Pat shut off his flash quickly, stuck it in his pocket backed off with
a low relieved, "All right Kid, you'll do. I guess you're all right
after all, now you jest lay--!" and slid away down the slope into the
cypress clump.
Billy with upturned face eyed the moon and winked; again, as if to a
friend up there in the sky. He was thinking of the detour two miles up
the road.
It was very pleasant lying there in the cool moonlight with the evening
breeze blowing his rough hair and playing over his freckles, and with
the knowledge of those twenty-four bucks safely buttoned inside his
sweater, and that neat little gun in his pocket where he could easily
close his fingers about it. The only thing he regretted was that for
conscience sake he had had to put up that detour. It would have been so
much more exciting than to have put up this all-night camouflage and
wait here till dawn for a guy that wasn't coming at all. He began to
think about the "guy" and wonder if he would take the detour to Sabbath
Valley, or turn back, or perhaps try Economy. That would be
disappointing. He would stand no chance of even hearing what he was
like. Now if he went through Sabbath Valley, Red or Sloppy or Rube
would be sure to sight a strange car, particularly if it was a high
power racer or something of that sort, and they could discuss it,
and he might be able to find out a few points about this unknown, whom
he was so nobly delivering for conscience sake--or Lynn Severn's--from
an unknown fate. Of course he wouldn't let the fellows know he knew
anything about the guy.
He had lain there fifteen minutes and was beginning to grow drowsy
after his full day in the open air. If it were not for the joke of the
thing he couldn't keep awake.
Pat stole out from the weeds at the slope of the road and whispered
sepulchraly: "That's all right, Kid, jest you lay there and hold that pose. You
couldn't do better. Yer wheel finishes the blockade. Nobody couldn't
get by if he tried. That's the Kid! 'Clare if I don't give you another
five bucks t'morrer if you carry this thing through. Don't you get cold
feet now--!"
Billy uttered a guttural of contempt in his throat and Pat slid away to
hiding once more. The distant bells struck the midnight hour. Billy
thrilled with their sweetness, with the fact that they belonged to him,
that he had sat that very evening watching those white fingers among
the keys, manipulating them. He thought of the glint on her hair,--the
halo of dusty gold in the sunshine above--the light in her eyes--the
glow of her cheek--her delicate profile against the memorial window--
the glint of her hair--it came back, not in those words, but the vision
of it--what was it like? Oh--of course. Cart's hair. The same color.
They were alike, those two, and yet very different. When he had grown a
man he would like to be like Cart. Cart was kind and always understood
when you were not feeling right. Cart smoothed the way for people in
trouble--old women and animals, and well--girls sometimes. He had seen
him do it. Other people didn't always understand, but he did. Cart
always had a reason. It took men to understand men. That thought had a
good sound to the boy on his back in the moonlight. Although he felt
somewhat a fool lying there waiting in the road when all the time there
was that Detour. It would have been more a man's job if there hadn't
had to be that Detour, but he couldn't run risks with strange guys, and
men who carried guns, not even for--well, thirty pieces of silver--!
But hark! What was that?