I was growing accustomed to the sight of Joey, followed by the collie, marching sturdily away down the yew path each day as soon as the dinner dishes were done, and I had more than once remonstrated with him on the frequency of his visits to Hidden Lake. His answer was invariably the same. “She says, ‘Come again,’ every time, Mr. David.”
“That’s only a way people have of being polite,” I protested at last, and was surprised to see the hurt tears in his eyes.
That night he came home radiant.
“She doesn’t say ‘Come again’ to be polite,” he announced, throwing his cap in a corner and speaking blusteringly. “She didn’t ask Mr. Lundquist to come again. She only said, ‘When I need you again I’ll let you know.’”
The perfect weather changed about this time, and sultry nights, alternating with days like hot coals, ensued, until, suddenly, one evening at dusk, the wind came up with a roar, and scurrying leaves and particles of dust filled the air. The dust storm enveloped us. It sang and poured and hissed up and down the river, the temperature kept dropping lower and lower, rain and hail descended, and the wind grew more tempestuous as darkness came on.
As I pored over a volume of Tacitus that evening, glowing with the sense of well being that the warmth of the fire and the cheer of the light cast by my green-shaded light imparted in contrast to the storm without, there came a vigorous knocking at the cabin door.
Joey, dozing on his stool before the fire, sat upright with a start, and the collie growled and ruffled his back. A curious prescience of disaster assailed me with that knock; a grim finger seemed laid on my heart-strings—I seemed to feel the touch of a cold iron hand arresting me on a well-ordered, dearly familiar path.
Joey sprang to the door, opened it wide, and a gust of wind tore it from his hand. The rain swept into the cabin, and a man carrying a suitcase came quickly forward from the darkness beyond, crossed the threshold, and stood in the glare of the firelight.
He was a tall man, powerfully built, but he walked with a slovenly gait, and something pompous and hard and withal insincere rang in his tones as he set down his suitcase and spoke:
“Pardon my intrusion, my man. Your light attracted me. It’s blacker than Egypt outside, and I’ve lost my way in the storm.”