The big chemistry expert shook his head. “There isn’t anything that anybody can do, Robert,” he said soberly; and at that, Stillings eased the clutch in and drove away.
Two hours later Maxwell was sitting out the after-dinner interval with his friend and classmate on the broad lake-fronting veranda of the bungalow club-house. It was a fine night, and the Saturday evening crowd was larger than usual. There was a dotting of canoes on the reservoir lake, and the verandas were filling slowly as the great dining-room emptied itself. For a time the two men had let the talk drift into college reminiscences; but it took a more strictly personal turn when the superintendent said:
“Do you know, Calvin, I’ve often wondered how you came to be assigned to this job of soil-testing—this particular job, I mean—for the Department. It has been a sort of special providence to me; but things don’t often happen that way, unhelped.”
“This thing didn’t happen that way—unhelped,” was the big expert’s quiet rejoinder. “I asked for the job.”
“I’ve wondered if you didn’t. It was mighty good of you to maroon yourself out here in the tall hills for the sake of helping me fight the money pirates, Calvin.”
Sprague was silent for a full minute before he said: “I wish I could claim a motive as disinterested as that, Dick; but if I should, it wouldn’t be honest. I had quite another reason for wishing to return to the Timanyoni after my flying trip through it last July on my way back from California. I can’t tell you what it was; it’s too idiotic for a grown man to own up to.”
The superintendent’s curling mustaches took a grinning uptilt, and he laughed joyously.
“When you talk that way you don’t need to tell me,” he chuckled. “It was a girl.”
“It was,” admitted the self-confessed simpleton, matching his accuser’s grin. “Since you’ve guessed that much, I’ll tell you a little more. I saw her first on your eastbound train, the train that took on the sham dead man at Little Butte and afterward picked up your office-car. You’ll remember you asked me to stay over a day or two with you in Brewster, and I did. As a matter of fact, your persuasion wasn’t needed. I would have stopped off anyway, because the girl stopped off.”
“Heavens and earth!” ejaculated Maxwell, in ecstatic appreciation; “how are the mighty fallen! Lord of love! I never expected to see the day when Cal Sprague, the idol of the foot-ball rooters, would fall for a pretty face just seen, as you might say, in passing! Oh, gosh!”