At the Crossroads Part 32

"And now, when I try to think of you in your city, at your work, just how shall I think of you? Make it like a picture."

Northrup struggled with himself. The girl beside him, in pus.h.i.+ng him from her life, was so unutterably sweet and brave.

"My dear, my dear!" he whispered, and remorse, pity, yearning rang in the words.

"Make it like a picture!" Relentlessly the words were repeated. They demanded that he give his best.

"Think of a high little room in a tall tower overlooking all cities,"

he began slowly, "the cheap, the beautiful, the glad, and the sad. The steam and smoke roll up and seem to make a gauzy path upon which all that really matters comes and goes as one sits and watches."

Mary-Clare's eyes were wide and vision-filled.

"Oh! thank you," she whispered. "I shall always see it and you so. And sometimes, maybe when the sun is going down, as it is now, you will see me on that trail that is just yours, in your city coming to--to wish you well!"

"Good G.o.d!" Northrup shook himself. "What's got us two? We've worked ourselves into a pretty state. Talking as, as if--Mary-Clare, I'm not going away. There will be other days. It's that book of mine. Hang it!

We've got snarled in the book."

The weak efforts to ignore everything failed pitifully.

"No, it is life." Mary-Clare grew grim as Northrup relaxed. "But I want you always to remember my old doctor's rule. If a thing is going to kill you, die bravely; if it isn't, get over it at once and live the best you can."

"G.o.d bless and keep you, Mary-Clare." Absolute surrender marked the tone.

"He will!"

"But this is not good-bye!"

"No, it is not good-bye."

CHAPTER XII

While the days were pa.s.sing and Mary-Clare and Northrup, with the book between them as a s.h.i.+eld, fought their battle and won their victory, they had taken small heed of the undercurrent that was not merely carrying them on, but bearing others, also.

Northrup was comfortably conscious of Aunt Polly and old Peter, at the days' ends. The sense of going home to them was distinctly a joy, a fitting and safe interlude.

Noreen and Jan-an supplied the light-comedy touch, for the two were capable of supplying no end of fun when there were hours that could not be utilized in work or devoted to that thrilling occupation of walking the trails with Mary-Clare.

The real, sordid tragedy element played small part in the autumn idyl, but it was developing none the less.

Larry on the Point was showing more patient persistence than one could have expected. He went about Maclin's business with his usual reticence and devotion; occasionally he was away for a few days; when he was at home in Peneluna's shack he was a quiet, rather pathetic figure of a man at loose ends, but casting no slurs. It was that pacific att.i.tude of his that got on the nerves of his doubters and those who believed they understood him.

Peneluna, torn between her loyalty to Mary-Clare and the decency she felt called upon to show the old doctor's son, was becoming irritable and jerky. Jan-an shrank from her and whimpered:

"What have I done? Ain't I fetching and carrying for him?"--she nodded heavily toward Larry's abiding place. "Ain't I watching and telling yer all that he does? Writing and tearing up what he writes! Ain't I showing you his sc.r.a.ps what don't get burned? Ain't I acting square?"

Peneluna softened.

"Yes, you are!" she admitted. "But I declare, after finding nothing agin him, one gets to wondering if there _is_ anything agin him. I don't like suspecting my feller creatures."

"Suspectin' ain't like murdering!" Jan-an blurted out.

"If you don't stop talking like that, Jan-an----" But Peneluna paused, for she saw the frightened look creeping into Jan-an's dull eyes.

It was while the Point was agitated about Larry that Twombley brought forth his gun and took to cleaning it and fondling it by his doorway.

This action of Twombley's fascinated Jan-an.

"What yer going to shoot?" she asked.

"Ducks, maybe." Twombley leered pleasantly.

"I wish yer wouldn't."

"Why, Jan-an?"

"Ducks ain't so used to it as chickens. I hate to see flying things as _can_ fly popped over."

At this Twombley laughed aloud.

"All right, girl, I'll hunt up something else to aim at--something that's used to it. I ain't saying I'll hit anything, but aimin' and finding out how steady yer hand is ain't lacking in sport."

So Twombley erected a target and enlivened and startled the Point by his practise. Maclin, after a few weeks of absence from the Point, called occasionally on his private agent and he was displeased by Twombley's new amus.e.m.e.nt.

"What in thunder are you up to?" he asked.

"Not much--yet!" Twombley admitted. "Don't hit the hole more than once out of four."

"But the noise is bad for folks, Twombley."

"They like it," Twombley broke in. "Makes 'em jump and know they're alive. It's like fleas on dogs."

"When I'm talking business with Rivers," Twombley insisted, "I hate the racket."

"All right, when I see you there, I'll hold off."

But Maclin did not want always to be seen at the shack. It was one thing to stroll down to the Point, now and again, with that air of having made mistakes in the past and greeting the Pointers pleasantly, and quite another to find out, secretly, just what progress Larry was making in his interests and knowing what Larry was doing with his long days and nights.

So, after a fortnight of consideration, Maclin walked with Rivers from the mines one night determined to spend several hours in the shack and "use his eyes." Larry did not seem particularly pleased with this intention and paused several times on the rough, dusky road, giving Maclin an opportunity to bid him good-night. But Maclin stuck like the little brown devil-pitchforks that decorated the trousers of both men as they strode on the woodside of the road.

"I'm like a rat in a hole," Larry confided, despairing of shaking Maclin off. "I wish to G.o.d you'd send me away somewhere--overseas, if you can. You once promised that."

Maclin's eyes contracted, but it was too dark for Rivers to notice.

"Too late, just now, Rivers. That h.e.l.l of a time they're having over there keeps peaceful folks to their own waters."