The Flyers Part 8

"Since five o'clock."

"I--I suppose you got up to see the sunrise."

"No, to see the river rise," she replied. "The bridge is gone." He was silent for twenty paces, trying to recall what he had said about telegraphing ahead.

"You don't mean it! Then I daresay they haven't got my telegram stopping the train."

"How annoying!"

Dauntless had just said to Anne, in a fit of disgust: "Windomshire's got a lot of nerve. That was my engine, you know. I hired it."

Windomshire went on to say, careful that Joe was quite out of hearing: "Mr. Dauntless was quite annoying. He got into my engine without an invitation, and I'm hanged if he'd take a hint, even after I hired a stoker to throw a spadeful of coal over him. I don't know why he should be in such a confounded hurry to get to--what's the name of the place?

I--er--I really think I must go and speak to Miss Courtenay, Eleanor.

She--er--looks ill."

"It's her grandmother who is ill--not she. But, yes! Please try to cheer her up a bit, Harry. She's terribly upset."

"I'm sure she is," muttered he, dropping back with more haste than gallantry. Mr. Dauntless sprang forward with equal alacrity, and wrong was right a moment later.

"Joe dear," whispered Eleanor, "I've been nearly crazy. What happened?"

He was vainly trying to clasp her hand.

"Nell, he's on to us. I wish I knew just why Miss Courtenay is here.

Lord, I'll never forget that ride."

"It was just like you to take advantage of his engine."

"His engine!" exploded Joe, wrathfully. Securely separated from the others, the elopers a.n.a.lysed the situation as best they could. Two separate enterprises struggled earnestly for an outcome. On the surface, the truth seemed plain enough: it was quite clear to both parties that the extraordinary chain of coincidence was not entirely due to Providence. There was something of design behind it all. The staggering part was the calamitous way in which chance had handled their dear and private affairs.

"He doesn't know that you were in my automobile," concluded Dauntless, almost at the same time that a like opinion was being expressed by Windomshire. "Are you willing to go on with it, Nell? Are you scared out of it?"

"No, indeed," she exclaimed, perplexity leaving her brow. "At first I feared he might have telegraphed to mother, but now I am sure he hasn't. He was not following me at all. He is in love with Anne, and he was surrept.i.tiously off for a part of the distance with her. He really doesn't want to marry me, you know."

"Well, he isn't going to, you see. By all that is holy, nothing shall stop us now, dear. We'll go on to Omegon and carry out everything just as we planned. If he's running off after another girl, it's time you put an end to him. Don't give him a thought."

"Don't you think we'd better talk it over with Mr. Derby? He discreetly disappeared when he saw it was you."

"Right! Let's hunt him out. By Jove, we can have him marry us right here,--great!"

"No," she cried firmly, "it MUST be in a church." He could not move her from that stand.

"Oh, if we could only get across that confounded river!" scolded Joe, as they went off in search of Derby.

Windomshire was slowly reconciling himself to the fact that Eleanor loved Dauntless, but he could not get it out of his head that she still expected to marry as her mother had planned.

"See here, Anne, it's all very well to say that she loves Dauntless. Of course she does. But that isn't going to prevent her from marrying me.

I don't believe she was running away with him, don't you know. He was simply following her. That's the way these Americans do, you know. Now, the question is, won't she think it odd that you and I should happen to be doing almost the same thing?"

"To be sure she will," said Anne, coolly. "She has a very bad opinion of me. I'm sure she doesn't believe you expect to marry me."

"By Jove, dear, it sounds rather dreadful, doesn't it?" he groaned.

"But of course you ARE going to marry me, so what's the odds? Then she can marry Dauntless to her heart's content. I say, are we never to get away from this beastly place?"

"They are to row us across the river in boats. We'll be taken up by another train over there and carried on. Poor Mr. Dauntless, he looks so hara.s.sed."

"By Jove, I feel rather cut up about him. He ought to have her, Anne.

He's a decent chap, although he was da--very unreasonable last night. I like him, too, in spite of the fact that he kicked coal over me twice in that confounded bin. He was good enough to take a cinder out of my eye this morning, and I helped him to find his watch in the coal-bin. I say, Anne, we might get a farm wagon and drive to some village where there is a minister--"

"No, Harry! you know I've set my heart on being married in a church. It seems so much more decent and--regular; especially after what has just happened."

A porter appeared in the rear platform and shouted a warning to all those on the ground.

"Get yo' things together. The boats'll be ready in ten minutes, ladies and gen'l'men." The locomotive uttered a few sharp whistles to reinforce his shouts, and everybody made a rush for the cars.

The conductor and other trainmen had all they could do to rea.s.sure the more nervous and apprehensive of the pa.s.sengers, many of whom were afraid of the swollen, ugly river just ahead. Boats had been sent up from a town some miles down the stream, and the pa.s.sengers with their baggage, the express, and the mail pouches were to be ferried across.

Word had been received that a makeshift train would pick them up on the other side, not far from the wrecked bridge, and take them to Omegon as quickly as possible.

It was also announced that the company would be unable to send a train beyond Omegon and into the northwest for eight or ten hours, owing to extensive damage by the floods. Repairs to bridges and roadbed were necessary. In the meantime, the pa.s.sengers would be cared for at the Somerset Hotel in Omegon, at the company's expense. The company regretted and deplored, etc.

There was a frightful clamour by the through pa.s.sengers, threats of lawsuits, claims for damage, execrations, and groans. In time, however, the whole company went trooping down the track under the leadership of the patient conductor. It was a sorry, disgruntled parade. Everybody wanted a porter at once, and when he could not get one, berated the road in fiercer terms than ever; men who had always carried their own bags to escape feeing a porter, now howled and raged because there was not an army of them on the spot. Everybody was constantly "d.a.m.ning" the luck.

The conductor led his charges from the track through a muddy stubble-field and down to a point where half a dozen small rowboats were waiting among the willows. Dauntless and Eleanor were well up in front, their faces set resolutely toward Omegon. For some well-defined reason, Windomshire and Anne were the last in the strange procession.

The medical college agent, the tall and sombre Mr. Hooker, was the first man into a boat. He said it was a case of life or death.

Eleanor looked backward down the long file of trailers, a little smile on her lips.

"They are not all going away to be married, are they, Joe?" she said, taking note of the unbroken array of sour countenances.

"It looks like a funeral, my dear. Look at the cadaverous individual beside the con--Heavens, Nell, isn't that--by George, it is! It's old Mrs. Van Truder! Back there about half-way--the fat one. See her? Good Lord!"

Eleanor turned pale and the joyous light fled from her eyes.

"Oh, dear! I forgot that the Van Truders spend all their summers at Omegon. And it is she--and he, too. Oh, Joe, it's just awful!"

"She's the worst old cat in town," groaned Dauntless. "We can't escape her. She'll spot us, and she'll never let go of us. I don't mind him.

He's so near-sighted he couldn't see us. But she!"

"She will suspect, Joe--she's sure to suspect, and she'll watch us like a hawk," whispered the distressed Eleanor. The Van Truders lived in the same block with the Thursdales in town. "She'll telegraph to mother!"

"That reminds me," muttered Joe, looking at his watch. "I had hoped to telegraph to your mother about this time."

"She will forgive us," said she, but she failed in her a.s.sumption of confidence. As a matter of fact she felt that her mother would not forgive.

"Well, you left a note pinned on your pillow," said he, as if that covered all the sins.

"Yes, but it was directed to Miss Courtenay, asking her to break it gently to mamma," said she, dismally.

They had reached the edge of the river by this time and others came up with them. For a while they managed to keep out of old Mrs. Van Truder's range of vision, but her sharp eyes soon caught sight of them as they tried to slip into a boat that was already crowded to its full capacity.