“Oh, father,” she sobbed, “I thought mean of Joe this morning—I didn’t understand—and I can’t tell him now.”
“If God-A’mighty’s what we think He be,” said Avery reverently, “He’ll make it up to Joe.”
CHAPTER XXVI—DAVID’S RETURN
Swickey climbed from the edge of the river to the woods above. Here she turned to look once more at the gorge, where the released waters, dotted here and there with stray logs, churned between the black boulders, and swept roaring round the bend below. Again she seemed to see Joe Smeaton’s lonely figure, drenched with spray, as he waved that gallantly grotesque farewell. Tears welled beneath her lids and she bit her lips to keep from sobbing. She longed to be at home, alone with Smoke. Listlessly she passed along the trail, blind to the afternoon sunshine that hung soft, radiant banners between the arches of the mast-high trees; banners that trailed and flickered from bole to bole, touching the gray-green lichens with wavering gold. Unconsciously she saw the stones in the roadway and the little streams that winked between the pebbles in the wagon ruts. So at one with her grief was she that she did not notice the two figures plodding ahead of her in the distance until one of them laughed as the other, endeavoring to jump across a muddy pool, slipped and fell with a splashing and scrambling to secure a footing.
She glanced up quickly. The taller of the two men was standing, arms akimbo, laughing at his companion, who scraped the slimy mud from his clothes with a deliberation that did not lack humor.
“It’s Dave!—and that Mr. Bascomb.”
The joy of seeing David again flashed across her lips in a quick smile, but faded in the gloom of the recent tragedy. She wanted to feel happy, if for nothing else than to make David’s welcome what it should be, but her heart quailed at the thought of meeting him now. She felt it would be disloyal to the memory of the men whom she had just seen swept away from the world and its sunshine, to allow herself the innocent happiness that David’s coming meant. She knew she must meet him sooner or later, and some of her characteristic determination came to her as she quickened her pace.
David and his companion had gone on—were walking faster than she. Why not allow them to reach the camp before her? But the sight of David had awakened something of the Swickey of three years ago. She hesitated; then called.
Neither David nor Bascomb heard her. She hollowed her hands and called through them: “Dave, it’s Swickey.”
They stopped and turned. Neither of them seemed to know where the call came from until David recognized her figure and, with a word to Bascomb, left him and came to where she stood.