At this Treadwell made himself evident. Turning sharply, he met the big, lovely eyes of the girl beside the talkative little woman. The fair, damp face was inframed by tendrils of light hair under a hood of dullish red; the long, coarse, brown coat clung to the slim figure, and the mouth of the girl was smiling. Treadwell had never seen a mouth smile so before.
Sandy introduced his friend and then said: "Lans, make the ladies comfortable; I'll lend Greeley a hand."
CHAPTER XXI
Lance Treadwell did not leave the mountains the next day. The storm poured, and Sandy's words sunk deep in his light mind.
"Yes," he thought to himself virtuously, "I'll let Marian have it out with her conscience or whatever it was that took her from me. I'll write and tell her I'm waiting up here!"
In the meanwhile Treadwell took a new interest in the mountains, especially in that part of them known as Trouble Neck. Marcia Lowe and her "charm" appealed to him hugely.
"Why, it's been introduced in many other places," he said to the little doctor; "why can't you get your representative at Washington to get an appropriation for you?"
Marcia Lowe laughed long and merrily at this. "I really do not know who represents us at Washington," she replied; "it is some distant man, like as not, with axes galore of his own to grind, with these mystic votes of the mountains to help along. Doubtless he has a soul above names, and if a petticoat doctor should go to him and plead her cause for these people he would probably have me shut up as a maniac. The Forge doctor is making himself very unpleasant. He told me the other day that if I persisted in working my charm on many more people he would have me—investigated! Just fancy! investigating me! He used to laugh at me; it's got past the laughing stage now. When professional people step on each other's toes the atmosphere is apt to be electric. The Forge doctor has at last concluded that I am not a joke. A woman, to that sort of man, is either a joke or a menace."
Treadwell laughed gayly. Marcia Lowe was a delight to him; besides, Cynthia Walden was always present when he visited Trouble Neck, and Cynthia was bewitching. Treadwell did not talk of the girl to Sandy. He had no special reason for not doing so, but, having posed as a tragic creature—a man confronting a great soul-problem—he did not like to come down from his pedestal and stand revealed as a human being interested in a mountain girl.