They passed Cameron's place without stopping, much to the disappointment
of the good woman of that establishment, whose real fondness for David
was hidden beneath the rough bark of bucolic assertiveness with which
she chose to mask her natural kindness of heart.
"There goes Jim and that man Ross, tearin' past here like as if wagons
and hosses didn't cost nothin'," she remarked. "And they're drivin' into
what's like to be the biggest drenchin' of their lives, if I'm any
jedge."
She snatched the meagre array of stockings, sheets, and underwear from
the clothes-line, bundling them hurriedly in her long, muscular arms,
and disappeared into the house, followed by the first scattering
harbingers of a heavy June downpour that presently came, spreading black
spots on the soft gray of the sun-bleached door.
Racketing over the road at a brisk trot, a quarter of a mile below, went
the team, David clinging to the seat and wondering how Cameron managed
to maintain his swaying poise with both hands on the reins and his mind
engrossed with nothing more serious than asking stuttering questions as
to what his companion thought the new road--_Bump! Judas!_--was up to
now?
"She's a-goin' to break loose in a minute,' yelled Cameron, as a gust of
wind flapped his hat-brim over his eyes. With one hand he reached
beneath the seat and drew out a grain sack, which he flung round his
shoulders, tucking the ends beneath his suspenders.
"C-c-cant, he-he-lp it now," replied David. "I want to make that
ten-thirty train."
He cast a glance over his shoulder to where Smoke stood, legs spread to
the lurch of the wagon, and a canine grin of fixed intensity gripped
between his set jaws.
With the quick chill of air that blew in their faces came the roar of
the rain through the leaves.
The broad, round flanks of the horses worked rhythmically, and each huge
forefoot rose and fell with trip-hammer precision. A sharp drive of wind
bent the tops of the young wayside firs groundward. The wagon pitched
over a knoll and took the rutted grade below it at a speed that kept the
horses' flanks quivering with the anticipated shock of the clacking
whiffletrees, as the traces slackened and then snapped taut again with a
jerk. Then somewhere in the southern sky a long, fiery seam sprang open
and winked shut again, followed by a hush in which the battering of the
horses' feet on the shale was like mimic thunder.
A dull grumbling rolled out of nowhere and boomed lazily across the
crouching hills, dying away in the distant valleys.
"'Fraid of lightnin'?" asked Cameron, pulling up the horses as they
descended a steep pitch in the road.
"No, but I don't like it."
"I be," said Cameron.
David glanced at his dripping face, which seemed strangely white in the
gathering dusk.
"Had a hoss struck onct--when I was drivin' him. That's as close as I--"
A whirl of flame spurted from the trees on the roadside. A rush of
shattering noises tore the false truce of silence to a million shreds,
and the top of a giant hemlock fell crashing through the trees below it
and lunged across the road. The team plunged backward, and David saved
himself from a headlong dive between the rearing animals by the sheer
force of his grip on the seat. The roar of the rain, as it pounded on
the corduroy of the "swamp-stretch," drowned Cameron's voice as he
called to the horses. Curious Jim's fear of lightning was not altogether
a selfish one. He treated his horses like human beings in so far as he
could, and they shuddered uneasily in the slack harness as they stood in
front of the wrecked tree-top, but they did not run, as David feared
they would.
Cameron handed the lines to David and went to their heads with a
reassuring familiarity of voice and touch that quieted them.
"You go ahead a piece and look if they's room to get by."
David dropped to the road and felt his way cautiously over the slippery
logs. A white flash lit the dripping leaves around him, disclosing an
impassable barrier of twisted limbs through which gleamed the riven top
of the hemlock.
"We can't make it with the team," he shouted.
"You jest hold the hosses a spell." David came back to him. "No--go back
and take the lines. I'll have a squint at things."
The teamster crept forward in the gloom and peered at the obstruction.
Presently he came back and reached beneath the wagon. David heard him
loosen the chain and brake-shoe attached to the axle. Again Cameron
moved toward the fallen tree, the chain clanking behind him. "Now, I'll
onhitch and see if we can snake her to one side. Where in thunder's that
axe?"
He found it and drove out the king-pin. The tongue of the wagon thudded
to the road as the horses stepped free.
"They's jest one chanct in a hundred we kin make it," he called, as he
started toward the tree.
Another flash burned through the cavernous gloom, and David saw his
companion stooping among the fallen branches. Then he heard the chain
jump taut with a snap, followed by myriad rustlings as the horses leaned
to the creaking collars. He could hear Cameron's voice urging them
easily as they stumbled on the slippery corduroy. With a groan the tree
swung parallel to the trail. The horses stopped.
"She's a-comin'," called Jim. "If they'd only light up ag'in so I could
resk snakin' her a leetle--"
With the flash that followed, Cameron called to the horses. Ross could
hear them shouldering through the underbrush at the edge of the swamp.
"E-e-easy, thar!" Cameron backed the team and unhooked the chain.
"Reckon we kin jest about squeak by," he said, as he swung the
hard-breathing horses to the wagon again. "She's lettin' up some, but
that ain't sayin' much." After some delay he found the axe which he had
dropped after driving out the king-pin. He drove it in place again and
climbed to the seat.
"When we git by this piece of corrugated cussedness, I calc'late we'll
make a noise like as if suthin's comin'," he remarked, wiping his
forehead with a dripping hand. "Kin you see what's the time?"
"About nine-thirty. I looked when you were unhitching. I won't have time
to change my clothes at the hotel."
"Reckon not," replied Jim, as he swung the horses round the crowding
branches that whipped their flanks and snapped along the side of the
wagon. In a few minutes they were on the natural roadbed again, swishing
through pools of muddy water, and clanking over the stony stretches at a
brisk trot.
A tiny red glow appeared on the edge of the night. It crept higher and
higher as they jingled toward it. Presently it was a lamp, framed in the
cottage window of the first habitation on the outskirts of Tramworth.
Then more lights sprang out of the darkness, gleaming faintly through
rain-blurred panes.
A dog ran out of a dooryard as they passed, barking raucously. Smoke
growled his disapproval. It was bad enough to get wet to the hide
without being insulted by an ill-bred animal whose valor was
proportionate, in adverse ratio, to the proximity of the front gate.
Smoke knew that kind.
They turned a corner and trotted smoothly down the main street of the
town. On the right, at the foot of the street, shone the low red and
green switch-lights of the railroad. The station baggage-room was open,
and the lamplight spread out across the glistening, wet cinders of the
approach to the platform. Cameron whirled the team alongside and David
jumped out, Smoke at his heels.
"Boston--single."
The station agent stamped the ticket and shoved the change under the
wire screen.
"Two bundles on this," he said, handing his ticket to the baggage-man,
and lifting his belongings to the platform. "I suppose the dog can come
in the smoker with me?"
"'Gainst the rules. Have to buy a ticket for him. He goes in the
baggage."
The air quavered with the rumble of the on-coming train. A long shaft of
light shot round a distant curve.
"Here, Smoke!" David attached the red ticket to the dog's collar.
"You're live baggage this trip."
"You'll have to have a chain or they won't take him," said the
baggage-man.
"Got a piece of rope, Jim?"
"Nope. They's some on your duffle."
"Here you are." The baggage-man appeared with a cord which he hastily
knotted in the dog's collar. "I'll put him aboard with your stuff."
"All right," answered David, as the train roared past and slowed down.
"Well, good-bye, Jim."
"So-long, Dave. I'll keep an eye on Fisty."
"Smoker? Three coaches forward," said a brass-buttoned official in
answer to David's question.
David swung to the car steps as the train started, and stood for a
second waving to Cameron. As he turned to mount the steps he saw a
familiar shape shoot down the glistening platform and disappear in the
darkness, a red ticket fluttering at its throat.