Part 13

"And you have pockets, too! I lose handkerchiefs to an appalling extent."

"So do I." It was wonderful how many things they had in common--thoughts, opinions, most delightfully human of all, faults. He felt emboldened to say that it must be a great comfort to have a sister; he had always wanted one.

"They're a good deal of a nuisance, most boys think," said she, "but I don't know why. I know I shouldn't have been a nuisance to my brothers and I should rather like to have had one. We might have been pals."

His eyes sparkled; he felt that he was about to make a proposal as daring as it was original; but he made it, clutching the lever under his hand more firmly in his agitation, yet not hesitating. "If we are going to play things, why not play you are my sister? It would be easier than being two boys. You see I should all the time be afraid of forgetting somehow and saying something unbecoming, or too rough, if we played you were a boy."

She had more sense of humor than he, although she was scarcely less innocent; she laughed, saying, "Most boys are rough enough to their sisters. Besides, I don't know you well enough."

"You know me better than any one in the world does," he answered gravely. Their young eyes met and darted away. He thought how lovely her eyes were. Not so much in color or form, perhaps, but in expression. He wished that he could see them that way again. But she had turned away. He was worried lest he might unwittingly have offended her. He knew (for his French tutor had told him) how easy it is for a man to blunder clumsily into a woman's fine reserves and sensitive modesty; it was a great relief to have her turn swiftly toward him again and smile as she said, "But _you_ don't know _me_!"

"Maybe not; I'm asking you to give me the chance."

"Oh! Is that why? Just to amuse you."

"You know better," said he, "for at least you know _me_."

"That was disagreeable of me," she admitted penitently. "I do know better. Please forgive me!"

"Then you will play it?" he said eagerly. "You know I did what you wanted. I promised to win the cup."

His first gleam of masterful daring did not displease the girl; possibly, it obscurely gratified her. "But you must be good and win," she said, conceding the point in the immemorial feminine fashion which would always march out of a surrendered keep with flags flying.

"I will be good and win," repeated Willy obediently.

There fell a little silence, during which they had glimpses of soft green woods, of distant harvest-fields and of the shimmer of sunlit waves. Vagrant odors of new-mown hay were wafted to them when the breeze stirred. An oriole's note rose out of the dim forest paths, poignantly sweet. Presently the lad spoke, not so much frightened at his own audacity as amazed at his lack of fear. "Since you are playing my sister, do you mind telling me your name? Did he say Buchanan?"

"No; Bruce-Hadden."

His face lighted as he exclaimed boyishly, "I _knew_ I had known you! And I have--at least, I've seen your picture. You are Oswald Graham's cousin Jean."

"Of course; and you--you are his Yankee friend at Eton, the one who fought him because he said things about America!"

"And jolly well licked I was, too," said Willy gaily. "I didn't even know how to put up my hands; he made a gorgeous mess of me. And then he hunted me up and took it all back. Of course we were chums after that. I was going to visit him in the holidays, but--"

"But he was drowned, trying to save a child."

"He did save her. He always did what he set out to do. And if I had only been there--"

"I understand. He said you could swim like a duck."

"It's the only sport I'm not a muff at," said Willy dismally. "It's just my long arms. But he, _he_ could do anything. I don't suppose I'll ever stop missing him. He was the only boy friend I ever had."

"But you have men friends now," she said gently.

"Yes." He sat up more erect in his seat. "You saw Mr. Rivers. He's the best ever."

"I've heard about how good he is and how gruff. That's the kind I like; no nonsense about them. I hate sissy men, don't you?"

Willy assented, but without animation; he was diffidently searching his inner consciousness as to whether he himself had not been accused of being a sissy. "Sometimes a fellow seems a sissy when he isn't," he offered.

"Oh, _often_," she agreed heartily; "but the man they want Moira to marry is a genuine muff, a horrid, languid-affected New Yorker who talks like a guardsman and makes fun of his own country. Moira can't endure him; but he offers to settle half a million on her, and we let Effie marry a captain of the line who had only a thousand a year--"

"That was _you_," interrupted Willy fervently. "You did that. Oswald told me--"

"No, it was dad; he couldn't bear to have Effie so unhappy when I told him how she might go into a decline, she felt so wretched. But you see, having let Effie do that and helping her out, we couldn't afford any more detrimentals, although Jimmy's got his colonelcy and the cross and they are ever so happy. But we can't afford another love match. The bishop is dead and Ellen hasn't very much; and Lord Fairley has a big family; he was a widower with five when Ellen married him, and they have two; and _we_ are so deadly poor. It is really necessary, but it's awful. And I am sure she cares a lot for Reggy Sackville, a kind of cousin of ours who is a barrister, and she is sure he will be a judge, he is so clever; but he couldn't support a wife for years and years. Don't you think it's really and truly awful to have to marry _anybody_?"

"Awful--intolerable," agreed Willy. "I simply will not."

"And _your_ father wants you--" She looked so sympathetic that Willy broke right in:

"Yes. I never seem able to do anything my father wants. I can't manage men and make friends and run the business as my brothers did. Now he wants me to marry a girl he has picked out for me; and I've got to disappoint him again. I wrote him I'd try to meet his wishes every other way--I'd accept dinner invitations; I'd learn the steel business; I could ride and run an automobile, and I had been up in an airship, and I'd try to win a golf cup; and I'm taking bridge lessons, but--the hand of Douglas was his own, you know."

"I think that's splendid!" cried the girl heartily. "_I_ don't want to; but maybe I shall have to, to save Moira."

"Don't you do it!" he exclaimed. "It makes me sick to think of their trying to force you into such a thing." He did look moved.

"Don't get into such a wax. They can't force me--do I look like a person to be forced?--and poor old daddy of all people in the world! If you just knew him; we're the greatest pals in the world. But there's Moira. If I were to marry some one with a lot of money, she could marry poor Reggy; and Moira couldn't stand being unhappy near so well as I can."

"Who's the man?" growled Willy in a tone of mingled gloom and fury.

"I don't know his name," replied the girl sadly. "It was like this: Dad met his father, and they became very chummy, and they got to talking. He talked about his son, who is a 'nice fellow' with elegant tastes and doesn't like business. Oh, I know, a perfectly odious person."

"Odious," Willy agreed morosely; "a downright _sissy_! You'd be _watched_!"

"Yes," sighed Lady Jean; "but Moira would be wretcheder because she would always be thinking of Reggy. And besides"--she grew more cheerful--"men never fancy me; no doubt he'll think I'm too ugly and dowdy, and I'm so shy I shall be hideously awkward."

"You're nothing of the kind!" Willy interrupted; "it--it's the most abominable cold-blooded bargain-and-sale business! And your father told you--"

"Oh, no, he didn't tell me. It was Ellen. She was so pleased; she never had any hopes of _me_, don't you know; and now she says they won't need to sacrifice Moira. But if the young man doesn't want me, _I_ shan't be to blame. Now tell me about your girl!"

"There's nothing to tell. I never saw her. I don't know her name, even. Only she's got a title; and she is very brilliant and charming and modest, and I'll be lucky. It's another case of parents butting in. All he wants, he says, is for me to _see_ her; I told him I should run away if I knew I were in the same town! But never mind me. Don't worry, little girl. _I'll_ think up a way to save you all right, all right."

His face, as he spoke, was stern and dark. She was sure that he must have great latent strength of character.

Abruptly she changed the subject recalling the elusive mowing-machine and the approach of the Brookes' dinner-hour. Willy was sure that Mr. Rivers would want her to see the mower, it was--was--so typically American; and if he would take her directly and swiftly home, wouldn't she go on another search to-morrow?

"If you win," said she; she felt that she must hesitate at nothing which would give him that cup. "Another thing, don't you give another thought to me; you think every minute of your game. If you distract your mind it may get onto your game."

"I won't let it hurt my game, don't you worry," returned Willy confidently.

Mrs. Brooke had none of the difficulty which she had anticipated in persuading Willy to dine with them; and she wondered what suffering friends of hers who had had his reluctant presence at social functions, meant by their stories. To be sure, he didn't talk much, but he was a most intelligent listener; and he was visibly having a good time.

The next day it was bruited about (no one but Jabez Rivers, who had walked the links with a reporter, could have quite told how) that young Butler was playing a wonderful game. A dozen of the golf lovers deserted the great man and his only less great opponent and saw Willy limp over eleven links, as he beat his man with leisurely ease.

That afternoon, while again searching for the mowing-machine which that unsuspected but efficient emissary of the Blind God, Jabez Rivers, had advised them to be sure to find--after with his own eyes he had seen it trundling into the garage--Willy submitted his plan of rescue. They were rolling noislessly along a wide avenue, above which the great elm boughs made a vaulted arch like the groined vault of a cathedral. Through the arches filtered the sunset rose. Willy suddenly stopped the machine. He did not look at her. He clutched the handle of the lever very hard; and she was positive he was pale, a pallor which threw his freckles into high relief. But she was thinking of anything else than freckles.

"I've thought it all out," said Willy very firmly, "and I wouldn't bother you the least little bit, not the least. And we think alike about so many things. I believe I could make it all right with your people. I can do anything, when _you_ are backing me. It would ease my mind awfully; I should be sure to win the cup. I know that would please my father, and he'd help us, maybe. Besides, I've a fortune of my own; I'd settle it all on you--"

"What _do_ you mean?" cried Lady Jean.

"You wouldn't need to marry anybody else if you married _me_," said Willy.

"_My word!_" gasped Lady Jean. "But you told me you didn't want to marry _anybody_."

"I shouldn't mind _you_ so much," said he.

She was thoughtful, her own mind a chaos to herself. She stole a furtive glance at his miserable face; something tender and compassionate and strange made her lips quiver, but she set them closely.

"You would be making an awful sacrifice for me?"

He did not deny it.

"It would be an awful sacrifice for me, too."

"I know," he acquiesced sadly.

"Still--I suppose you ought to have your mind settled before to-morrow or it will get on your game."

"Yes, that's just it! I'd be awfully grateful--"

Without any warning she began to laugh. "I think you are the funniest boy in the world! I don't want to marry anybody. I want to live with daddy and take care of him and be like Aunt Jean, but if I _have_ to marry anybody, I'd rather marry you. Shall we let it go at that for the present?"

"You are awfully good," cried the boy. He wondered at the extraordinary calm, almost elation, of his mood. That he should be engaged to be married and not be revolving suicide! He had read of the exaltation of self-sacrifice--maybe this was it. But how hard it must be for her.

"I'll make it just as easy for you as I can--dear." He added the last word very softly. Probably she didn't hear it, for she answered in her ordinary tone, not in the least offended, that she knew he would, then immediately demanded a sight of the mowing-machine; since it wasn't there, he would better take her home.

"Don't you begin to love this island?" he said, as he obeyed her.

"It is lovely," she said: "I never thought I could really like any place without mountains, but I do."

"I love mountains," said Willy.

"They were again surprised at their similarity of taste. Motor-cars and carriages passed them continually; luxurious open vehicles, victorias and golf-carts and automobiles with their hoods lowered, disclosing billows of diaphanous feminine finery and pretty, uncovered girlish heads. Willy marveled over his own ease as he returned greetings punctiliously. A week ago he would have raced his horse into the darkest woodland road to escape a passing salute, the hazard of a little casual badinage.

"How pretty American girls are," said Lady Jean a little wistfully; "such lovely wavy hair."

Willy's glance furtively took note of her sleek brown head and the heavy braid between her slim shoulders, which had caused him to think her a child.

"I don't much like this corrugated hair," said he carelessly; "it looks so machine-made."

Lady Jean declined all proffers of seats, even Rivers' invitation to a place by him in his runabout. She was going to walk; one could see better walking. Which was entirely correct, but was not her most intimate reason; in truth she could not endure to be sitting at her ease while Willy, footsore and weary, would be doggedly tramping after his ball. He presented rather a grotesque figure, did Willy, that eventful morning, being shod as to his sound foot with one of his own neat golf shoes, but as to his left (thanks to the ministrations of Rivers), with one of the latter's ample slippers over swathings of bandage soaked in healing-lotion. Every caddy on the ground (except Willy's) was in secret ecstasies over his appearance. "We ain't out for a beauty prize, but the champeen golf cup," says the faithful Tommy haughtily. "Yes, that's a bottle of liniment. I wet him up with it between whiles. He's in terrible agony. But he don't mind long's he can keep limber. And say, jest git onto our game, will you? Two up, and first round over."

Tommy and Jean were waiting when the first round ended, Rivers having taken the Brookes to the luncheon-tent to secure seats for them all. The game that morning had surprised all but the newspaper men and the few who had followed Willy the day before. The only hope of the friends of the champion lay in the possible exhaustion of the lame wonder whose unerring approaches were even more dangerous than his drives and his putts. "If his foot holds out," Rivers said to Brooke, "he's got the cup."

And at this very moment, as if fate conspired against Willy's chances, a frightful commotion arose. Willy, talking to Jean a moment about the game, could see the gay groups outside the white tent scatter in violent agitation with waving hands; could hear an uproar of shouts and screams. There came a quick change in Lady Jean's face, in every face near--the caddy's, the young red-jacketed officer's at the blackboard, the women's faces in a passing carriage. At first no intelligible sound penetrated the din; but in a thought's time a blood-curdling cry tore out of a score of throats, "Mad dog! Mad dog!" as men with golf-irons and pistols, raced toward the little group on the links, after a foam-flecked, glaring-eyed, panting little beast. The creature made straight for Tommy, who fled like a deer; but his foot hit the marker, and he stumbled and fell. It seemed in the same eyeblink that the dog was on the child and Willy Butler was on the dog, his bare hands twisting its collar into a tourniquet.

With one impulse Lady Jean and the young officer each snatched a golf-club and sprang to help him. "Keep off!" he cried. "I can hold him. Get a strap; we have to keep him alive to find out--_Jean!_ For God's sake--"

His heart seemed to stand still. Lady Jean had dropped on her knees by the dog, shielding him from the young officer's club. "Don't," she said; "_he's_ not mad! It's Mrs. Brooke's dog--Why can't you _see_? The poor brute's _wagging his tail_!"

"He is," said Willy; "hold up, boys! A mad dog doesn't wag his tail." He released the tourniquet sufficiently to free a piteous whimper. A second later he lifted his hand off the dog, which wriggled into Lady Jean's compassionate arms as a voice announced, "That's not the dog!"

The real mad dog--if mad he were--had been despatched by a single shot from a soldier's gun, rods away; but a panic-stricken crowd had used the customary judgment of panic, and pursued the wrong dog.

"And now," wrathfully declared Jabez Rivers to his army cronies, "now that poor boy has probably put his wrist out of whack; and his father coming in on the two o'clock train to see him fight for the cup! And this old fool telegraphed for him to come."

Nevertheless he kept a semblance of confidence. And he has always liked Dickson because he was so sure Willy would win. He offered to caddy for Willy; but Willy gratefully declined, because it would break Tommy's heart; Tommy's mother was coming over to see the game. "He's a real dead-game sport," Dickson ended, "and a little thing like a spurious mad dog isn't going to put him out of the running."

Nor did it; Cleaves made up one of his missing holes, but he got no farther; and at the sixteenth hole Rivers and a small, keen-eyed, quiet-looking man stood up in a runabout and shouted while the great Cleaves, bewildered but invincibly courteous, shook hands with Willy Butler.

"You wait until he has cleaned up a bit" advised Rivers; "give the boy's girl a chance first--there they are; she's talking to him now."

Mr. Butler knew who she was; she had been pointed out to him before; possibly having watched her carefully through the progress of the game, he knew something else, being a man who came to conclusions quickly, on occasion. He looked at her now; he looked at Rivers; the only words that escaped his lips--in a very small, low voice--were, "Wouldn't that make a man believe in answers to prayers!"

"Willy's been going some," said Rivers. "I don't know who you've up your sleeve for him, but we've picked out a winner--a sweet, brave, true-hearted little lady. Don't _you_ butt in, Hiram."

"Well, hardly," said Hiram Butler, "since her father and I picked her out first. But, Jabez, blood will tell; I knew Willy had the makings. Now suppose you and I put the young folks into the machine. They can do their courting on the way."

It may be presumed that he knew, although they took their own original way to Arcadia. Fifteen minutes later, in the heart of the woods which they had sought because, although much longer to the club-house by that road, Willy needed its cool refreshment; fifteen minutes later the boy was saying, "I had to write the note because I didn't have a chance to see you. Have you read it?" He looked up tremulously. "I write an awfully blind handwriting always, and to-day, with playing golf and all, it's worse than ever."

"You could read it out to me, you know," said the girl; she pulled the score-card, on which Willy had scribbled, from her sleeve, and both the young heads bent over it. "'Dear Jean,'" read Willy; then he added, "I hope you don't think that presumptuous, but being engaged--"

"No, never mind that; you called me that to-day, already, at the top of your voice, too."

"You scared me stiff--Jean."

"You scared me first--before I knew it was Flukes. You are an awfully reckless boy."

"I will go on," said Willy; "it's short." He read:

"'Dear Jean, I forgot to say one thing yesterday when I asked you to marry me; I love and adore you. Yours very sincerely, William Godfrey Butler.'"

He said nothing more; neither did she say anything for a space. The squirrels watched them with their bright little eyes, and scampered fearlessly up the very tree under which their car had halted. All at once she began to laugh. "My word! but you look miserable, William Butler. I know it is a sacrifice; I made up my mind to release you; I only consented yesterday to make you easy in your mind for the game."

Then he surprised her. "That was yesterday," said he. "To-day I know why all the world has been different ever since I saw you; I knew everything I felt when you ran to that dog--"

"Then it will not be an awful sacrifice for you?"

He took her little cold brown hand; I had forgotten there was such a thing in the world as fear. "It will be heaven for me," he said. "But for you?"

She looked away at the squirrels; she tried in vain to speak in her gay, light tone. "I--I found out something this morning, too."

So Arcady lured two new explorers, who, going through its subtly winding paths, naturally took quite a little while to reach the club-house and the ovation waiting the champion. Just outside the portals Lady Jean uttered a little cry. "Why, I do believe! Why, _Willy_! There's the motor mower!"

There in the body, resting amid long lines of green stubble, there, indeed, stood the long-sought mower.

"I'm obliged to it," said Willy, "but I don't need it now."

THE HERO OF COMPANY G

The flies and the sun! The sun and the flies! The two tents of the division ward in the hospital had been pitched end to end, thus turning them into one. The sun filtered through the cracks of the canvas; it poured in a broad, dancing, shifting column of gold through the open tent flap. The air was hot, not an endurable, dry heat, but a moist, sticky heat which drew an intolerable mist from the water standing in pools beneath the plain flooring of the tents. The flies had no barrier and they entered in noisome companies, to swarm, heavily buzzing, about the medicine spoons and the tumblers and crawl over the nostrils and mouths of the typhoid patients, too weak and stupid to brush them away. The other sick men would lift their feeble skeletons of hands against them; and a tall soldier who walked between the cots and was the sole nurse on duty, waved his palm-leaf fan at them and swore softly under his breath.

There were ten serious cases in the ward. The soldier was a raw man detailed only the day before and not used to nursing, being a blacksmith in civil life. An overworked surgeon had instructed him in the use of a thermometer; but he was much more confident of the success of his lesson than the instructed one. There was one case in particular bothered the nurse; he returned to the cot where this case lay more than once and eyed the gaunt figure which lay so quietly under the sheet, with a dejected attention. Once he laid his hand shyly on the sick man's forehead, and when he took it away he strangled a desperate sort of sigh. Then he walked to the end of the tent and stared dismally down the camp street, flooded with sunshine. "Well, thank God, there's Spruce!" said he. A man in a khaki uniform, carrying a bale of mosquito netting, was walking smartly through the glare. He stopped at the tent. "How goes it?" said he, cheerfully but in the lowest of tones. He was a short man and thin, but with a good color under his tan, and teeth gleaming at his smile, white as milk.

"Why, I'm kinder worried about Maxwell--"

Before he could finish his sentence, Spruce was at Maxwell's cot. His face changed. "Git the hot-water bottle quick's you can!" he muttered, "and git the screen--the one I made!" As he spoke he was dropping brandy into the corners of Maxwell's mouth. The brandy trickled down the chin.