HE left-hand corner seat near the window commanded the best view in the lounge. From it Strickland could rake the full stretch of the hotel corridor, the stairs, the glassed-in balcony that took the rays of the winter sun, and—when he stretched that long neck of his—a triangle of Swiss mountain scenery, with snow-heights and jagged pines and fret-work chalets, just exactly as you see it in the guidebook.
One forenoon from his corner seat Strickland saw the green-aproned porter bearing a battered suit case and an old army great-coat down the corridor. The suit case was marked R. A. G. and, in conjunction with the great-coat, told Strickland a whole three-years' history in one eye-blink.
"Good Lord!" he said. "They're together yet, then! And here! Well, that does beat the universe."
The man next him asked questions, and Strickland gave answer piecemeal, with his cigar going out and his eager eyes watching the corridor.
"I saw them last in Malay ... and in Madagascar before that. And once on the Australian diggings. Windham's a retired captain of some native Indian regiment. He was invalided out of it, but I've seen his eyes when a troop goes by. Deuce knows what Gary is, except that he's the most lovable fellow the Lord ever made—and the wildest. But Windham sticks to him. We called them David and Jonathan out in Malay."
The man next him indicated that he had heard those names before, and saw the new-comers pass with some disappointment. Windham was light-built and spare. He walked with a limp and his military mustache was turning gray. But he had the litheness of a cat. and the tenacity of an ant. and Gary was the only living thing which had ever bounced Windham. Gary followed, with his blue eyes roving and his big body swinging carelessly. His lips were puckered into a whistle and his crisp curly hair was roughened. The man next Strickland grunted.
"Your Gary is a pretty tough proposition," he said. "And there are some jolly girls here. I think we are going to have what our waiter calls 'some excitements.' "
"The little White Girl can beat them all hollow," said Strickland. "But no one's had the wit to find it out yet. Gary will, or he's not the man he used to be."
But it was Windham who found it out first. And this was the very next morning in a little low smelly village shop where Windham tried to explain in execrable French and fluent Hindostani and curt English that he wanted nails—many nails—hammered into his boot heels, and two assistants and the proprietor told him in polite German-Swiss that they could not guess what the Herr desired.
Then the little White Girl spoke at Windham's elbow.
"Perhaps I could make them understand," she said.
Windham whipped round with a sharpness learned in places where a man's life is regulated by the crook of the trigger-finger. Then he uncovered. She was so little and light and young in her close-filling sweater and round white cap; but the red lips and the dark eyes under the straight brows were more demure than nature made them.
"You heard?" he said, suspiciously.
"I"
"They thought I wanted a chiropodist at first," said Windham, helplessly. "Now they think it's a lunatic asylum. There's only one sentence on boots in this confounded conversation book, and it says, 'I have very big feet.' A fellow couldn't go about saying that, could he?"
"Of course not.'" she said, gravely, but Windham saw the Hash of a dimple somewhere. "Suppose I try."
She wielded the rough patois in a sweet decision that brought fulfilment on the jump. Then they went out to the keen good air and the run of sunlight on the snow, and the jangle of sleigh-bells and the merry laughter of children.
Windham dragged her toboggan and his own up the hotel slope, and he talked to the little White Girl as he had not often talked to a woman in his life. But she was so eager, so interested, with her big eyes and parted lips and the quick ecstatic movements of her hands. Windham caught himself watching for that dimple and feeling honored among men when it came; and when he turned into the lounge at last, and dropped down beside Strickland for a smoke, he discovered, with a shock of dismay, that he had laid bare for the little White Girl's inspection several of his very intimate thoughts.
"So you've discovered the little White Girl," remarked Strickland. "What has Gary been about to let you get inside running?"
"The little White Girl?"