The Flying Death, Samuel Hopkins Adams [books for students to read .TXT] 📗

Montauk Point rises and falls like a procession of mighty swells fixed in eternal quietude and grown over with the most luxurious of grasses and field-blooms. One walks from hill to hill, passing between the downcurving slopes to hollows wherein flourish all-but-impenetrable thickets of the stunted scrub-oak, and abruptly walks forth upon a noble cliff-line overlooking the limitless ocean to the far-off southern horizon. Steep and narrow gullies at intervals give rock-studded access to the beach. Outside of the miniature forests in the hollows there is no tree-growth on the whole forty square miles of land, excepting the deep-shaded tangle of the Hither Wood on the far northwest, into which none makes his way except an occasional sportsman on a coon hunt.

Except for the lighthouse family at the eastern tip, the three lifesaving stations with their attendant houses, and a little huddle of fisher-huts on a reach of the Sound, there were no habitants in the mid-September of 1902, the few summer cottagers having fled the sharpened air. All day long the pasturing sheep of the interior might rove without the alarm of a single human. Short of the prairies, a lonelier stretch of land would be difficult of discovery.

To Dick Colton, rising late with a thankful heart after a sleep unvexed of labelled bottles, this loneliness was a balm, provided only it proved to be loneliness for two. For, with an eagerness strange and disquieting to his straightforward and rather unsentimental soul, he longed to look again upon the girl whose eyes had met his when he staggered back from the clutching hands of death. And with that longing was mingled an amused curiosity to clear up the puzzle of the impetuous souvenir she had left him. Within himself he resolved to solve this problem at the first opportunity; but just at this moment the opportunity was receding.

Far and clear against the sky-line, he could see from his window two mounted figures. Miss Ravenden and her father were riding to Amagansett, to be gone, as he learned later with disgust, all day. Helga Johnston had gone up to the lighthouse to stay until the following morning, and Haynes was working on his investigation of Petersen’s death.

Nothing was left for the lone guest except to amuse himself as best he might.

The morning he spent in wandering meditation. Leisure for thought is a quick developer of certain processes. The Ravendens were to be at Third House for the month, he understood. One might get very well acquainted in a month, under favourable circumstances. At present the immediate circumstances were far from favourable. But Dick slapped the pocketbook to which he had transferred his keepsake from Miss Ravenden.

“That’ll break some ice, I guess,” he observed.

At dinner he contemplated a vacant place with an expression of such unhappiness that old Johnston took pity on him.

“The white perch’ll likely be risin’ in the lake yonder this evening,” he said.

Here was antidote for any bane. Dick took his rod and went. The fish nobly fulfilled Johnston’s word of them, and Dick had just landed a handsome one, when glancing up he saw a net moving along the line of a small ridge.

“The bug-hunter,” he surmised.

“Oh, Professor Ravenden!” he called; and was instantly stricken with the dilemma: “What the dickens shall I say to him? “

The net paused, half-revolved and ascended, and Dick gasped as not Professor Ravenden, but his daughter, mounted the ridge.

“Did you want my father?” she asked.

“Oh—er—ah, good-evening, Miss Ravenden,” stammered Colton. “I—I—I’ve been wanting to see you.”

“There is some mistake,” said she coldly. “I don’t know who you are.”

“My name is Colton,” he said. “I’m staying at Third House, and –-”

“Does the mere fact of your staying at the same hotel give you the privilege of forcing your acquaintance upon people?” she asked sharply.

Then—for Dick Colton was good for the eye of woman to look upon, and not at all the sort of man in appearance to force a vulgar flirtation—she added:

“I don’t want to be unpleasant about it, but really, don’t you think you take things a little too much for granted?”

“But you spoke to me first,” blurted out Dick. “I’m awfully sorry to have you think me rude, but I want to know what this is.”

Curiosity drew Dorothy Ravenden as powerfully as it commonly draws less imperious natures.

Somewhat peculiar this man might be, but it seemed a harmless aberration, and it certainly took an interesting guise. She bent forward to look at the object extended to her.

“Why, it’s a twenty-dollar bill!”

“Then my eyesight is still good,” he observed contentedly. “Question number two: Why did you give it to me?”

“To you?” To Dick Colton, as she stood there poised, the gracious colour flushing up into her cheeks, her lips half-opened, she was the loveliest thing he ever had seen. The hand that held the bill shook. “To you?” she repeated. “I didn’t.”

“It was just like an operatic setting,” he expounded slowly. “Background of cliffs, firelight in the middle, ocean surf in front. Out of the magic circle of fire steps the Fairy Queen and hands to the poor but deserving toiler what in common parlance is known as a double saw-buck. Please, your Majesty, why? And do you want a receipt?”

“Oh!” she said in charming dismay. And again “Oh!” Then it came out: “I took you for one of the lifesavers.”

“The lifesavers?” repeated Dick.

“Yes. Is that strange? You were so big and shaggy and —” she stopped short of the word “splendid” which was on her lips. “How could I tell? You looked as much like a seal as a man.”

The ripple of her laughter, full of joyousness, yet with a little catch of some underlying feeling in it, was a patent of fellowship, which would have astonished most of Miss Ravenden’s hundreds of admirers, among whom she was regarded as a rather haughty beauty. “I don’t know many men who would have done it—or could have done it,” she added simply, and gave him her eyes, full.

Dick turned red. “Anyone would have,” he said. “It was the only thing to do.”

She nodded slowly as if an impression had been confirmed to her satisfaction.

“As for this,” he continued, looking from her to the greenback, and striving to speak calmly, when his heart was a-thrill with the desire to tell her how altogether lovely and lovable she was, “if it’s intended as a reward of merit, I’ll turn it over to Miss Johnston.”

“Wasn’t she magnificent?” cried the girl. “I’ll slay Helga!” she added with a sudden change of tone. “She’s a beast of the field. She knew about the—the bill and she never told me.”

“That’ll cost her just twenty dollars,” declared Colton judicially, “because now I won’t turn it over to her.”

“Give it back to me, please,” said the girl, holding out a tanned and slender hand.

“Give it back?” cried Colton in assumed chagrin. “Why, I already had spent that twenty in imagination.”

“On what?” asked the girl rather impatiently.

“It’s a long list,” replied Colton cunningly.