She arose and went in, without her usual cheery “good-night.”
Bascomb filled his pipe, blinking in the flare of the match. He puffed meditatively for a while.
“Wallie,” he said to himself, “you’re a chump. Come out of it. She’s not your kind, my boy.” And then, as he realized the snobbishness of his thought, he added, “No, she’s a blamed sight better.”
The moon, drifting toward the western tree-tops, flickered on the moss-edged shingles of the camp; glimmered on the sagging eaves and crept down till the shadowy lattice of the window-frame lay aslant the floor of Swickey’s bedroom, where she stood, slowly undressing. The coat David had given her hung in the glow of the moonlight. She took it down and pressed the soft fabric to her face and throat. “David!” she whispered. “David!” She rocked to and fro, then suddenly flung the coat from her. “It burns!” she exclaimed.
She sat on the edge of the bed, gazing wistfully out of the window. Presently she seemed to see the river; the tangle of logs, the dashing spray, and then a figure standing erect for a moment to wave to her, and disappear forever....
She knelt by the bed, pressing her face in the cool white coverlet, the heavy masses of her dark hair falling across her arms and shoulders. She lifted her hands imploringly toward the soft radiance that poured through the window.
“I never prayed,” she whispered. “I’m wicked—I’m wicked, but, O God, I want Dave.”
CHAPTER XXVIII—COMPLICATIONS
Foot by foot the N. M. & Q. crowded through the summer forest, heralded by the roar of derrick engines, the clink and thud of spike-driving, the rattling crash of rock ballast dumped from the flat-cars, the rasp of shovels as the ballast was distributed, and the shouts of foremen as the sweating crews lugged the long ninety-pound rails from rain-rusted piles to the unballasted ties ahead. The abutments of the bridge across the Branch stood naked-gray in the sun. Finally the heavy steel girders and trusses were hoisted and swung into place, and the din of riveting echoed above the sombre cadence of the river. Day after day Avery, Bascomb, and David, with their small crew of axemen, felled and cleared away the trees and underbrush between the Timberland survey line for the road and the creek-bed above it. Finally, Cameron came with his team and handled the heavier timbers, which were corded and piled for winter fuel.
In the meantime the three cabins became a sort of headquarters for the N. M. & Q. division engineer and foremen, who invented daily excuses for stopping at the camp to talk with Swickey. She held a rustic court, in which each overalled gallant vied with his neighbor in keeping the wood-box and water-pails filled. Smoke paid indifferent attention to their coming and going, but Avery’s halloo as he returned at night, always brought the dog bounding down the slope to the river, where he stood excitedly waiting for his triumvirate to cross the dam. Smoke’s boundary was the riverside, and in vain had Avery, Wallie, and David endeavored to coax him farther from Swickey.