Chapter 14

In the smoking-car forward I find Sandford. He is a most disreputable-looking specimen. Garbed in weather-stained corduroys, and dried-grass sweater, and great calfskin boots, he sprawls among gun-cases and shell-carriers--no sportsman will entrust these essentials to the questionable ministrations of a baggage-man--and the air about him is blue from the big cigar he is puffing so ecstatically. He nods and proffers me its mate.

"Going to be a great day," he announces succinctly, and despite a rigorous censorship there is a suggestion of excitement in the voice. "The wind's dead north, and it's cloudy and damp. Rain, maybe, about daylight."

"Yes." I am lighting up stolidly, although my nerves are atingle.

"We're going to hit it right, just right. The flight's on. I heard them going over all night. The lake will be black with the big fellows, the Canada boys."

"Yes," I repeat; then conscience gives a last dig. "I ought not to do it, though. I didn't have time to break a single engagement"--I'm a dental surgeon, too, by the way, with likewise an office of tile and enamel--"or explain at all. And the muss there'll be at the shop when--"

"Forget it, you confounded old dollar-grubber!" A fresh torrent of smoke belches forth, so that I see Sandford's face but dimly through the haze. "If you mention teeth again, until we're back--merely mention them--I'll throttle you!"

The train is in motion now, and the arc-lights at the corners, enshrouded each by a zone of mist, are flitting by.

"Yes," he repeats, and again his voice has that minor strain of suppressed excitement, "we're hitting it just right. There'll be rain, or a flurry of snow, maybe, and the paddle feet will be down in the clouds."