Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1935-09-12


blandness penetrated by that brown.
scholarly look. "She showed me the
wrong room; SO slept in there"
"You slept in there?" Kerrigan said
curiously.
eyes," said Hal quickly. "Why?
"Then that can't be the room the
trains run through" said Kerrigan.
gratiied. "l1ust be the kitchen.
Didn't you hear 'em?"
"No," said Hal, laughing.
LET me tell you If every traint
charged through here was hauling pay
| load, stocks are buy at any price.
Cad, sir, they were on five-minute
Roadway all night and on their way
somewhere. Only trouble, they wasted
a lot of steam whistling for the pantry
door. If I slept here once more, !
could get dispatcher's job on the
division. I only missed the namber
on one train: that was because !
was scared his backwash was going
to suck the bedclothes off me- And
| you slept" A twinkle grew behind
the false moroseness Of the brown
eyes. "Whose room did she try to
stick you INF"
II don't know" said Hal. "Didn't
| wait to find out"
Kerrigan watched him an extra In
slant, then dismissed the last of his
concern. "How's your body?" he said.
"Fine," said Hal. "Gosh-well, fine,
as I said. How's yours?'
Kerrigan's look was amused and
curious. Like the bottom of stove"
| "And that's how?"
| "Grate," said Kerrigan. "Come on,
let's go out and have snort of the
ay en-"
Hal was up on the widows walk
slowing luggage when Barry come out
the door-refreshed, immaculate, fully
awake. He watched her look into the
new morning, draw breath Of 1t, then
turn and say something smiling and
quiet to Sister Anastasia, the rich
slick Of gold under her hat-brim
cleaning. She didn't look for him nor
show any trace of consciousness that
he might be there, and Hal smiled to
himself as he drew an end Of the
| flashing round the rail.
He stayed on the roof purpesely
until she should get in. She came
| toward the car without looking up;
| and when she was close under him at
| the door, he said, "Hello there" in
low pleasure. She glanced at him
then, as if she had to see him before
| she knew who had spoken. "Hello,"
she said pleasantly, echoed nothing
but the same pleasant hello. Then
she got in.
Even as his smile widened, Halls
memory hurried back to last night to
overlooked. 1t was she who'd made
it so serious, her eyes held in alarm,
her head carried as If there were
something to be brave about. Well
said Hal to himself, ignoring GER
tain inconclusion about it: 1 can pre-
tend nothing's happened, too; but you
can't make it a fact by pretending, my
beauty.
| He was about to vault down from
the roof when something drew his
eyes to the high stoop. Crack stood
there, browsing in his amiable half
dream of something satisfactory and
private as he hoped for Halls look.
The golf ball gave a short leap from
his idle hand and fell back into it.
Morning." said Hal, and swung
| himself to the ground
'Mornin'," said Crack quietly. "Sleep
good?"
'Fine, thanks" said Hal. "You?"
| "Fine, thanks" said Crack.
Listen, d-n it, Hal charged him.
self: there's no special meaning in
that tone of his; it's just his way Of
saying things. Good" he said aloud
without looking at Crack. If the man
did know already by his own devices
that Hal hadn't slept in bed, what
was there in it to amuse him so shyly?
|
The river beside the road was fiat
and leisurely; leisure in the slow little
veins and eddies that slid under the
overhanging weeds of the bank and lei
sure in the tall trees that stood still
above their own Unlicensed reflections
They had run along some twenty
smooth miles when Barrys voice came
low, slow, sure, and Hal listened to
the measures of it without especially
needing the words. She said, '"That
sign said ten miles to Logansport !;
that might be the very place for break
fast"
Hal thought of her as he had left
her last night, head up, hands behind
her back, one satin leg a little bent !;
and he remembered suddenly that she
had been crying when he came in. The
memory pricked him-like the quick
recollection of promised kindness
which it is too late to perform. He
pressed the accelerator nearer the
tloor-possessed by tentative hurry
to see if her expression was clear OF
the remembered loneliness, to make
sure she had nothing to do with the
uncertainty hushed sense of something
i'll that had seemed to travel with
them.
They drew up before the shining
white-tile lunchroom toward which