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Not until the first star came out and the owls began to hoot along the Catnip did he declare himself satisfied with the day's work and proceed homeward to supper. Widow Pipkin's wall was half finished. Not until Saturday was the patient father able to enlist once more the services of his offspring, for, "What if they are your own kids!" retorted Mrs. Cadge from her wash-board.
There is, indeed, almost no difference between the short opening howl of a she-wolf and the long hoot of the owl. As he listened, half awake, Rolf heard a whirr of wings which stopped overhead, then a familiar chuckle.
The mournful hoot of a distant locomotive whistle was the only sound to pierce the silence. For a moment, Rand stood with his back to the car, looking at the gallows-like sign that proclaimed this to be the business-place of Arnold Rivers, Fine Antique and Modern Firearms for the Discriminating Collector.
I'm gaein hame wi' ye, bairn. Jean, my shune!" "Hoot, Thamas! I've jist cleaned them," screeched Jean from the kitchen at the second call. "Fess them here direckly. It's a jeedgment on ye for sayin' worship cud bide better nor the shune." Janet brought them and put them down sulkily.
Not for a long time had he enjoyed himself so much. "Better begin with Chief Big Bill," he suggested. "No, I wouldn't make that move if I was you, Mr. Macy. This old gun is liable to go off accidental in your direction and she spatters like hell. That's the idee. Be reasonable. Not that I give a hoot, but a man hadn't ought to let his impulses run away with his judgment, as the old sayin' is."
Birds, with ugly, tuneless notes that were not songs but cries, flitted in the trees, and the rumble of traffic on the road came up in the evening air, broken occasionally by the shrill persistence of an exhaust whistle or the clamour of a motor-horn, and above all other sounds the long-drawn, occasional hoot from a ship anchored in the river highway.
The moment he reached the shore he gave a shrill hoot of exultation, went at his bearskin craft with both hands, dragged it clean out of the water, and gave it a couple of furious kicks. "Take that!" he yelped. "Ye're wickeder nor both yer fathers. But I've bate ye. Oh, ye blathering jerkin', bogglin' baste, ye!"
The speed quickened, and the steady throb of the screw began to replace the swaying motion of the wings. Again came the hoot, wild and echoing through the barren wilderness of rock walls beneath, and again with a sudden impulse the car soared. It was going in great circles now, cautious as a cat, climbing, climbing, punctuating the ascent with cry after cry, searching the blind air for dangers.
"Hoot, hoot, hoot," said the barber, "nae kind of a man, nae kind of a man at all"; and began to ask me very shrewdly what my business was; but I was more than a match for him at that, and he went on to his next customer no wiser than he came. I cannot well describe the blow this dealt to my illusions.
"Sometimes when I look at these tight-fisted old guys who make their millions and tie 'em up into estates to hand down, and then remember Uncle Silas not giving a hoot for money and always pulling along a dozen or two poor relations and setting 'em on their feet, living comfortable and happy, leaving a wife that's as fond of him to-day as she was the day he died well, I sort of wonder if money and success mean as much as folks think they do."
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