A Breath of Prairie and other stories Part 33

"And the next day."

"Yes."

"And the next."

"A whole week with me. What of it?"

"What of it! Why, business--"

"Confound business! I tell you they're coming; I heard them. I haven't any more time to waste talking, either. I've got to get ready. Meet you at three-ten, remember."

"But--"

"Number, please," requests Central, wearily.

CHAPTER IV--CAPITULATION

Thus it comes to pa.s.s that I go; as I know from the first I shall go, and Sandford knows that I will go; and, most of all, as Mary knows that I will go.

In fact, she is packing for me already; not saying a word, but simply packing; and I--I go out-doors again, sidling into a jog beside the bow-window, to diminish the din of the wind in my ears, listening open-mouthed until--

Yes, there it sounds again; faint, but distinct; mellow, sonorous, vibrant. _Honk!_ _honk!_ _honk!_ and again _honk!_ _honk!_ _honk!_ It wafts downward from some place, up above where the stars should be and are not; up above the artificial illumination of the city; up where there are freedom, and s.p.a.ce infinite, and abandon absolute.

With an effort, I force myself back into the house. I take down and oil my old double-barrel, lovingly, and try the locks to see that all is in order. I lay out my wrinkled and battered duck suit handy for the morning, after carefully storing away in an inner pocket, where they will keep dry, the bundle of postcards Mary brings me--first exacting a promise to report on one each day, when I know I shall be five miles from the nearest postoffice, and that I shall bring them all back unused.

And, last of all, I slip to bed, and to dreams of gigantic honkers serene in the blue above; of whirring, whistling wings that cut the air like myriad knife blades; until I wake up with a start at the rattle of the telephone beside my bed, and I know that, though dark as a pit of pitch, it is morning, and that Sandford is already astir.

CHAPTER V--ANTIc.i.p.aTION

In the smoking-car forward I find Sandford. He is a most disreputable-looking specimen. Garbed in weather-stained corduroys, and dried-gra.s.s sweater, and great calfskin boots, he sprawls among gun-cases and sh.e.l.l-carriers--no sportsman will entrust these essentials to the questionable ministrations of a baggage-man--and the air about him is blue from the big cigar he is puffing so ecstatically. He nods and proffers me its mate.

"Going to be a great day," he announces succinctly, and despite a rigorous censorship there is a suggestion of excitement in the voice.

"The wind's dead north, and it's cloudy and damp. Rain, maybe, about daylight."

"Yes." I am lighting up stolidly, although my nerves are atingle.

"We're going to hit it right, just right. The flight's on. I heard them going over all night. The lake will be black with the big fellows, the Canada boys."

"Yes," I repeat; then conscience gives a last dig. "I ought not to do it, though. I didn't have time to break a single engagement"--I'm a dental surgeon, too, by the way, with likewise an office of tile and enamel--"or explain at all. And the muss there'll be at the shop when--"

"Forget it, you confounded old dollar-grubber!" A fresh torrent of smoke belches forth, so that I see Sandford's face but dimly through the haze. "If you mention teeth again, until we're back--merely mention them--I'll throttle you!"

The train is in motion now, and the arc-lights at the corners, enshrouded each by a zone of mist, are flitting by.

"Yes," he repeats, and again his voice has that minor strain of suppressed excitement, "we're hitting it just right. There'll be rain, or a flurry of snow, maybe, and the paddle feet will be down in the clouds."

CHAPTER VI--"MARK THE RIGHT, SANDFORD!"

And they are. Almost before we have stumbled off at the deserted station into the surrounding darkness, Johnson's familiar ba.s.s is heralding the fact.

"Millions of 'em, boys," he a.s.sures us, "billions! Couldn't sleep last night for the racket they made on the lake. Never saw anything like it in the twenty years I've lived on the bank. You sure have struck it this time. Right this way," he is staggering under the load of our paraphernalia; "rig's all ready and Molly's got the kettle on at home, waiting breakfast for you.... Just as fat as you were last year, ain't ye?" a time-proven joke, for I weigh one hundred and eight pounds.

"Try to pull you out, though; try to." And his great laugh drowns the roar of the retreating train.

At another time, that five-mile drive in the denser darkness, just preceding dawn, would have been long perhaps, the springs of that antiquated buckboard inadequate, the chill of that damp October air piercing; but now--we notice nothing, feel nothing uncomfortable. My teeth chatter a bit now and then, when I am off guard, to be sure; but it is not from cold, and the vehicle might be a Pullman coach for aught I am conscious.

For we have reached the border of the marsh, now, and are skirting its edge, and--Yes, those are ducks, really; that black ma.s.s, packed into the cove at the lee of those cl.u.s.tering rushes, protected from the wind, the whole just distinguishable from the lighter shadow of the water: ducks and brant; dots of white, like the first scattered snowflakes on a sooty city roof!

"Mark the right, Sandford," I whisper in oblivion. "Mark the right!"

And, breaking the spell, Johnson laughs.

CHAPTER VII--THE BACON WHAT AM!

When is bacon bacon, and eggs eggs? When is coffee coffee, and the despised pickerel, fresh from the cold water of the shaded lake, a glorious brown food, fit for the G.o.ds?

Answer, while Molly (whose real name is Aunt Martha) serves them to us, forty-five minutes later.

Oh, if we only had time to eat, as that breakfast deserves to be eaten! If we only had time!

But we haven't; no; Sandford says so, in a voice that leaves no room for argument. The sky is beginning to redden in the east; the surface of the water reflects the glow, like a mirror; and, seen through the tiny-paned windows, black specks, singly and in groups, appear and disappear, in shifting patterns, against the lightening background.

"No more now, Aunt Martha--no. Wait until noon; just wait--and _then_ watch us! Ready, Ed?"

"Waiting for you, Sam." It's been a year since I called him by his Christian name; but I never notice, nor does he. "All ready."

"Better try the point this morning; don't you think, Johnson?"

"Yes, if you've your eye with ye. Won't wait while y' sprinkle salt on their tails, them red-heads and canvas boys. No, sir-ree."

CHAPTER VIII--FEATHERED BULLETS

The breath of us is whistling through our nostrils, like the m.u.f.fled exhaust of a gasoline engine, and our hearts are thumping two-steps on our ribs from the exertion, when we reach the end of the rock-bestrewn point which, like a long index finger, is thrust out into the bosom of the lake. The wind, still dead north, and laden with tiny drops of moisture, like spray from a giant atomizer, buffets us steadily; but thereof we are sublimely unconscious.

For at last we are there, there; precisely where we were yesterday--no, a year ago--and the light is strong enough now, so that when our gun-barrels stand out against the sky, we can see the sights, and--

Down! Down, behind the nearest stunted willow tree; behind anything--quick!--for they're coming: a great dim wedge, with the apex toward us, coming swiftly on wings that propel two miles to the minute, when backed by a wind that makes a mile in one.

Coming--no; arrived. Fair overhead are the white of b.r.e.a.s.t.s, of plump bodies flashing through the mist, the swishing hiss of many wings cutting the air, the rhythmic _pat_, _pat_--"_Bang!_ _Bang!_"