II
LANGDON, very greasy with fly ointment, very sleepy from a mosquitofulnight, squatted cross-legged by the camp fire, nodding drowsily. Sayrefought off mosquitoes with one grimy hand; with the other he turnedflapjacks on the blade of his hunting-knife. All around them lay thedesolate Adirondack wilderness. The wire fence of a game preserveobstructed their advance. It was almost three-quarters of a mile to thenearest hotel. Here and there in the forest immense boulders rearedtheir prehistoric bulk. Many bore the inscription: "Votes for Women!"
"I tell you I _did_ see her," repeated Sayre, setting the coffee-pot onthe ashes and inspecting the frying pork.
"The chances are," yawned Langdon, rousing himself and feebly sucking athis empty pipe, "that you fell asleep waiting for a bite--as I did justnow. Now I've got my bite and I'm awake. It was a horse-fly. Aren't thoseflapjacks ready?"
"If you're so hungry, help yourself to a ream of fish-wafer," snappedSayre. "I'm not a Hindoo god, so I can't cook everything at once."
Langdon waked up still more.
"I want to tell you," he said fiercely, "that I'd rather gnaw circles ina daisy field than eat any more of your accursed fish-wafer. Do yourealise that I've already consumed six entire pads, one ledger, and twonote-books?"
Sayre struck frantically at a mosquito.
"I wonder," he said, "whether it might help matters to fry it?"
"That mosquito?"
"No, you idiot! A fish-wafer."
"You'd better get busy and fry a few trout."
"Where are they?"
"In some of these devilish brooks. It's up to you to catch a few."
"Didn't I try?" demanded Sayre; "didn't I fish all the afternoon?"
"All I know about it is that you came back here last night with afarthest north story and no fish. You're an explorer, all right."
"Look here, Curtis! Don't you believe I saw her?"
"Sure. When I fall asleep I sometimes see the same kind--all winners,too."
"I was _not_ asleep!"
"You said yourself that you were dead tired of waiting for a trout tobecome peevish and bite."
"I was. But I didn't fall asleep. I did see that girl. I watched her forseveral minutes. . . . Breakfast's ready."
Langdon looked mournfully at the flapjacks. He picked up one which wasonly half scorched, buttered it, poured himself a cup of sickly coffee,and began to eat with an effort.
"You say," he began, "that you first noticed her when you were talkingout loud to yourself to keep yourself awake?"
"While waiting for a trout to bite," said Sayre, swallowing a lump offood violently. "I was amusing myself by repeating aloud my poem,_Amourette_:
"Where is the girl of yesterday? The kind that snuggled up? In vain I walk along Broadway-- Where is the girl of yesterday, Whose pretty----"
"All right! Go on with the facts!"
"Well, that's what I was repeating," said Sayre, tartly, "and it's asgood verse as you can do!"
Langdon bit into another flapjack with resignation. Sayre swallowed a cupof coffee, dodging an immersed June-beetle.
"I was just repeating that poem aloud," he said, shuddering. "The woodswere very still--except for the flies and mosquitoes; sunlight lay warmand golden on the mossy tree-trunks----"
"Cut it. You're not on space rates."
"I was trying to give you a picture of the scene----"
"You did; the local colour about the mosquitoes convinced me. Go on aboutthe girl."
An obstinate expression hardened Sayre's face; the breeze stirred a lockon his handsome but prematurely bald forehead; he gazed menacingly at hiscompanion through his gold pince-nez.
"I'll blue-pencil my own stuff," he said. "If you want to hear how ithappened you'll listen to the literary part, too."
"Go on, then," said Langdon, sullenly.
"I will. . . . The sunlight fell softly upon the trees of the ancientwood; bosky depths cast velvety shadows----"
"What is a bosky depth? What _is_ boskiness? By heaven, I've waited yearsto ask; and now's my chance? You tell me what 'bosky' is, or----"
"Do you want to hear about that girl?"
"Yes, but----"
"Then you fill your face full of flapjack and shut up."
Langdon bit rabidly at a flapjack and beat the earth with his heels.
"The stream," continued Sayre, "purled." He coldly watched the literaryeffect upon Langdon, then went on:
"Now, there's enough descriptive colour to give you a proper mentalpicture. If you had left me alone I'd have finished it ten minutes ago.The rest moves with accelerated rhythm. It begins with the cracking of astick in the forest. Hark! A sharp crack is----"
"Every bum novel begins that way."
"Well, the real thing did, too! And it startled me. How did I know whatit might have been? It might have been a bear----"
"Or a cow."
"You talk," said Sayre angrily, "like William Dean Howells! Haven't you_any_ romance in you?"
"Not what _you_ call romance. Pass the flapjacks."
Sayre passed them.
"My attention," he said, "instantly became riveted upon the bushes. Istrove to pierce them with a piercing glance. Suddenly----"
"Sure! 'Suddenly' always comes next."
"Suddenly the thicket stirred; the leaves were stealthily parted;and----"
"A naked savage in full war paint----"
"Naked nothing! A young girl in full war paint and a perfectly fittinggown stepped noiselessly out."
"Out of what? you gink!"
"The bushes, dammit! She held in her hand a curious contrivance which Icould not absolutely identify. It might have been a hammock; it mighthave been a fish-net."
"Perhaps it was a combination," suggested Langdon cheerfully. "Good idea;she to help you catch a trout; you to help her sit in the hammock;afterward----"
Sayre, absorbed in retrospection, squatted beside the fire, a burntflapjack suspended below his lips, which were slightly touched with atenderly reminiscent smile.
"What are you smirking about _now_?" demanded Langdon.
"She was _such_ a pretty girl," mused Sayre, dreamily.
"Did you sit in the hammock with her?"
"No, I didn't. I'm not sure it was a hammock. I don't know what it was.She remained in sight only a moment."
"Didn't you speak to her?"
"No. . . . We just looked. She looked at me; I gazed at her. She was sounusually pretty, Curtis; and her grave, grey eyes seemed to meet mineand melt deep into me. Somehow----"
"In plainer terms," suggested Langdon, "she gave you the eye. What?"
"That's a peculiarly coarse observation."
"Then tell it your own way."
"I will. The sunlight fell softly upon the trees of the ancient wood----"
"Woodn't that bark you!" shouted Langdon, furious. "Go on with the dollydialogue or I'll punch your head, you third-rate best seller!"
"But there was no dialogue, Curt. It began and ended in a duet ofsilence," he added sentimentally.
"Didn't you say anything? Didn't you try to make a date? Aren't you goingto see her again?"
"I don't know. I am not sure what sweet occult telepathy might havepassed between us, Curtis. . . . Somehow I believe that all is not yetended. . . . . Pass the pork! . . . I like to think that somehow, someday, somewhere----"
"Stop that! You're ending it the way women end short stories in thethirty-five-centers. What I want to know is, why you think that yourencounter with this girl has anything to do with our finding ReginaldWillett."
There was a basin of warm water simmering on the ashes; Sayre used it asa finger-bowl, dried his hands on his shirt, lighted his pipe, and thenslowly drew from his hip pocket a flat leather pocket-book. "Curt," hesaid, "I'm not selfish. I'm perfectly willing to share glory with you.You know that, don't you?"
"Sure," muttered Langdon. "You're a bum cook, but otherwise moralenough."
Sayre opened the pocket-book and prod
uced a photograph.
"Everybody who is searching for Willett," he said, "examined the fewclues he left. Like hundreds of others, you and I, when we first enteredthese woods, went to his camp on Gilded Dome, prowled all over it, andexamined the camera which had been picked up in the trail, didn't we?"
"We did. It was a sad scene--his distracted old father----"
"H'm! Did you see his distracted old father, Curt?"
"I? No, of course not. Like everybody else, I respected the grief of thataged and stricken gentleman----"
"_I_ didn't."
"Hey? Why, you yellow dingo----"
"Curt, as I was snooping about the Italian Garden I happened to glance upat the mansion--I mean the camp--and I saw by the window a rather jollyold buck with a waxed moustache and a monocle, smoking a good cigar andperusing his after-breakfast newspaper. A gardener told me that thistranquil old bird was Willett Senior, who had arrived the evening beforefrom Europe via New York. So I went straight into that house and Idisregarded the butler, second man, valet, and seven assorted servants;and Mr. Willett Senior heard the noise and came to the dining-room door.'Well, what the devil's the matter?' he said. I said: 'I only want toask you one question, sir. Why are you not in a state of terrible mentalagitation over the tragic disappearance of your son?'
"'Because,' he replied, coolly, 'I know my son, Reginald. If thenewspapers and the public will let him alone he'll come back when he getsready.'
"'Are you not alarmed?'
"'Not in the least.'
"'Then why did you return from Europe and hasten up here?'
"'Too many newspaper men hanging around.' He glanced insultingly at thesilver.
"I let that go. 'Mr. Willett,' I said, 'they found your son's camera onthe trail. Your butler exhibits it to the police and reporters and tellsthem a glib story. He told it to me, also. But what I want to know is,why nobody has thought of developing the films.'
"'My butler,' said Mr. Willett, eyeing me, 'did develop the films.'
"'Was there anything on them?'
"'Some trees.'
"'May I see them?'
"He scrutinised me.
"'After you've seen them will you take your friend and go away andremain?' he asked wearily.
"'Yes,' I said.
"He walked into the breakfast room, opened a silver box, and returnedwith half a dozen photographs. The first five presented as many views offoliage; I used a jeweller's glass on them, but discovered nothing else."
"Was there anything to jar you on the sixth photograph?" inquiredLangdon, interested.
Sayre made an impressive gesture; he was a trifle inclined toward thepicturesque and histrionic.
"Curt, on the ground under a tree in the sixth photograph lay somethingwhich, until last evening, did not seem to me important." He pauseddramatically.
"Well, what was it? A bandersnatch?" asked Langdon irritably.
"Examine it!"
Langdon took the photograph. "It looks like a--a hammock."
"What that girl held in her hand last night resembled a hammock."
"Hey?"
Sayre leaned over his shoulder and laid the stem of his pipe on theextreme edge of the photograph.
"If you look long enough and hard enough," he said, "you will just beable to make out the vague outline of a slender human hand among theleaves, holding the end of the hammock. See it?"
Langdon looked long and steadily. Presently he fished out a jeweller'sglass, screwed it into his eye, and looked again.
"Do you think that's a human hand?"
"I do."
"It's a slim one--a child's, or a young girl's."
"It is. _She_ had be-u-tiful hands."
"Who?"
"That girl I saw last evening."
Langdon slowly turned and looked at Sayre.
"Well, what do you make of it?"
"Nothing yet--except a million different little romances."
"Of course, you'd do that anyway. But what scientific inference do youdraw? Here's a thing that looks like a hammock lying on the ground. Oneend seems to be lifted; perhaps that _is_ a hand. Well, what about it?"
"I'm going to find out."
"How?"
"By--fishing," said Sayre quietly, rising and picking up his rod.
"You're going back there in hopes of----"
"In hopes."
After a silence Langdon said: "You say she was unusually pretty?"
"Unusually."
"Shall I--go with you, William?"
"No," said Sayre coldly.