A week or two afterwards, when he raked up the fire one evening, Bill gave him some patterns he marked by chalk.
“You’ll take the templates to Mr. Austin. I can make the truck the way he wants, but a square end costs less to forge and leaves more metal when you cut the slot. You want to show him——”
Kit noted the smith’s remarks and after supper started for Austin’s office. The evening was cold and the woods were wet. For two or three days the rain had not stopped, and big drops splashed in the trampled mud along the track.
When Kit pushed back the door Austin looked up and frowned. The lamp was lighted and the small room was hot, but Austin sat by the stove and had pulled a rug across his legs. When he saw Kit he put a drawing-board on the floor.
“What’s the trouble?” he inquired.
Kit told him, and Austin examined the patterns. “So long as the slots will take the cotters, Bill can forge the ends as he likes. But sit down and smoke a cigarette.”
“It looks as if you were busy——”
“I’m willing to stop,” said Austin, and shivered. “My back hurts and my head aches. A chill, maybe. The rain was pretty fierce and I used up all my dry clothes. Since I lay out in the mud at Paschendaele I can’t stand for much wet and cold.”
“Then you were in the big fight?”
“For twenty-four hours I was in a flooded shell-hole, and when the stretcher-bearers found me I went to the hospital—a broken leg and rheumatic fever. All the use they had for me afterwards was at a base camp. Were you in France?”