“All right,” said Raoul. “I’ve got a car, and I reckon Colonel Carington will give us transportation.”
“I’ll see that he does,” said the Judge, his face brightening. “I guess you’d better go to Charleston.”
“Spartanburg is the nearest point,” said Raoul. “He’ll never think of Spartanburg.”
“True,” said the Judge, “he’ll never think of Spartanburg. Lucky, Colonel Carington is at the Springs.”
In two hours we had borrowed an old freight engine and were off on our way to Spartanburg.
9.
The freight engine had been loaned us by telegram from Colonel Carington, and we had found our Pullman car pulled up on an old rusty side-track that ran into a bed of wild flowers; on the front platform, half smothered by them, our two darkies were asleep. They wakened, however, to greet us with smiles of such expansive intimacy that I felt bound, when we were safely on the way, to put them au courant of the situation. The solemnity and sympathy their faces at once assumed guaranteed their discretion; though I afterward heard the “conductor” adjuring the engineer from the front platform to “git up that thar burro-engine wif’m bacon-ham.” Whereupon the engineer sanded the track and blew “off brakes.”
The long journey was rather distressing, however. The brave girls did not lose their spirits, but they kept to themselves, resting in the state-room, while Raoul and I sat on the rear platform and watched the dust eddy up from the long single track behind us. We had innumerable waits and sidings; where often the girls and I wandered into the woods after wild flowers, while Raoul stayed behind to pepper Mrs. Judge Pennoyer with telegrams. We were now by the highest mountains of the East; Roan Mountain still, though it was June, was rosy-robed about its shoulders with the laurel.
The day wore on, and I could get no speech with Jeanie. I looked for my dédommagement to the journey home. This I no longer dreaded; it was a rosy hope. But Jeanie was so timid, now—or I was bolder. In the evening we had a long wait for the night express, which rattled by our siding at a wood-and-water station.
“Perhaps Mr. Bruce is on that train,” I laughed.