“There he is, busy as usual,” Tom said, with pleasure in his voice.
He was about to call when Brent, sensing his intention, grasped his arm and said, “Shh—keep still—look. What’s that he has under his arm?”
A last freakish ray of sunlight had caught the moving figure; he passed through it as he descended. But in those few seconds he was in a kind of spotlight. It seemed as if the good sun, already withdrawn from the desolate scene, were pointing a long finger at the distant form, to direct the gaze of the campers upon it. Just a kind of friendly act of the great orb toward the sojourners in that lonely Gulch whom it had seen there every day.
“Don’t call,” said Brent.
CHAPTER XXX—A Loss and a Gain
“Shh, don’t call,” Brent repeated; “wait a second.”
They paused in the brush waiting. The figure descended to within a few feet of the ground, then dropped. He seemed to fall over when he hit the ground. Then he picked himself up, looked quickly about, and sped into the woods.
Tom did not know what he thought; there was no time to think. He was greatly astonished. All in a second there came rushing into his mind the young workman at the dam saying, “Never heard of him,” and of the foreman shaking his head negatively at the unfamiliar name. He had studiously avoided thinking of this, or of speaking of it to Brent on their journey home. Brent had said nothing and Tom had wondered what he thought.
Now there was no time to call. The woods were not like a street; Tom knew not which way the fleeing figure might run.
“Go ahead,” said Brent, “I just wanted to see what he’d do.”