The next morning was a trying one for them both. Jim felt dully that something was the matter, but the girl’s manner baffled him, and he could not make up his mind as to whether she had glanced in the note-book or not. It did not seem like her to do so deliberately, but if she had he could only make things worse by broaching the subject, since he was not at the moment in a position to explain.

As for Lou, she was trying her best to appear her old self with him, but dissimulation was an art in which she was as yet unversed, and her whole nature rebelled against playing a part. Only her pride kept her from betraying her disappointment in him and running away. She told herself fiercely that he 100didn’t care what she thought of him; they were only partners met by chance on the road, and perhaps never to see each other again after the city was reached.

If he had lied to her about his name that was his own business, and she would not admit even to herself that this deception was not the only reason for the strange, hurt feeling about her heart.

She rose at dawn, and, creeping down from the clean little room which Mrs. Bemis had given her, she had the stove going and breakfast on the table by the time the little family was awake, and Jim appeared from the barn, where he had slept in the loft.

While he worked in the field during the early morning hours, she finished the ironing, and by ten o’clock they were ready once more to start upon their way.

Mrs. Bemis insisted upon paying them both for their work, but it was only out of consideration for her pride that Jim would accept fifty cents of the two dollars she offered him.

“I only work for a quarter a time,” he told 101her gravely. “One for yesterday and one for this morning; my sister can tell you that. I–I would like to write to you if I may when we reach home, Mrs. Bemis. Will you tell me what address will find you? You see, I want to thank you properly for all your kindness to us, and I don’t know whether this is the township of Riverburgh or not.”

“It’s the Stilton post-office,” the little woman stammered. “Of course, I’d like to hear from both of you, but you mustn’t thank me! I don’t know what I should have done without your help with the hay! And your sister, too; I do hope you both find work where you’re going.”

To Lou’s amazement Jim produced the little red note-book and wrote the address carefully in it, adding what appeared to be some figures at one side. Then he thanked their good Samaritan and they took their leave.

“That makes a dollar and ten cents!” he remarked confidentially as he and Lou went down the hill road together toward the bustling little city nestled at the river’s edge. “Quite a fortune, isn’t it?”

102“She gave me a quarter for helping with the ironing, too, so that’s thirty-five that I’ve got.” Lou exhibited a hard knot tied in the corner of her handkerchief. “I couldn’t get all of the egg out of my hat, but it’s good enough. Where do we go from Riverburgh?”

Jim gave a groan of mock despair.

“That’s the dev–I mean, the deuce of it!” he exclaimed. “We’ve got to cross the river there someway, and go on down on the other side. We can’t keep on this, or we will run into New Jersey and–and I mustn’t leave the State.”

He blurted the last out in a dogged, uncomfortable way, but Lou did not appear to notice his change of tone.

“Well, there look to be plenty of boats goin’ back an’ forth,” she observed placidly. “I guess we can get over.”

“But you don’t understand. I–I can’t pay our way over; that’s another of the things I mustn’t do.” Jim flushed hotly.

“I wish I could tell you all about it.”

“It don’t make any difference.” Lou kept her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. “There 103ought to be some way for you to work your way across.”

The road dipped sharply, and became all at once a pleasant, tree-lined street with pretty suburban cottages on either hand. To the east and north hung the smoke cloud of countless factories, but their way led them through the modest residential quarter. The street presently turned into a paved one, and trolley lines appeared; then brick buildings and shops, and before they knew it they were in the busy, crowded business thoroughfare.

Lou would have paused, gaping and wondering if New York could be anything like this, but Jim hurried her down the steep, cobbled way which led to the ferry. Once there, he took her to a seat in the waiting-room.

“Sit here and wait for me,” he directed. “I’m going to run back up to the shops and get some provisions for us to carry along, and then I’ll arrange about getting across. I shan’t be long.”

When he came down the hill again some twenty minutes later laden with packages, he 104found Lou waiting for him at the door of the ferry-house, with a little exultant smile about her lips.

“Come on,” she commanded shortly. “I’ve fixed it for us to get over, but we gotta hurry. The boat’s a’most ready to start.”

“How in the world-” he began, but without deigning to explain she led him to the gate. It was only after he had perforce preceded her that he saw her hand two tickets to the officials at the turnstile.

“Lou!” he exclaimed reproachfully.

“Well, it’s all right, isn’t it?” she demanded. “You kin ride if anybody asks you, can’t you? I’m invitin’ you to ride on this boat with me, Mr. Botts!”

In spite of her assumed gaiety, however, the trip across the river was a silent one, and when the landing was reached and they hurried out of the settlement to the open country once more, both were acutely aware that the intangible rift was widening. It was as though they walked on opposite sides of the road, and neither could bridge the distance between.

105Both doggedly immersed in their own reflections, they walked on rapidly in spite of the heat and with no thought of time or distance until Jim realized that his companion was lagging, and glanced up to see that the sun had started well upon the western trail.

“By Jove! You must be almost starved!” he cried. “I never thought–why didn’t you wake me out of this trance I seem to have been in, and tell me it was long past time for chow? We must have walked miles!”

“I didn’t think, either.” Lou glanced about her wearily. “I don’t see any house, but I kinder think I hear a little brook somewhere, don’t you? Let’s find it, an’ then hurry on; if we’ve got to do sixty miles by the day after to-morrow we got to be movin’ right steady.”

They found the little brook, and ate of their supplies and drank heartily, for they were both famished by the long walk, but all the carefree joyousness seemed to have gone out of the adventure, and when Lou discovered that the knot in the corner of her handkerchief had become untied and the remainder 106of her capital was gone, it appeared to be the last cloud needed to immerse her in gloom.

Her feet were blistered and every muscle ached with fatigue, but she shook her head when Jim asked if she were too tired to go on, and limped determinedly out into the road after him. She had accepted his companionship to New York, and she would drop in her tracks before she would be a drag on him and prevent his reaching there in the time which was so mysteriously important to him.

A mile farther on, however, an empty motor van picked them up, and seated at the back with her feet hanging over, Lou promptly fell asleep, her head sagging unconsciously against Jim’s shoulder. He did not touch her, but moved so that her head should fall into a more comfortable position, and looked down with new tenderness at the tow-colored hair. The ridiculous, outstanding braid was gone, and instead, a soft knot appeared low on the slender, sun-burned neck, with tiny tendrils of curls escaping from it.

What a game little sport she had proved herself to be! He wondered how many girls 107of his own set would have had the courage and endurance for such a test. Then to his own amazement he found himself thinking of them with a certain sense of disparagement, almost contempt. They would not have had the moral courage, let alone physical endurance.

Of course, this sort of vagabondage would be outrageous and utterly impossible from a conventional standpoint, but with Lou it had been a mere venture into Arcady, as innocent as the wanderings of two children. And Saturday it must end!

At the outskirts of Parksville he called to the good-natured truckman who sat behind the wheel, and the latter obligingly put on the brakes.

“My sister and I don’t want to go right into the town, so we’ll get out here if you don’t mind,” Jim said. “This lift has been a godsend, and I can’t thank you, but I’ve got the name of the company you’re working for in New York and I’ll drop around some night when I’m flush and you’re knocking off, and 108we’ll see if the old burg is as dry as it’s supposed to be.”

“You’re on!” The driver grinned. “Got a job waitin’ for yer? We need some helpers.”

“I’ve got a job.” Jim thought of that “job” in the mahogany-lined suite of offices which bore his name on the door, but he did not smile. “I’ll look you up soon. Come on, Lou; here’s where we change cars.”

She rubbed her eyes and gazed about her bewilderedly in the gathering darkness as he lifted her to the ground and the truck rumbled off.

“Where–where are we now?” she asked sleepily.

“Just outside Parksville; see those lights over there?” he replied. “We must have walked more than ten miles before that motor van came along, so it isn’t any wonder that you were tired, even if you wouldn’t admit it. Just think, nineteen miles to-day!”

He was wondering, even as he spoke, what they were to do for the night. He had not enough money to secure even the humblest of 109lodgings for her, and he knew that if they ventured as vagrants into the town they would be in danger of apprehension by the authorities. But Lou solved the question quite simply.

“Isn’t that big thing stickin’ up in that field a haystack? I–I’d like a piece of that sponge cake that’s left from what we ate at noon, and then crawl in there an’ sleep straight through till to-morrow,” she declared. “Did you want to go on any further to-night?”

“Heavens, no. I was just wondering–I don’t see why it couldn’t be done,” he replied somewhat haltingly. “There isn’t any house near, and I don’t think anything will hurt you.”

The latter probability seemed of no moment to Lou. She fell asleep again with her sponge cake half eaten, and he picked her up and nestled her in the hay as though she were in very truth a child. Then, as on the first night at the deserted mill near Hudsondale, he sat down at the foot of the haystack, on guard.

It was well for them, however, that the haying 110was done in that particular field, and no farmer appeared from the big white house just over the hill, for in spite of his most valiant efforts Jim, too, slumbered, and it was broad day when he awoke.

Lou had vanished from the haystack, but he found her at a little spring in a strip of woodland on the other side of the road, and they breakfasted hastily, conserving the last fragments of food for their midday meal, and started off.

They had left the last chimney of Parksville well behind them when Jim suddenly observed:

“You’re limping, Lou. Let me see your shoes.”

She drew away from him.

“It’s nothin’,” she denied. “My shoes are all right. I–I must’ve slept too long last night an’ got sort of stiffened up.”

The freckles were swamped in a deep flood of color, but Jim repeated insistently: “Hold up your foot, Lou.”

Reluctantly she obeyed, disclosing a battered 111sole through the worn places of which something green showed.

“I–I stuffed it with leaves,” she confessed, defensively. “They’re real comfortable, honestly. I’m just stiff-”

Jim groaned.

“I suppose they will have to do until we reach the next town, but you should have told me.”

“I kin take care of myself,” Lou asserted. “I’ve walked in pretty near as bad as these in the institootion. We’d better get along to where there’s some houses ’cause it looks to me like a storm was comin’ up.”

The sun was still blazing down upon them, but it was through a murky haze, and the air seemed lifeless and heavy. Great, white-crested thunder heads were mounting in the sky, and behind them a dense blackness spread.

“You’re right; I never noticed-” Jim paused guiltily. After leaving the vicinity of Parksville he had purposely led her on a detour back into the farming country to avoid the main highway, for along the river front 112were the estates of some people he knew and he shrank from meeting them in his tramplike condition if they should motor past. There was Lou, too, to be considered. He might have offered some possible explanation for his own appearance, but no interpretation could be placed upon her presence at his side save that which he must prevent at all costs.

Rolling fields and woodland stretched away illimitably on both sides of the road, and not even a cow shed appeared as they hurried onward, while the clouds mounted higher, and the rumble of thunder grew upon the air. The sun had vanished, and a strange, anticipatory stillness enveloped them, broken only by that hollow muttering.

“It’s comin’ up fast.” Lou broke the silence with one of her seldomly volunteered remarks. “Shall we git into the woods? I’d as lief dodge trees as be drowned in the road.”

“No!” Jim shook his head. “There is some kind of a shack just ahead there; I think we can make it before the storm comes.”

They were fairly running now, but the darkness was settling fast and a fork of lightning 113darted blindingly across their path. The object which Jim had taken for a shack proved to be merely a pile of rotting telegraph poles, but no other shelter offered, and they crouched in the lee of it, awaiting the onslaught of rain.

“Take this, Lou.” Jim wrapped his coat about her in spite of her protestations. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“No, I ain’t–I’m not–but you’re goin’ to get soaked through! I heard you coughin’ once or twice at the bottom of that haystack last night.” He thrilled unconsciously to the motherliness in her tone. Then she added reflectively: “I don’t guess I’m afraid of anythin’ I’ve seen yet, but I ain’t–I haven’t seen much.”

She ended with a sharp intake of her breath as a sudden gust of wind whirled the dust up into their faces and another streak of white light flashed before their eyes. Then with a rush and roar the storm burst.

The woods marched straight down to the roadside at this point, and the trees back of the heap of poles moaned and writhed like 114tortured creatures while great branches lashed over their heads with now and then an ominous crackle, but it was lost in the surge of the winds and the ceaseless crash and roar of the thunder. Jagged forks of lightning played all about them like rapiers of steel, and at last the rain came.

The brim of Lou’s hat, hopelessly limp since its cleansing of the previous day, now flopped stringily against her face until she tore it off and gasping, buried her head in her arms as the sheets of rain pelted down. Jim’s coat was sodden, and the thin cotton gown beneath clung to her drenched body, but she crouched closer to the poles while each volley of thunder shook her as with invisible hands.

Her lashes were glued to her cheeks, but she forced them open and turned to see how Jim was faring. He had flattened himself against the poles at their farther end, and just as she looked his way a flash of lightning seemed to split the air between them and the huge old tree which reared its branches just above his head, snapped like a dry twig beneath some giant heel.

115Lou saw the great oak totter and then sway, while a sickening swirl of branches filled the air, and scarcely conscious of her own act she hurled herself upon Jim. With all the strength borne of her terror she pushed him from the heap of poles, sending him rolling out into the middle of the road, to safety. Then she tried to spring after him, but a hideous, waiting lethargy seemed to encompass her, and then with a mighty crash the tree fell athwart the poles.

Half stunned by the unexpected onslaught upon him and the rending blast of the falling tree, Jim lay motionless for an instant, then with a sharp cry sprang to his feet and turned to look for Lou, but the pile of telegraph poles was hidden beneath a broad sweep of branches and across the place where she had crouched the great trunk of the tree lay prone.

“Lou!” The cry burst from his very heart as he sprang forward and began to tear frantically at the stout limbs which barred his way. “Oh, God, she isn’t crushed! Don’t take her now, she’s so little and young, and I want her, I need her so! God!”

116He was unconscious that he was praying aloud, unconscious of the words which issued sobbingly from his lips. He tugged and tore at the branches while the skin ripped like ribbons from his hands and the boughs whipped back to raise great welts upon his face.

He was unconscious, too, of a stir at the other side of the fallen tree and a rustle of sodden leaves, as, very much after the manner of a prairie dog emerging from his hole, Lou crawled out into the rain, and sitting up, sneezed.

At the sound of that meek sternutation Jim whirled about.

“Lou!”

“Jim! Oh, Jim! You’re not killed!” A muddy, bedraggled little figure that once had been pink and white flew straight to him, and two soft arms swept about him and clung convulsively. “I seen it comin’, an’–an’ I tried to shove you out of the way-”

“Thank God, little girl! Thank God you aren’t hurt!” he murmured brokenly. “I thought the tree had fallen on you!”

117“Only the boughs of it, but they held me down. Oh, Jim, if you’d been killed I wouldn’t ’a’ cared what happened to me!”

His heart leaped, and his own arms tightened about her at the naÏve, unconscious revelation which had issued from her lips. Then all at once he realized what it had meant, that hideous feeling of loss when he thought that she lay buried beneath the tree. It had come to them both, revealed as by a flash of the lightning which was now traveling toward the east, and in the wonder and joy of it he held her close for a moment and then put her gently from him.

Sternly repressing the words which would have rushed from his heart, he said quietly:

“Thank God we were both spared. Come, little Lou, we must find shelter.”