Part 24 (1/2)

”Well, we come out there, about two miles above this disappearing stream. It's a cinch! By the way, what becomes of that stream?”

”No one knows. Years ago we painted several pieces of wood, and hacked some logs in a certain way for identification, then let them all float down and be sucked into that hole. None ever bobbed up at our end, and, so far as we ever heard, they were never found floating on other streams. I fancy the water rushes into some vast subterranean sea.”

Zack came out with the beverage, Brent bowed to the Colonel, drank it and sighed. It was an atrociously strong toddy, purposely made so by the old servant to compensate for the long day's absence; and almost at once, especially as he had eaten nothing since breakfast, its strength began to tell.

”Zack, when Doctor Meal comes tonight, I wish you'd send him up to graft a dozen mule legs on me.”

”Mule legs, Ma.r.s.e Brent!” the old negro peered at him.

”I haven't heard from Meal,” the old gentleman laughed. ”But there is a young doctor named Stone who will be here; he might do it.”

There were, indeed, now two doctors in Buckville: the former old man with a soft name, who wore long whiskers which served to hide the missing collar and cravat, who had for forty years ministered to the needs of the surrounding country, who rode a pacing mare and carried medicines in a saddle-bag across her back;--and he of the hard name, who had lately come as graduate of the University, who visited the sick in a gasoline runabout of uncertain age which steered with a lever and heaved prodigiously, who wrote prescriptions to be filled at the drug-store. If Doctor Meal were not among his bees, or grafting pear buds, he might be found in a tilted chair on the sidewalk, beneath the giant locust trees which shaded the town's one pharmacy. But Doctor Stone's telephone was invariably answered by a trained servant who, if he were away, knew exactly where to find him. Perhaps in no other respects was the changing life of Buckville better ill.u.s.trated than by these two doctors: the old and the new; the pa.s.sing and the coming. And because it was the pa.s.sing, Doctor Meal had not yet gone as far as the post office for his mail; but in less than an hour after the stamp had been cancelled on Stone's invitation, the Colonel received his acceptance by telephone.

”Well,” Brent sighed, ”I've got to get 'em somewhere!”

”You might gallop up stairs on the four you have,” the Colonel suggested. ”Our guests will soon be arriving.”

”And Dale will beat you down,” Jane called from the library.

”Oh, Jane, I'm all in,” he groaned. ”I can't, honest!”

”Are you so much more tired than Dale?” she asked sweetly.

”Certainly not,” he flushed.

He pushed himself slowly out of the chair and went to the French window.

”Where are you?” he began asking before stepping through. ”I want some encouragment to climb those stairs!”

She was sitting, balanced lightly on the library table, with her hands clasped about one knee.

”What an old man you've suddenly become,” she laughed.

”You'd be an old man, too,” he said, ”if you'd been paced all day by a camel!”

”I thought engineers were inured to those things;--I thought they could withstand all manner of hards.h.i.+ps;--that, really, the elements themselves were playthings in their hands!”

He leaned against the table and looked down at her. That toddy, put into his tired and empty frame, was gripping him with surprising activity.

”No,” he slowly replied. ”Engineers can't master all the elements;--at least, I know one who can't. I wish he could!”

She may have flushed slightly, but her chin kept its tantalizing tip and her eyes their laughing mischief.

”One never knows what one can do until one tries,” she said; and after a dangerous hesitation, added: ”I believe this is the first day you've really attempted any serious work since you came.”

Now, when a girl balances on the edge of a table in a softly lighted room, with her hands clasped about one of her knees, her chin tipped enticingly up, and a riot of mischief rippling through her eyes and parted lips, she has no business telling an over-toddied gentleman that he'll never know what he can do until he tries. She may add that she refers to the building of a railroad, to the conquering of a nation, to the playing of a hand of bridge--but he will see nothing beyond the seductive challenge. And Brent looked another instant at that enticing picture, then stooped down and kissed her hair.

There was no tilted chin, no laughing challenge, now as she sprang up and faced him. The change in her was like that of a limpid pool which has suddenly become roiled by a violent splash, and her eyes flashed as though all the vials of hate were about to be broken upon his head.

”I thought you were a gentleman.” Her voice came slowly, with such utter contempt that he winced.