Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/30

22 There was to have been a party that night, with wine smuggled from Canada, but John did not wait. He prepared to leave in a mad rush, missed the last train by minutes, and on Dick Mason's advice bought a ticket for Pancake, clear across the country from the logs. He could drive in, however, and save a day.

And so on April 5, 1920, a sleepy porter put John off at Pancake, Michigan, in the gray mist of morning.

Taylor had seen such towns as this on trips to Windigo Lodge, Dick Mason's fishing retreat on the Au Sable, hopeless little towns in the back-wash of progress. It had a main street of sand, now black and rutted by spring rains, wooden sidewalks, false-fronted stores built of wood. It boasted a court house pathetically struggling to set itself up with a measure of distinction with iron stamped to indicate red brick for sheeting, and zinc cornices of extravagant design. Beyond was the Commercial House with its sign nearly weathered away. The bank was of pressed brick and very tiny. The front windows of the office of the Blueberry Banner were broken and patched with yellowing newsprint. There was a livery stable with a high-stepping wooden horse hung in front, and beneath the enthusiastic equine a board painted with a word indicative of the influence which had deposed him from his once important estate: Garage.

Other thoroughfares branched from First Street and as Taylor walked toward the hotel he could see the dwellings that fronted on them. Here and there was one which pretended to be something, with a tower on one corner and gingerbread work dripping from the porches, but others were boxes only and needed paint, while numbers had never known garnishment of any sort. Beyond these