The Phantom of Bogue Holauba | Page 6

wont to conceal and deny certain ancient accomplishments. But
even he realized that it was waste of breath to say nay to the persistent
Geraldine. He resigned himself to go through all his repertoire,--was a
dead dog, begged, leaped a stick back and forth, went lame, and in his
newly awakened interest performed several tricks of which she had
been unaware. Her joyful cries of commendation--"Played an encore!
an encore! He did, he did! Cutest old dog in the United States!" caught
Mrs. Keene's attention.
"Geraldine," she screamed from an upper window, "come in out of the
sun! You will have a sun-stroke--and ruin your complexion besides!
You know you ought to be helping that man with those papers,--he
won't be able to do anything without you!" Her voice quavered on the
last words, as if she suddenly realized "that man" might overhear

her,--as indeed he did. But he made no sign. He sat still, stultified and
stony, silently gazing at the paper in his hands.
When luncheon was announced, Gordon asked to have something light
sent in to him, as he wished not to be disturbed in his investigation of
the documents. He had scant need to apprehend interruption, however,
while the long afternoon wore gradually away. The universal Southern
siesta was on, and the somnolent mansion was like the castle of
Sleeping Beauty. The ladies had sought their apartments and the downy
couches; the cook, on a shady bench under the trellis, nodded as she
seeded the raisins for the frozen pudding of the six-o'clock dinner; the
waiter had succumbed in clearing the lunch-table and made mesmeric
passes with the dish-rag in a fantasy of washing the plates; the
stable-boy slumbered in the hay, high in the loft, while the fat old
coachman, with a chamois-skin in his hand, dozed as he sat on the step
of the surrey, between the fenders; the old dog snored on the veranda
floor, and Mrs. Keene's special attendant, who was really more a
seamstress than a ladies' maid, dreamed that for some mysterious
reason she could not thread a needle to fashion in a vast hurry the
second mourning of her employer, who she imagined would call for it
within a week!
Outside the charmed precincts of this Castle Indolence, the busy
cotton-pickers knew no pause nor stay. The steam-engine at the gin
panted throughout all the long hot hours, the baler squealed and rasped
and groaned, as it bound up the product into marketable compass, but
there was no one waking near enough to note how the guest of the
mansion was pacing the floor in a stress of nervous excitement, and to
comment on the fact.
Toward sunset, a sudden commotion roused the slumbrous place. There
had been an accident at the gin,--a boy had been caught in the
machinery and variously mangled. Dr. George Eigdon had been called
and had promptly sewed up the wounds. A runner had been sent to the
mansion for bandages, brandy, fresh clothing, and sundry other
collateral necessities of the surgery, and the news had thrown the house
into unwonted excitement.

"The boy won't die, then?" Geraldine asked of a second messenger, as
he stood by the steps of the veranda, waiting for the desired
commodities.
"Lawdy,--no, ma'am! He is as good as new! Doc' George, he fix him
up."
Gordon, whom the tumult had summoned forth from his absorptions,
noted Geraldine's triumphant laugh as she received this report, the toss
of her spirited little head, the light in her dark blue eyes, deepening to
sapphire richness, her obvious pride in the skill, the humanitarian
achievement, of her lover. Dr. George must be due here this evening,
he fancied. For she was all freshly bedight; her gown was embellished
with delicate laces, and its faint green hue gave her the aspect of some
water-sprite, posed against that broad expanse of the Mississippi River,
that was itself of a jade tint reflected from a green and amber sky; at the
low horizon line the vermilion sun was sinking into its swirling depths.
Gordon perceived a personal opportunity in the prospect of this guest
for the evening. He must have counsel, he was thinking. He could not
act on his own responsibility in this emergency that had suddenly
confronted him. He was still too overwhelmed by the strange
experience he had encountered, too shaken. This physician was a man
of intelligence, of skill in his chosen profession, necessarily a man
worth while in many ways. He was an intimate friend of the Keene
family, and might the more heartily lend a helping hand. The thought,
the hope, cleared Gordon's brow, but still the impress of the stress of
the afternoon was so marked that the girl was moved to comment in her
brusque way as they stood