“You certainly have bad luck enough to discourage most young men,” said the bookkeeper, as one who would not withhold sympathy where sympathy is due. “Do you know, it simply grinds me to be the one to add my bit to the aggregation. I’ve half a mind to take a chance on the thunder and lightning and ask New York for that extension of time for you. You might reasonably hope to hear from your Philadelphia attorneys by Monday or Tuesday, don’t you think?”
Tregarvon snatched at the concession avidly. “I’ll wire them to-night,” he promised, as if his decision depended entirely upon the result of the long-range consultation. But after Thaxter had driven away, excusing his haste on the plea that no time must be lost in reaching a telegraph office, Tregarvon wondered again; this time half-suspiciously. Why had Thaxter changed his tune so suddenly? Was it because he had just been given ocular proof that the test-drilling was again postponed? The more Tregarvon thought of it, the more plausible the assumption grew; and he was almost ready to call it a fact when, an hour later, Carfax put in an appearance with the motor-car.
In a few words Tregarvon told the story of the afternoon’s happenings, giving the suspicion due standing.
“It is only a guess, as usual,” he offered in conclusion. “But, in any event, the strain is off for the present. Thaxter will get the extension, and in the meantime we can take our chance to draw a comfortable breath or two. After Rucker comes back, we’ll go down the hill and get ready to enjoy an old-fashioned restful Sunday. I don’t mind confessing that the strain has been getting next to me, Poictiers. I’m going to push the whole wretched tangle into the background, for one day, at least, and try to catch up with my nerve.”
“Good medicine!” laughed the one who had no nerves; and Rucker returning a few minutes later to resume his duties as resident watchman, they climbed into the yellow car and Tregarvon took the wheel to drive to the valley.
XXII
Out of a Clear Sky
THE event of the day for Coalville—the arrival of the afternoon passenger-train from Chattanooga—was in the near prospect when the yellow car rolled down the last of the grades and swept a wide circle around the coke-ovens and past the unloading platforms.
The train-time signs were always unmistakable. A little while before the hour, and always as if warned by some signal inaudible to alien ears, the loungers under Tait’s porch rose, shook their legs to settle wrinkled trousers, and filed slowly over to the railroad station. Tregarvon’s motor-car, no longer a nine days’ wonder to the army of leisure, was slowing to cross the rails of the Ocoee siding when the station agent ran out of his office to wave the motorists down with a telegram. The message was for Carfax, and the agent explained that it had been delayed in transmission by some trouble with the wire on the branch line.
While Carfax was opening the envelope, Tregarvon got out and went around to see if the brakes had been running cool in the swift drop from the summit of Pisgah. For this cause he did not hear Carfax’s, “Ye gods and little fishes!” basing itself upon a glance at the delayed telegram.
“Vance!” he called, turning in his place to see what had become of Tregarvon. But Tregarvon did not hear. A canopy-topped surrey, venerable with age and drawn by a great-boned horse of dapple gray, was turning out of the Hesterville road to cross the tracks to the station. Miss Richardia Birrell was holding the reins over the dapple gray, and in the seat beside her was an old man, erect, white-haired, handsome as an ancestral portrait.