, and concentrated on that left rut. She felt that she +was keeping the wheel from climbing those high sides of the rut, those +six-inch walls of mud, sparkling with tiny grits. Her mind snarled at +her arms, "Let the ruts do the steering. You're just fighting against +them." It worked. Once she let the wheels alone they comfortably +followed the furrows, and for three seconds she had that delightful +belief of every motorist after every mishap, "Now that this particular +disagreeableness is over, I'll never, never have any trouble again!" + +But suppose the engine overheated, ran out of water? Anxiety twanged at +her nerves. And the deep distinctive ruts were changing to a complex +pattern, like the rails in a city switchyard. She picked out the track +of the one motor car that had been through here recently. It was marked +with the swastika tread of the rear tires. That track was her friend; +she knew and loved the driver of a car she had never seen in her life. + +She was very tired. She wondered if she might not stop for a moment. +Then she came to an upslope. The car faltered; felt indecisive beneath +her. She jabbed down the accelerator. Her hands pushed at the steering +wheel as though she were pushing the car. The engine picked up, sulkily +kept going. To the eye, there was merely a rise in the rolling ground, +but to her anxiety it was a mountain up which she--not the engine, but +herself--pulled this bulky mass, till she had reached the top, and was +safe again--for a second. Still there was no visible end of the mud. + +In alarm she thought, "How long does it last? I can't keep this up. +I--Oh!" + +The guiding tread of the previous car was suddenly lost in a mass of +heaving, bubble-scattered mud, like a batter of black dough. She fairly +picked up the car, and flung it into that welter, through it, and back +into the reappearing swastika-marked trail. + +Her father spoke: "You're biting your lips. They'll bleed, if you don't +look out. Better stop and rest." + +"Can't! No bottom to this mud. Once stop and lose momentum--stuck for +keeps!" + +She had ten more minutes of it before she reached a combination of +bridge and culvert, with a plank platform above a big tile drain. With +this solid plank bottom, she could stop. Silence came roaring down as +she turned the switch. The bubbling water in the radiator steamed about +the cap. Claire was conscious of tautness of the cords of her neck in +front; of a pain at the base of her brain. Her father glanced at her +curiously. "I must be a wreck. I'm sure my hair is frightful," she +thought, but forgot it as she looked at him. His face was unusually +pale. In the tumult of activity he had been betrayed into letting the +old despondent look blur his eyes and sag his mouth. "Must get on," she +determined. + +Claire was dainty of habit. She detested untwisted hair, ripped gloves, +muddy shoes. Hesitant as a cat by a puddle, she stepped down on the +bridge. Even on these planks, the mud was three inches thick. It +squidged about her low, spatted shoes. "Eeh!" she squeaked. + +She tiptoed to the tool-box and took out a folding canvas bucket. She +edged down to the trickling stream below. She was miserably conscious of +a pastoral scene all gone to mildew--cows beneath willows by the creek, +milkweeds dripping, dried mullein weed stalks no longer dry. The bank of +the stream was so slippery that she shot down two feet, and nearly went +sprawling. Her knee did touch the bank, and the skirt of her gray +sports-suit showed a smear of yellow earth. + +In less than two miles the racing motor had used up so much water that +she had to make four trips to the creek before she had filled the +radiator. When she had climbed back on the running-board she glared down +at spats and shoes turned into gray lumps. She was not tearful. She was +angry. + +"Idiot! Ought to have put on my rubbers. Well--too late now," she +observed, as she started the engine. + +She again followed the swastika tread. To avoid a hole in the road +ahead, the unknown driver had swung over to the side of the road, and +taken to the intensely black earth of the edge of an unfenced cornfield. +Flashing at Claire came the sight of a deep, water-filled hole, +scattered straw and brush, débris of a battlefield, which made her +gaspingly realize that her swastikaed leader had been stuck and-- + +And instantly her own car was stuck. + +She had had to put the car at that hole. It dropped, far down, and it +stayed down. The engine stalled. She started it, but the back wheels +spun merrily round and round, without traction. She did not make one +inch. When she again killed the blatting motor, she let it stay dead. +She peered at her father. + +He was not a father, just now, but a passenger trying not to irritate +the driver. He smiled in a waxy way, and said, "Hard luck! Well, you did +the best you could. The other hole, there in the road, would have been +just as bad. You're a fine driver, dolly." + +Her smile was warm and real. "No. I'm a fool. You told me to put on +chains. I didn't. I deserve it." + +"Well, anyway, most men would be cussing. You acquire merit by not +beating me. I believe that's done, in moments like this. If you'd like, +I'll get out and crawl around in the mud, and play turtle for you." + +"No. I'm quite all right. I did feel frightfully strong-minded as long +as there was any use of it. It kept me going. But now I might just as +well be cheerful, because we're stuck, and we're probably going to stay +stuck for the rest of this care-free summer day." + +The weariness of the long strain caught her, all at once. She slipped +forward, sat huddled, her knees crossed under the edge of the steering +wheel, her hands falling beside her, one of them making a faint brushing +sound as it slid down the upholstery. Her eyes closed; as her head +drooped farther, she fancied she could hear the vertebrae click in her +tense neck. + +Her father was silent, a misty figure in a lap-robe. The rain streaked +the mica lights in the side-curtains. A distant train whistled +desolately across the sodden fields. The inside of the car smelled +musty. The quiet was like a blanket over the ears. Claire was in a hazy +drowse. She felt that she could never drive again. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +CLAIRE ESCAPES FROM RESPECTABILITY + + +Claire Boltwood lived on the Heights, Brooklyn. Persons from New York +and other parts of the Middlewest have been known to believe that +Brooklyn is somehow humorous. In newspaper jokes and vaudeville it is so +presented that people who are willing to take their philosophy from +those sources believe that the leading citizens of Brooklyn are all +deacons, undertakers, and obstetricians. The fact is that North +Washington Square, at its reddest and whitest and fanlightedest, +Gramercy Park at its most ivied, are not so aristocratic as the section +of Brooklyn called the Heights. Here preached Henry Ward Beecher. Here, +in mansions like mausoleums, on the ridge above docks where the good +ships came sailing in from Sourabaya and Singapore, ruled the lords of a +thousand sails. And still is it a place of wealth too solid to emulate +the nimble self-advertising of Fifth Avenue. Here dwell the +fifth-generation possessors of blocks of foundries and shipyards. Here, +in a big brick house of much dignity, much ugliness, and much +conservatory, lived Claire Boltwood, with her widower father. + +Henry B. Boltwood was vice-president of a firm dealing in railway +supplies. He was neither wealthy nor at all poor. Every summer, despite +Claire's delicate hints, they took the same cottage on the Jersey Coast, +and Mr. Boltwood came down for Sunday. Claire had gone to a good school +out of Philadelphia, on the Main Line. She was used to gracious leisure, +attractive uselessness, nut-center chocolates, and a certain wonder as +to why she was alive. + +She wanted to travel, but her father could not get away. He consistently +spent his days in overworking, and his evenings in wishing he hadn't +overworked. He was attractive, fresh, pink-cheeked, white-mustached, and +nerve-twitching with years of detail. + +Claire's ambition had once been babies and a solid husband, but as +various young males of the species appeared before her, sang their +mating songs and preened their newly dry-cleaned plumage, she found that +the trouble with solid young men was that they were solid. Though she +liked to dance, the "dancing men" bored her. And she did not understand +the district's quota of intellectuals very well; she was good at +listening to symphony concerts, but she never had much luck in +discussing the cleverness of the wood winds in taking up the main motif. +It is history that she refused a master of arts with an old violin, a +good taste in ties, and an income of eight thousand. + +The only man who disturbed her was Geoffrey Saxton, known throughout the +interwoven sets of Brooklyn Heights as "Jeff." Jeff Saxton was +thirty-nine to Claire's twenty-three. He was clean and busy; he had no +signs of vice or humor. Especially for Jeff must have been invented the +symbolic morning coat, the unwrinkable gray trousers, and the moral +rimless spectacles. He was a graduate of a nice college, and he had a +nice tenor and a nice family and nice hands and he was nicely successful +in New York copper dealing. When he was asked questions by people who +were impertinent, clever, or poor, Jeff looked them over coldly before +he answered, and often they felt so uncomfortable that he didn't have to +answer. + +The boys of Claire's own age, not long out of Yale and Princeton, doing +well in business and jumping for their evening clothes daily at +six-thirty, light o' loves and admirers of athletic heroes, these lads +Claire found pleasant, but hard to tell apart. She didn't have to tell +Jeff Saxton apart. He did his own telling. Jeff called--not too often. +He sang--not too sentimentally. He took her father and herself to the +theater--not too lavishly. He told Claire--in a voice not too +serious--that she was his helmed Athena, his rose of all the world. He +informed her of his substantial position--not too obviously. And he was +so everlastingly, firmly, quietly, politely, immovably always there. + +She watched the hulk of marriage drifting down on her frail speed-boat +of aspiration, and steered in desperate circles. + +Then her father got the nervous prostration he had richly earned. The +doctor ordered rest. Claire took him in charge. He didn't want to +travel. Certainly he didn't want the shore or the Adirondacks. As there +was a branch of his company in Minneapolis, she lured him that far away. + +Being rootedly of Brooklyn Heights, Claire didn't know much about the +West. She thought that Milwaukee was the capital of Minnesota. She was +not so uninformed as some of her friends, however. She had heard that in +Dakota wheat was to be viewed in vast tracts--maybe a hundred acres. + +Mr. Boltwood could not be coaxed to play with the people to whom his +Minneapolis representative introduced him. He was overworking again, and +perfectly happy. He was hoping to find something wrong with the branch +house. Claire tried to tempt him out to the lakes. She failed. His +nerve-fuse burnt out the second time, with much fireworks. + +Claire had often managed her circle of girls, but it had never occurred +to her to manage her executive father save by indirect and pretty +teasing. Now, in conspiracy with the doctor, she bullied her father. He +saw gray death waiting as alternative, and he was meek. He agreed to +everything. He consented to drive with her across two thousand miles of +plains and mountains to Seattle, to drop in for a call on their +cousins, the Eugene Gilsons. + +Back East they had a chauffeur and two cars--the limousine, and the +Gomez-Deperdussin roadster, Claire's beloved. It would, she believed, be +more of a change from everything that might whisper to Mr. Boltwood of +the control of men, not to take a chauffeur. Her father never drove, but +she could, she insisted. His easy agreeing was pathetic. He watched her +with spaniel eyes. They had the Gomez roadster shipped to them from New +York. + +On a July morning, they started out of Minneapolis in a mist, and as it +has been hinted, they stopped sixty miles northward, in a rain, also in +much gumbo. Apparently their nearest approach to the Pacific Ocean would +be this oceanically moist edge of a cornfield, between Schoenstrom and +Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. + + * * * * * + +Claire roused from her damp doze and sighed, "Well, I must get busy and +get the car out of this." + +"Don't you think you'd better get somebody to help us?" + +"But get who?" + +"Whom!" + +"No! It's just 'who,' when you're in the mud. No. One of the good things +about an adventure like this is that I must do things for myself. I've +always had people to do things for me. Maids and nice teachers and you, +old darling! I suppose it's made me soft. Soft--I would like a soft +davenport and a novel and a pound of almond-brittle, and get all sick, +and not feel so beastly virile as I do just now. But----" + +She turned up the collar of her gray tweed coat, painfully climbed +out--the muscles of her back racking--and examined the state of the rear +wheels. They were buried to the axle; in front of them the mud bulked in +solid, shiny blackness. She took out her jack and chains. It was too +late. There was no room to get the jack under the axle. She remembered +from the narratives of motoring friends that brush in mud gave a firmer +surface for the wheels to climb upon. + +She also remembered how jolly and agreeably heroic the accounts of their +mishaps had sounded--a week after they were over. + +She waded down the road toward an old wood-lot. At first she tried to +keep dry, but she gave it up, and there was pleasure in being defiantly +dirty. She tramped straight through puddles; she wallowed in mud. In the +wood-lot was long grass which soaked her stockings till her ankles felt +itchy. Claire had never expected to be so very intimate with a +brush-pile. She became so. As though she were a pioneer woman who had +been toiling here for years, she came to know the brush stick by +stick--the long valuable branch that she could never quite get out from +under the others; the thorny bough that pricked her hands every time she +tried to reach the curious bundle of switches. + +Seven trips she made, carrying armfuls of twigs and solemnly dragging +large boughs behind her. She patted them down in front of all four +wheels. Her crisp hands looked like the paws of a three-year-old boy +making a mud fort. Her nails hurt from the mud wedged beneath them. Her +mud-caked shoes were heavy to lift. It was with exquisite self-approval +that she sat on the running-board, scraped a car-load of lignite off her +soles, climbed back into the car, punched the starter. + +The car stirred, crept forward one inch, and settled back--one inch. The +second time it heaved encouragingly but did not make quite so much +headway. Then Claire did sob. + +She rubbed her cheek against the comfortable, rough, heather-smelling +shoulder of her father's coat, while he patted her and smiled, "Good +girl! I better get out and help." + +She sat straight, shook her head. "Nope. I'll do it. And I'm not going +to insist on being heroic any longer. I'll get a farmer to pull us out." + +As she let herself down into the ooze, she reflected that all farmers +have hearts of gold, anatomical phenomena never found among the snobs +and hirelings of New York. The nearest heart of gold was presumably +beating warmly in the house a quarter of a mile ahead. + +She came up a muddy lane to a muddy farmyard, with a muddy cur yapping +at her wet legs, and geese hissing in a pool of purest mud serene. The +house was small and rather old. It may have been painted once. The barn +was large and new. It had been painted very much, and in a blinding red +with white trimmings. There was no brass plate on the house, but on the +barn, in huge white letters, was the legend, "Adolph Zolzac, 1913." + +She climbed by log steps to a narrow frame back porch littered with +parts of a broken cream-separator. She told herself that she was simple +and friendly in going to the back door instead of the front, and it was +with gaiety that she knocked on the ill-jointed screen door, which +flapped dismally in response. + +"_Ja?_" from within. + +She rapped again. + +"_Hinein!_" + +She opened the door on a kitchen, the highlight of which was a table +heaped with dishes of dumplings and salt pork. A shirt-sleeved man, all +covered with mustache and calm, sat by the table, and he kept right on +sitting as he inquired: + +"Vell?" + +"My car--my automobile--has been stuck in the mud. A bad driver, I'm +afraid! I wonder if you would be so good as to----" + +"I usually get t'ree dollars, but I dunno as I vant to do it for less +than four. Today I ain'd feelin' very goot," grumbled the +golden-hearted. + +Claire was aware that a woman whom she had not noticed--so much smaller +than the dumplings, so much less vigorous than the salt pork was +she--was speaking: "_Aber_, papa, dot's a shame you sharge de poor young +lady dot, when she drive by _sei_ self. Vot she t'ink of de Sherman +people?" + +The farmer merely grunted. To Claire, "Yuh, four dollars. Dot's what I +usually charge sometimes." + +"Usually? Do you mean to say that you leave that hole there in the road +right along--that people keep on trying to avoid it and get stuck as I +was? Oh! If I were an official----" + +"Vell, I dunno, I don't guess I run my place to suit you smart +alecks----" + +"Papa! How you talk on the young lady! Make shame!" + +"--from the city. If you don't like it, you stay _bei_ Mineapolis! I +haul you out for t'ree dollars and a half. Everybody pay dot. Last mont' +I make forty-five dollars. They vos all glad to pay. They say I help +them fine. I don't see vot you're kickin' about! Oh, these vimmins!" + +"It's blackmail! I wouldn't pay it, if it weren't for my father sitting +waiting out there. But--go ahead. Hurry!" + +She sat tapping her toe while Zolzac completed the stertorous task of +hogging the dumplings, then stretched, yawned, scratched, and covered +his merely dirty garments with overalls that were apparently woven of +processed mud. When he had gone to the barn for his team, his wife came +to Claire. On her drained face were the easy tears of the slave women. + +"Oh, miss, I don't know vot I should do. My boys go on the public +school, and they speak American just so goot as you. Oh, I vant man lets +me luff America. But papa he says it is an _Unsinn_; you got the money, +he says, nobody should care if you are American or Old Country people. I +should vish I could ride once in an automobile! But--I am so 'shamed, so +'shamed that I must sit and see my _Mann_ make this. Forty years I been +married to him, and pretty soon I die----" + +Claire patted her hand. There was nothing to say to tragedy that had +outlived hope. + +Adolph Zolzac clumped out to the highroad behind his vast, +rolling-flanked horses--so much cleaner and better fed than his wisp of +a wife. Claire followed him, and in her heart she committed murder and +was glad of it. While Mr. Boltwood looked out with mild wonder at +Claire's new friend, Zolzac hitched his team to the axle. It did not +seem possible that two horses could pull out the car where seventy +horsepower had fainted. But, easily, yawning and thinking about dinner, +the horses drew the wheels up on the mud-bank, out of the hole and---- + +The harness broke, with a flying mess of straps and rope, and the car +plumped with perfect exactness back into its bed. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A YOUNG MAN IN A RAINCOAT + + +"Huh! Such an auto! Look, it break my harness a'ready! Two dollar that +cost you to mend it. De auto iss too heavy!" stormed Zolzac. + +"All right! All right! Only for heaven's sake--go get another harness!" +Claire shrieked. + +"Fife-fifty dot will be, in all." Zolzac grinned. + +Claire was standing in front of him. She was thinking of other drivers, +poor people, in old cars, who had been at the mercy of this +golden-hearted one. She stared past him, in the direction from which she +had come. Another motor was in sight. + +It was a tin beetle of a car; that agile, cheerful, rut-jumping model +known as a "bug"; with a home-tacked, home-painted tin cowl and tail +covering the stripped chassis of a little cheap Teal car. The lone +driver wore an old black raincoat with an atrocious corduroy collar, and +a new plaid cap in the Harry Lauder tartan. The bug skipped through mud +where the Boltwoods' Gomez had slogged and rolled. Its pilot drove up +behind her car, and leaped out. He trotted forward to Claire and Zolzac. +His eyes were twenty-seven or eight, but his pink cheeks were twenty, +and when he smiled--shyly, radiantly--he was no age at all, but eternal +boy. Claire had a blurred impression that she had seen him before, some +place along the road. + +"Stuck?" he inquired, not very intelligently. "How much is Adolph +charging you?" + +"He wants three-fifty, and his harness broke, and he wants two +dollars----" + +"Oh! So he's still working that old gag! I've heard all about Adolph. He +keeps that harness for pulling out cars, and it always busts. The last +time, though, he only charged six bits to get it mended. Now let me +reason with him." + +The young man turned with vicious quickness, and for the first time +Claire heard pidgin German--German as it is spoken between Americans who +have never learned it, and Germans who have forgotten it: + +"_Schon sex_ hundred times _Ich höre_ all about the way you been doing +autos, Zolzac, you _verfluchter Schweinhund_, and I'll set the sheriff +on you----" + +"Dot ain'd true, maybe _einmal die Woche kommt_ somebody and _Ich muss +die Arbeit immer lassen und in die Regen ausgehen, und seh' mal_ how +_die_ boots _sint mit_ mud covered, two dollars it don't pay for _die_ +boots----" + +"Now that's enough-plenty out of you, _seien die_ boots _verdammt_, and +_mach' dass du fort gehst_--muddy boots, hell!--put _mal ein_ egg in +_die_ boots and beat it, _verleicht_ maybe I'll by golly arrest you +myself, _weiss du_! I'm a special deputy sheriff." + +The young man stood stockily. He seemed to swell as his somewhat muddy +hand was shaken directly at, under, and about the circumference of, +Adolph Zolzac's hairy nose. The farmer was stronger, but he retreated. +He took up the reins. He whined, "Don't I get nothing I break de +harness?" + +"Sure. You get ten--years! And you get out!" + +From thirty yards up the road, Zolzac flung back, "You t'ink you're +pretty damn smart!" That was his last serious reprisal. + +Clumsily, as one not used to it, the young man lifted his cap to Claire, +showing straight, wiry, rope-colored hair, brushed straight back from a +rather fine forehead. "Gee, I was sorry to have to swear and holler like +that, but it's all Adolph understands. Please don't think there's many +of the folks around here like him. They say he's the meanest man in the +county." + +"I'm immensely grateful to you, but--do you know much about motors? How +can I get out of this mud?" + +She was surprised to see the youngster blush. His clear skin flooded. +His engaging smile came again, and he hesitated, "Let me pull you out." + +She looked from her hulking car to his mechanical flea. + +He answered the look: "I can do it all right. I'm used to the +gumbo--regular mud-hen. Just add my power to yours. Have you a +tow-rope?" + +"No. I never thought of bringing one." + +"I'll get mine." + +She walked with him back toward his bug. It lacked not only top and +side-curtains, but even windshield and running-board. It was a toy--a +card-board box on toothpick axles. Strapped to the bulging back was a +wicker suitcase partly covered by tarpaulin. From the seat peered a +little furry face. + +"A cat?" she exclaimed, as he came up with a wire rope, extracted from +the tin back. + +"Yes. She's the captain of the boat. I'm just the engineer." + +"What is her name?" + +Before he answered the young man strode ahead to the front of her car, +Claire obediently trotting after him. He stooped to look at her front +axle. He raised his head, glanced at her, and he was blushing again. + +"Her name is Vere de Vere!" he confessed. Then he fled back to his bug. +He drove it in front of the Gomez-Dep. The hole in the road itself was +as deep as the one on the edge of the cornfield, where she was stuck, +but he charged it. She was fascinated by his skill. Where she would for +a tenth of a second have hesitated while choosing the best course, he +hurled the bug straight at the hole, plunged through with sheets of +glassy black water arching on either side, then viciously twisted the +car to the right, to the left, and straight again, as he followed the +tracks with the solidest bottoms. + +Strapped above the tiny angle-iron step which replaced his running-board +was an old spade. He dug channels in front of the four wheels of her +car, so that they might go up inclines, instead of pushing against the +straight walls of mud they had thrown up. On these inclines he strewed +the brush she had brought, halting to ask, with head alertly lifted from +his stooped huddle in the mud, "Did you have to get this brush +yourself?" + +"Yes. Horrid wet!" + +He merely shook his head in commiseration. + +He fastened the tow-rope to the rear axle of his car, to the front of +hers. "Now will you be ready to put on all your power as I begin to +pull?" he said casually, rather respectfully. + +When the struggling bug had pulled the wire rope taut, she opened the +throttle. The rope trembled. Her car seemed to draw sullenly back. Then +it came out--out--really out, which is the most joyous sensation any +motorist shall ever know. In excitement over actually moving again, as +fast as any healthy young snail, she drove on, on, the young man ahead +grinning back at her. Nor did she stop, nor he, till both cars were +safe on merely thick mud, a quarter of a mile away. + +She switched off the power--and suddenly she was in a whirlwind of dizzy +sickening tiredness. Even in her abandonment to exhaustion she noticed +that the young man did not stare at her but, keeping his back to her, +removed the tow-rope, and stowed it away in his bug. She wondered +whether it was tact or yokelish indifference. + +Her father spoke for the first time since the Galahad of the tin bug had +come: "How much do you think we ought to give this fellow?" + +Now of all the cosmic problems yet unsolved, not cancer nor the future +of poverty are the flustering questions, but these twain: Which is +worse, not to wear evening clothes at a party at which you find every +one else dressed, or to come in evening clothes to a house where, it +proves, they are never worn? And: Which is worse, not to tip when a tip +has been expected; or to tip, when the tip is an insult? + +In discomfort of spirit and wetness of ankles Claire shuddered, "Oh +dear, I don't believe he expects us to pay him. He seems like an awfully +independent person. Maybe we'd offend him if we offered----" + +"The only reasonable thing to be offended at in this vale of tears is +not being offered money!" + +"Just the same---- Oh dear, I'm so tired. But good little Claire will +climb out and be diplomatic." + +She pinched her forehead, to hold in her cracking brain, and wabbled out +into new scenes of mud and wetness, but she came up to the young man +with the most rain-washed and careless of smiles. "Won't you come back +and meet my father? He's terribly grateful to you--as I am. And may +we---- You've worked so hard, and about saved our lives. May I pay you +for that labor? We're really much indebted----" + +"Oh, it wasn't anything. Tickled to death if I could help you." + +He heartily shook hands with her father, and he droned, "Pleased to meet +you, Mr. Uh." + +"Boltwood." + +"Mr. Boltwood. My name is Milt--Milton Daggett. See you have a New York +license on your car. We don't see but mighty few of those through here. +Glad I could help you." + +"Ah yes, Mr. Daggett." Mr. Boltwood was uninterestedly fumbling in his +money pocket. Behind Milt Daggett, Claire shook her head wildly, +rattling her hands as though she were playing castanets. Mr. Boltwood +shrugged. He did not understand. His relations with young men in cheap +raincoats were entirely monetary. They did something for you, and you +paid them--preferably not too much--and they ceased to be. Whereas Milt +Daggett respectfully but stolidly continued to be, and Mr. Henry +Boltwood's own daughter was halting the march of affairs by asking +irrelevant questions: + +"Didn't we see you back in--what was that village we came through back +about twelve miles?" + +"Schoenstrom?" suggested Milt. + +"Yes, I think that was it. Didn't we pass you or something? We stopped +at a garage there, to change a tire." + +"I don't think so. I was in town, though, this morning. Say, uh, did you +and your father grab any eats----" + +"A----" + +"I mean, did you get dinner there?" + +"No. I wish we had!" + +"Well say, I didn't either, and--I'd be awfully glad if you folks would +have something to eat with me now." + +Claire tried to give him a smile, but the best she could do was to lend +him one. She could not associate interesting food with Milt and his +mud-slobbered, tin-covered, dun-painted Teal bug. He seemed satisfied +with her dubious grimace. By his suggestion they drove ahead to a spot +where the cars could be parked on firm grass beneath oaks. On the way, +Mr. Boltwood lifted his voice in dismay. His touch of nervous +prostration had not made him queer or violent; he retained a touching +faith in good food. + +"We might find some good little hotel and have some chops and just some +mushrooms and peas," insisted the man from Brooklyn Heights. + +"Oh, I don't suppose the country hotels are really so awfully good," she +speculated. "And look--that nice funny boy. We couldn't hurt his +feelings. He's having so much fun out of being a Good Samaritan." + +From the mysterious rounded back of his car Milt Daggett drew a tiny +stove, to be heated by a can of solidified alcohol, a frying pan that +was rather large for dolls but rather small for square-fingered hands, a +jar of bacon, eggs in a bag, a coffee pot, a can of condensed milk, and +a litter of unsorted tin plates and china cups. While, by his request, +Claire scoured the plates and cups, he made bacon and eggs and coffee, +the little stove in the bottom of his car sheltered by the cook's +bending over it. The smell of food made Claire forgiving toward the fact +that she was wet through; that the rain continued to drizzle down her +neck. + +He lifted his hand and demanded, "Take your shoes off!" + +"Uh?" + +He gulped. He stammered, "I mean--I mean your shoes are soaked through. +If you'll sit in the car, I'll put your shoes up by the engine. It's +pretty well heated from racing it in the mud. You can get your stockings +dry under the cowl." + +She was amused by the elaborateness with which he didn't glance at her +while she took off her low shoes and slipped her quite too thin black +stockings under the protecting tin cowl. She reflected, "He has such a +nice, awkward gentleness. But such bad taste! They're really quite good +ankles. Apparently ankles are not done, in Teal bug circles. His sisters +don't even have limbs. But do fairies have sisters? He is a fairy. When +I'm out of the mud he'll turn his raincoat into a pair of lordly white +wings, and vanish. But what will become of the cat?" + +Thus her tired brain, like a squirrel in a revolving cage, while she sat +primly and scraped at a clot of rust on a tin plate and watched him put +on the bacon and eggs. Wondering if cats were used for this purpose in +the Daggett family, she put soaked, unhappy Vere de Vere on her feet, to +her own great comfort and the cat's delight. It was an open car, and the +rain still rained, and a strange young man was a foot from her tending +the not very crackly fire, but rarely had Claire felt so domestic. + +Milt was apparently struggling to say something. After several bobs of +his head he ventured, "You're so wet! I'd like for you to take my +raincoat." + +"No! Really! I'm already soaked through. You keep dry." + +He was unhappy about it. He plucked at a button of the coat. She turned +him from the subject. "I hope Lady Vere de Vere is getting warm, too." + +"Seems to be. She's kind of demanding. She wanted a little car of her +own, but I didn't think she could keep up with me, not on a long hike." + +"A little car? With her paws on the tiny wheel? Oh--sweet! Are you going +far, Mr. Daggett?" + +"Yes, quite a ways. To Seattle, Washington." + +"Oh, really? Extraordinary. We're going there, too." + +"Honest? You driving all the way? Oh, no, of course your father----" + +"No, he doesn't drive. By the way, I hope he isn't too miserable back +there." + +"I'll be darned. Both of us going to Seattle. That's what they call a +coincidence, isn't it! Hope I'll see you on the road, some time. But I +don't suppose I will. Once you're out of the mud, your Gomez will simply +lose my Teal." + +"Not necessarily. You're the better driver. And I shall take it easy. +Are you going to stay long in Seattle?" It was not merely a polite +dinner-payment question. She wondered; she could not place this +fresh-cheeked, unworldly young man so far from his home. + +"Why, I kind of hope---- Government railroad, Alaska. I'm going to try +to get in on that, somehow. I've never been out of Minnesota in my life, +but there's couple mountains and oceans and things I thought I'd like +to see, so I just put my suitcase and Vere de Vere in the machine, and +started out. I burn distillate instead of gas, so it doesn't cost much. +If I ever happen to have five whole dollars, why, I might go on to +Japan!" + +"That would be jolly." + +"Though I s'pose I'd have to eat--what is it?--pickled fish? There's a +woman from near my town went to the Orient as a missionary. From what +she says, I guess all you need in Japan to make a house is a bottle of +mucilage and a couple of old newspapers and some two-by-fours. And you +can have the house on a purple mountain, with cherry trees down below, +and----" He put his clenched hand to his lips. His head was bowed. "And +the ocean! Lord! The ocean! And we'll see it at Seattle. Bay, anyway. +And steamers there--just come from India! Huh! Getting pretty darn +poetic here! Eggs are done." + +The young man did not again wander into visions. He was all briskness as +he served her bacon and eggs, took a plate of them to Mr. Boltwood in +the Gomez, gouged into his own. Having herself scoured the tin plates, +Claire was not repulsed by their naked tinniness; and the coffee in the +broken-handled china cup was tolerable. Milt drank from the top of a +vacuum bottle. He was silent. Immediately after the lunch he stowed the +things away. Claire expected a drawn-out, tact-demanding farewell, but +he climbed into his bug, said "Good-by, Miss Boltwood. Good luck!" and +was gone. + +The rainy road was bleakly empty without him. + +It did not seem possible that Claire's body could be nagged into going +on any longer. Her muscles were relaxed, her nerves frayed. But the +moment the Gomez started, she discovered that magic change which every +long-distance motorist knows. Instantly she was alert, seemingly able to +drive forever. The pilot's instinct ruled her; gave her tireless eyes +and sturdy hands. Surely she had never been weary; never would be, so +long as it was hers to keep the car going. + +She had driven perhaps six miles when she reached a hamlet called St. +Klopstock. On the bedraggled mud-and-shanty main street a man was +loading crushed rock into a truck. By him was a large person in a +prosperous raincoat, who stepped out, held up his hand. Claire stopped. + +"You the young lady that got stuck in that hole by Adolph Zolzac's?" + +"Yes. And Mr. Zolzac wasn't very nice about it." + +"He's going to be just elegant about it, now, and there ain't going to +be any more hole. I think Adolph has been keeping it muddy--throwing in +soft dirt--and he made a good and plenty lot out of pulling out +tourists. Bill and I are going down right now and fill it up with stone. +Milt Daggett come through here--he's got a nerve, that fellow, but I +did have to laugh--he says to me, 'Barney----' This was just now. He +hasn't more than just drove out of town. He said to me, 'Barney,' he +says, 'you're the richest man in this township, and the banker, and you +got a big car y'self, and you think you're one whale of a political +boss,' he says, 'and yet you let that Zolzac maintain a private ocean, +against the peace and damn horrible inconvenience of the Commonwealth of +Minnesota----' He's got a great line of talk, that fellow. He told me +how you got stuck--made me so ashamed--I been to New York myself--and +right away I got Bill, and we're going down and hold a donation and +surprise party on Adolph and fill that hole." + +"But won't Adolph dig it out again?" + +The banker was puffy, but his eyes were of stone. From the truck he took +a shotgun. He drawled, "In that case, the surprise party will include an +elegant wake." + +"But how did---- Who is this extraordinary Milt Daggett?" + +"Him? Oh, nobody 'specially. He's just a fellow down here at +Schoenstrom. But we all know him. Goes to all the dances, thirty miles +around. Thing about him is: if he sees something wrong, he picks out +some poor fellow like me, and says what he thinks." + +Claire drove on. She was aware that she was looking for Milt's bug. It +was not in sight. + +"Father," she exclaimed, "do you realize that this lad didn't tell us he +was going to have the hole filled? Just did it. He frightens me. I'm +afraid that when we reach Gopher Prairie for the night, we'll find he +has engaged for us the suite that Prince Collars and Cuffs once slept +in." + +"Hhhhmm," yawned her father. + +"Curious young man. He said, 'Pleased to meet you.'" + +"Huuuuhhm! Fresh air makes me so sleepy." + +"And---- Fooled you! Got through that mudhole, anyway! And he said---- +Look! Fields stretch out so here, and not a tree except the +willow-groves round those farmhouses. And he said 'Gee' so many times, +and 'dinner' for the noon meal. And his nails---- No, I suppose he +really is just a farm youngster." + +Mr. Boltwood did not answer. His machine-finish smile indicated an +enormous lack of interest in young men in Teal bugs. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A ROOM WITHOUT + + +Gopher Prairie has all of five thousand people. Its commercial club +asserts that it has at least a thousand more population and an +infinitely better band than the ridiculously envious neighboring town of +Joralemon. But there were few signs that a suite had been engaged for +the Boltwoods, or that Prince Collars and Cuffs had on his royal tour of +America spent much time in Gopher Prairie. Claire reached it somewhat +before seven. She gaped at it in a hazy way. Though this was her first +prairie town for a considerable stay, she could not pump up interest. + +The state of mind of the touring motorist entering a strange place at +night is as peculiar and definite as that of a prospector. It is +compounded of gratitude at having got safely in; of perception of a new +town, yet with all eagerness about new things dulled by weariness; of +hope that there is going to be a good hotel, but small expectation--and +absolutely no probability--that there really will be one. + +Claire had only a blotched impression of peaked wooden buildings and +squatty brick stores with faded awnings; of a red grain elevator and a +crouching station and a lumberyard; then of the hopelessly muddy road +leading on again into the country. She felt that if she didn't stop at +once, she would miss the town entirely. The driving-instinct sustained +her, made her take corners sharply, spot a garage, send the Gomez +whirling in on the cement floor. + +The garage attendant looked at her and yawned. + +"Where do you want the car?" Claire asked sharply. + +"Oh, stick it in that stall," grunted the man, and turned his back. + +Claire glowered at him. She thought of a good line about rudeness. +But--oh, she was too tired to fuss. She tried to run the car into the +empty stall, which was not a stall, but a space, like a missing tooth, +between two cars, and so narrow that she was afraid of crumpling the +lordly fenders of the Gomez. She ran down the floor, returned with a +flourish, thought she was going to back straight into the stall--and +found she wasn't. While her nerves shrieked, and it did not seem +possible that she could change gears, she managed to get the Gomez +behind a truck and side-on to the stall. + +"Go forward again, and cramp your wheel--sharp!" ordered the garage man. + +Claire wanted to outline what she thought of him, but she merely +demanded, "Will you kindly drive it in?" + +"Why, sure. You bet," said the man casually. His readiness ruined her +inspired fury. She was somewhat disappointed. + +As she climbed out of the car and put a hand on the smart bags strapped +on a running-board, the accumulated weariness struck her in a shock. She +could have driven on for hours, but the instant the car was safe for the +night, she went to pieces. Her ears rang, her eyes were soaked in fire, +her mouth was dry, the back of her neck pinched. It was her father who +took the lead as they rambled to the one tolerable hotel in the town. + +In the hotel Claire was conscious of the ugliness of the poison-green +walls and brass cuspidors and insurance calendars and bare floor of the +office; conscious of the interesting scientific fact that all air had +been replaced by the essence of cigar smoke and cooking cabbage; of the +stares of the traveling men lounging in bored lines; and of the lack of +welcome on the part of the night clerk, an oldish, bleached man with +whiskers instead of a collar. + +She tried to be important: "Two rooms with bath, please." + +The bleached man stared at her, and shoved forward the register and a +pen clotted with ink. She signed. He took the bags, led the way to the +stairs. Anxiously she asked, "Both rooms are with bath?" + +From the second step the night clerk looked down at her as though she +were a specimen that ought to be pinned on the corks at once, and he +said loudly, "No, ma'am. Neither of 'em. Got no rooms vacant with bawth, +or bath either! Not but what we got 'em in the house. This is an +up-to-date place. But one of 'm's took, and the other has kind of been +out of order, the last three-four months." + +From the audience of drummers below, a delicate giggle. + +Claire was too angry to answer. And too tired. When, after miles of +stairs, leagues of stuffy hall, she reached her coop, with its iron bed +so loose-jointed that it rattled to a breath, its bureau with a list to +port, and its anemic rocking-chair, she dropped on the bed, panting, her +eyes closed but still brimming with fire. It did not seem that she could +ever move again. She felt chloroformed. She couldn't even coax herself +off the bed, to see if her father was any better off in the next room. + +She was certain that she was not going to drive to Seattle. She wasn't +going to drive anywhere! She was going to freight the car back to +Minneapolis, and herself go back by train--Pullman!--drawing-room! + +But for the thought of her father she would have fallen asleep, in her +drenched tweeds. When she did force the energy to rise, she had to +support herself by the bureau, by the foot of the bed, as she moved +about the room, hanging up the wet suit, rubbing herself with a slippery +towel, putting on a dark silk frock and pumps. She found her father +sitting motionless in his room, staring at the wall. She made herself +laugh at him for his gloomy emptiness. She paraded down the hall with +him. + +As they reached the foot of the stairs, the old one, the night clerk +leaned across the desk and, in a voice that took the whole office into +the conversation, quizzed, "Come from New York, eh? Well, you're quite a +ways from home." + +Claire nodded. She felt shyer before these solemnly staring traveling +men than she ever had in a box at the opera. At the double door of the +dining-room, from which the cabbage smell steamed with a lustiness +undiminished by the sad passing of its youth, a man, one of the +average-sized, average-mustached, average business-suited, +average-brown-haired men who can never be remembered, stopped the +Boltwoods and hawed, "Saw you coming into town. You've got a New York +license?" + +She couldn't deny it. + +"Quite a ways from home, aren't you?" + +She had to admit it. + +She was escorted by a bouncing, black-eyed waitress to a table for four. +The next table was a long one, at which seven traveling men, or local +business men whose wives were at the lake for the summer, ceased trying +to get nourishment out of the food, and gawped at her. Before the +Boltwoods were seated, the waitress dabbed at non-existent spots on +their napkins, ignored a genuine crumb on the cloth in front of Claire's +plate, made motions at a cup and a formerly plated fork, and bubbled, +"Autoing through?" + +Claire fumbled for her chair, oozed into it, and breathed, "Yes." + +"Going far?" + +"Yes." + +"Where do you live?" + +"New York." + +"My! You're quite a ways from home, aren't you?" + +"Apparently." + +"Hamnegs roasbeef roaspork thapplesauce frypickerel springlamintsauce." + +"I--I beg your pardon." + +The waitress repeated. + +"I--oh--oh, bring us ham and eggs. Is that all right, father?" + +"Oh--no--well----" + +"You wanted same?" the waitress inquired of Mr. Boltwood. + +He was intimidated. He said, "If you please," and feebly pawed at a +fork. + +The waitress was instantly back with soup, and a collection of china +gathered by a man of much travel, catholic interests, and no taste. One +of the plates alleged itself to belong to a hotel in Omaha. She pushed +a pitcher of condensed milk to the exact spot where it would catch Mr. +Boltwood's sleeve, brushed the crumb from in front of Claire to a +shelter beneath the pink and warty sugar bowl, recovered a toothpick +which had been concealed behind her glowing lips, picked for a while, +gave it up, put her hands on her hips, and addressed Claire: + +"How far you going?" + +"To Seattle." + +"Got any folks there?" + +"Any---- Oh, yes, I suppose so." + +"Going to stay there long?" + +"Really---- We haven't decided." + +"Come from New York, eh? Quite a ways from home, all right. Father in +business there?" + +"Yes." + +"What's his line?" + +"I beg pardon?" + +"What's his line? Ouch! Jiminy, these shoes pinch my feet. I used to +could dance all night, but I'm getting fat, I guess, ha! ha! Put on +seven pounds last month. Ouch! Gee, they certainly do pinch my toes. +What business you say your father's in?" + +"I didn't say, but---- Oh, railroad." + +"G. N. or N. P.?" + +"I don't think I quite understand----" + +Mr. Boltwood interposed, "Are the ham and eggs ready?" + +"I'll beat it out and see." When she brought them, she put a spoon in +Claire's saucer of peas, and demanded, "Say, you don't wear that silk +dress in the auto, do you?" + +"No." + +"I should think you'd put a pink sash on it. Seems like it's kind of +plain--it's a real pretty piece of goods, though. A pink sash would be +real pretty. You dark-complected ladies always looks better for a touch +of color." + +Then was Claire certain that the waitress was baiting her, for the +amusement of the men at the long table. She exploded. Probably the +waitress did not know there had been an explosion when Claire looked +coldly up, raised her brows, looked down, and poked the cold and salty +slab of ham, for she was continuing: + +"A light-complected lady like me don't need so much color, you notice my +hair is black, but I'm light, really, Pete Liverquist says I'm a blonde +brunette, gee, he certainly is killing that fellow, oh, he's a case, he +sure does like to hear himself talk, my! there's Old Man Walters, he +runs the telephone exchange here, I heard he went down to St. Cloud on +Number 2, but I guess he couldn't of, he'll be yodeling for friend soup +and a couple slabs of moo, I better beat it, I'll say so, so long." + +Claire's comment was as acid as the pale beets before her, as bitter as +the peas, as hard as the lumps in the watery mashed potatoes: + +"I don't know whether the woman is insane or ignorant. I wish I could +tell whether she was trying to make me angry for the benefit of those +horrid unshaven men, or merely for her private edification." + +"By me, dolly. So is this pie. Let's get some medium to levitate us up +to bed. Uh--uh---- I think perhaps we'd better not try to drive clear to +Seattle. If we just went through to Montana?--or even just to Bismarck?" + +"Drive through with the hotels like this? My dear man, if we have one +more such day, we stop right there. I hope we get by the man at the +desk. I have a feeling he's lurking there, trying to think up something +insulting to say to us. Oh, my dear, I hope you aren't as beastly tired +as I am. My bones are hot pokers." + +The man at the desk got in only one cynical question, "Driving far?" +before Claire seized her father's arm and started him upstairs. + +For the first time since she had been ten--and in a state of naughtiness +immediately following a pronounced state of grace induced by the pulpit +oratory of the new rector of St. Chrysostom's--she permitted herself the +luxury of not stopping to brush her teeth before she went to bed. Her +sleep was drugged--it was not sleep, but an aching exhaustion of the +body which did not prevent her mind from revisualizing the road, going +stupidly over the muddy stretches and sharp corners, then becoming +conscious of that bed, the lump under her shoulder blades, the slope to +westward, and the creak that rose every time she tossed. For at least +fifteen minutes she lay awake for hours. + +Thus Claire Boltwood's first voyage into democracy. + +It was not so much that the sun was shining, in the morning, as that a +ripple of fresh breeze came through the window. She discovered that she +again longed to go on--keep going on--see new places, conquer new roads. +She didn't want all good road. She wanted something to struggle against. +She'd try it for one more day. She was stiff as she crawled out of bed, +but a rub with cold water left her feeling that she was stronger than +she ever had been; that she was a woman, not a dependent girl. Already, +in the beating prairie sun-glare, the wide main street of Gopher Prairie +was drying; the mud ruts flattening out. Beyond the town hovered the +note of a meadow lark--sunlight in sound. + +"Oh, it's a sweet morning! Sweet! We will go on! I'm terribly excited!" +she laughed. + +She found her father dressed. He did not know whether or not he wanted +to go on. "I seem to have lost my grip on things. I used to be rather +decisive. But we'll try it one more day, if you like," he said. + +When she had gaily marched him downstairs, she suddenly and unhappily +remembered the people she would have to face, the gibing questions she +would have to answer. + +The night clerk was still at the desk, as though he had slept standing. +He hailed them. "Well, well! Up bright and early! Hope you folks slept +well. Beds aren't so good as they might be, but we're kind of planning +to get some new mattresses. But you get pretty good air to sleep in. +Hope you have a fine hike today." + +His voice was cordial; he was their old friend; faithful watcher of +their progress. Claire found herself dimpling at him. + +In the dining-room their inquisitional acquaintance, the waitress, +fairly ran to them. "Sit down, folks. Waffles this morning. You want to +stock up for your drive. My, ain't it an elegant morning! I hope you +have a swell drive today!" + +"Why!" Claire gasped, "why, they aren't rude. They care--about people +they never saw before. That's why they ask questions! I never thought--I +never thought! There's people in the world who want to know us without +having looked us up in the Social Register! I'm so ashamed! Not that the +sunshine changes my impression of this coffee. It's frightful! But that +will improve. And the people--they were being friendly, all the time. +Oh, Henry B., young Henry Boltwood, you and your godmother Claire have +a lot to learn about the world!" + +As they came into the garage, their surly acquaintance of the night +before looked just as surly, but Claire tried a boisterous "Good +morning!" + +"Mornin'! Going north? Better take the left-hand road at Wakamin. Easier +going. Drive your car out for you?" + +As the car stood outside taking on gas, a man flapped up, spelled out +the New York license, looked at Claire and her father, and inquired, +"Quite a ways from home, aren't you?" + +This time Claire did not say "Yes!" She experimented with, "Yes, quite a +ways." + +"Well, hope you have a good trip. Good luck!" + +Claire leaned her head on her hand, thought hard. "It's I who wasn't +friendly," she propounded to her father. "How much I've been losing. +Though I still refuse to like that coffee!" + +She noticed the sign on the air-hose of the garage--"Free Air." + +"There's our motto for the pilgrimage!" she cried. + +She knew the exaltation of starting out in the fresh morning for places +she had never seen, without the bond of having to return at night. + +Thus Claire's second voyage into democracy. + +While she was starting the young man who had pulled her out of the mud +and given her lunch was folding up the tarpaulin and blankets on which +he had slept beside his Teal bug, in the woods three miles north of +Gopher Prairie. To the high-well-born cat, Vere de Vere, Milt Daggett +mused aloud, "Your ladyship, as Shakespeare says, the man that gets cold +feet never wins the girl. And I'm scared, cat, clean scared." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +RELEASE BRAKES--SHIFT TO THIRD + + +Milt Daggett had not been accurate in his implication that he had not +noticed Claire at a garage in Schoenstrom. For one thing, he owned the +garage. + +Milt was the most prosperous young man in the village of Schoenstrom. +Neither the village itself nor the nearby _Strom_ is really _schoen_. +The entire business district of Schoenstrom consists of Heinie +Rauskukle's general store, which is brick; the Leipzig House, which is +frame; the Old Home Poolroom and Restaurant, which is of old logs +concealed by a frame sheathing; the farm-machinery agency, which is +galvanized iron, its roof like an enlarged washboard; the church; the +three saloons; and the Red Trail Garage, which is also, according to +various signs, the Agency for Teal Car Best at the Test, Stonewall Tire +Service Station, Sewing Machines and Binders Repaired, Dr. Hostrum the +Veterinarian every Thursday, Gas Today 27c. + +The Red Trail Garage is of cement and tapestry brick. In the office is a +clean hardwood floor, a typewriter, and a picture of Elsie Ferguson. The +establishment has an automatic rim-stretcher, a wheel jack, and a +reputation for honesty. + +The father of Milt Daggett was the Old Doctor, born in Maine, coming to +this frontier in the day when Chippewas camped in your dooryard, and +came in to help themselves to coffee, which you made of roasted corn. +The Old Doctor bucked northwest blizzards, read Dickens and Byron, +pulled people through typhoid, and left to Milt his shabby old medicine +case and thousands of dollars--in uncollectible accounts. Mrs. Daggett +had long since folded her crinkly hands in quiet death. + +Milt had covered the first two years of high school by studying with the +priest, and been sent to the city of St. Cloud for the last two years. +His father had meant to send him to the state university. But Milt had +been born to a talent for machinery. At twelve he had made a telephone +that worked. At eighteen he was engineer in the tiny flour mill in +Schoenstrom. At twenty-five, when Claire Boltwood chose to come tearing +through his life in a Gomez-Dep, Milt was the owner, manager, +bookkeeper, wrecking crew, ignition expert, thoroughly competent +bill-collector, and all but one of the working force of the Red Trail +Garage. + +There were two factions in Schoenstrom: the retired farmers who said +that German was a good enough language for anybody, and that taxes for +schools and sidewalks were yes something crazy; and the group who +stated that a pig-pen is a fine place, but only for pigs. To this +second, revolutionary wing belonged a few of the first generation, most +of the second, and all of the third; and its leader was Milt Daggett. He +did not talk much, normally, but when he thought things ought to be +done, he was as annoying as a machine-gun test in the lot next to a +Quaker meeting. + +If there had been a war, Milt would probably have been in it--rather +casual, clearing his throat, reckoning and guessing that maybe his men +might try going over and taking that hill ... then taking it. But all of +this history concerns the year just before America spoke to Germany; and +in this town buried among the cornfields and the wheat, men still +thought more about the price of grain than about the souls of nations. + +On the evening before Claire Boltwood left Minneapolis and adventured +into democracy, Milt was in the garage. He wore union overalls that were +tan where they were not grease-black; a faded blue cotton shirt; and the +crown of a derby, with the rim not too neatly hacked off with a dull +toad-stabber jack-knife. + +Milt smiled at his assistant, Ben Sittka, and suggested, "Well, _wie +geht 's mit_ the work, eh? Like to stay and get the prof's flivver out, +so he can have it in the morning?" + +"You bet, boss." + +"Getting to be quite a mechanic, Ben." + +"I'll say so!" + +"If you get stuck, come yank me out of the Old Home." + +"Aw rats, boss. I'll finish it. You beat it." Ben grinned at Milt +adoringly. + +Milt stripped off his overalls and derby-crown, and washed his big, firm +hands with gritty soft soap. He cleaned his nails with a file which he +carried in his upper vest pocket in a red imitation morocco case which +contained a comb, a mirror, an indelible pencil, and a note-book with +the smudged pencil addresses of five girls in St. Cloud, and a +memorandum about Rauskukle's car. + +He put on a twisted brown tie, an old blue serge suit, and a hat which, +being old and shabby, had become graceful. He ambled up the street. He +couldn't have ambled more than three blocks and have remained on the +street. Schoenstrom tended to leak off into jungles of tall corn. + +Two men waved at him, and one demanded, "Say, Milt, is whisky good for +the toothache? What d' you think! The doc said it didn't do any good. +But then, gosh, he's only just out of college." + +"I guess he's right." + +"Is that a fact! Well, I'll keep off it then." + +Two stores farther on, a bulky farmer hailed, "Say, Milt, should I get +an ensilage cutter yet?" + +"Yuh," in the manner of a man who knows too much to be cocksure about +anything, "I don't know but what I would, Julius." + +"I guess I vill then." + +Minnie Rauskukle, plump, hearty Minnie, heiress to the general store, +gave evidence by bridling and straightening her pigeon-like body that +she was aware of Milt behind her. He did not speak to her. He ducked +into the door of the Old Home Poolroom and Restaurant. + +Milt ranged up to the short lunch counter, in front of the pool table +where two brick-necked farm youngsters were furiously slamming balls and +attacking cigarettes. Loose-jointedly Milt climbed a loose-jointed high +stool and to the proprietor, Bill McGolwey, his best friend, he yawned, +"You might poison me with a hamburger and a slab of apple, Mac." + +"I'll just do that little thing. Look kind of grouchy tonight, Milt." + +"Too much excitement in this burg. Saw three people on the streets all +simultaneously to-once." + +"What's been eatin' you lately?" + +"Me? Nothing. Only I do get tired of this metropolis. One of these days +I'm going to buck some bigger place." + +"Try Gopher Prairie maybe?" suggested Mac, through the hiss and steam of +the frying hamburger sandwich. + +"Rats. Too small." + +"Small? Why, there's darn near five thousand people there!" + +"I know, but--I want to tackle some sure-nuff city. Like Duluth or New +York." + +"But what'd you do?" + +"That's the devil of it. I don't know just what I do want to do. I could +always land soft in a garage, but that's nothing new. Might hit Detroit, +and learn the motor-factory end." + +"Aw, you're the limit, Milt. Always looking for something new." + +"That's the way to get on. The rest of this town is afraid of new +things. 'Member when I suggested we all chip in on a dynamo with a gas +engine and have electric lights? The hicks almost died of nervousness." + +"Yuh, that's true, but---- You stick here, Milt. You and me will just +nachly run this burg." + +"I'll say! Only---- Gosh, Mac, I would like to go to a real show, once. +And find out how radio works. And see 'em put in a big suspension +bridge!" + +Milt left the Old Home rather aimlessly. He told himself that he +positively would not go back and help Ben Sittka get out the prof's car. +So he went back and helped Ben get out the prof's car, and drove the +same to the prof's. The prof, otherwise professor, otherwise mister, +James Martin Jones, B.A., and Mrs. James Martin Jones welcomed him +almost as noisily as had Mac. They begged him to come in. With Mr. +Jones he discussed--no, ye Claires of Brooklyn Heights, this garage man +and this threadbare young superintendent of a paintbare school, talking +in a town that was only a comma on the line, did not discuss +corn-growing, nor did they reckon to guess that by heck the constabule +was carryin' on with the Widdy Perkins. They spoke of fish-culture, +Elihu Root, the spiritualistic evidences of immortality, government +ownership, self-starters for flivvers, and the stories of Irvin Cobb. + +Milt went home earlier than he wanted to. Because Mr. Jones was the only +man in town besides the priest who read books, because Mrs. Jones was +the only woman who laughed about any topics other than children and +family sickness, because he wanted to go to their house every night, +Milt treasured his welcome as a sacred thing, and kept himself from +calling on them more than once a week. + +He stopped on his way to the garage to pet Emil Baumschweiger's large +gray cat, publicly known as Rags, but to Milt and to the lady herself +recognized as the unfortunate Countess Vere de Vere--perhaps the only +person of noble ancestry and mysterious past in Milt's acquaintance. The +Baumschweigers did not treat their animals well; Emil kicked the bay +mare, and threw pitchforks at Vere de Vere. Milt saluted her and +sympathized: + +"You have a punk time, don't you, countess? Like to beat it to +Minneapolis with me?" + +The countess said that she did indeed have an extraordinarily punk time, +and she sang to Milt the hymn of the little gods of the warm hearth. +Then Milt's evening dissipations were over. Schoenstrom has movies only +once a week. He sat in the office of his garage ruffling through a +weekly digest of events. Milt read much, though not too easily. He had +no desire to be a poet, an Indo-Iranian etymologist, a lecturer to +women's clubs, or the secretary of state. But he did rouse to the +marvels hinted in books and magazines; to large crowds, the mechanism of +submarines, palm trees, gracious women. + +He laid down the magazine. He stared at the wall. He thought about +nothing. He seemed to be fumbling for something about which he could +deliciously think if he could but grasp it. Without quite visualizing +either wall or sea, he was yet recalling old dreams of a moonlit wall by +a warm stirring southern sea. If there was a girl in the dream she was +intangible as the scent of the night. Presently he was asleep, a not at +all romantic figure, rather ludicrously tipped to one side in his office +chair, his large solid shoes up on the desk. + +He half woke, and filtered to what he called home--one room in the +cottage of an oldish woman who had prejudices against the perilous night +air. He was too sleepy to go through any toilet save pulling off his +shoes, and achieving an unconvincing wash at the little stand, whose +crackly varnish was marked with white rings from the toothbrush mug. + +"I feel about due to pull off some fool stunt. Wonder what it will be?" +he complained, as he flopped on the bed. + +He was up at six, and at a quarter to seven was at work in the garage. +He spent a large part of the morning in trying to prove to a customer +that even a Teal car, best at the test, would not give perfect service +if the customer persisted in forgetting to fill the oil-well, the +grease-cups, and the battery. + +At three minutes after twelve Milt left the garage to go to dinner. The +fog of the morning had turned to rain. McGolwey was not at the Old Home. +Sometimes Mac got tired of serving meals, and for a day or two he took +to a pocket flask, and among his former customers the cans of prepared +meat at Rauskukle's became popular. Milt found him standing under the +tin awning of the general store. He had a troubled hope of keeping Mac +from too long a vacation with the pocket flask. But Mac was already +red-eyed. He seemed only half to recognize Milt. + +"Swell day!" said Milt. + +"Y' bet." + +"Road darn muddy." + +"I should worry. Yea, bo', I'm feelin' good!" + +At eleven minutes past twelve a Gomez-Dep roadster appeared down the +road, stopped at the garage. To Milt it was as exciting as the +appearance of a comet to a watching astronomer. + +"What kind of a car do you call that, Milt?" asked a loafer. + +"Gomez-Deperdussin." + +"Never heard of it. Looks too heavy." + +This was sacrilege. Milt stormed, "Why, you poor floof, it's one of the +best cars in the world. Imported from France. That looks like a +special-made American body, though. Trouble with you fellows is, you're +always scared of anything that's new. Too--heavy! Huh! Always wanted to +see a Gomez--never have, except in pictures. And I believe that's a New +York license. Let me at it!" + +He forgot noon-hunger, and clumped through the rain to the garage. He +saw a girl step from the car. He stopped, in the doorway of the Old +Home, in uneasy shyness. He told himself he didn't "know just what it is +about her--she isn't so darn unusually pretty and yet--gee---- Certainly +isn't a girl to get fresh with. Let Ben take care of her. Like to talk +to her, and yet I'd be afraid if I opened my mouth, I'd put my foot in +it." + +He was for the first time seeing a smart woman. This dark, slender, +fine-nerved girl, in her plain, rough, closely-belted, gray suit, her +small black Glengarry cocked on one side of her smooth hair, her little +kid gloves, her veil, was as delicately adjusted as an aeroplane engine. + +Milt wanted to trumpet her exquisiteness to the world, so he growled to +a man standing beside him, "Swell car. Nice-lookin' girl, kind of." + +"Kind of skinny, though. I like 'em with some meat on 'em," yawned the +man. + +No, Milt did not strike him to earth. He insisted feebly, "Nice clothes +she's got, though." + +"Oh, not so muchamuch. I seen a woman come through here yesterday that +was swell, though--had on a purple dress and white shoes and a hat big +'s a bushel." + +"Well, I don't know, I kind of like those simple things," apologized +Milt. + +He crept toward the garage. The girl was inside. He inspected the +slope-topped, patent-leather motoring trunk on the rack at the rear of +the Gomez-Dep. He noticed a middle-aged man waiting in the car. "Must be +her father. Probably--maybe she isn't married then." He could not get +himself to shout at the man, as he usually did. He entered the garage +office; from the inner door he peeped at the girl, who was talking to +his assistant about changing an inner tube. + +That Ben Sittka whom an hour ago he had cajoled as a promising child he +now admired for the sniffing calmness with which he was demanding, +"Want a red or gray tube?" + +"Really, I don't know. Which is the better?" The girl's voice was +curiously clear. + +Milt passed Claire Boltwood as though he did not see her; stood at the +rear of the garage kicking at the tires of a car, his back to her. Over +and over he was grumbling, "If I just knew one girl like that---- Like a +picture. Like--like a silver vase on a blue cloth!" + +Ben Sittka did not talk to the girl while he inserted the tube in the +spare casing. Only, in the triumphant moment when the parted ends of the +steel rim snapped back together, he piped, "Going far?" + +"Yes, rather. To Seattle." + +Milt stared at the cobweb-grayed window. "Now I know what I was planning +to do. I'm going to Seattle," he said. + +The girl was gone at twenty-nine minutes after twelve. At twenty-nine +and a half minutes after, Milt remarked to Ben Sittka, "I'm going to +take a trip. Uh? Now don't ask questions. You take charge of the garage +until you hear from me. Get somebody to help you. G'-by." + +He drove his Teal bug out of the garage. At thirty-two minutes after +twelve he was in his room, packing his wicker suitcase by the method of +throwing things in and stamping on the case till it closed. In it he +had absolutely all of his toilet refinements and wardrobe except the +important portion already in use. They consisted, according to faithful +detailed report, of four extra pairs of thick yellow and white cotton +socks; two shirts, five collars, five handkerchiefs; a pair of +surprisingly vain dancing pumps; high tan laced boots; three suits of +cheap cotton underclothes; his Sunday suit, which was dead black in +color, and unimaginative in cut; four ties; a fagged toothbrush, a comb +and hairbrush, a razor, a strop, shaving soap in a mug; a not very clean +towel; and nothing else whatever. + +To this he added his entire library and private picture gallery, +consisting of Ivanhoe, Ben-Hur, his father's copy of Byron, a wireless +manual, and the 1916 edition of Motor Construction and Repairing: the +art collection, one colored Sunday supplement picture of a princess +lunching in a Provençe courtyard, and a half-tone of Colonel Paul Beck +landing in an early military biplane. Under this last, in a pencil +scrawl now blurred to grayness, Milt had once written, "This what Ill be +aviator." + +What he was to wear was a piercing trouble. Till eleven minutes past +twelve that day he had not cared. People accepted his overalls at +anything except a dance, and at the dances he was the only one who wore +pumps. But in his discovery of Claire Boltwood he had perceived that +dressing is an art. Before he had packed, he had unhappily pawed at the +prized black suit. It had become stupid. "Undertaker!" he growled. + +With a shrug which indicated that he had nothing else, he had exchanged +his overalls for a tan flannel shirt, black bow tie, thick pigskin +shoes, and the suit he had worn the evening before, his best suit of two +years ago--baggy blue serge coat and trousers. He could not know it, but +they were surprisingly graceful on his wiry, firm, white body. + +In his pockets were a roll of bills and an unexpectedly good gold watch. +For warmth he had a winter ulster, an old-fashioned turtle-neck sweater, +and a raincoat heavy as tarpaulin. He plunged into the raincoat, ran +out, galloped to Rauskukle's store, bought the most vehement cap in the +place--a plaid of cerise, orange, emerald green, ultramarine, and five +other guaranteed fashionable colors. He stocked up with food for +roadside camping. + +In the humping tin-covered tail of the bug was a good deal of room, and +this he filled with motor extras, a shotgun and shells, a pair of +skates, and all his camping kit as used on his annual duck-hunting trip +to Man Trap Lake. + +"I'm a darned fool to take everything I own but---- Might be gone a +whole month," he reflected. + +He had only one possession left--a check book, concealed from the +interested eye of his too maternal landlady by sticking it under the +stair carpet. This he retrieved. It showed a balance of two hundred +dollars. There was ten dollars in the cash register in the office, for +Ben Sittka. The garage would, with the mortgage deducted, be worth +nearly two thousand. This was his fortune. + +He bolted into the kitchen and all in one shout he informed his +landlady, "Called out of town, li'l trip, b'lieve I don't owe you +an'thing, here's six dollars, two weeks' notice, dunno just when I be +back." + +Before she could issue a questionnaire he was out in the bug. He ran +through town. At his friend McGolwey; now loose-lipped and wabbly, +sitting in the rain on a pile of ties behind the railroad station, he +yelled, "So long, Mac. Take care yourself, old hoss. Off on li'l trip." + +He stopped in front of the "prof's," tooted till the heads of the +Joneses appeared at the window, waved and shouted, "G'-by, folks. Goin' +outa town." + +Then, while freedom and the distant Pacific seemed to rush at him over +the hood, he whirled out of town. It was two minutes to one--forty-seven +minutes since Claire Boltwood had entered Schoenstrom. + +He stopped only once. His friend Lady Vere de Vere was at the edge of +town, on a scientific exploring trip in the matter of ethnology and +field mice. She hailed him, "Mrwr? Me mrwr!" + +"You don't say so!" Milt answered in surprise. "Well, if I promised to +take you, I'll keep my word." He vaulted out, tucked Vere de Vere into +the seat, protecting her from the rain with the tarpaulin winter +radiator-cover. + +His rut-skipping car overtook the mud-walloping Gomez-Dep in an hour, +and pulled it out of the mud. + +Before Milt slept that night, in his camp three miles from Gopher +Prairie, he went through religious rites. + +"Girl like her, she's darn particular about her looks. I'm a sloppy +hound. Used to be snappier about my clothes when I was in high school. +Getting lazy--too much like Mac. Think of me sleeping in my clothes last +night!" + +"Mrwr!" rebuked the cat. + +"You're dead right. Fierce is the word. Nev' will sleep in my duds +again, puss. That is, when I have a reg'lar human bed. Course camping, +different. But still---- Let's see all the funny things we can do to +us." + +He shaved--two complete shaves, from lather to towel. He brushed his +hair. He sat down by a campfire sheltered between two rocks, and fought +his nails, though they were discouragingly crammed with motor grease. +Throughout this interesting but quite painful ceremony Milt kept up a +conversation between himself as the World's Champion Dude, and his cat +as Vallay. But when there was nothing more to do, and the fire was low, +and Vere de Vere asleep in the sleeve of the winter ulster, his +bumbling voice slackened; in something like agony he muttered: + +"But oh, what's the use? I can't ever be anything but a dub! Cleaning my +nails, to make a hit with a girl that's got hands like hers! It's a long +trail to Seattle, but it's a darn sight longer one to being--being--well, +sophisticated. Oh! And incidentally, what the deuce am I going to do in +Seattle if I do get there?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE LAND OF BILLOWING CLOUDS + + +Never a tawny-beached ocean has the sweetness of the prairie slew. +Rippling and blue, with long grass up to its edge, a spot of dancing +light set in the miles of rustling wheat, it retains even in July, on an +afternoon of glare and brazen locusts, the freshness of a spring +morning. A thousand slews, a hundred lakes bordered with rippling barley +or tinkling bells of the flax, Claire passed. She had left the +occasional groves of oak and poplar and silver birch, and come out on +the treeless Great Plains. + +She had learned to call the slews "pugholes," and to watch for ducks at +twilight. She had learned that about the pugholes flutter choirs of +crimson-winged blackbirds; that the ugly brown birds squatting on +fence-rails were the divine-voiced meadow larks; that among the humble +cowbird citizens of the pastures sometimes flaunted a scarlet tanager or +an oriole; and that no rose garden has the quaint and hardy beauty of +the Indian paint brushes and rag babies and orange milkweed in the +prickly, burnt-over grass between roadside and railway line. + +She had learned that what had seemed rudeness in garage men and hotel +clerks was often a resentful reflection of her own Eastern attitude +that she was necessarily superior to a race she had been trained to call +"common people." If she spoke up frankly, they made her one of their +own, and gave her companionable aid. + +For two days of sunshine and drying mud she followed a road flung +straight across flat wheatlands, then curving among low hills. Often +there were no fences; she was so intimately in among the grain that the +fenders of the car brushed wheat stalks, and she became no stranger, but +a part of all this vast-horizoned land. She forgot that she was driving, +as she let the car creep on, while she was transported by Armadas of +clouds, prairie clouds, wisps of vapor like a ribbed beach, or mounts of +cumulus swelling to gold-washed snowy peaks. + +The friendliness of the bearing earth gave her a calm that took no heed +of passing hours. Even her father, the abstracted man of affairs, nodded +to dusty people along the road; to a jolly old man whose bulk rolled and +shook in a tiny, rhythmically creaking buggy, to women in the small +abrupt towns with their huge red elevators and their long, flat-roofed +stores. + +Claire had discovered America, and she felt stronger, and all her days +were colored with the sun. + +She had discovered, too, that she could adventure. No longer was she +haunted by the apprehension that had whispered to her as she had left +Minneapolis. She knew a thrill when she hailed--as though it were a +passing ship--an Illinois car across whose dust-caked back was a banner +"Chicago to the Yellowstone." She experienced a new sensation of common +humanness when, on a railway paralleling the wagon road for miles, the +engineer of a freight waved his hand to her, and tooted the whistle in +greeting. + +Her father was easily tired, but he drowsed through the early afternoons +when a none-too-digestible small-town lunch was as lead within him. +Despite the beauty of the land and the joy of pushing on, they both had +things to endure. + +After lunch, it was sometimes an agony to Claire to keep awake. Her eyes +felt greasy from the food, or smarted with the sun-glare. In the still +air, after the morning breeze had been burnt out, the heat from the +engine was a torment about her feet; and if there was another car ahead, +the trail of dust sifted into her throat. Unless there was traffic to +keep her awake, she nodded at the wheel; she was merely a part of a +machine that ran on without seeming to make any impression on the +prairie's endlessness. + +Over and over there were the same manipulations: slow for down hill, +careful of sand at the bottom, letting her out on a smooth stretch, +waving to a lonely farmwife in her small, baked dooryard, slow to pass a +hay-wagon, gas for up the next hill, and repeat the round all over +again. But she was joyous till noon; and with mid-afternoon a new +strength came which, as rose crept above the golden haze of dust, +deepened into serene meditation. + +And she was finding the one secret of long-distance driving--namely, +driving; keeping on, thinking by fifty-mile units, not by the ten-mile +stretches of Long Island runs; and not fretting over anything whatever. +She seemed charmed; if she had a puncture--why, she put on the spare. If +she ran out of gas--why, any passing driver would lend her a gallon. +Nothing, it seemed, could halt her level flight across the giant land. + +She rarely lost her way. She was guided by the friendly trail +signs--those big red R's and L's on fence post and telephone pole, +magically telling the way from the Mississippi to the Pacific. + +Her father's occasional musing talk kept her from loneliness. He was a +good touring companion. Motoring is not the best occasion for epigrams, +satire, and the Good One You Got Off at the Lambs' Club last night. Such +verbiage on motor trips invariably results in the mysterious finding of +the corpse of a strange man, well dressed, hidden beside the road. +Claire and her father mumbled, "Good farmhouse--brick," or "Nice view," +and smiled, and were for miles as silent as the companionable sky. + +She thought of the people she knew, especially of Jeff Saxton. But she +could not clearly remember his lean earnest face. Between her and Jeff +were sweeping sunny leagues. But she was not lonely. Certainly she was +not lonely for a young man with a raincoat, a cat, and an interest in +Japan. + +No singer after a first concert has felt more triumphant than Claire +when she crossed her first state-line; rumbled over the bridge across +the Red River into North Dakota. To see Dakota car licenses everywhere, +instead of Minnesota, was like the sensation of street signs in a new +language. And when she found a good hotel in Fargo and had a real bath, +she felt that by her own efforts she had earned the right to enjoy it. + +Mr. Boltwood caught her enthusiasm. Dinner was a festival, and in iced +tea the peaceful conquistadores drank the toast of the new Spanish Main; +and afterward, arm in arm, went chattering to the movies. + +In front of the Royal Palace, Pictures, 4 Great Acts Vaudeville 4, was +browsing a small, beetle-like, tin-covered car. + +"Dad! Look! I'm sure--yes, of course, there's his suitcase--that's the +car of that nice boy--don't you remember?--the one that pulled us out of +the mud at--I don't remember the name of the place. Apparently he's +keeping going. I remember; he's headed for Seattle, too. We'll look for +him in the theater. Oh, the darling, there's his cat! What was the funny +name he gave her--the Marchioness Montmorency or something?" + +Lady Vere de Vere, afraid of Fargo and movie crowds, but trusting in her +itinerant castle, the bug, was curled in Milt Daggett's ulster, in the +bottom of the car. She twinkled her whiskers at Claire, and purred to a +stroking hand. + +With the excitement of one trying to find the address of a friend in a +strange land Claire looked over the audience when the lights came on +before the vaudeville. In the second row she saw Milt's stiffish, +rope-colored hair--surprisingly smooth above an astoundingly clean new +tan shirt of mercerized silk. + +He laughed furiously at the dialogue between Pete-Rosenheim & +Larose-Bettina, though it contained the cheese joke, the mother-in-law +joke, and the joke about the wife rifling her husband's pockets. + +"Our young friend seems to have enviable youthful spirits," commented +Mr. Boltwood. + +"Now, no superiority! He's probably never seen a real vaudeville show. +Wouldn't it be fun to take him to the Winter Garden or the Follies for +the first time!... Instead of being taken by Jeff Saxton, and having the +humor, oh! so articulately explained!" + +The pictures were resumed; the film which, under ten or twelve different +titles, Claire had already seen, even though Brooklyn Heights does not +devote Saturday evening to the movies. The badman, the sheriff--an aged +party with whiskers and boots--the holdup, the sad eyes of the sheriff's +daughter--also an aged party, but with a sunbonnet and the most +expensive rouge--the crook's reformation, and his violent adherence to +law and order; this libel upon the portions of these United States lying +west of longitude 101° Claire had seen too often. She dragged her father +back to the hotel, sent him to bed, and entered her room--to find a +telegram upon the bureau. + +She had sent her friends a list of the places at which she would be +likely to stop. The message was from Jeff Saxton, in Brooklyn. It +brought to her mind the steady shine of his glasses--the most expensive +glasses, with the very best curved lenses--as it demanded: + + "Received letter about trip surprised anxious will tire you out + fatigue prairie roads bad for your father mountain roads dangerous + strongly advise go only part way then take train. GEOFFREY." + +She held the telegram, flipping her fingers against one end of it as she +debated. She remembered how the wide world had flowed toward her over +the hood of the Gomez all day. She wrote in answer: + + "Awful perils of road, two punctures, split infinitive, eggs at + lunch questionable, but struggle on." + +Before she sent it she held council with her father. She sat on the foot +of his bed and tried to sound dutiful. "I don't want to do anything +that's bad for you, daddy. But isn't it taking your mind away from +business?" + +"Ye-es, I think it is. Anyway, we'll try it a few days more." + +"I fancy we can stand up under the strain and perils. I think we can +persuade some of these big farmers to come to the rescue if we encounter +any walruses or crocodiles among the wheat. And I have a feeling that if +we ever get stuck, our friend of the Teal bug will help us." + +"Probably never see him again. He'll skip on ahead of us." + +"Of course. We haven't laid an eye on him, along the road. He must have +gotten into Fargo long before we did. Now tomorrow I think----" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE GREAT AMERICAN FRYING PAN + + +It was Claire's first bad day since the hole in the mud. She had started +gallantly, scooting along the level road that flies straight west of +Fargo. But at noon she encountered a restaurant which made eating seem +an evil. + +That they might have fair fame among motorists the commercial club of +Reaper had set at the edge of town a sign "Welcome to Reaper, a Live +Town--Speed Limit 8 Miles perhr." Being interpreted, that sign meant +that if you went much over twenty miles an hour on the main street, +people might glance at you; and that the real welcome, the only +impression of Reaper that tourists were likely to carry away, was the +welcome in the one restaurant. It was called the Eats Garden. As Claire +and her father entered, they were stifled by a belch of smoke from the +frying pan in the kitchen. The room was blocked by a huge lunch counter; +there was only one table, covered with oil cloth decorated with +venerable spots of dried egg yolk. + +The waiter-cook, whose apron was gravy-patterned, with a border and +stomacher of plain gray dirt, grumbled, "Whadyuhwant?" + +Claire sufficiently recovered to pick out the type from the fly specks +on the menu, and she ordered a small steak and coffee for her father; +for herself tea, boiled eggs, toast. + +"Toast? We ain't got any toast!" + +"Well, can't you make it?" + +"Oh, I suppose I could----" + +When they came, the slices of toast were an inch thick, burnt on one +side and raw on the other. The tea was bitter and the eggs watery. Her +father reported that his steak was high-test rawhide, and his +coffee--well, he wasn't sure just what substitute had been used for +chicory, but he thought it was lukewarm quinine. + +Claire raged: "You know, this town really has aspirations. They're +beginning to build such nice little bungalows, and there's a fine clean +bank---- Then they permit this scoundrel to advertise the town among +strangers, influential strangers, in motors, by serving food like this! +I suppose they think that they arrest criminals here, yet this +restaurant man is a thief, to charge real money for food like this---- +Yes, and he's a murderer!" + +"Oh, come now, dolly!" + +"Yes he is, literally. He must in his glorious career have given chronic +indigestion to thousands of people--shortened their lives by years. +That's wholesale murder. If I were the authorities here, I'd be +indulgent to the people who only murder one or two people, but imprison +this cook for life. Really! I mean it!" + +"Well, he probably does the best he----" + +"He does not! These eggs and this bread were perfectly good, before he +did black magic over them. And did you see the contemptuous look he gave +me when I was so eccentric as to order toast? Oh, Reaper, Reaper, you +desire a modern town, yet I wonder if you know how many thousands of +tourists go from coast to coast, cursing you? If I could only hang that +restaurant man--and the others like him--in a rope of his own hempen +griddle cakes! The Great American Frying Pan! I don't expect men +building a new town to have time to read Hugh Walpole and James Branch +Cabell, but I do expect them to afford a cook who can fry eggs!" + +As she paid the check, Claire tried to think of some protest which would +have any effect on the obese wits of the restaurant man. In face of his +pink puffiness she gave it up. Her failure as a Citizeness Fixit sent +her out of the place in a fury, carried her on in a dusty whirl till the +engine spat, sounded tired and reflective, and said it guessed it +wouldn't go any farther that day. + +Now that she had something to do, Claire became patient. "Run out of +gas. Isn't it lucky I got that can for an extra gallon?" + +But there was plenty of gas. There was no discernible reason why the +car should not go. She started the engine. It ran for half a minute and +quit. All the plugs showed sparks. No wires were detached in the +distributor. There was plenty of water, and the oil was not clogged. And +that ended Claire's knowledge of the inside of a motor. + +She stopped two motorists. The first was sure that there was dirt on the +point of the needle valve, in the carburetor. While Claire shuddered +lest he never get it back, he took out the needle valve, wiped it, put +it back--and the engine was again started, and again, with great +promptness, it stopped. + +The second Good Samaritan knew that one of the wires in the distributor +must be detached and, though she assured him that she had inspected +them, he looked pityingly at her smart sports-suit, said, "Well, I'll +just take a look," and removed the distributor cover. He also scratched +his head, felt of the fuses under the cowl, scratched his cheek, poked a +finger at the carburetor, rubbed his ear, said, "Well, uh----" looked to +see if there was water and gas, sighed, "Can't just seem to find out +what's the trouble," shot at his own car, and escaped. + +Claire had been highly grateful and laudatory to both of them--but she +remained here, ten miles from nowhere. It was a beautiful place. Down a +hill the wheat swam toward a village whose elevator was a glistening +tower. Mud-hens gabbled in a slew, alfalfa shone with unearthly green, +and bees went junketing toward a field of red clover. But she had the +motorist's fever to go on. The road behind and in front was very long, +very white--and very empty. + +Her father, out of much thought and a solid ignorance about all of +motoring beyond the hiring of chauffeurs and the payment of bills, +suggested, "Uh, dolly, have you looked to see if these, uh---- Is the +carburetor all right?" + +"Yes, dear; I've looked at it three times, so far," she said, just a +little too smoothly. + +On the hill five miles to eastward, a line of dust, then a small car. As +it approached, the driver must have sighted her and increased speed. He +came up at thirty-five miles an hour. + +"Now we'll get something done! Look! It's a bug--a flivver or a Teal or +something. I believe it's the young man that got us out of the mud." + +Milt Daggett stopped, casually greeted them: "Why, hello, Miss Boltwood. +Thought you'd be way ahead of me some place!" + +"Mrwr," said Vere de Vere. What this meant the historian does not know. + +"No; I've been taking it easy. Mr., Uh--I can't quite remember your +name----" + +"Milt Daggett." + +"There's something mysterious the matter with my car. The engine will +start, after it's left alone a while, but then it stalls. Do you +suppose you could tell what it is?" + +"I don't know. I'll see if I can find out." + +"Then you probably will. The other two men knew everything. One of them +was the inventor of wheels, and the other discovered skidding. So of +course they couldn't help me." + +Milt added nothing to her frivolity, but his smile was friendly. He +lifted the round rubber cap of the distributor. Then Claire's faith +tumbled in the dust. Twice had the wires been tested. Milt tested them +again. She was too tired of botching to tell him he was wasting time. + +"Got an oil can?" he hesitated. + +Through a tiny hole in the plate of the distributor he dripped two drops +of oil--only two drops. "I guess maybe that's what it needed. You might +try her now, and see how she runs," he said mildly. + +Dubiously Claire started the engine. It sang jubilantly, and it did not +stop. Again was the road open to her. Again was the settlement over +there, to which it would have taken her an hour to walk, only six +minutes away. + +She stopped the engine, beamed at him--there in the dust, on the quiet +hilltop. He said as apologetically as though he had been at fault, +"Distributor got dry. Might give it a little oil about once in six +months." + +"We are so grateful to you! Twice now you've saved our lives." + +"Oh, I guess you'd have gone on living! And if drivers can't help each +other, who can?" + +"That's a good start toward world-fellowship, I suppose. I wish we could +do---- Return your lunch or---- Mr. Daggett! Do you read books? I +mean----" + +"Yes I do, when I run across them." + +"Mayn't I gi--lend you these two that I happen to have along? I've +finished them, and so has father, I think." + +From the folds of the strapped-down top she pulled out Compton +Mackenzie's _Youth's Encounter_, and Vachel Lindsay's _Congo_. With a +curious faint excitement she watched him turn the leaves. His blunt +fingers flapped through them as though he was used to books. As he +looked at _Congo_, he exclaimed, "Poetry! That's fine! Like it, but I +don't hardly ever run across it. I---- Say---- I'm terribly obliged!" + +His clear face lifted, sun-brown and young and adoring. She had not +often seen men look at her thus. Certainly Jeff Saxton's painless +worship did not turn him into the likeness of a knight among banners. +Yet the good Geoffrey loved her, while to Milt Daggett she could be +nothing more than a strange young woman in a car with a New York +license. If her tiny gift could so please him, how poor he must be. "He +probably lives on some barren farm," she thought, "or he's a penniless +mechanic hoping for a good job in Seattle. How white his forehead is!" + +But aloud she was saying, "I hope you're enjoying your trip." + +"Oh yes. I like it fine. You having a good time? Well---- Well, thanks +for the books." + +She was off before him. Presently she exclaimed to Mr. Boltwood: "You +know--just occurs to me--it's rather curious that our young friend +should be so coincidental as to come along just when we needed him." + +"Oh, he just happened to, I suppose," hemmed her father. + +"I'm not so sure," she meditated, while she absently watched another +member of the Poultry Suicide Club rush out of a safe ditch, prepare to +take leave for immortality, change her fowlish mind, flutter up over the +hood of the car, and come down squawking her indignities to the +barnyard. "I'm not so sure about his happening---- No. I wonder if he +could possibly---- Oh no. I hope not. Flattering, but---- You don't +suppose he could be deliberately following us?" + +"Nonsense! He's a perfectly decent young chap." + +"I know. Of course. He probably works hard in a garage, and is terribly +nice to his mother and sisters at home. I mean---- I wouldn't want the +dear lamb to be a devoted knight, though. Too thankless a job." + +She slowed the car down to fifteen an hour. For the first time she began +to watch the road behind her. In a few minutes a moving spot showed in +the dust three miles back. Oh, naturally; he would still be behind her. +Only---- If she stopped, just to look at the scenery, he would go on +ahead of her. She stopped for a moment--for a time too brief to indicate +that anything had gone wrong with her car. Staring back she saw that the +bug stopped also, and she fancied that Milt was out standing beside it, +peering with his palm over his eyes--a spy, unnatural and disturbing in +the wide peace. + +She drove on a mile and halted again; again halted her attendant. He was +keeping a consistent two to four miles behind, she estimated. + +"This won't do at all," she worried. "Flattering, but somehow---- +Whatever sort of a cocoon-wrapped hussy I am, I don't collect scalps. I +won't have young men serving me--graft on them--get amusement out of +their struggles. Besides--suppose he became just a little more friendly, +each time he came up, all the way from here to Seattle?... Fresh.... No, +it won't do." + +She ran the car to the side of the road. + +"More trouble?" groaned her father. + +"No. Just want to see scenery." + +"But---- There's a good deal of scenery on all sides, without stopping, +seems to me!" + +"Yes, but----" She looked back. Milt had come into sight; had paused to +take observations. Her father caught it: + +"Oh, I see. Pardon me. Our squire still following? Let him go on ahead? +Wise lass." + +"Yes. I think perhaps it's better to avoid complications." + +"Of course." Mr. Boltwood's manner did not merely avoid Milt; it +abolished him. + +She saw Milt, after five minutes of stationary watching, start forward. +He came dustily rattling up with a hail of "Distributor on strike +again?" so cheerful that it hurt her to dismiss him. But she had managed +a household. She was able to say suavely: + +"No, everything is fine. I'm sure it will be, now. I'm afraid we are +holding you back. You mustn't worry about us." + +"Oh, that's all right," breezily. "Something might go wrong. Say, is +this poetry book----" + +"No, I'm sure nothing will go wrong now. You mustn't feel responsible +for us. But, uh, you understand we're very grateful for what you have +done and, uh, perhaps we shall see each other in Seattle?" She made it +brightly interrogatory. + +"Oh, I see." His hands gripped the wheel. His cheeks had been too +ruddily tinted by the Dakota sun to show a blush, but his teeth caught +his lower lip. He had no starter on his bug; he had in his embarrassment +to get out and crank. He did it quietly, not looking at her. She could +see that his hand trembled on the crank. When he did glance at her, as +he drove off, it was apologetically, miserably. His foot was shaking on +the clutch pedal. + +The dust behind his car concealed him. For twenty miles she was silent, +save when she burst out to her father, "I do hope you're enjoying the +trip. It's so easy to make people unhappy. I wonder---- No. Had to be +done." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE DISCOVERY OF CANNED SHRIMPS AND HESPERIDES + + +On the morning when Milt Daggett had awakened to sunshine in the woods +north of Gopher Prairie, he had discovered the golden age. As mile on +mile he jogged over new hills, without having to worry about getting +back to his garage in time to repair somebody's car, he realized that +for the past two years he had forced himself to find contentment in +building up a business that had no future. + +Now he laughed and whooped; he drove with one foot inelegantly and +enchantingly up on the edge of the cowl; he made Lady Vere de Vere bow +to astounded farmers; he went to the movies every evening--twice, in +Fargo; and when the chariot of the young prince swept to the brow of a +hill, he murmured, not in the manner of a bug-driver but with a stinging +awe, "All that big country! Ours to see, puss! We'll settle down some +day and be solid citizens and raise families and wheeze when we walk, +but---- All those hills to sail over and---- Come on! Lez sail!" + +Milt attended the motion pictures every evening, and he saw them in a +new way. As recently as one week before he had preferred those earnest +depictions in which hard-working, moral actors shoot one another, or +ride the most uncomfortable horses up mountainsides. But now, with a +mental apology to that propagandist of lowbrowism, the absent Mac, he +chose the films in which the leading men wore evening clothes, and no +one ever did anything without being assisted by a "man." Aside from the +pictures Milt's best tutors were traveling men. Though he measured every +cent, and for his campfire dinners bought modest chuck steaks, he had at +least one meal a day at a hotel, to watch the traveling men. + +To Claire, traveling men were merely commercial persons in hard-boiled +suits. She identified them with the writing-up of order-slips on long +littered writing-tables, and with hotels that reduced the delicate arts +of dining and sleeping to gray greasiness. But Milt knew traveling men. +He knew that not only were they the missionaries of business, +supplementing the taking of orders by telling merchants how to build up +trade, how to trim windows and treat customers like human beings; but +also that they, as much as the local ministers and doctors and teachers +and newspapermen, were the agents in spreading knowledge and justice. It +was they who showed the young men how to have their hair cut--and to +wash behind the ears and shave daily; they who encouraged villagers to +rise from scandal and gossip to a perception of the Great World, of +politics and sports, and some measure of art and science. + +Claire, and indeed her father and Mr. Jeff Saxton as well, had vaguely +concluded that because drummers were always to be seen in soggy hotels +and badly connecting trains and the headachy waiting-rooms of stations, +they must like these places. Milt knew that the drummers were martyrs; +that for months of a trip, all the while thinking of the children back +home, they suffered from landlords and train schedules; that they were +Claire's best allies in fighting the Great American Frying Pan; that +they knew good things, and fought against the laziness and impositions +of people who "kept hotel" because they had failed as farmers; and that +when they did find a landlord who was cordial and efficient, they went +forth mightily advertising that glorious man. The traveling men, he +knew, were pioneers in spats. + +Hence it was to the traveling men, not to supercilious tourists in +limousines, that Milt turned for suggestions as to how to perform the +miracle of changing from an ambitious boy into what Claire would +recognize as a charming man. He had not met enough traveling men at +Schoenstrom. They scooped up what little business there was, and escaped +from the Leipzig House to spend the night at St. Cloud or Sauk Centre. + +In the larger towns in Minnesota and Dakota, after evening movies, +before slipping out to his roadside camp Milt inserted himself into a +circle of traveling men in large leather chairs, and ventured, "Saw a +Gomez-Dep with a New York license down the line today." + +"Oh. You driving through?" + +"Yes. Going to Seattle." + +That distinguished Milt from the ordinary young-men-loafers, and he was +admitted as one of the assembly of men who traveled and saw things and +wondered about the ways of men. It was good talk he heard; too much of +hotels, and too many tight banal little phrases suggesting the solution +of all economic complexities by hanging "agitators," but with this, an +exciting accumulation of impressions of Vancouver and San Diego, Florida +and K. C. + +"That's a wonderful work farm they have at Duluth," said one, and the +next, "speaking of that, I was in Chicago last week, and I saw a +play----" + +Milt had, in his two years of high school in St. Cloud, and in his +boyhood under the genial but abstracted eye of the Old Doctor, learned +that it was not well thought of to use the knife as a hod and to plaster +mashed potatoes upon it, as was the custom in Mac's Old Home Lunch at +Schoenstrom. But the arts of courteously approaching oysters, salad, and +peas were rather unfamiliar to him. Now he studied forks as he had once +studied carburetors, and he gave spiritual devotion to the nice eating +of a canned-shrimp cocktail--a lost legion of shrimps, now two thousand +miles and two years away from their ocean home. + +He peeped with equal earnestness at the socks and the shirts of the +traveling men. Socks had been to him not an article of faith but a +detail of economy. His attitude to socks had lacked in reverence and +technique. He had not perceived that socks may be as sound a symbol of +culture as the 'cello or even demountable rims. He had been able to +think with respect of ties and damp piqué collars secured by gold +safety-pins; and to the belted fawn overcoat that the St. Klopstock +banker's son had brought back from St. Paul, he had given jealous +attention. But now he graduated into differential socks. + +By his campfire, sighing to the rather somnolent Vere de Vere, he +scornfully yanked his extra pairs of thick, white-streaked, yellow +cotton socks from the wicker suitcase, and uttered anathema: + +"Begone, ye unworthy and punk-looking raiment. I know ye! Ye werst a +bargain and two pairs for two bits. But even as Adolph Zolzac and an +agent for flivver accessories are ye become in my eyes, ye generation of +vipers, ye clumsy, bag-footed, wrinkle-sided gunny-sacking ye!" + +Next day, in the woods, a happy hobo found that the manna-bringing +ravens had left him four pairs of good socks. + +Five quite expensive pairs of silk and lisle socks Milt purchased--all +that the general merchant at Jeppe had in stock. What they lost in +suitability to touring and to private laundering at creeks, they gained +as symbols. Milt felt less shut out from the life of leisure. Now, in +Seattle, say, he could go into a good hotel with less fear of the +clerks. + +He added attractive outing shirts, ties neither too blackly dull nor too +flashily crimson, and a vicious nail-brush which simply tore out the +motor grease that had grown into the lines of his hands. Also he added a +book. + +The book was a rhetoric. Milt knew perfectly that there was an +impertinence called grammar, but it had never annoyed him much. He knew +that many persons preferred "They were" to "They was," and were nervous +in the presence of "ain't." One teacher in St. Cloud had buzzed +frightfully about these minutić. But Milt discovered that grammar was +only the beginning of woes. He learned that there were such mental +mortgages as figures of speech and the choice of synonyms. He had always +known, but he had never passionately felt that the invariable use of +"hell," "doggone," and "You bet!" left certain subtleties unexpressed. +Now he was finding subtleties which he had to express. + +As joyously adventurous as going on day after day was his +experimentation in voicing his new observations. He gave far more +eagerness to it than Claire Boltwood had. Gustily intoning to Vere de +Vere, who was the perfect audience, inasmuch as she never had anything +to say but "Mrwr," and didn't mind being interrupted in that, he +clamored, "The prairies are the sea. In the distance they are kind of +silvery--no--they are dim silver; and way off on the skyline are the +Islands of the--of the---- Now what the devil was them, were those, +islands in the mythology book in high school? Of the--Blessed? Great +snakes' boots, you're an ignorant cat, Vere! Hesperyds? No! Hesperides! +Yea, bo'! Now that man in the hotel: 'May I trouble you for the train +guide? Thanks so much!' But how much is so much?" + +As Claire's days were set free by her consciousness of sun and brown +earth, so Milt's odyssey was only the more valorous in his endeavor to +criticize life. He saw that Mac's lunch room had not been an altogether +satisfactory home; that Mac's habit of saying to dissatisfied customers, +"If you don't like it, get out," had lacked something of courtesy. +Staring at towns along the way, Milt saw that houses were not merely +large and comfortable, or small and stingy; but that there was an +interesting thing he remembered hearing his teachers call "good taste." + +He was not the preoccupied Milt of the garage but a gay-eyed gallant, +the evening when he gave a lift to the school-teacher and drove her from +the district school among the wild roses and the corn to her home in the +next town. She was a neat, tripping, trim-sided school-teacher of +nineteen or twenty. + +"You're going out to Seattle? My! That's a wonderful trip. Don't you get +tired?" she adored. + +"Oh, no. And I'm seeing things. I used to think everything worth while +was right near my own town." + +"You're so wise to go places. Most of the boys I know don't think there +is any world beyond Jimtown and Fargo." + +She glowed at him. Milt was saying to himself, "Am I a fool? I probably +could make this girl fall in love with me. And she's better than I am; +so darn neat and clean and gentle. We'd be happy. She's a nice comfy +fire, and here I go like a boob, chasing after a lone, cold star like +Miss Boltwood, and probably I'll fall into all the slews from hell to +breakfast on the way. But---- I'd get sleepy by a comfy fire." + +"Are you thinking hard? You're frowning so," ventured the +school-teacher. + +"Didn't mean to. 'Scuse!" he laughed. One hand off the steering wheel, +he took her hand--a fresh, cool, virginal hand, snuggling into his, +suddenly stirring him. He wanted to hold it tighter. The lamenting +historian of love's pilgrimage must set down the fact that the pilgrim +for at least a second forgot the divine tread of the goddess Claire, and +made rapid calculation that he could, in a pinch, drive from Schoenstrom +to the teacher's town in two days and a night; that therefore courtship, +and this sweet white hand resting in his, were not impossible. Milt +himself did not know what it was that made him lay down the hand and +say, so softly that he was but half audible through the rattle of the +engine: + +"Isn't this a slick, mean to say glorious evening? Sky rose and then +that funny lavender. And that new moon---- Makes me think of--the girl +I'm in love with." + +"You're engaged?" wistfully. + +"Not exactly but---- Say, did you study rhetoric in Normal School? I +have a rhetoric that's got all kind of poetic extracts, you know, and +quotations and everything, from the big writers, Stevenson and all. +Always been so practical, making a garage pay, never thought much about +how I said things as long as I could say 'No!' and say it quick. 'Cept +maybe when I was talking to the prof there. But it's great sport to see +how musical you can make a thing sound. Words. Like Shenandoah. Gol-lee! +Isn't that a wonderful word? Makes you see old white mansion, and +mocking birds---- Wonder if a fellow could be a big engineer, you know, +build bridges and so on, and still talk about, oh, beautiful things? +What d' you think, girlie?" + +"Oh, I'm sure you could!" + +Her admiration, the proximity of her fragrant slightness, was pleasant +in the dusk, but he did not press her hand again, even when she +whispered, "Good night, and thank you--oh, thank you." + +If Milt had been driving at the rate at which he usually made his +skipjack carom over the roads about Schoenstrom, he would by now have +been through Dakota, into Montana. But he was deliberately holding down +the speed. When he had been tempted by a smooth stretch to go too +breathlessly, he halted, teased Vere de Vere, climbed out and, sitting +on a hilltop, his hands about his knees, drenched his soul with the +vision of amber distances. + +He tried so to time his progress that he might always be from three to +five miles behind Claire--distant enough to be unnoticed, near enough to +help in case of need. For behind poetic expression and the use of forks +was the fact that his purpose in life was to know Claire. + +When he was caught, when Claire informed him that he "mustn't worry +about her"; when, slowly, he understood that she wasn't being neighborly +and interested in his making time, he wanted to escape, never to see her +again. + +For thirty miles his cheeks were fiery. He, most considerate of roadmen, +crowded a woman in a flivver, passed a laboring car on an upgrade with +such a burst that the uneasy driver bumped off into a ditch. He hadn't +really seen them. Only mechanically had he got past them. He was +muttering: + +"She thought I was trying to butt in! Stung again! Like a small boy in +love with teacher. And I thought I was so wise! Cussed out Mac--blamed +Mac--no, damn all the fine words--cussed out Mac for being the village +rumhound. Boozing is twice as sensible as me. See a girl, nice +dress--start for Seattle! Two thousand miles away! Of course she bawled +me out. She was dead right. Boob! Yahoo! Goat!" + +He caught up Vere de Vere, rubbed her fur against his cheek while he +mourned, "Oh, puss, you got to be nice to me. I thought I'd do big +things. And then the alarm clock went off. I'm back in Schoenstrom. For +keeps, I guess. I didn't know I had feelings that could get hurt like +this. Thought I had a rhinoceros hide. But---- Oh, it isn't just feeling +ashamed over being a fool. It's that---- Won't ever see her again. Not +once. Way I saw her through the window, at that hotel, in that blue +silky dress--that funny long line of buttons, and her throat. Never have +dinner--lunch--with her by the road----" + +In the reaction of anger he demanded of Vere de Vere, "What the deuce do +I care? If she's chump enough to chase away a crack garage man that's +gone batty and wants to work for nothing, let her go on and hit some +crook garage and get stuck for an entire overhauling. What do I care? +Had nice trip; that's all I wanted. Never did intend to go clear to +Seattle, anyway. Go on to Butte, then back home. No more fussing about +fool table-manners and books, and I certainly will cut out tagging +behind her! No, sir! Nev-er again!" + +It was somewhat inconsistent to add, "There's a bully place--sneak in +and let her get past me again. But she won't catch me following next +time!" + +While he tried to keep up his virtuous anger, he was steering into an +abandoned farmyard, parking the car behind cottonwoods and neglected +tall currant bushes which would conceal it from the road. + +The windows of the deserted house stared at him; a splintered screen +door banged in every breeze. Lichens leered from the cracks of the +porch. The yard was filled with a litter of cottonwood twigs, and over +the flower garden hulked ragged weeds. In the rank grass about the slimy +green lip of the well, crickets piped derisively. The barn-door was +open. Stray kernels of wheat had sprouted between the spokes of a rusty +binder-wheel. A rat slipped across the edge of the shattered manger. As +dusk came on, gray things seemed to slither past the upper windows of +the house, and somewhere, under the roof, there was a moaning. Milt was +sure that it was the wind in a knothole. He told himself that he was +absolutely sure about it. And every time it came he stroked Vere de Vere +carefully, and once, when the moaning ended in the slamming of the +screen door, he said, "Jiminy!" + +This boy of the unghostly cylinders and tangible magnetos had never +seen a haunted house. To toil of the harvest field and machine shop and +to trudging the sun-beaten road he was accustomed, but he had never +crouched watching the slinking spirits of old hopes and broken +aspirations; feeble phantoms of the first eager bridegroom who had come +to this place, and the mortgage-crushed, rust-wheat-ruined man who had +left it. He wanted to leap into the bug and go on. Yet the haunt of +murmurous memories dignified his unhappiness. In the soft, tree-dimmed +dooryard among dry, blazing plains it seemed indecent to go on growling +"Gee," and "Can you beat it?" It was a young poet, a poet rhymeless and +inarticulate, who huddled behind the shield of untrimmed currant bushes, +and thought of the girl he would never see again. + +He was hungry, but he did not eat. He was cramped, but he did not move. +He picked up the books she had given him. He was quickened by the +powdery beauty of _Youth's Encounter_; by the vision of laughter and +dancing steps beneath a streaky gas-glow in the London fog; of youth not +"roughhousing" and wanting to "be a sport," yet in frail beauty and +faded crimson banners finding such exaltation as Schoenstrom had never +known. But every page suggested Claire, and he tucked the book away. + +In Vachel Lindsay's _Congo_, in a poem called "The Santa Fe Trail," he +found his own modern pilgrimage from another point of view. Here was +the poet, disturbed by the honking hustle of passing cars. But Milt +belonged to the honking and the hustle, and it was not the soul of the +grass that he read in the poem, but his own sun-flickering flight: + + Swiftly the brazen car comes on. + It burns in the East as the sunrise burns. + I see great flashes where the far trail turns. + Butting through the delicate mists of the morning, + It comes like lightning, goes past roaring, + It will hail all the windmills, taunting, ringing, + On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills-- + Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills. + Ho for the tear-horn, scare-horn, dare-horn, + Ho for the gay-horn, bark-horn, bay-horn. + +Milt did not reflect that if the poet had watched the Teal bug go by, he +would not have recorded a scare-horn, a dare-horn, or anything mightier +than a yip-horn. Milt saw himself a cross-continent racer, with the +envious poet, left behind as a dot on the hill, celebrating his passing. + +"Lord!" he cried. "I didn't know there were books like these! Thought +poetry was all like Longfellow and Byron. Old boys. Europe. And rhymed +bellyachin' about hard luck. But these books--they're me." Very +carefully: "No; they're I! And she gave 'em to me! I will see her again! +But she won't know it. Now be sensible, son! What do you expect? +Oh--nothing. I'll just go on, and sneak in one more glimpse of her to +take back with me where I belong." + +Half an hour after Claire had innocently passed his ambush, he began to +follow her. But not for days was he careless. If he saw her on the +horizon he paused until she was out of sight. That he might not fail her +in need, he bought a ridiculously expensive pair of field glasses, and +watched her when she stopped by the road. Once, when both her right rear +tire and the spare were punctured before she could make a town, Milt +from afar saw her patch a tube, pump up the tire in the dust. He ached +to go to her aid--though it cannot be said that hand-pumping was his +favorite July afternoon sport. + +Lest he encounter her in the streets, he always camped to the eastward +of the town at which she spent the night. After dusk, when she was +likely to end the day's drive in the first sizable place, he hid his bug +in an alley and, like a spy after the papers, sneaked into each garage +to see if her car was there. + +He would stroll in, look about vacuously, and pipe to the suspicious +night attendant, "Seen a traveling man named Smith?" Usually the garage +man snarled, "No, I ain't seen nobody named Smith. An'thing else I can +do for you?" But once he was so unlucky as to find the long-missing Mr. +Smith! + +Mr. Smith was surprised and insistent. Milt had to do some quick lying. +During that interview the cement floor felt very hard under his +fidgeting feet, and he thought he heard the garage man in the office +telephoning, "Don't think he knows Smith at all. I got a hunch he's that +auto thief that was through here last summer." + +When Claire did not stop in the first town she reached after twilight, +but drove on by dark, he had to do some perilous galloping to catch up. +The lights of a Teal are excellent for adornment, but they have no +relation to illumination. They are dependent upon a magneto which is +dependent only upon faith. + +Once, skittering along by dark, he realized that the halted car which he +had just passed was the Gomez. He thought he heard a shout behind him, +but in a panic he kept going. + +To the burring motor he groaned, "Now I probably never will see her +again. Except that she thinks I'm such a pest that I dassn't let her +know I'm in the same state, I sure am one successful lover. As a Prince +Charming I win the Vanderbilt Cup. I'm going ahead backwards so fast +I'll probably drop off into the Atlantic over the next hill!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE MAN WITH AGATE EYES + + +When her car had crossed the Missouri River on the swing-ferry between +Bismarck and Mandan, Claire had passed from Middle West to Far West. She +came out on an upland of virgin prairie, so treeless and houseless, so +divinely dipping, so rough of grass, that she could imagine buffaloes +still roving. In a hollow a real prairie schooner was camped, and the +wandering homestead-seekers were cooking dinner beside it. From a quilt +on the hay in the wagon a baby peeped, and Claire's heart leaped. + +Beyond was her first butte, its sharp-cut sides glittering yellow, and +she fancied that on it the Sioux scout still sat sentinel, erect on his +pony, the feather bonnet down his back. + +Now she seemed to breathe deeper, see farther. Again she came from +unbroken prairie into wheat country and large towns. + +Her impression of the new land was not merely of sun-glaring breadth. +Sometimes, on a cloudy day, the wash of wheatlands was as brown and +lowering and mysterious as an English moor in the mist. It dwarfed the +far-off houses by its giant enchantment; its brooding reaches changed +her attitude of brisk, gas-driven efficiency into a melancholy that was +full of hints of old dark beauty. + +Even when the sun came out, and the land was brazenly optimistic, she +saw more than just prosperity. In a new home, house and barn and +windmill square-cornered and prosaic, plumped down in a field with wheat +coming up to the unporticoed door, a habitation unshadowed, unsheltered, +unsoftened, she found a frank cleanness, as though the inhabitants +looked squarely out at life, unafraid. She felt that the keen winds +ought to blow away from such a prairie-fronting post of civilization all +mildew and cowardice, all the mummy dust of ancient fears. + +These were not peasants, these farmers. Nor, she learned, were they the +"hicks" of humor. She could never again encounter without fiery +resentment the Broadway peddler's faith that farmers invariably say +"Waal, by heck." For she had spent an hour talking to one Dakota farmer, +genial-eyed, quiet of speech. He had explained the relation of alfalfa +to soil-chemistry; had spoken of his daughter, who taught economics in a +state university; and asked Mr. Boltwood how turbines were hitched up on +liners. + +In fact, Claire learned that there may be an almost tolerable state of +existence without gardenias or the news about the latest Parisian +imagists. + +She dropped suddenly from the vast, smooth-swelling miles of wheatland +into the tortured marvels of the Bad Lands, and the road twisted in the +shadow of flying buttresses and the terraced tombs of maharajas. While +she tried to pick her way through a herd of wild, arroyo-bred cattle, +she forgot her maneuvering as she was startled by the stabbing scarlet +of a column of rock marking the place where for months deep beds of +lignite had burned. + +Claire had often given lifts to tramping harvesters and even hoboes +along the road; had enjoyed the sight of their duffle-bags stuck up +between the sleek fenders and the hood, and their talk about people and +crops along the road, as they hung on the running-board. In the country +of long hillslopes and sentinel buttes between the Dakota Bad Lands and +Miles City she stopped to shout to a man whose plodding heavy back +looked fagged, "Want a ride?" + +"Sure! You bet!" + +Usually her guests stepped on the right-hand running-board, beside Mr. +Boltwood, and this man was far over on the right side of the road. But, +while she waited, he sauntered in front of the car, round to her side, +mounted beside her. Before the car had started, she was sorry to have +invited him. He looked her over grinningly, almost contemptuously. His +unabashed eyes were as bright and hard as agates. Below them, his nose +was twisted a little, his mouth bent insolently up at one corner, and +his square long chin bristled. + +Usually, too, her passengers waited for her to start the conversation, +and talked at Mr. Boltwood rather than directly to her. But the bristly +man spat at her as the car started, "Going far?" + +"Ye-es, some distance." + +"Expensive car?" + +"Why----" + +"'Fraid of getting held up?" + +"I hadn't thought about it." + +"Pack a cannon, don't you?" + +"I don't think I quite understand." + +"Cannon! Gun! Revolver! Got a revolver, of course?" + +"W-why, no." She spoke uncomfortably. She was aware that his twinkling +eyes were on her throat. His look made her feel unclean. She tried to +think of some question which would lead the conversation to the less +exclamatory subject of crops. They were on a curving shelf road beside a +shallow valley. The road was one side of a horseshoe ten miles long. The +unprotected edge of it dropped sharply to fields forty or fifty feet +below. + +"Prosperous-looking wheat down there," she said. + +"No. Not a bit!" His look seemed to add, "And you know it--unless you're +a fool!" + +"Well, I didn't----" + +"Make Glendive tonight?" + +"At least that far." + +"Say, lady, how's the chance for borrowin' a couple of dollars? I was +workin' for a Finnski back here a ways, and he did me dirt--holdin' out +my wages on me till the end of the month." + +"Why, uh----" + +It was Claire, not the man, who was embarrassed. + +He was snickering, "Come on, don't be a tightwad. Swell car--poor man +with no eats, not even a two-bits flop for tonight. Could yuh loosen up +and slip me just a couple bones?" + +Mr. Boltwood intervened. He looked as uncomfortable as Claire. "We'll +see. It's rather against my principles to give money to an able-bodied +man like you, even though it is a pleasure to give you a ride----" + +"Sure! Don't cost you one red cent!" + +"--and if I could help you get a job, though of course---- Being a +stranger out here---- Seems strange to me, though," Mr. Boltwood +struggled on, "that a strong fellow like you should be utterly +destitute, when I see all these farmers able to have cars----" + +Their guest instantly abandoned his attitude of supplication for one of +boasting: "Destitute? Who the hell said I was destitute, heh?" He was +snarling across Claire at Mr. Boltwood. His wet face was five inches +from hers. She drew her head as far back as she could. She was sure that +the man completely appreciated her distaste, for his eyes popped with +amusement before he roared on: + +"I got plenty of money! Just 'cause I'm hoofin' it---- I don't want no +charity from nobody! I could buy out half these Honyockers! I don't need +none of no man's money!" He was efficiently working himself into a rage. +"Who you calling destitute? All I wanted was an advance till pay day! +Got a check coming. You high-tone, kid-glove Eastern towerists want to +watch out who you go calling destitute. I bet I make a lot more money +than a lot of your four-flushin' friends!" + +Claire wondered if she couldn't stop the car now, and tell him to get +off. But--that snapping eye was too vicious. Before he got off he would +say things--scarring, vile things, that would never heal in her brain. +Her father was murmuring, "Let's drop him," but she softly lied, "No. +His impertinence amuses me." + +She drove on, and prayed that he would of himself leave his uncharitable +hosts at the next town. + +The man was storming--with a very meek ending: "I'm tellin' you! I can +make money anywhere! I'm a crack machinist.... Give me two-bits for a +meal, anyway." + +Mr. Boltwood reached in his change pocket. He had no quarter. He pulled +out a plump bill-fold. Without looking at the man, Claire could vision +his eyes glistening and his chops dripping as he stared at the hoard. +Mr. Boltwood handed him a dollar bill. "There, take that, and let's +change the subject," said Mr. Boltwood testily. + +"All right, boss. Say, you haven't got a cartwheel instead of this +wrapping paper, have you? I like to feel my money in my pocket." + +"No, sir, I have not!" + +"All right, boss. No bad feelin's!" + +Then he ignored Mr. Boltwood. His eyes focused on Claire's face. To +steady himself on the running-board he had placed his left hand on the +side of the car, his right on the back of the seat. That right hand slid +behind her. She could feel its warmth on her back. + +She burst out, flaring, "Kindly do not touch me!" + +"Gee, did I touch you, girlie? Why, that's a shame!" he drawled, his +cracked broad lips turning up in a grin. + +An instant later, as they skipped round a bend of the long, high-hung +shelf road, he pretended to sway dangerously on the running-board, and +deliberately laid his filthy hand on her shoulder. Before she could say +anything he yelped in mock-regret, "Love o' Mike! 'Scuse me, lady. I +almost fell off." + +Quietly, seriously, Claire said, "No, that wasn't accidental. If you +touch me again, I'll stop the car and ask you to walk." + +"Better do it now, dolly!" snapped Mr. Boltwood. + +The man hooked his left arm about the side-post of the open +window-shield. It was a strong arm, a firm grip. He seized her left +wrist with his free hand. Though all the while his eyes grotesquely kept +their amused sparkle, and beside them writhed laughter-wrinkles, he +shouted hoarsely, "You'll stop hell!" His hand slid from her wrist to +the steering wheel. "I can drive this boat's well as you can. You make +one move to stop, and I steer her over---- Blooie! Down the bank!" + +He did twist the front wheels dangerously near to the outer edge of the +shelf road. Mr. Boltwood gazed at the hand on the wheel. With a quick +breath Claire looked at the side of the road. If the car ran off, it +would shoot down forty feet ... turning over and over. + +"Y-you wouldn't dare, because you'd g-go, too!" she panted. + +"Well, dearuh, you just try any monkey business and you'll find out how +much I'll gggggggo-too! I'll start you down the joy-slope and jump off, +savvy? Take your foot off that clutch." + +She obeyed. + +"Pretty lil feet, ain't they, cutie! Shoes cost about twelve bucks, I +reckon. While a better man than you or old moldy-face there has to hit +the pike in three-dollar brogans. Sit down, yuh fool!" + +This last to Mr. Boltwood, who had stood up, swaying with the car, and +struck at him. With a huge arm the man swept Mr. Boltwood back into the +seat, but without a word to her father, he continued to Claire: + +"And keep your hand where it belongs. Don't go trying to touch that +switch. Aw, be sensible! What would you do if the car did stop? I could +blackjack you both before this swell-elegant vehickle lost momentum, +savvy? I don't want to pay out my good money to a lawyer on a charge +of--murder. Get me? Better take it easy and not worry." His hand was +constantly on the wheel. He had driven cars before. He was steering as +much as she. "When I get you up the road a piece I'm going to drive all +the cute lil boys and girls up a side trail, and take all of papa's +gosh-what-a-wad in the cunnin' potet-book, and I guess we'll kiss lil +daughter, and drive on, a-wavin' our hand politely, and let you suckers +walk to the next burg." + +"You wouldn't dare! You wouldn't dare!" + +"Dare? Huh! Don't make the driver laugh!" + +"I'll get help!" + +"Yep. Sure. Fact, there's a car comin' toward us. 'Bout a mile away I'd +make it, wouldn't you? Well, dollface, if you make one peep--over the +bank you go, both of you dead as a couplin'-pin. Smeared all over those +rocks. Get me? And me--I'll be sorry the regrettable accident was so +naughty and went and happened--and I just got off in time meself. And +I'll pinch papa's poke while I'm helping get out the bodies!" + +Till now she hadn't believed it. But she dared not glance at the +approaching car. It was their interesting guest who steered the Gomez +past the other; and he ran rather too near the edge of the road ... so +that she looked over, down. + +Beaming, he went on, "I'd pull the rough stuff right here, instead of +wastin' my time as a cap'n of industry by taking you up to see the +scenery in that daisy little gully off the road; but the whole world can +see us along here--the hicks in the valley and anybody that happens to +sneak along in a car behind us. Shame the way this road curves--see too +far along it. Fact, you're giving me a lot of trouble. But you'll give +me a kiss, won't you, Gwendolyn?" + +He bent down, chuckling. She could feel his bristly chin touch her +cheek. She sprang up, struck at him. He raised his hand from the wheel. +For a second the car ran without control. He jabbed her back into the +seat with his elbow. "Don't try any more monkey-shines, if you know +what's good for you," he said, quite peacefully, as he resumed steering. + +She was in a haze, conscious only of her father's hand fondling hers. +She heard a quick pit-pit-pit-pit behind them. Car going to pass? She'd +have to let it go by. She'd concentrate on finding something she +could---- + +Then, "Hello, folks. Having a picnic? Who's your little friend in the +rompers?" sang out a voice beside them. It was Milt Daggett--the Milt +who must be scores of miles ahead. His bug had caught up with them, was +running even with them on the broad road. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE HILLSIDE ROAD + + +So unexpectedly, so genially, that Claire wondered if he realized what +was happening, Milt chuckled to the tough on the running-board, as the +two cars ran side by side, "Bound for some place, brother?" + +The unwelcome guest looked puzzled. For the first time his china eyes +ceased twinkling; and he answered dubiously: "Just gettin' a lift." He +sped up the car with the hand-throttle. Milt accelerated equally. + +Claire roused; wanted to shout. She was palsied afraid that Milt would +leave them. The last time she had seen him, she had suggested that +leaving them would be a favor. + +Her guest growled at her--the words coming through a slit at the corner +of his rowdy mouth, "Sit still, or I'll run you over." + +Milt innocently babbled on, "Better come ride with me, bo'. More room in +this-here handsome coupelet." + +Then was the rough relieved in his uneasy tender little heart, and his +eyes flickered again as he shouted back, not looking at Milt, "Thanks, +bub, I'll stick by me friends." + +"Oh no; can't lose pleasure of your company. I like your looks. You're a +bloomin' little island way off on the dim silver skyline." Claire +knitted her brows. She had not seen Milt's rhetoric. "You're an island +of Hesperyds or Hesperides. Accent on the bezuzus. Oh, yes, moondream, I +think you better come. Haven't decided"--Milt's tone was bland--"whether +to kill you or just have you pinched. Miss Boltwood! Switch off your +power!" + +"If she does," the tough shouted, "I'll run 'em off the bank." + +"No, you won't, sweetheart, 'cause why? 'Cause what'll I do to you +afterwards?" + +"You won't do nothin', Jack, 'cause I'd gouge your eyes out." + +"Why, lovesoul, d' you suppose I'd be talking up as brash as this to a +bid, stwong man like oo if I didn't have a gun handy?" + +"Yuh, I guess so, lil sunbeam. And before you could shoot, I'd crowd +your tin liz into the bank, and jam right into it! I may get killed, but +you won't even be a grease-spot!" + +He was turning the Gomez from its straight course, forcing Milt's bug +toward the high bank of earth which walled in the road on the left. + +While Claire was very sick with fear, then more sick with contempt, Milt +squealed, "You win!" And he had dropped back. The Gomez was going on +alone. + +There was only one thing more for Claire--to jump. And that meant death. + +The tough was storming, "Your friend's a crack shot--with his mouth!" + +The thin pit-pit-pit was coming again. She looked back. She saw Milt's +bug snap forward so fast that on a bump its light wheels were in the +air. She saw Milt standing on the right side of the bug holding the +wheel with one hand, and the other hand--firm, grim, broad-knuckled +hand--outstretched toward the tough, then snatching at his collar. + +The tough's grip was torn from the steering wheel. He was yanked from +the running-board. He crunched down on the road. + +She seized the wheel. She drove on at sixty miles an hour. She had gone +a good mile before she got control of her fear and halted. She saw Milt +turn his little car as though it were a prancing bronco. It seemed to +paw the air with its front wheels. He shot back, pursuing the late +guest. The man ran bobbing along the road. At this distance he was no +longer formidable, but a comic, jerking, rabbity figure, humping himself +over the back track. + +As the bug whirled down on him, the tough was to be seen throwing up his +hands, leaping from the high bank. + +Milt turned again and came toward them, but slowly; and after he had +drawn up even and switched off the engine, he snatched off his violent +plaid cap and looked apologetic. + +"Sorry I had to kid him along. I was afraid he really would drive you +off the bank. He was a bad actor. And he was right; he could have licked +me. Thought maybe I could jolly him into getting off, and have him +pinched, next town." + +"But you had a gun--a revolver--didn't you, lad?" panted Mr. Boltwood. + +"Um, wellllll---- I've got a shotgun. It wouldn't take me more 'n five +or ten minutes to dig it out, and put it together. And there's some +shells. They may be all right. Haven't looked at 'em since last fall. +They didn't get so awful damp then." + +"But suppose he'd had a revolver himself?" wailed Claire. + +"Gee, you know, I thought he probably did have one. I was scared blue. I +had a wrench to throw at him though," confided Milt. + +"How did you know we needed you?" + +"Why back there, couple miles behind you, maybe I saw your father get up +and try to wrestle him, so I suspected there was kind of a disagreement. +Say, Miss Boltwood, you know when you spoke to me--way back there--I +hadn't meant to butt in. Honest. I thought maybe as we were going----" + +"Oh, I know!" + +"--the same way, you wouldn't mind my trailing, if I didn't sit in too +often; and I thought maybe I could help you if----" + +"Oh, I know! I'm so ashamed! So bitterly ashamed! I just meant---- Will +you forgive me? You were so good, taking care of us----" + +"Oh, sure, that's all right!" + +"I fancy you do know how grateful father and I are that you were behind +us, this time! Wasn't it a lucky accident that we'd slipped past you +some place!" + +"Yes," dryly, "quite an accident. Well, I'll skip on ahead again. May +run into you again before we hit Seattle. Going to take the run through +Yellowstone Park?" + +"Yes, but----" began Claire. Her father interrupted: + +"Uh, Mr., uh--Daggett, was it?--I wonder if you won't stay a little +closer to us hereafter? I was getting rather a good change out of the +trip, but I'm afraid that now---- If it wouldn't be an insult, I'd beg +you to consider staying with us for a consideration, uh, you know, +remuneration, and you could----" + +"Thanks, uh, thank you, sir, but I wouldn't like to do it. You see, it's +kind of my vacation. If I've done anything I'm tickled----" + +"But perhaps," Mr. Boltwood ardently begged the young man recently so +abysmally unimportant, "perhaps you would consent to being my guest, +when you cared to--say at hotels in the Park." + +"'Fraid I couldn't. I'm kind of a lone wolf." + +"Please! Pretty please!" besought Claire. Her smile was appealing, her +eyes on his. + +Milt bit his knuckles. He looked weak. But he persisted, "No, you'll get +over this scrap with our friend. By the way, I'll put the deputy onto +him, in the next town. He'll never get out of the county. When you +forget him---- Oh no, you can go on fine. You're a good steady driver, +and the road's perfectly safe--if you give people the once-over before +you pick 'em up. Picking up badmen is no more dangerous here than it +would be in New York. Fact, there's lot more hold-ups in any city than +in the wildest country. I don't think you showed such awfully good taste +in asking Terrible Tim, the two-gun man, right into the parlor. Gee, +please don't do it again! Please!" + +"No," meekly. "I was an idiot. I'll be good, next time. But won't you +stay somewhere near us?" + +"I'd like to, but I got to chase on. Don't want to wear out the welcome +on the doormat, and I'm due in Seattle, and---- Say, Miss Boltwood." He +swung out of the bug, cranked up, climbed back, went awkwardly on, "I +read those books you gave me. They're slick--mean to say, interesting. +Where that young fellow in _Youth's Encounter_ wanted to be a bishop and +a soldier and everything---- Just like me, except Schoenstrom is +different, from London, some ways! I always wanted to be a brakie, and +then a yeggman. But I wasn't bright enough for either. I just became a +garage man. And I---- Some day I'm going to stop using slang. But it'll +take an operation!" + +He was streaking down the road, and Claire was sobbing, "Oh, the lamb, +the darling thing! Fretting about his slang, when he wasn't afraid in +that horrible nightmare. If we could just do something for him!" + +"Don't you worry about him, dolly. He's a very energetic chap. And---- +Uh---- Mightn't we drive on a little farther, perhaps? I confess that +the thought of our recent guest still in this vicinity----" + +"Yes, and---- Oh, I'm shameless. If Mohammed Milton won't stay with our +car mountain, we're going to tag after him." + +But when she reached the next hill, with its far shining outlook, there +was no Milt and no Teal bug on the road ahead. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SAGEBRUSH TOURISTS OF THE GREAT HIGHWAY + + +She had rested for two days in Miles City; had seen the horse-market, +with horse-wranglers in chaps; had taken dinner with army people at Fort +Keogh, once the bulwark against the Sioux, now nodding over the dry +grass on its parade ground. + +By the Yellowstone River, past the Crow reservation, Claire had driven +on through the Real West, along the Great Highway. The Red Trail and the +Yellowstone Trail had joined now and she was one of the new Canterbury +Pilgrims. Even Mr. Boltwood caught the trick of looking for licenses, +and cried, "There's a Connecticut car!" + +To the Easterner, a drive from New York to Cape Cod, over asphalt, is +viewed as heroic, but here were cars that had casually started on +thousand-mile vacations. She kept pace not only with large cars touring +from St. Louis or Detroit to Glacier Park and Yellowstone, but also she +found herself companionable with families of workmen, headed for a new +town and a new job, and driving because a flivver, bought second-hand +and soon to be sold again, was cheaper than trains. + +"Sagebrush Tourists" these camping adventurers were called. Claire +became used to small cars, with curtain-lights broken, bearing +wash-boilers or refrigerators on the back, pasteboard suitcases lashed +by rope to the running-board, frying pans and canvas water bottles +dangling from top-rods. And once baby's personal laundry was seen +flapping on a line across a tonneau! + +In each car was what looked like the crowd at a large +farm-auction--grandfather, father, mother, a couple of sons and two or +three daughters, at least one baby in the arms of each grown-up, all +jammed into two seats already filled with trunks and baby-carriages. And +they were happy--incredibly happier than the smart people being conveyed +in a bored way behind chauffeurs. + +The Sagebrush Tourists made camp; covered the hood with a quilt from +which the cotton was oozing; brought out the wash-boiler, did a washing, +had dinner, sang about the fire; granther and the youngest baby +gamboling together, while the limousinvalids, insulated from life by +plate glass, preserved by their steady forty an hour from the commonness +of seeing anything along the road, looked out at the campers for a +second, sniffed, rolled on, wearily wondering whether they would find a +good hotel that night--and why the deuce they hadn't come by train. + +If Claire Boltwood had been protected by Jeff Saxton or by a chauffeur, +she, too, would probably have marveled at cars gray with dust, the +unshaved men in fleece-lined duck coats, and the women wind-burnt +beneath the boudoir caps they wore as motoring bonnets. But Claire knew +now that filling grease-cups does not tend to delicacy of hands; that +when you wash with a cake of petrified pink soap and half a pitcher of +cold hard water, you never quite get the stain off--you merely get +through the dust stratum to the Laurentian grease formation, and mutter, +"a nice clean grease doesn't hurt food," and go sleepily down to dinner. + +She saw a dozen camping devices unknown to the East: trailers, which by +day bobbed along behind the car like coffins on two wheels, but at night +opened into tents with beds, an ice-box, a table; tents covering a bed +whose head rested on the running-board; beds made-up in the car, with +the cushions as mattresses. + +The Great Transcontinental Highway was colored not by motors alone. It +is true that the Old West of the stories is almost gone; that Billings, +Miles City, Bismarck, are more given to Doric banks than to gambling +hells. But still are there hints of frontier days. Still trudge the +prairie schooners; cowpunchers in chaps still stand at the doors of log +cabins--when they are tired of playing the automatic piano; and blanket +Indians, Blackfeet and Crows, stare at five-story buildings--when they +are not driving modern reapers on their farms. + +They all waved to Claire. Telephone linemen, lolling with pipes and +climber-strapped legs in big trucks, sang out to her; traction engine +crews shouted; and these she found to be her own people. Only once did +she lose contentment--when, on the observation platform of a train bound +for Seattle, she saw a Britisher in flannels and a monocle, headed +perhaps for the Orient. As the train slipped silkenly away, the Gomez +seemed slow and clumsy, and the strain of driving intolerable. And that +Britisher must be charming---- Then a lonely, tight-haired woman in the +doorway of a tar-paper shack waved to her, and in that wistful gesture +Claire found friendship. + +And sometimes in the "desert" of yet unbroken land she paused by the +Great Highway and forgot the passion to keep going---- + +She sat on a rock, by a river so muddy that it was like yellow milk. The +only trees were a bunch of cottonwoods untidily scattering shreds of +cotton, and the only other vegetation left in the dead world was +dusty green sagebrush with lumps of gray yet pregnant earth between, +or a few exquisite green and white flashes of the herb called +Snow-on-the-Mountain. The inhabitants were jackrabbits, or American +magpies in sharp black and white livery, forever trying to balance their +huge tails against the wind, and yelling in low-magpie their opinion of +tourists. + +She did not desire gardens, then, nor the pettiness of plump terraced +hills. She was in the Real West, and it was hers, since she had won to +it by her own plodding. Her soul--if she hadn't had one, it would +immediately have been provided, by special arrangement, the moment she +sat there--sailed with the hawks in the high thin air, and when it came +down it sang hallelujahs, because the sagebrush fragrance was more +healing than piney woods, because the sharp-bitten edges of the buttes +were coral and gold and basalt and turquoise, and because a real person, +one Milt Daggett, though she would never see him again, had found her +worthy of worship. + +She did not often think of Milt; she did not know whether he was ahead +of her, or had again dropped behind. When she did recall him, it was +with respect quite different from the titillation that dancing men had +sometimes aroused, or the impression of manicured agreeableness and +efficiency which Jeff Saxton carried about. + +She always supplicated the mythical Milt in moments of tight driving. +Driving, just the actual getting on, was her purpose in life, and the +routine of driving was her order of the day: Morning freshness, rolling +up as many miles as possible before lunch, that she might loaf +afterward. The invariable two P.M. discovery that her eyes ached, and +the donning of huge amber glasses, which gave to her lithe smartness a +counterfeit scholarliness. Toward night, the quarter-hour of level +sun-glare which prevented her seeing the road. Dusk, and the discovery +of how much light there was after all, once she remembered to take off +her glasses. The worst quarter-hour when, though the roads were an +amethyst rich to the artist, they were also a murkiness exasperating to +the driver, yet still too light to be thrown into relief by the lamps. +The mystic moment when night clicked tight, and the lamps made a fan of +gold, and Claire and her father settled down to plodding content--and no +longer had to take the trouble of admiring the scenery! + +The morning out of Billings, she wondered why a low cloud so +persistently held its shape, and realized that it was a far-off +mountain, her first sight of the Rockies. Then she cried out, and wished +for Milt to share her exultation. Rather earnestly she said to Mr. +Boltwood: + +"The mountains must be so wonderful to Mr. Daggett, after spending his +life in a cornfield. Poor Milt! I hope----" + +"I don't think you need to worry about that young man. I fancy he's +quite able to run about by himself, as jolly as a sand-dog. And---- Of +course I'm extremely grateful to him for his daily rescue of us from the +jaws of death, but he was right; if he had stayed with us, it would have +been inconvenient to keep considering him. He isn't accustomed to the +comedy of manners----" + +"He ought to be. He'd enjoy it so. He's the real American. He has +imagination and adaptability. It's a shame: all the _petits fours_ and +Bach recitals wasted on Jeff Saxton, when a Milt Dag----" + +"Yes, yes, quite so!" + +"No, honest! The dear honey-lamb, so ingenious, and really, rather +good-looking. But so lonely and gregarious--like a little woolly dog +that begs you to come and play; and I slapped him when he patted his +paws and gamboled---- It was horrible. I'll never forgive myself. Making +him drive on ahead in that nasty, patronizing way---- I feel as if we'd +spoiled his holiday. I wonder if he had intended to make the Yellowstone +Park trip? He didn't----" + +"Yes, yes. Let's forget the young man. Look! How very curious!" + +They were crossing a high bridge over a railroad track along which a +circus train was bending. Mr. Boltwood offered judicious remarks upon +the migratory habits of circuses, and the vision of the Galahad of the +Teal bug was thoroughly befogged by parental observations, till Claire +returned from youthful romance to being a sensible Boltwood, and decided +that after all, Milt was not a lord of the sky-painted mountains. + +Before they bent south, at Livingston, Claire had her first mountain +driving, and once she had to ford a stream, putting the car at it, +watching the water curve up in a lovely silver veil. She felt that she +was conquering the hills as she had the prairies. + +She pulled up on a plateau to look at her battery. She noted the edge of +a brake-band peeping beyond the drum, in a ragged line of fabric and +copper wire. Then she knew that she didn't know enough to conquer. "Do +you suppose it's dangerous?" she asked her father, who said a lot of +comforting things that didn't mean anything. + +She thought of Milt. She stopped a passing car. The driver "guessed" +that the brake-band was all gone, and that it would be dangerous to +continue with it along mountain roads. Claire dustily tramped two miles +to a ranch house, and telephoned to the nearest garage, in a town called +Saddle Back. + +Whenever a motorist has delirium he mutters those lamentable words, +"Telephoned to the nearest garage." + +She had to wait a tedious hour before she saw a flivver rattling up with +the garage man, who wasn't a man at all, but a fourteen-year-old boy. He +snorted, "Rats, you didn't need to send for me. Could have made it +perfectly safe. Come on." + +Never has the greatest boy pianist received such awe as Claire gave to +this contemptuous young god, with grease on his peachy cheeks. She did +come on. But she rather hoped that she was in great danger. It was +humiliating to telephone to a garage for nothing. When she came into the +gas-smelling garage in Saddle Back she said appealingly to the man in +charge, a serious, lip-puffing person of forty-five, "Was it safe to +come in with the brake-band like that?" + +"No. Pretty risky. Wa'n't it, Mike?" + +The Mike to whom he turned for authority was the same fourteen-year-old +boy. He snapped, "Heh? That? Naw! Put in new band. Get busy. Bring me +the jack. Hustle up, uncle." + +While the older man stood about and vainly tried to impress people who +came in and asked questions which invariably had to be referred to his +repair boy, the precocious expert stripped the wheel down to something +that looked to Claire distressingly like an empty milk-pan. Then the boy +didn't seem to know exactly what to do. He scratched his ear a good +deal, and thought deeply. The older man could only scratch. + +So for two hours Claire and her father experienced that most distressing +of motor experiences--waiting, while the afternoon that would have been +so good for driving went by them. Every fifteen minutes they came in +from sitting on a dry-goods box in front of the garage, and never did +the repair appear to be any farther along. The boy seemed to be giving +all his time to getting the wrong wrench, and scolding the older man for +having hidden the right one. + +When she had left Brooklyn Heights, Claire had not expected to have such +authoritative knowledge of the Kalifornia Kandy Kitchen, Saddle Back, +Montana, across from Tubbs' Garage, that she could tell whether they +were selling more Atharva Cigarettes or Polutropons. She prowled about +the garage till she knew every pool of dripped water in the tin pail of +soft soap in the iron sink. + +She was worried by an overheard remark of the boy wonder, "Gosh, we +haven't any more of that decent brake lining. Have to use this piece of +mush." But when the car was actually done, nothing like a dubious brake +could have kept her from the glory of starting. The first miles seemed +miracles of ease and speed. + +She came through the mountains into Livingston. + +Kicking his heels on a fence near town, and fondling a gray cat, sat +Milt Daggett, and he yelped at her with earnestness and much noise. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE WONDERS OF NATURE WITH ALL MODERN IMPROVEMENTS + + +"Hello!" said Milt. + +"Hel-lo!" said Claire. + +"How dee do," said Mr. Boltwood. + +"This is so nice! Where's your car? I hope nothing's happened," glowed +Claire. + +"No. It's back here from the road a piece. Camp there tonight. Reason I +stopped---- Struck me you've never done any mountain driving, and +there's some pretty good climbs in the Park; slick road, but we go up to +almost nine thousand feet. And cold mornings. Thought I'd tip you off to +some driving tricks--if you'd like me to." + +"Oh, of course. Very grateful----" + +"Then I'll tag after you tomorrow, and speak my piece." + +"So jolly you're going through the Park." + +"Yes, thought might as well. What the guide books call 'Wonders of +Nature.' Only wonder of nature I ever saw in Schoenstrom was my friend +Mac trying to think he was soused after a case of near-beer. Well---- +See you tomorrow." + +Not once had he smiled. His tone had been impersonal. He vaulted the +fence and tramped away. + +When they drove out of town, in the morning, they found Milt waiting by +the road, and he followed them till noon. By urgent request, he shared a +lunch, and lectured upon going down long grades in first or second +speed, to save brakes; upon the use of the retarded spark and the +slipped clutch in climbing. His bug was beside the Gomez in the line-up +at the Park gate, when the United States Army came to seal one's +firearms, and to inquire on which mountain one intended to be killed by +defective brakes. He was just behind her all the climb up to Mammoth Hot +Springs. + +When she paused for water to cool the boiling radiator, the bug panted +up, and with the first grin she had seen on his face since Dakota Milt +chuckled, "The Teal is a grand car for mountains. Aside from +overheating, bum lights, thin upholstery, faulty ignition, tissue-paper +brake-bands, and this-here special aviation engine, specially built for +a bumble-bee, it's what the catalogues call a powerful brute!" + +Claire and her father stayed at the chain of hotels through the Park. +Milt was always near them, but not at the hotels. He patronized one of +the chains of permanent camps. + +The Boltwoods invited him to dinner at one hotel, but he refused and---- + + * * * * * + +Because he was afraid that Claire would find him intrusive, Milt was +grave in her presence. He couldn't respond either to her enthusiasm +about canyon and colored pool--or to her rage about the tourists who, +she alleged, preferred freak museum pieces to plain beauty; who never +admired a view unless it was labeled by a signpost and megaphoned by a +guide as something they ought to admire--and tell the Folks Back Home +about. + +When she tried to express this social rage to Milt he merely answered +uneasily, "Yes, I guess there's something to that." + +She was, he pondered, so darn particular. How could he ever figure out +what he ought to do? No thanks; much obliged, but guessed he'd better +not accept her invitation to dinner. Darn sorry couldn't come but---- +Had promised a fellow down at the camp to have chow with him. + +If in this Milt was veracious, he was rather fickle to his newly +discovered friend; for while Claire was finishing dinner, a solemn young +man was watching her through a window. + +She was at a table for six. She was listening to a man of thirty in +riding-breeches, a stock, and a pointed nose, who bowed to her every +time he spoke, which was so frequently that his dining gave the +impression of a man eating grape-fruit on a merry-go-round. Back in +Schoenstrom, fortified by Mac and the bunch at the Old Home Lunch, Milt +would have called the man a "dude," and--though less noisily than the +others--would have yelped, "Get onto Percy's beer-bottle pants. What's +he got his neck bandaged for? Bet he's got a boil." + +But now Milt yearned, "He does look swell. Wish I could get away with +those things. Wouldn't I look like a fool with my knees buttoned up, +though! And there's two other fellows in dress suits. Wouldn't mind +those so much. Gee, it must be awful where you've got so many suits of +trick clothes you don't know which one to wear. + +"That fellow and Claire are talking pretty swift. He doesn't need any +piston rings, that lad. Wonder--wonder what they're talking about? +Music, I guess, and books and pictures and scenery. He's saying that no +tongue or pen can describe the glories of the Park, and then he's trying +to describe 'em. And maybe they know the same folks in New York. Lord, +how I'd be out of it. I wish----" + +Milt made a toothpick out of a match, decided that toothpicks were +inelegant in his tragic mood, and longed: "Never did see her among her +own kind of folks till now. I wish I could jabber about music and stuff. +I'll learn it. I will! I can! I picked up autos in three months. I---- +Milt, you're a dub. I wonder can they be talking French, maybe, or Wop, +or something? I could get onto the sedan styles in highbrow talk as long +as it was in American. + +"I could probably spring linen-collar stuff about, 'Really a delightful +book, so full of delightful characters,' if I stuck by the rhetoric +books long enough. But once they begin the _parlez-vous, oui, oui_, I'm +a gone goose. Still, by golly, didn't I pick up Dutch--German--like a +mice? Back off, son! You did not! You can talk Plattdeutsch something +grand, as long as you keep the verbs and nouns in American. You got a +nice character, Milt, but you haven't got any parts of speech. + +"Now look at Percy! Taking a bath in a finger-bowl. I never could pull +that finger-bowl stuff; pinning your ears back and jiu-jitsing the fried +chicken, and then doing a high dive into a little dish that ain't--that +isn't either a wash-bowl or real good lemonade. He's a perfect lady, +Percy is. Dabs his mouth with his napkin like a watchmaker tinkering the +carburetor in a wrist watch. + +"Lookit him bow and scrape--asking her something---- Rats, he's going +out in the lobby with her. Walks like a cat on a wet ash-pile. But---- +Oh thunder, he's all right. Neat. I never could mingle with that bunch. +I'd be web-footed and butter-fingered. And he seems to know all that +bunch--bows to every maiden aunt in the shop. Now if I was following +her, I'd never see anybody but her; rest of the folks could all bob +their heads silly, and I'd never see one blame thing except that funny +little soft spot at the back of her neck. Nope, you're kind to your +cat, Milt, but you weren't cut out to be no parlor-organ duet." + +This same meditative young man might have been discovered walking past +the porch of the hotel, his hands in his pockets, his eyes presumably on +the stars--certainly he gave no signs of watching Claire and the man in +riding-breeches as they leaned over the rail, looked at mountain-tops +filmy in starlight, while in the cologne-atomized mode, Breeches quoted: + + Ah, 'tis far heaven my awed heart seeks + When I behold those mighty peaks. + +Milt could hear him commenting, "Doesn't that just get the feeling of +the great open, Miss Boltwood?" + +Milt did not catch her answer. Himself, he grunted, "I never could get +much het up about this poetry that's full of Ah's and 'tises." + +Claire must have seen Milt just after he had sauntered past. She cried, +"Oh, Mr. Daggett! Just a moment!" She left Breeches, ran down to Milt. +He was frightened. Was he going to get what he deserved for +eavesdropping? + +She was almost whispering. "Save me from our friend up on the porch," +she implored. + +He couldn't believe it. But he took a chance. "Won't you have a little +walk?" he roared. + +"So nice of you--just a little way, perhaps?" she sang out. + +They were silent till he got up the nerve to admire, "Glad you found +some people you knew in the hotel." + +"But I didn't." + +"Oh, I thought your friend in the riding-pants was chummy." + +"So did I!" She rather snorted. + +"Well, he's a nice-looking lad. I did admire those pants. I never could +wear anything like that." + +"I should hope not--at dinner! The creepy jack-ass, I don't believe he's +ever been on a horse in his life! He thinks riding-breeches are the----" + +"Oh, that's it. Breeches, not pants." + +"--last word in smartness. Overdressing is just ten degrees worse than +underdressing." + +"Oh, I don't know. Take this sloppy old blue suit of mine----" + +"It's perfectly nice and simple, and quite well cut. You probably had a +clever tailor." + +"I had. He lives in Chicago or New York, I believe." + +"Really? How did he come to Schoenstrom?" + +"Never been there. This tailor is a busy boy. He fitted about eleventeen +thousand people, last year." + +"I see. Ready mades. Cheer up. That's where Henry B. Boltwood gets most +of his clothes. Mr. Daggett, if ever I catch you in the +Aren't-I-beautiful frame of mind of our friend back on the porch, I'll +give up my trip to struggle for your soul." + +"He seemed to have soul in large chunks. He seemed to talk pretty +painlessly. I had a hunch you and he were discussing sculpture, anyway. +Maybe Rodin." + +"What do you know about Rodin?" + +"Articles in the magazines. Same place you learned about him!" But Milt +did not sound rude. He said it chucklingly. + +"You're perfectly right. And we've probably read the very same articles. +Well, our friend back there said to me at dinner, 'It must be dreadful +for you to have to encounter so many common people along the road.' I +said, 'It is,' in the most insulting tone I could, and he just rolled +his eyes, and hadn't an idea I meant him. Then he slickered his hair at +me, and mooed, 'Is it not wonderful to see all these strange +manifestations of the secrets of Nature!' and I said, 'Is it?' and he +went on, 'One feels that if one could but meet a sympathetic lady here, +one's cup of rejoicing in untrammeled nature----' Honest, Milt, Mr. +Daggett, I mean, he did talk like that. Been reading books by optimistic +lady authors. And one looked at me, one did, as if one would be willing +to hold my hand, if I let one. + +"He invited me to come out on the porch and give the double O. to +handsome mountains as illuminated by terrestrial bodies, and I felt so +weak in the presence of his conceit that I couldn't refuse. Then he +insisted on introducing me to a woman from my own Brooklyn, who +condoled with me for having to talk to Western persons while motoring. +Oh, dear God, that such people should live ... that the sniffy little +Claire should once have been permitted to live!... And then I saw you!" + +Through all her tirade they had stood close together, her face visibly +eager in the glow from the hotel; and Milt had grown taller. But he +responded, "I'm afraid I might have been just as bad. I haven't even +reached the riding-breeches stage in evolution. Maybe never will." + +"No. You won't. You'll go right through it. By and by, when you're so +rich that father and I won't be allowed to associate with you, you'll +wear riding-breeches--but for riding, not as a donation to the beauties +of nature." + +"Oh, I'm already rich. It shows. Waitress down at the camp asked me +whose car I was driving through." + +"I know what I wanted to say. Since you won't be our guest, will you be +our host--I mean, as far as welcoming us? I think it would be fun for +father and me to stop at your camp, tomorrow night, at the canyon, +instead of at the hotel. Will you guide me to the canyon, if I do?" + +"Oh--terribly--glad!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +ADVENTURERS BY FIRELIGHT + + +Neither of the Boltwoods had seen the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. The +Canyon of the Yellowstone was their first revelation of intimidating +depth and color gone mad. When their car and Milt's had been parked in +the palisaded corral back of the camp at which they were to stay, they +three set out for the canyon's edge chattering, and stopped dumb. + +Mr. Boltwood declined to descend. He returned to the camp for a cigar. +The boy and girl crept down seeming miles of damp steps to an outhanging +pinnacle that still was miles of empty airy drop above the river bed. +Claire had a quaking feeling that this rock pulpit was going to slide. +She thrust out her hand, seized Milt's paw, and in its firm warmth found +comfort. Clinging to its security she followed him by the crawling path +to the river below. She looked up at columns of crimson and saffron and +burning brown, up at the matronly falls, up at lone pines clinging to +jutting rocks that must be already crashing toward her, and in the +splendor she knew the Panic fear that is the deepest reaction to +beauty. + +Milt merely shook his head as he stared up. He had neither gossiped nor +coyly squeezed her hand as he had guided her. She fell to thinking that +she preferred this American boy in this American scene to a nimble +gentleman saluting the Alps in a dinky green hat with a little feather. + +It was Milt who, when they had labored back up again, when they had sat +smiling at each other with comfortable weariness, made her see the +canyon not as a freak, but as the miraculous work of a stream rolling +grains of sand for millions of years, till it had cut this Jovian +intaglio. He seemed to have read--whether in books, or in paragraphs in +mechanical magazines--a good deal about geology. He made it real. Not +that she paid much attention to what he actually said! She was too busy +thinking of the fact that he should say it at all. + +Not condescendingly but very companionably she accompanied Milt in the +exploration of their camp for the night--the big dining tent, the city +of individual bedroom tents, canvas-sided and wooden-floored, each with +a tiny stove for the cold mornings of these high altitudes. She was awed +that evening by hearing her waitress discussing the novels of Ibanez. +Jeff Saxton knew the names of at least six Russian novelists, but Jeff +was not highly authoritative regarding Spanish literature. + +"I suppose she's a school-teacher, working here in vacation," Claire +whispered to Milt, beside her at the long, busy, scenically +conversational table. + +"Our waitress? Well, sort of. I understand she's professor of literature +in some college," said Milt, in a matter of fact way. And he didn't at +all see the sequence when she went on: + +"There is an America! I'm glad I've found it!" + +The camp's evening bonfire was made of logs on end about a stake of +iron. As the logs blazed up, the guests on the circle of benches crooned +"Suwanee River," and "Old Black Joe," and Claire crooned with them. She +had been afraid that her father would be bored, but she saw that, above +his carefully tended cigar, he was dreaming. She wondered if there had +been a time when he had hummed old songs. + +The fire sank to coals. The crowd wandered off to their tents. Mr. +Boltwood followed them after an apologetic, "Good night. Don't stay up +too late." With a scattering of only half a dozen people on the benches, +this huge circle seemed deserted; and Claire and Milt, leaning forward, +chins on hands, were alone--by their own campfire, among the mountains. + +The stars stooped down to the hills; the pines were a wall of blackness; +a coyote yammered to point the stillness; and the mighty pile of coals +gave a warmth luxurious in the creeping mountain chill. + +The silence of large places awes the brisk intruder, and Claire's voice +was unconsciously lowered as she begged, "Tell me something about +yourself, Mr. Daggett. I don't really know anything at all." + +"Oh, you wouldn't be interested. Just Schoenstrom!" + +"But just Schoenstrom might be extremely interesting." + +"But honest, you'd think I was--edging in on you!" + +"I know what you are thinking. The time I suggested, way back there in +Dakota, that you were sticking too close. You've never got over it. I've +tried to make up for it, but---- I really don't blame you. I was horrid. +I deserve being beaten. But you do keep on punishing ra----" + +"Punishing? Lord, I didn't mean to! No! Honest! It was nothing. You were +right. Looked as though I was inviting myself---- But, oh, pleassssse, +Miss Boltwood, don't ever think for a sec. that I meant to be a +grouch----" + +"Then do tell me---- Who is this Milton Daggett that you know so much +better than I ever can?" + +"Well," Milt crossed his knees, caught his chin in his hand, "I don't +know as I really do know him so well. I thought I did. I was onto his +evil ways. He was the son of the pioneer doctor, Maine folks." + +"Really? My mother came from Maine." + +Milt did not try to find out that they were cousins. He went on, "This +kid, Milt, went to high school in St. Cloud--town twenty times as big +as Schoenstrom--but he drifted back because his dad was old and needed +him, after his mother's death----" + +"You have no brothers or sisters?" + +"No. Nobody. 'Cept Lady Vere de Vere--which animal she is going to get +cuffed if she chews up any more of my overcoat out in my tent +tonight!... Well, this kid worked 'round, machinery mostly, and got +interested in cars, and started a garage---- Wee, that was an awful +shop, first one I had! In Rauskukle's barn. Six wrenches and a +screwdriver and a one-lung pump! And I didn't know a roller-bearing from +three-point suspension! But---- Well, anyway, he worked along, and built +a regular garage, and paid off practically all the mortgage on it----" + +"I remember stopping at a garage in Schoenstrom, I'm almost sure it was, +for something. I seem to remember it was a good place. Do you own it? +Really?" + +"Ye-es, what there is of it." + +"But there's a great deal of it. It's efficient. You've done your job. +That's more than most high-born aides-de-camp could say." + +"Honestly? Well--I don't know----" + +"Who did you play with in Schoenstrom? Oh, I _wish_ I'd noticed that +town. But I couldn't tell then that---- What, uh, which girl did you +fall in love with?" + +"None! Honest! None! Not one! Never fell in love----" + +"You're unfortunate. I have, lots of times. I remember quite enjoying +being kissed once, at a dance." + +When he answered, his voice was strange: "I suppose you're engaged to +somebody." + +"No. And I don't know that I shall be. Once, I thought I liked a man, +rather. He has nice eyes and the most correct spectacles, and he is +polite to his mother at breakfast, and his name is Jeff, and he will +undoubtedly be worth five or six hundred thousand dollars, some day, and +his opinions on George Moore and commercial paper are equally sound and +unoriginal---- Oh, I ought not to speak of him, and I certainly ought +not to be spiteful. I'm not at all reticent and ladylike, am I! But---- +Somehow I can't see him out here, against a mountain of jagged rock." + +"Only you won't always be out here against mountains. Some day you'll be +back in--where is it in New York State?" + +"I confess it's Brooklyn--but not what you'd mean by Brooklyn. Your +remark shows you to have subtlety. I must remember that, mustn't I! I +won't always be driving through this big land. But---- Will I get all +fussy and ribbon-tied again, when I go back?" + +"No. You won't. You drive like a man." + +"What has that----" + +"It has a lot to do with it. A garage man can trail along behind another +car and figger out, figure out, just about what kind of a person the +driver is from the way he handles his boat. Now you bite into the job. +You drive pretty neat--neatly. You don't either scoot too far out of the +road in passing a car, or take corners too wide. You won't be fussy. But +still, I suppose you'll be glad to be back among your own folks and +you'll forget the wild Milt that tagged along----" + +"Milt--or Mr. Daggett--no, Milt! I shall never, in my oldest grayest +year, in a ducky cap by the fireplace, forget the half-second when your +hand came flashing along, and caught that man on the running-board. But +it wasn't just that melodrama. If that hadn't happened, something else +would have, to symbolize you. It's that you--oh, you took me in, a +stranger, and watched over me, and taught me the customs of the country, +and were never impatient. No, I shan't forget that; neither of the +Boltwoods will." + +In the rose-haze of firelight he straightened up and stared at her, but +he settled into shyness again as she added: + +"Perhaps others would have done the same thing. I don't know. If they +had, I should have remembered them too. But it happened that it was you, +and I, uh, my father and I, will always be grateful. We both hope we may +see you in Seattle. What are you planning to do there? What is your +ambition? Or is that a rude question?" + +"Why, uh----" + +"What I mean---- I mean, how did you happen to want to go there, with a +garage at home? You still control it?" + +"Oh yes. Left my mechanic in charge. Why, I just kind of decided +suddenly. I guess it was what they call an inspiration. Always wanted a +long trip, anyway, and I thought maybe in Seattle I could hook up with +something a little peppier than Schoenstrom. Maybe something in Alaska. +Always wished I were a mechanical or civil engineer so----" + +"Then why don't you become one? You're young---- How old are you?" + +"Twenty-five." + +"We're both children, compared with Je--compared with some men who are +my friends. You're quite young enough to go to engineering school. And +take some academic courses on the side--English, so on. Why don't you? +Have you ever thought of it?" + +"N-no, I hadn't thought of doing it, but---- All right. I will! In +Seattle! B'lieve the University of Washington is there." + +"You mean it?" + +"Yes. I do. You're the boss." + +"That's--that's flattering, but---- Do you always make up your mind as +quickly as this?" + +"When the boss gives orders!" + +He smiled, and she smiled back, but this time it was she who was +embarrassed. "You're rather overwhelming. You change your life--if you +really do mean it--because a _jeune fille_ from Brooklyn is so +impertinent, from her Olympian height of finishing-school learning, as +to suggest that you do so." + +"I don't know what a _jeune fille_ is, but I do know----" He sprang up. +He did not look at her. He paraded back and forth, three steps to the +right, three to the left, his hands in his pockets, his voice +impersonal. "I know you're the finest person I ever met. You're the +kind--I knew there must be people like you, because I knew the Joneses. +They're the only friends I've got that have, oh, I suppose it's what +they call culture." + +In a long monologue, uninterrupted by Claire, he told of his affection +for the Schoenstrom "prof" and his wife. The practical, slangy Milt of +the garage was lost in the enthusiastic undergraduate adoring his +instructor in the university that exists as veritably in a teacher's or +a doctor's sitting-room in every Schoenstrom as it does in certain +lugubrious stone hulks recognized by a state legislature as magically +empowered to paste on sacred labels lettered "Bachelor of Arts." + +He broke from his revelations to plump down on the bench beside her, to +slap his palm with his fist, and sigh, "Lord, I've been gassing on! +Guess I bored you!" + +"Oh, please, Milt, please! I see it all so---- It must have been +wonderful, the evening when Mrs. Jones read Noyes's 'Highwayman' aloud. +Tell me--long before that--were you terribly lonely as a little boy?" + +Now Milt had not been a terribly lonely little boy. He had been a leader +in a gang devoted to fighting, swimming, pickerel-spearing, +beggie-stealing, and catching rides on freights. + +But he believed that he was accurately presenting every afternoon of his +childhood, as he mused, "Yes, I guess I was, pretty much. I remember I +used to sit on dad's doorstep, all those long sleepy summer afternoons, +and I'd think, 'Aw, geeeeee, I--wisht--I--had--somebody--to--play--with!' +I always wanted to make-b'lieve Robin Hood, but none of the other +kids--so many of them were German; they didn't know about Robin Hood; so +I used to scout off alone." + +"If I could only have been there, to be Maid Marian for you! We'd have +learned archery! Lonely little boy on the doorstep!" Her fingers just +touched his sleeve. In her gesture, the ember-light caught the crystal +of her wrist watch. She stooped to peer at it, and her pitying +tenderness broke off in an agitated: "Heavings! Is it that late? To bed! +Good night, Milt." + +"Good night, Cl---- Miss Boltwood." + +"No. 'Claire,' of course. I'm not normally a first-name-snatcher, but I +do seem to have fallen into saying 'Milt.' Night!" + +As she undressed, in her tent, Claire reflected, "He won't take +advantage of my being friendly, will he? Only thing is---- I sha'n't +dare to look at Henry B. when Milt calls me 'Claire' in that sedate +Brooklyn Heights presence. The dear lamb! Lonely afternoons----!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE BEAST OF THE CORRAL + + +They met in the frost-shimmering mountain morning, on their way to the +corral, to get their cars ready before breakfast. They were shy, hence +they were boisterous, and tremendously unreferential to campfire +confidences, and informative about distilled water for batteries, and +the price of gas in the Park. On Milt's shoulder rode Vere de Vere who, +in her original way, relieved one pause by observing "Mrwr." + +They came in through the corral gate before any of the other motor +tourists had appeared--and they stupidly halted to watch a bear, a +large, black, adipose and extremely unchained bear, stalk along the line +of cars, sniff, cock an ear at the Gomez, lumber up on its +running-board, and bundle into the seat. His stern filled the space +between side and top, and he was to be heard snuffing. + +"Oh! Look! Milt! Left box of candy on seat---- Oh, please drive him +away!" + +"Me? Drive--that?" + +"Frighten him away. Aren't animals afraid human eye----" + +"Not in this park. Guns forbidden. Animals protected by U. S. Army, +President, Congress, Supreme Court, Department of Interior, Monroe +Doctrine, W. C. T. U. But I'll try--cautiously." + +"Don't you want me think you're hero?" + +"Ye-es, providin' I don't have to go and be one." + +They edged toward the car. The bear flapped his hind legs, looked out at +the intruders, said "Oofflll!" and returned to the candy. + +"Shoo!" Milt answered politely. + +"Llooffll!" + +From his own bug, beside the Gomez, Milt got a tool kit, and with +considerable brilliance as a pitcher he sent a series of wrenches at the +agitated stern of the bear. They offended the dignity of the ward of the +Government. He finished the cover and ribbons of the candy box, and +started for Milt ... who proceeded with haste toward Claire ... who was +already at the gate. + +Lady Vere de Vere, cat of a thousand battles, gave one frightful squawl, +shot from Milt's shoulder and at the bear, claws out, fur electric. The +bear carelessly batted once with its paw, and the cat sailed into the +air. The satisfied bear strolled to the fence, shinned up it and over. + +"Good old Vere! That wallop must of darn near stunned her, though!" Milt +laughed to Claire, as they trotted back into the corral. The cat did not +move, as they came up; did not give the gallant "Mrwr" with which she +had saluted Milt on lonely morning after morning of forlorn driving +behind the Gomez. He picked Vere up. + +"She's--she's dead," he said. He was crying. + +"Oh, Milt---- Last night you said Vere was all the family you had. You +have the Boltwoods, now!" + +She did not touch his hand, nor did they speak as they walked soberly to +the far side of the corral, and buried Lady Vere de Vere. At breakfast +they talked of the coming day's run, from the canyon out of the Park, +and northward. But they had the queer, quick casualness of intimates. + + * * * * * + +It was at breakfast that her father heard one Milt Daggett address the +daughter of the Boltwoods as "Claire." The father was surprised into +clearing his throat, and attacking his oatmeal with a zealousness +unnatural in a man who regarded breakfast-foods as moral rather than +interesting. + +While he was lighting a cigar, and Claire was paying the bill, Mr. +Boltwood stalked Milt, cleared his throat all over again, and said, +"Nice morning." + +It was the first time the two men had talked unchaperoned by Claire. + +"Yes. We ought to have a good run, sir." The "sir" came hard. The +historian puts forth a theory that Milt had got it out of fiction. "We +might go up over Mount Washburn. Take us up to ten thousand feet." + +"Uh, you said--didn't Miss Boltwood tell me that you are going to +Seattle, too?" + +"Yes." + +"Friends there, no doubt?" + +Milt grinned irresistibly. "Not a friend. But I'm going to make 'em. I'm +going to take up engineering, and some French, I guess, at the +university there." + +"Ah. Really?" + +"Yes. Been too limited in my ambition. Don't see why I shouldn't get out +and build railroads and power plants and roads--Siberia, Africa, all +sorts of interesting places." + +"Quite right. Quite right. Uh, ah, I, oh, I---- Have you seen Miss +Boltwood?" + +"I saw Miss Boltwood in the office." + +"Oh yes. Quite so. Uh--ah, here she is." + +When the Gomez had started, Mr. Boltwood skirmished, "This young man---- +Do you think you better let him call you by your Christian name?" + +"Why not? I call him 'Milt.' 'Mr. Daggett' is too long a handle to use +when a man is constantly rescuing you from the perils of the deep or +hoboes or bears or something. Oh, I haven't told you. Poor old Milt, his +cat was killed----" + +"Yes, yes, dolly, you may tell me about that in due time, but let's +stick to this social problem for a moment. Do you think you ought to be +too intimate with him?" + +"He's only too self-respecting. He wouldn't take advantage----" + +"I'm quite aware of that. I'm not speaking on your behalf, but on his. +I'm sure he's a very amiable chap, and ambitious. In fact---- Did you +know that he has saved up money to attend a university?" + +"When did he tell you that? How long has he been planning---- I thought +that I----" + +"Just this morning; just now." + +"Oh! I'm relieved." + +"I don't quite follow you, dolly, but---- Where was I? Do you realize +what a demure tyrant you are? If you can drag me from New York to the +aboriginal wilds, and I did _not_ like that oatmeal, what will you do to +this innocent? I want to protect him!" + +"You better! Because I'm going to carve him, and paint him, and possibly +spoil him. The creating of a man--of one who knows how to handle +life--is so much more wonderful than creating absurd pictures or statues +or stories. I'll nag him into completing college. He'll learn +dignity--or perhaps lose his simplicity and be ruined; and then I'll +marry him off to some nice well-bred pink-face, like Jeff Saxton's +pretty cousin--who may turn him into a beastly money-grubber; and I'm +monkeying with destiny, and I ought to be slapped, and I realize it, and +I can't help it, and all my latent instinct as a feminine meddler is +aroused, and--golly, I almost went off that curve!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE BLACK DAY OF THE VOYAGE + + +That was the one black day of her voyage--black stippled with crimson. + +It began with the bear's invasion of the car, resulting in long +claw-marks across the upholstery, the loss of some particularly good +candy bought at a Park hotel, and genuine grief abiding after the +sentimental tragedy of Vere de Vere's death. The next act was the +ingenious loss of all power of her engine. She forgot that, before +breakfast, Milt had filled the oil-well for her. When she stopped for +gasoline, and the seller inquired, "Quart of oil?"--she absently nodded. +So the cylinders filled with surplus oil, the spark-plugs were fouled, +and the engine had the power of a sewing machine. + +She could not make Mount Washburn--she could not make even the slopes of +the lower road. Now she knew the agony of the feeble car in the +mountains--most shameful and anxious of a driver's dolors: the brisk +start up the hill, the belief that you will keep on going this time; the +feeling of weariness through all the car; the mad shifting of gears, the +slipping of the clutch, and more gas, and less gas, and wondering +whether more gas or less is the better, and the appalling knocking when +you finally give her a lot too much gas; the remembrance, when it's too +late, to retard the spark; the safe crawling up to the last sharp pitch, +just fifteen feet from the summit; the car's halting; the yelp at your +passenger, "Jump out and push!"; the painful next five feet; and the +final death of the power just as the front wheels creep up over the +pitch. Then the anxious putting on of brakes--holding the car with both +foot-brake and emergency, lest it run down backward, slip off the road. +The calf of your leg begins to ache from the pressure on the foot-brake, +and with an unsuccessful effort to be courteous you bellow at the +passenger, who has been standing beside the car looking deprecatory, +"Will you please block the back wheels with a stone--hustle up, will +you!" + +All this routine Claire thoroughly learned. Always Milt bumbled up, said +cheerful things, and either hauled the Gomez over the pitch by a towline +to his bug, or getting out, pushing on a rear fender till his neck was +red and bulgy, gave the extra impetus necessary to get the Gomez over. + +"Would you mind shoving on that side, just a little bit?" he suggested +to Mr. Boltwood, who ceased the elaborate smoking of cigars, dusted his +hands, and gravely obeyed, while Claire was awaiting the new captain's +command to throw on the power. + +"I wish we weren't under so much obligation to this young man," said Mr. +Boltwood, after one crisis. + +"I know but--what can we do?" + +"Don't you suppose we might pay him?" + +"Henry B. Boltwood, if you tried to do that---- I'm not sure. Your being +my parent might save you, but even so, I think he'd probably chase you +off the road, clear down into that chasm." + +"I suppose so. Shall we have to entertain him in Seattle?" + +"Have to? My dear parent, you can't keep me from it! Any of the Seattle +friends of Gene Gilson who don't appreciate that straight, fine, +aspiring boy may go---- Not overdo it, you understand. But---- Oh, take +him to the theater. By the way; shall we try to climb Mount Rainier +before----" + +"See here, my good dolly; you stop steering me away from my feeble +parental efforts. Do you wish to be under obligations----" + +"Don't mind, with Milt. He wouldn't charge interest, as Jeff Saxton +would. Milt is, oh, he's folks!" + +"Quite true. But are we? Are you?" + +"Learning to be!" + +Between discussions and not making hills, Claire cleaned the spark plugs +as they accumulated carbon from the surplus oil--or she pretended to +help Milt clean them. The plugs were always very hot, and when you were +unscrewing the jacket from the core, you always burned your hand, and +wished you could swear ... and sometimes you could. + +After noon, when they had left the Park and entered Gardiner, Milt +announced, "I've got to stick around a while. The key in my +steering-gear seems to be worn. May have to put in a new one. Get the +stuff at a garage here. If you wouldn't mind waiting, be awful glad to +tag, and try to give a few helping hands till the oil cleans itself +out." + +"I'll just stroll on," she said, but she drove away as swiftly as she +could. Her father's worry about obligations disturbed her, and she did +not wish to seem too troublesome an amateur to Milt. She would see him +in Livingston, and tell him how well she had driven. The spark plugs +kept clean enough now so that she could command more power, but---- + +Between the Park and the transcontinental road there are many climbs +short but severely steep; up-shoots like the humps on a scenic railway. +To tackle them with her uncertain motor was like charging a machine-gun +nest. She spent her nerve-force lavishly, and after every wild rush to +make a climb, she had to rest, to rub the suddenly aching back of her +neck. Because she was so tired, she did not take the trouble to save her +brakes by going down in gear. She let the brakes smoke while the river +and railroad below rose up at her. + +There was a long drop. How long it was she did not guess, because it was +concealed by a curve at the top. She seemed to plane down forever. The +brakes squealed behind. She tried to shift to first but there was a +jarring snarl, and she could neither get into first nor back into third. +She was running in neutral, the great car coasting, while she tried to +slow it by jamming down the foot-brake. The car halted--and started on +again. The brake-lining which had been wished on her at Saddle Back was +burnt out. + +She had the feeling of the car bursting out from under control ... ready +to leap off the road, into a wash. She wanted to jump. It took all her +courage to stay in the seat. She got what pressure she could from the +remaining band. With one hand she kept the accelerating car in the +middle of the road; with the other she tried to pull the handle of the +emergency brake back farther. She couldn't. She was not strong enough. +Faster, faster, rushing at the next curve so that she could scarce steer +round it---- + +As quietly as she could, she demanded of her father, "Pull back on this +brake lever, far as you can. Take both hands." + +"I don't understand----" + +"Heavens! Y' don't haft un'stand! Yank back! Yank, I tell you!" + +Again the car slowed. She was able to get into second speed. Even that +check did not keep the car from darting down at thirty miles an +hour--which pace, to one who desires to saunter down at a dignified rate +of eighteen, is equivalent in terms of mileage on level ground to +seventy an hour, with a drunken driver, on a foggy evening, amid +traffic. + +She got the car down and, in the midst of a valley of emptiness and +quiet, she dropped her head on her father's knee and howled. + +"I just can't face going down another hill! I just can't face it!" she +sobbed. + +"No, dolly. Mustn't. We better---- You're quite right. This young +Daggett is a very gentlemanly fellow. I didn't think his +table-manners---- But we'll sit here and regard the flora and fauna till +he comes. He'll see us through." + +"Yes! He will! Honestly, dad----" She said it with the first touch of +hero-worship since she had seen an aviator loop loops. "Isn't he, oh, +effective! Aren't you glad he's here to help us, instead of somebody +like Jeff Saxton?" + +"We-ul, you must remember that Geoffrey wouldn't have permitted the +brake to burn out. He'd have foreseen it, and have had a branch office, +with special leased wire, located back on that hill, ready to do +business the instant the market broke. Enthusiasm is a nice quality, +dolly, but don't misplace it. This lad, however trustworthy he may be, +would scarcely even be allowed to work for a man like Geoffrey Saxton. +It may be that later, with college----" + +"No. He'd work for Jeff two hours. Then Jeff would give him that 'You +poor fish!' look, and Milt would hit him, and stroll out, and go to the +North Pole or some place, and discover an oil-well, and hire Jeff as his +nice, efficient general manager. And---- I do wish Milt would hurry, +though!" + +It was dusk before they heard the pit-pit-pit chuckling down the hill. +Milt's casual grin changed to bashfulness as Claire ran into the road, +her arms wide in a lovely gesture of supplication, and cried, "We been +waiting for you so long! One of my brake-bands is burnt out, and the +other is punk." + +"Well, well. Let's try to figure out something to do." + +She waited reverently while the local prophet sat in his bug, stared at +the wheels of the Gomez, and thought. The level-floored, +sagebrush-sprinkled hollow had filled with mauve twilight and creeping +stilly sounds. The knowable world of yellow lights and security was far +away. Milt was her only means of ever getting back to it. + +"Tell you what we might try," he speculated. "I'll hitch on behind you, +and hold back in going down hill." + +She did not even try to help him while he again cleaned the spark plugs +and looked over brakes, oil, gas, water. She sat on the running-board, +and it was pleasant to be relieved of responsibility. He said nothing at +all. While he worked he whistled that recent refined ballad: + + I wanta go back to Oregon + And sit on the lawn, and look at the dawn. + Oh motheruh dear, don't leavuh me here, + The leaves are so sere, in the fallothe year, + I wanta go back to Oregugon, + To dearuh old Oregugon. + +They started, shouting optimistically to each other, lights on, trouble +seeming over--and they stopped after the next descent, and pools of +tears were in the corners of Claire's eyes. The holdback had not +succeeded. Her big car, with its quick-increasing momentum, had jerked +at the bug as though it were a lard-can. The tow-rope had stretched, +sung, snapped, and again, in fire-shot delirium, she had gone rocking +down hill. + +He drove up beside her, got out, stood at her elbow. His "I'm a bum +inventor. We'll try somethin' else" was so careless that, in her +nerve-twanging exhaustion she wailed, "Oh, don't be so beastly cheerful! +You don't care a bit!" + +In the dusk she could see him straighten, and his voice came sharp as he +ignored the ever-present parental background and retorted, "Somebody has +got to be cheerful. Matter fact, I worked out the right stunt, coming +down." + +Like a man in the dentist's chair, recovering between bouts, she drowsed +and ignored the fact that in a few minutes she would again have to +reassemble herself, become wakeful and calm, and go through quite +impossible maneuvers of driving. Milt was, with a hatchet from his +camping-kit, cutting down a large scrub pine. He dragged it to the Gomez +and hitched it to the back axle. The knuckles of the branches would dig +into the earth, the foliage catch at every pebble. + +"There! That anchor would hold a truck!" he shouted. + +It held. She went down the next two hills easily. But she was through. +Her forearms and brain were equally numb. She appealed to Milt, "I can't +seem to go on any more. It's so dark, and I'm so tired----" + +"All right. No ranch houses anywheres near, so we'll camp here, if Mr. +Boltwood doesn't mind." + +Claire stirred herself to help him prepare dinner. It wasn't much of a +dinner to prepare. Both cars had let provisions run low. They had bacon +and petrified ends of a loaf and something like coffee--not much like +it. Scientists may be interested in their discovery that as a substitute +for both cream and sugar in beverages strawberry jam is a fallacy. + +For Mr. Boltwood's bed Milt hauled out the springy seat-cushions of both +cars. The Gomez cushion was three inches thicker than that of the bug, +which resulted in a mattress two stories in front with a lean-to at the +foot, and the entire edifice highly slippery. But with a blanket from +Milt's kit, it was sufficient. To Claire, Milt gave another blanket, +his collection of antique overcoats, and good advice. He spoke vaguely +of a third blanket for himself. And he had one. Its dimensions were +thirteen by twenty inches, it was of white wool, he had bought it in +Dakota for Vere de Vere, and many times that day he had patted it and +whispered, "Poor old cat." + +Under his blankets Mr. Boltwood thought of rattlesnakes, bears, +rheumatism, Brooklyn, his debt to Milt, and the fact that--though he +hadn't happened to mention it to Claire--he had expected to be killed +when the brake had burned out. + +Claire was drowsily happy. She had got through. She was conscious of +rustling sagebrush, of the rapids of the Yellowstone beside her, of open +sky and sweet air and a scorn for people in stuffy rooms, and +comfortably ever conscious of Milt, ten feet away. She had in him the +interest that a young physician would have in a new X-ray machine, a +printer in a new font of type, any creator in a new outlet for his +power. She would see to it that her Seattle cousins, the Gilsons, helped +him to know the right people, during his university work. She herself +would be back in Brooklyn, but perhaps he would write to her, +write--write letters--Brooklyn--she was in Brooklyn--no, no, where was +she?--oh, yes, camping--bad day--brakes---- No, she would not marry Jeff +Saxton! Brooklyn--river singing--stars---- + +And when Milt wasn't unromantically thinking of his cold back, he +exulted. "She won't be back among her own folks till Seattle. Probably +forget me then. Don't blame her. But till we get there, she'll let me +play in her yard. Gee! In the morning I'll be talking to her again, and +she's right there, right now!" + +In the morning they were all very stiff, but glad of the sun on +sagebrush and river, and the boy and girl sang over breakfast. While +Milt was gathering fuel he looked up at Claire standing against a +background of rugged hills, her skirt and shoes still smug, but her +jacket off, her blouse turned in at the throat, her hair blowing, her +sleeves rolled up, one hand on her hip, erect, charged with vigor--the +spirit of adventure. + +When her brake had been relined, at Livingston, they sauntered +companionably on to Butte. And the day after Butte, when Milt was half a +mile behind the Gomez, a pink-haired man with a large, shiny revolver +stepped out from certain bushes, and bowed politely, and at that point +Milt stopped. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE SPECTACLES OF AUTHORITY + + +Over the transcontinental divide and into Butte, diamond-glittering on +its hills in the dark; into Missoula, where there are trees and a +university, with a mountain in everybody's backyard; through the +Flathead Agency, where scarlet-blanketed Indians stalk out of tepees and +the papoose rides on mother's back as in forgotten days; down to St. +Ignatius, that Italian Alp town with its old mission at the foot of +mountains like the wall of Heaven, Claire had driven west, then north. +She was sailing past Flathead Lake, where fifty miles of mountain glory +are reflected in bright waters. Everywhere were sections of flat +wheat-plains, stirring with threshing, with clattering machinery and the +flash of blown straw. But these miniature prairies were encircled by +abrupt mountains. + +Mr. Boltwood remarked, "I'd rather have one of these homesteads and look +across my fields at those hills than be King of England." Not that he +made any effort to buy one of the homesteads. But then, he made no +appreciable effort to become King of England. + +Claire had not seen Milt for a day and a half; not since the morning +when both cars had left Butte. She wondered, and was piqued, and +slightly lonely. Toward evening, when she was speculating as to whether +she would make Kalispell--almost up to the Canadian border--she saw a +woman run into the road from a house on the shore of Flathead Lake. The +woman held out her hand. Claire pulled up. + +"Are you Miss Boltwood?" + +It was as startling as the same question would have been in a Chinese +village. + +"W-why, yes." + +"Somebody trying to get you on the long-distance 'phone." + +"Me? 'Phone?" + +She was trembling. "Something's happened to Milt. He needs me!" She +could not manage her voice, as she got the operator on the farmers'-line +wire, and croaked, "Was some one trying to get Miss Boltwood?" + +"Yes. This Boltwood? Hotel in Kalispell trying to locate you, for two +hours. Been telephoning all along the line, from Butte to Somers." + +"W-well, w-will you g-get 'em for me?" + +It was not Milt's placid and slightly twangy voice but one smoother, +more decisive, perplexingly familiar, that finally vibrated, "Hello! +Hello! Miss Boltwood! Operator, I can't hear. Get me a better +connection. Miss Boltwood?" + +"Yes! Yes! This is Miss Boltwood!" she kept beseeching, during a long +and not unheated controversy between the unknown and the crisp operator, +who knew nothing of the English language beyond, "Here's your party. Why +don't you talk? Speak louder!" + +Then came clearly, "Hear me now?" + +"Yes! Yes!" + +"Miss Boltwood?" + +"Yes?" + +"Oh. Oh, hello, Claire. This is Jeff." + +"Jess who?" + +"Not Jess. Jeff! Geoffrey! J-e-f-f! Jeff Saxton!" + +"Oh!" It was like a sob. "Why--why--but you're in New York." + +"Not exactly, dear. I'm in Kalispell, Montana." + +"But that's right near here." + +"So am I!" + +"B-but----" + +"Out West to see copper interests. Traced you from Yellowstone Park but +missed you at Butte. Thought I'd catch you on road. You talking from +Barmberry's?" + +The woman who had hailed her was not missing a word of a telephone +conversation which might be relative to death, fire, elopement, or any +other dramatic event. Claire begged of her, "Where in the world am I +talking from, anyway?" + +"This is Barmberry's Inn." + +"Yes," Claire answered on the telephone, "I seem to be. Shall I start on +and----" + +"No. Got ripping plan. Stay right where you are. Got a fast car waiting. +Be right down. We'll have dinner. By!" + +A click. No answer to Claire's urgent hellos. She hung up the receiver +very, very carefully. She hated to turn and face her audience of Mr. +Henry B. Boltwood, Mr. James Barmberry, Mrs. James Barmberry, and four +Barmberry buds averaging five and a quarter in age. She tried to ignore +the Barmberrys, but their silence was noisy and interested while she +informed her father, "It's Jeff Saxton! Out here to see copper mines. +Telephoned along road to catch us. Says we're to wait dinner till he +comes." + +"Yessum," Mrs. Barmberry contributed, "he told me if I did catch you, I +was to have some new-killed chickens ready to fry, and some whipped +cream---- Jim Barmberry, you go right out and finish whipping that +cream, and don't stand there gawping and gooping, and you children, you +scat!" + +Claire seized the moment of Mr. Boltwood's lordly though bewildered bow +to their hostess, and escaped outdoors. Round the original settler's +log-cabin were nests of shacks and tents, for bedrooms, and on a +screened porch, looking on Flathead Lake, was the dining-room. The few +other guests had finished supper and gone to their tents. + +She ambled to the lake shore, feeling feebler, more slapped and sent +back to be a good little girl, than she had when Milt had hitched a +forest to the back axle, three days ago. A map of her thoughts about +Jeff Saxton would have shown a labyrinth. Now, she was muttering, "Dear +Jeff! So thoughtful! Clever of him to find me! So good to see him +again!" Now: "It's still distinctly understood that I am not engaged to +him, and I'm not going to be surprised into kissing him when he comes +down like a wolf on the fold." Now: "Jeff Saxton! Here! Makes me +homesick for the Heights. And nice shops in Manhattan, and a really good +play--music just before the curtain goes up." Now: "Ohhhhhh geeeeee +whizzzzzz! I wonder if he'll let us go any farther in the car? He's so +managerial, and dad is sure to take his side. He tried to scare us off +by that telegram to Fargo." Now: "He'd be horrified if he knew about +that bum brake. Milt didn't mind. Milt likes his womenfolks to be +daring. Jeff wants his harem admiring and very reliable." + +She crouched on the shore, a rather forlorn figure. The peaks of the +Mission Range, across the violet-shadowed mirror of Flathead Lake, were +a sudden pure rose, in reflection of sunset, then stony, forbidding. +Across the road, on the Barmberry porch, she could hear her father +saying "Ah?" and "Indeed?" to James's stories. + +Up the road, a blaring horn, great lights growing momently more +dazzling, a roar, a rush, the halting car, and out of its blurred bulk, +a trim figure darting--Jeff Saxton--home and the people she loved, and +the ways and days she knew best of all. He had shouted only "Is +Miss----" before she had rushed to him, into the comfort of his arms, +and kissed him. + +She backed off and tried to sound as if it hadn't happened, but she was +quavery: "I can't believe it! It's too ridiculously wonderful to see +you!" She retreated toward the Barmberry porch, Jeff following, his two +hands out. They came within the range of the house lights, and Mr. +Boltwood hailed, "Ah! Geoffrey! Never had such a surprise--nor a more +delightful one!" + +"Mr. Boltwood! Looking splendid, sir! New man! William Street better +look to its laurels when you come back and get into the game!" + +Then, on the lamp-lighted porch, the two men shook hands, and looked for +some other cordial thing to do. They thought about giving each other +cigars. They smiled, and backed away, and smiled, in the foolish, +indeterminate way males have, being unable to take it out in kissing. +Mr. Boltwood solved the situation by hemming, "Must trot in and wash. +See you very soon." Mr. James Barmberry and the squad of lesser +Barmberrys regretfully followed. Claire was alone with Jeff, and she was +frightened. Yet she was admitting that Jeff, in his English cap and +flaring London top-coat, his keen smile and his extreme shavedness, was +more attractive than she had remembered. + +"Glad to see me?" he demanded. + +"Oh, rather!" + +"You're looking----" + +"You're so----" + +"Nice trip? You know you've sent me nothing but postcards with 'Pretty +town,' or something equally sentimental." + +"Yes, it's really been bully. These mountains and big spaces simply +inspire me." She said it rather defiantly. + +"Of course they do! Trouble is, with you away, we've nothing to inspire +us!" + +"Do you need anything, with your office and your club?" + +"Why, Claire!" + +"I'm sorry. That was horrid of me." + +"Yes, it was. Though I don't mind. I'm sure we've all become meek, +missing you so. I'm quite willing to be bullied, and reminded that I'm a +mere T.B.M." + +She had got herself into it; she had to tell him that he wasn't just a +business man; that she had "just meant" he was so practical. + +"But Jeff is no longer the practical one," he declared. "Think of Claire +driving over deserts and mountains. But---- Oh, it's been so lonely for +us. Can you guess how much? A dozen times every evening, I've turned to +the telephone to call you up and beg you to let me nip in and see you, +and then realized you weren't there, and I've just sat looking at the +'phone---- Oh, other people are so dull!" + +"You really miss----" + +"I wish I were a poet, so I could tell you adequately. But you haven't +said you missed me, Claire. Didn't you, a teeny bit? Wouldn't it have +been tolerable to have poor old Jeff along, to drive down dangerous +hills----" + +"And fill grease-cups! Nasty and stickum on the fingers!" + +"Yes, I'd have done that, too. And invented surprises along the way. I'm +a fine surpriser! I've arranged for a motor-boat so we can explore the +lake here tomorrow. That's why I had you wait here instead of coming on +to Kalispell. Tomorrow morning, unfortunately, I have to hustle back and +catch a train--called to California, and possibly a northern trip. But +meantime---- By now, my driver must have sneaked my s'prises into the +kitchen." + +"What are they?" + +"Guess." + +"Food. Eats. Divine eats." + +"Maybe." + +"But what? Please, sir. Claire is so hungry." + +"We shall see in time, my child. Uncle Jeff is not to be hurried." + +"Ah--let--me--see--now! I'll kick and scream!" + +From New York Jeff had brought a mammoth picnic basket. To the fried +chicken ordered for dinner he added sealed jars of purée of wood pigeon, +of stuffed artichokes prepared by his club chef; caviar and anchovies; a +marvelous nightmare-creating fruit cake to go with the whipped cream; +two quarts of a famous sherry; candied fruits in a silver box. Dinner +was served not on the dining-porch but before the fire in the +Barmberrys' living-room. Claire looked at the candied fruits, stared at +Jeff rather queerly--as though she was really thinking of some one +else--and mused: + +"I didn't know I cared so much for these foolish luxuries. Tonight, I'd +like a bath, just a tiny bit scented, and a real dressing-table with a +triple mirror, and French talc, and come down in a dinner-gown---- Oh, I +have enjoyed the trip, Jeff. But my poor body does get so tired and +dusty, and then you treacherously come along with these things that +you've magicked out of the mountains and---- I'm not a pioneer woman, +after all. And Henry B. is not a caveman. See him act idolatrously +toward his soup." + +"I feel idolatrous. I'd forgotten the supreme ethical importance of the +soup. I'll never let myself forget it again," said Mr. Boltwood, in the +tone of one who has come home. + +Claire was grateful to Jeff that he did not let her go on being +grateful. He turned the talk to Brooklyn. He was neat and explicit--and +almost funny--in his description of an outdoor presentation of +_Midsummer Night's Dream_, in which a domestic and intellectual lady +weighing a hundred and eighty-seven stageside had enacted Puck. As they +sat after dinner, as Claire shivered, he produced a knitted robe, and +pulled it about her shoulders, smiling at her in a lonely, hungry way. +She caught his hand. + +"Nice Jeff!" she whispered. + +"Oh, my dear!" he implored. He shook his head in a wistful way that +caught her heart, and dutifully went back to informing Mr. Boltwood of +the true state of the markets. + +"Talk to Claire too!" she demanded. She stopped, stared. From outside +she heard a nervous pit-pit-pit, a blurred dialogue between Mr. James +Barmberry and another man. Into the room rambled Milt Daggett, dusty of +unpressed blue suit, tired of eyes, and not too well shaved of chin, +grumbling, "Thought I'd never catch up with you, Claire---- Why----" + +"Oh! Oh, Milt--Mr. Daggett---- Oh, Jeff, this is our good friend Milt +Daggett, who has helped us along the road." + +Jeff's lucid rimless spectacles stared at Milt's wind-reddened eyes; his +jaunty patch-pocket outing clothes sniffed at Milt's sweater; his even +voice followed Milt's grunt of surprise with a curt "Ah. Mr. Daggett." + +"Pleased meet you," faltered Milt. + +Jeff nodded, turned his shoulder on Milt, and went on, "The fact is, Mr. +Boltwood, the whole metal market----" + +Milt was looking from one to another. Claire was now over her first +shocked comparison of candied fruits with motor grease. She rose, moved +toward Milt, murmuring, "Have you had dinner?" + +The door opened again. A pink-haired, red-faced man in a preposterous +green belted suit lunged in, swept his broad felt hat in greeting, and +boomed like a cheap actor: + +"Friends of my friend Milt, we about to dine salute you. Let me +introduce myself as Westlake Parrott, better known to the vulgar as +Pinky Parrott, gentleman adventurer, born in the conjunction of Mars and +Venus, with Saturn ascendant." + +Jeff had ignored Milt. But at this absurd second intrusion on his +decidedly private dinner-party he flipped to the center of the room and +said "I beg your pardon!" in such a head-office manner that the +pink-locked Mystery halted in his bombast. Claire felt wabbly. She had +no theories as to where Milt had acquired a private jester, nor as to +what was about to happen to Milt--and possibly to her incautious self. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE VAGABOND IN GREEN + + +As Milt had headed westward from Butte, as he rattled peacefully along +the road, conscious of golden haze over all the land, and the +unexpectedness of prairie threshing-crews on the sloping fields of +mountainsides, a man had stepped out from bushes beside the road, and +pointed a .44 navy revolver. + +The man was not a movie bandit. He wore a green imitation of a Norfolk +jacket, he had a broad red smile, and as he flourished his hat in a bow, +his hair was a bristly pompadour of gray-streaked red that was almost +pink. He made oration: + +"Pardon my eccentric greeting, brother of the open road, but I wanted +you to give ear to my obsequious query as to how's chances on gettin' a +lift? I have learned that obsequiousness is best appreciated when it is +backed up by prayer and ca'tridges." + +"What's the idea? I seem to gather you'd like a lift. Jump in." + +"You do not advocate the Ciceronian style, I take it," chuckled the man +as he climbed aboard. + +Milt was not impressed. Claire might have been, but Milt had heard +politics and religion argued about the stove in Rauskukle's store too +often to be startled by polysyllabomania. He knew it was often the sign +of a man who has read too loosely and too much by himself. He snorted. +"Huh! What are you--newspaper, politics, law, preacher, or gambler?" + +"Well, a little of all those interesting occupations. And +ten-twent-thirt trouping, and county-fair spieling, and selling Dr. +Thunder Rapids' Choctaw Herbal Sensitizer. How far y' going?" + +"Seattle." + +"Honest? Say, kid, this is---- Muh boy, we shall have the rare privilege +of pooling adventures as far as Blewett Pass, four to six days' run from +here--a day this side of Seattle. I'm going to my gold-mine there. I'll +split up on the grub--I note from your kit that you camp nights. Quite +all right, my boy. Pinky Parrott is no man to fear night air." + +He patted Milt's shoulder with patronizing insolence. He filled a pipe +and, though the car was making twenty-five, he lighted the pipe with +distinguished ease, then settled down to his steady stride: + +"In the pride of youth, you feel that you have thoroughly categorized +me, particularly since I am willing to admit that, though I shall have +abundance of the clinking iron men to buy my share of our chow, I chance +just for the leaden-footed second to lack the wherewithal to pay my +railroad fare back to Blewett; and the bumpers and side-door Pullman of +the argonauts like me not. Too damn dusty. But your analysis is +unsynthetic, though you will scarce grasp my paradoxical metaphor." + +"The hell I won't. I've taken both chemistry and rhetoric," growled +Milt, strictly attending to driving, and to the desire to get rid of his +parasite. + +"Oh! Oh, I see. Well, anyway: I am no mere nimble knight of wits, as you +may take it. In fact, I am lord of fair acres in Arcady." + +"Don't know the burg. Montana or Idaho?" + +"Neither! In the valley of dream!" + +"Oh! That one. Huh!" + +"But I happen to back them up with a perfectly undreamlike gold-mine. +Prospected for it in a canyon near Blewett Pass and found it, b' gum, +and my lady wife, erstwhile fairest among the society favorites of North +Yakima, now guards it against her consort's return. Straight goods. Got +the stuff. Been to Butte to get a raise on it, but the fell khedives of +commerce are jealous. They would hearken not. Gee, those birds certainly +did pull the frigid mitt! So I wend my way back to the demure Dolores, +the houri of my heart, and the next time I'll take a crack at the big +guns in Seattle. And I'll sure reward you for your generosity in taking +me to Blewett, all the long, long, languid, languorous way----" + +"Too bad I got to stop couple of days at Spokane." + +"Well, then you shall have the pleasure of taking me that far." + +"And about a week in Kalispell!" + +"'Twill discommode me, but 'pon honor, I like your honest simple face, +and I won't desert you. Besides! I know a guy in Kalispell, and I can +panhandle the sordid necessary chuck while I wait for you. Little you +know, my cockerel, how facile a brain your 'bus so lightly bears. When +I've cashed in on the mine, I'll take my rightful place among the +motored gentry. Not merely as actor and spieler, promoter and inventor +and soldier and daring journalist, have I played my rôle, but also I am +a mystic, an initiate, a clairaudient, a psychometrist, a Rosicrucian +adept, and profoundly psychic--in fact, my guide is Hermes Trismegistus +himself! I also hold a degree as doctor of mento-practic, and my studies +in astro-biochemistry----" + +"Gonna stop. All off. Make little coffee," said Milt. + +He did not desire coffee, and he did not desire to stop, but he did +desperately desire not to inflict Pinky Parrott upon the Boltwoods. It +was in his creed as a lover of motors never to refuse a ride to any one, +when he had room. He hoped to get around his creed by the hint implied +in stopping. Pinky's reaction to the hint was not encouraging: + +"Why, you have a touch of the psychic's flare! I could do with coffee +myself. But don't trouble to make a fire. I'll do that. You drive--I do +the camp work. Not but that I probably drive better than you, if you +will permit me to say so. I used to do a bit of racing, before I took up +aviation." + +"Huh! Aviation! What machine d'you fly?" + +"Why, why--a biplane!" + +"Huh! What kind of motor?" + +"Why, a foreign one. The--the---- It was a French motor." + +"Huh! What track you race on?" + +"The---- Pardon me till I build a fire for our _al fresco_ collation, +and I my driving history will unfold." + +But he didn't do either. + +After he had brought seven twigs, one piece of sagebrush, and a six-inch +board, Pinky let Milt finish building the fire, while he told how much +he knew about the mysteries of ancient Egyptian priests. + +Milt gave up hope that Pinky would become bored by waiting and tramp on. +After one hour of conversational deluge, he decided to let Pinky +drive--to make him admit that he couldn't. He was wrong. Pinky could +drive. He could not drive well, he wabbled in his steering, and he +killed the engine on a grade, but he showed something of the same +dashing idiocy that characterized his talk. It was Milt not Pinky, who +was afraid of their running off the road, and suggested resuming the +wheel. + +Seven times that day Milt tried to lose him. Once he stopped without +excuse, and merely stared up at rocks overhanging the hollowed road. +Pinky was not embarrassed. He leaned back in the seat and sang two +Spanish love songs. Once Milt deliberately took a wrong road, up a +mountainside. They were lost, and took five hours getting back to the +highway. Pinky loved the thrill and--in a brief address lasting fifteen +minutes--he said so. + +Milt tried to bore him by driving at seven miles an hour. Pinky +affectionately accepted this opportunity to study the strata of the +hills. When they camped, that night, Pinky loved him like a brother, and +was considering not stopping at Blewett Pass, to see his gold-mine and +Dolores the lady-wife, but going clear on to Seattle with his playmate. + +The drafted host lay awake, and when Pinky awoke and delivered a few +well-chosen words on the subject of bird-song at dawn, Milt burst out: + +"Pinky, I don't like to do it, but---- I've never refused a fellow a +lift, but I'm afraid you'll have to hike on by yourself, the rest of the +way." + +Pinky sat up in his blankets. "Afraid of me, eh? You better be! I'm a +bad actor. I killed Dolores's husband, and took her along, see? I----" + +"Are you trying to scare me, you poor four-flusher?" Milt's right hand +expanded, fingers arching, with the joyous tension of a man stretching. + +"No. I'm just reading your thoughts. I'm telling you you're scared of +me! You think that if I went on, I might steal your car! You're afraid +because I'm so suave. You aren't used to smooth ducks. You don't dare to +let me stick with you, even for today! You're afraid I'd have your +mis'able car by tonight! You don't dare!" + +"The hell I don't!" howled Milt. "If you think I'm afraid---- Just to +show you I'm not, I'll let you go on today!" + +"That's sense, my boy. It would be a shame for two such born companions +of the road to part!" Pinky had soared up from his blankets; was +lovingly shaking Milt's hand. + +Milt knew that he had been tricked, but he felt hopeless. Was it +impossible to insult Pinky? He tried again: + +"I'll be frank with you. You're the worst wind-jamming liar I ever met. +Now don't reach for that gat of yours. I've got a hefty rock right here +handy." + +"But, my dear, dear boy, I don't intend to reach for any crude lethal +smoke-wagon. Besides, there isn't anything in it. I hocked the shells in +Butte. I am not angry, merely grieved. We'll argue this out as we have +breakfast and drive on. I can prove to you that, though occasionally I +let my fancy color mere untutored fact with the pigments of a Robert J. +Ingersoll---- By the way, do you know his spiel on whisky?" + +"Stick to the subject. We'll finish our arguing right now, and I'll +give you breakfast, and we'll sadly part." + +"Merely because I am lighter of spirits than this lugubrious old world? +No! I decline to be dropped. I'll forgive you and go on with you. Mind +you, I am sensitive. I will not intrude where I am not welcome. Only you +must give me a sounder reason than my diverting conversational powers +for shucking me. My logic is even stronger than my hedonistic contempt +for hitting the pike." + +"Well, hang it, if you must know---- Hate to say it, but I'd do almost +anything to get rid of you. Fact is, I've been sort of touring with a +lady and her father, and you would be in the way!" + +"Aaaaaaah! You see! Why, my boy, I will not only stick, but for you, I +shall do the nimble John Alden and win the lady fair. I will so bedizen +your virile, though somewhat crassly practical gifts---- Why, women are +my long suit. They fall for----" + +"Tut, tut, tut! You're a fool. She's no beanery mistress, like you're +used to. She really is a lady." + +"How blind you are, cruel friend. You do not even see that whatever my +vices may be, my social standing----" + +"Oh--shut--up! Can't you see I'm trying to be kind to you? Have I simply +got to beat you up before you begin to suspect you aren't welcome? Your +social standing isn't even in the telephone book. And your +vocabulary---- You let too many 'kids' slip in among the juicy words. +Have I got to lick----" + +"Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, m' boy, and no hard +feelings." + +"Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, without having to pound your +ears off?" + +"Certainly. That is--we'll compromise. You take me on just a few miles, +into more settled country, and I'll leave you." + +So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky +Parrott, that evening, when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard +at Barmberry's and pulled up. + +Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor +to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won +permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise +to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five-cent bag of lemon +drops to Milt's bacon and bread. + +When they had stopped, Milt warned, "There's their machine now. Seems to +be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad +to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. +If you aren't---- Want granite or marble for the headstone? I mean it, +now!" + +"I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, +old _compagnon de voyage_!" + +Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Boltwoods were within, and +burst into the parlor-living-room-library. As he cried to Claire, by the +fire, "Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was conscious that +standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was an old-young man, very suave, +very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan +shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow +pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" Milt +felt the luxury in the room--the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, +the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and +the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. + +"Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, when a voice boomed, "Let +me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott." + +Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and demanded, "I beg pardon!" + +Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. + +"This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner--I mean actor--well, kind of +spiritualistic medium----" + +Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and cigar, soothed, "Jeff, +uh, Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times, and given us a +great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let +us do anything in return but---- I noticed there was almost a whole +fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his +acquaintance here before--before they make camp for the night?" + +In civil and vicious tones Jeff began, "Very glad to reward any one who +has been of service to----" + +He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, "True hospitality is a virtue as +delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact I should be +glad to have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfactory----" + +Milt cut in abruptly, "Pink! Shut up! Thanks, folks, but we'll go on. +Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some +place." + +Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. "Please, Milt! +Father! You didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to +tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. +Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry. And +I want you to know Jeff--Mr. Saxton.... Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an +engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an engineering course in +the University of Washington. Some day I shall make you bloated copper +magnates become interested in him.... Mrs. Barmberry. Mrssssssss. +Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry! Oh. Oh, Mrs. Barmberry, won't you please warm up +that other chicken for----" + +"Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it all up!" wept the +landlady, at the door. + +"I'll go on," stammered Milt. + +Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. + +"You will not go on!" Claire was insisting. "Mrs. Barmberry, won't you +cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys?" + +"Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make their own dinner by a +campfire. Must be very jolly, and that sort of thing." + +"Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment!" + +"Quite right. Sorry!" + +"Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed +of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy +now!" + +She got them all seated--all but Pinky. He had long since seated +himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from +the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. + +Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. He was agonizing, +"This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding-breeches. +He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more--young +garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead Lake, scared look in eyes, +believed to have met a grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I +could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I was out in the +bug. I wonder if I can't escape?" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE + + +During dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day +had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about +Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and +easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He +seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. +Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called +Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made +Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he passed by Claire, +Jeff said gently, "You _are_ lovely!" Only that, and he did not look at +her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. + +Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount +of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice-box curios. When Claire came over to +see how they fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, and +firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of +finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was +lecturing the two men from New York: + +"Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! I don't know how come +I am so graced by Fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two +gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden +game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some +statistics about the gold-deposits still existent in the Cascades and +other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to +you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine----" + +Claire was whispering to Milt, "If we can get rid of your dreadful +passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you +some day. He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! He +happened to be out here, and he traced me by telephone--oh, he treats +long-distance 'phoning as I do a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest +presents--divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and some +real René Bleuzet perfume--I was all out of it---- And after the grime +of the road----" + +"Do you really care for things like that, all those awfully expensive +luxuries?" begged Milt. + +"Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." + +"Then you don't really like adventuring?" + +"Oh yes--in its place! For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so +good by contrast!" + +"Well---- Afraid I don't know much about clever dinners," Milt was +sighing, when he was aware of Jeff Saxton looming down on him, +demanding: + +"Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. +Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get +that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel +I must protect Mr. Boltwood." + +"What can I do?" + +"My dear sir, since you brought him here----" + +It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and carpet tacks and TNT +and castor oil in Jeff's "My dear sir" that did it. Milt discovered +himself on his feet, bawling, "I am not your dear sir! Pinky is my +guest, and---- Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, terrible sorry. See +you along the road. Good night. Pink! You take your hat! Git!" + +Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, "Git in the car, and do +it quick. I'll take you clear to Blewett Pass. We drive all night." + +Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside +him. But he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back, +on his knees, to apologize to Claire--and to be slapped by Jeff Saxton. +He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road, and +camping there for the night. + +Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer--just once he tried +it. + +For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in +a weak longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see +her--putting off on the lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. +Barmberry. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had +brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long handclasp, the +stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could +kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. + + * * * * * + +When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by +the road. She stopped. She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You +were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've lectured him, and he +sends his apologies." + +"I send him mine--'deed I do," said Milt gravely. + +"Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just +forget it." + +"Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful +red-headed person." + +"No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd +take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by +golly!" + +"Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. + +"Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these +little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do +you?" + +"Yes," stoutly, "I do." + +"But not compared with mountains and----" + +"Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old +grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a +glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if +it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" + +"All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was +still soft. + +"At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. + +"They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" + +"They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the +picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" + +She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle +and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement +to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. + +Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the +night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff +Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that +stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable +either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky +Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. + +Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where +they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see +Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the +truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt +could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- + +"And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, +with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES + + +On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like +an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had +entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to +change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She +wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't +meant---- + +But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and +get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been +laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; +and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in +that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those +fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing! + +To make the next town, after this delay, she had to drive for hours by +night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first +long night drive. + +A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the +shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough R. +F. D. box nailed to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization +still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold +enchantment. All of her was dead save the ability to keep on driving, +forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She +passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, +always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always +with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at +the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; +things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a +sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the +same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean +trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high +earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a +roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating +light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little +incessant shadows. + +She had never known anything save this strained driving on. Jeff and +Milt were old tales, and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had +cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. +She would never reach the next town--and she didn't care. It wasn't she, +but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body, that kept steering, +feeding gas, watching the road. + +In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows +that leaped, and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree +trunks as she came up; things that followed her, and hidden men waiting +for her to stop. + +As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She +made up what she called her driving-song. It was intended to echo the +hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road: + + The old horse trots with a jog, jog, jog, + And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. + And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, + To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. + While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, + From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. + Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, + And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug---- + +The song was a comfort, at first--then a torment. She drove to it, and +she steered to it, and when she tried to forget, it sang itself in her +tired brain: "Jog, jog, jog--oh, _damn_!" + +Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a small boy, he had +curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to +sleep. She was alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts said +there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it never came---- + +And when it did come she was too tired to care. In a thick dream she +drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis she +kicked at the door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. No answer. She +gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel +marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the +traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. + +The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the +porch were aslant, and the rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. +She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A +sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. + +There seemed to be light in the room on the right. Trying to assure +herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She +looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old +corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, +squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco +juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His +hands were white but huge. + +The old woman started. "Well?" + +"I want to get two rooms for the night, please." + +The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, "Well, I don't know. Where d' +you come from, heh?" + +"We're motoring through." + +"Heh? Who's that man?" + +"He's my father, madam." + +"Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that +matter, that thing there is my husband!" + +The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling +with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all +right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been +made up since Bill left--if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but +one night." + +"Where d' you come----" + +"Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll +show her the rooms." + +The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years +younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, +concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side +above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. +Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?" + +Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her +father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled: + +"Wherdjuhcomfromised!" + +"From New York. Is there another hotel----" + +"Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? +Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be +two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." + +The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she +couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't! + +The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square +splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the +bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow +earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had +been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. +She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested: + +"Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!" + +"I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa. +If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only +sixteen miles!" + +"Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?" + +"Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three +dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they +charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a +boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----" + +"Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?" + +"Now!?" + +"We haven't eaten since noon." + +"That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, +and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all +night cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God knows what all +hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the +street." + +When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. + +Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late +ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was shivering; he +was going right to bed. + +"Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." + +"Safe to go out alone?" + +"Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, +now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag." + +She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, +while her husband yawned. She glared. + +"I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill." + +"Stove's out. No hot water in the house." + +"Couldn't you heat some?" + +"Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at +midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, +but enough's enough!" + +The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old +girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill +lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered. +"You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water +myself!" + +"Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." + +Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch +room, called the Alaska Café, with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in +charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of +two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife +and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the +way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to +stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they +drifted away. + +The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the +Tavern?" + +"Why yes. Is there another?" + +"Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." + +"The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." + +"Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's +she charging you for a room?" + +"Three dollars." + +"Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to +three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she +ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--nobody knows +why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at +rummy." + +"But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture +innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where +they belong?" + +"That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke. + +She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the +strength. + +Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of +Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which +had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water +bag filled with water at the Alaska Café. At the Tavern she hastened +past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased +him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his +chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own +room, at the far end of the hall. + +The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the +door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping +footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the +room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she +felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as +possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped +about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping +into danger, and a dozen times she started awake. + +But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a +fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. + +"W-who's there?" + +"It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water." + +"Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." + +"Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and +wake ev'body up." + +At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you. +D-don't bother me." + +"Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a +nip of something to take the chill off." + +"I don't want it, I tell you!" + +"Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to +see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy +sandwich!" The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her +palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was +snorting: + +"I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. +You asked me----" + +"M-must I s-shout?" + +"S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, +'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to +rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and +old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick +town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella +myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." + +In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out +of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Café? +If she had to---- + +Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling +bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the +hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in +blankets on the ground. + +She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. +He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the +hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are +below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you +think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE FREE WOMAN + + +Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at +Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered +that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely +sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant. +Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The +little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!" + +But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!" + +She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!" + +"Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----" + +"Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast." + +"Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last +night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and +thought we'd stick around." + +"I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you +whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?" + +With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and +made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. + +"But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been +good for so long. But now----" + +"Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad. + +"Not till after breakfast." + +It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was +curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled +workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. +Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to +each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a +slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the +kitchen. + +Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the +landlady and said, "Come here, woman." + +The landlady stared, then ignored her. + +"Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an +affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one +of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we +depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, +in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----" + +The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came +her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced +the landlady, tapped her shoulder, and launched into, "And what's more, +you hag, if our new friends here have any sense, they'll run you out of +town." + +That was only the beginning of Pinky's paper on corrections and +charities. He enjoyed himself. Before he finished, the landlady was +crying ... she voluntarily promised to give her boarders waffles, some +morning, jus' soon as she could find the waffle-iron. + +With her guard about her, at the office desk, Claire paid one dollar +apiece for the rooms, and discussion was not. + +Before they started, Milt had the chance to say to her, "I'm getting so +I can handle Pinky now. Have to. Thinking of getting hold of his +gold-mine. I just give him the eye, as your friend Mr. Saxton would, and +he gets so meek----" + +"But don't! Please understand me, Milt; I do admire Mr. Saxton; he is +fine and capable, and really generous; only---- He may be just a bit +snippish at times, while you--you're a playmate--father's and +mine--and---- I did face that landlady, didn't I! I'm not soft and +trivial, am I! Praise!" + + * * * * * + +She had driven through the panhandle of Idaho into Washington, through +Spokane, through the writhing lava deposits of Moses Coulee where fruit +trees grow on volcanic ash. Beyond Wenatchee, with its rows of apple +trees striping the climbing fields like corduroy in folds, she had come +to the famous climb of Blewett Pass. Once over that pass, and +Snoqualmie, she would romp into Seattle. + +She was sorry that she hadn't come to know Milt better, but perhaps she +would see him in Seattle. + +Not adventure alone was she finding, but high intellectual benefit in +studying the names of towns in the state of Washington. Not Kankakee nor +Kalamazoo nor Oshkosh can rival the picturesque fancy of Washington, and +Claire combined the town-names in a lyric so emotion-stirring that it +ought, perhaps, to be the national anthem. It ran: + + Humptulips, Tum Tum, Moclips, Yelm, + Satsop, Bucoda, Omak, Enumclaw, + Tillicum, Bossburg, Chettlo, Chattaroy, + Zillah, Selah, Cowiche, Keechelus, + Bluestem, Bluelight, Onion Creek, Sockeye, + Antwine, Chopaka, Startup, Kapowsin, + Skamokawa, Sixprong, Pysht! + + Klickitat, Kittitas, Spangle, Cedonia, + Pe Ell, Cle Elum, Sallal, Chimacum, + Index, Taholah, Synarep, Puyallup, + Wallula, Wawawai, Wauconda, Washougal, + Walla Walla, Washtucna, Wahluke, + Solkulk, Newaukum, Wahkiakus, + Penawawa, Ohop, Ladd! + + Harrah, Olalla, Umtanum, Chuckanut, + Soap Lake, Loon Lake, Addy, Ace, Usk, + Chillowist, Moxee City, Yellepit, Cashup, + Moonax, Mabton, Tolt, Mukilteo, + Poulsbo, Toppenish, Whetstone, Inchelium, + Fishtrap, Carnation, Shine, Monte Cristo, + Conconully, Roza, Maud! + + China Bend, Zumwalt, Sapolil, Riffle, + Touchet, Chesaw, Chew, Klum, Bly, + Humorist, Hammer, Nooksack, Oso, + Samamish, Dusty, Tiger, Turk, Dot, + Scenic, Tekoa, Nellita, Attalia, + Steilacoom, Tweedle, Ruff, Lisabeula, + Latah, Peola, Towal, Eltopia, + Steptoe, Pluvius, Sol Duc, Twisp! + +"And then," complained Claire, "they talk about Amy Lowell! I leave it +to you, Henry B., if any union poet has ever written as gay a refrain as +'Ohop Ladd'!" + +She was not merely playing mental whist. She was trying to keep from +worry. All the way she had heard of Blewett Pass; its fourteen miles of +climbing, and the last half mile of stern pitch. On this eastern side of +the pass, the new road was not open; there was a tortuous, +flint-scattered trail, too narrow, in most places, for the passing of +other cars. Claire was glad that Milt and Pinky were near her. + +If so many of the race of kind advisers of tourists had not warned her +about it, doubtless she would have gone over the pass without +difficulty. But their voluntary croaking sapped her nerve, and her +father's. He kept worrying, "Do you think we better try it?" When they +stopped at a ranch house at the foot of the climb, for the night, he +seemed unusually tired. He complained of chill. He did not eat +breakfast. They started out silent, depressed. + +He crouched in the corner of the seat. She looked at him and was +anxious. She stopped on the first level space on the pass, crying, "You +are perfectly miserable. I'm afraid of---- I think we ought to see a +doctor." + +"Oh, I'll be all right." + +But she waited till Milt came pit-pattering up the slope. "Father feels +rather sick. What shall I do? Turn round and drive to the nearest +doctor--at Cashmere, I suppose?" + +"There's a magnolious medico ahead here on the pass," Pinky Parrott +interrupted. "A young thing, but they say he's a graduate of Harvard. +He's out here because he has some timber-claims. Look, Milt o' the +Daggett, why don't you drive Miss Boltwood's 'bus--make better time, and +hustle the old gent up to the doc, and I'll come on behind with your +machine." + +"Why," Claire fretted, "I hate----" + +A new Milt, the boss, abrupt, almost bullying, snapped out of his bug. +"Good idee. Jump in, Claire. I'll take your father up. Heh, whasat, +Pink? Yes, I get it; second turn beyond grocery. Right. On we go. Huh? +Oh, we'll think about the gold-mine later, Pink." + +With the three of them wedged into the seat of the Gomez, and Pinky +recklessly skittering after them in the bug, they climbed again--and lo! +there was no climb! Unconsciously Claire had hesitated before dashing at +each sharp upsloping bend; had lost headway while she was wondering, +"Suppose the car went off this curve?" Milt never sped up, but he never +slackened. His driving was as rhythmical as music. + +They were so packed in that he could scarcely reach gear lever and +hand-brake. He halted on a level, and curtly asked, "That trap-door in +the back of the car--convertible extra seat?" + +"Yes, but we almost never use it, and it's stuck. Can't get it open." + +"I'll open it all right! Got a big screwdriver? Want you sit back there. +Need elbow room." + +"Perhaps I'd better drive with Mr. Pinky." + +"Nope. Don't think better." + +With one yank he opened the trap-door, revealing a folding seat, which +she meekly took. Back there, she reflected, "How strong his back looks. +Funny how the little silvery hairs grow at the back of his neck." + +They came to a settlement and the red cedar bungalow of Dr. Hooker +Beach. The moment Claire saw the doctor's thin demanding face, she +trusted him. He spoke to Mr. Boltwood with assurance: "All you need is +some rest, and your digestion is a little shaky. Been eating some pork? +Might stay here a day or two. We're glad to have a glimpse of +Easterners." + +Mr. Boltwood went to bed in the Beaches' guest-room. Mrs. Beach gave +Claire and Milt lunch, with thin toast and thin china, on a porch from +which an arroyo dropped down for a hundred feet. Fir trees scented the +air, and a talking machine played the same Russian music that was +popular that same moment in New York. And the Beaches knew people who +knew Claire. + +Claire was thinking. These people were genuine aristocrats, while Jeff +Saxton, for all his family and his assumptions about life, was the +eternal climber. Milt, who had been uncomfortable with Jeff, was serene +and un-self-conscious with the Beaches, and the doctor gratefully took +his advice about his stationary gas engine. "He's rather like the +Beaches in his simplicity--yes, and his ability to do anything if he +considers it worth while," she decided. + +After lunch, when the doctor and his wife had to trot off to a patient, +Claire proposed, "Let's walk up to that ledge of rock and see the view, +shall we, Milt?" + +"Yes! And keep an eye on the road for Pinky. The poor nut, he hasn't +showed up. So reckless; hope he hasn't driven the Teal off the road." + +She crouched at the edge of a rock, where she would have been +frightened, a month before, and looked across the main road to a creek +in a pine-laced gully. He sat beside her, elbows on knees. + +"Those Beaches--their kin are judges and senators and college +Presidents, all over New England," she said. "This doctor must be the +grandson of the ambassador, I fancy." + +"Honest? I thought they were just regular folks. Was I nice?" + +"Of course you were." + +"Did I--did I wash my paws and sit up and beg?" + +"No, you aren't a little dog. I'm that. You're the big mastiff that +guards the house, while I run and yip." She was turned toward him, +smiling. Her hand was beside him. He touched the back of it with his +forefinger, as though he was afraid he might soil it. + +There seemed to be no reason, but he was trembling as he stammered, +"I--I--I'm d-darn glad I didn't know they were anybody, or 'd have been +as bad as a flivver driver the first time he tries a t-twelve-cylinder +machine. G-gee your hand is little!" + +She took it back and inspected it. "I suppose it is. And pretty +useless." + +"N-no, it isn't, but your shoes are. Why don't you wear boots when +you're out like this?" A flicker of his earlier peremptoriness came into +his voice. She resented it: + +"My shoes are perfectly sensible! I will not wear those horrible +vegetarian uplift sacks on my feet!" + +"Your shoes may be all right for New York, but you're not going to New +York for a while. You've simply got to see some of this country while +you're out here--British Columbia and Alaska." + +"Would be nice, but I've had enough roughing----" + +"Chance to see the grandest mountains in the world, almost, and then you +want to go back to tea and all that junk!" + +"Stop trying to bully me! You have been dictatorial ever since we +started up----" + +"Have I? Didn't mean to be. Though I suppose I usually am bullying. At +least I run things. There's two kinds of people; those that give orders, +and those that naturally take them; and I belong to the first one, +and----" + +"But my dear Milt, so do I, and really----" + +"And mostly I'd take them from you. But hang it, Seattle is just a day +away, and you'll forget me. Wish I could kidnap you. Have half a mind +to. Take you way up into the mountains, and when you got used to +roughing it in sure-enough wilderness--say you'd helped me haul timber +for a flume--then we'd be real pals. You have the stuff in you, but you +still need toughening before----" + +"Listen to me, Milton. You have been reading fiction, about this +man--sometimes he's a lumberjack, and sometimes a trapper or a miner, +but always he's frightfully hairy--and he sees a charming woman in the +city, and kidnaps her, and shuts her up in some unspeakable shanty, and +makes her eat nice cold boiled potatoes, and so naturally, she simply +adores him! A hundred men have written that story, and it's an example +of their insane masculine conceit, which I, as a woman, resent. +Shakespeare may have started it, with his silly _Taming of the Shrew_. +Shakespeare's men may have been real, but his women were dolls, designed +to please some majesty. You may not know it, but there are women today +who don't live just to please majesties' fancies. If a woman like me +were kidnapped, she would go on hating the brute, or if she did give in, +then the man would lose anyway, because she would have degenerated; +she'd have turned into a slave, and lost exactly the things he'd liked +in her. Oh, you cavemen! With your belief that you can force women to +like you! I have more courage than any of you!" + +"I admit you have courage, but you'd have still more, if you bucked the +wilds." + +"Nonsense! In New York I face every day a hundred complicated problems +you don't know I ever heard of!" + +"Let me remind you that Brer Julius Cćsar said he'd rather be mayor in a +little Spanish town than police commissioner in Rome. I'm king in +Schoenstrom, while you're just one of a couple hundred thousand bright +people in New York----" + +"Really? Oh, at least a million. Thanks!" + +"Oh--gee--Claire, I didn't mean to be personal, and get in a row and +all, but--can't you see--kind of desperate--Seattle so soon----" + +Her face was turned from him; its thin profile was firm as silver wire. +He blundered off into silence and--they were at it again! + +"I didn't mean to make you angry," he gulped. + +"Well, you did! Bullying---- You and your men of granite, in mackinaws +and a much-needed shave, trying to make a well-bred woman satisfied with +a view consisting of rocks and stumps and socks on the line! Let me tell +you that compared with a street canyon, a mountain canyon is simply +dead, and yet these unlettered wild men----" + +"See here! I don't know if you're firing these adjectives at me, but I +don't know that I'm so much more unlettered---- You talked about taking +French in your finishing-school. Well, they taught American in mine!" + +"They would!" + +Then he was angry. "Yes, and chemistry and physics and Greek and Latin +and history and mathematics and economics, and I took more or less of a +whirl at all of them, while you were fiddling with ribbons, and then I +had to buck mechanics and business methods." + +"I also 'fiddled' with manners--an unfortunate omission in your +curriculum, I take it! You have been reasonably rude----" + +"So have you!" + +"I had to be! But I trust you begin to see that even your strong hand +couldn't control a woman's taste. Kidnapping! As intelligent a boy as +you wanting to imitate these boorish movie----" + +"Not a darn bit more boorish than your smart set, with its champagne and +these orgies at country clubs----" + +"You know so much about country clubs, don't you! The worst orgy I ever +saw at one was the golf champion reading the beauty department in +_Boudoir_. Would you mind backing up your statements about the vices of +myself and my friends----" + +"Oh, you. Oh, I didn't mean----" + +"Then why did you----" + +"Now you're bullying me, and you know that if the smart set isn't +vicious, at least it's so snobbish that it can't see any----" + +"Then it's wise to be snobbish, because if it did condescend----" + +"I won't stand people talking about condescending----" + +"Would you mind not shouting so?" + +"Very well! I'll keep still!" + +Silence again, while both of them looked unhappy, and tried to remember +just what they had been fighting about. They did not at first notice a +small red car larruping gaily over the road beneath the ledge, though +the driver was a pink-haired man in a green coat. He was almost gone +before Milt choked, "It's Pinky!" + +"Pink! Pinky!" he bellowed. + +Pinky looked back but, instead of stopping, he sped up, and kept going. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE MINE OF LOST SOULS + + +"That couldn't have been Pinky! Why! Why, the car he had was red," cried +Claire. + +"Sure. The idiot's got hold of some barn paint somewhere, and tried to +daub it over. He's trying to make a getaway with it!" + +"We'll chase him. In my car." + +"Don't you mind?" + +"Of course not. I do not give up my objections to the roughing +philosophy, but---- You were right about these shoes---- Oh, don't leave +me behind! Want to go along!" + +These sentences she broke, scattered, and totally lost as she scrambled +after him, down the rocks. He halted. His lips trembled. He picked her +up, carried her down, hesitated a second while his face--curiously +foreshortened as she looked up at it from his big arms--twisted with +emotion. He set her down gently, and she climbed into the Gomez. + +It seemed to her that he drove rather too carefully, too slowly. He took +curves and corners evenly. His face was as empty of expression, as +unmelodramatic, as that of a jitney driver. Then she looked at the +speedometer. He was making forty-eight miles an hour down hill and forty +to thirty on upgrades. + +They were in sight of the fleeing Pinky in two miles. Pinky looked back; +instantly was to be seen pulling his hat low, stooping over--the demon +driver. Milt merely sat more erect, looked more bland and white-browed +and steady. + +The bug fled before them on a winding shelf road. It popped up a curve, +then slowed down. "He took it too fast. Poor Pink!" said Milt. + +They gained on that upslope, but as the road dropped, the bug started +forward desperately. Another car was headed toward them; was drawn to +the side of the road, in one of the occasional widenings. Pinky passed +it so carelessly that, with crawling spine, Claire saw the outer wheels +of the bug on the very edge of the road--the edge of a fifty-foot drop. +Milt went easily past the halted car--even waved his hand to the waiting +driver. + +This did not seem to Claire at all like the chase of a thief. She looked +casually ahead at Pinky, as he whirled round an S-shaped curve on the +downslope, then---- It was too quick to see what happened. The bug +headed directly toward the edge of the road, shot out, went down the +embankment, over and over. It lay absurdly upside-down, its muffler and +brake-rods showing in place of the seat and hood. + +Milt quite carefully stopped the Gomez. The day was still--just a +breathing of running water in the deep gully. The topsy-turvy car below +them was equally still; no sight of Pinky, no sound. + +The gauche boy gone from him, Milt took her hand, pressed it to his +cheek. "Claire! You're here! You might have gone with him, to make +room---- Oh, I was bullying you because I was bullying myself! Trying to +make myself tell you--but oh, you know, you know! Can you stand going +down there? I hate to have you, but you may be needed." + +"Yes. I'll come," she whispered. + +Their crawl down the rock-rolling embankment seemed desperately slow. + +"Wait here," bade Milt, at the bottom. + +She looked away from the grotesque car. She had seen that one side of it +was crumpled like paper in an impatient hand. + +Milt was stooping, looking under; seemed to be saying something. When he +came back, he did not speak. He wiped his forehead. "Come. We'll climb +back up. Nothing to do, now. Guess you better not try to help, anyway. +You might not sleep well." + +He gave her his hand up the embankment, drove to the nearest house, +telephoned to Dr. Beach. Later she waited while Milt and the doctor, +with two other men, were raising the car. As she waited she thought of +the Teal bug as a human thing--as her old friend, to which she had often +turned in need. + +Milt returned to her. "There is one thing for you to do. Before he died, +Pinky asked me to go get his wife--Dolores, I think it is. She's up in a +side canyon, few miles away. She may want a woman around. Beach will +take care of--of him. Can you come?" + +"Of course. Oh, Milt, I didn't----" + +"I didn't----" + +"--mean you were a caveman! You're my big brother!" + +"--mean you were a snob!" + +They drove five miles along the highway, then up a trail where the Gomez +brushed the undergrowth on each side as it desperately dug into moss, +rain-gutted ruts, loose rocks, all on a vicious slant which seemed to +push the car down again. Beside them, the mountain woods were sacredly +quiet, with fern and lily and green-lit spaces. They came out in a +clearing, before dusk. Beside the clearing was a brook, with a crude +cradle--sign of a not very successful gold miner. Before a log cabin, in +a sway-sided rocker, creaked a tall, white, flabby woman, once nearly +beautiful, now rubbed at the edges. She rose, huddling her wrapper about +her bosom, as they drove into the clearing and picked their way through +stumps and briars. + +"Where you folks think you're going?" she whimpered. + +"Why, why just----" + +"I cer'nly am glad to see somebody! I been 'most scared to death. Been +here alone two weeks now. Got a shotgun, but if anybody come, I guess +they'd take it away from me. I was brought up nice, no rough-house +or---- Say, did you folks come to see the gold-mine?" + +"M-mine?" babbled Milt. + +"Course not. Pinky said I was to show it, but I'm so sore on that +low-life hound now, I swear I won't even take the trouble and lie about +it. No more gold in that crick than there is in my eye. Or than there's +flour or pork in the house!" + +The woman's voice was rising. Her gestures were furious. Claire and Milt +stood close, their hands slipping together. + +"What d' you think of a man that'd go off and leave a lady without half +enough to eat, while he gallivanted around, trying to raise money by +gambling, when he was offered a good job up here? He's a gambler--told +me he was a rich mine-owner, but never touched a mine in his life. Lying +hound--worst talker in ten counties! Got a gambler's hand on him, too--I +ought to seen it! Oh, wait till I get hold of him; just wait!" + +Claire thought of the still hand--so still--that she had seen under the +edge of the upturned car. She tried to speak, while the woman raved on, +wrath feeding wrath: + +"Thank God, I ain't really his wife! My husband is a fine man--Mr. +Kloh--Dlorus Kloh, my name is. Mr. Kloh's got a fine job with the mill, +at North Yakima. Oh, I was a fool! This gambler Pinky Parrott, he comes +along with his elegant ways, and he hands me out a swell line of gab, +and I ups and leaves poor Kloh, and the kid, and the nicest kid---- Say, +please, could you folks take me wherever you're going? Maybe I could get +a job again--used to was a good waitress, and I ain't going to wait here +any longer for that lying, cheating, mean-talking----" + +"Oh, Mrs. Kloh, please don't! He's dead!" wailed Claire. + +"Dead? Pinky? Oh--my--God! And I won't ever see him, and he was so funny +and----" + +She threw herself on the ground; she kicked her heels; she tore at her +loosely caught, tarnished blonde hair. + +Claire knelt by her. "You mustn't--you mustn't--we'll----" + +"Damn you, with your smug-faced husband there, and your fine auto and +all, butting into poor folks' troubles!" shrieked Dlorus. + +Claire stumbled to her feet, stood with her clenched right hand to her +trembling lips, cupping it with her nervous left hand. Her shoulders +were dejected. Milt pleaded, "Let's hike out. I don't mind decent honest +grease, but this place--look in at table! Dirty dishes---- And gin +bottles on the floor!" + +"Desert her? When she needs me so?" Claire started forward, but Milt +caught her sleeve, and admired, "You were right! You've got more nerve +than I have!" + +"No. I wouldn't dare if---- I'm glad you're here with me!" + +Claire calmed the woman; bound up her hair; washed her face--which +needed it; and sat on the log doorstep, holding Dlorus's head in her +lap, while Dlorus sobbed, "Pinky--dead! Him that was so lively! And he +was so sweet a lover, oh, so sweet. He was a swell fellow; my, he could +just make you laugh and cry, the way he talked; and he was so educated, +and he played the vi'lin--he could do anything--and athaletic--he would +have made me rich. Oh, let me alone. I just want to be alone and think +of him. I was so bored with Kloh, and no nice dresses or nothin', and--I +did love the kid, but he squalled so, just all the time, and Pinky come, +and he was so funny---- Oh, let me alone!" + +Claire shivered, then, and the strength seemed to go from the steady +arms that had supported Dlorus's head. Dusk had sneaked up on them; the +clearing was full of swimming grayness, and between the woman's screams, +the woods crackled. Each time Dlorus spoke, her screech was like that of +an animal in the woods, and round about them crept such sinister echoes +that Milt kept wanting to look back over his shoulder. + +"Yes," sighed Claire at last, "perhaps we'd better go." + +"If you go, I'll kill myself! Take me to Mr. Kloh! Oh, he was---- My +husband, Mr. Kloh. Oh, so good. Only he didn't understand a lady has to +have her good times, and Pink danced so well----" + +Dlorus sprang up, flung into the cabin, stood in the dimness of the +doorway, holding a butcher knife and clamoring, "I will! I'll kill +myself if you leave me! Take me down to Mr. Kloh, at North Yakima, +tonight!" + +Milt sauntered toward her. + +"Don't you get flip, young man! I mean it! And I'll kill you----" + +Most unchivalrously, quite out of the picture of gray grief, Milt +snapped, "That'll be about enough of you! Here! Gimme that knife!" + +She dropped the knife, sniveling, "Oh Gawd, somebody's always bullying +me! And all I wanted was a good time!" + +Claire herded her into the cabin. "We'll take you to your +husband--tonight. Come, let's wash up, and I'll help you put on your +prettiest dress." + +"Honest, will you?" cried the woman, in high spirits, all grief put +aside. "I got a dandy China silk dress, and some new white kid shoes! +My, Mr. Kloh, he won't hardly know me. He'll take me back. I know how to +handle him. That'll be swell, going back in an automobile. And I got a +new hair-comb, with genuine Peruvian diamonds. Say, you aren't kidding +me along?" + +In the light of the lantern Milt had kindled, Claire looked +questioningly at him. Both of them shrugged. Claire promised, "Yes. +Tonight. If we can make it." + +"And will you jolly Mr. Kloh for me? Gee, I'll be awfully scared of him. +I swear, I'll wash his dishes and everything. He's a good man. He---- +Say, he ain't seen my new parasol, neither!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +ACROSS THE ROOF OF THE WORLD + + +Claire dressed Dlorus, cooked a dinner of beet greens, potatoes, and +trout; and by bullying and great sweetness kept Dlorus from too many +trips to the gin bottle. Milt caught the trout, cut wood, locked in a +log shed Pinky's forlorn mining-tools. They started for North Yakima at +eight of the evening, with Dlorus, back in the spare seat, alternately +sobbing and to inattentive ears announcing what she'd say to the Old +Hens. + +Milt was devoted to persuading the huge cat of a car to tiptoe down the +slippery gouged ruts of the road, and Claire's mind was driving with +him. Every time he touched the foot-brake, she could feel the strain in +the tendons of her own ankle. + +A mile down the main road they stopped at a store-post-office to +telephone back to Mr. Boltwood and Dr. Beach. On the porch was a man in +overalls and laced boots. He was lean and quick-moving. As he raised his +head, and his spectacles flashed, Claire caught Milt's arm and gasped, +"Oh, my dear, I'm in a beautiful state of nerves. For a moment I thought +that was Jeff Saxton. I bet it is his astral body!" + +"And you thought he was going to forbid your running away on this fool +expedition, and you were scared," chuckled Milt, as they sat in the car. + +"Of course I was! And I still am! I know what he'll say afterward! He +_is_ here, reasoning with me. Oughtn't I to be sensible? Oughtn't I to +have you leave me at the Beaches' before you start--jolly jaunt to take +a strange woman to her presumably homicidal husband! Why am I totally +lacking in sense? Just listen to what Jeff is saying!" + +"Of course you ought to go back, and let me drive alone. Absolutely +insane, your----" + +"But you would like me to go along, wouldn't you!" + +"Like you to? It's our last ride together, and that bloomin' old +Browning never thought of a ride together by midnight over the roof of +the world! No, it's really our first ride together, and tomorrow--you're +gone." + +"No, I sha'n't be gone, but----" Addressing herself to the astounded +overalled man on the porch, she declared, "You're quite right, Jeff. And +Milt is wrong. Insane adventure. Only, it's wonderful to be young enough +to do insane adventures. Falling down abyssy places is so much more +interesting than bridge. I'm going--going--going!... Milt, you +telephone." + +"Don't you think you better?" + +"No, siree! Father would forbid me. Try not to get him--just tell Dr. +Beach where we're going, and hang up, and scoot!" + +All night they drove; down the Pacific side of Blewett Pass; down the +sweeping spirals to a valley. Dlorus drowsed in the extra seat. Claire's +sleepy head was fantastically swaying. She was awakened by an +approaching roar and, as though she sat at a play, she watched a big +racing machine coming toward them, passing them with two wheels in the +ditch. She had only a thunderous glimpse of the stolid driver; a dark, +hooded, romantic figure, like a sailor at the helm in a storm. + +Milt cried, "Golly! May be a transcontinental racer! Be in New York in +five days--going night and day--take mud at fifty an hour--crack +mechanic right from the factory--change tires in three minutes--people +waiting up all night to give him gasoline and a sandwich! That's my idea +of fun!" + +Studying Milt's shadowed face, Claire considered, "He could do it, too. +Sitting there at the wheel, taking danger and good road with the same +steadiness. Oh, he's--well, anyway, he's a dear boy." + +But what she said was: + +"Less dramatic things for you, now, Milt. Trigonometry is going to be +your idea of fun; blueprints and engineering books." + +"Yes. I know. I'm going to do it. Do four years' work in three--or two. +I'll tack pages of formulas on the wall, in my bum hallroom, and study +'em while I'm shaving. Oh, I'll be the grind! But learn to dance the +fox-trot, though! If America gets into the war, I'll get into the +engineering corps, and come back to school afterward." + +"Will the finances----" + +"I'll sell my garage, by mail. Rauskukle will take it. He won't rob me +of more than a thousand dollars on price--not much more." + +"You're going to love Seattle. And we'll have some good tramps while I'm +there, you and I." + +"Honestly? Will you want to?" + +"Do you suppose for one second I'd give up my feeling of free air? If +you don't come and get me, I'll call on you and make you come!" + +"Warn you I'll probably be living over some beanery." + +"Probably. With dirty steps leading up to it. I'll sweep the steps. I'll +cook supper for you. I can do things, can't I! I did manage Dlorus, +didn't I!" + +He was murmuring, "Claire, dear!" when she changed her tone to the echo +of Brooklyn Heights, and hurried on, "You do understand, don't you! +We'll be, uh, good friends." + +"Yes." He drove with much speed and silence. + +Though they were devouring the dark road, though roadside rocks, caught +by the headlights, seemed to fly up at them, though they went on +forever, chased by a nightmare, Claire snuggled down in security. Her +head drooped against his shoulder. He put his arm about her, his hand +about her waist. She sleepily wondered if she ought to let him. She +heard herself muttering, "Sorry I was so rude when you were so rude," +and her chilly cheek discovered that the smooth-worn shoulder of his old +blue coat was warm, and she wondered some more about the questions of +waists and hands and---- She was asleep. + +She awoke, bewildered to find that dawn was slipping into the air. While +she had slept Milt had taken his arm from about her and fished out a +lap-robe for her. Behind them, Dlorus was slumbering, with her soft +mouth wide open. Claire felt the luxury of the pocket of warmth under +the lap-robe; she comfortably stretched her legs while she pictured Milt +driving on all the night, rigid, tireless, impersonal as the engineer of +a night express. + +They came into North Yakima at breakfast time, and found the house of +Mr. Kloh, a neat, bare, drab frame box, with tight small front and back +yards. Dlorus was awake, and when she wasn't yawning, she was enjoying +being hysterical. + +"Miss Boltwood," she whined, "you go in and jolly him up." + +Milt begged, "Better let me do it, Claire." + +They looked squarely at each other. "No, I think I'd better," she +decided. + +"Right, Claire, but--I wish I could do more things for you." + +"I know!" + +He lifted her stiff, cold little body from the car. His hands under her +arms, he held her on the running-board an instant, her eyes level with +his. "Little sister--plucky little sister!" he sighed. He lowered her to +the ground. + +Claire knocked at the back door. To it came a bald, tired man, in an +apron wet at the knees. The kitchen floor was soaped, and a +scrubbing-brush rode amid the seas. A rather dirty child clung to his +hand. "Trying to clean up, ma'am. Not very good at it. I hope you ain't +the Cruelty to Children lady. Willy looks mussed, but fact is, I just +can't get time to wash the clothes, but he means a terrible lot to me. +What was it? Will you step in?" + +Claire buttoned the child's rompers before she spoke. Then: + +"Mr. Kloh, I want to be perfectly honest with you. I've had word from +your wife. She's unhappy, and she loves and admires you more than any +other man in the world, and I think she would come back--misses the +child so." + +The man wiped his reddened hands. "I don't know---- I don't wish her no +harm. Trouble was, I'm kind of pokey. I guess I couldn't give her any +good times. I used to try to go to dances with her, but when I'd worked +late, I'd get sleepy and---- She's a beautiful woman, smart 's a whip, +and I guess I was too slow for her. No, she wouldn't never come back to +me." + +"She's out in front of the house now--waiting!" + +"Great Cćsar's ghost, and the floor not scrubbed!" With a squawk of +anxiety he leaped on the scrubbing-brush, and when Milt and Dlorus +appeared at the door, Mr. Kloh and Miss Claire Boltwood were wiping up +the kitchen floor. + +Dlorus looked at them, arms akimbo, and sighed, "Hello, Johnny, my, +ain't it nice to be back, oh, you had the sink painted, oh, forgive me, +Johnny, I was a bad ungrateful woman, I don't care if you don't never +take me to no more dances, hardly any, Willy come here, dear, oh, he is +such a sweet child, my, his mouth is so dirty, will you forgive me, +Johnny, is my overcoat in the moth-balls?" + +When Mr. Kloh had gone off to the mill--thrice returning from the gate +to kiss Dlorus and to thank her rescuers--Claire sat down and yawningly +lashed off every inch of Dlorus's fair white skin: + +"You're at it already; taking advantage of that good man's forgiveness, +and getting lofty with him, and rather admiring yourself as a +spectacular sinner. You are a lazy, ignorant, not very clean woman, and +if you succeed in making Mr. Kloh and Willy happy, it will be almost too +big a job for you. Now if I come back from Seattle and find you +misbehaving again----" + +Dlorus broke down. "You won't, miss! And I will raise chickens, like he +wanted, honest I will!" + +"Then you may let me have a room to take a nap in, and perhaps Mr. +Daggett could sleep in there on the sofa, and we'll get rested before we +start back." + +Both Milt and Dlorus meekly followed the boss. + +It was noon before Milt and Claire woke, and discovered that Dlorus had +prepared for them scrambled eggs and store celery, served on an almost +clean table-cloth. Mr. Kloh came home for lunch, and while Dlorus sat on +his lap in the living-room, and repeated that she had been a "bad, +naughty, 'ittle dirl--what did the fellows say at the mill?" Milt and +Claire sat dumpily on the back porch, regarding scenery which featured +of seven tin cans, a broken patent washing-machine, and a rheumatic pear +tree. + +"I suppose we ought to start," groaned Claire. + +"I have about as much nerve as a rabbit, and as much punch as a bale of +hay," Milt admitted. + +"We're like two children that have been playing too long." + +"But don't want to go home!" + +"Quite! Though I don't think much of your idea of a playhouse--those tin +cans. But it's better than having to be grown-up." + +In the midst of which chatter they realized that Mr. Henry B. Boltwood +and Dr. Hooker Beach had come round the corner of the house, and were +gaping at them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE GRAEL IN A BACK YARD IN YAKIMA + + +"I must say that you two have chosen a fine pastoral scene!" observed +Mr. Boltwood. + +"Hhhhhhhhow did you get here?" gasped Claire. + +"Auto 'bus over Blewett Pass, train here from Ellensburg. That +woman--everything all right?" + +"Yes, everything's fine. We were just starting back, sir," implored +Milt. + +"Huh!" + +"Awfully sorry, sir, to take Claire on such a hike----" + +"I don't blame you particularly. When that young woman gets an idea into +her head, the rest of us are pawns. Why, even me--she's dragged me all +over the Rocky Mountains. And I will admit, Claire, that it's been good +for me. But I begin to feel human again, and I think it's about time I +took charge. We'll catch the afternoon train for Seattle, Claire. The +trip has been extremely interesting, but I think perhaps we'll call it +enough. Daggett, want to get you to drive the Gomez on to Seattle. Beach +tells me your car is completely wrecked. Lose any money in it?" + +"No, sir. Had my roll in the bug. I'll have to go back to it and get +some clothes out of it, though." + +"Well, then, will you drive my car in? Charge me anywhere up to fifty +dollars, if you want to----" + +"I'd rather not----" + +"It's a perfectly honest job--I'd do it, too quick! Or if your +confounded pride won't let you charge anything, bring the car on anyway. +Come, dolly, I have a jitney here, please observe my graceful use of +'jitney,' and I have the bags. We'll hustle to the station now. No! No +arguments, chick!" + +On the station platform, Claire and Milt were under the surveillance of +Mr. Boltwood, who was extremely irritable as every two minutes the train +was reported to be two minutes later. They tramped up and down, speaking +in lowered voices, very meek but in their joint naughtiness very +intimate. + +"That was a nice place to end a transcontinental drive--in the back yard +of Mr. Johnny Kloh, with an unrestricted view of tin cans!" lamented +Claire. + +"Still, your drive didn't end at Kloh's; it ended way up in the +mountains." + +Mr. Boltwood bumbled down on them: "Another minute late! Like to know +what the matter is!" + +"Yes, father!" + +When Mr. Boltwood's impatiently waiting back was turned, Claire gripped +Milt's hand, and whispered to him, "You see, I'm captured! I thought I +was father's lord and chauffeur, but he sniffs the smoke of the ticker. +In his mind, he's already back in the office, running things. He'll +probably turn me over to Jeff, for disciplining! You won't let them +change me back into a pink-face, will you? Come to tea, at the Gilsons', +just as soon as you reach Seattle." + +"Tea---- Now we're so near your Gilsons, I begin to get scared. Wouldn't +know what to do. Gee, I've heard you have to balance a tea-cup and a +sandwich and a hunk o' cake and a lot of conversation all at once! I'd +spill the tea, and drop crumbs, and probably have the butler set on me." + +"You will not! And if you did--can't you see?--it wouldn't matter! It +just wouldn't matter!" + +"Honestly? Claire dear, do you know why I came on this trip? In +Schoenstrom, I heard you say you were going to Seattle. That moment, I +decided I would, too, and get acquainted with you, if murder would do +it. But, oh, I'm clumsy." + +"You've seen me clumsy, in driving. You taught me to get over it. Perhaps +I can teach you some things. And we'll study--together--evenings! I'm a +thoroughly ignorant parasite woman. Make me become real! A real woman!" + +"Dear--dear----" + +Mr. Boltwood loomed on them. "The train's coming, at last. We'll have a +decent sleep for once, at the Gilsons'. I've wired them to meet us." He +departed. + +"Terribly glad your father keeps coming down on us, because it scares +me so I get desperate," said Milt. "Golly, I think I can hear the train. +I, uh, Claire, Claire dear----" + +"Milt, are you proposing to me? Please hurry, because that is the train. +Isn't it absurd--some day you'll have to propose all over again +formally, for the benefit of people like father, when you and I already +know we're partners! We've done things together, not just danced +together! When you're an engineer, you'll call me, and I'll come +a-running up to Alaska. And sometimes you'll come with me to +Brooklyn--we'll be a couple of bombs---- There's the train. Oh, +playmate, hurry with your engineering course! Hurry, hurry, hurry! +Because when it's done, then---- Whither thou goest, there I go also! +And you did bully me, you did, you did, and I like it, and---- Yes, +father, the bags are right here. Telephone me, minute you reach Seattle, +dear, and we'll have a private lesson in balancing tea-cups---- Yes, +father, I have the tickets. So glad, dear, the trip smashed up like +this--shocked me into reality--made me realize I've been with you every +hour since I dismissed you, back in Dakota, and you looked at me, big +hurt eyes, like a child, and---- Yes, father, Pullman's at the back. +Yes, I'm coming!" + +"W-wait! D-did you know I was going to propose?" + +"Yes. Ever since the Yellowstone. Been trying to think of a nice way to +refuse you. But there isn't any. You're like Pinky--can't get rid of +you--have t' adopt you. Besides, I've found out----" + +"You love me?" + +"I don't know! How can I tell? But I do like to drive with my head on +your shoulder and---- Yesssss, father, coming!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +HER OWN PEOPLE + + +Mr. Henry B. Boltwood was decorously asleep in a chair in the +observation car, and Claire, on the wide back platform, sat unmoving, +apparently devoted to agriculture and mountain scenery. But it might +have been noted that her hand clenched one of the wooden supports of her +camp-stool, and that her hunched back did not move. + +When she had turned to follow her father into the train, Milt had caught +her shoulders and kissed her. + +For half an hour that kiss had remained, a perceptible warm pressure on +her lips. And for half an hour she had felt the relief of gliding +through the mountains without the strain of piloting, the comfort of +having the unseen, mysterious engineer up ahead automatically drive for +her. She had caroled to her father about nearing the Pacific. Her +nervousness had expressed itself in jerky gaiety. + +But when he had sneaked away for a nap, and Claire could no longer hide +from herself by a veil of chatter the big decision she had made on the +station platform, then she was lonely and frightened--and very anxious +to undecide the decision. She could not think clearly. She could see +Milt Daggett only as a solemn young man in an inferior sweater, +standing by the track in a melancholy autumnal light, waving to her as +the train pulled out, disappearing in a dun obscurity, less significant +than the station, the receding ties, or the porter who was, in places +known only to his secretive self, concealing her baggage. + +She could only mutter in growing panic, "I'm crazy. In-sane! Pledging +myself to this boy before I know how he will turn out. Will he learn +anything besides engineering? I know it--I do want to stroke his cheek +and--his kiss frightened me, but---- Will I hate him when I see him with +nice people? Can I introduce him to the Gilsons? Oh, I was mad; so +wrought up by that idiotic chase with Dlorus, and so sure I was a +romantic heroine and---- And I'm simply an indecisive girl in a +realistic muddle!" + +Threatened by darkness and the sinister evening chill of the mountains, +with the train no longer cheerfully climbing the rocky ridge but +rumbling and snorting in the defiles, and startling her with agitating +forward leaps as though the brakes had let go, she could not endure the +bleak platform, and even less could she endure sitting in the chair car, +eyed by the smug tourists--people as empty of her romance as they were +incapable of her sharp tragedy. She balanced forward to the vestibule. +She stood in that cold, swaying, darkling place that was filled with the +smell of rubber and metal and grease and the thunderous clash of steel +on steel; she tried to look out into the fleeing darkness; she tried to +imagine that the train was carrying her away from the pursuing +enemy--from her own weak self. + +Her father came puffing and lip-pursing and jolly, to take her to +dinner. Mr. Boltwood had no tearing meditations; he had a healthy +interest in soup. But he glanced at her, across the bright, sleek +dining-table; he seemed to study her; and suddenly Claire saw that he +was a very wise man. His look hinted, "You're worried, my dear," but his +voice ventured nothing beyond comfortable drawling stories to which she +had only, from the depth of her gloomy brooding, to nod mechanically. + +She got a great deal of satisfaction and horror out of watching two +traveling-men after dinner. Milt had praised the race, and one of the +two traveling-men, a slender, clear-faced youngster, was rather like +Milt, despite plastered hair, a watch-chain slung diagonally across his +waistcoat, maroon silk socks, and shoes of pearl buttons, gray tops, and +patent-leather bottoms. The other man was a butter-ball. Both of them +had harshly pompous voices--the proudly unlettered voices of the smoking +compartment. The slender man was roaring: + +"Yes, sir, he's got a great proposition there--believe me, he's got a +great proposition--he's got one great little factory there, take it from +me. He can turn out toothpicks to compete with Michigan. He's simply +piling up the shekels--why say, he's got a house with eighteen +rooms--every room done different." + +Claire wondered whether Milt, when the sting and faith of romance were +blunted, would engage in Great Propositions, and fight for the +recognition of his--toothpicks. Would his creations be favorites in the +best lunch rooms? Would he pile up shekels? + +Then her fretting was lost in the excitement of approaching Seattle and +their host--Claire's cousin, Eugene Gilson, an outrageously prosperous +owner of shingle-mills. He came from an old Brooklyn Heights family. He +had married Eva Gontz of Englewood. He liked music and wrote jokey +little letters and knew the addresses of all the best New York shops. He +was of Her Own People, and she was near now to the security of his +friendship, the long journey done. + +Lights thicker and thicker--a factory illuminated by arc-lamps,--the +baggage--the porter--the eager trail of people in the aisle--climbing +down to the platform--red caps--passing the puffing engine which had +brought them in--the procession to the gate--faces behind a +grill--Eugene Gilson and Eva waving--kisses, cries of "How was the +trip?" and "Oh! Had won-derful drive!"--the huge station, and curious +waiting passengers, Jap coolies in a gang, lumbermen in corks--the +Gilsons' quiet car, and baggage stowed away by the chauffeur instead of +by their own tired hands--streets strangely silent after the tumult of +the train--Seattle and the sunset coast at last attained. + +Claire had forgotten how many charming, most desirable things there were +in the world. The Gilsons drove up Queen Anne Hill to a bay-fronting +house on a breezy knob--a Georgian house of holly hedge, French windows, +a terrace that suggested tea, and a great hall of mahogany and white +enamel with the hint of roses somewhere, and a fire kindled in the +paneled drawing-room to be seen beyond the hall. Warmth and softness and +the Gilsons' confident affection wrapped her around; and in contented +weariness she mounted to a bedroom of Bakst sketches, a four-poster, and +a bedside table with a black and orange electric lamp and a collection +of Arthur Symons' essays. + +She sank by the bed, pitifully rubbed her cheek against the silk +comforter that was primly awaiting her commands at the foot of the bed, +and cried, "Oh, four-posters _are_ necessary! I can't give them up! I +won't! They---- No one has a right to ask me." She mentally stamped her +foot. "I simply won't live in a shack and take in washing. It isn't +worth it." + +A bath, faintly scented, in a built-in tub in her own marble bathroom. A +preposterously and delightfully enormous Turkish towel. One of Eva +Gilson's foamy negligées. Slow exquisite dressing--not the scratchy +hopping over ingrown dirt, among ingrown smells, of a filthy +small-hotel bedroom, but luxurious wandering over rugs velvety to her +bare feet. A languid inspection of the frivolous colors and curves in +the drawings by Bakst and George Plank and Helen Dryden. A glance at the +richness of the toilet-table, at the velvet curtains that shut out the +common world. + +Expanding to the comfort as an orchid to cloying tropic airs, she drew +on her sheerest chemise, her most frivolous silk stockings. In a +dreaming enervated joy she saw how smooth were her arms and legs; she +sleepily resented the redness of her wrists and the callouses of the +texture of corduroy that scored her palms from holding the steering +wheel. + +Yes, she was glad that she had made the experiment--but gladder that she +was safely in from the long dust-whitened way, back in her own world of +beauty; and she couldn't imagine ever trying it again. To think of +clumping out into that world of deliberate and brawling crudeness---- + +Of one Milt Daggett she didn't think at all. + +Gorgeously sleepy--and gorgeously certain that by and by she would go, +not to a stingy hotel bed, with hound-dog ribs to cut into her tired +back, but to a feathery softness of slumber--she wavered down to the +drawing-room, and on the davenport, by the fire, with Victoria +chocolates by her elbow, and pillows behind her shoulders, she gossiped +of her adventure, and asked for news of friends and kin back East. + +Eugene and Eva Gilson asked with pyrotechnic merriness about the "funny +people she must have met along the road." With a subdued, hidden +unhappiness, Claire found that she could not mention Milt--that she was +afraid her father would mention Milt--to these people who took it for +granted that all persons who did not live in large houses and play good +games of bridge were either "queer" or "common"; who believed that their +West was desirable in proportion as it became like the East; and that +they, though Westerners, were as superior to workmen with hard hands as +was Brooklyn Heights itself. + +Claire tried to wriggle out from under the thought of Milt while, with +the Gilsons as the perfect audience, she improvised on the theme of +wandering. With certain unintended exaggerations, and certain not quite +accurate groupings of events, she described the farmers and cowpunchers, +the incredible hotels and garages. Indeed they had become incredible to +her own self. Obviously this silken girl couldn't possibly take +seriously a Dlorus Kloh--or a young garage man who said "ain't." + +Eva Gilson had been in Brooklyn within the month, and in a passion of +remembrance of home, Claire cried, "Oh, do tell me about everybody." + +"I had such a good time with Amy Dorrance," said Mrs. Gilson. "Of course +Amy is a little dull, but she's such an awfully good sort and---- We did +have the jolliest party one afternoon. We went to lunch at the Ritz, +and a matinée, and we saw such an interesting man--Gene is frightfully +jealous when I rave about him--I'm sure he was a violinist--simply an +exquisite thing he was--I wanted to kiss him. Gene will now say, 'Why +didn't you?'" + +And Gene said, "Well, why _didn't_ you?" and Claire laughed, and her +toes felt warm and pink and good, and she was perfectly happy, and she +murmured, "It would be good to hear a decent violinist again. Oh! What +had George Worlicht been doing, when you were home?" + +"Don't you think Georgie is wonderful?" fluttered Mrs. Gilson. "He makes +me rue my thirty-six sad years. I think I'll adopt him. You know, he +almost won the tennis cup at Long Branch." + +Georgie had a little mustache and an income, just enough income to +support the little mustache, and he sang inoffensively, and was always +winning tennis cups--almost--and he always said, at least once at every +party, "The basis of _savoir faire_ is knowing how to be rude to the +right people." Fire-enamored and gliding into a perfumed haze of +exquisite drowsiness, Claire saw Georgie as heroic and wise. But the +firelight got into her eyes, and her lids wouldn't stay open, and in her +ears was a soft humming as of a million bees in a distant meadow +golden-spangled--and Gene was helping her upstairs; sleepiness submerged +her like bathing in sweet waters; she fumbled at buttons and hooks and +stays, let things lie where they fell--and of all that luxury nothing +was more pleasant than the knowledge that she did not have to take +precautions against the rats, mice, cockroaches, and all their obscene +little brothers which--on some far-off fantastic voyaging when she had +been young and foolish--she seemed to remember having found in her own +room. Then she was sinking into a bed like a tide of rainbow-colored +foam, sinking deep, deep, deep---- + +And it was morning, and she perceived that the purpose of morning light +was to pick out surfaces of mahogany and orange velvet and glass, and +that only an idiot would ever leave this place and go about begging +dirty garage men to fill her car with stinking gasoline and oil. + +The children were at breakfast--children surely not of the same species +as the smeary-cheeked brats she had seen tumbling by roadsides along the +way--sturdy Mason, with his cap of curls, and Virginia, with bobbed +ash-blond hair prim about her delicate face. They curtsied, and in +voices that actually had intonations they besought her, "Oh, Cousin +Claire, would you pleasssssse tell us about drive-to-the-coast?" + +After breakfast, she went out on the terrace for the View. + +In Seattle, even millionaires, and the I. W. W., and men with red +garters on their exposed shirt-sleeves who want to give you real estate, +all talk about the View. The View is to Seattle what the car-service, +the auditorium, the flivver-factory, or the price of coal is to other +cities. At parties in Seattle, you discuss the question of whether the +View of Lake Union or the View of the Olympics is the better, and polite +office-managers say to their stenographers as they enter, "How's your +View this morning?" All real-estate deeds include a patent on the View, +and every native son has it as his soundest belief that no one in Tacoma +gets a View of Mount Rainier. + +Mrs. Gilson informed Claire that they had the finest View in Seattle. + +Below Claire was the harbor, with docks thrust far out into the water, +and steamers alive with smoke. Mrs. Gilson said they were Blue Funnel +Liners, loading for Vladivostok and Japan. The names, just the names, +shot into Claire's heart a wistful unexpressed desire that was somehow +vaguely connected with a Milt Daggett who, back in the Middlewestern mud +and rain, had longed for purple mountains and cherry blossoms and the +sea. But she cast out the wish, and lifted her eyes to mountains across +the sound--not purple mountains, but sheer silver streaked with black, +like frozen surf on a desolate northern shore--the Olympics, two-score +miles away. + +Up there, one could camp, with a boy in a deteriorated sweater singing +as he watched the coffee---- + +Hastily she looked to the left, across the city, with its bright new +skyscrapers, its shining cornices and masses of ranked windows, and the +exclamation-point of the "tallest building outside of New York"--far +livelier than her own rusty Brooklyn. Beyond the city was a dun cloud, +but as she stared, far up in the cloud something crept out of the vapor, +and hung there like a dull full moon, aloof, majestic, overwhelming, and +she realized that she was beholding the peak of Mount Rainier, with the +city at its foot like white quartz pebbles at the base of a tower. + +A landing-stage for angels, she reflected. + +It did seem larger than dressing-tables and velvet hangings and scented +baths. + +But she dragged herself from the enticing path of that thought, and +sighed wretchedly, "Oh, yes, he would appreciate Rainier, but how--how +would he manage a grape-fruit? I mustn't be a fool! I mustn't!" She saw +that Mrs. Gilson was peeping at her, and she made herself say adequate +things about the View before she fled inside--fled from her sputtering +inquiring self. + +In the afternoon they drove to Capitol Hill; they dropped in at various +pretty houses and met the sort of people Claire knew back home. Between +people they had Views; and the sensible Miss Boltwood, making a +philosophic discovery, announced to herself, "After all, I've seen just +as much from this limousine as I would from a bone-breaking Teal bug. +Silly to make yourself miserable to see things. Oh yes, I will go +wandering some more, but not like a hobo. But---- What can I say to him? +Good heavens, he may be here any time now, with our car. Oh, +why--why--why was I insane on that station platform?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ABYSSINIAN PRINCE + + +Snoqualmie Pass lies among mountains prickly with rocks and burnt +stumps, but the road is velvet, with broad saucer curves; and to Milt it +was pure beauty, it was release from life, to soar up coaxing inclines +and slip down easy grades in the powerful car. "No more Teals for me," +he cried, in the ecstasy of handling an engine that slowed to a demure +whisper, then, at a touch of the accelerator, floated up a rise, +effortless, joyous, humming the booming song of the joy in speed. He +suddenly hated the bucking tediousness of the Teal. The Gomez-Dep +symbolized his own new life. + +So he came to Lake Washington, and just across it was the city of his +long dreams, the city of the Pacific--and of Claire. There was no ferry +in sight, and he rounded the lake, struck a brick pavement, rolled +through rough woods, suburban villas, and petty business streets, to a +region of factories and mills, with the funnels of ships beyond. + +And every minute he drove more slowly and became more uneasy. + +The pavement--the miles of it; the ruthless lumbermills, with their +thousands of workmen quite like himself; the agitation of realizing +that every three minutes he was passing a settlement larger than +Schoenstrom; the strangeness of ships and all the cynical ways of the +sea--the whole scene depressed him as he perceived how little of the +world he knew, and how big and contemptuous of Milt Daggetts that world +must be. + +"Huh!" he growled. "Quite some folks living here. Don't suppose they +spend such a whale of a lot of time thinking about Milt Daggett and Bill +McGolwey and Prof Jones. I guess most of these people wouldn't think +Heinie Rauskukle's store was so gosh-awful big. I wasn't scared of +Minneapolis--much--but there they didn't ring in mountains and an ocean +on you. And I didn't have to go up on the hill and meet folks like +Claire's relations, and figure out whether you shake hands +catch-as-catch-can or Corinthian. Look at that sawmill chimney--isn't it +nice of 'em to put the fly-screen over it so the flies won't get down +into the flames. No, they haven't got much more than a million feet of +lumber in that one pile. And here's a bum little furniture store--it +wouldn't cost more 'n about ten times all I've got to buy one of those +Morris chairs. Oh Gooooooosh, won't these houses ever stop? Say, that +must be a jitney. The driver snickered at me. Will the whole town be +onto me? Milt, you're a kind young fellow, and you know what's the +matter with Heinie's differential, but they don't need you here. Quite +a few folks to carry on the business. Gosh, look at that building +ahead--nine stories!" + +He had planned to stop at a hotel, to wash up, and to gallop to Claire. +But--well--wouldn't it maybe be better to leave the car at a public +garage, so the Boltwoods could get it when they wanted to? He'd better +"just kind of look around before he tackled the watch-dog." + +It was the public garage which finally crushed him. It was a garage of +enameled brick and colored tiles, with a plate-glass-enclosed office in +which worked young men clad as the angels. One of them wore a carnation, +Milt noted. + +"Huh! I'll write back and tell Ben Sittka that hereafter he's to wear +his best-Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and a milkweed blossom when he +comes down to work at the Red Trail Garage!" + +Milt drove up the brick incline into a room thousands of miles long, +with millions of new and recently polished cars standing in lines as +straight as a running-board. He begged of a high-nosed colored +functionary--not in khaki overalls but in maroon livery--"Where'll I put +this boat?" + +The Abyssinian prince gave him a check, and in a tone of extreme lack of +personal interest snapped, "Take it down the aisle to the elevator." + +Milt had followed the natural lines of traffic into the city; he had +spoken to no one; the prince's snort was his welcome to Seattle. + +Meekly he drove past the cars so ebon and silvery, so smug and strong, +that they would have regarded a Teal bug as an insult. Another attendant +waved him into the elevator, and Milt tried not to look surprised when +the car started, not forward, but upward, as though it had turned into +an aeroplane. + +When these adventures were over, when he had had a shave and a shine, +and washed his hands, and looked into a department-store window that +contained ten billion yards of silk draped against polished satinwood, +when he had felt unhappy over a movie theater large enough to contain +ten times the population of Schoenstrom, and been cursed by a policeman +for jaywalking, and had passed a hotel entirely full of diplomats and +marble and caviare--then he could no longer put off telephoning to +Claire, and humbly, in a booth meant for an umbrella-stand, he got the +Eugene Gilson house, and to a female who said "Yes?" in a tone which +made it mean "No!" he ventured, "May I speak to Miss Boltwood?" + +Miss Boltwood, it seemed, was out. + +He was not sorry. He was relieved. He ducked out of the telephone-booth +with a sensation of escape. + +Milt was in love with Claire; she was to him the purpose of life; he +thought of her deeply and tenderly and longingly. All the way into +Seattle he had brooded about her; remembered her every word and +gesture; recalled the curve of her chin, and the fresh feeling of her +hands. But Claire had suddenly become too big. In her were all these +stores, these office buildings for clever lawyers and surgeons, these +contemptuous trolley cars, these careless people in beautiful clothes. +They were too much for him. Desperately he was pushing them +back--back--fighting for breath. And she belonged with them. + +He mailed the check for the stored car to her, with a note--written +standing before a hacked wall-desk in a branch post-office--which said +only, "Here's check for the boat. Did not know whether you would have +room for it at house. Tried to get you on phone, phone again just as +soon as rent room etc. Hope having happy time, M.D." + +He went out to the university. On the trolley he relaxed. But he did not +exultantly feel that he had won to the Pacific; he could not regard +Seattle now as a magic city, the Bagdad of modern caravans, with Alaska +and the Orient on one hand, the forests to the north, and eastward the +spacious Inland Empire of the wheat. He saw it as a place where you had +to work hard just to live; where busy policemen despised you because you +didn't know which trolley to take; where it was incredibly hard to +remember even the names of the unceasing streets; where the conductors +said "Step lively!" and there was no room to whistle, no time to swap +stories with a Bill McGolwey at an Old Home lunch-counter. + +He found the university; he talked with the authorities about entering +the engineering school; the Y. M. C. A. gave him a list of rooms; and, +because it was cheap, he chose a cubbyhole in a flat over a candy +store--a low room, which would probably keep out the rain, but had no +other virtues. It had one bed, one table, one dissipated bureau, two +straight bare chairs, and one venerable lithograph depicting a girl with +ringlets shaking her irritating forefinger at a high-church kitten. + +The landlady consented to his importing an oil-stove for cooking his +meals. He bought the stove, with a box of oatmeal, a jar of bacon, and +half a dozen eggs. He bought a plane and solid geometry, and an algebra. +At dinner time he laid the algebra beside his plate of anemic bacon and +leaking eggs. The eggs grew cold. He did not stir. He was reviewing his +high-school algebra. He went down the pages, word by word, steadily, +quickly, absolutely concentrated--as concentrated as he would recently +have been in a new problem of disordered transmission. Not once did he +stop to consider how glorious it would be to marry Claire--or how +terrifying it would be to marry Miss Boltwood. + +Three hours went by before he started up, bewildered, rubbed his eyes, +picked at the chill bacon and altogether disgusting eggs, and rambled +out into the street. + +Again he risked the scorn of conductors and jitney drivers. He found +Queen Anne Hill, found the residence of Mr. Eugene Gilson. He sneaked +about it, slipped into the gate, prowled toward the house. Flabby from +the intensity of study, he longed for the stimulus of Claire's smile. +But as he stared up at the great squares of the clear windows, at the +flare of white columns in the porch-lights, that smile seemed +unreachable. He felt like a rustic at court. From the shelter of the +prickly holly hedge he watched the house. It was "some kind of a +party?--or what would folks like these call a party?" Limousines were +arriving; he had a glimpse of silken ankles, frothy underskirts; heard +easy laughter; saw people moving through a big blue and silver room; +caught a drifting tremor of music. + +At last he saw Claire. She was dancing with a young man as decorative as +"that confounded Saxton fellow" he had met at Flathead Lake, but younger +than Saxton, a laughing young man, with curly black hair. For the first +time in his life Milt wanted to kill. He muttered, "Damn--damn--DAMN!" +as he saw the young man carelessly embracing Claire. + +His fingers tingling, his whole body yearning till every cell seemed a +beating hammer, Milt longed just once to slip his hand about Claire's +waist like that. He could feel the satin of her bodice and its warmth. + +Then it seemed to him, as Claire again passed the window, that he did +not know her at all. He had once talked to a girl who resembled her, but +that was long ago. He could understand a Gomez-Dep and appreciate a +brisk sports-suit, but this girl was of a world unintelligible to him. +Her hair, in its dips and convolutions, was altogether a puzzle. "How +did she ever fix it like that?" Her low evening dress--"what was it made +of--some white stuff, but was it silk or muslin or what?" Her shoulders +were startling in their bare powdery smoothness--"how dare that young +pup dance with her?" And her face, that had seemed so jolly and +friendly, floated past the window as pale and illusive as a wisp of fog. +His longing for her passed into clumsy awe. He remembered, without +resentment, that once on a hilltop in Dakota she had coldly forbidden +him to follow her. + +With all the pleasure of martyrdom--to make quite sure that he should +realize how complete a fool he had been to intrude on Miss Boltwood--he +studied the other guests. He gave them, perhaps, a glory they did not +have. There were girls sleek as ivory. There was a lean stooped man, +very distinguished. There was a bulky man in a dinner coat, with a +semi-circle of mustache, and eyes that even at a distance seemed to give +impatient orders. He would be a big banker, or a lumberman. + +It was the easy friendliness of all of them that most made Milt feel +like an outsider. If a servant had come out and ordered him away, he +would have gone meekly ... he fancied. + +He straggled off, too solidly unhappy to think how unhappy he was. In +his clammy room he picked up the algebra. For a quarter-hour he could +not gather enough vigor to open it. In his lassitude, his elbows felt +feeble, his fingers were ready to drop off. He slowly scratched the book +open---- + +At one o'clock he was reading algebra, his face still and grim. But +already it seemed less heartily brick-red. + +He listlessly telephoned to Claire, in the morning. + +"Hello? Oh! Miss Boltwood? This is Milt Daggett." + +"Oh! Oh, how are you?" + +"Why, why I'm--I've got settled. I can get into the engineering school +all right." + +"I'm glad." + +"Uh, enjoying Seattle?" + +"Oh! Oh yes. The mountains---- Do you like it?" + +"Oh! Oh yes. Sea and all---- Great town." + +"Uh, w-when are we going to see you? Daddy had to go East, left you his +regards. W-when----?" + +"Why--why I suppose you're awful--awfully busy, meeting people and +all----" + +"Yes, I am, rather, but----" Her hedging uncomfortable tone changed to a +cry of distress. "Milt! I must see you. Come up at four this afternoon." + +"Yes!" + +He rushed to a small, hot tailor-shop. He panted "Press m' suit while I +wait?" They gave him a pair of temporary trousers, an undesirable pair +of trousers belonging to a short fat man with no taste in fabrics, and +with these flapping about his lean legs, he sat behind a calico curtain, +reading _The War Cry_ and looking at a "fashion-plate" depicting nine +gentlemen yachtsmen each nine feet tall, while the Jugoslav in charge +unfeelingly sprinkled and ironed and patted his suit. + +He spent ten minutes in blacking his shoes, in his room--and twenty +minutes in getting the blacking off his fingers. + +He was walking through the gate in the Gilson hedge at one minute to +four. + +But he had reached Queen Anne Hill at three. For an hour he had walked +the crest road, staring at the steamers below, alternately gripping his +hands with desire of Claire, and timorously finally deciding that he +wouldn't go to her house--wouldn't ever see her again. + +He came into the hall tremblingly expecting some great thing, some +rending scene, and she met him with a cool, "Oh, this is nice. Eva had +some little white cakes made for us." He felt like a man who has asked +for a drink of cold charged water and found it warm and flat. + +"How---- Dandy house," he muttered, limply shaking her limp hand. + +"Yes, isn't it a darling. They do themselves awfully well here. I'm +afraid your bluff, plain, democratic Westerners are a fraud. I hear a +lot more about 'society' here than I ever did in the East. The sets seem +frightfully complicated." She was drifting into the drawing-room, to a +tapestry stool, and Milt was awkwardly stalking a large wing chair, +while she fidgeted: + +"Everybody tells me about how one poor dear soul, a charming lady who +used to take in washing or salt gold-mines or something, and she came +here a little while ago with billions and billions of dollars, and tried +to buy her way in by shopping for all the charities in town, and +apparently she's just as out of it here as she would be in London. You +and I aren't exclusive like that, are we!" + +Somehow---- + +Her "you and I" was too kindly, as though she was trying to put him at +ease, as though she knew he couldn't possibly be at ease. With a +horribly elaborate politeness, with a smile that felt hot on his +twitching cheeks, he murmured, "Oh no. No, we---- No, I guess----" + +If he knew what it was he guessed, he couldn't get it out. While he was +trying to find out what had become of all the things there were to say +in the world, a maid came in with an astonishing object--a small, red, +shelved table on wheels, laden with silver vessels, and cake, and +sandwiches that were amazingly small and thin. + +The maid was so starched that she creaked. She glanced at Milt---- +Claire didn't make him so nervous that he thought of his clothes, but +the maid did. He was certain that she knew that he had blacked his own +shoes, knew how old were his clothes. He was urging himself, "Must get +new suit tomorrow--ready-made--mustn't forget, now--be sure--get suit +tomorrow." He wanted to apologize to the maid for existing.... He +wouldn't dare to fall in love with the maid.... And he'd kill the man +who said he could be fool enough to fall in love with Miss Boltwood. + +He sipped his tea, and dropped sandwich crumbs, and ached, and panted, +and peeped at the crushing quantities of pictures and sconces and tables +and chairs in the room, and wondered what they did with all of them, +while Claire chattered: + +"Yes, we weren't exclusive out on the road. Didn't we meet funny people +though! Oh, somehow that 'funny people' sounds familiar. But---- What +fun that morning was at--Pellago, was it? Heavens, I'm forgetting those +beastly little towns already--that place where we hazed the poor +landlady who overcharged me." + +"Yes." He was thinking of how much Claire would forget, now. "Yes. We +certainly fixed her, all right. Uh--did you get the storage check for +your car?" + +"Oh yes, thank you. So nice of you to bother with it." + +"Oh, nothing at all, nothing---- Nothing at all. Uh---- Do you like +Seattle?" + +"Oh yes. Such views--the mountains---- Do you like it?" + +"Oh yes. Always wanted to see the sea." + +"Yes, and---- Such a well-built town." + +"Yes, and---- They must do a lot of business here." + +"Yes, they---- Oh yes, I do like Seat----" + +He had darted from his chair, brushed by the tea-wagon, ignoring its +rattle and the perilous tipping of cups. He put his hand on her +shoulder, snorted, "Look here. We're both sparring for time. Stop it. +It's--it's all right, Claire. I want you to like me, but I'm not--I'm +not like that woman you were telling about that's trying to butt in. I +know, Lord I know so well what you're thinking! You're thinking I'm not +up to the people you've been seeing last couple of days--not up to 'em +yet, anyway. Well---- We'll be good friends." + +Fearless, now, his awe gone in tenderness, he lifted her chin, looked +straight into her eyes, smiled. But his courage was slipping. He wanted +to run and hide. + +He turned abruptly, grumbling, "Well, better get back to work now, I +guess." + +Her cry was hungry: "Oh, please don't go." She was beside him, shyly +picking at his sleeve. "I know what you mean. I like you for being so +understanding. But---- I do like you. You were the perfect companion. +Let's---- Oh, let's have a walk--and try to laugh again." + +He definitely did not want to stay. At this moment he did not love her. +He regarded her as an estimable young woman who, for a person so +idiotically reared, had really shown a good deal of pluck out on the +road--where he wanted to be. He stood in the hall disliking his old cap +while she ran up to put on a top coat. + +Mute, casual, they tramped out of the house together, and down the hill +to a region of shabby old brown houses like blisters on the hillside. +They had little to say, and that little was a polite reminiscence of +incidents in which neither was interested. + +When they came back to the Gilson hedge, he stopped at the gate, with +terrific respectableness removed his cap. + +"Good night," she said cheerily. "Call me up soon again." + +He did not answer "Good night." He said "Good-by"; and he meant it to be +his last farewell. He caught her hand, hastily dropped it, fled down the +hill. + +He was, he told himself, going to leave Seattle that evening. + +That, doubtless, is the reason why he ran to a trolley, to get to a +department-store before it closed; and why, precipitating himself upon a +startled clerk, he purchased a new suit of chaste blue serge, a new pair +of tan boots (curiously like some he had seen on the university campus +that morning) and a new hat so gray and conservative and felty that it +might have been worn by Woodrow Wilson. + +He spent the evening in reading algebra and geometry, and in telling +himself that he was beautifully not thinking about Claire. + +In the midst of it, he caught himself at it, and laughed. + +"What you're doing, my friend, is pretending you don't like Claire, so +that you can hide from your fool self the fact that you're going to +sneak back to see her the first chance you get--first time the watch-dog +is out. Seriously now, son, Claire is impossible for you. No can do. Now +that you've been chump enough to leave home---- Oh Lord, I wish I +hadn't promised to take this room for all winter. Wish I hadn't +matriculated at the U. But I'm here now, and I'll stick it out. I'll +stay here one year anyway, and go back home. Oh! And to---- By Golly! +She liked me!" + +He was thinking of the wild-rose teacher to whom he had given a lift +back in Dakota. He was remembering her daintiness, her admiration. + +"Now there's somebody who'd make me keep climbing, but wouldn't think I +was a poor hick. If I were to drive back next spring, I could find +her----" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +A CLASS IN ENGINEERING AND OMELETS + + +The one thing of which Milt Daggett was certain was that now he had +managed to crawl into the engineering school, he must get his degree in +mechanical engineering. He was older than most of his classmates. He +must hurry. He must do four years' work in two. + +There has never been a Freshman, not the most goggle-eyed and earnest of +them, who has seen less of classmates, thought less about "outside +activities," more grimly centered the universe about his work. + +Milt had sold his garage, by mail, to Ben Sittka and Heinie Rauskukle. +He had enough money to get through two years, with economy. His life was +as simple and dull as it had been in Schoenstrom. He studied while he +cooked his scrappy meals; he pinned mathematical formulć and mechanical +diagrams on the wall, and pored over them while he was dressing--or +while he was trying to break in the new shoes, which were beautiful, +squeaky, and confoundedly tight. + +He was taking French and English and "composition-writing" in addition +to engineering, and he made out a schedule of life as humorlessly as a +girl grind who intends to be a Latin teacher. When he was not at work, +or furiously running and yanking chest-weights in the gymnasium, he was +attending concerts, lectures. + +Studying the life about him, he had discovered that the best way to save +time was to avoid the lazy friendships of college; the pipe-smoking, +yawning, comfortable, rather heavy, altogether pleasant wondering about +"what'll we do next?" which occupies at least four hours a day for the +average man in college. He would have liked it, as he had liked long +talks about nothing with Bill McGolwey at the Old Home Lunch. But he +couldn't afford it. He had to be ready to---- + +That was the point at which his reflections always came up with a jolt. +He was quite clear about the method of getting ready, but he hadn't the +slightest idea of what he was getting ready for. The moment he had +redecided to marry Claire, he saw that his only possible future would be +celibate machinery-installing in Alaska; and the moment he was content +with the prospect of an engineer's camp in Alaskan wilds, his thoughts +went crazily fluttering after Claire. + +Despite his aloofness, Milt was not unpopular in his class. The +engineers had few of them the interest in dances, athletics, college +journalism, which distinguished the men in the academic course. They +were older, and more conscious of a living to earn. And Milt's cheerful, +"How's the boy?" his manner of waving his hand--as though to a good +customer leaving the Red Trail Garage with the generator at last +tamed--indicated that he was a "good fellow." + +One group of collegians Milt did seek. It is true that he had been +genuine in scorning social climbers. But it is also true that the men +whom he sought to know were the university smart set. Their satisfaction +in his allegiance would have been lessened, however, had they known how +little he cared for what they thought of him, and with what cruel +directness he was using them as models for the one purpose of pleasing +Miss Claire Boltwood. + +The American state universities admit, in a pleased way, that though +Yale and Harvard and Princeton may be snobbish, the state universities +are the refuge of a myth called "college democracy." But there is no +university near a considerable city into which the inheritors of the +wealth of that city do not carry all the local social distinctions. +Their family rank, their place in the unwritten peerage, determines to +which fraternity they shall be elected, and the fraternity determines +with whom--men and girls--they shall be intimate. The sons and daughters +of Seattle and Tacoma, the scions of old families running in an unbroken +line clear back to 1880, were amiable to poor outsiders from the Yakima +valley and the new claims of Idaho, but they did not often invite them +to their homes on the two hills and the Boulevard. + +Yet it was these plutocrats whom Milt followed; they whose boots and +table manners, cigarettes and lack of interest in theology, he studied. +He met them in his English class. He remarked "Hello, Smith," and +"Mornin', Jones," as though he liked them but didn't care a hang whether +they liked him. And by and by he drifted into their fraternity +dwelling-house, with a question about the next day's assignment, and met +their friends. He sat pipe-smoking, silent, cheerful, and they seemed to +accept him. Whenever one of them felt that Milt was intruding, and asked +impertinent questions in the manner of a Pullman porter at a Darktown +ball, Milt had a peculiar level look which had been known to generate +courtesy even in the offspring of a million dollars. They found that he +knew more about motor-cars than any of them, and as motor-cars were +among their greater gods, they considered him wise. He was incomparably +simple and unpretentious; they found his presence comfortable. + +But there is a question as to what they would have thought had they +known that, lying awake in the morning, Milt unsmilingly repeated: + +"Hair always straight down at the back. Never rounded. Nix on clippers +over the ears. + +"Matisse is a popular nut artist. Fashionable for the swells to laugh at +him, and the fellows on the college papers to rave about him. + +"Blinx and Severan the swellest--the smartest haberdashery in the city. + +"The one way to get in Dutch is to mention labor leaders. + +"Never say 'Pleased to meet you.' Just look about halfway between bored +and tol'able and say, 'How do you do?'" + + * * * * * + +All these first three weeks of his life in Seattle, he had seen Claire +only on his first call. Twice he had telephoned to her. On one of these +high occasions she had invited him to accompany the family to the +theater--which meant to the movies--and he had wretchedly refused; the +other time she had said that she might stay in Seattle all winter, and +she might go any day, and they "must be sure to have that good long +walk"; and he had said "oh yes," ten or twelve unhappy times, and had +felt very empty as he hung up the receiver. + +Then she wrote to invite him to late Sunday breakfast at the +Gilsons'--they made a function of it, and called it bruncheon. The hour +was given as ten-thirty; most people came at noon; but Milt arrived at +ten-thirty-one, and found only a sleepy butler in sight. + +He waited in the drawing-room for five minutes, feeling like a +bill-collector. Into the room vaulted a medium-sized, medium-looking, +amiable man, Eugene Gilson, babbling, "Oh, I say, so sorry to keep you +waiting, Mr. Daggett. Rotten shame, do come have a bun or something, +frightfully informal these bruncheons, play auction?" + +"Zallright--no," said Milt. + +The host profusely led him to a dining-room where--in English fashion, +or something like English fashion, or anyway a close approximation to +the fictional pictures of English fashion--kidneys and sausages and +omelets waited in dishes on the side-board. Mr. Gilson poured coffee, +and chanted: + +"Do try the kidneys. They're usually very fair. Miss Boltwood tells me +that you were very good to her on the trip. Must have been jolly trip. +You going to be in town some time, oh yes, Claire said you were in the +university, engineering, wasn't it? have you ever seen our lumbermills, +do drop around some---- Try the omelet before the beastly thing gets +cold, do you mind kicking that button, we'll have some more omelet +in--any time at the mill and I'll be glad to have some one show you +through, how did you find the roads along the Red Trail?" + +"Why, pretty fair," said Milt. + +Into the room precipitated Mrs. Gilson, in a smile, a super-sweater, and +a sports skirt that would have been soiled by any variety of sport more +violent than pinochle, and she was wailing as she came: + +"We're disgraced, Gene, is this Mr. Daggett? how do you do, so good of +you to come, do try the kidneys, they're usually quite decent, are the +omelets warm, you might ring for some more, Gene, for heaven's sake give +me some coffee, Miss Boltwood will be right down, Mr. Daggett, she told +us how fortunate they were that they met you on the road, did you like +the trip, how were the roads?" + +"Why, they were pretty good," said Milt. + +Claire arrived, fresh and serene in white taffeta, and she cried +prettily, "I ought to have known that you'd be prompt even if no one +else in the world is, so glad you came, have you tried the kidneys, and +do have an--oh, I see you have tried the omelets, how goes the work at +the university?" + +"Why, fine," said Milt. + +He ate stolidly, and looked pleased, and sneaked in a glance at his new +(and still tight and still squeaky) tan boots to make sure that they +were as well polished as they had seemed at home. + +From nowhere appeared a bustling weighty woman, purring, "Hello, hello, +hello, is it possible that you're all up---- Mr. Daggett. Yes, do lead +me to the kidneys." + +And a man with the gray hair of a grandfather and the giggle of a +cash-girl bounced in clamoring, "Mornin'--expected to have bruncheon +alone--do we have some bridge? Oh, good morning, Mr. Daggett, how do +you like Seattle? Oh, thanks so much, yes, just two." + +Then Milt ceased to keep track of the conversation, which bubbled over +the omelets, and stewed over the kidneys, and foamed about the coffee, +and clashed above a hastily erected bridge table, and altogether sounded +curiously like four cars with four quite different things the matter +with them all being tried out at once in a small garage. People flocked +in, and nodded as though they knew one another too well to worry about +it. They bowed to him charmingly, and instantly forgot him for the +kidneys and sausages. He sat looking respectable and feeling lonely, by +a cup of coffee, till Claire--dropping the highly unreal smile with +which she had been listening to the elderly beau's account of a +fishing-trip he hadn't quite got around to taking--slipped into a chair +beside him and begged, "Are they looking out for you, Milt?" + +"Oh yes, thank you." + +"You haven't been to see me." + +"Oh no, but---- Working so darn hard." + +"What a strikingly original reason! But have you really?" + +"Honest." + +Suddenly he wanted--eternal man, forever playing confidential small boy +to the beloved--to tell her about his classes and acquaintances; to get +pity for his bare room and his home-cooking. But round them blared the +brazen interest in kidneys, and as Claire glanced up with much +brightness at another arrival, Milt lost momentum, and found that there +was absolutely nothing in the world he could say to her. + +He made a grateful farewell to the omelets and kidneys, and escaped. + +He walked many miles that day, trying to remember how Claire looked. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE VICIOUSNESS OF NICE THINGS + + +"What did you think of my nice Daggett boy?" Claire demanded of Eva +Gilson, the moment bruncheon was over. + +"Which one was---- Oh, the boy you met on the road? Why, really, I +didn't notice him particularly. I'd rather fancied from the way you +referred to him that he was awfully jolly and forceful, but rather +crude. But I didn't notice him at all. He seemed perfectly well-bred, +but slightly heavy." + +"No, he isn't that---- He---- Why did you lead spades?" reflected +Claire. + +They were in the drawing-room, resting after the tact and tumult of the +bruncheon. Claire had been here long enough now for the Gilsons to +forget her comfortably, and be affectionate and quarrelsome and natural, +and to admit by their worrying that even in their exalted social +position there were things to fuss about. + +"I do think we ought to have invited Belle Torrens," fretted Mrs. +Gilson. "We've simply got to have her here soon." + +Mr. Gilson speculated intensely, "But she's the dullest soul on earth, +and her husband spends all his spare time in trying to think up ways of +doing me dirt in business. Oh, by the way, did you get the water tap in +the blue room fixed? It's dripping all the time." + +"No, I forgot it." + +"Well, I _do_ wish you'd have it attended to. It simply drips all the +time." + +"I know. I intended to 'phone the plumber---- Can't you 'phone him +tomorrow, from the office?" + +"No, I haven't time to bother with it. But I do wish you would. It keeps +on dripping----" + +"I know, it doesn't seem to stop. Well, you remind me of it in the +morning." + +"I'm afraid I'll forget. You better make a note of it. If it keeps on +dripping that way, it's likely to injure something. And I do wish you'd +tell the Jap not to put so much parsley in the omelet. And I say, how +would an omelet be with a butter sauce over it?" + +"Oh, no, I don't think so. An omelet ought to be nice and dry. Butter +makes it so greasy--besides, with the price of butter----" + +"But there's a richness to butter---- You'd better make a note about the +tap dripping in the blue room right now, before you forget it. Oh! Why +in heaven's name did we have Johnny Martin here? He's dull as +ditchwater----" + +"I know, but---- It is nice to go out to his place on the Point. Oh, +Gene, I do wish you'd try and remember not to talk about your business +so much. You and Mr. Martin were talking about the price of lumber for +at least half an hour----" + +"Nothing of the kind. We scarcely mentioned it. Oh! What car are you +going to use this afternoon? If we get out to the Barnetts', I thought +we might use the limousine---- Or no, you'll probably go out before I +do, I have to read over some specifications, and I promised to give Will +a lift, couldn't you take the Loco, maybe you might drive yourself, no, +I forgot, the clutch is slipping a little, well, you might drive out and +send the car back for me--still, there wouldn't hardly be time----" + +Listening to them as to a play, Claire suddenly desired to scream, "Oh, +for heaven's sake quit fussing! I'm going up and drown myself in the +blue-room tap! What does it matter! Walk! Take a surface car! Don't fuss +so!" + +Her wrath came from her feeling of guilt. Yes, Milt had been +commonplace. Had she done this to him? Had she turned his cheerful +ignorances into a careful stupor? And she felt stuffy and choking and +overpacked with food. She wanted to be out on the road, clear-headed, +forcing her way through, an independent human being--with Milt not too +far behind. + +Mrs. Gilson was droning, "I do think Mattie Vincent is so nice." + +"Rather dull I'd call her," yawned Mr. Gilson. + +Mattie was the seventh of their recent guests whom he had called dull by +now. + +"Not at all--oh, of course she doesn't dance on tables and quote +Maeterlinck, but she does have an instinct for the niceties and the +proprieties--her little house is so sweet--everything just exactly +right--it may be only a single rose, but always chosen so carefully to +melt into the background; and such adorable china--I simply die of envy +every time I see her Lowestoft plates. And such a quiet way of reproving +any bad taste--the time that crank university professor was out there, +and spoke of the radical labor movement, and Mattie just smiled at him +and said, 'If you don't mind, let's not drag filthy lumberjacks into the +drawing-room--they'd hate it just as much as we would, don't you think, +perhaps?'" + +"Oh, _damn_ nice china! Oh, let's hang all spinsters who are brightly +reproving," Claire was silently raging. "And particularly and earnestly +confound all nicety and discretion of living." + +She tried to break the spell of the Gilsons' fussing. She +false-heartedly fawned upon Mr. Gilson, and inquired: + +"Is there anything very exciting going on at the mills, Gene?" + +"Exciting?" asked Mr. Gilson incredulously. "Why, how do you mean?" + +"Don't you find business exciting? Why do you do it then?" + +"Oh, wellllll---- Of course---- Oh, yes, exciting in a way. Well---- +Well, we've had a jolly interesting time making staves for candy +pails--promises to be wonderfully profitable. We have a new way of +cutting them. But you wouldn't be interested in the machinery." + +"Of course not. You don't bore Eva with your horrid, headachy +business-problems, do you?" Claire cooed, with low cunning. + +"Indeed no. Don't think a chap ought to inflict his business on his +wife. The home should be a place of peace." + +"Yes," said Claire. + +But she wasn't thinking "Yes." She was thinking, "Milt, what worries me +now isn't how I can risk letting the 'nice people' meet you. It's how I +can ever waste you on the 'nice people.' Oh, I'm spoiled for +cut-glass-and-velvet afternoons. Eternal spiritual agony over blue-room +taps is too high a price even for four-poster beds. I want to be +driving! hiking! living!" + +That afternoon, after having agreed that Mr. Johnny Martin was a bore, +Mr. and Mrs. Gilson decided to run out to the house of Mr. Johnny +Martin. They bore along the lifeless Claire. + +Mr. Martin was an unentertaining bachelor who entertained. There were a +dozen supercilious young married people at his bayside cottage when the +Gilsons arrived. Among them were two eyebrow-arching young matrons whom +Claire had not met--Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz. + +"We've all heard of you, Miss Boltwood," said Mrs. Betz. "You come from +the East, don't you?" + +"Yes," fluttered Claire, trying to be cordial. + +Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz looked at each other in a motionless wink, and +Mrs. Corey prodded: + +"From New York?" + +"No. Brooklyn." Claire tried not to make it too short. + +"Oh." The tacit wink was repeated. Mrs. Corey said brightly--much too +brightly--"I was born in New York. I wonder if you know the Dudenants?" + +Now Claire knew the Dudenants. She had danced with that young ass Don +Dudenant a dozen times. But the devil did enter into her and possess +her, and, to Eva Gilson's horror, Claire said stupidly, "No-o, but I +think I've heard of them." + +The condemning wink was repeated. + +"I hear you've been doing such interesting things--motoring and +adventuring--you must have met some terrible people along the way," +fished Mrs. Betz. + +"Yes, everybody does seem to feel that way. But I'm afraid I found them +terribly nice," flared Claire. + +"I always say that common people can be most agreeable," Mrs. Corey +patronized. Before Claire could kill her--there wasn't any homicidal +weapon in sight except a silver tea-strainer--Mrs. Corey had pirouetted +on, "Though I do think that we're much too kind to workmen and all--the +labor situation is getting to be abominable here in the West, and upon +my word, to keep a maid nowadays, you have to treat her as though she +were a countess." + +"Why shouldn't maids be like countesses? They're much more important," +said Claire sweetly. + +It cannot be stated that Claire had spent any large part of her time in +reading Karl Marx, leading syndicalist demonstrations, or hemming red +internationalist flags, but at this instant she was a complete +revolutionist. She could have executed Mrs. Corey and pretty Mrs. Betz +with zeal; she disliked the entire bourgeoisie; she looked around for a +Jap boy to call "comrade" and she again thought about the possibilities +of the tea-strainer for use in assassination. She stolidly wore through +the combined and exclamatory explanations of Mrs. Corey, Mrs. Betz, Mrs. +Gilson, and Mr. Johnny Martin about the inherent viciousness of all +maids, and when the storm was over, she said in a manner of honey and +syrup: + +"You were speaking of the Dudenants, weren't you, Mrs. Corey? I do +remember them now. Poor Don Dudenant, isn't it a pity he's such a fool? +His father is really a very decent old bore." + +"I," observed Mrs. Corey, in prim horror, "regard the Dudenants as +extremely delightful people. I fancy we must be thinking of different +families. I mean the Manhattan Dudenants, not the Brooklyn family." + +"Oh, yes, I meant the Manhattan family, too--the one that made its +fortune selling shoddy woolens in the Civil War," caressed Claire. + +Right there, her welcome by Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz ceased; and without +any of the unhappiness which the thought would have caused her three +months before, Claire reflected, "How they hate me!" + +The Gilsons had a number of thoughts upon the subject of tact to express +to Claire on the way home. But she, who had always smiled, who had been +the obedient guest, shrugged and snapped, "They're idiots, those young +women. They're impertinent shopgirls in good frocks. I like your +Seattle. It's a glorious city. And I love so many of the fine, simple, +real people I've met here. I admire your progress. I do know how +miraculously you've changed it from a mining camp. But for heaven's sake +don't forget the good common hardiness of the miners. Somehow, London +social distinctions seem ludicrous in American cities that twenty years +ago didn't have much but board sidewalks and saloons. I don't care +whether it's Seattle or Minneapolis or Omaha or Denver, I refuse to +worry about the Duchess of Corey and the Baroness Betz and all the other +wonderful imitations of gilt. When a pair of finishing-school flappers +like Betz and Corey try to impress me with their superiority to workmen, +and their extreme aristocracy and Easternness, they make me tired. I +_am_ the East!" + +She had made peace with the Gilsons by night; she had been reasonably +repentant about not playing the game of her hosts; but inside her eager +heart she snuggled a warm thought. She remembered how gaily she had once +promised, out on the road, to come to Milt's room and cook for him. She +thought of it with homesick desire. His room probably wasn't +particularly decorative, and she doubted his having an electric range, +but it would be fun to fry eggs again, to see him fumbling with the +dish-washing, to chatter and plan golden futures, and not worry about +the opinions of Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz. + +The next afternoon the limousine was not busy and she borrowed it, with +the handsome Greek chauffeur. + +She gave him an address not far from the university. + +He complained, "Pardon me, miss, but I think you have the wrong number. +That block is a low quarter." + +"Probably! But that's the right number!" + +He raised his Athenian eyebrows, and she realized what a mistake she had +made in not bringing the lethal tea-strainer along. When they had +stopped in front of a cheap candy-store, he opened the door of the car +with such frigid reserve that she thought seriously about slapping him. + +She climbed the stingy, flapping stairs, and knocked at the first door +in the upper hall. It was opened by a large apron, to which a sleepy +woman was an unimportant attachment, and out of the mass of apron and +woman came a yawning, "Mr. Daggett's room is down the hall on the +right." + +Claire knocked at a door which had at various epochs been blue, yellow, +and pink, and now was all three. No answer. She tried the knob, went in. + +She could not tell whether it was the barrenness of the room, or Milt's +carefulness, that caught her. The uncarpeted boards of the floor were +well swept. He had only one plate, one spoon, but they were scoured, and +put away on newspaper-covered shelves in a cupboard made of a soap-box. +Behind a calico curtain was his new suit, dismayingly neat on its +hanger. On the edge of the iron sink primly washed and spread out to +dry, was a tattered old rag. At the sight of it, at the thought of Milt +solemnly washing dishes, the tears began to creep to her eyes. + +There was but one picture in the room--a half-tone of a girl, clipped +from a magazine devoted to actresses. The name was cut off. As she +wondered at it, Claire saw that the actress was very much like herself. + +The only other ornament was a papier-mâché figure of a cat, a cat +reminiscent of the Lady Vere de Vere. Claire picked it up. On the +bottom was the price-mark--three cents. + +It was the price-mark that pierced her. She flung across the room, +dropped on his creaky cot-bed, howled, "Oh, I've been a beast--a +beast--a beast! All the pretty things--limousines and marble +baths--thinking so much of them, and not wanting them for _him_! And he +with so little, with just nothing--he that would appreciate jolly things +so much--here in this den, and making it as tolerable as he can--and me +half ashamed of him instead of fighting for him---- I belong with Corey +and Betz. Oh, I'm so ashamed, so bitterly ashamed." + +She patted his bed smooth with nervous eager fingers. + +She scraped a pin-point of egg-yolk off a platter. + +Before she had been home five minutes she had written a note asking him +to tea for next day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE MORNING COAT OF MR. HUDSON B. RIGGS + + +Mr. Hudson B. Riggs now enters the tale--somewhat tardily, and making a +quick exit, all in a morning coat too tight about the shoulders, and a +smile of festivity too tight about the lips. He looked as improbable as +an undertaker's rubber-plant. Yet in his brief course he had a mighty +effect upon the progress of civilization as exemplified in the social +career of Mr. Milton Daggett. + +Mr. Riggs had arrived at a golden position in Alaskan mining engineering +by way of the farm, the section gang, the surveyor's chain, and +prospecting; and his thick hands showed his evolution. His purpose in +life was to please Mrs. Riggs, and he wasn't ever going to achieve his +purpose in life. She wore spangles, and her corsets creaked, and she +smiled nervously, and could tell in a glance quicker than the 1/100 +kodak shutter whether or not a new acquaintance was "worth cultivating." +She had made Mr. Riggs thoroughly safe and thoroughly unhappy in the +pursuit of society. He stood about keeping from doing anything he might +want to, and he was profusely polite to young cubs whom he longed to +have in his office--so that he could get even with them. + +What Mr. Riggs wanted to do, at the third large tea given by Mrs. Gilson +for Miss Claire Boltwood, was to sneak out on the sun-porch and play +over the new records on the phonograph; but the things he had heard from +Mrs. Riggs the last time he'd done that had convinced him that it was +not a wise method of escape. So he stood by the fireplace--safe on one +side at least--and ate lettuce sandwiches, which he privately called +"cow feed," and listened to a shining, largely feminine crowd rapidly +uttering unintelligible epigrams from which he caught only the words, +"Ripping hand--trained nurse--whipcord--really worth seeing--lost the +ball near the second hole--most absurd person--new maid--thanks so +much." He was hoping that some one would come around and let him be +agreeable. He knew that he stood the ride home with Mrs. Riggs much +better after he had been agreeable to people he didn't like. + +What Mr. Riggs did not know was that a young man in uninteresting blue, +who looked like a good tennis-player, was watching him. It wasn't +because he detected a fellow soul in purgatory but because he always was +obsequious outside of his office that Mr. Riggs bowed so profusely that +he almost lost his tea-cup, when the young man in blue drifted to him +and suggested, "I hear you're in the Alaskan mining-game, Mr. Riggs." + +"Oh yes." + +"Do you get up there much now?" + +"No, not much." + +"I hope to hit Alaska some day--I'm taking engineering at the U." + +"Do you? Straight?" Mr. Riggs violently set his cup down on a +table--Mrs. Riggs would later tell him that he'd put it down in the +wrong place, but never mind. He leaned over Milt and snarled, "Offer me +a cigarette. I don't know if they smoke here, and I dassn't be the first +to try. Say, boy, Alaska---- I wish I was there now! Say, it beats all +hell how good tea can taste in a tin cup, and how wishy-washy it is in +china. Boy, I don't know anything about you, but you look all right, and +when you get ready to go to Alaska, you come to me, and I'll see if I +can't give you a chance to go up there. But don't ever come back!" + +When the crowd began bubblingly to move toward the door, Milt prepared +to move--and bubble--with them. Though Claire's note had sounded as +though she was really a little lonely, at the tea she had said nothing +to him except, "So glad you came. Do you know Dolly Ransome? Dolly, this +is my nice Mr. Daggett. Take him and make him happy." + +Dolly hadn't made him in the least happy. She had talked about tennis; +she had with some detail described her remarkable luck in beating one +Sally Saunders three sets. Now Milt was learning tennis. He was at the +present period giving two hours a week to tennis, two to dancing, two to +bridge. But he preferred cleaning oil-wells to any of these toilsome +accomplishments, and it must sadly be admitted that all the while he was +making his face bright at Dolly, he was wondering what would happen if +he interrupted Dolly's gurgling, galloping, giggling multitudinousness +by shouting, "Oh, shut up!" + +When it seemed safe to go, and he tried to look as though he too were +oozing out to a Crane-Simplex, Claire slipped beside him, soft as a +shadow, and whispered, "Please don't go. I want to talk to you. +_Please!_" There was fluttering wistfulness in her voice, though +instantly it was gone as she hastened to the door and was to be heard +asserting that she did indeed love Seattle. + +Milt looked out into the hall. He studied a console with a curious black +and white vase containing a single peacock feather, and a gold mirror +shimmering against a gray wall. + +"Lovely stuff. I like that mirror. Like a slew in the evening. But it +isn't worth being a slave for. I'm not going to be a Mr. Riggs. Poor +devil, he's more of a servant than any of these maids. Certainly am +sorry for that poor fish. He'll have a chance to take his coat off and +sit down and smoke--when he's dead!" + +The guests were gone; the Gilsons upstairs. Claire came running, seized +Milt's sleeve, coaxed him to the davenport in the drawing-room--then +sighed, and rubbed her forehead, and looked so tired that he could say +nothing but, "Hope you haven't been overdoing." + +"No, just--just talking too much." + +He got himself to say, "Miss Ransome--the one that's nuts about +tennis--she's darn nice." + +"Is she?" + +"Yes, she's--she's---- What do you hear from your father?" + +"Oh, he's back at work." + +"Trip do him good?" + +"Oh, a lot." + +"Did he----" + +"Milt! Tell me about you. What are you doing? What are you studying? How +do you live? Do you really cook your own meals? Do you begin to get your +teeth into the engineering? Oh, do tell me everything. I want to know, +so much!" + +"There isn't a whole lot to tell. Mostly I'm getting back into math. +Been out of touch with it. I find that I know more about motors than +most of the fellows. That helps. And about living--oh, I keep +conservative. Did you know I'd sold my garage?" + +"Oh, I didn't, I didn't!" + +He wondered why she said it with such stooping shame, but he went on +mildly, "Well, I got a pretty good price, but of course I don't want to +take any chances on running short of coin, so I'm not splurging much. +And----" He looked at his nails, and whistled a bar or two, and turned +his head away, and looked back with a shy, "And I'm learning to play +bridge and tennis and stuff!" + +"Oh, my dear!" It was a cry of pain. She beat her hands for a moment +before she murmured, "When are we going to have our lessons in +dancing--and in making an impression on sun-specks like Dolly Ransome?" + +"I don't know," he parried. Then, looking at her honestly, he confessed, +"I don't believe we're ever going to. Claire, I can't do it. I'm no good +for this tea game. You know how clumsy I was. I spilled some tea, and I +darn near tripped over some woman's dress and---- Oh, I'm not afraid of +them. Now that I get a good close look at this bunch, they seem pretty +much like other folks, except maybe that one old dame says 'cawn't.' But +I can't do the manners stunt. I can't get myself to give enough thought +to how you ought to hold a tea-cup." + +"Oh, those things don't matter--they don't _matter_! Besides, everybody +likes you--only you're so terribly cautious that you never let them see +the force and courage and all that wonderful sweet dear goodness that's +in you. And as for your manners--heaven knows I'm no P. G. Wodehouse +valet. But I'll teach you all I know." + +"Claire, I appreciate it a lot but---- I'm not so darn sure I want to +learn. I'm getting scared. I watched that bird named Riggs here today. +He's a regular fellow, or he was, but now he's simply lost in the +shuffle. I don't want to be one of the million ghosts in a city. Seattle +is bad enough--it's so big that I feel like a no-see-um in a Norway pine +reserve. But New York would be a lot worse. I don't want to be a Mr. +Riggs." + +"Yes, but--I'm not a Mrs. Riggs!" + +"What do you----" + +He did not finish asking her what she meant. She was in his arms; she +was whispering, "My heart is so lonely;" and the room was still. The low +sun flooded the windows, swam in the mirror in the hall, but they did +not heed, did not see its gliding glory. + +Not till there was a sound of footsteps did she burst from his arms, +spring to her reflection in the glass of a picture, and shamefacedly +murmur to him over her shoulder, "My hair--it's a terrible giveaway!" + +He had followed her; he stood with his arm circling her shoulder. + +She begged, "No. Please no. I'm frightened. Let's--oh, let's have a walk +or something before you scamper home." + +"Look! My dear! Let's run away, and explore the town, and not come back +till late evening." + +"Yes. Let's." + +They walked from Queen Anne Hill through the city to the docks. There +was nothing in their excited, childish, "Oh, see that!" and "There's a +dandy car!" and "Ohhhhh, that's a Minnesota license--wonder who it is?" +to confess that they had been so closely, so hungrily together. + +They swung along a high walk overlooking the city wharf. They saw a +steamer loading rails and food for the government railroad in Alaska. +They exclaimed over a nest of little, tarry fishing-boats. They watched +men working late to unload Alaska salmon. + +They crossed the city to Jap Town and its writhing streets, its dark +alleys and stairways lost up the hillsides. They smiled at black-eyed +children, and found a Japanese restaurant, and tried to dine on raw fish +and huge shrimps and roots soaked in a very fair grade of light-medium +motor oil. + +With Milt for guide, Claire discovered a Christianity that was not of +candles and shifting lights and insinuating music, nor of carpets and +large pews and sound oratory, but of hoboes blinking in rows, and girls +in gospel bonnets, and little silver and crimson placards of Bible +texts. They stopped on a corner to listen to a Pentecostal brother, to +an I. W. W. speaker, to a magnificent negro who boomed in an operatic +baritone that the Day of Judgment was coming on April 11, 1923, at three +in the morning. + +In the streets of Jap Town, in cheap motion-picture theaters, in hotels +for transient workmen, she found life, running swift and eager and +many-colored; and it seemed to her that back in the house of +four-posters and walls of subdued gray, life was smothered in the very +best pink cotton-batting. Milt's delight in every picturesque dark +corner, and the colloquial eloquence of the street-orators, stirred her. +And when she saw a shopgirl caress the hand of a slouching beau in +threadbare brown, her own hand slipped into Milt's and clung there. + +But they came shyly up to the Gilson hedge, and when Milt chuckled, +"Bully walk; let's do it again," she said only, "Oh, yes, I did like it. +Very much." + +He had abruptly dropped his beautiful new felt hat. He was clutching her +arms, demanding, "Can you like me? Oh my God, Claire, I can't play at +love. I'm mad--I just live in you. You're my blood and soul. Can I +become--the kind of man you like?" + +"My dear!" She was fiercely addressing not him alone but the Betzes and +Coreys and Gilsons and Jeff Saxtons, "don't you forget for one moment +that all these people--here or Brooklyn either--that seem so aloof and +amused, are secretly just plain people with enamel on, and you're to +have the very best enamel, if it's worth while. I'm not sure that it +is----" + +"You're going to kiss me!" + +"No! Please no! I don't--I don't understand us, even now. Can't we be +just playmates a while yet? But--I do like you!" + +She fled. When she reached the hall she found her eyelids wet. + +It was the next afternoon---- + +Claire was curled on the embroidered linen counterpane of her bed, +thinking about chocolates and Brooklyn and driving through Yellowstone +Park and corn fritters and satin petticoats versus _crępe de chine_ and +Mount Rainier and Milt and spiritualism and manicuring, when Mrs. Gilson +prowled into her room and demanded "Busy?" so casually that Claire was +suspicious. + +"No. Not very. Something up?" + +"A nice party. Come down and meet an amusing man from Alaska." + +Claire took her time powdering her nose, and ambled downstairs and into +the drawing-room, to find---- + +Jeff Saxton, Mr. Geoffrey Saxton, who is the height of Brooklyn Heights, +standing by the fireplace, smiling at her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE ENEMY LOVE + + +But at second glance--was it Jeff? This man was tanned to a thick even +brown in which his eyes were startlingly white. His hands were burned +red; there was a scar across one of them; and he was standing with them +cockily at his hips, all unlike the sleekly, noisily quiet Jeff of +Brooklyn. He was in corduroy trousers and belted corduroy jacket, with a +khaki-colored flannel shirt. + +But his tranquilly commanding smile was Jeff's, and his lean grace; and +Jeff's familiar amused voice greeted her paralyzed amazement with: + +"Hello, pard! Ain't I met you some place in Montana?" + +"Well--where--in--the----" + +"Just landed from Alaska. Had to run up there from California. How are +you, little princess?" + +His hand was out to her, then both hands, beseechingly, but she did not +run to him, as she had at Flathead Lake. She stalked him cautiously, and +shook hands--much too heartily. She sought cover in the wing-chair +and--much too cordially--she invited: + +"Tell me all about it." + +He was watching her. Already his old pursuing determination, his steady +dignity, were beginning to frighten her. But he calmly dropped into a +straight chair, and obliged: + +"It's really been quite a lively journey. Didn't know I could like +roughing-it so well. And it was real roughing-it, pretty much. Oh, not +dangerous at all, but rather vigorous. I had to canoe up three hundred +miles of a shallow river, with one Indian guide, making a portage every +ten miles or so, and we got tipped over in the rapids now and then--the +Big Chief almost got drowned once--and we camped at night in the +original place where they invented mosquitoes--and one morning I shot a +black bear just in time to keep him from eating my boots." + +"Oh!" she sighed in admiration, and "Oh!" again, uneasily. + +Nothing had been said about it; Jeff was the last person in the world to +spoil his triumph by commenting on it; but both of them knew that they +had violently changed places; that now it was she who was the limp +indoor-dweller, and he who was the ruddy ranger; that as he had admired +her at Flathead Lake, so now it was hers to admire, and his to be +serenely heroic. + +She was not far from the worshiping sub-deb in her sighing, "How _did_ +you get the scar?" + +"That? Oh, nothing." + +"Please tell me." + +"Really and truly. Nothing at all. Just a drunken fellow with a knife, +playing the fool. I didn't have to touch him--quite sure he could have +given me a frightful beating and all that sort of thing. It was the Big +Chief who got rid of him." + +"He--cut you? With a kniiiiiife? Ohhhhhhh!" + +She ran to him, pityingly stroked the scar, looked down at him with +filmy eyes. Then she tried to retreat, but he retained her hand, glanced +up at her as though he knew her every thought. She felt weak. How could +she escape him? "Please!" she begged flutteringly. + +If he held her hand another moment, she trembled, she'd be on his lap, +in his arms--lost. And he was holding it. He was---- + +Oh, he was too old for her. Yes, and too paternal. But still---- Life +with Jeff would be protected, kindly, honorable. + +Yet all the time she wanted, and stormily knew she wanted, to be fleeing +to the boy Milt, her mate; to run away with him, hand in hand, +discovering all the colored world, laughing at life, not afraid of +losing dignity. In fear of Jeff's very kindliness and honor, she jerked +her hand free. Then she tried to smile like a clever fencer. + +As she retreated to her chair she stammered, "Did you---- Was Alaska +interesting?" + +He did not let her go, this time. Easy, cat-like for all his dry +gravity, he sauntered after her, and with a fine high seriousness +pleaded his case: + +"Claire dear, those few weeks of fighting nature were a revelation to +me. I'm going to have lots more of it. As it happens, they need me +there. There's plenty of copper, but there's big transportation and +employment problems that I seem better able to solve than the other +chaps--though of course I'm an absolute muff when it comes to +engineering problems. But I've had certain training and--I'm going to +arrange things so that I get up there at least once a year. Next summer +I'll make a much longer trip--see the mountains--oh, glorious +mountains--and funny half-Russian towns, and have some fishing---- +Wandering. The really big thing. Even finer than your superb plucky trip +through----" + +"Wasn't plucky! I'm a cry baby," she said, like a bad, contradictory +little girl. + +He didn't argue it. He smiled and said "Tut!" and placidly catalogued +her with, "You're the pluckiest girl I've ever seen, and it's all the +more amazing because you're not a motion-picture Tomboy, but essentially +exquisite----" + +"I'm a grub." + +"Very well, then. You're a grub. So am I. And I like it. And when I make +the big Alaskan trip next year I want you to go along! Claire! Haven't +you any idea how terribly close to me the thought of you has been these +weeks? You've guided me through the wilderness----" + +"It's---- I'm glad." She sprang up, beseeching, "Jeff dear, you're going +to stay for tea? I must run up and powder my nose." + +"Not until you say you're glad to see me. Child dear, we've been ambling +along and---- No. You aren't a child any more. You're a woman. And if +I've never been quite a man, but just a dusty office-machine, that's +gone now. I've got the wind of the wilderness in my lungs. Man and +woman! My woman! That's all I'm going to say now, but---- Oh my God, +Claire, I do need you so!" + +He drew her head to his shoulder, and for an instant she rested there. +But as she looked up, she saw coming age in the granulated skin of his +throat. + +"He needs me--but he'd boss me. I'd be the cunning child-wife, even at +fifty," she worried, and "Hang him, it's like his superiority to beat +poor Milt even at adventuring--and to be such a confounded Modest +Christian Gentleman about it!" + +"You'd--you're so dreadfully managing," she sighed aloud. + +For the first time in all their acquaintanceship, Jeff's pride broke, +and he held her away from him, while his lips were pathetic, and he +mourned, "Why do you always try to hurt me?" + +"Oh, my dear, I don't." + +"Is it because you resent the decent things I have managed to do?" + +"I don't understand." + +"If I have an idea for a party, you think I'm 'managing.' If I think +things out deeply, you say I'm dull." + +"Oh, you aren't. I didn't mean----" + +"What are you? A real woman, or one of these flirts, that love to tease +a man because he's foolish enough to be honestly in love?" + +"I'm not--hon-estly I'm not, Jeff. It's---- You don't quite make me---- +It's just that I'm not in love with you. I like you, and respect you +terribly, but----" + +"I'm going to make you love me." His clutching fingers hurt her arm, and +somehow she was not angry, but stirred. "But I'm not going to try now. +Forget the Alaskan caveman. Remember, I haven't even used the word +'love.' I've just chatted about fjords, or whatever they are, but one of +these days---- No. I won't do it. I want to stay here in Seattle a few +days, and take you on jolly picnics, but---- Would you rather I didn't +even do that? I'm----" He dropped her arm, kneaded his forehead with the +heel of his palm. "I can't stand being regarded as a bothersome puppy. I +can't stand it! I can't!" + +"Please stay, Jeff! We'll have some darling drives and things. We'll go +up Rainier as far as we can." + +He stayed. He was anecdotal and amusing at tea, that afternoon. Claire +saw how the Gilsons, and two girls who dropped in, admired him. That +made her uneasy. And when Mrs. Gilson begged him to leave his hotel and +stay with them, he refused with a quick look at Claire that hurt her. + +"He wants me to be free. He's really so much more considerate than Milt. +And I hurt him. Even his pride broke down. And I've spoiled Milt's life +by meddling. And I've hurt the Gilsons' feelings. And I'm not much of a +comfort to father. Oh, I'm absolutely no good," she agonized. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE VIRTUOUS PLOTTERS + + +Mr. Geoffrey Saxton, in Alaskan tan and New York evening clothes and +Piccadilly poise, was talking to the Eugene Gilsons while Claire +finished dressing for the theater. + +Mrs. Gilson observed, "She's the dearest thing. We've become awfully +fond of her. But I don't think she knows what she wants to do with life. +She's rather at loose ends. Who is this Daggett boy--some university +student--whom she seems to like?" + +"Well, since you speak of him---- I hadn't meant to, unless you did. I +want to be fair to him. What did she tell you about him?" Jeff asked +confidentially. + +"Nothing, except that he's a young engineer, and frightfully brave and +all those uncomfortable virtues, and she met him in Yellowstone Park or +somewhere, and he saved her from a bear--or was it a tramp?--from +something unnecessary, at any rate." + +"Eva, I don't want to be supercilious, but the truth is that this young +Daggett is a rather dreadful person. He's been here at the house, hasn't +he? How did he strike you?" + +"Not at all. He's silent, and as dull as lukewarm tea, but perfectly +inoffensive." + +"Then he's cleverer than I thought! Daggett is anything but dull and +inoffensive, and if he can play that estimable rôle----! It seems that +he is the son of some common workman in the Middlewest; he isn't an +engineer at all; he's really a chauffeur or a taxi-driver or something; +and he ran into Claire and Henry B. on the road, and somehow insinuated +himself into their graces--far from being silent and commonplace, he +appears to have some strange kind of charm which," Jeff sighed, "I don't +understand at all. I simply don't understand it! + +"I met him in Montana with the most gorgeously atrocious person I've +ever encountered--one Pinky Westlake, or some such a name--positively, a +crook! He tried to get Boltwood and myself interested in the commonest +kind of a mining swindle--hinted that we were to join him in cheating +the public. And this Daggett was his partner--they actually traveled +together. But I do want to be just. I'm not _sure_ that Daggett was +aware of his partner's dishonesty. That isn't what worries me about the +lad. It's his utter impossibility. He's as crude as iron-ore. When he's +being careful, he may manage to be inconspicuous, but give him the +chance---- + +"Really, I'm not exaggerating when I say that at thirty-five he'll be +dining in his shirt-sleeves, and sitting down to read the paper with his +shoes off and feet up on the table. But Claire--you know what a dear +Quixotic soul she is--she fancies that because this fellow repaired a +puncture or something of the sort for her on the road, she's indebted +to him, and the worse he is, the more she feels that she must help him. +And affairs of that kind---- Oh, it's quite too horrible, but there have +been cases, you know, where girls as splendid and fine and well-bred as +Claire herself have been trapped into low marriages by their loyalty to +cadging adventurers!" + +"Oh!" groaned Mrs. Gilson; and "Good Lord!" lamented Mr. Gilson, +delighted by the possibility of tragedy; and "Really, I'm not +exaggerating," said Jeff enthusiastically. + +"What are we going to do?" demanded Mrs. Gilson; while Mr. Gilson, being +of a ready and inventive mind, exclaimed, "By Jove, you ought to kidnap +her and marry her yourself, Jeff!" + +"I'd like to. But I'm too old." + +They beautifully assured him that he was a blithe young thing with milk +teeth; and with a certain satisfaction Jeff suggested, "I tell you what +we might do. Of course it's an ancient stunt, but it's good. I judge +that Daggett hasn't been here at the house much. Why not have him here +so often that Claire will awaken to his crudity, and get sick of him?" + +"We'll do it," thrilled Mrs. Gilson. "We'll have him for everything from +nine-course dinners with Grandmother Eaton's napkins on view, to milk +and cold ham out of the ice-box. When Claire doesn't invite him, I +will!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE KITCHEN INTIMATE + + +Milt had become used to the Gilson drawing-room. He was no longer +uncomfortable in the presence of its sleek fatness, though at first (not +knowing that there were such resources as interior decorators), he had +been convinced that, to have created the room, the Gilsons must have +known everything in the world. Now he glanced familiarly at its white +paneling, its sconces like silver candlesticks, the inevitable davenport +inevitably backed by an amethyst-shaded piano lamp and a table crowded +with silver boxes and picture-frames. He liked the winsomeness of light +upon velvet and polished wood. + +It was not the drawing-room but the kitchen that dismayed him. + +In Schoenstrom he had known that there must somewhere be beautiful +"parlors," but he had trusted in his experience of kitchens. Kitchens, +according to his philosophy, were small smelly rooms of bare floors, and +provided with one oilcloth-covered table, one stove (the front draft +always broken and propped up with the lid-lifter), one cupboard with +panes of tin pierced in rosettes, and one stack of dirty dishes. + +But the Gilson kitchen had the efficiency of a laboratory and the +superciliousness of a hair-dresser's booth. With awe Milt beheld walls +of white tiles, a cork floor, a gas-range large as a hotel-stove, a +ceiling-high refrigerator of enamel and nickel, zinc-topped tables, and +a case of utensils like a surgeon's knives. It frightened him; it made +more hopelessly unapproachable than ever the Alexandrian luxury of the +great Gilsons.... The Vanderbilts' kitchen must be like this. And maybe +King George's. + +He was viewing the kitchen upon the occasion of an intimate Sunday +evening supper to which he had been yearningly invited by Mrs. Gilson. +The maids were all out. The Gilsons and Claire, Milt and Jeff Saxton, +shoutingly prepared their own supper. While Mrs. Gilson scrambled eggs +and made coffee, the others set the table, and brought cold ham and a +bowl of salad from the ice-box. + +Milt had intended to be a silent but deft servitor. When he had heard +that he was to come to supper with the returned Mr. Geoffrey Saxton, he +had first been panic-shaken, then resolved. He'd "let old iron-face +Saxton do the high and mighty. Let him stand around and show off his +clothes and adjectives, way he did at Flathead Lake." But he, Milt, +would be "on the job." He'd help get supper, and calmly ignore Jeff's +rudeness. + +Only--Jeff wasn't rude. He greeted Milt with, "Ah, Daggett! This is _so_ +nice!" And Milt had no chance to help. It was Jeff who anticipated him +and with a pleasant, "Let me get that--I'm kitchen-broke," snatched up +the cold ham and salad. It was Jeff who found the supper plates, while +Milt was blunderingly wondering how any one family could use a "whole +furniture-store-full of different kinds of china." It was Jeff who +sprang to help Claire wheel in the tea-wagon, and so captured the chance +to speak to her for which Milt had been maneuvering these five minutes. + +When they were settled, Jeff glowed at him, and respectfully offered, "I +thought of you so often, Daggett, on a recent little jaunt of mine. +You'd have been helpful." + +"Where was that?" asked Milt suspiciously (wondering, and waiting to +see, whether you could take cold ham in your fingers). + +"Oh, in Alaska." + +"In--Alaska?" Milt was dismayed. + +"Yes, just a business trip there. There's something I wish you'd advise +me about." + +He was humble. And Milt was uneasy. He grumbled, "What's that?" + +"I've been wondering whether it would be possible to use wireless +telephony in Alaska. But I'm such a dub at electricity. Do you know---- +What would be the cost of installing a wireless telephone plant with a +hundred-mile radius?" + +"Gee, I don't know!" + +"Oh, so sorry. Well, I wonder if you can tell me about wireless +telegraphy, then?" + +"No, I don't know anything about that either." + +Milt had desperately tried to make his answer gracious but somehow---- +He hated this devil's obsequiousness more than he had his chilliness at +Flathead Lake. He had a feeling that the Gilsons had delightedly kicked +each other under the table; that, for all her unchanging smile, Claire +was unhappy.... And she was so far off, a white wraith floating beyond +his frantic grasp. + +"It doesn't matter, really. But I didn't know---- So you've started in +the engineering school at the University of Washington," Saxton was +purring. "Have you met Gid Childers there--son of old Senator +Childers--charming people." + +"I've seen him. He has a Stutz--no, his is the Mercer," sighed Milt. + +He hated himself for it, but he couldn't quite keep the awe out of his +voice. People with Mercers---- + +Claire seemed to be trying to speak. She made a delicate, feminine, +clairesque approximation to clearing her throat. But Jeff ignored her +and with almost osculatory affection continued to Milt: + +"Do let me know if there's anything I can do to help you. We're +acquainted with two or three of your engineering faculty at the Office. +They write in about various things. Do you happen to know Dr. +Philgren?" + +"Oh yes. Say! He's a wonder!" Milt was betrayed into exclaiming. + +"Yes. Good chap, I believe. He's been trying to get a job with us. We +may give him one. Just tell him you're a friend of mine, and that he's +to give you any help he can." + +Milt choked on a "Thanks." + +"And--now that we're just the family here together--how goes the +financial side? Can I be of any assistance in introducing you to some +engineering firm where you could do a little work on the side? You could +make quite a little money----" + +So confoundedly affectionate and paternal---- + +Milt said irritably, "Thanks, but I don't need to do any work. I've got +plenty of money." + +"How pleasant!" Saxton's voice was smooth as marshmallow. "You're +fortunate. I had quite a struggle to get through Princeton." + +Wasn't Mr. Gilson contrasting Saxton's silk shirt with Milt's darned +cotton covering, and in light of that contrast chuckling at Milt's boast +and Saxton's modesty? Milt became overheated. His scalp prickled and his +shoulder-blades were damp. As Saxton turned from him, and crooned to +Claire, "More ham, honey?" Milt hated himself. He was in much of the +dramatic but undesirable position of a man in pajamas, not very good +pajamas, who has been locked out in the hotel corridor by the slamming +of his door. He was in the frame of mind of a mongrel, of a real +Boys'-Dog, at a Madison Square dog-show. He had a faint shrewd suspicion +of Saxton's game. But what could he do about it? + +He felt even more out of place when the family forgot him and talked +about people of whom he had never heard. + +He sat alone on an extremely distant desert isle and ate cold ham and +wished he were in Schoenstrom. + +Claire had recovered her power of speech. She seemed to be trying to +bring him into the conversation, so that the family might appreciate +him. + +She hesitated, and thought with creased brows, and brought out, "Uh, uh, +oh---- Oh Milt: How much is gas selling at now?"... + + * * * * * + +Milt left that charming and intimate supper-party at nine. He said, "Got +to work on--on my analytical geometry," as though it was a lie; and he +threw "Good night" at Saxton as though he hated his kind, good +benefactor; and when he tried to be gracious to Mrs. Gilson the best he +could get out was, "Thanks f' inviting me." They expansively saw him to +the door. Just as he thought that he had escaped, Saxton begged, "Oh, +Daggett, I was arguing with a chap---- What color are Holstein-Friesian +cattle? Red?" + +"Black and white," Milt said eagerly. + +He heard Mrs. Gilson giggle. + +He stood on the terrace wiping his forehead and, without the least +struggle, finally and irretrievably admitting that he would never see +Claire Boltwood or any of her friends again. Not--never! + + * * * * * + +He had received from Mrs. Gilson a note inviting him to share their box +at the first night of a three-night Opera Season. He had spent half a +day in trying to think of a courteously rude way of declining. + +A straggly little girl came up from the candy-shop below his room, +demanding, "Say, are you Mr. Daggett? Say, there's some woman wants to +talk to you on our telephone. Say, tell them we ain't supposed to be no +messenger-office. You ain't supposed to call no upstairs people on our +telephone. We ain't supposed to leave the store and go trotting all over +town to---- Gee, a nickel, gee, thank you, don't mind what ma says, +she's always kicking." + +On the telephone, he heard Claire's voice in an agitated, "Milt! Meet me +down-town, at the Imperial Motion Picture Theater, right away. Something +I've got to tell you. I'll be in the lobby. Hurry!" + +When he bolted in she was already in the lobby, agitatedly looking over +a frame of "stills." She ran to him, hooked her fingers in his lapel, +poured out, "They've invited you to the opera? I want you to come and +put it all over them. I'm almost sure there's a plot. They want to show +me that you aren't used to tiaras and saxophones and creaking dowagers +and tulle. Beat 'em! Beat 'em! Come to the opera and be awf'ly aloof and +supercilious. You can! Yes, you can! And be sure--wear evening clothes. +Now I've got to hurry." + +"B-but----" + +"Don't disappoint me. I depend on you. Oh, say you will!" + +"I will!" + +She was gone, whisking into the Gilson limousine. He was in a glow at +her loyalty, in a tremor of anger at the meddlers. + +But he had never worn evening clothes. + +He called it "a dress-suit," and before the complications of that exotic +garb, he was flabby with anxiety. To Milt and to Schoenstrom--to Bill +McGolwey, even to Prof Jones and the greasily prosperous Heinie +Rauskukle--the dress-suit was the symbol and proof, the indication and +manner, of sophisticated wealth. In Schoenstrom even waiters do not wear +dress-suits. For one thing there aren't any waiters. There is one +waitress at the Leipzig House, Miss Annie Schweigenblat, but you +wouldn't expect Miss Schweigenblat to deal them off the arm in black +trousers with braid down the side. + +No; a dress-suit was what the hero wore in the movies; and the hero in +the movies, when he wasn't a cowpuncher, was an ex-captain of the Yale +football team, and had chambers and a valet. You could tell him from the +valet because he wasn't so bald. It is true that Milt had heard that in +St. Cloud there were people who wore dress-suits at parties, but then +St. Cloud was a city, fifteen or sixteen thousand. + +"How could he get away with a dress-suit? How could he keep from feeling +foolish in a low-cut vest, and what the deuce would he do with the +tails? Did you part 'em or roll 'em up, when you sat down? And wouldn't +everybody be able to tell from his foolish look that he didn't belong in +one?" He could hear A.D.T. boys and loafers in front of pool rooms +whispering, "Look at the piker in the rented soup and fish!" + +For of course he'd rent one. Nobody bought them--except plutes like +Henry B. Boltwood. + +He agitatedly walked up and down for an hour, peering into haberdashery +windows, looking for a kind-faced young man. He found him, in Ye Pall +Mall Toggery Shoppe & Shoes; an open-faced young man who was gazing +through the window as sparklingly as though he was thinking of going as +a missionary to India--and liked curry. Milt ironed out his worried +face, clumped in, demanded fraternally, "Say, old man, don't some of +these gents' furnishings stores have kind of little charts that tell +just what you wear with dress-suits and Prince Alberts and everything?" + +"You bet," said the kind-faced young man. + +West of Chicago, "You bet" means "Rather," and "Yes indeed," and "On the +whole I should be inclined to fancy that there may be some vestiges of +accuracy in your curious opinion," and "You're a liar but I can't afford +to say so." + +The kind-faced young man brought from behind the counter a beautiful +brochure illustrated with photographs of Phoebus Apollo in what were +described as "American Beauty Garments--neat, natty, nobby, new." The +center pages faithfully catalogued the ties, shirts, cuff-links, spats, +boots, hats, to wear with evening clothes, morning clothes, riding +clothes, tennis costumes, polite mourning. + +As he looked it over Milt felt that his wardrobe already contained all +these gentlemanly possessions. + +With the aid of the clerk and the chart he purchased a tradition-haunted +garment with a plate-armor bosom and an opening as crooked as the +Missouri River; a white tie which in his strong red hands looked as +silly as a dead fish; waistcoat, pearl links, and studs. For the first +time, except for seizures of madness during two or three visits to +Minneapolis motor accessory stores, he caught the shopping-fever. The +long shining counter, the trim red-stained shelves, the glittering +cases, the racks of flaunting ties, were beautiful to him and +beckoning. He revolved a pleasantly clicking rack of ties, then turned +and fought his way out. + +He bought pumps--which cost exactly twice as much as the largest sum +which he had allowed himself. He bought a newspaper, and in the +want-columns found the advertisement: + + Silberfarb the Society Tailor + DRESS SUITS TO RENT + Snappiest in the City + +Despite the superlative snappiness of Mr. Silberfarb's dress-suits his +establishment was a loft over a delicatessen, approached by a splintery +stairway along which hung shabby signs announcing the upstairs offices +of "J. L. & T. J. O'Regan, Private Detectives," "The Zenith Spiritualist +Church, Messages by Rev. Lulu Paughouse," "The International Order of +Live Ones, Seattle Wigwam," and "Mme. Lavourie, Sulphur Baths." The dead +air of the hallway suggested petty crookedness. Milt felt that he ought +to fight somebody but, there being no one to fight, he banged along the +flapping boards of the second-floor hallway to the ground-glass door of +Silberfarb the Society Tailor, who was also, as an afterthought on a +straggly placard, "Pressng & Cleang While U Wait." + +He belligerently shouldered into a low room. The light from the one +window was almost obscured by racks of musty-smelling black clothes +which stretched away from him in two dismal aisles that resembled a +morgue of unhappy dead men indecently hung up on hooks. On a long, +clumsily carpentered table, a small Jew, collarless, sweaty, unshaven, +was darning trousers under an evil mantle gaslight. The Jew wrung out +his hands and tried to look benevolent. + +"Want to rent a dress-suit," said Milt. + +"I got just the t'ing for you!" + +The little man unfolded himself, galloped down the aisle, seized the +first garment that came to hand, and came back to lay it against Milt's +uncomfortable frame, bumbling, "Fine, mister, fy-en!" + +Milt studied the shiny-seamed, worn-buttonholed, limp object with +dislike. Its personality was disintegrated. The only thing he liked +about it was the good garage stink of gasoline. + +"That's almost worn out," he growled. + +At this sacrilege Mr. Silberfarb threw up his hands, with the dingy suit +flapping in them like a bed-quilt shaken from a tenement window. He +looked Milt all over, coldly. His red but shining eyes hinted that Milt +was a clodhopper and no honest wearer of evening clothes. Milt felt +humble, but he snapped, "No good. Want something with class." + +"Vell, that was good enough for a university professor at the big dance, +but if you say so----" + +In the manner of one who is being put to an unfair amount of trouble, +Mr. Silberfarb returned the paranoiac dress-suit to the rack, sighing +patiently as he laboriously draped it on a hanger. He peered and pawed. +He crowed with throaty triumph and brought back a rich ripe thing of +velvet collar and cuffs. He fixed Milt with eyes that had become as +sulky as the eyes of a dog in August dust. + +"Now that--you can't beat that, if you vant class, and it'll fit you +like a glove. Oh, that's an ellllegant garment!" + +Shaking himself out of the spell of those contemptuous eyes Milt opened +his brochure, studied the chart, and in a footnote found, "Never wear +velvet collars or cuffs with evening coat." + +"Nope. Nix on the velvet," he remarked. + +Then the little man went mad and ran around in circles. He flung the +ellllegant garment on the table. He flapped his arms, and wailed, "What +do you vant? What do you vannnnt? That's a hundred-and-fifty-dollar +dress-suit! That belonged to one of the richest men in the city. He sold +it to me because he was going to Japan." + +"Well, you can send it to Japan after him. I want something decent. Have +you got it--or shall I go some place else?" + +The tailor instantly became affectionate. "How about a nice Tuxedo?" he +coaxed. + +"Nope. It says here--let me see--oh yes, here it is--it says here in the +book that for the theater-with-ladies, should not wear 'dinner-coat or +so-called Tuxedo, but----'" + +"Oh, dem fellows what writes books they don't know nothing. Absolute! +They make it up." + +"Huh! Well, I guess I'll take my chance on them. The factory knows the +ignition better 'n any repair-man." + +"Vell say, you're a hard fellow to please. I'll give you one of my +reserve stock, but you got to leave me ten dollars deposit instead of +five." + +Mr. Silberfarb quite cheerfully unlocked a glass case behind the racked +and ghostly dead; he brought out a suit that seemed to Milt almost +decent. And it almost fitted when, after changing clothes in a broiling, +boiling, reeking, gasoline-pulsing hole behind the racks, he examined it +before a pier-glass. But he caught the tailor assisting the fit by +bunching up a roll of cloth at the shoulder. Again Milt snapped, and +again the tailor suffered and died, and to a doubting heathen world +maintained the true gospel of "What do you vannnnt? It ain't stylish to +have the dress-suit too tight! All the gents is wearing 'em loose and +graceful." But in the end, after Milt had gone as far as the door, Mr. +Silberfarb admitted that one dress-coat wouldn't always fit all persons +without some alterations. + +The coat did bag a little, and it was too long in the sleeves, but as +Milt studied himself in his room--by placing his small melancholy mirror +on the bureau, then on a chair, then on the floor, finally, to get a +complete view, clear out in the hall--he admitted with stirring delight +that he looked "pretty fair in the bloomin' outfit." His clear face, his +shining hair, his straight shoulders, seemed to go with the costume. + +He wriggled into his top-coat and marched out of his room, +theater-bound, with the well-fed satisfaction of a man who is certain +that no one is giggling, "Look at the hand-me-downs." His pumps did +alternately pinch his toes and rub his heels; the trousers cramped his +waist; and he suspected that his tie had gone wandering. But he +swaggered to the trolley, and sat as one rich and famous and very kind +to the Common People, till---- + +Another man in evening clothes got on the car, and Milt saw that he wore +a silk hat, and a white knitted scarf; that he took out and examined a +pair of white kid gloves. + +He'd forgotten the hat! He was wearing his gray felt. He could risk the +gloves, but the hat--the "stovepipe"--and the chart had said to wear +one--he was ruined---- + +He turned up the collar of his top-coat to conceal his white tie, tried +to hide each of his feet behind the other to cover up his pumps; sought +to change his expression from that of a superior person in evening +clothes to that of a decent fellow in honest Regular Clothes. Had the +conductor or any of the passengers realized that he was a dub in a +dress-suit without the hat? + +Once he thought that the real person in real evening clothes was looking +at him. He turned his head and bore the probable insult in weak misery. + +Too feeble for anything but thick suffering he was dragged on toward the +theater, the opera, people in silk hats--toward Jeff Saxton and +exposure. + +But his success in bullying the tailor had taught him that dressing +wasn't really a hidden lore to be known only by initiates; that some day +he too might understand the black and white magic of clothes. His +bruised self-consciousness healed. "I'll do--something," he determined. +He waited, vacuously. + +The Gilson party was not in the lobby when he arrived. He tore off his +top-coat. He draped it over his felt hat, so that no one could be sure +what sort of hat it shamefully concealed. That unveiling did expose him +to the stare of everybody waiting in the lobby. He was convinced that +the entire ticket-buying cue was glumly resenting him. Peeping down at +the unusual white glare of his shirt-front, he felt naked and +indecent.... "Nice kind o' vest. Must make 'em out of old piqué +collars." + +He endured his martyrdom till his party arrived--the Gilsons, Claire, +Jeff Saxton, and a glittering young woman whose name, Milt thought, was +Mrs. Corey. + +And Saxton wasn't wearing a high hat! He wore a soft one, and he didn't +seem to care! + +Milt straightened up, followed them through the manifold dangers of the +lobby, down a perilous aisle of uptilted scornful faces, to a red narrow +corridor, winding stairs, a secret passage, a mysterious dark +closet--and he walked out into a room with one side missing, and, on +that side, ten trillion people in a well, and nine trillion of them +staring at him and noticing that he'd rented his dress-suit. Hot about +the neck, he stumbled over one or two chairs, and was permitted to rest +in a foolish little gilt chair in the farthest corner. + +Once safe, he felt much better. Except that Jeff did put on white kid +gloves, Milt couldn't see that they two looked so different. And neither +of the two men in the next box wore gloves. Milt made sure of that +comfort; he reveled in it; he looked at Claire, and in her loyal smile +found ease. + +He snarled, "She trusts you. Forget you're a dub. Try to be human. Hang +it, I'm no greener at the opera than old horsehair sofa there would be +at a garage." + +There was something---- What was it he was trying to remember? Oh yes. +When he'd worked in the Schoenstrom flour-mill, as engineer, at +eighteen, the owner had tried to torment him (to "get his goat," Milt +put it), and Milt had found that the one thing that would save him was +to smile as though he knew more than he was telling. It did not, he +remembered, make any difference whether or not the smile was real. If he +merely looked the miller up and down, and smiled cynically, he was let +alone. + +Why not---- + +Saxton was bending toward him, asking in honeyed respectfulness: + +"Don't you think that the new school in music--audible pointillage, one +might call it--mistakes cacophony for power?" + +Milt smiled, paternally. + +Saxton waited for something more. He dug the nail of his right middle +finger into his thumb, looked thoughtful, and attacked again: + +"Which do you like better: the new Italian music, or the orthodox +German?" + +Milt smiled like two uncles watching a clever baby, and patronized +Saxton with, "They both have their points." + +He saw that Claire was angry; but that the Gilsons and Mrs. Corey, +flap-eared, gape-mouthed, forward-bending, were very proud of their +little Jeff. He saw that, except for their clothes and self-conscious +coiffures, they were exactly like a gang of cracker-box loafers at +Heinie Rauskukle's badgering a new boy in town. + +Saxton looked bad-tempered. Then Mrs. Corey bustled with her face and +yearned at Milt, "Do tell me: what is the theme of the opera tonight. +I've rather forgotten." + +Milt ceased to smile. While all of them regarded him with interest he +said clearly, "I haven't got the slightest idea. I don't know anything +about music. Some day I hope I can get a clever woman like you to help +me, Mrs. Corey. It must be great to know all about all these arts, the +way you do. I wish you'd explain that--overture they call it, don't +they?" + +For some reason, Mr. Gilson was snickering, Mrs. Corey flushing, Claire +looking well pleased. Milt had tried to be insulting, but had got lost +in the intricacies of the insult. He felt that he'd better leave it in +its apparently safe state, and he leaned back, and smiled again, as +though he was waiting. Mrs. Corey did not explain the overture. She +hastily explained her second maid, to Mrs. Gilson. + +The opera was _Il Amore dei Tre Re_. Milt was bewildered. To him, who +had never seen an opera, the convention that a girl cannot hear a man +who is bellowing ten feet away from her, was absurd; and he wished that +the singers would do something besides making their arms swim. + +He discovered that by moving his chair forward, he could get within a +foot of Claire. His hand slipped across, touched hers. She darted a +startled backward glance. Her fingers closed tight about his, then +restlessly snuggled inside his palm--and Milt was lost in enchantment. + +Stately kings of blood-red cloaks and chrysoberyls malevolent in crowns +of ancient and massy gold--the quick dismaying roll of drums and the +shadow of passing banners below a tower--a woman tall and misty-veiled +and pale with dreams--a world of spirit where the soul had power over +unseen dominions--this he saw and heard and tasted in the music. What +the actual plot was, or the technique of the singing, he did not know, +but it bore him beyond all reality save the sweet, sure happiness of +Claire's nestling hand. + +He held her fingers so firmly that he could feel the pulse beat in them. + + * * * * * + +In the clamminess of his room, when the enchantment was gone, he said +gravely: + +"How much longer can I keep this up? Sooner or later I bust loose and +smash little Jeff one in the snoot, and he takes the count, and I'm +never allowed to see Claire again. Turn the roughneck out on his ear. I +s'pose I'm vulgar. I s'pose that fellow Michael in _Youth's Encounter_ +wouldn't talk about snoots. I don't care, I'll---- If I poke Saxton +one---- I'm not afraid of the kid-glove precinct any more. My brain's +as good as theirs, give it a chance. But oh, they're all against me. And +they bust the Athletic Union's wrestling rule that 'striking, kicking, +gouging, hair-pulling, butting, and strangling will not be allowed.' How +long can I go on being good-natured? When I do break loose----" + +Slowly, beneath the moral cuff of his dress-shirt, Milt's fist closed in +a brown, broad-knuckled lump, and came up in the gesture of a right to +the jaw. But it came up only a foot. The hand opened, climbed to Milt's +face, rubbed his temples, while he sighed: + +"Nope. Can't even do that. Bigger game now. Used to could--used to be +able to settle things with a punch. But I've got to be more--oh, more +diplomatic now. Oh Lord, how lonely I get for Bill McGolwey. No. That +isn't true. I couldn't stand Bill now. Claire took all that out of me. +Where am I, where am I? Why did I ever get a car that takes a 36 × 6?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE CORNFIELD ARISTOCRAT + + +It was an innocent little note from Jeff Saxton; a polite, humble little +note; it said that Jeff had a card to the Astoria Club, and wouldn't +Milt please have lunch with him? But Milt dropped it on the table, and +he walked round it as though it were a dictagraph which he'd discovered +in the table drawer after happy, happy, hidden hours at counterfeiting. + +It seemed more dangerous to refuse than to go. He browned the celebrated +new shoes; he pressed the distinguished new trousers, with a light and +quite unsatisfactory flatiron; he re-re-retied his best spotted blue +bow--it persisted in having the top flaps too short, but the retying +gave him spiritual strength--and he modestly clumped into the aloof +brick portal of the Astoria Club on time. + +He had never been in a club before. + +He looked at the red tiled floor of the entrance hall; he stared through +the hall into an immense lounge with the largest and softest chairs in +the world, with oil portraits of distinguished old bucks, and ninety per +cent. of the wealth and power of Seattle pulling its several mustaches, +reading the P.I., and ignoring the lone intruder out in the hall. + +A small Zulu in blue tights and brass buttons glared at Milt; and a +large, soft, suave, insulting young man demanded, "Yes, sir?" + +"Mr. G-g-geoffrey Saxton?" ventured Milt. + +"Not in, sir." The "sir" sounded like "And you know it." The flaming +guardian retired behind a narrow section of a bookkeeper's desk and +ignored him. + +"I'm to meet him for lunch," Milt forlornly persisted. + +The young man looked up, hurt and annoyed at finding that the person was +still to be dealt with. + +"If you will wait in there?" he groaned. + +Milt sat in there, which was a small blue tapestry room with hard chairs +intended to discourage bill-collectors. He turned his hat round and +round and round, till he saw Jeff Saxton, slim and straight and hard as +the stick hooked over his arm, sailing into the hall. He plunged out +after him, took refuge with him from the still unconvinced inspection of +the hall-man. For twenty seconds, he loved Jeff Saxton. + +And Jeff seemed to adore him in turn. He solicitously led Milt to the +hat-checking counter. He showed Milt the lounge and the billiard room, +through which Milt crept with erect shoulders and easy eyes and a heart +simply paralyzed with fear that one of these grizzled clubmen with +clipped mustaches would look at him. He coaxed Milt into a grill that +was a cross between the Chinese throne-room and a Viennese Weinstube, +and he implored his friend Milt to do him the favor of trying the "very +fair" English mutton chops and potatoes _au gratin_. + +"I did want to see you again before we go East, Daggett," he said +pleasantly. + +"Th-thanks. When do you go?" + +"I'm trying to get Miss Boltwood to start soon now. The season is +opening in the East. She does like your fine sturdy West, as I do, but +still, when we think of the exciting new shows opening, and the dances, +and the touch with the great world---- Oh, it does make one eager to get +back." + +"That's so," risked Milt. + +"We, uh---- Daggett---- In fact, I'm going to call you Milt, as Claire +does. You don't know what a pleasure it has been to have encountered +you. There's a fine keen courage about you Western chaps that makes a +cautious old fogy like me envious. I shall remember meeting you with a +great deal of pleasure." + +"Th-thanks. Been pleasure meet you." + +"And I know Claire will, too." + +Milt felt that he was being dealt with foully. He wanted to object to +Saxton's acting as agent for Claire as incompetent, irrelevant, +immaterial, and no foundation laid. But he could not see just where he +was being led, and with Saxton glowing at him as warmly and greasily as +the mutton chops, Milt could only smile wanly, and reflectively feel +the table leg to see if it was loose enough to jerk out in case of need. + +Saxton was being optimistic: + +"In fact, Claire and I both hope that some day when you've finished your +engineering course, we'll see you in the East. I wonder---- As I say, my +dear fellow, I've taken the greatest fancy to you, and I do hope you +won't think I'm too intimate if I say that I imagine that even in your +charming friendship with Miss Boltwood, you've probably never learned +what important people the Boltwoods are. I thought I'd tell you so that +you could realize the privilege both you and I have in knowing them. +Henry B. is--while not a man of any enormous wealth--regarded as one of +the keenest intellects in New York wholesale circles. But beyond that, +he is a scholar, and a man of the broadest interests. Of course the +Boltwoods are too modest to speak of it, but he was chiefly instrumental +in the establishment of the famous Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra. And his +ancestors clear through--his father was a federal judge, and his +mother's brother was a general in the Civil War, and afterwards an +ambassador. So you can guess something of the position Claire holds in +that fine, quiet, solid old Brooklyn set. Henry Ward Beecher himself was +complimented at being asked to dine with the Boltwoods of his day, +and----" + +No, the table leg wouldn't come loose, so it was only verbally that the +suddenly recovered Milt attacked: + +"Certainly is nice to have one of those old families. It's something +like---- As you say, you and I have gotten pretty well acquainted along +the line, so I guess I can say it to you---- My father and his folks +came from that same kind of family. Father's dad was a judge, back in +Maine, and in the war, grand-dad was quite friendly with Grant." + +This tribute of Milt to his grandsire was loyal but inaccurate. Judge +Daggett, who wasn't a judge at all, but a J. P., had seen General Grant +only once, and at the time the judge had been in company with all the +other privates in the Fourteenth Maine. + +"Dad was a pioneer. He was a doctor. He had to give up all this +easy-going stuff in order to help open up the West to civilization, but +I guess it was worth it. He used to do the hardest kind of operations, +on kitchen tables, with his driver giving the chloroform. I'm mighty +proud of him. As you say, it's kind of what you might call inspiring to +belong to the old Pilgrim aristocracy." + +Never before had Milt claimed relation to a group regarding which his +only knowledge was the information derived from the red school-history +to the effect that they all carried blunderbusses, put people in the +stocks for whistling, and frequently said, "Why don't you speak for +yourself, John?" But he had made his boast with a clear eye and a +pleasant, superior, calm smile. + +"Oh! Very interesting," grunted Saxton. + +"Would you like to see grandfather's daguerreotype?" + +"Oh, yes, yes, uh, thanks, that would be very interesting---- Do let me +see it, when---- Uh, as I was saying, Claire doubtless has a tremendous +social career before her. So many people expecting her to marry well. Of +course she has a rather unusual combination of charm and intelligence +and---- In fact I think we may both be glad that----" + +"Yes. That's right. And the best thing about her is the way she can +shake off all the social stuff and go camping and be a regular human +being," Milt caressed. + +"Um, uh, no doubt, no doubt, though---- Of course, though, that isn't an +inherent part of her. I fancy she's been rather tired by this long trip, +poor child. Of course she isn't very strong." + +"That's right. Real pluck. And of course she'll get stronger by hiking. +You've never seen her bucking a dangerous hill--I kind of feel that a +person who hasn't seen her in the wilds doesn't know her." + +"I don't want to be contradictory, old man, but I feel on the other hand +that no one who has failed to see her at the Junior League Dances, in a +Poiret frock, can know her! Come, come! Don't know how we drifted into +this chorus of praise of Claire! What I wanted to ask was your opinion +of the Pierce-Arrow. I'm thinking of buying one. Do you think that----" + +All the way home Milt exulted, "I put it all over him. I wasn't scared +by the 'Don't butt into the aristocracy, my young friend' stuff. I lied +handsome. But---- Darn it, now I'll have to live up to my New England +aristocracy.... Wonder if my grand-dad's dad was a hired man or a +wood-sawyer?... Ne' mine; I'm Daggett of Daggett from now on." He +bounded up to his room vaingloriously remarking, "I'm there with the +ancestors. I was brought up in the handsome city of Schoenstrom, which +was founded by a colony of Vermont Yankees, headed by Herman Skumautz. I +was never allowed to play with the Dutch kids, and----" He opened the +door. "--the Schoenstrom minister taught me Greek and was my bosom +frien'----" + +He stopped with his heart in his ankles. Lolling on the bed, grinning, +waving a cigarette, was Bill McGolwey, proprietor of the Old Home Lunch, +of Schoenstrom, Minnesota. + +"Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwhy where the heck did you come from?" +stammered the deposed aristocrat to his bosom friend Bill. + +"You old lemon-pie-faced, lollygagging, flap-footed, crab-nosed son of +misery, gee, but it's good to see you, Milt!" + +Bill was off the bed, wringing Milt's hand with simple joy, with perfect +faith that in finding his friend all the troubles of life were over. And +Milt was gloomily discovering the art of diplomacy. Bill was his friend, +yes, but---- + +It was hard enough to carry his own self. + +He pictured Jeff Saxton leering at the door, and while he pounded Bill's +shoulder, and called him the name which, west of Chicago, is the token +of hatred and of extreme gladness at meeting, he discovered that some +one had stolen his stomach and left a piece of ice in its place. + +They settled down on bed and chair, Bill's ears red with joy, while Milt +demanded: + +"How the deuce did you get here?" + +"Well, tell you, old hoss. Schoenstrom got so darn lonely after you +left, and when Ben and Heinie got your address and bought the garage, +think's I, lez go off on a little bum." + +Milt was realizing--and hating himself for realizing--that Bill's face +was dirty, his hair linty, the bottoms of his trousers frayed masses of +mud, while Bill chuckled: + +"I figured out maybe I could get a job here in a restaurant, and you and +me could room together. I sold out my good will in the Old Home Lunch +for a hundred bucks. I was going to travel swell, riding the cushions. +But Pete Swanson wanted me to go down to the Cities first, and we run +into some pretty swift travelers in Minneapolis, and a couple of +girls--saaaaaaay, kid, some class!" + +Bill winked, and Milt--Milt was rather sick. He knew Bill's conception +of class in young women. Was this the fellow he had liked so well? These +the ideas which a few months ago he had taken as natural and extremely +amusing? + +"And I got held up in an alley off Washington Avenue, and they got the +last twenty bones off'n me, and I was flatter 'n a pancake. So I says +'ish kabibble,' and I sneaks onto the blind baggage, and bums my way +West. You'd 'a' died laughing to seen me throwing my feet for grub. Oh, +I'm some panhandler! There was one _Frau_ sicked her dog onto me, and I +kicked him in the jaw and---- Oh, it was one swell hike." + +Milt was trying to ignore the voice that was raging, "And now he expects +to live on me, after throwing his own money away. The waster! The hobo! +He'll expect to meet Claire---- I'd kill him before I'd let him soil her +by looking at her. Him and his classy girls!" Milt tried to hear only +the other inner voice, which informed him, "He looks at you so +trustingly. He'd give you his shirt, if you needed it--and he wouldn't +make you ask for it!" + +Milt tried to be hearty: "What're you going to do, old kid?" + +"Well, the first thing I'm going to do is to borrow ten iron-men and a +pair of pants." + +"You bet! Here she is. Haven't got any extra pants. Tell you: Here's +another five, and you can get the pants at the store in the next block, +this side of the street. Hustle along now and get 'em!" He chuckled at +Bill; he patted his arm; he sought to hurry him out.... He had to be +alone, to think. + +But Bill kissed the fifteen dollars, carelessly rammed it into his +pocket, crawled back on the bed, yawned, "What's the rush? Gosh, I'm +sleepy. Say, Milt, whadyuh think of me and you starting a lunch-room +here together? You got enough money out of the garage----" + +"Oh no, noooo, gee, I'd like to, Bill, but you see, well, I've got to +hold onto what little I've got so I can get through engineering school." + +"Sure, but you could cash in on a restaurant--you could work evenings in +the dump, and there'd be a lot of city sports hanging around, and we'd +have the time of our lives." + +"No, I---- I study, evenings. And I---- The fact is, Bill, I've met a +lot of nice fellows at the university and I kind of go around with +them." + +"Aw, how d'you get that way? Rats, you don't want to go tagging after +them Willy-boys. Damn dirty snobs. And the girls are worse. I tell you, +Milt, these hoop-te-doodle society Janes may look all right to hicks +like us, but on the side they raise more hell than any milliner's +trimmer from Chi that ever vamped a rube burg." + +"What do you know about them?" + +"Now don't get sore. I'm telling you. I don't like to see any friend of +mine make a fool of himself hanging around with a bunch that despises +him because he ain't rich, that's all. Met any of the high-toned +skirts?" + +"Yes--I--_have_!" + +"Trot 'em up and lemme give 'em the once-over." + +"We--we'll see about it. Now I got to go to a mathematics recitation, +Bill. You make yourself comfortable, and I'll be back at five." + +Milt did not have to go to a recitation. He marched out with briskness +in his step, and a book under his arm; but when he reached the corner, +the briskness proved to be spurious, and the mathematics book proved to +be William Rose Benét's _Merchants of Cathay_, which Claire had given +him in the Yellowstone, and which he had rescued from the wrecked bug. + +He stood staring at it. He opened it with unhappy tenderness. He had +been snatched from the world of beautiful words and serene dignity, of +soaring mountains and companionship with Claire in the radiant morning, +back to the mud and dust of Schoenstrom, from the opera to "city sports" +in a lunch-room! He hated Bill McGolwey and his sneering assumption that +Milt belonged in the filth with him. And he hated himself for not being +enough of a genius to combine Bill McGolwey and Claire Boltwood. But not +once, in his maelstrom of worry on that street corner, did he expect +Claire to like Bill. Through all his youthful agonizing, he had enough +common sense to know that though Claire might conquer a mountain pass, +she could never be equal to the social demands of Schoenstrom and Bill +McGolwey. + +He wandered for an hour and came back to find that, in a "dry" city +which he had never seen before, the crafty Bill had obtained a quart of +Bourbon, and was in a state of unsteady beatitude. He wanted, he +announced, to dance. + +Milt got him into the community bathtub, and soused him under, but +Bill's wet body was slippery, and Bill's merry soul was all for +frolicsome gamboling, and he slid out of Milt's grasp, he sloshed around +in the tub, he sprinkled Milt's sacred good suit with soapy water, and +escaped, and in the costume of Adam he danced orientally in Milt's room, +till he was seized with sleepiness and cosmic grief, and retired to +Milt's bed in tears and nothing else. + +The room dimmed, grew dark. The street lamps outside sent a wan, wavery +gleam into the room. Evening crowds went by, and in a motion-picture +theater a banging piano struck up. Bill breathed in choking snorts. Milt +sat unmoving, feeling very old, very tired, too dumbly unhappy to be +frightened of the dreadful coming hour when Claire and Jeff should hear +of Bill, and discover Milt's real world. + +He was not so romantically loyal, not so inhumanly heroic, that it can +truthfully be reported that he never thought of getting rid of Bill. He +did think of it, again and again. But always he was touched by Bill's +unsuspecting trust, and shook his head, and sank again into the fog. + +What was the use of trying to go ahead? Wasn't he, after all, merely a +Bill McGolwey himself? + +If he was, he wouldn't inflict himself on Claire. + +For several minutes he gave up forever the zest of climbing. + +When Bill awoke, brightly solicitous about the rest of the quart of +Bourbon, and bouncingly ready to "go out and have a time," Milt loafed +about the streets with him, showing him the city. He dully cut his +classes, next morning, and took Bill to the wharves. + +It was late in the afternoon, when they were lounging in the room, and +Bill was admiring his new pants--he boasted of having bought them for +three dollars, and pointed out that Milt had been a "galoot" to spend +ten dollars for shoes--that some one knocked at the door. Sleepily +expectant of his landlady, Milt opened it on Miss Claire Boltwood, Mr. +and Mrs. Eugene Gilson, and Mr. Geoffrey Saxton. + +Saxton calmly looked past him, at Bill, smiled slightly, and +condescended, "I thought we ought to call on you, so we've dropped in to +beg for tea." + +Bill had stopped midway in scratching his head to gape at Claire. Claire +returned the look, stared at Bill's frowsy hair, his red wrists, his +wrinkled, grease-stained coat, his expression of impertinent stupidity. +Then she glanced questioningly at Milt, who choked: + +"Oh yes, yes, sure, glad see you, come in, get some tea, so glad see +you, come in----" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +TOOTH-MUG TEA + + +"My friend Mr. McGolwey--I knew him in Schoenstrom--come on to Seattle +for a while. Bill, these are some people I met along the road," Milt +grumbled. + +"Glad to meet 'em. Have a chair. Have two chairs! Say, Milt, y'ought to +have more chairs if you're going to have a bunch of swells coming to +call on you. Ha, ha, ha! Say, I guess I better pike out and give the +folks a chance to chin with you," Bill fondly offered. + +"Oh, sit down," Milt snapped at him. + +They all sat down, four on the bed; and Milt's inner ear heard a mute +snicker from the Gilsons and Saxton. He tried to talk. He couldn't. Bill +looked at him and, perceiving the dumbness, gallantly helped out: + +"So you met the kid on the road, eh? Good scout, Milt is. We always used +to say at Schoenstrom that he was the best darn hand at fixing a flivver +in seven townships." + +"So you knew Mr. Daggett at home? Now isn't that nice," said Mrs. +Gilson. + +"_Knew_ him? Saaaaay, Milt and I was brung up together. Why, him and I +have bummed around together, and worked on farms, summers, and fished +for bull-heads---- Ever catch a bull-head? Damnedest slipperiest fish +you ever saw, and got horns that sting the stuffin's out of you and---- +Say, I wonder if Milt's told you about the time we had at a barn-dance +once? There was a bunch of hicks there, and I says, 'Say, kid, lez +puncture their tires, and hide back of the manure pile, and watch the +fun when they come out.' I guess maybe I was kind of stewed a little, +tell the truth, but course Milt he don't drink much, hardly at all, nice +straight kid if I do say so----" + +"Bill!" Milt ordered. "We must have some tea. Here's six-bits. You run +down to the corner grocery and get some tea and a little cream. Oh, you +better buy three-four cups, too. Hustle now, son!" + +"Attaboy! Yours to command, ladies and gents, like the fellow says!" +Bill boomed delightedly. He winked at Jeff Saxton, airily spun his +broken hat on his dirty forefinger, and sauntered out. + +"Charming fellow. A real original," crooned Mrs. Gilson. + +"Did he know your friend Mr. Pinky?" asked Saxton. + +Before Milt could answer, Claire rose from the bed, inspected the +Gilsons and Jeff with cold dislike, and said quietly to Milt, "The poor +dear thing--he was dreadfully embarrassed. It's so good of you to be +nice to him. I believe in being loyal to your old friends." + +"Oh, so do I!" babbled Mrs. Gilson. "It's just too splendid. And _we_ +must do something for him. I'm going to invite Mr. Daggett and Mr.--Mr. +McGollups, was it?--to dinner this evening. I do want to hear him tell +about your boyhood. It must have been so interesting." + +"It was," mused Milt. "It was poor and miserable. We had to work +hard--we had to fight for whatever education we got--we had no one to +teach us courtesy." + +"Oh now, with your fine old doctor father? Surely he was an +inspiration?" Jeff didn't, this time, trouble to hide the sneer. + +"Yes. He was. He gave up the chance to be a rich loafer in order to save +farmers' babies for fees that he never got." + +"I'm sure he did. I wish I'd known him. We need to know men like that in +this pink-frosting playing at living we have in cities," Claire said +sweetly--not to Milt but to Jeff. + +Mrs. Gilson had ignored them, waiting with the patience of a cat at a +mouse-hole, and she went on, "But you haven't said you'd come, this +evening. Do say you will. I don't suppose Mr. McGollups will care to +dress for dinner?" + +With saccharin devotion Milt yearned back, "No, Mrs. Gilson. No. Mr. +McGolwey won't care to dress. He's eccentric." + +"But you'll make him come?" + +Milt was tactfully beginning to refuse when Gene Gilson at last +exploded, turned purple, covered his dripping, too-red lips with his +handkerchief. + +Then, abruptly, Milt hurled at Mrs. Gilson, "All right. We'll come. +Bill'll be awfully funny. He's never been out of a jerkwater burg in his +life, hardly. He's an amusing cuss. He thinks I'm smart! He loves me +like a dog. Oh, he's rich! Ha, ha, ha!" + +Milt might have gone on ... if he had, Mr. and Mrs. Gilson would have +gone away, much displeased. But Bill arrived, with some of the worst tea +in the world, and four cups tastefully done in cupids' heads and much +gilt. + +Milt made tea, ignoring them, while Bill entertained the Gilsons and +Saxtons with Rabelaisian stories of threshing-time when shirts prickly +with chaff and gritty with dust stuck to sweat-dripping backs; of the +"funny thing" of Milt and Bill being hired to move a garbage-pile and +"swiping" their employer's "mushmelons"; of knotting shirts at the +swimming-hole so that the bawling youngsters had to "chaw beef"; of +drinking beer in the livery-stable at Melrose; of dropping the +water-pitcher from a St. Klopstock hotel window upon the head of the +"constabule" and escaping from him across the lean-to roof. + +Mrs. Gilson encouraged him; Bill sat with almost closed eyes, glorying +in the saga of small-town life; Saxton and Gilson did not conceal their +contemptuous grins. + +But Claire---- After nervously rubbing the tips of her thumbs with +flickering agitated fingers, she had paid no attention to Bill and the +revelation of Milt's rustic life; she had quietly gone to Milt, to help +him prepare the scanty tea. + +She whispered, "Never mind, dear. I don't care. It was all twice as much +fun as being wheeled in lacy prams by cranky nurses, as Jeff and I were. +But I know how you feel. Are you ashamed of having been a prairie +pirate?" + +"No, I'm not! We were wild kids--we raised a lot of Cain--but I'm glad +we did." + +"So am I. I couldn't stand it if you were ashamed. Listen to me, and +remember little Claire's words of wisdom. These fools are trying--oh, +they're so obvious!--they're trying to make me feel that the prim Miss +Boltwood of Brooklyn Heights is a stranger to you. Well, they're +succeeding in making me a stranger--to them!" + +"Claire! Dear! You don't mind Bill?" + +"Yes. I do. And so do you. You've grown away from him." + +"I don't know but---- Today has been quite a test." + +"Yes. It has. Because if I can stand your friend Mr. McGolwey----" + +"Then you do care!" + +"Perhaps. And if I think that he's, oh, not much good, and I remember +that for a long time you just had him to play with, then I'm all the +more anxious to make it up to you." + +"Don't be sorry for me! I can't stand that! After all, it was a good +town, and good folks----" + +"No! No! I'm not sorry for you! I just mean, you couldn't have had so +terribly much fun, after you were eighteen or so. Schoenstrom must have +been a little dull, after very many years there. This stuff about the +charm of backwoods villages--the people that write it seem to take jolly +good care to stay in Long Island suburbs!" + +"Claire!" He was whispering desperately, "The tea's most done. Oh, my +dear. I'm crazy with this puttering around, trying to woo you and having +to woo the entire Gilson tribe. Let's run away!" + +"No; first I'm going to convince them that you are--what I know you +are." + +"But you can't." + +"Huh! You wait! I've thought of the most beautiful, beastly cruel plan +for the reduction of social obesity----" + +Then she was jauntily announcing, "Tea, my dears. Jeff, you get the +tooth-mug. Isn't this jolly!" + +"Yes. Oh yes. Very jolly!" Jeff was thoroughly patronizing, but she +didn't look offended. She made them drink the acid tea, and taste the +chalk-like bread and butter sandwiches. She coaxed Bill to go on with +his stories, and when the persistent Mrs. Gilson again asked the pariahs +to come to dinner, Claire astonished Milt, and still more astonished +Mrs. Gilson, by begging, "Oh yes, please do come, Milt." + +He consented, savagely. + +"But first," Claire added to Mrs. Gilson, "I want us to take the boys +to---- Oh, I have the bulliest idea. Come, everybody. We're going +riding." + +"Uh, where----?" hinted Mr. Gilson. + +"That's my secret. Come!" + +Claire pranced to the door, herded all of them down to the limousine, +whispered an address to the chauffeur. + +Milt didn't care much for that ride. Bill was somewhat too evidently not +accustomed to limousines. He wiped his shoes, caked with red mud, upon +the seat-cushions, and apologized perspiringly. He said, "Gee +whillikens, that's a dandy idee, telephone to bawl the shuffer out +with," and "Are them flowers real, the bokay in the vase?" + +But the Gilsons and Jeff Saxton were happy about it all--till the car +turned from a main thoroughfare upon a muddy street of shacks that clung +like goats to the sides of a high cut, a street unchanged from the +pioneer days of Seattle. + +"Good heavens, Claire, you aren't taking us to see Aunt Hatty, are you?" +wailed Mrs. Gilson. + +"Oh yes, indeed. I knew the boys would like to meet her." + +"No, really, I don't think----" + +"Eva, my soul, Jeff and you planned our tea party today, and assured me +I'd be so interested in Milt's bachelor apartment---- By the way, I'd +been up there already, so it wasn't entirely a surprise. It's my turn to +lead." She confided to Milt, "Dear old Aunt Hatty is related to all of +us. She's Gene's aunt, and my fourth cousin, and I think she's distantly +related to Jeff. She came West early, and had a hard time, but she's +real Brooklyn Heights--and she belongs to Gramercy Park and North +Washington Square and Rittenhouse Square and Back Bay, too, though she +has got out of touch a little. So I wanted you to meet her." + +Milt wondered what unperceived bag of cement had hardened the faces of +Saxton and the Gilsons. + +Silent save for polite observations of Claire upon tight skirts and +lumbering, the merry company reached the foot of a lurching flight of +steps that scrambled up a clay bank to a cottage like a hen that has set +too long. Milt noticed that Mrs. Gilson made efforts to remain in the +limousine when it stopped, and he caught Gilson's mutter to his wife, +"No, it's Claire's turn. Be a sport, Eva." + +Claire led them up the badly listed steps to an unpainted porch on which +sat a little old lady, very neat, very respectable, very interested, and +reflectively holding in one ivory hand a dainty handkerchief and a black +clay pipe. + +"Hello, Claire, my dear. You've broken the relatives' record--you've +called twice in less than a year," said the little old lady. + +"How do you do, Aunt Harriet," remarked Mrs. Gilson, with great lack of +warmth. + +"Hello, Eva. Sit down on the edge of the porch. Those chickens have made +it awful dirty, though, haven't they? Bring out some chairs. There's two +chairs that don't go down under you--often." Aunt Harriet was very +cheerful. + +The group lugubriously settled in a circle upon an assemblage of +wind-broken red velvet chairs and wooden stools. They resembled the +aftermath of a funeral on a damp day. + +Claire was the cheerful undertaker, Mrs. Gilson the grief-stricken +widow. + +Claire waved at Milt and conversed with Aunt Hatty in a high brisk +voice: "This is the nice boy I met on the road that I think I told you +about, Cousin Hatty." + +The little old lady screwed up the delicate skin about her eyes, +examined Milt, and cackled, "Boy, there's something wrong here. You +don't belong with my family. Why, you look like an American. You +haven't got an imitation monocle, and I bet you can't talk with a New +York-London accent. Why, Claire, I'm ashamed of you for bringing a human +being into the Boltwood-Gilson-Saxton tomb and expecting----" + +Then was the smile of Mrs. Gilson lost forever. It was simultaneously +torpedoed, mined, scuttled, and bombed. It went to the bottom without a +ripple, while Mrs. Gilson snapped, "Aunt Hatty, please don't be vulgar." + +"Me?" croaked the little old lady. She puffed at her pipe, and dropped +her elbows on her knees. "My, ain't it hard to please some folks." + +"Cousin Hatty, I want Milt to know about our families. I love the dear +old stories," Claire begged prettily. + +Mrs. Gilson snarled. "Claire, really----" + +"Oh, do shut up, Eva, and don't be so bossy!" yelped the dear little old +lady, in sudden and dismaying rage. "I'll talk if I want to. Have they +been bullying you, Claire? Or your boy? I tell you, boy, these families +are fierce. I was brought up in Brooklyn--went through all the +schools--used to be able to misplay the piano and mispronounce French +with the best of 'em. Then Gene's pa and I came West together--he had an +idea he'd get rich robbing the Injuns of their land. And we went broke. +I took in washing. I learned a lot. I learned a Gilson was just the +same common stuff as a red-shirt miner, when he was up against it. But +Gene's pa succeeded--there was something about practically stealing a +fur schooner--but I never was one to tattle on my kin. Anyway, by the +time Gene come along, his pa was rich, and that means aristocratic. + +"This aristocracy west of Pittsburgh is just twice as bad as the +snobbery in Boston or New York, because back there, the families have +had their wealth long enough--some of 'em got it by stealing real estate +in 1820, and some by selling Jamaica rum and niggers way back before the +Revolutionary War--they've been respectable so long that they know +mighty well and good that nobody except a Britisher is going to question +their blue blood--and oh my, what good blueing third-generation money +does make. But out here in God's Country, the marquises of milling and +the barons of beef are still uneasy. Even their pretty women, after +going to the best hair-dressers and patronizing the best charities, +sometimes get scared lest somebody think they haven't either brains or +breeding. + +"So they're nasty to all low pussons like you and me, to make sure we +understand how important they are. But lands, I know 'em, boy. I'm kept +pensioned up here, out of the way, but I read the social notes in the +papers and I chuckle---- When there's a big reception and I read about +Mrs. Vogeland's pearls, and her beautiful daughter-in-law, I remember +how she used to run a boarding-house for miners---- + +"Well, I guess it's just as shoddy in the East if you go far enough +back. Claire, you're a nice comforting body, and I hate to say it, but +the truth is, your great-grandfather was an hostler, and made his first +money betting on horses. Now, my, I oughtn't to tell that. Do you mind, +dearie?" + +"Not a bit. Isn't it delightful that this is such a democratic country, +with no castes," said Claire. + +At this, the first break in the little old lady's undammable flood, Mrs. +Gilson sprang up, yammering, "The rest of you may stay as long as you +like, but if I'm to be home in time to dress for dinner----" + +"Yes, and I must be going," babbled Saxton. + +Milt noted that his lower lip showed white tooth-marks. + +It must be admitted that all of them rather ignored the little old lady +for a moment. Milt was apologetically hinting, "I don't really think +Bill and I'd better come to dinner this evening, Mrs. Gilson. Thanks a +lot but---- It's kind of sudden." + +Claire again took charge. "Not at all, Milt. Of course you're coming. It +was Eva herself who invited you. I'm sure she'll be delighted." + +"Charmed," said Mrs. Gilson, with the expression of one who has +swallowed castor oil and doubts the unity of the universe. + +There was a lack of ease about the farewells to Aunt Harriet. As they +all turned away she beckoned Milt and murmured, "Did I raise the +dickens? I tried to. It's the only solace besides smoking that a moral +old lady can allow herself, after she gets to be eighty-two and begins +to doubt everything they used to teach her. Come and see me, boy. Now +get out, and, boy, beat up Gene Gilson. Don't be scared of his wife's +hoity-toity ways. Just sail in." + +"I will," said Milt. + +He had one more surprise before he reached the limousine. + +Bill McGolwey, who had sat listening to everything and scratching his +cheek in a puzzled way, seized Milt's sleeve and rumbled: + +"Good-by, old hoss. I'm not going to butt in on your game and get you in +Dutch. Gosh, I never supposed you had enough class to mingle with +elittys like this gang, but I know when I'm in wrong. You were too darn +decent to kick me out. Do it myself. You're best friend I ever had +and---- Good luck, old man! God bless you!" + +Bill was gone, running, stumbling, fleeing past Aunt Harriet's cottage, +off into a sandy hilltop vacancy. The last Milt saw of him was when, on +the skyline, Bill stopped for a glance back, and seemed to be digging +his knuckles into his eyes. + +Then Milt turned resolutely, marched down the stairs, said to his hosts +with a curious quietness, "Thank you for asking me to dinner, but I'm +afraid I can't come. Claire, will you walk a few blocks with me?" + +During the half minute it had taken to descend the steps, Milt had +reflected, with an intensity which forgot Bill, that he had been +selfish; that he had thought only of the opinion of these "nice people" +regarding himself, instead of understanding that it was his duty to save +Claire from their enervating niceness. Not that he phrased it quite in +this way. What he had been muttering was: + +"Rotten shame--me so scared of folks' clothes that I don't stand up to +'em and keep 'em from smothering Claire. Lord, it would be awful if she +settled down to being a Mrs. Jeff Saxton. Got to save her--not for +myself--for her." + +It may have been Aunt Harriet, it may have been Milt's resolution, but +Mrs. Gilson answered almost meekly, "Well, if you think---- Would you +like to walk, Claire?" + +As he tramped off with Claire, Milt demanded, "Glad to escape?" + +"Yes, and I'm glad you refused dinner. It really has been wearing, this +trial by food." + +"This is the last time I'll dare to meet the Gilsons." + +"And I'll have to be going back East. I hope the Gilsons will forgive +me, some day." + +"I'm afraid you didn't win them over by Aunt Hatty!" + +"No. They're probably off me for life. Oh, these horrible social +complications--worse than any real danger--fire or earthquake----" + +"Oh, these complications--they don't exist! We just make 'em, like we +make rules for a card game. What the deuce do we care about the opinions +of people we don't like? And who appointed these people to a fixed +social position? Did the president make Saxton High Cockalorum of +Dress-Suits or something? Why, these are just folks, the same as kings +and coal-heavers. There's no army we've got to fight. There's just you +and me--you and I--and if we stick together, then we have all society, +we _are_ all society!" + +"Ye-es, but, Milt dear, I don't want to be an outcast." + +"You won't be. In the long run, if you don't take these aristocrats +seriously, they'll be all the more impressed by you." + +"No. That sounds cheering, in stories and these optimistic editorials in +the magazines, but it isn't true. And you don't know how pleasant it is +to be In. I've always been more or less on the inside, and thought +outsiders dreadful. But---- Oh, I don't care! I don't care! With +you--I'm happy. That's all I know and all I want to know. I've just +grown up. I've just learned the greatest wisdom--to know when I'm +happy. But, Milt dear---- I say this because I love you. Yes, I do love +you. No, don't kiss me. Yes, it is too---- It's _far_ too public. And I +want to talk seriously. You can't have any idea how strong social +distinctions are. Don't despise them just because you don't know them." + +"No. I won't. I'll learn. Probably America will get into the war. I'll +be an engineering officer. I'll learn this social dope from the +college-boy officers. And I'll come to Brooklyn with shoulder-straps and +bells on and---- Will you be waiting?" + +"Oh--yes---- But, Milt! If the war comes, you must be very careful not +to get shot!" + +"All right, if, you insist. Good Lord, Claire. I don't know what put it +into my head but---- Do you realize that a miracle has happened? We're +no longer Miss Boltwood and a fellow named Daggett. We have been, even +when we've liked each other, up to today. Always there's been a kind of +fence between us. We had to explain and defend ourselves and scrap---- +But now we're _us_, and the rest of the world has disappeared, and----" + +"And nothing else matters," said Claire. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE BEGINNING OF A STORY + + +It was the farewell to Claire and Jeff Saxton, a picnic in the Cascades, +near Snoqualmie Falls--a decent and decidedly Milt-less fiesta. Mrs. +Gilson was going to show Claire that they were just as hardy adventurers +as that horrid Daggett person. So she didn't take the limousine, but +merely the seven-passenger Locomobile with the special body. + +They were ever so rough and wild. They had no maid. The chauffeur was +absolutely the only help to the Gilsons, Claire, Jeff, and the +temporarily and ejaculatorily nature-loving Mrs. Betz in the daring task +of setting out two folding camp-tables, covering them with a linen +cloth, and opening the picnic basket. Claire had to admit that she +wished that she could steal the picnic basket for Milt. There were +vacuum bottles of hot coffee. There were sandwiches of anchovy and _paté +de foie gras_. There were cream cakes with almonds hidden in the suave +cream, and there was a chicken salad with huge chunks of pure white meat +wallowing in a sea of mayonnaise. + +When the gorging was done and the cigarettes brought out (the chauffeur +passed a spirit lamp), they stretched on rubber blankets, and groaned a +little, and spoke well of nature and the delights of roughing it. + +"What is it? What's wrong? They're so--oh, so polite. They don't mean +what they say and they don't dare to say what they mean. Is that it?" +worried Claire. + +She started. She discovered that she was looking at a bristle of +rope-colored hair and a grin projected from the shelter of a manzanita +bush. + +"For the----" she gasped. She was too startled to be able to decide what +was for-the. She spoke judiciously to Jeff Saxton about Upper Montclair, +the subway, and tennis. She rose to examine the mountains, strolled +away, darted down a gully, and pounced on Milt Daggett with: + +"How in heaven's name----" + +"Found out where you-all were going. Look! Got a bug! Rented it. Come +on! Let's duck! Drive back with me!" At the end of the gully was a new +Teal bug, shinier than the ancient lost chariot, but equally gay and +uncomfortable. + +"Can't. Like to, but---- Be awfully rude to them. Won't do that--not +more than is good for their souls--even for you. Now don't be sulky." + +"I won't. Nev' be sulky again, because you're crazy about me, and I +don't have to be sulky." + +"Oh, I am, am I! Good heavens, the inconceivable conceit of the child!" + +She turned her back. He darted to her, caught her hands behind her, +kissed her hair, and whispered, "You are!" + +"I am not!" + +"Well then, you're not. Lord, you're sweet! Your hair smells like +cinnamon and clean kittens. You'd rather go bumping off in my flivver +than sailing in that big Loco they've got there." + +"Yes," defiantly, "I would, and I'm ashamed of myself. I'm a throw-back +to my horrid ancestor, the betting hostler." + +"Probably. I'm a throw-back to my ancestor the judge. I'll train you to +meet my fine friends." + +"Well--upon--my--word--I---- Oh, do stop being idiotic. We talk like +children. You reduce me to the rank of a gibbering schoolgirl. And I +like it! It's so--oh, I don't know--so darn human, I suppose. Now +hurry--kiss me, and get out, before they suspect." + +"Listen." + +"Yes?" + +"I'll accidentally meet your car along the road. Invite you to ride. All +right?" + +"Yes. Do. Oh, we _are_ two forlorn babes in the woods! G'-by." + +She sauntered back to the picnic, and observed, "What is that purple +flower up on the mountain side?" + +The big car was sedately purring back when it was insulted by an +intermediate host of a machine that came jumping out of a side road. The +vulgar driver hailed them with uncouth howling. The Gilsons' chauffeur +stopped, annoyed. + +"Why, hello folks," bawled the social bandit. + +"Oh. How do you do," refuted Mrs. Gilson. + +Jeff Saxton turned a ripe purple. + +"How do you like my new bug, Claire? Awful little object. But I can make +fifty an hour. Come and try it, Claire, can't you?" + +"Why----" Claire was obviously shocked by the impropriety of the +suggestion. She looked at Mrs. Gilson, who was breathing as though she +was just going under the ether. Claire said doubtfully, "Well---- If you +can get me right back to the house----" + +"Sure," agreed Milt. + +When the Loco was gone, Milt drove the bug to the side of the road, +yanked up the emergency brake, and carefully kissed the girl who was +snuggled down into the absurd low tin-sided seat. + +"Do we have to get back soon?" he begged. + +"Oh, I don't care if we never get back. Let's shoot up into the +mountains. Side road. Let's pretend we're driving across the continent +again." + +Firs dashing by--rocks in the sunshine--clouds jaunty beyond the +inviting mouth of a mountain pass--even the ruts and bumps and +culverts--she seemed a part of them all. In the Gilsons' huge cars she +had been shut off from the road, but in this tiny bug, so close to +earth, she recovered the feeling of struggle, of triumph over +difficulties, of freedom unbounded. And she could be herself, good or +bad, ignorant or wise, with this boy beside her. All of which she +expressed in the most eloquent speech she had ever uttered, namely: + +"Oh, _Milt_----!" + +And, to herself, "Golly, it's such a relief not to have to try to be +gracious and aphoristic and repartistic and everything with Jeff." + +And, "But I wonder if I am aphoristic and subtle? I wonder if when she +gets the rice-powder off, Claire isn't a lot more like Milt than she +thought?" + +And, aloud again, "Oh, this is----" + +"Yump. It sure is," Milt agreed. + +They had turned from a side-road into a side-side-road. They crossed an +upland valley. The fall rains had flooded a creek till it had cut across +the road, washed through the thin gravel, left across the road a shallow +violent stream. Milt stopped abruptly at its margin. + +"Here's where we turn back, I guess," he sighed. + +"Oh no! Can't we get across? It's only a couple of feet deep, and gravel +bottom," insisted the restored adventurer. + +"Yes, but look at the steep bank. Never get up it." + +"I don't care. Let's try it! We can woggle around and dig it out +somehow. I bet you two-bits we can," said the delicate young woman whom +Mrs. Gilson was protecting. + +"All right. In she goes!" + +The bug went in--shot over the bank, dipped down till the little hood +sloped below them as though they were looping the loop, struck the +rushing water with a splash which hurled yellow drops over Claire's rose +jersey suit, lumbered ahead, struck the farther bank, pawed at it +feebly, rose two inches, slipped back, and sat there with the gurgling +water all around it, turned into a motor-boat. + +"No can do," grunted Milt. "Scared?" + +"Nope. Love it! This is a real camp--the brush on the bank, and the +stream--listen to it chuckle under the running-board." + +"Do you like to camp with me?" + +"Love it." + +"Say! Gee! Never thought---- Claire! Got your transportation back East?" + +"My ticket? Yes. Why?" + +"Well, I'm sure you can turn it in and get a refund. So that's all +right." + +"Are you going to let me in on the secret?" + +"Oh yes, might's well. I was just wondering---- I don't think much of +wasting all our youth waiting---- Two-three years in engineering school, +and maybe going to war, and starting in on an engineering job, and me +lonely as a turkey in a chicken yard, and you doing the faithful young +lady in Brooklyn---- I think perhaps we might get married tomorrow +and----" + +"Good heavens, what do you----?" + +"Do you want to go back to Brooklyn Gilsonses?" + +"No, but----" + +"Dear, can't we be crazy once, while we're youngsters?" + +"Don't bombard me so! Let me think. One must be practical, even in +craziness." + +"I am. I have over a thousand dollars from the garage, and I can work +evenings--as dear Jeff suggested! We'd have a two-by-four flat---- +Claire----" + +"Oh, let me think. I suppose I could go to the university, too, and +learn a little about food and babies and building houses and government. +I need to go to school a lot more than you do. Besides auction and the +piano--which I play very badly--and clothes and how to get hold of +tickets for successful plays, I don't know one single thing." + +"Will you marry me, tomorrow?" + +"Well, uh----" + +"Think of Mrs. Gilson's face when she learns it! And Saxton, and that +Mrs. Betz!" + +It was to no spoken sentence but to her kiss that she added, "Providing +we ever get the car out of this river, that is!" + +"Oh, my dear, my dear, and all the romantic ways I was going to propose! +I had the best line about roses and stars and angels and everything----" + +"They always use those, but nobody ever proposed to me in a bug in a +flood before! Oh! Milt! Life is fun! I never knew it till you kidnapped +me. If you kiss me again like that, we'll both topple overboard. By the +way, _can_ we get the car out?" + +"I think so, if we put on the chains. We'll have to take off our shoes +and stockings." + +Shyly, turning from him a little, she stripped off her stockings and +pumps, while he changed from a flivver-driver into a young viking, with +bare white neck, pale hair ruffled about his head, trousers rolled up +above his straight knees--a young seaman of the crew of Eric the Red. + +They swung out on the running-board, now awash. With slight squeals they +dropped into the cold stream. Dripping, laughing, his clothes clinging +to him, he ducked down behind the car to get the jack under the back +axle, and with the water gurgling about her and splashing its +exhilarating coldness into her face, she stooped beside him to yank the +stiff new chains over the rear wheels. + +They climbed back into the car, joyously raffish as a pair of gipsies. +She wiped a dab of mud from her cheek, and remarked with an earnestness +and a naturalness which that Jeff Saxton who knew her so well would +never have recognized as hers: + +"Gee, I hope the old bird crawls out now." + +Milt let in the reverse, raced the engine, started backward with a burst +of muddy water churned up by the whirling wheels. They struck the bank, +sickeningly hung there for two seconds, began to crawl up, up, with a +feeling that at any second they would drop back again. + +Then, instantly, they were out on the shore and it was absurd to think +that they had ever been boating down there in the stream. They washed +each other's muddy faces, and laughed a great deal, and rubbed their +legs with their stockings, and resumed something of a dull and civilized +aspect and, singing sentimental ballads, turned back, found another +road, and started toward a peak. + +"I wonder what lies beyond the top of this climb?" said Claire. + +"More mountains, and more, and more, and we're going to keep on climbing +them forever. At dawn, we'll still be going on. And that's our life." + +"Ye-es, providing we can still buy gas." + +"Lord, that's so." + +"Speaking of which, did you know that I have a tiny bit of money--it's +about five thousand dollars--of my own?" + +"But---- That makes it impossible. Young tramp marrying lady of huge +wealth----" + +"No, you don't! I've accepted you. Do you think I'm going to lose the +one real playmate I've ever had? It was so lonely on the Boltwoods' +brown stoop till Milt came along and whistled impertinently and made the +solemn little girl in frills play marbles and---- Watch out for that +turn! Heavens, how I have to look after you! Is there a class in cooking +at your university? No--do--not--kiss--me--on--a--turn!" + +This is the beginning of the story of Milt and Claire Daggett. + +The prelude over and the curtain risen on the actual play, they face the +anxieties and glories of a changing world. Not without quarrels and +barren hours, not free from ignorance and the discomfort of finding that +between the mountain peaks they must for long gray periods dwell in the +dusty valleys, they yet start their drama with the distinction of being +able to laugh together, with the advantage of having discovered that +neither Schoenstrom nor Brooklyn Heights is quite all of life, with the +cosmic importance to the tedious world of believing in the romance that +makes youth unquenchable. + + +THE END. + + + + +B. M. BOWER'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +CHIP OF THE FLYING U. Wherein the love affairs of Chip and Delia Whitman +are charmingly and humorously told. + +THE HAPPY FAMILY. A lively and amusing story, dealing with the +adventures of eighteen jovial, big-hearted Montana cowboys. + +HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT. Describing a gay party of Easterners who exchange a +cottage at Newport for a Montana ranch-house. + +THE RANGE DWELLERS. Spirited action, a range feud between two families, +and a Romeo and Juliet courtship make this a bright, jolly story. + +THE LURE OF THE DIM TRAILS. A vivid portrayal of the experience of an +Eastern author among the cowboys. + +THE LONESOME TRAIL. A little branch of sage brush and the recollection +of a pair of large brown eyes upset "Weary" Davidson's plans. + +THE LONG SHADOW. A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free +outdoor life of a mountain ranch. It is a fine love story. + +GOOD INDIAN. A stirring romance of life on an Idaho ranch. + +FLYING U RANCH. Another delightful story about Chip and his pals. + +THE FLYING U'S LAST STAND. An amusing account of Chip and the other boys +opposing a party of school teachers. + +THE UPHILL CLIMB. A story of a mountain ranch and of a man's hard fight +on the uphill road to manliness. + +THE PHANTOM HERD. The title of a moving-picture staged in New Mexico by +the "Flying U" boys. + +THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX. The "Flying U" boys stage a fake bank robbery +for film purposes which precedes a real one for lust of gold. + +THE GRINGOS. A story of love and adventure on a ranch in California. + +STARR OF THE DESERT. A New Mexico ranch story of mystery and adventure. + +THE LOOKOUT MAN. A Northern California story full of action, excitement +and love. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers. + +Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern +Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes +the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and +onward. + +LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. + +This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story +is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it +is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs +of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie and +the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood +and about whose family there hangs a mystery. + +THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. + +"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had +nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. +But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance +of the rarest idyllic quality. + +FRECKLES. Illustrated. + +Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he +takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great +Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to +the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The +Angel" are full of real sentiment. + +A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated. + +The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of +her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and +unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. + +AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors. + +The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The +story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. +The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and +its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. + +THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated. + +A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and +humor. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +ZANE GREY'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS + +A New York society girl buys a ranch which becomes the center of +frontier warfare. Her loyal superintendent rescues her when she is +captured by bandits. A surprising climax brings the story to a +delightful close. + +THE RAINBOW TRAIL + +The story of a young clergyman who becomes a wanderer in the great +western uplands--until at last love and faith awake. + +DESERT GOLD + +The story describes the recent uprising along the border, and ends with +the finding of the gold which two prospectors had willed to the girl who +is the story's heroine. + +RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE + +A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon +authority ruled. The prosecution of Jane Withersteen is the theme of the +story. + +THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN + +This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, +known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert +and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of deep cańons and giant +pines." + +THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT + +A lovely girl, who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young +New Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall +become the second wife of one of the Mormons--Well, that's the problem +of this great story. + +THE SHORT STOP + +The young hero, tiring of his factory grind, starts out to win fame and +fortune as a professional ball player. His hard knocks at the start are +followed by such success as clean sportsmanship, courage and honesty +ought to win. + +BETTY ZANE + +This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful +young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers. + +THE LONE STAR RANGER + +After killing a man in self defense, Buck Duane becomes an outlaw along +the Texas border. In a camp on the Mexican side of the river, he finds a +young girl held prisoner, and in attempting to rescue her, brings down +upon himself the wrath of her captors and henceforth is hunted on one +side by honest men, on the other by outlaws. + +THE BORDER LEGION + +Joan Randle, in a spirit of anger, sent Jim Cleve out to a lawless +Western mining camp, to prove his mettle. Then realizing that she loved +him--she followed him out. On her way, she is captured by a bandit band, +and trouble begins when she shoots Kells, the leader--and nurses him to +health again. Here enters another romance--when Joan, disguised as an +outlaw, observes Jim, in the throes of dissipation. A gold strike, a +thrilling robbery--gambling and gun play carry you along breathlessly. + + * * * * * + +THE LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS, + +By Helen Cody Wetmore and Zane Grey + +The life story of Colonel William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill" as told by his +sister and Zane Grey. It begins with his boyhood in Iowa and his first +encounter with an Indian. We see "Bill" as a pony express rider, then +near Fort Sumter as Chief of the Scouts, and later engaged in the most +dangerous Indian campaigns. There is also a very interesting account of +the travels of "The Wild West" Show. No character in public life makes a +stronger appeal to the imagination of America than "Buffalo Bill," whose +daring and bravery made him famous. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +MAVERICKS + +A tale of the western frontier, where the "rustler" abounds. One of the +sweetest love stories ever told. + +A TEXAS RANGER + +How a member of the border police saved the life of an innocent man, +followed a fugitive to Wyoming, and then passed through deadly peril to +ultimate happiness. + +WYOMING + +In this vivid story the author brings out the turbid life of the +frontier with all its engaging dash and vigor. + +RIDGWAY OF MONTANA + +The scene is laid in the mining centers of Montana, where politics and +mining industries are the religion of the country. + +BUCKY O'CONNOR + +Every chapter teems with wholesome, stirring adventures, replete with +the dashing spirit of the border. + +CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT + +A story of Arizona; of swift-riding men and daring outlaws; of a bitter +feud between cattle-men and sheep-herders. + +BRAND BLOTTERS + +A story of the turbid life of the frontier with a charming love interest +running through its pages. + +STEVE YEAGER + +A story brimful of excitement, with enough gun-play and adventure to +suit anyone. + +A DAUGHTER OF THE DONS + +A Western story of romance and adventure, comprising a vivacious and +stirring tale. + +THE HIGHGRADER + +A breezy, pleasant and amusing love story of Western mining life. + +THE PIRATE OF PANAMA + +A tale of old-time pirates and of modern love, hate and adventure. + +THE YUKON TRAIL + +A crisply entertaining love story in the land where might makes right. + +THE VISION SPLENDID + +In which two cousins are contestants for the same prizes; political +honors and the hand of a girl. + +THE SHERIFF'S SON + +The hero finally conquers both himself and his enemies and wins the love +of a wonderful girl. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD'S STORIES OF ADVENTURE + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +KAZAN + +The tale of a "quarter-strain wolf and three-quarters husky" torn +between the call of the human and his wild mate. + +BAREE, SON OF KAZAN + +The story of the son of the blind Grey Wolf and the gallant part he +played in the lives of a man and a woman. + +THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM + +The story of the King of Beaver Island, a Mormon colony, and his battle +with Captain Plum. + +THE DANGER TRAIL + +A tale of snow, of love, of Indian vengeance, and a mystery of the +North. + +THE HUNTED WOMAN + +A tale of the "end of the line," and of a great fight in the "valley of +gold" for a woman. + +THE FLOWER OF THE NORTH + +The story of Fort o' God, where the wild flavor of the wilderness is +blended with the courtly atmosphere of France. + +THE GRIZZLY KING + +The story of Thor, the big grizzly who lived in a valley where man had +never come. + +ISOBEL + +A love story of the Far North. + +THE WOLF HUNTERS + +A thrilling tale of adventure in the Canadian wilderness. + +THE GOLD HUNTERS + +The story of adventure in the Hudson Bay wilds. + +THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE + +Filled with exciting incidents in the land of strong men and women. + +BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY + +A thrilling story of the Far North. The great Photoplay was made from +this book. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +RALPH CONNOR'S STORIES OF THE NORTHWEST + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE SKY PILOT IN NO MAN'S LAND + +The clean-hearted, strong-limbed man of the West leaves his hills and +forests to fight the battle for freedom in the old world. + +BLACK ROCK + +A story of strong men in the mountains of the West. + +THE SKY PILOT + +A story of cowboy life, abounding in the freshest humor, the truest +tenderness and the finest courage. + +THE PROSPECTOR + +A tale of the foothills and of the man who came to them to lend a hand +to the lonely men and women who needed a protector. + +THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY + +This narrative brings us into contact with elemental and volcanic human +nature and with a hero whose power breathes from every word. + +GLENGARRY SCHOOL DAYS + +In this rough country of Glengarry, Ralph Connor has found human nature +in the rough. + +THE DOCTOR + +The story of a "preacher-doctor" whom big men and reckless men loved for +his unselfish life among them. + +THE FOREIGNER + +A tale of the Saskatchewan and of a "foreigner" who made a brave and +winning fight for manhood and love. + +CORPORAL CAMERON + +This splendid type of the upright, out-of-door man about which Ralph +Connor builds all his stories, appears again in this book. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown. + +No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young +people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the +time when the reader was Seventeen. + +PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant. + +This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous, +tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a +finished, exquisite work. + +PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm. + +Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases +of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness +that have ever been written. + +THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers. + +Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his +father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a +fine girl turns Bibbs's life from failure to success. + +THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece. + +A story of love and politics,--more especially a picture of a country +editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love +interest. + +THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. + +The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement, +drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another +to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising +suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister. + + +_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +JUST DAVID + +The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to fill in the hearts +of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he is left. + +THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING + +A compelling romance of love and marriage. + +OH, MONEY! MONEY! + +Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his +relatives, sends them each a check for $100,000, and then as plain John +Smith comes among them to watch the result of his experiment. + +SIX STAR RANCH + +A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star +Ranch. + +DAWN + +The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of +despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the +service of blind soldiers. + +ACROSS THE YEARS + +Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of +the best writing Mrs. Porter has done. + +THE TANGLED THREADS + +In these stories we find the concentrated charm and tenderness of all +her other books. + +THE TIE THAT BINDS + +Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's wonderful talent for +warm and vivid character drawing. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + Dialect spellings have been retained. Inconsistent hyphenation, + except when used for emphasis, has been standardised. 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