"You must know this road pretty well to be able to keep it," he said.
"As for me, I can't see anything except a dirty little gray star up
aloft."
"The horse knows the road."
"I'm glad of that. Have you any idea how near we are to the house?"
"Half a mile. That's Rattler Creek, yonder."
"How the dickens can you tell?" asked Marche curiously. "You can't see
anything in the dark, can you?"
"I don't know how I can tell," said the boy indifferently.
Marche smiled. "A sixth sense, probably. What did you say your name is?"
"Jim."
"And you're eleven? You'll be old enough to have a gun very soon, Jim.
How would you like to shoot a real, live wild duck?"
"I have shot plenty."
Marche laughed. "Good for you, Jimmy. What did the gun do to you? Kick
you flat on your back?"
The boy said gravely: "Father's gun is too big for me. I have to rest it
on the edge of the blind when I fire."
"Do you shoot from the blinds?"
"Yes, sir."
Marche relapsed into smiling silence. In a few moments he was thinking
of other things--of this muddy island which had once been the property
of a club consisting of five carefully selected and wealthy members, and
which, through death and resignation, had now reverted to him. Why he
had ever bought in the shares, as one by one the other members either
died or dropped out, he did not exactly know. He didn't care very much
for duck shooting. In five years he had not visited the club; and why he
had come here this year for a week's sport he scarcely knew, except that
he had either to go somewhere for a rest or ultimately be carried,
kicking, into what his slangy doctor called the "funny house."
So here he was, on a cold February night, and already nearly at his
destination; for now he could make out a light across the marsh, and
from dark and infinite distances the east wind bore the solemn rumor of
the sea, muttering of wrecks and death along the Atlantic sands beyond
the inland sounds.
"Well, Jim," he said, "I never thought I'd survive this drive, but here
we are, and still alive. Are you frozen solid, you poor boy?"
The boy smiled, shyly, in negation, as they drove into the bar of light
from the kitchen window and stopped. Marche got down very stiffly. The
kitchen door opened at the same moment, and a woman's figure appeared in
the lamplight--a young girl, slender, bare armed, drying her fingers as
she came down the steps to offer a small, weather-roughened hand to
Marche.