“Do not begin to talk of them, Jethro Brown,” the woman said a little impatiently, “or you will keep us here all day, and this boy is wanting his dinner, I make no doubt.”
The clerk laughed a little, although without much merriment.
“I guess you are right, Linda,” he replied, “and talk of that gang is only words wasted. You’d better go along home with Mrs. Ingmarsson, sonny, you couldn’t be in better hands.”
Much nettled at being called “sonny” by this person so little older than himself, Hugh merely nodded stiffly, took up his suitcase and followed Linda Ingmarsson to the door. Jethro, however, stopped them before they could get outside.
“How about your baggage,” he inquired, “got a trunk or anything at the station?”
Hugh was not certain whether his trunk had arrived with him or not, so the clerk volunteered to telephone and find out. While he was doing so, Hugh stood waiting in the doorway, looking idly down the street and at the hills beyond. He noticed again the line of white highway that fascinated him curiously as it slanted upward through the dense woods. He turned to his companion who stood so silent beside him and ventured a question.
“What is that road, please?” he asked; “where does it go?”
Linda Ingmarsson looked up quickly toward the hill, while her face took on a new expression, wistful, sad, but somehow proud as well.
“That is my young brother Oscar’s road,” she said; “now it goes nowhere but some day—some day it will go far.”
Hugh could not make very much out of this answer, but did not have time to ponder it long. Jethro announced that all was well with the baggage, so Hugh and Linda went out together. It was a relief to him to think that he was with a person who knew at least who he was and why he had come.
“You are very good,” he began shyly as they came out on the steps; “you should not—” but the rest of his sentence was never spoken.
The hot sleepy silence was broken suddenly by a shrill steam whistle, followed by another and another. A strident siren joined them; then came a deep blast from some steamer on the lake; then a loud clanging of bells added their voices to the tumult. For full five minutes the deafening noise continued until Hugh’s ears beat with it and his head rang. The street had become alive with people, women with aprons over their heads, men in overalls, scores of children, as though each of the little houses had sent forth a dozen inhabitants. Down at a far corner Hugh saw the two Indians come into view again, the man with his head up, listening, like a deer, the woman with a pleading hand laid upon his arm. He brushed her aside roughly, and disappeared beyond the turn, she following meekly after. No one noticed them except himself, Hugh felt certain, since every face was turned northward to the wooded rocky hill that overhung the town. Puffs of white steam rose here and there among the trees, showing the mine buildings or the lumber mills from which the whistling came.