Part 2 (2/2)
It was the sole attractive thing about her that he had observed.
”Reckon it'll be me that'll look after you!” she retorted. ”Oh, there's somethin' comin'! Duck in here, quick!”
Seizing her bundle, she wiggled like an eel through the willow thicket until she was completely hidden from view, and Botts followed as well as he was able, with one hand fending off the supple young shoots from whipping back upon his wounded forehead.
He had heard nothing, yet the girl's quick ears had caught the faint creaking of a cart along the road, and now a cheerful but somewhat shrill whistle came to him in a vaguely reminiscent strain.
”That's Lem Mattles,” Lou whispered as she reached behind him and drew the willows yet more screeningly about their trail. ”He's whistlin'
'Ida-Ho'; it's the only tune he can remember.”
”Who is he?” demanded her companion.
”The Hess's next-door neighbor. She'll stop him right away an' ask if he's seen me on the road, an' they'll all be after me, but they'll never think of the old cow-trail; one of the hands showed it to me an' told me it led clear to Hudsondale, an' came out by the freight-yards.”
For a moment she paused with a little catch in her breath. ”Think you kin make it, Mr. Botts?”
”Sure!” He smiled and held out his hand. ”We're partners now, and I'm 'Jim' to my friends, Lou.”
”All right, Jim,” she responded indifferently, but she laid her little work-worn hand in his for a brief minute. ”Come on.”
With the bundle under her arm once more she led the way, and her partner followed her to where the brook dwindled and the thicket gave place to a stretch of woodland, between the trees of which a faint, narrow trail could be discerned.
”We're all right now if we kin keep on goin',” announced Lou. ”n.o.body comes this way any more, an' the feller said that the tracks runs through the woods clear to the Hunkie settlement by the yards. Feelin'
all right, Jim?”
”I guess so.” Jim put his hand to his side, where each breath brought a stab of pain, but brought it down again quickly lest her swift glance catch the motion. ”It's pretty in here, isn't it?”
”It's longer,” replied Lou practically. ”An' the sun's gittin' low.
Let's hurry.”
There was little further talk between them, for Jim had already discovered that his companion was not one to speak unless she had something to say, and he was breathing in short s.n.a.t.c.hes to stifle the pain. The track wound endlessly in and out among the trees, and in the dim light he would have lost it altogether more than once had it not been for her light touch upon his arm.
At length the track turned abruptly through the thinning trees and led down to a rough sort of road, on either side of which ramshackle wooden tenements leaned crazily against each other, with dingy rags hanging from lines on the crooked porches. Slatternly, dark-skinned women gazed curiously at them as they pa.s.sed.
From somewhere came the squalling of a hurt child and a man's oath roughly silencing it, while through and above all other sounds came the bleating of a harmonica ceaseless reiterating a monotonous, foreign air.
The sun had set, and from just beyond the squalid settlement came the crash and clang of freight-cars being shunted together. In spite of his pain, Jim realized that nowhere in this vicinity could his self-const.i.tuted companion rest for the night; open fields or dense woodland were safer far for her.
”Let us cross the tracks and push on up that hill road a little,” he suggested. ”We can't stay here, and they'll think we are tramps if they catch us by the railroad.”
”I guess that's what we are.” Lou wrinkled her already upturned nose.
”But the country would be nicer again, if you ain't give out.”
He a.s.sured her doggedly that he had not, and they crossed the tracks and started up the steep hill road past the coal-dump and the few scattered cottages to where the woodland closed in about them once more.
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