At Gates's Landing they were met by a solemn, bashful youth and a buckboard drawn by two raw, excited horses. They whirled and bumped through a rutted woods road and stopped at last before a low white farm-house. Marian realized dimly that Rod was carrying her upstairs and into a small tidy room. She was so utterly tired that she dropped on the bed and slept straight through the day.
She did not waken until her landlady's tap called her to supper. Mr. and Mrs. Gates, two quiet, elderly people, greeted her kindly, and set a Homeric feast before her: shortbread and honey, broiled squirrels and pigeon stew, persimmon jam and hot mince pie. She ate dutifully, then crept back to her little room, with its mournful hair wreaths and its yellowed engravings of "Night and Morning" and "The Death-bed of Washington," and fell asleep again.
The three days that followed were like a queer, tired dream. It rained night and day. The roads were mired hub deep. Roderick could not drive over to see her, but he telephoned to her daily. But his hasty messages were little satisfaction. The heavy rains had overflowed the big ditch, he told her. That meant extra work for everybody on the plant. Carlisle was wretchedly sick, so Rod and Burford were sharing their chief's watch in addition to their own duties. Worst, Marvin had quarrelled with the head runner of the big dredge, and "We're having to spend half our time in coddling them both for fear they'll walk off and leave us," as Rod put it. In short, Roderick had neither time nor thought for his sister. Marian realized that her brother was not inconsiderate. He was absorbed in his work and in its risks. Yet she keenly resented her loneliness.
"It isn't Rod's fault. But if I had dreamed that the West would be like this!"
But on the fourth day, while she sat at her window looking out at the endless rain, there came a surprising diversion.
"A gentleman to see you, Miss Hallowell. Will you come downstairs?"
"Why, Commodore McCloskey!" Marian hurried down, delighted. "How good of you to come!"
Commodore McCloskey, dripping from his sou'wester to his mired boots, beamed like a drenched but cheery Santa Claus.
"I've taken the liberty to bring a friend to call," he chuckled. "He's young an' green, an' 'tis few manners he owns, but he's good stock, an'—Here, ye rascal! Shame on ye, startin' a fight the minute ye enter the house!"
Marian gasped. Past her, with a wild miauw, shot a yellow streak. That streak was Empress. Straight after the streak flew a fat, brown, curly object, yapping at the top of its powerful lungs. Up the window-curtain scrambled Empress. With a frantic leap she landed on the frame of Grandpa Gates's large crayon portrait. Beneath the portrait her curly pursuer yelped and whined.