THE DERELICT FINDS A PORT

For a moment Tom’s imagination pictured the stranger as the fugitive grandson and he was conscious of a certain amusement at the likeness of such a meeting to the happenings in a photo-play.

“Know him?” he asked rather anxiously.

“I thought it were Joey Ganley,” the old man said.

“His folks were neighbors of mine in the old village. He went out west, Joey did, when they stole our homes. He done well out there and sent his mother money to build a house in the new village. You didn’t happen to see that house?” The old man did not vouchsafe Tom any details by which Joe Ganley’s fine gift to his mother might be identified.

“N—not to know it,” said Tom. “I haven’t been in West Hurley much.”

“In Woodstock they have crazy artists,” the old man said, apparently forgetting all about the stranger.

“That’s near West Hurley, isn’t it?”

“Some on ’em wears socks two different colors. One of ’em has long hair wanted to paint me in a picture. You don’t happen to know him, do you? He gave me two dollars.”

“I didn’t know the artists over that way were so rich,” said Tom. “No, I don’t know much about the wild artists of Woodstock; I’ve heard about them though. Joey what’s-his-name never came back, did he?”

“He made money and got married and settled down sum’eres out there. He was a foreman.”

“Well then I guess that wasn’t Joey,” said Tom indulgently. The old man just trudged along, jamming his cane down with each step. He seemed to have forgotten all about the stranger.

Nor did the little episode linger in Tom’s mind. But he thought it rather strange that a young man working as a foreman somewhere in the west should have prospered so exceptionally as to be able to send his mother money enough to build a house. And this notwithstanding the fact that he had married and incurred the expense of a home of his own. These things did not perplex him for he was not sufficiently interested, but the thought occurred to him.

Of one thing he felt certain, and that was that it was not the prosperous and filially generous worker in the west whom they had just encountered in this lonesome road. Old Caleb Dyker had been seeing things....

Tom wondered how much of the choppy and disconnected narrative with which this eccentric little old wanderer had beguiled him had any foundation in fact. But he liked old Caleb Dyker, he liked his sturdy way of trudging along and jabbing his cane down on the ground. There was character in that.

He was amused at the old man’s way of making announcements and at his apparent inability to enter into familiar and confidential discourse. There was something whimsical about him which Tom could not explain to himself. Perhaps it was the old man’s habit of taking everything for granted, artists, movie producers, the great metropolis....

He seemed quite content to accompany Tom to camp without manifesting any becoming hesitancy at going there or inquiring about the character of the community which he was to visit. Tom thought his long wanderings must have bred in him the habit of living day by day and of never being greatly surprised at anything. To him his vigorous eccentricity was captivating.