“I been called a lot o’ things besides an angel,” the bearded woodsman said, his eyes twinkling. “My wife, ’fore she died, had an almighty tart tongue.”
“And now?” queried Helen wickedly.
“Wal, wherever the poor critter’s gone, I reckon she’s l’arned to bridle her tongue,” said Mr. Peterby Paul cheerfully. “Howsomever, as the feller said, that’s another day’s job. Mr. Frenchy, let’s pour this gasoline into them tanks.”
Ruth insisted upon paying for the gasoline, and paying well. Then Peterby Paul gave them careful directions as to the situation of Abby Drake’s house, at which it seemed the lost woman must belong.
“Abby always has her house full of city folks in the summer,” the woodsman said. “She is pretty near a Whosis herself, Abby Drake is.”
With which rather unfavorable intimation regarding the despised “city folks,” Mr. Peterby Paul saw them start on over the now badly rutted road.
Helen drove the smaller car with Ruth sitting beside her. Henri Marchand took the wheel of the touring car, and the run to Boston was resumed.
“But we must not over-run Tom,” said Ruth to her chum. “No knowing what by-path he might have tried in search of the elusive gasoline.”
“I’ll keep the horn blowing,” Helen said, suiting action to her speech and sounding a musical blast through the wooded country that lay all about. “He ought to know his own auto-horn.”
The tone of the horn was peculiar. Ruth could always distinguish it from any other as Tom speeded along the Cheslow road toward the Red Mill. But then, she was perhaps subconsciously listening for its mellow note.