The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit | Page 2

the water, with laughter like the music of the Falls. Sometimes he saw
her in his dreams, and through the long weeks in the hospital at the
aviation camp when he had the fever she was with him constantly,
beckoning, calling, luring him back to life when he was about to slip
over the edge into the bottomless abyss, her laughter ringing in his ears
after she had vanished into the mists. Then one night she and the fever
had fled hand in hand and after that he could not recall her image,
though her memory still tantalized him.
Not until today, when the soothing motion of the long Pullman car and
the lullaby droning of the wheels had lulled him to sleep with his elbow
on the windowsill and his head resting on his thin, transparent hand, did
she come back to him in a dream. In that daytime nap he had suddenly
heard her laughter ring out and with flying footsteps followed the
sound, hoping to come upon her at every turn, but just when he was
about to overtake her the train stopped with a jerk and startled him back
into consciousness, with the echo of her laughter still ringing in his
ears.
And now, when his pursuit had been vain and her luring laughter had
died away in his ears, she came back and stood in the shadowy end of
the aisle, watching him with large, luminous eyes, just as she used to
come and watch him wrestle with the fever. Breathless, he looked at
her, waiting for her to vanish, but she did not. Then it came to him that

he might go to her, might reach her this time before she fled. But
something lay on his shoulder, something that weighed him down and
kept him from moving, kept him from rising and going to her. He tried
to shake it off, but it remained. He tried again, keeping his eyes on her
all the time. Then the long vista of green plush seats leading to her was
blotted out and he found himself gazing into a dusky countenance,
while an unctuous voice murmured in his ear:
"How you feelin', Looten't? Gettin' light-headed, wasn't you? Here's the
milk you ordered for two o'clock. Just drink it now, Looten't, and you'll
feel all right."
Robert Allison mechanically reached out his hand for the glass of milk
which the solicitous porter held out to him and dutifully drank it, while
the porter hovered over him like an anxious hen, clucking out a
constant stream of encouraging remarks.
The porter and the glass finally disappeared down the aisle, and Robert
Allison, now wide awake and flooded with returning energy,
remembered with a whimsical smile the illusion that had overtaken him
at midday. He glanced boldly down the aisle to assure himself that his
mind was now free from phantoms. The heavy foliage along the
mountainside, through which they had been passing, and which had
created a twilight atmosphere in the car, had given way to wide open
fields, and the long corridor was flooded from end to end with glaring
June sunlight. Robert Allison caught his breath with a start and dug his
thumb-nail into the palm of his hand to make sure he was awake. For
the illusion of a moment ago was not an illusion at all; she was a flesh
and blood girl; she had left her shadowy foothold in the far end of the
car and was coming down the aisle toward him. Spellbound, he waited
as she approached, slim as a fawn, erect as an arrow, moving as lightly
as the ripples that danced upon the surface of the river along whose
banks they were rolling. Whether or not she was the image of the vision
in his fever dream he would never be table to tell, for already the dream
phantom was fading from his mind and the reality taking its place; the
Laughing Water of his boyhood fancy had come to life in the person of
this slim young girl who was moving down the aisle toward him.

Stupidly he had thought she was coming directly to him, and he
experienced a shock of surprise when she passed him with no more
than a casual glance. Even with her indifferent passing a thrill seemed
to go through him; his blood began to sing in his veins, and through his
mind there flashed again the lines which had stirred his boyhood fancy
years ago:
"She the moonlight, starlight, firelight, She the sunshine of her people,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water!"
CHAPTER II
IN THE TRAIN
Sahwah the Sunfish came tripping blithely down the Pullman aisle to
rejoin the Winnebagos after a sojourn on the platform with the
brakeman, whom she left exhausted with answering questions.