Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/19

 Across the aisle a somewhat moody-looking young man was smoking a straight-stemmed pipe, his eyes on the ceiling of the grimy car as if immersed in some problem or contemplation that insulated him against all the laughter loose in the world that day. But he seemed to feel Sid's look, which was in effect an appeal to get in on that rare piece of humor and have his laugh. He turned his head, nodded affably, his face still as solemn as Sid Coburn's own at its worst.

"Very good," said he, with intonation strange to their ears; "very-very good."

He enunciated the "very-very" as one word, a queer little stress on the first part, speaking quickly, a roundness and resonance in his tone as alien to their ears as culture in any form. But there was no more mirth in him than in Wallace's sardine.

"Did you eat him?" Pete wanted to know.

"No, I never," Wallace said, studiously reminiscent. "He looked so much like a corpse laid out for the grave I took some of them little pieces of green stuff from around the aidge of the deesh and I covered him up with 'em, and when that he-waiter come back I says 'You can bury that old feller—he's all ready,' I says."

They whooped louder than before at this, even the young man across the aisle breaking his face in a hard-come little grin that looked as if it hurt.

"Here she goes!" Joe Lobdell announced shrilly, his hat-brim doubled back against the window. "He's givin 'im the high-sign—here she goes!"

The train started with a jerk, as if the engineer had a spite against it and wanted to snap it in two. Sid Coburn