Joyce of the North Woods Part 10

"He's a lean, blighted cuss," Murphy had explained; "what G.o.d intended for an engineer, but Nature stepped in and flambasted his const.i.tootion, and so he took to preaching--that not demanding no bodily strength.

"He comes pottering round the engine, using the excuse of saving my soul, and I don't let on that I see through him. I give him pints about the machinery; and if I tell him he can ride in the cab with me anywhere, he'd marry a girl, or bury a tramp, if he had to go to h.e.l.l to do it."

So Jock detailed Murphy to decoy the side-tracked gentleman at the Junction up to St. Ange.

The stranger was expected on the afternoon train, and Tate had the guest room of the Black Cat in readiness.

Jock had lazed about the Station since noon. The wedding preparations bored him, and the train's delay angered him.

"See here!" he exploded to Tom Smith, the agent, "ain't it stretching a point too far when that gol-durned train gives herself four hours'

lee-way?"

Tom spat with dignity, and remarked casually:

"Long as she ain't likely to meet any train going down, seems to me there ain't any use to git warmer than is necessary."

"If she keeps on," drawled Jock, "she'll have a head-on collision with herself some day. Is that the dying shriek of the blasted hussy?"

Tom stopped the imminent expectoration.

"It be," he announced, and went out on the track to welcome the guest.

"She do look," he contemplatively remarked, "like she had an all-fired jag on."

The train came in sight, swaying unsteadily on its rickety tracks.

Puffing, panting and hissing, it reached the platform and stopped jerkily.

Murphy sprang from the engine; the conductor strode with dignity worthy a Pullman official, to the one pa.s.senger coach behind the baggage car, and a.s.sisted a very young and very sickly man to alight.

Tom Smith, with energy concentrated on this single activity of the twenty-four hours, began hurling mail-bag and boxes about with the abandon that marks the man whom Nature has fitted to his legitimate calling.

Filmer eyed the pa.s.senger with disapproving interest; Murphy, after looking at some part of the machinery, lolled up to Jock.

"Is that it?" Filmer nodded toward the stranger, who sat exhaustedly upon a cracker-box, destined for the Black Cat, with his suit-case at his feet.

"It ain't, then," Murphy returned. "It got on the Branch 'stead of the Mountain Special, by mistake. It's a lunger bound for the lakes, and some one gave him a twist as to the track an' we caught 'im. But shure, the rale thing, the parson, when I was after tellin' 'im of the job what was at this end of the game, he up and balked--divil take 'im!--an' said he wasn't goin' to tie for time and eternity, two unknown quant.i.ties.

What do ye think of that?"

Jock thought hotly of it, and expressed his thought so fervidly that the boy on the cracker-box gave attention.

"Say," Murphy continued, "give it straight, Filmer; does it be after meanin' life or death for Birkdale's girl? What's the almighty hurry, anyway?"

He leered unpleasantly. Jock squared himself, and faced the engineer.

"Come off with that guff!" he drawled. "What hurry there be is _my_ hurry, you blamed idiot! And my reasons are my own, confound you! I've set my mind on having that affair come off to-morrow, gol durn it, and I'm going to have a parson if I have to dangle down to the Junction on that old machine of yours, myself."

A few added words of luridly picturesque intent gave force and colour to this declaration.

The stranger on the cracker-box rose weakly and drew near.

"Excuse me," he began, in a voice of peculiar sweetness and earnestness, "I wonder if I can be of any service? I am a minister!"

Filmer reeled before this announcement, took the stranger in from head to foot, then remarked in an awed tone:

"The h.e.l.l you are!"

"I am. My name's Drew, Ralph Drew."

Murphy beat a rapid retreat. The scene was too much for him. Filmer, in doubt as to whether this was a joke or not, stood his ground.

The young fellow laughed good-naturedly.

"I know what you think," he said, and coughed sharply; "I got my credentials all right. I nearly finished myself in getting them, but they're all right. Graduated last June, went under soon after, got on my feet two weeks ago, and am making for Green Lake. I got side-tracked at the Junction through my own stupidity, and landed here. Perhaps you can direct me to a quiet place for the night, and I'll be glad to help you out in any way along my line, if I can."

This lengthy explanation was interrupted by short, hacking coughs, and Filmer's eyes never dropped from the eager boyish face through it all.

Presently he leaned down and took the dress-suit case from the other's hand.

"Drop that," he drawled, "and you follow me. There's the Black Cat Tavern, but I guess that ain't your kind. Do you think you can make my shack? It's a half-mile, and pretty uppish grade."

The boy began to thank Filmer.

"Hold on!" Jock commanded. "Keep your wind for the climb, and stop ga.s.sing."

The two started on, and the climb was a silent one. Filmer appreciatively strode ahead, speechless. Drew, panting, accepted the situation gratefully, and made the most of his position and his leader's silence.

Filmer's shack was a lonely place, standing on a little pine-clad knoll facing the west. It had four small rooms, a broad piazza, and a thrifty garden at the rear.

The room a.s.signed to Drew had a cot-bed and rough, home-made toilet accommodations that suggested comfort and a sense of refinement. When Filmer made him welcome to it, he said quietly: "Now kid, you make yourself trim and dandy. Come out on the piazza when you get good and ready, and we'll have supper out there later." It was evident that Jock's sympathies had been touched.

Once alone, Drew sank upon the low bed, and permitted the waves of weakness and weariness to engulf him.

The young face grew pinched and blue, a faintness rose and conquered him. The eyes closed, and the breath almost stopped. But it was only momentary, and with returning consciousness came renewed hope and sudden strength.

From the broad open window the boy could see the western hills, already gay with glistening autumn colour, shining under the glowing sunset sky.

The tall pointed pines, standing here and there in clumps, rose sharply dark in the early gloaming of the valley.

"It's my chance," thought the boy, his eyes widening with enjoyment of the beauty; "and, by Jove, I believe I've caught on!"

He got to his feet. The giddiness was gone. He flung off his dust-stained garments, as if they held all of his past weakness and misery. He plunged his head into the clear, cold water in the big basin on the pine table; when he emerged, colour had mounted to his pale face, and depression was a thing of the past.

"Hang it!" he exclaimed, rubbing his face and head with the rough towel that he took from the back of a chair; "this is good enough for me. No Green Lake in mine! I'll send for my trunk"--he had begun to whistle in the pauses of his thought--"and put up my fight right here. Filmer's good stuff; and there's a job ready-made for me, I bet! This is where I was sent, and no mistake. What's that?"

It was the odours of supper, and Drew stood still, inhaled the fragrance and grinned broadly.

"Gee whiz!" he cried; "I'm as hungry as a ditch digger." He dashed over to his suit-case, opened it and pulled out the contents. A pair of flannel trousers, a heavy flannel shirt and thick shoes were selected, and soon Drew, radiant and revived, went forth from the disorder he had created, eager for the meal that he heard Filmer placing on the piazza table.

Drew was to eat many of Filmer's meals in the future; he was to learn that Jock was a master-hand at cooking, but he was never again to know just the positive joy that he felt during that first meal; for he brought to it an appet.i.te made keen by the hope of recovered health--the health he had squandered so foolishly, poor fellow, while he was making for his goal at college.