Free Air Part 26

"M-must I s-shout?"

"S-shout your fool head off!" He kicked the door. "Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big burg. I'm a city fella myself--Spokane and Cheyenne and everything."

In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Cafe?

If she had to----

Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. "I love even that Pinky person!" she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground.

She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back.

He was holding an electric, torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light she remarked, "Two men, friends of mine, are below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night!"

CHAPTER XX

THE FREE WOMAN

Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott who was the social lubricant.

Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. "Ah, here she is! The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of the flivver hussars!"

But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, "Hel-lo!"

She peeped at him and whispered, "Hel-lo!"

"Say, oh please, Claire---- I didn't mean----"

"Oh, I know! Let's--let's go have breakfast."

"Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night, and saw your car--didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought we'd stick around."

"I'm so glad. Oh, Milt--yes, and you, Mr. Parrott--will you whip--lick--beat up--however you want to say it--somebody for me?"

With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves.

"But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now----"

"Show him to me!" and "Up, lads, and atum!" responded her squad.

"Not till after breakfast."

It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. The feature was curious cakes whose interior was raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr.

Boltwood--the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen.

Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, "Come here, woman."

The landlady stared, then ignored her.

"Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. "Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals, in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----"

The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her shoulder, and launched into, "And what's more, you hag, if our new friends here have any sense, they'll run you out of town."

That was only the beginning of Pinky's paper on corrections and charities. He enjoyed himself. Before he finished, the landlady was crying ... she voluntarily promised to give her boarders waffles, some morning, jus' soon as she could find the waffle-iron.

With her guard about her, at the office desk, Claire paid one dollar apiece for the rooms, and discussion was not.

Before they started, Milt had the chance to say to her, "I'm getting so I can handle Pinky now. Have to. Thinking of getting hold of his gold-mine. I just give him the eye, as your friend Mr. Saxton would, and he gets so meek----"

"But don't! Please understand me, Milt; I do admire Mr. Saxton; he is fine and capable, and really generous; only---- He may be just a bit snippish at times, while you--you're a playmate--father's and mine--and---- I did face that landlady, didn't I! I'm not soft and trivial, am I! Praise!"

She had driven through the panhandle of Idaho into Washington, through Spokane, through the writhing lava deposits of Moses Coulee where fruit trees grow on volcanic ash. Beyond Wenatchee, with its rows of apple trees striping the climbing fields like corduroy in folds, she had come to the famous climb of Blewett Pa.s.s. Once over that pa.s.s, and Snoqualmie, she would romp into Seattle.

She was sorry that she hadn't come to know Milt better, but perhaps she would see him in Seattle.

Not adventure alone was she finding, but high intellectual benefit in studying the names of towns in the state of Washington. Not Kankakee nor Kalamazoo nor Oshkosh can rival the picturesque fancy of Washington, and Claire combined the town-names in a lyric so emotion-stirring that it ought, perhaps, to be the national anthem. It ran:

Humptulips, Tum Tum, Moclips, Yelm, Satsop, Bucoda, Omak, Enumclaw, Tillic.u.m, Bossburg, Chettlo, Chattaroy, Zillah, Selah, Cowiche, Keechelus, Bluestem, Bluelight, Onion Creek, Sockeye, Antwine, Chopaka, Startup, Kapowsin, Skamokawa, Sixp.r.o.ng, Pysht!

Klickitat, Kitt.i.tas, Spangle, Cedonia, Pe Ell, Cle Elum, Sallal, Chimac.u.m, Index, Taholah, Synarep, Puyallup, Wallula, Wawawai, Wauconda, Washougal, Walla Walla, Washtucna, Wahluke, Solkulk, Newauk.u.m, Wahkiakus, Penawawa, Ohop, Ladd!

Harrah, Olalla, Umtanum, Chuckanut, Soap Lake, Loon Lake, Addy, Ace, Usk, Chillowist, Moxee City, Yellepit, Cashup, Moonax, Mabton, Tolt, Mukilteo, Poulsbo, Topp.e.n.i.sh, Whetstone, Inchelium, Fishtrap, Carnation, Shine, Monte Cristo, Conconully, Roza, Maud!

China Bend, Zumwalt, Sapolil, Riffle, Touchet, Chesaw, Chew, Klum, Bly, Humorist, Hammer, Nooksack, Oso, Samamish, Dusty, Tiger, Turk, Dot, Scenic, Tekoa, Nellita, Attalia, Steilacoom, Tweedle, Ruff, Lisabeula, Latah, Peola, Towal, Eltopia, Steptoe, Pluvius, Sol Duc, Twisp!

"And then," complained Claire, "they talk about Amy Lowell! I leave it to you, Henry B., if any union poet has ever written as gay a refrain as 'Ohop Ladd'!"

She was not merely playing mental whist. She was trying to keep from worry. All the way she had heard of Blewett Pa.s.s; its fourteen miles of climbing, and the last half mile of stern pitch. On this eastern side of the pa.s.s, the new road was not open; there was a tortuous, flint-scattered trail, too narrow, in most places, for the pa.s.sing of other cars. Claire was glad that Milt and Pinky were near her.

If so many of the race of kind advisers of tourists had not warned her about it, doubtless she would have gone over the pa.s.s without difficulty. But their voluntary croaking sapped her nerve, and her father's. He kept worrying, "Do you think we better try it?" When they stopped at a ranch house at the foot of the climb, for the night, he seemed unusually tired. He complained of chill. He did not eat breakfast. They started out silent, depressed.

He crouched in the corner of the seat. She looked at him and was anxious. She stopped on the first level s.p.a.ce on the pa.s.s, crying, "You are perfectly miserable. I'm afraid of---- I think we ought to see a doctor."

"Oh, I'll be all right."

But she waited till Milt came pit-pattering up the slope. "Father feels rather sick. What shall I do? Turn round and drive to the nearest doctor--at Cashmere, I suppose?"

"There's a magnolious medico ahead here on the pa.s.s," Pinky Parrott interrupted. "A young thing, but they say he's a graduate of Harvard.

He's out here because he has some timber-claims. Look, Milt o' the Daggett, why don't you drive Miss Boltwood's 'bus--make better time, and hustle the old gent up to the doc, and I'll come on behind with your machine."

"Why," Claire fretted, "I hate----"

A new Milt, the boss, abrupt, almost bullying, snapped out of his bug.

"Good idee. Jump in, Claire. I'll take your father up. Heh, whasat, Pink? Yes, I get it; second turn beyond grocery. Right. On we go. Huh?

Oh, we'll think about the gold-mine later, Pink."

With the three of them wedged into the seat of the Gomez, and Pinky recklessly skittering after them in the bug, they climbed again--and lo!