forget everything about me. Natives may chatter near me; I don't hear
them. My friend Hackett may come and fire a string of questions at me;
he tells me afterward my answers wouldn't do credit to a monkey on a
stick. I am lost in the attempt to put your face before me--your face as
I saw it last. There was not much light in the car, but what there was
fell on your face. I see rose colour always; what was it--the bonnet?--if
they call those things bonnets! I see more rose colour--reflection? I see
a pair of eyes which were not afraid to look into mine--for a minute;
only for a minute--but I can see them.
"The night grows cold. Even in the tropics the nights may be cold in
the mountains. My fire has burned down to a few coals. My bunk awaits
me; I thought I was tired when I sat down to write. I'm not tired
now--refreshed!
"Good-night! Sleep well--up there somewhere in the North!"
After this letter Dorothy Broughton went about like a girl in a dream.
Yet she was so practical a girl, had been so thoroughly trained to fill
her days with things worth while, that she was able to keep up a very
realistic appearance of being absorbed in the old round of duties and
pleasures. She was leading a life by no means idle or useless. As for the
happiness of it, she carried about with her a constant sense that
something wonderful had happened, was happening--and was yet to
happen--which made no task too hard for her newly vitalized spirit.
The day before Thanksgiving the arrival of a particularly thick letter
from Colombia gave her a more than ordinarily delightful sense of
anticipation. Her brother Julius, at home for the annual festival, saw it
upon the hall table three seconds before she did, and captured it. He
withdrew from his breast pocket another letter in a similar handwriting
addressed to himself. With an expression of great gravity he compared the
two while Dorothy held out her hand in vain.
"Don't be in a hurry," he advised her. "There is a curious likeness
between these two addresses--not to mention the envelopes--which
interests but baffles me. The word 'Broughton' in both cases begins with
an almost precisely identical B. The small t is crossed in almost exactly
the same manner--with a black bar of ink which indicates a lavish
disposition. The whole address upon your letter seems to me to bear a
close and remarkable resemblance to the address upon mine. Another point
which should not be overlooked: both are postmarked with a South American
stamp, a Colombian stamp, with--yes--with the same stamp. What can this
mean? I--"
"When you are through with your nonsense--" Dorothy still extended her
hand for her letter.
Julius sat down upon the third step of the staircase, his countenance
indicating entire absorption in the comparison before him. He held the
letters in one hand; with his other he made it clear to his sister that
her nearer approach would be resisted. "There is one point where the
likeness fails," he mused. "My letter is an ordinary one as to thickness;
it consists of two meagre sheets of rather light-weight paper. Your
letter, on the other hand, strikes me as extraordinarily bulky. Now
there--"
"Jule, I'm busy. Will you please--"
"Just as I get on the trail of this thing you insist on diverting my
mind," her brother complained bitterly. He held the two letters at arm's
length, continuing to study them while his extended hand kept his sister
away. But she now turned and walked off down the hall.
He looked after her with a sparkle in his black eyes. "Sis," he
entreated, "don't go. I need your help. Have you by any chance an inkling
as to the sender of these curiously similar epistles?"
She turned. Her eyes were sparkling, too. She shook her head.
"I'll tell you what," cried the inspired Julius, "let's read 'em
together, paragraph by paragraph. Look here, I dare you to!" he suddenly
challenged her. "Mine first." Stuffing his sister's letter into his
pocket he spread forth his own. "I suppose you always read the last page
first," said he, "I've understood women do. So we'll begin at the last
page. Listen!"
She would have left him but he had walked over to her and now held her by
the wrist while he began to read. It was impossible for her eyes to
resist the drawing power of that now familiar penmanship.
"In this way forty-two miles of trail were cleared from ten to fourteen
feet wide, most of our efforts being concentrated on the grading,
bridges, and corduroying. Four pastures were cleaned out, of about
seven, six, and four cabullos each, or about twenty-three to twenty-six
acres in all. These pastures were burned and grass has started in most
of them. We built palm houses or shacks at each stopping-place. We feel
pretty well satisfied with the trail. You must not get the idea that we
have an automobile road, for we haven't, but we are now much better
prepared to handle supplies and machinery." Julius looked up. "Suppose
yours is as thrilling as that? Now for a paragraph of yours. Shall I
open it for you?"
But by a quick motion she escaped him and had the letter. She was
laughing as she slipped it into some unknown place about her dress.
"Now see here," Julius persisted, following her up the stairs. "I have to
look into this, as a brother. Judging by the bulk of that letter it is
not the first one from the same person. How long have you two been
corresponding in my absence and without my permission?"
Dorothy turned and faced him. Her face was full of vivid colour, but her
eyes were daring. "Since August."
"Hm! Does he write entertaining letters?"
"Very."
"Gives you a full report of his operations, I suppose, with a dip into
the early history of the country and the result of his researches into
the Spanish settlement."
"Yes, indeed."
"Ever touch on anything personal?--mutually personal, I mean, of course."
"Never."
Julius scanned her face. "He writes me," said he, "that instead of
staying only six months it's likely to be a year before he can come
North. The Company who picked him to go down and put this thing through
has decided to make a much bigger thing of it than was at first intended.
Too bad, eh? Fine for him; but a year's quite a stretch for a chap who,
as I recall it, went away with some reluctance--just at the last."
Dorothy met his intent eyes without flinching. "He is so interested in
his work I should say it was not too bad at all," she responded.
She then was allowed to make her escape, while Julius went back
downstairs, smiling to himself. "That shot told," he exulted.
In her room Dorothy opened her letter. If Julius's news were true she
would soon know it. Out of the envelope fell a small packet of
photographs, but it was not their presence alone which had made it so
bulky. The letter itself was three times as long as her brother's.
Dorothy eagerly examined the photographs which had fallen out of Kirke
Waldron's letter. They had been taken all about his camp in Colombia and
the surrounding country, picturing the progress that had been made in the
development of the mines. In one or two of the pictures, showing groups
of native workmen, she made out Waldron's figure, usually presenting him
engaged in conversation, his back turned to the lens. But one picture had
been taken in front of his own shack with its palm-leaf thatching. He was
standing by the door, leaning against the lintel, dressed in his working
clothes, pipe in hand, looking straightforwardly out of the picture at
her and smiling a little. The figure was that of a strong, well-built,
outdoors man, the face full of character and purpose, lighted by humour.
The steady eyes seemed very intent upon her, and it was a little
difficult for her to remind herself that it was undoubtedly his fellow
engineer and friend, Hackett, at whom he was gazing with so much
friendliness of aspect rather than at her far-away self.
The letter, however, toward its close set her right upon this point. He
had told her of his decision to stay and see the full development of the
mine through, in spite of the wrench it cost him to think of remaining a
year without a break. Then, going on to describe the taking of the
photograph, he had written:
"The Company is very glad to get as much as we can send it of actual
illustration of our labours, so we make it a point to snap these scenes
from time to tune. There is one picture, however, which was not taken
for the Company. Hackett asked me to hold the lens on him for a shot to
send to somebody up North there, so he went inside and freshened up a
bit and came out grinning. I grinned back as I took the picture, and
said I was glad to see him so cheerful. He replied that the smile was
not for me--that though he had apparently looked at me he had really
been looking through me at a person about as different from myself as I
could well imagine.
"It's a poor rule that doesn't work both ways, so I then took my place by
the door of our palatial residence, and gazed--apparently--at Hackett's
Indian-red visage. I found it entirely possible to forget, as he had
done, the chap before me, and see instead--well--look at the picture! And
please don't let those lashes drop too soon. When I imagine them they
always do!"
It was thus that the correspondence went on. Dorothy never replied
directly to such paragraphs as these, but she did send him, a few
weeks after the arrival of the Colombian photographs, a little
snapshot of herself taken in winter costume as she was coming down the
steps of her home. It was an exquisite bit of portraiture, even though
of small proportions, and it called forth the most daring response he
had yet made:
"I know you wouldn't want it pinned up in the shack, and it's much too
valuable to risk leaving it among my other possessions there. So I carry
it about in an old leather letter case in my pocket. I hope you don't
mind. I'm a little afraid of wearing it out, so I've constructed a sort
of a frame for it, out of a heavy linen envelope, which will bear
handling better than the little picture.... You are looking straight out
at me--at _me_? I wish I knew it! Won't you tell me--Dorothy? You can
trust me--can't you? There are some things which can't be said at long
distance; they must wait. I get to feeling like a storage battery
sometimes--overcharged! Meanwhile, trust me--Dorothy!"
But she would send him only this:
"Of course I was looking at you. Why not? It's only courtesy to recognize
the salutation of a gentleman disguised in working clothes, standing in
the door of a queer-looking South American residence. Besides--he looks
rather well, I think!"
One April evening Mr. Julius Broughton, sitting comfortably in his room
in a certain well-known building at a well-known university, was summoned
to telephone. Bringing his feet to the floor with a thump, flinging aside
his book and puffing away at his pipe, he lounged unwillingly to the
telephone box. The following conversation ensued, causing a sudden and
distinct change in the appearance of the young man.
"Broughton," he acknowledged the call. "Broughton? This is
Waldron--Kirke Waldron."
"Who?"
"Waldron; up from Colombia, South America. Forgotten me?"
"What! Forgotten you! I say--when did you come? Where are you?
Will you--"
The distant voice cut in sharply: "Hold on. I've just about one minute to
spend talking. Can you come downtown to the Warrington Street Station? If
you'll be there at ten, sharp, under the south-side clock, I can see you
for ten minutes before I leave for the train. I want to see you very
much. Explain everything then."
"Of course I'll come; delighted! Be right down. But aren't you
going to--"
"I'll explain later," said Waldron's decisive voice again. "Sorry to ring
off now. Good-bye."
"Well, great George Washington!" murmured Julius to himself as he
replaced the receiver on the hook and reinserted his pipe in his mouth,
to emit immediately thereafter a mighty puff of smoke. "I knew the
fellow was a hustler, but I should suppose that when he comes up from
South America to telephone he might spend sixty or seventy seconds at it.
Must be a sudden move; no hint of it in his last letter."
He consulted his watch. He would have to emulate Waldron's haste if he
reached the Warrington Street Station by ten o'clock. He made a number of
rapid moves, resulting in his catching a through car which bore him
downtown at express speed and landed him in the big station at a minute
before ten. Hurrying through the crowd he came suddenly face to face with
the man he sought.
Tanned to a seasoned brown, and looking as vigorous as a lusty pine tree,
Waldron shook hands warmly.
But before Julius had more than begun his expressions of pleasure at
seeing his friend again so unexpectedly Waldron turned and indicated a
young man's figure in a wheelchair. "That's my friend and associate
engineer, Hackett, over there. He's had a very bad illness and I'm taking
him home. We'll go over and speak to him in a minute. Meanwhile, I shall
have to talk fast. First--is your sister Dorothy well?" The direct gaze
had in it no apology for speaking thus abruptly.
"Fine," Julius assured him. "Haven't you heard from her lately?"
"Not since I sailed--naturally--nor for a fortnight before that. I came
away very unexpectedly, sooner than I should have done but for Hackett,
who needed to get home. But the trip combines that errand with a lot of
business--seeing the Company directors, consulting with the firm, looking
up machinery and getting it shipped back with me on the next boat. I
haven't an hour to spare anywhere but on this flying trip to Hackett's
home, which will take twenty-four hours, and I shall have to work night
and day. And--I want to see your sister."
Again the direct look, accompanied this time, by a smile which was
like a sudden flash of sunshine, as Julius well remembered. Waldron
did not smile too often, but when he did smile--well, one wanted to do
what he asked.
"Does she know?" Julius demanded.
"Not a word; there was no way to let her know except to cable, and
I--have no right to send her cable orders--or requests. Broughton, as I
figure it out, I have just one chance to see her, and that only with your
cooperation--and hers. I don't believe I need explain to you that it
seems to me I must see her; going back without it is unthinkable. I don't
know when I may be North again. Yet I can't neglect Hackett or my duty to
the Company."
"Then--how the dickens--"
"I shall be coming back on the train that reaches this station at two
o'clock Saturday morning. It will go through your home city at midnight.
Would it be possible for you and Miss Dorothy to take that train when it
leaves Boston Friday night, and so give me the time between there and
your station?"
Julius Broughton, born plotter and situation maker as he was, rose to the
occasion gallantly. It tickled him immensely, the whole idea. He spent
five seconds in consideration, his eye fixed on the lapel of Waldron's
coat; then he spoke:
"Leave it to me. I'll have to figure it out how to get around Dot. You
mustn't think she's going to jump at the chance of going to meet a man
instead of having him come to meet her. She's used to having the men
do the travelling, you know, while she stays at home and forgets
they're coming."
"I know. And you know--and I think she knows also--that only necessity
would make me venture to ask such a favour."
"I may have to scheme a bit--"
"No, please don't. I prefer not to spend the time between stations
explaining the scheming and apologizing for it. Put it to her frankly,
letting her understand the situation--"
Julius shook his head. "She's not used to it. She'll find it hard to
understand why you couldn't stop off and get out to our place, if only
for an hour."
"Then show her this."
Waldron took from his breast pocket a card, on which, in very small,
close writing and figures, was a concise schedule of his engagements for
the coming five days, and, as he had said, nights.
Julius scanned it, and whistled softly a bar from a popular song, "Now Do
You See?" "Do eating and sleeping happen to come in on this anywhere?" he
queried gently.
"On the run. It's this trip up into New Hampshire that's crowding things;
otherwise, I might have managed it very well."
"Couldn't anybody else have seen Mr.--Hackett home?" asked Julius.
"No." Waldron's tone settled that and left no room for dispute. "There
are some things that can't be done, you know, and that's one of them." He
glanced at the great clock over his head. "Come over and meet him."
Julius went.
A long, thin figure, wrapped in an ulster, reached out a hand, and a
determinedly cheerful voice said, with an evident effort not to show the
severe fatigue the journey was costing the convalescent: "Think of me as
Sackett or Jackett or something. I'm no Hackett; they're a huskier lot."
"As you will be soon, of course," Julius broke in confidently.
"Colombia air is pretty fine, but New Hampshire air is better--for old
New Hampshire boys," asserted Waldron. He nodded at a red-capped
porter waiting near, and laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. "This
chap is going to be all right when he gets where a certain little
mother can look after him. Mothers and blood poisoning don't assimilate
a bit. And now we have to be off, for I want to get my patient settled
in his berth before the train pulls out, and it's going to be called in
about thirty seconds."
He turned aside for a final word with Julius. "I'm not asking too much?"
"Do you think you are?"
The two pairs of eyes searched each other.
"I know Miss Dorothy is an orphan; I know, too, that you are her only
brother. You understand that I mean to ask her to marry me, if I can have
the chance. I couldn't do it--on paper. If you approve the match--and I
think you do or you wouldn't have planned quite so cleverly last July--"
"What?"
"You brought about that meeting, you know," said Waldron, smiling, with
such a penetrating look that Julius felt it go past all defenses.
"How do you know I did?"
"By a certain peculiar twist to your left eyebrow when that train came in
from the wrong direction. You forget that I went to school with you. I
have seen that twist before; it meant only one thing."
"Well, I'll be--see here, it was after dark when that train--"
"The hotel hand had a lantern. You unwisely allowed its rays to strike
your face."
Julius burst into a smothered laugh. "Well, you're a good one!"
"I'm glad you think so--since I'm asking of you this thing you so
dislike to do."
"I don't dislike it; I'm delighted to have the chance. I'll have her on
that train if I have to blindfold her."
"Don't do that. Show her the card."
The two shook hands with a strong grip of affection and understanding.
Then Waldron, wheeling the chair himself, took his friend Hackett away as
carefully as if he were convoying a baby. Julius, after seeing the party
through the gates, went back to his college rooms, his wits busy with the
task which so took hold of his fancy.
Julius would have enjoyed scheming involvedly, but Waldron had been too
peremptory about that to allow of a particle of intrigue. So, before he
slept, he sent his sister a special-delivery letter knowing she would
receive it in the morning. It stated, after describing the situation to
her (with a few private and characteristic touches of his own), that he
would call her up by telephone to receive her reply, and that he would
go through the city on a certain afternoon train on which she was to
join him. This plan would give the pair time for a leisurely dinner in
Boston before meeting Waldron upon the ten o'clock train. When he had
Dorothy on the wire next morning he was not surprised that her first
words were these:
"Julius--is it surely Julius? Well--I don't see how I can go!"
"Why not? Got the mumps--or any other disfiguring complaint?"
"Mercy, no! But--it can't be that it is necessary! He--he certainly
could--"
"Did you read that schedule?"
Julius's voice had in it a commanding, no-compromise quality. He knew
that this feminine evasiveness was probably inevitable; they were made
that way, these girls; but he did not intend to let the time limit of an
expensive long-distance call be exceeded by mere nonsense.
"Ye-es, but--"
"Now listen. We've got three minutes to talk; we've used thirty seconds
already saying nothing. I'm going to be on that train. I'm going to have
that little trip with Kirke, and if you don't have it, it will be pure
foolishness; and you'll cry your eyes out afterward to think you didn't.
He can't get to you; if he could he'd do it; you must know him well
enough for that if you've been hearing from him all these months.
Now--will you be there?"
"Julius! I'm afraid I--"
"Will you be there?"
"Why--don't you think I--perhaps I ought to have Bud--"
"No, I don't. I'm all the chaperon you'll need for this affair. If you go
and get another woman mixed up with it you'll lose half of your fun, for
she'll be sure to forget she's the chaperon--you know Bud--and first you
know you'll be chaperoning her. See? Will you be at the station? I'm
going to hang up now in just fifteen seconds!"
"Oh, Jule--wait!--I--"
"All right! I'll telephone down for the seats. Good-bye!"
He was on the vestibuled platform of his car to meet her when his train
passed the home city from whose suburbs she had come in. His eager eye
fell delightedly on the trimly modish figure his sister presented; he
would be proud to take her back into his car. He knew just how two or
three sleepy fellows of his own age, in chairs near his own, would sit up
when they saw him return with this radiant girl. Dot certainly knew how
to get herself up, he reflected, as he had often done before.
It was April and it was "raining cats and dogs" as Dorothy came aboard,
but the blue rainproof serge of her beautifully fitting suit was little
the worse therefor, and the close little black hat with the fetching
feather was one to defy the elements, be they never so wildly springlike.
"You're a good sport!" was Julius's low-pitched greeting as he kissed
her, the tail of his eye on one of his young fellow-passengers who had
followed him to the platform for a breath of fresh air and stood with his
hands in his pockets staring at the pretty girl close by.
"I feel like a buccaneer--or a pirate--or something very bold and wild
and adventurous," she returned.
"You don't look it--except in your eye. I think I do see there the gleam
of a desperate resolve." He bent over her devotedly as he put her in her
chair, noting the effect on the young gentlemen who had been too slothful
to leave the car, but who now, as he had predicted to himself, were
"sitting up," both physically and mentally, as they covertly eyed his new
travelling companion. "I admit it takes courage for a New England girl to
start out to meet a barbarian from the wilds of South America,
unchaperoned except by a perfectly good brother."
"If I could be sure the brother would be perfectly good--" she
suggested, smiling at him as she slightly altered the position of her
chair so that the attentive fellow-travellers were moved out of her line
of vision.
"I'm sworn to rigorous virtue," he replied solemnly. "He attended to that
for you."
Dorothy looked out of the window. She looked out of the window most of
the way to Boston, so that the interested youths opposite were able to
enjoy only the averted line of her profile.
Julius, however, took delight in playing the lover for their benefit, and
his attention to his sister would have deceived the elect. The result was
a considerably heightened colour in Dot's face, which added the last
touch of charm to the picture and completed her brother's satisfaction.
Arrived in the city, Broughton treated his sister to a delicious
little dinner at a favourite hotel, which he himself relished to the
full. He questioned whether she knew what she was eating or its quality,
but she maintained an appearance of composure which only herself knew
was attained at a cost.
He then escorted her to a florist's and himself insisted upon pinning
upon the blue serge coat a gorgeous corsage knot of deep-hued red
roses and mignonette, which added to her quiet costume the one
brilliant note that was needed to bring out her beauty as his artistic
young eye approved.
She protested in vain. "I don't want to wear flowers--to-night, my
dear boy."
"Why not? There's nothing conspicuous about that, these days. More
conspicuous not to, you might say. You often do it yourself."
"I know, but--to-night!"
"He won't know what you have on. He's slightly delirious at this very
minute, I have no doubt at all. When he sees you he'll go off his head.
Oh, nobody'll know it to look at him; you needn't be afraid of that."