Part 16 (2/2)
With a slight, silent nod of dismissal she crossed the road and went into the house, leaving him standing beside his wrecked machine once more, looking after her out of sluggish eyes.
Presently, from the house, emerged Stull, his pasty face startling in its pallor under the cloudless sky, and walked slowly over to Brandes.
”Well, Ben,” said the latter pleasantly, ”I'm going to Gayfield to telegraph for another car.”
”How soon can they get one up?” inquired Stull, inserting a large cigar into his slitted mouth and lighting it.
”Oh, in a couple of days, I guess. I don't know. I don't care much, either.”
”We can go on to Saratoga by train,” suggested Stull complacently.
”We can stay here, too.”
”What for?”
Brandes said in his tight-lipped, even voice:
”The fis.h.i.+ng's good. I guess I'll try it.” He continued to contemplate the machine, but Stull's black eyes were turned on him intently.
”How about the races?” he asked. ”Do we go or not?”
”Certainly.”
”When?”
”When they send us a car to go in.”
”Isn't the train good enough?”
”The fis.h.i.+ng here is better.”
Stull's pasty visage turned sourer:
”Do you mean we lose a couple of days in this G.o.d-forsaken dump because you'd rather go to Saratoga in a runabout than in a train?”
”I tell you I'm going to stick around for a while.”
”For how long?”
”Oh, I don't know. When we get our car we can talk it over and----”
”Ah,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Stull in disgust, ”what the h.e.l.l's the matter with you? Is it that little skirt you was buzzing out here like you never seen one before?”
”How did you guess, Ben?” returned Brandes with the almost expressionless jocularity that characterised him at times.
”_That_ little red-headed, spindling, freckled, milk-fed mill-hand----”
<script>