It was nearly noon when they reached the narrow fringe of trees and underbrush––deciduous and wind-tortured all––which bordered the big, muddy, low-lying Missouri; and soon they could hear the throb of the engine at the mill, and the swish of the saw through the green lumber; a sound that heard near by, inevitably carries the suggestion of scalpel and living flesh. Nothing but green timber was sawed thereabout in those days. The country was settling 187 rapidly, lumber was imperative, and available timber very, very limited.
Returning, the heavy loads grumbled slowly along, so slowly that it was nearly evening, and their shadows preceded them by rods when they reached the little prairie town. They stopped to water their teams; and Ole, true to the instincts of his plebeian ancestry, went in search of a glass of beer. He returned, quickly, his face very red.
“A fellow in there is talking about––about Mrs. Maurice,” he blurted.
“In the saloon, Ole?”
The Swede repeated the story, watching the tall man from the corner of his eye.
A man, very drunk, was standing by the bar, and telling how, in coming to town, he had seen a buggy drive away from the Maurice home very fast. He had thought it was the doctor’s buggy and had stopped in to see if any one was sick.
The fellow had grinned here and drank some more, before finishing the story; the surrounding audience winking at each other meanwhile, and drinking in company. 188
Then he went on to tell how Camilla Maurice had sat just inside the doorway, her face in her hands, sobbing,––so hard she hadn’t noticed him; and––and––it wasn’t the doctor who had been there at all!
Ichabod had been holding a pail of water so that a horse might drink. At the end he motioned Ole very quietly, to take his place.
“Finish watering them, and––wait for me, please.”