Chapter V––Anticipation
In the smoking-car forward I find Sandford. He is a most disreputable-looking specimen. Garbed in weather-stained corduroys, and dried-grass sweater, and great calfskin boots, he sprawls among gun-cases and shell-carriers––no sportsman will entrust these essentials to the questionable ministrations of a baggage-man––and the air about him is blue from the big cigar he is puffing so ecstatically. He nods and proffers me its mate.
“Going to be a great day,” he announces succinctly, and despite a rigorous censorship there is a suggestion of excitement in the voice. “The wind’s dead north, and it’s cloudy and damp. Rain, maybe, about daylight.”
“Yes.” I am lighting up stolidly, although my nerves are atingle.
“We’re going to hit it right, just right. The flight’s on. I heard them going over all night. The lake will be black with the big fellows, the Canada boys.” 291
“Yes,” I repeat; then conscience gives a last dig. “I ought not to do it, though. I didn’t have time to break a single engagement”––I’m a dental surgeon, too, by the way, with likewise an office of tile and enamel––“or explain at all. And the muss there’ll be at the shop when––”
“Forget it, you confounded old dollar-grubber!” A fresh torrent of smoke belches forth, so that I see Sandford’s face but dimly through the haze. “If you mention teeth again, until we’re back––merely mention them––I’ll throttle you!”
The train is in motion now, and the arc-lights at the corners, enshrouded each by a zone of mist, are flitting by.
“Yes,” he repeats, and again his voice has that minor strain of suppressed excitement, “we’re hitting it just right. There’ll be rain, or a flurry of snow, maybe, and the paddle feet will be down in the clouds.” 292