The evening grew late. A very light breeze moved the tops of the hemlocks and their pointed heads moved darkly like nodding cowls, their brooding spell took the restlessness out of Shipman and he gazed lovingly up into their fronded gloom. "Thank God for trees, the great brotherhood of the woodland priests," he murmured. Watts filled his pipe, gazing affectionately at those dark brothers, saying softly, "The Greeks got you better than we do, the souls and conscience of you; they trained their minds to regard you as some great principle connected with man and woman and so it was easy for them to imagine you as gods and goddesses. But we," grumbled the lawyer, "we with our superb logic and 'practical' minds have crystallized you into just 'trees,' things that we plant for our shade and cut down for our fuel and on which we grow fruit. Friends," said the man softly, as he went to one tree trunk and laid his arm around it, "walk with us like teachers; be one with us, take us farther and farther into your counsels and your mysteries and your reticences." Watts Shipman laughed a little, then a guttural sound from Friar Tuck roused him from his revery.
"You did that before," pointing his pipe at the russet head and solemn eyes. "You," accusingly, "did that before." Friar Tuck groveled and whined. Watts, leaning over to pat him, laughed.
"Tuck, old chap, why do you cringe so? I've never hit you, nor as far as I know has any other man. Why do you act so humbly? You know as much as I do, the only difference is that you don't know you know, and I do; but, after all, I only think I know, and that doesn't prove anything, so cheer up, mon vieux;" but at a distinctly menacing growl from the dog, Watts walked to the edge of the cliff to where his lamp was placed, and stared into the darkness.
"Shut up, you old barometer, no one can be coming up the mountain road at this hour, anyway not on this spur." The man peered at his leather-cased wrist-watch. "After eleven o'clock, and no one uses that mountain road at night; the driving's rotten and the walking's too craggy and storm-bitten for anything but snakes and foxes. Unless——" Watts thought of the mysterious ways of moving-picture campers. Going to the edge of the height on which the organ builder's house stood, he peered down to the road curving far underneath. "By all that's American!" he breathed; "by the Great Original Flapper!"
For a long line of cars was ascending the steep mountain road, winding in and out of the turns. The young drivers, leaning out, cheered to each other, calling challenges, experimenting with different gears, and bawling advice and congratulations on the climbing power of their machines. The lateness of the hour seemed no curb to their haste or their assurance, nor did the impassable road rouse a feeling of insecurity. They were merely interested in the one car that should reach the top first.
In Dunstan's roadster Minga was advocating a swift rush that should pass the car ahead and gain the summit speedily. Sard and the young lawyer tried by their own prudence to communicate that saving quality to the others; here a driver shook his fist at some dare-devil brother, who passed him close to the ledge, thereby badly crowding his neighbors, who in turn swished into the road gutter until passed by one or two speed cranks trying to beat each other.
When at last every car had reached the summit there were confident giggles, little gasps from the girls and a catcall of triumph, a harassed ejaculation from the masculine drivers.
As they parked the machines in an orderly row on the mountain top, the great lights glared and the black forms crouched in powerful bulk on the uneven roadway, while the short-skirted, jaunty figures alighted with mingled sighs and stretches of relief.
"Moon's doing pretty well to-night," said Dunstan. He kissed his hand to it, calling up to the sky, "All right, Mr. God, we like your little old scout moon. Some sky-dynamo, what? Savez? We like it!"