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"You mustn't talk yet," she admonished; then to Dicky, "Run away now, Dicky-bird, and give Mrs. Durkee and me a chance to take care of her." Little Mrs. Durkee's sweet, anxious face was close to Lillian's. "Yes, Dicky," she echoed, "hurry out now."
At first Keith's whole being was filled with rage. His mind whirled with plans for revenge. On the morrow he would hunt down Morrell and Sansome. At the thought of what he would do to them, his teeth clamped and his muscles stiffened. Then he became wholly preoccupied with Nan's narrow escape. His quick mind visualized a hundred possibilities suppose he had gone on Durkee's expedition?
I was on a visit to Sam Durkee's ranch, where I had a great time falling off unmanicured ponies and waving my bare hand at the lower jaws of wolves about two miles away. Sam was a hardened person of about twenty-five, with a reputation for going home in the dark with perfect equanimity, though often with reluctance. Over in the Creek Nation was a family bearing the name of Tatum.
The whole scene affects one in a peculiarly subtle way; there is a sensation of being withdrawn from the actual experiences, of living in a new and far-away world. Suddenly the road diverged, and we had mountains on either side; another turn, and on a tree was a signboard, "Durkee's Scotch Whiskey."
Well, good-bye, an' be a little keerful when you come to Durkee's Run bridge. It's kinder wobbly." They were fording a creek some distance beyond Stain's cabin when Kenneth broke the silence that had followed the conversation with the hunter by exploding violently: "Under no circumstances, and that's all there is to it."
By six o'clock Rube had just sense enough left to drop anchor off Pueblo Point. There the three jolly mariners proceeded to celebrate; and there they would probably have lain undiscovered had less of a bulldog than Durkee been sent after them. As it was, midnight had passed before Durkee's keen eyes caught the loom of some object in the black mist close under the point.
Instantly the "supreme moment" vanished, and I was again in my home city, and one of a band of women battling "the bill-board nuisance." I was rebellious at thus being despoiled of my poetic mood and tried to regain lost ground, but erelong another turn and Durkee's Scotch Whiskey again appeared! Sadly I resigned myself to fate and awaited our arrival at the Fujira Hotel.
The plot which Morrell had first suggested idly and as sort of a joke, but which later he had entered into with growing belief, was quite perfect in all details but one: he assumed that Keith had accompanied Durkee's expedition, and was sure that he had seen the young lawyer off. As a matter of fact, Keith had been recalled.
It stood at the upper end of the field and played and played and played. The band never did things by halves. When it played it played; and, as Outfield West affirmed, "it played till the cows came home!" There were plenty of familiar faces here to-day; Professor Gibbs's, old "Peg-Leg" Duffy's, Professor Durkee's, the village postmaster's, "Old Joe" Pike's, and many, many others.
There was no sign of either human or animal life in the depths of this wide, primeval forest. "Follow this road," said Lapelle, pointing straight ahead. "It will take you into the town. You will find the bridge over Durkee's Run somewhat shaky after the rain, but it is safe. I must leave you here. I shall no doubt see you at Johnson's Inn, in case you intend to stop there. Good morning, sir."
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