Part 23 (1/2)
”This train is going,” I stammered, ”and you are on it!”
Miss Barrison sprang up and started towards the door, and I sped after her.
”I can jump,” she said, breathlessly, edging out to the platform; ”please let me! There is time yet--if you only wouldn't hold me--so tight--”
A few moments later we walked slowly back together through the car and took seats facing one another.
Between us sat the hound-dog, a prey to melancholy unutterable.
XV
It was on Sunday when I awoke to the realization that I had quitted civilization and was afloat on an unfamiliar body of water in an open boat containing--
One light steel cage, One rifle and ammunition, One stenographer, Three ounces rosium oxide, One hound-dog, Two valises.
A playful wave slopped over the bow and I lost count; but the pretty stenographer made the inventory, while I resumed the oars, and the dog punctured the primeval silence with staccato yelps.
A few minutes later everything and everybody was accounted for; the sky was blue and the palms waved, and several species of d.i.c.ky-birds tuned up as I pulled with powerful strokes out into the sunny waters of Little Sprite Lake, now within a few miles of my journey's end.
From ponds hidden in the marshes herons rose in lazily laborious flight, flapping low across the water; high in the cypress yellow-eyed ospreys bent crested heads to watch our progress; sun-baked alligators, lying heavily in the sh.o.r.eward sedge, slid open, gla.s.sy eyes as we pa.s.sed.
”Even the 'gators make eyes at you,” I said, resting on my oars.
We were on terms of badinage.
”Who was it who shed crocodile tears at the prospect of s.h.i.+pping me North?” she inquired.
”Speaking of tears,” I observed, ”somebody is likely to shed a number when Professor Farrago is picked up.”
”Pooh!” she said, and snapped her pretty, sun-tanned fingers; and I resumed the oars in time to avoid s.h.i.+pwreck on a large mud-bar.
She reclined in the stern, serenely occupied with the view, now and then caressing the discouraged dog, now and then patting her hair where the wind had loosened a bright strand.
”If Professor Farrago didn't expect a woman stenographer,” she said, abruptly, ”why did he instruct you to bring a complete outfit of woman's clothing?”
”I don't know,” I said, tartly.
”But you bought them. Are they for a young woman or an old woman?”
”I don't know; I sent a messenger to a department store. I don't know what he bought.”
”Didn't you look them over?”
”No. Why? I should have been no wiser. I fancy they're all right, because the bill was eighteen hundred dollars--”
The pretty stenographer sat up abruptly.
”Is that much?” I asked, uneasily. ”I've always heard women's clothing was expensive. Wasn't it enough? I told the boy to order the best;--Professor Farrago always requires the very best scientific instruments, and--I listed the clothes as scientific accessories--that being the object of this expedition--_What_ are you laughing at?”