Part 65 (1/2)
And then, in a sudden rush, Saxon placed him. He it was who had stood with Roy Blanchard alongside the automobile on the day she had wandered, sick and unwitting, into strange neighborhoods. Nor had that day been the first time she had seen him.
”Remember the Bricklayers' Picnic at Weasel Park?” Billy was asking.
”An' the foot race? Why, I'd know that nose of yours anywhere among a million. You was the guy that stuck your cane between Timothy McMa.n.u.s's legs an' started the grandest roughhouse Weasel Park or any other park ever seen.”
The visitor now commenced to laugh. He stood on one leg as he laughed harder, then stood on the other leg. Finally he sat down on a log of driftwood.
”And you were there,” he managed to gasp to Billy at last. ”You saw it.
You saw it.” He turned to Saxon. ”--And you?”
She nodded.
”Say,” Billy began again, as their laughter eased down, ”what I wanta know is what'd you wanta do it for. Say, what'd you wanta do it for?
I've been askin' that to myself ever since.”
”So have I,” was the answer.
”You didn't know Timothy McMa.n.u.s, did you?”
”No; I'd never seen him before, and I've never seen him since.”
”But what'd you wanta do it for?” Billy persisted.
The young man laughed, then controlled himself.
”To save my life, I don't know. I have one friend, a most intelligent chap that writes sober, scientific books, and he's always aching to throw an egg into an electric fan to see what will happen. Perhaps that's the way it was with me, except that there was no aching. When I saw those legs flying past, I merely stuck my stick in between. I didn't know I was going to do it. I just did it. Timothy McMa.n.u.s was no more surprised than I was.”
”Did they catch you?” Billy asked.
”Do I look as if they did? I was never so scared in my life. Timothy McMa.n.u.s himself couldn't have caught me that day. But what happened afterward? I heard they had a fearful roughhouse, but I couldn't stop to see.”
It was not until a quarter of an hour had pa.s.sed, during which Billy described the fight, that introductions took place. Mark Hall was their visitor's name, and he lived in a bungalow among the Carmel pines.
”But how did you ever find your way to Bierce's Cove?” he was curious to know. ”n.o.body ever dreams of it from the road.”
”So that's its name?” Saxon said.
”It's the name we gave it. One of our crowd camped here one summer, and we named it after him. I'll take a cup of that coffee, if you don't mind.”--This to Saxon. ”And then I'll show your husband around. We're pretty proud of this cove. n.o.body ever comes here but ourselves.”
”You didn't get all that muscle from bein' chased by McMa.n.u.s,” Billy observed over the coffee.
”Ma.s.sage under tension,” was the cryptic reply.
”Yes,” Billy said, pondering vacantly. ”Do you eat it with a spoon?”
Hall laughed.
”I'll show you. Take any muscle you want, tense it, then manipulate it with your fingers, so, and so.”
”An' that done all that?” Billy asked skeptically.