Part 9 (2/2)

”The night air's bracing among the moors and I like to hear the whaups crying round the house,” he said to Whitney. ”There's a small hotel, built right on the fellside, and we should get there in an hour.”

They set off, with Andrew on the carrier, and the powerful machine rolled smoothly out of the town. The street lamps were beginning to twinkle as they left it and low mist crept across the fields past which they sped. The cry of geese, feeding among the stubble, came out of the haze, which lay breast-high between the hedgerows, clogging the dust, but it thinned and rolled behind them as the road began to rise.

Then the stubble fields became less frequent, fewer dark squares of turnips checkered the sweep of gra.s.s, and the murmur of Teviot, running among the willows, crept out of the gathering dusk.

Cothouses marked by glimmering lights went by; they sped through a dim, white village; and Whitney opened out his engine as they went rocking past a line of stunted trees. They were the last and highest, for after them the rough ling and bent-gra.s.s rolled across the haunts of the sheep and grouse. Whitney changed his gear as the grade got steeper, the hedges gave place to stone walls until they ran out on an open moor, round which the hills lifted their black summits against the fading sky. The three men made a heavy load on the long incline, but the machine brought them up, and the last of the light had gone when they stopped in front of a lonely hotel. It looked like a Swiss chalet on the breast of the fell, and a dark glen dropped steeply away from it, but it glowed with electric light.

”They seem to have some shooting people here,” d.i.c.k said. ”I'll run across and see if they can take us in, while you look at the carbureter. We may have to go on to Langholm and she wasn't firing very well.”

He went up the drive and Whitney opened his tool bag. The top of the pa.s.s was about half a mile behind them, and the road ran straight down from it, widening in front of the hotel. There was a patch of loose stones on the other side, and the motorcycle stood a yard or two from the gate. Everything was very still except for the sound of running water, and it was rather dark, because the hills rose steeply above the glen.

”d.i.c.k's a long time coming back,” Andrew said with a frown.

”Perhaps you'd better go for him,” Whitney suggested.

Andrew went off, but met d.i.c.k in the drive.

”It's all right; there's n.o.body stopping here,” he reported. ”They keep the lights blazing to draw motoring people.”

He spoke clearly, but with an evident effort, and Andrew frowned again.

”There's a nut I can't get hold of,” Whitney called to them from under the motorcycle. ”Do you think I could borrow a smaller spanner here, d.i.c.k?”

”I'll get it for you,” d.i.c.k volunteered jovially, and started back toward the house.

Andrew put a firm hand on his arm.

”You will not!” he said shortly.

d.i.c.k turned upon him in a moment's rage; and then laughed.

”Oh, all right. You're a tyrant, Andrew, but you mean well.”

When Whitney went for the spanner d.i.c.k knelt down in the road to inspect the machine.

”Lend me your knife,” he requested. ”It will be all right if I put something in the jaws.”

”I'm inclined to think you'd better leave it alone,” Andrew replied meaningly.

d.i.c.k laughed.

”You're a suspicious beggar. I wasn't away five minutes. Anyhow, there's a fascination in tampering with other people's machines.

Where's the knife?”

Andrew let him have it, and soon afterward d.i.c.k uttered an expletive as he tore the skin from one of his knuckles.

”The beastly thing will slip; but I'm not going to be beaten by a common American nut,” he declared. ”If I can't screw it up, I'll twist the bolt-head off.”

”Leave it alone!” said Andrew.

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