In the smoking-car forward I find Sandford. He is a most
disreputable-looking specimen. Garbed in weather-stained corduroys,
and dried-grass sweater, and great calfskin boots, he sprawls among
gun-cases and shell-carriers--no sportsman will entrust these
essentials to the questionable ministrations of a baggage-man--and the
air about him is blue from the big cigar he is puffing so
ecstatically. He nods and proffers me its mate.
"Going to be a great day," he announces succinctly, and despite a
rigorous censorship there is a suggestion of excitement in the voice.
"The wind's dead north, and it's cloudy and damp. Rain, maybe, about
daylight."
"Yes." I am lighting up stolidly, although my nerves are atingle.
"We're going to hit it right, just right. The flight's on. I heard
them going over all night. The lake will be black with the big
fellows, the Canada boys."
"Yes," I repeat; then conscience gives a last dig. "I ought not to do
it, though. I didn't have time to break a single engagement"--I'm a
dental surgeon, too, by the way, with likewise an office of tile and
enamel--"or explain at all. And the muss there'll be at the shop
when--"
"Forget it, you confounded old dollar-grubber!" A fresh torrent of
smoke belches forth, so that I see Sandford's face but dimly through
the haze. "If you mention teeth again, until we're back--merely
mention them--I'll throttle you!"
The train is in motion now, and the arc-lights at the corners,
enshrouded each by a zone of mist, are flitting by.
"Yes," he repeats, and again his voice has that minor strain of
suppressed excitement, "we're hitting it just right. There'll be rain,
or a flurry of snow, maybe, and the paddle feet will be down in the
clouds."