Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/189

Rh He snatched off his spectacles and snapped: "Tolman was there?"

"Got in last night."

"And when 'll he report?"

"Tomorrow night, anyhow."

Luke leaned back weakly and breathed rapidly. He drew out his great gold watch and eyed it.

"Twelve o'clock," he whispered. "That means—thirty-six hours. " His lips shut as decisively as the case of the watch: with the same sort of definite snap. "Thirty-six hours," he repeated petulantly. "But then—we can't rush this thing! We've got to be sure, Rowe! Don't you go gettin' my hopes up without reason! Hopes of camps for the fall! God, with camps of my own in Michigan Pine they could throw that damn Floridy into the gulf! I wouldn't need their pesky sunshine to take the chill of Michigan rivers out of my bones then, Rowe!

"An' he said, did he, that he'd rather lose a leg than see that stuff cut?"

"It was an arm, sir—"

"Don't be so damned accurate, Rowe! Arm, eh? He's likely to get one whole side torn off!"

At dusk that evening old man Tolman unpacked his turkey which he had cached on the bank of a small creek that ran across the plains and into Foraker's Folly. He spread his blankets, built a very small fire, made coffee and fried bacon. He worked deftly, with the precision of a man who has lived well on little, scoured his dishes with sand, dropped a pair of green sticks on the coals and sat down in the smoke to defy the mosquitoes. He lighted his pipe there and puffed slowly, but after several