Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/20

 and Hugh had set forth on his long journey northward. He had never seen the Great Lakes nor the busy inland shipping ports with their giant freighters lying at the docks, nor the  rising hills of the Iron Range through which his  way must lead, but he noticed them very little. His thoughts were very far away and fixed on other things. Even now, as he walked slowly up Rudolm’s one street he was not dwelling so  much on his forlorn wonder why he did not see  his friends, but was thinking of a great transport  that must, almost at that hour, be nosing her way  out of “an Atlantic port,” of the swift destroyers gathering to convoy her, of the salt sea  breezes blowing across her deck, blowing sharp  from the east, from over the sea—from France. For he was certain, from all that he could gather, that his father was sailing to-day and was launching upon his new venture at almost the same time  that Hugh was entering upon his own.

Somewhat disconsolately the boy trudged on up the hot empty highway, seeing ahead of him  the big, ramshackle building that must be the