He knew that the river lay somewhere to the west and not more than a mile distant, and he set out to find it. His way led him across the athletic field and over the stone wall that bounded it and so into a meadow that descended gradually to a winding fringe of woods a quarter of a mile away. Whether the woods hid the river he didn’t know. It didn’t seem likely, however, for he had a notion that the stream was quite a considerable one: in fact, it must be if the railroad was building a large and expensive bridge across it some two miles further inland!
Before he reached the woods he had thrice been ankle-deep in water, but it was only marsh water and the trees, he found, hid only a narrow and shallow brook. By this time the sun was really out, although not very brightly, and the woods and the stream, with its mossy stones and bordering ferns, looked very pretty. He wondered if there were any trout there, and pursued it for some little distance looking for likely holes. When he had satisfied himself that no respectable trout would deign to live in such a brook he made his way across it by jumping from stone to stone, only once missing, and went on through an alder growth on the other side. When he emerged he was at the foot of a second meadow interspersed with outcropping ledges and clumps of white birches and maples and wild cherry trees. Afar at the left, near where the road presumably wound, was a farm with a white dwelling and a red barn and many comical haycocks that looked golden in the sunlight. Ahead of him a stone wall crossed the summit of the field, pricked out at intervals with spindling cedars whose somber foliage stood darkly against the clearing sky. The September sun, freeing itself from the clouds, shone warmly in Willard’s face as he went on up the rise. When he reached the wall he saw the river below him, a broad, curving ribbon of blue. But it was a good half-mile away yet, and he sat himself on the wall to rest before going on.
The sun felt pleasant to him and, after he had sat there a few minutes, he began to lose interest in a nearer acquaintance with the river. Instead of going on in that direction, he decided, he would turn to the left and try to reach the road. Doubtless Bob and Martin and the others would be returning before very long. Turning his gaze southward, he became aware of the fact that he was not alone. Some two hundred yards away a figure was approaching, a figure which appeared at first glance to be that of a man wearing a dark green sweater and advancing up the slope at a strangely deliberate pace. A second look, however, showed that the person was a boy of perhaps eighteen years and that as he walked he held the end of a forked stick in each hand and was oblivious to all else. He was a tall and rather heavy youth with extremely long legs that moved with machine-like precision and regularity over the grass. His slightly bent head prevented a clear sight of his face, but Willard thought he recognized the boy as one he had glimpsed once or twice about school. Why he should be pacing along here a mile from home, however, a Y-shaped branch in his hand, was a mystery, and Willard watched curiously as he came nearer and nearer.
[CHAPTER IX]
M’NATT ON SCIENCE
The boy in the green sweater, if left to his own devices, would have passed Willard some fifteen feet away, but curiosity got the better of the latter and when the other was opposite to him he spoke.
“Hello,” he said.
The fellow stopped, turned his head and viewed the boy on the stone wall, quite without surprise, for a long moment. Then he shifted his gaze to the forked stick that he still held extended before him and shook his head slowly.
“I suppose I haven’t got the power,” he remarked thoughtfully.