Under the canvas was that odor which always emanates from an automobile in an enclosure, an odor as sure and invariable as the odor of beasts in captivity; a combination of oil, gas, metal, damp upholstery.
“Smells familiar, hey?” Tom said, poking his head in. “Here’s tomato and split pea. Which do you suppose he’d prefer?”
“Bring them both,” said Brent.
It was nearing twilight and they plodded on wearily through the solemn woods, Tom leading the way.
“We look like a nice domestic couple coming home on a Saturday night,” said Brent. “Why didn’t you remind me to buy an egg-beater? If this sweater doesn’t match my good socks I’m going to exchange it. There goes our friend the night worker”—as he called the owl. “Do you know I’m tired?”
“Same here,” said Tom. “We’ll feel like a little three-handed pinochle game after we have a good feed. I’d miss Lawty if he didn’t show up. I suppose they’re likely to shoot him off to the Great Lakes or somewhere soon. Look out you don’t throw that butt on the ground. Boy, but we need rain.”
“The leaves underfoot make as much noise as static, don’t they?” Brent said.
They approached the Gulch at the lower end where Conner’s ruin was. The place looked desolate enough in the waning light, the dead trees, of which there were a number, standing like outcast things amid the living foliage, their soulless look emphasized by the deepening shadows. Their bare, crooked branches, black and brittle, seemed the very symbol of death. Tom wondered if little June Sanderson had been timid in the haunted twilights of this uncanny place. What a scene for a little girl to witness in the bedtime hour!
“I wonder who Conner was and what he looked like,” Tom mused as they approached the Gulch.
Scarcely had he said the words when there was a sound in the distance and they paused amid the thick brush through which they were plowing. Conner’s was possibly two hundred feet distant, and looking in that direction they saw a figure descending the trunk of the old elm which shaded the well.