Part 30 (1/2)
Molly, however, seemed as little inclined to overflow as Sylvia to have her. She talked of everything in the world except of Felix Morrison; and it was not long before Sylvia's acuteness discovered that she was not thinking of what she was saying. There pa.s.sed through her mind a wild, wretched notion that Molly might after all know--that Felix might have been base enough to talk about her to Molly, that Molly might be trying to ”spare her.” But this idea was instantly rejected: Molly was not subtle enough to conceive of such a course, and too headlong not to make a hundred blunders in carrying it out; and besides, it would not explain her manner. She was abstracted obviously for the simple reason that she had something on her mind, something not altogether to her liking, judging from the uneasy color which came and went in her face, by her rattling, senseless flow of chatter, by her fidgeting, unnecessary adjustments of the mechanism of the car.
Sylvia herself, in spite of her greater self-control, looked out upon the world with nothing of her usual eager welcome. The personality of the man they did not name hung between and around the two women like a cloud. As they swept along rapidly, young, fair, well-fed, beautifully dressed, in the costly, s.h.i.+ning car, their clouded faces might to a country eye have been visible proofs of the country dictum that ”rich city folks don't seem to get no good out'n their money and their automobiles: always layin' their ears back and lookin' 'bout as cheerful as a balky horse.”
But the country eyes which at this moment fell on them were anything but conscious of cla.s.s differences. It was a desperate need which reached out a gaunt claw and plucked at them when, high on the flank of the mountain, as they swung around the corner of a densely wooded road, they saw a wild-eyed man in overalls leap down from the bushes and yell at them.
Sylvia was startled and her first impression was the natural feminine one of fear--a lonely road, a strange man, excited, perhaps drunk--But Molly, without an instant's hesitation, ground the car to a stop in a cloud of dust. ”What's the matter?” she shouted as the man sprang up on the running-board. He was gasping, purple, utterly spent, and for an instant could only beat the air with his hands. Then he broke out in a hoa.r.s.e shout--the sound in that quiet sylvan spot was like a tocsin: ”Fire! An awful fire! Hewitt's pine woods--up that road!” He waved a wild, bare arm--his s.h.i.+rt-sleeve was torn to the shoulder. ”Go and git help. They need all the men they can git!”
He dropped from the running-board and ran back up the hill through the bushes. They saw him lurch from one side to the other; he was still exhausted from his dash down the mountain to the road; they heard the bushes crash, saw them close behind him. He was gone.
Sylvia's eyes were still on the spot where he had disappeared when she was thrown violently back against the seat in a great leap forward of the car. She caught at the side, at her hat, and saw Molly's face. It was transfigured. The brooding restlessness was gone as acrid smoke goes when the clear flame leaps up.
”What are you doing?” shouted Sylvia.
”To get help,” answered Molly, opening the throttle another notch.
The first staggering plunge over, the car settled down to a terrific speed, purring softly its puissant vibrant song of illimitable strength. ”Hear her sing! Hear her sing!” cried Molly. In three minutes from the time the man had left them, they tore into the nearest village, two miles from the woods. It seemed that in those three minutes Molly had not only run the car like a demon, but had formed a plan. Slackening speed only long enough to waltz with the car on a street-corner while she shouted an inquiry to a pa.s.ser-by, she followed the wave of his hand and flashed down a side-street to a big brick building which proclaimed itself in a great sign, ”Peabody Brush-back Factory.”
The car stopped. Molly sprang out and ran as though the car were a rifle and she the bullet emerging from it. She ran into a large, ugly, comfortable office, where several white-faced girls were lifting their thin little fingers from typewriter keys to stare at the young woman who burst through and in at a door marked ”Manager.”
”There's a fire on the mountain--a great fire in Hewitt's pine woods,”
she cried in a clear, peremptory voice that sounded like a young captain leading a charge. ”I can take nine men on my car. Will you come with me and tell which men to go?”
A dignified, elderly man, with smooth, gray hair and a black alpaca office coat, sat perfectly motionless behind his desk and stared at her in a petrified silence. Molly stamped her foot. ”There's not an instant to lose,” she said; ”they need every man they can get.”
”Who's the fire-warden of this towns.h.i.+p?” said the elderly man foolishly, trying to a.s.semble his wits.
Molly appeared visibly to propel him from his chair by her fury. ”Oh, they need help _NOW_!” she cried. ”Come on! Come on!”
Then they stood together on the steps of the office. ”Those men unloading lumber over there could go,” said the manager, ”and I'll get three more from the packing-rooms.”
”Don't go yourself! Send somebody to get them!” commanded Molly. ”You go and telephone anybody in town who has a car. There'll be sure to be one or two at the garage.”
Sylvia gasped at the prodigy taking place before her eyes, the masterful, keen-witted captain of men who emerged like a thunderbolt from their Molly--Molly, the pretty little beauty of the summer colony!
She had galvanized the elderly New Englander beside her out of his first momentary apathy of stupefaction. He now put his own competent hand to the helm and took command.
”Yes,” he said, and with the word it was evident that he was aroused.
Over his shoulder, in a quiet voice that carried like the crack of a gun: ”Henderson, go get three men from the packing-room to go to a forest-fire. Shut down the machinery. Get all the able-bodied men ready in gangs of seven. Perkins, you 'phone Tim O'Keefe to bring my car here at once. And get Pat's and Tom's and the two at the hotel.”
”Tools?” said Molly.
He nodded and called out to the men advancing with a rush on the car: ”There are hoes and shovels inside the power-house door. Better take some axes too.”
In four minutes from the time they had entered the village (Sylvia had her watch in her hand) they were flying back, the car packed with men in overalls and cl.u.s.tered thick with others on the running-board. Back of them the whistle of the factory shrieked a strident announcement of disaster. Women and children ran to the doors to stare up and down, to cry out, to look and with dismayed faces to see the great cloud of gray smoke pouring up from the side of the mountain. There was no soul in that village who did not know what a forest-fire meant.
Then in a flash the car had left the village and was rus.h.i.+ng along the dusty highroad, the huge, ominous pillar of smoke growing nearer. The men stared up at it with sober faces. ”Pretty hot fire!” said one uneasily.
They reached the place where the man had yelled to them--ten minutes exactly since they had left it. Molly turned the car into the steep sandy side-road which led up the mountain. The men shouted out in remonstrance, ”Hey, lady! You can't git a car up there. We'll have to walk the rest of the way. They don't never take cars there.”
”This one is going up,” sang out Molly gallantly, almost gaily, opening the throttle to its fullest and going into second speed.