Quick Action Part 49

"Of course! You say you have me on your mind. Do you think I am devoid of human feeling?"

"Were you--really--thinking about _me_?" he repeated slowly. "That was very nice of you.... I didn't quite understand.... I'll be careful with the dynamite."

"Perhaps I'd better go with you," she suggested irresolutely.

"Why?"

"I could hold a green umbrella over you while you are digging holes. You yourself say that the sun is dangerous."

"My sun-helmet makes it all right," he said, deeply touched.

"You won't take it off, will you?"

"No."

"And you'll look all around you for snakes before you take the next step, won't you?" she insisted.

He promised, thrilled by her frank solicitude.

A little way up the path he paused, looked around, and saw her standing there looking after him.

"You're sure you'll be all right?" he called back to her.

"Yes. Are you sure _you_ will be?"

"Oh, yes!"

They made two quick gestures of adieu, and he resumed the path.

Presently he turned again. She was still standing there looking after him. They made two gestures of farewell and he resumed the path. After a while he looked back. She--but what's the use!

When he came to the spot marked for destruction, he laid down his paraphernalia, seized the crow-bar, and began to dig, scarcely conscious of what he was about because he had become so deeply absorbed in other things--in _an_-other thing--a human one with red hair and otherwise divinely endowed.

The swift onset of this heavenly emotion was making him giddy--or perhaps it was unaccustomed manual labor under a semi-tropical sun.

Anyway he went about his work blindly but vigorously, seeing nothing of the surrounding landscape or of the immediate ground into which he rammed his crow-bar, so constantly did the charming vision of her piquant features shut out all else.

And all the time he was worrying, too. He thought of snakes biting her distractingly pretty ankles; he thought of wood-ticks and of her snowy neck; of scorpions and of the delicate little hands.

How on earth was he ever going to endure the strain if already, in these few hours, his anxiety about her welfare was a.s.suming such deep and portentous proportions! How was he going to stand the worry until she was safe in the snakeless, tickless North again!

She couldn't remain here! She must go North. His mind seemed already tottering under its new and constantly increasing load of responsibility; and he dug away fiercely with his bar, making twice as many holes as he had meant to.

For he had suddenly determined to be done with the job and get her into some safe place, and he meant to set off a charge of dynamite that would do the business without fail.

Charging and tamping the holes, he used caution, even in spite of his increasing impatience to return and see how she was; arguing very justly with himself that if he blew himself up he couldn't very well learn how she was.

So he attached the wires very carefully, made his connections, picked up the big reel and the remainder of his tools, and walked toward the distant tents, unreeling his wire as he moved along.

She was making soup, but she heard the jangle of his equipment, sprang to her feet, and ran out to meet him.

He let fall everything and held out both hands. In them she laid her own.

"I'm so glad to see you!" he said warmly. "I'm so thankful that you're all right!"

"I'm so glad you came back," she said frankly. "I have been most uneasy about you."

"I've been very anxious, too," he said. Then, drawing an unfeigned sigh of relief: "It does seem good to get back again!" He had been away nearly half an hour.

She examined the wire and the battery gingerly, asking him innumerable questions about it.

"Do you suppose," she ended, "that it will be safe for you to set off the charge from this camp?"

"Oh, perfectly," he nodded.

"Of course," she said, half to herself, "we'll both be blown up if it isn't safe. And that is _something_!"

And she came up very close when he said he was ready to fire, and laid her hand on his arm. The hand was steady enough. But when he glanced at her he saw how white she had become.

"Why, Jean!" he said gently. "Are you frightened?"

"No.... I won't mind it if I may stand rather near you." And she closed her eyes and placed both hands over her ears.

"Do you think I'd fire this charge," he demanded warmly, "if there was the slightest possible danger to _you_? Take down your hands and listen."

Her closed eyelids quivered: "We'll both--there won't be anything left of either of us if anything does happen," she said tremulously. "I am not afraid.... Only tell me when to close my ears."

"Do you really think there is danger?"

"I don't know."

He looked at her standing there, pale, plucky, eyes tightly shut, her pretty fingers resting lightly on her ears.

He said: "Would you think me crazy if I tell you something?"

"W-What?"

"Would you think me insane, Jean?"

"I don't think I would."

"You wouldn't consider me utterly mad?"

"N-no."

"No--_what_?"

"No, I wouldn't consider you mad----"