CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

KEN’S OLD FRIEND

“Ken, you’ve been doing some growing since we put the highway through your cañon two years ago.” The young man, with folded arms, stood smiling down at the boy, who grinned back as he replied with enthusiasm, “If I can keep right on till I’m big as you are, I’ll like it mighty well.”

“I believe you’ll make it,” Frederick Edrington declared as he seated himself upon a boulder near and continued to look approvingly at the lad. “You remember what I used to tell you about getting what you want?”

The boy nodded his red-brown mop of hair. “Yeah,” he said, lapsing unconsciously into the speech of the mountaineers. “First fix a definite goal, it doesn’t matter how far ahead or how rough the road in between, and then keep going toward it.”

“Even if you slip back two steps for every one that you forge ahead,” his companion put in.

Ken laughed. “Gee, I hope it won’t be as hard as all that for me to get to be a civil engineer.”

The eyes of the older man lighted. “Still holding that for a goal, boy?” he asked, his voice showing his real pleasure.

Ken nodded. “Bet I am,” he replied.

“Worked hard at math?” was the next query. “Pretty quick at doing sums?”

Ken flushed. “I don’t know as I’m a crackerjack at it, but I told Miss Bayley all about how I want to grow up to be just like you, and when she found I wanted to get along faster in arithmetic, she stayed after school to help me whenever the sums were extra hard. I say, Mr. Edrington, our new teacher, she’s a trump!”

The young civil engineer, who had been leaning back, hands locked behind his head, sat up with sudden interest.

“Kind of a thin, skinny, old-maid sort of a person, is she?” he asked with a smile lurking away back in his gray eyes.

“Indeed she is not!” Ken retorted loyally. “Miss Bayley, next to my mother, is the most beautiful woman that ever lived at Woodford’s or anywhere in all the world I guess. Even queens couldn’t be nicer, and she isn’t thin or homely, though I guess she is pretty old.” Then he dug his bare toes in the dry pine-needles as he added, looking at his friend speculatively, “I guess she’s nearly as old as you are.”

Mr. Edrington’s amused laughter rang out. “Poor girl, if she’s that ancient, she’d better be saving her pennies, for she’ll soon be ready for the Old Ladies’ Home.”

Ken, solemn-eyed, watched the speaker. “She isn’t that old,” he said. “I know, for there’s an old folks’ home over toward Genoa, but the people are bent and sort of hobble and lean on sticks when they walk. I guess, come to think of it, maybe Miss Bayley isn’t what you’d call real old yet.” Then his face lighted with admiration. “Gee, but she’s a good sport, though! She held the pig for me the first day she came to our house while I made the pen, and she didn’t squeal at all.”

“Lucky pig!” the young man commented.

This went over the head of the boy, who remarked laughingly, “The pig didn’t think so. He wriggled so hard, trying to get away, and you just should have heard him squeal. But, gee, didn’t that prove teacher is a brick? Most girls, except Dixie, would have said they wouldn’t even touch a little pig. They aren’t much good, girls aren’t, except Dixie and—well, Carol, she’s doin’ better.”

Mr. Edrington steered the conversation into channels in which he was interested.

“Any newcomers down at the inn?” he inquired, looking closely at the lad. The boy shook his head. “Don’t think so,” he said, “none that I’ve heard of. Why?”

“Well, I was hoping that there were none,” was the non-committal reply. Then he added, “Open an ear, old pal, for if you swear to secrecy, I’m going to tell you why I’m here.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die if I ever do tell,” the boy promised so solemnly that the young man wanted to smile, but thought best to accept the oath as seriously as it had been made.

“Well, it sounds foolish, I know, but I’m hiding from an aunt of mine who wants me to marry an heiress, and since the girl herself agrees with my aunt, I knew my only safety lay in flight. Everywhere I went I was pursued by this elderly relative, who, having brought me up since my parents died, thinks that she owns me body and soul. I do feel a sincere depth of gratitude toward her, but prefer to pay it in some other way than by marrying the girl of her choice, an alliance with whom, I have been assured every day for the past year, would greatly add to my fame and fortune.”

As he paused the boy looked up sympathetically. “Gee, I don’t wonder you hid,” he commented. “You wouldn’t catch me getting married. I’d heaps rather go to sea, maybe to China, or do something exciting.”

“H-m! A very sensible decision, my lad, and yet the sea of matrimony, I’ve been told, is not without its exciting adventures.” Then the civil engineer laughed. “Romance is a little beyond your comprehension, and I’m glad it is. It will be a relief to hear about something else for a time. I’m not in love, never was in love, and don’t believe I ever shall be in love.”

Why was it, at that very moment, and quite without will of his own, Frederick Edrington saw in his memory a slim young girl standing silhouetted against a gleaming morning sky, with arms outflung and curling brown hair blown about a face so lovely that it had haunted him every hour, waking or sleeping, that had passed since he had first beheld the vision?

“I say, Ken,” he suddenly remarked, “that new teacher of yours, has she soft curly, brown hair, and does she wear a khaki hiking-suit—short skirt and bloomers?”

The boy nodded, then exclaimed as he suddenly recalled something: “Gee whiz! Mr. Edrington, I clean forgot it was teacher who started me out on this hunt for you. ’Course she didn’t know it was you, but the other morning, when she climbed to the top of the Little Peak trail to see the sun rise, she saw a camp-fire, and she asked me if I could guess who might have made it. I sort of hoped it was a sheep-rustler, and Miss Bayley—gee, but she’s a sport, all right—let me out of school early that day so I could go up and see who was there, and then it was I saw smoke over here, and thought I’d climb up and see who it might be. I found a piece of a letter in the ashes that day, and one word was ‘engineering.’ It made me hope,—how I did hope,—maybe it was you,” then, triumphantly, “and it was.”

“Rather is, son,” was the reply. Then the young man rose as he remarked. “Wish you could stay till the snow falls.”

The boy’s eyes opened wide. “Mr. Edrington,” he exclaimed, “you aren’t going to stay up here all winter, are you? Why, you’ll be frozen stiff.”

The young man laughed as he knelt to skin the small deer. But he spoke with decision. “I shall stay in this impenetrable fastness until I hear that the lovely Marlita Arden has married a certain Lord Dunsbury, who really wants her, or wants her millions, I don’t know which, nor do I care. Marlita thinks that she loves me, but nevertheless she will soon decide that it is better to have a titled spouse than a humble engineer, and until she does reach that decision the name of Frederick Edrington will be found among those reported missing; missing, anyway, from fashionable Washington society, where he has had to be more or less active for the past two years.”

“Well,” Ken said rather wistfully, “if you’re going to stay, I kind o’ wish I could stay, too, but I don’t know how Dixie could get on without me to bring the wood and make the fires, and—” The boy’s face suddenly brightened, and, leaping up, he did his wild Indian dance. Then, landing in front of the astonished onlooker, he concluded with a whoop: “I say, Mr. Edrington, if you want to hide, I know where’s the best place, and you could be right with me, with us, I mean.”

“Where?” the young man was curious.

“In our loft bedroom. Dixie and Carol’d just as soon sleep down-stairs, and you could sleep up there and have a rope-ladder that you could draw up, and no aunts could ever find you. Then, between stages, you’d be safe enough and could go where you’d like. Oh, I say, Mr. Edrington, will you come?”

The young man held out his big hand and grasped the smaller freckled one. “Maybe later I’ll take you up on that,” he said, “but at present I’m using this location as a problem in mining engineering—just for practice-work, old man.” Then he smiled speculatively. “But I’ll promise this: If the lovely Marlita has not wed this Lord Dunsbury by the time the first snow comes, I’ll drop down to Woodford’s, and take up my abode in your loft room, and thanks, old pal, for wanting me.”

Then, as it was mid-afternoon, the boy thought he’d better be starting back, and the engineer pointed out a much easier way of descent, which he had discovered. “I’ll come next Saturday again, Mr. Edrington. Is there anything I can pack up for you?”

“Yes, son. Bring me a Reno paper if you can get hold of one, and a book to read, history preferred; and, by the way, kid, remember your hope-to-die promise. You might tell your teacher that a hairy old hermit named Rattlesnake Sam lives on the mountain, and that he it was who built the fire that she saw.”

The boy grinned his appreciation. “All right,” he said, “I’m game.” Then he started away, looking back with a longing to stay, but his loyal little heart knew that Dixie would have need of his services, and so he hurried down the trail and reached Woodford’s in half the time it had taken to make the ascent.