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"Eet break up like an ice jam!" came at last. "That tree, he is not made of wood. Peuff! He is of glass!" Barry joined him, studying the splintered fragments of the spruce, suddenly to bend forward in wonderment. "That's queer. Here's a railroad spike driven clear into the heart." "Huh? What's that?"
Eet shall come through the mountains with a six-mile tunnel, at Carrow Peak where they have work already one, two, t'ree year. Then eet will start out straight, and peuff! Eet will cut off a hundred mile to Salt Lake. Then we will see!" "When is all this going to happen?" The giant shrugged his shoulders. "When the railroad, eet is ready, and the tunnel, eet is done. When that shall be?
I," and Houston smiled with the memory of his victory, "I convinced him that he should give me credit." "Eet is good. In the woods, there are many men. The log, he is pile all about the mill. Three thousand tie, already they are stack up." "And the woman she has caused no trouble?" "No. Peuff! I have no see her. Mebbe so, eet was a mistake." "Maybe, Ba'tiste, but I was sure I recognized her.
It was with an effort that Houston remembered that he was only playing a part. "I certainly do!" "Ask him, 'Do you like me better than anybody you ever " "What sense is there to all this?" "Blooey! And why should you ask? Why should you stand with a frown on your face? Peuff! It is ugly enough already!"
"It's late. Good night." Then she was gone. Houston looked at Ba'tiste, but the old French-Canadian merely waved a big hand. "Woman," he said airily, "peuff! She is strange. Eet is nothing. Eet will pass. Now," as though the subject had been dismissed, "what mus' Ba'teese do?" "At the mill? I wish, if you don't mind, that you'd guard it for me.
"She she didn't tell you anything before she went?" Ba'tiste shook his head. "She would not speak to me. Nothing would, she tell me. At first I go alone then yesterday, when the snow, he pack, I take Golemar. Then she is unconscious. All day and night I stay beside the bed, but she do not open her eye. Then, with the morning, she sigh, and peuff! She is gone." "Without a word."
Peuff! We shall fin' out, you and me and mon ami." Suddenly he turned. "M'sieu Thayer, he gone." "Gone? You mean he's run away?" "By gar, no. But he leave hurried. He get a telephone from long distance. Chicago." "Then " "Ba'teese not know. M'sieu Shuler in the telephone office, he tell me. Eet is a long call, M'sieu Shuler is curious, and he listen in while they, what-you-say, chew up the rag.
The grim humor of it brought a smile, in spite of the lead in Houston's heart. "What is there to do?" "What?" Ba'tiste gulped his food, rose and waved a hand with a sudden flash of emphasis. "Peuff! And there is ever'thin'. You have a mill." "Such as it is." "But eet is a mill. And eet can saw timber enough to keep the wolf from the door. You have yourself. Your arm, he is near' well.
The big French-Canadian pulled at his beard. "Peuff! Eet is like the ground hog," he announced. "Eet is underground already." "Yeh. But I've got to get in there. The wire might be working." "So? We will help, Baree and Ba'teese. Come we get the shovels." Even that was work. The town simply had ceased to be; the stores were closed, solitude was everywhere.
"You don't know how grateful I am for a little true friendliness." "Grateful? Peuff! You? Bah, you shall go back, and they will ask who helped you when you were hurt, and you you will not even remember what is the name." "Hardly that." Barry pulled thoughtfully at the covers. "In the first place, I'm not going back, and in the second, I haven't enough true friends to forget so easily.
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