Then Ill Come Back to You | Page 3

had been required for that transformation. The
boards of some of the newer shacks down river were still damp with
pitch. And twice during that period Dexter Allison had come into the
hills to take up a transitory abode in the stucco house which had been
quite six months in the building:--once, two years before, when he had
disappeared into the mountains upon a prolonged fishing trip, to return
fishless but with an astonishing mass of pencilled data and contour
maps; and the second time for an even longer stay, a year ago when the
mill was being erected.
Since then the stucco and timber place had been closed, with no one but
a doddering old caretaker and a gardener or two about the premises,
until early that last hot August week. On Monday Caleb Hunter had
noticed that the blinds had been thrown open to the air; on Wednesday,
from his point of vantage upon the porch, he had watched a rather
astounding load of trunks careen in at the driveway, piloted by a mill
teamster who had for two seasons held the record for a double-team
load of logs and was making the most of that opportunity to prove his
skill. And the next morning the tumult raised by a group of children
racing over the shorn lawns had awakened him; he had descended to be
hailed by Dexter Allison's own booming bass from behind the
intervening high box hedge.
It was the hottest day of the hottest fortnight that the hill country had
known in years. The very temperature gave color to Allison's statement
that the heat had driven them north from the shore--him and his wife
and Barbara, their daughter of ten, and the half-dozen or more guests
whose trunks, coming on the next day, made an even more imposing
sight than had Allison's own. And yet as he sat there in the shadow,
methodically pulling upon his pipe, Caleb Hunter smiled from time to
time, reminiscently. He last of all would have been the one to admit
that the owner of the big stucco place and the mills, and--yes, of the
newer Morrison itself--had not given a good account of the talents and
tens of talents which had been passed down to him. But the use of so
much evasion, where no evasion at all seemed necessary, rather
puzzled as well as amused Caleb; and yet, after all, this merely branded
him as old-fashioned, so far as the newer business methods were

concerned which were crowding into Morrison. Allison's way of going
about a thing made him think of the old valley road that wound north in
its series of loops on loops; and yet, reflecting upon that parallel, he
had to admit to himself, too, that the road achieved final heights which,
in a straightaway route across country would have necessitated more
than a few wearisome and heart-breaking grades.
The comparison pleased Caleb. He was nodding his head over it as he
buried his nose in the mint-sprayed glass again, when a haze of dust to
the north caught his vagrant attention. Quite apparently it was raised by
a foot-traveler, and the latter were not frequent upon that road,
especially foot-travelers who came from that direction. Trivial as it was,
it piqued his interest, and he lay back and followed it from lazily
half-closed eyes. It topped a rise and disappeared--the dust cloud--and
reappeared in turn, but not until it had advanced to within a scant
hundred yards of him could he make out the figure which raised it. And
then, after one sharp glance, with a quick intake of breath, he rose and
went a trifle hastily out across his own lawn toward the iron picket
fence that bordered the roadside. He went almost hurriedly to intercept
the boy who came marching over the brow of the last low hill.
Caleb Hunter, particularly in the last year or so, had seen many a
strange and brilliant costume pass along that wilderness highway, but
as he hung over the front gate he remembered that none of them had
ever before drawn him from his deep chair in the shadow. For him none
of them had ever approached in sensationalism the quite unbelievable
garb of the boy who came steadily on and on--who came steadily
nearer and nearer.
With a little closer view of him the watching man understood the
reason for the dense cloud of dust above the lone pedestrian. For when
the boy raised his feet with each stride, the man-sized, hob-nailed boots
which encased them failed to lift in turn. Indeed, the toes did clear the
ground, but the heels, slipping away from the lean ankles, dragged in
the follow-through. And the boy's other garments, save for his flannel
shirt and flapping felt