“All of that,” replied Cameron. “Later on I was in the hotel, and when I went out to the stable to hitch up, they was a couple of fellers talkin’ kind of loud in the alley back of the stable. They had liquor in ’em, I reckon. One of ’em says to the other, ‘What good is it goin’ to do ’em if the railroad don’t cross on their land?’ Now, that’s what set me thinkin’ they might be some manœuvrin’ goin’ on what might int’rest you.”
“Jim,” said Avery, “if what you say is true, you never done a better day’s work in your life. We’re goin’ to need a fust-class man with a team when the—when things gits to runnin’ right. It’ll be stiddy work and good pay. Dave here is goin’ to Boston to-morrow to see about it and he’ll be wantin’ you to take him to the train, I reckon.”
“I was,” said David, “but all this has changed my plans. I want to go just as quick as I can. Can you take me down to-night?”
“Guess I can make her,” replied Curious Jim. “It’s goin’ to rain afore long,” he added, looking at the sky.
“Never mind the rain, Jim. I’ll be ready in five minutes,” and David hastened toward his cabin.
An hour later they were jolting down the trail in the big wagon. As they entered the woods, David turned and waved his hat. A hand flickered up and down on the distant cabin porch. He could not see the figures distinctly, Avery shading his eyes with a great hairy hand, as he gazed at the retreating wagon, and Swickey, standing beside him, eyes fixed on the edge of the forest, and the memory of David’s real good-bye still warm in her heart and tingling on her lips.
CHAPTER XIV—THE FLIGHT OF SMOKE
They passed Cameron’s place without stopping, much to the disappointment of the good woman of that establishment, whose real fondness for David was hidden beneath the rough bark of bucolic assertiveness with which she chose to mask her natural kindness of heart.
“There goes Jim and that man Ross, tearin’ past here like as if wagons and hosses didn’t cost nothin’,” she remarked. “And they’re drivin’ into what’s like to be the biggest drenchin’ of their lives, if I’m any jedge.”
She snatched the meagre array of stockings, sheets, and underwear from the clothes-line, bundling them hurriedly in her long, muscular arms, and disappeared into the house, followed by the first scattering harbingers of a heavy June downpour that presently came, spreading black spots on the soft gray of the sun-bleached door.